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View Full Version : Pathfinder What level should this spell be? Reflexive Blink



talonos
2016-09-12, 04:37 PM
REFLEXIVE BLINK

School: transmutation
Level: sorcerer/wizard 3 (I think?)
Casting Time: 1 immediate action
Components: V
Range: personal
Target: you
Duration: the remainder of the turn

When the bullet hits your shoulder, the pain is staggering. As you watch the gunslinger reload with unearthly speed, you quickly decide you don't wish to be around any longer.

You may only cast this spell (as an immediate action) upon taking damage of any kind. In response, you shunt yourself to the astral plane in a sort of slow-acting, short-range teleport.

Until the end of the currently acting character's turn, you effectively do not exist. You cannot be targeted with spells or abilities, cannot be seen, and cannot take any actions.

At the end of the currently acting character's turn, you re-appear in a random nearby location within about 30 feet; to determine where, roll as though your opponent had missed you with a splash weapon from 1d6 range increments away. If this would put you inside a solid object or in another creatures square, you are shunted to the nearest available space, taking 1d6 per 10 feet (or portion thereof) traveled.

Notes on motivation: This was originally used as an at-will spell-like ability on a home-brew monster I made. The purpose was to help the party gunslinger feel as though his new dead-shot ability was useful. He tried his normal rapid-shot hasted full attack on the monster, hit with the first attack, and the monster blinked out as above, wasting the rest of the full attack action. Next round, the gunslinger instead hit with a dead shot, dealing considerably more damage, and felt like maybe it wasn't a wasted ability after all.

The party sorcerer saw this happen, and decided that he, too was afraid he might one day run into somebody who was highly reliant on full attacks. He announced he wanted to learn the spell. At which point I'm like "Well dang, now I need to figure out what level this thing would be."

The ability to interrupt and end a full attack action is pretty powerful, especially for a sorcerer who can just learn this spell and never have to prepare it. (It just turns into a "get out of any full attack free" card.) However, it can only be cast in response to damage, it requires an immediate action, meaning it can only go off once per round, it interferes with strategic positioning, once an opponent knows about it, they can take steps to mitigate its effects, and it requires an entire spell slot per round of protection.

Does third level sound about right? Or should it be 2nd?

PapaQuackers
2016-09-12, 05:13 PM
I'm not really sure this ability would allow you to avoid a full round attack since all of the attacks are supposed to occur in rapid succession. I think that makes this spell a logistical nightmare.

Making a full round attack can also be dictated AFTER you make the first regular attack. So your gunslinger could have attacked, noticed the creature blinked, and then moved instead of attacking again. This would of course assume that you allow this subversion of combat rules but everything is supposed to happen in a space of 6 seconds y'know. I would instead make this a spell that can be applied on the round before hand as an immediate or swift action and then triggered when you're struck.

I.E.

Monster 1: Applies Reactive Blink as a Swift action
Player 1: Shoots at monster as full round attack and as such rolls for the attack and damage for any attacks he may get.
Monster 1: Is hit by the first attack and in that split second his spell triggers and he blinks away before the other attacks can take place.

I just don't think it's reasonable that anyone could cast a spell that has verbal components in the space of less than 6 seconds WHILE being attacked.

Zaydos
2016-09-12, 10:06 PM
I'm not the best on PF but in 3.5 I'd say 3rd level is well pegged. I won't compare to Wings of Cover because unlike this that is a rules mess where they say the attack is wasted and also say that the attacker may choose not to make the attack and they don't seem to know what total cover does. Instead I will compare to Greater Mirror Image (PHB 2). It's 4th level. It's an immediate action. It doesn't require you to eat the attack. It creates 3-6 images (or up to 7-8 at 18th CL), giving it a (roughly) 81.8% chance of negating one attack, 63.6% of negating 2, and while it goes down from there (only 45.5% of negating 3, and 27% of 4), it also creates another image each round. So it's significantly weaker than Greater Mirror Image but is not completely obsoleted which is a good 3rd level spell (since Greater Mirror Image probably could be a 5th level spell).

I also imagine the verbal component is something like "[expletive deleted]", I mean verbal components don't have to be long after all Feather Fall is cast in the space of being dropped by a bird and falling 60 ft within 1 second (has a verbal component), and Greater Mirror Image is cast while someone swings a sword at you and has a verbal and somatic component.

Chimera245
2016-09-13, 01:41 AM
That's not even a subversion, is it? I thought it was the default rules to decide what to do after you deliver the first attack. And even when you are full-attacking, you wait to make decisions for each attack until the attack is being performed. Like which targets you hit, or whether they're normal attacks, or combat maneuvers, or whether you'll apply Power Attack, etc.

To be fair, though, I got used to combat in 3.0/3.5, and just skimmed Pathfinder for differences. Did they make some changes to this that I missed?

Zaydos
2016-09-13, 01:51 AM
I will say the way the ability works has nothing to do with the blink spell and it should probably be a Conjuration (Teleportation) effect but other than that I really like it and wish I'd thought of it. I may need to bookmark it.


That's not even a subversion, is it? I thought it was the default rules to decide what to do after you deliver the first attack. And even when you are full-attacking, you wait to make decisions for each attack until the attack is being performed. Like which targets you hit, or whether they're normal attacks, or combat maneuvers, or whether you'll apply Power Attack, etc.

To be fair, though, I got used to combat in 3.0/3.5, and just skimmed Pathfinder for differences. Did they make some changes to this that I missed?

3.0/3.5 Power Attack actually has a line saying:


On your action, before making attack rolls for a round,

So you choose it before making the first attack, that said yeah targets, whether to trip or not, etc.

As for the other, PFSRD has this to say


If you get more than one attack per round because your base attack bonus is high enough (see Base Attack Bonus in Classes), because you fight with two weapons or a double weapon, or for some special reason, you must use a full-round action to get your additional attacks. You do not need to specify the targets of your attacks ahead of time. You can see how the earlier attacks turn out before assigning the later ones.

Also goes on to specify that you can choose to trip or not with each attack based upon what has happened during your turn, and that after the first attack you can go 'I want to move not full attack'. So yeah just your normal level of disruption for Immediate Action, actually less than usual. I mean compare to Stay the Hand (PHBII) which goes 'nope can't attack me this turn' with Will negates and includes rules for them changing their attack target (with a -4 to the attack roll if they do so).

talonos
2016-09-13, 02:25 PM
Greater mirror image is a great reference. Pathfinder spells tend to be weaker than post-power-creep 3.5 spells, so if Greater mirror image used to be on the line between 4 and five, it'd be a solid 5 in pathfinder. Meaning this spell could be three or four.

Good call on the conjuration(teleportation).

I was thinking a verbal component of "OUCH!" or something similar, but your caster's willingness to use expletives may vary. :smallwink:

Sayt
2016-09-13, 06:11 PM
Considering emergency force sphere is a level 4 spell, this at 3 doesn't seem to bad.

Chimera245
2016-09-14, 08:20 AM
Welp, I was going from memory. Two outta three ain't bad...