Icy Future

School divination; Level cleric/oracle 2, witch 2

CASTING

Casting Time 1 round

Components V, S, M/DF (a gear or other mechanism from a clock)

EFFECT

Range personal

Target you

Duration 10 min./level or until discharged; see text

You receive a brief glimpse into your future. Whenever an opponent targets you with a spell with the cold descriptor or makes an attack against you that deals cold damage, you may take a standard, move, swift, or free action of your choice, including an attempt to counterspell your opponent’s spell, as if you readied the action, treating the casting of the spell or the attack as the readied action’s trigger. If the action you chose makes it impossible for your opponent to legally target you or another creature with that action, the opponent’s action is lost. For instance, if your opponent announced its intention to make a melee attack against you with its +1 frost longsword, but you teleported out of the battle, the opponent may still attack one of your allies if they are legal targets. However, if there are no remaining legal targets when you teleported away, your opponent’s attack action would be wasted.

Unlike a normal readied action, your initiative count remains unchanged, though the readied action you took counts toward the number and type of actions you can take on your turn that round. Therefore, if you used a standard for your readied action, you cannot take another standard action on your initiative count that round. Using the readied action in the preceding manner discharges and ends the spell.