Glitterdust phrasing


Rules Questions


Hello, I'm comparing the spells pyrotechnics and glitterdust. Pyrotechnics reads "This effect causes creatures within 120 feet of the fire source to become blinded for 1d4+1 rounds (Will negates)." which I understand to mean when the spell hits you - you make the save, since the line "will negates" is included. Now in contrast glitterdust reads "A cloud of golden particles covers everyone and everything in the area, causing creatures to become blinded and visibly outlining invisible things for the duration of the spell." ... "Each round at the end of their turn blinded creatures may attempt new saving throws to end the blindness effect.". This contrast in wording to me would indicate that when a creature is hit they're automatically blinded and only get to save at the end of their turn which seems quite absurd. Is there some officail ruling on this? Am I missing something? Thank you in advance.


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Just like with pyrotechnics, glitter dust says will negates. So, when the spell it cast you immediately get a will save to avoid the blindness effect.

If a creature fails to save against pyrotechnics then they are blinded for the given duration.

If a creature fails to save against glitterdust each round they get to make another saving throw to end the blindness effect early. Otherwise they are blinded for the duration of the spell.


^---- Yep.

If you're a level 10 Wizard and you have both Glitterdust and Pyrotechnics, Pyrotechnics would be 800ft-range 120ft-radius Blind that lasts 1d4+1 rounds with a single Will Save to negate, and Glitterdust would be 200ft-range 10ft-radius Blind and an Invisibility/Stealth-hampering effect that lasts 10 rounds with an Initial Will Save (to resist the Blindness only) and additional Will Saves that occur at the end of their turn every round.


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For spells that save every round, my group has everyone save when the spell is cast. Among those who fail, we don't give a save at that characters next action, with the rationale that the character should be affected for at least 1 round. After that round, the character saves each round on his action.* Is that correct, is that how others do it?

*Technically, I think everyone should save on the action of the caster of the spell, but that's harder to remember.


drsparnum wrote:

For spells that save every round, my group has everyone save when the spell is cast. Among those who fail, we don't give a save at that characters next action, with the rationale that the character should be affected for at least 1 round. After that round, the character saves each round on his action.* Is that correct, is that how others do it?

*Technically, I think everyone should save on the action of the caster of the spell, but that's harder to remember.

In the case of the glitter dust spell this is effectively what happens. The spell states that a blinded creature must make a save at the end of their turn. So, any creature that fails it's initial save doesn't get a chance to end the blindness effect until it's taken it's turn. If it makes it's save at the end of it's turn it would then start to threaten the area around it as normal, but otherwise doesn't get to do anything without being blinded until it's next turn.

The problem comes with spells that allow an initial save and state that you make a save at the start of your turn to end the effect early. The creature effectively gets 2 saves right away to avoid the effect and if the creature goes immediately after the caster it means that there's a chance they will break the effect early before any enemies had an opportunity to take advantage of it's initial failed saving throw.

Some spells are written in such a way as to prevent this. For example litany of madness states that there is no save, see text. The text then explains that the creature gets a save at the start of each of it's turns to end the effect. So, in this way the creature doesn't get it's initial save against the spell until the beginning of its own turn. Greater Command on the other hand states that you get a save at the start of your turn to end the effect early, but only after the initial action. So you get a save immediately when it's cast on you but you don't get a chance to shrug it off early until after it forced you to take an action.

So, certainly the general intention seems to be that if you fail a save against a spell then your next turn should be effected. So, it seems reasonable to house rule spells that would otherwise allow two saves before you've had a chance for your turn to be affected by the spell.

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