So, Let's say I have a Wand of Magic missile. Can I ready the action to use the wand without losing a charge? When readying a spell that uses a spell slot, you either use the slot because you are holding the spell's power ready to release it, or you use the spell and lose that slot. But if you are casting through an item, how does that play out, according to the rules as written? Thanks!
you can take the Ready action on your turn, which lets you act using your reaction before the start of your next turn.
First, you decide what perceivable circumstance will trigger your reaction. Then, you choose the action you will take in response to that trigger
In the Chapter on Magic Items -> Activating an Item:
Activating some magic items requires a user to do something special, such as holding the item and uttering a command word. The description of each item category or individual item details how an item is activated . . .
If an item requires an action to activate, that action isn't a function of the Use an Object action, so a feature such as the rogue's Fast Hands can't be used to activate the item.
A subsection within "Activating an Item" called "Spells":
Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item. The spell is cast at the lowest possible spell and caster level, doesn't expend any of the user's spell slots, and requires no components, unless the item's description says otherwise. The spell uses its normal casting time, range, and duration, and the user of the item must concentrate if the spell requires concentration.
Another subsection within "Activating an Item" called "Charges":
Some magic items have charges that must be expended to activate their properties.
The Wand of Magic Missiles:
This wand has 7 charges. While holding it, you can use an action to expend 1 or more of its charges to cast the magic missile spell from it. For 1 charge, you cast the 1st-level version of the spell. You can increase the spell slot level by one for each additional charge you expend.
Taken together, in my opinion these rules allow the character to Ready an action to use an "Improvised Action" as defined by the Wand of Magic Missiles magic item in order to activate that item. ("while holding it, you can use an action to [ do stuff ] . . .") So, nothing happens until the trigger occurs and you use your Reaction at which point you may use your Readied Action to activate the item.
It's been debated elsewhere, but one of the reasons why this should be possible is that the wording of Wand of Magic Missiles does not appear to use the rules from the "Spells" subsection quoted above, which "allows the user to cast a spell from the item". With this item, the user isn't really casting the spell. The Wand is casting the spell when the user uses an action to expend one of its charges. Although it's messy and debatable, the consensus is that the actual casting of the spell by the item happens instantly once the action is taken to expend the charge, thereby ignoring the Casting Time requirement of the spell. Otherwise, the mechanic doesn't really work.
So, the rules for activation in the "Charges" subsection is used, but not the rules for activation in the "Spells" subsection. This is important because if the user is casting the spell then you might not be able to do this at all since you would need an action to expend the charge and the spell itself is a 1 action casting time spell. For items that do not require using an action to expend the charge but do "allow the user to cast a spell from the item", you would probably have to use the Readying a Spell rules. But then, technically, you might not have really "cast it as normal" in advance as per the Ready Action rules for Readying Spells, you are potentially activating the item in advance instead, which probably shouldn't be allowed. This would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis for exactly how the description of the magic item in question is worded.
But for the Wand of Magic Missiles magic item in particular, you should be good to go to Ready the normal usage of this without any of the drawbacks associated with Readying a Spell.
For those items, you have this description: "you can use an action to expend 1 or more of its charges to castthe [...] spell from it"
In my opinion, here a charge is practically the same as a spell slot. The wand performs the effect of the spell but the spellcaster is still the one casting it. For that reason, you must follow the rules about spellcasting (Chapter 10 of the Player's Handbook), such as the one related to bonus action spells (in case you're interested, I asked about Casting using spell slots vs casting using magic items here in DnD Beyond).
Regarding your specific question about whether a charge is wasted when readying to use a magic item to cast a spell, although the Dev's tweets are not considered official rulings, you have his answer here:
@mpetruzzIs readying action to use a magic item the same as readying action to cast spell (charge or use/day is used regardless) @JeremyECrawford Using a magic item with Ready does not follow the spell rule in Ready.
However, there are magic items with different wording and functionality, for example the Brazier of Commanding Fire Elementals or some effects of the Wand of Wonder: "you can use an action to speak the brazier’s command word and summon a fire elemental, as if you had cast the conjure elemental spell."
For those kinds of magic items, you will get the effects without needing to follow the spellcasting rules.
EDIT: about the quoted tweet from Jeremy Crawford, that also means that you don't need to maintain concentration when readying to use a magic item to cast a spell because Ready action states (emphasis mine):
When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs. To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and holding onto the spell's magic requires concentration.
Because you are readying to use a magic item, not readying a spell.
I don't think taking the Ready Action to use a magic item follow the rules for when you Ready A Spell as the action readied is for using the item, which usually is to expand a charge or speak a command word and the spell is a result of that.
For those items, you have this description: "you can use an action to expend 1 or more of its charges to castthe [...] spell from it"
In my opinion, here a charge is practically the same as a spell slot. The wand performs the effect of the spell but the spellcaster is still the one casting it. For that reason, you must follow the rules about spellcasting (Chapter 10 of the Player's Handbook), such as the one related to bonus action spells (in case you're interested, I asked about Casting using spell slots vs casting using magic items here in DnD Beyond).
Hey tarodnet, this thread was in interesting read -- I'm not sure if I should respond here in an active thread or bring back that old thread. As I said, this wording has been debated before. In fact, I believe that I used to argue for your interpretation that the user is casting the spell here, but I have since changed my mind on that for these particular items with this exact wording. I now interpret this to mean that the user expends the charge and that causes the item to cast the spell ("from it") in a manner that skips the casting cost for the spell. For this reason, some general spellcasting rules such as the one related to bonus action spells do not apply.
Of particular interest, I notice that your original post in that other thread begins with quoting a rule that says this: "Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item, often by expending charges from it." I am curious which version of the DMG you are using and whether or not there has been errata to this statement since then. Because the hard copy that I am looking at as well as the Basic Rules on the same subject does not have this wording. It simply says, "Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item." Then, it moves on to the same next sentence that your quote has. Then, later on, there is a separate subsection dedicated to the mechanics of charges for a magic item. My conclusion above was that the Wand of Magic Missiles magic item uses the rules and mechanics in the Charges subsection and NOT the rules and mechanics in the Spells subsection.
I think that I'll amend that here as that may have been too simplistic. I think that some portions of the Spells subsection IS used, but the wording of that section is a bit ambiguous and may still allow the character to bypass the Bonus Action rule. It comes down to whether you read the first line as "[Some magic items allow] [the user to cast a spell] [from the item]" or "[Some magic items allow] [the user to] [cast a spell from the item]". As I said, I previously believed in the first interpretation, but now I am confident that it must be the second since the mechanics of how most items work would not function correctly otherwise. With this second interpretation, the Bonus Action rule would not apply since the user is activating an item, not casting a spell.
For me, the key is indeed that paragraph about Spells (DMG, p. 141), particularly the specific sentence you quoted: "Some magic items allow the user to cast a spellfrom the item, often by expending charges from it.". That sentence is in the digital version of the DMG but not in the physical one (at least in my case too).
And also for me, that sentence is linked to all the Magic Items with the kind of wording I mentioned before: "... you can expend 1 charge as an action to cast the [...] spell from it ..."
So, if you are casting a spell using a charge (instead of your own slot), you need to apply the rules in the paragraph about Spells and, therefore, the rules about spellcasting in the PHB. The Charges paragraph is still relevant and valid as a complement.
I'm not trying to convince you, as I understand it's difficult if you've changed your mind about this topic, but let me share some links to RPG Stack Exchange with the same conclusion:
That version of the sentence doesn't appear in the current D&D Beyond version of the Basic Rules from Chapter 14 which I have to assume is the most up to date version of the rules, but I'm not great at tracking down errata to find out in which direction it was modified.
Regardless, it really is more of a matter of interpreting the ambiguous first part of the sentence. I will post it here with the alternative bold letters so that you can see how it could be read the other way. First your version and then mine:
"Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item"
"Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item"
Then, when you take a few minutes to really think about it in the context of how all of the other rules are written and how all of the item descriptions are written, it really must be the second one. You are activating a magic item that is capable of casting a spell when activated. This means that most of those old RPG Stack Exchange threads incorrect in their conclusions.
Although the wording is messy, even the Wand of Wonder probably works correctly. Several table entries use the simple phrase "you cast [ a spell ]", but none of them say "you cast [ a spell ] from the wand". And yet, in the introduction to the table there is this: "If the effect causes you to cast a spell from the wand". So, if we assume that the table entries were just written for brevity and actually refer back to this introductory paragraph for the mechanics, then this would be working the same way as the Wand of Magic Missiles.
Since the sentence above is ambiguous, either interpretation is technically a RAW interpretation. But one interpretation is better than the other for various reasons.
Magic Items are powerful! Maybe just don't give away so many to your players!
"from the item" is just saying that you, the caster, are using that item to cast the spell because the spell is inside or stored in the Magic Item as a charge, but you, the caster, are casting the spell by expending a charge, and you're expending a charge because you're using an action for that.
I cannot interpret that sentence in any other way. It's the only possible interpretation.
The opposite of "from the item" is "from your body",because the energy comes from your own spell slot.
Honestly, I don't think those three words can completely change how spellcasting works in D&D:
Known and Prepared Spells, from the PHB, p. 201: "Before a spellcaster can use a spell, he or she must have the spell firmly fixed in mind, ormust have access to the spell in a magic item."
Casting a Spell, from the PHB, p. 202: "When a character casts any spell, the same basic rules are followed, regardless of the character's class or the spell's effects"
Activating an Item: Spells, from the DMG, p. 141: "Some magic items allow the user to cast a spellfrom the item, often by expending charges from it."
All those texts are clearly related. Whether you are using the magic from a Magic Item (troughits charges) or using your own power or mind (trough your spell slots), the caster must follow the same rules.
The consensus is clear, as you read in the answers I linked from RPG Stack Exchange. You mentioned that the RPG Stack Exchange answers were old. We're discussing rules from 2014. The rules haven't change since then. The answers are still valid and have received recent upvotes.
But not only there.I've found alsothis thread ("Bonus Action Spells and items that permit casting spells") and the answer is unanimously the same: items that permit casting still have to follow the rules mentioned in the PHB about spellcasting.
PS. As far as I understand, the phrase "often by expending charges from it" is a recent addition to the text.
A lot of what you say is definitely an understandable point of view. I know this because I used to think about it the same way. However, this statement:
Is 100% false. That's not even a matter of opinion. It's just factually true that the sentence "Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item" IS ambiguous by definition. This string of words with this punctuation or lack thereof has two different meanings. It just does. At the end of the day we're going to just agree to disagree on the RAW here because the rule itself is ambiguous and therefore the RAW can go either way.
However, I will just point out here that it would have been a slam dunk towards your interpretation if they had simply written "Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell". The authors specifically went out of their way to specify that the spell is coming from the item.
Another point to think about -- anyone can use a magic item such as the Wand of Magic Missiles which has no prerequisites or attunement requirements or any other restrictions listed in its description. That means Barbarians and Rogues and Fighters can use the item even when they have no means for casting spells on their own. This sort of thing can be explained away when such a character gains a Feat, for example, which confers an innate ability which functions much like a class Feature onto such characters. But magic item descriptions really are just explaining the usage of the item itself and instructions for activating the item and explaining the results of doing so. This all makes a lot more sense if the item is the entity that is casting the spell upon activation. The user of the item activates the item and the item then casts the spell in response. The item "allows the user" [ to activate the item for a specific purpose which is ] "to cast a spell from the item".
Known and Prepared Spells, from the PHB, p. 201: "Before a spellcaster can use a spell, he or she must have the spell firmly fixed in mind, ormust have access to the spell in a magic item."
It's actually pretty important to notice that the authors did NOT use the word "cast" there. This is deliberate. That's because these are two different methods of making use of magic spells. The author doesn't begin talking about the requirements for casting a spell until the next section called "Spell Slots":
Regardless of how many spells a caster knows or prepares, he or she can cast only a limited number of spells before resting. Manipulating the fabric of magic and channeling its energy into even a simple spell is physically and mentally taxing, and higher- level spells are even more so.
The spell slot system is an abstraction for the toll that it takes to cast a spell. However, in the rules for activating magic items that cast spells, right away we have the statement "The spell is cast at the lowest possible spell and caster level, doesn't expend any of the user's spell slots, and requires no components. The rules are making it clear that the user cannot control the strength of the spell and the spell does not cost character resources. This is because the character isn't casting the spell, it's coming from the item when the character activates it.
This is meant to be a separate method of making use of spells. You can cast a spell or you can activate a magic item. This is one reason why magic items are so powerful.
Casting a Spell, from the PHB, p. 202: "When a character casts any spell, the same basic rules are followed, regardless of the character's class or the spell's effects"
This is definitely true when a character casts any spell. But when the character is not casting the spell, such as when he activates a magic item, these rules are NOT followed by default. This is why the rules for activating a magic item had to explicitly put some of them back in with statements like this:
The spell uses its normal casting time, range, and duration, and the user of the item must concentrate if the spell requires concentration . . . Certain items make exceptions to these rules, changing the casting time, duration, or other parts of a spell.
There would be no reason to mention any of this if the rules from Chapter 10 were automatically followed. It would just say something like "see Chapter 10 for the rules for casting a spell". But since they are not automatically followed (because those are the rules for "when a character casts any spell"), these statements are needed in the item activation section to confirm which of those rules should be followed and which should not be followed when the spell comes from an item.
Also note this statement:
Many items, such as potions, bypass the casting of a spell and confer the spell's effects, with their usual duration.
The obvious implication here is that many other items actually cast a spell instead of bypassing doing so.
This is endless, and I prefer not to repeat the same reasons again.
Just one more thing: a new proof. The Dev explained this exact topic in the following video, specifically addressing a question about using a Magic Item for a spell and how it interacts with the bonus action rules. You don't need to watch the video: it supports my opinion on this matter.
https://youtu.be/zpxXbEADhN0?t=831 --- "the bonus action rule in the spellcasting rules applies basically no matter how you're casting a spell, whether it's by means of the Cast a Spell action, you're using a magic item or something else. If you cast a bonus action spell this rule then suddenly is enforced"
If you don't trust Jeremy Crawford, there's no way you'll trust me 😅
Again, the consensus is clear, and for the majority of the people, it is both good and logical to follow the same rules about spellcasting whether you are casting a spell on your own or through other means, such as a Magic Item.
As a matter of fact, I generally do not trust JC. It doesn't take long to find dozens of examples where he has been straight-up wrong about what the rules actually say. His insight is generally useful as one data point but should not be confused with RAW. And it's not that I don't trust you -- I just disagree with your interpretation on this particular topic.
I've made my case for how this mechanic works, supported by what the rules actually say. But again, there is that one sentence that is ambiguous so if you choose to interpret that rule the other way, despite how that rule works in concert with all of the other rules that I've quoted, then your interpretation is still within the realm of RAW and we should just agree to disagree on which way is best.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So, Let's say I have a Wand of Magic missile. Can I ready the action to use the wand without losing a charge? When readying a spell that uses a spell slot, you either use the slot because you are holding the spell's power ready to release it, or you use the spell and lose that slot. But if you are casting through an item, how does that play out, according to the rules as written? Thanks!
Here are some of the relevant rules:
In the Chapter on Magic Items -> Activating an Item:
A subsection within "Activating an Item" called "Spells":
Another subsection within "Activating an Item" called "Charges":
The Wand of Magic Missiles:
Taken together, in my opinion these rules allow the character to Ready an action to use an "Improvised Action" as defined by the Wand of Magic Missiles magic item in order to activate that item. ("while holding it, you can use an action to [ do stuff ] . . .") So, nothing happens until the trigger occurs and you use your Reaction at which point you may use your Readied Action to activate the item.
It's been debated elsewhere, but one of the reasons why this should be possible is that the wording of Wand of Magic Missiles does not appear to use the rules from the "Spells" subsection quoted above, which "allows the user to cast a spell from the item". With this item, the user isn't really casting the spell. The Wand is casting the spell when the user uses an action to expend one of its charges. Although it's messy and debatable, the consensus is that the actual casting of the spell by the item happens instantly once the action is taken to expend the charge, thereby ignoring the Casting Time requirement of the spell. Otherwise, the mechanic doesn't really work.
So, the rules for activation in the "Charges" subsection is used, but not the rules for activation in the "Spells" subsection. This is important because if the user is casting the spell then you might not be able to do this at all since you would need an action to expend the charge and the spell itself is a 1 action casting time spell. For items that do not require using an action to expend the charge but do "allow the user to cast a spell from the item", you would probably have to use the Readying a Spell rules. But then, technically, you might not have really "cast it as normal" in advance as per the Ready Action rules for Readying Spells, you are potentially activating the item in advance instead, which probably shouldn't be allowed. This would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis for exactly how the description of the magic item in question is worded.
But for the Wand of Magic Missiles magic item in particular, you should be good to go to Ready the normal usage of this without any of the drawbacks associated with Readying a Spell.
Do you believe this would be different for the wand of fireballs?
Both the Wand of Fireballs and Wand of Magic Missiles have the same functionality and rules.
For those items, you have this description: "you can use an action to expend 1 or more of its charges to cast the [...] spell from it"
In my opinion, here a charge is practically the same as a spell slot. The wand performs the effect of the spell but the spellcaster is still the one casting it. For that reason, you must follow the rules about spellcasting (Chapter 10 of the Player's Handbook), such as the one related to bonus action spells (in case you're interested, I asked about Casting using spell slots vs casting using magic items here in DnD Beyond).
Regarding your specific question about whether a charge is wasted when readying to use a magic item to cast a spell, although the Dev's tweets are not considered official rulings, you have his answer here:
However, there are magic items with different wording and functionality, for example the Brazier of Commanding Fire Elementals or some effects of the Wand of Wonder: "you can use an action to speak the brazier’s command word and summon a fire elemental, as if you had cast the conjure elemental spell."
For those kinds of magic items, you will get the effects without needing to follow the spellcasting rules.
EDIT: about the quoted tweet from Jeremy Crawford, that also means that you don't need to maintain concentration when readying to use a magic item to cast a spell because Ready action states (emphasis mine):
Because you are readying to use a magic item, not readying a spell.
I don't think taking the Ready Action to use a magic item follow the rules for when you Ready A Spell as the action readied is for using the item, which usually is to expand a charge or speak a command word and the spell is a result of that.
Hey tarodnet, this thread was in interesting read -- I'm not sure if I should respond here in an active thread or bring back that old thread. As I said, this wording has been debated before. In fact, I believe that I used to argue for your interpretation that the user is casting the spell here, but I have since changed my mind on that for these particular items with this exact wording. I now interpret this to mean that the user expends the charge and that causes the item to cast the spell ("from it") in a manner that skips the casting cost for the spell. For this reason, some general spellcasting rules such as the one related to bonus action spells do not apply.
Of particular interest, I notice that your original post in that other thread begins with quoting a rule that says this: "Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item, often by expending charges from it." I am curious which version of the DMG you are using and whether or not there has been errata to this statement since then. Because the hard copy that I am looking at as well as the Basic Rules on the same subject does not have this wording. It simply says, "Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item." Then, it moves on to the same next sentence that your quote has. Then, later on, there is a separate subsection dedicated to the mechanics of charges for a magic item. My conclusion above was that the Wand of Magic Missiles magic item uses the rules and mechanics in the Charges subsection and NOT the rules and mechanics in the Spells subsection.
I think that I'll amend that here as that may have been too simplistic. I think that some portions of the Spells subsection IS used, but the wording of that section is a bit ambiguous and may still allow the character to bypass the Bonus Action rule. It comes down to whether you read the first line as "[Some magic items allow] [the user to cast a spell] [from the item]" or "[Some magic items allow] [the user to] [cast a spell from the item]". As I said, I previously believed in the first interpretation, but now I am confident that it must be the second since the mechanics of how most items work would not function correctly otherwise. With this second interpretation, the Bonus Action rule would not apply since the user is activating an item, not casting a spell.
For me, the key is indeed that paragraph about Spells (DMG, p. 141), particularly the specific sentence you quoted: "Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item, often by expending charges from it.". That sentence is in the digital version of the DMG but not in the physical one (at least in my case too).
And also for me, that sentence is linked to all the Magic Items with the kind of wording I mentioned before: "... you can expend 1 charge as an action to cast the [...] spell from it ..."
So, if you are casting a spell using a charge (instead of your own slot), you need to apply the rules in the paragraph about Spells and, therefore, the rules about spellcasting in the PHB. The Charges paragraph is still relevant and valid as a complement.
I'm not trying to convince you, as I understand it's difficult if you've changed your mind about this topic, but let me share some links to RPG Stack Exchange with the same conclusion:
That version of the sentence doesn't appear in the current D&D Beyond version of the Basic Rules from Chapter 14 which I have to assume is the most up to date version of the rules, but I'm not great at tracking down errata to find out in which direction it was modified.
Regardless, it really is more of a matter of interpreting the ambiguous first part of the sentence. I will post it here with the alternative bold letters so that you can see how it could be read the other way. First your version and then mine:
"Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item"
"Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item"
Then, when you take a few minutes to really think about it in the context of how all of the other rules are written and how all of the item descriptions are written, it really must be the second one. You are activating a magic item that is capable of casting a spell when activated. This means that most of those old RPG Stack Exchange threads incorrect in their conclusions.
Although the wording is messy, even the Wand of Wonder probably works correctly. Several table entries use the simple phrase "you cast [ a spell ]", but none of them say "you cast [ a spell ] from the wand". And yet, in the introduction to the table there is this: "If the effect causes you to cast a spell from the wand". So, if we assume that the table entries were just written for brevity and actually refer back to this introductory paragraph for the mechanics, then this would be working the same way as the Wand of Magic Missiles.
Since the sentence above is ambiguous, either interpretation is technically a RAW interpretation. But one interpretation is better than the other for various reasons.
Magic Items are powerful! Maybe just don't give away so many to your players!
"from the item" is just saying that you, the caster, are using that item to cast the spell because the spell is inside or stored in the Magic Item as a charge, but you, the caster, are casting the spell by expending a charge, and you're expending a charge because you're using an action for that.
I cannot interpret that sentence in any other way. It's the only possible interpretation.
The opposite of "from the item" is "from your body", because the energy comes from your own spell slot.
Honestly, I don't think those three words can completely change how spellcasting works in D&D:
All those texts are clearly related. Whether you are using the magic from a Magic Item (trough its charges) or using your own power or mind (trough your spell slots), the caster must follow the same rules.
The consensus is clear, as you read in the answers I linked from RPG Stack Exchange. You mentioned that the RPG Stack Exchange answers were old. We're discussing rules from 2014. The rules haven't change since then. The answers are still valid and have received recent upvotes.
But not only there. I've found also this thread ("Bonus Action Spells and items that permit casting spells") and the answer is unanimously the same: items that permit casting still have to follow the rules mentioned in the PHB about spellcasting.
PS. As far as I understand, the phrase "often by expending charges from it" is a recent addition to the text.
A lot of what you say is definitely an understandable point of view. I know this because I used to think about it the same way. However, this statement:
Is 100% false. That's not even a matter of opinion. It's just factually true that the sentence "Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item" IS ambiguous by definition. This string of words with this punctuation or lack thereof has two different meanings. It just does. At the end of the day we're going to just agree to disagree on the RAW here because the rule itself is ambiguous and therefore the RAW can go either way.
However, I will just point out here that it would have been a slam dunk towards your interpretation if they had simply written "Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell". The authors specifically went out of their way to specify that the spell is coming from the item.
Another point to think about -- anyone can use a magic item such as the Wand of Magic Missiles which has no prerequisites or attunement requirements or any other restrictions listed in its description. That means Barbarians and Rogues and Fighters can use the item even when they have no means for casting spells on their own. This sort of thing can be explained away when such a character gains a Feat, for example, which confers an innate ability which functions much like a class Feature onto such characters. But magic item descriptions really are just explaining the usage of the item itself and instructions for activating the item and explaining the results of doing so. This all makes a lot more sense if the item is the entity that is casting the spell upon activation. The user of the item activates the item and the item then casts the spell in response. The item "allows the user" [ to activate the item for a specific purpose which is ] "to cast a spell from the item".
It's actually pretty important to notice that the authors did NOT use the word "cast" there. This is deliberate. That's because these are two different methods of making use of magic spells. The author doesn't begin talking about the requirements for casting a spell until the next section called "Spell Slots":
The spell slot system is an abstraction for the toll that it takes to cast a spell. However, in the rules for activating magic items that cast spells, right away we have the statement "The spell is cast at the lowest possible spell and caster level, doesn't expend any of the user's spell slots, and requires no components. The rules are making it clear that the user cannot control the strength of the spell and the spell does not cost character resources. This is because the character isn't casting the spell, it's coming from the item when the character activates it.
This is meant to be a separate method of making use of spells. You can cast a spell or you can activate a magic item. This is one reason why magic items are so powerful.
This is definitely true when a character casts any spell. But when the character is not casting the spell, such as when he activates a magic item, these rules are NOT followed by default. This is why the rules for activating a magic item had to explicitly put some of them back in with statements like this:
There would be no reason to mention any of this if the rules from Chapter 10 were automatically followed. It would just say something like "see Chapter 10 for the rules for casting a spell". But since they are not automatically followed (because those are the rules for "when a character casts any spell"), these statements are needed in the item activation section to confirm which of those rules should be followed and which should not be followed when the spell comes from an item.
Also note this statement:
The obvious implication here is that many other items actually cast a spell instead of bypassing doing so.
Yes, this is the statement in question and it is ambiguous:
"Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item, often by expending charges from it."
and sometimes the consensus is wrong.
This is endless, and I prefer not to repeat the same reasons again.
Just one more thing: a new proof. The Dev explained this exact topic in the following video, specifically addressing a question about using a Magic Item for a spell and how it interacts with the bonus action rules. You don't need to watch the video: it supports my opinion on this matter.
Relevant timestamps:
If you don't trust Jeremy Crawford, there's no way you'll trust me 😅
Again, the consensus is clear, and for the majority of the people, it is both good and logical to follow the same rules about spellcasting whether you are casting a spell on your own or through other means, such as a Magic Item.
As a matter of fact, I generally do not trust JC. It doesn't take long to find dozens of examples where he has been straight-up wrong about what the rules actually say. His insight is generally useful as one data point but should not be confused with RAW. And it's not that I don't trust you -- I just disagree with your interpretation on this particular topic.
I've made my case for how this mechanic works, supported by what the rules actually say. But again, there is that one sentence that is ambiguous so if you choose to interpret that rule the other way, despite how that rule works in concert with all of the other rules that I've quoted, then your interpretation is still within the realm of RAW and we should just agree to disagree on which way is best.