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Having a number of spell slots per spell level, with the power of a spell of a given level fixed, creates a lot of problems for balancing spellcasters. If you make a low level spell too powerful a high level spellcaster has too many resources, because the number of spell slots increases linearly. But if you make all low level spells weak than low level spell casters are way too weak. This makes it really hard to balance spellcasters and non-spellcasters across all levels.
Issues with spell power by spell level:
Individual spells being weak at low levels and strong at higher levels causes lots of problems for the balance of spellcasters in combat. This causes buffing/debuffing spellcasters to be comparatively weaker at low levels and stronger at higher levels compared to classes that rely on weapon attacks whose power level grows much less dramatically.
All spells having the same DC causes this problem for spells that debuff. Those spells are made very weak at low levels and increase in power as they get higher in level. For example level 1 fear is very weak, level 3 fear and level 3 slow are alright and level 6 slow is strong. At low levels the spells are too weak and maybe not even worth their action, while at middle levels maybe the spell power is appropriate, and at higher levels the spells are disproportionately stronger than they were before. This causes spellcasters to be very weak at low levels and increase in power dramatically as the get high level spells and their low level spells become worth using, giving them large increases to power.
Buffing spells exhibit these same problems, being far weaker at low level than high level. For example resist energy (the amount scales with level just to keep up with increased damage, but the increase in targets is a huge increase in power) and heroism. At low level very few of these spells are worth using, while at higher levels they can become powerful.
Damage/healing spells do not have these problems, because a highest level slot is always required to do level appropriate damage/healing.
Polymorph/summoning spells should not have these problems either, if they are appropriately balanced for their level is a different issue. Summon spells of your highest level should have a consistent difference in level between the level you cast it and the level of the creature summoned, this would keep the creature an appropriate power level if the building an encounter guidelines are correct.
It is understandable for utility spells that primarily affect narrative power rather than combat effectiveness to increase dramatically in power, so those are fine.
Many powers have this same problem.
Suggestions on fix:
This system of having a number of spell slots per spell level makes having appropriately powerful low level spells cause higher level casters to have too many appropriately powerful spell casts. Having spell slots per spell level seems too entrenched in tradition to change. This used to be mitigated by decreasing save DCs for lower level spells, spells with HD limits like color spray, and spells that depend on targets HP like power word spells. Having all spells use the same DC is very convenient, and those solutions don't affect buffing spells.
A possible solution for this problem might be to have spells have different effects depending on the spells spell level and the level of the targets, like the old HD limits in sleep and color spray, but scaling with the level of the spell slot used to cast. So a level 3 slow could slow creatures of level 9 or lower, and a level 3 mass slow could slow multiple creatures of level 2 or lower (numbers could be whatever is appropriate for the effect). This would allow low level spells to be useful, but not give higher level casters too many options. This puts buffs/debuffs on the same level as damage spells and allows spellcaster power level to grow more in line with other classes.
This would allow increases in the power of spell casters to be very easily controlled. Spells could increase their level of target affected faster than the level needed to cast them at that spell level. For example, mass fear 3 could affect targets up to level 7, and mass fear 4 could affect targets up to level 10. That increase in level affected would allow spell casters to use lower level slots for stronger effects in combat, at a controlled rate. Very weak spells would have a very high or no level limit, like fear 1 could affect targets up to level 20.
Low number of spell slots and increased combat duration leads to lack of resources, especially at low levels:
At low levels, spell casters have very few spells, most of which are very weak. At levels 1-4 they have 2-8 spell slots and probably 4 spell points. If they face 4 encounters in a day that take an average of 5 rounds, that's 20 rounds. Most powers will not help in combat, some will help a little, and some have reasonable effects for a use of a resource, but those are rare. If the powers and spells had strong enough effects that might be enough to contribute effectively. But if a spellcaster selects a spell like fear or resist energy, they probably won't contribute very much with those limited slots, and they pretty much are stuck with cantrips and less effective weapon use.
Spell Heightening:
Spell heightening options fall into two groups: increasing the effect to level appropriate values like for damage/healing spells, and providing new effects like for invisibility or slow. For the first group casting the spell at the highest level is required for it to be appropriately effective, so giving free heightening amounts to using lower level spells known for higher level spells. For the group of spells with new effects, heightening amounts to a new spell known. The two groups are very different, so spells that add new effects should be separated into multiple spells, in order to allow spell heightening be balanced for the group of spells that need to be near max level to be level appropriate.
Powers:
I thought spell points and powers were supposed to alleviate that disparity of resources between levels, by giving a pool of usable actions that stays consistent across level to pair with the linearly scaling amount of spell slots, but as is most powers do not serve that purpose because they are too weak to serve as contributing actions. Balancing them across all classes to be reasonable would help the reduce the disparity in power between low level and high level casters. Spell point pools also feel way too limited considering the length of combat in rounds, and expectations of a number of encounters in a day.
What other solutions are there for this problem? I hope there's a more elegant way than level checks for every spell but it's hard to think of while keeping this system with a number of spell slots per spell level.
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I definitely agree with your premise. My preferred solution is to give spellcasters a fixed number of spell slots that don't change by level.
For example, a 9th level caster might have 4 "5th level or lower" slots, 4 "4th level or lower" slots, and 4 "3rd level or lower" slots. That same caster at 15th level would have 4 "8th level or lower" slots, 4 "7th level or lower" slots and 4 "6th level or lower" slots.
That seems nice, but it does remove a higher level spellcaster having lots of access to weaker utility spells without impacting their main resources.
Would it be okay for them to have those lower level noncombat spells at will if the caster was high enough level? Like spells could have a "utility" trait that allows spellcasters of level X+Y to cast them for free/with a different resource.
I personally don't see an issue of the lower level spell slots slowly turning from "core" to utility as the caster levels up.
Sure, a starting mage depends on that 1st level slot for the bulk of his damage, but when he grows up and starts flinging disintegrate left and right, his low level slot is merely a boost to make that disintegrate better.
Due to how both DCs but checks too work now, "fear level 1" is exactly the same, power wise, at level 1 and at level 20.
The lack of innate scaling only really affects blasts and blasts only.
Assuming that there are some data that point out "caster should be able to do X damage with blasts per day" and that X can be covered with high level slots, then there really is no issue.
Using random numbers:
Lets say that a caster needs to do "20 rounds of martial damage with blasts"At level 3 that will probably be burning hands and flaming sphere.
At level 9 that will probably be cone of cold and (highten?) fireballs.
And etcIf we put some form of inherent scaling, making burning hands an effective, or even attractive, option at level 9,then,to keep that X amount of damage, CoC would need to do lower damage.
I personally wouldn't like that.
That's the opposite of my point. I was saying it's good that blasts don't have scaling.
A level 1 blasting spell is a fine choice at level 1 but it gets less powerful as you level up. That's a good thing.
Fear is an awful choice at level 1, but keeps the same power as you level up. That's a bad thing.
Level 1 spells should be valuable at level 1, but if they make a fear spell that's powerful enough at level 1 to be useful that makes it too powerful for a lower level slot at higher levels.
I wouldn't say fear is awful - timed correctly it can be devastating. When I ran the resonance test, Fear was responsible for turning a failed save on a Fireball into a crit failure, and that turned what could have been an actual fight into a slaughter.
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Alternatively, why not just let other Spell Levels join Cantrips as Unlimited as the caster advances?
So, say, when a Wizard hits level 8 suddenly their Level 1 spells become Unlimited? Low level spells are still, generally, less useful* but now casters can use them an unlimited amount of times?
*With exceptions like Fear.
I personally don't see an issue of the lower level spell slots slowly turning from "core" to utility as the caster levels up.
Sure, a starting mage depends on that 1st level slot for the bulk of his damage, but when he grows up and starts flinging disintegrate left and right, his low level slot is merely a boost to make that disintegrate better.
Due to how both DCs but checks too work now, "fear level 1" is exactly the same, power wise, at level 1 and at level 20.
The lack of innate scaling only really affects blasts and blasts only.
Assuming that there are some data that point out "caster should be able to do X damage with blasts per day" and that X can be covered with high level slots, then there really is no issue.
Using random numbers:
Lets say that a caster needs to do "20 rounds of martial damage with blasts"At level 3 that will probably be burning hands and flaming sphere.
At level 9 that will probably be cone of cold and (highten?) fireballs.
And etcIf we put some form of inherent scaling, making burning hands an effective, or even attractive, option at level 9,then,to keep that X amount of damage, CoC would need to do lower damage.
I personally wouldn't like that.
That's the opposite of my point. I was saying it's good that blasts don't have scaling.
A level 1 blasting spell is a fine choice at level 1 but it gets less powerful as you level up. That's a good thing.
Fear is an awful choice at level 1, but keeps the same power as you level up. That's a bad thing.
Level 1 spells should be valuable at level 1, but if they make a fear spell that's powerful enough at level 1 to be useful that makes it too powerful for a lower level slot at higher levels.
But that's the thing, fear is equally useful at 1 and at 20
It offers exactly the same % bonus.
That's what I'm saying…
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I like the way 13th Age handles this kind of thing.
13th Age both have debuff spells with hit point limits based on the level at which you cast it (e.g. Color Spray cast with a 1st level slot deals 2d8 psychic damage and if the target has 10 hp or fewer it is weakened (half damage) for one round); when cast with a 3rd level slot it instead deals 4d6 damage and the hp ceiling is raised to 20), and a gradual removal of low-level spell slots in favor of higher ones (a 3rd level cleric has 2 1st-level spells and 3 3rd-level; at 4th level they have 1 1st-level and 5 3rd-level, and at 5th level they have 2 3rd-level and 4 5th-level but no 1st-level slots).
(As an aside, 13th age compresses the level range to 10 levels, and only has spell slots of odd levels).
Wizards also have something called "Utility spell". They can reserve one of their spell slots for a utility spell and then cast any of a number of different spells using that slot, instead of having to reserve the spell slot for a particular utility spell.
Yeah, I really like some of those things from 13th age, like only have spell slots for your top two spell levels, so they're always relevant and the number of slots doesn't get out of hand. Completely solves the issues I've listed, and going by hp is great for helping casters and martials work together. A problem in the playtest with that is that creature hp doesn't tie so nicely to level.
If they did tie creature HP to level that would also be another way to do this.
They already have something like this with the Power Word spells and Fatal Aria. But it seems a little clunky to tie that language together with the language for saving throws. I think something using "treat the result as one degree better/worse" might work.
Which version looks best?
Fear Spell 1
The target makes a will save, level 4 or higher creatures treat their result as one degree better.
Success: The target is frightened 2
Critical Success: The Target is Unaffected.
Failure: The target is frightened 4
Critical Failure: The target is frightened 4 and fleeing for 1 round.
Heighten(+1): Increase the level in which creatures treat their result as one degree better by 3.
Fear Spell 1
The target makes a will save, level 3 or lower creatures treat their result as one degree worse.
Success: The target is frightened 1
Critical Success: The Target is Unaffected.
Failure: The target is frightened 2
Critical Failure: The target is frightened 4.
Heighten(+1): Increase the levels at which each outcome applies by 2.
Fear Spell 1
The target makes a will save, creatures with more than 50 HP treat their result as one degree better.
Success: The target is frightened 2
Critical Success: The Target is Unaffected.
Failure: The target is frightened 4
Critical Failure: The target is frightened 4 and fleeing for 1 round.
Heighten(+1): Increase the HP in which creatures treat their result better by 50.
Fear Spell 1
The target makes a will save, creatures with 50 HP or less treat their result as one degree worse.
Success: The target is frightened 1
Critical Success: The Target is Unaffected.
Failure: The target is frightened 2
Critical Failure: The target is frightened 4.
Heighten(+1): Increase the HP in which creatures treat their result worse by 50.
Alternative heightening:
Or heightening could go
Heighten(2nd): Creatures with 100 HP or less treat their result as one degree worse.
Heighten(3rd): Creatures with 150 HP or less treat their result as one degree worse.
Heighten(4th): Creatures with 200 HP or less treat their result as one degree worse.
Heighten(5th): Creatures with 250 HP or less treat their result as one degree worse.
Heighten(6th): Creatures with 300 HP or less treat their result as one degree worse.
Heighten(7th): Creatures with 350 HP or less treat their result as one degree worse.
Heighten(8th): Creatures with 400 HP or less treat their result as one degree worse.
Heighten(9th): Creatures with 450 HP or less treat their result as one degree worse.
Heighten(10th): Creatures with 500 HP or less treat their result as one degree worse.
I think I prefer high HP targets treat their result as one degree better, that way you can have a strong crit fail effect for weak targets, but if you use too low of a spell level it does nothing if they succeed on their save unless they're low HP.
For heightening I like listing each level, that way there's more control over the spells power/HP scaling. But if HP scaled linearly this wouldn't be an issue.