D&D 5E Casters should go back to being interruptable like they used to be.

[Lanefan]

Ok that is 6, although Restrained or Exhaustion-5 will affect how you can cast Plane Shift, so you would not be "completely unaffected" WRT that spell.


Which would be 7


Which is all the spells you listed, except Blink, Fireball, Plane Shift and Forcecage.

And this would be 8, and I will point that while you can cast Fireball and Forcecage while blinded, you would not be able to see where you are casting it on or who is in that area and as such it is incorrect to say you would be "completely unaffected".

So you are up to 8 conditions and down to 1 spell you are "completely unaffected" casting - Blink


Charmed will prevent you from targeting the charming creature with a harmful spell, which includes Maze, Plane Shift, Hold Person and Dominate Monster, but we already eliminated those anyway and this would be 9 conditions.

So to correct your statement above:

Someone casting Blink is "completely unaffected by the caster having 10 9 different status effects"

That quite a bit different than your original claim.

I suspect the point that was originally trying to be made was that someone can still cast under a lot of those conditions when instead any one of those conditions (other than charmed) should hamper or outright negate casting anything.

 

[James Gasik]

We almost never had character deaths. The deadliness of 1e gets vastly overstated.

I have the ghosts of about 30 dead characters who would like to have a word on this topic, lol.

I do think, however, a lot of 1e's reputation comes from things like people reading Tomb of Horrors and assuming that was standard play and the issues of starting at 1st level. As a new DM, I tried running a level 1 adventure (U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh) with my friends making a fresh party. To keep the game going, every time someone died, I let them introduce a new character. We started at around 1 pm. By 7 pm, one guy was on his fifth character (!) and the adventure was complete. This sort of thing was the norm for awhile, until I finally realized I was under no real obligation to start characters at level 1. For the rest of my AD&D years, parties came in at level 2 (I later amended this to starting at 2500 xp, so Thieves could even start at level 3).

Now likely it was because we were just kids, and some of my friends thought doing stupid $hit was funny. Let alone "lolrandom" PVP and Thieves and Assassins feeling obligated in screwing over party members. But I watched a lot of characters drop to the ground after the first time something hit their AC, and of course, 0 hit points was dead, lol.

We did eventually adopt a Death's Door style rule, mostly from misunderstanding what Gary said about death and dying in the DMG, but that only helped marginally, because it felt like 75% of the time someone actually played a Cleric, they were EVIL and were just waiting for the chance to murder players in the name of their dark gods!

 

[Gammadoodler]

I suspect the point that was originally trying to be made was that someone can still cast under a lot of those conditions when instead any one of those conditions (other than charmed) should hamper or outright negate casting anything.

Specifically it was meant as a comparison vs. the way these conditions would impact a martial's effectiveness in attacking on the battlefield...

And most of those individual conditions would have significant, sometimes severe impacts on a martial's effectiveness at executing attacks on the battlefield. Like.. good luck being a melee martial with the frightened condition and the enemies are out of reach. Meanwhile..the caster can be bound, drugged, with wax poured in their ears, and not allowed to sleep for 5 days..and they are..unbothered.

So when I think of the presence of this condition effectiveness asymmetry, I have a hard time sympathizing with spellcaster concern about the addition of a single mechanic that, sometimes, may make it more difficult for them to do their thing.

And the thing is too, I've played monks..hell I've played mage slayer monks, you know something tailor made for hunting mages..and it was..ok at shutting down casters, but it happened a ton of times where my monk would get up close, the caster would TP away, my monk would reaction swing (which RAW isn't really allowed), the caster would shield and it was like "ok..will spend another turn trying to get to you and have an effective turn, hope I save against your next spell..and you don't lay down a bunch of difficult terrain..or forcecage me.

And what I eventually realized is that the best user of the mage slayer feat..is another spellcaster. They have the spike damage to break concentration and can counterspell attempts to get away.

 

[ECMO3]

4. Even removing those spells that are minimally effected by these conditions, there is still a spell from that "top of my head, nowhere near exhaustive" listing that a caster can execute while:

Blind,
Deaf,
Poisoned,
Prone,
Grappled,
Frightened,
Charmed,
Restrained, AND
Exhausted.
In the middle of an active warzone With no peronal risk and no reduction in effect..at all.

Yeah A SPELL. One that you cast on yourself defensively.

Most spells that target others can't be cast while blind. As for the other conditions, I don't get why they should stop you from casting.

I shouldn't be able to cast a spell because someone grabbed my arm or because I am laying on the ground, or because I did not get enough sleep last night or someone charmed me and I shouldn't be able to cast shield .... or heal the bad guy? It makes no sense to stop casting spells with those conditions.

Those other conditions affect spell casters how it is intended. Frightened causes spell casters to roll spell attacks with disadvantage, charmed prevents casters from targeting the charmer with a harmful spell. Why would these conditions affect spells in other ways?

..and I don't think it'd be all that difficult to find more.

With blind on that list it will be difficult to find many more, especially if you are looking at effective offensive combat spells.

The conditions that should stop or reduce the effectiveness of most spells you cast (Blind, Incapacitated, Stunned, Paralyzed, Silenced, Unconscious) do generally stop you from casting those spells.

 

[Lanefan]

Most spells that target others can't be cast while blind. As for the other conditions, I don't get why they should stop you from casting.

I shouldn't be able to cast a spell because someone grabbed my arm or because I am laying on the ground, or because I did not get enough sleep last night or someone charmed me and I shouldn't be able to cast shield .... or heal the bad guy? It makes no sense to stop casting spells with those conditions.

Someone grabbing your arm should interrupt you every single time. Laying on the ground would interfere with the handwaving and other movements required for a lot of spells.

With blind on that list it will be difficult to find many more, especially if you are looking at effective offensive combat spells.

Nothing stops me from casting AoE blast spells when blind - all I need is someone to give me a target point, as in "straight ahead, maximum range!" or "close-to, half-left from your current facing!". Now I might not hit that target, but I can sure cast the spells and even while blind I know forward, left, right, and backward relative to myself.

Failing that, I can cast at a sound source. One could argue I might even be able to blind-cast a targeted spell at someone who is speaking, by targeting the sound.

The conditions that should stop or reduce the effectiveness of most spells you cast (Blind, Incapacitated, Stunned, Paralyzed, Silenced, Unconscious) do generally stop you from casting those spells.

The Dead condition also generally prevents casting.

 

[ECMO3]

Someone grabbing your arm should interrupt you every single time. Laying on the ground would interfere with the handwaving and other movements required for a lot of spells.

First off, some spells don't even have Somatic compoonents and second it would seem to me if your hands or free this should not even be a hinderence.

Nothing stops me from casting AoE blast spells when blind - all I need is someone to give me a target point, as in "straight ahead, maximum range!" or "close-to, half-left from your current facing!".

It depends on the spell. Most AOE spells require you to see the area you cast, not all and it is more common among blast spells like fireball, but a lot of those require to see the location you center it at too.

One could argue I might even be able to blind-cast a targeted spell at someone who is speaking, by targeting the sound.

Almost all spells that target a creature with a range longer than touch require either an attack roll (that you would make with disadvantage) or they require you to "see" that creature in the spell description, and blinded makes it so you "can't see".

The only offensive spells I can think of offhand that don't do this are Dissonant Whispers and Ray of Sickness (and you would get disadvantage on the attack roll using Ray of Sickness).

Your DM might be lenient about that, letting you for example hold person someone based on an ally using an action to describe where, but that would not be RAW if you were blinded.

 

[Lanefan]

First off, some spells don't even have Somatic compoonents and second it would seem to me if your hands or free this should not even be a hinderence.

This assumes that somatic components only involve the caster's hands.

It depends on the spell. Most AOE spells require you to see the area you cast, not all and it is more common among blast spells like fireball, but a lot of those require to see the location you center it at too.

Which, if true, is one of those dumb rules that really never should have made it to print.

In real life, if I'm holding a water balloon while blindfolded I can still throw it at (what I think is) a target - or to roughly where someone tells me to throw it - and while I won't hit my target every time, something over there is gonna get wet. Same is true of a fireball - being blind doesn't stop me from casting it, and while it might not go exactly where I want it to (disadv on the aim roll is a fine way of handling this) it's gonna go somewhere.

Side note: I've always maintained that AoE spells should require the caster to roll to aim/place them anyway.

Almost all spells that target a creature with a range longer than touch require either an attack roll (that you would make with disadvantage) or they require you to "see" that creature in the spell description, and blinded makes it so you "can't see".

Yes. It's been that way for many an edition.

This discussion has got me thinking, however, that when blinded or in total darkness one might be able to cast such a spell at a sound source e.g. someone speaking. Maybe that target gets a big save bonus to reflect the inherent targeting inaccuracy...or maybe not, if the caster is a Bard whose entire class already revolves around sound and its effects. Ditto if the caster is blind but somehow "seeing" by echolocation, such as a high-level Druid casting while in bat form.

This idea also opens the door, a bit anyway, to allowing inherently blind or poorly-sighted characters to be casters.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I shouldn't be able to cast a spell because someone grabbed my arm or because I am laying on the ground, or because I did not get enough sleep last night or someone charmed me and I shouldn't be able to cast shield .... or heal the bad guy? It makes no sense to stop casting spells with those conditions.

If casting is so easy that it should be unaffected even in these extreme conditions, every creature in the setting should be able to do it.

Like..we're meant to believe that these casters are delicately manipulating the fabric of existence, but it's easier to cast a spell in a chaotic environment while severely impaired than it is to swing a sharpened bit of metal.

It's weird.

 

[ECMO3]

If casting is so easy that it should be unaffected even in these extreme conditions, every creature in the setting should be able to do it.

IF you are playing with feats every PC can dod it.

 

[Hell0W0rld]

I shouldn't be able to cast a spell because someone grabbed my arm or because I am laying on the ground, or because I did not get enough sleep last night or someone charmed me and I shouldn't be able to cast shield .... or heal the bad guy? It makes no sense to stop casting spells with those conditions.

You are trying to cast a somatic spell, waving your hands around gesturing, while somebody up in your face holding a big sword can't find an opening to attack?

Furthermore, even if that sword hits you, you are still able to finish your incantation without a hitch?

I don't know, it's pretty immersion breaking to me. We should do something about that.