Fey Presence Language

[ArteF]

Hello folks, my question is further down.

FEY PRESENCE
Starting at 1st leveI,your patron bestows upon you the ability to project the beguiling and fearsome presence of the fey. As an action, you can cause each creature in a 10-foot cube originating from you to make a Wisdom saving throw against your warlock spell save DC. The creatures that fail their saving throws are ali charmed or frightened byyou (your choice) until the end of your next turno Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

That is the PHB 108


FIREBALL 3rd~evelevoeaUon Casting Time: 1action Range: 150 feet Components: V,S, M (a tiny ball of bat guano and sulfur) Duration: Instantaneous A bright streak flashes from your pointing linger to a point you ehoose within range and then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame. Each creature in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on that point must make a Dexterity saving throw. A target takes 8d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as mueh damage on a successful one...

That is PHB: 241


MASS SUGGESTION 6th level enchantment Casting Time: I action Range: 60 feet Components: V,M(a snake's tongue and either a bit of honeycomb or a drop ofsweet oil) Duration: 24 hours Vousuggest a course of activity (limited to a sentence or two) and magically influence up to twelve creatures of your choice that you can see within range and that can hear and understand you


PHB: 258


FAERIE FIRE 1st-leveI evocation Casting Time: I action Range: 60 feet Components: V Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute Each object in a 20-foot cube within range is outlined in blue, green, or violet light (your choice). Any creature in the area when the spell is cast is also outlined in light if it fails a Dexterity saving throw. For lhe duration, objects and affected creatures shed dim l

PHB: 239


DIVINE STRIKE At 8th levei, you gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with divine energy. Once on each ofyour turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra Id8 cold, tire, or lightning damage (your choice) to the target. When you reach 14th leveI, the extra damage increases to 2d8.

PHB: 62


My question is about the AOE for Fey Presence, with that wording does that mean the user of the power can select which targets are affected within the 10ft area? To me fireball makes it clear that there is no choice in the matter as to what gets hit, similarly mass suggestion is also explicit as to what gets hit. Fairie fire is equally explict that any creature gets hit.

The language of "you can cause" suggests that the user of the power has some ability to not cause or cause a target to have to make a save against being either feared or charmed and again that would be the casters decision. Similarly divine strike is an ability that uses the same "you can cause" language and similarly follows up with what you can cause. The sentence structure gives me reason to believe that "you can cause" gives the caster control over what they can cause as explained right after; which in the case of Fey Presence is selecting what must make the saving throw.

I'm looking for other perspectives here.

[kylania]

Yeah. As a DM I'd allow the caster to select her targets from available ones.

[ArteF]

Okay thank you! It makes sense to me that you can choose otherwise the language would have been as explicit as fireball or any other aoe where you can't choose.

What made it odd is stuff like Suggestion making it clear as day that you can choose, but then you have stuff that use the same language as Fey Presence which no one can argue against that you are allowed to choose; like divine strike.

[Zacchaeus]

The important part of the wording as you say is 'you can cause' which indicates some element of choice in the matter. The 'creature' part means anyone, friend or foe so because of the wording (any creature, all creatures etc) of Fireball and Faerie Fire there's no choice (unless you have the 'sculpt spell ability) as to who gets hit. Some spells specify 'hostile' creatures but most don't so these kind of AoE spells do need to be used with some caution.

[ArteF]

Yea this is exactly what I thought, thank you Zacchaeus, in the game I was in the dwarfs alignment made him against me drawing blood for ridiculous reasons like it was evil. The DM was npcing the dwarf and I figured I'd force him to roll on it since he was being unreasonable. (I was drawing blood from an unconcious PC who wasn't an ally yet) When I did Fey Presence he sais everyone gets hit period, this is after I explained that this isn't the case. It's good to know I'm not losing my mind nor grasp of my native language.

[ArteF]

Okay I asked WoC about this... they are very unwilling to give rulings btw... like very it was like pulling teeth.

Anyway I gleaned a few bits of information from them.

First in the email I gave essentially what was in the OP.

The response was that WoC does not give direct rulings and that the GM gets to craft the rules to their discretion... it goes on a bit more but the good part is:

"that being said, the spell does say "each"..."

I was trying to glean a bit more from them so I decided to give them a call and I got about 3 minutes of the robotic disclaimer... I think they really don't understand that a game needs stability or something but whatever anyway the phone response went like so:

"... the spell does say you can cause each but it does hit everything in the area."

Now if we were to put this spell in a video game I asked, and you did it and you had friendlies near you would you hit your friends with charm or fear?

He then goes back into the no hard rulings bit. But he then sais: "Fireball is a similar spell where it hits everything." I noted that fireball is clear about that you have no choice in what you hit, however this says something fireball does not which is that you can cause each target to have to make a save."

/Rant
The way my DM ruled it; the language makes no sense what so ever which is what is driving me on this issue not so much the usefulness of the spell but how ridiculous the ruling strikes me as.

According to his ruling I can use the ability and choose to affect all the creatures in the area or not affect them. Why the hell would I use an ability and not affect anyone? I think that's what's messing with my logical traction, if it made sense then fine like if a GM says for finding traps to use investigate rather than perception in order to avoid passive perception pit falls, that to me makes a lot of sense.

But the absurdity of how the spell functions now is what has me at a loss. It leaves me thinking wtf when I try to make it make sense. The weird thing is one of the other players seems to understand it. But I don't get the spell reference, is there any other spell that works the way they are suggesting Fey Presence works? I can't find any spell that lets you cast the spell but affect nothing in the spells area.

Lol it's like my brain wants to explode, I must be pretty dumb not to get it.

[kylania]

WotC's preferred method of contact, especially for rules clarifications, seems to be Twitter. Send a message to @JeremyECrawford or @mikemearls or for more general advice questions to @ChrisPerkinsDnD and you'll usually get a better response. You can also email [email protected] if you want. The latest official page for this is here it seems, from July: https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/sageadvice_july2015

A helpful soul has been collecting all of these messages here, usually daily: https://www.sageadvice.eu/

[epithet]

I agree that WotC seems to have chosen Twitter as their primary means of interacting with their customers. Since I dislike Twitter a great deal, this has inspired me to largely ignore WotC-promulgated "clarifications" and rely almost exclusively on my own interpretation of the rules.

I would suggest that your group should discuss the context and application of any rule you question, and decide on an interpretation based on consensus or a vote. Chances are that if you rely on a tweet for guidance, it will create more questions than it answers. It is ridiculous to try to fully ask or answer a rules question in a tweet.

[Zacchaeus]

I can see where your DM is coming from if you take the whole phrase 'you can cause each creature". I don't think he is saying you can use the ability but not affect anyone - which would indeed be silly, but rather you can choose to only use the ability when there are no friendlies in the area of effect. As WotC say there is no hard rulings and it is down to the DM's interpretation although I agree with epithet about discussion and coming to a consensus. Interestingly I can find absolutely nothing about this in any forum or in the SageAdvice columns, so presumably this isn't causing anyone else a problem :)

[ArteF]

Thanks for the responses guys,

@Zacchaeus

Actually yea, that's the thing that gets me, I think most DM's are running with that you have control over what you hit within the area. When I used the post in the OP on other forums I was getting the same rulings. So I think it's just this particular DM that pulling me through the mud for one reason or another.

As for what the DM said, he and the other player were quite literally saying: That I can do the spell and not affect anything (I take that as no one makes the saving throw thus no fear and no charm) but it burns my spell for the short rest. Or everyone takes the hit and must make the save...

The problem with that is layered but my point is that the spell says specifically you can cause each, fireball has similar language with "each" however without the "you can cause" line that means you have no control over what takes the fire ball hit aside from where you place the explosion. The "you can cause" line is specifically used in other spells and abilities right before the thing you have control over. In the example I gave above it was the option to select an element type in divine strike.

It isn't a one off thing either; every ability that uses that line "you can cause" all give you specific options right after. Channeling divinity for natures wrath lets you target a specific enemy while in other examples you can create illusions, but the language before these options are laid out is that "you can cause". Fey Presence is unique in that it's the only one that's an Aoe that appears to give you control over what you hit within the space... well technically Natures Wrath lets you target a specific creature despite friendlies being in the range of the spell...

[Zacchaeus]

As for what the DM said, he and the other player were quite literally saying: That I can do the spell and not affect anything (I take that as no one makes the saving throw thus no fear and no charm) but it burns my spell for the short rest. Or everyone takes the hit and must make the save...


Hmm, no that's silly, you can't expect a character to waste a very valuable ability. AoE spells certainly gave me pause when we first started playing 5e because almost all of them target 'creatures' and no distinction is made between friend or foe. The 'sculpt spell' ability is the get out clause for Wizards but the other Spellcasting classes (as far as I know) don't have that luxury. The problem I suppose with this instance is that it isn't really a spell but a spell-like ability so it's possible to interpret it differently. However I still feel that the wording means that you have some options as to who you are targeting otherwise it's an ability you are only going to get to use if you are first in the initiative order and in the front rank. Once melee starts you're unlikely to get a chance to use it effectively if it targets everything and that would be my reasoning (as the DM) to allow some flexibility.

[ArteF]

@Zacchaeus,

Well you cal it silly but it's blowing my mind trying to make some sense of it. Wizard essentially said that it targets each creature, and the phone call one said that you may cause each creature would mean I have a choice. The problem is they give this 3 minute long disclaimer after they say anything. At one point I just started talking through the disclaimer mainly because I had heard it 3 times before.

The DM that came up with the ruling said if I can get an official WOTC ruling on this then he'd go with it. But I now believe he honestly can't see how ridiculous his ruling on that ability is.

[Zacchaeus]

@Zacchaeus,

Well you cal it silly but it's blowing my mind trying to make some sense of it. Wizard essentially said that it targets each creature, and the phone call one said that you may cause each creature would mean I have a choice. The problem is they give this 3 minute long disclaimer after they say anything. At one point I just started talking through the disclaimer mainly because I had heard it 3 times before.

The DM that came up with the ruling said if I can get an official WOTC ruling on this then he'd go with it. But I now believe he honestly can't see how ridiculous his ruling on that ability is.

Try the Sage advice (if you can condense the question down to the requisite character limit) 'Do you have a choice as to targets for Fey Presence or does it target friend and foe' or something similar.