Protection from evil -- what's the spell component!?


Rules Questions


Well i will finally be starting up my PF campaign. i will be starting off by running one of one my players off as a captured slave forced to fight as a gladiator. This was his character story he wanted to go with. so i've actually decided to run him somewhere before 1st level. His class abilities will be discovered as part of the adventure and his gear even aquired as he escapes.

My problem is he's a spellsword from the tome of secrets and this will be before his formal class training. I'm going to allow him his spells but no components as he's a slave. He chose "shield" and "protection from evil". PFE has a material component but not one listed. The only reason i'm curious is this minor detail could very well effect the adventure. I know the cost is probably nothing but i need to know if he can scrape by and acquire the component somehow in secret. The only other option is to make PFE actually have no material component since one is not listed.

only info i could find on components is this-

"Specifics for material and
focus components are given at the end of the descriptive
text. Usually you don’t need to worry about components,
but when you can’t use a component for some reason or
when a material or focus component is expensive, then
the components are important."

well he can't use the component if he can't scrounge it up. so what is it?!


In 3.5 it was:

Quote:

Arcane Material Component: A little pow-

dered silver with which you trace a 3-foot -
diameter circle on the floor (or ground)
around the creature to be warded.

Doesn't seem to be one listed in PF, so I'd probably go with this.


I'd go with classics: salt or chalk.


Franz Lunzer wrote:
I'd go with classics: salt or chalk.

those 2 seem good. chalk could easily be acquired as a gladiator. silver seems pretty expensive for a 1st level spell o_O


RunebladeX wrote:
silver seems pretty expensive for a 1st level spell o_O

It depends how much silver is required. If you can grind up one silver piece into enough powder for 100 castings of the spell, each component costs 0.1 copper pieces. Even a peasant could afford that. (Although I don't know what they'd do with it.) Even if it takes 10 (or 100) times as much, that's still a negligible cost.


RunebladeX wrote:
Franz Lunzer wrote:
I'd go with classics: salt or chalk.
those 2 seem good. chalk could easily be acquired as a gladiator. silver seems pretty expensive for a 1st level spell o_O

Unless the cost of the material is specifically mentioned, then it considered negligible. Powdered silver might sound expensive, but it isn't. Scraping a bit from a silver piece should provide enough a casting of Pro from Evil, and still leave the silver piece.


So if we go by 3.5 rules and a circle of powdered "something" is the consensus that means protection from X can't be used while flying or underwater and must generally be cast on flat open ground? that seems kind of severe...


RunebladeX wrote:
So if we go by 3.5 rules and a circle of powdered "something" is the consensus that means protection from X can't be used while flying or underwater and must generally be cast on flat open ground? that seems kind of severe...

Well, you could say that the circle doesn't need to be drawn on the ground. You could keep it the same otherwise when it comes to the fluff, just changing it so that you can trace the powder in a circle around your head or something.

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