Casting a Spell

Casting a Spell

When a character casts any spell, the same basic rules are followed, regardless of the character's class or the spell's effects.
Each spell description begins with a block of information, including the spell's name, level, school of magic, casting time, range, components, and duration. The rest of a spell entry describes the spell's effect.

Casting Time

Most spells require a single action to cast, but some spells require a bonus action, a reaction, or much more time to cast.

Bonus Action

A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn.

Reactions

Some spells can be cast as reactions. These spells take a fraction of a second to bring about and are cast in response to some event. If a spell can be cast as a reaction, the spell description tells you exactly when you can do so.

Longer Casting Times

Certain spells (including spells cast as rituals) require more time to cast: minutes or even hours. When you cast a spell with a casting time longer than a single action or reaction, you must spend your action each turn casting the spell, and you must maintain your concentration while you do so. If your concentration is broken, the spell fails, but you don't expend any mana. If you want to try casting the spell again, you must start over.

Spells per Turn

On a turn, you can spend mana to cast spells with a combined level up to your maximum spell level. For example, a 9th-level Wizard might use their action to cast a 3rd-level Fireball, and then cast a second spell as a bonus action. This second spell would be limited to 2nd-level spells that can be cast as a bonus action, such as Misty Step.

Casting in Armor

Because of the mental focus and precise gestures required for spellcasting, you must be proficient with the armor you are wearing to cast a spell. You are otherwise too distracted and physically hampered by your armor for spellcasting.

Range

The target of a spell must be within the spell's range. For a spell like magic missile, the target is a creature. For a spell like fireball, the target is the point in space where the ball of fire erupts.
Most spells have ranges expressed in feet. Some spells can target only a creature (including you) that you touch. Other spells, such as the shield spell, affect only you. These spells have a range of self.
Spells that create cones or lines of effect that originate from you also have a range of self, indicating that the origin point of the spell's effect must be you.
Once a spell is cast, its effects aren't limited by its range, unless the spell's description says otherwise.

Components

A spell's components are the physical requirements you must meet in order to cast it. Each spell's description indicates whether it requires verbal (V), somatic (S), material (M) components, or a spellcasting focus (F). If you can't provide one or more of a spell's components, you are unable to cast the spell. Mana is not considered a component, so a spell that doesn't require components for you to cast will still require you to spend mana.

Verbal (V)

Most spells require the chanting of mystic words. The words themselves aren't the source of the spell's power; rather, the particular combination of sounds, with specific pitch and resonance, sets the threads of magic in motion. Thus, a character who is gagged or in an area of silence, such as one created by the silence spell, cannot cast a spell with a verbal component.

Somatic (S)

Spellcasting gestures might include a forceful gesticulation or an intricate set of gestures. If a spell requires a somatic component, the caster must have free use of at least one hand to perform these gestures. Thus, a character who has their hands bound, is restrained, or otherwise unable to use their hands, cannot cast a spell with somatic components.

Spellcasting Focus (F)

A spellcasting focus is a special item through which a spellcaster can channel the power of their spells. If a spell requires a focus, the caster must have a focus suitable for their class (as described in their class essentials). A spellcaster must have hand free to hold their spellcasting focus when they cast a spell, but it can be the same that he or she uses to perform somatic components.

Materials

Casting some spells requires particular objects, specified underneath the components entry. If a spell requires a material component, a character must have that specific component before he or she can cast the spell.
If a material component has a gold cost associated with it, that cost assumes the base price of the item, not considering regional or circumstantial mark-ups. For example, a 2-carat diamond worth 500 gp might vary in price when purchased from a merchant. A more costly version of the required material component works just as well. For instance, a 4-carat diamond can be used in place of a 2-carat diamond.
If a spell states that a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell.

Duration

A spell's duration is the length of time the spell persists. A duration can be expressed in rounds, minutes, hours, or even years. Some spells specify that their effects last until the spells are dispelled or destroyed.

Instantaneous

Many spells are instantaneous. The spell harms, heals, creates, or alters a creature or an object in a way that can't be dispelled, because its magic exists only for an instant.

Targets

A typical spell or ability requires you to pick one or more targets to be affected by it. A spell or feature's description tells you whether it targets creatures, objects, or a point of origin for an area of effect.

Invalid Targets

If you cast a spell on someone or something that can't be affected by the spell, nothing happens to that target, but you still expend whatever resource the casting of the spell required (be it mana, a spell scroll, or an item's charge). You can use your reaction to determine if the creature is in fact an invalid target. You must make a DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check, on a success, you correctly determine what caused your spell to fail. On a failure, or if you don't use your reaction to carefully observe the outcome, you simply perceive that the spell did nothing to the target, with no indication as to whether it succeeded its saving throw (if the spell has one), or if it is immune or non-targetable by the chosen spell.

A Clear Path to the Target

To target something, you must have a clear path to it, so it can't be behind total cover. If you place an area of effect at a point that you can't see and an obstruction, such as a wall, is between you and that point, the point of origin comes into being on the near side of that obstruction.

Targeting Yourself

If a spell targets a creature of your choice, you can choose yourself, unless the creature must be hostile or specifically a creature other than you. If you are in the area of effect of a spell you cast, you can target yourself.

Allies and Enemies

If a spell targets your allies or enemies, use the following descriptions.

• A creature is your ally if they're inclined to help or fight alongside you, of if you believe they're inclined to do so. However, you are not your own ally, so an spell or effect that targets your allies doesn't affect you unless it specifically says so.


• A creature is your enemy if they're inclined to oppose or fight against you, or if you believe they're inclined to do so, or if you're intent on opposing or fighing them.

Willing and Unwilling

Creatures naturally try and resist the effects of spells that might harm them or put them in danger. A creature is unwilling unless one of the following conditions are met:

• The creature consents, allowing the spell to affect them. Even if they're consenting under duress or fear of a worse outcome.


• The creature is unable to consent but is being targeted by a spell from an ally.

Areas of Effect

Spells such as burning hands and cone of cold cover an area, allowing them to affect multiple creatures at once.
A spell's description specifies its area of effect, which typically has one of five different shapes: cone, cube, cylinder, line, or sphere. Every area of effect has a point of origin, a location from which the spell's energy erupts. The rules for each shape specify how you position its point of origin. Typically, a point of origin is a point in space, but some spells have an area whose origin is a creature or an object.
A spell's effect expands in straight lines from the point of origin. If no unblocked straight line extends from the point of origin to a location within the area of effect, that location isn't included in the spell's area. To block one of these imaginary lines, an obstruction must provide total cover.

Cone

A cone extends in a direction you choose from its point of origin. A cone's width at a given point along its length is equal to that point's distance from the point of origin. A cone's area of effect specifies its maximum length.
A cone's point of origin is not included in the cone's area of effect, unless you decide otherwise.

Cube

You select a cube's point of origin, which lies anywhere on a face of the cubic effect. The cube's size is expressed as the length of each side.
A cube's point of origin is not included in the cube's area of effect, unless you decide otherwise.

Cylinder

A cylinder's point of origin is the center of a circle of a particular radius, as given in the spell description. The circle must either be on the ground or at the height of the spell effect. The energy in a cylinder expands in straight lines from the point of origin to the perimeter of the circle, forming the base of the cylinder. The spell's effect then shoots up from the base or down from the top, to a distance equal to the height of the cylinder.
A cylinder's point of origin is included in the cylinder's area of effect.

Line

A line extends from its point of origin in a straight path up to its length and covers an area defined by its width.
A line's point of origin is not included in the line's area of effect, unless you decide otherwise.

Sphere

You select a sphere's point of origin, and the sphere extends outward from that point. The sphere's size is expressed as a radius in feet that extends from the point.
A sphere's point of origin is included in the sphere's area of effect.

Saving Throws

Many spells specify that a target can make a saving throw to avoid some or all of a spell's effects. The spell specifies the ability that the target uses for the save and lists the outcome depending on the degree of success or failure. Not all spells have unique effects for every degree of success or failure. If a degree is missing from the list of possible outcomes, the spell simply doesn't have a unique effect for that degree.
The DC to resist one of your spells equals 8 + your spellcasting ability modifier + your proficiency bonus + any special modifiers.

Attack Rolls

Some spells require the caster to make an attack roll to determine whether the spell effect hits the intended target. Your attack bonus with a spell attack equals your spellcasting ability modifier + your proficiency bonus.
Most spells that require attack rolls involve ranged attacks. Remember that you have disadvantage on a ranged attack roll if you are within 5 feet of a hostile creature that can see you and that isn't incapacitated.

Combining Magical Effects

The effects of different spells add together while the durations of those spells overlap. The effects of the same spell cast multiple times don't combine, however. Instead, the most potent effect--such as the highest bonus--from those castings applies while their durations overlap, or the most recent effect applies if the castings are equally potent and their durations overlap.
For example, if two clerics cast bless on the same target, that character gains the spell's benefit only once; he or she doesn't get to roll two bonus dice.