Sage Advice: The Rules of Spellcasting

WotC's Jeremy Crawford takes the role of The Sage again this week, with a Sage Advice column devoted to spellcasting. He answers questions about spells with attack rolls, melee spells and opportunity attacks, spells cast without spell splots, material components, line of sight and concentration, and dismissing spells. "The worlds of Dungeons & Dragons are filled with magic, and many characters and monsters wield that magic in the form of spells. This month’s installment of Sage Advice focuses on rules that govern the casting of those spells. The following questions deal with rules from the Player’s Handbook, especially in chapters 9 and 10. You might want to have the book handy as you read!"

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You'll find the column right here!

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[LightPhoenix]

Re: Cure Wounds: you could deliver the touch with the holy symbol on your shield.

I love this! "By the grace of Pelor, I heal thee!" THWOK!

Re: Magic Missile: I agree, that seems a bit off. But I'd let the restriction stand, and point the player to the War Caster feat.

Keep in mind, an Arcane Focus can't be emblazoned, whereas a Divine Focus can. This whole scenario can't really happen to an arcane caster.

The real issue here, IMO, is that the "touch" range, and really all ranges, are not precisely defined. There's nothing RAW (that I can find) about how you have to deliver the touch. Therefore, a shield bash, a kick to the shins, and a headbutt are all valid touches by RAW, even if they are silly interpretations.

The more correct solution, and one that I wish he had touched on, is that the "touch" range needs to be more clearly defined.

 

[Reynard]

I love this! "By the grace of Pelor, I heal thee!" THWOK!



Keep in mind, an Arcane Focus can't be emblazoned, whereas a Divine Focus can. This whole scenario can't really happen to an arcane caster.

The real issue here, IMO, is that the "touch" range, and really all ranges, are not precisely defined. There's nothing RAW (that I can find) about how you have to deliver the touch. Therefore, a shield bash, a kick to the shins, and a headbutt are all valid touches by RAW, even if they are silly interpretations.

The more correct solution, and one that I wish he had touched on, is that the "touch" range needs to be more clearly defined.

Yeah. It seems like it would have been trivial to say, "The caster needs a free hand to deliver a touch spell. This may be the same hand used to manipulate components. Alternatively an implement may be used to deliver a touch spell but may not be part of an attack action," or some such.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yeah. It seems like it would have been trivial to say, "The caster needs a free hand to deliver a touch spell. This may be the same hand used to manipulate components. Alternatively an implement may be used to deliver a touch spell but may not be part of an attack action," or some such.

My suspicion is that is the kind of hyper-specific "rulings for every small thing" bit that they've tried to get away from with 5E. They laid out some fairly graspable rules that incorporate V,S,M, spell implements, holy symbols, component pouches and all the other parts that use and re-use the functionality of the previous editions, and said "do with it what you will"... knowing full well many groups just ignore the whole process in its entirety anyway. So those DMs who want more a concrete ruling on how a Touch spell can be applied can make their own definition of what a Touch spell is. It's WotC's basic design decision of "DMs, use your judgement for what works best for you."

 

[Reynard]

My suspicion is that is the kind of hyper-specific "rulings for every small thing" bit that they've tried to get away from with 5E. They laid out some fairly graspable rules that incorporate V,S,M, spell implements, holy symbols, component pouches and all the other parts that use and re-use the functionality of the previous editions, and said "do with it what you will"... knowing full well many groups just ignore the whole process in its entirety anyway. So those DMs who want more a concrete ruling on how a Touch spell can be applied can make their own definition of what a Touch spell is. It's WotC's basic design decision of "DMs, use your judgement for what works best for you."

It reveals, IMO, a sort of split decision on granularity. On the one hand, you have stealth rules that boil down to "What the DM says!" But at the same time you have relatively specific rules about spell components and hands and foci and shields. Don't get me wrong -- I am totally in the "The DM decides" camp, but the rules themselves seem to be trying to split the difference and that is probably more likely to create confusion than my thing.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It reveals, IMO, a sort of split decision on granularity. On the one hand, you have stealth rules that boil down to "What the DM says!" But at the same time you have relatively specific rules about spell components and hands and foci and shields. Don't get me wrong -- I am totally in the "The DM decides" camp, but the rules themselves seem to be trying to split the difference and that is probably more likely to create confusion than my thing.

In my estimation... where they "split the difference" was in putting all the components and foci and whatnot into the game for legacy issues and that small segment of players who might want it, while at the same time made the rules for them so basic that those that wanted to handwave them away (like I would suspect most tables did and do anyway) could do so easily. "Here's what the components are if you want them, but here are the simplistic rules that you can easily ignore if you don't." After all... I bet if we were to ask the design team "If components had not been in editions past, would you have included them in 5E?" I'm guessing the answer would have been something along the lines of "Probably not", or "Yeah, but in a much simpler form." Maybe I'm wrong about that... but it seems unlikely to me that I am.