spontaneous cantrips vs prepared cantrips.

Spontaneous casters seem to be disadvantaged in how their cantrips are handled compared to the cantrips of prepared casters.
perpared casters can change their cantrips every day while spontaneous casters can only change their cantrips when they level up or spend downtime to do so.
That makes a spontaneous caster a lot less flexible then a prepared caster.

Isn't that generally the point of spontaneous vs. prepared casters? Prepared casters are versatile on a day to day basis, while spontaneous casters are versatile in the moment.

yes but there is no in the moment for cantrips

...what part of the rule would you like to discuss? It seems you have a firm grip on how the rule functions.

@Hammerspace: If I had to interpret, I would guess you would like it if, for example, Sorcerers could pick 1 or 2 more cantrips than they can now at 1st level, but their daily cantrip selection would only be from the same number as we have now. So where you get 3 cantrips now and can cast from any 3 of those 3, you would get 4 or 5 cantrips and can cast from any 3 (chosen per day) of those 4 or 5.

Is that closer to what you were expecting?

the point that I was trying to make was with normal spells
sponaneous spells are more flexible
prepared spells allow you to select a new variaty each day.
While with cantrips:
spontaneous cantrips do nothing
prepared cantrips can be reselected every day.

Making the spontaneous cantrips strickly inferior compared to prepared cantrips.

Isn't that generally the point of spontaneous vs. prepared casters? Prepared casters are versatile on a day to day basis, while spontaneous casters are versatile in the moment.

True for spell slots, but cantrips never run out and both spontaneous and prepared spellcasters have the same number of total cantrips at any given moment.

The result is that the only difference between a cleric's cantrips and a divine sorcerer's cantrips are that the cleric can change out their cantrips every morning and the sorcerer can't.

In order to be more versatile 'in the moment', a spontaneous caster would need more total cantrips or something to that effect.

Making the spontaneous cantrips strickly inferior compared to prepared cantrips.

Theoretically true, but unlikely to have significant expression in practical play.

Both prepared and spontaneous caster players are more likely to set their cantrips and rarely, if ever, change them and be satisfied with that than they are to feel like there would be benefit to actually change things around - because 5 cantrips is enough to cover your bases.

Hammerspace wrote:

Making the spontaneous cantrips strickly inferior compared to prepared cantrips.

Theoretically true, but unlikely to have significant expression in practical play.

Both prepared and spontaneous caster players are more likely to set their cantrips and rarely, if ever, change them and be satisfied with that than they are to feel like there would be benefit to actually change things around - because 5 cantrips is enough to cover your bases.

Generally agreed for spellcasting classes, though there are some somewhat notable exceptions, such as preparing certain cantrips to fight certain foes {elemental weakness and such}, and in situations where a niche cantrip could be used to solve a problem, {preparing 'Know Direction' because it took your party a day of getting lost before anyone figured out no one bought a compass, 'Sigil' on off days to mark your stuff ect.}

However this problem gets a bit more noticeable with MC Spellcasters,whom only have two cantrips to work with, and are less likely to have cantrips to cover there bases, but the prepared MC as the benefit of swaping out spells to the situation they believe they are going to face. This is not a dire situation to MC spontaneous casters as they still have there based class to fall back on, but it is a bit more noticeable.

because 5 cantrips is enough to cover your bases.

I mean, there are four elemental cantrips that primal and arcane casters have access to.

A druid or wizard can freely swap between them all based on what they think they're going to be encountering. A sorcerer can take all four, then have enough room for only a single cantrip left over if they're covering their bases.

You can say it's not significant, but if that's the case, then it shouldn't be significant to change them so that the spontaneous/prepared dynamic gets restored.

...there are some somewhat notable exceptions, such as preparing certain cantrips to fight certain foes {elemental weakness and such}

Most campaigns have a theme and that theme lasts for a fair amount of time, rather than having the elemental damage of choice change day-to-day. Plus, in most campaigns the theme doesn't end up with too many elemental weakness (and I'm meaning that in the broader "using this element is best" sense rather than the "this gets actual bonus damage" sense) coming up - unless it is the specific 'feature' of that campaign.

situations where a niche cantrip could be used to solve a problem

My experience has been that the players concern with these niche situations will pre-select for them, rather than being both caught not realizing they'd benefit from picking a particular cantrip and having a spare day to solve the same issue.

Usually, a player with either not have the niche cantrip for the one time it would have been useful and have no need of it at other times.

...this problem gets a bit more noticeable with MC Spellcasters,whom only have two cantrips to work with

And also their primary class' features so, both practically an conceptually, they don't need more than two cantrips.

I mean, there are four elemental cantrips that primal and arcane casters have access to.

A druid or wizard can freely swap between them all based on what they think they're going to be encountering. A sorcerer can take all four, then have enough room for only a single cantrip left over if they're covering their bases.

Having all the elemental damage cantrips on offer is not "covering your bases," it's explicitly ignoring some bases to double-cover another base.

A player that knows the theme of the campaign they are playing in, which should be every player, can choose 1 or 2 of the attack cantrips and that's good to cover the "I need some at-will attacks" base, leaving 3-4 cantrips to cover other bases.

Were I to play a sorcerer, for example, in a "generic dungeon adventure" type of campaign I'd take electric arc, detect magic, ray of frost, read aura, and shield and likely never feel the need to change them... and if I were playing a wizard instead the only change would be preparing the extra cantrip granted by whichever arcane school I chose (assuming I didn't go with generalist) - and I'd still likely never feel the need to change them.

You can say it's not significant, but if that's the case, then it shouldn't be significant to change them so that the spontaneous/prepared dynamic gets restored.

spontaneous/prepared dynamic is not in a state of requiring restoration... what's the old saying? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Most campaigns have a theme and that theme lasts for a fair amount of time, rather than having the elemental damage of choice change day-to-day. Plus, in most campaigns the theme doesn't end up with too many elemental weakness (and I'm meaning that in the broader "using this element is best" sense rather than the "this gets actual bonus damage" sense) coming up - unless it is the specific 'feature' of that campaign.

Depends on the DM, campaign and returning charters. A DM may not let you know ahead of time exactly what type of adventure they are running/creatures you may face/challenges you may encounter. You may also be playing characters from a previous campaign, and the cantrips that were suited to the prior may not work so well in the latter/ there are better options. And there may be campaigns which branch from the original content, either by design, DM fiat, or player involvement. To sum up, you may not know what you are getting into, something which a prepared caster can correct in a day, and a spontaneous caster cannot.

My experience has been that the players concern with these niche situations will pre-select for them, rather than being both caught not realizing they'd benefit from picking a particular cantrip and having a spare day to solve the same issue.

Usually, a player with either not have the niche cantrip for the one time it would have been useful and have no need of it at other times.

You mentioned neither type of caster will most likely not have a niche cantrip when it could be useful, and to a certain degree, this is true. However, I gave two examples of problems which could/needed to be solved without an intimidate need to be solved. Being lost is a problem which needs to be solved but not immediately, 'Know Direction' being used to help this, and will be rendered mute once the party acquires a compass. 'Sigil' can be useful in marking items, but generally a days use of it every once in a while is all that is needed. Regardless, we are still left with the fact in those situations a prepared caster can have those cantrips prepared with the only cost being its one of there prepared cantrips for the day, {wither it is used or not, or if they knew ahead of time they would need it} while a spontaneous will have that spell constantly taking up a spot on there limited repertoire. Retaining is a thing, but it takes time, money, and something which cannot generally be done in the middle of an adventure.

And also their primary class' features so, both practically an conceptually, they don't need more than two cantrips

Something which I had alluded to {but not to your extent] in the next sentence. "This is not a dire situation to MC spontaneous casters as they still have there based class to fall back on, but it is a bit more noticeable." Practically, its better to have the ability to swap out your cantrips then not to have the ability to swap out your cantrips, which leads back to my previous statements of situations where you may wish to swap out your cantrips/no longer useful cantrips taking up your {two} limited repertoire spots. Conceptually {something which can be slightly nebulous], there would be no reason why a spontaneous caster should not be able to swap out spells like there prepared counterparts. Cantrips already have there own set of rules. They don't 'disappear' when cast, an exception to the prepared style of casting, and which mimics a quality of spontaneous style of casting. Why shouldn't spontaneous caster be able to mimic swapping out spells for there cantrips? As you had stated, as casters tends to stick with a set of cantrips anyways, it would not have a major impact on the way the class is played, nor the game in general.

Yeah, while being able to swap out cantrips is an advantage, I don't think it is much of one. Cantrips don't have much utility compared to spell slots, so you've basically got the same list of needs to cover every day. Detect Magic+Read Aura, light if your group needs it, maybe shield, then filling out the rest with attack cantrips.

Yeah, while being able to swap out cantrips is an advantage, I don't think it is much of one.

That's why I think that giving Sorcerers more Cantrips Known is not a game breaker if you want to do it at home... ;)

The question is how much more Cantrips and when to gain them ? :p

Im guessing solution would be raise number of cantrips from 5 to 6 or 7 for bards and sorecers. That way wizard for example has 10 but sets 5 out of them each day, a spantanous caster would be more true to how their spells work and have more cantrips able all the time.

This how I change it.
Sorcerer: 6 or 7 Cantrips always ready.
Sorcerer Dedication: 3 always ready.
Bard & dedication: Same as sorcerer^.

A DM may not let you know ahead of time exactly what type of adventure they are running/creatures you may face/challenges you may encounter.

There's no good reason to not let the players know what they are getting into, even if their characters won't know.

So if you're in "I need to change a bunch of spells because what I picked are incompatible with the campaign" territory, that's entirely a GM-caused conundrum - not "normal circumstances of fair play."

You may also be playing characters from a previous campaign, and the cantrips that were suited to the prior may not work so well in the latter/ there are better options.

Again this is a GM-caused circumstance because they haven't given the players the downtime for their characters to adapt what (in practical terms) would be 1 or 2 spells they picked that no longer have benefit.

A GM that wants players' characters to be ill-equipped for their adventures will make that happen regardless of what the rules to the game actually are.

To sum up, you may not know what you are getting into, something which a prepared caster can correct in a day, and a spontaneous caster cannot.

Your assuming that being a prepared caster also comes with foreknowledge of your foes for the day while at the same time assuming being a spontaneous caster comes without foreknowledge in even broad enough terms to be able to choose something that "should work most of the time."

I gave two examples of problems which could/needed to be solved without an intimidate need to be solved. Being lost is a problem which needs to be solved but not immediately, 'Know Direction' being used to help this, and will be rendered mute once the party acquires a compass. 'Sigil' can be useful in marking items, but generally a days use of it every once in a while is all that is needed.

Your specific examples do show a time when a prepared cast, if the player bothers to do so, can benefit from being able to change their prepared cantrips. You have not demonstrated problems that a) are frequent enough to have a player be worried about them, b) unsolvable by other readily-available means.

In fact, the "problem" that sigil "solves" isn't even an actual problem nor a thing which is restricted to magic if you care about marking all your belongs. Etch an initial here, sew a name there, or even get more subtle and use a stain here or a specifically made defect there.

As for getting lost, that's a "we didn't buy supplies" kind of issue, and is also overcome by spending the day finding your path and keeping a cantrip prepared for what else besides staying lost might happen that day - and also comes down to "how many campaigns have happened where getting lost is actually relevant, and no one in the party is good enough at Sense Direction to cover the party's need?"

Which is to say, as I already did, theoretically swapping cantrips is useful - but it practically never happens.

I had the illustrative thought that it's a lot like a fighrer character with high strength carrying a variety of weapons that cover all damage types and all their favorite weapon traits so they've got access to them at a moment's notice vs. a character that just covers "enough" of that with 1-2 weapons - we've all seen bunches of the latter, but even if we've seen the former in play it wasn't actually practical to be swapping weapons all the time so it wasn't nearly as beneficial as it seemed in theory.

There's no good reason to not let the players know what they are getting into, even if their characters won't know.

So if you're in "I need to change a bunch of spells because what I picked are incompatible with the campaign" territory, that's entirely a GM-caused conundrum - not "normal circumstances of fair play."
Again this is a GM-caused circumstance because they haven't given the players the downtime for their characters to adapt what (in practical terms) would be 1 or 2 spells they picked that no longer have benefit.
A GM that wants players' characters to be ill-equipped for their adventures will make that happen regardless of what the rules to the game actually are

It’s all dependant on the style of gameplay. Both DM and players may wish to play a game which the characters are surprised by the challenge, that they are shaped by the story, not shaped for it. There are also possibilities of intertwined campaigns, or even the popular ‘sand box’ style of table top gameplay. Player agency can have both a major impact on the story and change the challenges they may face. A prep caster as a greater ability to adapt there cantrips to these challenges/changes, which a spontaneous caster does not.

Your assuming that being a prepared caster also comes with foreknowledge of your foes for the day while at the same time assuming being a spontaneous caster comes without foreknowledge in even broad enough terms to be able to choose something that "should work most of the time.

I’m not assuming that. I assume both types of casters, if given no other information, will prepare spells for the most broad array of situations or the ‘should work most of the time’ list. Nor do I assume a prepared caster will know every situation ahead of time. However I do assume prepared caster know roughly what they are planning to do for that day, and prepare there cantrips in a way which will broadly apply to that plan, while at the same time making efforts to gain info to help narrow down this list for future preparations. A spontaneous caster does not have this ability in there cantrips.

Your specific examples do show a time when a prepared cast, if the player bothers to do so, can benefit from being able to change their prepared cantrips. You have not demonstrated problems that a) are frequent enough to have a player be worried about them, b) unsolvable by other readily-available means.

<shows how my specific examples could be overcome through mundane means>

Which is to say, as I already did, theoretically swapping cantrips is useful - but it practically never happens

The ability to swap out cantrips to overcome problems should not be understated, as its less then occasional use can still add up, and even one use can still have a major impact. The fact certain problems could also be solved through other means does not diminished this, especially as your group may not possess the mundane means. To counter your example, its a lot like the spell ‘Suggestion’. Most of what that spell can do can also be achieved either through a silver tongue, or the end of a sword, yet casters still have it because its useful in solving certain problems for them and the group.

Now in truth I do believe 95% of the time not being able to change cantrips will not make a difference, and we are discussing the impact of the 5%. Nor do I think those 5% exceptions makes spontaneous cantrips untenable. However I have seen it have an impact in those situations, as being able to have those next day simple solutions/being able to prepare cantrips for the possible situations ahead would have helped.
Even if the difference is only theoretical, if there is a perceived practical problem, then it can lead to an actual practical problem, for example people picking Prepared MC spellcasting for the reason they can swap out the spells, or the perceived ‘balance’ of the game itself. Which is actually the reason why in the previous comment I suggested spontaneous casters have the ability to swap out there cantrips, as it would take care of the theoretical difference, without having a ‘practical’ impact, if cantrip swapping does not indeed have a practical impact.

Captain Morgan wrote:

Yeah, while being able to swap out cantrips is an advantage, I don't think it is much of one.

That's why I think that giving Sorcerers more Cantrips Known is not a game breaker if you want to do it at home... ;)

The question is how much more Cantrips and when to gain them ? :p

That doesn't really track. Cantrips are good, they just aren't things you usually wind up wanting to change up on the daily basis. I'd rather have more cantrips than fewer cantrips that I can swap, I think.

That said, it does seem like sorcerers should have gotten 5+1 for the bloodline just based on how other features work. (That's not already the case, is it? Can't remember for sure.)

I'm going to take a bit of a rest from this discussion for now. I do believe both prepared and spontaneous are roughly equal, each with there own strength and weakness in the way they cast spells, with the exception of cantrips.

Spontaneous casters can have a slight advantage over prepared casters when it comes to innate cantrips gained through heritage or ancestry feats. Those use Charisma, so spontaneous casters who have matching spell traditions get the same Spell DC's and Attack Rolls as they normally have. Prepared casters use Intelligence or Wisdom so they will typically not do as well with those Innate cantrips even if they have matching traditions. It makes it a bit easier for spontaneous casters to always have a wide variety of damage types available.

Even if the difference is only theoretical, if there is a perceived practical problem, then it can lead to an actual practical problem, for example people picking Prepared MC spellcasting for the reason they can swap out the spells, or the perceived ‘balance’ of the game itself. Which is actually the reason why in the previous comment I suggested spontaneous casters have the ability to swap out there cantrips, as it would take care of the theoretical difference, without having a ‘practical’ impact, if cantrip swapping does not indeed have a practical impact.

A perceived problem only becomes an actual problem if the perception is accurate - otherwise a perceived problem leads to a realization that what appeared to be a problem isn't.

In practice, a player that picks an option because they think it is "necessary" when it is not actually necessary is going to learn that through play.

Siro wrote:

Even if the difference is only theoretical, if there is a perceived practical problem, then it can lead to an actual practical problem, for example people picking Prepared MC spellcasting for the reason they can swap out the spells, or the perceived ‘balance’ of the game itself. Which is actually the reason why in the previous comment I suggested spontaneous casters have the ability to swap out there cantrips, as it would take care of the theoretical difference, without having a ‘practical’ impact, if cantrip swapping does not indeed have a practical impact.

A perceived problem only becomes an actual problem if the perception is accurate - otherwise a perceived problem leads to a realization that what appeared to be a problem isn't.

In practice, a player that picks an option because they think it is "necessary" when it is not actually necessary is going to learn that through play.

Yes and in our group and from a quick glance around here, at least some people have found the problem perception to be somewhat accurate.I would not say its a major issue, nor would do I think the prepared option then becomes the 'necessary' one, but it is an issue which does pop up to some small degree.

If your experiences have differed, more power to you, the less issues experienced the more fun the game is.

Edit= I think we have narrowed the discussion down to a difference of experiences, in where you have experienced one thing, and I another, something which I believe is a good place to end it on.

Spontaneous casters can have a slight advantage over prepared casters when it comes to innate cantrips gained through heritage or ancestry feats. Those use Charisma, so spontaneous casters who have matching spell traditions get the same Spell DC's and Attack Rolls as they normally have. Prepared casters use Intelligence or Wisdom so they will typically not do as well with those Innate cantrips even if they have matching traditions. It makes it a bit easier for spontaneous casters to always have a wide variety of damage types available.

While this is true, we don't know if it will continue to be true with new classes: we could easily get a non-charisma based spontaneous caster in the future.