Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Nerhesi 08-09-07, 01:51 PM	What happens when you ready an action to stop an enemy spell from being cast (aka counterspell) - then cast Silence on a point in space right next to the enemy caster. I was thinking about this for a while - and at first glance it seems like you've got the perfect counter for any spell with a verbal component. Yet - at second glance, to go by raw - you cannot cast a spell requiring a verbal component if you cannot speak or you are otherwise somehow silenced. However, at the time of you beginning to cast the spell - there was no silence. So .. what really happens? Technically, you can't counter with silence because the precondition of that "silence-check" was already met when the action is declared? Basically, can you use Silence as the ultimate counterspell? Thanks ahead, Sam W.
tarkin 08-09-07, 02:02 PM	I rule as follows. The silence intereferes with the spell, destroying it. Just as someone could not change spells in mid stream to prevent your countering via the exact spell, they can not choose to change their action to something else. But they WOULD be allowed to immediately begin using either the feat "Sudden Silence" or if they were a sorcerors, apply the feat Silent spell. Yes, Silence is a good counter spell tactic, but it not perfect. For example a high percentage of the Sorcerors I make take Eschew Materials, Still Spell and Silent spell. I can cast even if held person, while gaseous form, under the ground in a silent spell and thats the way I like it!! (Or rather I like being able to cast in that situation, not being in that situation)
Nerhesi 08-09-07, 02:12 PM	Well you couldn't really cast under the ground because you'd probably have no line of effect :) Not to mention you'd have to be able to cast the spell that the person is interrupting with your +1 level adjustment. here is another quick question: A Conjurer with Abrupt Jaunt. Said Conjurer is about to be counterspelled, as above - via silence. Could he immediately abrupt jaunt out of the area so that he may continue casting his spell? I don't see anything RAW saying he couldn't. Sam W.
ArcTan 08-09-07, 03:35 PM	It's no different from being hit with an attack while you're casting a spell. The attack is considered to interrupt your spell, and you have to make a Concentration check or lose the spell. Readied actions interrupt the actions that they were readied against. You couldn't use abrupt jaunt to escape this attack, because the action happens "in the middle" of your other action -- as soon as you declare your main action the readied action happens, and gives you no chance to *change* your action. You can't start casting a spell, have someone attack you and say "Wait, I'm not casting a spell anymore, I'm double-moving to get out of range".
Pentar 08-09-07, 03:40 PM	On Silence as a Counterspell: I'd say that no, Silence would not work as the ultimate counterspell for the reasons you've already said. If at the time the character starts casting the spell with a V component, they are not in a silenced area, then they have satisfied the V requirement and the spell will continue. However; If at the time the spell finishes, it produces a [Sonic] effect, or requires the use of spoken words/language to complete the effect, then the spell effect will be negated/modified accordingly by the Silence. So a Command spell countered by a Silence will mean that while the spell does finish, the command word being uttered is lost in the Silence so the spell has no effect. On Abrupt Jaunt, since the ability is: a) An Immediate Action b) Spell-Like Ability I'd say said Conjurer could do it ;) It requires only concentration to do it (i.e. it does not interrupt somatic or verbal spell casting actions) and one imagines it does not require a great deal of concentration (since it is an Immediate action), then it can be done.
Nerhesi 08-09-07, 04:30 PM	Actually Pentar - it seems right on by RAW. As ArcTan has pointed out: It's no different from being hit with an attack while you're casting a spell. The attack is considered to interrupt your spell, and you have to make a Concentration check or lose the spell. Readied actions interrupt the actions that they were readied against. It is no different than if you were to ready an action to grapple - otherwise it could be argued that the "Somatic" condition was checked when the action was declared. So this is a pretty interesting and powerful method to counterspell. Sam W.
Pentar 08-09-07, 04:37 PM	Actually Pentar - it seems right on by RAW. As ArcTan has pointed out: It is no different than if you were to ready an action to grapple - otherwise it could be argued that the "Somatic" condition was checked when the action was declared. So this is a pretty interesting and powerful method to counterspell. Well, the only problem is that there is no determination as to how long you need to maintain the Verbal component of the spell. What if you finish all the verbal components before the Silence effect hits? Because that is impossible to judge, I don't think it's fair to say that Silence is a universal, unavoidable counterspell for any spell requiring a Verbal component. It would effectively be a no-fail method to counterspell something that renders much of the counterspell mechanic completely obsolete if you allow it.
Nerhesi 08-09-07, 04:37 PM	Oh - and as for the immediate magic. Nowhere (that I could find at least) does it state you cannot interrupt an action with an immediate action. In fact - that is the intent of immediate actions. The only thing to wonder is if you immediate magic out of an area of effect (jaunt 10 feet) does the caster simply not rechoose the area of affect and place it on you anyways? Heck - after all - you had to interrupt the action - which allows you to change it. Otherwise, if you wait till the area is "set" then you are already "affected". Just like Jaunting out of an attack roll - you jaunt after the roll - you are hit. Too bad. You jaunt after the silence area is "set" - well the silence hit you - even if it was for just an instant. You may no longer by in the area of affect AFTER the jaunt but you were while you were casting - hence, interrupted. Otherwise, you can jaunt before the area is set - but then he will just place the silence on you anyways. So.. in conclusion it seems silence does work pretty damn well as a counterspell (have a bard handy) but Jaunt is near useless against it. Sam W.
BlackFiend 08-09-07, 04:38 PM	Where are you folks getting this from? You can ready an action to cast a spell if someone attempts to cast a spell, but that is not Counterspelling. Thats a readied action. You could just as easily lightning bolt the enemy, or cast magic missile, all with the hope of disrupting the caster. When you counterspell, you aren't actually casting the spell at the target, you are simply casting the spell to counter (except for Dispel Magic). For instance, you can't counter an Invisibility spell by casting Fireball at them. You counter by using a spell of the same school as Invisibility, with all of the relevant details regarding below: -------------------- COUNTERSPELLS It is possible to cast any spell as a counterspell. By doing so, you are using the spell’s energy to disrupt the casting of the same spell by another character. Counterspelling works even if one spell is divine and the other arcane. How Counterspells Work: To use a counterspell, you must select an opponent as the target of the counterspell. You do this by choosing the ready action. In doing so, you elect to wait to complete your action until your opponent tries to cast a spell. (You may still move your speed, since ready is a standard action.) If the target of your counterspell tries to cast a spell, make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + the spell’s level). This check is a free action. If the check succeeds, you correctly identify the opponent’s spell and can attempt to counter it. If the check fails, you can’t do either of these things. To complete the action, you must then cast the correct spell. As a general rule, a spell can only counter itself. If you are able to cast the same spell and you have it prepared (if you prepare spells), you cast it, altering it slightly to create a counterspell effect. If the target is within range, both spells automatically negate each other with no other results. Counterspelling Metamagic Spells: Metamagic feats are not taken into account when determining whether a spell can be countered Specific Exceptions: Some spells specifically counter each other, especially when they have diametrically opposed effects. Dispel Magic as a Counterspell: You can use dispel magic to counterspell another spellcaster, and you don’t need to identify the spell he or she is casting. However, dispel magic doesn’t always work as a counterspell (see the spell description).
Pentar 08-09-07, 04:41 PM	Oh - and as for the immediate magic. Nowhere (that I could find at least) does it state you cannot interrupt an action with an immediate action. In fact - that is the intent of immediate actions. The only thing to wonder is if you immediate magic out of an area of effect (jaunt 10 feet) does the caster simply not rechoose the area of affect and place it on you anyways? Heck - after all - you had to interrupt the action - which allows you to change it. Otherwise, if you wait till the area is "set" then you are already "affected". Just like Jaunting out of an attack roll - you jaunt after the roll - you are hit. Too bad. You jaunt after the silence area is "set" - well the silence hit you - even if it was for just an instant. You may no longer by in the area of affect AFTER the jaunt but you were while you were casting - hence, interrupted. Otherwise, you can jaunt before the area is set - but then he will just place the silence on you anyways. So.. in conclusion it seems silence does work pretty damn well as a counterspell (have a bard handy) but Jaunt is near useless against it. Sam W. This whole thing is premised on the idea that Silence works to "counter" spells. Your suggestion that if you are silenced for even a split-second, that your entire spell fails is pretty ridiculous. There are no rules indicating this, what so ever. Even taking a Greatsword through the skull gives you a Concentration check to avoid losing a spell, yet you think a 2nd level spell should be able to counterspell any spell with a V component without fail? I think you're looking at a serious game-balance issue. Double Frost, anyone?
Nerhesi 08-09-07, 04:43 PM	Well, the only problem is that there is no determination as to how long you need to maintain the Verbal component of the spell. What if you finish all the verbal components before the Silence effect hits? Because that is impossible to judge, I don't think it's fair to say that Silence is a universal, unavoidable counterspell for any spell requiring a Verbal component. It would effectively be a no-fail method to counterspell something that renders much of the counterspell mechanic completely obsolete if you allow it. There is no determination as to how long you need to maintain the verbal component - just like there is no determination of how long you need maintain the somatic component. Yet we know - that if someone readies to grapple you and you get grappled - you can't cast. The assumption we can't make is that the verbal or somatic components are only valid during declaration. It isn't quite near-no-fail method (sudden silent), any item that lets you reactively counterspell as an immediate action (ring of spell battle), etc... but it is pretty damn powerful. Hence my question - but in no way is it as powerful as example - abrupt jaunt (immune to charges except from reach weapons, immune to all full round attacks except from reach weapons) What could invalidate it however, is that by RAW - readying an action to counterspell seems to only include: a) Casting the same spell as someone else is b) Casting a dispel magic (or variant) on the target caster So maybe.. just maybe, by RAW, readying to counterspell MUST be one of the above two. Sam W.
Nerhesi 08-09-07, 04:45 PM	This whole thing is premised on the idea that Silence works to "counter" spells. Your suggestion that if you are silenced for even a split-second, that your entire spell fails is pretty ridiculous. There are no rules indicating this, what so ever. Even taking a Greatsword through the skull gives you a Concentration check to avoid losing a spell, yet you think a 2nd level spell should be able to counterspell any spell with a V component without fail? I think you're looking at a serious game-balance issue. Double Frost, anyone? Game balance isn't the issue otherwise abrupt jaunt (see above) would have not seen the light of day. Sam W.
Nerhesi 08-09-07, 04:49 PM	SRD Distracting Spellcasters: You can ready an attack against a spellcaster with the trigger “if she starts casting a spell.” If you damage the spellcaster, she may lose the spell she was trying to cast (as determined by her Concentration check result). Readying to Counterspell: You may ready a counterspell against a spellcaster (often with the trigger “if she starts casting a spell”). In this case, when the spellcaster starts a spell, you get a chance to identify it with a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell level). If you do, and if you can cast that same spell (are able to cast it and have it prepared, if you prepare spells), you can cast the spell as a counterspell and automatically ruin the other spellcaster’s spell. Counterspelling works even if one spell is divine and the other arcane. A spellcaster can use dispel magic to counterspell another spellcaster, but it doesn’t always work. Well - by RAW - looks like you can't counterspell with silence. I'm kinda glad too. Now - hopefully the rules compendium gives nice clear info on immediate magic. Sam W.
bigbythewise 08-09-07, 04:53 PM	So this is a pretty interesting and powerful method to counterspell. There is a better one. Just ready an action and then make a hit with some cheap magic missile-like spell. This will probably break concentration of most spellcasters.
Nerhesi 08-09-07, 05:01 PM	Meh - magic missile is damage. Yes it is force damage - but it is also targetted. As you get higher level in spell duels you probably don't want to try hitting them with anything targetted (spell reflection) and with magic missiles.. you have added problems such as the shield spell, shadow adept shield, etc... A touch ray - well, then you run into Ray deflection. Now.. a fireball - well.. you run into energy[blah] protections spells - some nice immediate ones out there now as well. What does that leave? Area of effect non-fire/acid/cold/sonic/lightning/negative/positive damage. Sam W.
Pentar 08-09-07, 05:15 PM	There is no determination as to how long you need to maintain the verbal component - just like there is no determination of how long you need maintain the somatic component. Yet we know - that if someone readies to grapple you and you get grappled - you can't cast. The assumption we can't make is that the verbal or somatic components are only valid during declaration. Rather than get into a big long discussion with you re: Game Balance (as we've had these conversations before and your concept of Game Balance is entirely different than mine), here are some rules on the matter: Spell: If you are affected by a spell while attempting to cast a spell of your own, you must make a Concentration check or lose the spell you are casting. If the spell affecting you deals damage, the DC is 10 + points of damage + the level of the spell you’re casting. If the spell interferes with you or distracts you in some other way, the DC is the spell’s saving throw DC + the level of the spell you’re casting. For a spell with no saving throw, it’s the DC that the spell’s saving throw would have if a save were allowed. Done. You make a concentration check to keep casting. Silence is a spell. You are affected by the spell. So in the case of silence, it is DC + spell level. RAW does cover the situation, so apply the rules accordingly.
mostholy2 08-09-07, 05:16 PM	We are talking about "readying" an action to cast Silence on an object that has an opponent within the 20' radius of the "Silence" spell could potentially have the effect of "counter-ing" any spells that have a Verbal component to it. So the rulings covering this case should follow the "readying an action" rules and not "Counterspelling" or "distracting a spellcaster" to counter the spell. That being said, the rules for "readying an action" are pretty clear.Readying an Action: You can ready a standard action, a move action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, any time before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character’s activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action.This ruling clearly states that "readying" to cast Silence is an allowable action (as it is a standard action). In addition, the ruling also states that your casting will occur just before the action that triggers it and that your opponent will continue his action once you have completed your readied action. Now there can be some debate on if an unwilling caster within the area effected by Silence gets SR or gets a save against it's effects. Upon the casting of this spell, complete silence prevails in the affected area. All sound is stopped: Conversation is impossible, spells with verbal components cannot be cast, and no noise whatsoever issues from, enters, or passes through the area. The spell can be cast on a point in space, but the effect is stationary unless cast on a mobile object. The spell can be centered on a creature, and the effect then radiates from the creature and moves as it moves. An unwilling creature can attempt a Will save to negate the spell and can use spell resistance, if any. Items in a creature’s possession or magic items that emit sound receive the benefits of saves and spell resistance, but unattended objects and points in space do not. This spell provides a defense against sonic or language-based attacks.Because the spell description doesn't specifically differentiate between an unwilling creature within the area or a silence or if they are targeted by the spell itself, there can be debate about if he receives a will save to cancel the effects of Silence. So this is how I play Silence. If you are in the effected area and are an unwilling target you get to make a will save to resist the effects. It's still a pretty effective "counterspelling" strategy, just not as automatic as if the opponent didn't receive any save vs. the spell effects. ...edit...Oooh! I very much like Pentar's ruling. It supports the save attempt vs. a potential (no save) effect with rules backing backing it up.
ArcTan 08-09-07, 05:17 PM	Well - by RAW - looks like you can't counterspell with silence. I'm kinda glad too. You can't *literally* counterspell using silence. You can, however, ready an action to cast silence on a point next to someone as soon as they start casting a spell and hope it fouls their spellcasting. It's no different from readying an action to cast antimagic field or globe of invulnerability (which is also technically not counterspelling).
ArcTan 08-09-07, 05:19 PM	Done. You make a concentration check to keep casting. Silence is a spell. You are affected by the spell. So in the case of silence, it is DC + spell level. RAW does cover the situation, so apply the rules accordingly. You can't make a Concentration spell to use a verbal component in an area of silence any more than you can make a Concentration check to cast a spell in the area of an AMF or make a Concentration check to cast a spell through a globe of invulnerability. If silence affects you, and you're trying to cast a spell with a verbal component, then the spell simply fails, because silence specifically prohibits spells with verbal components. The Concentration mechanic only applies to spells *in general* that don't specifically block a particular kind of magic.
Pentar 08-09-07, 05:20 PM	Well - by RAW - looks like you can't counterspell with silence. I'm kinda glad too. Now - hopefully the rules compendium gives nice clear info on immediate magic. Sam W. uhm, I didn't think you were literally talking about "counterspelling" with Silence. I took it to mean that you would ready a spell that would affect the enemy spell-caster in such a way that their spell would fail. That's not technically "counterspelling", per se... But just readying an action to Interrupt. But that is also covered by RAW (see above post).
Pentar 08-09-07, 05:23 PM	You can't make a Concentration spell to use a verbal component in an area of silence any more than you can make a Concentration check to cast a spell in the area of an AMF or make a Concentration check to cast a spell through a globe of invulnerability. If silence affects you, and you're trying to cast a spell with a verbal component, then the spell simply fails, because silence specifically prohibits spells with verbal components. The Concentration mechanic only applies to spells *in general* that don't specifically block a particular kind of magic. I understand the mechanics of Silence. But I also have a holistic and fair view of game balance. Under any other situation, a spell caster typically has some method of recovering a spell if someone attempts to interrupt them, usually in the form of a Concentration check. If you want to be really **** about it, I would say that if you are casting a spell with a V component and someone starts casting Silence to interrupt you, you would need to do two things to keep your spell: A) Make a free Spellcraft check to identify that your opponent is casting Silence B) If you succeed, you may make a Concentration check to "finish" your verbal component portion of the spell before the Silence hits. While I agree that AMF should work as an effective interrupt, it is a much higher level and thus more powerful spell. Its effects and its potential power should be adjusted accordingly. Silence is too low level a spell to allow such a powerful effect.
ArcTan 08-09-07, 05:24 PM	Well, the only problem is that there is no determination as to how long you need to maintain the Verbal component of the spell. What if you finish all the verbal components before the Silence effect hits? Because that is impossible to judge, I don't think it's fair to say that Silence is a universal, unavoidable counterspell for any spell requiring a Verbal component. Dude, the rules are clear on this one. If I ready an action to interrupt you doing something, my readied action happens *before* your action. That's how simultaneity in D&D works. Casting a spell doesn't *have* any components, by definition, except the verbal, somatic and material components. Take a spell with only a verbal component, like power word kill. If saying the power word is something I can do "before" the readied action goes off, then no one can *ever* ready an action to stop me from casting power word kill, because all I have to do is say the word and it's done (no other components). Still Spell and Eschew Components are now horrendously powerful -- a Still Spell with Eschewed Components is now impossible to disrupt or counterspell. Clearly this is nonsense. Your logic for a verbal component taking "less time" than a somatic component doesn't even work -- a verbal component is a string of syllables of uncertain length, while a somatic component is clearly stated to be a single sharp gesture with one hand. If anything, the verbal component probably takes longer. (It takes me longer to say "Live long and prosper" than to make the Vulcan finger salute -- if I do both at the same time, the fingers are already there before I've said the word "prosper".) It would effectively be a no-fail method to counterspell something that renders much of the counterspell mechanic completely obsolete if you allow it. It only works on spells with verbal components. That's one limitation. The 20-ft zone of silence is a hindrance for *everybody* in that area, which is another limitation. He can just move out of that area anyway, is a third limitation -- and if I keep spamming the silence spell, well, that's quite a lot of slots to burn and I could probably end the battle faster by doing something else.
Dazzer 08-09-07, 05:25 PM	Here is a very complicated example that may help people out with actions and when they are taken. Enemy Conjurer wielding a longspear with somatic weaponry. Fighter (allied team) Cleric (allied team) Initiative Order Fighter : I ready my action to partial charge the conjurer if he moves! Cleric : I ready my action to cast silence on a point next to him if he casts a spell with a verbal component! Conjurer : I begin casting my spell sonic boom on the cleric! Now here is where some of you seem to be confused. This is what happens next. Cleric : I will take my readied action! *begins casting silence on the point* (note, he hasn't actually finished the casting!) Conjurer : In response to this, but before it actually occurs, I jaunt out of the area! *immediate action* (Note, he is still "casting" his spell, that action has not yet occured) He has however, moved the distance of the jaunt! Fighter : He moved! I go and smack him good! (The fighter now passes through the conjurers longspear threat, and leaves it to smack him with a greatsword!) Conjurer : I get an AoO, I take it as a 5ft move with my evasive reflexes feat. I move 5ft back from the fighter so he can't smack me! Note: he hasn't stopped doing the somatic components since he hasn't actually made an attack...so his spell is still being cast...maybe a concentration check DC 15 or 20 is required though by some DM's. Fighter : Horse**** Cleric : I finish casting my spell! the area is silenced! Conjurer : Too bad I'm not in it *sonic boom!* Cleric : Oh why the pain....! *hitpoints lost* New Initiative Order Cleric (took his readied action first) Fighter (took his readied action second, so he moves just above conjurer) Conjurer (didn't change) Edit: Additionally, countering in this manner works perfectly, it is not horribly broken. This is how I see it: The conjurer's action was negated by the clerics action. The cleric used his entire action to negate the conjurers action. Is it more broken to ready an action to magic missile someone when they cast a spell? At 9th level, that's a concentration check DC: 10 + 5d4 + 5 or you fail your spell....and you take the damage! This silence simply says: You fail, and next round you should probably spend a move action on actual movement.... I don't see how this is too powerful for the second level spell, I've seen MUCH worse done Sorcerer in my game: I ready my action to cast arcane fusion on the guy when he casts a spell Wizard: I cast a spell! Sorcerer: Enervation + Magic Missile, lets see him make a concentration check with a -(1-4) penalty and the DC is the above written...*laughs maniacally*
bigbythewise 08-09-07, 05:25 PM	Meh - magic missile is damage. Yes it is force damage - but it is also targetted. As you get higher level in spell duels you probably don't want to try hitting them with anything targetted (spell reflection) and with magic missiles.. you have added problems such as the shield spell, shadow adept shield, etc... A touch ray - well, then you run into Ray deflection. Now.. a fireball - well.. you run into energy[blah] protections spells - some nice immediate ones out there now as well. What does that leave? Area of effect non-fire/acid/cold/sonic/lightning/negative/positive damage. Sam W. Are you talking about epic duels or what? Somehow, I can't take this. Have you ever heard of Heighten spell or Dispel magic?
ArcTan 08-09-07, 05:26 PM	Now there can be some debate on if an unwilling caster within the area effected by Silence gets SR or gets a save against it's effects. Because the spell description doesn't specifically differentiate between an unwilling creature within the area or a silence or if they are targeted by the spell itself, there can be debate about if he receives a will save to cancel the effects of Silence. So this is how I play Silence. If you are in the effected area and are an unwilling target you get to make a will save to resist the effects. I think it's pretty clear that's not the RAI, but if it makes you feel better about it, go ahead. For me, silence is silence is silence. Either there is a zone of silence or there isn't -- if there isn't, it's because you tried to cast it *centered on a creature* and the creature made its Will save or SR. But if there is a zone of silence, it doesn't make sense to have people walking around in it being exceptions. (So if I'm an exception and I hit you with my fist, who's "making the sound", me or you?)
BW0222 08-09-07, 05:26 PM	Nerhesi, It is a prefectly legitimate tactic. However, it is not counterspelling. It is merely, readying an action to cast as spell on a creature when they start casting a V component spell. There are lots of spells which can effectively prevent certain spells from being cast through their effects. 1. Damaging spells obviously force a concentration check, but often the DCs are so high that folks are going to fail. It might not always stop the spell getting off, but you get the added benefit that you also damage the caster at the same time. 2. You can put up spells which block line of sight or line of effect. Tossing a darkness or fog cloud spell easily prevents the caster from targetting someone with a charm person. Tossing a wall of ice in front of someone casting a fireball could force him to blow himself up. 3. Casting a spell which causes unconciousness, paralyzation, blindness, possibly deafness, stunning, confusion, fear, etc. could easily prevent spell casting. 4. Casting a spell which causes causes the creature to be grappled (say evard's) ends spell casting for all somatic spells and requires a high check (DC 20+SL) for all others. 5. Moving the target could prevent spell casting. For example, greasing a person behind a parapet (so he can no longer see his target while prone), or levitating him above the passage way which he is seeing through, etc. 6. Shatter or other spells which affect objects directed against focuses or certain material components. I'm sure there are more ways also. Basically, can you use Silence as the ultimate counterspell? Not really. There are a lot of tactics out there and, like them, this one has its disadvantages. First, any readying fails of the person is intelligent. They notice you didn't immediately take an action and they move to somewhere where you can't see (and target) them, take a different type of action (use a wand for example), etc. Second, like any readied spell (or many actions), the situation could easily change by the time he casts such that you casting isn't a great idea. For example, he (and his friends) notice you might be readying. He delays and one of his friends walks up next to you with a great axe and readies against you casting. He then comes out of delay and casts. You might now take two attacks just to try to silence him? Third, unless you are careful, you could end up casting a silence spell against a non-Verbal spell. If you try readying against V-only spells, then you likely have to make a spellcraft check to see what spell is being cast and even then they could silent spell it (especially after seeing the trick used). Forth, like any AoE spells, if the caster moved to an ackward position, silencing him might be not so great. For example, if he moves 10' away from your cleric and starts casting, do you really wish to silence him -- and your cleric? Fifth, specifically with silence, even if this succeeds it can be turned into a weapon against you. For example, after being hit with the spell (assume he fails) and his spell ruined, he then moves up next to your wizard or bard while drawing a mace? Sixth, even if it succeeds (and he saves) he can typically just move out of the silence area. At best, all you have typically done is waste your turn for his. Even if he didn't then start casting in ways which couldn't easily be interupted with this tactic, you obviously have a limited number of silence spells and he could force you to waste a lot of them in meaningless cantrips, pretenting to cast, etc. Seven, you never know what protections he might have up. At higher levels, extremely simple spells might prevent silencing someone. Spell resistance, spell immunity, spell turning, etc. Eight, you could be wasting the tactic against a minor spell. For example, you prevent him from casting a shield spell. Fine. Next, round when he wants to cast empowered lightning bolt, he takes a few more precautions to avoid being counter spelled. i.e. you could tip you hand with a relatively minor spell. Readying is always a gamble. Using specific spells, more so.
Pentar 08-09-07, 05:32 PM	Dude, the rules are clear on this one. If I ready an action to interrupt you doing something, my readied action happens *before* your action. That's how simultaneity in D&D works. Dude, I know. And I think it's broken, hence my view that some other ruling is needed to determine how it can be adjudicated fairly. If you think that Silence should be a no-save, no-counter method for interrupting any spell with a Verbal component (which, BTW is a lot of spells), then by all means! Enjoy your D&D experience. I'm saying I'd make a different ruling within the mechanics of the system (which I've already quoted). I disagree that is it "balanced" to allow Silence act in such a way. Any suggestion, mind you, to say that all your spells should just be "Silent Spelled" anyway, is a pretty disingenuous, so I'll point that out now and save people the breath.
ArcTan 08-09-07, 05:37 PM	I understand the mechanics of Silence. But I also have a holistic and fair view of game balance. Under any other situation, a spell caster typically has some method of recovering a spell if someone attempts to interrupt them, usually in the form of a Concentration check. Not true. Blatantly not true, in fact. You are, in fact, simply ignoring the idea of readying a spell to block another spell *as a class* and acting like silence is unique here. I ready an action to cast antimagic field if the dude standing within 10 feet of me (and 40 feet of all my friends) starts casting a spell. He starts casting circle of death, hoping to kill us all at once. My readied action goes off. I cast AMF. His action completes -- his circle of death goes dud because he's in an AMF, all my friends are saved. I ready an action to cast globe of invulnerability if that dude whom I suspect really loves Empowered scorching ray starts casting one, because I think he'll target me next. He casts a spell -- my passive Spellcraft identifies it as, sure enough, scorching ray. My readied action goes off. GoI goes up. Empowered scorching ray targets me, and fizzles. I know one of these baddies has teleport and will use it to get reinforcements if things go south, but I don't know which. I ready an action to cast dimensional anchor on the first person I see casting teleport. Sure enough, my buddies start doing serious damage to these guys in the first round and one of them begins casting a spell that my Spellcraft identifies as teleport. Boom, readied action goes off, dimensional anchor hits, teleport wasted. All of these are completely legal. This happens -- or is *supposed* to happen -- all the time, if you have patient players who understand the value of readied actions. It's intrinsic to the rock-paper-scissors nature of a magical duel. In no case do the RAW say *anything* about letting you save your spell slot when someone uses magic to block you. If you want to be really **** about it, I would say that if you are casting a spell with a V component and someone starts casting Silence to interrupt you, you would need to do two things to keep your spell: A) Make a free Spellcraft check to identify that your opponent is casting Silence B) If you succeed, you may make a Concentration check to "finish" your verbal component portion of the spell before the Silence hits. That's crap. Do I also get to "finish" my entire spell before the AMF goes up? While I agree that AMF should work as an effective interrupt, it is a much higher level and thus more powerful spell. Its effects and its potential power should be adjusted accordingly. Silence is too low level a spell to allow such a powerful effect. Then bump up the level of silence, if you think it's so powerful. It's really not that big a deal. Just like with an AMF, you can leave its radius afterwards and still cast spells. Just like with using AMF, this is a mere reactive, denial strategy that won't work in the long term -- multiple spellcasters with a lot of mobility won't let you pin them down with a huge blanket of silence, and if you do you've just given the melee part of the two teams free rein to slaughter each other's spellcasters. Many players eschew these kinds of tactics, effective though they may be, because a powerful, quick offense is usually better anyway than any defense, no matter how unanswerable.
ArcTan 08-09-07, 05:39 PM	Dude, I know. And I think it's broken, hence my view that some other ruling is needed to determine how it can be adjudicated fairly. If you think that Silence should be a no-save, no-counter method for interrupting any spell with a Verbal component (which, BTW is a lot of spells), then by all means! Enjoy your D&D experience. As others have pointed out, blocking line of effect is also a pretty unanswerable way to interrupt most spells. Is stone shape "broken" now too? Because you can ready it to throw up a wall in front of you to block everything from fireball to dominate person to circle of death? I'm saying I'd make a different ruling within the mechanics of the system (which I've already quoted). I disagree that is it "balanced" to allow Silence act in such a way. Any suggestion, mind you, to say that all your spells should just be "Silent Spelled" anyway, is a pretty disingenuous, so I'll point that out now and save people the breath. I'm not saying *all* spells should be Silent Spelled, but you have to admit that allowing silence to be a potential powerful counter is one of the few things that gives utility to what would otherwise be a fairly useless metamagic feat.
ArcTan 08-09-07, 05:45 PM	Also, saying that silence is "no-save, no-counter" is pretty over-the-top. It's at least as easy to put yourself in a position where casting silence on you is a bad idea (get near the enemy casters!) as it is to do so with grappling (get away from the enemy meleers!) Very few of the arguments about how "uber" silence is against verbal components don't also apply to grappling and somatic components -- or, hell, Sundering or Disarming the components pouch and material components. As far as counters, silence *itself* is a pretty easy spell to counter. If you're terrified of silence as a readied action, use some basic tactics -- notice that the enemy Bard or Cleric forwent his action this turn, and think "Huh, maybe he's readying an action to cast silence!" Take action accordingly. If you need *direct* counters, silence itself is vulnerable to silence -- both in the sense that it has verbal components and that, obviously, silence can be used to counterspell silence. If you really want to, you can go Cold War with this -- see an enemy Bard ready silence, have your Bard ready silence, first Bard to cast silence gets countered by the other Bard. W00t, parity.
Pentar 08-09-07, 05:48 PM	As others have pointed out, blocking line of effect is also a pretty unanswerable way to interrupt most spells. Is stone shape "broken" now too? Because you can ready it to throw up a wall in front of you to block everything from fireball to dominate person to circle of death? I'm not saying *all* spells should be Silent Spelled, but you have to admit that allowing silence to be a potential powerful counter is one of the few things that gives utility to what would otherwise be a fairly useless metamagic feat. I'll save my time and instead of answering both your posts, just address you here: Having your line of effect block does not necessitate your spell will fail. It might simply mean you have to choose a different target, or in some cases, fire blind (50% miss chance on an aimed spell). I'd even allow the casting of a targeted spell a Concentration check to maintain their target if their LOS is blocked by an attempted interrupt. The reasoning is simple - targeting a spell indicates you can choose your target at any time - before, during or after the spell is completed. If you selected your target before your spell completed, then you've already chosen your target. Now, if the effect is blocked, then that's something different. Someone throwing a Wall of Force in front of your Fireball is, of course, going to block you. But that doesn't mean you're going to blindly launch a Fireball into the wall. Since you're free to change targets at any time, you simply point the Fireball someplace else. As for all your blather and hogwash about casting Globe of Invulnerability and all that crap - may I remind you that you are affecting yourself in that case, and not the enemy spell caster. THe person casting the Scorching Ray is free to choose another target if he suddenly finds you immune to his spell... Ergo your tactic was effective in preventing him from hitting you, but his spell is not wasted. He can still choose a different target, not protected by the Globe (if one exists). The difference between your example and the Silence is that it is not a fool proof method of interruption. And even though I agree that AMF is a more workable method of interruption, it is at least a much higher level spell. As for making Silence a higher level spell... Uhm, how about not and just apply the Concentration check mechanic? Easier for all involved and Bards won't be crying "nerf". Kk? Thanks.
ArcTan 08-09-07, 05:56 PM	I'll save my time and instead of answering both your posts, just address you here: Having your line of effect block does not necessitate your spell will fail. It might simply mean you have to choose a different target, or in some cases, fire blind (50% miss chance on an aimed spell). I'd even allow the casting of a targeted spell a Concentration check to maintain their target if their LOS is blocked by an attempted interrupt. The Concentration check part is all you. The rest of it -- enh. A spell can still be "wasted" this way just as much as any other way. (Great, now I have to cast scorching ray on the guy with ray deflection up. Or now I get to try to cast charm person on the Warforged.) The reasoning is simple - targeting a spell indicates you can choose your target at any time - before, during or after the spell is completed. If you selected your target before your spell completed, then you've already chosen your target. Now, if the effect is blocked, then that's something different. Someone throwing a Wall of Force in front of your Fireball is, of course, going to block you. But that doesn't mean you're going to blindly launch a Fireball into the wall. Since you're free to change targets at any time, you simply point the Fireball someplace else. And if the wall of force is between you and anything you might actually want to hit with the fireball? As for all your blather and hogwash about casting Globe of Invulnerability and all that crap - may I remind you that you are affecting yourself in that case, and not the enemy spell caster. THe person casting the Scorching Ray is free to choose another target if he suddenly finds you immune to his spell... Ergo your tactic was effective in preventing him from hitting you, but his spell is not wasted. He can still choose a different target, not protected by the Globe (if one exists). *shrug* Are you ignoring the examples using dimensional anchor or other spells? If he's picking spells that will still have utility if suddenly forced to change targets, more power to him. That's part of the strategy of dealing with readied actions. Not all spells can be adapted this easily -- quite a few can't. Here's yet another example of a way to make spells useless -- everyone's standing in a clump, the guy's about to cast magic missile, and I throw up an invisibility sphere. Now we're all invisible, and none of us can be targeted. Spell gone. The difference between your example and the Silence is that it is not a fool proof method of interruption. And even though I agree that AMF is a more workable method of interruption, it is at least a much higher level spell. Silence isn't foolproof. If you see a Bard or Cleric just standing there waiting to do something, that's your cue to use Silent Spell, or stand somewhere out of range, or get your guy to ready an action to counterspell him. As for making Silence a higher level spell... Uhm, how about not and just apply the Concentration check mechanic? Easier for all involved and Bards won't be crying "nerf". Kk? Thanks. The Concentration check mechanic introduces annoying and ugly possibilities into the rules. It means that I can make a Concentration check to "finish casting my spell before he hit me", or "finish casting my spell before I got grappled". It throws a huge wrench into the fundamental assumption of readied actions -- *readied actions interrupt*. At least making silence higher-level is consistent with your major overestimation of its power. (It's not actually *that much more powerful* because it can interrupt spells rather than merely suppress them, after all.)
ArcTan 08-09-07, 06:05 PM	(By the way, you can't "fire blind" with targeted spells like magic missile. I'm sure you knew that and were referring to ranged touch attack spells like scorching ray, but just clarifying -- if I can take away your ability to see your targets, you can't cast targeted spells. Also, line of *effect* is different from line of *sight*. If I throw up a wall of force and we're all standing behind it, you can't do a damn thing, "firing blind" or not.)
BW0222 08-09-07, 06:32 PM	Pentar, The reasoning is simple - targeting a spell indicates you can choose your target at any time - before, during or after the spell is completed. If you selected your target before your spell completed, then you've already chosen your target. Except that is blatently not true. PHB p175, You make all pertinatent decisions about a spell (range, target, area, effect, version, and so forth) when the spell comes into effect." If LOS is blocked, you can't target the creature. Darkness, fog cloud, etc. cast near you effectively blocks all spells with a target entry. Your concentration check is completely against the rules. As for wall of force vs. fireball, yes if you know they cast a wall of force (likely a spell craft check) you don't have to toss it at the wall. However, if you are in a 20'x20' room and the wall of force is blocking the doorway, you do have to pick a valid point to aim the spell at and you are going to hit yourself. Same if someone puts a wall of stone forming a cube around you. Readying a silence is not a fool proof way of preventing spellcasting. Half the time as soon as I see you readying, I'm going to take an action other than casting a spell, move somewhere where you can't target me, wait until one of my friends is next to you, etc. Silence (prevents verbal spells) is no more fool proof than fog cloud or darkness (prevents all targetted spells), wall spells (prevent all targetted or area spells), Evard's (likely prevents all somatic spells), hold person, fear, sleep, confusion, quickened summon swarm, magic missile, shatter against a holy symbol, etc., etc. all of which are extremely likely to disrupt spells to varying and often better degrees of success. I've yet to see silence ruin games. Few folks carry more than a couple in memory, it tends to disrupt the PCs just as much, it is useless against non-spellcasters, and once cast it is fairly easy to get out of the AoE. Once the trick is used, few folks are going to be fooled again. At lower-levels trading spells is rarely a good tactic for PCs and at higher-levels there are a lot of defenses against silence.
ArcTan 08-09-07, 07:51 PM	PHB p175, You make all pertinatent decisions about a spell (range, target, area, effect, version, and so forth) when the spell comes into effect." The thing is that the PHB says these decisions are made when a spell comes "into effect" and that target is determined when casting is "finished". In context, it's pretty clear that this does apply to spells with a 10 minute casting time or a 1 round casting time. It's *not* clear that it applies to spells with a standard action casting time, since standard actions are, for all intents and purposes in D&D, "instants" (nothing can happen "during" or "in the middle of" a standard action; each action is an atomic block of time that can't be split up). However, I chose to give Pentar the benefit of the doubt and say that yeah, sure, you don't define the target or the area or anything until the "end" of the casting, after readied actions go off, whatever (I've yet to see this actually come up in a game). Because it still doesn't really change the point. If you were about to cast magic missile and I cast a great big fog cloud, I can pretty easily deprive you of any legal targets for the spell at all, and waste it.
Pentar 08-09-07, 11:45 PM	The Concentration check part is all you. The rest of it -- enh. A spell can still be "wasted" this way just as much as any other way. (Great, now I have to cast scorching ray on the guy with ray deflection up. Or now I get to try to cast charm person on the Warforged.) Perhaps, but the option is open to change targets. I don't know about you, but combat is fluid enough that there very often is another option to simply losing your spell outright. And if the wall of force is between you and anything you might actually want to hit with the fireball? Then you cast the Fireball away from yourself so that it explodes harmlessly elsewhere? You still don't have to fire it into the Wall of Force and explode yourself, right? *shrug* Are you ignoring the examples using dimensional anchor or other spells? Not at all. Dimensional Anchor has the added requirement of hitting someone with a ranged touch attack. In that sense it is at least a bit more balanced - not withstanding, it is a very specific counter effect, designed to counteract dimensional travel. Silence is a catch all spell that would work on, what, 80% of all spells, Divine and Arcane? Slight difference in the balance spectrum, eh? Here's yet another example of a way to make spells useless -- everyone's standing in a clump, the guy's about to cast magic missile, and I throw up an invisibility sphere. Now we're all invisible, and none of us can be targeted. Spell gone. That is, again, a very specific circumstance. It's not often you and your allies fit perfectly into a 10' sphere. Perhaps at the very beginning of a fight, but certainly not often in the midst of one. You're trying to use extremely circumstantial situations to prove your argument... which fails because any example you come up with, I can come up with a counter one. The point of the matter is, the ability to completely counteract a spell from even being cast is a lot more powerful than simply forcing the caster to change who their targeting or what they're trying to achieve with the spell. Both can be effective deterrents, but Silence is a flat out denial, while as every other example you've come up with is circumstantial at best. Silence isn't foolproof. If you see a Bard or Cleric just standing there waiting to do something, that's your cue to use Silent Spell, or stand somewhere out of range, or get your guy to ready an action to counterspell him. THat is again, pretty disingenuous of a solution. "Ok, you counter the guy who is readying an action to counter me!" Not withstanding that you'd have to have the proper initiative order to do this, or assuming that in the midst of battle, your friend/ally is perfectly capable of performing said action for you... You're trying to, again, build a case for the defense of Silence being used in this broken way by stacking some bizarre series of circumstances that would counteract in. In general, Silence used in the manner you are suggesting, would be a pretty ultimate spell interrupt. The Concentration check mechanic introduces annoying and ugly possibilities into the rules. It means that I can make a Concentration check to "finish casting my spell before he hit me", or "finish casting my spell before I got grappled". It throws a huge wrench into the fundamental assumption of readied actions -- *readied actions interrupt*. That's completely false! The concentration check method is one given in the core rules. The designers TELL YOU that this is the method used to resolve casting spells when you are interrupted by another non-damage spell effect!! THe rules already clearly state how you handle concentration checks vs. damage. There is no reason to assume that this is changed just because you're allowing a concentration check vs. Silence! They are separate and distinct rules already given in the rule books.
Pentar 08-09-07, 11:52 PM	Pentar, The reasoning is simple - targeting a spell indicates you can choose your target at any time - before, during or after the spell is completed. If you selected your target before your spell completed, then you've already chosen your target. Except that is blatently not true. PHB p175, You make all pertinatent decisions about a spell (range, target, area, effect, version, and so forth) when the spell comes into effect." If LOS is blocked, you can't target the creature. Darkness, fog cloud, etc. cast near you effectively blocks all spells with a target entry. Your concentration check is completely against the rules. I'm giving you a reasoning for a house rule. I believe I did state that I would allow it as a house rule - not that this is RAW. Besides, here is a quote regarding targeting, under aiming a spell: Target or Targets: Some spells have a target or targets. You cast these spells on creatures or objects, as defined by the spell itself. You must be able to see or touch the target, and you must specifically choose that target. You do not have to select your target until you finish casting the spell. Emphasis mine. The line clearly suggests that you are allowed to choose your spell before you finish casting, but that you can also choose it when it's done... thus allowing you the option to change who or what your target is up until the very last second of spell release. My reasoning is that if you choose a perfectly valid target at the time you begin your spell, and that target somehow, as a reaction to your spell becomes invalid (blocked LOS for example), you could make a concentration check to keep targeting them. Now this is situational, of course. A target who becomes invisible, or if you get tossed into a Darkness effect, this may work. But if the target is killed, or goes behind cover such that your spell can't possible reach the target, are different situations. This is, again I stress since you missed it the first time, a house rule... and the reasoning as to why I would allow it. Silence (prevents verbal spells) is no more fool proof than fog cloud or darkness (prevents all targetted spells), wall spells (prevent all targetted or area spells), Evard's (likely prevents all somatic spells), hold person, fear, sleep, confusion, quickened summon swarm, magic missile, shatter against a holy symbol, etc., etc. all of which are extremely likely to disrupt spells to varying and often better degrees of success. Regarding Darkness and Fog Cloud, see my above house rule re: targeting through interruptions or invalidated targets. Depending on the wall spell, some may only deny you Line of Sight, but not Line of Effect. Second, wall spells do not prevent your spell from going off. You may still elect to choose a different target/area. Battle is too fluid a situation to claim that any one wall spell would prevent a caster from being able to cast his spell. Evard's at least allows an opposed grapple roll. Hold, Sleep, Fear all allow Saving Throws. Magic Missile is damage and thus allows concentration. Shatter on a Holy Symbol is casting a spell on an attended object, allowing a Saving throw. Do you see my point? Area Silence does not allow a save (some may argue differently - but my interpretation of what Silence does is that you only get a save if you are the actual target of the spell, not if the target is the pebble besides you). It is a catch-all, completely denial. There is no caster level check. There is no concentrate through damage or choose a different target. Flat out, your spell goes away - if you abide by that idea. I follow that it is a spell-effect that is attempting to interrupt your casting. As per the rules, you are permitted a concentration check to continue casting through it.
Omen_of_Peace 08-10-07, 12:44 AM	I agree with every single word ArcTan has written. - A caster using silence isn't doing anything worse to the party, it isn't damaging anybody in any way. He can even lose his action ! - Readying an action is conspicuous. Adapt your tactics depending on what your enemy is doing. - The skill trick Conceal Spellcasting is worth mentioning because it is another foil. In the end, Silence isn't likely to work more than once or twice for the duration of a long campaign. Did you have problem with it as a player ? Or as a DM ?
ArcTan 08-10-07, 06:25 AM	Perhaps, but the option is open to change targets. I don't know about you, but combat is fluid enough that there very often is another option to simply losing your spell outright. But not always. A smart caster is one who figures out how to maximize your suffering when he successfully denies you something. Then you cast the Fireball away from yourself so that it explodes harmlessly elsewhere? You still don't have to fire it into the Wall of Force and explode yourself, right? Depends. It's not impossible to use a wall spell to force you into a confined space. The bluntest, dumbest way to do this is forcecage, but you can also pull it off with stone shape. Not at all. Dimensional Anchor has the added requirement of hitting someone with a ranged touch attack. In that sense it is at least a bit more balanced - not withstanding, it is a very specific counter effect, designed to counteract dimensional travel. Silence is a catch all spell that would work on, what, 80% of all spells, Divine and Arcane? Yeah, unless you used the Silent Spell feat on them, or *walked out of the radius*. Slight difference in the balance spectrum, eh? Not really. You can't walk out of the radius of a dimensional anchor, and there's no feat that lets teleport work against dimensional anchor. That is, again, a very specific circumstance. It's not often you and your allies fit perfectly into a 10' sphere. Perhaps at the very beginning of a fight, but certainly not often in the midst of one. Fog cloud, then. Sheesh. You're trying to use extremely circumstantial situations to prove your argument... which fails because any example you come up with, I can come up with a counter one. And I can counter your example of silence being "unanswerable". I ready to cast silence on the enemy Wizard. The Wizard's Bard friend has readied to counterspell on me with silence. *Poof*, my spell is wasted and the Wizard's spell goes off fine. I ready to cast silence on the enemy Wizard. The enemy Wizard notices me just standing there while a whole initiative count passes. He realizes "ArcTan is readying a spell! Since he's a low-level Bard without access to dispel magic, he can't be planning to directly counterspell my attack spells -- it's probably something like silence!" He casts his next spell using Silent Spell. I cast silence. I'm foiled. I ready to cast silence on the enemy Wizard. He and an enemy tank run up and engage the tank guarding our own Bard. The terrain is such that the Bard can't move easily without provoking AoOs. Now I'm frustrated, because when I cast silence I'll nullify our own Bard, and possibly cost us a much bigger advantage than I gain by denying the Wizard one spell. You see? The point of the matter is, the ability to completely counteract a spell from even being cast is a lot more powerful than simply forcing the caster to change who their targeting or what they're trying to achieve with the spell. Not really. Depends on the situation. Both can be effective deterrents, but Silence is a flat out denial, while as every other example you've come up with is circumstantial at best. Silence is completely trumped by *one metamagic feat*, Silent Spell. You can't say the same for things like casting fog cloud or darkness to remove your line of sight, or wall spells to remove your line of effect. THat is again, pretty disingenuous of a solution. "Ok, you counter the guy who is readying an action to counter me!" That's... what you do with readied actions, yes. Not withstanding that you'd have to have the proper initiative order to do this, or assuming that in the midst of battle, your friend/ally is perfectly capable of performing said action for you... Well, you'd have to have the proper initiative order to be able to use readied silence, too. Trust me, against a powerful spellcaster capable of going nova, the fact that I can ready silence at the end of the initiative order does me little good. You're trying to, again, build a case for the defense of Silence being used in this broken way by stacking some bizarre series of circumstances that would counteract in. Counterspelling is not a "bizarre series of circumstances". It's a mechanic built right into the assumptions of the ruleset, as a way to stop someone from "spamming" one particular very useful spell. In general, Silence used in the manner you are suggesting, would be a pretty ultimate spell interrupt. *sigh* I've never seen it ruin a game, okay? It's not that ultimate. You can only "interrupt" so many spells with it. It falls into the same trap as all purely reactive, defensive strategies do -- it doesn't actually advance your *own* goals and bring the battle any closer to being over. You're basically wasting your own caster just to frustrate the other caster. A battle against a team totally reliant on this strategy just becomes a game of "Meleers wail on the silence Cleric who's got so much silence prepared he can't do anything else." That's completely false! The concentration check method is one given in the core rules. The designers TELL YOU that this is the method used to resolve casting spells when you are interrupted by another non-damage spell effect!! When you are *distracted* by a spell effect. It's a Concentration check for *distraction*. It never, ever says Concentration is a skill you can use to bypass spell effects that *specifically block some magic that you're using*. You can't use Concentration to avoid a counterspell, which is the most basic form of "interrupt your spell with another spell". Why should you be able to use Concentration for anything else? THe rules already clearly state how you handle concentration checks vs. damage. There is no reason to assume that this is changed just because you're allowing a concentration check vs. Silence! They are separate and distinct rules already given in the rule books. Saying a Concentration check can *outright ignore conditions* is my problem. A condition does what it says it does. If it's silent in the area you are, it's silent, period. You can't "concentrate hard enough" to make it not silent anymore, or to get the spell out "just before" it becomes silent.
ArcTan 08-10-07, 06:42 AM	My reasoning is that if you choose a perfectly valid target at the time you begin your spell, and that target somehow, as a reaction to your spell becomes invalid (blocked LOS for example), you could make a concentration check to keep targeting them. Wow, you just hate the whole *concept* of readied actions, don't you? You must've never played Magic: the Gathering. Half the point of the multilayered strategy of a spellcaster duel is *predicting what your opponent will do next* -- which means that when your opponent readies an action, you *take that into account* and figure out what he might be doing and how to get around it. That's *interesting*. Being able to boost your Concentration check high enough and *ignore* readied actions that interrupt is stupid. It's lazy. You *shouldn't* be able to demand some kind of stupid guarantee that every spell you start to cast should go off. Depending on the wall spell, some may only deny you Line of Sight, but not Line of Effect. Second, wall spells do not prevent your spell from going off. You may still elect to choose a different target/area. Battle is too fluid a situation to claim that any one wall spell would prevent a caster from being able to cast his spell. Otiluke's resilient sphere traps you in a tiny little sphere. Where are you going to re-target your fireball then? Wall of stone can almost always be used to enclose anyone you so desire into a little dome of rock. Yeah, yeah, you get a Reflex save. Big deal. Primary casters aren't good at Reflex saves. The fact that silence is "no save, no counter" is in this case balanced by the fact that all silence can ever do is make a spell fail, as opposed to forcing you to fireball yourself. And yes, the RAW *does* force you to fireball yourself if someone successfully readies an action to trap you in a little tiny space with a spell against you casting fireball. The "counter" to this is not to make up some half-baked rule with Concentration checks, but to use *tactics* -- when someone readies an action against you, *you change your plans*. Evard's at least allows an opposed grapple roll. Which Wizards suck at. Hold, Sleep, Fear all allow Saving Throws. Magic Missile is damage and thus allows concentration. Shatter on a Holy Symbol is casting a spell on an attended object, allowing a Saving throw. Do you see my point? No, not really. Silence can be countered by Silent Spell or any spell without verbal components. This does *not* mean that you prepare everything with Silent Spell or only use nonverbal spells, like you seem to think. You forget that 1) you can only ready one action at a time, and 2) you can only have so much silence prepared, if you're a Cleric, or you only have so many spell slots, if you're a Bard (and if you're a Bard it really is a small, small number). So he readies silence. *You* simply cast one Silent Spell or one spell that naturally has no verbal components (there are quite a few useful ones, if you look). His readied action goes off, he wastes a casting of silence, and you *still cast your spell*. Now he realizes you're onto his game, and if he does the same thing again he'll just be that much more of a fool. You see? Area Silence does not allow a save (some may argue differently - but my interpretation of what Silence does is that you only get a save if you are the actual target of the spell, not if the target is the pebble besides you). It is a catch-all, completely denial. There is no caster level check. There is no concentrate through damage or choose a different target. Flat out, your spell goes away - if you abide by that idea. So don't be stupid enough to go around ignoring the fact that people are readying actions against you. Sheesh, readied actions *always* sound way too powerful until you realize *people can react to them*. I follow that it is a spell-effect that is attempting to interrupt your casting. As per the rules, you are permitted a concentration check to continue casting through it. Look, that's a rule for *distraction*, not anything else. Distracting spell’s save DC Distracted by nondamaging spell. See that word? *Distracted*. DISTRACTED. *Not* a spell that intrinsically blocks the effect of your spell. A spell that simply *distracts* you from casting your spell. It means that you get a Concentration check to avoid losing your spell if I zap you with ray of enfeeblement, or reverse gravity, or reduce person, or some other debuff or otherwise annoying spell that doesn't technically do damage. *Any* spell as long as its effect would "distract" you. By RAW, in fact, this means that probably casting silence near you forces you to make a Concentration check *even if your spell has no verbal components*, if you think the nullification of all sound in your area would be a distracting phenomenon (I think this is debatable). It's usually an easy check, in any case, since silence is a low-level spell. But if silence comes into play and interrupts your spell by *making your spell impossible*, that has nothing to do with Concentration. It is not a "distraction", it is making your spell impossible. Just like if I damage you and the damage *makes it impossible for you to cast the spell*, i.e. by knocking you unconscious or killing you, then you simply do not cast the spell. You don't get a Concentration check to finish casting the spell while dead. You are simply dead, and can't cast spells. The Concentration check is *only* for the "distracting" effect of damage that still leaves you able to cast the spell afterwards. If you're going to seriously argue that the most basic and time-honored use of the readied action -- to *kill* the enemy spellcaster before the enemy spellcaster can finish her spell -- is "broken", and that the enemy spellcaster should get a Concentration check to "finish" her spell before you kill her, then we really have nothing to talk about.
Nerhesi 08-10-07, 10:12 AM	Are you talking about epic duels or what? Somehow, I can't take this. Have you ever heard of Heighten spell or Dispel magic? As I've said - all those are less than optimal - targetted? Bad. Energy Damage? Bad. Doesn't matter how heightened or what you dispel. Anyways, whole other topic.
Nerhesi 08-10-07, 10:20 AM	ArcTan has really good points but it really does come down to on thing. ArcTan - we all agree that you cannot ready an action to "counterspell" and use silence. That much is clear. (unless ofcourse you are countering a silence) So what we are trying to determine is whether readying an action on the condition of "XXX is about to cast a spell" then you cast silence - actually foils XXX's spell. Now by RAW, as you've quoted, your readied action happens JUST before his action. So the question then remains: What is stopping XXX from changing his action? Nothing - it would seem, by RAW. Because unlike the "Counterspell action"(tm) which specifically states "This is how a spell is countered" - there is nothing forcing XXX the guy on the receiving end of the silence, to say.. move out of the area if he has his move action still, then cast a spell. Or simply just change his action to something else when the silence is cast. Correct guys? Where in RAW does it say that you cannot change your action before it takes place? (EXCEPT under quote-counterspelling-unquote, where the result of the successful counterspelling action is to, by RAW, to ruin the other guys' spell) Sam W.
Nerhesi 08-10-07, 10:51 AM	Actually - as someone has pointed out earlier in this thread - when a readied action invalidates your target, you are allowed to choose another. By the same condition, the silence, invalidates you from casting a spell. Your spell isn't foiled if there is a silence covering your area - you simply can NOT cast the spell. Also, as ArcTan has stated (and as is obvious through RAW) - nothing happens in between the standard action. The readied action that covered you in silence actually STOPS you from beginning to cast your spell. So now it seems to be a one-trick counterspell, or rather, spell-inhibit. If the target has already moved - congrats, you got him that time. Otherwise, to actually stop one from casting by readying a silence you would need to: a) Restrict their movement so they couldn't move out of the area AND b) make sure they have nothing memorized with the silent spell feat. Sam W.
ArcTan 08-10-07, 01:58 PM	ArcTan has really good points but it really does come down to on thing. ArcTan - we all agree that you cannot ready an action to "counterspell" and use silence. That much is clear. (unless ofcourse you are countering a silence) So what we are trying to determine is whether readying an action on the condition of "XXX is about to cast a spell" then you cast silence - actually foils XXX's spell. Now by RAW, as you've quoted, your readied action happens JUST before his action. So the question then remains: What is stopping XXX from changing his action? Nothing - it would seem, by RAW. Actually, the RAW clearly says that after a readied action goes off, the person you readied against then automatically completes his action, unless the action you took made his action impossible, in which case his action fails. Nothing says he gets a voluntary choice to decide whether or not to take a new action or not. You can't, for instance, set a spear against a charge and then have the Fighter decide as a result not to charge you anymore. (If this were the case, setting a spear against a charge wouldn't be very useful.)
Nerhesi 08-10-07, 02:11 PM	Actually, the RAW clearly says that after a readied action goes off, the person you readied against then automatically completes his action, unless the action you took made his action impossible, in which case his action fails. Nothing says he gets a voluntary choice to decide whether or not to take a new action or not. You can't, for instance, set a spear against a charge and then have the Fighter decide as a result not to charge you anymore. (If this were the case, setting a spear against a charge wouldn't be very useful.) Gotta find that in the RAW - I'll look. I'm trying to figure out two things here: a) The action is "impossible" so it fails. Well it is impossible in the sense that it cannot even begin. Remember - Silence, stops you from casting. Just like Grappling stops you casting. When grappling - you cannot CAST a spell - you don't lose it. You just can't cast it. So worst case scenario - assuming this does infact qualify as a failure - then you don't actually lose the spell. Your action fails. b) Must find words stating "the action you took made the action impossible". Sam W.
Pentar 08-10-07, 02:25 PM	Depends. It's not impossible to use a wall spell to force you into a confined space. The bluntest, dumbest way to do this is forcecage, but you can also pull it off with stone shape. And that is terrain dependent, whereas Silence is not. Yeah, unless you used the Silent Spell feat on them, or *walked out of the radius*. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we're talking about using Silence as an unbeatable interrupt against any Verbal spell. We're not talking about how to get out of a Silence area, or how to defeat Silence in general. We're discussing a very specific circumstance of someone using Silence as a readied spell-interruption action. Not really. You can't walk out of the radius of a dimensional anchor, and there's no feat that lets teleport work against dimensional anchor. Uhm, Yes really. You're flat out forgetting that Dimensional Anchor works against a specific series of spell effects. Silence works on all verbal spells. What part of "balance" do you not understand here? Fog cloud, then. Sheesh. And deny your allies LOS as well? Sure thing. I'm sure they'll love you for it. And I can counter your example of silence being "unanswerable". I ready to cast silence on the enemy Wizard. The Wizard's Bard friend has readied to counterspell on me with silence. *Poof*, my spell is wasted and the Wizard's spell goes off fine. I ready to cast silence on the enemy Wizard. The enemy Wizard notices me just standing there while a whole initiative count passes. He realizes "ArcTan is readying a spell! Since he's a low-level Bard without access to dispel magic, he can't be planning to directly counterspell my attack spells -- it's probably something like silence!" He casts his next spell using Silent Spell. I cast silence. I'm foiled. Or you choose a different spell to cast to disrupt me. If I'm not mistaken, you don't have to choose what spell you are readying. You just need to say "I ready to cast a spell if Dude A casts a spell." You don't have to cast Silence. You wait for the Wizard to cast, Spellcraft to determine what he is casting (including if it is a Silent spell) and then act accordingly. Uhoh. Now what? You're adjusting how readied actions work to suit your needs. That's very kind of you. But it doesn't work that way. Now, unless you're very strict about how specific readied actions have to be in your campaign, then that example works. But the rules, from what I see, does not say you have to specify EXACTLY what you're doing when you ready an action, except to say you're going to react to someone else doing something specific. I ready to cast silence on the enemy Wizard. He and an enemy tank run up and engage the tank guarding our own Bard. The terrain is such that the Bard can't move easily without provoking AoOs. Now I'm frustrated, because when I cast silence I'll nullify our own Bard, and possibly cost us a much bigger advantage than I gain by denying the Wizard one spell. You see? You are again attempting to use examples to prove your point. I've already explained why this is an ill-conceived way to determine game balance. Silence is completely trumped by *one metamagic feat*, Silent Spell. You can't say the same for things like casting fog cloud or darkness to remove your line of sight, or wall spells to remove your line of effect. Then your suggestion is that all casters should have Silent Spell, or Sudden Silent Spell as feats, else they will be shutdown by a Bard with 2nd level Silence spell any time they want to cast a verbal spell. So, basically, this tactic is not broken so long as all spellcasters are required to take one feat. Gotcha. *sigh* I've never seen it ruin a game, okay? It's not that ultimate. You can only "interrupt" so many spells with it. It falls into the same trap as all purely reactive, defensive strategies do -- it doesn't actually advance your *own* goals and bring the battle any closer to being over. You're basically wasting your own caster just to frustrate the other caster. A battle against a team totally reliant on this strategy just becomes a game of "Meleers wail on the silence Cleric who's got so much silence prepared he can't do anything else." The problem you're not seeing is that Silence works on all spells, of any level, with a V component. No other "interrupt" is as effective without some sort of "save" or "counter". By save or counter, I mean allowing a saving throw, or a concentration check, or allowing the spell caster to choose a different target. By what you are suggesting, Silence would just kill any spell it is used to interrupt. From a level 1 Magic Missile to a level 9 Wish. Now if this is your intention, by all means. To me, that's ridiculous. No one spell should grant that kind of "shutdown" abilities. When you are *distracted* by a spell effect. It's a Concentration check for *distraction*. It never, ever says Concentration is a skill you can use to bypass spell effects that *specifically block some magic that you're using*. You can't use Concentration to avoid a counterspell, which is the most basic form of "interrupt your spell with another spell". Why should you be able to use Concentration for anything else? Because we have already painstakingly discussed, Silence isn't being used to counter-spell, it is being used to DISTRACT and INTERRUPT. Saying a Concentration check can *outright ignore conditions* is my problem. A condition does what it says it does. If it's silent in the area you are, it's silent, period. You can't "concentrate hard enough" to make it not silent anymore, or to get the spell out "just before" it becomes silent. My problem is that your Silence effect comes into play just before the spell action finishes. So effectively, the caster could be silenced just for the last .2 seconds of his spell (or whatever timing, it doesn't matter). So is being silenced for the last bit of a spell enough to disrupt the entire spell? I don't think so.
Nerhesi 08-10-07, 02:43 PM	Ready You can ready a standard action, a move action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, any time before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character’s activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action. According to this, literally, your action occurs just before the action that triggers it. This is why readying to actually "disrupt" or "counterspell" are a completely different "ready" identified below. Just like readying for a charge - because it has it's own added consequence, it doubles the damage. Distracting Spellcasters You can ready an attack against a spellcaster with the trigger "if she starts casting a spell." If you damage the spellcaster, she may lose the spell she was trying to cast (as determined by her Concentration check result). Damage. However - weird enough it makes no mention of distracting without damage BUT as Pentar has pointed out - that does exist. And so - readying to distract can obviously be done with a none damage spell ... causing a distraction concentration check (obviously DMs perogative as to whether it is distracting or not) Now remember - Distraction. ALWAYS determined by Concentration check. Readying to Counterspell You may ready a counterspell against a spellcaster (often with the trigger "if she starts casting a spell"). In this case, when the spellcaster starts a spell, you get a chance to identify it with a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell level). If you do, and if you can cast that same spell (are able to cast it and have it prepared, if you prepare spells), you can cast the spell as a counterspell and automatically ruin the other spellcaster’s spell. Counterspelling works even if one spell is divine and the other arcane. A spellcaster can use dispel magic to counterspell another spellcaster, but it doesn’t always work. This is the only way "counter" a spell. Very simple. Very clear. Either the exact same spell or dispel magic/varients. What is my conclusion? Technically, applying nothing but RAW, there are only two ways to ever stop a spell using a readied action to invalidate it. Distraction. Counterspelling. Thats it. Being unable to speak or grappled stops you from starting to spell-cast. At all. Zip. Changing that precondition does not change the fact that it has already gone through. Changing it before the target even begins to spellcast means "hey wait! I can't even begin to cast.. I'm not just going to sit here and look dumb". The RAW does not state he loses his action - not at all. Sam W.
Azuth 08-10-07, 03:47 PM	Good spotted Nerhesi! That validates the points made by Pentar above. If a DM choses, a Silence may serve as a Distraction - with the appropriate Concentration Check - but not as a sure-thing spell-stopper. -Azuth
ArcTan 08-10-07, 08:38 PM	And that is terrain dependent, whereas Silence is not. Sure it is. Silence is an emanation. Block its line of effect to you, and you can cast spells normally. Just requires a tower shield. Works with AMF, too. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we're talking about using Silence as an unbeatable interrupt against any Verbal spell. We're not talking about how to get out of a Silence area, or how to defeat Silence in general. We're discussing a very specific circumstance of someone using Silence as a readied spell-interruption action. ...Yeah? So? You lose *one spell*. What, again, is the big damn deal? Uhm, Yes really. You're flat out forgetting that Dimensional Anchor works against a specific series of spell effects. Silence works on all verbal spells. What part of "balance" do you not understand here? You can walk out of silence. You can overcome silence with the feat Silent Spell. You can block silence's line of effect to you (if it's cast on a point in space so as to not allow a save). You can do all kinds of things. And deny your allies LOS as well? Sure thing. I'm sure they'll love you for it. If it's important enough to ready an action to stop the spellcaster from doing something rather than simply use my own spells against him first, then yes, it's probably something scary enough they'll be grateful for the fog cloud. You keep willfully ignoring that you can't actually win an encounter by simply denying spells to the other side. Even if silence were so uber, it would be an inferior strategy to trying to do something proactive. Or you choose a different spell to cast to disrupt me. If I'm not mistaken, you don't have to choose what spell you are readying. You just need to say "I ready to cast a spell if Dude A casts a spell." You don't have to cast Silence. You wait for the Wizard to cast, Spellcraft to determine what he is casting (including if it is a Silent spell) and then act accordingly. You are mistaken. You *must* specify the action you will take when you ready the action. Readied actions are balanced by the fact that, unlike regular actions, you're purposely denying yourself "reaction time" (since reaction time takes up initiative time). Do we all need to read the section on readied actions again? It's not really that complicated. Uhoh. Now what? You're adjusting how readied actions work to suit your needs. That's very kind of you. But it doesn't work that way. Now, unless you're very strict about how specific readied actions have to be in your campaign, then that example works. But the rules, from what I see, does not say you have to specify EXACTLY what you're doing when you ready an action, except to say you're going to react to someone else doing something specific. No. Readying an Action You can ready a standard action, a move action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Emphasis mine. You are again attempting to use examples to prove your point. I've already explained why this is an ill-conceived way to determine game balance. Wow, examples of things that can actually happen in a game is more ill-conceived than wild, handwavy abstractions using unquantifiable terms like "unbeatable" and "no counter, no save"? Then your suggestion is that all casters should have Silent Spell, or Sudden Silent Spell as feats, else they will be shutdown by a Bard with 2nd level Silence spell any time they want to cast a verbal spell. Not really. They can also just cast a particular no-verbal-component spell when they think the Bard is readying silence against them, or, y'know, move into a position where silence would be difficult to cast on them, or whatever. You know, *tactics*. By definition, you cannot spring a readied action on someone out of nowhere. The problem you're not seeing is that Silence works on all spells, of any level, with a V component. No other "interrupt" is as effective without some sort of "save" or "counter". By save or counter, I mean allowing a saving throw, or a concentration check, or allowing the spell caster to choose a different target. You mean something that doesn't require you to plan ahead. By the way, AMF doesn't have a save or counter either. Counterspelling (using the actual spell rather than dispel magic) also has neither a save nor a counter. By what you are suggesting, Silence would just kill any spell it is used to interrupt. From a level 1 Magic Missile to a level 9 Wish. If the person were so stupid as to not plan ahead, yes. Now if this is your intention, by all means. To me, that's ridiculous. No one spell should grant that kind of "shutdown" abilities. Because we have already painstakingly discussed, Silence isn't being used to counter-spell, it is being used to DISTRACT and INTERRUPT. The word "interrupt" is nowhere in the description of Concentration. It *only* says "distract". Silence is *not* being used to distract, silence is being used to make spellcasting impossible. It's not a distraction -- indeed, it's the opposite of a distraction. My problem is that your Silence effect comes into play just before the spell action finishes. No, actually. Readied actions technically take place before the action they were readied against, although they're considered to "interrupt" that action if that's an important part of what the readied action does (like with counterspelling). So effectively, the caster could be silenced just for the last .2 seconds of his spell (or whatever timing, it doesn't matter). So is being silenced for the last bit of a spell enough to disrupt the entire spell? Actions don't break up into pieces like that. If I silence you as a readied action, you are considered to *have been silenced* for the whole duration of that spell. Just like if I set a spear against your charge, that spear was set against you *for the duration* of your charge -- even if I use the spear to make an AoO on you in the first three squares of your charge, and your charge covers ten squares.
ArcTan 08-10-07, 08:46 PM	Technically, applying nothing but RAW, there are only two ways to ever stop a spell using a readied action to invalidate it. Distraction. Counterspelling. Thats it. Antimagic field? Dimensional lock? Spell immunity? Being unable to speak or grappled stops you from starting to spell-cast. At all. Zip. Changing that precondition does not change the fact that it has already gone through. Except that you can still *try* to cast the spell. In D&D there are some occasions when you can't even attempt to do something (say, being unconscious) and some when you can, but you'll fail (casting magic missile on a tree). If I cast magic missile on a tree, this is technically an "impossible" action -- magic missile cannot be cast on an object, only on a creature with Wis and Cha scores. But I don't get my spell slot back. The effect is that I *try* to cast the spell and I *fail*, losing my spell slot. The same is true of trying to cast verbal spells in an area of silence, or trying to cast dimensional-travel spells in an area of dimensional lock, or trying to cast any spell at all in an area of antimagic field. Changing it before the target even begins to spellcast means "hey wait! I can't even begin to cast.. I'm not just going to sit here and look dumb". Sure you are. He readied. Technically he did it "simultaneously" to you -- he blocked your spell too quickly for you to react, just like setting a spear against a charge puts that spear in your way too quickly for you to react. The RAW does not state he loses his action - not at all. You can ready a standard action, a move action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, any time before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character’s activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action. We can quibble about this, but making your spells fail is *not* the same as taking away your ability to try to cast a spell. Taking away your capability to continue your actions means rendering you unconscious or tied up or any other state where you "cannot take a standard action". However, nothing stops someone from *trying* to cast a spell in an AMF, or *trying* to teleport out of a dimensional lock (indeed, half the point of AMFs and dimensional locks is that you can try to use them on people who aren't aware that they're there). Nothing prevents the spellcaster from continuing his standard action after you interrupt it with a readied action. He continues the action, he completes his action, he casts the spell, he wastes the spell. Look, it's like "I ready an action to step in the way of anyone who steps toward one of the hostages". He says "I move at my regular speed to the hostage on the left". Your readied action goes off, and you step into his way. He continues moving until he is *stopped* by your presence in that square (with the option of trying to see if you're up for a Bull Rush or Overrun check). He does *not* get to say "Well, okay, now that the guy's standing there I'm going to go to the hostage on the right instead", and make your whole attempt at blocking him useless. Your blocking him and him moving are *simultaneous*, at least from the characters' perspective -- they both *decide* to do it at the same time, it's just that your action gets *resolved* first (before the other has time to react). The rule about characters stopping dead when they hit opposing characters' squares would hardly ever come up, otherwise.
ArcTan 08-10-07, 08:48 PM	Good spotted Nerhesi! That validates the points made by Pentar above. If a DM choses, a Silence may serve as a Distraction - with the appropriate Concentration Check - but not as a sure-thing spell-stopper. Look, the rule continues to be that there is no way to cast a spell with verbal components inside the radius of silence. You can either change the rules for readied actions completely -- say that readied actions take place after the actions they're readied against, which makes them kind of pointless -- or you can agree that silence stops verbal spells, which is *what it's supposed to do*. Don't give me this crap about silence being a "distraction". For one thing, it's not -- having it suddenly fall silent around me is not the sort of thing I'd consider particularly distracting. Having *me* fall silent when I'm trying to speak is not a "distraction" from speaking, it is a condition that *stops* me from speaking. Either silence uses its own rules or, fine, rule it doesn't work (ban it from your game, if you really want). But don't try to make it so that this Concentration check is meant to apply to things like silence or antimagic field -- it clearly isn't.
ArcTan 08-10-07, 08:55 PM	According to this, literally, your action occurs just before the action that triggers it. This is why readying to actually "disrupt" or "counterspell" are a completely different "ready" identified below. There's nothing "completely different" about disruption or counterspells. They're both readied actions, and both resolve the same as readied actions. If they didn't exist, then doing damage to someone would have no effect on their spellcasting (and no Concentration check would be necessary). You could, however, still "ruin" a spell by knocking a spellcaster unconscious or killing him before his spell goes off -- because you've made it impossible for him to cast his spell by taking away the conditions that allow it to happen. If counterspelling didn't exist, you couldn't automatically cause the other guy's fireball to disappear by casting your fireball first. You could, however, make it impossible for him to cast fireball by *hitting* him with your fireball first and knocking him unconscious. And you could similarly cast antimagic field first, or silence first, or any number of other spells first to take away the conditions that make his spell possible. The basic rule -- my action goes first, my action is taken into account, then your action goes off -- remains the same. It *never* says you get the chance to go back and change your action around. You don't, for instance, get to go back and change your action around if your action changes from a very good idea to a very bad or fatal idea (for instance, you're about to charge across a bridge on your horse, and I ready an action to chop away the ropes supporting most of the bridge's weight when you do so). Why should you get to go back and change your action around if that action's result is merely "Your spell fails" as opposed to "You die"? By the way, it's not actually clear that you get to change spell targets in response to a readied action. I let that go before, but I really do question it. The rule in context is about things with 1-round or 10-minute casting times -- however, one standard action continues to be atomic in D&D. The one standard action *is* the "end" of the spell's casting -- you don't get to break it up into beginnings and endings. (That is, casting spell turning on myself as a readied action when you're about to cast phantasmal killer on me is a perfectly valid way to force you to hit yourself with phantasmal killer. It's another reason to simply follow the general rule of BE WARY AROUND THE SPELLCASTER READYING AN ACTION.)
unfortunate_crow 08-10-07, 08:56 PM	To spin this another direction, what about using Mage's Disjunction???
Pentar 08-11-07, 03:47 AM	Look Arc, you have already proven to me you have a wildly different concept of balance than I do. But to layer the cement on your tombstone, I'll make a very simple statement regarding your incorrect concept of how Readied actions work. If you have to declare your readied action in detail, prior to knowing what your opponent is doing, you would never successfully counterspell anyone using the counter spell action. Why? Because with Counterspell, you do not have to declare what spell you are using to counter until you find out what spell your opponent is beginning to cast at the time they start their action. Ergo, unless you're using a lot of Divination magic, you choose the spell you are going to cast on your readied action after you determine what spell your opponent is casting. That is how counterspell works. That is how readied actions work. You, sir, are using a personal house rule and trying to shoe horn it into a broken concept. Uhoh! Your magical and wild ideals of how readied action works is broken. Broken like your perception of what "balanced" means. Broken like your concept of how Silence works as an interrupt. I think your biggest problem is that you just think it's "one spell". What you're not considering is that it is, by your reasoning, an infallible way to interrupt any spell... unless every single spellcaster in the campaign world has Silent spell on all their spells, or has Sudden Silent spell metamagic feat. Now maybe this is acceptable to you. But for most people of reasonable mind and a proper concept of game balance, a 2nd level spell should not, without fail, shutdown any level spell with a V component. Even Dispel Magic is capped on its +modifier on caster level checks, such as when used to dispel. Why would you ever use Dispel Magic to counterspell ever again? Why face a caster level check when you can infallibly shut down someone with Silence? All your foaming at the mouth about "moving out of the area" is GARBAGE. GARBAGE because the spell is already lost. But notwithstanding that, your entire argument hinges around Silence coming into effect before the spellcaster even begins his spell, right? So, technically, you agree with Nerhesi in that the spellcaster who is Silenced by a readied action can then walk out of the silenced area and continue casting. If that is the case, and if that is what you believe, then I have no beef with you. However, I view readied actions as finishing before the action that triggered it finishes. BUT, the action that triggered must have begun, so that it cannot be "stopped" and the spell saved by simply moving out of the affected area and trying again. So perhaps this is where we differ. If you believe what Nerhesi has indicated in the RAW (which is true, BTW), then no problemo. We have been arguing in circles without truly understanding each other's statements. But if not, then you're just trying to have your cake and eat it too. Most people aren't allowed to do that. You are no exception.
redraven 08-11-07, 04:20 AM	Verbal (V) A verbal component is a spoken incantation. To provide a verbal component, you must be able to speak in a strong voice. A silence spell or a gag spoils the incantation (and thus the spell). A spellcaster who has been deafened has a 20% chance to spoil any spell with a verbal component that he or she tries to cast. Readying an Action You can ready a standard action, a move action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, any time before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character’s activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action. Your initiative result changes. For the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action. Spell Failure If you ever try to cast a spell in conditions where the characteristics of the spell cannot be made to conform, the casting fails and the spell is wasted. The rules are pretty clear on Silence. You ready an action to cast Silence near a spellcaster that begins to cast a spell. Assuming the spellcaster attempts to cast a spell, your ready action goes off. You cast Silence. The spellcaster continues his spell but is unable to provide a Verbal component. The spell fails. The spellcaster does not get a chance to choose a different spell, take a different action, or do anything other than what he was already in the process of doing. You cannot use your Move action as an Immediate action to move out of the Silence and then continue your Standard action. That is ridiculous. Is Silence overpowering? No. Is it pretty powerful? Yes. No one seemed to be crying about 3.0 Darkness back when that was a no-save no-SR auto Blindness effect that cost you two rounds to get out of (since your movement is hampered, thus costing double). Just because no one used it that way did not make it any less powerful a tactic. Silence is a similarly powerful tactic. I think you are upset because you never realized Silence could be used this way. Welcome to D&D magic, where Darkness produces shadowy illumination, Gating Efreeti will grant 3 free Wishes per casting, Polymorph is still on the books, and Astral Projection duplicates all your items (including major artifacts). RAW is what it is, but you can houserule it into whatever you want. As for Counterspelling, I recommend the Rules of the Game (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20050524a) article on the matter. I haven't been following this facet of the debate as closely, but you do not have to choose the specific spell ahead of time. All you have to do is ready an action to Counterspell. If you fail the Spellcraft check to identify the spell or otherwise have not prepared the relevant counter, you can always just use Dispel Magic as a failsafe.
CaoSlayer 08-11-07, 04:42 AM	Je. Using silence as a counter spell is the minor use of silence as a disruptive tactic. The great tactics involve casting it in a barbarian or monk who will proceed to grapple the caster or using it in a tanglefoot bag and then tossing it to the caster. When you use it with team tactics becomes a fearsome spell. I agree that is a little overpowered for being a level 2 spell, I would move it to a level 4 cleric spell and a level 3 bard one.
Pentar 08-11-07, 01:27 PM	The rules are pretty clear on Silence. You ready an action to cast Silence near a spellcaster that begins to cast a spell. Assuming the spellcaster attempts to cast a spell, your ready action goes off. You cast Silence. The spellcaster continues his spell but is unable to provide a Verbal component. The spell fails. The spellcaster does not get a chance to choose a different spell, take a different action, or do anything other than what he was already in the process of doing. You cannot use your Move action as an Immediate action to move out of the Silence and then continue your Standard action. That is ridiculous. What is ridiculous is using allowing Silence to become, effectively, the ultimate counter-spell ... without actually counterspelling. Is Silence overpowering? No. Is it pretty powerful? Yes. No one seemed to be crying about 3.0 Darkness back when that was a no-save no-SR auto Blindness effect that cost you two rounds to get out of (since your movement is hampered, thus costing double). Really? Are you sure about that? People weren't crying much over Haste allowing you 2 standard actions per round either, right? Or about the old Bag o' Rats + Cleave + Whirlwind trick? So, the criteria of what is unbalanced and/or broken is decided on how many people complain about it on the forums? Just because no one used it that way did not make it any less powerful a tactic. Silence is a similarly powerful tactic. I think you are upset because you never realized Silence could be used this way. HAHAHAHAHA!!! Not at all my confused and simplistic friend. I don't play any characters that can even cast the spell. My problem is that it is - in general, Silence is an unavoidable, no-save, no-resist, no-countercheck method to stop any spell with a V component... which is, as I've stated, the vast majority of spells out there, Divine and Arcane. As for Counterspelling, I recommend the Rules of the Game (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20050524a) article on the matter. I haven't been following this facet of the debate as closely, but you do not have to choose the specific spell ahead of time. All you have to do is ready an action to Counterspell. If you fail the Spellcraft check to identify the spell or otherwise have not prepared the relevant counter, you can always just use Dispel Magic as a failsafe. That's precisely what I was saying to ArcTan. Read his post again. He seems to indicate you need to fully decide what spell to cast on a Readied action... Which of course makes readying a counterspell pretty damn difficult.
Nerhesi 08-11-07, 05:14 PM	I'm busy reading replies. But someone mentioned grapple and I need to get rid of that silly notion right away. Between the billion immediate action style teleports/dimension doors/jaunts and not to mention you need a feat to not have your grapple spoiled when you try it and not to mention that after all of that a 4th level spell will make you immune to ever being grappled.. yeah. Not even on the same scale. Sam W.
Nerhesi 08-11-07, 05:52 PM	On a side note regarding "balance" readying a standard action to blast you with a fireball, with the intention of foiling your spell. Is way worse than a silence. Take a level 8 character with a fireball. 8d6 = 28 dmg on average. 24 with save. DC to save = 19 (10 + 3 from spell level + 3 from int(16) + 1 from advancement to int(levels 4 and 8) + 1 from int enhancement item (headband +2) Wizard reflex save = +5 (2 base + 2 from dex(14) + 1 resistance (cloak +1) ) Concentration check = +13 (11 ranks, +2 from con) ---- Chance of wizard to retain concentration on a spell when he is hit by a fireball? If he doesn't save and takes full damage (28) Auto-fail. DC of concentration check is 38. He needs to roll a 25. If he saves (14 needed on the roll, 35% chance to pass) he needs to roll 11 (50%) or higher to retain the spell (concentration DC 24) ---- Comparison? At level 8 lets say: Chance to not lose spell when struck by fireball - 17.5% - and you take 14 damage. Chance not to lose spell when struck by empowered Magic Missile - 15% chance. Chance of a wizard not lose a spell to a connecting readied multishot, melee attack, etc? Well.. think on it this way - anything that does 24 or more damage means the wizard can not, at all, make his concentration check. ------ Keep in mind these are damaging spells that have also brought down a significant chunk of your hp. They are also not level 4 damaging spells. So yes, in retrospect it is not that powerful at all - as at higher levels, you'd never be able to make the concentration checks and you'd take damage - vs just losing the spell from silence. Also - while it would take very specific defences to defeat the damage (and in almost all cases, a defence for each kind of damage) - silence is defeated by the lack of a "V" component (Rare? yes. But not as rare as protecting yourself from .. "damage") In fact at around level 7 or 9 (depending on your feats) you wouldn't ever keep a silence to counterspell vs a nuke spell. Not to mention as you level, the sources of damage increase much quicker than your concentrate ranks. Sam W.
Nerhesi 08-11-07, 05:54 PM	Oh - and thanks Redraven for clarifying by RAW the part about how if you somehow make the area silent AFTER spell casting has started, the spell still fails.
Nerhesi 08-11-07, 05:59 PM	Je. Using silence as a counter spell is the minor use of silence as a disruptive tactic. The great tactics involve casting it in a barbarian or monk who will proceed to grapple the caster or using it in a tanglefoot bag and then tossing it to the caster. When you use it with team tactics becomes a fearsome spell. I agree that is a little overpowered for being a level 2 spell, I would move it to a level 4 cleric spell and a level 3 bard one. I'd probably just allow the saving throw much like all those spells that allow a saving throw if you happen to start in the area. Sam W.
Terraneaux 08-11-07, 06:40 PM	Guys, readied actions can be readied to take place *before* an action. You can stop someone from casting a spell with verbal components by getting the silence off before their spell even starts.
redraven 08-11-07, 07:08 PM	What is ridiculous is using allowing Silence to become, effectively, the ultimate counter-spell ... without actually counterspelling. It is your opinion that it is ridiculous, and few people seem to agree with you. Foiling spells with Verbal components is precisely the function of the spell - just look at the RAW quotes I posted. And in any case, it is not the "ultimate" counterspell because there are no guarantees that the other mage has defenses against it. If the mage has Sudden Silent Spell, is casting a Silent Spell anyway, has a Ring of Counterspells with Silence in it, or any number of similar things, you would have been better off countering with Dispel Magic. The "ultimate" counterspell would be one that works every time or more times than any other tactic. With Silence, this is not the case. Really? Are you sure about that? People weren't crying much over Haste allowing you 2 standard actions per round either, right? Or about the old Bag o' Rats + Cleave + Whirlwind trick? So, the criteria of what is unbalanced and/or broken is decided on how many people complain about it on the forums? The criteria of what is unbalanced or broken are the arguments used to advance that point. Thus far, your arguments have been extremely weak in "proving" Silence is unbalanced. By RAW, Silence is supposed to work the way we have been telling you all along. 3.0 Haste was supposed to work the way it did (allowing two spells a round) and spellcasting monsters were given a CR predicated on the fact that they got 2 standard actions a round with Haste active. The bag of rats trick was more than likely not supposed to work like that, but was not especially disruptive in any game I played where it was attempted. It was a standard action to throw the bag and the rats had their own separate initiative orders. If a move action was used just to dump the rats, opponents got their AoO to abuse Cleave in return. HAHAHAHAHA!!! Not at all my confused and simplistic friend. I don't play any characters that can even cast the spell. My problem is that it is - in general, Silence is an unavoidable, no-save, no-resist, no-countercheck method to stop any spell with a V component... which is, as I've stated, the vast majority of spells out there, Divine and Arcane. I am neither simplistic nor your friend. I want this point to be abundantly clear. As for the rest of your comments, so what? That's one of the defining points of the spell, to be exactly what you described. You have yet to provide a serviceable argument for why it is such a problem. It is a situationally powerful tactic that can easily be a waste of a spell slot. Alternatively, Dispel Magic is always going to give you shot a countering something. And unlike Dispel Magic, the Silence trick is likely to only work once, even in the same encounter. That's precisely what I was saying to ArcTan. Read his post again. He seems to indicate you need to fully decide what spell to cast on a Readied action... Which of course makes readying a counterspell pretty damn difficult. If that is what he said, he is wrong. Again, I already mentioned I wasn't following that facet of the debate, but decided to post the link since the rules were pretty clear on that issue.
CaoSlayer 08-11-07, 07:15 PM	I'd probably just allow the saving throw much like all those spells that allow a saving throw if you happen to start in the area. Sam W. The trouble is that silence is an emanation and ever in the case that someone saved, still would be silence and he would be unnable to speak since the silence will surround him. The description of the spell is a little confusing but the intent is clear, there is only a save if the source of the emanation is an attended item or a unwilling creature. The spell is like darkness in essence.
Nerhesi 08-11-07, 08:16 PM	Guys, readied actions can be readied to take place *before* an action. You can stop someone from casting a spell with verbal components by getting the silence off before their spell even starts. That was not being argued. The argument I put forward was that since it happened before the action - the action never got to start (because you can't even start to cast a spell in a silenced area). Redraven pointed out in RAW, where it states that should the conditions to cast the spell become invalid, the spell is wasted. Sam W.
Pentar 08-12-07, 02:19 AM	It is your opinion that it is ridiculous, and few people seem to agree with you. Foiling spells with Verbal components is precisely the function of the spell - just look at the RAW quotes I posted. And in any case, it is not the "ultimate" counterspell because there are no guarantees that the other mage has defenses against it. If the mage has Sudden Silent Spell, is casting a Silent Spell anyway, has a Ring of Counterspells with Silence in it, or any number of similar things, you would have been better off countering with Dispel Magic. The "ultimate" counterspell would be one that works every time or more times than any other tactic. With Silence, this is not the case. 1. Already discussed that is it extremely silly to assume that in order to bypass an unbeatable spell interrupt, all casters, arcane or divine, are now required to have Silent Spell, or Sudden Silent Spell - not withstanding having to know to cast/prepare a particular spell as a Silent spell before casting it. 2. Ring of Counterspells only works if you are the target of a spell. Silence is an area emanation. The caster can designate the square directly beside you and you get no saving throw, no spell resistance and certainly no "Ring of Counterspells". 3. It is the case. The only way to prevent Silence from working is the same method to prevent any other counter spell from working. Countering the counter speller. Only this time, rather than forcing the counterspeller to cast the exact spell that is being countered, or casting a spell of a higher level of the same school, or facing a caster-level check, you get an unbeatable interrupt. The criteria of what is unbalanced or broken are the arguments used to advance that point. Thus far, your arguments have been extremely weak in "proving" Silence is unbalanced. Rubbish. My points have been backed by scads of reasonings. Your own counter points as to why Silence is not broken, meanwhile, have all been brought low. By RAW, Silence is supposed to work the way we have been telling you all long. I have no issue with it by RAW. I do recommend you read the thread before leaping in blind. I'm simply saying that allowing it to work that way is broken. I am neither simplistic nor your friend. I want this point to be abundantly clear. Friend was a loosely used term. I assure you of that. As for the rest of your comments, so what? That's one of the defining points of the spell, to be exactly what you described. However, and this point must be abundantly clear: It should not be able to shut down any spell casting with a verbal component without fail when used as a readied action. I have no issue if you target someone with a Silence, the fail their save and spend the rest of the encounter standing there, muted, unable to cast anything... Why? They failed their save. It's no different than if they got grappled, hit by an unlucky crit, was Held, Confused, etc. The difference is, at the very least, a saving throw was allowed. As already pointed out, the only way to get around a Silence used as an interrupt, is to basically have the Sudden Silent feat. So your "solution" to the Silence issue is to quite literally say all casters must have that feat or else a 4th level Bard will flat out deny you 80% of your spells. No save. Not caster level check. No concentration check. ALL SPELLS. You're not sacrificing the same spell (thus of equivalent power) to counterspell. You are not sacrificing a higher level spell of the same school to counterspell a lower level spell. You are doing it with a 2nd level spell that will defeat Epic level spells. You have yet to provide a serviceable argument for why it is such a problem. Now you're just spewing nonsense. I've already written pages on the matter. You're just willfully overlooking it, or blithely tossing it aside as irrelevant, yet are completely unable to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why it is not broken. I've already shown you it is. Every other method of counterspelling or distracting a spellcaster gives the caster some chance of recovery. Silence, if it works the way you want it to, would deny that utterly. There is no chance. It is a situationally powerful tactic that can easily be a waste of a spell slot. Only if the other caster as Sudden Silent Spell, or was casting a Silent spell to begin with. But if you make your Spellcraft check to determine your opponent is casting a Silent spell, you wouldn't use Silence to interrupt them, would you? You'd simply elect to cast another spell. Since we've already gone over the fact that you do not need to choose your spell before hand when you declare you are readying a spell, then you simply choose something else. You do not waste a spell slot. Ever. Alternatively, Dispel Magic is always going to give you shot a countering something. And unlike Dispel Magic, the Silence trick is likely to only work once, even in the same encounter. I guess because most encounters last long enough for a caster to re-prepare all their spells as Silent spells, eh? Pretty long encounters...
groveborn 08-12-07, 07:28 AM	I wonder if it was mentioned in this long 3 page discussion, but isn't Silence a 1 Round casting time (meaning it'll go off at the beginning of your NEXT round)? Wouldn't it prove worthless in most situations? Wizard 1 "I ready my silence, if they start casting a spell, silence their square" DM "ok" Enemy Wizard "Zibar a deb..." For a standard action spell. DM "You cast your silence, but while you're casting it, the other spell's effect goes off during your casting time, roll concentration check against your 700 points of damage." (exaggerated) Wizard 1 "Damn"
CaoSlayer 08-12-07, 02:51 PM	I wonder if it was mentioned in this long 3 page discussion, but isn't Silence a 1 Round casting time (meaning it'll go off at the beginning of your NEXT round)? Casting Time: 1 standard action By the way, I have one mayor gripe about silence... why is silence an illusion spell? seems more like a transmutation spell... I mean that if where a true illusion then should be posible to cast spells just because the spell only is making the sound seems like if where no sound in place of just stopping all sound. The silence spell sounds more like a transmutation, a real effect.
bigbythewise 08-12-07, 05:26 PM	As already pointed out, the only way to get around a Silence used as an interrupt, is to basically have the Sudden Silent feat. So your "solution" to the Silence issue is to quite literally say all casters must have that feat or else a 4th level Bard will flat out deny you 80% of your spells. No save. Not caster level check. No concentration check. ALL SPELLS. Tactic. Have you ever heard of it? Just use a Wand or Scroll with Invisibility (or with some illusion-like) spell and you are pretty in safe against counterspell guys. You're not sacrificing the same spell (thus of equivalent power) to counterspell.. And you aren't sacrificing an equal spell if you"ll damage and break a Wizard who's casting Time Stop, using your Magic Missile.
ArcTan 08-12-07, 08:10 PM	Look Arc, you have already proven to me you have a wildly different concept of balance than I do. But to layer the cement on your tombstone, I'll make a very simple statement regarding your incorrect concept of how Readied actions work. If you have to declare your readied action in detail, prior to knowing what your opponent is doing, you would never successfully counterspell anyone using the counter spell action. Why? Because with Counterspell, you do not have to declare what spell you are using to counter until you find out what spell your opponent is beginning to cast at the time they start their action. Ergo, unless you're using a lot of Divination magic, you choose the spell you are going to cast on your readied action after you determine what spell your opponent is casting. That is how counterspell works. That is how readied actions work. Counterspell, as you abundantly pointed out before, is defined as a separate action from ordinary readied actions. While this does not mean counterspell works particularly differently from other readied actions in its ability to "interrupt" spells (which is fundamental to what a readied action is), it does seem to me that "readying to counterspell" is meant to be a special action. You can specify "I'm readying to counterspell" or "I'm readying to cast silence". If you could pick whatever you wanted to do on a readied action as soon as the readied action went off, then you wouldn't *have* to ready to counterspell. You would, instead, "ready to cast a spell", and if it turned out that the person wasn't casting a spell you had available, you would choose to cast a damaging spell or an otherwise distracting spell rather than choosing to "counterspell" something you can't counterspell (and wasting your chance to act). Of course, that *is* what happens when you "ready to counterspell" and someone happens to cast a spell you don't have (and you don't have access to dispel magic). By your logic, this would be impossible -- no one would choose simply not to act because they can't counterspell. You, sir, are using a personal house rule and trying to shoe horn it into a broken concept. Uhoh! Your magical and wild ideals of how readied action works is broken. Broken like your perception of what "balanced" means. Broken like your concept of how Silence works as an interrupt. I've noticed that everyone on these boards seems to have a "totally different conception of balance" from you, Pentar, if they ever disagree with you about anything. Apparently you think that allowing silence to work like the rules say it works will, I dunno, mean that every Cleric will fill up all her spell slots with silence and no Wizard will ever successfully cast a spell again. It should only take a moment's thought to see why this wouldn't happen. I think your biggest problem is that you just think it's "one spell". What you're not considering is that it is, by your reasoning, an infallible way to interrupt any spell... unless every single spellcaster in the campaign world has Silent spell on all their spells, or has Sudden Silent spell metamagic feat. Or they don't mind having one spell slot interrupted at the cost of the Cleric or Bard using up *their* spell slot, and losing their initiative. And they're not stupid enough to lead off with their best spell when they see someone readying an action. Now maybe this is acceptable to you. But for most people of reasonable mind and a proper concept of game balance, a 2nd level spell should not, without fail, shutdown any level spell with a V component. Yeah, yeah, "game balance", "game balance". I suppose you want dominate person to work on protection from evil because it's higher-level, too. (Here's a hint: D&D *often* has defensive effects that are lower-level than the offensive things the oppose, because in D&D defense is a less efficient action to take than offense.) Even Dispel Magic is capped on its +modifier on caster level checks, such as when used to dispel. Why would you ever use Dispel Magic to counterspell ever again? Why face a caster level check when you can infallibly shut down someone with Silence? Because I don't want a big annoying area of silence sitting around inconveniencing *my* spellcasters? Because non-verbal spells and the Silent Spell feat exist, and smart casters will use them if they suspect me of being about to use silence? Because I'm a Wizard or Sorcerer rather than a Cleric or Bard? All your foaming at the mouth about "moving out of the area" is GARBAGE. GARBAGE because the spell is already lost. So I lost *one spell*. Big deal. But notwithstanding that, your entire argument hinges around Silence coming into effect before the spellcaster even begins his spell, right? So, technically, you agree with Nerhesi in that the spellcaster who is Silenced by a readied action can then walk out of the silenced area and continue casting. If that is the case, and if that is what you believe, then I have no beef with you. Well, he can't, because he already declared his action. It's just like if someone sets a spear against my charge as a readied action I can't say "Well, screw that, I'm not going to charge anymore". However, I view readied actions as finishing before the action that triggered it finishes. BUT, the action that triggered must have begun, so that it cannot be "stopped" and the spell saved by simply moving out of the affected area and trying again. So perhaps this is where we differ. If you believe what Nerhesi has indicated in the RAW (which is true, BTW), then no problemo. We have been arguing in circles without truly understanding each other's statements. But if not, then you're just trying to have your cake and eat it too. Most people aren't allowed to do that. You are no exception. What are you talking about? I want readied actions to be able to do what readied actions are supposed to do -- interrupt and stop other actions. That's what the ready action is for. The proper response to the ready action is to *acknowledge that it's occurring* and use strategy to evade it. You say "He just skipped his initiative. He's readying an action. What could he be ready to do?" and you form your strategy accordingly. Why do you insist on seeing this as so hard? Yes, *once silence is cast* into the right situation, it's powerful. So you don't let that situation occur. The fact that you telegraph the fact that you're going to use a readied action before you use the readied action -- someone just stands there, hanging out, for a whole initiative count without doing anything -- means that it's possible to use strategy against it. It adds to the value of having a high initiative modifier (so it's easier to pre-emptively ready actions without telegraphing your intent). It adds to the *strategy* of the game instead of brute hack-and-slash and rock-paper-scissors magic. Again, what's wrong with this?
ArcTan 08-12-07, 08:11 PM	By the way, I have one mayor gripe about silence... why is silence an illusion spell? seems more like a transmutation spell... I mean that if where a true illusion then should be posible to cast spells just because the spell only is making the sound seems like if where no sound in place of just stopping all sound. The silence spell sounds more like a transmutation, a real effect. Silence is an illusion spell for the same reason invisibility is an illusion spells. The two spells are basically equivalent.
ArcTan 08-12-07, 08:11 PM	I wonder if it was mentioned in this long 3 page discussion, but isn't Silence a 1 Round casting time (meaning it'll go off at the beginning of your NEXT round)? Wouldn't it prove worthless in most situations? No. It's a standard action.
ArcTan 08-12-07, 08:22 PM	As for Counterspelling, I recommend the Rules of the Game (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20050524a) article on the matter. I haven't been following this facet of the debate as closely, but you do not have to choose the specific spell ahead of time. All you have to do is ready an action to Counterspell. If you fail the Spellcraft check to identify the spell or otherwise have not prepared the relevant counter, you can always just use Dispel Magic as a failsafe. We're not really talking about counterspelling. Readying an action to cast silence to stop verbal spells is *not* counterspelling, and does not take the counterspell action. If you said "I'm readying an action to counterspell", you could *never* cast silence as part of that action unless the spell you were counterspelling was itself silence. Casting silence on someone casting, say, magic missile does not "counterspell" magic missile. The effect of a counterspell is to negate both spells and have nothing happen. Silence instead simply goes off and creates an area of silence, and the magic missile simply fails -- this is not the same as counterspelling. (In the case of silence, you're not even actually casting silence on the guy you're readying against -- you're readying to cast silence on some grid intersection adjacent to him. Just like using AMF to spoil a spell is casting AMF on *you*, not "counterspelling with AMF", which would be using AMF to stop someone else casting AMF.) RAW, I see nothing that says you're allowed to say "I ready an action to cast a spell" and not say what spell it is, if you're not using the counterspell action. If you're choosing to do something *besides* counterspell, you need to say what it is you're going to do ("I ready to cast fireball on the first person to cast a spell", "I ready to take a 5' step and attack with my scythe on the first person to enter a square I threaten or can threaten with a 5' step", etc.) I don't see a reason to be a real hardass about this -- the fact that readied actions are conditional means there must be *some* leeway about what, exactly, your readied action is going to be (like, which square you're going to step into, which person you're going to target with a spell, etc.) But, like with contingency, I do think "Which spell are you going to cast?" has to be part of the action defined beforehand. I don't think it's reasonable to say that which spell you use can be conditional (that's a short step to opening up readied actions to "I ready to take the most useful possible action against someone who takes an action I want to interrupt"). Anyway, I don't think this is an important leg of the argument. Even if Pentar is right and I could say "Wait, he's casting a spell without verbal components, I'm not casting silence after all!", that would still not make silence particularly uber. I would either be trading in my supposedly unstoppable interrupt for an interrupt less likely to work (and thus casting that nonverbal spell *succeeded* in making me waste my readied action), or I would trade it in for an interrupt just as or more likely to work, in which case I probably should've used it in the first place. As Nerhesi pointed out, any low-to-mid-level character will have more success using actual damaging spells as interrupts than using silence.
ArcTan 08-12-07, 08:37 PM	1. Already discussed that is it extremely silly to assume that in order to bypass an unbeatable spell interrupt, all casters, arcane or divine, are now required to have Silent Spell, or Sudden Silent Spell - not withstanding having to know to cast/prepare a particular spell as a Silent spell before casting it. That's stupid. There are so many solutions to a caster targeting you with silence. Get out of his range. Stand next to the Bard whose song is buffing him. Have *your* mage counterspell him. Have your Barbarian grapple him, or ready an action to disrupt his silence with her greatsword. Silence is no harder to stop than any other 2nd-level readied spell. 2. Ring of Counterspells only works if you are the target of a spell. Silence is an area emanation. The caster can designate the square directly beside you and you get no saving throw, no spell resistance and certainly no "Ring of Counterspells". Silence can still, however, be actually counterspelled, or disrupted. 3. It is the case. The only way to prevent Silence from working is the same method to prevent any other counter spell from working. Countering the counter speller. Or, y'know, Power Attacking him with a greatsword. Only this time, rather than forcing the counterspeller to cast the exact spell that is being countered, or casting a spell of a higher level of the same school, or facing a caster-level check, you get an unbeatable interrupt. But since silence is, according to you, the only unbeatable interrupt, you don't *need* to guess what spell it is in order to counterspell it. All the Bards and Clerics should have silence on their list or prepared, and they should all ready to counterspell the other Bard or Cleric at the beginning of combat. There you go. Cold War option. Silence is neutralized by the fact that it will be insta-counterspelled by anyone else who has silence, because everyone knows how potent it is. (Of course, this wouldn't actually happen, because it wouldn't be worth it, because silence isn't that potent. If it were, though, this would be de rigeur.) However, and this point must be abundantly clear: It should not be able to shut down any spell casting with a verbal component without fail when used as a readied action. I have no issue if you target someone with a Silence, the fail their save and spend the rest of the encounter standing there, muted, unable to cast anything... Why? They failed their save. It's no different than if they got grappled, hit by an unlucky crit, was Held, Confused, etc. The difference is, at the very least, a saving throw was allowed. Saving throws are not that big a deal. It's the player behind the sheet who matters more than the character sheet. Most Wizards' grapple checks, for instance, are so horrible that any of the melee classes could probably win on a grapple with a Wizard 9 times out of 10. How do Wizards deal with this? Using a special spell or series of items to bump up their grapple check through some bizarre Pun-Pun-like combo? No. They just *don't get in situations where they could be grappled*. This is no different. As already pointed out, the only way to get around a Silence used as an interrupt, is to basically have the Sudden Silent feat. So your "solution" to the Silence issue is to quite literally say all casters must have that feat or else a 4th level Bard will flat out deny you 80% of your spells. No save. Not caster level check. No concentration check. ALL SPELLS. First off: No, *not* all spells. All *verbal* spells. (Funny how quickly that caveat goes away.) Secondly, having to prepare spells as Silent is only true for prepared casters, who are not all spellcasters. For a Sorcerer, applying Silent Spell just means using a full-round action rather than a standard action to cast, which, while annoying, hardly destroys his ability to act. (And yes, any situation where the Sorcerer has an edge on the Wizard is important for game balance.) By PHB2 rules the Sorcerer can even lose this restriction for the relatively small cost of not having a familiar. In any case, why would the Wizard be forced to prepare *all* his spells as Silent Spells? He just picks a few very useful low-level spells (like scorching ray) to prepare as Silent, because he knows his DM tries to use silence as a denial spell once in a while. Silence goes off once, he casts his Silent scorching ray and does damage with it, the jig is up, silence is unlikely to work again. (Your theory that the Bard could just keep on blanketing the whole battlefield with silence again and again -- facing no opposition from people like Barbarians and Fighters and Warblades who don't actually need verbal components to use their abilities -- and therefore "win the battle" by eventually exhausting all the Wizard's spells per day -- is kind of nonsensical. I've never seen an encounter work out that way.) You're not sacrificing the same spell (thus of equivalent power) to counterspell. You are not sacrificing a higher level spell of the same school to counterspell a lower level spell. You are doing it with a 2nd level spell that will defeat Epic level spells. Please. Epic level spells don't have to have verbal components that can be silenced unless you want them to. And you can, for instance, disrupt Mordenkainen's disjunction with a relatively high chance of success by readying to cast a max-caster-level magic missile, as someone pointed out. Now you're just spewing nonsense. I've already written pages on the matter. You're just willfully overlooking it, or blithely tossing it aside as irrelevant, yet are completely unable to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why it is not broken. I've already shown you it is. Every other method of counterspelling or distracting a spellcaster gives the caster some chance of recovery. Silence, if it works the way you want it to, would deny that utterly. There is no chance. Why do they have to have a chance of *recovery*? They have every chance of *predicting* the condition and guarding against it. That should be all the chance you need. You shouldn't need a chance of "recovery", just the chance to plan ahead. (Being killed by a greatsword doesn't give you a chance of "recovery" either -- just a chance to *plan ahead*.)
yrogerg 08-12-07, 10:48 PM	Here's the thing: Preventing spells with verbal components is pretty much the only thing Silence *does*, certain niche applications for sneaking around notwithstanding. There is an argument to be made that it is a powerful spell, in this regard. However, casting it as a readied action, while clever, doesn't actually make the spell all that much *more* powerful. The "no save" scenario, casting it at a fixed point it space next to the spellcaster, makes it an impediment to spellcasters for all of one action(i.e, until they single-move out of the spell radius), which is actually a pretty serious under-use of the spell. This is about as much of an impediment as counterspelling ever is. By contrast, other means of disrupting, impeding or counterspelling enemy spells are much more robust than a prepared Silence spell, or cause additional problems for the caster. A readied Blindness (an equal-level spell, you'll note), for example, would also cause a caster to lose their spell automatically (as you lose line of sight), but also renders the target permanently blind. *Much* more effective, and very much worth the Fortitude save involved.
Nerhesi 08-13-07, 10:56 AM	Well, he can't, because he already declared his action. It's just like if someone sets a spear against my charge as a readied action I can't say "Well, screw that, I'm not going to charge anymore". Really? How is that? You declare you're "setting your spear against the charge" - you're not interrupting. You're doing on this initiative - the description is pretty clear - you're setting your weapon. This is not braveheart where you suddenly lift your spear at the last minute. This is you going on initiative 25 declaring the VERY SPECIFIC readied action (like counterspell) - and the barbarian/fighter/whatever who has yet to go still has not declared his action. You can of course ready an action "when I'm charged" so that you can "surprise him before he reaches you" but it is not the same as "setting against the charge" - that one is a very obvious action with a very specific effect. Sam W.
BW0222 08-13-07, 11:27 AM	Folks, For those who think that the rules need to be changed such that one spell (silence) can't be used as a readied action against other spells casters because it is somehow broken... has anyone actually had a problem with the spell? I mean how many folks have actually had a cleric or bard, sitting there will piles of silence spells preventing enemy casters from getting there spells off? First, only clerics and bards get it. Most bards don't take it due to their limited number of spell slots and because it quickly nerfs a lot of their spells and abilities. Clerics don't typically take it. Second, who would memorize so many spells? Bards can spontaneously cast (if they have the spell), but even they don't have that many second level spells until extremely high levels. I've yet to see lots of high level clerics who even take the spell and even mine only take it for stealth potential. You might take the spell once, but not many high level clerics have two or three of them. Third, if you don't encounter any spellcasters in combat it is a bit of a waste. It really has little combat value from then on. Enemy spellcasters are already a fairly rare encounter, so most of the time the spell is of limited value. Forth, the spell can often backfire against the party. Most parties include several spellcasters. Baring an adventure ending encounter, most encounters will only include one spellcaster at equal level to the party, two two levels lower, four four levels lower, etc. In most cases, you have a caster a few levels lower plus a few really low-level guards. In other words, the spell casting potential of the party is likely better than that of the enemy casters (even when you do run into them). Silencing an area can easily take out your cleric and wizard in exchange for their lower-level caster. Merely preventing the party from talking is by itself enough of an issue that most PCs don't like casting it. Fifth, at lower-levels, a lot of other spells are likely just as effective. Merely damaging your opponent likely makes him fail a spell also, plus actually damaging him. Sixth, the size and shape of the dungeon limits the usefulness of the spell greatly. In a close in fight, chances are you don't want to silence yourselves. In a larger area, it becomes easy for the caster to move out of the area. Seven, you have to ready an action. That alone is always dangerous. Often The enemy caster (or his friends) can see that you haven't taken your action and can react appropriately -- move to where you can't target him, use a wand, drink a potion, cast a minor spell, move closer to the party so you won't want to cast an AoE spell, delay until a friend gets beside you, etc. Casters are typically intelligent and most go to great lengths at avoid readied actions against them. Eight, a low-levels the spell often doesn't do that much. If you are 5th-level, you have say a 3rd-level opponent and some body guards, at best you are trading one of your 2nd-level spells for his, although almost as likely trading your second level spell for his 1st. Nine, at high levels, chances are folks have protections against silence. Spell resistance, spell immunity, spell turning, silence spell, spells without verbal components, etc. In any case, I honestly don't see too many 10th-level casters tossing out silence spells (except when running really low on spells). Far better to ready a flamestrike, wall of stone, etc. Honestly, it is a 2nd-level spell for a reason. At 10th+ levels it is such an iffy action in a dual of 5th or 6th-level spells. Ten, since you are going before the caster anyway, there are often a lot of better choices for spells to cast anyway without the ready. Giant vermin a bunch of creatures around him, ice storm, fog cloud, darkness, (depending upon the size of the area) silence him before casting, etc. as all just as likely to prevent him from casting the spell he was previously going to cast are you folks. There is a much better chance that these will work (since he can't see you readying and try to avoid or the situtation doesn't chance such that it taking the action is undersirable), etc. Eleven, at higher levels, even if it does work, typically you only stop one spell from going off. Trading a 2nd-level spell for a higher-level one (if he cast a higher level one) is pretty good, but you know that any high-level caster worth their salt isn't going to allow that one to happen again. Few high casters are likely to fail will saves from a 2nd-level spell, so they can easily move out of the area. Plus, they'll have a lot of spells. In all my years with 3rd-edition, I've yet to see the spell ruin tables. Maybe one combat in twenty, it is useful as a combat spell, and even then a lot of times it is pretty iffy in combat. I've seen lots of spells nerf a combat. Darkness cast on a bat familiar against a spellcaster, fog cloud again archers, spider climb vs. ogres (shoot them from the ceiling), etc. I don't see silence as any more prevalent or effective. I could be just me, but... * I've yet to see anyone cast more than one in a combat, * I've yet to see anyone carry more than one in memory, * I don't think I've ever seen it readied against a caster, and * I've worried about the PCs using it, or using it against PCs. If it is such an unbeatable tactic why aren't folks using it more often? They are far worse spells to ready against folks.
BW0222 08-13-07, 11:56 AM	Nerhesi Quote: >Well, he can't, because he already declared his action. It's just like if >someone sets a spear against my charge as a readied action I can't >say "Well, screw that, I'm not going to charge anymore". Really? How is that? You are taking that out of context. ArcTan's orginal response was to the following scenerio. 1. #1 readies an action (silence) against #2 casting. 2. #2 begins casting. #1 cast silence. Pentar appears to suggest that 3. #2 can then decide not to cast, move somewhere else, and cast again. Rules make it clear that (PHB p160) "Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action." A caster who is hit by a readied silence spell continues casting his spell (which fails if it has a V component). The same as if person hit by a readied arrow, must continue casting the spell if capable of doing so. In the spear ready case, you have a different scenerio... 1. #2 readies an action (spear) against #2 charging. On his initiative #2 is certainly free not to charge. You are certainly correct in that point. However, ArcTan's original point was that #2 can't decide not to take another action once he begins the triggering action. For example, to use the charge, let's ready and set against charge action itself (They are standard actions themselves, and you can ready a readied action). 1. #1 readies to "set a spear against a charge" if #2 moves more than 10 ft. 2. #2 charges. 3. When #2 moves more than 10 ft, #1 readied action is triggered. #2 has no choice but to continue with his action (assuming he is still capable of performing it). He is capable, so he much continue finishing his charge no matter how badly it is. Same with silence (or any other spell). He needs to continue finishing the spell even though it is going to fail.
yrogerg 08-13-07, 01:51 PM	Really? How is that? You declare you're "setting your spear against the charge" - you're not interrupting. You're doing on this initiative - the description is pretty clear - you're setting your weapon. This is not braveheart where you suddenly lift your spear at the last minute. This is you going on initiative 25 declaring the VERY SPECIFIC readied action (like counterspell) - and the barbarian/fighter/whatever who has yet to go still has not declared his action. You can't really ready the action under the trigger "when he decides to declare charge" or "When he decides to move".Err, no. The setting a spear action is a readied action to attack someone charging once they move into attack range. The "setting" part is represented by the act of readying the action. That's why it's listed under readied actions. As a result, it can't be resolved until the charger enters attack range, being a melee attack and all. There's really no other interpretation that makes any sense here. By the same conditions of setting range,target, whatever.. he could then charge or move in whatever direction he wants and hit whoever he wants. You don't declare charge direction/target etc and then you have to stick by it. At least.. not that I think. Sam W. The problem is, what's the alternative? You declare a charge, and once you find out an enemy had a readied action against you, you say, "Umm, actually, in that case, I [charge other person X/take different action Y], instead"? How is that not blatantly cheaterly? It's pretty much the same as, realizing that someone else has the spell to counterspell yours, saying "Oh, in that case, I'm casting a different spell instead", or realizing that someone has Combat Reflexes, and saying, "In that case, I decided not to take that AoO-provoking action I just said I was doing". Changing your character's actions based on information that they (and you) wouldn't have unless they had actually taken a different action instead is not only metagaming, but it's cheating. At any rate, charging is a bad example all around, since once you start a charge, barring certain feats, you're locked into moving in a straight line in one direction and making a single attack. You're even more locked into your targeting once you start the action than you may (theoretically) be with spellcasting. Exactly *how* locked-in to your targeting you are is actually somewhat more relevant to the debate above. Personally, I tend to rule in favor of player ingenuity and originality in use of feats and spells: I generally prefer to reward creativity, rather than stifle it, assuming it's nothing game-breaking. So a readied Wall of Fire would catch a charging character, but a character with any of the "change-direction-partway" feats/skill tricks/abilities would be able to re-target themselves mid-charge. For spells, creative counters would probably win out over a caster's ability to redirect Instantaneous spells. Again, Creative > Not Creative.
ArcTan 08-13-07, 02:11 PM	Really? How is that? You declare you're "setting your spear against the charge" - you're not interrupting. You're doing on this initiative - the description is pretty clear - you're setting your weapon. This is not braveheart where you suddenly lift your spear at the last minute. This is you going on initiative 25 declaring the VERY SPECIFIC readied action (like counterspell) - and the barbarian/fighter/whatever who has yet to go still has not declared his action. You can of course ready an action "when I'm charged" so that you can "surprise him before he reaches you" but it is not the same as "setting against the charge" - that one is a very obvious action with a very specific effect. Sam W. What are you talking about? Setting your spear against a charge *is* a readied action, readied against another character's actions. You set your spear against a charge by having a spear and saying "I'm going to attack Mungor the Barbarian with my spear if he charges at me or either of the teammates adjacent to me". "Setting" a spear is not defined as a special ready action. It just says that if your spear is attacking as a readied action and not a regular action, it does double damage to charging characters. You could say "I'm going to attack anyone with my spear who comes within 10 feet of me", for instance, and that would mean a regular moving character only takes normal damage but a character who happens to come within 10 feet of you on a charge takes double. FWIW, I think a *readied action* to attack with a spear *is* raising your spear "at the last minute". A readied action means doing something *simultaneously* to another action in order to interrupt it. Setting a spear isn't an exception -- the special rule is merely that because you raised your spear at the same time that he was charging the full momentum of his charge is added to your spear thrust. Anyway, my only point was that *if I have already begun to charge*, being attacked by a set weapon does not allow me to say "Well, screw that, I didn't charge, I just moved and attacked". Going back in time to negate the action that set off someone else's readied action is not possible. Really, the way I run it, and the way I think rules are supposed to work, an action is an action is an action. You can change the target of a spell at the end of the casting time if the spell takes longer than one standard action to cast -- your final standard action in the one-round or ten-minute or one-day casting time is to declare the target. But if the spell *is* a standard action, then casting the spell, declaring the range, declaring the target -- *that's all the same action*. It's one quantum. You can't break it up. You can't, barring circumstances like specific feats, do that with any other action, either. When you take a full-round action to charge, you *declare that action and everything associated with it* on your initiative. You say "I'm going to charge at Billy the Wizard along this path". Then that's your action. It's locked in. If a readied action goes off against it, *you don't get to change anything* -- your character is forced to complete as much of the action as he is physically capable of completing.
redraven 08-14-07, 02:49 AM	1. Already discussed that is it extremely silly to assume that in order to bypass an unbeatable spell interrupt, all casters, arcane or divine, are now required to have Silent Spell, or Sudden Silent Spell - not withstanding having to know to cast/prepare a particular spell as a Silent spell before casting it. 2. Ring of Counterspells only works if you are the target of a spell. Silence is an area emanation. The caster can designate the square directly beside you and you get no saving throw, no spell resistance and certainly no "Ring of Counterspells". 3. It is the case. The only way to prevent Silence from working is the same method to prevent any other counter spell from working. Countering the counter speller. Only this time, rather than forcing the counterspeller to cast the exact spell that is being countered, or casting a spell of a higher level of the same school, or facing a caster-level check, you get an unbeatable interrupt. 1. The only reason why they would have to worry at all is if another spellcaster was readying an action. If no one is readying an action, you can cast whatever you want without fear (depending on whether someone has Reactive Counterspell or similar). Your hyperbole of Silence is misplaced, since the only possible way to be affected by it is to walk right into the trap. And, you know, a Pit Trap is a totally foolproof trap too, if you walk into it on purpose. 2. I've played with DMs who took the "upon the wearer" to mean "to include the wearer in its effect," but whatever. 3. Or, you know, do something else. That 100% totally defeats the Silence trick, wastes the other guy's actions, and you still get to do something. Indeed, since the readied action has to be specified beforehand, you could probably escape it by not casting a spell but using a wand or scroll or a staff, since those are not specifically casting a spell. Or cast some frivolous swift-action spell, have it defeated by Silence, walk out of the effect, then cast whatever spell you wanted to. Only if the other caster as Sudden Silent Spell, or was casting a Silent spell to begin with. But if you make your Spellcraft check to determine your opponent is casting a Silent spell, you wouldn't use Silence to interrupt them, would you? You'd simply elect to cast another spell. Since we've already gone over the fact that you do not need to choose your spell before hand when you declare you are readying a spell, then you simply choose something else. You do not waste a spell slot. Ever. What are you talking about? You absolutely have to decide ahead of time what spell you are using when you ready an action. The readied Counterspell action is the only exception, as pointed out in the RotG article. Otherwise there is no logical reason that a Fighter could not ready an "attack" and decide later whether it will be a Bull Rush, Disarm, Grapple, Quick Draw a crossbow, or make a 5-point Power Attack. I guess because most encounters last long enough for a caster to re-prepare all their spells as Silent spells, eh? Pretty long encounters... No. It would only work once because after that initial Silence spell the mage would have to be a complete idiot not to expect the Bard/Cleric clearly readying an action to do something similar the next round. So let's review how the Silence tactic is not an unbeatable counter to spells: Only Bards and Clerics get it. Thus, you do not even have worry about this entire debate until you face one or the other in combat. Bards and Clerics typically have better things to do than ready actions to disrupt spellcasters anyway - Clerics are healing or going CoDzilla, and Bards are using Bard song (which stops once they actually cast something, and especially if all their teammates are wandering into fields of Silence). Someone readying an action is extremely obvious. Ignoring someone who can cast spells that has an action readied is dumb. There are ample counter-tactics available. They include: Sudden Silent Spell. Preparing a Silent Spell ahead of time. One should be fine, especially if it is something like Black Tentacles. Don't cast a spell. Use a wand, rod, staff, scroll, or drink a potion instead. A potion of Invisibility would be especially strategic since they won't be able to see you casting. Bait the readied action with something frivolous. Cast Feather Fall as an immediate action, walk out of the area of Silence, cast whatever you were going to. Alternatively, you can ready an action to cast whatever you were going to originally (with a trigger of "when the other guy starts casting a spell"), cast Feather Fall, and then cast your spell in response to the Silence. If it was a Fireball or whatever, you have a chance of ruining the Silence spell, and otherwise wasting the Bard/Cleric's action, his 2nd level spell, and casting whatever you wanted to originally. Delay your action until a party member readies an action to disrupt the other caster. Then attempt casting. In many ways, this use of Silence is the only real means that a Cleric or Bard has of "countering" spells, since their respective spell lists differs so much from a Wizard/Sorcerer's. Gambling with Dispel Magic is usually their only alternative. To be perfectly honest, I forgot that Silence was a Bard/Cleric spell only, which only further moves this entire debate into irrelevance. As mentioned above, Bard/Clerics usually have more important things to do then hang out and attempt to disrupt another spellcaster via Silence, especially given that the Wizard/Sorcerer has ample protections against the tactic. Indeed, the whole "ready an action, then cast Feather Fall" tactic practically invalidates a lot of Counterspelling and readied actions to disrupt the mage via spells. By RAW, once you ready such an action and there is a valid trigger event, there is no turning back and no ability to "save" the counterspell for the actual spell you wanted to counter (unless, of course, you readied an action against that spell specifically).
ArcTan 08-14-07, 05:02 AM	There are ample counter-tactics available. They include: [list=a] Sudden Silent Spell. Preparing a Silent Spell ahead of time. One should be fine, especially if it is something like Black Tentacles. Don't forget "Be a Sorcerer; cast your spell with Silent Spell as spontaneous metamagic, for the cost of your move action (or not only that if you use PHB2 variant rules and give up your familiar".
yrogerg 08-14-07, 08:53 AM	To be perfectly honest, I forgot that Silence was a Bard/Cleric spell only, which only further moves this entire debate into irrelevance. As mentioned above, Bard/Clerics usually have more important things to do then hang out and attempt to disrupt another spellcaster via Silence, especially given that the Wizard/Sorcerer has ample protections against the tactic. I didn't forget that they were the only ones that had it, but I did forget what that implies. Bards and Clerics have 2nd-level spells that can not only interrupt the Wizard, but make him dead before his next action, on Will save (Hold Person, THL, Hypnotism, Hypnotic Pattern). They are capable of permanently Blinding the wizard on a fort save, his worst save. Being able to *restrict* a Wizard's choice of spells *until his next move action* on no save is not overpowered.