It seems that in the Remaster cantrip is losing attribute modifier to their damage roll in favor or more damage dice. Is there a particular reason for this?
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I don't like it. I hope they turn casting attributes into damage for all spells like Strength is for weapons. Then this would make sense.
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I mean, the Kineticist only gets their ConMod to damage with their elemental blast if they spend an extra action. Maybe we're going to have something parallel to that for cantrips?
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I mean, the Kineticist only gets their ConMod to damage with their elemental blast if they spend an extra action. Maybe we're going to have something parallel to that for cantrips?
Oh now it makes sense. Casters had to get their AoE nerfed to retroactively protect the kineticist AoE niche.
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Possible reasons.
1. It causes confusion for some folks who don't know what their casting modifier is. It's not a big barrier to entry but I've seen it trip up players. Just telling them to roll X many dice is easier and more self contained.
2. It reduces the odds of accidentally leaving ability modifier in the book instead of attribute.
3. Monsters don't have clear cut attribute modifiers to add to stats, and if they did, their overinflated ability scores would make them punch above their level. (Granted, I've never actually seen an NPC live long enough to need to use cantrips.)
I think the main reason people are reacting negatively to it is because some of the cantrips are 2d4, which is lower average damage. But others are 3d4, which is higher. (Although eventually it may get out scaled as your casting stat grows, hopefully by then you aren't relying on cantrips for damage too often.)
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I really hate losing my minimum damage
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Possible reasons.
1. It causes confusion for some folks who don't know what their casting modifier is. It's not a big barrier to entry but I've seen it trip up players. Just telling them to roll X many dice is easier and more self contained.
2. It reduces the odds of accidentally leaving ability modifier in the book instead of attribute.
3. Monsters don't have clear cut attribute modifiers to add to stats, and if they did, their overinflated ability scores would make them punch above their level. (Granted, I've never actually seen an NPC live long enough to need to use cantrips.)
I think the main reason people are reacting negatively to it is because some of the cantrips are 2d4, which is lower average damage. But others are 3d4, which is higher. (Although eventually it may get out scaled as your casting stat grows, hopefully by then you aren't relying on cantrips for damage too often.)
None of it has ever been an issue.
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I mean, the Kineticist only gets their ConMod to damage with their elemental blast if they spend an extra action. Maybe we're going to have something parallel to that for cantrips?Oh now it makes sense. Casters had to get their AoE nerfed to retroactively protect the kineticist AoE niche.
This should not be true at all.
RoE aside (I don't have the book yet), the preview PDF only goes into Produce Flame > Ignition.
It loses 1.5 damage on average at level 1, assuming maximum stats (Magus says hi, they only lose .5 at most). But that's only at range. In melee, it actually comes out .5 damage ahead at level 1 (because it's 2d6 now), and the improved scaling will pull it ahead in the long term in that use case. (And I mean, yes... it's really not likely to be in that use case except for Magus and some Druid builds, but still).
If memory serves, RoE has a cantrip with 3d4 at level 1, which is stronger than anything we currently have for single targets, though with +1d4 scaling it would fall behind the current TKP eventually (and, strictly speaking, at level 20 it would fall a hair behind current d4 cantrips, but).
I'm holding off on judgement until I see more info.
The rage of elements cantrips are three attacking:
first is an air one that is 60 feet 1 or 2 creatures (can only target 2 if both your hands are free) that does 2d4 and 1d4 bleed on a crit, it is against AC and if you do the two it counts twice for MAP but increases after both attackssecond is metal's needle darts, the previously mentioned 3d4 1 bleed on a crit 60 foot spell attack against AC and if you have special metal in your possession it can be of that metal type
third is wood's Timber, 15 foot line against basic reflex that does 2d4 and causes dazzled on a crit fail
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You know, I really do wonder if what we're seeing here is an artifact of the Preview doc being largely focused on making Rage of Elements playable on release. Specifically the idea that monster cantrip use is problematic because monster stat mods aren't balanced against PC mods and the stat block doesn't actually say what to use in the first place.
It would make a great deal of sense if the baseline spells were printed as XdX damage but then caster classes had a core class feature that was something to the effect of, "You may reduce the number of dice on any damaging cantrip you cast by one to instead add your key attribute modifier to the total damage" - that would provide parity with existing characters but resolve the weirdness around the monsters...
My theory is we got these specific spells because they are referenced in Rage of Elements, but I haven't done an exhaustive check.
None of it has ever been an issue.Possible reasons.
1. It causes confusion for some folks who don't know what their casting modifier is. It's not a big barrier to entry but I've seen it trip up players. Just telling them to roll X many dice is easier and more self contained.
2. It reduces the odds of accidentally leaving ability modifier in the book instead of attribute.
3. Monsters don't have clear cut attribute modifiers to add to stats, and if they did, their overinflated ability scores would make them punch above their level. (Granted, I've never actually seen an NPC live long enough to need to use cantrips.)
I think the main reason people are reacting negatively to it is because some of the cantrips are 2d4, which is lower average damage. But others are 3d4, which is higher. (Although eventually it may get out scaled as your casting stat grows, hopefully by then you aren't relying on cantrips for damage too often.)
I mean I can tell you number 1 absolutely has been an issue. I have seen it happen at the table. It probably doesn't happen at your particular table of power gamers, but the game isn't just for your particular table of power gamers.
And saying number 2 has never been an issue is meaningless because Paizo has never done an undertaking like this where they need to go through their existing books and change terminology they have been using for like... 40 years? It is extremely easy for the human brain to swap one term for another in that situation, especially when they are phonetically so similar. From a design perspective, if they can protect themselves from errors which costs them later efforts to eratta and weakens their product identity claim (Well you see your honor, our book is totally distinct from D&D... Except for all the places we forgot to change the language D&D uses.) Then why not do it? Especially if you can technically make it a buff by making single target cantrips deal one more average damage at low levels with 3d4.
3 is the only thing you can say has never been an issue and I'd probably believe.
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I mean, not knowing your casting modifier is about on par with not knowing your strength modifier when you go to swing a weapon. It's simpler, sure, but not simpler in a way that I think actually matters for accessibility.
I think the reason may be that casters in general are going to be expected to cast a lot more focus spells and that those will be more of the bread and butter of casters, with cantrips being more of a backup option. But it's hard to guess exactly what the intention is there until someone from Paizo explains it to us.
This also I guess makes cantrips very slightly better for characters that are getting their spellcasting as a dedication, like a fighter that sometimes casts a cantrip to deal ranged damage - but that's still a bad idea overall as you need your casting modifier to be high to land the damn attack in the first place and throwing weapons and crossbows do that job better in such a scenario.
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I mean I can tell you number 1 absolutely has been an issue. I have seen it happen at the table. It probably doesn't happen at your particular table of power gamers, but the game isn't just for your particular table of power gamers.
Players not knowing what their casting modifier is and having to determine it to know what damage their cantrips do seems like a fine way of teaching players a vitally important aspect of their class. You don't need to be a power gamer to read and understand basic concepts of a class, and it's ludicrous to pretend otherwise.
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I think its some people were confused that cantrips had casting mod while non-cantrips typically didn't. so people were either forgetting to add on cantrips, or adding on regular spells.
I think its some people were confused that cantrips had casting mod while non-cantrips typically didn't. so people were either forgetting to add on cantrips, or adding on regular spells.
I guess this does make sense to me, even if the averages they're using are maybe a bit low. But again, I think maybe the intent is for focus spells to fill in that niche somewhat? Hard to tell.
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My theory is we got these specific spells because they are referenced in Rage of Elements, but I haven't done an exhaustive check.
None of it has ever been an issue.Possible reasons.
1. It causes confusion for some folks who don't know what their casting modifier is. It's not a big barrier to entry but I've seen it trip up players. Just telling them to roll X many dice is easier and more self contained.
2. It reduces the odds of accidentally leaving ability modifier in the book instead of attribute.
3. Monsters don't have clear cut attribute modifiers to add to stats, and if they did, their overinflated ability scores would make them punch above their level. (Granted, I've never actually seen an NPC live long enough to need to use cantrips.)
I think the main reason people are reacting negatively to it is because some of the cantrips are 2d4, which is lower average damage. But others are 3d4, which is higher. (Although eventually it may get out scaled as your casting stat grows, hopefully by then you aren't relying on cantrips for damage too often.)
I mean I can tell you number 1 absolutely has been an issue. I have seen it happen at the table. It probably doesn't happen at your particular table of power gamers, but the game isn't just for your particular table of power gamers.
And saying number 2 has never been an issue is meaningless because Paizo has never done an undertaking like this where they need to go through their existing books and change terminology they have been using for like... 40 years? It is extremely easy for the human brain to swap one term for another in that situation, especially when they are phonetically so similar. From a design perspective, if they can protect themselves from errors which costs them later efforts to eratta and weakens their product identity claim (Well you see your honor, our book is totally distinct from D&D... Except for all the places we forgot to change the...
It has never happened at my table.
If this comes out as is, there is no excuse for making casting stats irrelevant for damage boosts as this point in the game. They should be looking to make them more relevant for caster boosting.
Damage stats are a small portion of damage, but thematically meaningful to various classes. They should start tying damage to appropriate stats to improve overall class experience including smoothing play over at low level and providing a decent minimum that feels as though having a powerful casting stat means something.
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I feel like there are still too many unknowns to really call it. It's possible casters have buffs in other places that we don't know yet, and thus may have needed to slight reduction in damage for overall balance.
Ignition for example, assuming it kept the old design, would have done 2d6+4(I know you guys like to push your main stat to 18). Compare that to Breath Fire, which is 2d6, and you're basically adding a 3rd d6 roll to ignition but just rolling the average. Meaning it does more than the spell that actually costs a spell slot to cast.
Breath Fire has better scaling but at the rank 2 slot, Breath Fire does 4d6 and Ignition does 3d6+4, which again is like it's dealing 4d6 but one of the rolls is mid. So it's not rank 3 that breath fire pulls ahead to do more damage than the 4d6+4 cantrip.
But as I said, there are other aspects that might better break this down that we just do not know yet. Maybe the game is shifting to make casters more reliable and so wanted to tone down the fixed damage ones. Maybe they saw that having your rank spells don't have modifiers but your cantrips do gave people an odd impression of power scaling to devalue leveled spells. Maybe they want to keep adding your attribute to focus spells to give them more oomph now that you can get a lot of focus points and recover them more reliably. Maybe someone just decided that rolling more dice was more fun.
Not enough information to actually call it.
Found Luis's response in Discord screenshot from reddit.
I'd be ok with that as I can house rule it back in across the board rather than worry about it on a spell by spell basis.
I do think it is a bad design decision and sympathize with those that don't have the power to easily house rule something like this back in.
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Man....the tier 1 death march for caster players continues to get rougher. I'll introduce house rules I suppose
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Again, please remember that of the like 4 or so cantrips we have seen, one does better damage than cantrips did before with a longer ranger, one does more damage in melee than it did before, and the other two are multi target.
I think it is safe to assume electric arc will be nerfed, and we all would have preferred other cantrips to have been elevated to its level instead... But this doesn't feel like the huge step back people are making it out to be.
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Again, please remember that of the like 4 or so cantrips we have seen, one does better damage than cantrips did before with a longer ranger, one does more damage in melee than it did before, and the other two are multi target.
I think it is safe to assume electric arc will be nerfed, and we all would have preferred other cantrips to have been elevated to its level instead... But this doesn't feel like the huge step back people are making it out to be.
The previous highest damage (telekinetic projectile, gouging claw) dealt 1d6+X, heightening at +1d6.
Compare that to the 3d4. That is equal damage. If the heightening is just +1d4, it very quickly falls behind. There are other things to make up for it perhaps, but so far NO cantrip deals the damage telekinetic projectile or gouging claw did.
And I expect likely no cantrip will do as much damage against multiple targets as electric arc.
To Paizo, I can just say: Please stop this.
I think if there was any majority opinion on caster damage, it would be that it was too low (taking into account accuracy).
Making it even lower, especially for early levels is not a good change.
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Again, please remember that of the like 4 or so cantrips we have seen, one does better damage than cantrips did before with a longer ranger, one does more damage in melee than it did before, and the other two are multi target.
I think it is safe to assume electric arc will be nerfed, and we all would have preferred other cantrips to have been elevated to its level instead... But this doesn't feel like the huge step back people are making it out to be.
The previous highest damage (telekinetic projectile, gouging claw) dealt 1d6+X, heightening at +1d6.
Compare that to the 3d4. That is equal damage. If the heightening is just +1d4, it very quickly falls behind. There are other things to make up for it perhaps, but so far NO cantrip deals the damage telekinetic projectile or gouging claw did.
Those "other things" you're glossing are things that effectively increase your damage: range, weakness potential, and (compared to TKP) crit riders. And again, you're looking at an incredibly small sample size and comparing it to the highest damage options of everything else that came before it feels overreactive, especially when your citing a cantrips from a book that isn't being remastered and will therefore probably survive unchanged. (Gouging Claw.)
Needle darts does indeed only heighten at 1d4 every spell rank (plus one more bleed on a crit every level) also I would certainly take the more reliable base amounts of 5-10 damage range of current tk projectile over the 3-12 of needle darts
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Those "other things" you're glossing are things that effectively increase your damage: range, weakness potential, and (compared to TKP) crit riders. And again, you're looking at an incredibly small sample size and comparing it to the highest damage options of everything else that came before it feels overreactive, especially when your citing a cantrips from a book that isn't being remastered and will therefore probably survive unchanged. (Gouging Claw.)Again, please remember that of the like 4 or so cantrips we have seen, one does better damage than cantrips did before with a longer ranger, one does more damage in melee than it did before, and the other two are multi target.
I think it is safe to assume electric arc will be nerfed, and we all would have preferred other cantrips to have been elevated to its level instead... But this doesn't feel like the huge step back people are making it out to be.
The previous highest damage (telekinetic projectile, gouging claw) dealt 1d6+X, heightening at +1d6.
Compare that to the 3d4. That is equal damage. If the heightening is just +1d4, it very quickly falls behind. There are other things to make up for it perhaps, but so far NO cantrip deals the damage telekinetic projectile or gouging claw did.
Seems a bit disingenuous as you are in returning glossing over telekinetic projectile's ability to select between three types of physical damage, thus being able to trigger weaknesses and avoid resistances in a significant way.
1 persistent bleed damage also is one of the weakest crit effects we have, compared to both Ignite / Produce Flame and gouging Claw.Gouging Claw by the way which also can flank and choose between two damage types.
Also, you said " one does better damage than cantrips did before with a longer ranger", cantrips, plural. Longer range, sure, damage, no.
And it seems a bit interesting to point to the "small subset", given how the cantrip design so far has pretty much pushed everyone to focus on that small subset for very obvious and valid reasons.
On top of that: Arguing that Gouging Claw will not be changed (which still has to be seen, it could very well just get a normal erratum on it) is not exactly the best argument in favor of the new cantrips.
People have very good reasons to see this as a bad change. People should complain. I do not think trying to downplay it, especially with these arguments helps the situation.
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Thus, analyzing this change coldly, several factors need to be taken into account.
The first one is about the efficiency of cantrips on damage spell slots spells.
Cantrips have always been competitive with low-level damage spells precisely because their spellcasting attribute bonus makes them average damage very close to low rank spells. For example:
A level 1 Electric Arc deals an average of 6.5 damage (1d4 + 4), some spellcasters such as Druids can supplement this damage with weapons potentially adding a second attack for up to 7.5 (1d8 + 3) damage.
Considering that a level 1 spellcaster has almost the same attack bonus as a level 1 martial artist, this basically means that this combination is very close to the damage efficiency of using Magic Missiles against a single target (also consider that the EA hits 2 targets without risk of friendly fire).
This same situation happens with Burning Hands, while Burning Hands does an average of 14 damage (4d6) in a cone, a 2nd rank EA does 9 in 2 non-continuous targets without risk of friendly fire.
By removing the spellcasting bonus from damage, this forces cantrips to necessarily be considerably worse than low-level spells, and perhaps that was the intention after all.
But this has its side effects as well. Now more than ever the armed spellcaster is worth more than using 2-action cantrips to attack, although the weapon damage accompanied by the EA should decrease, plus magus and eldritch archers without Expansive Spellstrike end up being able to dump their cast attributes and finally that increases the DPR distance between spellcasters and martials at low levels.
That said we still need to see how other cantrips turned out, especially EA, what we have so far are Ignite, partially Divine Lance, and some RoE cantrips.
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especially EAAn air trait spell is about to replace that
But forgot deeper detail
the air cantrip in RoE targets AC and needs both hands free to target two enemies for 2d4 damage (1d4 heighten scaling) at 60 feet it's not really an electric arc replacement
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Needle darts does indeed only heighten at 1d4 every spell rank (plus one more bleed on a crit every level) also I would certainly take the more reliable base amounts of 5-10 damage range of current tk projectile over the 3-12 of needle darts
3d4 is actually very close to 1d6+4 not only in average damage, but in distribution as well. There is only a 6.25% chance of rolling less than 5 with 3d4, and you are actually (slightly) more likely to roll 6 or more.
You could see it like this: you roll a d6, and lose half a point if you roll 1, gain half a point if you roll 6.
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I need to see all the spells that changed to actually get the vibe of this rebalance, seems damage is not the only thing that is changing, but we will see in November.
Tom
the air cantrip in RoE targets AC and needs both hands free to target two enemies for 2d4 damage (1d4 heighten scaling) at 60 feet it's not really an electric arc replacementespecially EAAn air trait spell is about to replace that
But forgot deeper detail
Is this new cantrip an attack or save?
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I might see this as a way to make beginning with a 16 (+3 attribute modifier in Remastered) in your casting stat more palatable, thereby opening more build possibilities for casters.
If the average damage for attack cantrips also goes down, it might open the door for permanent boosts to accuracy on attack spells, which is something that people have been clamoring for for a long long time.
So it does not substitute the EA.