Some Bow/Wizard silliness

[Generic_PC]

Hey CO,

I've been gone awhile! I can't find the "Post a Question" thread, so... A question I was inspired with by one of the Wizard vs. Challenger threads on the old board:

The situation is this: your average, insanely paranoid wizard is wandering around as a dire tortoise. (For those not in the know, dire tortoises always get to act in the surprise round, even if they are the ones being surprised). Some crazy archer is planning on taking this wizard out. I'm thinking of one of the builds that can fire arrows from thousands of feet away (see this topic on the old board here. The post in question is in the spoiler:

(click to show/hide)

Peregrinebf:
Hmm.
So 220 ft +20 ft (dragonbone) + 20 ft (dragon 358 enhancement mentioned by Jaronk) x1.25 (large)= 325 ft range increment
325 + 90 ft from Deepwood Sniper  + 25 ft from Flight arrow  = 440 ft.
415 x2 x2 x1.5 (x3.5 with multiplier stacking rules) = 1540 ft.
1540*20 range increments = 30800 ft range. Or about 5.8 MILES. The game board with 1 inch 5-foot squares would need to be 513 feet long. 171 yards. For the obligatory reference, an American Football field is 120 yards long.

The bow is Strong Transmutation, CL 15th, craft magic arms and armour, far shot, true strike, creator must be an elf, price 73,800 gp. Weight 3 lb. Oh, and don't steal one. Easy way to get yourself kill-on-sight to all elves.

So we need 9 levels of deepwood sniper, 4 cragtop archer, 1 spellwarp sniper, 5 ardent.
Deepwood Sniper needs BAB: +5, Hide 4, Move Silently 4, Spot 4, Far Shot, Point Blank Shot, Weapon Focus (any bow or crossbow).
Cragtop Archer needs BAB +6, climb 10, spot 5, survival 5, far shot, mountain warrior (bab+3, survival 5 ranks)
Spellwarp sniper needs Concentration 8, spellcraft 8, point blank shot, 3rd lvl spells, sneak attack or sudden strike +1d6
Ardent is a base class.
Either way, that's min lvl 24 without cheesing for more BAB/manifesting. So let's cheese.
Shapechange/polymorph can be cast on you from a scroll. Use those to get spells (Jaronk's summary of why this works) means you only need ardent 1. So 5 levels of fighter+ranger (2 fighter, 2 ranger, 1 warror and take sneak attack as the lvl 3 feat (UA pg 76) without losing BAB.)
Fighter 2 lvls: feats Point blank shot, far shot. Noncombatant (-2 melee attack rolls) and Vulnerable (-1 AC) as flaws let us pick up weapon focus (composite longbow) and 1 other feat. 1 lvl warrior taking sneak attack as the lvl 3 feat. 2 lvls ranger. That qualifies us for Deepwood sniper, so take that. Max spot. Get Mountain warrior in there somewhere. Pick up the Cragtop Archer, and 1 level of Ardent. Get yourself polymorphed into a creature with 3rd lvl arcane spells, or use earth power/sanctum spell (power via magic mantle)/heighten/expanded knowledge cheese to get a 3rd lvl power, class into Spellwarp sniper. Dark Chaos Feat Shuffle/other rebuild tricks if needed. Either do this as goliath (+1 LA) or take Monkey Grip (plenty of feats to spare). Lvl 20 complete, gamebreaking CON-damage artillery enabled.

So, this archer with a range of 30800 feet is firing from his extreme range (Because, here on min/max, we don't do anything halfway!). Here is when things get muddy. Does the arrow automatically hit, no matter where the wizard runs, if the archer was going to hit on his attack (Because most attacks are considered instantaneous)? Presumably the tortoise gets to act, but does it act during the arrow's flight? If he acts as soon as he is shot at, he probably has multiple rounds of wondering what the heck is actually attacking him before the arrow actually comes down on him. If he moves at all, does the arrow miss? Is an arrow shot from such long range still considered an instantaneous attack?

Essentially, the question is how the interrupting ability interacts with things that are completely out of the wizard's ability to influence, under normal situations?

[JohnnyMayHymn]

The further you are from the tortoise, the faster the arrow flies; however, if the arrow traveled half the distance to the tortoise(rounded down) every round, it would never hit the tortoise.

The archer is flat-footed the first round, then in subsequent rounds, the tortoise has already teleported.

Essentially, the question is how the interrupting ability interacts with things that are completely out of the wizard's ability to influence, under normal situations?

I think that comes down to initiative.  Also, neither character can see the sun b/c it's too far away.

EDIT: how does the archer know the tortoise is there?

[Generic_PC]

I'm just going to ignore the Zeno's Paradox!

As far as I know though, attacks are considered instantaneous in D&D3.5.

EDIT: how does the archer know the tortoise is there?

I'm not sure why this matters: in this hypothetical situation, I suppose a chain of commoners could have transmitted the knowledge from some commoner closer to the wizard with a spyglass (Talking is a free action, therefore its like instant target placement!), or the archer could have a chain of eyes to see him with, or anything, really. Let's just assume detection and targeting doesn't set off any suspicions/contingency defenses with this wizard.

The archer is flat-footed the first round, then in subsequent rounds, the tortoise has already teleported.

I would say that the arrow starts combat: the archer wouldn't be in combat until after it was fired. If the combat was started before, the wizard would get a surprise round to react to an empty road or something like that, where (s)he'd have no idea (unless (s)he can see most of 31000 feet in every direction simultaneously all the time, which is probably possible for a wizard, but not perpetually) what (s)he was reacting to.

[Empirate]

Let me just say I love that this is about a tortoise and an arrow, and that speed of movement comes into it...

[JohnnyMayHymn]

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From SRD:

Unaware Combatants
Combatants who are unaware at the start of battle don’t get to act in the surprise round. Unaware combatants are flat-footed because they have not acted yet, so they lose any Dexterity bonus to AC.

From SRD:

Flat-Footed
A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed, not yet reacting normally to the situation.

From SRD:

The Surprise Round
If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin. Any combatants aware of the opponents can act in the surprise round, so they roll for initiative. In initiative order (highest to lowest), combatants who started the battle aware of their opponents each take a standard action during the surprise round. You can also take free actions during the surprise round. If no one or everyone is surprised, no surprise round occurs.

From Sandstorm: (used under fair use)

..."On the first round of combat, it gets a surprise
round regardless of whether it has been noticed. A creature
that notices the dire tortoise is still treated as flat-footed
during this round."

Hrm... the tortoise gets a surprise round "regardless of whether it has been noticed", and the archer is treated as flat footed, but the tortoise ability doesn't say anything about regardless of whether the tortois's enemies have been noticed.
also, "if no one or everyone is surprised, no surprise round occurs"

if combat is started by the firing of the arrow, I believe this boils down to a cause and effect paradox similar to the one about going back in time to shoot your own grandfather.
   1  archer fires arrow to initiate combat
   2  tortoise acts in surprise round and archer becomes flat-footed
   3  flat-footed archer "has not yet acted during a combat"
   4  wizard teleports to another plane right before the universe implodes

that's why I think the initiative check happens in the surprise round, even if the wizard gets to react to the empty road example, that's when he teleports.

[ariasderros]

To clarify one point off of Johnny's points, in the verisimilitude of the world, the surprise round that the Wizard acts in would likely happen just before the arrow hit. i.e. he would be reacting to the arrow that is about to hit him as soon as it does get in range of his sight. Though he still may not realize whom fired it, much less from how far away it came from. Of course this will be the doom of said archer as a scry and fry is soon to follow.

[Halinn]

The surprise round would more likely be initiated when the player of the archer made clear his intention of shooting an arrow at the wizard. Then the DM would go "Surprise round, roll for initiative." The wizard, not in-universe aware of the danger (since there can't possibly be anything within range for him to notice) either loses initiative or continues doing what he was doing.

[caelic]

The surprise round would more likely be initiated when the player of the archer made clear his intention of shooting an arrow at the wizard. Then the DM would go "Surprise round, roll for initiative." The wizard, not in-universe aware of the danger (since there can't possibly be anything within range for him to notice) either loses initiative or continues doing what he was doing.

I think this is on the money.  Let's be honest here, exploiting the Dire Tortoise's automatic surprise round in a situation like this is pretty silly, since it's supposed to represent its ability to remain undetected until it attacks.  It's yet another astoundingly poorly conceived rule.  That being the case, if we're going to go by RAW, "getting a surprise round" does NOT give the tortoise knowledge that there's a threat.  Determining that there's a threat because the DM said "Roll for initiative" is metagaming, pure and simple.

[littha]

There was a Drow PRC with basically the same ability somewhere... obviously someone at wizards thought it was a good idea.

[caelic]

There was a Drow PRC with basically the same ability somewhere... obviously someone at wizards thought it was a good idea.

Someone at Wizards also thought the Sarrukh's abilities were a good idea. 

[JohnnyMayHymn]

There was a Drow PRC with basically the same ability somewhere... obviously someone at wizards thought it was a good idea.

Someone at Wizards also thought the Sarrukh's abilities were a good idea. 

That was a great idea, that eventually inspired the breaking core thread and exposed the inherent unbalance in 3.5.

[Halinn]

The surprise round would more likely be initiated when the player of the archer made clear his intention of shooting an arrow at the wizard. Then the DM would go "Surprise round, roll for initiative." The wizard, not in-universe aware of the danger (since there can't possibly be anything within range for him to notice) either loses initiative or continues doing what he was doing.

I think this is on the money.  Let's be honest here, exploiting the Dire Tortoise's automatic surprise round in a situation like this is pretty silly, since it's supposed to represent its ability to remain undetected until it attacks.  It's yet another astoundingly poorly conceived rule.  That being the case, if we're going to go by RAW, "getting a surprise round" does NOT give the tortoise knowledge that there's a threat.  Determining that there's a threat because the DM said "Roll for initiative" is metagaming, pure and simple.

The best option for the ranger is of course to hold his action until he's in regular initiative and can get a full attack.

[Generic_PC]

I think this is on the money.  Let's be honest here, exploiting the Dire Tortoise's automatic surprise round in a situation like this is pretty silly, since it's supposed to represent its ability to remain undetected until it attacks.  It's yet another astoundingly poorly conceived rule.  That being the case, if we're going to go by RAW, "getting a surprise round" does NOT give the tortoise knowledge that there's a threat.  Determining that there's a threat because the DM said "Roll for initiative" is metagaming, pure and simple.

I think this is the answer closest to what I was feeling. I'm not going to say it is right, but I just wanted to point out that I agree with you.

[SorO_Lost]

I recall saying the very same thing about the Dire Turtle's Surprise Round before in one of my many posts to battling a Wizard, so naturally I agree. The surprise round is wasted because knowing your in combat before combat starts is metagaming.

[spacemonkey555]

I recall saying the very same thing about the Dire Turtle's Surprise Round before in one of my many posts to battling a Wizard, so naturally I agree. The surprise round is wasted because knowing your in combat before combat starts is metagaming.

Knowing the future isn't metagaming in D&D, there are rules for it.

[Generic_PC]

Knowing the future isn't metagaming in D&D, there are rules for it.

In this case though, the Wizard/Tortiose doesn't know what has caused him to roll for initiative. Barring contingencies or other silliness that I'm ignoring right now, there is no way he'd know that someone 30800 feet away had just fired an arrow at him.

Admittedly, if your DM asks you to roll for initiative, the average player is going toput up some defenses, even if they're just running to the trees (or whatever) for cover. If they don't actually know what's attacking them though (I.E. they have no reason to actually have changed their normal actions, which would be walking down the road, I suppose) then that move into cover is definitely metagaming.

[SorO_Lost]

I recall saying the very same thing about the Dire Turtle's Surprise Round before in one of my many posts to battling a Wizard, so naturally I agree. The surprise round is wasted because knowing your in combat before combat starts is metagaming.

Knowing the future isn't metagaming in D&D, there are rules for it.

No there isn't (outside of FR and DL's 3rd party) and it's irreverent. I'm not going to degrade into a COP debate because you lost the Dire Turtle point.

[spacemonkey555]

I recall saying the very same thing about the Dire Turtle's Surprise Round before in one of my many posts to battling a Wizard, so naturally I agree. The surprise round is wasted because knowing your in combat before combat starts is metagaming.

Knowing the future isn't metagaming in D&D, there are rules for it.

No there isn't (outside of FR and DL's 3rd party) and it's irreverent. I'm not going to degrade into a COP debate because you lost the Dire Turtle point.

Foresight is core, and I couldn't care less about dire tortoises or COP.

[Tshern]

I know it is 3.0 material, but it hasn't been updated, so I guess Portfolio sense would count as well. Deities only, but a case of seeing to the future nevertheless. Foresight is a better example though.

[nijineko]

auguries and most divination falls into seeing the future.

so do any insight based effects.