Is Careful Spell great again? (concerning JC tweets/rulings)

[bendking]

Until not long ago, Sage Advice rulings on Tweeter were official. Now, they're not (https://media.wizards.com/2019/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf).
The ruling about Careful Spell by JC is not included in the Compendium, and from this we can infer one of two things:
1. JC forgot about this tweet (unlikely).
2. He intentionally didn't put it in the compendium.

Does this mean Careful Spell now affects rolls made after the turn its cast? In other words, is Careful Spell great again?
To illustrate, it can now use Web, Stinking Cloud, and even Sickening Radiance!

Thoughts?

[firelistener]

My guess is that it was forgotten or left out because they didn't want to take a hard stance on as many things. I like how they distinguish "RAF" (Rules As Fun) in there. In my game, I'd personally rule that spells like Web would only have the first initial save apply with Careful Spell like in the tweet. My players just usually don't need any help wiping the floor with higher CR encounters.

[Keravath]

RAW - careful spell says the following:

"CAREFUL SPELL
When you cast a spell that forces other creatures to make a saving throw, you can protect some of those creatures from the spell's full force. To do so, you spend 1 sorcery point and choose a number of those creatures up to your Charisma modifier (minimum of one creature). A chosen creature automatically succeeds on its saving throw against the spell."

The ability doesn't give any turn limitation as written. It allows the creature to automatically succeed on its save against the spell and doesn't directly indicate how many of those there might be (though someone could argue the use of singular vs plural).

The creature will automatically succeed on its saving throw. However, unlike other similar abilities like the wizard sculpt spell, it does not indicate that creatures would take no damage if they make the save so in the case of careful spell they would just always take half if the spell does damage.

Also, keep in mind that if the spell doesn't have a save then the creature will still take damage (e.g. Wall of Fire on subsequent turns).

Anyway, in terms of RAW, since only published Sage Advice clarifies RAW, the tweets are only relevant if you want to get an idea of what JC would do in his game or what might be considered RAI.

[Chronos]

It looks to me like you need to designate the creatures when you cast the spell, but that once you designate them, it doesn't matter when the save(s) are rolled.

[Dalebert]

If we're talking strict RAW, I feel like the key words are here:



CAREFUL SPELL
When you cast a spell...

The implication is only a save made at casting applies. That said, I think it's a horrible metamagic without continuing to apply.

[TheUser]

"When's lunch?"
"At 12:15."

Does that mean that lunch only occurs at the split second 12:15 occurs?

No.

The RAW dictates when you pick targets and when they are protected but not when the feature stops.


If you went 100% RAW the metamagic is actually useless:

When you cast a spell that forces other creatures to make a saving throw, you can protect some of those creatures from the spell’s full force. To do so, you spend 1 sorcery point and choose a number of those creatures up to your Charisma modifier (minimum of one creature). A chosen creature automatically succeeds on its saving throw against the spell.

Many spells force creatures to make multiple saving throws which is more than "a saving throw" making those spells technically incompatible with Careful Spell.


I'm still gobsmacked these clowns have been writing rulebooks for decades now and can't get their act together.

(Only Hypnotic Pattern and Wall of Fire would be left btw)
Clearly the RAW is borked.

JC tweet doesn't even make sense because his interpretation of "when" in game time is acknowledging that a turn occupies a different time frame from other creatures. Which we know to be untrue; a game round is 6 seconds no matter how many creatures take turns.

Make it work how you want it to, but I advise you make it as open as possible; sorcerers would never take a metamagic that works with 2 spells.