Nasty trick - will it work?

[Arc]

Well, since the wall spell is cast immediately after the fireball/whatever, the caster can't retarget it. From my views, the sorceror in question would cast his fireball at his target, and then have the wall come in and prematurely detonate the fireball.

Another question in this hypothetical situation: If the sorc casts a spell that's a projectile, but line of sight required, and suddenly that line of sight is blocked, what happens? For example, the sorc lets off a magic missle, and a wall appears, blocking the view (and the path of the target). A MM will ignore concealment, but can it go around a bloody wall?

 

[Caliban]

Don't do it with a wall spell. Do it with a Web spell centered directly on the caster, which gives him a full cover in all directions. No matter where he sends the fireball, it will hit the webs and blow up, doing and extra 2d4 fire damage as the webs burn.

 

[Darklone]

Even better idea would be to cast the gas cloud from Rituals&Relics on him for another level * d6 damage... and it works against lightning bolts and other fireball spells as well.

 

[Bauglir]

I believe readied actions go off before the trigger action.

I'm not 100% certain though.

Hyp?

 

[Darklone]

I believe readied actions go off before the trigger action.

I'm not 100% certain though.

Hyp?

Yes, readied actions go off before the trigger action. In case this forbids the action that caused the readied action to occur, the dude loses his turn. E.g. you can't decide to cast another spell as the sorcerer with the fireball in this case. Otherwise...

DM: "Your opponent sets his polearm."
PC: "I charge and whack him with my greataxe!"
DM: "As you enter field blabla, he hits you with his polearm with his readied attack and trips you. Thanks to Improved Trip... "

Bad case:
DM: "Your opponent readies his polearm."
PC: "Waah, he readied. I pull out my Xbow and shoot him!"

Simple question: Do you see whether your opponent readied an action or not? I usually say no, cause otherwise all my players would find good reasons for metagaming

 

[Vaxalon]

Bad case:
DM: "Your opponent readies his polearm."
PC: "Waah, he readied. I pull out my Xbow and shoot him!"

Simple question: Do you see whether your opponent readied an action or not? I usually say no, cause otherwise all my players would find good reasons for metagaming

Yes, of course, though they don't always know exactly WHAT the readied action is.

In the case of a spellcaster who has readied an action in response to spellcasting, I would tell the player that the enemy had readied a spell, but not what spell it was, and not what circumstances would trigger the readied action.

In the case of the man with the readied polearm, the circumstances are clear.

 

[kirinke]

in which rangers and rouges come into their own

in which rangers and rougues come into their own:
bad-guy Sorcerer readies fire-ball.
good-guy wizard readies wall of force and in the previous round casts blink on ranger and rougue
rangers and rougue begin to pepper and annoy bad-guy wizard with arrows, rocks and whatever else they can throw at him/her/it, distracting him from the wizard casting the wall of force.
wall of force goes up. sorcerer casts fire-ball at wall of force protected wizard.
i'm rubber you're glue, now you're a chicken mcnugget.

 

[Philip]

This is not a case of interrupting the casting of a spell, but interrupting the effect of a spell. The Sorcerer has already cast the fireball, his action is probably over for that round.

This assumes you have a window of opportunity between the casting of the spell and the spell's effect, and this window of opportunity is enough to cast a readied spell yourself (wall of stone in this case).

It would be a bit like moving out of the Red Dragon's cone of fiery breath while the fire it is actually coming at you.

If you even allow such a thing (which is not provided for in the rules), I would let the interrupting caster make some kind of check (Dex check probably) to see if he can pull it off at exactly the right time.

It is allowed by the rules to finish your casting before your target finishes his, in this case probably causing the Sorcerer to give up his fireball or target it somewhere else.

 

[WizarDru]

This is not a case of interrupting the casting of a spell, but interrupting the effect of a spell. The Sorcerer has already cast the fireball, his action is probably over for that round.

Actually it depends:

According to the SRD:

Readying an Action: You can ready a standard action, a move action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, any time before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character’s activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action.

Distracting Spellcasters: You can ready an attack against a spellcaster with the trigger “if she starts casting a spell.” If you damage the spellcaster, she may lose the spell she was trying to cast (as determined by her Concentration check result).

Readying to Counterspell: You may ready a counterspell against a spellcaster (often with the trigger “if she starts casting a spell”). In this case, when the spellcaster starts a spell, you get a chance to identify it with a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell level). If you do, and if you can cast that same spell (are able to cast it and have it prepared, if you prepare spells), you can cast the spell as a counterspell and automatically ruin the other spellcaster’s spell .

The timing effects are going to be based on the readied action, but in neither case will the effect be the one desired, unless the fireball caster is completely ignorant of the wall of force and the enemy caster.

Situation 1: "I ready to cast a wall spell if he starts casting a spell."
You see him cast, you cast the wall as he's casting, and complete your spell before he does. If he can see you, he can make a Spellcraft roll to identify what spell you're casting, if it's not obvious after you've finished.

Unless it's a wall of force, he's lost his line of sight to the target, which is chosen when the spell is completed. He is under no obligation to stay with the now unreachable target. Of course, if you've boxed him in, he may have no good choice, which is a different issue entirely (since you said 'in front of' not 'around').

You are either interrupting his spell, which means that you can't fool him into casting a fireball into a wall that wasn't there when he started, or you are waiting until he's finished, in which case the fireball is already in the air and flying by the time you're wall comes into place.

It's a cute trick, but it's not infallible, and unless the sorceror's stuck in a corner, not likely to work as effecitvely as you might hope.

 

[KarinsDad]

I do not understand all of the discussion on this.

1) Fireballs detonate prematurely if they hit a solid surface.

2) Readied actions go off before the action which triggered them.

3) You select all of the spells parameters (point of detonation, direction, etc.) when the spell comes into effect (i.e. when you cast it for standard action spells).

4) Fireball explicitly does not require line of effect (otherwise, it would not detonate prematurely).

5) There is no ability to change any aspect of your action if it is interrupted by a readied action. You do not get to choose a new target or somesuch since you already have started your action. There is no window of opportunity between the readied action and the occurring action that triggered it, they basically occur simultaneously, the readied action just wins out a fraction of an instant before the action that triggered it. The only exception to this is for spells that take a full round to cast (or a single attack where the attacker can choose after seeing the result to do a full round attack). In that case, there is a window of opportunity (unless maybe the caster readying the action declares a trigger of casting his spell when the other one round spell finishes or nearly finishes, if he makes a spell craft roll, he knows enough about the spell to do that) because the spell is not a standard action spell.

To elaborate on this, read the final paragraph under Casting Time on page 174 of the PHB (3.5). All pertinent decisions are made when the spell comes into effect.

Yes, this is true. But, the reason for this is due to one round spells where your target might move away. It is not to prevent a readied action from disrupting the spell.


Fireball is cast. Wall of Stone goes up in front of it. Boom. Toasty Sorcerer every time.

This tactic is also good against all other spell that have a line of effect or a target (other than the caster) because it prevents them from targeting and result in the spell being lost.