WoTC Rodney: Economy of actions

[Gentlegamer]

It is unclear by the RAW . . .

This is where the DM makes a ruling based on the situation.

 

[Cadfan]

Q: Dear Sage,
If my character casts a silent and stilled spell of any sort that affects the target’s behavior (charm person, suggestion, etc.) and the target makes the saving throw, would they know they were being cast upon and who cast the spell? What would a typical NPC reaction be to this scenario?
--JT

A: The target of a spell or effect is always aware that he’s rolled a saving throw, though the caster of the spell isn’t revealed.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ask/20070330a

Best I can come up with on the fly. There are also a number of sneaky wizard and sneaky bard feats and abilities that seem premised on the assumption that a spell which involves no movement, no sounds, and no components is just an act of (functionally) undetectable mental exertion on the part of the caster.

I'm filing "the rules don't actually SAY that silent, stilled, component-less spells aren't visible anyways" with "the rules don't actually SAY that being dead stops you from moving around and doing things." Both technically true statements, but neither helpful.

 

[Victim]

The DMG guidelines for describing actions certainly suggest that still, silent spells and spell like abilities are noticeable. "Without using words or gestures, she calls upon some power within herself..." That would indicate that the concentration required to use abilities is recognizeable as such. My 3.0 book has that on page 71, in Running the Game. Naturally, something like isn't going to be the SRD.

Summon spells are best cast while invisible to avoid the whole 'pound the caster before he finishes' thing.

 

[ruleslawyer]

This is where the DM makes a ruling based on the situation.

Read my third sentence.

It *is* clear that identifying a spell being cast requires a Spellcraft check. That's what I was referring to above.

 

[Dausuul]

Three things I'd like to point out here:

#1, all this talk about Stilled Silent summoning is ridiculous. Still Spell and Silent Spell are for extraordinary situations like being grappled, targeted by a silence spell, et cetera. They're an emergency backup weapon or a stealth tactic, not something you do regularly in combat. If your solution to "the enemy sees you casting a long spell and peppers you with arrows" is "I cast the spell Stilled and Silenced," you might as well give up being a summoner--your summon spells will all be two levels lower than they should be, effectively neutering them.

#2, assuming you're not Stilling and Silencing, the enemy can see you're casting a spell. The party wizard is a prime target for intelligent bad guys to begin with; when you add in the chance to interrupt a spell, any sensible bad guy will seize that chance even without knowing what the spell does.

#3, can we get back to the economy of actions now?

 

[DM_Blake]

#1, all this talk about Stilled Silent summoning is ridiculous. Still Spell and Silent Spell are for extraordinary situations like being grappled, targeted by a silence spell, et cetera. They're an emergency backup weapon or a stealth tactic, not something you do regularly in combat. If your solution to "the enemy sees you casting a long spell and peppers you with arrows" is "I cast the spell Stilled and Silenced," you might as well give up being a summoner--your summon spells will all be two levels lower than they should be, effectively neutering them.

Quite true. Summoning is weak enough without wasting two feats to be able to summon much weaker creatures safely.

#2, assuming you're not Stilling and Silencing, the enemy can see you're casting a spell. The party wizard is a prime target for intelligent bad guys to begin with; when you add in the chance to interrupt a spell, any sensible bad guy will seize that chance even without knowing what the spell does.

Yep.

Even more so when you consider they don't have to prepare their interrupts (no held actions required).

Even more so when you consider that fireballs are scary, but summoned demons are much more terrifying, so if an enemy has to decide between taking out a summoner and taking out a warmage, the summoner will probably be at the top of that list, just due to fear of the unknown more than anything.

#3, can we get back to the economy of actions now?

I thought summoning creatures that get extra actions was very germaine to the discussion of economy of actions.

Certainly when your mage conjures forth a d3 demons, or your druid whips up a d3 big old bears, you can bet the rest of his turns will consist of handling a lot more actions than everyone else.

My whole point, initially, was that in pointing out the risks of casting full round spells that terrify the enemy, many possible summon spells are avoided when the player decides to do something a little safer. And when they do summon stuff, having that stuff run around ineffectively until it dies (by this I mean relatively weak attacks for little or no damage because summoned stuff is pretty weak to begin with), wasting everyone's time for little measurable gain, and then showing the player than the time he wasted summoning his menagerie of ineffective minions could have been constructively used to kill the bad guys, even more possible summon spells are avoided.

Once a player sees that he puts himself at great risk, wasts his character's time and wastes all the players' time, and gets very little benefit in return, he is not likely to waste his time with summoning things, ever.

That said, there are some occasions where it is still fairly useful, particularly when the group is being overrun by swarms of weak opponents. Or summoned creatures might perform non-combat tasks, like delivering an item to someone, or scouting ahead, or even springing traps or ambushes.

None of which really bogs down the speed of gameplay - I believe economy of actions is really only a concern during turn-based combat.

 

[Dausuul]

I thought summoning creatures that get extra actions was very germaine to the discussion of economy of actions.

Summoning creatures is germane, of course. I was objecting to the lengthy debate over whether you can tell that a wizard casting Silent Stilled summon monster III is in fact casting a summon spell.

My whole point, initially, was that in pointing out the risks of casting full round spells that terrify the enemy, many possible summon spells are avoided when the player decides to do something a little safer. And when they do summon stuff, having that stuff run around ineffectively until it dies (by this I mean relatively weak attacks for little or no damage because summoned stuff is pretty weak to begin with), wasting everyone's time for little measurable gain, and then showing the player than the time he wasted summoning his menagerie of ineffective minions could have been constructively used to kill the bad guys, even more possible summon spells are avoided.

Once a player sees that he puts himself at great risk, wasts his character's time and wastes all the players' time, and gets very little benefit in return, he is not likely to waste his time with summoning things, ever.

This is true, but it means that summon spells are A Trap! If you build a summon specialist, you then get to suck in combat while annoying everyone at the table, until you realize the futility of being a summoner, and then you have to make a new character and/or persuade the DM to let you change the old one. If that's how summons are going to be, then why let it even be possible to summon stuff in combat?

 

[KarinsDad]

It is unclear by the RAW whether concentrating on a spell is a non-visible action.

Precisely. Which means that it is unclear whether someone knows if a caster is casting a still silent cast defensive spell.

According to RAW, DM_Blake's adjudication that it is observable is just as valid as your adjudication that it is not.

 

[Hussar]

Precisely. Which means that it is unclear whether someone knows if a caster is casting a still silent cast defensive spell.

According to RAW, DM_Blake's adjudication that it is observable is just as valid as your adjudication that it is not.

There is a difference though. Observable to Rulelawyer means that you can use Spellcraft checks to know what's being cast. Observable to DM Blake is such that everyone, without any training whatsoever, can always tell that someone is casting a spell, regardless of any precautions.