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

[Immortal Sun]

We called it "Second Edition".

One ramification of being able to cast a Fireball is that, should circumstances warrant, you can deal a bunch of fire damage in a large area. Another ramification of being able to cast a Fireball is that you know you can cast Fireball, and others may believe that you can, so that changes how everyone acts in your presence.

If you walk into a public place and start waving a gun around, the fact that you have a gun has a strong influence on everybody present, whether or not you ever actually use it. The firing is a rather small part of the experience.

Your gun analogy is flawed on the grounds that without demonstrating your magical ability, only the player knows their character is capable of magic. A wizard isn't a gun. A wizard is an elf, or a human, or a dwarf or whatever, with a concealed carry permit. But if that person never reveals that they have such a permit, or that they're carrying, then that "wizard" is really just any other person.

 

[Maxperson]

In two different threads recently there were comments that Cantrips make magic too common, so it doesn't feel magical. They were often accompanied by ideas to restrict the number of cantrips per rest.

The issue for me is that there are a lot more actions per day then skill slots, all the way up through 20th. Here's a breakdown I did in an earlier thread:



The baseline we have from this is that casters will be mostly not-spells until double digits, and even at 20 will still have a good chunk of actions more than spell slots.

Back in pre-cantrip editions casters needed to default to mundane solutions - wizards throwing darts, etc. Using mundane solutions also does not make casters feel magical.

The idea of a few cantrips per day doesn't work - it still leaves mundane solutions for most actions until the highest of levels.

So how do we combine the contradictory ideas that (a) at-will magic makes magic feel mundane that several people have stated, and (b) have that casters can contribute meaningfully in a magical way without having to resort to mundane actions? I don't think a direct compromise works, so what solutions orthogonal to mundane=mundane and at-will=mundane can we find?

Well, when I play a mundane combatant, there often rounds where I am just moving to reach an enemy and cannot attack. Say 1 round per combat. So you can subtract 5 right there from the spellcaster's daily castings. You don't have to cast a spell in every round of a combat. 1 round to move or do something else seems reasonable.

 

[Umbran]

It reminds me of an observation on of my players made after our last session. He is playing two characters, a wood-elf fighter (archer) and a tiefling warlock. At one point, both characters were standing side-by-side towards the back of the room, one shooting arrows, the other casting eldritch blasts... over and over and over. He basically just felt like he was doing the same thing constantly and it was a bit of a let-down. Certainly not "magical" feeling...

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.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't believe you can do it completely. If at-will magic makes magic feel less special, then provide an option that is magical and not mundane will not work.

You can increase slots, but if you increase them enough so that they always have magic available it is really the same as having at-will cantrips.

Similar, but not the same. If they are slots, then you are watching resources dry up, even if you can cast every round. Spell levels go away one by one. It alters the feel from unlimited magical power, to limited magical power.

 

[Maxperson]

We solve it by,not accepting that casting a spell isnt magical enough because its a canttip.

Is swinging a sword not martial enough?

Also, frankly, i see more bonus action use for soells after the first than you tend to calculate and canttips have to help out there - so even more castings.

But a key thing i have seen is that at most levels beyond very early, the cantrip is often chosen for its conditions with damage the add-on.

Cast a spell which hurts and gives disadvantage on an attack, costs them reactions, slows them and prevents healings for a short window of opportunity... in any other efition those would be considered "magical" so why not here?

If you choose to see them as "not magical enough" tell us what elements of "magical" are missing?

Your premise is flawed here. It isn't that a spell isn't magical enough because it's a cantrip, anymore than a sword not being martial enough. The issue is that cantrips are unlimited. Even if you gave a 1st level wizard 26 slots so that he had a slot for every single round in the OP, it would still feel far more like magic due to the limited nature of the slots. There are 14,400 rounds in a day. With spell slots 26 rounds(2 minutes 36 seconds) into the day you are done. With cantrips as they currently stand, 14,400 cantrip castings later you are still going strong.

 

[Dausuul]

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.

 

[5ekyu]

Your premise is flawed here. It isn't that a spell isn't magical enough because it's a cantrip, anymore than a sword not being martial enough. The issue is that cantrips are unlimited. Even if you gave a 1st level wizard 26 slots so that he had a slot for every single round in the OP, it would still feel far more like magic due to the limited nature of the slots. There are 14,400 rounds in a day. With spell slots 26 rounds(2 minutes 36 seconds) into the day you are done. With cantrips as they currently stand, 14,400 cantrip castings later you are still going strong.

So, a sword or bow is *martial enough* even tho i can swing it every round i need to during the day...
And spells from slots are "magical enough" even if i can cast one every round i need to during a day...
But cantrips are not "magical enough" because in theory i can cast them during other times of the day beyond those cases where i could have cast spells?

Fine, then easy solution - you can only cast 1000 cantrips after all your spells slots are expended.

then you have incredibly magical cantrips where you will not be able to cast them some say conservatively 6000 times a day.

Surely losing 6000 times a day earns them more "magical flavor".

After all, those cantrips cast while i am sleeping really kills the mood, right?

Sorry, but if for you its really a serious issue that you can theoretically cast cantrips all day long due to there not being a hard and fast limit put on them (even tho the DMG endorses other rulings on things like that) then we are playing very very different games with very very different definitions.

In my experience as Gm and player, i have never once had the issue of "how many cantrips can i cast during off-times" become a game-play at-the-table issue that bothered folks.

But then, hey, your game is clearly different and thats cool!

 

[Maxperson]

So, a sword or bow is *martial enough* even tho i can swing it every round i need to during the day...

Does it make sense for a PC to be able to swing multiple pounds of metal around every few seconds for an entire day? It doesn't to me. So yes, it would seem VERY wrong to me for that to happen.

And spells from slots are "magical enough" even if i can cast one every round i need to during a day...
But cantrips are not "magical enough" because in theory i can cast them during other times of the day beyond those cases where i could have cast spells?

I don't know where you are getting "Not magical enough" from. The problem is not a lack of magic, but too much magic.

Fine, then easy solution - you can only cast 1000 cantrips after all your spells slots are expended.

That's marginally less unreasonable I guess. But I wouldn't let a fighter swing a sword for a 1000 rounds, either.

 

[Yunru]

But I wouldn't let a fighter swing a sword for a 1000 rounds, either.

Why not? That's 100 minutes, not even two hours.

 

[MarkB]

Does it make sense for a PC to be able to swing multiple pounds of metal around every few seconds for an entire day? It doesn't to me. So yes, it would seem VERY wrong to me for that to happen.

And yet, you don't seem to be advocating a game-mechanical change to prevent it from happening. If you're happy to leave those rules as they are, either because you know it's never, ever going to come up in-game or because you're happy that you'd be able to make a ruling on it in the highly unlikely event that it did occur, why do you feel uncomfortable applying precisely the same reasoning to cantrips?