D&D 5E Spells you house rule?

[James Gasik]

It's concentration, so you'd need to choose 1 person to keep casting it on, probably just on yourself. I could see people keeping it up at all times just in case, it stops other concentration effects, and will be very noisy, and people will be looking weird at them, so it prob balances it out.

Oh right, fair enough, but still, this is one of those things where it's like, if the DM is too much of a stickler for how it's being used the player is either going to not use it at all, or assume it's on the same kind of cantrip rotation as light, where they just keep refreshing it whenever it's about to go out.

 

[James Gasik]

Guidance lasts one minute. This means you're moving to be within arms reach of and praying out loud for the success of each companion once every minute all day?

No thanks.

I agree that in noncombat situations we can be a bit flexible with time and exact positioning. There are certainly situations, like when the rogue is about to pick a lock or search a chest for traps, when the whole party (or most of it) is likely to be watching, and there's an obvious pause for the rogue to get ready, that it seems obvious that the Cleric could and would cast it. I'm not going to be super strict about "no take-backs!" in a situation like that. But there are plenty of situations where it makes no sense at all. Ones where the Cleric character in-game had no opportunity to pray for success on an action, because he didn't know one was about to be taken, or because he was busy doing something else.

What? You get 10 actions a minute. It's not like it's hard to keep casting a cantrip ever 10th round. And yeah, as was pointed out, you can't actually hit everyone with it, but you could keep it going on your best spotter/trap finder/what have you. I mean, what else are you doing as the party creeps along exploring?

I've played at a lot of tables, and I've never once seen anyone give the Wizard havoc for keeping their light spells going during exploration.

 

[James Gasik]

The discussion about issues with Guidance is entirely out-of-combat (in combat, action economy implies a cost to cast the cantrip, whereas out-of-combat it is completely free of cost), and out-of-combat the rules for "Working Together" still very much leave the DM full control over whether someone can help another.

But then again, the problem with Guidance is that some DMs have seen players cast this cantrip every single time someone is making a check, resulting in a cantrip which is far more useful than any other. If players would declare "work together!" every single time something is going on in the game, and the DM was forced to allow it, you would have the same problem.




I could see how that could also be used to prevent Guidance to work on almost every single reactive ability check. But I am not convinced because it says "of its choice" not "you choose", which means it is not referring to the fact that you have chosen to make the check, but rather than the target doesn't have to use Guidance of the first check it has to do but can choose to keep it for later.



At the root of the matter, is the fact that Guidance and Working Together were added to the rules under the designers' assumptions that they would be used occasionally, relying on the good faith of the players. It is only when a player realizes that by the RAW they can try to abuse these options, that they become a real problem. Some DMs are simply try to anticipate the problem.


Right, if you want to cast the spell once every minute, I will then call you to make a perception check against traps every 5ft you move, everywhere and all the time. Do you see what is the annoyance here?

Absolutely, but like I said, if you tell players they can't use it as needed, then it comes down to either don't bother with it, or just keep it going constantly (I'm going to use the light spell as an example of cantrips that are pretty much assumed to be cast multiple times during exploration without much fuss).

 

[Oofta]

What? You get 10 actions a minute. It's not like it's hard to keep casting a cantrip ever 10th round. And yeah, as was pointed out, you can't actually hit everyone with it, but you could keep it going on your best spotter/trap finder/what have you. I mean, what else are you doing as the party creeps along exploring?

I've played at a lot of tables, and I've never once seen anyone give the Wizard havoc for keeping their light spells going during exploration.

You only talk in turns of actions in combat which normally takes a minute or two. It's a judgement call of course, but casting a spell every minute for hours on end would not only be annoying but also incredibly disruptive. It's completely different than casting something once per hour. Could you imagine texting someone 60 times in one hour all day long?

Or at least that's what I would tell a player in my game if they tried it. Do what makes sense to you.

 

[James Gasik]

You only talk in turns of actions in combat which normally takes a minute or two. It's a judgement call of course, but casting a spell every minute for hours on end would not only be annoying but also incredibly disruptive. It's completely different than casting something once per hour. Could you imagine texting someone 60 times in one hour all day long?

Or at least that's what I would tell a player in my game if they tried it. Do what makes sense to you.

I mean I don't text people like that, but I've seen some members of that younger generation go nuts about maintaining their "streak"...

And how is using guidance in this fashion any different than someone lighting the party's way with dancing lights?

 

[Oofta]

I mean I don't text people like that, but I've seen some members of that younger generation go nuts about maintaining their "streak"...

And how is using guidance in this fashion any different than someone lighting the party's way with dancing lights?

I wouldn't allow dancing lights for hours on end either. As much as some people text a lot, I assume very few text over 700 times in one day. Keep it up for a few minutes? Sure. All day for at least 12 hours if not 16? Nope.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Could you imagine texting someone 60 times in one hour all day long?

my ex girlfriend at least FELT like that was what she was doing... including when in the same room as me when my phone was closer to her then me...

Or at least that's what I would tell a player in my game if they tried it. Do what makes sense to you.

 

[Mannahnin]

What? You get 10 actions a minute. It's not like it's hard to keep casting a cantrip ever 10th round. And yeah, as was pointed out, you can't actually hit everyone with it, but you could keep it going on your best spotter/trap finder/what have you. I mean, what else are you doing as the party creeps along exploring?

I've played at a lot of tables, and I've never once seen anyone give the Wizard havoc for keeping their light spells going during exploration.

You get 10 actions a minute in combat. You are not assumed to be keeping up that pace of action all day every day.

You don't see a categorical difference between re-casting a non-concentration spell once an hour, and re-casting a concentration spell once every minute? Even with it only being one person, rather than the whole party, that's a lot of monotonous effort.

You're creeping quietly down the dungeon hall, and every minute the Cleric pronounces another prayer aloud on the Ranger or Rogue, with no particular task being focused on?

I'm trying to picture this, but it fails the verisimilitude test for me.

 

[James Gasik]

You get 10 actions a minute in combat. You are not assumed to be keeping up that pace of action all day every day.

You don't see a categorical difference between re-casting a non-concentration spell once an hour, and re-casting a concentration spell once every minute? Even with it only being one person, rather than the whole party, that's a lot of monotonous effort.

You're creeping quietly down the dungeon hall, and every minute the Cleric pronounces another prayer aloud on the Ranger or Rogue, with no particular task being focused on?

I'm trying to picture this, but it fails the verisimilitude test for me.

Well ok, I mean, I'm really just used to it because, again, thanks to spells like dancing lights that I figure players are constantly refreshing in order to provide a constant light source for the party.

And Guidance doesn't require a set task, you can just throw it on your party Ranger to cover spotting enemies or whatnot.

Not really sure why 5e decided to switch from +1 to +1d4, but by making it an at-will cantrip, it seems to me the intent was for it to be used quite often.

But then we could ask why they decided to make cantrips at will in the first place, instead of 6/day like in 3e.

The only thing that I can think of is "because Pathfinder did it".

Also, if you have a Fighter, Cleric, or Paladin in your party, they're probably wearing heavier armor anyways, so what "creeping quietly down the hall" is happening here?

 

[Li Shenron]

Absolutely, but like I said, if you tell players they can't use it as needed, then it comes down to either don't bother with it, or just keep it going constantly (I'm going to use the light spell as an example of cantrips that are pretty much assumed to be cast multiple times during exploration without much fuss).

You don't have to choose an extreme...

I am not telling players they can't use it, but I have countermeasures in place (as per my first post) so that even if a player wants us to assume their PC is constantly casting it every 59 seconds, it is still not much more useful than other cantrips.