This came up on a game last night:
14th level oracle bad guy casts Blade Barrier somewhere in the middle of the adventuring party. It is a ring shaped, and passes through the squares of three party members. One of those party members is a sorcerer.
It was declared that the oracle was gesticulating and saying something mysterious, yet none of the party members called for, or rolled spellcraft to identify the spell.
After the ring was placed, and it was realized by the sorcerer that he was about to take a ton of damage, he said "I cast emergency force sphere"
The GM said "ok, you are still going to need to roll reflex, as the blade barrier is in the sphere with you.
There was much arguing. The players all said that as it was an immediate action, it interrupted the spell before it took effect. The GM said that the force sphere was not cast until after the blade barrier spell had been completed. Players said that is not how immediate actions work. GM said, regardless, the sphere is open on the bottom and would not prevent the barrier from forming from the ground up. Players said the Blade Barrier spell would not have line of effect to get to the area within the sphere.
GM seemed frustrated, but said whatever, and proceeded based on player assumptions.
I know this is going to keep coming up and will be a source of contention if we don't get to a rules based answer that everyone can agree to moving forward. I've searched the rules thread, but I can't seem to find anything very clear on how these would interact.
I guess my two questions are:
1) How would these spells interact (assuming the center of the radius is outside of the force sphere)
2) When do immediate actions need to be declared?
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That Cheliax: Empire of Devils book seem to be the source of a lot of debates.
Pretty complicated.
1) if the sequence is as described, your GM is right about the force sphere being cast after the blade barrier was cast. While it is a immediate action it was cast specifically after the blade barrie was cast and its position know.
2) Blade barrier: "ringed wall of whirling blades". It is not a discus, it is the border of a circle, without a stated width.
AFIK there is no exact description of how a wall with little or no real thickness should be placed in the rules but generally it is placed on the border of a square. But that kind of placement would render very difficult to place it "where creatures are" unless the creatures are large or larger.
A possible interpretation is to treat it as a thin wall of blades with a 5' reach.
Another is to allow it to be placed in the middle of a square, not only along the border. (probably the second is more RAW compliant)
3) Force sphere and its 5' radius centered on you:
Big creatures and centered effects: If a Large or larger creature has up an effect “centered on you,” does that mean that sometimes the emanation doesn’t even affect the creature’s entire space, let alone anything else?
Answer: No, when a creature uses an emanation or burst with the text “centered on you,” treat the creature’s entire space as the spell’s point of origin, and measure the spell’s area or effect from the edges of the creature’s space. For instance, an antimagic field cast by a great wyrm red dragon would extend 10 feet beyond her 30x30 foot space, for a total of a 50 foot diameter.
Seeing that the Sphere is actually a 15'x 15' square with the caster in the central square. (while the question is about big creatures, the reply don't specify any size)
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So, in the described situation.
The sorcerer waited to see the actual placement of the wall, he can't turn back time and say, "the I will cast emergency force sphere as he begin to cast as I am in the area of effect".
If he had done his spellcraft check before the spell was placed (the GM should have left him time to decide what he wanted to do) he probably would have protected himself and some allies.
As the Blade barrier description clearly states that it can be cast in a area occupied by creatures I would have allowed it to appear in the force sphere squares, but outside the sphere. Essentially in position to attack the sphere but not the creatures within it.
If the GM is generous enough to allow the sorcerer to cast his spell before the wall casting is resolved, even if he neglected to make his free spellcraft roll, the sorcerer is casting it before the wall casting is resolved, so the caster of the blade barrier can react as any PC or NPC can when a immediate action change the conditions of the targets of an action: choosing a different target or area (Note there are plenty of immediate actions that don't allow that, you should check them one by one, but the magic chapter say: "You make all pertinent decisions about a spell (range, target, area, effect, version, and so forth) when the spell comes into effect." and the force sphere come in effect before the blade barrier [further note: the caster need a way to see the force sphere, but generally someone capable to cast blade barrier has the ability to see an invisible wall of force])
Essentially: those are spells with a lot of leeway in the interpretation of how they work. Your group need to find an agreement on that. It seem that the sorcerer was capable to push the GM into using his solution, but it sound more as bullying that finding an agreement. That is not healthy for a good gaming environment.
DM: This guy is casting a spell.
Players: Ha, ha, we'll own him on our initiative.
DM: Is nobody bothering to use spellcraft to identify his spell?
Players (laughing insanely): Nah, we'll dice his cleric @ss on our turn.
DM (taking out his dry erase marker): the wall of whirling blades goes here and here. You get reflex saves to jump out of the way..."
If the DM gives the players ample opportunity to declare an action (like spellcraft, and then an immediate action emergency force shield) then they shouldn't be able to declare that immediate action *after* the blades are already whirling.
Even assuming a generous DM (or more awake and reactive players), the blade barrier would be cutting into that force shield on each and every round.
Let's say the players are 10th level (about right for a 14th level adversary). The emergency force shield will have a hardness of 20 and 100 hit points. The 14th level blade barrier will do 14d6 damage every round, on average 49 pts. The force shield will hold back the blades for some 2 to 5 rounds against that (no save, as it's immobile) and when it expires, the PCs *still* have to leap out of the path of the whirling blades, which will be sticking around for 13 and a half more minutes. And the 14th-level bad guy will have had that many rounds to self-buff, summon critters, get away, or whatever.
I dunno, even with that spell the players aren't out of the woods.
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Tricky question. I think the rules for immediate actions are not precise enough to answer it with 100% certainty. It hinges on what "can be performed at any time" means. Are there any "indivisible/atomic" things in PF that can't be interrupted by immediate actions?
We know that a lot of things that at first look like one big whole "task" (avoiding the word "action" for clarity) but that this task has sub-parts. For example, an attack has steps; declaring a target, rolling a d20, determining the final to-hit number, establishing whether than number hits, determining if any attack-cancelling abilities are used, rolling damage, applying DR/resistance, checking to see if any damage got through and rider effects are applied, rolling d20 for saving throws, determining result of save, applying effects of (failed/passed) save. For just about everyone of those steps there exists an ability that should be applied after one step but before the other one.
But not everything is divisible. For example, I don't think you can use an immediate action in the middle of a dice roll, after you've rolled about half of the dice and don't like the result so far.
In this case, your player waits until the blades appear, and then tries to stop them from appearing fully. I think that's just too late. There are some abilities that can be used "when you're targeted with a spell", so casting EFS when the BB is aimed at him is probably fine. But waiting until after the blades appear is too late. If he didn't make his spellcraft check, he'll have to make his decision without knowing what spell is being targeted at him.
Counterargument: if a fireball is flying towards you, you see the little red bead streaking, that would certainly be the cool (hehe) moment to cast EFS and block the bead's progress through the room - and making it detonate closer to the caster than he may have intended!
The difference between fireball and BB is that with fireball, the bead clearly spends some time travelling through the room (possibly including a to-hit roll) while BB appears in its whole area simultaneously.
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What happens if EFS is cast while the BB is already there? Spells can't pass through an existing wall of force, but what if the WoF intersects an already existing spell? The rules don't quite say, so here are some possibilities:
A) It's too late, the spell has already "passed through".
B) The spell is cut into two halves that can henceforth be dispelled/dismissed separately.
C) The smaller half is suspended. When cut in the middle, 50% chance of either half being suspended. If the WoF ends before the other spell, the whole effect resumed.
Why wouldn't the force shield simply take damage, like any other creature or object in the path of the blade barrier? It has hardness and hit points which are explicitly designated as taking damage from spells.
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Immediate Actions =/= Attacks of Opportunity
An attack of opportunity "interrupts" the normal flow of actions in the round. If an attack of opportunity is provoked, immediately resolve the attack of opportunity, then continue with the next character's turn (or complete the current turn, if the attack of opportunity was provoked in the midst of a character's turn).
There are clear parsings of the rules upthread, so the players should take care they are not using the "interrupts" angle as that would not apply IMHO. The Sorcerer waited until after the BB resolved to act--he does not interrupt the BB spell, however, he can cast a spell right after BB to create the EFS.
Yeah - it seems to be that the immediate action =/= interrupt was the biggest source of confusion and looking at other immediate action spells - many would make little sense if they "came before" the thing they were being cast in response to.
There seems to be three or four different opinions about what THEN happens if the EFS is cast over top the blade barrier.
1) Does it suppress blade barrier within the EFS?
2) Is there a 50% chance of which side (inside or out of the force sphere) that the blade barrier gets surpressed?
3) Does the blade barrier continue uninterrupted as it is already inside the dome of force wall?
4) Does the Sphere of force fail because it cannot be cast on top of another spell/object?
5) Other
It seems this is likely just DM interpretation zone - but thoughts on the matter are welcome
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Blade barrier isn't an emanation and hasn't a "central point", so, once it has formed, it stay where it is.
Look this precedent:
For each ongoing area or effect spell whose point of origin is within the area of the greater dispel magic spell, apply the dispel check to dispel the spell. For each ongoing spell whose area overlaps that of the greater dispel magic spell, apply the dispel check to end the effect, but only within the overlapping area.
It say that a spell that cover an area and hasn't a central point can separated in different parts without harm to the separate part (i.e. you can dispel the section of a Wall of fire that start 30' from its left border and and 70' from the left border, but the section 0'-30' and the 70'-end of the wall section will stay with full effect).
Now let's apply that logic to see what happen when we cast Emergency force Sphere after Blade Barrier.
The force sphere cut the BB into 2 sections. One outside the EFS and one inside it.
The two sections are harmed by that? No, they stay at full effect as BB hasn't a point of origin.
Now, what happen to the EFS? Checking EFS and Wall of Force description we read: "The wall must be continuous and unbroken when formed. If its surface is broken by any object or creature, the spell fails."
AFAIK that don't mean that if there is a blade of grass or a tree branch where you want to place the WoF it fail. It mean that if there is an object higher than the wall or some other thing that cut the wall in two (or more) completely separated sections, it can't form.
If in the area where the caster want to place the wall there is a 2' tall column and the wall is high 10' he can have his WoF flow around it, incorporating it in the wall structure.
The wall of blades of blade barriers is higher than EFS? Yes.
There are enough blades that it is impossible to form a continuous wall with that can incorporate them? It depend on the GM and player visualization of BB, but a Rogue with evasion can pass trough it without taking any damage if he saves and characters without that ability can still halve the damage, so I would say that the gaps between the whirling blades are large enough that EFS can form, with holes in correspondence of the position of the blades when the spell was cast. On the other hand the whirling blades move, so they will attack the EFS.
It is a complicate interaction of different spells, but I think that taking the time to think how they work it can be resolved.
On the other hand, in the middle of a game it is not easy to judge how they interact.
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Well... looks like I'll just give my +1 to most of the answers in this thread. It's too late for the player. He had his chance to react, and declined to use the EFS (in this case due to lack of knowledge of what was coming). It's too late once the blade barrier is already there.
Similarly, if someone attacks a wizard with a melee weapon, they could react with EFS causing the melee attack to fail. But if they choose not to, and the creature rolls a a natural 20, it's now too late to put up the EFS to try and negate the (now more dangerous) attack.
Side note: that 5' radius around the caster make EFS useless against melee attacks unless the attacker has reach.
But I agree with you.
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No, it doesn't. A 5' radius burst is an area 2x2 on the map from a grid intersection. Choose an intersection opposite your opponent and you are safe inside the sphere with them outside it.Side note: that 5' radius around the caster make EFS useless against melee attacks unless the attacker has reach.
But I agree with you.
The FAQ I cited above say "when a creature uses an emanation or burst with the text “centered on you,” treat the creature’s entire space as the spell’s point of origin, and measure the spell’s area or effect from the edges of the creature’s space", not from a corner square.
So the spell AoE is 3x3 squares.
If you cast EFS after the spell appears, then, first, consider the concentration check with modifiers for taking damage. Once cast, it's GM fiat as to whether the volume inside the sphere contains a portion of the barrier, or all blades are external.
Regardless, the EFS takes damage over time. And per the Greater Dispell Magic rule cited above, the external parts of the barrier would still be in effect, even if the area of the EFS would break the circle. So damage would continue until the EFS is worn away.
The area of effect being a 3x3 set of 5' squares seems to be correct RAW, but I'd bet most tables run it as RAI either 2x2, or, less commonly, a single 5' square.
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Alright guys, the FAQ update is through, and the FAQ now says "when such a creature" to clear up any ambiguity. Let's return to the regularly-scheduled Blade barrier vs EFS question.
Wow! A question I asked prompted not only an appearance by Mark but also an update to a year old FAQ response.
Cool. And thanks everyone for the input.
Im not sure I get how EFS being a 15x15 grid would be more powerful than it is as a 10x10....
I mean - I get it could protect more party members, now, from an avalanche. But honestly - I've yet to ever see it used for anything other than saving a single caster's own butt.
Making it so that it protects from adjacent melee attacks actually seems like a decision that makes the spell even stronger.
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Wow! A question I asked prompted not only an appearance by Mark but also an update to a year old FAQ response.
Cool. And thanks everyone for the input.
Im not sure I get how EFS being a 15x15 grid would be more powerful than it is as a 10x10....I mean - I get it could protect more party members, now, from an avalanche. But honestly - I've yet to ever see it used for anything other than saving a single caster's own butt.
Making it so that it protects from adjacent melee attacks actually seems like a decision that makes the spell even stronger.
Well, now I am officially wrong :P.
I suppose the PDT feel that reading it the other way will make several spell stronger, I preferred the other interpretation as it depict better a circle around the caster, but I suppose increasing the AoE of several spells by 50-100% felt excessive.
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Semi-related question: Given the confusion of these players thinking immediate actions interrupting like AOOs, do you folks in this thread think this is a common rules error?
Fairly common.
It is a bit of a confuse rule and it isn' t always applied in the same way in different abilities.An immediate action can be done in reaction to another action, simply it can't be done during the action resolution unless the ability text say that explicitly.
Let's say that I have an ability that allow me to parry an attack against me as an immediate action but before I know the attack result.
My immediate action should be used after the GM say that I am attacked but before he announce the result of his dice roll (and if someone has that ability the GM should give him the time to decide if he want to use the ability before he reveal the to hit roll). It will work perfectly against AoO.
If someone has the ability to change a die roll after it is rolled but before he know the final result (i.e., he know it the attacker rolled a 1, 13, 17 or 20, but not what will be the actual number with the bonuses applied) he can do that after the GM announce the roll. But if he wait to see what is the modified roll or the rolled damage he can't use the ability.
Essentially you can act on the last action done but before the next step is resolved.