The Damaging Interrupt: An Anti-Spellcaster Strategy For Pathfinder

There are few enemies as dangerous as those with magic at their command. From powerful necromancers capable of sapping away one's strength with a gesture, to evokers who act as conduits to energies more damaging than a legion of siege engines, often one good spell can send the party scrambling... or result in a TPK.

So nobody made the save? Oh... that's not good...

In a majority of games the party is going to face enemy spellcasters of one stripe or another. As such, it's important to know how you're going to come out the other side of an encounter without having been turned into a squirrel, or reduced to a smear of grease on the flagstones. And if you're playing Pathfinder, there is a little trick that can save your bacon, and cost your enemies dearly if you use it correctly.

We shall refer to it as the Damaging Interrupt.

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Concentration Checks, Readied Actions, And Lost Spells

As anyone who's played a spellcaster in Pathfinder knows, weaving magic isn't easy to do. If there's adverse conditions like inclement weather, you're riding on a galloping mount, you're currently entangled, or gods forbid you take damage while trying to cast, then that is going to force you to make a Concentration check in order not to lose the spell.

The last entry on that list is the most interesting for our purposes.

Because for most of the other situations listed (casting in a storm, casting while entangled, casting while riding a mount, etc.) the Concentration check isn't terribly high. Any second-rate sorcerer is going to be able to make those checks by mid-levels even without feats or class features boosting their Concentration checks. However, spellcasters who take damage while trying to sling magic operate on a sliding scale, and the more damage they take, the higher that check is going to be.

What's the matter? Can't focus?

The way it works is pretty simple. If someone starts casting a spell, and they get hit before they complete it (either because of a readied action going off, provoking an attack of opportunity, etc.), then they have to make a Concentration check with a DC equal to 10 + the spell level + the damage they took. Otherwise the spell fizzles without effect.

Since damage tends to scale with most character builds, take a moment and ask how many spells you could ruin with that. If a paladin hits an evil necromancer with an arrow from their longbow while they're the target of Smite, that could easily do a dozen points of damage or more. A ranger or a slayer with their crossbow could do the same, or more, to a favored/studied enemy, especially if they have a Vital Strike shot prepared. And then you get rogues throwing around wands for an easy touch attack, and adding in their sneak attack damage if they attack from the shadows, or are otherwise unseen by the spellcaster in question.

Perhaps one of the most insidious versions of this trick that I saw was an evoker who readies magic missile to use against an enemy spellcaster. So you get an automatic hit that can deal a middling amount of damage, but that "middling" amount of damage can easily lead to a Concentration check with a DC in the mid-30s to low 40s depending on how well you roll, and how nastily the spell is augmented.

Trade-Offs and Pitfalls

While this strategy is likely to catch a lot of GMs and players off-guard, it's not a guaranteed success. For example, spellcasters may be layered in protections like miss chances, or effects like mirror image that can take the hit for them allowing them to cast unmolested. They might have energy resistance to effects like scorching ray, or have a shield effect cast that absorbs magic missile without harm. This can be an issue if you ready your entire turn to counter the spellcaster, but then your shot gets stopped by their defenses, or just ill luck.

The other pitfall you can run into is a strategic one. Since most spellcasters are savvy enough not to provoke attacks of opportunity with their spells (usually by casting defensively), you are going to have to ready an action to hit them when they cast. If you have a low Initiative modifier, though, then you might always feel like you're playing catch up. Not only that, but the higher up in level you get, the more stuff you can (generally) do on your turn. But if you're going to try to interrupt an enemy caster's concentration, you're basically playing your action face-down as a trap card. You're not helping your allies right then, but acting as a counter to what the enemy might do. Of course, there's no guarantee they're going to cast a spell on their turn, and if they haven't then you may end up wasting your action.

Though this strategy can be extremely useful (especially at higher levels where more and more enemies tend to use magic to increase their threat level), understand that it is merely one option of many. It won't be the action you need to take on every turn, but it's a good thing to keep in your back pocket for when you need it!

Speaking of Countering Spellcasters...

For those who aren't sure when this strategy is going to really come up in their campaigns, I'd recommend checking out the latest release for my own setting... Archbliss: The City of The Sorcerers!

If you've been looking for sinister wonder, look no further!

A city in the sky, Archbliss has been the home of Sundara's most powerful sorcerer dynasties for centuries. A place where the impossible is practically commonplace, the acolytes of the great houses are capable of wielding powers and spells rarely seen by even accomplished wizards. Of course, as the enforcers of the Black Tower would tell you, there is no spell that can save you from a well-placed blow that scatters your wits, and ruins your focus.

Archbliss is available both in a Pathfinder version, as well as in a Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition version.

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