Looking for homebrew: upcasting cantrips

[FrancisBean]

The title pretty much says it. I'm looking for homebrew people have done on upcasting cantrips. Ideally, something that's seen some playtesting so we know it isn't totally broken. Has anybody played with it?

[MrCharlie]

The title pretty much says it. I'm looking for homebrew people have done on upcasting cantrips. Ideally, something that's seen some playtesting so we know it isn't totally broken. Has anybody played with it?
I modified the abberant dragonmarks from eberron for my own campaign, and one of the benefits-as I felt the feat was grossly underpowered-was that you could use a hit dice to upcast any spell from your class. Further, you could do this for cantrips, and increase their damage by an amount equal to the dice rolled.

I can't help you otherwise, because cantrips are specifically tied to character level rather than spell level, so somehow tying the two is A. pointless and B. somewhat impossible.

I suppose the easiest would be to simply let the damage dice increase by one step if you cast it using a slot, up to a d12-there should be no issue with that balance wise, because by the time this becomes a viable tactic in terms of spell slots you can unmake enemies into dust, and burning first level spells for that kind of increase is almost silly. Why do you want to upcast cantrips, anyway?

[FrancisBean]

Why do you want to upcast cantrips, anyway?

We're toying with a homebrew wild sorcerer where the fluff is all about pouring uncontrolled energy through normal spell channels. There's no reason, in theory, why the same thing couldn't apply to cantrips. I figured a good place to look for ideas on that would be cantrip upcasting ideas from the forum, as weird as it might seem.

In other words, I'm idea farming for future homebrew for my table.

[clash]

I have used a rule where cantrips just gain an extra damage die for each spell slot level. So a level 5 caster that casts firebolt with a first level spell deals 3d10 damage.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

The title pretty much says it. I'm looking for homebrew people have done on upcasting cantrips. Ideally, something that's seen some playtesting so we know it isn't totally broken. Has anybody played with it?

It makes characters less likely to pick damage spells giving them more slots for utility spells or to target other saves if they are really damage orientated.

Also, have you done anything to assist the martial characters in the party? Maybe the optional flanking rules?

[FrancisBean]

Also, have you done anything to assist the martial characters in the party? Maybe the optional flanking rules?

Flanking and a battlemat are de rigeur at my table.

[CNagy]

Although it ended up only occasionally used, I let my magic-types in a low magic campaign use a spell level to maximize a damage die for cantrips starting at 5th, with a limit of 1 less than the total dice (ex. Firebolt can be cast as a 1st lvl spell for 10+1d10 damage at 5th, 2nd lvl for 20+1d10 at 11th, 3rd lvl for 30+1d10 at 17th).

[Ninja_Prawn]

We have a whole base class focused on cantrips! It's called the warmage, and it's been thoroughly playtested. It's one of our most popular classes, so loads of people gave us feedback on it. The final version is available for free here (https://mfov.magehandpress.com/2018/01/warmage-redux.html). We've also got an expanded book (not free) here (https://store.magehandpress.com/products/complete-warmage) that has extra subclasses, setting lore, new magic items etc.