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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 7476685" data-attributes="member: 7006">I personally love the Prest/Thaum/Druidcraft cantrips, but unfortunately I also see them a victim of DM style.&nbsp; Where they could be useful in the Interaction pillar, but which more often than not are unnecessary due to how some DMs might call for checks.So long as we have a &quot;skill list&quot;... there are some DMs that can and will just use the list as-is, and where additional &quot;story-enhancing&quot; RP aspects like using these cantrips are not really necessary for that style... or even that those DMs might be reticent to &quot;bend&quot; the mechanics to reward those players (under the belief that if you allow for a advantageous bending of the mechanics once, the players are just going to do it over and over and over and over again.)Case in point... using druidcraft to bloom a seed into a flower to hand to someone.&nbsp; From&nbsp; a &quot;story-enhancing&quot; perspective, that's awesome.&nbsp; And if this appeared in a short story or novel, it'd be a really nice moment.&nbsp; But in a game of D&amp;D... there are a good percentage of DMs that, when told by a player &quot;I wish to influence this NPC in a positive fashion&quot;, will tell the player straight away &quot;Okay, roll Persuasion&quot;.&nbsp; And the results of the check is what happens, because its assumed that anything needed for the check is done in the background because they are making the check.&nbsp; There's no need to &quot;enhance&quot; the story with what the character is actually doing to influence the NPC (which is where the idea of using the spell to bloom a flower would come into play) because the DM's personal style just doesn't ask that level of detail of players.&nbsp; It's assumed the PC already doing everything possible to influence the NPC, which is why they get to make the Persuasion check in the first place.&nbsp; And if by some chance the player offered up the &quot;blooming flower&quot; bit anyway... the player might think (or expect) that because they were enhancing their &quot;free&quot; Persuasion check with a bit of background, that perhaps they should get something on top of their roll-- like maybe gaining Advantage on the Persuasion check.Now some DMs absolutely go along with that line of thinking-- that yes, if a player adds in details like this to the game, the DM will offer up Advantage to them as a reward for it because for their particular style of game that kind of &quot;story-enhancement&quot; is welcomed and encouraged.&nbsp; But some DMs definitely find the &quot;giving out of Advantage&quot; that cavalierly to be a slippery slope they don't want to encourage.&nbsp; Because then the players spend all their time just trying to find ways to &quot;game the system&quot; (in that particular DM's opinion) by looking for ways to get Advantage repeatedly or evn doing the same &quot;trick&quot; over and over and over again for it.That particular DM that has that style would absolutely not want to open that pandora's box of &quot;free Advantage&quot;, because their game perhaps is much more mechanically focused... where gaining mechanical advantage comes out of the game mechanics offered by the rules themselves and not just offered on a whim because of &quot;story&quot;.&nbsp; Some DMs just don't find that &quot;story&quot; should take precedence over &quot;gameplay&quot;.&nbsp; Which I can completely understand.It's not my personal style of DMing, and indeed, I'm the type who does offer Advantage seemingly willy-nilly for every little &quot;story-enhancement&quot; thing the players offer because I often just feel like mechanics get in the way.&nbsp; But for others, I can certainly see why those cantrips hold very little sway.&nbsp; There's no actual mechanical heft to them, and thus can be safely ignored by a percentage of the gaming populace.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 7476685, member: 7006"] I personally love the Prest/Thaum/Druidcraft cantrips, but unfortunately I also see them a victim of DM style. Where they could be useful in the Interaction pillar, but which more often than not are unnecessary due to how some DMs might call for checks. So long as we have a "skill list"... there are some DMs that can and will just use the list as-is, and where additional "story-enhancing" RP aspects like using these cantrips are not really necessary for that style... or even that those DMs might be reticent to "bend" the mechanics to reward those players (under the belief that if you allow for a advantageous bending of the mechanics once, the players are just going to do it over and over and over and over again.) Case in point... using [I]druidcraft[/I] to bloom a seed into a flower to hand to someone. From a "story-enhancing" perspective, that's awesome. And if this appeared in a short story or novel, it'd be a really nice moment. But in a game of D&D... there are a good percentage of DMs that, when told by a player "I wish to influence this NPC in a positive fashion", will tell the player straight away "Okay, roll Persuasion". And the results of the check is what happens, because its assumed that anything needed for the check is done in the background [I]because[/I] they are making the check. There's no need to "enhance" the story with what the character is actually doing to influence the NPC (which is where the idea of using the spell to bloom a flower would come into play) because the DM's personal style just doesn't [I]ask[/I] that level of detail of players. It's assumed the PC already doing everything possible to influence the NPC, which is why they get to make the Persuasion check in the first place. And if by some chance the player offered up the "blooming flower" bit anyway... the player might think (or expect) that because they were enhancing their "free" Persuasion check with a bit of background, that perhaps they should get something [I]on top[/I] of their roll-- like maybe gaining Advantage on the Persuasion check. Now some DMs absolutely go along with that line of thinking-- that yes, if a player adds in details like this to the game, the DM will offer up Advantage to them as a reward for it because for their particular style of game that kind of "story-enhancement" is welcomed and encouraged. But some DMs definitely find the "giving out of Advantage" that cavalierly to be a slippery slope they don't want to encourage. Because then the players spend all their time just trying to find ways to "game the system" (in that particular DM's opinion) by looking for ways to get Advantage repeatedly or evn doing the same "trick" over and over and over again for it. That particular DM that has that style would absolutely not want to open that pandora's box of "free Advantage", because their game perhaps is much more mechanically focused... where gaining mechanical advantage comes out of the game mechanics offered by the rules themselves [I]and not[/I] just offered on a whim because of "story". Some DMs just don't find that "story" should take precedence over "gameplay". Which I can completely understand. It's not my personal style of DMing, and indeed, I'm the type who does offer Advantage seemingly willy-nilly for every little "story-enhancement" thing the players offer because I often just feel like mechanics get in the way. But for others, I can certainly see why those cantrips hold very little sway. There's no actual mechanical heft to them, and thus can be safely ignored by a percentage of the gaming populace. [/QUOTE]

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