Willie the Duck
Hero
Thanks for explaining specifically what problem you are hoping to solve. Too many of these cantip discussions do tend to cycle around whether cantrip mages or crossbow/oil-flask-throwers 'feel' better -- which is fine, but it tends to leave us at a standstill.@Deset Gled @Pedantic Those are great questions – why not treat cantrips as objects that can be equipped as normal, or maybe requiring an action like a shield?
I know most of the past conversation, there was lots of "I don't want to be reduced to a crossbow wielding mage" or OTOH "Unlimited fire bolts really rubs me the wrong me." There was, with a few exceptions, focus on combat cantrips.
Instead, I'm more concerned about the effects that at-will cantrips have on exploration play – things like light obviating (or significantly reducing the need for) thinking about what kind of light or lack thereof would best suit this scenario, or mage hand being used to push/prod/test everything to minimize threat to the rogue. IME those are a bigger gameplay shift.
Which is where the 10 minute transition/equipping time came from. But that's just my personal thing.
I think I've seen a few OSR hacks treat spells as magic items with a slot-based inventory system, so doing that with cantrips is very possible. It's definitely a flavor change that could work better with some classes/character concepts, and worse with others...
If light and mage hand obviating certain challenges is the primary concern, what about making those specific spells 1st level spells with the ritual tag instead? If people want to do them for free, they have to wait the ten minutes (no new rules necessary).