What can a wizard do with a Ring of Spell Storing?

[Chronos]

Assume that we have a high-level wizard, and that he has both a Ring of Spell Storing, and that he has access to other sorts of spellcasters in downtime to load the ring with whatever spells he wants. What neat tricks can he pull?

The first thing that comes to mind is that it opens up a lot of other possibilities for Contingency. It'd be really great if he could do a Contingent Heal, but unfortunately the ring only goes up to 5th level. Are there any better options than a Cure Wounds for 5d8+5?

Spells with a duration much longer than a day are also a possibility. Are there any good options there?

And then, of course, a wizard could also cast spells from it in combat. This wouldn't have as much impact as it could, of course, because a wizard already has lots of good spells to choose from. But it could still be a neat surprise, "Wait, how is he casting that?". What are some good options here?

[Bobthewizard]

The best option is for them to give it to a minion so they could cast two concentration spells at once. I like wall of force with sickening radiance. Or have the minion concentrate on greater invisibility on the wizard.

If you are just going for surprise, make it a classic spell. Any wizard casting spirit guardians will surprise the party. A conjuration wizard using conjure animals would be great.

[JackPhoenix]

The most basic trick is giving everyone in the party a familiar.

You can (assuming the GM rules favorably on the timing issues) allow someone to Summon Greater Demon (or other relevant summons that require concentration, including the options from Trasha that can't be found otherwise) for you to bind.

[lukethecat2003]

Optimally, its probably better just to give shield to a martial, but you obviously can get creative, its just worse for the most part. I think in general this is not meant for a wizard, as a wizard already uses its concentration, and has fantastic spells besides. I will say that cure wounds is def not the route, as healing word is better for the ring, as range + bonus action casting is fantastic for getting up allies from a range.

Now a monk or fighter or rogue or ranger, they could possibly use their concentration on a bless spell, of which would be a great usage of the ring, as they can use it 5 times throughout a day. Otherwise, sanctuary and spiritual weapon are great cleric spells, both without concentration, and the latter using BA which is scarcely used. The only downside is how spiritual weapon isn't too good on a higher lvl wizard because it cant scale.

As has been said before, give your party all familiars, but also, if you can prepare, get a find steed on it. Find steed is a great spell, and I think it would be a great spell to store.

If we're talking about a low lvl wizard without a cleric on the team, get at least 2 blesses, and a couple healing words.

[kingcheesepants]

A ring of spell storing is best used on spells that you normally would want to cast but can't. That may be because they aren't in your spell list (giving everyone a familiar and a paladin steed is one great use of the ring, and of course a stored revivify or some backup healing is nice), or maybe you can't cast it because it uses up concentration (giving a martial access to wall of force or letting them haste or fly themselves is extremely useful), or maybe you can't cast it because the casting time is too long (private sanctum has an extremely useful teleport blocking effect but you can't use the spell in combat since the casting time is ten minutes).
Basically just ask yourself what spells could the party benefit most from but we can't normally cast for whatever reason. Would you benefit most from the paladin being able to haste themselves? The wizard being able to revivify the cleric if he goes down? Being able to stop some annoying enemy from teleporting all over the place? The great thing about the ring is that you can change the spells stored inside to match the needs of the group, so feel free to experiment.

[Chronos]

In my case, I'm the DM. I want to give it to the party because I want to see what creative uses they'll come up with for it, and I wouldn't spoil their fun by offering advice. But I don't like just plunking a treasure chest in a room with magic items in it-- The way I'm giving it to the party is by putting it on a villain they're going to defeat. And so of course the villain will be using it. And this particular villain happens to be an archmage. So I want to figure out how an archmage would use a ring of spell storing.

So now I just need to decide whether it's more fun to have the wizard surprise the party by casting a non-wizard spell, or to have one of the wizard's minions cast a wizard spell.

Oh, and I definitely wouldn't be spending an action on Cure Wounds-- Blowing a turn to heal less damage than the party would deal in a round is a losing move. The idea with that was to cast a Contingency "When I'm under half my maximum health, cast Cure Wounds on myself". No action required that way-- The party just suddenly sees some of the villains' wounds close up, with no explanation why. Mechanically, the effect would be the same as just giving the villain 30ish extra HP.

[stoutstien]

In my case, I'm the DM. I want to give it to the party because I want to see what creative uses they'll come up with for it, and I wouldn't spoil their fun by offering advice. But I don't like just plunking a treasure chest in a room with magic items in it-- The way I'm giving it to the party is by putting it on a villain they're going to defeat. And so of course the villain will be using it. And this particular villain happens to be an archmage. So I want to figure out how an archmage would use a ring of spell storing.

So now I just need to decide whether it's more fun to have the wizard surprise the party by casting a non-wizard spell, or to have one of the wizard's minions cast a wizard spell.

Oh, and I definitely wouldn't be spending an action on Cure Wounds-- Blowing a turn to heal less damage than the party would deal in a round is a losing move. The idea with that was to cast a Contingency "When I'm under half my maximum health, cast Cure Wounds on myself". No action required that way-- The party just suddenly sees some of the villains' wounds close up, with no explanation why. Mechanically, the effect would be the same as just giving the villain 30ish extra HP.

An Invisible familiar or minion dropping a counter spell would be a nice surprise and still has few MM to toss out to annoy the party.

[Bobthewizard]

...or maybe you can't cast it because the casting time is too long (private sanctum has an extremely useful teleport blocking effect but you can't use the spell in combat since the casting time is ten minutes).

I don't think it changes the casting time. The chronurgy wizard's Arcane Abeyance allows the new caster to cast it as an action but the ring of spell storing just says they can cast it, not they can use an action to cast it.

I wouldn't just heal the wizard, let it do something flashy for the wizard, so the players can see it. If you want healing, a mass cure wounds to bring back 6 NPC mooks the party has already downed would be more dramatic.

[Eldariel]

It bypasses Counterspell obviously, which is pretty big. Also, yeah, outsourced Concentration. Aside from that, getting Greater Find Steed before Wish is nice as is getting access to Conjure Woodland Beings (given appropriate casters).

[ProsecutorGodot]

Just to comment on the contingency example, I don't think you can use Contingency with a Ring of Spell Storing, part of casting the contingent spell is to expend a spell slot during casting, which you don't do through the rings casting.

[kingcheesepants]

I don't think it changes the casting time. The chronurgy wizard's Arcane Abeyance allows the new caster to cast it as an action but the ring of spell storing just says they can cast it, not they can use an action to cast it.


You're correct that the wording on the ring doesn't say anything about changing the casting time, I had always imagined however that the spell is held in a similar manner to the chornurgy wizard in that the casting is completed and thus it can be popped out already done. I've seen it ruled that way both as a player and DM so it seems like a reasonable interpretation. Though of course it can reasonably be interpreted otherwise as well.

Also to the OP don't put counterspell in there (especially not given to an invisible enemy) unless you really love frustrating your casters. Counterspell is annoying enough to deal with without surprise martial or invisible counterspellers being thrown into the mix.

[BerzerkerUnit]

You're correct that the wording on the ring doesn't say anything about changing the casting time, I had always imagined however that the spell is held in a similar manner to the chornurgy wizard in that the casting is completed and thus it can be popped out already done. I've seen it ruled that way both as a player and DM so it seems like a reasonable interpretation. Though of course it can reasonably be interpreted otherwise as well.

Also to the OP don't put counterspell in there (especially not given to an invisible enemy) unless you really love frustrating your casters. Counterspell is annoying enough to deal with without surprise martial or invisible counterspellers being thrown into the mix.

You cast the spell into the ring, unleashing the spell is not a cast a spell action, it’s a use magic item action. Casting the spell from the ring does not require an additional set of expensive components, I can’t imagine why you’d think it needs another minute or 10 minutes or 12 hours of chanting.

[JackPhoenix]

You cast the spell into the ring, unleashing the spell is not a cast a spell action, it’s a use magic item action. Casting the spell from the ring does not require an additional set of expensive components, I can’t imagine why you’d think it needs another minute or 10 minutes or 12 hours of chanting.

Propably because the rules explicitly say you do: "Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item, often by expending charges from it. 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. Certain items make exceptions to these rules, changing the casting time, duration, or other parts of a spell."