D&D 5E reducing dominance of ranged: cantrips

[mellored]

Umm you mean the sorcerer simply force cages +cloudkills the fighter and laughs that the fighter ever thought it had a chance? Or banishes the fighter? Or polymorphs into a CR 20 dragon and roflstomps the fighter. The real value of the sorcerer is not that he can meet the fighter for damage, it's that he can meet it when all the other options are inferior. Generally, battlefield control or mass AoE will have a much larger outcome on combat that single target damage.

Exactly.

Which is why quicken EB isn't really a problem. Leave the damage to the fighter (especially after you cast foresight and haste on him).

extended Foresight

Sure. More math for me
Though if sorcerer uses foresight, fighter can use his action surge.

.65 with avantage = .7975
88 * .7975 = 70.18
204 / 70.18 = 2.9 turns to kill the fighter.


.65 with disadvantage = .4225
9d6 + 135 = 166.5
166.5 * .4425 = 73.68
142 / 73.68 = 1.93

Fighter with 2 action surges beats sorcerer with foresight.

Oh, and don't forget about the shield Spell for +5 AC on top of all that

Sure.
That will make the fighter not use sharpshooter. (could potentially be replaced by +2 con, but meh, he's an archer built for damage)

Otherwise he will only have a 17 AC.

Ehh... though there's no particular reason an archer couldn't just take the -10 speed penalty.
And they might still have 15 str, depending on the race. (sorcerer needs cha/dex/con, fighter can have dex/con/str).
But sure. Why not. 17 AC.

hex

I can do that too. Assuming they start within 60'. Hex is a bit short ranged.

Though I'll have the fighter drop prone, which cancels out the sorcerer's advantage against him.
And he will use precision strike this time, landing a few more hits.


Sorcerer
.7 accuracy
4d10+4d6+20 * .7 = 39.2 (first turn)
(8d10 + 8d6+40) * .7 = 78.4 (each additional turn)
((204 -39.2) /78.4) + 1 =
3.1 turns to kill the fighter.

Fighter
.65 (no sharpshooter) with disavantage = .4225
5d6+25 = 42.5
76.6 * .4425 = 18.8 (per turn)
+ (4d6+20) * 2 action surges * .4425 = 30.09
+ 1d6+5 *6 (precision strike) = 51
(142-51-30) / 18.8 =
3.24 turns to kill the sorcerer.


That's really close. Particularly since fighter has +3 initiative. Though I also didn't factor in crits either, so...

Sorcerer wins. Shield spell made the difference, paticularly since it lasts the whole round. Hex helped a little too, but generally I would save the slot for shield.


If only the fighter stuck with plate...
4d10+4d6+20 * .65 = 36.4 (first turn)
(8d10 + 8d6+40) * .65 = 72.8 (each additional turn)
((204 -36.4) /72.8) + 1 =
3.3 turns to kill the fighter.

He would have won...

In short, this comparison really isn't all that useful and doesn't actually prove much of anything.

It proves a quickened EB + shield spamming sorcerer is pretty much on par with an archer fighter.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[CapnZapp]

I blame 3rd Edition for this.
It codified how common adventurers were, and said that people with PC classes were close to 0.5% of the population. Which sounds low when you compare it to actual jobs in the real world. In North America, 0.5% of an urban population might be Elementary School teachers. (I actually ran the numbers for my school district/county. And 0.99% of the population are Full Time teachers.)

So meeting a wizard in a typical D&D setting should be as common as meeting a Grade 4 teacher. Which feels far, far too common, and implies adventurers are in every settlement, large and small.

I'm not saying wizards should be common.

But PC wizards should not get away with being special snowflakes either.

Meaning I don't find any enjoyment in wizards getting away time and time again just because nobody knows what they're capable of.

A world completely defenseless to magic isn't my idea of a D&D world.

 

[Jester David]

I'm not saying wizards should be common.

But PC wizards should not get away with being special snowflakes either.

Meaning I don't find any enjoyment in wizards getting away time and time again just because nobody knows what they're capable of.

A world completely defenseless to magic isn't my idea of a D&D world.

Wizards shouldn't get away with much. In a moderate magic world, people would assume every wizard was a mid-level caster. Level 2 wizard? They can totally polymorp and teleport at will. Better chain him up extra tight. Or cut off his hands.

My main thought is casual spellcasting. When there are dozens of wizards in a town, hiring them to do work is easy. When there's one in a huge city, they're not going to work cheap, even if the task is effortless. Sure they can cast mending and it will take six seconds, but they also set their own rates.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Herein I would like to explore consequences of limiting cantrip use.

The main reason is that if we (as a larger effort) tweak the game to reduce the advantages of ranged weapons over melee weapons, this might make minmaxers simply switch over to Eldritch Blast et al.

Some of those tweaks could easily apply to cantrips, too. For instance, if you make ranged attacks provoke an OA, that'd apply to cantrips vs AC, and could be extended to spellcasting generally, quite easily.

I think that'd be the better way to got. That and simply nerfing any particularly egregious cantrip combos, same as you'd presumably nerf Sharpshooter.

Do you see any major negative impacts on playing the game, if cantrips were, say, limited to 4 slots per short rest?

Just that wizards who resort to throwing darts or shooting crossbows when out of spells (or the situation doesn't warrant expending a slot), or can only light a candle with magic if they have the right spell prepared and haven't used it up yet, feel 'less magical' than one that can do minor magic most of the time. So nothing at odds with the classic game nor too substantially impacting power levels.

A smaller (but to me equally important) reason is to me, granting some characters infinite access to magical powers presents large verisimiltude problems.

It's not exactly contrary to genre, very few magic-using characters in fiction/myth/legend have a hard daily limit on how often they can do magical stuff.

Wizards trivially escaping cells by burning away locks.

Requiring a focus to cast cantrips should take care of that, just like taking away the fighter's greatax would keep him from shattering the lock, or taking away lock picks would keep the thief from picking it.

Entire economies wrecked since nothing needs repair.

Exaggerated, but systematic daily casting is not particularly better.

And so on. No matter how I try to solve these worldbuilding issues, the end analysis is always "the problem is that cantrips aren't finite".

Slots aren't finite, either, just on a longer time scale. Take "nothing needs repair," for instance: few things that people count on not breaking to the point there's an industry to keep them in good repair actually break every six seconds. Historically, for instance, tinkers would travel from town to town repairing pots & pans, because they didn't require repair often enough to do it full time in one place. A local hedge mage able to cast mending 1/day would put itinerant tinkers out of business as easily as one able to do so every six seconds.

(Part of this gets back to pemerton's fairy-tale logic thread. Magic comes to us from fairy tales and superstitions, and doesn't work so well in it's approached systematically, like a technological innovation or universally, like a scientific discovery. )

 

[Saeviomagy]

Good points, but keep in mind that the levels where Chromatic Orb is likely to see the most use are the levels where the fighter is least likely to have any magic weapon (or might have a magic weapon but it isn't their weapon of choice). After a certain level, 1st level spell slots are better reserved for utility (including Shield / Absorb Elements, which never lose their utility).

Also the levels where chromatic orb is likely to see the most use are the levels where you're least likely to see resistances and vulnerabilities.

Requiring a focus to cast cantrips should take care of that, just like taking away the fighter's greatax would keep him from shattering the lock, or taking away lock picks would keep the thief from picking it.

I have to say that when my group started out as captured slaves, I was surprised just how many spells that I'd picked required no material components. If you want to make spellcasters easy to hold, just add material components to every single spell in the book. Having different components will also make the escape scenario more interesting as he tries to scavenge up something to cast a spell with. It's a personal triumph that I've managed to get a hold of a piece of string and a chunk of wood and could now potentially cast unseen servant.

However: I wouldn't expect a fighter with a greataxe to be able to shatter the lock of any reasonable cell. Heck, I probably wouldn't let a rogue pick it: the lock is on the side with the guards, not the prisoners.

 

[CapnZapp]

Wizards shouldn't get away with much. In a moderate magic world, people would assume every wizard was a mid-level caster. Level 2 wizard? They can totally polymorp and teleport at will. Better chain him up extra tight. Or cut off his hands.

My main thought is casual spellcasting. When there are dozens of wizards in a town, hiring them to do work is easy. When there's one in a huge city, they're not going to work cheap, even if the task is effortless. Sure they can cast mending and it will take six seconds, but they also set their own rates.

As for the first half, that's actually my ulterior motive. I don't want it to be rational to mutilate suspected spellcasters. I far prefer if they're reasonably easily contained.

As for the second, that's really beside the issue. My main concern is that the player wizard doesn't get away with everybody being oblivious to spells. What kind of world you build doesn't matter to me, as long as it doesn't require magic to be so mysterious and unknowable that wizards get a free pass.

 

[CapnZapp]

Some of those tweaks could easily apply to cantrips, too. For instance, if you make ranged attacks provoke an OA, that'd apply to cantrips vs AC, and could be extended to spellcasting generally, quite easily.

I think that'd be the better way to got. That and simply nerfing any particularly egregious cantrip combos, same as you'd presumably nerf Sharpshooter.

Just that wizards who resort to throwing darts or shooting crossbows when out of spells (or the situation doesn't warrant expending a slot), or can only light a candle with magic if they have the right spell prepared and haven't used it up yet, feel 'less magical' than one that can do minor magic most of the time. So nothing at odds with the classic game nor too substantially impacting power levels.

It's not exactly contrary to genre, very few magic-using characters in fiction/myth/legend have a hard daily limit on how often they can do magical stuff.

Requiring a focus to cast cantrips should take care of that, just like taking away the fighter's greatax would keep him from shattering the lock, or taking away lock picks would keep the thief from picking it.

Exaggerated, but systematic daily casting is not particularly better.

Slots aren't finite, either, just on a longer time scale. Take "nothing needs repair," for instance: few things that people count on not breaking to the point there's an industry to keep them in good repair actually break every six seconds. Historically, for instance, tinkers would travel from town to town repairing pots & pans, because they didn't require repair often enough to do it full time in one place. A local hedge mage able to cast mending 1/day would put itinerant tinkers out of business as easily as one able to do so every six seconds.

(Part of this gets back to pemerton's fairy-tale logic thread. Magic comes to us from fairy tales and superstitions, and doesn't work so well in it's approached systematically, like a technological innovation or universally, like a scientific discovery. )

I'm aware Crossbow Expert negates disadvantage for being in melee applies to ranged spell attacks as well, yes.

If only WotC didn't include arguably the best ranged weapon in the game as one of its "minor magics" I could agree...

Casters in books or movies have better things to do than abuse generous spell systems. This is not a book or movie, this is a rpg. Moreover, it is D&D. Not exactly the kind of freeform storytelling system where you can trust players to self-regulate. No, if D&D allows a player to cast 14400 Firebolts a day, that's what he'll do if it gets him out of jail risk free. Or dispose of bodies. Or do this. Or do that.

Not saying this doesn't work reasonably well most of the time. But when it doesn't, it's incredibly unsatisfactory to simply ask the player to hold back. "Yes, I know you can dissolve the lock that's keeping your own daughter locked up with a few dozen cantrips, and I know you fired at least that many in the last big fight, but now I'm asking you to not do it, because reasons".

Requiring a focus to cast spells is problematic. There's a reason we don't do that - it would be akin to being able to throw away the big guy's sword and now he can't fight, like, at all.

Re: the slots aren't finite argument - sorry, but I don't have to fix the world's complete logic. Only enough so it works in the player characters' "bubble". Meaning I'm not so concerned about rational economics so much as I'm irked by how trivially the game can say "you know all those fantasy movies lately, hobbits and khaleesis and all, and how their world feel... used, lived-in, believable? Well, forget all about that because in this game the wiz has an unlimited ability to make everything and everybody look squeaky clean with not a teared shirt or broken wagon wheel.

Yeah, that doesn't work for me.
- "We've been on the road for weeks. We're hungry, we're desperate, please help us".
- "You look like you've just stepped out of a fashion shoot. I don't believe you."

 

[CapnZapp]

Ranged cantrips are there so that casters don't have to lug crossbows around anymore. Cantrips scaling up is because casters now have less spells/day.

You also have to keep in mind that a caster can't cast forever. The rules don't day you can't cast a cantrip 500 times in a row, same way they don't say you can't swing a sword 500 times in a row... but either way, past a certain point you get exhausted. It's your job as a DM to intervene when things become ridiculous.

*shrug*

I don't have to cast 500 cantrips. I can think of very few scenarios where a few dozens doesn't do the trick. A hundred tops.

Look, the core problem remains. Our world is built upon the fact a fighter can hack a person to pulp, even it takes him a hundred whacks.

But what cantrips add is energy damage. 100d8 slashing damage is MUCH less disruptive to the world's "environment" than 100d8 fire or acid damage.

A hundred whacks with an axe can't magically make a corpse disappear or go up in flames. And if applied to objects, it doesn't do diddly squat.

I don't want to have to intervene, and I don't want to shut down the players' plans as being "ridiculous".

The game's unlimited cantrips is the reason I'm having this headache. I want the game to fix this for me.

If it carries unwanted consequences to simply remove unlimited cantrips, I'm here to discuss other options. But I'm not here to be talked into letting everything stay as is.

---

Changing cantrips to scale with class level instead of character level does help with the Sorlock issue. But I worry it does more harm than good. It invalidates a lot of archetypes for no good reason.

 

[discosoc]

I think the 4e/5e changes to magic and the way spellcasters were presented really sucks. They basically aimed to make wizards and other spellcasters as standard ranged characters with a "reskinning" of magic. End result is magic really doesn't feel magical anymore.