Theoretical max damage Cantrip

Unless I am missing something the Cantrip with the highest theoretical damage is Sorcerous Burst.  It would be almost mathematically impossible (always rolling 8)but with a level 1 soc with chr 16 can cap out at  32 damage (1x8+3x8 burst).  At level 20 chrs 20 it would be 72 damage (4x8+5x8 bust).  (77 on dragon sor.)

Eldritch Blast at 20 chr 20 would do 60 (4x(10+5)). 

Yes EB will do more on normaly (42 vs Sorcerouse burst 18). Can any one top Sorcerous Burst with a cantrip and no other spells only abilities.

P.S. Crit on all would do 104 (8x8+5x8) for SB and 100 (8x10+4x5) EB.

You can get Sorcerous Burst higher than 72 if you're a Warlock who has access to it via Pact of the Tome and takes Agonizing Blast on it, which would add your Charisma modifier to every single damage roll from it. 

Edit: Now that I think about this some more, I'm not sure this actually works since one could argue that's still all one damage roll. It'd probably depend on the DM.

It should also be noted that the actual cap on ability scores is 30 (i.e., a +10 modifier) and there are various ways to get your Charisma that high if you're willing to allow the use of multiple epic boon feats, magic items, etc.

Quote from wagnarokkr >>

You can get Sorcerous Burst higher than 72 if you're a Warlock who has access to it via Pact of the Tome and takes Agonizing Blast on it, which would add your Charisma modifier to every single damage roll from it. 

It should also be noted that the actual cap on ability scores is 30 (i.e., a +10 modifier) and there are various ways to get your Charisma that high if you're willing to allow the use of multiple epic boon feats, magic items, etc.

 Agonizing Blast would add your Chr 1 more time  as it is one blast and the Dragon subclass would also add Chr so with a 20 chr it is up to 82.  can any other Cantrip come close besides EB?

Quote from Deathmvp >>

can any other Cantrip come close besides EB?

I haven't done an exhaustive analysis, but I'm pretty sure the answer is no, simply because Eldritch Blast is (as far as I know) the only cantrip that allows you to make multiple damage rolls with a single casting of the spell. Because that means you can add the Charisma modifier more than once via Agonizing Blast, it's going to outshine anything with a single damage roll.

Eldritch Blast is the moat reliable high damage cantrip.

Sorcerer Burst could concievable do more damage if you just keep getting lucky and keep rolling 8's. The only mechanic i know if that could help with that is Heroic Inspiration which allows you to reroll any single die roll. 

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

Eldritch Blast is the moat reliable high damage cantrip.

Sorcerer Burst could concievable do more damage if you just keep getting lucky and keep rolling 8's. The only mechanic i know if that could help with that is Heroic Inspiration which allows you to reroll any single die roll. 

 

 Also Soc meta magic can also let you reroll the damage.

Yes Eldritch Blast  I feel is the better spell normaly.  This only came up as a friend was talking down on me for taking Sorcerer Burst instead of fire bolt. 

At first I was saying Sorcerer Burst is better becouse of changing the damage type and he was arguing that Fire bolt is better as it does more damage. This was doing back and forth till I rolled 20 damage with it at level 1 (I rolled  8,8,4).  This made me think what are the highest ones max even if never likly to do it.  Acid splash can get up to 96 over 4 targets (4d6x4) at 17 but only 24 per person. ( 20chr Dragon soc with anganizing balst gets it to 34 per person and 136 if you hit 4).

Honestly, I'd say Sorcerous Burst would be a better choice in general than Fire Bolt even if the exploding damage die weren't a thing. The amount of extra damage you get from the d10 vs. the d8 isn't enough to outweigh the versatility of being able to choose from all those damage types, in my opinion.

It's almost never worth comparing max damage rather than expected damage (the actual effect of the reroll is to change the average per die from 4.5 to slightly less than 5.14) but yes, theoretical max is considerably higher.

However, if you don't have eldritch blast, the best damage cantrip will almost always be true strike -- radiant is a better damage type than fire, it adds your ability score modifier without any additional features, and it can benefit from magic weapon bonuses.

There's some shenanigans with Magic Stone, but they are heavily dm and interpretation dependent.

Hear me out.......     True Strike with a Vicious weapon?

I think Eldritch Blast ultimately outdamages Sorcerous Burst because it can further benefit from spells like Hex and Hunter's Mark. Also, since 5.5 largely got rid of vulnerabilities, and Force is largely unresisted, the variety of available energy types for Sorcerous Burst doesn't grant as much of a benefit as it would have in 5e.

THAT SAID, if, as Wagnarokkr pointed out, you were able to bump your CHA to 30, IN THEORY, the damage from Eldritch Blast would cap at 4d10 + 40 = 80, while Sorcerous Burst would cap out at 4d8 + 10d8 + 10 = 122. Even with Hex adding an additional 24 to Eldritch Blast and 6 to Sorcerous Burst there's an obvious winner on max damage. 

THAT SAID, if you factor in potential critical damage, the max you could roll with Hex for Sorcerous Burst would be 8d8 + 10d8 + 2d6 + 10 = 166, and Eldritch Blast would cap at 8d10 + 8d6 + 40 = 168. I'm sure you could get even weirder somehow, but that's as much math as I'm willing to do tonight.

Ultimately, though, those are one-in-a-trillion rolls. At a normal table, you're always going to do more damage with Eldritch Blast than Sorcerous Burst.

Metamagic is extremely limited resource. I wouldnt use it on a cantrip generally.

If you want to know the most damaging cantrip, its eldritch blast, and you should take 2 levels of warlock to get it and agonizing blast invocation. And then probably do the rest in sorcerer or bard for more slots for leveled spells.

If you want to know the most damaging cantrip for your class, excluding warlock, it might be sorcerer burst because you can swap the damage type.  Firebolt does 1d10, sorcerer burst does 1d8. So thats 4 points of damage more, on average for firebolt, ASSUMING the target isnt resistant to fire damage, and fire resistance is the most common resistance of monsters. At higher levels, you need spells that do other damage types.

In that conundrum, sorcerer burst is probably better cause it gives decent damage die and it lets you pick a damage type that the target doesnt resist.

If you take firebolt, you will also want to take something else as a cantrip that does a better damage type. And sorcerer burst is probably the best option. 

I think most other cantrips do other damage types, but they are save or suck instead of an attack roll.  And if rather do an attack when possible versus a save.

Quote from starlinvf >>

Hear me out.......     True Strike with a Vicious weapon?

 ok, level 20, reasonable 22 cha as that's what is reasonable, minmaxed with searing vengance, GWM and agonizing blast, comes out on 7d6+24 equals 66 damage. not bad. on a crit is 14d6+24, equalling 104. again not bad, but not close to sorcerous burst.