D&D 5E Wizard Cantrips: Which are the best early on?

[Sword of Spirit]

The slowing effect allows kiting.

How? I'd like that to be true, but I'm not seeing it. If you keep moving 30' and zapping, all your opponent has to do is keeping Dashing towards you until he catches up in a couple rounds, and then you're stuck in melee or taking an opportunity attack. And you only have a 60' range to work with anyway.

 

[seebs]

How? I'd like that to be true, but I'm not seeing it. If you keep moving 30' and zapping, all your opponent has to do is keeping Dashing towards you until he catches up in a couple rounds, and then you're stuck in melee or taking an opportunity attack. And you only have a 60' range to work with anyway.

If you get to hit him for "a couple of rounds", during which he doesn't get to use his actions to attack or do anything else, then you might kill him before he reaches you. And you're tying up his attentions. You may not be able to kite forever, but kiting for a little bit is still useful.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I ran some numbers (assuming 30' speed for all parties). If you start at ray of frost's max range and hit every single time, it will be round 6 when you end your round in melee with your opponent. But if you miss twice, they will be in melee with you at the end of round 2. If you miss half of the time, they will be in melee with you at the end of round 3 or 4.

It seems weak to me compared to firebolt and chill touch. Can anyone convince me otherwise? (I want to be convinced!) Alternatively, how about a simple house rule to bring it on par with the other attack cantrips?

 

[Leatherhead]

Prestidigitation is my favorite cantrip.

Just gratuitously flash magic displays all day long.

 

[aramis erak]

I ran some numbers (assuming 30' speed for all parties). If you start at ray of frost's max range and hit every single time, it will be round 6 when you end your round in melee with your opponent. But if you miss twice, they will be in melee with you at the end of round 2. If you miss half of the time, they will be in melee with you at the end of round 3 or 4.

It seems weak to me compared to firebolt and chill touch. Can anyone convince me otherwise? (I want to be convinced!) Alternatively, how about a simple house rule to bring it on par with the other attack cantrips?

Are you accounting for the possibility of moving away by the caster and friends? If not, (and I suspect that's the case,) then you just made yourself able to get away.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Are you accounting for the possibility of moving away by the caster and friends? If not, (and I suspect that's the case,) then you just made yourself able to get away.

Sure, it has situational usefulness for things like that. It's just that it is up against some stiff competition. Firebolt has a bigger damage die and almost twice the range. Chill touch does the same damage, but has almost twice the range and a special effect that seems superior to what you get from ray of frost. Honestly, even if you gave ray of frost the same range as chill touch I'm still not sure it would pull its weight.

 

[raleel]

ray of frost at 60', move 30 for both you and the target

1. ray - you move 30, distance between you is 90
2. opponent dashes, moves 40 (20x2) distance is now 50
3. ray - you move 30, distance is 80
4. dash - distance is now 40
5. ray - you move 30, distance is 70
6. dash - distance is 30
7. ray - you move 30, distance is 60
8. dash - distance is 20
9. ray - you move 30, distance is 50
10. dash - distance is 10
11. ray - you move 30, distance is 40
12. dash - he reaches you, opponent cannot reach you without dashing if you hit him from here on out

that's not bad, but don't mess those up! This does not account for friends and the like. If you had one longstrider, you'd be pretty well immune to him reaching you and attacking and can mess it up a bit.

 

[Joe Liker]

If I, as DM, ever allow a player to pull off a "perfect kite," please take away my dice and shoot me in the head (not necessarily in that order).

 

[PnPgamer]

If you ever end up into melee,you should have some form of melee or save based cantrip. Fire bolt and other ranged cantrips suffer disadvantage in melee. Poison spray is great as it has range of 10 ft and makes the enemy to make a save, thuw it doesnt matter if you are in melee or not, and it does great damage as well. Constructs and undead are immune to it though.

Illusion cantrip is great as well. You can always create an illusion of a rock, a crate, etc and hide within the illusion, helping with the stealth based encounters.

 

[raleel]

If I, as DM, ever allow a player to pull off a "perfect kite," please take away my dice and shoot me in the head (not necessarily in that order).

This would not likely happen at my table either. The players would save the wizard, and I, as DM, would probably have someone with ranged weapons attacking the wizard. It is extremely rare for me to have a lack of ranged capability, even if ranged means "extremely high mobility and a melee weapon"