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Okay, I just want to run this item past the various rule masters here;
Price 200 gp; Weight 2 lbs.
Category Alchemical Tools
Description
As a standard action, this ornate rectangular jar can be vigorously shaken to cause its contents to mix and activate. Once shaken, the contents of the jar shed light as a sunrod for 6 hours. A jar of activated bottled sunlight can be thrown as a splash weapon with a range increment of 10 feet. Upon striking a solid object, the bottled sunlight creates a 30-foot-radius burst of natural sunlight that persists for 1 round, after which all light from the jar fades. Throwing an inactive jar of bottled sunlight destroys the item, leaving only a smoldering pile of ashes where it struck. Crafting this item requires a successful DC 30 Craft (alchemy) check.
Construction
Craft (Alchemy) DC 30
I made sure to bold the part of interest, the fact that it creates natural sunlight for 1 round. Now lets look at Vampire weaknesses. Again I will bold the part of interest;
Vampires cannot tolerate the strong odor of garlic and will not enter an area laced with it. Similarly, they recoil from mirrors or strongly presented holy symbols. These things don’t harm the vampire—they merely keep it at bay. A recoiling vampire must stay at least 5 feet away from the mirror or holy symbol and cannot touch or make melee attacks against that creature. Holding a vampire at bay takes a standard action. After 1 round, a vampire can overcome its revulsion of the object and function normally each round it makes a DC 25 Will save.
Vampires cannot enter a private home or dwelling unless invited in by someone with the authority to do so.
Reducing a vampire’s hit points to 0 or lower incapacitates it but doesn’t always destroy it (see fast healing). However, certain attacks can slay vampires. Exposing any vampire to direct sunlight staggers it on the first round of exposure and destroys it utterly on the second consecutive round of exposure if it does not escape. Each round of immersion in running water inflicts damage on a vampire equal to one-third of its maximum hit points—a vampire reduced to 0 hit points in this manner is destroyed. Driving a wooden stake through a helpless vampire’s heart instantly slays it (this is a full-round action). However, it returns to life if the stake is removed, unless the head is also severed and anointed with holy water.
So, given this information am I correct in reading that if the party were to be equipped with merely two Bottled Sunlights that were both already active and threw them at a vampire's feet (naturally targeting an adjacent empty square)over two consecutive rounds, the vampire is destroyed without a saving throw? For a 400 gp investment? If so, that is just... Awesome!
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I am with zwordsman. It'll take two.
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That seems like a little too easy of a way to trivialise vampires, but the only way around it is to argue that 'natural sunlight' does not equal 'direct sunlight' and I'm not sure how much merit there is in that.
If your in a campaign where there are lots of undead and possibly vampires running around, I would bump up the price quite a bit. Due to demand. Also, it can be defeated easily by deeper darkness. Or even the protective pnenumbra spell.
I would just use daylight as the base spell, that way it provides light, but it won't kill vampires, unless you intend for it to kill vampires.
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ok. I thought it was a custom item. oops.. :)
Yeah, I would think it required two bottles to destroy a vampire also.
But, with the nerfed, leshy magic item version from Ultimate Wilderness, which is a magic item and not an alchemical item, where does this item stand? does it still exist? or is it gone?
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Bottled Sunlight
Source Ultimate Wilderness pg. 25, Heroes of the Darklands pg. 10
Aura faint evocation; CL 1st
Slot none; Price 200 gp; Weight —
Description
This opaque orb contains the distilled essence of sunlight. On command up to once per day, it releases a small vial of sunlight that produces a bright light in its square for 1 hour, during which time it provides enough energy to satisfy a single plant creature’s daily nourishment requirements. The light counts as natural sunlight in the square containing the vial. If the vial enters the square of an undead creature with a weakness to sunlight, the creature can attempt a DC 11 Will save; if it succeeds, the vial is instantly extinguished. The creature can attempt this saving throw each round the vial remains in its square, but the sunlight isn’t strong enough to actually damage creatures susceptible to sunlight. Shattering the vial extinguishes its light. A vial has hardness 2 and 5 hit points. After the orb has released 50 vials of sunlight, it loses its magical properties.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, daylight; Cost 100 gp
Bottled Sunlight
Source Ultimate Wilderness pg. 25, Heroes of the Darklands pg. 10
Aura faint evocation; CL 1st
Slot none; Price 200 gp; Weight —
Description
This opaque orb contains the distilled essence of sunlight. On command up to once per day, it releases a small vial of sunlight that produces a bright light in its square for 1 hour, during which time it provides enough energy to satisfy a single plant creature’s daily nourishment requirements. The light counts as natural sunlight in the square containing the vial. If the vial enters the square of an undead creature with a weakness to sunlight, the creature can attempt a DC 11 Will save; if it succeeds, the vial is instantly extinguished. The creature can attempt this saving throw each round the vial remains in its square, but the sunlight isn’t strong enough to actually damage creatures susceptible to sunlight. Shattering the vial extinguishes its light. A vial has hardness 2 and 5 hit points. After the orb has released 50 vials of sunlight, it loses its magical properties.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, daylight; Cost 100 gp
To clarify this looks like an update to the original item, am I seeing that right?
Because this comes from Ultimate Wilderness, which was close to the last book for PF1.
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Well, every Vampire ever can make a DC 11 Will save by accident, so the item is 100% useless against them.
Honestly, I would use the item from the book about Undead when encountering Undead in an Undead-themed campaign... and probably every other time, too... that Ultimate Wilderness item just sucks.
Always use the better option. Paizo has a habit of ruining things every time they reprint them, so just pick what works best for your table.
That Ultimate Wilderness version is pure garbage. I would not allow players at my table to waste their gold or time buying or creating such a useless item.
Clearly the version from the Undead book is the better one to use, even if it still takes two of them to kill a Vampire.
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Bottled Sunlight
Source Ultimate Wilderness pg. 25, Heroes of the Darklands pg. 10
Aura faint evocation; CL 1st
Slot none; Price 200 gp; Weight —
Description
This opaque orb contains the distilled essence of sunlight. On command up to once per day, it releases a small vial of sunlight that produces a bright light in its square for 1 hour, during which time it provides enough energy to satisfy a single plant creature’s daily nourishment requirements. The light counts as natural sunlight in the square containing the vial. If the vial enters the square of an undead creature with a weakness to sunlight, the creature can attempt a DC 11 Will save; if it succeeds, the vial is instantly extinguished. The creature can attempt this saving throw each round the vial remains in its square, but the sunlight isn’t strong enough to actually damage creatures susceptible to sunlight. Shattering the vial extinguishes its light. A vial has hardness 2 and 5 hit points. After the orb has released 50 vials of sunlight, it loses its magical properties.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, daylight; Cost 100 gpTo clarify this looks like an update to the original item, am I seeing that right?
Because this comes from Ultimate Wilderness, which was close to the last book for PF1.
Looks like it.
To be clear it was reprinted like this in both these books: Ultimate Wilderness pg. 25, Heroes of the Darklands pg. 10
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I know that they both have the same name, but one is an alchemical item and the other is a magical item. From what I can tell they are clearly intended for different purposes, i.e. the alchemical one is intended to be primarily against undead and illumination, while the second one, the wondrous item, looks to be a magical item to offset the issues with photosynthetic pc's. I would also point to the fact that the enchanted item creates its own item, which is a "vial of sunlight" while the alchemical item is in and of itself bottled sunlight.
Also, the enchanted item has 50 charges, which tracks to 4 gold a charge, or roughly 8 times the cost of regular trail rations, or twice as much as the racial trail rations that were offered in another book. Coupling it with the fact that they eliminated the weight, it would be an easy offset.
If you would want to look at a similar item for cost, maybe the goblet of quenching, offering up 2 gallons of water a day for 180 gp?
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You make a good point. However, pretty silly to make it the same name and the same price.
First one does seem a little too good vs vampires.
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The way I read it, it would take 3 bottles. The vampire needs to be in the sun for 2 full consecutive rounds. So you'd need to overlap the timing of the bottles to keep the light constant. All the vampire has to do is be out of the light for any portion of a round to reset that two round timer. So while yes it's good, in practice it would be difficult to actually kill a vampire with.
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You make a good point. However, pretty silly to make it the same name and the same price.
First one does seem a little too good vs vampires.
Thank you!
I can see what you are saying, but they are really not the same price. The enchanted item is basically a (non-standard) wand of Dream Feast with a specific type of creature that it can effect. Even if the spell used is a third level clerical spell, the effect is basically the same as the 1st level bard, i.e. providing sustenance. The additional effect is not only not really that harmful against the vampires (see the above, even on an accident, will save success), but the feeding properties is actually removed if the save is successful, not just the effect ending for the undead that made the save, but anything else in the area as well.
The Alchemical item is priced for 200 gp for a single use item. It is priced similarly to many of the higher tier alchemical items, and more than double the price of many universally useful alchemical weapons.
The fact that it is especially useful against vampires really does seem to be an edge case. It is also technically requiring at least four (if not six!) standard actions to perform, two or three to prime the two or three bottles, and two or three to smash/throw them. That is a LOT of action economy just to get the drop on one of the children of the night, and for the first round it is just staggered, where it can take a single move or standard action to escape.
Honestly, this isn't even a real tactic that solitary vampire hunters can utilize, and even groups of them would be hard pressed to utilize it repeatedly. Add in the fact that it will take much larger amounts of resources to accomplish, and even for that it needs to be utilized on cooperation of at least two people, you are getting an edge case scenario. If I was playing in Carrion Crown, or a similar undead heavy scenario, I might pick up a couple of bottles, but for a regular character I don't know if I would spare the weight.
The magical item is needed for subterranean adventures for those photosynthetic races, and as such might be reduced in price to reflect this.
This wouldn't be the first time that two different, yet similar items, were given the same name. I would wonder if it was just that two different authors worked on the items and the name was appropriate to both of them.