Cantrips - Treantmonk's recommended

hey gamers it's Chris here with tree monks temple where knowledge is power so in my last video I mentioned that I wasn't gonna be doing anything for canned trips because canned trips I don't really have very many interesting things to say about but then I had a number of people asked me if I might do contra video anyways because newer players could use a little bit of guidance on which which ones to take so this is not going to be a formal video like like my spell level videos I won't be talking about what's overrated or underrated this is going to be a video for beginners to give them a little bit of guidance on what kind of can trips to take so if you're an experienced player and you have a good handle on canned trips this video is probably not for you but if you're a beginner and you're wondering which can troops are good which ones maybe you should skip then this video is for you [Music] so guys I could spend a pretty long video explaining why I don't recommend certain kin trips so instead I'm going to do is I'm just going to narrow down to can trips I do recommend and a quick reason why I recommend them so the first of all I'm going to recommend the first contra I'm going to recommend is minor illusion minor illusion is a can trip I'm always going to take if it's available on the spell list of the class I'm playing because I find that this is a spell that I always can find a use for if I am looking for something useful to do it can create either a visible illusion or an audio illusion and either case it doesn't use your concentration and that's a big deal for illusion spells because illusions tend to use your concentration so it's something that the can trip illusion doesn't the biggest use of this is going to be controlling what people can see so if you create illusion in front of yourself in combat let's say it's a gimmick illusion of a rock so they can't see you which means they can't target you it means if they attack their attacking blindly and it means that you can see them so you can still target them and because I can't see you you'd even get advantage on those attacks now as soon as it that illusion is revealed then it's no use to you anymore but that kind of views is so good that this is worth it just from that alone but then of course there's always creative uses for it maybe you make a sound of reinforcements arriving or you create an illusion of a pile of gold that might entice enemies little things like that you're going to think of them as you play and whenever you think about this spell you can usually find something good to do with it so it's always as I said the first one I take if it's available to my class the second spell I'm going to recommend usually is on a different list than the miner illusion and that's guidance so guidance then becomes a can trip I always take if it's available on my can trip list what guides will do is you caster on somebody and the next time they make an ability check within the duration of one minute they get an extra D floor as added as a bonus now what makes this good is that happens a lot we usually or quite often know before we're gonna make an ability check that's why it's different than a saving throw and why I don't recommend resistance so if I'm going to sneak across a room I cast a guidance first again after D for now I'm going to unlock a chest I'm gonna cast guidance and I'm gonna plus four on those theives tools then I'm going to search for secret doors past this get an extra D for on that search role just over and over and over again we make a building checks we know we're gonna make them so then we can cast a spell get the extra d4 and you're gonna get to use it a ton and so although a d4 isn't a huge bonus because you're doing it so often this adds up to quite a bit in the long run the next spell I'm going to recommend is Eldridge blast now that's just a warlock spell and so this is just for warlocks warlocks should pretty much always take orders blast unless they're making a specific build that's going to be using other kinds of attacks and you might do that with a hex blade build though even often in those cases you still might want others bust you kind of class is kind of built around this this spell so if you're playing the Warlock I wouldn't even look at other ranged attack spells they're not gonna do any good others blast gives you all the bonuses based on your class the Warlock class is kind of built around this I don't know why it's not a class feature while you actually have to select it because if you don't select it you're going to find it a lot harder to play a warlock so the next spell I'm going to recommend is actually three spells so if you're not playing a warlock but you are playing a sorcerer or a wizard you're going to want to have a spell that has a good range and you can attack with and there's three good spells for that and they are fire bolt chill touch and ray of frost and they're all pretty good so I am recommending them all but just pick one right don't take more than one or it's kind of redundant even though they do different kinds of damage it's still not worth having spells that are that similar on your precious camp list Firebolt is the one that will do the most damage without a d-10 damage with as no secondary effect ray of frost has a secondary effect of slowing creatures down that comes up all the time it's minor but it will come up regularly and chill touch has second hour effect of giving disadvantage on attacks for undead and it prevents hit point recovery so those are both circumstantial but that one about hit point recovery is pretty potent too so in the end these three are really close if I had to pick one as my favorite my favorite is probably ray of frost but pick any of these three and you'll be fine the next spell I'm going to recommend is told the dead and I told the dead is a spell that it gives a saving throw or they take damage and the base damage is d8 with most save or take damage spells the ranges are lower than they are with the ranged attack spells and that's the case here it's 60-foot range which is fine for that kind of spell but thing about these kinds of spells is you can cast them in malay without any kind of disadvantage you can cast them against creatures with a high armor class you can cast them on creatures who are maybe 3/4 behind cover or maybe you have disadvantage on you for some other reason and this is a good way to get around that in general I find that if there's no modifiers at all I tend to hit more often with the ranged attack spells then I have creatures fail they're saved with these kinds of spells but because these have that kind of versatility it's useful to have one available and this one's the best one because although the base damage is d8 it does a d12 if the target is damaged already and there usually is at least one target in a fight that has taken some kind of damage sometimes you can even ride this with something else like if your cleric you hit it with your spiritual weapon it takes the damage now you hit it with the toe of the dead and it's taking the d12 so yeah of these kinds of spells this one is the best I've heard people say this one's broken I don't think it's so good it's broken but I do think it's real and really worth taking the next file I'm gonna recommend is just a druid spell that's thorn whip thorn whipped is a ranged attack spell that if you hit with it they take d6 damage which isn't very good but you also pull them ten feet towards you and that is really good you can use this if a creature is flying and you want to bring it in closer you might even bring it into Malaya range for for the other people in your party if somebody's up on a roof you can cast it and pull them off the roof maybe you have spiked growth and you're pulling them through the spiked growth and they're gonna take a ton of damage from that what I find is if somebody has thorn whip and uses it that ten-foot movement comes up a lot it's like it's just more than you think it would so this is good spell for Druids to take and dudes don't have a lot of great ranged attack spells so this is one they should always take I think the next spell I'm going to recommend is light obviously if you can't see in the dark having a spell that can create light is good there are other camps that create light but none are as effective as just the straight-out light spell and nothing to remember is even if you have dark vision if you are in darkness and you have dark vision you've seen as if it's dim light that gives you disadvantage on all your your ability checks related to vision but if you have light you have bright light for 20 feet so for things like searching rooms for secret doors and stuff things like light can really help you out and there's usually a member of the party that doesn't have to arc vision because you got your humans your halflings your Dragonborn etc somebody's gonna need a light and although you can carry around lanterns this is one of those things that you always have you can always use it and I also like using can trips I think it's the best one the next can trip I'm going to recommend is mage hand mage hand is basically telekinesis and telekinesis is useful you are in a maybe you're in a prison and you want to get the keys so you cast mage hand bring the keys over to you things like that always useful to be able to do things at range open doors from distance or a chest that might be trapped from a distance these things are useful too so a lot of little utility useful things here it's not a super powerful spell but it's one that has some use to it the next cantrip I'm going to recommend is mending mending takes a broken item and repairs it doesn't sound all that useful weight comes up a lot when I have mending I tend to find I am using it all the time another thing people don't always think about this but if you have an archer in your party and they're tracking their arrows that you can only recover half their arrows the other ones are considered to be broken or damaged but you can mend them for them so that you can effectively keep that same ammunition going and going and going assuming they were able to recover it at all but you'll find other uses for this it comes up over and over again I I really like it and I often take it the next fell I'm going to recommend is prestidigitation now in addition to being difficult to say this is a spell that can do a lot of little things I can't list the number of things you can do with prestidigitation but basically what you can do with it are minor illusions like really minor illusions but you can affect vision sound smell taste you can clean clothes you can dirty clothes you can change the taste of foods you can light candles you can light campfires with it I mean there's a whole can trip for lighting the campfire you can do with prestidigitation so there's so many uses for this spell and it's kind of fun and it makes you feel like you can just use magic for all the little things in life but they're used to it too and it comes up fairly often so I do recommend it for pretty much anyone who can get it the next spell I'm going to recommend is booming blade now booming blade I don't recommend for everybody I the ones who want to take booing blade are casters that are going to have a weapon attack and a single weapon attack so not two or three attacks around or like that but if you do one attack around with the weapon booming blade you really wanted and it's better than green flame blade which is the other one like this booming blade will add d8 to your damage after level 5 to d8 after level 11 3 d8 after level 17 in addition if they move they'll take a d8 right from level 1 to d8 from level 5 etc etc so technically if they trigger that secondary effect they're taking damage from this spell twice which is pretty good and it adds up before level 5 this spell doesn't do a lot for you but after level 5 it adds a significant amount of damage and that amount goes up I had a fairly good scale so if you're doing single attacks so you're maybe you're an arcane trickster or you're an Arkana cleric this is just a no-brainer and you should definitely take it the next can trip I'm going to recommend is shape water shape water has a couple minor effects but the one that I really like is you can cast it on water on 5 foot of water and it freezes and then you can cast it on the next 5 foot and it freezes so essentially what this spell can do is you can create ice bridges across water this could theoretically this could take you a long distance even like out to sea or if you are on a shipwreck and you wanted to make it back to land technically speaking you could do it it might take a while but you could do it with this spell but also things just like crossing a river or maybe there you're in that dungeon and there's that brackish water that you know something horrible is it you can use this to walk right across it and so then if something does attack you're on solid ground is slippery but solid so there's a lot of uses for this spell in dealing specifically with crossing water and for that reason I think it's a good camp to consider and that brings us to the last cantrip I'm really going to recommend and this cantrip is really just for lower levels for the most part unless you're a specialized build around but if you are a droid you couldn't be using thorn whip at range because it's a good can trip might want something formal a and formal a I like at low levels shillelagh because shillelagh will turn your club or your staff into a magical weapon that does d8 uses your wisdom for attack and for damage so you add all those things together and you end up being having a Malay attack that is comparable at least two actual martial classes now this isn't going to scale well once another classes start attacking more than once around you are going to be left way behind with the shillelagh unless you have some kind of specialized build around it also that bonus action that you need to use to activate this becomes more and more expensive really because you get so many things that you can do with bonus actions later on bonus actions feel like a free action early in your career but as you level up more and more they feel just like other actions and they become very valuable and using a bonus action is a big deal so then she lightly becomes difficult to activate and if you're not doing multiple attacks around its it's not really doing much for you beyond that but those low levels and with the druid of course at level 1 you can't wild shape yet so you need some way to get a good attack this is a way they actually upfront with with the fighters and the rogues and feel useful so I do recommend it for that reason so that's a lot of can trips you don't get a lot of can trips so let's talk a little bit about strategy first off you should know how far your campaign is going to go is it going to go to level 5 is it going to go to level 10 is it going to go to level 20 ask your dungeon master they will probably have some idea particularly if they're doing a published campaign it they'll already know exactly what level you're gonna be when when the campaign ends because like I said some of these spells are really good at low levels some of them are better at higher levels and you can't change your can traps it's not like spells you're stuck with them so whatever you pick that's you can't rip so you want to be thinking of out if I'm going to go to level 20 we're going to start at level 5 and I'm playing a druid I don't want to take shillelagh but if I'm playing level 1 through level 4 I might not be so worried about booming blade right these kinds of decisions secondly if you are attacking with kin trips and if you're playing most wizards most Sorcerer's are that kind of way I will generally recommend take one spell that's going to require an attack roll a range attack roll those are usually the ones that are gonna give you the best range and then take one spell that is going to target a saving throw and you can use that one in Malay and you can use it if something's behind cover that kind of thing so when you do that pick spells that do different kinds of damage if you're going to take chil touch maybe you're not going to take tool the dead maybe you'll take frostbite instead but if you're taking ray of frost then you don't want frostbite right so you can have some versatility not only in whether you're targeting armor class or a saving throw but also versatility on what kind of damage you're doing now I tend I didn't recommend any spells you might notice that we're Malay damage can trips like shocking grasp because those kinds of spells required them to hit roll and they're Malay only so you lose all that versatility if you target a saving throw instead you can use in my or at range so I generally recommend take one range spell one one saving throw spell and that will give you a nice versatility keep in mind that when you use those kinds of spells you're never going to do the damage that the fighters are doing that's not can trips just give you something to do when you don't have a spell to cast so that you can at least contribute some damage but don't expect it to compare to to people who are actually using weapons that's what they do for you can trips are backed up so if the data if you notice your damage is less that's okay that's the way it's intended to be so once you've taken your ranged attack you've taken your your saving throw then go ahead and just pick some utilities I said I've recommended guidance and miner illusion those are the tops of my list the other ones it all kind of depends on what you want to be able to do now if you're a cleric you might notice you don't get a ranged attack spell and so you just don't get one so you're gonna take tol the dead and that's it right and we probably have a mace or a Warhammer using malay and that's okay that's that's what you do so is it worth taking a feat to get some extra canned trips because you can take magical aptitude and it's okay I mean you get one first level spell too so if you have a really good first level spell maybe you're getting climbed familiar and then so then you're gonna get access to two wizards spells or wizard can trips so then you maybe you're going to take prestidigitation and minor illusion that might be worth the feat for some builds not always not always can trips are not very powerful they're not intended to be very powerful they are essential if you are playing a caster you're going to use them a lot but I think if you're not playing a caster you're not going to miss him that much so that's really all I have to say about kin trips I know it wasn't overly interesting I don't have anything really controversial to say I guess I'll add in some people are going to tell you that shocking grasp gives you a free disengage in Millay you can already disengage in Malay it's already free you don't need a canned trip to do it the only thing that that's going to do is it's going to make you disengage uncertain because you have to make it to hit roll and you get to do some crappy can trip damage and I mean d6 kind of can trip damage which is the below average stuff not worth it if you hear that recommendation I don't recommend that one however I have heard some people more advanced who talk about how maybe they're sore lock build uses they're familiar to deliver a shocking graph so then they can do a quickened well a force that can't be counterspell now we're talking about more advanced kinds of tactics these can be good but if you don't know what you're doing with that kind of stuff don't worry about it it's okay so that's all I really have to say about can ships I hope it's helpful to you I know this wasn't a very professional video this was just me rambling on but some people asked for it so I hope that it's useful to you and thank you I'll see you guys next week in the meantime I'm just gonna sit back and relax have some fun DD's for everyone [Music]

Channel: Treantmonk's Temple

Views: 51,281

Keywords: DnD, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, Cantrips, Guide, Charop, Spells, Analysis

Id: jFgX6ENk-DU

Length: 21min 34sec (1294 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 26 2018