Cantrip Auto-Scaling - A 5e Critique

epithet · Dec 10, 2018

FrogReaver said:
I don’t like the idea of a wizard casting a spell and cantrip ona single turn. I’d rather see 1 stronger spell than a spell and a cantrip.

What if you replaced each low level spell you think lags behind with a spell that achieves the same effect as an augmentation of a cantrip? So burning hands might require the caster to know produce flame, and you cast the cantrip and the spell together as an action. The burning hands spell description would become "You hold your hands with thumbs touching and fingers spread, and cast produce flame using a spell slot. Instead of a single flame, you produce a thin sheet of flames that shoots forth from your outstretched fingertips. Each creature in a 15-foot cone must make a Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes the cantrip damage plus 2d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one." And so forth.

Edit: A much simpler way would be to keep the damage at 3d6, and change the "At Higher Level" text:
This spell’s damage increases by 1d6 when you reach 5th level (4d6), 11th level (5d6), and 17th level (6d6). When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 1st.
You are obviously boosting your caster's damage output significantly, so you would need to compensate elsewhere.

Radaceus · Dec 10, 2018

Blasted! I did miss Ray of Frost!

Zardnaar · Dec 10, 2018

Damage dealing spells should probably auto scale, they just don't need to auto scale at the same rate they used to 1D/level so having them scale like cantirps wouldn't break much.

Compared to other spells DD isn't exactly great dealing less damage than it used to (except at lower level) generally and vs stuff with 2 or 3 times its hp.

doctorbadwolf · Dec 10, 2018

FrogReaver said:
Why is everyone making points to me about things I am not saying?

Since this is so difficult Let’s start here, should a level 1 spell be better than a cantrip? I think he natural answer is yes. One takes a resource one doesn’t.

I think resource using abilities should be more than useless and low level damage spells eventually become useless. Compare that with utility spells or status effect spells and they are all useful in the early levels and later levels.

So how much would low level spells damage need to scale to accomplish this. Level 3 and up spells I think are fine. Level 1 and 2 spells need somewhere between 1 and 3 damage dice (or # of attacks for multi attacking spells) in order to remain an option later.

I don't think people are missing or ignoring your point. They get what you're saying, and disagree with the premises, and are trying to explain to you why that is.

Cantrips get better as you level, while spells get potentially better by way of slot scaling. What people are saying in this thread is that this is a good thing, and no, we don't think the game would be better if it weren't the case.

James Grover said:
While 1st and 2nd level spells have static damage (unless using the higher slots), they often deal comparable damage to the cantrips from 11th and higher levels, but many times to multiple targets instead of only one, as most cantrips do. At the highest tier, a cantrip will average about 18 points of damage (some more, some less) to a single target, always requiring either an attack roll or failed save or the target suffers no damage at all.

While nearly all 1st level spells will do less than 18 damage, their power comes from the fact that many still do half damage at a minimum, affect multiple targets, have additional effects, deal damage automatically (no attack roll or save allowed), and so on. So, while the 3d6 damage from Burning Hands, for instance, is less than a potentially 4d10 Firebolt, the Burning Hands could hit 3 or more targets, and deals half damage even if they make their save. Oddly enough, 2nd levels spells do even less damage overall than 1st. But, again, the extras of the spells can make up for it. 2nd level also has very nice utility spells which are often more interesting.

Doing damage on a miss is big. Hitting without any save or attack roll is big. Hitting a lot of opponents is big.

But the thing is, most 1st and 2nd level spells only need 1 or two levels of upcasting to be significantly above cantrips, and still have all those benefits that cantrips don't. That's good. It's also good that you have so many of them at higher levels that you can throw a burning hands at a hallway of enemies without worrying about the expenditure of resources.

Lastly, by the level at which cantrips outperform 2nd level spells in particular, 1st and 2nd level spells are effectively unlimited for any full caster but Warlocks, and Warlocks are built with the knowledge that you need to look ahead to slot scaling when choosing your spells.

FrogReaver · Dec 10, 2018

doctorbadwolf said:
I don't think people are missing or ignoring your point. They get what you're saying, and disagree with the premises, and are trying to explain to you why that is.

Cantrips get better as you level, while spells get potentially better by way of slot scaling. What people are saying in this thread is that this is a good thing, and no, we don't think the game would be better if it weren't the case.

Doing damage on a miss is big. Hitting without any save or attack roll is big. Hitting a lot of opponents is big.

But the thing is, most 1st and 2nd level spells only need 1 or two levels of upcasting to be significantly above cantrips, and still have all those benefits that cantrips don't. That's good. It's also good that you have so many of them at higher levels that you can throw a burning hands at a hallway of enemies without worrying about the expenditure of resources.

Lastly, by the level at which cantrips outperform 2nd level spells in particular, 1st and 2nd level spells are effectively unlimited for any full caster but Warlocks, and Warlocks are built with the knowledge that you need to look ahead to slot scaling when choosing your spells.

Then let me try to explain this. Saying a level 1 spell upcast using a 2nd or 3rd level spellslot does more damage than a cantrip and that this makes up for level 1 spells not doing more damage than a cantrip when cast as a level 1 spell might be the silliest counter-point I've ever read. It doesn't address my reasons at all. It's basically talking past me.

A level 1 spell is an ability that requires a spell slot resource to use. Such an ability can be used with a level 1 spell slot resource. Anything that takes a flipping resource should do more than something that doesn't (common sense game design 101). That's what's being said and that's why it's silly to talk about upscaling as any kind of counter point to this.

FrogReaver · Dec 10, 2018

Mouseferatu said:
You mean the same way cantrips--which have their own feature name, are in the PHB, and we've been playing with for years--seem perfectly elegant to you now?

Strangely when I opened this thread I was blaming the cantrip auto scaling for making first level damage spells bad. After some discussion I've realized it's simply the lack of auto scaling for low level damage spells. I didn't realize that initially because auto-scaling spells is a big boogeyman.

So yes, cantrips are plenty elegant. They make you feel magical from level 1 on. They give you a decent baseline at will ability. What's inelegant is having some resource expenditure options be worse than if you hadn't spent the resource in question on that option at all. In other words, auto-scaling damage spells isn't the boogeyman we make it out to be. Older editions implementation of such mechanics were the true culprit. We all agree that we don't want quadratic wizards, but minor auto-scaling of damage isn't going to cause that.

FrogReaver · Dec 10, 2018

CapnZapp said:
*shrug*

Low level spells don't need more damage. Just stop using damage-dealing spells in low-level slots.

Yep, that's what I do in play because low level spells in low level slots do less than I can do with my cantrip. That doesn't solve the issue though. The issue is that an option that requires a resource should always be better than an option that doesn't.

Zardnaar · Dec 10, 2018

FrogReaver said:
Strangely when I opened this thread I was blaming the cantrip auto scaling for making first level damage spells bad. After some discussion I've realized it's simply the lack of auto scaling for low level damage spells. I didn't realize that initially because auto-scaling spells is a big boogeyman.

So yes, cantrips are plenty elegant. They make you feel magical from level 1 on. They give you a decent baseline at will ability. What's inelegant is having some resource expenditure options be worse than if you hadn't spent the resource in question on that option at all. In other words, auto-scaling damage spells isn't the boogeyman we make it out to be. Older editions implementation of such mechanics were the true culprit. We all agree that we don't want quadratic wizards, but minor auto-scaling of damage isn't going to cause that.

Auto scaling direct damage spells have not been a big problem since about 1E (2E capped them). They haven't been that good either since 2E. The Warmage in 3.5 was really broken right, ban that crap now!!!

FrogReaver · Dec 10, 2018

Hussar said:
I question the OP's basic premise actually. The basic premise is that cantrips become more damaging than 1st and 2nd level spells. So, in play, we're likely limited to cantrips doing 3d10 for the most part, no? Very high level play doesn't come up all that often, so, for the sake of argument, let's ignore it.

1st level wizard spell damage:

Burning Hands 3d6 to multiple targets (considerably more damaging than any cantrip)
Magic Missile 3d4+3 no saving throw and no failure. Probably on par with a cantrip really.
Thunderwave - 2d8 to up to potentially 48 targets (extremely unlikely, but, that is the maximum) (far more powerful than any cantrip)

So, other than magic missile, all the direct damage wizard spells at 1st level are still considerably more effective than any single cantrip.

This is actually the path I originally thought this discussion would go down. Not about whether the logic I used to derive my result was valid, but instead if things like aoe and auto hit and half damage on miss, etc, were enough to make up for the lower damage values (maybe they are) and also if simply doing more damage than a cantrip was the accurate formulation of what we desired or if that's just caveman speak for a bit harder to convey idea. Maybe what we are really trying to ask is, "is the damage + special properties of a 1st level damage spell, sufficiently better than a cantrip that a 1st level spell slot resource should be required for it?

Clearly if a spell does less damage than a cantrip then a resource shouldn't be needed for it. But if the spell does 1d6 damage more than a cantrip is that actually enough to make me ever use it over the cantrip? I don't think that would ever be enough later to make me use the resource over the free option

So ultimately, low level spells may have to scale much to high in damage to be sufficiently higher damage than a cantrip and sufficiently lower damage than higher lever spells.

Horwath · Dec 10, 2018

CapnZapp said:
Addendum: to answer how to actually fix it, my best suggestion is to limit the number of cantrips you can use.

Perhaps something as simple as "you can cast a number of cantrips equal to your spellcasting ability modifier +3. You regain all spent uses after taking a short or long rest".

This might not change much from your perspective, but it does change the balance slightly (in the favor of spells over cantrips).

But mostly it fixes a personal bugbear of mine - how casters can cast Firebolt or Acid Splash all day long, every round for hours on end, and how this breaks world verisimiltude. Need to dispose of a corpse? Just dissolve it with an endless number of acid cantrips! Need to break out of sheriff's jail? Just burn a hole in the wall! After all, a "cantrip" than can kill a grown man in one or two blasts (a commoner), can't be said to have "no effect" on the environment! *blech*

Please don't.

Main reason why wizards that I played in 3rd ed were elves is that when you run out of spells shooting a bow is like 6 categories less demeaning than shooting a crossbow every other round.

Man, did I have a relief when Complete Mage was published with reserve feats...

Cantrip Auto-Scaling - A 5e Critique

epithet

Explorer

Radaceus

Adventurer

Zardnaar

Legend

doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

Zardnaar

Legend

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

Horwath

Legend

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