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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arial Black" data-source="post: 7640570" data-attributes="member: 6799649">I have a 5e spell app on my phone; that's what I referenced for the range entry for thunderclap as 'Self (5-foot radius)'. The app says this spell appears in Elemental Evil and Xanathar's Guide to Everything.Checking my hardbacks:-Princes of the Apocalypse (I think it and Elemental Evil are two names for the same thing, but I could be wrong. I own PotA but not EE) has the range entry for thunderclap as 'Self (5-foot radius)' on p240.Xanathar's Guide to Everything has the range as '5 feet' on p168.It's hardly surprising that the writers use these terms interchangeably, since they both result in exactly the same creatures being affected whichever way they are written!And now you say D&D Beyond has something else meaning the exact same thing! Further evidence of a distinction without a difference.You think that 'It becomes different when some individual creatures can be excluded'? Let's see:-In the PotA version of the spell (Range: Self (5-foot radius)), it says 'Each creature other than you within 5 feet of you...'In the XGtE version (Range: 5 feet), it says 'Each creature within range, other than you...'To include a form of words which would allow some individuals to be excluded, spirit guardians (range: Self (15-foot radius)) says 'You call forth spirits to protect you. They flit around you to a distance (a synonym for range, not area of effect!) of 15 feet for the duration...When you cast this spell, you can designate any number of creatures you can see to be unaffected by it. An affected creature....'So, let's rewrite this, replacing the Range entry from 'Self (15-foot radius)' to 'Range: 15 feet':-'You call forth spirits to protect you. They flit around you to a distance of 15 feet for the duration...When you cast this spell, you can designate any number of creatures you can see to be unaffected by it. An affected creature....'There is literally no change needed in the wording of the spell, whichever way the range is expressed. This is because the body of the spell refers to the distance (i.e. 'range') between you and any potentially affected creature. It then goes on to talk about how affected creatures are affected in the area.Ergo, for spells which have an aura/burst/emanation from the caster which affects individual creatures, 'an affected creature in the area of effect' and 'range from you to the affected creature' are functionally identical. They are two ways of saying the same thing. This is why a spell description can use these interchangeably within the very same spell description, as spirit guardians does. You could literally (I don't use that word casually) change the Range entry from 'Self (15-foot radius)' to 'Range: 15 feet' and absolutely nothing about how the spell works or which creatures would be affected would change in any way!Therefore the part in brackets after 'Self' IS the range, and makes it eligible to be altered by Distant Spell.(BTW, I don't know why everything is suddenly in bold. It's not deliberate)</blockquote>

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