What does it mean for a spell component to be consumed?

Question

When the body of spell's description explicitly says a component is 'consumed' or it is implied by the material components description, what exactly happens to that component? In essence what does 'consumed' mean as a game term?

The closest I've come to an explanation from DND Beyond is this from the SAC:

Does a spell consume its material components?
A spell doesn’t consume its material components unless its description says it does. For example, the pearl required by the identify spell isn’t consumed, whereas the diamond required by raise dead is used up when you cast the spell.

So, does this mean that the material cease to exist? Are they drained of magical energy? Or are they wholly ingested?

Answer 1

It probably disappears.

The rules for material components state:

If a spell states that a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell.

So we know that when a spell consumes a material component, that component is no longer available to be used next time you cast the spell. The idea with material components (especially costly material components) is that you have to do the work to acquire the component for each casting of the spell. So suppose a 1000 gp diamond is "consumed" in the sense that its magical utility is gone, but it is still a 1000 gp diamond. One, the game nowhere makes this sort of distinction, rather it assumes that any 1000 gp diamond is suitable for spells that call for one, and two, we could just sell it for another 1000 gp diamond that has not been consumed, since the game assumes gems are "trade goods" and always able to fetch their value at market. The only reasonable conclusion we can draw is that "consumed" means the material component is gone, eaten by the spell, unavailable for spellcasting and commerce.

Answer 2

Gone, used up, emptied, valueless.

Within the game context, the only description of 'consumed' is that it means you need a new component for each casting, so that is unhelpful in determining what consumption means between the options you've provided. When the game does not describe a specific game-meaning for a word, we use the ordinary English meaning of it.

The ordinary meaning of 'consumed' (when not talking about food) is 'completely destroyed' -- metaphorically "eaten" by the fire or whatever is doing the consuming.

There is nothing in the description of consuming a spell component that implies there's some part of it left over, or that it's only some immaterial "magical essence" being consumed. The object itself is "eaten" by the spell.

You couldn't 'consume' a gemstone and then, say, go sell it as jewelry. The whole point of costly consumed components is that you have to pay every time you use it. If you could go sell off the consumed component to recoup some or all of the cost of the spell, you would be bypassing the entire reason for the 'component is consumed' line.

You could certainly describe the consuming as something other than burning to nothingness or disintegrating into dust. The game encourages interesting descriptions. As "flavor text", you could talk about how an emerald consumed by a spell clouds over and slowly turns dull black or how you smash it with a hammer as a gift to the forge-gods. But it's still consumed: destroyed and useless for any further purpose.

Answer 3

It is up to the DM.

There is no uniform answer to what exactly happens with the material and thus it is up to DM-Fiat. We know that:

If a spell states that a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell.

We have to look at each spell description individually for example let us look at Awaken:

After spending the casting time tracing magical pathways within a precious gemstone, you touch a Huge or smaller beast or plant.[...] - (an agate worth at least 1,000 gp, which the spell consumes)

and compare it with Clone:

This clone forms inside a sealed vessel and grows to full size and maturity [...] (a diamond worth at least 1,000 gp and at least 1 cubic inch of flesh of the creature that is to be cloned, which the spell consumes, and a vessel worth at least 2,000 gp that has a sealable lid and is large enough to hold a Medium creature, such as a huge urn, coffin, mud- filled cyst in the ground, or crystal container filled with salt water)

It seems intuitive that the flesh consumed in the clone spell transforms into the new body. But the byproducts of the agate are unclear. All assumptions like "it fizzles into light of the colour of the agate." have little basis in the text - we merely know that a transformation happens, and the spell is the product of it.

What does it generally mean to consume something, and how does it apply to this case?

Consuming is a process of transformation, it involves the use of a quantity of a good in the use of creating another good. Food and fuel into energy, and byproducts. Energy into movement and byproducts, a raw material, time, and energy into a consumer good etc.

I think nobody would question that you can use the cow manure as a valuable product in agriculture even though the cow consumes the food and converts it into energy. Any gardener would know that buying good compost, that is the byproduct of consumed food, is pricey.

So we are back to DM-Fiat. I think it is intuitively sensible to rule that the ruby dust used in Continual Flame transforms into the flame itself. But when a player asks me what happens to the sacrificial offering used in Divination while the incense burns up, I make something thematically appropriate up on the spot - and that could mean that the valuable offering remains and somebody else could theoretically recycle it.

Answer 4

Looking at the 1st-level conjuration spell "Find Familiar" (Player's Handbook 240), it specifies the material component as "10 gp worth of charcoal, incense, and herbs that must be consumed by fire in a brass brazier." The application of the word "consumed" here indicates that the items are destroyed by the natural action of fire.

"Consumed by fire" is a relatively common phrase that renders the meaning of "destroyed" (e.g., https://brooksbulletin.com/more-grassland-consumed-by-fire-in-the-county/#).

Squaring that against the principle of conservation of mass, a way of interpreting the consumption of spell component materials is to assume that the matter still exists, but it is in such a high state of entropy that its energy is in a more spread out and disordered state. It would cost more energy to re-order it than it would provide. Because some energy is always lost as heat (by conduction, convection, and/or radiation), the component is essentially irretrievably altered.