Divine Spell casters and empty spell slots

[pawsplay]

Hm, I guess I was wrong. Looks like the rulebook lays this one out.

 

[gnfnrf]

But then, when does the recent casting time count from?

Say a cleric who prepares at dawn gets attacked at four in the morning, and casts a bunch of spells. Can he leave them empty at dawn, then fill them at noon (once the 8 hour limit is up?) Or are they burned for the whole day if they aren't ready to cycle at dawn?

--
gnfnrf

 

[zlorf]

Hi,

My question was at the time of when someone answer that you couldn't fill the empty slots with spells. Since then 3.0 rules state clearly you can and 3.5 rules arn't as clear but, i cannot see why they would change. Clearly the biggest advantage of leaving slots free as you stated is to get a spell for a specific situation.

Btw don't go up them stairs, i know whats waiting for you. Im am currently DM SCAP myself

It's incredibly useful for utility spell selection.

For example, in our last session we were exploring the underdark when the party approached a lake we needed to cross. We "befriended" a koa-toa, but there was no way that my craven cleric was going to get in a fish-man's boat without some insurance. We asked him to wait a few minutes so I could cast water walk.

Later on this had a huge payoff. A group of koa-toas attacked us on a large staircase on the other side of the lake, and one of them bull-rushed the party wizard over the ledge into the lake. The koa-toa fell into the water expecting the weak land-walker to fall in with him...

 

[Piratecat]

But then, when does the recent casting time count from?

Say a cleric who prepares at dawn gets attacked at four in the morning, and casts a bunch of spells. Can he leave them empty at dawn, then fill them at noon (once the 8 hour limit is up?) Or are they burned for the whole day if they aren't ready to cycle at dawn?

They're burned.

Think of it this way. At the right time of day, the cleric spends an hour and prepares all of his available spell slots. He may prepare some of them with a <not decided yet> spell that he can fill in later, given 15 minutes to meditate later in the day. In your example, those spells cast at 4am aren't available to him at dawn, so he doesn't get the option to fill them later.