Are There any Spells you Would Remove from D&D?

[stoutstien]

Or diminishing returns based on your pre-shield armor class. As in "Set your AC to 21 until the beginning of your next turn". That way it's a +5 or better for most classic "unarmored wizard" cases (ie mage armor + decent but not capped dex), but is minimal or even useless for the armor-stacking cheese case.

Or have shield act like a form of damage reduction rather than total avoidance.

[Kane0]

Rather than remove individual spells I think i'd just establish concrete rules on what magic *cannot* do. Something like 'Magic cannot achieve anything permanently, everything will end or revert eventually even with constant upkeep'. So you can't make a fortress out of Wall of Stone or Stone Shape, Create Food/Water only delays the inevitable, you can't have familiars that last lifetimes, etc. It doesn't have to be that rule in particular, just a few solid limitations to magic so it is not always a valid answer.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Rather than remove individual spells I think i'd just establish concrete rules on what magic *cannot* do. Something like 'Magic cannot achieve anything permanently, everything will end or revert eventually even with constant upkeep'. So you can't make a fortress out of Wall of Stone or Stone Shape, Create Food/Water only delays the inevitable, you can't have familiars that last lifetimes, etc. It doesn't have to be that rule in particular, just a few solid limitations to magic so it is not always a valid answer.

This is something I've considered as well, but never really came to a good personal answer.

[MoiMagnus]

I never see people getting this annoyed over Shield, which can essentially shut down everything that martial can do.

I'm pretty sure peoples would have less issues with Counterspell if you could only cast it to defend yourself, and peoples would have much more issues with Shield than they currently have if you could cast it to defend anybody you see.

[Hytheter]

I'm pretty sure peoples would have less issues with Counterspell if you could only cast it to defend yourself

That sounds cool, actually.

[Amnestic]

Mm, on the one hand that's a fair power nerf, on the other hand it could/would lead to intelligent creatures (aka spellcasters) targeting non-spellcasters first with their disables, so as to avoid the chance of being counterspelled.

"Do I Hold Person the Wizard, who can potentially counterspell and waste my turn, or the Fighter, who cannot?" is a question that might not always come up, but would come up enough. In that regard, it's a change that 'punishes' the non-counterspellers. Is that a dealbreaker? Probably not, but is something to bear in mind.

[Mjolnirbear]

Counterspell, on the other hand, is just an issue with encounter design and game flow. When counterspell exists, any mage that can take it is forced to take it, because not having it means you pretty much instantly lose if someone else is around that has it. In any combat with counterspell, the side with more mages is at an absurdly massive advantage, not simply because they have more mages, but because they can almost certainly nullify the turn of one of the other teams mages. In a game where action economy is king, that's not good. Sure, you can do stuff with movement and positioning to somewhat mitigate this, but it drastically limits what is feasible, and does so in a way that feels awkward and unnatural.

But, perhaps more importantly, I think Counterspell is just fundamentally a bad piece of game design, because its main role is to eliminate cool and interesting things. Spells are cool and interesting. That's why people like casting them. Similarly, enemies that do cool and interesting things are more fun to fight than ones that sit there and do nothing but stand still and attack. That being said, the sole purpose of Counterspell is to say "No" to fun things. When used on a player, it is miserable because you basically lose a turn AND a resource and do nothing. When it is used on a enemy, it makes the encounter less interesting because the enemy lost a turn without the need for the players to do anything cool or interesting themselves to make it happen. If counterspelling were difficult and/or niche, then being able to pull it off would itself be a cool and interesting event. But its not. Its simple and easy and so powerful that not doing it if you can is almost always suboptimal. The game would be better without it. Also, for what its worth, from the perspective of believability, casting Counterspell on a Counterspell while in the middle of casting another spell is so utterly ridiculous and stupid that it almost makes it worth eliminating just for that.

Why is it bad design? More importantly, why is it worse design than, say, immunity to non-magical weapons, that shut down martial, or immunity to spells like raskhaka, or flying that shuts down non-ranged?

Don't get me wrong... I begrudge losing a spell slot to a successful save or missed attack roll. I get the "whelp I did nothing useful, this round." But Counterspell introduces nuanced gameplay. It encourages and teaches tactics. And most importantly, the counterspell mini-game lets martials shine. But also lets casters shine. "Go rescue the Prince, I've got this!" says the wizard grimly. And as a player of its being used against you, that's spell slots not being used to cast hypnotic pattern or Fireball or spirit guardians, which means you getting counterspelled is costing the enemy mage resources they might need to win.

And crikey, it's only 60 feet. The vast majority of spells you want to counter have a larger range. It's also not hard to avoid line of sight: fog Cloud, darkness, total cover, readied-then-cast-immediately.

Counterspell is simply a way to challenge casters. I mean, you can use any of dozens of spells or abilities to shut down a fighter: hold person, engangle, flight, darkness, invisibility, blindness, hypnotic pattern, suggestion... Counterspell merely happens to target casters only.

Does it really hurt you that much if your caster has to take a backseat to the action for a couple rounds? It happens to the martials all the time.

[Mjolnirbear]

My personal contribution: I dislike spells that replace things you could do with a skill check. Because you should use a skill check, or more likely, let the rogue pick the dang lock or the ranger find you some danged food or the artificer make the danged trip wire alarm or the barbarian find some danged shelter.

I can see the argument "but what if you don't have a rogue?" But I don't think covering your bases should be a spell thing. And furthermore, there's smashing down the door, charming the guard with the key, climbing the roof and going down the chimney... Hell, you could Shatter the door.

So I dislike spells that reproduce things any normal person could do. Imagine Link not having to find the key to the dungeon door: where would be the fun in that?

I also dislike "screw Exploration" spells. But I have a simple fix: anything that restores rest, creates food or drink, or let you not suffer environmental consequences (tiny Hut letting you sleep in the BBEG's lair, for example) has an additional cost: a level of exhaustion. Goodberrry is simply an efficient healing spell unless you choose to gain a level of exhaustion. Create food and water doesn't, unless you gain exhaustion.

Because your players should engage with the challenge and find solutions.

If I were to redo 5e or pre-build 6, id allow Intelligence to grant bonus rituals equal to their int mod. As suggested previously in this thread, said rituals can have different levels and be accessible to anyone regardless of spellcasters status. Things like Identify or Detect Magic could be universal choices, with things like Ceremony for a religious background, Speak with plants and animals for a nature background, you could have martial or arcane rituals...

Oh, and remove curse could be a ritual. It could also be fixed by requiring an M component: "Find the macguffin that lets you remove X from Y target". Every curse becomes a side quest or lets you gather important components as you adventure. "Why, is that wolfsbane? Yoink! Just in case someone gets bit by a lycantrhope!" This M component should never be replaced by a focus or metamagic; while focuses have done important things this edition so you don't have to hunt down bat poop every time you want a fire, Remove Curse should *totally* require additional questing every time.

[Chronic]

I have taken drastic measures to reduce the gap between casters and martial in my games. So i have banned or reworked some spells. Simulacrum isn't available, it doesn't bring much to the game thematically and is hard to balance except by getting your players to behave. There is also no reasons to give some players the ability to permanently have minions of the same power level or higher than a pc.
Wish isn't available because it's a lazy button, it can solve most problems and is too broadly applicable.
Animate object is both way too powerful and slowing the game, so it's gone.
Summoning spells are limited to the options of summoning one or 2 creatures to keep the game running fast and keep them in line.
Shield can only be cast if you doesn't wear armor. Still efficient for what it's supposed to do, prevent abuse.
Most scouting spells have either been reworked or removed (but not scrying, which is in my opinion more of a way for the gm to give info he wants to convey to the player). For the reworked ones, it's mostly about the range being reduced. Scouting a little ahead is fine, doing the job of the scouting classes while staying at home isn't.
Teleportation spells are basically 8 level except teleportation circle, which takes 8 hours to cast and is a level 6 spell, but creating circles is easier, costing money materials and a week. The idea being that teleportation to major landmark is available. But using this spell involve some decision making, and it cannot be done to escape.
Survival spells are limited. Goodberry doesn't satiate hunger, and only druid and nature cleric have access to create food and water. A level 3 spell is an appropriate expanse in my opinion.
Forcecage consume the material components and require a single ruby worth 1500g.
Hypnotic pattern allow for a save each turn.
Pass without a trace doesn't give +10 but cancel any disadvantage to stealth and give advantage.
I don't have access to my documents so I may have missed a few.
All of this comes with a rework of most of the classes, the pure martial classes gain access to superiority die and manœuvres, Wizzard are scrapped, sorcerers are Intel based and every subclass has an additional spell list. Bards aren't good at every skill test, just the social ones. Clerics have a slight boost at healing (people only recovers half hp during a long rest). Hexblade doesn't exist but some of it goes to pact of the blade while other pacts get an additional spell slot etc etc.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm pretty sure peoples would have less issues with Counterspell if you could only cast it to defend yourself, .

That's a step too far. I need to be able to assist my party with it. (And being able to counter an enemy trying to teleport away (you can fail, it takes a DC 17 roll to stop it) is a great use of the spell even if it's not a guarateed success, particularly when you don't know what spell they are casting. If you simply keep counterspell as an estimate, rather than go through the convolutions of "aha, he's casting hold person" it's less of a problem since sometimes, you are dispelling a cantrip or fog cloud or something like that.

@Amnestic: Good point on people not thinking through the ripple effects.

Why is it bad design? More importantly, why is it worse design than, say, immunity to non-magical weapons, that shut down martial, or immunity to spells like raskhaka, or flying that shuts down non-ranged?

Don't get me wrong... I begrudge losing a spell slot to a successful save or missed attack roll. I get the "whelp I did nothing useful, this round." But Counterspell introduces nuanced gameplay. It encourages and teaches tactics. And most importantly, the counterspell mini-game lets martials shine. But also lets casters shine. "Go rescue the Prince, I've got this!" says the wizard grimly. And as a player of its being used against you, that's spell slots not being used to cast hypnotic pattern or Fireball or spirit guardians, which means you getting counterspelled is costing the enemy mage resources they might need to win.

And crikey, it's only 60 feet. The vast majority of spells you want to counter have a larger range. It's also not hard to avoid line of sight: fog Cloud, darkness, total cover, readied-then-cast-immediately.

Counterspell is simply a way to challenge casters. I mean, you can use any of dozens of spells or abilities to shut down a fighter: hold person, engangle, flight, darkness, invisibility, blindness, hypnotic pattern, suggestion... Counterspell merely happens to target casters only.

Does it really hurt you that much if your caster has to take a backseat to the action for a couple rounds? It happens to the martials all the time.

Thank you! Well said.

My personal contribution: I dislike spells that replace things you could do with a skill check.

This is one of those places where 'skill checks are not magic' isn't a sufficient enough principle to object, and I honestly like the idea behind where you are going with this.
We are toying around with something like "a medicine check that scores > 21 on an unconscious ally at 0 HP restores 1 HP and makes them conscious" or something like that as a way to take your idea and make it work in play. We are leaning on making it DC 25 for the following reason: a natural 20 for a cleric or druid with a Wis of 16 would mirror the Natural 20 of a death save. Mind you, as one goes up on level that score becomes easier to achieve, due to proficiency bonus going up, but it also opens the door for martials to begin doing the 'combat first aid' thing if they take proficiency. And of course the Healng Kit fits into this also.

There is also the spell *detect poison* that ought to be achievable via a Wisdom(Medicine) skill check; why have that as a spell? That said, taking your idea and running with it would likely require a lot of work.

Detect magic? How about we do an arcana check instead?

[Derges]

I hate DMing for compulsive detect magic users.

It's not broken, doesn't give much more info than a few good checks and the 10 minute cast time creates problems for the caster BUT it puts me off-kilter when I suddenly have to answer what school of magic powers a trap/item/whatever.
I don't like the vague "erm, er the [bread bin of preservation and cinnamon smells] gives off a slight glow of abjuration mixed with transmutation I guess" answers I end up providing.

[kazaryu]

I hate DMing for compulsive detect magic users.

It's not broken, doesn't give much more info than a few good checks and the 10 minute cast time creates problems for the caster BUT it puts me off-kilter when I suddenly have to answer what school of magic powers a trap/item/whatever.
I don't like the vague "erm, er the [bread bin of preservation and cinnamon smells] gives off a slight glow of abjuration mixed with transmutation I guess" answers I end up providing.

to be fair, the item needn't read as any school of magic (arguably, most magic items wouldn't belong to a specific school of magic. or you could just say 'artifice'). it says so in the spell. and if its a trap then its entirely possible for the magic itself to not be noticeable via detect magic

[Abracadangit]

Something else that isn't being mentioned about Counterspell is that it creates a fun bit of fluff for dueling wizards/spellcasters, outside of just slinging spells at each other. If you read any of the Forgotten Realms books back in the day (I'm thinking specifically of Drizzt and/or War of the Spider Queen), whenever two wizards got angry at each other, the mageduels were pretty cool. One wizard would shoot fire, the other would block with a wall of ice, the first wizard would collect the ensuing steam and stretch it into a cloud of fog, and so on. It's a fun bit of the world's fiction that casters have these combination spell/logic battles, and though Counterspell isn't quite the aforementioned, it alludes to the idea that wizards can interact with each others' spells, as opposed to just blasting each other.

Does anyone else use situational Counterspells? I feel like this is a variant from somewhere, and now I can't find where -- the idea is that if you have a spell that's situationally appropriate to cancel out another spell (i.e. bless vs. bane), you can use that XGtE "analyze spell reaction" to figure out the spell the enemy is casting, and then as part of the same reaction, use the appropriate spell instead to zap the offending spell away. I also change the XGtE rules so it's Wisdom (Religion) to analyze cleric spells and Wisdom (Nature) to analyze druid/shamanic spells, but otherwise it's a fun bit of texture that makes spell battles feel more alive.

As for Wish, I've never been a fan of it, but at the same time, I recognize it's one of those legacy D&D things. It's been around for a while, and people always seem to get a kick out of the wisher-vs-DM battle of wits for weird or complicated wishes.

My homebrew fix to make Wish a little less Wishy-Washy (heh heh):

--Every caster who gets 9th level spells gets their own respective version of Wish now, except for Clerics, but I move the Divine Intervention Improvement ability down to level 17, and it works once a day. (I think the designers' idea was for this to work like their own version of Wish anyway.) Bards get Song of Creation, Druids get One With Nature, Sorcerers/Warlocks/Wizards get Magipotheosis.

--Each self-styled version of Wish lets the caster cast any 8th-level spell or lower from their class' respective spell list, as well as a few fun bonus effects a la the Wish spell's list, but customized for each caster type.

--No "I wish for the Nile" hijinks, the spell doesn't work that way anymore, but there are still things that CAN do that (i.e. genies, magical artifacts and such) out in the world.

Now everybody gets a cool 9th-level feather in their cap that works somewhat differently, and nobody can go around Wish-Wish-Wishing all of their problems away.

[Zuras]

As a DM, I appreciate how annoying Remove Curse, Lesser/Greater Restoration and Healing Word are in terms of steamrolling negative effects that PCs get stuck with, but it seems pretty obvious these were all intentional design choices.

Fundamentally, it looks like playtesting showed them for the typical player no amount of verisimilitude is worth losing their ability to participate in the game, and nobody wants to suddenly be forced to roleplay someone afflicted by a terrible curse because of a few bad rolls of the dice. If a player wants to lean into the curse and have fun with it for a few sessions, that’s great, we can come up with some complications that prevent curing them right away, but I view those spells similarly to teleportation and food production—they let you skip a D&D minigame that a significant fraction of players and DMs have found annoying (or at least unsatisfying compared to the amount of table time you put into it). Curse, disease and madness removal in particular are important because they are forced roleplaying/changes to character concepts.

Questing for cures to curses or role playing your PCs descent into madness can be great fun, but based on my experience it should definitely be an opt-in element on a case-by-case basis, not DM fiat or even a session 0 consideration (because no player can exhaustively detail what sorts of curse or madness they are comfortable with prior to play).

[Mjolnirbear]

As a DM, I appreciate how annoying Remove Curse, Lesser/Greater Restoration and Healing Word are in terms of steamrolling negative effects that PCs get stuck with, but it seems pretty obvious these were all intentional design choices.

Questing for cures to curses or role playing your PCs descent into madness can be great fun, but based on my experience it should definitely be an opt-in element on a case-by-case basis, not DM fiat or even a session 0 consideration (because no player can exhaustively detail what sorts of curse or madness they are comfortable with prior to play).

I mean, if remove curse is being used on a spell like Hex or Bestow Curse, I see no need to complicate it.

But you've been bitten by a werewolf, that's a massive character arc right there. If you've got the Eye of Vecna in your head, that shouldn't be a simple level 2 spell fix-and-forget.

It's not that I disagree with the idea of buy-in. Quite the opposite. I support it heartily, and I agree with you about madness because it changes how you're expected to play. But challenges are something your players need to expect. A curse a player could inflict is different in scope than the kinds a GM can inflict. And lycanthropy need not affect how your player plays; they play normal during the day, and wake up in the morning not knowing what happened. They don't need to act cruel and bloodthirsty.

Eh. I can see your point. It harms nothing to get buy-in for certain challenges like character death, madness, curses, or lingering injuries. I'm just not sure that it necessarily counters my point that removing curses generally shouldn't be easy

[Mjolnirbear]

That's a step too far. I need to be able to assist my party with it. (And being able to counter an enemy trying to teleport away (you can fail, it takes a DC 17 roll to stop it) is a great use of the spell even if it's not a guarateed success, particularly when you don't know what spell they are casting. If you simply keep counterspell as an estimate, rather than go through the convolutions of "aha, he's casting hold person" it's less of a problem since sometimes, you are dispelling a cantrip or fog cloud or something like that.

@Amnestic: Good point on people not thinking through the ripple effects.

Thank you! Well said.

This is one of those places where 'skill checks are not magic' isn't a sufficient enough principle to object, and I honestly like the idea behind where you are going with this.
We are toying around with something like "a medicine check that scores > 21 on an unconscious ally at 0 HP restores 1 HP and makes them conscious" or something like that as a way to take your idea and make it work in play. We are leaning on making it DC 25 for the following reason: a natural 20 for a cleric or druid with a Wis of 16 would mirror the Natural 20 of a death save. Mind you, as one goes up on level that score becomes easier to achieve, due to proficiency bonus going up, but it also opens the door for martials to begin doing the 'combat first aid' thing if they take proficiency. And of course the Healng Kit fits into this also.

There is also the spell *detect poison* that ought to be achievable via a Wisdom(Medicine) skill check; why have that as a spell? That said, taking your idea and running with it would likely require a lot of work.

Detect magic? How about we do an arcana check instead?

I mean, I use Arcana checks to disable magic traps. Not all magic needs to be spells, as *looks it up* PheonixPhyre mentioned on the first page (they're also the credit for my previous mention about rituals)

I think that magically speaking skill checks need to be about interacting with existing magic, not creating magic effects. They also shouldn't generally replace saving throws, though Strength checks (Entangle) and Investigation (illusions) does this already. Nature to identify a magic plant, Arcana to Detect Magic, History for information about the Mythal warding the city.

[Amechra]

There are a number of spells like Remove Curse that probably should have a [Quest] tag on them, or at least a note pointing out that the game expects you to have some level of access to a given ability at a given level.

A lot of higher-level spells are basically just plot coupons anyway — like, there's no actual reason that things like Clone, Planar Ally, or True Resurrection need to be spells and not just something that anyone with the right know-how and resources can pull off, other than the fact that they were written up as spells in previous editions.

I'd also be happy if stuff like Raise Dead or Remove Curse required a ceremony to pull off. Yeah, sure, your cleric can Revivify a dead ally, but past that one-minute window you'll have to drag 'em to the nearest church and commandeer some acolytes.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'd also be happy if stuff like Raise Dead or Remove Curse required a ceremony to pull off. Yeah, sure, your cleric can Revivify a dead ally, but past that one-minute window you'll have to drag 'em to the nearest church and commandeer some acolytes.

Gentle Repose.

[Amechra]

Somehow you quoted me and got someone else. Weird.

[KorvinStarmast]

Somehow you quoted me and got someone else. Weird.

I get multiquote weirdness with some frequency. I'll go back and fix that.

[Mjolnirbear]

These are the kinds of spells and rituals that I'd like to see available to anyone, potentially replaced in some cases by skill checks

Religious:
* Ceremony (religion)
* Speak With Dead
* Augury
* Commune (With Nature)
* gentle repose
* Detect evil and good

Primal:
* Speak With Animals (animal handling)
* Beast Bond
* Animal Messenger

Divination:
* Identify
* Detect Magic (Arcana)
* Detect Poison and Disease (Medicine)
* Zone of Truth

Utility:
* comprehend languages
* alarm (mechanics [I use mechanics as an int skill replacing thieves' tools])
* Floating Disk (maybe not, this is something pure strength can do)
* illusory Script
* purify food and drink
* tiny Hut (for my taste, it'd just summon a tent, bedroll, and comfy temps)

Some rituals seem too strong or too magical to not require performance by a spell caster. Find Familiar, Unseen Servant, Instant Summons (honestly who needs an item so badly they aren't carrying with them that needs a 1000gp sapphire??), silence, telepathic bond, water breathing, water walking.

Basically my thinking if it's not adventure-altering (water breathing) or provide significant tactical advantage (telepathic bond, silence) I'd generally think it should be available to non-spellcasters.

[Abracadangit]

These are the kinds of spells and rituals that I'd like to see available to anyone, potentially replaced in some cases by skill checks

Religious:
* Ceremony (religion)
* Speak With Dead
* Augury
* Commune (With Nature)
* gentle repose
* Detect evil and good

Primal:
* Speak With Animals (animal handling)
* Beast Bond
* Animal Messenger

Divination:
* Identify
* Detect Magic (Arcana)
* Detect Poison and Disease (Medicine)
* Zone of Truth

Utility:
* comprehend languages
* alarm (mechanics [I use mechanics as an int skill replacing thieves' tools])
* Floating Disk (maybe not, this is something pure strength can do)
* illusory Script
* purify food and drink
* tiny Hut (for my taste, it'd just summon a tent, bedroll, and comfy temps)

Some rituals seem too strong or too magical to not require performance by a spell caster. Find Familiar, Unseen Servant, Instant Summons (honestly who needs an item so badly they aren't carrying with them that needs a 1000gp sapphire??), silence, telepathic bond, water breathing, water walking.

Basically my thinking if it's not adventure-altering (water breathing) or provide significant tactical advantage (telepathic bond, silence) I'd generally think it should be available to non-spellcasters.

There's a lot of things like this, actually -- one could make an argument that there are certain class abilities that fall under this umbrella as well. "Why can't this just be a skill check." And this would do a lot to equalize the martial/caster utility problem, where casters win all of the utility battles unless said task is "move the heavy thing." Until casters get telekinesis, that is.

With some effort, one could build all kinds of cool tasks and sub-abilities into the different skill proficiencies, but typically when someone does that, everyone says "Well they should go play Pathfinder then," and that's sort of the end of the discussion.

[PhoenixPhyre]

There's a lot of things like this, actually -- one could make an argument that there are certain class abilities that fall under this umbrella as well. "Why can't this just be a skill check." And this would do a lot to equalize the martial/caster utility problem, where casters win all of the utility battles unless said task is "move the heavy thing." Until casters get telekinesis, that is.

With some effort, one could build all kinds of cool tasks and sub-abilities into the different skill proficiencies, but typically when someone does that, everyone says "Well they should go play Pathfinder then," and that's sort of the end of the discussion.

That's why my first thought wouldn't be to tie it directly to ability checks--leave those relatively free-form.

Instead, make a new category of things that aren't spells. I call them "Invocations". Invocations
* can be learned by anyone (possibly character level gated for some effects)
* have an associated cost to prevent or discourage spamming (ranging from "takes time" to "has expensive component" to "takes 4 to do it, under conditions <XYZ>" to "causes exhaustion on use")
* are a wide range of things, much wider even than the suggestions from what you quoted. Including a fair bit of the "too magical" things like teleportation/plane-shifting/resurrection.
* are no longer spells at all.

The point being to move a huge swath of effects out of the spell arena entirely and make them available to everyone. Some classes might get a selection of "freely learned" Invocations; anyone could learn them as quest rewards or from friendly NPCs or written notes or even discover them themselves. And there's much more freedom to alter (or not) which ones show up at a campaign/setting level.

In essence, it reverses the criteria above--Is it a campaign-altering effect? It shouldn't be a spell. Does it provide significant strategic effects while being less useful at a tactical level? Then it's an Invocation. Spells would be only those things for which casting NOW and/or frequently is important. Which means most combat spells + some few of the "utility" spells.

Yes, this is basically a take on 4e's Rituals. Just less...annoying in implementation and less rigid.

[KorvinStarmast]

That's why my first thought wouldn't be to tie it directly to ability checks--leave those relatively free-form.

Instead, make a new category of things that aren't spells. I call them "Invocations".

Let's call them Incantations so as not to confuse them with the Warlock Class Feature.

[Eric Diaz]

About 50% of them or more.

Pure damage doesn't need anything but a single spell with variations. Same for healing. I'd probably play around a lot more with casting and higher levels and metamagic, so we could play with, say, 50 spells instead of 500.

I agree that some spells that remove a part of obstacles (goodberry, tiny hut) might be removed as well. Also agree with spell effects that should be replaced by skill checks. But knock might be too iconic at this point.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Let's call them Incantations so as not to confuse them with the Warlock Class Feature.

Derp. I couldn't remember which was the term in the warlock class. You're right, and that's the term I've used in my unpublished Proof of concept.

[KorvinStarmast]

Here are bundle of reasons not to remove Wish. (Or, perhaps to bring back Limited Wish as a level 7 spell ...) (Credit to ThomasMarkov at RPGSE for compiling this list, there are probably others).
Spell Effects Ended

Ending the effect of feeblemind
Reversing the hit point loss of create magen
Reversing the aging effect of time ravage
Ending the effect of geas
Reviving a creature killed by disintegrate
Creating an undead from a corpse protected by ceremony

Magic items

Unmaking the Sword of Kas
Repairing Daern's Instant Fortress
Dissolving Sovereign Glue
Reversing the curse of the Hell Hound Cloak
Reversing the curse of the Scorpion Armor
Reviving a creature slain with the Rakdos Riteknife
Bringing back a creature destroyed by the Ruinstone
Finding a creature sequestered by the Donjon effect of the Deck of Many Things
Reversing the aging effect of Iggwilv's Cauldron
Reviving a creature whose soul has been devoured by Blackrazor
Removing the Azuredge from a surface it is affixed to

Monster abilities
Many monsters have abilities that inflict some curse or condition that can only be reversed by a wish spell, or have some other interaction with wish:

Returning to the party to their normal time after being affected by a Sphinx's lair action.
Reversing the transformation caused by a Blue Slaad's claw attack.
Obtaining the control gem from a control gem variant Slaad
Restoring a creature killed by Ygorl, Lord of Entropy's Scythe attack
Preventing a slain Guardian/Spirit Naga from returning to life.
Reversing the transformation caused by Molydeus' Snakebite attack.
Reversing the transformation caused by a Rutterkin's Bite attack
Reviving a creature slain by Kalaraq Quori's Soul Binding attack, or freeing a creature enslaved by Kalaraq Quori.
Reviving a creature killed by a Nightwalker.
Removing the exhaustion induced by an Oinoloth's Corrupted Healing
Reviving a creature devoured by a Nabassu
Reviving a creature that has been transformed into a Lemure by the effect of a Narzugon's Hellfire Lance
Entering an Astral Dreadnought's demiplane
Reversing the transformation caused by Sibriex's Warp Creature ability
Forcing a revenant's soul to go to the afterlife.
Separating the deformed duergar fused together by the Lich Arcturia
Reviving a creature that has been transformed into a Lemure by the effect of a Hellfire Engine's hellfire weapons.

[PhantomSoul]

Here are bundle of reasons not to remove Wish. (Or, perhaps to bring back Limited Wish as a level 7 spell ...) (Credit to ThomasMarkov at RPGSE for compiling this list, there are probably others).
(...)

In many of these cases, I could see that perhaps these are reasons to remove Wish after all; you've replaced a quest or a more interesting solution with a go-to spell. Without the spell, though, maybe you have to convince a genie, find a ring of three wishes, have a more clever custom solution (e.g. forcing the revenant's soul actually means dealing with why they're a revenant in the first place) or many other things.

[PhoenixPhyre]

In many of these cases, I could see that perhaps these are reasons to remove Wish after all; you've replaced a quest or a more interesting solution with a go-to spell. Without the spell, though, maybe you have to convince a genie, find a ring of three wishes, have a more clever custom solution (e.g. forcing the revenant's soul actually means dealing with why they're a revenant in the first place) or many other things.

Or have a (limited) Incantation that simply "ends any effect that says it can be ended by wish". But I agree that many of those things are just "hey, wish is a panacea." Which goes against the design principle that wizards shouldn't have curing spells--that's the ultimate cure.

If there needs to be an "ultimate condition removal" spell, it should be a cleric spell, not tacked onto an already over-stuffed wizard one.

[KorvinStarmast]

In many of these cases, I could see that perhaps these are reasons to remove Wish after all; you've replaced a quest or a more interesting solution with a go-to spell. Without the spell, though, maybe you have to convince a genie, find a ring of three wishes, have a more clever custom solution (e.g. forcing the revenant's soul actually means dealing with why they're a revenant in the first place) or many other things.

When Limited Wish came out in Greyhawk, and then got refined in AD&D, it was a nice intermediate step between "Wish" and "something not quite as reality bending" - I need to check my Tasha's to see how the limited wish for the Genie Warlock compares; I think they are headed in the right place.

I think that the point of the list is to show how embedded wish is into a bunch of game elements. (Kind of like how alignment now and again crops up as a hard coded aspect of some items despite the general relaxation of alignment restrictions overall in 5e).