Questions on "Sight" Spells, and Ready Spell Action

[synergy2]

Hey guys, I had a few things that I needed clarified for my wizard. The main confusion I am having comes from when a spell says something along the lines of, "... A place you can see". Here are two examples;

Misty step - "Briefly surrounded by silvery mist, you teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space that you can see."


Dominate Person - "You attempt to beguile a humanoid that you can see within range."

So my question to you all is this; if you are using something besides your own personal senses, such as looking through the eyes of a familiar, can you still cast those spells even if you cannot personally see the target/location?

For example; you are leaning against a tavern wall on the outside, and your cat familiar is inside the tavern. You are looking through its eyes. Could you Misty Step to any spot within 30 feet of yourself, using your familiars senses? Likewise, could you Dominate Person on somebody you cannot see, but your familiar can?

Next question; to make full use of your action economy could you ready a spell (say plane shift, with the trigger being whenever you appear beside a target you release the spell), run into the room using your 30 foot movement, bonus action misty step across the room to your target, then trigger your readied reaction?

 

[WaterRabbit]

Next question; to make full use of your action economy could you ready a spell (say plane shift, with the trigger being whenever you appear beside a target you release the spell), run into the room using your 30 foot movement, bonus action misty step across the room to your target, then trigger your readied reaction?

A readied action takes place on someone else's turn. But why bother trying to do it this way? Run into the room, misty step, and then cast the spell as your action.

 

[synergy2]

A readied action takes place on someone else's turn. But why bother trying to do it this way? Run into the room, misty step, and then cast the spell as your action.

When facing enemy casters, readying a spell beforehand is a good way to avoid a counterspell. You could always just cast the spell as normal and counterspell their counterspell, or stay out of range, but I am just toying with possible anti-caster strategies from a wizard's perspective here.

Also, I see nothing saying that a readied action takes place on someone else's turn.

"Sometimes you want to get the jump on a foe or wait for a particular circumstance before you act. To do so, you can take the Ready action on your turn, which lets you act using your reaction before the start of your next turn."

The only requirement I see is that you must use it before the start of your next turn, and it is a reaction... but nowhere do I see anything about it not being usable on your turn.

 

[5ekyu]

When facing enemy casters, readying a spell beforehand is a good way to avoid a counterspell. You could always just cast the spell as normal and counterspell their counterspell, or stay out of range, but I am just toying with possible anti-caster strategies from a wizard's perspective here.

Also, I see nothing saying that a readied action takes place on someone else's turn.

"Sometimes you want to get the jump on a foe or wait for a particular circumstance before you act. To do so, you can take the Ready action on your turn, which lets you act using your reaction before the start of your next turn."

The only requirement I see is that you must use it before the start of your next turn, and it is a reaction... but nowhere do I see anything about it not being usable on your turn.

You are correct and that's a good use of Ready.


As for seeing, as I recall various spells or sbilities that allow casting thru others tend to state that explicitly. Regardless, you do not need it for Ready - you can ready out of sight, rush around then release it when target is in sight.

 

[MarkB]

Hey guys, I had a few things that I needed clarified for my wizard. The main confusion I am having comes from when a spell says something along the lines of, "... A place you can see". Here are two examples;

Misty step - "Briefly surrounded by silvery mist, you teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space that you can see."


Dominate Person - "You attempt to beguile a humanoid that you can see within range."

So my question to you all is this; if you are using something besides your own personal senses, such as looking through the eyes of a familiar, can you still cast those spells even if you cannot personally see the target/location?

The Find Familiar spell says that "you can see through the familiar's eyes", so it is you doing the seeing, which should be valid for any "that you can see" requirement.

Note that it requires an action to do so, and lasts until the end of your next turn, so you would need to take the action to activate familiar-vision on one turn, then cast your spell on the next, and would lose your familiar-vision at the end of that second turn.

 

[synergy2]

The Find Familiar spell says that "you can see through the familiar's eyes", so it is you doing the seeing, which should be valid for any "that you can see" requirement.

Note that it requires an action to do so, and lasts until the end of your next turn, so you would need to take the action to activate familiar-vision on one turn, then cast your spell on the next, and would lose your familiar-vision at the end of that second turn.

I read Find Familiar and it actually says, "you can see through your familiar's eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn" so that makes it a lot more difficult to do.

Here's another question then. Say you are using Arcane Eye (a concentration spell) to spy on enemies a few rooms over. You then drop a Wall of Force around them (a concentration spell), which makes your Arcane Eye disappear. Wall of Force says it appears "at a point you choose" which I assume means you need to see the point... so does the wall appear before Arcane Eye disappears, or after?

Because if Arcane Eye disappears first, you'd lose sight of the spot and Wall of Force wouldn't be able to target the area as far as I understand.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Hey guys, I had a few things that I needed clarified for my wizard. The main confusion I am having comes from when a spell says something along the lines of, "... A place you can see". Here are two examples;

Misty step - "Briefly surrounded by silvery mist, you teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space that you can see."


Dominate Person - "You attempt to beguile a humanoid that you can see within range."

So my question to you all is this; if you are using something besides your own personal senses, such as looking through the eyes of a familiar, can you still cast those spells even if you cannot personally see the target/location?

For example; you are leaning against a tavern wall on the outside, and your cat familiar is inside the tavern. You are looking through its eyes. Could you Misty Step to any spot within 30 feet of yourself, using your familiars senses? Likewise, could you Dominate Person on somebody you cannot see, but your familiar can?

Next question; to make full use of your action economy could you ready a spell (say plane shift, with the trigger being whenever you appear beside a target you release the spell), run into the room using your 30 foot movement, bonus action misty step across the room to your target, then trigger your readied reaction?

No, you can't, at least not the way you have it. That's because you're running into the bonus action casting restriction -- if you cast a spell as a bonus action (misty step) you can only cast cantrips that turn.

There's some grey area if you cast the readied spell round before, but... technically a readied action only lasts until the start of your next turn so a readied spell is use or lose. Your DM may have a more favorable ruling, but there's not a strong case to bring if you want to convince them.

 

[Blue]

A readied action takes place on someone else's turn. But why bother trying to do it this way? Run into the room, misty step, and then cast the spell as your action.

Usually, but not necessarily. The rules fully allow you to take a reaction on your own turn, and there are a lot of use-cases for it like casting shield after getting hit by an OA triggered by your movement.

PHB pg 190:

A reaction is an instant response to a trigger of some kind, which can occur on your turn or on someone else's.

I believe in an earlier edition reaction was barred from your turn, and that change isn't obvious.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

You can take reactions on your own turn and even trigger ready actions, but if you ready an action until your next turn, you immediately consume an action to keep concentration or you need to drop it. So it's impossible to start your turn while concentrating on a spell with an action still available.

Using an action to switch to your familiar senses, I wouldn't count as "casting a spell", so I wouldn't restrict casting bonus action spells on the same turn.

Edit: But don't forget:

A Clear Path to the Target
To target something, you must have a clear path to it, so it can’t be behind total cover. If you place an area of effect at a point that you can’t see and an obstruction, such as a wall, is between you and that point, the point of origin comes into being on the near side of that obstruction.

Even if you can see around a corner, you cannot target that space.

 

[BluejayJunior]

Using an action to switch to your familiar senses, I wouldn't count as "casting a spell", so I wouldn't restrict casting bonus action spells on the same turn.

But casting Misty Step would prevent you from casting another spell as an Action (using Ready) or as a Reaction (unleashing the readied spell) on your turn. It doesn't even matter whether or not readying a spell is using the Action or Reaction to cast it, casting Misty Step beforehand would prevent the casting of another spell.