So I’m wanting to create a force damage cantrips that’s save based. On a failed save it’ll force 5 foot move in a direction of the casters choice. What damage die and what save type would be most appropriate? I was thinking CON save and a d8 or d10 considering it’s a save or nothing cantrip? Thoughts?
thematically it’s a gravity based dunamancy cantrip
I'd leave it as CON or maybe strength depending on how you want the cantrip to work flavor wise. As for the damage, force is fine but because of it cantrip with a rare damage type and with additional special effect... I would actually put it as a d4, if you want it to be an AOE or increase number of affected targets via scaling; or d6 if you wanted the spell to be single target, which is my suggestion. Also yes, sposta has made several cantrips that look pretty good if you wanted to go that route and save you from making them yourself.
Your homebrew is unpublished, which is a very good thing. Once you publish you can no longer edit them without replacing them with a new version. That may not seem like a big deal, and that part isn’t. (The problem comes later when you go to attach any spell, even official ones, there will be multiple versions of that one spell ghosting around haunting your Homebrewer like revenants and you can never get rid of them. Ever. So not publishing is good because I guarantee that if you homebrew enough then eventually you’ll think everything is perfect and then days or even months later you’ll notice some stupid mistake, and it will irritate you every time you look at it and create another new version and with it another ghost of the last version.
The downside to not publishing is that when we click that link we get notice that we are not authorized to view it. The workaround is to simply copy the relevant bits and paste them in a forum post right here.
Why would a spell about crushing people with amplified gravity do more damage if the creature is already injured? That doesn’t seem to fit the theme. Why would it’s speed only be reduced if it is already injured? It kinda feels like you’re trying to shoehorn Ray of Frost, Toll the Dead, and the best damage type in the game all into 1 cantrip. It’s too much.
PS- The point of my last post was to tell you not to publish yet! Now you will be stuck republishing if you decide to change anything, and will be stuck with those ghosts I warned you about. That was why I recommend that you do this instead:
LEVEL
Cantrip
CASTING TIME
1 Action
RANGE/AREA
60 ft
COMPONENTS
V, S
DURATION
Instantaneous
SCHOOL
Evocation
ATTACK/SAVE
CON Save
DAMAGE/EFFECT
Force
You point at one creature you can see within range, a dull grey energy encompasses it for a moment.The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take 1d6 force damage. If the target is missing any of its hit points, it instead takes 1d10 force damage and its speed reduced by 10 until the start of your next turn.
The spell’s damage increases by one die when you reach 5th level (2d6 or 2d10), 11th level (3d6 or 3d10), and 17th level (4d6 or 4d10).
I went ahead and change it to just do d10 damage and slow 10 foot on a failed save. As for the "shoehorning", yes, I use the DMG's advice of If there is something that already does what I want or is close then I reskin, since this was kind of a blend but not I wanted to get opinions on its balance. It has the slow effect of Ray of Frost but its a save like ToD but its also force damage and it has the slow rider so there is another aspect to it hence it not being a simple reskin.
Everyone pleaser let me know your thoughts on it now
I went ahead and change it to just do d10 damage and slow 10 foot on a failed save. As for the "shoehorning", yes, I use the DMG's advice of If there is something that already does what I want or is close then I reskin, since this was kind of a blend but not I wanted to get opinions on its balance. It has the slow effect of Ray of Frost but its a save like ToD but its also force damage and it has the slow rider so there is another aspect to it hence it not being a simple reskin.
Everyone pleaser let me know your thoughts on it now
A spell that does d10 damage and has a slow effect is too powerful to be a Cantrip. That’s why RoF only does d8s. Also, by switching it from an Attack Roll to a Saving Throw also changes the balance.
Personally. I would try to keep the dice of the same type. I also don't see much point in the "If the target is missing any of its hit points" as that ends up being true more often than not. Unless everyone's first action failed to do damage to any target.
So for example. The normal damage could be 1d6. If the target is prone then the pains of gravity are greater (flavor text). The damage becomes 2d6, and their movement speed is reduced by 10. Of course it depends on the situation and how often the character/team forces their targets prone.
I do have something similar but it involves an illusion so it might not fit with your theme, and I don't consider it a go-to damage cantrip (more focused on movement speed reduction if anything). See here: Imagined Burden.
So instead of increased damage + movement speed reduction for the conditional statement, you could impose disadvantage on the saving throw + movement speed reduction if the target meets the extra requirement (prone in this example).
i dont want to add a bunch of situational riders so im just gonna drop it to a single damage die type with the rider of it slowing the target on a failed save. IamSposta thinks a d10 is too much, does everyone else agree? if so would a d8 be balanced?
i dont want to add a bunch of situational riders so im just gonna drop it to a single damage die type with the rider of it slowing the target on a failed save. IamSposta thinks a d10 is too much, does everyone else agree? if so would a d8 be balanced?
I agree with Sposta assuming you are trying to keep it balanced to what is provided in PHB. If the spell is "on failure the target takes 1d8 damage and their movement speed is reduced by 10" without any other stipulations it should be fine. Just avoid any guaranteed damage for the cantrip including "half damage on success." Obviously reword things appropriately.
i was planning on avoiding that in the direct wording, but an evoker at level 6 gets guaranteed damage. i love how people see to forget about that.
It's a specific subclass feature for the wizard, and only applies the halved damage while leaving out the slow effect of this cantrip. I wouldn't worry about the class feature because it means a character must invest 6 levels into Wizard (and its subclass) in order to gain its benefit. I don't think its about people forgetting the feature (I mean it probably is), but rather in this circumstance it isn't necessary to consider the feature for balancing your cantrip.
I’m actually considering dropping the slow effect to keep the damage die at a d10. I’m gonna play test both options with a few other things with my play test group tomorrow. I’ll decide on a final version after that and update this thread with my findings and thoughts.
I’m actually considering dropping the slow effect to keep the damage die at a d10. I’m gonna play test both options with a few other things with my play test group tomorrow. I’ll decide on a final version after that and update this thread with my findings and thoughts.
The difference between 1d8 and 1d10 will be 1 damage on average. That’s nothing in the grand scheme of things, but slowing an enemy can be much more beneficial most of the time. And even for the few occasions when the slow doesn’t help, the slightly lower damage will not make or break anything.
That depends on what you want it to represent. Are they getting crushed to the ground because gravity increased, or are the getting beer canned because they are being pulled toward their own center of mass, or is it something else entirely?
And there is no “Magical Bludgeoning Damage” by the way. There is Bludgeoning Damage from Magical sources, or from Nonmagical sources. As this is a spell, it would automatically qualify as a magical source.
So I’m wanting to create a force damage cantrips that’s save based. On a failed save it’ll force 5 foot move in a direction of the casters choice. What damage die and what save type would be most appropriate? I was thinking CON save and a d8 or d10 considering it’s a save or nothing cantrip? Thoughts?
thematically it’s a gravity based dunamancy cantrip
I have some similar cantrips published. If you’re interested follow the link in my sigline.
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I'd leave it as CON or maybe strength depending on how you want the cantrip to work flavor wise. As for the damage, force is fine but because of it cantrip with a rare damage type and with additional special effect... I would actually put it as a d4, if you want it to be an AOE or increase number of affected targets via scaling; or d6 if you wanted the spell to be single target, which is my suggestion. Also yes, sposta has made several cantrips that look pretty good if you wanted to go that route and save you from making them yourself.
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this is what I came up with so far. there may be too much going on, let me know what you guys think.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/570383-amplify-gravity
Your homebrew is unpublished, which is a very good thing. Once you publish you can no longer edit them without replacing them with a new version. That may not seem like a big deal, and that part isn’t. (The problem comes later when you go to attach any spell, even official ones, there will be multiple versions of that one spell ghosting around haunting your Homebrewer like revenants and you can never get rid of them. Ever. So not publishing is good because I guarantee that if you homebrew enough then eventually you’ll think everything is perfect and then days or even months later you’ll notice some stupid mistake, and it will irritate you every time you look at it and create another new version and with it another ghost of the last version.
The downside to not publishing is that when we click that link we get notice that we are not authorized to view it. The workaround is to simply copy the relevant bits and paste them in a forum post right here.
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My bad. It’s published now.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/570383-amplify-gravity
Why would a spell about crushing people with amplified gravity do more damage if the creature is already injured? That doesn’t seem to fit the theme. Why would it’s speed only be reduced if it is already injured? It kinda feels like you’re trying to shoehorn Ray of Frost, Toll the Dead, and the best damage type in the game all into 1 cantrip. It’s too much.
PS- The point of my last post was to tell you not to publish yet! Now you will be stuck republishing if you decide to change anything, and will be stuck with those ghosts I warned you about. That was why I recommend that you do this instead:
You point at one creature you can see within range, a dull grey energy encompasses it for a moment. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take 1d6 force damage. If the target is missing any of its hit points, it instead takes 1d10 force damage and its speed reduced by 10 until the start of your next turn.
The spell’s damage increases by one die when you reach 5th level (2d6 or 2d10), 11th level (3d6 or 3d10), and 17th level (4d6 or 4d10).
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I went ahead and change it to just do d10 damage and slow 10 foot on a failed save. As for the "shoehorning", yes, I use the DMG's advice of If there is something that already does what I want or is close then I reskin, since this was kind of a blend but not I wanted to get opinions on its balance. It has the slow effect of Ray of Frost but its a save like ToD but its also force damage and it has the slow rider so there is another aspect to it hence it not being a simple reskin.
Everyone pleaser let me know your thoughts on it now
A spell that does d10 damage and has a slow effect is too powerful to be a Cantrip. That’s why RoF only does d8s. Also, by switching it from an Attack Roll to a Saving Throw also changes the balance.
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my changing from an attack roll to a save makes it less powerful since saves are less reliable, so would doing a d8 be balanced?
Is the consensus that a d8 would be most appropriate?
Personally. I would try to keep the dice of the same type. I also don't see much point in the "If the target is missing any of its hit points" as that ends up being true more often than not. Unless everyone's first action failed to do damage to any target.
So for example. The normal damage could be 1d6. If the target is prone then the pains of gravity are greater (flavor text). The damage becomes 2d6, and their movement speed is reduced by 10. Of course it depends on the situation and how often the character/team forces their targets prone.
I do have something similar but it involves an illusion so it might not fit with your theme, and I don't consider it a go-to damage cantrip (more focused on movement speed reduction if anything). See here: Imagined Burden.
So instead of increased damage + movement speed reduction for the conditional statement, you could impose disadvantage on the saving throw + movement speed reduction if the target meets the extra requirement (prone in this example).
i dont want to add a bunch of situational riders so im just gonna drop it to a single damage die type with the rider of it slowing the target on a failed save. IamSposta thinks a d10 is too much, does everyone else agree? if so would a d8 be balanced?
I agree with Sposta assuming you are trying to keep it balanced to what is provided in PHB. If the spell is "on failure the target takes 1d8 damage and their movement speed is reduced by 10" without any other stipulations it should be fine. Just avoid any guaranteed damage for the cantrip including "half damage on success." Obviously reword things appropriately.
i was planning on avoiding that in the direct wording, but an evoker at level 6 gets guaranteed damage. i love how people see to forget about that.
It's a specific subclass feature for the wizard, and only applies the halved damage while leaving out the slow effect of this cantrip. I wouldn't worry about the class feature because it means a character must invest 6 levels into Wizard (and its subclass) in order to gain its benefit. I don't think its about people forgetting the feature (I mean it probably is), but rather in this circumstance it isn't necessary to consider the feature for balancing your cantrip.
I’m actually considering dropping the slow effect to keep the damage die at a d10. I’m gonna play test both options with a few other things with my play test group tomorrow. I’ll decide on a final version after that and update this thread with my findings and thoughts.
The difference between 1d8 and 1d10 will be 1 damage on average. That’s nothing in the grand scheme of things, but slowing an enemy can be much more beneficial most of the time. And even for the few occasions when the slow doesn’t help, the slightly lower damage will not make or break anything.
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What about changing the damage type to magical bludgeoning? Would that thematically fit better than force?
That depends on what you want it to represent. Are they getting crushed to the ground because gravity increased, or are the getting beer canned because they are being pulled toward their own center of mass, or is it something else entirely?
And there is no “Magical Bludgeoning Damage” by the way. There is Bludgeoning Damage from Magical sources, or from Nonmagical sources. As this is a spell, it would automatically qualify as a magical source.
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