D&D 5E WHAT IF... Spells didn't do damage?

[DeviousQuail]

I find the idea intriguing. It's similar to how I approached magic when I played Skyrim. Ignore the destruction school entirely and instead focus on using magic to debuff and cc enemies. It made combat more engaging and visceral compared to just tossing lightning and fire around.

 

[Shiroiken]

You could largely achieve this by removing damaging spells. Spellcasters would immediately become support and control only, which might be an interesting twist. Several class features and traits would need tweaked, and the evoker wizard would probably just die off.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

You could largely achieve this by removing damaging spells. Spellcasters would immediately become support and control only, which might be an interesting twist. Several class features and traits would need tweaked, and the evoker wizard would probably just die off.

I think I'd favor going more for ongoing damage instead of instant blast (much like it was in 4e) would be a good compromise. Add to that summons that deal damage or wall effects, and you could have a well balanced controller.

Invokers could have a feature that boost ongoing damages or make it spread, or boost the size of the effect.

You could have more effects that works like elemental weapon and such, or ''weapon spells'' that allows the mage to benefit himself from the conditions he imposed.

 

[Fanaelialae]

It's an interesting idea. I wouldn't eliminate direct damage entirely (as another poster mentioned, that could have the unintended effect of having mages shooting crossbows).

You could push this avenue of design by simply having spells limited to about the same (or less) damage as a martial character can output in a single round.

The design philosophy regarding spells has traditionally been that because they are a limited resource, they have to be able to do more damage than a fighter can. This has been a general trend over the various editions. That said, damage spells have stayed fairly close to where they originally were, while monster HP has increased significantly. As a result, control spells (which have remained consistently useful throughout the editions) have improved in value relative to their direct damage cousins.

By limiting spells to dealing no more damage than a martial could inflict, the design could push casters towards a control playstyle. Eliminating damage forces them to play as controllers, but may result in undesirable side-effects. For example, what if the fighter falls unconscious and the caster is bereft of options to take advantage of something like burning? Are their only options to heft a crossbow or retreat? IMO, that's not a desirable scenario.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Pathfinder 2e goes halfway there - spells are just a terrible way to do damage, although damage is possible.

It works, but you get a lot of wizard-main players complain they've been over-nerfed and aren't fun anymore.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Also: does a summon or polymorph spell to add a bear to the battlefield count as a "damaging spell?" If not, that's a pretty good workaround for a lot of the issues people are foreseeing: no martial means you'll need a summon most fights, but presumably in an all-caster party that load can be shared.

 

[Mannahnin]

I like the idea of not entirely eliminating damage from spells, but reducing it in favor of other effects. One observation that's often been made about the original D&D spell lists was, for example, that damaging spells were fewer and farther between. Until Magic Missile came out in Sup I: Greyhawk, for example, IIRC Magic-Users had no damage spells before 3rd level. Similarly, Clerics had extremely few damaging spells until 3rd ed.

That Melf's Acid Arrow writeup and the Fireball variant both look excellent- though I would define the Burning condition as doing ongoing damage of its own- not making it dependent on weapon hits.

 

[jgsugden]

People would come up with indirect ways to deal damage with spells.

 

[Blue Orange]

There's a very real sense among a lot of people that the Fireball spell is too powerful (and DMDavid's blog suggested this may have been because the treasure-destroying side effects were never properly implemented), but I kind of feel like damage spells are going to always be a part of it. (A big part of 'witchcraft' accusations IRL involved doing damage to others, or their livestock or crops.) You could look at Call of Cthulhu, which has a Shrivelling spell pretty early on that does one point of damage per magic point, and most characters have 10-18 magic points total.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Come to think of it I think that Wolves of God, by Kevin Crawford, has a magic user along these lines. They don't get access to any damaging spells, IIRC. Although I think that class is more utility than control oriented.