D&D 5E Can you twin booming blade

[Paul Farquhar]

My guess is because you actually need to have a weapon in your hand and use it -- you can't use an arcane focus in place of the spell's material component of "a weapon", despite the fact that no GP cost is listed. The spell doesn't provide you with a weapon with which to make the melee weapon attack, it just provides you with the action economy to attack with it.

It doesn't actually say that the weapon you use as the material component must be what you use to make the melee attack with.

So you could have a spellcasting focus in one hand and throw a booming punch with the other.

(basically, it's a badly thought out spell, it should work like the smite spells.)

 

[lumenbeing]

Ray of Frost only deals damage if the Beam hits the target. That beam is described as singular. Booming blade only deals damage if the weapon attack hits the target. That weapon attack is described as singular. Twin Spell does not give two Beams, it just gives another target. So there is no rules text that supports there being a second beam, just as there is no rules text that supports there being a second weapon attack in Booming blade. Without that second swing or beam, the second target cannot be hit, so no effect occurs on them.

Why can't you just drop the snark, Yakk? If you tried as hard to consider my argument and address the points I make as you are trying to cast my logic as absurd, then we could continue the debate. If you don't have an actual rebuttal and just want to continue with this foolishness of pretending ray of frost is as ambiguously written as booming blade when it clearly isn't, then you have clearly chosen the strategy of distraction and I'm not taking that bait. You would love it if I argued ray of frost never mentions anything about any "beams" or pointed out that there is no requirement that a "beam hits." But that is obvious and irrelevant. So I' won't speak on Ray of Frost anymore. Its annoying enough to have to retype the same points multiple times. Anyone reading this thread will know what "ghost arms" is in reference to and what my point is a refutation of. It isn't necessary for you to have ever mentioned that for me to reference it in a post, because while I may have quoted something you wrote in that particular reply, you aren't the only other party in this debate, and yours aren't the only arguments I'm responding to. Ghost arms were mentioned as a possible explanation (in my view a "fluff" explanation) as to how two melee weapon attacks could happen simultaneously. Rubber chickens weren't.

 

[NotAYakk]

That is the thing. To me, ray of frost is as ambiguously written as booming blade.

It has all of the same components and the same logic works to say that you don't get a 2nd attack.

We can fall back to natural language. In which case, both spells clearly have 1 target. And the minimal changes you'd do to each spell to give them a 2nd target and have them work are clear in both cases.

If we use restrictive reading and "only add an additional target, no other changes", then the extra target is useless in both spells. You don't get another beam, you don't get another spell attack.

A frigid beam of blue-white light streaks toward a creature within range. Make a ranged spell Attack against the target. On a hit, it takes 1d8 cold damage, and its speed is reduced by 10 feet until the start of your next turn.

to turn this into a two target spell, you do this:

Two frigid beams of blue-white light streaks toward two creatures within range. Make a ranged spell Attack against each target. On a hit, that target takes 1d8 cold damage, and its speed is reduced by 10 feet until the start of your next turn.

Booming blade reads as follows:

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.
On a hit, the target suffers the attack's normal effects, and it becomes sheathed in booming energy until the start of your next turn. If the target willingly moves before then, it immediately takes 1d8 thunder damage, and the spell ends.

To turn this into a two target spell, you do this:

As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against two creatures within the spell's range, otherwise the spell fails.
On a hit, each target suffers the attack's normal effects, and it becomes sheathed in booming energy until the start of your next turn. If that target willingly moves before then, it immediately takes 1d8 thunder damage, and the spell ends on that target.

Both require rewording to handle a 2nd target. The rewording in each case is no larger than the other. I guess you could drop "on that target" and have only the first moving creature take the damage.

In 5e, the spell picking a creature causes it to be a target of the spell. Not "I cast a spell and pick targets then read the text". If the text picks creatures? Those are the targets.

If you don't do that rewording, both spells don't make sense with 2 targets. If you do do the rewording, both spells make sense with two targets.

I understand your position -- that somehow, the melee weapon attack makes these fundamentally different -- and it seems to be grounded in the idea that sorcerers cannot make two weapon attacks as part of the attack action without using a spell, so they shouldn't be allowed to do it as part of a spell.

And if there was a balance implication of letting a sorcerer who spent resources on learning booming blade, built up their attack stat, and burned sorcery points to getting a 2nd attack booming blade attack, I might houserule that booming blade doesn't work with twinspell.

But I'm not seeing the problem with treating it like any other "you attack the target" spell being twinned and making the same minimal modifications to make it make sense. Because that seems (to me) to be the intention of twin spell, if not how it was worded when read strictly.

 

[Esker]

Which, of course, leads to the conclusion that even if your number of attacks is zero you could still make an attack roll as part of casting the spell.

Yep! As long as you have a melee weapon available.

 

[Esker]

It doesn't actually say that the weapon you use as the material component must be what you use to make the melee attack with.

So you could have a spellcasting focus in one hand and throw a booming punch with the other.

(basically, it's a badly thought out spell, it should work like the smite spells.)

You can't use a punch with it because fists aren't a "melee weapon" (EDIT: just reread it; it doesn't say "make an attack with a melee weapon, it says "make a melee attack with a weapon", but same difference; fists aren't considered a "weapon" even though you can make "melee weapon attacks" with them). You're right that it doesn't have to be the same weapon, but since you need a melee weapon in your hand to attack with you can't gain anything by having a spellcasting focus in your other hand, since you would have qualified for the material component already anyway.

It would be a big change if it worked like the smite spells, since those require both a bonus action and concentration. It could work like a more restrictive one round non-concentration version of Haste though, granting you one additional action this round, which you can use only to make one melee weapon attack. But then it would be range: self and thus ineligible for twinning. And I guess depending on the wording, would allow you to use things that are triggered by the attack action (such TWF, Flurry of Blows, Shield Master shove, or Sword Bard flourishes).

 

[Salthorae]

This thread is a much more reasoned and thoughtful discussion than you will ever get out of Mr Crawford

I posit that if you had a chance to sit down with Mr. Crawford and discuss this spell he would give a very well reason and thoughtful discussion. But he's a busy person.

The fact that he responds to twitter questions at all is a bonus to people, not a requirement that we should deride him for when he doesn't give us pages of the reasoning behind his responses. Or even when those responses might sometimes contradict previous responses in the heat of response.

It just shows he's human.

When you bend the rules to get an effect -- like ray of frost producing two beams -- it is an exploit, regardless of the effect.

You're not bending any rules. Why does it matter if there are two beams or not? The spell is twinned. It effects two targets.

That's what the rules say.

Beyond that, do whatever you want. Roll the attack once. Roll it twice. Roll damage once. Roll it twice. Fluff it however you want for your games. The rules don't speak to that and they don't need to. All they need to say is "it effects two targets".

That's the beauty of 5e. Not everything has to be explicitly spelled out in a rule somewhere.

Now if the sorcerer had some special ability -- ... -- then I could seen permitting this.

You mean like... some special ability, that was super rare, and very restricted in it's daily usage...

Like, say... one of the 4 metamagic options that a sorcerer can select through 20 levels of play that they can only use or activate a limited amount of times per day based on the number of sorcery points they have left?

 

[Esker]

You're not bending any rules. Why does it matter if there are two beams or not? The spell is twinned. It effects two targets.
...
You mean like... some special ability, that was super rare, and very restricted in it's daily usage...

You may want to recalibrate your sarcasm detector there, Salthorae

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

It doesn't actually say that the weapon you use as the material component must be what you use to make the melee attack with.

So you could have a spellcasting focus in one hand and throw a booming punch with the other.

(basically, it's a badly thought out spell, it should work like the smite spells.)

Making booming blade work like the smite spells would make it a lot less useful for most wizards, sorcerers and warlocks, since it could no longer be combined with bonus action spells or other concentration spells, while at the same time it would be a pretty significant damage boost for martial characters who have Extra Attack and don't normally cast spells or use their bonus action. That's probably not what's intended.

Funnily enough, nobody I've played with has ever had any trouble figuring out Booming Blade and Greenflame Blade. It's almost as if the 5E rules work best if you take them straight instead of searching for weird readings and edge cases.

 

[lumenbeing]

Funnily enough, nobody I've played with has ever had any trouble figuring out Booming Blade and Greenflame Blade. It's almost as if the 5E rules work best if you take them straight instead of searching for weird readings and edge cases.

Green Flame Blade is easy. Can't be twinned by dent of affecting multiple targets.

 

[Dausuul]

Funnily enough, nobody I've played with has ever had any trouble figuring out Booming Blade and Greenflame Blade. It's almost as if the 5E rules work best if you take them straight instead of searching for weird readings and edge cases.

Agreed. There's a lot of nitpicky textual analysis going on in this thread, and the 5E rules are simply not written precisely enough to support that. I mean, seriously, trying to claim that you can twin ray of frost and it hits two targets if you do but you only get one beam? What, does the beam hit the first target and then loop around to the second? Or do you have to get them in a straight line?

If you twin a spell, it hits two targets. Make whatever adjustments are necessary to the spell for that to work in the most straightforward way. If it really bothers you that twinning booming blade lets you make two attacks in six seconds, then ban it at your table.