Hot Take: D&D should eliminate spellcasting and replace it entirely

[Hael]

This is to put it mildly, throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I also disagree with the other poster. DnDs magic has historically been what made the game interesting to play in the first place. It’s a pretty dynamic system with a good deal of subtlety, combos and emergent gameplay. Unfortunately that has slowly been tweaked away at the altar of balance, with each new system being a dumbed down version of the former. Personally I’d much prefer if they went back to the 1e and 2e heydey in that regard, screw balance if it makes the game less fun.

The problem instead has always been with martials. DND never had a good martial system. (I c u, u c me, I hit for 1d6+5 against your ac). It’s bland and boring, and other ttrpgs have far more interesting systems.

IMo pathfinder had the best version in the DnD line, but ultimately at higher tiers of play the only conceivable way to maintain balance is some sort of magic item system that gives supernatural powers to the martial such that they can compete with casters. It’s ashame 5e got away from that.

[OldTrees1]

I think we should have 3 kinds of mages:
The resourceless mage. Aka the non caster caster or the At-will caster. Imagine a Necromancer that is limited by the amount of magic they can control at once rather than by some weird daily amnesia limits.

The long term caster. Aka your normal caster that regains spells daily. However let them keep some kind of cantrip.

The middle path. Aka 5E Warlock.

Martials are 'A'
Casters are 'B'
Resourceless Abilities are 'X'
Resourceful Spells are 'Y'

So how can you balance A * X = B * Y ?

You can't. You can only balance if A * (X+Y) = B * (X+Y).

All character types need to have the same foundations.

Sure, you can kinda compare the Long Rest Fireball to Sneak Attack. Sure, you can kinda compare Disguise Self to Performance. How the hell do you compare the Barbarian's Rage to Find Familiar? You can't.

If you want to stop comparing apples to oranges, you need to make sure everyone gets an apple and everyone gets an orange. Now you're comparing the Barbarian's apple to the Wizard's apple, and that's a lot easier to address.

I strongly disagree. You can balance A * X = B * (X+Y) = C * (X+Z) = D * (X+Y+Z).
For example: Y_B > X_A > X_B
If X_A is considered the baseline then B gets to choose when to hit above (Y_B) or below (X_B) the baseline based on when they spend their limited resources. Adjust magnitudes and frequencies to taste, and you have a balanced system.

Characters don't need to have the same foundations. Many players don't want characters to all have the same homogenized foundations. Even players, like me, that have a strong preference of X vs Y can recognize others have a different preference. That means I value B * Y existing even if I want to play B * X.

[Kireban]

The simple answer is that you should stop playing D&D.
You don't like the system itself and look for alternatives that other systems provide, and the main reason why you don't play the other systems is that you don't find people to play them with...
So you want to change this system, and ruin it for other players who like it, so that you will have a "popular" system to play as you like?

[Willie the Duck]

I agree with this. I note that your fix (stuff like martial teleportation, feats of strength and speed that are essentially magic but aren't magic per game terms) basically turns martials into over-the-top anime combatants.

Or figures of folklore, fairy tales, and mythology. There's nothing in ToB that would be out of place amongst Beowulf, or Greek myth, the Tuatha Dé Danann, or even modern figures like Paul Bunyan.

[JellyPooga]

But in general, more capable of functioning on a broader spectrum than non-casters, because all they need is a new spell for that. And they're already excellent at spells. It's not the system of how spells work that creates the balance, or destroys it.

Well, yeah, you could learn a spell for it...or you could learn the skill for it, or get an Advantage (if appropriate). Aside from Magery and IQ, there really isn't much in the way of being "excellent at spells" beyond sinking points into individual spells. In the exact same way you can be excellent at a broad spectrum of combat and non-magery by sinking points into individual skills, backed up by good ST, DX and appropriate Advantages.

And yet you're all still using magic. They may be different systems of magic, but they all are magic. If you tossed "Wizard: the Spellbooking" in as a new splat, using quasi-vancian casting, it would not be automatically more powerful than the others, because all of them are still using magic.

Assuming Wizard: The Spellbooking functioned similarly to other WoD games except everything it did functioned on a similar level of automation via resource as D&D does compared to its parent system...well, yeah, it probably would be a bit more powerful, because even though WoD games tend also to have resources, they also depend on rolls for success, while W:tS does not. A Vampire rolling Obfuscation to pass invisibly is less powerful than a Wizard who gets to be invisible without a roll.

Vancian, spell points, or skill-based, the issue is that spells "can do anything," not that spells are "more powerful." The problem is versatility, not power.

Versatility is power and that's part of the problem. GURPS solves it by making spells (and skills and Advantages) costly in terms of Character Points; if you want broad versatility, you need to pay for it at the expense of specialisation ("raw number power", if you will). D&D solves it by making spells limited by daily use; a fundamentally different system to the one martials use (albeit in 5ed the difference has been reduced with the increased number of long and short rest based "martial" features). And as a solution it fails, because the daily use ability must be more powerful (whether that be in numbers or versatility) than the thing that isn't, otherwise it wouldn't/shouldn't be limited in use. The imbalance is baked into the difference between those two systems.

I agree that the difference is conceptual. As I said; giving martials daily and short rest abilities works to balance the system, but it also starts taking away from the identity of one party. Superhero games are great, because everyone has superpowers, but when you give Steve Rogers a superserum to compete on the same playing field as Thor...well, he's not really Steve Rogers anymore; he's Captain America. So yeah, letting martials teleport and create sweeping flame strikes (increasing their versatility) could be seen as balanced, but to many people they're not martials anymore. Therefore, rather than make Steve look more like Thor, we need to change the way we look at Thor.

[Silly Name]

I agree with this. I note that your fix (stuff like martial teleportation, feats of strength and speed that are essentially magic but aren't magic per game terms) basically turns martials into over-the-top anime combatants.

I think that is fun and cool, but I am sympathetic that some players don't want that kind of flavor in their games.

And the wizard doing the same... isn't? Because he says some mystical mumbo jumbo first? Because that's not much different from anime protagonists shouting their techniques.

Look, Hercules could hold up the whole damn sky. Achilles was straight-up invulnerable save for a single spot on his body, and Beowulf too. Roland cleaved a mountain in two with just his (admittedly blessed) sword and the might of his arm! Arthur wrestled with a giant and won, Cúchulainn was able to face an entire army on his own when he was seventeen!

If you want wizards to be able to attain enough power to be able to teleport across the world and call down meteors from the heavens, or summon the help of mighty angels and devious demons while creating a backup body, you have to let the martials be able to do some feats of mythical proportions. You can't constrain martials to the power level of Conan while letting casters get away with the full range of superhero power levels.

[BMF]

Snip.

I agree! Those things are good and cool. There are lots of figures from mythology that can perform acts of physical might of these kinds; I shouldn't have limited it to anime-type stuff. But I have encountered many players who create martial characters that those players don't believe could do things like that. Oftentimes those players don't have the same hangups for magic use.

I completely understand, and agree, that this expectations mismatch is responsible for a lot of the power disparity at high levels. Often it is self-imposed by players themselves. I do not have a good fix for that.

[deljzc]

First. People like to play D&D because the popularity means it is easier to find play partners. You HAVE to play RPG's with other people. Picking an obscure game makes that pretty hard.

Second. In every edition it sounds like there is a disagreement on magic. How powerful. How plentiful. How easy to use.

I mean, it kind of all comes down to those three things. I just don't know if they will ever pick a balance between those three things that will make everyone happy.

You could bog down the rule books with a lot of optional rule variants. How to play gritty realism/low magic vs. normal. A page or two in the DMG about options for changing spells (like monsters). Optional guidelines on spell recuperation. Making at-will cantrips optional.

But there is always going to be a part of D&D that lends itself to creating all these things home brewed. Or internet based community options. D&D is an IDEAL game to try new rules and new ways to play. I mean yes, you have to have your play group buy-in. You have to find like-minded players for the changes you intend. And you have to be content that not everything is going to work perfect. That sometimes you just have to accept bad or illogical rulings from a human DM.

I hear all these suggestions but there is NOTHING stopping your group from trying them. To expect WotC to publish and clarify and rules lawyer all the possible rule options out there is unrealistic for a game like D&D.

D&D has always been best as a framework of rules. And most of the failings are when they over-manage the game with rules lawyers and complex answers.

Could many spells be better explained or written? Absolutely. And many times the interpretations and "official" errata on spells hurts more than helps.

But this game is still table based. Your table determines how powerful spellcasters are vs. martials. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Segev]

I agree with this. I note that your fix (stuff like martial teleportation, feats of strength and speed that are essentially magic but aren't magic per game terms) basically turns martials into over-the-top anime combatants.

I think that is fun and cool, but I am sympathetic that some players don't want that kind of flavor in their games.

I am sympathetic, but I tend to have the response of, "Then play lower-level games." D&D handles both the more down-to-earth fantasy and the over-the-top fantasy, but it does it at different levels. If you want your characters less over-the-top, play games where they're lower level. Don't demand that, because you kind-of have what you want in martials at high level (but not really, since those, too, are pretty over-the-top), spellcasters have to be weaker or non-existent at high level. Instead, play at the levels that give you more what you want from both martials and casters.

Well, yeah, you could learn a spell for it...or you could learn the skill for it, or get an Advantage (if appropriate). Aside from Magery and IQ, there really isn't much in the way of being "excellent at spells" beyond sinking points into individual spells. In the exact same way you can be excellent at a broad spectrum of combat and non-magery by sinking points into individual skills, backed up by good ST, DX and appropriate Advantages.

Except that, by the time you're good at magic, it's cheaper to pick up another spell than to start at the bottom and pick up a skill, especially for a stat that you've min/maxed away in favor of being better at magic.

Assuming Wizard: The Spellbooking functioned similarly to other WoD games except everything it did functioned on a similar level of automation via resource as D&D does compared to its parent system...well, yeah, it probably would be a bit more powerful, because even though WoD games tend also to have resources, they also depend on rolls for success, while W:tS does not. A Vampire rolling Obfuscation to pass invisibly is less powerful than a Wizard who gets to be invisible without a roll.

"If I make assumptions that make it more powerful because I say they will, it will be more powerful" isn't a very convincing argument. All I said was using a pseudo-vancian mechanic for them.

And no, actually, ONLY Mage and Changeling have regular need to roll to see if your magic works how you want; Vampire Disciplines give you flat out powers and Werewolf Gifts give you flat out powers. Conversely, D&D spells also require rolls, either from the caster or the target, which would easily be translated to "did it work?" rolls in WoD.

There's nothing specially powerful about spell slots that make magic that uses it more powerful than other systems.

I agree that the difference is conceptual. As I said; giving martials daily and short rest abilities works to balance the system, but it also starts taking away from the identity of one party. Superhero games are great, because everyone has superpowers, but when you give Steve Rogers a superserum to compete on the same playing field as Thor...well, he's not really Steve Rogers anymore; he's Captain America. So yeah, letting martials teleport and create sweeping flame strikes (increasing their versatility) could be seen as balanced, but to many people they're not martials anymore. Therefore, rather than make Steve look more like Thor, we need to change the way we look at Thor.

So...don't play Captain America in a game where you don't want Captain America. If Steve Rogers was fine at levels 1-7, but the Superserum class feature at level 8 just ruins the class fantasy for you, don't play level 8+ games with that concept. Similarly, Thor won't really feel like Thor until he gets to the level where his kind of power is appropriate.

[Man_Over_Game]

I agree! Those things are good and cool. There are lots of figures from mythology that can perform acts of physical might of these kinds; I shouldn't have limited it to anime-type stuff. But I have encountered many players who create martial characters that those players don't believe could do things like that. Oftentimes those players don't have the same hangups for magic use.

I completely understand, and agree, that this expectations mismatch is responsible for a lot of the power disparity at high levels. Often it is self-imposed by players themselves. I do not have a good fix for that.

So the players that are concerned with martials being too "extra" explicitly want boring martials and amazing spellcasters?

That's what I'm getting from what you're saying. I'm not saying that they aren't entitled to their opinion, but I think that seems like a pretty selfish mentality in a multiplayer game. "I don't care about what's fair, I just care about it playing my way".

It's something that works in stories, movies and video games because you don't have to care about Gimli's or Gandalf's opinions. They don't have to be equals for you to enjoy it, but that same mentality doesn't work at the table.

[Dienekes]

We've had a number of threads asking how we would fix martial characters. A handful of posters have suggested that spellcasters should be brought down closer to non-caster power levels, perhaps with the (usually admitted to be tedious) task of re-writing a large number of spells.

How about a different tack: Just scrap the spells. All of them. Every last one. Gone, poof, sayonara, good riddance to bad rubbish.

Interesting notion. But what shall we replace it with?

Now personally, I’ve always thought Vancian casting was kinda crap. The best d20 “spellcasting” systems I’ve played would be the Spheres of Power and the Tome of Battle, neither use the vancian system.

However, I’m a rather big fan of mechanics working as narrative. And one thing I can say is that vancian casting does one thing well, and that’s creating a clear narrative divide between itself and that stuff those non-casters do. Because, let’s be honest here. It takes mental gymnastics to get vancian casting to represent mundane activity. “Yeah I can do this thing. But only once per day, and I probably won’t be able to do it tomorrow unless I meditate about it for an hour, but then I won’t be able to do some other thing that day.”

That’s insane. Nothing works like that. Hell most magic in stories doesn’t work like that. It really only represents the works of Jack Vance, and arguably not even very well. But it is extraordinarily unnatural.

So what will you replace it with?

Because if it’s not distinct with a feel that is inherently different from martial endeavors it will fail. As others have pointed out with 4e. Perfectly honest, the effects a Wizard could do with their At-Wills, encounter, and Daily powers were vastly different from what a Fighter or Rogue could do. But because it was all designed so similarly it did not feel distinct and magical.

Personally, I’d start by trying to think of what type of magic you’re trying to make. How should it feel, how is it distinct from just a natural ability that just happens to magical in nature. Or is that how it’s supposed to feel? (honestly getting that feeling would make Sorcerers feel more like their fluff and act more distinct than they have ever been)

Some have just straight brought Spheres of Power to 5e.

One thing I’ve done is make a Paladin whose magic abilities are at least partially fueled by how well they follow the tenets of their oath in and out of combat.

I have fiddled with an idea of making a magic system inspired by the Magic the Gathering card system. Where at the start of a casters turn they gain one Magic Point of a specific type. This can be used to cast spells of that type. Each turn that Magic Point refreshes and you can add another point of the same or different type. With more powerful effects costing more and differing Spell Points.

The idea being it takes time to acquire power to make those earth-shattering spells.

So when compared to a martial during encounters the first turn the martial would be indesputably more useful than the caster with their one spell point. By 2nd and 3rd turn it’s about even. And by the 4th the caster is really throwing around powerful magic. So yeah, the caster gets to keep their power. But the martial ability to do awesome but not quite as powerful things NOW is never not useful.

There’s also the ritual path I’ve seen others throw around. Which is essentially about gating the really powerful abilities along team-work lines.

Certainly, the Wizard is the one who can cast Wish. But to do that they must get the scale of a Great Wyrm, the cooking pot of a Hag, and the last whisper of a djinn. Best call your Cleric, Fighter, and Rogue buddies, and stock up on some potions. It’s going to be an adventure.

And of course there must be hundreds of other methods people much smarter than me have come up with.

But what are you trying to do with this stripped down spell casting, beyond mere balance?

How will you make a cleric feel like they’re drawing power from their god to restore life? Rather than just getting the ability to use the Medicine skill... but it’s magic, trust me.

[AntiAuthority]

D&D players want spells to be better than everything else, ultimately.

This is a straw man argument I see erected every time this topic comes up. "You don't want spells nerfed the way I want them to, so you want spells to be more powerful than anything." It always ignores the counterpoint that there are people who'd be thrilled to see extraordinary non-magical abilities that also can do amazing things that are just as powerful as magic.

I've seen some people argue that "spells/magic should be better" as an actual thing. I've seen it across the internet with defenses as, "Why would anyone bother learning magic if a sword can be as powerful", "Of course magic should be stronger", "It's poor world building if magic isn't stronger than everything else" or some variation of these. Also sometimes saying anything impossible by our standards, even if it's not casting spells such as being able to lift a mountain for example just turn non-spellcasters into "casters by another name."

Just not sure how common this mindset is among the DND crowd as a whole (might just be a vocal minority), but there are people who genuinely argue spellcasters should be stronger than none spellcasters.

[OldTrees1]

Interesting notion. But what shall we replace it with?

Now personally, I’ve always thought Vancian casting was kinda crap. The best d20 “spellcasting” systems I’ve played would be the Spheres of Power and the Tome of Battle, neither use the vancian system.

However, I’m a rather big fan of mechanics working as narrative. And one thing I can say is that vancian casting does one thing well, and that’s creating a clear narrative divide between itself and that stuff those non-casters do. Because, let’s be honest here. It takes mental gymnastics to get vancian casting to represent mundane activity. “Yeah I can do this thing. But only once per day, and I probably won’t be able to do it tomorrow unless I meditate about it for an hour, but then I won’t be able to do some other thing that day.”

That’s insane. Nothing works like that. Hell most magic in stories doesn’t work like that. It really only represents the works of Jack Vance, and arguably not even very well. But it is extraordinarily unnatural.

So what will you replace it with?

No idea what they would replace it with, especially since I want to keep it around, but I do have a couple big picture ideas for non caster mages.

1) At will use of magic but limitations on how much can be maintained at once. In 3.5e Necromancers of various stripes had rules for how many undead they could control. Imagine concentration being quantified so the mage can only have N points worth of things active at once. Some things would cost more than others, and some could scale with more concentration.

2) At will use of magic but limited by actions/time (with no action economy cheats like celerity). In 3.5e Warlocks could do magic at will using a different but similar system to spellcasting. However the balance principle there was the Warlock had a limited number of actions per turn. So if the actions are level appropriate for at will use, then it balances itself. This can also merge rituals and crafting for time based balance on the longer logistical scale.

[Kyutaru]

The idea being it takes time to acquire power to make those earth-shattering spells.

So when compared to a martial during encounters the first turn the martial would be indesputably more useful than the caster with their one spell point. By 2nd and 3rd turn it’s about even. And by the 4th the caster is really throwing around powerful magic. So yeah, the caster gets to keep their power. But the martial ability to do awesome but not quite as powerful things NOW is never not useful.

AD&D did something similar with casting times. Fighters had the advantage in that they can swing a bunch of times right now but casters had to deal with slow casting spells and interrupts from those very fighters. None of this 5-foot step to avoid concentration checks stuff because your spell had an actual casting time during which you as a mage were vulnerable.

What you're describing with magic is akin to what some JRPGs do called a warmup. It's the opposite of cooldown in that it takes several turns for certain abilities to come online. But all of these ideas basically give magic a limited and at times slower impact on the battle than straight up warriors which was itself a balancing act.

[clash]

Years ago I came up with the concept of a magic user that charged up to cast and they could choose at what point during the charge up they wanted to cast. So it's at will with limitations. They cant go all nova in one encounter a day because their strength is directly proportional to the number of combats and rounds of combat. They still have resource management and have to weight the choices of casting little big, cantrip etc. It also limits out of combat utility because of the design.
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...New-Base-Class
for anyone interested.

[jas61292]

5e casting is not fundamentally broken. To throw it out completely because, yes, casters, not martials, are the balance problem, is a bit extreme. That being said, if you were to do some sort of major re-write to balance out 5e, I absolutely would change casters. But it would not be the casting system I would change. It would be the casting classes.

The number one issue with casters is simply that they can do too much at once. The issue with Wizards, for instance, both from a mechanical and concept standpoint, is that they can simply do everything. This is a balance issue because... well... that's too much. But its also a conceptual issue. People love looking to other media to inspire characters, and frankly, outside of D&D based media, there are almost no characters that would be well described as similar to D&D wizard while simultaneously being described as of an acceptable power level to work in a balanced party with other characters. The kinds of magic characters that work well in that role are those whose thing is something like pyromancy, or teleportation, or seeing glimpses of the future. But the D&D wizard does not fit one of those roles. It fits all of them, plus summoning, buffing and polymorphing. Like seriously... the fact that the "Diviner" is considered strong because of how powerful they can be with transmutation (and other) spells should say all there is to be said.

While wizard is probably the biggest offender, I think all full casting classes have a bit of this issue. There is not enough focus, which is both non-thematic, and also highly overpowering. A balanced mage using the 5e system is one that has access to a very specific subset of magic. They should have many different ways to use that kind of magic. An Illusionist should have dozens of different applications for illusions. But that should be their thing. They should not be using half their slots on Misty Step and Shield because they should not get Misty Step or Shield.

Obviously remaking existing classes with this in mind, and probably replacing some with a number of new classes would be a ton of work. But I think that would be the only way that you can have both casters and martials together and not have the casters feel inherently stronger and more versatile. Not saying some martials couldn't also use some work, but as long as the answer to "what can you do?" for a caster is "everything," there will never be real balance.

[Man_Over_Game]

Interesting notion. But what shall we replace it with?

Now personally, I’ve always thought Vancian casting was kinda crap. The best d20 “spellcasting” systems I’ve played would be the Spheres of Power and the Tome of Battle, neither use the vancian system.

However, I’m a rather big fan of mechanics working as narrative. And one thing I can say is that vancian casting does one thing well, and that’s creating a clear narrative divide between itself and that stuff those non-casters do. Because, let’s be honest here. It takes mental gymnastics to get vancian casting to represent mundane activity. “Yeah I can do this thing. But only once per day, and I probably won’t be able to do it tomorrow unless I meditate about it for an hour, but then I won’t be able to do some other thing that day.”

That’s insane. Nothing works like that. Hell most magic in stories doesn’t work like that. It really only represents the works of Jack Vance, and arguably not even very well. But it is extraordinarily unnatural.

So what will you replace it with?

I could see it as a dice pool that you pull from to do pull off powerful tasks. Everything uses a DC value that you must hit for the effect to occur (even stuff like Fly or Invisibility), and you simply spend these power dice until you hit the DC needed for that effect.

For example, a Barbarian jumping an incredibly difficult gap requires a DC 20. His base bonus to jumping checks from all sources is a +10, so he starts pulling from his 10d6 power dice pool until he hits 15. It takes him 3 dice, so he now has 7d6 for the rest of the day.

This works for spells, skills, everything you can imagine, as long as you reflect the bonuses from each source, and the DCs for each power, correctly.

For example, healing someone's poison could be a DC 10. Someone with Medicine Proficiency might get a +3 to their roll, and another +5 from being a Paladin or Cleric, and maybe another +3 from stats. So while a Rogue can spend a few power dice to cleanse that person's poison, a Cleric could do so without expending any energy (or maybe require a minimum 1 power die if you feel like players shouldn't be able to spam powers).

It could be pretty broad, doing things like adding a "Pyromania" feat that gives you +5 to your bonus to any power that utilizes Fire. So when a DC 20 Barbarian power lets you engulf yourself in an element of your choosing, you can specialize as a Fire Barbarian and give them flaming hugs.

Dice scale with levels, bonuses and selectable powers are based on the individual classes and features you level into.

It effectively puts spells and skills on the same playing field, while keeping things limited in terms of resources, while also making sense. It's not that you can't cast X spells Y times during Z hours of the day, but that you're just friggin' exhausted and can't do anything else after a long day of adventuring (which applies universally to everyone).

In order to cut down on constant referencing, just set a design philosophy that bonuses never change. Players write down what they need to utilize their powers (So a DC 15 with a +9 total bonus just needs a total of 6 to be used for that power), and then just remember that "My Beast Mode power takes a total of 6 to use", and never let anything increase or decrease that value beyond level-up choices. If circumstances ever need to make things easier or harder, modify the external roll with something like the Dis/Advantage system. So instead of the Jump spell adding a +5 to your jump check bonuses it refunds your first die spent towards any jump checks.

I dunno, just a random idea. I like it tho. Might expand on it later.

[MaxWilson]

I've seen some people argue that "spells/magic should be better" as an actual thing. I've seen it across the internet with defenses as, "Why would anyone bother learning magic if a sword can be as powerful", "Of course magic should be stronger", "It's poor world building if magic isn't stronger than everything else" or some variation of these. Also sometimes saying anything impossible by our standards, even if it's not casting spells such as being able to lift a mountain for example just turn non-spellcasters into "casters by another name."

Just not sure how common this mindset is among the DND crowd as a whole (might just be a vocal minority), but there are people who genuinely argue spellcasters should be stronger than none spellcasters.

If you pay for power by taking a dependency on magic, you should get something in return. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to be "stronger" in some global sense. E.g. it's fine if a skilled thief can pick a lock faster and quiet than a wizard can enchant it open, and fine if a trained warrior can jump a gap that a scrawny wizard would need to Levitate over. It is less fine if someone wants to jump infinitely better than the trained warrior can, e.g. Superman-style jumps, while simultaneously insisting that that "isn't magic."

If you want to do supernatural stuff, you pay the supernatural price including vulnerability to anti-magic fields.

5e casting is not fundamentally broken. To throw it out completely because, yes, casters, not martials, are the balance problem, is a bit extreme. That being said, if you were to do some sort of major re-write to balance out 5e, I absolutely would change casters. But it would not be the casting system I would change. It would be the casting classes.

The number one issue with casters is simply that they can do too much at once. The issue with Wizards, for instance, both from a mechanical and concept standpoint, is that they can simply do everything. This is a balance issue because... well... that's too much. But its also a conceptual issue. People love looking to other media to inspire characters, and frankly, outside of D&D based media, there are almost no characters that would be well described as similar to D&D wizard while simultaneously being described as of an acceptable power level to work in a balanced party with other characters. The kinds of magic characters that work well in that role are those whose thing is something like pyromancy, or teleportation, or seeing glimpses of the future. But the D&D wizard does not fit one of those roles. It fits all of them, plus summoning, buffing and polymorphing. Like seriously... the fact that the "Diviner" is considered strong because of how powerful they can be with transmutation (and other) spells should say all there is to be said.

While wizard is probably the biggest offender, I think all full casting classes have a bit of this issue. There is not enough focus, which is both non-thematic, and also highly overpowering. A balanced mage using the 5e system is one that has access to a very specific subset of magic. They should have many different ways to use that kind of magic. An Illusionist should have dozens of different applications for illusions. But that should be their thing. They should not be using half their slots on Misty Step and Shield because they should not get Misty Step or Shield.

Obviously remaking existing classes with this in mind, and probably replacing some with a number of new classes would be a ton of work. But I think that would be the only way that you can have both casters and martials together and not have the casters feel inherently stronger and more versatile. Not saying some martials couldn't also use some work, but as long as the answer to "what can you do?" for a caster is "everything," there will never be real balance.

What I would change is to scrap the ability to get "free" spells on level-up. Wizards can do "everything" in D&D because fighters can do "everything", and in both cases it's conditioned on them going in dungeons and finding stuff they can use. The difference is that Fighters find stuff they can wear and hold with their hands, and wizards find old spellbooks. If you've ever read Jack Vance's Mazirian the Magician and seen how manic Mazirian is to get his hands on Turjan's new cloning spell you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Letting wizards (and sorcerers, etc.) materialize new spells out of nowhere just because they "leveled up" is akin to the Fighter materializing new magic items out of nowhere just because he leveled up. Neither should happen.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I don't see how you could replace it with anything that isn't obviously spellcasting with a fresh coat of paint on it. If the exploration into Psionics (and the scrapping of the Mystic as a whole) has shown us, it's that it's kind of difficult to make such a system with how 5E was designed initially.

All I could see happening is Spellcasting 2: Electric Boogaloo, where the rules are eerily similar but a concerted effort was made to avoid reusing any overlapping terms and things are slightly weaker than they were simply because the consensus was that they should be. Even if we extend this train of thought to a potential new edition, I don't see much different unless drastic design changes were made. Kind of like 4E, history repeats itself I guess.

I generally think moving martials up would be a better option than trying to push casters down. There's more room for that in the system than trying to rewrite huge swaths of the core rules.

[JellyPooga]

Except that, by the time you're good at magic, it's cheaper to pick up another spell than to start at the bottom and pick up a skill, especially for a stat that you've min/maxed away in favor of being better at magic.

In D&D terms you're kinda saying "By the time you've taken 10 levels in Wizard, you may as well take another level in Wizard rather than multiclass to Fighter". Well...yeah? Unless you've built to have a good blend of both magic and mundane, of course a Wizard is better off learning a spell to do a thing, rather than a new skill. That's what wizards do. Cast and learn spells. Similarly, a "Fighter" may as well learn a new weapon skill or technique rather than learn a spell; it's how he's built. Where GURPS does it right is in the cost of spells; magic is usually better than not-magic and consequently it's more difficult to learn (as a rule) and spells tend to have more prerequisites than the closest equivalent. It's balanced by build cost, not game mechanics.

"If I make assumptions that make it more powerful because I say they will, it will be more powerful" isn't a very convincing argument. All I said was using a pseudo-vancian mechanic for them.

That is the assumption of vancian magic, by definition; its limited by daily use because it's more powerful. Except it ignores the fallibility of that limitation.

There's nothing specially powerful about spell slots that make magic that uses it more powerful than other systems.

Internally, no. Spell slot vs spell slot is balanced. At-will vs. At-will is balanced. Spell slot vs. At-will cannot be. Inherently. It's the entire point of limiting the ability behind a resource. If ability A is limited by resource, it must be more powerful than ability B, which is not. A>B at any given point using both. That's an inherently imbalanced and flawed baseline. Wherever you go from there, that imbalance influences the system.

So...don't play Captain America in a game where you don't want Captain America. If Steve Rogers was fine at levels 1-7, but the Superserum class feature at level 8 just ruins the class fantasy for you, don't play level 8+ games with that concept. Similarly, Thor won't really feel like Thor until he gets to the level where his kind of power is appropriate.

In which case, then you have to ban Thor from games below "superserum" level. That's not really an option though and at that point you really have two separate and incompatible games. It says something about D&D that it tries and largely succeeds at mashing them together, but it doesn't change the fact that the incompatibility exists.

[Kyutaru]

Just not sure how common this mindset is among the DND crowd as a whole (might just be a vocal minority), but there are people who genuinely argue spellcasters should be stronger than none spellcasters.

In my experience it's almost exclusively a novel and D&D thing. They're used to Gandalf and Dr Strange and Elminster and Merlin. Did Aragorn exist? Sure, but he was a supporting character next to the awesome half-angel wizard who came back from the dead. Did King Arthur exist? Sure, but where would he be without Merlin guiding him and protecting the kingdom with his magics? Fantasy literature, which D&D is heavily based on, paint up mages like Harry Potter as more powerful than muggles and that's where they get their expectations from.

But gamers know better. You don't expect Warlocks to be superior to Rogues in World of Warcraft, in fact the opposite is true. In Dota where characters are split between Strength, Agility, and Intelligence the mages are not inherently superior to the melee tanks or assassins. Balance exists in all forms that are not storytelling because magic in gaming needs to be Hard Magic with solid restrictions and rules while magic in storytelling is too often Soft Magic without true limitations and used frequently in Deus Ex Machina.

[staylost]

As a random player who plays 5e about once a week I disagree with the premise, the rationale, and the means suggested by the post.

First, magic is not more powerful than martials generally. Magic does have more problem solving tools than martials do. But it is not stronger in a dpr sense. Magic/martials and pure martials are best there. Magic players end up putting those dpr focused characters in optimum conditions.

Second, the things that D&D has changed (AC tables, saving throws, etc.) remain exactly the same concept, but are simply reorganized. The spell system has already changed just as much if not more between editions.

Third, simply eliminating magic or spells in D&D would utterly gut the game. Or do you play 4E every time you play? No? That is because the majority did not find it engaging or fun when the spell system was sidelined. Getting rid of the traditional magic system almost killed the brand.

In the end the imbalance is justified. Your spreadsheet friendly, boardgame manipulator types enjoy D&D because they can master complicated spells for use in unexpected situations. Your "yahtzee" type players enjoy D&D because they can roll a barbarian and hit things without thinking about the number crunch. Your entertainers can enjoy the rogue. The point is the game is made to have characters that click with not only themes, but also personality types. This is how the game is able to draw enough people to the table to actually play the game. Getting rid of spells would just kill the brand - not because of angry fanboys, but because if you remove the ability to eek out a slightly more effective character through an enormous amount of work like primary magic users do, you remove a substantial part of the player base. And you need everyone at the table to really enjoy what D&D is all about: the story telling.

[Falconcry]

Sounds like rather then revamping D&D you should look into game from the 80’s called Maelstrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maelst...-playing_game).
The closest it had to magic was using herbs to cure diseases etc.

[Kane0]

Years ago I came up with the concept of a magic user that charged up to cast and they could choose at what point during the charge up they wanted to cast. So it's at will with limitations. They cant go all nova in one encounter a day because their strength is directly proportional to the number of combats and rounds of combat. They still have resource management and have to weight the choices of casting little big, cantrip etc. It also limits out of combat utility because of the design.
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...New-Base-Class
for anyone interested.

Has merit! Proves that the slot system is not the only viable one, ideally i’d like to see systems like this implemented alongside slots, points and other methods to differentiate casters.

[MaxWilson]

The rough part of that is convincing someone else to run Dungeon Fantasy. Because the real issue is that it's pretty hard to find a group for games that aren't the current flavor of D&D that let you play instead of running the game.

Heh. Touche.

[BMF]

So the players that are concerned with martials being too "extra" explicitly want boring martials and amazing spellcasters?

That's what I'm getting from what you're saying. I'm not saying that they aren't entitled to their opinion, but I think that seems like a pretty selfish mentality in a multiplayer game. "I don't care about what's fair, I just care about it playing my way".

It's something that works in stories, movies and video games because you don't have to care about Gimli's or Gandalf's opinions. They don't have to be equals for you to enjoy it, but that same mentality doesn't work at the table.

I don't think anyone wants their character to be boring! They want their character to be cool and effective at embodying the version of the character the player has in their head. I don't think it's unreasonable to want to play a non-magical character who is interesting, effective, and still not capable of performing the feats of Hercules. Best way to do that, as somebody said above, is to play lower-level games probably. Or play some other system I guess.

[Pex]

A newbie wouldn't have much attachment to the old system anyhow so why not try the DM's system?

Veterans are the stickler and are quite attached to their tried and true methods and spells. But just as the newbie knows no difference a veteran hasn't even tried your new system yet. If people are that obstinate and flat out refuse to budge outside of their comfort zone to experience something they haven't but would rather sample the same things repeatedly then they are not the group to suggest new ideas to in the first place.

To throw back a counter example, imagine if I suggested eating at the new restaurant in town and get rejected because the group just wants to eat the same stuff they always have. That is not an adventurous group ready to brave the unknown and attempting to get them to budge is doomed from the start. Thankfully not everyone is like that and many are bold enough to try something new.

If they want to play D&D they want to play D&D and they're not having BadWrongThoughts to do so. It doesn't hurt for them to try a different game, but it should be a different game not D&D with 2/3 of the rules thrown away. If they don't want to, get over it. Play D&D with them if you still want to and find other people who want to play the game you want. If you can't that's unfortunately disappointing, but you get over it. If you hate D&D, stop playing. Don't make others stop too.

[Man_Over_Game]

I don't think anyone wants their character to be boring! They want their character to be cool and effective at embodying the version of the character the player has in their head. I don't think it's unreasonable to want to play a non-magical character who is interesting, effective, and still not capable of performing the feats of Hercules. Best way to do that, as somebody said above, is to play lower-level games probably. Or play some other system I guess.

I think there's an option that makes everyone happy.

You mention playing lower level games as a solution. Would it be reasonable to have these Hercules powers as upper-level features, and then just have players play whatever power level they feel most comfortable with?

Nobody really has too many complaints about comparing level 1 Fighters with level 1 Wizards, yet there are many complaints when comparing level 15 Fighters to level 15 Wizards. Maybe the solution isn't changing the level 1-15 Wizard, or the level 1 Fighter.

Maybe we just have to fix the level 15 Fighter?

[Segev]

That is the assumption of vancian magic, by definition; its limited by daily use because it's more powerful. Except it ignores the fallibility of that limitation.

Here's our fundamental disconnect. "Being more powerful than other magic systems" isn't something that is part of Vancian magic. Vancian magic is simply defined as the literal fire-and-forget nature of the spells. You prep them, you have them until you use them. That's it.

Asserting that "because it's limited, it is more powerful than other options" is not a part of vancian magic. It is part of why spells are as strong as they are, but that is divorced from the limiting factor being Vancian-ish spell slots. That's there because there's a limiting factor.

Mage: the Ascension has a limiting factor, so it would be equally expected to be "more powerful" than non-magic options as quasi-Vancian "Wizard: the Spellbookening" would be. Vampire Disciplines cost blood points to use, so they, too, get to be more powerful than at-will abilities.

Asserting that the limitation of quasi-vancian spell slots means Wizard: the Spellbookbinding should be more powerful than other WoD splats is where I say you're presuming your conclusion. Quasi-Vancian spell slots could be argued to be LESS limiting than Mage or Vampire's issues, thus asserting that their spells would be commensurately weaker than MAge or Vampire magics to make up for it.

There is nothing about being quasi-Vancian that makes magic "better." That's a separate balance issue and discussion. If you replaced spell slots with mana points, it wouldn't change (see Psionics in 3.5). You're conflating the specifics of how magic spellcasting is limited in D&D (spell slots) to the fact that limiting it is what justifies making it stronger (to some extent). You're then asserting, therefore, that it's spell slots that make it too strong, and thus barking up the wrong tree to try to solve the problem you're observing.

[Silly Name]

I agree! Those things are good and cool. There are lots of figures from mythology that can perform acts of physical might of these kinds; I shouldn't have limited it to anime-type stuff. But I have encountered many players who create martial characters that those players don't believe could do things like that. Oftentimes those players don't have the same hangups for magic use.

I completely understand, and agree, that this expectations mismatch is responsible for a lot of the power disparity at high levels. Often it is self-imposed by players themselves. I do not have a good fix for that.

I want to preface this by stating that I don't think a player is wrong for wanting to play Conan in D&D: the Conan series is among the works that inspired D&D, and the Barbarian class is very much modelled on him rather than any real-world, historical "barbarian" as defined by the Graeco-Roman civilization, so that's a legit character concept.

However, it's a concept that can only go so far in the power spectrum from level 1 to 20. A very popular variant of the 3.5 rules was the E6 rulest, which capped level progression at 6. It struck a balance were you could have Conan work side by side with Merlin and Gandalf without getting overshadowed by them.

A player wanting to play Conan, however, must accept that the power level of Conan's foes isn't the same level at which a level 20 D&D full caster operates (or even a caster above level 10). The Cymmerian could always outwit and outbrawn the sorcers and enchantresses he faced. In the same vein, Gandalf wasn't able to just cast Meteor Swarm over the host of Mordor, allowing Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas to shine when huge battles broke out.

So, if "Conan the Barbarian" is the ceiling you want to aim for, you need to establish that during session 0. I've successfully ran campaigns where the party's Barbarian, Ranger and Rogue all cooperated with the Cleric towards slaying the Tarrasque, and everyone participated in that effort and nobody felt overshadowed by the other party members - but that was because we set expectations during session 0, we agreed on keeping the overall power level balanced and I was careful to hand the martials boons and magic items that kept them on par with the Cleric.

But if your party has Odysseus coexist with Doctor Strange, you run into the issue of Odysseus' legendary wits being infinitely less useful at solving problems that the Sorcer Supreme's magic powers. You don't need Odysseus to come up with a plan to escape Polyphemus, because Doctor Strange can just blast the cyclop to negative hitpoints, or turn him to stone, or make him fall asleep, or send him to another plane of existence or whatever else his magic can achieve. And Odysseus will feel shafted and useless, because his power level doesn't coincide with that of the rest of the campaign.