And those other cantrips have a bonus effect on crit which EA lacks.
Edit:. TK also has no crit effect though, but it does have even higher single target damage and can do several different damage types.all double damage on critical, so that’s a wash.
Movement speed reduction does not give a DPR increase, and persistent damage only puts it on par with the benefit of an enemy saving against an effect on average. Now take that it only happens on a Natural 20 against appropriate level foes, and it's just a feelsbad option.
TKP doing D6's is only a 1 damage per dice DPR increase, which doesn't even do enough damage to account for the success DPR of Electric Arc, maybe breaking even on a critical. Really, being able to trigger material weakness and avoiding resistance is the only thing that gives it some benefit that EA doesn't have, but again, it's pretty niche and requires a level of preparation most tables don't have.
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Which is why I agreed EA was overtuned. I think of it like bows; really easy to make full use of in the biggest number of situations.
But as Old Man said, my preference would be to yank the others up closer to its level, not nerf EA. I think I recall them saying the same in one of the twitch streams, but I'm not sure enough to swear to it. Probably just wishful thinking, since I don't see anyone else mention it.
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Divine Lance is going up to 2d4 I remember them saying on the paizocon stream, it was about at the end of the section they talked about spirit damage, I vaguely remember elsewhere was a generalised improving cantrips thing but can't remember where or what they said on that
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Divine Lance is going up to 2d4 I remember them saying on the paizocon stream, it was about at the end of the section they talked about spirit damage, I vaguely remember elsewhere was a generalised improving cantrips thing but can't remember where or what they said on that
Possibly waht I'm thinking about. I consider Divine lance to be a special case so I wouldn't generalize buffs to that spell to be indicative of anything, but I also recall them mentioning they were looking at buffing cantrips in general, and something to the effect of bringing the others to EA's level.
Perhaps during the QA phase at the end of the Paizocon remaster stream?
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James Case is a smart human and seems to be in charge of the wizard redesign. The way he talked about cantrips made it sound like a lot of work is being done there.
One potentially interesting way more and better cantrips could be introduced could be a page out of the psychic class (designed by James Case), and every school could have an uncommon cantrip they get from level 1 but is only poachable with a feat that gives you access to other school spells. These could be tuned up around electric arc or even unamped imaginary weapon. Alternatively, the remastered monster core might double down on giving creatures weaknesses and resistances, in which case just having access to a lot of different damage types on cantrips that target AC and a spell like true strike on the same list would be a big selling point for a magic tradition.
Speaking of, true strike is definitely a D&D spell, and advantage is a D&D mechanic (not really a unique one, but one used to describe spells like true strike). I wonder if something like it even is making the port over? Losing that would radically nerf the arcane list.
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I'm going to be pretty grumpy if all this moaning has got EA nerfed. Its the workhorse of many early level casters. We should be looking to make other cantrips on the level of EA, not the other way around.
Oh how I wish that were the case. But given how much people had to fight to even acknowledge that things as they are now are not okay. Yeah not happening.
I say there is a 50% chance electric arc gets nerfed, 45% chance of no change, and 5% chance of things getting buffed.
Ya think so? I think, if the rest of the changes we have seen are a pattern to believe, esp for Bard, that we should expect buffs across the board to about half the spells and, nonsensically, additional improvements to the things that are already better than everything else in its bracket.
I'd put an EA buff at 50%, stay the same at 40% and a SLIGHT pseudo nerf in the form of a sidegrade that alters how it works but doesn't actually make it worse at 10%.
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Removed some off topic posts.
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I don’t really want to bring all this back up again, but spell attack rolls are not actually as bad as people think they are. There are a good number of enemies that are significantly easier to hit the ac than a save, being the one to roll gives you an essential +1 over making them save, and can thus be pretty easily buffed with hero points or true strike. Debuffing saves is also much harder. Most status debuffy debuff both, but circumstance penalties are much harder to arrange. If the are changing this math, they are changing something pretty big
This isn’t to say more cantrip saving throw spells aren’t welcome, but landing crits with saving throw targeting spells is much harder, so the outcome of casting saving throw targeting cantrips tends to be pretty unexciting.
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The issue really is that spell attacks are bad and can’t compete with save effects that do half damage on a fail.
This all day. Spell Attack Runes in Spell Implement items.
The issue really is that spell attacks are bad and can’t compete with save effects that do half damage on a fail.This all day. Spell Attack Runes in Spell Implement items.
Thing is, I think this is intentional. One reason is that as you go up in spell ranks there are fewer spells asking for attack rolls and I believe around level 8 forward there are zero unless you heighten them
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..so single every spell rank except the last two? In other words, a caster needs to hit level 17 before they reach a rank with no spell attacks. And you can heighten them.
It's true that the lack of a spell attack rune was intentional, as was the publication of the shadow signet, but attack roll spells are present at all levels of play.
..so single every spell rank except the last two? In other words, a caster needs to hit level 17 before they reach a rank with no spell attacks. And you can heighten them.
It's true that the lack of a spell attack rune was intentional, as was the publication of the shadow signet, but attack roll spells are present at all levels of play.
Before that is just the spell disintegrate in the previous level, I think none in the level before, and then one in the level before that. It's something you notice if you roll up a magus is how few attack roll spells there actually are. We are talking something like hundreds of saving throw spells and tens of attack roll spells kind of difference. The exact numbers might not be totally like this, but it certainly appears this way. Most of the attack roll spells are front loaded in the spell list. More over heightening spells is often not quite as good as just casting higher level spells with some exceptions. It's better than heightening spells in d&d, but I'm not sure I would cast something like a heightened scorching ray or disintegrate over Maze, Wall of Force or Reverse Gravity in my higher level slots
Also rank 7 and 8 spells is 13 and 15, not 17
I don’t really want to bring all this back up again, but spell attack rolls are not actually as bad as people think they are. There are a good number of enemies that are significantly easier to hit the ac than a save, being the one to roll gives you an essential +1 over making them save, and can thus be pretty easily buffed with hero points or true strike. Debuffing saves is also much harder. Most status debuffy debuff both, but circumstance penalties are much harder to arrange. If the are changing this math, they are changing something pretty big
This isn’t to say more cantrip saving throw spells aren’t welcome, but landing crits with saving throw targeting spells is much harder, so the outcome of casting saving throw targeting cantrips tends to be pretty unexciting.
To a point. When you have to either roll an 11 or higher to hit versus they have to roll an 11 or higher to succeed, the odds of success/failure are equal. So, in this case, saying "you are more likely to hit an AC versus them saving" is just wrong, and the rules for flat checks prove it, since a Flat 11 is designed to be a 50/50 miss chance.
I can agree that it's easier to shift AC math in your favor due to how ubiquitous it is to affect AC compared to saves, but if it was just as easy to shift Reflex Saves to your favor, it probably might not be as clear-cut as it's made out to be. After all, Produce Flame has a significant amount of its DPR tied to its persistent damage (really, it's the only reason it edges out Electric Arc), simply because it's flat and automatic, not adjusted by probability chances of hitting, but realistically that only has a 5% chance of happening on a given Produce Flame.
And honestly, I don't know if the math I'm doing for Produce Flame's DPR being 0.05*13+2.5 is correct, and it's the deciding factor to it either surpassing or being inferior to single-target Electric Arc.
Just as well, the problem I have is that AoE/multi-target cantrips like Electric Arc are doing the same or even comparable damage to single target cantrips like Produce Flame or Ray of Frost. The point of AoE/multi-target is that you can do more damage if you have more targets to work with (and it shouldn't be double the value by simply being able to target just one additional target); otherwise, it should be less to signify that it's not being used in an appropriate setting. To compare, Haunting Hymn only does modifier to targets, but can have up to 5 targets. This is balanced out by both the odds of this coming up as well as the factor that it only surpasses single target damage DPR based on the number of targets (which I believe is 3 when it significantly surpasses them), and also only scales every other spell rank.
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Let’s say a creature has an AC of 16 and a +6 to the targeted save. If you are attacking them, you essentially have a +1 if you target their AC than if you cast a spell that the make a save against. Even targeting their save DC with an attack action gets the benefit of that plus 1. In your produce flame example (which is a cantrip definitely about its crit effect. That persistent damage scales brutally), needing an 11 to hit does mean only critting on a 20, but just flat footed shifts it to 10%. Any fear, sickened, or even clumsy debuffing will greatly boost the spell attack roll spell at this point, while needing to shift thing by 2 to have any chance at increasing the crit fail chance of the spell.
I am not arguing that spell attack roll cantrips or spells generally are always better than saving throw spells, only that many players underestimate the value of having good spell attack roll spells on hand when they can help the most. They are a useful part of a spell caster’s arsenal, and losing them would be a hit to casters.
I house ruled the single target cantrips to do D6 damage. Didn't have any dramatic effect on balance and made the cantrips more attractive to use. Not sure they they haven't done that myself, but there must be some internal math they follow that makes doing that seem imbalanced. Not sure why as tracking damage does not indicate d6 single target damage for 2 action cantrips imbalances anything.
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A cantrip is a secondary weapon that takes 2 actions to “fire” (most weapon options for caster do anyway), uses their key attribute, adds full attribute to damage and most come with a unique, built-in crit specialization. They are meant to compare to back up weapons, not primary weapons, with the advantage that they have a lot of innate flexibility for damage type, since most casters get enough of them to have 3 to 5 damage dealers, at least by level 2.
For ranged attack back up weapons, a d6+ full attribute damage that also use the full key attribute for attack is really good. Cantrip damage should compare to a martial using a secondary ranged weapon, not a primary attack. I doubt a D6 would appear to break the math if you are only looking at it as a primary damage attack, but the issue isn’t invalidating that, it is invalidating any character raising str and dex and carrying a back up ranged weapon.
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Yeah, Cantrips should be compared to like a Str-martial who picks up a bow because they're fighting a flying thing. Rather than a martial using their top combat option.
The danger in making cantrips too good is that these are your "safe" option to contribute because it consumes absolutely no resources, so if they're too good then why would you use the stuff that needs resources.
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That is not the comparison I use for cantrip damage. Cantrip critical specialization effects vastly vary and don't often do much beyond what a normal weapon critical strike does.
I always wonder where some of you come up with these comparisons. They seem out of nowhere. But maybe you read it from a designer.
Cantrip damage as I see it should be about the same as a one action regular attack by a martial with a fully runed weapon meaning all striking runes and energy runes.
So a 4d8+3d6+ Str or Dex + specialization is about 62 at highest level absent adding in any class abilities or feats.
A d6 cantrip like Telekinetic Projectile is about 10d6+7 at highest level or 67.
So for two actions using a cantrip you can do 34 per action.
Whereas a main martial user with a d8 weapon can do at most 62 per action with a MAP for second attack.
This doesn't include either class adding in things like rage, sneak attack, feats, improved accuracy, a larger weapon damage die or what not.
Or a caster adding in full spells for burst damage or focus spells.
I looked over the crit specialization effects for cantrips. Really only produce flame has a substantial additional damage on a crit. Most are double damage on a crit with maybe slowed movement for a round or minor rider effect of little consequence.
So raising single target cantrips to d6 damage had no impact on class balance whatsoever or damage tracking over time. It made the casters feel a little better about their damage, while not feeling so great they used them over regular spells.
Martials still far exceeded casters on single target damage.
I have tracked this over several campaigns. It had no effect on game balance and was a well received quality of life improvement for casters.
I would never do this for electric arc which is still the most used cantrip even with single target cantrips doing d6 damage. But it was a great upgrade for single target cantrips that made casters feel a bit better.
It really makes me wonder what the PF2 designer math was telling them with d4 single target cantrips. Sometimes I think they put too much of a power bias on bad riders like ray of frost slowing movement on a crit which is mostly useless.
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It really makes me wonder what the PF2 designer math was telling them with d4 single target cantrips. Sometimes I think they put too much of a power bias on bad riders like ray of frost slowing movement on a crit which is mostly useless.
I suspect that's exactly what happened. Possibly also they landed on d4 math during the period when strikes did minimum damage on a miss (but not critical miss), which let d4s make sense on spell attacks when those should really have been d6 (or d8 for Telekinetic Projectile). I think that's also why bombs, especially the earlier ones, sometimes feel a bit mediocre. Those have splash at least, but still.
I am hopeful that all the data they got during the kineticist playtest, with all the blasts that did like 3 things, not all of which contributed to DPR, will inform how they design cantrips in remaster. I can't imagine they could comb through all that and not come away with good ideas on how much we really value various status conditions and riders.
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This is off topic so forgive me but if Kinetecist drops and even ONE of the many options of Blasts that they have is statistically worse in ANY way than Electric Arc gained either from you primary Class at any point in time then I will look at that as evidence that as a failure from a game design standpoint. This also goes for getting access to Kinetectist Blasts by way of a Multiclass Archetype, these should always in every situation be better than Cantrips in every situation other than where one is considering specific elemental Weaknesses where Electricity avoids damage reduction or triggers bonus damage while the type of Blast they have does not do so.
Deriven, I am a little surprised to see you write off the crit effect on ray of frost. Ray of frost is a good vac trip in 2 situations, when you need cold damage, and when you are in a situation where you are attacking at a big distance. It’s critical effect is very good for the attacking at distance situation. Ray of frost is definitely one of the best anti-ooze cantrips out there, and I think it is a really good example of a cantrip with a useful and well defined niche. It is probably the second most common cantrip I see selected.
I mean, I find it weird people want cantrips buffed when I noticed when playing the wrath of the righteous video game that I ended up removing the scaling cantrips mod because it was stopping me from using my spell slots. Cantrips should be better at the first few levels and fall off to being one of your worst tools when you have a bunch of spell slots except for a class like the psychic. You end up with a lot of focus spells and proper spells in addition to scrolls, wands and staves. Cantrips walk a really fine line and the fact people use them at all means they are good enough IMO
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I mean, I find it weird people want cantrips buffed when I noticed when playing the wrath of the righteous video game that I ended up removing the scaling cantrips mod because it was stopping me from using my spell slots. Cantrips should be better at the first few levels and fall off to being one of your worst tools when you have a bunch of spell slots except for a class like the psychic. You end up with a lot of focus spells and proper spells in addition to scrolls, wands and staves. Cantrips walk a really fine line and the fact people use them at all means they are good enough IMO
Heightened spells, including Cantrips I think, were specifically designed to be a bit less powerful than spells you got at that level. I don't remember the exact reason why, but it made sense then.
Deriven, I am a little surprised to see you write off the crit effect on ray of frost. Ray of frost is a good vac trip in 2 situations, when you need cold damage, and when you are in a situation where you are attacking at a big distance. It’s critical effect is very good for the attacking at distance situation. Ray of frost is definitely one of the best anti-ooze cantrips out there, and I think it is a really good example of a cantrip with a useful and well defined niche. It is probably the second most common cantrip I see selected.
The crit effect of ray of frost is not good enough to justify d4 damage.
I don't write off ray of frost. Cantrips have their uses, but the damage is a little low with electric arc.Electric Arc is really good because it does a MAPless d4 damage. So a caster who combines electric arc with a weapon attack is doing better than one who uses a Produce Flame or Ray of frost and accepts a MAP penalty for their weapon attack.
I know some folks complain about casters using weapons. I like it myself. At low level there is zero reason for a caster not to pick up a weapon and combine it with cantrip casting. Electric Arc as a save cantrip is your best option for this strategy.
Cantrips are useful for different things. Disrupt Undead is a decent cantrip. Acid Splash to stop regen. Ray of Frost cold damage and range. Produce flame to stop regen and it has a good damage crit effect. electric arc because it is a save and can hit up to two targets.
Ray of Frost is always my number 2 pick for cantrips just for the range. I prefer to start my fights far from enemies and getting a round of two of Ray of Frost off is often basically free damage.
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Ray of Frost is always my number 2 pick for cantrips just for the range. I prefer to start my fights far from enemies and getting a round of two of Ray of Frost off is often basically free damage.
Also Fire enemies can be pretty common (likely because of the concealing smoke aura some have) and they tend to not like Cold damage.
When I take Adapted Cantrip to get EA, I often take Ray of Frost with Adaptive Adept.
Against opponents with good Reflex saves, EA can have... issues.
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Against opponents with good Reflex saves, EA can have... issues.
AC is still usually a bigger problem since you get no item bonus to boost your attack rolls and AC is built to factor item bonuses from weapons.
EA having issues is usually not enough to stop from using it unless the reflex save is substantially better than AC, which is not usually the case.
Trip and Tumble Through has issues against high reflex saves and the classes using them usually suffer worse for those issues, especially the Swashbuckler.
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I mean, I find it weird people want cantrips buffed when I noticed when playing the wrath of the righteous video game that I ended up removing the scaling cantrips mod because it was stopping me from using my spell slots. Cantrips should be better at the first few levels and fall off to being one of your worst tools when you have a bunch of spell slots except for a class like the psychic. You end up with a lot of focus spells and proper spells in addition to scrolls, wands and staves. Cantrips walk a really fine line and the fact people use them at all means they are good enough IMOYou compare two completely different games. And unsurprisingly it makes absolutely no sense.
Problematic points, at the very least: number of slots, spell rank, costs and number of uses of wands and scrolls in PF2, scaling of damage on spell ranks in PF2, number of focus points, quality of focus spells.
the comparison is apt. Good cantrips make slot spells, scrolls, wands, staves, and in this game focus spells, less useful. This is true in both systems, it makes plenty of sense to everyone else who replied to me
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the comparison is apt. Good cantrips make slot spells, scrolls, wands, staves, and in this game focus spells, less useful. This is true in both systems, it makes plenty of sense to everyone else who replied to meI mean, I find it weird people want cantrips buffed when I noticed when playing the wrath of the righteous video game that I ended up removing the scaling cantrips mod because it was stopping me from using my spell slots. Cantrips should be better at the first few levels and fall off to being one of your worst tools when you have a bunch of spell slots except for a class like the psychic. You end up with a lot of focus spells and proper spells in addition to scrolls, wands and staves. Cantrips walk a really fine line and the fact people use them at all means they are good enough IMOYou compare two completely different games. And unsurprisingly it makes absolutely no sense.
Problematic points, at the very least: number of slots, spell rank, costs and number of uses of wands and scrolls in PF2, scaling of damage on spell ranks in PF2, number of focus points, quality of focus spells.
TBH it did not to me either, but whatever.
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the comparison is apt. Good cantrips make slot spells, scrolls, wands, staves, and in this game focus spells, less useful. This is true in both systems, it makes plenty of sense to everyone else who replied to meI mean, I find it weird people want cantrips buffed when I noticed when playing the wrath of the righteous video game that I ended up removing the scaling cantrips mod because it was stopping me from using my spell slots. Cantrips should be better at the first few levels and fall off to being one of your worst tools when you have a bunch of spell slots except for a class like the psychic. You end up with a lot of focus spells and proper spells in addition to scrolls, wands and staves. Cantrips walk a really fine line and the fact people use them at all means they are good enough IMOYou compare two completely different games. And unsurprisingly it makes absolutely no sense.
Problematic points, at the very least: number of slots, spell rank, costs and number of uses of wands and scrolls in PF2, scaling of damage on spell ranks in PF2, number of focus points, quality of focus spells.
Man, in WoTR, unless its an intense fight where I need to swap to turn based mode, I never used casters spell slots for anything. If you have a decent party, anything apart from the really tough fights or boss battles gets auto-resolved by just letting your well built martials do their thing.
Nenio was the only character I ever set to auto-cast cantrips, and that just because I built her as an arcane tricker, so could sneak attack off a cantrip.
My MC was a Lich Wizard, and once I got that polearm that let them attack off Int, I just threw them into melee like anyone else until I needed to get serious.
The games are nothing alike.
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cantrip get plus your spellcasting ability modifier to damage
at level 1 most damage spell deal lower damage than cantrip
all damage spell with no duration should get that
It depends on the rider effects.
I have no problem with 1st level spells potentially being lower damage than cantrips, just as long as they have rider effects that make it part of a trade off. That said, I can't think of any off the top of my head that are truly pushed out at an on-level comparison. At least, none that don't come down to roll differences.
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The issue really is that spell attacks are bad and can’t compete with save effects that do half damage on a fail.This all day. Spell Attack Runes in Spell Implement items.
Runes are awkward, in that spell attacks fluctuate more in their relative accuracy more than anything else in the game, and adding static bonus' would either push them ahead of non-legendary martials at higher levels, or, only lessen the gap with non-legendary martials but not bring to par.
From level 2-20 Spell attacks are always behind martials in their accuracy. This swings from -1 to -4 behind non-legendary martials, depending on the level. Due to the static scaling of casters however, and the fact they all eventually get to Legendary at 19th, it means that if we want to keep the status quo of casters never being better at hitting than martials (i.e - just up to parity), adding flat bonus' creates a problem at 19th and 20th where a casters spell attack would be better than non-legendary martials at hitting.
Now, is this actually a problem? That's debatable. After all, why should someone who is legendary at something still be expected to be worse than someone who is only a master at that same thing? But that's its own separate debate.
There only really are 3 viable solutions here:
1) Let spell attacks remain a permanent underclass of spells.
2) Let spell attacks exceed the accuracy of non-legendary martials at 19th & 20th, so that we can bring them to par for the other 18 levels
3) Remove spell attacks entirely and remove them to all be saved based. / make a Shadow Signet style effect an standard, universal, ability for casters.
Option 2 can have some nuances to it, for example, you could give casters items that let them treat spell attacks as though they had a higher proficiency, so that the bonus would organically drop off once they reach key levels. Or some other fiddley option which corrects the levels sub 19th (except for 14th, no fixing that really).
And, to fend off the common retorts, yes, I know, "Tactical gameplay" etc etc. But, once again, if its a strike-type agnostic benefit that open to everyone, then it doesn't specifically and directly help spell attacks get to par with martials doing the same actions. So it doesn't address the core of the actual problem. That is, all spell attacks from all pure-casters always being behind all pure martials.
Man, in WoTR, unless its an intense fight where I need to swap to turn based mode, I never used casters spell slots for anything. If you have a decent party, anything apart from the really tough fights or boss battles gets auto-resolved by just letting your well built martials do their thing.
Nenio was the only character I ever set to auto-cast cantrips, and that just because I built her as an arcane tricker, so could sneak attack off a cantrip.
My MC was a Lich Wizard, and once I got that polearm that let them attack off Int, I just threw them into melee like anyone else until I needed to get serious.
The games are nothing alike.
You can't get away with this on higher difficulties. Saying you could throw your 1/2 bab wizard into melee tells me you might have not even been playing on normal difficulty. The tactics you use in PF1 are very different, but the principles of resource management are nearly identical in both games because they have the same resources(aside from focus points). A difference between PF1 and 2 is that the design requires spellcasters to use spell slots in 1e. Cantrips in PF1 do a d3 of damage, not even a d4, and never scale. Even with your arcane trickster that's extremely pitiful damage. However if you add a mod that makes it scale you can, especially on lich, reduce your reliance on slot spells enough to have well over half your slots by the end of the dungeon and that is precisely what I was referring to as problematic and why I eventually removed the mod. PF2 has better cantrips by a country mile, and people still frequently use them. If cantrips are too good, too close to martial strikes, then why do we have spell slots (+focus spells, wands, staves and scrolls) at all? Why isn't everything an "at-will" ability? Cantrips should scale in such a way they get nearly entirely usurped by your slotted spells and focus spells. That is why they are 1/2 your level d4 +mod
Let me be absolutely clear here, the fact people use all three, cantrips, focus spells and slotted spells, (as well as items with spells on them) tells me the balance between these is extremely good in PF2 and nudging it too much will result in undesirable outcomes, and it really looks like people in this thread aren't considering this at all
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Man, in WoTR, unless its an intense fight where I need to swap to turn based mode, I never used casters spell slots for anything. If you have a decent party, anything apart from the really tough fights or boss battles gets auto-resolved by just letting your well built martials do their thing.
Nenio was the only character I ever set to auto-cast cantrips, and that just because I built her as an arcane tricker, so could sneak attack off a cantrip.
My MC was a Lich Wizard, and once I got that polearm that let them attack off Int, I just threw them into melee like anyone else until I needed to get serious.
The games are nothing alike.
You can't get away with this on higher difficulties. Saying you could throw your 1/2 bab wizard into melee tells me you might have not even been playing on normal difficulty. The tactics you use in PF1 are very different, but the principles of resource management are nearly identical in both games because they have the same resources(aside from focus points). A difference between PF1 and 2 is that the design requires spellcasters to use spell slots in 1e. Cantrips in PF1 do a d3 of damage, not even a d4, and never scale. Even with your arcane trickster that's extremely pitiful damage. However if you add a mod that makes it scale you can, especially on lich, reduce your reliance on slot spells enough to have well over half your slots by the end of the dungeon and that is precisely what I was referring to as problematic and why I eventually removed the mod. PF2 has better cantrips by a country mile, and people still frequently use them. If cantrips are too good, too close to martial strikes, then why do we have spell slots (+focus spells, wands, staves and scrolls) at all? Why isn't everything an "at-will" ability? Cantrips should scale in such a way they get nearly entirely usurped by your slotted spells and focus spells. That is why they are 1/2 your level d4 +mod
Let me be absolutely clear here, the fact people use all three, cantrips,...
My last playthrough was on unfair, though not with Last Azlanti, because who has time for that.
They just aren't the same game, on any level, bar the superficial.
If you are asking why does your experience with a modded version of an isometric ARPG using system X does not translated to a tabletop version of system Y, the answer is in the question.
Almost every aspect of these two systems is different, in addition, the play experience between the play environment of a video game (where you control every and all player designs and build the party as a single unit) vs the tabletop play environment.
You aren't even comparing apples to oranges, you're comparing apples to the fuel efficiency of a 2008 honda civic.
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How many people have experience using spell attack roll spells at higher levels? My tables have only really been getting to high level play (13+) for about 6 months now. Before that a couple of campaigns stalled out in the 11 to 12 range.
At high level, true strikes are trivially easy to have on hand and the whole party is so focused on debuffing AC down as much as possible that big scary solo beast-like monsters are almost always kited when possible, AoEs are for fighting groups of monsters and the really tough fights that can’t be kited need to be controlled as much as possible with applying hidden/concealed and action denying as much as possible. Past level 7, I rarely see electric arc being cast. Level -3 control spells are usually better options than trying to get within 30ft of potentially 2 enemies that could spring onto the caster and drop them in a round. Sometimes the occasional reach arc gets used, but definitely by the time the shadow signet is around I feel like ray of frost and telekinetic projectile are the cantrips I see used most often.
The situations where electric arc is a good spell get pretty quickly over shadowed by casting an AoE spell like fireball, cone of cold, horrid wilting, etc.
My last playthrough was on unfair, though not with Last Azlanti, because who has time for that.
They just aren't the same game, on any level, bar the superficial.
If you are asking why does your experience with a modded version of an isometric ARPG using system X does not translated to a tabletop version of system Y, the answer is in the question.
Almost every aspect of these two systems is different, in addition, the play experience between the play environment of a video game (where you control every and all player designs and build the party as a single unit) vs the tabletop play environment.
You aren't even comparing apples to oranges, you're comparing apples to the fuel efficiency of a 2008 honda civic.
I was going to at first break this down point by point, but really you haven't made an argument against my point. I used an illustrative point and you're arguing because it isn't 1 to 1 and spending a lot of effort just restating "they are different" until you come to this last sentence which I don't believe for a second you made fully sincerely. It doesn't matter the game system, if your at will abilities are nearly as good as, as good as, or better than you daily resources, or any finite resources for that matter, you are not going to use those resources much at all. I don't know about you but I would like to get to use all my spells, or most of them, in a given adventuring day. Otherwise, why did I prepare them? The real question is, do you disagree that at-will abilities can affect whether you use your daily resources? If you don't disagree, why are you arguing with me? If you do disagree, why?
How many people have experience using spell attack roll spells at higher levels? My tables have only really been getting to high level play (13+) for about 6 months now. Before that a couple of campaigns stalled out in the 11 to 12 range.
At high level, true strikes are trivially easy to have on hand and the whole party is so focused on debuffing AC down as much as possible that big scary solo beast-like monsters are almost always kited when possible, AoEs are for fighting groups of monsters and the really tough fights that can’t be kited need to be controlled as much as possible with applying hidden/concealed and action denying as much as possible. Past level 7, I rarely see electric arc being cast. Level -3 control spells are usually better options than trying to get within 30ft of potentially 2 enemies that could spring onto the caster and drop them in a round. Sometimes the occasional reach arc gets used, but definitely by the time the shadow signet is around I feel like ray of frost and telekinetic projectile are the cantrips I see used most often.
The situations where electric arc is a good spell get pretty quickly over shadowed by casting an AoE spell like fireball, cone of cold, horrid wilting, etc.
I've played a Wizard from 1-20, and I've never really used a spell attack roll without True Strike to account for my missing accuracy (or potentially wasting a top tier spell slot on a whiff via a single bad roll), and I never really used spell attack rolls past 17th, since other spells are significantly stronger to accomplish the intended purpose of neutralizing enemies without requiring an attack roll.
It also wasn't really any type of spell that has won or soloed encounters before. Polar Ray, the strongest spell attack roll spell, AKA Ray of Frost on steroids, doesn't even compare to spells like Mass Slow or Maze, which are equal or lower level spells by nature of having inherent scaling. Even Disintegrate has bad value of being a spell attack roll at the level it's acquired, and is really only good at neutralizing objects/hazards without issue.
But your main issue is trying to compare cantrips to spell slots. These aren't an apt comparison. People aren't going to ever consider Fireball or even Chain Lightning in the same situation(s) as Electric Arc, nor can we assume they will always have such spells available to cast, so saying that as a reason for Electric Arc to be bad in the higher levels doesn't track, especially when there are other worse options, like Acid Splash or Haunting Hymn.
I am saying in the high level play I have seen, even in the 4th or 5 encounter of the day, casters will still usually have lower level battlefield control spells that are more tactical useful spells to cast than electric arc in situations where there is more than one enemy. In situations where there is only one enemy, debuffing and action economy controlling becomes everyone's top priority or else that monster usually has a way to take one or two PCs out of the fight very quickly. The only exception is where the monster can pretty effectively have its movement controlled (oozes, big beasts and melee fliers) and then longer range cantrips are usually good for doing the damage while martials knock prone and move away farther than the creature can get to in 2 actions of moving.
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I was going to at first break this down point by point, but really you haven't made an argument against my point. I used an illustrative point and you're arguing because it isn't 1 to 1 and spending a lot of effort just restating "they are different" until you come to this last sentence which I don't believe for a second you made fully sincerely. It doesn't matter the game system, if your at will abilities are nearly as good as, as good as, or better than you daily resources, or any finite resources for that matter, you are not going to use those resources much at all. I don't know about you but I would like to get to use all my spells, or most of them, in a given adventuring day. Otherwise, why did I prepare them? The real question is, do you disagree that at-will abilities can affect whether you use your daily resources? If you don't disagree, why are you arguing with me? If you do disagree, why?
Alright Ben Shapiro, lets not play dumb here, I'm not debating you. I'm saying that your observation and the conclusions you wish to draw from it are pointless and without merit on their face.
Your attempt to reframe the question is equally bad.
Nuance and context exist, and are core to any discussion around a concept so nebulous as "balance". If we try to reduce down the question to the point where we strip it of its context and nuance, we can get results counter to reality.
You're begging a question no was asking, because its meritless within the context of the game we're talking about.
Sure, if we buff all cantrips to the point where they are better than every other spell, then, yeah, sure, it will impact resource. But since that isn't ever going to happen nor has anyone asked for it... perhaps we could pair down this particular avenue of conversation.
I am saying in the high level play I have seen, even in the 4th or 5 encounter of the day, casters will still usually have lower level battlefield control spells that are more tactical useful spells to cast than electric arc in situations where there is more than one enemy. In situations where there is only one enemy, debuffing and action economy controlling becomes everyone's top priority or else that monster usually has a way to take one or two PCs out of the fight very quickly. The only exception is where the monster can pretty effectively have its movement controlled (oozes, big beasts and melee fliers) and then longer range cantrips are usually good for doing the damage while martials knock prone and move away farther than the creature can get to in 2 actions of moving.
Well yeah. When spells can either do damage or alter action economy, which spell do you think is going to be more valuable? Electric Arc is a wind-down action to move the combat along without expending resources. Conversely, people aren't going to use Slow when the encounter is almost over, either. These are two separate spells with two separate purposes and uses, though. So of course one spell will be more apt to use in one situation over another. And Electric Arc will lose power over time by nature of it being outpaced by heightening rules.