D&D 5E Does the "Friends" cantrip need a fix?

[redrick]

You might think darkvision obsoletes the Light cantrip, until you have a ranged combat under conditions of partial lighting, and then you realize that lighting control (including Dancing Lights) has the potentially to be simply incredible. Darkvision is extremely short-ranged, but if someone lights an enemy up with a torch you can fill him full of arrows from 600' away (or more if you use a ballista, and at advantage if you're a Sharpshooter), and he can't even reply effectively. Nor does he get a saving throw against being lit up. Lighting and cover are the two most powerful environmental advantages in 5E, followed by caltrop deployments and high cliffs to push people off of.

Note to self: when PCs land on the moon next week, try to make sure a fight happens in sheer mountainous terrain under a gigantic lunar shadow.

I would agree that beginning parties tend to greatly over-value their darkvision. Remember, darkvision only gives the effect of dim light in total darkness. This gives disadvantage to checks relying on sight, and means an effective -5 to passive perception for things like spotting traps. The range of 60' also comes up all the time — that's easily within range for a short bow, let alone a long-bow. Darkvision is great for sneaking up on somebody in the dark, but it doesn't make actual light obsolete.

On the other hand, lots of classes can have light as a cantrip, and you probably don't need more than one character to take it. So, in a party with several casters, that still leaves several other cantrip slots.

But yeah, light is great and allows for all sorts of creative uses. Much better than a torch for everything except starting fires.

 

[zago]

@Emdw45

I know this is true. We just haven't had a combat encounter where light has been a significant issue yet. But I fully understand the actual system mechanics, and see where an enterprising DM can create a rather difficult scenario.

I didn't mean to imply that light was pointless, just that the balance between the cantrips is less significant depending on class and race. I know that the arcane trickster that I play, has gotten more use out of Mage hand and Friends the he would have had I taken Light. My Halfling Necromancer (we rolled attributes/race/background randomly) however gains much more from light than friends. Plus, I think all cantrip casters get a shot at Light cantrip, so it might be likely to be already present in a party, leaving other casters other options.

I can imagine an eldritch knight with GWF feat preferring true strike for all those situations where an enemy is out of charge range.

 

[redrick]

[MENTION=53176]Leatherhead[/MENTION]

I don't think the issue to guidance is that at all. I think the friction is felt most in non-combat scenarios, where a Cleric or druid can at low levels, perform unskilled skill rolls with a somewhat commensurate bonus as characters who are skilled.

Depends on group and players, but admittedly its annoying when you make your guy good at persuasion and fail checks, only to see the unskilled druid guidance his way into passing it. They spend one resource (cantrip) to get your proficiency bonus (lvls 1-8) to all skills.

I wouldn't call it broken, just a bit irritating. In our group we house ruled in a number of 'interpretations' that limit it. NPC's know what it is, and if you cast guidance around them, they hear it and know its effect which can make them apprehensive to exchanges. Some could passively refuse to negotiate with someone who uses a spell to influence the outcome of a barter or agreement. We also inhibit the ability to use it in situations like stealth, where the 'prayer' would alert others of your presence before the check. This doesn't really limit it all together that much, just means the player needs to 'plan' to use it. In our group it is much more difficult to use it spontaneously.

Our group usually cast guidance on the character who already had proficiency. And guidance takes an action to complete, so while the caster has to cast guidance on themselves and then wait until their next go-around to use it. Seems a little boring.

But yeah, I hated guidance for a while. Every non-combat situation went like this, "I'm gonna roll a [whatever check] to do [something pretty vague]" and then the cleric would chime in, "I cast guidance," and then, before I had a chance to clarify what was actually being attempted, there would be a bunch of dice on the table and math words around me.

I've been trumpeting this whole perpetual initiative thing a lot, but switching over to that was a big help with curbing the guidance-spamming. Once every character took a "turn" in all scenes, not just combat, it made people less likely to spend their whole turn casting guidance on a trivial action, instead of doing something interesting for themselves. (Casting guidance on an important task is all well and good, but it just started to feel like an automatic 1d4 bonus to every skill check ever rolled.)

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

But yeah, I hated guidance for a while. Every non-combat situation went like this, "I'm gonna roll a [whatever check] to do [something pretty vague]" and then the cleric would chime in, "I cast guidance," and then, before I had a chance to clarify what was actually being attempted, there would be a bunch of dice on the table and math words around me.

Interrupting someone else's action declaration like this wouldn't fly with me, not if it were chronic. I'd say, "Player negotiations and action declarations have been getting muddled, but we need to keep them separate. You can negotiate with the Joe (priest of Kali) to bless your efforts, but you need to do that before you tell me what you're trying to do, because by the time you blurt something out to the king, it's too late for Joe to bless your efforts." Either Thok remembers to say, "Bless me Father Joe, for I am about to attempt something perilous," and Joe responds, "I will pray for your success, my son," or he doesn't.

In any case, guidance is unlikely to impact ability checks such as stealth, because Joe can't pray for that long before his concentration begins to wander. (1 minute duration.) It might or might not affect a negotiation with the king, depending upon how long it took Thok to make his pitch to the king. If Thok can work out a way to signal Joe when the crucial argument is being made--the key make-or-break argument, if there is one--it would affect his odds of the king buying how he frames that argument. But in a more data-driven presentation where they're going over fantasy Powerpoint slides for an hour, laying out the plan of attack, and the king recuses himself to ponder the whole plan before making a decision--under those conditions, Guidance isn't going to help.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Lets ignore the damage cantrips for now...

Blade Ward
Dancing lights
Druidcraft
Friends
Guidance
Light
Mage Hand
Mending
Message
Minor Illusion
Prestidigitation
Resistance
Spare the Dying
Thaumaturgy
True Strike

Gust
Mold Earth
Shape Water


As for the Good ones... Guidance, Mage Hand, Minor illusion..... After that you get a big drop off. They are all pretty niche, and the ones you will use more often tend to be the 'less powerful'.

A lot of the ones with little to no combat utility have great role-playing usefulness. Prestidigitation, thaumaturgy, druidcraft, and their elemental kin gust, mold earth, shape water, control flames (well maybe not so much that one) can be great fun. Mage hand is in the same category. You can use them all the time. I've had characters regularly use prestidigitation just to keep their clothes clean and dry. They add to the game on a regularly basis. Light gets use constantly in my games. Torches and lanterns require free hands and if no one started with light the PCs tend to get sick of that and at least one of them picks up light at the first opportunity. Dancing lights got used by the drow instead of light all the time. Our cleric used resistance some of the time, though he forgot to use it as often as he could have. It's a nice little spell to cast before busting into the room with the monsters.

In addition the to the other three I mentioned, the only ones I haven't seen get a lot of use in my games (or know I would love to have and use myself) would be mending, message, and spare the dying. Mending and message are a little more situational, but I can still see them being effectively used more frequently than blade ward, true strike, or friends. Spare the dying is a hard one to place. No one has taken it in my groups. Since you can do the same thing with a healing kit, it's rather underwhelming (though the playtest version was a bit too good). It's actually most useful for a death domain cleric, because you can get 2 downed allies for the price of 1.

Another note on blade ward and true strike--I've had players taken them but never had a player cast them.

The worse cantrips from my perspective are friends, blade ward and true strike. They just aren't going to get used nearly enough to justify being an at-will spells. And friends is misnamed. Perhaps it was an editing error and it should have been called "friends".

All of the other cantrips are either good or passable. The weaker ones are mending, message and spare the dying.

So I really do think there is a problem with friends and his two underachieving buddies, because they aren't going to be used as often as a spell ought to be used to justify being at-will.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I've had characters regularly use prestidigitation just to keep their clothes clean and dry.

Small correction: I love Prestidigitation and as a PC I use it to keep my pillow cool and my socks warm... but it can't actually keep anything dry per PHB 267. Clean, yes. Dry, no.

 

[evilbob]

Friends is a complete waste of space. It has literally no use, especially if your DM doesn't let the "disguise self" trick fly. I've never seen anyone take it or use it. It's like they wanted to make a cool cantrip, but got so worried about abuses and overuses that they nerfed it down to doing effectively nothing useful whatsoever.

...I have the target make an Intelligence/Arcana check against the caster's spell DC after the duration expires. If they fail, they justify their actions internally, rather than becoming innately hostile. Success has the target be fully aware, thus hostile (and probably a bit vindictive).

This is the best fix I've seen in the first 3 pages that I bothered to read. I'd probably make it a regular spell save before the effect happens (so you can't get what you want and then just run - I mean this is a cantrip) but that's a decent fix.

 

[gyor]

Friends is really only good for intimidate, because Hostility levels.don't matter. There.better options.

 

[Wojorides]

Blade ward can be very effective for the (lower level) character who suddenly finds himself in melee combat or who sees that he has to move thru attack of opportunities to get to safety. Particularly when the enemies are low level doing d8 or less. It has gotten our warlock out of several nasty situations as we went from Level 1 to level 4. He rarely casts it now

 

[Sword of Spirit]

There are situations where blade ward is the most effective defensive technique, but most of the time simply taking the Dodge action is actually better. If I recall how it works, blade ward is more effective than Dodge when you are being targeted by non-magical slashing, piercing, or bludgeoning weapon attacks, and your opponent has greater than a 50% chance of hitting you. At any other time Dodging is better. Since your opponents rarely have a greater than 50% chance of hitting you, Dodge is usually better.

It can also be useful for an eldritch knight, since it allows him to still make one attack while defending himself. At 11th+ level however, the number of attacks they have to give up to use blade ward makes it less and less appealing as an option.