Aaron The Pedantic

Stop Pretending Harry Potter Magic Doesn't Suck Attack Cantrips are, by far, one of the most ill conceived leftovers from 4e's combat focused design. Truly, there is no real need for them in Fifth Edition. Nearly everything that could be looked at as a gap in design that necessitates these free damage tossers is addressed by some other aspect of the game. Here's why attack cantrips rustle all of my jimmies... They Belittle Mundane Attackers First thing's first. Your level1 caster doesn't expend any resources at all when they use a cantrip.  Anyone who uses ranged weaponry is suddenly at a disadvantage if they're tracking ammunition.  If you aren't tracking ammunition, there are many knockdown effects that follow, as demonstrated here:  Youtube: Why Resources Matter in D&D .  What about the melee attacker who decides to throw a weapon?  Are they expected to track THAT ammunition?  Yes?  Why?  Why is it that arrows are expected to be infinite, b...

(Art by Satoshi Kamanaka https://www.artstation.com/artwork/X0xnL) Battles with enormous creatures should be epic, yes? Some of the most exhilarating fights in cinema, literature, and video games have been arduous, grueling battles between our heroes and these cowering Titans who obliterate entire buildings without even meaning to. Typically, in TTRPGs,  these combats are scarcely differentiated from combats with medium sized creatures that have massive amounts of hit points. Sure, there are size categories that have certain implications, and there are often hard hitting attacks or special abilities. But there's a lot of potential for greatness here that I believe isn't being capitalized on. For the sake of our purposes here, I'm going to be speaking in terms of 5e D&D mechanics, simply because it's incredibly easy to pare down to OSR standards, but is more widely understood. TIP ONE: PARTITIONING HP My first tip is to take that big ol' HP pool and b...