Ensnaring Strike, no damage on failed save.

[Edward Crompton]

Ensnaring strike allows a Save to negate the spell. On a fail it deals no immediate damage, but subsequent turns deal damage. The damage needs to be re-rolled each turn without expending a slot, which the active duration allows.

For the save to be displayed in the initial casting it has to be in the primary effect. However for the damage to be displayed when the active duration is clicked it also has to be in the primary effect. Both being in the same effect results in the damage being automatically applied when the save is applied and failed.

Currently the Saving Throw element allows control of damage application on Successful save.

Can it have an option to control damage application on failed save?

[Edward Crompton]

Ray of Sickness deals damage on a successful hit and then causes a saving throw vs poisoned condition. The saving throw element shouldn't influence the damage dealt. If Successful and Failed save could be set to no damage it would allow the separation of the elements while in the same effect.

[Kim Mantas]

Ray of sickness sounds like a similar use case to the ice knife issue. The spell kind of does two separate things, and the save only applies to one of those things. The most intuitive way to represent that I think would be to have them in separate effects. For that to work, there needs to be a way to use one or more individual effects of a spell without consuming a spell slot each time.

For ensnaring strike, it’s easier because it has a duration, and re-applying it from the duration bubble doesn’t consume a slot, but still has the issue where it only re-casts the primary effect.

So maybe the way forward is to prompt for the choice of spell effect when clicking on a duration bubble, instead of defaulting to the primary effect, and to allow spells with multiple effects but with no duration to still create a temporary 1-turn bubble so that additional effects of the spell can be applied from it without consuming additional slots?

[Edward Crompton]

I can see how that would solve the use case.

Shouldn’t that be a standard thing? Clicking the spell consumes the slot, then clicking the duration bubble prompts for effect choice before output to chat. if only primary effect, no prompt.

could also be utilised for ensuring targeting before effect is applied.

[Edward Crompton]

Would a feature produce a duration bubble?

[Kim Mantas]

Might get annoying to add an extra click for every spell that’s cast, but I think you can probably do both: If everything was applied correctly when you first cast the spell, you can ignore the bubble; if you got it wrong and want to apply the spell to some other targets, or want to apply some alternative effects, then you have the bubble.

For feats I don’t really know. Would the bubble be for things that consume a resource to activate and then have a repeated effect thereafter? Do you have any examples to hand?

[Edward Crompton]

the first that springs to mind is

Xanathars: circle of shepherd: Spirit Totem

generates a spirit animal that has a aura with a repeating effect. Use 1/short.

[Edward Crompton]

my thought for making it standard was for consistency of use. Though I concede extra steps can be annoying, if viewed as unnecessary.

But I think allowing a break between spell choice and applying the effect would be an opportunity for the user to select targeting before applying the effect. This could reduce frustration caused by effects not being applied due to a lack of targeting. Also the gap could be used for area effect targeting.

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[Kim Mantas]

This should now be possible in 4.0.0 by using two separate effects in the spell, and then clicking the duration bubble to roll whichever effect is appropriate.