My @!@#! Player abusing Feather Fall

[JRRNeiklot]

Bah, just let him do it, and hit him with about 40 arrows from hidden archers on a rooftop or something. He'll get the message.

 

[S'mon]

It seems like a legit tactic; deliberately provoking an attack on himself. Certainly not anything for the GM to get annoyed about, as GM I'd have no problem with it. As GM you're at liberty to rule that free actions can't be interrupted by readied actions - makes sense to me, it makes Quickened spells more powerful but that's not necessarily bad. And as has been said, if the Readiers realise what's happening they can choose not to discharge their action. Overall my impression is that it's a sign you're using Readied actions to much; your GMing is too predictable - if your NPCs weren't constantly Readied this situation wouldn't arise.

 

[gfunk]

It seems like a legit tactic; deliberately provoking an attack on himself. Certainly not anything for the GM to get annoyed about, as GM I'd have no problem with it. As GM you're at liberty to rule that free actions can't be interrupted by readied actions - makes sense to me, it makes Quickened spells more powerful but that's not necessarily bad. And as has been said, if the Readiers realise what's happening they can choose not to discharge their action. Overall my impression is that it's a sign you're using Readied actions to much; your GMing is too predictable - if your NPCs weren't constantly Readied this situation wouldn't arise.

An excellent summary of some of the better points that have been raised in this thread.

 

[Plane Sailing]

To the GM that has NEVER had an archer, even once in their campaign, "ready" a shot vs. a spellcaster -- that statement pretty much tells me all I need to know. It's like saying "oh, I've never had a monster take an AOO vs. a PC" or "I've never thrown a spellcaster against a party of PCs". It seems clear to me that the game is less fun and less interesting if you remove obvious tactical ploys like "readying" a spell interrupt action, which can be very effective. "can be." Scare quotes. Given my situation.

For the reasons I explained, no archers have every thought it worthwhile, although there are a couple of situations where it might be conceivably useful. I'm astonished that you would rank this alongside "never take an AoO against a PC" or "never used a spellcaster against a party", and furthermore that you divine that my game is less fun or less interesting.

The clarity of your vision is somewhat less than you might think it is.

There are a number of related issues here. Those that say casually "oh I never bother having an archer ready a shot; the wizard just will see it and get cover and then cast a spell." That assumes a bunch of stuff, most importantly: that it's OBVIOUS when somebody is readying an action. This is not covered in the rules.

It is covered in the DMG. I don't have it to hand, but I seem to recall it being about p16-17 or thereabouts. It is quite clear (I even quoted it a couple of days ago in another thread). The DM is encouraged to use consistent descriptive language to help the players judge what is going on.

Like so much of the rules this is optional guidance which you can choose to use, or you can choose not to use. In your original post you are requesting solutions to a percieved problem. If there are solutions or information that you personally don't think are going to be useful in your circumstance you should either ignore them or politely decline, rather than denigrate other peoples playing styles.

Regards,

 

[two]

Wow, what a thread.

The spell in question was mis-leveled. Cantrips should never be free actions. Quickened spells cannot be interrupted with readied actions and they don't draw AOO's either. Altamont Ravenard already quoted the relevant section from the SRD way back on the first page. Even if I allowed quicked actions to be interrupted by readied actions, I still wouldn't have a problem with this. I would even reward it by allowing it to work against many dumb mooks. Why not? It's kinda fun. (I will taunt you a second time.) There are plenty of ways for commoners to sometimes disrupt spells. Grappling works fine. I readily admit that there is a certain amount of appeal in commoner mooks hanging back trying to ready to disrupt, but it isn't realistic past a certain point. They might try the tactic, but they will still die a quick death. For me, the key is that the tactic will work often. But sooner or later, it won't. Maybe the PC draws fire but ends up with a crit instead of a normal hit. Oops. Maybe the sniper isn't a mook but is an arcane archer. Sure, in that case the arcane archer would be much better off going full attack on the spellcaster. But maybe the arcance archer is working for the BBEG and his instructions are "ready an attack on anyone that tries to interrupt my soliloquy." The point is that this tactic is hardly foolproof. It's a nifty idea.

But the fact of the matter is that it doesn't work. Quickened actions cannto be interrupted like that. Explain to the player that both of you have been playing it wrong.

FIRST: Confusion

Argh. Now I'm confused again.

I can accept that quickened actions can't be interrupted by readied actions. Nor do quickened spells draw Aoo's.

That doesn't answer the question as to whether a quickened spell "triggers" a "spell interruprt readied action."

After all, casting Feather Fall IS casting a spell. It can't be interrupted; your arrows fly with no effect. That's irrelevant.

Unless you have a very tricky readied action, such as "I shoot 'em as soon as he casts a spell that lasts longer than 2 seconds" or something like that. Simply "ready a shot on a spell" would be triggered by Feather Fall. I don't see anything in the rules that contradicts this. It's unfortunate -- because FF can't be interrupted, after all -- but there you go. If I'm wrong please let me know.

SECOND point: Power o'de'Cantrip

I don't think the cantrip was misleveled at all. Except for this very obscure use, which Player X had in mind when creating the cantrip, it's totally fine. I mean, c'mon. It's a free action spell that has NO MECHANICAL EFFECT at all. If Feather Fall is 1st level (and it's free action, actually, better than free action, it can be cast out of initiative count) and has a significant mechanical effect, what was I supposed to do? Say "ok, still, your cantrip idea is still 1st level spell even though it doesn't do anything?" No. It's a cantrip. And with 99.999% of the players out there, the cantrip wouldn't be overpowered in the slightest. It would be used to start bar fights, or to punctuate diplomacy gone bad. Unfortunately, my player is the .001%.

Did I just therefore argue that the cantrip WAS mislevelled because of the obscure use it could be made to have (forcing a mechanical effect, by triggering readied actions)? I did and I didn't. If a spell is ok 99.9999% of the time it's generally considered "balanced," right? It's not unike certain other spells too powerful for their level (silence, magic missile); we just have learned to live with them. If so, then, why did I remove the cantrip from play? Because I felt he "tricked" me; he didn't tell me what he was really designing the spell for. If he had, I would have considered it more seriously.

THIRD point: Claims of Readied Actions being useless

I play low to mid-level D&D. Sometimes higher (10+) but rarely. I commented in a previous post about a high level archer doing 25 points per shot. That's not typical at all for my campaigns at all, as I stated.

Much more common is Fighter4 archer, with PBshot, Rapid Shot, +3 mighty bow. Maybe not even WSpec. Doing maybe 7-10 damage per arrow shot. Maybe less, maybe a little more.

Typically, my battles dont' have a lot of "ambush" going on, unless the PC's have scouted extensively.

A fighter4 doing a "full attack" using rapid shot is at -2 for all shots of course, and even if both arrows manage to hit, it's unlikely to kill even a wizard 4 (unless he's totally wimpy with constitution). Much less a wizard6, which would be a more typical bad guy archer/good guy wizard level range. Plus, the fighter archer may have to move that round simply to get into position. SO the question often is:

1) Should I move and shoot an arrow, possibly hurting the wizard, or move and ready an action, possibly stopping the wizard from casting a spell which can screw us royally?

2) Should I stay put and (if I have a clear shot) full attack? The extra attack might do more damage...

The trade off here is an extra attack (giving both attacks -2 to hit), vs. the chance of stopping the enemy wizard's spell going off, thus stopping the wizard's action cold. Meaning, I trade -2 to 2 attacks and an extra attack for the wizard's standard action. That's a good bargain for a mook archer -- any day of the week. (even figuring in to-hit rolls required, concentration checks required, etc.). It's not a given at all. But, the archer has a shot at doing something very effective.

Now, this changes a bit when you are talking about tricked out Archers at level 9 or whatever. They are better off probably just full attacking the wizard if the wizard is in range. If they have to move, they are still better off moving/readying an action.

At high levels, the archer15 is always better off just full attacking probably. With a lucky crit, you might be able to take out the wizard in one round. Again, if the archer has to move, the archer still should ready a shot vs. an obvious spellcaster. The damage done by an archer15 could be in the 25-30 range, enough to force a very scary concentration check.

I'm not talking about readying "shoot" actions at levels above 10 usually. When you want to ready something at those levels, you use the "silence" spell. Far more effective.

In addition, to repeat, it's not always arrows. I do grapple, use alchemist's fire, have goblins chucking spears, hand axes, throw tanglefoot bags, nets... I don't suffer from a lack of understanding regarding how to hinder spell casters.

I was just a little shocked by this tactic, I suppose.

And also, please: the PC is having his fun. He's using the FeatherFall idea once in a while to good effect. I have not stopped him; although I did take away the cantrip.

[defensive rant]
I feel somewhat defensive at this point; I don't think I'm an ogre regards the cantrip; I don't think I'm being repetitive in the campaign regarding tactics or battles; I don't think my players object to intelligent creatures attempting to target #1 dangerous priorities in various sneaky though legal ways.
[/defensive rant]

OK. Rant over. Feel better now.

I guess I'll just let him use his Feather Fall tactic. It's not a bad trade off (1st level spell for a readied action). Now, the question is, can you scribe FeatherFall onto a scroll? Pull out scroll of FeatherFall, read it, trigger action, drop scroll, cast spell you actually care about. Not bad for 25 gp. (this assumes you don't need to move that round or dont' have a special belt-o-remove-scrolls-as-free-acton).

 

[KarinsDad]

I just have to ask... why didn't the druid consider casting defensively? I suppose he might have put no ranks at all into concentration (in which case it serves him right) but that would have been the best choice for healing the comerade - especially when facing the possibility of an AoO from a giant!

Probably because he was near full hit points and this 100% guaranteed that he would heal his fallen ally. Casting Defensively did not.

I do not exactly remember the entire situation since it was over 3 years ago, I just remember the tactic.

I do not fall into the camp of "if a tactic is legal means it is also not exploitive".

 

[cmanos]

Pretty smart. Now just load your archers with arrows of Wizard Slaying and let loose with the readied actions.

 

[smetzger]

But it is ok for the DM to meta-game the archers always targetting the player with readied actions if he casts a spell and there is nothing he can do to avoid it? I still say without spellcraft an NPC shouldn't know spell casting from yelling strange words and taking wierd poses etc. to draw thier fire.

Um, by the RAW spell casting is noticed as spells casting 100% of the time.

 

[sullivan]

Re: Power o'de'Cantrip

Before even the issue of assigning a level you have included a metamagic within the spell. Featherfall does this for purely D&D legacy reasons (there were ways around having the spell function as it does but most likely rejected for flavour reasons). It should not be done in new spells. He wants it speeded up? Then take Quicken and burn the appropriate spell slot. Otherwise he can create a free action magical item based on the 1 action casting version of the cantrip. Call it Glove of Defiance, that will do it at will with a free action finger motion. Pricy? Oh hell ya, but true style doesn't come cheap.

Re: When to Ready

Good rule of thumb is to take the sure shot, doubly so if they have more than one attack from a full attach. If I Readied the mages could bob and weave, duck and cover, pull out a magic item and roast me, etc. I'd have to be damn sure the mage will cast to ready on him. Especially when you are covering with a ranged weapon instead of face-to-face with melee since he do a full move and cast.

Heck, I don't even know if he has spell left to cast unless I was giving my GM knowledge to an NPC that shouldn't have it...which happens but to be fair shouldn't happen regularly. So it has to be a very senario specific situation where I'd Ready over taking the shot. If I was that worried about the mage casting i'd have someone with Dispel Magic sitting on him instead. Unless I'm doing some serious damage or he has a low Concentration (unlikely) odds are probably much better of a decent mage counterspelling.

Personally if I was a playing a spell caster at your table within a few sessions I'd be chuckling and screwing with your tactics best I could. [EDIT: And not even bothering with Featherfall, plenty of other room]. Karinsdad might think tactics such as intentionally drawing an AoO is in bad taste, but I've done it (or tried to) a number of times. Usually to damage soak to cover for another partymember. Of course it's a calculated risk as Combat Reflexes does exist....

Anyway to use a seasonal analogy, just like in football you almost always take the points you can instead of throwing them away for points you might get.

 

[KarinsDad]

Quickened spells cannot be interrupted with readied actions and they don't draw AOO's either

Actually, this is incorrect.

Quickened spells can be interrupted (interrupted, not necessarily disrupted) with readied actions. Read the appropriate readied action sections. Any action can be readied against and the readied action always goes before the completion of the triggering action.

However, quickened spells can still be cast even if the caster takes damage. The only thing the Concentration section states is that a Concentration roll is required to still get a 1 action (or greater) spell off if you take damage. Since quickened spells are not 1 action spells, this rule does not apply and hence, you do not have to roll a concentration check when damaged while casting a Quickened spell.

The rules also do not state exactly what happens if a quickened spell does gets interrupted. For example, what happens if someone readies an action to grapple the spellcaster if he casts a spell and he casts a quickened spell? The grapple occurs before the end of quickened spell, but can the grapple disrupt the spell? Possibly, possibly not. The rules are not clear. The "if an action wouldn't normally provoke an AoO, you need not make a Concentration check to avoid being distracted" rule implies not. The problem with this sentence is that it starts out with the phrase "in general". That means that that is the normal rule, but there can be exceptions.

What happens if the spell caster goes unconscious?

What happens if the spell caster is taking continuous damage?

What happens if the spell caster is grappled?


The 3.0 FAQ states that a quickened spell can be counterspelled normally. This indicates that anything that would disrupt a quickened spell (except normal damage which is already covered) can disrupt the spell.

This includes going unconscious, taking continuous damage, and grappling.

The 3.5 FAQ does not discuss it.


Both interpretations are pretty much valid according to the rules and the FAQ. So, it is up to individual DM adjudication.