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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6811784" data-attributes="member: 7006">I think the intention behind the whole process is meant to be this:Spells which have somatic components but no material components are meant to be spells which require intricate hand movement.  "Waggling fingers" or "drawing runes in the air" or whatnot.  Because they don't have any material components, the spell's "important parts" are the hand movements of the caster, which is why the hand has to be completely empty.  The movement part of these spells are really detailed and intricate to generate the magic.However, for the spells which have both somatic components and material components, the "important parts" of the spell are the materials.  The hand movements necessary for these spells might just be as small and unimportant as grabbing your holy symbol medallion and presenting it to the enemy, or aiming your wand at the enemy and shaking it, or pushing forward your shield with the symbol emblazoned on it, or actually reaching down to the belt and removing the items from the component pouch.  All of these are non-intricate, large movements that can be done while having things strapped to the arm (like a shield).  Spells with both S,M components do not require intricate hand movement necessitating absolutely nothing being in hand or on the arm, whereas S components-only actually do.Does it "make sense"?  Well... eh?  I mean as much sense as components themselves do I guess.  Having some spells just asking you to hold something or point your wand or orb at something, whereas some spells require you to draw patterns in the air (let alone the spells that only ask you to speak a couple words) all make for (theoretically) more interesting and differentiating component use.  And if you actually ARE caring about and using components to begin with... having the different methods for their use I would assume makes for a more compelling action.I mean, that always seemed to me to be the whole reason for including them in the first place.  WotC knew that most people probably didn't use them, or only casually used them (which explains why they added things like the component pouch or spellcasting focus to begin with)... but that some players actually went all-in on them.  So they went the extra yard in actually detailing the individual material components items for every spell, and which spells need intricate finger movements as opposed to grand gestures (and which require you to stow items you hold before you cast.)And like all players when spell components are concerned... we each have our own individual limit to what we're willing to give over to the system before we say "All right, this is stupid, I don't want to use this."  And once that limit occurs, each of us will come up with our own methodology to get around or ignore the parts that seem more trouble than they're worth.</blockquote>

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