Does a charging opponent get an AoO vs. an opponent casting a Summoning spell?

[Pielorinho]

Olivia the druid is part of a group fighting a bunch of undead monks. While her buddies are getting beat up on the ground, she's perched on a rooftop casting a summon nature's ally spell.

One of the monks sees her and runs toward her, flipping up the wall, landing on the roof, and attacking her. D'oh! He misses!

However, now he's threatening her -- and she's not yet done casting her SNA spell.

Does the monk get an Attack of Opportunity on her, since she's spellcasting while in the monk's threatened area?

Daniel

 

[billd91]

Olivia the druid is part of a group fighting a bunch of undead monks. While her buddies are getting beat up on the ground, she's perched on a rooftop casting a summon nature's ally spell.

One of the monks sees her and runs toward her, flipping up the wall, landing on the roof, and attacking her. D'oh! He misses!

However, now he's threatening her -- and she's not yet done casting her SNA spell.

Does the monk get an Attack of Opportunity on her, since she's spellcasting while in the monk's threatened area?

I would say no, he does not get the AoO. The AoO is triggered generally when the caster starts the spell otherwise it's a nightmare to try to handle it. If the druid had started casting the spell while in the monk's threatened area, and the monk decided not to take his AoO, then he doesn't get another chance to take one against that character later on in the round before the spell goes off. He has to decide right away as the caster starts the spell. The AoO is just a quick sucker punch when the spellcaster drops his guard. A spellcaster who is in the middle of casting whom you run up to and miss does not trigger an AoO.
In this situation, he runs up and tries to hit the druid and misses. Sucks being him.

 

[frankthedm]

By the rules i don think so.

My own game i say the aoo will be drawn right befor the spellcaster acts next. If the monk stays near the caster, the caster has the option to give up the spell to put his guard and not draw the aoo. But not if you just attack and spring away.

 

[Hypersmurf]

It's the "cast a spell" action that provokes an AoO.

With Summon Monster, you only take the "cast a spell" action once.

With 3.0 Call Lightning and its 10 minute casting time, you take the "cast a spell" action a hundred times - once for each round of casting. Each round you would provoke an AoO.

If you chose to cast Call Lightning defensively, I'm not certain whether it would require one Concentration check or a hundred. I have a feeling the check is part of the action, not part of the spell, so I think it would be a hundred checks...

-Hyp.

 

[youspoonybard]

Thank god a 1 isn't an automatic failure...

Although, anyone not in the final stages of the spell when an enemy's nearby better cancel it, anyway.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I don't believe the rules adequately cover this precise situation, so here is how I would rule it.

the monk has appeared next to Olive while she is casting - she may reactively

a) stop casting the spell
b) make a "cast defensively" check at this point, risking losing the spell but continuing with the summoning
c) suck up the AoO and hope that the monk misses or she grits her teeth and rides out the damage.

Sure, it gives her the action on another persons turn, but AoO do that all the time. It seems to me that the natural thing for her to do in this instance is to suddenly start casting defensively (and thus make the Concentration check to continue with the spell at that time).

If she doesn't make it, I'd give the monk an AoO. Hey, I'm a mean DM, and I could sell it to my players no problem!

 

[Rel]

Strictly for balance reasons, I'd say the Monk would NOT get an AoO. It just seems like too big a penalty to place on the "one full round" casters.

Personally, I think the "Summon" spells are alread somewhat on the weak side with their 1rnd/level durations, relatively weak creatures they summon and the long casting time. Letting anybody who wants to try and disrupt them get TWO attacks at their highest BAB just seems to put those spells in the "why don't I just put the Wand of Magic Missiles in my mouth and say the command word" realm.

If we're talking about Wizards and Sorcerers, never mind having the spell disrupted, they may not even survive the two attacks.

Plus, as a DM, not only do I like to see the players cast those spells, I like to have bad guy spell casters use Summon spells somtimes and I don't want the PC's to be given the AoO advantage.

I don't suppose that 3.5 addresses this issue?

 

[Pielorinho]

Plus, as a DM, not only do I like to see the players cast those spells, I like to have bad guy spell casters use Summon spells somtimes and I don't want the PC's to be given the AoO advantage.

FWIW, I *don't* like these spells much as a DM. The scenario above happened in last week's session pretty much exactly as I described; in a battle involving 25 undead mooks, half a dozen mid-level undead monks, one badass undead shadowdancer, six PCs, and three familiars/companions/mounts, I wasn't looking forward to adding in 1d3 dire apes, each of which would get three attacks/round.

Animal companions already get a huge number of attacks (the tiger getting six/round in general, if you count the grapple attempt as an attack roll). Summon spells are in my experience plenty powerful.

I think I'll go for Plane Sailing's compromise: a caster can decide to switch to defensive casting at the moment that she's threatened, but anyone who finds themselves threatening her at any point during casting may take an AoO if she chooses not to switch to defensive casting.

Daniel

 

[Rel]

FWIW, I *don't* like these spells much as a DM. The scenario above happened in last week's session pretty much exactly as I described; in a battle involving 25 undead mooks, half a dozen mid-level undead monks, one badass undead shadowdancer, six PCs, and three familiars/companions/mounts, I wasn't looking forward to adding in 1d3 dire apes, each of which would get three attacks/round.

Animal companions already get a huge number of attacks (the tiger getting six/round in general, if you count the grapple attempt as an attack roll). Summon spells are in my experience plenty powerful.

I'll be the first to admit that my ruling on this matter could be heavily influenced by our gaming group's situation. There are four of us and therefore only three players at a given time. That means that, not only are there fewer player than typical, but also usually fewer bad guys for the DM to juggle. Also, most of our games have been at relatively low levels (so far we've been topping out at around 7th-8th at which point we are ready to switch to a different campaign for a while). So I haven't had to worry about 1d3 Dire Apes with 3 attacks each either.

In your circumstance, I don't think your ruling would be in any way unreasonable. I have just never seen Summoning spells be that big of a difference in our campaigns and I would hate to provide another disincentive (or is it disinsentive?) to using them.