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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 8300609" data-attributes="member: 7023840">There are two types of people in this world:1. Those who think there is too much spellcasting in 5e.2. Those who are wrong, and probably like elves, bards, and elven bard.3. The innumerate.Given that I am not wrong, nor a lover of elves nor bards, I have often thought about how to reduce the amount of spellcasting in 5e. I have seen multiple proposals for doing the same (reducing the number of spellcasting class, getting rid of cantrips, and so on), but one thing I have never seen is the Lankhmar Solution.For those of you not familiar with Lankhmar, it was the place of adventure for Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in stories by Fritz Lieber. More importantly, and for our purposes, it was also a 1e Supplement- Lankhmar, City of Adventure. One of the primary advantages (or disadvantages) of this campaign setting is the way that it treated spellcasters. While there were various rules, the primary one that is of interest to me is the rules on spellcasting times.  The restrictions reflected that spellcasters were rare and unusual, and that spellcasting was "less likely to influence the couse of a wild melee combat than in a normal campaign."  L89.Casting times changed, so that any segment (1/10 of a round, 6 seconds) was treated as a round, any round (one minute, 1/10 of a turn) as a turn, any turn (10 minutes) as an hour, and each hour as a day. They could have just made it x10, but this was AD&D, and nothing could be that simple! Moreover, spell recovery was lengthened as well- after a spell was cast, a full week would have to pass before they could use the spell again, and then they would have to study their books for the usual amount of time to "re-learn" it (Vancian casting). In reading this, I was struck by how this might be a possible solution if you wanted to partially de-magick 5e. While I have seen proposals before for changing the recovery time of spells (usually changing short rest to long rest and long rest to a week), I haven't seen any to change the casting time.To be clear- changing the casting time, extending the casting time, would have a massive and deleterious effect on spellcasting within combat. It would make martial characters much more important for combat, and make spellcasting more of a utility and out-of-combat experience, with only limited uses for combat. The first major hurdle would be that 5e measures almost all casting times in terms of "one action" (or one reaction, or one bonus action). Spells that are measure in "real time" (minutes, hours) are the exception. Because of this, I have the following preliminary ideas to make a low-magic, Lankhmarian campaign setting in 5e in terms of casting times:1. All spells that are cast as bonus actions are eliminated. 2. All spells that are cast as a reaction are eliminated, EXCEPT for counterspell. That's it. 3. All spells that are cast as an "action" takes four rounds to cast; if the caster is hit at any point during the casting, they have to make a concentration check per usual to continue the casting.4. All spells that have a time duration other than "action" take ten times the amount of time to cast. Augury takes 10 minutes. Scrying? 100 minutes. Raise Dead? 10 hours. Simulacrum? 5 days.And that's my preliminary thoughts on the issue. What do you think? And by that, I don't mean, "I LOVE SPELLS! SPELLS ARE WICKED KEWL! YOU ARE A BAD BAD MAN FOR EVEN SUGGESTING THIS!"I know I'm a bad, bad man. Just call me Leroy Brown. But I'm more interested in feedback as to whether you think that specific implementation would be successful at the goal of creating a campaign feel, in 5e, similar to that of the prior Lankhmar setting.</blockquote>

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