D&D 5E Object Interaction and Spell Material Components

[Bacon Bits]

I generally am pretty lenient - if you've got it, that's fine enough for me. I'll assume you can get to it. I don't need to spend my DMing time policing whether spellcasters have a hand free or not. The exception is if your hands are bound or otherwise unable to be used - then the somatic and material components of a spell are going to be a problem.

And I really only care about material components if they're expensive or exotic. I once tried a campaign where every spell component had to be tracked and counted, and I found out that it was way too much bean-counting for me.

Pretty much this is what I do.

The important part of spell components is that the magic user can be disarmed like a fighter can be, not that the players engage in high simulation of equipment management and object manipulation. Similarly, the balancing mechanic of expensive material components just cost gold and prep time.

 

[Blue]

My goal with inexpensive material components is to mimic hand usage (normal play) and the ability to be disarmed (rarely, like when taken prisoner) that weapon wielders have.

So you need a hand to cast S and/or M. Which includes a hand holding a shield with a Holy Symbol on it. This is slightly nicer than the official rules, which is that a focus counts for M, or S+M, but not S.

That hand can do it during the spell - I don't require also using the item interaction unless you need that to do something like sheath a weapon to free a hand to cast.

I also don't penalize multiclass casters who would need multiple different types of focus.

I am more lenient than RAW, I think it creates some punitive corner cases such as a weapon+shield wielding multiclassed caster with different focuses.

 

[Shiroiken]

I voted other, because I'm certain that by RAW option 1 is correct and pretty sure that RAI supposed to be option 2. Personally, I feel this is yet another stupid example of obsessing over the object interaction. If the rules are getting in the way of the game, then the rules are wrong.