D&D 5E Spell Preparation: Leaving Slots Open

Sword of Spirit said:

5e does have that rule. 1 minute per spell level.

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Ah yes, oops.

13 pages of life changing super serious nonsense. Play what you want. Does it really matter at this point? Seems after page... 5 if a topic isn't decided on then it's simply not going to be. Do any of you -really- think you are going to change each other's mind at this point in the back and forth? It's just quoting each other going into super specific jabs about how everyone is wrong about everything from each of your points of view. Just play the damn game how you want.

I'm personally inclined towards the "leave a prepared spell slot open variant myself". So if you would have had 7 spells to prepare based on your INT or WIS. If you prep 5, you can fill the other 2 later PROVIDED you have the requisite time to meditate/study, which the PHB states to be 1 minute per spell level.

Why would this be interesting? Sheer options that it opens up on scenarios.

The Party runs down a cave tunnel that ends with an underwater tunnel. The Druid has one free spell slot, and starts appealing to her Deity for Water Breathing for her Party.
Meanwhile, the Baddies are coming up the tunnel.

Roll for Initiative, 6 secs per round, 10 rounds per minute
Since Water Breathing is a lvl 2 spell...
Ok Fighter, keep the enemies at bay for 20 rounds while M the Druid's god picks up the phone

Fighter: Fark!!!
Druid: Can you not bleed so loud? I'm trying to Pray here!!
*If Druid is attacked at any point, roll a Concentration saving throw as normal, where if you fail you start over*

Scenario 2
The Party has just finished a hard battle but the enemy Wizard got away.
Your own Wizard has sent an Arcane Eye forward to spy and finds the Enemy Wizard frantically flipping thru his Spellbook to prepare a Teleport Spell to escape. (7 mins and counting)
You won't have time for a short rest if you want to catch them! What will you do!?

KarinsDad said:

I think people read too much into what is written.

The implication is clear (change spells once per day after a long rest), the "WotC did not explicitly say x" crowd is trying to muddy the waters. The word "can" means that a PC can change the spells, but doesn't have to. Not "can" change some of them and wait off for others.

This is forum "but they didn't say x" semantics. The rules are clear.

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Thanks for agreeing! lol! In all seriousness, I said the same the thing in the portion you quoted, and I agree, it does say "can" and is clear that you "can" prepare spells or not. I was pointing that fact as well. So on that point, we agree. I think what you missed is that what is debated is not that you can choose to prepare or not to prepare a spell list (that is not the question, nyuk nyuk), but rather the nature of what is contained on the list.

Here is a thought experiment: A wizard loses his spellbook, so he is now "stuck" with his prepared spell list. And let's say the evil DM has a legendary Mind Flayer suck out part of his memories, including 3 spells off his prepared spell list (poor wizard). So now he actually has less spells prepared than he is allotted. But then the wizard finds a book with one spell. So he can choose to keep his prepared spells as-is with 3 spells short or he can now prepare a new list that is 2 spells short but that means preparing a list with less spells than allotted! What happened? Did the DM break any rule (we are ignoring DM rulings and focused on rules here) by "erasing" some prepared spells? Was that ok and well within DM purvey, assuming he built a "balanced" Legendary Mind Flayer with that unusual ability? Are we saying, by the rules, a DM (or adventure writer, or WOTC) can't create a monster that erases spells from the mind? So much for a 5E version of Nishru or the Arcane ooze. "Clearly" some people are saying the poor wizard can't increase his spell list by one spell because that would result in a list too short!

I still maintain the rules are silent on whether you "can prepare" a list with less than your full allotment of spells. All without "reading too much into whats written". In fact, I think its the other way around. Saying the rules are clear that you must have a spell list of your full allotment is reading too much into it.

jrowland said:

Here is a thought experiment: A wizard loses his spellbook, so he is now "stuck" with his prepared spell list. And let's say the evil DM has a legendary Mind Flayer suck out part of his memories, including 3 spells off his prepared spell list (poor wizard). So now he actually has less spells prepared than he is allotted. But then the wizard finds a book with one spell. So he can choose to keep his prepared spells as-is with 3 spells short or he can now prepare a new list that is 2 spells short but that means preparing a list with less spells than allotted! What happened? Did the DM break any rule (we are ignoring DM rulings and focused on rules here) by "erasing" some prepared spells? Was that ok and well within DM purvey, assuming he built a "balanced" Legendary Mind Flayer with that unusual ability? Are we saying, by the rules, a DM (or adventure writer, or WOTC) can't create a monster that erases spells from the mind? So much for a 5E version of Nishru or the Arcane ooze. "Clearly" some people are saying the poor wizard can't increase his spell list by one spell because that would result in a list too short!

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It depends on whether one tries to read the phrase "prepare the list of wizard spells" to mean all spells on the list, or only new ones.

I do think that the intent is clear that if the wizard loses his spell books, he cannot prep spells that he knows, just like in your example, if those prepped spells are removed, he cannot prep them without his spell books.

jrowland said:

I still maintain the rules are silent on whether you "can prepare" a list with less than your full allotment of spells. All without "reading too much into whats written". In fact, I think its the other way around. Saying the rules are clear that you must have a spell list of your full allotment is reading too much into it.

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Perhaps.

I maintain that thought experiments aside, the designers wrote a reasonable set of rules to indicate that the wizard gets his new list of spells back by studying. He does this after a long rest.

Allowing him to prepare some and not prepare others; and then later in the day, prepare others is not something the designers intended nor wrote about. Each DM can rule one way or the other, but it does not appear to be designer intent.

KarinsDad said:

Allowing him to prepare some and not prepare others; and then later in the day, prepare others is not something the designers intended nor wrote about. Each DM can rule one way or the other, but it does not appear to be designer intent.

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I know I am beating a dead horse here, but the idea that you can prepare twice in one day is a stretch. I don't think anyone postulated that as RAW or RAI, only as RAF for their table. There is some scuttlebutt about whether you can prepare once four hours after a long rest or if it must be immediately following a long rest, but that's not really at the heart of the issue. Really, what we are really debating is the notion of preparing less than full allotment, after a long rest.

As soon as your interpretation requires a "thought experiment" or any other hoops to go through, you're no longer reading the rulebook the way you need, in order to provide a baseline for online discussion.

You can't confuse me, but for the sake of impressionable newcomers, please stop arguing the rules are silent in cases where they are very clear.

Heh, I was going to say "Would personally rule as okay to leave a few spells unprepared, with later preparations taking 1 minute per spell level prepared", but looks like a lot of others already proposed the same idea...

Lucas Yew said:

Heh, I was going to say "Would personally rule as okay to leave a few spells unprepared

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That's an excellent idea.

jrowland said:

I know I am beating a dead horse here, but the idea that you can prepare twice in one day is a stretch. I don't think anyone postulated that as RAW or RAI, only as RAF for their table. There is some scuttlebutt about whether you can prepare once four hours after a long rest or if it must be immediately following a long rest, but that's not really at the heart of the issue. Really, what we are really debating is the notion of preparing less than full allotment, after a long rest.

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Why are you debating that notion? Why is it important? What player is going to prepare less than a full allotment without the possibility of filling in the rest of the prep slots later in the day?

To me, that's a non-issue.