D&D 5E Booming Blade seems a bit powerful

[James Gasik]

So, if I'm understanding this correctly; if I get hit by two Melf's Acid Arrows from two different Wizards, I only take the acid damage at the end of my next turn?

Two Warlocks can't place Hex on the same target? Likewise with two Rangers and Hunter's Mark?

I can only be subject to one curse from Bestow Curse? Or are different curses ok?

Ditto for being struck by two different Contagion spells?

I mean, I'm reading the 'Combining Magical Effects' section in the PHB, and it certainly sounds like that's what it's saying, so it's good to know- I recently saw two Clerics cast Spirit Guardians, and it was brutal, but apparently the DM didn't realize you can't be affected by two different Spirit Guardians spells.

 

[Arial Black]

I would go one of two ways:

1) Only highest Booming Blade takes effect, that one spellcaster rolls damage.
2) Every Booming Blade caster rolls damage, and only the highest takes effect. (Basically, riffing off of 'Advantage'.)

I'm leaning towards #2, because there should be *some* benefit to hitting someone with multiple Booming Blades, since it isn't a static numeric effect.

#2 would be against the rule. The example shows that two bless spells only get one bonus d4, not roll two bonus d4s and keep the best result. Therefore, you don't get two damage rolls and choose the best result either.

 

[Arial Black]

So, if I'm understanding this correctly; if I get hit by two Melf's Acid Arrows from two different Wizards, I only take the acid damage at the end of my next turn?

Two Warlocks can't place Hex on the same target? Likewise with two Rangers and Hunter's Mark?

I can only be subject to one curse from Bestow Curse? Or are different curses ok?

Ditto for being struck by two different Contagion spells?

I mean, I'm reading the 'Combining Magical Effects' section in the PHB, and it certainly sounds like that's what it's saying, so it's good to know- I recently saw two Clerics cast Spirit Guardians, and it was brutal, but apparently the DM didn't realize you can't be affected by two different Spirit Guardians spells.

The Combining Magical Effects rule is about two of the same spells cast on the same target, while their durations overlap.

Melf's Acid Arrow:The duration is 'instantaneous', so there is no overlap of duration. The acid has its normal continuing effect for both spells, since the 'one round later' part is not the 'spell duration'.

Hex/Hunter's Mark: The 'effects do not stack', so in order for there to be a problem then the spell must be affecting the same thing, or 'stacking' would not be relevant. With hex, if two different casters tried to hex the same ability twice then they would not stack, but if one caster hexed Str and the other hexed Con, then there is no stacking anyway.

For the extra damage part, each caster deals extra damage. You doing extra damage when you hit and him doing extra damage when he hits aren't things that stack; they are just separate instances of being damaged, like getting hit with two beams of eldritch blast.

Bestow Curse: In order to be 'stacked' they must be affecting the same thing. If the two curses affect different things then there is no 'stacking' to worry about.

Contagion: You can't be affected by the same disease twice, but different diseases are different things.

Spirit Guardians: This is not a spell that is cast on the enemy, but a spell which is cast on yourself and causes you to radiate a damaging aura. You can only have one spirit guardian aura on yourself. If two casters each have their own spirit guardian aura, then enemies are just taking damage from two different sources. If you get hit by one fireball this doesn't make you immune to future fireballs until your next turn!

 

[jaelis]

Hmm I would disagree about Spirit Guardians. The effect of the aura is to deal damage, being in two auras would not stack. (Fireball is different since it is instantaneous. If you could cast two fireballs simultaneously somehow, I don't think they would stack.)

Hex and curse seem debatable to me.

 

[Arial Black]

I think I see where you are going with that, but if you argue the entire descriptive text is the effect, then does that mean, for instance, the caster doesn't even get to make the melee attack against a target with an active BB on him? Would the melee attack then occur after the first BB ends?

But more than that, how do you even get to pick a target? That too is part of the descriptive text.

If you get to use the descriptive text to decide how targeting works, why wouldn't you use it to describe how the spell ending works?

Fair questions.

The answer is easy though. First, the general rule is, "Each spell description in chapter 11 begins with a block of information, including the spell’s name, level, school of magic, casting time, range, components, and duration. The rest of a spell entry describes the spell’s effect".

Second, 'specific beats general'. In this case, if the wording shows that a particular clause cannot be part of the 'spell effect', then it isn't; this is the 'specific' that beats the 'general' of the whole thing being the 'spell effect'.

But it has to say so. It isn't about us picking and choosing what bits we want to define as the 'spell effect' this time and which bits we don't. It has to be stated in such a way that it literally cannot be the 'spell effect', without the spell being nonsense. If there are two ways to read a rule and one way means it cannot function then we must read it the other way.

For booming blade/green-flame blade, these spells say, "As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell's range, otherwise the spell fails". The cause of a spell (an action which is required for the spell to come into being) literally cannot be the effect a the (successfully cast) spell. Cause must come before effect. Therefore, this clause literally cannot be part of the 'spell effect', and this makes it a specific exception to the general rule that the whole description is the 'spell effect'.

It's not the only thing like that. Targeting information and such-like are also things that enable the spell to be cast, rather than being the 'spell effect'. Saving throw information isn't directly a 'spell effect', but the result of that save (what happens if you save or fail) is part of the 'spell effect'.

For booming blade, the 'spell effect' is that the target is sheathed in a sonic bubble. That bubble has certain qualities regarding what happens if you willing move through the bubble, and ALL of those qualities ARE the 'spell effect', including what happens in the world to cause the bubble to burst (trigger) and the consequence of the bubble bursting (thunder damage, spell ends early).

Since the sonic bubble (and its qualities) ARE the 'spell effect', then you cannot have two of them on you at the same time re: Combining Magical Effects. Since you only have one bubble even if two spells are on you, there is no trigger for the second bubble to burst because there is no second bubble to burst!

However, when the first spell ends (for whatever reason) then there is no longer anything preventing the second spell from applying, and so as soon as the first bubble goes away then the second spell forms a new bubble, and the qualities of that new bubble become relevant.

 

[Arial Black]

Hmm I would disagree about Spirit Guardians. The effect of the aura is to deal damage, being in two auras would not stack. (Fireball is different since it is instantaneous. If you could cast two fireballs simultaneously somehow, I don't think they would stack.)

Although the spirit guardian aura has a duration, the damage done when starting your turn within it/moving into it is instantaneous. You don't have to spend a period of time/duration within the aura to take the damage, you instantly take the damage at the moment your turn starts and you are inside it, or at the moment you enter it for the first time that turn.

I remember in 2E it was ruled that if you were in the AofE of two simultaneous fireballs then you would take full damage unless you saved against both, but that you would only take the damage from the one that made you rolled the highest number of d6.

Following that logic, if you started your turn within the auras of two spirit guardian spells, and both did the same type of damage, necrotic or radiant, then make two saves and take full damage unless you successfully save both times, but only take damage from the biggest. However, if you move into more than one aura during your turn then each would have its full normal effect at the instant you entered its aura.

 

[James Gasik]

The Combining Magical Effects rule is about two of the same spells cast on the same target, while their durations overlap.

Melf's Acid Arrow:The duration is 'instantaneous', so there is no overlap of duration. The acid has its normal continuing effect for both spells, since the 'one round later' part is not the 'spell duration'.

Hex/Hunter's Mark: The 'effects do not stack', so in order for there to be a problem then the spell must be affecting the same thing, or 'stacking' would not be relevant. With hex, if two different casters tried to hex the same ability twice then they would not stack, but if one caster hexed Str and the other hexed Con, then there is no stacking anyway.

For the extra damage part, each caster deals extra damage. You doing extra damage when you hit and him doing extra damage when he hits aren't things that stack; they are just separate instances of being damaged, like getting hit with two beams of eldritch blast.

Bestow Curse: In order to be 'stacked' they must be affecting the same thing. If the two curses affect different things then there is no 'stacking' to worry about.

Contagion: You can't be affected by the same disease twice, but different diseases are different things.

Spirit Guardians: This is not a spell that is cast on the enemy, but a spell which is cast on yourself and causes you to radiate a damaging aura. You can only have one spirit guardian aura on yourself. If two casters each have their own spirit guardian aura, then enemies are just taking damage from two different sources. If you get hit by one fireball this doesn't make you immune to future fireballs until your next turn!

I appreciate this post, and I'm not arguing with your logic, it's probably how this is intended to work. But 'Combining Magical Effects' doesn't say anything about stacking. "The effects of the same spell cast multiple times don't combine" and "the most potent effect from those castings applies while their durations overlap". The actual text doesn't say this is ONLY to prevent stacking of effects, if a spell can have different effects. For example, look at Enhance Ability. Logically, yes, casting the spell on two different ability scores for the same character should be allowed, but the rules don't say that's ok, it just says "the same spell".

So unless we take an extra step and say "Enhance Ability used on Strength is a different spell than Enhance Ability used on Dexterity", the combining magical effects rules disallow the same spell applies.

And as far as Spirit Guardians goes, if I'm in the range of two such spells, and I'm told at the start of my turn that I take damage and have my speed halved, that sure sounds like the same effect to me. The only time the 'combining magical effects' section talks about the target is in it's example, not in the rules section itself, so the fact that it targets the caster could be irrelevant.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I appreciate this post, and I'm not arguing with your logic, it's probably how this is intended to work. But 'Combining Magical Effects' doesn't say anything about stacking. "The effects of the same spell cast multiple times don't combine" and "the most potent effect from those castings applies while their durations overlap". The actual text doesn't say this is ONLY to prevent stacking of effects, if a spell can have different effects. For example, look at Enhance Ability. Logically, yes, casting the spell on two different ability scores for the same character should be allowed, but the rules don't say that's ok, it just says "the same spell".

So unless we take an extra step and say "Enhance Ability used on Strength is a different spell than Enhance Ability used on Dexterity", the combining magical effects rules disallow the same spell applies.

And as far as Spirit Guardians goes, if I'm in the range of two such spells, and I'm told at the start of my turn that I take damage and have my speed halved, that sure sounds like the same effect to me. The only time the 'combining magical effects' section talks about the target is in it's example, not in the rules section itself, so the fact that it targets the caster could be irrelevant.

100%, all points.

 

[Arial Black]

I appreciate this post, and I'm not arguing with your logic, it's probably how this is intended to work. But 'Combining Magical Effects' doesn't say anything about stacking. "The effects of the same spell cast multiple times don't combine" and "the most potent effect from those castings applies while their durations overlap". The actual text doesn't say this is ONLY to prevent stacking of effects, if a spell can have different effects. For example, look at Enhance Ability. Logically, yes, casting the spell on two different ability scores for the same character should be allowed, but the rules don't say that's ok, it just says "the same spell".

So unless we take an extra step and say "Enhance Ability used on Strength is a different spell than Enhance Ability used on Dexterity", the combining magical effects rules disallow the same spell applies.

You know what? I think I might have been too focussed on 'stacking' as previous editions defined it, and assumed that 5E's Combining Magical Effects rule was all about that.

You're right, it isn't just about 'stacking', so the 'spell effects' do not combine even if those effects did a different thing for each casting, so I stand corrected.

Of course, the consequence of that is that you can abuse that rule no end! You can effectively make yourself completely immune to certain spells cast by a hostile caster by having a friendly caster cast the spell on you harmlessly. Have a friendly warlock hex you, and choose a stat you don't care about. He is not going to attack you, so his attacks doing extra damage doesn't matter. Meanwhile, the evil warlocks simply cannot hex you at all!

You can do the same trick with suggestion, or any of the other examples mentioned previously in this thread.

Perhaps I'll houserule it back to the way I thought it was, all about 'stacking'. Still, for a RAW discussion, my houserules are irrelevant. It's up to players and DMs to take advantage of this ill-thought-out rule until the DM is forced to make their own houserule.

And as far as Spirit Guardians goes, if I'm in the range of two such spells, and I'm told at the start of my turn that I take damage and have my speed halved, that sure sounds like the same effect to me.

I agree, and I mentioned this. If, at the start of your turn, you are within the areas of two different spirit guardians then you should only be affected by one. However, if you did not start in the area of any SG, and later moved into one, and then later on the same turn you moved out of that and into a different SG area, then you would be affected by each of them as usual, and take damage from them both. Of course, which idiot would do that?

The only time the 'combining magical effects' section talks about the target is in it's example, not in the rules section itself, so the fact that it targets the caster could be irrelevant.

Yes, you're right.

 

[jaelis]

Of course, the consequence of that is that you can abuse that rule no end! You can effectively make yourself completely immune to certain spells cast by a hostile caster by having a friendly caster cast the spell on you harmlessly. Have a friendly warlock hex you, and choose a stat you don't care about. He is not going to attack you, so his attacks doing extra damage doesn't matter. Meanwhile, the evil warlocks simply cannot hex you at all!

Only the most potent effect occurs; I guess if the DM rules that your opponent's Str hex is more potent than your allies Cha hex, then I guess the Str hex would be the active one.

Basically, there's no rule that the first cast spell takes priority, so you wouldn't want to rely on that.