Reducing Amount of Spell Levels (A Thought Exercise)

[Kryx]

In another thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?534741-Why-is-misty-step-a-2nd-level-spell&p=22337413#post22337413) I rambled a bit about spell levels in 5e and how they probably could've been reduced from 9 spell levels to less - in my example 5 spell levels.

This thread is to continue that conversation. Mostly as a thought exercise.

Personal opinion based on observation of the power levels of spells: 5e would've benefited from 5 spell levels instead of 9.
Several of the intermediate levels struggle to provide meaningful difference from the earlier level and struggly mechanically against the higher level. For example level 2 spells are slightly better than level 1, but the gap between 2nd and 3rd level spells in terms of power is huge. Similarly several 4th level spells are worse than 3rd level spells and struggle vs 5th level spells.

I could easily see merging some levels and ending with the following:

1st: Old 1st and 2nd
2nd: Old 3rd and 4th
3rd: Old 5th
4th: Old 6th and 7th
5th: Old 8th and 9th

I've altered the idea slightly to change the last 3 groups as levels 6 and higher is where the split is in 5e (For Paladin, Ranger, Warlock, etc)

A question was posed and I'd like to start the conversation here:

How big of a change would be needed? I've already attempted this, got to a point where I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. The damage difference between spells felt difficult for me to work out. 'Would the new 1st level spells have to be at the same power as old 1st level, old 2nd level, or in between? How many of the new 1st level slots should they have and at what levels?' were common questions for me.

The change to actual spells wouldn't be that big of a change imo.
For damage spells I already have Spell Balance (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1N4QC6EmXE0avgk8jK1aubJcaFoZDYw8b_DuPHh8aBTc/edit#gid=639488216) which could easily be used to determine the power level of spell. For CC or other spells any adjustments would have to be more subjective, but most of these spells would be fine with no changes I believe.
For determining the power level of spells it's a bit less straight forward:

1st: Old 1st and 2nd. I would aim to have 1st level spells increase in value to their 2nd level counterparts. For damage spells that's about 18 damage.
2nd: Old 3rd and 4th I would aim to have 4th level spells decrease in value to their 3rd level counterparts. For damage spells that's about 38 damage.
3rd: Old 5th we can maintain the current expectation of around 60 damage.
4th: Old 6th and 7th would aim for about 90-100 damage
5th: Old 8th and 9th would aim for around 200 damage

For reference the current balance is 1st = 11, 2nd = 18, 3rd = 38, 4th = 50, 5th = 59, 6th = 85, 7th = 103, 8th = 177, 9th = 255

For spells at higher levels just increase the amount given - probably double the current higher level damage in most cases.

Changing spells wouldn't be very difficult I think.

Changing Classes:

For Class spells for classes like Cleric and Paladin the process can remain almost the exact same. So at 1st level it'll grant 2 1st level spells. At 3rd level it'll grant 2 other 1st level spells. This would make homebrew design a bit easier with larger lists of each level.
For Racial spells they'd probably be slightly stronger due to the combinations, but it should be mostly negligible.
For spellcasting advancement a combination would be mostly ok. A 20th level Wizard would have 7 1st level spells, 6 2nd level spells, 3 3rd level spells, 4 4th level spells, and 2 5th level spells. Swap the 3rd and 4th and you'd get: 7 1st level spells, 6 2nd level spells, 4 3rd level spells, 3 4th level spells, and 2 5th level spells. Should be totally fine.

There are probably other areas that I haven't considered, though that's what this thread is for.

Overall it's a doable choice, though the benefits probably aren't worth the cost in effort and understand for new players.

[Emay Ecks]

I really like the idea, and think it would definitely work (albeit with a fair amount of extra effort put in).

My biggest concerns with such a change would be:

1. Upcasting spells. In most cases, this wouldn't be an issue, just add two dice instead of one when casting at a higher spell level. However, there are a few spells that would have more difficulty. Examples I can think of off the top of my head are magic missile (can't add a single extra bolt if spell levels are basically two of current spell level higher), Major Image (casting this 3rd level spell at 6th level gives it permanent duration and no concentration, which is 2 levels higher in your system), and Magic Weapon (where casting at 6th level would be a +3 weapon, but I imagine you'd reduce that to a 3rd level spell slot in your system).

2. Player motivation. One really exciting thing about hitting certain levels as a caster is that you do get access to a whole new tier of spells, so you are guaranteed not to have dead levels every other level. With your system, spell casters aren't going to have those exciting "Ooooh I just unlocked _____" moments as frequently, and have more dead time between learning new tiers of spells.

3. Making non-damage first level spells merit the spell slot. You said you wanted to up the power on first level spells, and I can understand that. However, for certain spells like Longstrider, Jump, Detect Magic, and Illusory Script it would be difficult to justify using a (now equivalent of second level) first level slot on one of these spells. On Jump and Longstrider you could up the numbers, but on other spells (like Illusory Script) there's no clear upgrade to make it match current second level spells in strength.

4. Martials v Casters at low levels. Giving casters access to second level spells at low levels would probably put them in a better spot than the martial classes who tend to fare slightly better than casters at lower levels (5e does an overall adequate job at balancing martials v casters, and giving casters spiritual weapon level spells at the very start of the campaign might give them an edge over martial characters)
'
I'm looking forward to seeing where this thread and thoughts on it go. I might try implementing it in a game I run, because I do think 5e's spell level system could use some work.

[Unoriginal]

Wouldn't this lead to casters being able to cast twice per day spells that were judged too high level to be casted more (like the 8th or 9th ones) while giving access to powerful spells faster (ex: getting access to 5th level spells when you would usually have access to 4th level ones at max with the regular system) as well as giving even more reason to multiclass into caster to just grab some powerful spells (or use Magic Initiate to do the same) ?

[Kryx]

1. Upcasting spells. In most cases, this wouldn't be an issue, just add two dice instead of one when casting at a higher spell level. However, there are a few spells that would have more difficulty. Examples I can think of off the top of my head are magic missile (can't add a single extra bolt if spell levels are basically two of current spell level higher), Major Image (casting this 3rd level spell at 6th level gives it permanent duration and no concentration, which is 2 levels higher in your system), and Magic Weapon (where casting at 6th level would be a +3 weapon, but I imagine you'd reduce that to a 3rd level spell slot in your system).
Magic Missile would just add 2 darts per level.
Major Image would cast at the new 2nd level and upcast would change from 4th level. Where is the issue?
I would move Magic Weapon from old 2nd level to the new 2nd level and then +1 for 3rd and 4th level spells.


2. Player motivation. One really exciting thing about hitting certain levels as a caster is that you do get access to a whole new tier of spells, so you are guaranteed not to have dead levels every other level. With your system, spell casters aren't going to have those exciting "Ooooh I just unlocked _____" moments as frequently, and have more dead time between learning new tiers of spells.
This would just be a perception issue though. Most of the tiers aren't very different currently (which is what this would change).


3. Making non-damage first level spells merit the spell slot. You said you wanted to up the power on first level spells, and I can understand that. However, for certain spells like Longstrider, Jump, Detect Magic, and Illusory Script it would be difficult to justify using a (now equivalent of second level) first level slot on one of these spells. On Jump and Longstrider you could up the numbers, but on other spells (like Illusory Script) there's no clear upgrade to make it match current second level spells in strength.
The power difference between 1st and 2nd level spells is already very fuzzy. Shield for example is an amazing 1st level spell while spells like Ray of Sickness is a terrible 2nd level spell. Most probably wouldn't need much adjustment, but lets look at the cases you raise:

Longstrider and Jump are pretty terrible spells. They should really be combined into 1: Striding and Springing (like the boots).
Detect magic is a ritual spell so the cost isn't very high for most classes. Examining it at its spell cost: I'd argue detect magic is as good as or better than these currently 2nd level spells: Arcane Lock, Animal Messenger, Arcane Lock, Beast Sense, Calm Emotions, Continual Flame. That's just A-C. I'm sure the list would be longer if I went all the way through. I considered doing 1st = old 1st and 2nd = old 2nd and 3rd, but the similarities between 1st and 2nd level spells is far more similar in terms of damage and effect.
Illusory script is already an incredibly niche 1st level spell. This wouldn't change. It seems like a cantrip spell to me even in the current rules.



4. Martials v Casters at low levels. Giving casters access to second level spells at low levels would probably put them in a better spot than the martial classes who tend to fare slightly better than casters at lower levels (5e does an overall adequate job at balancing martials v casters, and giving casters spiritual weapon level spells at the very start of the campaign might give them an edge over martial characters)
I think Martial v Caster is heavily exaggerated in 5e. If a group played with the adventuring day it isn't a problem at all imo. But:
The change would impact martial vs caster, but I'm not sure it's big enough to matter. In early levels the number of spell slots hasn't changed, just the power of some. At 1st the wizard's 2 1st level spells would do about 18 damage instead of 11. At 5th level they'd have 4 1st level spells that do 18 instead of 11, but the rest is unchanged. At 9th level the same 4 1st level spells would be upgrade, the 3 4th level spells would be slightly less effective and the 5th level spells would be unchanged in power.
Overall a small increase for old 1st level, but a decrease of old 4th level spells. Should be mostly ok I think.


The biggest issue imo is player buy-in to the new idea and adjusting to it.

==========



Wouldn't this lead to casters being able to cast twice per day spells that were judged too high level to be casted more (like the 8th or 9th ones)
8th level spells can be cast once. 9th level spells can be cast one. In the proposed idea the combined level could have 2 casts, that's correct. Whether that's concerning or not is up to opinion. I'd say probably not (assuming adjustments to outlying spells).


while giving access to powerful spells faster (ex: getting access to 5th level spells when you would usually have access to 4th level ones at max with the regular system)
old 5th level spells would occur at the same breakpoint as current. Old 2nd level spells would be available earlier and that's an item that Emay Ecks raised, but I don't think it would be a major issue, maybe.


as well as giving even more reason to multiclass into caster to just grab some powerful spells (or use Magic Initiate to do the same)?
This is true, the higher power of old 1st level spells would increase the desire. This could be mitigated if we instead reduced 2nd level spells to the power of 1st level spells. The problem with that idea is that old 1st level spells (especially of the damage variety) become pretty useless at later levels as cantrips scale and they don't.
One could reduce old 2nd level spells to old 1st level power and then auto scale new 1st level spells to be cast at higher level when the caster reaches 11th level for example.

I think that last idea might be worth considering...

[Unoriginal]

My question would then be: why go with a system that makes spells weaker?

I mean, if you make 2nd level spells as strong as 1rst lvl ones, you're going to have a lot of basically redundant spells, or at least that have nothing that makes them interesting enough to be sought.

[Kryx]

My question would then be: why go with a system that makes spells weaker?

I mean, if you make 2nd level spells as strong as 1rst lvl ones, you're going to have a lot of basically redundant spells, or at least that have nothing that makes them interesting enough to be sought.
Assuming you're referring to damage spells: 1st and 2nd level spells are far more in common than 2nd and 3rd. Making spells stronger has more problems than making a handful weaker. What would you suggest instead?


I started experimenting with moving 2nd level spells to 1st level power via my spell balance sheet (level 1-5 thought experiment) (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1N4QC6EmXE0avgk8jK1aubJcaFoZDYw8b_DuPHh8aBTc/edit#gid=1870861739). We'll see what I think after I try that.

[Terra Reveene]

What I'm trying to do with my homebrew is gonna need player buy-in anyways. I'll start making changes when I get home. I wanted this to work before, and with some guidance it'll definitely work.
I'd link my progress, though the other changes I've made to my spellcasting system (or at least in the process of making) is going to make it very time consuming to port over to standard 5e rules. So I don't think it'd be that useful.
Can't discuss this in more detail right now. On a phone. Give me 3 hours.

[Unoriginal]

Assuming you're referring to damage spells: 1st and 2nd level spells are far more in common than 2nd and 3rd. Making spells stronger has more problems than making a handful weaker. What would you suggest instead?

It's your thought exercise, Kryx, I'm only pointing this consequences of the change out.

But note it's not only damages spells I'd be concerned with, if I where you.

2nd level spells also include things like Invisibility, Misty Step, Aid, Silence, Enlarge and the like. Would you be fine with letting a character with one level in a caster class have access to those spells, as a DM?

[Terra Reveene]

It's your thought exercise, Kryx, I'm only pointing this consequences of the change out.

But note it's not only damages spells I'd be concerned with, if I where you.

2nd level spells also include things like Invisibility, Misty Step, Aid, Silence, Enlarge and the like. Would you be fine with letting a character with one level in a caster class have access to those spells, as a DM?

You can't bunch utility spells together with damage spells. You'd have to sort them according to their power relative to each other and the level you gain access to them, not their spell level.

Example: Misty Step would have to be a 2nd level spell as it's much stronger/more potent than something like spider climb.

[Kryx]

I moved all 2nd level spells to the new 1st level on spell balance sheet (level 1-5 thought experiment) (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1N4QC6EmXE0avgk8jK1aubJcaFoZDYw8b_DuPHh8aBTc/edit#gid=1870861739). The average of old 1st level spells was 11 damage. The average of old 2nd level spells was 18 damage. The average of new 1st level spells is 14.5. Compared to the power of 3rd level spells which have an average of 38 damage I think that's totally fine.

My only concern with aiming at 14.5 instead of 18 is the loss of caster damage at levels 3 and 4, but I think that's acceptable as it'd only be 2*3.5 or 3*3.5 = 7 or 10.5. Nothing to be worried about since the 1st level spells make up for the loss: 4*3.5 = 14 more damage.

Damage is totally fine with this method.





2nd level spells also include things like Invisibility, Misty Step, Aid, Silence, Enlarge and the like. Would you be fine with letting a character with one level in a caster class have access to those spells, as a DM?

Invisibility would move to a new 2nd level spell. Invis is too strong as a 1st level spell. I think it'd still be a good spell in comparison to old level 3 spells (Fly, Gaseous Form, Tongues, Water Breathing, Walker Walk). It fits really well with those spells actually as it allows the caster to bypass things with relative ease. Greater invis would move to a new 3rd level spell.
Misty Step would move to a new 2nd level spell, but increase the range to 60 feet.
Aid would be adjusted to a new 1st level spell - the same as cure wounds and healing word are.
Silence would move to a new 1st level spell. Silence is really only valuable against casters and even then a caster can almost always just walk out of the area. Reduce the range and possibly AoE a bit, but it'd be fine imo.
Enlarge's damage boost is no different than Divine Favor (Both 1d4). The benefit to strength checks/saving throws is marginal. Definitely a new 1st level spell imo. Reduce is the same.


Many of these would be case by case. As I said in the OP the amount of work wouldn't be small, though the work isn't very complex - it feels mostly straightforward so far.

[Theodoxus]

It's an interesting thought experiment, to be sure. A slightly different direction would be to resurrect the old Caster Level, since the shrinking of spell levels nukes the 5E method of upcasting spells for greater power.

Using CL, you could even gate some of the more controversial spells. Just pulling examples out of thin air (haven't considered balance of any of these - so please take that with a grain of salt).

Say, Misty Step is considered too powerful to be justified as a level 1 spell, but not quite strong enough to be a level 2 spell, you could say it requires CL 3 to learn. It places that spell back at the old "level 2", but allows finer manipulation of where you want things.

Similar ideas could be used for damaging spells. Magic Missile is iconic, and should certainly stay at 1st level. But maybe Chromatic Orb, given it's "energy type on the fly" status is slightly more than you'd want for 1st level, but certainly not strong enough for 2nd - without some other change, like bigger or more dice - just boost it to CL 2. So it's not available at 1st level, nor through Magic Initiate, but it is available if you take a second level in your casting class.

This also discourages single level dips for really strong spells.

For instance, I'd keep Cure Wounds as CL 1, but move Healing Word to CL 2 (possibly 3), because of it's greater utility in combat (with or without the "unconscious = exhaustion" alternate rule). A bonus action heal at 60' range is really really powerful and even healing half the amount on average of CW, I've seen HW taken over CW 9/10 times.

Another advantage of gating specific spells by Caster Level rather than Spell Level is you can make a really easy determination of how much damage they'll do. CL 1 is 3d4; CL 2 is 3d6; CL 3 is 3d8 or something... The more powerful (higher CL) spells are still using a level 1 spell slot, but it becomes player choice once they hit the higher CL, if they want to use a smaller die that is either auto-hit, or includes a rider...

If you really wanted to make it complex, allow spells to be "down cast". That Chromatic Orb at CL 3 that's normally 3d8? Cast it as a CL 1 spell doing 3d4, but it's auto-hit. Cast it at CL 2, doing 3d6, but it has a rider (Fire sets things aflame, cold slows the target by 10', acid burns another round for your caster stat in damage, etc).

I'm really grooving on the possibilities adding Caster Level would allow... but it's probably pretty outside what this specific thought experiment is trying to do....

[Talamare]

Nice, but here's what I would suggest

1st: Old 1st
2nd: Old 2nd
3rd: Old 3rd, Old 4th
4th: Old 5th, Old 6th, 7th
5th: Old 8th and 9th

There are large power gaps in the early levels. Not to mention that the Early levels are by far the most played levels and needs to have the largest room for growth.

This would mean that not even spell will translate 1 for 1, and that not every spell will still exist. There are far too many similar spells.


So Next we need to decide when to spike levels (aka new spells)
How about
1st: Lv1
2nd: Lv3
3rd: Lv6
4th: Lv11
5th: Lv18

[clash]

Nice, but here's what I would suggest
So Next we need to decide when to spike levels (aka new spells)
How about
1st: Lv1
2nd: Lv3
3rd: Lv6
4th: Lv11
5th: Lv18

I dont really follow this leveling. Why not just
1st: Lv1
2nd: Lv5
3rd: Lv9
4th: Lv13
5th: Lv17

[Talamare]

Nice, but here's what I would suggest

1st: Old 1st
2nd: Old 2nd
3rd: Old 3rd, Old 4th
4th: Old 5th, Old 6th, 7th
5th: Old 8th and 9th


There are
39 Cantrips
67 Lv1
67 Lv2
56 Lv3
39 Lv4
46 Lv5
38 Lv6
21 Lv7
20 Lv8
16 Lv9

With this suggestion there will be roughly
95 "Lv3"
105 "Lv4"
36 "Lv5"

So, I believe many of the Lv3 spells can be brought down to "Lv2"
Some Lv2 spells can be brought down to "Lv1"

As well as many Lv7 spells can be brought up to "Lv5"


I dont really follow this leveling. Why not just
1st: Lv1
2nd: Lv5
3rd: Lv9
4th: Lv13
5th: Lv17

That would be fine for the original suggest that merges Lv2 into Lv1
My suggestion preserves the power spike at PClv3 by keeping Lv2 Spells as Lv2

[Regulas]

Definitely seems like it would be interesting, though if you're going to go that far seems like a total revamp would be more meaningful (based partly on Theo):

Divide spell slots into three types: Minor, Major, Greater.

Minor consists primarily of current level 1-2 spells Major would be 3-5 and Greater 6+. However there would be exceptions for overly weak and strong spells. Spells would have both upcast and downcast options.


Spell casters have a Caster Level. Learning spells is gated based on the caster level, which could also be used to help manage numbers. You could have number of dice based off CL and type of dice modified by upcasting. So burning hands as a minor spell would be d4's as a major d6's as a greater d10's.


Partial casters get no Greater and either few or no Major spell slots. Warlocks spell slots still evolve into all greater slots.

Thanks to 5e advantage/dis properties a lot of low level spells remain immensely impactful regardless of when you cast it. Similarly many higher level spells aren't so much stronger as just "you don't want players to have them at lower levels".

CL ensures that all spells scale and gates when you can learn spells. However what you use already mostly falls under "minor" "big" and "greater" effects so as long as everything is being gated by CL then there's no need for a huge variety of spell slots.

[Easy_Lee]

If you just want to condense spells down to five levels, why bother do this much work? You could just condense most spells down to lower levels and reduce their power or add upcasting as necessary. Plenty of high level spells don't really have high level effects, just higher damage. Address those ones and you can leave the others alone. There's no reason why every spell level needs to have plenty of spells.

I don't see much advantage to doing this by itself. Instead of trying to condense just spells down to fifth level (character level 9-10), why not condense the whole game down to 10 levels?

Every level is more meaningful.
Low level enemies are twice the threat to max-level adventurers as they used to be.
Related to above point, the DM needs half as many creatures and traps in his toolbag with which to challenge players.
Most features don't need to lose power on a lower level character. The others don't need to lose much power, see next point.
Monster damage, DC, HP are not hard to adjust.
Players will do a little more damage relative to their HP totals as they gain levels. Enemies will also do a little more damage relative to player HP pools at higher levels. As a result, the game becomes faster paced as one gains levels.

Just my two cents. In short, if you're going to do something like this, I wouldn't stop halfway.

[Terra Reveene]

Alright, so if we're gonna put everything into 5 spell levels, we'll need to know what goes where and why. When I first tried to put all the spells in five different spell levels, I named them "Initiate, Adept, Master, Legend, Myth", that's 1st through 5th level.
The basic idea was that a spellcaster who just started learning howw to cast spells would only be able to learn initiate spells at first. Basically entrylevel spells that were simple enough to cast. Whatever effect they had was simple enough to create. Adept spells were a bit more complex, master spells were the kind of spells someone who'd mastered a certain kind of magic could cast, legend spells were the kind of spells that only legendary spellcasters could cast (spellcasters who cast them usually went down in legend, because they were particularly extraordinary), myth spells were the kind of spells not commonly known. They were more on the speculative side. "What if there was a spell that let you wish for anything? Wouldn't that be cool!", "man, if only wizards could call down meteors from the sky, we wouldn't have to fight this war.".
A bit abstract, maybe, but that's as far as I got with trying to figure out where utility spells should go before I got busy with other things. It MIGHT be helpful when trying to determine where some spells should go. I doubt it, as this seems a lot easier to change than I had imagined.

I like your initial numbers in terms of damage, kryx. I think most of the utility spells should be obvious enough as to where they should go. The only question is if some of them has to be buffed, like how you suggest a buff for Misty Step for example. Really exciting, at any rate.

I do not have your numbers on what is expected of a spellcaster at certain levels though. And I'm not particularly good at navigating your spreadsheets.

I do not like the caster level idea, as I think that's more complex than it needs to be. If the spells are appropriately balanced, I don't think caster levels need to be implemented. They feel like a patch at best to be honest, to sort of emulate the standard 9 levels of spells. If the 9 levels of spells are to be shortened down to 5 levels, then I don't think keeping anything that resembles the former should be left. Otherwise you're better off with just keeping the 9 levels.

I get a bit rambly when I'm tired, so I'm out of the discussion for now. Thanks for starting this though Kryx, I'm looking forward to any results you get regarding balance for the casters with these changes! If we can agree on some kind of average damage number for damage spells for each level, then the utility spells should surely fall in line on their own. I'd happily help with converting spells to this system, as I'm planning on doing it anyways.




I don't see much advantage to doing this by itself. Instead of trying to condense just spells down to fifth level (character level 9-10), why not condense the whole game down to 10 levels?


I'm condensing the total character level down to 10 levels as well as condensing all the spell levels down to 5 levels. For what that's worth. I wasn't originally planning on going through with condensing the spells down to 5 levels, but this discussion has given me more motivation to go through with it.

I'm not doing it in the way you seem to suggest though. I'm basically having players start out at level 2 and gain 2 levels at a time. I think a big reason why people don't go through to high levels in a campaign is because the game just lasts too damn long. It takes way too much time. I think 10 levels is more realistic. That's a bit off topic though.

[Blue Lantern]

This would just be a perception issue though. Most of the tiers aren't very different currently (which is what this would change).

4th edition did teach that player perception seems to be quite important when it comes to rules appeal.

[JackPhoenix]

It's your thought exercise, Kryx, I'm only pointing this consequences of the change out.

But note it's not only damages spells I'd be concerned with, if I where you.

2nd level spells also include things like Invisibility, Misty Step, Aid, Silence, Enlarge and the like. Would you be fine with letting a character with one level in a caster class have access to those spells, as a DM?

Just out of top of my head: Disguise Self and Alter Self. While the later requires concentration, it makes the former completely redundant if they use the same slot.

[Terra Reveene]

4th edition did teach that player perception seems to be quite important when it comes to rules appeal.

Reducing the overall number of player levels to 10 would solve the issue of players having to wait before they get a new batch of spells they can choose from.
I agree that it COULD be an issue, but players are still limited in the number of spells they can know. And ultimately, combining two tiers of spells into one will give more options than a player can choose from. Each level will likely be just as exciting. You get moments like "ooooh, now I can use ___ as well!" instead. Or at least in theory.

[Kryx]

Wow, lots of replies! I had to finish Game of Throne (I was on vacation!), but now I can rejoin the conversation. Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

I'll skip my typical, more detailed, responses and try to capture the big points:


resurrect the old Caster Level, since the shrinking of spell levels nukes the 5E method of upcasting spells for greater power.
Upcasting would still exist, just at a higher value for each upcast.

I do not think returning to Caster Level is a good choice. It would significantly increase the power of casters which isn't my intention. I think the new system works great in the caster balance regard. The only reason I mention auto scaling 1st-level spells is because cantrips outpace them, making old 1st level damage spells almost entirely worthless.

I'd be curious to see what you'd create, but as you say I think those ideas are probably beyond the adjustments I'd consider.

===========


There are large power gaps in the early levels. Not to mention that the Early levels are by far the most played levels and needs to have the largest room for growth.
The gap was outlined above:

For reference the current balance is 1st = 11, 2nd = 18, 3rd = 38, 4th = 50, 5th = 59, 6th = 85, 7th = 103, 8th = 177, 9th = 255
4th level RAW is actually much closer to 3rd level (probably about 45). I adjusted several spells up.
The gap between 1st and 2nd level spells is one of the smallest, they make the most natural combination, at least for damage spells. The split you suggest also does not address 5e's split between 5th and 6th level. You system could not account for Paladins, Ranger, or Warlocks.

===========


Divide spell slots into three types: Minor, Major, Greater.
3 feels like too few. 5 feels more in line with the current spells in existence. 2nd, 4th, and to a lesser extent 7th and 8th level spells feel like gap fillers.
If I were to ever seriously consider switching spellcasting systems for my game then a system that is closer to the current system is much easier for players to swallow.

===========


I don't see much advantage to doing this by itself.
This is my current thought. I could asuredly improve the balance (though I already did in the default system) and possibly the design. The effort is huge. I'll have to wait until this thought plays out to weigh its value.


why not condense the whole game down to 10 levels
You bring up very valid points. Though if changing from 9 levels to 5 levels of spellcasting is a huge change what you propose is massive. Some people say my rules are already D&D 5.5 or even 6e, but this would surely be a whole new edition. While I can't deny that I've considered a full re-write I think I'm quite pleased with most of 5e to venture down that path.

===========


I like your initial numbers in terms of damage, kryx. I think most of the utility spells should be obvious enough as to where they should go. The only question is if some of them has to be buffed, like how you suggest a buff for Misty Step for example. Really exciting, at any rate.
I agree that utility will mostly fall in line. There will be some debate on some individual spells, but from what has come up so far it feels mostly obvious where each one belongs.

===========


4th edition did teach that player perception seems to be quite important when it comes to rules appeal.
It did indeed and I don't mean to deny the issue of perception. What I should have said in reply to that issue is that player perception of gaining a spell level pales in comparison to larger concerns of breaking from the 9 levels of spellcasting that have been around for a long time. It's somewhat akin to no longer using ability scores and other sacred cow deaths. Changing from 9 to 5 levels of spells? I do not believe that would have a large impact on player progression due to the loss of a perceived progression.

===========


Just out of top of my head: Disguise Self and Alter Self. While the later requires concentration, it makes the former completely redundant if they use the same slot.
They may be similar in effect, but the means to get to the results is quite different. Disguise Self is an illusion spell that can be broken by investiation and other means while Alter Self is a transmutation spell which means you're actually altering your physical appearance. They're similar, but either the Illusionist or Transmuter would miss having such a spell and I believe their effects are different enough to warrant 2 spells.

[Theodoxus]

Regarding Disguise Self and Alter Self:
They may be similar in effect, but the means to get to the results is quite different. Disguise Self is an illusion spell that can be broken by investiation and other means while Alter Self is a transmutation spell which means you're actually altering your physical appearance. They're similar, but either the Illusionist or Transmuter would miss having such a spell and I believe their effects are different enough to warrant 2 spells.

One should either boost Disguise Self or nerf Alter Self. AS is all around the better spell (thus the 2nd level requirement). I suppose another option is to boost AS to the new 2nd level spells and remove the Concentration requirement, but since it's the first "polymorph" spell, that'd set a bad precedent.

But as is, if I were playing an Illusionist (especially a human one sans darkvision) I'd pick AS over DS every time if both were available at 1st level - the boons granted by it are just too good.

[Kane0]

Thinking of half and third casters, would 6 spell levels work better?

[Terra Reveene]

Another thing to note is that any full caster gets this weird speed up in what kind of spell slots they have available to them between 5th and 6th level slots. They sort of speed over that. I think a more customized progression would be needed unless you'd be okay with the relatively quick transition between the new 3rd level slots and 4th level slots.

[Unoriginal]

Have you considered the effect this would have on monsters/NPCs who have spells (or equivalent) ?

[Kryx]

One should either boost Disguise Self or nerf Alter Self. AS is all around the better spell (thus the 2nd level requirement).
In the idea I proposed in the OP issues like this would surely have to be resolved. AS should remain as 1st so I'd probably have to boost Disguise Self.

=================


Thinking of half and third casters, would 6 spell levels work better?
When I created my spell balance sheet I had 2 goals:

Try to change as little as possible
Try to adhere to the power levels that WotC created for each spell level

To determine #2 I looked at the current power level of each spell as well as the DMG's spell point system which is very telling. I'll add the gaps to that table to outline my point:


Point Cost
Spell Level


2
1st


3
2nd


4
—


5
3rd


6
4th


7
5th


8
—


9
6th


10
7th


11
8th


12
—


13
9th


We can see that there are 4 tiers:
2/3: 1st and 2nd
5/6/7: 3rd, 4th, and 5th
9/10/11: 6th, 7th, 8th
13: 9th

1st and 2nd level spells definitely belong together. 3rd and 4th probably belong together. 7th should merge with 6th or 8th. That leaves 5th, 6th/8th, and 9th a bit more up for interpretation imo.
We could end up at 6 tiers by doing what I propose in the OP, but splitting 8th level from 9th level:

1st: Old 1st and 2nd
2nd: Old 3rd and 4th
3rd: Old 5th
4th: Old 6th and 7th
5th: Old 8th
6th: Old 9th

It could work, and may work better than what I propose. I'd have to consider 8th and 9th level spells individually to decide. There are only 35 8th and 9th level spells combined which is why I initially combined them.

=================


Another thing to note is that any full caster gets this weird speed up in what kind of spell slots they have available to them between 5th and 6th level slots. They sort of speed over that. I think a more customized progression would be needed unless you'd be okay with the relatively quick transition between the new 3rd level slots and 4th level slots.
The progression would be slightly more difficult than I lead on in the OP. This is the current combination that I suggested that would definitely need some massaging:
http://i.imgur.com/XAZzoYo.jpg

=================


Have you considered the effect this would have on monsters/NPCs who have spells (or equivalent) ?
These would be quite easy. For casters with slot levels you can just use the new system with ease. For casters with innate casting nothing would change as they don't mention slots.
A hag covern now has 7 1st level slots, 6 2nd level slots, 2 3rd level slots, and 1 4th level slot.
A Lich would now have 7 1st level slots, 6 2nd level slots, 3 3rd level slots, 2 4th level slots, and 2 5th level slots.

As long as the system is setup to balance levels and spells monsters should be very very easy it seems.

[Unoriginal]

These would be quite easy. For casters with slot levels you can just use the new system with ease. For casters with innate casting nothing would change as they don't mention slots.
A hag covern now has 7 1st level slots, 6 2nd level slots, 2 3rd level slots, and 1 4th level slot.
A Lich would now have 7 1st level slots, 6 2nd level slots, 3 3rd level slots, 2 4th level slots, and 2 5th level slots.

As long as the system is setup to balance levels and spells monsters should be very very easy it seems.

I was more thinking on if it'd affect the monster's CR or not.

[Kryx]

I was more thinking on if it'd affect the monster's CR or not.
From what I can see in the changes required above, it wouldn't appear to impact that in any significant way (same impact as PCs) - not enough for any CR changes.

[Talamare]

I think to fully embrace this system would require basically the deletion of a ton spells

We are more or less talking about recreating DnD5e from the ground up

Literally making Pathfinder

Kryxfinder?

I know Kryx already has a massive rulebook to the point he is basically a few days away from making a whole system

[Kryx]

I think to fully embrace this system would require basically the deletion of a ton spells
I don't believe many, if any, spells would need to be removed.

[Terra Reveene]

We could end up at 6 tiers by doing what I propose in the OP, but splitting 8th level from 9th level:

1st: Old 1st and 2nd
2nd: Old 3rd and 4th
3rd: Old 5th
4th: Old 6th and 7th
5th: Old 8th
6th: Old 9th

It could work, and may work better than what I propose. I'd have to consider 8th and 9th level spells individually to decide. There are only 35 8th and 9th level spells combined which is why I initially combined them.



That's a very interesting idea, although there is still a problem with that solution...




The progression would be slightly more difficult than I lead on in the OP. This is the current combination that I suggested that would definitely need some massaging:
http://i.imgur.com/XAZzoYo.jpg



... The only way to get that progression fixed while doing the least amount of work is by leaving either the 9th level spells in their own group, or the 1st level spells in their own group, and then put all spells together. But to do that, we'd have to combine 5th level with either 4th or 6th level. So the ideal progression, in order to do the least amount of work would be...


1st: Old 1st
2nd: Old 2nd and 3rd
3rd: Old 4th and 5th
4th: Old 6th and 7th
5th: Old 8th and 9th


This would account for 5th level being the point where we split off into the higher tier spells that half casters aren't supposed to be able to cast. It'd give us the following slots for a 20th level Wizard:


1st: 4 slots
2nd: 6 slots
3rd: 6 slots
4th: 4 slots
5th: 2 slots



Although looking at it now, this'd speed up the transition between 1st and 2nd level slots while lengthening the number of levels you have the highest level slots by 2 levels.

That and it actually goes against your discovery of the 4 tiers of spells. I don't suppose we could merge 3rd, 4th and 5th level slots together and do the same but for 6th, 7th and 8th and call it a day? Heh. Given how mucch damage each of these tiers does, and how blocky it'd make caster damage, I'm guessing not. Although now I'm wondering: if we did put all spells in 4 tiers, couldn't we just make up for caster damage in other ways? We could have them cast spells at a higher level as they leveled up to solve the "blocky caster damage progression" issue that merging all the spells into 4 tiers would give us.

I want to end up with a solution that gives us a better progression of how many slots our full caster would end up with at 20th level though. Currently, they have a lot of the early level slots, the middle level slots have roughly the same value (lower than early level slots) and the later level slots are far fewer. We ALMOST have that with the solution you bring, Kryx. We'd just have to swap the number of 3rd and 4th level slots a caster gets. And I am not 100% sure on how much of a problem that'd be. If it proves to be no problem at all, or something that could be worth sacrificing, then that'd solve everything as I see it.


What if we did actually merge 5th and 6th level spells together? And leave 9th level spells on their own tier? That's what I did when I started my own project. I wasn't sure on how big of an impact it'd have, and figured I'd just take out the problematic 6th level spells and put them one level higher. It'd give us a beautiful progression:

http://i.imgur.com/jlWnm9E.png

The damage values (going with average) would then be:
1st = 14,5
2nd = 44
3rd = 72
4th = 140
5th = 255

Some of these gaps are fairly large though. I'm not 100% sure on how the damage progression would be for a caster using these numbers. I am not good at using your sheet Kryx. It is very alien to me. So I'll leave that to someone else.


One thing to note: If the spellcaster damage progression becomes too blocky, my solution would be to give spellcasters a damage scaling increase on lower level spells at certain levels (similar to cantrips). It's go something like:
Casting a lower level spell using a higher level spell slot gives you a level of spell enhancement. Each level of spell enhancement gives you an increased effect. At certain levels, your spell enhancement increases for certain spells.


As a final note, because this is getting too long, I think putting the spells in 6 levels rather than 5 doesn't really solve anything at all. If anything, I think putting them into 4 tiers would give a simpler solution. You'd just have to make sure you increase the damage of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level spells at some point. That'd essentially give us... Hang on. I'll post this next bit in a new post, because I think it deserves not being in my long rant. Easier to see it.

[Kryx]

The gap between 2nd and 3rd level spells is probably the largest in the game. Combining 2nd and 3rd level spells is not an option worth considering imo. Compare a few 2nd level damage spells vs 3rd level spells and you'll quickly see the difference.

I was considering the following options last night:

1st: Old 1st and 2nd
2nd: Old 3rd and 4th
3rd: Old 5th and 6th
4th: Old 7th and 8th
5th: Old 9th


1st: Old 1st and 2nd
2nd: Old 3rd and 4th
3rd: Old 5th
4th: Old 6th and 7th
5th: Old 8th
5th: Old 9th

I like the idea of the first option, though it'd be problematic for half casters - it may be possible to resolve the 5th and 6th level divide, I'd have to look.

Combinations shouldn't be determined by class progression of the combinations - that can easily be resolved. It should be determined by the power level of the spells.


I don't suppose we could merge 3rd, 4th and 5th level slots together and do the same but for 6th, 7th and 8th and call it a day?
That would be rather consistent with the spell point system, but merging 3 levels would be quite difficult to do. It would inherently require more changes to spells as you're balancing 3rd vs 5th level spells.

Progression can be resolved in many ways. The first objective is to find the perfect combinations.



One thing to note: If the spellcaster damage progression becomes too blocky, my solution would be to give spellcasters a damage scaling increase on lower level spells at certain levels (similar to cantrips). It's go something like:
Casting a lower level spell using a higher level spell slot gives you a level of spell enhancement. Each level of spell enhancement gives you an increased effect. At certain levels, your spell enhancement increases for certain spells.
1st level spell slots still exist at higher levels. For most utility spells this is ok, but for damage spells they become worthless next to cantrips. We can solve this by scaling them 1 level up at level 11 for example. I'd have to think through a proper solution.

Gotta run to lunch~

[Terra Reveene]

I apologize for my ranty post above, but I just had a thought.

What if we did put all the spells into the 4 tiers as you showed Kryx? To be more specific, what if we put 1st and 2nd level spells into the new 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th into 2nd and so on until we had 4 spell tiers?
We put each new spell tier at the power level of the lowest spell level and gave the spell some scaling with levels, to bring it up towards the old spell levels above it?

So our new 1st level spells would start off at the power of 1st level spells, and then as the character progresses, their 1st level spells are cast with higher damage? Scaling them to 2nd level spells might not be a good idea as you'd then have 7 spell slots to use on 2nd level spells (essentially), but we could bring them up to the average damage of 4 1st level spells (total of 44 damage) and 3 2nd level spells (total of 54 damage). This'd give us 98/7 = 14 damage for out 1st level slots.
I hope I'm making sense at this point.

This'd mean our 1st level slots would start off at the damage of old 1st level slots and scale up towards 14 damage (the average of 4 1st level slots and 3 2nd level slots in terms of damage) at 4th level (the level where we get that slot total).
3rd level would be the level where this scaling would start, since that's when we get 2nd level slots to begin with it'd be 4 1st level slots and 2 2nd level slots ((44 + 36)/6 = 13,3 damage) and the next level they'd be brought up to 14 average damage.
Although looking at it, it'd be impossible to scale it twice with such a low damage increase. But the same principle could probably very easily be used for the next 2 tiers.

Here's a table to show how much damage each of the slots for 4 tiers of spells would have to deal on average and at what levels in order to completely match the current damage.

http://i.imgur.com/ld464RJ.png

With this we can see how much damage each usage of the slot should deal with a spell of its level. It saddens me that the damage is decreased for 3rd level slots at 19th and 20th level. That's because you get more of the lower damage slots at those levels. Though if we were using spell points, we wouldn't have those slots to begin with. I'm going to ignore those two levels for the 3rd level slot for now. We'll just say that they have the average damage of 121,7 instead. It'll result in a bit more damage on those two levels than currently, but I think that's fine for now.

So, in order to increase the damage at certain levels, I propose replacing the "when cast at a higher level" with Spell Power. Each level of Spell Power increases the damage just as though you were casting it using a higher level spell slot. Spell Power is given out to spellcasters at whatever level their spells of a certain level is supposed to get a damage increase. Casting a spell using a higher level spell slot increases the spell's Spell Power.
Now, in order to figure out how many more damage dice we're supposed to get, we need some sort of average damage dice. I'm going to go on the assumption that the d8 is the average damage dice used until Kryx corrects me, because I'm currently not willing to look it up myself.
This means that a damage increase of 4.5 damage means that the spell slot's Spell Power needs to be increased by 1.

This'd mean we'd have to increase spell damage for a given spell slot at the following levels:

http://i.imgur.com/kFtsaIz.png

It jumps up quite quickly between 14th and 15th level, but that's because that's the level you move up from 6th to 7th level slots.

I'd imagine casting a spell using a higher spell slot would be as simple as adding the Spell Power up together from all the lower level slots and then adding either the current Spell Power level for the slot you're using, or the difference between the slot level and the spell level.

For example, using this new system, a 1st level Wizard casting burning hands would deal 3d6 damage, meanwhile a 4th level wizard would deal 4d6 damage with his 1st level slot because he has 1 Spell Power for his 1st level slots.
A 5th level Wizard casting burning hands using a 2nd level slot would deal 5d6 damage, because his 1st level slots have 1 spell damage and the slot he's using is 1 level higher than the spell.
An 8th level Wizard would deal the same amount of damage as the 5th level Wizard using his 2nd level slot, because the difference between the slot level and the spell level is the same as his 2nd level slots Spell Power.
A 9th level Wizard would deal 6d6 damage casting burning hands using a 2nd level slot, because his 2nd level slot's Spell Power is greater than the difference between the slot level and the spell's level.
An 11th level Wizard casting burning hands using a 3rd level slot would deal 8d6 damage, because the Spell Power total of his 1st and 2nd level slot is 3, and the difference between the 3rd level slot and the 1st level spell is 2, total of 5 (5d6 extra damage on top of the standard 8d6)

I think that's a bit overkill on the examples, but I hope that's enough to make sure I'm being understood correctly.

The benefits of doing this over using 5 or 6 spell levels is that you won't have this odd speed up in progression in terms of when you're getting your higher level slots.

I'm sure my way of doing this is way too complicated though. It could use some uptuning to make sure that it's easy for newer players to understand. The math behind it doesn't have to be perfect at all, after all. I have a few ideas regarding how this 4 spell slot system could be simplified, but I want to hear if someone else has anything to say regarding it before I do any more work.

EDIT: A possible way of simplifying it would be to just make add the difference between the slot level and the spell level, and the total spell power of the spell slot you're using and each lower level together. This way using that same 11th level Wizard casting burning hands we'd get +5 Spell Power, or an 8d6 damage burning hands, which is about the same as a 6th level slot. Of course, the 8 spell damage you get at 15th level would jump the burning hands way above a 9th level slot.

Overall I think the solution I proposed above isn't a perfect one, perhaps not even a good one. 1/3rd casters are only supposed to get to 4th level spells, yeah? So the solution I posted above will add in 5th level spell for them.

So this gives us another problem: We have to seperate 4th level spells from 5th level spells because of 1/3rd casters, and 5th level spells from 6th level spells because of half casters.
Looking at what you posted right after I posted this, I think your second option might be the best solution that we can get. The only two problems I have with it is the slot progression looking janky (although that might be completely fine) and how much damage upscaling spells would have to get for each slot.

Do you think my solution to scaling lower level spells is a good one? We could apply that to your second option quite easily. Although I still fear for the 5th level spells a bit. The 3rd level slots pass by so quickly, and they're supposed to be one of the pinnacles of half casters, which full casters very quickly gloss over. I think if we went with your 2nd solution, we'd have to postpone the 4th level slots a bit so that the 3rd level slots get some time to breathe.

Personally, I love the idea of increasing lower level spells a bit over time. It always felt weird to me that 1st level damage spells would get worse over time compared to cantrips, even though they take up resources whereas cantrips don't.
We can use something similar to what I posted above to scale spells using your second option. Specifically the spells that include two spell levels. That is if we want a similar total damage for those spell slots at their given level. We could also let spells scale a bit overall.

[TheUser]

I find it interesting that you talk about how easy to implement this is without really expanding on the merits of it in either thread. It's just sort of an assertion....

"this is definitely in line with 5e philosophy and better design" without actually explaining why that is the case.

Like, this is an interesting thought experiment, but to what end?

What does making blindness deafness accessible at level 1 (or hold person for that matter....) do other than upheave current balance and provide less specificity with regards to power output.

It makes more sense that the level 1 spells are where they are and that the level 2 spells are where they are and being able to add more increments of power to those spells through increasing their slot level is far more appropriate.

What does increasing burning hands to a second level slot do under your system? Add 2d6 damage? Why is being able to add 1d6 damage with a level 2 slot and then another 1d6 with a levle 3 slot in the current system "burden" players when it really just grants options?

All in all I think your implementation of balance is well executed in a numerical sense, but your design philosophy leaves something to be desired.

This doesn't really simplify the system so much as it just condenses power thresholds. Now casters are twice as powerful at each increment of spell level increase. In your proposed system they'd have access to level 1 AND level 2 spells off the get go and get access to level 3 and 4 spells from the old system in one giant leap.

All in all I think it lumps together too many options to throw at a player in one level of progress.
Seperating spells into levels 1-9 creates no only a more refined power gradient but bombards the player less at caster level intervals.

[Kryx]

I apologize for my ranty post above, but I just had a thought.
Less typing and more thinking please. I can't meaningfully keep up with your current stream of consciousness.


What if we did put all the spells into the 4 tiers as you showed Kryx?


That would be rather consistent with the spell point system, but merging 3 levels would be quite difficult to do. It would inherently require more changes to spells as you're balancing 3rd vs 5th level spells.

With the other part of auto scaling you're essentially talking about 3.X caster level which would increase the power of casters. Not a good fix imo.
The only reason I suggest scaling 1st level spells at 11th level is to keep pace with cantrips - that's it. But that can be handled by just having them auto cast at a higher level. This idea of 1st level spells should be better than cantrips is independent of the less spell levels idea though.


The benefits of doing this over using 5 or 6 spell levels is that you won't have this odd speed up in progression in terms of when you're getting your higher level slots.
You're basing tiers on when a tier is acquired, not power level of the spells. Progression of when a new tier is acquired can be massaged with ease. Balancing a tier based on the power level of the spells is the only way to progress on this imo.


=========


"this is definitely in line with 5e philosophy and better design" without actually explaining why that is the case.
That's actually the exact opposite of what I have said:


I could asuredly improve the balance (though I already did in the default system) and possibly the design. The effort is huge. I'll have to wait until this thought plays out to weigh its value.

Overall it's a doable choice, though the benefits probably aren't worth the cost in effort and understanding for new players.

This is a thought expirement of if it is possible and how it would work, not trying to convince people that it's worth the effort or that it greatly improves the actual design.


Seperating spells into levels 1-9 creates no only a more refined power gradient but bombards the player less at caster level intervals.
That would be a tradeoff of the system, indeed.


I'm close to tossing the idea in the junk bin. It's really an exciting idea that could've possibly been better than 9 levels of spells if it was in the game from the start, but adding it later is a lot of work and is probably of very limited value.

[Terra Reveene]

I find it interesting that you talk about how easy to implement this is without really expanding on the merits of it in either thread. It's just sort of an assertion....

"this is definitely in line with 5e philosophy and better design" without actually explaining why that is the case.

Like, this is an interesting thought experiment, but to what end?

What does making blindness deafness accessible at level 1 (or hold person for that matter....) do other than upheave current balance and provide less specificity with regards to power output.

It makes more sense that the level 1 spells are where they are and that the level 2 spells are where they are and being able to add more increments of power to those spells through increasing their slot level is far more appropriate.

What does increasing burning hands to a second level slot do under your system? Add 2d6 damage? Why is being able to add 1d6 damage with a level 2 slot and then another 1d6 with a levle 3 slot in the current system "burden" players when it really just grants options?

All in all I think your implementation of balance is well executed in a numerical sense, but your design philosophy leaves something to be desired.

This doesn't really simplify the system so much as it just condenses power thresholds. Now casters are twice as powerful at each increment of spell level increase. In your proposed system they'd have access to level 1 AND level 2 spells off the get go and get access to level 3 and 4 spells from the old system in one giant leap.

All in all I think it lumps together too many options to throw at a player in one level of progress.
Seperating spells into levels 1-9 creates no only a more refined power gradient but bombards the player less at caster level intervals.

Fair points, though the spells would have to be balanced in terms of damage and utility at the level they're provided at. This is, indeed, a lot of work for very little reward. But I personally don't think that matters. If anything, this is exactly as advertised: A thought exercise. It's not necessarily meant to conclude in something rewarding, but rather just provide a way to discuss a topic. At its conclusion, we might end up with a "well, this didn't work. But at least now we learned a few more things". And I think that's completely fine.
This discussion is unlikely going to end up with something very rewarding. At least not for the vast majority of people. Personally, I want this to work. It's not the end of the world if it doesn't, but it does matter to me. I don't particularly care how unrewarding other people think this discussion is, I think they can just ignore the thread if they don't think it's worthwhile.
Just my 2 cents.

EDIT:

Less typing and more thinking please. I can't meaningfully keep up with your current stream of consciousness.

Ah! My apologies.


You're basing tiers on when a tier is acquired, not power level of the spells. Progression of when a new tier is acquired can be massaged with ease. Balancing a tier based on the power level of the spells is the only way to progress on this imo.

If I understand you correctly, aquiring a new tier should be based on the average damage of the tier compared to the previous one and depending on the level it's aquired at. So what you're saying is that to increase the number of levels it'd take to get from 3rd level slots to 4th level slots, we'd have to decrease the average damage of 4th level spells?
I think at this point it'd be better to leave this to you. I'm not sure I have any more valuable input on this topic anymore, and it's clearly above my level of understanding.

[clash]

I don't want to derail the thread at all but have you considered filling in the missing 3 point values to make everything scale really smooth. Having 12 spell levels rather than 9. This would make the spell point variant much nicer to use for new players.

[Kryx]

If I understand you correctly, aquiring a new tier should be based on the average damage of the tier compared to the previous one and depending on the level it's aquired at. So what you're saying is that to increase the number of levels it'd take to get from 3rd level slots to 4th level slots, we'd have to decrease the average damage of 4th level spells?
No, what I'm saying is worry about the progression of when a tier is acquired until after we have decided is in each tier. The decision of tiers should not be based on the progression of when they are acquired. When they are acquired matters, but combinations should ideally be based almost purely on current power level of the spells that are in that level (and adjusting outliers).


I think at this point it'd be better to leave this to you. I'm not sure I have any more valuable input on this topic anymore, and it's clearly above my level of understanding.
I edited it in above, but I think I'll put it again: I'm close to tossing the idea in the junk bin. It's really an exciting idea that could've possibly been better than 9 levels of spells if it was in the game from the start, but adding it later is a lot of work and is probably of very limited value for my games.

=============


I don't want to derail the thread at all but have you considered filling in the missing 3 point values to make everything scale really smooth. Having 12 spell levels rather than 9. This would make the spell point variant much nicer to use for new players.
That is the exact opposite desire that started this idea. The idea that spawed this thread is that level 2 and level 4 spells are filler levels with many of those spells being quite inferior for their level (Blight for example).

There are 39 4th level spells and 46 5th level spells. I think this is the only example of a higher spell level having more spells than a lower spell level.

[clash]

I understand that it is the opposite desire which is why I mentioned bit wanting to derail the discussion but if the idea is that there is a very small if any increment between since spell levels and a large noticeable difference between others then adding in the missing spell levels would make it only a small difference between any level and achieve a route if nice scaling uniformity that the system currently lacks and uniformity whether by removing it adding levels is something I am very interested in and would love to hear more thoughts on

[Kryx]

if the idea is that there is a very small if any increment between since spell levels and a large noticeable difference between others then adding in the missing spell levels would make it only a small difference between any level and achieve a route if nice scaling uniformity that the system currently lacks and uniformity
The issue I've raised isn't smooth scaling. It's that level 4 spells in particular are empty spells. Most of the damage ones have and could either move up or down in level without much adjustment. 2nd level is similar, but to a lesser extent.

Smooth scaling could be a desire of some, but please take that to another thread.

[Talamare]

Has anyone considered Merging 1stLv spells into Cantrips then making 2nd Lv spells (acquired at Lv3) as the true 1stLv Spells

[Easy_Lee]

Putting the spells into four tiers makes sense to me. However, that approach requires some finessing of individual spells. As an obvious example, Misty Step and Jump are not on the same power level, though if you combine Jump with Longstrider then that's not a problem.

One consequence of doing this: blasters may suffer from the lack of high level spell slots in a given tier. Since blasters are arguably one of the weaker options currently, this may not be desirable. A 9th level blaster who can't cast fireball out of a 5th level slot, for instance, is less powerful than one who can. Meanwhile control casters, arguably the most powerful, benefit from the wider spell selection at any given tier.

On the other hand, if spells are scaled to the middle of a given tier, blasters would be buffed. Fireball is already a good spell when cast at level 5. If it were more powerful?
Imagine a level 5 fiend pact warlock casting two scaled up fireballs per short rest.

One might come up with a way for casters to increase their damage within a tier. For example, a feature that adds to or multiplies damage dice for damaging spells. But that would require even more work. At that point, I think it'd be easier to condense the entire game to four tiers.

[Talamare]

Putting the spells into four tiers makes sense to me. However, that approach requires some finessing of individual spells. As an obvious example, Misty Step and Jump are not on the same power level, though if you combine Jump with Longstrider then that's not a problem.

One consequence of doing this: blasters may suffer from the lack of high level spell slots in a given tier. Since blasters are arguably one of the weaker options currently, this may not be desirable. A 9th level blaster who can't cast fireball out of a 5th level slot, for instance, is less powerful than one who can. Meanwhile control casters, arguably the most powerful, benefit from the wider spell selection at any given tier.

On the other hand, if spells are scaled to the middle of a given tier, blasters would be buffed. Fireball is already a good spell when cast at level 5. If it were more powerful?
Imagine a level 5 fiend pact warlock casting two scaled up fireballs per short rest.

One might come up with a way for casters to increase their damage within a tier. For example, a feature that adds to or multiplies damage dice for damaging spells. But that would require even more work. At that point, I think it'd be easier to condense the entire game to four tiers.

That sounds like you're arguing about spell scaling when upcasting

It would obviously be doubled

[Easy_Lee]

That sounds like you're arguing about spell scaling when upcasting

It would obviously be doubled

That's not what I'm on about. What I'm saying is that a level 5 blaster wouldn't get the next upcast until level 11. He's stuck with the same fireball power for six levels while rogue sneak attack and monk ki, as examples, continue scaling.

[Garfunion]

Has anyone considered Merging 1stLv spells into Cantrips then making 2nd Lv spells (acquired at Lv3) as the true 1stLv Spells
I've been working on a similar idea where a cantrip still progress in damage as normal but you can increase the damage by spending spell slots. Same goes for utility cantrips, Minor illusion cantrip when cast with a spell slot allows you to disguise yourself.

[Kryx]

Has anyone considered Merging 1stLv spells into Cantrips then making 2nd Lv spells (acquired at Lv3) as the true 1stLv Spells
It would be difficult to scale 1st levels down to cantrips. Think of the healing spells for example. Damage you'd have to heavily limit. If you met in the middle of damage then casters would be significantly stronger at early levels. They'd be better than martials at 1st and 2nd level in cantrip > martial DPR. That's not even counting spells.

=============


That's not what I'm on about. What I'm saying is that a level 5 blaster wouldn't get the next upcast until level 11. He's stuck with the same fireball power for six levels while rogue sneak attack and monk ki, as examples, continue scaling.
The character wouldn't get new spells, but it would get more spells to cast.

Any large changes would require a change to the spell progression. So in your example of 4 tiers: 1st/2nd, 3rd/4th/5th, 6th/7th, 8th/9th we'd probably want to have the tiers at 1st, 6th, 11th, and 16th level. That's 5 levels in between tiers. Quite workable.

[Easy_Lee]

Any large changes would require a change to the spell progression. So in your example of 4 tiers: 1st/2nd, 3rd/4th/5th, 6th/7th, 8th/9th we'd probably want to have the tiers at 1st, 6th, 11th, and 16th level. That's 5 levels in between tiers. Quite workable.

What about spells like Invisibility, which can be upcast to target additional creatures? Would you default it to two targets? One? Or allow some sort of scaling within second tier?

[Kryx]

What about spells like Invisibility, which can be upcast to target additional creatures? Would you default it to two targets? One? Or allow some sort of scaling within second tier?
In the 4 tier system we talked about above? Spells like Invisibility that were too strong to combine into the first tier would be harder to handle.

Probably just merge it with greater invisibility. Getting the new invisibility at 5th character level would totally fine. Duration 1 hour:

If you take a hostile action the spell lasts for 1 minute from that point.
You can target up to 3 creatures when you cast this spell, if you do so the spell immediately ends if any creature creature under the effects of this spell takes a hostile action.

[Talamare]

It would be difficult to scale 1st levels down to cantrips. Think of the healing spells for example. Damage you'd have to heavily limit. If you met in the middle of damage then casters would be significantly stronger at early levels. They'd be better than martials at 1st and 2nd level in cantrip > martial DPR. That's not even counting spells.


I don't think you would have to limit very much

Lv1 damage spells are pretty mediocre. It wouldn't make them better than Martial, arguably it would make them significantly worse than Martials at the early levels.

As far as healing is concerned, I would just remove it. Move them to the new T1@Lv3.

[Kryx]

Lv1 damage spells are pretty mediocre. It wouldn't make them better than Martial, arguably it would make them significantly worse than Martials at the early levels.
1st level spells average 11.5 while martials do about 7-9 DPR at level 1 and typically don't go over 11 until 3rd.

Combining 1st and cantrips is a non starter with spells like burning hands available at will. The vast majority of 1st level spells would be too much for at will casting. Beyond that it would likely lead to 2nd and 3rd combined which is a non starter in itself. Then consider the progression..

Combining 1st and cantrips is really not a very good idea imo

[Talamare]

1st level spells average 11.5 while martials do about 7-9 DPR at level 1 and typically don't go over 11 until 3rd.

Combining 1st and cantrips is a non starter with spells like burning hands available at will. The vast majority of 1st level spells would be too much for at will casting. Beyond that it would likely lead to 2nd and 3rd combined which is a non starter in itself. Then consider the progression..

Combining 1st and cantrips is really not a very good idea imo

You are WAY too focused on raw damage

Burning Hands - Cantrip - Blah Blah Failed Save takes 1d6 damage, blah blah. Upcast to deal an additional 2d6 damage.

The vast majority of Lv1 spells are minor or weak effects that most people overlook.
There are a few decent damage spells, but tend to be on par with martial damage.

You need to stop thinking in terms of balance and start thinking in terms of design. Balance can be adjusted after the system is designed.

Moving 1st Lv spells to PC3 helps with progression, and helps with initial character creation.
Instead of having to choose 2 massive book of spells (Cantrips and 1st Level) you only need to worry about Cantrips for now, and you're encouraged to use them. (Since you know, they are cantrips.)

PC3 1st Lv also lines up rather well with the common power spike basically everyone gets at Lv3.

Possible Progression PC
1 - Cantrips
3 - 1st Level
6 - 2nd Level
9 - 3rd Level
12 - 4th Level
17 - 5th Level

[Kryx]

Some people here are discussing revolutionary ideas and how to do it completely differently. Your idea is one of them. No 1st level spells at 1st level? Deal breaker.

I'm interested in ideas that identify the current breaks in power of the current system and reducing the complexity by simplifying the old levels that are similar in power. Sure, I could redo the concept of every spell on the game, but that's not my goal. If I were to implement this idea smaller tweaks to individual spells that put them into appropriate tiers would be the goal.
Completely changing the early level structure to remove spells from casters until 3rd level? Deal breaker. Casters would be horribly underpowered and uninteresting until 3rd level with such an idea.

[Kane0]

Well y'know if you were gonna kill off this sacred cow you may as well go whole hog. About the same amount of people would run with it.

You could tailor damage of all spells to prof bonus or something to make your job easier.

[Kryx]

Well y'know if you were gonna kill off this sacred cow you may as well go whole hog.
The point is that not everyone wants the same thing. Some people want to replace it all, some want less impactful changes. This thread is about maintaining a semblance of the current power level, but removing the dead levels. Not to say that all reworks are out of the discussion topic, but things like altering all spells and creating a whole new system in that regard is not within the thought exercise imo.

[KorvinStarmast]

In another thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?534741-Why-is-misty-step-a-2nd-level-spell&p=22337413#post22337413) I rambled a bit about spell levels in 5e and how they probably could've been reduced from 9 spell levels to less - in my example 5 spell levels.I could easily see merging some levels and ending with the following:

1st: Old 1st and 2nd
2nd: Old 3rd and 4th
3rd: Old 5th
4th: Old 6th and 7th
5th: Old 8th and 9th

I've altered the idea slightly to change the last 3 groups as levels 6 and higher is where the split is in 5e (For Paladin, Ranger, Warlock, etc)

A question was posed and I'd like to start the conversation here:

The change to actual spells wouldn't be that big of a change imo.
For damage spells I already have Spell Balance (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1N4QC6EmXE0avgk8jK1aubJcaFoZDYw8b_DuPHh8aBTc/edit#gid=639488216) which could easily be used to determine the power level of spell. For CC or other spells any adjustments would have to be more subjective, but most of these spells would be fine with no changes I believe.
For determining the power level of spells it's a bit less straight forward:

1st: Old 1st and 2nd. I would aim to have 1st level spells increase in value to their 2nd level counterparts. For damage spells that's about 18 damage.
2nd: Old 3rd and 4th I would aim to have 4th level spells decrease in value to their 3rd level counterparts. For damage spells that's about 38 damage.
3rd: Old 5th we can maintain the current expectation of around 60 damage.
4th: Old 6th and 7th would aim for about 90-100 damage
5th: Old 8th and 9th would aim for around 200 damage

For reference the current balance is 1st = 11, 2nd = 18, 3rd = 38, 4th = 50, 5th = 59, 6th = 85, 7th = 103, 8th = 177, 9th = 255
Changing Classes:

For Class spells for classes like Cleric and Paladin the process can remain almost the exact same. So at 1st level it'll grant 2 1st level spells. At 3rd level it'll grant 2 other 1st level spells. This would make homebrew design a bit easier with larger lists of each level.
For Racial spells they'd probably be slightly stronger due to the combinations, but it should be mostly negligible.
For spellcasting advancement a combination would be mostly ok. A 20th level Wizard would have 7 1st level spells, 6 2nd level spells, 3 3rd level spells, 4 4th level spells, and 2 5th level spells. Swap the 3rd and 4th and you'd get: 7 1st level spells, 6 2nd level spells, 4 3rd level spells, 3 4th level spells, and 2 5th level spells. Should be totally fine.

The original Empire of the Petal Throne game only had three different levels of spells: I, II, and III. It might be worth your while to take a look at that. I think the original rule book is findable in pdf form. (I have an original paper copy but the cover is now removed and it's a bit rat eared. )
Empire of the Petal Throne was released in 1975 by TSR, and was very close to the original D&D in its design basis, even though it was quite different in a number of ways;
secondary skills,
spell levels,
percentile versus 3d6 attributes,
increase attributes on level up, and a few more.