Would have to be, I would think.
Can a wizard prepare his scrolls so only he can cast them? That would seem like a good precaution against theft.
That’s too bad. If she had a one in a million chance, she’d be certain to stick around.
There are spells that wizards can apply to their scrolls, though such spells are most easily broken by other wizards. Might prevent a bard from doing so, I guess.
So no password protection, huh?
In some cases, yes, there’s password protection. Here’s a couple of spells that a wizard could use, including the ever-popular Explosive Runes.
Sepia Snake Sigil
Secret Page
Explosive Runes
Illusory Script
“Ooh, a magic scroll in the treasure! Hey, wizard-boy, what’s this a scroll of?”
"Let’s see … It says it’s a scroll of ‘I prepared Explosive Runes this morning’. Um, what?–Gah! "
BOOM!
Got my parcel! Loving the fridge magnet, stickers, notepads and coloyring book… Oh and all 4 colour books too!
So just to be sure I’ve got the idea right, a wizard of a certain level could theoretically have access to something like twenty spells. Of those twenty spells, he could actually choose to learn something like ten of them. Of the ten he’s learned, he could actually prepare something like five spells for use on any given day (either five separate ones or multiple uses of some).
The best explanation I’ve heard of it for wizards is that they cast most of the spell in the morning, leaving just a couple of words uncast; during battle, they say the last few words. Wizards can only hold a certain number of spells in this suspended state, though.
There are theoretically an infinite number of spells a wizard could learn, but the ones she’s actually learned are the ones she’s written into her spellbook. When she’s prepping spells for the day, she’s limited to the ones in her spellbook. She might decide to prep fireball twice, for example, by “casting” it twice, leaving the last couple of words unsaid each time.
Prepping spells like this is also tiring: a wizard must get a good night’s rest in order to be able to prep spells again, and can only do so once every 24 hours (I think).
Does a wizard have to prepare spells in the morning? Can they decide to leave a few spots open to see what the day might bring and then prepare a spell when they have a free hour in the afternoon?
Personally speaking, I would not allow it, but it may be DM’s discretion on this one.
I use a method that allows a wizard to choose whether she gets ‘recharged’ at dawn or at dusk. During the period of time (usually an hour or so) starting at the moment of dawn or dusk, the wizard chooses her spells for the next 24 hours. Attacks at this time are a bit chancy and can directly affect the casting and cause the wizard to be short a spell or two during the next 24 hour period.
Is there a proper thread for this discussion?
They have to be well rested. If they were travelling by boat or carriage and just sitting around playing cards for the past four hours, I’d allow it. If they were trailblazing through dense forest, I wouldn’t.
- When figuring Effective Character Level (ECL) you add racial HD, Level Adjustment and class levels. Sabine may have only one class level in Rogue, since trapfinding comes with Rog 1. Personally I think three is likely (since that puts her at ECL 15). Will save mod? +8 (plus any bonuses for items).
However, when figuring the result of Holy Word, you compare Durkon’s caster level to the opponent’s character level - which does not tale the level adjustment into account. Sabine has just taken a hammering.
But it was no mystery to the Linear Guild that the OOTS has a high-level cleric. Are there any protective buffs that Malack could have cast? Some kind of protection from positive energy or something like that?
A short summary of the rules.
Arcane casters of all kinds have to rest for eight hours to refresh themselves before preparing spells. Rest does not equate to sleep; the creature can sit quietly. The sort of activity that interrupts rest is defined as: -
If the character were travelling, I’d consider the type of vehicle when deciding whether they could rest.
Some creatures don’t need 8 hours sleep - undead don’t need any - but they must still go through the eight hours rest thing.
Once rested, they spend an hour refreshing their spells. Spells not cast the previous day roll over, but the character is free to abandon any such uncast spells in this preparation.
The character may leave spell slots blank to be filled later by shorter meditation periods.
The one thing the rules don’t say about rest is that you can only rest once in a day. (Many DMs, me included, won’t let you though.)
(And for those unfamiliar with D&D, it may help to understand exactly what Rich is basing his jokes on.)
The simplest, most widely available protection from Holy Word is a Silence spell - a second level Cleric spell. In this situation, Sabine might still be banished, but nothing else would happen. That might interfere with communication or spellcasting though. And Durkon Melding into Stone like that was a particularly well-thought out manoevre (Roy or Haley likely thought of it) so they were caught with their pants down. The Guild may have had a planned counter but been unable to execute it.
I had to make a special grocery list just to put with it.
Baleful Bananas
Black Cherries
Dark Chocolate
Malicious Milk
Toilet Paper of Terror
I’m sure you folks will come up with your own lists.
Some of you guys are showing your age here-- Nowhere in all of the 3e rules does it say anything about spellcasters memorizing their spells: That’s a 2nd (and earlier) edition term. In 3rd, the rules just say you’re “preparing” the spell, which is probably less confusing anyway.
And the other thing about a wizard’s spell selection is that not only is there no theoretical limit on the number of spells that can exist, there’s also no theoretical limit on the number you can have in your spellbook, as long as you have enough pages (and a “spellbook” can be many volumes, so that just means spending a trivial amount of gold). So if there’s some spell that would only ever be useful once a decade or so, a wizard can still put that spell in es book, to be prepared just in case.
A sorcerer, by contrast, can only learn a certain number of spells (chosen from the same list as wizards), depending on level, but can freely pick and choose between them. Xykon, for instance, knows the ninth-level spells Energy Drain, Meteor Swarm, and Soul Bind, and he can cast (probably, depending on his feats etc.) 7 9th-level spells per day. Every round, he can choose any one of those three (or any of his lower-level spells, though that’d be a waste of power) until he runs out.
So, a wizard needs to make decisions about which spells to use at the start of each day, but doesn’t have to worry about decisions when learning the spells, while a sorcerer needs to make decisions when learning spells, but doesn’t have to worry about it at the start of the day.
EDIT: Oh, and I got my package, too. But Lien didn’t personally handle it.
One of my greatest triumphs was having a cleric cast a Silence on another spellcaster…we knew we were going up against this guy, we’d been pursuing him for about six sessions, and we knew that he was a pure spellcaster. My cleric had just leveled up, and apparently the DM didn’t realize that if his Big Bad Boss failed a save against Silence, the Minions were just so many gnats to the party.
Quite often, first and second level spells are overlooked when a character starts getting the third and higher level spells. But even Explosive Runes can be useful.
And if V had been with the party (and awake), I bet that e’d have cast ER on that arrow just for giggles.