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The description for the Improved Plane Shift feat includes "The time required for you to identify a portal’s destination is reduced to 1 round." I can't find anything that says how to identify a portal's destination normally or how long it would take. What book is that in?


Did anyone notice that the Combusted on p. 63 is basically Ignus from Planescape: Torment? (Well, it would be if it had Intelligence and sorcerer levels.)


Hmmm... the necromancer's grave touch ability causes a living creature to become shaken for the duration without a saving throw, and the only difference between shaken and sickened is that sickened imposes a -2 penalty on weapon damage rolls as well -- not a big deal for a spellcaster.

Perhaps the ability should cause the touched spellcaster to become sickened automatically and cause them to become nauseated if they fail the concentration check. In that case, perhaps a Fortitude save to reduce the nausea from 1d4+1 rounds to 1 round only.


The spell stinking cloud also causes 1d4+1 rounds of nauseation, plus however long the multiple targets stay in the cloud. So, doing it to one target doesn't seem quite that powerful. However, it might be better to limit the discovery to 3/day so that a high Int score doesn't make it too powerful.

Also, giving it a prerequisite of caster level 3 would seem right since stinking cloud is 3rd level and a single-target version of it would probably be 2nd level.


The Counterspell focused arcane school from the Advanced Player's Guide grants the Disruption ability, which allows the abjurer to touch an enemy spellcaster and force them to make a concentration check to cast spells.

I wanted to make this ability have a stronger effect on the target, so I thought of an arcane discovery that could go with it.

Gastric Disruption
When a spellcaster fails a concentration check while under the influence of your Disruption ability, they must make a Fortitude save. If they fail, they are nauseated for 1d4+1 rounds; if they succeed, they are merely sickened for 1 round.

What sort of prerequisites would be appropriate for this discovery?


The new PDF of Starjammer that was released today appears to have an improper search-and-replace of "ship" with "vessel"; "ownership" has been changed to "ownervessel" and "worship" has been changed to "worvessel".


The mythic Blind-Fight feat allows you to expend one use of mythic power to ignore all miss chances due to concealment or total concealment for a number of rounds equal to your mythic tier. Would this allow you to make sneak attacks against creatures with concealment?

I was thinking of a mythic shadow demon with assassin levels being able to hide inside a wall, activate the mythic Blind-Fight feat, study an adjacent enemy for 3 rounds, then perform a death attack from inside the wall. That would be incredibly awesome — if he could really do it, that is.


The book Deep Magic has the Clockworker wizard archetype which becomes a construct at 20th level.


The half-construct template from the Advanced Race Guide has 7 RP and grants a number of useful abilities. However, I'd like to bump it up a bit by granting it the Constructed qualities of the Bestiary 5 android.

The half-construct gets a +2 racial bonus to saves against poison, disease, fatigue, exhaustion, and mind-affecting effects. Androids get a +4 racial bonus to saves against poison, mind-affecting effects, paralysis, and stun effects, plus immunity to disease, fatigue, and exhaustion. They're also considered both humanoids and constructs for the purpose of special abilities that target creature types.

So, if I increased the half-construct's saving throw bonuses to match the android's and granted them the additional immunities (not the fear and emotion immunity, though), how many RP would this bring it up to?


The defensive racial trait Exalted Resistance on p. 223 of the Advanced Race Guide grants spell resistance 6 + character level against evil spells and costs 3 RP. However, on the same page, the Lesser Spell Resistance trait grants SR 6 + character level in general and costs only 2 RP. There's also Greater Spell Resistance for 3 RP which is 11 + character level. Why would anyone want to take Exalted Resistance?


On p. 226 of Mythic Adventures, it says that mythic monsters gain a natural armor bonus equal to their mythic rank. However, this doesn't make sense if the monster is incorporeal. Does an incorporeal mythic monster gain an increased deflection bonus to AC instead?


If an assassin takes the feat Ability Focus (death attack) to increase the DC of his death attack by 2, does this also increase the DC of the caster level check to bring an assassinated target back from the dead from the assassin's true death ability?


I love the new animate dead I-IX spells in this book. Finally, there's an option to create temporary undead creatures. The 3.5 book Libris Mortis had summon undead spells, but they were conjuration spells instead of necromancy. With animate dead I, a necromancer can animate a fallen foe as a ghoul for a few rounds to get shock value as well as combat value.


The spell know customs was a 2nd Edition spell from the Tome of Magic. Originally, it was a 3rd-level priest spell, but, in Pathfinder, I feel it should belong to the bard.

Know Customs
School divination; Level bard 2
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range personal and close (25 ft. + 5 ft. / 2 levels); see text
Target you and one humanoid
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw Will negates; Spell Resistance no

This spell allows you to gain general knowledge of the customs, laws, and social etiquette of a village or city by casting it on a citizen of the village within close range. The target need not be an actual citizen by law, but must be a long-time resident who is thoroughly immersed in the local culture. The spell fails if the target makes a successful Will save, or if the target lacks basic cultural knowledge (such as if he is an infant or mentally unstable).

If the spell succeeds, you gain a basic knowledge of the village’s local laws and customs that would be commonly known by an average adult with Intelligence 10 and no skill ranks. If the target is a child or has a lower Intelligence score, the knowledge gained will be reduced accordingly; no additional knowledge is gained from targets with higher Intelligence.

Typical information revealed by know customs includes common courtesies (e.g. outsiders must avert their eyes when addressing local officials), local restrictions (no animals or unaccompanied elves within the city limits), important festivals, and common passwords that are known by the majority of citizens (such as a phrase necessary to pass the guards at the main gate).

This spell does not grant skill ranks, nor does it grant language proficiency. It does not grant bonuses to social skills such as Diplomacy, but it may reduce or negate penalties to such skills caused by cultural unfamiliarity. If this spell is cast on a target who comes from a culture that is profoundly different from your own (GM’s discretion), you must make a Will save to avoid being disoriented by a sudden culture shock. If the save fails, you suffer a -2 penalty to Charisma for 1d6 x 10 minutes.

Future Shock: If this spell is cast on a target who comes from a civilization with a higher technology level than your own, you must make a Will save to avoid culture shock as above. The GM may impose a penalty on your Will save if the target comes from a vastly more advanced civilization or may simply rule that the spell fails. For example, the basic cultural knowledge of a modern or even Renaissance-era human may be beyond the ability of a Stone Age orc skald’s mind to effectively comprehend. On the other hand, the GM may rule that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. After all, a science fiction force field is perfectly understandable to a character who has seen a wizard cast wall of force.

Remember! This spell grants basic, everyday knowledge only! A medieval character will know what a gun is, but will not automatically become proficient in firing one. He will know what a car is, but will not — repeat, not — know how to drive one any better than a teenager on his first day of drivers’ ed class.


If you want to have a prestige class that requires a certain feat or a certain number of skill ranks as a prerequisite, can you obtain these at the same level you start the prestige class?

That is, if a prestige class requires Point Blank Shot and you take this feat at 5th level, can you then take the first level of the prestige class at 5th level or do you need to wait until 6th level? Or, if the class requires 5 ranks in a skill, same question.


I'm creating a mythic night hag named Grandmother Sorrow using the Mythic Adventures rules, and I just wanted to see what people thought about the mythic abilities I selected for her.

She has the advanced template, so that increases her to CR 10; adding 5 mythic tiers should boost her to CR 13. Five mythic tiers means six mythic abilities.

Legendary Heartstone (Su): Grandmother Sorrow’s heartstone is a legendary item and is considered a minor artifact (because the legendary item ability is taken twice.)

The heartstone has five legendary abilities: dedicated bond, dual souls, eternal bond, rejuvenating, and undetectable.

Dual Souls: Grandmother Sorrow’s heartstone can hold two souls at once. She often uses this ability to keep one soul trapped to enhance perfect mimic (see below), while keeping the second slot open to trap a victim.

As a minor artifact, Grandmother Sorrow’s heartstone can only be destroyed by placing it inside a piece of candy which is then eaten by a child who has never shed tears of sorrow. (This means that the child cannot have experienced a loss such as the death of a loved one or beloved pet.)

Mythic Dream Haunting (Su): Unlike non-mythic night hags, Grandmother Sorrow can haunt the dreams of non-evil and non-chaotic creatures, and her victims suffer 2 points of Constitution drain upon awakening instead of 1.

If Grandmother Sorrow expends one use of mythic power, she can cause horrific dreams at a distance by casting the mythic nightmare spell (Will DC 22 negates).

Mythic Magic (Sp): Up to three times per day, Grandmother Sorrow can expend one use of mythic power to cast mythic deep slumber or mythic magic missile.

Perfect Mimic (Su): When Grandmother Sorrow uses her change shape ability, she can assume the appearance of specific individuals. If she does so, those familiar with the individual receive only half the normal bonus from familiarity to see through her disguise.

If Grandmother Sorrow expends one use of mythic power when creating a disguise to impersonate an individual, she can read that creature’s mind as if using detect thoughts with a range of 1 mile. This allows her to better mimic the individual, granting her a further +10 bonus on opposed Disguise skill checks. The target of her impersonation receives a Will saving throw (DC 22) to negate the detect thoughts aspect of this ability.

If Grandmother Sorrow has the soul of a humanoid trapped in her heartstone, she can automatically read its thoughts to gain the +10 bonus without expending mythic power; the trapped soul does not receive a saving throw.

Pestilential Breath (Su): If Grandmother Sorrow expends one use of mythic power, she can use her disease ability as a breath weapon that affects all targets in a 15-foot cone.


R_Chance wrote:
The "redline" for U.S. action in Syria was the use of nerve gas. Poison. We were, and apparently are, not bothered enough if they shoot civilians, beat them to death, blow them up, napalm them etc. But we draw the line at poison. Some people say "it's cause nerve gas is indiscriminant". More indiscriminant than napalm, cluster bombs, missiles or artillery? No. It's poison.

Well, when it comes to WMD in D&D, we don't have N, but we do have B and C!

But seriously, the cloudkill spell sounds a lot like nerve gas to me, since it specifically states holding your breath doesn't help against it. Yet, the spell doesn't have the evil subtype. Even the poison spell doesn't have the evil subtype, and it's a cleric spell. Now, some deities might not grant this spell to their followers, but that depends on the deity; it's not generally prohibited for all good-aligned clerics.

Of course, I'm not saying that casting cloudkill on a playground full of schoolkids isn't an evil act. I'm just saying that, like fireball, it's a combat tool that good-aligned combatants can use.


The guardian naga is a lawful good intelligent creature in the Bestiary I — a core rulebook. Not only is their bite poisonous, but they can spit poison at range. And it's a poison that does Con damage, so it can kill.

If poison is inherently evil, then how does the guardian naga maintain its alignment? It's an intelligent creature, so it can make moral choices unlike a scorpion.

It seems more likely that the naga tries to avoid combat whenever practical, but when it does deem combat necessary, it uses every weapon at its disposal. It's not morally required to put stoppers in its fangs. :)


The spell lesser animate dead from Ultimate Magic can create a single Small or Medium skeleton or zombie; it's 2nd level for clerics and 3rd level for wizards.

The spell animate skeleton from Rite Publishing's 1001 Spells can create a single Small or Medium skeleton only; it's 1st level for both clerics and wizards.

The main difference with this spell is that the skeleton it creates doesn't count towards your HD limit for controlled undead, but you can only control a single skeleton made by this spell; casting it again frees the previous skeleton from your control.

Now, what I want to do here is have a 3rd-level necromancer who can animate a humanoid skeleton. I personally think lesser animate dead could be kicked down a level, allowing the necromancer to cast it. But would it be better to do that or use animate skeleton instead? I think the spells are too similar to use both in the same game.


So does Richard Nixon say "I am not a crook — I'm a handler!" :)


What do you think about a variant of the simulacrum spell that allowed the duplicate to have the full HD and abilities of the original, but with the restriction that the original's HD could be no greater than half the caster's level?

Such a spell couldn't really be overpowered, since any duplicates created by this spell would be no more powerful than a standard simulacrum of the caster himself. But what level should it be? Should it remain at 7th level with the standard simulacrum spell?


What rules did you look at? The spell description for fox's cunning clearly states:

Core Rulebook p. 286 wrote:
Wizards (and other spellcasters who rely on Intelligence) affected by this spell do not gain any additional bonus spells for the increased Intelligence, but the save DCs for spells they cast while under this spell’s effect do increase.


The shapechange spell needs to be updated, thanks to the new polymorph spells included in Ultimate Magic. Instead of naming specific spells that shapechange can emulate, it should simply emulate any personal-range polymorph spell of 8th level or lower.

It's a simple enough change to make in your own game, of course, but I wonder if such a thing will ever be made official.


I'm a bit confused about Improved Dream Haunting and Greater Dream Haunting. Improved says that the night hag inflicts 2 Con damage, while Greater says the damage is now drain instead. The thing is, night hags already inflict Con drain with their standard dream haunting ability. Surely that shouldn't be downgraded in the Improved version?


Keep in mind that Ultimate Magic has the age resistance spells which allow the caster to ignore all age-related penalties to his physical ability scores for 24 hours (while keeping any age-related bonuses to mental scores).

They are personal-range spells, so they might be best used by eldritch knights; however, they can also be prepared as alchemist extracts, so an alchemist could give one to an old fighter each day as an infusion.


9 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Answered in the FAQ.

Despite searching this forum, I was unable to find a thread that covered this topic previously. It seems every other thread was devoted to whether or not alchemists could make potions out of personal range spells. I say no, but that's not what I'm interested in.

An alchemist can, of course, make personal range extracts for his own use. But, if he has the infusion discovery, can he make personal range infusions for others to drink?

I mean, everyone in the party will want to try some of that polypurpose panacea, especially the repressed wizard girl with 8 Charisma who really wants a lucid dream of having her way with the muscle-bound barbarian (or the repressed wizard guy who wants that hot elf chick.) But can they, or does the alchemist get to keep all the lucid dreams for himself?


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Rite Publishing's 101 9th Level Spells has a spell that grants immortality to a living creature. There is, of course, a catch. The caster must make a DC 30 caster level check. If he succeeds, the target retains a youthful appearance forever. If he fails, the target is still immortal, but appears to get older and older and older as time goes on...


I'll use the full BAB and d10 HD, since I'm using this class for a shadow demon and, of course, it already has that.

I realized that, while telekinetic flight is redundant for the shadow demon in its normal form, it can be very useful while it's possessing a host. It could even possess someone, fly into the air, then leave the host and drop him!


The Master of the Unseen Hand prestige class from the 3.5 supplement Complete Warrior allows a caster to gain more versatility and power while using telekinesis. It seems like the perfect class to add to, say, a shadow demon, which can use telekinesis at will.

The problem is, the class as originally written grants a full BAB and a d4 Hit Die. That's not quite compatible with the Pathfinder rules. So, what BAB and Hit Die would be best for this class? Perhaps d8 and 3/4 BAB?


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

If you add class levels to a monster with spell resistance, does the resistance increase according to its new CR, or does it stay the same? For instance, let's say you take a babau (CR 6, SR 17) and add 5 levels of rogue to it. Rogue is a key class for the babau, so it is now a CR 11 monster. Does it still have SR 17, or does it now have SR 22?


What? No love for the time undone spell? Not only does it annihilate your enemies completely, it does so retroactively 24 hours in the past! And only a god whose portfolio includes time can bring them back. That's right; even most gods can't undo this spell!

That said, I wouldn't cast this spell on any Suel if I were you. If Wee Jas, goddess of death and magic, finds out she can't bring the victims back and has to go ask her dad Lendor to do it... she is not going to be happy!


Spellbore is probably the most practical spell in this book. You cast it as a swift action, then the next spell you cast in the same round will pass through an antimagic field, so long as it is an energy missile or ray. It's the ultimate archmage duel spell!

Archmage 1: Ha! I've just cast antimagic field! Now I'm just going to get on my horse and ride away, and you can't do a thing about it!

Archmage 2: (casts spellbore, then polar ray) Is it cold in here, or is it just you?

I'd also have to give credit to dweomer nova as another spell full of archmage awesomeness. A wizard with a headband +6 could easily have a 36 Intelligence while using this spell, for a bonus of +13!


What is the deal with NexusSerifOT? That font costs $282.00 from fontshop.com! Is that because it's only popular with publishers, who are willing to pay such a price?


Certainly, I'd say that paladins of Asmodeus are against the RAW. But, what if he had paladins as a massive form of deception?

Imagine a paladin who serves what he believes to be an LG deity loyally and well all his life. And indeed, he would be loyal, because he really would be doing good deeds because Asmodeus told him to. Why would the ruler of Hell do this? Because a little good now will be counteracted by lots of evil results later.

The paladin will unwittingly entice good people into believing that Asmodeus can't possibly be *that* bad - after all, he has paladins! And after a lifetime of good and loyal service, the paladin will die confident that he is about to receive his eternal reward - only to find out that it was all a peel and he'll spend the rest of eternity burning in Hell.

I don't know about you, but I think that sounds as diabolical as it gets.


Hambrabai wrote:

I know that in our group were going to continue using the old Dragon #321 firearms rules, they weren't to horrible (especially compared to the pile the new rules are) and we still have a copy or two of that issue that hasn't fell apart yet.

So if anyone can find issue #321 it also has firearm rules.

You can buy it right here on Paizo's site as either a printed copy or a PDF download.

Personally, I agree that the rules in Dragon #321 are better. In fact, I used them to create a new and improved type of firearm made on the plane of Mechanus. They inflict more damage (a pistol does 2d6) and can be reloaded as a move action. They also use a substance called alchemical guncotton as a propellant instead of gunpowder. The guns and propellant are thus more expensive than the ones in the issue.

Alchemical guncotton has the advantage of being non-flammable; it can only be detonated by electricity. Therefore, the guns use piezoelectric ignition; a hammer strikes a quartz crystal, which produces an electric spark.

The best part is, that could actually work in real life. Guns with electric igniters really exist, and piezoelectric igniters are used in hand-held lighters and gas stoves. As far as I know, no one's ever combined them — but there's no reason they couldn't!


It wouldn't really help a night hag depopulate a village, since soul bind only works on a creature who's just been killed. Of course, she's got plenty of options to do that part already.

The thing is, if we require the night hag to use gems, it would require the hag to carry around a lot more treasure than her CR would indicate. It takes a 1,000 gp gem to trap even a 1 HD soul, and you'd think a night hag should have the ability to trap the souls of adventurers powerful enough to contend with her.


In the Pathfinder Bestiary, night hags can use soul bind at will as long as they have their heartstones. Do they still require a gem of the appropriate value to use this ability, or does it work like the daemons' soul trapping ability (from Bestiary 2) that creates a gem when the soul is trapped?


If you cast levitate on yourself, can you grab someone else and levitate them up with you? If so, would the person's weight be limited by your maximum load or double your maximum load (you can stagger around with that much weight, but you can't lift it over your head)?


You know, I don't know what's more crazy awesome: the fact that people post questions like this, or the fact that D&D actually has a rule that can answer them.

In Book of Vile Darkness, there is a disease called soul rot that is contracted by eating the flesh of fiends. I don't have the stats for it handy, but it is in the book.

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