Thwarting Mord's Disjunction with Contingency

[Crust]

Hey, folks. One of my players wants to use contingency in an attempt to thwart any casting or use of Mord's disjunction on him. The idea is that should a Mord's disjunction be cast at his wizard, a contingency/antimagic field will spring into being before the Mord's disjunction takes effect.

It's my understanding that contingency only takes effect after something happens, and after a disjunction, there's no magic. The contingency would be wiped before it could manifest.

I suggested that he could use contingency/antimagic field only if he's able to identify the oncoming casting with a spellcraft check (assuming he can detect the caster somehow). If he knows the spell is coming, it wouldn't take much to take an immediate action to wink or wiggle his nose, bringing up the antimagic field before the disjunction is cast, forcing a caster level check on his opponent (1% per caster level is low).

What do you folks think?

 

[Vegepygmy]

The idea is that should a Mord's disjunction be cast at his wizard, a contingency/antimagic field will spring into being before the Mord's disjunction takes effect.

It's my understanding that contingency only takes effect after something happens...

In this case, it's taking effect after the disjunction is cast at his wizard--just before it takes effect. No problem there, IMO.

A contigent spell's trigger can easily be phrased so as to interrupt another effect. I see no problem with what your player wants to do.

(Also, there are a whole host of problems with your proposed "make a Spellcraft check" rule, but I won't get into all that.)

 

[Crust]

I'm not sure I'm following you.

It's my understanding that in the natural order of things, the Mord's spell is cast, which instantaneously settles over the wizard with his contingency hanging... immediately dispelling the contingency before the antimagic field could spring into being.

I don't see how contingency somehow acts before the disjunction that has already been cast. If that disjunction is cast, and the target wizard stands there, isn't aware of the casting, is doing other things, casting spells, etc., then the contingency is gone, making the antimagic field as irrelevant as John Conner had the Terminator succeeded in the first movie.

Maybe I'm just explaining myself poorly. I already know how I'm going to handle it. I'm just wondering how crazy I am.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

It would interrupt the casting of the Disjunction, just as readied actions interrupt the action that triggers them. Also, how attacks of opportunity work. If a foe moves out of your threatened space and you take your AoO, your attack is resolved BEFORE they leave that square, even though leaving the sqaure is what triggered the AoO in the first place. Similarly, the AoO gained against a prone foe for standing up occurs before he is up, or at least fully up, as you still receive the +4 prone bonus to your melee attack. (While that may seem really nasty, the alternative is the AoO would happen after they stand and you could then use the AoO to trip them AGAIN! )

 

[Crust]

And yet the person making that AoO is aware and reacts accordingly. If the caster of the contingency is not aware, how will the contingency itself be aware of the oncoming disjunction? The contingency, as it stands now, is not set to react until it is hit with the disjunction, which will destroy the contingency and nullify the antimagic field contained within the contingency.

A car's airbag only deploys after the impact. The airbag does not interupt the collision, does it?

Should a sleeping wizard expect a contingency/stoneskin to spring into being JUST before that orc arrow strikes his flesh, allowing the DR? It's my understanding that the contingency springs into effect only after the prescribed situation occurs. It's cause and effect, not cause/go back before cause/effect.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

The spell doesn't rely on the wizard's senses at all. That's part of the point of the spell. Some like ot debate just how "all knowing" the spell can be allowed to be. But no where in the contingency description does it state that it's using the wizard's senses or is even being cast by the wizard.

Contingency :: d20srd.org

"The spell to be brought into effect by the contingency..."
"In all cases, the contingency immediately brings into effect the companion spell, the latter being “cast” instantaneously when the prescribed circumstances occur." (and yes, I felt it important to bold the quotation marks )
"The companion spell occurs based solely on the stated conditions, regardless of whether you want it to."

What can we conclude? 1)The companion spell is being "brought into effect" by the contingency spell; and 2) Not only is the caster not casting the spell, not only is he not choosing WHEN it is to be cast (aside from the pre-determined conditions to trigger it), he can't event prevent the contingency from "casting" the companion spell if he doesn't want it to trigger right then!

 

[Crust]

Right, "instantaneously when the prescribed circumstances occur." However, when the "prescribed circumstance" that "occurs" is a Mord's disjunction, how will the contingency survive to release the antimagic field?

This is simple chronological logic here: 1. Disjunction is cast. 2. Disjunction strikes the wizard with contingency cast. 3. Mord's nullifies all spells on the wizard, including his contingency. 4. The antimagic field is gone, as the contingency holding it has just been disjoined. Folks, the antimagic field must be up BEFORE the Mord's disjunction hits. If the contingency holding the antimagic field is disjoined, the antimagic field is gone.

Of course the contingency doesn't rely on the wizard's senses, unless the contingency springs into being with an immediate action finger snap or wink upon sighting the casting of the disjunction. Therefore, in my interpretation (as the spell itself doesn't cover all situations), the only "sense" that the contingency has is touch, and when the contingency is touched by a Mord's disjunction, the contingency is killed before the antimagic can manifest.

I have the PHB 3.5, I've read the spell, but that spell description doesn't take into account whether or not contingency can survive a Mord's disjunction. No spell survives a Mord's disjunction, and therefore, through simple logic, contingency is killed FIRST, making the antimagic field contained within it irrelevant.

Like I mentioned above, if the Terminator (disjunction) had killed Sarah Connor (contingency), then John Connor (antimagic field) would never have existed.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Remember also that the Anti-Magic field spell is 6th level for a wizard, and therefore to cast it as a Contingency, the caster must be at least 18th level and could also cast his own Disjunction. However, I have used Contingency similarly to what the player wants to do, only not with Disjunction.

However, Contingency also says that the spell must affect the caster as a person, and I don't know if Anti-Magic Field qualifies as affecting the caster personally. Teleport is a common Contingency spell and it has a Target of You (and touched object & other willing creatures)... similarly, Dimension Door.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Where are you getting this "touched" nonsense from? As long as the player carefully words the trigger to be when a mord's disjunction is cast and aimed at an area including him, why can't it disrupt the casting like a readied action or AoO? I feel like you're beyond convincing, though... In any case, if you cant use contingency-antimagic field to stop disjunction in any way, the caster should know how his own spells work and be aware of that. Tell him upfront, don't "surprise" him later...

Jeff: It's an emanation centered on you, moves with you, and cannot be centered on anyone else. I'm pretty sure you can use it for contingency, though you would need to be CL 18. Those other suggestions are of course fine and would need a lower CL. However, the OP seems to be convinced that the contingency must be "touched" by the trigger spell, in this case disjunction, to come into effect. As long as he holds onto that ruling, there is NO spell or well-worded trigger statement that will allow contingency to save the mage from getting hit with disjunction. If the disjunction hits first, it gets rid of the contingency anyway. So we should stop wasting our time banging our heads against a wall trying to think of ways to use contingency against disjunction.

 

[Crust]

The caster of a 6th contingency spell cannot state, "Whenever someone targets me with a spell" and expect his contingency to fire. I've never taken the spell description that way. There's no way for the contingency, by itself, to identify when someone is targeting the protected wizard with a spell. No matter how carefully or slowly the contingency is stated, the contingency itself is effectively blind and deaf to the outside world, and would not be able to react to a foe targeting, looking at, or gesturing rudely at the protected wizard. The effect has to hit the wizard first before the contingency acts. Yes, everything is instantaneous and immediate, but the fact remains that one thing happens before the other. There's no way around cause and effect.

However, the wizard protected by the contingency is, hopefully, not blind and deaf. If that wizard spots the wizard using disjunction and is able to identify the oncoming spell as a disjunction, then an immediate action snap of the fingers, click of the teeth, wink of the eye, etc. would activate the contingency, raising the antimagic field and allowing protection before the disjunction is cast.

Consider contingent resurrection. The caster has to die first before the resurrection is cast. Contingent resurrection ultimately saves the caster from death, but it doesn't stop death from occurring. By the same logic, contingency couldn't stop the disruption from occurring, and once disruption occurs, the contingency is nullified, and the antimagic field contained within is gone. There' no way 6th level contingency could somehow alter reality and get the jump on a disjunction that's already been cast.

Oh, and the wizard in question will definitely know how I'm going to run things.