Cantrip Auto-Scaling - A 5e Critique

[FrogReaver]

Not really - improved divine smite adds to all melee weapon attacks, not just smites. The spell slot still only adds 2d8.

If all spells gained an extra die of damage at levels 5, 11, and 17 regardless of which (if any) spell slot was used, that would be equivalent. But I wouldn't want to do that, since casters are already plenty powerful.

Improved divine smite adds a total of 2d8 when using a spell slot to divine smite.

 

[cbwjm]

Improved divine smite adds nothing when using a spell slot to smite according to the latest errata. They just straight up deleted the sentence that says it does.

 

[FrogReaver]

Improved divine smite adds nothing when using a spell slot to smite according to the latest errata. They just straight up deleted the sentence that says it does.

Ah i wasn’t aware of that.

Didn’t they save a tweet or sage advice at some point stating it did add 1d8 to both?

 

[cbwjm]

Ah i wasn’t aware of that.

Didn’t they save a tweet or sage advice at some point stating it did add 1d8 to both?

Actually, I take back my statement. Even though they deleted the sentence saying it stacks with divine smite the ability still says:

By 11th level, you are so suffused with righteous might that all your melee weapon strikes carry divine power with them. Whenever you hit a creature with a melee weapon, the creature takes an extra 1d8 radiant damage.

So reading that, it doesn't look like it is checking for use of smite or not. All it is checking whether or not you hit a creature with a melee weapon. If yes, you add 1d8 damage. If you also choose to spend a slot on smite, you'd add that damage to the attack. It may have been that the deleted sentence was just causing confusion somehow.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I think, really, a better question, is why allow spells to scale up at all? Many spells scale up when using higher level slots, but a lot don't and offer no additional effect.

Spells that don't deal damage, like Grease, scale automatically with the enemy that you're fighting. If you're level 1, casting Grease in a first level slot will cause a goblin to fall prone. If you're level 10, casting Grease in a first level slot will cause a frost giant to fall prone. (Grease is actually more effective in the latter case, because frost giants have worse Dexterity saves than goblins do, and your save DC will have increased by then.) Likewise, when you're level 1, casting Shield in a first level slot might prevent 10 damage; while at level 10, casting Shield in a first level slot might prevent 40 damage.

Damage spells are the only spells that don't scale automatically with your level. Being prone, or having +5 AC, are conditions which transcend level. If you want to stop them from auto-scaling, you would have to include level caps in what they could effect, and then allow up-ranking in order to break the level cap.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Ah i wasn’t aware of that.

Didn’t they save a tweet or sage advice at some point stating it did add 1d8 to both?

The deleted sentence was redundant, and could have been confusing. Improved Divine Smite lets you add +1d8 radiant damage to all of your melee attacks, regardless of whether you spend a spell slot, and that hasn't changed.

The deleted sentence said that the extra damage was added to your Divine Smite, when you spent a spell slot, which could have been mis-interpreted to say that you got the extra +1d8 twice (once because it was a melee attack, and again because it added to your Divine Smite damage).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Actually, I take back my statement. Even though they deleted the sentence saying it stacks with divine smite the ability still says:

By 11th level, you are so suffused with righteous might that all your melee weapon strikes carry divine power with them. Whenever you hit a creature with a melee weapon, the creature takes an extra 1d8 radiant damage.

So reading that, it doesn't look like it is checking for use of smite or not. All it is checking whether or not you hit a creature with a melee weapon. If yes, you add 1d8 damage. If you also choose to spend a slot on smite, you'd add that damage to the attack. It may have been that the deleted sentence was just causing confusion somehow.

I think folks were thinking that it meant that improved divine smite added another additional d8 when you use divine smite?

 

[cbwjm]

I think folks were thinking that it meant that improved divine smite added another additional d8 when you use divine smite?

That looks to be the case. I did a check on sage advice and I think I've found the tweet that [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] was thinking of, or at least the tweet that clarifies that it is only a single +1d8 not +2d8 that Jeremy had originally stated.

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/880852301140811777

Removing the sentence should remove that ambiguity.

With all of the errata we've had, part of me wonders if I should just rebuy the core books, or at least the PHB. I think I have the 1st or 2nd printing so now, they are quite out of date. They're still useable but I can see there being possible issues when people have different printings.

 

[Azzy]

With all of the errata we've had

Heh, this is miniscule compared to some previous editions.

 

[cbwjm]

Heh, this is miniscule compared to some previous editions.

Yeah, I remember having a look through the 4e errata documents, screeds of updates. I would not be surprised if 3e/3.5e were similar in length.