Melee Caster Cantrip Idea


Homebrew and House Rules

Liberty's Edge

Spell Blade (Cantrip 1)
ATTACK, CANTRIP, EVOCATION, FORCE
Traditions arcane, divine, occult, primal
Cast [one-action] somatic
Range touch; Targets 1 creature

Forcing raw magical energies into the form of a weapon for just an instant, you lash out at your foe. Make a melee spell attack against your target's AC. On a successful hit, the target takes 1d6+1 force damage (double damage on a critical hit). If you cast this spell as an arcane or primal spell, you can instead deal acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage, giving the spell the appropriate trait. If you cast this spell as a divine spell and have a deity, you can instead choose an alignment your deity has and deal damage of that alignment type (you cannot choose this option if your deity is true neutral); the spell gains the alignment trait you chose. If you cast this spell as an occult spell, you can instead deal mental damage, giving the spell the mental trait.

Heightened (+2) The damage increases by 1d6+1.

Comments? Criticisms? Thoughts?


So the spell doesn't last until the start of your next turn. So you have to recast it again to strike again, and are unarmed ouside your turn? I guess it is OK as it is one action. The damage is OK, but it will climb steeply. How does it interact with multiple attack penalties?

Seems like it is very good for a caster who expects to get caught in melee range. Getting to use their spell atack rather than their weapon attack is huge at higher levels.

Liberty's Edge

Gortle wrote:
How does it interact with multiple attack penalties?

It has the attack trait, so it creates and is affected by multiple attack penalties as normal.


Since it has somatic components, casting this spell will trigger AoO. This means that it'll sometimes be too dangerous to use, particularly since you're already a caster with caster HP in melee range.


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I just did a little check on the expected damage per two attacks in comparison to other cantrips and it looks in line. My only concern would be that it's extremely flexible, capable of triggering a wide variety of weaknesses as an arcane or primal spell, or just sticking with force to be unresistable. My only thought would be to cut back on that flexibility.

Liberty's Edge

Salamileg wrote:
Since it has somatic components, casting this spell will trigger AoO. This means that it'll sometimes be too dangerous to use, particularly since you're already a caster with caster HP in melee range.

It's true, but that also seems to be standard for melee spells; I checked chill touch, shocking grasp, and vampiric touch before I did it.

Cellion wrote:
I just did a little check on the expected damage per two attacks in comparison to other cantrips and it looks in line. My only concern would be that it's extremely flexible, capable of triggering a wide variety of weaknesses as an arcane or primal spell, or just sticking with force to be unresistable. My only thought would be to cut back on that flexibility.

Elemental flexibility is one of the strengths of the arcane and primal lists, especially as compared to the occult and divine one.


Shisumo wrote:


Elemental flexibility is one of the strengths of the arcane and primal lists, especially as compared to the occult and divine one.

Yeah, but not in one cantrip, and total cantrips prepared is a meaningful limitation that currently exists.

I'd reccomend making the choice of elemental damage set at the time of preparation or adding the cantrip to your repertoire.

Further, I'd consider making each spell lists version completely unique -

Arcane - Force
Primal - fire, cold, electricity, acid
Occult - mental or sonic
Divine - aligned, positive, negative

To give each a unique identity. However, I might add a clause that specifies the damage type chosen can be from any spell list you can cast spells from (for extra benefit from multiclassing).

My .10


Shisumo wrote:
Cellion wrote:
I just did a little check on the expected damage per two attacks in comparison to other cantrips and it looks in line. My only concern would be that it's extremely flexible, capable of triggering a wide variety of weaknesses as an arcane or primal spell, or just sticking with force to be unresistable. My only thought would be to cut back on that flexibility.
Elemental flexibility is one of the strengths of the arcane and primal lists, especially as compared to the occult and divine one.

Agreed, though that flexibility typically manifests as options of multiple different spells. Even with the arcane list, you can't use cantrips to cover every single base without any tradeoffs.

I like the idea of the damage type changing based on tradition, but I think this would be a fairer spell if each tradition only had one damage type.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

This is an interesting idea and if it works for your table awesome. I have a couple of thoughts related to general game balance, and why I don't think this would be good, as is, for the game as a whole, but again, I am not trying to rain on your parade. If it works for you and your table, great!

The damage type flexibility has been touched on by others, and for a common cantrip it would be pretty disruptive to existing game balance.

The problem with a 1 action D6+1 damage cantrip is that it completely obliterates the need for any caster to ever carry a melee weapon, especially if it can do multiple different damage types. Maybe this is the homebrewing intention, and if so, it is working perfectly. But giving casters a 1 action attack that is about as good as any one handed simple weapon, that scales faster than magic weapon damage dice, and uses their primary casting attribute makes a whole lot of gish-builds into dumpster fires. I guess if you feel like that is already the case, then I could see this cantrip replacing the gish in design space.

Lastly, force damage as the base is a problem in and of itself with a D6+1 damage. There is a reason why force damage spells are few and far between and so limited in their damage capacity. Maybe if this spell were a flat D4 force damage, with the same heightening mechanic, it would be balanced for general game play?


I like the base concept, but I have some game balance concerns.

First off is the one action cast time. A "filler action" cantrip that deals better damage than acid splash is extremely powerful. Almost all one action spells (or spells that can be cast as 1 action) have some kind of restriction due to the action economy benefits; usually locked behind a class feat (like many bard compositions), actually costing spell slots (such as harm, magic missile, etc), or costing focus points (elemental toss, force bolt, etc). Right now, the advantage of weapon wielding mages is that their attack acts as a filler action to deal damage, but this spell replaces both the need for a weapon and the need for raising an attacking attribute, leaving the caster is more money to purchase other gear to boost themselves as well as allowing a fully competent battle mage be single attribute dependent, on top of allowing the mage to consistently a 2 action save based spell on top of a one action attack using their best proficiency

Second, the ability to swap elements is insanely strong. Combined with the one action, there would be no reason to prepare any other cantrip not named electric arc and just use reach spell to have a 2 action, 30 ft range elemental cantrip that covers all of the best elements in one slot. As it stands, only telekinetic projectile can switch types of the attack cantrips, and even then, there's a bit of a limitation of needing an appropriate object to fire, as well as the fact that physical damage types are typically the "weakest" damage types since few enemies are weak to them, and many enemies has resistance to physical damage or specific types of physical damage.

Third, force damage is *really* good, easily one of, if not the best damage type in the game. IMO, no cantrip should deal force damage, unless maybe it had really low damage scaling, but even then I'd be wary unless it had some kind of class feat entry requirement.

That said, this is a really good concept for a spell, and deserves to be pursued. There's certainly design space for a "blade of force" type spell! My recommendation would be, if you want to keep it as a cantrip, to use TK projectile as a base. Make it cost 2 actions, allow swapping between Bludgeoning, Slashing, or Piercing damage, and start the damage off as 1d6 + casting stat mod. You'd be fine using TK projectile's heightening rate of +1d6 per spell level. If it does energy damage, stick to one damage type; I'd probably just specify in the spell that you choose the energy type when you prepare it/add it to your repertoire, and that casters can select it multiple times to get different elements.


Making the spell cast Bludgeoning/Slashing/Piercing damage by default is a pretty good suggestion, I think. It would still be magical damage, so I would happily prepare it, and the flexibility between the three physical options is not as game breaking as between all of the energy options.

Still, energy IS a good ribbon to add. Perhaps instead, the "+1" that comes with heightening becomes an energy type based on the tradition?

Occult or Arcane: Force
Occult or Divine: Aligned damage
Divine or Primal: Negative or Positive (caster's choice)
Arcane or Primal: Fire or Cold (caster's choice)

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