Because you get to add your spellcasting modifier to Magic Stone. Unless you have the right Invocations as a Warlock, you don't get to do that. Means a significantly higher minimum and average damage.
Because you get to add your spellcasting modifier to Magic Stone. Unless you have the right Invocations as a Warlock, you don't get to do that. Means a significantly higher minimum and average damage.
That makes sense. No wonder Warlock players often specialize in pimping the heck out of that one cantrip.
Oh yeah. Eldritch Blast can get dirty, particularly at higher level Tiers. Most ranged attack cantrips get an extra die at each Tier, whereas Eldritch Blast fires more beams. This means that, if you have the Invocation that allows you to add your spellcasting mod to the damage, you get to add that damage to EACH beam.
Oh yeah. Eldritch Blast can get dirty, particularly at higher level Tiers. Most ranged attack cantrips get an extra die at each Tier, whereas Eldritch Blast fires more beams. This means that, if you have the Invocation that allows you to add your spellcasting mod to the damage, you get to add that damage to EACH beam.
Right. That's why I tend to avoid playing Warlock. Too specialized for my taste, except as a dip to get a low level Invocation or two.
I literally meant to magic initiate into druid just for a couple of extra cantrips so that you could take one like Magic Stone and not find it useless later in the game.
I like to have Druidcraft, Guidance, an attack roll cantrip, and a save cantrip. If you did that and took Magic Stone, you'd be stuck with it as your only attack roll cantrip for any subclass that only gets 4 (realistically, shepherd and dreams).
Shillelagh seems really useless to me. A quarterstaff already does 1d8 damage and unlike all other cantrip, the damage doesnt increase with character level. Thorn Whip seems better in every way. More damage (above Lv4), more range, still melee attack and pulling utility.
It's unfortunate that Shillelagh (along with Magic Stone) has to be the worst of the damage cantrips for the druid. It's fixed at a d8, no matter your current level. The other damage cantrips, including Poison Spray, Produce Flame (my fav as it has a range of 30'), Frostbite, and Bonfire all increase in damage as your druid increases in level.
But quarterstaffs *are* kick ass.
Shame they didn't give it the same kind of buff that the other spells have (2d8 at 5th, 3d8 11th, etc). Next campaign I DM, I'm definitely going to give that option to any druids.
That's going to create a problem when someone multiclasses Druid + Fighter or Druid + Barbarian.
The DM giveth, the DM taketh away. If you give your players a homebrew improvement of a spell and they abuse it, just take it away again.
Shillelagh seems really useless to me. A quarterstaff already does 1d8 damage and unlike all other cantrip, the damage doesnt increase with character level. Thorn Whip seems better in every way. More damage (above Lv4), more range, still melee attack and pulling utility.
As previously mentioned, there's more to it than that. A quarterstaff does 1d8 damage when wielded 2-handed; it only does 1d6 when wielded 1-handed. Furthermore, Shillelagh allows you to add your Wisdom to both the Attack Roll and Damage Roll instead of Strength; Strength is absolutely a dump stat for druids, almost completely useless to take and thus your only alternative really is a scimitar to use your Dexterity, which will also be lower than your Wisdom, but at least isn't entirely a Dump Stat as it also affects your AC.
It's also important to note that a quarterstaff can typically (DM discretion) be used as a Spellcasting focus for a druid; a Scimitar cannot.
All that said, this actually allows Druids to make some rather competent (magical) Weapon attacks while still being able to wield a Shield, though true as a Cantrip it doesn't hold up amazingly well in 3rd and 4th tier.
It does, however, hold up better than all other damaging Cantrips even in 2nd Tier, because you can add your Wisdom Modifier to the damage roll. A second-tier Druid can easily have a +4 to Wisdom, or even a +5 past level 8 (based on point-buy/standard array) which means that the minimum damage from a Shillelagh imbued Quarterstaff would be 5 or 6, average Damage would be 9 or 10, and maximum damage would be 12 or 13.
Compare this to the minimum damage of only 2 for all other 2nd tier Cantrips, and average damage of either 7 for a d6 spell like Thorn Whip or an average of 9 for a d8 spell like Produce Flame (equal average but much lower minimum) and a maximum damage of 12 for a d6 (tied with or less than Shillelagh) or 16 for a d8.
Based on the minimum damage alone, you have far more damage potential with Shillelagh even through 2nd tier than other damaging Cantrips.
I actually think that I like having some cantrips that don't scale. Clearly the best melee cantrip early is shillelagh and the best ranged cantrip is Magic Stone, since the additional damage from the stat bonus is unparalleled in early levels. On the other hand, clearly the best cantrips at max level are scaling ones (depending on your particular choices and flavor). Somewhere in the middle, they cross over. The limit on cantrips makes for interesting decisions: do you want to forego early game damage for the late game or vice versa? Or do you want to spend two of your precious cantrip slots on attacks valuable in different levels of play? This type of trade-off is one of the best game design parts of the game, and it is one that you can make in DnD because play at all levels is interesting and fun and an important part of the game (unlike in MMOs, where "endgame is the only game"). My opinion is that the feeling of choice about your character is the important part about RPGs that makes them fun as games.
Both Shillelaghand Magic Stoneare extremely potent spells for multi-classing, as well. If you're going pure Druid all the way up to level 20, yeah, you're gonna be better off with the scaling cantrips, at least once you reach 3rd tier.
If you're planning to multi-class into a combat-oriented class that gets the Extra Attack ability, say Ranger or Fighter, oh man are they insane. You can keep Wisdom as your main stat, and - again - you can forgo Strength completely and have a Weapon and Damage Modifier equal to the best of those classes for a 1-handed weapon while maintaining access to other spells.
Say you multi-class into Fighter after 3rd or 4th level Druid, by level 8 or 9 you get the Extra Attack ability. First turn of combat - bonus action Shillelagh, action to cast Flaming Sphere behind the enemy you want to wail on, and then just for giggles use your Action Surge to run up and wail on them twice. The enemy will then take an additional potential 2d6 damage from Flaming Sphere at the end of their turn. Next turn, action to wail on them twice, bonus action to ram the Sphere into them for more damage, then after their turn they take damage from the sphere again. Potential for 1d8+Wis + 1d8+Wis + 4d6 damage in one turn? Quite potent.
Edit: I see that Magic Stone explicitly states that throwing it is a ranged spell attack and thus couldn't be used in conjunction with Extra Attack. Shame. I was going to recommend that a Rogue/Druid could potentially throw two of them in one turn, with the Two-Weapon Fighting bonus action and benefit from the Modifier damage which isn't normally added with Two-Weapon fighting, but I suppose not. If I did have a player build as a Rogue/Druid, I would probably allow this.
I do personally like thorn whip, since its a cantrip and it does a decent amount of damage, and faerie fire as well, because if something is hiding within range of you, you can make it glow purple and it has disadvantage on stealth checks. Its not only useful but also very funny to just see a goblin glowing bright purple. And then there is thunder-wave and fire storm which are really powerful, so that's what i have to say about that.
Odd that in the crunchy discussion of melee cantrips for druid no one has mentioned primal savagery. Shillelagh has a better minimum damage, but PS is a d10 cantrip throwing *average* of 11 damage per hit in tier two and a *maximum* of 20. And it's acid damage which isn't frequently resisted. As soon as you get past tier one it's hands down better than shillelagh.
Primal Savagery is awesome. I just prefer Shillelagh because it allows the druid to keep their Staff in hand for spells that require Material components. Not a big deal to pull a focus out when casting an M spell if you want to keep a hand free for Primal Savagery, though.
I just play that as the staff stays in the left hand, and I use PS to swipe with the right hand. My druid doesn't typically run with a shield. :)
Oh yea, and as to MinkyDiamond's question, I *think* they were asking if they can change spells as they level up if they realize they don't use a spell much. The good news with druids is you can swap out pretty much your entire spell list after every long rest if you want to - you just have to spend some time in meditation to do it. But for swapping one or two spells it's basically just handwaving a few minutes each morning.
Also, Primal Savagery is Somatic only - no Verbal and no Material so you don't need to hold a spell casting focus or a component pouch to use it. Somatic-only also means you can even use it within the radius of a Silence spell, useful if you're a Desert Druid (who gets Silence as an auto-prepared spell).
Primal Savagery is awesome. I just prefer Shillelagh because it allows the druid to keep their Staff in hand for spells that require Material components. Not a big deal to pull a focus out when casting an M spell if you want to keep a hand free for Primal Savagery, though.
Because you get to add your spellcasting modifier to Magic Stone. Unless you have the right Invocations as a Warlock, you don't get to do that. Means a significantly higher minimum and average damage.
That makes sense. No wonder Warlock players often specialize in pimping the heck out of that one cantrip.
Oh yeah. Eldritch Blast can get dirty, particularly at higher level Tiers. Most ranged attack cantrips get an extra die at each Tier, whereas Eldritch Blast fires more beams. This means that, if you have the Invocation that allows you to add your spellcasting mod to the damage, you get to add that damage to EACH beam.
Right. That's why I tend to avoid playing Warlock. Too specialized for my taste, except as a dip to get a low level Invocation or two.
I literally meant to magic initiate into druid just for a couple of extra cantrips so that you could take one like Magic Stone and not find it useless later in the game.
I like to have Druidcraft, Guidance, an attack roll cantrip, and a save cantrip. If you did that and took Magic Stone, you'd be stuck with it as your only attack roll cantrip for any subclass that only gets 4 (realistically, shepherd and dreams).
Shillelagh seems really useless to me. A quarterstaff already does 1d8 damage and unlike all other cantrip, the damage doesnt increase with character level. Thorn Whip seems better in every way. More damage (above Lv4), more range, still melee attack and pulling utility.
The DM giveth, the DM taketh away. If you give your players a homebrew improvement of a spell and they abuse it, just take it away again.
As previously mentioned, there's more to it than that. A quarterstaff does 1d8 damage when wielded 2-handed; it only does 1d6 when wielded 1-handed.
Furthermore, Shillelagh allows you to add your Wisdom to both the Attack Roll and Damage Roll instead of Strength; Strength is absolutely a dump stat for druids, almost completely useless to take and thus your only alternative really is a scimitar to use your Dexterity, which will also be lower than your Wisdom, but at least isn't entirely a Dump Stat as it also affects your AC.
It's also important to note that a quarterstaff can typically (DM discretion) be used as a Spellcasting focus for a druid; a Scimitar cannot.
All that said, this actually allows Druids to make some rather competent (magical) Weapon attacks while still being able to wield a Shield, though true as a Cantrip it doesn't hold up amazingly well in 3rd and 4th tier.
It does, however, hold up better than all other damaging Cantrips even in 2nd Tier, because you can add your Wisdom Modifier to the damage roll. A second-tier Druid can easily have a +4 to Wisdom, or even a +5 past level 8 (based on point-buy/standard array) which means that the minimum damage from a Shillelagh imbued Quarterstaff would be 5 or 6, average Damage would be 9 or 10, and maximum damage would be 12 or 13.
Compare this to the minimum damage of only 2 for all other 2nd tier Cantrips, and average damage of either 7 for a d6 spell like Thorn Whip or an average of 9 for a d8 spell like Produce Flame (equal average but much lower minimum) and a maximum damage of 12 for a d6 (tied with or less than Shillelagh) or 16 for a d8.
Based on the minimum damage alone, you have far more damage potential with Shillelagh even through 2nd tier than other damaging Cantrips.
I actually think that I like having some cantrips that don't scale. Clearly the best melee cantrip early is shillelagh and the best ranged cantrip is Magic Stone, since the additional damage from the stat bonus is unparalleled in early levels. On the other hand, clearly the best cantrips at max level are scaling ones (depending on your particular choices and flavor). Somewhere in the middle, they cross over. The limit on cantrips makes for interesting decisions: do you want to forego early game damage for the late game or vice versa? Or do you want to spend two of your precious cantrip slots on attacks valuable in different levels of play? This type of trade-off is one of the best game design parts of the game, and it is one that you can make in DnD because play at all levels is interesting and fun and an important part of the game (unlike in MMOs, where "endgame is the only game"). My opinion is that the feeling of choice about your character is the important part about RPGs that makes them fun as games.
Both Shillelagh
and Magic Stoneare extremely potent spells for multi-classing, as well. If you're going pure Druid all the way up to level 20, yeah, you're gonna be better off with the scaling cantrips, at least once you reach 3rd tier.If you're planning to multi-class into a combat-oriented class that gets the Extra Attack ability, say Ranger or Fighter, oh man are they insane. You can keep Wisdom as your main stat, and - again - you can forgo Strength completely and have a Weapon and Damage Modifier equal to the best of those classes for a 1-handed weapon while maintaining access to other spells.
Say you multi-class into Fighter after 3rd or 4th level Druid, by level 8 or 9 you get the Extra Attack ability. First turn of combat - bonus action Shillelagh, action to cast Flaming Sphere behind the enemy you want to wail on, and then just for giggles use your Action Surge to run up and wail on them twice. The enemy will then take an additional potential 2d6 damage from Flaming Sphere at the end of their turn. Next turn, action to wail on them twice, bonus action to ram the Sphere into them for more damage, then after their turn they take damage from the sphere again. Potential for 1d8+Wis + 1d8+Wis + 4d6 damage in one turn? Quite potent.
Edit: I see that Magic Stone explicitly states that throwing it is a ranged spell attack and thus couldn't be used in conjunction with Extra Attack. Shame. I was going to recommend that a Rogue/Druid could potentially throw two of them in one turn, with the Two-Weapon Fighting bonus action and benefit from the Modifier damage which isn't normally added with Two-Weapon fighting, but I suppose not. If I did have a player build as a Rogue/Druid, I would probably allow this.
I do personally like thorn whip, since its a cantrip and it does a decent amount of damage, and faerie fire as well, because if something is hiding within range of you, you can make it glow purple and it has disadvantage on stealth checks. Its not only useful but also very funny to just see a goblin glowing bright purple. And then there is thunder-wave and fire storm which are really powerful, so that's what i have to say about that.
Hi I'm new to dnd and wonderd if you can can be the spells you have as you level up of you see it's a spell you don't have use for or other stuff
Sorry, can't quite understand what you're asking. Could you rephrase the question?
I'm surprised no body mentioned Guardian of Nature. It works with str, dex or wis based attacks and gives advantage.
Odd that in the crunchy discussion of melee cantrips for druid no one has mentioned primal savagery. Shillelagh has a better minimum damage, but PS is a d10 cantrip throwing *average* of 11 damage per hit in tier two and a *maximum* of 20. And it's acid damage which isn't frequently resisted. As soon as you get past tier one it's hands down better than shillelagh.
Primal Savagery is awesome. I just prefer Shillelagh because it allows the druid to keep their Staff in hand for spells that require Material components. Not a big deal to pull a focus out when casting an M spell if you want to keep a hand free for Primal Savagery, though.
I just play that as the staff stays in the left hand, and I use PS to swipe with the right hand. My druid doesn't typically run with a shield. :)
Oh yea, and as to MinkyDiamond's question, I *think* they were asking if they can change spells as they level up if they realize they don't use a spell much. The good news with druids is you can swap out pretty much your entire spell list after every long rest if you want to - you just have to spend some time in meditation to do it. But for swapping one or two spells it's basically just handwaving a few minutes each morning.
Also, Primal Savagery is Somatic only - no Verbal and no Material so you don't need to hold a spell casting focus or a component pouch to use it. Somatic-only also means you can even use it within the radius of a Silence spell, useful if you're a Desert Druid (who gets Silence as an auto-prepared spell).
Shoot Weapon Into Target (Arrows, Bolts, Javelins, Spears, etc) > Heat Metal
or is that too far-fetched? Haven't tried it yet.
"Choose a manufactured metal object, such as a metal weapon or a suit of heavy or medium metal armor, that you can see within range."
You can't really see the metal part of a projectile embedded in someone.