Spellcasting Homebrew - Nerfs too hard, or just right?

[Beastrolami]

I was thinking about a spellcasting homebrew that would hypothetically give spellcasters a bit more variability in power level. The idea is that instead of having a set number of spell slots, each wizard has infinite spell slots, but every time they cast a spell, they have to make a saving throw based on the level of the spell they cast, using their spellcasting ability score + Proficiency. If the save is failed, the caster is able to cast the spell, but loses the ability to cast any spell except cantrips until they finish a long rest.

Obviously there are some bugs with things like pact magic (technically not spellcasting, so I'll ignore it for now) and arcane recovery.

Listed below are the save DCs for each level of spell.

1st - 13 avg bonus: +5 Save - 8+
2nd - 14 avg bonus: +5 Save - 9+
3rd - 16 avg bonus: +7 Save - 9+
4th - 17 avg bonus: +7 Save - 10+
5th - 19 avg bonus: +9 Save - 10+
6th - 21 avg bonus: +9 Save - 12+
7th - 23 avg bonus: +10 Save - 13+
8th - 24 avg bonus: +10 Save - 14+
9th - 26 avg bonus: +11 Save - 15+

My question is: is this too much of a nerf on spellcasters, or would it add a bit more balance to the "wizard" vs. "fighter" power-level debate? (you know the whole, wizards too OP. and What does a high level fighter even do? debates)

[Easy_Lee]

I don't like it. A random chance to not be able to use my features anymore until I rest? Forget that.

Also consider that the feat Lucky and Diviner Portent would become OP in this system. What about bardic inspiration? Human determination? Halfling lucky? Paladin charisma to saves? A wizard could stand next to a paladin and cast spells under a certain level all day without ever risking failure.

You're vastly increasing the value of any feature that lets you improve a saving throw.

[Sariel Vailo]

I was thinking about a spellcasting homebrew that would hypothetically give spellcasters a bit more variability in power level. The idea is that instead of having a set number of spell slots, each wizard has infinite spell slots, but every time they cast a spell, they have to make a saving throw based on the level of the spell they cast, using their spellcasting ability score + Proficiency. If the save is failed, the caster is able to cast the spell, but loses the ability to cast any spell except cantrips until they finish a long rest.

Obviously there are some bugs with things like pact magic (technically not spellcasting, so I'll ignore it for now) and arcane recovery.

Listed below are the save DCs for each level of spell.

1st - 13 avg bonus: +5 Save - 8+
2nd - 14 avg bonus: +5 Save - 9+
3rd - 16 avg bonus: +7 Save - 9+
4th - 17 avg bonus: +7 Save - 10+
5th - 19 avg bonus: +9 Save - 10+
6th - 21 avg bonus: +9 Save - 12+
7th - 23 avg bonus: +10 Save - 13+
8th - 24 avg bonus: +10 Save - 14+
9th - 26 avg bonus: +11 Save - 15+

My question is: is this too much of a nerf on spellcasters, or would it add a bit more balance to the "wizard" vs. "fighter" power-level debate? (you know the whole, wizards too OP. and What does a high level fighter even do? debates)

I dont know im certain its intresting and warrants further investivation into over powerdness.

[Beastrolami]

I don't like it. A random chance to not be able to use my features anymore until I rest? Forget that.

Also consider that the feat Lucky and Diviner Portent would become OP in this system. What about bardic inspiration? Human determination? Halfling lucky? Paladin charisma to saves? A wizard could stand next to a paladin and cast spells under a certain level all day without ever risking failure.

You're vastly increasing the value of any feature that lets you improve a saving throw.

Very good points. So is it over, or under-powered? Would making long rests take 1 week instead of 8 hours work better or worse?

[Aett_Thorn]

Very good points. So is it over, or under-powered? Would making long rests take 1 week instead of 8 hours work better or worse?

So you're wondering if several entire classes losing access to their main feature for up to a week would be better or worse than the next day? It's worse. Way worse.

Imagine that you're a 10th level caster, and you've just finished a long rest, so you have all of your spell slots. You cast a spell like mage armor to give yourself a decent bump in AC for 8 hours. But bam! You fail your check, and co no longer cast any spells (except cantrips) until you long rest again? No thank you. Clerics and Moon Druids might be okay, since they can still fight, but Lore Bards, Wizards, Land Druids, and Sorcs are screwed.

[Zorku]

This makes spellcasting not really a resource management system anymore. Although there's rather simple math that we can all do for how often dice will screw you on these checks, during play dice never feel like they work like that. I suspect that the behavioral strategy that players would adopt is to just go full nova the first time that it looks important to do so, and see how long it lasts. If they know they can wipe something out with a fireball but they're able to cast 7th level spells, then that's not worth anything but cantrips and they'll basically just play passive zero-risk while the other PCs take care of the situation, and then they will try to do the flashiest stuff they can when they think they have entered the final battle of the day.

This seems to be... basically what already happens.

[Anymage]

Very good points. So is it over, or under-powered? Would making long rests take 1 week instead of 8 hours work better or worse?

In what ways have wizards been causing trouble at your table?

The Gritty Realism variant will have three effects. First and most mechanically important, it reduces the relative power of long duration buffs. Second, it gives a better sense of pacing - both preventing the wizard from optimizing their spell loadout and punishing novaing without having to rely on ridiculously short time scales. Third, it limits the impact that high level spells have on the world by making them trickier to bring to bear on such a regular basis.

But instead of talking about hypothetical ways that wizards can break the game, let's ask how they do it at your table. Some problems can be solved by reading intent instead of strict RAW. (E.G: given everything 5e says about undead, it's reasonable to say that PC animated undead are less negative energy robots and more dangerous animals who have to be kept on a very tight leash - if the PC leaves one outside for a bit, they'll have to deal with the consequences of it deciding to snack on a passerby.) If spellcaster characters habitually nova, you'll have to find ways to enforce a more normal encounter schedule. While I'm a fan of the GR rest variant personally, it'd help to know what problem you're really looking to solve instead of trying to apply broad-based solutions first.

[Beastrolami]

In what ways have wizards been causing trouble at your table?

The Gritty Realism variant will have three effects. First and most mechanically important, it reduces the relative power of long duration buffs. Second, it gives a better sense of pacing - both preventing the wizard from optimizing their spell loadout and punishing novaing without having to rely on ridiculously short time scales. Third, it limits the impact that high level spells have on the world by making them trickier to bring to bear on such a regular basis.

But instead of talking about hypothetical ways that wizards can break the game, let's ask how they do it at your table. Some problems can be solved by reading intent instead of strict RAW. (E.G: given everything 5e says about undead, it's reasonable to say that PC animated undead are less negative energy robots and more dangerous animals who have to be kept on a very tight leash - if the PC leaves one outside for a bit, they'll have to deal with the consequences of it deciding to snack on a passerby.) If spellcaster characters habitually nova, you'll have to find ways to enforce a more normal encounter schedule. While I'm a fan of the GR rest variant personally, it'd help to know what problem you're really looking to solve instead of trying to apply broad-based solutions first.

I'm not having problems with Wizards, but I do like the gritty realism rules, as I find trouble mixing good pacing with verisimilitude. It seems like the party is either doing a bunch of high stakes fights in a short period of time, and then taking lots of time off. Or, they do a few fights every once in a while when traveling. The biggest problem I've had with pc spellcasters is anytime I run gritty realism the pcs don't adjust their thinking, and nova the first fight, then complain about being useless the rest of the week. I was thinking about ways to limit spellcasting, while still making spellcasters feel powerful, and thought this might be an interesting alternative system.

[Joe the Rat]

Have you looked at the Dungeon Crawl Classics system? That might be a better fit to what you are after.

The gist of it is whenever you want to cast a spell, you need to make a spell roll (spell attribute based) with the base "difficulty" around 50% for casting your top available level spells. if you fail, no spell (side-effects may occur). Roll really well, and you get extra kick, roll really badly, you lose that spell until you can re-prepare it. And maybe backlash. To take some of the variability out, you can "burn" physical attributes (spellburn) to add to your die roll.

For a fast-hack suggestion, let's go with DC 10+spell level, missing by 5 means you lose access to the spell until you can long rest... and worse rolls mean mishaps. Beating the spell DC by 3 lets you upcast to a higher level slot. I'd limit this to your maximum spell level, but if you throw in enough pains and penalties, the possibility of over-casting on a good roll might give this some appeal.

If you want to include spellburn, you can burn attributes (recovered on a long rest - which will be 1 week on gritty realism). Alternatively (if ever-changing stat mods are a hassle), or additionally (if you like watching people hang themselves giving players options), you could let them "burn" hit dice on the spell roll (1 die = +1, or roll an add the result).

Ritual Casting a spell never requires a roll, and is always available.

This would give you the free-casting and burnout/loss, but makes it less of an all-or-none affair, and gives the players options to avoid spellcasting loss.

[Pex]

PCs should not be punished for doing what they're supposed to be doing.

For the audacity of casting a spell you would render a spellcaster useless on the roll of a die, just pew pewing with cantrips.

Imagine if a battle master fighter could not use maneuvers again when he rolled a 1 or a paladin could no longer smite or a barbarian rage or a rogue sneak attack.

Please tell me you at least aren't going to combine this with the "gritty" rest variant!

[Beastrolami]

For a fast-hack suggestion, let's go with DC 10+spell level, missing by 5 means you lose access to the spell until you can long rest... and worse rolls mean mishaps. Beating the spell DC by 3 lets you upcast to a higher level slot. I'd limit this to your maximum spell level, but if you throw in enough pains and penalties, the possibility of over-casting on a good roll might give this some appeal.

If you want to include spellburn, you can burn attributes (recovered on a long rest - which will be 1 week on gritty realism). Alternatively (if ever-changing stat mods are a hassle), or additionally (if you like watching people hang themselves giving players options), you could let them "burn" hit dice on the spell roll (1 die = +1, or roll an add the result).

Very good suggestion.


PCs should not be punished for doing what they're supposed to be doing.
Please tell me you at least aren't going to combine this with the "gritty" rest variant!

This is just a thought experiment. I was thinking over the system, and couldn't decide if it was balanced or not. It would let players cast multiple 9th level spells with good roll, but also could take away their casting ability if they had a bad roll on a first level spell.

The problem I was trying to fix with the homebrew is spell slots. At early levels casters have very few, and feel weak. At high levels they have so many spell slots that they rarely use anything below a certain level. So the idea was to remove slots, and have a simple system of checks.

[PhoenixPhyre]

PCs should not be punished for doing what they're supposed to be doing.

For the audacity of casting a spell you would render a spellcaster useless on the roll of a die, just pew pewing with cantrips.

Imagine if a battle master fighter could not use maneuvers again when he rolled a 1 or a paladin could no longer smite or a barbarian rage or a rogue sneak attack.

Please tell me you at least aren't going to combine this with the "gritty" rest variant!

As much as I normally disagree with Pex, I fully support this point. I would not be willing to play a spell-caster with these rules.

If there's a balance problem with people using their abilities, the best way to balance things is by changing the abilities, not randomly removing the ability to use them. If a feat/spell/class feature is too strong, fix that feature directly and permanently. The other mode of thought was how 3.X "balanced" sneak attack. It was powerful, but only worked on a relatively small percentage of enemies, especially at higher levels. 5e's Sneak Attack was built around the idea that the rogue was pretty much always getting it, and the class works a lot better and is less frustrating to play.

If people are nova-ing and complaining, there's several ways to fix it. First, change your DMing to meet that (boo). Second, kill the characters a few times until they learn that nova-ing is a bad idea most of the time. Third, talk to them. OOC. Make sure they understand from session 0 that they won't be able to rest frequently and must conserve spell slots for important things. If they still nova and complain, see point 2.

[Pex]

This is just a thought experiment. I was thinking over the system, and couldn't decide if it was balanced or not. It would let players cast multiple 9th level spells with good roll, but also could take away their casting ability if they had a bad roll on a first level spell.

The problem I was trying to fix with the homebrew is spell slots. At early levels casters have very few, and feel weak. At high levels they have so many spell slots that they rarely use anything below a certain level. So the idea was to remove slots, and have a simple system of checks.

How does roll a low number now I don't have any spell slots at all for the rest of the game day help? Your players should be taught the value of cantrips. It's amazing what you can grab with Mage Hand. Maybe even set off a few traps from a safe distance. Minor Illusion is versatile. No reactions from Shocking Grasp is a big deal. Have bad guys heal themselves to learn the value of Chill Touch. Low levels don't have to be boring. At high level the low level spells remain relevant. They have the same DC as the high level spells, so bad guy fail the saving throw just as often. Hold Person, Web, Grease, all remain relevant. Even if just for defense Shield and Misty Step save spellcasters' lives.

Teach your players better tactics. No need to rewrite the rules.


As much as I normally disagree with Pex, .

What the?! :smallwink:

[Sir cryosin]

I'm not having problems with Wizards, but I do like the gritty realism rules, as I find trouble mixing good pacing with verisimilitude. It seems like the party is either doing a bunch of high stakes fights in a short period of time, and then taking lots of time off. Or, they do a few fights every once in a while when traveling. The biggest problem I've had with pc spellcasters is anytime I run gritty realism the pcs don't adjust their thinking, and nova the first fight, then complain about being useless the rest of the week. I was thinking about ways to limit spellcasting, while still making spellcasters feel powerful, and thought this might be an interesting alternative system.

Don't play 5e use a different system. 5e work with its rules and when you try to change a core mechanic like spellcasting you throw everything thing out of wack. If your problem is players going nova on the first encounter. Them they would be even more enrage with this when they can't cast spells after one bad roll.

Stop trying to fix the car you just bought. And learn how to drive it properly.
Meaning its not the player fault its the DM's fault. If pacing is not right. You tell your players these are the rules I'm using please adjust how you manage your character so you don't suffer. Or you adjust the pacing around the players. It not just the DM story.

[Saeviomage]

I think if you want something like this, maybe track access to that level of spells.
Also, have the modifier increase gradually, with the goal of ending up with some hard limit, no matter how lucky you are.

Finally, make the roll a category of it's own, like death saves. You may even want to ban the use of abilities that affect it.

That way:
1. At worst, you can cast one spell of each level per day.
2. You have some hard limit on how many spells of each level can be cast, allowing you to control the game a bit more.
3. Abilities that boost saves or skills won't work, and you can't 'optimize' for spell slots.

[Malifice]

Very good points. So is it over, or under-powered? Would making long rests take 1 week instead of 8 hours work better or worse?

Just make long rests 1 week long if you're having problems managing the adventuring day.

I suggest putting the PCs on the clock as well, but the easy solution is to simply use the gritthy realism rest variant and make long rests take a week.

That gives you much more wriggle room to do your job as DM and police the adventuring day, and manage PC resource use.