Dragonlance Dragonlance and unlimited Cantrips.

[Mistwell]

Hmmm...I can see the problem. The thing with unlimited cantrips is, if you take things to their logical conclusion, there is no reason why all the city's are not lighted by light spells and such.

Yes, there is. A mage can cast only one. That's it. As soon as they cast a second, the first one goes away. So you need one mage per light. Does that sound likely? It doesn't to me.

One thing with Dragonlance though is that, for much of the history of the setting, mages were few and viewed with suspicion and distrust, if not outright hostility. That might be enough to limit it right there.

We agree. No city will have the mages needed to keep the lights on.

 

[delericho]

Now I am a little concerned about the unlimited Cantrip and how it would effect a low magic setting like Dragonlance.

Shouldn't be a problem. The first thing I would do, though, would be to assume that Raistlin's use of the light spell was a case of him using the spell, rather than it being a feature of the Staff of Magius. Do that, and you have an example of an unlimited cantrip right there in the books.

(And there's no great reason not to do that - a mentioned elsewhere in the thread, Raistlin wasn't exactly rules-legal in his 'native' 1st Ed AD&D ruleset. )

 

[Ruzak]

The light was pretty clearly from the staff. Raistlin stumbles around in the dark to get the staff for light, & Cameron uses it at one point in Legends.
We don't really see magic used trivially at all, except at high levels. The need to rest and replenish spell is often quoted as the reason the mages had to fear the masses. I agree that at will magic goes against the Dragonlance model, which is of course based on a limited spell system (with literary license, of course).
There were also spell fatigue rules in both AD&D and 3e versions. As I recall they were pretty draconian (intended).

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

The light was pretty clearly from the staff. Raistlin stumbles around in the dark to get the staff for light, & Cameron uses it at one point in Legends.
We don't really see magic used trivially at all, except at high levels. The need to rest and replenish spell is often quoted as the reason the mages had to fear the masses. I agree that at will magic goes against the Dragonlance model, which is of course based on a limited spell system (with literary license, of course).
There were also spell fatigue rules in both AD&D and 3e versions. As I recall they were pretty draconian (intended).

I don't remember any spell fatigue rules in AD&D except as a Dragon Magazine article or something. the 3e ones were in the book of alternate rules as well. Don't get me wrong, it seemed these were printed almost exclusively so that people could emulate Raistlin. Though, it's shown that his weakness doesn't come from spellcasting per se and more because he's magically weak and frail and can't stand to cast spells. They meet casters later who don't have any real ill effects from casting spells(other than they eventually run out and have to rest and prepare new ones).

I don't see an incompatibility between needing to rest and replenish spells being their weakness and cantrips. Keep in mind that most cantrips do less damage than simple weapons. It's still a huge disadvantage to be stuck with only cantrips. A guy with a crossbow is more effective than you.

Yes, cantrips technically make the books "wrong" and it wouldn't happen exactly like that. However, virtually every D&D book regardless of campaign setting wouldn't happen that way because the authors don't follow the rules properly. Given how easy it is to bring people back to life, Drizzt should be feeling great about how all his friends never died....but it's a novel so it takes literary license.

I still don't think that anything major changes with cantrips. If you imagine the whole book series as Raistlin having cantrips the whole time but them being so weak that he doesn't want to resort to them, nothing really changes. In fact, I'm sure there were a couple of times that he sat there with a dagger clutching it and intending to use it because he had no spells left. Just imagine that he was about to use a cantrip instead.

 

[delericho]

I don't remember any spell fatigue rules in AD&D except as a Dragon Magazine article or something.

I thought "Spells & Magic" had some. Of course, that was very late in 2nd Edition - probably after Dragonlance had been moved over to SAGA.

 

[Dausuul]

We don't really see magic used trivially at all, except at high levels. The need to rest and replenish spell is often quoted as the reason the mages had to fear the masses.

That would still apply with unlimited cantrips. Even a high-level wizard isn't going to stop a pitchfork-wielding mob with ray of frost. Sure, that 5d8 damage and high attack bonus will kill the heck out of one peasant per round, but you'll be strung from a tree long before you make a dent in their numbers at that rate. And if it's not a mob, but a proper army led by a bunch of Solamnic knights? Forget it.

That said, it is certainly true that limited spellcasting is more in keeping with the core Dragonlance fiction, and if you want to stick close to what's presented in the books, a "no cantrips" module is probably appropriate.

 

[Ruzak]

During the Test do they say Raistlin is out of spells, or maybe down to one? I seem to remember this in at least one of the dozen or so times they describe it.

 

[Ashkelon]

The thing to realize is that low-magic means the number of occurrences of magical creatures, spellcasters, and magic items. It does not relate to the capabilities of those spellcasters. If it did, no D&D spellcaster would ever make sense in a low magic setting as D&D spellcasters have powers more akin to those of comic book superheroes than fantasy spellcasters.

At will cantrips do not make spellcasters "more magical". Most low magic settings for example feature spellcasters who can perform minor tricks many time before running out of juice. So even in low magic settings, spellcasters are closer to at-will casters than the 2 whole spells per day D&D typically gives you.

 

[Ruzak]

It's not just about high or low magic, but just that at will magic doesn't feel very Dragonlance (at least War of the Lance era). No one fires of the same spell over and over again. I'm sure you can make a wizard with at wills that works in the world, but to me it detracts a little from what Dragonlance magic is: rare & powerful.

 

[Ichneumon]

I thought "Spells & Magic" had some. Of course, that was very late in 2nd Edition - probably after Dragonlance had been moved over to SAGA.

I distinctly remember reading a fatigue based spell system in a 2e book, which was most probably Spells & Magic. It was so nasty that I'm not sure they wanted anyone to actually try it.

The interesting thing about cantrips is that we haven't really had a campaign world designed from the ground up with their existence in mind, unless you count Nentir Vale. Eberron could handle them fairly painlessly, but it'd be nice to see a setting that makes cantrips an integral part of the culture. For example, wizards might use cantrip choice to show their allegiance to particular academies or philosophies.