Sending only last one round and is limited to 25 words. Telepathy lasts 24 hours and and can share words, images, sounds, and other sensory messages. Project Image is just a superior version of Major Image. Dream can do damage and make the target not benefit from any rest.
Telepathy is also 5 levels higher than Sending.
Project Image is 4 levels higher. Also it is drastically different from Major Image, because Major Image is much more versatile in what kinds of illusions you can create with it and can even be made persistent if you cast it at 6th level. You can't create illusions of fire breathing dragons, treasure hoards, flaming houses, or illusions of other people with Project Image.
From what I'm gathering, the reason is mostly for mechanical balance (if you can call it that).
Ahhh.... still this is perfect for the Spell Reduction Act of 2023....
(For those terrified I want to get rid of spells for the sake of getting rid of spells, a few pages back, I said that in order to drop the list down from over 500, one thing that could be done is to combine very similar spells and create upcasts)
Sending only last one round and is limited to 25 words. Telepathy lasts 24 hours and and can share words, images, sounds, and other sensory messages. Project Image is just a superior version of Major Image. Dream can do damage and make the target not benefit from any rest.
Telepathy is also 5 levels higher than Sending.
Project Image is 4 levels higher. Also it is drastically different from Major Image, because Major Image is much more versatile in what kinds of illusions you can create with it and can even be made persistent if you cast it at 6th level. You can't create illusions of fire breathing dragons, treasure hoards, flaming houses, or illusions of other people with Project Image.
From what I'm gathering, the reason is mostly for mechanical balance (if you can call it that).
Ahhh.... still this is perfect for the Spell Reduction Act of 2023....
(For those terrified I want to get rid of spells for the sake of getting rid of spells, a few pages back, I said that in order to drop the list down from over 500, one thing that could be done is to combine very similar spells and create upcasts)
How so? I'm not saying these spells are all the same or even similar. Just that Sending is potent for long distance communication in a way the others aren't, because Sending can actually let you message someone in another plane of existence.
I'm really fascinated by the hate for clone. A I don't die but lose my gear spell is that game breaking for people. Are TPKs that common for you at 15th+ level.
Clone is world-breaking, not necessarily game-breaking. Clone is the ultimate immortality because the clone can be a younger version of the target. It makes no sense for liches to exist in a world with Clone as an easy to access spell. Likewise, there would be a huge demand from elderly wealthy people for hiring high level wizards to clone themselves in order to be young again. You should end up with a world of perpetual rulers who simply clone themselves over and over again.
well, there is Zhentarim guy Manshoon who accidentally plot convenienced all his clones awake all at the same time. but I feel like I remember playing a 'clones for the rich, oops they're fiends now' (homebrew?) campaign back in the day. might be fun to rehash that to mess with a nearby table of real-life conspiracy nuts.
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unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
Ok, to the point of why there are liches in a world with "Clone" in it...
First there is the whole 3k gp for the diamond and the receptacle. Liches are notorious hoarders and totally unwilling to spend money on things like that.
THen you have the whole "but if I transfer to a clone, am I still me" thing that the sort of person seeking eternal life would look at and be deeply suspicious of, even if they saw it in action, because remember, liches are jerks who only care about themselves and are not always rational about it.
THen you have that whole cubic inch of flesh thing. If it was hair or collected fingernail trimmings or stuff like that, but it isn't, It is yank a chunk of flesh big enough to cripple you for about 4 months while it heals (oh, hey), just to cast a spell you aren't sure that will work and that costs a bloomin fortune.
And that ignores the other thing about a Lich that matters here: liches are in it for the power that they can get after death *as well* as eternal life. THey are Cake and eat it too types, and the cake is that living off souls is much harder to do when you have a living body.
That said...
Regular folks? Oh, hell yeah. Give them the ability to coerce a 15th level or higher wizard and you be damn sure they will...
... if the wizard has the spell. These days, I rarely see it used (like, pretty much ever outside of like four DMs I know), but traditionally a Wizard had to go out and find their spells. The value in a spell scroll wasn't that it could be cast from the scroll, originally, it was that they could add the spell to their spell books, and that was pretty much the only way to get them.
You started off with whatever your master felt like giving you, and while yo could go back to them and maybe cajole on or two more, the rest of the time you had to pay for them through the nose, trade for them, or find the in a dungeon or ruins or ancient tome long lost to the elements.
As a mechanic, it was meant to help balance Wizards because of their power -- and th DM would ultimately be the one who handed out the spells to ensure that ones they didn't like wouldn't be used or so they could modify them (to mimic the whole "independent study" thing, and the bit about how some spells are named after their creators). IT als meant that if they didn't have their spell book, they couldn't memorize any spells, so losing it was bad, but also, finding one or stealing one was good.
That was what made the Vacuous Grimoire so dangerous, and the book of infinite spells so valuable. Finding a grimoire in a treasure hoard was groan worthy for a fighter but divine providence for a Magic-User, lol.
That's old days, though. Today we have much better stuff.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
well, there is Zhentarim guy Manshoon who accidentally plot convenienced all his clones awake all at the same time. but I feel like I remember playing a 'clones for the rich, oops they're fiends now' (homebrew?) campaign back in the day. might be fun to rehash that to mess with a nearby table of real-life conspiracy nuts.
Out of curiosity, can a clone body be possessed before the original's soul gets to live in it? If so, what would happen if the original dies and their soul tries to inhabit the clone body while it's possessed?
My immediate thought was yes, if you used the Possession spell, and then I remembered it doesn't exist in 5e, lol.
But in the process of remembering, it suddenly occurred to me that if someone didn't hide their container well enough, some enemy could rig a Mirror of Life Trapping up for when they emerged and, well...
But let's say that some ghost was wandering by and saw the clone. Hops in, oh, hey, cool, new skin, who dis? Original dies, and now we have a Charisma check on a DC of 13 per the ghost (though I would rule a DC of the ghosts Charisma, so 17), so a conflict of wills.
Or, one could just say the ghost is booted because that's how the spell works, but I find that less interesting and rather boring.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Out of curiosity, can a clone body be possessed before the original's soul gets to live in it? If so, what would happen if the original dies and their soul tries to inhabit the clone body while it's possessed?
My immediate thought was yes, if you used the Possession spell, and then I remembered it doesn't exist in 5e, lol.
But in the process of remembering, it suddenly occurred to me that if someone didn't hide their container well enough, some enemy could rig a Mirror of Life Trapping up for when they emerged and, well...
But let's say that some ghost was wandering by and saw the clone. Hops in, oh, hey, cool, new skin, who dis? Original dies, and now we have a Charisma check on a DC of 13 per the ghost (though I would rule a DC of the ghosts Charisma, so 17), so a conflict of wills.
Or, one could just say the ghost is booted because that's how the spell works, but I find that less interesting and rather boring.
No, I mean the old spell Possession. Don't have my old PHB handy, but I think it was a 7th or 8th level.
Jar would probably work for this as well, but I was thinking of the other spell that let you hop in the body of a Kobold King and direct his troops to stop killing the party.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
For comparison, here's the important part of how AD&D clone worked
However, the duplicate really is the person, so if the original and a duplicate exist at the same time, each knows of the other's existence; the original person and the clone will each desire to do away with the other, for such an alter-ego is unbearable to both. If one cannot destroy the other, one will go insane and destroy itself (90% likely to be the clone), or possibly both will become mad and destroy themselves (2% chance). These events nearly always occur within one week of the dual existence.
This still makes Manshoon's clones illegal, but it significantly changes the way in which they're illegal (though, oddly, it does not specify what happens if two or more clones are active but the original is not, so it could be he's loopholed into legality). It also opened up plotlines where you have clones trying to kill each other.
For comparison, here's the important part of how AD&D clone worked
However, the duplicate really is the person, so if the original and a duplicate exist at the same time, each knows of the other's existence; the original person and the clone will each desire to do away with the other, for such an alter-ego is unbearable to both. If one cannot destroy the other, one will go insane and destroy itself (90% likely to be the clone), or possibly both will become mad and destroy themselves (2% chance). These events nearly always occur within one week of the dual existence.
This still makes Manshoon's clones illegal, but it significantly changes the way in which they're illegal (though, oddly, it does not specify what happens if two or more clones are active but the original is not, so it could be he's loopholed into legality). It also opened up plotlines where you have clones trying to kill each other.
One of many changes it took us a while to get used to, and now we are rewriting all the spells (in our group).
This thread sparked quite the conversation among my DM group!
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I'm really fascinated by the hate for clone. A I don't die but lose my gear spell is that game breaking for people. Are TPKs that common for you at 15th+ level.
Clone is world-breaking, not necessarily game-breaking. Clone is the ultimate immortality because the clone can be a younger version of the target. It makes no sense for liches to exist in a world with Clone as an easy to access spell. Likewise, there would be a huge demand from elderly wealthy people for hiring high level wizards to clone themselves in order to be young again. You should end up with a world of perpetual rulers who simply clone themselves over and over again.
well, there is Zhentarim guy Manshoon who accidentally plot convenienced all his clones awake all at the same time. but I feel like I remember playing a 'clones for the rich, oops they're fiends now' (homebrew?) campaign back in the day. might be fun to rehash that to mess with a nearby table of real-life conspiracy nuts.
Oh I 100% agree that clone is a fantastic plot-inspiration spell, which is why I would never argue for it to be completely removed. But it belongs on the DM side of thing so they can decide how it works in their world and how their world reacts to it.
Can we figure out a way to make this scale, so that it is useful beyond level 2 or 3? The best I can figure, is to eliminate the hit point pool mechanic, and just make it a single target Con save spell, upcastable to hit multiple targets. But I'm not sure if that makes it a more powerful version of Hold Person/Monster, only as 1rst level spell... 🤔
It's just frustrating, because it's kind of a basic spell idea- I put a creature to sleep- but it's currently only useful at low levels against low level crestures. Maybe it could be limited by creature type? Because Undead don't sleep. Nor do Constructs. I dunno. I'm open to ideas though.
Can we figure out a way to make this scale, so that it is useful beyond level 2 or 3?
That's just a special case of "upcasting is bad". The spell has never been particularly useful at higher levels, though, so it's not like 5e changed it.
For comparison, here's the important part of how AD&D clone worked
However, the duplicate really is the person, so if the original and a duplicate exist at the same time, each knows of the other's existence; the original person and the clone will each desire to do away with the other, for such an alter-ego is unbearable to both. If one cannot destroy the other, one will go insane and destroy itself (90% likely to be the clone), or possibly both will become mad and destroy themselves (2% chance). These events nearly always occur within one week of the dual existence.
This still makes Manshoon's clones illegal, but it significantly changes the way in which they're illegal (though, oddly, it does not specify what happens if two or more clones are active but the original is not, so it could be he's loopholed into legality). It also opened up plotlines where you have clones trying to kill each other.
His was a unique spell called stasis clone which worked closer to how clones work today, the story arc was something activated them all instead of having them remain in stasis until he died where normally only one would then activate.
I'm really fascinated by the hate for clone. A I don't die but lose my gear spell is that game breaking for people. Are TPKs that common for you at 15th+ level.
Clone is world-breaking, not necessarily game-breaking. Clone is the ultimate immortality because the clone can be a younger version of the target. It makes no sense for liches to exist in a world with Clone as an easy to access spell. Likewise, there would be a huge demand from elderly wealthy people for hiring high level wizards to clone themselves in order to be young again. You should end up with a world of perpetual rulers who simply clone themselves over and over again.
maybe on liches but they do get a lot of power along with being immortal. But depending on how many high level casters are in your world, sure. That is not world breaking imo, it just sets up the tone for the world where some rich and elite NPCs basically live forever.
And? If its not useful in your games because it takes so long then its not breaking your game. So what is the issue. Do you just want to remove everything spell casters do other than damage.
That's hyperbole. and we both know it. It has either broken or useless, and nobody likes useless so they try to use it for broken. That's why. If you want it for a DM spell, then that's a fine place for it. It's great narrative, but it has no place in the hands of players.
Spells that do that are what I want gone. At least from player's hands. I like RP spells like prestidigitation, mend, message, etc. They add color to the world. I haven't in all of this said "remove those!" so why accuse me of that?
I don't know that it is hyperboloe, the list of spells you've asked to be removed so far is pretty dang large. And so far I have not seen any examples of clone being broken. And narratives can be set up by the player as well, why do i want to steal this narrative tool from them.
I don't know that it is hyperboloe, the list of spells you've asked to be removed so far is pretty dang large. And so far I have not seen any examples of clone being broken. And narratives can be set up by the player as well, why do i want to steal this narrative tool from them.
I think if you look back, my rationale for the high power stuff is that it's game breaking, and that when it was proposed to leave them in a separate DM only list, I was more than happy to see it happen.
Otherwise, my proposal has been simply that we have a lot of spells. A LOT. And many of them overlap tremendously, or, are just higher levels of spells that could be revised with an upcast. It's not about removing the ability to cast spells, in fact, combining them by giving them upcasts actually means less spells you have to remember or learn to do more damage.
For me, it's about cleaning it up and having to have less to manage, but for you, (and I'm not saying these are the ones I'd combine), instead of chilling touch cone of frost, and a higher level ice spell, you just had one that upcast into the other spells, or gave you options. Then instead of 3 spells you'd have learned, you could do it with one and free up to spells for your spell book. Ones where you might take that utility spell that gets overlooked more often than not.....
That's the goal anyhow on the reduction part. (seriously. None of you have heard of "paperwork reduction act of 2014", or of 1995, or 1980, or the one of 2023? The local, state, and federal government does them all the time to just reduce the excess paperwork generated and to streamline things...)
Plus, cleaning things up helps to reveal where you have holes in your material. What AREN'T you covering... Stuff like that.
maybe on liches but they do get a lot of power along with being immortal. But depending on how many high level casters are in your world, sure. That is not world breaking imo, it just sets up the tone for the world where some rich and elite NPCs basically live forever.
It fundamentally changes the structure of your world and society, if every lord with a castle (value at 500,000 gp) is 10,000 years old because they live forever because of clone, or likely every noble with a mansion (value at 50,000 gp in DMG) is an immortal being. I mean, why would anyone make a deal with a devil or become a vampire if you could just rob a noble and to buy an entire second life?
maybe on liches but they do get a lot of power along with being immortal. But depending on how many high level casters are in your world, sure. That is not world breaking imo, it just sets up the tone for the world where some rich and elite NPCs basically live forever.
It fundamentally changes the structure of your world and society, if every lord with a castle (value at 500,000 gp) is 10,000 years old because they live forever because of clone, or likely every noble with a mansion (value at 50,000 gp in DMG) is and immortal being. I mean, why would anyone make a deal with a devil or become a vampire if you could just rob a noble and to buy an entire second life?
I mean I'm not a fan of the spell but you have a point.
I feel like to justify clone, you need to jump through a lot of hoops. As a save point is sucks, with wish or to subvert its rules it's broken, It encourages munchkin behavior, and no where does it get justification except on the DM list.
Regarding the "Clone means rich people can live forever" argument, it's ignoring a key world-building element: resource scarcity. A diamond worth 1000 gp alone ain't exactly gonna be the sort of thing one can readily find in any given market, and the components of the cask are left ambiguous enough that the DM can easily explain that making one requires another highly scarce resource. Really, this is a factor for any spell that consumes high value components; if the items are manufactured then the cost is such that they'll most likely only be made on order, creating a production bottleneck, and if they're naturally occurring then as I said the value is pretty indicative of their scarcity, and in a D&D setting that typically carries the unspoken implication that attempting to go gather the material is quite hazardous to one's health. The issue only arises if you assume the straight "gold to spell effect" handwave is what actually happens in the setting.
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Ahhh.... still this is perfect for the Spell Reduction Act of 2023....
(For those terrified I want to get rid of spells for the sake of getting rid of spells, a few pages back, I said that in order to drop the list down from over 500, one thing that could be done is to combine very similar spells and create upcasts)
Project image and major image. Not the sending.
well, there is Zhentarim guy Manshoon who accidentally plot convenienced all his clones awake all at the same time. but I feel like I remember playing a 'clones for the rich, oops they're fiends now' (homebrew?) campaign back in the day. might be fun to rehash that to mess with a nearby table of real-life conspiracy nuts.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Manshoon has the advantage of dating back to AD&D, where multiple clones actually (kind of) worked.
Ok, to the point of why there are liches in a world with "Clone" in it...
First there is the whole 3k gp for the diamond and the receptacle. Liches are notorious hoarders and totally unwilling to spend money on things like that.
THen you have the whole "but if I transfer to a clone, am I still me" thing that the sort of person seeking eternal life would look at and be deeply suspicious of, even if they saw it in action, because remember, liches are jerks who only care about themselves and are not always rational about it.
THen you have that whole cubic inch of flesh thing. If it was hair or collected fingernail trimmings or stuff like that, but it isn't, It is yank a chunk of flesh big enough to cripple you for about 4 months while it heals (oh, hey), just to cast a spell you aren't sure that will work and that costs a bloomin fortune.
And that ignores the other thing about a Lich that matters here: liches are in it for the power that they can get after death *as well* as eternal life. THey are Cake and eat it too types, and the cake is that living off souls is much harder to do when you have a living body.
That said...
Regular folks? Oh, hell yeah. Give them the ability to coerce a 15th level or higher wizard and you be damn sure they will...
... if the wizard has the spell. These days, I rarely see it used (like, pretty much ever outside of like four DMs I know), but traditionally a Wizard had to go out and find their spells. The value in a spell scroll wasn't that it could be cast from the scroll, originally, it was that they could add the spell to their spell books, and that was pretty much the only way to get them.
You started off with whatever your master felt like giving you, and while yo could go back to them and maybe cajole on or two more, the rest of the time you had to pay for them through the nose, trade for them, or find the in a dungeon or ruins or ancient tome long lost to the elements.
As a mechanic, it was meant to help balance Wizards because of their power -- and th DM would ultimately be the one who handed out the spells to ensure that ones they didn't like wouldn't be used or so they could modify them (to mimic the whole "independent study" thing, and the bit about how some spells are named after their creators). IT als meant that if they didn't have their spell book, they couldn't memorize any spells, so losing it was bad, but also, finding one or stealing one was good.
That was what made the Vacuous Grimoire so dangerous, and the book of infinite spells so valuable. Finding a grimoire in a treasure hoard was groan worthy for a fighter but divine providence for a Magic-User, lol.
That's old days, though. Today we have much better stuff.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
My immediate thought was yes, if you used the Possession spell, and then I remembered it doesn't exist in 5e, lol.
But in the process of remembering, it suddenly occurred to me that if someone didn't hide their container well enough, some enemy could rig a Mirror of Life Trapping up for when they emerged and, well...
But let's say that some ghost was wandering by and saw the clone. Hops in, oh, hey, cool, new skin, who dis? Original dies, and now we have a Charisma check on a DC of 13 per the ghost (though I would rule a DC of the ghosts Charisma, so 17), so a conflict of wills.
Or, one could just say the ghost is booted because that's how the spell works, but I find that less interesting and rather boring.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
No, I mean the old spell Possession. Don't have my old PHB handy, but I think it was a 7th or 8th level.
Jar would probably work for this as well, but I was thinking of the other spell that let you hop in the body of a Kobold King and direct his troops to stop killing the party.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
For comparison, here's the important part of how AD&D clone worked
This still makes Manshoon's clones illegal, but it significantly changes the way in which they're illegal (though, oddly, it does not specify what happens if two or more clones are active but the original is not, so it could be he's loopholed into legality). It also opened up plotlines where you have clones trying to kill each other.
One of many changes it took us a while to get used to, and now we are rewriting all the spells (in our group).
This thread sparked quite the conversation among my DM group!
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Magic jar and soul cage for the reduction act!
I'm kinda delirious and under the weather today. Hope it's not the newest COVID.
I wish they were a bit more inventive/ looser.
Idea for a topic!
Oh I 100% agree that clone is a fantastic plot-inspiration spell, which is why I would never argue for it to be completely removed. But it belongs on the DM side of thing so they can decide how it works in their world and how their world reacts to it.
SLEEP!
Can we figure out a way to make this scale, so that it is useful beyond level 2 or 3? The best I can figure, is to eliminate the hit point pool mechanic, and just make it a single target Con save spell, upcastable to hit multiple targets. But I'm not sure if that makes it a more powerful version of Hold Person/Monster, only as 1rst level spell... 🤔
It's just frustrating, because it's kind of a basic spell idea- I put a creature to sleep- but it's currently only useful at low levels against low level crestures. Maybe it could be limited by creature type? Because Undead don't sleep. Nor do Constructs. I dunno. I'm open to ideas though.
That's just a special case of "upcasting is bad". The spell has never been particularly useful at higher levels, though, so it's not like 5e changed it.
His was a unique spell called stasis clone which worked closer to how clones work today, the story arc was something activated them all instead of having them remain in stasis until he died where normally only one would then activate.
maybe on liches but they do get a lot of power along with being immortal. But depending on how many high level casters are in your world, sure. That is not world breaking imo, it just sets up the tone for the world where some rich and elite NPCs basically live forever.
I don't know that it is hyperboloe, the list of spells you've asked to be removed so far is pretty dang large. And so far I have not seen any examples of clone being broken. And narratives can be set up by the player as well, why do i want to steal this narrative tool from them.
I think if you look back, my rationale for the high power stuff is that it's game breaking, and that when it was proposed to leave them in a separate DM only list, I was more than happy to see it happen.
Otherwise, my proposal has been simply that we have a lot of spells. A LOT. And many of them overlap tremendously, or, are just higher levels of spells that could be revised with an upcast. It's not about removing the ability to cast spells, in fact, combining them by giving them upcasts actually means less spells you have to remember or learn to do more damage.
For me, it's about cleaning it up and having to have less to manage, but for you, (and I'm not saying these are the ones I'd combine), instead of chilling touch cone of frost, and a higher level ice spell, you just had one that upcast into the other spells, or gave you options. Then instead of 3 spells you'd have learned, you could do it with one and free up to spells for your spell book. Ones where you might take that utility spell that gets overlooked more often than not.....
That's the goal anyhow on the reduction part. (seriously. None of you have heard of "paperwork reduction act of 2014", or of 1995, or 1980, or the one of 2023? The local, state, and federal government does them all the time to just reduce the excess paperwork generated and to streamline things...)
Plus, cleaning things up helps to reveal where you have holes in your material. What AREN'T you covering... Stuff like that.
It fundamentally changes the structure of your world and society, if every lord with a castle (value at 500,000 gp) is 10,000 years old because they live forever because of clone, or likely every noble with a mansion (value at 50,000 gp in DMG) is an immortal being. I mean, why would anyone make a deal with a devil or become a vampire if you could just rob a noble and to buy an entire second life?
I mean I'm not a fan of the spell but you have a point.
I feel like to justify clone, you need to jump through a lot of hoops. As a save point is sucks, with wish or to subvert its rules it's broken, It encourages munchkin behavior, and no where does it get justification except on the DM list.
Regarding the "Clone means rich people can live forever" argument, it's ignoring a key world-building element: resource scarcity. A diamond worth 1000 gp alone ain't exactly gonna be the sort of thing one can readily find in any given market, and the components of the cask are left ambiguous enough that the DM can easily explain that making one requires another highly scarce resource. Really, this is a factor for any spell that consumes high value components; if the items are manufactured then the cost is such that they'll most likely only be made on order, creating a production bottleneck, and if they're naturally occurring then as I said the value is pretty indicative of their scarcity, and in a D&D setting that typically carries the unspoken implication that attempting to go gather the material is quite hazardous to one's health. The issue only arises if you assume the straight "gold to spell effect" handwave is what actually happens in the setting.