Contingency - what can it do?

[der_kluge]

Yes, there is a reason the spell isn't in the Divination school! I'll probably go with AuraSeer's interpretation as well, with the added caveat that the conditions continue to work even if the character is unconscious.

 

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

I'll probably go with AuraSeer's interpretation as well, with the added caveat that the conditions continue to work even if the character is unconscious.

As I understand AuraSeer's way of handling things, the Contingency would still work if the character was unconscious. The Contingency simply has the same sensorial capacities as the character (maxed out by taking 20), but they are distinct, ie the Contingency is kinda like a "guardian angel" that's constantly on the look-out for the triggering event.

Say a rogue was sneaking up (moving silently but not hiding) on me. I have a Contingency prepared to cast "Stone skin" if someone points a weapon at me. As a wizard, I didn't hear the rogue approach, but the Contingency didn't miss him (he's not even hiding). I am not aware of the rogue, yet the Contingency is.

Same thing for being unconscious, held, etc. The Contingency is never unconscious, is never "disabled".

TS

 

[Hypersmurf]

Evil Ike teleports into my office and casts a Still Silent slay living. Since there are no components, contingency is not entitled to a Spellcraft check to identify the spell, so it has no way to know that it's supposed to trigger.

Tome and Blood says you get a Spellcraft check with a -4 penalty: -2 per missing component.

-Hyp.

 

[Dash Dannigan]

So are we saying that a caster who cast contingency: If I fall cast featherfall but the caster was asleep or enthralled in illusion thinking he was not falling, that the contingency may not go off?? Oh dear, someone get a cleric...

 

[Jhyrryl]

IMO Jhyrryl's interpretation is unreasonably powerful, since it would make contingency the most powerful divination spell in the game (even better than many divine powers)

That seem's like a very arbitrary statement.

I'd be curious to see if anyone can actually demonstrate an example of contingency using the omniscience rule to be capable of doing the same, or more, than any divination spell of equal or greater level. At best, I think a very cleverly worded contingency might be equal to a very poorly worded greater prying eyes, but that would be a problem with the caster, not the spells.

For detecting the future occurance of a very specific event that may never come to pass, it very well is the best spell for the job. It is that reason why the title of my post said that the spell should in-fact be a divination. But the fact that contingency is good at what it does, in no way makes it "the most powerful divination spell in the game".

Better than most divine powers? Take a look at Vecna's abilities in Deities and Demigods. Boccobs are even better.

 

[Dash Dannigan]

IME, both Aura's & Jhyrryl's interp is off (what we're seeing here is both ends of the spectrum). Aura's is too limited by the spellcaster's perceptions and Jhyrryl's is too powerful, the clause too broad. My guess is somewhere between these two positions you'll find the best use of Contingency.

It is best to think of Contingency as an action-reaction pair that relies on a mechanical interpretation rather than based on perceptions. Keep in mind that contingencies stated otherwise can become convulted or too vague and it is completely at the DM's discretion to have the contingency fail.

die_kluge: I believe your player was correct in the use of the spell. If he was attacked by a ghost then the protection from evil would come on "instantly" as per the spell wording. I don't see anything wrong with that. Good use of a spell and not too powerful, just nice sometimes. This seems pretty clear in the wording of the spell: "being 'cast' instantly when the prescribed circumstances occur." Notice the "when" and not "after" or "once".

 

[AuraSeer]

I'd be curious to see if anyone can actually demonstrate an example of contingency using the omniscience rule to be capable of doing the same, or more, than any divination spell of equal or greater level.

Sure thing.

Say I've heard a rumor that a member of the mage's guild is planning to assassinate the king. I want to know whether this is true, and if so, who is guilty. I cast a contingency, set to "cast faerie fire when my finger touches the written name of a mage who plots the death of King Bob." Then I just take a copy of the guild membership list, and run my finger down the lines. As soon as I get lit up, I know I have found a guilty party.

Note that the spell must read minds to do this, and it is far more powerful than any other thought-reading effect. It works on an arbitrary number of targets-- the list may contain hundreds or thousands of names. It allows neither save nor SR, has no range limit, and is not blocked by a lead vault or even planar boundaries.

Once I know that Evil Ike is the traitor, I need to know where he's hiding, so I can go interrogate him. I break out my atlas and cast another contingency, triggering faerie fire "when I point at the map representation of Evil Ike's current location." This effect is even better than discern location (an 8th-level spell), because I do not need to have met the target or obtain his possession; in fact, with clever wording, I could find him even if I didn't have his name or any other clue at all.

(The current incarnation of contingency would also be able to penetrate mind blank, making it the only spell in the books that can do so. However, this would go away if you moved it to the Divination school.)

 

[Hypersmurf]

I cast a contingency, set to "cast faerie fire when my finger touches the written name of a mage who plots the death of King Bob."

Freaky. That's the exact example I had in mind.

-Hyp.

 

[Jhyrryl]

The first contingency you describe can be duplicated with one or more castings of lower-level spells, like commune or contact other plane. They also have no saving throw and allow no SR. "Is George attempting to overthrow the King?" "Is Bob attempting to overthrow the King?" etc. Admittedly, those lower-level spells have drawbacks (XP cost or chance of insanity), but again, they're lower-level spells.

The atlas example is a good one, but it's likely to require several castings of the contingency as you narrow down the location (start with a planetary map, if any are available, move to map of the targeted country, if he's in a country, then a city, then a city block, then a blueprint of the building, again if any are even available), and you may never successfully point at Ike's location since he may be located someplace that's outside the regions covered by the atlas. Or maybe the PCs run out of contingency spells for the day and by the time they memorize more, Ike's moved. Or maybe Ike, being the powerful mage that he is, isn't even on the current plane of existence while the PCs are doing this. All in all, this is a very easy example for the DM to pervert to his own ends in the name of story-telling.

And speaking of story-telling, I'm quite happy to reward players for their clever uses of the resources they have available to them. But they have to get those resources first. Getting an accurate guild roster of a mage's guild (of any size) isn't going to be an easy task, and may flat out be impossible. But if my party presented said plan of action and successfully accomplishes it without alerting Ike (unlikely, but if successful probably gaining them half a level's worth of experience in the process), I'd be more than happy to let them go through with it.

Anyway, why would you present your party with the clue about an assassination attempt unless you wanted them to foil it? Does it really matter how they foil it? Hopefully you're not the kind of DM who spends weeks developing NPCs and specific encounters just to railroad the PCs down the adventure you want them to experience.

And yes, I think it very appropriate for mind blank to be effective in foiling a contingency's trigger condition, and alarm's and magic mouth's for that matter; two more spells I feel should be Divinations. Of course that prompts questions about other spells that leave effects behind with trigger mechanisms, like glyphs and symbols, to which I respond that the the detection abilities of those higher-level spells are minor compared to the triggered effect, therefore qualifying them for whatever school they may be a part of.

Now, a question I do have though as a result of this dialog, is should mind blank result in answers of "Unknown" for questions posed through commune or contact other plane that relate to the subject of the mind blank?

 

[reapersaurus]

[IMO] Jhyrryl - you see NO problem with the situation that AuraSeer described, even after he answered your direct question with a home-run-out-of-the-park example?

You don't know when your rules interpretations have been proven wrong.
[/IMO]