D&D 5E Weapons vs Cantrips

[Riley37]

Do clerics use maces, and does any cleric, wizard, sorceror, warlock, or Lore bard wield a weapon? If so, why?

Fighters, rangers, paladins and Valor bards get abilities which enhance their weapon use. Without those abilities, why ever attack with a weapon, rather than a cantrip?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

An elf wizard will deal significantly more damage with a bow than with a cantrip, at least up until such level as the cantrip damage increases.

Clerics are about evenly split between caster-type clerics and weapon-user clerics, as determined by whether they (eventually) get to add +Wisdom to cantrip damage or gain an extra die of energy to their weapon attacks.

 

[Fralex]

Well, clerics only have one cantrip that deals damage. I'm sure there are situations when sacred flame isn't as effective as a mace. There really should be more damaging cleric cantrips, though. There's something wrong with a class feature that slightly increases the damage of, at most, one spell when the weapon equivalent works with every weapon and usually adds more damage.

 

[bleezy]

Ranged attacks are at disadvantage in melee, so a wizard who only knows fire bolt will probably fight with a dagger or staff in close quarters. That is also a good reason to learn shocking grasp.

 

[Ashrym]

A cleric who gets the weapon damage plus ability modifier plus divine strike isn't worse off going with a weapon as opposed to a maximum of 4d8 damage, particularly when the bonus weapon damage appears before the improved damage on the cantrip. 1d6+2 or 1d6+3 is better than 1d8+0 so there's little point in using the cantrip before 5th level. Blade pact warlocks are fine, just like other multiple attack spellcasters. Bards only have vicious mockery for a damage cantrip, and the damage on it is abysmally low, even at 17th level.

Most spell casters who are not built specifically for weapon use are likely to use weapons at lower levels, and possibly higher levels. Getting back to the lore bard, vicious mockery averages 2.5, 5.0, 7.5, 10 damage on failed saves at the various break points (1st, 5th, 11th, 17th). Two weapon fighting, versatile longsword, or crossbow do 8 or 9, 7.5 or 8.5, 6.5 or 7.5 damage without much investment at first level and a DEX/CHA lore bard can do 12 (TWF), 9.5 (light crossbow) damage with 20 DEX eventually for more damage than vicious mockery does.

There's just not much point in using a cantrip if weapons do more damage, and there is a potential for magical weapons anyway. At higher levels there usually isn't a reason not to use a cantrip instead of a weapon for damage; in the first few levels weapons are the better option.

 

[1of3]

There might also be fringe cases like magic immunity or antimagic field.

 

[Riley37]

Thanks for good answers. On one hand, yep, if you have STR or use Finesse weapons, there's damage-output advantage to weapon use. On another hand, dagger is the only simple weapon with Finesse, and TWF means no shield. On another hand, cantrips are mostly ranged, with infinite ammo and none of the high-granularity requirements of ranged weapons (costs money, is one more item to carry around, requires two hands to reload*, time to string/unstring a bow, some people object to you carrying a weapon into their territory, etc.)

A spell requiring a ranged spell attack is a problem if someone's engaging you in melee. Does the same apply for a spell which triggers saving throw? If not, then that's a factor in attack cantrip selection, eh?

So there's reasons to wield mundane weapons, and also, sometimes, reasons to use a cantrip, and that's IMO ideal, because then players adapt choices to circumstances.

* Does anyone allow *repeated* fire from a sling or hand crossbow, with the other hand fully in use, eg equipping a shield? I can't imagine reloading either of those without a free hand, as well as the one holding the weapon.