DM MoggZero's page

Hello fellow lurker :D
Just wanted to say I really enjoy the layout for your guide thus far. It makes it very easy to read and I might use this style to inspire my own guide that I'm working on! Keep up the good work and I look forward to seeing the final product!

My current bard likes to sing songs from The Hobbit, the cartoon version from 1977. Sometimes I sing at the table, my staples are "Down, Down to Goblin Town" and "Where There's a Whip, There's a Way"

The Construct type says constructs are immune to necromancy effects. Would this mean that spells like Inflict Light Wounds? I understand that it's from the Necromancy school, but it does negative energy damage. Would this still count as a necromancy effect? What about a Dread Wraith's touch attack? Which does 3d6 negative energy plus 1d8 Con drain, though we know it would be immune to the Con drain but what about the damage?

Thanks Liz Courts, I changed some of my rebuttal to reflect being nicer. Let’s start fresh.

A God-Wizard needs just as much TLC as a blaster or any other character you decide to make. Both wizards mentioned above are built differently and have a different mindset. I feel a blaster tends to focus more on increasing the DC saves of their spells, metamagic feat selection and INT for increasing the DC's of their spells. You need to decide what your go to spells for blasting, nuking, melting, incinerating, shattering, freezing or what have you to be. I like Scorching Ray and Fireball. Yes, fire resistance is around the top resistances and immunities in the game, but I have back up spells and feats for that and you should too. Here are some things that you might want to consider getting if you’re making a blaster wizard. This is just suggestions and not a full on list to help along the way.

Spells….
I’m not going to really advise any particular ones. My best suggestion is to look over AS MANY SPELLS AVALIBLE IN YOUR GAME. Your DM will say what books are allowed. Take the time to understand them and make the wisest choices on your blaster spells, and don’t load up on nothing but blaster spells. That is a recipe for disaster. Lina Inverse (The Slayers anime) didn’t just cast Fireball, Dark Schneider (Bastard!! Anime) didn’t just use fire and lightning spells and neither should you. Pick spells that help your party and destroy your victims.

Metamagic Feats………..
Selective Spell – for a +1 increase to spell slot used, you can leave out a number of targets in the area of effect of an instantaneous spell equal to your relevant ability score modifier. You can drop that Fireball on the party and not have them affected if your INT is high enough. Drawback is you need 10 ranks in spellcraft, so a while ways away.
Quicken Spell – kinda self-explanatory I think. +4 increase to spell slot used to make a spell a swift action to cast. Extra Fireballs or True Strike to get that ray spell the extra punch it needs to hit higher touch ac in bad situations or kill concealment in most cases.
Empower Spell – increase the variables of your Fireball by 50% for a cost of +2 increase to spell slot used when you hit lvl 10, yes please. I recommend using this on spells that have already hit their damage cap, but you might have spells in that level group that might do more damage. Do the math and decide if you want to use it.
Elemental Spell – since most blaster spells are elemental, this seems like a natural choice. For +1 increase to spell slot used you can change the energy damage from one type to your selected one when you get this feat. If you chose cold, you can make your Fireball into a cold damage. I tend to notice if a monster has fire resistance; it usually doesn’t have cold resistance. Choose an energy type to complement your style (as you can tell, I like fire. In Fireball We Trust.)
Intensify Spell – For a +1 increase to spell slot used, you can increase the damage cap of your spell by 5 levels. So now the Fireball’s cap went from 10d6 to 15d6 when you metamagic it up with this at the cost of a 4th level spell and using the DC of a 3rd level spell. I have found it useful.

Other Feats…..
Craft Wondrous Item – starting at lvl 3 you can start making your equipment you’ll need for half the cost. I recommend making Pearls of Power so you don’t have to use a bunch of spell slots of a ton of blaster spells. They did change the level requirement on how to make lower level Pearls of Power, so it’s not flat 17 Caster Level. Remember: to have only blaster spells leaves you no utility to protect yourself or help your group.
Scribe Scroll – You get this automatically, but I felt I should still mention it. You’ll be able to make cheat spells at a cheap price. I would use it for those rainy days spells that you don’t always need prepared. It’s up to you to decide what those are. I normally have Fly and See Invisibility as scrolls.
Toughness – Extra HP for your low HP agroness.
Improve Familiar – Get a beefier familiar, and it uses your skill ranks. If you have lots of ranks in Use Magic Device, load this sucker up with scrolls, wands or what have you and have it help you nuke or cast other spells.
Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration – Blasting has to pass SR. If you fail it, you deal no damage. Fact: failed SR = useless. Other casters can get screwed as well by failed SR, but they have spells and tricks to get around that. As a blaster you have less. You will cry, you will be made fun of and you will hate your life when it happens. Please get these sooner than later. Sooner is based on your game imo.

Equipment……
Pearls of Power – This makes it so you don’t need as many spell slots and resources dedicated to blasting and can have a more rounded spell list. If you have enough of them, you very well make a Sorcererish type wizard just from the shear amount of pearls you can have. Downside: standard action to recall said spell. Good for after the fight is over.
Headband of Vast Intelligence – Increases your amount of spell slots and DC’s of your spells. Kind of a staple.
Glove of Storing – Free action store 1 item into the glove, free action retrieve said item from glove. I used this for storing a Rod or Wand for easy access without need of Quick Draw feat or spending a move action to get them.
Metamagic Rods – In general, Metamagic Rods cost a lot and give out a lot in return in general. 3/day you can add a metamagic to a spell, as part of the casting, without increasing the spell slot used! AMAZING! Almost any Metamagic Rod you get is worth its salt. I personally like Maximize, Elemental, Dazing and Merciful Rods. Almost all of the metamagic feats can be found in Rods. Rod of Quicken Spell is basically a staple when you can get it and it can break encounters.

General Advice…..
+First and foremost: Talk to your DM. Let them know you want to play a blaster and find out how they handle blasters spells. Will the Fireball melt everything constantly? Will Acid Spray turn the guy into a puddle, along with all his loot, if he botches his save and dies? Can he describe your area in detail so you don’t destroy everything in sight or kill innocent bystanders? Will he just wave his hand when you Ice Storm and not worry about the finer details about the area? This will help with headaches down the road when you know the repercussions of your spells.
+Have a well-rounded spell book. Having as your third level spells as Fireball, Haste and Fly is great. It lets you do many things and still blast constantly if you prepare for blaster spells then general spells. Don’t be afraid to just stick with a single blaster spell. Metamagic feats help make that 1 spell into many types.
+Think before you blast. If you honestly feel casting Haste is better than a Fireball, be cool and do the right thing. Don’t cast Fireball or Cone of Cold on something that is immune to it or has evasion. If it’s immune to fire, cast cold. If it has evasion, cast ray spells. Mindlessly blasting will only cause problems. But that’s leads to…
+Be a blaster and let the party know it. You’re not a constant buff bot, God-Wizard or debuffer. The Fighter didn’t sign up as a Fighter to just become a walking bandage with a Cure Light Wounds wand, why become something you didn’t create to be?
+Know your spells and spell combos. Combo feats, class skills, landscape, everything you have to bring to the table. You have to think and plan far more than other caster types because you can be countered by a lot of things. SR, Energy Resistance, Buff Spells against your energy type, immunities and Evasion (Improve) and just a sample of headaches to deal with, but you’re up to that challenge right?
+Ask about 3rd Party books you might have or 3.5 D&D feats and spells. Worst that can happen is they say no. Offer to test it out and change it out if your DM and party don’t like it.
+Above all else: Have fun and have fun with everyone. Play a character you enjoy and even the downsides a blaster has can be negated as long as you have fun doing it.

Hopefully others will chime in with advice and offer experiences. I'll try and post my Fireball Specialist Wizard later that I used to play.

@Ashiel: Grats, we know you basically hate blasting. It's nice to know that you and your groups (I assume) take the time to understand the rules so much. BUT, as I said before, not everyone is like that. If that's how people would like to run and play in games, I respect that. Based off experiences I have had, not the case. We favor the rule of everyone having fun. If it changes the rules that much, who cares.

For making a good and/or cool blaster, I would honestly just talk to your DM about what you wanna do and get an understand of how they are going to run the game. If they are not interested in dealing with how the whole area is going to get destroyed, kinda turning a blind eye to it, go hog wild who cares. If they are keeping an eye out on how that Fireball or Cone of Cold might destroy the book shealves, they might not be a good choice and look for feats that change the shape of your spells and rays. This way you can build your blaster to the game and everyone has fun. I personally favor being a wizard for being a blaster. You can choose multiple spells and still have your classic safe spells. You can also get the Arcane Bonded item and get that one spell you wished you prepared like Resist Energy, Fly, another Haste or something. Sometimes blasting isn't the right choice, so have some variety. Also keep in mine that blasting is going to be more expensive, more resource heavy on feats, takes planing and resource management. If you don't want to do any of that, it may not be for you.

I find Pearls of Power almost a must for my blasters, along with the feat Empower Spell. Intensify spell is cool as well. I usually focused on INT boosting equipment. Rods, I bought Maximize and Quicken Rods. Quicken Rods are usually staple on any wizard anyways, so it isn't like you really wasted money on it. Maximize Rod is useful for other spells to when you don't or can't blast, like using it to Summon Monster multiple lower level monsters of a step lower. Spells I liked were Fireball, Scorching Ray, Cold Ice Strike, Force Punch, Black Tentacles (yeah you might say it isn't "blasty", but it can do a lot of damage and that's blaster enough for me,) and Chain Lightning. I find the trick to a good blaster is to know when you should blast. You have to know when you nuke enemies and when you should, idk, caste Haste. It's all about balance.

I might chime in later when I have more time to throw out more of my thoughts on nuking the world.

Also, let's try and keep the thread on topic about the good of blasting, what we like and advice on blasting. I know I sidetracked some as well.

If a DM truely wants to keep track of EVERYTHINGS HP and DR then props to them. I'm just saying not everyone is going to keep track of such things nor care, in the case of my group. Even then, I think your group would be aware that your playing I'd your going to have RAW hardcore collateral damage and a blaster would truely be that dumb to nuke a room with valuables, treasure, art and such. To take it a step further: blasters would destroy all equipment with most high level blasting spells. I k.ow there are rule (Whig I can't lol up right now) that cover fail save damage to equipment, but does everyone follow all those rules? Not likely. Thus I still stand blasting depends on the group ans DM style of gaming and you make your blaster accordingly to the game, just like any other character you would make.

Charlie Bell wrote:

Debuffs and battlefield control spells make it easy for your warriors to clean up groups of badguys. Amazingly, if you blast and it takes away half the hit points of a group of monsters, it also makes it easy for your warriors to clean up that group.

Most debuffs and battlefield control spells don't destroy innocents and loot in the surrounding vicinity. It really sucks to know you destroyed every piece of unattended loot in a 20 ft. radius along with the guard dogs. :P

We also making the assumption at all times that every DM keeps track of AOE damage to the area, damage to items of fallen baddies and etc. Most DM's I play with don't even bother with that kind of stuff, which makes blasters a lot better. Blasting really depends on your groups style. I enjoy blasters and normally hate seeing "God-Wizard" because the ones I see screw over combat. Maybe they are bad, idk. But blasting is just as fun as "god-wizards."

Also for Legacy Weapons, you needed to burn feats to gain access the next "tier" of power of that item if you couldn't do the rituals or pay the money. So if you ended up going to lvl 20, you had to burn three feats to get all of the power from the item. Thier is also the problem of taking massive penalties for awakening the item in question. Penalties in any combination of attack, skills, hp, saves, caster level, spell slots and more.

I agree that epic levels you need to bring that A-Game. The wizard has a very firm grip on the rules and uses Time Stop very well, my Oracle is having problems. I'm forcing him to look at his spells to figure out combos, just wanting to see if others have some good uses for the spell at that level. Celerity is an awesome spell to use with Time Stop when your about to have bad things happen.

I'm not sure if Force Cage will work since they really dumb down the spell and it allows a save now. Healing as an Oracle only helps yourself out in Time Stop.

Forgot to mention the party lvl is 20 right now, and they are about to become lvl 21. Using the Epic Level Handbook (that I have revised for the most part.)

So I'm running an epic level game with an Time Oracle and a Divination Wizard that like to cast Time Stop. The problem is this: they really don't know what to do with the free rounds of combat. I said summoning, self buffing and positioning is what makes it very good, but I would like to see what other would suggest what to do or add to the list of what to do during Time Stop. We are also using Spell Compentium, but they don't have very many spells from it.

The Magus is an excellent burst dps class. You really have to see it this way: if your giving your Magus 5 minute work days, they are broken. Just like any fast dps classes (I'm looking at you blaster Sorcerer) they rule easy work days. If you put in more encounters or some altered monsters, you'll fix the problem. Just be careful when tweeking monster. If anything, if everyone is having fun, then I say the game is successful even if the Magus dominates.

Like the title says, I'm looking for some Pathfinder and Pathinder compatible 3PP stuff that has the Ravenloft feel. I have all the 2nd, 3rd and 3.5 books and found the Mistfinder PDF, but I'm hoping to find more products that capture that feel to lessen my workload in converting and creating material. Any suggestions would help, along with maybe rules or sources would be appreciated.

Best: Raise Dead. Its the building blocks spell for bring back other to life without turning someone into an Orc XD

Favorite 3.5 Spell: Ice Lance. Range attack with a +4 bonus, 6d6 damage that's half piercing and cold, fort save or be stunned for 1d4 rounds.

Pathfinder: Grace. So so many times this spell has saved my cleric or a part member I needed to help. Its a god send for me right now

We'd kind of prefer that lizardfolk be 0-Hit Die creatures, too, but the system we inherited pegged them at a higher CR, making them inappropriate player character choices for the standard Pathfinder rules.

The race creation guidelines will definitely let you build a cool custom one, though.

I'm sure it will be in there, but I'm hoping the book comes with something in the race section that, for lack of better words, "watering down" some of the more powerful races. This way you can play some of the cool races that a DM might say claim is inappropriate for play, but could play a more player friendly or PFS friendly version. I'm thinking it might just end up more of using Chapter 4 to do this at the game table. Though I think a more formal "Here is our idea what to do" would solve some problems for players and DMs in the long run.

The archetype strongly suggests that a Black Blade is an Intelligent item. Going by RAW, all sentient/ intelligent items must be permanent magical items (CRB pg 532.) Thus you could further enhance the Black Blade. Once an item has an magic enhancement bonus, it is now a magic item.

I personally think its going to cost more in the long run to attempt to further enhance it because of it's static enhancement bonus increases. It may end up by the time you have enough funds to give your +1 Black Blade the Keen property, you might have gain another level for bump the blade to a +2 weapon. This drastically raises the amount of gold you need to improve your weapon. Suddenly in might become inconvenient to level up because you may never actually have the correct fund available to improve your Blade Blade with enhancements you want to put onto it. It also might just turn out that you only get to put one actual enhancement onto it at low level and then run into money problems.

Their is also the fact that it is intelligent and could refuse to gain enchantments. It is it's own person and could refuse the magic, or simply not allow the Magus to use that ability. Even though it is on your side and generally agrees with you, that doesn't mean it needs to change itself just so you. It has it's own Arcane Pool and could reason it needs nothing else to further both of each others causes. The Magus also has his own Arcane Pool that grants those cool magic properties. If your that worried about your pool being a little lower, just take the Extra Pool feat and call it a day. Honestly, a feat for a progressing magic weapon for free is worth it. Can I have a feat that grants any of my other characters a progressive +5 weapon at the cost of a feat please?

My best suggestion to Magus's and DM's of Magus players is to read all of the Intelligent Items section in your CRB and get a clear understanding of it all.

I have a 5 Cleric/ 8 Master of Shrouds ( 3.5 prc) that uses the channel negative to heal himself (Death domain: Deaths Embrace), nuke areas when viable (not too often) and heal his undead incorpreals. We house ruled I still get the domain powers as MoS since it was a 3.5 prc. Honestly the channel works well since I have a rid of reach to heal when needed and channel away from people or minimize the damage to allies. I don't have Selective Channel either since I'm using feats to heal and damage.

Dotting

I would also suggest watching how the player rolls as well. Sometimes you accidentallycup the die and end up screwing up your own rolls. Players also have sets of dice they love to use all the time, but they might be bad quality due to glitter, air bubbles or non standard die format (aka spin downs or ones that done add up to 21 on opposite ends added together.) We have a player that seems to always roll below average numbers, one will always roll a 1 on a Fort save, and I roll high low consistently. My dice are 16 years old, are non standard format and have been nicknamed by everyone "PC Killer."

How do liches keep getting all their gear stolen and still show up again? Unless PF changed something again, a lich's physical form can use magical items stored with its phylactery, and if the phylactery is found, and identified, the lich has other problems.

For Lich's, they have to wear them. You might be thinking about the Demi Lich out of the Epic Level Handbook, pg 175. it's called Phylactery Transference: basically transfers all wearable item properties to the Demi Lich as long as said items are within close to the phylactery. The Demi Lich doesn't have to be close to the phylactery, the bonuses granted have no distance limitation.

I agree with what Sean FitzSimon said: talk to your DM and let him know your problem. It could be as simple as reworking some of your spells to be more active when you have nothing else to do. As a DM, I work with my characters constantly and ask them if they like their character. It could be it seems like your content in your current role, so the DM doesn't ask or notice. Here is what I suggest as well:

Talk to your DM: This usually fixes everything. Swap some spells or feats to go towards a more active role.

Mystic Theurge: Even though you may not want to caster dip, its not a bad idea. Four levels in Sorcerer maximizes your CHA, gives you more flexible spells to summon, battlefield control, etc. Mystic Theurge later lets you keep going with both sides of casting. Be a Sorc when your bored, Oracle when you need to heal, buff and debuff.

Magus: Another dip class. If your DM is cool, you might just dip in for three levels and pick up Broad Study so you can still fight cast your Oracle spells when you want to. Get Weapon Finesse for a weapon to get better results for your DEX. If you have to stay for a full six levels to get Broud Study, it might not be worth it unless you just dip in for one level for Spell Combat

Summon Monster Spells: Summon goons to fight. I haven't met a DM that doesn't let their PC just control them, make sure with yours. Lets you continue to be active (through a summon though) and still be a healer if you want to.

I did take into account of *most* of the dragon abilities, size and money value. I figured money shouldn't be a problem since that could be his *hoard value.* hit points will be 75% of the die, so about 9 a level. This melee, saves and spells are going to be a slight problem. I have mentions to the players if they get too cheesy that as the DM I out cheese everyone to bring things back to order (since epic is going to be pack full of cheese anyways.) The vampires are going to have many different bloodlines so to speak, so none are going to really be generic. Boss fights will be ment to be solo encounters, giving them multiple actions in a given round, high hp and a number of "I planned for this" sudden buffs (they didn't become epic villians for no reason.)
So far good on pointing things out for me to think over

Think the topic kinda covers it. I'm going to run a Epic level game where the PC's are basically liberating a continent from the vampire scourge with the help of a small kingdom + some army enforcement's. That's the plot in a nut shell. Everyone thus far is running a PC class, but one of my players asked to play an Ancient Gold Dragon. I thought about it and said I would be willing to let him run an Old Gold Dragon (HD 22) if he really wants to play a dragon. I know the main reason he wanted to play Ancient Gold was because of the At Will Sunburst, and I wasn't about to let that fly. He seems chill with it, but wanting to know what others might think. This is kinda what I'l winging it thus far for all PC's...

Stats are rolled
New Characters that are rolled get 800k gold
Characters that are continuing from another game get all their gear + 400k gold to spend (They were plane shifted to this world knowing it's plight.)
All PF books are good to use + traits + archtypes
Characters are level 20

22 HD dragon seems to be kinda on par with a level 20 character. I'm going to run a few "test" adventures before they go on the main story to get a feel of party balance. About 5-7 person party + npc's if they want.

@LazarX

Dido for the most part. I play in multiple groups and it varies. One is PF only and another is PF only and 3.5 on approval (go go Master of Shrouds!) When I'm DM'ing, I lean towards PF material with 3.5 books Spell Compendium and Magic Item Compendium. If your looking for any material in 3.5 that PF doesn't cover, we'll explore the option and bring it up to snuff for PF rules. My new game I'm about to run is an Epic level game, so I'm referencing the Epic Handbook 3.0 a lot and converting material to PF. It';s going to be a ride!

Every Wizard build has its own set of weaknesses and strength, plus all of them have pretty much the same vulnerabilities as well. Dispelling, Anit-Maigc, SR, DR, Immunities and Resistances are all speed bumps to almost any caster. Blaster Casters have their own set of problems, but it doesn't make them nonviable. Damage is damage, plan and simple; just like the SoS and SoD. I’m sure, as it has already been pointed out, painfully obvious what counters whatever a Blaster Caster can do. Yet for EVERY spell any wizard casts, there is a spell to counter it. Hideous Laughter and Fear is countered by a simple Protection From (whatever) spell. Is it situational? Yes. Invisibility is foiled by See Invisibility. Stinking Cloud is brushed away by Gust of Wind. We could go at this all day long, but it would get us nowhere fast. (Also, I purposely used low levels spells since most people say 12+ games are rare.)

Later levels it’s even easier to stomp a wizard of any specialty or multifunctional swiss army knife wizard you are, casters hate other casters… Along with some Barbarian builds that I have seen. I highly doubt any character is 100% ready to foil everything everyone can do. Chances are, your about to become a giant pin cushion since your still limited to the action economy. I’m sure someone out there is going to say “(insert derogatory comment) I totally do this effectively every single time.”

Point is, every build is effective and everyone should try them. I honestly like playing Blaster Casters and find that some battles I need to rely off some others tricks instead of blowing the crap out of something. That’s just being a wizard, I have mass amount of spell slots for a reason.

Blast spells still contribute to bring a soft control spell. Can they be as versatile as some of the better control spells, nope, but damage is damage. If you do a decent amount of damage, now enemies have to take into consideration of how badly injured they are and the risks of the current combat. Sure, a group of orcs might just roll with it, but if you use a blast spell to disrupt another caster they might loose the spell and now have to decide many things. Should they focus you, what protections must they use, continue thier current course of actions. Blasting is only soft control and really depends on your DM's going to have NPC's react to it.

First of all, I love playing casters and tried many different routes. From Summoning my own army, blasting, illusions and SoS/ SoD. In the end, it really depends on how the game is being ran by your DM.

That said, I like blasting and find it highly fun and rewarding. Blasters are the high rollers in my book and go for broke. My experiences deem you need to be somewhat mid level, usually 7 for my liking, to start seeing the pay off. You need to know what feats work for a majority of your spells you want to blast with and when to get them. You also need to know what items to grab to boost your spells without cost. I always find Intensified Spell, Heighten Spell and Empower Spell in my "staple" metamagic feats I take.

Heighten Spell: Increases the DC save to my spells that are going to be lagging behind my best spells.
Intensified Spell: Increases the damage cap on my favorite spells and combos well with...
Empower Spell: +50% more dice! Even if I'm using a classic Fireball spell at lvl 9, using Empower Spell on it my dice pool went from 9d6 to 13d6 (rounding down.) Average DC for this spell is going to be 15, but my average damage on a single target should be 39~ (assuming I roll 3 on all dice), could be as low as 13 or as high as 78 on failed saves.

God-Wizards are cool and viable, but so can a blaster. If anything, blasters need to think and plan more because of the challenges they face. When should you throw a Fireball opposed to Haste? Black Tentacles or Enervation (I see this spell a mix of blast and become sucky.) Shocking Grasp at the right time vs Color Spray hitting many targets. Sometimes straight up damage is just better and funner then sitting back and buffing or debuffing. As a blaster you HAVE to know when you can jump into the fray and destroy something or cast that SoS/SoD/Control/Summon to support indirectly. If you can't or find it hard to know when and how to blast, you might want to re-frame from doing a blaster caster or ask around for advice.

Though I can keep on going, it's late. If anything, talk to your group and get some tactics going if you want to play a blaster caster. Every time I make my DM's look at me funny when I tell them dumb numbers for damage, it gives me joy. I like mages in all forms of games because I like big numbers and Pathfinder/D&D is no exception. Can you doing something else like God-Wizardish and be better, it really depends on who you ask and whats going on in your game.

I'm guessing your party is at least level 10 if the magus can cast Greater Invisibility. I suggest reflecting on your parties tactics and building some encounters that slightly bypass them. Many outsiders have fire resistance, spell resistance and, more power ones, have constant See Invisibility or True Seeing. Casters, with prep time, can nullify some spells, have buffs on their party or themselves. Reflex based classes or monsters have Evasion to avoid AoE damage and effects. I'm not saying build all of your encounters against them, think of it this way: Level 10+ characters also build up some sort of reputations or start catching the attentions of unwanted onlookers, so use some of that as reasoning to what the encounters are now countering them in some ways. Using traps in strongholds or the terrain to add some extra excitement to encounters. If you employ the pendulum style of encounters, some encounters will be a breeze while others will be grossly hard and force the party to think, research or have a bit of luck. As long as the party gets a sense of accomplishment or a nice reward to brag about, you did your job as a GM.

In 3.5, their was a spell called Swift Invisibility. Swift Action become Invisible, as the spell, for 1 round. It's in the Spell Compendium from WotC, pg 125. I couldn't find anything for Pathfinder on their being a different version of Vanish , or errata. Hope this helps

Here's the story...

I think in the long list of events that took place, I wouldn't rule it as evil as more Chaotic. You spoke up against becoming a hired hitman to the Queen [good action imo], you spared your attackers life (most parties I see wouldn't have done this after a party member or two died)[good action imo,] you lied to save the mans life [chaotic imo, slightly good imo,] whacked him every few hours to keep him KO'ed [hard to judge alignment shifts here for me, maybe a little to evil because you are repeatedly doing harm to someone helpless imo,] and you spent time to conceal his condition while taking care of him (I'm leaning good action here.)

Hope this helps some

Tiefling all the way. From Stats, background and variant looks. Each time I play one, that character is always special, talked about in other games and rememberable. Sure other races that I have played are special in their own light, but my Tieflings seem to hit home each time.