Cantrips scale off of class level or total level?

[Bellberith]

Okay, as title, spells like shocking grasp, eldritch blast, and fire bolt. that sort of stuff.

and if you could, please tell me where in the PhB i can find where it says the answer.

also, aside from proficiency bonus, is there anything else that scales off of TOTAL class levels?

[akaddk]

Character level.

[Bellberith]

Character level.

honestly that doesnt help. Can you please quote something somewhere for an official ruling? or why you think its that way.

[Totema]

I'm fairly sure they meant it to scale with total (or character) level, as there's a couple non-class based abilities that give a character some cantrips.

[Falka]

honestly that doesnt help. Can you please quote something somewhere for an official ruling? or why you think its that way.

"... this spells increases it's damage once you reach 5th level, 11th level, 17 level..."

Doesn't say anywhere that it's a class based level.

[Bellberith]

"... this spells increases it's damage once you reach 5th level, 11th level, 17 level..."

Doesn't say anywhere that it's a class based level.

Thats true, but there are tons of class abilities that can be interpreted the same way "gain x at x level" "increases to x at x level" do you gain those also?

[hymer]

The class chart clears those up, and they are under a specific class. Spells are under spells. I realize it isn't convincing a DM who's against the idea, but the only reason I can think of to think cantrips didn't scale would be preconception against it.

[ambartanen]

Class level was never used in spells, caster level was but the concept doesn't exist in this edition.

I think the Magic Initiate feat is a pretty good example of this- you gain the ability to cast two cantrips and one first level spell once a day. You don't need any class levels in a spellcasting class to qualify so clearly the spells go off of a character's level.

[akaddk]

Class level was never used in spells, caster level was but the concept doesn't exist in this edition.

I think the Magic Initiate feat is a pretty good example of this- you gain the ability to cast two cantrips and one first level spell once a day. You don't need any class levels in a spellcasting class to qualify so clearly the spells go off of a character's level.

The 1st-level spell from that feat can only be cast at the minimum level. The cantrips scale with character level, however.

[hymer]

The 1st-level spell from that feat can only be cast at the minimum level.

I can't think of a non-cantrip spell which scales with level. So I think that refers to casting a spell from a higher level spell slot.

[Falka]

Thats true, but there are tons of class abilities that can be interpreted the same way "gain x at x level" "increases to x at x level" do you gain those also?

Class Features aren't gained through character level. For instance, you cannot get a Rogue Archetype with 1 single Rogue level, even if your character is 4th level.

Cantrips, however, only refer to levels (5th level...), not spell levels (like Color Spray: "If you cast this spell at a higher spell level...")

As another poster said (hymer), 1st level spells and higher do not use this wording, they expressly mention "spell levels".

Do I need 5 levels in the "Tiefling Class" to gain Darkness? No, I just need to reach 5th level as a PC. That could be Fighter 1 / Rogue 1 / Wizard 3, but my character level is still 5th.

[Bellberith]

Class Features aren't gained through character level. For instance, you cannot get a Rogue Archetype with 1 single Rogue level, even if your character is 4th level.

Cantrips, however, only refer to levels (5th level...), not spell levels (like Color Spray: "If you cast this spell at a higher spell level...")

As another poster said (hymer), 1st level spells and higher do not use this wording, they expressly mention "spell levels".

Do I need 5 levels in the "Tiefling Class" to gain Darkness? No, I just need to reach 5th level as a PC. That could be Fighter 1 / Rogue 1 / Wizard 3, but my character level is still 5th.

tiefling is a race, not a class............

and like i was saying you can use warlock invocations and monk 4 elements with similar wording / pre-reqs... however going 13 fighter then 2 warlock and gaining witch sight would just be stupid.

[ambartanen]

I can't think of a non-cantrip spell which scales with level. So I think that refers to casting a spell from a higher level spell slot.

Yes, level is only relevant for non-cantrip spells in the sense of the spell level of the slot expended. That feat just gives you one first level spell slot to use for the spell but is worded a little strangely to avoid giving a boost to caster who might take the feat.


and like i was saying you can use warlock invocations and monk 4 elements with similar wording / pre-reqs... however going 13 fighter then 2 warlock and gaining witch sight would just be stupid.
That whole deal with warlock invocations is actually a bit of a mystery. It just refers to "level" and the only levels in the system are character levels and spell slot levels therefore it seems a something 13/warlock 2 can pick up Witch Sight just fine. It doesn't even seem all that broken because, while witch sight is quite awesome, you are giving up really awesome things in other classes to get it.

[Caelic]

That whole deal with warlock invocations is actually a bit of a mystery. It just refers to "level" and the only levels in the system are character levels and spell slot levels therefore it seems a something 13/warlock 2 can pick up Witch Sight just fine. It doesn't even seem all that broken because, while witch sight is quite awesome, you are giving up really awesome things in other classes to get it.


Absolutely. Let's look at the cost of opportunity just by not taking those last two levels of fighter:

1. You're giving up an ability score improvement/feat, which is a big deal.
2. You're giving up your third extra attack, which is also a big deal.
3. You're postponing your level 14 ability score improvement until level 16 (not to mention postponing all of your subsequent fighter features for two more levels.)

Stacked up against all of that, to be honest, Witch Sight seems pretty darned underwhelming.

[Chaosvii7]

tiefling is a race, not a class...

That's why it's in quotation marks. He knows it's not a class, but it's an applicable example in that Tieflings have scalar abilities that aren't tied to class level, but character level.

Literary deduction is a pretty big key here. The game doesn't need to bog itself down with different interpretations of a level(class, character, caster) because of general vs. specific: Invocations are tied to Warlock level because they're with the Warlock class. Same with all archetype benefits. The charts govern your level in that class, not your total level.

Because Cantrips apply to everybody and not just one class, nor do they apply to just spellcasters thanks to feats, races, and archetypes, they're intended to scale with total character level. They are unmarried from a class so their levels are separate.

[Bellberith]

Absolutely. Let's look at the cost of opportunity just by not taking those last two levels of fighter:

1. You're giving up an ability score improvement/feat, which is a big deal.
2. You're giving up your third extra attack, which is also a big deal.
3. You're postponing your level 14 ability score improvement until level 16 (not to mention postponing all of your subsequent fighter features for two more levels.)

Stacked up against all of that, to be honest, Witch Sight seems pretty darned underwhelming.

It was an example, obviously there are better combinations to do this with. like giving up 2 level of bard is pretty good, whereas giving up 2 levels of druid is just stupid. and getting witch sight may not be the best either.... there are other things.

[ambartanen]

It was an example, obviously there are better combinations to do this with. like giving up 2 level of bard is pretty good, whereas giving up 2 levels of druid is just stupid. and getting witch sight may not be the best either.... there are other things.

Sounds fairly balanced to me :smallsmile:

I am not discounting the possibility of there being some pretty nice combinations but it seems like it's giving you more options without making one universally superior to the others. I think the reason for level restrictions on some invocations is just to ensure warlocks don't get goodies before anyone else possibly could or don't get an at-will of something before other casters can afford to easily use that power a few times a day at least. That said waiting until level X to get that power seems good enough and there's no reason to require a warlock be single class to make use of it.

[rlc]

yeah, that's the point. you can go with 2 levels of warlock and get witchsight if that's what you really want to doo, but it's a trade off.

[Falka]

tiefling is a race, not a class............

and like i was saying you can use warlock invocations and monk 4 elements with similar wording / pre-reqs... however going 13 fighter then 2 warlock and gaining witch sight would just be stupid.

Exactly, and yet is says "gain this spell at 5th level". Class features are tied to class levels, since they show up in the class table at specific levels.

You do not gain extra class feautres by just dipping 1 level in a class. That's stupid.

[Vowtz]

I would say cantrips scaling is based on character total level.

Unfortunately, a lot of 5e rules are poorly written, leaving up loose ends that can cause confusion between different players or different tables.

This "amateurish" rules design was supposed to add simplicity to the whole system, and empower DMs into establishing his own interpretations on the fly.

What we see is the exact opposit, poorly written rules leave ambiguity that confounds both players and DMs, making some rules a lot more complex.

An example are the warlock class invocations, some of it's prerequisits mention just "level".

If you go by character level you can, by level 5, get an ability similar to "extra attack" even if you multiclass. And if you do something like Sorcerer 8 / warlock 4, you will meet prerequisits to both "pseudo extra attack" and "charisma added to melee damage" with just 4 warlock levels, instead of 12.

I don't know if that is unbalanced or not, but I understand if some DMs interpret that as "warlock levels", instead of "character level".

The lead d&d designer, (who is treated like a god by a lot of people, I can't see why) when asked about warlock prerequisits, if it's class level or total character level had this answer:


"Use what is best for you game"


That pretty much translates like "I don't know / I don't care".

If the lead d&d designer don't care about ambiguous rules, then we can expect to have a lot of that in the game, therefore you will have to stop your game and ask your DM for his interpretation before doing some things, and some character that are highly optimized in one table will be average/bad on others.

[Falka]

The whole issue would be clearer if they just named "spell levels" differently. In my tabletop group, we call them "spell spheres". So you have 1st Sphere, 2 Sphere, 3 Sphere... It makes the distinction quite obvious.

When a spell says: "At higher levels", it means "At a higher sphere level" (spell level).

When a cantrip says "this spell gets stronger with higher levels", it means character level (since it doesn't call it "spell level", aka sphere).

My players understand the spell system easily this way.

[ambartanen]

That's pretty cool. I like the mental image of nestled spheres better than levels too.

[Beige]

character level - unless it's part of a class feature or specified otherwise, you always use character level in 5e. And cantrips aren't a class feature - getting them is, but their use is not.

so a fighter 20 who took Magic Initiate and got eldritch blast can shoot of four blasts a round if he wants to