I asked an LLM for recommendations and it just shat out some code and said "here ya go". Were unironically at the point where people can just have bespoke software for everything. I'm not gonna slop together anything better than excalidraw within a reasonable amount of time.
I crunched the math. 3% chance to attack yourself or a party member. 0.3% chance you shoot yourself in the head.I must have missed that part of Friday Night Firefight....
Foundry is what I would recommend. Or Fantasy Grounds. Foundry's probably the best. Simply do the fact that you can put in a lot of your own custom. Assets and it's only 30 bucks. Map tool i've also used but map tool. It's pretty jankety because it's written in like the early 2000 type. Philosophy of design, which isn't bad, it's just very hard to use.
Damn your eyes for inserting this brainworm, now I'm digging out my old CP2020 rulebook and trying to crunch this myself....
You can use VTTs, but a simpler solution for what you want might be a simple art program like paint. Albeit with layers. I'm guessing that's what Excelidraw is? You don't really need the features or faff that comes with a VTT.
It depends what you mean.
Maybe a good GM would change it, but Mork Borg was one of the worst experiences I ever had with an RPG.
I wasn't disagreeing with you, just pointing out that there are edge cases where cantrips can be a bit stronger than normal. Warlocks are probably where most of the "rargh cantrips OP" complaints come from, despite the fact that, like you said, that's about all they have going for them; there's a reason the class is known as the Eldritch Blast bot. Most other casters don't have that ability, but they make up for it with a greater variety of spells and more slots to cast them with.
Unironically though, the Warlock is the go-to for "why cantrips are bad" for most of the haters. Except the Warlock is really more like martial class with magical flavor text than a caster.
"The sky is filling up with these slimy, iredescant spheres...."
Requires ammo and takes carry weight. You trade safety for resource expenditure, one of the core gameplay mechanics going back to when all damage rolls were d6s. Cantrips don't have this limitation.
You very specifically cited numbers from around 5th level with a maxed out offensive stat after the extra attack/cantrip dice come online and not the lower levels with standard array where HP margins are slimmer and resource management is supposed to be at its most important. Until you hit 3rd, the difference between 1d10 (5.5) and 1d8 + 3 (7.5) is still less wide than that "half damage" you're purporting. Never mind that some cantrips are AoE even with the lower dice values (Acid Splash averaging 3.5 against up to 4 targets at a grid intersection.) At mid-higher levels, casters can very well sweep more low level foes from the board with single cantrips than the strikers; the same foes kind that are supposed to remain relevant over the course of a full campaign because that's what the bounded accuracy system was designed around. "But the big targets-" They still have major spells, which we were otherwise ignoring for the sake of this discussion because even with 5e's changes the limited resources of martials don't compare. The entire presented balance of casters rests on them having to be judicious with their options in exchange for power. Being able to stretch powerful resources without tradeoff is essentially throwing out the design fabric of every prior edition (minus 4th ).
From the perspective of a normal person, a +1 weapon is essentially a decade of martial training (think 1 warrior HD) wrapped into a single implement. IRL tech like that would change the course of warfare, which would make sense for why it might be expensive, but I think that mostly becomes an issue because like you said, they're everywhere.
Wands in older editions didn't recharge by default unless your GM was throwing you a homebrew bit of kit. Usually capped at 50 charges then you had to get a new one. It all comes back to resource management. It's not that casters getting the ability to stretch resources is an issue in of itself. For instance, I actually rather like how 3.5's reserve feats work. You keep a spell on standby for consistent output, scaling with the power of the spell you're holding in your back pocket. It also requires one of your limited feat slots and provides an interesting tactical decision. Just being able to throw out firebolt or eldritch blast for free without tradeoff, partially stepping on the job of more specialized characters whose entire purpose is damage, feels out of sync with the rest of the design. A bit too much mustard in the vanilla ice cream.
Have you actually played a 5e campaign where ammo tracking and carry weight so crippled whoever was playing an Archery Fighter/Ranger or Rogue that the Wizard and Cleric ruled the show with their cantrips?
If you present the players with so many tightly clustered goblins and kobolds that the 17th wizard's ability to do 3d6 damage in a 2x2 grid is able to kill things at such a high rate that the Barbarian feels useless by comparison, the wizard will kill 4 kobolds in Round 1, and in Round 2, the remaining 124 kobolds will kill him.
I wouldn't be grumbling about it if I didn't.
I'll concede that I misremembered what level fighting style comes online. If we're talking about not just white room boxing, then rogue damage from sneak attack is situation/positioning dependent.
Support options being freely usable, I don't have a problem with.
You're characterizing it as complete campaign disintegration and ignoring the part in my original post where I said it was a stylistic preference. In a cinematic tactical fantasy game based more around character building where most combats are closer to equivalent CR, then the scaling damage cantrips make sense. If you're trying to do a slower paced dungeon crawl/war game where attrition is a problem and a lot of 1-2 hit die enemies checking for morale is the backbone of your fights, then they become a problem. Again, different system wearing the skinsuit of an older one for marketing.
I remember this from early days of 5e. There was a spell (acid splash?) that was supposedly way OP for a starting cantrip. People kept pointing out it's the same or less than a fighter with a broadsword. The complaint eventually faded in favour of other, more meaningful complaints. But if a cantrip is as or less useful than an ability martials can use infinitely, like a sword, what does it matter?
could try Zona Alfa? Its more based on STALKER types of settings but its a modern setting based around scavanging and more lower level types of weapons being the norm, mutants to fuck you up