Potent Cantrip - Whats its use ?

[Schutzengel]

Hello all,

stumbled on this Feature for the Evocation Wizard. States it allows for half damage on failed Saving Throws for 'damaging' Cantrips.

These are the Wizards 'damaging' Cantrips options:
- Acid Splash
- Chill Touch
- Fire Bolt
- Poison Spray
- Ray of Frost
- Shocking Grasp

The Wizard has 6 damaging Cantrips and Im not adding other Classes Cantrips to the list because they are not on the Wizard list and this Feature should be viable from the go.

.

A.) The problem is, of the 6, only these 2 allow for a Saving Throw:
- Acid Splash (Dexterity)
- Poison Spray (Constitution)

The other 4 are Melee/Ranged Touch Attacks. To add to this, Acid and Poison damage is usually not far away from another with related enemies having a chance of resistance or even immunity vs both.

Is the Feature just broken ? Is this a typo ? Because even without the damage type similarity this is just a measly 2 spells that are affected by this 'Feature'. It could be named 'Potent Acid Splash and Poison Spray' instead. And the tip of the eisberg is that both are not even Evocation but Conjuration spells.

.

B.) And what happens if the enemy has Evasion ? Does this allow the enemy Rogue to basically ignore your 'Potent Acid Splash and Poison Spray' ?

Sincerely.

[Indure]

You are correct. Acid splash and poison spray would be the only affected cantrips due to the limitation of only having PHB cantrips. In the table top setting, wizards have a much larger cantrip list due to expansions and have roughly 11 cantrips that benefit from potent cantrips.

I don't really see a problem with opening up potent cantrips to be useable on all damage cantrips. It won't change balance that much in BG3 due to advantage giving wizards a +90% hit chance on those spells anyways.

[dolby]

i mean do people even see cantrips as balanced?

Right now only bane lowers saves so only a hand few enemies are susceptible to save spell per cantrip. But cos of concentration limits combined with only 4 party member not a lot off combos can made to make those cantrip shine...

So attack cantrip have distinct advantage if you ask me.
if bless would raise the dc for spells as well then ok but it doesn't...

[Indure]

Originally posted by dolby:

i mean do people even see cantrips as balanced?

Right now only bane lowers saves so only a hand few enemies are susceptible to save spell per cantrip. But cos of concentration limits combined with only 4 party member not a lot off combos can made to make those cantrip shine...

So attack cantrip have distinct advantage if you ask me.
if bless would raise the dc for spells as well then ok but it doesn't...

I think cantrips would be balanced if advantage wasn't so easily gained. The idea behind attack cantrips vs spell save cantrips is to have versatility when fighting enemies. If an enemy has high AC they probably have low wisdom or some other attribute. This makes spells with DCs more accurate.

Being able to almost always get advantage ruins the balance because attack spells always get +15-25% hit increases.

[dolby]

Originally posted by Indure:

Originally posted by dolby:

i mean do people even see cantrips as balanced?

Right now only bane lowers saves so only a hand few enemies are susceptible to save spell per cantrip. But cos of concentration limits combined with only 4 party member not a lot off combos can made to make those cantrip shine...

So attack cantrip have distinct advantage if you ask me.
if bless would raise the dc for spells as well then ok but it doesn't...

I think cantrips would be balanced if advantage wasn't so easily gained. The idea behind attack cantrips vs spell save cantrips is to have versatility when fighting enemies. If an enemy has high AC they probably have low wisdom or some other attribute. This makes spells with DCs more accurate.

Being able to almost always get advantage ruins the balance because attack spells always get +15-25% hit increases.

yeah but some classes do not have the versatility of a wizard... i mean if you gonna have prone disadvantage on range then you need high ground as well. Granted that characters can't go prone by themselves for some reason...

Attack spells still have more to chance to hit even if you don't use high ground so that's not a problem. The problem is no cover system but that's a different story... that no one talks about.

All this comes from sticking to Pnp rules they will always be problems with adaptations. i for one like high ground cos at least it gives me something to do in combat tactically. Especially at this low levels i mean save spells would be totally fine if we had 6 man party...

[jonnin]

cantrips are so weak compared to most other attacks, that any kind of buffing feat would be welcome.
DW fighter does what, 2d8 + str +more per round? Warlock does what, cha+d10+shove+hex damage boost per round? The wizard is next to useless on trash assuming you save the real spells for real enemy and don't sleep spam.

[Indure]

Originally posted by jonnin:

cantrips are so weak compared to most other attacks, that any kind of buffing feat would be welcome.
DW fighter does what, 2d8 + str +more per round? Warlock does what, cha+d10+shove+hex damage boost per round? The wizard is next to useless on trash assuming you save the real spells for real enemy and don't sleep spam.

Firebolt is a 1d10 which will scale to a 2d10 at level 5. It is designed as a filler in between a wizards more powerful spells like fireball which against 3 targets is a 24d6. Warlocks and martial classes need higher base damage because a wizard throwing out all their spell slots can do obscene damage mid game.

[dolby]

Originally posted by Indure:

Originally posted by jonnin:

cantrips are so weak compared to most other attacks, that any kind of buffing feat would be welcome.
DW fighter does what, 2d8 + str +more per round? Warlock does what, cha+d10+shove+hex damage boost per round? The wizard is next to useless on trash assuming you save the real spells for real enemy and don't sleep spam.

Firebolt is a 1d10 which will scale to a 2d10 at level 5. It is designed as a filler in between a wizards more powerful spells like fireball which against 3 targets is a 24d6. Warlocks and martial classes need higher base damage because a wizard throwing out all their spell slots can do obscene damage mid game.

yeah but after you use all the slots you're done... This is why you need to balance resting if you're are using spell slots in your game.. BG 2 had the same exploit back in the day and nothing was fixed...

[Indure]

Originally posted by dolby:

Originally posted by Indure:

Firebolt is a 1d10 which will scale to a 2d10 at level 5. It is designed as a filler in between a wizards more powerful spells like fireball which against 3 targets is a 24d6. Warlocks and martial classes need higher base damage because a wizard throwing out all their spell slots can do obscene damage mid game.

yeah but after you use all the slots you're done... This is why you need to balance resting if you're are using spell slots in your game.. BG 2 had the same exploit back in the day and nothing was fixed...

My point is that the cantrip is fine as it stands. It is about even with a bow and scales as you level. It should be worse than other classes base attacks to account for the more powerful spells a wizard brings to the table.

[job42256]

Setting aside the usefulness of cantrips in general, the Potent Cantrip feature for an evocation wizard is ridiculous. It has nothing to do with evocation. The only two cantrips that benefit are both conjuration in nature.

This level six feature should have been changed into something that actually had to do with evocation.