D&D 5E (2014) Rary's Telepathic Bond - can some members talk privately

[Blue]

Quick question - Rary's Telepathic Bond was cast on multiple people. Three of them want to have a conversation private from the others over it. Does that work, or can everyone in the casting here?

Here's the text:

You forge a telepathic link among up to eight willing creatures of your choice within range, psychically linking each creature to all the others for the duration. Creatures with Intelligence scores of 2 or less aren't affected by this spell.

Until the spell ends, the targets can communicate telepathically through the bond whether or not they have a common language. The communication is possible over any distance, though it can't extend to other planes of existence.

Source: Telepathic Bond

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I would allow it but it is not clear from the text and one could justify a rule either way.

 

[Mort]

It's not 100% clear but the language "Until the spell ends, the targets can communicate telepathically through the bond ..." is enough, for me, to allow individual members to communicate with each other without involving others.

So each target can communicate telepathically with any other target (individually, all at once, or in whatever combination).

 

[iserith]

It's like a group text except you can say that one person who is excluded has an Android phone.

 

[J.Quondam]

It's like a group text except you can say that one person who is excluded has an Android phone.

But convenient for smoking out doppelgangers, maybe?
"Look.... His psychic thought bubble is green! He must be the infiltrator!"

 

[greg kaye]

It's a wizard's spell Harry, which can also be known by bards says Tasha.
I'm just not sure how the int and chr dumped character who was the last to be tagged into the spell could exclude other chat group members from a private convo.

 

[Blue]

It's a wizard's spell Harry, which can also be known by bards says Tasha.
I'm just not sure how the int and chr dumped character who was the last to be tagged into the spell could exclude other chat group members from a private convo.

Umm, not sure where you are getting any of that. It can't be "the last person added" - everyone is added just once and at casting so it's the same time. Nor that the person trying to exclude others is INT or CHR dumped. None of that is at all part of the scenario.

 

[greg kaye]

Umm, not sure where you are getting any of that. It can't be "the last person added" - everyone is added just once and at casting so it's the same time. Nor that the person trying to exclude others is INT or CHR dumped. None of that is at all part of the scenario.

The description says that the caster forges "a telepathic link among up to eight willing creatures of your choice within range". "Forge" doesn't sound to me like an action that produces a flexible result. The result is "psychically linking each creature to all the others for the duration". The description also includes that: "Creatures with Intelligence scores of 2 or less aren't [even] affected by this spell". I don't see any sign of flexibility in the spell, least of all for a non-caster with dumped int.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Of course. It's a 5th-level spell. Those should be reasonably flexible. Allowing point-to-point communication is hardly a massive boon.

 

[greg kaye]

The level has nothing to do with it. Prestidigitation is flexible, but that's because it's written that way.