-
NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Clarification on disrupting a spellcaster's spell
- Thread starter Kai Lord
- Start date
Kae'Yoss
First Post
The 2e way of handling damage and spells was, IMHO, bull
. If someone won initiative and hit you, even whith a handy sewing needle, the spell you wanted to cast would be wasted. A battle between spellcasters was nothing more than hoping you win initiative.
As there is no static start of the round anymore (initiative is rolled once, and then the order in which the combatants act usually doesn't change anymore), the old "recent damage" rule was taken out. Instead, as soon as you start to cast, you provoke an attack of opportunity. If you take damage from that or from anything else while you are casting, you have to make a concentration check or lose the spell. It's not automatically lost anymore. You can cast defensively and voluntarily make a concentration check in order to avoid the attack of opportunity, but if that fails, you still lose your spell.
The Attack of Opportunity's not the only way to stop you from casting: If the spell has a casting time of one full round, it will last until just before your next turn, and you can be attacked normally. Also, others could ready actions to attack you as soon as you started to cast a spell, and that would work even with ranged attacks or if you cast defensively! And of course, there is the possibility to counterspell your magic (although that's only really effective with the right feats). So its not too hard to disrupt a spell, but it's not to easy, either!
. If someone won initiative and hit you, even whith a handy sewing needle, the spell you wanted to cast would be wasted. A battle between spellcasters was nothing more than hoping you win initiative.As there is no static start of the round anymore (initiative is rolled once, and then the order in which the combatants act usually doesn't change anymore), the old "recent damage" rule was taken out. Instead, as soon as you start to cast, you provoke an attack of opportunity. If you take damage from that or from anything else while you are casting, you have to make a concentration check or lose the spell. It's not automatically lost anymore. You can cast defensively and voluntarily make a concentration check in order to avoid the attack of opportunity, but if that fails, you still lose your spell.
The Attack of Opportunity's not the only way to stop you from casting: If the spell has a casting time of one full round, it will last until just before your next turn, and you can be attacked normally. Also, others could ready actions to attack you as soon as you started to cast a spell, and that would work even with ranged attacks or if you cast defensively! And of course, there is the possibility to counterspell your magic (although that's only really effective with the right feats). So its not too hard to disrupt a spell, but it's not to easy, either!
I guess the biggest problem is that there are very few ways to prevent a spell from going off. In a quick survey of the PHB it seems that most spells and almost all combat spells have a duration of one action (bumped up to one round only in the case of metamagic). So in the majority of cases there are only two ways to stop a spell from resolving:
1) Successful attack of opportunity - unlikely to succeed as few spellcasters wander into the front lines of combat and those that do are likely to have all of their buffs up (shield, mage armor, protection, haste, flight).
2) Readied actions - ranged attacks are unlikely to succeed (as above) leaving opposing spellcasters as the only option. Then the opposing spellcaster can not do anything to assist his troops only hope that he can counterspell successfully the opposing mage's spell. So a spellcaster vs. a horde of non-flying, non-spellcasting critters has few real threats.
My $.02
mypetrock
1) Successful attack of opportunity - unlikely to succeed as few spellcasters wander into the front lines of combat and those that do are likely to have all of their buffs up (shield, mage armor, protection, haste, flight).
2) Readied actions - ranged attacks are unlikely to succeed (as above) leaving opposing spellcasters as the only option. Then the opposing spellcaster can not do anything to assist his troops only hope that he can counterspell successfully the opposing mage's spell. So a spellcaster vs. a horde of non-flying, non-spellcasting critters has few real threats.
My $.02
mypetrock
But this works both ways...
I don't know about you, but most of the parties I DM are magic heavy (lots of spellcasters) whereas the foes are grunt heavy with few if any spellcasters.
But I've found that even a few higher level bowmen can very effectively keep the spellcasters out of the fight once they show their position... with needing to ready. Just pelt them... they don't have very many hps... they'll get a few spells off, and then have to retreat to escape the archers.
Grappling is very effective also... 8 orcs (1 grappling and 7 aiding) will make short work of a weak little Mage.
I don't know about you, but most of the parties I DM are magic heavy (lots of spellcasters) whereas the foes are grunt heavy with few if any spellcasters.
But I've found that even a few higher level bowmen can very effectively keep the spellcasters out of the fight once they show their position... with needing to ready. Just pelt them... they don't have very many hps... they'll get a few spells off, and then have to retreat to escape the archers.
Grappling is very effective also... 8 orcs (1 grappling and 7 aiding) will make short work of a weak little Mage.
Kae'Yoss
First Post
If you ready a bow to attack the wiz when he attempts spellcasting, they have a good chance to hit him! Wizards don't tend to have that much AC (and if they're invisible or something, it's the enemy wizard's job, anyway), so he will have to make concentration checks often.
Also, if the wizard doesn't come to the melee, the melee comes to the wizard. You can't keep all the attackers from getting to your back line, and the wiz has trouble.
Counterspells are quite useless as they are, but there are a couple of feats (in T&B afaik) that make it more useful by enabling to spontanously counterspell without readying an action (but you lose your next action).
Also, if the wizard doesn't come to the melee, the melee comes to the wizard. You can't keep all the attackers from getting to your back line, and the wiz has trouble.
Counterspells are quite useless as they are, but there are a couple of feats (in T&B afaik) that make it more useful by enabling to spontanously counterspell without readying an action (but you lose your next action).
Maybe not at low level they don't. However, once the mage is putting up Haste and Shield in every combat, he becomes a whole lot harder to hit.
I happen to play the sorcerer in mypetrock's campaign. When fully prepared for combat, this character has AC 32. Archers are more likely to hit the guys in full plate.
Anyway, yes, if all the enemies are nonmagical ground-bound melee types, they'll get torn to shreds by the flying spellcasting artillery platform. That doesn't mean the rules are broken; it just means the character is well-suited to that type of combat. (Just like a cleric fighting undead... or a Spring Attacking monk versus a very slow monster...)
Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
I can give you that same sorcerer at 5th level, although they'll be specialized in defense.
Start with a halfling with a 16-point Dex (6 points in a point-buy, not unreasonable). Assume a decent roll when casting Cat's grace.
Size +1 (size)
Natural Dex +3 (dodge)
Mage armor +4 (armor)
Cat's grace +2 (dodge)
Shield +7 (cover? whatever it's been errataed to)
Protection from evil +2 (deflection)
Haste +4 (haste)
=AC 33
Add on the dodge feat and an amulet of natural armor +1, and you've got it up to AC 35. Or you can substitute some magic doodads for some of the spells and still keep your AC respectable -- get rid of protection from evil and cat's grace, and add in a ROP +1 and an Amulet of Natural armor +1, and you've still got an AC of 31, for the cost of two first and one third level spells.
If you add in buffing spells from other party members, then it can start to get really cool.
Daniel
Start with a halfling with a 16-point Dex (6 points in a point-buy, not unreasonable). Assume a decent roll when casting Cat's grace.
Size +1 (size)
Natural Dex +3 (dodge)
Mage armor +4 (armor)
Cat's grace +2 (dodge)
Shield +7 (cover? whatever it's been errataed to)
Protection from evil +2 (deflection)
Haste +4 (haste)
=AC 33
Add on the dodge feat and an amulet of natural armor +1, and you've got it up to AC 35. Or you can substitute some magic doodads for some of the spells and still keep your AC respectable -- get rid of protection from evil and cat's grace, and add in a ROP +1 and an Amulet of Natural armor +1, and you've still got an AC of 31, for the cost of two first and one third level spells.
If you add in buffing spells from other party members, then it can start to get really cool.
Daniel
Similar Threads
