List your three favorite cantrips

[Sandeman]

List your three favorite cantrips.
And explain why you like them.

1 Prestidigitation. Very useful utility wise and classic.
2 Firebolt. 1d10 fire damage is never wrong. You can even aim at objects.
3 Control Flames. I just like it for its cool effects.

[Naanomi]

Magic Stone: opens up unique buildspace

Mage Hand: great utility, especially with add ons like feat and arcane trickster

Mind Sliver: best 'does useful stuff besides damage' combat cantrip

[JackPhoenix]

1. Prestidigitation: Mandatory for anyone who has it on its list.
2. Chill Touch: Other than the ability to attack objects, superior to Fire Bolt
2. Mage Hand: So many things you can do if you can just reach something 30' away.... even better if you get it through Telekinetic.

[whateew]

I love guidance - incredibly useful, but also flavourful when casting with an artificer or something.
I like minor illusion (flexible, reliable) and friends (interesting, wacky)

[da newt]

Minor Illusion - so many shenanigans

[Pex]

Minor Illusion - Very flexible uses
Message - Communication is important when you absolutely need it
Mage Hand - Always handy to have around, no pun intended

[8wGremlin]

Real world choices, and usually my go to cantrips:

Guidance - a +5 to +20% bonus on all your skill checks, yes please.
Prestidigitation - the versatility of this cantrip is astounding.
Mold Earth/Shape water - excellent uses again, a very versatile with some creative thinking.

If your looking for more combat ones
Eldritch blast - again a big longbow in your pocket.
Primal Savagery - often overlooked combat spell, melee attack 1d10 acid, and they don't see a weapon until it's too late.
Mind Sliver - very cool spell, with extra goodness with the save penalty

[Kane0]

Mold Earth, Minor Illusion and Mage Hand.
Honourable mention to mending and message.

I feel like Prestidigitation, Druidcraft and Thaumaturgy should be disqualified because they each do at least 4 different things.

[Luccan]

Minor Illusion
The Metal Gear Cardboard Box of low-level magic. You thought this clearing was full of shrubs, but it's actually 15 forest gnomes with crossbows.

Mage Hand
This and Prestidigitation are the "chores" cantrips, but this is the one that will generally see more "screentime". It's a great tool any time you can't just walk up to an object without consequences.

Shillelagh
This isn't really useful past low-levels, especially since Druids and Nature Clerics never get Extra Attack, it's a waste of Magical Secrets, and Tomelocks aren't really meleers, but I like it. It's at least really good at low levels, since the damage is magical and your casting stat boosts your damage. Plus, I like spells that deal with objects in the world.

[Randel]

Mold Earth - You can basically play as a novice earthbender.

Guidance - A boost to skill checks.

Eldritch Blast - The best damage dealing cantrip and a must have if you're a warlock.

[Yakmala]

1: Guidance: Always useful. Sometimes the difference between success and catastrophic failure.

2: Mage Hand: Dozens of uses, many of which will, in the right circumstances, prevent massive amounts of harm. Even better when you have invisible mage hand.

3: Prestidigitation: A fantastic non-combat cantrip. If you can't find a good use for it at least once per session, you're not really trying.

[Tanarii]

I'm excluding ranged attack spells, 'cause most casters will take one of those.

1. Message (such an underrated cantrip)
2. Minor Illusion*
3. Shocking Grasp or Thorn Whip (depends on if you want to get away or bring the enemy to you)

*even with a DM that takes a pretty hard line on what is an object, eg no perfect 2D paintings of perspectives or miniature models of battlefield terrain.

Other than True Strike, my least favorite / most overrated are Prestidigitation and Thaumaturgy. They're fine if you want an RP tool, but otherwise are so low impact as to be useless, they feel like a wasted pick. OTOH Druidcraft is nice if you're outdoors much, predicting weather for next 24 hours makes it worth a taking for least on person.

[Dalinar]

Gonna say Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, and Eldritch Blast for reasons others have outlined, but I just wanna recognize how Eldritch Blast is basically the only fully customizable cantrip in the game, provided you don't mind taking levels in Warlock.

Extra damage, extra range, push, pull, slow: pick up to two, and if you want more, grab more levels.

(Mage Hand is kinda close, I guess, in that you can buff it with Arcane Trickster levels and the Telekinesis feat.)

If it were up to me, I'd double down on this by having a Warlock's Eldritch Blast do something slightly different based on patron (change the damage type, or maybe a small rider of some kind--it's very strong already, though), or perhaps by Pact Boon, but that's another thread.

[Forevaxp]

1. Resistance -for when you know that you or someone else will need to make a save out of combat
2. Shape Water -excellent utility
2. Shocking Grasp -damage cantrip with advantage against those wearing metal armor and it eats up the target’s reaction so you can get away without disengaging if you want to; overall a solid choice

[Battlebooze]

No big shakes here I'm sure, but I'll throw my two cents in.

1: Guidance.
That +1d4 is really handy. My DM doesn't allow guidance to effect extended activities like research, but it works fine for trap searches, lock pick attempts, pick pocketing, long jumping, and so on.

2: Minor Illusion.
Making a little cover for hiding is always useful and the sound effect version is super nice if you're sneaking around. Since the cantrip is somatic only, you won't automatically blow your hide if you need something to distract people away from where you are.

3:Thaumaturgy. I used to think this was only so so, then I noticed the door opening ability. Opening or closing an unlocked door or window from 30 feet away is really nice to counter quite a few traps. Being able to yell really loud is also handy to yell for help.

Runner up, Prestidigitation.
Just useful all the time for all sorts of things.

[Jerrykhor]

1. Vicious Mockery - Your target dying from sick burns and roasts will never be not funny.

2. Thaumaturgy - Booming voice. Great. Minor ground tremor? Why not. Alter appearance of eyes? Hell yes. FEAR ME!

3. Toll the Dead - Dolorous bells are cool, D12 die is nice. Its normally followed by Metallica's For Whom the Bell Tolls.

[Randel]

2. Thaumaturgy - Booming voice. Great. Minor ground tremor? Why not. Alter appearance of eyes? Hell yes. FEAR ME!

There's also the shenanigans you can get into by making doors and windows open or close themselves.

I've heard stories on reddit about clerics using it on enemies by having windows or doors fly open to smack them, or by praying at the floor to make trap doors stay closed as they run across a trapped hallway.

Actually, if the same thing applies to the the lids of unlocked chests, you could probably use it to open trapped chests or make them slam closed when an enemy tries getting what's inside. Or help out the rogue by using thaumaturgy to open trapped doors.

Or be a rogue who took magic initiate so they can magicaly open/close doors or cause distracting earthquakes.

[Vrock Bait]

Disregard, wrong edition.

[Ortho]

Disregard

I know this is a blooper, but I'd love to see what a cantrip named Disregard does. Makes the target forget one sentence you said within the last minute?

My list:

Minor Illusion. The only upper limit is your imagination.
Vicious Mockery. It's just plain fun to insult people. Never gets old.
Thaumaturgy. This one holds a special place in my heart, as I've ruled that it can cause earthquakes - turns out there's no upper limit to how big a door you can slam. And, say your DM foolishly miscalculates a vault door and makes it weigh as much as a battleship....

[JumboWheat01]

Imma ignore Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy and Druidcraft, they're all great flavorful cantrips and I always have them on characters that have access to them, but I need some variety in this list.


Light - Does a very simple job and does it well.
Mending - Sure, it's more of a downtime thing, but free repairs for normal stuff is free repairs.
Vicous Mockery - The most bardic thing possible.



Honorable shout-outs include Guidance for just being such a great little buff, Concentration aside, Eldritch Blast for being the best damage cantrip, and Message for being a simple little stealthy cantrip.

[Segev]

Minor illusion, control flames, shape water.

They each do something fun, to me, and have flexible uses.

Close runners-up were mage hand and prestidigitation.

[Eldariel]

Minor Illusion: This is just infinitely versatile and a lot of fun. Both, images and sounds have their uses: it can create hiding places, concealment, obstacles, misleading tracks, maps, text, etc. And you can mimic anyone's voice, you can create any natural sound, you can create basically anything. "How do I solve this encounter with Minor Illusion" is always a fun subgame to play.

Mold Earth: Tunnel? Yes. Fortify camps in the evening? Yes. Portable cover? Yes. Basically the best way to till land ever? Absolutely. Build your own stairs, create underground safehouses, bury people alive (over a couple of turns provided they're incapacitated), etc.

Prestidigitation: This is the choice between Prestidigitation, Shape Water, Control Flames, Guidance, Thaumaturgy, and Druidcraft. Of the three "do stuff"-spells, Prestidigitation is broadly the most versatile and interesting - it has more open-ended features. Now, Prestidigitation vs. Shape Water and Control Flame is really close; elemental spells rock in that they don't have Verbals so using them stealthily is much easier. But while Shape Water can create basically anything and Control Flame is the best vision spell in the game, Prestidigitation just does all the cool minor stuff you want one: clean up before going to town/meeting important people, keeps your drinks chill and food warm, lets you replicate items (for a very short duration), etc. Mage Hand is the last spell on this list but I feel it's sufficiently replicated by e.g. Unseen Servant that I'm not as enamoured by it.

[Pex]

Warlock can do fine with Shilellagh if he takes Booming Blade along with it. It's player choice whether it's worth it to commit two Cantrips as a Tomelock to have a decent melee attack for those times he needs it.

[Tanarii]

Prestidigitation just does all the cool minor stuff you want one: clean up before going to town/meeting important people, keeps your drinks chill and food warm, lets you replicate items (for a very short duration), etc.
It lets you make illusions of hand held items. It cannot replicate them. Arguably it might work if you're attempting to replicate a handheld-sized trinket, which is an ornament/piece of jewelry.

[Eldariel]

It lets you make illusions of hand held items. It cannot replicate them. Arguably it might work if you're attempting to replicate a handheld-sized trinket, which is an ornament/piece of jewelry.

Trinkets are what I was referring to. However, what constitutes "trinket" is really fuzzy so it's entirely down to DM purview. FWIW the Trinket-list (https://www.aidedd.org/en/rules/equipment/trinkets/) has all sorts of nonsense but whether the clause refers to that is, as ever, unclear.

[Ir0ns0ul]

Mage Hand, Minor Illusion and Toll the Dead.

[NaughtyTiger]

thorn whip... there are other cantrips?

[KorvinStarmast]

Guidance
Mage Hand
Thorn Whip

While I really like minor illusion, due to its flexibility, those three are pretty good. But if I see a lot of Mind Splinter in play, I might move it into the top three.

I leave ranged cantrips in their own category, since they are (to me) a matter of choosing a weapon.

[Segev]

Mold Earth: Tunnel? Yes. Fortify camps in the evening? Yes. Portable cover? Yes. Basically the best way to till land ever? Absolutely. Build your own stairs, create underground safehouses, bury people alive (over a couple of turns provided they're incapacitated), etc.

I'm not sure you can actually tunnel with this. It only works on "loose earth," which hardly can be counted on to hold its shape overhead. Sadly, it's very DM-dependent on what he defines "loose earth" as, as well, whether it is useful in a broad range of landscapes or only in an extremely narrow few.

[Cicciograna]

It lets you make illusions of hand held items. It cannot replicate them. Arguably it might work if you're attempting to replicate a handheld-sized trinket, which is an ornament/piece of jewelry.

I actually once used Prestidigitation to create the illusion of a symbol, a coin that I had to show to prove my belonging to some secret society. That, corroborated by a robust Charisma check, granted me access to the cool club where secret stuff happened.

[Ogre Mage]

1. Eldritch blast. Warlock invocations make this the most powerful, versatile attack cantrip in the game. And force damage is almost never resisted.

2. Guidance. May the odds forever be in your favor.

3. Mage hand. I have never played in a campaign where this was not useful at some point. Using it to open doors when you are not sure what awaits you is one example.

[Kenny_Snoggins]

1. Eldritch blast. Warlock invocations make this the most powerful, versatile attack cantrip in the game. And force damage is almost never resisted.

2. Guidance. May the odds forever be in your favor.

3. Mage hand. I have never played in a campaign where this was not useful at some point. Using it to open doors when you are not sure what awaits you is one example.

Those are definitely my most-used cantrips so I'll go with the fun ones

1. THORN WHIP-- If you have a flying mount or are fighting in precarious terrain this one is great, not so much because of the damage, but the roleplay moments I've had come out of it. Favorite moment with it was fighting in Chult, and an arch-mage was griefing the party with powerful AOE spells from a perch high up on the parapet of a ziggurat. My HexBard (book of secrets for thorn whip, guidance, and resistance) on 'Find Greater Steed' Griffon dashed up and around the pyramid, hit him with Thorn Whip from maximum range, pulled him off his perch, and he splatted after taking a hundred feet of falling damage.

2. MIND SLIVER-- A great 'combat utility' cantrip. With my Eloquence bard, it's the first part of a 3-way combo that will nuke anyone without legendary resistance by reducing their save to nothing. The DM knows what's coming when that first part of the burn-down hits, and will have to spend a LR on the next save or just accept that in all likelihood the big monster is going to hit with something nasty and have to make the save at -1D4, -1D10. Great for draining enemy resources but makes you draw ALL the aggro.

3. MINOR ILLUSION-- I tend to use the sound component of this one more, along with a cleric casting Thaumaturgy. In dense environments when stalked by animalistic predators, it's simple to make the sound and smell of more vulnerable game crashing through the undergrowth nearby and ward off the animals hunting you, at least for a while as the party climbs trees or gets into a better formation. That's just a no-brainer use, but the possibilities are endless.

[Witty Username]

Prestidigitation, every wizard should have it in my mind.
Minor illusion, its a goofy spell, useful in combat and out of combat, I like using it for entertainment value.
Ray of frost, I prefer it to other damage cantrips because of the slow effect.

[ImproperJustice]

Yeah! I wanna join in!

1. Mold Earth: It’s uses are all over, but it is just so handy for out of combat stuff.

2. Shape Water: for a lot of the same reasons above.

3. Fire Bolt: because it’s a good solid damage cantrip that does what it says. Any non-warlock shouldn’t leave home without it.

[Saelethil]

Prestidigitation: incredibly flavorful (no pun intended) and useful if you’re creative.
Guidance: fantastic out of combat buff.
Message: communication is key

In a low RP, high combat campaign I would take Eldritch Blast over Message

[RogueJK]

Guidance - Constantly useful, and allows for a ton of flavorful adaptation to fit the varying personalities of different characters
Minor Illusion - The ultimate flexible utility spell, capable of a huge variety of options
Mage Hand - Telekinesis/remote manipulation is always handy (pun intended)

[Necrosnoop110]

Minor Illusion
Mold Earth
Mage Hand

Can I take Cantrips that start with M for $200, Alex?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Let's go with...

Guidance: one of the few teaching-like effects in the game, and pretty strong to boot.
Mold Earth: because there are so many problems you can solve by digging a large enough hole.
Create Bonfire: because it's the least subtle way of casting light, or to light your cooking fire. Also a pretty good spell for positional play, for instance on an eldritch knight with polearm master.

[Jon talks a lot]

1. Eldritch Blast
2. Why would you ever cast anything but Eldritch Blast
3. See 2

[WaroftheCrans]

I feel like Prestidigitation, Druidcraft and Thaumaturgy should be disqualified because they each do at least 4 different things.

And mage hand and minor illusion don't? :-)

My three are probably toll the dead, dancing lights and booming blade if I'm going to stay away from those 5.

[Kane0]

And mage hand and minor illusion don't? :-)


In a manner of speaking.

Prestidigitation:
- Makes a sensory effect
- Flavors
- Cleans/soils
- Heats/Cools
- puts markings on surfaces
- creates a handheld image

Mage hand is 5lbs worth of telekinesis

Minor illusion makes one sound or one image up to 5’ big.

The number of applications are theroetically limitless between them but Prestidigitation just covers more categories of stuff it can accomplish.

[Tanarii]

The number of applications are theroetically limitless between them but Prestidigitation just covers more categories of stuff it can accomplish.
Except only one of them is useful outside quality of life as a dirty adventurer with poorly cooked food, and only if you're doing sleight of hand tricks.

[Luccan]

Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy, and Druidcraft could probably just be ribbon class features. They provide the absolute minimum you'd expect of magic users. Artificer basically gets its own souped-up class cantrip at level 1 and 4E Monks also get a specialized cantrip, so it's not all that big a deal. You can chuck them on other stuff as appropriate: Divine Soul and Celestial Warlocks either get both or can choose between Prestidigitation and Thaumaturgy, maybe let Bards pick between Druidcraft and Prstdgtn, EKs and ATs get Prstdgtn at level 3, part of Magic Initiate (and maybe some of the other spell granting feats) is the class appropriate option, and you could either give Thaum. and DC to Paladins and Rangers outright or grant them along with the two cantrips if they take the fighting style that grants cantrips. Throw them out to other appropriate subclasses, maybe.

[Tanarii]

Prestidigitation, Thaumaturgy, and Druidcraft could probably just be ribbon class features. They provide the absolute minimum you'd expect of magic users.
Yup. That'd be far better than having to waste a cantrip pick on them. And it would give classes that feel of all-Magic, all the time, at a super low power setting. They're not even level 0 cantrip spells, they're so weak.