Cantrips and Beyond

[osarusan]

Hi, I have a question about the costs of spells after cantrips have been spent.

The way I read it, it seems like the following is true:

Let's say a mage gets 6 free cantrips per day. He uses these to case Heal 0 to heal 1d6 on his friends 6 times. After his 6 cantrips are spent, it will cost him 1 mana point to cast Heal 0. So after using those cantrips, Heal 0 and Heal 1 both cost 1 mana point, but Heal 1 can heal 2d6 while Heal 0 can only heal 1d6. Is this correct? That's how it appears to me.

One of my players finds this troubling and is confused as to whether Heal 1 will cost 1 or 2 mana points after the free cantrips have been spent.

I found this a bit confusing at first, too, but I just came to the conclusion that after using up your free cantrips, there is a clear advantage to casting [Spell List] 1 instead of [Spell List] 0.

So can someone clarify this? Thanks.

 

[RangerWickett]

Once you use up your free cantrips, there's almost no reason to use cantrips anymore. About the only one I can think of is to cast a quickened spell, because quickening a cantrip is cheaper than quickening a 1-MP spell.

 

[osarusan]

Thanks!

That's what I had gathered from the text, but since I couldn't find a specific quote in the text to show my player, he got me questioning too. That clears it up though.