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The green-flame blade and booming blade cantrips both use the following wording:
As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon
I was wondering what the balance implications are for allowing these spells to be used with ranged weapons.
Both of those options still require the caster/attacker to get within melee range. There's a cost risk for using this. Allowing ranged attacks with them removes that cost and vastly increases their power.
Additionally, Booming blade triggers off of movement, so being able to use that ranged will almost always guarantee a trigger as the enemy closes. This is opposed to a melee use where the caster would have to either stay in range, use some sort of mechanic to move away safely, or risk the opportunity attack in moving away.
