A Primer on Spell Casting in the new Dungeons & Dragons

The new Basic Dungeons & Dragons PDF is now available, as you probably
know. It contains the new procedures for spell casting in D&D, which have a few
differences from earlier forms of the game. What hasnt changed is who can cast
spells: Fighters and Thieves cant, Clerics and Wizards can.

The Basics: Prepared Spells and Slots

Each caster prepares a number of spells at the beginning of the day. The number
of spells prepared is equal to their Level plus their Spellcasting Ability Modifier. A
caster also has a number of spell slots, determined by their class and level. When
a character casts a spell, they expend one slot to power one spell of its level or
lower. The list of prepared spells does not change if you had prepared magic
missile, it is still prepared. However, the number of slots you have to cast spells in
has been reduced for today.
In addition, if the slot you used was of a higher level than the spell you cast, your
spell may have additional effects. For instance, magic missile creates 3 missiles.
However, if you were to use a 3rd level slot, it would produce 5 missiles.
The effect of this is to give casters a lot of freedom as to what they do: their spell
selection can be quite wide, but they can choose any of those spells to actually
cast and cast repeatedly depending on the situation. For players of 3E, clerics
and wizards now work a lot like the sorcerers of 3E, but sorcerers who could redo
their spells known every day! It is, by a fair margin, the most versatile spell-
casting system that D&D has had. (Officially, at least).

Casters also have a number of spells they can use an unlimited times per day
cantrips. These cantrips include a number of combat spells, which scale with the
level of the caster. These give casters basic attack forms in combat, even when
they dont want to use their more powerful, higher-level spells. (Their role is
similar to the At Will spells of 4E).

Casting in Combat
As Ive been examining in my articles on Initiative in earlier D&D games, one of
the major concerns of previous editions was in containing the power of spell-
casting in melee. In the early editions, if a spell-caster was struck when they were
casting a spell, the spell was spoilt. In practical terms, if a caster failed an
initiative check and was hit, theyd lose the spell. 3E, with its use of a cyclical
initiative structure, used Attacks of Opportunity to model this behaviour, with
spells being spoilt by the caster taking damage. 4E abandoned the spoiling of
spells, but still allowed Opportunity Attacks if a caster started casting a ranged
spell next to an opponent.
This is not how Basic D&D handles it. Instead, casters may happily cast spells
when adjacent to opponents without taking attacks or having their spells spoilt.
There is only one limitation: if you use a spell with a ranged attack roll when next
to an opponent, you have Disadvantage on that attack roll, the same as if you
were using a bow.

Unlike 3E, there is no concept of ranged attack spells ignoring armour and
working against a touch AC: you still try to hit their unmodified armour class.
However, as you use your proficiency modifier + spell-casting attribute modifier to
make the attack, youll be as effective with that as a fighter or rogue would be.

Resisting Spell Effects

Offensive spells generally allow either a saving throw to avoid the effect or are
attack spells (attack roll vs AC) as mentioned above. For a character or monster
to successfully save against a spell, they must roll equal to or higher than the
Difficulty Class of the spell, which is equal to 8 + proficiency modifier + attribute
modifier. In general, this means that any spell a player is going to be casting will
have a DC from between 13 and 19. Unlike 3E, spell level is not consulted in the
setting of those target numbers. And unlike 1E and 2E, the DC goes up with your
caster level; in AD&D, the higher level the target, the less likely the spell would
have full effect, and there was no reference to the casters effectiveness at
casting the spell.

Saving throws, in theory, could draw on any of the six attributes, but most likely
link to Constitution, Wisdom or Dexterity. A character either uses their unmodified
ability score modifier, or, if it is one of the two attributes theyre good with, they
add their proficiency modifier. This means that at first level, a character will likely
have saving throw modifiers of -1 to +6, whilst at twentieth level, the modifiers will
be -1 to +11.
When these are compared to the potential DCs, it becomes quite apparent that
youre going to have a lot of trouble resisting effects in anything but your primary
ability scores.

Concentration
Another big change to how spells work is concentration: significant spells with
duration effects require you to concentrate on them. Concentration can be broken
by you taking damage, although you get a Constitution saving throw to avoid
losing Concentration. It is also broken by you being incapacitated or if you die.

You can only concentrate on one thing at a time. You may happily cast other
spells, but the moment you cast another concentration spell, the spell you were
concentrating on will end. Most of the buff spells are concentration spells, as are
spells like Hold Person.
What else uses concentration? Spending more time than 1 action casting spells!
When you ready a spell, it takes longer than an action, so this rule then applies.
There are also spells like Dream, which takes 1 minute to cast.
This is a fascinating rule, and one that will likely take a bit to understand all of its
ramifications.

Components
D&D has also gone back to the idea of spells having components: Verbal,
Somatic and Material, which will be new to players who only played 4E before,
but will be familiar to those who played 1E-3E. Interestingly, most material
components can be replaced by using a spell-casting implement (such as a wand
or holy symbol), although if the spell lists components that have a cost, you must
have those components to cast the spell.

The default is that components are not consumed by the spell, but a few spells
will have in the entry that they are.

Spell Acquisition
When casters prepare spells, which ones can they choose? This is a primary
difference between clerics and wizards.
Clerics get to prepare any spells on the cleric spell list. If that list grows (such as if
you move from the Basic D&D pdf to the Players Handbook!) they automatically
have access to all cleric spells there. In addition, Clerics automatically prepare
some spells based on their Domain.

Wizards, meanwhile, can only prepare spells that are in their spellbook, which will
rarely contain every spell on the Wizard spell lists! At first level, they select 6 first
level wizard spells to put in their spellbook, and they gain two extra spells (of any
level they can cast) for each level they gain. It is also possible for them to find
spells in the game and copy them into their spellbook.

Ritual Casting
Wizards and Clerics have the option of casting certain spells as rituals. A ritual
spell does not use a spell slot to cast, but it takes 10 minutes longer to cast than
normal. Ritual spells are identified by a ritual tag in the spells description.

Wizards may cast any spell they have in their spellbook as a ritual; they do not
need them prepared.

Clerics may only cast spells they have prepared as rituals.

The spells that can be cast as rituals in Basic D&D are Augury, Comprehend
Languages, Commune, Detect Magic, Divination, Identify, and Silence.
Well, those are the major highlights of the new system. You should take note of
the areas of effect (which are broader than in 4E and less beholden to a grid),
and it should also be noted that the effectiveness of the spells seem quite high,
which is balanced to some degree by spell-casters being able to cast not as
many as in 1E-3E.