[Spell] Warp Speed - A new record?

[Caedrus]

[Copied from the WotC Board, curse them!]

For the moment, I am only placing this here as a concept for people to assess and see if it has merit. I haven't seen it before, so apologies if this is an old idea.

Let's start with Ramirez. He's a 1st level halfling rogue.

Ramirez acquires the Spellwarped template (Monster Manual III, Pg 162). Ramirez is now an abberation, but this isn't so bad a deal.

His natural armour class improves by 2, as does his Dexterity; his Strength, Constitution and Intelligence increase by 4. Pretty good, so far.

Ramirez gains Spell Resistance 11+ its Hit Dice. Nice.

It's a +3 level adjustment, which is a bit of a hit. Maybe LA buyoff can help with that.

Now, here comes the best bit.

"Any time a spell fails to penetrate a spellwarped creature's spell resistance, the creature gains one of the following benefits, chosen at the time that the spell resolves."

Now, there are bonuses to Strength, Dexterity and Constitution, all of which have a well-defined, finite duration. There is even a way to get temporary hit points, equal to 5x the level of the failed spell. Now, all those effects are temporary, and defined as such. Two are not:

"The spellwarped creature gains resistance 10 to one energy type (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic).", which is great. Excellent advantages there. But this one caught my eye:

"The spellwarped creature's base speed increases bya number of feet equal to 5x the level of the failed spell". That's it. There are no restrictions given regarding the permanency.

Even if you ruled that the duration is equal to the duration of the spell, casting permanent spells makes for a permanent increase in speed.

It can't be dispelled, it's a supernatural ability.

So, in short, unless I am mistaken, if you can convince a friendly spellcaster (or be one yourself) to start casting spells on you, you gain a permanent, supernatural increase to your speed. It's achievable, at low level (even 1st level).

The Monster Manual III errata makes no mention of changes.

There are many excellent builds for speed increases and what you can do with them, but this seems to work. Does anyone have any feedback, before I do a few ridiculous builds?

Consider:

The speed of light in a vacuum is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second, which equates to 5995849158 feet per round (6 seconds).

Assuming that you can find someone will to cast 1,199,169,831 levels of spells on you, then your character can travel the speed of light.

Even with a far more moderate casting regime, and the judicious application of templates (The Shadow Template adds 50%), class skills and feats (Cheetah's Speed and Wildshape), you can go ridiculous speeds, because of one simple thing:

I can't see why the base speed bonus wouldn't stack; the stacking rules on PHB, Pg 171 state that: "Spells that provide bonuses or penalties on attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws and other attributes usually do not stack with themselves." [Emphasis Mine].

However, the spells that have been cast on Ramirez are not stacking their effects; rather, the spells themselves are not having an effect on Ramirez, so the stacking rules should not apply here; moreover, the effects are not providing bonuses in and of themselves. And, as a third point, the effect that is increasing the speed of Ramirez is supernatural, not spell or spell-like.

I believe that there's no limit to how fast you can go. The Chuck Thread lists a speed of 576,160 feet per round; but with 115226 spell levels, I believe we can exceed that, without templates and such. And that means a very high Jump Check, and that means a very high Diplomacy Check (The Jumplomancer). Time consuming? Absolutely.

But possible.

Does anyone have any thoughts or critiques?

C.

[BowenSilverclaw]

"Mr Sulu, take us to warp speed."

[Sinfire Titan]

1st rule of this trick: Pack Echoing Spell.

[Kuroimaken]

Let's make a couple of calculations here.

Let's assume a specialized caster, CL 20 (probably a Wizard with focused specialist and whatnot). Let's give him Practiced Spellcaster and other funny stuff of this sort (namely CL boosters for Echoing Spell shenanigans).

Assuming a regular caster, should he expend all his spell slots (assuming 7 of each spell level; I'm not counting bonus spells yet here), we have 315 spell levels on this guy. Assuming Echoing Spell on ALL of them (can be pretty hard to do, barring Incantatrix shenanigans), one hour later, that jumps up to 630. Assuming 8 "usable" hours for this, we have 315 x 8= 2520 spell levels in a day (due to the stupid rule that you'll only get spells you didn't cast 8 hours prior to your 8 hours of rest). We can squeeze in 1760 more spell levels if we're talking about an elf for 4280 a day.

While we're at it, why not make some of those twinned or split ray'ed for the fun of it? Residual metamagic, too. That ought to speed the process up, but at the current rate it'll take about 280.179 days for you to get to light speed, which equates to 767 years of daily casting to get there. If you could get... a LOT of equally-built elf casters to cooperate you can cut up on the time needed.

Oh, and one important note. EVERY SINGLE SPELL LEVEL USED IN THIS PROCESS MUST FAIL TO PENETRATE SR.

That said, getting off all those spells requires about 54 rounds, which means a little over 5 minutes, and then everyone has 55 minutes to spend until their spells echo back. That's a lot of time -- time which could be spent shooting spells off wands and staves and whatnot, though by then you're starting to burn money on the guy who wants to run at the speed of light.

[Kuroimaken]

Oh gods above, I forgot about Artificers. Lots and lots of Artificers with Residual Metamagic and Echoing Spell... *cries*

[Chemus]

Warlock with a low Cha blasting with eldritch balst.

Edit: Sorry, I didn't catch the "5x spell level" part.

[Callix]

The caster can choose to fail his SR check.

If stacking rules only applied to spells, wouldn't SLAs stack indefinitely? They aren't spells.

[Sinfire Titan]

The caster can choose to fail his SR check.

If stacking rules only applied to spells, wouldn't SLAs stack indefinitely? They aren't spells.

Actually, no, you can't voluntarily fail a CL check to overcome SR. They stated this in the DM2.

[Slate]

A couple of things to add that might help.

Triad Spell from Spell Compendium.  Give more spells/spell levels per slot used.

Other idea is looking at the Mageslayer feats to reduce Caster level down so you have a higher probability of failing to penetrate SR.

[Chemus]

The caster can choose to fail his SR check.

If stacking rules only applied to spells, wouldn't SLAs stack indefinitely? They aren't spells.

I understood that the stacking rules applied to spell effects, which SLA's are IIRC. Only the casting of SLA's is different, no?

[Akalsaris]

I am strangely happy to see at last a reason for a mage to take the mageslayer feats, and I admit to not expecting it to be part of a speedy build.

Oh, and from our brethren at Memory Alpha, who are just as nerdy as Char Op sometimes...

http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Talk:Warp_factor/archive

For those of us with a burning desire to know the algorithms behind warp speed...

[Surreal]

I think this is a very hazy interpretation of the rules. One could very easily argue that all the boosts are coming from the same source and thus do not stack. Or, y'know, that all the effects were intended to last for 1 minute.

That said, a spellwarped creature is beastly when it was asome warlocks acting as batteries. I tpk'd a party with a dungeoncrashing spellwarped minotaur who had two pixie warlocks flying overhead and simply blasting down the entire time (who notices a little extra lightning during a thunderstorm?).

edit: typo

[Kuroimaken]

I think this is a very hazy interpretation of the rules. One could very easily argue that all the boosts are coming from the same source and thus do not stack. Or, y'know, that all the effects were intended to last for 1 minute.

Surreal, I'm sure you know better than anyone that "hazy interpretation of the rules" is one of the hallmarks of CO fame.

As for coming from the same source, if all the spell levels came from the same spell(s) being cast over and over, there might be a point; however, most of the time it's going to come from different spells (arguably different sources), and then it becomes a chicken and the egg situation.

[AfterCrescent]

Surreal, I'm sure you know better than anyone that "hazy interpretation of the rules" is one of the hallmarks of CO fame.

Not really. That's just false.

As for coming from the same source, if all the spell levels came from the same spell(s) being cast over and over, there might be a point; however, most of the time it's going to come from different spells (arguably different sources), and then it becomes a chicken and the egg situation.

It's not the spell that's the same source. It's that the ability of the spellwarped creature is the same being activated. That's like if I took the Shadow Template and just took Fast Healing 2 for each of my abilities every 5HD... Does that mean I get Fast Healing 2x? No. Because it's the same ability multiple times, it doesn't stack.

[Caedrus]

Thank you to all for the feedback. I have a few thoughts on the matter, of course, as the OP often does.

I am, of course, biased, but have a read through my thoughts and see what you think.

Rules Statements

The Player's Handbook (Pg 171, 'Combining Magical Effects', states that 'spells that provide bonuses or penalties on attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws and other attributes usually do not stack with themselves.'

The Rules Compendium (Pg 21, 'Bonuses' states that 'Untyped bonuses stack unless the bonuses come from the same effect.'

Question

So, the question is, as far as I can see, whether or not when multiple spells that interacts with the spellwarped creature would increase the effect.

Arguments

[Rules as Intended Argument] My inclination is to say that the designer specifically didn't want these effects stacking. My validation for this argument is that the designer capped almost all other abilities with a defined time limit (mostly 1 minute) and/or an ability that does not stack with itself (Energy Resistance does not stack, as noted on DMG, Pg 298, 'Resistance to Energy').

[Rules as Written Argument] The designer has placed a benefit that has no defined time limit. The template makes no mention of it being a particular bonus type, such as the enhancement bonus to speed from the Haste spell.

Pertinent Text

The text of the template states the following:

" Spell Absorption (Su): Whenever a creature fails to penetrate a spellwarped creature's spell resistance, the creature gains one of the following benefits, chosen at the time that the spell resolves."

"Speed: The spellwarped creature's base speed increases by a number of feet equal to 5x the level of the failed spell."

Assumptions

Increases to speed have a type. Examples include enhancement (Haste Spell, PHB, Pg 239) and racial. Because the Spellwarped does not have a type listed, it is an untyped bonus.

Therefore

Since untyped bonuses stack unless the bonuses come from the same effect, for this to work, we need to conclude that what makes the Spellwarped creature's speed increase does not come from the same effect.

There are two sides to this argument:

A. That the increases all come from spells, and that, no matter how many spells were cast on a spellwarped creature, they would only get the increase to speed from the greatest source (i.e. highest level spell).

OR

B. That the increases come from different sources; that each spell, whether from the same caster, or even being the same spell is inconsequential; the spells themselves do not have any effect, since the effect requires that the spell fails to penetrate a spellwarped creature's spell resistance [emphasis mine].

I believe that argument B is correct. My reason for this is:

Every effect listed for the Spellwarped is given a bonus type (enhancement), or is an effect that does not stack (Energy Resistance), with the exceptions of bonus hit points and speed increase.

Now, I follow my argument with a scenario:

If a Spellwarped creature were hit with multiple spells that failed to penetrate it's Spell Resistance, and the Spellwarped creature chose to increase the hit points each time, would you allow the hit points to stack, or would you state that only the highest hit point boost were retained?

Conclusions

Spellwarped creatures can receive an untyped bonus to speed.

Most of the other effects for Spellwarped creatures have a bonus type that precludes the effects from stacking if the creature were hit with spell effects multiple times.

The speed increase stacks with itself, because if it did not, there would be no need for the other effects (ability increases) to have a bonus type.

Now, I know that one could state that the presence of a bonus type for the other effects strongly suggests that the designer should have made the increase to speed an enhancement bonus (like a Haste spell). This is, however, not the case.

Should the speed increase either by typed or last a minute? Yes. However, this is not what the rules state. This is a loophole, no doubt. But, I believe a legal one.

As I say, I am biased. I would like to hear reasonable arguments from those who believe me incorrect.

C.

[Surreal]

Honestly... I just don't bother with these kind of debates. Loopholes and semantics are fun for theoretic builds, and I'm lenient towards things that enable cool builds, but this is one of those things that simply falls into the "no" category for me. I don't care about RAW arguments; the game is always RAI as per the DM, and this will never fly with any DM. Infinite-anything is not supposed to happen. Game-breaking-anything is not supposed to happen.

[AfterCrescent]

I think you may be looking at this the wrong way, Caedrus. You are assuming the speed increase is coming from the spell, but it isn't. The speed increase is coming from the same effect: The spellwarped creature's ability 'Spell Absorption.'  Since it is untyped, it would stack, except that it comes from the same effect each time, so it doesn't.

[Kuroimaken]

Honestly... I just don't bother with these kind of debates. Loopholes and semantics are fun for theoretic builds, and I'm lenient towards things that enable cool builds, but this is one of those things that simply falls into the "no" category for me. I don't care about RAW arguments; the game is always RAI as per the DM, and this will never fly with any DM. Infinite-anything is not supposed to happen. Game-breaking-anything is not supposed to happen.

It's neither infinite nor game-breaking, I believe. It's movement speed. D&D doesn't contemplate real-world physics enough to have a problem with someone moving at warp speed. Conversely, Jumplomancer aside, I can't think of any particular way to abuse this.

I think you may be looking at this the wrong way, Caedrus. You are assuming the speed increase is coming from the spell, but it isn't. The speed increase is coming from the same effect: The spellwarped creature's ability 'Spell Absorption.'  Since it is untyped, it would stack, except that it comes from the same effect each time, so it doesn't.

How would you classify the other effects from Spell Absorption then? Also, I can't specifically remember any other ability that does something similar. It's just a plain oddball to me; forgive me for saying this, but it doesn't appear as crystal-clear to me as it does to you.

[Callix]

Honestly... I just don't bother with these kind of debates. Loopholes and semantics are fun for theoretic builds, and I'm lenient towards things that enable cool builds, but this is one of those things that simply falls into the "no" category for me. I don't care about RAW arguments; the game is always RAI as per the DM, and this will never fly with any DM. Infinite-anything is not supposed to happen. Game-breaking-anything is not supposed to happen.

It's neither infinite nor game-breaking, I believe. It's movement speed. D&D doesn't contemplate real-world physics enough to have a problem with someone moving at warp speed. Conversely, Jumplomancer aside, I can't think of any particular way to abuse this.

Tornado Throw? You could throw them, run after tham, and throw them again as much as you want.

I think you may be looking at this the wrong way, Caedrus. You are assuming the speed increase is coming from the spell, but it isn't. The speed increase is coming from the same effect: The spellwarped creature's ability 'Spell Absorption.'  Since it is untyped, it would stack, except that it comes from the same effect each time, so it doesn't.

How would you classify the other effects from Spell Absorption then? Also, I can't specifically remember any other ability that does something similar. It's just a plain oddball to me; forgive me for saying this, but it doesn't appear as crystal-clear to me as it does to you.

As benefits of Spell Absorption to various things. They have well-defined durations, and wouldn't stack with themselves as they are from the same effect, Spell Absorption.

[Kuroimaken]

Tornado Throw? You could throw them, run after tham, and throw them again as much as you want.

I believe activating Tornado Throw still requires an action, and that running up to someone to throw them again concludes your movement once you throw them again. I'm familiar with a RKV build that basically stacked Nightsticks to run up, throw, run up, throw until he ran out of actions and he launched his enemy into orbit, but it still required more than just the template.

As benefits of Spell Absorption to various things. They have well-defined durations, and wouldn't stack with themselves as they are from the same effect, Spell Absorption.

As you put it, it seems to me you have a bigger beef with the speed benefit being apparently permanent than you have with bombarding someone with mystical energy until his eyeballs do a backflip and he runs off towards the horizon like a Velociraptor on a sugar rush.