Simple Archmage Trick

[User3]

Please check this combo for validity and any cheesy uses. It takes advantage of the facing rules in D&D.

Become an archmage. Keep your familiar. Take mastery of shaping.

Cast the spell. Have your familiar inherit the antimagic field, too. However, you want to cast the spell in a particular way; you want to exclude yourself and the squares in front of you with your mastery of shaping ability. The familiar should get the same ability.

Since facing in this game is a free action, what you want to do when it is your turn is to face the enemy and cast your spell. Have your familiar face the same direction as you. When you are done with it, turn to the side on your enemy intentionally on the enemy. That way your familiar's field will overlap with the blank in your space and yours with the familiar.

Probably a pretty useless trick due to a wizard's pitifully low defense, but check me out anyway.

[Essence]

I don't understand this line:

Turn to the side on your enemy intentionally on the enemy.

Can you explain that?

[Lago_AM3P]

Right now, your anti-magic field has a huge hole in front from where you attack, while the rest of the area around you is covered in anti-magic goodness.

If you turn to the side, your hole will be at a 90' angle from your enemy. If your familiar does the same thing, your anti-magic fields will overlap on the empty spaces, creating a full bubble.

[PhoneLobster]

Antimagic field centers an area on you and that arch mage thing allows you to sculpt the shape of the area.

Now sure, the sculpted area moves with you, but is there anything to suggest for certain that it rotates with your facing?

Perhaps you would be better off sculpting a thin line and pulling some form of 5 foot side step moves with your familiar.

[RandomCasualty]

Yeah, I wouldn't think that it would move with your facing. D&D officially doesn't even have facing so there's nothing to suggest that facing means anything. Basically you could make a hole on the north end or the south end or whatever with shaping but you couldn't turn the hole, the shaped emanation would just stay like that regardless what direction you faced.

[Murtak]

However, being an emanation, antimagic field needs line of sight to function. So just sit your familiar in a paper lantern and have him open it when you want to cast a spell.

[User3]

1127460759[/unixtime]]
However, being an emanation, antimagic field needs line of sight to function. So just sit your familiar in a paper lantern and have him open it when you want to cast a spell.

Heh, quickdraw familiar + sheath as part of a move. Frogs count as 'weapon-like objects,' right?

[Essence]

I fail to see how one could possibly assume that the 'holes' in a sculpted emanation are positioned relative to the ground rather than relative to the character. Seriously, this is a game where people can non-magically move from one plane to another, and some planes have no absolute gravity or direction. How can you rationally rule using anything *but* character-relative emanations?

[PhoneLobster]

I'm just saying I'm just unaware of any wording that states that the emanation or the scultping is relative to and then proceeds to change/update relative to character facing.

And that I doubt that any such wording exists due to the whole "there is no real facing" trip the system seems to be on.

I certainly don't suggest it is wise or makes sense, I'm not even certain that there isn't wording that would actually support the proposed interpretation.

But you better go check because as far as I was aware facing in d20 isn't really supposed to do anything.

[erik]

Facing is at times still used in d20.
To wit- Beholders. I'd cite beholders but they aren't in the SRD and I only have 3.0 books which I don't care to find at the moment. I'll just trust we're familiar with em.

I had a friend who wanted to use shape spell to make an antimagic cone with his wizard, and I can't imagine that, or any other duration-cone spell (like the detection spells) making any sense without facing-relative orientations.

Facing is never mentioned with the detection spells, but it has to be implied since it is a directional emanation that moves with your character. Whoops, I just checked the variety of detection spells in the SRD, and only one of them makes a specific reference to facing, but that's all I need.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/detect ... nts.htm[br]

You can detect a particular kind of animal or plant in a cone emanating out from you in whatever direction you face.