D&D General The Elemental cantrips mimicking powerful spells

[Corinnguard]

Can the cantrips Control Flames, Gust, Mold Earth, and Shape Water be used to mimic the appearance of a more powerful elemental spell? Imagine you are in a dungeon lit by torches and you have an opponent who is about to turn the corner into the corridor where you are standing. You cast Control Flames, and you move the flames from a nearby torch until they are just hovering inches away from your hands. Just as your opponent makes his move, you then spread your fingers out wide and send the flames flying toward them. From their point of view, they think you just cast Burning Hands at them. The 'Burning Hands' spell doing the same amount of damage a lit torch would do if it had been used as an improvised weapon.

Normally these four cantrips can't be upcasted, but if they were capable of being upcasted, I could see them mimicking the appearance of whatever elemental spell happened to be in the spellcasting level you were upcasting to. So if you upcasted Gust to 1st level, it would allow you to mimic the appearance of any windy spell that was listed as a 1st-level spell. But the mimicry wouldn't extend to whatever effect the spell you were mimicking the appearance of. So a 'Fireball' spell created by Control Flames won't do the actual damage of a real Fireball. This way these cantrips won't become OP.

I think this idea would be useful in instances where you want to fool an opponent. First you fool them through mimicry, and then you use the real deal on them. "I've got two Fireballs here. One is real, the other is not. Ask yourself, do you feel lucky?" Hehe. An Arcane Trickster could run with this idea.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Can the cantrips Control Flames, Gust, Mold Earth, and Shape Water be used to mimic the appearance of a more powerful elemental spell?

These cantrips are mega powerful.
Shape water is amazing with just a bit of thought, Mold earth doesn't even need that much thought.
You already mentioned control flames being used to improv attacks.

A caster with the 4 of them, and the three theatrical ones (Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy, and Druidcraft) would be a superhero or main character of a story and do amazing things. no spell slots needed.

 

[AmandaBarbarian]

These cantrips are mega powerful.

I'm not sure they are powerful but useful. They are the type of open ended spells that can be used creatively to do way more then the basic idea of the spell.
I love when someone at the table takes the open ended spells and totally pull off things that make the dm say "You do what now?"

 

[pukunui]

If the idea is to fool the opponent into thinking you're casting burning hands when you're only casting control flames, then I'd call for a Deception check. That's assuming the opponent even knows about burning hands. It might just think, "Oh no, magical fire!" regardless of what the actual spell is.

 

[jgsugden]

These cantrips are as powerful as a DM allows. I have played in games where DMs put creativity above balance, and I had a blast using these cantrips to do really cool things.

Mold Earth: How much does the 5 by 5 by 5 of loose dirt and stone weigh? Between 4 and 10 TONS. You can only move the dirt "along the ground", but if you move it along the ground onto an overhang that can't support it ...

Shape Water: You can't freeze water if creatures are in it. You can freeze it if there are creatures beneath it. If someone is diving, you can freeze their access to air. You can also move water and then freeze it to create walls that last for an hour. It can be an excellent way to block a doorway or small cave entrance. Also, "no creatures in it" could mean no creatures getting wet, or creatures within the 5' cube. If the DM is permissive, you can create a shell of ice around creatures, potentially.

Control Flames: You can move fire along really fast and get an entire neighborhood going quickly - especially a sorcerer that can quicken the spell to spread it 10 feet every round ... of course ....

Gust: This spell might just be capable of spreading fire faster than control flames. To some DMs, this seems like a very viable way to "fan the flames" and spread a wildfire quickly. I've also used it to kill enemies by pushing them off great heights, aerial mounts, etc...

However, I've also played in games where DMs said Mold Earth only worked in sand, essentially, as all other earth is "packed", not loose - that said that shape Water can't be used to freeze water you've moved with shape water, and control flames requires highly flamable objects to move flames on in order to move the flame (essentially requiring it to be doused in oil). Also, I've had DMs rule that gust can move creatures, but only if it does not put them in any danger (meaning it can only help allies or push an enemy back from you 5 feet if that doesn't endanger them). So, YMMV. Talk to your DM before you take them so that you can decide if they are a good fit for you.

 

[Corinnguard]

These cantrips are mega powerful.

They could be mega powerful if they could manipulate other elemental spells. I know that Control Flames can't control magical fire for some odd reason. But you don't see that limitation involving magical wind, magical earth and magical water effects when it comes to the other three cantrips.

Does anyone know if these four cantrips are going to be in 1 D&D? I am curious to see if they will be.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

These cantrips are mega powerful.
Shape water is amazing with just a bit of thought, Mold earth doesn't even need that much thought.
You already mentioned control flames being used to improv attacks.

A caster with the 4 of them, and the three theatrical ones (Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy, and Druidcraft) would be a superhero or main character of a story and do amazing things. no spell slots needed.

If--and only if--the DM is on board for the absolutely full spectrum.

A lot of DMs are not. In fact, I find a lot of DMs say they want players to be super open-ended and creative, but don't actually do the things required to support open-ended, creative uses of the tools available to them. Often, they even create houserules to reduce such things (or invent them, in the sense of erroneously believing that their alternate rules are how the game actually works and has always worked), and then get confused by players who don't actually pursue open-ended actions or creative approaches.

 

[greg kaye]

..., I've also played in games where DMs said Mold Earth only worked in sand, essentially, as all other earth is "packed", not loose - that said that shape Water can't be used to freeze water you've moved with shape water, and control flames requires highly flamable objects to move flames on in order to move the flame (essentially requiring it to be doused in oil). Also, I've had DMs rule that gust can move creatures, but only if it does not put them in any danger (meaning it can only help allies or push an enemy back from you 5 feet if that doesn't endanger them). So, YMMV. Talk to your DM before you take them so that you can decide if they are a good fit for you.

Mold Earth says that it works on "dirt or stone"/"loose earth" and, on the view of sand being small bits of loose stone, that fits.
Shape Water says, "... You instantaneously move or otherwise change the flow of the water as you direct, up to 5 feet in any direction." It's really good at getting water-sinking rowing boats and the like and, spell aware shipbuilders would do well to keep their boat openings sufficiently high. But can you consecutively move a 5 ft cube of water upwards on repeated rounds and freeze it? I'd say no.
Control Flames presents the provision; "that wood or other fuel is present in the new location" so here it presents wood in the context of fuel. Does this mean that you can set something like the thick oak of the side of a ship on fire? I think that would be a question for DM discretion.
Gust says that, "One Medium or smaller creature that you choose must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be pushed up to 5 feet away from you." If the creature fails their save, they should be moved. However, I had a play situation where, on the below map, my character moved to A, to shove the ~chief at B, to try to get him into the pit at C.

What the written content relating to this Sunless Citadel room said, which I couldn't have known, was that there was a wall around the hole. The DM was delighted at the creativity but, though I think dice were rolled successfully to some extent, the ~chief ended up prone at D. But, as a DM I've certainly pushed players off things when there were no obstacles.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Shape Water says, "... You instantaneously move or otherwise change the flow of the water as you direct, up to 5 feet in any direction." It's really good at getting water-sinking rowing boats and the like and, spell aware shipbuilders would do well to keep their boat openings sufficiently high. But can you consecutively move a 5 ft cube of water upwards on repeated rounds and freeze it? I'd say no.

Why not?

This is exactly what I mean when I say DMs so often shut things down that are the bread and butter of creative uses. You've just cut out essentially all ability to shape water into an object and then freeze it, which is like 90% of the utility of this spell. In so doing, you've turned what could be an INSANELY useful tool in the hands of a creative player into, at best, a toy with very rare edge case uses.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But can you consecutively move a 5 ft cube of water upwards on repeated rounds and freeze it?

Yes, you can. Cast the spell to shape the water into simple shapes. A cube is a simple shape. Lasts an hour, does not require concentration, the 5 cubic feet rule still applies. Cast the spell again to freeze the water. Also lasts 1 hour. Cast the spell again to form another 5 cubic feet of simple shapes under the frozen shapes. Ice floats. Repeat so long as you have water and it's less than an hour since you started. All RAW.

Elsa used this spell to build her castle. Well known fact.