Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="two" data-source="post: 1988864" data-attributes="member: 9002">FIRST:  ConfusionArgh. 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'CantripI 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 uselessI 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).</blockquote>

Verification