I am wearing magic armor, and carrying a magic dagger. I am alone in the desert with no other magical presence within a mile. I then cast the Detect Magic spell. Does Detect Magic detect magical items worn/carried by the spellcaster?
Will the spell ping a positive result, or is it similar to the spell "Invisibility" (the effect INcludes items worn or carried by the target), but opposite so that such worn or carried items would be EXcluded?
Or alternatively, the fact that the Detect Magic spell doesn't detect itself might mean that the spell inherently creates an anti-magic field around the caster? Such a built-in anti-magic field would cause the "magic weave" to flow around the caster, and therefore he wouldn't "glimpse" the weave related to the items in his possession (This seems like a decent explanation I can see after reading the bottom paragraph of "The Weave of Magic" section on PHB 205. However, it then raises an issue of blurring with the "non-detection" spell).
Regardless of how, in the desert scenario, does Detect Magic ping with a positive result?
Based on the wording of the Detect Magic spell, yes, the spell causes magic items worn or carried by the caster to glow with an aura indicative of the school the magic is associated with.
Well that's gonna make MY life easier the next time my detect magic obsessed player asks what kind of magic is on a particular item, but it doesn't change the answer to OP's question, haha.
So is this telling us that they will not glow at all? or is there a default color of the glow for no schools of magic? I the magic item mimics or activates a spell, give it that color. My DM would probably state the armor probably glows with abjuration magic.
To clarify, the glowing auras are triggered by the caster using an action. When an effect’s school is unspecified, I generally just pick whichever I think fits best and tell my players that. If Crawford’s tweet counts as “rules as written” however, magic items would not get an aura, and giving players that information is essentially a DM override.
But the caster gets “a sense” of the magic items regardless. And the spell description is quite unambiguous on that count; there is no exception for items on the caster’s person (which makes sense; if I’m carrying on item I don’t know is magical, I want Detect Magic to tell me that).
[EDIT] Having reread Detect Magic, the aura and school knowledge are actually separate effects, so magic items would just get some generic aura.
The aura with school of magic is a separate action on top of the initial casting that lasts for 10 minutes plus concentration.
The initial casting is only for detecting whether magic is present within range, yes/no.
Obviously the spell itself is magic within range but doesn't detect itself. Additionally the caster's body is also a magical presence within range (a creature actively maintaining concentration on a spell), but the body isn't detected. Building on this fact, an enchanted needle under the caster's skin wouldn't be detected either.
So does the spell begin detecting magic 0.01 millimeters beyond the caster's epidermis? I tend to think that the spell's ignorance would also exclude items in contact with the caster.
You can sense the presence of magic items within 30 feet of you. This would work even if you can't see it.
All creatures or objects within that range (even on the caster) that bear magic have an aura, but only have a school that can be detected if the magic has a school. For instance, an item enchanted by Magic Weapon has both an aura and a school of magic. A magic item such as Goggles of Night has an aura, but no school.
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"All creatures or objects within that range [...] that bear magic have an aura."
The plain concentration portion of the spell senses the aura, and responds with only, exclusively, a yes/no no matter whether or not the aura has a school.
The caster is itself maintaining concentration, and therefore his/her body has an aura. This interpretation means that the detection will, regardless of the presence of anything else magic beyond the naked body of the spellcaster, always ping positive. Because the spellcaster's body is a magical creature within range that is actively bearing magic....
If you interpret "you sense the presence of magic within 30 feet" as providing nothing beyond a binary yes/no, then yes, it will always ping yes. That's not how I interpret the spell description, because as you're observing, that's not very useful. The way I read it, you get a location of the magic as well; a presence is inherently locative. A thing must be present somewhere, so if you sense the presence, you always sense where it is, just like every sense we have in real life.
But this part is ambiguous, and if a different DM says that at their table it's a binary yes/no, I wouldn't say they're wrong.
The first part is that, after using an action to cast the spell, you can sense when something magical is within range (that would be played as a yes/no presence. Maybe the DM alerts the player when something pings within 30 feet, or maybe the player has to ask and gets unlimited free checks). This awareness functions through a limited thicknesses of stone, wood, etc. This awareness is effectively a passive sense that lasts for 10 minutes.
The second part is, only after you know that there's magic within range, and only if the magical thing is *"visible"* (as worded in the description. i.e. NOT behind stone, wood, etc), and then still only after using one *additional* action, you can see the magical aura for only the duration of that turn.
This is the only interpretation I see that makes sense. Because it resolves the inherent conflict between the magical thing being "visible", and the magical thing being on the other side of a stone wall. If there's another way to resolve this issue then please help eliminate my confusion.
That said... If the initial passive ability must always and forever ping "yes" to show magic within range, (due to the presence of the caster, maintaining concentration, within range of the spell), then the first part of the spell is entirely negated.
As I've said, where I disagree is your interpretation of the first part. A yes/no presence is functionally useless for the reasons you've already brought up. The only way for it to make sense to me is as a "where" presence. If we're talking about a magic object buried in a stone wall (but such that there's still less than a foot of stone between me and the object), I can point in its direction with only the first part of the spell. (Again, both of our interpretations of this are supported by the text; but your interpretation makes this component of the spell useless, so I prefer mine haha)
The second part comes into play when, for example, there's a pile of screws and only one of them is magical. Sure, I can point at that pile without needing to see an aura, but there's still like sixty heckin screws there and I want to know which one is magical without having to sort them individually. So I use my action and now I can see the magical aura on the screw.
I just want to point out that the spell does not detect itself and a caster maintaining concentration is not magic (a spell cast by/on the caster is what gets detected).
So regardless of interpretation of "sense the presence of magic," the spell does not detect itself, but it will detect magic items your are wearing.
Now to weigh in on the interpretation argument, I treat it the same as sensing radiation (heat). You can tell direction, but not distance. And it works with the possible inability to see the source, similarly to feeling heat through a wall.
DMs are, of course, always welcome to rule however they will at their tables, but the discussion here seems to be primarily a semantic consideration of the spell text as it is, with how we run it in the real world just here for context. And there is absolutely nothing in the spell text as it is that precludes self-detection. The spell text reads "For the duration, you sense the presence of magic within 30 feet of you." While you're maintaining the spell, you have a magic effect active on you (it is this magic effect that is detected, not the "concentration"; to illustrate the distinction, if I cast haste on someone else and concentrate on it, Detect Magic detects the magic on the target, not on me; the distinction is irrelevant in this case, since the caster and the target are necessarily identical). It's not at all ambiguous, so unless Sage Advice has addressed this exact issue, it does exactly what it says it does.
As I've said, where I disagree is your interpretation of the first part. A yes/no presence is functionally useless for the reasons you've already brought up. The only way for it to make sense to me is as a "where" presence. If we're talking about a magic object buried in a stone wall (but such that there's still less than a foot of stone between me and the object), I can point in its direction with only the first part of the spell. (Again, both of our interpretations of this are supported by the text; but your interpretation makes this component of the spell useless, so I prefer mine haha)
Ahhh, I understand what you mean now. I really like this interpretation, and also now prefer it!
While you're maintaining the spell, you have a magic effect active on you (it is this magic effect that is detected, not the "concentration"; to illustrate the distinction, if I cast haste on someone else and concentrate on it, Detect Magic detects the magic on the target, not on me; the distinction is irrelevant in this case, since the caster and the target are necessarily identical).
But to cast Detection is to "glimpse the weave". Concentration on any spell is the spellcaster actively maintaining his/her manipulation of the weave. Why wouldn't the spellcaster be a magical creature during concentration?
The Weave is specific mostly to Forgotten Realms, so using it to explain general mechanics is a no-go, haha.
At the end of the day, it’s because the rules don’t say concentration is a magic effect. My best interpretation is that concentration is like verbal/somatic/material components: necessary to produce the effect but not an effect in and of themselves.
But I also think it’d be very reasonable for a DM to rule that, yes, if someone’s concentrating on a spell, Detect Magic would pick up on that. The spell text doesn’t actually define “magic” for its purposes; in some cases it’s very clear-cut (haste), but whether or not concentration counts is something a DM would have to just rule on.
I would rule that if fighter is charmed and mage is doing a charming you casting detect magic says fighter be magical. On inspection you learn it's school. Maybe an arcana check vs the caster's spell save dc lets you know the spell's identity. I wouldn't give you a immediate silver cord from spell to caster cause you cast a first level spell but I would be hesitant to make you use an action to roll the check if in initiative since you've already used two actions just to get this far because I'm a generous chaotic aligned DM who don't need no strict rules. But if I where trying to keep a strict adherence to rules and game balance I would allow a spell of second or third level along the lines a "Greater Detect Magic" that would allow you to obtain the identity of a spell and its caster using an effect similar to "Dispel Magic" which is a third level spell. So you cast Greater Detect Magic, you detect a magical effect on the the fighter, just like Detect Magic, then if the spell is of a level equal or lower to Greater detect magic you know the spells name, effect, and caster but the not the caster's location if that caster is not within thirty feet of you. If the spell is of a level greater than Greater detect magic, you must make check using your spell modifier against a DC 10+ target spell's level to acquire the information.
The Weave is specific mostly to Forgotten Realms, so using it to explain general mechanics is a no-go, haha.
I don't know anything about Forgotten Realms. But fyi the weave is used in phb to explain general spell mechanics. It reads that the name "weave" comes from Forgotten Realms, but regardless of name that's still how it works according to phb205.
I am wearing magic armor, and carrying a magic dagger. I am alone in the desert with no other magical presence within a mile. I then cast the Detect Magic spell. Does Detect Magic detect magical items worn/carried by the spellcaster?
Will the spell ping a positive result, or is it similar to the spell "Invisibility" (the effect INcludes items worn or carried by the target), but opposite so that such worn or carried items would be EXcluded?
Or alternatively, the fact that the Detect Magic spell doesn't detect itself might mean that the spell inherently creates an anti-magic field around the caster? Such a built-in anti-magic field would cause the "magic weave" to flow around the caster, and therefore he wouldn't "glimpse" the weave related to the items in his possession (This seems like a decent explanation I can see after reading the bottom paragraph of "The Weave of Magic" section on PHB 205. However, it then raises an issue of blurring with the "non-detection" spell).
Regardless of how, in the desert scenario, does Detect Magic ping with a positive result?
Based on the wording of the Detect Magic spell, yes, the spell causes magic items worn or carried by the caster to glow with an aura indicative of the school the magic is associated with.
Magic items have no inherent school of magic associated with them.
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Well that's gonna make MY life easier the next time my detect magic obsessed player asks what kind of magic is on a particular item, but it doesn't change the answer to OP's question, haha.
So is this telling us that they will not glow at all? or is there a default color of the glow for no schools of magic? I the magic item mimics or activates a spell, give it that color. My DM would probably state the armor probably glows with abjuration magic.
The aura provided by magic items is up to DM discretion.
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To clarify, the glowing auras are triggered by the caster using an action. When an effect’s school is unspecified, I generally just pick whichever I think fits best and tell my players that. If Crawford’s tweet counts as “rules as written” however, magic items would not get an aura, and giving players that information is essentially a DM override.
But the caster gets “a sense” of the magic items regardless. And the spell description is quite unambiguous on that count; there is no exception for items on the caster’s person (which makes sense; if I’m carrying on item I don’t know is magical, I want Detect Magic to tell me that).
[EDIT] Having reread Detect Magic, the aura and school knowledge are actually separate effects, so magic items would just get some generic aura.
I agree. I think that Detect Magic would show the caster all magic in range, including items that the caster already knows are magical.
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The aura with school of magic is a separate action on top of the initial casting that lasts for 10 minutes plus concentration.
The initial casting is only for detecting whether magic is present within range, yes/no.
Obviously the spell itself is magic within range but doesn't detect itself. Additionally the caster's body is also a magical presence within range (a creature actively maintaining concentration on a spell), but the body isn't detected. Building on this fact, an enchanted needle under the caster's skin wouldn't be detected either.
So does the spell begin detecting magic 0.01 millimeters beyond the caster's epidermis? I tend to think that the spell's ignorance would also exclude items in contact with the caster.
You can sense the presence of magic items within 30 feet of you. This would work even if you can't see it.
All creatures or objects within that range (even on the caster) that bear magic have an aura, but only have a school that can be detected if the magic has a school. For instance, an item enchanted by Magic Weapon has both an aura and a school of magic. A magic item such as Goggles of Night has an aura, but no school.
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"All creatures or objects within that range [...] that bear magic have an aura."
The plain concentration portion of the spell senses the aura, and responds with only, exclusively, a yes/no no matter whether or not the aura has a school.
The caster is itself maintaining concentration, and therefore his/her body has an aura. This interpretation means that the detection will, regardless of the presence of anything else magic beyond the naked body of the spellcaster, always ping positive. Because the spellcaster's body is a magical creature within range that is actively bearing magic....
If you interpret "you sense the presence of magic within 30 feet" as providing nothing beyond a binary yes/no, then yes, it will always ping yes. That's not how I interpret the spell description, because as you're observing, that's not very useful. The way I read it, you get a location of the magic as well; a presence is inherently locative. A thing must be present somewhere, so if you sense the presence, you always sense where it is, just like every sense we have in real life.
But this part is ambiguous, and if a different DM says that at their table it's a binary yes/no, I wouldn't say they're wrong.
I read it as the spell having two parts.
The first part is that, after using an action to cast the spell, you can sense when something magical is within range (that would be played as a yes/no presence. Maybe the DM alerts the player when something pings within 30 feet, or maybe the player has to ask and gets unlimited free checks). This awareness functions through a limited thicknesses of stone, wood, etc. This awareness is effectively a passive sense that lasts for 10 minutes.
The second part is, only after you know that there's magic within range, and only if the magical thing is *"visible"* (as worded in the description. i.e. NOT behind stone, wood, etc), and then still only after using one *additional* action, you can see the magical aura for only the duration of that turn.
This is the only interpretation I see that makes sense. Because it resolves the inherent conflict between the magical thing being "visible", and the magical thing being on the other side of a stone wall. If there's another way to resolve this issue then please help eliminate my confusion.
That said... If the initial passive ability must always and forever ping "yes" to show magic within range, (due to the presence of the caster, maintaining concentration, within range of the spell), then the first part of the spell is entirely negated.
As I've said, where I disagree is your interpretation of the first part. A yes/no presence is functionally useless for the reasons you've already brought up. The only way for it to make sense to me is as a "where" presence. If we're talking about a magic object buried in a stone wall (but such that there's still less than a foot of stone between me and the object), I can point in its direction with only the first part of the spell. (Again, both of our interpretations of this are supported by the text; but your interpretation makes this component of the spell useless, so I prefer mine haha)
The second part comes into play when, for example, there's a pile of screws and only one of them is magical. Sure, I can point at that pile without needing to see an aura, but there's still like sixty heckin screws there and I want to know which one is magical without having to sort them individually. So I use my action and now I can see the magical aura on the screw.
I just want to point out that the spell does not detect itself and a caster maintaining concentration is not magic (a spell cast by/on the caster is what gets detected).
So regardless of interpretation of "sense the presence of magic," the spell does not detect itself, but it will detect magic items your are wearing.
Now to weigh in on the interpretation argument, I treat it the same as sensing radiation (heat). You can tell direction, but not distance. And it works with the possible inability to see the source, similarly to feeling heat through a wall.
DMs are, of course, always welcome to rule however they will at their tables, but the discussion here seems to be primarily a semantic consideration of the spell text as it is, with how we run it in the real world just here for context. And there is absolutely nothing in the spell text as it is that precludes self-detection. The spell text reads "For the duration, you sense the presence of magic within 30 feet of you." While you're maintaining the spell, you have a magic effect active on you (it is this magic effect that is detected, not the "concentration"; to illustrate the distinction, if I cast haste on someone else and concentrate on it, Detect Magic detects the magic on the target, not on me; the distinction is irrelevant in this case, since the caster and the target are necessarily identical). It's not at all ambiguous, so unless Sage Advice has addressed this exact issue, it does exactly what it says it does.
Ahhh, I understand what you mean now. I really like this interpretation, and also now prefer it!
But to cast Detection is to "glimpse the weave". Concentration on any spell is the spellcaster actively maintaining his/her manipulation of the weave. Why wouldn't the spellcaster be a magical creature during concentration?
The Weave is specific mostly to Forgotten Realms, so using it to explain general mechanics is a no-go, haha.
At the end of the day, it’s because the rules don’t say concentration is a magic effect. My best interpretation is that concentration is like verbal/somatic/material components: necessary to produce the effect but not an effect in and of themselves.
But I also think it’d be very reasonable for a DM to rule that, yes, if someone’s concentrating on a spell, Detect Magic would pick up on that. The spell text doesn’t actually define “magic” for its purposes; in some cases it’s very clear-cut (haste), but whether or not concentration counts is something a DM would have to just rule on.
I would rule that if fighter is charmed and mage is doing a charming you casting detect magic says fighter be magical. On inspection you learn it's school. Maybe an arcana check vs the caster's spell save dc lets you know the spell's identity. I wouldn't give you a immediate silver cord from spell to caster cause you cast a first level spell but I would be hesitant to make you use an action to roll the check if in initiative since you've already used two actions just to get this far because I'm a generous chaotic aligned DM who don't need no strict rules. But if I where trying to keep a strict adherence to rules and game balance I would allow a spell of second or third level along the lines a "Greater Detect Magic" that would allow you to obtain the identity of a spell and its caster using an effect similar to "Dispel Magic" which is a third level spell. So you cast Greater Detect Magic, you detect a magical effect on the the fighter, just like Detect Magic, then if the spell is of a level equal or lower to Greater detect magic you know the spells name, effect, and caster but the not the caster's location if that caster is not within thirty feet of you. If the spell is of a level greater than Greater detect magic, you must make check using your spell modifier against a DC 10+ target spell's level to acquire the information.
I don't know anything about Forgotten Realms. But fyi the weave is used in phb to explain general spell mechanics. It reads that the name "weave" comes from Forgotten Realms, but regardless of name that's still how it works according to phb205.