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<blockquote data-quote="NotAYakk" data-source="post: 7844218" data-attributes="member: 72555">The general rule of D&amp;D optimization is &quot;doing more things is better than doing fewer&quot;.&nbsp; This is also called the action economy.The action economy is that you only have a few times per turn to impact the fight or narrative.&nbsp; To increase your impact, you can either make your impacts larger, or you can have more of them.This cantrip is an example of having more impacts.&nbsp; Even if you do it once per short rest, the odds that you will (a) have a reaction to spare, and (b) have 2 or more enemies adjacent to you as a barbarian is high.So per-short-rest, you get to shoot off a growl for nearly no cost other than knowing the cantrip.In comparison, Thunderclap is competing with whatever else you can do with your action.&nbsp; Actions are high value resources, and a barbarian can &quot;cast swing axe&quot;.&nbsp; Thunderclap will only start having a chance of being better than the alternative when you have 3+ enemies adjacent to you, and only start to shine when you are really, really piled on.Growl is probably among the best 10% of attack cantrips in the game, and really top-notch on a &quot;Gish&quot;.&nbsp; Thunderclap is closer to 50% on that scale.Unlimited usage really means &quot;using it whenever it is better than the next best alternative, for the difference in utility&quot;.So you are giving up something of relatively low value for something of high value.---Cantrips are designed to do two things.&nbsp; First, relatively fun &quot;ribbon&quot; type abilities that casters can get.&nbsp; Second, an alternative to &quot;attack with a weapon&quot; that action martial characters do.This is neither; it is and should be outside the design space of &quot;Cantrip&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="NotAYakk, post: 7844218, member: 72555"] The general rule of D&D optimization is "doing more things is better than doing fewer". This is also called the action economy. The action economy is that you only have a few times per turn to impact the fight or narrative. To increase your impact, you can either make your impacts [b]larger[/b], or you can have [b]more of them[/b]. This cantrip is an example of having [b]more impacts[/b]. Even if you do it once per short rest, the odds that you will (a) have a reaction to spare, and (b) have 2 or more enemies adjacent to you as a barbarian is high. So per-short-rest, you get to shoot off a growl for nearly no cost other than knowing the cantrip. In comparison, Thunderclap is competing with whatever else you can do with your action. Actions are high value resources, and a barbarian can "cast swing axe". Thunderclap will only start having a chance of being better than the alternative when you have 3+ enemies adjacent to you, and only start to shine when you are really, really piled on. [b]Growl[/b] is probably among the best 10% of attack cantrips in the game, and really top-notch on a "Gish". [b]Thunderclap[/b] is closer to 50% on that scale. Unlimited usage really means "using it whenever it is better than the next best alternative, for the difference in utility". So you are giving up something of relatively low value for something of high value. --- [b]Cantrips[/b] are designed to do two things. First, relatively fun "ribbon" type abilities that casters can get. Second, an alternative to "attack with a weapon" that action martial characters do. This is neither; it is and should be outside the design space of "Cantrip". [/QUOTE]

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