Joe Junior's page

Endure Elements wrote:

Heightened (5th) The target is protected from severe cold, severe heat, extreme cold, and extreme heat.

That being said, I don't see why you couldn't combine Winter Clothing and Endure Elements. The clothing reduces the damage from extreme cold to that of severe cold, and the spell can then protect you from severe cold.

The thing is that I found it too binary. The L2 Endure Elements completely negates Severe Cold and does nothing in Extreme Cold (unless combined with Winter Clothing, I guess...) while costing way more than Winter Clothing that costs 4sp one time and always works.

I would hazard (sorry bad pun) a guess that the designers thought the PF1 spell (where an L1 spell protected you from extreme heat and cold) was too powerful and wanted to avoid having a low level spell which would negate entire encounter hazards such that after 3rd level most parties would never worry about heat/cold again.

And I applaud that. I just think it may have been too heavy handed of a "nerf". For a cleric with 2 L2 slots in a party of 5, Endure Elements, even when climbing a cold mountain, since he can't even protect the whole party, seems way less than ideal, which makes me sad! I like conditional spells being used in their intended conditions.

I guess the biggest issue is the number of targets, not the effect.

Well, it is what it is. Who knows, they might find a use for it (scrolls? even though it's quite expensive for their level).

What about point 3? Is it an error? And if it is where do I report it?

In the campaign I'm GMing the party (lvl 3) decided to climb a nearby mountain which summit is pretty cold. While preparing the adventure, I was reading their resources and building the encounters when I noticed a couple of things about Endure Elemenrs:

1 - 1 target means that, even at higher levels, you have to spend all your lvl 2 slots (or higher) to protect the whole party.

2 - It doesn't protect from Extreme Cold at all. It makes the spell weaker than simply putting a coat on. At least a coat reduces from Extreme to Severe. Sure, you might say "But what if you have no access to winter clothing"? Well, with 10 min casting, and, in the case of a cleric, having to prepare it, it seems quite unlikely... a veeeery niche situation to say the least.

3 - Ice Golem has "Vulnerable to Endure Elements: An ice golem can be targeted with endure elements even if it’s not willing. If it is targeted, for 1 round it can’t use Breath Weapon or benefit from creeping cold, and its fist attack doesn’t deal cold damage.". What? It is very awkward to cast a 10min spell so that the Golem can't breath its weapon for 1 round.

Well, I believe the point 3 is a bug (unless I misread something), but even point 1 and 2 seems so weak for a lvl 2 spell. If at least it was multiple targets... I understand that for Heat it is a little better (there is no 4sp equipment that is better than the spell as far as I know) but still very weak unless you have four wands with you.

So, am I missing something? Did I misundertood the spell and its use?