Interrupting a spell impossible w/Core rules?

[Lord Ben]

DrSpunj said:
The problem was that you can -never- prevent a spellcaster from casting by using a plain old melee weapon, no matter how determined you are to do so, unless you specialize with feats. This just bugged the hell out of him.

This is wrong though. Wear a chain shirt and your movement is equal, now if he moves you can partial charge and still hit him. You'd actually get an AO, and also a readied action to hit him.

 

[Caliban]

The problem was that you can -never- prevent a spellcaster from casting by using a plain old melee weapon, no matter how determined you are to do so, unless you specialize with feats. This just bugged the hell out of him.

This just wrong. You mean someone with a speed of 20 can never do this, if the spellcaster has room to run.

A monk, barbarian, lightly armored fighter, or a fighter with boots of striding and leaping can easily keep up with and ready an action against the wizard.

 

[Thanee]

Partial Charge only works on an obstacle free battlefield, tho.

If the Wizard can simply move behind an obstacle, charging becomes impossible, unless you got Psionic Charge!

The Melee Fighter is definitely at a disadvantage, when trying to ready against a spellcasting attempt. Readying to interrupt the casting is not completely impossible, but very easy to foil.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Caliban]

Well, once you are above 5th level, all bets are off. It's very hard to close with a Flying wizard.

 

[Vaxalon]

I can't say enough about grappling a wizard to stop spellcasting. It works MUCH better than a weapon, unless you're going to kill the bugger outright with one or two shots.

 

[James McMurray]

unless you're going to kill the bugger outright with one or two shots.

Which, considering the frailty of wizards, is a very good possibility. If you're going to make it easier to hit wizards, at least have the decency to give them a d6 hit die.

 

[Archer]

If you have the wizard flanked its tough for him to get away. That's about the only option that hasn't be brought up.

Whatever the fighter has, the wizard can have too. Whatever the wizard has, the fighter can have too. There are a ton of magic items, not to mention potions. There are countless possibilities and match ups, that's what keeps the game interesting. Sure, sometimes the wizard has the upper hand but sometimes the fighter has the upper hand. I'm sure most people can think of 10 scenarios in which each side has an advantage over the other.

The fast archer is advantaged over the slow fighter if there in infinite room to maneuver and no cover anywhere. Each 360 ft of running the archer can stop and fire one shot before running another 360 ft. After about 3 miles of this the fighter will be dead.

In a dead end corridor, the archer is screwed.

 

[mikebr99]

As to mikebr99's comments:
This is at all levels. For better or worse we're basing a lot our comparison's using the standard NPCs outlined in the DMG on pgs. 52-57.

Thanks for your help.

DrSpunj

Doctor...

The fighter is also weilding a bastard sword and a composite longbow... that is mighty after 1st (+1 mighty by 9th, with 25 - +1 arrows)... the perfect way to deal with pesky ranged Mages.

He has improved initiative at 2nd, power attack at 3rd, point-blank at 6th... presise shot, weapon focus (CLB), and improved crit (CLB) all by 14th.

Every character can win one of these smack-downs, given the right circumstances... but when does this really come up in real-life... I mean real gaming...

If for some reason the fighter from my group had to go into some kind of area and fight a single Mage... the rest of us would be buffing the crap out of him.

And the mage it probably the lone high level baddie... big evil mages don't always like high level companions...

 

[DrSpunj]

Ooops. Sorry ouini. Thanks for clearing up the his house rule. It's still broken/unneeded but it's not *quite* as bad as I thought it was.

Everyone has posted great thoughts, and I admit, mikebr99, this is a very artificial situation. But doesn't it just seem a little odd that a typical (and by that I mean medium-to-heavily armored) fighter really has little or no chance to interrupt a mage with a melee weapon that he's standing next to? I have to say a reach weapon keeps the mage from running away (or taking a 5' step) but he's just as likely to stay right next to you (if he's playing smart) where you don't threaten him (because he's within 5').

I don't think this issue is one that deserves much critical thinking in most games, nor is it one that severely imbalances 3E overall. But it is "the issue" for one of the players in my game (who's playing a Psychic Warrior with Speed of Thought and Burst as a Talent and his only armor is Inertial, so many of the movement issues with him are moot and he *still* can't interrupt most of the time because he can't easily maneuver into a position where a readied attack is a viable option) and this is the same player who DMs one of our other campaigns.

Anyway, I really do appreciate everyone's posts. They are all excellent strategies to use to stop a mage from casting outright or to interrupt his casting when he tries. If we make any changes I think they will be small ones as this isn't a huge problem for anyone but this one player and I don't want to "use a sledge to nail a fly" as ouini put it.

Thanks all!

DrSpunj

 

[ogre]

Instead of a partial charge, why not ready a partial run to close on the mage and then get an AoO when he casts. In the above examples the mage would move 30' while the heavy fighter would move 40'.