You’re not supposed to seek out every individual component, that’s why they have foci and component pouches. The only ones players need to actively acquire are the ones that are priced and/or consumed, because those correspond to particularly powerful spells that are not designed for consistent repeated use.
Is it bad that I just don’t bother with these components? I’m on my second campaign and I just find the action of obtaining certain specific materials tedious and it takes away from the overall plot to go out of your way to find some random object that will be used once for a spell, then requiring you to get another to cast the spell again. It’s just tedious and sure, it can balance spellcasters, sure, it adds more content, but my players barely make a small amount of progress through anything in the small sessions we can set up, and adding in the problem of actually getting things for one player to cast a single spell would just lower the amount of time we get to do anything. Your thoughts?
What I do in campaigns as a DM: Once the caster has been through a city after taking the spell, as long as they had the gold at the time, I allow them to have the component. If the player forgets, that comes down to separation between player and character. So I allow retconning to let them have bought it when they were in the city. So they have to have the costly components, but when it's a spell (such as Identify) that they knew they learned and just forgot to buy it, it's not a huge hassle.
Is it bad that I just don’t bother with these components? I’m on my second campaign and I just find the action of obtaining certain specific materials tedious and it takes away from the overall plot to go out of your way to find some random object that will be used once for a spell, then requiring you to get another to cast the spell again. It’s just tedious and sure, it can balance spellcasters, sure, it adds more content, but my players barely make a small amount of progress through anything in the small sessions we can set up, and adding in the problem of actually getting things for one player to cast a single spell would just lower the amount of time we get to do anything. Your thoughts?
What I do in campaigns as a DM: Once the caster has been through a city after taking the spell, as long as they had the gold at the time, I allow them to have the component. If the player forgets, that comes down to separation between player and character. So I allow retconning to let them have bought it when they were in the city. So they have to have the costly components, but when it's a spell (such as Identify) that they knew they learned and just forgot to buy it, it's not a huge hassle.
That works to a point, but I'd probably be a little tighter with it for a long running campaign. One of the reason certain spells consume components is because it allows the DM to manage how many casts of that spell the player has access to; I've heard that Critical Role ended up abusing Hero's Feast a bit because they ended up with so much gold that essentially running the spell as "pay X gold when you cast the spell" made it easy to keep using it ahead of a major confrontation. Obviously there are several factors at play here, but it is still an argument against a blanket handwave.
Is it bad that I just don’t bother with these components? I’m on my second campaign and I just find the action of obtaining certain specific materials tedious and it takes away from the overall plot to go out of your way to find some random object that will be used once for a spell, then requiring you to get another to cast the spell again. It’s just tedious and sure, it can balance spellcasters, sure, it adds more content, but my players barely make a small amount of progress through anything in the small sessions we can set up, and adding in the problem of actually getting things for one player to cast a single spell would just lower the amount of time we get to do anything. Your thoughts?
What I do in campaigns as a DM: Once the caster has been through a city after taking the spell, as long as they had the gold at the time, I allow them to have the component. If the player forgets, that comes down to separation between player and character. So I allow retconning to let them have bought it when they were in the city. So they have to have the costly components, but when it's a spell (such as Identify) that they knew they learned and just forgot to buy it, it's not a huge hassle.
That works to a point, but I'd probably be a little tighter with it for a long running campaign. One of the reason certain spells consume components is because it allows the DM to manage how many casts of that spell the player has access to; I've heard that Critical Role ended up abusing Hero's Feast a bit because they ended up with so much gold that essentially running the spell as "pay X gold when you cast the spell" made it easy to keep using it ahead of a major confrontation. Obviously there are several factors at play here, but it is still an argument against a blanket handwave.
That's entirely fair. At higher levels, that may be something to keep in mind. But especially as players are just learning their characters, even experienced players can use some lenience sometimes. So if it's something they want to have retroactively prepared for that they wouldn't know to, it's different (no swamp shops), but the components are considered rather basic materials.
For Heroes' Feast, yeah, they're gonna have to figure that out in town. That's a big thing you plan out.
How can I tell if a component is able to be swapped out for a focus? The rules state:
A character can use a component pouch or a spellcasting focus in place of the components specified for a spell.
Good luck keeping the flame for a Heat Metal Spell in a component pouch... And, to me, if it won't work with a component pouch it shouldn't work with a spell focus.
That’s dumb. A component pouch contains physical materials, so sure you can’t keep fire in it, but a focus just, well, focuses, your magic. You make the fire that then heats the metal.
I don't see the debate on protection from evil and good. Regardless of whether holy water is a costly component or not, the spell consumes the material component. A component pouch or spell casting focus is not valid for this spell.
I can definitely see an alternate interpretation for this portion of the rule based on how the rule is written and broken up into separate paragraphs and such.
It could be read this way:
Option 1: Possessing and holding a particular material object is required to cast some spells.
Option 2: A character can possess and hold a component pouch or spellcasting focus instead of satisfying the above requirement, unless the object has a cost.
-- if a no-cost object is consumed during Option 1, then the spellcaster must provide this object again prior to attempting Option 1 again for that spell. But Option 2 could always be chosen instead of Option 1, since that option essentially always "provides" the required object for use (possessing and holding) in spellcasting (it's used "in place of" the required object).
I don't see the debate on protection from evil and good. Regardless of whether holy water is a costly component or not, the spell consumes the material component. A component pouch or spell casting focus is not valid for this spell.
I can definitely see an alternate interpretation for this portion of the rule based on how the rule is written and broken up into separate paragraphs and such.
It could be read this way:
Option 1: Possessing and holding a particular material object is required to cast some spells.
Option 2: A character can possess and hold a component pouch or spellcasting focus instead of satisfying the above requirement, unless the object has a cost.
-- if a no-cost object is consumed during Option 1, then the spellcaster must provide this object again prior to attempting Option 1 again for that spell. But Option 2 could always be chosen instead of Option 1, since that option essentially always "provides" the required object for use (possessing and holding) in spellcasting (it's used "in place of" the required object).
We have this answer in the Sage Advice Compendium about the correct interpretation of the rules:
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If a spell’s material components are consumed, can a spellcasting focus still be used in place of the consumed component?
No. A spellcasting focus can be used in place of a material component only if that component has no cost noted in the spell’s description and if that component isn’t consumed.
We have this answer in the Sage Advice Compendium about the correct interpretation of the rules:
---
If a spell’s material components are consumed, can a spellcasting focus still be used in place of the consumed component?
No. A spellcasting focus can be used in place of a material component only if that component has no cost noted in the spell’s description and if that component isn’t consumed.
While it's all well and good for the developers to make a statement like this and for this to be the generally "accepted" interpretation, that's not actually the rule:
Casting some spells requires particular objects, specified in parentheses in the component entry. A character can use a component pouch or a spellcasting focus (found in “Equipment”) in place of the components specified for a spell. But if a cost is indicated for a component, a character must have that specific component before he or she can cast the spell.
The above paragraph explains how a component pouch or spellcasting focus can and cannot be used. It begins by explaining that spells with a material component have a particular requirement of involving a specified object in the spellcasting process. The spellcaster has the option to use that specified object for spellcasting, OR the spellcaster can use one of these two pieces of Adventuring Gear in place of those specified objects. The only exception given is when the component indicates a cost.
Then, in a separate paragraph, requirements are given for spells which consume the material component:
If a spell states that a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell.
Using a component pouch or spellcasting focus can satisfy this requirement. There's nothing written here which says otherwise. The spellcaster is just required to provide the component each time, which is exactly the purpose of the component pouch or spellcasting focus -- to provide the listed components by using this gear in place of the specified components.
I'm aware that most people won't like or agree with this interpretation, but this is what the rules actually say. I don't think that this matters very much though -- if a DM wants to use the other interpretation then I'm sure that's fine. I'm not sure exactly how many officially published spells this actually impacts, but I know that it's not very many.
Official ruling differ from your interpretation of the rule that if a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell.
Few spells carrying no speficied cost consumed component that i know include Create Homunculus consumes clay, ash and mandrake root, Snare consumes 25 feet of rope, Druid Grove consumes a mistletoe harvested with a golden sickle under the light of a full moon, Protection From Evil And Good consumes holy water or powdered silver and iron, Summon Greater Demon consumes blood from a humanoid killed within the past 24 hours as written in the spell description.
Fair enough. I've quoted and explained the rule, there's not much more to say.
As you're pointing out, this is a real corner case anyway. The only spell within the Basic Rules where this becomes relevant is Protection From Evil and Good. So, either the spellcaster just buys an infinite supply of this component since the component has no cost and no weight, or we just allow him to use his spellcasting focus. It doesn't really matter very much.
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You’re not supposed to seek out every individual component, that’s why they have foci and component pouches. The only ones players need to actively acquire are the ones that are priced and/or consumed, because those correspond to particularly powerful spells that are not designed for consistent repeated use.
What I do in campaigns as a DM: Once the caster has been through a city after taking the spell, as long as they had the gold at the time, I allow them to have the component. If the player forgets, that comes down to separation between player and character. So I allow retconning to let them have bought it when they were in the city. So they have to have the costly components, but when it's a spell (such as Identify) that they knew they learned and just forgot to buy it, it's not a huge hassle.
That works to a point, but I'd probably be a little tighter with it for a long running campaign. One of the reason certain spells consume components is because it allows the DM to manage how many casts of that spell the player has access to; I've heard that Critical Role ended up abusing Hero's Feast a bit because they ended up with so much gold that essentially running the spell as "pay X gold when you cast the spell" made it easy to keep using it ahead of a major confrontation. Obviously there are several factors at play here, but it is still an argument against a blanket handwave.
That's entirely fair. At higher levels, that may be something to keep in mind. But especially as players are just learning their characters, even experienced players can use some lenience sometimes. So if it's something they want to have retroactively prepared for that they wouldn't know to, it's different (no swamp shops), but the components are considered rather basic materials.
For Heroes' Feast, yeah, they're gonna have to figure that out in town. That's a big thing you plan out.
That’s dumb. A component pouch contains physical materials, so sure you can’t keep fire in it, but a focus just, well, focuses, your magic. You make the fire that then heats the metal.
I can definitely see an alternate interpretation for this portion of the rule based on how the rule is written and broken up into separate paragraphs and such.
It could be read this way:
Option 1: Possessing and holding a particular material object is required to cast some spells.
Option 2: A character can possess and hold a component pouch or spellcasting focus instead of satisfying the above requirement, unless the object has a cost.
-- if a no-cost object is consumed during Option 1, then the spellcaster must provide this object again prior to attempting Option 1 again for that spell. But Option 2 could always be chosen instead of Option 1, since that option essentially always "provides" the required object for use (possessing and holding) in spellcasting (it's used "in place of" the required object).
We have this answer in the Sage Advice Compendium about the correct interpretation of the rules:
---
If a spell’s material components are consumed, can a spellcasting focus still be used in place of the consumed component?
No. A spellcasting focus can be used in place of a material component only if that component has no cost noted in the spell’s description and if that component isn’t consumed.
While it's all well and good for the developers to make a statement like this and for this to be the generally "accepted" interpretation, that's not actually the rule:
The above paragraph explains how a component pouch or spellcasting focus can and cannot be used. It begins by explaining that spells with a material component have a particular requirement of involving a specified object in the spellcasting process. The spellcaster has the option to use that specified object for spellcasting, OR the spellcaster can use one of these two pieces of Adventuring Gear in place of those specified objects. The only exception given is when the component indicates a cost.
Then, in a separate paragraph, requirements are given for spells which consume the material component:
Using a component pouch or spellcasting focus can satisfy this requirement. There's nothing written here which says otherwise. The spellcaster is just required to provide the component each time, which is exactly the purpose of the component pouch or spellcasting focus -- to provide the listed components by using this gear in place of the specified components.
I'm aware that most people won't like or agree with this interpretation, but this is what the rules actually say. I don't think that this matters very much though -- if a DM wants to use the other interpretation then I'm sure that's fine. I'm not sure exactly how many officially published spells this actually impacts, but I know that it's not very many.
Official ruling differ from your interpretation of the rule that if a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell.
Few spells carrying no speficied cost consumed component that i know include Create Homunculus consumes clay, ash and mandrake root, Snare consumes 25 feet of rope, Druid Grove consumes a mistletoe harvested with a golden sickle under the light of a full moon, Protection From Evil And Good consumes holy water or powdered silver and iron, Summon Greater Demon consumes blood from a humanoid killed within the past 24 hours as written in the spell description.
Fair enough. I've quoted and explained the rule, there's not much more to say.
As you're pointing out, this is a real corner case anyway. The only spell within the Basic Rules where this becomes relevant is Protection From Evil and Good. So, either the spellcaster just buys an infinite supply of this component since the component has no cost and no weight, or we just allow him to use his spellcasting focus. It doesn't really matter very much.