Warlocks who steal summonings?

[Particle_Man]

IN complete mage there is a spell "STeal Summoning" which must be taken as an immediate action (Basically as soon as the target casts "Summon Bad Guy X" you cast "Steal Summoning" to get hte bad guy working for you instead.

Fine.

But.

The Warlock has an invocation that is a spell-like ability which does the same thing.

So, is this invocation a standard action (as per spell-like abilities) or an immediate action (as per the spell)? If the former, does one simply have to cast it as soon as one can, even after the summoned bad guy has done an action under the control of the original caster? Does a Warlock have to ready the Steal Summoning for if and when a caster summons something?

 

[MarkB]

A spell-like ability has a casting time of 1 standard action unless noted otherwise in the ability or spell description.

If the spell is an Immediate action, so is the invocation.

 

[Bad Paper]

I was under the impression that you cast it when you see someone summoning. Since summoning takes a full round, you're simply going about combat-as-usual until someone starts his summon spell. Then you cast your stealing spell. I don't have the Complete Mage, though; I just glanced through it at my FNGS last night, so I'm just going from memory.

That is, I think it would be a standard action, as all invocations are. Standard on the warlock's turn, during the casting of the summoning spell.

 

[RigaMortus2]

I was under the impression that you cast it when you see someone summoning. Since summoning takes a full round, you're simply going about combat-as-usual until someone starts his summon spell. Then you cast your stealing spell. I don't have the Complete Mage, though; I just glanced through it at my FNGS last night, so I'm just going from memory.

That is, I think it would be a standard action, as all invocations are. Standard on the warlock's turn, during the casting of the summoning spell.

True, but if that is the case, when the summoner is in the middle of his full-round casting action and sees the Warlock using his Standard Action ability to steal the summoned creature, can't he choose to stop casting the spell? (of course a Spellcraft check would have to be use in there somewhere)

 

[Bad Paper]

True, but if that is the case, when the summoner is in the middle of his full-round casting action and sees the Warlock using his Standard Action ability to steal the summoned creature, can't he choose to stop casting the spell? (of course a Spellcraft check would have to be use in there somewhere)

No. I don't think you can use Spellcraft to identify a Spell-Like Ability, or at least not this one. I figured unless it explicitly said that it takes less than a standard action, then it must be standard. Maybe not.

 

[Starglim]

No. I don't think you can use Spellcraft to identify a Spell-Like Ability, or at least not this one. I figured unless it explicitly said that it takes less than a standard action, then it must be standard. Maybe not.

Right the first time: identifying a spell-like ability as it's cast is not a listed use of Spellcraft. (However, the results of spell-like abilities are magical effects, so the detect magic use of Spellcraft works and has a listed DC.)

On the time required, I agree with your analysis.

 

[Stormrunner]

Complete Arcane, page 7:
A warlock's invocations are spell-like abilities; using an invocation is therefore a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity.

Steal Summoning is a Dark invocation, so it's not available until high level anyway (16th for a straight Warlock), and compared to other PC abilities at such levels, I don't see it as being much of a game-breaker.

The spell it's based on is 6th level, so available to standard casters at 11th spellcaster level, 5 levels earlier than the warlock. It requires an opposed caster level check, and has a duration of "Concentration(up to 1 rd/caster level)+1 rd". So it's not auto-successful, and you can't do much else while maintaining control (unlike a standard summons which is "fire-and-forget").

 

[MarkB]

Complete Arcane, page 7:
A warlock's invocations are spell-like abilities; using an invocation is therefore a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity.

The thing is, spell-like abilities are only standard actions unless the spell they're based on has a different casting time. Since invocations are considered standard actions because they use the rules for spell-like abilities (the "therefore" in the quoted sentence), they should also follow the rule of varying the casting time based on the spell they're emulating. So an invocation based on an Immediate-action spell should be an Immediate-action spell-like ability.

 

[ThirdWizard]

The relevant SRD quote is:

A spell-like ability has a casting time of 1 standard action unless noted otherwise in the ability or spell description.

So, it would indeed be an immediate action.

 

[UltimaGabe]

True, but if that is the case, when the summoner is in the middle of his full-round casting action and sees the Warlock using his Standard Action ability to steal the summoned creature, can't he choose to stop casting the spell? (of course a Spellcraft check would have to be use in there somewhere)

Nope. You can't take any non-immediate actions outside of your turn (even things that aren't really actions, like talking or dismissing a spell) by the RaW. Thus, you couldn't stop casting the spell until your turn, at which point the spell would have already been finished. (The casting finishes immediately before your turn.)