Celerity?

[TheLogman]

Okay wow, I see why it's broken now. Sometimes it's people who misuse spells like these that make you wonder if they are really mature enough to play the game at all.

No offense to anyone who actually misuses spells like this in campaigns, it just doesn't sound fair/fun to yourself/others.

[melchizedek]

I believe it's in the PHB II. It requires a free action and allows the user to take an action immediately. It means that even if a wizard loses initiative, they still win.

[TheLogman]

Ah, so it's a sort of spell that with enough fireballs, a munchkin could wipe an encounter without anyone else doing anything, I see. Thanks a ton.

[Reinboom]

Not exactly, but close.
celerity gives you a standard action but leaves you dazed during your next round.
However, what breaks it is:
Immunity to being dazed
or
any style of 'preventive measures' you can think of (forcecage, ddoor..)
or - especially
Time stop

-- and it's an immediate action, not free action. So you can use celerity on an opponents turn: ie: you "always win initiative"

[melchizedek]

There are a couple more limitations. After, you take the action, you can't act again until the next round, but I think the most broken combination involves celerity, time stop, and forcecage. Or delayed-blast fireball.

[Jade_Tarem]

Fireballs? Oh no no. Think timestop.

[The_Snark]

More precisely, as an immediate action it lets you take an action (the type varies by spell, from move action to full-round for the highest-level version). So it can't actually let you act while surprised. It's often coupled with Foresight, though, which makes you immune to surprise. And when you use it, you're dazed until the end of your next turn, so it's instead of your turn rather than in addition to.

It does mean wizards get to interrupt other people's actions, though, which is very nasty.

[Dausuul]

Just recently registered to these forums, but I've been reading for quite a while. One thing that always pops up anytime anyone asks about a "Broken" spell is this "Celerity". What book is it from?

It's from the Player's Handbook 2.

What does it do?

Celerity is a 4th-level spell that's cast as an immediate action; that is, you can cast it in response to what somebody else does. It lets you take a standard action when it's not your turn, but then when your turn comes around, you're dazed. Greater celerity (8th level) is similar but gives you a full-round action.

Why is it broken?

Anything that lets you take two turns in a row, or even a regular turn followed by a standard action, gives you a big tactical advantage--you can set up spell combos without having to worry about your targets moving, countering, killing you, etc. For example, you could spend your regular turn firing off enervation, then follow it up with celerity and finger of death to take advantage of the target's reduced saves before the target gets to react; or if your opponents happen to fall into a nice configuration for an area-effect spell, you can blast them twice instead of once.

It becomes really broken when you hit 17th level and the wizard gets access to foresight and timestop. At that point, the wizard always goes first and gets multiple rounds of actions before anyone else can even blink (foresight means you're never flat-footed, so you can cast celerity, and then you use your celerity action to cast time stop).

Still, even without 9th-level spell cheese, celerity is too good. Anything that lets you mess with initiative order and/or take extra actions needs a long, hard look. There's a reason they nerfed 3.0 haste.

Edit: Ack! Ninjas! Celerity so I can teleport away before they stab me!

[MeklorIlavator]

Ah, so it's a sort of spell that with enough fireballs, a munchkin could wipe an encounter without anyone else doing anything, I see. Thanks a ton.

Or use much more efficient spells to end the encounter with 1 or 2 spells. A true Wizard munckin wouldn't use fireball, as its one of the schools he banned.

Edit: Wow, hex-ninja'd

[TheLogman]

Okay, so it isn't just broken, when combined with other stuff, it allows you to become a god among man every time you do anything, or anyone else does anything.

WOW
I also now see why Time Stop is so broken.

[Dausuul]

Not exactly, but close.
celerity gives you a standard action but leaves you dazed during your next round.
However, what breaks it is:
Immunity to being dazed
or
any style of 'preventive measures' you can think of (forcecage, ddoor..)
or - especially
Time stop

-- and it's an immediate action, not free action. So you can use celerity on an opponents turn: ie: you "always win initiative"

Is there something that makes you immune to being dazed? I'd never use it, but I'm curious...

[Khoran]

If memory serves, it's in PHB II.

[Reinboom]

Is there something that makes you immune to being dazed? I'd never use it, but I'm curious...

A dragonmark from eberron, mark of the dauntless.

and possibly quick recovery (feat) from lords of madness, though I don't know how that would work.

[Tokiko Mima]

Is there something that makes you immune to being dazed? I'd never use it, but I'm curious...

I believe Dazed is a mind-affecting condition, or at least the spell named after the condition is Mind-affecting. So logically, anything immune to mind-affecting attacks would be immune to the dazed condition.

[The_Snark]

A dragonmark from eberron, mark of the dauntless.

and possibly quick recovery (feat) from lords of madness, though I don't know how that would work.

Quick Recovery works and is non-setting specific, but the save DC on recovering from the daze is actually pretty tough, and you're still dazed until the start of your next turn no matter what (so, you can't use multiple Celerities).

Dazing isn't mind-affecting, but most spells and effects that cause it are. Celerity's not one of them.

[Reinboom]

So is it only the dragonmark that stops the dazing?
Interesting.

[Saph]

I'll never understand why they decided to make the Celerity line of spells say "You are dazed for your next turn" instead of just saying: "You miss your next turn." Using a condition like Dazed just begs munchkins to find a way to gain immunity to it. Meh, it's overpowered anyway.

Just ban Celerity and Greater Celerity. There is absolutely no good reason to allow those spells in the game.

- Saph

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Actually, celerity doesn't make wizards more broken than they already are. Taking one more standard action as an immediate action does not mean you break the game-the same spell combos you'd do with celerity you could do with a metamagic rod of quickening. As for interrupting people's actions, those people that lose to wizards anyway (fighters, rogues) still lose. Those people that don't always lose (other casters) have access to the same trick or other, equally powerful abilities.

Besides, a good DM will place the rule "no temporal effects within other temporal effects". Otherwise, a 20th level wizard could, Timestop, ready Timestop within Timestop, Timestop, and repeat until he's cast 20 or so spells in a single round. Even if they're just summons or area effects, 20 spells win ANY fight.

[Gralamin]

You don't seem to understand.

This is the true combo:
Contingency - celerity on the start of an encounter or some such thing.
Use the action to cast a maximized time stop (using that rod of maximize spell you keep on you)
You have 5 rounds of time stop. Take the daze for a round.
4 rounds to go, cast cloudkill over the enemies
3 turns to go, cast forcecage (solid) over the cloud kill area.
2 turns to go, Laugh. play with prestidigitation, or something. At this point the encounter should be over as soon as time stop ends. If there are enemies hidden elsewhere, you can trap another group.
1 Turn to go, insert buff spell here. Or more prestidigitation.
0 to go, game resumes.
Enemies eventually die off in the contained cloudkill.
Wizard wins.

[TRM]

A dragonmark from eberron, mark of the dauntless.

and possibly quick recovery (feat) from lords of madness, though I don't know how that would work.

Mark of the Dauntless? What book is that from? It most certainly isn't from the core Eberron book.

[Amiria]

Why didn't you ask google ? I just typed ... no copy/pasted "Mark of the Dauntless" into google and got the answer. It is from a book titled Dragonmarked.

[Bears With Lasers]

Besides, a good DM will place the rule "no temporal effects within other temporal effects". Otherwise, a 20th level wizard could, Timestop, ready Timestop within Timestop, Timestop, and repeat until he's cast 20 or so spells in a single round. Even if they're just summons or area effects, 20 spells win ANY fight.

But readying an action to cast Time Stop with your last Time Stop action means that you can still do that, and your readied Time Stop doesn't happen inside the previous Time Stop...

[Dausuul]

Actually, celerity doesn't make wizards more broken than they already are. Taking one more standard action as an immediate action does not mean you break the game-the same spell combos you'd do with celerity you could do with a metamagic rod of quickening.

No, because celerity stacks with the rod. Normally you get one spell, which celerity boosts to two. If you have the metamagic rod, you get two spells, which celerity boosts to three. And you can learn celerity a long, long time before you can afford a metamagic rod of quicken.

[Emperor Tippy]

It's broken but not because it allows 2 roudns in a row. Its broken because it guarentees that you go first. The best combination with it is as follows.

Foresight cast in advance to negate surprise.
Greater Celerity to give you your round now.
Quickened Disjunction, Maximized Timestop
Be dazed for the first round of Timestop
Dimensional Lock in the second round of Timestop
Quickened Cloudkill, Forcecage in the third Timestop round

Spend the next 2 rounds of Timestop Doing whatever you feel like.

[Vorpal Pete]

Is it broken without access to 9th level spells? I'm amazed how many people on this forum play at 17th level or higher.

It seems like in the games I play (typically below 10th) it wouldn't be a horrendous deal-breaker. Besides, it will let the BBEG get his teleport off when he's about to die and the thief and the barbarian still haven't taken their actions yet...

[Reinboom]

Celerity + Forcecage (level 13) is even quite effective
Beyond spells combinations, it is still -more or less- a 'I win initiative'. Even if someone pumps max dex, is a catfolk, takes lucky start and improved initiative... obviously they are trying to 'go first', you still beat them.

[Douglas]

Greater Celerity to give you your round now.
Quickened Disjunction, Maximized Timestop

That part doesn't work. Greater Celerity gives you a move and standard or a full round action, it does not give you a swift action.

[TheOOB]

At the very least Celerity + Teleport means you can never be killed by an attack you are aware of. If you would be hit by something deadly you gain your celetiry action and teleport home, then teleport back later.

You see, even without time stop, cloud kill, and forecage (all spells that are way too powerful for their own good), the mage with celerity wins.

[Jothki]

Are you immediately dazed, or do you just suddenly become dazed when your turn comes around? If you aren't immediately dazed, could you cast celerity multiple times in a row?

[Mewtarthio]

Are you immediately dazed, or do you just suddenly become dazed when your turn comes around? If you aren't immediately dazed, could you cast celerity multiple times in a row?

Why would you want to? You only get one immediate/swift action each turn, so any future Celerities would be standard actions to cast. I guess you could do it in theory, but you'd be expending a standard action to get another standard action. I guess there's some brokenness potential with the Greater variety, but no sane DM would allow that.