Realism and Finding Spells

[sayaijin]

One potential balance I'm considering using in the next campaign is requiring all spells to be found in-world.

For instance, instead of giving the one spell known when leveling up, wizards would have to find all spells. I was thinking about this because I don't like the idea of a wizard just randomly learning a new spell. "I've never seen it happen before, but I hit level 3, and I just learned how to go invisible!"

Obviously if the player wants to learn a spell I'll have it in-world as a scroll or something a local mage can teach them. Maybe the more impactful the spell the harder it is to find?

Has anyone ever tried this? Does it limit spell casters too much?

[Man_Over_Game]

One potential balance I'm considering using in the next campaign is requiring all spells to be found in-world.

For instance, instead of giving the one spell known when leveling up, wizards would have to find all spells. I was thinking about this because I don't like the idea of a wizard just randomly learning a new spell. "I've never seen it happen before, but I hit level 3, and I just learned how to go invisible!"

Obviously if the player wants to learn a spell I'll have it in-world as a scroll or something a local mage can teach them. Maybe the more impactful the spell the harder it is to find?

Has anyone ever tried this? Does it limit spell casters too much?

I think the issue is that the proposed solution doesn't take into account that possibly the characters could have already found that particular spell. Wizards learn things all the time, Sorcerers practice manipulating magic until they find something that doesn't explode, Clerics receiving a blessing from their God about what tools can benefit them, etc. There's no limit.

The other issue is that it causes the rest of the party to be forced upon their problem. Taking account of a wizard nerd like Liam/Caleb from Critical Role, the kind of wizard that goes out of their way to find more and more magic, that is time, money and resources from that player that could be used for helping the Rogue scout out a threat, helping the Bard get some coin, or other things.

It's kinda going the ADND route, where your powers and your roleplaying are intertwined, and that assumes that's how the game should be played. Sometimes, I just want to have a powerful wizard's stats and play as a psionic telepath that manipulates the minds and physics around me.

Yes, it works. Does it work for the player, though?


Personally, I like it, it just gives more cost without any mentioned gain.

[Mobius Twist]

Wizards come from an academic tradition and should be well-versed (read: familiar with existence and effect of) with common/popular spells. The process of discovering a brand new spell that doesn't exist in those traditions is akin to research and experimentation and DMs should be free to limit or assign costs to that process.

The question is, are you willing to do the extra work to a) place more spells into the world and b) work out the scholarly traditions that your wizards come from?

If anything, this feels like you'd be expected to make a big chunk of the spell lists available for wizards right off the bat.

[Mellack]

I believe the common background is that wizards have had some sort of training. (Of course individual game worlds may vary) That would have given them an opportunity to see or at least read about most spells. In the same way a blacksmith apprentice might know about the concept of folding iron to make it stronger, but not have the skill/practice to make a quality sword, a wizard probably knows about spells like invisibility, but it takes them practice (leveling) before they can get it to work.

Short answer, I don't see how this adds much. It seems a nerf without a gain.

[MaxWilson]

One potential balance I'm considering using in the next campaign is requiring all spells to be found in-world.

For instance, instead of giving the one spell known when leveling up, wizards would have to find all spells. I was thinking about this because I don't like the idea of a wizard just randomly learning a new spell. "I've never seen it happen before, but I hit level 3, and I just learned how to go invisible!"

Obviously if the player wants to learn a spell I'll have it in-world as a scroll or something a local mage can teach them. Maybe the more impactful the spell the harder it is to find?

Has anyone ever tried this? Does it limit spell casters too much?

I've always wanted to do this, and I do do this implicitly to NPC wizards, but I've never made it an official house rule that affects PC wizards because it feels just a bit too non-idiomatic for 5E. For one thing, it leaves Sorcerers and Bards in a confusing place. I think if Sorcerers and Bards didn't exist I would bite the bullet and do this to wizards including PCs, but for now I continue to handwave PC spell acquisition in the interest of keeping things PHBish for the players.

But NPC wizards and bards get their spells through spell research, cryptic diagrams in ancient ruins, and blackmailing other wizards like Jack Vance intended, whereas NPC sorcerers get the spells the DM individually picks for them based on their aptitudes and traits. It's not a conscious decision on the sorcerer's part.

And in practice the only NPC sorcerers are dragons anyway, so they wind up with dragon-ish spells like Fear, Darkness, Sending, Dimension Door, Suggestion, and Teleport, and not spells like Eyebite, Levitate, and Fly.

[Unoriginal]

One potential balance I'm considering using in the next campaign is requiring all spells to be found in-world.

For instance, instead of giving the one spell known when leveling up, wizards would have to find all spells. I was thinking about this because I don't like the idea of a wizard just randomly learning a new spell. "I've never seen it happen before, but I hit level 3, and I just learned how to go invisible!"

Obviously if the player wants to learn a spell I'll have it in-world as a scroll or something a local mage can teach them. Maybe the more impactful the spell the harder it is to find?

Has anyone ever tried this? Does it limit spell casters too much?

It won't solve anything balance-wise.

Lore-wise, it's not "the wizard just randomly learn new spells", it's "the wizard is crafting spells while adventuring".

Also, what about non-wizard characters?

[MoiMagnus]

For instance, instead of giving the one spell known when leveling up, wizards would have to find all spells.

That's TWO spells they get when leveling up


I was thinking about this because I don't like the idea of a wizard just randomly learning a new spell. "I've never seen it happen before, but I hit level 3, and I just learned how to go invisible!"

Is it just against wizard? Because I don't see how this is more relevant for wizard than Sorcerer / Eldritch Knight / Bards / etc.

All of those classes suddenly get some knowledge out of nowhere, which you can retroactively consider that "they were training and trying to master for a while, and now is the first time where they reliably succeeded at it", but same could be said with wizard, they had a lot of failed attempt at recreating this "fireball" spell everyone is talking about, and just found a way to do it when levelling up to level 3.

About that, how do you handle level up? If peoples level up at the middle of the dungeon, it would be pretty unfair to delay the moment where the wizard can cast his shiny new spells while everyone else immediately unlocks them. [Though I might be biased by the fact that at my table, I've yet to see a PC team that doesn't have 50% of full-spellcaster and few half-casters and third-casters to complete, and at most one non-caster. So "the other getting new spells immediately" would be quite visible]

If everybody level up during downtime in town, then it's already much fairer. The wizard might need to RP few interaction with some wizard guild or NPCs of some sort if they want some specific spells they didn't loot, but mostly ok EXCEPT that they now have a tax to pay to be able to play their class as intended. Because copying spells cost money, and that can be quite annoying if you're not showering your PCs with money and magic items.

It might also be mildly frustrating for the player if they take an arcane tradition, but don't loot the good spells of this arcane tradition just because the NPC they meet/fight are from other arcane traditions. Thinking about that, you could restrict the "free spells" to come from their arcane tradition as an alternate nerf. (though you would need to assign a magic school for non-PHB traditions).

[It might also get annoying to the remaining of the table if the wizard player start taking too much table time to try to get new spells, or can cause inter-party conflict if the wizard try to argue that all the players should contribute to paying the ink for the new spells.]

IME, if you want to nerf the wizard, it's much easier to remove their ability to copy spells than to remove the free spells. The two spells they get per level "for free" are enough in my experience.
As such, I'd suggest talking to your players on whether they care about this feature of the wizard. You would likely get one of the following answer:
(1) Obviously, that's the reason why I would want to play a wizard.
=> In which case, your nerf is probably gonna work reasonably well, up to the points previously mentioned.
(2) Meh, I only care about the wizard being an Int-spellcaster.
=> In which case your nerf is probably gonna be frustrating to your players.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I think you're mistakenly connecting two elements-- "realism" and "balance"-- that are actually separate concepts.

It would be "realistic" for any character to instantly die after getting hit by a greataxe, regardless of skill and experience, but that would hardly be balanced. It would be "balanced" if every character was a human fighter and the only difference between a barbarian and a wizard was how they described their attacks, but that wouldn't be realistic.* It's fine to create houserules in the name of balance, and it's fine to create houserules in the name of realism, but it's important to be clear which one you're going for.

In this case, are you trying to weaken the mechanical power of the wizard, because they are stronger than other spellcasters, or are you trying to increase the realism, because "how can they just learn spells instantly on leveling up?"




*Or at least it would lack verisimilitude and narrative consistency, which is a much better guideline for a fantasy setting.

[Snail_On_Speed]

Is this a change for balance? You say it is, but the only justification you give for this change is for the sake of realism.

I don't think that this change makes sense. No caster other than the wizard has the ability to acquire new spells by finding them. Will you give this ability to every caster, or will this only affect the wizard?

How will this effect casters who already know their whole spell list and just prepare spells, like clerics and druids?

If you do implement this, you need need need to lower the cost of copying spells. In one of my current campaigns I'm playing a wizard, and even with the normal rules all of my money goes towards new spells.

Ultimately, I think this is just a solution looking for a problem. 5e is (generally) a finely tuned machine for all of the moving parts it has, and this has the potential to throw the whole system out of whack.

[sayaijin]

It's kinda going the ADND route, where your powers and your roleplaying are intertwined, and that assumes that's how the game should be played. Sometimes, I just want to have a powerful wizard's stats and play as a psionic telepath that manipulates the minds and physics around me.

Yes, it works. Does it work for the player, though?


Personally, I like it, it just gives more cost without any mentioned gain.

This is pretty much the idea for me. Trying to intertwine RP and powers. I would be willing to go as far as requiring all magical abilities have some in-game logic for how they were acquired.

This way, an arcane trickster/Eldritch knight would need to spend some time learning from a mage. I don't have the idea fully fleshed out, so I was just asking if anyone else had done something similar.

[MaxWilson]

In this case, are you trying to weaken the mechanical power of the wizard, because they are stronger than other spellcasters, or are you trying to increase the realism, because "how can they just learn spells instantly on leveling up?"

Speaking for myself, it's about realism and a stronger connection to the Vancian themes of "desperate seeking" and "lost knowledge."

There's also some measure of trying to give more narrative heft to the discovery of certain powerful spells, like Wish, so that finding a lead on an ancient magician who seems to have known the Clone spell is a big deal (because finding the secret of Clone could let a wizard reverse death, in a creepy way, and even aging!), instead of Clone just being something that all wizards can do as soon as they learn Wish, meh, whatever.

Per above, if you do this to PCs you obviously have to get rid of auto-spell-acquisition for bards and sorcerers as well, or at least make it clear that which spells bards and sorcerers acquire is not an in-character decision and that a sorcerer whose player chooses for him to learn the Wish spell is a big deal (a la Terry Pratchett's Sourcerer). But I'd rather just get rid of the sorcerer as redundant.

[sayaijin]

Speaking for myself, it's about realism and a stronger connection to the Vancian themes of "desperate seeking" and "lost knowledge."

There's also some measure of trying to give more narrative heft to the discovery of certain powerful spells, like Wish, so that finding a lead on an ancient magician who seems to have known the Clone spell is a big deal (because finding the secret of Clone could let a wizard reverse death, in a creepy way, and even aging!), instead of Clone just being something that all wizards can do as soon as they learn Wish, meh, whatever.

Per above, if you do this to PCs you obviously have to get rid of auto-spell-acquisition for bards and sorcerers as well, or at least make it clear that which spells bards and sorcerers acquire is not an in-character decision and that a sorcerer whose player chooses for him to learn the Wish spell is a big deal (a la Terry Pratchett's Sourcerer). But I'd rather just get rid of the sorcerer as redundant.

One thing I'm curious about. Where do I draw the line? Do I have martial characters discover more combat prowess through instruction or just through trial and error? Take the battle master or thief rogue. Should I require them to find someone to teach them new skills, or do they just get them when they level up?

I don't want to nerf magical classes and subclasses so much that they are worthless.

[MaxWilson]

One thing I'm curious about. Where do I draw the line? Do I have martial characters discover more combat prowess through instruction or just through trial and error? Take the battle master or thief rogue. Should I require them to find someone to teach them new skills, or do they just get them when they level up?

I don't want to nerf magical classes and subclasses so much that they are worthless.

Personally, for martial prowess I'd draw the line at: whatever's in the PHB you get automatically. Special rewards such as new skill proficiencies and extra feats from special training is, per DMG guidelines, given out by the DM during play just like spells and magic items are.

I wouldn't worry about nerfing magical classes into uselessness. The game has a way of finding its own balance. Even if 90% of your players wind up playing fighters, rogues, clerics, warlocks, and druids because they don't want to rely on spell research and finding spells, the game will still be fun, and the players who play wizards will do so because they want to. Even a lone Necromancer who knows only four spells (e.g. Unseen Servant, Invisibility, Levitate, and Animate Dead) would still be fun IMO, not to mention formidable in a fight!

But still, there's a reason I haven't altered the wizard rules in my own games even though I want to--I can get 80% of what I want just by altering the rules for NPCs and trying not to worry too much about PCs. If you do go ahead and bite this bullet let us know how it goes and who besides yourself winds up happy with the change.

[Jerrykhor]

Personally, i think realism is a poor argument for game mechanics, at least most of the time anyway. Everything can be argued to be unrealistic, from HP to fall damage. Everything gained on level up is 'suddenly' gained, not just spells. You can fluff it any way you want to make it realistic, experience points represents your training and practice of the ability before you add it to your character sheet, so its not quite 'suddenly'. Just because wizards can learn spells through scrolls/books doesn't mean its the only way to learn spells. There are always multiple ways to learn things.

I'll say that its a poor idea to force this rule on wizards. As a DM, i want my players to focus on adventuring, interaction with party members and NPCs, among other important things, and not be distracted by constantly trying to find more spells. Also, there will be a gap from when they gained the new highest spell slot level and before they find the new highest level spell. Its just not fun or fair. Their ability to learn new spells is a side feature, not a compulsory gold sink AND time sink to make them feel like they are lagging behind if their sacks of XP (monsters) dont also drop spell scrolls.

[Grod_The_Giant]

One thing I'm curious about. Where do I draw the line? Do I have martial characters discover more combat prowess through instruction or just through trial and error? Take the battle master or thief rogue. Should I require them to find someone to teach them new skills, or do they just get them when they level up?

I don't want to nerf magical classes and subclasses so much that they are worthless.
If that's the source of your discontent, let's start from there, rather than at the individual class level.

You don't like d&d's quantized progression, where the fiction is that you're continually gaining experience and refining your skills but the mechanics deliver that improvement in sudden bursts. Fair enough! It's a weird abstraction, and there are good reasons a lot of systems use more gradual point-buy type methods.

You're never going to fit that neatly into D&D, though--levels are far too baked in. But maybe we can draw inspiration from the game's past. Old editions linked experience and loot, so that the only way characters advance was through recovering treasure. Perhaps we could use a similar mechanic.

Say, for instance, that there's no experience points, no checkpoint leveling. Instead, gaining a level requires training for such and such a time, during which you must expend so much gold--hiring trainers, acquiring practice materials, stuff like that.

The GM still has control over how much money the party can acquire, and plenty of influence (if not actual control) over how much downtime they get. They still control the progression... but now it's based on discrete in-game elements (time and money) rather than something abstract (experience). Learning to cast Invisibility doesn't just happen one day after killing your tenth ogre; it's the result of spending [days/weeks/months/whatever] practicing.

(Do note that magic items interact oddly with a system like this-- they're a different way of turning wealth into power. If you use time-and-money based leveling, it's probably best to avoid a normal magic item market)

[MaxWilson]

You don't like d&d's quantized progression, where the fiction is that you're continually gaining experience and refining your skills but the mechanics deliver that improvement in sudden bursts.

Those "sudden bursts" are a 5e thing though, not a D&D thing. You acknowledge yourself the older traditions including stuff like training time to go up a level. It's still a quantized level instead of freeform point buy like GURPS, but it's anything but sudden.

I feel you're offering a solution in search of a problem.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Those "sudden bursts" are a 5e thing though, not a D&D thing

I mean, it's also a 3.5e thing, and as far as I remember a 4e and 3e thing. I dunno about the older editions, but explicit "you must spend this much time in-game first" training times haven't been a thing in D&D for decades.

Also, it's not a problem I have, but the OP was troubled and this seemed like a solution to their concern.

[Lord Vukodlak]

This seems to take away the wizards agency. When they level up their guaranteed to get two spells they want. If the party tends to fight large groups of weak foes then fireball is very handy. But if you have total control over what spells they find and they don’t find the spell that would be handy for the current arc of the campaign they might be a bit irked.

Now if you want to restrict certain high level spells to that they need more justification then simply leveling up. That could be fine but you need to put forward the avenue if asked.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Those "sudden bursts" are a 5e thing though, not a D&D thing. You acknowledge yourself the older traditions including stuff like training time to go up a level. It's still a quantized level instead of freeform point buy like GURPS, but it's anything but sudden.

According to Rob Kuntz, whom Co-DM'd with Gary Gygax, (and is one of the original Dungeon Masters of our hobby), neither Gary nor Rob used the Training Cost rules themselves, you leveled once you got the required XP.

Garry apparently was afraid that some people might find sudden increases in power to be jarring, and thus added the Training Rules.

My experience is that most groups didn't use the Training Rules.

Now my experience with 5e, is that some DMs don't provide the opportunity to learn Wizard spells outside of level up. The ubiquitous caches of Magic Scrolls and +1 weapons that were found in AD&D, aren't modeled by 5e DMs.

I would strongly recommend that any DM that eliminates the two 'free' spells on level up for the Wizard class, will need to ensure that spells are routinely provided for the Wizard to learn.

It doesn't even need to be in the form of scrolls, perhaps, a fight with a dragon provides enough data for a Wizard to puzzle out the Dragon's Breath spell, for example.

[sayaijin]

You're never going to fit that neatly into D&D, though--levels are far too baked in.


You had a lot of excellent insight and suggestions, but I think this is the biggest one. What I want is probably not possible with 5e, so is there another TTRPG I that would give me logical in-game progression of character abilities?

I have no issue with god-tier characters having tons of game breaking spells and abilities, I just want there too be in-game logic for how characters gained them.

I often start single-classes characters at level 3, and then how they got their subclass abilities is part of their backstory. That way I don't have a completely normal rogue waking up one day with magic or psychic blades or ghost powers.

Then if it's feats at level 4 that give new powers or subclass abilities at 6 or level 3 spells at level 5, invariably players always suddenly have some ability their character just stumbled upon.

My goal was to work with my players to see if they can give me a heads up what spells they want and what feats they want and if they plan to multiclass so I can set that up in the story.

I was just wondering if anyone else had tried this and if it went well. So far it seems like the answer is no.

[MaxWilson]

According to Rob Kuntz, whom Co-DM'd with Gary Gygax, (and is one of the original Dungeon Masters of our hobby), neither Gary nor Rob used the Training Cost rules themselves, you leveled once you got the required XP.

Garry apparently was afraid that some people might find sudden increases in power to be jarring, and thus added the Training Rules.

But didn't Gary also hand out XP only at the end of an adventure? Leveling up mid-adventure, right after an encounter, is something I never even heard of until I read a 3E parody (Harry Potter and the Natural Twenty).

[Mellack]

You had a lot of excellent insight and suggestions, but I think this is the biggest one. What I want is probably not possible with 5e, so is there another TTRPG I that would give me logical in-game progression of character abilities?

I have no issue with god-tier characters having tons of game breaking spells and abilities, I just want there too be in-game logic for how characters gained them.

I often start single-classes characters at level 3, and then how they got their subclass abilities is part of their backstory. That way I don't have a completely normal rogue waking up one day with magic or psychic blades or ghost powers.

Then if it's feats at level 4 that give new powers or subclass abilities at 6 or level 3 spells at level 5, invariably players always suddenly have some ability their character just stumbled upon.

My goal was to work with my players to see if they can give me a heads up what spells they want and what feats they want and if they plan to multiclass so I can set that up in the story.

I was just wondering if anyone else had tried this and if it went well. So far it seems like the answer is no.

It is a trade off. You can have characters "suddenly" get new powers and just retcon that they have been working on them during down moments of adventuring, or you can demand that the players map out their character progression for the next several levels. That would allow them to drop little bits into the playtime about how they are practicing running up walls or focusing their psychic energy into a point. That does mean that characters would be less responsive to the game world and events. They can't decide to pick up a level of cleric after a near-death experience or a new fighting style because they found a magic shield.

[Sigreid]

It shouldn't be a problem if you're not too stingy with spells becoming available. It could come across as punishing/controlling.

As an alternative to the particular complaint of "poof I got spells!" you could consider having them when they level up identify the spells that they are working on puzzling out. Possibly for the next couple of levels. Kind of a "You're first level, I want you to note and share with me which six spells you are researching/have starts for that will be your picks you're figuring out through level 4. When you get to level 2 I'll ask you to add your level 5 picks. That's character level, not spell level."

[Mercurias]

One potential balance I'm considering using in the next campaign is requiring all spells to be found in-world.

For instance, instead of giving the one spell known when leveling up, wizards would have to find all spells. I was thinking about this because I don't like the idea of a wizard just randomly learning a new spell. "I've never seen it happen before, but I hit level 3, and I just learned how to go invisible!"

Obviously if the player wants to learn a spell I'll have it in-world as a scroll or something a local mage can teach them. Maybe the more impactful the spell the harder it is to find?

Has anyone ever tried this? Does it limit spell casters too much?

Why not give martial characters proficiency in only 1-2 weapons for every decade they've spent training in martial combat? Having a fighter that knows how to use a longbow, a crossbow, a longsword, a glaive, and a battleaxe equally well seems a little unrealistic. Likewise, wouldn't a fighter or barbarian need to spend 2-3 months of in-game time until they've properly gotten used to a new weapon?

[rel]

One potential balance I'm considering using in the next campaign is requiring all spells to be found in-world.

For instance, instead of giving the one spell known when leveling up, wizards would have to find all spells. I was thinking about this because I don't like the idea of a wizard just randomly learning a new spell. "I've never seen it happen before, but I hit level 3, and I just learned how to go invisible!"

Obviously if the player wants to learn a spell I'll have it in-world as a scroll or something a local mage can teach them. Maybe the more impactful the spell the harder it is to find?

Has anyone ever tried this? Does it limit spell casters too much?

If the cleric and druid still get access to their entire spell list just for showing up, it feels more like a nerf to wizards specifically rather than some attempt to rebalance spellcasting

[JellyPooga]

For me, this whole issue is neatly solved by not doing mid-dungeon level-ups. Only hand out the XP at the end of the adventure, or when the PC's have access to training. To make it work at all, you have to apply the same logic to all characters, whether they're learning new spells, new fighting tricks or simply smashing their head on walls until they learn to be tougher. As a wise songsmith once sang..."In anything if you want to go from just a beginner to a pro, you need a montage".

You can implement training costs and seeking teachers and so forth if you want (including sourcing spells), but simply delaying level-ups to a point outside of the dungeon, even if the PCs are simply indulging in self-training, adds a degree of verisimilitude to the whole process and prevents that mental crowbar moment of "Five minutes ago you couldn't even create a candle flame and now you can engulf an entire room in infernal hellfire".

In a PbP campaign I'm in right now, the GM has a houserule where "passive" abilities (HP, Proficiency bonus, etc.) are "ping" leveled, but "active" ones (spells, long or short rest features) require a Long Rest before they can be used (and we're using a longer-Long Rest house rule too, so that's not just an over-night sleep). Sort of a middle ground for your consideration.

[Glorthindel]

I am fine with this.

The only requirement for this is to make sure that all Wizards (villains and NPC's) that appear in the game also have their spellbook somewhere in the game world too. If one of your villains throws a Fireball, then he must have a spellbook with that spell written in, and somewhere he can have easily accessed it that morning to memorise it.

Sure, some of these will be in secret compartments, sometimes trapped, but oft-times it wont be. Bear in mind, if these villains need to access their spellbooks every morning, with the best will in the world, they are going to get lax on security; no-one wants to be buggering about with four-part puzzle locks and intricate traps and magical wardings first thing every morning (especially, bear in mind that if a magical trap has to be dispelled before the Wizard can access his book, what does he do if he has used his memorised Dispel Magic that day? He needs a contingency plan to recover his book without having to eat his own Glyph of Warding in the morning). And on that point, if its guarded with a Glyph of Warding, that spell had better be in the book too, otherwise how did the Wizard ward the book with it in the first place.

If you do this second part right, the Wizard characters should never really have reason to complain about your rule, since after an adventure of two, they should have a pile of looted scrolls and spellbooks to dig through. Sure, it means they cant have a spell if you don't ever put it in the game, but thats no different than you banning the spell (which you are quite within your rights to do anyway).

It will be important to get player buy-in. The thing is, ideas like this often get dismissed out of hand for being a "nerf", but actually there is a lot to love about a system like this, as long as the player is willing to embrace it. It might not be the identical scenario, but I always bring this story up when people mention spell ingredients being "boring" and "a distraction from the fun". The most fun I ever had with a Wizard was because of spell components, not despite it; I made searching for rare and elaborate spell components one of my Wizards reasons for adventuring. He didn't want to save the world, he wanted to make big things go boom, and to do that, he needed those rare and difficult to find spell components. Whenever a newly encountered monster was carved up by the fighter, out would come his little pouch of knives and vials, and he would be cutting out spleens, extracting teeth, decanting blood (and other fluids), and stuffing his pack full of eyeballs, ears, and tufts of fur. His inventory list was a disaster, but it became the characters defining trait. Likewise, he descended on abandoned libraries and laboratories with a fervour, grabbing up anything that might make for a spell component. In return for my eagerness to play into the rules, the DM rewarded me by implementing a system for using variant or experimental spell components (granted, the spell mishap chance for the time i tried to use Rat... err, Guano, to power a Fireball, was a little on the high side). Get the players buy in, with the caveat that if they lean into it, you'll be sure to reward them for doing so, and this could be a very fun house ruling.

[Unoriginal]

You had a lot of excellent insight and suggestions, but I think this is the biggest one. What I want is probably not possible with 5e, so is there another TTRPG I that would give me logical in-game progression of character abilities?

GURPS, maybe?

[sayaijin]

I feel like I should take a moment and point out that for verisimilitude I am not limiting this idea to just Wizards or even just casters.

I think it would be fun to require all my characters to find or discover their abilities. Like people have said, I will need buy in, so I just wanted to get some ideas of how it would work or how others have done it before I present it to my play group.

[Stabbey]

You had a lot of excellent insight and suggestions, but I think this is the biggest one. What I want is probably not possible with 5e, so is there another TTRPG I that would give me logical in-game progression of character abilities?

I have no issue with god-tier characters having tons of game breaking spells and abilities, I just want there too be in-game logic for how characters gained them.

That sounds like a nitpick, really. It seems like you just want the players to participate and add in some flavor.
Wouldn't that issue be solved by asking your wizard players what spell effects they're researching and studying or thinking about during travel and downtime (such as before or during a rest). It doesn't seem like you need to ban them from picking two whole spells at a level-up.

It's a totally doable thing most of the time, and many player would probably not have a problem participating. I myself would do that as a player. If I was a Rogue planning to take the Arcane Trickster subclass, I'd probably have my character talk with a magic-using character in the party to try and learn the ways of magic so when I hit level 3, I have established that I have been studying and trying to get a grasp on magic. My Monk character is planning to learn their class and sub-class features by meditating on a scroll of knowledge from their order.

On the web series Critical Role, the Wizard Caleb does that kind of thing a lot, he describes fiddling with magical artifacts, and he prepared for his Transmuter Stone feature by asking to look for a special rock, and he described fiddling with it and thinking about it for a session or two before he hit the level to actually create it. That sort of thing seems like it would satisfy your requirements for logic.

Just talk with your players before hand and try and set some expectations.

[Grod_The_Giant]

You had a lot of excellent insight and suggestions, but I think this is the biggest one. What I want is probably not possible with 5e, so is there another TTRPG I that would give me logical in-game progression of character abilities?
Almost certainly--there's a truly massive number of TTRPGS out there, and very few of them are built around the same sort of exponential power growth as D&D.

There are games where you start as neigh-omnipotent gods (Nobilis), and games where characters come with backup clones because they'll die horribly so often (Paranoia). Systems more complicated than D&D at its worst (Exalted) and systems that can fit on an index card (Risus). Settings so dark they literally have tables for random apocalypses (Mork Burg, according to a buddy who just discovered it) and settings so idyllic that having a picnic in a field is a significant quest (Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine). Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.

Ahem.

So if you're looking for a new system, don't hold back. What's your wishlist? What do you like about 5e, what bugs you, what do you wish was different?

[sayaijin]

So if you're looking for a new system, don't hold back. What's your wishlist? What do you like about 5e, what bugs you, what do you wish was different?


D&D is actually the only TTRPG I've played. Starting back in 3.5 and then jumping into 5e once I actually found people to play with again.

For D&D in general, I like the implementation of ability scores and corresponding skills. I like the simplicity of proficiency in 5e.

I love the many subclasses and how most character concepts, even if not fully, can mostly be covered by already existing ones with enough fluff.

I just feel like 5e is very video-gamey. Which is great for a lot of people. You beat the monsters and level up and your DM/sourcebook essentially gives you a pop-up that says "Congratulations! You have gained X power!" I can almost hear the chest opening sequence from Ocarina of Time.

If there's another system that gives more gradual progression or bakes the gaining of abilities into the gameplay itself, I'd be interested.

Many have suggested here that I simply work with my players to ask what they plan to do, and I think that can work if I just delay new abilities until they find them. So still give HP and hit dice at levels, but have them work towards abilities. I just want to know where the line is. Should sword fighters seek out a teacher to learn to attack twice instead of once? If I don't, then is it unbalanced to give it mundane abilities to martials without making them seek it out?

[Snail_On_Speed]

Should sword fighters seek out a teacher to learn to attack twice instead of once? If I don't, then is it unbalanced to give it mundane abilities to martials without making them seek it out?

Here, I would go with what is reasonable given the circumstances. Could a fighter, in their downtime, realistically figure out a way to swing their weapon such that it leaves an enemy vulnerable to a second attack? I think yes. On the flip side, could that same fighter realistically gain arcane powers in the same downtime? If there's a wizard in the party, probably, but if there isn't a wizard then probably not, and they'd need to seek out a trainer. YMMV, but I think this is a reasonable way to work it out. In the same vein, I think a wizard might be able to tinker around enough to make one spell per level up, or two that they have seen cast recently.

[Sigreid]

I'm pretty fond of rune quest, you may want to look at it.

[Grod_The_Giant]

D&D is actually the only TTRPG I've played. Starting back in 3.5 and then jumping into 5e once I actually found people to play with again.
Okay, you want a system with ability scores, gradual and/or narrative-based power progression, a wide range of supported archetypes, and relatively streamlined mechanics. Zooming in on those last two points, would you enjoy a more abstract approach, where the difference between a Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard is mostly found in how the players choose to flavor their character, or would you rather stick with 5e's "here's the basic framework of the rules, and here are lots of options that add new abilities?"

Also, do you want to stick with action-fantasy oriented adventures, or are you interested in trying other genres?

[sayaijin]

I'm pretty fond of rune quest, you may want to look at it.

I just looked that up. Sounds close to what I want, and I'm very interested in combat. It's combat that different from 5e? Is it a good different?


Okay, you want a system with ability scores, gradual and/or narrative-based power progression, a wide range of supported archetypes, and relatively streamlined mechanics. Zooming in on those last two points, would you enjoy a more abstract approach, where the difference between a Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard is mostly found in how the players choose to flavor their character, or would you rather stick with 5e's "here's the basic framework of the rules, and here are lots of options that add new abilities?"

Also, do you want to stick with action-fantasy oriented adventures, or are you interested in trying other genres?

I'd prefer to stick with action-fantasy. This will end up being a different system or a ton of homebrew, so I don't want to go too far from what my play group is comfortable with all at once.

[Sigreid]

I just looked that up. Sounds close to what I want, and I'm very interested in combat. It's combat that different from 5e? Is it a good different?



I'd prefer to stick with action-fantasy. This will end up being a different system or a ton of homebrew, so I don't want to go too far from what my play group is comfortable with all at once.

It's combat focuses on building defensive skills and abilities rather than massive pools of hitpoints. This means that a dagger never stops being a threat for example and if 3 guys have crossbows pointed at you it's not a forgone conclusion that you'll be fine. Skills and abilities level up from use rather than a poof level up.

All in all I really like it and if Fantasy Grounds had it on their game list I'd be playing that. My group is scattered and FG is the virtual desktop that I was gifted by my brother and does work well.

I also find the Rune Quest world to be a pretty interesting fantasy earth type setting.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'd prefer to stick with action-fantasy. This will end up being a different system or a ton of homebrew, so I don't want to go too far from what my play group is comfortable with all at once.
Hmm... maybe d6 Fantasy? I've not actually played it, but I've heard generally good things about the d6 systems. At a quick glance through the PDF, it looks like it's an attribute/skill system with point-buy advancement, and plenty of text about justifying your ability improvements. It might be a little crunchy for your tastes, but on the plus side, it's all free. (https://ogc.rpglibrary.org/index.php?title=OpenD6)



In addition to Character Points, the character needs experience
with the skill, either through training or by attempting to use the
skill (through rolling its die code or its governing attribute’s die code,
regardless of the outcome) during an adventure. If the gamemaster
decides that there is a significant amount of training involved (such
as improving a skill beyond 6D), or the character needs to find a suitable
teacher, that might become an adventure’s focus. (The teacher
must have a skill die code higher than the one the potential student
currently has.)


There are two methods for acquiring new Advantages:
(1) The player pays, in Character Points, 5 times the rank of
the Advantage. (2) The player takes an equivalent amount of ranks
in Disadvantages and pays a number of Character Points equal to
the rank of the Advantage. In either case, the player must come up
with a well-crafted story for getting the new Advantage that’s backed
by actual experiences in one or more adventures. The story, and its
related Advantage, must be approved by the gamemaster.


Unless the gamemaster decides to reward a character with a Special
Ability, it costs 5 times the sum of the Special Ability’s base cost
plus the current number of ranks in Character Points — and a really
good excuse — to acquire or improve a Special Ability after character
creation. A character may improve a Special Ability by only one rank
after each adventure, unless there is some compelling reason to allow
otherwise. Gamemasters may disallow increases in Special Abilities
if they feel the reason for the improvement isn’t good enough.


Mutants and Masterminds 3e, weird as the recommendation sounds, might scratch the itch-- and unlike d6, I have played it extensively. It's written as a superhero game, but it works well for any sort of high-power, high-action adventure. The framework is standard d20, apart from a unique take on health tracks, and the key selling point is the power creation system. Rather than a giant list of pre-written options (ie, a Spells chapter), there are a limited number of Effects and Modifiers that you can combine to create literally any power imaginable. (Like, I've never run across anything I couldn't build, up to and including character concepts like "a pair of cursed guns that possess whoever picks them up"). Character creation can be hard to get your head around at first, but the game plays smoothly once you're sitting down at the table. Everything about your character is point-buy, and while you do gain more points as you play, the trickle is very low compared to the expected starting totals--and you can have years-long campaigns without ever increasing the characters' Power Level, with players growing in breath and versatility rather than raw killing power. It takes a little player buy-in, but it's really really fun.

STaRS is... well, it's a system I wrote, so I often feel both obliged and awkward about plugging it, but it might work for you. It's much lighter than the systems listed above, and mechanically is basically nothing but ability checks. Beyond your ten ability scores, you have Traits that basically boil down to either "you get a bonus on certain checks" or "you can use an ability to do something new and different." Character advancement is based on narrative checkpoints, rather than an experience meter somewhere, making it very easy to connect with in-game logic. The system isn't technically action-fantasy, but that's because there's no assumed setting or genre--the basic rules can be used for anything, and even the "conflict" rules are generic enough that you can apply them to anything from a fistfight to a criminal investigation.


Advancement is relatively slow, and is based on narrative checkpoints rather than xp accumulation.

[JonBeowulf]

I was onboard with this at the beginning of the thread, but now I think it'd be best to have the wizard player map out future spells known (up to... I dunno... level 5 spells?) and say they're already in the book. They're not castable yet because they're still beyond the wizard's understanding. The wizard get them at level-up without any additional training or other stuff that wouldn't apply to other characters (or which would be even MORE annoying if it applied to other characters).

Heck, players typically map out the first bunch of levels anyway and have an idea where the character's going... take advantage of that planning.

[rel]

I feel like I should take a moment and point out that for verisimilitude I am not limiting this idea to just Wizards or even just casters.

I think it would be fun to require all my characters to find or discover their abilities. Like people have said, I will need buy in, so I just wanted to get some ideas of how it would work or how others have done it before I present it to my play group.

Okay, now I get you, leveling is slow and you need to quest for XP but also for teachers and the like.

The easiest approach is to say that leveling up requires enough XP AND and amount of time AND an amount of money AND a suitable tutor (who you are paying).
1 or 2 weeks per level, and a tutor with at least as many levels in the class as you will have after level up (so level 6+ fighter as tutor to go from fighter 5 to fighter 6) are good baselines to start from and gold cost of course depends on how much you like to hand out.

If you want to break leveling down into individual abilities (or just make things more detailed) you can try adding any of the following options:

self study: training montage, research and experimentation, dreamquests and meditation, the PC takes (usually a lot of) time and/or money and achieves enlightenment on their own.

epic quest: kill the dragon and eat its heart, journey to the bottom of the dungeon of dread and bathe in the sacred pools of wrath, climb to the top of mount doom and bind the spirit of the mountain to your will, defeat one of the other immortals and scream 'there can be only one' etc.
leveling up is the instant and obviously supernatural result of a quest. This works well if you like meat points and not so well if you really want to play a muggle.

dissection: research the corpse of a monster with either the specific powers you're looking for or the same general metaphysical niche you hope to occupy.

sacred jedi texts: martial arts treatises, spell scrolls, skill manuals, the secret of draconic flight, etc. An object has the information you need stored in/on it, might stretch verisimilitude for some power ups; Okay, I get that I needed a book on diet and exercise to get my last set of attribute increases but can't I just keep applying the info in that last book to become even stronger? What's so special about the Even Bigger Book of Getting Buff? And why can't I share the book with the paladin? We both want strength, did I eat it or something?

[EggKookoo]

I use the "you've been gradually improving all previous level" approach. My thinking is the wizard in question has even been able to cast some of those new spells during the previous level, just not reliably enough for it to matter mechanically. The only weirdness that comes from that is it seems like the entire party suddenly becomes good at the things they've been working on all at the same time, which is an artifact of 1) all classes leveling at the same XP rate and 2) all XP being distributed evenly across the party. But it's a minor thing, and the shared leveling experience creates a buzz around the table anyway...

[Guy Lombard-O]

I've had similar thoughts to OP about wizards in particular suddenly gaining such new spells.

My thoughts about it were that level ups should be done (after enough XP or milestone is obtained) in town, over course of a week or two, with teachers or trainer, as some others have suggested. But if you really want wizards to role play out discovering their spells in musty old dungeons and libraries, then consider two things: 1) make sure you include enough of those scrolls and spell books in the game that those players are left feeling unduly nerfed, and 2) let the players choose as to what at least 1 of the scrolls is, which spell they're getting. This leaves those players some agency in what their spell load out looks like, and if there's more than the 2 spells per level that traditional level up grants, then wizard players should be more apt to buy into the larger idea. As in, "you found the wizard's spell book. It contains seven spells, which you can spend some time deciphering over the next long rest. Tell me now what one of those spells is...."

[JackPhoenix]

Why not give martial characters proficiency in only 1-2 weapons for every decade they've spent training in martial combat? Having a fighter that knows how to use a longbow, a crossbow, a longsword, a glaive, and a battleaxe equally well seems a little unrealistic. Likewise, wouldn't a fighter or barbarian need to spend 2-3 months of in-game time until they've properly gotten used to a new weapon?

Don't forget losing those proficiencies if you don't use the weapon for a while. And unlike wizards, you can't just get atrophied skill back by reading a book for a while.


I am fine with this.

The only requirement for this is to make sure that all Wizards (villains and NPC's) that appear in the game also have their spellbook somewhere in the game world too. If one of your villains throws a Fireball, then he must have a spellbook with that spell written in, and somewhere he can have easily accessed it that morning to memorise it.

That's fine. A wizard is a PC class. NPCs aren't wizards. Enjoy your spellbook-less Fireballs.


especially, bear in mind that if a magical trap has to be dispelled before the Wizard can access his book, what does he do if he has used his memorised Dispel Magic that day?

He'll take a rest to get the slots back, then he cast the Dispel Magic he prepared last time he opened the book. Or the time before that, or whenever was the time he picked it as one of his prepared spells. Wizards don't need their spellbook unless they want to change their loadout.


I was onboard with this at the beginning of the thread, but now I think it'd be best to have the wizard player map out future spells known (up to... I dunno... level 5 spells?) and say they're already in the book. They're not castable yet because they're still beyond the wizard's understanding. The wizard get them at level-up without any additional training or other stuff that wouldn't apply to other characters (or which would be even MORE annoying if it applied to other characters).

Heck, players typically map out the first bunch of levels anyway and have an idea where the character's going... take advantage of that planning.

That's how Fantasy Craft works. You'll pick up a number of spells equal of your Wis and your caster level (it's based on 3.x) when you take the 1st level in a spellcasting class. You can't cast those spells until you'll have slots of the appropriate spell level, though. Anytime your Wis or your CL (permanently) increase, you'll learn a new spell. If either lowers (propably Wis, again, 3.x, so ability damage is a thing), you pick up a spell you'll forget until it gets back to previous value. You can pick a lot of low level spells to be more versatile early on, or plan for a long game and have spells spread out between all 9th spell levels.