Does Planar Binding work in 5e?

[Hicks]

So... Does the 5e Planar Binding spell just not work at all under any circumstance? Conjure (whatever) spells have a duration of concentration, up to one hour... and Planar Binding has a casting time of 1 hour, so even when you have seperate summoner and a binder:

"The creature must be within range for the entire casting of the spell. (Typically, the creature is first summoned into the center of an inverted magic circle in order to keep it trapped while this spell is cast.)"

So since the monster always has to be there first it always poofs away just before the planar binding finishes.

[saithorthepyro]

RAW, yeah, it's not possible to do it. I think the assumption that they expect people to make is that the inverted magic circle is supposed to keep them trapped for long enough for the Planar Binding to be cast, but I have no idea if there are actual rules for magic circles.

[Hicks]

Magic Circles do exist... but they have the same problem where they require an additional caster and they do not extend the duration of the Conjure (whatever) spell... so the fiendish antelope or whatever still bamfs away before the Planar Binding casting time is completed.

[Grek]

There's rules in the DMG for summoning stuff without the use of spells, but at that point you don't need planar binding because those same rules just let you flat out command the thing with its True Name/Magic Idol. Overall 5e is not very well thought out or playtested.

[Previn]

So... Does the 5e Planar Binding spell just not work at all under any circumstance? Conjure (whatever) spells have a duration of concentration, up to one hour... and Planar Binding has a casting time of 1 hour, so even when you have seperate summoner and a binder:

"The creature must be within range for the entire casting of the spell. (Typically, the creature is first summoned into the center of an inverted magic circle in order to keep it trapped while this spell is cast.)"

So since the monster always has to be there first it always poofs away just before the planar binding finishes.

Why do you assume that the duration of the spell starts when you start casting, and not when you finish casting? That seems counter-intuitive to me.

I think the rules follow more with casting a spell is not part of the duration:

Certain Spells (including Spells cast as rituals) require more time to cast: minutes or even hours. When you Cast a Spell with a Casting Time longer than a single action or Reaction, you must spend your action each turn casting the spell, and you must maintain your Concentration while you do so (see “Concentration” below). If your Concentration is broken, the spell fails, but you don’t expend a spell slot. If you want to try casting the spell again, you must start over.

[Kaelik]

So... Does the 5e Planar Binding spell just not work at all under any circumstance? Conjure (whatever) spells have a duration of concentration, up to one hour... and Planar Binding has a casting time of 1 hour, so even when you have seperate summoner and a binder:

"The creature must be within range for the entire casting of the spell. (Typically, the creature is first summoned into the center of an inverted magic circle in order to keep it trapped while this spell is cast.)"

So since the monster always has to be there first it always poofs away just before the planar binding finishes.

Why do you assume that the duration of the spell starts when you start casting, and not when you finish casting? That seems counter-intuitive to me.

I think the rules follow more with casting a spell is not part of the duration:

Certain Spells (including Spells cast as rituals) require more time to cast: minutes or even hours. When you Cast a Spell with a Casting Time longer than a single action or Reaction, you must spend your action each turn casting the spell, and you must maintain your Concentration while you do so (see “Concentration” below). If your Concentration is broken, the spell fails, but you don’t expend a spell slot. If you want to try casting the spell again, you must start over.

She isn't saying that the duration starts with casting a spell, she's saying that Planar Binding's casting time is longer than the duration of any summoning spell because you finish casting a summon and the duration starts, and then you start casting the Planar Binding, so the Summon ends one round before the Planar Binding casting finishes.

[Previn]

She isn't saying that the duration starts with casting a spell, she's saying that Planar Binding's casting time is longer than the duration of any summoning spell because you finish casting a summon and the duration starts, and then you start casting the Planar Binding, so the Summon ends one round before the Planar Binding casting finishes.

Ah, you are correct. Despite the intent clearly being allowing you to use it on summoned creatures, the rules prevent any summoned creature from ever persisting for the correct amount of time under most circumstances.

It's still possibly useable outside of summons spells since there's no requirement for the creature to be of planar origins.

[Ice9]

Doesn't seem like there's any need for Planar Binding to have such a long casting time anyway. I assume the idea is that you need to have a trapped target, you can't just cast it in combat, but a 10-minute or even one minute time would be plenty for that.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You could work around the issue by putting Planar Binding in a Glyph of Warding that triggers when a summon enters and then immediately cast the summon into a prepared trap, like a Magic Circle. Planar Binding will trigger as soon as it appears and finish casting before the summon's final turn of existence happens.

It's really sloppy design, though.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Glyph of Warding is really fantastic for buffing and utility spells in 5E. All those marginal spells that require Concentration suddenly look a lot more appealing.

Still, I hope 6E actually gives us some rules that require less mind caulk.

[ColorBlindNinja61]

So... Is Planar Binding any less broken in 5e than it is in 3.5, assuming you can get the spell to work?

[Hicks]

Nothing in the monster manual looks too crazy for binding. I mean this is bunch of dudes with bows edition and the killer app is actually cast animate objects on 20 daggers for 400 attacks.

[Grek]

So... Is Planar Binding any less broken in 5e than it is in 3.5, assuming you can get the spell to work?

5e monsters basically never do anything cool beyond 'be a big sack of hit points and attacks', so the fact that you can specifically get elementals or demons working for you instead of geased ogres or a shitload of skeletons or even just a bunch of hirelings isn't really all that exciting.

[Aharon]

Actually, the RAW wording of Planar Binding in 3.5 was no better - it is also non-functional.

[Korwin]

Actually, the RAW wording of Planar Binding in 3.5 was no better - it is also non-functional.

You need to back that up.
From what I remember, the rules where all over the book (looking at inversed magical circle) and you wanted to have high charisma.

But they where functional.

[Aharon]

Actually, the RAW wording of Planar Binding in 3.5 was no better - it is also non-functional.

You need to back that up.
From what I remember, the rules where all over the book (looking at inversed magical circle) and you wanted to have high charisma.

But they where functional.

1) The Planar Binding line requires you to target an elemental or outsider, which you can't do unless you can see (or touch) them, even if you're only calling a specific type of creature.

2) The Planar Binding spell needs to be cast within one round of casting the magic circle, but has a casting time of 10 minutes.


So RAW it works, but takes a lot of hoops (and a pretty high level) to jump through:
Cast the Magic circle
Cast a quickened dimensional anchor
cast a quickened greater plane shift
Use limited Wish or Wish to duplicate the effects of a spell of the planar binding line
Planar travel back and debuff

[Kaelik]

Actually, the RAW wording of Planar Binding in 3.5 was no better - it is also non-functional.

You need to back that up.
From what I remember, the rules where all over the book (looking at inversed magical circle) and you wanted to have high charisma.

But they where functional.

1) The Planar Binding line requires you to target an elemental or outsider, which you can't do unless you can see (or touch) them, even if you're only calling a specific type of creature.

2) The Planar Binding spell needs to be cast within one round of casting the magic circle, but has a casting time of 10 minutes.


So RAW it works, but takes a lot of hoops (and a pretty high level) to jump through:
Cast the Magic circle
Cast a quickened dimensional anchor
cast a quickened greater plane shift
Use limited Wish or Wish to duplicate the effects of a spell of the planar binding line
Planar travel back and debuff

This is not how Planar Binding works.

Planar Binding does multiple things and it says in the description what they are.

One of those things is that it calls the creature from another plane to the trap.

This is just you explicitly rejecting the specific over general rule and saying the text of the Planar Binding spell can't change the general spell rules, but it of course, can.

[Aharon]

Spells that break general rules usually do say so - for example, Nerve Skitter explicitly says that it can be cast flat-footed, unlike other immediate action spells.

The Planar binding line doesn't say so - instead, it explicitly lists a "Target:" line, which implies the targeting rules are in effect.
To avoid that, the designers could have used the same wording as for the Summoning Spell line, where there isn't any target, but an effect - this would have made the spell work as intended.

Also, even if the targeting were not a problem, the casting time problem remains.

[Kaelik]

Spells that break general rules usually do say so - for example, Nerve Skitter explicitly says that it can be cast flat-footed, unlike other immediate action spells.

The Planar binding line doesn't say so - instead, it explicitly lists a "Target:" line, which implies the targeting rules are in effect.
To avoid that, the designers could have used the same wording as for the Summoning Spell line, where there isn't any target, but an effect - this would have made the spell work as intended.

Also, even if the targeting were not a problem, the casting time problem remains.

There is literally a paragraph in the spell text that explicitly explains how it effects targets. That is the part of the spell which breaks the general rules and explains the specific rules for Planar Binding.

They couldn't have used an effect, because the spell offers a saving throw to the target of the spell and has effects on the target specifically, because it's about calling an existing creature.

The casting time is not a problem in 3.5 because you can start casting it and that's fine.

[Aharon]

Spells that break general rules usually do say so - for example, Nerve Skitter explicitly says that it can be cast flat-footed, unlike other immediate action spells.

The Planar binding line doesn't say so - instead, it explicitly lists a "Target:" line, which implies the targeting rules are in effect.
To avoid that, the designers could have used the same wording as for the Summoning Spell line, where there isn't any target, but an effect - this would have made the spell work as intended.

Also, even if the targeting were not a problem, the casting time problem remains.

There is literally a paragraph in the spell text that explicitly explains how it effects targets. That is the part of the spell which breaks the general rules and explains the specific rules for Planar Binding.

They couldn't have used an effect, because the spell offers a saving throw to the target of the spell and has effects on the target specifically, because it's about calling an existing creature.

The casting time is not a problem in 3.5 because you can start casting it and that's fine.

Could you please quote that paragraph - I'm unsure which one you're talking about?

And casting "within 1 round" is not the same as "starting casting within one round", in my opinion.

[Kaelik]

Spells that break general rules usually do say so - for example, Nerve Skitter explicitly says that it can be cast flat-footed, unlike other immediate action spells.

The Planar binding line doesn't say so - instead, it explicitly lists a "Target:" line, which implies the targeting rules are in effect.
To avoid that, the designers could have used the same wording as for the Summoning Spell line, where there isn't any target, but an effect - this would have made the spell work as intended.

Also, even if the targeting were not a problem, the casting time problem remains.

There is literally a paragraph in the spell text that explicitly explains how it effects targets. That is the part of the spell which breaks the general rules and explains the specific rules for Planar Binding.

They couldn't have used an effect, because the spell offers a saving throw to the target of the spell and has effects on the target specifically, because it's about calling an existing creature.

The casting time is not a problem in 3.5 because you can start casting it and that's fine.

Could you please quote that paragraph - I'm unsure which one you're talking about?

And casting "within 1 round" is not the same as "starting casting within one round", in my opinion.

If you are casting the spell, then you are casting the spell. You are casting the spell every round from the first to the 100th.

"Casting this spell attempts a dangerous act: to lure a creature from another plane to a specifically prepared trap, which must lie within the spell’s range. The called creature is held in the trap until it agrees to perform one service in return for its freedom."

[Aharon]

Yes, but casting it from the 1st to the 100th round means that you didn't cast it "within" one round - it's nitpicky, but we're talking about RAW, not RAI: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/wor ... sch/within

The sentence you quoted doesn't say anything about the usual targeting rules not applying, and the spell has a specific target.

To clarify my position - I agree that it's perfectly clear what the spell is intended to do - pure RAW, it only works if you jump through hoops, though.
I think this is similar to the 5e version, which also has a pretty clear intent, but the exact wording means it doesn't work...

[Kaelik]

Yes, but casting it from the 1st to the 100th round means that you didn't cast it "within" one round - it's nitpicky, but we're talking about RAW, not RAI: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/wor ... sch/within

Yes, you did cast it within 1 round. You cast it the next round. That you also cast it a bunch of other rounds that aren't relevant doesn't mean you didn't cast it within.

The sentence you quoted doesn't say anything about the usual targeting rules not applying, and the spell has a specific target.

Yes it does! It says that you lure the creature from another plane, that is the spell telling you that you can target creatures that you don't have line of effect to.

You can't say "Ah, but it can't do the thing it says the spell does, because it doesn't say in the spell that it does that!" It does say in the spell that it does that!

[Aharon]

I'm not a native speaker, so I may assume more rigidity then is actually there. Can you show me one other instance in the english language where the word within is used as you describe - something that just starts within a certain time frame - without using the words "begins, starts" (or other synonyms) as verbs?

-> Targetting: Similar question - are there any other instances where spells have a target but imply they don't adhere to the targeting rules?
Because the spell can still do what it says it does - you just need to jump through a few hoops to actually do the targeting.

[Whatever]

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/discernLocation.htm

Plenty of Divination spells target someone you explicitly don't have LoS/LoE to. That's the whole point.