D&D 5E Overchanneling cantrips

[kerleth]

The ovechannel ability gained by a 14th level school of evocation wizard allows you to deal maximum damage with a damaging spell of 5th level or lower. You can do this for free once per long rest. Each additional use of this ability deals damage to you based on the level of the spell.

On page 201 of the player's handbook, the last sentence under the cantrip section says: "A cantrip's level is 0."

Does this mean that you could cast an unlimited number of maximized cantrips each day? That seems to be the rules, but I'm wondering if that sounds like a loophole that could cause issues with the wizard's cosistent pew-pew average damage output being nearly doubled.

What do all of you think about this?

 

[Wolfskin]

RAW, this is correct, but I remember Mearls saying via twitter something along the lines of "it's not really meant to use with cantrips, and in that case I'd rule the damage is the same as casting a 1st level spell".

 

[Gargoyle]

The ovechannel ability gained by a 14th level school of evocation wizard allows you to deal maximum damage with a damaging spell of 5th level or lower. You can do this for free once per long rest. Each additional use of this ability deals damage to you based on the level of the spell.

On page 201 of the player's handbook, the last sentence under the cantrip section says: "A cantrip's level is 0."

Does this mean that you could cast an unlimited number of maximized cantrips each day? That seems to be the rules, but I'm wondering if that sounds like a loophole that could cause issues with the wizard's cosistent pew-pew average damage output being nearly doubled.

What do all of you think about this?

It sure seems like by strictly RAW that yes, you could use it without taking damage. I agree it also seems like a loophole; it seems unintended and an artifact of the rules that defeats the flavor of the ability.

Whether it's a real problem is debatable though. 14th level is pretty high, and by casting a cantrip you're giving up your opportunity to cast some pretty powerful stuff. You're going to get a damage boost from this, but in actual gameplay I'm not sure it's a big one. The most negative effect is that the wizard is encouraged to use overchannel in a way that is boring when they should be using it on big spells and making the choice on whether to take damage or not.

Personally, I'd treat a cantrip as a level one spell for the effects of overchannel damage, for purpose of the narrative more than balance.

 

[Jack Daniel]

In earlier editions, whenever a cantrip needed a level for the sake of effects or calculations where 0 didn't make sense, there was a tendency to use 1/2 instead. I don't see why that wouldn't work here. Treat it just like a 1st level spell, but use d6s instead of d12s for the necrotic damage.

 

[fjw70]

In earlier editions, whenever a cantrip needed a level for the sake of effects or calculations where 0 didn't make sense, there was a tendency to use 1/2 instead. I don't see why that wouldn't work here. Treat it just like a 1st level spell, but use d6s instead of d12s for the necrotic damage.

That's a good idea.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I'd have said 1d12 (one level less than first level, therefore one die less). But yeah, that seems a fair compromise.

 

[kerleth]

Well a buddy of mine got a phb ahead of me and that immediately clicked to him while we were talking on the phone. At that point in time I assumed that there had to be something in there to prevent that, but RAW there isn't. Someone else pointed out to me that it could be done, BUT you'd probably kill yourself if you ever tried it on anything bigger than that after using the cantrip for a couple of encounters. I suppose that you could throw out an overchanneled fireball for free and then default to a cantrip. My main concern is that 5E seems to be putting "at will" damage as an area where more mundane classes shine, and this would bring an evoker's at-will damage up to be pretty close to that of a heavy weapon wielder's. I'm DM for our first 5E campaign and I don't want to houserule much straight out of the box. It is 14th level, so I will at least have awhile before it comes up. Thanks for the timely response and suggestions everyone.

 

[Marshall]

It only looks OP until you see the rest of the schools level 14s... yikes. You also have to remember that evokers level7 ability is currently nonfunctional, so let em have a bone here....

 

[Gargoyle]

It only looks OP until you see the rest of the schools level 14s... yikes. You also have to remember that evokers level7 ability is currently nonfunctional, so let em have a bone here....

Kind of surprising that the one school they picked for Basic has two flawed abilities. My take on it is why not house rule both of them until the inevitable errata? Long time from level 7 to 14.

 

[SigmaOne]

I'm curious to see if Potent Cantrip receives any errata. At least two designers have discussed it on twitter, indicating that indeed it only works with save cantrips and not mentioning the idea of house-ruling it or any errata. (Although I think now is not the time for them to start using the word errata yet.) Mearls mentioned in the "living rule set" article that there would be further polls on what works and what doesn't, and I'm hoping this does eventually lead to a change.