Any thoughts on making a chromatic orb cantrip? basically what im thinking is 1d8 damage, select damage types same as chromatic orb and it has a range of 60 feet. Thoughts? Opinions?

Why?

Why not? lol

In all honestly, its just one of those things that I thought might be cool but also might be overpowered so I wanted to get others opinions on the matter.

Lyxen beat me to the punch. Cantrips are supposed to be semi-reliable tools that help solve some problems, but not all. (i.e. Firebolt is a Wizard's Longbow. Sometimes the enemy is resistant to non-magical damage, and sometimes they're resistant to fire damage.)

Chromatic Orb is too versatile, however, a Cantrip version of Chaos Bolt might be warranted. Roll 2d4 (+1d6 scaling) and choose one d4 result to represent your damage type:

(1) Acid
(2) Fire
(3) Cold
(4) Lightning

This gives you a little flexibility with more commonly resisted damage types in exchange for lower damage output. No Bouncing.

Man I really feel late to this post since this is basically a good chunk of my homebrew spells are chromatic spells. But yeah... similar to what the others have said, I found that the random mechanic works great a cantrip leveled version. After a few months of playtesting Chromatic bolt, I found that the damage of course isn't as high as something like firebolt, but it really helps out the party figure out what resistances and immunities a creature have if you don't something like a monster slayer that can just tell you.

If you're interested in seeing what else I've done, then here's a few (my chromatic spells).

Edit. If you are still wanting to have yours function as a "choose a damage" cantrip, then I'd recommend having a base damage no higher than 1d6. Reason being, if you were to have it at 1d8 with scaling then it would just out class the original after 11th level.

If a Cantrip includes the option of freely choosing between damage types, I'd be inclined to reduce it to d4 dice, and then give it some other flavor ability. Treat it more like a utility spell that can do damage, rather than a primary damage dealing spell. Otherwise, nearly everyone would take it.

Since you can always choose the damage type that the target is vulnerable to, this reliably brings the damage on par with a non-optimal damaging spells for vulnerable targets.

Prismatic Shard
Cantrip
1-minute

A shard of prismatic energy appears in your hand, which then takes an appropriate form of your choice. You choose acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, or thunder for the type of shard you create. While holding this shard, similar effects around you seems to be amplified. (A fire shard causes campfires to swell slightly and crackle loudly. A cold shard causes frost to become jagged and crawl along the floor.) These changes last for the duration of the spell, or until the spell is dismissed.

*Effects of the amplification are not powerful enough to harm creatures or objects, nor do they create difficult terrain or otherwise restrict a creatures ability to act.

You can also attack with the prismatic shard, although doing so ends the spell. When you cast this spell, or as an action on a later turn, you can hurl the shard at a creature within 30 feet of you. Make a ranged spell attack. On a hit, the target takes 1d4 damage of the type chosen at the time of casting this spell.

This spell's damage increases by 1d4 when you reach 5th level (2d4), 11th level (3d4), and 17th level (4d4).

This makes it fall somewhere between Produce Flame, Chromatic Orb, and Thaumaturgy.

A little bit of versatile damage, and a possible bonus to arcane intimidation/persuasion. If you've got enough Cantrips known to take a second damaging cantrip, this is a good choice, but otherwise, you'll want to prioritize something more potent.