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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 9271683" data-attributes="member: 20323">You got me curious actually to see if I could recreate the Apprentice Wizard NPC's Arcane Blast using the DMG  spell creation guidelines.In brief: Arcane Burst, at-will (cantrip); melee (5 ft) or range (120 ft); one target; 1d10+INT modifier force damage.The DMG says that a single-target cantrip should deal 1d10 damage.We're also told that if the spell doesn't deal half damage on a successful save, that its damage should be boosted by 25%. It's unclear if that is meant to apply to cantrips – certainly no existing cantrips appear to follow this rule – but let's blindly use it anyhow. 5.5 * 1.25 = 6.875 average damage.So adding INT modifier for 14 Intelligence, gets us 1d10+2 or 7.5 average damage. That's a bit higher than what even the most generous reading of the DMG guidelines tell us...However, we also see that this is not a +2 cap, rather it is indeed INT modifier based, as the Evoker NPC gets +3 damage for 17 Intelligence on its Arcane Blast.What about the Evoker? If I squint it kinda resembles a tier 3 wizard class. Its Arcane Blast deals 4d10+3 damage (25 average damage). Unfortunately the DMG spell creation guidelines don't even mention the upleveling of cantrips – according to the DMG table a cantrip either deals 1d10 single target or 1d6 multi-target (+25% if there's no half damage effect). Since the DMG is silent in this case, we need to compare to existing at-will cantrips. At tier 3, we'd expect Eldritch Blast  to deal 1d10 x3 damage (16.5 average damage). This is not differentiating whether it's used for single target or multi-target. So if I'm interpreting generously and apply that +25% again, that's 16.5 * 1.25 = 20.625 damage. 25 is definitely higher than that!It's worth noting that the DMG gives no guidelines on how damage types should effect the damage (e.g. fire is more commonly resisted than force). We're just told to:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Avoid spells that would be so good the caster would use them all the time. I think Arcane Blast being melee/ranged, at-will, dealing really good damage in excess of DMG guidelines, and using a damage type that's almost never resisted definitely makes it a potential candidate for this "yellow light."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A long duration/area can make up for a lesser spell effect. N/A here.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Avoid spells with very narrow uses, such as only affecting dragons. N/A here.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Make sure the spell fits the class identity.</li> </ul>Tl;dr Two things jumped out at me: (1) DMG spell creation guidelines are crap. (2) Arcane Blast doesn't adhere to the DMG spell creation guidelines anyway.</blockquote>

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