Creative Uses for Contingent Spell

[Fable Wright]

As the thread title says. The effects of Contingency don't have to necessarily be the strongest, but what are some out of the box uses for Contingency that you can think of?


The Hamsterball
Resilient Sphere targeting yourself on a trigger

Everybody Do The Flop
Feign Death targeting yourself on a trigger

The "I Haven't Read The Rules"
Fireball on yourself when you go down, which you can't do because Contingency must have a target (which Contingency doesn't have), and that target must be you. It is disheartening to see how many people have tried this.


Is Someone Watching Me?
Set Contingency to trigger Nondetection when you would be detected by a third level or higher Divination Spell (as we don't want a random See Invisibility to trip this). Simple, easy, and effective—if you ever Detect Magic and notice your contingency was turned off, you know someone was trying to spy on you, and you're automatically warded from the result. And hey—it's a (pseudo) ten day Nondetection, rather than 8 hours.

Look, Ma, I'm A Distraction!
The Mislead spell breaks upon casting a spell—which leads to an interesting rules interaction with Readying. Technically speaking, when you Ready an action to cast a spell, you cast it with your action, expending the slot. This is also the window you'd need to Counterspell a spell in, as releasing the spell as a reaction isn't casting.

So if you, for example, set a Contingent Mislead to show up whenever you released the energy for a readied spell, you could, say, run up in the middle of a group of enemies with a Readied Thunder Step, taunt them, and then immediately release the spell. To the outside observer, you just ran up with a lovely short-range explosion spell—when really, you're hiding up to 90ft away, invisibly. Good way to trick a few enemies into swinging at air though, isn't it?

Yeetus Maximus
While Bigby's Hand can't target yourself, Telekinesis can. Set a Contingent Telekinesis spell the next time you'd consider a Dimension Door—thirty feet is usually enough to yeet you out of the most dangerous situations that you'd want Dimension Door for, and over the course of the next few rounds, well, you've got a powerful battlefield control spell to use as you please. Can also act as a poor man's feather fall in a pinch if necessary.

There's Something In My Eye
Trick for Illusionists, this one. Malleable Illusions allows you to "change the nature of [an] illusion (using that spell's normal parameters for the illusion), provided that you can see the illusion". The rules text is a little controversial (are Target and Range normal parameters?), but a reasonable interpretation is often that it allows you to re-cast an illusion spell without using a spell slot, as long as you can see the illusion in question. In addition, this takes an action—no components whatsoever.

Enter Phantasmal Killer and Phantasmal Force—both spells that create things only visible to the target. An illusionist could have a Contingent Phantasmal Killer set up to target himself, trigger it with something as innocuous as an object interaction on their turn, and use their action to, essentially, cast a Subtle Spell'd 5th level Phantasmal Killer on a target. It's not as powerful battlefield control as Telekinesis, but it is far more subtle, and doesn't require restraining yourself for a round after use.

What new and niche uses of the spell can you come up with?

[Blood of Gaea]

An Arcana Cleric can use it to Revivify themselves.

If you find yourself reasonably often fighting invisible enemies, blinking your left eye twice to cast See Invisibility might be a priceless trick.

[Lord Vukodlak]

My wizard just used typical false life if he took damage. Upcast to 5th level it was a significant bit of hit points, given wizards don't tend to have a ton to begin with. At 11th Level you expect a wizard to have 64 hit points assuming a Con score of 14. 25+hit points is a big boost.


An Arcana Cleric can use it to Revivify themselves.
*The use of Revivify with Contingency is debatable due to the caster not being a valid target for Revivify at the time of Contingency's casting. I do not agree with this logic but felt it worth mentioning.
That being said any further discussion to the validity of Revivify+Contingency should be taken to its own topic so as not to derail this thread for ten pages.

[Blood of Gaea]

My wizard just used typical false life if he took damage. Upcast to 5th level it was a significant bit of hit points, given wizards don't tend to have a ton to begin with. At 11th Level you expect a wizard to have 64 hit points assuming a Con score of 14. 25+hit points is a big boost.
I could also see a Mark of Warding Dwarf or Wizard with a Hexblade dip using a 5th level Armor of Agathys to give their THP padding some bite.

[kazaryu]

There's Something In My Eye
Trick for Illusionists, this one. Malleable Illusions allows you to "change the nature of [an] illusion (using that spell's normal parameters for the illusion), provided that you can see the illusion". The rules text is a little controversial (are Target and Range normal parameters?), but a reasonable interpretation is often that it allows you to re-cast an illusion spell without using a spell slot, as long as you can see the illusion in question. In addition, this takes an action—no components whatsoever.

Enter Phantasmal Killer and Phantasmal Force—both spells that create things only visible to the target. An illusionist could have a Contingent Phantasmal Killer set up to target himself, trigger it with something as innocuous as an object interaction on their turn, and use their action to, essentially, cast a Subtle Spell'd 5th level Phantasmal Killer on a target. It's not as powerful battlefield control as Telekinesis, but it is far more subtle, and doesn't require restraining yourself for a round after use.

What new and niche uses of the spell can you come up with?

honestly, i disagree that that is a 'reasonable' interpretation. it explicitly doesn't allow you to recast the spell. it allows you to alter 'the nature of an illusion' (using the spells parameters for the illusion) provided you can see that illusion. Based on...speaking english, it seems very clear that the intent is to allow you to alter the appearance (or texture in the case of spells like hallucinatory terrain) of illusions that you've created. the 'parameters' clause very clearly refers to the list of limitations that a spell has. i.e. minor illusion can't be larger than 5'x5' and is either a still image or a single sound. so it'd be basically useless for spells like phantasmal force/killer, because in order to affect them, you'd need to be able to see them....in which case they'd be targeting you.

to put it another way: in order to change the target, you need to recast the spell, and thats not something explicitly allowed by the ability. what you are doing has very similar effects of recasting those spells, but mechanically it is not the same thing.


as for the original premise: best i can think of is that you can forego the defensive benefits in order to cast certain buffing spells as a free action (not technically a thing in 5e, but it gets the point across) when entering combat. greater invisibility could be a solid idea.

[LudicSavant]

I could also see a Mark of Warding Dwarf or Wizard with a Hexblade dip using a 5th level Armor of Agathys to give their THP padding some bite.

The contingency I use for that is usually “if I am hit by a melee attack and do not currently have temporary hit points” (or however that would get phrased IC based on how temp hp are fluffed at that table.)

Another interesting thing you can do as an Evoker is Overchanneled Fire Shield. You don’t even use up the overchannel for the current day and unlike AoA it can’t “break” from being hit and requires no multiclassing.

[Fable Wright]

honestly, i disagree that that is a 'reasonable' interpretation. it explicitly doesn't allow you to recast the spell. it allows you to alter 'the nature of an illusion' (using the spells parameters for the illusion) provided you can see that illusion. Based on...speaking english, it seems very clear that the intent is to allow you to alter the appearance (or texture in the case of spells like hallucinatory terrain) of illusions that you've created. the 'parameters' clause very clearly refers to the list of limitations that a spell has. i.e. minor illusion can't be larger than 5'x5' and is either a still image or a single sound. so it'd be basically useless for spells like phantasmal force/killer, because in order to affect them, you'd need to be able to see them....in which case they'd be targeting you.

That is an interpretation. I mentioned that the rules text was controversial for a reason.

From a power level context—it's competing with Undead Thralls, Expert Divination, and Transmuter's Stone, some of the best features in the game. Being able to retarget a Phantasmal Force or Phantasmal Killer instead of a Telekinesis isn't a game changer. Neither is being able to haul around Hallucinatory Terrain.

From a plain English context—it allows you to change "the nature of an illusion", and then clarifies that the illusion's nature is determined by "the spell's parameters for the illusion". The parameters are casting time, range, target, duration, and any further parameters mentioned in the text of the spell. If the "nature of an illusion" was inherently obvious, why was it clarified with such a broad scope?

From a "I have played the game before" perspective—I've been at a number of tables who let you change what a Major Image depicts, throughout the duration of the spell, without the Illusionist feature. Even without that—"I create an illusion of a shapeshifting blob of ectoplasm currently taking the form of <X>" with Major Image gets you all the "flexibility" that you seem to propose Malleable Illusions has, again without needing to dedicate your subclass to it.

Like I said, though, it's controversial. If you don't like the reading, don't use it at any table you run. If you're not sure, pitch it to your DM and see what they think. If your DM says no, then just... don't play an illusionist? They're not flexible enough for any of your spells to shine anyways.

[Segev]

Even with the most lenient rules for retargeting via Malleable Illusions, the phantasmal killer still targets you initially, so you have to save or take the damage/die. This isn't an optimal strategy, I don't think.

[Fable Wright]

Even with the most lenient rules for retargeting via Malleable Illusions, the phantasmal killer still targets you initially, so you have to save or take the damage/die. This isn't an optimal strategy, I don't think.

Surprisingly, no! You do need to purposefully fail the safe, and become Frightened of yourself for a turn, but Phantasmal Killer only applies damage at the end of your turn. So if you apply it to yourself at the start of your turn and redirect it to someone else before the end, you don't suffer anything more than a momentary fright.

Despite the name and how it worked in 3.5e, the spell cannot insta-kill.

[Segev]

Surprisingly, no! You do need to purposefully fail the safe, and become Frightened of yourself for a turn, but Phantasmal Killer only applies damage at the end of your turn. So if you apply it to yourself at the start of your turn and redirect it to someone else before the end, you don't suffer anything more than a momentary fright.

Despite the name and how it worked in 3.5e, the spell cannot insta-kill.

Huh. No damage at the moment the spell is cast? That's...different.

I did recall it was closer to an upcasting of phantasmal force than what it had been in prior editions. ...honestly, it probably should just have been an upcasting of it. I suspect they kept it as a separate spell only to preserve the name for legacy's sake.

[Fable Wright]

Huh. No damage at the moment the spell is cast? That's...different.

I did recall it was closer to an upcasting of phantasmal force than what it had been in prior editions. ...honestly, it probably should just have been an upcasting of it. I suspect they kept it as a separate spell only to preserve the name for legacy's sake.

The strongest possible interpretation of the RAW of the spell is that the target is incapable of moving at all due to the source of their fear constantly being in view (and thus surrounding them), which implies that moving in any direction is impossible, and their attack rolls are at disadvantage. Then they save to break the effect at end of turn, taking <Spell Level>d10 damage on a fail. Which is still less powerful than Polymorphing them into a rabbit.

Much less the interpretation that they're Frightened but can move in any direction.

...This is the closest I got to making the spell usable, and taking advantage of its questionable design rather than bemoaning it, alright? :smalltongue:

[Edea]

If you're going on a dangerous extraplanar journey, I...think you're able to place a contingent banishment on yourself? You'd warp back to the Material when the emergency condition was satisfied, and then you could choose to either just stay for one minute and not go back, or maybe teleport to you sanctum real quick to grab something you needed and then just stop concentrating on the banishment to go right back to where you were when it was triggered.

You can also have a contingent gaseous form set to go off if you find yourself restrained (such as if there's a cave-in, or a Large+ enemy decides you need grappling), though that's not exactly creative...

[Pondincherry]

Not exactly very creative, but my Paladin/Fighter/Bard used a Contingent Cure Wounds set to trigger when A) he dropped to 0 hp, or B) he was mounted on his pegasus (from Find Greater Steed) and his Pegasus reached 1 hp. The idea here was that Find Greater Steed lets you share spells with your steed while mounted, so if the Pegasus dropped to 1 hp, the Cure Wounds would cure both him and the mount. (I also had a Death Ward affect both of us to make it likely that the Pegasus would reach exactly 1 hp at some point.) In practice, though, it was only 20-some hp, and I was knocked to 0 again with the next hit.

My current use is a Contingent Fire Shield set to trigger to give resistance to the appropriate damage type when I'm about to take fire or cold damage. We're about to fight a dragon with a breath weapon with fire damage, so it should be pretty useful and save the 4th-level spell slot. Not super creative, though.

[hitchhike79]

Do the spells cast by contingency require concentration if they normally require concentration to keep up?
ie... Shadowblade, Vampiric Touch, Warding Wind?

[Blood of Gaea]

Do the spells cast by contingency require concentration if they normally require concentration to keep up?
ie... Shadowblade, Vampiric Touch, Warding Wind?
They do. To avoid concentration, you'll have to make use of Glyph of Warding.

[Chugger]

Here's some heavy cheese: have a cleric cast revivify into your ring of spell storing - then you cast revivify with continency.

Or get a lock friend to cast a lvl 5 armor of agathys into your ring.

If you want to have a true panic button contingency, can you banishment yourself? Just get the heck out of that plane of existence until things settled down? In some cases this might be great - in others maybe not - triggered by heavy damage or something.

[LudicSavant]

If you want to have a true panic button contingency, can you banishment yourself? Just get the heck out of that plane of existence until things settled down? In some cases this might be great - in others maybe not - triggered by heavy damage or something.

Why on earth would you do this? Being incapacitated by Banishment breaks Concentration...

[ff7hero]

Why on earth would you do this? Being incapacitated by Banishment breaks Concentration...

I think the intent is you use this when off-Prime (or off your home plane if you're not a Prime native). Banishment doesn't incapacitate if the target is sent to their home plane as opposed to the "harmless demiplane" they gets used when you vanish a creature from it's native plane.

[Edea]

There are two key problems with it:

The spell in no way indicates where on the home plane the target ends up. Now, I doubt it could ever set you somewhere that's actively harmful, as then that could be turned right around and be used as a damage/kill spell on its intended targets. I would rule that it banishes you to the spot on your home plane where you left it in the first place (or as close to it as possible), but that's not RAW.
I am unsure if you're able to willfully fail the Charisma saving throw.


I probably should've highlighted the original suggestion in blue, as I'm quite certain this isn't the intent of banishment.

[Chugger]

Look I admit the banishment idea is out there - anyone should be able to tell the way I worded the other post (and some of us do grasp this - thank you!). As others said, there are reasons to self-banishment. But it looks like it does incapacitate, so it'd only be good for (maybe) one round.

So if an annihilation sphere is about to explode and you time it just right - you banish yourself to a demiplane - three seconds - BOOM - three seconds - you come back - maybe some whirling energy scorches you, maybe you do absorb elements and live - but the main BOOM doesn't shred you. Or the moment it goes off you're banished - then six seconds for explosion to end - you come back - well, it's not very useful most of the time.

[Chugger]

Oh wait - I looked up the condition incapacitated: "An incapacitated creature can’t take Actions or Reactions." Doesn't say you lose concentration. Now I could see some DMs ruling it breaks concentration, but by RAW, unless there's clarification elsewhere, it looks like it does not.

If there is a moment in a fight when you want to leave for a few rounds to a safe demiplane - or maybe return to your home plane - this could be useful. If your DM rules that incapacitated doesn't end concentration - and there are some other potential issues. Well, if a DM really doesn't want your char to die and gives you "being creative" points, so to speak, he or she might let you get away with this once to escape some horrific effect by removing yourself to a demiplane. There are other ways to do this, too.

[Fable Wright]

Oh wait - I looked up the condition incapacitated: "An incapacitated creature can’t take Actions or Reactions." Doesn't say you lose concentration. Now I could see some DMs ruling it breaks concentration, but by RAW, unless there's clarification elsewhere, it looks like it does not.

It's in the definition of Concentration.



Concentration
Some Spells require you to maintain Concentration in order to keep their magic active. If you lose Concentration, such a spell ends.

If a spell must be maintained with Concentration, that fact appears in its Duration entry, and the spell specifies how long you can concentrate on it. You can end Concentration at any time (no action required).

Normal activity, such as moving and attacking, doesn’t interfere with Concentration. The following factors can break concentration:


Casting another spell that requires Concentration. You lose Concentration on a spell if you cast another spell that requires Concentration. You can’t concentrate on two Spells at once.
Taking damage. Whenever you take damage while you are concentrating on a spell, you must make a Constitution saving throw to maintain your Concentration. The DC equals 10 or half the damage you take, whichever number is higher. If you take damage from multiple sources, such as an arrow and a dragon’s breath, you make a separate saving throw for each source of damage.
Being Incapacitated or killed. You lose Concentration on a spell if you are Incapacitated or if you die.

[Dr paradox]

I've got an NPC wizard set up with a Polymorph contingency to turn into a giant eagle when he says a code word. Speaking is a free action, so he could Polymorph, disengage, fly eighty feet, or dash 160 feet if he's clear of targets.

In fact, hey, Misty Step, magic word, fly another 160 feet. His situation is such that he'll basically never be underground, so it's a pretty decent escape clause for the level of threats he faces.

[Mr Adventurer]

This is a great thread idea and there are some great responses.

On Resilient Sphere though, I've thought about it for defensive purposes in the past but I can't get past the image of an enemy running up and moving the sphere around - since the globe is weightless, it can always be moved by any other creature...

Edit: is there anything like the old Spell Sequencer spells in 5e?

[LudicSavant]

Doesn't say you lose concentration.

Yes it does.


You lose Concentration on a spell if you are Incapacitated or if you die.