Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Greenstone.Walker Sep 01, 2015 20:05:12	What components apply to racial spellcasting? Does a Drow casting darkness or a Gnome casting speak with small animals follow the same VSM rules of the actual spell, or is racial magic simpler?   Should a Drow be able to cast faerie fire at will, without speaking or moving? Can a Tiefling hellish rebuke an attacker while in a silnce spell? While tied up and gagged?
#2 AaronOfBarbaria Sep 01, 2015 21:07:26	Unless the feature granting ability to cast the spell specifies not needing components, the normal rules of needing comcomponents apply.
#3 DM_Craig Sep 02, 2015 12:24:30	I think all the rules still apply. The racial magic descriptions for the drow for example simply state that you know the spells and can cast them once by using the trait - meaning the cost for casting it wouldn't go against your normal spellslot usage, and that you could still cast it even if you're not a magic using class. The spells are still the same spells, meaning they still require the same actions to cast unless, as AaronOfBarbaria noted, the text states otherwise.
#4 RedwoodElf Sep 02, 2015 14:09:35	The only exce;ption I've seen is Pixies, whose description explicitly states that the only component for their spells is "pixie Dust" which they generate spontaneously when they are visible and flying.   Hellooooooo, Tinkerbell!
#5 Greenstone.Walker Sep 02, 2015 18:39:46	Another question I've just thought of: Who teaches the tiefling how to cast hellish rebuke? How do they know what words and/or gestures are needed? Doesa a drow who is brouhght up by humans still know the racial magic with no other drow around to teach them?   I'm thinking that racial magic is instinctual, that the character at some (probably stressful)  point (puberty?) discoverd their ability. That would mean that every tiefling possibly has different words and gestures for the racial spells, words and gestures they made up themselves.   I think this could lead to some interesting characteristics. Maybe a tiefling who discoverd the racial spells very young uses baby talk as the verbal componant and the others tease her about it?
#6 Kahless Sep 02, 2015 23:10:44	I think this has to be wrong. It defeats the whole point of a "racial" spellcasting ability. Nowhere in any of the novels are drow shown using material, somatic, or verbal components to cast their racial abilities (darkness, faerie fire). Racial spellcasting is supposed to be something innate and outside the normal "rules" of magic.
#7 AaronOfBarbaria Sep 02, 2015 23:50:53	Novels are not required to mirror rules of the edition they were written during, let alone an edition that is newer than most of the novels. Also, a new edition is allowed to change the rules, so even if it wasn't how it used to work it is how it works now - feel free to house-rule, but there is zero doubt about what the rules say on the matter.