Level
6th
Casting Time
1 Minute
Range/Area
Self
Components
V, S, M *
Duration
Concentration
1 Day
School
Divination
Attack/Save
None
Damage/Effect
Detection
This spell allows you to find the shortest, most direct physical route to a specific fixed location that you are familiar with on the same plane of existence. If you name a destination on another plane of existence, a destination that moves (such as a mobile fortress), or a destination that isn't specific (such as "a green dragon's lair"), the spell fails.
For the duration, as long as you are on the same plane of existence as the destination, you know how far it is and in what direction it lies. While you are traveling there, whenever you are presented with a choice of paths along the way, you automatically determine which path is the shortest and most direct route (but not necessarily the safest route) to the destination.
* - (a set of divinatory tools--such as bones, ivory sticks, cards, teeth, or carved runes--worth 100 gp and an object from the location you wish to find)
This spell should probably be instantaneous in duration, and simply give the caster the knowledge of the distance and the shortest route to the location. Or maybe even further improved.
It's a sixth level spell that spends most of the text explaining how it can't be used: it's just not worth a sixth level spell slot.
How does making this spell instantaneous improve it? By having a duration of 1 day, the caster is has continual knowledge as to the path to the desired location. Whereas, if the spell were instantaneous, the caster would obtain that knowledge only once at the time of casting. That information could become stale as further traveling ensued and wouldn't be useful whenever you are presented with a choice of paths along the way. If anything, the material component of an object from the location you wish to find should be relaxed or removed to make it easier to find locations to which the caster has never been.
Additionally, there is only one sentence in the description that describes how the spell can't be used. And if the caster selected the School of Divination for their Arcane Tradition, the spell becomes almost free in that they would get a 5th level spell slot back after casting this 6th level divination spell.
Well, it's a concentration spell, so if you get into combat on the way to the destination, you might lose it in a variety of ways. For a 6th level spell, it's kind of a waste, unless you only need to divine a relatively short path.
I suppose if it were a 3rd or 4th level, it might be more worthwhile, but 6th..? My opinion is, not so much.
I do not understand the use of this spell.
I feel it is a waste of a high level preparation.
If you have to already know the place you are trying to get to, then wouldn't you already know the best route to get to that place?
Seems like this should either be lower level, or have a better use as in trying to find the path to a place you have NOT been before.
I think this spell could have a lot of story telling potential, but needing "an object from the location you wish to find" and to require "a specific fixed location that you are familiar with" to just cast the spell REALLY dials down it's usefulness. If you have an object from the place and you know the place, then you've probably been to the place. And at that point you should probably, at least vaguely, know how to travel back there. This just seems like a spell that is too niche for it's own good.
This spell is great for two things... when you're lost, and don't have proficiency with Navigator's tools (+ the tools), such as on the high sea, in the underdark, in a forest, woke up in prison complex, get sent to the wrong place by a bad casting of Teleport, etc... [It should also let you escape the 8th level spell 'Maze' as an action.]
And when you're trying to find a hidden place. Depending on the DM, a place that you're "familiar with" could be defined in different ways. the reason this spell HAS to be high level, is because it has the potential to let you find places that NO ONE should be finding! If you've read about a lost dungeon full of magical treasures, perhaps knowing its name and a little tidbit of history (who made it, who died there, or what beast emerged from it), you could find it as easily as spending 100gp.
This is a REALLY GOOD SPELL, that NO ONE knows how to use correctly.
Highly situational but very handy when needed.
The spell basically demands a rewrite or house ruling. For material components, " ... and an object from the location you wish to find)". Are you kidding me? Why would I need to find the path to a place I was so familiar with that I already had a piece of it in my possession? 5e is just littered with bad design like this, it's incredibly frustrating.
100 GP and an object from the location. Garbage spell is garbage spell.
You are omitting the most limiting part of the spell which is the material component
an object from the location you wish to find
even if you have a DM who allows that “familiar” just means you have heard of it and read about it in some books, you specifically NEED an item from the place you are looking for.
so no, just knowing the name and history about this “lost dungeon” is not enough, and it is pretty easy as a DM to keep someone from having an item from said place if it truly is not Meant to be found.
Even IF you happen to find yourself lost in a forest nearby a town you have visited before, you are going to have to actively pick up little knick knacks from every single place you have ever been to, JUST IN CASE, you want to magically find it by spending a 6th level spell slot on this garbage spell.
I do not agree that it is a good spell.
It's an easy and flavorful thing to do to pick up souvenirs. Most "ancient lost temples" tend to come with a relic found from by them to prove the claim. Even a parchment, or heck, dust brushed off of an NPCs hat!
If you have a DM who won't allow you to use a niche, but powerful and useful spell because they don't like how it circumvents travel directions (but not travel events) they should tell you from the start and not let you take the spell.
A wizard with this spell would plan for it, and who says you need to find a nearby town? Why somewhere you've visited? Have some treasure or a scale from a legendary dragon's hoard? Find it! Killed an assassin who has a ring that indicates that they are a member of a famous evil guild? Well guess what, you can find it! This game is driven by imagination, and this spell is awesome!
It pairs nicely with travel spells.
No one has pointed out that an Arcane Focus takes the place of a material component without a cost; its a bit surprising since Arcane Foci are easily found everywhere, and any caster able to cast 6th level spells would likely have one or have access
The materials for this spell must have a cost of 100gp or more. The object from the location, I do not think any DM would rule can be subbed for an Arcane Focus, much the same way Summon greater Demon must have the vial of blood of a humanoid killed within 24 hours to bind the demon in a circle. That vial of blood can not be substituted with an arcane focus, even though it doesn't have a cost.
The divinitory material components must have a cost of 100gp or more
- (a set of divinatory tools--such as bones, ivory sticks, cards, teeth, or carved runes--worth 100 gp and an object from the location you wish to find)
Arcane focus:
Material (M)
Casting some spells requires particular objects, specified in parentheses in the component entry. A character can use a component pouch or a spellcasting focus (found in “Equipment”) in place of the components specified for a spell. But if a cost is indicated for a component, a character must have that specific component before he or she can cast the spell.
Thus, the Arcane focus cannot replace the divinitory tools, but can replace the object from the location.
Summon Greater Demon is a different situation, in that you have to use the blood as part of casting the spell per the last paragraph. Find the Path just says you need to have the item, not that its used in casting the spell.
As the handbook does not say "in place of any or all of the components", but instead says "in place of the components," (indicating the components in their entirety) and that the writers have always been very careful about such distinctions in 5e, I think the only reasonable conclusion is that spell components, listed or singular, counted totally and not partially, must have no material cost at all for an arcane focus to substitute for them.
The only possible other interpretation to this rule would be based on the following: "But if a cost is indicated for a component, a character must have that specific component before he or she can cast the spell."
By changing the wording to "a component" (singular) instead of "components" (plural), it's possible to interpret that the intention is to allow partial components to be substituted even when other components have a listed cost.
It is a conundrum, and I lean to the former interpretation, but I will ask Jeremy Crawford about this... STAY TUNED!
Agreed.
Main use is finding your way out of a jail or dungeon if you were captured and brought there unconscious.
Arcane focus substitutes for the object part. Just the 100gp tools which are not consumed. If you're casting lv6 spells, 100gp should not be a problem.
I'm not defending this spell, but I would like to point out to some of the folks arguing in the comments that the "object from the location you wish to find" does not have a price in gp and is not consumed by the casting, meaning your spellcasting focus or component pouch can replace it just fine.
I said to stay tuned, by Jeremy Crawford never responded to my tweet about it.
I have since changed my previous detailed opinion on the matter, regardless.
Previously, I believed that the intent of the green wording of the PHB's rules for material spellcasting components declared that the components pouch/spellcasting focus replaced all of the material components of a spell. I still do.
However, I know believe that the following sentences and the highlighted grey text, were written to supersede that generality and to add specificity to the rule interaction. Thusly, a spellcasting pouch/focus does replace all material components for a spell... however it fails to do so, for certain kinds of material components. I now believe that the rules are written to make this exception that applies to individual material components included in that total (which would normally be entirely replaced).
►►► A spell that has one or more material components, can have all replaced by a wand or reliquary (depending on the caster's class).
►►► The exception to that first stated rule becomes clear with the following sentences, and it remains that only the mundane material components can be replaced by the pouch/focus because the rule now fails to apply to the individual components which have costs or that are consumed in the spell's casting.