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Would the penumbra spell (0 level wiz) prevent penalties from glitterdust?

Thoughts:
-The spell specifically says it prevents blindness and penalties from bright lights (including blindness).
- It's a darkness effect (thus would lower "nonmagical" light effects)
- Glitterdust is NOT a light effect, so there's no argument to be made from being a higher level spell. (Likewise, faerie fire (L1) negates displacement (L3) so lower levels spells are known to block higher level ones).
- Glitterdust specifically causes a penalty to stealth and potential blindness, based on the glowing (sparkle) dust- specifically effects that penumbra claims to prevent.

Am I missing anything?

This came up in a muntants & masterminds campaign- a PC was immune to "interaction effects" and the GM would not tell the player any dialogue. "The NPC seems to want you to go fight this other guy". The justification was that word choice and inflection was an interaction effect and thus your character can literally only understand vague intent and can never be "convinced" by anyone to do anything.

As far as biology vs soul- the system seems to separate intelligent creatures from unintelligent creatures. Vampires "fear" mirrors, holy symbols, and fire. You might be able to threaten a vampire to release his victim by threatening to pull the curtains and flood the room with sunlight. Even a fearless halfling or paladin can understand and try to avoid undesirable consequences.

It seems like these immunities are meant to make them immune to mind effecting special abilities, not to make them immune to all interactions. Unintelligent undead cannot be coerced by virtue of being unintelligent. Intelligent undead may seek revenge for being controlled- but that's an emotion, right?

Certainly they can have agendas, personalities, and can understand the difference between how things are, and how they could be, and can desire certain outcomes over others. D&D vampires (like Strahd) are known to have "loved". Ghouls are always "hungry". Anything intelligent can have some measure of emotion- those emotions just can't be magically manipuated.

Beastspeak allows you to speak in an animal form.
(make into a magical item maybe)

Somatic components might be an issue still.

You are specifically able to leave spell slots "Blank" to be filled later as a wizard. It takes time to fill those slots later. You could leave all your spots "blank" until you go your spellbook, then memorize the spells then.

Leaving spell slots blank is a good option for many wizards, because they can then take 15 mins to memorize a spell when they know they'll need it, instead of waiting until tomorrow.

This creates multiple questions:

1) Yes, you can craft a wand as a 1st level spell, as it's a 1st level spell for you. But you aren't crafting it- he is, and he may have access to that spell already as a 2nd level spell (After all, craft wand is 5th level). It might require some kind of diplomacy check. Imagine going to burger king and saying "I want a burger, but I brought my own meat- is that cheaper?". Now if he couldn't cast the spell, and you were providing it, that might be different.

2) However, if you found a hunter (or ranger) to craft the wand, he'd do so as a 1st level spell (since it is one for him). If a hunter/ranger were available for crafting, I'd say go ahead. If you specifically only have clerics available, it's a 2nd level spell.

3) Consider the opposite. Let's say you have a cleric crafing a plane shift scroll for your party. He says he'd have to wait until tomorrow to craft it because he doesn't have it memorized. Your sorcerer (without scribe scroll) has it memorized. Does it now become a 7th level scroll, despite the fact that it is being crafted by a cleric with scribe scroll? Is it now an arcane scroll instead of a divine one? Did the DC to create it get higher because a higher level spell was used (even though the cleric could craft it just fine)? I would argue that another person that's providing the spell during crafting doesn't edit the cost of the magical item.

The unseen servant is mindless. It can perform one task at a time, but can repeat the same activity over and over.

Typically, issuing commands is a move action, though it seems like you intend this to be a repeating command.

"Give me back the wands that I drop" is probably fair. It would use the move action to retrieve the wand, and a standard action to hand it to you. You would need a free hand to accept the wand.

Seeing you would be difficult (DC 20 at least, and it can't perform tasks above DC 10) and a mean DM might say that it goes on it's own iniative.

If you're using multiple wands, you'd need to command it to "give me the fireball wand" vs "give me the magic missile wand" which are move actions, so you might as well pick them up off the ground yourself.

If you claim that its job is to pick up wands off the ground and hold them out for you to grab (thus removing the need for a move action to "put them away" I might argue that anyone else can grab a wand from your servant also. (It's either holding them out to be taken, or everyone, including you, would need to disarm it to get the wand from it- upgrading it to a standard action).

You're better off using a familiar to do this (like a rat). Familiars have intelligence and can follow more complex commands.

It seems like the only benefit here is to be able to craft magical items more quickly than normal using the cooperative crafter.

First off, there are easier ways to do this, such as the Valet Familiar that comes with it, or using the cohort/followers with leadership. There is also using +5 to craft faster, there are archtypes that craft faster (such as the dwarven cleric crafter), and there is using demiplanes with alternate time flow to craft faster. There are some classes that allow you to use teamwork feats with people that don't have them also.

Though ultimately you'd be hiring someone for full days worth of labor who have specific feats and who will be casting specific spells, and who also are able to make a specific spellcraft check reliably. You're effectively asking them to craft the magical item WITH you.

I guess you'd either be paying 1) Market price for the item, but your assistance allows the item to be crafted faster. 2) 75% cost of the item 3) You'd be paying flat rates for services (which I imagine would be very spreadsheet intensive). Cost wise I don't see too many situations where it would be a benefit to you to hire this person.

GM's call, but I would probably rule that you're hiring them to craft the item (at full market value) but you're assisting them so it gets done faster. I might be convinced to go 75% cost based on the lower time constraints. (Though note that asking people to take +5 and rush an order usually costs more, not less).

I tend to think you WOULD flank. Below is my supporting arguement:

MECHANICAL
1) There are some abilities (like desperate swing) which allow for an AoO on total defense (TD). Likewise there are some feats that allow you to make an attack as an immediate action (like some teamwork feats) which are not AoOs. So you COULD potentially make attacks into the square.
2) You still threaten after you've used all your AoOs for the round.
3) You still threaten foes you can't possibly hurt (such as a DR 15/adamantine golem with a dagger, or an undead while you have a cause light wounds charge held).
4) You still threaten foes who you can't take AoOs against (such as a situation where he does an action that provokes from character A, but not flanking character B- perhaps using improved trip when character A has the ability to take AoOs against characters using improved trip.
5) You still threaten foes you can't see and thus can't take AoOs against (and likewise you are still threatened by foes you can't see).
6) A foe is still threatened by you EVEN IF HE KNOWS you will not take an attack against him (such as when you're staggered/bleeding, or under effects of sanctuary, or if attacking him would cause you damage, or if you have a vow of nonviolence).
7) Think initiative order. You walk up to Enemy A in a flanking position. Your ally takes his readied action to attack. He attacks with a flanking bonus. You then go on total defense. Compare to if you went on TD first. Seems like a silly quibble to go off order of operations.
8) You can still attack, just not take an AoO. If you're on TD, you can still attack the opponent on your next turn (and thus stop being on TD). The rules on flanking say that squares you can attack into, not squares you can opportunity attack into. Your enemy isn't going to know what initative tick you will suddenly start threatening under.

THEMATIC
- An opponent may not know you're on TD. If you argue that he does know than consider the implications of using a bluff check to pretend to be on full defense- would he be suddenly flat footed against you?
- Flanking a character seems to imply that the character views you as a threat. If you say that TD DOES NOT threaten, that means the character is not adjusting his tactics to try to avoid you (on one side) and your friend on the other side. If this is the case, and you COULD make a surprise attack, then it seems like he would be flat footed against that surprise attack (same as if you attacked from stealth, or if he considered you an ally prior to that attack). Since the feats that allow you to take AoO's from TD do not state that the enemy is flat footed against this attack, it's implied that he's still treating you as a threat all this time.