D&D 5E Careful Spell - Ongoing Spells

[marsupial_riot]

i was wondering how people have approached the metamagic sorcerer ability called careful spell.

when it comes to an instantaneous effect like a fireball, i think careful spell is pretty cut and dry.

however with something like web or stinking cloud where the effects linger or you might not even make a save when the spell is initially cast, do careful spell targets just get auto-success on saves vs these spells as long as they last? not to mention you could name a creature that you cannot even see or that is not even within the area of effect.

perhaps this is a problem with RAI vs RAW. just looking for some insight if any are willing to share.

thanks.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Good question. I would suggest that the spells you identify can be made "careful" to save individuals in the initial area of effect of the spell (so you could excuse allies from the save of stinking cloud or web) but after the initial effect, they would have to make saves as normal.

Careful spell allows you to shape effects when characters are "forced" to make a save. By casting a spell on top of allies, you are forcing them; and so they may be carefully excluded. After that initial turn, however, if the character chooses to remain in the effect or chooses to enter it, they are not "forced to make a save", and so are not excluded.

 

[MerricB]

i was wondering how people have approached the metamagic sorcerer ability called careful spell.

when it comes to an instantaneous effect like a fireball, i think careful spell is pretty cut and dry.

however with something like web or stinking cloud where the effects linger or you might not even make a save when the spell is initially cast, do careful spell targets just get auto-success on saves vs these spells as long as they last? not to mention you could name a creature that you cannot even see or that is not even within the area of effect.

The wording of the ability indicates to me that it only works on spells that *immediately* require a saving throw, rather than having one occur later in their duration. Thus, you cannot use it with web nor stinking cloud, which have a delayed saving throw.

If a spell required a saving throw when cast and then an ongoing one (start of turn, end of turn, etc.) only the initial saving throw would be affected.

Cheers!