We All Need a Little Guidance Sometimes

The D&D community rarely shows concensus about anything.  Give them pretty much any topic and you’re nearly guaranteed to find an equal number of rabid fans both lauding and decrying it.  And yet, there are a few topics that tend to unite D&D gamers, and one of them is that the guidance cantrip is overpowered.

I probably don’t need to tell you, but guidance is a simple little cantrip that grants you or an ally a 1d4 bonus to one ability check within the next minute.  It’s a nifty bonus, for sure, and it’s nearly always going to be useful, but the main thing that the Internet objects to is that, as a cantrip, you can cast it over and over again, without limit.  In general, cantrips are minor spells where it’s okay for someone to cast it over and over.  Sure, a wizard with fire bolt can cause 1d10 of damage every round (or as many times as they can hit their enemy’s AC, at any rate), but then so can any twit with a pike.  A bard with mending can cast it over and over to fix a completely destroyed chain, or clothing which has been ripped to shreds, but since it takes a minute for every casting, it’s often possible that a skilled craftsperson could do the same job in less time.  This guidance though ... the Internet seems pretty convinced that being able to grant this bonus over and over is appalling, if not apocalyptic.

There is quite a lot of discussion out there that supports this claim.  It’s regularly found on lists of the most powerful cantrips: in the middle of the list, mentioned second, listed at #5 out of 10, all the way to #1 of 15 or even #1 of 20.  A Redditor asks “5e Guidance Cantrip is OP?” One EN World poster laments What, +1d4 to every check ever? And the Alexandrian simply says “Guidance is a terrible spell.”

Well, I don’t agree.  I think that what the Internet overlooks (or sometimes deliberately ignores) is that guidance has a number of important limiting factors.  And it further frustrates me that you can quite often see these limits being steamrolled over in popular streaming games, played by professional TTRPG gamers.  And I hate to pick on Critical Role, but it is the OG streaming D&D game, and almost certainly the most popular, and I find it fascinating that Matt Mercer, its very brilliant DM, is sometimes very obviously frustrated by his players’ over-reliance on guidance, and yet he often doesn’t seem to adhere to the simple limitations I outline below.

Now, I’m a firm believer that an article that tells you that a thing isn’t as bad as you think it is isn’t all that likely to be useful: it’s hard to dislodge strong opinions.  So I’d rather you consider this a list of advice, especially if you’re a GM whose players are overly fond of shouting out “Guidance!” at the drop of a wizard’s hat, but even if you’re a player who is starting to feel like you’re breaking the system somehow by casting this useful cantrip at every opportunity.  Remember these limitations, and maybe police yourself so your GM doesn’t have to.

Without further ado then ...

The reasons why guidance isn’t overpowered:

Guidance requires touch

You have to be able to touch the person you want to guide.  How many times have I watched someone on screen call out “Guidance!” when their fellow party member tries to do something, and watched the GM struggle to figure out a reason why it doesn’t apply?  “Um, I’m going to say you can’t use guidance in this case because ... um, you didn’t know they were about to do that, so you didn’t have time to cast it.” So silly.  How about, there are 3 people between you and them, so you just can’t reach them?  How about, you’re holding your spell focus in one hand and your weapon in the other; what are you going to touch them with?  No touch, no guidance ... it’s just that simple.

This is most applicable in combat situations where maneuvering to get to an ally comes with its own risks.  Definitely not applicable if the character is guiding themselves (which is a perfectly legitimate thing to do).

Guidance requires concentration

Absolutely no one seems to remember this.  If the caster is already concentrating on another spell, guidance would instantly end it, and guidance is hardly ever worth that cost.  I’m not saying that you as the GM should use that to engineer a “gotcha” moment: “haha! since you cast guidance, you lose your other spell!!” No, I’m just saying that it’s perfectly reasonable for you to remind your player of the consequences of their actions—perhaps “you know that if you use guidance you’ll drop concentration on your other spell, right? are you sure you want to do that?”

Most applicable in combat, but surprisingly pertinent even out of combat.  “Sure, you can do guidance if you want, but everyone will lose their pass without trace bonus ...”

Also rare, but if the caster throws out guidance in those situations where they’re worried that their party member might need help on an ability check, they’re then concentrating on a spell.  They either can’t cast another concentration spell at that point, or the ally will lose the guidance.

A more commonly encoutered limitation: having to maintain concentration means you can’t cast guidance on multiple allies.  That means that grandiose statements like “a spellcaster with Guidance can make their entire party better at anything they set their mind to” necessarily comes with a pretty big caveat: as long as they only set their minds to things one at a time.

Guidance requires an action

For some reason, it’s very common for people to use guidance on themselves during combat, to give themselves a little juice on whatever cool thing they’re trying to do.  And I have never seen a single GM object to that, despite the fact that it can almost never work.  Trying to use guidance on that Athletics check to escape the monster’s grapple?  Well, too bad: the Athletics check is an action, and the guidance is an action, and you don’t have two actions.  I suppose you could use guidance this turn and apply it to the Athletics check next turn, but do you really want to do that? for a measly 1d4 bonus?  Even when the thing you’re doing is not action, it’s rarely worthwhile to actually use guidance on it.  Let’s say you want to maneuver through the crowded battlefield to get to an enemy, and your GM says you can only do that if you can make a decent Acrobatics check.  Since the Acrobatics is part of your movement, you could use guidance to help out ... but then, when you succeed and get to the enemy, you don’t have an action left to attack or cast another spell.  So you’re probably worse off than if you’d just taken the straight roll.

Guidance requires it to be your turn

This is another thing that I often see GMs letting people get away with in streaming games.  Player A: “Okay, I’m going to spend this round trying to figure out the puzzle.” GM: “Okay, give me an Investigation check.” Player B: “Guidance!” Except: no.  Even if player B is close enough to touch player A (see first bullet), it’s not player B’s turn.  And they can’t cast a spell—not even a dinky cantrip like guidance—when it’s not their turn, unless the spell is a reaction (which guidance isn’t) and the situation fulfills the requirements of the trigger (e.g. you can’t cast feather fall unless someone is falling).  And there’s isn’t any trigger for guidance, because it isn’t a reaction spell.  So, you know ... no.  You can’t cast guidance on the player doing the Investigation check.  It isn’t your turn.

Guidance requires somatic components

Now, this one doesn’t apply as often, but it definitely is yet another case where I see people getting away with it on streams when the GM really should know better.  The party goes up to talk to a group of suspicious NPCs, and the party’s face starts to spin a tale to keep things from escalating.  Simple enough: the GM calls for a Deception (or Persuasion) check.  Inevitably, someone in the party will yell “Guidance!” Except ... guidance is a spell.  You’re a group of oddly-dressed, dangerous-looking, often only vaguely humanoid people, talking to a bunch of nervous, twitchy folk who are already a bit suspicious of you, and someone in the back starts casting magic?  Yeah, that ain’t gonna go down how you hope.  Again, I’m not recommending you as the GM use this as a “gotcha” moment; just gently remind the guidance-happy caster that there will be consequences if they start breaking out the funky hand gestures and mystic words in the middle of the tense negotiations.

To be fair, this is one I do hear GMs (particularly Matt Mercer) call out on occasion, as well they should.  I just don’t hear it enough.

Guidance requires verbal components

This is a lesser requirement, but the caster does need to be able to speak to cast guidance.  No guiding if you’re gagged, no guiding inside the radius of a silence spell, and I would at least call for another Stealth check if someone tried to cast guidance while they were hiding or otherwise trying to avoid discovery.

Guidance only lasts for a minute

Don’t forget that guidance only lasts for a short time, so any ally you cast it on has to use it or lose it within the next minute.  This doesn’t come up that often, but I have seen players try to cast it on an ally who was about to head off on a scouting mission (to help with their Perception checks), or one about to sneak into an enemy encampment (to help with Stealth).  But that only works if they can achieve the objective in under a minute.  Also consider that if the task takes longer than a minute to complete—say, an Investigation check to search a room, or a Sleight of Hand or Thieves’ Tools check to disarm a trap—the GM is well within their rights to say that the guidance doesn’t last long enough to grant the bonus.

Guidance only benefits ability checks

I mean, it’s pretty clearly laid out in the spell description, and I don’t really notice people trying to use it on attacks or saves, but I do think this is a pretty obvious limitation that should be more thoughtfully considered when people are trying to talk about how “overpowered” guidance is.  Guidance is hardly ever going to turn the tide in combat, and, even outside combat, saving throws are way more imporant than ability checks in terms of influencing game outcomes.

Guidance requires the caster to know about the ability check

This is a subtle one.  But, to take a simple example, I have difficulty imagining any situation where guidance could be used on an Insight check.  How could the caster possibly know that the ally was trying to figure out whether or not someone was lying?  Unless the caster is the one doing the insight-ing, but then you have the problem described under the somatic components bullet: your target is bound to suspicious if you start waving your hands around mystically while you’re talking to them.

At the end of the day, guidance only gives you a d4 bonus

Seriously.  It’s just a d4.  Sure, you can do it for every single ability check because it’s a cantrip—well, every single ability check made by a person you can reach, when it’s your turn and you have an action and you’re not concentrating on anything else and you have at least one hand free and you can talk—but ... so what?  As a GM (or, even worse: as an armchair game designer), why would you get all hot and bothered to an average improvement of 2.5 points on a bunch of ability checks?  Let the characters have this one.  They get so few pleasures in life, and those 2 or 3 points are not going to make your story any less challenging.  Trust me.

And this works in the opposite direction as well.  The Alexandrian, as much as I admire him, is going a bit overboard when he says you’re just making your party worse when you don’t cast it.  It’s just a d4.  Your party will be fine if you forget once or twice, or if your GM points out one of the reasons above and shuts down your last-minute casting.  Use it when appropriate, skip it when inapplicable ... it’s just a fun little bonus, no biggie either way.

And that’s why guidance is not overpowered, and it’s just fine to allow in your games.  Keep your players honest, but let them have fun.  At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about, right?