|
Inspired by WatersLethe's cantrip thread, I started to consider cantrips that remain useful for all 20 levels.
I immediately eliminated offensive cantrips since, by 9th level or so, casters will generally have enough slots for an average day.
So here is my list:
*Detect Magic
*Eat Fire
*Figment
*Forbidding Ward
*Glass Shield
*Guidance
*Message
*Prestidigitation
*Read Aura
*Rousing Splash
*Shield
Are there any you think I missed?
Do you disagree with any I've listed?
What has been your experience with cantrips at high levels?
To be honest, I have yet to play any kind of caster up to 20th level, so I'm mostly speculating here. My highest level PFS2 character is a 14th level Bard, so useful cantrips are his raison d'etre,
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
It depends on what you mean by useful.
There are more that are evergreen, but niche use. Such as Approximate or Bullhorn. They don't have use in combat, or for acquiring or identifying loot. But they do still have purpose in some campaigns.
Also, no matter what level you are, you only have about 2 Rank's worth of spell slots for dealing damage with - which is between 6 to 8 spell slots per day. A Cantrip may not do as much damage as a max Rank spell slot spell, but they will do more than a max-4 Rank spell slot spell will. At level 9 or so you will have evergreen spell slot spells as well that you can use to be useful in combat, but they aren't going to be dealing damage directly.
As for traditional adventuring use by murderhobos, and aside from damage dealing spells - I think you may be sleeping on
* Light
* Wash Your Luck
* Stabilize
* Deep Breath
* Telekinetic Hand
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hmmm, maybe we should define terms first.
If you factor in weaknesses and golem antimagic, damage cantrips might be back on the table as "evergreen" useful. I certainly have not seen a high level (up to 16) caster not have at least one damage cantrip prepared.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I don't factor in golem antimagic. Golem antimagic rightfully deserves its place as a cautionary footnote in history. Replace all Golem creatures in older APs with their equivalent Bastion creature.
Other than that, yeah, I agree with what you said.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, at higher levels you often swap some offensive cantrips for the useful non-offensive ones. Deep Breath is also one of the first such cantrips I always try to take, as permanently holding your breath does/should/? work against being swallowed, drowned, or inhaling toxic gases.
Though WatersLethe is right that a caster should keep some offensive cantrips around to trigger certain weaknesses if need be. Sometimes you just don't have the right spells to turn off someone's regeneration either, so cantrips can be really useful there, e.g. shooting that weak acid splash/caustic blast at a fire-immune troll.
Higher levels also give you enough money to spend gold on lower-level items like gauntlets and spellhearts: You can easily apply 3 spellhearts to yourself then (armor + 2 gauntlets) and get their respective cantrips, e.g. a Jolt Coil (for Electric Arc), a Rime Crystal (for Frostbite), or – one of my favorite new ones – a Devilwing Badge (for Divine Lance and the resistance to fire & unholy).
p.s.: If you like to walk around in bedazzling fashion, just wear a dozen Explorer's Clothing (for little more than 1 bulk) and attach a spellheart to each one. Wearing several armors is (explicitly) a thing.
Some offensive cantrips also can be used for non-offensive utility, if you are a bit imaginative and the GM allows it, e.g. Slashing Gust to clear (spider) webs from a distance, Ignition to kindle things, or Frostbite to serve chilled drinks. I also like to use Vitality Lash on every dead body/skeleton that I see – just in case that this might be an undead trying to play "dead", ready to ambush the party.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Deep Breath allows you to cast while swallowed etc, i try my very best to grab it for higher level play.
Heck, I like Deep Breath at low-level; even if it doesn't help you cast yet, it helps alleviate suffocation. Felt pretty good at the docks the last session.
And yeah, Weaknesses are significant. In my head I run my PCs against at-level or level-1 opponents to see if they're keeping up with the power curve and to highlight where my PCs need assistance. A Cantrip vs. a Weakness proves decisive in many battles (as does a Sustained Holy Spiritual Armament at a mere 2nd level).
Let's not forget Glamorize either, if only for aesthetics. :-)
I've also used Spout to help put out fires, something that can be difficult, even insurmountable, if you lack water spells/Impulses. And I took Draw Moisture purely for thematic reasons and have ended up using it a surprising amount (also mostly for aesthetics).
Do people still take Guidance and Forbidding Ward at the highest levels? I'd hope they'd developed better ways to spend their actions or found other sources of Status bonuses.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
p.s.: If you like to walk around in bedazzling fashion, just wear a dozen Explorer's Clothing (for little more than 1 bulk) and attach a spellheart to each one. Wearing several armors is (explicitly) a thing.
I respect the loophole. But I also expect that most GMs are going to shut down such obvious cheese.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Explorer's Clothing isn't armor at all. You can't attach a spellheart to it in the first place.
The item has rules for putting armor runes on it, in spite of not being armor. It has no such rules allowing talismans or spellhearts to be attached. That's one upside that Bands of Force have.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Live by the pedantry, die by the pedantry.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Do people still take Guidance and Forbidding Ward at the highest levels? I'd hope they'd developed better ways to spend their actions or found other sources of Status bonuses.
No, not really. Maybe Guidance for out-of-combat things to help with unlocking doors, but Forbidding Ward is a weak spell already at mid levels.
At high levels you have a lot of low-level & mid-level utility spells, so a cantrip has to compete with those spells in actions for utility purposes. As such most of those cantrips not already mentioned are not useful at high level.
Though there are two cantrips that might be useful with a rare combo:
A Naari (Ifrit-geniekin) with the Charred Remains feat will likely use that spellshape with the Illuminate cantrip, due to its incredible area of effect.
If you use Starfinder 2e (ancestry) content, the Elf feat Spellsail is incredibly potent with the level 20 feat Spellshape Mastery and the Message cantrip (or another one of the 1-action cantrips like Guidance or Tremor Signs), allowing you to subtly teleport 60 ft to another creature for 1 action. Perfect to escape grapples, cages, restraining effects, or simply to "move at the speed of thought".
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Inspired by WatersLethe's cantrip thread, I started to consider cantrips that remain useful for all 20 levels.
I immediately eliminated offensive cantrips since, by 9th level or so, casters will generally have enough slots for an average day.
,
That's like saying fighters should eliminate standard sword swings.
Damage cantrips never lose their basic value, and they keep getting better as you advance. Generally a lot better than the basic sword swing.
Spell slots have their use for big bang booms, but they primarily see their value through utility spells. Need to move your entire party over a ravine, You have airlift, protection against elements, battlefield control, again, that's pretty much the domain of your non cantrip spells.
Do people still take Guidance and Forbidding Ward at the highest levels? I'd hope they'd developed better ways to spend their actions or found other sources of Status bonuses.
My witch has Guidance as an innate spell thanks to a pendant. That means she still gets to contribute to a group challenge when she does not have skills or other things to offer. My Wizard still has a couple of cards of both from what's left of a cantrip deck.
p.s.: If you like to walk around in bedazzling fashion, just wear a dozen Explorer's Clothing (for little more than 1 bulk) and attach a spellheart to each one. Wearing several armors is (explicitly) a thing.
Not at any table I run. It's also explicitly in the rules that GM's have the right, (even in PFS play) to draw a line in the sand when it comes to cheesing with RAW. Magic investment rules were also made with these kind of shenannigans in mind.
Just to clarify the last quotes, mine was about Guidance & Forbidding Ward above my handle, not the Explorer's Clothing shenanigans! :-P
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Though WatersLethe is right that a caster should keep some offensive cantrips around to trigger certain weaknesses if need be. Sometimes you just don't have the right spells to turn off someone's regeneration either, so cantrips can be really useful there, e.g. shooting that weak acid splash/caustic blast at a fire-immune troll.
Needle darts and carrying both a cold iron chunk and a silver chunk (10 gp each) is another "handy to have" option starting at mid-level. Especially if the campaign has demons, devils, lycanthropes, etc. Long-term, it's cheaper than investing in cold iron or silver ammunition ("You shape three needles out of a piece of metal in your possession and send them flying in a tight group toward one target... All the needles are made of the same metal, and the metal returns to you after the attack." [emphasis mine]).
Needle darts and carrying both a cold iron chunk and a silver chunk (10 gp each) is another "handy to have" option starting at mid-level. Especially if the campaign has demons, devils, lycanthropes, etc. Long-term, it's cheaper than investing in cold iron or silver ammunition ("You shape three needles out of a piece of metal in your possession and send them flying in a tight group toward one target... All the needles are made of the same metal, and the metal returns to you after the attack." [emphasis mine]).
You don't need a silver chunk, as a silver piece is enough.
But most creatures don't have a weakness to silver, only resistance to physical damage except silver (though Lycanthropes are an exception). So just using non-physical damage spells is enough, no silver needed. Cold iron is still useful against fey & demons, though you're usually better off with holy spells against the latter (e.g. Divine Wrath, Holy Cascade). Even those weaknesses are not worth spending your precious actions on cantrips.
I would in general say though, that casters suffer from a lack of metal/material weakness spell options. At high levels a caster's spell attacks are really bad, that it has to be super worth it using your 2 actions on a cantrip. In most cases you have much better things to do than do a little silver/ci damage.
But if you want to keep a cantrip for that, you're better off with the more versatile Telekinetic Projectile cantrip. Remember that material weaknesses are triggered upon contact with the material (e.g. Roushing Splash works against creatures with water weakness) and thus silver & cold iron weaknesses trigger on Telekinetic Projectile as well.
I don't find Deep Breath that useful, because the primary case for it is also covered by Air Bubble, which is cast as a reaction and thus doesn't require spending an action before it happens. Could come in handy in some cases, but it's not that essential.
The obvious one to me is Light. If you don't pick up Darkvision, you're using that the entire campaign. It's simple and effective. Detect Magic and Read Aura (if you're identifying anything) are also always useful.
I tend to end up with those and a smattering of offense options depending on the character.
Though WatersLethe is right that a caster should keep some offensive cantrips around to trigger certain weaknesses if need be. Sometimes you just don't have the right spells to turn off someone's regeneration either, so cantrips can be really useful there, e.g. shooting that weak acid splash/caustic blast at a fire-immune troll.Needle darts and carrying both a cold iron chunk and a silver chunk (10 gp each) is another "handy to have" option starting at mid-level. Especially if the campaign has demons, devils, lycanthropes, etc. Long-term, it's cheaper than investing in cold iron or silver ammunition ("You shape three needles out of a piece of metal in your possession and send them flying in a tight group toward one target... All the needles are made of the same metal, and the metal returns to you after the attack." [emphasis mine]).
You don’t even need to spend the 10gp, the silver coin you already have on you will do fine.
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
You don’t even need to spend the 10gp, the silver coin you already have on you will do fine.
PFS Note Any spells which require metal to function require the PC to be in possession of at least one chunk of that metal or an item made of that metal.
My GMs use that for our home campaigns as well
At 2nd Rank Deep Breath lasts an hour, so you can renew it after every conversation and before every door or nexus. You'd usually end up with enough air to share some Recall Knowledge info, cast a couple spells, and still have extra to cast a few spells in a stomach or underwater. That's so much better than the PC who hadn't taken the spell having to wait for allies to rescue them or gamble. For much of a PC's career that'd be sufficient, but the spell also bumps up to 8 hours at 4th Rank, where you'd hardly have to track usage.
I'd still recommend Air Bubble too, after one isn't using 1st Rank spells in combat any more, though more likely for an ally.
I despise the 'loophole'. And I don't even see it. Especially the 'explicit' one. There maybe doesn't exist 'you can wear only one suit of armor or equivalent clothing' line (which still doesn't matter). But I'm sure there's no line 'you can wear as much Explorer's Clothings or armors as you like'.p.s.: If you like to walk around in bedazzling fashion, just wear a dozen Explorer's Clothing (for little more than 1 bulk) and attach a spellheart to each one. Wearing several armors is (explicitly) a thing.I respect the loophole. But I also expect that most GMs are going to shut down such obvious cheese.
There isn't an explicit restriction on wearing multiple armor.
But more than that, there is the rules for heavy armor and Padded Armor where you are explicitly wearing both at the same time.
As Hammerjack noted, Explorer's Clothes don't technically allow Spellhearts or other Talismans to be attached. But I'm not finding anything that would prevent wearing 10 Padded Armor - and there is the precedent for wearing multiple armors.
You don’t even need to spend the 10gp, the silver coin you already have on you will do fine.PFS Note Any spells which require metal to function require the PC to be in possession of at least one chunk of that metal or an item made of that metal.
My GMs use that for our home campaigns as well
Yes, and my silver coin is an item made of silver.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Not 'multiple'. Two. Specific ones, naturally and logically fit for each other because they are a single set. That's not a 'precedent', that's a single exception.
Not claming that it isn't cheese. It is very much completely unreasonable to do that in a game.
But I will acknowledge that there is more printed rules support in favor of allowing wearing 10 Padded Armors than there is forbidding it.
Strict RAW is a troll ruling. As a GM, always reserve the right to shut down cheese.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yes. The Ambiguous Rules rule is what you use to shut down cheese with. That rule itself doesn't say anything about wearing multiple armor items.
To use the Ambiguous Rules rule as a RAW argument, you have to first prove rule ambiguity, and then demonstrate a practical game balance problem.
The Ambiguous Rules rule as an RAI argument is much easier to use. It should definitely apply in this scenario. Wearing multiple armor so that you can cheese out having a bunch of Spellhearts - is clearly not intended.
Light is useful if you're going against enemies who like to create darkness, otherwise I'd probably go with a torch or, if I was a bit more seasoned and had a little more cash, an everlight crystal.
Torches require some way to carry them though, and I'd rather have the hand for something else. Everlight crystals are fine, but Light can have mutiple instances at once and lasts all day. It's great.
Why is Read Aura useful? For the +2? For everything else Detect magic is enough.
Yeah, for identifying. If someone has it the whole party gets the bonus any time anyone is identifying anything.
Though in Shadows at Sundown it came up explicitly as a "if you have Read Aura, you can decipher this hidden magic writing" situation. I'm not sure I've seen that anywhere outside of that one specific adventure.
As for this "armour loophole"... if anyone tried that at my table I'd honestly stare at them like they're an idiot. Throwing common sense that far out the window to claim such an obviously nonsense exploit works because there's no specific line preventing it is pretty clearly trying to treat the rules as if they're code and this as a video game.
My continual flame doesn’t take up a hand, it’s a helmet light. With a cover and everything. If I want multiple instances I can get multiple and chuck them.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Well Detect Magic doesn't really help very much in figuring out if a pile of defeated enemies contains any magic loot. The best you can get at rank 4 is saying which 5ft square has the most powerful magic in it.
Read Aura is then the fastest way of sorting the magic from the mundane.
Detect magic can easily triangulate magical loot.
|
Huh? At low level detect magic just says "there is at least one magic thing you didn't know, somewhere within 30 feet of you in any direction". At higher levels it goes to "somewhere in that 5ft cube". But that cube might have a corpse in it with lots of pieces of gear. And only after you fully investigate that magic item can you ignore it and use detect magic to pinpoint the next most powerful one.
But yeah, I think it's kinda outdated that these are two separate spells. And I think it's still too much tied up in 1E panics about "detect magic breaks the whole illusion school" or "breaks my whole plot".
Currently the Detect Magic exploration activity does almost nothing because it can't find hazards that require some level of Perception training (which I think is almost every magical hazard). It would have been fine IMO if Detect Magic allowed you to try detecting them with Arcana/Nature/Religion/Occultism instead of Perception.
My continual flame doesn’t take up a hand, it’s a helmet light. With a cover and everything. If I want multiple instances I can get multiple and chuck them.
Yeah if your party does not have low light/dark vision light cantrip is a champ. can just have it follow most of your group around with no hands required. Just fire it up and have it last all day. A real lifesaver for dungeon crawlers.
My continual flame doesn’t take up a hand, it’s a helmet light. With a cover and everything. If I want multiple instances I can get multiple and chuck them.Yeah if your party does not have low light/dark vision light cantrip is a champ. can just have it follow most of your group around with no hands required. Just fire it up and have it last all day. A real lifesaver for dungeon crawlers.
Of course, carrying (or wearing, etc.) light sources in a Darklands campaign (such as the upcoming Vaultlines AP) make the entire party detectable from a long way off...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
That’s what the cover is for
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Of course, carrying (or wearing, etc.) light sources in a Darklands campaign (such as the upcoming Vaultlines AP) make the entire party detectable from a long way off...My continual flame doesn’t take up a hand, it’s a helmet light. With a cover and everything. If I want multiple instances I can get multiple and chuck them.Yeah if your party does not have low light/dark vision light cantrip is a champ. can just have it follow most of your group around with no hands required. Just fire it up and have it last all day. A real lifesaver for dungeon crawlers.
If you are in the darklands and need light to begin with it may broadcast your location but it beats walking around totally blind.
Bah! Have none of you heard of conveniently placed glowing moss and/or mushrooms?
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah if your party does not have low light/dark vision light cantrip is a champ. can just have it follow most of your group around with no hands required. Just fire it up and have it last all day. A real lifesaver for dungeon crawlers.
If you are a card carrying member of the Pathfinder Society, or just have one, your wayfinder has the ability to emit a light spell. Since its a worn item, no hands needed.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Eliminating damage cantrips seems like an oversight. A high rank damage cantrip is often better than a low rank damage spell. In fact, I tend to find that high level characters do better with utility spells in rank 1 and rank 2 slots (and maybe rank 3) because low rank damaging spells are so weak compared to high rank cantrips.
Damage cantrips offer a very nice baseline of damage types to easily trigger weaknesses and bypass resistances and immunizes. There are some useful riders on them too, like speed reduction and persistent damage that is always good. If a high level caster is trading them all out at for utility cantrips they might be doing themselves a disservice.
Beyond that, my list of non-damaging cantrips that I think maintain their usefulness throughout a casters entire career would include:
Guidance/Time Sense: Great when you have an action left over with nothing else to do, or when fighting a higher level monster that's hard to hit. A +1 is always useful.
Rousing Splash: Casting it on everyone before a suspected combat is just a nice way to get some free temp HP.
Eat Fire, because fire is so prevalent in the game and the ability to easily give concealment is nice.
Figment: In the hands of a creative player can get a lot of mileage, even at high levels
Glamorize: I've found this to be useful throughout a casting career when I find myself in a sudden social situation and need to look the part.
Tame: Depends on the adventure of course, but there are a lot of higher level animals that baddies often like to make pets out of. Tame, along with some other spells to support it's use, can be a great way whittle away at an enemies allies before the inevitable final confrontation.
If you have some method of making the concealment one way (non-visual precise sense, Druid smoke sight), eat fire can be used to smoke off every doorway before you open them. Pretty neat.