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Most frustrating quirk of 5E?
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<blockquote data-quote="Cap'n Kobold" data-source="post: 7543154" data-attributes="member: 6802951"><p>This is the bit that I was particularly wondering about. If maybe 10% of the population actually have PC class levels, and the majority of those are not going to be full caster classes, then cantrip-users are still going to be rare in the world. Not disassociated from the world, but unusual.</p><p> Even in a wide-magic setting like Eberron, with its wandslingers, people with the ability to throw damaging cantrips are rare.</p><p></p><p>A party that has several cantrip-users in it stands out as an unusual concentration of magic, but PCs are <em>meant </em>to be unusual and special. If half the players wanted to play characters able to manipulate magic, that isn't too unusual from a player standpoint. (A big draw of playing in a magical world like D&D settings is the ability to play a magical character.) However such a party is probably very unusual from a setting standpoint. </p><p></p><p>Outside of a few specialised builds, a cantrip isn't going to deal greater damage than a round of attacks from a more martial type. Unless the rider was particularly important, the cantrip-user is going to be the best character to pick something other than dealing damage to their enemies.</p><p></p><p> By Nova, I meant the ability of a caster to achieve much greater results by burning off their spell slots compared to conserving them. - Pretty much what your understanding was.</p><p>If cantrip damage was reduced, the power of spell slots would likely have to be increased in turn to maintain balance between classes. The classes appear to have been balanced around 20 rounds of combat per day, with the expectation that even a full caster wouldn't be casting spells every round. However, it seems common for the number of rounds of combat in actual play to be less, which discourages conservation of spell slots and throws the balance of classes out of whack.</p><p></p><p>Increasing the effectiveness of burning spell slots compared than conserving them by using cantrips instead is going to increase the power of going nova. And thus discourage conserving those spell slots. Currently, with casting a cantrip being less powerful than a martial attacking by a certain amount, there is less pressure to burn those spell slots than if your sorceror was just a fourth-rate crossbowman when they weren't actually burning resources, both from a "contributing to party" standpoint and a "character image" standpoint.</p><p></p><p>Weaker cantrips and stronger spell slots will throw balance much further out than currently when the actual adventuring day is shorter than the expected 20-odd rounds. It will make players of magical characters feel not only that they aren't contributing much when they aren't burning their resources, but also likely feel that they aren't being the magical character that they wanted to play.</p><p>(Of course some players may want to play characters that <em><u>do</u></em> mix weapon attacks and spellcasting. - There are ways to express this character vision in 5e as well.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cap'n Kobold, post: 7543154, member: 6802951"] This is the bit that I was particularly wondering about. If maybe 10% of the population actually have PC class levels, and the majority of those are not going to be full caster classes, then cantrip-users are still going to be rare in the world. Not disassociated from the world, but unusual. Even in a wide-magic setting like Eberron, with its wandslingers, people with the ability to throw damaging cantrips are rare. A party that has several cantrip-users in it stands out as an unusual concentration of magic, but PCs are [I]meant [/I]to be unusual and special. If half the players wanted to play characters able to manipulate magic, that isn't too unusual from a player standpoint. (A big draw of playing in a magical world like D&D settings is the ability to play a magical character.) However such a party is probably very unusual from a setting standpoint. Outside of a few specialised builds, a cantrip isn't going to deal greater damage than a round of attacks from a more martial type. Unless the rider was particularly important, the cantrip-user is going to be the best character to pick something other than dealing damage to their enemies. By Nova, I meant the ability of a caster to achieve much greater results by burning off their spell slots compared to conserving them. - Pretty much what your understanding was. If cantrip damage was reduced, the power of spell slots would likely have to be increased in turn to maintain balance between classes. The classes appear to have been balanced around 20 rounds of combat per day, with the expectation that even a full caster wouldn't be casting spells every round. However, it seems common for the number of rounds of combat in actual play to be less, which discourages conservation of spell slots and throws the balance of classes out of whack. Increasing the effectiveness of burning spell slots compared than conserving them by using cantrips instead is going to increase the power of going nova. And thus discourage conserving those spell slots. Currently, with casting a cantrip being less powerful than a martial attacking by a certain amount, there is less pressure to burn those spell slots than if your sorceror was just a fourth-rate crossbowman when they weren't actually burning resources, both from a "contributing to party" standpoint and a "character image" standpoint. Weaker cantrips and stronger spell slots will throw balance much further out than currently when the actual adventuring day is shorter than the expected 20-odd rounds. It will make players of magical characters feel not only that they aren't contributing much when they aren't burning their resources, but also likely feel that they aren't being the magical character that they wanted to play. (Of course some players may want to play characters that [I][U]do[/U][/I] mix weapon attacks and spellcasting. - There are ways to express this character vision in 5e as well.) [/QUOTE]
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