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As a shameless edgelord, I love the horror of a Resurrection ritual going awry thus creating a tortured and *very* angry undead abomination.

Unfortunately, its ability to potentially proliferate doesn't work as written.

Death Grip curses an unfortunate target with Doomed 1 and "while the curse lasts" any attempt to resurrect them will create another Unrisen. That's rad. Love it!

But, Death Grip also says:

"The curse ends automatically if the creature's doomed value is reduced to 0."

Okay that seems fine, until reviewing the rules for the Doomed condition:

"When you die, you're no longer doomed."

So the target dies, the curse immediately dissipates, and that nasty raise dead/resurrection/breath of life trigger can never happen.

It seems like this effect needs an actual curse effect on the target that doesn't automatically dissipate when the target dies.

From Secrets of Magic, it states that Eidolons are manifested via the Summoner's life force.

SoM, Page 52

You have a connection with a powerful and usually

otherworldly entity called an eidolon, and you can use
your life force as a conduit to manifest this ephemeral
entity into the mortal world.

And in the Bestiary entry for Negative Healing

Bestiary, Page 305

A creature with negative healing draws health from negative energy rather than positive energy. It is damaged by positive damage and is not healed by positive healing effects. It does not take negative damage, and it is healed by negative effects that heal undead

Question: Does this imply that Eidolons share the affinity for healing via the energy type that the Summoner does or are all Eidolons always healed by Positive effects only?

To me it feels like they should heal via the same energy as the Summoner since they're manifested with the Summoner's life force. If I wanted to make a Necromancy themed Summoner and give my Eidolon a bunch of Negative attacks, it would be nice to also provide it thematic Negative Healing via my Ancestry choices instead of having a negative-themed character whose minion still has to be healed via positive energy.

Spiritual Ally and Spiritual Weapon both still force the caster to use their WIS modifier on attack rolls. This has needed changing for years, and yet new ways of gaining access to these spells have continued to be added on non-WIS casters while the spells themselves have never been updated to the new reality that casters of every type have access to them.

This was bad enough for the Oracle but at least they still have a 3/4ths BAB. But now Aether Elementalists, an otherwise cool, flavorful arcane school, have access to these spells with *no* way to make them even remotely useful.

A 12th level wizard with 14 Wisdom will have a +8 to hit with Spiritual Weapon. That is absolutely abysmal and a clear waste of a spell slot, something this spell is supposed to be an efficient use of.

PLEASE consider updating this spell so that casters use their main stat on attack rolls. Further, since Aether Elementalists are supposed to be specialized in this kind of magic, why do they not have a school ability that improves their BAB for the purposes of these spells? Even adding INT to hit, the 1/2 BAB makes hitting anything of appropriate CR pretty unlikely. If using INT, a level 11 wizard with 28 INT is still only going to have a +14 to hit and still only get a single attack per round dealing 1d8 + 3 damage.

I don't understand why spells like this are added to class lists if those classes cannot make any use of them.

Additional Resources flat out says "All archetypes in this book are legal for play."

Well, the Runesage is "treated as" a Thassilonian specialist for which spells they can prepare and how many spells they get, but they are not actually Thassilonian specialists nor do they count as using Thassilonian magic. Technically. So it would seem that Runesages are legal.

But because Thassilonian magic/specialization is specifically called out as not legal further down in the AR entry, this creates some confusion. Archives of Nethys has flagged the archetype as not legal. I disagree with this interpretation of AR but am feeling doubtful anyway.

So before I get my hopes up, can anyone confirm if Runesage is legal or not in PFS? Did I miss something that the admin of Archives of Nethys noticed?

EDIT: It's also occurred to me that perhaps the admin on Archives has not re-updated the site since Adventurer's Guide was added to the AR. The book was out for a while and not on the AR so perhaps I am just worried over nothing?

The entry for Magic Tactics Toolbox mentions other feat-like class features like Bloodline Mutations but doesn't mention the Arcane Discoveries at all.

Can we please get these explicitly stated as either legal or not? I understand that AR is a "permissive" system and that omitted items default to not legal, but this really feels like an oversight given the other features that were explicitly mentioned.

Super quick question!

If a feat--for example--is legal in PFS but the source is one of the Player's Guides for an adventure path (e.g. Crimson Throne Player's Guide), do I need to buy the whole adventure path for me to legally use that feat, or is downloading the free player's guide (where the feat is located) acceptable?

I buy a LOT of PDFs and I enjoy supporting Paizo, but some of the APs can be a bit pricy. If I need to buy it that's totally fine, but I want to be sure it's actually required before doing so.

Thanks! :)

Oreads: all alternate racial traits, favored class options, racial archetypes, racial equipment, feats, magic items, and spells are legal for play.

The unchained summoner qualifies for all existing summoner archetypes, save those that modify the eidolon's type or base form.

The Oread boon gives me access to the race and thereby to Shaitan Summoner per Additional Resources for Advanced Race Guide, and it's clearly and explicitly stated as legal. The Society Unchained post is a blog post which says archetypes that modify the base form are not legal. So which is it? Which is more authoritative in this case? Because they are contradictory statements.

Also, if Shaitan Binder were just "grandfathered" for regular Summoners, it should be called out as not legal except when grandfathered in. That seems to be how it's usually done, but that is not the case with Shaitan Binder.

EDIT: It has also occurred to me there's a lot of ambiguity in what they mean by "base form." Is it the feature "Base Form" or base form as in bipedal/serpentine/quadruped? Because technically the Shaitan Binder does not *have* to pick bipedal, they just lose out on the +2 to a stat if they do not. So it is modifying the Base Form feature of the Eidolon, but not the actual base form selection (biped/quadruped/serpentine).

I've been unable to download my PDFs for at least three days now.

I've tried in both Chrome and Firefox and I have tried from two different computers and networks, one running Windows 10 and the other running Windows 7. I've never had problems on either machine or network before.

I am unable to find any outage notifications, and I do not get any error messages. What the heck is going on?

(Yes, I have cleared my cache and restarted my browser in both Firefox and Chrome.)

So last week I was at a PFS table. The summoner cast Haste on the party, and on my turn I cast fly.

I proceeded to start moving 90 ft (60ft Fly + 30 haste) and the GM stopped me and said because I cast Fly after I received Haste, that Haste was not buffing my Fly speed.

I know this is just plain wrong. I argued that Haste has a duration and is a constant effect like a condition. *I am hasted.* I am moving faster, and as a result, just because I gained a movement mode after the effect doesn't mean I do not get the hasted movement for that new movement mode.

I feel this is such a basic and self-evident concept that I am not really sure how to argue my case when this comes up again (it most likely will).

Are there any bits of rules text I can cite that would help me argue my case? This ruling hurts my party because it means I'll be casting haste when I cannot effect them (because I have to do it after I polymorph/fly while inside a Time Stutter).

Any help or nudges in the right direction are greatly appreciated.

Hope this is in the right place as it is feedback for the Pathfinder Society developers. (This is a "bug report" of sorts.)

Summary:
Currently, according to the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide all Potions, Scrolls, and Wands are crafted by Clerics, Druids and Wizards. This causes problems for Psychics who buy scrolls of psychic spells.

All potions, scrolls, wands, and other consumables are made by clerics, druids, or wizards in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The only exceptions are spells that are not on the cleric, druid, or wizard spell list.

The addition of the Psychic class poses three consistency problems:

• Psychics must buy their scrolls from a Wizard/Cleric/Druid if that spell is on one of those class's spell lists. Depending on the spell, they sometimes must make a Caster Level check due to Wiz/Clr/Dru gaining access to that spell at a higher minimum caster level than Psychic.

  Example: CONDENSED ETHER - School transmutation; Level psychic 4, sorcerer/wizard 5, spiritualist 3

  A psychic gains access to the above spell at CL 8. A wizard gains access to it at CL 9. This forces the psychic to make a caster level check at DC 10 resulting in a 5% chance of failure. And since the failure is on a '1' this also forces a mishap check. Having a chance to fail to use a scroll containing a spell you can cast yourself is something not found anywhere else in PFS to my knowledge.

• Psychic spells not also on the Wizard, Druid, or Cleric list have no default class to craft them, and so Psychics could buy scrolls made by Mesmerists, Mediums, Spiritualists, or Occultists at a lower spell level. For example, a psychic could buy Cognitive Block as a 3rd level scroll (as made by a mesmerist) even though it is normally a 4th level spell for them. This upsets balance because--unlike below in my "additional notes"--the player is paying a steeply discounted price for a spell balanced to a higher spell level.

• Psychics cannot buy many of their 6th level scrolls because they'd be 7th level spells as a crafted by wizards. Scrolls of spell level 7 and higher are not available before character level 12. These spells are balanced as 6th level spells and it would not upset balance to allow them to be available.

The Fix:
To fix this, Psychics could be added to the list of suppliers. They do not get access to any spells native to the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list. It only goes the other way, some psychic spells are added to other class' spell lists (usually at a higher spell level).

Additional notes:
The only weird thing would be that if Psychics provided Psychic spells by default, then a wizard could buy a 4th level psychic spell at level 8 and use that scroll, even if that spell were a level 5 spell on the wizard spell list. However, from an objective game balance standpoint, the wizard is expending gold to consume and use a one-time 4th level spell that was balanced as a 4th level spell. And, this is already something explicitly allowed in the rules.

The Guide itself cites an example, the spell Poison. Per the rules, a 5th level cleric could purchase and use a scroll of Poison even though in order to cast the spell with a spell slot they'd need to be 7th level.

If a spell appears at different levels on two different lists, use the lower level spell to determine cost. As an example, poison would be priced as a 3rd-level druid spell instead of a 4th-level cleric spell.

In conclusion, the easiest way to correct these inconsistencies is to add Psychic to the "Potions, Scrolls, and Wands" section of the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide. This corrects all problems without introducing any new inconsistencies.

Here's the feat for easy reference:

You can cast spells that bend around barriers to reach their intended destination.

Benefit(s): A seeking spell's range can bend around obstacles to reach the intended target. You can define the route yourself or unambiguously identify a target and allow the spell to determine its own path. However, the spell fails if it would have to travel farther than its maximum range to reach the identified target. A ranged attack roll made to deliver a seeking spell is not subject to cover or concealment. In order to benefit from this feat, the selected spell must have a range greater than touch and target one or more creatures, or it must require the caster to make a ranged touch attack.

Level Increase: +2 (a seeking spell uses up a spell slot two levels higher than the spell’s actual level.)

So this feat seems pretty nice. A +2 is moderately annoying but workable. However, I think this feat REALLY has the ability to shine. The obvious thing is to use this feat on blasty-type magic, especially ranged touch attacks. But, I feel like it has even more potential for other spells.

Enlarge doubles a spell's range, and Reach costs one spell level per range type (Touch/Close/Medium/Long). Any touch or greater spell can be made to be 800ft + 80ft/level with enough spell levels invested in metamagic. But, obviously, the fewer wasted on that the better. Or, we'd want to use it on lower level spells. For anything except high-level play, 2nd level spells or long-range 3rd level spells seem to be the sweet spot.

You can unambiguously identify a target you've seen, so you could scry or otherwise view them remotely before unleashing your attack.

My personal favorite spells are:

• Boiling Blood: Duration is concentration with no limit. Non-orcs without fast healing or fire resistance die a slow, painful death. Combine with Burning Spell for a quicker death.
  
• Aboleth's Lung: If you can get access to the spell, your target will grow gills for 1hr/level and be unable to breathe air. Any allies will only have a handful of minutes to get them submersed, assuming they can even figure out what is going on.
  
• Persistent Spontaneous Immolation:(Burning Spell is also good here.) Anything without a decent reflex save has a pretty good chance of slowly roasting.
  
• Lesser Confusion: This one could be hilarious. Also it's super low level so could potentially be extended to last 2 rounds instead. It doesn't last long but could start a fight amongst your enemies.
  
• Burning Arc: Kind of an obvious choice, and betrays your location, but if you're far enough away they might not be able to do much.
  
• Blindness-Deafness:Permanent duration makes this a great choice to debuff key targets before infiltrating.
  

What are the meanest 1st-3rd level spells that you all think are perfect for a caster thousands of feet away?

Shadow Bloodline sorcerers get to add Deeper Darkness to their spells known. And--sorry in advance--I know this has been answered somewhere but it was about another spell (which I cannot remember), so I could not find the answer. But, does this mean if I cast Shadow Evocation I can emulate Deeper Darkness since it is a Sorcerer spell for me?

Or, despite it being on my spells known list, is it still not a Sorcerer/Wizard spell in the context of how the spell is treated for me? I know that, being a Sorcerer, any spell I add to my spells known is treated as arcane even if it is normally divine, but I am not sure if it is also treated as a "sorcerer" spell for my purposes.

Seems kind of silly that I could not emulate a spell I am perfectly capable of casting, but... well, we all know how Pathfinder is. :)

Anyway, the ideal situation would be for someone to link me to the ruling that already clears this up. Because I am almost positive there has been one already. I just cannot find it. :(

So I am coming up on being able to use Simulacrum in a level or two in my home game, and I've come across a few nifty options that are not super game breaking, but still fun and powerful as an expensive 7th level spell should be!

1. Thanadaemon: Greater Teleport at will with a skiff that can hold passengers. It's a fairly scary minion but due to the expense of repairing it you'd want to use it mostly for transportation. It is not powerful enough to justify risking it in combat. It can also use Animate Dead 3x a day, which is useful for a necromancer. After the one-time expense of creating the Thanadaemon, it can create as many undead as a 7th level caster (It would be CL 7, but it can desecrate meaning it can animate 28 HD per casting.) Anyone with the proper spells can then use Command Undead or other spells/feats to wrest control of the animated undead.

I'd recommend not using its Plane Shift unless you have a way to get home. It can only go to evil aligned planes which means it cannot get back to the Prime Material Plane afaik.

2. Aeon, Akhana: Cure and Inflict serious at will. Use whichever heals you and/or your undead party members/minions. Raise Dead 1x per day. Restoration 3/day. Excellent for downtime healing and parties without a divine caster. Also, it can Gentle Repose at-will, which becomes important for my next suggestion.

3. Intellect Devourer: Make your foes helpless and or kill them, and have the Intellect Devourer take control of their body. Your Akhana can cast Gentle Repose as much as is needed to maintain your new minion. Once inside the minion, your investment is relatively safe. And, it can continue to use its own SLAs while inhabiting the body, while benefiting from all non-SLA/spellcasting abilities of the body. This includes the use of supernatural abilities which the Intellect Devourer has full access to! If you're not running in to any good fodder for this in your adventures, use Planar Binding or similar spells to bring fodder to you. If you're undead, your ID can make itself tiny, sit on your shoulder, and spam Invis on itself and you, and if you're undead it can also heal you! Though be aware AoE spells could result in expensive repairs and some enemies may target the ID. (It costs 2,000 gold and 12 hours to replace)

Hey all,

So I am playing a Thassilonian Illusionist in a home game. I am banned from Transmutation and Conjuration (ouch, I know).

For now I am getting around most issues with Shadow spells. In a few more levels I'll have access to Simulacrum, which will give me access to more utility outside of combat. But, I was hoping to craft some of the cheaper Simulacum with Blood Money. Trick is, I need a way to either UMD or otherwise access Blood Money. Since "spell storing" type items have a minimum action of Standard, that prevents me from using those.

Are there any methods I can use to access Blood Money as a swift action? Keep in mind that I'll either need to UMD something or I'll need to use a method that allows non spellcasters to use it, since when it comes to Transmutation and Conjuration I am effectively just a weird guy with no magical ability.

Thanks!

So, under normal circumstances things like the Div Doru are not legal choices for Improved Familiar.

However, seeing as there are no alignment requirements for Pact Wizards and they don't choose a familiar, they choose a patron type. What happens if a Pact Wizard chooses "Div" for his familiar's patron and then hits level 7 in PFS?

Does this archetype legally get around the restrictions on Improved Familiar since the player is not choosing that familiar specifically or is there a ruling somewhere that lists which types are legal choices for Pact Wizard?

Pact Wizard seems to get around literally every other restriction for Improved Familiar when the familiar transforms at level 7. And the intent seems to be that yes, you can get a horrible CE familiar even if you're good. It will just try to corrupt you and encourage you to do bad things (which you won't do in PFS since evil acts can get your character taken away).

Pact (Ex)

A pact wizard enters into a bargain with an extraplanar being in order to gain increased wizardly powers. At 1st level, he selects a patron belonging to one specific subtype of outsider for which there exists an improved familiar option (such as devil or azata). The pact wizard can select a subtype of outsider even with a diametrically opposed alignment; in this case, the patron being offers the pact in an attempt to tempt or redeem the pact wizard. A pact wizard whose alignment shifts away from the chosen outsider subtype, who grossly abuses his familiar or any outsider of the chosen subtype, or who commits egregious acts against the alignment of the patron loses all the benefits of this archetype (but keeps the additional opposition school) until he receives an atonement.

True Form (Ex)

At 7th level, a pact wizard's familiar reveals its true form, automatically transforming into an outsider improved familiar of the chosen subtype.

So something came up at my table last night regarding when and what order (or if there's even an "order") in which the effects of a Tanglefoot Bag occurs.

I was under the impression that there was an order to things (even though I understand that usually things of this nature happen simultaneously).

My interpretation:
If the tanglefoot bag hits, the creature is entangled. It must then make the DC 15 reflex save. Because it's entangled the creature is taking the penalties for being entangled to their reflex save.

GM's interpretation:
The tanglefoot bag hits and the character immediately makes the reflex save as they are being entangled. Because the two things are simultaneous, the target is not yet taking the penalties for being entangled.

Here's the text from tanglefoot bag I think seems to suggest my interpretation is correct, but since it wasn't really a big deal and I didn't want to slow down the table I figured I would just get clarification here rather than at the table:

A tanglefoot bag is a small sack filled with tar, resin, and other sticky substances. When you throw a tanglefoot bag at a creature (as a ranged touch attack with a range increment of 10 feet), the bag comes apart and goo bursts out, entangling the target and then becoming tough and resilient upon exposure to air. An entangled creature takes a –2 penalty on attack rolls and a –4 penalty to Dexterity and must make a DC 15 Reflex save or be glued to the floor, unable to move.

All emphasis mine above.

Per the strictest reading of the syntax of RAW, they make the save under the effects of the entangled condition. Especially the phrase "An entangled creature... must make a DC 15 Reflex save..." (i.e. it's already entangled when making the save) and the slightly more flavor oriented "entangling the target and then becoming tough and resilient." Both things seem to strongly suggest that the gluing to the floor bit happens as the goo hardens, which is explicitly stated to happen shortly after the initial successful hit and entanglement.

So, once the spell is up and active, it seems like any time you speak you can choose to have your voice emanate from another location?

Would this then allow you to make your voice seem to come from another location when you utter the verbal components for subsequent spells?

Now, I know that Ventriloquism breaks invisibility because it directly triggers a save, BUT if you were doing this while hiding using stealth or when dealing with an opponent that cannot see you by some other means, could you mislead your enemies into thinking you're elsewhere when you cast a spell?

Key phrases from the rules' text:

From Ventriloquism:

You can make your voice (or any sound that you can normally make vocally) seem to issue from someplace else. You can speak in any language you know.

Bolded section implies "you" are still the one actually doing the speaking, or it would say "You can make the illusory voice speak in any language you know."

Additionally, Ventriloquism is an "effect" spell, meaning it has no target. Not even personal. So there's nothing to suggest the location is fixed or immutable once cast.

From "Figment" (Ventriloquism is a Figment):

Figment: A figment spell creates a false sensation. Those who perceive the figment perceive the same thing, not their own slightly different versions of the figment. It is not a personalized mental impression. Figments cannot make something seem to be something else. A figment that includes audible effects cannot duplicate intelligible speech unless the spell description specifically says it can. If intelligible speech is possible, it must be in a language you can speak. If you try to duplicate a language you cannot speak, the figment produces gibberish. Likewise, you cannot make a visual copy of something unless you know what it looks like (or copy another sense exactly unless you have experienced it).

Because figments and glamers are unreal, they cannot produce real effects the way that other types of illusions can. Figments and glamers cannot cause damage to objects or creatures, support weight, provide nutrition, or provide protection from the elements. Consequently, these spells are useful for confounding foes, but useless for attacking them directly.

The bolded bit, when combined with ventriloquism, makes it appear that the "illusion" is the location of your voice. You are speaking, and the "false sensation" is the location, not the voice itself. You are actually doing the speaking. Ventriloquism is written such that it implies you are still doing the actual speaking, and the magic is making your voice seem to emanate from elsewhere. Once the spell has been cast it requires no other actions other than speaking or making a verbal noise. It does not even require concentration. So that seems to suggest any time you speak you can choose to have your voice seem to come from elsewhere within range.

If true this would also mean one could not project their voice from within the effect of a Silence spell to the outside, as the caster needs to be able to speak to project their voice. But by RAW it seems like a caster could use Ventriloquism to befuddle and mislead any target that cannot see them by making their verbal components seem to emanate from another location.

Lastly, look at Silence, it is a Glamer spell not a Figment. So, Ventriloquism would not be "suppressing" your own voice similar to Silence. Meaning, it looks like you're still able to speak normally. The illusion is just changing the apparent location of your voice.

What do you all think?

When players get an ability that lets them force an enemy reroll, I kind of HATE the metagaming. A lot of DMs hide monster rolls and only announce totals, which seems kind of the way things should be done.

But once someone is at the table with hostile rerolls, the DM must announce the die roll every time. This is annoying.

Instead, I have a suggestion for hostile rerolls:

When a player has a hostile reroll, hide the die roll but announce the result (success, failure, or critical threat). Then the player must decide whether to force a reroll on that information. If their party did not make a knowledge check to know what the enemy's strong save is, for example, the enemy might succeed on a 4, and the player has to decide if they really want to force a reroll with little chance of changing the outcome.

I just find the metagaming behind "you know the die roll and have to guess whether it's a success" to be incredibly annoying as I don't like forcing my DM to have to reveal all their rolls.

An example of this kind of reroll is the Dual Cursed Oracle's "Misfortune" revelation.

When these types of abilities are used on allies the current wording is fine, since the players don't necessary know the DC or the enemy's AC etc. And changing to my suggestion above would make the hostile version mechanically very similar.

One of the options for the 9th spell level version of Create Demiplane is Time. When you choose time, "Timeless" is one of your options.

Timeless

On planes with this trait, time still passes, but the effects of time are diminished. How the timeless trait affects certain activities or conditions such as hunger, thirst, aging, the effects of poison, and healing varies from plane to plane. The danger of a timeless plane is that once an individual leaves such a plane for one where time flows normally, conditions such as hunger and aging occur retroactively. If a plane is timeless with respect to magic, any spell cast with a noninstantaneous duration is permanent until dispelled.

It appears that when you pick Timeless you also get a few other parameters to fiddle with. Let's keep things simple and just pick the magic option, leaving every other aspect of time in the demiplane as per normal for the Prime Material Plane. Spells with any duration except instantaneous duration are now permanent instead. As for the other options, instantly starving to death when you leave your plane doesn't sound very appealing.

Anyway, this gives us LOTS of things to play with. :)

• Decorate your plane with illusions in addition to the usual things you can choose. Want the starry night sky in your dining hall just like Hogwarts? Done! A swarm of dragons flying around your castle? Done! Your imagination is the only limit.
  
• Temporary Resurrection - Well not so permanent if they leave. Heh, heh.
  
• Gate(travel version) - Why spend 500gp and six hours when you can just create a permanent gate as a standard action? Remember "concentration" is not "instantaneous" and so it becomes "permanent."
  
• Planar Binding - Create a permanent trap and permanently bind an outsider. From there simply keep attempting to dominate it until you're successful. Don't bother with bargaining.
  
• Dominate/Charm - Bring people here while under these effects and they'll be your friends or dominated servants forever so long as you don't do something to break the spell. They can then craft for you, cast spells on you, et cetera.
  
• Summon Monster - Over time you can gain access to an indefinite number of minions. Build up a huge army to unleash all at once in an emergency. Sure, once they leave the DM will probably rule the duration resumes, but the retroactive effects are limited to things like thirst and hunger per RAW (and we chose to avoid that anyway). Spell duration is like neither of those things.
  
• Irresistible Dance - This one is just hilarious. Save this for your worst enemies. Gate them in and make them dance until they die (or forever if you chose to remove the need to eat and drink).
  
• Time Stop+Keep Watch - Need a quick refresher in battle? Planeshift to your demiplane, cast Time Stop and Keep Watch. Stand around for 8 hours. Prepare your spells and buff the crap out of yourself. Gate back and allow Time Stop to resume its duration. I hope your enemies like wizards that never run out of spells!
  
• Infernal Healing - 1st level spell plus a few minutes equals fully healed! Works with the Time Stop trick above too.
  
• Gate(calling) - Anything not on your plane is considered extraplanar. Just gate in your enemies into a special soup of horrible spells you have waiting for them and enjoy the show!
  
• Lingering Spell(Metamagic) - This gives a LOT of instantaneous spells a duration of 1 round. Or in the case of your demiplane, PERMANENT! You could do things like have some evocation effects layered over a gate or portal, let each one effect you once before healing up and casting another. They can only effect you once, but anyone trying to infiltrate would need to survive all at once.
  
• Creation - Anything you create with this spell is permanent so long as it remains in your demiplane!
  
• Rapid Repair + Unbreakable Construct - Permanently give construct guardians of your realm powerful buffs
  
• Shrink Item - Not sure what you might use this for, but it works on all sorts of stuff. Could be useful.
  

There's tons more of course, and depending on your DM you might be able to get away with some really creative stuff. This spell is yet another reason high level arcane casters are basically demigods.

Suggestion: Errata the following descriptors to be associated with an elemental descriptor for the purposes of spells, feats, archetypes, traits, and class abilities (or add the elemental descriptors to spells with the listed energy types):

Sonic, Electricity -> Air
Acid -> Earth
Cold -> Water

=====

Reasoning: Many archetypes, feats, and even traits in Pathfinder allow the player to pick an element in the form of one of the classic 4 elements:

Fire
Air
Earth
Water

The player then gains some benefit when casting spells that have the chosen elemental descriptors.

However, this runs in to a couple problems.

1. The disparity in number of spells available per element is fairly large. (I didn't separate Divine from Arcane here.)

Fire: 39
Air: 14
Earth: 20
Water: 14

(Source: http://www.pathfinder-srd.nl/wiki/All_spell_lists#Spells_by_descriptor)

2. The bonuses for choosing an element generally take the form of DCs, damage per die, and/or caster level. But, because only fire is both an element and an energy type, the vast majority of the element-specific bonuses won't work on any direct damage "blasty" spells except fire.

Only for fire do all three--DCs, damage per die, and caster level--affect damage spells significantly, often having a multiplicative effect. Only fire takes full advantage of all three. And only fire can benefit from every feat/trait/class ability/archetype cumulatively.

This means that nearly all of the options that offer elemental specialization present something of a false choice. You may want to make a "stormcaller" that focuses on electricity spells, but you'll find that the huge breadth of options available to fire specialists are extremely difficult to take advantage of when you're not doing fire damage.

Fire damage spells are already generally "better" in terms of damage caps vs. spell level vs. AoE size, and are generally speaking the best choice for metamagic focused characters. It seems a bit unbalanced to then also restrict the usefulness of elemental specialization to mostly fire by separating the other energy types from their element. Even with all the same bonuses, electricity spells--for example--cannot match every parameter of an equivalent level fire spell (lightning bolt vs. fireball). And while the line AoE shape does have advantages, the superior coverage and range make fireball more desirable in general.

Energy immunity is a factor of course, and focusing on something other than fire means your target is less likely to be immune. However, most things with an immunity also have a vulnerability, and any fire specialist will have the benefit of that vulnerability in most cases where they're forced to use something other than fire damage. And, that vulnerability is likely to more than make up for the damage lost from using a sub-optimal element for the build. If the situation is reversed, the player can still target vulnerabilities, but their optimal damage is much lower. So, even in this case, a non-fire build is sub-par by a fair margin.

By allowing the other energy types to be associated with their element, it only brings them closer to matching fire without exceeding fire due to the breadth of available fire spells and their top-tier damage caps and AoE options. There's a lot of fun things that can be done with the other energy types, but having so many of the elemental options not function for those energy types makes those options feel very sub-par.

In conclusion, using errata to associate energy types with an element would go a long way to make a wider array of builds more viable without them being more powerful than the options currently available to fire specialists.

Thanks for reading! :)
-Sinistrad

Hey all, this has been discussed elsewhere but no one has yet referenced any RAW that I've seen.

Where is the rule stating one cannot apply a template to a called creature, such as one brought to the player via Planar Binding? Obviously some templates would render the creature invalid for a binding because it could change their type, but others do not.

This seems a like a very abuseable loophole if no rule exists. And while it's easily remedied in home games with a flat house rule (i.e. no templates except half-fiend/celestial or fiendish/celestial) it could be a problem in PFS where RAW is king.

I'm looking for a citation here, not a discussion, as I need something concrete to point to at the table. I've done a lot of searching but my guess is there's a very general rule somewhere about templates that doesn't specifically call out summoning/binding, which is why I am not finding it.

Again, I totally get this is easily remedied by some common sense and RAI in home games, but it could be an issue in PFS.

Thanks in advance!

Hello! Sorry for the double post, but it's been a month or two and I wasn't sure if "bumping" is allowed.

I want to use Eldritch Conduit with Detonate to cause the explosion to emanate from an ally or--if they fail a will save--an enemy.

Now, I know that I can cause Detonate to explode from the subject of Eldritch Conduit per Page 214 of the Player's Handbook which states that "The default shape for a burst is a sphere." This means that bursts, spreads, and emanations count as spheres unless noted otherwise, and can be used with Eldritch Conduit.

My question is, who takes the automatic half damage? Me or the subject of Eldritch Conduit? The rules state that I take the half damage, but it's implied I take half damage because the spell is exploding from me. If the spell is exploding from someone else would they take the half damage instead?

Excerpts:

"One round after completing the casting of the spell, the energy explodes from your body."

"You automatically take half damage from the explosion."

So it "explodes from my body" and I "take half damage from the explosion."

Well with Eldritch Conduit the explosion is not coming from me and I am not in it (ideally), so how can I take the half damage? The rules don't exactly cover this scenario and so I was hoping for a ruling that I can use in PFS play.

Since I am doing a module this weekend that will put me at only 1 level away from being able to do this, I would really appreciate an official ruling on this that I can show to my GMs in PFS. Pretty please! :)

Lastly, I would really like to stress how not-broken this is even if I can avoid the half damage. The spell would only average one more damage per die, and to pull this off I either need a willing subject or a target that fails a will save, and I have to spend two rounds casting a level 2 spell then a level 4 spell and wait for the third round for the explosion to happen.

Hey guys,

I am trying to finalize my wizard's planned progression up through level 7 for PFS as I've just hit 2nd level and all my choices from now on are permanent.

I have a rules questions about the use of Detonate with Eldritch Conduit. While I'm fairly certain the rules are clear about the fact that I can make the Detonate emanate from a target subject to Eldritch Conduit, the rules only imply that the reason the caster takes half damage is that the energy explodes from themself. If that energy is exploding from another target due to Eldritch Conduit, would that target instead take the automatic half damage?

Again, one can only reach this conclusion from reading between the lines a little bit, so I worry that my interpretation won't fly with GMs. But I figure avoiding the half damage by combining a 2nd level spell with a 4th level spell, and wasting a turn casting Eldritch Conduit doesn't really seem broken when one could do similar things by making one's self immune to the energy damage anyway. Similarly, to use this in a hostile fashion for the automatic half damage, the target trades a Reflex Save for half with a Will Save for zero damage.