Spellblade tennis, exponential growth?

[Quietus]

Original spellblade tennis thread here, please don't necro it : http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151109


The basic idea is that you can take a targeted spell, and with a spellblade, absorb it and redirect it on your next turn. The mechanics are more closely examined in the original thread, but the idea is that each round, you cast, say, Orb of Fire at your buddy, when both of you have Spellblades built to bounce Orb of Fire. You can now fling OoF back and forth as free actions, while casting more yourself, so you build up a collection of spells between the blades, and can later, when threatened, nova the living hell out of it first turn.

Spells like Scorching Ray were brought up, but never chased down. In theory, with a CL7+ scorching ray being bounced back and forth, you could, with every redirect, fire one ray at your Tennis partner, and all the rest at a target you'd like to reduce to a smear. The one ray would allow the spellblades to continue bouncing that spell back and forth, while still getting a ray (or two) to shoot at a target you don't like. What happens when you add a third spellblade?

Assuming we have three spellblades, (S1, S2, and S3) and a level 7 Sorcerer who knows Scorching Ray (He'll be S1..)

Round 1 : S1 casts Scorching Ray at S2 and S3.
Charges : S1 0, S2 1, S3 1
Round 2 : S1 casts Scorching Ray at S2 and S3. S2 redirects his charge at S1 and S3, S3 redirects to S1 and S2
Charges : S1 2, S2 2, S32
Round 3 : S1 casts Scorching Ray (and his redirects) at S2 and S3. S2 redirects his charge at S1 and S3, S3 redirects to S1 and S2
Charges : S1 4, S2 5, S3 5
Round 3 : S1 casts Scorching Ray (and his redirects) at S2 and S3. S2 redirects his charge at S1 and S3, S3 redirects to S1 and S2
Charges : S1 10, S2 10, S3 10

Looks like the growth pattern, rather than being linear based on how many casts you can get, basically doubles each round; As an added bonus, you could do this with a single cast of the original spell, rather than wasting spell slots! Have I missed something with this, or is it just *that* broken? .. You know, more than the idea of spellblade tennis already is?

[Godless_Paladin]

Just Say No to Spellblades.

[dsmiles]

There has to be a limit to this. Hasn't it been erratta'd or something? That's just ridiculous.

[Godless_Paladin]

There has to be a limit to this. Hasn't it been erratta'd or something? That's just ridiculous.

Errata? We're talking Spellblades here. Just Say No to Spellblades. Even without tennis, they're ridiculous. The fundamental concept is unsound. You don't allow them in your games for the same reason you don't let people walk around as an Initiate of Mystara with a persistent antimagic field.

[kestrel404]

The numbers are cleaner if you only have the Sorc cast one scorching ray:

R1: S1 0, S2 1, S2 1
R2: S1 2, S2 1, S2 1
R3: S1 2, S2 3, S2 3
R4: S1 6, S2 5, S2 5
R5: S1 10, S2 11, S2 11

The buildup in the first few rounds isn't as fast, but it really doesn't need to be - Either you're using this trick in combat (in which case your probably only passing a single ray around and hitting the enemy with the rest) or you're using it out of combat, in which case the length of buildup to get Nd6 damage is irrelevant (of course, this is an interesting way to power a perpetual motion machine based on heat damage...).

But in either case, this is one of those examples where RAW would never stand up to GM scrutiny for more than an instant. The moment you started the 'tennis match', I would roll on the "Two Spell Reflection spells" table to see what happens.

[Emmerask]

Seeing that an Orb of fire is no longer magical after being cast I don´t quite see it working out, of course wotc never gave us any further clarification on how the orbs actually work in different situations (can they be turned, what about severe wind does it hinder the orbs etcetc)

/edit the scorching rays would work I guess?

[jiriku]

Errata? We're talking Spellblades here. Just Say No to Spellblades. Even without tennis, they're ridiculous. The fundamental concept is unsound. You don't allow them in your games for the same reason you don't let people walk around as an Initiate of Mystara with a persistent antimagic field.

I would actually relish the chance to test my DMing skills against a Cheater of Mystra.

However, the spellblade is well and truly broken. The game cannot support infinite combos.

[true_shinken]

Spellblade is such an obvious case of intent that breaking it is hardly practical.

[Quietus]

The numbers are cleaner if you only have the Sorc cast one scorching ray:

R1: S1 0, S2 1, S2 1
R2: S1 2, S2 1, S2 1
R3: S1 2, S2 3, S2 3
R4: S1 6, S2 5, S2 5
R5: S1 10, S2 11, S2 11

The buildup in the first few rounds isn't as fast, but it really doesn't need to be - Either you're using this trick in combat (in which case your probably only passing a single ray around and hitting the enemy with the rest) or you're using it out of combat, in which case the length of buildup to get Nd6 damage is irrelevant (of course, this is an interesting way to power a perpetual motion machine based on heat damage...).

But in either case, this is one of those examples where RAW would never stand up to GM scrutiny for more than an instant. The moment you started the 'tennis match', I would roll on the "Two Spell Reflection spells" table to see what happens.

Actually, I *was* only having the Sorcerer cast. The other two were simply having the two rays of their reflected Scorching Ray spells target two different people with spellblades.

This whole idea, of course, isn't for practical use - that would be silly, stupid, broken, and cheesy. I'm toying with it as a flavor idea, setting up spellblades with simple automatons and casting a Haste spell at them, then letting them build themselves up over time, to - after a day or so - have all of them direct their built-up Time energy at one object in an attempt to apply time/speed type magic to it. Essentially, using it as flavor in enchanting something (cost of magic items and such to perform this feat, being the gold spent, while the exp is the cost of my character "holding it all together", sort of thing), rather than wanting to actually Scorching Ray something. Hell, even Haste with five "towers" (the automatons with spellblades) and the object to be enchanted would subject the object to a constant five haste spells every round at minimum caster level. Six would be one Haste every second, with a massive payload every day.