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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kobold Stew" data-source="post: 6726391" data-attributes="member: 23484">I understand that this is what 5e has to offer; I'm just saying, for me, this isn't a laser cleric. (This was a conversation I had a lot during the play test, and I'll admit I don't understand why the designers didn't include the option I'm seeking). A laser cleric's player gets to roll the die to hit. There are plenty of at-will cantrips that do it, in every other spell casting class, but not clerics. There are also at-will cantrips that require a save, and I understand that these can be equally effective, don't need to worry about cover, etc. The clerics do have one of these, as do other spell casting classes. Now I know that a table can re-fluff things, or the DM can let the player roll the save for the monster to give them the same tactile experience, but that (to me) feels cheap. I know that we can easily house rule an attack cantrip in the way I like, without much controversy (e.g. "just like chill touch; but radiant damage, and d6 not d8") and I'd be happy. What I'm actually interested in is why they didn't include this option in the PHB, given the large variety of attack cantrips already there, and given the pre-existent idea of the laser cleric, which was supported in previous editions. (And today I see that the spell sniper feat is written in a way that suggests there should be such a spell, even though there isn't.).So to be clear: it's not something I'm asking for for Spec, and it's certainly something that is house ruled trivially. I don't care about that. I am interested why the designers CHOSE not to present it as an option, given the larger context. Now: if I ran the world, I'd have made all these spell attack rolls key not off of the casting stat, but off of dexterity, or even constitution -- I would like it to be a choice as to whether you worked to be a caster who specials in such things, rather than have it just come automatically. That, to me, makes the game more interesting, because it allows players to have more than one optimal choice in a given situation -- the laser cleric might legitimately want to boost their dex rather than their wisdom -- whereas with all casters, now, there are so many incentives just to bump your casting stat without other considerations. Now, I don't expect everyone to be on board with this -- it's just my view for what is fun for me -- but it does feed into the idea that the designers were removing the space for specialized beam-casters.  That's my view; end of rant. Cool.  Let me know if you want more. ...and during combat! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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