Recently I'd run into an issue with distant spell in that RAW the increase only affects the range tag line on the spell listing and not any text. So it wouldn't work for most touch spells, reaction spells and a few others like mage hand.
Then I looked at transmuted spell and saw that most spells with elemental damage list the damage type in the spell description in addition to the damage type in the damage line. For example. Fireball for example, or witch bolt.
Does it work differently than distant spell? Why does the range increase for distant only affect the specific range but not text, but transmuted does affect text?
Transmuted Spell When you cast a spell that deals a type of damage from the following list, you can spend 1 sorcery point to change that damage type to one of the other listed types: acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, thunder.
Its in its list for the description. So I could use transmute spell to turn a fireball into a iceball.
BUT i can use this to say turn magic missiles into fire missiles cause Force isnt on that list
Does it work differently than distant spell? Why does the range increase for distant only affect the specific range but not text, but transmuted does affect text?
Transmuted Spell Metamagic states that when you cast a spell that deals one of the listed types of damage you can replace it with a different damage type from the same list. So for Prismatic Spray you could swap the listed Fire damage for Thunder but this wouldn't effect any of the other rays.
The issue with Distant Spell Metamagic is that Range is a very particular property listed in a spell's description. Sometimes when describing the effect of a spell it will refer back to the spell's range, like in Witch Bolt. However there are spells that list distances in their description that instead give a specific range value, like in Flaming Sphere (I am aware this spell is not on the Sorcerer's spell list). In cases like this Distant Spell Metamagic would increase the range of the spell but not any of the other specified distances.
This technicality with Distant Spell Metamagic is especially confusing and counter to what is almost certainly the designer's intent with spell's like Mage Hand.
Does it work differently than distant spell? Why does the range increase for distant only affect the specific range but not text, but transmuted does affect text?
Transmuted Spell Metamagic states that when you cast a spell that deals one of the listed types of damage you can replace it with a different damage type from the same list. So for Prismatic Spray you could swap the listed Fire damage for Thunder but this wouldn't effect any of the other rays.
The issue with Distant Spell Metamagic is that Range is a very particular property listed in a spell's description. Sometimes when describing the effect of a spell it will refer back to the spell's range, like in Witch Bolt. However there are spells that list distances in their description that instead give a specific range value, like in Flaming Sphere (I am aware this spell is not on the Sorcerer's spell list). In cases like this Distant Spell Metamagic would increase the range of the spell but not any of the other specified distances.
This technicality with Distant Spell Metamagic is especially confusing and counter to what is almost certainly the designer's intent with spell's like Mage Hand.
I guess I'm assuming the issue with distant spell would apply to transmuted as well. Flaming sphere and witch bolt both list a damage type, why does the distant spell only apply to the specific range listing and not text but transmuted changes text in addition to the specific damage type listing?
I mean, if you think there's a conflict here that needs to be resolved, the solution would be to change how you handle Distant, not Transmuted
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I mean, if you think there's a conflict here that needs to be resolved, the solution would be to change how you handle Distant, not Transmuted
I guess I'm just trying to work out the rules here. If I were to have to make a ruling in game I would say they both work like you'd intuitively think they should.
People say distant spell doesn't work for many spells RAW, but if that's the case isn't it also true for transmuted spell?
The problem with Distant Spell Metamagic is that in the source books spells are written with 7 distinct fields. They are: Spell Name, Spell Level and School, Casting Time, Range, Components, Duration, and Description. DnDBeyond added the Attack/Save and Damage/Effect fields for ease of use. But if you look at a spell entry in one of the source books you will find there is no Attack/Save or Damage/Effect field. Instead this information is given in the spell's description.
Maybe it will be helpful to go through some examples. Let's use Transmute Spell Metamagic to change the Fire damage of Investiture of Flame into Cold damage. Looking at the spell here are the ways it does damage and their damage types:
Creature moves or ends its turn within 5ft of you - Fire damage
Create a 15ft long 5ft wide line - Fire damage
Replace all the instances of Fire damage in the spell's description with Cold damage and your done!
Now let's apply Distant Spell Metamagic to Witch Bolt. Here are the distances listed in the spell:
Range - 30ft
"The spell also ends if the target is ever outside the spell’s range"
This is also straightforward. The spell's range doubles to 60ft. This also increases the distance the target has to flee to end the spell because this limitation of the spell directly references the spell's range.
Let's now try this with Flaming Sphere ( I know, it's not a Sorcerer spell). Here are the distances listed in that spell:
Range - 60ft
Sphere Diameter - 5ft
Movement - 30ft
Jump height - 5ft
Jump Distance - 10ft
Bright Light Radius - 20ft
Dim Light Radius - 40ft
So, which of these distances get doubled by Distant Spell Metamagic? The Range obviously does, but what about the rest? I think most people would say the rest stay the same. The spell still works fine if you use Distant Spell Metamagic to conjure the sphere 100ft away from you.
Now for the horror that is Mage Hand. Here are the distances it lists:
Range - 30ft
"The hand vanishes if it is ever more than 30 feet away from you"
Movement - 30ft
Now what does Distant Spell Metamagic effect? If you apply it to just Range then the hand immediately vanishes if you conjure it more than 30ft away from you. This is obviously not the intended behavior but it is a consequence of the spell explicitly describing the distance the hand vanishes at instead of referencing the spell's range like Witch Bolt did. So most people play it with Distant Spell Metamagic increasing the Range and the distance the hand vanishes at. Further still in the many threads about Mage Hand people have argued that Distant Spell Metamagic should effect the distance the hand can move as well.
To summarize my way too long post the problem is that Distant Spell Metamagic modifies a spell's Range, which is a specific field in the spell listing.
Transmute Spell Metamagic does not have this problem of only effecting a specific field in a spell's listing.
I guess I'm assuming the issue with distant spell would apply to transmuted as well.
It does not apply to transmuted spell metamagic.
Is there some sort of rationale for that? Or is it just an arbitrary distinction someone made in some rule somewhere?
"When you cast a spell that deals a type of damage from the following list, you can spend 1 sorcery point to change that damage type to one of the other listed types: acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, thunder."
It's pretty clear. If a spell does fire damage type (for example) you can change its damage type to Cold (for example). You're changing the type of damage the spell does, not something written somewhere (if that's your problem).
The problem with increasing the range of a spell is that there are descriptions that don't refer to the range of the spell. For example, Mage Hand tells you "The hand vanishes if it is ever more than 30 feet away from you". There is no explicit reference to the range of the spell, and therefore it would strictly be the same if you doubled the range. At 30 feet the hand vanishes. In any case, that is solved by applying a little common sense. If you double the range, you also double these kinds of things. Ideally I would pull out a FAQ and change the spell description to "The hand vanishes if it is ever more than the spell range away from you".
I guess I'm just trying to work out the rules here. If I were to have to make a ruling in game I would say they both work like you'd intuitively think they should.
People say distant spell doesn't work for many spells RAW, but if that's the case isn't it also true for transmuted spell?
What you appear to be missing in both cases is that a spell's range is well-defined in the rules but its damage type is not, so you're comparing apples to oranges. If you want to look at this from a different perspective, go read how Order of Scribes Wizards work. Their subclass ability is written to assume spells have a damage type - since they don't, Scribes are reliant on the DM to house-rule what a spell's damage type is. Transmuted Spell is written to work with how spells are written - Order of Scribes is not. Distant Spell is written to work with how spells are supposed to be written, but some spells - e.g. Mage Hand, as has been brought up in this thread - are not written correctly.
Note that when I say "not written correctly", in most cases we have no access to WOTC's intent, so we can only guess whether Distant Spell is intended to be useless on some spells. With Mage Hand, though, we know for certain WOTC's RAW does not match its RAI, because there's a feat - Telekinetic - which doubles Mage Hand's range, and since this doesn't do anything at all RAW, we can be assured the RAI is different and hence they wrote Mage Hand the wrong way.
If you're still confused, ask away, but I'm not sure what else to add that isn't covered in the text of the rules itself. I'll recap those rules here, just to be clear.
Mage Hand is an excellent example of a spell with multiple distances measured in feet in its rules block, only one of which is its range. Distant Spell will only modify the range.
A spell's damage type is not a defined quantity in the rules - indeed, a spell need not deal any damage at all.
Prismatic Spray is an excellent example of a spell that deals multiple damage types. Transmuted Spell will only modify from 1 type to 1 type, so it will leave any other types alone.
Because damage type is not defined for a spell but this rule is written as though it is, there are numerous spells for which you have to ask your DM how the ability works with it (contrast with Transmuted Spell, which causes no such problem). Some examples:
Protection From Poison (spells can resist a damage type - does this count as the spell's damage type?)
Prismatic Spray (spells can deal multiple damage types, despite the rule above referring to type in the singular)
Animate Objects (Transmuted Spell doesn't work on this, because the spell itself doesn't deal any damage, but it's entirely unknown if this spell has a damage type of Blunt when cast on a chair or not)
A spell's damage type is not a defined quantity in the rules - indeed, a spell need not deal any damage at all.
That distinction makes sense.
The fact that DDB has a defined place for damage type but not the core rules explains a lot.
As I looked into the rules more carefully I kind of wonder if there isn't some confused interpretation of the rule for range that seems to be the source of the dispute.
Once a spell is cast, its effects aren’t limited by its range, unless the spell’s description says otherwise.
For all the touch spells where the text calls for touch and thus conflicts with the increased range the description issue wouldn't be an issue at all since that part doesn't come in to effect until after the spell is cast.
5e has had several rounds of errata issued over the years. If there seems to be a core game feature that straight-up does not work according to RAW, and it has not been addressed in any of the errata updates over the years, there is a good chance the issue might be in the way one is interpreting the written rule.
a little late to the party here but my 2cents is that these things are obvious if you avoid the delving into semantics and minutia
Transmute: It is only ever there to change the type of damage inflicted by a spell, it seems to have no verbiage that indicates it should effect none attacking spells
Distant spell: double range of a spell it can be cast out to, if you double the range of say your mage hand you obviously can now take it out to 60 feet
Order of Scribes Awakened Spell Book: this is only intended to switch the damage type of an attack spell and nothing in the way it is written leads me to believe it could be used to change how it would effect none attacking spells. Your not casting Protection from Poison and transmuting it to protection from Force Damage.
Yeah hard agree. If you use an ability to increase the range of mage hand to 60ft, and someone tells you the hand still disappears at 30ft instead of 60ft... then in effect you haven't increased the range to 60. And that is precisely what you were supposed to do.
So an ability that says it increases the range does increase the range, even if it needs to also boost things like max distance the spell effect can go. That's just part of the range.
Once a spell is cast, its effects aren’t limited by its range, unless the spell’s description says otherwise.
This is from the Range rules in the PHB, and talks about spells not being limited by their range after they are cast, except if their description says otherwise. I maintain that the figure listed in mage hand is just such one "otherwise". And as such, is a property of the range.
When you cast a spell that has a range of 5 feet or greater, you can spend 1 sorcery point to double the range of the spell.
When you cast a spell that has a range of touch, you can spend 1 sorcery point to make the range of the spell 30 feet.
The description for this option states "When you cast a spell". It does not state that the effect of increasing the range will last for the duration of the spell. So one possible ruling for using this feature with Mage Hand is that the spell's range can increase instantaneously (on the casting) but if the caster is not within 30 ft by the start of their next turn, then the spell ends. Someone else can post if there is an argument for a practical use for Mage Hand with Distant Spell; the only point I am presenting is that the increase in range occurs only "when you cast a spell" and not for the duration of the spell. So if the description of the spell has a range requirement to maintain the spell's maximum duration then the caster must continue to meet that requirement every round the spell may potentially remain in effect.
When you cast a spell that has a range of 5 feet or greater, you can spend 1 sorcery point to double the range of the spell.
When you cast a spell that has a range of touch, you can spend 1 sorcery point to make the range of the spell 30 feet.
The description for this option states "When you cast a spell". It does not state that the effect of increasing the range will last for the duration of the spell. So one possible ruling for using this feature with Mage Hand is that the spell's range can increase instantaneously (on the casting) but if the caster is not within 30 ft by the start of their next turn, then the spell ends. Someone else can post if there is an argument for a practical use for Mage Hand with Distant Spell; the only point I am presenting is that the increase in range occurs only "when you cast a spell" and not for the duration of the spell. So if the description of the spell has a range requirement to maintain the spell's maximum duration then the caster must continue to meet that requirement every round the spell may potentially remain in effect.
The "when you cast this spell" clause is for when you use the metamagic to modify it or not. The spell's range is the spell's range. Your explanation isn't one. Changing the range is changing the range for the whole spell.
Recently I'd run into an issue with distant spell in that RAW the increase only affects the range tag line on the spell listing and not any text. So it wouldn't work for most touch spells, reaction spells and a few others like mage hand.
Then I looked at transmuted spell and saw that most spells with elemental damage list the damage type in the spell description in addition to the damage type in the damage line. For example. Fireball for example, or witch bolt.
Clearly this isn't RAI.
Transmuted spell metamagic does indeed work RAW.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Does it work differently than distant spell? Why does the range increase for distant only affect the specific range but not text, but transmuted does affect text?
Transmuted Spell
When you cast a spell that deals a type of damage from the following list, you can spend 1 sorcery point to change that damage type to one of the other listed types: acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, thunder.
Its in its list for the description. So I could use transmute spell to turn a fireball into a iceball.
BUT i can use this to say turn magic missiles into fire missiles cause Force isnt on that list
Transmuted Spell Metamagic states that when you cast a spell that deals one of the listed types of damage you can replace it with a different damage type from the same list. So for Prismatic Spray you could swap the listed Fire damage for Thunder but this wouldn't effect any of the other rays.
The issue with Distant Spell Metamagic is that Range is a very particular property listed in a spell's description. Sometimes when describing the effect of a spell it will refer back to the spell's range, like in Witch Bolt. However there are spells that list distances in their description that instead give a specific range value, like in Flaming Sphere (I am aware this spell is not on the Sorcerer's spell list). In cases like this Distant Spell Metamagic would increase the range of the spell but not any of the other specified distances.
This technicality with Distant Spell Metamagic is especially confusing and counter to what is almost certainly the designer's intent with spell's like Mage Hand.
I guess I'm assuming the issue with distant spell would apply to transmuted as well. Flaming sphere and witch bolt both list a damage type, why does the distant spell only apply to the specific range listing and not text but transmuted changes text in addition to the specific damage type listing?
It does not apply to transmuted spell metamagic.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Is there some sort of rationale for that? Or is it just an arbitrary distinction someone made in some rule somewhere?
I mean, if you think there's a conflict here that needs to be resolved, the solution would be to change how you handle Distant, not Transmuted
Active characters:
Askatu, hyperfocused vedalken freedom fighter in Wildspace (Zealot barb/Swashbuckler rogue/Battle Master fighter)
Green Hill Sunrise, jaded tabaxi mercenary trapped in the Dark Domains (Battle Master fighter)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I guess I'm just trying to work out the rules here. If I were to have to make a ruling in game I would say they both work like you'd intuitively think they should.
People say distant spell doesn't work for many spells RAW, but if that's the case isn't it also true for transmuted spell?
The problem with Distant Spell Metamagic is that in the source books spells are written with 7 distinct fields. They are: Spell Name, Spell Level and School, Casting Time, Range, Components, Duration, and Description. DnDBeyond added the Attack/Save and Damage/Effect fields for ease of use. But if you look at a spell entry in one of the source books you will find there is no Attack/Save or Damage/Effect field. Instead this information is given in the spell's description.
Maybe it will be helpful to go through some examples. Let's use Transmute Spell Metamagic to change the Fire damage of Investiture of Flame into Cold damage. Looking at the spell here are the ways it does damage and their damage types:
Creature moves or ends its turn within 5ft of you - Fire damage
Create a 15ft long 5ft wide line - Fire damage
Replace all the instances of Fire damage in the spell's description with Cold damage and your done!
Now let's apply Distant Spell Metamagic to Witch Bolt. Here are the distances listed in the spell:
Range - 30ft
"The spell also ends if the target is ever outside the spell’s range"
This is also straightforward. The spell's range doubles to 60ft. This also increases the distance the target has to flee to end the spell because this limitation of the spell directly references the spell's range.
Let's now try this with Flaming Sphere ( I know, it's not a Sorcerer spell). Here are the distances listed in that spell:
Range - 60ft
Sphere Diameter - 5ft
Movement - 30ft
Jump height - 5ft
Jump Distance - 10ft
Bright Light Radius - 20ft
Dim Light Radius - 40ft
So, which of these distances get doubled by Distant Spell Metamagic? The Range obviously does, but what about the rest? I think most people would say the rest stay the same. The spell still works fine if you use Distant Spell Metamagic to conjure the sphere 100ft away from you.
Now for the horror that is Mage Hand. Here are the distances it lists:
Range - 30ft
"The hand vanishes if it is ever more than 30 feet away from you"
Movement - 30ft
Now what does Distant Spell Metamagic effect? If you apply it to just Range then the hand immediately vanishes if you conjure it more than 30ft away from you. This is obviously not the intended behavior but it is a consequence of the spell explicitly describing the distance the hand vanishes at instead of referencing the spell's range like Witch Bolt did. So most people play it with Distant Spell Metamagic increasing the Range and the distance the hand vanishes at. Further still in the many threads about Mage Hand people have argued that Distant Spell Metamagic should effect the distance the hand can move as well.
To summarize my way too long post the problem is that Distant Spell Metamagic modifies a spell's Range, which is a specific field in the spell listing.
Transmute Spell Metamagic does not have this problem of only effecting a specific field in a spell's listing.
"When you cast a spell that deals a type of damage from the following list, you can spend 1 sorcery point to change that damage type to one of the other listed types: acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, thunder."
It's pretty clear. If a spell does fire damage type (for example) you can change its damage type to Cold (for example). You're changing the type of damage the spell does, not something written somewhere (if that's your problem).
The problem with increasing the range of a spell is that there are descriptions that don't refer to the range of the spell. For example, Mage Hand tells you "The hand vanishes if it is ever more than 30 feet away from you". There is no explicit reference to the range of the spell, and therefore it would strictly be the same if you doubled the range. At 30 feet the hand vanishes. In any case, that is solved by applying a little common sense. If you double the range, you also double these kinds of things. Ideally I would pull out a FAQ and change the spell description to "The hand vanishes if it is ever more than the spell range away from you".
None of that happens with the damage type.
What you appear to be missing in both cases is that a spell's range is well-defined in the rules but its damage type is not, so you're comparing apples to oranges. If you want to look at this from a different perspective, go read how Order of Scribes Wizards work. Their subclass ability is written to assume spells have a damage type - since they don't, Scribes are reliant on the DM to house-rule what a spell's damage type is. Transmuted Spell is written to work with how spells are written - Order of Scribes is not. Distant Spell is written to work with how spells are supposed to be written, but some spells - e.g. Mage Hand, as has been brought up in this thread - are not written correctly.
Note that when I say "not written correctly", in most cases we have no access to WOTC's intent, so we can only guess whether Distant Spell is intended to be useless on some spells. With Mage Hand, though, we know for certain WOTC's RAW does not match its RAI, because there's a feat - Telekinetic - which doubles Mage Hand's range, and since this doesn't do anything at all RAW, we can be assured the RAI is different and hence they wrote Mage Hand the wrong way.
If you're still confused, ask away, but I'm not sure what else to add that isn't covered in the text of the rules itself. I'll recap those rules here, just to be clear.
That distinction makes sense.
The fact that DDB has a defined place for damage type but not the core rules explains a lot.
As I looked into the rules more carefully I kind of wonder if there isn't some confused interpretation of the rule for range that seems to be the source of the dispute.
For all the touch spells where the text calls for touch and thus conflicts with the increased range the description issue wouldn't be an issue at all since that part doesn't come in to effect until after the spell is cast.
5e has had several rounds of errata issued over the years. If there seems to be a core game feature that straight-up does not work according to RAW, and it has not been addressed in any of the errata updates over the years, there is a good chance the issue might be in the way one is interpreting the written rule.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
a little late to the party here but my 2cents is that these things are obvious if you avoid the delving into semantics and minutia
Transmute: It is only ever there to change the type of damage inflicted by a spell, it seems to have no verbiage that indicates it should effect none attacking spells
Distant spell: double range of a spell it can be cast out to, if you double the range of say your mage hand you obviously can now take it out to 60 feet
Order of Scribes Awakened Spell Book: this is only intended to switch the damage type of an attack spell and nothing in the way it is written leads me to believe it could be used to change how it would effect none attacking spells. Your not casting Protection from Poison and transmuting it to protection from Force Damage.
Yeah hard agree. If you use an ability to increase the range of mage hand to 60ft, and someone tells you the hand still disappears at 30ft instead of 60ft... then in effect you haven't increased the range to 60. And that is precisely what you were supposed to do.
So an ability that says it increases the range does increase the range, even if it needs to also boost things like max distance the spell effect can go. That's just part of the range.
This is from the Range rules in the PHB, and talks about spells not being limited by their range after they are cast, except if their description says otherwise. I maintain that the figure listed in mage hand is just such one "otherwise". And as such, is a property of the range.
I got quotes!
The description for this option states "When you cast a spell". It does not state that the effect of increasing the range will last for the duration of the spell. So one possible ruling for using this feature with Mage Hand is that the spell's range can increase instantaneously (on the casting) but if the caster is not within 30 ft by the start of their next turn, then the spell ends. Someone else can post if there is an argument for a practical use for Mage Hand with Distant Spell; the only point I am presenting is that the increase in range occurs only "when you cast a spell" and not for the duration of the spell. So if the description of the spell has a range requirement to maintain the spell's maximum duration then the caster must continue to meet that requirement every round the spell may potentially remain in effect.
The "when you cast this spell" clause is for when you use the metamagic to modify it or not. The spell's range is the spell's range. Your explanation isn't one. Changing the range is changing the range for the whole spell.
I got quotes!