dave2008
Legend
That definitely would make some sense. It makes me a little sad though. The greatest thing D&D taught my house rules / homebrew. I hope the current RPG zeitgeist hasn't squashed it!
D&D 5E (2024) Circle Casting is gonna break a lot of games
- Thread starter Sacrosanct
- Start date
Zardnaar
Legend
Start using it on PCs constantly. Every fight.
That's the reality DM is looking at.
Aso it has interesting interaction with order clerics.
occam
Hero
A technical point: elephants are Huge, so not eligible for Animal Shapes. You could turn the goblins into hippos, though, which have even better AC and HP than elephants. And also, there's room for more goblin/hippos!
Sacrosanct
Legend
Curious to see what others are saying. Don't know how accurate all of these are, but yeesh.
Augment
When you cast a spell with a range of at least 5 feet, you can increase the range of the spell by 1,000 feet per secondary caster contributing to the spell, up to a maximum of a 1-mile increase.
Obviously, this allows you to snipe things from a distance and kite with levelled spells at no extra resource cost. However, anything that dies to kiting can usually be killed just using a longbow. This options gets really stupid with a selection of spells that allow you to affect all creatures in their range. The spells that this affects (that I could find) are:
•Earth tremor - Basically turns the spell into a small earthquake that prones and slightly damages anything within a few thousand feet of you, depending on how many secondary casters you have. Casting this a few times outside a dungeon during tier 1 can conceivably kill all the low hp monsters in the area.
•Incite greed - An alright crowd control spell that can now affect a stupid number of creatures at once. Do note that it's still limited by the targets needing to be able to see you.
•Compulsion -Similar to incite greed but it lets you force each affected creature to move in a direction of your choice.
•Seeming - Blind everyone you want that fails a cha save for 8 hours. Alternatively, can be used to disguise entire armies.
•Divine word - Banish any celestials, elementals, fey or fiends in the area if they fail the cha save.
•Animal shapes - Turn an even larger than normal army of hirelings/random minions into various beasts.
The other limiting factor for this option is line of effect, though I'm not entirely sure interacts with some of the spells listed.
Distribute
When you cast a spell that requires Concentration, you can distribute the mental load of the spell among you and the secondary casters. Once the casting is complete, you and all secondary casters can maintain Concentration on this spell. As long as at least one caster who contributed to the spell maintains this Concentration, the spell's effects remain active.
You can cast a spell, distribute the concentration and then break your own concentration to leave it free for something else. The spell will keep going as long as at least one of the secondary casters keeps concentrating. This means you can have one concentration spell going per spellcasting minion you have, plus one more from your own concentration. This is less useful in a party where everyone already has something good to concentrate on, but it gives the party more versatility, and getting access to spellcasting minions is what really breaks it.
Expand
When you cast a spell that creates an area of effect, you can increase one dimension of the spell's area of effect for this casting by 10 feet per secondary caster contributing to the spell. For example, if a spell creates a 20-foot-radius Sphere, casting it as a Circle spell with two secondary casters would increase the radius to 40 feet. A spell that creates a Line that is 5 feet wide and 300 feet long, cast as a Circle spell with two secondary casters, could make a Line that is either 25 feet wide or 320 feet long.
Each secondary caster contributing to the spell must expend a spell slot (no action required). If the spell fails, these spell slots aren't expended.
This one is pretty self explanatory. For the low price of a couple first level slots, you can massively expand the area a spell affects. Miss the old sleet storm? Now you can make it 40ft radius again. Want the cleric's spirit guardians to cover the entire room, even if it's not particularly necessary? Now you can.
I think you get the idea. It makes already good spells even better for a small cost.
Prolong
When you cast a spell that has a duration of 1 minute or longer, you can increase the duration of the spell depending on the number of secondary casters contributing to the spell, as detailed in the table below.
Each secondary caster contributing to the spell must expend a spell slot (no action required). If the spell fails, these spell slots aren't expended.
The duration increases (in terms of how many secondary casters are needed) are as follows:
1-3 = 1 hour
4-6 = 8 hours
7+ = 24 hours
The basic use of this is pretty obvious, extending higher level spells by cannibalising lower slots. Emanation spells can now last long enough to conceivably clear entire dungeons, bless can be an all day spell and delayed fireball blast can oneshot anything not immune to fire damage. Aura of vitality can easily full heal the party with 1220d6 of healing to go round.
The other use of this is rest casting, assuming you have at least 4 secondary casters. As I'm sure we all know, rest casting got nerfed a fair bit in 2024 rules. While it is still possible, casting any spell during a long rest means you need to rest another hour to complete it. This can allow long duration spells like gift of alacrity to bypass that by circle casting them before the long rest. Alternatively, you can circle cast near the end of the long rest and simply rest the extra hour(s) needed to finish the rest. The result is a massive increase the to the amount of time the spell will be available during the adventuring day.
Obtaining Secondary Casters
You'll probably have a few casters in the party to help with circle casting but any creature with the spellcasting or pact magic features can participate. The obvious way to break this is true polymorphing a bunch of random objects into the spell casting monster of your choice. Just note that they'll need to have spell slots to use Expand, Prolong and Supplant, so you're are limited to 2014 monsters for those circle casting options. (Creatures that use the "x uses per day" kind of spell casting can potentially expend spells of the appropriate level in place of spell slots, but this is explicitly dependent on the DM allowing it.) I personally like Remallia Haventree for this as she gets some useful spells on top of being the only CR 9 creature that has 7th level spell slots and hasn't been reprinted as a version without spell slots. Do note that true polymorphed creatures can't actually cast the spells by themselves unless you go through the whole clone process, but they can scribe stuff during downtime. Circle casting is unaffected by the inability to cast spells as only the primary caster is actually casting a spell.
You can also use the other standard ways of getting control over other creatures to obtain more secondary casters, and by that I mean planar binding anything that even breathes in your vicinity. Your simulacrum can also help you, or act as another primary caster for double the shenanigans.
Once you have your army of secondary casters, you can abuse all the above circle casting options to their extremes. Have a city you don't particularly like? Erase it with a massive expanded spell of your choosing. Make your concentration functionally impossible to break by distributing the burden among several dozen of your minions. You can even snipe some poor bastard from another continent if you wanted. Things get really silly with a lot of secondary casters. The only limit is the number of creatures you can fit within 30ft of you.
- Have you and a single allied caster reach the top of something very tall, or use one of the infinite ways to fly in DnD to get a massive height advantage. As soon as you get a line of sight on your target, you can now cast pretty much any spell you wish from 1,000 feet away. They are unable to Counterspell this, they cannot easily find cover, and they cannot run from you without the aid of some pretty intense teleportation. Once you run out of spell slots, just have your buddy take over and you give them help instead. If you happen to have, say, Greater Invisibility cast upon yourself, your buddy can cast Invisibility upon themselves and the two of you can stay invisible throughout the entire ordeal; in fact, if they have a spell slot, you can have them help you get Greater Invisibility for an hour. Remember, the rules do not specify that your PC companions need to use a 4th level spell slot to do this. The two of you are now invisible for an hour, casting spells while never breaking that invisibility.
- You are upcasting Lightning Bolt at 5th level. Two of your friends use their Action to assist in the spell. You use a 5th level spell slot, they use 1st level spell slots because, again, the rules do not specify your comrades need to use same-level slots. You are now casting a 25ft-wide 100ft-long line that deals 10d6 damage to all creatures within the AoE.
- Let's say your players take the gloves off and someone casts Firestorm. Two buddies join in, using their first level spell slots. You are now creating 10 separate but connected 30ft-cubes, each one dealing 7d10 fire damage.
- Someone casts Banishment, and it works. One person helped using a first level spell slot. That Banished individual is now out of the fight for an entire hour, and they can do nothing to stop you.
- You hire 20 hirelings that have a single spell slot. You then cast Purify Food and Water. All rotten food now becomes edible, all poisons are removed, all within a 105ft radius sphere. Presumably, all alcohol is now non-alcoholic, food a year old becomes edible again, and there is now no reason why any settlement should go hungry ever again. Seriously, there is no reason why any civilization that exists wouldn't be abusing this functionality.
- I cast Clairvoyance from a mile away. I hire the needed hirelings to fill in any gaps in my party, then proceed to Augment the spell Sacred Flame so that I can cast it a mile away. I can now cast this cantrip indefinitely from a mile away, safely, so long as my Clairvoyance is able to see my target. If I lose sight, I can cast Clairvoyance again from a different angle, since the first Clairvoyance made me aware of the environment and thus able to recast the spell even if I was previously unawares of the target's new hiding spot. Hell, if you are allowing all 5e material at your table, you can just conjure a Flock of Familiars, make them spiders or something, and crawl through any gaps in doors to get the vision needed while still a mile away.
Augment
When you cast a spell with a range of at least 5 feet, you can increase the range of the spell by 1,000 feet per secondary caster contributing to the spell, up to a maximum of a 1-mile increase.
Obviously, this allows you to snipe things from a distance and kite with levelled spells at no extra resource cost. However, anything that dies to kiting can usually be killed just using a longbow. This options gets really stupid with a selection of spells that allow you to affect all creatures in their range. The spells that this affects (that I could find) are:
•Earth tremor - Basically turns the spell into a small earthquake that prones and slightly damages anything within a few thousand feet of you, depending on how many secondary casters you have. Casting this a few times outside a dungeon during tier 1 can conceivably kill all the low hp monsters in the area.
•Incite greed - An alright crowd control spell that can now affect a stupid number of creatures at once. Do note that it's still limited by the targets needing to be able to see you.
•Compulsion -Similar to incite greed but it lets you force each affected creature to move in a direction of your choice.
•Seeming - Blind everyone you want that fails a cha save for 8 hours. Alternatively, can be used to disguise entire armies.
•Divine word - Banish any celestials, elementals, fey or fiends in the area if they fail the cha save.
•Animal shapes - Turn an even larger than normal army of hirelings/random minions into various beasts.
The other limiting factor for this option is line of effect, though I'm not entirely sure interacts with some of the spells listed.
Distribute
When you cast a spell that requires Concentration, you can distribute the mental load of the spell among you and the secondary casters. Once the casting is complete, you and all secondary casters can maintain Concentration on this spell. As long as at least one caster who contributed to the spell maintains this Concentration, the spell's effects remain active.
You can cast a spell, distribute the concentration and then break your own concentration to leave it free for something else. The spell will keep going as long as at least one of the secondary casters keeps concentrating. This means you can have one concentration spell going per spellcasting minion you have, plus one more from your own concentration. This is less useful in a party where everyone already has something good to concentrate on, but it gives the party more versatility, and getting access to spellcasting minions is what really breaks it.
Expand
When you cast a spell that creates an area of effect, you can increase one dimension of the spell's area of effect for this casting by 10 feet per secondary caster contributing to the spell. For example, if a spell creates a 20-foot-radius Sphere, casting it as a Circle spell with two secondary casters would increase the radius to 40 feet. A spell that creates a Line that is 5 feet wide and 300 feet long, cast as a Circle spell with two secondary casters, could make a Line that is either 25 feet wide or 320 feet long.
Each secondary caster contributing to the spell must expend a spell slot (no action required). If the spell fails, these spell slots aren't expended.
This one is pretty self explanatory. For the low price of a couple first level slots, you can massively expand the area a spell affects. Miss the old sleet storm? Now you can make it 40ft radius again. Want the cleric's spirit guardians to cover the entire room, even if it's not particularly necessary? Now you can.
I think you get the idea. It makes already good spells even better for a small cost.
Prolong
When you cast a spell that has a duration of 1 minute or longer, you can increase the duration of the spell depending on the number of secondary casters contributing to the spell, as detailed in the table below.
Each secondary caster contributing to the spell must expend a spell slot (no action required). If the spell fails, these spell slots aren't expended.
The duration increases (in terms of how many secondary casters are needed) are as follows:
1-3 = 1 hour
4-6 = 8 hours
7+ = 24 hours
The basic use of this is pretty obvious, extending higher level spells by cannibalising lower slots. Emanation spells can now last long enough to conceivably clear entire dungeons, bless can be an all day spell and delayed fireball blast can oneshot anything not immune to fire damage. Aura of vitality can easily full heal the party with 1220d6 of healing to go round.
The other use of this is rest casting, assuming you have at least 4 secondary casters. As I'm sure we all know, rest casting got nerfed a fair bit in 2024 rules. While it is still possible, casting any spell during a long rest means you need to rest another hour to complete it. This can allow long duration spells like gift of alacrity to bypass that by circle casting them before the long rest. Alternatively, you can circle cast near the end of the long rest and simply rest the extra hour(s) needed to finish the rest. The result is a massive increase the to the amount of time the spell will be available during the adventuring day.
Obtaining Secondary Casters
You'll probably have a few casters in the party to help with circle casting but any creature with the spellcasting or pact magic features can participate. The obvious way to break this is true polymorphing a bunch of random objects into the spell casting monster of your choice. Just note that they'll need to have spell slots to use Expand, Prolong and Supplant, so you're are limited to 2014 monsters for those circle casting options. (Creatures that use the "x uses per day" kind of spell casting can potentially expend spells of the appropriate level in place of spell slots, but this is explicitly dependent on the DM allowing it.) I personally like Remallia Haventree for this as she gets some useful spells on top of being the only CR 9 creature that has 7th level spell slots and hasn't been reprinted as a version without spell slots. Do note that true polymorphed creatures can't actually cast the spells by themselves unless you go through the whole clone process, but they can scribe stuff during downtime. Circle casting is unaffected by the inability to cast spells as only the primary caster is actually casting a spell.
You can also use the other standard ways of getting control over other creatures to obtain more secondary casters, and by that I mean planar binding anything that even breathes in your vicinity. Your simulacrum can also help you, or act as another primary caster for double the shenanigans.
Once you have your army of secondary casters, you can abuse all the above circle casting options to their extremes. Have a city you don't particularly like? Erase it with a massive expanded spell of your choosing. Make your concentration functionally impossible to break by distributing the burden among several dozen of your minions. You can even snipe some poor bastard from another continent if you wanted. Things get really silly with a lot of secondary casters. The only limit is the number of creatures you can fit within 30ft of you.
BenjaminPey
Explorer
They still have 7 HP a pop, though.
Maybe the opposing army could circle cast some expended fireballs at those hippos?
Sounds yummy.
Edit: ah, plus some temp HPs! Anyway, this is a 13 000 army, and a 8th level spell. I doubt this will break many table, really.
Sacrosanct
Legend
It's not some temp HP, it's gaining temp HP = to the creature it changes into. So each goblin would get 76 temp HP.
Spells like this, and the ones above (like purify food and water) completely turn the game world on its head. with the ability to do those things, the game world wouldn't look anything like it actually does. All that lore, history, etc? No longer makes any sense (like any of the battles in FR). It was teetering on the cliff of breaking verisimilitude anyway with current spells, but now? Full Spinal Tap turning it up to 11.
Also, that was just one of the biggest examples to prove the point. There are lots of other examples that would and do occur in typical games. Don't get hung up on the 13,000 elephants where you're not paying attention to any of the other examples. For example, the first goblin cave in Phandelver? Just cast earth tremor a couple times with extended range. Don't even need to enter the caves. Done.
Jefe Bergenstein
Legend
It also makes easy combat even easier and more predictable. It's a lot of power for a 1st level spell.
I made any given creature immune to the effects until it completes a long rest.
I imagine folk just don't like the idea that it'll become an expected/assumed part of 5e character building/planning. 5e14 multiclassing was meant to be optional, but now it's core- probably because it was so popular with players.. even though it was not taken into account when they were designing classes. It feels a lot better as a DM to add/permit certain rules mechanics into your games, rather than taking away toys players assume they have access to.
Not a Decepticon
Hero
That was plot point in og Willow movie
Thommy H-H
Hero
I can't even get my players to agree which direction to take in a dungeon, but apparently all your groups are happy to jointly sacrifice their precious actions and spell slots to help unleash a nuke that trivialises one encounter.
Like, in practical terms, if the whole party is willing to jointly expend resources to defeat an enemy then isn't that fine? That's how the game works, this is just a very literal implementation of it. And if it's ruining combats, well you're the DM: just make them harder. But I just don't see it working that well, and all the really atrocious examples involve high level spells that are already game-breaking against inappropriate enemies. What epic tier spellcaster can't vaporise 1,300 goblins with a flick of their wrist already? Why are you setting up that kind of conflict for characters who should be invading the Nine Hells or kicking Vecna's head in?
At high levels, the characters' ability to mow through mooks is not exactly in dispute. The stakes for a situation like that should be...like...what effect does instantaneously murdering thousands of goblins have on their conscience? Or will it bring down the literal wrath of Maglubiyet on them or something? The win conditions for the scenario at the point at which you're expecting your players to employ world-altering circle magic should probably be more interesting than Do Most Damage.
Like, in practical terms, if the whole party is willing to jointly expend resources to defeat an enemy then isn't that fine? That's how the game works, this is just a very literal implementation of it. And if it's ruining combats, well you're the DM: just make them harder. But I just don't see it working that well, and all the really atrocious examples involve high level spells that are already game-breaking against inappropriate enemies. What epic tier spellcaster can't vaporise 1,300 goblins with a flick of their wrist already? Why are you setting up that kind of conflict for characters who should be invading the Nine Hells or kicking Vecna's head in?
At high levels, the characters' ability to mow through mooks is not exactly in dispute. The stakes for a situation like that should be...like...what effect does instantaneously murdering thousands of goblins have on their conscience? Or will it bring down the literal wrath of Maglubiyet on them or something? The win conditions for the scenario at the point at which you're expecting your players to employ world-altering circle magic should probably be more interesting than Do Most Damage.
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