My players and I were having a discussion regarding this ruling about leaving spell slots open. The rule is clear, assuming a PC/NPC deliberately leaves slots open after a rest period. It came up when they leveled up to 7th level and the divine caster wanted to step aside to take an hour to learn his new gained spells from leveling up without taking an 8 hour rest period. The discussion was whether this was possible or not. As the GM I was leaning away from it, but I could see where one might read into it that a divine caster could do this as there were now open slots with no intention of immediately taking a long rest period to recover spells, etc. Thoughts or Opinions?
Spell Selection and Preparation: A divine spellcaster selects and prepares spells ahead of time through prayer and meditation at a particular time of day. The time required to prepare spells is the same as it is for a wizard (1 hour), as is the requirement for a relatively peaceful environment. When preparing spells for the day, a cleric can leave some of her spell slots open. Later during that day, she can repeat the preparation process as often as she likes. During these extra sessions of preparation, she can fill these unused spell slots. She cannot, however, abandon a previously prepared spell to replace it with another one or fill a slot that is empty because she has cast a spell in the meantime. Like the first session of the day, this preparation takes at least 15 minutes, and it takes longer if she prepares more than one-quarter of his spells.
Regardless, clerics still only cast x amount a day.
That wasn't his question, thanks for playing.
It says "A divine spellcaster selects and prepares spells ahead of time through prayer and meditation at a particular time of day", so I wouldn't allow the cleric to fill the new slots unless it was at that "particular time of day". At other times they can only fill those unused spell slots that they left open, nothing new. That's how I would run it as a DM.
It says "A divine spellcaster selects and prepares spells ahead of time through prayer and meditation at a particular time of day", so I wouldn't allow the cleric to fill the new slots unless it was at that "particular time of day". At other times they can only fill those unused spell slots that they left open, nothing new. That's how I would run it as a DM.
'Particular time of day' would suggest some type of daily devotional. A quick example that pops into mind is Muslims facing Mecca three times a day to pray. Maybe that's a poor example as they do that three times per day and likely to confuse the discussion. But, a daily devotional at a set, traditional, or habitual time. Most commonly one immediately thinks of when the PCs arise from rest to prepare for the adventure day.
Yes, if they were allowed to get those spells immediately then the times would be off. It would be like; "OK Paul at 8 AM. You get your first through third level spells but at 2:30 you get your fourth level spell because yesterday that's when you prayed and meditated."
This way it keeps everything on the same page.
If you wait until the next day, when Paul wakes up, he would be like oh no I got a fourth level spell slot.
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Would you allow a spontaneous caster to utilize those new spell slots before resting? Can a wizard study his spellbook and prepare spells in these new slots? Can a fighter use his new combat feat? Does the rogue get their new sneak attack damage? If these answers vary why are different classes slighted in this regard?
What happens at the moment of levelling up is kinda vague in the rules, if you want to have PCs levelling mid day (so to speak) you kinda need to make some rulings here. I tend to lean toward decisions that are even across classes, to the degree they can be.
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It used to be old strict scripture that you leveled up upon resting (even in ADnD only upon returning to some sort of base), not as soon as you killed enough to hit a ticker that your character's couldn't know about. In real life this is true enough even as well, rest lets you process and ingrain what you learned on the previous day neurologically, muscles repair themselves overnight and can grow new nervous connections, so on and so forth.
Simple solution, don't let them level up until they rest, better solution, don't award XP until they rest. If you really want to avoid annoying some old kooks, speaking from experience, don't even give xp and level up opportunity till the end of session.
"During these extra sessions of preparation, she can fill these unused spell slots."
'these unused' not ANY unused. only the slots he had when preparing his spells and intentionally left unused can be filled, not any slots he later on gained.
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Would you allow a spontaneous caster to utilize those new spell slots before resting? Can a wizard study his spellbook and prepare spells in these new slots? Can a fighter use his new combat feat? Does the rogue get their new sneak attack damage? If these answers vary why are different classes slighted in this regard?
What happens at the moment of levelling up is kinda vague in the rules, if you want to have PCs levelling mid day (so to speak) you kinda need to make some rulings here. I tend to lean toward decisions that are even across classes, to the degree they can be.
Two part answer.
1) No in general as like Awesomedog say's you don't level up on killing a goblin (for example), you level up when you rest and/or have a downtime period.
2) If you are levelling up mid-combat or encounter . . . yes, maybe (if the enemy is willing to stop trying to kill them long enough for them scribe/learn the new spells over 15 minutes+), yes, yes respectively. Again I have players level on resting though not mid encounter.
Why slight specific classes because some e.g. spontaneous caster bonus slots are just a natural progression of your spiritual/mental growth, some like fighters are you learning to dodge the hit and some like the divine caster are specified as occuring at a specific time that has spiritual and religious significance to them. The fighter figuring out he shouldn't stand in the path of a sword could happen mid-combat, the priest who prays at Dawn for new spells can't suddenly and once off decide to pray at 4:14 pm instead but only today.
A potential lore friendly way of doing it would be to say that their deity blessed them with those specific spell casts for that day… you could do this either by defining what new spells they gained for those new slots that day based on that deities domain spells, or the exceptionally generous way of just letting them prep whatever they want as usual…
But as others have stated… typically level ups happen over a period of rest or downtime to avoid these such issues…
Would you allow a spontaneous caster to utilize those new spell slots before resting? Can a wizard study his spellbook and prepare spells in these new slots? Can a fighter use his new combat feat? Does the rogue get their new sneak attack damage? If these answers vary why are different classes slighted in this regard?
What happens at the moment of levelling up is kinda vague in the rules, if you want to have PCs levelling mid day (so to speak) you kinda need to make some rulings here. I tend to lean toward decisions that are even across classes, to the degree they can be.
There is this, similar to the rules about divine caster:
When preparing spells for the day, a wizard can leave some of these spell slots open. Later during that day, he can repeat the preparation process as often as he likes, time and circumstances permitting. During these extra sessions of preparation, the wizard can fill these unused spell slots. He cannot, however, abandon a previously prepared spell to replace it with another one or fill a slot that is empty because he has cast a spell in the meantime. That sort of preparation requires a mind fresh from rest. Like the first session of the day, this preparation takes at least 15 minutes, and it takes longer if the wizard prepares more than one-quarter of his spells.
Divine spellcasters prepare their spells in largely the same manner as wizards do, but with a few differences. The relevant ability for most divine spells is Wisdom (Charisma for paladins). To prepare a divine spell, a character must have a Wisdom score (or Charisma score for paladins) of 10 + the spell's level. Likewise, bonus spells are based on Wisdom.
The blooded part specifies divine casters prepare their spells like wizards do with some exceptions. This means that unless otherwise stated a cleric follows the same rules as a wizard.
Spell Selection and Preparation: Until he prepares spells from his spellbook, the only spells a wizard has available to cast are the ones that he already had prepared from the previous day and has not yet used. During the study period, he chooses which spells to prepare. If a wizard already has spells prepared (from the previous day) that he has not cast, she can abandon some or all of them to make room for new spells.
This makes it clear that the only spells slots available are those that he has already prepared ahead of time and has not used.
Spell Selection and Preparation: A divine spellcaster selects and prepares spells ahead of time through prayer and meditation at a particular time of day. The time required to prepare spells is the same as it is for a wizard (1 hour), as is the requirement for a relatively peaceful environment. When preparing spells for the day, a cleric can leave some of her spell slots open. Later during that day, she can repeat the preparation process as often as she likes. During these extra sessions of preparation, she can fill these unused spell slots. She cannot, however, abandon a previously prepared spell to replace it with another one or fill a slot that is empty because she has cast a spell in the meantime. Like the first session of the day, this preparation takes at least 15 minutes, and it takes longer if she prepares more than one-quarter of his spells.
This specifies that leaving spell slots open is a deliberate choice that is made when preparing spells for the day. Since you leveled up after you prepared spells those spell slots where not available to you when you prepared spells for the day. That means you could not have chosen to leave them open at the time you prepared spells for the day. Since they were not left open you cannot use the time to prepare spells in them.
Spells slots you gain after preparing spells for the day are unused spell slots, not open spell slots. You can only prepare spells in open spell slots.
in my groups we only level up when we rest for the night.
This is the answer that fixes the problem - use milestone levelling and level up at the end of the days adventuring. (or the next morning if you have a nighttime encounter)
The wording is irrelevant to intent, since this appears not to be a possibility the writer anticipated.
If I, the GM, am letting people level up in the middle of the action, then it's because I think the PCs need and deserve a powerup despite not having a chance to rest. Part of that powerup is that they get to immediately fill their new spell slots with whatever spells they want.
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A character advances in level as soon as he earns enough experience points to do so—typically, this occurs at the end of a game session, when your GM hands out that session’s experience point awards.
Advancing in the middle of a fight is very videogameish.
The wording is irrelevant to intent, since this appears not to be a possibility the writer anticipated.
The text of the rule is very relevant. As a GM you can do whatever you like, but you are replying to a rule question, not to an at-my-table question.
The rule is clear: you leave empty slots when you memorize your spells for the first time in the day, and lately, you fill those empty slots.
Sure, we can do the pedantic RAW thing if you like.
"When preparing spells for the day, a wizard can leave some of these spell slots open" - it at no point says that's the only way to achieve open slots, and 'open' would be a reasonable default state for newly acquired slots (since 'full' and 'used up' are the only other states we have and neither of those make sense), but let's ignore that.
"Later during that day, he can repeat the preparation process as often as he likes, time and circumstances permitting."
So he can repeat preparing spells for the day again after levelling up, and at that point he can leave the new slots open, and then he can prepare yet again and then he can fill these open slots? That's silly, but it's RAW.
"He cannot, however, abandon a previously prepared spell to replace it with another one or fill a slot that is empty because he has cast a spell in the meantime."
So the only slots that are unavailable are ones that are empty because he has cast a spell from them. This obviously does not apply to newly acquired slots.
Etc.
"When preparing spells for the day, a wizard can leave some of these spell slots open" - it at no point says that's the only way to achieve open slots, and 'open' would be a reasonable default state for newly acquired slots (since 'full' and 'used up' are the only other states we have and neither of those make sense), but let's ignore that.
I'm not sure "open" would be the default. Or that "used up" would be the correct wording status for a spell slot. It could be "unavailable" and "unavailable" is the default state until getting proper rest. Naming spell slot status in such a way as to suppport your view does not make it a valid point :)
That said, given the status of a newly acquired spell slot is not defined by the rules, this will be a GM call.
@Matthew Downie, This is a very "old man yells at cloud" moment, except the cloud is in your head. The rules are written, you don't have to follow the rules, but then why are you asking in a rules forum if you don't care what the rules say as a baseline for whatever you will eventually decide. The RAW is RAW, that isn't in contestation. Don't like the RAW, change it, but it still very clearly says what it says.