I would just like to I haven't used it have to talk to my dm however I have to disagree with many folk on this discussion being able to give a caster the equivalent benifit of say martial classes gaining extra attacks or the ability to gain multiple attacks in one turn or the rogues ability to use its sudden strike every turn they even have a subclass that removes the need to have advantage a rangers colossus slayer being able to be used every turn. Etc the point I'm trying make is cantrip users need something to make up for their inability to have high ac scores and complete lack of physical strength I think that this feat may bring people who are wanting to sling spells but dont and cant afford to get into actual melee which once your slots are and they are used up very quickly you kinda have no choice or your just the way to be on par with your martial companions and support them from a distance. Is op a little but if you take away the stat boost it's not as op as say polearm master or sentinel feats, but combine this with spell sniper and you have. Pretty badass cantrip user. But at the end of the day that's just my opinion
If the worry is that the Warlock will break this by casting two Eldritch Blasts each time, basically getting Twinned spell for a feat, then the wording could be changed to something like this.
Cantrip MasterPrerequisite: Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma score greater than 13, and the ability to cast cantrips.
You have spent endless hours mastering the art of casting cantrips. This relentless drive has led you to attain an uncanny level of control over anycantrip you cast.
This focused spell training gives you a +1 bonus to your spellcasting ability, up to a maximum of 20.
Your extraordinary control over cantrips lets you cast any cantrip as a bonus action, but not the same cantrip in succession..
Your prodigious knowledge concerning cantrips allows you to learn one additional cantrip from any class you choose. Furthermore, you can use yourspell casting ability modifier when casting this cantrip.
This will address the Twinned spell issue with all casters.
If the worry is that the Warlock will break this by casting two Eldritch Blasts each time, basically getting Twinned spell for a feat, then the wording could be changed to something like this.
Cantrip MasterPrerequisite: Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma score greater than 13, and the ability to cast cantrips.
You have spent endless hours mastering the art of casting cantrips. This relentless drive has led you to attain an uncanny level of control over anycantrip you cast.
This focused spell training gives you a +1 bonus to your spellcasting ability, up to a maximum of 20.
Your extraordinary control over cantrips lets you cast any cantrip as a bonus action, but not the same cantrip in succession..
Your prodigious knowledge concerning cantrips allows you to learn one additional cantrip from any class you choose. Furthermore, you can use yourspell casting ability modifier when casting this cantrip.
This will address the Twinned spell issue with all casters.
This barely fixes the issue at all. It's still basically doubling damage on any turn a caster would have used an attack cantrip. Certainly it cuts back on the warlock a bit but it still increases high-level warlock damage from 4d10+20 to 8d10+20. That's a huge spike in power.
A better fix would be something like, "if you use this ability, you can't cast any other spells this turn." Even that would be a huge power increase because it would free up your action to do anything while still casting a cantrip. It's probably too strong even in this form because it's still better than the 7th-level Eldritch Knight ability.
How about, "if you cast a cantrip as your action, you may cast a different cantrip as a bonus action. If the cantrip you cast as an action dealt any damage, the cantrip you cast as a bonus action may not be capable of doing damage." Then you still get two castings and lots of spell flexibility, but none of the shenanigans that come with having an action available and none of the raw damage from two attack cantrips. It also gives you a second chance if you whiff on your first cantrip.
Edit: I just read back through the thread and I'm starting to repeat myself. It's probably time to let this thread die.
I think a simple change that might fix this feat is to stipulate that the bonus cantrip cannot be a damage-dealing cantrip. I just used it in Ghosts of Saltmarsh with my Warlock, and the ability to punctuate every attack with a Blade Ward literally saved our entire party. I would have died a thousand times over. We completely pulled that battle out of our asses. When I tried to double up an Eldritch Blast with it, though, that's when the DM was like, where the heck did you get this feat?, after literally four hours of blithely accepting my Blade Wards.
Does your DM not review homebrew material before allowing it into his/her campaign?
This is not balanced in the slightest and just flies in the face of months (if not years) of design work to balance cantrips versus melee attacks. It's like the equivalent of letting a Fighter make 2-3 extra attacks as a bonus action. Even limiting it to non-damaging cantrips still makes it better than any other feat - True strike would give you permanent advantage, Blade Ward would give you permanent resistance, Gust, Mage Hand, Guidance, Resistance, Shape Water... any of these could be abused to do more than any feat currently does. And then you have something like Booming Blade where an Eldritch Knight could attack four times and then Booming Blade. Not to mention it stomps all over what's arguably the Sorcerer's best feature.
I am all for homebrew and the power level of my campaigns definitely skews upwards, but I would never allow this. I can't picture a scenario where it doesn't break the game.
This is not balanced in the slightest and just flies in the face of months (if not years) of design work to balance cantrips versus melee attacks. It's like the equivalent of letting a Fighter make 2-3 extra attacks as a bonus action. Even limiting it to non-damaging cantrips still makes it better than any other feat - True strike would give you permanent advantage, Blade Ward would give you permanent resistance, Gust, Mage Hand, Guidance, Resistance, Shape Water... any of these could be abused to do more than any feat currently does. And then you have something like Booming Blade where an Eldritch Knight could attack four times and then Booming Blade. Not to mention it stomps all over what's arguably the Sorcerer's best feature.
I am all for homebrew and the power level of my campaigns definitely skews upwards, but I would never allow this. I can't picture a scenario where it doesn't break the game.
That's a little hyperbolic.
Blade ward is definitely a problem, but it's the only cantrip you mentioned that seems like a dealbreaker for the non-damaging-cantrip version of the feat.
True strike is only one attack and occupies your concentration. I've seen it suggested that true strike be made a bonus action cast to give it any utility whatsoever.
Guidance is one ability check (not super common in combat) and occupies your concentration.
Gust only pushes 5 feet is the target fails a saving throw.
Resistance is one saving throw (slightly more of an issue than guidance) and occupies your concentration.
Mage hand still takes an action to control.
Shape water doesn't really have much utility in combat.
Booming blade does damage. I think we all agree that two damaging cantrips per turn for free is wildly unbalanced.
It does step on the sorcerer's toes a bit, but I don't think it's too much. The sorcerer can cast leveled spells as a bonus action not just cantrips.
You make some good points. While I wouldn't play with the feat as suggested, I also don't think it's irredeemable.
I know I'm going to receive quite a bit of hate for this but ...
Is it really that unbalanced? It seems to me comparable to a fighter class getting their ability to make a second attack with their action during each round.
Cantrips are level 0 spells. Making two level 0 attacks per round is that unbalanced?
Right now, under some conditions a spellcaster may cast a cantrip and a spell each round until they run out of spell slots. This would open it up to casting two cantrips. And the caster gives up their bonus action, which the fighter classes get to still use after making two attacks.
I'm honestly asking, is it really that unbalanced?
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Cantrips get boosts every 5 levels or so. So when you give everyone an extra one, you are not doubling their attacks, you are quadrupling their damage.
Otherwise I see this being used ALL THE TIME. As in every single round.
As for non-damaging cantrips, consider:
True Strike
Magic Stone
Mending (1 minute -> 1 bonus action??)
Simpler to just make it x times per day. Still useable with attack cantrips, do not need to talk about the non-attack attack cantrips, etc.
As a bonus action, True Strike actually becomes useful. Strong even, but I wouldn't go so far as to say overpowered. Again, it's only one attack and it requires concentration. Anyone using it up close is likely to lose concentration before the next turn. Anyone at range can't use other better spells that require concentration. One of the recent UA articles had a rogue ability that just let them get advantage as a bonus action. This is definitely not as good as that.
Magic Stone is already a bonus action so I don't know what you're getting at here. It's not like it can be cast as an action instead. Even if it could "If you cast this spell again, the spell ends early on any pebbles still affected by it." There's no problem with magic stone relative to this feat that isn't already part of the rules.
The issue with mending can be simply rectified by requiring that the cantrip has a casting time of 1 action. We're already putting all sorts of other restrictions on the bonus action cantrip. It's not much more to add this requirement.
The biggest problem is resistance blade ward. I think that could be fixed by requiring that the cantrip not have a range of self.
Is it simpler to restrict it to x/day? Yes definitely. I would argue that in that form it's not interesting enough to tempt a player to take it over other feats. If x/day was really the way to go I think it needs something more, like casting any cantrip x/day as a bonus action. That still allows the interesting combinations without also requiring the investment in otherwise worthless cantrips.
True Strike does not 'become useful' otherwise they would have written it that way in the first place. Instead it becomes OVER powered.
Easiest way to tell if something is over-powered, would you use it more than every other round? If the answer is yes, then it is overpowered. True Strike as a bonus action becomes something you use every time you cast any spell with a to hit.
True Strike does not 'become useful' otherwise they would have written it that way in the first place. Instead it becomes OVER powered.
Easiest way to tell if something is over-powered, would you use it more than every other round? If the answer is yes, then it is overpowered. True Strike as a bonus action becomes something you use every time you cast any spell with a to hit.
First: you make it sound like you think true strike is currently useful. Do you really think true strike is useful as written with no homebrew?
Second: no caster would use true strike that often even as a bonus action. There are almost always significantly better things to use your concentration on.
When I look at the list of non-concentration non-cantrip spells that require an attack roll, I'm underwhelmed. Plane shift and contagion are the only ones that stand out to me as being "good", but that hardly means that true strike would be used more than every other round. How many chromatic orbs or acid arrows are you casting that this would really be your strategy. Especially when considering that greater invisibility is a thing.
If you have played a caster past level 4, seriously consider what fraction of turns you made an attack roll. I'd wager it's significantly lower than 50%
Maybe you're more concerned about balance at lower levels. Even at low levels, most of the time I'd rather not forgo bless, dragon's breath, darkness, hold person, hideous laughter, etc.
I was thinking True Strike was for your next Action rather than the next Round so you could use it right away. That's not terrible, probably in line with some of the more reliable ways to get advantage. As for Guidance, skill puzzles during combat are not uncommon in my games, but even without that it would be useful for grappling and shoving prone.
Gust is a great example of something that is not super strong on it's own, but when you take this whole feat as a package it's just yet another thing you can do. Shove as a bonus action can be fairly valuable.
I just feel like a feat is not the right design element for something like this. This kind of mastery shouldn't be available to a level 1 human or any schmuck that hits level 4. I guess if you limited the uses and restricted it to non-damaging cantrips it could be manageable. Still maintain it's a bad idea though.
Ive done several cantrip based feats that are kind of along these lines in games. the gist of them are:
increase the damage die by 1 of cantrip that requires a saving throw
learn 4 additional cantrips from the chosen class, basically magical initiate with solid cantrips instead of a 1st level spell. i specified it cant be taken if you have magical initiate already and you cant take magical initiate afterwards
increase int, wis or cha by 1 and learn 1 cantrip from any class.
all three of those in playtesting balanced very well. The first one was meant to help evokers 6th level ability be more worthwhile, the second one was designed for gritty realism optional rest rules and the 3rd one was just to add flavor to more wizardly wizards.
Definitely need to add the "with a casting time of 1 action" stipulation because otherwise the Artificer gets to heal their construct mid battle in a crazy way. and if this adds cantrips, there is no way the artificer won't take it.
I agree. If I were to implement this in my game, it wouldn't give anything besides non-damaging, non-self, single-action cantrips as a bonus action. I think with these restrictions this feat falls into the right balance of tempting and cool, but not so good that you would be stupid to not take it.
I definitely wouldn't give a cantrip in addition to this because that increases its versatility too much. I would also not make it a half-feat because it would be too good then I think.
I agree. If I were to implement this in my game, it wouldn't give anything besides non-damaging, non-self, single-action cantrips as a bonus action. I think with these restrictions this feat falls into the right balance of tempting and cool, but not so good that you would be stupid to not take it.
I definitely wouldn't give a cantrip in addition to this because that increases its versatility too much. I would also not make it a half-feat because it would be too good then I think.
I would just like to I haven't used it have to talk to my dm however I have to disagree with many folk on this discussion being able to give a caster the equivalent benifit of say martial classes gaining extra attacks or the ability to gain multiple attacks in one turn or the rogues ability to use its sudden strike every turn they even have a subclass that removes the need to have advantage a rangers colossus slayer being able to be used every turn. Etc the point I'm trying make is cantrip users need something to make up for their inability to have high ac scores and complete lack of physical strength I think that this feat may bring people who are wanting to sling spells but dont and cant afford to get into actual melee which once your slots are and they are used up very quickly you kinda have no choice or your just the way to be on par with your martial companions and support them from a distance. Is op a little but if you take away the stat boost it's not as op as say polearm master or sentinel feats, but combine this with spell sniper and you have. Pretty badass cantrip user. But at the end of the day that's just my opinion
If the worry is that the Warlock will break this by casting two Eldritch Blasts each time, basically getting Twinned spell for a feat, then the wording could be changed to something like this.
Cantrip Master Prerequisite: Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma score greater than 13, and the ability to cast cantrips.
You have spent endless hours mastering the art of casting cantrips. This relentless drive has led you to attain an uncanny level of control over any cantrip you cast.
This will address the Twinned spell issue with all casters.
This barely fixes the issue at all. It's still basically doubling damage on any turn a caster would have used an attack cantrip. Certainly it cuts back on the warlock a bit but it still increases high-level warlock damage from 4d10+20 to 8d10+20. That's a huge spike in power.
A better fix would be something like, "if you use this ability, you can't cast any other spells this turn." Even that would be a huge power increase because it would free up your action to do anything while still casting a cantrip. It's probably too strong even in this form because it's still better than the 7th-level Eldritch Knight ability.
How about, "if you cast a cantrip as your action, you may cast a different cantrip as a bonus action. If the cantrip you cast as an action dealt any damage, the cantrip you cast as a bonus action may not be capable of doing damage." Then you still get two castings and lots of spell flexibility, but none of the shenanigans that come with having an action available and none of the raw damage from two attack cantrips. It also gives you a second chance if you whiff on your first cantrip.
Edit: I just read back through the thread and I'm starting to repeat myself. It's probably time to let this thread die.
Does your DM not review homebrew material before allowing it into his/her campaign?
This is not balanced in the slightest and just flies in the face of months (if not years) of design work to balance cantrips versus melee attacks. It's like the equivalent of letting a Fighter make 2-3 extra attacks as a bonus action. Even limiting it to non-damaging cantrips still makes it better than any other feat - True strike would give you permanent advantage, Blade Ward would give you permanent resistance, Gust, Mage Hand, Guidance, Resistance, Shape Water... any of these could be abused to do more than any feat currently does. And then you have something like Booming Blade where an Eldritch Knight could attack four times and then Booming Blade. Not to mention it stomps all over what's arguably the Sorcerer's best feature.
I am all for homebrew and the power level of my campaigns definitely skews upwards, but I would never allow this. I can't picture a scenario where it doesn't break the game.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
That's a little hyperbolic.
It does step on the sorcerer's toes a bit, but I don't think it's too much. The sorcerer can cast leveled spells as a bonus action not just cantrips.
You make some good points. While I wouldn't play with the feat as suggested, I also don't think it's irredeemable.
Should definitely have an x times per day limit.
Otherwise I see this being used ALL THE TIME. As in every single round.
As for non-damaging cantrips, consider:
Simpler to just make it x times per day. Still useable with attack cantrips, do not need to talk about the non-attack attack cantrips, etc.
I know I'm going to receive quite a bit of hate for this but ...
Is it really that unbalanced? It seems to me comparable to a fighter class getting their ability to make a second attack with their action during each round.
Cantrips are level 0 spells. Making two level 0 attacks per round is that unbalanced?
Right now, under some conditions a spellcaster may cast a cantrip and a spell each round until they run out of spell slots. This would open it up to casting two cantrips. And the caster gives up their bonus action, which the fighter classes get to still use after making two attacks.
I'm honestly asking, is it really that unbalanced?
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MusicScout, sounds fine for a 5th level ability.
Oh wait, THEY ALREADY DO THAT.
Cantrips get boosts every 5 levels or so. So when you give everyone an extra one, you are not doubling their attacks, you are quadrupling their damage.
As a bonus action, True Strike actually becomes useful. Strong even, but I wouldn't go so far as to say overpowered. Again, it's only one attack and it requires concentration. Anyone using it up close is likely to lose concentration before the next turn. Anyone at range can't use other better spells that require concentration. One of the recent UA articles had a rogue ability that just let them get advantage as a bonus action. This is definitely not as good as that.
Magic Stone is already a bonus action so I don't know what you're getting at here. It's not like it can be cast as an action instead. Even if it could "If you cast this spell again, the spell ends early on any pebbles still affected by it." There's no problem with magic stone relative to this feat that isn't already part of the rules.
The issue with mending can be simply rectified by requiring that the cantrip has a casting time of 1 action. We're already putting all sorts of other restrictions on the bonus action cantrip. It's not much more to add this requirement.
The biggest problem is
resistanceblade ward. I think that could be fixed by requiring that the cantrip not have a range of self.Is it simpler to restrict it to x/day? Yes definitely. I would argue that in that form it's not interesting enough to tempt a player to take it over other feats. If x/day was really the way to go I think it needs something more, like casting any cantrip x/day as a bonus action. That still allows the interesting combinations without also requiring the investment in otherwise worthless cantrips.
True Strike does not 'become useful' otherwise they would have written it that way in the first place. Instead it becomes OVER powered.
Easiest way to tell if something is over-powered, would you use it more than every other round? If the answer is yes, then it is overpowered. True Strike as a bonus action becomes something you use every time you cast any spell with a to hit.
First: you make it sound like you think true strike is currently useful. Do you really think true strike is useful as written with no homebrew?
Second: no caster would use true strike that often even as a bonus action. There are almost always significantly better things to use your concentration on.
When I look at the list of non-concentration non-cantrip spells that require an attack roll, I'm underwhelmed. Plane shift and contagion are the only ones that stand out to me as being "good", but that hardly means that true strike would be used more than every other round. How many chromatic orbs or acid arrows are you casting that this would really be your strategy. Especially when considering that greater invisibility is a thing.
If you have played a caster past level 4, seriously consider what fraction of turns you made an attack roll. I'd wager it's significantly lower than 50%
Maybe you're more concerned about balance at lower levels. Even at low levels, most of the time I'd rather not forgo bless, dragon's breath, darkness, hold person, hideous laughter, etc.
I was thinking True Strike was for your next Action rather than the next Round so you could use it right away. That's not terrible, probably in line with some of the more reliable ways to get advantage. As for Guidance, skill puzzles during combat are not uncommon in my games, but even without that it would be useful for grappling and shoving prone.
Gust is a great example of something that is not super strong on it's own, but when you take this whole feat as a package it's just yet another thing you can do. Shove as a bonus action can be fairly valuable.
I just feel like a feat is not the right design element for something like this. This kind of mastery shouldn't be available to a level 1 human or any schmuck that hits level 4. I guess if you limited the uses and restricted it to non-damaging cantrips it could be manageable. Still maintain it's a bad idea though.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Ive done several cantrip based feats that are kind of along these lines in games. the gist of them are:
increase the damage die by 1 of cantrip that requires a saving throw
learn 4 additional cantrips from the chosen class, basically magical initiate with solid cantrips instead of a 1st level spell. i specified it cant be taken if you have magical initiate already and you cant take magical initiate afterwards
increase int, wis or cha by 1 and learn 1 cantrip from any class.
all three of those in playtesting balanced very well. The first one was meant to help evokers 6th level ability be more worthwhile, the second one was designed for gritty realism optional rest rules and the 3rd one was just to add flavor to more wizardly wizards.
Definitely need to add the "with a casting time of 1 action" stipulation because otherwise the Artificer gets to heal their construct mid battle in a crazy way. and if this adds cantrips, there is no way the artificer won't take it.
I agree. If I were to implement this in my game, it wouldn't give anything besides non-damaging, non-self, single-action cantrips as a bonus action. I think with these restrictions this feat falls into the right balance of tempting and cool, but not so good that you would be stupid to not take it.
I definitely wouldn't give a cantrip in addition to this because that increases its versatility too much. I would also not make it a half-feat because it would be too good then I think.
Agreed.
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