Something thats sorta been bothering me for a few years now is the idea of leveled damage spells vs cantrips.
Unlike other spells with effects tha scale automatically due to their effect applying to aspects of the game which often do not scale much or at all with character/encounter level such as misty step, dark vision or hold person; leveled damage spells quickly become very ineffective since the creatures you encounter will have increasingly large health pools. Cantrips do not have this problem as their damage scale automatically with character level, which oddly enough means that cantrips will make some damage spells entirely irrelevant.
In my experience, the result of this is that as you progress in your adventure, your lower level spells slots are now not useful for dealing damage at all, and if you focused one those kinda spells early in your wizard career, you now feel like you have dead spells in your spellbook, as its not like these spells are even effective at upcasting. Meanwhile, turning invisible is almost as useful as it ever was, and so is locate object.
Now, I dont really have a perfect solution for this per say, but I am curious what people think about this... Why does hold person get to be very effective at dealing with any humanoid, but acid arrow eventually becomes weaker than a cantrip?
In my opinion, damage spells could have some kind of built in up-scaling with character level in a similar way to cantrips, to keep them relevant... Not to the point of competing with higher level spells, but enough to be worth the spellslot and action it takes it cast them.
Another aspect to this kinda system would make it so that certain spells which are arguably overtuned when you get them (shield comes to mind) would be able to start a more sensible number and scale with your character.
By the time Ray of Frost is dealing as much damage as Chromatic Orb, you're probably not going to be leaning into your low level spells lots very often anyway. Older editions had spells automatically improve in power as the character gained levels, but honestly that just exacerbated the power imbalance between casters and non-casters. I don't think the way 5E handles it is actually an issue.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I’m not sure that really holds true. I didn’t do a deep dive into upcast damage but an initial look at 4 spells (meteor swarm - L9, delayed blast fireball - L7, fireball - L3, and Melf’s meteors - L3) doesn’t fully support the idea that upcasting doesn’t scale the damage effectively. Meteor swarm does 20D6 fire and 40d6 overall damage and it’s true that the other 4 don’t come close to that 40D6, but they do come close or surpass the 20 D6 fire damage when upcast. 20 D6 =@70 damage, fireball and delayed blast fireball do 14 D6 or @50 damage at L9. Melf’s is actually surprisingly good- you start with 6 meteors and get 2 more for each level - 12 additional for 18 meteors each doing 2d6 or a total of 36 d6 damage (@125 HP) which is approaching meteor swarm’s full damage (@140 HP). Now meteor swarm is meant to compete with wish for the one L9 slot so it has to be pretty much overwhelming in power to match against wish’s versatility. J
I did a little more comparison, sunburst (L8) does 12 D6 + blinding while a L8 fireball or delayed blast fireball does 13 D6. Incendiary cloud (L8) only does 10 D10 (@55 HP) so again slightly stronger but not much. The 1D6/slot level looks to be roughly what they used when designing the higher slot level spells.
By the time Ray of Frost is dealing as much damage as Chromatic Orb, you're probably not going to be leaning into your low level spells lots very often anyway. Older editions had spells automatically improve in power as the character gained levels, but honestly that just exacerbated the power imbalance between casters and non-casters. I don't think the way 5E handles it is actually an issue.
Inflict wounds(lvl1) does 3d10(in melee), by level 11 toll the dead does 3d12( most of the time and sometimes 3d8 at range:
Magic missile(lvl1) does 3d4+3, firebolt does 2d10 at lvl 5. Granted there is some tactical usefulness left, but unless you have perfect information this is rarely relevant.
Guiding Bolt does 4d6(lvl1), just barely better at 2d12 from toll the dead at lvl 5 and worse than 3d12 at lvl 11. It does grant advantage once, but that is hardly worth the action/spellslot considering the effect of fairy fire for example.
Acid Arrow(lvl2) does 4d6+2d6 while firebolt does 3d10 at lvl 11.
Scorching Rays does 6d6 while firebolt does 4d10 at lvl 17
There are probably more obvious examples and while AoE leveled spells also lose a lot of effectiveness, its obviously hard to compare because cone sizes and such vary. Lvl 1 spells remain equally useful when it comes to stuff like feather fall or fairy fire but inflict wounds becomes entirely irrelevant unless upcast.
The martial /caster divide wouldnt really be affected much by letting spells like inflict wounds scale a bit automatically as its mostly the casters utllity and ability to deal AoE damage that causes the divide. Besides, I am certainly in favor of giving martials a lot more love.
Do you not think its an issue that a significant amount of spells are dead spells at later levels? That seems like bad gamedesign to me. If im expending a resource to cast a lvl 1 spell, it should never be outpaced by a free option.
I’m not sure that really holds true. I didn’t do a deep dive into upcast damage but an initial look at 4 spells (meteor swarm - L9, delayed blast fireball - L7, fireball - L3, and Melf’s meteors - L3) doesn’t fully support the idea that upcasting doesn’t scale the damage effectively. Meteor swarm does 20D6 fire and 40d6 overall damage and it’s true that the other 4 don’t come close to that 40D6, but they do come close or surpass the 20 D6 fire damage when upcast. 20 D6 =@70 damage, fireball and delayed blast fireball do 14 D6 or @50 damage at L9. Melf’s is actually surprisingly good- you start with 6 meteors and get 2 more for each level - 12 additional for 18 meteors each doing 2d6 or a total of 36 d6 damage (@125 HP) which is approaching meteor swarm’s full damage (@140 HP). Now meteor swarm is meant to compete with wish for the one L9 slot so it has to be pretty much overwhelming in power to match against wish’s versatility. J
The primary argument is about leveled spells being cast at their native level, not upcasting (although I did briefly mention upcasting). This is because other spells do scale automatically without being upcast due to how the game mechanics work.
But to address what you are saying, I dont think you can compare melfs meteors with Meteor swarm as one has tiny AoE whislt the other has huge aoe. Fireball will certainly be useful longer than other damage spells since its overtuned.
But lets compare a lvl 4 upcast Acid arrow with a cantrip. A lvl 4 acid arrow does 10d6(25) damage, at lvl 17 firebolt does 4d10(22) and toll the dead will usually deal 4d12(26) damage. We have a cantrip eventually entirely outpacing a lvl spellslot.
Even at lvls where cantrips havent yet outpaced low lvl damage spells at their native level, the difference is dwindling, makes the damage spell less useful, while other utillity or status spells effectively remain the same.
They're not dead if you can upcast them, though. At level 11 you can upcast Inflict Wounds with a 3rd level slot for 6d10 damage without seriously cutting into your slot pool, and Clerics don't have a broad attack spell pool, so it's a decent pick for straight damage against low to mid AC targets. If you jump to a 5th level slot, that's 8d10 vs Flame Strike's 8d6; obviously there are factors in Flame Strike's favor as a save AoE, but for single target damage spells like Inflict Wounds scale well. There's other factors to consider as well; Scorching Ray lets you hit up to three separate targets with your level 1 cast or just spread out your rolls so you aren't relying on a single roll to carry all your damage through, whereas Eldritch Blast is the only damage cantrip with that option.
They're not dead if you can upcast them, though. At level 11 you can upcast Inflict Wounds with a 3rd level slot for 6d10 damage without seriously cutting into your slot pool, and Clerics don't have a broad attack spell pool, so it's a decent pick for straight damage against low to mid AC targets. If you jump to a 5th level slot, that's 8d10 vs Flame Strike's 8d6; obviously there are factors in Flame Strike's favor as a save AoE, but for single target damage spells like Inflict Wounds scale well. There's other factors to consider as well; Scorching Ray lets you hit up to three separate targets with your level 1 cast or just spread out your rolls so you aren't relying on a single roll to carry all your damage through, whereas Eldritch Blast is the only damage cantrip with that option.
The primary point I wanna discuss here is that expending a resource (lvl 1-2 spell slot) eventually becomes worse than expending no spellslot, this is something Id say is a flawed design.
What is the argument that justifies Toll the Dead dealing more damage (at range) than a lvl 1 inflict wounds(At melee)? Surely inflict wounds, costing a resource, should always be more effective.
Frees up the low level slots for utility spells or buffs that don't scale. When you don't need to earmark the majority of your 1st and 2nd level slots for damage, you have more chances to use spells like Protection from Good and Evil, Detect Magic, Shield, Lesser Restoration, Mirror Image, Misty Step, etc. Casting a damage spell at those levels does gradually phase out, but the relevance of low level damage spells or low level slots does not go with it, it simply changes context.
low level spells slots would be free for utility anyway, its not like cantrips outpacing low level spells helps that, it only makes it so that the damage options are no longer also an option. I also dont see how this justifies spending a resource being worse than not spending a resource?
Also, as Ive already demonstrated, some low level damage spells do indeed become effectively irrelevant. The low level spell slots change context because their (most single target) damage options are not worse than free cantrips, that isnt a good reason to change context.
I dont believe that anyone, if we were to sit down and discuss a spell system, would actively argue that lvl 0 (free) spells should eventually be a stronger option than lvl 1 (non free) spells.
To my mind, there's a terribly simple answer to this: You basically need only, like, two damage spells: A cantrip of choice, and maybe Fireball. That gives you a range of options, use the cantrip, use Fireball at level 3, upcast to max level, whatever. And in return, you can pick all the utility spells you like. Keep in mind, utility beats straight damage most of the time.
So ... to me, that's the entire explanation right there.
I hear you thinking: But what about all those enemies that are immune (or have resistance) to fire. Well, for all those cases we still have utility - and there are even ways to change the damage type of a spell.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
low level spells slots would be free for utility anyway, its not like cantrips outpacing low level spells helps that, it only makes it so that the damage options are no longer also an option. I also dont see how this justifies spending a resource being worse than not spending a resource?
Also, as Ive already demonstrated, some low level damage spells do indeed become effectively irrelevant. The low level spell slots change context because their (most single target) damage options are not worse than free cantrips, that isnt a good reason to change context.
I dont believe that anyone, if we were to sit down and discuss a spell system, would actively argue that lvl 0 (free) spells should eventually be a stronger option than lvl 1 (non free) spells.
Actually , I might, as ace of rogues points out as you gain access to higher level slots the need for damage from the lower level slots decreases while the need for more and more buff/de buff/utility spells increases so your casters are transitioning how they use those slots. In earlier editions once you cast a spell you lost it from memory, in 5e you don’t which changes the dynamic of what you select. For prepared casters (wizards, clerics, druids and paladins) this transition is easy as the mix of memorized spells changes. For known casters (bards, rangers, sorcerors and warlocks this transition is far harder and may call for learning high level utility spells and then having to decide whether to upcast a low level blaster or hold the slot for the utility spell. At low levels (1-8) you only have low level slots and may have a limited number of known spells to work with. ODD has helped with this by turning the bard, ranger and warlock into prepared casters allowing them to select different spells as needed as the grow. Sadly, despite being called a prepared caster, the sorceror remains a known caster, albet with more known spells, leaving it struggling still. One last thing, the low level damage spells remain effective against the foes they have always been used on, but these have changed from being major players that you used your best spells on into being minions and grunts that you don’t want to use your higher level slots on so the “loss of effective damage” isn’t real but when you use the spells changes tactically.
It's also utility spells that don't scale. Floating disk could increase in weight-bearing capacity. Find familiar might be able to become, Find not quite so familiar.
low level spells slots would be free for utility anyway, its not like cantrips outpacing low level spells helps that, it only makes it so that the damage options are no longer also an option. I also dont see how this justifies spending a resource being worse than not spending a resource?
At low levels, you only have low level spell slots. So you have to use them for damage to be effective. As you level up and get higher spell slots. So you no longer have to use them for damage; in fact, it's not effective to use them for damage, as you pointed out, as Cantrips are more effective. But this doesn't mean that spending that resource is ineffective. "The resource" you are expending IS NOT Chromatic Orb. If you treat it as such, then your point stands; you have not reason to use that resource. But like others have said, this is an unfair comparison. Even at higher levels, Absorb Elements halves the damage you take with just a first level slot, regardless of how much damage you take. So it scales with how much damage you take. Shield actually gets better with your level regardless of the slot you expend, as AC does not scale linearly; each point of AC is mathematically more effective than the previous one. The potential of Silvery Barbs scales with the power of the enemy that you're fighting, as harder monsters have more dangerous abilities. All of these spells are extremely powerful at every level, and at higher levels, when you no longer need to deal damage with your lower level slots to be effective, you can use them more often. Saying that casting a cantrip is more powerful than expending a 1st level slot an ANY level is simply incorrect if you take the right spells.
It's also utility spells that don't scale. Floating disk could increase in weight-bearing capacity. Find familiar might be able to become, Find not quite so familiar.
They don't need to scale. Some of them, like the ones listed above, do scale, in a weird way. Of the two examples here, Find Familiar is intentionally designed to be weak. I don't think it should scale, and I don't know how it would scale without becoming very powerful. Floating Disk also has a similar utility at every level; as you reach higher levels, the amount of stuff that you need to move doesn't increase very much, and increasing its capacity could let PC's move things that the DM doesn't want them to move; as a DM, you would have to worry about the weight of any part of the backdrop that may be considered valuable.
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I write homebrew and don't publish it. (evil, I know)
low level spells slots would be free for utility anyway, its not like cantrips outpacing low level spells helps that, it only makes it so that the damage options are no longer also an option. I also dont see how this justifies spending a resource being worse than not spending a resource?
Simplicity. That's the answer: simplicity.
Cantrips are the equivalent of swinging a sword or other bread and butter actions. Thus, they have to scale.
L1 slots are the big guns when your character is at L1. As your character progresses, they get higher level slots to do higher damage/effects. If L1 spells simply scaled with character level as well to keep damage spells above cantrips, then you'd end up with the ability to cast dozens upon dozens of heavy hitting spells. We already have people whinging about caster-martial imbalance, could you imagine if my Wizard could cast 7th level slots every single round?
You could employ a formula to keep the damage of spells spread out appropriately for levels and stuff, but... that's going to be mighty complex and really slow the game down. When you consider that a large part of the objection to the current system is an almost purely academic principle of "but L1>L0 so it's not right!", then we realise that the pragmatic response of "meh, whatever" is the reasonable one..the solution is always just going to be worse than the disease. The only concern I have is the fact that some spells become obsolete. That's true, but I have two thoughts about that.
1. You can accept it as the drawback to the otherwise overwhelmingly positive of being a caster versus a martial.
2. It brings planning, foresight and choices to the mix. Do I pick this damage spell that will be awesome now but waste a spell known after a few sessions? Or do I pick this effect spell that is going to be reasonable for the entire campaign?
Yeah, it feels bad having a spell that won't be of much use after a while...but that's also part of preventing a single optimal spell list. You have to adapt to how the party works.
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Something thats sorta been bothering me for a few years now is the idea of leveled damage spells vs cantrips.
Unlike other spells with effects tha scale automatically due to their effect applying to aspects of the game which often do not scale much or at all with character/encounter level such as misty step, dark vision or hold person; leveled damage spells quickly become very ineffective since the creatures you encounter will have increasingly large health pools. Cantrips do not have this problem as their damage scale automatically with character level, which oddly enough means that cantrips will make some damage spells entirely irrelevant.
In my experience, the result of this is that as you progress in your adventure, your lower level spells slots are now not useful for dealing damage at all, and if you focused one those kinda spells early in your wizard career, you now feel like you have dead spells in your spellbook, as its not like these spells are even effective at upcasting.
Meanwhile, turning invisible is almost as useful as it ever was, and so is locate object.
Now, I dont really have a perfect solution for this per say, but I am curious what people think about this... Why does hold person get to be very effective at dealing with any humanoid, but acid arrow eventually becomes weaker than a cantrip?
In my opinion, damage spells could have some kind of built in up-scaling with character level in a similar way to cantrips, to keep them relevant... Not to the point of competing with higher level spells, but enough to be worth the spellslot and action it takes it cast them.
Another aspect to this kinda system would make it so that certain spells which are arguably overtuned when you get them (shield comes to mind) would be able to start a more sensible number and scale with your character.
By the time Ray of Frost is dealing as much damage as Chromatic Orb, you're probably not going to be leaning into your low level spells lots very often anyway. Older editions had spells automatically improve in power as the character gained levels, but honestly that just exacerbated the power imbalance between casters and non-casters. I don't think the way 5E handles it is actually an issue.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I’m not sure that really holds true. I didn’t do a deep dive into upcast damage but an initial look at 4 spells (meteor swarm - L9, delayed blast fireball - L7, fireball - L3, and Melf’s meteors - L3) doesn’t fully support the idea that upcasting doesn’t scale the damage effectively. Meteor swarm does 20D6 fire and 40d6 overall damage and it’s true that the other 4 don’t come close to that 40D6, but they do come close or surpass the 20 D6 fire damage when upcast. 20 D6 =@70 damage, fireball and delayed blast fireball do 14 D6 or @50 damage at L9. Melf’s is actually surprisingly good- you start with 6 meteors and get 2 more for each level - 12 additional for 18 meteors each doing 2d6 or a total of 36 d6 damage (@125 HP) which is approaching meteor swarm’s full damage (@140 HP). Now meteor swarm is meant to compete with wish for the one L9 slot so it has to be pretty much overwhelming in power to match against wish’s versatility. J
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I did a little more comparison, sunburst (L8) does 12 D6 + blinding while a L8 fireball or delayed blast fireball does 13 D6. Incendiary cloud (L8) only does 10 D10 (@55 HP) so again slightly stronger but not much. The 1D6/slot level looks to be roughly what they used when designing the higher slot level spells.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Inflict wounds(lvl1) does 3d10(in melee), by level 11 toll the dead does 3d12( most of the time and sometimes 3d8 at range:
Magic missile(lvl1) does 3d4+3, firebolt does 2d10 at lvl 5. Granted there is some tactical usefulness left, but unless you have perfect information this is rarely relevant.
Guiding Bolt does 4d6(lvl1), just barely better at 2d12 from toll the dead at lvl 5 and worse than 3d12 at lvl 11. It does grant advantage once, but that is hardly worth the action/spellslot considering the effect of fairy fire for example.
Acid Arrow(lvl2) does 4d6+2d6 while firebolt does 3d10 at lvl 11.
Scorching Rays does 6d6 while firebolt does 4d10 at lvl 17
There are probably more obvious examples and while AoE leveled spells also lose a lot of effectiveness, its obviously hard to compare because cone sizes and such vary. Lvl 1 spells remain equally useful when it comes to stuff like feather fall or fairy fire but inflict wounds becomes entirely irrelevant unless upcast.
The martial /caster divide wouldnt really be affected much by letting spells like inflict wounds scale a bit automatically as its mostly the casters utllity and ability to deal AoE damage that causes the divide. Besides, I am certainly in favor of giving martials a lot more love.
Do you not think its an issue that a significant amount of spells are dead spells at later levels? That seems like bad gamedesign to me. If im expending a resource to cast a lvl 1 spell, it should never be outpaced by a free option.
The primary argument is about leveled spells being cast at their native level, not upcasting (although I did briefly mention upcasting). This is because other spells do scale automatically without being upcast due to how the game mechanics work.
But to address what you are saying, I dont think you can compare melfs meteors with Meteor swarm as one has tiny AoE whislt the other has huge aoe. Fireball will certainly be useful longer than other damage spells since its overtuned.
But lets compare a lvl 4 upcast Acid arrow with a cantrip. A lvl 4 acid arrow does 10d6(25) damage, at lvl 17 firebolt does 4d10(22) and toll the dead will usually deal 4d12(26) damage. We have a cantrip eventually entirely outpacing a lvl spellslot.
Even at lvls where cantrips havent yet outpaced low lvl damage spells at their native level, the difference is dwindling, makes the damage spell less useful, while other utillity or status spells effectively remain the same.
They're not dead if you can upcast them, though. At level 11 you can upcast Inflict Wounds with a 3rd level slot for 6d10 damage without seriously cutting into your slot pool, and Clerics don't have a broad attack spell pool, so it's a decent pick for straight damage against low to mid AC targets. If you jump to a 5th level slot, that's 8d10 vs Flame Strike's 8d6; obviously there are factors in Flame Strike's favor as a save AoE, but for single target damage spells like Inflict Wounds scale well. There's other factors to consider as well; Scorching Ray lets you hit up to three separate targets with your level 1 cast or just spread out your rolls so you aren't relying on a single roll to carry all your damage through, whereas Eldritch Blast is the only damage cantrip with that option.
The primary point I wanna discuss here is that expending a resource (lvl 1-2 spell slot) eventually becomes worse than expending no spellslot, this is something Id say is a flawed design.
What is the argument that justifies Toll the Dead dealing more damage (at range) than a lvl 1 inflict wounds(At melee)? Surely inflict wounds, costing a resource, should always be more effective.
Frees up the low level slots for utility spells or buffs that don't scale. When you don't need to earmark the majority of your 1st and 2nd level slots for damage, you have more chances to use spells like Protection from Good and Evil, Detect Magic, Shield, Lesser Restoration, Mirror Image, Misty Step, etc. Casting a damage spell at those levels does gradually phase out, but the relevance of low level damage spells or low level slots does not go with it, it simply changes context.
low level spells slots would be free for utility anyway, its not like cantrips outpacing low level spells helps that, it only makes it so that the damage options are no longer also an option. I also dont see how this justifies spending a resource being worse than not spending a resource?
Also, as Ive already demonstrated, some low level damage spells do indeed become effectively irrelevant. The low level spell slots change context because their (most single target) damage options are not worse than free cantrips, that isnt a good reason to change context.
I dont believe that anyone, if we were to sit down and discuss a spell system, would actively argue that lvl 0 (free) spells should eventually be a stronger option than lvl 1 (non free) spells.
To my mind, there's a terribly simple answer to this: You basically need only, like, two damage spells: A cantrip of choice, and maybe Fireball. That gives you a range of options, use the cantrip, use Fireball at level 3, upcast to max level, whatever. And in return, you can pick all the utility spells you like. Keep in mind, utility beats straight damage most of the time.
So ... to me, that's the entire explanation right there.
I hear you thinking: But what about all those enemies that are immune (or have resistance) to fire. Well, for all those cases we still have utility - and there are even ways to change the damage type of a spell.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Actually , I might, as ace of rogues points out as you gain access to higher level slots the need for damage from the lower level slots decreases while the need for more and more buff/de buff/utility spells increases so your casters are transitioning how they use those slots. In earlier editions once you cast a spell you lost it from memory, in 5e you don’t which changes the dynamic of what you select. For prepared casters (wizards, clerics, druids and paladins) this transition is easy as the mix of memorized spells changes. For known casters (bards, rangers, sorcerors and warlocks this transition is far harder and may call for learning high level utility spells and then having to decide whether to upcast a low level blaster or hold the slot for the utility spell. At low levels (1-8) you only have low level slots and may have a limited number of known spells to work with.
ODD has helped with this by turning the bard, ranger and warlock into prepared casters allowing them to select different spells as needed as the grow. Sadly, despite being called a prepared caster, the sorceror remains a known caster, albet with more known spells, leaving it struggling still.
One last thing, the low level damage spells remain effective against the foes they have always been used on, but these have changed from being major players that you used your best spells on into being minions and grunts that you don’t want to use your higher level slots on so the “loss of effective damage” isn’t real but when you use the spells changes tactically.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
It's also utility spells that don't scale.
Floating disk could increase in weight-bearing capacity.
Find familiar might be able to become, Find not quite so familiar.
At low levels, you only have low level spell slots. So you have to use them for damage to be effective. As you level up and get higher spell slots. So you no longer have to use them for damage; in fact, it's not effective to use them for damage, as you pointed out, as Cantrips are more effective. But this doesn't mean that spending that resource is ineffective. "The resource" you are expending IS NOT Chromatic Orb. If you treat it as such, then your point stands; you have not reason to use that resource. But like others have said, this is an unfair comparison. Even at higher levels, Absorb Elements halves the damage you take with just a first level slot, regardless of how much damage you take. So it scales with how much damage you take. Shield actually gets better with your level regardless of the slot you expend, as AC does not scale linearly; each point of AC is mathematically more effective than the previous one. The potential of Silvery Barbs scales with the power of the enemy that you're fighting, as harder monsters have more dangerous abilities. All of these spells are extremely powerful at every level, and at higher levels, when you no longer need to deal damage with your lower level slots to be effective, you can use them more often. Saying that casting a cantrip is more powerful than expending a 1st level slot an ANY level is simply incorrect if you take the right spells.
They don't need to scale. Some of them, like the ones listed above, do scale, in a weird way. Of the two examples here, Find Familiar is intentionally designed to be weak. I don't think it should scale, and I don't know how it would scale without becoming very powerful. Floating Disk also has a similar utility at every level; as you reach higher levels, the amount of stuff that you need to move doesn't increase very much, and increasing its capacity could let PC's move things that the DM doesn't want them to move; as a DM, you would have to worry about the weight of any part of the backdrop that may be considered valuable.
I write homebrew and don't publish it. (evil, I know)
Simplicity. That's the answer: simplicity.
Cantrips are the equivalent of swinging a sword or other bread and butter actions. Thus, they have to scale.
L1 slots are the big guns when your character is at L1. As your character progresses, they get higher level slots to do higher damage/effects. If L1 spells simply scaled with character level as well to keep damage spells above cantrips, then you'd end up with the ability to cast dozens upon dozens of heavy hitting spells. We already have people whinging about caster-martial imbalance, could you imagine if my Wizard could cast 7th level slots every single round?
You could employ a formula to keep the damage of spells spread out appropriately for levels and stuff, but... that's going to be mighty complex and really slow the game down. When you consider that a large part of the objection to the current system is an almost purely academic principle of "but L1>L0 so it's not right!", then we realise that the pragmatic response of "meh, whatever" is the reasonable one..the solution is always just going to be worse than the disease. The only concern I have is the fact that some spells become obsolete. That's true, but I have two thoughts about that.
1. You can accept it as the drawback to the otherwise overwhelmingly positive of being a caster versus a martial.
2. It brings planning, foresight and choices to the mix. Do I pick this damage spell that will be awesome now but waste a spell known after a few sessions? Or do I pick this effect spell that is going to be reasonable for the entire campaign?
Yeah, it feels bad having a spell that won't be of much use after a while...but that's also part of preventing a single optimal spell list. You have to adapt to how the party works.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.