D&D 5E Cantrip nerf (house rule brainstorm)

[DemoMonkey]

At low levels, it doesn't matter that much.

At mid to higher levels, once multiple attacks come into play, a wizard with only a crossbow and no spell slots might as well be sent into the kitchen to make the rest of the table nachos. Because they certainly aren't adding anything useful to the fight.

 

[Ancalagon]

I find it is important to remember that a 5e cantrip is not a cantrip of older editions. It's not a little tiny utility/practice spell.

It's a magical technique you have completely mastered. In some older editions, you could know dozen of cantrips. In 5e, only a few... and that's because mastering these techniques is difficult.

 

[jgsugden]

Low level: OK, so I pull out my crossbow and deal d8+2 rather than d10 (most of my nonwarlock spellcasters do not take a combat cantrip until 4th level).

Medium level and above (5th): OK, I have 3 cantrips (for each cantrip) plus 10 spell slots. That is 13 to 16 rounds of spells per long rest. No issue there, and it just gets better from there.

This would be a change with no real balance impact.

 

[Burnside]

Low level: OK, so I pull out my crossbow and deal d8+2 rather than d10 (most of my nonwarlock spellcasters do not take a combat cantrip until 4th level).

Medium level and above (5th): OK, I have 3 cantrips (for each cantrip) plus 10 spell slots. That is 13 to 16 rounds of spells per long rest. No issue there, and it just gets better from there.

This would be a change with no real balance impact.

This assumes non-combat cantrips are meaningless, which they're not, and also that you're using all your spell slots in combat, which you're not. Also assumes you're not a warlock, with 2 spell slots, pretty much reliant on the eldritch blast cantrip in combat for almost all its builds.

 

[el-remmen]

At low levels, it doesn't matter that much.

At mid to higher levels, once multiple attacks come into play, a wizard with only a crossbow and no spell slots might as well be sent into the kitchen to make the rest of the table nachos. Because they certainly aren't adding anything useful to the fight.

Only if directly fighting is the only option. Doesn't that depend on the specific scenario?

Also, hopefully a group would manage their resources so that would only happen during dire need to keep going - adding to the drama. Yes, if it happens all the time, every fight that'd be a problem.

Anyway, that is neither here nor there to the OP's main Q, so I'll drop it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

To us 'get off my lawn' grognards, this seems a touch excessive.

I mean, I'm pretty most mere "get off my lawn" grogs are actually fine with it, as evidenced by this being just about the first time this has been suggested.

I think you're talking more about sort of "get away from my cave-entrance" levels of ultra-grog/grog-king.

As for your "nerf", well, for a lot of casters, it'll have low impact, because being real, most cantrips are cast less than 2x between short rests, and as you level up, would get less of an issue. I am assuming it wouldn't apply to Warlocks as they're their own thing, and it wouldn't make any sense for them.

The people it'll really screw over are casters who are intelligent and engaging with their game, or using cantrips for RP. They'll be stuffed by your idea, and suddenly people will be very reluctant to use cantrips and think about them less, and do less cool stuff with them. Do you want that? Is that a goal? It doesn't sound like a good idea.

One problem is that currently casters are not balanced for this - some casters have access to more cantrips. This would hit them less hard. So I'd suggest giving casters more cantrips (1-2 more at least) at L1 if you did this. That's more reflective of older editions anyway. Some cantrips are clearly not designed to be limited in usage either, so would need reworking.

The main result will be low level casters will all carry a light crossbow, which does more damage (at a slightly lower chance to hit) than these cantrips.

This assumes non-combat cantrips are meaningless, which they're not, and also that you're using all your spell slots in combat, which you're not.

No, he's right. Balance-wise this is extremely low impact, almost unmeasurably low. Role-playing-wise there'd be a bit of an impact, of a negative kind.

 

[NotAYakk]

In old versions of D&D, low level magic users where intentionally incompetent, but had a 1/day spell that broke the game. Charm, Sleep and the like could end a hard encounter, and sometimes a dungeon.

In 5e, your 1st level spells don't do that.

In old versions of D&D, many many high level spells where "save or lose" and they would work on even a high HD dragon. Meanwhile, weapon users where doing barely more damage than they did at level 1. If you ran into a really tough foe, a single round of a mid level spellcaster being able to actually cast the spell has a chance to just win the fight; the risk was the spellcasters instantly dieing from the fire breath or before they could act.

In 5e, weapon users are doing 4-5x their level 1 damage, and spellcasters spells bounce off the dragon, and even those that land successfully don't auto-win the fight.

Spellcaster attack cantrips where introduced and kept in because it made spellcasters feel like spellcasters in combat, not incompetent warriors with a few big moves. They where brought in with significant reduction in the power of leveled spells compared to pretty much every previous edition of D&D.

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The Warlock class has a limited number of spells/rest, and falls back on casting EB every round; this is part of how it works, and goes back to 3e when the Warlock had no spells at all, just magical abilities it could often use whenever it wanted to.

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This change, balance wise, would have the largest impact on Warlocks at every level, and on "sage" spellcasters from level 1-8 or so. It would have much less impact on most spellcasters from level 9+, and on any short adventuring day situation.

Using a cantrip is something you should only do if you are utterly exhausted, you are low level and don't have many slots, the fight is easy or otherwise already won and you need to conserve resources for later, you are using quicken metamagic, or you are some kind of Gish.

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If you really want them to be slotted, what if they became Nth level spells that enchant an implement as a bonus action, and let you cast the cantrip repeatedly? Then hand out a few more spell slots.

Imbue: Fire Bolt
1st level spell
Casting Time: 1 bonus action
Duration: 1 hour
You imbue an implement to allow you to cast a Fire Bolt as an action. When you wield the implement, you can do a ranged spell attack that deals 1d10 fire damage at 120' range. If the implement has another effect imbued into it, that effect is removed.

At higher levels: Every 2 slot levels above 1 the damage of the Fire Bolt increases by 1d10, and the duration increases by 1 hour.

Now hand out additional slots to fuel these Imbue spells and additional spells known to have them prepared/known/etc.

 

[Stormonu]

To me, cantrips are more annoying away from combat than in.

I think the “uses equal to Proficiency modifier” per short rest makes for an interesting bend towards a slightly lower-magic game. This could be changed around several ways - it could be per cantrip (2 uses of Firebolt, 2 uses of Chill Touch, 2 uses of Prestidigition, etc.), for all cantrips (2 cantrips of your choice and your done), and/or add Spellcasting ability modifier to the total (again either as a per cantrips or all cantrips). Also, you could make it so that you can cast more, but for every multiple you gain a level of exhaustion (i.e., cast 2 cantrips, fine. Cast 3-4, you have 1 level of exhaustion, cast 5-6, you’ll have 2 levels of exhaustion, and so forth).

And if you want a REALLY gritty game, you could apply similar limits to weapon attacks (I’d suggest with adding Ability modifiers to the # of uses, and the level of exhaustion for extra uses), which would somewhat emulate the combat fatigue rules from 2E combat & tactics.

 

[Dausuul]

I agree that implementing this rule should come with granting additional cantrips known (1 at least, probably 2), to mitigate the effect of having to devote more cantrip slots to damaging spells.

Also, warlocks using eldritch blast should be exempted entirely from the rule. Aside from bladelocks, the warlock class simply does not function without at-will EB.

 

[NotAYakk]

And if you want a REALLY gritty game, you could apply similar limits to weapon attacks (I’d suggest with adding Ability modifiers to the # of uses, and the level of exhaustion for extra uses), which would somewhat emulate the combat fatigue rules from 2E combat & tactics.

That is interesting.

Attribute bonus is a bit tricky. But we could talk about "strenuous actions".

If you do a strenuous action after doing (proficiency bonus) + (attribute bonus of the action) prior strenuous actions, you risk gaining a level of exhaustion. Make a DC 10+total # of strenuous actions since your last short rest constitution check, on a failure you gain a level of exhaustion.

Strenuous actions include taking the attack action, dashing, dodging, disengaging, using a non-potion magic item, or casting any spell.

You can take the attack action in a non-strenuous way; but then cannot add your proficiency bonus to hit, and you don't add your attribute bonus to damage (unless it is a penalty) on any attacks that round. You cannot cast a spell in a non-strenuous way.

You could also make being hit count as a strenuous action, or inflict a level of exhaustion if you are reduced to 0 HP, to make combat even nastier.