Foresight

[Jack Zander]

Is Foresight really that powerful? Honestly for a 9th level spell to grant you +2 AC and reflex saves, and never be flatfooted seems really weak in comparison to even 7th level spells. It's a good defensive buff, but truly, what is +2 AC going to help a wizard at level 18+? Am I missing something about this spell?

[Arakune]

Is Foresight really that powerful? Honestly for a 9th level spell to grant you +2 AC and reflex saves, and never be flatfooted seems really weak in comparison to even 7th level spells. It's a good defensive buff, but truly, what is +2 AC going to help a wizard at level 18+? Am I missing something about this spell?

Never being flatfooted = NEVER being surprised => can act before anyone else if have Celerity ("good thing I ordered that book from the Magic Item Shop(tm) :smallamused: ) => Win.

[The_Snark]

It doesn't seem all that good, but being surprised is one of the few things that can still get an optimized wizard killed, and so Foresight is counted among the defensive spells the archetypal paranoid wizard uses. Useful in highly optimized and deadly games, but you can probably do without it in a more casual game.

[Jack Zander]

Never being flatfooted = NEVER being surprised => can act before anyone else if have Celerity ("good thing I ordered that book from the Magic Item Shop(tm) :smallamused: ) => Win.

Ah, so Foresight sucks and Celerity rocks. How then is Foresight a 9th level spell?

[Jack Zander]

It doesn't seem all that good, but being surprised is one of the few things that can still get an optimized wizard killed, and so Foresight is counted among the defensive spells the archetypal paranoid wizard uses. Useful in highly optimized and deadly games, but you can probably do without it in a more casual game.

No doubt it'll save you from the very rare* sneak attacks that come at you. Still, I don't think it's worth a 9th level spell slot. Maybe 6th level for the small bonuses... maybe.

*Dependant on how much of a rogue fetish your DM has.

[Woot Spitum]

Is Foresight really that powerful? Honestly for a 9th level spell to grant you +2 AC and reflex saves, and never be flatfooted seems really weak in comparison to even 7th level spells. It's a good defensive buff, but truly, what is +2 AC going to help a wizard at level 18+? Am I missing something about this spell?

Because if you can't take a wizard by surprise you are dead.

[mostlyharmful]

No doubt it'll save you from the very rare* sneak attacks that come at you. Still, I don't think it's worth a 9th level spell slot. Maybe 6th level for the small bonuses... maybe.

*Dependant on how much of a rogue fetish your DM has.

I'm inclined to agree with you. Although mechanically a "spider-sense" is unbelieably powerful the idea of being able to see a couple of seconds into your own future in case of danger shouldn't be on a par with the world shaking power of gate and wish and shapechange.

[Jack Zander]

Because if you can't take a wizard by surprise you are dead.

Too bad Foresight doesn't allow a wizard to go first then.

[Woot Spitum]

Too bad Foresight doesn't allow a wizard to go first then.

But it can set off contingencies (someone's about to kill me! Teleport Without Error!)

[Jasdoif]

Too bad Foresight doesn't allow a wizard to go first then.It might, though. If the two sides encounter each other unaware of each other, normally they would be no surprise round because everyone's surprised. But a wizard with foresight running is never surprised, so the wizard gets a surprise round and no one else does. In this case, the wizard goes first. And if the wizard's party is surprised in an attack...the wizard still isn't, and can at least roll initiative along with the attackers and hope for a high roll. And then of course, there's the celerity line....

Also, those +2 bonuses are both insight bonuses, which are fairly rare IIRC, so they'll stack with similar defenses. The spell lasts for two hours and fifty minutes minimum (at CL 17), and confers all theses benefits throughout that time.


Basically you get a few hours where you might get to cast a spell before anyone else gets a chance even without the celerity line of spells, and you get a bonus on AC and Reflex saves should that not work out.

[brian c]

Too bad Foresight doesn't allow a wizard to go first then.

Foresight means you're not flatfooted. The Celerity line of spells are an immediate action to use; you cannot use an immediate action if you are flatfooted, therefore Foresight guarantees that you will be able to cast Celerity to buy yourself a turn and get away.

*I don't like the Celerity line of spells. I'm just explaining it by RAW, though I do not condone of it*

[nerulean]

In a non-optimised, non-Celerity-cheesing game, Foresight is precisely as good as your DM lets it be. Most DMs refuse to let it be of any real non-stat use in combat, but the occasional gem of a DM will give you decent pre-emptive knowledge that can really change the game.

[CASTLEMIKE]

But it can set off contingencies (someone's about to kill me! Teleport Without Error!)

Depends on the Contingency trigger which is capped at holding a spell of level 6 or lower and what spell it is holding.

[TheOOB]

Remember, you are never suprised...ever. A wizard should never lose a battle where they go first, the only way to guartee that someone does not go first it by suprising them, thus foresight removes a wizards greatest weakness.

[Tokiko Mima]

Another nice perk is that if you aren't using Celerity, Foresight is still a huge advantage. Assuming a rogue or assassin does manage to beat your initiative and go before you, they normally would get to count you as flatfooted and launch a sneak/death attack. But with Foresight, you're pretty much immune to those as long as you don't let yourself get flanked.

Plus, as I think was mentioned, if there's a surprise round you always get to act in it because you're never surprised. A standard action, while not enough time for a melee character to do significant damage, it's more than enough time to crank out a high level spell... like Time Stop, for example.

[Kaelik]

Another nice perk is that if you aren't using Celerity, Foresight is still a huge advantage. Assuming a rogue or assassin does manage to beat your initiative and go before you, they normally would get to count you as flatfooted and launch a sneak/death attack. But with Foresight, you're pretty much immune to those as long as you don't let yourself get flanked.

Yeah, but it's a lot easier to just be immune to that sort of thing from some other spell.

[TheOOB]

Yes, but how many of those other spells work all day and make you always act in the suprise round (if there is one).

[Skjaldbakka]

Remember, you are never suprised...ever. A wizard should never lose a battle where they go first, the only way to guartee that someone does not go first it by suprising them, thus foresight removes a wizards greatest weakness.

Wizards are perfectly capable of losing a battle in which they go first. If they lack the approriate win spells, or are fighting out of their league. Now dying- wizards don't do that if they go first. Unless they fail to realize their opponent is out of their league, or are too low level to have escape spells.

[Khanderas]

Ah, so Foresight sucks and Celerity rocks. How then is Foresight a 9th level spell?
It is more, Celerity lets you act first in a round, except if you are suprised.
Foresight makes sure you are not suprised.

The total: As long as you got them both up, you start first, even if the other guy got +500 initiative and attacked by backstabbing before you knew he was there.
According to some, it also lets you go first when someone shoots a poisoned crossbowdart from the other side of the world.

Then when the DM says, you are about to be backstabbed hard, but you go first. What do you do ?
You say, quickened timestop. Then delayed fireball, one in each ear. then I run out of range and watch the fireworks.

[deadseashoals]

It might, though. If the two sides encounter each other unaware of each other, normally they would be no surprise round because everyone's surprised. But a wizard with foresight running is never surprised, so the wizard gets a surprise round and no one else does. In this case, the wizard goes first. And if the wizard's party is surprised in an attack...the wizard still isn't, and can at least roll initiative along with the attackers and hope for a high roll. And then of course, there's the celerity line....

Also, those +2 bonuses are both insight bonuses, which are fairly rare IIRC, so they'll stack with similar defenses. The spell lasts for two hours and fifty minutes minimum (at CL 17), and confers all theses benefits throughout that time.


Basically you get a few hours where you might get to cast a spell before anyone else gets a chance even without the celerity line of spells, and you get a bonus on AC and Reflex saves should that not work out.

Never being suprised doesn't mean you always surprise your enemies, or that your enemies are always surprised. Just because you have foresight up doesn't mean you automatically get a surprise round on all opponents that don't have foresight or other awareness.

[Funkyodor]

So, would a one-two punch situation work? Attacker two readies an action for when Wizard cast spells, attacker one attacks. Wizard is not surprised and casts celerity for immediate action, attacker two interrupts immediate action with prepared action and can go, hopefully thwarting Wizards "I Win" button somehow. So the question is how to thwart a celerity spell if the attackers could pull this off. Counter-spelling with items? Dispel magic wand? Would this situation even work?

[its_all_ogre]

you cannot ready an action outside of combat, or everyon would walk through dungeons with attacks readied!
stops you being surprised but then it becomes an initiative roll-off unless you use celerity...only really hard with celerity as other classes may max out dex and initiative bonuses more than a wizard after all.

[Skjaldbakka]

You could be a rogue with a UMD'd contingency-celerity (contingent on anyone you consider hostile casting a celerity spell). Not really viable for long-term, as contingency has a duration, but if you know you will fighting a wizard . . .

[Keld Denar]

You could be a rogue with a UMD'd contingency-celerity (contingent on anyone you consider hostile casting a celerity spell). Not really viable for long-term, as contingency has a duration, but if you know you will fighting a wizard . . .

Well, celerity really isn't THAT great of a spell for a rogue to have up. Just about the only reason a wizard should ever cast celerity is when he is going to timestop (absorbs the stun round virtually) OR teleport away. Celerity is a huge risk, because if you fail to neutralize all threats in your free round, those threats get 2 consecutive rounds to hurt you...bad.

So, if a rogue UMDs a contingent celerity, the best case he could pull off is a greater manyshot and pray that it drops the wizard, which it probably won't, considering the wizard can't be flat-footed if hes casting celerity (the trigger for your contingency). So now you are a rogue, and the wizard get 2 full rounds to maim/kill/dismemeber you and all your only defense is the 8-bit Nintendo boss defense: Stand there and take it!

[Kaelik]

Yes, but how many of those other spells work all day and make you always act in the suprise round (if there is one).

Any spell that makes you immune to SA, does so for at least the length of Foresight, and many much longer (hours per level). Plus they don't use 9th level slots.

I'm not saying Foresight sucks, I'm just saying that preventing Sneak Attack is at best a minor benefit, and is often completely redundant.

[Stabby]

You could be a rogue with a UMD'd contingency-celerity (contingent on anyone you consider hostile casting a celerity spell). Not really viable for long-term, as contingency has a duration, but if you know you will fighting a wizard . . .

For clarification, I think what Skjald is saying is that the trigger to the Rogue's contingenct is that someone hostile cast celerity... which I think would then go off as the wiz cast celerity. Hmm... would dispel work?

[Keld Denar]

For clarification, I think what Skjald is saying is that the trigger to the Rogue's contingenct is that someone hostile cast celerity... which I think would then go off as the wiz cast celerity. Hmm... would dispel work?

I'd say a contingency goes off as an immediate action immediately prior to the stimulus that caused it. So when a wizard tries to cast celerity, your contingeny-celerity goes off, you get a standard action, after which you are dazed. You couldn't dispel the wizards celerity, because he hasn't cast it yet (you go before he does, and even though his intent to cast it was the trigger, he's not mid-cast) so you couldn't counterspell or disrupt his celerity in any way.

Congradulations, you've just given the wizard an effectively free time stop round. Pick your flavor of dead. The only thing you've done is consumed part of the wealth he'd normally get for looting your body. At least he got xp for you. Maybe he'll turn that xp into a nice pair of boots, or a belt. Yeah, that's nice.

[Indon]

It also allows your Wizard's player to make jokes about whenever something happens, he can say, "That's not surprising."

[Thinker]

It also allows your Wizard's player to make jokes about whenever something happens, he can say, "That's not surprising."

I saw this coming...why did I do nothing to prevent it? [/facepalm]

[Jack Zander]

Okay, by RAW the only thing Foresight gets you is +2 AC, +2 Ref Saves, never flatfooted, and never surprised. I can see the benefit now of never being surprised, since you can freely walk into any room without fear of being charged at by some dudes with higher initiative than you. However, is going first (not always, but most times say) still worth a 9th level spell slot? I'd bump this up to 7th or 8th level now that I realize what never being surprised can mean, but it's benefits (not celerity's benefits, quit saying that foresight makes you go first all the time) are really not on par with other 9th level spells.

Heck, is the foresight/celerity/timestop combo even any good? You've cast 4-6 high powered spells (since that combo does nothing to the enemy, you actually have to cast spells while timestopped to do anything) for one encounter. Hey, great job Merlin, only 7 more encounters to go before the end of the day? Think you can keep that up?

And yes, high level character often do face 8 or more encounters a day because survivability is much much higher along with resources such as spells per day. High level characters can simply keep going for longer. I believe the DM's Guide even mentions this somewhere (ironically, it gives 4-5 encounters as the norm for all levels anyway. Lazy writers...).

[Woot Spitum]

Okay, by RAW the only thing Foresight gets you is +2 AC, +2 Ref Saves, never flatfooted, and never surprised. I can see the benefit now of never being surprised, since you can freely walk into any room without fear of being charged at by some dudes with higher initiative than you. However, is going first (not always, but most times say) still worth a 9th level spell slot? I'd bump this up to 7th or 8th level now that I realize what never being surprised can mean, but it's benefits (not celerity's benefits, quit saying that foresight makes you go first all the time) are really not on par with other 9th level spells.

Heck, is the foresight/celerity/timestop combo even any good? You've cast 4-6 high powered spells (since that combo does nothing to the enemy, you actually have to cast spells while timestopped to do anything) for one encounter. Hey, great job Merlin, only 7 more encounters to go before the end of the day? Think you can keep that up?

And yes, high level character often do face 8 or more encounters a day because survivability is much much higher along with resources such as spells per day. High level characters can simply keep going for longer. I believe the DM's Guide even mentions this somewhere (ironically, it gives 4-5 encounters as the norm for all levels anyway. Lazy writers...).Only if you didn't prepare Mordekainen's Magnificent Mansion. With that spell, you can rest whenever you want.

[Jack Zander]

Only if you didn't prepare Mordekainen's Magnificent Mansion. With that spell, you can rest whenever you want.

If you're a solo wizard, sure. Did you forget this is DnD and is typically played with a party of 3-5 characters? I'm not talking about a MMORPG here, bub.

[mostlyharmful]

It's a Nova tactic, not something you sling out there every encounter. If your team is on the ball and you don't do anything monumentally dumb you shouldn't have to blow this exect against sneaky BBEGs that are an actual threat. So either you do this on your own in which case sacking out in a MMM isn't a bad plan, or you shouldn't have to do this more than once.. maybe twice a day.

[Jasdoif]

If you're a solo wizard, sure. Did you forget this is DnD and is typically played with a party of 3-5 characters? I'm not talking about a MMORPG here, bub.On the other hand, they could take a nap or such too. I imagine 17th level characters can appreciate having a little rest and relaxation once in a while.

[Jack Zander]

On the other hand, they could take a nap or such too. I imagine 17th level characters can appreciate having a little rest and relaxation once in a while.

But not after every single encounter.

"Alright, this looks like a good place to set up camp and rest for the next 24 hours."
"Aw, but we just got done doing that 5 rounds ago..."

[Woot Spitum]

If you're a solo wizard, sure. Did you forget this is DnD and is typically played with a party of 3-5 characters? I'm not talking about a MMORPG here, bub.Why would the rest of the party not want to rest? They probably got hurt/expended resources too. The DM probably won't like it, but everyone else is probably okay with it.

[Jack Zander]

Why would the rest of the party not want to rest? They probably got hurt/expended resources too. The DM probably won't like it, but everyone else is probably okay with it.

Emphasis mine. What makes you think this works again? Have you ever actually played a high level campaign? My guess is either no, you your DM didn't have a problem with you guys breezing through every encounter in 2 rounds.

[Woot Spitum]

Emphasis mine. What makes you think this works again? Have you ever actually played a high level campaign? My guess is either no, you your DM didn't have a problem with you guys breezing through every encounter in 2 rounds.I'm not saying you should do it, only that you can. You want to know why Foresight is a ninth-level spell? Because people can do stuff like this. I don't play D&D to break the game like this. But if you ask me if it can be done and how, I will explain it.

[Jack Zander]

Once again my retort is that Foresight is not breaking the game, the other spells combined with it are. MMM breaks games. Time stop breaks games. I've never seen Foresight directly break a game.

[Kaelik]

But not after every single encounter.

"Alright, this looks like a good place to set up camp and rest for the next 24 hours."
"Aw, but we just got done doing that 5 rounds ago..."

Correction: Rest for 9 hours.

[MobiusKlein]

"Once foresight is cast, you receive instantaneous warnings of impending danger or harm to the subject of the spell" seems like a great way to be warned (out of combat) of traps, ambushes, symbol of X spells, mysterious portals to dimension X, etc. Go ahead, reach into the mouth of the statue that has a sphere of annihilation in it.

It's like continuous Augury that lasts much longer, has no failure chance. Why have the Rogue check for traps - just let the wiz do it.

[Woot Spitum]

Once again my retort is that Foresight is not breaking the game, the other spells combined with it are. MMM breaks games. Time stop breaks games. I've never seen Foresight directly break a game.
I think it's relevent, if your argument is that the foresight/celerity/time stop combo only works once a day, therefore your party will be brought down by attrition.

[Jack Zander]

Correction: Rest for 9 hours.

Depends on if you have a cleric in the party or not.

[Setra]

I have to agree with Jack, in saying Foresight, in and of itself, is not broken, and possibly even a lower level spell.

Celerity, in and of itself isn't too broken as well though.

Time Stop on the other hand...

[Jack Zander]

Celerity isn't too bad by itself but it still allows for extra actions which really should not be allowed. Too easily abused and combo'd with other spells. Time Stop should be nothing short of Epic and even then should be DM ruled NO!

[greenknight]

And yes, high level character often do face 8 or more encounters a day because survivability is much much higher along with resources such as spells per day. High level characters can simply keep going for longer. I believe the DM's Guide even mentions this somewhere (ironically, it gives 4-5 encounters as the norm for all levels anyway. Lazy writers...).

Where do you get that from? The DMG specifies 4 challenging (CR = average party level for 4 characters) encounters per day. You might face more than that if they are less difficult, but usually the characters would face fewer than 4 encounters per day - regardless of their level. The entire encounter XP chart was built on that principle. Think about it. If the PCs faced just 4 challenging encounters per day, they'd gain more than 2 levels per game week, and hit 20th level in just 10 game weeks. A PC would be level 100 after just a year of adventuring! That just doesn't happen in most games.

So yeah, maybe the party Wizard goes nova to effectively solo an appropriate CR encounter. Big deal. Using a standard party, there's another three party members who can take care of the remaining encounters. Although even a high level Wizard who's gone nova usually has a fair few spells left, and if the character has a batman spell loadout, you can bet those spells are going to be useful in the remaining encounters.

[Kaelik]

Depends on if you have a cleric in the party or not.

Unless you know, the Cleric didn't go nova. If he did, then why does it matter if the Wizard does?

If the Wizard goes Nova in such a way that he can only last two encounters, but finishes them before anyone else goes, then you only have to wait 9 hours because the Cleric didn't cast any spells at all.

[Reinboom]

Once again my retort is that Foresight is not breaking the game, the other spells combined with it are. MMM breaks games. Time stop breaks games. I've never seen Foresight directly break a game.

To the original focus, why is foresight level 9?
I think this has a simple solution;
Foresight is level 9, because that's level 9 spell slots not being used on time stop and MM.
Foresight contributes to the machine. Making it so high detracts from the batman machine. Not enough. But it does.

(edit: that was intended to be taken lightly and in more of jokingly manner- almost as a poke at the designer's lack of foresight)


Unless you know, the Cleric didn't go nova. If he did, then why does it matter if the Wizard does?

If the Wizard goes Nova in such a way that he can only last two encounters, but finishes them before anyone else goes, then you only have to wait 9 hours because the Cleric didn't cast any spells at all.

Doesn't matter. The cleric DMM Persisted (with numerous nightsticks) at the beginning of the day most of the effects they need. That's the cleric's nova. And it lasts for 24 hours. The cleric would be fine sleeping away 9 hours of it - when its 24 hour 'tick' comes back around, it'll be prepared for another nova. Cleric is on a completely different schedule.
Oh, and the only reason I would dare bring up such horrid tactics is because it's in a batman conversation. If you are allowing batman tactics, might as well let the cleric play alongside as well.

[tyckspoon]

I'm guessing the original designers and playtesters put Foresight at level 9 primarily for the protection from sneak attacks/surprise aspect. That's not easy to get within the other core spells, and I'm betting they never considered the possibility of a wizard wearing a mithril bracer of Heavy Fortification with no spell failure chance and no armor penalty.. 'cause wizards don't wear armor. They throw Fireballs. The fact that dedicating slots to Foresights restricts more abusive spell choices was an unforeseen benefit, just like the power of Batmannery was an unforeseen (although readily seeable) consequence of weakening blasting and making it easier to use save-or-X spells.

If a wider spell environment is allowed, the protection from Sneak Attack can be acquired more easily and more completely with other spells, and Foresight isn't really worth the level any more (unless you think the extra utility it gains for using Immediate spells is enough to boost it back up.)

[Stephen_E]

Of course the counter to the Wizard with Forsight/Celerity/Timestop is a Magekiller Pixie design wielding a spiked chain. They move to 5' above you with a held action set to attack anyone casting a swift spell before going into inititive, with a contingency AMS triggered by any contingency spell cast within 15'.

If the mage moves more than 5' you get an AAO, if he swift casts you attack andshould do enough damage (mageslayer feat chain) to cause him to fail his concentration spell to get the spell off, if he tries and casts a normal spell you attack because he can't defensively cast, if he has a contingency escape spell your contingency AMS kicks in killing all magic, that's assuming his Forsight even works on you given you're mindblanked, non-detection (Occult Slayer) with Dust of Diassappearance - so he can't even see you with True seeing.:smallwink:

Aside from this, yes forsight is that powerful because without it Celerity/Time Stop is relatively simple to get around. With Forsight it's almost impossible (depending on how the DM houserules Divination spells it can be impossible).

Stephen

[Reinboom]

Of course the counter to the Wizard with Forsight/Celerity/Timestop is a Magekiller Pixie design wielding a spiked chain. They move to 5' above you with a held action set to attack anyone casting a swift spell before going into inititive, with a contingency AMS triggered by any contingency spell cast within 15'.

If the mage moves more than 5' you get an AAO, if he swift casts you attack andshould do enough damage (mageslayer feat chain) to cause him to fail his concentration spell to get the spell off, if he tries and casts a normal spell you attack because he can't defensively cast, if he has a contingency escape spell your contingency AMS kicks in killing all magic, that's assuming his Forsight even works on you given you're mindblanked, non-detection (Occult Slayer) with Dust of Diassappearance - so he can't even see you with True seeing.:smallwink:

Aside from this, yes forsight is that powerful because without it Celerity/Time Stop is relatively simple to get around. With Forsight it's almost impossible (depending on how the DM houserules Divination spells it can be impossible).

Stephen

Hmm...
Assuming all variables set:
Attempt swift spell - get AoOd
Hold action, on standard spell - on your round, attempt to cast spell. Get interrupted.
Cast celerity as an immediate.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

Doesn't matter. The cleric DMM Persisted (with numerous nightsticks) at the beginning of the day most of the effects they need. That's the cleric's nova. And it lasts for 24 hours.

48, actually. Extend stacks on top of Persist, so it saves you turn attempts per day to do that as you only need to cast half your buffs on any given day. (This also means you're not totally useless if you get caught in the small rebuffing window.)

[Stephen_E]

Hmm...
Assuming all variables set:
Attempt swift spell - get AoOd
Hold action, on standard spell - on your round, attempt to cast spell. Get interrupted.
Cast celerity as an immediate.

Since the Mageslayer still has a held action (making an AOO doesn't kill a readied action) it activates on you casting Celerity as an imediate/swift spell, and he hits you dosrupting it. Then on his action he resets his readied action.

He does need to have his weapon set with a counter/disrupt to Overland Flight, but that's easy, and automatically dispells Overland Flight.

If the Wizard does nothing, then the Mageslayer can also do nothing without losing, but that's what the Mageslayers party is for. Basically both the Wizard and the Mageslayer are paralysed by needing to act 2nd, until someone comes along and breaks the stalemate.

Well they could both get tossed out of reality if the Wizard has an escape contingency triggered by been hit, as well as a contingecy spell triggered by a AMS been cast nearby. Wizard moves - gets hit - triggers contingecny escape spell - triggers Mage Slayers AMS - triggers escape vs AMS - retriggers Mageslayers AMS - retriggers escape vs AMS.......

Universe tosses the pair out for been nerds.

Stephen

[deadseashoals]

Correction: Rest for 9 hours.

They're called spells per day for a reason. They're not called spells per 9.1 hour intervals of rest and nova action.

Regardless, have the people talking about MMM never been under a time crunch to save the princess/world/macguffin? The multiverse doesn't stop to take a rest every time your narcoleptic, trigger-happy party wizard does.

[Armads]

Since the Mageslayer still has a held action (making an AOO doesn't kill a readied action) it activates on you casting Celerity as an immediate/swift spell, and he hits you disrupting it. Then on his action he resets his readied action.

The wizard could tumble out of the way and cast his spells. Also, he could be cheaty and cast an immediate action spell right as the Mageslayer's turn starts. Another problem is getting close to the wizard in the first place, but that's doable via Darkstalker stuff (although the Pixie will need mundane hide and not use it's invisibility).

[Stephen_E]

The wizard could tumble out of the way and cast his spells. Also, he could be cheaty and cast an immediate action spell right as the Mageslayer's turn starts. Another problem is getting close to the wizard in the first place, but that's doable via Darkstalker stuff (although the Pixie will need mundane hide and not use it's invisibility).

True the Wizard could try tumblimg at half speed, assuming he can make a DC 15 tumble, and know the Pixie is there before getting hit once and tripped (and no pure Wizard is going to standup from prone as a free action without sucking an AOO). Of course you can always have the Pixie cast Righteous Might on himself via Ring of Spell Storing, in which case the tumble won't get him far enough (20' reach).

Note the use of Dust of Dissapperance which is immune to See Invisibility/True Seeing. It can only be neutralised with Dust of Appearance or possibly Glitterdust (the spell component of Dust of Appearance). The Pixie is a good Mage Killer race because they have a natural fly with high speed and manuver + SR + Good stat bonuses. The Str loss is more than made up for by high Dex/2HW/Power Attack/Weapon Finnesse.

The idea of doing an immediate action in responce to the Pixie's turn starting and the readied action vanishing, but before been reset is very dependant on DM ruling, with the possibility of getting a universe eviction notice, but can be covered simply by the Pixie delaying his next action forever and a day.

Stephen

[Armads]

Of course you can always have the Pixie cast Righteous Might on himself via Ring of Spell Storing, in which case the tumble won't get him far enough (20' reach).

Not at all. You're small. Now you become medium, your reach stays the same. The wizard can easily make the tumble check (at level 5, a wizard with 14 dex gets a tumble mod of +11 (5 ranks, +2 dex mod, +2 synergy from jump ranks, +2 circumstantial from MW tool)

Also, Dust of Disappearance does not last for very long, so the pixie will have to apply it before hand, when the wizard may have already seen him. Of course, the pixie could burn lots and lots of money continually cloaking himself in dust of disappearance, but the problem is that he's burning too much money. The wizard could also be constantly moving, so he'll be faster than the pixie due to his Phantom Steed.


The Str loss is more than made up for by high Dex/2HW/Power Attack/Weapon Finnesse.

Unfortunately, you need Str 13 to take Power Attack.

[Hario]

Correction: Rest for 9 hours.
Correction 54 minutes, because DMs who let players act like that might as well have a Planar shephard, with the 10:1 ratio planar bubble, in the party. Via core I don't think there should be spells like contigency or celerity, though just core I think it can be a fairly weak 9th level spell but that gets fixed if you get Insightful Divination from Complete mage which gets you 1+ spell level on intiative and to the next saving throw you make, but making that saving throw discharges it. +10 insight bonus to initiative isn't too bad.

[Woot Spitum]

Of course the counter to the Wizard with Forsight/Celerity/Timestop is a Magekiller Pixie design wielding a spiked chain. They move to 5' above you with a held action set to attack anyone casting a swift spell before going into inititive, with a contingency AMS triggered by any contingency spell cast within 15'.

If the mage moves more than 5' you get an AAO, if he swift casts you attack andshould do enough damage (mageslayer feat chain) to cause him to fail his concentration spell to get the spell off, if he tries and casts a normal spell you attack because he can't defensively cast, if he has a contingency escape spell your contingency AMS kicks in killing all magic, that's assuming his Forsight even works on you given you're mindblanked, non-detection (Occult Slayer) with Dust of Diassappearance - so he can't even see you with True seeing.:smallwink:

Aside from this, yes forsight is that powerful because without it Celerity/Time Stop is relatively simple to get around. With Forsight it's almost impossible (depending on how the DM houserules Divination spells it can be impossible).

Stephen
Interesting, but it relies too heavily on the wizard failing his concentration check. And if it works, and the wizard falls prone, he can still cast spells while prone without penalty. You may be invisible, but since you tripped him, the wizard has a good idea where you are. Casting a low-level spell (like grease) defensively, the wizard has a good chance of making the check. Good luck hanging onto your greased weapon while attempting to trip a creature much larger and heavier than yourself. The other problem is that once you trip the wizard, your readied action can trip him either if he trys to cast a spell, or if he trys to stand up, not both.

[Curmudgeon]

Then when the DM says, you are about to be backstabbed hard, but you go first. What do you do ?
You say, quickened timestop. Then delayed fireball, one in each ear. then I run out of range and watch the fireworks. Gee, what a waste of spellpower. Foresight is 9th level, and you're using it to cast a spell that requires a 13th level spell slot, plus two 7th level spells.

Guess what? You're operating at a high level. The Rogue who is trying to sneak attack you has both Evasion and an excellent Reflex save. The Rogue takes no damage from the Fireballs, Tumbles further than you thought possible, and is ready to attack you again. How long can you keep this up?

[Crow]

Gee, what a waste of spellpower. Foresight is 9th level, and you're using it to cast a spell that requires a 13th level spell slot, plus two 7th level spells.

Guess what? You're operating at a high level. The Rogue who is trying to sneak attack you has both Evasion and an excellent Reflex save. The Rogue takes no damage from the Fireballs, Tumbles further than you thought possible, and is ready to attack you again. How long can you keep this up?

Maybe a better answer is "Teleport away and begin scrying on this guy so you can try and catch him by surprise."

?

[Woot Spitum]

Gee, what a waste of spellpower. Foresight is 9th level, and you're using it to cast a spell that requires a 13th level spell slot, plus two 7th level spells.

Guess what? You're operating at a high level. The Rogue who is trying to sneak attack you has both Evasion and an excellent Reflex save. The Rogue takes no damage from the Fireballs, Tumbles further than you thought possible, and is ready to attack you again. How long can you keep this up?

Yes, you are operating at a high level. Which is why the wizard will not waste his time casting a spell that will hurt himself at close range. Instead, he'll use something like Forcecage, Evard's Black Tentacles, Bigby's Grasping Hand, Disintegrate, Finger of Death, Power Word:Blind, Power Word:Stun, Phantasmal Killer, Dominate Person, or Otto's Irresistable Dance.

Anyway, what kind of wizard targets his enemies' strongest save (in this case, reflex) anyway?

[Stephen_E]

Interesting, but it relies too heavily on the wizard failing his concentration check. And if it works, and the wizard falls prone, he can still cast spells while prone without penalty. You may be invisible, but since you tripped him, the wizard has a good idea where you are. Casting a low-level spell (like grease) defensively, the wizard has a good chance of making the check. Good luck hanging onto your greased weapon while attempting to trip a creature much larger and heavier than yourself. The other problem is that once you trip the wizard, your readied action can trip him either if he trys to cast a spell, or if he trys to stand up, not both.

You forget you can't cast defensively against a Magekiller build. The only concentration check the wizard gets to make is vs damage dealt. With a 2HW+Power Attack+bane that will be extremely difficult even for a 20th level wizard.

Tripping a wizard one size bigger than you (assumming you aren't boosted through Righteous Might or the superior WuJen spell) when you're a trip build isn't particuly difficult.

The readied action is used to hit/trip/hit him (as a single action through knock-down and improved trip) if he cast a swift spell. Hitting him when he stands and when he casts a normal spell are both AOOs and a Pixie with Combat reflexes can do both with ease - AOO for standing, AOO for casting spell (no defensive casting allowed) Aoo for moving more than 5'. How many 40+pt damage hits do you think the wizard can take?

Stephen

[Armads]

You forget you can't cast defensively against a Magekiller build. The only concentration check the wizard gets to make is vs damage dealt. With a 2HW+Power Attack+bane that will be extremely difficult even for a 20th level wizard.
Stephen

Right. That solves the problems of the wizard not knowing where the Pixie is. Mageslayer's ability has to be declared to the wizard. So while the wizard is standing around, he'll hear an ominous voice "You cannot cast defensively...". He'll thus be aware of something threatening him and try to get away (tumbling if he must). Also, if he has shielded casting (very improbable, though), he does not provoke AoOs for casting spells.


The readied action is used to hit/trip/hit him (as a single action through knock-down and improved trip) if he cast a swift spell. Hitting him when he stands and when he casts a normal spell are both AOOs and a Pixie with Combat reflexes can do both with ease - AOO for standing, AOO for casting spell (no defensive casting allowed) Aoo for moving more than 5'. How many 40+pt damage hits do you think the wizard can take?

The wizard will not stand up. It's quite a dumb thing to do when you're prone, actually. He'll probably active his anklet of translocation, teleport 10ft into a standing position away from the pixie (he'll know when he gets out of reach, because the Mage Slayer effect will end), and then dimension door out of the way or something.

[Kaelik]

The readied action is used to hit/trip/hit him (as a single action through knock-down and improved trip) if he cast a swift spell. Hitting him when he stands and when he casts a normal spell are both AOOs and a Pixie with Combat reflexes can do both with ease - AOO for standing, AOO for casting spell (no defensive casting allowed) Aoo for moving more than 5'. How many 40+pt damage hits do you think the wizard can take?n

And yet you still have no way of stopping him from tumbling away from you, and then casting any spell he wants.

EDIT: Oh, and Improved Trip doesn't give you a second attack after knockdown either, just so you know.

[Stephen_E]

Not at all. You're small. Now you become medium, your reach stays the same. The wizard can easily make the tumble check (at level 5, a wizard with 14 dex gets a tumble mod of +11 (5 ranks, +2 dex mod, +2 synergy from jump ranks, +2 circumstantial from MW tool)

Also, Dust of Disappearance does not last for very long, so the pixie will have to apply it before hand, when the wizard may have already seen him. Of course, the pixie could burn lots and lots of money continually cloaking himself in dust of disappearance, but the problem is that he's burning too much money. The wizard could also be constantly moving, so he'll be faster than the pixie due to his Phantom Steed.



Unfortunately, you need Str 13 to take Power Attack.

I forgot that Righteous Might would only go small to medium. In that case use the WuJen size increase spell which shifts you to a set size. The low level one (13th level) shifts you to Huge - 15'+15' reach. I not sure where you get your tumble figures for. I've never seen a pure wizard take ranks in tumble. It's a crossclass skill, so it takes 2 skill points per rank, and a 5th lev Wizard has a max rank of 4 ( (5+3)/2 ) I've never heard of master tools for tumble, and I've never heard of a pure Wizard having 5 ranks in Jump (for the +2 snergy you're claiming) which is another crossclass skill, thus again limited to 4 ranks at level 5.

Dust of Disappearance is short term, but with non-detection, mind blank and invisibility it's unlikely the wizard saw you beforehand (spot is another crossclass skill for wizards). Also at 20th lev, which is when you're talking about multi 9th level spells, Dust of Dissappearance is that expensive. I've never run across a Wizard that lived on a Phantom Steed, but as it moves away you trip the Wizard so it's no longer on the Phantom Steed. Problem solved. The Wizard can't keep away from you with his speed because he doesn't know you're their until you AOO him off his steed.

Yes, Power Att need Str 13. So what. By 20th level a Pixie can have 13 Str naturally, even without Belt of Giant Str +6 (which is enough to allow you to learn the feat) and Rage, and the Giant Size spell +16 Str, or Righteous Might +4 Str (depending on the situation they each have advantages).

What people are missing is that the Wizard is sitting/standing/dancing when suddenly he goes into inititive. Unbeknowenst to him the Pixie is 5' above him with a readied action when this occurs. The Wizard is thinking "my fortell must be warning me of something but I don't know what". He tries to move more than 5', cast a spell, stand up, or do something else that triggers an AOO, or in the case of a swift spell, a readied attack. He gets hit, losing all spells/spell like effects that improve is AC in any way, is tripped as a free action (knockdown) and is hit again (improved trip) leaving him with a DC 60+ concentration check to get a spell off for until his next round. The Dust of Dissappearance will fail at some point and his True Seeing will see the Pixie hovering above him, but that won't help a lot because if he tries to do anything the Pixie smacks him into next week. With his massive Int he can probably workout that so long as he doesn't do anything he's safe, until assistance comes for one of them.

Stephen

[Kaelik]

*A bunch of stuff that makes no sense*

Stephen

Well lets see, Why is the Wizard just sitting around?

How did you find the Wizard in the first place?

Why are we talking about level 5 when your build couldn't even exist at that level? We are talking about a high level Wizard who, yes, has cross class ranks in Tumble.

Belt of Giant Str and any spells don't increase you inherent Str and therefore don't allow you to take the feat, so you have to spend valuable stat points/ whole lots of money on a Manual.

Improved Trip doesn't work with Knockdown.

You can't ready actions outside of Initiative, and since he has Foresight up you can't have a surprise round. So what actually happens is that you both role, he immediately Celerity pre-empts your attempt at going, he then goes before you have a readied action, he Dimension Doors 1200ft. You do whatever you want, he looks around/prepares himself/Casts Divinations/Goes home.

[Woot Spitum]

Wait a minute, don't you have to roll inititive first in order to ready an action? Meaning you have to do something to let the wizard know you're there first, thus giving the wizard one round to act freely and either get away/destroy you?

[Stephen_E]

Right. That solves the problems of the wizard not knowing where the Pixie is. Mageslayer's ability has to be declared to the wizard. So while the wizard is standing around, he'll hear an ominous voice "You cannot cast defensively...". He'll thus be aware of something threatening him and try to get away (tumbling if he must). Also, if he has shielded casting (very improbable, though), he does not provoke AoOs for casting spells.

Actually your point is purely upto DM interpretation. The feat says that the caster is aware that they can't cast defensively while been threatened by someone with the feat, but if the not aware they're been threatened by a person with the feat it doesn't specify they get the warning. Mages no they can't cast spells without suckking an AOO if they're threatened. This doesn't mean that a ominous voice warns them when they go to cast a spell when threatened by someone they don't know about.


The wizard will not stand up. It's quite a dumb thing to do when you're prone, actually. He'll probably active his anklet of translocation, teleport 10ft into a standing position away from the pixie (he'll know when he gets out of reach, because the Mage Slayer effect will end), and then dimension door out of the way or something.

Don't no the details of Anklet of Translocation but from your description it can be handled easily with a contingency Diemesnional lock and altering the contingency AMS so it is only triggered by contingency spells not on the Pixie.

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

And yet you still have no way of stopping him from tumbling away from you, and then casting any spell he wants.

EDIT: Oh, and Improved Trip doesn't give you a second attack after knockdown either, just so you know.

As I've noted I've never seen a pure Wizard with ranks in tumble and the Wizard doesn't tumble away because he doesn't know he's threatened until after he's gotten hit, at which point he's prone, and tumbling when prone moves you a total of 5' without sucking an AOO.

Can you point me where it says Improved Trip doesn't give you a 2nd attack after knockdown. I know they've said that Improved Trip does work when you receive free trip attacks in general, so I'm wondering where they specified it doesn't work with Knockdown.

Stephen

[Woot Spitum]

As I've noted I've never seen a pure Wizard with ranks in tumble and the Wizard doesn't tumble away because he doesn't know he's threatened until after he's gotten hit, at which point he's prone, and tumbling when prone moves you a total of 5' without sucking an AOO.

Can you point me where it says Improved Trip doesn't give you a 2nd attack after knockdown. I know they've said that Improved Trip does work when you receive free trip attacks in general, so I'm wondering where they specified it doesn't work with Knockdown.

Stephen And I've never seen a Pixie Wu-Jen 13/Fighter 3 That focuses on using a spiked chain. Come on, which of these ideas is more off-the-wall?

[Armads]

Actually your point is purely up to DM interpretation. The feat says that the caster is aware that they can't cast defensively while been threatened by someone with the feat, but if the not aware they're been threatened by a person with the feat it doesn't specify they get the warning. Mages know they can't cast spells without sucking an AOO if they're threatened. This doesn't mean that a ominous voice warns them when they go to cast a spell when threatened by someone they don't know about.

Exactly. If you're threatened by someone with the feat, you know it. Also, the "it doesn't specify they get the warning" is not a point. Following your logic, the RAW doesn't specify that humans have 2 arms only, so humans can be a 1000 armed creature, wield 1000 weapons. Wait, they don't even have an MM entry, and no LA listed. They either don't exist, or can't be played as PCs!




Don't no the details of Anklet of Translocation but from your description it can be handled easily with a contingency Dimensional lock and altering the contingency AMS so it is only triggered by contingency spells not on the Pixie.
Stephen

You can only have 1 contingency on you. Also, why would you know about what the wizard has? It has the same access to protection from divinations as you? Besides, how will you get to the wizard in the 1st place. The anklet of translocation is a cheap 1.4k gp item that lets you teleport 10ft without error 2/day as a swift action from MIC.

[Stephen_E]

Well lets see, Why is the Wizard just sitting around?.

Because you're raiding him, so the Wizard will be doing stuff that people do, such as eat, read books, listen to music ecetre.


How did you find the Wizard in the first place?.

The famous Wizard (he's a high level Wizard. Unless you're permanetly polymorthed/invisible you don't get high level without renown) was at his known lair. You spied on the Wizard. You used divination, gather infomation ectre. Note the Pixie IS permanently invisible so while his party may be famous, he/she isn't.


Why are we talking about level 5 when your build couldn't even exist at that level? We are talking about a high level Wizard who, yes, has cross class ranks in Tumble..

Because the original poster was using 5th level for working out his tumble stats and getting the calculations wrong for 5th level.


Belt of Giant Str and any spells don't increase you inherent Str and therefore don't allow you to take the feat, so you have to spend valuable stat points/ whole lots of money on a Manual..

Wrong. Magic items that increase a stat to feat prereq levels are all that is needed to learn a feat. They ruled on that one ages ago. Doesn't have to be inherent, it just has to be reasonably constant. i.e. if for the vast majority of the time your Str is 13 then you can learn Power Attack.


Improved Trip doesn't work with Knockdown..

As I posted before reading this post, can you cite this. I know they've ruled that Improved trip does work with additional free trips that you might receive so I presume you're talking about some specific "but Knockdown and Improved Trip don't work together" official statement.


You can't ready actions outside of Initiative, and since he has Foresight up you can't have a surprise round. So what actually happens is that you both role, he immediately Celerity pre-empts your attempt at going, he then goes before you have a readied action, he Dimension Doors 1200ft. You do whatever you want, he looks around/prepares himself/Casts Divinations/Goes home.

Actually Readied actions don't specify that they must be done in inititive. They're commonly done so but nothing I saw in the PHB specifies that they must be done. Ambush commonly use readied actions which are setup BEFORE inititive rolls are made or surprise is determined. You or your DM may houserule it differently but TTBOMK it would be a houserule.

Example: Person hides behind door and readies an action to hit the 1st person to walk through the door which he expects to be in the next 5 minutes. This doesn't mean you go into inititive for the next 5 minutes. When someone walks through the door you go into inititive.

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

Wait a minute, don't you have to roll inititive first in order to ready an action? Meaning you have to do something to let the wizard know you're there first, thus giving the wizard one round to act freely and either get away/destroy you?

Nope. You have to take an action to ready an action. You take actions outside of inititive all the time. Everytime you move, cast a spell, listen, actively spot ectre it's an action. These are done outside of inititive all the time.

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

And I've never seen a Pixie Wu-Jen 13/Fighter 3 That focuses on using a spiked chain. Come on, which of these ideas is more off-the-wall?

The WuJen spell comes from a ring of Spell storing.

We're talking about the strength of the Foresight combo for high level Wizards period.

I'm saying that they really are that powerful and it takes an extreme specalist Mageslayer build to stop them. That it takes such an extreme specalist build to just neutralise them shows how strong the combo is.

Stephen

[Woot Spitum]

So it goes like this: Your turn, ready action (trip if wizard attempts to move). Wizard's turn: Announces attempt to move, readied action interrupts, wizard trips, falls prone. The wizard now takes his turn.

[Stephen_E]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen_E
Actually your point is purely up to DM interpretation. The feat says that the caster is aware that they can't cast defensively while been threatened by someone with the feat, but if the not aware they're been threatened by a person with the feat it doesn't specify they get the warning. Mages know they can't cast spells without sucking an AOO if they're threatened. This doesn't mean that a ominous voice warns them when they go to cast a spell when threatened by someone they don't know about.


Exactly. If you're threatened by someone with the feat, you know it. Also, the "it doesn't specify they get the warning" is not a point. Following your logic, the RAW doesn't specify that humans have 2 arms only, so humans can be a 1000 armed creature, wield 1000 weapons. Wait, they don't even have an MM entry, and no LA listed. They either don't exist, or can't be played as PCs!.

Actually the feat doesn't say you know when you're threatened by someone with the feat. It says that casters are aware that they can't cast defensively when been threatened by someone with this feat. I'm aware that if someone hits me in the head with an Axe I'll probably die. This doesn't mean that I'm aware of any attempts to hit me in the head with an Axe. You are making an interetation of non-specific wording in the feat. The feat doesn't say what you seem to think it does.


Quote:
Don't no the details of Anklet of Translocation but from your description it can be handled easily with a contingency Dimensional lock and altering the contingency AMS so it is only triggered by contingency spells not on the Pixie.



You can only have 1 contingency on you. Also, why would you know about what the wizard has? It has the same access to protection from divinations as you? Besides, how will you get to the wizard in the 1st place. The anklet of translocation is a cheap 1.4k gp item that lets you teleport 10ft without error 2/day as a swift action from MIC.

I'm looking at my Comp Arcane and it says you can have as many contingency spells as you have HD. Why would I have something to stop teleporting when attacking a wizard. Becasue I'm 20th level and I know Wizards use teleport a lot to ascape. This doesn't exactly require much specific knowledge of what a wizard is carrying.

Stephen

[tyckspoon]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen_E
I'm looking at my Comp Arcane and it says you can have as many contingency spells as you have HD. Why would I have something to stop teleporting when attacking a wizard. Becasue I'm 20th level and I know Wizards use teleport a lot to ascape. This doesn't exactly require much specific knowledge of what a wizard is carrying.

Stephen

Oh, that's from Craft Contingency, right? Bloody stupid feat. The actual Contingency spell is limited to having only one in operation at a time. If you are using Craft Contingency, the Wizard can also have 20 (or 21, by way of using the spell too) contingencies with which to try and counter your attack.. pretty good odds that you don't have something that will stop at least one of them.

[Stephen_E]

So it goes like this: Your turn, ready action (trip if wizard attempts to move). Wizard's turn: Announces attempt to move, readied action interrupts, wizard trips, falls prone. The wizard now takes his turn.

Not quite.

I take an action outside inititive. I move to 5' above the wizards head with a readied action to attack if a swift spell is cast. We go into inititive. Wizard cast Celerity because he isn't flatfooted due to Foresight. I hit him doing lots of damage, tripping him, possibly hitting him again (depending on whether Improved Trip can work with Knockdown) and disrupting the spell unless he can make a Concentration check equal to 10+spell level+damage dealt. The Wizard can then act on his turn, but not do another swift action until next turn, and will be prone when his action starts.

If he hadn't cast celerity in reaction to inititive starting he might indeed move sucking an AOO, but not the readied action, and finding himself prone partway through his move action, leaving him the rest of the move action, and a standard action still to do (+ a single swift action he can do now or later in the turn).

Stephen

[Kaelik]

Because you're raiding him, so the Wizard will be doing stuff that people do, such as eat, read books, listen to music ecetre.



The famous Wizard (he's a high level Wizard. Unless you're permanetly polymorthed/invisible you don't get high level without renown) was at his known lair. You spied on the Wizard. You used divination, gather infomation ectre. Note the Pixie IS permanently invisible so while his party may be famous, he/she isn't.

So you are raiding his own personal Demi-Plane that you can only access with his permission?

What makes you think a Wizard spends two consective nights in the same place if it isn't absolutely safe? He would of course hide his various MMM spells in different places every night.


As I posted before reading this post, can you cite this. I know they've ruled that Improved trip does work with additional free trips that you might receive so I presume you're talking about some specific "but Knockdown and Improved Trip don't work together" official statement.

Well, you have to do this really tricky thing called read the feats in question. But after that you don't have to read anything else.

Improved Trip= Free attack after successful trip attempt.
Knockdown= Not a trip attempt. Or a Trip.


Actually Readied actions don't specify that they must be done in inititive. They're commonly done so but nothing I saw in the PHB specifies that they must be done. Ambush commonly use readied actions which are setup BEFORE inititive rolls are made or surprise is determined. You or your DM may houserule it differently but TTBOMK it would be a houserule.

In fact the houserule would be allowing "readied actions" in an ambush. What actually happens is you use the mechanic designed for ambushes called the "surprise round" and after that, you roll init. Otherwise ambushers would get a readied action, followed by a surprise round, followed by init. Which is silly.


Example: Person hides behind door and readies an action to hit the 1st person to walk through the door which he expects to be in the next 5 minutes. This doesn't mean you go into inititive for the next 5 minutes. When someone walks through the door you go into inititive.

Once again, houserule to even allow that. Otherwise people walk around with the "readied action" to shoot/cast/whatever at the first thing they see, they reset the same actions every single time that they don't need to use a standard action.

They have a mechanic for one person being ready to fight and another not, it's called the surprise round. They also have a spell that negates that advantage for the prepared party. That's kinda the point of the thread. If you change the rules to the game, then of course the spell is less potent.

EDIT:Craft Contingent Spell is something usually avoided because then every Wizard has 21 contingencies, and when you have that many you usually set your basic spell cast one to cast X anytime someone gets within X feet of you. That's not good for you. Most people don't like to use the feat in their builds because at level 20 your actual character has zero value other then his ability to hold contingencies, as all fights are decided by contingency before initiative is ever rolled.

Secondly,

no=/=know

[Woot Spitum]

Oh, that's from Craft Contingency, right? Bloody stupid feat. The actual Contingency spell is limited to having only one in operation at a time. If you are using Craft Contingency, the Wizard can also have 20 (or 21, by way of using the spell too) contingencies with which to try and counter your attack.. pretty good odds that you don't have something that will stop at least one of them.

Which basically allows the wizard to have a teleport contingency if attacked.

[Stephen_E]

Oh, that's from Craft Contingency, right? Bloody stupid feat. The actual Contingency spell is limited to having only one in operation at a time. If you are using Craft Contingency, the Wizard can also have 20 (or 21, by way of using the spell too) contingencies with which to try and counter your attack.. pretty good odds that you don't have something that will stop at least one of them.

Since the Mageslayer has AMS in contingency to anyone elses contingency spell going off within "x" (small) distance, no, the 20 odd contigency spells are unlikely to help, except to increase the chance of creating a casual loop which locks both the Mageslayer and Wizard until the universe expels them the same way a cat throws up a furball.

Stephen

PS. We're talking about Foresight/Celerity and Timestop and you call Craft Contingency "stupid". Do you realise how silly that sounds. It's par with You saying "I'm going to jump on my flying pink elephant and ride to Africa", with me saying "I'll whip out my Elephant gun and shoot your Elephant down" and you respond "that's silly. You don't have a Elephant gun"!

We're talking about 20+ level Wizards. Stupid and Silly were left behind a longggg time ago.

[Kaelik]

Since the Mageslayer has AMS in contingency to anyone elses contingency spell going off within "x" (small) distance, no, the 20 odd contigency spells are unlikely to help, except to increase the chance of creating a casual loop which locks both the Mageslayer and Wizard until the universe expels them the same way a cat throws up a furball.

Unless (as is absolutely certain) he has any contingencies that go off before you get close enough for you AMF to affect him. In which case you contingency is wasted. Second, you do realize by saying your contingency is set to go off when another one does that you are effectively saying all Contingencies are omniscient and know thing that no one else in the universe knows. So by extension, no matter how invisible you are, his contingencies see you, so the three that are worded "Cast Finger of Death on any hostile creature that comes within 40ft of me." just went off on you, so either your AMF goes off now (and he knows you are there) or you can start making saves.



PS. We're talking about Foresight/Celerity and Timestop and you call Craft Contingency "stupid". Do you realise how silly that sounds. It's par with You saying "I'm going to jump on my flying pink elephant and ride to Africa", with me saying "I'll whip out my Elephant gun and shoot your Elephant down" and you respond "that's silly. You don't have a Elephant gun"!

Actually, you are the one on the Pink Elephant because Craft Contingent Spell is much more broken then a combo that uses up many spell levels and has an actual drawback. Craft Contingent spells worded to Cast Disintegrates on any attacker pretty much kill everyone that attacks. Craft Contingent Spell is something that people don't use specifically because it is much more like infinite Wish cheese then it is like Celerity.

[tyckspoon]

Since the Mageslayer has AMS in contingency to anyone elses contingency spell going off within "x" (small) distance, no, the 20 odd contigency spells are unlikely to help, except to increase the chance of creating a casual loop which locks both the Mageslayer and Wizard until the universe expels them the same way a cat throws up a furball.

Stephen

PS. We're talking about Foresight/Celerity and Timestop and you call Craft Contingency "stupid". Do you realise how silly that sounds. It's par with You saying "I'm going to jump on my flying pink elephant and ride to Africa", with me saying "I'll whip out my Elephant gun and shoot your Elephant down" and you respond "that's silly. You don't have a Elephant gun"!

We're talking about 20+ level Wizards. Stupid and Silly were left behind a longggg time ago.

I call it stupid and silly because, well, it is. One of the very few things that restricts the Wizard's defenses is that he can only have one Contingency at a time, and it's very difficult to pick just one spell to be your in-case-of-emergency-break-glass and word its triggering circumstances exactly correctly such that it will go off only when you want it to. With Craft Contingent Spell, the Wizard can instead have 20 different special-case spells keyed to respond only to the circumstance where any particular one is needed.

And do please note that a contingent Antimagic will not actually prevent teleportation. Instantaneous Conjuration effects can still go off. It will, however, suppress the Dimensional Lock effect that you need to stop the Wizard from teleporting to safety in the first place. And if you happen still need magical effects to qualify for any of your feats at that point, it'll suppress those and you lose the feats while in the AMF too.

Edit: And my reasoning for the silliness of Craft Contingency doesn't even get into the fact that it allows a much broader variety of spells than the actual Contingency spell. The spell requires that the Contingent spell affect the caster; Craft Contingency lets in crazy stuff like the above posters mentioned. The wizard can make himself a walking Explosive Runes trap.

[Armads]

Could you just state your build or something? Right now, you have:
Ring of Major Spell Storing (Okay, 200k)
+1 disrupting spiked chain (What's disrupting? The undead killing property?)
Ever-flowing Supply of Dust of Disappearance (???)
Contingent AMF to go on when other contingent spells go off (???)
Caster Level 11th (For Craft Contingent Spell)
Mage Slayer
4 LA from Pixie
Practiced Spellcaster (or you could be a 15th level caster)
Str 15 (counting racial penalty) (Power Attack, Knock-Down)
Combat Expertise
Improved Trip
Knockdown


The famous Wizard (he's a high level Wizard. Unless you're permanetly polymorthed/invisible you don't get high level without renown) was at his known lair. You spied on the Wizard. You used divination, gather infomation ectre. Note the Pixie IS permanently invisible so while his party may be famous, he/she isn't.

Mind Blank. The wizard CAN be permanently invisible. How can you spy on someone when he's on a different plane that you cannot access.



Because the original poster was using 5th level for working out his tumble stats and getting the calculations wrong for 5th level.

I am wrong? +2 (dex) +2 (synergy from jump) +5 (ranks) +2 (masterwork tool) is not equal to +11? What a revelation. Wizards DO put ranks in tumble. It's not as improbable as a Pixie Fighter with CL 15th.

[Stephen_E]

In regard to a Wizard keeping an absolute paranoid underground lifestyle. The Magespayer is unlikely to find him. He's even more unlikely to look or know of the wizards exsistance. The Wizard has probably faked his own death and does nothing to bring himself to anyones awareness. No Mageslayer is needed. The Wizard has already killed himself for most intents and purposes.



Well, you have to do this really tricky thing called read the feats in question. But after that you don't have to read anything else.

Improved Trip= Free attack after successful trip attempt.
Knockdown= Not a trip attempt. Or a Trip.

Read the feat you say. Apparently you're right about how tricky it is since you failed to do so at the same time as accusing me of failing to do so.

Knock-Down [General]
Prerequisites
Base attack bonus +2, Improved Trip, Str 15.

Benefit
Whenever you deal 10 or more points of damage to your opponent in melee, you make a trip attack as a free action against the same target.




In fact the houserule would be allowing "readied actions" in an ambush. What actually happens is you use the mechanic designed for ambushes called the "surprise round" and after that, you roll init. Otherwise ambushers would get a readied action, followed by a surprise round, followed by init. Which is silly.



Once again, houserule to even allow that. Otherwise people walk around with the "readied action" to shoot/cast/whatever at the first thing they see, they reset the same actions every single time that they don't need to use a standard action.

Yep, they could do this, but it would sooner or later result in them attacking someone they really shouldn't have.

Can you provide a source outside your own game play that limits readied actions to within inititive.



They have a mechanic for one person being ready to fight and another not, it's called the surprise round. They also have a spell that negates that advantage for the prepared party. That's kinda the point of the thread. If you change the rules to the game, then of course the spell is less potent.

Now you're getting into "what I beleive the spell was intended to do" which is generally faith based unless you're either the person who created the spell/ecetre, or have detailed notes from the creator. And even then is of limited use since "What I intended" doesn't actually equal "How it actually works unless you errata it".



EDIT:Craft Contingent Spell is something usually avoided because then every Wizard has 21 contingencies, and when you have that many you usually set your basic spell cast one to cast X anytime someone gets within X feet of you. That's not good for you. Most people don't like to use the feat in their builds because at level 20 your actual character has zero value other then his ability to hold contingencies, as all fights are decided by contingency before initiative is ever rolled.


Massive contingency spells is something for a Wizard to avoid because it becomes to easy for a enemy to toss a mook at him with some craft contingency spells designed to create a casual loop with the Wizard's contingency spells and remove the Wizard for little cost.

That's not a problem for the Mage Slayer. The Wizard wants to live. The Mage Slayer merely wants to kill the Wizard. A casaul loop is unfortunate for the Mageslayer because he doesn't get to kill anymore Wizards, but it's not a loss. It is a loss for the Wizard. - Mageslayer = Matyr.

Stephen

[Armads]

Maybe the wizard could use It's 34 Int to craft a proper contingency that doesn't kill himself when a commoner walks within 10ft of him and throws a club at him in protest of him being able to fly?



Knock-Down [General]
Prerequisites
Base attack bonus +2, Improved Trip, Str 15.

You're a pixie. Good luck getting Strength 15 (you need to get a tome of strength +4 or put 4 ability-ups into it. Enhancement bonuses don't count). Also, the moment you get hit by a ray of enfeeblement, your whole Knockdown trick fails. Miserably.

[tyckspoon]

Read the feat you say. Apparently you're right about how tricky it is since you failed to do so at the same time as accusing me of failing to do so.

Knock-Down [General]
Prerequisites
Base attack bonus +2, Improved Trip, Str 15.

Benefit
Whenever you deal 10 or more points of damage to your opponent in melee, you make a trip attack as a free action against the same target.

Errata. Sword and Fist. If you're taking your copy from a different location, please mention it so we can look for relevant information.



Massive contingency spells is something for a Wizard to avoid because it becomes to easy for a enemy to toss a mook at him with some craft contingency spells designed to create a casual loop with the Wizard's contingency spells and remove the Wizard for little cost.

That's not a problem for the Mage Slayer. The Wizard wants to live. The Mage Slayer merely wants to kill the Wizard. A casaul loop is unfortunate for the Mageslayer because he doesn't get to kill anymore Wizards, but it's not a loss. It is a loss for the Wizard. - Mageslayer = Matyr.

Stephen

You've mentioned that a couple of times and I still don't understand it. Could you provide an example of one of these lethal Contingency-based 'causal loops'?

[Woot Spitum]

Wait, if the mage slayer exists to only kill wizards, what kind of wizard will cast all those nice contingency spells on him? Why does are mage slayer choose not to attack this other wizard (if he's a fanatic who doesn't care whether he lives or dies as long as he kills wizards)?

[Stephen_E]

Out of time. Will get back later to the last few replys. Although I think I covered the casual loop contingency spell situation earlier.

Stephen

[Nowhere Girl]

Actually Readied actions don't specify that they must be done in inititive.


Actually, yes, they do.

Page 160, under "Special Initiative Actions":

Here are ways to change when you act during combat by altering your place in the initiative order.

(Below that are entries for "Delay" and for "Ready.")

In order to alter your place in the initiative order, there must first be an initiative order. Ergo, you cannot ready an action until initiative has been rolled, thereby creating an initiative order.

Furthermore, under the "Ready" heading, the following text is relevant:

The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over but before your next one has begun.

You may ready an action to perform after your turn is over, which therefore means that you must first have had a turn ... and it must have been "during combat," as mentioned earlier under "Special Initiative Actions."

Those are the rules as written reasons why you can't ready an action outside of combat.

There's also a common sense reason. If you can ready an action outside of combat, before initiative is rolled, to do whatever to the wizard before he can act, then there's no special reason why the wizard can't be carrying around a readied action to cast a spell in response to anyone else trying to attack him, or (to get even more absurd) even a readied action like, "I ready an action to cast X spell in response to anyone else's readied action going off."

Before long, games become a tragic comedy of everyone walking around with readied actions, because hell, why not? "I ready an action to counter your readied action!" "Oh yeah? Well I ready an action to counter your counter readied action with my counter readied action!" "I ready action times infinity!" And so on ...

But if common sense doesn't work for you, just refer back to the RAW, which make it pretty clear, even if it is in a roundabout way, that you can only ready an action in combat, and only after your turn has come up.

[Funkyodor]

So you are raiding his own personal Demi-Plane that you can only access with his permission?

What spells is he using to restrict access to his personal Demi-Plane?


And do please note that a contingent Antimagic will not actually prevent teleportation. Instantaneous Conjuration effects can still go off.

It's not that the Teleport can still go off, it's that the Teleport (Instantaneous duration Conjuration) effect can not be countered. You can not cast the Teleport spell within the AMF confines. Per SRD "(The effects of instantaneous conjurations are not affected by an antimagic field because the conjuration itself is no longer in effect, only its result.)" The intent of this is so that Walls of X, Create Food & Water, Create Water, etcetera, effects could still exist within AMF confines. Not that they could be cast within, but that the Wall could not be countered except by other means. You can not even Teleport to within an AMF due to SRD "An antimagic field suppresses any spell or magical effect used within, brought into, or cast into the area, but does not dispel it." The contridiction would be is it a spell being cast within the AMF, or is it an instantaneous conjuration effect that the AMF cannot affect. In this instance I judge it to be both, but since the Teleport effect cannot happen until the spell is used within, it is suppressed by the AMF.

[tyckspoon]

It's not that the Teleport can still go off, it's that the Teleport (Instantaneous duration Conjuration) effect can not be countered. You can not cast the Teleport spell within the AMF confines. Per SRD "(The effects of instantaneous conjurations are not affected by an antimagic field because the conjuration itself is no longer in effect, only its result.)" The intent of this is so that Walls of X, Create Food & Water, Create Water, etcetera, effects could still exist within AMF confines. Not that they could be cast within, but that the Wall could not be countered except by other means. You can not even Teleport to within an AMF due to SRD "An antimagic field suppresses any spell or magical effect used within, brought into, or cast into the area, but does not dispel it." The contridiction would be is it a spell being cast within the AMF, or is it an instantaneous conjuration effect that the AMF cannot affect. In this instance I judge it to be both, but since the Teleport effect cannot happen until the spell is used within, it is suppressed by the AMF.

The spell is very clear that it does not dispel things. It doesn't stop you from spending an action and a spell slot to try and cast a spell. It's just normally pointless because the effects won't happen until the AMF ends, and 10 min/level is enough time for the AMF to outlast most spells you would want to cast in combat. There is one specific exception: The effects of instaneous conjurations. Keep in mind that the AMF doesn't actually prevent you from casting a spell- it merely suppresses the effects of that spell. If it wanted to completely prevent you from trying to use a spell, it would say it dispels things as they are cast: the spell would be lost, the casting action wasted, and the spell wouldn't come into effect even after the AMF was gone. This is not the case. Teleport's effect is to instantaneously conjure the caster to a different place. It works. (Although entering an AMF *would* suppress a Contingency. The Wizard might have to cast his Teleport from his own slots.)

[Nowhere Girl]

The spell is very clear that it does not dispel things. It doesn't stop you from spending an action and a spell slot to try and cast a spell. It's just normally pointless because the effects won't happen until the AMF ends, and 10 min/level is enough time for the AMF to outlast most spells you would want to cast in combat. There is one specific exception: The effects of instaneous conjurations.

Yup! Those happen instantly, and then they're done. So a Teleport cast in an AMF will instantly attempt to transport you, only it will fail because its effects are suppressed, and the caster therefore goes nowhere. Then, since a Teleport is instantaneous and then done forever, that's the end of that.

[Kaelik]

What spells is he using to restrict access to his personal Demi-Plane?

Well since the spell that created the plane automatically restricts access to only those he allows in, he doesn't need to cast any spells other then the one to create it.

[tyckspoon]

Yup! Those happen instantly, and then they're done. So a Teleport cast in an AMF will instantly attempt to transport you, only it will fail because its effects are suppressed, and the caster therefore goes nowhere. Then, since a Teleport is instantaneous and then done forever, that's the end of that.

The effect isn't suppressed, because it's the effect of an instant Conjuration spell. This probably was not the intent of the exception, but it is what it allows, along with using other Instant-duration Conjuration spells to keep fighting inside an AMF. I'm not aware of any errata or other official/semi-official statement that says otherwise.

[Jack Zander]

Um... yeah... so Foresight shouldn't be 9th level. It kinda sucks even compared to most 7th level spells.

[Nowhere Girl]

The effect isn't suppressed

Nope! The effect (failure of anything to happen) is absolutely not suppressed.

However, as it falls under the heading of "any spell ... cast into the area," the spell itself is suppressed. And does nothing.

[Curmudgeon]

Um... yeah... so Foresight shouldn't be 9th level. It's 8th level for a Cleric with the Time domain -- one level lower than Time Stop.

[Stephen_E]

Could you just state your build or something? Right now, you have:
Ring of Major Spell Storing (Okay, 200k)
+1 disrupting spiked chain (What's disrupting? The undead killing property?)
Ever-flowing Supply of Dust of Disappearance (???)
Contingent AMF to go on when other contingent spells go off (???)
Caster Level 11th (For Craft Contingent Spell)
Mage Slayer
4 LA from Pixie
Practiced Spellcaster (or you could be a 15th level caster)
Str 15 (counting racial penalty) (Power Attack, Knock-Down)
Combat Expertise
Improved Trip
Knockdown

I don't recall all the build offhand and have misplaced my DMG but at 20th level ECL you're talking about 7 levels since you can buy off one level LA by then.

Offhand it was something like -
Barb 2,
Fighter 2,
Hexblade 3
Occult Slayer 5
Exotic Weaponmaster 1 or 2
Psychic Warrior 2 (for the feats).
There are probably stuff you can do to improve this but I have a limited selection of books.
This gives you a base 10 feats to work with as well as the 2 bonus feats from Pixie (Dodge and Weapon Finnesse).
You can also take 2 levels of Monk for Evasion, Stunning Fist and Combat Relexes, limiting you to 1 level of Exotic Weapon Master.

Since you can get people to put contigent spells ecetre on you you don't need any ability to cast contingent spell ecetre.
So feats - Combat Expertise, Power Attack, Weapon Focus, Improved Init, Improved Trip, Knockdown, Mage Slayer, Blind-fight, Peirce Magical Concealment, Peirce Magical Protection. Exotic Weapon Profincincy.

To get all these does require 11 feats, which is actually ECL 21, but you can probably drop one feat if push comes to shove.

The exotic Weapon feats of choice are Stunning Fist through your Exotic Weapon, AOOs even when cover and +2 for Trip attempts.

As I have mentioned before several years back they said that magical attribute enhancement items were enough to qualify you for feats. Last I looked 6 months back this hadn't changed. That said you can start with Str 12 and use your Attribute boosts at 4th, 8th and 12th to bring this upto Str 15 Natural. Ray of enfeeblemnt would be unpleasant if it got through the Pixie SR and Occult Slayer spell relection and you shutdown the belt of +6 Str Enhancement, and it did enough to overcome the Rage he could go into, not forgeting also cacelling the Rihghteous Might or Giant Strength spell Strength enhancement.





Quote:
Because the original poster was using 5th level for working out his tumble stats and getting the calculations wrong for 5th level.



I am wrong? +2 (dex) +2 (synergy from jump) +5 (ranks) +2 (masterwork tool) is not equal to +11? What a revelation. Wizards DO put ranks in tumble. It's not as improbable as a Pixie Fighter with CL 15th.

Because you had a pure Wizard haveing 5 ranks of tumble and 5 ranks of Jump at 5th level. This is impossible. It's a crossclass skill therefore at 5th level they can only have 4 ranks max.

As for Pixie Fighters with CL 15th. Since I haven't posited a Pixie Fighter with CL 15 I'm not sure what you're talking about.


Stephen

[Stephen_E]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen_E
Read the feat you say. Apparently you're right about how tricky it is since you failed to do so at the same time as accusing me of failing to do so.

Knock-Down [General]
Prerequisites
Base attack bonus +2, Improved Trip, Str 15.

Benefit
Whenever you deal 10 or more points of damage to your opponent in melee, you make a trip attack as a free action against the same target.


Errata. Sword and Fist. If you're taking your copy from a different location, please mention it so we can look for relevant information.

Sword and Fist is 3.0.
I used the SRD - Divine feats. 3.5.


Quote:
Massive contingency spells is something for a Wizard to avoid because it becomes to easy for a enemy to toss a mook at him with some craft contingency spells designed to create a casual loop with the Wizard's contingency spells and remove the Wizard for little cost.

That's not a problem for the Mage Slayer. The Wizard wants to live. The Mage Slayer merely wants to kill the Wizard. A casaul loop is unfortunate for the Mageslayer because he doesn't get to kill anymore Wizards, but it's not a loss. It is a loss for the Wizard. - Mageslayer = Matyr.




You've mentioned that a couple of times and I still don't understand it. Could you provide an example of one of these lethal Contingency-based 'causal loops'?

I have a AMF on contingency to anyone elses contingency going off within 15'. You have a contingency spell to go off when anyone hits you for 10+ damage and one to Teleport when a AMF is cast within 20'.
1) I hit you for 10+ damage and your contingency spell triggers.
2) My contigency AMF is triggered, and as contingecny spells do, occurs BEFORE the trigger event/spell occurs (at least that's what all the power wizard optimisers keep claiming in responce to the "get within range of Wizard and activate an AMF". I have my doubts on reading the PHB and Comp Arcane, but if you don't rule that way taking out Wizards with Magekillers using AMFs becomes much easier).
3) Wizards teleport contingency triggers in responce to the AMF, but again before the AMF has actually happened (thus not getting shorted out - I presume I don't need to go over the points others have made about how AMF does shutdown a Teleport).
4) The Pixies AMF which hasn't yet beed triggered by the initial contingency spell is instead triggered by the Teleport contingency before it goes off.
5) The Teleport contingency which hasn't actually gone off yet is instead triggered by the AMF contingency.
6) repeat 4.
7) repeat 5.
adnauseum.

This is one of the problems with interupt type actions on auto triggers. If you rule that contingency spells occur AFTER the trigger agent then it become simple, but then you move in undetected and cast AMF and Wizard is toast. No contincy spell will work because they can't see you, and if they're triggered by the AMF going off it's to late because the AMF kills them (well techincally it suppresses them, but that amounts to the same thing for the Wizards purpose.

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

Wait, if the mage slayer exists to only kill wizards, what kind of wizard will cast all those nice contingency spells on him? Why does are mage slayer choose not to attack this other wizard (if he's a fanatic who doesn't care whether he lives or dies as long as he kills wizards)?

Shrug. Why do blacks join the KKK.

Possibly your Mageslayer divides Wizards into "good" wizards, "bad" wizards and "harmless" wizards. A "good" wizard might be perfectly happy helping out.

:smallbiggrin:
There could be a secret order of the Rose out there (they are Fey) consisting of Pixies trained as Mageslayers with WuJens, Artificers and Diviners supporting them. They sit in their non-detecting enclaves looking for potential "bad" wizards who use their powers to an excessive worldchanging degree. If low level wizards show the wrong personality traits they build a profile on them. By the time they start hiding themselves from dtetction the Order already knows everything important. If they decide the target must be removed they send out Hunter Killer teams. The Mage Slayers gain experiance by joining adventuring parties as fun loving Pixies but remain invisible ectre (possibly Polymorthed) most of the time so no one ever gets a warning. When needed they direct their party in the appropriate way to do the kill. Since the party is been manipulated they don't trigger the defensive divination spells, and the MAgeslayer is protected.

Indeed all the propaganda about the invuneribility of Wizards may well been spread by the Order. Indeed a member of your party may be one of these Mage Killer Pixies of the Order of the Rose. Polymorthed to look like something else and when the hit on the Wizard goes down they'll slip out of sight and change into their true Pixie form for the kill. You only think they're rare. In fact they're all around you, protecting all the non-casters of the world.

How else do you explain that the mighty Wizards seem to consistently fail to control the world and remake it in their image.:smalltongue:

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen_E
Actually Readied actions don't specify that they must be done in inititive.



Actually, yes, they do.

And then you quote a heap of stuff which doesn't say you can only do a readied action during inititive. It does tell you how it effects inititive whne you use it during initive, but that doesn't mean you can only do it during inititive. When you look at the basic requirements for readying an action it doesn't specify been under inititive. You have to take actions and have turns, which occurs outside inititive, or do you go into inititive everytime someone casts a spell or has a spell running?

Readieng an action is a reasonably precise trigger mechanism, which is of limited use much of the time, and downright dangerous sometimes, and would restrict you to only moving at half speed and doing other move actions lsowly. Which is the commonsense reason why people don't have readied actions set all the time.

DM "you shoot the guard on the gate". "What do you mean I shoot the guard on the gate?". DM: "You readied an action a hour ago to shoot the 1st person who threatened you with a weapon. The Guard pointed his spear at you which triggered your readied action. Guess we better go to inititive since the guards are pretty pissed. No surprise because no one on either side expected you to do that."


Page 160, under "Special Initiative Actions":

Here are ways to change when you act during combat by altering your place in the initiative order.

(Below that are entries for "Delay" and for "Ready.")

In order to alter your place in the initiative order, there must first be an initiative order. Ergo, you cannot ready an action until initiative has been rolled, thereby creating an initiative order.

Furthermore, under the "Ready" heading, the following text is relevant:

The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over but before your next one has begun.

You may ready an action to perform after your turn is over, which therefore means that you must first have had a turn ... and it must have been "during combat," as mentioned earlier under "Special Initiative Actions."

Those are the rules as written reasons why you can't ready an action outside of combat.

There's also a common sense reason. If you can ready an action outside of combat, before initiative is rolled, to do whatever to the wizard before he can act, then there's no special reason why the wizard can't be carrying around a readied action to cast a spell in response to anyone else trying to attack him, or (to get even more absurd) even a readied action like, "I ready an action to cast X spell in response to anyone else's readied action going off."

Before long, games become a tragic comedy of everyone walking around with readied actions, because hell, why not? "I ready an action to counter your readied action!" "Oh yeah? Well I ready an action to counter your counter readied action with my counter readied action!" "I ready action times infinity!" And so on ...

But if common sense doesn't work for you, just refer back to the RAW, which make it pretty clear, even if it is in a roundabout way, that you can only ready an action in combat, and only after your turn has come up.

[Stephen_E]

Um... yeah... so Foresight shouldn't be 9th level. It kinda sucks even compared to most 7th level spells.

Nope, it's fully worth a level 9 slot because without it the Celerity/Timestop doesn't really work, and stopping a Foresight/Celerity/Time Stop combo is incredibly hard. Indeed stopping any Foresight/Celerity/Spell X is incredibly hard, and a high level Wizard can do ugly things with a spell if he gets it off. Stopping him getting that spell off can be the winning/losing of a fight.

You can see the resistance that people have to the concept that even a special built Pixie MageKiller can stop a Foresight/Celerity combo, although I think that's just people suckered in by the Pixie MageKiller propaganda. Trying to keep the Wizards fat and soft targets for those special Pixie MageKiller commandoes.:smallwink:

Stephen

[Armads]

Nope, it's fully worth a level 9 slot because without it the Celerity/Timestop doesn't really work, and stopping a Foresight/Celerity/Time Stop combo is incredibly hard. Indeed stopping any Foresight/Celerity/Spell X is incredibly hard, and a high level Wizard can do ugly things with a spell if he gets it off. Stopping him getting that spell off can be the winning/losing of a fight.

You can see the resistance that people have to the concept that even a special built Pixie MageKiller can stop a Foresight/Celerity combo, although I think that's just people suckered in by the Pixie MageKiller propaganda. Trying to keep the Wizards fat and soft targets for those special Pixie MageKiller commandoes.:smallwink:

Stephen

Could you just stat out the exact class levels of that pixie? It's easier to point out the problems with that character that way, rather than trying to argue against some arbitrary, floating, "has everything it needs at the right time" character.

[The Glyphstone]

The Bloodhound PrC from CAdv gives the ability to ready an action against a specific individual (the "mark, or bounty target, of said bloodhound) even when initiative has not been rolled. Contextually, wouldn't that imply that someone without this ability could not ready an action outside of initiative?

[Felius]

Just commenting on the fluff readied actions. When you ready an action to do something, it means you get ready, with the only thing you still need to finish it is to let it go.

So basically, reading an action to shoot someone, you draw your bow, put an arrow, and tension it, so you just need to let it go (So, yes, everyone was expecting you to shoot the arrow at that guard, because you were aiming between his eyes when he spoke to you). To ready an action to strike someone with a sword, you hold the sword above your head, or somewhere similar, ready to strike someone. Having an action readied to cast a Fireball in someone is holding the guano and posing in the position you need to cast the fireball the faster you can.

So, the reason you don't walk around with a readied action, RAW not withstanding, is because it's simply not feasible to say your archer would walk around the city and talk to everyone with an arrow ready to shoot at his bow.

I call the rule of common sense.

Now, proceed to discussing who is better, the mage or the magekiller.

[Kaelik]

4) The Pixies AMF which hasn't yet beed triggered by the initial contingency spell is instead triggered by the Teleport contingency before it goes off.
5) The Teleport contingency which hasn't actually gone off yet is instead triggered by the AMF contingency.

This is my point. Why do you think that you can set a contingency trigger to go off when another contingency trigger goes off? A contingency going off has exactly zero ways of being noticed by anyone. The spell set of by the trigger can be noticed, but the actual contingency can't be. So how are you telling your trigger to go off when another trigger goes off?

Secondly, why wouldn't the rule be that any contingency can be triggered only once, and that it is already triggered when anything that responds to it goes off. If you don't think that is the case then all it actually take to create such an infinite loop is 2 level 9 wizards. Celerity interrupts Celerity interrupts Celerity... (or level 7? Lesser Celerity?)

Finally, if you actually believe that is how contingencies work, and that Craft Contingent spell is somehow less retardedly silly then a Wizards primary options, and that infinite loops such as that lead to the death of both members, it doesn't matter what you build is. Because your Pixie will only ever survive meeting a single Wizard since they would all have a Contingency prepared for AMF.

The best mage-killer under your very odd made up rules would just be a Wizard that went around tossing Contingencies on a bunch of mooks, one to activate AMF if and only if doing so would trigger a Contingency (if you can magically know things that no one else in the universe can know, you might as well just know the wording of everyone else's contingencies) and another to activate AMF if anyone else activates a Contingency.

[tyckspoon]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen_E

Sword and Fist is 3.0.
I used the SRD - Divine feats. 3.5.

Ok, I don't even know where to look for errata on that one. The intent of the old errata was to disallow using Knock-down to trigger Improved Trip and the wording for the Sword and Fist and SRD versions is identical, so I would guess it's meant to still apply. Still, we're entangled in one long silly RAW argument as is, what's one more bit of hair-splitting.




I have a AMF on contingency to anyone elses contingency going off within 15'. You have a contingency spell to go off when anyone hits you for 10+ damage and one to Teleport when a AMF is cast within 20'.
1) I hit you for 10+ damage and your contingency spell triggers.
2) My contigency AMF is triggered, and as contingecny spells do, occurs BEFORE the trigger event/spell occurs (at least that's what all the power wizard optimisers keep claiming in responce to the "get within range of Wizard and activate an AMF". I have my doubts on reading the PHB and Comp Arcane, but if you don't rule that way taking out Wizards with Magekillers using AMFs becomes much easier).
3) Wizards teleport contingency triggers in responce to the AMF, but again before the AMF has actually happened (thus not getting shorted out - I presume I don't need to go over the points others have made about how AMF does shutdown a Teleport).
4) The Pixies AMF which hasn't yet beed triggered by the initial contingency spell is instead triggered by the Teleport contingency before it goes off.
5) The Teleport contingency which hasn't actually gone off yet is instead triggered by the AMF contingency.
6) repeat 4.
7) repeat 5.
adnauseum.

This is one of the problems with interupt type actions on auto triggers. If you rule that contingency spells occur AFTER the trigger agent then it become simple, but then you move in undetected and cast AMF and Wizard is toast. No contincy spell will work because they can't see you, and if they're triggered by the AMF going off it's to late because the AMF kills them (well techincally it suppresses them, but that amounts to the same thing for the Wizards purpose.
Stephen

A contingency has to go off after the triggering event. If the triggering condition is worded such as to allow the contingency to activate before the triggering event, it will activate immediately upon creation in order to make sure it happens before all possible circumstances that could set it off. Which is quite useless. In the setup you give, it would go: Magehunter damages wizard. Wizard's 'on damage' contingency goes off and the effect is resolved. Magehunter's AMF contingency goes off. All further contingencies are suppressed, along with the results of the wizard's first contingency if it was not an instant Conjuration.

[Nowhere Girl]

The Bloodhound PrC from CAdv gives the ability to ready an action against a specific individual (the "mark, or bounty target, of said bloodhound) even when initiative has not been rolled. Contextually, wouldn't that imply that someone without this ability could not ready an action outside of initiative?

Yes. In fact, it just about outright states it, for the very good reason that you can't ready an action outside of initiative unless you're a bloodhound readying against your mark. As with many other class features in the game, the bloodhound ability creates an exception to the rule ... and there is a rule. The rule is: no readied actions outside of initiative. Ever.

Edit: And Stephen, I'm not going to keep arguing with you about it. I already explained perfectly clearly how the rules show that you can't ready actions outside of initiative. Did you read what I quoted, read carefully my commentary after, and work through the logic chain I used? If not, please go back and do so. If so, please go back and do so again, only more carefully this time. It's all right there, pretty much in black and white. If you just want to houserule that everyone can ready actions outside of initiative like how bloodhounds normally can only do as a special class ability, and normally only against their marks, then houserule it and be done with it. If I were in a game like that, I'd deliberately abuse the hell out of it to make a point (and simply because I could), but do whatever makes you happy.

[Chronos]

From the previous page:
What makes you think a Wizard spends two consective nights in the same place if it isn't absolutely safe?I dunno about anyone else, but what makes me think that a wizard spends two consecutive nights in the same place on the Material Plane is the fact that most of the wizard fans keep talking about doing so. You know, they all have a Contingent teleport on them at all times? Well, Teleport needs a destination, and it's not foolproof. Are you telling me that an ultra-paranoid wizard would accept a 6% chance of landing somewhere he didn't mean to (which might even be another wizard's hidey-hole, thanks to the "similar area" result), while he's already in a bad situation? Because that's the risk that a wizard takes if he tries to teleport to someplace he's not intimately familiar with. If wizards really don't have a stronghold on the material plane that they routinely stay in, and if they really have contingent teleports, then it's a cinch to beat a wizard: Just keep on triggering his Contingency, until the dice catch up to him and the teleport or its consequences kills him.

[Woot Spitum]

Is it just me, or does it seem like the real mageslayer is the team of wizards casting a weeks worth of contingent spells?

EDIT: Rage is useless for this build, since you can't do anything requiring patience and concentration while raging.

[mostlyharmful]

Is it just me, or does it seem like the real mageslayer is the team of wizards casting a weeks worth of contingent spells?

Yup. Mage-killer = Full caster. Nothing else can do it. They might hire someone to put their work and ideas into practise, to carry around the contingencies, jump into combat or deliver the explosive runes to the target but it boils down to needing a full caster to have a hope against a full caster beyound mid levels. And is mostly true at mid levels.

[Woot Spitum]

From the previous page:I dunno about anyone else, but what makes me think that a wizard spends two consecutive nights in the same place on the Material Plane is the fact that most of the wizard fans keep talking about doing so. You know, they all have a Contingent teleport on them at all times? Well, Teleport needs a destination, and it's not foolproof. Are you telling me that an ultra-paranoid wizard would accept a 6% chance of landing somewhere he didn't mean to (which might even be another wizard's hidey-hole, thanks to the "similar area" result), while he's already in a bad situation? Because that's the risk that a wizard takes if he tries to teleport to someplace he's not intimately familiar with. If wizards really don't have a stronghold on the material plane that they routinely stay in, and if they really have contingent teleports, then it's a cinch to beat a wizard: Just keep on triggering his Contingency, until the dice catch up to him and the teleport or its consequences kills him.
So the mageslayer here is outside circumstances and random chance? Wouldn't that apply to the wizard's life in general, whether or not you went around bugging him (assuming you could find him in the first place and survive the initial encounter)?

[Chronos]

Woot Spitum, I'm not sure how what you posted relates to anything in that post of mine you quoted... I didn't say anything about any particular magekiller build, and I didn't say much about random circumstances.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

He's showing how, with a dedicated build that was nearly impossible to level up due to being to weak to hurt it's favored opponent until 20th, he could beat 1 of the standard tactics that wizards use Foresight with.

[Woot Spitum]

Woot Spitum, I'm not sure how what you posted relates to anything in that post of mine you quoted... I didn't say anything about any particular magekiller build, and I didn't say much about random circumstances.
I was basing this on the last sentence of your post where you advised that in order to beat a wizard, you should just keep triggering his contingency teleport until he dies as a result of some sort of mishap. I was using the term "mageslayer" to refer to any build or method designed solely in order to defeat/kill a level 20 wizard (didn't mention this in my post so, my bad).

If I have misinterpreted your meaning, then I apologize.

[Stephen_E]

He's showing how, with a dedicated build that was nearly impossible to level up due to being to weak to hurt it's favored opponent until 20th, he could beat 1 of the standard tactics that wizards use Foresight with.

Actually the Pixie build levels up just fine because it's a reasonably effective build at all times. It's only really effective against high level wizards at really high levels, and can be used to beat all forsight tactics. It is a build designed for a particular purpose and is suboptimal for anything else, but was someone suggesting that high level wizards aren't extremely tough customers. If so I apparently missed seeing their post.

Although as I said regarding contongency spells, if you play contingency spells the sensible way, as Tyckspoon indicated he does, namely it does resolve after the triggering effect, it all becomes very simple. You move upto the Wizard and activate a AMF, then hit/trip Wizard and it's all over for wizard.

Does this mean the best Mage Killer is another high level Wizard? Not really, since the spells required to give the MageKiller its edge over the Wizard can be cast by Wizards in their mid-teens. Such a Wizard would be croaked by a Wizard 5 levels higher in a fight. DnD 3.5 is largely written around freely available access to magic/magic items to all high level characters.

Getting back to the original question.
Yes, Foresight is that good but it can be beaten with the right techniques, largely involving Mind Blank and other non-detection stuff. If the DM is playing with the most liberal intrepretations of how Foresight works, and restrictive interpretations of how Mind Blank ecetre work then it probably can't be beaten, but then it has long been known that you can't beat the GM, and if the GM wants to make something unbeatable, he can make just about anything so.

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen_E
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen_E

Sword and Fist is 3.0.
I used the SRD - Divine feats. 3.5.


Ok, I don't even know where to look for errata on that one. The intent of the old errata was to disallow using Knock-down to trigger Improved Trip and the wording for the Sword and Fist and SRD versions is identical, so I would guess it's meant to still apply. Still, we're entangled in one long silly RAW argument as is, what's one more bit of hair-splitting.


TTBOMK Errata gets added to the online SRD. So the SRD is pretty much the uptodate rules.

Sword and Fist was 3.0. 3.0 is different from 3.5. So no, just because the basic wording is the same doesn't mean that the 3.0 errata applies to the 3.5 feat. Indeed the fact that the SRD stays the same indicates that it doesn't. Things they considered broken in 3.0 they didn't in 3.5 and visa versa.

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

Could you just stat out the exact class levels of that pixie? It's easier to point out the problems with that character that way, rather than trying to argue against some arbitrary, floating, "has everything it needs at the right time" character.

There isn't any exact level build required. It has considerable flex as to what you take when.

1st lev (which goes upto ECL 5)
Barb 1 (for the 12+ hps), Starting feat Exotic Weapon Prof - Spiked Chain.

The Monk levels must be taken together and you have to shift to Lawful to take them, and back to non-Lawful afterwards to get Rage back (you should be able to tell that I have no great respect for class alignment restrictions and only pay lipservice to them). Rage is useful because when you engage in close combat it's unlikely that you'll be wanting to use any of the abilities that it restricts, and the +4 Str/Con can be useful.

The 3rd Hexblade level should preferably be taken only after you've taken your 2nd level in Barb, Fighter, Monk and Psychic Warrior to avoid XP penalties, but you may decide the penalties are worth getting Mettle earlier. Take the Dark Companion? option from PHB2.

The Occult Slayer levels should probably be taken as a group, and can be taken anytime after ECL9 unless you've taken a Psychic Warrior lev, in which case it's after ECL10. You have to take Weapon Focus - Spiked Chain and Improved Init as prereqs.

Exotic Weapon Master can be taken at ECL 10 unless you've taken a Psychic Warrior lev, in which case it's after ECL11.and requires Weapon Focus - Spiked Chain as prereq.

Feat chains are -
Combat Expertise - Improved Trip - Knockdown. No lower limit to when you take these because you'll easily be able to afford any stat enhancing items if they're needed to meet stat requirements so long as you put a good stat in Str (-4 Racial penalty)
Mage Slayer - Blind Fight - Peirce Magical concealment
Mage Slayer - Peirce Magical Protection

Other feats can be taken anytime except where already mentioned prereq for Prestige Classes -
Power Attack (If you don't start with Str 13 by ECL 6, the earliest you can have a feat slot, you can afford a +2 Magic item to bring your Str up to meet requirements).
Weapon Focus - Spiked Chain
Improved Init

In addition you get from the classes and race the following standard feats and class abilities (I won't go into the funky Prestige class stuff).
Uncanny Dodge, Evasion, Mettle, Wisdom bonus to AC (Pixies have good Wisdom)
Stunning Fist (This can be deliver by your Spiked Chain via an Exotic Weaponmaster abilitiy).
Weapon Finnesse (works with Spiked Chain)
Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Good SR, DR10 Cold Iron. Greater Invisibility.
Arcane Resitance (Pixies have good Char)

You should always be very capable of screwing with Mages but only expect to be a mediocre general fighter. Anything you save against has no effect once you get Evasion and Mettle. Between Class saves, attributes and Arcane resistance you always have decent or better saves. SR is from start, as is Flight and Greater Invisibility as well as your reach attack with the Spiked Chain. Remember if you're directly 5' above a target you're out of his reach unless he has a reach weapon, but he has to move 10' to get out of your 10' reach.

Stephen


Offhand it was something like -
Barb 2,
Fighter 2,
Hexblade 3
Occult Slayer 5
Exotic Weaponmaster 1 or 2
Psychic Warrior 2 (for the feats).
There are probably stuff you can do to improve this but I have a limited selection of books.
This gives you a base 10 feats to work with as well as the 2 bonus feats from Pixie (Dodge and Weapon Finnesse).
You can also take 2 levels of Monk for Evasion, Stunning Fist and Combat Relexes, limiting you to 1 level of Exotic Weapon Master.

Since you can get people to put contigent spells ecetre on you you don't need any ability to cast contingent spell ecetre.
So feats - Combat Expertise, Power Attack, Weapon Focus, Improved Init, Improved Trip, Knockdown, Mage Slayer, Blind-fight, Peirce Magical Concealment, Peirce Magical Protection. Exotic Weapon Profincincy.

To get all these does require 11 feats, which is actually ECL 21, but you can probably drop one feat if push comes to shove.

[Woot Spitum]

That's great, but could we get some ability scores, as well as the cost of all those spells and magic items you are using?

EDIT: Remember, you need to spend a feat on exotic weapon proficiency(spiked chain).

[Stephen_E]

That's great, but could we get some ability scores, as well as the cost of all those spells and magic items you are using?

EDIT: Remember, you need to spend a feat on exotic weapon proficiency(spiked chain).

Re: Ability Scores - What system. Point Buy? How much. The higher the pointbuy the better, Low pointbuy favours Wiz/Drd classes.

Re: Equipment costs. Non reusable stuff varies as to costing in that some people consider it part of the "recommended wealth by level" and some don't. The DMG makes clear that expendables to a certain degree don't count towards your wealth by level, but you can argue that this only goes so far. I've found my DMG so I can do this now.

Re: Spiked Chain. Look again. I noted that the starting feat chosen was Exotic Weapon Prof - Spiked Chain.

Final note: Going into detail on the Pixie build is getting some distance off the OP. Does Jack Zander (the original poster) mind, or would he prefer us shifting to a new thread.

Stephen

[Kompera]

Since you can get people to put contigent spells ecetre on you you don't need any ability to cast contingent spell ecetre.You can?


Contingency
Evocation
Level: Sor/Wiz 6
Components: V, S, M, F
Casting Time: At least 10 minutes; see text
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: One day/level (D) or until discharged

You can place another spell upon your person so that it comes into effect under some condition you dictate when casting contingency. The contingency spell and the companion spell are cast at the same time. The 10-minute casting time is the minimum total for both castings; if the companion spell has a casting time longer than 10 minutes, use that instead.

The spell to be brought into effect by the contingency must be one that affects your person and be of a spell level no higher than one-third your caster level (rounded down, maximum 6th level). My bold for emphasis. Looks to me as though both Contingency and the legal triggered spells are self-target only.

Edit: I'm afb and don't have all the splat books in any case. So if some other source allows Contingency to be cast on others I'm not aware of it.

[Stephen_E]

You can?

My bold for emphasis. Looks to me as though both Contingency and the legal triggered spells are self-target only.

Edit: I'm afb and don't have all the splat books in any case. So if some other source allows Contingency to be cast on others I'm not aware of it.

It's from Comp Arcane. Craft Contingent. I did mention that but it was several posts back and you probably missed it.:smallsmile:

Some did complain that Craft Contingent is stupid/silly but given we're talking about 9th level magic and combos such as Foresight, Celerity and Timestop, I consider we're so far into stupid/silly territory that such complaints are pretty pointless.

Stephen

[Kompera]

I did see some references to Craft Contingent, but the context was that it allows more (both 20 and 21 were cited) Contingencies to be cast, and one reference to a broader allowable triggered spell list. Nothing about casting either the Contingency or the triggered spell on another, but I do not own Complete Arcane so I can't look it up to see the exact wording of the Feat.

[Jack Zander]

Naw, I don't mind, this thread pretty much served its purpose already. Continue to talk about either subjects.

[Nowhere Girl]

Naw, I don't mind, this thread pretty much served its purpose already. Continue to talk about either subjects.

It had a purpose?

[Jack Zander]

To discuss why Foresight was a 9th level spell and to query at it's actual powers.

[Nowhere Girl]

Oh, right. For some reason, I thought it was about spiked chain-wielding pixies and incorrect usages of the Ready option, but come to it, the original post was just a question about Foresight. :smalltongue:

[Armads]

You cannot have Contingencies. Craft Contingent Spell requires Caster Level 11th. Pixies do not get Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat. It is just listed in the Pixie's entry as it's 1st level feat.

[Jack Zander]

Oh, right. For some reason, I thought it was about spiked chain-wielding pixies and incorrect usages of the Ready option, but come to it, the original post was just a question about Foresight. :smalltongue:

Yes that's what the last pages have become, but it was a topic about wizards. It was bound to dissolve into a debate between OMG BATMAN defenders and JOKERS who think batman can be taken down.

Key word, Jokers...

[Stephen_E]

I did see some references to Craft Contingent, but the context was that it allows more (both 20 and 21 were cited) Contingencies to be cast, and one reference to a broader allowable triggered spell list. Nothing about casting either the Contingency or the triggered spell on another, but I do not own Complete Arcane so I can't look it up to see the exact wording of the Feat.

Sorry. You can place a number of contingency spells on a creature = its HD.

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

You cannot have Contingencies. Craft Contingent Spell requires Caster Level 11th. Pixies do not get Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat. It is just listed in the Pixie's entry as it's 1st level feat.

Sigh..., you have someone cast contingency spells on you with Craft Contingency.

Pixies get Dodge and Weapon Finnesse as Bonus feats.

Note this is more recent than the Monster Manual.



Pixies As Characters
A pixie character exchanges its 1 HD of fey for its first class level.

Pixie characters possess the following racial traits.

-4 Strength, +8 Dexterity, +6 Intelligence, +4 Wisdom, +6 Charisma.
Small size. +1 bonus to Armor Class, +1 bonus on attack rolls, +4 bonus on Hide checks, -4 penalty on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits ¾ those of Medium characters.
A pixie’s base land speed is 20 feet. It also has a fly speed of 60 feet (good).
Low-light vision.
Skills: Pixies have a +2 racial bonus on Listen, Search, and Spot checks.
Racial Feats: A pixie receives Dodge and Weapon Finesse as bonus feats.
+1 natural armor bonus.
Special Attacks (see above): Spell-like abilities.
Special Qualities (see above): Damage reduction 10/cold iron, greater invisibility, spell resistance equal to 15 + class levels.
Automatic Languages: Common, Sylvan. Bonus Languages: Elven, Gnome, Halfling.
Favored Class: Sorcerer.
Level adjustment +4 (+6 if the pixie can use irresistible dance).

[Stephen_E]

Yes that's what the last pages have become, but it was a topic about wizards. It was bound to dissolve into a debate between OMG BATMAN defenders and JOKERS who think batman can be taken down.

Key word, Jokers...

I course the truth is that Batman does lose occasionally. Not often, and he does tend to come back and win the 2nd round, but Batman does lose. (I'm not a big DC comics reader, but I've read enough to know that).

Stephen

[Armads]

I course the truth is that Batman does lose occasionally. Not often, and he does tend to come back and win the 2nd round, but Batman does lose. (I'm not a big DC comics reader, but I've read enough to know that).


Yes, Batman CAN be beaten, but only by another full caster.

[Stephen_E]

I course the truth is that Batman does lose occasionally. Not often, and he does tend to come back and win the 2nd round, but Batman does lose. (I'm not a big DC comics reader, but I've read enough to know that).



Yes, Batman CAN be beaten, but only by another full caster.

You may have missed it but I was referring to tha Batman comics, where full casters are few and far between, and Batman isn't one. I'm not sure what you'd consider a "full caster" in DC comics term, if you are labeling Batman one, but I'm pretty sure you could find occasions where Batman was beaten by someone not a full caster.

I do find the general attitude displayed in this area rather telling. The OMG Batman fan aren't content with Batman Wizards been the most powerful thing out their. No, they must be unbeatable. The possibility that they're anything less is unforgivable, a wrongness in the force, The suggestion is clearly a sign of a deluded mind. There is a name for that attitude. It's called fanaticism.:smallwink:

Stephen

[Nowhere Girl]

I do find the general attitude displayed in this area rather telling. The OMG Batman fan aren't content with Batman Wizards been the most powerful thing out their. No, they must be unbeatable. The possibility that they're anything less is unforgivable, a wrongness in the force, The suggestion is clearly a sign of a deluded mind. There is a name for that attitude. It's called fanaticism.:smallwink:

Stephen

Well, there are some people who are pleased as punch that the system is unbalanced and think that wizards should be gods at all levels, in fact. I can recall in particular Kaelik cheerfully defending the imbalance. I'm not sure what people like him expect out of the game, though. If we're going to happily embrace the imbalance and do nothing about it -- save encourage it -- then why ever create anything but a full caster?

"Here's my new Batman wizard, just like my previous Batman wizard. Uh, different name."

How dull.

For my part, I'm vehemently opposed to the imbalance that exists, but I'm also realistic about it. I know it does exist, and pointing out the flaws in hopeless "kill the wizard" strategies is part of highlighting and keeping attention on the fact that wizards are overpowered -- so overpowered that they have no business being allowed in any game. Sorcerers ... maybe, if spell options are tightly controlled. Wizards, absolutely not.

I've come up with my own "kill the wizard" strategy, by the by. What it came down to was that with one-sided, unilateral prep-time, a rogue who did everything just perfectly might be able to kill a Batman wizard who poked his nose too far into the rogue's business.

Doesn't really change the fact that the wizard still pretty much has his way with the world, does it?

[shadow_archmagi]

Erm.. I have heard a lot of complaints about Batman wizards.

And as a wizard player myself, I'm wondering what the trouble is.. I certainly don't feel overpowered. Then again, maybe its because I'm currently only level 2, and in our 3 person party, I only got my third kill yesterday. The fighters did all the rest.

Is there a big red "WIN" button somewhere I'm missing? I'm not defending wizards, I'm just asking..

[Stephen_E]

Doesn't really change the fact that the wizard still pretty much has his way with the world, does it?

No. You can make builds that have a reasonable chance to beat your average Wizard. It has to be tweaked for that particular purpose pretty much from start, and frankly the only way you can really justify it is some secret organisation dedicated to stopping wizards taking over the world (oddly enough their is a basis for suggesting that such an oganisation exists because Wizards haven't taken over the world). But that isn't good enough. Almost invunerable apparently doesn't cut it. <shakes head is despair at human foibles>

My current Druid hasn't even taken Natural spell and is instead investing in Wildshape feats. He's still the most powerful PC in the group (actually the Fighter thinks he is, but I don't see a reason to argue the point with him. It makes him happy) but at least he isn't on an entirely different plane of power, and he doesn't overshadow everyone else in their specalties.

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

Erm.. I have heard a lot of complaints about Batman wizards.

And as a wizard player myself, I'm wondering what the trouble is.. I certainly don't feel overpowered. Then again, maybe its because I'm currently only level 2, and in our 3 person party, I only got my third kill yesterday. The fighters did all the rest.

Is there a big red "WIN" button somewhere I'm missing? I'm not defending wizards, I'm just asking..


Yes, it's called get to double digits in level and put a lot of time into divination spells, only use spells when needed, let fighters be meat shields, cough, Heroes, and don't put to much into damaging spells.

There was a very good peice done by a poster called Logic Ninja sometime back that is probably still around here somewhere. Of course a Batman Wizard takes a lot of thought and planning, and frankly many people may not enjoy playing them that much.

If you enjoy tossing around Fireballs and don't want to put hours of preplanning into each session/mission, then play a non-Batman wizard. By 10th level he'll still be damned powerful, but he'll won't be on a different plane of power to the fighters. The Batman advocates may sneer at you, but since you're not gaming with them it doesn't really matter.

Stephen

[Kaelik]

I can recall in particular Kaelik cheerfully defending the imbalance. I'm not sure what people like him expect out of the game, though.

You can recall me "defending the imbalance" by stating that the 3.5 rules don't need any changing for a fun game.

I sincerely hope that in 4th edition power levels are more even then currently. I also hope that magic items primarily provide additional options in what you can do, and therefore are not needed, instead of providing bonuses to things you already do. I hope WBL doesn't exist and that a character with several magi items is only a little more powerful then one with none.

That said, I don't see any reason to try to change the 3.5 rules to fit that concept, just like I' don't see any reason to change the 3.5 rules that make full casters superior.

What I want out of the game is to have fun adventuring with powerful and interesting characters. As such, I build many different characters of many different power levels so that everyone can have fun. There is nothing wrong with playing a high powered game in which the DMM Persist Cleric is the weakest party member.

[Woot Spitum]

You may have missed it but I was referring to tha Batman comics, where full casters are few and far between, and Batman isn't one. I'm not sure what you'd consider a "full caster" in DC comics term, if you are labeling Batman one, but I'm pretty sure you could find occasions where Batman was beaten by someone not a full caster.

I do find the general attitude displayed in this area rather telling. The OMG Batman fan aren't content with Batman Wizards been the most powerful thing out their. No, they must be unbeatable. The possibility that they're anything less is unforgivable, a wrongness in the force, The suggestion is clearly a sign of a deluded mind. There is a name for that attitude. It's called fanaticism.:smallwink:

Stephen It's a RAW discussion, and one has to be realistic about the fact that WOTC made wizards significantly better than any of the melee classes. In-game, the brokenness of the RAW isn't an issue, the DM just bans the unbalanced spells. But if WOTC gets the idea that the game is balanced as is, they'll make the wizard's even more powerful. And no one wants that.

[Lokey]

What exactly does Craft Contingent Spell do? If it's that strong, can't a commoner with enough hitdice be a threat to anything?

[Kaelik]

What exactly does Craft Contingent Spell do? If it's that strong, can't a commoner with enough hitdice be a threat to anything?

Yes. In fact, a Commoner with 20 HD, WBL, and access to a Wizard willing to craft him any Contingent Spells he wants is more powerful then you average Wizard 20 without Contingent Spell. (A well played Batman would probably win, but mostly just through divinations and slowly bleeding the Commoner dry over time. He'd die very quickly if he ever just straight up fought him.)

[Stephen_E]

What exactly does Craft Contingent Spell do? If it's that strong, can't a commoner with enough hitdice be a threat to anything?

Yes and no. Contingency spells are a bit like suicide bombers. If you can get them to the right place at the right time with the right spelss with the right triggers, commoners with stacked contingency spells are dangerous.

The cost is Spell Lev*CL*100gp per spell.
They can be dispelled as if an active spell.

Keep in mind a high level commoner piled with magic equipment is reasonably dangerous as well.

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

Yes. In fact, a Commoner with 20 HD, WBL, and access to a Wizard willing to craft him any Contingent Spells he wants is more powerful then you average Wizard 20 without Contingent Spell. (A well played Batman would probably win, but mostly just through divinations and slowly bleeding the Commoner dry over time. He'd die very quickly if he ever just straight up fought him.)

Be serious. A 20th level Wizard with detect magic up sees the commoner stacked with contingency spells and slams in a Greater Dispel, at which point most of the contingency spells fall off.

That's before we take in account that contingency spells have to be setup with triggers when cast. It's not like spell storing where you can just cast the spell as required, and the Commoner probably doesn't have many ranks in Spellcraft or Arcane Knowledge which weakens his ability to respond to what the wiizard does or make maximum use of the contingency spells on him.

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

Woot, do you still want more detail on the Pixie build RE: Stats and equipment.

If so I still need these question answered.

Re: Ability Scores - What system. Point Buy? How much. The higher the pointbuy the better, Low pointbuy favours Wiz/Drd classes. 32pts? 36pts?

Re: Equipment costs. Non reusable stuff varies as to costing in that some people consider it part of the "recommended wealth by level" and some don't. The DMG makes clear that expendables to a certain degree don't count towards your wealth by level, but you can argue that this only goes so far. I've found my DMG so I can the equiping one you give me the guidelines.

Stephen

[Chronos]

Is there a big red "WIN" button somewhere I'm missing? I'm not defending wizards, I'm just asking...No, of course there's not. At your level, the "WIN" button isn't red. It's red, yellow, and blue.

[Kaelik]

Be serious. A 20th level Wizard with detect magic up sees the commoner stacked with contingency spells and slams in a Greater Dispel, at which point most of the contingency spells fall off.

That's before we take in account that contingency spells have to be setup with triggers when cast. It's not like spell storing where you can just cast the spell as required, and the Commoner probably doesn't have many ranks in Spellcraft or Arcane Knowledge which weakens his ability to respond to what the wiizard does or make maximum use of the contingency spells on him.

A) Of course he has a Contingency set up to deal with anyone attempting to Dispel them.

B) Except that according to you all contingencies have infinite knowledge completely separate from what the person they are on knows. And Contingencies can be set to trigger before their triggering action (again according to you) so it doesn't matter what the Commoners stats are, all that matters is the wording on the Contingency, which would have been placed by the Wizard crafting them.

Or you could admit that Contingencies don't have infinite universal knowledge and they don't activate before actions that have no indication (IE can't see into the future) and then your entire build dies to a single contingent teleport.

Either way of dealing with contingencies actually makes sense under the rules, but in one of them a Commoner 20 is super powerful and in the other your build is useless.

[Stephen_E]

A) Of course he has a Contingency set up to deal with anyone attempting to Dispel them.

And just how does he manage that. The problem with contingency spells is that they have no flexibility. A high level PC has some ability to control his envioriment enough to get very limited offensive ability from them, but generally their strength is defensive, where you have more control over the envioriment.


B) Except that according to you all contingencies have infinite knowledge completely separate from what the person they are on knows. And Contingencies can be set to trigger before their triggering action (again according to you) so it doesn't matter what the Commoners stats are, all that matters is the wording on the Contingency, which would have been placed by the Wizard crafting them.

Kaelik, you make it so easy. I will point out that the concept that contingency spells kick of before their trigger is something that came from OMG Batman posters and I did say I have my doubts about it. I also never claimed they had infinite knowledge, but spells do have knowledge beyond what their users have. This is shown with the ruling that if you cast detect magic (which is considered an attack when used on an enemy) while invisible, and detect magoc on an enemy you can't see, don't know was there, and don't know is an enemy even once you see that magic is there, you lose invisibility because the spell knows you attacked someone, even though you don't know that.


Or you could admit that Contingencies don't have infinite universal knowledge and they don't activate before actions that have no indication (IE can't see into the future) and then your entire build dies to a single contingent teleport.

As I said you make it so easy. Instead my build steps up activating an AMF shutting down that contingent Teleport and all other contingent spells on the Wizard. The whole thing becomes so much simpler then. IIRC this is why OMG Batman supporters tend to claim contingency spells react before the trigger.


either way of dealing with contingencies actually makes sense under the rules, but in one of them a Commoner 20 is super powerful and in the other your build is useless.

Neither way is my build useless, and neither way is the Commoner 20 super powerful. so that's 2 wrong from 2.

Stephen

[Nowhere Girl]

Erm.. I have heard a lot of complaints about Batman wizards.

And as a wizard player myself, I'm wondering what the trouble is.. I certainly don't feel overpowered. Then again, maybe its because I'm currently only level 2, and in our 3 person party, I only got my third kill yesterday. The fighters did all the rest.

Is there a big red "WIN" button somewhere I'm missing? I'm not defending wizards, I'm just asking..

The complaints are chiefly against optimized wizards. Look up Logic Ninja's guide for excellent starting-out advice on how to cheese your wizard out to nigh-invincibility and superior-to-absolutely-anyone-else utility.

A wizard played by someone who just sort of picks up the game and says, "Uh, I guess I'll choose wizard" isn't really the problem, as wizards can be anywhere from kind of weak (if built and played wrong) to nigh-invincible godlike beings (if built and played optimally).

This is, by the way, in stark contrast to druids, who can be overpowered completely by accident even in the hands of a totally novice player who merely happens to innocently take the Natural Spell feat. On that note, druids are also quite overpowered in general, but they're still a bit below wizards, whose optimized power level is well over 9000. :smallwink:

And on the subject of wizards taking careful planning to be so powerful ...


No. You can make builds that have a reasonable chance to beat your average Wizard.

Yes, you can make optimized builds that have a reasonable chance of beating your average wizard, meaning a wizard played by an average player who doesn't hang out of forums like these learning how to optimize wizards. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that as the aggressor, I can mop the floor with an average wizard 20 using just a rogue 20, especially if I'm also granted prep-time.

But an optimized wizard is a completely different thing from an average wizard. Wizards simply optimize too well without a lot of very careful DM intervention.

[Lokey]

So I imagine there's very little dragon-slaying in games that allow Craft Contingent Spell. Great Wyrm's with their 30int might want to think about the 40odd contingencies they're allowed to have and all ;)

Also does that make Improved Familiar worthwhile? Or do you look for ways to give that toad in your backpack more levels so you can have even more contingencies?

[Armads]

Also does that make Improved Familiar worthwhile? Or do you look for ways to give that toad in your backpack more levels so you can have even more contingencies?

For effects related to hit dice, familiars have the same HD as you.



This is shown with the ruling that if you cast detect magic (which is considered an attack when used on an enemy) while invisible, and detect magoc on an enemy you can't see, don't know was there, and don't know is an enemy even once you see that magic is there, you lose invisibility because the spell knows you attacked someone, even though you don't know that.

Uhh? Casting detect magic ends invisibility? Really?

[Woot Spitum]

Woot, do you still want more detail on the Pixie build RE: Stats and equipment.

If so I still need these question answered.

Re: Ability Scores - What system. Point Buy? How much. The higher the pointbuy the better, Low pointbuy favours Wiz/Drd classes. 32pts? 36pts?

Re: Equipment costs. Non reusable stuff varies as to costing in that some people consider it part of the "recommended wealth by level" and some don't. The DMG makes clear that expendables to a certain degree don't count towards your wealth by level, but you can argue that this only goes so far. I've found my DMG so I can the equiping one you give me the guidelines.

Stephen
For ability scores, the second highest, 28 point-and-buy (tougher campaign) or the elite array (15,14,13,12,10,8), your choice.

For the spells, I'd go with scroll cost for each individual spell, for lack of a better baseline.

[Kompera]

I do find the general attitude displayed in this area rather telling. The OMG Batman fan aren't content with Batman Wizards been the most powerful thing out their. No, they must be unbeatable. The possibility that they're anything less is unforgivable, a wrongness in the force, The suggestion is clearly a sign of a deluded mind. There is a name for that attitude. It's called fanaticism.:smallwink:
To be fair, there seems to be a division in the "fanatics". Some are Wizard fans who chafe at any suggestion that their chosen class could possibly be matched by any other. But there are some, perhaps only a few, who are just pointing out the flaws inherent with the system. Their arguments may sound very similar (i.e: "The Wizard is faced by X? Ok, he does Y to counter that"), but the intent is very different.


And as a wizard player myself, I'm wondering what the trouble is.. I certainly don't feel overpowered. Then again, maybe its because I'm currently only level 2, and in our 3 person party, I only got my third kill yesterday. The fighters did all the rest.Getting the kills isn't necessarily an indication of relative power. Wizards have a wide range of 'save or suck' spells which allows their lesser companions (i.e: non-wizard party members) to mop up with ease. If you want to see this in action, take Glitterdust as one of your 2nd level spells once you reach 3rd level, and see how potent it is against any non-caster mobs. Also note that at the range you can cast it, every other character will be at a penalty for range even using a longbow or a heavy crossbow. This means that not only are your own group members suffering a penalty to their rolls to hit while you target unerringly, but even if the monsters have a missile weapon they are most likely suffering significant penalties to any return fire.

[Woot Spitum]

Erm.. I have heard a lot of complaints about Batman wizards.

And as a wizard player myself, I'm wondering what the trouble is.. I certainly don't feel overpowered. Then again, maybe its because I'm currently only level 2, and in our 3 person party, I only got my third kill yesterday. The fighters did all the rest.

Is there a big red "WIN" button somewhere I'm missing? I'm not defending wizards, I'm just asking..At level 2, melee characters like fighters and barbarians are more powerful. Melee classes dominate at low levels, clerics and druids dominate at mid-levels, wizards and sorcerors dominate at high levels, and at epic levels the game breaks. The complaint I and many others have is the lack of versatility melee characters get as the game goes on. This is why many people like myself think Tome of Battle is the best supplement ever published for D&D, because it remedies this shortcoming by giving melee characters something to do at high levels.

[Skjaldbakka]

At level 2, melee characters like fighters and barbarians are more powerful. Melee classes dominate at low levels, clerics and druids dominate at mid-levels, wizards and sorcerors dominate at high levels, and at epic levels the game breaks. The complaint I and many others have is the lack of versatility melee characters get as the game goes on. This is why many people like myself think Tome of Battle is the best supplement ever published for D&D, because it remedies this shortcoming by giving melee characters something to do at high levels.

Gets out popcorn, sits down to watch the fireworks, ominous (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5st0b3ln5U)music begins to play in the background.

[Kompera]

Gets out popcorn, sits down to watch the fireworks, ominous (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5st0b3ln5U)music begins to play in the background.lol. :smallbiggrin:


At level 2, melee characters like fighters and barbarians are more powerful.Yes, of course. Spells such as Sleep (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/sleep.htm), Color Spray (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/colorSpray.htm), Charm Person (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/charmPerson.htm), Hypnotism (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/hypnotism.htm) have no chance of effecting a Fighter or a Barbarian. And after they are ineffective, the poor Wizard is left with no option but Expeditious Retreat (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/expeditiousRetreat.htm) to try to save his life.

All sarcasm aside, Wizards are more potent than Fighters and Barbarians at every level. At lower levels the Wizard doesn't have their full range of "one third of the Players Handbook devoted to spells" of power, but they still have enough spells to get the job done, and are closer to the poor melee classes in HP, Armor Class, and BAB as they will ever be.

[TimeWizard]

It is more, Celerity lets you act first in a round, except if you are suprised.
Foresight makes sure you are not suprised.

The total: As long as you got them both up, you start first, even if the other guy got +500 initiative and attacked by backstabbing before you knew he was there.
According to some, it also lets you go first when someone shoots a poisoned crossbowdart from the other side of the world.


With the exception that Apollo and some other stated deities say Init: +40 (always goes first). So yes, second to gods are wizards.

[Stephen_E]

This is shown with the ruling that if you cast detect magic (which is considered an attack when used on an enemy) while invisible, and detect magoc on an enemy you can't see, don't know was there, and don't know is an enemy even once you see that magic is there, you lose invisibility because the spell knows you attacked someone, even though you don't know that.




Uhh? Casting detect magic ends invisibility? Really?

Detect spells cast on an enemy count as an attack. Therefore if you cast a detect magic that happens to have an enemy in the zone of effect it counts as making an attack, and making an attack ends standard invisibility.

It's an interesting little ruling. One that is quite logical when you take a hard look at the situation, as strange as it seemed when I 1st saw it (and by the sounds of it you had a similiar response). Basically casting detect spells on an enemy is gaining infomation on him to his detriment, in short an attack.

Note: Casting detect magic won't break invisibility in of itself, there must be an enemy within the zone of effect. This applies equally to all detect spells, or any other divination spell applied to an enemy. It's an attack.

The interesting question I'm not sure about is do you need to know the targets an enemy, or do they need to know, both, either, or does the spell make an objective decision. All are feasible approaches, each with their individual weirdnesses and weaknessess that can be used by enemies.:smallsmile:

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

For ability scores, the second highest, 28 point-and-buy (tougher campaign) or the elite array (15,14,13,12,10,8), your choice.

For the spells, I'd go with scroll cost for each individual spell, for lack of a better baseline.

Fair enough.
28pts, the optimal Wizard buy, should've guessed.:smallwink:

Stephen

[Skjaldbakka]

Detect spells cast on an enemy count as an attack. Therefore if you cast a detect magic that happens to have an enemy in the zone of effect it counts as making an attack, and making an attack ends standard invisibility.

I disagree with that ruling, but I can see your POV.

[Helgraf]

Except the wizard can always just choose to teleport (with or without party) to a safe place he can't be followed to rest up. So he can burn all the resources he wants, pop out, reprep, pop in, rinse and repeat. No need to worry about hoarding resources for later in the day. You'll never be caught in that circumstance.

[Stephen_E]

For ability scores, the second highest, 28 point-and-buy (tougher campaign) or the elite array (15,14,13,12,10,8), your choice.

For the spells, I'd go with scroll cost for each individual spell, for lack of a better baseline.

Stats -
Looking at base buy/with racial mods
Str 14/10
Dex 14/22
Con 12/18
Int 12/12
Wis 12/16
Cha 12/18

Higher str would be nice, but at 16,000 for a +4 Belt of Giant Str, push comes to shove, you can afford it by ECL7 for taking Power Attack, or use your stat increase at ECL8 with a +2 Gauntlets.

Equip will take longer. :-)

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

Except the wizard can always just choose to teleport (with or without party) to a safe place he can't be followed to rest up. So he can burn all the resources he wants, pop out, reprep, pop in, rinse and repeat. No need to worry about hoarding resources for later in the day. You'll never be caught in that circumstance.

Your post would make more sense if you quoted what you're responding to.

Stephen

[Skjaldbakka]

Except the wizard can always just choose to teleport (with or without party) to a safe place he can't be followed to rest up. So he can burn all the resources he wants, pop out, reprep, pop in, rinse and repeat. No need to worry about hoarding resources for later in the day. You'll never be caught in that circumstance.

This strategy also allows the enemy to regroup, and you aren't going to stop the cultists from awakening their ancient god by using this strategy. This is especially true because this kind of strategy will annoy the other players and the DM, because it slows down the game.

[Lokey]

(On familiar as a target for CCS.) For effects related to hit dice, familiars have the same HD as you.
Wow. So the wizard just wins that arms race without trying?

I'm picturing an arcane 18/druid 1/isn't there a psionic class with something like a familiar/animal companion? ~80 carefully worded contingencies, couple more with share spell, etc...

[Stephen_E]

Woot, how to you want to rule on -

1) Contingency spells. Do they occur before or after the triggering event. i.e. If you have a contingency spell triggered by a AMF does the spell work, or does the AMF suppress the contingency.

2) Readied actions. Can only be done after initive has started unless you have a class feature, or can be done outside of inititive (note: The Bloodhound ability appears to be more than simply having a readied action. As I read it you can ready an action and then proceed to act for a significant amount of time without having to constantly reset the action).

Depending on which way you want to play it I'll tweak the build accordingly.

Stephen

[Jack Zander]

Contingencies always occur after the triggered event. You can't go before a trigger. That's not what a trigger is.

That's not saying that you can't Contingency if a AMF comes up. The contingency just has to be worded carefully. (If I notice someone casting AMF). Then you would have to make a spellcraft check for the Contingency to work, but it still could work.

[Stephen_E]

The concept that contingency spells stacked on a PC/NPC makes them immensely powerful is horribly flawed. The basic difficulty is that when the spell is placed a fairly precise trigger mechanism must be decided. If it's to broad the spell will be triggered pointlessly, or even detrimentally, to narrow it'll probably be useless.

It's like the problem with AI players in broad unstructured games. They're weak. The contingency spell problem is much worse.

The strength of contingency spells are -
1) for placing those defensive/utility spells that you never memorise because the situation comes up once in a blue moon. And of course when it does you don't have the spell. With the contingency spell you do. i.e. Energy Resistance, Feather fall, Freedom of Movement, Underwater breathing.
2) for a backup when bad things happen and you may not be in the posistion to cast a saving spell (i.e. you're dead. Raise Dead+heal aren't bad as a contingency spell combo).

Note: None of these make you a powerhouse. But they do help keep you alive.

Stephen

[Skjaldbakka]

(note: The Bloodhound ability appears to be more than simply having a readied action. As I read it you can ready an action and then proceed to act for a significant amount of time without having to constantly reset the action).

I've always seen the bloodhound ability as a way to ready an action outside of combat, thus always being able to get the drop on your mark, even if you are standing face to face, with no surprise. The bloodhound always goes first against his mark (unless surprised, I guess).



The strength of contingency spells are -

Covering up weaknesses. An Ancient Red Dragon (or whenever reds get 6th level spells), would likely want to have a contingent spell to either recover from shivering touch, or negate shivering touch.

[Chronos]

Where is this ruling that divination spells are attacks? Yeah, finding out about an enemy is detrimental to him, but then again, so is summoning a rabid dire badger right next to him, and summoning spells are explicitly stated to not be attacks for purposes of Invisibility etc.

[Stephen_E]

Where is this ruling that divination spells are attacks? Yeah, finding out about an enemy is detrimental to him, but then again, so is summoning a rabid dire badger right next to him, and summoning spells are explicitly stated to not be attacks for purposes of Invisibility etc.


Its was in the Mar 2007 FAQ.
It's based on this part of the Invisibility spell -


The spell ends if the subject attacks any creature. For purposes of this spell, an attack includes any spell targeting a foe or whose area or effect includes a foe.

Since Detect Magic has a area of effect, if that area of effect includes a foe, and affects the foe (some spells only affect allies) it constitutes an attack.

Any Divination spell that targets an enemy would constitute an attack, so does dispell magic for that matter. Sommoning a critter isn't targeting an enemy. Which is why it doesn't break invisibility.

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

I've always seen the bloodhound ability as a way to ready an action outside of combat, thus always being able to get the drop on your mark, even if you are standing face to face, with no surprise. The bloodhound always goes first against his mark (unless surprised, I guess).


Yes, but normally you can only ready an action until you next act. Move ecetre and you lose your readied action and have to reset it as a standard action.

The Bloodhound allows you to ready an action an then do stuff but still have the readied action say set for the next 10 minutes. Pretty awesome as readied actions go.

Because it is more than just "been able to ready an action outside combat" it doesn't preclude that other people can ready actions outside combat without this class feature (of course neither is it proof they can).

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

Contingencies always occur after the triggered event. You can't go before a trigger. That's not what a trigger is.

That's not saying that you can't Contingency if a AMF comes up. The contingency just has to be worded carefully. (If I notice someone casting AMF). Then you would have to make a spellcraft check for the Contingency to work, but it still could work.

To be honest the view that contingencys occurred before the trigger I origanally expressed by the OMH Batman is God brigade as a counter to Magekillers with AMFs. Not that I'm suggesting that members of that brigade are capable of shifting interpretations of rules and spells to what ever suits their faith (The Church of OMG Batman is God) no, perish the thought. All those people are just trying to educate us poor ignorant nobs and bring us into the light.:smallwink:

Stephen

[Woot Spitum]

Woot, how to you want to rule on -

1) Contingency spells. Do they occur before or after the triggering event. i.e. If you have a contingency spell triggered by a AMF does the spell work, or does the AMF suppress the contingency.

2) Readied actions. Can only be done after initive has started unless you have a class feature, or can be done outside of inititive (note: The Bloodhound ability appears to be more than simply having a readied action. As I read it you can ready an action and then proceed to act for a significant amount of time without having to constantly reset the action).

Depending on which way you want to play it I'll tweak the build accordingly.

Stephen1) What Jack Zander said. Any other way of interpreting contingencies is too confusing.

2) If readied actions outside of combat is a special ability of a specific class, then you can't use this ability without being in the class.

[Frosty]

No DM I've known has ever ruled that things like Detect Magic and See Invisibility breaks Invisibility.

[Stephen_E]

No DM I've known has ever ruled that things like Detect Magic and See Invisibility breaks Invisibility.


1) That could mean they disagree with the ruling, or

2) They never read the invisibility spell that closely and/or never read that section of the FAQ (more likely) or

3) The situation of someone been invisible and casting a detect spell on an area with enemies has never occurred (most likely).

To be honest I've been playing 3.5 since it came about and I can't recall ever coming across the situation.

Stephen

[Thinker]

To be honest the view that contingencys occurred before the trigger I origanally expressed by the OMH Batman is God brigade as a counter to Magekillers with AMFs. Not that I'm suggesting that members of that brigade are capable of shifting interpretations of rules and spells to what ever suits their faith (The Church of OMG Batman is God) no, perish the thought. All those people are just trying to educate us poor ignorant nobs and bring us into the light.:smallwink:

Stephen

Or they're taking the logical conclusion of AoO's taking place immediately before the thing that triggered them and carrying it over to other, similar mechanics. Man, I ****ing hate consistency.

[Jack Zander]

Or they're taking the logical conclusion of AoO's taking place immediately before the thing that triggered them and carrying it over to other, similar mechanics. Man, I ****ing hate consistency.

If they are making logical conclusions concerning consistency in DnD, then they aren't being very logical about them. Absolutely nothing in DnD is consistent. Why is AC static while saving throws are variable?

[tyckspoon]

Or they're taking the logical conclusion of AoO's taking place immediately before the thing that triggered them and carrying it over to other, similar mechanics. Man, I ****ing hate consistency.

A creature making an AOO is responding to somebody else doing something that leaves them open. It usually makes sense that the attack is made before the AOO-triggering act is performed. Somebody starts casting a spell, you whack him as soon as he starts waving his hands around. Somebody decides to fish around in his belt pouches for a potion bottle instead of paying attention to his oppnent, you don't wait for him to get that potion out before you hit him.

Contingencies don't have the benefit of being an intelligence that can use its own judgement to decide when to strike. If the triggering condition is worded so that something must happen, that thing has to happen before the contingency can go off. It can't predict the future and pre-empt an act.

[Jack Zander]

Let's put it this way. If you have a contingency that was worded, "If I fall off a 20 foot or higher ledge cast feather fall," would you want the spell to trigger after you fell off, or right before you fell off? (feather fall only lasts until you touch the ground)