Empty Spell Slots and prepared casters.

[Mr.Dragon]

As the title suggests.
How do empty spell slots work this edition?
I can't find the rules anywhere for leaving slots open which is a fundamental part of playing a good prepared caster.

Can anybody enlighten me on where the rules are located and what they are?
So far I've just houseruled the 15min prep for a single empty slot.

[graystone]

Mr.Dragon wrote:

As the title suggests.

How do empty spell slots work this edition?
I can't find the rules anywhere for leaving slots open which is a fundamental part of playing a good prepared caster.

Can anybody enlighten me on where the rules are located and what they are?
So far I've just houseruled the 15min prep for a single empty slot.

No such thing as empty slots: instead we have the wizard thesis Spell Substitution: "You can spend 10 minutes to empty one of your prepared spell slots and prepare a different spell from your spellbook in its place." No matter what though, each and every slot is filled during daily prep.

[Mr.Dragon]

Isn't that an enormous nerf to prepared casters?
How are you supposed to Intuit as my players when they might need certain situational spells the morning before the adventure?

For our cleric and druid in this case.

[shroudb]

Empty slots basically handwaved one of the most prominent "prepared caster" weakness and was one of the most core culprits for the prepared vs spontaneous discrepancy.

You can still have a staff with utility spells in it, even a wand or two, but blanket "you can prepare anything needed within 15 mins" was way overkill to be accessible to everyone.

As for how a prepared caster can be actually prepared, the answer is "same way he used to be before this open slots thingy even became a thing, with foresight and awareness of where you're going towards"

[Megistone]

Or just accept that even a spellcaster won't always have the perfect answer to any possible problem.
The group will still have the options of using skills, or brute force.

[Mr.Dragon]

Well, I'll just talk to my players about it and we'll come up with a ruling. The cleric may want to become an "oracle" instead by switching to divine sorc. If so I'll just help her rebuild her character.

The druid seems to have already been aware of the change and just shrugged.

Thank you all for the replies.

[Edge93]

Yeah, as shroudb says it really just mostly removed the entire balance point of prepared vs. spontaneous (and from what I understand contributed to the caster martial disparity often spoken of), things are honestly just hetter balanced without it.