D&D 5E War Caster Confusion

[Boarstorm]

Prayer of Healing

Given the casting time, this is perhaps not the best example.

But yes, on the whole it's a good point.

 

[Lackenthor]

So in reading the rules at
http://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/PlayerDnDBasicRules_v0.2.pdf

I says you can put away you mace ( or weapon) as part of your spell casting action....
And also you can pull your mace as part of your attack action... so all you have to do is take into account you dont have a weapon out for reactions... (without the war caster feat)
Makes war Caster even better....
Thanks everyone.

 

[Ahrimon]

Which makes me wonder why somatic components even exist. Sure, there are times when your hands are literally tied or whatever, but could such rare and extreme situations really be the only reason?

I don't want to make spellcasting unnecessarily cumbersome, but it honestly feels like they're saying, "Here's this thing that limits spellcasting, but you can totally ignore it if you want to. Oh, that feat? It's mainly there for the Con save bonus."

I think it would be within the letter and spirit of the rules to say that switching the mace to the shield hand is like the free weapon draw you're allowed with a normal Attack action, but you can't switch back for free, so any reaction involving a weapon (such as an opportunity attack) would have to be done without the mace until you can switch it back at the start of your next turn.

Since this is one of those grey areas that is open to DM interpretation/implementation I wouldn't say that you would be wrong to do this. I would like to caution you about a slippery slope though. This could lead to a bunch of minutia rules that begin to impede the narrative style of game. By the rules, opening a door costs 5' of movement. But it would be entirely logical to carry your rule of switching weapons over to it. Now any sword & board weilder or 2h weilder is effectively unarmed for a round after opening a door.

My advice would be to not sweat the small stuff, and just go with it. War Caster is still a good feat with plenty of oomph.

But whatever your decision, happy gaming! =)

 

[Joe Liker]

Since this is one of those grey areas that is open to DM interpretation/implementation I wouldn't say that you would be wrong to do this. I would like to caution you about a slippery slope though. This could lead to a bunch of minutia rules that begin to impede the narrative style of game. By the rules, opening a door costs 5' of movement. But it would be entirely logical to carry your rule of switching weapons over to it. Now any sword & board weilder or 2h weilder is effectively unarmed for a round after opening a door.

My advice would be to not sweat the small stuff, and just go with it. War Caster is still a good feat with plenty of oomph.

But whatever your decision, happy gaming! =)

Open or closing a door explicitly costs no action or movement (Player Basic Rules, p. 70); I don't know where you're getting 5' -- I'm guessing 3e?

There is no rule about needing a free hand to open a door, but yes, I think it would be reasonable to make any character sheathe his weapon to do so in most cases.

 

[Mirtek]

So, in 5th ed ... a Cleric with a Mace and a Shield can't cast spells with Somatic componets w/o droping his Mace or shield??

Actually a cleric couldn't do it in 3.x either. One of the most overlooked rules of the entire edition

 

[Cannyjiggit]

After much discussion between myself and the DM in our current campaign (I play a High Elf light domain cleric using sword and shield) we came to the following conclusions:

Assuming the character is using either a 2 handed weapon, a single weapon with shield or 2 single hand weapons, they can choose to attack or cast each round as you would expect, if they cast a spell then they cannot make opportunity attacks with their weapon(s), if they choose to attack they cannot cast spells as a reaction. This only applies to spells with a somatic component.

The assumtion is that if they are casting a spell, a weapon is moved to the other hand to do so preventing its use for the rest of the turn or in the case of a 2 handed weapon it is steadied and then supported by a single hand to free up a casting hand. In either case the weapon is not available to use in an attack

This will dramatically affect an Eldritch Knight wanting to cast the shield spell after attacking

 

[Stalker0]

One of the most overlooked rules of the entire edition

I agree, which is why I wasn't a fan that they brought back somatic components to begin with.

I would have much rather they had a rule that says "a caster that is sufficiently bound cannot spells". And then if you wanted a few spells that broke that rule, you could outline them in the spell.