Originally posted by SkilgannonTheMagnanimous:
Hey guys, I was just wondering if anyone ever found a way to cast spells (or use items) as extraordianry abilities, as opposed to magical, spell-like or supernatural abilities?
I vaguely recall discussion about it back in the day, but that was so long ago that I'm probably mistaken.
Is this even possible?
Cheers.
Originally posted by NineInchNall:
Well, spellcasting is itself a natural ability. (That is, it's not labeled as Spell-like, Supernatural, Extraordinary, or Psi-like.)
Aside from functioning in an antimagic field, dead magic zone, or the like, having your spells be extraordinary is inferior to having them be spell-like or supernatural. The latter two allow you to bypass the components of whatever spells are being cast, a feature which can range from okay (ignoring the material component for identify) to ridiculously broken (ignoring the XP component for wish).
If casting in an AMF/DMZ is what you want, there's always the Initiate of Mystra feat from Player's Guide to Faerun, which leads down the path of the Twice-Betrayer of Shar(x). There's no reason you can't combine Initiate of Mystra with supernatural spellcasting, either. Just pick up Dweomerkeeper from the Complete Divine web enhancement. Dweomerkeeper is considered one of the most powerful PrCs around entirely because of its supernatural spell ability.
Originally posted by SkilgannonTheMa...:
But what about for the sake of items? Extraordinary Gloves of Dex would function in an AMF or DMZ, would they not?
What I'm going for is a Rogue, who eventually starts making his own items that emulate Spells but are Extraordinary. Fluff-wise he would have bombs of fireball, lightning guns, etc.
Rather than casting Gate, he would make a Stargate like device, etc.
Am I making sense?
PS: Since you brought it up, what ways are aviable to get Spells as Spell-like or Supernatural Abilities. You mentioned Dweomerkeeper (which I just read, and looks awesome), are there any others?
Originally posted by NineInchNall:
Yeah, I see what you're saying. There isn't really any way to do what you want on the scale you want—generally such things are modeled as supernatural abilities. (For example, the Monk and Ninja have abilities that are explicitly the result of intense martial training, and they manifest as supernatural abilities.) I'm not sure why you're so interested in AMFs and DMZs. Neither is particularly common, and each has effective counters. (The former is countered by the standard tin-foil hat; the latter, by not going into it.) If a DM is tossing AMFs around willy nilly, s/he should be beaten about the head with a large trout.
As for ways to get Sp/Su casting, you can
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
So you want to make a character using extraordinary technology of his own creation, rather than direct magic? I know that the shadowcaster from the Tome of Magic progresses its "mysteries" from spells to spell-like abilities, and finally to supernatural abilities, but I can't say the same for extraordinary abilities; there are grafts, but those are mostly for raw physical stuff like having claws or being stronger than normal, with any overt magic usually being the result of getting a daily spell-like ability from the graft.
For casting in an antimagic field or dead magic zone, there's also the option of using the "psionics are different", so that psionics and magic don't freely interact in the normal ways, but it's not recommended precisely because it makes effects difficult to stop or affect.
It doesn't help much here, of course.
Originally posted by NineInchNall:
Yeah, those discussions were always ... odd. Half the time they devolved into metaphysical debate over the validity of dualist conceptions of body and mind vs. purely materialistic ones.
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
Hey guys, I was just wondering if anyone ever found a way to cast spells (or use items) as extraordianry abilities, as opposed to magical, spell-like or supernatural abilities?
I vaguely recall discussion about it back in the day, but that was so long ago that I'm probably mistaken.
Is this even possible?
Cheers.
Originally posted by NineInchNall:
Well, spellcasting is itself a natural ability. (That is, it's not labeled as Spell-like, Supernatural, Extraordinary, or Psi-like.)
Aside from functioning in an antimagic field, dead magic zone, or the like, having your spells be extraordinary is inferior to having them be spell-like or supernatural. The latter two allow you to bypass the components of whatever spells are being cast, a feature which can range from okay (ignoring the material component for identify) to ridiculously broken (ignoring the XP component for wish).
If casting in an AMF/DMZ is what you want, there's always the Initiate of Mystra feat from Player's Guide to Faerun, which leads down the path of the Twice-Betrayer of Shar(x). There's no reason you can't combine Initiate of Mystra with supernatural spellcasting, either. Just pick up Dweomerkeeper from the Complete Divine web enhancement. Dweomerkeeper is considered one of the most powerful PrCs around entirely because of its supernatural spell ability.
Originally posted by SkilgannonTheMa...:
But what about for the sake of items? Extraordinary Gloves of Dex would function in an AMF or DMZ, would they not?
What I'm going for is a Rogue, who eventually starts making his own items that emulate Spells but are Extraordinary. Fluff-wise he would have bombs of fireball, lightning guns, etc.
Rather than casting Gate, he would make a Stargate like device, etc.
Am I making sense?
PS: Since you brought it up, what ways are aviable to get Spells as Spell-like or Supernatural Abilities. You mentioned Dweomerkeeper (which I just read, and looks awesome), are there any others?
Originally posted by NineInchNall:
Yeah, I see what you're saying. There isn't really any way to do what you want on the scale you want—generally such things are modeled as supernatural abilities. (For example, the Monk and Ninja have abilities that are explicitly the result of intense martial training, and they manifest as supernatural abilities.) I'm not sure why you're so interested in AMFs and DMZs. Neither is particularly common, and each has effective counters. (The former is countered by the standard tin-foil hat; the latter, by not going into it.) If a DM is tossing AMFs around willy nilly, s/he should be beaten about the head with a large trout.
As for ways to get Sp/Su casting, you can
- be a Dweomerkeeper.
- shapechange into something that has the spell you want to cast as a supernatural ability; e.g., a zodar from Fiend Folio.
- be an Ur-Priest 10 (Complete Divine) and get near any creature that has the spell-like ability you want to use.
- use any number of body-swapping techniques to inhabit the appropriate creature's body.
- be a phaerimm (Monsters of Faerun, updated in Player's Guide to Faerun). They cast all spells as spell-like abilities.
- do a few other things I've probably forgotten or feel are too cheesy/iffy to include.
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
So you want to make a character using extraordinary technology of his own creation, rather than direct magic? I know that the shadowcaster from the Tome of Magic progresses its "mysteries" from spells to spell-like abilities, and finally to supernatural abilities, but I can't say the same for extraordinary abilities; there are grafts, but those are mostly for raw physical stuff like having claws or being stronger than normal, with any overt magic usually being the result of getting a daily spell-like ability from the graft.
For casting in an antimagic field or dead magic zone, there's also the option of using the "psionics are different", so that psionics and magic don't freely interact in the normal ways, but it's not recommended precisely because it makes effects difficult to stop or affect.
Based on previous discussions of the matter, while natural abilities are usually something a creature has because of its physical nature, innate spellcasting is presumably based on the creature's mental nature (since the ability to use spells depends on mental capabilities, not physical ones). As I recall, the topic for that discussion was whether or not you could gain a creature's innate spellcasting from alter self, which grants "physical qualities".
It doesn't help much here, of course.
Originally posted by NineInchNall:
Yeah, those discussions were always ... odd. Half the time they devolved into metaphysical debate over the validity of dualist conceptions of body and mind vs. purely materialistic ones.
Originally posted by Slagger_the_Chuul:
True, though D&D at least has the advantage there of having a distinct difference between ability scores. Unlike the real world, you can clearly state that spellcasting depends upon mental capabilities because it uses a mental ability score as the primary casting statistic.
