Shield cantrip

[doctorbadwolf]

P

Because magic items, esspecialy "common" stuff like bracers or cloak of protection, are readilly available and applicable to most encounters @ lvl 12. And when you say it looses effeciency at higher levels then you are disregarding the fact that spending lvl 1 spell slots on shield when you also also have lvl 3-6 spell spell slots really isn't that big of a deal, while at lower level's using that spell slot immediatly cuts into what other spells you can cast that day. I think the spell is more then fine at any point in the game (and don't think a cantrip version is needed), but I can also see how some people might feel bad about using a shield and seeing 1/3 (or all of them, if you are a warlock) of their spell slots melt away.

Once you have all those things, you’re less likely to even need Shield, and not all games have as common magic items as you seem to think is the universal case, so assuming those things isn’t even going to pan out across the general gaming community.

It’s ok that shield loses efficacy. The game makes up for it by making it hurt less to burn a slot on it. Still, I don’t think it would hurt anything to have a level 3 slot add 1 AC, lvl 5 add 2, level 9 simply makes an attack fail.