My cleric just hit level 11 and i was looking at the word of recall as a possible spell choice given the party is travelling to different planes but i'm unsure how to interpret the wording of the spell.
"You and up to five willing creatures within 5 feet of you instantly teleport to a previously designated sanctuary. You and any creatures that teleport with you appear in the nearest unoccupied space to the spot you designated when you prepared your sanctuary (see below). If you cast this spell without first preparing a sanctuary, the spell has no effect.
You must designate a sanctuary by casting this spell within a location, such as a temple, dedicated to or strongly linked to your deity. If you attempt to cast the spell in this manner in an area that isn't dedicated to your deity, the spell has no effect."
I'm trying to decide whether that means you can ONLY cast it somewhere linked to your deity every time you want to use it, OR, you have to initially cast it in a location linked to your deity (we have a shrine i made, and blessed, for my god at our base) and then "complete" it when you wish to return to the designated sanctuary location, OR, you cast it once at the deity location and designate a sanctuary, using up the spell slot for that day and then after you regain the spell slot back it's now a functioning spell.
Has anyone else got the spell and used it? How did you interpret the spell description?
Basically word of recall has to choose between 2 effects:
Teleporting to a previously prepared location, failing if no location prepared.
Preparing a location to be teleported to, failing if the location isn't dedicated to your god.
Both effects require using a spell slot. Neither effect has the restrictions of the other.
Your third interpretation. It is honestly ine of the fastest and free-est teleportation effects. Most others require longer casting times, pricey components, and/or have a chance of failure. You can literally escape from a prison while naked with your hands bound with the spell (barring any teleportation/spell blocking effects).
One day you cast the spell to designate a place as your sanctuary. You get the spell slot back at the next long rest.
At some point in the future, you cast Word of Recall, using up the corresponding spell slot for the day and reappear in your sanctuary.
In both cases the spell casting is instantaneous. There is no ongoing spell effect on the sanctuary.
Once you have marked a sanctuary by casting the spell there, you can cast Word of Recall as often as you like (spell slot dependent) to return to that sanctuary without any need to designate it again.
One quick question on this spell. It does not mention anything about being within the same plane of existence...so this can travel between planes like planeshift?
Once you establish an anchor point, it appears you can cast the spell to travel back to it regardless of whether you are on the same plane as that anchor point. So in that regard, you could treat it as a one-way plane shift if the circumstances permitted.
One quick question on this spell. It does not mention anything about being within the same plane of existence...so this can travel between planes like planeshift?
It just says it works without specifying a case it doesn't work, so unless there are other factors blocking it, you can plane shift home with this.
Thanks for the replies guys. Just wanted to make sure before taking the spell that i understood how to use it. The wording is a little vague and open to interpretation in my opinion
Thanks for the replies guys. Just wanted to make sure before taking the spell that i understood how to use it. The wording is a little vague and open to interpretation in my opinion
It would say that the sanctuary is cancelled after returning to it, if that was how the spell was supposed to work.
1) The spell description does not say that the sanctuary goes away so one casting of Word of Recall in a location dedicated to the deity will create a sanctuary.
2) The spell doesn't indicate that there can be only one sanctuary. "a previously designated sanctuary" "You must designate a sanctuary" The wording uses A sanctuary rather than THE sanctuary which would imply only one. Later text also refers to "the spot you designated when you prepared your sanctuary" which could refer to a singular sanctuary or could be read as any sanctuary you have created. "Your sanctuary" could be read to indicate only one or it could be read to refer to the sanctuary you are creating with the current casting of Word of Recall.
I would tend to rule that as written the spell allows the creation of multiple sanctuaries for the purposes of being a destination for the spell. At the very least the wording is ambiguous on that point. I was wondering what other opinions might be.
The spell also makes no provisions for choosing between multiple destinations when you cast it, which is something I would fully expect the spell description to do, were it a multidestination transportation spell. On the other hand, it's a 6th level spell, and we are basically describing teleportation circle, which is a 5th level spell, so this functionality is within reason.
My take, though, is that you can cast word of recall once in a temple to mark a spot, then you can cast it once again out in the field somewhere to get back to that spot and then everything goes away, and you start fresh. But if you squint just right, you can read the rules the other way and there seems to be no harm in it, so chase your bliss.
Our table has used it fairly extensively, and as described: cast once to set, cast to jump to the set, useable interdimensionally. The cleric never tried having more than one sanctuary, though: he was a cleric of the goddess of hearth and home, so we decided that his home qualified (there may have been a hallow spell involved). So, basically, click your heels together, and "there's no place like home." This saved our bacon more than once, and was generally quite convenient. That party didn't have a wizard, though.
Spells that benefit from being cast with a higher level spell slot will say in their description what exactly happens when a higher level slot is used. Word of Recall has no additional benefit when cast with a higher level spell slot.
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My cleric just hit level 11 and i was looking at the word of recall as a possible spell choice given the party is travelling to different planes but i'm unsure how to interpret the wording of the spell.
"You and up to five willing creatures within 5 feet of you instantly teleport to a previously designated sanctuary. You and any creatures that teleport with you appear in the nearest unoccupied space to the spot you designated when you prepared your sanctuary (see below). If you cast this spell without first preparing a sanctuary, the spell has no effect.
You must designate a sanctuary by casting this spell within a location, such as a temple, dedicated to or strongly linked to your deity. If you attempt to cast the spell in this manner in an area that isn't dedicated to your deity, the spell has no effect."
I'm trying to decide whether that means you can ONLY cast it somewhere linked to your deity every time you want to use it, OR, you have to initially cast it in a location linked to your deity (we have a shrine i made, and blessed, for my god at our base) and then "complete" it when you wish to return to the designated sanctuary location, OR, you cast it once at the deity location and designate a sanctuary, using up the spell slot for that day and then after you regain the spell slot back it's now a functioning spell.
Has anyone else got the spell and used it? How did you interpret the spell description?
Basically word of recall has to choose between 2 effects:
Both effects require using a spell slot. Neither effect has the restrictions of the other.
Your third interpretation. It is honestly ine of the fastest and free-est teleportation effects. Most others require longer casting times, pricey components, and/or have a chance of failure. You can literally escape from a prison while naked with your hands bound with the spell (barring any teleportation/spell blocking effects).
One day you cast the spell to designate a place as your sanctuary. You get the spell slot back at the next long rest.
At some point in the future, you cast Word of Recall, using up the corresponding spell slot for the day and reappear in your sanctuary.
In both cases the spell casting is instantaneous. There is no ongoing spell effect on the sanctuary.
Once you have marked a sanctuary by casting the spell there, you can cast Word of Recall as often as you like (spell slot dependent) to return to that sanctuary without any need to designate it again.
One quick question on this spell. It does not mention anything about being within the same plane of existence...so this can travel between planes like planeshift?
Once you establish an anchor point, it appears you can cast the spell to travel back to it regardless of whether you are on the same plane as that anchor point. So in that regard, you could treat it as a one-way plane shift if the circumstances permitted.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
It just says it works without specifying a case it doesn't work, so unless there are other factors blocking it, you can plane shift home with this.
Thanks for the replies guys. Just wanted to make sure before taking the spell that i understood how to use it. The wording is a little vague and open to interpretation in my opinion
It would say that the sanctuary is cancelled after returning to it, if that was how the spell was supposed to work.
A couple of questions.
1) The spell description does not say that the sanctuary goes away so one casting of Word of Recall in a location dedicated to the deity will create a sanctuary.
2) The spell doesn't indicate that there can be only one sanctuary. "a previously designated sanctuary" "You must designate a sanctuary" The wording uses A sanctuary rather than THE sanctuary which would imply only one. Later text also refers to "the spot you designated when you prepared your sanctuary" which could refer to a singular sanctuary or could be read as any sanctuary you have created. "Your sanctuary" could be read to indicate only one or it could be read to refer to the sanctuary you are creating with the current casting of Word of Recall.
I would tend to rule that as written the spell allows the creation of multiple sanctuaries for the purposes of being a destination for the spell. At the very least the wording is ambiguous on that point. I was wondering what other opinions might be.
The spell also makes no provisions for choosing between multiple destinations when you cast it, which is something I would fully expect the spell description to do, were it a multidestination transportation spell. On the other hand, it's a 6th level spell, and we are basically describing teleportation circle, which is a 5th level spell, so this functionality is within reason.
My take, though, is that you can cast word of recall once in a temple to mark a spot, then you can cast it once again out in the field somewhere to get back to that spot and then everything goes away, and you start fresh. But if you squint just right, you can read the rules the other way and there seems to be no harm in it, so chase your bliss.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Our table has used it fairly extensively, and as described: cast once to set, cast to jump to the set, useable interdimensionally. The cleric never tried having more than one sanctuary, though: he was a cleric of the goddess of hearth and home, so we decided that his home qualified (there may have been a hallow spell involved). So, basically, click your heels together, and "there's no place like home." This saved our bacon more than once, and was generally quite convenient. That party didn't have a wizard, though.
My only question is can you up-cast it to allow for more people or is it always a set number (5 others) no matter what level you cast it?
Spells that benefit from being cast with a higher level spell slot will say in their description what exactly happens when a higher level slot is used. Word of Recall has no additional benefit when cast with a higher level spell slot.