The State of Cantrips for Arcane Users

[DMTalize]

Hello. First topic I've actually made. But this came to mind to me last night when a friend of mine, who is new the server, had real problems as a gnome in the upperdark, which is a different topic.

Anyways I am curious. Has the idea of allowing cantrips be unlimited ever come up? I say this because starting as an arcane user in the server, at least in mine and several others' experience, it's really rough. Especially if you're new to the 3.5 system. Now I generally dislike 5e, but the one thing that it does right (including Pathfinder) is having cantrips be unlimited and the former scales. I really think doing this would make arcane users easier and better to use overall early game, especially if you're solo. It's absolutely horrible that after a few mobs that my character suddenly drops hard in terms of damage and it becomes a slog, or tedious if I just keep running back and forth to rest. Sure, you can be a fighter until level 10 then RCR, but I think this is a poor solution. And if you implemented scaling for these cantrips, they wouldn't become useless mid game (maybe late?) and good for clearing trash without wasting your higher level spells.

Food for thought, would love to hear your opinions.

[Tantive]

You do have some options. There are staves ingame, and in baldurs gate, with spells upon them that you can attune to your caster level. Some of them have unlimited casting. These can help.

[DMTalize]

You do have some options. There are staves ingame, and in baldurs gate, with spells upon them that you can attune to your caster level. Some of them have unlimited casting. These can help.

Isn't a good chunk of staffs expensive to get? Especially if you're just starting.

[Tantive]

It isn't that out of reach for you if you are stringent with your first purchases, and get a bit of questing + loot sold.

[DMTalize]

I don't think that is a great solution, especially when the first few levels this is out of reach for you. From what I am told they go for 29k in gold. It will be a bit before you can get there, and will be especially painful if you are a race that takes longer to level. Still, knowing that these exist is great to know, and somebody in my group will get a newbie one who just started playing. So thank you.

[Louvaine]

It would certainly be more interesting to see variety of cantrips or even 1st level spells being cast than everyone using the same staves (mostly magic missile), but the truth is that it's probably better for your friend to get one of those staves. If he struggles with gold, I'm sure someone in UD will help them out. Maybe through employment.

[DMTalize]

We bought him one. However not everyone will have this luxury. If you're new someone might be nice enough but that won't always be the case, especially during the dead hours.