| Elrick Elderbane |
First, I do not have direct access to the web and I found out about Pathfinder RPG Beta from the pictures of it in Paizo’s Summer Catalog 2008 in late 2008. I went nuts trying to get my own copy (my family can vouch – and say hi to them because they are typing this for me). Got it in January 2009; it was out of print at Paizo. Cosmo at Paizo helped. All pages cited are from Pathfinder RPG Beta Playtest. Thus:
True seeing, This GM’s bête noire; please test the text (page 283):
“You confer on the subject the ability to see a truer representation of reality. This spell functions as darkvision and detect secret doors, except as modified here. The subject sees through all visual illusions of the glamer and figment subschools. The subject also notes if an objection has been magically polymorphed, but not its true form; such objects appear ‘wrong’ in a way that says ‘transmuted’ to the subject, when it is being actively observed (not merely seen). Further, the subject can focus its vision to see into the Ethereal Plane (but not into extradimensional spaces). The range of true seeing conferred is 120 feet.
“True seeing, however, does not confer sight to blind, blinded, or sightless creatures, nor does it confer X-ray vision or its equivalent. It does not negate concealment, including that caused by fog and the like. True seeing does not help the view see through mundane disguises or spot creatures who are simply hiding. In addition, the spell effects cannot be further enhanced with known magic, so one cannot use true seeing through a crystal ball or in conjunction with clairaudience/clairvoyance, for example.”
>>The reasons for the fixes: The spell as it is now written can be a game buster. There is no reason for true seeing to show someone with eagle’s splendor as transmuted or to allow the spell to remove the charisma bonus for the seer. A cleric 9 can undo a druid 20 or even an epic dragon by simply seeing the changed shape. Not only does that imply that druids aren’t true when wild, and lycanthropes are always fake (which shape is true?), the spell can become unwieldy. If a GM insists that the polymorphed form must be within line of sight, a shapechanged, human wizard perched on a tree as a bird, when viewed by a true seeing druid, seems to stroboscopically change between nothing-but-leaves and a bird-with-translucent-human depending on the wind. And that’s only if the GM insists the morphed form be line of sight. Imagine the bizarre situation of seeing PC, before rounding a corner, noticing the true-but-insubstantial form of a huge dragon that cannot in return see her because the dragon is elf-morphed and against the wall “hiding”.
Can you imagine a ring of true seeing?
There is also no reason why shadow-enhanced or purely mental illusions are foiled by this spell. It is only as a nod to the spell’s intent that this author keeps it a modified morph detector. By the way, nondetection is occasionally effective against it and mind blank is prophylactic (questions by Fatespinner, Lady Lena, Crust, TerraNova, etc., in the messageboard archives).
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Page 252: nondetection vis-a-vis amulet of proof (page 366). The DC should be 23 (15 plus CL8 item/spell creator/caster).
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Neither Zone of Silence or Silence (pages 289 and 270, respectively) should be illusion (glamer) spells. They both should be evocation (sonic). Sound dampening is accomplished with an interfering inverse wave. Keeping these spells glamers is illogical as glamers cannot “fool” reality. Spell verbals should not be affected by illusions regardless of their being heard by nearby creatures (cf., falling tree in forest) and impossible conversations should allow Will disbelief, which this spell does not.
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Illusions of the glamer and figment subschools should have a Perception vs. Disguise check to “disbelieve” instead of Will disbelief. The DC should default at 15 + caster level. Caster’s familiarity is offset with view’s familiarity. Multiple figments with the same goal overlap and add their spell levels to the DC.
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Ghost sound, page 234, has an illogical spell description, especially when it is compared to illusory wall (page 240). Why does the visual wall force non-sight interaction to provoke a save but the sound is not excepted from hearing interaction? Why describe the noise equivalent of 32 humans when 20-human noise is the max? Why have such a max? See previous section on illusions.
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Craft skill (page 58) should be Trained Only.
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Skill check bonuses now seem to be too egalitarian. Page 52, Table 5-2 maybe needs another category: “Trained Only” Trained Class Skill = 1d20 + Skill ranks + ability modifier + racial modifier + 3 + ½ Skill ranks. It boggles the mind to see fighters or barbarians disable device and use magic device as readily as rogues.
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Page 75, Use Magic Device DC Chart
Activate blindly, 15 + Creator's caster level, n1
Decipher a written spell, 25 + spell level
Use a scroll, 21 + caster level, n2
Use a wand, 21, n2
Emulate a class feature, 21, n2
Emulate an ability score, check - 15
Emulate a race, 25
Emulate an alignment, 30
n1= DC is unchanged for a CL10 magic item, such as a flying carpet.
n2= If effective class level equals check minus 20, rolling 20 produces a zeroth class level, an impossibility.
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Armor and Shield Special Abilities are still whacko: page 341, Tables 15-2 and 15-3. Why would a 19th level heroic NPC (confining herself to limitations of Table 14-9: NPC Gear) spend 36,000gp (almost all allotted) for a +1 shield with SR19 (a +6 magic item)? Same problem for PC's, no?
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Table 13-9: Random Weather has superscripts 3 and 4 with no corresponding note in the text. This same mistake appears in the 3.5 DMG (page 327).
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Anyway, thanks for listening to someone on the inside who's a superfan of 3.5.