Fluff in the spell says "A ray of freezing air and ice projects from your pointing finger." I've seen this interpreted many ways by many GMs. Recently in another thread I saw PC who used it to make sheets of ice.
Is that legal? In other words, if I cast drench and my familiar uses a wand of ray of frost at the exact same moment, can I turn it into a snow storm instead? Can I cast it over and over again to freeze a glass of water?
I ask b/cause as a GM I'm highly encouraging my players to think outside the box. I have a wizard and a cleric in my game who are still 3rd level and thus use cantrips often. I want to be prepared with at least some general concensus in case this or other similar judgements come up.
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In my opinion, a cantrip is not powerful enough to do the things you mentioned. While I have no objection to ray of frost being used to chill a drink, for instance, I think using it to outright freeze water solid is asking a bit much. At best, it might be able to create a very thin layer of ice, but certainly nothing load-bearing.
It's a cantrip, so you can cast it over and over to freeze anything (assuming the environment is not so hot that it immediately warms up again), but it takes time. It shouldn't be possible to use it for a more dramatic combat effect than its official effects, nor should it duplicate the effect of any higher level spell (like Grease).
Look at Prestidigitation. Using Ray of Frost for small, subtle ice-related magical effects similar to prestidigitation would be fine in my book.
Here were my 2 fears to be honest:
1 - the iceball: take a bulbous flask and fill it with water. Now cast Ray of Frost repeatedly until all the ice freezes solid. Now you have a solid ball of ice and all that it implies (improvised melee or ranged weapon, handy tool, or setting a precedent for abuse in greater quantities)
1 - The sheet: pour water on ground, freeze; now you have slippery floor. Sounds simple right? What about drench + RoF = snow? Do it enough, now you've got vision limitations. What happens if you sculpt the sheet? Thin walls of ice as cover, slides to avoid jumps, bridges...
I'm not saying this ruling AUTOMATICALLY turns someone into Iceman. I am saying though that it is potentially ripe for abuse. I like MCV's opinion relating to Prestidigitation, but then the argument could be made that this spell DOES deal damage and that damage can be enhanced by feats/traits/metamagic...so if I'm encouraging creative thinking should I consider these other uses?
I have a player that argues with me that casting Ray of Frost and a Ray of Fire (energy substituted) over and over again should weaken materials and make them easier to break.
I dont really see a üroblem in yourexamples. Everything you mentioned could be done easier with cheap resources.
And RoF + drench = snow is not going to work:P
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I have a player that argues with me that casting Ray of Frost and a Ray of Fire (energy substituted) over and over again should weaken materials and make them easier to break.
Sure as long as there is no hardness. You'd just be dealing damage to something. I'd allow it to give a +2 or more bonus on busting a lock if you did that trick to metal. Wood or anything else? Not so much.
Pfft. If they tried to justify it on stone.
Here were my 2 fears to be honest:
1 - the iceball: take a bulbous flask and fill it with water. Now cast Ray of Frost repeatedly until all the ice freezes solid. Now you have a solid ball of ice and all that it implies (improvised melee or ranged weapon, handy tool, or setting a precedent for abuse in greater quantities)
1 - The sheet: pour water on ground, freeze; now you have slippery floor. Sounds simple right? What about drench + RoF = snow? Do it enough, now you've got vision limitations. What happens if you sculpt the sheet? Thin walls of ice as cover, slides to avoid jumps, bridges...
I'm not saying this ruling AUTOMATICALLY turns someone into Iceman. I am saying though that it is potentially ripe for abuse. I like MCV's opinion relating to Prestidigitation, but then the argument could be made that this spell DOES deal damage and that damage can be enhanced by feats/traits/metamagic...so if I'm encouraging creative thinking should I consider these other uses?
Ray of Frost does 1d3 damage. If a character wants to be creative, I would encourage creativity, but keep it scaled to the cantrip.
The character can cast Ray of Frost this round to make an ice spike from a glass of water and use it next round to spike an enemy for 1d6 piercing damage (but no cold damage). If unused the spike would melt away the next round. If the wizard has rogue levels, I might allow sneak attack damage as well, I'd have to think more on that.
I'm not finding drench in the PRD, so I'm not sure what the spell does. But, based on your description, I would allow Drench + Ray of Frost to create a 20% miss chance for one round, but unless you are in a very cold environment, it would be gone after that.
I would not allow Ray of Frost to duplicate Grease, though.
-Aaron
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Thin walls of ice aren't going to offer very good cover. It would take a LOT of casting to get any kind of substantial effects in the terms you're talking about, and there are other spells which will do it better and more efficiently.
Also, as someone else has already stated, the environment needs to be taken into consideration. If you're someplace rather warm ray of frost isn't going to do anything. It doesn't produce an effect great enough or fast enough to really freeze anything for any amount of time in a warm climate.
Honestly, your player is overthinking things. It's great he's trying to think outside the box but he's also reinventing the wheel. A sheet of slippery ice on the floor to force acrobatics checks? Why not just cast grease? Frozen water? Prestidigitation. (And use them before they melt) Drench + RoF for vision limitations? Just cast darkness (Level 2 spell, I know, but you get them fairly soon off).
I'd tell them there are ways to achieve what they want already in the game and you're not going to allow RoF to be used outside it's official text because of balance issues. If they want to achieve these other effects they can use the appropriate spells.
If my home-campaign players came up with this, I would let them do it: especially if they figured that create water could be frozen on the ground. I would limit the actual size of the sheet, but I would not be opposed for 1st or 2nd level characters spending two standard actions to simulate the effect of a puddle of grease.
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Here were my 2 fears to be honest:
1 - the iceball: take a bulbous flask and fill it with water. Now cast Ray of Frost repeatedly until all the ice freezes solid. Now you have a solid ball of ice and all that it implies (improvised melee or ranged weapon, handy tool, or setting a precedent for abuse in greater quantities)
How is this different from a rock? Are you afraid your players will be able to obtain a solid object?
1 - The sheet: pour water on ground, freeze; now you have slippery floor. Sounds simple right? What about drench + RoF = snow? Do it enough, now you've got vision limitations. What happens if you sculpt the sheet? Thin walls of ice as cover, slides to avoid jumps, bridges...
I'm not saying this ruling AUTOMATICALLY turns someone into Iceman. I am saying though that it is potentially ripe for abuse. I like MCV's opinion relating to Prestidigitation, but then the argument could be made that this spell DOES deal damage and that damage can be enhanced by feats/traits/metamagic...so if I'm encouraging creative thinking should I consider these other uses?
If you don't want the slippery floor, you can rule that it takes so long to freeze one 5 foot square that, given normal temperatures, it's already melting by the time you finish. So basically you just couldn't cast the cantrip fast enough to ever complete a slick square.
Drench + RoF would not equal snow: first of all, drench is instantaneous duration, so you'd have to have a buddy caster with a readied action to even attempt it. Now can you hit every raindrop of drench with a RoF?
And using RoF to make ice objects large enough to use as cover or bridge a chasm? I recommend you not allow that. That's wall of ice powerful, not cantrip powerful.
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Something to keep in mind. At lvl 1 a caster can be at 6 hp. A lvl 1 commoner could easily be at 3 hp. This cantrip does 1d3. It's strong enough to outright kill aunt Betty.
It's the same with lots of spells. I've more than once seen players ask why they can't light fires with any fire spell oder SLA (sorcerer bloodline power for exaple).
The Answer: Because some spells and abilities say that they do it and other don't. If you want to light a torch use spark instead of admixtured ray of frost dealing fire.
@itchy: Why should one take two turns to create a ice dagger that lasts for one turn when he can just deal sneak attack damage with his ray of frost?
@C28: it's not a question of efficency. Its using what they have available. For ex: the situation they are in right now, the party nova'd in the first 2 encounters. The party wizard is sitting on a couple 2nd level spells, one of which is an abjuration (I forget which). Other than that he's got a crossbow and RoF. They are stuck in a temperate bog area in mid winter.
I'm just trying to consider the implications of using these combos creatively in order to ensure they don't abuse them later on (crafting ice makers or something). Now in their current situation of course they could blow the last of their spells and probably breeze through the next encounter, but they know they're physically only halfway through the intended adventure. They're on a time crunch to save a little girl and they have to resolve their current situation to get access to a bridge that in turn gives them access to a dark heart of the woods where the girl is.
So the interest here from the PC's perspective is resource management. "I can cast RoF all day" he's been heard to exclaim many times. As the creativity flows I'm just trying to walk that line between encouraging it and opening a door to later abuse that can't be closed.
I generally allow cantrips to do anything that makes sense for them as long as there is no game mechanic involved. For example, I let you use prestidigitation to cut your hair, shave, etc. It's not permanent, the hair starts growing back normally, but it works. I don't usually allow you to use it to cut another person's hair as that would then be a way to piss someone off. I don't do this, but I knew a GM once that made you roll profession (Barber) to 'cut hair' with it.
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They're on a time crunch to save a little girl
I disagree. It's all about efficiency if they're on such a time frame. How big is this bridge they need access to? If you allowed them to freeze water with RoF, even large quantities instantaneously, how are they going to use it as a bridge? Obviously you can't throw water over a ravine and freeze it into a bridge. You'd have a bunch of pieces of ice falling to the bottom. If you freeze the ice on the ground and try to maneuver it into place you have one of two problems. Either the ice is light enough to move but too weak to support your weight or it's sturdy enough to support your weight but too heavy to move.
Also, see the above mentioned note about achieving higher level spell effects with cantrips. If they state they're willing to spend whatever time it takes to make this "Wall of Ice" remind them of their time crunch.
Without actually being in the game and knowing the circumstances, environment, resources available, dimensions of said obstacle they're trying to bridge, etc., I can't really offer up potential solutions for them, but cantrips aren't really designed for this kind of utility. They just aren't strong enough.
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Ray of frost does less damage than a minute of unprotected exposure to -20 F temperatures. One minute at that temperature will freeze a very thin layer of water, but not a big solid chunk.
Also, I would think that ray spells are failry thin in cross-section. The damage is probably concentrated in an area about an inch across. Not terribly useful as a slippery floor trap.
One thing to watch out for here is that players are doing this with cantrips now - wait until they try the same trick writ large with cone of cold later. Today's usefull gimmick is tomorrow's annoyingly done in every fight silly tactic.
My ruling is that it's an instantaneous effect and can't actually freeze things or do anything more than what the spell description says (ray attack, 1d3 cold damage).
I'd say you can't use it to create ice sheets, make snowballs, etc.
Chilling drinks by a few degrees is the kind of effect that prestidigitation is for...
If your players want to make ray of frost useful they can just up the damage using feats and class abilities.
A level 1 human sorcerer can deal 1d3+7 damage with a ray of frost if he chooses the right bloodline combination (crossblooded) and feats.
That's not something to impress BBEGs at level 20 but at least it is better than just 1d3.
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If Umbranus is correct and you shouldn't be able to use just any fire spell to light a torch, then it follows that not every ice spell will be suitable for freezing ice.
But personally I agree with Mark Hoover that creative uses of spells are a good thing. It's just that you really need to be careful that they don't end up duplicating more powerful spells for no real cost or otherwise become more powerful than they were intended.
I think if it's mid winter and around freezing, then the little bit of frost from ray of frost won't melt so easily, and you might be able to accumulate a larger amount of ice. Especially when water is available. But it's going to be slow.
Suppose Ray of Frost can freeze 1 cm^3 of ice. Casting it every round for a minute would create 10 cm^3. Keeping that up for an hour would create a block of ice 10 cm x 60 cm x 1 cm, nearly the size of a skateboard. Maybe a single casting could create more ice than that (a cubic inch perhaps, if you prefer inches), but you're still not going to be able to do anything big within a reasonable amount of time, especially when they're in a hurry.
So look for small ways to exploit these. Maybe you can freeze a lock for a +1 on an attempt to break the lock? (You can't duplicate Knock, and a +1 seems to be the standard for cantrips.) I'd say that's already bending the limits of the spell quite far.
If the wizard is tapped out, I'm afraid you're going to have to rely more on the martial types. These are the limits of spellcasters.
And you can also be creative outside the spell list. Cut down a tree if you need a bridge.
At my table, there's an ongoing rule: you can cast Ray of Frost on your beverage to create 1d3 ice cubes in it.
That's about the extent of the spell's usefulness as far as I'm concerned.
Slippery floor with Ray of Frost? Isn't that what the Grease spell is supposed to do? This spell specifically damages stuff with cold. I don't mind players thinking outside the box, but I'd keep this spell at just cold damage, not ice creation. Look at Prestidigitation; "The materials created by a prestidigitation spell are extremely fragile, and they cannot be used as tools, weapons, or spell components."
Player: I use Ray of Frost on the flask of water.
GM: You have destroyed the flask of water. It shatters into a thousand pieces of ice.
Player: I pour some water on the floor and cast Ray of Frost at it.
GM: The floor takes no damage and small pieces of ice fly away from the area.
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As GM I would reward creativity. I dont think your players are trying to abuse the game they are just trying to think outside the box.
if players are trying to do something like choke the dragon by freezing his lips shut or abuse a spell repeatedly I would not allow it but in this case its more of a one off situation. reward them for game immersion and roll on.
A similar thought: I was running an infiltration mission and I had a player once that was using his sleep hex on enemies and then using Message to try and influence them via post-hypnotic suggestion. Because Message is a cantrip and hexes are only usable on a person once per day, I let him do it. The DC for the save was only 14 and it only worked fully on one opponent (who woke up with paranoia thinking that his friends were out to get him), the rest were just a little confused by the voices that seemed to come from nowhere.
Devoted arcane casters don't have a tremendous amount to do at low levels, so letting them get creative with cantrips is fine.
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I think that you are overplaying the potential of ray of frost. A staff or rock does just as well as an ice ball.
Not to mention that this is a ray. It only targets a very small point. Not an area, a point. Which means that it could not be used to create an ice sheet in a second. It would probably take about 10-20 castings to make a 5 foot square of ice.
If the use of the cantrip seems plausible, then reward the player for doing something other than saying "I hit it! I spam it with fire!" If however, the idea seems to be out in left field (I cast ray of frost to freeze the dragon's mouth shut!), then just say no.
In any event, RoF is the least of your worries. Just wait until one of your players sees the potential in prestidigitation!
I see this sort of thing all the time. The important thing to do is balance spell power with character creativity. The general rule is that a lower level spell should not be able to duplicate the effect of a higher level spell. Using "create water" and "ray of frost" to create a slippery floor is essentially duplicating the "grease" spell, which would mean that from a pure spell balance perspective it should not be allowed.
There are dozens of very plausible reasons, some of which have been presented here, which would explain why ray of frost won't freeze a sheet of water or a mug of water instantly.
But the important thing is to think about power balance.
If the wizard is wishing they had not blown all their spells, then this is a great opportunity for them to learn a very critical lesson about resource management.
Why would you want to use Ray of Frost to create a ball of ice you can throw? Just shoot the enemy with the Ray of Frost.
Unless, the player wants to create cold weapons for his allies... "Everyone get a ball of ice and we'll pepper that Fire Elemental with cold damage! Woohoo!"
Wait! Stop! No!
Delthyn makes a good point: this is a ray spell, not area-of-effect. So if it's raining and you cast it into the air, it might cause a bunch of raindrop-sized hailstones to form, but it won't cause a 5x5 square to start snowing, because rays don't work that way.
With enough castings, you might be able to cause a puddle to turn into an ice sheet, but it could take so long that the ice starts melting before you can finish.
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If you're concerned about a cantrip being exploited, look at the Create Water orison, and think about how that could be used by someone with some ranks in Knowledge Engineering and Craft Traps.
Resourcefulness is the attribute of doing more with less. Resourcefulness should be celebrated and encouraged, no squashed and argued against. I mean, does a 5' sheet of ice REALLY matter if it takes 6 rounds and a puddle of water to make? Look at the stats on an ice sheet...
Ice Sheet: The ground is covered with slippery ice. It costs 2 squares of movement to enter a square covered by an ice sheet, and the DC of Acrobatics checks there increases by 5. A DC 10 Acrobatics check is required to run or charge across an ice sheet.
... not exactly game breaking compared to doing 1d3 damage on a ranged touch attack. You can still walk across it by spending 10' movement, jump over it (DC 5) without any added cost to movement, and so on.
Or the ice balls. So what? You could also just bring a shovel and use 30 minutes to dig up enough clay to make a hundred clay balls, for no magical expense whatsoever, and the clay balls don't melt. Not game breaking.
I hate the GMs who lose sight of the big picture and just obsess over "H4X" or knee-jerk "cantDoThat" reactions.
Celebrate resourcefulness. This isn't a videogame.
If you're concerned about a cantrip being exploited, look at the Create Water orison, and think about how that could be used by someone with some ranks in Knowledge Engineering and Craft Traps.
Resourcefulness is the attribute of doing more with less. Resourcefulness should be celebrated and encouraged, no squashed and argued against. I mean, does a 5' sheet of ice REALLY matter if it takes 6 rounds and a puddle of water to make? Look at the stats on an ice sheet...
Ice Sheet: The ground is covered with slippery ice. It costs 2 squares of movement to enter a square covered by an ice sheet, and the DC of Acrobatics checks there increases by 5. A DC 10 Acrobatics check is required to run or charge across an ice sheet.
... not exactly game breaking compared to doing 1d3 damage on a ranged touch attack. You can still walk across it by spending 10' movement, jump over it (DC 5) without any added cost to movement, and so on.Or the ice balls. So what? You could also just bring a shovel and use 30 minutes to dig up enough clay to make a hundred clay balls, for no magical expense whatsoever, and the clay balls don't melt. Not game breaking.
I hate the GMs who lose sight of the big picture and just obsess over "H4X" or knee-jerk "cantDoThat" reactions.
Celebrate resourcefulness. This isn't a videogame.
I celebrate and reward resourcefulness just fine Malignor. I also do my best to be aware of potential game exploits. The difference between "resourcefulness" and "exploit" is hard to define in any way that everyone would agree with, but everyone agrees that it happens at some point.
When it comes to the general guidance that lower level spells should not be able to duplicate the effects of higher level spells, that is directly coming from the Paizo game developers as advice to deal with "resourcefulness" gone amok.
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One RoF can't duplicate a higher level spell. If it takes a hundred such spells to cover a 10x10 area with ice, that's a different story. A hundred rays of frost also do 100d3 damage, which is far beyond any Cone of Cold.
For making snow, no. Freezing water doesn't turn it to snow. Best you'll get is sandlike ice crystals.
For freezing water on the floor, yes. A thin layer of ice on a floor still takes a while to melt, especially when things are already cold. If they have the time and want to use spells to turn the environment to their favor, kudos.
I wouldn't worry about abuse here.
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I celebrate and reward resourcefulness just fine Malignor. I also do my best to be aware of potential game exploits. The difference between "resourcefulness" and "exploit" is hard to define in any way that everyone would agree with, but everyone agrees that it happens at some point.
When it comes to the general guidance that lower level spells should not be able to duplicate the effects of higher level spells, that is directly coming from the Paizo game developers as advice to deal with "resourcefulness" gone amok.
We all agree on basic principles, such as "don't let your players abuse cantrips by exploiting poorly-phrased or vague rules". We just disagree about where that line is properly drawn.
I'd say that you're not duplicating the effects of a higher-level spell if it takes you several minutes to freeze up a patch of floor. The effect may have some similarities, but there are also significant differences. If you draw the line that conservatively, you're essentially telling players not to "push the envelope" at all.
If your players want to make ray of frost useful they can just up the damage using feats and class abilities.
A level 1 human sorcerer can deal 1d3+7 damage with a ray of frost if he chooses the right bloodline combination (crossblooded) and feats.
That's not something to impress BBEGs at level 20 but at least it is better than just 1d3.
1d3+7? I'm curious how you can do that at 1st level. For... research purposes, yeah, that's it. Best I've done so far is crossblooded orc/draconic, point blank shot and deadly aim for 1d3+5.
I'm not saying this ruling AUTOMATICALLY turns someone into Iceman. I am saying though that it is potentially ripe for abuse.
If having access to free ice is potentially ripe for abuse, I must be a munchkin for living in Canada. ;-)
In a home game, I'd encourage the player to research his own 0-level spell, making something that would conjure a 5 ft. square burst of snow that could grant concealment for a few rounds.
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I hate the GMs who lose sight of the big picture and just obsess over "H4X" or knee-jerk "cantDoThat" reactions.
Celebrate resourcefulness. This isn't a videogame.
There's a line between using a spell creatively and "the spell just doesn't do that."
Creative: "I cast grease in front of the enemy's speeding chariot to cause them to crash."
Spell doesn't do that: "I cast silent image to make an illusion of an arrow sticking out of the enemy's chest. If he doesn't disbelieve, he dies."
Creative: "I cast web centered 20 ft. over the flying bad guy's head. He's underneath the radius, but if he flies up, he'll get caught. That should keep him down where we can reach him."
Spell doesn't do that: "I cast mount to summon a horse 100 ft. in the air over his head. Take 10d6 falling horse damage, sucker!"
Creative: the "Dutch Oven": cylindrical wall of fire, radiating inward, in a create pit.
Spell doesn't do that: ray of frost = wall of ice.
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Aside, in 1e in the WSG, it was suggested casters can modify cone of cold to counter heat stroke.
Spellcraft might allow you to modify a spell somewhat, but if you allow it for one, do you have to allow it for others? If you can modify a ray of frost to freeze a patch of ground, can you do the same to polar ray? What about a (cold substituted) scortching ray If you can, how much can you freeze?
Or, to rephrase that to specifically apply to the questions at hand: No amount of Cold damage can cause water to change state from a liquid to a solid.
As a GM, I reserve the right to violate the laws of physics (or chemistry, biology, or phrenology for that matter), but as a player, I would hate to play in a game where the GM told me that "magical" cold doesn't freeze things.
Or, to rephrase that to specifically apply to the questions at hand: No amount of Cold damage can cause water to change state from a liquid to a solid.
As a GM, I reserve the right to violate the laws of physics (or chemistry, biology, or phrenology for that matter), but as a player, I would hate to play in a game where the GM told me that "magical" cold doesn't freeze things. If a player finds a way to expliot their abilities, I'll find ways to restrict them, but I don't want to ban all creative spell use.
1d3+7? I'm curious how you can do that at 1st level. For... research purposes, yeah, that's it. Best I've done so far is crossblooded orc/draconic, point blank shot and deadly aim for 1d3+5.If your players want to make ray of frost useful they can just up the damage using feats and class abilities.
A level 1 human sorcerer can deal 1d3+7 damage with a ray of frost if he chooses the right bloodline combination (crossblooded) and feats.
That's not something to impress BBEGs at level 20 but at least it is better than just 1d3.
Deadly aim doesn't work with touch attacks as far as I know.
I reached the +7 with the following build:So I could start the game with a level 1 human sorcerer with crossblooded Orc/brutal
He has:
-the flag bearer and point blank shot as feats
-the havoc of society trait
-a flask of liquid iceSo his rays of frost would do 1d3+7 damage at +2 to hit
If you want to read more about it here was the thread I made about this topic: Link
There's only been one other time I've been asked to use ray of frost to do something other than damage. A girl PC asked if she could use RoF multiple times to lower the temp of a metal grate to help the dwarf cleric break it. The PC's had 3 rounds of downtime, so I let her grant a +2 in weakening the bars. It worked; the dwarf beat the DC by 1 so w/out her ingenuity they never would've saved the fairy princess about to be eaten by the dragon.
I have to admit I was biased: the girl was my daughter. Still for a 9 year old to get the concept of lowering temp to weaken a structure and then use it her FIRST time playing? Like I say, I was a little biased...
1d3+7? I'm curious how you can do that at 1st level. For... research purposes, yeah, that's it. Best I've done so far is crossblooded orc/draconic, point blank shot and deadly aim for 1d3+5.Deadly aim doesn't work with touch attacks as far as I know.
Duh, I knew that. Forgot that I changed that with a house rule. Thanks.
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If it helps as a guideline at all, the Adventurer's Armory rules for 'Alchemical Power Components' allow you to expend a flask of liquid ice (worth 40gp a pop) as an optional material component for Ray of frost to have it fire an icicle of frozen water vapour which inflicts 1d3 piercing plus 1 point of cold damage instead of the usual 1d3 cold damage. Simply allowing ray of frost to create useful (as opposed to drinks-cooling 'colour') amounts of ice without any such additional costs involved would seem a bit beyond the scope the game suggests...
... On the other hand, I agree with the post somewhere up-thread that a lot of uses can simply be ruled as an 'aid another' attempt. Use a ray of frost to freeze a lock to make it easier to break? Just use the aid another mechanics and move on - flavour and game balance are preserved, ingenuity is rewarded, and no new rules need to be created out of whole cloth.
Just for the sake of clarification about all this...
The original post simply referenced using RoF to create a sheet of ice. It did not say "spend fifteen minutes casting 150 rays of frost at a puddle to freeze it." While simply using ray of frost to instantly turn a puddle into a sheet of ice is, imho, clearly abuse, spending ten minutes of casting dozens of RoFs to create a sheet of ice would not be "abuse". Would it work? I could argue it both ways, but I don't have any problem with that working. The opportunities to spend fifteen minutes repeatedly casting a cantrip like that are likely to be limited.
I've had players use cantrips "creatively". Sometimes I have to think hard about the use and have ruled against that use due to balance issues, but the vast majority of cases I have been fine with, even in some cases where I was skeptical if it would actually work.