What spells would be broken if they didn't cost slots and instead took longer?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Limitation: Utility spells. Not touching ones that are dominantly designed for combat.

Spoiler: Context

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I'm (slowly) working on a proposal to replace a large chunk of spells with 4e-style "incantations" that
a) could be learned by anyone of the appropriate tier
b) have other costs to perform[1] instead of spell slots.
c) can't be cast as spells at all, although Ritual Casting would get altered to provide benefits when performing subsets of incantations and/or giving free incantations known

The goal being to democratize utility effects. I think I've got a basic list of which spells/effects I want to replace, and now the question is cost.

Spoiler: spells, pardon the odd sorting and extraneous stuff

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Numbers in parentheses are the tier at which it becomes available

Animal Messenger (1)
Dream (2)
Illusory Script (1)
Magic Mouth (1)
Sending (2)
Telepathic Bond (2)
Tongues/Comprehend Languages
Animate Dead (2) / Create Undead (3)
Animate Objects (2)
Awaken (2)
Continual Flame (1)
Create Food and Water (2) / Creation (2*) /Fabricate (2*) / Wall of Stone (2*)
Conjure Animals (2) / Elementals (2) / Woodland Beings (2) / Celestials (3) / Fey (3) / Fiends (3)
Earthquake (4)
Floating Disk (1)
Gate (4, summon function)
Planar Binding (2) / Ally (3)
Rope Trick (1) / Tiny Hut (2) / Magnificent Mansion (3)
True Polymorph (4)
Tsunami (4)
Unseen Servant (1)
Information
Alarm (1)
Astral Projection (4)
Agury (1)
Clairvoyance (2)
Commune / Commune with Nature / Contact other plane (2)
Divination (2)
Find the Path (3)
Identify (1)
Legend Lore (2)
Locate Animals or Plants / Creature / Object (2)
Magic Aura (1)
Nondetection (2)
Programmed Illusion (3)
Scrying (2)
Silence (2)
Speak with Animals (1) / Plants (1) / Dead (2)
Zone of Truth (2)
Mind Control
Animal Friendship (1)
Antipathy/Sympathy (4)
Enthrall (3)
Magic Jar (3)
Mind Blank (4)
Modify Memory (2)
Restoration
Mending (1)
Plant Growth (2)
Purify Food and Drink
Restoration (greater and lesser)
Resurrection (all forms)
Gentle Repose
Instant Summons (3)
Forbiddance (3)
Fly (3, group only)
Gate (4, transport function)
Phantom Steed (2)
Plane Shift (3)
Project Image (3)
Teleport Circle (2) / Teleport (3)
Transport via Plants (3)
Water Walk (2) / Breathing (2)
Warding
Arcane Lock (1)
Glyph of warding (2)
Guards and Wards (3)
Knock (1)
Private Sanctum (2)
Protection from Good and Evil (1)

Note: the following would be removed or strongly reworked but not part of this framework: simulacrum, wish

Options (mix and match, 1+ cost):
1) increased cast time by at least one "unit" (ie 1 action -> 1 minute -> 10 minutes -> 1 hour -> 8 hours -> 24 hours)
2) expensive consumed and/or focus components
3) multiple performers required
4) explicit cooldowns (ie "you can't perform this incantation again until...") or consequences for repeating within an interval ("if you perform this ritual again within ..., you suffer ...")
5) specific conditions required to perform the ritual (can only be performed in an area sanctified to ______, requires the sacrifice of a child[2], etc)

The point of this thread is to determine if I could get away with just #1 or if I need to investigate the other options more heavily as well.

The question: what utility spells would either
a) become overpoweringly strong
b) or become useless
c) or become annoying to play in the presence of

if they no longer needed a spell slot but took at least one unit time to cast (ie 1 action -> 1 minute -> 10 minutes -> 1 hour -> 8 hours -> 24 hours), keeping everything else the same (so including concentration requirements or components if present)? That is, effectively becoming rituals with slightly different ritual rules?

First guess--animate dead. Others?

[kaervaak]

Long duration, no concentration buffs:

- Aid (lets give everyone in the party an extra 5*spell level HP)
- Mage Armor
- Armor of Agathys
- Gift of Alacrity (everyone gets +1d8 to initiative all time)
- Long Strider (everyone has +10 movement speed)
- Dark Vision (everyone has darkvision)
- Protection from poison (everyone is protected from poison)
- Death ward (death wards for everyone!)
- Crown of stars (1 hour duration, so you could reasonably always have this up when adventuring)
- Glibness
- Mind Blank (24 hour duration, so always active)
- Telepathy (always on)
- Foresight (8 hours, cast on the whole party)

Foresight is the truly egregious one here. For 1 minute per party member, you can give the entire party a ridiculous buff for 8 hours. Death ward and glibness are stupidly broken to have always active as well.

Healing Magic. Fully heal whenever you have a few minutes.

Travel magic. At will (well 1 minute casting time) teleports are pretty strong.

Until dispelled effects

- True polymorph is the real standout here. You can true polymorph everything!

[PhoenixPhyre]

Long duration, no concentration buffs:

- Aid (lets give everyone in the party an extra 5*spell level HP)
- Mage Armor
- Armor of Agathys
- Gift of Alacrity (everyone gets +1d8 to initiative all time)
- Long Strider (everyone has +10 movement speed)
- Dark Vision (everyone has darkvision)
- Protection from poison (everyone is protected from poison)
- Death ward (death wards for everyone!)
- Crown of stars (1 hour duration, so you could reasonably always have this up when adventuring)
- Glibness
- Mind Blank (24 hour duration, so always active)
- Telepathy (always on)
- Foresight (8 hours, cast on the whole party)

Foresight is the truly egregious one here. For 1 minute per party member, you can give the entire party a ridiculous buff for 8 hours. Death ward and glibness are stupidly broken to have always active as well.

Healing Magic. Fully heal whenever you have a few minutes.

Travel magic. At will (well 1 minute casting time) teleports are pretty strong.

Until dispelled effects

- True polymorph is the real standout here. You can true polymorph everything!

Looking at my list of spells-to-transform so far:
* True polymorph is on the list.
* None of the others are.

Phew. So far so good. TP needs some significant changes anyway or possibly be removed from the list.

[Greywander]

Limitation: Utility spells. Not touching ones that are dominantly designed for combat.

No reason to exclude combat spells, you just have to be savvy and very selective of which spells you allow. I have a WIP homebrew class I haven't touched in a while called a channeler. They cast all of their spells at-will, with the caveat that each spell will "take up" a number of channels equal to the spell's level. They're also limited to 5th level spells, currently using basically a copypasta of Mystic Arcanum for 6th+ level spells (I used warlock as a basis for designing the class, though I never really felt good about Mystic Arcanum).

It's not quite the same as what you're doing, but it's close enough that a lot of the same lessons will carry over. It's an older thread, but in this thread I explore some of the criteria you'd want to look for when considering at-will spells. And then in this thread I go over why I'm a fan of making Bane an at-will spell (for appropriate classes; in my case, two trickster-style subclasses for warlock).

Hopefully that should help you figure out what spells would work best with your system.

[PhoenixPhyre]

No reason to exclude combat spells, you just have to be savvy and very selective of which spells you allow. I have a WIP homebrew class I haven't touched in a while called a channeler. They cast all of their spells at-will, with the caveat that each spell will "take up" a number of channels equal to the spell's level. They're also limited to 5th level spells, currently using basically a copypasta of Mystic Arcanum for 6th+ level spells (I used warlock as a basis for designing the class, though I never really felt good about Mystic Arcanum).

It's not quite the same as what you're doing, but it's close enough that a lot of the same lessons will carry over. It's an older thread, but in this thread I explore some of the criteria you'd want to look for when considering at-will spells. And then in this thread I go over why I'm a fan of making Bane an at-will spell (for appropriate classes; in my case, two trickster-style subclasses for warlock).

Hopefully that should help you figure out what spells would work best with your system.

In this case, the design criteria (in the spoiler) are the reasons to exclude combat magic. Specifically, I want to strip back the contentious "unique magical utility" category significantly while not really changing how a caster (or anyone else) goes about combat.

So it's not really balance on that part--it's just not in scope for the change and would have to be evaluated completely separately.

[KorvinStarmast]

Looking at my list of spells-to-transform so far:
* True polymorph is on the list.
* None of the others are.

Phew. So far so good. TP needs some significant changes anyway or possibly be removed from the list.

I just got that spell. All it needs is to go back to its original form.
Permanent is permanent. (I still have a first printing PHB).

But having it take an action may seem OP. Of course, wish takes one action and is a lot more powerful.

TP: casting time more like a ritual (heck, simulacrum takes 12 hours) might be a good adjustment.
But that would take out out of combat entirely.

[Sigreid]

I just got that spell. All it needs is to go back to its original form.
Permanent is permanent. (I still have a first printing PHB).

But having it take an action may seem OP. Of course, wish takes one action and is a lot more powerful.

TP: casting time more like a ritual (heck, simulacrum takes 12 hours) might be a good adjustment.
But that would take out out of combat entirely.

Don't forget over time actually changing your mind and personality, becoming the creature as written in the book in all ways.

[Chronos]

Really, I wouldn't recommend doing this for any spell of 6th level or higher. It's a fundamental principle of this edition's design that all of those are only 1/day, or 2/day at absolute most at epic levels. There might be some that would be OK, but I wouldn't be confident about that in any given case.

[Sorinth]

It's always been in the back of my mind to do something similar with the wizard class. Reduce a Wizards spell slots but then allow them to cast every spell they know as a ritual, with a new ritual system.

The general idea was that there would be an exponential growth in ritual time to cast, and spell components comsumed by the ritual. So a Level 1 ritual would be something like 1 min and 10gp of materials, whereas at 9th level it would be 24+ hours (Meaning it might even require a team of assistants) and special uncosted components. The special components would be something along the lines of magic item crafting from XGtE, it requires a CR X quest to acquire the component.

But I never got around to actually formulating my ideas. Depending on your players it might be worthwhile to just play without really formalizing the rules with the expectation that "broken" spells would be adjusted when it's apparent that they are "broken".

[Pex]

Quick glance impulse:

Protection From Evil & Good and Tongues would become almost useless. When you know ahead of time you'll need them they'll still do their job and be awesome, but sometimes you need them right now. Easiest example. You kill the bugbear. Great. Oh feces out pops an intellect devour. You're not wanting to wait a minute to cast Protection From Evil & Good. It's also a standard defensive spell against undead and fiends. It is not overpowered as is. As for Tongues, being a ritual prevents its use from players spontaneously trying to talk to creatures they encounter and avoid a misunderstanding that could lead to hostilities. They come across lizardmen. Are they an enemy? Are they just passing through? Is the party in the wrong intruding on their home even by accident? Cast Tongues and talk. If it's a ritual the party relies on DM fiat the situation doesn't escalate instead of their own choice.

[Lucas Yew]

Anything that still cannot be replicated by modern science, I think. So for most blasting spells, it would be a nerf if you can't lob them right now ASAP.

OTOH, stuff like resurrecting the dead with some hair or fossil, flawlessly teleporting all the way to Mars (don't forget your space suits beforehand), completely healing 700 late stage cancer patients at once, etc. Now those are true miracles, indeed.

[Bobthewizard]

Long duration, no concentration buffs...

Healing Magic. Fully heal whenever you have a few minutes.

Travel magic. At will (well 1 minute casting time) teleports are pretty strong.

Until dispelled effects

- True polymorph is the real standout here. You can true polymorph everything!

Really, I wouldn't recommend doing this for any spell of 6th level or higher. It's a fundamental principle of this edition's design that all of those are only 1/day, or 2/day at absolute most at epic levels. There might be some that would be OK, but I wouldn't be confident about that in any given case.

I agree with these. You can't have long duration buffs, or any high level spells be slot free. I'd also add all of the divination spells. Detect thoughts with no cost could ruin your social encounters. Arcane eye would make every castle or dungeon entrance a slog to role-play. See invisibility and Truesight fall under both divination and long duration buffs. Fireshield is another long duration buff.

[Sorinth]

I agree with these. You can't have long duration buffs, or any high level spells be slot free. I'd also add all of the divination spells. Detect thoughts with no cost could ruin your social encounters. Arcane eye would make every castle or dungeon entrance a slog to role-play. See invisibility and Truesight fall under both divination and long duration buffs. Fireshield is another long duration buff.

Depends entirely on the time to cast the ritual and if there are any material component cost to doing it. If it takes 8hrs to ritually cast a spell that lasts 1hr then it's not really going to break anything. If casting Fireshield used 100gp of material components to ritually cast then it's rarely going to be worth ritually casting it to have it always up.

And Detect Thoughts lasts a minute, it's going to be very hard to ritually cast and then use it in a generic social environment. It will have very situational uses like interrogating prisoners where it will be extremely useful but that's not going to break anything.

[Angelalex242]

Well. If you can cast 9th level spells to begin with, you're already playing a Tier 4 game. Having Foresight up forever probably isn't going to be as awesome as you think it is when the opponents coming after you are gods and great wyrm dragons. Plural.

[Mjolnirbear]

Why conjure animals et al? You'd never use it out of combat, which means you'd have to cast it in advance in order to use it at all, say, when you're planning to besiege the hob goblin fortifications with a bunch of rats earing and fouling food supplies.

My first guess is because you think they're too useful and should have an additional cost, and the second because they're too inconvenient, but I'm just guessing here.

Basically, my thoughts on whether to make it 'only' castable by ritual depends on if it's useful in combat and likely to often need it now.

Like someone else said, I'd also completely omit 6+ level spells. Not because there aren't spells that are kinda worth being rituals, but because having one as a ritual and one as a spell slot gives you, effectively, an extra level 6 spell slot.

I'd include Remove Curse (and possibly Bestow Curse) as 'also can be cast ritually' . Hex or Bestow Curse should be a simple spell slot to cure; but a powerful curse from an ancient god' s tomb, or a werewolf infection, or a hag cursing you to not be able to sleep, kinda require a ritual that turns the cure into a quest.

My first option for the rest is 'comes at a cost'. My variation would be components that must be quested for. For instance, Water Breathing might require a willing water-breather's assistance. My problem with this is that components were mostly annoying before 5th, so I'd probably limit this to rituals where the story really, really needs a quest for the component (like the aforementioned curse spells).

My next choice is the cool-down option. For example, "if you cast this spell again within X time, you gain a level of exhaustion." This would be the one you'd use for the most powerful spells, such as teleport; also the most lazy spells, such as all "give me food and rest" spells. One food spell per week in an emergency is fine. Never needing Rations again because you have Goodberry is, IMO, less fine. One Teleport Circle per Month seems fine; teleport Circle every time you want to shop is less so. And yet, using Exhaustion means if you really, really need to, you still can do it. It's a significant cost that will really make players question if they really need this. Your knock spell would then only be used after the rogue and the barbarian already tried their methods.

For "casting time" increases, you might gate it by short rests or long rests ("Casting Time: 1 hour, during a short rest") puts a useful limit on how many times it can be done per day. These would be for spells where once or twice a day is fine but that's it, and works as well for those who use Gritty rest rules for instance.

[Chronos]

Never needing to buy food is... a really insignificant thing, in the big picture. I mean, adventurers are rich, and food is cheap, to the point that most players (and DMs) don't even bother tracking rations. If Goodberry can eliminate the need for rations... Well, so what?

I mean, I'm sure there are some poor peasants out there who'd kill for Ritual Caster: Goodberry. But PCs aren't poor peasants.