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Booming Blade seems a bit powerful
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<blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 6817974" data-attributes="member: 53980"><p>I don't believe so. I think what ultimately matters is the outcome. </p><p></p><p>How would one even begin to compare all of the factors that make up a cantrip? Booming Blade requires you to be adjacent to the target. Fire Bolt allows me to attack from 120 feet away. How much damage is it worth if an average enemy must spend two or more rounds dashing to even reach me? Is that a realistic scenario in most campaigns or is 60 feet a more realistic starting range? What about weak or situational cantrips? How much should they factor into the evaluation? Where do we factor in class spell lists? After all, many of the options we've been discussing here don't have access to Booming Blade by default. Can we weigh access via a feat, multiclassing or a class ability such as Magical Secrets similarly, or should they be weighted differently? If the latter, how would that even work?</p><p></p><p>Booming Blade is a good option for some builds, but certainly not all builds. How it compares to other cantrips will be situational at best. It's a waste for any character who plans to stay out of melee. It's useless to anyone without a decent Str or Dex (not counting rare exceptions, such as Bladesingers). And it's a hard choice for anyone without access to the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell lists because they'll have to sacrifice some other option (whether it's a different feat, class level, or magical secret). </p><p></p><p>I don't feel that you can compare cantrips that way. Sure, if you had a cantrip that was identical to Fire Bolt in every way except that it only dealt 1d8 cold damage, you could obviously say that is a weak option. But comparing Fire Bolt to Booming Blade is like comparing Fire Bolt to Mage Hand. While all three obviously have their niches, they're too different for straight comparisons to be meaningful, in my opinion.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fanaelialae, post: 6817974, member: 53980"] I don't believe so. I think what ultimately matters is the outcome. How would one even begin to compare all of the factors that make up a cantrip? Booming Blade requires you to be adjacent to the target. Fire Bolt allows me to attack from 120 feet away. How much damage is it worth if an average enemy must spend two or more rounds dashing to even reach me? Is that a realistic scenario in most campaigns or is 60 feet a more realistic starting range? What about weak or situational cantrips? How much should they factor into the evaluation? Where do we factor in class spell lists? After all, many of the options we've been discussing here don't have access to Booming Blade by default. Can we weigh access via a feat, multiclassing or a class ability such as Magical Secrets similarly, or should they be weighted differently? If the latter, how would that even work? Booming Blade is a good option for some builds, but certainly not all builds. How it compares to other cantrips will be situational at best. It's a waste for any character who plans to stay out of melee. It's useless to anyone without a decent Str or Dex (not counting rare exceptions, such as Bladesingers). And it's a hard choice for anyone without access to the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell lists because they'll have to sacrifice some other option (whether it's a different feat, class level, or magical secret). I don't feel that you can compare cantrips that way. Sure, if you had a cantrip that was identical to Fire Bolt in every way except that it only dealt 1d8 cold damage, you could obviously say that is a weak option. But comparing Fire Bolt to Booming Blade is like comparing Fire Bolt to Mage Hand. While all three obviously have their niches, they're too different for straight comparisons to be meaningful, in my opinion. [/QUOTE]
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Booming Blade seems a bit powerful
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