Is spell prep necessary?

[Rekinball]

So I recently started running a 5th ed campaign for the group of players I've been playing with for the last eight years. Now before this we played a heavily modified and house ruled version of adnd that two of my players have been playing since college. so one of the house rules a few of my players have been asking me to adapt from their game is the removal of the spell preparation system as they find it tedious, time consuming, and unnecessary.
Now my main concern is that this will unbalance spellcasters that use this mechanic and completely negate any usefulness the sorcerer has in not having to prepare spells.
So what should I do?
-Scrap the mechanic and deal with any balancing issues that arise by buffing the non-spellcasting classes?
-Scrap the mechanic and deal with any balancing issues that arise by nerfing the classes that used to prepare spells?
-tell my players that they just have to deal with preparing spells?
Also are there any other issues besides game balance that might arise from removing spell prep?

[Slipperychicken]

Have they considered doing what most people do: Pick one list of spells and "auto-prepare" it every day instead of picking new spells each day?

For a houserule, I'd say just making them 'lock in' their spells prepared as spells known. If they really care about buffing prepared casters to compensate, I'd say any class that used to prepare spells could get 2 extra spells known.

[suplee215]

Having to prepare spells never feel like a negative. The sorcerer is jealous as hell at all the spells a wizards get. If i understand right the players are asking to have access to all their wizard spells all the time? No. Just no. Yes, that will unbalance the game comapred to known spell casting, which is actually seen as a negative in 5E

[Rekinball]

I did suggest preparing multiple spell lists ahead of time and picking the one they want to use each day which seems perfectly fine to me, at that point however one of my players remarked "it just doesn't seem logical to me that a spellcaster that knows x spells would be unable to cast any spell he knows on a given day, they already have a limited number of spells per day so why should you limit them further?"
This same player also disagrees heavily with the notion that wizards preparing spells is thematically them casting thier spells almost to completion and then holding the spell, as well as the notion that thematically clerics preparing their spells is them asking their god for the spell. Granted this is the same player who thinks spellcasters SHOULD be broken by nature of them having magic soooo.

[Rekinball]

Having to prepare spells never feel like a negative. The sorcerer is jealous as hell at all the spells a wizards get. If i understand right the players are asking to have access to all their wizard spells all the time? No. Just no. Yes, that will unbalance the game comapred to known spell casting, which is actually seen as a negative in 5E
So just to make sure, what your saying is giving them access to all their known spells in a day without having to prepare them will definitely unbalance the game?

[Slipperychicken]

I did suggest preparing multiple spell lists ahead of time and picking the one they want to use each day which seems perfectly fine to me, at that point however one of my players remarked "it just doesn't seem logical to me that a spellcaster that knows x spells would be unable to cast any spell he knows on a given day, they already have a limited number of spells per day so why should you limit them further?"

So have them pick just one list of the normal length. That's their spells known. They don't get to un-learn spells, or change a spell once they've learned it. They can only learn a new spell when their number of prepared spells would normally increase. If you really feel that bad for the versatility drop in prepared casters, maybe give the prepared casters an extra 2 "spells known".

If he doesn't agree, then he's probably just trying to haggle you for a power-boost. In that case, your best bet is likely to put your foot down and stop encouraging him.

[Rekinball]

So have them pick just one list of the normal length. That's their spells known. They don't get to un-learn spells, or change a spell once they've learned it. They can only learn a new spell when their number of prepared spells would normally increase. If you really feel that bad for the versatility drop in prepared casters, maybe give the prepared casters an extra 2 "spells known".

If he doesn't agree, then he's probably just trying to haggle you for a power-boost. In that case, your best bet is likely to put your foot down and stop encouraging him.

So unless I'm misunderstanding you, effectively the number of spells they can prepare becomes the number of spells known?
And I Don't think he is necessarily haggling for a power boost (though my group IS notorious for doing that) as his current character is a fighter, rather I think he just realy doesn't like the mechanic and either doesn't see the damage to game balance its removal will bring or doesn't care because he thinks spellcasters should be more powerfully than everyone else.
Also thanks for the advice, appreciate it :)

[imanidiot]

I did suggest preparing multiple spell lists ahead of time and picking the one they want to use each day which seems perfectly fine to me, at that point however one of my players remarked "it just doesn't seem logical to me that a spellcaster that knows x spells would be unable to cast any spell he knows on a given day, they already have a limited number of spells per day so why should you limit them further?"
This same player also disagrees heavily with the notion that wizards preparing spells is thematically them casting thier spells almost to completion and then holding the spell, as well as the notion that thematically clerics preparing their spells is them asking their god for the spell. Granted this is the same player who thinks spellcasters SHOULD be broken by nature of them having magic soooo.

The limitation of preparing spells has nothing to do with logic. It's 100% about attempting to balance mid to high level spellcasters with martial characters.

Your player wants his prefered class to be significantly more powerful than the other PCs. He wants to play a broken character. Which is fine, there are lots of builds that would be vastly more powerful than what is typically played in most D&D games. Your player, however, doesn't want to play one of those builds. He wants his preferred character to be the broken one.

He's trying to break your game and make it less fun for you and the other players. Your best bet is to limit this guy to Adventurer's League rules. He'll chafe at the limitations and get mad and quit. And that will be what's best for the rest of you.

[Rekinball]

The limitation of preparing spells has nothing to do with logic. It's 100% about attempting to balance mid to high level spellcasters with martial characters.

Your player wants his prefered class to be significantly more powerful than the other PCs. He wants to play a broken character. Which is fine, there are lots of builds that would be vastly more powerful than what is typically played in most D&D games. Your player, however, doesn't want to play one of those builds. He wants his preferred character to be the broken one.

He's trying to break your game and make it less fun for you and the other players. Your best bet is to limit this guy to Adventurer's League rules. He'll chafe at the limitations and get mad and quit. And that will be what's best for the rest of you.
Okay maybe I painted this player in too harsh a light as he realy isn't a bad guy (bit of a jerk sometimes, but hey who isn't?) he just has a VERY eschewed concept of power balance that stems from the fact that he learned to play dnd in a system that is essentially 30 years worth of houserules with god awfull balancing issues. I'd realy like to avoid making him rage quit as
A: he is a longtime friend of mine
And
B: he's nice enough to let us play at his house
Even if he's not playing.
I think if I can present enough evidence as to why removing spell prep will unbalance the game he will probably come around.
Also FYI he's paying a fighter currently
The only person in the party comp right now that has to prepare spells is a cleric.

[Thrudd]

Okay maybe I painted this player in too harsh a light as he realy isn't a bad guy (bit of a jerk sometimes, but hey who isn't?) he just has a VERY eschewed concept of power balance that stems from the fact that he learned to play dnd in a system that is essentially 30 years worth of houserules with god awfull balancing issues. I'd realy like to avoid making him rage quit as
A: he is a longtime friend of mine
And
B: he's nice enough to let us play at his house
Even if he's not playing.
I think if I can present enough evidence as to why removing spell prep will unbalance the game he will probably come around.
Also FYI he's paying a fighter currently
The only person in the party comp right now that has to prepare spells is a cleric.

Maybe he's not aware that in the current edition, the sorcerer class is a prep-less arcane spell caster? Back in AD&D, there was no sorcerer, so if they didn't like vancian-style prepared spells they would have house ruled it - maybe not balanced or well thought out, but understandable. Now, you don't need house rules, there's a class that does that.

Also, in this edition, even wizards and clerics are much more flexible than they were in the old days - maybe he doesn't know that, either. You can cast any spell from your prepared spell list as many times as you have appropriate spell slots to do so. The only real difference with the sorcerer is that you can change out what spells you know every day if you want to. There's also unlimited cantrips that are actually useful, which is another thing that didn't exist.

It sounds like his preferences are already accounted for in the rules as written in this edition, he probably just doesn't know that. Make sure he's aware of how the new edition works.

If he thinks that the number of spells known/spells prepared is too low, well he's wrong. If he wants all his spells accessible every day, he should play a sorcerer. Or, if he really must play a wizard and you want to be super nice, let him play a wizard that can prepare all his spells every day but just don't let him have more spells in his book than a sorcerer would know.

A part of this also sounds like a failure to understand how this type of magic works, in the D&D setting. Spells take time and energy to prepare - you only have the mental capacity to keep so many of them primed and ready to trigger at one time. That is also why there are rituals - those are the sort of spell that you can cast any time, any day, without preparation - you just need to open the book and follow the instructions - it is just slow.

There are several ways vancian casting (this isn't even vancian casting anymore, but a much more lenient and powerful version) can be described or explained - you just need to pick one and make your players understand that this is how magic works. If they think it doesn't make sense it is because they haven't had it explained sufficiently. You need to think of an explanation that makes sense of how the rules work (if what it says in the book isn't good enough).

You're the DM. You decide how magic works in your game, and you tell them. If you say clerics get their spells by asking their gods for specific spells, and wizards prepare spells by casting them almost to completion, then that is what it is. It isn't a debate. If they want a world where magic works differently, they can run their own game.

[SharkForce]

well, it made more sense in earlier editions when you had to prepare slots, because then you were basically locking in most of the spell and just leaving a bit left to finish off. but, since that doesn't work in 5e now that everyone does spontaneous casting, steal an idea from earthdawn:

in earthdawn, you have what are called spell matrices (singular: a spell matrix). essentially, as you gain levels, you have more of them. you prepare a matrix for a spell, and now you basically just need to push enough magical energy through that matrix (this is where somatic, verbal, and material components come in, they're to help you channel the energy) and out pops the spell you wanted. more complex spells require more complex matrices, and part of your training is learning how to store all of those matrices in your mind.

to fit it for 5e, you should simply have those more complex spells be spells with longer casting times (it takes longer to pass the energy through the more complex matrix) and add that you can shove extra energy through some spell matrices to get more impressive effects.

there you go.

and, as noted, if the player doesn't want to prepare spells, tell him to pick a class that doesn't prepare spells. nobody is forcing him to be a prepared caster but himself.

[Rekinball]

Thanks for the advice thrudd!
Being the only one at the table who has actually fully read the phb and most of the dmg there are quite a few rules that my players are not familiar with yet, and we are all trying to get used to the new system.
i'll definititley make an effort to talk to the players more on the subject of spellcasting in this edition and make sure they understand the r.a.w and what the diffences between 5th and their houseruled version of AD&D are. Also thank you for the advice on putting my foot down about my decisions on the matter, as I've been a bit meek in this regard due to a fear of them abandoning the game in favor of just playing our old system.

[Kane0]

One possible solution:

Number of spells prepared becomes number of spells known, changable when levelling up. Rituals don't count against this limit.

There are three classes that prep spells: Clerics, Druids and Wizards. The rest have set lists. The former two do a little prayer or ritual and ask for certain spells for the day by the powers that be wheras the latter flicks through his spellbook and mentally takes note of the ones he wants to have on hand in his head for the day. If he doesn't have his spellbook on hand he can just keep remembering his last set. (Edit: If you want you can allow wizards to swap out spells known of only their specialty school each day, since they don't have to have rituals prepped by default).

The part where prepped casters fill their slots with spells that are 90% complete isn't really the case anymore, they are just picking out what gadgets they want to carry around for the day to feed their limited batteries into. Wizards and Land druids also get an emergency stockpile of rechargable batteries.

[Strill]

I did suggest preparing multiple spell lists ahead of time and picking the one they want to use each day which seems perfectly fine to me, at that point however one of my players remarked "it just doesn't seem logical to me that a spellcaster that knows x spells would be unable to cast any spell he knows on a given day, they already have a limited number of spells per day so why should you limit them further?"

Because even in spite of those restrictions, spellcasters are still extremely powerful, wizards especially. The chief reason for that is their versatility. If you have the right spell for a situation, you can single-handedly trivialize it. Allowing Wizards to have every spell they know prepared means that they can trivialize any situation.

[Kane0]

You could also finangle some stuff with writing spells.

Say instead of getting 2 automatically each level you have to find or research them yourself. Once you have them in your spellbook they are available at all times to cast (as long as you have your spellbook) but the limited progression of gaining the spells is the balance point rather than the number of spells you could otherwise prep.

[Rekinball]

The part where prepped casters fill their slots with spells that are 90% complete isn't really the case anymore, they are just picking out what gadgets they want to carry around for the day to feed their limited batteries into. Wizards and Land druids also get an emergency stockpile of rechargable batteries.


I was unaware that this was no longer the case, thank you kindly for correcting me.

[Rekinball]

Because even in spite of those restrictions, spellcasters are still extremely powerful, wizards especially. The chief reason for that is their versatility. If you have the right spell for a situation, you can single-handedly trivialize it. Allowing Wizards to have every spell they know prepared means that they can trivialize any situation.

This is how I tried to explain it (granted less eloquently) to the player in question and I don't think he quite understood how this would make the wizard a one man party and remove the challenge of the game.

[Solunaris]

I think your problem could be easily solved by having the player read the rules for preparing spells. Unlike previous editions, you don't need to prepare every morning (unless you are changing out prepared spells) and you no longer need to choose which spells will be cast in which slots.

[Strill]

This is how I tried to explain it (granted less eloquently) to the player in question and I don't think he quite understood how this would make the wizard a one man party and remove the challenge of the game.


Cast a Wall spell to split non-flying enemies into two groups, and you turn what would've been a deadly encounter into two easy ones.
Cast Hypnotic Pattern on a group of non-fairies, and you've traded your action for an action from each enemy and possibly more, giving your party a whole turn or more to pick them off with impunity.
In a room with hazards, such as ledges, traps, lava, or pools of acid, Thunderwave can knock enemies into the hazards, sometimes instantly defeating them.
Cast Fireball on a group of Goblins and you've instantly won the fight.
Against primarily melee enemies, a Druid's Plant Growth can slow their movement to a crawl, while your party leisurely picks them off with ranged attacks.
Against dumb beasts, cast Phantasmal Force to make it think it's at the bottom of a well, and you are almost guaranteed to instantly defeat it, because Phantasmal Force requires an Intelligence save, which animals have very little of. In other words, a single 2nd level spell can defeat a T-Rex.
Against extraplanar enemies, Banishment is effectively a save-or-die spell.
In confined quarters, placing the team's fighter in a chokepoint and Polymorphing them into a Giant Ape can nullify most, if not all the damage the enemies can do to the party.
Feather Fall can instantly save you from an otherwise lethal fall.
Cast Sleep at low levels and you've instantly defeated 3 to 5 enemies at best, or forced them to lose their turns at worst.
Cast Fly and you instantly overcome any obstacle short of completely sealed room.
Cast Counterspell and you've prevented any of the above from an enemy spellcaster.


There are all sorts of spells that are extremely effective in the right niche.

[Unoriginal]

I did suggest preparing multiple spell lists ahead of time and picking the one they want to use each day which seems perfectly fine to me, at that point however one of my players remarked "it just doesn't seem logical to me that a spellcaster that knows x spells would be unable to cast any spell he knows on a given day, they already have a limited number of spells per day so why should you limit them further?"
This same player also disagrees heavily with the notion that wizards preparing spells is thematically them casting thier spells almost to completion and then holding the spell, as well as the notion that thematically clerics preparing their spells is them asking their god for the spell. Granted this is the same player who thinks spellcasters SHOULD be broken by nature of them having magic soooo.

It seems to me that this player will not be happy unless the spellcasters are broken by nature of having magic, and so trying to please them won't work unless you give them that.

I'd advise against giving them that, for obvious reasons.

Did this person actually try to play a Wizard or any spellcaster in 5e yet?

[Millstone85]

I was unaware that this was no longer the case, thank you kindly for correcting me.That's pretty pivotal to the whole discussion. Like how you think "not having to prepare spells" is a strength of the sorcerer when, in fact, being able to prepare spells is a strength of the wizard. Your player might be more amenable to how spellcasting actually works in 5e.

[ZorroGames]

I do think players reading the appropriate sections of the PHB makes discussions like these much easier.

After coming from OD&D and AD&D/1st I still have "Ah Ha!" Moments.

[Slipperychicken]

So unless I'm misunderstanding you, effectively the number of spells they can prepare becomes the number of spells known?

That's more or less what I'm getting at. It removes the hassle of spell preparation while minimizing the game-mechanical impact.

And if after that change you still feel like prepared casters need to be thrown a bone, then you could give them something. Say, rituals not counting toward their spells-known cap, or just giving them two extra spells known atop the normal allotment.

[KorvinStarmast]

I do think players reading the appropriate sections of the PHB makes discussions like these much easier.

After coming from OD&D and AD&D/1st I still have "Ah Ha!" Moments. This.

Tell your players its how the game works. Have a default list, and then modify on a given day if they want to change. Spell preparation is a way to limit the power (via limited flexibility) of some spell casters.

By the way, as a long time veteran of AD&D, we had to prepare spells then as well.

they find it tedious, time consuming, and unnecessary.
So tempting to comment, but will refrain in this case.

[Rekinball]

Thank you everyone for your patience regarding a question that I'm starting to realise was quite silly. your input has been super helpfull in informing my descision on the matter and for right now I'm likely going to stick with the rules as written on prepared spellcasting. I will definitely go over the rules for spellcasting in this edition with my players and make sure they understand why spell prep is neccasary
And that if they realy Don't care for it, that there are classes that Don't need to prep spells. Hopefully getting a second phb for my group soon which will promptly be rotated through the group so everyone can familiarize themselves
With the rules.
Again much obliged for the advice everyone.