D&D General Limiting Utility Cantrips

[CreamCloud0]

honestly, i think light could just be deleted and for most intents and purposes replaced by produce flame, which, while also an offensive cantrip, is one of the more reigned in ones and most all spellcasters already get other offensive cantrips, if you absolutely need your light to be 20/20 rather than 10/10 use it to light a torch.

 

[Emerikol]

I see the logic here but then I wonder what is the point of them??

They add flavor to the wizard. Gandalf blowing smoke rings doesn't win the war for Middle Earth but it is still a cool feature. Though I could see a light or fire as something quite useful in off situations.

 

[ezo]

They add flavor to the wizard. Gandalf blowing smoke rings doesn't win the war for Middle Earth but it is still a cool feature. Though I could see a light or fire as something quite useful in off situations.

Well, the add "flavor" to any class, but frankly speaking IMRPE such things never come up. If I played with people who were more into the role-play aspect, it might be, but honestly for me it would get really old, really quick.

And in a world where magic is fairly common (most games IMO nowadays) blowing a smoke ring via magic is not a big deal, it wouldn't even rate a good parlor trick. Now... making a sock puppet talk and move on its own... that might still get a round of applause. (And I applause anyone who gets the Z.Z.Z. reference! )

 

[Smackpixi]

To the OP’s point, sure, some cantrips can easily bypass “things”, but I wouldn’t call them “challenges” because they are easily bypassed. The DM knows what the party can do, don’t get mad at what the party can do, it’s old man yelling at clouds. PCs have always been able to open doors, still fine to design dungeons with closed doors, because doors, and the the fact of them being closed makes sense. They’ve never been challenges, unless your PCs are 2yrs old. It’s the same thing with stuff cantrips can easily solve. Those things may still need to exist in the world, for that world to make sense, but they just aren’t challenges, even if they would be for a normal person.

Mage Hand is good but if Mage Hand is really resolving challenge after challenge, there might be DM creativity issues.

Yeah. If someone uses mage hand to do something you didn’t expect, awesome, but if you’re upset they’re using it to do obvious things, um, why? You know what they can do, bend world accordingly.

I’m not a fan of spells and abilities that circumvent or trivialize core parts of the game cheaply.

Thing is, if it’s cheap to do something, the game, the world, must accept that and be a place where sure people can do that, all day, so the world must be a place that accounts for that.

Why change the game to adapt to your world, make a world that fits the game.

 

[TiQuinn]

Thing is, if it’s cheap to do something, the game, the world, must accept that and be a place where sure people can do that, all day, so the world must be a place that accounts for that.

Why change the game to adapt to your world, make a world that fits the game.

I can still not be a fan of it.

 

[Distracted DM]

To the OP’s point, sure, some cantrips can easily bypass “things”, but I wouldn’t call them “challenges” because they are easily bypassed. The DM knows what the party can do, don’t get mad at what the party can do, it’s old man yelling at clouds. PCs have always been able to open doors, still fine to design dungeons with closed doors, because doors, and the the fact of them being closed makes sense. They’ve never been challenges, unless your PCs are 2yrs old. It’s the same thing with stuff cantrips can easily solve. Those things may still need to exist in the world, for that world to make sense, but they just aren’t challenges, even if they would be for a normal person.


Yeah. If someone uses mage hand to do something you didn’t expect, awesome, but if you’re upset they’re using it to do obvious things, um, why? You know what they can do, bend world accordingly.

Thing is, if it’s cheap to do something, the game, the world, must accept that and be a place where sure people can do that, all day, so the world must be a place that accounts for that.

Why change the game to adapt to your world, make a world that fits the game.

I think this is just a misalignment of expectations regarding what kind of setting you have in your D&D world, and what kind of challenges you draw inspiration from in challenging the party. It's definitely "on me" to address trying to run D&D in NOT a high-fantasy world, and this thread is one facet of attempting to address it.

Mage Hand is good but if Mage Hand is really resolving challenge after challenge, there might be DM creativity issues.

Saying "there might be a DM creativity issue" is sort of a big middle finger to anyone thinking that Mage Hand is too useful in too many situations for its cost. That's not appreciated.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Saying "there might be a DM creativity issue" is sort of a big middle finger to anyone thinking that Mage Hand is too useful in too many situations for its cost. That's not appreciated.

100%.

Personally I hate traps and think they're boring gameplay best left in the 80's, but it's still a legitimate playstyle for tables who enjoy old school nitty gritty dungeon crawling, and Mage Hand completely negates that aspect of gameplay. Sure the DM can be "creative" and make illogical reasons for why every trap somehow cannot be triggered by 10 pounds of force, but that breaks realism and players will see right thru it. That's not a DM creativity problem, it's a problem that the game rules don't lend themselves well to that playstyle, and certain spells just need to be banned for it to work well

 

[Tonguez]

I like the idea of a Skill check for utility spells

Otherwise X use per short rest

 

[Burnside]

100%.

Personally I hate traps and think they're boring gameplay best left in the 80's, but it's still a legitimate playstyle for tables who enjoy old school nitty gritty dungeon crawling, and Mage Hand completely negates that aspect of gameplay. Sure the DM can be "creative" and make illogical reasons for why every trap somehow cannot be triggered by 10 pounds of force, but that breaks realism and players will see right thru it. That's not a DM creativity problem, it's a problem that the game rules don't lend themselves well to that playstyle, and certain spells just need to be banned for it to work well

In a world where mage hand exists, why is it “illogical” that traps would be designed to foil it?

Mage hand aside, plenty of reasons a trap might require more than ten pounds of force to trigger. Like, not wanting a wandering rat to set it off.

I allow mage hand and use traps occasionally; a dungeon or site-based adventure I design will generally include at least one trap on average. Mage hand certainly doesn’t “negate my style of play.”

 

[TiQuinn]

In a world where mage hand exists, why is it “illogical” that traps would be designed to foil it?

Mage hand aside, plenty of reasons a trap might require more than ten pounds of force to trigger. Like, not wanting a wandering rat to set it off.

Ah yes, the ubiquitous 10 pound rat. They’re good eats. I don’t know what all this delicious in Dungeon stuff is, I just need my 10 pound rats that wander all over.