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Can you work with another caster to store their spell in a Glyph of Warding spell you cast?

Say you are a Wizard, level 15+. You can cast 8th level spells, and so can your level 15+ Cleric friend. Wizards don't have Earthquake on their spell table, but the Cleric does. Can you add the Cleric to the Glyph of Warding, and have Earthquake be the spell cast by the Glyph, provided that the Glyph meets its own spell requirements? (not moving by more than 10 feet, has to be on a surface of some sort, etc.)

Nobody the Hobgoblin
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Cakl
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1 Answers1

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You cannot get help with storing a spell

The glyph of warding spell states:

[...] Spell Glyph. You can store a prepared spell of 3rd level or lower in the glyph by casting it as part of creating the glyph [...]

This shows that "you" (the caster of glyph of warding) must cast the stored spell when creating the glyph, not somebody else.

That said, houseruling this as an option probably won't break your game by any means. It does let the party split up the spell slots required and it makes it so that only one member of your party needs to know the spell for them to make full use of it. This is a flat buff to the spell.

One potential problem is that this allows spells from classes that ordinarily can't get glyph of warding to store those spells in the glyph. I don't believe this would have significant impact and it is technically already possible through the Bard's Magical Secrets feature but that's a much higher tax for the Bard.

An additional benefit mentioned by user @Vigil is as follows: Say casters in the party only have one fifth level spell slot, ordinarily then, you could not store a fifth level spell, but now you could by having separate casters use up their own separate slot. This always applies to ninth level spell slots, and to any spell level for which the party's casters currently only have one slot. Note that doing this is technically already possible if a Sorcerer uses their Flexible Casting feature (though this only works for spell levels 2-5), and again, like the Bard, there is a much higher tax for the Sorcerer (Sorcerer's do not ordinarily get this spell so they would need to multiclass).

The houserule buffs the spell as only one member of the party needs it, and it allows spell slots to be split up as well as allowing any spell to be stored. It also makes the the rather niche uses mentioned above available to all casters, not just Bards and Bard-Sorcerer multiclasses.

Exempt-Medic
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  • You might want to expand this answer a bit, for example by mentioning the possibility of using a Ring of Spell Storing. This will limit you to spells of 5th level, but it's better than nothing. – Mark Oct 02 '19 at 07:19
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    @Mark You can't use a ring of spell storing because the spell must be prepared and spells cast through magic items (including scrolls) are not prepared, see the question "Can you store a Spell Glyph with a spell scroll of a non-prepared spell?" – Exempt-Medic Oct 02 '19 at 08:33
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    Maybe you can put the glyph of warding inside the ring os spell storing ? – Pierre Cathé Oct 02 '19 at 10:22
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    As a DM, I would definitely allow this for the rule of cool, perhaps with a long preparation time or something to prevent it from becoming a regular thing - and then tweaking or removing it later if it still turns out problematic. Rules as written, though, your answer is clearly correct. – Jasper Oct 02 '19 at 12:54
  • @pierrecathé I'm actually unsure what happens if you try to store glyph of warding as it requires you to cast the stored spell so you (maybe) aren't avoiding anything... Seems like a good question on its own – Exempt-Medic Oct 02 '19 at 13:06
  • I agree with Jasper, and think it would actually improve this answer to mention the rule of cool and potential balance issues if this was allowed (I can't see any obvious ones since it still takes the same resource from the party). – SeriousBri Oct 02 '19 at 13:45
  • @SeriousBri I've hopefully added something to that effect, I'll keep thinking about it though in case there are other issues I've missed – Exempt-Medic Oct 02 '19 at 14:27
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    Another benefit this allows is the storing of 9th level spells in a Glyph, which is usually impossible. And more generally, spell levels which are the max the party currently (given their level) has when each spellcaster only has one slot of that spell level. – Vigil Oct 02 '19 at 14:29
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    @vigil it's possible using a spell scroll with glyph of warding on it, but I'll add that in – Exempt-Medic Oct 02 '19 at 14:35
  • It may break your game if you allow multiple casters working together to put wish into a glyph. – Greenstone Walker Oct 02 '19 at 20:03