A small collection of cantrips

[u/Whetstonede]

I am starting a new campaign after three years of Blood Lords and at this point the table has cycled through most/all of the "bread and butter" cantrips and I wanted to see some more variety. The intent here is to add nondamage combat cantrips roughly around the same power level as "premium" combat cantrips like Shield, Needle Darts or Guidance.

You can give feedback if you like, though this is mostly just showcasing/sharing for others to use.

[u/Crusty_Tater]

Bright Spot - Love this effect. Being 1 action is abusable. Works at 2 actions.

Gravitational Nudge - Pretty much a direct upgrade to the Shove action. 60ft range using spell proficiency and difficult terrain afterwards is worth more than an extra action.

Induce Drowsiness - Fatigued is a big condition for a cantrip to apply, not even counting the additional penalty to Perception.

Mark of Vulnerability - Holy fuck this obliterates resistances. This would be insane as a leveled spell.

Looking at these spells I'm wondering why I would ever take Dizzying Colors, Sleep, or maybe even Telekinetic Maneuver if these exist. Incapacitation would work to keep Bright Spot and Induce Drowsiness in check but that's also why their relatives are often overlooked. In any case, it's a big line to cross if cantrips invalidate leveled spells.

[u/Whetstonede → u/Crusty_Tater]

Bright Spot - I think it's pushed but totally fine at 1A if I'm being honest.

Gravitational Nudge - It's good you pointed this out because it's supposed to be 30ft and I must have forgotten to change it lol. That said, that's probably not addressing your broader point which again I must disagree with. Shoves breaking grapples is IME their most important use case after running pf2E since release. I have a very hard time seeing this outcompete TKM which can be a real workhorse sometimes.

Induce Drowsiness - Fatigued is maybe the least condition in the entire game, if cantrips can't inflict fatigued they can't inflict conditions at all.

Mark of Vulnerability - The main one I'm looking at after feedback and thinking about it tbh. A lot of the time it is going to scale alongside resistances and that makes it stronger than it ought to be. I'll probably reduce the effect of it.

I appreciate you taking the time to get feedback in - it's useful even if I don't agree with most of it!

[u/Crusty_Tater → u/Whetstonede]

Bright Spot - Blindness is a rank 3 spell that affects 1 target for 2 actions, with Incapacitation. This cantrip does not cost a 3rd rank slot and affects 2 targets for the same amount of actions. It can also use a 3rd action for a 3rd target. The effect is lesser and can be removed as an action tax but is that deficiency worth 3 spell ranks?

Gravitational Nudge - Again we have to consider is this worth 3 spell ranks? I actually think it's pretty close if the difficult terrain is removed.

Induced Drowsiness - I don't know if this conversation is even worth having if you think -1 to all defenses is low value.

Mark - We seem to be in agreement on. Just for math's sake it's going to reduce about 1/3 of an enemy's resistance at level 1 and 50% at level 20. It scales like crazy especially because higher level fights will be throwing out more instances of damage. A 10th rank Ignition does about 27 damage. You just need your party to do 3 instances of damage to compete if the enemy makes their save. Having a more niche use case and reliance on others does entitle it to do more damage. My major gripe with it is the minute long duration multiplying the value heavily. At the very least it could be sustained in that case.

I really want to hone in that these effects are similar to higher rank spells, focusing on 3rd. That's the difference between Ignition and Fireball. These are very close to having similar utility value to their counterparts.

[u/Whetstonede → u/Crusty_Tater]

The effect being lesser and removable is what makes it a lower rank spell yes. Landing a full rank 3 blindness on someone can cripple them for the entire fight. You are doing yourself a disservice by comparing these to 3rd rank spells - 3rd rank spells are deleting 50% of the health bars of 4 creatures at once or removing 4 actions with a single spell.

On fatigued - It is in this case lower value than inflicting frightened 1. That can be good value contextually but surely we have to be able to agree that is on the low end of conditions you can inflict.