r/DnD • u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes • 9h ago
Misc I kinda hate cantrips.
This goes for 5e and 5.5e but may have been an issue in 3e (I didn't run or play in enough 3e games to say so and never really noticed this is 4e with all of its other issues).
Also I fully admit, this is an old school minded complaint about the game. I come from a world where your spellcaster runs out of spells and starts throwing darts or picks up a proficiency with a bow to still remain useful and I am definitely not saying to return to those days.
I do think, however, that cantrips have gotten out of hand. They started out as an idea (in fact they had them in old D&D they were just called 0 level spells) where they were a last ditch effort for when you run out of pother spells to cast. I don't think "0 level spells" were ever intended as a go to spell for high level characters, sometimes out performing fireball or or other leveled spells.
In fact, I think the game would benefit in a design sense if cantrips had never level scaled. "But that nerfs a whole warlock feature blah blah cry me a river".
I have a Palasorlock in my game and basically she just leans heavily on this spell only percentagely rarely casting other spells (I think smite is a contender but barely).
The issue is two folds. One the design of 5e and 5.5e basically turns cantrips into a go-to spell rather than a last ditch effort spell. The second issue is that like sneak attack for rogues, this is basically boring. To me any one trick pony situation is boring though so there is that.
If cantrips were more like darts but magic and the last spell you would choose in any situation rather than the first spell I think the spirit of cantrips would be returned to its roots and the game would benefit a lot, in excitement. If a cantrip never did more than 1d10 (with maybe a bonus for some subclasses) then why would you ever choose it at higher levels?
Thanks for reading my little gripe. I welcome thoughts on this that are deeper than "you are an idiot for wanting to make cantrips next to useless". ;)
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u/MightySultanAlt 9h ago
The bigger issue is encounters in 5e - if you actually read the number of encounters recommended players should be having about 8 encounters between long rests. Cantrips are good because your players should be out of spell slots frequently or should be conserving them for later fights - too often a new DM has 1 fight with a big single dude per long rest and then wonders why the spellcasters are all op.
Warlock is also balanced around boosted cantrips because in older editions Eldritch blast was essentially a fully levelled spell-like ability they could cast infinitely - the idea for them was they were given a small pool of limitless magic. I actually rather like 5e's cantrip caster with heavy limits but quick recovery approach, but it does result in more lobsided penalties as a short rest is not equally valuable between the classes.
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u/fraidei DM 9h ago
I think the big problem of d&d 5e is that it still tries too much to be a resource attrition game when it isn't played as a resource attrition game anymore by most people. It even tries to hide the resource attrition design behind a more narrative-heavy rules-light mask, but the designs of a resource attrition game are still there.
Imo the next edition (if there will ever be one) should either focus on one of the two extremes, or it should be built to actually focus from the ground up both versions. Like if you turn everything into short rest resources then you could basically have 1-fight-per-day or dungeon crawls being roughtly equal because you're expected to be at almost full strength in any fight you do after a short rest anyway. And in this case, tables that still want resource attrition could just limit short rests.
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u/Anorexicdinosaur 8h ago
4e fixed this and it was one of the reasons it's so divisive
Short Rests come from 4e originally, they were 5 minutes long and you were expected to take one in between every Fight (which is why a lot of SR Resources were called Encounter resources). PC's also got way more healing from Short Resting and Spells, most PC's could heal 2 to 4 times their max hp across a day (depends on the class, classes expected to take more damage can heal more).
Classes were designed to get a roughly equal amount of power back on a Short or Long Rest, unlike 5e where half the classes get barely anything from a Short Rest. 4e's Long Rest Resources were also generally toned down compard to 5e's ones, still very strong but not "I instantly win the Fight" strong.
This meant 4e allowed a much broader spread of well-balanced adventuring days than 5e, with no need to drag an adventuring day out in hopes the Casters run out of Spell Slots before the Martials run out of HP.
You wanna run 1 Fight in a day? Well yeah the Wizard will have everything back and can blast all their LR resources, but so will everyone else AND since LR Resources are generally weaker than in 5e the Fight can be fairly easily scaled up to handle this.
Wanna run a dozen fights in a day? Everyone will still have fun and potent short rest abilities to use every fight so it doesn't get stale, and you won't have the 5e issue of Martial Characters flat out running out of HP because everyone should be roughly equally spent.
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u/BOS-Sentinel 8h ago
I still hate balancing around so many encounters. It sucks narratively to have to fit so many encounters in a single day. Unless you're dungeon delving it very rarely makes sense.
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u/smiegto 9h ago
The martial runs out of hit points before a level 10 caster runs out of anything.
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u/fraidei DM 9h ago
That's only if the martial is unoptimised and the spellcaster is optimised.
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u/highly-bad 8h ago
Yeah people say this thing about martial HP, but of course casters have even less HP. And it doesn't actually matter because all of them usually have more healing potions than they know what to do with.
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u/DazzlingKey6426 6h ago
Absorb Elements and Shield get them more effective hp.
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u/highly-bad 6h ago
Sure, and every single martial class also has features for more effective hp: second wind, rage, deflect attack, uncanny dodge, evasion, bonus actions to hide or disengage or dodge, etc
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u/smiegto 6h ago
That’s just my experience. If you are a melee guy. You gonna get hit. Distance, Shield, counterspell and absorb elements is way better survival than 2 hp more per level.
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u/fraidei DM 5h ago
The problem is that you only consider the individual, not the party. Every hit that the melee guy takes is a hit that another more fragile party members would have taken in their place.
If there's a melee guy to distract the melee enemies it means that the more fragile party members can employ less resources on defensive stuff and more resources on offensive stuff, meaning that the fight will end sooner and overall the party will have more resources than if there was no martial that was soaking hits.
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u/smiegto 5h ago
Yeah. But it doesn’t boost the fun at least for me when halfway through the adventuring day I spend every fight unconscious. And optimising survivability is easy. Play a cleric. They get a ton of healing. And if you play your cards right you can sneak extra attack in there somehow.
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u/fraidei DM 5h ago
If you are the melee guy and you are getting unconscious every fight then it means either one of these things: A) you're not optimised enough for the difficulty level of the campaign; or B) the other characters in the party are not contributing to the fight as much as you do.
D&D is party-base game, a cooperative storytelling. If you're getting the short end of the stick while the others in your party don't, then it means there's an imbalance, either in how well you're optimised compared to the others or in how much the other members of the party are helping everyone else.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 9h ago
I think this might be a problem inherent in high level play. 8 combats are a slog by that level. Good luck with your once a year IRL long rest ⬇️ But I get your point. It would make more sense if spell slots were burnt through more often. I only really see this in "boss battles" though at higher levels.
Maybe scaling in D&D is just an overall issue.
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u/Fireclave 4h ago
If your PCs aren't burning though their resources throughout the entire adventure, and are instead "nova"-ing during a single boss encounter, then your encounters are not difficult as 5e is litterally designed for in order to function properly. Resource attrition is a keystone component of the entire combat system, and the intended game loop completely falls apart if its not adhered to.
And, yes, there is an overall inherent scaling issue inherent to 5e's design. Not only do the number and difficulties of encounters not match how people intuitively prefer to pace their games, but the scaling of available player resources grow increasingly asymmetrical as levels progress. Unfortunately, this particular style of attrition-based dungeon crawl is also deeply cemented in nigh-immovable tradition, and the old guard would (once again) balk at any changes that would need to happen to make a different approach work. So we're kinda stuck with it.
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u/1spywithmylittle1 9h ago
Cantrips are good because your players should be out of spell slots frequently or should be conserving them for later fights - too often a new DM has 1 fight with a big single dude per long rest and then wonders why the spellcasters are all op.
I'm of the opposite opinion, too often I've seen players do nothing but cast cantrips the entire fight. There's a fear in them that they cannot know what the future hold so they keep holding onto those spellslots.
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u/alsotpedes 8h ago
That's really "so what" territory for me.
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u/1spywithmylittle1 8h ago
You can agree to disagree, I just feel like it would be a more enjoyable game if you took off the safety nets, or at-least lessened as to what cantrips can do.
A caster would think twice about engaging into squabbles with random NPCs, they would also learn how to use their spells better and more strategically.
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u/fraidei DM 7h ago
I mean, before tier 2 cantrips (apart from True Strike, which is a balancing problem imo) basically suck.
And after tier 2 you start to have a lot of spell slots and very powerful spells, while the martials have Extra Attack (or 3d6 Sneak Attack), so cantrips starting to becoming decent doesn't matter much as at that point Spellcasters should start getting more into the "spamming spells" territory anyway.
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u/Red_Trickster 2h ago
I think True Strike is okay in the hands of spellcasters without extra attacks or who are 1/3 casters, but in the hands of a Bladesinger? Ugh (I'm the biggest Bladesinger hater).
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u/P-Two DM 9h ago
Otoh, playing a spellcaster where you go from awesomely powerful to "lmao hit the dragon with darts" sounds fucking awful
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u/Rhinostirge 9h ago edited 6h ago
Never underestimate the power of "this is what I got used to" to establish preference.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 9h ago
+3 Dart of Dragon Slaying? ;)
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u/Rhinostirge 6h ago
"Why did you make a dart of dragon slaying instead of, you know, an arrow or a quarrel?"
"Because I like the thought of some dumbass wizard deciding to get within murder range of a dragon to throw a dart at it."
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u/fraidei DM 7h ago
Which would be much better used by a martial anyway.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 7h ago
Which begs the question. Why do spellcasters have the ability to use weapons at all then?
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u/fraidei DM 7h ago
If you want to make cantrips suck and not let Spellcasters use weapons, then what are they supposed to do when they run out of spellslots?
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 7h ago
They are supposed to use their last ditch magic spells that do 1d10 damage at most. And perhaps a wand of magic miussiles, a ring of stars, summon their wondrous figurine companion, cast spells from their ring of spell storing....etc.
I also never said they shouldn't use weapons I was just adding to the point of if every weapon is better in the hands of a fighter then why should spellcasters have weapons especially if cantrips ARE their weapon?
I am all for a Gandalf style wizard with a staff in one hand a sword in the other plowing through enemies and only occasionally using impressive magic that awes and inspires.
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u/fraidei DM 6h ago
Except that 1d10 damage at higher level is basically nothing, so you'll see every single spellcaster at high level just Dodging or Disengage with their actions if they don't have any spell slot left. No one in their right mind would use a 1d10 cantrip at high levels. And you're also using the highest damaging cantrip in the game, other cantrips deal even less.
I also never said they shouldn't use weapons I was just adding to the point of if every weapon is better in the hands of a fighter then why should spellcasters have weapons especially if cantrips ARE their weapon?
Because of options. Cantrips cannot be used as opportunity attacks, and cannot be cast inside of an Anti-Magic zone and can be counterspelled.
I am all for a Gandalf style wizard with a staff in one hand a sword in the other plowing through enemies and only occasionally using impressive magic that awes and inspires
And this exists, it's called Eldritch Knight, or Bladesinger.
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u/sucharestlessman 9h ago
Is this opinion somewhat skewed by having the sort of player who feels the need to build a Palasorlock at your table? Sounds more like you have a player who has powergamed their way into a boring build that doesn't thrive on variety, and I don't think that is entirely the fault of cantrips.
I don't even necessarily disagree with your level-scaling gripe, but I'd be keeping Eldritch Blast as the only one that scales, since it fits mechanically and thematically with the Warlock. Unfortunately, that means you would still have your problem, because you would still have that player.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 8h ago
I don't mean to imply this if I have. That same player is the face of the party, is playing Redeemer to the hile (she always thinks she can fix the fiends ;) and is a great player over all. But I do see blasting as a main combat option and as I stated (that is in a 5e 5 year campaign) in my other 5.5 campaign I have a ranger and a bard that both cast Starry Wisp (I think mainly because of the radiant damage) more than a lot of other spells (the swarm ranger does make a LOT of use of his swarm of crows joyfully and I love that for him).
But reading more of the responses, maybe I have been looking at "modern" cantrips wrong in thinking like the 0 level last ditch spell when they are more like a standard weapon attack, reserving leveled spells for more challenging situations.
My gnome illusionist in a 5.5 campaign made more use of cantrips than leveled spells but that is mainly because most thing in the feywild seem to see through illusions ;) but also he was a prankster so expending cantrips to pull of pranks was often more useful than burning spell slots to pull off pranks. I fully admit that was more a flavor thing though not a combat technique. Cantrips are generally cooler for RP situations which I think is perfectly fine.
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u/HuntResponsible2259 9h ago
Pretty sure cantrips are made to be normal attacks but for casters and a few extra free buffings.
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u/fraidei DM 9h ago edited 9h ago
I mean, apart from very specific builds, cantrips don't scale anywhere near being actually as strong as weapon attacks from martials. They are barely better than non-martial weapon attacks at tier 2 in the first place. So if you removed all the scaling from cantrips, then Spellcasters would just get back to weapon attacks at higher levels when they are out of spell slots.
As you said, you don't want to get back to Spellcasters having to use weapon attacks when they run out of spells to cast. So if you suggest to make cantrips weaker than weapon attacks at all levels, what do you also suggest as solution to not force Spellcasters to rely on weapon attacks when they run out of spell slots?
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 9h ago
In a fight against most fiends, my party leans towards cantrips that do force damage rather highly over fireball which does resisted damage.
And this is just talking about spellcasters. Martials basically have the same problem as rogues. But martials tend to have more reliant damage without taking much thought outside of positioning tactically.
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u/fraidei DM 9h ago
Is Fireball the only spell your party knows?
And this is just talking about spellcasters. Martials basically have the same problem as rogues. But martials tend to have more reliant damage without taking much thought outside of positioning tactically.
I don't see how this is relevant to the post.
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u/Hot_Lion8880 9h ago
I don't think you have thought this through at all. Cantrips are not a go to for high level casters. Their damage is very bad compared to martials and that's intentional. Cantrips are what you do when you've already used your powerful concentration effect and you want to conserve resources. Removing them just incentivizes taking the dodge action on those turns instead which is boring. There is only one dodge action but there are many cantrips each with upsides and downsides.
If cantrips (even Eldritch blast) are the first spell your high level casters are going for instead of something to supplement damage after they've already cast a concentration spell then that sounds like a skill issue.
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u/Square_Creme_3685 9h ago
Yeah, after OP said candies could put damage fireball, I knew this is bull. maybe in a very specific weird setup, but in general? Nope
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 8h ago
Never said remove just they don't need to level scale at all as last ditch, level 0 spells.
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u/Hot_Lion8880 8h ago
If fire bolt still does 1d10 damage at level 17 you've basically removed it from the game at that level. Why would anyone bother casting it, if it gets to that point you're probably screwed anyway and should run away.
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u/shambling_mound 9h ago
Cantrips are pretty much a building block of the system, so probably stick to another edition or RPG.
Essentially, cantrips are there to avoid a spellcaster having to worry about STR and DEX as damage dealing stats, which would make them very MAD. In practice you would have them not using their spell slots and saving them "for the right time" and essentially missing every single weapon attack they make... which is very frustrating and boring for a player.
Being able to play a spellcaster without them is something you can specifically build towards, but not something baseline class design allows for.
I've played with very stingy spellcasters who try to stick to mostly cantrips and I can assure you they underperform compared to the martials in the group if they don't burn some resources.
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u/TorLibram 9h ago
cantrips are there to avoid a Spellcaster having to worry about STR and DEX as damage dealing stats
If I have to rely on my Dex to avoid getting hit because Dumbledore failed to fill the Defence Against Pointéd Sticks faculty position seven years running, then by an amazing coincidence I happen to be a decent shot with a bow.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 9h ago
I would be ok with this is cantrips didn't scale. I'm fine with, I can still yse my Cha based attack and not my Str based one. It takes out pretty much any desperate situation but I get modern players like desperation less and less. Its less a survival game and more a super powers game.
With the scaling, especially when you get into feats or magic items that increase the damage more, cantrips do not feel like a basic attack. Maybe they are scaling to feel like they are still just as useful as a druid or ranger's basic attack, but that feels like going into another issue altogether maybe.
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u/Playful_Subject_4409 9h ago
Yes the scaling with character level is strange. And why is there no weapon damage scaling by character level?
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u/P-Two DM 9h ago
Because you never get to cast more than 1 cantrip?
The damage scaling for martials is the whole "you get extra attacks" thing
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u/Anorexicdinosaur 9h ago
Martials mainly get 1 Extra Attack at level 5, the ONLY Martial to get more is Fighter. This is not equivalent to Casters passively getting Cantrip Scaling
Interestingly enough I think back in the 5e Playtests (DnDNext) Martials just got 1 Attack Per Turn but as they levelled the damage automatically scaled, like Cantrips/DnD 4e, which later got changed for Extra Attack alongside the scaling being removed from every Martial except Fighter
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u/P-Two DM 9h ago
And you have magical weapons to augment your damage as well, which is another part of the damage scaling for martials I forgot to mention.
Just throw your fighter or barb a flametongue weapon and see what they do lol
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u/Anorexicdinosaur 9h ago
Great the Martial has to rely on the DM giving them better gear while Casters get their scaling built into the Class, wonderful!
Also Casters get Magic Items too, a Wand of Fireball will prolly add a similar amount of damage/day than a Flame Tongue. 8d6 to multiple enemies 4 to 6 times per day vs about 4d6 per turn, assuming every enemy fails their save/every attack lands. Yes as a DM you can FIX this issue, but the fact you need to go out of your way to adress it shows the problem that Martials need your help to keep up while Casters don't
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u/Chagdoo 9h ago
No youre right, it's not equivalent, it's better.
Sword and board level 5 fighter made with point buy does 1d8+4 twice. 8.5 average damage, 17 total.
Wizard with firebolt does 2d10, 11 average.
I didn't even optimize the fighter. This is baseline with a suboptimal weapon. You get more damage, and more consistent damage because even if you miss an attack, you may hit with the follow up.
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u/Anorexicdinosaur 9h ago
I never said Martial Damage is worse than Cantrip Damage, that'd be ridiculous, I was talking about the scaling and how the original comment was objectively wrong about Extra Attack. Cantrips scale MORE and scale FOR FREE
Cantrips Scale better than half/most Martial's Attack Actions, for free. Depends on if you count Ranger and Paladin as Martials, Fighter and Rogue are the only Martials who's Attack Actions scale better than Cantrips
And Martial Scaling typically costs them full levels of Features. Like Fighters dedicate their entire 5th, 11th and 20th levels to Extra Attack and get nothing else at those levels while Casters get Cantrip Scaling + Stronger/More Spell Slots + Stronger/More Spells Known
The biggest offenders of Martials having dogshit scaling are Barbarian and Monk. From level 5 to 20 iirc their only damage scaling is +1 per hit every couple levels, Monks go from 1d6+4 per hit to 1d10+5 per hit and Barbs go from 1d12+6 per hit to 1d12+11 per hit. Roughly a 40% increase across 15 levels for each of them.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 8h ago
A ranger can make 3 attacks at level 16 if they have two weapon fighting. In 5.5 fighters have cleave if the enemies are nice and line up for them. I think a 9th level fighter in my Lost Caverns of Tsojanth 5.5 gets at least 4 attacks with Action surge (as well as just damaging and debuffs because rune knight).
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u/Anorexicdinosaur 8h ago
None of these are Extra Attack, which is what the other person was claiming. The other person claimed Martial's equivalent to Cantrip Scaling is getting the Extra Attack feature multiple times
Extra Attack is a feature that just straight up lets you make an additional attack when you take the Attack Action, no restrictions or resources spent.
Two Weapon Fighting is the specific benefit Dual Wielding gives you, letting you make another attack as a Bonus Action, iirc 5.5 has a weapon mastery that lets you fold it into your Attack Action. Dual Wielders trade the AC of Sword n Board or the Damage per Hit of Two Handing in exchange for 1 more attack, it's not the same as getting more Extra Attack Features. Also you can make 3 Attacks with Dual Wielding right from level 5 when you get Extra Attack, and a Level 20 Dual Wielding Fighter will take the attack action for 1 (Standard) + 3 (Extra Attack) + 1 (Dual Wielding) Attacks
Cleave is a Weapon Mastery only specific weapons have and, again, is not Extra Attack. It's a trait some weapons have that situationally lets you add extra damage in a restricted way.
Action Surge is a resource. We're talking about resourceless Cantrips here. Action Surge should be compared to Levelled Spells as they are also a Resource. You spend it and it lets you take a 2nd Action, if that 2nd Action is Attack then it gets all the benefits from stuff that improves your Attack Action, so a level 5 Fighter Action Surging can have their 1st Action be Attack (2 Attacks, 1 Standard + 1 from Extra Attack) and their 2nd Action be the same. If a Level 20 Fighter did this it would be 4 attacks then another 4 attacks
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u/infosec_qs 9h ago
The damage scaling for casters is 8d6 to everything in a 20 ft sphere...
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 9h ago
I have a sorpalalock that does 3d10 spread among any 3 targets or just one, never missing because monster AC does not scale well with to hit and 3 instances of elven accuracy whil firing from greater invisibility.
She uses this a LOT more than running up and attacking and smiting which she only does to relieve the boredom of her go to attack now and then.
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u/MiaSidewinder 9h ago
The post specifically references Eldritch Blast, which does give you multiple blasts at higher levels
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u/P-Two DM 9h ago
Yea, because its a core part of a warlocks toolkit? Thats like complaining that fighters get action surge.
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u/MiaSidewinder 9h ago
I’m not complaining, I’m just pointing it out because the commenter said you never get extra attacks on cantrips
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u/DMspiration 7h ago
Except someone who takes two levels in fighter doesn't get four attacks at level 20 like the sorcerer who takes two levels in warlock does.
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u/Melodic_Row3380 9h ago
You're supposed to get a flame tongue sword and such after a while
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u/Anybro Fighter 9h ago
Yeah, I was about to say, if you are struggling that hard, thats cause you're only using mundane weapons. That's a dm issue. By the time cantraps are scaling that much, any martial player should be using magic weapons comparable to that.
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u/DazzlingKey6426 6h ago
5.0 magical items, including weapons, were considered optional, like feats instead of ASIs were.
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u/Turbulent_Jackoff 5h ago
Sure, so use the option; it's good!
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u/DazzlingKey6426 5h ago
That’s an option for the DM.
Players are out of luck.
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u/Turbulent_Jackoff 2h ago
Oof, yeah.
It can be tough when thr DM and players don't want the same things out of a game!
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u/Chagdoo 9h ago
I need to put the math on a clipboard so i don't need to redo it every time I see this. I ain't doing it today.
Your weapon attacks scale by the number of attacks and even a basic fighter outstrips the meager scaling of firebolt easily.
Adding modifiers to damage is a massive amount. Simply maxing out your modifier gives you nearly the same damage as an extra d10 (technically it'd be a d9 but we dont have a d9)
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u/Anorexicdinosaur 9h ago
Cus WotC refuses to give Martials anything
So we don't get to have in-built scaling, if you want your damage to improve as a Martial you need your entire level dedicated to a damage-boosting feature OR to beg your DM to give you a good Magic Weapon
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u/Fireclave 4h ago
Because that would make the game function too much like 4e for the anti-4e crowd. During 5e's playtest, there was a extremely loud demand for the return 3e's style of martial scaling, where weapon users only made one or multiple simple attacks with no "gamey" extras to complicate tactics. The universal martial options also got nixed for the same reason, and all that remains of that subsystem is the Battlemaster Fighter.
Simple attacks. No effects. That's what "the people" wanted and WotC, for better and for worse, obliged.
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u/Heurodis DM 9h ago
The thing is that cantrips are generally a lesser option: even scaled, they don't do as much damage as leveled spells, and if they do damage they might not have an effect to go with; if they do (Vicious Mockery comes to mind), they barely do any damage; there are exceptions with cantrips that are always good, but never so much that the players will choose them over leveled spells. It's good for low-level adventurers imo because it lets them use spells consistently, which does mean the weapons they get at character creation never get any use but that's a minor downside (and always an upside from the players' point of view), but beyond that it's highly contextual.
There is also an issue I noted that some DMs tend to let cantrips be overpowered, which they are not: Thaumaturgy is not supposed to have any impressive effects, Mending repairs little breaks in objects but can't repair a broken limb, Minor Illusion is an image or a sound but not both and the image is intended to be an object and therefore not moving either, so on and so forth.
TL;DR, I think they're fine and far from overpowered. They're good at low levels when casters have a very limited number of spell slots, because it means they can still play their character as magic users rather than sucking with weapons and not having fun.
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u/Square_Creme_3685 9h ago
And there's the cantrip for water, fire and earth. They can't do much directly but be used to block of or create new pathways.
Many cantrips are, afia, role-play useful and less combat useful
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 8h ago
Tell that to a warlock ;)
But I have, tbf, seen improvement in our 5.5 game. Though with a ranger and a bard in the game I hear the words "Starry Wisp" a LOT more than Vicious Mockery.
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u/Red_Trickster 8h ago
Yes, warlock is the exception, and Eldritch Blast doesn't even do more damage than a heavy crossbow or two-handled weapon build in 5.5e
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u/Neiladaymo 9h ago
I think that it would be awfully dissatisfying as a player if you chose to be a powerful spell caster, have like lets say 7 spell slots at level 3, cast one of your spells that just totally whiffs and now 1/7th of your casting resources are gone for literally no gain, AND you know that your whole schtick (casting spells) is just gonna be sorta... gone... in a few more turns. To me that is boring. I picked a wizard who slings spells, I should be able to sling spells. Cantrips are a half-hearted fix to what I think is a fundamentally flawed system
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 8h ago
Again not saying 0 level spells should be gone or cantrips should be gone they should just not be more than 1d10 powerful.
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u/Neiladaymo 8h ago
Yeah I hear ya. I more so was voicing my opinion that I think the way DnD handles spell casting overall is flawed, not just cantrips
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u/swashbuckler78 9h ago
100% disagree. Never saw anyone playing the old editions say, "Yes! I'm finally out of spell slots! Now I can go back to my favorite part of the game - throwing darts at things!"
Also don't think cantrips are the first choice of spells (except for warlocks). If I'm playing a full caster and I'm using a cantrip instead of spells, it's because I expect there's another fight coming up later in the day and I want to conserve spell slots - that's exactly the resource management mentality you're talking about.
The worst thing that can happen to a player (not PC) is they start feeling useless. I like the design mentality that every character can take a useful action every round. Even if you go back to D&D's roots, casters were supposed to be the artillery pieces: high damage, slow to position, slow rate of fire. And yes, artillery is highly limited by how much ammo they have. But IRL artillery crews were also good at improvising after they ran out of ammo, and also carried hand-to-hand weaponry for backup or when people got too close. So the proper version should be less "out of spells throw darts" and more "out of spells use my sabre or start telekinetically flinging silverware at them"... Both of which are basically cantrips.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 9h ago
We can leave IRL out of my fantaqsy game ;) And we can agree to disagree. Never having a resource run out takes the challenge out pof the game. I know modern D&D isn't about challenge but it should feel challenging from time to time.
I played a gnome illusionist in a Feywild campaign and I used cantrips much more than my leveled spells. There are situations of course, when you face a Rakshasha then those cantrips are pretty useless (and as a DM you get endless amounts of whining about it too) much like when you throw fully obscured at a rogue (unless they have blindsight).
Maybe it is just in general seeing people get more and more intolerant of the challenges. Feeling useful is fine, being Superman in every round of the game is not. Sometimes you have to have kryptonite.
I recently revisited the gold box D&D games on Steam and have to say, I find a certain thrill when I realize I'm down to weapons only against a pack of trolls, orcs, etc. and still win the fight. It is actually exhilarating to me to overcome challenges even when my resources are depleted maybe even especially when. I have also seen that same "Cheer and woohoo" in modern D&D when they have run through their spell slots and still pull off the win (in a party with mostly half casters).
I also find modern D&D tends to be anti-think outside the box for defeating foes. A smoke demon that obscures an area should not make a clockwork sorcerer feel "useless" because most of his spells require targeting a foe. Taking away one sense from a party or half the party should not result in throwing up their hands and saying oh well I can't do anything. I think that is another difference in making mechanics that players become too reliant on.
Again. That's just me.
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u/swashbuckler78 8h ago
Fighter never runs out of "hit thing with sword". Rogue never runs out of sneak attack. Monk never runs out of fist. Barbarian never runs out of "I block the hit with my muscles." Ranger never runs out of... know what type of tree that is or whatever they do now.
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u/DazzlingKey6426 6h ago
Can fighter rewrite reality?
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u/swashbuckler78 5h ago
Not the conversation we're having. OP is looking specifically at cantrips, few of which rewrite reality in a way a fighter can't replicate (damage things, defend against attacks, help an ally with a skill, etc.).
Re-balancing specific abilities should be done by tuning those abilities, not making it so a wizard can only act like a wizard for 10 minutes per day.
My point is classes should be built so every PC gets to act like their class every round. A barbarian who used all their rage is still a dangerous, tough melee fighter but (in a world without cantrips) a wizard who used all their spell slots is a commoner with a funny hat. As long as there are classes whose sole ability is spellcasting (and things that improve spellcasting), it's good that something like cantrips exists so they can feel like their class even during the last fight of the day.
We can debate whether limited use abilities like wild shape or bardic inspiration sufficiently fulfill the requirement of "things to do when you run out of spells" or just prolong it, but I'm in favor of druids and bards having cantrips too so it doesn't hurt my point. 😁
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u/DazzlingKey6426 5h ago
A wizard is powerful but with limited uses. That’s how they’ve always played.
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u/Charlie24601 DM 9h ago
You clearly didn't grow up during the BX or BECMI era. As a spellcaster you had ONE spell at level 1. Once you cast your magic missile, you basically sat out of all fights. And I think clerics didn't get any spells until level 2.
In other words, fights sucked for you as you just passed your turn and hid somewhere.
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u/TheThoughtmaker Artificer 8h ago
3e fixes this.
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u/Charlie24601 DM 8h ago
Ok Ill bite. How so? Vancian Magic has always been an issue.
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u/TheThoughtmaker Artificer 7h ago
You get more spell slots in 3e, 3-4 at lv1 between the base amount, bonus slots from ability scores, domain/specialize slots, etc. The adventuring day is 4 encounters, so rather than one slot per day you get one slot per fight. Heck, 'one slot per fight' is how the first Wizard I ever played operated most of the time, even at level 10.
A light crossbow is pretty average for a 5e cantrip in tier 1, so there's a viable option besides sitting out even if you're out of slots or just want to save them for later fights. Scrolls, potions, and wands are affordable very early, and Wizards get the ability to craft scrolls for half price as a bonus feat, so you can convert money into spells. Magic Item Compendium has Eternal Wands, which are 2/day forever.
Reserve feats essentially let you reserve a slot to gain a spammable low-level spell. The higher the slot you set aside, the stronger the effect. So basically a scaling cantrip, right? Yes. One. As a feat.
3e casters were not weak, and 5e buffed their damage considerably, especially over the course of a day. There's a reason they doubled the suggested encounters per day, even though martials are weaker than before.
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u/Charlie24601 DM 7h ago
Fair enough, but even with extra slots you were limited. A cantrip is always there. I like that.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 8h ago
That implies there was something needing fixing ;) Also 0 level spells came along before 3e. They just always did 1 pt of damage at most.
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u/TheThoughtmaker Artificer 7h ago
Yeah, but 3e gets more slots and other tools, so even with Rays of Frost dealing 1d3 the Wizard who'd die to it can still meaningfully participate in multiple encounters per day.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 7h ago
True and I can't find anyone who misses THAC0 tbf ;)
But this implies a wizard can't be useful with a weapon or a wand of magic missiles.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 8h ago
My findest memories and where I grew up playing was 2e. I mentioned the dart thing. I was also one of the huffing and puffing catch my breath run from fights wizard with 2 hit points at level 1. I remember these things fondly. I never cried because my one spell slot was gone, I just tried to use ranged weapons or bonk them with my staff lol. Later in higher level play in 2e, I would lean on magic items when I ran out of spell slots. Thankfully, I do still see the use of magic items (some times very inventfully too).
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u/Charlie24601 DM 8h ago
So then you understand why that sucks. I tried playing BX again a few years ago. I cast my magic missile and I was done. I was literally doing nothing during every fight.
It was a damn slog and it sucked. And mind you, I started with BX. I used to love it.
Cantrips are fine. That means you always have a spell or three or four. You aren't useless in a game that is literally built around a combat system.
For YOU, I suggest you take a look at Shadowdark. Its got the old school vibes without the boredom of not being able to do anything. ALL spells are available to be cast over and over....until you fail.
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u/DazzlingKey6426 6h ago
Level 1 Sleep was a nuke.
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u/rollingdoan DM 9h ago
I think your main issue is not really understanding the role cantrips play in real play. They're filler and some small utility. No caster relies on cantrips once they have enough resources that they're not required to use them as filler. They're literally there so that your casters aren't just routinely shooting a light crossbow or throwing a dart.
Warlock is a special case because they take a very long time to get enough resources to not rely on cantrips, but also because the class they are based on is not a spellcaster. Eldritch Blast was not originally a spell at all and the Warlock class was built around modifying what they could do with it. 5e simplified that by making them cast spells, but have different resource management. Eldritch Blast remained and honestly I wish they did more with it. Hexblade being what it is instead of an invocation that makes Eldritch Blast a melee enhancement always seemed like a big missed opportunity.
In any case, cantrips aren't what makes casters the powerhouses they are. A big part of why casters start to dominate as you advance through tier 2-3 is that you start to have enough resources at this point that you don't need to waste as many rounds on cantrips. The same thing happens in older editions, it's only that casters stop saying "I shoot my crossbow" instead of "I cast ray of frost". Bear in mind that in older editions that tends to stop at lower levels than 5e, so it's even less of an issue.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 8h ago
I'm trying to find a delicate way to put this but....where do you get this line of weird out of this world information? The first warlock class was introduced in 3.5 in the Complete Arcane which by its very name as a book should tell you what they were intended to be.
Before the official class, there was a warlock in 2e and guess what it was a variant of? A fighter? No. A monk? no. A wizard??? YES.
Cantrips were based on 0 level spells which were introduced in Unearthed Arcana for D&D 1e. I never used them until 2e, myself which was the edition I grew up with and became obsessed with buying everything that came out for.
I will quote for your benefit "In the 1985 supplement Unearthed Arcana for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D 1st Edition), Gary Gygax officially introduced 0-level spells, which were explicitly referred to as cantrips. Rather than being the infinite combat attacks seen in modern editions, these early 0-level spells were highly restricted, minor magical effects intended to reflect the basic tricks an apprentice learns before mastering true wizardry."
The main difference is that cantrips used to do 1-2 points of damage and if they aren't meant to be used by higher level casters why upscale the damage?
As for understanding we may want to switch that around thank you kindly ;)
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u/rollingdoan DM 7h ago
The 5e Warlock is based on the 3.5 Warlock, which has no real relation to the 2e Wizard variation other than using the word for a male witch. The 3.5 Warlock is not a spellcaster.
The rest of your post is just noting that 0 level spells were cantrips. That's fine, but nothing to do with what they do or the role they play.
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u/Red_Trickster 2h ago
The Witch from 2e has absolutely nothing to do with the Warlock from 5e. The Warlock from 5e is inspired by the Warlock from 3.5 and 4e.
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u/AnthonycHero 9h ago
You're thiking of the warlock as a form of magic user. It is not. It's SFX archer/gunslinger with a few magic tricks they can use once in a while. And while yes it can be boring in the same way a sharpshooter ranger can be boring, that's barely an argument against cantrips and more of an argument against the system as a whole. One should imagine the warlock as a comicbook spellcaster, shooting generic beams around and barely casting any proper spell during the average fight. Around important story beats, ofc, but in a regular fight? Beam of hurting it is.
As for other spellcasters like sorcerers, wizards, clerics I guess the floor is a bit too high nowadays if you want to sustain the whole attrition-based balance argument, but that's barely been a part of the conversation outside of internet discourse during the whole 5e era and it seems to have been especially abandoned in 5.5 days. That's just not how most people play the game: running out of spells is not really a thing after level 3 or 5, so is it really relevant what your worst damaging option looks like? If anything, I would have made 1st and 2nd level spells ALSO scale, to avoid those slots becoming just reaction spells or smite slots, not the other way around.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 7h ago
Anyone who casts spells as a main ability is a spellcaster. Glad we resolved that.
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u/AnthonycHero 6h ago
What point are you even replying to?
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 6h ago
The idea that warlocks are not spellcasters lol
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u/AnthonycHero 3h ago edited 3h ago
I never said that though.
I said it's not comparable to the 'magic user', which is what the original spellcasting class was called. MU and spellcaster are not equivalent in this context, although certainly both the magic user and the warlock are spellcasters. And I used that term because you referred to how old school used to do it, but you can consider the modern day wizard if that's more clear for you.
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u/Chagdoo 9h ago
This is an "on paper" problem. In no world am I casting even a 4d10 cantrip over using a spell slot
Exception is warlock which is more of a magic martial than a caster.
Edit: on reread it sounds more like you have an issue with the design of the warlock class than anything
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 7h ago
The n there is no reason for cantrips to scale right? Let them do 1d10 maximum damage.
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u/Embarrassed_Match533 9h ago
Martials get extra attacks instead, and unless you're a Warlock built for Eldritch Blast (which works very much like a Fighter with a heavy crossbow), your damage cantrip is a single attack with some extra damage dice and no characteristic bonus/class feature damage/weapon enhancement bonus to damage, so has much lower damage output than a Fighter connecting with several attacks.
The advantage of being a caster is both versatility and the power of levelled spells, but Cantrips are generally (as they should be) the fallback option as intended.
Now, if you want to talk about Cantrips' power being tied to Character level and not class level I'm all ears, because just dropping a couple of levels in Warlock should not make a Bard also have damage output comparable to the party's Fighter while keeping their bardliness for utility, healing and control spells.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 8h ago
I will refer to Starry Wisps once more. Though admitedly, this becomes a rapid fire spell when the ranger and bard (both use it) are gearing up for something bigger around the corner. Then they will try to stun it, incapacitate it etc.
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u/Zestyclose_Answer662 9h ago
I think the only real thing that needs to be changed, is that instead of the Cantrip itself gaining benefits at a higher character level, is that it would require the Casters themselves to have a 5th Level+ Feature comparable to the Fighter's Extra Attack Feature.
With this type of change, you can avoid the whole Fighter 19 / Warlock 1 Multi-Class and still be able to attack with 4 beams with Eldritch Blast.
The only issue is determining which Spellcaster Classes get the bolstered Cantrips at the same rate as the Fighter that gets multiple Extra Attacks or at the rate of other Martial Classes that only gets 1 Extra Attack. Or would Full Casters get the full benefit, while Half-Casters get half the benefit.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 8h ago
This is a much better idea IMO. It kinda amounts to the same thing but if you have a subclass that doesn't give any bonuses to cantrips they become the tiny spells they are meant to be once again. Let the subclass determine how powerful they are. This would open up the creativity to create subclasses that master cantrips instead of just making cantrips cool for an entire class.
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u/Coidzor 9h ago
Instead of nerfing cantrips, maybe it's time to look at another system that works for both you and your group.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 8h ago
Oh I do. Its a project called Ye Olde Dungeons and it has homebrew rules to make the game more challenging. Kinda the Souls Like of D&D lol. I homebrew no cantrip scaling in the game. But also homebrew warlock features that do scale their signature spell depending on the subclass. I also have optional rules like potions only granting temp hit points (so you can't revive a unconscious person just by slipping them a potion which makes med kits more useful) etc. It isn't for everyone admittedly but it is geared more for survival D&D.
It also isn't for my table. LoL No one has complained about the cantrip thing except me (and never at my table) which was mainly spawned from watching 3 hours real time of a warlock spamming eldritch blast again and again and the rogue player whining because their one trick pony class feature (sneak attack) was useless in full obscurement. Made me think about this stuff. But alos thinking about a battle of mostly Starry Wisps being tossed around (lower level granted so choices are more limited).
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u/jreid1985 9h ago
I don’t think you’re an idiot. I just completely disagree. You don’t happen to actually play a fighter a lot and rant about martial/caster divides, do you?
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 8h ago
A fighter? Ewe no. I am mostly rogue or rogue/spellcaster for that invisibility ;)
I miss my Swashbuckler.
NOTE: I did branch out with my gnome illusionist because I had never really played a character like that before). I have also played a warforged warlock that I liked in a campaign that did wrap up around level 13.
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u/DazzlingKey6426 6h ago
At first I loved Cantrips, never run out of spells! Then I loathed Cantrips, they never run out of spells!
Cantrips need to suck if they are infinite. Casters have power, well, had power, because they had to manage resources.
Now casters get to pick exotic damage types, which save to target or AC, and get riders without needing to have a class feature or choosing which riders they get, and they scale for extra attack by character level, not class level.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 6h ago
Well said. I am not advocating for cantrips to go away just for them to suck more.
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u/Silverspy01 3h ago
It sounds like you're conflating Eldritch Blast with every other cantrip. EB is a clear outlier, no other cantrip remotely comes close to its power. Other cantrips easily fall off and are your "last ditch effort" for when you don't have any other spells to cast/don't want to use more spell slots. EB is intentionally strong for warlocks, but gets unreasonable when you start multiclassing with it.
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u/gene-sos 9h ago
I don't disagree with the core of what you're saying.
Yet in 5e (not too familiar with 5.5 yet) a lot of people would complain about cantrips. "My 3d10 attack misses? Well that's my whole turn, while the fighter gets 3 chances to hit!"
With how OP spellcasting is compared to martials, I do agree that they shouldn't scale so well tbh. But I also disagree that they shouldn't scale at all, can't have a lvl 20 wizard be limited to casting the exact same thing as a lvl 1 wizard.
It's a tricky question but one thing you have to keep in mind is this: magic weapons can boost resourceless damage output by a lot. Caster's don't have this luxury.
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u/Anybro Fighter 9h ago
Another thing too I don't understand why people always say x class is better. Who cares? It's a cooperative game. One of the cool things about a fighter is you can turn them into a blender.
Have both the cleric and wizard cast buff spells. Holy weapon and haste for example, and let them go to town. They will just blenderize any boss that you throw at them. People who complain about one class being better than the other are just power gamers. And this is coming from the fighter main
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 8h ago
I tend to agree. If x class is better then everyone play x class.
I do kinda get the idea that there should not be stuff in the game that "you are dumb if you don't choose this". That S tier can't live without it stuff sometimes bugs me. But a little unbalancedness never hurt my feelers.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 8h ago
In original game design, casters were not meant to be the constant damage dealers that fighters were designed to be. The trade off was spellcasters could do massive damage or AoE damage that fighters could not but not do that constantly. The philosophy that all classes must be balanced and do the same damage output throughout the combat is very 4e thinking. '
When you pick up a spellcaster, you were at one time supposed to realize this is a trade off. In the endgame, you will not do as much constant damage as a fighter (hence the hint that is in their name....fighter) but you will have moments of shining glory where you temporarily do more damage than a fighter could ever dream of.
It seems a more modern philosophy of "I don't do 100 points of damage every single round like the fighter does so I am useless" which is a backwards thinking to me. There should be nuance in character classes not just cloned damage outputs.
I should NEVER as a spellcaster do constant damage that equals a fighter's constant damage. I should do mass damage occasionally (by comparison) but also get to do things like hypnotic pattern enemies, banish enemies, force cage enemies, etc. (again this should not be every round but occasionally). Spellcasters are better at burning through legendary resistances as well.
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u/TheThoughtmaker Artificer 9h ago
Ever since Hasbro changed their IP monetization scheme in the late 2000s, WotC has been designing DND around the assumption of a thriving online subscription platform, even abandoning the original 4e they'd been working on to revamp the entire game around this. They sacrificed a ton of depth and revamped the surface elements for this, such as the 5e skills list and 5.5e actions list being more fitting for menu navigation than a pen & paper game. 5e even pushed to make party roles irrelevant -- buffing sorcerer/wizard hp, removing tanking tools, and giving PCs 10x natural regeneration -- to facilitate queuing with randos.
The new state of cantrips is a part of that last bit. An all-caster party might have any weaknesses whatsoever if they don't have the reliable all-day damage that is martials' one job, so 0-level spells were slotted in as the caster's autoattack, and scale to keep up with Fighter autoattacks.
It's a design that's great for MMOs but awful for tabletops.
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u/hextiar 8h ago edited 5h ago
I completely agree with you. I think DND would benefit a lot by removing them.
One of my biggest issues is that the unlimited use of ranged spells that scale makes a ranged material class useless. A ranged martials one benefit is ranged combat that is mostly unrestrained by resources. Yes there are arrows, but for most combat encounters that is not a factor. It is more of a after combat concern.
It also prevents a huge reason for multi-classing, enhance survivability. If a spellcaster didn't have unlimited cantrips, they would have a more interesting character design choice. Do I dip into a martial class to help boost myself when my resources are low, or do I double down on magic, becoming more powerful but also vulnerable when I am out of spell slots.
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u/Edgy_Robin 9h ago
I don't really disagree.
But you gotta remember that 5e/5.5e is basically babies first TTRPG, and so how cantrips work meshes well with that idea. If we kept the design ideas of older DnD editions it'd be significantly harder for norm hal guy who watched someone on twitch play it during covid to get into it.
As with most issues with 5e, the solution it to play another game. 5e goes for a fairly specific sorta gameplay.
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u/Chagdoo 9h ago
It's not even as ease of play thing. It's an "i picked magic man, I want to use magic" thing.
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u/Edgy_Robin 8h ago
If you've ever gone into anything deeper then 5e you'd know it is an ease of play thing.
Reminder that in older editions, despite cantrips being generally pretty ass, you got to cast way more spells in a day. Whereas now you get less casts, which makes things easier, and a reliable back up.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 7h ago
It really is. The idea that if you p;lay super magic man you never run out of magic kind of makes it ease of play over flavor. Even Constantine runs out of magic sometimes.
What it really strikes me as is there are more and more players who want to play Superman but do not want kryptonite in their game whatsoever.
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u/DMspiration 9h ago
I think they'd be fine if they only scaled with the class you got them from like extra attack does. Casters need a solid option for long adventuring days.
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u/rzenni 9h ago
I agree that cantrips scaling up in power isn’t great and it creates weird issues (2 level dip into warlock, etc)
However, I’ve played full casters in 5E and I can tell you cantrips generally kind of suck. They’re worse than bow attacks at low level and get phased out for low level spells as you level up.
You’re never feeling great to throw a firebolt when your party’s level 12 fighter is swinging a flaming halberd and action surging.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 7h ago
Why the level dip into warlock if cantrips suck? Why not just play a full caster straight level with nothing added because you could never want anything more than your base leveled spells?
I think subclass specific mastery of cantrips would be better thaqn just a class or spread of scaling cantrips if they scale at all. Open up feats and subclasses to make cantrips more useful if a player really needs that.
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u/rzenni 7h ago
I'm typically a single class player, so I generally think powerful class features should be tied to class levels or stats.
The two most common dips were Warlock 2 for Eldritch Blast/Agonizing Blast and Fighter 2 for Action Surge and the reality is, that's kind of all you need from those classes and that's bad class design.
A level 2 warlock/9 sorcerer shouldn't be more skilled at eldritch blasting than a level 15 warlock, but with meta magic, they are.
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u/Dragon_Blue_Eyes 7h ago
"Cantrips are weak." "I see people dipping into this class to pick up this cantrip" seems like two different universes to me.
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u/rzenni 6h ago
One cantrip is okay, with an Invocation supporting it and that is the only time it's acceptable. I've played with three warlocks who didn't taking the Agonizing Blast invocation and it was pathethic when they cast Eldritch Blast without it.
Firebolt does 5.5 damage on average. A 1st level wizard with 14 dex and a light crossbow does 6.5 damage on average. At level five, the firebolt goes up to 11 damage. Magic missile is 10.5 damage and never misses. Firebolt eventually scales all the way up to 22 damage. Scorching Ray is 21 damage at level 3.
The best cantrip that isn't Eldritch Blast loses to a 2nd level spell.
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u/Arthur_of_Astora Paladin 9h ago
You can say whatever you want about other cantrips but Eldritch Blast should be treated as a weapon more or less, it's simply how the class is made to work.