With Staff of the Woodlands, it says "you can use an action" to expend charges to cast the spells. Therefore, does this mean you can cast Awaken as an action?
I just love the idea of a Druid that is fleeing through a park thwacking trees and yelling "DEFEND MEEEE!!" and they just uproot and beat up the town guards.
I guess this question might apply to other magic staffs as well but I haven't checked.
DMG Chapter 7 has the rules for "Activating a Magic Item", which is a special action not printed in PHB Chapter 9, which is a little different than the usual [Tooltip Not Found] or [Tooltip Not Found] actions that players are usually familiar with.
Spells
Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item, often by expending charges from it. The spell is cast at the lowest possible spell and caster level, doesn’t expend any of the user’s spell slots, and requires no components unless the item’s description says otherwise. The spell uses its normal casting time, range, and duration, and the user of the item must concentrate if the spell requires concentration. Many items, such as potions, bypass the casting of a spell and confer the spell’s effects with their usual duration. Certain items make exceptions to these rules, changing the casting time, duration, or other parts of a spell.
A magic item, such as certain staffs, may require you to use your own spellcasting ability when you cast a spell from the item. If you have more than one spellcasting ability, you choose which one to use with the item. If you don't have a spellcasting ability - perhaps you're a rogue with the Use Magic Device feature - your spellcasting ability modifier is +0 for the item, and your proficiency bonus does apply.
By default, if a magic item just tells you that "you may cast this spell," assume you need to use its normal casting time provided in its spell description. But if, as with the Staff of the Woodlands, an item provides a specific casting time instead.... then use that new special time!
Spells
You can use an action to expend 1 or more of the staff's charges to cast one of the following spells from it, using your spell save DC:
You can also use an action to cast the pass without trace spell from the staff without using any charges.
There's an... argument to be made here, that while Pass without Trace is "use an action to cast," the other spells are "use an action to expend a charge to cast"... meaning expending the charge is an action, and casting the spell might be its normal default casting time in addition to that action. That can't be RAI though, because it would make the player incapable of casting most of those spells without using Action Surge, so it's plain enough that "use an action to expend a charge to cast" should be read as "expend a charge, and use an action to cast".
With Staff of the Woodlands, it says "you can use an action" to expend charges to cast the spells. Therefore, does this mean you can cast Awaken as an action?
I just love the idea of a Druid that is fleeing through a park thwacking trees and yelling "DEFEND MEEEE!!" and they just uproot and beat up the town guards.
I guess this question might apply to other magic staffs as well but I haven't checked.
Yes!
DMG Chapter 7 has the rules for "Activating a Magic Item", which is a special action not printed in PHB Chapter 9, which is a little different than the usual [Tooltip Not Found] or [Tooltip Not Found] actions that players are usually familiar with.
By default, if a magic item just tells you that "you may cast this spell," assume you need to use its normal casting time provided in its spell description. But if, as with the Staff of the Woodlands, an item provides a specific casting time instead.... then use that new special time!
There's an... argument to be made here, that while Pass without Trace is "use an action to cast," the other spells are "use an action to expend a charge to cast"... meaning expending the charge is an action, and casting the spell might be its normal default casting time in addition to that action. That can't be RAI though, because it would make the player incapable of casting most of those spells without using Action Surge, so it's plain enough that "use an action to expend a charge to cast" should be read as "expend a charge, and use an action to cast".
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Staff of the woodlands turns awaken into an easy to use and cheap spell, instead of one that takes a long time and an expensive component.
I love how this could be used strategically, or you could just break into the villain's house and teach his potted plants to sing Surfin' Bird at 3 AM