Five Must-Have Cantrips in Dungeons and Dragons 5e

today we're gonna conjure up some cheap Trick's look at five must had pan trips for spell casters in Dungeons and Dragons position [Music] greetings mages my name is Monte Martin and I'm Kelly McLaughlin and we are the dungeon dudes and today we're taking a look at five must-haves can trips in Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition these fundamental spells are so useful that even the mightiest Archmage's and the greatest higher offense would do well to remember the lessons learned as acolytes and apprentices now the great thing about can trips is they don't require a spell slot so because you can cast them at will they're viable from levels 1 all the way to level 20 with a wide range of options for how to use them now of course most spell casters paladin's and Rangers aside one between 3 and 5 can trips as they gain levels many spell casters are going to select can trips for attacking or dealing damage against their foes can trips such as fire bolt eldritch blast or told the dead that is actually the focus of our episode today we're going to be looking at the creative cat herbs that don't deal damage and talking about their useful applications in a wide variety of adventuring situations because of the lists of spells that we've chosen it's going to be difficult for a single character to have all of the can trips we list unless of course you take the appropriate feats or multi-class or perhaps a pact of the tome warlock just a few things to bear in mind with all kin trips remember kin trips are considered spells but whenever something references the level of the spell it's considered zero-sum kin trips do gain effects as you gain levels and this is always based on your overall character level and not your individual level in any particular class in the case of a multi-class character this is kind of a nice perk about all kin trips that if you happen to pick one up as a higher level character it's just as effective as if you had it from the very beginning of your career and of course the Contra that we list today are our opinion on what we think the five most useful ones are and they're not listed in any particular order so with that let's get rolling the first ketchup on our list is guidance guidance is a divination cantrip available to clerics and druids and you can find it on page 248 of your players handbook when you cast guidance you touch a willing creature any time within the next minute that creature can use guidance to roll an additional d4 on top of an ability check the spell requires concentration and lasts up to a minute whence the the creature has applied that d4 to an abelian check the spell immediately ends this is actually really really useful in a lot of understated ways yeah adding that little boost from a d4 may not seem like much but that can tip the scales in your favor in so many different circumstances the bonus from guidance can only be applied to an ability check not to an attack role nor to a saving throw ability checks are pretty wide open and these could include anything for making a strength check to break out of a web spell or ropes that are keeping you help or perhaps a persuasion check to convince a shopkeeper to give you a better deal or maybe even an intelligence check to recall information it's basically like the cleric going up to someone who's about to attempt a task and saying may the gods be with you my boy I feel one d4 better already as much as I love the guidance spell I have seen this get dialed back a little bit in play by some DNS like me I'm notorious as a dungeon master quite frequently I will call for a skill check and I'll sometimes have my cleric or druid in my party saying oh I guess guidance to affect that role and I'll be like wow I've already asked for the role it's a little late for that being trigger-happy and asking the DM if you could apply guidance after they've already called for an ability check might lead to some disappointments it really does require a little bit of planning and foresight on your part as a player when you want to apply the guidance spell and it's best used in circumstances when your party has a little bit of preparation before that skill checks gonna come remember you do have a one-minute opening to apply that extra d4 so it's pretty generous in that respect I see it being that sort of situation where it's like okay we're gonna sneak by these guards but buddy here and plate armors gonna have a tough time I hope that you can be quiet and you cast guidance on him and now you can go sneak past and he has that little bit of extra boost on his stealth checks like saying in the name of the gods be quiet for God's sake yeah I really like the spell and I think that over the course of an entire campaign the impact that the guidance can trip can have as a can trip is pretty massive it's one of the few ways to reliably and consistently gain a numerical bonus to a skill check that isn't already baked into your character sheet the next can trip that we have on our list is one of my personal favorites and that is minor illusion minor illusion of course is an illusion trip it's available to bards warlocks sorcerers and wizards and you can find it on page 260 of your players handbook now with my delusion you can create an object or a sound now keep in mind you cannot create both an object and a sound it's one or the other unless you're an illusion wizard that's the one exception with minor illusion it lasts for one minute actually does not require your concentration which is awesome which is pretty cool it has some interesting applications in this way the maximum size of the object that you can create is no bigger than a five-foot cube but there's some important limitations behind minor illusion that you need to keep in mind in the text of minor illusion it states that you can create an object now there is a differentiation between objects and creatures even though Monty has allowed me to use it to make creatures in the past this is up to the DMS discretion and in the text it does state that you can only make an object yeah the DND rules do distinguish between objects and creatures so this is a notable exception especially compared to other higher-level illusion spells which can create illusions of creatures I don't think it's necessarily a problem if you allow minor illusion to create illusions of creatures but bear that in mind that technically you cannot do that by the rules as they're presented in the text what are the other big points of contention with minor illusion is whether or not you can move the illusion itself once it's been created minor illusion doesn't have any text explaining whether or not you can do this which is in direct contrast to higher-level illusion spells like major image which are very explicit under how fast and how far the illusions that you've created can be moved on your turn because minor illusion does not have any text explaining how the illusion might move it's possible to interpret it as saying that means they can't move at all so minor illusion creates a static object only while this might feel overly restrictive even being able to create a static object as an illusion at will is pretty potent and there's some amazingly creative applications that we can yield with minor illusion this is the main thing about minor illusion is talk to your DM about the rules and restrictions that they want to use at their table because it is a can trip which means that you can cast it at will you shouldn't expect it to be as powerful as other illusion spells it is meant to be a very simple and easy illusion that you can just throw out on a whim without using much magical effort one of my favorite examples if you're a fan of the Metal Gear Solid games is creating a box and hiding in it this is such a fun use for this spell because you can create a 5x5 box with minor illusion and just sit inside it or behind it and creatures are gonna have to come right up to you to expect that box they might even pass you by completely especially if you're moving that illusion right up beside another pile of crates I just want to use this to get into the back of some caravan and put myself in a crate and that's my that's my stealth sneak in a tent yeah I think that there's so many cool things that you can do here as well like creating the illusion of food to lure a monster forward although you'll have to be careful about the impact of smell when you're creating illusions of food creating the illusion of some treasure is another really effective thing that could be done I think even the the use of creating a sound with it if you have enemies that are on the lookout for you just using this to divert their attention elsewhere if they're coming close to your hiding spot and you use minor illusion to create a sound of running footsteps or your voice across the room and then suddenly all the monsters turn that way and start heading in that direction that's an incredible use of minor illusion in many campaigns the player characters and the monsters are fighting over an object and creating the illusion of that object in a combat encounter where you as the player characters have possession of it can be a great distraction for example if you're trying to bring back the magical artifact to safety you could create the illusion of it's sitting on a table when in reality your rogue has it hidden inside their pants there are so many creative ways to use minor illusion I actually keep a little notepad where I've written down a ton of ideas on how to use minor illusion in cool ways and I look for chances for those to come up during my campaign I think it's an outstanding spell and a really creative one just be sure to know what your dm's interpretation of the rules rules text are the next sketch up on our list is mage hand this is a conjuration cantrip available to bards sorcerers warlocks and wizards and you can find it on page 256 of your players handbook now like minor illusion there's a lot of DM discretion when it comes to the uses of mage hand but generally speaking it creates a spectral hand that isn't invisible that you can move around the battlefield up to 30 feet away from you and as an action on your turn you can continue to move it you can lift objects up to ten pounds you can pull switches open bottles or otherwise manipulate things I think that it's important to remember that mage hand is a visible spectral hand because that does play into using it to spook creatures or steal objects or sneak away with certain things because it is clear that there is some sort of magical supernatural thing affecting that object I don't know why but I always picture that it's a purple hand I don't know why it's always powerful for me it's always kind of like a shiny your hand that's how I picture like a purple like a see-through hand that just picks things up and moves them already the master hand from smash bros oh yeah there is one distinct question that comes up very often with mage and which we do need to discuss and that is can you do damage with may chant the spell is very explicit the hand cannot attack activate magic items or carry more than ten pounds in addition it cannot move more than thirty feet on a term and it can't exist more than thirty feet away from you as the caster it does require your action to manipulate it so using the hand to try to deal damage or to cause effects can be very very tricky but it might be possible depending on the situation for example the mage hand can't pick up a sword and swing it at an enemy causing damage but could it pick up an object and drop it on an enemy's head I've also seen players ask if the mage hand can grab a creature or touch somebody or even reach inside a creatures chest spectrally and squeeze their heart to me those things all sound like a tax and mage hand can't attack but the notion of having the mage hand pick something up and drop it or activate something in the environment which could damage creatures for example if there's a lever which activates a trap I think the mage hand absolutely can cause damage by activating a trap or pulling a switch maybe dropping a gate down on something it can't activate a magic item but it can definitely pull a switch and it can also drop a little on a troll when you are thinking about how to adjudicate how much damage a mage hand could cause generally speaking it probably should be in line with how much damage you can deal with a can trip in general if someone wants to really use their mage hand to pick up rocks and drop them on people I would probably only have that deal 1.d4 damage and the attack role would probably be the equivalent to using an improvised object actually not that effect at that point it would have been more effective to cast Firebolt than to use your mage hand to try to do damage so it's very situational yeah but I do like the idea of using the mage hand to hold a torch and start a fire I think that's really creative and really interesting I do love the idea of using mage hand to open or close a door or a gate or even push or maybe undo a rope that causes a log trap to fall out it could untie a chandelier and drop it on some enemies that could be completely possible yeah the creativity allowed with mage hand is really incredible and as long as you're thinking outside the box no you cannot do direct damage using mage hand but there are a lot of ways to manipulate environments and if your DMS created a really nice environment for you to play around in then mage Han can be a very useful tool and the reality of it is is that when mage hand is interacting with the environment it's not really doing anything that the players couldn't already do the advantage is that that is just allowing them to do this at a thirty foot distance next up on our list is mending and this can trip probably the most useful I could imagine in real life somewhat situational and D&D but when it does come into play it's a good one mending is a transmutation cantrip available to clerics druids bards sorcerers and wizards it's a pretty diverse cast of characters here and again I completely agree with you mending can be used to repair a tear or break in an object up to one foot deeper long in any direction and if you think about this in real life this might be quite possibly one of the most useful can trips to be able to know in in reality because you could use this to fix your phone when you drop it down the skit the stairs fix that hole in your pants and underwear fix the holes in your socks like all the little Nick's and breaks and things that happen in everyday life can all be solved with a mending canter I would only need one pair of shoes I wouldn't have to buy more pairs of shoes actually think about that too specifically in the time periods that are normally associated with the indie wearing out your shoes and boots is like the most frustrating and and annoyance of everyday life that we don't think about and having a spell it can just fix your shoes up for you is huge so my character should learn the mending spell retire from adventuring and just go into the shoe fixing business absolutely I think he actually a a character would make a lot of money doing that done adventure over but for uses in the actual adventure it is situational but when it does come up I've already uttered several times in every campaign man I wish I had the mending spell yeah it's kind of a weird thing we're like you can use it to fix a broken key or a snapped lock or maybe repair the damage to a window or door I mean I'm thinking like a bridge across across like a big gap you have a bridge that one of the sides has ripped and it's still there but the bridge is hanging and if you can grab that and mend it you've now fixed the bridge yeah using mending to fix the rope that you cut when you knock the chandelier down perfect and one of the kind of d-m interpretation sort of things that i think is interesting about this is whether or not you can use successive castings of mending to fix a larger tear like for example a cloak which is usually a lot longer than a foot if it gets torn in half is it okay to use the mending spell to fix that as long as you can can sit down and cast it several times mending a foot at a time but I could see that going overboard like can you repair a bunch of breaks in like a gigantic statue what if you were given like a day to do it maybe the thing to remember is that mending won't cause missing parts in that object to reappear so you do need the components in order to mend it yeah it's kind of like welding it back together or stitching it back together it also exclusively works on objects although the spell does say you can use it on a magic item or a construct but it doesn't say if it restores head points in that way so that would be subject to diem interpretation again the other one that I think is kind of interesting with this is imagine your fighter has turned to stone by a Medusa and then she knocks his head off well he would die if you turn but then you could pick the head up put it back on the statue and mend it back together does that work I would say yes no if if your druid is reduced to zero hip points and ripped in half are they still a creature or are they now an object no corpse are you acting is a corpse an object so can you like Frankenstein a corpse that's been named I don't know hey I'm tempted to say yes but that seems weird to me again I think that if you're using it to like repair things you got to remember are the body parts still there true so just like most of the cantrip sweer talking about today there is some DM discretion involved which is why we love these kin trips because they're so open-ended with your interpretation of them and the way that you can use your imagination to use them but it is important to know what your DMS kind of lines are for how far you can go with these kin trips mm-hmm I think the really good rule of thumb with mending is as a DM it's is this object broken because it was just snapped or torn then mending can probably fix it but if parts of it are actually missing the mending spell can't fix them so that's a really good way as a DM if you want to have like a broken lever the mending spell isn't gonna fix that if the lever itself is missing the last can trip on our list is actually a three-way tie because they're so similar and this is between prestidigitation druid craft and thaumaturgy these spells are kind of the bread and butter minor magical tricks that are given to clerics druids sorcerers warlocks wizards and barns respectively basically every class has this minor bag of tricks cantrip that's a lot of fun to use but all of them are subtly different just like several of the other kin trips you can't really use these to do damage but you can use them to manipulate certain aspects around you depending on the one that you pick there's a lot of differences between them but all of them generally do things like you can open and close doors you can set small fires you can with prestidigitation I know you can change the way something tastes or you can clean or dirty a one foot area I just love those for so many role playing in social interaction purposes I think that the spells fosters so much creativity and I feel like they are must-haves but they often get pushed off the list of selections for player characters because it's hard to find room for for these spells and still get your damage-dealing cantrip saying I actually I remember early on in me running lost minds offend elver in that first goblin cave the cleric in our party cast Valmet og to change the color of a fire green and then another player used press ADEA tation to make I think like a sound curse there was a combination of spells that basically changed the fires color and then made sound come out of it like a voice commanding the goblins to flee and the goblins were so scared and didn't know what was going on that they all just ran out of the room before even seeing the players it's fantastic and creative I love those kind of solutions and it really lets the players think outside the box another one of my favorite uses of thaumaturgy was one thing that you did where you're you and Josh all the rooms barbarian you're playing a wizard at the time we're in a drinking contest at a bar where you had to drink this vial orcish grog and you use prestidigitation to change the flavor of the beer so that it was easier to get down and I just thought that was a brilliant idea in the moment I give you advantage on your constant Constitution check to drink it because it didn't taste disgusting anymore yeah it allowed us to win some gold in that bar it was great yeah prestidigitation can also be used to start some small fires like with torches and and candles and otherwise be careful about allowing it to use to start a roaring inferno but good you know cause some sparks at the very least droid craft is a fun one because it actually has an effect that can throw many Dungeon Master's for a loop and that is that it can be used to predict the weather for the next 24 hours basically if there was a weather channel in the worlds of D&D it would run by a druid who was casting Giroud craft to be like the forecast for the next 24 hours it will be sunny and clear with a small chance of rain in the evening I've actually have to watch out for this because druids in our campaign constantly cast the spell and asked me what the weather's gonna be like and I found that as a result now I have tables for determining what the weather is going to be clipped to my quick quick reference notes as da because so many Druids pastored me with druid crafts has this made you mad enough to rip the Druids apart with Dragons yes it has yeah we've actually planned entire attacks around finding out what the weather was going to be for the next 24 hours it's it's useful information to know and I love that this is one cantrip that actually influences the world in a subtle way because I think that if you for a lot of Dungeon Master's they don't think about what the weather is gonna be and so this is almost like a control weather spell in a lot of ways because how many times have you as a dungeon master just assumed that the weather for the day is going to be clear skies and that's always a boring answer so I like to always mix it up that now when the druid does cast your craft if I'm not gonna roll randomly given the thunderstorm give them the currents or torrential rain that's gonna have a really interesting impact on all your encounters that day these spells are enough of a provocation that a player that uses one of them in a really creative way depending on the situation it can merit advantage on something particularly social interaction checks it might get them advantage on a saving throw probably not an advantage on an attack role but it certainly can be used in ways that generate advantage I think that's entirely appropriate for these candidates to be creative enough in that way because again it's no more disruptive than the help action I like I like the idea of the druid having a social interaction and presenting a flower that then blossoms in in his his or her hand as he presents it giving him advantage on the persuasion check yeah yeah or just the the wizard using prestidigitation to give everybody bath so that they look presentable they encounter the king or Thelma touji to give you advantage on intimidation by using that booming voice like Gandalf did when he was talking to Bilbo in the Lord of the Rings movies yeah these are fantastically creative spells and there's so much so that I'm actually disappointed by how often players don't get to take them because they end up taking one a few damage-dealing can trips mage han minor illusion and guidance and then these ones get shoved aside and I think it's a perfectly acceptable house rule to grant these can trips for free to their respective classes I just think that they're so good at fostering creativity amongst the players that they're worth that introduction can I can I have prestidigitation so here we've looked at five of our favorite can trips that we love to use but there are so many can trips out there and we'd love to hear what your favorites are in the comments below we just picked our top five from the players handbook but there are dozens of other cameras that have been added to fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons but have some pretty awesome and creative uses we would love to hear about how you've used these in your own campaigns so this has been our look at the five must-haves can trips in Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition we hope that this brings a little more magic to your table and of course you can see some of these spells in action as Kelly and I use them in our live play campaign dungeons of Dragon hime the campaign airs live every Tuesday nights at 6 p.m. Eastern Time on twitch.tv slash dungeon underscore dudes of course you can also catch prior episodes of the campaign right here on YouTube and if you want a great feat to pick up some more can trips for your character check out our video on the magic initiative feet right up over here and if you just need a refresher on the general rules for spells and spell casting we've got a whole video for you over please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time in the dungeon [Music]

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 1,008,099

Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book, cantrips, spells

Id: 50z1Ofw76jQ

Length: 26min 35sec (1595 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 24 2019