Circle Casting Details Revealed for Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerun

Wizards of the Coast has explained the effects of Circle Casting in Dungeons & Dragons. Next month, Wizards of the Coast will release Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerun, a player-facing campaign setting book. One of the major draws of Heroes of Faerun is the addition of Circle Casting, a new way to greatly enhance spells through a group casting. More details were provided about Circle Casting via a D&D Beyond article posted this week. While some spells (such as the newly revealed Doomtide and Spellfire Storm) have specific effects that activate during a Circle Casting, any D&D spell can be enhanced via Circle Casting. The following generic options are available when a spell is cast via Circle Casting.

• Augment: Stretch your spell's range by thousands of feet.
• Distribute: Let your allies share the burden of Concentration, keeping the spell's effects steady.
• Expand: Widen the spell's influence, increasing its area of effect.
• Prolong: Sustain the spell's effect for hours beyond its typical duration.
• Safeguard: Shape the Weave to spare your allies from the storm you unleash.
• Supplant: Replace costly Material components with the collective strength of your circle.

Not every spell can be cast via Circle Casting. Eligible spells must have a casting time of an action or 1 minute or longer and is cast using a spell slot. When a spell is cast via Circle Casting, a primary caster is chosen, and the primary caster chooses the targets, maintains Concentration if needed, provides components, expends the spell slot, and makes any other choices the spell requires. Some Circle Casting options require every member of a Circle to expend spell slots as well.

 

[Reynard]

No they don't. For example the 2014 version spell of lich and archmage had spell slots, there terrible idea of "simplifing" them means now its stuff like 1/day instead of spell slots.

Which by raw you can't use Circle Magic with monsters & NPCs.

What do you think 1/day means? Why are you working so hard to make things more difficult for yourself?

 

[Parmandur]

What do you think 1/day means? Why are you working so hard to make things more difficult for yourself?

Yeah, the article explicitly calls out using circle casting as a nefarious NPC plot.

 

[AlViking]

Even if NPCs didn't have spell slots (they do), any NPC or monster that casts a spell in my game will qualify for this. We don't have the exact text yet of course, but the only reason the MM doesn't spell out spell slots is for simplicity while running them. If we can't have evil cultists doing dark sacrificial deeds, what's the point of having evil cultists in the first place.

 

[Ferrousbones]

What do you think 1/day means? Why are you working so hard to make things more difficult for yourself?

The problem is that it isn't just X/day, it is that some spellcasting is either/or (such as the Archmage Reaction casting of Counterspell or Shield), while others are X/day each (such as Archmage Action casting of spells).

Anything that says X/day each is linguistically aligned with innate casting, not slot casting, while the things that say or linguistically align with slot casting.

Obviously, we can treat each of these as using spell slots, but that doesn't change the RAW.

 

[Reynard]

Anything that says X/day each is linguistically aligned with innate casting, not slot casting, while the things that say or linguistically align with slot casting.

These are clearly the spells prepared by the NPC. Again, it seems folks are really trying very hard to give themselves something to wring their hands over.

 

[Parmandur]

The problem is that it isn't just X/day, it is that some spellcasting is either/or (such as the Archmage Reaction casting of Counterspell or Shield), while others are X/day each (such as Archmage Action casting of spells).

Anything that says X/day each is linguistically aligned with innate casting, not slot casting, while the things that say or linguistically align with slot casting.

Obviously, we can treat each of these as using spell slots, but that doesn't change the RAW.

Literally none of that follows: clearly the NPC spellcastijg blocks are meant to be a shorthand for the same slota as PCs, bit summarized into a form that is designed for the spellcaster only being around for 2 rounds of combat.

This is a gameplay convenience, not a simulationist statement. The RAW are not indicating thst the casters are working differently within the fiction.

 

[AlViking]

Literally none of that follows: clearly the NPC spellcastijg blocks are meant to be a shorthand for the same slota as PCs, bit summarized into a form that is designed for the spellcaster only being around for 2 rounds of combat.

This is a gameplay convenience, not a simulationist statement. The RAW are not indicating thst the casters are working differently within the fiction.

There's no reason to believe that under the hood an NPC mage doesn't work just like a regular old wizard PC class. But since that mage is only going to have 15 minutes of fame (if that), there's no reason to add all of the complexity of a PC class. To justify otherwise in-world lore would have .001% of people that casts spell (e.g. PCs) would have to operate under completely different rules of magic.

I understand that people really feel compelled to make mountains out of molehills but I just don't see this one. If nothing else if you want NPCs that have explicit spell slots build them using character classes.

 

[AlViking]

Back on topic, I really wish we still had the option to buy partial books. I don't use FR so I don't really need the book. Not even sure it's something I want to open up to the PCs until I get more details. But I do like the ideas behind this, even if I already have NPC rituals and group casting if it makes sense for the scenario. It could be a fun toy.

 

[Reynard]

Back on topic, I really wish we still had the option to buy partial books. I don't use FR so I don't really need the book. Not even sure it's something I want to open up to the PCs until I get more details. But I do like the ideas behind this, even if I already have NPC rituals and group casting if it makes sense for the scenario. It could be a fun toy.

Or if they actually added new material to the SRD, like Paizo does.

 

[bedir than]

Or if they actually added new material to the SRD, like Paizo does.

They did add new stuff to the SRD only a couple months ago.