The question being discussed is “how bout dat Booming Blade rewrite?” So... nah, it’s the same question. If BB is truly a self target spell now, then yes, it’s twinability will be EXACTLY the same as Ice Knife, as both will be spells that target one creature, but then hurt another that is not explicitly called a target.
Twinned Spell explicitly says “doesn’t have a range of Self,” so you are right that that makes its twinnability exactly the same as ice knife ;). But thankfully, that provision also makes a discussion of the twinnability of ice knife entirely irrelevant.
The question being discussed is “how bout dat Booming Blade rewrite?” So... nah, it’s the same question. If BB is truly a self target spell now, then yes, it’s twinability will be EXACTLY the same as Ice Knife, as both will be spells that target one creature, but then hurt another that is not explicitly called a target.
It would be more analogous to say that any errata of BB or GFB that changes the range to "Self" would render it just as twinnable as Searing Smite.
Try twinning ice knife for example which very clearly only has one target and doesn't have a range of self but can nevertheless injure multiple creatures if they are nicely bunched :)
When you Cast a Spell that Targets only one creature and doesn’t have a range of self, you can spend a number of sorcery points equal to the spell’s level to target a second creature in range with the same spell (1 sorcery point if the spell is a cantrip).
To be eligible, a spell must be incapable of targeting more than one creature at the spell’s current level. For example, Magic Missile and Scorching Ray aren’t eligible, but Ray of Frost is.
This is entirely false. Ice Knife is ineligible for use with Twinned Spell, and always has been.
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
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
You create a shard of ice and fling it at one creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 piercing damage. Hit or miss, the shard then explodes. The target and each creature within 5 feet of it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage.
At Higher Levels.When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the cold damage increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 1st
From the parts I have rendered as bold it is very clear that as written Ice Knife explicitly has one target and does not have a range of self. It therefore passes the test for twin spell.
Booming blade in its current form clearly does not have a range of self and does not target more than one creature. The only room for confusion with the SCAG wording is that it may target less than one creature directly since the targeting is part of the weapon attack. I personally think that is splitting hairs and would allow twinning currently.
The Tasha version gives the spell a range of self and so makes it ineligable. Personally I don't have a big problem with that; In my experience sorcerers who want to spend a lot of time in melee stopping multiple opponents from moving away from them are few and far between.
Again, this isn't a problem with the proposed future wording of BB.
And again, apparently target in the description of twinned spell does not refer to the location or creature the spell is directed at, but the number of creatures the spell affects, as clearly "target" is used in both contexts in the rules without any distinction. It is up to you to use context clues to separate them.
I forgot about the range restriction on Twinned Spell, you're right, my bad.
But yeah, Ice Knife can be Twinned, it's an explicitly single-target spell, despite SAC's attempt to create novel rule language not found in PHB.
You create a shard of ice and fling it at one creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 piercing damage. Hit or miss, the shard then explodes. The targetand each creature within 5 feet of it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage.
You create a shard of ice and fling it at one creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 piercing damage. Hit or miss, the shard then explodes. The target and each creature within 5 feet of it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage.
At Higher Levels.When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the cold damage increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 1st
From the parts I have rendered as bold it is very clearly that as written Ice Knife explicitly has one target and does not have a range of self. It therefore passes the test for twin spell.
Booming blade in its current form clearly does not have a range of self and does not target more than one creature. The only room for confusion with the SCAG wording is that it may target less than one creature directly since the targeting is part of the weapon attack. I personally think that is splitting hairs and would allow twinning currently.
The Tasha version gives the spell a range of self and so makes it ineligable.
The fact that Ice Knife can affect more than one creature means it doesn't only target one creature. Jeremy Crawford has been clear on the usage of plain language in the past. And if that weren't enough, there's even Sage Advice regarding Ice Knife. Nevermind the clear design intent behind the metamagic, which is detailed here on page 6. As always, the DM has final say, but it's clear that Ice Knife is not supposed to be twinnable.
I have checked and the ruling from Jeremy Crawford is that any spell with even the ~possibility~ of affecting multiple creatures is ineligible to be used with twin spell. (this is highly restrictive because they don't want any option to be the best option in all situations, making it that much more fun when it does work out) Ice Knife & Green-Flame Blade are mentioned by name as ambiguous areas as written, but are not intended to work with Twin Spell because the spell has the potential to effect more than 1 creature/object/etc.
I stand corrected. Apologies for muddying the water.
I forgot about the range restriction on Twinned Spell, you're right, my bad.
But yeah, Ice Knife can be Twinned, it's an explicitly single-target spell, despite SAC's attempt to create novel rule language not found in PHB.
You create a shard of ice and fling it at one creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 piercing damage. Hit or miss, the shard then explodes. The targetand each creature within 5 feet of it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage.
It's not a novel language rule. All those affected by Fireball are described as targets, meaning anything caught in an AoE is a target. Ice Knife has an AoE, hence it can target more than just the original target of the spell.
All effected by Fireball are called targets, and thus are targets. All secondary creatures effected by Ice Knife are explicitly not called targets ("the target and each creature"), and thus are not targets.
The plain meaning of the language that is used is that they are not targets. The only language we have in the PHB defining the game-term target (Chapter 10, Casting A Spell) tells us that the target is whatever the "spell's description tells you" it is.
Fact: Ice Knife spell description tells you that the creature you make an attack roll against is "the target," and tells you that the other effected creatures are not "the target"
Rule: Chapter 10 says that the spell description defines the target
It sucks for JC that Ice Knife doesn't interact with Chapter 10 in the way he'd hoped. The remedy for that is errata to Ice Knife or Chapter 10 or both, not a fuzzy "ignore the language in the PHB and trust me" ruling from the SAC.
All effected by Fireball are targets, and thus are called targets. All secondary creatures effected by Ice Knife are not explicitly called targets ("the target and each creature"), and are still targeted by the effects of the spell.
I think that I've rather conclusively laid out citations to the (only) rules we have on the question in the written core. "LOL no" is hardly a persuasive argument against the plain language of Chapter 10 and the spell.
I hope that in 6E, Wizards gives some thought to how they can effectively publish rules as a "living document" that can more easily benefit from errata. My suspicion is that so many of these issues become toothless "rulings" in the SAC, rather than official errata, because it's more costly to reprint new editions of core books. But as much as I might sympathize with and understand the logic behind "it's really supposed to work this way, trust me!", that just isn't a fix to the actual way that the RAW reads. A target is what the spell tells you it is, not "any creature affected by a spell," or "any creature making a saving throw." Not only are those not the printed rule, they also aren't even the rule as intended (you really want to tell me that the "target" of a Darkness isn't the object or point it's cast on, but any creature that finds itself unable to see through it? You really want to tell me that any creature slipping in Grease is the target of the spell, not the area it was cast on?). SA and SAC aren't rules, and aren't subjected to the same sort of playtesting and rigor that rules would be expected to go through, it's just knee-jerk random musings from someone with not enough accountability and peer-review.
I think that I've rather conclusively laid out citations to the (only) rules we have on the question in the written core. "LOL no" is hardly a persuasive argument against the plain language of Chapter 10 and the spell.
I hope that in 6E, Wizards gives some thought to how they can effectively publish rules as a "living document" that can more easily benefit from errata. My suspicion is that so many of these issues become toothless "rulings" in the SAC, rather than official errata, because it's more costly to reprint new editions of core books. But as much as I might sympathize with and understand the logic behind "it's really supposed to work this way, trust me!", that just isn't a fix to the actual way that the RAW reads. A target is what the spell tells you it is, not "any creature affected by a spell," or "any creature making a saving throw." Not only are those not the printed rule, they also aren't even the rule as intended (you really want to tell me that the "target" of a Darkness isn't the object or point it's cast on, but any creature that finds itself unable to see through it? You really want to tell me that any creature slipping in Grease is the target of the spell, not the area it was cast on?). SA and SAC aren't rules, and aren't subjected to the same sort of playtesting and rigor that rules would be expected to go through, it's just knee-jerk random musings from someone with not enough accountability and peer-review.
The point of impact for Ice Knife serves as the point of origin for another effect. You can see that clearly in the Range/Area of the spell description. The format for the notation is similar to spells like Fog Cloud and Sleep; neither of which can be twinned. The notation itself is identical to Flaming Sphere, and that also cannot be twinned. So why, exactly, you're trying to argue Ice Knife can is beyond my understanding.
I think that I've rather conclusively laid out citations to the (only) rules we have on the question in the written core. "LOL no" is hardly a persuasive argument against the plain language of Chapter 10 and the spell.
Here's what Chapter 10 says: "A typical spell requires you to pick one or more targets to be affected by the spell's magic." The plain language reading of this is that a "target" is anything affected by the spell's magic. It's not explicitly stated, and that's frustrating! There's a real ambiguity there that I would love to see changed in an erratum. Your conclusion is one that there's a real case for, because the game never clearly states what is and isn't a target of a spell. But your argument seems to be that there's no ambiguity, which is false. The text doesn't come out and say it, but again, it's absolutely suggestive of the notion, which the SAC does make explicit, that a "target" is "anything affected by the spell."
You're not wrong that it's ambiguous, and you're not wrong that, if you ignore the SAC (or hold it to be inherently unconvincing), there's some room to exploit that lack of clear language. But you are absolutely wrong to suggest that "the (only) rules we have on the question" only support your case.
A very great number of spells have one target for the spell, but then create secondary effects which aren't "the spell" which have their own targets or creatures they interact with. "The target" of Goodberry is your hand, where berries are created. Those berries have a secondary magical effect which targets anyone that eats them, but that isn't to say that those eaters are somehow "targets" of the spell, which has long since ended. The fact that Goodberry is duration: Instant shows quite well why we can't just consider those subsequent effected creatures to be targets, because the spell has rather conclusively ended, and yet a separate magical effect lingers.
"The target" of Flaming Sphere is the point in space where you create the sphere. The spell maintains to keep the sphere in existence, but creatures that walk up to it or that you ram it into aren't targets of "the spell," they are just creatures and objects which are being effected by the spell's secondary effect.
"The target" of ice knife is the creature you throw it at. The spell then creates a secondary effect which has its own targets or creatures it interacts with, but those secondary creatures are not "the target" of the spell.
It's really not that hard of a concept that a spell and a spell's secondary magical effect are two different things. Both Antimagic Field and Dispel Magic contemplate that "magical effects" are often distinct from active "spells," and the plain and obvious operation of a great number of spells is to create a magical effect distinct from the casting of the spell. Otherwise, you'd be able to Counterspell being attacked by a Vampiric Touch or Shillelagh or Eyebite attack, a plainly ludicrous conclusion.
The Spellcasting chapter is absolutely too condensed, a ridiculously short amount of the printed material in the PHB is devoted towards answering its most complicated and nuanced section. Again, I very much hope that Wizards learns from their mistakes in 6E, and gives complicated or essential rule concepts like "target" the full attention they deserve, instead of a single open-to-interpretation sentence that can hardly hope to do more than invite controversy (~"lol a target is what a spell says it is, but is also probably the single most important thing to understand about spells in general.... good luck!").
I see why it would be simple and desirable to say "a target is any creature effected by a spell." But, it just can't be that, and many spells (like Ice Knife) go out of their way to use language that tells us it's not that. We all just have to do our best to muddle through the often-inconsistent way that each spell seems to approach targeting wholly independent of any precedent established by any other.
A typical spell requires you to pick one or more targets to be affected by the spell's magic. A spell's description tells you whether the spell targets creatures, objects, or a point of origin for an area of effect (described below).
I think you're focused too much on the flavor text of certain spells and not enough on the actual RAW spell description. Given the plain-language reading of the text, the intent should be obvious; despite your protestations. Wizards of the Coast didn't think it needed more clarification because it shouldn't need more. You'd have to actively look for ways to game the system, like you have been, quibbling over language, to try and finagle something that clearly wasn't intended.
In the case of Ice Knife, it clearly has multiple components. There's the initial target, and then there is the 5 ft radius. Every creature in that radius is a potential target, despite that word not explicitly being used to describe them as such. This is because one of the definitions of the word target encompasses anyone or anything caught in an area of effect. This is why Fireball actually uses it to describe those caught in its area of effect; to reinforce this idea. The language doesn't have to be used repeatedly across every spell for it to matter. The intent is clear. Heck, even if you intend to only hit one target with Fireball, you still can't twin it because you don't know for certain someone or something else isn't there.
To put it another way, spells can be addressed with a specific name or "To Whom It May Concern". Any spell with an AoE falls into the latter camp. Yes, even Ice Knife.
"The target" of ice knife is the creature you throw it at. The spell then creates a secondary effect which has its own targets or creatures it interacts with, but those secondary creatures are not "the target" of the spell.
It's really not that hard of a concept that a spell and a spell's secondary magical effect are two different things. Both Antimagic Field and Dispel Magic contemplate that "magical effects" are often distinct from active "spells," and the plain and obvious operation of a great number of spells is to create a magical effect distinct from the casting of the spell. Otherwise, you'd be able to Counterspell being attacked by a Vampiric Touch or Shillelagh or Eyebite attack, a plainly ludicrous conclusion.
...
I see why it would be simple and desirable to say "a target is any creature effected by a spell." But, it just can't be that, and many spells (like Ice Knife) go out of their way to use language that tells us it's not that. We all just have to do our best to muddle through the often-inconsistent way that each spell seems to approach targeting wholly independent of any precedent established by any other.
But, as Saga indicated, you don't really provide any proof that your way has to be the way the text is interpreted. "A typical spell requires you to pick one or more targets to be affected by the spell's magic" could certainly be interpreted that targets are the creatures affected by the spell's magic. Again, no distinction is made between primary and secondary effects of spells; targets are affected by the spell's magic - that would seem to mean all of its effects. There is enough ambiguity in the rule that you certainly could rule either way. That is, in fact, why the SAC entry was issued. Whether you choose to ignore that advice is up to you, but it is not up to you whether anyone else does when it is consistent with some reading of the rules.
The only thing that's ludicrous is that you believe those spells can't be affected by Counterspell? What, "on God's green Earth", makes you think that?
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
The only thing that's ludicrous is that you believe those spells can't be affected by Counterspell? What, "on God's green Earth", makes you think that?
In his defense, they can only be countered during the turn in which those spells are cast.
The only thing that's ludicrous is that you believe those spells can't be affected by Counterspell? What, "on God's green Earth", makes you think that?
In his defense, they can only be countered during the turn in which those spells are cast.
I thought's what was being referenced. If so, my bad.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
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Twinned Spell explicitly says “doesn’t have a range of Self,” so you are right that that makes its twinnability exactly the same as ice knife ;). But thankfully, that provision also makes a discussion of the twinnability of ice knife entirely irrelevant.
It would be more analogous to say that any errata of BB or GFB that changes the range to "Self" would render it just as twinnable as Searing Smite.
This is entirely false. Ice Knife is ineligible for use with Twinned Spell, and always has been.
From the official SAC:
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
The Wording of Ice Knife is :
You create a shard of ice and fling it at one creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 piercing damage. Hit or miss, the shard then explodes. The target and each creature within 5 feet of it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 cold damage.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the cold damage increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 1st
From the parts I have rendered as bold it is very clear that as written Ice Knife explicitly has one target and does not have a range of self. It therefore passes the test for twin spell.
Booming blade in its current form clearly does not have a range of self and does not target more than one creature. The only room for confusion with the SCAG wording is that it may target less than one creature directly since the targeting is part of the weapon attack. I personally think that is splitting hairs and would allow twinning currently.
The Tasha version gives the spell a range of self and so makes it ineligable. Personally I don't have a big problem with that; In my experience sorcerers who want to spend a lot of time in melee stopping multiple opponents from moving away from them are few and far between.
#Opendnd
Again, this isn't a problem with the proposed future wording of BB.
And again, apparently target in the description of twinned spell does not refer to the location or creature the spell is directed at, but the number of creatures the spell affects, as clearly "target" is used in both contexts in the rules without any distinction. It is up to you to use context clues to separate them.
I forgot about the range restriction on Twinned Spell, you're right, my bad.
But yeah, Ice Knife can be Twinned, it's an explicitly single-target spell, despite SAC's attempt to create novel rule language not found in PHB.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
The fact that Ice Knife can affect more than one creature means it doesn't only target one creature. Jeremy Crawford has been clear on the usage of plain language in the past. And if that weren't enough, there's even Sage Advice regarding Ice Knife. Nevermind the clear design intent behind the metamagic, which is detailed here on page 6. As always, the DM has final say, but it's clear that Ice Knife is not supposed to be twinnable.
I have checked and the ruling from Jeremy Crawford is that any spell with even the ~possibility~ of affecting multiple creatures is ineligible to be used with twin spell. (this is highly restrictive because they don't want any option to be the best option in all situations, making it that much more fun when it does work out) Ice Knife & Green-Flame Blade are mentioned by name as ambiguous areas as written, but are not intended to work with Twin Spell because the spell has the potential to effect more than 1 creature/object/etc.
I stand corrected. Apologies for muddying the water.
#Opendnd
It's not a novel language rule. All those affected by Fireball are described as targets, meaning anything caught in an AoE is a target. Ice Knife has an AoE, hence it can target more than just the original target of the spell.
All effected by Fireball are called targets, and thus are targets. All secondary creatures effected by Ice Knife are explicitly not called targets ("the target and each creature"), and thus are not targets.
The plain meaning of the language that is used is that they are not targets. The only language we have in the PHB defining the game-term target (Chapter 10, Casting A Spell) tells us that the target is whatever the "spell's description tells you" it is.
It sucks for JC that Ice Knife doesn't interact with Chapter 10 in the way he'd hoped. The remedy for that is errata to Ice Knife or Chapter 10 or both, not a fuzzy "ignore the language in the PHB and trust me" ruling from the SAC.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
FTFY.
I think that I've rather conclusively laid out citations to the (only) rules we have on the question in the written core. "LOL no" is hardly a persuasive argument against the plain language of Chapter 10 and the spell.
I hope that in 6E, Wizards gives some thought to how they can effectively publish rules as a "living document" that can more easily benefit from errata. My suspicion is that so many of these issues become toothless "rulings" in the SAC, rather than official errata, because it's more costly to reprint new editions of core books. But as much as I might sympathize with and understand the logic behind "it's really supposed to work this way, trust me!", that just isn't a fix to the actual way that the RAW reads. A target is what the spell tells you it is, not "any creature affected by a spell," or "any creature making a saving throw." Not only are those not the printed rule, they also aren't even the rule as intended (you really want to tell me that the "target" of a Darkness isn't the object or point it's cast on, but any creature that finds itself unable to see through it? You really want to tell me that any creature slipping in Grease is the target of the spell, not the area it was cast on?). SA and SAC aren't rules, and aren't subjected to the same sort of playtesting and rigor that rules would be expected to go through, it's just knee-jerk random musings from someone with not enough accountability and peer-review.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
The point of impact for Ice Knife serves as the point of origin for another effect. You can see that clearly in the Range/Area of the spell description. The format for the notation is similar to spells like Fog Cloud and Sleep; neither of which can be twinned. The notation itself is identical to Flaming Sphere, and that also cannot be twinned. So why, exactly, you're trying to argue Ice Knife can is beyond my understanding.
Here's what Chapter 10 says: "A typical spell requires you to pick one or more targets to be affected by the spell's magic." The plain language reading of this is that a "target" is anything affected by the spell's magic. It's not explicitly stated, and that's frustrating! There's a real ambiguity there that I would love to see changed in an erratum. Your conclusion is one that there's a real case for, because the game never clearly states what is and isn't a target of a spell. But your argument seems to be that there's no ambiguity, which is false. The text doesn't come out and say it, but again, it's absolutely suggestive of the notion, which the SAC does make explicit, that a "target" is "anything affected by the spell."
You're not wrong that it's ambiguous, and you're not wrong that, if you ignore the SAC (or hold it to be inherently unconvincing), there's some room to exploit that lack of clear language. But you are absolutely wrong to suggest that "the (only) rules we have on the question" only support your case.
A very great number of spells have one target for the spell, but then create secondary effects which aren't "the spell" which have their own targets or creatures they interact with. "The target" of Goodberry is your hand, where berries are created. Those berries have a secondary magical effect which targets anyone that eats them, but that isn't to say that those eaters are somehow "targets" of the spell, which has long since ended. The fact that Goodberry is duration: Instant shows quite well why we can't just consider those subsequent effected creatures to be targets, because the spell has rather conclusively ended, and yet a separate magical effect lingers.
"The target" of Flaming Sphere is the point in space where you create the sphere. The spell maintains to keep the sphere in existence, but creatures that walk up to it or that you ram it into aren't targets of "the spell," they are just creatures and objects which are being effected by the spell's secondary effect.
"The target" of ice knife is the creature you throw it at. The spell then creates a secondary effect which has its own targets or creatures it interacts with, but those secondary creatures are not "the target" of the spell.
It's really not that hard of a concept that a spell and a spell's secondary magical effect are two different things. Both Antimagic Field and Dispel Magic contemplate that "magical effects" are often distinct from active "spells," and the plain and obvious operation of a great number of spells is to create a magical effect distinct from the casting of the spell. Otherwise, you'd be able to Counterspell being attacked by a Vampiric Touch or Shillelagh or Eyebite attack, a plainly ludicrous conclusion.
The Spellcasting chapter is absolutely too condensed, a ridiculously short amount of the printed material in the PHB is devoted towards answering its most complicated and nuanced section. Again, I very much hope that Wizards learns from their mistakes in 6E, and gives complicated or essential rule concepts like "target" the full attention they deserve, instead of a single open-to-interpretation sentence that can hardly hope to do more than invite controversy (~"lol a target is what a spell says it is, but is also probably the single most important thing to understand about spells in general.... good luck!").
I see why it would be simple and desirable to say "a target is any creature effected by a spell." But, it just can't be that, and many spells (like Ice Knife) go out of their way to use language that tells us it's not that. We all just have to do our best to muddle through the often-inconsistent way that each spell seems to approach targeting wholly independent of any precedent established by any other.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I think you're focused too much on the flavor text of certain spells and not enough on the actual RAW spell description. Given the plain-language reading of the text, the intent should be obvious; despite your protestations. Wizards of the Coast didn't think it needed more clarification because it shouldn't need more. You'd have to actively look for ways to game the system, like you have been, quibbling over language, to try and finagle something that clearly wasn't intended.
In the case of Ice Knife, it clearly has multiple components. There's the initial target, and then there is the 5 ft radius. Every creature in that radius is a potential target, despite that word not explicitly being used to describe them as such. This is because one of the definitions of the word target encompasses anyone or anything caught in an area of effect. This is why Fireball actually uses it to describe those caught in its area of effect; to reinforce this idea. The language doesn't have to be used repeatedly across every spell for it to matter. The intent is clear. Heck, even if you intend to only hit one target with Fireball, you still can't twin it because you don't know for certain someone or something else isn't there.
To put it another way, spells can be addressed with a specific name or "To Whom It May Concern". Any spell with an AoE falls into the latter camp. Yes, even Ice Knife.
But, as Saga indicated, you don't really provide any proof that your way has to be the way the text is interpreted. "A typical spell requires you to pick one or more targets to be affected by the spell's magic" could certainly be interpreted that targets are the creatures affected by the spell's magic. Again, no distinction is made between primary and secondary effects of spells; targets are affected by the spell's magic - that would seem to mean all of its effects. There is enough ambiguity in the rule that you certainly could rule either way. That is, in fact, why the SAC entry was issued. Whether you choose to ignore that advice is up to you, but it is not up to you whether anyone else does when it is consistent with some reading of the rules.
The only thing that's ludicrous is that you believe those spells can't be affected by Counterspell? What, "on God's green Earth", makes you think that?
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
In his defense, they can only be countered during the turn in which those spells are cast.
I thought's what was being referenced. If so, my bad.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.