Valid use of Wall of Ice?

[Hawken]

I'm a PC in a game. My character is running away from a Bone Devil. The DM has it use its Wall of Ice to entrap my character in a cylindrical wall of ice--as she is running, with only a 5' diameter space (basically, the square my character was in) inside the wall of ice. My character had initiative and acted first. There were other characters involved meleeing the bone devil, yet it didn't suffer any AoOs from using the WoI on my character either.

What I don't get is how can someone create a wall of ice to catch someone like that? The DM said that the Reflex save the spell allows wasn't allowed because he was creating the wall around my character, not in the space my character occupied.

Next round, I use Alter Self to change into an Ice Mephit and fly up out of the ice cylinder (20' high only). As soon as I do, that same round, he has the devil create another wall of ice, on top of the ice cylinder except this is more of a hollow globe 'anchored' to the top of the cylinder previously created.

I'm just not getting how this could even be possible by even the most liberal interpretations of the Wall of Ice spell.

My thinking is that once the round starts, I have initiative, I start running, the ice devil starts casting. How is he going to know where I'm going to end up to cast the spell? Incidentally, my character is protected against Detect Thoughts so it couldn't read her mind to figure out where she was going precisely enough to do what he had it do.

Thoughts?

 

[stonegod]

Wall of ice creates a plane or a hemisphere, not a cylinder. In addition, it must be anchored to the floor if vertical, unlike a wall of stone, which just has to be anchored to stone. Wall of stone is also shapable, unlike wall of ice.

 

[frankthedm]

The bone devil auto succeeds the concentration check to use it's 4th level SLA without drawing an AoO. DC would be 19, Bone devil has +18. Barring house rules for autofailure on natural 1's, rolling the die is wasted time.

Using a spell-like ability while threatened provokes attacks of opportunity. It is possible to make a Concentration check to use a spell-like ability defensively and avoid provoking an attack of opportunity.

DM messed pretty bad here on wall of ice.

A wall of ice cannot form in an area occupied by physical objects or creatures. Its surface must be smooth and unbroken when created. Any creature adjacent to the wall when it is created may attempt a Reflex save to disrupt the wall as it is being formed. A successful save indicates that the spell automatically fails.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-3rd-edition-rules/219979-hemispherical-wall-ice.html

The hemisphere is nearly useless to entrap someone. Unless you are playing without a grid, the victim WILL have an adjacent square that contains the wall. allowing for reflex save. How the DM rules how the radius works on the battlemat will make huge differnce in how well the spell works.

http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/6531/iceyiq9.gif

 

[Jhaelen]

The hemisphere is nearly useless to entrap someone. Unless you are playing without a grid, the victim WILL have an adjacent square that contains the wall. allowing for reflex save.

Unless I'm mistaken a 15' radius hemisphere should be sufficient to entrap a medium or smaller target without a save. What's the ice devil's caster level?

 

[irdeggman]

My thinking is that once the round starts, I have initiative, I start running, the ice devil starts casting. How is he going to know where I'm going to end up to cast the spell? Incidentally, my character is protected against Detect Thoughts so it couldn't read her mind to figure out where she was going precisely enough to do what he had it do.

Thoughts?

Hmm it doesn't work that way.

All of a character's actions are resolved on their turn in the initiative order. So your movement is resolved before the ice devil begins to cast.

Spell specifics are determined once casting is complete.

Per RAW there is no such thing as simultaneous actions (despite common sense).

So per initiative rules this could work as the DM executed.

Well - I question the placing a dome on top of the cylinder. Since you get a move action to fly after Alter Self. Again your mevement is resolved before the ice devil's turn so depending on your PC's fly speed he might be out of range.

The ice devil could not have readied an action to prevent it since he already used his actions last round (that is the only way to get around it). Even using quicken spell like ability would not allow it since that would make it a swift action, but swift actions still occur on your turn in the initiative order and not like an immediate action which could interrupt your turn (like a readied action could).

Whether or not the spell could be done that way is something entirely different.

 

[Shin Okada]

Bone Devil has CL 12. Just enough to create a 15-foot radius hemisphere.

 

[Delta]

I agree that by the rules, the bone devil should have been capable of casting a hemispherical wall of ice to trap the character, no save. (Subject to unstated space limitations, I suppose.)

The change into a cylinder, et. al., was a glitch. But that actually bought your party an extra round of actions.

 

[frankthedm]

Unless I'm mistaken a 15' radius hemisphere should be sufficient to entrap a medium or smaller target without a save. What's the ice devil's caster level?

Bone Devil has CL 12. Just enough to create a 15-foot radius hemisphere.

True, my bad, the Illo was just supposed to show how the spell is vague about how it works with the battlemat* and how easy it is to disrupt. I should have been clearer when posting it. {& I was feeling too tired to make a new one]

*Sure a 7th level and 12 level casters have nice even Radii, 10' and 15' respectively, But what happens with 8th through 11th level casters who have walls of ice with 11’-14’ radius walls of ice?

I agree that by the rules, the bone devil should have been capable of casting a hemispherical wall of ice to trap the character, no save. (Subject to unstated space limitations, I suppose.)

Capable yes, but the OP did indicate the wall of ice was "only a 5' diameter space" You pretty much NEED the whole 15' radius hemisphere to trap a character if using a square grid. Also the 15' radius has to be unbroken by objects, requiring the victim to be out in the open away from any walls and pillars.

edit, 15' radius WoI, top down view and side view based on 3.5 measurement and grid rules.

 

[Delta]

Capable yes, but the OP did indicate the wall of ice was "only a 5' diameter space"...

Well yeah, that's what I said re: "The change into a cylinder, et. al., was a glitch", and, "Subject to unstated space limitations".

 

[Jhaelen]

*Sure a 7th level and 12 level casters have nice even Radii, 10' and 15' respectively, But what happens with 8th through 11th level casters who have walls of ice with 11’-14’ radius walls of ice?

Good question! I asked myself the same question when I used a Marzanna (from Frostburn) in an ecounter. She has CL 8, so for her the radius is 11'. Back then I decided that it would allow her to capture a PC without a save - but for no other reason than because it made a better encounter that way! (it didn't really do much anyway, it just prolonged the fight by a single round, because it prevented the entrapped psion from blasting her to smithereens in round 1 to escape using dimension door).

If you care for mathematical correctness:
11' translate into 1.2 squares. That's not sufficient to safely enclose a square diagonally.
12' translate into 1.4 squares. That's _almost_ sufficient: you need sqrt(2) = 1.41...
13' translate into 1.6 squares. That's definitely sufficient, even if you count a diagonal square as 1.5.

If you don't want to bother with fractions of squares, another way to look at it would be to interpret the hemisphere as having a radius of 10' plus 5' per 5 levels over level 7. A lot of spells have effects that are written in a similar way.

Capable yes, but the OP did indicate the wall of ice was "only a 5' diameter space" You pretty much NEED the whole 15' radius hemisphere to trap a character if using a square grid. Also the 15' radius has to be unbroken by objects, requiring the victim to be out in the open away from any walls and pillars.

That's certainly true. It's relatively difficult to pull off.

edit, 15' radius WoI, top down view and side view based on 3.5 measurement and grid rules.

Thanks for the image! It looks exactly like the little sketch I made (on scrap paper)