Recovering Unused Held Spells

77IM · May 4, 2019

I ignore the entire last paragraph under Ready; if you want to cast a spell as your reaction, you can just do that, just like taking any other action. The extra complication of "holding" the spell with concentration is not worth the supposed benefit, not even close.

Sword of Spirit · May 5, 2019

77IM said:
I ignore the entire last paragraph under Ready; if you want to cast a spell as your reaction, you can just do that, just like taking any other action. The extra complication of "holding" the spell with concentration is not worth the supposed benefit, not even close.

Although, if the intent of that paragraph was to make it so no one ever actually Readies spells, it's working quite well.

DND_Reborn · May 5, 2019

Saelorn said:
It seems unnecessarily complicated. It would be much easier to just say that the spell energy is not expended in the first place, if you don't actually cast the spell. The action economy should be enough to make sure that nobody abuses it.

I think this is a good balance. I wouldn't bother with the check, after all you didn't have to make a check to cast the spell. Simply giving it a cost in the action economy (bonus action, or even a reaction) works well enough IMO.

Blue · May 5, 2019

Saelorn said:
It seems unnecessarily complicated. It would be much easier to just say that the spell energy is not expended in the first place, if you don't actually cast the spell. The action economy should be enough to make sure that nobody abuses it.

Are you are also doing away with the fact that it takes Concentration, since that's part of the holding spells?

If you are going to make a major change like that, don't hide it. If you aren't going to make a change like that, then the spell obviously was cast and the rational for the proposal doesn't hold up.

Blue · May 5, 2019

Sword of Spirit said:
What I prefer to do instead is require the slot to be spent, but allow them to keep the spell readied from round to round until they release it, rather than saying that you lose the spell if you don't cast it before the start of your next turn.

If you can hold it, does this mean you can pre-cast out-of-combat and hold it until a combat starts?

This gets you things like if you are expecting a combat casting a spell with the trigger "if I see a foe", and getting a reaction at the very top of initiative when they burst open a door (or whatever).

It could also lead to things like pre-casting a longer-than-one-round spell that you wouldn't be able to cast in combat and carrying it readied until a combat starts.

The Crimson Binome · May 5, 2019

Blue said:
Are you are also doing away with the fact that it takes Concentration, since that's part of the holding spells?

If you are going to make a major change like that, don't hide it. If you aren't going to make a change like that, then the spell obviously was cast and the rationale for the proposal doesn't hold up.

Sure, why not? From a narrative standpoint, it makes sense that you didn't actually cast a spell yet, so there's nothing for you to be concentrating on.

I'd also be down for expanding the concentration system to cover any activity that requires your focused attention, so you couldn't concentrate on a spell while picking a lock (for example), and I'd also be fine with expanding that definition out to include readying actions in general. The game isn't so finely balanced that this change would ruin anything, regardless of how you rule it.

tglassy · May 5, 2019

Yeah, I’m thinking there are reasons it’s set up the way it is.

Blue · May 5, 2019

Saelorn said:
Sure, why not? From a narrative standpoint, it makes sense that you didn't actually cast a spell yet, so there's nothing for you to be concentrating on.

I'd also be down for expanding the concentration system to cover any activity that requires your focused attention, so you couldn't concentrate on a spell while picking a lock (for example), and I'd also be fine with expanding that definition out to include readying actions in general. The game isn't so finely balanced that this change would ruin anything, regardless of how you rule it.

I'm good with this - as long as it's consistant. Actually, I'm more than good with extending out Concentration. I used Concentration for non-casting some back in 3.0 and 3.5, but with the granularity of skill ranks really the only ones who bothered to be good at it were casters so things like keeping up a counter-chant the PCs had been taught to an evil ritual while fighting had mechanical issues.

77IM · May 5, 2019

I'm considering changing Ready so that a) you don't have to specify a trigger and b) you don't have to specify an action. In other words, when you Ready, you can later use your reaction to take an action. But you can't interrupt another creature's turn.

This would make Ready work a bit more like Delay from 3.5. The goal would be giving players more freedom to do nothing on their turn, either because they aren't sure what to do, or because there's nothing useful to do. I think this would speed the game up considerably.

Can anyone think of a way this could be abused?

Sword of Spirit · May 7, 2019

Blue said:
If you can hold it, does this mean you can pre-cast out-of-combat and hold it until a combat starts?

This gets you things like if you are expecting a combat casting a spell with the trigger "if I see a foe", and getting a reaction at the very top of initiative when they burst open a door (or whatever).

It could also lead to things like pre-casting a longer-than-one-round spell that you wouldn't be able to cast in combat and carrying it readied until a combat starts.

That is something to think about, but it isn't much more of an issue than trying to do the same thing with other actions--something that isn't allowed, but often you have to come up with some way to handle it when people want to do it in the fiction. I'd probably just make them roll initiative normally and not be able to release the spell until their turn comes up. If they were expecting a battle, I might give them advantage (as well as to anyone in that boat).

The goal isn't to provide a way to cheat the system between combats, but to not be overly harsh inside combat. Another thing that would make sense out of combat would be to require Constitution checks (or Constitution saves) to keep holding the spell for longer periods of time, since it strikes me that this is a bigger deal (you're kind of stuck mid-cast) than the normal "Concentration" mechanic, which doesn't mean you're actually concentrating at all (more like you've got a magical effect taking up a certain amount of your magical capacity in a barely conscious way).