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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arial Black" data-source="post: 6801891" data-attributes="member: 6799649">What does "have the components present" mean for the verbal component?The verbal component is a series of words, the 'magic words' that must be spoken in order for the casting to succeed.'Having the words present' is a statement that doesn't make sense. The words have an element of time built in, in that the words must be said in the correct order, one after the other. When the last word is being spoken, all the previous words have already been spoken; if there are still some words left unsaid then you have spoken the words out of order and therefore not provided the verbal component, which is not a specific collection of words said in any order, but a precise phrase spoken correctly.Half-way through the phrase, the words you have already spoken are in the past, and any you haven't said yet lie in a possible future and don't exist yet. Only one word can said to be 'present' at any one time, but the entire phrase, the verbal component, has not been provided (and is not 'present') until the final word has been spoken.Until the last word of the correctly spoken phrase has been said, you have failed to provide the verbal component and the spell doesn't happen. When you have said the entire phrase correctly, the spell begins (assuming all the other criteria are met). The spell cannot begin before the components have been provided, therefore cannot begin while the verbal component is being chanted but not yet complete.This is not a mere assumption, but an unavoidable consequence of the RAW.</blockquote>

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