Dismiss A Spell

[DMFTodd]

"Dismissable: ..you can dismiss the spell at will. You must be within range of the spell's effect"

Cleric casts Water Walk on the entire party.

Can the cleric selectively dismiss the spell - dismiss it only on the party fighter? Or is it all or nothing - if it's dismissed it affects everyone?

Since Dismiss says "you can", the fighter can't dispel the water walk on him that the cleric cast?

Dismissing requires you to be within range - since Water Walk is a touch spell, it can only be dismissed if the cleric is standing next to the fighter/everyone?

 

[Pinotage]

"Dismissable: ..you can dismiss the spell at will. You must be within range of the spell's effect"

Cleric casts Water Walk on the entire party.

Can the cleric selectively dismiss the spell - dismiss it only on the party fighter? Or is it all or nothing - if it's dismissed it affects everyone?

Since Dismiss says "you can", the fighter can't dispel the water walk on him that the cleric cast?

Dismissing requires you to be within range - since Water Walk is a touch spell, it can only be dismissed if the cleric is standing next to the fighter/everyone?

I say that since you're dismissing the spell, you're dismissing all the spell's effects, so you can't selectively dismiss the spell. It requires a standard action on the cleric's part to dismiss the spell, so the fighter cannot do it.

To cast the spell you need to touch everybody. It's always assumed you can do that as part of the action taken to cast the spell. So it's also assumed that you should do that as part of the action to dismiss it, i.e. touch all the characters. I would allow a certain leeway in terms of character spacing here, so that you don't dismiss the spell from a character on the other side of a pit, for example. In that case you wouldn't be able to dismiss the spell at all. There is an argument that line of effect is good enough for the range of dismissing a spell, of course, but a literal reading means you have to touch each creature to dismiss it.

Pinotage

 

[eamon]

What pinotage says makes sense; but for the sake of argument: what are the consequences of allowing a spell to be dismissed piecemeal? The presumed argument being you can dismiss each instance of an "effect" separately, but not parts of an effect: does this lead to inconsistencies with any spells?

Only the original caster can dismiss a spell, not the target. Otherwise spell's like Blindness would become rather pointless...

 

[Arkhandus]

You can't dismiss only parts of the spell's effect. You either dismiss the spell altogether or leave it active. Only a few very specific spells have a clause that ends the spell for particular individuals without ending it for the whole group, as an exception to the rule (invisibility sphere, for example, will end for anyone who attacks, but only ends for the whole group if the caster attacks, IIRC). And yes, only the caster himself or herself can dismiss a spell they've cast.

 

[Pinotage]

but for the sake of argument: what are the consequences of allowing a spell to be dismissed piecemeal? The presumed argument being you can dismiss each instance of an "effect" separately, but not parts of an effect: does this lead to inconsistencies with any spells?

I'm thinking about Area effects here. Imagine some sort of Wall, and being able to selectively dismiss sections of it. It'll be like having a shapable spell.

Pinotage