Extracts..when effect has fixed point ?


Rules Questions


Does the Alchemist count as the fixed point for extracts that emanate from a specific point...like Alarm for example ?

Or does the point they where standing when they drank the extract count as the point of origin ?


Can't be made from a spell that requires a focus component. Can't learn spells that aren't on the Alchemist list. Alarm isn't.

Not sure if there's anything on the list that requires fixed points that aren't yourself.


My Self wrote:

Can't be made from a spell that requires a focus component. Can't learn spells that aren't on the Alchemist list. Alarm isn't.

Not sure if there's anything on the list that requires fixed points that aren't yourself.

Invisibility Alarm....functions "as" alarm....which is normally a fixed point. At least to my mind, it seems logical that the alchemist counts as the point of origin of the effect for the duration. However, since the alchemist is mobile...does that make it an "aura" type effect ?


nighttree wrote:
My Self wrote:

Can't be made from a spell that requires a focus component. Can't learn spells that aren't on the Alchemist list. Alarm isn't.

Not sure if there's anything on the list that requires fixed points that aren't yourself.

Invisibility Alarm....functions "as" alarm....which is normally a fixed point. At least to my mind, it seems logical that the alchemist counts as the point of origin of the effect for the duration. However, since the alchemist is mobile...does that make it an "aura" type effect ?

Alchemists have to cast it on themselves, there's something in the Alchemy description that says so. So yes, you probably are the point of origin.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
My Self wrote:
Can't be made from a spell that requires a focus component.

Tell that to the spells on the Alchemist list with a Focus component. :)


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

The key is this phrase "An extract is “cast” by drinking it, as if imbibing a potion—the effects of an extract exactly duplicate the spell upon which its formula is based, save that the spell always affects only the drinking alchemist."

Since Alarm has a range of close and Invisibilty Alarm functions like Alarm, it would seem that the alchemist would be able to drink it and cast it exactly like the spell version.

However, the second clause is troublesome here. The "spell always affects only the drinking alchemist" so does that mean it is centered on him? No, that would not be only affecting him, that would be only centered on him which is different.

Does that mean that only the alchemist triggers his spell when he enters the radius invisible? No, that would be ludicrous.

It would seem in an odd extract/spell like Invisibilty Alarm that it would just go off like a normal spell in my opinion.

Also, the next line of the focus component rule is "alchemist extracts that duplicate divine spells never have a divine focus requirement" so there should be very few extracts on the alchemist list that have focus components and are not divine. There may be some but I have not seen them yet.

Designer

There are some spells on the alchemist spell list that have been befuddling me, for much the reasons you note Hendelbolaf. My alchemist in Curse of the Crimson Throne, for instance, would like to use sending, especially since this short-circuits the hugely longer casting time of the spell, but it seems clear that I could only send a sending to myself, which is lame. That's one of the only ones from the original APG that's a head-scratcher, but in later books, it seems like alchemists were sometimes given spells that they can't really use. As an alchemist player, I've been trying to check to make sure they don't get anything that doesn't work for them in books like Occult Adventures and Ultimate Intrigue.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Hendelbolaf wrote:
Also, the next line of the focus component rule is "alchemist extracts that duplicate divine spells never have a divine focus requirement" so there should be very few extracts on the alchemist list that have focus components and are not divine. There may be some but I have not seen them yet.

I'll open with true strike, which is an alchemist spell, I promise.

Dark Archive

Mark Seifter wrote:
There are some spells on the alchemist spell list that have been befuddling me, for much the reasons you note Hendelbolaf. My alchemist in Curse of the Crimson Throne, for instance, would like to use sending, especially since this short-circuits the hugely longer casting time of the spell, but it seems clear that I could only send a sending to myself, which is lame. That's one of the only ones from the original APG that's a head-scratcher, but in later books, it seems like alchemists were sometimes given spells that they can't really use. As an alchemist player, I've been trying to check to make sure they don't get anything that doesn't work for them in books like Occult Adventures and Ultimate Intrigue.

Wellllll, if one wanted to be pedantic, one could point out that the creature contacted by Sending is never stated to be the target of the Sending spell. So even if you target yourself, you can still "contact a particular creature with whom you're familiar" as part of the effect.

In other words, it has "target: one creature" but doesn't actually say that the creature targeted is the one you have to talk to.

Designer

Psyren wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
There are some spells on the alchemist spell list that have been befuddling me, for much the reasons you note Hendelbolaf. My alchemist in Curse of the Crimson Throne, for instance, would like to use sending, especially since this short-circuits the hugely longer casting time of the spell, but it seems clear that I could only send a sending to myself, which is lame. That's one of the only ones from the original APG that's a head-scratcher, but in later books, it seems like alchemists were sometimes given spells that they can't really use. As an alchemist player, I've been trying to check to make sure they don't get anything that doesn't work for them in books like Occult Adventures and Ultimate Intrigue.

Wellllll, if one wanted to be pedantic, one could point out that the creature contacted by Sending is never stated to be the target of the Sending spell. So even if you target yourself, you can still "contact a particular creature with whom you're familiar" as part of the effect.

In other words, it has "target: one creature" but doesn't actually say that the creature targeted is the one you have to talk to.

Hehe, many spells don't use the word "target" in the body text, using things like "the transmuted creatures" (haste) or "the subject" (sending), but it's clear enough from the CRB 213-214 definition of target.


Well at least I'm not the only one confused....:(

What seems logical to me (keeping in mind that I sometimes suffer from a lack of suspension of disbelief)...

Is that in the case above (Invisibility Alarm) you would drink the potion...and then you would act as the "point of origin" for the duration.

Drinking an extract/potion in order to "cast" a spell just seems kind of silly to me....


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I just go by area descriptors:

emanations, bursts and spreads are 3 distinct area types, althought some may mistakenly use them as the same thing.

an emanation continusly radiates from the point of origin p.e., as opposed to a burst that it is one-off.

So, let's take invisibility alarm as an example.

this spell is an emanation. Since it is an extract, the drinker is the point of origin. In that sense, every "round" it checks for invisible enemies and triggers as appropriate.

If the spell was a burst, then it would check only on the initial round of drinking, regardless if it had a duration or not.

While in the beginning i too was sceptical about some of the aoe effects of extracts, it seems most of them are indeed emanations. So, in my mind, they are now effects that radiate from the alchemist, even if the origianl effect was supposed to be static.

Does it breaks anything? not really.
Invisibility alarm p.e. is a lvl1 spell as opposed to see invisibility being lvl2. But see invisibility also pinpoints the exact location, as opposed to a general "an invisible creature is somewhere around us".


^^^ that's more or less how I'm inclined to look at it as well.

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