D&D (2024) What Spell Sage Advice (& Descriptions) are you afraid won't be "fixed"?

[Cadence]

In the thread about the 2024 Player's Handbook Spells preview, we're promised...

embedded Sage Advice into descriptions. FAQs answered.

This makes me wonder about what Sage Advice has been particularly egregious. My "favorite" of what I've seen is that See Invisible (and the like) still lets the invisible thing have advantage attacking you and gives you disadvantage to attack them:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/rules-game-mechanics/145072-invisible-and-blinded-conditions

In terms of spell descriptions, and the sage advice emphasizing they can only target what they say they can, another is that someone wrapped in toilet paper when hit by a fireball might be burnt to a crisp, but the toilet paper will be just fine. Relatedly, that you might be frozen solid by cone of cold but whatever you're drinking from a cup you're holding stays the same temperature.

Does the Fireball spell damage objects?

Does a fireball spell do any damage to window glass, for example? It looks like that its wording damages creatures and only causes fire on flammable objects.

rpg.stackexchange.com

 

[Krachek]

The mess around magic missile and bonus to damage rolls.

 

[James Gasik]

Yeah, if I use 5 magic missiles, is it one attack that does 5d4+5 or five attacks that deal 1d4+1 each? This is important for a lot of things, not the least of which is concentration- is it 5 checks or one?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

In terms of spell descriptions, and the sage advice emphasizing they can only target what they say they can, another is that someone wrapped in toilet paper when hit by a fireball might be burnt to a crisp, but the toilet paper will be just fine. Relatedly, that you might be frozen solid by cone of cold but whatever you're drinking from a cup you're holding stays the same temperature.

When I read this, I was like .... nope, not cool. That's the tyranny of rules over any possible in-game fiction.

That said, I don't think that the sage advice is quite as bad as that.

Q. Some spells (like eldritch blast) target a creature. Some others (like fire bolt) target objects too. Does this mean that I can’t attack the door with eldritch blast?
A. The target specifications (creature, object, or something else) in spells are intentional.

As the thread indicates, fireball states as follows:
The fire spreads around corners. It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried.


Which makes sense! But then I realized ... worn or carried. So yeah, I guess if you are wearing the toilet paper, it won't ignite.

Eh...... I guess it is as bad as that!

 

[Kobold Stew]

For me, the biggest is the Goodberry/Disciple of Life interaction

I think that has been fixed by Disciple of Life feature: the playtest version said "When a Spell you cast with a Spell Slot restores Hit Points to a creature..." which is different from the PHB 2014 "Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher
to restore hit points to a creature..."

Sage Advice (wrongly, IMO) took the 2014 wording to include Goodberry, with each berry now curing 4 points. I think the new wording removes that intersection, since the spell itself does not restore hit points. Whatever -- I hope the interaction doesn't work any more, or it adds additional +3 berries, not that each berry heals +3 points.

 

[Cadence]

When I read this, I was like .... nope, not cool. That's the tyranny of rules over any possible in-game fiction.

That said, I don't think that the sage advice is quite as bad as that.

Q. Some spells (like eldritch blast) target a creature. Some others (like fire bolt) target objects too. Does this mean that I can’t attack the door with eldritch blast?
A. The target specifications (creature, object, or something else) in spells are intentional.

As the thread indicates, fireball states as follows:
The fire spreads around corners. It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried.


Which makes sense! But then I realized ... worn or carried. So yeah, I guess if you are wearing the toilet paper, it won't ignite.

Eh...... I guess it is as bad as that!

In a sci-fi / D&D cross-over it would make an interesting Turing style test. If you're wondering about a portable computer with an AI on it, have someone pick it up and hit them with a fireball. If the portable computer isn't hurt, its just an object. If it is melted to slag it was a creature.

 

[Parmandur]

Which makes sense! But then I realized ... worn or carried. So yeah, I guess if you are wearing the toilet paper, it won't ignite.

It's 80s action movie logic, quite intentionally

 

[Weiley31]

For Death Saves and Magic Missiles, does each hit count as screwing Death Save rolls?

The ruling from Crawford made it sound like it's the Ye Olde Double Tap route for Merlin and the gang. And made Magic Missile a lot scarier.

 

[James Gasik]

For Death Saves and Magic Missiles, does each hit count as screwing Death Save rolls?

The ruling from Crawford made it sound like it's the Ye Olde Double Tap route for Merlin and the gang. And made Magic Missile a lot scarier.

Yeah that also sounds ridiculous. Someone falls unconscious, and a 1st level spell slot is instant death, lol.

I'd also like them to revisit the "does Tiny Hut have a floor" ruling.

 

[cbwjm]

Magic missile I've always ruled as being a single hit when you target multiple missiles at someone. It only really matters when the players are the ones being targeted anyway.