So, I was reading the rules for spontaneous metamagic earlier, and I noticed that they mentioned that the required full round action for them is not the same as a 1 round casting time. I'd never heard that before, since most of my actual play experience with 3rd edition is PC game based, and I don't think anything I've played has made such a distinction. So, I went and read the rules on 1 round casting, and they are a lot different than I thought. Apparently it actually means you have to spend a full round action, and maintain the casting process while everyone takes their turn. Then the spell gets cast at the beginning of your next turn. So, the way ToEE implements it (which is a common mistake, I guess) is very generous. There aren't a whole lot of these spells in the core books; mostly summoning spells. But one immediately came to mind: People complain about Sleep dominating at early levels. But by the real rules, you can't just win initiative and knock the entire enemy party out. Even if the wizard acts first, everyone gets a chance to disrupt the spell being conspicuously cast at them. Also, this suddenly makes Color Spray look a lot better. Anyhow, I thought some people here might be interested in this tidbit. I'm kind of curious how much it'd affect strategies if it were actually implemented (it could easily be implemented by rewriting all the relevant spells, but it'd kind of be nice to not have to do that). P.S. it's not all bad for the player. Now the balor might not want to immediately try to pop in 2 hezrous, because he has to actually concentrate on it for a whole round while the PCs blast him.
Most spells have a casting time of 1 standard action. https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Casting_Time_(Spell_Descriptor) Spells with casting time of full round action existed it the game(Enlarge Person, Summon Monster and Sleep are examples) and yes, their cast time should be a whole round which aren't implemented in game. There are also some spells with 10 mins casting time(Planar Ally as example) which still implemented in game like just another Summon Monster spells with a different summons list.
On that note. In such an implementation, are you supposed to choose the AoE in advance, or when casting is complete?
Choosing the AoE in advance rather smacks of the cursed 2nd Edition AD&D Ring of Bureaucratic Wizardry (from the Tome of Magic) Ring of Bureaucratic Wizardry - Magic Items - The Thieves Guild - AD&D v3.5 Books and Resources Probably my favourite cursed item - such is the desirability of a ring of wizardry that a PC wizard might well put it on even knowing what it was.
I don't know how exactly sleep targeting should work but my opinion is: targets are selected before casting, at the end of the cast if it was successful chosen target are attempted to put in sleep.
You don't choose targeting until the spell is about to come into effect. Technically that's for all spells, but it's hard to imagine it mattering except for 1 round+ spells. I guess readied actions could make it matter with other spells, but the AI probably isn't going to be smart enough to make that happen. ToEE does have 'out of combat' and 'safe' as casting times, so Planar Ally could be made like that if someone wanted to be faithful to the long casting time without forcing the player to stare at the screen for 10 minutes. Edit: BTW, the targeting rule is a change from 3.0 to 3.5. But several notable 3.5 1 round spells (enlarge, sleep, dominate) are standard action spells in 3.0. I'm not sure what was 1 round in 3.0 except for summoning, and pre-picking your summoning location isn't as a big a deal as having to pre-pick the AoE for sleep.
Yeah, there's nothing like picking your area, cast your spell for 1 full round, and then everyone moves out of that selected area by the time you are done casting it - oops
I looked a little, and almost nothing in 3.0 would be much of a problem. The only one I could find was fire storm. The other 1 round spells were summoning, personal target or had huge areas of effect, like insect plague, which affects a 180ft radius in 3.0 (that's too big to fit on the screen at 1920x1080 in ToEE).
Sleep and Summon Monster allow to pick dest location at the beginning of next round, after casting is completed. That's known knowledge. As DM I rule such and direct players to play that way. Sleep is incredible potent spell on lower levels.
