Honestly with the whole "getting D&D details wrong", I've just been ignoring anything that doesn't seem right and just putting it down to "this is based on D&D, this isn't actually D&D" because its mainly thing like the spells being slightly more powerful than what they normally would be (i.e. Prestidigitation would only affect one candle at a time, Conjure Elemental actually takes a whole minute to cast and would only summon one stoney-boi, Minor Illusion should only be able to affect a 5 foot cube at a time, etc,) and it would probably be less interesting if Cole had to go "hang on, let me cast Prestidigitation 13 times because there's a lot of torches".
Same,
i'm an avid D&D dungeonmaster, but the spells not being exactly or 100% right in this novel as the tabletop rules its not bad.
Things change, and need changes, when going to another type of media for a better narrative in general, just like what happens when books or comics become tv series or movies.
And even when playing there's always homemade rules, so some spells acting different its not really a problem
Just the spell referrences alone already made my day when playing this