D&D 5E Potent Cantrip and Hoard of the Dragon Queen

Mort · Aug 11, 2014

Much (well a little) has been made of the fact Potent Cantrip (The Invoker's 6th level ability) is to put it mildly - underwhelming. It affects exactly 2 (as far as I can tell) of the Wizard's cantrips - Acid Splash and Poison Spray.

But in Hoard of the Dragon Queen - there is an invoker (he's not named as such, but he has Potent cantrips, sculpt spells and lots of evocation spells) who has the ability potent cantrips (yes it has an s attached) that has additional wording to that of the basic rules and the PHB. His ability reads:

When ... casts an evocation cantrip and misses, or the target succeeds on a saving throw, the target still takes half the cantrip's damage but suffers no other effect.

The bolded part is the big (and really only) change from the basic rules or the PHB. This change, however, applies to many more of the cantrips, and further allows the part of "...suffers no other effect" to actually make sense: neither Acid Splash nor Poison Spray (the only 2 cantrips that seem to apply) have any other effect.

Obviously specific beats general and thus, this guy can just be an exception to the regular rule because the stat block says so, but the wording here just makes so much more sense.

I was honestly thinking of tweeting Mearls on this, but figure he has a lot more important things on his mind with GenCon coming up!

Thoughts?

Paraxis · Aug 11, 2014

More than likely it is from a pre-release version of the rules that KQ had to work with when making the adventure, there is bound to be a couple things like that.

I imagine they changed it because of all the damage on a miss fallout over the old great weapon fighting style, I like damage on a miss mechanics personally and like this version of potent cantrip better.

To me a miss is not a miss, it just means you missed hitting the target number on your roll, and a hit is not a hit it just means you meet or beat your target number. Same way when you take damage you don't always get injured, these things are just game terms.

vecna00 · Aug 11, 2014

I honestly wondered about that ability, because in the Basic rules it applies to exactly zero Wizard cantrips. So I thought it may have been an error or there would be many more cantrips that it would apply to...which is now two! It could be worth a tweet or forum post for clarification.

Mort · Aug 11, 2014

Paraxis said:
More than likely it is from a pre-release version of the rules that KQ had to work with when making the adventure, there is bound to be a couple things like that.

I imagine they changed it because of all the damage on a miss fallout over the old great weapon fighting style, I like damage on a miss mechanics personally and like this version of potent cantrip better.

To me a miss is not a miss, it just means you missed hitting the target number on your roll, and a hit is not a hit it just means you meet or beat your target number. Same way when you take damage you don't always get injured, these things are just game terms.

That's a good thought, and quite likely, they could have put the adventure to press before the change in the PHB and then figured no point in changing it now.

That said, I'm with you, I have no problem with DoaM and think this version of the ability makes much more sense. It will likely be relevant since one of my players is heavily leaning toward invoker.

Psikerlord# · Aug 11, 2014

Mort said:
That's a good thought, and quite likely, they could have put the adventure to press before the change in the PHB and then figured no point in changing it now.

That said, I'm with you, I have no problem with DoaM and think this version of the ability makes much more sense. It will likely be relevant since one of my players is heavily leaning toward invoker.

Yep the devs screwed that ability when they changed it to saves only, and even forgot that it then applied to no spells in the starter set, which is rather sad. It appears the module has the old, more useful, version.

Li Shenron · Aug 11, 2014

Mort said:
When ... casts an evocation cantrip and misses, or the target succeeds on a saving throw, the target still takes half the cantrip's damage but suffers no other effect.

Paraxis said:
More than likely it is from a pre-release version of the rules that KQ had to work with when making the adventure, there is bound to be a couple things like that.

I'm not sure, but I was rather thinking that the adventure's text is actually more recent, and they forgot to update the Basic/PHB text.

Or it might be as you say, that they changed it because of the DoaM controversy... however DoaM for spells has been there forever in D&D (see Fireball and all spells where you still get half damage on a successful save).

Prism · Aug 11, 2014

Li Shenron said:
Or it might be as you say, that they changed it because of the DoaM controversy... however DoaM for spells has been there forever in D&D (see Fireball and all spells where you still get half damage on a successful save).

I agree with your reasoning. Once the melee types don't do DoaM then I assume they cleaned up the wizard evoker too.

The way I see it, all the save for half spells are area spells (filling squares if you like) whereas the ranged attack spells are hurled bolts and orbs which could sail past and miss completely. I'm sure there are exceptions to this but works for me

Tony Vargas · Aug 11, 2014

Paraxis said:
More than likely it is from a pre-release version of the rules that KQ had to work with when making the adventure, there is bound to be a couple things like that.

I imagine they changed it because of all the damage on a miss fallout over the old great weapon fighting style, I like damage on a miss mechanics personally and like this version of potent cantrip better.

Nod. The feature is just about nonsensical - an Evocation-speciality benefit that only works on conjuration spells - as a result. I'm surprised they didn't change the evocation cantrips to just forcing DEX saves.

Sadrik · Aug 11, 2014

A successful attack roll is not an I connect with you and therefore I do damage it is a my attack had enough strength to puncture your defenses (AC). I can buy DoaM effects. Others could not.

Related too, I liked all spells causing a save to resist. Some people objected and then they added attacks for spells in. If they left them all as saves then the evocation school feature would have been fine too.

Mort · Aug 11, 2014

Interesting note which I hadn't looked up earlier:

The Alpha document has the damage on a miss language.

This makes it even more likely that the language was changed at the last minute and they just forgot, or didn't have time, to add some more cantrips that make the new language relevant.

Edit: As a side note, I plan to run the rules set as straight as possible initially, but if my player goes with Evocation focus - I'll definitely keep the damage on a miss language in.

D&D 5E Potent Cantrip and Hoard of the Dragon Queen

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