D&D (2024) Ranger 2024 is a bigger joke than Ranger 2014:

[Snarf Zagyg]

The Space Ranger. Silent Spells. No Screaming.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Oh no no no... I don't play with any of them. They're annoying. And Fyodor picks his nose.

My son told me that picking your nose helps your immune system.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I think it's pretty clear that you have to enunciate to cast spells... no mumbling!

I can't imagine why the book having a tiny bit of guidance on the subject would offend anyone.

 

[Umbran]

That implies the people who you want to listen to you actively want to hear you. Not a guarantee in this situation.

"Speaking as a teacher" - so, no such implication.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

WOtC attempts to bring back True namers in UA.

WOTC believes magic is garbled up True Speak. They just stink at making it cool enough to print.

They've never made it official, no official D&D lore supports your interpretation. Only specifically rejected UA lore did!

Would it be better if they did? Yes. But you're doing tea-leafing reading and stating it as hard fact. No good.

Subtle Spell.

That's not "special training" in any reasonable sense.

That's a class ability for a class which gains its powers through unlocking its innate capabilities! Further it's not "quietly". It's 100% completely silently. On top of that, it's magic which requires special magic points!

It's not lack of coolness that leads players to reject it, it's too specific an interpretation of how magic functions.

Yeah this is the issue.

D&D would be, imho, much, much better if it had a specific, defined cosmology and way magic worked and so on (the closest it's come being probably 1E and 4E). But it doesn't have that, and if it did, a lot of people would either say "This ain't D&D!" or "This isn't MY D&D!". So we get this clumsy bumbling aspect of D&D where it has to be all things to all men and thus avoid being "overspecific", despite insanely specific and weird stuff like spell slots!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If no one can hear you when you cast a spell with a verbal component, why have it at all on the spell? If it's just flavor as you say, why have a feat or class feature that removes it? Why in fact does the book not state that it's flavor and has no game function?

This is a very, very weak argument.

98% of the time material components are "just flavour" (the rest are mostly GP cost). Why shouldn't that also be true for 98% of verbal components? Likewise somatic components are pretty much never detailed, and are usually trivial to hide by being in the dark or behind someone if we assume they're arm/finger wiggling. Why should verbal components be uniquely important and impossible to hide when one of the other types is usually flavour, occasionally a small cost, and the other is fairly trivial to hide?

WotC desperately need to pin down how loud spells are normally and whether it's in any way possible to quieten them without using Sorcerer magic.

 

[Minigiant]

That's not "special training" in any reasonable sense.

That's a class ability for a class which gains its powers through unlocking its innate capabilities! Further it's not "quietly". It's 100% completely silently. On top of that, it's magic which requires special magic points!

Metamagic Adept feat

They've never made it official, no official D&D lore supports your interpretation. Only specifically rejected UA lore did!

Would it be better if they did? Yes. But you're doing tea-leafing reading and stating it as hard fact. No good

But it is how WOTC thinks and assumes how the game run internally in their heads.

It's not official. But if you asked any official designer, they all will rule that spells with verbal components are not quiet and cannot be whispered.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is a very, very weak argument.

98% of the time material components are "just flavour" (the rest are mostly GP cost). Why shouldn't that also be true for 98% of verbal components? Likewise somatic components are pretty much never detailed, and are usually trivial to hide by being in the dark or behind someone if we assume they're arm/finger wiggling. Why should verbal components be uniquely important and impossible to hide when one of the other types is usually flavour, occasionally a small cost, and the other is fairly trivial to hide?

WotC desperately need to pin down how loud spells are normally and whether it's in any way possible to quieten them without using Sorcerer magic.

Because sound is harder to hide than sight, because logic. And if WotC doesn't want V, S, M to matter, they should say so and change the rules.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Yeah, help you. Won't help everyone else because everyone else has other feelings or needs on the matter, but who cares about them, right?

And leaving a game that you don't like? That's ALWAYS the #1 solution, LOL!

Pretty weird stance. They shouldn't clarify rules because everyone just makes it up anyways?

Why have any rules then? Anything you'd state (not just for this, ANY rule) is going to have some contrarian thinking they'd do it differently.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But it is how WOTC thinks and assumes how the game run internally in their heads.

Not it isn't lol.

That's tea-reading. That's pretending to be psychic. You are not a psion.

It's not official. But if you asked any official designer, they all will rule that spells with verbal components are not quiet and cannot be whispered.

Bollocks.

If that was true they'd have said it.

And as noted it's extremely possible to trivially stop people seeing somatic components by like, not being in their LOS, and material components are just flavour or GP cost, so why is this unique to V components, and why has D&D 5E absolutely never, ever stated it?