Developer
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The newly approved spell "Ally Across Time" needs at least one campaign clarification.
The duplicate "appears with all of the equipment you currently carry", but "cannot use any of its equipment and all its equipment disappears when the duplicate does". But the equipment is still there, and while the duplicate cannot hand the equipment over to the caster (or any other member of the party), the caster is not only free to take the equipment from his copy, but the copy cannot actually defend or otherwise prevent its equipment from being stolen in any way.
The additional actions required to retrieve the gear from your copy does limit combat abuse, but just using a copy to get the material components for spells like Raise Dead is clearly not the intention of this spell and too powerful for a 2nd level spell.
This might be covered by the Pathfinder Society FAQ that limits players from getting access to unlimited resources. A savvy GM might also rule that using the parallel world's limited resources depletes your own resources. But these are not spelled out clearly in the spell and the spell itself is rife for this sort of abuse, even with its relatively low duration.
Most other abuses, like the Parting Blast feat, can be covered by savvy GM using the line "it cannot take any other type of action". Since most action-less aid in a battle requires advance set up, such as a polymorph effect, contingency or the aforementioned Parting Blast feat, the GM need only rule that the duplicate in the parallel existence did not adequately prepare. And in some cases, a GM might even award the creative use of the spell by allowing it to function like that once, warning the player that future copies have a chance that they will not work. Thus, I think only the equipment problem needs to be addressed.
|
A savvy GM might also rule that using the parallel world's limited resources depletes your own resources.
If a caster is using this spell to steal equipment from themselves, then I'd like to entertain the idea that the original caster will soon be 'summoned' by the spell and have an alternate version of themselves steal it from them in turn, thus completing a stable time loop.
But I'm not sure if I have the authority to pull this off as a GM in PFS.
On a personal note: If a PC wanted to buy a handfull of Necklace of Fireballs, I'd wonder how much faith they have in their parallel selves that they won't summon them just to use them as a bomb.
See above. Mass Murdering your cross-timeline counterparts can have horrible side effects.