Can You Cast Two Spells in One Turn? (D&D 5e)

Your cleric casts Spiritual Weapon as a bonus action and wants to follow it with Cure Wounds on her action. That is one spell too many. Here are the combinations the rules allow, the combinations they forbid, and what the 2024 edition changed.

The short answer

You can cast more than one spell on a turn, but you can spend only one spell slot doing it. A leveled spell plus any number of cantrips is fine. Two leveled spells on the same turn is not. This is true in both editions; 2024 just states it as one rule instead of hiding it inside the bonus action casting time entry.

The 2024 rule

One Spell with a Spell Slot per Turn. On a turn, you can expend only one spell slot to cast a spell. This rule means you can't, for example, cast a spell with a spell slot using the Magic action and another one using a Bonus Action on the same turn.

D&D 2024, SRD 5.2, "Casting Spells"

The limit is on slots, not on spells. Cantrips do not use slots and do not count. Reaction spells cast on another creature's turn do not count either, because the rule scopes to a single turn.

Which combinations work

Once a slot is spent, the only other spells you can cast that turn are cantrips and reaction spells.

The 2014 wording

2014 hid the same restriction inside the bonus action casting time entry:

A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action.

D&D 5e, SRD 5.1, "Casting Time" (Bonus Action)

The restriction only fires when one of your spells is cast as a bonus action. When it does fire, your other spell that turn must be an action cantrip. Two action spells in one turn was already impossible under the 2014 action economy, so the bonus action rule covered every case worth covering.

Quickened Spell

Quickened Spell changes a spell's casting time from an action to a bonus action. In 2014 it could route around nothing: the bonus action rule still forced the other spell that turn to be an action cantrip. 2024 makes the lockout explicit inside the metamagic itself:

When you cast a spell that has a casting time of an action, you can spend 2 Sorcery Points to change the casting time to a Bonus Action for this casting. You can't modify a spell in this way if you've already cast a level 1+ spell on the current turn, nor can you cast a level 1+ spell on this turn after modifying a spell in this way.

D&D 2024, SRD 5.2, Sorcerer Metamagic ("Quickened Spell")

Quickened Fireball plus a second leveled spell is forbidden in both editions. Quickened Fireball plus a cantrip is allowed in both.

What "the same turn" includes

Extra actions granted by features like Action Surge happen inside the turn of the creature that owns them, so they cannot spend a second slot. Haste's extra action allows only Attack, Dash, Disengage, Hide, or Use an Object, in both editions, and never a cast.

Spells with a casting time of 1 minute or longer are still a single cast drawing a single slot, even though the casting spans multiple turns.

FAQ

Related rules

For the same edition-by-edition treatment of a positioning rule, see cover rules in D&D 5e. For reaction interactions, see opportunity attacks while prone.

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Rules text quoted from the System Reference Document 5.1 and System Reference Document 5.2, © Wizards of the Coast LLC, available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This article is unofficial fan content and is not endorsed by Wizards of the Coast.