seebs's page

The pricing guidelines say 2k*CL*SL for use-activiated or continuous items.

Special purpose powers of "cast a spell" are priced at 2k*CL*SL. There seems to be no discount for the limitation that the power can be used only in pursuit of a possibly-quite-specialized goal.

Anyone know whether there's a reason for that, or is this just one of those "no one knows, that's just what it says" things?

Golem "magic immunity" is like special unbeatable SR.

Is it like SR enough that golems can lower it if ordered to?

Say you have a bunch of buffs you care about. Stuff like foresight, or mind blank.

Step 1: Cast your buffs at your normal CL -1.
Step 2: Cast endure elements at full CL several times.

If I understand it, this replaces "you have to beat my caster level by 11 or more to dispel these buffs" with "you have to beat my caster level by exactly 10 to dispel these buffs".

One object, creature, or spell is the target of the dispel magic spell. You make one dispel check (1d20 + your caster level) and compare that to the spell with highest caster level (DC = 11 + the spell's caster level). If successful, that spell ends. If not, compare the same result to the spell with the next highest caster level. Repeat this process until you have dispelled one spell affecting the target, or you have failed to dispel every spell.

Greater Dispel says you repeat this, removing the highest-level spells first. But you still always target the highest caster-level effects your dispel check will beat, so far as I can tell.

I know what this wording means.

What I'm wondering is: Does anything in the PF rules explain it, or do you just have to remember from 3.5?

Trickster path

Combat Saboteur (Ex): You can sabotage an opponent's gear with a simple touch. This sabotage is a sunder combat maneuver that doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity. Add your tier to your CMB when attempting this maneuver. If you succeed, you can give the broken condition to a single item the opponent is wielding or carrying. This attack doesn't deal any damage to the object. The condition can be removed by spending 1 minute undoing the sabotage, or instantaneously with mending or a similar spell.

So I'm guessing that whoever wrote this missed the thing where Pathfinder made mending and make whole have 10 minute casting times.

"pathfinder FAQ", handed to a search engine, produces a bunch of links to basically everything but the FAQ, and one link to the FAQ for the bestiary.

I have just spent a couple of minutes trying to find a link to the FAQ for the core rulebook, and I have actually failed. Like, unless I search through threads for people who have linked to it, I can't find it. I can't find a reference to it, at all, on the "Help/FAQ" page linked at the top of these pages, or anywhere else.

What is going on? What obvious procedure am I missing for finding this stuff?

Since the spell is written as "target: one object", it doesn't actually say how its within-ten-feet blast works. Strictly as-written, if the entire space between you and the runes were full of stone and walls of force, you'd still take the damage. With no save if the letters were large enough that you could read them from where you were standing.

But they almost certainly mean it to be an explosion... But is it a burst or a spread?

Alter self:

When you cast this spell, you can assume the form of any Small or Medium creature of the humanoid type.

Hmm. My own species, if I'm a humanoid, is "small or medium creature of the humanoid type".

Unless otherwise noted, polymorph spells cannot be used to change into specific individuals. Although many of the fine details can be controlled, your appearance is always that of a generic member of that creature's type. Polymorph spells cannot be used to assume the form of a creature with a template or an advanced version of a creature.

So, "many of the fine details" can be controlled, but "generic member of that creature's type". What does that mean? Can I pick hair color? Can I pick sex? Can I pick hair length, or eye color?

... Not that it matters as much as I thought, because the character I was thinking about is a sylph, and no spell in Pathfinder allows you to assume the form of a sylph.

If you damage the spellcaster, she may lose the spell she was trying to cast (as determined by her Spellcraft check result).

Spellcraft?

When's spellcraft involved?

EDIT: In 3.5E, it said "concentration check result".

I infer that Pathfinder went through a period where the intent was to use Spellcraft for that, but then it got replaced with the Concentration Check mechanic.

If you have a metamagic rod which applies to spells up to level 6, can you use it with a 6th level spell, unmodified by any metamagic feats, which you prepared in a 7th level slot?

So, if you cast feeblemind on someone who's got an enhancement bonus to intelligence (and they fail their save), what happens?

1. Their intelligence is now 1, period.
2. Their intelligence is now 1 + the enhancement bonus.

Now consider Touch of Idiocy, which applies a penalty. It seems pretty clear that penalties and bonuses are processed at the same time. Touch of idiocy says "This penalty can't reduce any of these scores below 1."

Does that mean that the penalty cannot be large enough that it would reduce the score below 1, or does it mean that the penalty can be arbitrarily large, but the result of the computation will never be below 1 no matter what?

Also, I note that while there's a rule about bonuses from the same source not stacking in the magical rules, there's no such rule on penalties. Can you just spam touch of idiocy on someone and reduce their cognitive stats to all 1s?

This question is not as stupid as it sounds.

Many things are described as "invisible" separately from the effects of the "invisibility" spell and similar things:

* Scrying sensors
* The portal opened by a mirror of mental prowess
* mage armor
* wall of force and similar effects

What do you see if you look at these when you have see invisibility or true seeing up?

Does the game distinguish between "invisible" and "having no form to observe"? I note that you can percieve scrying sensors (DC 20 + spell level). Which arguably makes the mirror of mental prowess thing redundant, because even when the portal is open it's a scrying sensor, so you could already see it under the same rules, I think.

So, the d20pfsrd site, and the older d20srd site for the 3.5 rules, both refer to a general principle that bonuses from the same source don't stack.

However, I can't find this rule in the actual PRD rules.

The guts of this is in the introductory "how to play" section.

3.5E:

Stacking

In most cases, modifiers to a given check or roll stack (combine for a cumulative effect) if they come from different sources and have different types (or no type at all), but do not stack if they have the same type or come from the same source (such as the same spell cast twice in succession). If the modifiers to a particular roll do not stack, only the best bonus and worst penalty applies. Dodge bonuses and circumstance bonuses however, do stack with one another unless otherwise specified.

So, in Pathfinder, we don't have that. What we get is:

Pathfinder:

Bonus: Bonuses are numerical values that are added to checks and statistical scores. Most bonuses have a type, and as a general rule, bonuses of the same type are not cumulative (do not “stack”)—only the greater bonus granted applies.

[...]
Stacking: Stacking refers to the act of adding together bonuses or penalties that apply to one particular check or statistic. Generally speaking, most bonuses of the same type do not stack. Instead, only the highest bonus applies. Most penalties do stack, meaning that their values are added together. Penalties and bonuses generally stack with one another, meaning that the penalties might negate or exceed part or all of the bonuses, and vice versa.

There is no reference at all to the "same source" rule. A search of the PRD for the text "same source" produces a total of five results, all of which are moderately specific to particular rules; for instance, a wizard cannot try to learn a spell from the "same source" again after failing.

Is this even actually a rule anymore? If so, where is it?

The rules say that the DC to notice a scrying sensor is "DC 20 + the level of the spell".

The mirror of mental prowess says that creatures with an intelligence of 12 or higher can notice the invisible portal, the way they could notice a scrying sensor, but doesn't give a DC. They might be implying DC 21, but that's ridiculously low, since it's obviously not a first level spell. The actual spell could be either of clairvoyance/clairaudience, or gate; I'd be inclined to say that the portal counts more as gate than as clairvoyance, maybe. I'm pretty much ruling out detect thoughts and legend lore as irrelevant, but that might get you DC 23 or 29.

But I don't see why the "intelligence 12" is mentioned, since perception checks aren't intelligence-based, and I don't see a statement of DC there.

EDIT: The int 12 thing is an editing error. 3.5E D&D's rule was that creatures with an int of 12 or more could spot a scrying sensor with a DC20 int check. The rules for noticing scrying sensors were changed, the mirror wasn't updated. Pretty sure the "intelligence of 12" should just be ignored.

After a few encounters were completely trivialized by a caster with a ring of freedom of movement, our GM nerfed freedom of movement. I am slightly sad about this, but I concede that it was Bad For The Game to have total and perfect immunity to grappling. (We now get +5 on CMD against grapples, and escape artist or CMB checks to escape grapples.)

Problem is: Now I can end up grappled, and this makes me sad. So I am looking for ways to escape a grapple.

Option #1: Gaseous form. Not as awful as you might think, I have enough arcane trickster to cast a few spells per day without v/s components, and I have eschew materials.
Option #2: Shapechanging? I can't find any forms that I can get to from spells of 6th level or lower (think Contingency) that specifically state that they are immune to grappling in any way.

... and that's what I've come up with, pretty much.

Can you grapple an air elemental, either in its normal form or the whirlwind form? So far as I can tell, RAW, you can, because nothing says you can't, and the grapple rules seem to assume they apply to anything that doesn't say otherwise. But I can't figure out how you can grapple something that is made entirely of air.

So, for a long time, I've been frustrated by the need to reference back from each polymorph spell in a chain to previous ones, and so on.

So.

I wrote up what I think are the contents of the various polymorph spells.

A couple of questions:

1. Undead Anatomy I says that the form must be vaguely humanoid. The others in the chain don't say that. Does that mean that they don't have that requirement, or that they still have that requirement for small or medium forms but not for others, or that they still have that requirement at all sizes?
2. What natural attacks, if any, do undead forms other than small or medium get?
3. Do the stat buffs listed for elemental body and form of the dragon apply only if you're the largest size the spell permits, or do they just give you the same buffs regardless?
4. Is it intentional that Undead Anatomy IV buffs tiny and large forms, but not the others, in terms of base stats granted?
5. Should Shapechange be able to duplicate Monstrous Physique or Undead Anatomy?
6. Can any of these spells assume a humanoid form that isn't small or medium? (I'm not even sure whether any exist.)

Reflex Negates. Does that mean "there is a sphere, but the target isn't in it" or "there is no sphere"?

Fast Healer

You benefit greatly from your healing, be it from spells or natural healing.

Prerequisites: Con 13, Diehard, Endurance.

Benefit: When you regain hit points by resting or through magical healing, you recover additional hit points equal to half your Constitution modifier (minimum +1).

So, it says "spells" in flavor text, but the actual rules crunch just says "magical healing". Is a ring of regeneration magical healing?

Okay, this originally came up from the quilted cloth thing, but I think there's an actual question here.

Does a weapon have an innate quality of "type" which is distinct from "the damage being done with this weapon right now"?

More specifically:
1. Can you place a vorpal enchant on a dagger, which has listed type "P or S"?
2. If you can place a vorpal enchant on a dagger, does it function when you are using the dagger to do piercing damage?
3. If not, if we were to imagine a hypothetical enchantment which can be placed only on piercing weapons, could a dagger have +7 worth of other enchantments, and both this hypothetical piercing-only enchantment and the vorpal enchantment, because it would never function as a more-than-+10 weapon, because only one of those two enchantments would be active at once?
4. If you can't place vorpal on a dagger, because it is sometimes not-slashing, can you place disruption on a morningstar, which is always both bludgeoning and piercing?

My current view: I think the rules work best if we conclude that the "type" of a weapon is an innate quality which is not changed. So a dagger always has the type "piercing and slashing". But I am totally unsure about the rest, really. I might rule that a vorpal weapon must be either slashing-only, or slashing-and-X, but cannot be slashing-or.

So, "Unless otherwise noted, polymorph spells cannot be used to change into specific individuals."

Is anything, anywhere, in all of Pathfinder, "otherwise noted"? I've found exactly one thing:

Realistic Likeness

When you are in human form, you can take the shape of a specific individual.

Prerequisite: Kitsune.

Benefit: You can precisely mimic the physical features of any individual you have encountered. When you use your racial change shape ability, you can attempt to take the form of an individual, granting you a +10 circumstance bonus on Disguise checks made to fool others with your impersonation.

So far as I can tell, this is the only polymorph-like ability in the entire game which allows you to try to imitate a specific person. Did I miss something?

While I'm at it: Can a kitsune with this feat shape change into the form of any non-humans? Your racial shape change normally gives you a "human" form, which is a specific human form which is unique to you. With the feat, you can take the features of other people. I think it's pretty obvious that this doesn't allow you to, say, adopt the physical features of an iron golem. But what about an elf? What about a half-elf, since they count as human for purposes of spells and effects?

Mythic Beast Shape lets you act as though you had Natural Spell for a number of rounds equal to your tier.

... So what?

Natural Spell doesn't give you any benefits when using an ability other than wild shape to change form.

I've noticed that a whole lot of things use "as a swift action". Obviously, you can't allow swift actions to be performed with "larger" action types, because if you do, you end up with people spamming quickened spells, etc.

But... It seems to me that in many cases, "as a swift action" now tends to mean not "faster than a move action" but "slower than a move action", in that the impact on your ability to do things is more severe, because one you have a bunch of swift actions, you're capped at one of them per round no matter what, and you can't sacrifice other actions for them.

I have been toying with this, and I've come up with two possible fixes:

1. Go through a lot of them changing to "as a swift or move action".
2. Allow performing a swift action as a *standard* action, but not as a move action.

The idea of either of these would be to reduce the degree to which you can end up spending many rounds with nothing to do with your move or standard actions, doing a swift action every round and otherwise just waiting.

Been reading the Mythic rules, and of course, I have questions.

1. Using your mythic surge is described as "an immediate action", do they actually mean that this consumes the immediate action resource (and thus one of your swift actions)?
2. There's apparently a dev response saying that arcane surge should work like the Heirophant ability, with an action to activate it and then you still have to actually cast the spell. Also true for wild arcana?
3. Enhance Magic Items (archmage) says "When using a staff or wand, you may activate the item by expending one use of mythic power instead of one of the item's charges." Does this mean that you simply can't activate a power which costs two or more charges? Does that cost more than one use of mythic power? Or does it let you activate a multi-charge power with one use of mythic power?
4. Speedy Summoning (archmage) says "You must be at least 3rd tier to select this ability." Why is it in the 1st-tier list with this qualifier, instead of just being in the 3rd-tier list?

Just comparing the (admittedly, just-guidelines) usual pricing rules to the item, it should be quite a bit more expensive, no? And it's not as though it's in any way underpowered.

Just ballpark: Freedom of Movement is a 4th level spell, so the cheapest form would be cleric 4, so caster level 7. So 4*7 = 28. Use-activated or continuous is 2k*CL*SL, and a duration of 10 minutes per level is *1.5. So 2k*4*7*1.5 = 84k. Book prices it at 40k. And I'm just not seeing any obvious reason for it to be so much cheaper.

Okay, so. Was looking at things, and I have come to the conclusion that a thing I would like to have exist in a game is probably roughly an artifact, but it's on the (very high end of) what you could do with craft wondrous item and a LOT of money.

Basic idea: An intelligent mirror of mental prowess. But the limitation of having only clairvoyance-like abilities sucks, so let's bolt on the functions of a crystal ball with true seeing and telepathy.

Base item pricing: This is all slotless items, so let's say 175k for the mirror, 70,000 for the crystal ball with telepathy, and another 38k (the price difference between a crystal ball with true seeing and a plain crystal ball) for the true seeing.

Intelligent item pricing/ego: Mostly this is pretty straightforward, but there's two things I want that don't exist precisely in the rules, which I'd like to add to it. The first is I want the item itself to be permanently mind-blanked. I don't know how to price that. There's some threads on items which mind-blank their wearers, which seems to have a price of around 110-120k gp, but none of them exist in canon Pathfinder. I think that the item, rather than the wearer, being affected is a pretty huge limitation, though, so I am tentatively pricing that at 40k gold and +2 ego.

The second is that I want the item to have the staff-like trait that when you use it to scry, you can use your own stats, feats, etcetera to set the DC for scrying. I probably want that ability restricted to diviner wizards, though. And I have no idea what that's worth. It's obviously a *huge* benefit for a diviner wizard, but I don't know how you'd price it. An upper bound would be the 72.8k you'd spend for a staff of Greater Scrying, a lower bound would be the 25.6k you'd spend for a staff of Scrying.

Overall, given how much overlap there is between the abilities already paid for and the effect of a "staff of scrying", I am inclined to think the 25.6k is probably a fair price, and another +2 of ego. (EDIT: Hang on, I just realized, this shouldn't add ego, because it's not an intelligent item power, it's just a trait of the base item.)

Thoughts? Obvious things I've overlooked?

Would you allow someone to use blood money to conjure the focus for a spell which uses a focus rather than a component? Why or why not?

I'm thinking RAW, you can't because it's not a "material component", but it doesn't seem like it'd particularly break things, and if anything it's a less-powerful use of the spell.

(Context: Trying to design a spell mastery list. Blood Money would let me put things in it which have focuses.)

Just wanna sanity-check a couple of things, because this looks really cool, but there's some ambiguities in the wording; also, what it appears to do strikes me as awesome enough to be a little disturbing.

It appears to me that this item gives you unlimited travel to anywhere, other planes included. However, you can't take it with you when you go someplace, so it's not a very useful strategy for going places, and of course, since the portal you come in through is still there, someone else can leave through it and take your mirror. Although I'm assuming that the "trapped there" doesn't really matter much if you have other ways of travelling.

On the other hand, for "hang on, didn't bring the right wine for my iron rations" trips, it's probably pretty useful.

... Of course, it's also pretty large to be carrying around.

But... What do you think the range is? Other planes implies Pretty Far, but strictly speaking, clairvoyance doesn't have very long range. Should I assume it's also infinite range (or close enough that I don't care) on my current plane?

(Sadly, it weighs too much to be summoned with Instant Summons, so you can't use that to pick it up on another plane. But at that point, it'd be cheaper to just cast gate.)

Non-PFS game, so "not sure whether this is allowed" or "your GM might let you" advice is fine and possibly-useful.

20th level wizard, Improved Familiar -> faerie dragon. Also a second familiar, a pseudodragon (like I said, house rules are in play). I have a lot of budget to spend on buying items if I can find them, and can craft wondrous items. ("A lot" => I can probably spend 100kgp or equivalent on an item. I haven't got the time to craft a ton of things, though, so anything over 100k, I'm gonna have to pay retail.)

The most obvious thing so far is rings of spell-storing, because five levels of spells which don't even have to be spells available to me normally, as long as a party member can cast them would be great. (10-level rings are Too Expensive.)

I'm also interested in magic items useful to a wizard, but I have a whole lot of the obviously appealing ones already.

Two questions:

1. What are the save DCs for a spell from a ring of spell storing?
2. When it says the caster level is the minimum, is that just for found items, or does that apply also when casting new spells in from a known caster?

Readied actions resolve before their triggers.

I ready an action: I will cast wall of stone blocking off a side corridor if anyone enters the main corridor. I can't see down the side corridor, though.

So someone enters the main corridor, which means my readied action goes off, but because it's readied it goes off before their move. So they are not yet in the main corridor when the wall goes up. Which means I never saw them. So why did I cast the spell?

Or say I ready an action to put up a wall of stone if the archers shoot at us. So my wall goes up. Do the archers have to actually shoot the wall now, or are they allowed to pick a different action? If they pick a different action, why did I cast the spell?

I'm not sure whether I am simply badly misunderstanding the rules here, or whether this is one of the cases where the game rules can't quite model a consistent world.

4th level spell, CL 7th, continuous effect, 2000*4*7, = 56,000gp. But wait, there's a footnote; duration of 10 minutes per level, multiply by 1.5, so it should be 84,000gp.

But it's actually 40k, and has been since 3.0. What am I missing? It can't be that freedom of movement is somehow weaker than the ring's behavior implies, because it is a very powerful effect as-written, simply because grappling is such a ludicrously effective caster-killer, and FoM provides total immunity to grapples.

So I'm wondering whether I am misunderstanding the magic item pricing rules.

Do you get a will save to avoid the daze if you were at point-blank range, and thus got no save, or does the fact that explosive runes does allow a save in general mean that you don't get the will save?

1. This seems to also affect allies, which is a pretty significant disadvantage for a personal defensive spell.
2. The spell block says "Saving Throw: Reflex (half, see below)". But that's... it. There's nothing in the text mentioning a save at any point.
3. This appears not to damage any creature which moves next to you, and then moves away again, even if it attacks you.
4. There's a comment about creatures with the Spellbreaker feat being able to attack you anyway, "though they still take damage".

So I'm wondering whether there was intended to be a statement to the effect of "any creature making a melee attack against you is damaged", and then maybe reflex half on the damage for starting your turn next to the caster, but no reflex half on damage for melee attacks.

Because without that, the spellbreaker feat "still take damage" wording has nothing to refer to.

I did find one previous thread theorizing that the "special" refers to the way to negate the "don't need to cast defensively", in that you can't save against that, only the damage. In which case, it's "reflex half".

And, one more:
5. The "as though hit by the weapons" that explains that you get +1 +1d6 cold if you use mithril frost daggers: Does that imply that this would benefit from other on-attack procs? Say you have a bard with Discordant Voice up; do you get the 1d6 sonic?

The context of all of this: I am looking seriously at taking Dazing Spell, which may be one of the most ludicrously overpowered metamagic feats ever. Dazing Wreath of Blades gives you "if you start your turn next to the caster, you will be dazed for five rounds."

... and at this point, it becomes very important whether/when Wreath of Blades allows a save, because if it does allow a save, then Dazing Spell won't require a separate will save, but if doesn't, then Dazing Spell will.

So, TK's usage to throw a bunch of things. It looks like for regular melee weapons, this looks like just plain attacks, using BAB+Int instead of BAB+Dex or BAB+Str, and no +str on damage. But there's a note about arrows and bolts doing damage as a dagger. What about critical threat ranges or multipliers? What about other modifiers on attacks? For instance, if a bard is singing, do I get attack bonuses? Damage bonuses? It seems like I should, since I'm making attacks, but I'm not totall ysure.

So. What about siege weapons? Will a cannonball still do 6d6 damage, or does it degrade to just ~1d6 because it's just a heavy thing? I'd think probably the latter. But what about, say, bombs or alchemical fire in siege weapon sizes? That 30-pound bomb that does 6d6 damage in an area, it seems to me, is not relying on the force of the delivery mechanism, so if you wanted to spend the money, presumably you could launch 12 of those with TK at level 15 or higher. Which would be... 72d6 of bomb damage. In a 30' radius. That's not half bad for a 5th level spell.

There's also the awesome option: For a mere 22,500gp, you can fling 15 javelins of lightning at your enemies.

At a higher price per item, but with reuse: huge-sized mithril greataxes appear to probably do 4d6 damage, and weigh 24 pounds each, just under the weight limit. You could presumably enchant them.

Nothing so far as I can tell, RAW. But I may have missed something. Does anything in Pathfinder, RAW, have the ability to obtain information about a target of mind blank?

... The most impressive to me so far: see invisible is specifically listed as a divination which does not work against mind blank. Mind blanked invisible creature cannot be seen even if you have see invisible, and probably the same goes for true seeing. !.

(I note: That parenthetical is new in Pathfinder. A quick straw poll of PF and D&D players I know produces evenly split opinions.)

A while back, in a game, we came to a conclusion that forced or involuntary movement should not in general provoke AoO. Later, I was reading something and I am convinced I found actual text stating exactly that in a book... But I can't find it. Everyone seems to agree it's true, so my question is just: Where is this stated?

Various creatures exist which cast spells as a given caster. e.g., a nymph "casts spells as" a 7th level druid, without the summoning swap-out.

If you advance a casts-spells-as creature with class levels, do those levels stack? For instance, if a nymph took sorcerer levels and then mystic theurge levels, would the mystic theurge levels increase her druid casting ability? What if she tried to take a druid level? Would she gain the other abilities of a druid of 1st level, and cast at 8th? Would she gain the ability to swap in summoning spells for all her druid spells, or only the ones her class levels gave her access to?

So, when using a spell from a staff, you use your own casting stat and caster level.

What if you're using UMD to use the staff?

UMD lets you activate spell trigger items. A staff is a spell trigger item. So a DC20 UMD check lets you cast spells from the staff.

Two questions:
1. If you are a different kind of caster, do you still use your level and casting stat to set DCs and caster level? This is complicated when you consider sor/wiz and cleric/oracle. The staff doesn't really have an innate caster stat; an arcane spell could easily have been based on either int or cha by the original caster. And obviously we'd expect a sorcerer using an arcane staff to use cha, even though the crafter presumably used int. (Assuming there's at least one fifth level spell, the minimum CL 8 for staves is overruled by the minimum CL to use that spell, which is one higher for sorc than wizard for any spell over 1st level.) But does that mean that a cleric with UMD using an arcane staff can use wis as the activation ability, even though wis is never the casting stat for arcane spells, etc.?

2. What if you're not a caster at all? You don't *have* a caster level. Do you just default to effective-zero, so you use the staff's level because it's higher? If so, what about the casting stat? Again, you don't have a casting stat. And for, say, a rogue or fighter, it's quite likely that no traditional casting stat is one of your best stats...

Thoughts?

These spells appear to never have a casting time greater than one standard action, or require material components.

Is that intentional? I ask because there are a lot of conjuration [creation] or conjuration [summoning] spells where cost of materials is significant.

For instance: Instant Summons. Can you produce this with Shades, without using the material component? If so, does it just work, or does it have only an 80% chance of working, or what? Can you intentionally fail your will save against your own illusion?

What about Trap the Soul? Can I cast the trigger item variant of Trap the Soul without needing to provide the gem? For a lot of purposes, an 80% chance of that working without a material component is better than needing the material component.

I can't tell whether this is intentional or not. In some cases (sepia snake sigil), it seems a pretty ridiculous waste of a high level spell slot (and a lower one is too likely to fail, I think)... But in others, this borders on overpowered, even if it is a 9th level spell.

Just wanna sanity-check a thing:

SLAs have no components. Therefore, they do not have expensive material components.

If you are creating a magic item which casts a spell, and it has material components, you have to pay some cost related to those. Scribing a scroll requires you to pay the cost of the material component, for instance.

SLAs qualify as prerequisites for anything that the corresponding spell qualifies for.

Does that mean that, if you have a SLA of something that usually has an expensive material component, you can create an item which casts it without using the component? It seems like it does, because you need to provide any components you need to cast the spell; if you don't need a component to cast the spell, you are probably off the hook.

Whereupon we find that the world's wealth is controlled by any race that can get permanency as a SLA.

Really simple question:

I marionette-possession possess the party fighter. I cast mirror image. I then return to my own body.

Does the fighter now have mirror images?

Slightly harder question:

I possess the party fighter. I cast antimagic field. What happens?

There was some discussion of whether dead characters necessarily have -CON or fewer hit points. In (at least one of) the 3.5 books, that's explicitly stated under the rules for death and injury. In Pathfinder, it's only stated as a bullet point under Death Effects, even though it appears to be intended to apply generally.

And this got me to thinking. A while back, I was talking with someone about the effects of prestidigitation, and she was convinced that the spell description's list of effects was intended to be exhuastive rather than to be an incomplete list of examples. Well, I went looking, and if you read the 3.5 books, they have another paragraph, which turns out to offer significant clarification, because it gives additional examples -- and a couple of them are things which aren't on the list! So the list is, presumably, not exhuastive.

Similarly, for trap the soul, every D&D version of the spell has one additional parenthetical clause pointing out that "creature from another plane" could describe PCs when they are travelling elsewhere.

So this leads to a general question about how people work with the rules:

If there is an ambiguity in the PF rules, and there's additional text in corresponding 3.5E rules that clarifies, do you consider that compelling evidence as to the meaning of the rules, or do you assume it's an intentional change?

Speaking only for myself: If the text is present in the d20 SRD, but not in Pathfinder, I assume it's an intentional change. Otherwise I assume it's not intended as a change, mostly.

But the question of whether these should be considered relevant is perhaps important, because that's going to heavily influence some rulings.

Scrolls!

To have any chance of activating a scroll spell, the scroll user must meet the following requirements.

* The spell must be of the correct type (arcane or divine). Arcane spellcasters (wizards, sorcerers, and bards) can only use scrolls containing arcane spells, and divine spellcasters (clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers) can only use scrolls containing divine spells. (The type of scroll a character creates is also determined by his class.)
* The user must have the spell on her class list.
* The user must have the requisite ability score.

If the user meets all the requirements noted above, and her caster level is at least equal to the spell's caster level, she can automatically activate the spell without a check. If she meets all three requirements but her own caster level is lower than the scroll spell's caster level, then she has to make a caster level check (DC = scroll's caster level + 1) to cast the spell successfully. If she fails, she must make a DC 5 Wisdom check to avoid a mishap (see Scroll Mishaps). A natural roll of 1 always fails, whatever the modifiers. Activating a scroll is a standard action (or the spell's casting time, whichever is longer) and it provokes attacks of opportunity exactly as casting a spell does.

1. So far as I can tell, 3E and PF materials often contain scrolls of a given spell which do not specify whether it's arcane or divine. However, with the proliferation of classes, there are a number of cases where it could be either. If a published adventure specifies a "scroll of cure light wounds", how would you determine whether it's arcane or divine?

2. It appears that you can cast a spell of a level you could not ordinarily cast, as long as it was scribed at a caster level you can manage. For instance, an 11th level sorcerer can use a 6th-level scroll scribed by a wizard, because the 11th level sorcerer can cast at CL11 without a caster level check, even though 6th level spells are not available to sorcerers until level 12. Similarly, a magus or bard can cast a 6th level spell from a scroll at level 11, if it was scribed at CL 11 by a wizard, even though they couldn't cast it themselves until level 16. And an 11th level witch with a 16 int can cast chain lightning from a scroll even though the witch spell would require CL13 and int 17.

This creates interesting options. A bard can create a CL4 scroll of suggestion for 200gp, creating a 2nd level spell scroll at CL4, with a save DC of 13. A wizard can't create one below CL5, with a save DC of 14. But the wizard can learn the spell from the bard's scroll. But wait! What's the spellcraft DC to decipher it? Is it based on the bard level or the wizard level? If you want to add suggestion to your book from a scroll, is doing it from the bard scroll cheaper and easier? Can a wizard then cast that spell with a 12 int, not needing a 13?

3. Does this mean that the existence of a new class which gets access to a given spell sooner than others has sweeping effects on the scroll market? :)

Say you have access to Create Demiplane, and you have also a working Strand of Prayer Beads.

The Karma bead gives you a +4 to CL.

If you use it, then start casting a spell with a 6-hour casting time, does it work?

So, I'm aware of things like Practiced Spellcaster (admittedly a 3.5 thing), or the traits that increase caster level.

The situation: Planning to create a private demiplane. The size of the created space is 3/10/20 10' cubes per caster level. Because this isn't a burst, emanation, or spread, we can't use Widen Spell on it. So the only way to increase the amount of space per casting (and thus per permanency, which is the expensive part) is to increase caster level.

What I've found so far:
Orange prism Ioun stone: +1, or +1d4-2+1 (= +1d4-1) if in a Wayfinder, maybe.
Traits (only we're LONG past character creation.)

and... That's it for stuff I can find. Lots of things give bonuses on caster level checks, but I want the spell's area increased, and that's not a CL check, just raw caster level. Lots of obscure stuff in 3.x books I don't have, probably, only I can't find the actual descriptions of them to verify whether they'd apply.

Consumables are fine, since the entire point of this is to try to increase the effect of spells I'm only going to cast a couple of times. And the ioun stone isn't a great deal with only +1CL, because I'd have to be making >20 castings of greater create demiplane before the extra space would allow me to drop at least one casting and thus one 22,500gp permanency, and... yeah, not planning on that many. Was thinking of two, maybe one if I could get my CL up enough higher.