D&D 5E Staff of Defense and the Shield spell

doctorhook · Aug 2, 2014

One of the magical items in the 5E Starter Set is the staff of defense. "With the staff in hand, you can use your action to cast one of the following spells if the spell is on your class's spell list: mage armour (1 charge) or shield (2 charges)."

In 5E, shield has a casting time of 1 reaction and a duration of 1 round. It's a useful spell, but as written the staff of defense seems to force casting it as an action, which would make the spell next-to-useless. 2 charges to cast shield suggests the designers expected it to be the more frequently-cast spell, and so gave it the higher cost to cast as a balancing measure.

I'm going to allow my players to use the staff to cast shield as a reaction for 2 charges. Any thoughts?

jadrax · Aug 2, 2014

doctorhook said:
One of the magical items in the 5E Starter Set is the staff of defense. "With the staff in hand, you can use your action to cast one of the following spells if the spell is on your class's spell list: mage armour (1 charge) or shield (2 charges)."

In 5E, shield has a casting time of 1 reaction and a duration of 1 round. It's a useful spell, but as written the staff of defense seems to force casting it as an action, which would make the spell next-to-useless. 2 charges to cast shield suggests the designers expected it to be the more frequently-cast spell, and so gave it the higher cost to cast as a balancing measure.

I'm going to allow my players to use the staff to cast shield as a reaction for 2 charges. Any thoughts?

I suspect that the reference to Action is the case of the Shield spell was a mistake, and it should be cast using a reaction as normal.

Kobold Stew · Aug 2, 2014

agreed -- that makes sense and is fair.

Plaguescarred · Aug 2, 2014

The Staff of Defense may be a typo or a fair tradeof; it allow shield to be cast whenever you want as opposed to only when hit by an attack or targeted by magic missile, but at the expense of an action as opposed to a reaction.

I'll try to ask Mike Mearls for clarifications.

Vicar In A Tutu · Aug 2, 2014

(deleted, mods please remove this post)

CapnZapp · Sep 14, 2014

Any answers? (My character found this staff)

doctorhook · Sep 14, 2014

CapnZapp said:
Any answers? (My character found this staff)

I still say just ignore the bit in the item description about "casting as an action"; let the character cast the spell using its normal casting time (as a reaction in the case of shield) and burn two charges for it as usual. It looks like this was the RAI anyway.