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Fixing spellcasting components
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 9182511" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>While I've often noted the trend of removing restrictions from casting & casters, there's also been the obvious adjustment on the other side of the equation, which has been less consistent:</p><p>3e made a lot of restrictions avoidable - like, optimize Concentration, take Still Spell to cast in armor, etc - but it didn't make spells a lot less powerful - it capped damage on lower level spells, but it also made some spells more powerful (3.0 Haste, for instance, let you cast 2 spells/round, which AD&D Haste did not do, we all know about Polymorph)... and also made spells a lot more powerful by scaling DCs with level.</p><p>4e tossed even those avoidable restrictions, leaving casting and, for comparison, missile weapons, no roughly the same ground - both provoked AoOs, for instance, though it took an action to 'sustain' some powers ... but, <em>significantly cut down the power/versatility of spells</em>, and added martial exploits, until they were roughly balanced.</p><p>5e, removed the AoO for spellcasting, made all casters spontaneous, replaced sustain actions with concentration, kept at-will spells but removed martial exploits almost completely, and powered up spells very substantially.</p><p></p><p>Now, to be fair, as obviously a bad idea as it may have been to scrub virtually all restrictions off spellcasting and remove weaknesses from casters - and, like, stop weighting random treasure determination to favor longsword-weilding fighters, and who knows what all else little tricks EGG had going on in the quixotic intricacies of early D&D - those restrictions didn't stop casters from dominating play by name level, back then, either. They made it sheer heck to play a Magic-User at 1st level, and overall, were arguably more or less workable relative to spell power from 3rd through most of the single digits. Or less or more. </p><p>Tho, really, the old-school D&D play esperience was what the DM made of it, much more than what was in the books. Just, what was in the books was no paragon of balance, even were a DM to stick to every restriction and weakness in there.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 9182511, member: 996"] While I've often noted the trend of removing restrictions from casting & casters, there's also been the obvious adjustment on the other side of the equation, which has been less consistent: 3e made a lot of restrictions avoidable - like, optimize Concentration, take Still Spell to cast in armor, etc - but it didn't make spells a lot less powerful - it capped damage on lower level spells, but it also made some spells more powerful (3.0 Haste, for instance, let you cast 2 spells/round, which AD&D Haste did not do, we all know about Polymorph)... and also made spells a lot more powerful by scaling DCs with level. 4e tossed even those avoidable restrictions, leaving casting and, for comparison, missile weapons, no roughly the same ground - both provoked AoOs, for instance, though it took an action to 'sustain' some powers ... but, [I]significantly cut down the power/versatility of spells[/I], and added martial exploits, until they were roughly balanced. 5e, removed the AoO for spellcasting, made all casters spontaneous, replaced sustain actions with concentration, kept at-will spells but removed martial exploits almost completely, and powered up spells very substantially. Now, to be fair, as obviously a bad idea as it may have been to scrub virtually all restrictions off spellcasting and remove weaknesses from casters - and, like, stop weighting random treasure determination to favor longsword-weilding fighters, and who knows what all else little tricks EGG had going on in the quixotic intricacies of early D&D - those restrictions didn't stop casters from dominating play by name level, back then, either. They made it sheer heck to play a Magic-User at 1st level, and overall, were arguably more or less workable relative to spell power from 3rd through most of the single digits. Or less or more. Tho, really, the old-school D&D play esperience was what the DM made of it, much more than what was in the books. Just, what was in the books was no paragon of balance, even were a DM to stick to every restriction and weakness in there. [/QUOTE]
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