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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   18699 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025

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With D&D 5, there is no need to assign spells to slots any more. Instead, you have to decide which spells you want to be able to cast after rest, and are limited to a frankly ridiculously low number, I think on the order of a dozen or so in the BG3 endgame

It's based on level + int modifier, so yeah a dozen or so is about right. That said, the 5e magic changes are on the whole a breath of fresh air. Vancian magic in prior editions (my experience is with 3e, which itself was a softening of the system by including 0-level spells) is a terrible, actively un-fun system. It sucks ass to find yourself in a situation where it sure would be nice to cast (insert spell here), but you only prepared one copy and you already cast it so you're SOL.

The magic system envisioned by Jack Vance, where wizards cast world shattering spells that are so complex that you have to lay them down in your mind in advance, is very cool for a novel. It is not at all pleasant as a game mechanic, however. There are a lot of changes 5e made which are questionable but I disagree that this was one.

Okay, I should add that I have mostly encountered D&D in single-player computer RPGs. There, the impact is much lessened. First, most of the focus is on combat even more than with pen and paper D&D. Either you win an encounter, in which case the fact that you were unable to cast the ideal spell for the situation is moot, or you get a TPK, so you reload and prepare differently. Outside combat, you are not on a timer and can rest whenever you like. Where a barbarian player would certainly have their character complain about having another rest despite the party being in good shape simply so that a spellcaster can prepare a utility spell, and a DM would be quick to point out the side effects of wasting another day, NPC party members typically are much more accommodating.

Vancian magic in prior editions (my experience is with 3e, which itself was a softening of the system by including 0-level spells) is a terrible, actively un-fun system. It sucks ass to find yourself in a situation where it sure would be nice to cast (insert spell here), but you only prepared one copy and you already cast it so you're SOL.

But 3e/3.5e also had more robust magic item buying/crafting rules, so it was easy to spend a little extra money to have your highly situational spells as scrolls or wands for when you need them, so you could reserve your spell slots for your more generally useful spells.

True. Though in fairness, you can craft scrolls in 5e just fine so the same would really apply to that (albeit the DMG gives almost zero guidance to the DM on how to implement magical item crafting, just hand waves a few broad guidelines). And in BG3 specifically you have scrolls coming out of your ears.

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