GameBanshee Forums

Explain.

Upon casting Spell Trigger (any of the spell sequencers), you are brought to a different screen where you may select spells up to sixth level to be stored. After you chose your spells and click "done," you will be brought back to the game screen and will have a Spell Trigger icon in your special abilities bar. To use it, simply click it and use it on the desired target. The three spells chosen will be cast simultaneously.

Contingency and Chain Contingency work in a similar fashion, except that for the first one, you may only select a single spell, up to sixth level while for the latter you are allowed to select three spells up to eighth level. Then, you select two things: the condition on which the contingency will trigger and simultaneously cast the three spells and the target, so don't choose to target an enemy if your cleric/mage stored buffs and heals in there.

For both of these spells, when you choose to store spells in triggers, sequencers or contingencies, they appear as if they were cast form your spell book, so you cannot cast them again that day. Trigger, Sequencer and Contingency spells do not go away until used. You can have every sequencer and trigger spell on you once, but must choose between contingency and chain contingency as one will not work if the other is already active.

Do the spells used in either trigger or (either) contigency have to be memorized, or just known?

They have to be memorized.

So basically it uses up what (paltry) spells the wizard already has memorized?

I will try to explain:

Contingency has a casting time of 0. It can be cast even with 100% spell failure penalty (Dead Magic Zones, Creeping Doom, Anti-Magic beholder ray). It stores 1 memorized spell up to 6-th level for a lvl 18 spellcaster, which targets only the caster. The spell triggers when certain requirement is met, but if this requirement is 'See Enemy', the Contingency will trigger in the beginning of a new round ONLY.
Although casting time of Contingency is 0, and the caster may literally start casting a new spell immediately afterwards, the caster makes some hand gestures which completely foil subsequent spellcasting of spells with casting time more than 1. So, in short, after casting Contingency, any spell with casting time 1 or 0 may be cast without delay.
Due to the fact that Contingency actually stores spells previously memorized, it has absolutely no value to single class thieves with UAI. Also, Projected Images and Simulacrum clones have no 'memorized' spells, so Contingency has no effect for these either.
In Contingency may be stored protective spells as well as offensive ones, like Sunfire, Fireball, Death Fog, Death spell, Ice Storm, Remove/Dispel magic. Also, in Contingency may be stored summoning spells like Spider Spawn, Animate Dead, etc.

Chain Contingency works the same way, except for the fact that it can store 3 spells with level up to 8th, and can target an enemy.

Spell Trigger and its lesser variations actually create a magical item which stores previously memorized spells. Again, it has no use to Thieves with UAI and wizard clones. Although wizard clones copy the special ability table of the mage, releasing copied triggers has absolutely no effect.
Spell Trigger and the rest have casting time of 1 round. They cannot be cast under Spellcasting failure penalty. However, a previously created Spell Trigger may be released under 100% spellcasting failure penalty.

In fact, both contingency type spells work in conjuction, they can simultaneosly be active on your character.

Taegn wrote:So basically it uses up what (paltry) spells the wizard already has memorized?

But you can then rest and re-memorise them, or even different spells. With spell trigger I generally memorise three chain lightnings, cast Spell Trigger, select the three CLs then select, typically, Death Fog, Improved Haste and another spell. A bit time consuming, but worth the effort in my opinion, but the point is you can keep the spell slots in use. Heck you can even change the Spell Trigger for another spell like Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting if you want once you have the spell in your special bar.