The roadmap for 2025 in Dungeons & Dragons was just expanded on by Wizards of the Coast, and with it came the exciting announcement that something new was coming. When players saw what it was, they got excited about the possibilities of OP changes to the game. It’s an exciting update and one that hasn’t been seen in the game officially for quite some time.
The new books coming for D&D in 2025 are something to be fairly excited about. There are a lot of them, and many of them are freshening the game with new things that are not just updates to previously existing classes. There are a lot of new things coming down the pipeline, and time will tell just how valuable and powerful they will end up being. One of them in particular could make players more OP than the DM might want.
The Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide Adds Circle Casting
A New Mechanic With Unknown But Intriguing Possibilities
Circle Casting is a new mechanic coming in the Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide, which was revealed during the Roadmap Press Release. From what is known so far, Circle Casting is a way for spellcasters to use a ritual to amplify some spells and potentially give regular spells different effects. Unfortunately, we don’t know the specifics just yet.
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One of the designers for the game, Jeremy Crawford, said that this mechanic would not break the game, but that doesn’t mean that players won’t find a way to abuse it. From what Crawford said, the mechanic will involve ways to make spells have more permanent effects, be empowered, or have specific rules for changing that spell.
While players do not yet know specifics, the idea of this is quite tasty. Being able to use a ritual to make a short-term spell last for a long amount of time is alone quite intriguing. It is a fresh mechanic that players will have to familiarize themselves with when the Player’s Guide is published, but for now, there are a few things they can look to to get an idea of what it is.
Circle Casting Is New To The Game, But Not D&D Lore
This Isn’t The First Time This Game-Breaking Ritual Appeared
Circle Casting can be traced at least back as far as 2001, when it appeared in the Forgotten Realm Campain Setting. This book introduced the concept as a way of heightening magical abilities beyond what could be done in a normal spell. Even at that point it was a ritual, and one that took over an hour to complete at that.
Additionally, in the Dungeon Master’s Guide v.3.5, players learned that Circle Casting has resulted in some of the most spectacular uses of the arcane, making it something extremely tempting to want to try. Half the fun of an RPG is finding a way to break the game, and something this powerful is bound to attract that kind of attention.
From what was known in the 3e Setting, Circle Casting was a ritual that would last an hour, with multiple participants needed. This could increase the amount of potency the leader of the ritual could cast with, or change the metamagic of a certain spell much like with sorcery points in D&D. For most of these, the effects would last 24 hours.
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While it was never put in a player’s handbook up until the future release, the aforementioned Dungeon Master’s Guide did give players rules on how to use it if they wanted. That is because it gave the Red Wizard of Thay, one of the NPCs, a way to do it. In future books, other characters could do it as well. In that previous version, the caster could give themselves a boost to a small number of spells with metamagic-like effects, or boost themselves up to a much higher level (lvl 20 or higher).
If players did choose to use it, that could make them overwhelmingly powerful and not able to be challenged in the same way anymore. NPCs who could use it would be virtually unstoppable, depending on what they wanted to do. It was a bit problematic with the way it worked at the time, although Crawford promised it wouldn’t be broken in the same way it previously was.
How Circle Casting Could Be A Game-Changer
Broken But In A Different Way Than Most People Might Consider
Even if it is not printed so that any spellcaster could suddenly start slinging spells at Level 40, the power to change a spell can still be broken. Even in a normal game with a regular Sorcerer, metamagic can make something that normally does 5 points of damage due 3x that in a single turn, nullifying an enemy quite quickly. But that mainly has to do with combat, which is not where the potential power of Circle Casting might actually lay.
Yes, being able to do an incredible amount of damage or cast overpowered spells in combat is going to be good, no matter how OP or not the Circle Casting ends up being. A change to the regular combat system will make it feel more fresh, but players have found ways to break D&D combat with OP builds for a very long time. Doing an incredible amount of damage is just one example of its use.
But the real potential game-changer is in the spells that players could now work outside of combat. Think about a transmutation spell that could change how a character looks or moves for a day or more. Or being able to cast something like Friends and have it last for a day, allowing players to control someone for a much longer time. Creatures under a spell will be so for a much longer amount of time, allowing players to turn into the brawny Snow White from Shrek.
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A Zone of Truth that can last for a long time, illusions that can last as long as players need them to, an empowered Calm Emotions that makes the party’s enemies sit down and think about their lives for more than a minute? Locating objects that can’t be found in the normal amount of 10 minutes? A long amount of time where the players are invisible or are within a Pass Without Trace? The true power of Circle Casting can lie outside of combat, where its unique abilities could change how players interact with the world around them.
While we all have to wait and see just what happens and how Circle Casting is going to be managed by the Player’s Guide, it seems like it is going to be a game-changer no matter what. Whether players prefer a lot of combat or mostly just love to play a theater of the mind, they should look forward to seeing just how they too can abuse Circle Casting in Dungeons & Dragons later this year.
Dungeons and Dragons
- Original Release Date
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1974
- Publisher
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TSR Inc., Wizards of the Coast
- Designer
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E. Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson
