What if there were no spells above 5th level?

[qwertyu63]

The title says most of it. Imagine if everything in D&D 3.5 was exactly the same, except there were no spells above 5th level. Casters would still have slots above 5th, but those slots would be used for lower level spells or meta-magic. Casters with a limited spells known would be allowed to grab from lower levels (i.e. sorcerers would pick lower level spells for their spells known above 5th).

What effect would this have on the caster-mundane divide? I know it wouldn't destroy it, but how much would it do?

[Know(Nothing)]

Full casters would still walk away with combat encounters, social encounters, travel/mobility needs, and just about everything else, but have slightly less world/plane/cosmos-sundering power.

[Just to Browse]

It would do effectively nothing to the mundane/caster divide, but i could see some interesting things happening to caster tactics. Save-forcing spells would be less popular (so more rocket launcher tag), and high-level monsters that inflict dangerous status effects (like stuff you need wish and break enchantment for) would be a lot more dangerous to face because of their long-term consequences.

And efreeti would be bad! No more tippyverse.

[Harrow]

First of all, this does absolutely nothing until level 11. Full casters tend to start overshadowing non-casters from level 5, so it wouldn't change the problem at all for a very important chunk of the game.

Even then, losing a single caster level is generally seen as ok, and spontaneous casters are already a level behind. But the general slowed advancement does help in the later game.

The biggest problem I can see with this is it makes metamagic reduction much more desirable.

Honestly, it would probably just be better to slow down spell level advancement instead of just stopping it early, unless you stopped it around third level spells and also banned all metamagic reduction.

[wayfare]

Are you changing the rate at which casters get spells as well, or just saying that 5th level spells are the maximum?

Practical effects: post mid levels the T1 and T2 chasracters get turned down a few notches. No reality akteration, no celestial armies, etc.

What this will force, with a group that has a good grasp of play, is all of the metamagic shennanigans ever. Felldraining magic missiles foe everyone! Quicjened, maximized fireballs everywhere! I'm not even touching the real bad stuff.

Bottom line: wuthout some control of spell lists or metamagic, mundanes will still come off weorse foir wear, just not totally obsolete.