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Message: <blockquote data-quote="occam" data-source="post: 9617140" data-attributes="member: 39815">But clerics have an advantage over other spellcasters for precisely this reason: their typical spellcasting implement, the Holy Symbol, can be worn rather than held. This doesn't help for spells with Somatic or Material components, but you also see this principle operating in spell selection: just in the Player's Handbook, clerics have Verbal-only spells at every spell level but 8th, something even wizards don't get.Plus, there's always the War Caster feat, specifically meant (in part) to get around the Somatic component requirement for characters that "have weapons or a Shield in one or both hands".The rules for a "hands slot economy" are already there in 5e (and prior editions), and corner cases can be DM-adjudicated based on the fiction and personal or table preferences. That some/many people ignore those rules because they have different thresholds for fiddliness doesn't negate that.(I, for one, pay attention to "hands slots" because not doing so breaks my suspension of disbelief. For example, I rewrote the Crossbow Expert feat to remove the ridiculous "you can load a piece of ammunition into it even if you lack a free hand" comment because, come on! Loading a crossbow in a second or two is already stretching SoD, but how do you reload it with one hand!)</blockquote>