Share Spells & cure (for familiars and animal companions)

[eamon]

The rules of the game about familiars addresses Share Spells (or it's variant for animal companions). It suggests that you can share spells, but certain effects only apply once, such as cure spells. The argument is that the spell might affect both master and familiar, but that the "conjuration" of more hit points doesn't generate more than a fixed total; so it doesn't apply twice; essentially, the article implies that share spells sort of works as if the familiar were part of the wizard - you can share invisibility with your rat familiar just as with your left hand, but healing yourself or conjuring temporary hit points with aid only applies these once (as with your left hand).

I can see how this makes in-game sense, but it's a tricky distinction. It would also imply, for instance, that many other spells should be shareable but not increase in total effect. Would that mean that alter self alters the combination of you and your familiar, or would that mean that alter self must alter your familiar into the same creature you are altered into? Or could you simply apply the spell's effects twice independently? If you can do so independently, if one of you is affected by a dispel magic effect and the alter self is lost, would that dispel the "other half" of the shared spell?

The rules of the game goes even further, suggesting that enhancements to ability scores aren't shared either - and I really don't see how bull strength is that different from blur or invisibility. For that matter, if the "familiar acts as if part of you" mental model is accurate, then ability enhancements should improve your familiar and you just as they also improve your left arm and your right.

I'm left questioning which part of the article makes in-game sense, and which part makes mechanical sense, and if there's any usable overlap. I'm leaning towards disregarding it and simply applying effects twice, as if cast twice (with the exception that the spell itself is still a single spell for the purpose of effects such as detect magic and dispel magic - only the effects are duplicated not the in-game physical spell).

What do you think?

 

[moritheil]

A lot of people have gone on record questioning that one.

 

[Hypersmurf]

What do you think?

I think the RotG article (and the section in Defenders of the Faith which says something similar) is talking bollocks, to be honest.

You cast the spell on yourself; it also affects the familiar. You cure yourself for 1d8+5; it also cures the familiar for 1d8+5.

"The caster and familiar each have their own ability scores, so a bonus to an ability score can't be shared"? The caster and familiar each have their own armor class as well... does this mean Skip wouldn't let you share a Mage Armor or Barkskin? They each have their own speed... does this mean he wouldn't let you share an Expeditious Retreat?

-Hyp.

 

[frankthedm]

Yeah, that RotG article sure seemed to be pulling things out of the Ǽther regions.

The bit on curing has to be split helps take a bit away from the druid, but saying stat buffs have to be split feels excessive. Especially since share spells stops working if the two are ever more than 5 feet apart, which happens as soon as one of them moves.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Yeah, that RotG article sure seemed to be pulling things out of the Ǽther regions.

Well, I think he was probably pulling things from Defenders of the Faith.

But as to where that came from, you seem to be onto something.

-Hyp.

 

[mvincent]

Yeah, that RotG article sure seemed to be pulling things out of the Ǽther regions.

Agreed. I'll just put that down as another rule option that the RotG (and other supplements) sometime present... albeit one which players will be unlikely to avail themselves of.

 

[eamon]

I guess I'll be friendly and call it an "intellectual exercise" then ;-). The straightforward, everything is duplicated interpretation is what I'll use.

The question of dispel magic remains though - if you share a spell, and you dispel only one "half", does that end the entire spell? I'm now leaning toward it not ending the entire spell but only it's effects given that that's what dispel does for mass- spells too.

 

[Hypersmurf]

... given that that's what dispel does for mass- spells too.

Is it?

Let's say you have a Desecrate spell, emanating from the centre of a room. You cast an Area Dispel Magic.

For each ongoing area or effect spell whose point of origin is within the area of the dispel magic spell, you can make a dispel check to dispel the spell.

For each ongoing spell whose area overlaps that of the dispel magic spell, you can make a dispel check to end the effect, but only within the overlapping area.

So if your area dispel includes the centre of the room, you might dispel the entire Desecrate, even if most of the spell is not in the dispel's area. But if the centre of the room (the point of origin for the emanation) is not in the dispel's area, you will only dispel that portion of the effect that overlaps.

But a Mass spell - let's say Mass Haste - does not have an area. It is a spell with targets.

Let's say we have three goblins - A, B, and C - who are all targets of a single Mass Haste spell.

We cast a targeted dispel magic at goblin A.

You make a dispel check (1d20 + your caster level, maximum +10) against the spell or against each ongoing spell currently in effect on the object or creature. The DC for this dispel check is 11 + the spell’s caster level. If you succeed on a particular check, that spell is dispelled; if you fail, that spell remains in effect.

How many ongoing spells are currently in effect on the creature? Just one - Mass Haste. We succeed on the check. What happens? The spell - Mass Haste - is dispelled. What happens when Mass Haste is dispelled? A dispelled spell ends as if its duration had expired.. What happens when Mass Haste's duration expires? Its targets are no longer hasted.

There is one spell targeting three goblins. By casting Dispel Magic on a creature who is the target of an ongoing spell, we can end that spell. So by casting Dispel Magic on one goblin, we end a spell - Mass Haste - which is targeting three goblins.

Similarly if we catch one or more of the goblins in an area dispel - we make a dispel check against a spell which is currently in effect on the creature. Since there are no other spells, it's guaranteed that the spell we'll be acting on will be Mass Haste - and if it's dispelled, the spell ends.

Spells are only partially dispelled in the case of overlapping areas, not in the case of ongoing spells targeting creatures.

-Hyp.

 

[eamon]

Yeah, dispel is a little fuzzy on it's exact mechanics. I initially leaned towards considering each spell a unique entity and as such one whole for the purposes of dispel magic.

However, dispel is pretty vague in it's concept; and doesn't address the issue explicitly. It says that "You can use dispel magic to end ongoing spells that have been cast on a creature or object", which, as far as I can read it, could go either way. One the one hand, it should dispel any spells cast on the creature, on the other hand, it's clearly focused on dispelling only those spells cast on the creature - and makes no suggestion that it's intended to have instantaneous effects across arbitrary distances and potentially on other planes!

Consider the situation in which a group has (only) mass bear's endurance cast upon them. An area effect dispel will allow a dispel check for each creature, meaning that it's possible to try multiple times to dispel the same spell, and that it's very likely you'll succeed in removing the effect from all creatures. That feels odd.

Then, Anti-magic aura suppresses spells brought into it's area (and indeed suppresses all other magical effects too). It's not a perfect analogy, but you'd expect suppression and dispelling to work similarly (except of course that suppression is only temporary) - and that would suggest that as soon as one group member enters an anti-magic field, the spell is suppressed, and thus ceases to affect all group members. Again, this poses an instant communication paradox, and is almost certainly unintentional.

Although it's only part of the initial overview, and then only part of the phrase listing area effect dispel, dispel's ability "to end ongoing spells (or at least their effects) within an area" indicates to me that the distinction between effects and spells isn't clearly made. Indeed, this imprecision exists more frequently, such as in the rules blurb for the monk's unarmed attack, which is considered a natural weapon for certain "spells and effects".

By only removing that part of the spell which is directly affected by dispel, you're also making the various variants of the spell seem more similar. Conceptually, if dispel is able to "root out" spells with multiple targets by affecting only one, why should it not by able to dispel an entire spell if only a small part of it is within its area? Only if the "origin" is affected is an area dispelled completely, and such an origin doesn't exist for a multi-target spell - so once again the analogy is imperfect.

I'm left with a fuzzy rule-set, and my motivation to lean towards considering separate target's of "mass" spells separately for the purposes of dispel and anti-magic is simplicity: I find dispel much easier to understand and use in play if its effect is straightforward - and merely dispelling those effects that are [on a creature or in an area] targeted by dispel magic is pretty intuitive.

 

[RangerWickett]

Mass Haste
-Hyp.

Mass haste isn't in 3.5.