Hawke's Modifications to D&D; 5th Edition Cantrips

In my opinion (such as it is), the cantrips in 5th edition are too powerful to be listed as cantrip/orison, and violate the original intent of cantrips when first introduced in the AD&D; 1st Edition Unearthed Arcana, “Cantrips are the magic spells learned and used by apprentice magic-users and illusionists during their long, rigorous, and tedious training for the craft of magic-use.” “Most cantrips are simple little spells of no great effect...” “All cantrips are 0 level, have a 1” range, have a generally small area of effect, require only soft, simple verbal and somatic components, and are cast in a very short time (1/10 to ½ segment). Only those which involve living creatures afford any saving throw.” “The effects of cantrips, and the people and items affected by them, radiate a very faint magical aura.” “Note that despite their simple components and short casting times, only two cantrips can be cast during any round by a single magic-user or apprentice.” - Unearthed Arcana, p 45, 1985.

5th Edition tried changing the definition of cantrips to “simple by powerful spells that characters can cast almost by rote” 5th Edition D&D; Player's Handbook p. 201, 2014. This of course didn't just start with 5th edition, but it was taken even further than previous editions and inflate their effects even more.

Instead, I have taken the list from 5th edition, (this same exercise could also be applied to previous editions effectively too) removed all the spells that are “too powerful” to be cantrips and have the moved to 1st level, retaining as cantrips those that qualify to only “have 1” range, …. small area of effect”. If the cantrip was previously a 1st level spell, that is an automatic change back to first level spell isntead of cantrip. Additionally, I have brought back into the list those cantrips from the old UA, and that were the seeds for some great clever uses in ROLE-playing situations, including my personal favorite, firefinger.

Criteria for deciding if a cantrip should be a 1st level spell instead:

• f the cantrip was previously a 1st (or other) level spell, then it is automatically switched back to 1st level.
• If the cantrip has information that increases its effectiveness when the spell caster is a higher level, then that also should become a spell instead.
• If the cantrip has more than a 1” range it should be considered as a possible candidate to become a first level spell instead.
• If the spell can stop or cause more than 1 hp of damage (any kind, including but not limited to non-lethal, psychic, lethal, etc.), then it should not be a cantrip.

Alternate rule:

Cantrips Lists

Alphabetical Cantrips List (5th Edition Only)

Alphabetical Cantrips List (Complete) (5th Edition plus Unearth Arcana 1st Edition and others)

My philosophy, for what it is worth, regarding party balance, is that the party is balanced by the variety of character personalities, backgrounds, skills, equipment, etc. allowing opportunities for at least one PC to have some exceptional ability for different circumstances. Of course players can choose what they like, I generally do not restrict the choices the players make, I just try to encourage a lot more of a ROLE-playing approach than a lot of D20 players these days seem to consider.

In some situations some characters will have a chance to shine, while others will have to hold back. I don't want players and scenarios to be limited to cliche's and archetypes, but I'll use a few to illustrate some points...

• When in the High Elven royal court, the barbarian half-orc should probably remain silent while the party's Elven Cleric or Diplomat or other characters with similar negotiation skills does most of the talking.
• When confronted with complex trap-puzzles, the rogue-types and/or thinkers should probably step up rather than the hack and slashers.
• When trying to sneak in and steal the Prince Kadakithis's royal sceptre, the stealthiest and quietest members would be best engaged in the activity, and the other party members will have to either act as back up or stand down and wait
• When someone needs to wade through ancient tomes of forgotten lore, finding key clues that will change the course of the party's goals, maybe even impact the future of the entire kingdom, what backgrounds, connections, abilities, and skills do you want brought to bear in such a situation? Though there might be combat solutions, that is probably not the optimal approach.

The original use of the "role-playing spells" known as cantrips, in 5th edition become just another bashing combat tool, diverting that much further away from the desired R-O-L-E-playing and focusing more on R-O-L-L-playing's emphasis on combat capabilities rather than much more varies non-combat capabilities.

If you want a lot of combat and action in your campaigns, and are bored with complex character interaction, lots of dialogue, diplomacy, politics, puzzles, riddles, avoiding combat whenever possible, etc, then you will be bored with what I have lined up in most of my campaigns.

There are lots of opportunities to get into fights, but that will likely be suicide in either in the short term or longer term if that is the approach you want to take (looking for trouble).

There _is_ combat, but that is probably only about 10-20%% of my campaigns at most. So for every 10 hours of gaming, there would only be about 1-2 hours of combat (about one combat per game session with game sessions averaging about 4-5 hours each).

This varies of course, but seems to hold up in general.

The "spellcasters" have the visible powers of their great magics, but should also have many other abilities based on their Intellect, Wisdom, Charisma, including persuasion, herbalism, knowledge, professions, lore, lore, and more lore.

PC's aren't limited to this approach, but neither are they limited to just being spell-casting hack-and-slashers.

They don't have to become "dead weight" just because they are out of combat spells. Quite the contrary, many of the greatest solutions to challenges come from ideas, not brute approaches or even necessarily magic approaches, and typically spell casters have either superior intellect, wisdom/intuition, or charisma/persuasiveness on their side beyond their spell casting to help come up with creative solutions to stay "in the action".

I recently played a spell caster, and I went with zero combat spells, and I was more actively engaged in helping the party, then ever the other spell casters were that used combat-focused spells. They "ran out" of blasting spells, and didn't have much to fall back on due to that mentality. I was able to keep constantly contributing to the good of the party, some with magic, but often through other abilities, ideas, and actions.

All of the above said, I don't usually require the party to have any "required" archetypes, I've had groups of all Elf-rangers, or a gang of rogues, or a band of warriors, though each had distinctive backgrounds that gave them some unique history/abilities/perspectives that would be of use. How they ROLE-play is more important than their mechanics.

I totally understand those who do not agree with my approach, and there is nothing wrong with the differences they have for those DM's and players that prefer to implement the D&D; rules as written, and don't mind generally more hack and slash approaches to RPG.

Personally, after playing 3 groups through 5e, the cantrips issue totally changed the dynamics in (my view, for what it is worth) a negative way, encouraging spell casters to become "blasters" rather than "thinkers" or "intuiters" or "persuaders".

I hope this helps explain in an effective way to you why I take the proposed approach with the house rules.

My goal is to encourage as much ROLE-play as possible, without using a completely different system.

There is no problem with disagreeing, I welcome it (as long as in-game it doesn't interfere with game-play) and I do intend to make additional "tweaks" to the house rules (Especially the combat crits) as game play sessions provide additional information to help guide the process.

What do you think?

Happy Gaming!