is incapable of targeting more than one creature at the spell’s current level
If you know this rule yet are still unsure whether a particular spell qualifies for Twinned Spell, consult with your DM, who has the final say. If the two of you are curious about our design intent, here is the list of things that disqualify a spell for us:
The spell has a range of self.
The spell can target an object.
The spell allows you to choose more than one creature to be affected by it, particularly at the level you’re casting the spell. Some spells increase their number of potential targets when you cast them at a higher level.
The spell can force more than one creature to make a saving throw before the spell’s duration expires.
The spell lets you make a roll of any kind that can affect more than one creature before the spell’s duration expires
So the sorcerer has two spells of ice knife and targets two different targets, both successfully hit their intended targets, to me I felt that the sorcerer met that requirement.
For the two hits, each target takes its piercing damage.
Now the secondary effect. "The target and each creature within 5 feet of it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage."
This is where I feel that Ice Knife cannot be Twinned because:
The spell can force more than one creature to make a saving throw before the spell’s duration expires.
The spell lets you make a roll of any kind that can affect more than one creature before the spell’s duration expires
I interpret the spell as still active during each step of the spell since the secondary effect forces the saving throw which invalidates using the Twinned spell. Is this correct or do I have again a lack of understanding of the rules?
Also, I see Sage Advice from JC and Mike Mearls with conflicting answers.
Ice knife is capable of targeting more than one creature because of the AOE dex save. So you cannot twin it. Mearls tweets are at best RAI and he was not allowed to make official rulings or official sage advice answers for the game.
Is the duration of Ice Knife at the hit with the first range attack or after the shard burst?
The duration of instantaneous effects are (usually) as long as it takes to finish resolving the effect. In this case, all attack, damage, and save rolls are during the effect.
Ice Knife is a good example of why language is important.
As you quoted, the secondary effect says "The target and each creature within 5 feet of it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage."
Taken as written, only the creature hit with the primary effect is the target, so Ice Knife only targets 1 creature, which means it qualifies for Twinned Spell by RAW. Whether that was the intent can be debated, but it cannot be stated as fact either way until we are presented with design notes indicating one way or another.
Besides that is the fact that to target means "to select, typically for attack", and thus only something capable of choice can target (spells cannot choose anything, thus cannot target; except for living spells of course).
So, this spell + metamagic interaction is a good case example of how the rules contain serious issues that must be resolved.
That’s where I want to make sure I’m leaning more to the RAW ruling than RAI hence why I came here to ask. If felt the whole duration of the spell single target but the AOE is what invalidates that based on the compendium entry or is that entry more RAI?
That’s where I want to make sure I’m leaning more to the RAW ruling than RAI hence why I came here to ask. If felt the whole duration of the spell single target but the AOE is what invalidates that based on the compendium entry or is that entry more RAI?
The RAW on AOEs is inconsistent. The rules themselves about the different area of effect shapes only call the point of origin the target. But most AOE spells themselves call the creatures affected by the spell targets (see fireball for example).
But as far as I know, no general rule says that any creature affected by a spell effect is a target, and it is only a spell by spell basis.
The core of the problem being that the devs didn't want to write clear rules, they wanted everything to be common language and general knowledge. (Did you know there is no rule difference between a dark shadow and a wall of opaque smoke?)
Anything within the actual rulebooks + adventures + errata is the RAW.
Anything from the Sage Advice Compendium is RAI (most interpret RAI to mean Rules As Intended, but they can only at best be interpreted to mean Rules As officially Interpreted).
Any interpretation given outside the Sage Advice Compendium is just the at-the-moment ruling of the individual commenting. Sometimes these rulings are consistent, other times they are not. Crawford should be considered an unreliable source for such rulings due to contradictions.
The core of the problem being that the devs didn't want to write clear rules, they wanted everything to be common language and general knowledge.
Yep, which can only lead to confusion.
If WOTC had just made sure the rules had included definitions for key terms, and went through a QC phase for consistency, imagine how much confusion could have been avoided.
The core of the problem being that the devs didn't want to write clear rules, they wanted everything to be common language and general knowledge.
Yep, which can only lead to confusion.
If WOTC had just made sure the rules had included definitions for key terms, and went through a QC phase for consistency, imagine how much confusion could have been avoided.
50 to 80% of the threads on this forum wouldn't exist.
Yes, if you want to rule strictly according to RAW, then the sorcerer can Twin Ice Knife.
Whether that is a good idea depends on whether you think said sorcerer is likely to abuse the spell then, but that is between you and said sorcerer.
Do I think it will be abused I do but there has only been one game where it has come up so who know that the future holds. Still when I mentioned I was looking into if ice knife was valid for twinning the response was less than understanding why I would look into the rule or rule against the use of it it’s the basis of his character
so here I am trying to make that right call…by the impossible book of the PHB.
Yes, if you want to rule strictly according to RAW, then the sorcerer can Twin Ice Knife.
Whether that is a good idea depends on whether you think said sorcerer is likely to abuse the spell then, but that is between you and said sorcerer.
Do I think it will be abused I do but there has only been one game where it has come up so who know that the future holds. Still when I mentioned I was looking into if ice knife was valid for twinning the response was less than understanding why I would look into the rule or rule against the use of it it’s the basis of his character
so here I am trying to make that right call…by the impossible book of the PHB.
The intention of twinned spell is to take a spell that affects exactly one target and change it to affect exactly two different targets.
By that intention, Ice Knife is out.
The most powerful way to use a twinned Ice Knife would be to target two creatures right next to eachother - so that they are both hit by the secondary effect of the other's knife meaning that they could take more damage than from the single casting of the knife.
That is exactly the sort of thing that is trying to be avoided by the "only one target" intention of the feature, but if you are happy for that to happen then it's not necessarily the end of the world.
You may run into problems down the line if the player expects to be able to twin other, more powerful spells which have a "target" of one creature but which affect more than one with an area effect. I can't think of anything on the sorcerer list that fits that description, but you never know.
Yes, if you want to rule strictly according to RAW, then the sorcerer can Twin Ice Knife.
Whether that is a good idea depends on whether you think said sorcerer is likely to abuse the spell then, but that is between you and said sorcerer.
Do I think it will be abused I do but there has only been one game where it has come up so who know that the future holds. Still when I mentioned I was looking into if ice knife was valid for twinning the response was less than understanding why I would look into the rule or rule against the use of it it’s the basis of his character
so here I am trying to make that right call…by the impossible book of the PHB.
The intention of twinned spell is to take a spell that affects exactly one target and change it to affect exactly two different targets.
By that intention, Ice Knife is out.
The most powerful way to use a twinned Ice Knife would be to target two creatures right next to eachother - so that they are both hit by the secondary effect of the other's knife meaning that they could take more damage than from the single casting of the knife.
That is exactly the sort of thing that is trying to be avoided by the "only one target" intention of the feature, but if you are happy for that to happen then it's not necessarily the end of the world.
You may run into problems down the line if the player expects to be able to twin other, more powerful spells which have a "target" of one creature but which affect more than one with an area effect. I can't think of anything on the sorcerer list that fits that description, but you never know.
That is exactly what the sorcerer did which is what made me think there was a possible issue with this combination hence me getting feedback from everyone else.
The SA and other official statements more or less state that if any part of the spell or it's effects can hit more than one target, it's a no-go for twinning. Thankfully there seems to be very few spells that land in this grey area, so it usually isn't a big deal. Essentially it states it can target one creature, so anything about the spell that could hit another creature disqualifies it. If this becomes a major issue and the character, for some reason, has built his/her character based around a low level spell, this detail should have come up earlier. I'd let them change characters if this is a tipping point. If a low level spell is the core of their build, however, it's not likely they will end up OP no matter what they go for.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
That is exactly what the sorcerer did which is what made me think there was a possible issue with this combination hence me getting feedback from everyone else.
I recommend disallowing it, but it isn't so bad that it will break your game.
Using only the exact words as written, it has to say "target" to refer to not more than 1 creature (and not self only, but you can choose self if it is a choice) to twin. Which ice knife and dragon's breath do.
That is exactly what the sorcerer did which is what made me think there was a possible issue with this combination hence me getting feedback from everyone else.
I recommend disallowing it, but it isn't so bad that it will break your game.
Using only the exact words as written, it has to say "target" to refer to not more than 1 creature (and not self only, but you can choose self if it is a choice) to twin. Which ice knife and dragon's breath do.
I just read the issue about Dragon's Breath and Twinning and I've already mentally baned that combination, so I guess there is no reason why I should not ban Ice Knife as well.
That is exactly what the sorcerer did which is what made me think there was a possible issue with this combination hence me getting feedback from everyone else.
I recommend disallowing it, but it isn't so bad that it will break your game.
Using only the exact words as written, it has to say "target" to refer to not more than 1 creature (and not self only, but you can choose self if it is a choice) to twin. Which ice knife and dragon's breath do.
I just read the issue about Dragon's Breath and Twinning and I've already mentally baned that combination, so I guess there is no reason why I should not ban Ice Knife as well.
Yeah. And while more powerful, the reasons it would not be twinnable is even more obscure.
The effect of ice knife is damage and it can deal damage to multiple creatures.
The effect of dragon's breath is to grant the target an action and only the 1 target can possibly be affected by that effect (for example, haste also changes the targets action options, and like dragon's breath that change can damage creatures other than the target, but it can be twinned 🤔. But it is actually different because it is just giving them an additional attack action, not a new action).
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Setup:
Sorcerer cast Twinned Spell on Ice Knife and placed each spell on a separate target in a mass of creatures.
Question:
Something felt wrong with how Twinning was being used I let the spell go through with the intention of doing more research into the Twinned Spell.
I stumbled across the following entry in Sage Advice Compendium for Dec 2021 on Wizards site, plus on DDB.
So the sorcerer has two spells of ice knife and targets two different targets, both successfully hit their intended targets, to me I felt that the sorcerer met that requirement.
For the two hits, each target takes its piercing damage.
Now the secondary effect. "The target and each creature within 5 feet of it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage."
This is where I feel that Ice Knife cannot be Twinned because:
I interpret the spell as still active during each step of the spell since the secondary effect forces the saving throw which invalidates using the Twinned spell. Is this correct or do I have again a lack of understanding of the rules?
Also, I see Sage Advice from JC and Mike Mearls with conflicting answers.
Ice knife is capable of targeting more than one creature because of the AOE dex save. So you cannot twin it. Mearls tweets are at best RAI and he was not allowed to make official rulings or official sage advice answers for the game.
Is the duration of Ice Knife at the hit with the first range attack or after the shard burst?
The duration of instantaneous effects are (usually) as long as it takes to finish resolving the effect. In this case, all attack, damage, and save rolls are during the effect.
Ice Knife is a good example of why language is important.
As you quoted, the secondary effect says "The target and each creature within 5 feet of it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage."
Taken as written, only the creature hit with the primary effect is the target, so Ice Knife only targets 1 creature, which means it qualifies for Twinned Spell by RAW. Whether that was the intent can be debated, but it cannot be stated as fact either way until we are presented with design notes indicating one way or another.
Besides that is the fact that to target means "to select, typically for attack", and thus only something capable of choice can target (spells cannot choose anything, thus cannot target; except for living spells of course).
So, this spell + metamagic interaction is a good case example of how the rules contain serious issues that must be resolved.
Dragon's breath and Ice knife are kind of edge cases.
RAW says "target" so they can be twinned. The devs usually say "affect" when explaining the RAI for why they can't twinned.
The DM has to decide whether to use RAW or RAI. There isn't an objective guideline on which to go by in these forums, but usually we use RAW.
That’s where I want to make sure I’m leaning more to the RAW ruling than RAI hence why I came here to ask. If felt the whole duration of the spell single target but the AOE is what invalidates that based on the compendium entry or is that entry more RAI?
The RAW on AOEs is inconsistent. The rules themselves about the different area of effect shapes only call the point of origin the target. But most AOE spells themselves call the creatures affected by the spell targets (see fireball for example).
But as far as I know, no general rule says that any creature affected by a spell effect is a target, and it is only a spell by spell basis.
The core of the problem being that the devs didn't want to write clear rules, they wanted everything to be common language and general knowledge. (Did you know there is no rule difference between a dark shadow and a wall of opaque smoke?)
BKThomson
Anything within the actual rulebooks + adventures + errata is the RAW.
Anything from the Sage Advice Compendium is RAI (most interpret RAI to mean Rules As Intended, but they can only at best be interpreted to mean Rules As officially Interpreted).
Any interpretation given outside the Sage Advice Compendium is just the at-the-moment ruling of the individual commenting. Sometimes these rulings are consistent, other times they are not. Crawford should be considered an unreliable source for such rulings due to contradictions.
Yep, which can only lead to confusion.
If WOTC had just made sure the rules had included definitions for key terms, and went through a QC phase for consistency, imagine how much confusion could have been avoided.
50 to 80% of the threads on this forum wouldn't exist.
So if I should rule if I look at RAW then I should allow the sorcerer to be able to Twinned the spell.
Yes, if you want to rule strictly according to RAW, then the sorcerer can Twin Ice Knife.
Whether that is a good idea depends on whether you think said sorcerer is likely to abuse the spell then, but that is between you and said sorcerer.
Do I think it will be abused I do but there has only been one game where it has come up so who know that the future holds. Still when I mentioned I was looking into if ice knife was valid for twinning the response was less than understanding why I would look into the rule or rule against the use of it it’s the basis of his character
so here I am trying to make that right call…by the impossible book of the PHB.
The intention of twinned spell is to take a spell that affects exactly one target and change it to affect exactly two different targets.
By that intention, Ice Knife is out.
The most powerful way to use a twinned Ice Knife would be to target two creatures right next to eachother - so that they are both hit by the secondary effect of the other's knife meaning that they could take more damage than from the single casting of the knife.
That is exactly the sort of thing that is trying to be avoided by the "only one target" intention of the feature, but if you are happy for that to happen then it's not necessarily the end of the world.
You may run into problems down the line if the player expects to be able to twin other, more powerful spells which have a "target" of one creature but which affect more than one with an area effect. I can't think of anything on the sorcerer list that fits that description, but you never know.
That is exactly what the sorcerer did which is what made me think there was a possible issue with this combination hence me getting feedback from everyone else.
The SA and other official statements more or less state that if any part of the spell or it's effects can hit more than one target, it's a no-go for twinning. Thankfully there seems to be very few spells that land in this grey area, so it usually isn't a big deal. Essentially it states it can target one creature, so anything about the spell that could hit another creature disqualifies it. If this becomes a major issue and the character, for some reason, has built his/her character based around a low level spell, this detail should have come up earlier. I'd let them change characters if this is a tipping point. If a low level spell is the core of their build, however, it's not likely they will end up OP no matter what they go for.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
I recommend disallowing it, but it isn't so bad that it will break your game.
Using only the exact words as written, it has to say "target" to refer to not more than 1 creature (and not self only, but you can choose self if it is a choice) to twin. Which ice knife and dragon's breath do.
I just read the issue about Dragon's Breath and Twinning and I've already mentally baned that combination, so I guess there is no reason why I should not ban Ice Knife as well.
Yeah. And while more powerful, the reasons it would not be twinnable is even more obscure.
The effect of ice knife is damage and it can deal damage to multiple creatures.
The effect of dragon's breath is to grant the target an action and only the 1 target can possibly be affected by that effect (for example, haste also changes the targets action options, and like dragon's breath that change can damage creatures other than the target, but it can be twinned 🤔. But it is actually different because it is just giving them an additional attack action, not a new action).