Are you a CANtrip or a CANTrip?

[Nevvur]

If you're looking for a homebrew option... how about this? You can scribe a wizard cantrip into your spellbook, at half the cost of a 1st-level spell. But, in order to use the cantrip, you have to prepare it, and it counts against your limit of prepared spells. (While you have it prepared, you can cast it at will, as usual for cantrips.)

Wizards are always pushing on the limits of their prepared spells, so there's a real cost to this. At the same time, you aren't giving up any arcane firepower - you still have as many slots as before, you just have fewer options in how you use them.

More versatility in your cantrips, against less versatility in your leveled spells, is much easier to balance than trying to weigh versatility against power.

I quite like this idea. Just to pick your brain a bit, would you limit it to wizards only?

 

[Dausuul]

I quite like this idea. Just to pick your brain a bit, would you limit it to wizards only?

Hmm. It's definitely more useful to nonwizards. The requirement to have the cantrip in your spellbook is nontrivial*. All of the other prepared casters get their whole spell list to choose from when preparing.

Still, I doubt it would be too big a deal. Try it with a wizard first and see how it goes. If it doesn't cause any issues, it's probably fine to let the other casters have it too.

For non-prepared casters, I see no problem at all with letting them pick up another cantrip in place of learning a leveled spell.

[size=-2]*Or, at least, it can be, depending on the setting and the DM. Some DMs will let you stroll into any mid-sized town, lay down a few gold pieces, and crib a spell of your choice from the local spellslinger. Others make you go through hell and high water to get your hands on another wizard's spellbook, and then it turns out the only spell you don't already have is witch bolt. If you're making up house rules, presumably you are the DM, so you decide how big a deal this is.[/size]

 

[MoonSong]

Hmm. It's definitely more useful to nonwizards. The requirement to have the cantrip in your spellbook is nontrivial*. All of the other prepared casters get their whole spell list to choose from when preparing.

Still, I doubt it would be too big a deal. Try it with a wizard first and see how it goes. If it doesn't cause any issues, it's probably fine to let the other casters have it too.

For non-prepared casters, I see no problem at all with letting them pick up another cantrip in place of learning a leveled spell.

[size=-2]*Or, at least, it can be, depending on the setting and the DM. Some DMs will let you stroll into any mid-sized town, lay down a few gold pieces, and crib a spell of your choice from the local spellslinger. Others make you go through hell and high water to get your hands on another wizard's spellbook, and then it turns out the only spell you don't already have is witch bolt. If you're making up house rules, presumably you are the DM, so you decide how big a deal this is.[/size]

I honestly wouldn't go with this or any similar houserule. Wizards are meant to get their versatility out of rituals and prepared spells. And that versatility is huge. Allowing them to change their cantrips with a short rest or worse letting them scribe cantrips on their spell book and cat them at-will is stepping on the sorcerer and tome-warlock. Which by the way wouldn't benefit from the house rule, as it would further tax their already reduced number of spells known. I would only allow a wizard to learn a new cantrip by burning five spells scribed on their spellbook, the wizard can never scribe them again and they are no longer considered wizard spells for them and their number of prepared spells is forever reduced by three. Oh and the cantrip always deals miniimum damage/lasts a single round even if it's effect is meant to be instantaneous.

 

[CapnZapp]

Maybe this is not relevant to what you're discussing now, but just to make sure:

We all agree no caster can prepare cantrips right? Whether you're a Druid or Wizard you can only cast the specific cantrips you have chosen.

(What prompted this post was a remark regarding the houserule proposal to allow Wizards to scribe cantrips in their spellbooks. I don't see how this would affect non-Wizards at all. Just because Wizards get to treat cantrips as any other spell does not mean a Druid gets to prepare cantrips from the whole menu of Druid cantrips.)

Apologies if this was off topic; I could well have misunderstood something here.

 

[Horwath]

If you're looking for a homebrew option... how about this? You can scribe a wizard cantrip into your spellbook, at half the cost of a 1st-level spell. But, in order to use the cantrip, you have to prepare it, and it counts against your limit of prepared spells. (While you have it prepared, you can cast it at will, as usual for cantrips.)

Wizards are always pushing on the limits of their prepared spells, so there's a real cost to this. At the same time, you aren't giving up any arcane firepower - you still have as many slots as before, you just have fewer options in how you use them.

More versatility in your cantrips, against less versatility in your leveled spells, is much easier to balance than trying to weigh versatility against power.

I find this as best solution. In term of balance and already existing game mechanics.

You do not increase number of spells known/prepared for free and you take cantrips at the cost of of having some higher level spell prepared.