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<blockquote data-quote="Mistwell" data-source="post: 6672387" data-attributes="member: 2525">Everyone keeps focusing on the word &quot;when&quot; in the sentence, &quot;You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest.&quot;I think that's the wrong part to focus on to answer this question. The part to focus on is, &quot;you can change your list of prepared spells.&quot;What happens if you do not change them? They remain the same ones you previously prepared.&nbsp; A long rest doesn't un-prepare them.&nbsp; Sleeping doesn't un-prepare them.&nbsp; Having cast spells using all your spell slots the previous day doesn't un-prepare them.&nbsp; Spells remain prepared, until you change them to other spells. So...If you don't prepare something new, you by-default still have what you prepared the last time you did preparation.&nbsp; You never have something simply &quot;open&quot;.&nbsp; Once you've ever prepared a spell, it remains prepared until you change it to something else.&nbsp; So there is never an &quot;left one unprepared&quot; scenario.The real question here is, &quot;can you change what you have prepared, more than once per day, provided you're not changing a spell that had been previously changed that day&quot;?And I think the answer is, &quot;you can only change what you have prepared once per day - whatever you don't change, remains fixed as whatever you prepared it as the previous day&quot;.If it didn't work that way, you'd have the opportunity to double-up on prepared spells.&nbsp; Here's how that would work - if you prepared it yesterday, it's still prepared the next day until you change it.&nbsp; If you could then change one of them and save the others for changing later, then you still have all those spells prepared that you prepped the day before, AND you have the opportunity to change them later.I don't think the intent is to allow spellcasters to, in essence, select from double the number of prepared spells each day.&nbsp; I think the intent is to permit one list of prepared spells per day.&nbsp; And as there is no functional difference between &quot;preparing spell X&quot;, and &quot;leaving spell X still prepared from yesterday&quot;, I think as soon as you change any spells for the day, you fix all your spells for the day.&nbsp; If you don't change them all, then the ones you don't change remain whatever they were the day before, fixed as part of your new prepared spells for the day.Now that still leaves some double preparation issue.&nbsp; You can simply carry over all your spells from the prior day, which for this example let's assume were mainly combat-oriented.&nbsp; And then after the day of combat is done, you can now change your spells for the day (which you get to do one time after a long rest) to non-combat spells like healing or identify or alarm or other utility spells.&nbsp; But if you do that, you're still stuck with that new list of non-combat spells until you change them again after a long rest.&nbsp; To address that issue, I think it would be reasonable to interpret the rule as, &quot;once you've cast a spell for the day after a long rest, that fixes your prepared spells list for the day&quot;.&nbsp; In other words, once you cast a spell from that list, you've officially changed your spell list for the day, even if the change was to an identical list of spells as the prior day.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mistwell, post: 6672387, member: 2525"] Everyone keeps focusing on the word "when" in the sentence, "You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest." I think that's the wrong part to focus on to answer this question. The part to focus on is, "you can [B]change[/B] your list of prepared spells." What happens if you do not change them? They remain the same ones you previously prepared. A long rest doesn't un-prepare them. Sleeping doesn't un-prepare them. Having cast spells using all your spell slots the previous day doesn't un-prepare them. Spells remain prepared, until you change them to other spells. So... If you don't prepare something new, you by-default still have what you prepared the last time you did preparation. You never have something simply "open". Once you've ever prepared a spell, it remains prepared until you change it to something else. So there is never an "left one unprepared" scenario. The real question here is, "can you change what you have prepared, more than once per day, provided you're not changing a spell that had been previously changed that day"? And I think the answer is, "you can only change what you have prepared once per day - whatever you don't change, remains fixed as whatever you prepared it as the previous day". If it didn't work that way, you'd have the opportunity to double-up on prepared spells. Here's how that would work - if you prepared it yesterday, it's still prepared the next day until you change it. If you could then change one of them and save the others for changing later, then you still have all those spells prepared that you prepped the day before, AND you have the opportunity to change them later. I don't think the intent is to allow spellcasters to, in essence, select from double the number of prepared spells each day. I think the intent is to permit one list of prepared spells per day. And as there is no functional difference between "preparing spell X", and "leaving spell X still prepared from yesterday", I think as soon as you change any spells for the day, you fix all your spells for the day. If you don't change them all, then the ones you don't change remain whatever they were the day before, fixed as part of your new prepared spells for the day. Now that still leaves some double preparation issue. You can simply carry over all your spells from the prior day, which for this example let's assume were mainly combat-oriented. And then after the day of combat is done, you can now change your spells for the day (which you get to do one time after a long rest) to non-combat spells like healing or identify or alarm or other utility spells. But if you do that, you're still stuck with that new list of non-combat spells until you change them again after a long rest. To address that issue, I think it would be reasonable to interpret the rule as, "once you've cast a spell for the day after a long rest, that fixes your prepared spells list for the day". In other words, once you cast a spell from that list, you've officially changed your spell list for the day, even if the change was to an identical list of spells as the prior day. [/QUOTE]

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