You are kind of making my point for me. You are saying that you only want to cast fireball. As I previously stated cooldowns make you rely on a more broader set of tactics, than just casting the "best spell" of that level every time, only deviating when you have a fight that has resistance to that spell. It also doesn't become OP, if you know that every encounter everyone will have access to all their abilities everytime, you can ramp up encounters to be more challenging, and take out small encounters that would be utterly meaningless. Also the other side gets the same access that you do. Nobody twiddles their thumbs in other games with cooldowns, waiting for the right one to come off CD, this is not a good faith argument at all.
One of the things as a DM/GM you always have to consider when making encounters is how difficult to make them. if you just make them all the same challenge rating, when they have to do multiple fights back to back in a dungeon, your party will either run thru it, or die horribly. Setting up pace and balance of encounters is a huge timesink, and in PnP you can at least make adjustments on the fly.
Also if you really need to cast that fireball a 2nd time, it will come off of cooldown in time for you to use it again, or you might have to adapt to the battle, because the enemies aren't grouped anymore.
I think you are so convinced cooldowns are the best you are refusing to see the problem. If you use cooldowns, it makes martial classes obsolete. They are already weaker as you increase levels but once you allow full casters to cast their most powerful spells every encounter, it's over. Why bring a fighter when a caster can do more to more mobs every time? My example only included fireball as an example. Your entire argument is about fireball alone. That wasn't the purpose of my argument. There's plenty of other wizard spells as you progress that completely outclasses what a martial class can bring if they can use it in every encounter. That's why they are balanced so they can't be used all the time.
Dude, people wait for cooldowns to recharge all the time. If the spell is powerful enough, people will wait. Play MMOs and you'll see.
So what you are saying is, you want Diablo-esque gameplay where you blow up large groups of mobs. Drop a fireball, then lightning bolt. While you are at it, once you reach level 7, toss in an ice storm. Wait for recharge and repeat to the next encounter. How very tactical.
If you are using 5e rules, you can't use cooldowns without compromising the balance. Otherwise, it's a totally different system.
MMOs are not quite the same, and even so mmos use skill rotations. Mmos are also not turn based, they are real-time.
You are also being overly dramatic. You used 1 spell to emphasize a point, I used the same setting of the situation you put forth, for discussion.
Walk into every battle with only casters, and see if you can actually win fights. There is more to a battle than straight DPS. That’s why the holy trinity is a mainstay of the genre. Tank, healer and DPS.
Even if glass cannon nuke was a viable strategy, your argument holds no water, because you can in fact do that in the current system anyways. Your point is not a counter point at all, because it is not exclusive to the opposition of your point. It’s like arguing that Pepsi is better than coke because it comes in cans, they both come in cans.
Obviously some changes to the system would have to be made to incorporate a different mechanic, like I said it would have to adapt. I never said that it wouldn’t change things, but D&D is more than the some of its parts. The fact that it’s been updated on the PnP side should make that clear.
You can replace the sail on a ship, that doesn’t make it a new ship, or not the ship it once was. Chances are you prolly have to or should replace the rigging at the same time.
Also, I have never seen a DPS waiting for a cool down, twiddling thumbs, since you are talking about spamming dps spells. Supports will wait for cool downs, but that’s in any system, and they won’t AA while waiting because it’s not worth drawing aggro.
