D&D (2024) Playtest 8 Spell Discussion

[Chaosmancer]

Hardly an exception. Absorb elements requires that I take damage of specific types. How do I know that the damage I took is cold damage?

Or heck Silvery Barbs. How do I perceive that a person passed their saving throw? If a person passed their fireball save but still died from the half damage....do I know they passed? If I hit a creature but do no damage due to a damage threshold, do I know I actually hit?

There are very few reaction spells in the game, and I would argue a good portion of them get really hard to use if you truly require the caster to understand and perceive the trigger.

Agreed. There are a lot of reactions that require such a precise amount of awareness that, honestly, if you over apply the concept, you end up with many abilities that flat do not work.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Its more fundamental than that. One side is arguing that a Verbal component can be done in a way that is virtually imperceptible, which defeats the purpose of using components to trace spells back to their origin. It has far greater reach than just Counterspelling, it also effects mundane tracing of spells, which is the other important feature of the Subtle Spell metamagic.

I disagree with the phrasing of making it "virtually imperceptible". I think the intent is that there are certain spells and certain situations where it should be POSSIBLE to be undetected.

Subtle spell is not made useless by this, just as lockpicks and holding your breath are not made useless by knock and water breathing.

 

[Yaarel]

Why are they irrelevant to a bard playing a flute? The bard only gets to use the flute to ignore the material component if it's cheap. The somatic and verbal are still there.

A Bard playing a flute to cast a spell, uses the flute the focus. But there is no voice (no Verbal component) and the hand and fingers are occupied (no Somatic component).

 

[Yaarel]

I'm not sure what you mean here.

Some spells have a pointless gp component. Because of this, the gp component prevents the spell from being a cast innately. The gp component is a pain point.

 

[Maxperson]

So you agree that talking quietly and not talking at all are clearly different things. Thank you for your agreement.

19th! 20th! And 21st!

Holy cow you twisted that more than a contortionist making a pretzel! Had to count that sucker as 3!

Sure, if you want to be an naughty word DM you can ask that. I don't tend to play with that sort of DM. How do they know? The same way that they know the person waving their hands and speaking is casting a spell and not doing an interpretative dance of the birth of the swallow.

That's the result of you ignoring both logic and natural language. If you don't like it because it's "naughty DM", that should tell you something.

Because the rules say that is how it works. That can be an unsatisfying answer for you, but a deaf creature can counterspell a Verbal only spell. A blind creature cannot. How precisely does that work? Once I figure out how to make words and gestures change quantum mechanics, I'll tell you precisely why the visual matters more than the auditory.

No it's not how it works. You can quote nothing in counterspell that gives you magical knowledge of all spellcasting within 60 feet as it happens. You're inventing abilities for counterspell and trying to call it RAW.

And why do I care what you would call it?

I was being kind. A small fraction of the DMG =/= a ton of rules.

You've already conceded the point I was making. The rules in the other books are RAW. You agree. So there really isn't any reason to keep this conversation going.

Sure, I've conceded that they are "RAW," but not inherently part of anyone's game. That means you cannot use any rule from any splatbook in a discussion about how the game works by default. None of the splat book options can be assumed to be in use.

 

[Maxperson]

Some spells have a pointless gp component. Because of this, the gp component prevents the spell from being a cast innately. The gp component is a pain point.

There are balance reasons for the high GP spells. You may not agree with those, but they exist for that reason.

 

[Yaarel]

There are balance reasons for the high GP spells. You may not agree with those, but they exist for that reason.

Gp components are unreliable for balance. Most gp components are a trivial amount at a high slot, when characters have too much gp and nothing to spend it on. At low slots, gp components are often nonconsumable, whence the cost disincentive ends. There is little or no gp disincentive for spells. Only a handful of spells have a gp that might be noticeable, such as Resurrection, and even then there is little or no game balance function. The gp component lacks a mechanical game engine function.

Heh, when I went thru the 5e spells to look at every spell with a gp component, it actually made me angry. The gp component is a pain point, and the pain is purposeless. The gp components are incapable of game balance. The gp components interfere with spellcasting flavor. The gp components diminish the fun of the game.

 

[Maxperson]

Gp components are unreliable for balance. Most gp components are a trivial amount at a high slot, when characters have too much gp and nothing to spend it on. At low slots, gp components are often nonconsumable, whence the cost disincentive ends. There is little or no disincentive. The gp component lacks a mechanical game engine function.

Supposedly they are fixing the gold piece "issue." And it's not trivial if you run out before you can go get more. It's also not trivial if you don't drop too much gold like the premade adventures do. They give out more treasure than 5e expects to go out.

Heh, when I went thru the 5e spells to look at every spell with a gp component, it actually made me angry. The gp component is a pain point, and the pain is purposeless. The gp components are incapable of game balance. The gp components interfere with spellcasting flavor. The gp components diminish the fun of the game.

Nobody is actually making you use them. Speaking of trivial. It's trivially easy for you to just tell your players that there are no components to spells anymore. It's a lot of work to add those things back in, though. That means that the game needs to keep them in for those who do enjoy them and do use them for balance.

 

[Yaarel]

Supposedly they are fixing the gold piece "issue." And it's not trivial if you run out before you can go get more. It's also not trivial if you don't drop too much gold like the premade adventures do. They give out more treasure than 5e expects to go out.

Nobody is actually making you use them. Speaking of trivial. It's trivially easy for you to just tell your players that there are no components to spells anymore. It's a lot of work to add those things back in, though. That means that the game needs to keep them in for those who do enjoy them and do use them for balance.

I would rather have RAW that works well.

 

[Stalker0]

That's the result of you ignoring both logic and natural language.

I mean to be fair, your premise for shield is that its a time travel spell...so I think we all are stretching things a bit here