A game with no 6+th level spells, what would you play?

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm kicking around a bit of a different thought for possible upcoming games: Even if the game goes to 20, no one can have level 6+ spells. You can go straight wizard if you like, but you can't prepare or learn any spell of level 6+ (so you probably want to MC out). You can still upcast past 6th level if you have the slots.

-----Other restrictions based on my normal house rules----
Content restrictions: No adventure or setting books. No UA. No MMotM.
Species restrictions: Only ones from "core-ish 5e". No Tasha's rules.
Class restrictions: Twilight/Peace clerics, Stars druid, clockwork/aberrant mind sorcerer, and scribes wizard are out. Nothing from setting or adventure books is allowed, except goliaths. They're ok. Anything else is fair game.
Levels: 1-20.
Magic items: Mostly random. Don't expect to get +X items at any regular intervals.
MC/Feats: yeah, whatever. Same content rules.
Short Rests: are a thing. Variance on adventuring days is fairly high.

[Sparky McDibben]

I'm kicking around a bit of a different thought for possible upcoming games: Even if the game goes to 20, no one can have level 6+ spells. You can go straight wizard if you like, but you can't prepare or learn any spell of level 6+ (so you probably want to MC out). You can still upcast past 6th level if you have the slots.

I mean, pretty much anything in the PHB is still perfectly playable. I can just use upcasted lightning bolts, fireballs, etc. I'd probably play my Millennielf Battlemaster fighter (because I've wanted to play a fighter for a while, not because of the campaign).

But this takes a lot of the pressure off sorcerers to keep swapping out spells - if I can't learn anything of 6+, I can now concentrate my 15 spells known across only 5 levels of spells.

Out of curiousity - is there an in-game reason for the loss of 6+ level spells? Like, could the players rediscover that magic in play?

[Mastikator]

No tasha's rules, what about tasha's class and feats? I'd go with battlesmith artificer, variant human, probably pick up piercer or something. Use ASIs to max int, then maybe sharpshooter

If everything tasha's is banned then vengeance paladin, variant human, polearm master feat. Use my ASIs to max strength and charisma, then maybe con. Probably don't have enough to grab any other feats.

Edit- if you're playing with flanking rules then I switch my feat to great weapon master and go greatsword build on either battlesmith or vengence paladin.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I mean, pretty much anything in the PHB is still perfectly playable. I can just use upcasted lightning bolts, fireballs, etc. I'd probably play my Millennielf Battlemaster fighter (because I've wanted to play a fighter for a while, not because of the campaign).

But this takes a lot of the pressure off sorcerers to keep swapping out spells - if I can't learn anything of 6+, I can now concentrate my 15 spells known across only 5 levels of spells.

Out of curiousity - is there an in-game reason for the loss of 6+ level spells? Like, could the players rediscover that magic in play?

Just spitballing. Less an in-universe reason than a "I wonder what a high-level party would look like without this" thought. And "what choices would people make differently if they knew they weren't going to get those spells?"


No tasha's rules, what about tasha's class and feats? I'd go with battlesmith artificer, variant human, probably pick up piercer or something. Use ASIs to max int, then maybe sharpshooter

If everything tasha's is banned then vengeance paladin, variant human, polearm master feat. Use my ASIs to max strength and charisma, then maybe con. Probably don't have enough to grab any other feats.

Edit- if you're playing with flanking rules then I switch my feat to great weapon master and go greatsword build on either battlesmith or vengence paladin.

Tasha's is fine, it's just the custom race stuff (and those specific subclasses) that are off the table.

[Kane0]

Fighter/Wizard or Ranger/Druid, split down the middle just to see how it feels.

[Dork_Forge]

I'd probably play either my Jedi (Psi Warrior Gith yanki) or my Wolverine build (Half-elf Fighter 1-4, Divine Soul 1, Celestial Chainlock the rest). My battlesmith (V. Human w/Healer) would be a good fit too, probably.

[Psyren]

Whatever the party needs, but assuming every role is spoken for - full caster 12 / something else 8 probably.

[Unoriginal]

A game with no 6+th level spells, what would you play?

With all due respect, PhoenixPhyre, I would be playing a different game.

This very much enters the "using a shovel instead of a hammer to hammer nails" category (far from the most extreme example of it, true, but still an example of it).

We're talking about removing 25% of the powers out of 50% to 75% of the classes, without giving them anything else to replace it.

[Dork_Forge]

With all due respect, PhoenixPhyre, I would be playing a different game.

This very much enters the "using a shovel instead of a hammer to hammer nails" category (far from the most extreme example of it, true, but still an example of it).

I'm curious, do you think 5E games wouldn't be viable in this style, or do you just not like the concept of it?

[Unoriginal]

I'm curious, do you think 5E games wouldn't be viable in this style, or do you just not like the concept of it?

I'm thinking that the resulting games wouldn't be 5e.

You can't start amputating some classes that much and still have the same game. It's like saying "a game where Monks and Druids get no class features after lvl 12, rest is unchanged".


That I don't like the idea is a secondary point.

[BoutsofInsanity]

I'm curious, do you think 5E games wouldn't be viable in this style, or do you just not like the concept of it?

I think it's totally viable. I also think it's a pretty good idea, especially if you the DM really balance around the premise. It removes many of the problematic spells from the game that are pretty over tuned, reduces options that have to be prepared for, and doesn't completely ruin spell casters power levels except at the highest of levels.

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I've been putting together in my head a Sword and Sorcery style game and I would have similar rules to this in many aspects to make that work. And I think 5e is a great system to do it.


Characters are restricted to 9th or 11th level
Standard Array but you get stat bonuses as quest rewards in some form or another
Extra Feats as quest rewards
No full casters anywhere except for the evil BBEG Wizard.
Magic items would be rare but powerful
Gritty Realism resting variant which of course affects the BBEG
Morale as a feature that the players and enemies can use.
Monsters from the book if they don't have a weakness will get one



The villain is a Necromancer Wizard who can cast up to 7th level spells. Finger of Death definitely being a front runner.

I think it would work incredibly well.

I think it would be hella fun. Little bit lower powered, but that's kind of the point for a Sword and Sorcery Game. Try and really make it feel gritty and grimy, but in a fun way. The idea wouldn't be to grind the players down per say. But to really have that Conan flavor, where magic is scary and bad, the gods are mysterious, and the characters are larger than life.

[Dork_Forge]

I'm thinking that the resulting games wouldn't be 5e.

You can't start amputating some classes that much and still have the same game. It's like saying "a game where Monks and Druids get no class features after lvl 12, rest is unchanged".


That I don't like the idea is a secondary point.

It's... not really like that though? Slots and spells known/prepared are still on the table, it's nowhere near as severe as denying all class features after 12.

I think you'd have to go a lot further than this to make it 'not 5e,' the vast majority of the game is intact, even the vast majority of the affected classes are still intact.


I think it's totally viable. I also think it's a pretty good idea, especially if you the DM really balance around the premise. It removes many of the problematic spells from the game that are pretty over tuned, reduces options that have to be prepared for, and doesn't completely ruin spell casters power levels except at the highest of levels.

---------------------------

I've been putting together in my head a Sword and Sorcery style game and I would have similar rules to this in many aspects to make that work. And I think 5e is a great system to do it.


Characters are restricted to 9th or 11th level
Standard Array but you get stat bonuses as quest rewards in some form or another
Extra Feats as quest rewards
No full casters anywhere except for the evil BBEG Wizard.
Magic items would be rare but powerful
Gritty Realism resting variant which of course affects the BBEG
Morale as a feature that the players and enemies can use.
Monsters from the book if they don't have a weakness will get one



The villain is a Necromancer Wizard who can cast up to 7th level spells. Finger of Death definitely being a front runner.

I think it would work incredibly well.

I think it would be hella fun. Little bit lower powered, but that's kind of the point for a Sword and Sorcery Game. Try and really make it feel gritty and grimy, but in a fun way. The idea wouldn't be to grind the players down per say. But to really have that Conan flavor, where magic is scary and bad, the gods are mysterious, and the characters are larger than life.

Other than being a little concerned about immunity/resistance to nonmagical BPs that sounds like a fun concept. I use homebrew boons and give feats as rewards now so there's a sense of progress without jumping up in levels too quickly.

Granted, that means that when parties eventually get to 20 they will be behemoths, but they're playing in a game where that's expected.

[Zhorn]

I can understand the general principle of what I think Unoriginal is getting at.
So many tables I've seen where DMs are haphazardly slapping together additional restrictions on top of one another to enforce others at the table to play the game in a way they (the DM) wants it to be played.
A lot of the time it can be minor things that don't upset the overall feel of the game, but some of them the intent of their changes and how big/impactful they are shows through that maybe they'd just be happier off in a different system altogether, be that a competitor's or a homebrew.

In regards to PhoenixPhyre's ban on 6th level and up spells, I don't think it would bother me personally all the much. When there's a bunch of other casters in the group, I'll tend to go for a low/no magic option instead just to have some characters in play that don't rely of magic for all their problem solving. And then when there's hardly any casters, I'll go a cleric or wizard, but mostly so the high level utility spells are on the table (but depending on the campaign world, they might not even be relevant).

But I would still want to have a better understanding of the reasoning the DM was doing this and why they felt this route was their best course of action.
Why 6th level? why not higher or why not lower, or why not ban casters outright?
Is there a worldbuilding reason? Did the deities put a nix of 6th level and up like they did on 10th level and up in the past?
Is this targeted to just dissuade specific builds and combinations that come online with high level spells?
Is this restricting only on players, or is this being evenly applied to NPCs also? If not, why not?

All in favour of DMs having house rules for how they run their table, so long as their justification comes across and fair and reasonable for the changes they want.
Just cutting them out on its own has me still questioning "ok, but why though?"

[PhoenixPhyre]

But I would still want to have a better understanding of the reasoning the DM was doing this and why they felt this route was their best course of action.
1) Why 6th level? why not higher or why not lower, or why not ban casters outright?
2) Is there a worldbuilding reason? Did the deities put a nix of 6th level and up like they did on 10th level and up in the past?
3) Is this targeted to just dissuade specific builds and combinations that come online with high level spells?
4) Is this restricting only on players, or is this being evenly applied to NPCs also? If not, why not?

All in favour of DMs having house rules for how they run their table, so long as their justification comes across and fair and reasonable for the changes they want.
Just cutting them out on its own has me still questioning "ok, but why though?"

A few thoughts (numbers added)

1. Because there's a step change in power at 6th level. Just like there is at 3rd level. And that's intentional by the designers--it's a tier boundary after all. Note that warlock casting changes with respect to 6+th level spells and regular full casters have very different spell-slot progression (numbers, not levels) before and after. That makes it an obvious break point for "high magic" vs "not so high magic". And almost all of the broken (as in "poorly written in ways that cause problems") spells are 6+th level. Before that, spells are mostly ok, power wise relative to the rest of the game. After that...not so much.

2. At this point, no. But then again, I'm not actually contemplating this very seriously. It's a thought experiment, the sort of thing I do on the regular.

3. More to explore the "what does the game look like if those (IMO) distortionary spells aren't temptations.

4. PCs only. But then again, I rarely run high-level PC-classed people at all, let alone pure spell-casters. Because they suck as opponents. And in-world, there's already an exponential fall-off of casting levels. In the main play area, there may be two (non-former-PCs) who can cast 9ths and maybe a few dozen total who can cast 6+th level spells, not counting outright monsters.

Point #2 is important. I do lots of thought experiments that I'm not seriously considering implementing. I'm more than capable of holding multiple ideas in my head at a time, including ones I'm just turning around to see what other ideas they shake loose. And to tease apart the various factors that go into classes and builds and concepts.

For example, one homebrew project I'm working on is a caster that basically follows this progression--full-caster slot progression but no spells on their list above 5th level. Instead they get a bunch of class features that revolve around upcasting spells.

@Unorginal--

Don't you think that it's telling (in a bad way) that there are classes whose high level features basically boil down to "you get spells"? Or, in the case of the wizard, whose only significant features are "I get spells"? To me, the idea that those spells have such weight is a sign of bad design.

[Unoriginal]

Don't you think that it's telling (in a bad way) that there are classes whose high level features basically boil down to "you get spells"? Or, in the case of the wizard, whose only significant features are "I get spells"? To me, the idea that those spells have such weight is a sign of bad design.

We've discussed your stance before, and I don't disagree that most of those classes do deserve better than that, but "they get nothing significant" is even worse design.

If you remove the 6th to 9th level spells, they have to be replaced by something at least equally significant, IMO.

[PhoenixPhyre]

We've discussed your stance before, and I don't disagree that most of those classes do deserve better than that, but "they get nothing significant" is even worse design.

If you remove the 6th to 9th level spells, they have to be replaced by something at least equally significant, IMO.

Seems that getting those spell slots and the few features they do get is roughly on par with what, say, fighters get over those levels. Getting both spell slots and exponentially more powerful spells seems a bit off.

[Witty Username]

@Unorginal--

Don't you think that it's telling (in a bad way) that there are classes whose high level features basically boil down to "you get spells"? Or, in the case of the wizard, whose only significant features are "I get spells"? To me, the idea that those spells have such weight is a sign of bad design.

I mean, barbarian high level features boils down to rage more and fighter boils down to attack more. Why is spells and nothing else bad, and extra attack and nothing else good?

[togapika]

it's nowhere near as severe as denying all class features after 12.


Except new spell levels ARE class features for casting classes. Their other class features are balanced around this fact.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I mean, barbarian high level features boils down to rage more and fighter boils down to attack more. Why is spells and nothing else bad, and extra attack and nothing else good?

It's not good. It's just...less bad. Martials should scale better at higher levels. Casters should scale less well and have actual thematic features instead of "pick the strongest things from this ever-expanding list of broken crap". Martials at least have features that are emblematic of what they've been doing, instead of "here's a new tier of unrelated broken crap to play with. Pick your favorites."

[OvisCaedo]

Removing high level spells still won't make high level martials become interesting.

[Gignere]

I think the 6/3/11 hexsorcadin will utterly dominate in your proposed rules. Maybe for some specific subclasses of paladins you can go to 7/3/10.

[sambojin]

I'd probably play as a druid. You get a fair bit from lvl6+ spells as a druid, but you can do without them. There's plenty of fun stuff to upcast, and lots of their lower level stuff "just does a thing" and doesn't really need extra scaling. It's more important to both prep and cast it than whichever particular slot you use to cast it.

Casting say Pass without Trace or Plant Growth from a lvl6 or 7 slot wouldn't really bother me. It did the thing it had to do, so was a perfectly functional use of a spell slot and spell prep.

[J-H]

I'd probably go as a monk. The 18th level class feature is extremely difficult to counter without higher level spells or a specific loadout.

[Witty Username]

Don't think my class preferences would change much, so much as I would be more inclined to multiclass. If wizard 9 gets the same spells as wizard 18, I might as well take 9 levels in sorcerer instead.
Kinda like my opinion of martials, what is keeping me past 5, for some it is is worth going as high as 11 for others it isn’t even worth going to 6.

If multiclassing is going to give me both a more powerful and more thematic character, why stay single classed.

Bard, Paladin, Sorcerer and Warlock would probably need a complete overhaul, multiclassing is already very tempting with them, and warlock and Paladin are pretty powerful already while being more or less unaffected by the changes (yeah, warlock loses mystic arcanum but that is pretty minor to their progression).

[tiornys]

Seems like a great time to play a Swarmkeeper Ranger. I'd decide based on table feel whether to stay straight Ranger, dip some Fighter, or do some crazy array of multiclassing after hitting Ranger 5.

[Pex]

In answer to the question it's an opportunity to play a class I don't normally play like rogue or monk. Fighter is possible too. I may do something fancy like a Sorcadin or Paladock.

A more realistic answer is I'd probably pass on the campaign, if mutually happy on it no offense intended or taken. I accept DMs have house rules and may not like certain things so he bans them, but I often find for my taste a DM who bans a lot of stuff, especially magic stuff, is too controlling or otherwise has a tolerance level for PC power way below mine to an uncomfortable level. I don't want to play Coffeelock or Wish/Simulacrum, but the DM is likely to hate it when I'm playing a Variant Human took War Caster full plate with shield cleric Dodging while having Spirit Guardians up, and that's just PHB Core.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I mentioned it in another one of your threads, I'll mention it again since it seems even more relevant to this one - you should consider just cutting off T3 and T4. The amount of bending over backwards you've got to do to reach your ideals for this range is, in my opinion, not worth the effort and not all that likely to even fix the issues you appear to have with higher level content.

Consider an E6 style of gameplay for 5e.

Suggestions aside - I'd play a Redemption Paladin. Probably take a dip into Warlock for 2 levels and call it a day. It's a character I've played before but if I'm going to be stepping into some strange restrictions I'd be sticking with something I know is functional and that I enjoy.

It certainly wouldn't encourage me to play a full caster, getting those higher level spells is part of the appeal to actually investing class levels into those classes so knowing that it would stop after a certain point would be enough of an incentive to avoid them altogether.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I mentioned it in another one of your threads, I'll mention it again since it seems even more relevant to this one - you should consider just cutting off T3 and T4. The amount of bending over backwards you've got to do to reach your ideals for this range is, in my opinion, not worth the effort and not all that likely to even fix the issues you appear to have with higher level content.


Except...I've run multiple 1-20 games without significant issues. As I said, this is mostly thought experiment. Trying to tease out the threads of what parts matter. Isolating variables.

I'd love to give martials fancier features. But I'm trying to decide how far to go. Trying to match current casters is an exercise in folly--they scale not quadratically but super-exponentially. The sheer number of combinations of features you'd need is staggering[1]. So some balance of the two is called for. Starting with fixing the prime offender spells. The question is how far in each direction.

[1] consider the cleric. Has the smallest, worst-scaling list, but gets the whole thing.

At level one, he has 16 spells to choose from, choosing 4 to prep each day (assuming a +3 modifier). That's...1820 combinations. Not counting his domain spells.

At level 2, he still has 16 spells, but can now choose 5 of them. That's 4368 combinations of spell preps.

At level 3, the count of spells goes up to 34 (18 2nd level spells added) and can prep 6. That's 1.3 million combinations.

At level 5, he now has 59 spells, of which he can choose 9 (assuming now a +4 modifier). That's 13 billion combinations.

Heck, even if we assume that 50% of the list is utter crap and will never be chosen, you get (70, 56, 12376, and 1 billion) combinations for those same levels.

That's utterly ludicrous to replicate with class features. To match anything like that versatility, you'd have to give them spells or something indistinguishable from spells in layout. And print 200+ pages of nothing but these "maneuvers". At that point, just make everyone spell casters.

And note wizards are actually worse despite not getting their whole list. Because their base list is so much huger, the number of ways you can pick your spellbook is still ludicrous, out of which you can then prep a whole crap-ton of different combinations.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Except...I've run multiple 1-20 games without significant issues. As I said, this is mostly thought experiment. Trying to tease out the threads of what parts matter. Isolating variables.

I'd love to give martials fancier features. But I'm trying to decide how far to go. Trying to match current casters is an exercise in folly--they scale not quadratically but super-exponentially. The sheer number of combinations of features you'd need is staggering[1]. So some balance of the two is called for. Starting with fixing the prime offender spells. The question is how far in each direction.

[1] consider the cleric. Has the smallest, worst-scaling list, but gets the whole thing.

At level one, he has 16 spells to choose from, choosing 4 to prep each day (assuming a +3 modifier). That's...1820 combinations. Not counting his domain spells.

At level 2, he still has 16 spells, but can now choose 5 of them. That's 4368 combinations of spell preps.

At level 3, the count of spells goes up to 34 (18 2nd level spells added) and can prep 6. That's 1.3 million combinations.

At level 5, he now has 59 spells, of which he can choose 9 (assuming now a +4 modifier). That's 13 billion combinations.

Heck, even if we assume that 50% of the list is utter crap and will never be chosen, you get (70, 56, 12376, and 1 billion) combinations for those same levels.

That's utterly ludicrous to replicate with class features. To match anything like that versatility, you'd have to give them spells or something indistinguishable from spells in layout. And print 200+ pages of nothing but these "maneuvers". At that point, just make everyone spell casters.

And note wizards are actually worse despite not getting their whole list. Because their base list is so much huger, the number of ways you can pick your spellbook is still ludicrous, out of which you can then prep a whole crap-ton of different combinations.

Those numbers seem just a tad bit inflated, did we disregard order and remove duplicate entries here? A selection of a specific list of spells is not a different option from that same list of spells in a different order.

Though even if they are accurate I really don't see the point you're making here. Potential is all well and good, but just because someone said you have to compensate for the loss doesn't mean you have to be so extreme as to try and quantify every possible potential aspect.

[Hiro Quester]

I'm playing a Swords Bard/Warlock (blade pact) multiclass, and feeling pressure to lean hard on one side or the other (bard3/ warlock 17 or bard 17/warlock 3) because of access to high-level spells.

But in terms of class abilities, Warkock12/bard 8 would be decently powerful and flexible in ways that would be very fun to play. The pressure to attain higher-level spells being removed, makes this kind of focus on complementary class abilities a lot more attractive.

Count me in.

[tiornys]

Those numbers seem just a tad bit inflated, did we disregard order and remove duplicate entries here? A selection of a specific list of spells is not a different option from that same list of spells in a different order.

Though even if they are accurate I really don't see the point you're making here. Potential is all well and good, but just because someone said you have to compensate for the loss doesn't mean you have to be so extreme as to try and quantify every possible potential aspect.
Picking 6 of 34 items when order doesn't matter is actually a very straightforward probability calculation. It's simply 34!/[6!*(34-6!)], or in a spreadsheet it's combin(34,6). PhoenixPyre's math checks out. Combinatorial space is kind of crazy

The point seems obvious: non-casters don't just "fall behind" in terms of variability of choice, but are so incredibly dwarfed so rapidly that their variability is literally negligible compared with casters.

@PhoenixPyre, ironically if you hammer down the prime offender spells you exacerbate the variability problem by making more options "viable". For example, if a current Cleric is "expected" to always have Bless and Healing Word prepped at L1 spells, and Aid and Spiritual Weapon prepped at L2 spells, then the practical variance for a level 3 Cleric is only 870 for the remaining two slots, cutting down the combinatorial space by a staggering 99.935%. Add Spirit Guardians and Revivify at L3 and the level 5 Cleric has 23,426 choices vs. 13 billion, a reduction of 99.9998%

[Doug Lampert]

Those numbers seem just a tad bit inflated, did we disregard order and remove duplicate entries here? A selection of a specific list of spells is not a different option from that same list of spells in a different order.

Though even if they are accurate I really don't see the point you're making here. Potential is all well and good, but just because someone said you have to compensate for the loss doesn't mean you have to be so extreme as to try and quantify every possible potential aspect.


Except...I've run multiple 1-20 games without significant issues. As I said, this is mostly thought experiment. Trying to tease out the threads of what parts matter. Isolating variables.

I'd love to give martials fancier features. But I'm trying to decide how far to go. Trying to match current casters is an exercise in folly--they scale not quadratically but super-exponentially. The sheer number of combinations of features you'd need is staggering[1]. So some balance of the two is called for. Starting with fixing the prime offender spells. The question is how far in each direction.

[1] consider the cleric. Has the smallest, worst-scaling list, but gets the whole thing.

At level one, he has 16 spells to choose from, choosing 4 to prep each day (assuming a +3 modifier). That's...1820 combinations. Not counting his domain spells.

At level 2, he still has 16 spells, but can now choose 5 of them. That's 4368 combinations of spell preps.

At level 3, the count of spells goes up to 34 (18 2nd level spells added) and can prep 6. That's 1.3 million combinations.

At level 5, he now has 59 spells, of which he can choose 9 (assuming now a +4 modifier). That's 13 billion combinations.

Heck, even if we assume that 50% of the list is utter crap and will never be chosen, you get (70, 56, 12376, and 1 billion) combinations for those same levels.

That's utterly ludicrous to replicate with class features. To match anything like that versatility, you'd have to give them spells or something indistinguishable from spells in layout. And print 200+ pages of nothing but these "maneuvers". At that point, just make everyone spell casters.

And note wizards are actually worse despite not getting their whole list. Because their base list is so much huger, the number of ways you can pick your spellbook is still ludicrous, out of which you can then prep a whole crap-ton of different combinations.

He did it correctly. 16 choose 4 is in fact 1840 combinations, and 16 choose 5 is 4368, and 59 choose 9 is ~12.6 billion (so 13 billion if you round off to 2 digits). So it looks like he is giving the order independent number of choices, there are just that many choices even when order doesn't matter.

You can check the 16 choose 4 by hand, it's 16! orders, there are 4!*12! ways to reorder which give the same resulting group.
16!/(12!*4!)=16*15*14*13/(4*3*2)=2*5*14*13=10*182= 1820.

(First step cancels the 16! and the 12!, second step cancels the 4! as factors of some of the numerator, multiplcation is simply grouping convienently.

[Arkhios]

For those who have introduced a concept involving 12 levels in a fullcaster (including warlocks), you do realize that the point was to cut out any and all spells of 6th level and above? That's what the expression of "6+th" is intended to say, right?

You wouldn't be able to benefit from having the access to 6th level spells, so why bother?
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That out of the way, Eldritch Knight 10/War Mage 10 would be my first choice (assuming I remember correctly and War Mage was in XGE, not Tasha's); Spells up to 5th level, Slots up to 7th level (as if a 13th level fullcaster).

Of course, then there's the Paladin 20. Especially, Oath of the Ancients is still going strong, even after 8th years of supplements.
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On the matter of viability at high level games, I'm going to assume that there's little impact for not having someone casting big spells once or twice per spell level. The magics would remain more "grounded", probably, since no one is casting Wish etc. to "bend the rules of reality to their will" (well, except 10th level Cleric bending over to their Deity, asking for a favor like a spoiled "daddy-pays-all" snob once every week).

[ProsecutorGodot]

Picking 6 of 34 items when order doesn't matter is actually a very straightforward probability calculation. It's simply 34!/[6!*(34-6!)], or in a spreadsheet it's combin(34,6). PhoenixPyre's math checks out. Combinatorial space is kind of crazy

The point seems obvious: non-casters don't just "fall behind" in terms of variability of choice, but are so incredibly dwarfed so rapidly that their variability is literally negligible compared with casters.

@PhoenixPyre, ironically if you hammer down the prime offender spells you exacerbate the variability problem by making more options "viable". For example, if a current Cleric is "expected" to always have Bless and Healing Word prepped at L1 spells, and Aid and Spiritual Weapon prepped at L2 spells, then the practical variance for a level 3 Cleric is only 870 for the remaining two slots, cutting down the combinatorial space by a staggering 99.935%. Add Spirit Guardians and Revivify at L3 and the level 5 Cleric has 23,426 choices vs. 13 billion, a reduction of 99.9998%

Yes, the math was easy to verify. I still don't think it really proves much beyond "look how big the variable lists of spells you can prepare is" when it doesn't just not account for what a spells function might be but it also doesn't account for whether the combination is "viable".

A significant amount of "options" for these combinations are things like preparing spells of only your highest spell slot available, which leaves you with unusable resources. That becomes a very significant amount of those choices as you add more.

So yes, the number grows exponentially larger on paper, but in practice so many of those variations are simply unusable. To say that they have weight in trying to gauge what would be a reasonable substitute for them is uncharitable at best and gross negligence at worst. As soon as you earn 2nd level spell slots, you start introducing "waste" into these options, so beyond the first 4368-11440 (assuming 2nd level character with a +3 to +5 modifier) there's just so much garbage data introduced that the number is practically meaningless, it's just a big worthless number because we know there are things that aren't or can't be calculated that are incredibly important in attributing value to these combinations.

I think your follow-up on setting "expectations" is more reasonable to highlight this versatility. It's still a lot of choices but there aren't actually 13 billion choices in any realistic scenario.

[Leon]

Would depend on what Art i had seen recently and felt inspired to mirror and what other people that i would be playing with are doing.
If in doubt a Ranger is always a class I enjoy playing and I have wanted to play a Pike using Ranger for a while. Most likely a Mountain Dwarf.

[Witty Username]

Yes, the math was easy to verify. I still don't think it really proves much beyond "look how big the variable lists of spells you can prepare is" when it doesn't just not account for what a spells function might be but it also doesn't account for whether the combination is "viable".

A pretty simple usecase for this is cantrips.
A caster has hundreds of possible combinations for cantrips. Compare this with a martial with extra attack and they have effectively one (attack twice). But if we take the most effective options, we are left with one, extra attack.

In this way, a class can have millions of options and still be suboptimal in comparison to a class with only 1 option.

Casters and damage dealing are full of this kind of thing, an 11th level fighter is doing the damage expected of a 3rd level spell every turn, no caster is outdamaging that outside of very specific circumstances.

[Kane0]

Removing high level spells still won't make high level martials become interesting.

Yeah this.

To make room for casters to have other interesting things you do have to cut something, but you still have to address the separate problem of martials lacking those same interesting things at higher levels

[diplomancer]

I'd probably go either with a Paladin (possibly multiclassed, but not necessarily), or a Cleric that multiclasses into another full caster after level 10 . Clerics don't get that many good spells from level 6, and their spells up cast well. Another possibility would be Cleric 10/Half-Caster 10. Upcasting to 8th level may be sufficient in most cases if I'm looking at level 20, and the added martial power is fun.

By the way, a suggestion: if you're doing this rule change, consider waving multi-class ability score restrictions, at least from CL 10.

[Goobahfish]

I think I'd actually enjoy that style of game.

Whenever I think, "maybe I'll multi-class for thematic reasons", I always come back to... "but level X spells are just too good". If you were doing a genuine 50/50 multi-class style character you could end up with a lot of fun stuff.

Maybe a Moon Druid 9, Fighter 11... Ankylosaurus. 3x 4D6+4 whomps :D

Echo Knight or Battlemaster is also looking like a fun version.

Maybe a firbolg?

[sithlordnergal]

Surprisingly enough, I'd play in such a campaign. A bit curious, why restrict Scribe Wizards? I'd have figured they'd be an ideal wizard for you since they get actual class features in later levels instead of just spell slots, and flavorful ones to boot. They wouldn't really be able to spike above anything else given they wouldn't have access to 6th level spells and above. Though I guess Scribe Wizard/Tempest Cleric could still be a concern...but that's pretty easy and understandable to ban.

As for what I'd play, I have a few options:

Paladin multiclass: Can never go wrong with Paladins, and since there are no 6th level spells there's no real reason not to multiclass out of full caster

Rogue Multiclass: Provided Bladesinger is available, I would enjoy an Arcane Trickster/Bladesinger, or a Swashbuckler/Warlock. Standard Battlemaster/Rogue is always fun too

Fighter: Sadly I don't think I can do my favorite class/race combo of Fairy Runeknight, but I should still be able to do Goblin Runeknight, which is close enough. Toss in levels of Cleric for Enlarge/Reduce.

Druid: Moon Druid all the way. Most complicated class for the most amount of fun. I know you may hate it, but its still the most fun I've ever had with a class, bar none, because of how many different tactical options Wild Shape gives you.

Bard: Creation Bard all the way.

[Schwann145]

Unclear on the Tasha's restrictions: Would be pulling for a Spores Druid, Lizardfolk if possible. But... mostly just cuz that's what's been itching in the back of my head for a bit now and your restrictions don't dissuade the choice any. (Okay, would miss some 6th level options. Shame)
Maybe a straight Abjurer (high level Wiz features are still good and high level slots for abjurations are always handy).

But, I think you're not going to see the results you're hoping for with these restrictions. If you have spells that are problematic, it's better to surgically remove them, rather than just spite players for the very existence of powerful spells in the first place, IMO.
Either way, it does basically nothing to address the Martial/Caster disparity, because that disparity exists for entirely different reasons. Casters in 5e overstepping their bounds into Martial space. Martials not having reliable means of avoiding/resisting/interrupting spells. Etc.


I don't want to play Coffeelock or Wish/Simulacrum, but the DM is likely to hate it when I'm playing a Variant Human took War Caster full plate with shield cleric Dodging while having Spirit Guardians up, and that's just PHB Core.
Agreed

[Amnestic]

While the initial temptation to go half-caster is real, I think I'd go straight Cleric 20 (Divine Intervention!) or Druid 20 (infinity wild shapes!)

Even if they lose their 6+ spells, they're still perfectly adequate, especially with Tasha's summon [x] on the table which scales well with upcasting on the otherwise empty spell slots.

Rare is the time you'll upcast anything 5th and below to 9th level normally, but now you get a chance to. That's pretty neat.

[Battlebooze]

Sure. I think this sounds perfectly fine. I'd be find playing any pure caster all the way to 20 as well.





We've discussed your stance before, and I don't disagree that most of those classes do deserve better than that, but "they get nothing significant" is even worse design.

If you remove the 6th to 9th level spells, they have to be replaced by something at least equally significant, IMO.

I respect your opinion, but I'd just like to see martial classes get something in equivalent power to those super important spells the caster's aren't getting.

[stoutstien]

This is actually really close to my preferred style of game so yea I'd play it on heart beat
Nothing to do with balance or fairness just don't like what high lv spells do to the game.

[Rukelnikov]

While I completely disagree with wizards needing "stronger themes", I do think removing 6th level spells would allow to continue with a more similar style of play to that of T1 & 2 during T3 & 4, and lead to "a more balanced gameplay", given the range of posibility of actions for most noncasters stagnates at around T2, while removing 6th+ level spells would achieve something similar for full casters.

And while improving non-full casters sounds like a much better approach its also undoubtedly a much more dificult task. I see merit in the idea and would play it, would it dissuade from playing a full caster? Maybe from playing a straight class one, depending on the class, but not necessarily from playing a full-caster slots PC, there are many spells that upscale very well, and most classes are frontloaded so its not like MCing is a serious problem.

As to what would I play? Lots of things? The only thing I wouldn't play is a full caster that doesn't take good upscalable spells, and I likely wouldn't play that anyway...

[Hiro Quester]

For those who have introduced a concept involving 12 levels in a fullcaster (including warlocks), you do realize that the point was to cut out any and all spells of 6th level and above? That's what the expression of "6+th" is intended to say, right?

You wouldn't be able to benefit from having the access to 6th level spells, so why bother?

Why would you take Warlock to level 12? One word. Lifedrinker.

That's why I'd play Bard 8 Warlock 12.

Swords Bard 8 would get up to 4th level spells, and ASI, and Warlock 12 gets 6 invocations, 3 5th level Pact slots, ASI, and lifedrinker for an extra +CHA to every attack. in a world without 6+ level spells, that would do nicely.

Bard1/Warlock5/Bard5/Warlock12/bard8 would be reasonably fun along the way, too.

[Rukelnikov]

Why would you take Warlock to level 12? One word. Lifedrinker.

That's why I'd play Bard 8 Warlock 12.

Swords Bard 8 would get up to 4th level spells, and ASI, and Warlock 12 gets 6 invocations, 3 5th level Pact slots, ASI, and lifedrinker for an extra +CHA to every attack. in a world without 6+ level spells, that would do nicely.

Bard1/Warlock5/Bard5/Warlock12/bard8 would be reasonably fun along the way, too.

Why do you take Bard at 1st? Is it just because you prefer Dex saves over Wis, or is there another reason?

[Bobthewizard]

You could play anything in this. Once you hit level 10 in a full caster class, you're likely better off multiclassing into another class, but as mentioned above, cleric and moon druid would still be fine single-classed.

I think most high level spells are interesting for the game and could be left in. And some spells below 6th level are very disruptive. As another option, you could consider instead of banning all 6th level and above spells, just banning the disruptive ones, including those below 6th level. Shield (on a PC with armor), hypnotic pattern, fear, counterspell, conjure animals, banishment, polymorph, conjure woodland beings, and wall of force are all broken and below level 6. For level 6 and above spells, I would ban mass suggestion, forcecage, maze, simulacrum, antipathy, and wish. I think banning those 15 spells (plus maybe a couple others I missed here) would do more for balance than banning all spells 6th level and above.

Your proposal would make for a perfectly fine game, though. I'm planning on running a campaign with no full casters at all, in order to let ranger, paladin, artificer, EK and AT shine a little more as spell casters.

[Wintermoot]

I actually DMed a game like this is 3rd edition. In that game, there were no spells above 3rd level, but just like you have it, they still got the slots and could use them to make metamagic versions of spells at higher level.

The lack of high level spells was a feature and a plot point and, at high levels, they started to uncover what was blocking them and the PCS managed to unlock some higher level spells (up to fifth level and one sixth level spell) by the time they got to 20 and the campaign ended.

It was well received and enjoyed. But we didn't have anyone close-minded, people who refuse to bend in any way to meet the needs of the game idea. I certainly wouldn't have tried it otherwise. None of the spell casters felt limited or like they didn't have something to do as they levelled. In fact two of them said they rather enjoyed having to figure it out as they went and its been one of my most requested repeat world builds, though I've never gone back to it.

Keep being creative and don't let the naysayers get you down!

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

I would find another game.

A DM taking out a huge swathe of class features with no replacements is a red flag. A DM refusing to let players use Tasha's creation rules is an even bigger red flag that I would definitely not get any enjoyment out of this game.

If you want to talk about the possibility of removing 6th+ leveled spells and what to replace them with in the system as a whole, that's another conversation where I could come up with some ideas to make it work. But simply running a game and removing these major features without any other changes to the classes that depend on them is a mistake.

[BoutsofInsanity]

In answer to the question it's an opportunity to play a class I don't normally play like rogue or monk. Fighter is possible too. I may do something fancy like a Sorcadin or Paladock.

A more realistic answer is I'd probably pass on the campaign, if mutually happy on it no offense intended or taken. I accept DMs have house rules and may not like certain things so he bans them, but I often find for my taste a DM who bans a lot of stuff, especially magic stuff, is too controlling or otherwise has a tolerance level for PC power way below mine to an uncomfortable level. I don't want to play Coffeelock or Wish/Simulacrum, but the DM is likely to hate it when I'm playing a Variant Human took War Caster full plate with shield cleric Dodging while having Spirit Guardians up, and that's just PHB Core.

Sorry I don't even know if you would see this, but I'm just flabbergasted. DM's would have a problem with that tactic?

Like, what? Who are you playing with? (I mean, outside of new Dm's, which of course your obligation is to show them different counters they could use).

That's not even hard to engage with? I mean it's interactable, there are ways to deal with it from various martial and non martial sources. Heck, just throw dispel magic and the problem is solved?

Sorry. I mean it's a good move don't get me wrong. But it's hardly what I would consider top tier.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yes, the math was easy to verify. I still don't think it really proves much beyond "look how big the variable lists of spells you can prepare is" when it doesn't just not account for what a spells function might be but it also doesn't account for whether the combination is "viable".

A significant amount of "options" for these combinations are things like preparing spells of only your highest spell slot available, which leaves you with unusable resources. That becomes a very significant amount of those choices as you add more.

So yes, the number grows exponentially larger on paper, but in practice so many of those variations are simply unusable. To say that they have weight in trying to gauge what would be a reasonable substitute for them is uncharitable at best and gross negligence at worst. As soon as you earn 2nd level spell slots, you start introducing "waste" into these options, so beyond the first 4368-11440 (assuming 2nd level character with a +3 to +5 modifier) there's just so much garbage data introduced that the number is practically meaningless, it's just a big worthless number because we know there are things that aren't or can't be calculated that are incredibly important in attributing value to these combinations.

I think your follow-up on setting "expectations" is more reasonable to highlight this versatility. It's still a lot of choices but there aren't actually 13 billion choices in any realistic scenario.

Doesn't matter. Let's say you descale by 1/10^(level) at higher levels (ie at level 20, only 1/10^20 is viable). Now consider the wizard who has never learned a single extra spell, so 44 in his book. He has 320-ish total spells to pick from, so 320 nCr 44 total spellbooks. 25 of those can be prepped at any time, so (320 nCr 44) * (44 nCr 25) total possibilities.

Total combinations: 4e66.
"viable" combinations: 4e46.

Even the poor cleric with only ~120 spells on his list ends up with 4e25 total combinations, or 400,000 after descaling.

Factorial scaling always wins. And note it gets worse with every book, in an extreme fashion. Every spell printed and added to an existing wizard's list causes a massive change in overall versatility. And that's not even accounting for the exponential (categorical in fact) growth in power of those options as level increases. Sure, outright damage done doesn't scale better than linear. But you add new capabilities that scale better than that.... Or the fact that frequency is also scaling linear or better.

Compare that with a martial.

A battlemaster fighter knows 3/5/7/9 out of 23 maneuvers.That's 1771, 33649, 245k, 817k possibilities. Note the much slower scaling--the cleric was well over a million by level 3. And even if you printed 320 maneuvers (to match the wizard), the battlemaster would still only have ~10^17 choices. And his choices scale really poorly with frequency (4/5/6 dice over 17 levels) and basically not at all with power (going from a d8 to a d12 is 2 extra points of damage per die...wow). And the battlemaster is an extreme, insane outlier among martials for scaling. Most martials scale linearly at best in all three areas combined.

To match a caster's scaling, you have to make them a caster. Or break the scaling. And since the casters' power scaling alone (ie ignoring the combinatoric factor) is already problematic and doesn't match the rest of the game in any way...

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I'm kicking around a bit of a different thought for possible upcoming games: Even if the game goes to 20, no one can have level 6+ spells. You can go straight wizard if you like, but you can't prepare or learn any spell of level 6+ (so you probably want to MC out). You can still upcast past 6th level if you have the slots.

-----Other restrictions based on my normal house rules----
Content restrictions: No adventure or setting books. No UA. No MMotM.
Species restrictions: Only ones from "core-ish 5e". No Tasha's rules.
Class restrictions: Twilight/Peace clerics, Stars druid, clockwork/aberrant mind sorcerer, and scribes wizard are out. Nothing from setting or adventure books is allowed, except goliaths. They're ok. Anything else is fair game.
Levels: 1-20.
Magic items: Mostly random. Don't expect to get +X items at any regular intervals.
MC/Feats: yeah, whatever. Same content rules.
Short Rests: are a thing. Variance on adventuring days is fairly high.

OK, I get the restriction on the clerics (I restrict those). Scribes Wizard: sure, they basically stomp all over a sorcerer resource. The sorcerers: I suppose, a lot of people think they're superior to other options. On the Stars Druid, I don't get the ban. I mean Moon is clearly OP at early levels. Shepherd is the only subclass I've ever DMed when I said 'never again'. Stars, to me seems like a solid B or B+ option, very similar in power to Wildfire, so I've got to ask: Why the ban on Stars?

[Sigreid]

Just like always I'd toss the dice and see what my attributes make.

[PhoenixPhyre]

OK, I get the restriction on the clerics (I restrict those). Scribes Wizard: sure, they basically stomp all over a sorcerer resource. The sorcerers: I suppose, a lot of people think they're superior to other options. On the Stars Druid, I don't get the ban. I mean Moon is clearly OP at early levels. Shepherd is the only subclass I've ever DMed when I said 'never again'. Stars, to me seems like a solid B or B+ option, very similar in power to Wildfire, so I've got to ask: Why the ban on Stars?

Stars is entirely worldbuilding, not power. Specifically, there are a grand total of 6 fixed stars in that particular universe, and they're only sorta-fixed (relative to the planet in question). The entire universe is the size of the Inner Solar System, and there's a "star" (angelic beacon) at each of the "major Cardinal Points" (including "up" and "down"), so parallax makes them wander like everything else. The rest of the "stars" wander at very fast speeds (coming and going like shooting stars), since what you're seeing are the light of angelic weapons as they fight against incursions from Beyond. Navigation doesn't happen by the stars, obviously.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Stars is entirely worldbuilding, not power. Specifically, there are a grand total of 6 fixed stars in that particular universe, and they're only sorta-fixed (relative to the planet in question). The entire universe is the size of the Inner Solar System, and there's a "star" (angelic beacon) at each of the "major Cardinal Points" (including "up" and "down"), so parallax makes them wander like everything else. The rest of the "stars" wander at very fast speeds (coming and going like shooting stars), since what you're seeing are the light of angelic weapons as they fight against incursions from Beyond. Navigation doesn't happen by the stars, obviously.

Aah, ok thanks.

In answer to your original question, I think 1/2 and 1/3 casters start to look a lot better. Some full casting combos that don't always look great might be better. I'm thinking Bard/ Sorcerer, or Cleric/ Druid stay SAD and get features without losing spellcasting power vs. single classed.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Maybe I need to amend my answer. I think a Rune Knight would be really fun to play at high levels with the amount of times/ day they could use their abilities. And you wouldn't be overshadowed by super-powered spells.

[Sception]

Thoughts on the restrictions/ban list and how they'd influence my character choice:

Unless I'd played a game with you that ran much passed 11th level, I wouldn't even consider 'no level 6+ spells' to be a real restriction. Campaigns that start at level 1 almost never make it to, let alone past, level 11. IME tiers 3 and 4 are a myth.

Regardless, I'd play a paladin, provided there was any space for one in the party, mostly because it's what I almost always play. They just have the ideal blend of features in 5e - solid support for effective team play, good damage output when it counts so they can contribute to the tougher fights. not any explicit skill features, but a high charisma means they have the right stat to participate in skill based social interactions, so they're not limited to combat based murder hoboery. If the campaign does run to high levels, well, they don't have level 6+ spells anyway.

By default I'd lean towards conquest, since that blends in a decent bit of aoe debuff & crowd control, something paladins otherwise lack, and because none of their subclass features are bad. Even great classes/subclasses can feel disappointing at some levels if some of their features are bad. Rangers for example have had a terrible reputation in 5e due almost entirely to the presence of bad features, not the absence of good ones.

if the party or campaign structure doesn't jive with the sort of morally grey antihero/antivillain that conquest generally plays out as, then I'd look to Watchers if the party seemed like it needed more support or vengeance if it seemed like they needed more offense.

Probably standard strength/cha co-primary heavy armor build, though if every other party member had a decent stealth score I might go for a dex/cha medium armor build instead so as not to be the only guy preventing full party stealth tactics.

For race, probably variant human, though half elf, fallen aasimar, zariel legacy tiefling, eladrin, drow, triton, lightfoot halfling, dragonborn if you allow the fizbans stuff, maybe the more powerful halfblood yuan-ti since you're banning the more reasonably balanced MMotM revision, and many more work out fine. Lots of cha races out there to support the many cha classes of 5e, so I can tailor this choice somewhat to the campaign and party (ie aquatic game -> triton, stealth party -> 1/2 elf, drow, or eladrin, etc). Floating stat mods post tasha's only really served to bring other character options up to the level of the options I was already taking. Banning those punishes other builds, but doesn't much limit the kinds of characters I tended to play.

Multiclassing? maybe. depends on the game & the party, what level things get to, what items drop. You did drop the tasha's sorcerers - though I'm not sure why? Insufficient spells known to grab both fun thematic spells and essential utility spells on the same character is widely regarded as a key problem of that class, subclass bonus spell lists seems like the natural solution, even if it makes them better than subclasses that came before. I mean, you don't seem to be banning the ranger subclasses that add additional spells known in the same way and for the same reason, despite the fact that they create the same problem of just being better than ranger subclasses printed before them...

but whatever, I might disagree with the restriction, but if you're doing the work of running a game I wouldn't complain about it, especially since, while I might not want to main sorcerer without the tasha subclasses, I probably wouldn't want to main sorcerer anyway due to the high level spell restriction, and there still options that work fine for multiclassing as a paladin, should I opt to go that way.

Strangely enough you don't seem to ban hexblade? Most similar ban lists I've seen include hexblade. If you really don't ban hexblade then I might prioritize charisma over weapon stat early on, and dip or fully multiclass into hexblade later on if I'm not lucky enough to stumble into one of the strength fixing magic items before that point.

If hexblade is banned after all then I still might dip or multiclass out into warlock if short rests prove to be common enough in your game that I feel pressured to shore up the paladin's some what lacking access to short rest resources, with undead being the most likely second choice to hexblade for my usual conqueror builds, though any of the other patrons might work depending on the particular character concept & paladin subclass I land on.

Re: magic items... eh. standard conqueror is more a support & tank build rather than a damage build, so I should be fine with whatever magic weapons drop - and if you're rolling for items then /some/ magic weapons will drop. If the campaign or party makeup pushes me into a build that needs something more specific (a finesse weapon for a dexadin in a stealthy party, or a GWM or PAM compatible weapon if a lack of party damage dealers pushes me into a more offensive vengeance build), well, paladin eventually learns the spell 'Magic Weapon' and I can just burn a spell slot and concentration on that when fighting enemies who resist non-magical weapon damage. And as with MADness and lack of short rest resources, the lack of build-specific magic weaponry is something else that a hexblade multiclass can eventually compensate for if you allow them.


Here's an example 20 level set up similar to what I might aim for under these restrictions: https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/89777535

They have a fairly broad skill set, including:

proficiency with stealth, perception, athletics and thieves tools plus darkvision/devil's sight and some relevant spells (fly, darkness, etc) let them take part in party stealth missions or even fill in as scout & trap fixer if otherwise lacking, though their less than ideal physical stats and lack of expertise means they're better suited to supporting a dedicated specialist.

They have all the important charisma proficiencies plus insight, at will disguise self, & the actor feat, making them excellent at espionage & social encounters, and can be an effective party face, though again lack of expertise means others might be better at it, in which case they're happy to fall into a supporting role.

In combat they can make effective use of any magic weapon the party comes across or can simply conjure their own as needed thanks to hex warrior and pact weapon. None of their features tie them to any particular weapon type. Extra attack + improved divine smite for passable dpr, and when they need to lean into damage output they have a variety of buffs they can call on (hexblade's curse, bless, spiritual weapon, spirit shroud, shadow of moil, darkness + devil's sight) and can burn additional slots on divine smite in truly critical situations. They prefer melee, but if stuck at range they have eldritch blast - not ideal without agonizing blast, but not nothing.

Defensively 19 isn't a great base AC at level 20 (or worse only 17 if the party finds some magical two handed weapon that's too good to pass up but nobody else wants to use), and between only 14 con and the warlock multiclass they have less HP than some other paladins, but I'd like to imagine they'll pick up ~some~ sort of defensive magical items on the way. And they do have access to the Shield spell and Armor of Agathys, plus they can impose disadvantage on attacks via the frighten condition, or Shadows of Moil against frighten-immune enemies, and they can even break out darkness/devil's sight in a pinch. And their saves are pretty solid due to +5 aura of protection, plus Bless if needed, and warcaster for advantage on concentration saves vs. damage. They have Booming Blade as an opportunity attack when they're trying to hold aggro.

They have multiple strong frighten abilities (channel divinity, Wrathful Smite, Fear) which they can use to debuff enemies and lock them down with aura of conquest, plus mind sliver to slap a save penalty on an enemy in order to set them up for an ally's spell or ability.

For support they have 60 points of lay on hands per day, bless, revivify, remove curse, lesser restoration, dispel magic, counterspell, cure wounds, protection from evil/good, 10' aura of immunity to frighten, and a 10' aura of +5 to all saving throws

For positioning they have expeditious retreat, misty step, fly, and dimension door, plus They can conjure a war horse and share spells with it including expeditious retreat, misty step, armor of agathys, and fly.

1/day they can turn a slain humanoid enemy into a friendly spectre, which isn't particularly combat relevant at level 20, but it can do the aid-another trick like a familiar, and it does have a fair bit of non-combat utility.

For spells they have 4x 1st, 3x 2nd, and 3x 3rd level slots per long rest plus 2x 4th level slots per short rest to split between a variety of useful effects. That should be enough to get them comfortably through most adventuring days, though they won't have so many slots that they'd feel comfortable burning them on divine smite very often, not when they have so many useful spells they can cast. That can be a positive thing, though, as ime over-use of divine smite can cut otherwise compelling encounters off at the knees.

I wouldn't call this character 'optimized' by any stretch. Certainly not for combat. After the first 1-3 levels of hexblade, they'd probably be better off going back to paladin, or branching out further into sorcerer. Multiple choices (half elf race, beguiling influence invocation) were made to get more skill proficiencies, when the character could have gotten more combat power out of leaving that stuff to other party members. Actor, while a great fit for the character's skills, high cha, and mask of many faces invocation, is still a significantly weaker half cha feat than fey touched or elven accuracy. Over the course of an actual campaign, I'd likely specialize a bit more in particular roles, rather than go for something this broad. But sight unseen, I try to aim at something fairly versatile, something able to contribute meaningfully to combat, exploration, and social encounters.

Of course, that's all at level 20, where most games live in the 1 to 10 range, and depending on the order levels and feats are taken in this character could take a lot of different forms in that area. I'd probably focus on paladin levels early, since if the character stumbles across a magic weapon and a set of gauntlets of ogre strength then suddenly hexblade loses a lot of its appeal, and I might end up multiclassing into a different warlock, or not multiclassing warlock at all if short rests turn out to be not as much of a thing as you say they are. Plus aiming for Paladin 8 or 9 before multiclassing gets the basic combat features in quickest. But if the campaign looks to focus on social stuff heavily, then I might take warlock early in order to pick up beguiling influence and mask of many faces sooner.

[PhoenixPhyre]

@Sception

Hexblade annoys me at a micro level. It's only an issue in conjunction with multiclassing, which annoys me at a macro level. But still not enough to ban. It's on my list to rework (in a fantasy world where I actually have time, motivation, and energy to do so). But then again so are a lot of things. Less core rules and more "content I'm not fond of"[1]. I've had a hexblade that worked just fine (MC'd with fighter, actually). And I've found a thematic tie for it into the setting that works...ok. Not great. But ok.

Honestly, the bans for the stuff from Tashas is just about as much about thematics as it is raw power. Sure, the Twilight/Peace clerics are bonkers (relative to other cleric subclasses and the game as a whole). But they're also anti-thematic (twilight especially)--just bundles of "ooh, powerful ability" thrown in together with no binding concept. Scribes wizard doubles down on what I see is the big issue with wizards--it's "yay I have all the spells". No real theme, just "bunches of generalist stuff stapled on willy-nilly." The sorcerers and druid subclasses don't fit the aesthetics of the world as printed; the sorcerer ones also have a bad habit of obsoleting all the earlier ones while not providing much thematic bang for the buck. I especially don't like the "if you don't like your bonus spells, you can choose whatever you want! From just about any list!" clauses.

So most of my bans are thematic in nature, at least mostly. Power annoys me, but I can work around it.

[1] for instance, I'd love to take the druid class apart and make wild shape its own thing in a non-caster class, giving the base druid some other power. But again, time, motivation, and energy.

[Jakinbandw]

14 elequence bard/6 order cleric.

I like playing support, and while losing out on peace cleric (why?) hurts, I can still have fun supporting the party like this.


I'm curious why you are banning subclasses as well as spells. Specifically, I want to hear the reason you ban twilight and peace Clerics. They are great at supporting party members, but such support helps every PC. Why leave problem sub classes that hog the spotlight while cutting out ones that make the other pcs feel cooler?

To be honest this set up raises red flags for me, as the gms that have done this in the past have also tended to be very hostile towards players. If I knew you and trusted you, I'd play this, but if I didn't know you, this would be a massive red flag and I wouldn't play at your table.

[sithlordnergal]

OK, I get the restriction on the clerics (I restrict those). Scribes Wizard: sure, they basically stomp all over a sorcerer resource. The sorcerers: I suppose, a lot of people think they're superior to other options. On the Stars Druid, I don't get the ban. I mean Moon is clearly OP at early levels. Shepherd is the only subclass I've ever DMed when I said 'never again'. Stars, to me seems like a solid B or B+ option, very similar in power to Wildfire, so I've got to ask: Why the ban on Stars?

...How does a Scribe Wizard stomp all over a Sorcerer resource? The only thing the Scribe Wizard and Sorcerer have in common are Transmute spell and the Awakened Spellbook's ability to swap damage types. That would be like saying the Evocation Wizard stomps all over a Sorcerer's resource because Sculpt Spell is the same as Careful Spell, Archdruid stomps all over a Sorcerer resource cause it gives the same benefit as Subtle Spell, or Spell Sniper stomps all over a Sorcerer resource because its similar to Distant spell.

Just because an ability does the same thing as one Metamagic option doesn't mean the subclass/feat/ability takes the place of that metamagic. The two may do similar things, but that doesn't mean one is encroaching on the other's niche and making the other pointless or anything.

[Hiro Quester]

Why do you take Bard at 1st? Is it just because you prefer Dex saves over Wis, or is there another reason?

Mostly for backstory and thematic reasons (a musician tempted into a bargain for glory). and I like the bardic theme for a warlock. And I was trying to rail in my optimizing tendencies by steering away from Sorlock.

[PhoenixPhyre]

14 elequence bard/6 order cleric.

I like playing support, and while losing out on peace cleric (why?) hurts, I can still have fun supporting the party like this.


I'm curious why you are banning subclasses as well as spells. Specifically, I want to hear the reason you ban twilight and peace Clerics. They are great at supporting party members, but such support helps every PC. Why leave problem sub classes that hog the spotlight while cutting out ones that make the other pcs feel cooler?

To be honest this set up raises red flags for me, as the gms that have done this in the past have also tended to be very hostile towards players. If I knew you and trusted you, I'd play this, but if I didn't know you, this would be a massive red flag and I wouldn't play at your table.

Twilight and peace clerics have several major issues.

1. Their abilities are siginficantly beyond what's normal for those classes. They're power creep in a massive, game-altering, unfun sort of way. Their existence means that the only way to challenge the party is to warp every encounter to hammer the cleric real hard with (relatively) unfair tactics. Because otherwise you're unlikely to even scratch the party. That's no good. And note that this is coming from play experience--I'm in a party with one who we (I'm not the DM) ended up just agreeing not to use either of the two big abilities, because they take any sort of challenge out of things.
2. More importantly--they have literally negative thematic consistency. Neither domain (twilight being way worse) is just a pile of extremely broken mechanics stuck together with the barest hint of a unifying theme. Peace isn't quite so bad, but it's way below any admissible standard I have. It makes hexblade of all things look coherent and well thought out.

Situation #2 is the big killer for me--thematics matters more than mechanics. And those two are aggressively anti-thematic.

[Jakinbandw]

Twilight and peace clerics have several major issues.

1. Their abilities are siginficantly beyond what's normal for those classes. They're power creep in a massive, game-altering, unfun sort of way. Their existence means that the only way to challenge the party is to warp every encounter to hammer the cleric real hard with (relatively) unfair tactics. Because otherwise you're unlikely to even scratch the party. That's no good.
2. More importantly--they have literally negative thematic consistency. Neither domain (twilight being way worse) is just a pile of extremely broken mechanics stuck together with the barest hint of a unifying theme. Peace isn't quite so bad, but it's way below any admissible standard I have. It makes hexblade of all things look coherent and well thought out.

Situation #2 is the big killer for me--thematics matters more than mechanics. And those two are aggressively anti-thematic.

1: It's a buff to the entire party, not one character outshining the others. This making the party stronger only matters if the gm wants to make the pcs fail. This desire suggests a pretty adversarial gm, and after playing with a few, I've found I don't want to play in those types of games again.
2: still has more thematics than a fighter. Also, I'm a fan of letting players refluff class lore. I'm not sure how much I would enjoy a game where every barbarian has to be an uncultured savage. It's sounds very restricting.

[PhoenixPhyre]

1: It's a buff to the entire party, not one character outshining the others. This making the party stronger only matters if the gm wants to make the pcs fail. This desire suggests a pretty adversarial gm, and after playing with a few, I've found I don't want to play in those types of games again.
2: still has more thematics than a fighter. Also, I'm a fan of letting players refluff class lore. I'm not sure how much I would enjoy a game where every barbarian has to be an uncultured savage. It's sounds very restricting.

1. We, as a party, found it unfun. Because it reduces the game to a solved problem--stand around the cleric and hit things. And the only counters are very adversarial and meta--you have to focus fire the cleric in very specific ways. This produces an unfun dynamic where no other form of support matters, nor do tactics or roleplaying. It produces an arms race that no one I've played with finds fun. And that's what matters most of anything--does the party find it fun to play with. And the unanimous answer for all my parties is "heck no."
2. No, it has way less. Because its thematic elements contradict each other. And cleric domains don't exactly lend themselves to refluffing--they're kinda tied into the world itself. Not to mention that if you have to refluff something to have it make any kind of sense...that's a sign of horrible design.

Side note--"makes the party stronger" isn't necessarily a good thing. Most parties I've played with don't want everything to be curb stomps. They want to win and take risks, not "yawn, another fight, cleric do your thing." One-trick-ponies are actively disfavored at all tables I've been at, and these clerics are entirely one trick ponies in combat. In ways that utterly invalidate just about any other defensive options. Tanks? Who needs them. We've got twilight cleric. Evasion? Kiting? Meh, just stand in the bubble of win. Etc. So yes, they do invalidate lots and lots of other characters. Because now any option that isn't "deal tons of damage" is useless. And stealth characters? Yup, invalidated. Darkvision? Waste of a trait. Etc.

[Jakinbandw]

1. We, as a party, found it unfun. Because it reduces the game to a solved problem--stand around the cleric and hit things. And the only counters are very adversarial and meta--you have to focus fire the cleric in very specific ways. This produces an unfun dynamic where no other form of support matters, nor do tactics or roleplaying. It produces an arms race that no one I've played with finds fun. And that's what matters most of anything--does the party find it fun to play with. And the unanimous answer for all my parties is "heck no."
2. No, it has way less. Because its thematic elements contradict each other. And cleric domains don't exactly lend themselves to refluffing--they're kinda tied into the world itself. Not to mention that if you have to refluff something to have it make any kind of sense...that's a sign of horrible design.

Side note--"makes the party stronger" isn't necessarily a good thing. Most parties I've played with don't want everything to be curb stomps. They want to win and take risks, not "yawn, another fight, cleric do your thing." One-trick-ponies are actively disfavored at all tables I've been at, and these clerics are entirely one trick ponies in combat. In ways that utterly invalidate just about any other defensive options. Tanks? Who needs them. We've got twilight cleric. Evasion? Kiting? Meh, just stand in the bubble of win. Etc. So yes, they do invalidate lots and lots of other characters. Because now any option that isn't "deal tons of damage" is useless. And stealth characters? Yup, invalidated. Darkvision? Waste of a trait. Etc.

Here is the thing, is it as much of a problem as a Necromancer wizard brining over a hundred undead to each fight? Who will shine more, the rest of the party or the guy with around a hundred actions a turn?

At the end of the day, I feel there are way more disruptive abilities in in game then allowing party members to swap places and having an extra 1d4 to one attack a turn.

That said, since I see the gm as being adversarial, it might give me a reason to play a Necromancer wizard. Swamp all problems in hordes of undead, and show how much numbers matter in 5e.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Here is the thing, is it as much of a problem as a Necromancer wizard brining over a hundred undead to each fight? Who will shine more, the rest of the party or the guy with around a hundred actions a turn?

At the end of the day, I feel there are way more disruptive abilities in in game then allowing party members to swap places and having an extra 1d4 to one attack a turn.

That said, since I see the gm as being adversarial, it might give me a reason to play a Necromancer wizard. Swamp all problems in hordes of undead, and show how much numbers matter in 5e.

You're entitled to your opinion. My tables decided they didn't like it and neither did I. I'm not running games to please the internet, I'm running games to please my tables and myself.

And just because there are things that are bigger issues doesn't make this one ok.

And there's nothing adversarial about it other than the actions required to make it not take over the entire game. Countering it in a way that actually makes things not a solved game requires adversarial actions. And that, I'd posit, is the problem here.
---
D&D content is not "default allow". It's default deny. Content is only allowed if the DM explicitly allows it. Especially things from outside core. Not allowing some piece of non-core content isn't an adversarial action. It's just everything working as intended. This attitude of extreme player entitlement (it was printed, so therefore you're a bad person if you don't let me use it) is something I find extremely distasteful. And the response of "well, he didn't allow that thing I wanted, so now I'm going to bring Pun Pun in and wreck stuff, that'll show him" is a very strong "yeah, I don't want to play with you. Either as another player or as your DM" signal. It's a massive waving red flag.

[sithlordnergal]

1: It's a buff to the entire party, not one character outshining the others. This making the party stronger only matters if the gm wants to make the pcs fail. This desire suggests a pretty adversarial gm, and after playing with a few, I've found I don't want to play in those types of games again.


Its doesn't necessarily suggest an adversarial gm. As a gm, my most important goal to encounter building is the illusion of risk. Basically, when my players finish a major encounter they should have almost no resources left, have less than half HP left, and have had multiple players go down, possibly multiple times. I'll also occasionally use spells like Chill Touch that prevent any form of normal healing, just to add a bit more risk. Additionally, I do all of that with the end goal of not causing a tpk...which I've succeeded at. I've never caused a TPK in all of my time DMing.

Subclasses like the Twilight Cleric can allow the party to survive things well above their weight class. Now, I'm fine with that because I encourage optimizing and high power PCs. As far as I'm concerned, if you're spiking above what the game would consider a standard amount of power, that just means I can throw the fun monsters at you sooner. Things like tossing a CR 10 and 13 at you when you're only level 6, or creating vicious combat scenarios that put players at a massive disadvantage while attacking a well defended position. But not every gm wants that, not every gm wants the party facing Deadly encounters on a regular basis and surviving those encounters like its a Medium or Hard encounter.


EDIT: As for the fluff....eh, that's up to the individual. Personally I've always been of the opinion that fluff is optional. You can toss out all of the fluff of every single class and do what you want. Wanna make a Druid that is the antithesis of every single point in the blurbs on "what makes a Druid" in the phb? Do so. Wanna make a Cleric that doesn't worship any deity what so ever, and doesn't hold any actual beliefs? Or actively tries to work against their chosen deity? Go for it. It'll make for interesting RP opportunities.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Its doesn't necessarily suggest an adversarial gm. As a gm, my most important goal to encounter building is the illusion of risk. Basically, when my players finish a major encounter they should have almost no resources left, have less than half HP left, and have had multiple players go down, possibly multiple times. I'll also occasionally use spells like Chill Touch that prevent any form of normal healing, just to add a bit more risk. Additionally, I do all of that with the end goal of not causing a tpk...which I've succeeded at. I've never caused a TPK in all of my time DMing.

Subclasses like the Twilight Cleric can allow the party to survive things well above their weight class. Now, I'm fine with that because I encourage optimizing and high power PCs. As far as I'm concerned, if you're spiking above what the game would consider a standard amount of power, that just means I can throw the fun monsters at you sooner. Things like tossing a CR 10 and 13 at you when you're only level 6, or creating vicious combat scenarios that put players at a massive disadvantage while attacking a well defended position. But not every gm wants that, not every gm wants the party facing Deadly encounters on a regular basis and surviving those encounters like its a Medium or Hard encounter.

And only being able to do so because of that one particular ability, not because of their own choices. Have Twilight cleric? Easy win. Cleric doesn't show up? You all die. That's...suboptimal.

And seriously distorts the worldbuilding, since you have to explain why all these super-strong monsters are hanging around and not bothering anyone else. There's only so many adult+ dragons in a world...

[5eNeedsDarksun]

...How does a Scribe Wizard stomp all over a Sorcerer resource? The only thing the Scribe Wizard and Sorcerer have in common are Transmute spell and the Awakened Spellbook's ability to swap damage types. That would be like saying the Evocation Wizard stomps all over a Sorcerer's resource because Sculpt Spell is the same as Careful Spell, Archdruid stomps all over a Sorcerer resource cause it gives the same benefit as Subtle Spell, or Spell Sniper stomps all over a Sorcerer resource because its similar to Distant spell.

Just because an ability does the same thing as one Metamagic option doesn't mean the subclass/feat/ability takes the place of that metamagic. The two may do similar things, but that doesn't mean one is encroaching on the other's niche and making the other pointless or anything.

Somewhat speculating on why it was banned; not necessarily that it would be where I'd start, but I certainly understand. I'd note the OP banned 2 of the newer sorcerer subclasses too, so it's consistent with an attempt to make older sorcerers relevant.

To me it's a strong class + subclass, and you said it: the Awakened Spellbook is not only similar to Transmute Spell (which RAW is one of only 2 Metamagics sorcerers get at that level) it's better in that it has unlimited uses and can apply to every damage type. By way of comparison Sculpt Spell vs. Careful Spell are fairly well balanced I think, given that Evokers only apply this to Evocation spells and Sorcerers can apply Careful to any spell.

[sithlordnergal]

And only being able to do so because of that one particular ability, not because of their own choices. Have Twilight cleric? Easy win. Cleric doesn't show up? You all die. That's...suboptimal.

And seriously distorts the worldbuilding, since you have to explain why all these super-strong monsters are hanging around and not bothering anyone else. There's only so many adult+ dragons in a world...

Yup. And while I am personally fine with that, not every gm is. And I will fully admit my dm style encourages players to optimize. Of course, I do have players that choose not to optimize, and they do manage to survive in my games. But they have to work a lot harder to survive my encounters, cause I rarely lower the difficulty of my encounters. And even when I do lower the difficulty, its only by a small amount. I.E. only 2 Bodaks and 1 Vampire instead of 3 Bodaks and 2 Vampires, on top of whatever mooks I give them.

And if you're extremely concerned about worldbuilding, like Phoenix is, it can easily distort the world building. Again, I personally don't put much thought to it. Why are there super-strong monsters hanging around? My answers are "Just because there are now and I wanna challenge you" and "Because you're making yourself a nuisance to the big bad, so they're using their stronger mooks". But I fully admit neither of those are very strong narrative reasons.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yup. And while I am personally fine with that, not every gm is. And I will fully admit my dm style encourages players to optimize. Of course, I do have players that choose not to optimize, and they do manage to survive in my games. But they have to work a lot harder to survive my encounters, cause I rarely lower the difficulty of my encounters. And even when I do lower the difficulty, its only by a small amount. I.E. only 2 Bodaks and 1 Vampire instead of 3 Bodaks and 2 Vampires, on top of whatever mooks I give them.

And if you're extremely concerned about worldbuilding, like Phoenix is, it can easily distort the world building. Again, I personally don't put much thought to it. Why are there super-strong monsters hanging around? My answers are "Just because there are now and I wanna challenge you" and "Because you're making yourself a nuisance to the big bad, so they're using their stronger mooks". But I fully admit neither of those are very strong narrative reasons.

Yeah. Our styles differ, which is fine. Personally, I don't like optimization because I've seen it turn into an arms race both between the players and between the players and DM really quickly. And it doesn't fit my (more narrative) style at all. I mean, sure. Don't anti optimize either--the "low strength and wisdom halfling barbarian/cleric crosses that use a heavy weapon exclusively, don't rage, and don't cast spells" stupidities aren't exactly welcome either[1]. I'm looking for characters that fit the world and allow us all to explore interesting scenarios that also fit the world. It's a careful dance.

And for me, worldbuilding is a major factor. More major than mechanics most of the time. It's one reason I dislike most of the new stuff--it's just "yeah, figure it out, do whatever you want and refluff it, lol". I find WotC's attempts at lore almost insultingly bad in how little they care about consistency or presenting something coherent and "could be real".

[1] Something I've actually seen presented at a real table. Fortunately that player only was there for a couple sessions before real life intervened. Most useless character ever.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

1: It's a buff to the entire party, not one character outshining the others. This making the party stronger only matters if the gm wants to make the pcs fail. This desire suggests a pretty adversarial gm, and after playing with a few, I've found I don't want to play in those types of games again.
2: still has more thematics than a fighter. Also, I'm a fan of letting players refluff class lore. I'm not sure how much I would enjoy a game where every barbarian has to be an uncultured savage. It's sounds very restricting.

I understand where you're coming from with point 1. However, in recent games with newer content the power creep issue seems to go beyond just a player vs. DM issue. 5e was always set on easy, but at this point if all content is fair game for players challenging them requires foes far beyond what the original game was designed around.
I made a post not long ago about my Strixhaven Cleric, a full caster with Shield spell pasted on. The Eloquence Bard took Moderately Armored as his first level feat, and guess what??? Shield spell for his Initiate Feat. These 2 characters don't get hit past level 3 given their already high ACs an number of 1st level slots, and the rest of the party is pretty darn tough as well. As the DM you can start chucking in tougher and tougher foes to make it interesting; since it takes pretty much huge monsters rolling near crits to make it close, eventually the monsters are going to get lucky roll a few 20s. Boom, TPK, or at very least a few dead characters.
At some point enough with the power creep (I say this as a player and DM... but right now as a player).

[Oramac]

I'm not running games to please the internet, I'm running games to please my tables and myself.

As you should. That said...


-----Other restrictions based on my normal house rules----
snip

With all those restrictions, I'd just find a different table. Not because it's wrong or bad or doesn't work. I just don't like tons of restrictions.

THAT being said...

Not having access to spells above 5th level makes half-casters much more enticing. Were I to play in this game, I'd probably play an Elven Ranger. Preferably my Starseeker, but since that's homebrew I'm betting it's banned. In that case, I'd likely play a Drakewarden. If that doesn't work, basic bitch Hunter it is.

[sithlordnergal]

Yeah. Our styles differ, which is fine. Personally, I don't like optimization because I've seen it turn into an arms race both between the players and between the players and DM really quickly. And it doesn't fit my (more narrative) style at all. I mean, sure. Don't anti optimize either--the "low strength and wisdom halfling barbarian/cleric crosses that use a heavy weapon exclusively, don't rage, and don't cast spells" stupidities aren't exactly welcome either[1]. I'm looking for characters that fit the world and allow us all to explore interesting scenarios that also fit the world. It's a careful dance.

[1] Something I've actually seen presented at a real table. Fortunately that player only was there for a couple sessions before real life intervened. Most useless character ever.

...I feel like the fact that a player had to go out of their way that badly in order to make an unoptimized and useless character is a testament to how even the worst class in 5e is useful. XD

[MarkVIIIMarc]

I'm kicking around a bit of a different thought for possible upcoming games: Even if the game goes to 20, no one can have level 6+ spells. You can go straight wizard if you like, but you can't prepare or learn any spell of level 6+ (so you probably want to MC out). You can still upcast past 6th level if you have the slots.

-----Other restrictions based on my normal house rules----
Content restrictions: No adventure or setting books. No UA. No MMotM.
Species restrictions: Only ones from "core-ish 5e". No Tasha's rules.
Class restrictions: Twilight/Peace clerics, Stars druid, clockwork/aberrant mind sorcerer, and scribes wizard are out. Nothing from setting or adventure books is allowed, except goliaths. They're ok. Anything else is fair game.
Levels: 1-20.
Magic items: Mostly random. Don't expect to get +X items at any regular intervals.
MC/Feats: yeah, whatever. Same content rules.
Short Rests: are a thing. Variance on adventuring days is fairly high.

I've played characters in games which ran from level 1 to 10 for years so in large part Lore Bard is my answer. Afterwards, I dunno. I may get bored and quit after hitting a stopping point?

If I could work a character concept I may continue on.

Currently I do have a weirs psi-warrior/warlock/rogue which will never get level 6 spells.

[PhoenixPhyre]

...I feel like the fact that a player had to go out of their way that badly in order to make an unoptimized and useless character is a testament to how even the worst class in 5e is useful. XD

Yeah. Honestly, I think the kid (who was definitely fairly far on the spectrum) just had a particular concept very firmly in mind and didn't care in the slightest that it made absolutely negative mechanical sense. I offered to let him reskin a longsword in two hands as a greatsword (even allowing same damage!), but he was having none of it. The most useful the character ever was was when the player had to leave a session early and so we robot played him with a sling.

IIRC, his stat allocation was something like (standard array was what I used for that game)

STR 13
DEX 16
CON ... don't remember, probably 12? 13 depending on which halfling subrace he was?
INT 8
WIS 14
CHA 10 or 11 (I may have INT and CHA backwards)

And honestly, you could build a decent cleric that way. Even a cleric/barbarian mix (which is kinda absurd, but just going with it). But not as a halfling wielding a greatsword, and not using neither rage nor spells. I mean...pick one of those two key features. And use it. Please.

[sithlordnergal]

Yeah. Honestly, I think the kid (who was definitely fairly far on the spectrum) just had a particular concept very firmly in mind and didn't care in the slightest that it made absolutely negative mechanical sense. I offered to let him reskin a longsword in two hands as a greatsword (even allowing same damage!), but he was having none of it. The most useful the character ever was was when the player had to leave a session early and so we robot played him with a sling.

IIRC, his stat allocation was something like (standard array was what I used for that game)

STR 13
DEX 16
CON ... don't remember, probably 12? 13 depending on which halfling subrace he was?
INT 8
WIS 14
CHA 10 or 11 (I may have INT and CHA backwards)

And honestly, you could build a decent cleric that way. Even a cleric/barbarian mix (which is kinda absurd, but just going with it). But not as a halfling wielding a greatsword, and not using neither rage nor spells. I mean...pick one of those two key features. And use it. Please.


>_O As an optimizer...seeing that stat allocation hurts me. As a player, the fact that this player botched the use of their spells and abilities that badly hurts more than words can say. Cause not gonna lie, change up the stat distribution a bit and that build works perfectly fine. Heck, it could become a pretty powerful Support/Tank:

- Reckless Attack can remove the Disadvantage of using a Greatsword as a Halfling

- Cleric has a lot of really good, long lasting spells that work with Rage. Things like Aid, Spiritual Weapon, and Warding Bond work perfectly fine with Rage since they're not Concentration. Hell, Warding Bond with Bear Totem's Rage basically means two characters Resist almost all damage. Wonder if Warding Bond works with Twinned Spell...Could make for a fun gimmick

You just...need to actually use the spells and abilities. TT-TT

[PhoenixPhyre]

>_O As an optimizer...seeing that stat allocation hurts me. As a player, the fact that this player botched the use of their spells and abilities that badly hurts more than words can say. Cause not gonna lie, change up the stat distribution a bit and that build works perfectly fine. Heck, it could become a pretty powerful Support/Tank:

- Reckless Attack can remove the Disadvantage of using a Greatsword as a Halfling

- Cleric has a lot of really good, long lasting spells that work with Rage. Things like Aid, Spiritual Weapon, and Warding Bond work perfectly fine with Rage since they're not Concentration. Hell, Warding Bond with Bear Totem's Rage basically means two characters Resist almost all damage. Wonder if Warding Bond works with Twinned Spell...Could make for a fun gimmick

You just...need to actually use the spells and abilities. TT-TT

Yeah. It was the sum total, not any of the parts that made it so :sideways_owl:. It honestly read like someone who had read a guide somewhere but didn't quite understand how it worked.

[Sigreid]

Here is the thing, is it as much of a problem as a Necromancer wizard brining over a hundred undead to each fight? Who will shine more, the rest of the party or the guy with around a hundred actions a turn?

At the end of the day, I feel there are way more disruptive abilities in in game then allowing party members to swap places and having an extra 1d4 to one attack a turn.

That said, since I see the gm as being adversarial, it might give me a reason to play a Necromancer wizard. Swamp all problems in hordes of undead, and show how much numbers matter in 5e.

The irony is that your stance is adversarial.

[Jakinbandw]

This attitude of extreme player entitlement (it was printed, so therefore you're a bad person if you don't let me use it) is something I find extremely distasteful. And the response of "well, he didn't allow that thing I wanted, so now I'm going to bring Pun Pun in and wreck stuff, that'll show him" is a very strong "yeah, I don't want to play with you. Either as another player or as your DM" signal. It's a massive waving red flag.

I've been in 2 tpk party wipes in my time. Both started with a GM asking us to not minmax, and limiting our options. One said no feats, no multiclassing, with gritty resting rules. The other said no multiclassing, and no using a list of subclasses they felt were too strong (along with putting us against a tight time limit in game).

In both cases, they tpked the party with deadly+ encounters, then blamed the party for not playing well enough, saying that dnd characters only die when players play poorly.

As I said, if I knew you as a GM, I'd be willing to listen to why you don't want those options in the game and play with you, but based on my experiences, GMs that talk like this need to be avoided like players of Chaotic Neutral PCs in a heroic game. I love playing characters with strengths and weaknesses. My last character was a peace cleric 1/eloquence bard 7 that had 8 strength, 10 dex, and 10 con. My ac was a solid 14 because I couldn't carry any more weight with all the books and RP items I had. I wasn't good in combat as a fighter, but I made the rest of the party really strong, and everyone had fun with that. I liked helping, and they liked hitting.

Now if you tell me that character archtype is too strong, and that we need to struggle more, what I hear is that I better CharOP to the best of my ability so I don't get party wiped and insulted for a 3rd time. And if your banning my ability to buff my party members, then my only option is to make the strongest personal build. I don't want to ruin your campaign, but I also don't want to end up TPK'd for a third time.

Finally, notice that not one of my complaints is even about the removal of 6+ level spells. I'd be completely fine with that, as I can see why it's important in keeping spotlight balance in the higher levels. I don't thing that my willingness to accept removal such things speaks to over entitlement.


Its doesn't necessarily suggest an adversarial gm. As a gm, my most important goal to encounter building is the illusion of risk. Basically, when my players finish a major encounter they should have almost no resources left, have less than half HP left, and have had multiple players go down, possibly multiple times. I'll also occasionally use spells like Chill Touch that prevent any form of normal healing, just to add a bit more risk. Additionally, I do all of that with the end goal of not causing a tpk...which I've succeeded at. I've never caused a TPK in all of my time DMing.

My personal feeling is that if you're skilled enough to do that, then you are probably skilled enough to handle the extra 1d4 to hit once a round that a peace cleric brings to the table. After being TPK'd twice by GMs that didn't want powergaming, but sent deadly+ encounters against the party, and then having the players blamed for it, I might be a bit gun shy. I would be willing to play at such a table, if a GM promised not to just TPK us. Also if they went over and were willing to discuss how to get the character concept into the game without causing whatever issues they think it would cause.


I understand where you're coming from with point 1. However, in recent games with newer content the power creep issue seems to go beyond just a player vs. DM issue. 5e was always set on easy, but at this point if all content is fair game for players challenging them requires foes far beyond what the original game was designed around.

In my experience with multiple of this type of GM, they will ask you not to optimize, put you into an unwinnable fight and TPK the party, then blame the players for dying and quit the game. Power creep can be a thing, but I honestly don't see the issue with it as long as everyone is getting a chance to contribute to an adventure. The GM is able to up the challenge to deal with any type of power creep the party has, and really only needs to step in when a PC is obviously out of line with the rest of the party and unbalancing the spotlight.

It's why I'm fine with dropping the high level spells, but not with dropping support character classes. Support character classes make the entire party better, high level spells steal the spotlight.


The irony is that your stance is adversarial.
Fair. I've just been insulted to many times by GMs that want to 'tone down power levels' before they TPK my party to feel comfortable with GMs that take the first step on a path I've seen before. I know where it leads, and I don't like it.

[MrStabby]

I'm kicking around a bit of a different thought for possible upcoming games: Even if the game goes to 20, no one can have level 6+ spells. You can go straight wizard if you like, but you can't prepare or learn any spell of level 6+ (so you probably want to MC out). You can still upcast past 6th level if you have the slots.

-----Other restrictions based on my normal house rules----
Content restrictions: No adventure or setting books. No UA. No MMotM.
Species restrictions: Only ones from "core-ish 5e". No Tasha's rules.
Class restrictions: Twilight/Peace clerics, Stars druid, clockwork/aberrant mind sorcerer, and scribes wizard are out. Nothing from setting or adventure books is allowed, except goliaths. They're ok. Anything else is fair game.
Levels: 1-20.
Magic items: Mostly random. Don't expect to get +X items at any regular intervals.
MC/Feats: yeah, whatever. Same content rules.
Short Rests: are a thing. Variance on adventuring days is fairly high.

This is the kind of game I could go for. I have pitched something similar a couple of times, but with no takers (and a few additions to the list like Shepherd druid and the wall of force spell).

Whilst I would like this, and would happily play this, I think that a lot of my views on why high level casters are problematic have changed over the years an I think this only fixes about 40% of the issue. For me the issue is not average power, but peak power that is so strong that other players don't have a dramatic stake in the encounter. They might mop up some damage but their special cool abilities are not tied to success. So from a power perspective taking out the high level spells will soften this a lot - but there are concerns I still have.

Firstly, high level slots still make for some very powerful turns; banishment out of a level 7 slot still can have a big impact.

Secondly, the power isn't really about the number associated with the spell slot, but often about having just the right tool for the job. The bigger the toolbox the more likely the perfect remedy to the current situation is to be found wihin it. Pass Without race and end an encounter just as easily as force cage. The raw increase in spells known/prepared will not be massively attenuated by this and you are still going to have a lot of encounters bypassed.

Thirdly, at high levels in some campaigns, these spells are a crutch. Yes they are powerful, but in a world of legendary resistance and magic resistance the number of impactful spells a caster might have can get pretty small and if you have built anythng other than an optimised character with priority given to including non-save effects over thematic consistancy then you culd end up with a character that is surprisingly weak (and a caster that doesn't have useful things to do in some encounters is not really much less disruptive - they just have more spells left for the other encounters in the day - it just means they have a suckier time as well.


As to what to play - it still depends on the group and optimisation level. Some tempting things...

1) Warlock or cleric. Their level 6+ casting is relatively sucky, so these fare better than other caster options. Warlock also gets 'Big Spashy Magic Feeling' just from the higher average level spell slots. I like playing casters and could still suck up these changes happily.
2) Of these, hexblade becomes likely. The setup heavily rewards multiclassing so stacking up mare martial abilities would work just fine for me.
3) I could be tempted by Hexblade 7, Gloomstalker 3, Fighter 2, Swashbuckler (or possibly AT) 7, Gloomstalker 4 (+1) progression. You probably don't want to dump dex or wis too hard anyway so a 13/14 in these is no big deal and the SADness of the Hexblade takes the sting out of the lack of ASIs. It would give me some spell slots for the lower level hexblade spells and would let me play a funky archer.

Maybe more of a rogue... possiby. I love the idea of the rogue in a dungeon crawl, but I find them unsatisfying if casters are about with utility spells etc.. If there were something making these casters less likely, then maybe something with strong elements of rogue could work... and an arcane trickster's magic would feel special then rather than just a crap version of something other classes got some time ago.

Maybe a rune knight. They seem to scale reasonably well and with with all the new feats there is a nice reward to those extra ASIs.







It's not good. It's just...less bad. Martials should scale better at higher levels. Casters should scale less well and have actual thematic features instead of "pick the strongest things from this ever-expanding list of broken crap". Martials at least have features that are emblematic of what they've been doing, instead of "here's a new tier of unrelated broken crap to play with. Pick your favorites."

In defence of casters (at least from the fun side if not balance) the whole new set of things they can do is awesome as a feeling. It feels like something genuinely new rather than more of the same. Its not more rage with bigger numbers, or an atack action that now deals an extra bit of damage... caster progression is in some ways pretty cool. I think that the feeling of it being unrelated crap is an issue in practice because the classes are so unfocussed with too little reward for specialising and too little penalty for being a generalist. I think there is probably some happy-medium somewhere. I am not saying this is better than well designed class features either, but that there is an upside to it other than just from a power perspective.

[Sigreid]

I've been in 2 tpk party wipes in my time. Both started with a GM asking us to not minmax, and limiting our options. One said no feats, no multiclassing, with gritty resting rules. The other said no multiclassing, and no using a list of subclasses they felt were too strong (along with putting us against a tight time limit in game).

In both cases, they tpked the party with deadly+ encounters, then blamed the party for not playing well enough, saying that dnd characters only die when players play poorly.

As I said, if I knew you as a GM, I'd be willing to listen to why you don't want those options in the game and play with you, but based on my experiences, GMs that talk like this need to be avoided like players of Chaotic Neutral PCs in a heroic game. I love playing characters with strengths and weaknesses. My last character was a peace cleric 1/eloquence bard 7 that had 8 strength, 10 dex, and 10 con. My ac was a solid 14 because I couldn't carry any more weight with all the books and RP items I had. I wasn't good in combat as a fighter, but I made the rest of the party really strong, and everyone had fun with that. I liked helping, and they liked hitting.

Now if you tell me that character archtype is too strong, and that we need to struggle more, what I hear is that I better CharOP to the best of my ability so I don't get party wiped and insulted for a 3rd time. And if your banning my ability to buff my party members, then my only option is to make the strongest personal build. I don't want to ruin your campaign, but I also don't want to end up TPK'd for a third time.

Finally, notice that not one of my complaints is even about the removal of 6+ level spells. I'd be completely fine with that, as I can see why it's important in keeping spotlight balance in the higher levels. I don't thing that my willingness to accept removal such things speaks to over entitlement.



My personal feeling is that if you're skilled enough to do that, then you are probably skilled enough to handle the extra 1d4 to hit once a round that a peace cleric brings to the table. After being TPK'd twice by GMs that didn't want powergaming, but sent deadly+ encounters against the party, and then having the players blamed for it, I might be a bit gun shy. I would be willing to play at such a table, if a GM promised not to just TPK us. Also if they went over and were willing to discuss how to get the character concept into the game without causing whatever issues they think it would cause.



In my experience with multiple of this type of GM, they will ask you not to optimize, put you into an unwinnable fight and TPK the party, then blame the players for dying and quit the game. Power creep can be a thing, but I honestly don't see the issue with it as long as everyone is getting a chance to contribute to an adventure. The GM is able to up the challenge to deal with any type of power creep the party has, and really only needs to step in when a PC is obviously out of line with the rest of the party and unbalancing the spotlight.

It's why I'm fine with dropping the high level spells, but not with dropping support character classes. Support character classes make the entire party better, high level spells steal the spotlight.


Fair. I've just been insulted to many times by GMs that want to 'tone down power levels' before they TPK my party to feel comfortable with GMs that take the first step on a path I've seen before. I know where it leads, and I don't like it.

What I think I'm hearing OP say is that they have a feel for the campaign that they're going for and they are primarily limiting based on that feel. I'm also hearing that there are 2 subclasses and some abilities that they consider as requiring them to turn up the danger to a point they aren't comfortable with in order for the party to not cake walk it and get bored, and importantly; that the group they play with has discussed it and they're on board. In other words, he wants the game at more casual power levels so he doesn't have to crank it up to 11.

But that's just how it comes across to me in his posts. I don't know him, or any of you really. He might be a slobbering psychopath DM for all I know. :D

[PhoenixPhyre]

What I think I'm hearing OP say is that they have a feel for the campaign that they're going for and they are primarily limiting based on that feel. I'm also hearing that there are 2 subclasses and some abilities that they consider as requiring them to turn up the danger to a point they aren't comfortable with in order for the party to not cake walk it and get bored, and importantly; that the group they play with has discussed it and they're on board. In other words, he wants the game at more casual power levels so he doesn't have to crank it up to 11.

But that's just how it comes across to me in his posts. I don't know him, or any of you really. He might be a slobbering psychopath DM for all I know. :D

Not just turn up the danger generally. Do so specifically in particular ways. And all to let people play subclasses that have negative thematic value both intrinsically and with respect to the setting.

Could I compensate? Sure. Do I enjoy the kind of game that results from such things? Not at all.

And let me repeat. The utter lack of thematic coherence is the dominant, primary, overriding reason I don't allow any of those subclasses. The broken, stupid power creep is just icing on the crap cake.

[Rukelnikov]

Mostly for backstory and thematic reasons (a musician tempted into a bargain for glory). and I like the bardic theme for a warlock. And I was trying to rail in my optimizing tendencies by steering away from Sorlock.

Cool! :smallsmile:

[Witty Username]

To match a caster's scaling, you have to make them a caster. Or break the scaling. And since the casters' power scaling alone (ie ignoring the combinatoric factor) is already problematic and doesn't match the rest of the game in any way...

Number of options may translate to versatility but not power.
Martial scaling already matches caster scaling, in the areas martials are expected to excel in (AC, HP, Damage), the issue is martial scaling stops dead around 5th levelish (fighter and Paladin have a spike in tier 3, and the martails tend to have a tier 4 ability that represents another jump).

[diplomancer]

One interesting thought came to me; at first, I thought "not fair that casters get higher level slots but no higher level spells, while martials get new class features, there should be a few class features to entice casters to stay single-classed".

But aren't a lot of high level martial class features "you can do more and more powerful versions of your usual stuff"? I.e, martial class features are mostly just "higher level slots", and therein lies the problem, and explains why it's so common for pure martials to multi-class at some point.

[stoutstien]

One interesting thought came to me; at first, I thought "not fair that casters get higher level slots but no higher level spells, while martials get new class features, there should be a few class features to entice casters to stay single-classed".

But aren't a lot of high level martial class features "you can do more and more powerful versions of your usual stuff"? I.e, martial class features are mostly just "higher level slots", and therein lies the problem, and explains why it's so common for pure martials to multi-class at some point.

To a certain extent this is true. Most non spell casters stop scaling roughly around lv 11 in their primary action niche.

[Corvin]

I'd be inclined to try a pure fighter; maybe a ranged battlemaster or an echo knight (depending on party composition). Partly because if the GM is nerfing half the classes, it makes sense to play something from the other half. But there's more to it than that.

My assumption would be that the GM doesn't like the way 5e plays out of the box, and wants to modify it to better fit his style. (Fair enough.) I also think it likely that the GM will either make further changes or design encounters to neutralize abilities he sees as unbalanced. I'd want to avoid relying on magic so I'm not blindsided by additional spells being banned, or all enemies suddenly having +10 to wisdom saves. In addition, the GM's problem may be less with magic in general and more with abilities that offer unexpected solutions or allow the party to sidestep planned encounters, so I'd want to avoid building around things like stealth or diplomacy.

Fighter seems like a good option under these circumstances. It lets me play something I've been interested in to the best of my ability, without worrying too much about annoying the GM with unexpected solutions or being annoyed by additional character nerfs.

Having said all that, if I was playing with a trusted GM and knew that it wouldn't cause problems, I would consider playing a lore bard/trickery cleric focused on support and infiltration. I don't know if it's the most optimal build, but it sounds like a lot of fun.

[Satinavian]

To match a caster's scaling, you have to make them a caster. Or break the scaling. And since the casters' power scaling alone (ie ignoring the combinatoric factor) is already problematic and doesn't match the rest of the game in any way...
Consider the following power :

Minor favored enemy
For every level you can choose one specific kind of monster from any official source that you can do one additional damage on one attack per long rest.


Sounds not particularly impressive, right ? But there are way over 2000 official D&D monsters. So a lv 20 Character gets way over 2000^20 combinations to choose from. That leaves all kind of possible spell combinations in the dust.


Versatility is fine. But "number of combinations possible" is pretty useless to measure it. Or to measure power.

[Waazraath]

It wouldn't influence my decision on what to play - people on both sides of the argument are making too much of it imo. No, this is not terrible, casters are still good, and with or without this optional rule, martials are fine.

Lets take level 15 - the level most published campaigns stop, or have stopped already. A full caster has 3 spell slots where it has to use in a, in theory, suboptimal way. In theory, because in a real game, it is by no means certain that the higher level slots prepared are actually useful, so in many cases they might have been spend on a lower level spell to begin with.

[Sception]

i may be skeptical of some of the bans (again, i think tasha & lunar sorcerers fix something that had previously been wrong with the class, & would go back to change previous subclasses to add spells rather than ban them), but are people really arguing for the tasha's clerics, here? I mean, /come on/ people.

Even I ban those. hp damage is supposed to be the primary way the game challenges the party, you can't have player content that negates that threat from anything close to level appropriate encounters, especually with abilities that are only usually but not always available. if i design an encounter with damage output assuming a twilight cleric's cd and they don't happen to have it available, the party just dies. plus the constant interruptions caused by a pease cleric's presence are obnoxoous on a level beyond even hardcore minionmancy.

[KorvinStarmast]

-----Other restrictions based on my normal house rules----
Content restrictions: No adventure or setting books. No UA. No MMotM.
Species restrictions: Only ones from "core-ish 5e". No Tasha's rules.
Class restrictions: Twilight/Peace clerics, Stars druid, clockwork/aberrant mind sorcerer, and scribes wizard are out.
Levels: 1-20.
Magic items: Mostly random. Don't expect to get +X items at any regular intervals.
MC/Feats: yeah, whatever. Same content rules.
Short Rests: are a thing. Variance on adventuring days is fairly high. Warlock. Genie, Fathomless or my old stand by Celestial.
Pact of the Tome is most likely.
Now, talk to me about Mystic Arcanum. How do we harness that feature under your proposed constraints?
Extra Invocations?
Extra features?
What?

My second choice is this:
Mercy Monk 11/Peace Cleric 9. Run around naked alternately healing and hurting the enemy/bystanders/whomever and whatever as the occasion dictates. Will not wear that silly mask.
If Peace Cleric is banned, Mercy Monk 11 / Live Cleric 9. Same as above.
Progression probably goes
Monk 1, Cleric 6 (to get Revivify and level 6 feature, and Wis to 18)) and then complete Monk through level 6; that puts me at Dex 16 Wisdom 20; probably take monk to 8 at that point (Dex 18) and then choose what to do next.

[Rukelnikov]

It wouldn't influence my decision on what to play - people on both sides of the argument are making too much of it imo. No, this is not terrible, casters are still good, and with or without this optional rule, martials are fine.

Lets take level 15 - the level most published campaigns stop, or have stopped already. A full caster has 3 spell slots where it has to use in a, in theory, suboptimal way. In theory, because in a real game, it is by no means certain that the higher level slots prepared are actually useful, so in many cases they might have been spend on a lower level spell to begin with.

IME That depends on the campaign in question, the more downtime the party has the less theorethical those differences become.

There are quite a number of 6th and 7th lvl spells that, unless the DM intervenes to throw wrenches at them, can radically impact the characters themselves or setting being played. Most notably, those dealing with very efficient transportation (Plane Shift, Teleport, Transport via Plants), building/terrain reformation (Mold Earth, Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, Temple of the Gods), and creating creatures (Create Undead, Simulacrum[1]), a couple for assorted reasons (Magic Jar, Resurrection).

[PhoenixPhyre]

Consider the following power :

Minor favored enemy
For every level you can choose one specific kind of monster from any official source that you can do one additional damage on one attack per long rest.


Sounds not particularly impressive, right ? But there are way over 2000 official D&D monsters. So a lv 20 Character gets way over 2000^20 combinations to choose from. That leaves all kind of possible spell combinations in the dust.


Versatility is fine. But "number of combinations possible" is pretty useless to measure it. Or to measure power.

Let's actually analyze that in detail.

First, the actual scaling there isn't on published monsters (M0), it's on monsters that may appear in your campaign (M1, a number you have no control over), with M1 << M0. But even ignoring that, 2000^20 ~ 10^66 combinations. A lot, to be sure. But only exponential scaling.

On the other hand, a wizard who gains no extra spells other than level up has a total option pool of ~350 spells, of which he can choose 44 for his spellbook. Out of those, he can prepare 25 each day. So the total option space there is (350 nCr 44)*(44 nCr 25) ~ 10^68. Two orders of magnitude higher. And if the wizard gets even 10 extra spells, that first term alone is nearly on the same order of magnitude as the 2000^20. That's because wizards (and casters generally) scale factorially. And factorial scaling >> exponential scaling. Not only that, but each of the pieces of their factorial scales entirely under their control AND faster than linearly.

Overall, your proposed thing grows (constant in frequency)*(constant in power)*(exponential in versatility) = exponentially.

The baseline wizard grows (linearly in frequency)*(faster than linear in power, probably power law)*(factorially in versatility) ~ L*L^C*L! ~ L^(C+1) L!, for C > 0. Which is obscene scaling.

Furthermore, your proposed ability doesn't exist. Wizards do. And every new spell published, every spellbook they find, every scroll they find is an additional, non-level-based form of scaling.

[Jakinbandw]

Let's actually analyze that in detail.

First, the actual scaling there isn't on published monsters (M0), it's on monsters that may appear in your campaign (M1, a number you have no control over), with M1 << M0. But even ignoring that, 2000^20 ~ 10^66 combinations. A lot, to be sure. But only exponential scaling.

On the other hand, a wizard who gains no extra spells other than level up has a total option pool of ~350 spells, of which he can choose 44 for his spellbook. Out of those, he can prepare 25 each day. So the total option space there is (350 nCr 44)*(44 nCr 25) ~ 10^68. Two orders of magnitude higher. And if the wizard gets even 10 extra spells, that first term alone is nearly on the same order of magnitude as the 2000^20. That's because wizards (and casters generally) scale factorially. And factorial scaling >> exponential scaling. Not only that, but each of the pieces of their factorial scales entirely under their control AND faster than linearly.

Overall, your proposed thing grows (constant in frequency)*(constant in power)*(exponential in versatility) = exponentially.

The baseline wizard grows (linearly in frequency)*(faster than linear in power, probably power law)*(factorially in versatility) ~ L*L^C*L! ~ L^(C+1) L!, for C > 0. Which is obscene scaling.

Furthermore, your proposed ability doesn't exist. Wizards do. And every new spell published, every spellbook they find, every scroll they find is an additional, non-level-based form of scaling.

So what you're saying is that a hypothetical class that got access to the wish spell 2 times per short rest (and a feature that made it so they could auto pass the lose clause), would be the weakest class, because their class feature doesn't scale or give them options. Am I reading that right?

[PhoenixPhyre]

So what you're saying is that a hypothetical class that got access to the wish spell 2 times per short rest (and a feature that made it so they could auto pass the lose clause), would be the weakest class, because their class feature doesn't scale or give them options. Am I reading that right?

It would scale poorly with level. The constants still matter at each point on the curve, and setting them to NI (numerically infinite) works. But it wouldn't change with level. And that's the piece being discussed. The scaling.

[Guy Lombard-O]

Not just turn up the danger generally. Do so specifically in particular ways. And all to let people play subclasses that have negative thematic value both intrinsically and with respect to the setting.

Could I compensate? Sure. Do I enjoy the kind of game that results from such things? Not at all.

And let me repeat. The utter lack of thematic coherence is the dominant, primary, overriding reason I don't allow any of those subclasses. The broken, stupid power creep is just icing on the crap cake.

I agree with both your goals and the appeal of the exclusion of 6th level spells as a campaign idea. In such a campaign, I might play a straight fighter, maybe a sorcadin, or something like my goblin rogue 1/trickery 9/aberrant sorc X.

I'll even agree about the weak thematics of many/most of the new subclasses, and wholly agree about the overall power creep. Twilight is an abomination, both mechanically and thematically. I might suggest either adding Bladesinger to your list of banned subclasses (or at least porting their exceptional version of Extra Attack over to the Eldritch Knight).

But however you feel about the power-creepiness of the aberrant mind sorcerer, I'd posit that the mechanics and thematics of the subclass do work together pretty effectively to present a coherent and functional "mind mage" or mentalist. Thematically at least, the aberrant mind sorc doesn't offend the senses (at least IMHO).

[tiornys]

Number of options may translate to versatility but not power.
Martial scaling already matches caster scaling, in the areas martials are expected to excel in (AC, HP, Damage), the issue is martial scaling stops dead around 5th levelish (fighter and Paladin have a spike in tier 3, and the martails tend to have a tier 4 ability that represents another jump).


Consider the following power :

Minor favored enemy
For every level you can choose one specific kind of monster from any official source that you can do one additional damage on one attack per long rest.


Sounds not particularly impressive, right ? But there are way over 2000 official D&D monsters. So a lv 20 Character gets way over 2000^20 combinations to choose from. That leaves all kind of possible spell combinations in the dust.


Versatility is fine. But "number of combinations possible" is pretty useless to measure it. Or to measure power.
Versatility is power. To give a non-RPG analogy, if all you have is a hammer and a hand saw you're going to have a much harder time with a lot of carpentry tasks than if you have a full toolbox (and know how to use all of the tools). "Adventuring" is a much broader topic than "carpentry" with a much wider set of tools, but the same principle applies--other things being equal, it's better to have the best tool for each step of a task than to have a good tool for every step of the task, and it's better to have a good tool for every step of a task than to be entirely missing tools for parts of the task.

[PallyBass]

Casting classes I would consider are Full paladin or paladin-sorcerer/warlock multiclass, leaning to the multiclass since the spell slots are meant more for smites.

Or any martial, probably fighter since I have only played one once

[Satinavian]

Furthermore, your proposed ability doesn't exist. Wizards do. And every new spell published, every spellbook they find, every scroll they find is an additional, non-level-based form of scaling.So would the other power with every new monster.

That power was to illustrate how utterly meaningless the number of possible combinations actually is.


Versatility is power. Oh, i agree that versatility is power. I just claim that PhoenixPhyres attempt to count spellbook combination is a pretty meaningless way to measure power. That is not to say that casters are not powerful or versatile. But that comes from what their spells can do, not from the numerous ways to shift them around.

If casters knew all the spells in their list and had them always prepared, they would be vastly more powerful than they are now but the number of different spell combinations per class would shrink to 1. That is how uncorrelated that number is to power and versatility.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Oh, i agree that versatility is power. I just claim that PhoenixPhyres attempt to count spellbook combination is a pretty meaningless way to measure power. That is not to say that casters are not powerful or versatile. But that comes from what their spells can do, not from the numerous ways to shift them around.

If casters knew all the spells in their list and had them always prepared, they would be vastly more powerful than they are now but the number of different spell combinations per class would shrink to 1. That is how uncorrelated that number is to power and versatility.

Spellbook combinations is one component of versatility. Specifically focused on how it scales.

Versatility is a combination of several factors:
* As an individual character, how many different things can I do without changing my build.
* How many different ways can I change my loadout without rebuilding the character
* How many different builds are there.

Each one of those has parts that contribute statically and parts that scale with level. I was performing only a scaling operation, using what's called Big O notation. In that notation, anything that is constant under scaling is ignored for those purposes. It may be a large factor. But it's ignored because it doesn't scale--if the scaling element is large enough, Ax < Bx^2 even if A >>> B.

In the particular case of "I know and have prepared all my spells out of a large list", the scaling part is 1, as you say. Constant. But the coefficient of that static part is huge. Enough so that you get a very large overall versatility (and thus a large overall contribution to power).

But that's utterly irrelevant to our current setup, where you have two classes of classes--those that scale really really really well and have large coefficients at any given level and those that have neither good scaling OR large coefficients. And you can't get large coefficients without also fixing the scaling part (or making it irrelevant). And to do that (to catch up with the overall power level of casters as they stand now), you have to give them spells. Or give them a few extremely absurdly broken abilities. Which causes its own set of problems and doesn't actually fix the issue[1].

[1] For example, Uberchargers in 3e could one-hit kill anything they could touch. But generally, they couldn't do anything else. Overall power--obscene. Balanced vs T1 (3e meaning) casters? Not at all. Uberchargers were T4 specifically because they could only do one thing.

[Pex]

Sorry I don't even know if you would see this, but I'm just flabbergasted. DM's would have a problem with that tactic?

Like, what? Who are you playing with? (I mean, outside of new Dm's, which of course your obligation is to show them different counters they could use).

That's not even hard to engage with? I mean it's interactable, there are ways to deal with it from various martial and non martial sources. Heck, just throw dispel magic and the problem is solved?

Sorry. I mean it's a good move don't get me wrong. But it's hardly what I would consider top tier.

Not every DM, just usually DMs who ban a lot of things. I'm confident PhoenixPhyre isn't like that. Apologies to PhoenixPhyre if I gave that impression. However, I've experienced enough games with DMs who've banned so many parts of the game (any edition) to know not to bother trying them anymore. I don't apologize for knowing the game well enough to optimize a strong character, but it's annoying to be questioned every time I do something "Cool". I'm not trying to Win D&D, but I like being competent at what my character is supposed to do. More than that these DMs cannot handle powerful PCs. Anything that shuts down a monster doing stuff or causes a monster to be ineffective against a PC angers the DM. It leads to further banning or nerfing, or the DM ending the game altogether.

Best case lots of banning is a red flag for me. By itself doesn't prove anything, but it often coincides with other personal opinion bad DM habits enough times that it's a flag I no longer ignore. Did it last week when looking for games to join in a recruitment forum. The time of game was perfect. I liked the premise, but then I saw a whole list of stuff that was banned. The DM said the game was low magic. Fine, but then cleric, sorcerer, wizard, and warlock are banned. He really meant no magic. That was a Nope for me. I want magic in my D&D games. The DM is in his rights to do that. I'm in my rights not to like it.

[Zhorn]

I can very much understand and sympathize with Pex take on this.
One of the main reasons I've taken to the role of forever DM is in response to having multiple DMs that seem to have issues with their players being able to efficiently win encounters, and is also why I react so strongly against suggestions of fudging dice rolls or changing rules mid-play.

I'm more willing to accept longer ban lists and houserules when the DM gives fair and reasonable justification for them
But the longer a ban list gets without a clear reason, the more akin to being a red flag it becomes.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Not every DM, just usually DMs who ban a lot of things. I'm confidant PhoenixPhyre isn't like that. Apologies to PhoenixPhyre if I gave that impression. However, I've experienced enough games with DMs who've banned so many parts of the game (any edition) to know not to bother trying them anymore. I don't apologize for knowing the game well enough to optimize a strong character, but it's annoying to be questioned every time I do something "Cool". I'm not trying to Win D&D, but I like being competent at what my character is supposed to do. More than that these DMs cannot handle powerful PCs. Anything that shuts down a monster doing stuff or causes a monster to be ineffective against a PC angers the DM. It leads to further banning or nerfing, or the DM ending the game altogether.

Best case lots of banning is a red flag for me. By itself doesn't prove anything, but it often coincides with other personal opinion bad DM habits enough times that it's a flag I no longer ignore. Did it last week when looking for games to join in a recruitment forum. The time of game was perfect. I liked the premise, but then I saw a whole list of stuff that was banned. The DM said the game was low magic. Fine, but then cleric, sorcerer, wizard, and warlock are banned. He really meant no magic. That was a Nope for me. I want magic in my D&D games. The DM is in his rights to do that. I'm in my rights not to like it.

I'll note that I'm totally fine with someone saying "nah, I want a <higher power | more magical |whatever> game and so I'll pass on this one." That's a matter of taste. Just like I pass on pure dungeon crawls, low-action psychological games, and attempts to do "5e, but in SPAAAACE". Among other things.

I'm less fine with the idea that "bans" are somehow an inherent issue or sign of a bad DM. Because I work from a whitelist (default deny) model rather than a blacklist (default accept) model. I believe that content only exists when and if the DM says it does. So it's less "DM is banning this" and more "DM is accepting everything except this". The ban list is near-infinite--there's crap-tons of crap (pun intended) that I don't accept--all that homebrew out there. It's not banned, it's just not accepted.

[Zhorn]

I'm less fine with the idea that "bans" are somehow an inherent issue or sign of a bad DM. Because I work from a whitelist (default deny) model rather than a blacklist (default accept) model.
Most of the reason why I stress so often the point about justification.
A DM that can explain their intent on why certain things are banned can make it very clear very quickly whether it is or isn't a red flag.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Most of the reason why I stress so often the point about justification.
A DM that can explain their intent on why certain things are banned can make it very clear very quickly whether it is or isn't a red flag.

But that assumes that everything is allowed by default and thus restrictions have to be explained. In my mind, it's exactly the opposite--allowances are the non-default and thus have to be explained.

[sithlordnergal]

I'm less fine with the idea that "bans" are somehow an inherent issue or sign of a bad DM. Because I work from a whitelist (default deny) model rather than a blacklist (default accept) model. I believe that content only exists when and if the DM says it does. So it's less "DM is banning this" and more "DM is accepting everything except this". The ban list is near-infinite--there's crap-tons of crap (pun intended) that I don't accept--all that homebrew out there. It's not banned, it's just not accepted.

Its funny, I tend to work on a blacklist (default accept) model. As long as its not insanely broken, I'm generally good with allowing it. Even if its homebrew stuff. Hell, I have a player that's essentially playing a disney princess. XD

[stoutstien]

Its funny, I tend to work on a blacklist (default accept) model. As long as its not insanely broken, I'm generally good with allowing it. Even if its homebrew stuff. Hell, I have a player that's essentially playing a disney princess. XD
Im closer to this myself even if I believe the system is inherently an "opt in" by default.

Something to keep in mind is excluding explicit options can actually increase player agency and freedom.
If feat A says PCs can do B then the new assumption is PCs cannot preform B without the the feat. Removal of feat A is expansion via reduction.

[Satinavian]

Im closer to this myself even if I believe the system is inherently an "opt in" by default.

Something to keep in mind is excluding explicit options can actually increase player agency and freedom.
If feat A says PCs can do B then the new assumption is PCs cannot preform B without the the feat. Removal of feat A is expansion via reduction.
I disgree.

It is true that such rule options regularly get written and are actually restricting, not expanding player options.

But if you just ban the feat, it still is in the rules, it just can't be taken by the players. That means, no one can ever do B. What you want to is houserule "you can do B without the feat".


Versatility is a combination of several factors:
* As an individual character, how many different things can I do without changing my build.
* How many different ways can I change my loadout without rebuilding the character
* How many different builds are there.
The first one is versatility. The second one absolutely is not. You could make an argument to call the third one versatility as well, but that is not a kind of versatility contributing to power because a single character has only one build.


And again, that was only about your numbers argument. I am not trying to argue that casters are not powerful or what should/shouldn't be done with them. I have much to little experience with D&D5 to argue about that, don't like the D&D magic system per se and am very happily playing very different systems.

[Waazraath]

IME That depends on the campaign in question, the more downtime the party has the less theorethical those differences become.


You have a point there - the way I see it, D&D in its current iteration works best (and is balanced and intended for) dungeon crawls, with little downtime, an expected number of encounters/adventuring day and a focus on the combat pillar. For a campaign outside those assumptions, a houserule like the one proposed in this thread might make sense. On the other hand, in the example of a campaign with a lot of downtime, that still leaves e.g. some barbarian subclasses without any or hardly any class features suited for downtime activities, while other classes do have them. Even capping spells at 5th, you still require imo in such a campaign additional houserules (give some classes the AD&D keep or followers), or require items to make up for this, or have a DM given a lot of thought before hand on what can be achieved through roleplay, (non-expertise) skills & backgrounds - and this should be quite a lot or you could get a balance problem. But for me, this is more or less the same if a group wants to play campaigns with only social encounters, or 1 combat/adventuring day. It's outside the bounds of what the game was build for, so yeah, you need to adapt.


Not every DM, just usually DMs who ban a lot of things. I'm confident PhoenixPhyre isn't like that. Apologies to PhoenixPhyre if I gave that impression. However, I've experienced enough games with DMs who've banned so many parts of the game (any edition) to know not to bother trying them anymore. I don't apologize for knowing the game well enough to optimize a strong character, but it's annoying to be questioned every time I do something "Cool". I'm not trying to Win D&D, but I like being competent at what my character is supposed to do. More than that these DMs cannot handle powerful PCs. Anything that shuts down a monster doing stuff or causes a monster to be ineffective against a PC angers the DM. It leads to further banning or nerfing, or the DM ending the game altogether.

Best case lots of banning is a red flag for me. By itself doesn't prove anything, but it often coincides with other personal opinion bad DM habits enough times that it's a flag I no longer ignore. Did it last week when looking for games to join in a recruitment forum. The time of game was perfect. I liked the premise, but then I saw a whole list of stuff that was banned. The DM said the game was low magic. Fine, but then cleric, sorcerer, wizard, and warlock are banned. He really meant no magic. That was a Nope for me. I want magic in my D&D games. The DM is in his rights to do that. I'm in my rights not to like it.

Of course you are in your right not to like stuff, and not to participate. I would like to note: my experience is quite different. For me, a DM banning loads of stuff is something that gives me trust. In the first place due to story reasons. The PHB and MM gives a gazillion options on monsters and species and gods and everything. For me, the best (often homebrew) settings are those that actually make a choice: is this an epic campaign where a world of elves and humans are pitted against the risen dead, is this a campaign where flying islands are besieged by demons from somewhere below, etc. These are imo better stories than the generic world with 100+ intelligent (sub)species and 1000's and 1000's of different monsters, from demons and devils to rampaging orcs and goblins and kobolds, and chtulilan horrors, and, oh yeah, dragons.

Banning stuff shows the DM invested time and effort in making a world.

And it's the same with crunch, actually: ok, it might show that a DM is too much focussed on controll, or show a lack of understanding of game mechanics, but imo it's most often pretty good judgement calls on what abilities detract from fun, and the genuine wish to run a campaign as good as possible.

Of course, fun is really something on which 'ymmv' so sometimes it just isn't a match between player and DM.

[Witty Username]

But that assumes that everything is allowed by default and thus restrictions have to be explained. In my mind, it's exactly the opposite--allowances are the non-default and thus have to be explained.
I have seen and done both ways, which one works better depends on my mood.
I tend to prefer allowance (er, books I own, homebrew if I approve it and am provided a physical copy of), I tend to prefer setting construction in post, so I build based on the table's interest.
That being said, my play group has mucked with trying increased specificity, I think the smallest but very left field, we had a Ravnica game where half-elves were banned (the reasoning is that half-elves don't exist in mtg, and the Ravnica book didn't cover them, so we assumed they didn't exist). And I did try a setting with a set allow list of races:
Human, elf, dwarf, goliath, tiefling, and dragonborn (red, white and black only)
But I relaxed it a bit to accommodate some new players to 5e.

I think it is more important that your intentions are well communicated than how much or little is allowed.

[Satinavian]

I have seen and done both ways, which one works better depends on my mood.
I have also done both.

But honestly, i vastly prefer systems where i as GM can take a hands off approach to player character generation and be sure it works out. I don't like being asked for permission all the time and as a player i don't like doing so as well. So blacklisting is far preferred to whitelisting from the comfort perspective. That is also why i don't really run GURPS.

[Oramac]

Its funny, I tend to work on a blacklist (default accept) model. As long as its not insanely broken, I'm generally good with allowing it. Even if its homebrew stuff. Hell, I have a player that's essentially playing a disney princess. XD

This is me too. I allow pretty much everything (except D&DWiki). The only restrictions (if any) are world or story based.


I think it is more important that your intentions are well communicated than how much or little is allowed.

This.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The first one is versatility. The second one absolutely is not. You could make an argument to call the third one versatility as well, but that is not a kind of versatility contributing to power because a single character has only one build.


The second one is absolutely versatility in a meaningful way that contributes to build-level power. If I can have one set of capabilities on day 1 and a completely different set on day 2, that's power. Crap-tons of it. Same (to a lesser degree) with being able to trade out spells on level up. In fact, that's a major reason 3e sorcerers are T2 and 3e wizards are T1--wizards can adapt by switching out their spell preps to tune them to what they're up against while 3e sorcerers can't. It drastically increases the number of things the DM has to plan for and the number of things the character can handle. That's the definition of versatility and power.

And a class's (not build's, class's) overall power does depend on how many things it can be built to do. A class that, no matter what you do, can only do melee damage is way less versatile and less powerful even if it can do that melee damage really well than one that can be built to excel at any aspect of the game. It's why 5e bards are considered so good--a single bard build is locked in, but you can build anything with a bard.

[KorvinStarmast]

The second one is absolutely versatility in a meaningful way that contributes to build-level power. This takes me back to my question about Warlocks in your concept here: with no 6th+ level spells, what do you have in mind for Mystic Arcanum?
What versatility or choices for customization do you feel will fill in for the loss of a level 6, 7, 8, and 9 spells?
Or does the Warlock have to MC?

[da newt]

I'd have absolutely no issues with a game that capped spells for the PCs and baddies at 5th level.

I have mixed feelings about many of the high level spells that warp reality and prefer a slightly simpler game, but any DM that also include that whole list of other limitations on their PCs would definitely cause me to proceed with caution (unless I knew them well and had established trust). It just projects so many potential red flags, I'd be on the defensive from session 0 and just looking for the next shoe to drop to confirm that this game won't be fun.

[PhoenixPhyre]

This takes me back to my question about Warlocks in your concept here: with no 6th+ level spells, what do you have in mind for Mystic Arcanum?
What versatility or choices for customization do you feel will fill in for the loss of a level 6, 7, 8, and 9 spells?
Or does the Warlock have to MC?

In the thought experiment, there's no change for them. They still get the class features they would otherwise, but Mystic Arcanum are just null and void.

In a more fleshed out, playable version, they'd get Mystic Arcana as empty 1/day spell slots of the appropriate level (just like everyone else gets empty spell slots for levels 6+).

[animorte]

With all due respect, PhoenixPhyre, I would be playing a different game.
I disagree with this because it’s still exactly the same game up until that point. It does remove some power-play, but it’s also around the area where most people claim to stop playing anyway.

I think it would be a splendid game. You still create your higher level effects, just fewer “win-buttons.”

I’ll probably go on record for having said this 50 times by now, but I’ve played in a couple games that didn’t have any full casters and it was some of the best experience I’ve ever had.

Removing those higher level spells for te full casters doesn’t slow their progression. They still get all of their stuff at the same time, so imagine it wouldn’t really feel that different. They would just get a small taste of, “oh, I can’t just drop my high level slot and win this” sometimes. Emphasis because they still have a lot of really good options.

Edit: Sorry, I got waaay behind in this one.

[KorvinStarmast]

In the thought experiment, there's no change for them. They still get the class features they would otherwise, but Mystic Arcanum are just null and void. :smallfrown: That's not good for Warlock.

In a more fleshed out, playable version, they'd get Mystic Arcana as empty 1/day spell slots of the appropriate level (just like everyone else gets empty spell slots for levels 6+). OK, having higher level spell slots to cast their other spells with, which they don't have now; got it. :smallsmile: And that's an OK adaptation.