Level Up (A5E) Arcane knight's reactive ward

[PauloR]

Love the maneuver, on paper at least. It seems perfect to resist some dragon breath weapon, but it's pretty clear it only protects against spells...
Actually, you can only use the reaction if you or an ally are target of a spell with duration of one round or less. This now excludes debuffs (which the half cover wouldn't help anyway) and area spells, since they target an area, not an ally. The spell needs to be either an attack or a dex saves for the half cover to actually help.
Can someone actually give me examples of spells.where this maneuver would help against? With all these restrictions im starting to think this maneuver looks cool but is actually a trap option. I could also love to see examples where the "upcasting", where you target more than one ally would be helpful. The only spell i can think of would be scorching ray.

Thanks in advance for your help

 

[Distracted DM]

The wording makes it a very, very niche feature, yes. I've been inclined to make it work against spells and magical effects both targeted and AoEs, though dragon breath still wouldn't qualify for that.. but Fireball, a lich's arc lightning, an ice devil's Wall, etc. would.

I guess the question, for me at least, is would making it work vs any attack, dragons breath, etc be too good? Probably. So I stick with my interpretation. HOWEVER @Steampunkette reprinted the Arcane Knight tradition in her latest book, Martial Artistry, and IIRC it's the way that she had intended it to be, minus the edits and alterations that it got from EN when it was submitted to GPG. It works a bit different in that one, it basically makes a big cube of cover for a flat cost, rather than scaling. Though she still uses the "targeted" wording so I'm not sure there.

 

[Anonymous3]

The wording makes it a very, very niche feature, yes

Please help me understand why you think it's so niche. Is this because many creatures no longer have spells but instead use "magical" attacks and abilities?

There are about 40+ spells (sorry, this is an estimate from a quick scan) that meet this criteria for Reactive Ward. As an example, the Lich has the following spells that would be affected: Fire bolt; Thunderwave; Fireball; Confusion (still useful for protecting yourself); Disintegrate; Finger of Death; Power Word Stun (still useful for protecting yourself).

There are many other maneuvers (see Tempered Iron) that are "anti magic" in nature and if you're in a low magic campaign you're likely going to avoid this tradition as it's maneuver's become niche. Reactive Ward has more utility by my estimate and is solid. Based on games I have been playing over the last decade I'd say this tradition would be adding a lot of value to a group of adventures, particularly this maneuver.

 

[Anonymous3]

And, you and/or your allies could technically target you with a spell and you could use Reactive Ward to pre-emptively gain the benefit.