D&D 5E Limiting Cantrips?

[jmartkdr2]

Not to be negative, but overall I'm not a fan. That said, I have seen:

• Proficiency bonus cantrips per short rest.
• Double 1st level spells as cantrips per long rest.

Since I don't really care for the idea of limiting cantrips I can't really speak towards how effective the rules were. They both felt about the same to me, which is to say like casters were less... well, just less. But that was kind of the design goal. Ultimately people just stuck with light crossbows, and it kind of felt like it didn't matter much except to make Dex even better. I just always played a martial character in those two campaigns (run by the same DM).

It made more sense in the second campaign because it was a "magic is dying" storyline, but in the end the only full caster was a Valor or Sword Bard. So to me it felt like it just discouraged players from taking caster classes.

Not for nothing, but: if the goal is to make magic feel more rare ans special, discouraging characters who can use magic all the time (and thus encouraging characters for whom magic is a truly special ability and not the baseline) isn't a flaw: it's proof the system is working.

Well, it's working if the players knowingly and willingly signed up for it.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Well, they didn't "sign up for it" so much as we had a discussion about it, and even the players with casters felt spamming cantrips each round was too much. Some concerns came up, so we gave it a trial run, and it worked well for us.

I will say this: I've never really seen a pc 'spam' cantrips other than a warlock. Most casters use leveled spells unless there's no reason to (ie we're at the mop-up phase of combat / there's no risk). If they didn't have cantrips, they'd be more likely to dodge than use a crossbow.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

0

I will say this: I've never really seen a pc 'spam' cantrips other than a warlock. Most casters use leveled spells unless there's no reason to (ie we're at the mop-up phase of combat / there's no risk). If they didn't have cantrips, they'd be more likely to dodge than use a crossbow.

Same here.
Most combats don't last long enough to spam them.
Being able to use minor illusion or guidance at will is a much bigger advantage in our games. But we actually use it very not so much that limits like prof bonus per day or so won't really hurt a lot.
Probably proficiency bonus per day would fit with quite well with the updated rules.

I am really curious how they will change the warlock and bardic inspiration (lvl5 +)
I imagine they might also be tied to proficiency bonus.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I just hope that the people who want to remove attack cantrips aren't also the same people who get mad about dump stats? Because if you are going to require all of your casters to shoot crossbows in combat you're going to see another uptick in DEX-heavy characters.

At least having attack cantrips that use your spellcasting stat makes the need for DEX being your second-highest stat less of an imperative. I mean, it's still going to be a popular ability score... but it just isn't AS necessary than if you were stuck using ranged weapons all the time.

I firmly believe that all classes should either be SAD or MAD, not a mix.

So, no, it doesn't bother me at all. Or throwing daggers, wielding a staff, &c.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I will say this: I've never really seen a pc 'spam' cantrips other than a warlock. Most casters use leveled spells unless there's no reason to (ie we're at the mop-up phase of combat / there's no risk). If they didn't have cantrips, they'd be more likely to dodge than use a crossbow.

Experiences differ, of course.

I saw repeated: Sacred Flame, Toll the Dead, Firebolt, and others often.

Basically, before the change, casters were just attacking most the time, like martials, but were attacking with cantrips. Now we see more leveled spells being cast so it helped.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

FWIW, my group only limits damage-causing cantrips (which we call jinxes). All other cantrips are still at will.

Do you also limit the fighter to how many times they can use their big weapon? Force them to switch to a dagger once in a while?

Or get the rogue to stop trying to get sneak attacks every round?

EDIT: Not sure what all the sad faces are about. They're legitimate questions, to which he eventually gave a response.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Experiences differ, of course.

I saw repeated: Sacred Flame, Toll the Dead, Firebolt, and others often.

Basically, before the change, casters were just attacking most the time, like martials, but were attacking with cantrips. Now we see more leveled spells being cast so it helped.

I think a lot of the pushback to this idea initially comes form the fact that your experience is actually unusual.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I guess it depends on what the new players view of magic is?

Look at LotR, Gandalf swings his sword and staff in fights a lot more than using magic. I know a lot of other media goes the other direction (Dr. Strange for example), so it really depends on your views.

I always find it odd that people mention Gandalf, because frankly, I've never, ever met a player who wanted to play Gandalf, or modeled a PC spellcaster they played on Gandalf. That's in 33 years of TT RPGs, note.

And further Gandalf isn't utterly incompetent in melee, nor likely to die in melee, nor does weird stuff like throw daggers/darts or hang out with a crossbow, so it's a weird comparison on that level too. Gandalf is in fact pretty great in melee, and doesn't (IIRC) even get hit short of fighting the Balrog. Whereas a 1E or 2E AD&D Wizard is extremely likely to be die or be on negative HP the first time he gets hit at level 1-3, even to a goblin or the like. Even say, level 4, unless he has a sizeable CON bonus or rolled straight 4s on HP, a 1E/2E Wizard is extremely likely to be downed in a single round by almost any monster, given the combination of crap AC and crap HP. And he does crap damage in melee.

So you just straight-up cannot be Gandalf in 1/2E, not as a single-classed character anyway (or perhaps by stacking a ton of buff spells and magic items at a pretty high level - I seem to remember some high-ish level spell no-one ever casts which more or less amounts to "be Gandalf briefly but by this point it just makes you look like an idiot because you're way more powerful than Gandalf as a spellcaster"). Any DM telling you you can be, is a bit of a jerk.

Looking at media generally, the vast majority of spellcasters fall into three categories:

1) Those who don't fight much at all, whether with magic, ranged or melee, and tend to win through non-combat cleverness or tricks (which may involve magic) or running away (sometimes magic-assisted running away). Ged/Sparrowhawk or Merlin or the like.

2) Those who use magic constantly and heavily in combat and often outside it too, and where it's their primary or sole means of doing combat (including using magical items). You mentioned Dr Strange, and the vast majority of comic-book spellcasters fall into this category, Harry Potter basically does (I mean, he's between 1 & 2 arguably, but he usually falls back to magic), most videogame characters who are "wizards" or anything remotely similar (as opposed to "clerics" or "paladins" or "spellblades") also work like this. D&D spellcasters have been in this mould since 4E and arguably leaned that way since earlier.

3) Those who are also powerful combatants (usually in melee) outside of spellcasting. D&D is not great at modeling these people, though 4E and 5E are better than previous editions, and 1E/2E could sort of do it via multiclassing (3.XE was just terrible aside from the Gestalt stuff). Other games are often pretty great at it (Shadowrun, for example). Indeed it's notable that the demand for such characters to be supported mechanically has been huge for most of D&D's history, from the Elf of BD&D to the explosion of classes and PrCs which tried to be this in 3.XE. The huge number of attempts also show that the actual results are typically disappointing. There's been an unhealthy fixation on making this an "Elf thing" in D&D's attempts though (4E dumped the "elf thing" and 5E resurrected it, but at least offered a lot of other options). These are also fairly common in media, and rarely elves.

You just don't see the AD&D 1E/2E/3E Wizard in media (aside from that based on D&D directly or older sources closely modeling it, like Wizardry). Even Vance's wizards which inspired it are more like 1.

One suspects D&D was trying to model 1, because it's the closest, but because they had such a profoundly badly-designed power curve with spells, going from being "almost entirely useless/active liability" at L1, to "incredible" at L10, to "godlike" as they go further, they utterly fail to do so. Worlds Without Number rather demonstrates how to do that type of caster "right" in a D&D-like game. But just starting wizards off with, say, 4-5 L1 spells at L1 and only ramping up to say, L6 or L7 spells ever (aside perhaps as rituals), and never getting too many would work too, if you actually wanted to do that.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Or get the rogue to stop trying to get sneak attacks every round?

Sadly this is something you sometimes see, because some older DMs think sneak attack is some massive privilege, not baked into the design and balance of the Rogue class.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Sadly this is something you sometimes see, because some older DMs think sneak attack is some massive privilege, not baked into the design and balance of the Rogue class.

I don't understand why any DM has a problem with players doing what their character classes are designed to do.

"Oh! Your paladin is going to smite again?!"

Uh, yeah. He's a paladin! Watch out for the monk, though. She's refusing to use weapons or armor.