The Great Celerity Fight!

[ekarney]

Premise: One of my players (Character name: Johnny Hurt) has recently discovered Celerity, and good for him, it's an excellent spell.
However, sometimes I do like throw a spanner in the works every once in a while for a bit of shock value, which leads me to the following question:

If Johnny Hurt casts Celerity, Greater could an opposed wizard (We'll call him Larry) cast an opposed Celerity?

Example: Johnny hurt enter combat, Larry has the initiative so he starts casting X spell, Johnny doesn't like that Larry is casting so Johnny cast's Greater Celerity.
Larry sees Johnny is now under the effects of Celerity so he casts his own Greater Celerity.

Is Larry allowed to cast Celerity whilst Johnny is under the effects of his own Celerity.

This is a purely hypothetical, since if both cast Celerity they're both dazed which leads to the hilarious image of two wizards casting spells at each other, then standing there drooling for the next 6 seconds. It's also debatable whether this is actually tactically sound or not, but if it's feasible it would be a fun way to tip the tables on ol Johnny Hurt.

[Darrin]

Well, the RAW on immediate actions isn't entirely clear, but as I understand it...

An immediate action that interrupts another action takes place and is completed before the action it interrupts. This timing method is generally referred to as "LIFO", or "Last In, First Out", which you may already be familiar with from playing Magic: the Gathering (instants, the stack, etc.). So...

1. Event Blah is happening. This could be Wizard A casting a spell, making an attack, moving, monologueing, etc.
2. Wizard B casts greater celerity to interrupt Event Blah. He starts performing his action (casting a spell, etc.)
3. Wizard A casts his own greater celerity to interrupt Wizard B. He performs his action (casting a spell, etc.). There are no further interruptions, so his actions resolve.
4. If Wizard B is still able to complete his action (from casting greater celerity) then he does so, and those actions resolve.
5. Event Blah resolves.
6. For the next round of turns, both Wizard A and B are dazed.

[Uncle Pine]

Immediate actions can be taken at any time, so yes Larry could cast Celerity as Johnny is casting Celerity, after Johnny casted Celerity but before Johnny takes his bonus standard action, while Johnny is executing such bonus standard action, or after all of the above. The preferred course of action for Larry would be to identify Celerity as Johnny is about to cast it (with a Spellcraft check) and answer it with a Celerity of his own, as Larry's Celerity would therefore resolve first giving him both the first action of the combat and the ability to wake up first from the dazed condition inflicted by Celerity.
Johnny wouldn't however be able to answer Larry's Celerity with a third Celerity, because Johnny already expended his immediate action for the round.

Edit: ninjaed.

[Eldariel]

Miniatures Handbook defines that it goes exactly as Darrin said. It's also impossible to avoid the Daze (Quick Recovery [Lords of Madness], Favor of the Martyr [Spell Compendium] or few others).

[ekarney]

Thank you everyone, this is definitely an ace I'll keep up my sleeve for later.

I just didn't want to be hit with "Obscure sidebar from x 3.0 book that was never updated implies that you can't out-celerity me"

[Khedrac]

Example: Johnny hurt enter combat, Larry has the initiative so he starts casting X spell, Johnny doesn't like that Larry is casting so Johnny cast's Greater Celerity.
Larry sees Johnny is now under the effects of Celerity so he casts his own Greater Celerity.
In addition to not being able to use 2 immediate actions in the same round, Johnny is flat-footed in the first round of combat when Larry is casting, that means Johnny cannot take an immediate action, so he cannot cast celerity.

[Endarire]

But remember contingency + celerity for another layer of interruptions!

[Zaq]

But remember contingency + celerity for another layer of interruptions!

Commonly known as the “whose turn is it anyway?” scenario.

[magic9mushroom]

Miniatures Handbook defines that it goes exactly as Darrin said. It's also impossible to avoid the Daze (Quick Recovery [Lords of Madness], Favor of the Martyr [Spell Compendium] or few others).

Favour of the Martyr definitely doesn't work RAW, as it makes you immune to "effects that would cause [you] to be dazed" i.e. Celerity itself (this wording is itself problematic, as it also makes FotM block Maw of Chaos and Blasphemy, but eh).

But from where are you digging out "Quick Recovery doesn't work" or even "daze immunity not from FotM doesn't work"? It's very common to houserule that avoiding/negating Celerity's daze is impossible (as the spell is clearly broken without it), but I see nothing of that ilk in the actual rules.

[ben-zayb]

Unfortunately, 3.5 doesn't have clear cut rules equivalent to M:tG's "stack". I find that weird, despite 3rd ed being released after WotC acquired TSR.

[ekarney]

In addition to not being able to use 2 immediate actions in the same round, Johnny is flat-footed in the first round of combat when Larry is casting, that means Johnny cannot take an immediate action, so he cannot cast celerity.

Alright that might have been a bad example, but the gist of the question was "Can you celerity while someone else is Celeritied/Celefied/Whatever the correct terminology is"

[Endarire]

I'm also unsure how Twin Spell and Repeat spell interact with celerity by RAW. Does the caster get Dazed for more than 1 round?

[magic9mushroom]

I'm also unsure how Twin Spell and Repeat spell interact with celerity by RAW. Does the caster get Dazed for more than 1 round?

WRT Twin: Well, the question is "what does it mean to take two standard actions simultaneously?". If it's ruled that one of them goes first, then you only get one (as for the second one, you are already dazed). If it's ruled that both go off at the same time, then you get both. Either way, the Daze duration doesn't stack. Obviously, there is no point to casting a Twinned Celerity in the first case unless you have some form of Daze immunity (Quick Recovery won't help, as it only triggers at the beginning of your turn).

WRT Repeat: this is a little more complicated, but the short answer is "you really don't want to do that unless you can ignore Daze". There are two primary cases to consider: a) that in which you're casting Celerity before the start of your turn in the round, and b) that in which you're casting it either during your turn or after your turn.

In case a) you cast Repeated Celerity at initiative count let's say 10 in round let's say 1, with your own initiative count being 5.

Round 1, Init 10: You cast Repeated Celerity, and get a standard action. You are now dazed until the end of your next turn.
Round 1, Init 5: You get your turn. You are dazed, so you take no actions. You are no longer dazed.
Round 2, Init 5: Your turn begins. Repeat Spell activates and Celerity goes off again. You get a standard action, and are then dazed until the end of your next turn. You are dazed, so you can't take your ordinary actions.
Round 3, Init 5: You get your turn. You are dazed, so you take no actions. You are no longer dazed.

In case b) you cast Repeated Celerity at initiative count 5 in round 1, with your own initiative count being 10. Note that this all works out much the same if you use your swift action to cast Celerity at the end of your turn, except that then you obviously can't use your swift action in Round 1 to do something else.

Round 1, Init 10: You get your turn as normal.
Round 1, Init 5: You cast Repeated Celerity, and get a standard action. You are now dazed until the end of your next turn.
Round 2, Init 10: Your turn begins. Repeat Spell activates and Celerity goes off again. You get a standard action, but can't use it because you are dazed. Because you didn't take the standard action from Celerity, you don't get a second instance of daze. You also can't take your ordinary actions, because you are dazed. You are no longer dazed.

Basically, having Celerity go off at the beginning of your normal turn is terrible, because then you lose two turns instead of one and you don't get to act out of turn. Even Quick Recovery doesn't really fix it, because the daze is being applied after Quick Recovery but before you get to take the normal turn's actions (it does let you act in the following round, though). If you have some sort of daze immunity that works on Celerity, of course, it's just more free actions, but otherwise the best case for Repeated Celerity is identical to Celerity without the metamagic applied.

[Eldariel]

Unfortunately, 3.5 doesn't have clear cut rules equivalent to M:tG's "stack". I find that weird, despite 3rd ed being released after WotC acquired TSR.

Actually, Miniatures Handbook specifically outlines a stack-like system (thst everyone already intuitively seems to use).


Favour of the Martyr definitely doesn't work RAW, as it makes you immune to "effects that would cause [you] to be dazed" i.e. Celerity itself (this wording is itself problematic, as it also makes FotM block Maw of Chaos and Blasphemy, but eh).

But from where are you digging out "Quick Recovery doesn't work" or even "daze immunity not from FotM doesn't work"? It's very common to houserule that avoiding/negating Celerity's daze is impossible (as the spell is clearly broken without it), but I see nothing of that ilk in the actual rules.

My bad, meant to say "Possible".

[unseenmage]

But remember contingency + celerity for another layer of interruptions!
It's also possible, if super cheesey, to wear or carry Construct minions who have thus combo of spells on the. too. Or simply contingency plus Teleport, planeshift, or their greater counterparts. The minion teleports and chooses to take you with them.

In thus way you can completely shatter the action economy though so be careful of thrown DMGs.

Range personal spells can be cast on another a few ways, Energy Transformation Field among them. And I think Glyoh Seal or similar too.