What is the max you can do with a Cantrip?

is it free license to make up any effect or spell or are you limited to trivial and easy effects.

Personally I am thinking this would be great for "juggling" little balls of fire to entertain as well as "unlatching" a door from the other side. They can be useful, like "Protection from Rain", but can not in any way be used to do amazing feats such as making a building disappear, or teleporting people for that matter. Thats what spell are for no?

Yep, I think you've got it spot on.

Exactly.

In fact, going on your example:

Simply unhooking a latch from the other side, could be a cantrip
Opening a lock, which requires a lot more precision work, could be considered a spell.
Removing a beam that bars a door, would require too much force to do to still be a cantrip as well.

The important issue here, which is currently ambigous in the RAW, is if the form of the cantrip is limited by the Wind of the caster.

How does any Amethyst wizard use Shyish to lift a latch from the other side of a door? How is it done with Aqshy? Without damage!

Yes, we can use lateral and creative thinking to some extent - but as written the definitions of the Winds are quite limited in scope.

Fresnel said:

Geez, I didn't remembered that. So the Bright Wizard in my group couldn't have used his cantrip to pull the cultists' ritual book into his hands? Looks to me that cantrip is WAY limited if you only stick to your Wind (which kinda makes sense anyhow). I've reread p.38 of Tome of Mysteries and I must say the page is pretty clear about this : "It is important to keep in mind the philosophies and abilities of each order of magic when deciding what a cantrip should or should not accomplish."

Yeah, my Bright Wiz wanted to pull some guy's wig off and I think it was fair to rule that manipulating the Bright wind itself was enough to affect the air around the wig, and get it blown off as if from a gust of real wind. Otherwise, all he could reasonably do was set the wig on fire. And when that wiz wanted to do the 'which hand is the penny in?' trick to impress the locals, just having the penny get hot was good enough, without having him melt the thing or have his hands erupt in flames.

The function of cantrips, I think, is to give scope for wizards to be able to do all the minor things that anyone would expect a competent mage to pull off. It's all for the better of the feel of the game to have these things done with the trappings of a wizard's particular wind, but I don't think you should limit an action just because it doesn't fit squarely within that colour of magic, otherwise you'll rarely be able to do stuff you couldn't reasonably do with the rank 1 spells you already have. Instead the GM and player should work together to come up with a satisfactory rationale and appropriate colour, erm, colour, for what they're attempting.

Part of what you want to achieve is promoting creativity and lateral thinking to overcome more mundane problems, so sticking too many restrictions in the way of using cantrips will mean the wiz will find it easier to resort to the black and white surefire solutions of his other Action cards.

As a general rule, I think if it's trivial let him do it, if there's already a spell for it, or you think there should be a spell for it, don't let him.

"It is important to keep in mind the philosophies and abilities of each order of magic when deciding what a cantrip should or should not accomplish." could just as well mean, don't let a bright wiz cover someone in water, or a celestial wiz set fire to stuff, or a grey wiz create bright lights, rather than meaning the cantrip must heavily focus on the core effect of that wind.

Personally, I generally ignore the wind limitation on cantrips. It makes the card too limiting, and favors some winds over others.

Of course, the colleges would never believe or admit that they are all dipping their toes in everyone else's magic. They all believe that they are evoking these effects from their own wind, and that all petty magic starts to appear similar no matter what wind is used.

Still, the limitation could prove very flavorfull since it requires the player to be creative. I liked monkeylite's idea for "surefire". A Celestial Wizard would use his cantrip to read few seconds in the future to see where the coin is, while a Bright Wizard couldn't possibly do that. But a clever player would ask himself how to do the same trick with fire manipulation and can come up with a very nice and creative idea of heating the coin to be able to feel where it is in his hands.

So, yeah, I wouldn't limit too much the possibilities with cantrip but i would require the player to think of a good way to do it within his Order's philosophies. After all, each wizard harness the power of a specific Wind.

From my previous game, I wouldn't have allowed the player to pull "telekineticaly" (is that even a word? lol) the ritual book. But he could have created a small flame to burn the holder's hand so he drops it on the ground.

Here, just for fun, some ways to replicate a telekinesis effect (pull/push something from distance) with each type of Winds :

Amber : summon a bird who catches the object and bring it to the wizard then fly away

Amethyst : summon some ghost/spirit that touches/bring the object

Bright : well, telekinesis could be beyond Pyromancers (but they can make things catches on fire, others can't). At the very limit, I could let them pull a sheet of paper from heating small pokets of air to lift up the sheet.

Celestial : harness the power of the wind itself, so telekinesis should be easy.

Gold : can't think of any way to pull objects towards him, but sure could increase the weight of a metal lever to pull it down.

Shadow : much like the Blade in the Dark spell, could reach an object afar from pulling it through shadow.

Jade : some vine growing up, grabbing a lever and pulling it down, or bringing an object. Needs to be outside or overgrowth place.

Light : can't think of any way to move objects from distance

Also, it could be usefull to create a list with possibilities, what difficulty you would give and maybe (or not) what Order could do it.

Silverwave said:

That's the ideal, and sitting in front of a computer and considering the problem for a while you might be able to generate some ideas. But in the middle of a gaming session the player needs come up with sometime good on-the-fly.

"Here, just for fun, some ways to replicate a telekinesis effect (pull/push something from distance) with each type of Winds :

Amber : summon a bird who catches the object and bring it to the wizard then fly away"

GM: To pick up a book of this size would need an fairly large eagle. Your in an underground chamber and the place is surrounded by angry beastmen and every bird in the area is avoiding the place. The nearest suitable eagle is at least 1/2 a mile away and will have difficulty getting down the tunnels to you. In addition I think summoning an eagle at this distance is more than a cantrip...

"Amethyst : summon some ghost/spirit that touches/bring the object"

GM: Summoning a ghost!!!! For Sigmar's sake man, isn't this against everything your Order stands for! Oh, you are summoning a 'spirit' not a ghost... I'm not too sure about that, what sort of spirit isn't a ghost or a daemon in WFRP3? Allowing this sets a campaign presedent that Amethyst wizards can operate as theurgists - that a whole class of aethric entities (not daemons or ghosts) exist or can be created by the will of a wizard. Other games do this to great effect, but I'm not going to introduct this to my WFRP game.

Personally I favour a very liberal approach justified via the following:

Even a single Wind channelled by a college wizard still contains a little raw essence and limitless possibility of chaos. At the level of a cantrip or petty magic the wizard is utilising the Wind at such a minor level that it can produce effects normally beyond the wizard's scope. Only effects in opposition to the Wind's domain are not possible.

"Still, the limitation could prove very flavorfull since it requires the player to be creative. I liked monkeylite's idea for "surefire". A Celestial Wizard would use his cantrip to read few seconds in the future to see where the coin is, while a Bright Wizard couldn't possibly do that. But a clever player would ask himself how to do the same trick with fire manipulation and can come up with a very nice and creative idea of heating the coin to be able to feel where it is in his hands."

That's the ideal, and sitting in front of a computer and considering the problem for a while you might be able to generate some ideas. But in the middle of a gaming session the player needs come up with sometime good on-the-fly.

"Here, just for fun, some ways to replicate a telekinesis effect (pull/push something from distance) with each type of Winds :

Amber : summon a bird who catches the object and bring it to the wizard then fly away"

GM: To pick up a book of this size would need an fairly large eagle. Your in an underground chamber and the place is surrounded by angry beastmen and every bird in the area is avoiding the place. The nearest suitable eagle is at least 1/2 a mile away and will have difficulty getting down the tunnels to you. In addition I think summoning an eagle at this distance is more than a cantrip...

"Amethyst : summon some ghost/spirit that touches/bring the object"

GM: Summoning a ghost!!!! For Sigmar's sake man, isn't this against everything your Order stands for! Oh, you are summoning a 'spirit' not a ghost... I'm not too sure about that, what sort of spirit isn't a ghost or a daemon in WFRP3? Allowing this sets a campaign presedent that Amethyst wizards can operate as theurgists - that a whole class of aethric entities (not daemons or ghosts) exist or can be created by the will of a wizard. Other games do this to great effect, but I'm not going to introduct this to my WFRP game.

Personally I favour a very liberal approach justified via the following:

Even a single Wind channelled by a college wizard still contains a little raw essence and limitless possibility of chaos. At the level of a cantrip or petty magic the wizard is utilising the Wind at such a minor level that it can produce effects normally beyond the wizard's scope. Only effects in opposition to the Wind's domain are not possible.

I'm new to Warhammer Role-play and I have just created a Grey Wizard. I know that Grey wizards can alter their hair and eye color to fool others, but what other cantrips apply to their Wind of Magic? Any suggestions for a new-be?

Inquisitor Therion said:

I'd allow shifting shadows to aid you, like when trying to convince someone that something is amiss in the town. Then add like 1 white to their roll, due to the surport atmosphere does to the story. Making coins seemingly dissapear.

Grey wizards are really the easiest, all you have to do is watch a "magician" on youtube and see what he does. Magicians foremost tool (apart from their own sleight of hand) is the use of lighting. By using light/shadows you can make things "dissapear" in the air.

Also look at all the spells they/you have, and then make SURE that no cantrip being done is better than a "real" spell in effect.

Example: If a spell adds 2 whites to stealth, a cantrip can only add 1 white, etc...

Let see what does the Grey Mage in my group do...

She often uses a cantrip to pull shadows about her... although this doesn't help with someone looking directly for her, it does help against casual observation (so not as good as the full spells that do this kind of thing), she uses a cantrip to keep the rain off her (basically sends it through the shadows similar to the Grey Order melee attack who's name has slipped my mind), darkens shadows in such away to make it look as if someone is standing in them... lots of stuff.

As far as flavour goes, a lot of Grey Magic is illusion so just keep that in mind and it actually becomes easy to come up with cantrips to do most things...

I do think the new issue of Liber Fanatica will deal with wind specified cantrips. anyway its a great supplement for any edition.