eliminating the long casting time for a spell-like ability.

[petermcleod117]

for the sake of a thought experiment i'm doing, i was wondering if there was a way to reduce the "casting time" for a spell-like ability, within the rules. say, with the spell "simulacrum", which has a casting time of 12 hours, is there a way to turn it into a spell-like ability usable as a standard action?

if it brings the character into epic-level, that is fine, because I don't intend to actually use him. it's just theoretical.

[Tvtyrant]

Quicken spell like ability does exactly that, turns it into a swift action regardless of original casting time.

[petermcleod117]

Quicken spell like ability does exactly that, turns it into a swift action regardless of original casting time.

awesome, thanks!

[Crake]

SLAs are always 1 standard action, or the spell's normal casting time if it's shorter than 1 standard action, unless it is otherwise stated. So depending on where you got your SLA from, it's quite likely that it's casting time is 1 standard action rather than 12 hours already, unless the ability states otherwise.

[Biggus]

As far as I can see, neither of those work.


Quicken spell like ability does exactly that, turns it into a swift action regardless of original casting time.


a spell-like ability that duplicates a spell with a casting time greater than 1 full round cannot be quickened


SLAs are always 1 standard action, or the spell's normal casting time if it's shorter than 1 standard action, unless it is otherwise stated. So depending on where you got your SLA from, it's quite likely that it's casting time is 1 standard action rather than 12 hours already, unless the ability states otherwise.


A spell-like ability takes the same amount of time to complete as the spell that it mimics (usually 1 standard action) unless otherwise stated.

Were you thinking of supernatural abilities possibly?

[Crake]

Were you thinking of supernatural abilities possibly?

As far as I can tell, d20srd is wrong on that point. The players handbook and monster manuals all say it's 1 standard action, unless otherwise specified, and the rules compendium updated that to include cases where the casting time was less than a standard action to instead use the shorter casting time, so having a feather fall SLA wasn't completely useless.

I cannot actually find "A spell-like ability takes the same amount of time to complete as the spell that it mimics" written in any of the core rulebooks, and if you go through the actual published SRD documents, rather than the d20srd website, that line doesn't exist in any of the documents, so it seems to be entirely a fabrication of the d20srd website developers.

[Biggus]

As far as I can tell, d20srd is wrong on that point. The players handbook and monster manuals all say it's 1 standard action, unless otherwise specified, and the rules compendium updated that to include cases where the casting time was less than a standard action to instead use the shorter casting time, so having a feather fall SLA wasn't completely useless.

I cannot actually find "A spell-like ability takes the same amount of time to complete as the spell that it mimics" written in any of the core rulebooks, and if you go through the actual published SRD documents, rather than the d20srd website, that line doesn't exist in any of the documents, so it seems to be entirely a fabrication of the d20srd website developers.

So it does. Weird. I knew they'd corrected one or two obvious errors (like the price of a standard strand of prayer beads) but not that they'd just outright made stuff up...

[Crake]

So it does. Weird. I knew they'd corrected one or two obvious errors (like the price of a standard strand of prayer beads) but not that they'd just outright made stuff up...

Yah, not the first time I've run into this specific case either, seems a common misconception entirely due to d20srd's change.

[Biggus]

Yah, not the first time I've run into this specific case either, seems a common misconception entirely due to d20srd's change.

Well, thanks for putting me right. I've started a thread about errors in the d20SRD so if you know of any others please let me know.

[Crake]

Well, thanks for putting me right. I've started a thread about errors in the d20SRD so if you know of any others please let me know.

None really jump out at me, but I also mostly refer to my books these days rather than the SRD, I enjoy the pen and paper feel of tabletop gaming, and kinda hate how pervasive technology has gotten into hobby. I'm sure technology can be a very valuable tool when used in the right way, but I find it breaks immersion way worse than flipping through the pages of a book. I've found it takes far more mental attention to type out a search and click on the various links than it does to go to your shelf, pick out a book and flip through the pages. In my experience, most DMs when looking stuff up on a computer tend to just hang and either the players just start talking amongst themselves, breaking the pacing and the immersion, or it's just silence. Meanwhile, DM when paging through books seem to be able to maintain a conversation far better, being able to continue with roleplay, or consider options for a combat better.

Just personal experience really on that front, but I've also been trying to move away from rules heavy games and into the more narrative focused, rules light systems so you don't even need to look things up or worry about the rules at all. And no, I'm not talking about systems like 5e :smalltongue:

[Biggus]

None really jump out at me, but I also mostly refer to my books these days rather than the SRD, I enjoy the pen and paper feel of tabletop gaming, and kinda hate how pervasive technology has gotten into hobby. I'm sure technology can be a very valuable tool when used in the right way, but I find it breaks immersion way worse than flipping through the pages of a book. I've found it takes far more mental attention to type out a search and click on the various links than it does to go to your shelf, pick out a book and flip through the pages. In my experience, most DMs when looking stuff up on a computer tend to just hang and either the players just start talking amongst themselves, breaking the pacing and the immersion, or it's just silence. Meanwhile, DM when paging through books seem to be able to maintain a conversation far better, being able to continue with roleplay, or consider options for a combat better.

Just personal experience really on that front, but I've also been trying to move away from rules heavy games and into the more narrative focused, rules light systems so you don't even need to look things up or worry about the rules at all. And no, I'm not talking about systems like 5e :smalltongue:

Fair enough, currently all my DMing is done over the internet due to Covid, so as I'm already looking at my computer I generally look things up on there.

[sreservoir]

As far as I can tell, d20srd is wrong on that point. The players handbook and monster manuals all say it's 1 standard action, unless otherwise specified, and the rules compendium updated that to include cases where the casting time was less than a standard action to instead use the shorter casting time, so having a feather fall SLA wasn't completely useless.

PHB actually says something pretty interesting:

A spell-like ability has a casting time of 1 standard action unless noted otherwise in the ability or spell description.
The PHB rule on spell-like abilities does work more or less the same way as the d20srd.org version (and is even a reasonable rule to boot), though the primary source precedence rules are a hash (PH is explicitly the primary source when DMG or MM disagree with it, but also MM is the primary source for spell-like abilities, so oops).

Anyway, putting together PHB ("standard action unless noted otherwise in the ability or spell description"), MM ("standard action unless noted otherwise", no further comment on where it might be noted otherwise), I'd just infer that the spell description is one of the places where the action to use an SLA can be noted otherwise, but the standard action time applies to SLAs that don't duplicate spells. The RC version ("unless otherwise noted" plus the "duplicates a spell that has a casting time of less than 1 standard action", but nothing specific about longer casting times) throws a bit of a wrench in divining intent from the phrasing but technically doesn't contradict PHB on this.


As for the phrasing of the d20srd.org version, though, that's a real mystery (https://2ch.vet/re_nozomi_cgame_1395629539_230_100) where that particular line came from. It's not in any of the Core books, the phrase doesn't appear in the SRD, it's not edited from the PLA entry (the PLA entry is the same as the MM SLA entry), and absically the exact phrasing has no apparently provenance that doesn't pass through d20srd.org.

The earliest (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=5295609&postcount=10) dateable (https://web.archive.org/web/20080512004153/http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm) sources for that line I can find on the web are from 2008, so I suspect it's a botched attempt at incorporating the RC rule (back when Jans was incorporating "corrections and v3.0 to v3.5 rules updates that do not appear in any official publication" (https://web.archive.org/web/20110213192015/http://www.d20srd.org/changes.htm)), though the last version of that d20srd.org page with the actual SRD text I can find is only mid-2005 (https://web.archive.org/web/20050830142226/http://www.d20srd.org/srd/naturalSpecialAbilities.htm) and the earliest version of the reorganized page in the wayback machine is mid-2008 (https://web.archive.org/web/20080512004153/http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm), which is a pretty big gap.

EDIT: but wait, it gets worse. PHB disagrees with itself:

The casting time of a spell-like ability is 1 standard action, unless the ability description notes otherwise.
which not only explicitly specifies where the casting time can be noted otherwise (unlike MM and RC, which leave that unspecified), but specifies that it must be in the ability description. As it happens, this is also Skip's preferred version, from Rules of the Game: All About Spell-Like Abilities (Part One) (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040413a):

Using a spell-like ability is a standard action that provokes an attack of opportunity. Sometimes using a spell-like ability can be a free action or a full-round action, or it can have an even longer activation time. However, it's a standard action unless the ability description specifically says otherwise.

But wait, about that "free action or a full-round action" thing? Perhaps Skip is carelessly glossing over SLAs that happen to specify a longer casting time? Oh, no. Look up a few lines on that same PHB page:

Using a special ability is usually a standard action, but whether it is a standard action, a full-round action, or not an action at all is defined by the ability (see Special Abilities, page 180).
Nay, PHB says that possible actions for using a special ability are a standard action, a full-round action, or not an action at all. Curiously, a free action is not an option. This is, of course, a deeply dysfunctional claim.

By the way, that page 180 citation? Is that quote at the top of this post. Which includes the spell description in places to look for notes otherwise on the casting time of an SLA. Yes, this is right above the paragraph on SLAs that contradicts it.

3e is a well-edited game.

[Crake]

PHB actually says something pretty interesting:

It actually says otherwise on page 142:

"The casting time of a spell-like ability is 1 standard action, unless the ability description notes otherwise."

As for where it might note otherwise, I think it's pretty clear that it's intended to be noted otherwise in the ability description, where else would it be? I do recall seeing a few monster entries where casting time for SLAs are noted as being something other than a standard action, but I don't recall any examples off the top of my head.

That being said, I think it's pretty clear with the rules compendium update, where it says "1 standard action, or the spell's normal casting time if it's lower, unless otherwise stated" seems pretty clearcut that SLAs need to be expressly noted as being longer than 1 standard action within their respective ability description, and not just the casting time of the spell, "usually 1 standard action".

[sreservoir]

That being said, I think it's pretty clear with the rules compendium update, where it says "1 standard action, or the spell's normal casting time if it's lower, unless otherwise stated" seems pretty clearcut that SLAs need to be expressly noted as being longer than 1 standard action within their respective ability description, and not just the casting time of the spell, "usually 1 standard action".

Yes, I think that's pretty clearly RC's intent too; it wouldn't make sense to call out shorter casting times but not longer casting times otherwise.

("1 swift action is less than 1 standard action" is also a claim about obvious intent. The fact that it's called out at all implies that it's supposed to mean something, but at no point does RC actually call out swift and immediate actions as being less than a standard action. It's just pretty obvious that those are the spells in question, since those are the spells that actually exist, and there aren't any spells whose casting time is measured in standard actions and the number of them is less than 1...)

There are at least four rules, and at least three mutually contradictory readings of them. All I can say is that 3e is a thoroughly edited game.

While we're at it, let's add one more contradicting piece of evidence to the pile: Morpheme Savant from Epic Insights (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ei/20061027a).

Normal: The warlock's call invocationhas a casting time of 10 minutes and does not allow suggestions to be imbued.

Note that the warlock's call ability description says nothing of its own about the casting time except insofar as it defines its effects based on sending:

You can use this invocation to send a message as the sending spell. However, a creature unwilling to reply to you can attempt a Will save to turn the sending back on you, dealing 1d10 points of damage to you.

Weighing in on ... for at least two of the sides, though is whoever wrote up the MM3 ultroloth:

An ultroloth captain usually puts up walls of fire to assist front-line troops. If the battle hangs in the balance, it uses symbol of death to disrupt the enemy.
This one at least implies the standard action version, since the normal 10 minute casting time of symbol of death is pretty hard to pull off while a battle hangs in the balance.

(As an aside, the PH 180, MM 315, and RC 118 are the versions of the rule that say you don't need components.)

[Crake]

Note that the warlock's call ability description says nothing of its own about the casting time except insofar as it defines its effects based on sending:

Actually, the warlock invocation line even explicitly states the following:

"A warlock’s invocations are spell-like abilities; using an invocation is therefore a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity."

So it seems like even the warlock abilities calls out SLAs being standard actions regardless of normal spell casting time.