Great and large amounts of knowledge has amassed on this forum.

But allas!!! Apparently no handy search function to scan the different topics?

Well aware that these questions might have surfaced before:

1. cantrips: would a wizard apprentice have access to unlimited number of cantrip variants or would he be limited to one cantrip (e.g. only light candle) or one cantrip per rank (e.g. rank 1: access to light candle, on becoming rank 2: access to a second cantrip besides light candle)?

My Light Order wizard apprentice is quiet inventive and came up with some 4 cantrip variants in a 4 hour play session the other night...

2. more cantrips -would you agree to my ruling?:

a) would a wizard of the Light Order be able to change his facial hair growth and maintain this whilst traveling in disguise through a city district? (sounds more Grey Order to me) -I ruled yes: but with 2 challenge dice: 1 for non Light Order cantrip and 1 extra for prolongued effect.

b) would he be able to light a small object and make it levitate above a roof in order to examine possibilities of entering a house? -I ruled yes: but with 1 challenge die for the not very Light Orderish levitation trick.

3. the 'Foresight' focus talent is slotted in the party sheet and is having quiet the impact on Initiative rolls of all party members.

a) apparently this is a permanent effect, no need to exhaust. Could this be an erratum?

b) "'boon' Add 'hammer' to the result pool" would mean that every boon rolled results in a further hammer on initiative checks. Is this correct?

Veteres

My opinion: (caution I am a bit of an ******* as a GM ^^)

1. You can do as many different cantrips as you want. They are meant to give the very rigid spell action card system (even the name is lame) a more organic nature.

2. Nope. If I do not immediatly see the "oh this is the wahtever-order-cantrip" the wizard can't do it. Growing hair doesn't give my any light order vibes so it doesn't work. Doing a cantrip that doesn't fit your order runs under breaking the magic rules for me so the wizard might get hanged or burned or something if another magic user notices.

3. You can only active every line once so. 1 boon is 1 hammer and the other boons can't be swapped.

I second what abidibladiduda said.

You can do as many cantrips as you like, but it has to fit your order. A light wizard could certainly create a glowing ball of light to shine the way (or a focused beam of light, like a flashlight), maybe make a prism or other light-based effects.

But not disguise himself, start a fire or other effects that would be more fitting for the other orders. The gamemaster is the one who rules which cantrips can be done and which cannot. Also, cantrips are supposed to be "small spells", and not supposed to be a benifit or mimic action cards that exist allready.

That said it could still be used to create useful effects. It's a flavour catch-all spell. For example, I allow my Amber Wizard player to cast a cantrip when in animal form, to be able to talk for a bit, which is useful and cool but not great (he could just have reverted to human form said what he had to say and then cast the shapechange-spell again).

And about the boons, a boon line can only be triggered once (per player) so Foresight can give you a maximum of +1 initiative, even if you roll several boons.

I think the attitudes here are a -bit- extreme. I think that most cantrips should be flavored around the Order of magic that the mage belongs to, but that cantrips represent such simple, nearly after-thought spells, that the actual casting of them doesn't involve much tapping into a different wind of magic. Any wizard could (according to my visions), for instance, perform some of the cantrips shown as examples in the Player's handbook under page 115.

Lighting and maintaining a fire to keep you from freezing to death may sound like a bright order spell, but it should be so basic that anyone can do it. Lighting candles, opening books to specific pages, shattering bottles of poisoned wine. What order then would the telekinesis spells offered as examples in the book belong to? "pouring a glass of wine without touching either the glass or the bottle".

Having said this, I personally think that it would be best if the player put in the effort of making it "make sense" for their order through the description of what they're attempting to do, but that doesn't mean just because someone is playing a jade wizard, they can't make a coin disappear into one hand and reappear in another, or get burned to death. That would make for some terribly bad writing, and a bad gaming experience for the player. I think the entire cantrip system is there to reward players with smart, original ideas, while allowing them to temporarily and only so slightly bypass some restrictions.

Not to say you should let a bright wizard get away with using cantrips to manipulate shadows, or an amethyst wizard go pyro happy. Then I agree with abidibladiduda that there should be punishment (though outright killing a character seems terribly extreme), especially if it's another mage that notices, not a witch hunter.

Wasn't there a list of cantrips in the old Warhammer spells? I believe cantrips shouldn't care what the wizard school is now. After all there must be a way to find out which college the apprentice ends up with.

In that people learn the cantrip spells, but are better at the ones they end up In the college of.

In 2nd Ed they were called Petty Magic

Glowing Light -cause item to glow in hand

Sounds - cause a noise

Drop - cause someone to drop a thing they carry

Marsh Lights - appearance of distant lights

Magic Dart - throw a dart

Sleep - cause one opponent to fall asleep

Magic Flame - create a flame that acts like a candle

Gust - blows paper or blows out candles

Protection from Rain - as spell says

Ghost Step - leave no tracks

Ill Fortune - curse an item with bad luck

Shock - stun an opponent

I think 1st Edition had more spells.

But you can see they do little things, they aren't overpowering spells.

I guess it depends on how you read and interpret the rules. For example in the Player's Guide on page 115 you can find the following:

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.

All their examples earlier on the same page also connects order to different cantrips, such as a Bright order wizard it might be to light a candle or Grey order wizards making subtle changes to their apperance.

But in the end it's up to the GM, I like the cantrips to be themed. But as an example most (or all) orders could probably make a light of one kind or another, like a flame as a bright wizard, a star for a celestial, a globe of light for a light wizard and so on. With some effort from a wizard player, could probably theme many cantrip effects to fit their order of magic. But I would not allow it if my player just said "I change my apperance with a cantrip" (unless they are a Grey Wizard obviously), if they wanted an apperance change, they would have to come up with how/why it fits their order theme first.

In my games, at least, the cantrip action (which is free for all starting wizards) should not be a catch-all solution.