What is even the point in cantrips

[MisinformedOwl]

a wizard with 20 int missing 90% of his cantrip attacks? :thinking: why even bother using something doing 1d3 damage when i could just use a cross bow which hits more and does more damage.

[Jackdaw Mask]

Mostly because they hit touch AC and if you have no other way to do specific type of energy damage

[Iry]

(Ranged) Touch Attacks, access to a variety of different elements on demand, and Guidance spam.

[For_Science!]

If your wizard has sneak attack or some other form of precision damage, that also makes cantrips way more attractive. (Yes, he could get the precision damage with a crossbow too, but he'd have to hit regular AC rather than touch AC.)

Also, the "20 Int" has nothing to do with the issue. Int doesn't affect the attack rolls for spells; that would be Dex (for ranged touch attacks) or Str (for melee touch attacks).

[Bob of Mage]

Ever had to fight tons of troll one group after another? That 1d3 of acid damge can be a life saver.

[=[NK]= Col. Jack O'Neil]

I'm guessing that you don't have point blank and precise shot?

[Dragofie]

Ranged attack accuracy is not based on your int value, it is related with dex. Whether you hit or not is dependent on your AR(Attack roll) and enemies AC(Armor Class) values. If difference is too high you won't be able to hit the enemy. You also gain AR as you keep leveling thanks to BaB(Base attack bonus) which is a different value for each class. The point of having cantrips is their use is unlimited, you don't need to rest before you start using again. Some builds make cantrips shine, for example I use my Octavia(well, no surprises here) with Acid Splash skill to melt enemy, also gave her Earth Robe(+2 DC - Difficulty Check - to acid spells). Acid splash ignores part of enemies damage reduction(veterans know the pain). To give you a proper example; my Octavia hits around 25 at level 9 while my Amiri hits 30(no rage, no crit of course). Besides there are some secrets and puzzles which are solved with cantrips. One last piece of advice; do try to read ingame infos before making misleading topics.

[For_Science!]

Col. Jac makes an excellent point. If you're missing "90% of the time" against touch AC, then you almost certainly do not have the Point Blank Shot or Precise Shot feats. (And because of this, you would be missing even more regularly with a crossbow, which targets regular AC.)

That doesn't necessarily mean we advise you to take those feats. If your wizard will be using mainly area-of-effect spells or save-or-whatever spells which don't require a hit roll, you might decide that attack rolls are not important, and use your feats for something else.

(The spell description will tell you whether it requires an attack roll or not. Spells with ranged touch attacks will benefit from those two fests.)

[Morgian]

1) You are not supposed to bother with them. Cantrips are very minor feats of magic, which a wizard can do all the time, like ignite a small fire or getting a book while sitting in his chair. They are mostly roleplaying stuff and have little bearing in combat.

2) Using a crossbow means you have to hit the real AC of the target, which is often 25 or higher. Your bonus to hit is roughly 1/2 your level + DEX bonus + weapon bonus, which amounts at level 10 to a whopping +10 to +12. Without the feat precise shot you get -4 when aiming at someone in melee, lowering it to +6 to +8. You get the picture why using crossbows is not too efficient for a caster, although it is better than doing nothing. If you do any form of ranged combat, be it crossbow or ray, get precise shot to raise your chance to hit by 20%.

3) Touch AC means you don't need to draw blood, just touching the figure of your enemy is enough. Therefore armor does not count and larger foes are easier to hit. The troll in the final dungeon has an AC of 54, but a touch AC of 9. Others, like the wild hunt, who rely on DEX, displacement and deflection bonuses have a solid touch AC, although it is still lower than the real AC. So everything going against touch AC is compensating for your terrible BAB as caster and useful.

4) Spells that require a to hit against touch AC usually offer no saving throw. So if you hit it sticks. There are exceptions, like disintegrate, but for the two main ray attacks, scorching ray and hellfire ray, it holds true. Hellfire ray has a much higher damage than other spells, and scorching ray (due to it being only level 2) can be easier modified than others. A maximized hellfire ray can one-shot many bosses - if you hit.

5) There are only three things you can use cantrips for: use them to solve certain puzzles in dungeons, bypass the regeneration of trolls, and to deliver your sneak attack damage, if you happen to be Octavia (or another arcane trickster of high enough level), as it wil be easier than with the crossbow.

6) Since DEX plays an important role, many casters go with CON 14, DEX 16, and 18 in their caster stat. Precise shot is almost a must-have, but it has point blank shot as prerequisite, and neither can be had from bonus feats. So many go human to gain another feat to cover this.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Originally posted by Morgian:

...Without the feat precise shot you get -4 when aiming at someone in melee, lowering it to +6 to +8.

Just to add to this bit, since a lot of people have been confused on this point in the past - the -4 is for when the target is in melee with someone, not the attacker.

So if you're standing 20ft away from a bandit who's in melee with Regongar, firing either a ranged weapon or a spell that requires a ranged touch attack (such as most of the attack cantrips) at the bandit will suffer a -4 on the attack roll as your character tries not to hit Regongar. The Precise Shot feat negates this penalty.

[Autocthon]

Originally posted by Dragofie:

I use my Octavia(well, no surprises here) with Acid Splash skill to melt enemy, also gave her Earth Robe(+2 DC - Difficulty Check - to acid spells). Acid splash ignores part of enemies damage reduction(veterans know the pain).

1) Earth Robe does nothing for Acid Splash (it has no DC)
2) Acid Splash does not bypass damage reduction (ir bypasses spell resistance)

I just had to correct that.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Originally posted by Autocthon:

Originally posted by Dragofie:

I use my Octavia(well, no surprises here) with Acid Splash skill to melt enemy, also gave her Earth Robe(+2 DC - Difficulty Check - to acid spells). Acid splash ignores part of enemies damage reduction(veterans know the pain).

1) Earth Robe does nothing for Acid Splash (it has no DC)
2) Acid Splash does not bypass damage reduction (it bypasses spell resistance)

I just had to correct that.

To reinforce this (and fix the typo in point 2 because it was bugging me :P ), here's the full spell description for Acid Splash. As you'll see; it has no Saving Throw (meaning the spell DC does nothing for it as that's only how hard a spell's saving throw is) and is not affected by Spell Resistance.

http://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Acid%20Splash

[Dragofie]

Originally posted by Autocthon:

Originally posted by Dragofie:

I use my Octavia(well, no surprises here) with Acid Splash skill to melt enemy, also gave her Earth Robe(+2 DC - Difficulty Check - to acid spells). Acid splash ignores part of enemies damage reduction(veterans know the pain).

1) Earth Robe does nothing for Acid Splash (it has no DC)
2) Acid Splash does not bypass damage reduction (ir bypasses spell resistance)

I just had to correct that.

Then let me RECORRECT you, seems like I caused a misunderstanding here.
1) I m using entire school of conj. and evo. spells consisting acid and fire spells including acid spray, acid arrow, you name it.
2) Acid splash ignores part of enemies PHYSICAL damage reduction. Since it is the most common form of DR and creator of topic hardly knows anything about rolls I didn't even bother stating it. You can try and see for yourself; especially on "Treant-like" and "Golem" subtype enemies.

Edit: I can even give you a reference for better understanding; Much more common is alignment based Damage Reduction (DR 5/good, etc.), or simple Damage Reduction against non-magical weapons (DR 10/magic). Other creatures use Damage Reduction to show resilience to a specific form of physical damage, usually due to the nature of their body.

Source: https://www.gamerguides.com/pathfinder-kingmaker/advanced-gameplay-information/pathfinder-rules-and-terms/damage-reduction

[Autocthon]

Originally posted by Dragofie:

Then let me RECORRECT you, seems like I caused a misunderstanding here.
1) I m using entire school of conj. and evo. spells consisting acid and fire spells including acid spray, acid arrow, you name it.

Which still isn't relevant to why you would use acid splash. Also acid arrow doesn't have a DC either.

2) Acid splash ignores part of enemies PHYSICAL damage reduction. Since it is the most common form of DR and creator of topic hardly knows anything about rolls I didn't even bother stating it. You can try and see for yourself; especially on "Treant-like" and "Golem" subtype enemies.

Edit: I can even give you a reference for better understanding; Much more common is alignment based Damage Reduction (DR 5/good, etc.), or simple Damage Reduction against non-magical weapons (DR 10/magic). Other creatures use Damage Reduction to show resilience to a specific form of physical damage, usually due to the nature of their body.

Source: https://www.gamerguides.com/pathfinder-kingmaker/advanced-gameplay-information/pathfinder-rules-and-terms/damage-reduction

Acid Splash doesn't deal physical damage. That's all. It isn't ignoring a "part" of anything. Damage reduction (by default) is against physical damage only. The other two damage dealing cantrips would work just as effectively at ignoring physical damage reduction. Any spell that doesn't deal physical damage would.

It's not ignoring "a portion" of anything. DRX/ Y doesn't apply to energy damage at all.

[Matiati]

Cantrip ranged touch attacks ignore enemies' AC bonus due to armor (as they are ranged touch attacks). So with a high dex build you can easily hit almost all enemies in the game.

They are also a great and cheap way of killing trolls and similar enemies.

Finally, they are awesome with sneak attack builds. Whenever your team flanks a target (this happens when there are more than 2 teammates attacking a single enemy) then your cantrip caster can deal both sneak attack damage and precision damage if any of the melee attackers and the caster have the teamwork feat for it.

This makes casters consistent damage dealers no matter what. And you wont even need to use a ranged weapon.

Arcane Trickster prestige build for instance is a great combination for this purpose.

[Dragofie]

Originally posted by Autocthon:

Originally posted by Dragofie:

Then let me RECORRECT you, seems like I caused a misunderstanding here.
1) I m using entire school of conj. and evo. spells consisting acid and fire spells including acid spray, acid arrow, you name it.

Which still isn't relevant to why you would use acid splash. Also acid arrow doesn't have a DC either.

2) Acid splash ignores part of enemies PHYSICAL damage reduction. Since it is the most common form of DR and creator of topic hardly knows anything about rolls I didn't even bother stating it. You can try and see for yourself; especially on "Treant-like" and "Golem" subtype enemies.

Edit: I can even give you a reference for better understanding; Much more common is alignment based Damage Reduction (DR 5/good, etc.), or simple Damage Reduction against non-magical weapons (DR 10/magic). Other creatures use Damage Reduction to show resilience to a specific form of physical damage, usually due to the nature of their body.

Source: https://www.gamerguides.com/pathfinder-kingmaker/advanced-gameplay-information/pathfinder-rules-and-terms/damage-reduction

Acid Splash doesn't deal physical damage. That's all. It isn't ignoring a "part" of anything. Damage reduction (by default) is against physical damage only. The other two damage dealing cantrips would work just as effectively at ignoring physical damage reduction. Any spell that doesn't deal physical damage would.

It's not ignoring "a portion" of anything. DRX/ Y doesn't apply to energy damage at all.

OMG buddy, who said Acid Splash does physical damage? You are STILL insisting on wrong which I can't see why. There are TONS of enemies with multiple type damage reduction.
Example with hope you will understand this time; Mother of Oblivion

Defensive Abilities all-around Vision; DR 15/cold iron and magic; Immune Death effects, mind-affecting effects, petrification, polymorph; Resist acid 20, cold 20; SR 26

Source: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/bestiary-hub/monsters-by-cr/#TOC-CR39-

Same rules applies ingame monsters too, you can find one yourself by searching.