Cantrip Auto-Scaling - A 5e Critique

[Sadras]

This is a tall order. You want the cantrip to be effectively weaker than 1st level damaging spells, so no quadratic power up, but also useful enough to use as a viable action presumably at those higher levels? But maybe not? Maybe balance is of no concern and it is purely thematic and your idea of magic in the setting?

Other than making cantrips a limited resource the only other option I can think of would be roll over the damage dealing cantrips into first level and give bonus spell slots. Both those mess a little with balance but then again it depends on the theme of the campaign. For example, in @Hussar's Savage Worlds campaign their table agreed to nix cantrips.

EDIT: Magic is one of those areas where special consideration by the DM is required when designing his/her gaming world. So keeping damage-dealing cantrips at their base perhaps ensures that cantrips are really only viewed as play-play magic for those with true arcane/divine power, at least for that setting.

 

[Henry]

Add to this that Wizards have ALWAYS been a problem in captivity ever since 3rd edition. They don't lose uncast spells when knocked unconscious, and even has the spell mastery feat back then, which any wizard who properly prepped took one feat choice of, to have a couple of contingencies prepped anyway.
Personally, I'm fine with cantrips at high levels out-damaging low-level spells; that's the point at which the caster would be switching out the low level spells for low-level utility spells anyway.

(An aside: Gagged wizards usually can't cast spells, anyway - well, not 90% of them, including most of the ones that will help you escape; in my campaigns if a known spellcaster is captured most prisons have a locking metal face mask with a small short metal cone riveted on the inside so as to be forced into the mouth; as long as you're not imprisoned with your rogue buddy who snuck a lock-pick in with him, you're pretty much done. Meal time might get a bit tricky for the jailors, but that's what prison escape stories are made of!)

 

[FrogReaver]

Add to this that Wizards have ALWAYS been a problem in captivity ever since 3rd edition. They don't lose uncast spells when knocked unconscious, and even has the spell mastery feat back then, which any wizard who properly prepped took one feat choice of, to have a couple of contingencies prepped anyway.
Personally, I'm fine with cantrips at high levels out-damaging low-level spells; that's the point at which the caster would be switching out the low level spells for low-level utility spells anyway.

I'm not but I no longer think changing that alone is actually going to increase their value enough to make a difference without making the wizard totally overshadowing the fighter. There would have to be a whole system designed around the idea, not just a few tweaks to the 5e system as I first thought.

 

[CapnZapp]

THis with jail is true.

However it is the problem with hardness or lack off in 5e.

in 3.5E iron had I think hardness 10 and 30 Hp per inch(tipical iron bar) and halved all damage except acid and sonic.

you needed 22 damage from fire attack minimum to deal 1 pt of damage.

That is average for firebolt at 17th level...and it requires lots of casting. Somebody will notice.

Before lvl11 you cant even damage it.

But that were rules before for hardness,


just pointing out that atwill cantrips are less problem than (over)simplified rules for hardness.

Actually, I like the "rules" for hardness much more in 5E than in 3E.

In 3E, you got specific numbers (just like you say). This only meant players argued they could eat their way through most anything given time, unless the adventure specifically stated the walls were magically invulnerable or some such.

In 5E, however, we have this

Can a fighter cut through a
section of a stone wall with a sword? No, the sword is
likely to break before the wall does.

(DMG page 246)

To me, this is a huge boon and I greatly prefer it over hardness and hit points numbers. Remember the old Neggernegger adage - "if it bleeds you can kill it". I hated that aspect of 3rd edition.

The only remaining loop-hole is energy attacks. Unlimited energy attacks to be specific.

Saying "you can't burn a hole in a wooden wall even though you can fire a flame every six seconds all day long" doesn't sit right with me the way "you can't hack your way through the wall even though you can make several whacks every every six seconds all day long".

In the case of fighters, the solution is simply to state your equipment breaks down, goes dull etc.

In the case of casters, we must instead say that you really can't fire a Firebolt every six seconds for the whole day. We don't have to answer the question "but how many Firebolts can I cast then?" since in every non-cheese scenario that answer is "enough" while in every cheese scenario it should be "not nearly enough"!

Hope that clears it up

 

[Blue]

In actual play, I don't see how limiting Cantrips would have any actual impact. How many Firebolts do you actually shoot between rests?

Great question, let's give it some numbers.

Let's assume the conservative 5 encounters of 4 rounds each. That's 20 actions to cover. Add in an extra spell per encounter - say a reaction like shield or a bonus action. That's 25.

Let's assume you cast some spells a day cast outside combat - be it utility, mage armor, foresight, what have you. When you have more slots you're more likely to do this. For a conservative number lets say proficiency - 1. So only one until 5th level, and only five all the way at 20th. Nice and low.

At 1st, you have 2 slots for 26 castings. Sounds like mostly Firebolt or your damage cantrip of choice.

At 5th we have 9 slots for 27 casting. 2/3 cantrips.

At 9th we're up to 14 slots for 28 castings - 1/2 cantrips.

At 13th it's 17 slots for 29 castings. Still over 10 Firebolts a day.

At 17th it's 19 slots for 30 castings - still haven't reduced to 1/3 of your spells cast are cantrips.

At 20th it's 22 slots for 30 castings! Only 8 Firebolts that day.

Now, at higher level you probably have some magic item activations in there as well. So if you are a 20th level caster and use wands and stuff 8 times per day, you can just avoid casting a cantrip. It's harder at the lower levels.

So it looks like there's a lot of cantrip use. The majority of casting will be cantrips until reaching 9th, and even high levels will be doing it some.

This will vary a bit by class - some have less reaction spells, or sorcerers with quicken spell will cast more cantrips on their actions.

 

[Satyrn]

Great question, let's give it some numbers.

Let's assume the conservative 5 encounters of 4 rounds each. That's 20 actions to cover. Add in an extra spell per encounter - say a reaction like shield or a bonus action. That's 25.

Let's assume you cast some spells a day cast outside combat - be it utility, mage armor, foresight, what have you. When you have more slots you're more likely to do this. For a conservative number lets say proficiency - 1. So only one until 5th level, and only five all the way at 20th. Nice and low.

At 1st, you have 2 slots for 26 castings. Sounds like mostly Firebolt or your damage cantrip of choice.

At 5th we have 9 slots for 27 casting. 2/3 cantrips.

At 9th we're up to 14 slots for 28 castings - 1/2 cantrips.

At 13th it's 17 slots for 29 castings. Still over 10 Firebolts a day.

At 17th it's 19 slots for 30 castings - still haven't reduced to 1/3 of your spells cast are cantrips.

At 20th it's 22 slots for 30 castings! Only 8 Firebolts that day.

Now, at higher level you probably have some magic item activations in there as well. So if you are a 20th level caster and use wands and stuff 8 times per day, you can just avoid casting a cantrip. It's harder at the lower levels.

So it looks like there's a lot of cantrip use. The majority of casting will be cantrips until reaching 9th, and even high levels will be doing it some.

This will vary a bit by class - some have less reaction spells, or sorcerers with quicken spell will cast more cantrips on their actions.

May I add another number?

In last night's session, the 8th level sorcerer cast firebolt 4 or 5 times during the single combat we fought, our first of the adventuring day. That number will probably go up significantly next session as we only just started exploring the dungeon, and he seems to be using all his slots for counterspelling and fireballing.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Disclaimer: I haven't read through this whole thread, just the OP. This might have already been discussed.

I think the critique of the cantrips vs. spells comes from the viewpoint that cantrips are basically reusable 0 level spells. This is the case for older editions (except sort of 4e).

Instead if you think of cantrips as something completely different from normal spells then there isn't a mental barrier to understanding why they level up and normal spells do not. What if they just renamed cantrip to "Spell-like ability"? Would that sit better?

DS

 

[FrogReaver]

Disclaimer: I haven't read through this whole thread, just the OP. This might have already been discussed.

I think the critique of the cantrips vs. spells comes from the viewpoint that cantrips are basically reusable 0 level spells. This is the case for older editions (except sort of 4e).

Instead if you think of cantrips as something completely different from normal spells then there isn't a mental barrier to understanding why they level up and normal spells do not. What if they just renamed cantrip to "Spell-like ability"? Would that sit better?

DS

The issue is resource free vs requiring a resource.

 

[Hussar]

The issue is resource free vs requiring a resource.

That's a bit simplistic though. Because the resource free option is almost always less damaging than the resource. Direct damage 1st level spells outdamage cantrips at all but the very, very highest levels and, even then, it's not like 1st level and 2nd level resources are limited to direct damage. But, even just comparing direct damage, the resource expense nearly always results in dealing more damage than the free resource.

So, I'm not really seeing the problem here.

 

[Krachek]

Avoiding hole in a stone wall with fire bolt demand less argument than standard post here.
You cant burn a wall made of stone!
The same way a fireball don’t destroy to whole room.