What Are Spell Components in 5e?

Verbal (V) means you speak the words, Somatic (S) means a free hand to gesture, and Material (M) means an object a Component Pouch or Spellcasting Focus can stand in for, unless the spell gives it a cost or consumes it. Every spell in the SRD carries a line most players skim: Components, then some mix of V, S and M. Those three letters decide whether a gagged Wizard can cast, whether a Cleric with a Mace and Shield can heal, and whether the party can bring a friend back from the dead. Here are the rules, quoted from SRD 5.2.1, and what they cost in play.

Three letters, one rule

A spell's components are physical requirements the spellcaster must meet to cast the spell. Each spell's description indicates whether it requires Verbal (V), Somatic (S), or Material (M) components. If the spellcaster can't provide one or more of a spell's components, the spellcaster can't cast the spell.

No roll, no save. Miss one component and the spell doesn't happen.

Verbal: you need your voice

The words must be uttered in a normal speaking voice. [...] Thus, a creature who is gagged or in an area of magical silence can't cast a spell with a Verbal component.

The Silence spell makes that a zone: "Casting a spell that includes a Verbal component is impossible there." Most spells carry a V. Fire Bolt, Shield, Cure Wounds, Fireball and Misty Step all do. A few skip it. Counterspell and Mind Spike are S only; Minor Illusion, Hypnotic Pattern and Ice Knife are S and M.

The voice also gives you away. The Hide action ends when "you make a sound louder than a whisper, an enemy finds you, you make an attack roll, or you cast a spell with a Verbal component." A hidden Wizard who casts Magic Missile is found. A hidden Sorcerer who casts Mind Spike (S only, a Wisdom save, no attack roll) breaks none of those four, and stays hidden.

Somatic: you need a hand

A Somatic component is a forceful gesticulation or an intricate set of gestures. A spellcaster must use at least one of their hands to perform these movements.

This is the rule that catches the armored caster. A Cleric with a Mace in one hand and a Shield on the other has no hand free, and Cure Wounds and Sacred Flame are both V, S. The SRD gives two ways to free a hand without spending your action:

You can interact with one object or feature of the environment for free, during either your move or action.

You can either equip or unequip one weapon when you make an attack as part of this action.

So the Cleric sheathes the Mace (the free interaction) and casts. Next turn, the Attack action draws it again as part of the swing.

The Slow spell turns gestures into a gamble: a Slowed creature that "casts a spell with a Somatic component" has "a 25 percent chance the spell fails." Over three turns of casting, an enemy Mage loses at least one spell 57.8% of the time (1 − 0.75³).

Material: you need the stuff, or a stand-in

These materials aren't consumed by the spell unless the spell's description states otherwise. The spellcaster must have a hand free to access them, but it can be the same hand used to perform Somatic components, if any.

Fireball asks for "a ball of bat guano and sulfur". Nobody tracks guano. The SRD gives two stand-ins, and both come with the same limit:

If a spell doesn't consume its materials and doesn't specify a cost for them, a spellcaster can use a Component Pouch [...] instead of providing the materials specified in the spell, or the spellcaster can substitute a Spellcasting Focus if the caster has a feature that allows that substitution. To use a Component Pouch, you must have a hand free to reach into it, and to use a Spellcasting Focus, you must hold it unless its description says otherwise.

The Component Pouch (25 GP, 2 lb.) "is watertight and filled with compartments that hold all the free Material components of your spells." Any caster can use one. A focus is cheaper, but only for classes whose rules allow it:

Two Warlock pacts add more: a Pact of the Blade weapon and a Pact of the Tome book can each serve as a Spellcasting Focus.

The prices, from the SRD's equipment tables:

The Emblem is the Cleric's answer to the Material half of the problem: it sits on the Shield, so nothing has to be held for Shield of Faith's prayer scroll. It doesn't help the Somatic half. That rule still asks for a hand.

A staff does two jobs. A Wizard or Druid with a Quarterstaff holds a weapon and a focus in the same hand for 5 GP.

What a focus can't replace

The rules glossary says it plainly. A focus stands in for Material components only "if those materials aren't consumed by the spell and don't have a cost specified." Any component with a GP price, or the words "which the spell consumes", has to be the real thing.

Two kinds hide in that rule. Some costly components are kept: Chromatic Orb needs "a diamond worth 50+ GP", and the same diamond works every cast. Others burn: Revivify's "diamond worth 300+ GP, which the spell consumes" is gone after one use. The costly ones up to spell level 5:

One odd entry: Gentle Repose asks for "2 Copper Pieces, which the spell consumes". No price, but consumed, so the pouch can't cover it. Carry coppers.

The table is a shopping list. A Cleric who learns Revivify at level 5 can't cast it without a 300 GP diamond already in the pack, and the moment it matters is one minute after a friend dies. Two diamonds is 600 GP. Stoneskin costs 100 GP every cast. Chromatic Orb costs 50 GP once.

Casting with no components at all

The Sorcerer's Subtle Spell (1 Sorcery Point) casts a spell "without any Verbal, Somatic, or Material components, except Material components that are consumed by the spell or that have a cost specified in the spell." That beats Silence, a gag and a full pair of hands. It also beats Counterspell, whose trigger is seeing "a creature within 60 feet of yourself casting a spell with Verbal, Somatic, or Material components". A spell with none gives the enemy nothing to see.

The short version

• V needs a voice. Silence and a gag stop it; casting it ends Hide.
• S needs a hand. Free one by sheathing a weapon (free) or unequipping it during an attack.
• M can share the S hand. A pouch or your class's focus covers it, unless it has a price or is consumed.
• Price the costly ones before you need them: 300 GP of diamond for Revivify, in the pack, before the fight.

The Book of Dice covers the d20 behind every save DC and spell attack in Part III, The Rolling.

This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 ("SRD 5.2.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.