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

[TwoSix]

What I'm saying is, if you really just don't want people to play spellcasters, don't beat-around-the-bush by putting in these onerous restrictions. Just ban the classes or spells you don't want to see. Or preferably, pick a different game that has less magic usage.

I personally like Worlds Without Number for this type of game. Spellcasters get very few spells, but the spells they do get are super-strong.

 

[Iry]

Reminds me of ye olde Dart/Light Crossbow days.

 

[Vaalingrade]

But seriously, the bottom line is, you have to replace magic in combat with something and it can't be 'really bad mundane combat'.

Even if they're not casting spells, they should be able to legitimately contribute and have meaningful choice in combat.

Maybe wizard schools have a combat style that's reflected in the class/subclass, maybe there's internalized magic that lets them monk it up, Something. Otherwise, the player might as well take a nap during combats for all the good they'll do.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

It is possible to want to have spell casting but just have be more limited and less of a focus of the game. If the tone of my campaign is to have weaker less ubiquitous and less easy magic then changes would need to be made.

Of course, playing a different game also works and there are tons of better games that suit that style as well.

I don't disagree with the goal (trying to make play less magic-intensive to suit a low-magic setting), but the problem is this solution only nerfs spellcasters. It removes balance and tilts it in favor of other classes; if you don't want to be outshone by other players, you're going to be incentivized to play a martial class.

EDIT: One solution would be to give spellcasters more martial options, but the OP does not do this. Essentially, this is just a nerf, and I don't believe that's good game design.

 

[CleverNickName]

Just make a list of classes and sub-classes that are allowed. Everything else is banned. Not every campaigns needs to be an open-bar-all-you-can-eat-buffet. Has worked for me for the last 21 years.

Agreed. A game world doesn't need multiple ways of casting spells. In a lot of ways, it's best to pick one way and stick to it.

Back in the 3.X edition, we would have a discussion about this at every Session Zero. Before rolling up characters, I would ask the players, "Okay. How do you want magic to work in this game world?" and present them with a few options. If they voted for "book magic," there would be only Wizards in the game world. If they voted for "blood magic," there would only be Sorcerers. "Pact magic," only Warlocks. "Miracles from the gods," only Clerics. And so on. Once they had made their choice, all other spellcasting classes would be removed from the game.

The result is one unified spellcasting mechanic in the game world. In a "book magic" world, a cleric is a White Mage: a wizard who chooses their spells from the Cleric list. A Green Mage is a wizard who chooses their spells from the Druid list, and a Song Mage is a wizard who picks spells from the Bard list, etc.

Again, not everyone's cuppa tea. But I really liked it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I mean, I normally play gishes, so I'm certainly not opposed to magic in my combat. But if a DM proposes a variant D&D type game with less overall magic and some thoughtful rebalancing of magic to make it less combat useful and more focused on non-combat utility, I can certainly get on board.

Sure. But we are not talking about thoughtful rebalancing, we're talking about the suggestion in OP.

 

[Dausuul]

Which seems weird to me, because those are the exact kind of spells that make magic feel special and different. Spending my 6th level spell to do 70 damage is nice, but spending it to say "That three weeks of travel to cross the desert? We're going to turn into clouds and get there in 6 hours" is some real magic.

It's special the first time you do it. By the fifth time, it's Mordenkainen's Mystic Uber.

That's the fundamental problem of "rare and special" magic in D&D: Nothing that you can do every single day, where the only cost is "You can't do it again today," is going to be either special or rare for long. And because that system is the foundation of every D&D casting class, it's virtually impossible to fix without either banning caster classes or redesigning them from the ground up.

 

[Marc_C]

Agreed. A game world doesn't need multiple ways of casting spells. In a lot of ways, it's best to pick one way and stick to it.

Back in the 3.X edition, we would have a discussion about this at every Session Zero. Before rolling up characters, I would ask the players, "Okay. How do you want magic to work in this game world?" and present them with a few options. If they voted for "book magic," there would be only Wizards in the game world. If they voted for "blood magic," there would only be Sorcerers. "Pact magic," only Warlocks. "Miracles from the gods," only Clerics. And so on. Once they had made their choice, all other spellcasting classes would be removed from the game.

The result is one unified spellcasting mechanic in the game world. In a "book magic" world, a cleric is a White Mage: a wizard who chooses their spells from the Cleric list. A Green Mage is a wizard who chooses their spells from the Druid list, and a Song Mage is a wizard who picks spells from the Bard list, etc.

Again, not everyone's cuppa tea. But I really liked it.

Agreed.

For some reason there is a reflex to "fix" a perceived problem of the game with a new set of rules instead of using the simple and elegant tool of making setting choices. D&D is a game of imagination first and foremost.

 

[TwoSix]

Sure. But we are not talking about thoughtful rebalancing, we're talking about the suggestion in OP.

Well, I think I said earlier, I have no problem with this change if it's in the context of other changes to the spellcasting classes. If this was the only change, and casters just were nerfed, then I wouldn't like the changes as much.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It is possible to want to have spell casting but just have be more limited and less of a focus of the game. If the tone of my campaign is to have weaker less ubiquitous and less easy magic then changes would need to be made.

Of course, playing a different game also works and there are tons of better games that suit that style as well.

But you cannot just effectively ban all combat spells and assume the game to work. Like if you wanted to play a low tech game, you couldn't just say that there is no armour and no weapons better than club and assume the game to work. I don't think perfect balance is needed, but this is just absurd.