D&D 5E (2024) Circle Casting is gonna break a lot of games

[Charlaquin]

Druid: I like call lighting, but aura of vitality would sure be helpful, but both are concentration.
Warlock: Hey, I've used my 2 slots already. I'll help and maintain call lightning while you go ahead and maintain aura of vitality

Eldritch Knight: Hey cleric, I will maintain spirit guardians for you while you do blade barrier. Deal?

This seems obvious to me how these things (and I'm just using the concentration rule here and not even mentioning the others) dramatically and completely change the encounter. A class like the warlock built around few spells and short rest recharge is now for all intents and purposes, doing spells beyond their limited slots. An eldritch knight with low level spell options is now effectively doing high level spells in addition to their core fighting ability.

These are definitely powerful applications of Circle Casting, but honestly I feel a degree of “don’t threaten me with a good time” about it… maybe I’m underestimating just how powerful this would be, but… I dunno, I don’t think it’s unmanageable. Maybe I’m wrong though, I’ll have to play with it and see what happens.

 

[TheSword]

I'm sorry, what? I'm quoting the rules as written. 5e is very intentional on how they word things. So when they word one rule as "area" and another "range", you can't just swap them because it makes more sense to you. That's not an answer. That's you ignoring how rules are actually worded. If one rule says "range is increased by 1000 feet per helper" and another says "area of effect is increased by 10 feet by helper", and the spells states you can do x within range, that means the former, not the latter. Quite clearly in fact.

Ignoring it and being condescending about it isn't helping.


I know I can see more than two blocks down the street. Also, folks seem to be mistaken on just how close 1000 feet is, thinking it's further than it is. As I mentioned earlier, 300 m (nearly 1000 feet) is a routine open-sight target on the range for a human sized target. You obviously would need to see it in order to be an eligible target.

I've actually flown NAP of the earth many times during my time flying Black Hawk helicopters. You can't just go full speed and suddenly swoop down below trees. And a huge object doesn't just disappear where no one can see it any longer, especially when moving. The terrain would have to be absolutely perfect for that to happen. The chances of the terrain being able to completely hide a huge moving object unit it gets within 50 feet are extremely slim. I say 50 feet, because in order to obscure something that large, no way it could be dashing in a straight line.

For context, this is about 1500 feet. The argument that you couldn't see someone standing from one end of the park to the other is bonkers.

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This is an issue with something like a dragon actually covering 100 meters in a second "in real life" but D&D has their movement rate set at 160 feet per round if they dash. 1000 feet is not that far in real life, but because of how D&D structures time and rounds, you can get off a half dozen attacks before the dragon could close range.

Looking at the map of Greenrest, it's about 1000 feet from one end to the other. (ignore how the scale is wonkers, because according to this scale, even the larger buildings are 15 feet by 50 feet. For reference, that's only 750 sq feet, or a very small house. Most 80s 1 story ranch homes are double that. But fantasy maps almost always put the scale twice as large as it should be, but I digress). A dragon, or army, or anything else moving through the city will be spotted from a good distance away.

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The question is not whether it is possible to see 1000 feet. It’s whether there is terrain on the approach to the tower that the dragon can use to gain total cover. As I said the dragon gets hit by the first Tasha’s Laughter and then on its next turn takes cover behind a building or trees, or hills, or clouds or any of the multiple obstacle between the approach and the tower that would block the casters view.

The terrain doesn’t need to block the dragon for the entire approach it just needs to hide it outside of its turn when it moves. It’s not possible to ready circle casting to do it when the dragon moves out of cover because that isn’t how the activation works.

As for the debate on area. Apologies if I was blunt. You absolutely can decide as DM, that the small number of spells that treat range as area of effect - like animal shapes - do use the area of effect rules of circle casting. That’s why we have DMs and not computers running our games. It’s an optional subsystem. There are perhaps 2 or 3 spells from 2024 that it affects. No DM can be compelled to allow an optional combination in their game. You can absolutely set boundaries.

 

[Clint_L]

Same as if you gave them all spell scrolls of Haste. Which would be costly, of course! But is still within the framework of the game's standard resources. And, honestly, I feel like if everyone has to sacrifice a level in their primary class to pull this off, that's fair enough, isn't it? That in itself is a signifcant investment of resources, and if the whole party was on board with making it happen, I think that's an interesting story.

Not to mention that there is an assumption that it is advantageous to have frontline warriors, who soak most of the damage, be responsible for maintaining concentration, which keys off damage taken. Yes, some (not all) martial classes are proficient in Con saving throws (my monk isn't), but they are going to be making a lot more of them.

So this is an option, but it hardly seems like a game-breaking one. As we break down various scenarios, I'm just not seeing much in these rules that will have a huge impact on my games, from the player side. Again, I'll have to wait and see how it works out in practice - mastery has turned out to be a much bigger pain in the butt than anticipated, so maybe this will, too. But my initial take is that circle casting by players looks very situational.

Edit: like, I'm trying to imagine what has gone into the "haste scenario" in terms of costs and benefits. Let's say there are four martial classes being given haste before the big fight starts. Those who aren't natural casters, like our party's monk and barbarian, have had to take a level in a different class just to make it happen. Then we've given up four 3rd level spell slots. And given how often each of the frontline characters gets hit, they are going to be making multiple concentration saves every round, so they probably aren't going to get that much use out of the haste before it fails. And now they are dealing with the after effect of being hasted.

I kinda feel like, most of the time, casting four fireballs or something would have been a more cost effective use of those spell slots, not to mention character levels.

 

[ECMO3]

This is an issue with something like a dragon actually covering 100 meters in a second "in real life" but D&D has their movement rate set at 160 feet per round if they dash. 1000 feet is not that far in real life, but because of how D&D structures time and rounds, you can get off a half dozen attacks before the dragon could close range.

But you can already do this if you want to!

A 5th level Eldritch Knight with spell Sniper can shoot a Heavy Crossbow 800 ft.

A Warlock with one Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin or Ranger Level, Eldritch Spear and spell sniper can hit 1100 feet at 5th level

In 9 years of 5E I think I have used a Longbow at long range twice and I have only had one time I actually wanted to attack someone outside of Longbow range. I was on top of a tower and wanted to shoot at a Bullywug fleeing on the ground after we destroyed and looted the tower that was their home. It was completely inconsequential, I just wanted to kill him. I guess if we had circle magic we could have!

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

Then it didn't exist as written. There was time Gods did not need worship to sustain them, Ao implemented that at the end of time of troubles, before that they only used worship to empower themselves, but did not need it for sustenance. Even before that Mystra removed ability to cast spells above 9th level. Not the first time rules changed.

Also, the settings do not operate 100% on RAW, rules are serving to let us players pretend we're in the world, not making autenthic representation of it. The way of "world must operate exactly how rules describe it" mindset lie madness of Kender and Tippyverse.

Hey now, Kender have nothing to do with these stupidly broken Circle Casting rules. That's s&%t's a Toril/Fae'run thing. Ain't no damn spell weave bulls%$t in my Dragonlance games regardless of how much WotC tries to crowbar it into all of their other settings.

 

[Clint_L]

In my own experience, extreme long range is one of the least useful power-ups in the game. Sure, there might be hypothetical situations of attacking dragons at 1000 feet or whatever, but extreme range is so, so seldom an actual issue in my games that anything more than 120 feet may as well be a zillion feet.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Was curious how prior editions handled circle magic in FR.

3rd limited it to a couple of very specific prestige classes to be the primary caster, and you needed a specific feat to be a secondary caster. Huge change to just make it available to literally any spellcaster lol.

 

[ECMO3]

Earth tremor to wipe out all low level creatures only requires 1

Ok I am not sure what you are talking about here. Earth Tremors has a Range of Self, duration of instantaneous and no area of effect, so I am not sure what you are going to do to circle cast it.

I guess you are treating the 10' radius as an AOE?? So you upcast it to level 3, expand the radius to 20 feet and burn a 1st and 3rd level slot and 2 actions? Those enemies that fail their save take 3d6, reliably killing even low level enemies, those that pass their save take no damage (as per the spell) and if you have any allies within 20 feet they have to save or take damage too. So you kill the low level creatures within 20 feet of you that don't make their save while hurting some friends??

Even with this permissive reading on Area of Effect, it would seem to me spirit guardians, conjure animals, Shatter, Burning Hands or something else would just work better in about every single case, while using fewer resources, actions and probably killing those that make the save too, if we are talking about enemies that reliably die with 3d6 damage.

1. A 35-ft radius spirit guardians only requires 2. Nearly unbreakable concentration only requires 2-3. Etc.

But this is weaker!

How often is casting Spirit Guardians with "nearly unbreakable concentration" better than casting Spirit Guardians and two other spells? Probably never. And let's keep in mind that concentration is NOT unbreakable while you are casting it.

So the Cleric with a 20 initiative says let's circle spirit guardians .... the Bard with initiative 5 says ok let's do it, compared to the same Cleric just casting spirit guardians:

1. You lose the Spirit Guardian damage between Cleric's turn and the Bard's turn the first round because the spell is not complete
2. You lose ALL damage if you lose concentration before the Bard's turn
3. You use an additional first level spell slot and an action

If your average combat lasts 2-3 rounds you are giving up damage on the first round, an action on the first round and a spell slot so you can confidently maintain concentration on the 2nd and 3rd round? How is that better.

Even if you lose concentration, just cast spirit guardians again. This is the worst case scenario you are hedgining against, it costs you an extra 3rd level slot if it happens, but you get back a 1st level slot and an action on the first round of combat and the Bard has the option of concentrating on something else.

Only the 24 hour long spells requires several, but that's just one part of the issue. All the other issues do not require more than 1-3 helpers.

And they require their actions and their spell slots and that is a big deal.

In a party of 4 a circle spell with 2 PCs is half of your actions for a turn.

 

[Sacrosanct]

But you can already do this if you want to!

A 5th level Eldritch Knight with spell Sniper can shoot a Heavy Crossbow 800 ft.

A Warlock with one Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin or Ranger Level, Eldritch Spear and spell sniper can hit 1100 feet at 5th level

Again, we're talking about all spells. Not EB. Or a crossbow bolt. ALL ranged spells. That's not an insignificant difference. there is typically a reason why spells were given 30 feet ranges, or 60 feet ranges, etc. Now they are all more than 1000 with just one helper mook.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Ok I am not sure what you are talking about here. Earth Tremors has a Range of Self, duration of instantaneous and no area of effect, so I am not sure what you are going to do to circle cast it.

I guess you are treating the 10' radius as an AOE?? So you upcast it to level 3, expand the radius to 20 feet and burn a 1st and 3RD level slot and 2 actions? Those enemies that fail their save take 3d6, reliably killing even low level enemies, those that pass their save take no damage (as per the spell) and if you have any allies within 20 feet they have to save too or take damage. So you kill the low level creatures that don't make their save??

Even with this permissive reading on Area of Effect, it would seem to me spirit guardians or conjure animals would just work better in about every single case, while using fewer resources, actions and killing those that make the save too!

That's not accurate. We're not talking Aoe with Earth tremor. That's not how it's written. It's written as such:

"You cause a tremor in the ground within range. Each creature other than you in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 1d6

bludgeoning damage and is knocked prone. If the ground in that area is loose earth or stone, it becomes difficult terrain until cleared, with each 5-foot-diameter portion requiring at least 1 minute to clear by hand."

If the range is extended to 1000 feet, that means the tremor extends 1000 feet from you. That's how it's worded. If they meant AoE, they would have an AoE description in the spell like every other AoE spell. It's also why the original spell only has a range of 10 feet.

But this is weaker!

How often is casting Spirit Guardians with "nearly unbreakable concentration" better than casting Spirit Guardians and two other spells? Probably never. And let's keep in mind that concentration is NOT unbreakable while you are casting it.

Once again, a helper doesn't need to cast spells. They can be out of spell slots and still do shared concentration or buffing AoE, etc. So no, it's not the same as just casting two spells.

And they require their actions and their spell slots and that is a big deal.

Again, no, they do not require spells slots from the helper