Time Stop + Delayed Blast Fireball - Timing?

[andargor]

How do you time a delayed blast fireball to go off just when a maximized time stop ends? Is it even possible? Does it instead go off on your turn 1 round after the maximized time stop ends?

If not, the spell says:

A creature can pick up and hurl the bead as a thrown weapon (range increment 10 feet). If a creature handles and moves the bead within 1 round of its detonation, there is a 25% chance that the bead detonates while being handled.

If thrown, does the bead detonate when it lands? Or does it again just sit there until someone picks it up again to throw it back (with a 25% immediate detonation chance)?

Is there any way to make it detonate on someone else's turn?

Andargor

 

[Jack Simth]

Readied actions have a chance of making it detonate on someone else's turn (have that summoned Celestial Monkey ready an action to handle it on the last turn)

Also... do you see anything under the description of Delayed Blast Fireball that says the time increment must be in integral rounds? If not.... well.... you can have it end whenever you like, provided it's within the five-round limit ... like, say, the moment your Time Stop ends.... and as you potentially have a move action after the Time Stop, it's still your round... but your opponent still hasn't gone....

Nasty spell dumping, that.

 

[andargor]

Readied actions have a chance of making it detonate on someone else's turn (have that summoned Celestial Monkey ready an action to handle it on the last turn)

Also... do you see anything under the description of Delayed Blast Fireball that says the time increment must be in integral rounds? If not.... well.... you can have it end whenever you like, provided it's within the five-round limit ... like, say, the moment your Time Stop ends.... and as you potentially have a move action after the Time Stop, it's still your round... but your opponent still hasn't gone....

Nasty spell dumping, that.

Yes, it says "up to 5 rounds after the spell is cast". However, they are combat rounds, so yes they are integral.

Sure, I could ready to cast on the last round, but what I'd really like to do is stack a few. (cast) 5... (cast) 4... (cast) 3... (cast) 2... (cast) 1... (time stop ends) Booom-ba-boom-boom!

Something I forgot initially to mention for other replies: please don't start a discussion here about if time stop can be maximized or not. Assume it can for the purposes of this discussion. And if you don't agree, let's take this to another thread.

Andargor

 

[Jack Simth]

For one, 2.5 is withing the bounds of "up to 5" under most reckoning.
For two, if they are integral rounds, at what point in the next round do they go off? A combat round is done in halves, after all (Move & Standard actions) and a full-round action can be extended between two rounds (with the "start/complete full round action" action)

Consider, though:
Standard Action: Time Stop (5)
1: Move Action: Walk a bit
1: SA: Delayed Blast Fireball (4)
2: MA: Walk a bit
2: SA: Delayed Blast Fireball (3)
3: Move Action: Walk a bit
3: SA: Delayed Blast Fireball (2)
4: MA: Walk a bit
4: SA: Delayed Blast Fireball (1)
5: MA: Walk a bit
5: SA: Delayed Blast Fireball (0)(Time Stop Expires & all DBF's go off - simultaneously)
Move Action: Walk a bit (still my turn....)

Consider:
1) The time stop expires on completion of my 5 standard and 5 move actions (5 full rounds)
2) The DBF's go off after the specified number of integral rounds (each consisting of a move and standard action)
3) Spells take effect as soon as they are done being cast (the exact instant the Time Stop expires, for the last one); when multiple things happen simultaneously, does the limitation from the one that ends simultaneously with the one that damages affect the one that's doing the damage?

 

[TheGogmagog]

Sorry to be picky, but I believe the word you were looking for is integer, a whole number.
Whereas integral, would mean sum of all concievable numbers between 0 and 5, or the area of your equation between 0 and 5. It's early so I'm not sure if it's the same if you use a step funtion to define the progression from 0 to 5, but I've digressed and it's probably not important to differentiate.

I believe 3.5 revised timestop to accelerate the caster, not stop time. The question would be how the DM handles timestop. Normal fireball, an instantaneous effect can't affect the target. Can a delayed blast fireball cast to go off in 0 rounds (instantaneous?) affect the target? Would a delay of .1 rounds or 'a move action later' work? Can the caster delay the DBF 4 'apparent' rounds?

 

[Markn]

Regarding time stop and delayed blast fireball, this is how I have done it.

Cast time stop. Then during one of the time stop rounds, delay your action so your initiative drops by 1 (For example, if you normally go on initiative point 14, delay so that you now go on initiative point 13). Cast you delayed blast fireball at this point. This has two effects. 1) Your last time stop round actually happens outside of time stop because it is now past the time stop initiative point and thus you can do an offensive action and 2) Your fireball goes off immediately after the time stop on the next initiative count.

It seems to work mechanic wise as well as semantic wise.

EDIT: One other application this can work with is summoning monsters. If you delay your action by 1 initiative count then all your monsters that you summon could attack immediately after the Time Stop ends. This can be a very effective tactic.

 

[Tiberius]

I don't personally see a problem with saying "I set the timer such that it goes off on inititative tick X on round Y" (where Y <= 5).

 

[andargor]

Can a delayed blast fireball cast to go off in 0 rounds (instantaneous?) affect the target?

I sincerely doubt that...

Would a delay of .1 rounds or 'a move action later' work?

Well, the spell description says "up to 5 rounds", so I guess conceivably you could say "at the end of my turn in X rounds". In a normal situation, could a caster simply cast DBF, say "at the end of my turn", and then use her move action to get out of the way? If so, then the time stop combo becomes possible...

Can the caster delay the DBF 4 'apparent' rounds?

Well, time stop says the following:

A spell that affects an area and has a duration longer than the remaining duration of the time stop have their normal effects on other creatures once the time stop ends.

Which means a spell "ticks" in the caster's apparent time if it is cast during the time stop, and resumes normal time with the caster.

Cast time stop. Then during one of the time stop rounds, delay your action so your initiative drops by 1 (For example, if you normally go on initiative point 14, delay so that you now go on initiative point 13). Cast you delayed blast fireball at this point. This has two effects. 1) Your last time stop round actually happens outside of time stop because it is now past the time stop initiative point and thus you can do an offensive action and 2) Your fireball goes off immediately after the time stop on the next initiative count.

It seems to work mechanic wise as well as semantic wise.

EDIT: One other application this can work with is summoning monsters. If you delay your action by 1 initiative count then all your monsters that you summon could attack immediately after the Time Stop ends. This can be a very effective tactic.

This is interesting, but there's something there I'm uneasy about. It essentially allows you to have more than one round of action in real time. I can see readying to cast time stop at the moment it ends, but would delaying during the time stop really change your initiative order in real time? I doubt it...

Plus it's way open to abuse: You could change your initiative order, do the DBF thing, come back to normal time, cast a direct damage quickened spell, cast time stop again, rinse, repeat...

I don't personally see a problem with saying "I set the timer such that it goes off on inititative tick X on round Y" (where Y <= 5)

This is the crux of it. Can you specify a delay which is a fraction of a round?

Andargor

 

[Markn]

Andargor,

I am at work so don't have time to check for SRD or PHB for exact evidence but I believe there is no reason why you couldn't cast the delayed blast fireball immediately like a normal fireball which would in turn give it an instantaneous effect.

In regards to your uneasiness to my delaying initiative, I'll admit it is a sticky interpretation on my part but to be honest I don't see why not. First, by getting back to back real time actions you are sacrificing 1 round of time stop (as your last action bleeds into the non time stop initiative point). I don't see this as being a game breaker in any way (although with some combos can be really really powerful - and sure it can be abused but so can a lot of things in the game). Second, I see Time Stop as sandwiching rounds in between a normal time round and the next time round. So these are just extra rounds in which you can act albeit with some limitations. However, delaying your inititive count isn't one of them. Furthermore, if you delay and then summon monsters they need to act at that initiative point. That means outside of Time Stop they should act at the same initiative number.

FWIW, I called WotC on this to see if it seemed legal and in fact I have called them several times because sometimes there are some real idiots. Everyone I talked to supported this action.

Maybe by the RAW, someone here sees something I don't but Time Stop is 9th level so why not....

Oh, one last thing, don't effects happen at the beginning of the initiative count before anyone acts in the round? If something like DBF is supposed to go boom on count 14 and a player acts on count 14 doesn't the boom happen first and then player actions get resovled.

OK, last thing this time...I'm not so sure you can say what initiative tick the boom happens. Most everything happens in conjuntion with your initiative so I think you only have the choice of choosing it to go boom on round 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 but not which count. I can't think of any other spell that works this way (this also excludes spells that have effects that trigger on another persons turn such as taking damage from the spell because almost all spells I can think of still end on your init count). Hope that makes sense.

 

[rtricher]

I agree with Markn with all of this, of course ther is possible abuse but if there need to be in order to make it out of the fight alive than dont forget the amount of ressources it takes to do all of this. Like he said it's a 9th level spell not to many characters have a whole bunch of those.

I also agree that a DBF can be cast as a standard fireball with more horsepower, it's a 7th level spell.

I guess the real question is are the time stop "rounds" really rounds??