Navigating the Ethics of Restricted Spell Effects

Restricted spell effects refer to the limitations and restrictions placed on the magical powers or abilities of spellcasters. These restrictions may be imposed by various factors, such as the spellcaster's level of experience, their specific magical tradition or school, or even by external forces such as magical artifacts or enchantments. One common form of restricted spell effects is found in the concept of spell slots. In many role-playing games or tabletop systems, spellcasters are given a limited number of spell slots that they can use to cast spells. These spell slots may be divided into different levels or tiers, with higher-level spells requiring more powerful slots. This limitation is often designed to balance gameplay and prevent spellcasters from becoming too overpowered.

At your command, vines can burst from the ground and ensnare your target, holding them completely immobile. Contrary to the description, this does not truly immobilize a target. Instead, they are slowed to a mere crawl, reducing their speed to about 1 block every two seconds. Duration is increased by casting mode, 5/10/15 seconds. Increasing the cast strength does not impact the strength of the slow.

So I d be looking to have a 1 per day casting of what could be a number of spells mostly thinking level 1 spells I know that things like Mage Armor or Shield bring in the whole AC based costs so lets assume we re excluding those type of buffs. You can also cause the target to be someone who was affected by the spell - either an ally, or an enemy that failed the save or you succeeded at the attack roll against.

This limitation is often designed to balance gameplay and prevent spellcasters from becoming too overpowered. Another form of restriction on spell effects can be found in the concept of spell components. Many spells require specific materials or components to be cast, such as a pinch of rare herbs or a vial of dragon's blood.

Targeting allies with Blood Magic

This question came up in a different thread, but since it's off-topic there, I'm posting it here.

A fey blooded sorcerer can in one turn use fairy dust then charm triggering their bloodline effect twice.

As someone playing a fey blooded sorcerer this weekend who was not aware of the potency of this power, THANK YOU for pointing it out! Wait-a-minute. Don't the blood magic effects need to target an ally or yourself? How do you [as a fey bloodline sorcerer] effect two allies [with blood magic] unless you're charming them or dusting them?

When you meet the requirements for the fey blood magic effect you do what the blood magic effect says to, “choose yourself or one target, causing them to be concealed for 1 round.” That targeting has nothing to do with the target you chose for the spell that triggered the blood magic effect.

You do make the choice before resolving the spell that allowed you the blood magic effect and you do resolve the blood magic effect after the spell resolves. If you wanted to target the same target as the charm spell that effect would not happen unless the charm succeeded.
But nothing says the target of the fey blood magic effect has to be the target of the charm or fey dust spells.

If that's the case, then what is the range of the blood magic effect?

It's not the case, if you do want to do stuff like that you're going to want do anoint ally first.

Whenever you cast a bloodline spell using Focus Points or a granted spell from your bloodline using a spell slot, you gain a blood magic effect. If the blood magic offers a choice, make it before resolving the spell. The blood magic effect occurs after resolving any checks for the spell's initial effects and, against a foe, applies only if the spell is a successful attack or the foe fails its saving throw. If the spell has an area, you must designate yourself or one target in the area when you cast the spell to be the target of the blood magic effect. All references to spell level refer to the level of the spell you cast.

This isn't entirely clear on who the valid targets of the blood magic effect are.

The way that I read this, the target of the blood magic effect can always be the Sorcerer that cast the spell. You can also cause the target to be someone who was affected by the spell - either an ally, or an enemy that failed the save or you succeeded at the attack roll against.

I don't see any way of taking this rules text to mean that you can apply blood magic effects to an unaffected ally or to an unaffected enemy.

Whenever you cast a bloodline spell using Focus Points or a granted spell from your bloodline using a spell slot, you gain a blood magic effect. If the blood magic offers a choice, make it before resolving the spell. The blood magic effect occurs after resolving any checks for the spell's initial effects and, against a foe, applies only if the spell is a successful attack or the foe fails its saving throw. If the spell has an area, you must designate yourself or one target in the area when you cast the spell to be the target of the blood magic effect. All references to spell level refer to the level of the spell you cast.

This isn't entirely clear on who the valid targets of the blood magic effect are.

The way that I read this, the target of the blood magic effect can always be the Sorcerer that cast the spell. You can also cause the target to be someone who was affected by the spell - either an ally, or an enemy that failed the save or you succeeded at the attack roll against.

I don't see any way of taking this rules text to mean that you can apply blood magic effects to an unaffected ally or to an unaffected enemy.

The fey blood effect offers the choice of you or one target. It doesn't say that choice is limited to targets affected by the spell. But if you chose a foe as the target then it has the limitation of only working if the spell doesn't fail. That limitation comes from the text you quoted.

It isn't clear about range for can be targeted like you said. Line of sight makes sense for it though.

Whenever you cast a bloodline spell using Focus Points or a granted spell from your bloodline using a spell slot, you gain a blood magic effect. If the blood magic offers a choice, make it before resolving the spell. The blood magic effect occurs after resolving any checks for the spell's initial effects and, against a foe, applies only if the spell is a successful attack or the foe fails its saving throw. If the spell has an area, you must designate yourself or one target in the area when you cast the spell to be the target of the blood magic effect. All references to spell level refer to the level of the spell you cast.

This isn't entirely clear on who the valid targets of the blood magic effect are.

The way that I read this, the target of the blood magic effect can always be the Sorcerer that cast the spell. You can also cause the target to be someone who was affected by the spell - either an ally, or an enemy that failed the save or you succeeded at the attack roll against.

I don't see any way of taking this rules text to mean that you can apply blood magic effects to an unaffected ally or to an unaffected enemy.

Reading the other bloodline effects that are offensive they have slightly different language than the fey effect. It is more clear that those ones only effect the target of the spell with the offensive option or benefit you with the other option.

Whenever you cast a bloodline spell using Focus Points or a granted spell from your bloodline using a spell slot, you gain a blood magic effect. If the blood magic offers a choice, make it before resolving the spell. The blood magic effect occurs after resolving any checks for the spell's initial effects and, against a foe, applies only if the spell is a successful attack or the foe fails its saving throw. If the spell has an area, you must designate yourself or one target in the area when you cast the spell to be the target of the blood magic effect. All references to spell level refer to the level of the spell you cast.

This isn't entirely clear on who the valid targets of the blood magic effect are.

The way that I read this, the target of the blood magic effect can always be the Sorcerer that cast the spell. You can also cause the target to be someone who was affected by the spell - either an ally, or an enemy that failed the save or you succeeded at the attack roll against.

I don't see any way of taking this rules text to mean that you can apply blood magic effects to an unaffected ally or to an unaffected enemy.

The fey blood effect offers the choice of you or one target. It doesn't say that choice is limited to targets affected by the spell. But if you chose a foe as the target then it has the limitation of only working if the spell doesn't fail. That limitation comes from the text you quoted.

It isn't clear about range for can be targeted like you said. Line of sight makes sense for it though.

Also the spells being used are not aoe as they are being used in the example. There technically is no language restricting spells with a single target.

I read Blood Magic as adding an effect to the spell. So, "target" means a target of the spell. And the RAW details what the target can be for spells that do not specify a target, such as AoE.

If Blood Magic was an ability separate from the spell, it would specify what its target is.

Also, the Too Good To Be True rule.

I read Blood Magic as adding an effect to the spell. So, "target" means a target of the spell. And the RAW details what the target can be for spells that do not specify a target, such as AoE.

If Blood Magic was an ability separate from the spell, it would specify what its target is.

Also, the Too Good To Be True rule.

I see what you mean and I would treat it that way if this was an offensive ability. What happens when you apply that thinking to it the choice given by choose yourself or one target becomes choose yourself or give your foe concealment when using the spells that triggered it. Or it means that you cast a spell that harms your ally in some way or does nothing to them and wastes a spell slot to give them concealment. This ability is supposed to provide an additional benefit when you cast a qualifying spell and the ability provides a choice. The choice becomes pick yourself or help your foe. lower your allys will and perception to conceal youreself or them. You see how the effect stops being a bonus and becomes the reason to cast the spell. Concept is lost making the blood effect the primary benefit and the cost using a spell.

That doesnt fit into the concept of casting the spell and gaining an additional benefit when you do it. There needs to be the normal benefit of casting the spell and the blood effect needs to provide additional benefit or the concept is not working right.
The exact wording technically leaves it open to work as I mentioned.
You can rule it the way you mentioned as most of the other blood line effects work well that way and have additional text that supports only working on the spells targets, but to do it for the fey bloodline effect just makes the concealment really just for the caster and the choice the ability offers becomes an illusion.

I see what you mean. Having the target of your Charm or Suggestion being concealed might be nice though.

Making any of your ally concealed as a free effect whenever you cast your blood spells sounds completely Too Good To Be True and there is nothing in the RAW that explicitly allows this.

I would not allow it at my table.

Also anoint ally is a feat where the entire purpose is to give your blood magic effects to an ally when you would, which seems kind of pointless if most of them can just target ally's regardless.

You can rule it the way you mentioned as most of the other blood line effects work well that way and have additional text that supports only working on the spells targets, but to do it for the fey bloodline effect just makes the concealment really just for the caster and the choice the ability offers becomes an illusion.

You can't say that 'target' for negative blood magic effects applies to spell's target(s) but the same 'target' for positive blood magic effects applies to anyone you want. Nope. Won't do.

This is a bit clumsily written part, but the intent is obvious: you apply these additional effects to targets of your spells, yourself or things affected by AoE. So, the default mode is you applying negative effects to targets of your harmful spells and positive effects to targets of your beneficial spells.
What the rules definitely don't prevent you from doing is applying positive effects to targets of your harmful spells and negative effects to targets of your beneficial spells. Don't know why you would do that though.

This ability is supposed to provide an additional benefit when you cast a qualifying spell and the ability provides a choice. The choice becomes pick yourself or help your foe. lower your allys will and perception to conceal youreself or them. You see how the effect stops being a bonus and becomes the reason to cast the spell. Concept is lost making the blood effect the primary benefit and the cost using a spell.

That doesnt fit into the concept of casting the spell and gaining an additional benefit when you do it.

Not all bloodline focus spells or bloodline granted spells are harmful/offensive. You might have a buff spell that you can target an ally with that allows you to bestow an additional blood magic benefit.

Let's look at the flip side instead. The Demonic Bloodline says "Either a target takes a –1 status penalty to AC for 1 round, or you gain a +1 status bonus to Intimidation checks for 1 round." If one were allowed to target anyone with their blood magic effect, then could I cast Enlarge on an ally, and then make an enemy take a -1 penalty to AC? Of course not, that makes no sense and is indeed too good to be true. If it's true for allies, it would be true for enemies, since all it says is "one target" and not "one ally/enemy".

You all are right on with the intent of that use of target. Its even made clearer when you read the Phoenix bloodline. That bloodline finally uses the wording that they always meant to use.
I hope they rethink these bloodline effects in the remaster version of the sorcerer. What i would really like to see is the skill buffs lasting longer perhaps until you use a skill action that benefits from it. So a bloodline with disguise self can use that benefit outside combat where it will work with the kinds of situations where you would want to disguise self.
Until they do something it just says target without saying of the spell. This breaks breaks down game logic like doing something unintended in a pc game and getting some glitchy play where that play is not supported in the code. Its clearly that way with your -1 ac example. Theres nothing asking you to make a check at that point.
The demonic bloodline has some issues. The demonic effect when casting your first given spell just doesn't help at all. Your casting fear another status negative to ac doesn't help, a better chance at demoralize for the round at least will help if you do it to a different target. So again theres no real choice and your next action is going to be demoralize or its the same as not having gained an effect at all.
Fey blooded rank two spell is obviously worse played with target of the spell. You go invisible often to hide, the bloodline effect is worse than redundant it actually makes you lose the ability to hide since it makes your position obvious.

This requirement serves as a restriction on spellcasters, as they must either possess these components or find a way to acquire them in order to cast the spell. This limitation adds an element of resource management to spellcasting and can create interesting challenges for the player. In some cases, restricted spell effects may be imposed by the spellcaster's own abilities or limitations. For example, a novice wizard may only be able to cast simple spells or have a limited number of spells they can learn. As they gain experience and level up, they may unlock more powerful spells or be able to cast a wider range of spells. This progression serves to reflect the character's growth and development as a spellcaster. Restrictions on spell effects can also be imposed by external sources, such as magical artifacts or enchantments. For example, a magical staff may grant the spellcaster the ability to cast a specific spell, but only once per day. This limitation forces the spellcaster to carefully consider when and how to use their limited spellcasting ability, adding a strategic element to gameplay. In summary, restricted spell effects refer to the limitations and restrictions placed on spellcasters' magical abilities. These restrictions may be imposed by factors such as spell slots, spell components, the spellcaster's abilities, or external sources. These limitations serve to balance gameplay, add strategic elements, and reflect the growth and development of the spellcaster..

Reviews for "The Art of Controlling Restricted Spell Effects"

1. John - ★★☆☆☆

I was really disappointed with the "Restricted spell effects" in this game. It felt like a major hindrance to the gameplay experience. The limitations on spell effects made the game feel less immersive and restricted my ability to fully enjoy the magic system. It just didn't feel as powerful or satisfying as it could have been.

2. Sarah - ★☆☆☆☆

I found the "Restricted spell effects" in this game to be incredibly frustrating. It felt like the developers were trying to limit the players' creativity and freedom in using magic. I expected a game with expansive spellcasting abilities, but instead, I was constantly faced with restrictions and limitations. It took away from the overall enjoyment of the game and left me feeling frustrated and unsatisfied.

3. Alex - ★★☆☆☆

The "Restricted spell effects" in this game were a major letdown for me. I was looking forward to diving into a world of magical possibilities, but instead, I was constantly faced with limitations on what spells I could cast. It made the gameplay feel repetitive and predictable, as I was forced to use the same few spells over and over again. I wanted more variety and freedom, and unfortunately, this game did not deliver on that front.

4. Emily - ★☆☆☆☆

The "Restricted spell effects" in this game were a major disappointment. I was expecting a game with a wide range of magical abilities to choose from, but instead, I found myself constantly hindered by restrictions. It completely took away from the immersive experience and left me feeling unsatisfied. I would have loved to see more freedom and creativity in the spellcasting mechanics, but unfortunately, this game fell short in that regard.

5. Michael - ★★☆☆☆

The "Restricted spell effects" in this game really brought down the overall enjoyment for me. I felt like I was constantly being limited in what spells I could cast and how I could use magic. It made the gameplay feel repetitive and took away from the excitement and variety that I was hoping for. I would have liked to see more freedom and flexibility in the spellcasting mechanics, but unfortunately, this game fell short in that aspect.

Harnessing the Power of Forbidden Spells: Understanding Restricted Spell Effects