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I've been toying with an idea to make Telekinetic Projectile better. It's a decent enough cantrip but it is also well known that spells with attack rolls are on the weak side of things. This is NOT meant to be balanced against the current status quo of damaging cantrips! This is specifically meant to be a significant upgrade to the spell, that makes it viable to all kinds of characters but also comes with some downsides.
But first of all, here's what I've come up with:
Weapon Property Rune
Traits: Uncommon, Invest, Magical, Transmutation
Price: 160 gp
Usage: Etched into a thrown weapon of no more than 1 Bulk
A telekinetic resonance rune alters a weapon’s properties in subtle ways, making it more easily manipulated by telekinetic energies. Unlike most runes, you must Invest a weapon with this rune to gain its benefits. You can still use all other runes on the weapon even without investing it.
If you’re not a spellcaster, you can cast telekinetic projectile as an innate arcane cantrip while you have the weapon invested. If you’re a prepared caster, you can prepare telekinetic projectile as an additional cantrip of your spellcasting tradition each day instead. If you’re a spontaneous caster, add telekinetic projectile to your repertoire as a cantrip of your spellcasting tradition.
While holding this weapon, you can use it as the projectile for your telekinetic projectile spell. It doesn’t need to be unattended. After the spell is finished, the weapon flies back to your hand. If you don’t have a hand free when it returns, it drops to the ground in your square. If used in this way, the telekinetic projectile spell gains the Flourish trait and its spell attack roll counts as two attacks to calculate your multiple attack penalty.
Using the weapon as your telekinetic projectile allows you to manipulate it using your weapon expertise. You can choose to use your dexterity modifier instead of your spellcasting ability modifier for the spell attack roll. You can also choose to add your proficiency bonus with the weapon instead of your spellcasting proficiency to the spell attack roll. In addition, you add the item bonus of the weapon’s potency runes to your spell attack roll.
The damage is still determined by nothing but the spell, so you don’t add striking or any property rune effects to telekinetic projectile. The type of damage is the same as the weapon's, and you can choose the alternative damage types if the weapon is Versatile. Don’t apply any other of the weapon’s traits to the spell.
When investing the weapon, choose one of the following abilities to add to your weapon. It only applies when you use the weapon as your telekinetic projectile. You can switch to another bonus during your daily preparations.
- - Add the weapon’s thrown range to the range of telekinetic projectile.
- - The item doesn’t need to be wielded. You can use it as your projectile as long as it is visibly worn on your body. It returns to being worn after the spell.
- - If you have an ability that allows you to use the weapon’s critical specialization, apply its effect to telekinetic projectile.
- - If you have the Raging Thrower barbarian feat, telekinetic projectile gains the Rage trait and can be used while raging. Add your rage damage bonus to telekinetic projectile as if it was a thrown weapon attack. This still counts as using a weapon for the purpose of the animal instinct’s anathema.
- - If you have the Flying Blade swashbuckler feat and the weapon has the agile or finesse trait, you can add your precise strike damage to telekinetic projectile while you have panache.
- - The spell attack roll of telekinetic projectile counts as a Strike for Device a Stratagem but you don’t apply your Strategic Strike damage to it.
- - Add your weapon specialization damage to telekinetic projectile. You can use your spellcasting proficiency instead of your weapon proficiency to determine the damage.
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Greater Telekinetic Resonance Item level 11
Price 1400 gp
You can now add two abilities from the list. Add the following abilities to the list:
- If you have the Magical Trickster feat, the spell attack roll of telekinetic projectile counts as a Strike for the purpose of your Debilitating Injury.
- Your telekinetic projectile is treated as cold iron and silver.
- Apply all of the weapon’s property runes to telekinetic projectile. Only runes that affect thrown weapons can be applied this way.
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Surpreme Telekinetic Resonance Item level 17
Price 15000 gp
You can now add three abilities from the list. Add the following ability to the list:
- Your telekinetic projectile is treated as adamantine. It can still only target creatures, not objects.
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Downsides to balance it include:
- Simply adding those effects to the spell would make it too powerful. So I went with a Property rune. To make any use of it, you need to pay for it and it takes up a Property rune slot on your weapon. You probably also want to get your weapon to +3 and add more property runes eventually. Quite a costly endeavor, especially for a caster who might other wise have no use for a weapon.
- Using it makes the spell gain the Flourish trait to avoid following it up with a Flurry of Blows or similar abilities.
- It makes the spell count as TWO attacks for your MAP. This is to further limit its usefulness in multiple attack routines.
- Since it's mostly a one-big-attack-per-round kind of thing, it's decent at punching through damage resistance (as the spell already was) but also doesn't benefit from weakness, sneak attack and rage multiple times per round.
The only thing that bothers me initially is that a level 19+ caster would have the attack bonus of a fighter (i.e. Legendary proficiency and a +3 item bonus). That might be a bit much. But then again, few casters bother to upgrade their weapon much and they usually don't come with Rage, Sneak attack or other big damage bonus. Also a buffed cantrip on a character with 10th level spells seems like a minor problem at best.
So, any thoughts on this?
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I really like the concept of a rune interacting with magical abilities. I would employ this cantrip. Overall, I think cantrips would get a huge buff simply by making them 1 action + flourish. Cantrips are thematically supposed to be lesser magic, or essentially "tricks".
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There definitely needs to be an accuracy boost for spell attacks and heck even saves
BugsBunnyNo.Gif Hard disagree, the system is intentionally built so that spellcasters to-hit and Save DCs are balanced, granting bonuses to these is a sure-fire way to take away literally everything that is special about martial characters by making Cantrips more accurate and deal more damage than everyone except the specialist two-handed melee fighter or barbarian.
I don't like being a spoil-sport but spell writeup is so absurdly powerful it literally competes for a per-action economy with 8th level spells and that's nowhere near appropriate.
I don't like being a spoil-sport but spell writeup is so absurdly powerful it literally competes for a per-action economy with 8th level spells and that's nowhere near appropriate.
Care to elaborate?
The highest possible damage while retaining the highest possible attack bonus for this cantrip would be something like 12d6 + 14 (avg 56). That's a 19th level fighter using it with two extra damage property runes and applying his Greater Weapon Specialization. Assuming let's say 50% hit and 15% crit chance, that's 37 damage for 2 actions.
A same level fighter using a composite longbow (assuming a reasonable starting Str of 14) with three damaging property runes would deal about 64 damage with two regular Strikes. That's without any feats. Triple shot and Multishot Stance would turn this into about 70 damage for 2 actions.
A melee fighter with a simple d8 weapon like a longsword still deals about 65 damage with two regular Strikes.
So I don't really see how this would make telekinetik projectile anywhere near strong enough to use instead of a regular weapon?
I will admit I've mostly compared the rune's performance to martial characters, though. Who in all my calculations always came out on top if they used their regular Strikes.
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So let's see this for a caster:
Telekinetic projectile would "only" deal 12d6+11 (avg 53) since the caster doesn't get Greater Weapon Specialization. With the same attack and crit rating as the fighter (50% and 15% respectively), this would be about 35 points of damage. That's admittedly closer to an 8th level Polar Ray (avg 45, see below) than I had anticipated. For reference: The baseline telekinetic projectile deals about 24 damage at level 19.
But it still set the caster back at least 10335 gold for a +3 Weapon with the Greater Telkinetic Resonance Rune. If he wants an additional ability beyond property runes and Weapon Specialization, he needs to pay about 25k, which is more than a third of a 19th character lump sum starting gold.
If the caster settles for only 2 abilities, he gets +11 damage on his cantrip. For 10k gold. Against creatures with 400 HP. That honestly doesn't seem too bad.
The only 8th level spell attack I can think of right now is Polar Ray. If cast at level 8 against a 19th level target, this deals 83 points of damage (including the damage from drained). A 19th level caster would roughly hit 50% of the time and crit 5% of the time. So on average the damage is about 45 points. And that's ignoring any potential follow-up spells that make use of the target's lowered Fortitude save.
Also remember that this is a level 19 caster. He could actually cast Polar Ray from his 10th level slot once per day for a 55 damage. That's most likely a waste of a spell slot, too be honest. But spell attacks being weak isn't exactly big news.
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Bottomline:
So the way I see it, this gives casters a decent go-to attack IF they invest the money. They'll still be nowhere near as effective as a martial.
Martials get a half-decent ranged attack out of it but it's still quite a bit weaker than just doing two Strikes, especially since they lose out on a property rune slot.
There are some fringe cases, admittedly. A rogue might use it to deal a bit more damage than usual against non-flat-footed enemies or something. But even then I don't think it's too bad.
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Disclosure: I used this damage calculator for some quick calculations. I just assume it's motly correct on the numbers.
The numbers I provided are rough estimates but since the gap between them is quite large in most cases, I'll just assume even the "really correct" numbers won't make telekinetic projectile come out on top.
EDIT: Just realized I missed the cost of the other property runes. So if the caster settles for two basic elemental damage runes that still adds another 1000 gp to the investment.
Although I love the idea, this rune is way too complicated. You're trying to do too much with one rune - trying to get it to synergize with tons of different class abilities individually, while also providing a bunch of passive benefits. The end result is poorly future proofed and difficult to grok for someone reading it. If your goal is to pump up the damage of telekinetic projectile, there are far easier ways to do so than trying to play off the various damage bonuses individual classes give.
Something as simple as:
Telekinetic Resonance Item 5
Weapon Property Rune
Traits: Uncommon, Magical, Transmutation
Price: 160 gp
Usage: Etched into a thrown weapon of no more than 1 Bulk
When you cast telekinetic projectile and use this weapon as the object you hurl:
- Telekinetic projectile has a 60 ft range.
- You may apply the item bonus from this weapon's potency rune to your spell attack roll.
- Your telekinetic projectile deals 1d6 additional damage.
- After casting telekinetic projectile, this weapon returns to your hand.Greater Telekinetic Resonance Item level 11
Price 1400 gp
As Telekinetic Resonance rune, but your telekinetic projectile deals 2d6 additional damage rather than 1d6 and your telekinetic projectile's damage is treated as cold iron and silver.Supreme Telekinetic Resonance Item level 17
Price 15000 gp
As Telekinetic Resonance rune, but your telekinetic projectile deals 3d6 additional damage rather than 1d6 and your telekinetic projectile's damage is treated as cold iron, silver and adamantine.
This would get you the attack roll and damage bonuses you're trying to reach without making it really complicated. I would also avoid making it count as a Strike but not a Strike for some stuff, as that just opens cans of worms.
53 avg damage on a telekinetic projectile with a 70% chance to hit should be 47 expected damage per cast, yes? An archer fighter spending two actions Striking with 70% chance to hit is only getting 58 DPR by my calcs. I wouldn't call that "nowhere near as effective as a martial". Plenty of martials don't quite get up to fighter DPR.
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Personally, a property rune that does nothing except allow you to apply the weapon's item bonus to spell attack rolls with that weapon would already go a LONG way toward making telekinetic projectile more potent. By my math, such a property rune would increase TKP's expected damage per cast to 37, vs the baseline 24.
That's both a BIG increase in effectiveness and probably allows for a much much simpler writeup for the item.
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Many current class specific cantrips are single action and many are barely worth taking even that action.
I agree, and all the more reason to make them 1 action + flourish.
Thank you for your detailed feedback, Cellion!
Allow me to add a few thoughts.
First of all - and in hindsight I should totally have added that to the initial post - this variant of the spell is primarily meant to be a decent and viable attack for a martial character. Not replacing regular Strikes but if a character invests in the rune, he should be able to use it to good effect. That's why I added a bunch of stuff that deals with martial characters.
I'm honestly not concerned with future-proofing a homebrew item. If someone's actually ends up using it, it shouldn't be hard to add abilities that cover future classes. Luckily, Homebrew is far less definite and unflexible then official rules.
Your version is much simpler, of course. But it doesn't include the option to use Dex or Weapon proficiency or grant the spell as an innate cantrip. This alone makes it worthless for martials. Even if they get the cantrip from another source, their attack bonus will still be abysmal.
I also don't quite like the fact that you give bonus damage based on the rune itself. That makes it too easy to combine the rune with other (non-damaging) property runes while retaining the damage. I think something like a Returning Telekinetic Resonance Dagger would be a bit much if used for a Strike followed up by the spell. It might be prudent to add the Open trait to the spell to avoid stuff ilke that.
53 avg damage on a telekinetic projectile with a 70% chance to hit should be 47 expected damage per cast, yes?
Yeah, I messed up the calculation of the crit damage. The total average should be 47 as you correctly said. That does seem excessive and would give casters too much at-will single target damage when compared to a martial.
I don't mind a martial using the rune as his main source of attack as long as it doesn't overshadow other martial options. But a caster should have to spend spell slots to match that damage.
I guess you could allow the item bonus to be added only if you use Dex or your weapon proficiency (or both). That would lower the precision for a caster by 1-2. I would also drop the extra line in the Weapon Specializaton ability that allows the caster to determine the damge based on their spellcasting proficiency. Those changes would put the spell at 35 damage when cast by a 20th level caster, which seems much more reasonable (and was about what I was aiming for originally before I failed at basic math).
Personally, a property rune that does nothing except allow you to apply the weapon's item bonus to spell attack rolls with that weapon would already go a LONG way toward making telekinetic projectile more potent. By my math, such a property rune would increase TKP's expected damage per cast to 37, vs the baseline 24.
That's both a BIG increase in effectiveness and probably allows for a much much simpler writeup for the item.
It's an easy fix for casters but would still make it a very sub-par option for martials.
Many current class specific cantrips are single action and many are barely worth taking even that action.I agree, and all the more reason to make them 1 action + flourish.
I'm not opposed to this idea. In fact, I suggested something similar back during the playtest. It should be noted that Cantrips were quite a bit weaker back then, however. The release version of the them would be too powerful for one action. So if that's something to consider, you'd need to re-evaluate all cantrips.
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The release version of them would be too powerful for one action. So if that's something to consider, you'd need to re-evaluate all cantrips.
The raw damage from cantrips drops off pretty quickly relative to martials during the leveling process. Also, The "balance" comes from the fact your enemies will also enjoy 1 action + flourish cantrips. This may allow casters a more dynamic interaction with the action economy.
The raw damage from cantrips drops off pretty quickly relative to martials during the leveling process.
But martials can pick up cantrips as well. A one-action Electric Arc or even Chill Touch used after two Strikes would be a HUGE damage bonus to any character (assuming at least some effort goes into keeping up the DC).
And even spell attack cantrips would be pretty powerful when combined with regular spells.
Also, The "balance" comes from the fact your enemies will also enjoy 1 action + flourish cantrips. This may allow casters a more dynamic interaction with the action economy.
Handing out what's basically free extra damage will leave everyone in the dust who doesn't get access to that extra damage. There's tons of creatures and NPCs out there without access to cantrips.
I can get behind wanting a better interaction between casters and the acton economy. But just making all current cantrips one action would be overkill. A new one with significantly reduced damage could work.
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All I can say is: don't knock it until you try it. Our group has been using 1 action + flourish cantrips for a year and it's not as OP as you suggest. I realize my case is only a sample size of one, but we would never consider going back to RAW for cantrips. This houserule is fairly common, so I'm not suggesting anything earth-shattering or innovative. Some tables go as far as houseruling most SPELLS as -1 action, which we have not tried.