Permanency?

[Christopher Simmons]

So plenty of new spells offer permanency. But, when I flipped to the "P's" there was ... no spell entry.

Is this spell being reworked?

[Majuba]

Christopher Simmons wrote:

So plenty of new spells offer permanency. But, when I flipped to the "P's" there was ... no spell entry.

Is this spell being reworked?

It's in the Web Enhancement (included in the Beta PDF download). It's basically the same as far as I can see, except you pay 5x the former XP cost in gp for diamond dust as a component.

[satorian]

You know, this brings up a problem with getting rid of XP costs. I've never been a fan of XP costs as a mechanic, so I cheered when Pathfinder trashed them. However, thematically, I've always thought of permanency as a way for purposefully poor (Vow of Poverty or just role-play poverty) characters to have some level of walking-around magical-ness. Getting rid of XP isn't a problem for magic items, since poor characters wouldn't carry lots of these around anyway. But with permanency, or magical tattoos or other inherent-to-my-essence type stuff, switching to a gp cost really messes with low-gold character concepts. Any ideas on how to fix this?

[Lefty X]

Also, as I just reread it, can we now have an unlimited number of Permanencies as we want?

[Agi Hammerthief]

satorian wrote:

You know, this brings up a problem with getting rid of XP costs. I've never been a fan of XP costs as a mechanic, so I cheered when Pathfinder trashed them. However, thematically, I've always thought of permanency as a way for purposefully poor (Vow of Poverty or just role-play poverty) characters to have some level of walking-around magical-ness. Getting rid of XP isn't a problem for magic items, since poor characters wouldn't carry lots of these around anyway. But with permanency, or magical tattoos or other inherent-to-my-essence type stuff, switching to a gp cost really messes with low-gold character concepts. Any ideas on how to fix this?

re-write Vow of Poverty so the character can assist createing magical tattoos or permanencing spells on him by replacing 5GP worth of diamonds with 1XP

and mebby let him gain 1XP for donating 10GP to charity, after all they get some nifty feats that are supposed to compensate for the lack of material stuff

.

Lefty X wrote:

Also, as I just reread it, can we now have an unlimited number of Permanencies as we want?

unlimited amount of gold lost when a high level caster throws a bundle of Disspell Magic at you?

.

wtf?
2500GP to make a cantrip Permanent?!
someone did the conversion without remembering that cantrips are of unlimited use now.

[satorian]

Agi Hammerthief wrote:

re-write Vow of Poverty so the character can assist createing magical tattoos or permanencing spells on him by replacing 5GP worth of diamonds with 1XP
and mebby let him gain 1XP for donating 10GP to charity, after all they get some nifty feats that are supposed to compensate for the lack of material stuff.

I see what you're trying to do, but there are a couple of issues with that fix.

1) Pathfinder is trying to get rid of XP costs as a mechanic. Completely. Putting it back in for one feat is kind of incongruous.
2) This still only works for actual VoP characters, but not the thematically poor. Permanencied spells, once thematically tied to the essence of the character, are now just like invisible magic items since you have to "buy" them. I guess this complaint works for all spells with gp costs, especially when cast by a spontaneous caster.

[Agi Hammerthief]

satorian wrote:

I see what you're trying to do, but there are a couple of issues with that fix.

1) Pathfinder is trying to get rid of XP costs as a mechanic. Completely. Putting it back in for one feat is kind of incongruous.
2) This still only works for actual VoP characters, but not the thematically poor. Permanencied spells, once thematically tied to the essence of the character, are now just like invisible magic items since you have to "buy" them. I guess this complaint works for all spells with gp costs, especially when cast by a spontaneous caster.

'thematically poor' as in Sorcerer, Druid, Monk?

they'll just have to rely on the other party members to, pretty please, boost them for the gold worth that they didn't take from the loot

[Majuba]

Lefty X wrote:

Also, as I just reread it, can we now have an unlimited number of Permanencies as we want?

I don't believe there was any limit beforehand. You may be thinking of Contingency.

[satorian]

Agi Hammerthief wrote:

'thematically poor' as in Sorcerer, Druid, Monk?
they'll just have to rely on the other party members to, pretty please, boost them for the gold worth that they didn't take from the loot

Well, those are the most common classes to be thematically poor. Well, core, at least. But I'm more referring to character RP choice to be anti-possession. Basically, anyone not exalted who isn't interested in possessions. Such a decision is impossible for most melee builds, but should be doable for a few. Now, such characters are already weaker because of the importance of the xmas tree effect. But the removal of xp from permanency only makes it worse.

EDIT: The character it's worst for is the primary caster sorcerer. He's the on,y one who can cast it in the party, and can't use the necessary money to do so.