REFLEXIVE BLINK
School: transmutation
Level: sorcerer/wizard 3 (I think?)
Casting Time: 1 immediate action
Components: V
Range: personal
Target: you
Duration: the remainder of the turn
When the bullet hits your shoulder, the pain is staggering. As you watch the gunslinger reload with unearthly speed, you quickly decide you don't wish to be around any longer.
You may only cast this spell (as an immediate action) upon taking damage of any kind. In response, you shunt yourself to the astral plane in a sort of slow-acting, short-range teleport.
Until the end of the currently acting character's turn, you effectively do not exist. You cannot be targeted with spells or abilities, cannot be seen, and cannot take any actions.
At the end of the currently acting character's turn, you re-appear in a random nearby location within about 30 feet; to determine where, roll as though your opponent had missed you with a splash weapon from 1d6 range increments away. If this would put you inside a solid object or in another creatures square, you are shunted to the nearest available space, taking 1d6 per 10 feet (or portion thereof) traveled.
Notes on motivation: This was originally used as an at-will spell-like ability on a home-brew monster I made. The purpose was to help the party gunslinger feel as though his new dead-shot ability was useful. He tried his normal rapid-shot hasted full attack on the monster, hit with the first attack, and the monster blinked out as above, wasting the rest of the full attack action. Next round, the gunslinger instead hit with a dead shot, dealing considerably more damage, and felt like maybe it wasn't a wasted ability after all.
The party sorcerer saw this happen, and decided that he, too was afraid he might one day run into somebody who was highly reliant on full attacks. He announced he wanted to learn the spell. At which point I'm like "Well dang, now I need to figure out what level this thing would be."
The ability to interrupt and end a full attack action is pretty powerful, especially for a sorcerer who can just learn this spell and never have to prepare it. (It just turns into a "get out of any full attack free" card.) However, it can only be cast in response to damage, it requires an immediate action, meaning it can only go off once per round, it interferes with strategic positioning, once an opponent knows about it, they can take steps to mitigate its effects, and it requires an entire spell slot per round of protection.
Does third level sound about right? Or should it be 2nd?
3rd level seems about right. Though from the name I expected something to do with defending against gaze attacks
3rd level seems pretty fair, especially since you can't dictate where you reappear, and using it in a hallway may prove to be more deadly than taking the full attack.
I wonder if it should have something to prevent very high level casters from just casting it a dozen times to make themselves even harder to hurt. Perhaps some amount of ability damage to discourage repeat use?
Saethori wrote: I wonder if it should have something to prevent very high level casters from just casting it a dozen times to make themselves even harder to hurt. Perhaps some amount of ability damage to discourage repeat use? Perhaps, though intelligent opponents who figure out how it works can abuse it pretty effectively. Because it only lasts until the end of the currently acting player's turn, it only prevents one full attack per round, so ganging up on a target works pretty well. Also, enemies can just position themselves so if the caster blinks away, they're still in a position to hit the caster's allies with the remainder of the attacks. (Unless your GM insists that you declare the targets of all your attack rolls prior to making any of the rolls)
Note that at high levels, when you have that many slots, this becomes effectively an immunity; This is a spell that will save your life when you would otherwise die.
I would limit it either per combat or per day,
i.e.
a) Make the casting time 5 minutes, you can then discharge the spell when you recieve damage if you want, you cannot cast it again until you discharged the previous one
b) When you use the spell you gain negative levels, because you're weakened by the process of becoming nonexistant;
If you're immune, you get negative levels anyway. These negative levels cannot be restored magically, but they all go away with a long rest
A) makes it effectively 1 per combat, no daily limits.
B) makes it effectively "as few as possible" per day, no limits per single combat.
Or just leave it as it is, however IMO this is a must have for every arcane spellcaster ever, and it becomes more and more valuable as you level up.
D@rK-SePHiRoTH- wrote: Note that at high levels, when you have that many slots, this becomes effectively an immunity; Resistance. Just checking: did you see that it triggers after the damage from the first attack takes place? ((EDIT: You did. I see that now in your above post.))
A vital-strike oriented build will still leave the caster as a greasy stain on the ground. Dead shot counters it as well. Most spells have full effect. Also, if multiple opponents gang up on the caster, only the first will have their full attack countered.
D@rK-SePHiRoTH- wrote: Or just leave it as it is, however IMO this is a must have for every arcane spellcaster ever, and it becomes more and more valuable as you level up. I agree that it becomes more valuable as you level up, because full attacks become more common and contain more attacks per round as you reach higher levels. This makes balancing harder, because you have to view it at its full power, not at its power when it becomes available. :/
I'm kinda liking the idea of having a long casting time and then having it be "charged" somehow, probably still forcing the user to burn their immediate action to discharge one of the charges. I'm gonna have to mess around with that design space. That would let me limit the number of times it can be used per combat with something other than "Number of level X spell slots at sorcerer level Y."
3rd seems low. A contingency (6th level) as an immediate action plus a dimension door (4th level) rolled into one spell with the added bonus of invulnerability against further attacks from the damage source. I would place it at 5th level (at least). Especially, since a clever player could easily abuse this spell.
To keep the level low and limit its power:
1) Limit the travel via line of sight, but still use the splash die to determine direction.
2) Remove the wait to return. Appear immediately after activated.
Contingency is higher level because it's super flexible, and doesn't require that you burn your immediate action to use. Dimension door is higher level because it's a much longer range and you get to choose where you go. Replicating the effect indeed requires two higher level spells, but that doesn't mean the effect itself is high level.
It's useful to think of it as an extremely limited Contingency spell, though. Given that I can't think of many other "reflexive spells", that comparison alone could justify a bump to a higher level. (At least to four.)
Great abuse case. I'm going to limit the travel to line of effect, as you suggest.
As for number 2... that would basically make the spell useless against foes making ranged full attacks, and highly RNG Dependent against foes with a large reach (if there is no delay before you re-appear, they will just continue the full attack if you happen to reappear somewhere in their threatened area.) Was that the intent?
I would suggest that you make it cost the caster their turn somehow, and that you dump them in the same spot that they left so they can't nix two rounds of full attacks with it. Maybe keep them in the astral plane for an entire round, and make it so that the caster doesn't get to take another turn while in the astral plane (so they can't delay until they pop back just before the bad guy's next turn).
It makes the spell a lot less broken powerful stupidly broken, while keeping most of its raw damage negation potential.
Snowblind wrote: ...and that you dump them in the same spot that they left so they can't nix two rounds of full attacks with it. If leaving them in the same spot reduces the power of the spell, I'm all for it. I actually put in the random re-entry point because I figured it would make it harder for the caster's allies to protect him, given that the caster had a chance of re-appearing in front of the party's tanks, or in the threatened area of the BBEG.
How would you nix two rounds of full attacks with it, though? Am I missing something? Assuming multiple assailants, I intended it to only nix the latter end of one foe's full attack for one round, leaving the other foe's full attacks intact.
As currently written, requiring an immediate action means it consumes the caster's swift action the following round. I could see a case for making it consume the next round's standard action instead/as well. (Perhaps stagger the caster when they return?)
Leaving the target in the astral plane provides too much damage negation potential, though. The period of vulnerability where the caster has no immediate action (and, depending on whether I keep the short range teleport, is potentially in a highly dangerous location) is critical. If the party is against three gunslingers that get three attacks each, the version I list above negates two attacks. Leaving them in the astral plane would negate eight, and removes the player from the battle (which is un-fun).
EDIT: Sorry if I come off as argumentative or stubborn. I'm actually really grateful for the feedback I've gotten so far. It's given me a lot to think about, and there's going to definitely be some form of level increase and/or nerf incoming. I just... want to push a little, because when people defend their arguments, they give better logic and more complete explanations. :)
I think the invulnerability is too much. I'd make it turn you invisible for 1 round and teleport you somewhere. Alternatively, make this a 1 standard action to cast and give it a duration of minutes per level until discharged. That way, you have to cast it before going into a fight.
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