Guidance Cleric cantrip is really dumb

[Paul Farquhar]

Guidance is one of may favourite additions in 5e. At last something for the 1st level cleric to do other than cast Cure Light Wounds.

It's also about the only way the party can pick a lock with a realistic DC before level 5.

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm getting really frustrated with the Cleric cantrip Guidance and I'm wondering what your guys thoughts on it are.

For those who don't know Guidance is a Cleric cantrip with a casting time of one action (concentration 1 minute) that works as follows: You touch one willing creature. Once before the spell ends, the target can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to one ability check of its choice. It can roll the die before or after making the ability check. The spell then ends.

Practically speaking, this means that whenever any member of the party is making any sort of check out of combat the cleric can, and strategically should, cast guidance on them.

The community “solution” seems to be either:

1. the DM should basically force there to be none, or minimal, non-time sensitive checks to force the cleric not to waste his action casting guidance or
2. Up the DC of checks appropriately

My issue though NOT on the technical aspect. The 1d4/ the DC of the check doesn't bother me. My issue is how the cantrips existence affects the immersion/feel of the game. Now, anytime anytime anyone tries to do anything the cleric pipes up saying, “and I cast guidance!" (to make matters worse [although outside the scope of this post] usually someone else will pipe up saying “and I use the help action!”) Already we now have this annoying pocket cleric who is always involved in everything, even situations that should be another character’s time to shine.

But it gets even worse. Often, the party will be in a (out of combat) situation where several different characters will want to use their skills to do something. The thief wants to try to pick the lock on a chest while the ranger sweeps the room for traps and the wizard starts to translate the strange glyphs on the walls. Instead of everyone going about and doing their thing, everyone has to wait for the cleric to come over and give each of them guidance.

And even when it’s not happening all at the same time we have some ridiculous looking situations. The Bard wants to have a conversation with an NPC and try and convince them of something? Hold on, the cleric’s got to be there! Oh, the Fighter is trying to size up different weapons at the shop? Gotta have the priest with ya. Barbarian having a drinking contest? Make sure the clerics on hand; not for the recovery of course, but for the initial drink.

I’ve been told if it bothers me so much I should just ban it from use in those kind of situations, but I really hate taking away player autonomy and contradicting the PHB. Thoughts?
P.S: All this stuff also applies to the help action, although at least there most DM’s I know (and I do this) require an explanation of how they are helping so it at least makes sense; guidance obviously cannot have the same requirement.

In 5th edition, Clerics are respected members of the community, granting a small (+2.5 avg) boon to their compatriots.

It's just a part of their class.

If you up the DCs correspondingly, you're essentially shitting all over their ability, so don't do that.

The whole point is that any atomic skill check is 2.5 steps easier in the presence of a man of the gods.

I suggest you ban the cantrip instead of allowing a player to take it, only to then negating his choice by increasing the DCs.

 

[Coroc]

I lold because of your example of multiple PCs needing guidance from the cleric at the same time, but otoh there's your solution: Make the situation a Little bit time critical, say on the market the thief wants to pick some pocket, the bard (Who has his own tricks to enhance skills btw) wants to convo for some info and the fighter trades for a new sword.

Now to get some pressure: the victim of the thief is out of sight of the city watch for some seconds only, not using these seconds will give you disadvantage for the pick. The person the bard wants to interview is in an awful hurry, and several other customers are interested in the sword the fighter wants to buy, there you go, now it is a meaningful decision which action needs the most support from the priest.

 

[Li Shenron]

Alright for most of the responses (which don't get me wrong I appreciate the feedback) I'm guessing I either didn't explain myself very well or made it too long so you guys didn't read it (looking at you 5ekyu.) My issue is not the 1d4 or the DC. I have NO issue with the BALANCE of the spell. My issue is purely flavor/description in nature (probably poor wording but original post hopefully explains it a bit better.) As for the limiting the cantrips use suggestions, perhaps my standards are untenable or foolish but as I said in the PS I don't like weakening my PC's in direct contradiction to the PHB.

Yep.

It's not really a balance problem, just like a cantrip that would take 1 minute to cast and healed 1 HP or created 1cp wouldn't be. But like those would be, Guidance is plain a simply a design mistake.

I don't know if the rules really offer a way out of it, and to my understanding you wish there was a way within the rules to mitigate the amount of times this cantrip is being used. Is that right?

Perhaps one feature of the spell that might help you a bit is actually its duration. It might be a bit of a stretch, but I don't think that the rules force the DM to have an "ability check" occur at a specific instant in time, and from the characters' point of view there is no knowledge of "a check" and when it occurs anyway. So you could probably rule that Guidance helps only with tasks that can actually be completed within 1 minute.

This way you can actually have a lot of control over how often Guidance is usable. If you think about it, there aren't actually that many ability checks that certainly can be completed in a minute, it always depends on the circumstances. The game doesn't say that each and every lockpicking takes a specific amount of time, so the DM is free to say that this one takes 30 seconds and Guidance can help, the next one takes 2 minutes and Guidance doesn't help. Most social interaction uses of skills are likely to take much longer.

Does repeated casting of Guidance work for longer tasks? Again, nothing in the rules says that it must be allowed. You can decide that it works, and the cleric can cast it 180 times every 1 minute while the Ranger takes 3 full hours to forage or track the orcs (the cleric still needs to be at touch distance to the target, so again there are plenty of cases when it won't be possible). But you can also decide to be more strict and that it doesn't work, that a single casting must cover the whole task.

 

[Uller]

Lots of useful things get spammed in D&D. As a player I spam the message cantrip. The light spell gets spammed by my players. Attack rolls. Stealth. Searching. ELDRTICH BLAST...

YMMV but after the player narrates a common ability 2 or 3 times everyone gets the point.

With my message cantrip I hand the PC that is the current target a brightly colored pen to indicate he and I can talk to each other.

With guidance, after the cleric player narrates the casting of the spell a couple times so everyone gets the point of how it works, I just have the player keep a brightly colored d4 handy and have him hand it to the other players anytime he wants to cast guidance. He doesn't have to say anything. After it is rolled he can take it back. For really important and hard checks I might remind them but otherwise I just let the players handle it.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I don't get bent out of shape about it. There are some instances where I won't allow it ("You're too far away to cast it on them in the time they said they were doing the check", etc). Since it has a V/S component it might make some social or stealth checks more nuanced because there's an obvious spell being cast or sound being made. Nothing makes a person more suspicious when in discussion with someone else than a decked-out cleric muttering and gesticulating in the background during the conversation ... "What the hell is she doing?"

 

[Schmoe]

It's amazing how many people in this thread have failed their Reading Comprehension skill checks. Maybe they need a little Guidance...

At any rate, two of the solutions here seem workable to me. Either replace the Guidance cantrip with a Cleric aura that grants +1d4 to skill checks (make the Cleric use a cantrip slot for it, though), or tie Guidance to the god's ethos, so that it is not blindly applicable to just everything everywhere. I personally prefer the second solution, because I think it encourages more immersion and roleplay tied to character choices. I think if you chose the latter solution, the very act of having to judge whether it applies to a situation would cut down on the player of the cleric attempting to spam it everywhere.

Also, there was some great advice to point out that spellcasting in social situations is generally not acceptable, as it can be a prelude to all sorts of nefarious activity.

 

[TheSword]

I use a strict interpretation of the duration as has been suggested above. This allows it to be kept for moments of divine inspiration rather than a spammed spell. Anything taking longer than a minute can’t benefit from the spell.

Jumping a pit... great.
Picking a lock... great.
Identifying a spell effect... awesome
Climbing a wall... great
Calming an animal... no problems
Recalling a fact... super

Rather than

Moving stealthily through a dungeon... nope
Training an animal... no
Crafting an item... hell no
Searching a dungeon room... no way
Rigging up a trap... no chance.
Haggling with a merchant... don’t try it.

Strict duration in most cases stops it turning into a joke.

Also don’t forget to require the Cleric to say the words “Bless you my child” every time they use the cantrip... that always makes them feel more like a cleric

 

[5ekyu]

It's amazing how many people in this thread have failed their Reading Comprehension skill checks. Maybe they need a little Guidance...

At any rate, two of the solutions here seem workable to me. Either replace the Guidance cantrip with a Cleric aura that grants +1d4 to skill checks (make the Cleric use a cantrip slot for it, though), or tie Guidance to the god's ethos, so that it is not blindly applicable to just everything everywhere. I personally prefer the second solution, because I think it encourages more immersion and roleplay tied to character choices. I think if you chose the latter solution, the very act of having to judge whether it applies to a situation would cut down on the player of the cleric attempting to spam it everywhere.

Also, there was some great advice to point out that spellcasting in social situations is generally not acceptable, as it can be a prelude to all sorts of nefarious activity.

But let me suggest.., **if** as claimed its about immersion and the cleric being involed in scene for guidance and the apparent frustration that causes, how does making the "divinity chouce" influenced by "what guidance it allows" help? It just means the problem occurs in as broad a type of divine influence as the cleric can find divine-wise... which **also** means (as the OP observed) it pushes the players to get that as often as possible.

Where one sees it as maybe a case of "it lets me argue it enough that the players get tired of it" there are other cases where it sets up the ongoing "justification tango" for a spell where it is **claimed** it is not a balance issue.

Is over and over and over discussions ilmud game to justify "this *is* valud use of my guidance" rrally less frustrating than just having it become commonplace?

Seems to me it actually hands **more** game-time to the cantrip for less net benefit... Since its not about the d4... Right? ... So why is that better, less intrusive, less immersion itchy?

Or is it the d4 and this will cut back on it?

 

[5ekyu]

My immersion is the problem, cleric insertion into scene solution...

Change guidance to duration to up to 24 hours and concentration.

Now the cleric can be thought of as praying for you and you dont have to have them in your scene, just asking the "big buddy" to look in.

So, the cleric is not needed "in the scene" at all. Just "before the scene" and supportive.

Problem solved cuz you know, its not the d4, nope, nosirree.