The Most VERSATILE Cantrips | 5e Dungeons and Dragons | Web DM

hey there fellow casters i'm pruitt and this is jim davis and we know choosing kantrips should never be taken lightly so today we're going to encode our thoughts in the message to you and we hope it gives you guidance without too much resistance so with much gusto let's discuss the most versatile cantrips in d d on today's web dm this episode is sponsored by money cook games and tallis the city by the spire their masterwork campaign setting for 5e and cipher talus is a fantasy city like no other find adventure in the vibrant streets down its dangerous depths and up the magical spire it was derived from monty's personal campaign which ran for nearly a decade and through the development and early days of third edition the two groups of players were all co-workers of montes the makers of 3rd edition tallis the city by the spire includes over a thousand pages 672 pages in the campaign setting and over 300 pages of maps handouts and bonus content updated and refined for 5e and cipher system it sounds like a lot but its careful organization and dozens of thoughtful features make it easier to use than a typical game book download the free 32-page players guide from mcg store or drive through rpg now or just get the whole thing just check it out folks link here and in the description [Music] okay jim let's let's get on with this discussion on these these cantrips these uh these these these non-damagers these are gonna be your utility the ones that give you the the extra little bits to fiddle around with uh maybe preparing for combat or whatever but uh maximum shenanigan potential is the is the key here is getting up to shenanigans we don't have to worry about the captain busting in the room and busting our balls for it so so no so what are you thinking what how do you what's your thought process in picking cantrips uh of this type yeah for me it's like i'm looking to like really focus in on my on my character's ability to like affect the environment to uh like have a tool at their disposal that's versatile and and like allows them to put their plans into motion things like that so in in this sense i'm looking for cantrips that aren't like unit taskers they don't just do one thing they do multiple things and have like a variety of uses usually requiring some kind of creative interpretation maybe negotiation with the dm in terms of what it can and can't do but to me that's a feature of these that that we don't quite know how this is going to work so let's like talk it out and and come to a uh you know something we can both live with and and something interesting uh that we can have for our adventures yeah definitely and also uh what i what i like about these also is sometimes you need to think about them in coordination with another utility cam trip to get like maximum efficiency out of out of your your end goal but that's the thing is the the synergy between utility cam trips once you really think it through you can have a lot of fun with that you know yeah i mean oh yeah for sure there's there's a way to create your own skating rink so absolutely yeah in another way of of of fitting in a segway a little more ham fisted here if you check out our patreon uh you can get a podcast every week uh every friday we do a whole other podcast over there so just give it a check out uh anyway um first off jim uh let's get let's get to the uh the elemental essence of utility cam trips uh yeah and uh fire off your favorites there yes these are really fun um they're part of the uh elemental evil players companion uh that came out early in fifth edition but like to me the the two standouts of all of the elemental themed cantrips from that are mold earth and shape water and like mold earth is one of those that i i personally find uh enjoyable because it's like it it affects dirt or stone most of the game uh you know for a lot of people takes place in an environment which they are encased surrounded by earth and stone uh and so like the ability to affect a dungeon environment or like a wilderness encounter or something is just really uh limitless with this kant trip and yeah you could do it with a shovel and a pickaxe and the like but this does it with like you know six seconds of somatic component and then then you're done so and then you can do it again anything you can just keep doing it right yeah uh and so like some of the more like combat oriented effects you do you know they do have a limited duration and then limited effect but i'm really thinking of the one that just excavates and moves earth uh up to uh five cubic feet of it in any direction sort of like filling in pits creating pits creating cover creating uh all kinds of you know different ways that you can reshape the terrain that you're in to me that that's that's the essence of what i'm looking for here it lets me interact with the environment in a new way in a different way and i really like that because sometimes as a dm i'm gonna put something in a dungeon or another like you know limited uh access adventurous location to get technical uh and not have an answer for it i don't know how the players are gonna get past this i have no idea and either that's first level or twentieth level uh what i'm doing is i'm presenting a challenge or an obstacle to the party and saying it's up to you to figure out how to get past this it's up to you to figure out all the different tools you have at your disposal to overcome this obstacle and hit me with your best shot and you know my my uh goal as a dm in that moment is not to like make them play mother may i and and guess the right answer but to be open to a variety of possibilities of what they'll do and a spell like mold earth is perfect for those situations because you can just reshape your environment and interact with it in novel and unique ways is that door locked yeah we'll dig around the door you know like why do you try to open providing provided like this it's one of the the the the dungeon features that i love providing a door with no handle and no lock that is completely sealed and you can't knock it because it's like not even really but you can't dig through it so just go around it uh and you know show the dm that they are pat benatar yeah start pulling up flagstones get to that earth you see that soft earth that's underneath that all that or or digging uh digging a big ass trench right next to a fast-flowing river and luring the enemies into it and then you use that one last mold earth to uh get rid of the dam so to speak uh and you can flood your enemies out at least and separate you it's a lot of fun and the enemy you know i mean it's just there's so many different ways i mean and again it's all about imagination and how much can you get out of this uh and also you obviously have to have some time so this is this is really in situations where um if you want to effect combat you need to have that time to set up an ambush or just set up your battlefield so to speak yeah look good i was gonna say it's similar with shape water because shape water is another one of those where like the volume of water that you can affect the things that you can do with it like it really is is one of those where all right do i have time do i you know first off can i find a sufficient amount of water to do some really fun stuff with this like create giant blocks of ice you know that the size of cars things like that uh or uh you know to or to takes uh water and like reshape it so that it's it spikes and then freeze it so that you know you can throw people into it or drop them on top of it or oh yeah you know those those are the big things you can do with it creating giant blocks and objects of ice but the other thing is like flooding something and then freezing it you know that that door that we can't open uh or dig around with mold earth like can we pour water into it and then freeze it and see if it just doesn't break it you know break the law entirely and then open you know just leave a wet puddle and some broken machinery on the ground for somebody else to find like those are the kinds of things that i would want to do with shape earth or sorry shape water because it's like my understanding of how water and ice and like the physical properties of it a lot of what this is based on and so there are going to be some dm's who are not you know they don't want to bring like that kind of real world physics into it but to me that's what makes it fun that's what makes it interesting it's like i get to first of all get to break the natural laws with this spell but also my own understanding of how you know water and ice work is the entire basis for what i'm going to do with this magic and so it's it's a very uh it's a it's a fun confluence of like player knowledge and character skill that i think is what makes rpgs fun you know well i mean also you know just having a sheet of water across the ground that you then freeze between you and an enemy that's going to create uh some difficult terrain that's uh creates the prone condition that creates advantage and that is the whole like again using some spell uh some of these cantrips in conjunction with one another creating an open area like you were saying and putting eye spikes in it to create a pit trap with spikes that will stay frozen for an hour and that's a that's a that's a that's a big deal um and and um yeah like the the shape water where it can be animate so you can also like try to freak some people out with like maybe what they think is a water elemental that's walking towards them which some people we've discussed in in shows past how water elemental can be dangerous because it can just swallow you and drown you inside of it so sure dms if you've pulled that on your players before and now you have a lower level caster who just needs to freak them out have a watermelon elemental quote-unquote get up and start walking at them it's just a can trip but they don't know that they don't know that yeah there's a lot of fun things you can do if you've got like you know if you're a dm who's like portraying their npcs and in in in a way where they're not privileged to the metagame information right like those those bandits don't know that this wizard's just casting a tantrum or whatever for all they know they they you know targeted their water skin and and pulled an extra dimensional creature out of it and now it's about to come attack them it's similar like mold earth or even something like minor illusion uh where you can trick others into thinking like a very low level spell is a higher level one because it mimics a similar visual effect and shape water is kind of cool like that because it's like yeah what is this this is that like just be honest five cubic feet of water is a lot of water it's a lot of water right so it's it you know the the volume that this uh spell can target can create some pretty interesting things uh especially if you're if you're creative and like i said have a dm that's willing to negotiate with you and on what the specific effect uh of the cantrip's gonna be yeah but even just being able to pull up five cubic feet of of a wall and freezing it for for actual cover in a battle like that that can't be like just easily brushed aside like you know that at least is going to protect you for for a few arrows or whatever um right so certainly just certainly go watch avatar the last airbender and get all your ideas let katara be your guide and uh you know i wish you could freeze people and stuff because that'd be a lot of fun but you know yeah that's a little bit yeah yeah that's a cantrip but um you know for dm's out there who do have players who want to take advantage of these spells looking at the the sections of the dmg where it's like interacting with objects improvised damage from the environment is another good one sometimes good rule of thumb is just to like what would this be if it were falling you know if this were falling damage and so this might be like all right well you have a first level cleric who's gonna create water and i'm gonna use my reaction to then freeze it and it's gonna fall on someone just like what would that be if that creature fell like those are some good tools you can have handy so that when your players decide to do something off the wall or off label whether it's in combat or out of combat you have guidelines with which to make those rulings and uh you know see like how many hits can a spontaneously frozen block of ice take before it shatters that's you know you have tools available for you in the dmg to help you uh rule that creating ice javelins for your barbarian to throw i mean for real come on like i would allow that yeah certainly that's cool all right so uh now that we've got a handle on that let's move on to our next one here which is uh which is which is a big one this is one that a lot of people pick uh may change because magehand is is the classic i'm a wizard i need that thing from across the room so let's just yeah over here you know force hand however you want to think about it if you're more of a jedi but it like it even though you can't attack people with it which is fine that's who cares you you have attack can't trips in your your actual attacks for that sort of thing sure yeah but mage hand is the you're never going to really lock me up if you keep the keys in the same room um yeah because come on yeah there's that like you know the fact that it doesn't have a material component itself as well it it it does mean that if you're in a in a place where you can see something then you can bring it to yourself you know and the fact that may chant also like can open doors and containers it can retrieve items and like it you know it it it's a way to interact with the environment without touching it and in a lot of ways it's like that's what a 10-foot pole was you know that's why you bring uh prods and poke sticks and and other things into a dungeon is because you're like i i want to know what that is but i'm not going anywhere near and i don't want to touch it and it's like mage chan is the ultimate expression of that it's like i don't know what that vaporous bubbling liquid is it could be harmless it could be caustic could be you know terrible like i want to find out but i don't want to get that close mage hand is there for you you know i want to get this thing from across the room and hopefully it's not going to be seen like your little tiny spectral hand that's traveling across the room to go fetch it for you is much less you know likely to be seen than uh than you are and if you're an arcane trickster it's invisible as well so there's this is the best part of that that's the best part of that is like how good is a cantrip going to be that it is that it it's the basis for an entire subclass for one of the best classes in the game you know like that's mage chan really ranks up there is is one of my favorite versatile cantrips because of that because it's so handy no pun intended uh in you know writing a situation you intended unintentionally i mean you know wizards got to give each other wedgies somehow right like they're still bullying and in hogwarts so i'm just saying like it's not an attack it doesn't do damage so sure i would allow wedgies but do you have do you have anything more you'd like to to talk about me chan before we move on to one of the more uh one of the more kind of debated spells on whether or not it's good or not but that's that's because uh we're talking about minor illusion here because it is it is one of the most subjective i think i'm sure uh schools of of magic illusionist a lot of people yeah a lot of people uh illusion's kind of i don't know it's it's been pooh-poohed a little bit uh it's reduced in stature to number two um i'm sure but yeah yeah but minor illusion though the fact that it is you can create anything in this size any object like if you're using it by the rules all they need to do is fail an investigation check yeah and and what does that mean a lot of people like oh they obviously that's an illusion like but why why is it obviously an illusion did you did you even make the role like i've played it at tables where illusion was really frowned upon by the dm and it frustrated some players who leaned on that yeah yeah when we talk about like it really being dm dependent and and variable in terms of what it can do you know from table to table that's that's what we talked about because there's some gm's who they're creatures the way they respond they don't respond as if this image were magically real and i can understand why like okay this this caster created something out of nothing in front of the person they clearly can see it's magical they live in a magical world blah blah blah blah like like i suppose that that's one way of doing uh of interacting with that illusion as an npc but to me this is really uh to get the most out of illusion spells and and starting with you know the kantrap here it really does require dm to imagine themselves as their npcs as the monsters as the creatures whatever and respond appropriately to that at the same time it is just a cantrip and the what i see uh cantrips you know the effects of something like minor illusion happening is like it requires an action that's it right like they waste in action dealing with this they waste an action poking at it to realize that it's completely visual and they you know objects pass right through it or they investigate it through some other means the you know whatever it is it it took them an action to recognize that that was an illusion and like that's only one like that's not that uh powerful but at the same time it's like they did spend their action doing it i think that that's an appropriate trade-off and a good way to like build up for more powerful illusions later on as the person playing the uh the illusionist you know continues to to use these spells to their fullest but you know let's assume that the tables have you know agreed to run illusions in a generous interpretation that they're going to be useful spells uh and that the dm doesn't want to frustrate the player like all the things you can create with a you know an illusion of an object that's no more than five feet in any uh on any side it's like all right are we running away from something can i make an illusion of another door in a room like we go through one i'm gonna make an illusion of another door on the other side that our opponent's gonna come through the room and which one which way did they go you know or what's this other door doing here uh assuming that you know the enemies aren't familiar with the place or the sound of a slamming door while you're hiding in the room or something there's a lot of things you can do with like to cause distraction or misdirection with this that are outside of like hiding behind a losery cover or trying to convince a creature that you've you know this thing that you conjured out of nowhere isn't just a you know a glimmer and it you know an image of something and i think like it's its capacity for creating sounds is really like uh really where it's at it's i think that's for the fun part of this particular spell oh most definitely but uh the the thought of being able to create your own metal gear box so that you know they fail that investigation check and they don't get their they don't get their exclamation mark and then they leave the room and then you get to scuttle around in your fake box i don't know yeah i think that's what a lot of people want to use it for is instant cover i i'm fine with that you know it's easy enough to recognize that it's an illusion you know it doesn't actually create cover it just creates the illusion of cover so it's fine if someone wants something to hide behind then they can use minor illusion to do that um it's perfectly uh within balance of this kind of spell oh yeah or just hiding in a dark corner and you just create an illusion of extra deep shadow like like or just you know it says it has to be an object so you create an illusion of a black curtain in the corner that looks like shadow that's how i would do that but combining it with interpret object in this case is one thing exactly but like combining it with say a mold earth or you've created a hole and then you put in a minor illusion of just the floor on top of it like i mean and then you put your your your frozen spikes in the bottom of that like i mean this is this is where you're really really really getting a lot of use out of those gantry you're damn right like that's the thing is if you can prepare the battlefield you don't need to have actual damaging spells you can just mess people up um yeah that is that sort of represents an extreme case but i like it because it is it does work it's very good very good use of the spells most def um so uh so uh that aside let's get to the to the to the great debate betw amongst uh the arcane the druidic and the uh divine casters there uh whether or not you want to go press press the digitation druidcraft or thaumaturgy and just kind of like the those multi-use type spells and like you know just kind of kind of weighing them uh one against the other uh where do you want to start i mean i think it's i think starting with breast digitation is a good place because it's like the quintessential version of this type of spell i think it's all three of them are you know let my magical character do something magical sort of spells and yeah yeah you know a lot of the effects yeah right you know and and i i get to express the inherent magicness of my character with it and like to me press digitization is really good because it's it it's got all the bases covered for what i expect a fantasy magician to be able to do you know i can do all sorts of things if i'm looking to put on a magic show or or to you know just excite some some bumpkins but it's it's more of the things that you can do in terms of interacting with the environment that i like so lighting uh you know a flame whether it's candle or a torch or campfire or whatever or like instantly soiling or cleaning something like what i want to know when i'm a player of this is how much control do i have over that when it says soil does that mean i can make myself smell exactly like the environment i'm in right like can i like if i'm out in the woods yeah right yeah if i'm you know if i'm out in the woods and i'm and i'm trying to uh you know sneak up on or track something that i know has a sense of keen smell or something like that can i make myself smell like this place and like to me that's entirely within line with a spell like this it's not permanent you can only have a few of these at a time you know a few of these effects going at a time and it's it's part of that like taking the fictional environment that the dm describes and imagining it as if it were real and then thinking about the things that i've got in my arsenal of how to interact with that you know and and that's really why i like uh spells like not just mold earth and shape water like but press digitization because it lets me like imagine this place and what all i can do with it and how my character can interact with it beyond like i'm gonna hit this thing till it's dead and then loot it and then move on yeah like it's old yeah yeah oh most definitely um but uh also the creating a magical trinket um or or an illusory image right like like why wouldn't you have your arcane trickster do this and that's how they create their their lockpicks they just need them for a minute they just need them for you know for a round to create a little you know just create a little something yeah again it's sort of like what are we talking like trinket as in i rolled on that table in you know in the player's handbook or is it like trinket as in a small object of indeterminate value you know and i really think like that's this is where it's like okay i need a spoon for myself because i got soup i have to eat i don't have one you know or i need a nail file or something so you know it might not be the a whole lockpick set but it is enough to warrant a check it's enough to give them a chance to escape or or whatever it is that they're looking for like i i really sort of see that uh aspect of press digitization is as you know as in line with the intent of the rules because i don't know just a random trinket is i'm not sure i'd ever use that but if i can just summon a small thing for a little bit of time just a little thing yeah then it opens up the door for a lot of um just a lot of really i don't know fun interactions with the environment as you're adventuring yeah i mean just just a little doodad uh in in that in that sense let's move on to uh to druidcraft a little uh a little uh see what you did for those out there um but to me druid craft is kind of a disappointment it's uh it's it's one of those that of the three of these types of spells it's like it can do some of what presto can yeah and then it's other effects like the the weather thing to me is like on the surface feels like the most interesting and useful but like like you pointed out earlier like skill checks can just do that like yeah yeah it's clearly within like the the purview of nature and survival proficiencies to to determine whether and and like i think it's it's one of those words like how many games you play in where needing to know the weather ahead of time was was vital and like the ones that i've played in are ones that have like deliberately made you know outdoor survival and travel a part of the game they didn't hand wave it or or reduce it to just like a few random encounters it was you know something that we had to take into account is it going to rain that's going to suck for us but it also means we can refill our water like you know knowing that uh ahead of time works for a certain type of game but it's not the game that's in like the baseline rules of 5v you have to build it up from what's uh what's available and so it just it seems a little lackluster in that sense and like i don't know there's something about druidcraft where i it's okay like it's it's not the worst of all the spells but you get so few cant trips that um i i really think it'd be a tough pick and compared to say press digitation at thalmaturgy that's a shame because the other two are really solid like i get to do a bunch of magic stuff uh kantrips that have a lot of versatility and and usefulness yeah um so really in contrast it does not shine compared to the other two yeah and you might think comparing them is not really worthwhile but like if you're taking magic initiate you're more than likely going to take one of these three like at least either really good pictures when i take magic initiate so you're deciding like which type of uh which which class you want to pull your cantrips from and so weighing these is uh is to me is important which brings us to our last one here thaumaturgy which is to me uh press the digitation's dramatic younger brother um it's it's it does some of the same stuff but it does them in way with way more drama and more more pomp and circumstance and that's why i love it it's you know like because this is one where if you can like if you can cast thaumaturgy or have somebody cast it on you and you're like a big like hulking guy and you want to do an intimidate causing harmless tremors in the ground while you're stepping and walking up to someone to me that that gives you a little bonus on that intimidate check like absolutely like i would i would rule that yeah yeah there the little bonuses like that are i think appropriate for all these uh these countries but yeah the thaumaturgy is the like get i need to get somebody's attention i need to draw attention to myself or or uh you know you can cause a distraction just because the range is longer and and it's much more explicit about where the sound uh originates from but right in terms of just making uh yeah in terms of making it just a dramatic interest and drawing attention to yourself this is a great spell and like whereas most of the other spells here really have focused on like the exploration pillar of interacting with the environment and things like that like thomaturgy is one of those that supports the social pillar of play because yeah it it can be used in all sorts of you know plans and plots and schemes that players have to like distract guards or get someone's attention or like impress them or intimidate them or something like the the fact that it changes how your character interacts with others and it's it's not subtle you know is part of the fun of it it's part of why you can use it to set up all kinds of different uh you know plans because uh of what you can do with that like in your face bombastic effects that you get from thaumaturgy yeah coming in with screaming like with a screaming voice and the ground shaking and your eyes glowing bright red i mean that's going to create a certain uh scene and reaction that might absolutely absolutely yeah it makes me want like my warriors to have it and you know you know i mean like i get why clerics gets on their list but it's like i want my i want my my bards to have access to this or they do but but like also just my barbarians like i would love to have this as just something that my barbarian can do or my fighter or something so it really is fun in the sense of like oh god that that flaming eyed thunderous voiced earthquake stepping uh you know badass is coming at us we'd better watch out you know oh definitely definitely most definitely uh well that's uh that's that's awesome uh so i hope that uh these uh you know our discussion here helped you out uh thinking about those uh those versatile utility type cantrips there um if you could help us out by hitting if you don't already subscribe hit that like uh you know hit the bell for notifications all that stuff that helps us with the the algorithm as uh as it is and our math teacher said we wouldn't or we would need math so i guess i don't know i don't know one point i'm making there but uh i hope it helps you in your game and we'll see you next week [Music] you

Channel: Web DM

Views: 46,243

Keywords: DnD, dungeons and dragons, d&d, dungeons & dragons, web dm, webdm, rpg, how to play dungeons and dragons, cantrip, cantrips, spells, cantrips 5e, versatile, underrated, prestidigitation, thaumaturgy, critical role, dungeon dudes, colville, game, gaming, games, how to, top 5, wizard, bard, cleric, druid, warlock, artificer, sorcerer, paladin

Id: 7G-iii_6yFI

Length: 32min 6sec (1926 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 17 2021