it is not about giving martials cantrips, it's about the cantrip being the basic ranged attack of the caster fantasy, and the arrow/thrown weapon is the basic ranged attack of the martial fantasy, they equate to each other, but one can be used unlimited times, the other cannot, do you see the disconnect?
No I don't see a disconnect. I take issue with your suggestion that the Cantrip is unique to "caster fantasy". That may be true with the characters you play, but it does not represent all players or the mechanics of the rules.
I've played hundreds of PCs in 5E, most of them have been martials, and only one could not cast a Cantrip (and that one was a pregen in a one-shot). No player should be pigeonholed because someone doesn't think what they are doing is consistent with the appropriate fantasy.
my character should not be disadvantaged for their choice of thematic flavour.
This is backwards. My Tiefling Fighter with Flames of Phelethegos IS disadvantaged when she uses Firebolt, despite having invested in a feat that improves it. She uses a Cantrip and is well behind in damage compared to a bow or throwing weapons even though Firebolt is my " martial fantasy" for her. This lack of inventory management doesn't make up for the difference in damage, it just makes it a little closer.
To take this further - What if you want your character to use a Blowgun? Should it do the same damage as a sword? What if they want to throw darts, or use improvised weapons exclusively. What if you want to use a Crossbow but not take a feat?
What if your character wants to use Mage Hand to attack enemies, or wants to cast Find Familiar and have it attack enemies? Is this unfair? Should we put in some kind of rules to ensure those options are equal?
The rules exist and there are power differences between options, but more to the point weapons in the hands of martials are generally MORE powerful than Cantrips being used by either casters or martials. The idea that Cantrips, regardless of exlusivity, are more powerful than weapons being weilded by a martial is not true.
EDIT: wrong, martials only get the better end of that deal because magic is such a superior tool, a tool that casters already get far superior degrees more access to.
The idea that casters casting Cantrips over and over again without using inventory is an example of bias in favor of casters is flawed. It is actually flawed for two reasons - first Martials using Cantrips scale the same as casters and second weapon use by martials with extra attack typically does more damage than Cantrips do.
after they force a martial to invest in a mental stat that provides them little-to-none class benefits, if i wanted my character to be throwing spells as their basic action i would've picked a caster to begin with.
Well that is you. That is not all players and it is certainly not all martials.
Firs the statement mental stats provide "little-to-none" class benefits is not true. It is true for some (not all) Barbarians and Fighters but every Rogue benefits highly from high mental stats, every Paladin benefits tremendously from high Charisma and every Monk and Ranger benefit tremendously from high Wisdom. So the correct statement would be most Martials get substantial benefit from investing in a mental stat. Conversely, most casters get substantial benefit from investing in a physical stat, but generally physcial stats do not give as much of a boost to casters as mental stats do to boost martials.
There are many people who prioritize max mental stat on Rogues (most optimized builds do this in 2024) and there are also plenty of Wisdom-first Rangers and Monks. After that there are smaller numbers of PCs from other martial classes maximizing Charisma, Wisdom or Intelligence and usually this is to fulfil their "martial fantast".
even if casters got extra attack+3 and weapon mastery to match the fighter using a weapon would still be a downgrade to them because they wouldn't be using their levelled spells which are far superior to anything martial or caster could achieve with a weapon.
And this is irrelevant to the idea that they don't need to count inventory for Cantrips. It has nothing at all to do with it.
If you want to start talking about caster bias, this is a good argument to start with, but it is apples and oranges to what we are talking about WRT inventory counting.
casters complaining they don't get as much out of weapons is like complaining you got the smaller cash gift for christmas when you've already got a whole trust fund of money.
The comparison you made was between Cantrips and Weapons specifically and when you made it you used it to underpin and extend it to an argument about martials vs caster bias which is not really supported by this disparity in the mechanics between using Cantrips and using Weapons in play.
