Caracarn's page

I'm inclined to read it as picking an spell each time you use the ability.

Same here - was curious if I was the only one dealing with it!

The text of Wild Arcana reads:
"Wild Arcana (Su): You can expend one use of mythic power to cast any one arcane spell. This spell must be on one of your arcane spell lists and must be of a level that you can cast using that arcane spellcasting class. You don’t need to have the spell prepared or on your list of spells known. When casting a spell in this way, you treat your caster level as two levels higher for the purpose of any effect dependent on level. You can apply any metamagic feats you know to this spell, but its total adjusted level can’t be greater than the highest-level arcane spell you can cast using that spell’s spellcasting class."

I have two rules lawyers ready to draw blood over this. My question is, when the Archmage Arcana power is taken, does the caster select _any one_ arcane spell, which they can then cast whenever they want by expending a point of Mythic power, OR do they select the spell tied to the ability when they select the Arcana power?

I tend to think that the intent of the power is to turn an arcane spellcaster (memorized or instantaneous) into a lexicon of magical possibility, and am inclined to rule that the power is not locked down at the time of selection of the power. However, the rules lawyer is stating that the "any one" is restrictive, rather than encompassing, and means that the archmage basically gets a "signature spell", as opposed to a "cast anything" power.

Anyone else dealing with this?

Tom,
This one really nails it for me. It has a really strong blend of old-and-new school.

There appears to be a lot of hesitance about Leng, and one comment saying that this should be extraplanatery instead of extra-planar - I think Leng could handle both easily. What if the information that the cultists were garnering from their god were planar conduits from Leng to other planets? This provides a hook-within-the-story, as well as a neat fear-factor addition.

Also, I think it would be a _nice_ twist if your sorceress self-immolated or the like in death throes, taking the scroll with her. However, the defeat of the Sarlet God would lift the enchantment alteration the founders of the monastery laid on this once _two_way_ Leng portal. The party's success and escape leads to the dim realization that they have just opened a portal to Leng that leads back home...

And maybe I'm just too much of a Sparacus buff, but I like the literary connections Naevia brings up as a villain. Screw the skin-care marketing brainwashers.

Great food for thought here - again though, nowhere have I found Lycanthropy specifically referred to as either a disease or a curse - it is an affliction similar to both, yet neither. That is where the ambiguity comes in.

I'm not pushing multiple lycanthropy infectiosn to slow down players, I am trying to ding players who are trying to hyper-power their characters by taking on multiple templates. I _do_ force shifts on them, and _do_ take control when they fail the will saves, but they are a pretty inventive group, and have been mitigating the issue somewhat with equipment and clever planning.

Thanks for the responses all. I was mostly wondering if I missed a gaping hole somewhere - didn't seem like I did.

Lorewise I thought you became immune to disease after becoming a lycanthrope, making it impossible to pick up a second affliction.

Personally wether its allowed by the rules or not I would rule it doesnt work. I have had players intentionally inflict themselves with lycanthropy. One went so far as to have the druid poison him and he charmed a lycanthrope and made him bite him.

It can be abused. And why would your "clans" fight each other if they could just bite each other and merge thier clans together. Why wouldn't there be some super were creature clan... they have every affliction they can find because they believe it makes them more powerful (which it does).

It just wouldn't make alot of sense.

Out of curiosity, where does it say that lycanthropes are immune to disease? Haven't seen that anywhere. Additionally, the template specificaly uses the phrase :

Afflicted lycanthropes contract this ability like a curse or disease from another lycanthrope; they sometimes change form involuntarily.

This, to me, suggests that even someone or something immune to disease would be able to contract lycanthropy. Paladins are immune to mummy rot, but not werewolf saliva.

While I agree that you can't stack half-dragon templates, that is slightly different (since it has a genetic component) - there is no reason I've read that you can't stack, say, a half-dragon and a vampire, or a half-dragon and an afflicted werewolf, for that matter. Why would this template, specifically, be any different, when the pre-requisite is a humanoid?

I wouldn't allow hybridization of alternate forms - a character with multiple lycanthropic templates would be able to turn into a hybrid or full animal form of any single afflicted template.

Couple that with the fact that at my table I treat CR adjustment of nonstandard tempaltes as ECL levels (carry-over from 3.5) and the affliction, though it has benefits, actually has some _major_ ding associated with it, in terms of character advancement.

According to the template entry, the stat benefits of each individual creature only hit when in beast or hybrid form - it means a _lot_ of paperwork, but I haven't seen anything rulewise excluding it.

While I do not have an answer for this, I am posting to dot it. I too am curious on how the boards think on this.

I now have ideas for a story line from this though.. <evil grin>

Thanks. My evil knows no bounds, as I have created specific material "allergies" for each template (bone, obsidian, copper - harkening back to old 2e lore) - silver affects all of them, but then each of them has a specific separate allergy. The weaponry of many of the lycanthrope clans features this material, which doesn't harm them, but does bad things to enemy clans...

A question I am woolgathering on for a game I am running featuring not one, but eight separate types of lycanthrope enemies:

An afflicted lycantrhope gains a template, after failing several saves. The curative steps to prevent template addition appear to treat it somewhere halfway between a magical disease and a curse (hence my use of the word affliction).

Since the template gained as a result of infection is specific to the infecting lycanthrope, is it reasonable within the rules as they are written that a character could gain multiple lycanthropic afflictions from different sources?

As an example: an elf (with a horrible fort save) that gains afflicted lycanthropy from a wererat. Later, she is bitten by a wereboar, failing those saves again...

I'm looking at this ambiguity as a unique story/roleplaying situation. My players, most likely, are going to claim "Lycanthropy" is a specific "slot" affliction/template, and therefore cannot be gained multiple times. My counter to that is that you can apply multiple templates of similar types to other creatures (mostly undead, but other examples exist), and ultimately, I know it is my table, but I am curious what opinions the community (who may have esoteric lore I lack) have on the matter.

I swear, I never saw this before. Thank you so much for pointing it out!

martinaj wrote:

There are a few "oracle-only" spells in the APG, but for the most part they share the cleric spell list. If a cleric has access to a spell, so does an oracle.

This is my understanding as well. Caracarn, do not fear, you can use any spell in Ultimate Magic that a cleric can use.

That is interesting. I never saw that explicitly stated anywhere, but it is great to know! What is the source citation?

I just got my subscription fulfillment for Ultimate Magic - there is some amazing stuff in this book... Except, I play an oracle.

There are some nice new Oracle mystery paths, but no spell lists (the index seems to suggest that there is supposed to be an Oracle spell list on p 197, which is the first page of spell lists)! There is no actual spell list in the PDF, and there are no entries within the spell descriptors to suggest if Oracles have access to spells or not.

To say this hurts is an understatement in the extreme! Every other class that has some sort of magic attached to it is getting new wonderful things - any class with a spell list has an updated listing. Why no love for oracles?