Spell Components & Design

[Sorrowdusk]

Some spells may require Material, Somatic, or Verbal components. Everything has at least 1 of those three and some require a Focus as well. But what determines this?

What I'm interested in, is how the devs decided what spells should have what components. Why were some made verbal only? Or only Verbal+Somatic?

And in the case of Divine spells, why do only SOME of them require a Holy Symbol but not all of them? What was behind the decision to make some of them require it and not others ?

 

[TanisFrey]

Some spells may require Material, Somatic, or Verbal components. Everything has at least 1 of those three and some require a Focus as well. But what determines this?

What I'm interested in, is how the devs decided what spells should have what components. Why were some made verbal only? Or only Verbal+Somatic?

And in the case of Divine spells, why do only SOME of them require a Holy Symbol but not all of them? What was behind the decision to make some of them require it and not others ?

2 reasons:
1) carry over from previous editions
2) to balance spells within a spell level and with the abilities of a non-spell caster.

example: silence shuts down a spell with a verbal component. A Rouge can steal the spell component pouch or holy symbol shutting down spells with a materiel component or divine focus. A fighter can sunder the spell component pouch or holy symbol shutting down spells with a materiel component or divine focus. Anyone can grapple or tie up a spell caster and make spells with a somatic component difficult to impossible.

 

[Dross]

A number of would not make sense if they required one of the three components.

To counter a specific situation: A spell to escape a grapple would not be useful if you need to to overcome the grapple (somatic and/or material) before casting.

Holy symbol is both theme wise and mechanical. While not always common you can loose your holy symbol, so I'm guessing those spells that do not require one are the more "basic style" spells (the various cure spell for instance). It allows a cleric to still function albeit at a lower power level.