I still don’t see the problem with 4e’s solution to Abilities and Powers to be honest, it just requires (a lot) of fine tuning for day one, removing the insane ability to go nova or stack bonuses, and better support via things like D&D Beyond. Scaling down the number of bonus abilities offered via new books would also be smart (each new book had a plethora of updates that everyone felt was vital to their character concepts).
If DDB let you edit the actual game rules, I'd not only double the HP buff from Con, but add one from Str as well. Cut into the Str/Dex divide while also boosting martials.
Fighters/Pals can get up to 25 AC in 5e with magic shields and armor. Assuming they don't have giant str items, using your idea they can get to +20 like you said. High chance to hit something dmg is still low (Pals better here with smite which also got nerfed). AC isn't anything when it comes to AoE, which can do massive dmg. That doesn't include on shapeshifting, mind controlling, changing the battlefield, etc. Martials can only hit things. Combat isn't everything and a near guarantee dmg of at least 8 isn't much at higher levels. I think Wotc needs to make them more versatile in and out of combat. Fighters could use something to change the field and take barbs brutal crit(Which makes a little more sense for fighters) Barbs can change their brutal crits to elemental tanking abilities so a high level barb can tank as well as a bear barb (Which got nerfed). Maybe something that can scare npcs or something regarding easier things with items(Using/destroying) idk what to do about the rest
I feel there are a few things lost from 3e that has made casters stronger in 5e and has really bridged the gap.
1. Casting Spells triggers an Opportunity. Casting a spell in close quarters was risky. Also consider that the attack could disrupt your spellcasting - requiring a Concentration check to complete the spell or lose the spell. With 5e concepts I feel disrupting a spell being cast should be a reaction - OA and Con check vs 10 + spell level or half damage whichever is lower. Spell slot not lost (seems to be in line w 2024 rules).
I don’t believe this should apply to cantrips, bonus action spells, or reaction spells since they are so quick or require less effort.
2. Counterspelling was an action not a spell. Counterspelling wasn’t limited to arcane casters. In 3e you could use a spell of similar schools or types to clash on the battlefield. Yeah it was unwieldy - you had to ready an action. Though it would have been a great reaction ability. I feel in 5e these can be a challenge between two spells. Contested caster check winner spell works. Losers spell fails. Might need more refinement.
How does this help? By making spellcasting have natural hurdles to overcome to set up the ideal condition to cast - it makes the martial character more ideal in that they just need to get close and handle business. It’s a step but no way a complete solution.
Or we can make Wizards and Sorcerers have d4 hit dice again. :p
Casting spells in 3E provoked an attack of opportunity, yes, but only if the spell had a casting time of one standard action or longer. And you could cast on the defensive to prevent enemies from getting the attack of opportunity with a trivial Concentration skill check (the DC was only 10+spell level, IIRC, so a first level caster could put 4 ranks into Concentration, add their Con modifier, which was probably +2, and possibly even take Skill Focus Concentration for an additional +3, giving them a +9 on the roll vs a DC 11 check and things only got easier from there- by third level they could have +11 on a DC 12 check and by fifth level their skill modifier exceeded the DC which meant no roll was necessary because skill checks couldn't critically fail). It's actually harder in 5E when attackers can just use a readied action to attack of the target casts a spell.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
A completely off-the wall suggestion to balancing the divide, taken from the Primeval Thule sourcebook:
The party is only allowed one spellcaster.
What's a spellcaster? If you go by "has spell slots", that's every class but Fighter, Rogue, Barb, and Monk. (And two-three of those have casterish subclasses.)
And it doesn't alter the balance, it just means fewer players in a given game will be on the caster side.
Just get DMs to let the Fighter make the eight foot jump without having to roll some arbitrary roll and let the Rogue take zero damage from DEX saving throw spells like it says you can in the rules from what I've seen.
I'm tired of the "but it wouldn't make sense, how is the rogue dodging a whole fireball!"
The divide doesn't really exist. Not like it used to.
The thing was, in 3e and earlier editions fights and martial characters would get their new power boosts from levelling up and taking feats. Then spellcasters would also gain levels and gets new spells. EXCEPT spellcasters also had all their old spells increase in level at the same time, so they not only got a power boost for their new options but also a power boost to all their old options. Hence "quadratic" wizards. And clerics/ druids.
This has been solved in a couple ways. First, there's no more automatic scaling of spells. Second, the number of spells per day has been dramatically reduced.
There's still some divide as fighters are bound by reality and what seems reasonable while spellcasters are not. But, in practice, that doesn't always make those characters more powerful in encounters. They can freeze an enemy in place or send them to another dimension but they have a harder time just outright killing an enemy. And they can only deal a lot of damage a few times per day. In the DM is encouraging longer adventuring days and not allowing characters to just have a long rest between every fight then martial characters can be quite effective.
Folks really need to just drop this "divide" thing. There is no way to make swinging a sword or an axe, comparable to someone who can manipulate cosmic power of the multiverse. None.
Accept that this is the reality and that it cannot be changed.
The divide doesn't really exist. Not like it used to.
The thing was, in 3e and earlier editions fights and martial characters would get their new power boosts from levelling up and taking feats.
Prior to 3e, Feats did not exist. Martials simply leveled up and either only got more attacks (Fighter) or skills and spells (Ranger). The Monk was never considered a Martial back then, it was sort of in it's own little sphere.
Folks really need to just drop this "divide" thing. There is no way to make swinging a sword or an axe, comparable to someone who can manipulate cosmic power of the multiverse. None.
Sure there is. You just have to discard the idea that swordsmanship is supposed to be 'realistic' and accept anime or superhero level swordsmen who can do things like cutting through dimensions.
Folks really need to just drop this "divide" thing. There is no way to make swinging a sword or an axe, comparable to someone who can manipulate cosmic power of the multiverse. None.
Sure there is. You just have to discard the idea that swordsmanship is supposed to be 'realistic' and accept anime or superhero level swordsmen who can do things like cutting through dimensions.
I'm for it but most martial enthusiasts are not.
Another thing I'd have done is I would have used 4e ritual magic system but refined a bit. If a martial can learn the teleport ritual and teleport isn't a spell only a ritual it gives martials access to a lot of non combat actions the spell casters control exclusively now. Add in rituals that focus on using martial skills like athletics and they might even have some unique rituals that give them a niche.
The biggest problem with the division is spells. They have such a wide variety and applicability that casters can do everything martials can and do better. Single target dmg? Casters are better. Spread dmg? Spells are better. Social skills? Spells like friends, calm emotions, etc. Got you covered. Combat survival? Mage armor, shield, polymorph, etc. are better options than regular armor. Let's face it: a martial needs to cover himself in magical items to even come close to competing with what spells offer to high-level casters. In terms of optimization, there is no reason to play a martial. We've all seen damage and effectiveness calculations of optimized builds all over the internet, I don't think I need to go into this subject in depth to illustrate my point.
Still on spells, there are spells that are considered good and bad at all levels. Animate Objects is mathematically one of the best damage spells in the game, at the levels it is available, while Vampiric Touch is a spell that experienced players never choose, except for flavor. If a player always chooses the best spells at each level, you will always see the same spells used table after table. Boring. I believe that both problems have the same cause: the immense amount and variety of spells available to casters. Considering this, my points for reducing the martial-caster division are:
A - Nerf the caster's spell options:
1- Limit the spell options for all subclasses.
not being able to always choose the best spells. For example, the old idea of opposing schools of magic for wizards back in 3rd edition allowed a specialist wizard to be highly efficient with his specialty but unable to learn spells from the opposite school. This mechanic limits the range of spells available to the subclass at all levels, forcing the player to choose suboptimal spells that never see play normally, making the mage a little less efficient, and reducing the gap between martials and casters.
2- eliminate overpowered spells from the game and make them available only to powerful NPCs, BBEGs, etc.
There are spells widely considered overpowered and exploitable such as wall of force, simulacrum and polymorph. Spells that can end an encounter in one round or are too devastating or simply too good for the levels at which they become available should only be possible for NPCs that advance the story in some way.
3- get rid of offensive cantrips.
I know, it's controversial. But hear me out here. Since the beginning of DND, martials were designed to be a class that could stay in combat forever, while casters found their effectiveness limited round after round as they burned through their spells. That was the whole point of choosing the Vancian magic system. Wizards are capable of incredible things but are limited by their "mana" or, in DND's case, spellslots. Warriors keep fighting all day long. That's why in the early editions, there were wizard builds with crossbows, as strange as it may seem. But this kind of image is rooted in the foundations of fantasy literature. Gandalf was always seen with his elven sword at his waist, and he was a ******* Maia, the same as an angel in Tolkien's legendarium. So, yeah. Let fighters do the fight, and casters support and occasionally cast a fireball. You don't need a cantrip that causes the same damage as a battle axe FROM A DISTANCE!!!
B - more options for martial:
One thing that ed2024 did well was to introduce weapon mastery. Now all fighters have many more maneuver options, moving them away from the simple "I attack. and with my second action... I attack". An experienced fighter can do a variety of things, and experts in different martial arts can do different things. I think this was a shift in the right direction. Some ideas for further improvement:
1- Make Strength matter
The least important attribute in the game is strength. Very few spells and skills require strength saves, on the other hand, the best weapons and armor require this attribute. Making strength a more relevant attribute in the game would increase the importance of martial artists, in addition to increasing the threat to casters, who generally treat it as a free dump stat. This relevance could be achieved by creating spells and skills that require strength or athletics saves.
2- continue to add variety.
The battle master is a class that offers a capacity for versatility and customization that is similar to what spells offer to casters. It was a subclass that hit the nail on the head as a new martial subclass. The use of a limited resource for maneuvers and skills that only they can perform, in addition to the capacity for customization, are the strong points that make the class one of the most beloved among martials. Perhaps, extending the same to other martials could bring similar results. But wouldn't giving limited resources be the same as giving spells to martials? Doesn't it go against the philosophy of "martials can fight all day?" The idea would be, just like for the battle master, other classes would be able to spend limited resources IN ADDITION to doing what they normally do. This is adding options and not replacing them, and still maintaining the distinct identity of each class. An example is the mechanics of the warrior in World of Warcraft where each hit taken generates the resource called rage that is used in their "spells". I can see a mechanic like this applied to a barbarian subclass for example.
3- combat maneuvers for everyone?
everyone who has trained a little martial arts knows that anyone can block an attack, but training makes you better. there is no reason why a barbarian should not be able to parry an attack with his weapon. a list of combat maneuvers should be available to all martial classes in the game. "but doesn't that make the battlemaster irrelevant?" the battlemaster's maneuvers would be improved versions of the common maneuvers, empowered by his superiority dice and causing 1d8 damage IN ADDITION to the normal effects. additionally, the battlemaster could have options only available to him. an improvement worthy of a "master".
4- legendary warriors
in the last decades the cinema has been populated by superheroes, characters capable of fighting against global threats. The concept of tiers of play, as tier 3. Masters of the Realm (Levels 11-16) and Tier 4. Masters of the World (Levels 17-20) is already well known by DMS and represents the level of influence that the characters have in the world.
Returning to the basic concept of DND, the caster was a difficult class to play. The idea was to follow a slow and fragile growth table in the first levels but in the last, it would be an all-powerful demigod. Now, if a lvl20 caster can be Zeus, a martial should be Hercules, or Achilles, or Gilgamesh, or Theseus (who killed Medusa - a monster present in DND) legendary heroes for their strength and bravery. High lvl martials should be capable of incredible feats, not simply making one more attack. Phenomenal leaps, explosions of fury that release mystical effects, adrenaline surges capable of overcoming pain (temporary life points?), feats of extreme strength, these are all effects that heroes who have reached the highest level could assess in some way. They are not mechanics in themselves, but ideas to be developed.
All the ideas I have presented here could help reduce the martial-caster divide, falling into two categories: nerf the casters and buff the martials. Perhaps not all of my proposals are viable, and gametesting would be required to find out if they achieve the expected result. I have already adopted some of them at my tables with excellent results, such as the removal of offensive cantrips. Others require more refinement.
In short, I hope I have helped a little in the discussion.
If you test some of my ideas in your games, please tell me how it went.
eliminate overpowered spells from the game and make them available only to powerful NPCs, BBEGs, etc.
This is kind of unnecessary, given the DM can just let them do things.
get rid of offensive cantrips.
That would make martials even more effective compared to casters at low level. Also, witch bolt is 20x better than anything on the druid's level one spell list and would make them obsolete if it wasn't for cantrips. I think it would be a much better solution to just nerf them.
The least important attribute in the game is strength.
That depends on the campaign, and I would say intelligence is least important.
This relevance could be achieved by creating spells and skills that require strength or athletics saves.
A few of those do exist, like gust of wind, or grappling.
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I still don’t see the problem with 4e’s solution to Abilities and Powers to be honest, it just requires (a lot) of fine tuning for day one, removing the insane ability to go nova or stack bonuses, and better support via things like D&D Beyond. Scaling down the number of bonus abilities offered via new books would also be smart (each new book had a plethora of updates that everyone felt was vital to their character concepts).
Part of the way D&D equals the divide is they give martials higher hit points and armor classes so they can last in hand to hand longer.
You could just double the hit point bonus constitution gives you if your a martial class.
Or you could up the armor class of the armors. Or add back the dex bonus to heavy armor.
If you have ever seen this video you would understand that even heavy armor was quite maneuverable and relatively light to the wearer.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4033006/
If DDB let you edit the actual game rules, I'd not only double the HP buff from Con, but add one from Str as well. Cut into the Str/Dex divide while also boosting martials.
Just go into your health in D&DB and add your con to your health again by adding your CON as a health modifier. Done and done.
Fighters/Pals can get up to 25 AC in 5e with magic shields and armor. Assuming they don't have giant str items, using your idea they can get to +20 like you said. High chance to hit something dmg is still low (Pals better here with smite which also got nerfed). AC isn't anything when it comes to AoE, which can do massive dmg. That doesn't include on shapeshifting, mind controlling, changing the battlefield, etc. Martials can only hit things. Combat isn't everything and a near guarantee dmg of at least 8 isn't much at higher levels. I think Wotc needs to make them more versatile in and out of combat.
Fighters could use something to change the field and take barbs brutal crit(Which makes a little more sense for fighters)
Barbs can change their brutal crits to elemental tanking abilities so a high level barb can tank as well as a bear barb (Which got nerfed). Maybe something that can scare npcs or something regarding easier things with items(Using/destroying)
idk what to do about the rest
The divide is good and no solution is needed. Play a real class if you want to participate.
I feel there are a few things lost from 3e that has made casters stronger in 5e and has really bridged the gap.
1. Casting Spells triggers an Opportunity. Casting a spell in close quarters was risky. Also consider that the attack could disrupt your spellcasting - requiring a Concentration check to complete the spell or lose the spell. With 5e concepts I feel disrupting a spell being cast should be a reaction - OA and Con check vs 10 + spell level or half damage whichever is lower. Spell slot not lost (seems to be in line w 2024 rules).
I don’t believe this should apply to cantrips, bonus action spells, or reaction spells since they are so quick or require less effort.
2. Counterspelling was an action not a spell. Counterspelling wasn’t limited to arcane casters. In 3e you could use a spell of similar schools or types to clash on the battlefield. Yeah it was unwieldy - you had to ready an action. Though it would have been a great reaction ability. I feel in 5e these can be a challenge between two spells. Contested caster check winner spell works. Losers spell fails. Might need more refinement.
How does this help? By making spellcasting have natural hurdles to overcome to set up the ideal condition to cast - it makes the martial character more ideal in that they just need to get close and handle business. It’s a step but no way a complete solution.
Or we can make Wizards and Sorcerers have d4 hit dice again. :p
Casting spells in 3E provoked an attack of opportunity, yes, but only if the spell had a casting time of one standard action or longer. And you could cast on the defensive to prevent enemies from getting the attack of opportunity with a trivial Concentration skill check (the DC was only 10+spell level, IIRC, so a first level caster could put 4 ranks into Concentration, add their Con modifier, which was probably +2, and possibly even take Skill Focus Concentration for an additional +3, giving them a +9 on the roll vs a DC 11 check and things only got easier from there- by third level they could have +11 on a DC 12 check and by fifth level their skill modifier exceeded the DC which meant no roll was necessary because skill checks couldn't critically fail). It's actually harder in 5E when attackers can just use a readied action to attack of the target casts a spell.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
A completely off-the wall suggestion to balancing the divide, taken from the Primeval Thule sourcebook:
The party is only allowed one spellcaster.
What's a spellcaster? If you go by "has spell slots", that's every class but Fighter, Rogue, Barb, and Monk. (And two-three of those have casterish subclasses.)
And it doesn't alter the balance, it just means fewer players in a given game will be on the caster side.
Just get DMs to let the Fighter make the eight foot jump without having to roll some arbitrary roll and let the Rogue take zero damage from DEX saving throw spells like it says you can in the rules from what I've seen.
I'm tired of the "but it wouldn't make sense, how is the rogue dodging a whole fireball!"
The divide doesn't really exist. Not like it used to.
The thing was, in 3e and earlier editions fights and martial characters would get their new power boosts from levelling up and taking feats. Then spellcasters would also gain levels and gets new spells. EXCEPT spellcasters also had all their old spells increase in level at the same time, so they not only got a power boost for their new options but also a power boost to all their old options.
Hence "quadratic" wizards. And clerics/ druids.
This has been solved in a couple ways. First, there's no more automatic scaling of spells. Second, the number of spells per day has been dramatically reduced.
There's still some divide as fighters are bound by reality and what seems reasonable while spellcasters are not. But, in practice, that doesn't always make those characters more powerful in encounters. They can freeze an enemy in place or send them to another dimension but they have a harder time just outright killing an enemy. And they can only deal a lot of damage a few times per day. In the DM is encouraging longer adventuring days and not allowing characters to just have a long rest between every fight then martial characters can be quite effective.
How is giving all the full casters most of their utility at level one and never looking back a buff?
Folks really need to just drop this "divide" thing. There is no way to make swinging a sword or an axe, comparable to someone who can manipulate cosmic power of the multiverse. None.
Accept that this is the reality and that it cannot be changed.
Prior to 3e, Feats did not exist. Martials simply leveled up and either only got more attacks (Fighter) or skills and spells (Ranger). The Monk was never considered a Martial back then, it was sort of in it's own little sphere.
Sure there is. You just have to discard the idea that swordsmanship is supposed to be 'realistic' and accept anime or superhero level swordsmen who can do things like cutting through dimensions.
I'm for it but most martial enthusiasts are not.
Another thing I'd have done is I would have used 4e ritual magic system but refined a bit. If a martial can learn the teleport ritual and teleport isn't a spell only a ritual it gives martials access to a lot of non combat actions the spell casters control exclusively now. Add in rituals that focus on using martial skills like athletics and they might even have some unique rituals that give them a niche.
The biggest problem with the division is spells. They have such a wide variety and applicability that casters can do everything martials can and do better. Single target dmg? Casters are better. Spread dmg? Spells are better. Social skills? Spells like friends, calm emotions, etc. Got you covered. Combat survival? Mage armor, shield, polymorph, etc. are better options than regular armor. Let's face it: a martial needs to cover himself in magical items to even come close to competing with what spells offer to high-level casters. In terms of optimization, there is no reason to play a martial. We've all seen damage and effectiveness calculations of optimized builds all over the internet, I don't think I need to go into this subject in depth to illustrate my point.
Still on spells, there are spells that are considered good and bad at all levels. Animate Objects is mathematically one of the best damage spells in the game, at the levels it is available, while Vampiric Touch is a spell that experienced players never choose, except for flavor. If a player always chooses the best spells at each level, you will always see the same spells used table after table. Boring. I believe that both problems have the same cause: the immense amount and variety of spells available to casters. Considering this, my points for reducing the martial-caster division are:
A - Nerf the caster's spell options:
1- Limit the spell options for all subclasses.
not being able to always choose the best spells. For example, the old idea of opposing schools of magic for wizards back in 3rd edition allowed a specialist wizard to be highly efficient with his specialty but unable to learn spells from the opposite school. This mechanic limits the range of spells available to the subclass at all levels, forcing the player to choose suboptimal spells that never see play normally, making the mage a little less efficient, and reducing the gap between martials and casters.
2- eliminate overpowered spells from the game and make them available only to powerful NPCs, BBEGs, etc.
There are spells widely considered overpowered and exploitable such as wall of force, simulacrum and polymorph. Spells that can end an encounter in one round or are too devastating or simply too good for the levels at which they become available should only be possible for NPCs that advance the story in some way.
3- get rid of offensive cantrips.
I know, it's controversial. But hear me out here. Since the beginning of DND, martials were designed to be a class that could stay in combat forever, while casters found their effectiveness limited round after round as they burned through their spells. That was the whole point of choosing the Vancian magic system. Wizards are capable of incredible things but are limited by their "mana" or, in DND's case, spellslots. Warriors keep fighting all day long. That's why in the early editions, there were wizard builds with crossbows, as strange as it may seem. But this kind of image is rooted in the foundations of fantasy literature. Gandalf was always seen with his elven sword at his waist, and he was a ******* Maia, the same as an angel in Tolkien's legendarium. So, yeah. Let fighters do the fight, and casters support and occasionally cast a fireball. You don't need a cantrip that causes the same damage as a battle axe FROM A DISTANCE!!!
B - more options for martial:
One thing that ed2024 did well was to introduce weapon mastery. Now all fighters have many more maneuver options, moving them away from the simple "I attack. and with my second action... I attack". An experienced fighter can do a variety of things, and experts in different martial arts can do different things. I think this was a shift in the right direction. Some ideas for further improvement:
1- Make Strength matter
The least important attribute in the game is strength. Very few spells and skills require strength saves, on the other hand, the best weapons and armor require this attribute. Making strength a more relevant attribute in the game would increase the importance of martial artists, in addition to increasing the threat to casters, who generally treat it as a free dump stat. This relevance could be achieved by creating spells and skills that require strength or athletics saves.
2- continue to add variety.
The battle master is a class that offers a capacity for versatility and customization that is similar to what spells offer to casters. It was a subclass that hit the nail on the head as a new martial subclass. The use of a limited resource for maneuvers and skills that only they can perform, in addition to the capacity for customization, are the strong points that make the class one of the most beloved among martials. Perhaps, extending the same to other martials could bring similar results. But wouldn't giving limited resources be the same as giving spells to martials? Doesn't it go against the philosophy of "martials can fight all day?" The idea would be, just like for the battle master, other classes would be able to spend limited resources IN ADDITION to doing what they normally do. This is adding options and not replacing them, and still maintaining the distinct identity of each class. An example is the mechanics of the warrior in World of Warcraft where each hit taken generates the resource called rage that is used in their "spells". I can see a mechanic like this applied to a barbarian subclass for example.
3- combat maneuvers for everyone?
everyone who has trained a little martial arts knows that anyone can block an attack, but training makes you better. there is no reason why a barbarian should not be able to parry an attack with his weapon. a list of combat maneuvers should be available to all martial classes in the game. "but doesn't that make the battlemaster irrelevant?" the battlemaster's maneuvers would be improved versions of the common maneuvers, empowered by his superiority dice and causing 1d8 damage IN ADDITION to the normal effects. additionally, the battlemaster could have options only available to him. an improvement worthy of a "master".
4- legendary warriors
in the last decades the cinema has been populated by superheroes, characters capable of fighting against global threats. The concept of tiers of play, as tier 3. Masters of the Realm (Levels 11-16) and Tier 4. Masters of the World (Levels 17-20) is already well known by DMS and represents the level of influence that the characters have in the world.
Returning to the basic concept of DND, the caster was a difficult class to play. The idea was to follow a slow and fragile growth table in the first levels but in the last, it would be an all-powerful demigod. Now, if a lvl20 caster can be Zeus, a martial should be Hercules, or Achilles, or Gilgamesh, or Theseus (who killed Medusa - a monster present in DND) legendary heroes for their strength and bravery. High lvl martials should be capable of incredible feats, not simply making one more attack. Phenomenal leaps, explosions of fury that release mystical effects, adrenaline surges capable of overcoming pain (temporary life points?), feats of extreme strength, these are all effects that heroes who have reached the highest level could assess in some way. They are not mechanics in themselves, but ideas to be developed.
All the ideas I have presented here could help reduce the martial-caster divide, falling into two categories: nerf the casters and buff the martials. Perhaps not all of my proposals are viable, and gametesting would be required to find out if they achieve the expected result. I have already adopted some of them at my tables with excellent results, such as the removal of offensive cantrips. Others require more refinement.
In short, I hope I have helped a little in the discussion.
If you test some of my ideas in your games, please tell me how it went.
My thoughts on that:
This is kind of unnecessary, given the DM can just let them do things.
That would make martials even more effective compared to casters at low level. Also, witch bolt is 20x better than anything on the druid's level one spell list and would make them obsolete if it wasn't for cantrips. I think it would be a much better solution to just nerf them.
That depends on the campaign, and I would say intelligence is least important.
A few of those do exist, like gust of wind, or grappling.