What solution for "Cantrips don't feel magical"?

For me, this comes down to finding that balance between making something feel more magical or "special" and doing too much that might upset the balance and purpose of having at-will cantrips.

I agree with some of the comments that who you describe the effects can do something towards the goal of a more magical feel, but, honestly, to me it can only do so much.

A big part of this debate arises in what you consider "magical". For some of us, having magic more rare is the key factor, for others it works directly the opposite and having more of it make the world feel more magical. So I big part of it is your point of view on it. I am definitely in the "rarer" camp, personally.

Anyway, enough fluff...

For those who want it limited or rarer, I suggest using the recharge similar to monsters. I think the proficiency bonus works best. At lower levels, a proficiency bonus of 2 means the the player rolls the d6 and recharges his cantrip ability on a 1 or 2. At the highest tier, with a proficiency bonus of 6, it becomes automatic since all rolls would be 6 or less. If you want lower level characters to have a better chance initially, use ability score modifier +1 (minimum 1). So if the character is a Wizard with Int 16, they would recharge on 1-4 (modifier 3 +1).

I'll talk this over with my own group, but we might try it. Who knows...

Saelorn said:

The warlock-equivalent class can spend an action to reduce the spell slot requirement of the next spell they cast by one level, to a minimum of zero. If they're out of spell slots, then they can still cast Magic Missile, but it will take them two rounds to do it. It doesn't feel like at-will magic, because it isn't available right now; you have to wait around before it becomes available.

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How does this work in actual play? I know one of my dislikes about the Earthdawn system (on top of a lot I did like) was that casters needed to spend rounds gathering "threads" (I think they were called). So after waiting 15 minutes for your action to come up you did a gatekeeping action that made no changes to the scene, and then sat back down and waited another 15 minutes to do something.

James Grover said:

For me, this comes down to finding that balance between making something feel more magical or "special" and doing too much that might upset the balance and purpose of having at-will cantrips.

I agree with some of the comments that who you describe the effects can do something towards the goal of a more magical feel, but, honestly, to me it can only do so much.

A big part of this debate arises in what you consider "magical". For some of us, having magic more rare is the key factor, for others it works directly the opposite and having more of it make the world feel more magical. So I big part of it is your point of view on it. I am definitely in the "rarer" camp, personally.

Anyway, enough fluff...

For those who want it limited or rarer, I suggest using the recharge similar to monsters. I think the proficiency bonus works best. At lower levels, a proficiency bonus of 2 means the the player rolls the d6 and recharges his cantrip ability on a 1 or 2. At the highest tier, with a proficiency bonus of 6, it becomes automatic since all rolls would be 6 or less. If you want lower level characters to have a better chance initially, use ability score modifier +1 (minimum 1). So if the character is a Wizard with Int 16, they would recharge on 1-4 (modifier 3 +1).

I'll talk this over with my own group, but we might try it. Who knows...

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So, that's random, not rare.

You might get lucky and get cantrips every round.
You might get one and then no more.

Umbran said:

Well, we have to ask whether this was an issue of the design of magic in the system, or an issue in the design of the encounter, that left "stand back and spam the same attack repeatedly" was a fairly reasonable approach.

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That's insightful, and something that I hope other game designers keep in mind when they are coming up with systems.

NaturalZero said:

I wish the sorcerer and wizard had different spell lists. I wish the wizard was broken up into around 3 or 4 unique classes with very little spell overlap.

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The sorcerer spell list is very different than the wizard spell list. It's a small subset which leaves off several categories. You can play a wizard who can cast what the sorcerer does if they want to limit themselves, but you can't play a sorcerer who casts what the wizard casts.

Also, there was a recent thread about how all of the various full asters have their own specialities that only they can do, what is it for the wizard? http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?655640-What-can-a-wizard-do-in-that-other-casters-can-t

The big consensus is that the thing that makes the wizard special is their large and varied spell list which they can change out every day. So breaking up the wizard to 3-4 with little spell overlap will steal from the wizard the one thing that makes it unique.

Not saying you can't do it, but then every one of those 3-4 classes need to have stuff that make it unlike all of the other caster classes to justify themselves. That's a big design space and not an easy quest.

TheCosmicKid said:

Get rid of cantrips. Have a series of 1st-level spells like, eg, wand of firebolts: charges up a wand you touch for 24 hours such that it can shoot 1d10-fire-damage ranged attacks. Give full casters a bonus 1st-level spell slot.

Grognards are happy because magic is no longer "at will", wizards are happy because they don't have to lug around crossbows, everybody wins.

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This actually fits well one of the reasons for material components - so wizards can be disarmed like the martial classes for the types of stories that require it.

I'm a fan from 13th Age of various spells being daily (most powerful), per encounter (moderately powerful) or at-will (least powerful) and you just pick your spell for whatever mix you want. This is effectively a spell that becomes at-will, just with a different explanation for it.

5ekyu said:

Point me to the 24/7 part.

Over and over is not 24/7.

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"Over and over" has no ending language to it. It just keeps going over and over.

I can watch Deadpool over and over but after just a couple in a row, I am worn out.

I can eat Hershey Lisses over and over, but not 24/7.

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That's you adding end conditions, though. No such end conditions exist in the rules.

Shiroiken said:

Unfortunately, I think we really can't without a rewrite of a huge chunk of the edition. If they had set the starting baseline level at 3, with levels 1-2 being only for multi-classing and "apprentice" games, they could have gotten rid of cantrips completely (level 1 spells would take their place), and they could have overall increased the number of lower level spell slots. This would allow primary casters to be able to use spells for a majority of combat, but at the cost of utility spells, leaving them to occasionally find a non-magical option. Eventually they would "master" a few 1st level spells, turning them into cantrips, but that would be at a point where the character would feel very magical anyway.

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I disagree with this.

First, take a look at the spells cast per day in the first post. You would need to increase the number of spell slots to a ridiculous level to be able to replace all cantrip uses with spells for a 3rd level character. We're talking over 20 slots.

Second, picture that over the course of an adventuring day, all characters contribute. They do it in different ways, but I'm going to focus on a damage dealing caster vs. a damage dealing martial just so I have an apples-to-apples comparison, while in real life (real game?) there are many successful ways to contribute that aren't about damage. I'm just using damage as an example because it's got an easy number associated with it.

One type of (damage focused) character and another type of character, both with default builds, shouldn't be way out of line with each other. If over the course of a day a ranged fighter X does 400 HPs and a sorcerer X does 180 HPs (and again, nothing else - just damage), then the classes aren't balanced against each other. So we're looking for a total output that's in the same neighborhood.

High level spells do, in an action more damage then a martial. A 8d6 fireball hitting four opponents will do more damage then the Attack action of the fighter. That's fine, as long as the caster also has rounds that they do less, so at the end of the day (literally) their totals are in the same neighborhood. (Or maybe at the end of the level - there should be variations where one approach or another is better short term.)

So, if a casters to have rounds where they do less to average out with the rounds they do more, their "workhorse" needs to be less effective then that fighter. If it's 20 first level spells, each of those needs to do less.

So 1st level spells would need to be nerfed if you're going to be giving out a large number of them.

And then you have issues where low level character have very little to nova with. You get 2nd level spells being the new 1st level spells, and 1st level spells being the effective cantrips when you give them out in that profusion.

Dausuul said:

Change each cantrip into a 1st-level spell with a 1-minute duration (not concentration). Upon casting the spell, and as an action each round thereafter, you can produce the cantrip effect.

In addition, each caster receives 1 bonus 1st-level slot per level, up to a maximum of 5 at 5th level.

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So a 1st level caster can fire cantrips for three encounters, use mundaine abilities for two, and have no 1st level spells.

Or have three spells and 17 actions of mundane?

Or somewhere between - always with a lot of mundane?

Sorry, this fails one of the base criteria of not forcing casters to throw darts or whatever mundane solutiones, especially for multiple encounters.

[MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION], as you note, damage output is just one way to evaluate class balance. But to concentrate on it is really .... unfortunate. There is so much more to D&D than just combat, and so much more to combat than just damage output.

Every table will have to figure this out for themselves. Because the importance of damage output is going to vary at every table, and with each DM, and each campaign, and maybe with each session.

In the end, imo, if cantrips don't feel "magical", you need to figure out what "magical" means. Because D&D is a game that involves lots of magic, so "rarity" is a poor definition of "magical", imo. To me, the magical feeling of cantrips is about perception and description. And at my table, to get a more magical feel, I try to get myself and my players to describe magical actions using magical terms. It works for us.