Touching Yourself: Personal vs. Single

[kyrt-ryder]

'Rixx wrote:

You can cast a single target spell with a range of touch - so why ever prepare/cast spells with the "personal" target word? In my experience, you can cast touch range spells on yourself, so preparing a spell with the "personal" word seems more limiting.

My assumption is that you can't use single target spells on yourself, but there isn't anything in the text that spells this out explicitly. This might be something to clarify.

You can use single target spells on yourself. The difference, is frequently 'self only' spells are spells the game designers felt were too good to be applied to non-casters.

[Rogue Eidolon]

kyrt-ryder wrote:

'Rixx wrote:

You can cast a single target spell with a range of touch - so why ever prepare/cast spells with the "personal" target word? In my experience, you can cast touch range spells on yourself, so preparing a spell with the "personal" word seems more limiting.

My assumption is that you can't use single target spells on yourself, but there isn't anything in the text that spells this out explicitly. This might be something to clarify.

You can use single target spells on yourself. The difference, is frequently 'self only' spells are spells the game designers felt were too good to be applied to non-casters.

This is with respect to Words of Power, though, where both cost 0 points. I also found that odd, but it just means no one will ever pick Personal unless forced by an effect word to do so.

Also, this is in the wrong subforum, I think.

[Jason Bulmahn]

That is exactly why there is a difference. There might be a better way to handle this though. Will investigate.

Oh, and moved to the correct forum.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

[Wesley Snacks]

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

That is exactly why there is a difference. There might be a better way to handle this though. Will investigate.

Oh, and moved to the correct forum.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

Possibly a -1 (or -2) point cost to personal?

['Rixx]

Ah, I deleted my original post and reposted it in the right spot - I wasn't expecting the topic would linger and it would get moved! Could someone delete this one or the other one..?

[Tryn]

Wesley Snacks wrote:

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

That is exactly why there is a difference. There might be a better way to handle this though. Will investigate.

Oh, and moved to the correct forum.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

Possibly a -1 (or -2) point cost to personal?

+1

Also the point-buy system remembers me at the spell creation process in SR2.01D, maybe someone can use the WoP System as a "spell building system"

[Drejk]

Uselessness of personal range target word was the first thing I noticed skimming through the playtest sample.

Small negative cost of personal word would be something to think of. Or complete removal of that target word.

BTW: target words could be renamed as "form words" or "shape words" to avoid confusion with actual "target" entry in spell description.

[james maissen]

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

That is exactly why there is a difference. There might be a better way to handle this though. Will investigate.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

I, along with the others, found this strange as one of the hallmarks in 3e spells was that personal spells were, in general, more powerful than creature touched spells.

Take your favorite personal spell and most likely altering it to 'creature touched' would increase its power drastically. To the extent that its not even available as a metamagic feat.

I also find it strange that while some of the effects were obviously motivated by pre-existing spells some areas were purposefully cut down in comparison, was there specific reason for this?

Also why I'm bothering you, rather than swapping known spell for word, was there thought about reconstructing the spontaneous casters' tables (sorcerer & bard as all the rest are copies of the same) of known spells to a different table of known words? It seems that many of the words would make sense even more consolidated (for example the summon spells.. why have 9 of them rather than just 1 with different costs other than to more easily fit into the known spells table?).

It's a very adventurous idea, more power to you all for trying to tackle it!

-James