Wild Magic Barb Magic Awareness feature. Huh?

[Kurt Kurageous]

"When you choose this path at 3rd level, as an action, you can open your awareness to the presence of concentrated magic. Until the end of your next turn, you know the location of any spell or magic item within 60 feet of you that isn’t behind total cover. When you sense a spell, you learn which school of magic it belongs to."

What makes me huh is "the location of any spell" part.

1. Does this mean it only detects spells that manifest in a specific location? This would include spells that have a manifestation like Minor Illusion or triggered manifestation like Magic Mouth or Glyph of Warding.

2. Or does it also detect the effects of a spell or magic effect? Would the barbarian know a person is under the influence of a charm, Nystul's Magic Aura, etc.?

3. Is this a one round duration equivalent of casting Detect Magic? Or something more?

I allowed #2 while DMing due to my ignorance and because it helped with the ominous tone of the scene.

[Unoriginal]

"When you choose this path at 3rd level, as an action, you can open your awareness to the presence of concentrated magic. Until the end of your next turn, you know the location of any spell or magic item within 60 feet of you that isn’t behind total cover. When you sense a spell, you learn which school of magic it belongs to."

What makes me huh is "the location of any spell" part.

1. Does this mean it only detects spells that manifest in a specific location? This would include spells that have a manifestation like Minor Illusion or triggered manifestation like Magic Mouth or Glyph of Warding.

2. Or does it also detect the effects of a spell or magic effect? Would the barbarian know a person is under the influence of a charm, Nystul's Magic Aura, etc.?

3. Is this a one round duration equivalent of casting Detect Magic? Or something more?

I allowed #2 while DMing due to my ignorance and because it helped with the ominous tone of the scene.


My interpretation:

The Barbarian would feel any ongoing magic effect due to a spell, but they wouldn't be able to identify what spell is used, just the school.

Nystul's Magic Aura is a bit of a special case, because it can conceal itself from such detections. The Barbarian would feel there is a spell of the Enchantment School on the person if said person is under the effect of Charm Person, though.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Thank you for the reply. How you interpreted the charm is exactly the way I ran with it, and after calling it an "enchantment," it had the effect I intended.

[Chronos]

So far as I know, every spell has a location. If it affects a target, it's the location of the target. So if there's someone within 60' of the barbarian under a Charm Person spell, then the barbarian would learn that there's an enchantment spell at that person's location.

[JLandan]

I regard this as the same effect as a Detect Magic spell, without casting a spell, which the Barbarian wouldn't be able to do while raging. This way, raging doesn't prevent its use.

[Speely]

I love the idea of using this as an olfactory kind of sense. Flavoring (heh) different schools of magic as different magical scents. Call it Scents Magic for the cheese, even.

Brings it into the rawer, more instinctive nature of Barb abilities.

[Foolwise]

Take it further and make the scent of each magic school the smell/taste of a different cheese.

Abjuration- A hard cheese, Romano.
Conjuration- String cheese, perhaps.
Divination- A hol(e)y cheese, Emmental.
Enchantment- A silky cheese, Mascarpone.
Evocation- Tried and true, Cheddar.
Illusion- American, ha!
Necromancy- Limburger, obvious.
Transmutation- Colby Jack, for sure.