metaisthetike's page

Suppose a witch creates a soulbound doll. Can she use parasitic soul to move the soul of the doll into another creature?

Although the soul in the doll did not end up in the soul focus of the doll through soul bind or trap the soul, the creation of the soulbound doll does include a receptacle suitable for magic jar that contains a soul placed in the soul focus by the witch, so I'm inclined to think the answer is yes. However, I'm interested in what other people think about this combination.

So Pathfinder actually rolled the rule back to its earlier wording... At least the Rules Compendium update gives à good idea that someone saw the issue inherent in the "action" terminology.

Interesting. I wonder if it was an intentional rollback. Since these problems with ready action aren't immediately obvious, it may be that they saw no reason to change it, even if they were aware of how the rules compendium describes readied actions.

"Then, any time before your next action, ..."

The word "next" can be interpreted to mean:

1. Any possible action you can imagine. Free, Swift, Immediate, Standard, Full-round, Readied, whatever.
2. Your next regularly schedule action in the initiative order.

If it means #1, then we have to accept that the sentence COULD be read as "Then, any time before your readied action, ..."

So, if that is the definition, then we have a nonsensical recursion.

Ergo, it CANNOT mean that.

Ergo, "next action" CANNOT mean "Any possible action you can imagine".

I don't see #1 as a nonsensical (or vicious) recursion. It just means that you can take your readied action anytime before you take your readied action (moreover, you can't take your readied action after you've taken it!). This is trivially true, but it doesn't make it nonsensical.

However, I do feel like #2 might be rules as intended and it falls in line with what common sense says your character can reasonably do. I don't think that the semantics of the rule supports this common sense, however, so I think that developer input would be valuable.

LazarX wrote:

Given that the undead are immunne to mind affecting effects, you can't magic jar them.

Magic Jar isn't mind affecting though. Personally I don't know why being undead makes you immune to mind affecting if you still have a mind...

I also wonder this, and it seems to be debated a lot. However, Magic jar and similar spells seem to involve souls, which aren't covered in any comprehensive way by the rules.

Eziekiel wrote:

If a caster possess an intelligent undead with magic jar, does the caster gain Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms)?

My thinking is that the target's body still maintains its type and subtype, so any mind affecting spell would be targeting the physical brain (or lack thereof) of the undead target and not the caster's lifeforce/psyche.

Thoughts?

Given that the undead are immunne to mind affecting effects, you can't magic jar them.

Yes, you can.

Has there been any clarification on magic jar with regards to this question by the developers? I'm also interested in two different cases related to this.

1) You cast parasitic soul and move the trapped soul (say, via soul bind) of an intelligent undead creature into a human body. Does that intelligent undead still have immunity to mind-affecting abilities?

2) You reincarnate a dead elf, and it ends up as a human. Presumably, it doesn't keep its sleep immunity. But both reincarnate and parasitic soul reference the transfer of souls - so why would magic jar not change racial features like immunities if reincarnate does?

Perhaps I am misunderstanding reincarnate here, so any pointers on this subject would be appreciated.

Condition happens -> Ready action triggers.

Creature who readied action uses action and moves according to the initiative. Creature still has immediate action left to use.

This is how I see it.

Sure, but what about the other order of events? Where you need to use feather fall (or some other immediate action, take a free action to warn an ally, make an attack of opportunity) before trigger occurs (or before your next turn would come up, for the matter)?

There is nothing to indicate that you can't take an immediate action. I would equate it to an Attack of Opportunity with a different trigger/outcome. I imagine we all agree AoOs don't mess up the readied action, right?

I'd like to agree with that (and I would make that a house rule if I were running a game), but the text I quoted above regarding the rules for readying an action seems to indicate that any action on your part before the triggering condition would ruin your readied action. Unless there's a different interpretation of that text you'd like to offer!

It would be nice to get a FAQ on this because I assume that it's not intended that you literally cannot do anything if you want to use your readied action later in the round.

I agree, I think making the ready action "any time before your next turn" would have made a lot more sense. Readied actions are a gamble to begin with, and anything that makes them less likely to be used just makes the entire ready action system that much less likely to ever be used.

It's like the way no one ever uses Brace unless they're playing a Phalanx Fighter who can do it as an immediate action. The mechanic seems like the appropriate counter to Charge, but since you have to stop and spend your turn Bracing your weapon before the other guy has even gone, it tends to just be a wasted turn when he charges somebody who didn't set a polearm to skewer him. So it goes largely unused except for a single archetype.

I don't have any experience with phalanx fighters, but it does seem to be that readying an action can often lead to a wasted turn in many cases, and that it is much better to have an immediate action.

By the reading of "any time before your next action" you couldn't even take a free action to shout a warning to an ally without wasting your readied action.

Not being able to even perform free actions before your readied action seems like a huge oversight which makes me think that some errata is called for to deal with these cases.

Alternatively, they could have worded it:

"Then, anytime before your next turn, you may take the readied action in response to that condition."

But I wish it was spelled out more clearly what happens if you take some kind of action before, and I'm not sure it would be problematic in terms of balance if free or immediate actions were allowed.

There is absolutely nothing that says you'd lose your Ready Action, and if nothing says something happens, then generally, it doesn't happen.

Nothing of the rules would prevent you from readying an action, casting an immediate action spell, and then completing your readied action when the trigger occurs.

Although it doesn't specifically mention losing the readied action, I'm worried that this sentence precludes the use of any other actions before the readied action:

Then, anytime before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition.

I feel like this sentence may imply that you cannot take your readied action if it's at a time after your next action. On the other hand, this would also mean that you can't even take free actions before using the readied action, which is weird.

Suppose I ready an action to counter spell an enemy spellcaster. If I end up using an immediate action before that spellcaster begins to cast a spell, do I lose my readied action to counter that spell?

I like the idea of stealing spells, but I'm more interested in the sorcerer or witch class than the bard. Is it possible to take a one level dip into the Sandman archetype for the stealspell ability and utilize your primary class's spell slots to fuel the ability? For example, a Wizard 10 / Sandman 1 would be able to steal fifth level spells, since it's the highest level that he can cast.

Stealspell (Su): A sandman can use performance to steal spells from his foes and add them to his list of spells known. Once the performance is started, the bard can steal a prepared spell or a spell known from another creature with a touch attack as a standard action. The target receives a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the bard’s level + the bard’s Cha bonus) to negate the effect. The sandman may choose a spell to steal, but if the target does not possess the spell, the bardic performance immediately ends. Otherwise the spell stolen is random, but it is always of the highest level that the bard can cast, if possible. The target loses the prepared spell or spell known and the sandman adds it to his list of spells known for as long as the performance continues, after which it reverts to the original recipient. While stolen, the bard can cast the spell using his available spell slots. This use does not consume the stolen spell. If the bard steals another spell while a spell is stolen, the previous spell immediately reverts to its original owner. This ability requires visual components.

I'm worried that because the bolded bit refers to the bard or sandman, that you're restricted to using their spell slots for the ability, but I can't find evidence for this. Although many classes will refer to class levels when setting the DC of an ability, this is a different kind of case and it could just serve the purpose of referring to the character. Do the rules say anything definite about this?