Usefulness of Cantrips? (free actions?)

[ThomasBJJ]

I have been pondering a whole slew of house rules for my campaign. During this process, I recalled that VERY FEW cantrips are ever used in combat. Even the low level spell casters usually have better things to do than cast any cantrips.

How often have PC's (or NPC's for that matter) used cantrips like "Guidance", "Resistance", "Virtue" , or "Flare"?

Never in any games I've played in or DM'ed

I like all those spells, but the simple matter is that the real "cost" of those spells is a use of one of your actions for the round. Unfortunately, the effects are so minor, that they are hardly worth the time used.

I'm leaning toward making a few of the cantrips (like the 4 listed above) have a casting time equal to a "free action", or possibly a "move equivalent action".

This may in part belong in house rules, but I'd like to know how the masses feel about cantrips. Do you use them? Why or Why not? Do you think allowing 1 cantrip/round as a free action would disrupt play balance?

 

[DanMcS]

You just have to be creative. Resistance is good bang for the buck, it helps all your saves for a minute, it's a good immediate pre-combat buff for a 1st or 2nd level caster. Daze is killer at low level, it's like a cheaper hold person, and is especially good when it's the party vs 1 bad guy, you get a round of attacks on him when he can't fight back or escape. I'm playing a mage in a d20 modern game, we're all level five but I just got the first level of mage so you just don't have many spells. Memorize a Shield, a Magic Weapon, and you're left with 3 cantrips as utility spells, so you ponder such things

At mid levels, yeah, you're not going to see many cantrips cast in combat. Neither are you going to see many 1st or 2nd level spells once the caster gets access to much higher ones- should those all become free actions once the wizard gets 5th and 6th level spells?

 

[Saeviomagy]

At low levels, I see plenty of wizards using daze, a few using ray of frost, and even one use light, all during combat.

At medium levels - yeah, of course noone uses low level spells during combat.

At high levels, they're often past using even medium level spells, barring those one or two which are must-haves (haste immediately comes to mind).

And since quicken adds 3 levels to a spell, and yet noone takes or uses it... I can't really see people using low level spells even if they are quickened. Or at the very least, I can't see it making much of a difference.

 

[bret]

And since quicken adds 3 levels to a spell, and yet noone takes or uses it... I can't really see people using low level spells even if they are quickened. Or at the very least, I can't see it making much of a difference.

Quicken adds four levels to a spell.

Quickened Magic Missle or Shield is a 5th level spell.

 

[arwink]

One of the players in my campaign routinely casts an Extended Daze, and gets more milage out of it than he would a 1st level spell.

My wizard uses a lot of cantrips, although largely for non-combat related activities. There have been times when he's fallen back on Disrupt undead and Daze though. Primarily, I make use of mage hand and prestidigitation.

 

[LGodamus]

Well I wouldnt allow them as a free action, but I allow cantrips and orisons to be cast spontaneously...even if the class normally has to prepare spells...that hasnt unbalanced anything yet.

 

[shilsen]

I wouldn't allow them as a free action, but IMC all spellcasters who get 0-level spells get bonus ones equal to (caster level/2), so they have more than enough to spare.

As for whether I see them used or not, any spellcaster run by me (PC or NPC) is using them.

 

[Cor Azer]

I know my spellcasters tend to use their cantrips/orisons, although I admit it's less often in combat, but that seems to moreso because they tend to take utility ones rather than combat ones (which might be a sympton of them not wanting to waste a standard action for such a small effect. Resistance is good though, almost all my spellcasters use that before, or at least very early in, combat.

 

[Henry]

I would suggest something similar to the way Psions handle talents - There are certain talents like burst and catfall that can be used as free actions if they are used personally instead of on another target. Pick through the list, find spells such as Resistance, or vigor, that would be useful in the middle of combat, and make them free actions to use on the caster.

Truthfully, the cantrips in the PHB would not be a problem to use as all free actions, except for daze (powerful enough to be a first level spell if you don't lose your action using it), and for detect magic (which requires more than a round to use properly anyway). Of the rest, the next most powerful are ray of frost, and flare (which essentially acts like bane with a saving throw for 1 opponent). Both of these are balanced by the fact that they are limited in number per day, and that casters could get more use out of things like resistance and guidance than out of minor attack spells.

BTW, I'll move this to house rules.

 

[Technik4]

My wiz/rog always found a good use for his ray of frosts....sure it took 1 turn to feint, but getting a 0-level spell to do 1d3+2d6 damage on the next round was awesome.

Since we're in house rules, I did this so much my former dm ruled that there was a distance penalty to using feint. -2 for every 10 feet, maximum 30 feet. This made my tactic a little less powerful, but when you run out of first level spells and your character has sworn not to pick up a weapon (long story, gotta love CN characters) its worth the try.

Technik