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Foresight
School divination; Level druid 9, sorcerer/wizard 9
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M/DF (a hummingbird's feather)
Range personal or touch
Target see text
Duration 10 min./level
Saving Throw none or Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance no or yes (harmless)
This spell grants you a powerful sixth sense in relation to yourself or another. Once foresight is cast, you receive instantaneous warnings of impending danger or harm to the subject of the spell. You are never surprised or flat-footed. In addition, the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself and gives you a +2 insight bonus to AC and on Reflex saves. This insight bonus is lost whenever you would lose a Dexterity bonus to AC.
When another creature is the subject of the spell, you receive warnings about that creature. You must communicate what you learn to the other creature for the warning to be useful, and the creature can be caught unprepared in the absence of such a warning. Shouting a warning, yanking a person back, and even telepathically communicating (via an appropriate spell) can all be accomplished before some danger befalls the subject, provided you act on the warning without delay. The subject, however, does not gain the insight bonus to AC and Reflex saves.
My take: This spell sucks, at least for 9th level in power. As written, it should be a 4th level spell (at most). Any wizard that specializes in Divination pretty much out-classes this spell merely from his granted specialist abilities - yet this spell is the ONLY 9th level divination spell.
Questions:
- Any chance of Errata in the near future that makes this spell worthy of its casting level? My suggestion would be to allow recipients of the spell to roll 2d20 (and to take the better roll) for saving throws while under the effects of this spell.
- Will there be any 9th level divination spells in the Advanced Player's Guide so high-level diviners have a spell actually worth taking in their 9th-level bonus spell slot?
Actually this spell depends alot on how your DM rules it. If the "you receive instantaneous warning" portion is run by a DM that does the following
"You are about to touch the door handle to pull it open when you get a flash of warning that the door is trapped."
"You follow your old childhood friend down the street, as you both are about to turn into a dark alley, you get a flash of warning that this is not the actual friend from your childhood but a shapeshifter imitating her and planning to murder you."
If the spell was run like this (as I would run it in my games) I see no problems with it being a 9th level spell. The pluses to AC and saves are just candy sprinkles on top of a super duper spidey-sense cupcake.
Agree with both posters - as it is written, this spell is useless. I've never taken it on a spell list because of this.
In reference to Kalyth's suggestion - if anyone has ever seen the film 'Thoughtcrimes'
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0339785/
Freya's ability to see a moment into the future makes her pretty tough in a fight. I'd think this kind of insight would give a much higher bonus than +2.
Blake Duffey wrote: Agree with both posters - as it is written, this spell is useless. I've never taken it on a spell list because of this.
In reference to Kalyth's suggestion - if anyone has ever seen the film 'Thoughtcrimes'
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0339785/
Freya's ability to see a moment into the future makes her pretty tough in a fight. I'd think this kind of insight would give a much higher bonus than +2.
I actually loved that movie. They so set it up to be the pilot of a series which I was hoping for.
But anyway back to Foresight. I think the true strength of the spell is in the warnigns that are gained for yourself or another subject.
My reading of the spells would apply in situations like these examples.
"You raise the potion bottle to your lips but just before you drink you get a flash of images of you choaking from the poison that was mixed into the potion."
in the case of an ally protected by this spell the caster would need to scream "stop dont drink it" etc...
"You prepare to cast your fireball spell but then see images of the entire cavern erupting into flames as it ignites the oderless gas that fills the chamber."
My reading is basically the caster would get a warning when ever anything dangerous was about to happen to him allowing him to change his mind or tactic. It would be a great spell to use on the fighter of the party when the rogue is absent and just have the fighter walk slowly a few yards ahead. Anytime he got near a trap the wizard could just signal him to stop. I think if the spell is run with that inturpretation its perfect for a 9th level spell.
I really liked that movie too. :)
I like your interpretation of the spell and agree it could be level 9 worthy. I think it still needs some 'mechanical' improvements, however. Although your examples are very good ones, you still only get a +2 'in combat' modifiers.
Using the film reference again, when Freya fights the agent in the stairwell, she knows where he's going to try to punch/grab her, and she acts before he does.
That's more like a +10 bonus to AC/reflex, not +2.
The spell could stand to be better worded, but the "warnings of impending danger or harm" are not bits of flavor text. Take a look at something:
PFSRD wrote: This spell grants you a powerful sixth sense in relation to yourself or another. Once foresight is cast, you receive instantaneous warnings of impending danger or harm to the subject of the spell. You are never surprised or flat-footed. In addition, the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself and gives you a +2 insight bonus to AC and on Reflex saves. This insight bonus is lost whenever you would lose a Dexterity bonus to AC. The +2 bonuses to AC and Reflex saves are in addition to the warnings. At the very least, we can see that the "warnings" prevent you from ever being flat-footed (a much better benefit for non-diviner wizards, oddly), but it doesn't seem likely that this is all that the warnings are intended to do.
Being flat-footed often has nothing to do with "impending danger" in situations where that danger is not directly related to combat. When you are about to unwittingly drink from a poisoned bottle, for example.
We can pretty safely infer that this spell is actually meant to provide you with a warning before any kind of danger or harm is about to befall the subject.
Gven that the RAW can be read two ways (flavor text vs. mechanical benefit), we must default to the RAI. Since we are discussing a 9th-level wizard spell, I think the RAI pretty clearly means to grant the caster a bona-fide "spider sense".
Garden Tool wrote: The spell could stand to be better worded, but the "warnings of impending danger or harm" are not bits of flavor text. Take a look at something:
PFSRD wrote: This spell grants you a powerful sixth sense in relation to yourself or another. Once foresight is cast, you receive instantaneous warnings of impending danger or harm to the subject of the spell. You are never surprised or flat-footed. In addition, the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself and gives you a +2 insight bonus to AC and on Reflex saves. This insight bonus is lost whenever you would lose a Dexterity bonus to AC. The +2 bonuses to AC and Reflex saves are in addition to the warnings. At the very least, we can see that the "warnings" prevent you from ever being flat-footed (a much better benefit for non-diviner wizards, oddly), but it doesn't seem likely that this is all that the warnings are intended to do.
Being flat-footed often has nothing to do with "impending danger" in situations where that danger is not directly related to combat. When you are about to unwittingly drink from a poisoned bottle, for example.
We can pretty safely infer that this spell is actually meant to provide you with a warning before any kind of danger or harm is about to befall the subject.
Gven that the RAW can be read two ways (flavor text vs. mechanical benefit), we must default to the RAI. Since we are discussing a 9th-level wizard spell, I think the RAI pretty clearly means to grant the caster a bona-fide "spider sense".
To further stress the RAI portion. You receive the warnings even when the target of the spell is someone other than the caster. They do not gain the +2 bonuses. So the primary effect of the spell is a forwarning of danger. If not then the spell itself has absolutely no effect on a target other than the caster meaning there would be no point to cast it on anyone other than yourself.
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Sorry about this being a really old thread, but it's the best thread I could find, and I have a very interesting piece of data.
PRD wrote: This spell grants you a powerful sixth sense in relation to yourself or another. Once foresight is cast, you receive instantaneous warnings of impending danger or harm to the subject of the spell. You are never surprised or flat-footed. In addition, the spell gives you a general idea of what action you might take to best protect yourself and gives you a +2 insight bonus to AC and on Reflex saves. This insight bonus is lost whenever you would lose a Dexterity bonus to AC. This is often pointed out as a weak spell, but that, it turns out, is not because of Pathfinder, but because of a change between the 3.5 rules and the SRD.
Here's the difference:
3.5 wrote: ... to the subject of the spell. Thus, if you are the subject of the spell, you would be warned in advance if a rogue were about to attempt a sneak attack on you, or if a creature were about to leap out from a hiding place, or if an attacker were specifically targeting you with a spell or ranged weapon. You are never surprised... Which is to say: What we are talking about as RAI was explicitly called out in the 3.5 rules. But dropped from the SRD because they often took out bits of clarifying text.
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