I agree that VM is not a powerful cantrip. That is why I compare it to an option that would produce 1d4+1 damage. If 1d4+1 is too much damage for a MM cantrip version, then what is the basis for claiming it is OP if VM does 1d4 damage? Yes VM also can result in disadvantage for a single attack on the next round and allows a saving throw, but we're still talking about pretty low level stuff.
Now if the MM cantrip has to give 1d4+modifier or more damage, then I ask why not upgrade other cantrips with +modifier, and if no saving throw is part of the formula, then why not upgrade other cantrips to remove saving throws?
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Well, let's play our cards straight up. How many people take one level in Warlock just to get EB, so if the DM allows multiclassing, any player character can get EB.
I haven't done any examination of warlock compared to the other spell casters. I find it difficult to believe this one cantrip makes the class. Maybe it does, but that would cause me to think very little of the game designers if that is indeed the case.
I know this is a bit off-topic, but I wanted to comment on this. I think it's best to compare Eldritch Blast, not to other caster classes, but rather to being a ranged fighter with a bow and arrow with multi-attack. If a Warlock chooses to focus on EB as their primary ability, and takes Invocations to increase it's power and versatility... it eventually becomes similar to being a fighter with a magic bow with infinite ammo that almost nothing is resistant to which deals a d10 with each attack and also pushes the enemy back 5 feet with each shot.
As for the actual topic... I'd actually like to test out a "Minor Missile" cantrip that doesn't really scale well but always has a guaranteed to-hit. I like the idea of drastically reducing the range (I'd probably drop it to 15'), and I think instead of scaling up in dice like most damage cantrips, it would just add a +1 at various points. It would probably be a fairly worthless cantrip by level 10 or 11, but I think it could be fun for early game for those little moments where something isn't quite worth the effort of a leveled spell.
As for the actual topic... I'd actually like to test out a "Minor Missile" cantrip that doesn't really scale well but always has a guaranteed to-hit. I like the idea of drastically reducing the range (I'd probably drop it to 15'), and I think instead of scaling up in dice like most damage cantrips, it would just add a +1 at various points. It would probably be a fairly worthless cantrip by level 10 or 11, but I think it could be fun for early game for those little moments where something isn't quite worth the effort of a leveled spell.
I've explained why I think the range reduction is unneeded, but even we can't agree on that, that's fine, this it's still an interesting thought experiment regardless. As for me, I do like the idea of trying out different ways of making this cantrip idea scale instead of just 1d4+1. Some people I've seen try to doing the scaling by increasing the number of darts it has which... I don't think I need to explain why that's just a bad idea. The current version I'm testing out is "1d4 + proficiency bonus - 1" for scaling, which is definitely different and not entirely sold on this idea yet. Another idea that I've recently had, but haven't tested out yet, though leaning on it's a bad idea is scaling the die, so starting at 1d4+1, 1d6+1 @5th , 1d8+1 @11th, 1d10+1 @17th.
My playtest group did a short dungeon crawl earlier, these are my thoughts. i played a level 6 evoker with 3 other players, a fighter, a bard, and a rogue. i setup the minor missile as a cantrip what was added from an ability at level 6. it had a range of 60 foot and did create multiple darts. I can say that unless i was fighting mostly undead or necro-resistant creatures id rather have had toll the dead with potent cantrip. The reduced max damage for force damage just isnt a decent trade-off. At this point i dont see an auto-hit cantrip being a good idea for an evoker and it only being worthwhile for a utility caster who didnt want to take more than 1 damage cantrip but wanted 1 that did a little damage to anything, like maybe a diviner.
I suspect some of the reason this keeps coming up is more, or at least half, because of the force damage. There are no good force damage cantrips for wizards, the only one in fact is sword burst. Im not sure if this was intentional on the part of WotC, forcing wizards to pick elemental or a necrotic cantrip, or what. if all you want in a force damage cantrip is damage then I recommend making one with your flavor of range that does 1d4+2 damage and scales as others. this give a max possible damage of 6 with and average of 4.5, that an average on par with 1d8 but reduced max damage while the +2 makes the damage more consistent. Make it a standard attack role and call it a day.
Here is a thought, something im going to try later this week, but why not do the whole 1d4+1 force damage that adds darts as it scales but has an attack role thats always made with advantage? things can still reduce it to a normal attack role if they would impose disadvantage, so it would increase the chance to hit and make it more reliable than other cantrips but less than an auto-hit. The wording im thinking is below, Thoughts? :
A glowing bolt of magical force streaks toward a creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack, with advantage, against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d4 + 1 force damage.
The spell creates more than one bolt when you reach higher levels: two bolts at 5th level, three bolts at 11th level, and four bolts at 17th level. You can direct the bolts at the same target or at different ones. The bolts all strike simultaneously, and you can direct them to hit one creature or several. Make a separate attack roll with advantage for each target.
Advantage is still too much. And save Cantrips are good when the enemy has a high AC. I generally try to take one of each, usually with some sort of debuff attached.
Advantage is still too much. And save Cantrips are good when the enemy has a high AC. I generally try to take one of each, usually with some sort of debuff attached.
Exactly. I just ran an adventure where one of the monsters had a 17 AC - 19 with shield. Only one who could reliably hit them was the fighter with Archery style. The druid switched to save cantrips and messed it up badly. The monster only had a +1 to CON saves, but had a really high DEX. Just depends on the situations where a save is better than an Attack roll.
I thought about making a Magic Missile cantrip as well. The only thing I came up with was a 1d4 Force damage cantrip that goes up 1d4 at levels 5, 11, and 17. No mod. No +1.
Think about the math. Fire bolt and Eldritch Blast do 1d10 damage (average 5.5). You never want to go over this for any cantrip unless it is weaker at some point and changes (ex. Toll the Dead).
So let us take it to lv 1. If you read the D.M.G., it will tell you to makes balanced encounters. You can do this by having monsters with Low AC and higher health, average on both, or High AC but low health to keep Challenge Ratings down.
Going by the average, a monster should have around 12-14AC. That means a character with ±2 in their main casting skill will have around a 50-60% chance of landing an attack. So let us say that means every 2nd attack roll is a miss. That means you get an average of 5.5 damage off every 2 rounds if it is hit and miss. Well, Always hitting for 1d4 is 2.5 average damage All the time. It is guaranteed.
So 1d4 is how I would make it. No modifiers. No +1. No additional bolts. Just guaranteed damage. And scales like a normal cantrip (2d4, 3d4, 4d4). This will also never out to do magic missile in damage except in rare cases past level 17.
You're also assured damage at range with potent cantrip and ANY save based cantrip. I would say a magic missile cantrip, with a range reduction, is as good as toll the dead is for a 6th level evocation wizard. The MM cantrip wont do as much damage as toll the dead can on a failed save, and the guaranteed damage on toll the dead on a failed save is equal to the damage of MM cantrip. The damage type difference of necro vs force i feel is negligible. Maybe make the MM cantrip not take-able until level 4 so it avoids some of the low level power...
Im actually super curious about this so im gonna make one and use it in my play-test groups next couple sessions, we have a low level and a mid level session coming up soon. So i'll report back on it soon. Im very versed in the capability of potent cantrip since my go-to cannon subclass is evocation.
You want to make a cantrip not selectable until level 4. Do you know what other spells exist that you can't select until that range? 2nd level spells. By making Magic Missile a cantrip that you can't take until level 4, you are increasing its power to that of a 2nd level spell per your own words (not in a quote).
A single subclass can do something, and you want to make every subclass be able to do it? Which would be able to be taken by any bard with magical secrets, any warlock with pact of the tome, or any human variant with magic initiate? Which martial class wouldn't take magic initiate wizard to get that cantrip if it meant a better ranged option than they might have (at least after it scales) and is an multi-hit and will force a dc10 concentration check. It wouldn't matter if the character had an 8 int since 1d4+1-1 is still at least 1 damage and still forces a dc10 concentration check.
Any cantrip that does guaranteed damage is overpowered and broken. A cantrip should never be able automatically guarantee a concentration check.
That's a really good point, especially with some of the suggestions to still allow the cantrip version to fire multiple darts of damage. Imagine getting 3 free shots to force a concentration check.
Any cantrip that does guaranteed damage is overpowered and broken. A cantrip should never be able automatically guarantee a concentration check.
That's a really good point, especially with some of the suggestions to still allow the cantrip version to fire multiple darts of damage. Imagine getting 3 free shots to force a concentration check.
That's pretty much the same as forcing a concentration check at triple disadvantage. A creature with a +0 concentration save would save on a DC10 save 55% of the time. They would save on 2 consecutive DC10 saves about 30% of the time and on 3 consecutive DC10s about 17% of the time. This is the part that seems to get missed. All of the counter arguments are about the damage compared to cantrips. The damage with multiple darts surpassing the base Magic Missile is bad enough, but being able to interrupt concentration spells like that is not good balance. Your cleric that is casting Bane, Bless, or Spirit Guardians will not appreciate having this cantrip attacking them and you won't appreciate not having their concentration spells in the mix.
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Fall-Phoenix,
I agree that VM is not a powerful cantrip. That is why I compare it to an option that would produce 1d4+1 damage. If 1d4+1 is too much damage for a MM cantrip version, then what is the basis for claiming it is OP if VM does 1d4 damage? Yes VM also can result in disadvantage for a single attack on the next round and allows a saving throw, but we're still talking about pretty low level stuff.
Now if the MM cantrip has to give 1d4+modifier or more damage, then I ask why not upgrade other cantrips with +modifier, and if no saving throw is part of the formula, then why not upgrade other cantrips to remove saving throws?
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VM is not an auto hit with the damage though - they still need to save on their check in order to receive the damage and the disadvantage.
I know this is a bit off-topic, but I wanted to comment on this. I think it's best to compare Eldritch Blast, not to other caster classes, but rather to being a ranged fighter with a bow and arrow with multi-attack. If a Warlock chooses to focus on EB as their primary ability, and takes Invocations to increase it's power and versatility... it eventually becomes similar to being a fighter with a magic bow with infinite ammo that almost nothing is resistant to which deals a d10 with each attack and also pushes the enemy back 5 feet with each shot.
As for the actual topic... I'd actually like to test out a "Minor Missile" cantrip that doesn't really scale well but always has a guaranteed to-hit. I like the idea of drastically reducing the range (I'd probably drop it to 15'), and I think instead of scaling up in dice like most damage cantrips, it would just add a +1 at various points. It would probably be a fairly worthless cantrip by level 10 or 11, but I think it could be fun for early game for those little moments where something isn't quite worth the effort of a leveled spell.
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I've explained why I think the range reduction is unneeded, but even we can't agree on that, that's fine, this it's still an interesting thought experiment regardless. As for me, I do like the idea of trying out different ways of making this cantrip idea scale instead of just 1d4+1. Some people I've seen try to doing the scaling by increasing the number of darts it has which... I don't think I need to explain why that's just a bad idea. The current version I'm testing out is "1d4 + proficiency bonus - 1" for scaling, which is definitely different and not entirely sold on this idea yet. Another idea that I've recently had, but haven't tested out yet, though leaning on it's a bad idea is scaling the die, so starting at 1d4+1, 1d6+1 @5th , 1d8+1 @11th, 1d10+1 @17th.
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My playtest group did a short dungeon crawl earlier, these are my thoughts. i played a level 6 evoker with 3 other players, a fighter, a bard, and a rogue. i setup the minor missile as a cantrip what was added from an ability at level 6. it had a range of 60 foot and did create multiple darts. I can say that unless i was fighting mostly undead or necro-resistant creatures id rather have had toll the dead with potent cantrip. The reduced max damage for force damage just isnt a decent trade-off. At this point i dont see an auto-hit cantrip being a good idea for an evoker and it only being worthwhile for a utility caster who didnt want to take more than 1 damage cantrip but wanted 1 that did a little damage to anything, like maybe a diviner.
I suspect some of the reason this keeps coming up is more, or at least half, because of the force damage. There are no good force damage cantrips for wizards, the only one in fact is sword burst. Im not sure if this was intentional on the part of WotC, forcing wizards to pick elemental or a necrotic cantrip, or what. if all you want in a force damage cantrip is damage then I recommend making one with your flavor of range that does 1d4+2 damage and scales as others. this give a max possible damage of 6 with and average of 4.5, that an average on par with 1d8 but reduced max damage while the +2 makes the damage more consistent. Make it a standard attack role and call it a day.
Here is a thought, something im going to try later this week, but why not do the whole 1d4+1 force damage that adds darts as it scales but has an attack role thats always made with advantage? things can still reduce it to a normal attack role if they would impose disadvantage, so it would increase the chance to hit and make it more reliable than other cantrips but less than an auto-hit. The wording im thinking is below, Thoughts? :
A glowing bolt of magical force streaks toward a creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack, with advantage, against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d4 + 1 force damage.
The spell creates more than one bolt when you reach higher levels: two bolts at 5th level, three bolts at 11th level, and four bolts at 17th level. You can direct the bolts at the same target or at different ones. The bolts all strike simultaneously, and you can direct them to hit one creature or several. Make a separate attack roll with advantage for each target.
No opinions?
It’s overpowered.
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So is the only real solution to pump the damage to a d8 or d10 and copy EB?
I don’t know, but I do know that any cantrip that automatically has advantage on attacks and can hit multiple targets is OP.
Maybe make them trigger a Dex save instead of an attack roll? But then being able to trigger multiple saves on the same target would be OP too.
Cantrips are just not supposed to be that powerful.
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What about stripping the multiple targets off and make it a single target spell with an attack advantage? I hate save cantrips.
Advantage is still too much. And save Cantrips are good when the enemy has a high AC. I generally try to take one of each, usually with some sort of debuff attached.
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I gotcha. ill make it a d8 with multiple bolts and separate attacks for separate targets and call it a day
Exactly. I just ran an adventure where one of the monsters had a 17 AC - 19 with shield. Only one who could reliably hit them was the fighter with Archery style. The druid switched to save cantrips and messed it up badly. The monster only had a +1 to CON saves, but had a really high DEX. Just depends on the situations where a save is better than an Attack roll.
I thought about making a Magic Missile cantrip as well. The only thing I came up with was a 1d4 Force damage cantrip that goes up 1d4 at levels 5, 11, and 17. No mod. No +1.
Think about the math. Fire bolt and Eldritch Blast do 1d10 damage (average 5.5). You never want to go over this for any cantrip unless it is weaker at some point and changes (ex. Toll the Dead).
So let us take it to lv 1. If you read the D.M.G., it will tell you to makes balanced encounters. You can do this by having monsters with Low AC and higher health, average on both, or High AC but low health to keep Challenge Ratings down.
Going by the average, a monster should have around 12-14AC. That means a character with ±2 in their main casting skill will have around a 50-60% chance of landing an attack. So let us say that means every 2nd attack roll is a miss. That means you get an average of 5.5 damage off every 2 rounds if it is hit and miss. Well, Always hitting for 1d4 is 2.5 average damage All the time. It is guaranteed.
So 1d4 is how I would make it. No modifiers. No +1. No additional bolts. Just guaranteed damage. And scales like a normal cantrip (2d4, 3d4, 4d4). This will also never out to do magic missile in damage except in rare cases past level 17.
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Any cantrip that does guaranteed damage is overpowered and broken. A cantrip should never be able automatically guarantee a concentration check.
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You want to make a cantrip not selectable until level 4. Do you know what other spells exist that you can't select until that range? 2nd level spells. By making Magic Missile a cantrip that you can't take until level 4, you are increasing its power to that of a 2nd level spell per your own words (not in a quote).
A single subclass can do something, and you want to make every subclass be able to do it? Which would be able to be taken by any bard with magical secrets, any warlock with pact of the tome, or any human variant with magic initiate? Which martial class wouldn't take magic initiate wizard to get that cantrip if it meant a better ranged option than they might have (at least after it scales) and is an multi-hit and will force a dc10 concentration check. It wouldn't matter if the character had an 8 int since 1d4+1-1 is still at least 1 damage and still forces a dc10 concentration check.
That's a really good point, especially with some of the suggestions to still allow the cantrip version to fire multiple darts of damage. Imagine getting 3 free shots to force a concentration check.
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That's pretty much the same as forcing a concentration check at triple disadvantage. A creature with a +0 concentration save would save on a DC10 save 55% of the time. They would save on 2 consecutive DC10 saves about 30% of the time and on 3 consecutive DC10s about 17% of the time. This is the part that seems to get missed. All of the counter arguments are about the damage compared to cantrips. The damage with multiple darts surpassing the base Magic Missile is bad enough, but being able to interrupt concentration spells like that is not good balance. Your cleric that is casting Bane, Bless, or Spirit Guardians will not appreciate having this cantrip attacking them and you won't appreciate not having their concentration spells in the mix.