Glyph of Warding: what constitutes "harmful"?

[JESawyer]

Hello. I was reading the description of Glyph of Warding when I came across a perplexing sentence (page 210 of the Player's Handbook, 8th full paragraph):

Spell Glyph: You can store any harmful spell of up to 3rd level that you know.

What constitutes "harmful"? I thought of a nice situation that a cleric of Lathander could be in: trapped in a graveyard full of undead, the party is required to rest until dawn. The cleric casts several Glyphs of Warding around the camp and shoves Cure Moderate Wounds into them. If the undead walk over it, blammo, instant damage. If the PCs run low on hit points, they can run into the Glyphs and get some quick healing. On the other side of the coin, let's say you have an evil vampire cleric with hordes of undead servants. To protect his lair, he shoves Inflict Moderate Wounds in a bunch of Glyphs of Warding. It has the same overall effect.

Of course, there are other examples of context-specific "harm" coming about from otherwise benign spells. A cleric could cast Daylight into a Glyph if he or she expects drow to come running through the area, for instance. Am I being too broad in my interpretation?

 

[Nareau]

I think it's a matter of abuse, and what the gods think

Glyph of Warding can be abused pretty easily. You can make somewhat expensive grenades with it, you could heal with it, etc.
I tend to look at it as "God made this spell to guard things, not to allow creative priests to set up weird combinations." In game-temrs, that translates to "The designers made this spell to guard things."

I think that by the rules, you generally know a "harmful spell" when you see it. Granted, there are some grey areas (does Hold Person actually harm someone?) I rule that the God granting the spell judges the casting on the circumstances. So no casting Cure Moderate Wounds glyphs, unless you REALLY expect them to hit some undead.

Also, it's pretty expensive to use very often. So a more liberal interpretation probably won't destroy the balance of the universe.

 

[JESawyer]

A lot of my design decisions are based on implementations in a computer environment, so I'm used to looking at things in a "yes or no" environment. Hrm. Maybe I just need to go through the Player's Handbook and add [Harmful] descriptors to all the appropriate spells.