Please rate Delay Spell

[smetzger]

Delay Spell [Metamagic]
REQ: Any other metamagic feat
A delayed spell doesn’t activate until 1-5 rounds after you finish casting it. You determine the delay when casting the spell, and it can not be changed once set. The spell activates just before your turn on the round you designate. Only area, personal, or touch spells may be affected by this feat. Any decisions you would make about the spell, including attack rolls, designating targets, or determining or shaping an area, are decided when the spell is cast. Any effects resolved by those affected by the spell, including saving throws, are decided when the spell triggers. If conditions change between casting and effect in such a fashion as to make the spell impossible - for example, the target you designate leaves the spell’s maximum range before it goes off - the spell fails. A delayed spell uses up a spell slot three levels higher than the spell’s actual level. Tome and Blood, pg 39.

 

[Hypersmurf]

At one level higher, I can see it being really useful for 1 round/level buffs in an ambush situation - maybe BST style.

Often by the time you've cast all the cool buffs, the first couple you cast have already used up half their duration... this would let you have them all come into effect in the round you're ready to go.

But at +3 levels? Forget it.

-Hyp.

 

[Skaros]

At one level higher, I can see it being really useful for 1 round/level buffs in an ambush situation - maybe BST style.

Often by the time you've cast all the cool buffs, the first couple you cast have already used up half their duration... this would let you have them all come into effect in the round you're ready to go.

But at +3 levels? Forget it.

-Hyp.

I'll second that. I followed that same line of reasoning. Useless feat.

-Skaros

 

[Janos Antero]

At best, this is a poor man's haste, and again at +3 its crap.

 

[Archer]

Who the heck votes average on useless feats like this? I don't see them posting that they voted average and why.

 

[Number47]

The only time I could see this being useful is in an espionage/assassin type of situation. Cast the spell when you can't be observed, then it goes off while you are (for example) in the King's Court. So, maybe 3 people in the world would find the cost worthwile. By the way, when you use this, where does the spell originate from? For instance, let's assume that you are invulnerable to fire. So you cast a Fireball on yourself, delayed, and walk into an area that you want it to go off. If you went into a sealed room, could you be out of line of effect from the point of origin?

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

I voted average

There are some uses for this metamagick feat, you just have to think cleverly-being an Incantrix always helps-too

One example off of the top of my head I can give is to cast a few Delayed area effect spell spells infront of a creature you bound within a Planar Binding spell, set to go off in 5 rounds certainly motivates the creature to accept your bargain, eh?

 

[Hypersmurf]

So you cast a Fireball on yourself...

Fireball doesn't have a Target, it has an Area.

If you were to cast it "on yourself" and then walk a hundred feet away, it would go off where you were when you cast it.

If you cast it "on the throne" from halfway down the red carpet, and then walked out the door and away, then thirty seconds later, the bead would appear halfway down the red carpet, streak over to the throne, and blossom into a fireball etc etc.

If someone were callous enough to erect a tower shield on the carpet between when you cast the spell and when it "activated", then the bead would hit the shield and detonate short.

----

What I'm confused about is the whole "selection of targets" and "maximum range" bit.

If you're limited to area, personal, or touch spells... well, area spells don't have targets, and obviously a personal spell can't be "out of range". That only leaves touch spells. So if the target is out of maximum range - ie, touch - when the spell triggers, the spell fails.

What!?

-Hyp.

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

Touch spells effect the caster, and last as long as they are held.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Touch spells effect the caster, and last as long as they are held.

But it says you have to choose your target and make any attack rolls when you first cast the spell. Inflict Light Wounds has a target of "creature touched" and requires an attack roll, and its range is touch.

So when you cast, you have to select your target - the creature - and make your attack roll. Three rounds later, if he's beyond the spell's maximum range - touch - nothing happens.

-Hyp.