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

[Maxperson]

On another note, I think this is a great argument to get rid of the Vancian casting system. If the spellcasting system used points instead of "slots", you could simply say any Cantrip costs 1 point. So a player could either make a caster with an "at will" magic approach, similar to a fighter where every round they get to cast a small spell and will rarely, if ever run out; or a player could build a "nova" caster who could fire off some big stuff, but do very little of it.

You could add a similar system for martials "fatigue", which would accomplish [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s goals of limiting physical exertion. Similarly, a martial could use maneuvers which take up larger amounts of fatigue in order to replicate the options of "make lots of little hits" or "make a few really big hits".

Though at this point you're basically using the Elder Scrolls system. Which I think is a darn fine system.

I was a huge fan of the 3e psionic system. I love points based casting.

 

[cbwjm]

I was a huge fan of the 3e psionic system. I love points based casting.

I hated the 3e psionic system, for psionics, for magic users instead of psionics it would have been great.

 

[Maxperson]

I hated the 3e psionic system, for psionics, for magic users instead of psionics it would have been great.

How come?

 

[Immortal Sun]

I was a huge fan of the 3e psionic system. I love points based casting.

I tend to prefer points-based everything, since I appreciate the more granular and universal approach.

 

[cbwjm]

How come?

To me it felt too much like spellcasting, even to the point where it had the 9 spell levels. If had dropped the 9 levels that may have fixed most of what I felt was wrong with it. I recall some of the powers felt more spell like than mental powers as well. It's almost like they looked at magic and thought "this is magic, let's take every thing it can do and put a psionic spin on it." They even had familiars.

I honestly felt it was a poorly thought out psionic system which would have made for a great magic system.

 

[Maxperson]

To me it felt too much like spellcasting, even to the point where it had the 9 spell levels. If had dropped the 9 levels that may have fixed most of what I felt was wrong with it. I recall some of the powers felt more spell like than mental powers as well. It's almost like they looked at magic and thought "this is magic, let's take every thing it can do and put a psionic spin on it." They even had familiars.

I honestly felt it was a poorly thought out psionic system which would have made for a great magic system.

It did feel a bit like another magic class to me as well, which was a minor annoyance. I absolutely loved the spell point system, and how powers got stronger or even changed a bit depending on how many points you put in. I found that making it a completely different sort of power helped with the feel. Magic resistance had no chance of stopping psionic powers, and vice versa.

 

[MoonSong]

No, that doesn't work for me like the wand idea does. Casters would just always leave a slot filled and there would be no effective difference.

counter offer: "you can cast cantrips freely as long as you have spell slots available of the highest level you can cast. Once you run out of spell slots of the highest level you can cast, you cannot cast cantrips"?

I'm not a fan of the wand idea because it makes playing a sorcerer moot. Ok, not for all intents and purposes, but it is hard to feel inherently magical when you need a golfbag of wands to cast simple magic, and them "running out of batteries" -and why is it identical to the way the one that wasn't born magical does it?-. That sounds way more like using gadgets than "I was born a witch". I mean you could easily refluff it into being a smartphone and each spell is an app with limited uses.

 

[Wiseblood]

I see a lot of cantrips used at my table. A lot. There is very little difference between a crossbow bolt and fire bolt.

I like cantrips and I hate them.

They provide a zero cost “magic effect” that scales. This does some things that I don’t like.

1) Ridiculously powerful classes called spellcasters have one less check in power. Shielding the same from managing resources that should have balanced out the curve.

2) They give players that have a bad loadout something pretty good to do. which should have offset the times when the loadout was the “I win button”.

3) They are cheap shot at classes that get stuck with the grunt work of getting hit and buying arrows. The people that actually should get scaling damage.

Now for why I love them.

1) I would use them.

2) People that can fly, become invisible, cure bilndness and so on have one less thing to piss and moan about when they haven’t rested in the last fifteen minutes.

3) While they didn’t eliminate the 15 minute workday they gave players something that kept them from having to lug around a few actual weapons.

The solution I propose, Nerf them. A free resource that is all but inexhaustible (and weightless) should be less powerful than a dagger Magic or no magic. It should also be very limited in flexibility too. Cantrips are the Druid animal companion of 5e. They are better than an entire suite of class abilities and you get them from the word go.

That said, if they exist, they should do magical stuff. Things that can’t be done normally. Just smaller and more low keyed instead of blasting stuff and melting stuff. As far as warlocks and sorcerers go give them the arcane versions of channel divinity. No one can cherry pick that...right?

 

[Maxperson]

counter offer: "you can cast cantrips freely as long as you have spell slots available of the highest level you can cast. Once you run out of spell slots of the highest level you can cast, you cannot cast cantrips"?

Hmm. This makes has much more appeal to me. The highest level slots are precious, so reserving one would have an impact. I'm going to have to think about this for a bit.

I'm not a fan of the wand idea because it makes playing a sorcerer moot. Ok, not for all intents and purposes, but it is hard to feel inherently magical when you need a golfbag of wands to cast simple magic, and them "running out of batteries" -and why is it identical to the way the one that wasn't born magical does it?-. That sounds way more like using gadgets than "I was born a witch". I mean you could easily refluff it into being a smartphone and each spell is an app with limited uses.

I don't think it makes a sorcerer moot, but it does sort of push a little against the idea that sorcerers have inherent power.

 

[WhosDaDungeonMaster]

"The issue for me is that there are a lot more actions per day then skill ("spell") slots, all the way up through 20th."

"So it looks like there's a lot of cantrip use. The majority of casting will be cantrips until reaching 9th, and even high levels will be doing it some."

"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."

"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."

Here is my final idea. It does result in many more spell slots as level increases, of course, but they aren't guaranteed. There is a cost associated with it (bonus action) and you can't use it to recover spells cast as reactions or on someone else's turn.

Recover Spell Slot: As a bonus action, you can attempt to recover the spell slot of the spell you have just cast on your turn. Make a check using your spellcasting ability modifier plus your proficiency bonus. The DC equals 10 plus 3 for every level of the Spell Slot you wish to recover. (Note: you can adjust the base DC and multiplier to get more or less slots, but for me these worked best and are represented in the table below. If you want to restrict this further, make it an action on the round after you cast the spell.)

The end result, at Tier 3 and especially 4, you have slots available even for the longest of days before your Long Rest. At lower levels, you are still going to use cantrips, but hey, you are just beginning, after all. The table shows the total revised number of slots you can expect by Level and Spell Level (checks begin at +4 for Level 1 and finish at +11 at Level 20).



This addresses having fewer slots than actions per day at higher levels. It doesn't make sense to have more slots than actions at lower levels IMO.
The majority of spells will no longer be cantrips (except at the lowest levels) unless you have an incredibly busy day LOL!
Depending on the number of encounters per day, even by 6th level you might have enough slots for all your actions.
There are not likely to be mundane actions as slots are more plentiful but not certain and come at a cost.
Cantrips are not reduced, just now there is the potential for many more slots, particularly at higher levels, granting more chances for utility spells and such.

Finally, you can adjust the concept as you see fit, giving more or less spell slots, that works best for your group.