When you have 9th-level bonus spells due to high ability score, it's kind of odd that you don't get bonus 0-level spells.
Spontaneous spellcasters end up having a lot of 0-level spells, since they can cast at will all they know, and they end with quite a few.
Preparing spellcasters, instead, after about class level 2, are stuck with only 4 cantrips/orisons per day forever.
How would you give 0-level bonus spells?
The same amount as 1st level ones?
You can use a higher level spell slot to prepare a lower level spell.
When you have 9th-level bonus spells due to high ability score, it's kind of odd that you don't get bonus 0-level spells.
Spontaneous spellcasters end up having a lot of 0-level spells, since they can cast at will all they know, and they end with quite a few.
Preparing spellcasters, instead, after about class level 2, are stuck with only 4 cantrips/orisons per day forever.How would you give 0-level bonus spells?
The same amount as 1st level ones?
O level spell slots aren't expended the way all the others are, so it's really not that odd that you don't get extras.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
O level spell slots aren't expended the way all the others are, so it's really not that odd that you don't get extras.
In 3.5, when they were expended when cast, you still didn't get bonus ones. The reason is probably because, if they follow the same pattern as all other spell levels, you would start getting bonus 0-level spells with a casting score of 10. (You first get bonus spells for a given spell level when your casting stat modifier is equal to the spell level, so stat 10 for 0-level spells).
You can use a higher level spell slot to prepare a lower level spell.
Cantrips outside of cantip slots are single-use, like regular spells.
Also, it's really, really rare that you need to waste a higher slot for an additional cantrip.
The point is that if you have high enough bonus to prepare extra spells that are progressively more complex to cast, it's a bit ridiculous that you can't prepare one more cantrip.
The fact that cantrips are at will is exactly because they're very easy to use and expend a negligible amount of the caster's magic energy.
Exactly for that reason, rather than being more limited, they should be more un-limited (of course, I'm not pledging for at-will use of all cantrips, a limit must always exist; but I see no reason for keeping it below the limit of more powerful things).
It's one of the few things spontaneous casters are much better at than prepared casters. And because cantrips are at-will and largely shared between classes, limiting the number for prepared casters lets the group members each cover a particular area, and gives an opportunity for group cooperation.
I guess?
There are items if you need more.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My houserule is that bonus cantrips follow the same progression as other spells, so at 10, 18 and so on there is an extra. Since you can't cast anything below a 10 attribute I state that the listed number of cantrips already includes the first bonus at 10 casting stat.