OVERALL RATING: A-TIER

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Sending 5e

Sending is the closest thing that Dungeons and Dragons has to cell phones (or at least long-range walkie-talkies). But while the spell comes with great power, it also comes with some tricky rules questions. Many of which don’t have definitive answers other than “ask your DM.”

I’ll provide a rundown of the common uses and questions that come up around Sending before giving my two cents on how I rule the spell as a DM. Luckily, the 2024 version of the spell makes some things clearer.

What Does Sending Do in 5e?

Sending transmits a mental message of <25 to a specific creature you have personally met or a creature that has been described to you by someone who has met it. The range is unlimited, provided you are on the same plane of existence.

Upon casting, the following occurs:

1. Transmission. The target hears the message in its mind. It recognizes you as the sender if it knows you.
2. Comprehension. The spell enables the target to understand the meaning of your message, regardless of language barriers or Intelligence scores.
3. Response. The target can immediately respond to you with a <25-word mental message of its own.
4. Planar Variance. If the target is on a different plane of existence, there is a 5% chance the message is lost. You know if the delivery fails, so you won’t be left wondering whether you’re being given the cold shoulder anymore with the 2024 version of the spell if nobody answers.
5. Blocking. The recipient can choose to block you for 8 hours. If you attempt to message them again during this window, you fail, but you explicitly learn that you are blocked.

Spell Rating: Sending

Overall: 📞 A-Tier (Utility Essential)

Contextual Performance (1-10)

• Combat: 3/10. Sending has very little combat utility. That said, if you and your party (or other reinforcements) are split up, Sending does allow you to coordinate an attack or warn of an incoming attack.

• Exploration: 10/10. Information is the most valuable resource in exploration. Being able to instantly relay findings to a quest giver, coordinate a split party, or check in on an NPC from 500 miles away solves logistical problems that otherwise require weeks of travel.

• Social: 7/10. Sending grants the ability to communicate with any creature, regardless of language (a built-in Tongues effect for one message). That said, Tongues lasts longer, making it much more efficient for this use.

Core Metrics (1-10)

• Raw Power: 1/10. It does not deal damage or impose conditions.

• Versatility: 9/10. While it does only one thing, that “thing” is universally applicable. Every campaign, regardless of setting, eventually requires long-distance communication. And it can be used to translate and make otherwise-impossible combat tactics possible — pretty versatile indeed.

• Efficiency: 5/10. A 3rd-level spell slot is a significant resource in Tier 1 and Tier 2 play. Casting this consumes a slot that could have been a Fireball or Revivify.

• Upcast Scaling: 1/10. The spell does not scale.

Playstyle and Synergy

• Playstyle: This is a logistical tool. It is best used during downtime or just before a Long Rest to utilize unspent slots to gather intel.

• Party Synergy: High. It allows the party to split up to cover more ground while maintaining a safety line. It effectively extends the range of the party’s influence to anywhere in the multiverse.

What Are the Rules for Sending in 5e?

The rules for Sending in the 2024 Player’s Handbook are as follows:

• Universal comprehension. The spell text states: “The spell enables targets to understand the meaning of your message”. This bypasses the need for shared languages. You can communicate with a creature that speaks no languages, provided it has the cognitive capacity to understand a message.

• Blocking is distinct from failing. If a target is on another plane and the 5% failure chance triggers, the caster knows the delivery failed. If the target blocks the caster, the caster specifically learns “you are blocked” upon a subsequent attempt.

• Sending targets your intended target. If you’ve been tricked into believing someone’s identity is other than it actually is, Sending should still work fine. For example, if you target Magico, the kindly wizard you met, who’s actually an evil charlatan named Evilo, the spell still goes through to Evilo. Whether he responds is another matter.

  In another case, if you’ve met the real deal and someone pretending to be them, Sending should get sent to the real person (provided they’re alive). Again, ask your DM for more details.

• Sending cannot target the dead. The spell can only target creatures, and corpses are considered objects, not creatures, in Dungeons and Dragons. For extra creepiness, apply Matt Mercer’s tip and allow it to work…but leave the dead permanently unable to reply or let players know that they heard.

  Of course, if your DM’s world features another plane of existence where the dead go, Sending should work to reach it (with a 95% success rate).

• The word “word” retains its common sense meaning. In other words, if it’s not in the dictionary, it’s not a word for the purposes of this spell. This limits the ability to send nonsense, German-type hyphenated words that string on forever.

  However, this does still leave open the possibility of sending encoded messages with a single word standing in place for a more complex concept.

• Even creatures without language can respond. Language limitations don’t exist. This is a little tricky for determining how such creatures respond, however.

  After all, I just said that only words can be sent with Sending. In practice, though, it seems that the specifics of the spell allowing for an immediate response means that something like a familiar or Beast Master Ranger companion could respond. At the very least, they could do their best to speak a broken language based on the sounds they’ve heard the humanoids around them make.

• The creature recognizes you if it knows you, regardless of any disguise or deception. That’s how the spell description reads, anyway. A DM might allow for somene with the Actor feat to hide their voice and make a Deception check to make it seem like the message was coming from someone else. But RAW, Sending’s recipient always know who messaged them (if they know the sender).

• It doesn’t seem like the sender or recipient of Sending must speak aloud to send their message. In order to cast Sending, the target must utter a phrase for the verbal component of the spell. It is somewhat unclear if they must also speak the message aloud, but it is 100% clear that the recipient hears the message in their mind (not aloud).

  Mike Mearls (in 2017) said that the receiver must speak to respond to the message and also seems to imply that the sender that the caster must speak their message aloud as well. But Mike Mearls isn’t your DM (probably).

Here are a few ways to use Sending in DnD 5e:

1. Use it for short-term translation. Even language-less beings can understand a message sent via Sending. So even if you’re using it to talk to the monster right next to you rather than your buddy across the dimensional planes, Sending is a handy tool.

2. Keep your messages short. “Brevity is the soul of wit,” as Shakespeare wrote. 25 words is quite a lot if your message is simple (meet here, go there, etc.), but it can be quite limiting for transmitting descriptive plans or directives.

   Learn to keep the fluff to a minimum and sacrifice a few articles (a, an, the) to save space, even if it makes you sound dumb.

3. Find lost people. If anyone is lost but otherwise healthy and able to speak, Sending is basically an automatic way of locating someone you’re familiar with who’s gone missing. Of course, circumstances might mean that the target themselves don’t even know where they are — but at least you’ll know they’re alive and safe.

4. Speed up “send message” quests. If a royal or some merchant asks you to deliver a message, ask them if they’d prefer condensing it down to 25 words and communicating the message to you to pass along.

   This won’t always be possible, and complications might arise in the transmission, but this trick can really cut down on back-and-forth missions.

5. Let the party know when to move (or other key information). This is the most common tactical use of Sending — letting allies know something important from a distance (e.g., traps lie ahead, the enemy is preparing for our advance, etc.) or giving them a specific signal and message (attack from the second floor, begin the assault now, initiate the distraction, etc.)

6. Ask for further direction. Sometimes, you’re in the middle of a quest when conditions suddenly change (your primary rescue target is dead, the MacGuffin is in a different location, etc.) At times like these, you can use Sending to ask your quest-giver what they’d like you to do in light of recent revelations.

7. Diplomatic backchannels. Because the message is heard only in the target’s mind, you can communicate with a noble, general, or hostage in the middle of a public negotiation without alerting the room. (Note: The casting of the spell still has Verbal and Somatic components, so you must cast it out of sight or use the Subtle Spell Metamagic).

Is Sending 5e a Good Spell?

Yes, Sending is a great spell in 5e. The ability to communicate at long distances is just as valuable in a high-fantasy universe as it is in our modern world. In campaigns that involve a lot of back-and-forth traveling, message delivery, and frequent check-ins with a patron, Sending is an invaluable tool for saving time (and, as a result, resources).

That being said, if your campaign is more combat-focused and your group always stays together, you might feel like you wasted a known spell on Sending. Still, the ability to translate speech into any language (even to language-less creatures) is incredibly useful in its own right.

Sending 5e DM Tips

The 2024 update makes Sending easier to adjudicate for DMs thanks to the clarity around who is an eligible target and the “Blocking” rule. Previously, the definition of “familiar” became annoyingly important, and players could harass villains (or DMs) with endless messages to prevent them from sleeping (since it’s a mental ping).

Now, an NPC can simply block the player for 8 hours. This preserves the utility of the spell (communication) while removing the abuse case (psychological warfare).

As a DM, be generous with the “described to you” clause. If the players interrogate a goblin minion who describes their Hobgoblin Warlord boss, allow the players to cast Sending to the Warlord. This creates dramatic roleplay opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise exist.

DnD 5e Sending FAQ

Sending DnD 5e questions and answers:

1. Can you intercept a Sending spell? No, you cannot intercept the Sending spell. However, in certain conditions and campaign settings, namely the Curse of Strahd campaign and Barovia, an NPC (like Strahd) might be able to intercept this spell (“Strahd can sense when someone is domain is casting [a spell that contacts beings from other planes” (which all creatures outside Barovia are) (CoS, 24).

2. How many messages can you send with Sending? You can send one message and receive one message per casting of Sending. The caster can communicate up to 25 words in one message, and the target can respond with 25 words of their own. After that, Sending is over, and it will require another casting to communicate with the target again.

3. What happens if the target of Sending is dead? If the target of Sending is dead, they are not a valid target for the spell. Corpses are considered objects, not creatures, and Sending can only target creatures. That said, souls persist after death in a different plane in the DnD universe, and Sending can traverse other planes of existence (with a 5% chance of failure), so a DM might rule that you can still target the soul of a dead creature with Sending. But, as a counterpoint, this does somewhat step on the toes of the Speak With Dead spell.

4. Why isn’t Sending a ritual spell? Sending isn’t a ritual spell because being able to cast it as a ritual would basically mean non-stop communication with all familiar creatures at no cost. Casting a spell as a ritual doesn’t consume a spell slot (although it does take 10 minutes), but if your party isn’t pressed for time (which, in most instances where you’re casting sending, they won’t be), this would essentially make the spell spammable.

5. How fast do Sending Stones travel? Sending Stones travel immediately; these magic items simply allow the bearers to communicate via the sending spell once per day, and the Sending spell allows for instant communication at any distance and across planes.

6. How do you create Sending Stones? You can create Sending Stones as a 2nd-level artificer using the replicate magic item infusion.

   Additionally, any player can make magic items using the rules from the Dungeon Master’s Guide (page 129). Since Sending Stones are an uncommon magic item, they require 500 gp and a minimum of 3rd-level to craft.

   This requires 20 days of crafting for 8 hours a day, since crafting magic items goes at a rate of 25 gp worth of progress per day. This can be sped up if multiple characters contribute to their creation. It also requires that the material components (a short piece of fine copper wire) be on hand throughout the crafting process, and it is consumed upon completion.

2014 Sending (Legacy Version)

The text below covers the version of Sending found in the 2014 Player’s Handbook. I have preserved this section for players running legacy campaigns or using older modules that haven’t updated to the 2024 rule set.

If you are playing with the 2024 rules, use the guide at the top of this page.