D&D General In defense of Shocking Grasp

[Toe Knee Nose]

Don't even get me started on these white-room analyses.

My biggest pet peeve with white rooms are how they always use average dice results. I understand the reasoning, but it gives a false confidence...dice rolls are never that reliable! On your turn, you don't get to roll the d20 a bunch of times and average the result--you get to roll once, and that one roll is just as likely to be a 2 or 3 instead of a 10 or 11. Your white-room analysis needs to account for that.

My biggest pet peeve with white rooms is how they almost never state their assumptions up front. Spell X is fantastic and Spell Y is terrible, depends far, far too much on the assumptions of the crafter. Fireball against single targets in narrow areas isn't a terribly effective spell. Against large numbers of smaller critters it's fantastic. Without stating assumptions up front, any theory crafting is essentially pointless.

 

[Silam]

This is why i like giving spells to monks now, (since casting them doesnt interfere with fob). I just wish there was a gish subclass that could replace an attack with a cantrip.

I guess this last sentence is facetious, but I do hope they release an official version of the UA Monk subclass Way of the Mystic Arts, in the Arcane book in the Fall

 

[Zardnaar]

My biggest pet peeve with white rooms is how they almost never state their assumptions up front. Spell X is fantastic and Spell Y is terrible, depends far, far too much on the assumptions of the crafter. Fireball against single targets in narrow areas isn't a terribly effective spell. Against large numbers of smaller critters it's fantastic. Without stating assumptions up front, any theory crafting is essentially pointless.

White room can be useful for DPR. Thats about it.

Shocking grasp is situational though and has been power crept out by two spells in particular.
When its useful its good but it doesn't trigger empire. Ergo its a C tier spell.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I guess this last sentence is facetious, but I do hope they release an official version of the UA Monk subclass Way of the Mystic Arts, in the Arcane book in the Fall

Not facetious, UA doesnt exist AFAIC for purposes of these conversations. Obviously i will be happy if such a subclass gets published with such a feature intact, but i will believe it when it is in print.

 

[Silam]

Not facetious, UA doesnt exist AFAIC for purposes of these conversations. Obviously i will be happy if such a subclass gets published with such a feature intact, but i will believe it when it is in print.

I thought it was facetious given that such gish feature does exist on the BS, EK and VB subclasses. But yeah, it’ll be great if the WotMA comes out

 

[Horwath]

one simple rule can buff up cantrips.
I still think that they are a waste of actions at higher levels unless fighting hordes of useless mooks.

1. every cantrip adds casting modifier to damage to be on the level with true strike.
2. cantrips no longer scale with levels
3. at 5th level you can cast on additional cantrip(that has Action or Bonus action cast time) when you use Magic Action to cast a cantrip
at 11th level you can cast 2 additional cantrips
at 17th level you can cast 3 additional cantrips

 

[Silam]

one simple rule can buff up cantrips.
I still think that they are a waste of actions at higher levels unless fighting hordes of useless mooks.

1. every cantrip adds casting modifier to damage to be on the level with true strike.
2. cantrips no longer scale with levels
3. at 5th level you can cast on additional cantrip(that has Action or Bonus action cast time) when you use Magic Action to cast a cantrip
at 11th level you can cast 2 additional cantrips
at 17th level you can cast 3 additional cantrips

So basically, make all cantrips like Eldritch Blast?

I don’t think cantrips are that weak… obviously there are many scenarios where stronger options than cantrips exist, but that doesn’t mean there are zero scenarios where cantrips can help.

Notably, the limit of one slotted spell per turn means a Sorcerer with Quicken Metamagic is probably going to cast one slotted spell and one cantrip in the round. There are some other builds too that can make use of them…

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I thought it was facetious given that such gish feature does exist on the BS, EK and VB subclasses. But yeah, it’ll be great if the WotMA comes out

Oh! No, i was talking about the monk, which doesnt have such a feature at all.

 

[Silam]

Oh! No, i was talking about the monk, which doesnt have such a feature at all.

That’s right. Although I think the current options for a Monk-based gish are under-explored and could be very interesting…

Like a Monk 11 or Monk 13 that fills up the rest of their levels with BS or EK. You can tack those triple attack Flurries on top of an Action casting time spell and get some really good mileage. BS 7 gets CME, which jives really well with that number of attacks. You could even do something like BS 7, Fighter 2, Monk 11, and get an Attack Action composed of a cantrip, a regular attack and a Nick attack, and then a BA Flurry for another 3 attacks, for a total of 6 attacks that proc CME. With WotMA in the mix potentially replacing a second attack of the AA for a cantrip, it’ll be even better.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

But I feel it’s better to save the 2nd Level Spell Slot by casting a Cantrip, causing some damage to your enemy (1d8 per tier of play), and running away without provoking an Opportunity Attack. And since the enemy can’t make an Opportunity Attack until the start of their next turn, it might also allow for other squishy party members and/or NPCs to run away as well. I basically like to use it as an “oh %#*>” spell.

Is it better to save the 2nd level spell slot by casting a cantrip, missing, and then being stuck unable to get away? The biggest weakness of shocking grasp is that it does nothing on a miss, while disengage works almost 100% of the time. You're using up one of your cantrip slots to have the option to gamble on 1-4d8 of damage and run away 65% of the time, but do nothing 35% of the time instead of being able to run away. If being in melee with the enemy isn't a big deal, then you're probably better off using your action for a more powerful ability and just staying in melee or soaking the opp attack as you leave (which is only 1 attack). If it is a big deal, risking that 1 in 3 chance of miss (with ordinary stats you average around a 35% chance to miss) is probably a bad idea since you'll be in taking a full attack sequence if you do miss. It only affects one enemy, so it's not good if you need to stop multiple creature's opp attacks. It does allow allies to move without taking opp attacks from the target, but if multiple non-melee characters are getting stuck in melee against a single opponent you're probably positioning the party badly.

So I'd say it's a terrible choice as an emergency getaway - it just doesn't work 1/3 of the time against single targets and not against multiple targets. For an emergency, everyone has a resource less disengage, and low cost spells like fog cloud or darkness (blocks opp attacks from enemies without special senses, works on multiple enemies and protects allies) or misty step are generally better. It's fine as something to have fun gambling with in fights where you're not in serious danger, especially at low levels where level 1 and 2 slots are more precious, but that's a fairly limited use. It's not a bad spell, but it's hard to justify a cantrip slot for it.