Hello,
According to the Expend spell, its duration is instantaneous. However, the spell description indicates that affected creatures "must continue making Will saves, expending an additional use of an ability for each failed save, until they succeed, at which point the spell has no further effect".
As using a power is usually a standard action, does it mean that the spell affects the creature as long as it fails its save and has not ran out of power to uses ?
Does it also mean that it prevents these creatures to make any attack or power use, and let them with only move/free/swift/immediate actions ?
Thank you for yours answers.
Expend is like flesh to stone in that the spell itself is instantaneous, but the effect of the spell is long-lasting.
If you hit a creature that has a 3/day and a 6/day ability who has already used the ability once today, it must immediately make the will save.
If the save succeeds, the creature is not affected.
If the will save fails, the creature immediately expends (without taking an action, as it is not the creature's turn) an additional use of that ability to no effect, leaving it with 4 remaining uses. The creature isn't actually using the ability as an action.
Now it must save again. If the save succeeds, the spell effect ends for that creature. If the save fails, the creature again immediately expends (without taking an action) an additional use of that ability to no effect, leaving it with 3 remaining uses.
Continue until the creature succeeds at the will save or runs out of uses (if the creature burns through all 5 remaining uses of his 6/day, he then starts burning uses of the 3/day).
Your comment about the immediate expend as a result of the failed will save makes sense. The spell could have been more clear about this, as the term "expend" seems to indicate a willing action from the creature.
As expend is an abjuration school spell, I think it should be treated more or less like a kind of dispel magic spell, but targeting limited-use per day powers or spell-like abilities.
Thank you.
It just keeps rolling saves until it is successful or uses up all its daily abilities. It happens all at one time. The fact that it normally requires a standard to activate an ability is irrelevant, its just losing the power to use it, not actually using it.
So, think of as being hit by the spell and then the creature surges with energy it can't control (until it saves) the depletes it of its magical power all at once.
It just keeps rolling saves until it is successful or uses up all its daily abilities. It happens all at one time. The fact that it normally requires a standard to activate an ability is irrelevant, its just losing the power to use it, not actually using it.
So, think of as being hit by the spell and then the creature surges with energy it can't control (until it saves) the depletes it of its magical power all at once.
That makes so much more sense - thank you Claxon.
If you hit a creature that has a 3/day and a 6/day ability who has already used the ability once today, it must immediately make the will save.
The bolded part has no bearing on this. Whether the creature has used any of its /day abilities or not doesn't matter. The rest of SlimGauge's explanation is correct.
The bolded part has no bearing on this. Whether the creature has used any of its /day abilities or not doesn't matter. The rest of SlimGauge's explanation is correct.If you hit a creature that has a 3/day and a 6/day ability who has already used the ability once today, it must immediately make the will save.
I just put that in there to show that uses of an ability that have already been expended don't count towards satisfying the spell's effect. They're already gone, so you don't save for them. The secondary point is that if the creature currently has some ongoing effect (like invisibility r stoneskin or the like) from the use of an ability, that effect is not disrupted by Expend.