I’m feeling a bit torn myself. I understand the thinking behind the vanilla rules; it helps balance out some of the spellcasters’ power, especially at higher levels. But my understanding of balance in 5e is that it’s to balance the players against each other, to avoid having 1 or 2 players be so clearly better at so much that it naturally pulls the limelight away from the rest of the party and causes people to lose interest their own character.
I think totally unrestricted spellcasting carries the potential for imbalance, but doesn’t guarantee that outcome, and if I’m not making my spellcasters manage their resources then I’m doing something wrong. Something like Matt Mercer’s house rule “spells of 2nd level or lower” would also be a good compromise because it allows the utility of things like Misty Step, or for a Gish to summon a shadow blade etc.
What do y’all do at your tables, and why?
So you actually can cast 2 leveled spells per round, even RAW, because that reaction spell would be on somebody else’s turn. Interestingly the “per turn” distinction also permits the use of sneak attack more than once per round. The limit on it is once per turn, and it’s possible to make a reaction attack that fits the requirements for sneak attack on somebody else’s turn. I was surprised when I read this in the Sage Advice compendium, but it’s because I misremembered sneak attack as being once per round.
Ah, yes, sorry. I mixed up my terminology a bit there, good catch. Every instance of “round” in my comment was supposed to be “turn”. I’ll edit it. But yes, sneak attack is also once per turn, and not round, which is very odd. It honestly seems like an oversight that just happily caused the balance for the rogue to catch up a bit. Rogue doesn’t really have any ways to consistently trigger it, and while it seems like it might be a case of “extra attacks should get the same effects as regular attacks” (if that makes sense to you) then it is extremely odd that the Barbarian’s advantage from Reckless Attack doesn’t last for the round, only for your own turn. So AoOs don’t have the advantage.
Ah ok got it. It definitely trips me up all the time as well haha.
I actually don’t mind the difference for barbarian and rogue because I see it as an additional attack and not an extra attack. So like I think treating the +1 attack from the extra attack feature differently than the use of a resource (reaction) to make an additional attack is fine mechanically. I feel like I could sit down with a player who didn’t like that ruling and give a proper reason for it besides “I’m just following the words on the page”.