Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Cantrip Auto-Scaling - A 5e Critique
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="FrogReaver" data-source="post: 7534101" data-attributes="member: 6795602"><p>For most of the game it's a non-issue and in probably 95% of sessions people won't even be a high enough level to see cantrips doing more damage than 1st level spells cast in 1st level slots. And as we have seen player's have already devised a workaround for this problem, they just don't use 1st level spells for damage in higher levels. Though, I think, at say level 17 the 1st level damage spells not being better than cantrips is only a small piece of why we don't see them used. The bigger issue is that there's much more bang for your buck using that resource on spells like shield, tasha's hideous laughter, fog cloud, charm person, healing word, goodberry, entangle, command, bless etc. especially since most of the other 1st level spells you might cast are rituals.</p><p></p><p>So even if we could guarantee 1st level spells do more damage than cantrips they still wouldn't be used. We would have to make them do significantly better damage than current 5e cantrips and at that classes whose primary focus is damage might as well not exist from an optimization standpoint.</p><p></p><p>The only thing I think might could be done is to make most cantrips do even less damage than they currently do and to then slightly scale damage spells as you level to help make up for the difference. I wouldn't want to try this in 5e as warlocks rely on a cantrip and if we left it the same but made the others weaker then it could still be easily picked up by multiclassing. There is going to be too much fiddliness is trying to change cantrips IMO. </p><p></p><p>So I give up doing this for 5e. Maybe 6e will strike a better balance in all tiers of play between damage spells, cantrips and control and buff spells.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FrogReaver, post: 7534101, member: 6795602"] For most of the game it's a non-issue and in probably 95% of sessions people won't even be a high enough level to see cantrips doing more damage than 1st level spells cast in 1st level slots. And as we have seen player's have already devised a workaround for this problem, they just don't use 1st level spells for damage in higher levels. Though, I think, at say level 17 the 1st level damage spells not being better than cantrips is only a small piece of why we don't see them used. The bigger issue is that there's much more bang for your buck using that resource on spells like shield, tasha's hideous laughter, fog cloud, charm person, healing word, goodberry, entangle, command, bless etc. especially since most of the other 1st level spells you might cast are rituals. So even if we could guarantee 1st level spells do more damage than cantrips they still wouldn't be used. We would have to make them do significantly better damage than current 5e cantrips and at that classes whose primary focus is damage might as well not exist from an optimization standpoint. The only thing I think might could be done is to make most cantrips do even less damage than they currently do and to then slightly scale damage spells as you level to help make up for the difference. I wouldn't want to try this in 5e as warlocks rely on a cantrip and if we left it the same but made the others weaker then it could still be easily picked up by multiclassing. There is going to be too much fiddliness is trying to change cantrips IMO. So I give up doing this for 5e. Maybe 6e will strike a better balance in all tiers of play between damage spells, cantrips and control and buff spells. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Cantrip Auto-Scaling - A 5e Critique
Top