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The Reactive Charm feat from Captivator has a great feel to it. Conceptually, the ability for a skilled caster to turn away violence with a few well-timed words (of power) is just really cool. It plays well with a lot of old-school fantasy lore, but how can it be best used?

Frequency: Once per Day
Trigger: You are the target of a spell or attack.
Effect: You're so charming and distracting that when pressed, you can cast a simple enchantment in time to foil an attacker. You cast (as a Reaction) any of your 1st-level enchantment spells that normally take two actions or fewer to cast. This takes effect before the triggering spell or attack, and if the attacker is affected by your spell, it can make different decisions based on the effects (for instance, if you charm the attacker and it becomes friendly to you, it can choose a different target than you for its attack or spell)...

1) Charm and Sleep are probably the intended use, but those are Incap. so odds of success may be slim. Also works with Fear and Befuddle, maybe those are a better use?

2) What creative applications are there?

3) Does "1st Level Enchantment spell" include 1st level cantrips (assume not)?

4) How about 1st level Enchantment Focus spells? If so, would it be auto-heightened as usual?

Thanks for your thoughts

Thoughts on viability of this spell combination as an encounter opener for an Wizard? Not mechanically relevant, but this character leans heavily into enchantment and the Obi-Wan Kenobi school of "not the droids you are looking for"...

1) Bon Mot - to create a weakness (or demoralize instead)
2) Draw Ire - do mental damage and focus the target onto the casting Wizard
R) Shift Blame - reaction casting to refocus the target onto a martial ally (champion, fighter, barbarian, etc)

Shift Blame
trigger[/]: "You or another creature attacks a creature or fails at a Deception, Diplomacy, or Intimidation check".
[i]effect: "You choose another creature (which can be you) with the capacity to make the triggering attack or skill check, and you alter the target's memories to recall the creature you chose as responsible for the triggering attack or skill check."

Conventionally, doing mental damage would qualify as "attacking the creature", so I think this works. However, one could argue that Draw Ire does not have the Attack trait and so does not qualify. Counter argument is that this is too restrictive, since it would make the spell unusable for saving throw spells, which are the bulk of a caster's usual repertoire (electric arc, scatter scree, puff of poison somehow would not be 'attacks' with that theory).

Situational, but I like it thematically.
Wizard: "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" (bon mot)
Mark: "WTF!?!"
Wizard: "What's worse is how you..." arcane words, mental damage (draw ire)
Mark: with ripping headache, "Ow, why you scrawny little..."
Wizard: "Bet you are really mad at me that plate mailed fighter over there for those mean things he said" (shift blame)
Champion: "Wut"
Mark: Unlimbers Maul and squints at champion "Yeah, now ima tear you up, you jerk"
Wizard: "Another round barkeep"

Works?

So, Organsight.

Pretty nifty spell - one casting enables spending an action on any or all of the next ten rounds to add precision damage to any strike. Trick is that it requires a special Recall Knowledge roll:

"attempt a special Recall Knowledge check using Medicine to spot and discern a vital organ. If you have a Lore skill appropriate to the creature, you can use that skill instead of Medicine. If you succeed, etc"

For Level + creatures, especially if they are uncommon or rare, this can be very difficult.

However Cognitive Crossover says: "Trigger: You gain no information from a Recall Knowledge check, etc. You immediately reattempt the triggering check using the other chosen skill."

So, assuming you picked the right skills for Cognitive Crossover (Medicine and Occultism for instance) - would that be usable for Organsight?

E.g.: Orban the Odd, and his Dissonant Druids Troupe, bumps into an angry Hill Giant. Orban casts Organsight and rolls Medicine RK. He fails the check, but, no worry, due to Cognitive Crossover he can try again with Society. Success! Now his telekinetic projectile will land with a thud in just the right spot to do additional precision damage.

Works?

Examples:
1) ground is already icy (difficult terrain) - Wizard casts Sea of Thought, which makes terrain difficult... does this turn the ground into Greater Difficult Terrain?
2) ground is 'normal' - Wizard casts Mud pit, making the ground Difficult Terrain. Moments later he casts Oneiric Mire... does this turn the Difficult Terrain into Greater DIfficult Terrain?

Initial reaction was "sadly no, this would be an example of stacking penalties", which are generally not allowed.

However then I considered that terrain class is not a movement modifier like a circumstance or status penalty, so maybe they *could* stack... but did not see a rules reference right away.

So, have been playing a Wizard a bit - first time in PF2e and having a grand time. Spell selection is a challenge of course, but also very entertaining. Now that I have 3rd level spells I've picked up Wall of Water...my intention is to use it as an area control spell (naturally) but I'm not sure how it really operates and impacts movement.

Key rules (nethys 2e)
1) "The wall stays upright in a straight line that is 60 feet long, 10 feet high, and 5 feet thick"
>> No ring option and no zigzags, fine, and it's 5' thick
>> No restrictions on placement (unlike walls of stone/force) so if it crosses through some creatures squares as it appears that seems to be no problem.

2) "A creature traversing the wall of water needs to Swim through. The rules of aquatic combat apply to creatures traversing the wall of water, targeting creatures within the wall, or passing through the wall."
>> Traversing requires Swim - what does this mean for movement on a grid? Stride up to the wall, Swim through the wall, Stride away seems right in concept, but I'm fuzzy on the details.

a) Does the last square of the first Stride stop right before the wall or does it end "in" the wall? I feel like the first makes more sense

b) If the stride stops just before the wall, then the Swim roll from that "not in the water" position would be:
Success - move 5' (now in the wall)...can you just stride away from there? or does it take another success to exit?
Crit success - move 10' (now out of the wall on the other side) is a win either way work of course.
Failure - Still outside, and adjacent to, the wall (don't enter)

c) If the stride stops "in" the wall, then the swim roll would be: Success to exit, Crit Success to exit, Failure would leave you stuck in the wall.

d) Diving through the wall would still be modeled with a Swim roll (basically 'b' above), yes? Guarantee someone will ask.

e) How does this work for Large, Huge, Gargantuan creatures?

What is the Swim DC? There is an earlier thread that that did not come to a conclusion.
If the wall is meant to be calm and smooth, like an aquarium, then I'd guess a lower DC, whatever is the usual for swimming. For anyone with Athletics that would mean they get wet, and have to take an extra action, but no real challenge.
If the wall is meant to be swirling with strong hidden currents, caused by the arcane force (or whatever), then that would feel like using Spellcaster DC.

Calm Emotions has a range of 120 feet, and requires every creature in the target area (ten foot burst) to make a save, which can then be sustained up to one minute.

Questions:
1) After the initial save, do creatures have to *stay* in the same area for the the effect to continue?
2) If they simply wander out of the original area does the effect go away (for them) or, once they save, are they impacted as long as they stay within 120 feet of the caster?
3) If an affected creature wanders out, and back into, the area do they make another save or use the results of the previous save?

Basically, does Calm Emotions apply a condition to the area (like Mud Pit or bless) or to the creatures initially in the area.

I assumed the latter, but realize I could be misreading.

What level is a heightened cantrip considered to be for detonating spell?

Detonating spell (one action metamagic): "Your spell becomes volatile and explosive. If the next action you use is to Cast a Spell that deals damage to a single target and the spell successfully damages that target, the spell explodes, dealing splash damage equal to the level of the spell cast to adjacent creatures. Unlike normally, this splash damage doesn't apply to the target. The splash damage dealt is of the same type the spell deals."

>> Splash damage equal to the level of the spell cast

Cantrip: "A spell you can cast at will that is automatically heightened to half your level rounded up"

So, for the purposes of this feat, is a cantrip cast by a 6th level caster a 3rd level spell that would deal an extra 3 splash damage? E.g. produce flame would then be sort of a low-rent fireball, dealing 3d4 + 3 splash damage?

Handy for swarms, if true, but sacrifices an entire turn.

Hello brain trust...

I have a PC (4th level, expert crafter) that wants to buy and/or craft magical ammunition, e.g. shining arrows, antler arrows, etc. We are not clear on how batch sizes and costs work for this.

For normal arrows, the price is per batch: e.g. 1sp / 10 arrows

When purchasing magical arrows, is this the same? e.g. 3gp / 4 shining arrows - or - 12gp / 4 shining arrows

Assume the answer above would apply equally to crafting: 3gp / 4 (no extra time committed) to as low as 1.5gp / 4 (with 3 extra days spent) - or - 12gp / 4 (no extra time) to as low as 6gp / 4 (with 8 extra days spent)

Thoughts?

First, background: this is a rules question, not an advice question, but the basis is a potential character build. I'm thinking about making a knife-thrower, like "that guy from Desperado". I.e. a rogue, or fighter maybe, that would rely on thrown daggers/darts almost exclusively. Because of reliance on thrown weapons the character would need either (a) a lot of them or (b) a returning weapon. Clearly (b) is easier since there is no rules ambiguity... however just doesn't feel as cool :)

For later levels the Necklace of Knives and Fourberie feat become options. Fourberie allows for enchanting a deck of cards as a weapon, which allows for up to 26 attacks per fight (effectively unlimited) and the Feat specifically enables adding runes to the deck as well. Necklace of Knives is effectively the same (unlimited knives for the duration of a fight), but does not have a provision for adding runes later.

So...to the rules question.

Does magical crafting enable adding fundamental and/or property runes to a necklace of knives (or similar items) by RAW?

The only RAW requirements that I see are:
from Chapter 11, Runes (AoN) >> "Runes must be physically engraved on items through a special process..." and "Each rune can be etched into a specific type of armor or weapon, as indicated in the Usage entry of the rune's stat block."
from the equipment section, Weapon Potency >> "Usage: etched onto a weapon"

Obviously the necklace is an item, so that's easy, but is it a weapon? It's not on the weapons table, but then neither is a deck of cards.

Thoughts from the forum, anything RAW that supports adding runes to the Necklace or would it be GM fiat?

Is it possible to use the shield cantrip for a shield bash, RAW?

Shield cantrip (from AoN) >> "You raise a magical shield of force. This counts as using the Raise a Shield action, giving you a +1 circumstance bonus to AC until the start of your next turn, but it doesn't require a hand to use.

While the spell is in effect, you can use the Shield Block reaction with your magic shield. The shield has Hardness 5. After you use Shield Block, the spell ends and you can't cast it again for 10 minutes. Unlike a normal Shield Block, you can use the spell's reaction against the magic missile spell."

Shield Bash (also AoN) >> "A shield bash is not actually a weapon, but a maneuver in which you thrust or swing your shield to hit your foe with an impromptu attack."

Attacking with a Shield (AON again) >> "A shield can be used as a martial weapon for attacks, using the statistics listed for a shield bash on Table 6–7: Melee Weapons (page 280). The shield bash is an option only for shields that weren’t designed to be used as weapons. A shield can’t have runes added to it. You can also buy and attach a shield boss or shield spikes to a shield to make it a more practical weapon. These can be found on Table 6–7. These work like other weapons and can even be etched with runes."

Clearly on completing the spell the caster 1) has a shield (made of force), 2) the shield is raised and, 3) it is a shield that is not designed to be used as a weapon. That seems to meet the RAW requirements for shield bash / attacking with a shield, although I may be missing something.

Narratively it feels acceptable, although I'm still mulling it over, at least for a character using a one-handed weapon. It enables a sort of less-effective sword-and-board gish build and does not seem unbalanced. I.e. instead of a +2 AC physical shield, the character would have a +1 AC shield cantrip. The cantrip is disadvantaged since it takes an action each round not only to gain the AC bonus but also to enable shield bash (no shield = no bash option)...but seems ok.

If a two-hand weapon user wanted to have that same shield bash option I'm not so sure. Feels hard to explain although it seems RAW would allow it. Maybe still ok balance-wise due to action cost, but maybe there are some problems I'm not thinking of.

There was a thread on shield feats (e.g. aggressive block) with the cantrip that ended inconclusively (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs434kq?Aggressive-block-with-spell-shield#1).

Thoughts from the forum?

Spell text
"Two Rounds: If you spend 3 actions Casting the Spell, ... , the ball of lightning explodes, dealing 2d6 electricity damage to all other creatures in a 10-foot *emanation* around the target"

Emanation language used here, which means Widen mete-magic would not apply.

Later
"Heightened (+1) The initial damage on a hit, as well as the *burst damage* for two-round casting time, ..."

Burst language used here, which means meta-magic would apply.

Am I missing something? Consensus on which way this goes? Tending towards allowing the player to use Widen since it would be a) fun and b) difficult to actually pull off, given the extraordinary casting time, so it's not likely to become a spamming issue.

Reflective ripple (monk stance) has the Water trait, and it enables a Flowing Wave attack which also has the water trait. The Water trait states that effects with the water trait “manipulate or conjure water” and that those which manipulate water have no effect in an area without water.

Does this mean any of the below
a) the stance can only be entered in water?
b) the flowing wave attack can only be used in water?
c) stances and attacks are not effects, so just ignore it?
d) something else?

My initial reading is (c), “it’s a stance not an effect” but the “conjure or manipulate” language has me second guessing… maybe this is something designed for aquatic campaigns?