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Originally posted by sleyvas

actually, 3.5 went a long way towards fixing that issue, so I'm wondering on your statement of making it far worse. You have the craft contingent spell feat, but if you start adding up the costs of upper level spells, it becomes enormous. Things like the Simbul's spell matrix/sequencer allowed you to cast 1-2 3rd lvl spell(s) as a free action... but you only have 1 free action per round. Its not a contingent effect. Simbul's spell matrix did let you effectively have a second contingent spell, but only one that would affect yourself. Like previous versions, all of these involved damaging yourself.

Now, there was some nastiness you could do with gem magic, but it was generally harder to setup, time consuming, and costly (putting say 5 gems programmed with fireball to go off whenever a minotaur passed... while knowing that an army of orcs with elite minotaurs is coming down the road for instance.... would take 5 days to make the gems, 3750 gold, and you'd have to know where to place them). You didn't have the full ability to set whatever trigger you like like in contingency.

Personally, the spell I abused most in 2nd edition was imbue undead with spell ability. You could fill any disposable undead with a fireball... even things like skeletal field mice rats that people would barely see moving through a castle out of the corner of their eye. But they nixed that in 3rd edition too. They did come up with a feat though where any undead you create explode with negative energy... which makes for a nice heal for the other undead around them while it hurts the good guys.

One other bit of nastiness I used in 3rd edition that was kind of like rainbow shield in 2nd edition (which WHOA was open for abuse). It was just stacking multiple "retributive shield" effects on a warrior mage type of character and then wading into direct melee combat (picture like a retributive spell of some sort with retributive spell feat, Mestil's Acid Sheath, death armor, fire shield, Karmic retribution, Prismatic Aura, spore cloak, there's an electric shield that I can't think of at this second, there's one that surrounds you with like a mini blade barrier). Its a good tactic to use against melee warriors that don't have some kind of minor energy absorption, but it fails against casters and other ranged specialists.

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Originally posted by Firestorm

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Originally posted by sleyvas

actually, 3.5 went a long way towards fixing that issue, so I'm wondering on your statement of making it far worse. You have the craft contingent spell feat, but if you start adding up the costs of upper level spells, it becomes enormous. Things like the Simbul's spell matrix/sequencer allowed you to cast 1-2 3rd lvl spell(s) as a free action... but you only have 1 free action per round. Its not a contingent effect. Simbul's spell matrix did let you effectively have a second contingent spell, but only one that would affect yourself. Like previous versions, all of these involved damaging yourself.

Now, there was some nastiness you could do with gem magic, but it was generally harder to setup, time consuming, and costly (putting say 5 gems programmed with fireball to go off whenever a minotaur passed... while knowing that an army of orcs with elite minotaurs is coming down the road for instance.... would take 5 days to make the gems, 3750 gold, and you'd have to know where to place them). You didn't have the full ability to set whatever trigger you like like in contingency.

Personally, the spell I abused most in 2nd edition was imbue undead with spell ability. You could fill any disposable undead with a fireball... even things like skeletal field mice rats that people would barely see moving through a castle out of the corner of their eye. But they nixed that in 3rd edition too. They did come up with a feat though where any undead you create explode with negative energy... which makes for a nice heal for the other undead around them while it hurts the good guys.

One other bit of nastiness I used in 3rd edition that was kind of like rainbow shield in 2nd edition (which WHOA was open for abuse). It was just stacking multiple "retributive shield" effects on a warrior mage type of character and then wading into direct melee combat (picture like a retributive spell of some sort with retributive spell feat, Mestil's Acid Sheath, death armor, fire shield, Karmic retribution, Prismatic Aura, spore cloak, there's an electric shield that I can't think of at this second, there's one that surrounds you with like a mini blade barrier). Its a good tactic to use against melee warriors that don't have some kind of minor energy absorption, but it fails against casters and other ranged specialists.

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I cannot remember now, which spell is it that mirrors damage in 3.5ed?
Meaning if a swordsman hits you, the same wound opens on himself. The name is on the tip of my tongue but i cannot remember.

I remember the ridiculous one from 2ed which does the mirror damage to everyone within 10 feet of you for the first blow struck. I just cannot remember the 3.5e reciprocate damage ward.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Oh, and wait, I just realized what you said you're doing (unless I'm misreading you). You cannot store a storing spell in another storing spell. So, you can't store 4 Simbul's spell sequencers into a Simbul's Spell trigger. Why? First, because you want to set them all to use the same utterance to unleash them, but in order to set them you have to say the word... so you cast the spell trigger, go to put the 1st sequencer in and use the activating word... and set off the trigger. And you can't say you'll use a different command word for each, because that would be like saying "well, if I have two wands with different command words, I can say both and shoot both in the same round". You get a little more leeway with contingent effects, in that you could set several to be "when I draw my sword and do X minor thing", but there are very few spells that give you the full versatility of contingency type magic. Most require an activation word.

Secondly, you can't do it, because by their nature, these types of metamagics are spells that modify spells.... they aren't traditional spells that you can store because they are storing magics themselves. Think of it like trying to store an extra-dimensional space within another extra-dimensional space. At some point, you break the anchor to reality (not that you're going to destroy the world.... you're spells going to fizzle).

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Originally posted by Dalor Darden

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Oh, and wait, I just realized what you said you're doing (unless I'm misreading you). You cannot store a storing spell in another storing spell. So, you can't store 4 Simbul's spell sequencers into a Simbul's Spell trigger. Why? First, because you want to set them all to use the same utterance to unleash them, but in order to set them you have to say the word... so you cast the spell trigger, go to put the 1st sequencer in and use the activating word... and set off the trigger. And you can't say you'll use a different command word for each, because that would be like saying "well, if I have two wands with different command words, I can say both and shoot both in the same round". You get a little more leeway with contingent effects, in that you could set several to be "when I draw my sword and do X minor thing", but there are very few spells that give you the full versatility of contingency type magic. Most require an activation word.

Secondly, you can't do it, because by their nature, these types of metamagics are spells that modify spells.... they aren't traditional spells that you can store because they are storing magics themselves. Think of it like trying to store an extra-dimensional space within another extra-dimensional space. At some point, you break the anchor to reality (not that you're going to destroy the world.... you're spells going to fizzle).

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First I'll address your second point: I have to disagree completely. The simple description of the Mantle spell in 2e (though long) specifically says you can store a Mantle spell inside the Mantle spell. It was actually the spell that gave me the idea for storing the Spell Sequencers in the Spell Trigger.

As to your first point, I'll simply quote part of the Spell Trigger spell: "The spells have no effect at the time they are cast, but when the trigger word is later uttered (casting the spell trigger), all of them take effect in the same round, one after the other, in the order in which they were cast, until all the spells have taken effect."

The very nature of the spell states that previously memorized and then Cast spells may be stored inside the Spell Trigger. You aren't storing a storing spell...you are storing released spells waiting to happen. The Spell Sequencer spells have been cast in full. The thing to remember is that any spell stored inside of a Spell Sequencer are also already released, becoming PART of the Spell Sequencer. Once the Spell Sequencer is cast into the Spell Trigger, you have ALREADY said the releasing word.

So this is a Chaining of Spells together into a magical matrix. Using lower level spells as the building blocks of a greater spell.

First, you memorize the 12 spells to be held; then you cast the Four Spell Sequencers and place those twelve spells within them (in whatever order). You then cast the Spell Trigger and place the now released Spell Sequencers within it as you say the command word for each. Thus you have one Spell Trigger ready to go.

Using your logic of saying each would be released with the utterance of a single word...I could store 7 Spell Sequencers with 21 spells and let them all go with the utterance of one word! That is far more broken and outside the definition of the spell to me.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

As to 2nd editions Spell Mantle and its nature, I will state that you're creating a similar magical matrix of one spell mantle and then rather than a command word activation for the second, you are creating a contingent effect that when the first mantle drops the second comes into play (and later the third). This is unique to this spell. Given the enormous requirements to cast multiple mantles (an 18th lvl caster able to cast 9th lvl spells with 2 mantles would have to give up 2-6th, 2-7th, 2-8th, and 2-9th lvl spell slots), this essentially would cripple most mages <the slots are lost... you can't fill them until the mantle is gone> unless they have some means of heavily increasing their number of spells that they can carry. This very stringent loss of power would be the only reason I would ever let this spell into play.... and I wouldn't infer any special powers of this spell onto other spell storatives just because they seem similar.

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Originally posted by Demzer

An easy cheesy way out is to set as triggers for the contingencies a buff the appears on the first sequencer list:

Big Symbul Contingency spell:
- Small Simbul Contingency spell:
- Fireball
- Lighting Bolt
- Flame Sphere
- Small Simbul Contingency spell:
- Melf's Acid Arrow
- Magic Missile
- Scorching Ray
- Small Simbul Contingency spell:
- Ray of Enfeeblement
- Web
- Bestow Curse
- Improved Invisibility

You set "abracadabra" as a trigger for the Big one and "when i'm affected by Improved Invisibility" as the trigger for the Small ones and there you go.

Personally, as i DM way more than i play a character this days, i'll not allow such "dirty" tricks except for very high level, very powerful and very important NPCs (some of the Chosens, some other archmages but very few) and players will have to research a lot before understanding how to put a contingency inside a sequencer.
It's not like "Hey i know this spell from the level up now DIE!!!" (while 8 thousands spells take effect at the same time).

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Originally posted by Dalor Darden



@sleyvas: you did read what I wrote I guess...but you are making statements for which there are no rules in 2e...none. I'm only using the spells as stated.

The Spell Sequencer is a spell...not a contingency magic. The spell "memorization" only is finished once you place spells in it that you CAST INTO IT.

The Spell Trigger is the same. You FINISH casting the Spell Sequencers into the Spell Trigger, thus it is finished being memorized.

Neither are contingent "storing" spells really. They are memorized spells. They can't be dispelled, aren't affected by Mordenkainen's Disjunction or eliminated by anything short of them being wiped from the Caster's Memory.

There is no "abusing the rules" at all. You are memorizing a spell...and part of that spell memorization is placing other already cast spells into either one of them.

The Simbul's Spell Trigger and Spell Sequencer spells are not contingency magic. They are spells that can only be completely memorized by casting additional spell(s) into them.

As a last point, you don't have to use the same word for each Sequencer; you can use different words for each.

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Originally posted by The Arcanamach

although the Simbul never let knowledge of those spells escape, the one Magister who managed to get them ended up dead through her manipulations).

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Originally posted by The Arcanamach

The Magister who stole the Simbul's spell was Uldinus Lawkland (p. 66 of The Magister supplement). The story of her manipulating him into death is told under the following Magister's write-up.

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Originally posted by The Arcanamach
@Kyrel: I'm not saying that a GM should allow DD's use of these magics to be used in the way he describes (or even used at all, for that matter), just that his interpretation has merit, IMO.

@Sleyvas: Just because the spells were 'fixed' under 3.x doesn't mean that they weren't intended to be used as DD says under 2e. Those spells had a duration of 366 days under 2e and were severely castrated under 3.x after all.

Now, I'm not saying that you're wrong, your interpretation is actually more reasonable to me...I'm just making the case that both interpretations have merit.

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Originally posted by Kyrel

...As for the spellchaining stuff, putting spelltrigger type spells inside spelltriggers is IMO just pure idiocy...Not even with research, unless we are approaching something like lvl. 50...

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