somanyrobotsMore spells! Let's talk about Big Magic. Which is my own term, but means generally: some types of effects *shouldn't* be available at lower levels, because even if you can balance them, low-level magic just *can't* do that. For today: teleports!
Consider teleportation (probably the *single* biggest area I've seen this come up). Long-distance teleportation starts with Teleportation Circle at 5th level (all the distance-travel spells are 5th, 6th, or 7th). Nothing lower-level lets you achieve effects like this.
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There are lower-level teleports, but they're scaled down from the big ones. Dimension Door (4th) gives you 500 ft, Thunder Step (3rd) gives you an explosive 90 ft, and Misty Step (2nd) gives you 30. (Misty Step, while very cool, is also arguably too strong.)
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Could you write a 1st-level teleport spell and make it balanced? Probably. Make it short enough, tough enough to use, sure. But you'd be violating the established principles of magic to do so - being able to teleport is a marker of being a powerful, high-level wizard.
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This is related to what I call the wizard-laundromat problem. Namely, in any world where Prestidigitation (a cantrip) is able to fully clean clothes: there should be laundromats in every city employing apprentice mages who just do that, all day.
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A 1st-level teleport would be a giant boon to bank robbers, jailbreakers, and other criminals. It would make any building with a window horrifically insecure. All kinds of other knock-on effects. So our Big Magic rule here isn't about game balance, but *world integrity*.
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Some settings tackle this problem head-on: Eberron, notably, has wizards on every street corner, and presumably wizard laundromats too. But if you change the rules for what *type* of magic should be available at different levels, understand that you might break the game world without realizing.
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Aaron Warner@somanyrobots Eberron does indeed have magic laundromats. The Cleansing Stone is a 1ft diameter sphere, often at a tavern or town square, that anyone can use to clean their clothes.