Reserve Feat - Dimensional Reach

[Greenfield]

In D&D 3.5 there is a set of Feats called reserve Feats. I believe that they're found in Complete Mage.

I know I'm belaboring the obvious for many here, but for those unfamiliar:

DIMENSIONAL REACH [RESERVE]
You can transport small objects to you with an act of will.
Prerequisite: Ability to cast 3rd-level spells.
Benefi t: As long as you have a conjuration (summoning) spell of 3rd level higher available to cast, you can transport small items directly into your hand as a standard action. You must have line of sight to an item you wish to transport in this way, and it must be unattended. This ability works at a range of up to 5 feet per level of the highest-level summoning spell you have available to cast, and the item can weigh up to 2 pounds per level of that spell.
As a secondary benefit, you gain a +1 competence bonus to your caster level when casting conjuration (summoning) spells.

So here's my question: Presume an opponent is firing a projectile at a character who has this Feat, and who has a Ready Action. Can that character use Dimensional Reach to snatch that projectile out of the air?

At that moment, between when it's released and when it strikes, it's "unattended". And Ready Action specifically says that it can be used to interrupt someone elses action.

On the pro side, it does take the character's entire Standard Action to pull this trick, and if the opponent can fire/throw more than one attack a round, the secondary (and perhaps tertiary) attacks will come through normally.

On the con side, it seems to be slicing the rules so thinly that it borders on abusive.

(Note, technically, one could use a Readied action to wait unti an attack, melee or missile, was in progress, then move away so the attack is aimed at empty space. It's legal, but very abusive IMHO.)

Now to be clear, I'm currently running a Wiz who has this feat, so this is definitely being asked from a player's point of view.

Beyong what's technically legal, if you were the DM would you consider it abusive?

 

[Dandu]

That sounds reasonable, though we must now deal with the question of whether teleportation affects momentum or not...

 

[Celebrim]

Anything that isn't forbidden by the rules, should be treated as allowed. As a DM I would rule that this is a thing, but that - since a fast moving object is difficult to react to - that this is a stunt, and you'd have to pull of a check of some sort to perform it successfully. I would accept either a DC 15 combat maneuver check, or a DC 15 sleight of hand check to perform the stunt. However, to be honest, I'd not necessarily be doing this as a matter of balance, since it would still be reasonably balanced even without the stunt. I'd be doing this as a matter of realism (pulling a sling bullet or arrow travelling 200mph with a reaction out of the air would not be easy), and as a matter of protecting skill silos (one class can't be good at everything, and this interferes with the schtick of other classes).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'd allow it.

It only lets the caster snag a single projectile that he is aware of.

Multiple projectiles or those fired from ambush are not going to be affected.

 

[Greenfield]

D&D has a weakness in the area of motion. There are no penalties for shooting at moving targets, and there are no rules for collisions. Falling damage is well documented, but slamming into a Wall of Force at high speed has no documented way to assess damage.

By the same token, there aren't any movement modifiers if you try to take advantage of an AoO to Grapple someone moving through a threatened area at high speed. Walking at normal speed (30) or riding by on a horse at full gallop (300) are the same as grappling someone who is just standing there.

So I'm not sure how to figure out what modifier should be used to magically grab a moving arrow. There aren't any "Moving Target" rules for anything else in the game, it would be pretty arbitrary to try to impose some for this and this alone.

If I had to invent a rule, as a DM, I'd probably base it on a Spot check. "Combat Maneuver" check is kind of vague in that different combat maneuvers use different checks. (Grapple uses BAB plus STR, while Trip uses just Dex or STR, and all of them count size.) You could use Grab, but that's an opposed check and the small size of the tiny size of the missile would give it such penalties that the caster would wiin almost automatically. As for timing in general, Ready Action gives you the speed to interrupt things like a Fireball in mid flight, and that's supposedly "Instantaneous" (Improved Counterspell). Spot doesn't have speed modifiers either, but it does have distance and size modifiers which would apply. And Spot is cross-class for arcane casters who might have this Feat, so it can be something of a challenge.

The missile has to be small and light, and it has to be pretty close to the caster: The Feat has a range of five feet per level of the spell used to power it. That's 15 feet for a 3rd level spell (minimum spell needed to use the feat), or 20 feet for a 4th level spell. If object speed were a factor that's pretty last-minute on an incoming arrow or sling bullet.

Not so much if it's being used to protect someone else.

Odd tangent: This Feat says it teleports the target object into the caster's hand. That hand could be under a cloak or inside a bag or pocket. The object needs to be visible, so you need a clear line between the object and the caster's eye, but not between the object and the caster's hand.

 

[Greenfield]

Interesting thought: Some spell effects have physical manifestations.

Melf's Acid Arrow would be an example. While there is no "arrow" left after the spell is done, there is one in there someplace.

Similarly, Firebal sends a pea sized bead, which detonates at the specified target zone, or if it strikes something on the way to that target zone.

Clearly Conjuration/Creation spells create an "object" of some sort. Does the Fireball's bead count? It's an Evocation spell.

And do these do their damage if they're caught instead of striking an object or reaching their target zone?

Would a Monk's ability to catch missiles apply to things like these?

I have no intention of trying to have my PC grab Fireballs out of the air, of course. It would be suicide, with his hit points, and there's no way to rationalize a successful "duck and cover" type save in that situation.

I'm just curious how you would rule/play that.

 

[Dandu]

Deflect Arrows [General]
Prerequisites
Dex 13, Improved Unarmed Strike.

Benefit
You must have at least one hand free (holding nothing) to use this feat. Once per round when you would normally be hit with a ranged weapon, you may deflect it so that you take no damage from it. You must be aware of the attack and not flat-footed.

Attempting to deflect a ranged weapon doesn’t count as an action. Unusually massive ranged weapons and ranged attacks generated by spell effects can’t be deflected.

Special
A monk may select Deflect Arrows as a bonus feat at 2nd level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites.

A fighter may select Deflect Arrows as one of his fighter bonus feats.

I think it only applies to actual weapons. And arguably weapon-like spells. But definitely not Fireball.

 

[Celebrim]

Interesting thought: Some spell effects have physical manifestations.

Melf's Acid Arrow would be an example. While there is no "arrow" left after the spell is done, there is one in there someplace.

Similarly, Firebal sends a pea sized bead, which detonates at the specified target zone, or if it strikes something on the way to that target zone...

I'm just curious how you would rule/play that.

I would rule that spell effects travel twice as fast as arrows, and the DC to snatch them is correspondingly higher (DC 20). However, if there was a physical manifestation, such as the bead of a fireball, I'd allow it to be done.

The result of a successful snatch would be that you'd be the new target of the spell. Fireball beads would burst on impact with your hand. I ad hoc rule a circumstance penalty on the saving throw, as you'd basically willingly put yourself at ground zero rather than trying to leap out of the way. I'd probably also ad hoc an injury to hand in the event of a failed saving throw, crippling use of the hand in roughly the same way caltrop damage cripples use of the foot.

And again, clearly there is no balance reason for my 'stunt check', as grabbing a spell out of the air would almost always be as you put it 'suicidal' and so the circumstances of doing it are always dramatic and almost always cool enough that 'rule of cool' would apply. But again, I very much run a game where 'skills matter', that is loosely intuitive and realistic, and where skill monkey's ability to pull off stunts reliably is really part of their class abilities. So a stunt check is called for because intuitively, doing that is much harder than grabbing a stationary object, and intuitively, this is using the ability in a non-standard manner outside the explicit rules which is what 'stunts' are. But naturally, if your table runs differently and if you tend to be a RAW sort of DM, the stunt check should be foregone, though I think even for a RAW DM the rest of the rulings regarding being the new target of the spell and forgoing a save (or at least receiving a large penalty) are reasonable conclusions of the text.

 

[Celebrim]

I think it only applies to actual weapons. And arguably weapon-like spells. But definitely not Fireball.

I generally agree with you, but I would allow a character with the Deflect Arrows feat to attempt to block the bead of a fireball if the bead passed through their threat zone as a stunt - making some sort of roll against a DC to do something not explicitly allowed by the rules but reasonable for the fictional situation.

The big difference of course of blocking the bead of a fireball would be its detonation at that point rather than a miss by the missile weapon. Similarly, while I would potentially allow a character with the Deflect Arrows feat to block a ballista bolt that was passing through their threat zone, the result of this would only be that the ballista bolt did not impact its intended target, but instead did its damage to the character that intercepted it. In my opinion, and granted I'm a very flexible DM, that ruling does not violate the Rules As Written, because such interceptions do not count for the purposes of the rules as 'deflection', since the text clearly states that to deflect something is synonymous with 'that you take no damage from it.' Thus, even with my ruling, I did not actually violate the text of the feat that says, "Unusually massive ranged weapons and ranged attacks generated by spell effects can’t be deflected." They can't be deflected, and they weren't. The player just performed what I thought was a reasonable stunt to change the intended target of the massive ranged weapon or spell effect, and the rules don't forbid this. (They don't allow it either, but I consider that something of far less importance.)

I also note that in the case of the reserve feat, the exact text of Deflect Arrows doesn't necessarily apply anyway, since Deflect Arrows would at best be a guide for how a stunt the improvised deflection of a missile weapon would work.

 

[Greenfield]

I agree that the Monkish ability to deflect or catch arrows is specific to weapons.

The question was, do the manifested forms of those spells constitute "objects"? The feat, after all, doesn't say anything about weapons, just objects.

And to repeat, I have no intention of using this feat in any of the ways described, except for RP purposes. That is, I might do it to impress an attacker, as part of an Intimidate, but never in actual combat. And I wouldn't even ask to use it against a spell.

(Getting dropped by a Fireball doesn't impress anyone.)