Dreams of Steel's page

What's been driving me nuts with the layout is the feat or spell entries that start at the bottom of one column and wrap to the top of the next column or from one page to the next. It may not be as big of an issue in the print book but in the PDF it leads to a lot of scrolling.

One of the best sources for modern guns that I've seen for the d20 system is the Spycraft Modern Arms Guide. It would take a little bit of conversion to make it work with pathfinder since Spycraft uses an action dice system for activating critical failures/successes and it doesn't use crit multipliers.

But as a reference for modern guns its hard to beat, if you can find a copy I'd definitely recommend checking it out.

Umbranus wrote:

You can use silent image during combat as well I think.

For example if you are in a large room with stone pillars supporting the ceiling you could create the illusion of another stone pillar and hide in that image.
From there you should get a bonus to pick pocket attempts or, during combat, a concealment usable to hise and to sneak attack from.
Just because the illusion doesn't state you can do that doesn't mean you can't.

The only question should be: Is the same true for illusion of calm or does it just what it specifies and nothing else?

This is not a parallel example. When you silent image a pillar, you've done exactly what the spell says--you made an illusion of a pillar in the middle of the room.

Any bonus you get to pick pocketing or stealth or anything else is not due to the Silent Image, however, it is due to the fact that you hid behind something the enemy couldn't see through.

The idea is the same though. With Umbranus's example silent image is used to create an illusion surrounding the caster to obscure his actions. Illusion of Calm is creating an illusion of the caster standing there doing nothing to obscure some actions. The Silent Image would actually be better as it could be large enough to conceal you firing projectile weapons, which illusion of calm forbids.

Since the description of the spell seems to be solely visual, it does not seem to hide sounds, does this mean the triggers for AoOs and readied actions are different? For this spell to stop AoOs the trigger for them would need to be the visible act of casting. So with a ready action to attack the caster when they cast what's the actual trigger for that action? If its the visible act of casting, then they should not see anything happening until the spell is cast, for example the pellet for a fireball traveling in their direction. If its triggered by the sound of a spell being cast, then that sounds like it should require a perception check on a noisy battlefield to hear the sound and realize the source is your target who is not visibly doing anything. If its meta, the player or host declaring that the character is casting a spell, then the system is broken.

I guess I just don't see the three examples provided in the description as an exhaustive list.

blue_the_wolf wrote:

does the spell stop ready actions to do something when I start casting? its not specifically stated in the rules but the description implies that the person who readied the action would have no way of knowing i started casting unless they heard me reciting verbal components.

You are still casting a spell, so they still can make an action...

This doesn't make sense. I can stand right next to fighter and cast a spell with out him noticing, no attack of opportunity, but the archer sitting a hundred feet away, will notice me casting just because he has a readied action to shoot when I cast a spell?

If the image created can conceal the action of casting from the person right next to the caster, how does the archer's readied action automatically alert him that a spell is being cast?

As written the only way you get a will save to disbelieve the illusion is to attack the person using it.