D&D 5E Potent Cantrip is still dumb, btw

[zoroaster100]

I can't imagine that they intentionally are trying to force the evoker to be better with non-evocation cantrips. That goes against the whole notion of an evocation specialist.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Side note: Diviners and enchanters have fairly distinct roles, but knowledge clerics, some warlocks, and (presumably) psions each sorta walk all over the distinction. Is reading thoughts a divination power or an enchantment? How about controlling thoughts with spells? It's a nebulous area.

Fer me personally, I'm cool with different classes getting overlapping themes. It doesn't bother me that there's 5 different ways to control someone's mind.

What gets me about the overlapping school effects is that it muddies what a conjurer (for instance) is so that it blends into other archetypes. It'd be like if I played a beastmaster ranger and got class features that let me fight better with two weapons.

 

[variant]

Are there any wizard cantrips in the PHB that are evocation and require a saving throw?

Surely they aren't balancing an entire ability on the category of a spell? A wizard could just take the Magic Initiate feat and take Sacred Flame to use both Empowered Evocation and Potent Cantrip.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Surely they aren't balancing an entire ability on the category of a spell? A wizard could just take the Magic Initiate feat and take Sacred Flame to use both Empowered Evocation and Potent Cantrip.

Seems reasonable to me, since they have absolute control over all spells and their schools. If you want to spend a feat to improve the miss-damage on your cantrips, then that seems about right for a feat.

 

[evilbob]

Are there any wizard cantrips in the PHB that are evocation and require a saving throw?

There are not. There are only two wizard cantrips that require a saving throw: acid splash and poison spray, and both are conjuration.

PS: Somone displeased with "ImPotent Cantrip" might want to take a look at these. Not tested, but I think reasonable!

Very nice! The first one is way too good but the "reliable" one seems like it's both reasonable AND in the spirit of what they were trying to do. LOVE the third one, though: but I doubt it would fly because there are shaping up to be a bunch of things that have resistances and immunities and that seems to be a balancing point. I think it would also be called the "terrasque killer" since that'd be the only way a wizard could hurt one.


I'm not sure why "damage on a miss" is something people are worried about with spells, anyway. Any spell that does "half damage on a save" is "damage on a miss."

 

[TheLastRogue]

While it does actually work now (as it did not before the PH), it still only works on conjuration cantrips even though its an evoker subclass feature.

I actually like this from a story angle--I've always pegged Invokers/Evokers as flashy or arrogant. This ability seems to reference that:

"Silly, pitiful conjurers . . . so busy treating with demons you don't even realize that slight tweak to the casting of some of your most basic spells empower it greatly."

 

[Joe Liker]

IMO, a lot of those conjuration spells should probably be evocation spells anyway.

Because if you asked me what the difference was between "I conjure a ball of acid and throw it at my foes!" and "I evoke a ball of fire and throw it at my foes!", I would be all lol idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The distinction seems to be the difference between making an active attack with the energy from the spell, and just making the material appear and boning anyone in the radius of destruction, but daaaang, that's a fine distinction in a lot of these situations.

I actually think it's pretty stark and easily defined.

Acid splash and poison spray (and other damaging conjurations) create physical substances (acid and poison). Evocations shoot energy at people.

If there are spells that break this rule, those are the ones you should complain about for muddying the waters.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I can't imagine that they intentionally are trying to force the evoker to be better with non-evocation cantrips. That goes against the whole notion of an evocation specialist.

It doesn't make them better with non-evocation cantrips, it just makes them almost as good. If you let potent cantrip apply to evocation cantrips then an evoker is severely punished for taking any attack cantrip that isn't evocation, while other schools can mix it up however they like. Since evokers are supposed to be king of direct damage attacks, it makes sense that they would have the most flexibility in good choices, rather than the least.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I actually think it's pretty stark and easily defined.

Acid splash and poison spray (and other damaging conjurations) create physical substances (acid and poison). Evocations shoot energy at people.

If there are spells that break this rule, those are the ones you should complain about for muddying the waters.

Sure, that's what I meant by a targeted blast vs. summoning a material. It is still a very fine distinction to make -- an energy that acts in an instant and disappears and a damaging substance that acts in an instance and disappears are only very different on an academic level.

Very nice! The first one is way too good but the "reliable" one seems like it's both reasonable AND in the spirit of what they were trying to do. LOVE the third one, though: but I doubt it would fly because there are shaping up to be a bunch of things that have resistances and immunities and that seems to be a balancing point. I think it would also be called the "terrasque killer" since that'd be the only way a wizard could hurt one

Thanks for the feedback! Pondering possible ways to limit the frequency of #1 and #3....hmmm...

 

[Falling Icicle]

Over on the WotC forums people came to some interesting conclusions. The main one is that not having potent cantrip apply to evocation cantrips is probably intentional. The reason for this is that empowered evocation stacked with potent cantrip would make non-evocation cantrips extremely inferior choices. As it is now, some people argue that empowered evocation with evocation cantrips still outclasses potent cantrip on acid splash (and it uncontestably does on poison spray). Acid splash with potent cantrip is useful if you are attacking two targets. It wouldn't even be worth taking if it didn't get something that evocations don't.

Now, I suppose someone could argue that it is only the evoker subclass that this would be true of. For another wizard, acid splash is just as good of a choice if you plan to be routinely targeting multiple creatures.

Remember, you only get a limited number of cantrips, and every choice matters. They want to make sure there is a reason to pick something like acid splash.

The way it is now, picking ray of frost, fire bolt or shocking grasp are inferior choices. So intentional or not, it was still a poor design choice. Look at the empowered evocation ability. That makes picking evocation spells a better choice for the evoker than picking spells from other schools, at least to a point. Isn't that the point of being an evoker, to specialize in evocation magic? Why shouldn't it be better? An illusionist is better at casting illusions. A necromancer is better at casting necromancy spells. An evoker is better at casting fireballs. So what would be wrong with an evoker being better at evocation cantrips than they are with the conjuration ones? Isn't that exactly what you'd expect?

The fact that you have limited cantrips is all the more reason why I don't like potent cantrip as currently written. If you happen to choose wrong (such as by picking fire bolt instead of acid splash), you get no benefit at all from a major class feature. I don't think that's okay. The other specialist wizard feature that modifies a cantrip (the illusionist one), gives you that cantrip for free to ensure that feature is useful. If they were going to make potent cantrip only work for certain attack cantrips on purpose, they should have given you one of those cantrips for free.