D&D 5E reducing dominance of ranged: cantrips

[Alatar]

To me however it seems exactly right. Nobody execpt a Comic book villain goes "I will sell my soul to the devil for ULTIMATE POWER, muahahaha!" No, it's "I just need a little bit more Power to achieve my goals. I'll make a deal for a few magical tricks in exchange for some favors. If the Dark Power wants me to do some unsavory stuff I'll just hold my nose while doing it, how bad can it be?"

Yes, but I don't get the impression that any such process takes place, not when I read a build guide or advice in a thread. "Take a couple of levels of warlock. You'll gain up to 15 damage per round."

Now in fiction, the devil would be tempting the "dipping" warlock With increasing amounts of Power as he slides further into depravity, but in D&D 5E the Warlock class past Level 2-3 isn't particularly tempting for anyone seeking Power. The devil needs to improve his offer if he wants to fill his quota for fallen souls.

Ah, but there is no selling 10 or 15 percent of your soul. The devil buys the whole package at level 1. Or not really, perhaps. It depends entirely on whether the DM is stirred into engagement with that meaty hook, and whether he wants to take the whole table down that rabbit hole. In most cases, no, I think. And that is why we get the 2 level warlock dip. It's just bookkeeping. 15 damage per round.

I'm about to start a sorcerer at level 11 in an ongoing campaign. He may finish off with two or three levels of bard. Not warlock. I'm thinking tuba. Hasted tuba. Hasted sousaphone. My little fantasy character will have no master but me. The DM will have to be satisfied with just running the rest of the world. I will not offer him that leash, even if he is unlikely to tug on it.

 

[CapnZapp]

I guess my fall back as a DM is, "What allows my players the most amount of enjoyment?" If your players at your table think it's more fun to limit cantrip use, then cool. But at my table, they typically enjoy options that allow them to feel like they are contributing meaningful to the game, and in the grittier style of game I run where they frequently do run out of spell slots and have nothing left, they like having cantrips. And the other players in the group like that these magic users don't become a liability when they run out of spell slots.

Edit: Also, if you are concerned about ranged cantrips and such, maybe have the attack modified by their Dex/Str rather than caster ability, but only for cantrips. They'll succeed less often to emphasize the abilities of non-magic users. But honestly, as a player it really sucks to miss, but is more fun to hit. So once again, I defer to fun factor overy realism or whatever.

You know you are having a completely different conversation than I. Right?

Players might find it fun to have unlimited cantrips. Just like they might find it fun to have an ability to just point at monsters to make them drop dead.

But that doesn't necessarily make it a good idea.

In the case of cantrips, my player was very pleased with himself when he dissolved all the corpses using his acid cantrip. It was *I* who was less than pleased with this (ab)use of cantrips.

Look, the cantrips were made unlimited purely to make things simple. And if I could I would have loved to keep them just as they are.

It's just that practical play have shown me they are too easily turned into something much more world-destabilizing in the hands of veteran players that focus on results, not maintaining world verisimiltude.

If your players just use them in the immediately direct (almost naive) ways as presented, you probably don't have to change a thing.

But I can't put such powerful tools in the hands of my players, or I'll have to make the world react in ways I'd much rather prefer it didn't have to.

I mean, obviously I could have the world react to wizards with unstoppable Firebolts by chopping off their hands or something. But that would only lead to a much harder world, where Wizards rather die than being taken alive. And so on. It's just a rabbit hole with no end.

Instead, I'd much rather question the decision to give them unstoppable Firebolts in the first place. After all, D&D has survived for decades without that idea.

None of this has to do with the player's immediate fun factor. A larger issue is at stake here.

 

[CapnZapp]

Honest intro: I didn't read anything beyond page 1.


I think 4 slots is a little bit too limiting.

If you didn't mind a little more book keeping, I could see slots being equal to 4+Proficiency Bonus.
I might also allow casters to attempt to cast a cantrip when out of slots, but doing so would require a Con check. Failure would give a level of exhaustion. Critical failure would give two levels of exhaustion and inflict 1 point of damage.

Thank you.

I just realized your post is actually one of very few that are constructive on-topic posts.

Most posts are of the "Even though this is a how-to-do-X thread, my post is dont-do-X" variety...

 

[CapnZapp]

So.. substantially less than a punch by a strong individual which will always kill a commoner in some fraction of 6 seconds.

Again - I think you've got this idea that fire bolts are a welding torch or something and therefore can burn through anything given time. They're not. Low level D&D hit points and damage are screwy. It's fairly futile to try to imagine "what sort of fire can kill a man in 12 seconds in the real world" and then assume that's what fire bolts must be. It doesn't work for any of the mundane damage sources (ie - a commoner dies from a 10 foot drop 1/3rd of the time) so don't model the fantastic damage sources based on it.


I think you'll find that if you hit a corpse a hundred times with an axe, it's pretty unrecognizable. And lumberjack competitions have felling trees down to 12-16 swings. In 3 rounds.

Sorry but are you saying that the difference isn't enormous?

Yes, if this was about making a face unrecognizable, an axe would do.

But I'm talking about setting buildings on fire with no fuel, burning holes through stuff, melting away flesh or even metal, trivially repairing fleets of wagons and everything on them...

You can choose to say "you can't do anything with a cantrip I can't do with an axe" and indeed the issue would be resolved.

But at least in my mind, you would have to make that a deliberate and explicit decision.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

You know you are having a completely different conversation than I. Right?

You did ask for feedback on how reducing cantrips would impact playing the game, so player enjoyment is a pretty important factor in evaluation.

In the case of cantrips, my player was very pleased with himself when he dissolved all the corpses using his acid cantrip. It was *I* who was less than pleased with this (ab)use of cantrips.

Might be worth taking it up with the DM at the time to find out why they allowed this possibility. It takes not only a DM ruling as to the capability of the acid to dissolve entire bodies, but also an outright change in the rules of the spell.
Was this dissolving achieved any quicker than simply burying the bodies? What happened to the resulting runoff?

Look, the cantrips were made unlimited purely to make things simple. And if I could I would have loved to keep them just as they are.

It's just that practical play have shown me they are too easily turned into something much more world-destabilizing in the hands of veteran players that focus on results, not maintaining world verisimiltude.

If your players just use them in the immediately direct (almost naive) ways as presented, you probably don't have to change a thing.

It sounds like the group that you're DMing for had a previous DM who allowed them a lot of leeway in terms of what they could get away with using just cantrips.
It might be worth simply telling them that your DM style is slightly different and that you will be ruling differently than your predecessor.

But I can't put such powerful tools in the hands of my players, or I'll have to make the world react in ways I'd much rather prefer it didn't have to.

I mean, obviously I could have the world react to wizards with unstoppable Firebolts by chopping off their hands or something. But that would only lead to a much harder world, where Wizards rather die than being taken alive. And so on. It's just a rabbit hole with no end.

Not really "obviously". Generally the world will react with gags and manacles with solid gloves attached etc rather than such extreme measures. - Unless they had specific reasons for using extreme measures on the prisoner for reasons other than practicality.

Or are the firebolts "unstoppable" because the group's previous DM waived the casting requirements of the spell, preventing it from being easily prevented by the usual anti-caster measures? Would your players accept you rescinding some of their houserules for a more 'by the book' game?

 

[The Old Crow]

Perhaps you could harken back to AD&D where one needed to spend spell slots to get cantrips, and give the wizard a bonus 1st level spell slot or two to compensate. Have the wizard use a 1st level spell slot to get the ability to cast their known cantrips, until they have cast X (4 would be the 1e number) of them, or finish a long rest. Let higher level spell slots buy them more cantrip uses. A wizard could choose to cast lots of cantrips but no spells, or never use cantrips at all, or anything in between, but the cantrips would not be infinite.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

None of this has to do with the player's immediate fun factor. A larger issue is at stake here.

A larger issue is at stake? You realize this is a game, right? If having fun isn't the reason you play a game, then what is? This isn't work, we're not writing novels or trying to get paid doing this (at least most of us), this is a hobby.

 

[Jer]

In the case of cantrips, my player was very pleased with himself when he dissolved all the corpses using his acid cantrip. It was *I* who was less than pleased with this (ab)use of cantrips.

The spell doesn't say that you can dissolve corpses with it - it's magical acid that does damage. There is nothing in the rules that says that you have to treat it like real acid. There was a choice made to allow the player to use the spell that way. That's not a problem with the rules, that's a problem with the ruling.

If you feel that your players are abusing the rules and you're the DM then you are supposed to say no. That's just the way the game is played and always has been. I'm blessed with players who don't abuse the rules because I refuse to play with players who abuse the rules - they don't get invited back. But then again I'd applaud a player who decided to use their acid splash cantrip to solve a problem outside of combat, rather than feel that it's a problem that needs to be solved, so we're also playing a different game in that respect as well.

None of this has to do with the player's immediate fun factor. A larger issue is at stake here.

I really feel that I have to give a bit of constructive advice here after reading through a number of your posts. Have you stopped to consider that maybe the larger issue at stake is actually an expectation mismatch between the game you want to run and the game your players want to play? It seems like a whole lot of your posts are about stopping your players from doing things within the rules that they want to do and possibly are enjoying doing. Are they enjoying the game? Or are they as worried about these things as you are?

If they're also seeing the system as problematic and not working for them then yes you need to go about fixing it. Possibly by returning to 2nd or 3rd edition because a lot of your fixes suggest dragging the game back in that direction. But if they like what's going on with the 5e rules then maybe you have a severe expectation mismatch. That isn't going to be solved by you changing the rules to make things harder on them - that's something that you can only change by sitting down with your group and talking about the kind of game that you want to run and listening to the kind of game they want to play and everyone making adjustments to their expectations. If you go don't include your group in this discussion then you will end up with upset players and possibly no more group - I've seen it happen before and it isn't pleasant.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Hawk Diesel]

Well, not to derail the thread, but as has been pointed out before, the Acid Splash cantrip is only supposed to target a creature. Which means that both the original ruling and your desire to applaud a creative use of the cantrip are rulings that are against the RAW. Just saying that for the baseline.

Moving on, however, we get to the gravamen of the issue; almost all attack cantrips (with the exception of Firebolt) are limited in this targeting. Which means that either you play by the RAW, in which case Firebolt becomes that much more useful, or you limit Firebolt (go against the RAW and/or "nerf"), or you step back and wonder why it makes any sense that the caster can, say, summon acid at will, but only to kill things. Which may make sense from a purely gamist and balance perspective (assuming firebolt is an accident), but doesn't, you know, make sense.




Having also gone through a number of his posts, I think he is fully cognizant of this issue; I would posit that all good tables have good communication, and bad tables don't. Instead, I have often noted that many people assume that their good table is a benchmark for how other tables run; that if their good table likes cantrips, that other good tables must as well, and that if another table doesn't, it must be EVIL DM CONTROLLING THE PLAYERS(tm).

FWIW, my table hates the "always on" cantrips. Which is why we are thinking about a return to 1e, or modifying the rules regarding cantrips. And why threads like this are useful; at least to the extent that they promote a conversation about the issue for those table that are considering it an issue, as opposed to assuming that this a communication issue.

TL;DR- If I can give some constructive advice, it might be helpful to assume that his table finds this to be an issue, and provide advice on same, instead of assuming that because you don't find it to be an issue, it is just a DM issue.

I agree with a great deal of what you have communicated. And it may sound condescending to assume the table is not of like mind with the OP. But in my experience both as a player, DM, and a poster on this forum, such communication does not always take place and can be a core issue. Thus ruling it out and placing emphasis on communication is not bad. But when the OP discusses there being more at stake than fun and player enjoyment (player in this context including the DM), then this informs me that the goal of me playing and how I perceive the game may be too greatly at odds with the OP to come together and provide useful or constructive feedback.