Cloak of Minor Displacement & friendly spellcasting

[shilsen]

Another soul tragically lost to the confusion between the houserules his old group had played with for years, and the hard rules his new group followed. He will be laid to rest here beside Bob, who mortally assumed his negative hitpoints would be automatically stablized with a Cure Minor Wounds.

Nah, the miss chance never came up in the game when an ally tried to heal him. He's just fishing for sympathy

 

[prospero63]

Nah, the miss chance never came up in the game when an ally tried to heal him. He's just fishing for sympathy

Heh. Reminds me of a recent thing in one of our games. Most of us play in 2, one on Friday night the other on alternating Saturdays (so 1 game a week).

Death rules in one is -10, per SRD, etc.

Death rule in other is -con, and if someone can heal you to at least -con in the *same* round you go down, you are good to go.

Situation went something like this:

DM - "take huge load of damage"
Player - "OK" <calculating>
Player - "Alright, I go down"
Other players start scrambling at this point.
Me - "You past neg 10?"
Player - "Crap, that's right this is the -10 game. Nevermind, I'm dead dead"
a few minutes later
Player - "actually, even at neg con I'm dead dead"

Being the empathetic crew we are, we all got a good chuckle out of it...

 

[Rystil Arden]

How’d you know who to shoot?
You saw the ring, right?
No, the monogram.
What?
Yeah, it was reversed in the mirrors.
What about the ring?
It was on the wrong hand in the mirrors.
Are we clever or what?

-Hyp.

Something like that. Or since the SRD version rather than the FAQ version lets you put them in multiple squares as long as they stay adjacent to another image or you, you could say "The third one from the left".

 

[noretoc]

I have always let players ignore the miss chance for concealment from a cloak of displacement, or shadows. I dont think it takes an action to adjust to someone trying to touch you, so that they can. Mirror image I handle differently, because the images move and shuffle as part of the illusion, making it impossible to know which is correct, even for the caster in my opinon. He knows who he is, but not which figure he appears to be to others. That is why we randomaize the number the caster truly is.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Something like that. Or since the SRD version rather than the FAQ version lets you put them in multiple squares as long as they stay adjacent to another image or you, you could say "The third one from the left".

There's no facing! You can't even ask "Your left, or my left?" - nobody has a left!

-Hyp.

 

[Vegepygmy]

I'd say that if you're touching a willing target, you can touch him automatically, since these rules for touch spells don't specify that you must hit the willing target's touch AC. This same concept of a cooperative recipient would mean that you can automatically touch a willing target who is blurred, displaced or has concealment.

For the precious little that it's worth, I agree with this.

Unless you make everyone who tries to deliver a touch spell to an ally make an attack roll (and miss on a natural 1, by the way!), miss chances are inapplicable.

 

[prospero63]

I have always let players ignore the miss chance for concealment from a cloak of displacement, or shadows. I dont think it takes an action to adjust to someone trying to touch you, so that they can. Mirror image I handle differently, because the images move and shuffle as part of the illusion, making it impossible to know which is correct, even for the caster in my opinon. He knows who he is, but not which figure he appears to be to others. That is why we randomaize the number the caster truly is.

"Cloak of Displacement, Minor

This item appears to be a normal cloak, but when worn by a character its magical properties distort and warp light waves. This displacement works similar to the displacement spell except that it only grants a 20% miss chance on attacks against the wearer. It functions continually."

It's a standard action to activate/deactivate magic items and spells to my recollection. While I have never made them remove the cloak (which I think the RAW require) I do make it take a standard action to suppress the effect, which of course applies to everyone and everything for that round.

Cheers!

 

[Hypersmurf]

Unless you make everyone who tries to deliver a touch spell to an ally make an attack roll (and miss on a natural 1, by the way!), miss chances are inapplicable.

Well, we know that You can automatically touch one friend or use the spell on yourself, but to touch an opponent, you must succeed on an attack roll.

We also know that Concealment gives the subject of a successful attack a 20% chance that the attacker missed because of the concealment.

So given this, we know that if your friend has concealment, any successful attack you make against him has a 20% miss chance.

The question is - is an automatic touch, requiring no attack roll, delivering a beneficial spell to a willing ally, considered a 'successful attack', or not an attack at all?

If it's not an attack, concealment provides no miss chance. If it's an attack, then despite requiring no attack roll, the automatically-successful attack might still miss due to concealment.

-Hyp.

 

[prospero63]

Well, we know that You can automatically touch one friend or use the spell on yourself, but to touch an opponent, you must succeed on an attack roll.

We also know that Concealment gives the subject of a successful attack a 20% chance that the attacker missed because of the concealment.

So given this, we know that if your friend has concealment, any successful attack you make against him has a 20% miss chance.

The question is - is an automatic touch, requiring no attack roll, delivering a beneficial spell to a willing ally, considered a 'successful attack', or not an attack at all?

If it's not an attack, concealment provides no miss chance. If it's an attack, then despite requiring no attack roll, the automatically-successful attack might still miss due to concealment.

-Hyp.

Well, that's not *quite* what the spell says:

"The subject of this spell appears to be about 2 feet away from its true location. The creature benefits from a 50% miss chance as if it had total concealment. However, unlike actual total concealment, displacement does not prevent enemies from targeting the creature normally. True seeing reveals its true location."

While the miss chance is certainly applicable to attacks, I think (and in my case) that first sentence is the rub against friendly touches. In essence, it's out of your control to allow someone to touch you while under the spell effect (via cloak or otherwise). Try as you might, you still appear to be "about 2 feet away from [your] true location".

Cheers!

 

[Hypersmurf]

Well, that's not *quite* what the spell says:

Blur references Concealment, which I quoted above.

Displacement gives you a 50% miss chance, as if you had total concealment. You can't, therefore, simply ignore the rules for total concealment, because they are what describe how the 50% miss chance for Displacement works.

Total Concealment states:
You can’t attack an opponent that has total concealment, though you can attack into a square that you think he occupies. A successful attack into a square occupied by an enemy with total concealment has a 50% miss chance (instead of the normal 20% miss chance for an opponent with concealment).

So even if we assume that the 'opponent' and 'enemy' references under total concealment are also applicable to friends and allies, the 50% miss chance still only applies to a successful attack.

If your Cure spell that requires no attack roll is considered a successful attack into a square occupied [by an enemy], the 50% miss chance will apply. If it's not considered an attack at all, the miss chance is inapplicable.

-Hyp.