Spell Lists Suck: Fiction-Focused Magic in D&D

I typically propose very minor alterations to D&D: how to fix summoning, how to fix shapechanging, how to fix weapon damage. I'm not really interested in redesigning the core system - just relatively simple fixes to pain points I've experienced in play. This time, I'm proposing something a little more drastic.

Spell lists suck. The way that spellcasters pick and choose the spells they learn and prepare is dumb.

Now that I've stated my thesis, I will walk it back slightly by saying spell lists are okay. Every spellcasting class has its own spell list that the player chooses from when deciding what spells their character learns or prepares each day. The unique spell lists for each spellcaster do a nice job differentiating the classes. Spellcasters either use "magic magic", "holy magic", or "nature magic", and two classes that use the same type are further differentiated by the specific spells available to them - warlocks have "creepy" spells compared to wizards, and paladins have more "battle magic" compared to clerics.

The existence of spell lists also allows for them to be subverted. Bards can, at certain levels, learn spells from any class's list. Clerics, druids, paladins, rangers, sorcerers, and warlocks get access to a handful of thematic bonus spells to pad out their lists. For some reason, druids, rangers, and sorcerers don't always get these bonus spells, warlocks don't automatically learn them but instead can choose to learn them, despite every other class getting them for free, and some classes draw their thematic spells from other class's spell lists while others get free access to spells they could have had anyway...but this is a tangent.

I say spell lists suck because every class gets their spells the same way: by picking the "good" ones off a big list. There are minor differences in that clerics, druids, and paladins get all of their spells at each level at once and prepare a limited number each day, while bards, rangers, sorcerers, and warlocks learn a limited number and always have them prepared. But the process by which clerics, druids, and paladins - or bards, rangers, sorcerers, and warlocks - actually choose their spells is exactly the same from one class to the other.

The flavor text for the classes suggests that each is either channeling a different type of magic or else channeling the same type of magic in a different way (wizards memorize and recite arcane formula, sorcerers draw on their innate power, and warlocks use magic gifted to them by otherworldly patrons), but this isn't reflected at all in how the caster acquires the actual spells they can cast.

The cleric might acquire a couple spells which are thematic to their god, but they are otherwise preparing the same spells as any other cleric. The sorcerer doesn't unlock some new power specific to their unique origin - they just learn the next most optimal generic sorcerer spell. The warlock does not commune and negotiate with their patron for enhanced powers - they just get another warlock spell, most of which are available to all warlocks.

No class is acquiring spells in a way that's at all related to the fiction, and because everyone is just picking spells off their own little menu, the classes are distinct from one another, but multiple characters within a single class are often not.

The exception is the wizard, who we're told learns magic by reading spellbooks and scrolls, which is actually how they learn magic in the game...sometimes. Because the designers feel they can't trust the DM to include spellbooks and scrolls in their game, wizards also just arbitrarily learn spells each time they level up. Like everyone else.

If I were to redesign the spellcasting system in a drastic way, I would design fiction-focused rules for how each spellcasting class acquires their spells. What would that look like?

Wizards

It is a myth that wizards can only master "arcane" magic. All magic is arcane - even if the druids and the gods would like the world to believe otherwise.

In truth, wizards can learn any magic that is written down. The magic of the gods is written in prayer books and inscribed on altars and in reliquaries. The magic of nature is etched into ancient standing stones and trees. None of these are beyond the wizard's comprehension.

The process of learning a spell remains unchanged from the base rules - the wizard must spend a certain amount of time and money (representing the purchasing of magically primed rare inks and parchment), then succeed on an Intelligence (Arcana) check, the DC equaling 10 + the spell's level, in order to write the magic in their spellbook.

As in the base rules, the wizard begins their career with a spellbook containing six 1st-level spells. These spells are usually taught to them by their master, but could also be acquired and learned by chance. The DM chooses which spells they are. To encourage the wizard to adventure and discover new magic, their master should probably be dead or estranged. The adventurer wizard can always find a new master through politicking or networking.

I feel very strongly that the DM should choose the new wizard's starting spells, but I'm sure there are many who find this unconscionable. The DM and player could also negotiate what the the six spells are. Or, to simplify things, perhaps all novice wizards learn the same six spells: comprehend languages, detect magic, mage armor, magic missile, shield, and sleep. A bit dull, but classic, and not at all useless.

Other subclasses which cast wizard spells (such as the arcane trickster and eldritch knight) also have spellbooks, and learn spells in the exact same manner as the wizard. Since this is a choice which is made later in the character's career, it's best for the player to declare their intention to take this option sooner rather than later, so that the DM can plan to include a spellbook which the character can acquire. Otherwise, a character who pursues this path does not have any spells until they can acquire a suitable spellbook (another wizard in the party can help them create one, or perhaps basic primers are sold in metropolitan markets).

One of the small things that bothers me about arcane tricksters and eldritch knights is that they learn the same magic as wizards but in an entirely different way. If wizards learn from books and can learn as many spells as they can find, other classes that cast wizard spells should do the same!

Clerics

Clerics do not learn spells - they are granted spells through faith and prayer. The deity and its intermediaries provide access to the magic. This is represented by a generic cleric spell list which is then supplemented with a selection of always-ready subclass-specific spells. This is fine, but it still results in largely similar clerics with just a few unique signature spells. Why is 90% of each god's repertoire the same spell list as every other god?

In AD&D, cleric spells like bless, cure wounds, and remove curse were reversible, and the reverse versions were the purview of evil clerics only. 2e sorted cleric spells into spheres of influence and introduced specialty priests (the druid being used as an example) which had their own unique powers as well as access to specific spheres. These two elements gave distinction to good and evil clerics as well as clerics of specific deities.

Each of 5e's Divine Domains should have a unique spell list, accessible only by worshiping a god who rules over that domain. This domains akin to 2e's spheres of influence. I wouldn't only split all of the current cleric spells into these domains, but would instead go through all of the spells in the game to determine which domains (if any) each might fit into.

There would also be a general domain for the most essential cleric spells like bless. These I would divide into good and evil domains. Want to cast cure wounds? Worship a good deity. Want to cast inflict wounds? Worship an evil deity.

This is probably a great time to mention that these are broad ideas. I'm taking big hypothetical swings here. A lot of these ideas might be kind of impractical, but things that I want to toy around with on a very small scale eventually (like, if a player in my game wanted to be a Life cleric, I might create a custom Life Domain spell list for them instead of creating spell lists for every domain).

From there, clerics could remain much the same, simply choosing their domain depending on their deity, except they would have access to a specific spell list based on that choice. A single god could grant access to multiple domains at once, or a cleric may have to choose which aspect of the god they worship - i.e., the destructive firepower of the god-phoenix, or the healing power symbolized by its rebirth?

It's worth nothing that D&D is typically a polytheistic setting. I don't see why a single cleric couldn't simultaneously petition multiple deities, so long as they aren't opposed to one another. A piety system such as that in Mythic Odysseys of Theros could be used to determine what level of magic from each deity the cleric has access to, depending on their in-game actions, allowing a cleric to essentially "multiclass" with a variety of gods to gain access to a breadth of magic which rivals the wizard.

Druid

Druid spellcasting in most editions of D&D works exactly the same as for clerics, albeit with different spells. If we're making a spell list for each cleric domain, one could simply give them access to the Nature Domain spell list and call it a day, but that would be a disservice. 

My understanding of druids is not that they are just clerics for gods of nature, but instead that they are channelers of D&D's ubiquitous "background magic" associated with "nature spirits". The druid is not praying to the nature god to cast earth magic, but channeling the powers of the local earth spirits.

Because druids channel the magic of the natural spirits in their environment to cast spells, just as clerics need a unique spell list for each Divine Domain, druids need a unique spell list for each natural environment - grassland, forest, hills, desert, swamp, water, mountain, underdark, etc. Like clerics, they would also have a more general list to include things which aren't environment-specific like animal spells, healing, and the like.

Can druids cast spells in unnatural environments like settlements and dungeons? Those places still have natural elements, so I don't see why not. A mining town is still in the hills, a mummy's tomb is still in the desert, and a merfolk stronghold is still underwater, after all.

In some cases, environmental elements need to be woven into the components of the druid's individual spells. That is, casting entangle requires the presence of plant life, and call lightning requires the druid to be outdoors during a storm, which could preclude the use of those spells in certain environments.

Should druids still be required to prepare spells? If they are channeling the natural spirits of their current environment, that sounds like spontaneous casting. Spellcasters who prepare their spells do so at the beginning of the day. In the morning the druid could be in the forest, but by afternoon they might be in the swamp. Should they be able to carry forest magic into the swamp with them?

Maybe they should. There is something interesting about a high-level druid who flies quickly to the desert, communes with it, and then flies quickly to the dark wood to use the desert's withering spells against the corrupted plant monsters there. It has Pokémon vibes (complimentary). Much to think about.

Paladin and Ranger

I'll skip to these two as they are straightforward. My solution for the two of them is simple: paladin spellcasting works the same as for clerics, and ranger spellcasting works the same as for druids.

In older editions, paladins and rangers were akin to variants of the fighter with higher ability score requirements and some special thematic powers. They weren't even spellcasters until much later in their career (in 2e, 9th-level for paladins and 8th-level for rangers), and their spellcasting abilities were quite weak at that time.

I won't advocate for returning to that style of doing things. The "half-caster" spell progression of 5e works just fine (at most, I'd consider making them a "one-third-caster" like the eldritch knight or arcane trickster). 

The point is that paladins are warriors who cast cleric spells, and rangers are warriors who cast druid spells. They don't need their own spell list or unique mechanics. They will benefit from the versatility that comes from the broader cleric and druid lists.

The elephant in the room is that this requires paladins to go back to worshipping gods. I like that in 5e, paladins draw their power from the magic of the oath they swear. It's very thematic, and it implies a setting where oaths carry cosmic weight. However, I have no idea how to make it fiction-focused with regards to what spells they can cast or how their magic works.

So, paladins have to worship gods again, which is fine by me. Like clerics, their spell list is determined by their deity's domain of influence. They should still have an oath with principles they must adhere to, but the oath is sworn between them and their deity, and the deity provides the magic so long as the paladin continues to abide. The chosen deity informs which oaths are available.

Bard

In 5e, the bard learns a set number of spells and casts them spontaneously. Their spell list is mostly arcane magic, but is also a weird grab bag of divine and nature magic. Their Magical Secrets feature allows them to pilfer spells from other class's spell lists. There's some flavor text about how the bard utilizes the "Words of Creation", which are learned from "hard study" and "natural talent", but of course this isn't actually reflected in how they learn their spells.

My bard is instead inspired by the bards of editions past.

The AD&D 1e bard is famously weird. It is essentially the first "prestige class" - part fighter, part thief, and part druid.

In 2e, the bard is largely similar, except the druid spells are replaced with wizard spells. Bards in 2e keep a spellbook.

To split the difference, the fiction-focused bard uses both the wizard's and druid's rules for spellcasting simultaneously. They have a spellbook and can learn any spell that's written down, and they can also channel the magic of nature spirits and cast druid spells spontaneously. It's up to the player to choose which slots to spend on which spells.

This preserves the main element which makes bards' spellcasting unique - the hodgepodge of spells they get from different types of casters. It also fully embraces two very different interpretations of the bard of which I'm equally fond.

Sorcerer and Warlock

I'm lumping these together because the post is getting long, I don't have a lot to say about them, and the systems I have in mind for them are very similar.

In 5e, both sorcerers and warlocks learn spells as they level up and can cast them spontaneously. Some sorcerer subclasses get bonus spells that they learn automatically. Every warlock subclass gets an expanded spell list, but they don't learn the spells automatically. They have to pick them as the spells they learn when they gain levels.

Fiction-focused sorcerers have a unique spell list determined by their Sorcerous Origin, and fiction-focused warlocks have a unique spell list determined by their Otherworldly Patron. Not every sorcerer regardless of their magical origin can cast control winds. Not every warlock patron has the power to grant their petitioners finger of death. 

This makes sorcerers and warlocks the most tightly-focused casters in the game, which they should be. It doesn't make sense to me that anyone with a magical soul/anyone who makes a pact with an otherworldly entity can cast from almost exactly the same list of spells.

Conclusion

So, that is a pretty crazy system I'm proposing. The 5e PHB has eight spell lists (one for each spellcasting class). If I were to follow my own advice and make all of the specific spell lists I'm proposing - only counting classes and subclasses in the PHB - I would end up with 20 unique spell lists (seven for the cleric domains, eight for each type of natural environment, two for the sorcerer subclasses, and three for the warlock subclasses - the bard, paladin, ranger, and wizard don't need their own lists).

It is incredibly obvious why the 5e design team did not do this. The unique spell list for each class plus signature spells for things like Divine Domain, Druid Circle, Sacred Oath, and the like is an elegant solution. 

But, I just can't shake the feeling that spellcasters who use different types of magic should feel different beyond just the flavor of their spells and what kind of armor they can wear. Clerics, druids, and paladins, bards, rangers, sorcerers, and warlocks should not be learning and using magic exactly the same way as one another.

Mostly, I want the spells that casters can access to make sense in the fiction. If the wizard is supposed to learn spells by finding them in dungeons while adventuring, they should not be stumbling upon 9th-level spells in the spellbook their master gifted them as an apprentice. Not all gods should grant access to the same magic. A druid who draws magic from the environment should not be casting the same spells in the desert as in the forest. A sorcerer or warlock with a very specific magical power source shouldn't have the same spell selection as every other sorcerer or warlock.

Well, it's easy enough for me to argue in favor of doing all this extra work without putting my money where my mouth is, so I totally understand if this sounds like a bonkers idea to anyone else. It sounds pretty bonkers to me. But in a kinda cool way.

On Identification

In my most recent AD&D 2e play report, the player characters wanted to discover the properties of a strange alien helmet they found in an old tomb. The helmet had seemingly been used to torture someone so badly that they became a ghost, so of course none of the characters dared to try it on and find out for themselves what it was capable of. The players are not quite ready to embrace the old-school approach that is bribing or bullying their henchmen and hirelings into being magic item guinea pigs, either. So, they decided to find the most capable wizard in town and ask her to identify the item for them. 

The problem? According to Table 69 of the 2e DMG (page 154), getting an NPC to cast identify should cost at least 1,000 gold pieces per item or function of an item to be identified. The DMG states that "the costs of purchasing a spell are such that it is far better for someone in the party to learn the spell. In general, the mercenary use of NPC spellcasters should be discouraged whenever possible. The player character are supposed to face challenges on their own!"

Clearly, there is an intended playstyle justification for the high cost of getting an NPC to cast an identify spell. But there is also a mechanical justification - identifying magic items in 2e is hard! Below is the description of the identify spell in 2e, with important parts bolded (PHB, page 175):

Range: 0

Components: V, S, M

Duration: 1 rd./level

Casting Time: Special

Area of Effect: 1 item/level

Saving Throw: None

When an identify spell is cast, magical items subsequently touched by the wizard can be identified. The eight hours immediately preceding the casting of the spell must be spent purifying the items and removing influences that would corrupt and blur their magical auras. If this period is interrupted, it must be begun again. When the spell is cast, each item must be handled in turn by the wizard. Any consequences of this handling fall fully upon the wizard and may end the spell, although the wizard is allowed any applicable saving throw.

The chance of learning a piece of information about an item is equal to 10% per level of the caster, to a maximum of 90%, rolled by the DM. Any roll of 96-00 indicates a false reading (91-95 reveals nothing). Only one function of a multifunction item is discovered per handling (i.e., a 5th-level wizard could attempt to determine the nature of five different items, five different functions of a single item, or any combination of the two). If any attempt at reading fails, the caster cannot learn any more about that item until he advances a level. Note that some items, such as special magical tomes, cannot be identified with this spell.

The item never reveals its exact attack or damage bonuses, although the fact that it has few or many bonuses can be determined. If it has charges, only a general indication of the number of charges remaining is learned: powerful (81% - 100% of the total possible charges), strong (61% - 80%), moderate (41% - 60%), weak (6% - 40%), or faint (five charges or less). The faint result takes precedence, so a fully charged ring of three wishes always appears to be only faintly charged.

After casting the spell and determining what can be learned from it, the wizard loses 8 points of Constitution. He must rest for one hour to recover each point of Constitution. If the 8-point loss drops the spellcaster below a Constitution of 1, he falls unconscious. Consciousness is not regained until full Constitution is restored, which takes 24 hours (one point per three hours for an unconscious character).

The material components of this spell are a pearl (of at least 100 gp value) and an owl feather steeped in wine; the infusion must be drunk prior to spellcasting. If a luckstone is powdered and added to the infusion, the divination becomes much more potent: Exact bonuses or charges can be determined, and the functions of a multifunctional item can be learned from a single reading. At the DM's option, certain properties of an artifact or relic might also be learned.

The key takeaway is this: In 2e, the caster must spend 8 hours preparing to cast the spell, as well as at least 8 hours recovering from casting the spell, and because the caster must handle each item, they are vulnerable to any curses which might befall them from doing so. Additionally, unlike in D&D 5e, for example, material components of spells are consumed unless stated otherwise (PHB, page 114) - in 5e, they're not consumed unless stated otherwise (PHB, page 203) - meaning that every casting of identify in 2e consumes a 100 gp pearl.

In 2e, when the player characters pay 1,000 gp to an NPC wizard to cast identify, they are paying for an entire day of the wizard's time (8 hours of prep and at least 8 hours of recovery), as well as reimbursing the wizard for the lost pearl, the risk of curses, and the risk of falling into a brief coma. Suddenly, 1,000 gp sounds more fair.

Also worth noting is that identify in 2e does not automatically reveal information about the item (the spell always has a chance of failure). A higher-level wizard has a better chance of determining an item's properties, and a wizard with access to powdered luckstone can discern more specific item properties like exact bonuses and number of charges. If anything, identify should be more expensive depending on the level of the wizard whose services are employed, as well as any additional components they might be using.

This guy will risk getting cursed and falling into a coma for 1,000 gp.

Identification, Made Easy

Over the editions of D&D, magical item identification has gradually become faster, more reliable, and less costly. In 3e, identify takes 1 hour to cast and requires no recovery time, and it automatically reveals all properties of a single item, including the means of activating the item and how many charges it has (if any).

I don't remember much from my brief time with D&D 4e, but from Googling around it looks like this was the edition which introduced the concept of automatically identifying items on a short rest, which brings us to 5e (DMG, page 136):

"A character can focus on one magic item during a short rest, while being in physical contact with the item. At the end of the rest, the character learns the item's properties, as well as how to use them."

The identify spell still exists in 5e, for those players who don't want to have to take the time to identify items the more accessible way. 5e's identify takes 1 minute to cast if a spell slot is used, or 10 minutes when cast as a ritual (avoiding the use of a spell slot). The 100 gp pearl is no longer consumed. The spell allows the character to "learn [the item's] properties and how to use them, whether it requires attunement to use, and how many charges it has, if any" as well as "whether any spells are affecting the item and what they are" and "which spell created [the item]." (PHB, page 252)

So, at worst, the player character can spend an hour to identify an item without error (without even being a spellcaster or having any knowledge of magic). At best, they can spend a spell slot to identify it in 1 minute (if they know identify and/or have it prepared). In the middle, they can spend 10 minutes and no other resources to identify it (if they know identify and can cast ritual spells).

From 2e to 5e, we went from 16 total hours of time spent on a single casting of identify to as little as 1 minute, from a 100 gp pearl which is consumed with every casting to a 100 gp pearl that can be used indefinitely, and from an uncertain prospect of success and a one-property-at-a-time process of discovery to an automatically thorough and accurate reading of an item with a single casting.

Much like the intended playstyle of 2e (player characters should overcome challenges on their own) informs 2e's approach to identification, the intended playstyle of 5e informs 5e's approach to identification. In 5e, player characters aren't meant to struggle with mundane adventurer tasks like figuring out what their new toys are and how to use them. Player character abilities simply work, they work instantaneously, and they do not usually have drawbacks, penalties, or restrictions.

This is especially true of spells - players can only learn a handful of spells as their characters progress, so they're unlikely to choose those which they deem "underpowered" or unreliable Thus, all spells must attempt to be equally compelling in order to attract players to choose them. (Wizards can technically learn every spell available to their class, but even their potential, from the player's perspective, is throttled by the greedy DM's draconian vice grip on scrolls and spellbooks found in treasure hoards.)

The modernization of magic in D&D comes at the expense of the fiction which the game was originally intended to emulate - conjurers can pick and choose exactly what otherwordly creature they summon, and have perfect and minute control over such creatures, transmuters can spend lifetimes polymorphed into monsters with no risk of ever truly becoming monsters themselves, and rare, powerful, and alien artifacts readily and reliably yield all of their secrets and powers in as little as a minute (or at most, in an hour, to any non-magic-using schmuck who handles them and thinks really hard about it).

This guy doesn't even know magic, but even he can force the cube to yield all of its most occult secrets during his lunch break!

Identification, Made Boring

The consequence of the modernization of magic item identification is that there's simply no reason for player characters to experiment with magic items ever again. Why would they, when, in a worst case scenario, they can simply sit for an hour and think really hard about the item to unerringly learn all of its properties?

The 5e DMG (page 136) does shoutout experimentation as a means of identification, for some reason: "Wearing or experimenting with an item can also offer hints about its properties. For example, if a character puts on a ring of jumping, you could say, "Your steps feel strangely springy." Perhaps the character then jumps up and down to see what happens. You then say the character jumps unexpectedly high."

Why special mention is given to experimentation when the mechanics almost completely eliminate the need for it is anyone's guess. In some scenarios, the party may have no spellcasters capable of casting identify, and may not have time to stop for an hour, or may have need of the item urgently, but this has never happened in one of my games. It's probably because one of my players almost always plays a wizard.

The DMG also has a variant rule which eliminates the ability to identify magic items on a short rest: "If you prefer magic items to have a greater mystique, consider removing the ability to identify the properties of a magic item during a short rest, and require the identify spell, experimentation, or both to reveal what a magic item does." 

Of course, there's no example given as to what a combination of identify and experimentation looks like, which would be helpful, given that identify, as written, is 100% accurate 100% of the time - so in what scenario would experimentation also be needed? Even in a campaign where short rest identification is eliminated, the identify spell is still foolproof. 

If the player characters can't cast identify themselves, they can probably find an NPC to do it for them, and certain official Wizards of the Coast products list the price of magic item identification being as cheap as 20 gp per item, which is trivially cheap even at 1st-level. There is still no incentive to experiment.

Identification, Made Interesting

Ultimately, I was inspired to write this post by two things - my above reading of the AD&D 2e description of identify, and Prismatic Wasteland's post on Potion Clues. 

Warren's post specifically made me think about how in 5e, the DMG provides a brief description of what every potion looks like. A potion of healing is red and glimmers when agitated. A potion of fire breath is flickering orange, and smoke fills the top of the container and wafts out whenever its opened. A potion of animal friendship is a muddy liquid containing a fish scale, a hummingbird tongue, a cat's claw, and a squirrel's hair. 

Details like this invite players to speculate as to a potion's properties, take notes on potions they've encountered in the past, and perhaps most importantly, experiment. The characters have had potions of healing before, so they are able to recognize the glimmering red liquid. They are able to intuit from the appearance of a potion of fire breath that the potion has something to do with fire. In en encounter with a wild animal, they might risk quaffing a potion of animal friendship, having deduced that it has at least something to do with animals, and might give them an advantage. 

Hilariously, the DMG specifically says "Potions are an exception [to the usual identification rules]; a little taste is enough to tell the taster what the potion does." On the one hand, we have an interesting way for player characters to deduce a potion's properties just by looking at them. On the other hand, the DMG says, "Nevermind all that - just take a little sip, which has no consequences whatsoever, and all will be revealed!"

Warren writes that making the effects of a potion less immediately transparent "rewards characters who can identify potions, encourages seeking out sages who identify them, and creates interesting decision points when they have unidentified potions in their bags but their backs are up against the wall." I would go a step farther and apply this approach to all magic items.

In fact, the 5e DMG even suggests that all magic items should be visually distinct (page 136): "The command word to activate a ring might be etched in tiny letters inside it, or a feathered design might suggest that it's a ring of feather falling."

A few pages later, the 5e DMG has a great section on "Special Features" of magic items (page 141). That section includes tables to determine who or what created the item or was intended to use it, details from the item's history, and minor properties and quirks of the item. 

There's probably enough material here for a separate post which goes into more detail on making magic items themselves interesting, so that the process of learning their properties is in turn interesting. Discovering that a war hammer is a +1 war hammer and only a +1 war hammer is never going to be interesting no matter how the DM adjudicates it. So, a DM should never simply give the players a +1 war hammer - they can buy that in a shop, if all they want is a +1 bonus (magic item shops are already almost completely devoid of wonder, so the items to be found there might as well be accordingly wonder-less). 

Instead, that magic war hammer the player characters find by chance in an actual dungeon on an actual adventure is the Black Earth Bludgeon, crafted of solid stone and bejeweled with polished rock. It was made by cultists of Ogrémoch to slay beings of elemental air and the worshippers of Yan-C-Bin. It grants the wielder uncanny senses when underground, but makes them slothful and lethargic on the surface world, beneath the open sky.

So, how do the player characters learn all of this about the seemingly humble +1 war hammer? The purpose of my approach, which I'll detail below, is for a magic item's properties to be communicated entirely within the fiction of the game, and to encourage experimentation by the player characters as the single best way to truly discern an item's various properties.

Identification, Made Complex

First, we have to entirely eliminate identification via a short rest. It's both easy and reliable, which makes it boring. Then, we have to make identification via identify less informative. I don't want identify to reveal an item's properties at all - only fictional information about the item's identity. Casting identify should only reveal the +1 war hammer's name, origin, and purpose.

At the DM's option, identify could also be made more costly, and less reliable. Let's say that each casting of identify requires an Intelligence (Arcana) check to properly identify the item, and that the DC is determined by the item's rarity, like so:

Item Rarity    Intelligence (Arcana) check DC
Common         10
Uncommon     15
Rare                20
Very Rare        25
Legendary       30
Artifact            35

Now, a 1st-level wizard, assuming that they have proficiency with Arcana and start the game with an Intelligence of 16 (+3) - although I don't mind player characters starting with higher ability scores - can somewhat reliably identify common and uncommon items, and can less easily identify rare and very rare items. By 13th-level, the same wizard probably has +10 to their Arcana skill, meaning they can reliably identify rare items, and can occasionally identify even legendary items. Only a character with expertise in Arcana can ever properly identify an artifact.

On a failed check, the caster has failed to magically divine the item's identity from the depths of time. On a successful check, the caster learns that the +1 war hammer is the Black Earth Bludgeon, crafted by cultists of Ogrémoch to slay beings of elemental air and the worshippers of Yan-C-Bin. There's still plenty to learn about this item, but the player characters have a place to start.

What's to stop a caster from simply attempting to identify an item over and over again until they succeed? Make the 100 gp pearl component consumable when used to attempt to identify a magic item. Now, every attempt comes with a cost.

Players and their characters can still intuit things about an item based on its appearance, as I described with regard to potions. In the case of the Black Earth Bludgeon, the players, drawing on their knowledge of the genre, might conclude that the bejeweled stone hammer was crafted either by dwarves or elementals. They might seek out these creatures, or NPCs who are knowledgeable about these creatures, to attempt to learn more about the item.

If the players don't intuit information themselves, they might lean on their characters' skills to do so. A character proficient in History, Religion, or jeweler's or mason's tools might recall reading about the item in An Encyclopedia of Elemental Evil, recognize certain symbols of the Black Earth carved into the hammer's head or haft, or recognize the magical stonecutting employed by Black Earth artisan-priests. 

Loosely interpreting a rule from Xanathar's Guide to Everything (page 78) - as I've done in the past - tool proficiencies can be combined with skill proficiencies to gain advantage on ability checks. In my case, I allow two proficiencies of any type to combine in this way, not just one tool proficiency and one skill proficiency - so a character with any combination of History, Religion, and jeweler's and mason's tools would have an increased chance of recognizing the origin of the Black Earth Bludgeon. I would use the same DC-by-rarity guidelines I outlined above for identify.

This eliminates the need for identify to some extent, but this is a good thing, as it rewards players for being able to draw their own conclusions, or for making characters with niche knowledge and skills. In a scenario where none of the players or characters have any idea what the nature of an item might be, identify still exists, but it's more costly, in addition to being somewhat unreliable.

So, either through player skill, character skill, leveraging knowledgeable NPCs, or falling back on the identify spell, the players and their characters now know a bit more about the item. How do they figure out what it actually does?

Identification, Made Fun

They experiment! 

The Black Earth Bludgeon was crafted by cultists of Ogremoch to slay beings of elemental air and the worshippers of Yan-C-Bin, so the player characters might try using it to fight air elementals, Howling Hatred cultists, and flying creatures. Against these foes, the hammer feels twice as heavy when delivering blows, but not any more difficult for the wielder to swing. These enemies crumble against the hammer's awesome might. Perhaps, against these enemies, it grants additional bonuses to attack and damage rolls, or advantage on attacks. It might cause flying enemies to fall to the ground immediately, turn enemy cultists to stone, or banish air elementals back to their home plane.

The Black Earth Bludgeon is clearly attuned with the earth itself, so the player characters might try bringing it underground. Suddenly, the wielder has an intuitive sense of how deep they are beneath the surface, and which direction is north. Secret doors and maybe even dungeon walls crumble beneath the hammer's blows. Perhaps the hammer's head pulls in the direction of precious stones.

When they return to the surface, the wielder notices that the hammer feels twice as heavy. Their every step is a burden. The endless, wide open sky feels like it's crashing down around them. They're becoming agoraphobic.

In this way, the magic item becomes another character in the game. The player characters have to spend time with the item, devote resources to uncovering its secrets, and most importantly, play with it. 

For this to be truly interesting and fun, the magic item should likewise be interesting and fun. It should have a unique appearance from which players can draw conclusions, an origin and history which the player characters and NPCs might be aware of, and multiple features, including both benefits and drawbacks, which are discovered only through continual experimentation in a variety of scenarios. Player characters cannot simply find an item, sit down with it during a coffee break, and immediately decide if they want to use it or throw it in a bag of holding to sell at the local Magic Mart.

This playstyle isn't for everyone. To some extent, it's working directly against the intended playstyle of modern D&D, which might be too much for some DMs and players. There's presumably a reason why WotC designed this element of the game this way. I'd guess that it's probably because players complained about identification being too onerous in the past. WotC loves to design by committee, rather than by vision.

I'm sure there are plenty of players who simply want to hit the identify button and be done with it, and get to using their new toy, but sometimes it's more fun to start playing with the toy without knowing what it might do.

On Weapon Damage

The main complaint about weapons in 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons is their simplicity, the lack of meaningful choice, and the existence of clearly "better" options than others of the same kind. "Where are the maneuvers for each weapon type that I can only do once per short or long rest for some reason?" one might ask, if they're, for example, a Redditor. When I think about the issues I have with weapons in 5e, however, I'm mostly weirdly bothered by the inconsistency of the damage dice.

Take the light hammer, for example. It's a simple melee weapon with the light and thrown properties. It has a range of 20/60 and it does 1d4 bludgeoning damage. Okay! But then there's the handaxe, a simple melee weapon with the light and thrown properties. It has a range of 20/60 and it does...1d6 slashing damage. Why?

Maybe that's just an anomaly. For example, the javelin is a simple melee weapon with the thrown property and it also does 1d6 damage! But it doesn't have the light property. I understand why it doesn't, but then why is the damage die the same? Shouldn't two throwable light melee weapons do the same damage? Shouldn't a non-light weapon do more?

It's not just simple weapons, either. Somewhat famously, the greataxe is a martial melee weapon with the two-handed property, which does 1d12 damage, whereas the greastsword and maul - also martial melee weapons with the two-handed property - do 2d6 damage. This doesn't seem like a problem - the damage range of the greataxe is 1 to 12 with an average of 6.5, whereas the damage range of the greatsword and maul is 2 to 12 with an average of 7 - until a player makes a barbarian and gets their Brutal Critical class feature. 

Brutal Critical allows the player to roll an extra die of damage when they roll a critical hit, which with a greataxe is an additional d12, but with a greatsword or maul, that's only going to be an extra d6. This particular problem is solved simply enough by ruling that Brutal Critical allows the player to reroll all of their weapon damage dice, not just one, but that doesn't cut it for me. I want the consistency.

Why does the rapier get to do 1d8 damage and have the finesse property when the humble war pick is stuck with 1d8 and no additional properties - not even versatility, which its alternatives, the battleaxe, longsword, and warhammer all get? Has any player ever used a war pick?

Using All the Dice

For my 5e games, I use a modified weapons table based on simple guidelines:

• To start, all simple weapons do d6 damage, and martial weapons do d8 damage.
• If the player character uses their Dexterity score to determine the attack roll and damage bonus, the damage die decreases by one (take that Dexterity!). This applies to ranged weapons like bows and slings, and weapons with the finesse property, like darts, daggers, rapiers, shortswords, etc. If the PC wields a finesse weapon but chooses to use their Strength score to calculate attack rolls and damage, the die is unchanged.
• Weapons with the heavy property have their die size increased by one. This applies to melee weapons like the greataxe, greatsword, and maul, but also ranged weapons like the heavy crossbow and the longbow.
• If the PC uses two-weapon fighting, light weapons they wield in either hand have their die size decreased by one (if you are dual wielding a dagger and a handaxe, for example, both weapons do d4 damage, rather than d6). This does not apply to characters with the Dual Wielder feat, who can use two-weapon fighting with weapons which don't have the light property.
• Weapons with the loading property have their die size increased by one. This applies to crossbows (and firearms if the DM allows them).
• Weapons with the reach property have their die size decreased by one. Optionally, the DM can rule that the die size decreases only if the reach property is used, so that if you attack with a glaive from only 5 feet away, the damage die remains unchanged.
• Two-handed weapons have their die size increased by one - this includes versatile weapons which are wielded with two hands, as well as heavy weapons. This means the damage die increases twice for heavy weapons - once for the heavy property, and again because the weapon necessitates being wielded with two hands.
• Die size increases and decreases stack, to a minimum of d4 and a maximum of d12. So a shortsword, which is a martial weapon and therefore starts at d8 damage, becomes a d6 if its finesse or light properties are used, but becomes a d4 if both properties are used simultaneously.
• As always, weapons with the special property (lances, nets, and I include blowguns here as well) are their own category and may have totally different damage die sizes and properties.

The Composite Bow

This system lays the foundation to introduce into 5e a weapon that is sorely missed: the composite bow (a Strength-based longbow or short bow). It's always made more sense to me for bow use in D&D to be tied to Strength, rather than Dexterity. I also love the original Baldur's Gate games, and the plethora of composite bows the player can give to the likes of Minsc, Kivan, and other incredible archer companions.

Using my system, the short bow is a simple weapon, so its die size is d6 to start. It uses Dexterity for its attack and damage rolls, so its die size decreases to d4. Because it's a two-handed weapon, the die size increases again to d6.

The longbow is a martial weapon, so its die size is d8 to start. It uses Dexterity for its attack and damage rolls, so its die size decreases to d6. Because it has both the heavy and two-handed properties, its die size increases by two, from d6 all the way up to d10. This is already more damage than it does in baseline 5e. I think this is a good thing because the longbow is a weapon that, as good as it already is in 5e, it still somehow feels underrated when you consider its historical significance.

The composite bows take this one step further. They're largely the same as the other bows, except they're special ranged weapons which use Strength to calculate their attack and damage rolls and require a Strength score of 13 or more (for a short bow) or 15 or more (for a longbow) to use. Because it uses Strength instead of Dexterity, the composite bow's damage die has one less decrease in size, allowing the composite short bow to deal d8 damage, and allowing the composite longbow to reach the maximum size of d12. 

Those who are concerned with balance might caution against allowing a ranged weapon to do the same damage as a greataxe, but unless those people are getting rid of features which allow spelllcasters to excel at range, like the Spell Sniper feat and the Eldritch Lance Eldritch Invocation, I'm not listening.

The Strength-Based Monk

A knock-on effect of this system is that I felt the need to retool monks slightly. I house rule that beginning at 1st level, monks' unarmed strikes and attacks with monk weapons deal d6 damage. If they choose to use their Dexterity score to calculate the attack and damage roll, the die size decreases to d4. This doesn't change the progression for Dexterity-based monks in 5e, but allows Strength-based monks to eventually reach a d12 martials arts die at 17th level.

Other monk abilities like Deflect Missiles and Unarmored Defense are unaffected - the tradeoff is that the monk player has to choose between doing more damage or being harder to hit.

My updated weapon list for 5e can be found here.

On Social Interaction

I'm not one of those people who thinks Dungeons & Dragons needs a "social combat" system, of all things, I swear. I think social interaction in D&D is, like many aspects of the game, best left as a conversation between the players (via their characters) and the Dungeon Master (via their non-player characters). However, in my experience, the structure (or lack thereof) for social interactions in D&D (and 5th edition in particular) leaves a bit to be desired.

Side Note: In this post, I'll be using the term "NPC" to refer to any creature the PCs might talk to. This could be an ordinary human, demihuman, humanoid, etc., as well as intelligent monsters and mundane beasts which can be talked to using certain abilities and features, such as a speak with animals spell. In 5e, if there's a 6th-level or higher College of Eloquence bard in the party, this could be any creature, due to that subclass's Universal Speech feature.

Reaction Rolls

In old-school gaming, the social interaction structure usually boils down to the use of reaction rolls to determine the NPC's initial disposition. The player characters and the NPCs go back and forth until the DM decides it's appropriate to make another reaction roll. Depending on the edition, this may be modified by the negotiating PC's Charisma score. The reaction roll might improve or worsen the monster's disposition, and the structure repeats itself unless the players decide they've gotten what they wanted or the DM decides the interaction has run its course (for better or worse). The exact method for determining NPC reactions is highly variable depending on the edition being used.

Reaction rolls, as far as I can tell, aren't present at all in 5e until Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants (published in 2023). The book uses reaction rolls in its random encounter section (referred to as "Initial Attitude", page 44). 

Interestingly, each encounter in this chapter has its own prescribed die roll depending on the monsters or NPCs present (a cloud giant's reaction might be determined by rolling d8, whereas a fire giant's reaction might be determined by rolling d10, for example). This is a neat way of representing the fact that some creatures may be more likely to react one way or another. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the book doesn't give the DM guidelines for how to recreate this mechanic themselves (though it's not difficult to extrapolate).

According to the section on Social Interaction in the 5e Dungeon Master Guide (page 244), the DM determines the NPC's initial disposition (no reaction roll - the DM just decides), and that in turn determines a difficulty class that the PCs have to overcome using Charisma checks in order to convince the monster to do something. As before, social interaction is largely an informal conversation, and the DM decides when the players need to roll. 

Alternatively, a 5e DM can do what most 5e players apparently do and skip all the boring talking - the players just yell at the DM that they roll Persuasion, and if they get higher than a 20 then they automatically succeed at whatever outlandish thing they're trying to get the NPC to do, and if the DM refuses then it's "railroading", or something.

I'm mostly fine with the old-school procedure. It works for the type of game it is, which is much looser, more natural, and less mechanic. My problem with the new-school way of handling this is that it's often trivially easy for specialized PCs to hit the DCs that the DMG offers up, despite the fact that elsewhere in the DMG (page 238), DCs are listed as going much higher than is typical for social interaction. 

A DM could fix this by abandoning the guidelines for Charisma check DCs altogether, and setting the DC for each "ask" the PCs make as being from 5 to 30 based on how difficult the DM thinks it would be to convince the NPC to do something. This works well enough, but I am sympathetic to those DMs who feel that social interaction in a more skills-oriented new-school game should have more structure.

On the NPC

Courtney Campbell of the Hack & Slash blog has a great product on DriveThruRPG called On the Non-player Character. It provides a number of tools and advice to make NPCs come to life, but what I like most of all is its list of actions PCs can take during social interaction. The product is geared towards old-school games, but as 5e is the edition I run most often, I set out to make it applicable to that system.

The product includes a discussion as to whether or not these options should be player-facing, and I err on the side that they should not. One of the trends in new-school play that I find troubling is that players too often look to their character sheet or to the Player's Handbook for a codified list of actions they can take or rolls they can make, rather than imagining their character as existing in the fantasy world and roleplaying them as such. The last thing I want is for players to yell at me that they want to take the Converse action and then start rolling Persuasion checks. 

The rules for social interaction presented in this post are for my use as the DM only, to inform what rolls I call for and how the results influence my roleplaying of the NPCs.

Alignment

Let me preface this by saying that I still use alignment in my games. I know it has fallen out of favor amongst players and DMs of all playstyles, but I still find it to be a helpful shorthand for determining what motivations and actions an NPC is more or less likely to have/take. 

In my games, alignment is mutable among humanoids of all kinds, but is fixed for outsider creatures like celestials and fiends, for whom alignment is a core part of their being. Other creatures that exist in the Material Plane, like dragons and giants, are still a bit fuzzy for me. I've had good chromatic dragons and evil metallic dragons, but this tends to have an unsatisfying dissonance for my players who are more familiar with the assumptions of D&D's typical setting - when I play with them, I tend to stick with the alignments that are typically suggested for these creatures.

That being said, I wanted alignment to have some influence on an NPC's initial disposition. I wanted evil creatures to be more likely to be hostile, and good ones to be more likely to be friendly, but I didn't want to eliminate the possibility that a pit fiend might be unsettlingly amicable, or that a gold dragon might in its righteous wroth assume that the PCs have sinister intentions.

Disposition

All encounters with NPCs begin with a reaction roll, which is 2d6. A result of 6 to 8 is neutral, higher is good, and lower is bad. Specifically, 2 or 3 is hostile (the NPC is likely to attack imminently), 4 or 5 is unfriendly (the NPC doesn't attack, but may make threatening demands of the PCs or otherwise seek to impede or oppose them), 9 or 10 is friendly (the NPC greets the PCs warmly, but isn't unconditionally helpful), and 11 or 12 is helpful (the NPC is sycophantically friendly and eager to aid the PCs).

The 2d6 roll is modified by the NPC's alignment: a chaotic NPC's reaction is modified by -1, an evil NPC's by -2, a good NPC's by +2, and a lawful NPC's by +1. Modifiers are cumulative, meaning a chaotic evil NPC's reaction is modified by -3, whereas a lawful good NPC's is modified by +3 (and so on for all the alignments in between). As a result, a chaotic evil creature is never immediately helpful, but might be friendly (the highest it can roll is a 9), and a lawful good creature is never immediately hostile, but might be unfriendly (the lowest it can roll is a 5).

The disposition of the NPC has riders on subsequent social DCs: an NPC with a neutral disposition has a social DC of 15, and the DC increases or decreases by 5 for each disposition below or above neutral (so a DC of 5 for a helpful NPC, or a DC of 25 for a hostile NPC). Additionally, any subsequent reaction rolls made by the NPC have a bonus or penalty based on their disposition: an NPC with a neutral disposition has no modifier, and the modifier increases or decreases by 2 for each category above or below neutral (-4 for a hostile NPC and +4 for a helpful one).

Lastly, the total of the initial reaction roll, modified by alignment, determines the number of "actions" the PCs can take before the NPC ends the interaction. The DM should be generous as to what constitutes an action - convincing, threatening, deceiving, bargaining, questioning, etc. 

In the case of a hostile NPC, it attacks immediately, unless the player characters attempt to convince it not to, in which case the number of "actions" they can take determines how many chances they have to do so. When they run out of actions, the creature attacks, unless it's been convinced not to. 

For other NPCs, PCs can attempt to extend the encounter, in which case they gain an additional 2d6-4 actions, and the NPC's disposition lowers by one category (in the case of the result being 0 or a negative number, the interaction ends regardless). This represents the NPC's patience being worn thin - an unfriendly NPC might make one final demand of the PCs before attacking, whereas a friendly or helpful NPC might have some other business they are eager to attend to.

The Procedure

Social interaction proceeds the way it should - as a conversation. Whenever the DM thinks that the players are trying to do something and is unsure of the outcome, they can refer to the list of actions and decide which best fits the PCs' approach, and resolve the action as described.

This is probably a good time to share my writeup of these rules. The document covers the reaction roll mechanics I described above, plus actions, some other things I'll get to, and my morale rules, which I may cover more extensively in another post - they're essentially a combination of 5e's barebones optional morale mechanics (DMG, page 273) and 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons's more robust rules (2e DMG, page 97). Update: More on morale here.

Some actions require only a reaction roll from the NPC, while others require an ability check from the PCs, which may modify a subsequent reaction roll (the PC may nail a Persuasion check, but if the NPC still has an unfavorable reaction, this represents that the argument, while sound, doesn't appeal to the NPC in some way). Other actions require no rolls as all.

Bonds and Recurring NPCs

Another element of NPC interaction covered by Courtney Campbell is NPC bonds, which come into play when NPCs become recurring characters. The way I run it, reaction rolls are only used to determine initial disposition upon first encountering the NPC. After that, referring to the NPC's bond level with the PCs is more appropriate. Essentially, as the PCs interact with the same NPC multiple times, spend time with them, and help them, they can improve their bond and, in turn, the degree to which the NPC is willing to help them.

This is useful for faction leaders like rulers of kingdoms and guildmasters, as well as service-providing NPCs like clerics and wizards (assuming the PCs won't simply pay them for their services, or the NPC doesn't accept payment for such) - NPCs who the PCs will interact with often, and will often be asking for help from.

PCs can improve their bonds with NPCs simply by having non-violent interactions with them (even initially adversarial NPCs may find themselves becoming amused by or growing to love the ragtag group of murderhobos who talk their way out of drawing weapons whenever they're encountered), or they can take downtime to deliberately make efforts to improve their relationship.

Gifts

I'll admit that I often have trouble determining what amount of gold is appropriate to convince a given NPC to do something. How much gold does a goblin want to look the other way while the PCs sneak past them into the larger camp? How much does a dragon demand in tribute before it agrees not to roast the PCs? How much does a genie expect before it will consider granting the PCs a wish?

The section on Gifts in the above document is my attempt to roughly quantify this. The numbers probably look arbitrary, but I determined them by averaging out the amount of gold found in the treasure hoard of a Challenge Rating X-Y creature and then distributing that amount across each CR within that range...somehow. It was a while ago so I don't remember, and it's probably mathematically flawed in some way. It's not meant to be exact - just an estimation that I can quickly eyeball to see if the goblin is over the moon or if the dragon or genie is insulted. 10 gold sounds like enough to get a goblin to do just about anything, right? Gifts, like many of the rules in the document, are mutable, and constantly being playtested in my games. 

It's all a bit more involved than old-school D&D's reaction rolls and new-school D&D's loose DCs. I don't necessarily think that anything like this should be in the next DMG (and it's probably better for it not to be), nor do I think everyone should use it at their table, but I've found that having this extra bit of structure has helped make this aspect of the game feel more satisfying and "real". I'll give an example.

Convincing a Lich to Go Away

My last 5e game - which lasted three years and went from levels 3 to 24 or so using epic boons, ability score improvements up to 30, feats, and multiclassing to advance beyond 20th-level - ended not with an epic battle, but with a conversation. It wasn't the climax of a big story arc - the players had accomplished all that they wanted to in the sprawling sandbox I had set up, were ready to move on to a new game, and this was the last item on their to-do list.

They had been recruited by an allied NPC wizard (one with which they had a strong bond, who they had helped and requested help from a number of times prior to this) to investigate the ruined sprawl outside of the city, where more novice adventurers had accidentally unearthed the ancient lair of a powerful lich and gotten themselves killed. More adventurers were flocking to the site in search of treasure, and the NPC wanted the threat removed (note that the objective was not to kill the lich, though it could have been - the objective was to make it so the lich stopped killing hapless idiots).

So, the party battled their way through twisted Zuggtmoy cultists (the lich and its acolytes worshiped the Demon Lady of Fungus), shambling corpse mounds, and fungoid-shelled beholders, and finally made their way to the lich's inner sanctum. I had rolled that the lich was unfriendly, and decided that it was doped out of its mind on a hallucinogenic mushroom cocktail. I figured it would rasp at them threateningly about how the PCs will never grasp the deeper truths which the Lady of Rot reveals to her faithful, how they're blind to the role they play in Her grand rhizomic scheme, in their fear of death, they fail to understand life, etc. Then, knowing my players (so I thought), they'd fight.

To my surprise, the wizard character starting talking the lich down. The character was a very old time traveler (long story), and beforehand we had agreed that his character probably knew this lich when it was a mortal and an apprentice at the academy. He approached the lich as an old friend, chatted it up, slurped down some potent fungus goo, passed his saving throw to not dissociate completely, joked with the lich, questioned it, and found out what it was doing there and why.

The lich was cultivating and consuming sacrilegious fungi in order to commune with its Demon Lady. It could only do it here, for magical reasons. What if he could do it somewhere else? The wizard suggested an alternative location which he had learned about in his adventures, and convinced the lich that his work could continue there. The lich eventually agreed, and the wizard used wish to send the lich and its lair elsewhere. After having a good long think about how I might pervert the wish to something unintended, I realized I couldn't in any way that felt legitimate, so I ruled that it was a success.

It took a few hours to resolve - about as long as a big dumb fight - and most importantly, it felt earned. There was danger that the lich might attack the PCs, but they just barely talked him down. There was danger that the wizard might dissociate from the hallucinogens, that the lich would deem him unworthy, and the rest of the party would have to fight it minus their wizard. There was danger that the lich would refuse the party's solution. There was danger that the wish might backfire. But everything worked, and it worked because of a combination of player skill, problem solving, and die rolls. It totally caught me off guard, and you'll just have to take my word for it when I say it just worked.

And then, our campaign ended - not with a big dumb fight, but with a conversation. And then, of course, we talked about epilogues. But that's another conversation.

On Shapechanging

If one goes looking for what are commonly considered to be the "problem" spells in 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, there are some usual suspects which always come up - guidance, find familiar (and summoning in general), healing word, augury (and other divinations), healing spirit, counterspell, tiny hut, simulacrum (and all illusions), wish, and so, so many more. Hyper-online D&D players love to complain about magic in D&D.

I see problems with these spells and others, and have had my share of trouble with magic in D&D, but none of them has ever bothered me quite so much as polymorph, its related spells, and shapechanging magic in general, like the druid's Wild Shape ability.

On Challenge Rating

Polymorph (Player's Handbook, page 266) allows the caster to transform a creature for up to an hour into any beast whose challenge rating is equal to or less than the target. This changes the target's game statistics (including mental ability scores, but not alignment and personality) to that of the beast. 

True polymorph (page 283) uses the same CR = level approach as polymorph, but the new creature doesn't need to be a beast, and the change lasts until dispelled if the caster concentrates on the spell for the full hour. 

Shapechange (page 274) again uses the CR = level approach, but it only affects the caster, the new form needn't be a beast, the caster retains their mental ability scores and skill and saving throw proficiencies, and for the duration the caster can use an action to change shape again.

My problem with this is that the Monster Manual states "An appropriately equipped and well-rested party of four adventurers should be able to defeat a monster that has a challenge rating equal to its level without suffering any deaths" (page 9). In other words, a CR 7 creature is meant to be a challenge for a party of four appropriately equipped and well-rested 7th-level characters.

So...if a CR 7 creature is roughly equivalent to four 7th-level characters, why can a 7th-level character transform into a CR 7 creature, which in and of itself should be a fitting challenge for the entire party? Why does the Monster Manual tell the DM, when building encounters, to equate a CR 7 creature to an entire 7th-level party, but for the sake of this spell and those like it, equate a CR 7 creature with a single 7th-level character?

Mass polymorph (Xanathar's Guide to Everything, page 160) is a bit different - it affects up to 10 creatures, and just like polymorph, the new forms can be beasts only. However, the new form's CR must be equal to or less than half the target's level. I imagine that this caveat is there because it affects more than one creature, but I'm going to interpret it as recognition that an Xth-level character is not equivalent to a CR X monster.

Wild Shape (PHB, page 64) recognizes this too. A 2nd- or 3rd-level druid can Wild Shape into a CR 1/4 beast (i.e., not a CR 2 or 3 beast). A 4th-, 5th-, 6th-, or 7th-level druid can Wild Shape into a CR 1/2 beast. At 8th-level and beyond, they can Wild Shape into a CR 1 beast. The Circle of the Moon druid (page 69) can do a bit better, but even at the height of their powers, they can Wild Shape into a CR 6 beast (at 18th-level) or a CR 10 elemental (at 10th-level, expending two uses of Wild Shape in doing so).

Why is it that a 7th-level bard, sorcerer, or wizard gets access to a spell which immediately allows them to change into a more powerful creature than is allowed by the shapechanging class ability of the shapechangey-est subclass of the game's shapechanging class? (Yes, druids do get access to polymorph too, but that's not the point I'm making.)

Similar to how mass polymorph affects multiple creatures, one could argue that the limitation on Wild Shape is there because the druid can use that ability relatively often (twice per short rest), whereas another spellcaster's spell slots (used to cast polymorph) only return on a long rest. Yet, considering a spellcaster can get up to three 4th-level spell slots per day with which to polymorph - plus more, if they choose to use higher-level slots to do so - this doesn't seem right either.

As an aside, this makes me wish that the Monster Manual or Dungeon Master's Guide included a table which roughly matched characters of a given level to monsters of a given CR, i.e., a CR 1 monster is roughly equivalent to a 3rd-level character - something like that. It would make so many things easier - not just this specific issue, but also encounter balancing (when I feel the need to do that), and designing player characters as monsters and vice versa. 

Want to stat up a 20th-level cleric as a PC and convert them to a monster/nonplayer character? Here's what CR they should be. Want to give a red dragon wyrmling sorcerer levels? Well, a CR 4 creature is roughly equivalent to a 6th-level character, so they can have 6 levels of sorcerer (granted, this would effectively change the CR, but let's be honest - those monsters need some beefing up).

Xanathar's Guide to Everything has something similar in Chapter 2: Dungeon Master's Tools, under Encounter Building (page 88), which gives guidelines for how many creatures of a given CR to use in an encounter against a number of characters of a given level, but these tables also make the laughable claim that a 20th-level character is roughly equivalent to a CR 7, 8, 9, or 10 monster, so I don't really trust that math.

On Hit Points

Perhaps the more problematic element of polymorph is this: "The target assumes the hit points of its new form. When it reverts to its normal form, the creature returns to the number of hit points it had before it transformed." All of the aforementioned shapechanging spells work this way, save for mass polymorph, which does the same thing but with temporary hit points for whatever reason (precluding the affected creatures from benefiting from additional sources of temp HP or from healing), and shapechange, which specifies that when the target changes their form additional times, they don't assume the hit points of their new form if it has more hit points than their last form.

So the sorcerer twins a polymorph spell to target the 8th-level barbarian and fighter, turning them both into tyrannosaurus rexes (D&D is a silly game, which is a good thing). They stomp into combat against the dragon, take 136 points of damage each, then revert to their humanoid forms and...still have their full 100 hit points or whatever from before they were changed.

I thought this was shapechanging magic - I didn't realize the spell encases the target in a t-rex-shaped shell which wards them against harm until the enemy does enough damage to break them out of it. The way I understand it, the target's body is transformed - the t-rex form is still their body. It's body takes damage, the target's body takes damage.

"Well, the target's armor class is usually worse when they transform into a beast, so if they're easier to hit and still take damage as normal then the spell just sucks!" one might say, to which I would say, "No it doesn't!"

The benefit of polymorph and its ilk is that the target can assume myriad forms to suit any situation. With the use of one spell or class feature the affected creature can climb, burrow, fly, swim, become faster, stronger, better able to concentrate on spells, gain new proficiencies, heightened senses, and - with more powerful magic like shapechange, true polymorph, and Elemental Wild Shape - squeeze through cracks as narrow as an inch wide, gain immunities and resistances, cast spells, unlock a new suite of supernatural actions, speak new languages, wield a flame whip and lightning sword (assuming your new form gets the typical equipment included in its statblock, which - don't get me started), and even with all that, they retain their alignment and personality.

So yeah, the tradeoff should be that the target's body is their body and their hit points are their hit points.

Changing Shapechanging

I like that in D&D a creature can change into a dragon or a beholder or a giant or whatever. I really do. It's an awesome ability, but, I also get tired of the t-rex polymorph meta. Shapechanging magic is immensely powerful without having game-changing combat utility. In my most recent 5e game, the warlock spent levels 17 to 18 as a death knight and level 19 as a balor. 

It was really cool when they first did it, but for three whole levels in the last tier of the game, they weren't even playing a warlock anymore, because it was just so much better to transform into an "equivalent" monster. If they really wanted to, they could have permanently transformed the whole party into balors (again, pretty cool, but it feels wrong somehow - they also would have stomped every encounter for the rest of the campaign, easily).

So, I'm done with polymorph as written. My house rule for shapechanging mechanics is presented below:

When a creature changes shape (such as with the polymorph spell), a player character can change shape into a creature whose CR equals (at most) half the character’s level (rounded down), unless the feature specifies that the character can only change shape into a creature with a lower CR (i.e. the Wild Shape class feature). When a creature’s new form is reduced to 0 hit points, it reverts to its normal form. Any hit points lost during the transformation are subtracted from the character’s current hit points.

For example, a 20th level wizard with 142 hit points uses polymorph to transform into a CR 8 tyrannosaurus rex with 136 hit points. The wizard’s tyrannosaurus rex form is reduced to 0 hit points, and the wizard resumes their normal form. The wizard now has 6 hit points (142 - 136 = 6).

Shapechanging abilities grant you only the physical traits of the new form. You always retain your Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores when you change shape, along with any saving throw or skill proficiencies associated with those scores. You do not gain access to any abilities, actions, proficiencies, or spells which the new form has if those features use Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma.

Side Note: I have a second house rule for Circle of the Moon druids which grants them 4 temporary hit points per druid level when they Wild Shape (based on the Circle of Spores's Symbiotic Entity feature - Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, page 36), so that Wild Shape maintains some combat utility for them in light of this change. I would also rule that the limitation on CR doesn't affect Elemental Wild Shape, since that feature specifies that you can transform into a more powerful creature than would otherwise be allowed, and specific rules trump general rules in 5e.

System Shock

When I first decided to change shapechanging in my games, I first looked back at Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition, it being my "older edition" reference point. It was definitely still a mess back then, including a complicated and poorly laid out system for polymorphing creatures and objects, for which the duration changes depending on the difference between the kingdom, class, "relationship", size, shape, and intelligence of the creature or object and what it is being turned into (2e PHB, page 242). For example a lion can be polymorphed into a sphinx permanently - because a sphinx is like a lion - but a turnip can only be polymorphed into a purple worm for a few hours - because a turnip is not at all like a purple worm. That is the extent of the guidance given.

2e also has cool ideas like polymorphing a creature into a rock and grinding the rock into dust to kill them, but if one polymorphed the creature directly into dust they'd have to "scatter the dust far and wide" in order to effectively kill the creature. I have no idea how I would apply this to 5e, but it is inspiring.

2e also includes system shock (2e PHB, page 21), which is a percentage chance - based on a character's Constitution - to survive body-altering effects like polymorph, petrification, and magical aging. On a failed system shock roll, the change is so devastating to the creature that it dies instantly. The check is made when the creature changes shape and when it reverts to it original form (page 205). Notably, it doesn't apply to the polymorph self spell, so I think the check is only required if the change is done to an unwilling creature.

If I were to introduce system shock to 5e, I'd probably do it as such:

Whenever a creature is unwillingly subjected to a magical effect which reshapes or ages its body (petrification and reversing petrification, shapechanging, magical aging, etc.), that creature may be instantly killed by the shock to its body and mind. The creature must make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or instantly die.

I wouldn't necessarily encourage this, as it only enhances polymorph's ability to be a pseudo-death spell, which it already is in 5e, if Rules-As-Written white room theory-crafters are to be given credence. Basically, the caster transforms the enemy into a vulnerable creature like a sheep and then surrounds the target with their allies, readying to attack all at once so that the entire party's focused damage is applied simultaneously, before the creature reverts to its original form. 

This is incredibly cheesy and I would never allow it (the first hit to drop the target to 0 hit points would cause it to revert to its original form, in my opinion - roll initiative to see who strikes first), but I thought I should address it in case Redditors decide to nickel and dime me on this point.

Interestingly, polymorph self in 2nd edition (PHB, page 206) only allows the affected creature to benefit from the new form's movement and breathing abilities. However, they can change shape as often as they please while the spell lasts, similar to 5e's shapechange. This was my inspiration for making it so that shapechanging in 5e only grants you the creature's physical capabilities, not mental ones.

Retaining Personality

I always love to make it a point whenever polymorph comes up in my 5e games that the affected creature retains its alignment and personality. "Don't worry, friends - you can tell that the tyrannosaurus rex is me, your loyal ally, because it has my personality and mannerisms."

Don't worry, this is actually the party's barbarian!

2e has another interesting mechanic by which a polymorphed creature might assume the personality of (and believe itself to truly be) the creature it's polymorphed into (PHB, page 205). A percentage chance is calculated based on the difference in Intelligence and hit dice between forms. The polymorphed creature must roll against this percentage each day it's polymorphed, and on a failure, it effectively becomes the new creature and comes under the control of the DM until recovered by a wish spell or similar magic. This total transformation includes the acquisition of all the new creature's magical and special abilities (like a dragon's innate spellcasting and breath weapon). Furthermore, those who are reverted to their original form after this transformation has occurred maintain the belief that they are actually the polymorphed creature and attempt to return to that form.

Again, this doesn't apply to the polymorph self spell, so it might apply to unwilling creatures only. However, polymorph any object (2e's version of true polymorph - PHB, page 242) does state "The system shock roll must be applied to living creatures, as must the restrictions noted regarding the polymorph other and stone to flesh spells." Which restrictions are we referring to?

Stone to flesh (2e PHB, page 230) has some language about the cubic volume of flesh and stone that can be converted (with a delightful mental image of a wizard creating a tunnel of flesh through a solid stone wall), as well as some language about broken or weathered petrified individuals retaining their damage and deformities when unpetrified, so either or both of these might be the aforementioned "restrictions".

The "restrictions noted regarding the polymorph other...spell" might then be the note about retaining personality when polymorphed. This is how I choose to read it, as although the target of the polymorph any object spell could be willing or unwilling (and previous examples suggest that only unwilling targets are at risk of losing their personality), it makes perfect sense that a creature which spends days, months, or years polymorphed into a demon might be at risk of believing themselves to actually be a demon.

A scientist (AKA modern day wizard) who turns themselves into a fly may be at risk of believing themselves to truly be the Brundlefly.

This becomes a potential solution to the true polymorph problem, wherein a 17th-level character expends one 9th-level spell slot one time and proceeds to spend the rest of their adventuring days in the form of a death knight or balor with no risk of consequence. If I were to use such a mechanic in 5e, I'd do it like so: 

Whenever a creature is subjected to a magical effect which reshapes its body into that of another creature, there is a chance that the creature assumes the alignment, personality, and mental ability scores of its new form. 

At dawn each day after the creature is first transformed, the creature must make a Charisma saving throw. The DC equals 10 plus the difference in Charisma between forms (if the new form's Charisma score is higher) or minus the difference in Charisma between forms (if the new form's Charisma score is lower), plus the difference in levels or CR (if the new form's level or CR is higher) or minus the difference in levels or CR (if the new form's level or CR is lower). 

On a failed saving throw, the creature assumes the alignment, personality, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores of the new form, gains all associated abilities and proficiencies, and comes under the control of the DM. The transformation can be reverted as normal, but changes to alignment, personality, mental ability scores, associated abilities and proficiencies, and control of the creature by the DM can be reverted only by way of a greater restoration or wish spell, or similar magic. Until that time, the creature believes itself to be its new true form and attempts to return to that form.

I'm using Charisma instead of Intelligence here, because Charisma in 5e is a creature's "force of personality" (PHB, page 173), and this is a contest of personality/sense of self. I'm tempted to leave it as Intelligence, because Intelligence needs all the help it can get in 5e, but Charisma feels like the "right" ability score to use. 

I'm using CR instead of hit dice because CR is the measure of a monster's power in 5e, whereas the same can be said of hit dice in 2e.

Again, I like that shapechanging magic can accomplish such goofy and cool effects. PCs should be able to transform into powerful monsters at a certain point in the game, but the conversion rates are whacky, transforming into a t-rex every combat is boring after the first time, and one shouldn't be able to live out their days as a dragon without risk of consequence. 

Shapechanging magic is extremely versatile without being the dominant meta-strategy in combat during the later tiers of gameplay. I like its combat potential reined in, its mechanics more sensible, and its drawbacks more nuanced - or rather, in 5e, I'd like it to have any drawbacks at all!