D&D 5E Too Much Spellcasting in Your D&D? Just Add a Little Lankhmar!

[theCourier]

I like the stipulations added in the Lankhmar supplement for Dungeon Crawl Classics. Once had a Wiz that couldn't cast Detect Magic optimally without brewing a special potion in her cauldron.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm late to this dogpile, but I'd have to say, while I 100% agree with the premise, I'm dubious about the implementation. But only a little. I'd say try THREE rounds, and let spells do either Max Damage, or Double Dice. I think this would still make it worth trying to cast spells, every once in a while.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Initially, I was not interested in the thread as I don't mind the level of magic in D&D. But the idea of it kept swimming in my head. First off, would I play in a campaign with these rules: Yes, I would. Would I play a Wizard: Maybe, but only after an in-depth talk with the DM regarding the Wizards role in the overall campaign.

Agreed

I do have some reservations:
1) The netrunner effect. The rules as proposed seem to put the wizard either in a minor role (combat) or only one that matters role (non-combat) and nothing in-between. Which is fine, but for me not that compelling.
2) Lankhmar Solution. I have never been happy with D&D's attempt at capturing Lankhmar. Making casting longer and more rare is fine, but it doesn't impact the flavor of magic, I think you have to really look at spell selection to start impacting flavor.

So, for those wanting to limit magic in combat (but not get rid of it completely) I counter-propose The Amber Solution (2nd Amber series by Zelazny which focused on Corwin's son Merlin).

All spells are Rituals. Casters can complete a ritual except the last touches and "Hang" the spell. This reduces the casting time back to the casting time in the book, but Casters can only Hang a number of spells equal to their proficiency bonus plus if they have a familiar they can hang one spell on it.

This allows the caster to cast some spells in combat but not a lot. For me, it is a nice in-between step.

I really like the Amber Solution, I was going to give a detailed response to the OP but did not realise that the thread was necroed.

 

[CleverNickName]

Sort of off-topic, but a while ago I ran a one-shot adventure where all spells had the Ritual tag, and nobody had the Spellcasting feature (they got Ritual Casting instead). In a nutshell: all spells had a casting time of 10 minutes.

It was a while ago, but here's what I remember:

1. No spells were cast in combat. Not even Cantrips, because remember: nobody had the Spellcasting feature. Maybe you think this is good, maybe you think this is bad.
2. Spells were cast over short rests (each caster would cast 6 spells all at once during each short rest)
3. Potions, scrolls, and wands weren't just useful, they became priceless magic items of incredible power because they let people cast spells at incredible speed.
4. The players hated it for the first hour, but ended up liking it by the end of the first gaming session.
5. All told, it wasn't terrible...certainly not as terriblewrongbad as some folks are claiming in the first few pages of this thread. But even so, nobody wanted to make it a permanent house rule (myself included). We already have too many short rests per day.

EDIT: Now that I'm caught up on reading through the thread, I see that this has already been described as the "Amber Solution" above, sort of, by @Wolfram and @UngainlyTitan.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Welp ... it's been a year. Wonder if anything ever happened with this idea -- did it get used? How did it go? Genuinely curious.

I ended up running a min-Lankhmar campaign using the 1e rules.

Re-visiting this, I think that something along the lines of the suggestion by @FitzTheRuke (Lankhmar modification, slightly less, but max damage) would work, but I'm also interested in the Merlin/Amber approach.

 

[dave2008]

Also late to this thread, but I am with @FitzTheRuke in agreeing with the premise but not the execution. I could see doubling casting time, but not x10. I could also see making spells above 6th rituals. I could see a few other tweaks too. Maybe reaction and bonus action spells become 1 action spells? I would need to think about that more. I would also probably limit cantrips in some way.

 

[dave2008]

I concur with the other replies, you're nerfing spellcasters a lot here. That's ok as long as you're also nerfing all the other classes to match, but doing this to just spellcasters makes them utterly unusable compared to other classes.

Essentially, you should play a different game, because 5E is not fitting your style of play.

Why? You can play 5e without any casters in your group. We only have one (caster) in my current group and I have run all martial groups before.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I ended up running a min-Lankhmar campaign using the 1e rules.

Re-visiting this, I think that something along the lines of the suggestion by @FitzTheRuke (Lankhmar modification, slightly less, but max damage) would work, but I'm also interested in the Merlin/Amber approach.

Can you tell me about the Merlin/Amber approach? I searched for it on this thread, but all I found were people telling you how mean you are to magic-users. And bards. You are very mean to bards.

 

[dave2008]

At least for me it's a ridiculously convoluted way of banning spellcasting when you just want to ban spellcasting.

If a gaming group is going to be okay with making it so anyone who wants to play a spellcaster suffers, they'll be okay with just cutting out the middleman.

Even if you can do very little in combat, there are still things that only a magic user can do. So combat, just wouldn't be that character's time to shine and that is OK to some. This option, or a variant of it, allows for other ways to play the game. Not everyone plays a combat focused D&D game. This option might make magic users shine even more, just not as much in combat. Some people will still want to play that.

 

[dave2008]

To me, having to switch to the suckbow as a spellcaster was not only not fun, but in character, it was a little humiliating.

Then this isn't for you and that is OK. Not everyone is you or wants to play like you.