My little Beholder, or: new cheese

[Pielorinho]

I'm a lucky 11th-level wizard. I have a toad familiar.

I construct a special wizard hat, which I can wear on my head. It looks very much like a bulls-eye lantern except that it has a toad where the flame should be, and it's a hat. When my toad is sitting in the hat, he can't see me.

When I go into battle, I cast Anti-magic field. Except that I cast it on my familiar, not on myself.

Because the hat provides full cover between me and the toad, I am not affected by the anti-magic field: anti-magic fields are emanations, and emanations don't bend around corners. Only the people directly in front of me are affected by the field.

I plan to work on the hat to include buttons opening and shutting different apertures around the hat, so that the toad can affect me if I'm cursed, or can affect someone behind me, in front of me, and so forth.

And maybe next I'll get a raven familiar, who can fly out of the hat and go snuggle up with that flying wizard, making her fall so sadly to the ground.

Am I breaking any rules?
Daniel

 

[Sledge]

LOL thanks

 

[Rkhet]

I doubt that a hat is enough to count as full cover, though. Or else anyone not naked will have full cover.

While we're on the subject of Antimagic: can Sculpt Spell be used on Antimagic Field to create immobile zones of antimagic?

 

[Pielorinho]

I doubt that a hat is enough to count as full cover, though. Or else anyone not naked will have full cover.

If you draw a line between the toad's square (i.e., right on top of you) and your square, then, assuming the hat is a sombrero (I left that out!), you've got total cover from the toad. You would not have total cover from someone in front of you.

Think of it this way: would this work if you built your hat from a tower shield?

Daniel

 

[Jack Simth]

Perhaps mildly - how do you touch your familiar to have it run the AMF if it has full cover relative to you?

 

[Pielorinho]

Ah, here's the genius! You:
1) Cast AMF on the familiar.
2) Hold it up to the brim of the hat.
3) Chuckle happily as it hops into the special chamber on the hat and turns into a mini-beholder.

Or, if you're brave, you cast AMF on the familiar; toss it in the air ahead of you; and run forward so that it lands on your sexy hat.

Or you get the fighter to wear the AMF sombrero.

Daniel

 

[Hypersmurf]

When I go into battle, I cast Anti-magic field. Except that I cast it on my familiar, not on myself.

Am I breaking any rules?

Yup.

Antimagic Field
Range: 10 ft.
Area: 10-ft.-radius emanation, centered on you

Share Spells: At the master’s option, he may have any spell (but not any spell-like ability) he casts on himself also affect his familiar. The familiar must be within 5 feet at the time of casting to receive the benefit. If the spell or effect has a duration other than instantaneous, it stops affecting the familiar if it moves farther than 5 feet away and will not affect the familiar again even if it returns to the master before the duration expires. Additionally, the master may cast a spell with a target of “You” on his familiar (as a touch range spell) instead of on himself. A master and his familiar can share spells even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the familiar’s type (magical beast).

Antimagic Field is not a 'spell with a target of "You"', nor is it a spell cast on oneself. It's an Area spell, not a Target spell, that just happens to emanate from the caster. It's not 'cast on' the caster. It's why you can't cast Tenser's Floating Disk and attach it to your familiar either; while the spell follows the caster, it is not 'cast on' the caster, nor is it a spell with a target of you.

Even if one rules that AMF is 'cast on' the caster, you don't get the 'either/or' option unless it's a Target: You spell. You could have the spell affect the familiar... but only if it's also affecting you.

Of course, this doesn't address the cover issue, which is still up for the question if the familiar has a ring of spell storing...

-Hyp.

 

[Pielorinho]

Yup.

Ah, excellent, Hyp--thank you! I was hoping that this ridiculous strategy wouldn't work, but it didn't occur to me to check the target (or lack thereof) of AMF; I just assumed it was "you."

If this strategy can be done with a ring of spell storing, I'm not nearly so horrified: a strategy that requires an 11th-level wizard plus a very expensive magic item is much less abusive than one that just requires the wizard.

Daniel

 

[Plane Sailing]

arguably the hat is concealment, not cover. You can stick a dagger through a hat, cover has to be hard.

Now if you wanted to balance a tower shield on your head

 

[daBooj]

hrm... it's funny. in the campaign I play in we were designing some lead bulls-eye lanterns to house some antimagic eggs (egg shaped gems that radiate a field that cancels magic) that are causing problems where we are.

We didn't get to use them, though. My cleric's flamestrike kinda blew up the egg (but that in turn killed the big baddie that we were having problems with, so...)