[4e] Removing Cantrips from Wizards

[LibraryOgre]

Ok, just wondering of what people think of this idea.

Wizards no longer have four cantrips as an at-will ability because they are wizards. Instead, those cantrips are available to anyone with Ritual casting who is trained in Arcana (which includes all wizards, but can include other characters). Furthermore, there may be some similar cantrips available to ritual casters who know Nature or Religion.

[RPGuru1331]

Sure. It's not like the cantrips were needed for balance. They're flavor; Putting them into Ritual Casting makes total sense from a fluff standpoint, at least to me.

[Nerd-o-rama]

So will they be 0-level Rituals, or just Powers that come free with your purchase of the Ritual feat?

[Randel]

Great, now rogues can create instant distractions with a minor action by using mage hand or light, then when they steal stuff they can create a duplicate of it in the originals place to mess with people, or make their daggers invisible right until they stab someone in the face.

And since clerics and warlocks both have arcana as a class skill and clerics get Ritual Caster for free, then a cleric can create all the illusionary lights and sounds they want at level 1 if they just train in arcana.

***

Cleric (praying): Oh mighty Pelor, if it is your will then please tell us if this man is indeed guilty of the crime he is accused of.

Ghost Sound of Pelors Voice: He's guilty as sin! Take him away to the gibbering mouther pit... but leave those boots of speed here. My loyal Cleric could use those.

Wizard (being dragged away): Dammit! Can't you see he's taking you all for fools? Hes just using a cantrip to fake you all out and steal your money. He's a sham I tell you, a SHAAAM!

Cleric (to himself): God I love magic.

***

I mean, sure it makes sense in one way... but thats a class feature for wizards. Wizards have a variety of powers for area attacks and stuff but their main draw is their rituals, their variety of knowledge skills, and the tricks they can pull of with their cantrips. You start handing away everything that makes wizards unique and then why would anyone play them?

Are we next going to let people make Pacts where every enemy they kill lets them use one of the warlock powers? Maybe let rogues mark their targets, or paladins can sneak attack their enemies with a crossbow? For free?

Madness I say! Madness!


Though maybe I would say that if someone were to multi class into wizard then they should be able to take one cantrip to use at-will in addition to the encounter version of a wizard at-will attack.

I always saw the cantrips are a sort of nonlethal training verion of a wizards arcane powers. Prestidigitations ability to make stuff invisible teaches one to cast invisibility later, mage hand teaches about force effects like magic missile or conjurations like cloud of daggers. And ghost sound fits builds into later illusion spells or thunder spells like thunderwave.

Cantrips are the building blocks of wizard spells, not of rituals.

[Kurald Galain]

Ok, just wondering of what people think of this idea.

To me, it doesn't really make sense. Rituals are expensive huge things that take a long time to prepare and to cast. Cantrips are tiny and free things that you can pull off as a minor action (and ironically, have more practical use than rituals do). If anything, the cantrip is the polar opposite of the ritual.

[FoE]

Although it's not a really big thing, it does detract from the specialness of wizards somewhat. Aren't they pretty gimped already?

[Glimbur]

I've been in the habit of casting Light every turn because I don't have a better use for my minor action, and it actually saved our bacon versus some sort of Shadow Bat thing that gets lots of bonus damage in shadowy lighting. I've also seen Mage Hand used to try to rescue a Maguffin from the bad guys.

[Raum]

Ok, just wondering of what people think of this idea.

Wizards no longer have four cantrips as an at-will ability because they are wizards. Instead, those cantrips are available to anyone with Ritual casting who is trained in Arcana (which includes all wizards, but can include other characters). Furthermore, there may be some similar cantrips available to ritual casters who know Nature or Religion.Should work just fine. We did something similar back in second edition - used a skill roll for cantrips.

[LibraryOgre]

Should work just fine. We did something similar back in second edition - used a skill roll for cantrips.

There was an article in Dragon about doing that... something like 225. It was called "The Little Wish", and was a fantastic rule.

[Yakk]

These are all trained only uses of the skill that requires Ritual Casting
Arcana DC 10: Cast a cantrip from a book of cantrips. This requires at least a standard action, possession of the book (50 gp), and the book held in your hand.

Arcana DC 20: Cast a cantrip as a standard action without the book.

Arcana DC 30: Cast a cantrip as a minor action.

This lets everyone cast cantrips, but Wizards are those with a natural affinity to them that makes casting Cantrips really easy for them.

A level 30 character with Arcana training and 20 int needs to roll a 5 on a d20 to cast a cantrip as a minor action. A level 1 character who is trained with a 12 int needs to roll a 4+ to cast a cantrip from a book of cantrips as a standard action.

[Hal]

What if you made other Cantrips which could be used in this way?

One of the things I miss in 4e is all the utility spells. I play a cleric, and I never use magic outside of combat.

If you think about it, these ought to be specialized to the class. A cleric might learn Light, but Ghost Sound and Mage Hand don't make sense.

[Erk]

I'd much rather see a new set of cantrips that are available for all, keeping Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, and Ghost Sound for the wizard. Allow a character to choose one (1) cantrip at-will when taking Ritual Caster, and be able to learn new cantrips exactly as rituals are learned.

Cantrip ideas
Light (as per wizard cantrip)
Purify food/drink
Detect evil (sure as heck wouldn't be allowed in my campaigns though)
Detect poison/impurities
Know direction

Other ideas welcome, as you can tell I just quickly glanced at the SRD for some thoughts.