Talk:Cantrip Specialist (5e Feat)

Balance

Most cantrips aren't balanced to be cast as bonus actions. As soon as you get this feat (at 1st level if you're a variant human), you can use a bonus action to gain advantage on your attack roll every turn, or to gain resistance to bludgeloning/slashing/piercing damage every round, among other things. At 5th level anyone with this feat can cast fire bolt twice in one turn, capable of inflicting an average of 22 damage at a range of up to 240 feet. - Guy (talk) 09:52, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

What if all three benefits were limited to once per day. aka long rest before using a again? BigShotFancyMan (talk) 09:13, 5 October 2017 (MDT)

I know that this is proposed for deletion but I stumbled upon it as I was looking through the Feats section and I have a possible solution to suggest. Remove the bit at the beginning that gives the player a new cantrip and 1st level spell, and make the only requirement for this feat be that the player has already taken the Mage Initiate feat(and maybe also require the War Caster feat if there are still concerns about how early a player can access this feat). The feature as it is has too much going on at once, and this way it makes more sense in the world(you can't just start life as a hardened Battlecaster, you gotta work your way up haha). This feature could last for one minute and then reset on a short rest or long rest(to me short rest would be fine since this would only be good for one encounter between rests). If that is too weak possibly another bullet could be added(but honestly just the bonus action cantrips is quite powerful). Hopefully this will reopen a discussion!--HalfHeartedAvenger (talk) 15:21, 15 May 2018 (MDT)

players would still be able to cast cantrips twice. The distance I’m not too concerned with because warlock with sniper feat and spear can get 600 feet range at level 2. Stacking prerequisites so they can’t take this right away is a good idea in my opinion. If they want it, have to waste decent amount of resource to get it. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 17:28, 15 May 2018 (MDT)

Is allowing the players to cast Cantrips twice something we need to remove? If that's the case we could just change it to allow the casting of a cantrip as a bonus action if it is a followup to a spell. Alternatively, we could just add that only one cantrip is allowed to be cast per turn. I'm honestly not that experienced with magic so I'm not sure what is and is not okay to give casters. Also, in regards to "Guy" and his concerns, I do think that requiring one or two prerequisite feats ease his worries.--HalfHeartedAvenger (talk) 18:10, 15 May 2018 (MDT)

you still have true strike abuse and I haven’t calculated how strong it is to firebolt and fireball in the same round. I think the feat has a place, just a matter of finding it. as I get time I’ll try to think of ways to help. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 04:57, 16 May 2018 (MDT)

Alright let me know if I can help with anything!--HalfHeartedAvenger (talk) 06:25, 16 May 2018 (MDT)

I think that just looking at how good an extra cantrip each turn is from a numbers perspective helps, as by allowing you to use another cantrip on the same turn, you can deal an absurd amount of extra damage in a turn. Fire bolt for example increases your damage every turn by 1d10/2d10/3d10/4d10. Meanwhile, a single ability score increase in your spellcasting ability increases a spellcaster's spell save DC and spell attack modifier by 1, which while nice, doesn't even come close in power to using an extra cantrip in a turn.

Overall I do agree that something much less powerful is likely needed. Here are a few of the random ideas I have come up with.

• Keep one learned cantrip but drop the 1st level spell
• You may reroll one damage die from a spell or cantrip on your turn and must use the new roll.(may still be slightly too powerful with the other effects of this feat)
• You do not have disadvantage on your ranged spell attacks against creatures within 5ft of you.--Blobby383b (talk) 12:45, 17 May 2018 (MDT)

With the removal of level 1 spells or higher, I feel its more cantrip master. Not necessarily a bad thing, I think the feat is much more acceptable this way and that something effecting level 1 or higher would be better as its own thing. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 18:18, 18 May 2018 (MDT)

I agree, the feel of the feat has changed quite a bit. I was thinking of renaming it to Cantrip Caster/Specialist or something else along the line of "strengthening" cantrips(or your suggestion of cantrip master). I will likely try to come up with a few more ideas for names before changing it though.--Blobby383b (talk) 18:30, 18 May 2018 (MDT)

I like the Specialist one too! BigShotFancyMan (talk) 22:26, 18 May 2018 (MDT)

I'm glad you guys were able to adapt this feat to something reasonable like this! also, my vote is for cantrip specialist haha.--HalfHeartedAvenger (talk) 12:27, 19 May 2018 (MDT)