Craft Contingent Spell

[Atypical_Necro]

The main villain of my campaign is a spellcaster specializing in summoning. She has been alive fo a long time and is an excellent planner. As such, I thought that the Craft Contingent Spell feat made perfect sense. The problem is that I have no experience with contingencies. What would be some good contingencies for such an enemy? She has access to 7th level divine spells from the cleric and druid spell lists and 5th level arcane spells from the wizard/sorcerer and wu jen spell lists (campaign reasons), unless you can use scrolls to create your contingencies in which case she has access to any spell of up t 7th level.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Jack_Simth]

With Contingency, the first thing you need to answer is "How much information does the spell have to make the decision?"

If it has access to the user's perceptions and knowledge, then there's a fair number of ways around it.
If it knows everything about the user (all status effects) as well as the user's perceptions, then it's VERY useful, but still somewhat limited.
If it's omniscient, then it's pretty much a "win button" if used carefully (for instance, you could set a Contingency to Greater Plane Shift yourself somewhere if, say, someone who wants you dead gains line-of-effect to you)

If I assume yes to the first two, but no to the third:

With the expense of Craft Contingent Spell (Spell Level * Caster Level * 100 gp), unless you're very wealthy, you're going to be doing emergency button effects. Panacea (Spell Compendium), Restoration, Greater Restoration, Heal, Revivify (Spell Compendium), Remove Curse, Break Enchantment, Magic Circle Against Evil, Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, Greater Plane Shift (Spell Compendium), Resurrection, Otiluke's Suppressing Field (Complete Mage), et cetera under various situations. Essentially, you want to set up fairly straightforward criteria for triggering (if under any condition in set [X] when all contingencies in set [Y] have already been expended) in such a way that you'll be OK. Ideally, you'll want things to happen in a partcular order, too. So "I (identify a [Death or negative energy spell] being cast at me) or (become the subject of a Death or negative energy effect)" for Death Ward, "When I get (grappled) or (restricted by a spell that affects my movement)" for Freedom of Movement. "If I'm cursed" for Remove Curse, et cetera. Basically just look at the various spells that fix things, and set the criteria to be you're affected by what it fixes... provided there's not a cheaper contingency in place that would ALSO fix that. Greater Plane Shift is a "get out of dodge" in case everything else goes wrong, and it's paired with Otiluke's Suppressing Field to get rid of Abjuration effects that would prevent it (so Otiluke's Suppressing Field goes off if, oh, more than three of the other 'fix it' contingencies are used up, and Greater Plane Shift goes off after Otiluke's Suppressing Field fires).

Yes, you might add a few "This is a serious fight" contingencies (so, for instance, have a Giant Size and Body Outside Body go off after two of the 'fix it' Contingencies have gone off).

Oh yes, and Craft Contingent Spell is a crafting feat, which means you can use scrolls to satisfy the requirements... however, you need one for each day of crafting, and any Craft Contingent Spell that's 3rd level or higher will take more than one day - PLUS you still have to pay the costs of the Craft Contingent Spell. So crafting, say, Greater Teleport that way (7th level spell) would have a market price of: Spell level * caster Level * 100 gp for the Contingent Spell itself = 7*13*100=9100 - which takes ten days of crafting, so ten scrolls of Greater Teleport, each of which has a market price of 25*spell level * caster level. You end up paying 22,750 gp for the scrolls, 4,550 gp for the crafting materials, and 364 xp to craft it. That's only slightly less expensive than the material components for True Resurrection... and one Dispel Magic might get rid of it.

[Atypical_Necro]

Thank you very much, that answer was quite thorough and useful! Exactly what I needed.
Note to self, spells she knows are better and cheaper.