@InquisitiveCoder What you quoted actually indicates a conflict with general rules, not a support of the claim that anything affected is a target:
No. The Spellcasting rules telling you that when a spell asks you choose a target, it can't be behind total cover. This is exactly what the Total Cover rules are talking about when they say a target behind total cover can't be targeted directly. There's no conflict there. The Total Cover rules then remind you you can still target creatures indirectly through a spell's area of effect. That's exactly what you were talking about with your Ice Knife example where the creatures to the side can't be targeted directly, but can still be caught in Ice Knife's explosion.
Also, the section about targeting yourself says you can target yourself, not that you do, which if anything, indicates that being in an area of effect does not automatically make you a target.
You're playing word games. The rules are written in everyday English, not formal logic or legalese. A sentence of the form "You can do X by doing Y" is perfectly normal and clear.
Also, because it has not yet been linked, even though the old Sage Advice "answer" has been, here is the Sage Advice Compendium containing all answers deemed official by Wizards of the Coast:
I did look through it, and there is nothing about Ice Knife or Twinned Spell I could find that would count anything affected as targeted. Which means that officially, being affected by a spell or feature does not count as being targeted. So only what is explicitly listed as the target of the spell in its details (creature, object, or point) should be counted as a target.
Feel free to look through the compendium and correct me with what you find.
I did look through it, and there is nothing about Ice Knife or Twinned Spell I could find that would count anything affected as targeted. Which means that officially, being affected by a spell or feature does not count as being targeted.
No, it only means that there's no statement on the matter that you deem official enough. That's not the same as proof of your position being correct. "I couldn't find evidence to the contrary, therefore I'm correct" is not an argument.
But hey, if you're willing to go beyond what the rules say and quote the lead rules designer, then here he is talking about spell targeting for 35 minutes and he clearly says anything caught in a spell's area is a target too. And he's said the same thing on twitter several times as well.
A target with total cover can't be targeted directly by an attack or a spell, although some spells can reach such a target by including it in an area of effect. A target has total cover if it is completely concealed by an obstacle.
You keep ignoring that point, but it exists. Note that they do call people affected by a spell in that way a "target".
the only target is the creature that might get 1d10 damage, because the other creatures can be behind cover, and because as I have listed twice above, the explosion from Ice Knife explicitly says: "The target and each creature within 5 feet". The explosion can affect the target, but it can also affect other creatures, creatures which are not the target.
The first effect has a single target. Then the secondary effect affects both the original target and everyone within 5 feet. Going by the rule quoted above, the secondary effect has (potentially) more than one target.
I think it should be clear for Ice Knife that not everything affected is a target; and thus only that which is the direct target (creature, object, or point) matters to Twinned Spell, not secondary effects.
It's absolutely not clear. In fact, the opposite is clear.
You're trying to argue an interpretation of the rules that makes the rules contradict themselves and that makes things work opposite to how they should (as proven by the Sage Advice). Maybe you should consider that your interpretation that "affected" and "targeted" are different is wrong, which makes everything coherent and work as it's supposed to be.
1- any answer not included in the compendium was deemed not to be official, and honestly, as this entire discussion is based on RAW, with the repeated inclusion of a single individual's opinion, when we have no idea if that individual even was responsible for the writing of the rules and features in question, I will fall back on RAW.
2- you speak of everyday english, which you then do not follow. In everyday english, what is a target, or, what has been targeted, is what you choose to attack, not what is affected by said attack. After all, if you burn a field to kill weeds, and you accidentally burn your neighbors field in the process, that does not mean you targeted your neighbors field, even though it was affected.
Also, seeing as how you think anything affected should be included as targeted, does that mean you prohibit any spell in which there is any possibility of a creature being affected indirectly from being twinned? Because to define targeted as being affected, you have to set a some boundary, and honestly, that has not been done within the rules.
1- any answer not included in the compendium was deemed not to be official
Up until last year Jeremy's tweets were official, and he's explained how Twinned Spell works several times since 2015.
and honestly, as this entire discussion is based on RAW
Then why are you bringing up the Compendium? Either sources outside the Player's Handbook are fair game or they're not, but you can't have it both ways.
2- you speak of everyday english, which you then do not follow. In everyday english, what is a target, or, what has been targeted, is what you choose to attack, not what is affected by said attack.
Not always. When a terrorist attacks a location or a group of people with a specific agenda, we certainly say they were targeting those people, even if the terrorist only harmed or killed them indirectly. Likewise, you don't choose individual monsters when you cast Fireball but your goal is definitely to hurt those monsters, not the point in space.
Your definition is too narrow and doesn't work in every context, and more importantly it doesn't work within the context of the rules.
Also, seeing as how you think anything affected should be included as targeted, does that mean you prohibit any spell in which there is any possibility of a creature being affected indirectly from being twinned? Because to define targeted as being affected, you have to set a some boundary, and honestly, that has not been done within the rules.
The boundary is at "did the creature suffer an effect that's directly part of the spell?" You're trying to start a slippery slope here, but there's no question Ice Knife is affecting the creatures caught in its blast because it explicitly tells you to apply cold damage to them.
Time to give it up dude. The only reason you're still upright is that you have yet to look down and see the ground has disappeared beneath you.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Well that's the problem. It is not a defined rules term, but it is the term used in the rules that is causing this confusion.
I mean, I agree it could've been much clearer, and I'd love to see it clarified in a future edition. But at the same time it's something that only comes up with select few abilities and they've been clarified a million times by the rules guy himself. There's even a whole podcast episode about it. And it's also pretty obvious that the intent of Twinned Spell is to make a spell go from affecting 1 creature to 2.
Since the intent ought to be clear and the information for how it's supposed to work is readily available and they're not gonna do a full rewrite of the targeting section in errata, trying to insist something like Ice Knife should be twinnable because the Player's Handbook was kinda vague really feels like the bad kind of rules lawyering to me.
They dont need to do a full rewrite of the targeting rules in an errata, just add one sentence that says "creatures and objects in a spell's area of effect can be targets of that spell." Or they can make just one Sage Advice that says that (in the compendium, otherwise it is not official).
Because I agree that the intent is clear, but some rules lawyers will try to exploit ambiguous wording in the RAW. As is the case here.
and honestly, as this entire discussion is based on RAW
Then why are you bringing up the Compendium? Either sources outside the Player's Handbook are fair game or they're not, but you can't have it both ways.
I don't really understand your counter argument here. The SA compendium is RAW. When he brought it up, his point was that out of all of the explanations on how twinned spell works, none of them were kept official.
I don't really understand your counter argument here. The SA compendium is RAW. When he brought it up, his point was that out of all of the explanations on how twinned spell works, none of them were kept official.
Sage Advice Compendium isn't RAW. The rules are in the core books (and errata.) Sage Advice Compendium just clarifies what's already written in those books; it can't change what the rules are. And like I said, prior to last year's last Sage Advice Compendium update, the Sage Advice PDF did say Jeremy's tweets were official rulings. Only reason he even changed it is because he felt it wasn't very user-friendly to have people digging through years' worth of tweets.
So my main point was that Sage Advice is an external source from the rules and if that's fair game, the very same guy that writes Sage Advice has been consistent about how Twinned Spell is supposed to work for years now, and at the time he made those statements he was making official rulings.
I don't really understand your counter argument here. The SA compendium is RAW. When he brought it up, his point was that out of all of the explanations on how twinned spell works, none of them were kept official.
Sage Advice Compendium isn't RAW. The rules are in the core books (and errata.) Sage Advice Compendium just clarifies what's already written in those books; it can't change what the rules are. And like I said, prior to last year's last Sage Advice Compendium update, the Sage Advice PDF did say Jeremy's tweets were official rulings. Only reason he even changed it is because he felt it wasn't very user-friendly to have people digging through years' worth of tweets.
So my main point was that Sage Advice is an external source from the rules and if that's fair game, the very same guy that writes Sage Advice has been consistent about how Twinned Spell is supposed to work for years now, and at the time he made those statements he was making official rulings.
The compendium says this:
Official rulings on how to interpret rules are made here in the Sage Advice Compendium by the game’s lead rules designer, Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford on Twitter). The public statements of the D&D team, or anyone else at Wizards of the Coast, are not official rulings; they are advice. Jeremy Crawford’s tweets are often a preview of rulings that will appear here.
I dont know how else to interpret that other than being official RAW. And it very clearly states that tweets are not fair game and are not currently official.
Official rulings on how to interpret rules are made here in the Sage Advice Compendium by the game’s lead rules designer, Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford on Twitter). The public statements of the D&D team, or anyone else at Wizards of the Coast, are not official rulings; they are advice. Jeremy Crawford’s tweets are often a preview of rulings that will appear here.
I dont know how else to interpret that other than being official RAW.
The very first words io what you quoted uses the phrase "official rulings on how to interpret the rules." Sage Advice is not the rules, it's official guidance on how to read them. It's a secondary source. It's arguably the best secondary source, since it's coming from the same person that wrote the primary source (i.e. the rules) but it's still not the rules.
Even Sage Advice Compendium reminds you that: "The fifth edition of D&D has three official rulebooks, each of which was first published in 2014: ..." Sage Advice is not one of the three core books, it's not errata, and you don't get a copy of it when you buy the Player's Handbook or DMG. It's just really good advice.
I'm not trying to be super pedantic. This is how Jeremy himself approaches the topic. When he reversed his Shield Master ruling and everyone started crying he nerfed it he tweeted that "Nothing has changed in Shield Master." He also tweeted this recently:
And it very clearly states that tweets are not fair game and are not currently official.
Yes, and as I've said twice before that only changed in v2.3 of the document back in January. In any earlier version you'll see:
Official rulings on how to interpret rules are made here in the Sage Advice Compendium. The public statements of the D&D team, or anyone else at Wizards of the Coast, are not official rulings; they are advice. One exception: the game’s lead rules developer, Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford on Twitter), can make official rulings and does so in this document and on Twitter.
So any tweet that predates 2019 was treated by Jeremy as an official ruling. And I'd argue that even if that wasn't the case, it doesn't really matter. If he were to add an answer about Twinned Spell in the PDF, I highly doubt he'd change what his answer would be after consistently saying it's not just about the spell's initial target year after year.
Off the top of my head he's ruled against twinning Ice Knife, Telekinesis and Dragon's Breath, all of which would pass the "asks you to choose one creature initially" criteria but fails the "potentially applies the spell's effect to additional creatures at any point in its duration" criteria. He's also tweeted that you can't share a smite spell with your steed summoned by Find Steed because the smite spell also targets the creature you hit, and therefore it's not a spell that targets only you. He's had about 4 years to reflect on the issue and I've never seen him rule on the contrary.
The issue is the rules don't clearly state something (that affect creatures are targets). We need an official ruling to clarify this misunderstanding. I'm not suggesting it will be different than what he tweeted, in fact, I hope it is the same. My point is that it needs to be official, otherwise there is nothing official that says you can't twin ice knife.
You are not supposed to be able to twin AOE spells, and I want the official rules or a ruling to clearly say as much so there can be no misunderstandings or technicality lawyering like there is in this very thread.
I agree on that point. It's kind of weird Twinned Spell has never made it into the compendium because it's one of the things that Jeremy gets asked about consistently.
While we're tossing potential Twinned Spell targets out there, how about Twinning and a Summon spell that only summons one creature--making it a single target? (especially relevant if multi classed). Can you Twin a non-sorcerer spell even?
While we're tossing potential Twinned Spell targets out there, how about Twinning and a Summon spell that only summons one creature--making it a single target? (especially relevant if multi classed). Can you Twin a non-sorcerer spell even?
Summoning spells don't target the summoned creature, they target the space the creature is summoned to.
And yes, you can use metamagic for any spell you cast from any source.
I'm not sure we can apply the term "while" to a 3 year old thread! However, agreed - conjures target a space, not a creature, and so are ineligible.
Meta magic does not specify a source (in terms of spell list), so any spell works, so long as it inherited qualifies.
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No. The Spellcasting rules telling you that when a spell asks you choose a target, it can't be behind total cover. This is exactly what the Total Cover rules are talking about when they say a target behind total cover can't be targeted directly. There's no conflict there. The Total Cover rules then remind you you can still target creatures indirectly through a spell's area of effect. That's exactly what you were talking about with your Ice Knife example where the creatures to the side can't be targeted directly, but can still be caught in Ice Knife's explosion.
You're playing word games. The rules are written in everyday English, not formal logic or legalese. A sentence of the form "You can do X by doing Y" is perfectly normal and clear.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Also, because it has not yet been linked, even though the old Sage Advice "answer" has been, here is the Sage Advice Compendium containing all answers deemed official by Wizards of the Coast:
https://media.wizards.com/2019/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf
I did look through it, and there is nothing about Ice Knife or Twinned Spell I could find that would count anything affected as targeted. Which means that officially, being affected by a spell or feature does not count as being targeted. So only what is explicitly listed as the target of the spell in its details (creature, object, or point) should be counted as a target.
Feel free to look through the compendium and correct me with what you find.
No, it only means that there's no statement on the matter that you deem official enough. That's not the same as proof of your position being correct. "I couldn't find evidence to the contrary, therefore I'm correct" is not an argument.
But hey, if you're willing to go beyond what the rules say and quote the lead rules designer, then here he is talking about spell targeting for 35 minutes and he clearly says anything caught in a spell's area is a target too. And he's said the same thing on twitter several times as well.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
And then there's the exception made for area of effects.
You keep ignoring that point, but it exists. Note that they do call people affected by a spell in that way a "target".
The first effect has a single target. Then the secondary effect affects both the original target and everyone within 5 feet. Going by the rule quoted above, the secondary effect has (potentially) more than one target.
It's absolutely not clear. In fact, the opposite is clear.
You're trying to argue an interpretation of the rules that makes the rules contradict themselves and that makes things work opposite to how they should (as proven by the Sage Advice). Maybe you should consider that your interpretation that "affected" and "targeted" are different is wrong, which makes everything coherent and work as it's supposed to be.
Click to learn to put cool-looking tooltips in your messages!
You dont seem to understand:
1- any answer not included in the compendium was deemed not to be official, and honestly, as this entire discussion is based on RAW, with the repeated inclusion of a single individual's opinion, when we have no idea if that individual even was responsible for the writing of the rules and features in question, I will fall back on RAW.
2- you speak of everyday english, which you then do not follow. In everyday english, what is a target, or, what has been targeted, is what you choose to attack, not what is affected by said attack. After all, if you burn a field to kill weeds, and you accidentally burn your neighbors field in the process, that does not mean you targeted your neighbors field, even though it was affected.
Also, seeing as how you think anything affected should be included as targeted, does that mean you prohibit any spell in which there is any possibility of a creature being affected indirectly from being twinned? Because to define targeted as being affected, you have to set a some boundary, and honestly, that has not been done within the rules.
Up until last year Jeremy's tweets were official, and he's explained how Twinned Spell works several times since 2015.
Then why are you bringing up the Compendium? Either sources outside the Player's Handbook are fair game or they're not, but you can't have it both ways.
Not always. When a terrorist attacks a location or a group of people with a specific agenda, we certainly say they were targeting those people, even if the terrorist only harmed or killed them indirectly. Likewise, you don't choose individual monsters when you cast Fireball but your goal is definitely to hurt those monsters, not the point in space.
Your definition is too narrow and doesn't work in every context, and more importantly it doesn't work within the context of the rules.
The boundary is at "did the creature suffer an effect that's directly part of the spell?" You're trying to start a slippery slope here, but there's no question Ice Knife is affecting the creatures caught in its blast because it explicitly tells you to apply cold damage to them.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Time to give it up dude. The only reason you're still upright is that you have yet to look down and see the ground has disappeared beneath you.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
They dont need to do a full rewrite of the targeting rules in an errata, just add one sentence that says "creatures and objects in a spell's area of effect can be targets of that spell." Or they can make just one Sage Advice that says that (in the compendium, otherwise it is not official).
Because I agree that the intent is clear, but some rules lawyers will try to exploit ambiguous wording in the RAW. As is the case here.
I don't really understand your counter argument here. The SA compendium is RAW. When he brought it up, his point was that out of all of the explanations on how twinned spell works, none of them were kept official.
Sage Advice Compendium isn't RAW. The rules are in the core books (and errata.) Sage Advice Compendium just clarifies what's already written in those books; it can't change what the rules are. And like I said, prior to last year's last Sage Advice Compendium update, the Sage Advice PDF did say Jeremy's tweets were official rulings. Only reason he even changed it is because he felt it wasn't very user-friendly to have people digging through years' worth of tweets.
So my main point was that Sage Advice is an external source from the rules and if that's fair game, the very same guy that writes Sage Advice has been consistent about how Twinned Spell is supposed to work for years now, and at the time he made those statements he was making official rulings.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
The compendium says this:
I dont know how else to interpret that other than being official RAW. And it very clearly states that tweets are not fair game and are not currently official.
The very first words io what you quoted uses the phrase "official rulings on how to interpret the rules." Sage Advice is not the rules, it's official guidance on how to read them. It's a secondary source. It's arguably the best secondary source, since it's coming from the same person that wrote the primary source (i.e. the rules) but it's still not the rules.
Even Sage Advice Compendium reminds you that: "The fifth edition of D&D has three official rulebooks, each of which was first published in 2014: ..." Sage Advice is not one of the three core books, it's not errata, and you don't get a copy of it when you buy the Player's Handbook or DMG. It's just really good advice.
I'm not trying to be super pedantic. This is how Jeremy himself approaches the topic. When he reversed his Shield Master ruling and everyone started crying he nerfed it he tweeted that "Nothing has changed in Shield Master." He also tweeted this recently:
Yes, and as I've said twice before that only changed in v2.3 of the document back in January. In any earlier version you'll see:
So any tweet that predates 2019 was treated by Jeremy as an official ruling. And I'd argue that even if that wasn't the case, it doesn't really matter. If he were to add an answer about Twinned Spell in the PDF, I highly doubt he'd change what his answer would be after consistently saying it's not just about the spell's initial target year after year.
Off the top of my head he's ruled against twinning Ice Knife, Telekinesis and Dragon's Breath, all of which would pass the "asks you to choose one creature initially" criteria but fails the "potentially applies the spell's effect to additional creatures at any point in its duration" criteria. He's also tweeted that you can't share a smite spell with your steed summoned by Find Steed because the smite spell also targets the creature you hit, and therefore it's not a spell that targets only you. He's had about 4 years to reflect on the issue and I've never seen him rule on the contrary.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Too long, only skimmed it, not quoting.
The issue is the rules don't clearly state something (that affect creatures are targets). We need an official ruling to clarify this misunderstanding. I'm not suggesting it will be different than what he tweeted, in fact, I hope it is the same. My point is that it needs to be official, otherwise there is nothing official that says you can't twin ice knife.
You are not supposed to be able to twin AOE spells, and I want the official rules or a ruling to clearly say as much so there can be no misunderstandings or technicality lawyering like there is in this very thread.
I agree on that point. It's kind of weird Twinned Spell has never made it into the compendium because it's one of the things that Jeremy gets asked about consistently.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Final Verdict?
AOE = no twin
"Not all those who wander are lost"
While we're tossing potential Twinned Spell targets out there, how about Twinning and a Summon spell that only summons one creature--making it a single target? (especially relevant if multi classed). Can you Twin a non-sorcerer spell even?
Summoning spells don't target the summoned creature, they target the space the creature is summoned to.
And yes, you can use metamagic for any spell you cast from any source.
I'm not sure we can apply the term "while" to a 3 year old thread! However, agreed - conjures target a space, not a creature, and so are ineligible.
Meta magic does not specify a source (in terms of spell list), so any spell works, so long as it inherited qualifies.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.