| 5 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
Sift
School divination; Level bard 0, inquisitor 0
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range 30 ft.
Area one 10-ft. cube
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
You examine an area at range as if you were searching for fine details with the Perception skill. Make a Perception check with a –5 penalty, modified as normal for conditions. No penalty is applied for distance. Apply the result against the DC for any hidden features, such as secret doors, traps, or hidden treasure. You must be able to see the area you are attempting to search, and you only find details that can be perceived with sight or touch. Sift detects only objects and features, not actual creatures.
It allows you to inspect details from a distance of 30 feet, but at a -5 penalty. Is it just me, or is that the same as the penalty for inspecting from 50 feet?
The perception skill offers no special rules for examining fine details, it just refers you to the modifiers table. If so, what good is this spell?
what good is this spell?
Flavor.
Though I guess technically if perceiving something triggers a fireball, you might be just beyond it's range.
I love me some flavor.
But, um... this is a mechanical disadvantage bought at a standard action. I don't get it.
You would be better off standing at 30 feet from the details and just rolling perception as a move action. Standing at 30 feet and spending a standard action to roll at -5 isn't an advantage, it's a penalty.
What's the flavor in that?
It screws up explosive runes traps.
Please explain? Nothing in the description of Explosive Runes specifies the range at which they may be read.
Nothing in the description of Explosive Runes specifies the range at which they may be read.
"Anyone next to the explosive runes (close enough to read them) takes the full damage with no saving throw; any other creature within 10 feet of the explosive runes is entitled to a Reflex save for half damage."
So if you're 30' away, a reasonable DM would say you're well out of normal reading range, and would not take any damage.
For flavor, I imagine a Sherlock Holmes kind of thing. The Inquisitor enters the domicile, calls forth his righteous sanction (casts a spell), and has inspected the crime scene, noticing a fish scale under the victim's fingernail, which of course points towards Fishy Joe as the murderer. Sure, you could do that without magic, but it's not as flashy, and the common folk are probably more likely to think they can get away with things if you're just looking around with your mundane eyes.
Or, you know, cop a feel at a distance. Damn halflings.
I've used this spell to discreetly read documents in a pile without moving them or even being able to find all parts of them. I've also used it to read letters within sealed envelopes while they were held by another person. I've searched enemies for concealed weapons and other items whilst keeping my distance. It can also be used to find and/or set off certain traps while keeping one's distance.
So basically, the spell's utility relies on a tacit assumption that you just can't make certain perception checks (such as reading from 30 ft). I guess that makes sense, although technically there is nothing prohibiting someone from making those checks at 30 ft with the listed modifiers.
The point about extending touch to 30 feet is nice. I don't know how much use perception-touch gets normally, but hey.
So basically, the spell's utility relies on a tacit assumption that you just can't make certain perception checks (such as reading from 30 ft). I guess that makes sense, although technically there is nothing prohibiting someone from making those checks at 30 ft with the listed modifiers.
The point about extending touch to 30 feet is nice. I don't know how much use perception-touch gets normally, but hey.
You try reading a book without opening it, a letter in an envelope without unwrapping it, or a page at the bottom of a stack of papers without physically shuffling through it.
This spell has found plenty of use in our games.
|
So basically, the spell's utility relies on a tacit assumption that you just can't make certain perception checks (such as reading from 30 ft). I guess that makes sense, although technically there is nothing prohibiting someone from making those checks at 30 ft with the listed modifiers.
The point about extending touch to 30 feet is nice. I don't know how much use perception-touch gets normally, but hey.
How would that react to something like a Symbol of Death set to trigger on a touch?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So basically, the spell's utility relies on a tacit assumption that you just can't make certain perception checks (such as reading from 30 ft). I guess that makes sense, although technically there is nothing prohibiting someone from making those checks at 30 ft with the listed modifiers.
The point about extending touch to 30 feet is nice. I don't know how much use perception-touch gets normally, but hey.
You try reading a book without opening it, a letter in an envelope without unwrapping it, or a page at the bottom of a stack of papers without physically shuffling through it.
This spell has found plenty of use in our games.
See, that's a use that isn't highlighted in the spell's description, and to my first reading seemed impossible. I would have imagined you could see and touch the cover of the book from afar, but opening it would be beyond the scope of the spell since you cannot see the pages within...
I will grant you that your described application sounds useful. However, the sight limitation on the spell makes me think it isn't legal.
| 10 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
The sight limitation doesn't apply here as the book, the pile of papers, and the letter are all within my line of sight. They are not around a corner or in another room. I absolutely CAN see the area I am searching.
The spell compares your Perception result (-5) against the DC to find "any hidden features, such as secret doors, traps, or hidden treasure."
By your interpretation, the spell would be completely useless as the very definition of hidden means you cannot perceive the thing that is hidden. If you CAN perceive the thing you are searching for, than you wouldn't need this spell to begin with.
My interpretation is the only one that makes logical sense within the RAW.
The sight limitation doesn't apply here as the book, the pile of papers, and the letter are all within my line of sight. They are not around a corner or in another room. I absolutely CAN see the area I am searching.
The spell compares your Perception result (-5) against the DC to find "any hidden features, such as secret doors, traps, or hidden treasure."
By your interpretation, the spell would be completely useless as the very definition of hidden means you cannot perceive the thing that is hidden. If you CAN perceive the thing you are searching for, than you wouldn't need this spell to begin with.
My interpretation is the only one that makes logical sense within the RAW.
There's a middle-ground position. You could be able to read the contents of the open page of a book as if you were standing next to it, without being able to read other pages. That would still leave you able to detect hidden things as if you were standing next to them, but without requiring you to be able to be able to perceive them from where you are.
You are absolutely right that your interpretation would make the spell useful, and my reading makes it useless (hence the thread).
FAQ'd.
I have a sneaking suspicion that perception checks that would require interaction such as reading a book are beyond the spell's scope... whereas feeling the cracks around a secret compartment might be possible. In that case, sift would NOT allow you to perceive what was in the compartment, since it is not visible, it would only reveal the presence of the compartment.
It would not allow you to read the inside of a closed book.
I'm not saying this is the intention, but this is my reading of the rules. I actually hope something like your interpretation is correct, because if not, then this spell is limited to use in only situations where you would require touch to find something and wish to remain at a distance.
There's a middle-ground position. You could be able to read the contents of the open page of a book as if you were standing next to it, without being able to read other pages. That would still leave you able to detect hidden things as if you were standing next to them, but without requiring you to be able to be able to perceive them from where you are.
My issue is with the "unwritten rules" in this case. If you read the perception skill itself, it seems like you can pretty much always take a -3 penalty to spot something at 30 ft rather than a -5 with sift, which makes the spell solely useful in the case of perceiving with touch at a distance. That's still kind of useful... but the difference between perception and interaction might be very important in all cases.
Of course, if RavingDork is correct and the spell allows you to perceive inclusive of all information that would be gained through interaction, then hells yeah that's awesome. I don't think that's within the power of the spell though.
How about if you are tied to a chair? Or want to inspect a room without messing with anything? Or maybe from a hiding place, like a hidden passage in the wall or ceiling?
There's a middle-ground position. You could be able to read the contents of the open page of a book as if you were standing next to it, without being able to read other pages. That would still leave you able to detect hidden things as if you were standing next to them, but without requiring you to be able to be able to perceive them from where you are.My issue is with the "unwritten rules" in this case. If you read the perception skill itself, it seems like you can pretty much always take a -3 penalty to spot something at 30 ft rather than a -5 with sift, which makes the spell solely useful in the case of perceiving with touch at a distance. That's still kind of useful... but the difference between perception and interaction might be very important in all cases.
Of course, if RavingDork is correct and the spell allows you to perceive inclusive of all information that would be gained through interaction, then hells yeah that's awesome. I don't think that's within the power of the spell though.
Well, no amount of perception is going to let you read an open book which is facing away from you at 30'. But you could use sift to read that open page under my interpretation. Likewise, it would let you look at the underside of objects, inside open containers, and so on. It wouldn't let you look inside closed containers, although you would be able to find where they open.
How about if you are tied to a chair? Or want to inspect a room without messing with anything? Or maybe from a hiding place, like a hidden passage in the wall or ceiling?
You are tied to a chair 30 feet from the thing you would like to inspect.
You can take a move action to inspect it at a -3 penalty (from 30 feet of distance) with your hands tied.
Or, if you hands are free for a somatic component, you can spend a standard action and take a -5 penalty to do the same thing, but with the ability to "touch" the area as well.
If you are at 40 feet, you may take a -4 to use perception, but you are out of the range of the (inferior) -5 sift option.
In other words, sift can be summarized as "take an additional -2 to perception checks and you can sense with 'touch' at up to 30 feet". Well, not really, because it is -5 no matter what range you stand within the 30 feet, so it is worse than that.
Unless RavingDork is right.
Even so, the ability to perceive by touch at remove is... well... something. It just means sift is useless for visual perception, unless your GM is using some unwritten rules to govern perception range for fine details.
I think you would only be able to read the inside of a book if you had darkvision.
I wonder if the spell allows you to use spellcraft to identify something.
It's admittedly a bit of a reach.
I would say that it comes in handy when you can't be in the area to physically examine it, and when you can't walk freely around the area.
To illustrate, take a book and stand it up so that the front cover faces you and the back faces away from you. Walk 30 feet away from it.
Now read the back cover without moving from where you are.
Or fill identical jars with random substances with different consistences. Blindfold yourself, mix them up and walk 30 feet away. Now identify what substance is in what jar by touch alone.
Sift lets you examine the tower room above you without needing to get in there, and lets you see mechanisms that wouldn't be visible from below.
It lets you examine the river bottom in more detail and see if that glint of light you saw from above is worth going down to examine. It lets you examine that upper landing, or the ceiling of the room for traps or trapdoors.
It lets you see if that crystal skull is actually on the pedestal or if it's an illusion.
It isn't a spell that is super useful in all situations, but it lets you make preliminary examinations of the area to see if it's worth the effort to actually go there.
And depending on readings, you can identify guards and the like by the presence of their clothes and equipment (since the spell detects objects and doesn't rule out attended objects).
Oh, and there's also the added benefit of being able to search a 10ft cube for fine details in less than 6 seconds.
I've only seen it used once, and our interpretation was simply economy of time. I'm not looking at the rules, but I thought RAW it took an action (I forget whether move or standard) to examine a 5' square. With the spell, for a standard action, you examine four such squares with a penalty.
Admittedly, since it has not come up much, we haven't thought about it much, but in my game, without a FAQ ruling specifically to the contrary, my players will only be able to see and feel what they could see and feel if they were in the spell's target area - anything requiring manipulation of items (open an envelope, shuffle papers, open a book) won't happen without additional effort -- such as mage hand.
Setting off the traps does seem like a reasonable use, as does reading something over someone's shoulder.
Curious to see what comes up with the FAQ requst. It's a good question, glad you brought it up.
I side with RD on this one.
The problem is that his reading doesn't have internal consistency.
If the spell lets me read a closed book then it should let me see inside a closed chest in the same room. If I can see inside the closed chest, then I should be able to see inside a room with a closed door.
So why can't I see the other side of a wall when I use sift when I can see inside closed objects. And why can I read words that are in complete darkness (closed book) when I can't see the room without light?
Sift doesn't allow for actual manipulation of the area, just an examination at face value. Otherwise you could see inside chest and safes.
---
Another example of use.
Imagine that there is a document hidden behind a painting. It's placed so that you need to move it or look at it from side on in order to see it's there.
At best, a Perception check from 30 feet away lets you see that the painting might be slightly crooked (if it actually is).
A use of Sift lets you see the presence of the document.
I once had a player use this spell to sift through a pile of refuse looking for a magic item he had lost (it's a long story) So he was able to find what he was looking for without actually getting his hands dirty.
I once had a player use this spell to sift through a pile of refuse looking for a magic item he had lost (it's a long story) So he was able to find what he was looking for without actually getting his hands dirty.
I actually just used it for that purpose in the WLD Play-by-post. Stood outside the nasty-smelling room and Sifted it instead of walking in to search it. Of course, without mage hand I had to walk in to get what I found, but it was a start.
|
According to the Invisibility text just groping about (not even searching for fine detail) into two adjacent 5ft squares takes a standard action. Sift hits a 10ft cube (which is technically eight 5ft squares, although the 'top four' may not always be useful to search) and searches them for fine detail in a single standard action.
It's basically a time saver for searching rooms, although the whole ranged thing is helpful in the right circumstances too.
To be honest it seems designed based on a bit of old 3.5 ruling - that it takes a full-round action to search a 5ft x 5ft square, or a volume that is 5ft on a side. Pathfinder having rolled all the sensory-type Skills into Perception doesn't spell out this same searching limit (at least not in the Perception Skill text), but only leaves us with a kinda' vague '... Intentionally searching for stimulus is a move action...' So if your DM takes that as meaning you can search a room of any size top to bottom in a single move action, then yes, sift becomes a little rubbish by comparison. If you're sticking to more reasonable search times, then sift simply speeds the whole process up a bit...
Player: How big was the room again?
DM: 20ft by 20ft, with a 10ft high ceiling.
Player: okay that's, what, four sift cantrips? Okay... [roll, roll, roll, roll]... what do I find?
DM: 24 seconds later, you've magically searched the room, and found...
... Compared with the dungeon-bashers' old stand-bys of individually searching the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and every single thing in the room... at the end of a 10ft pole if really maintaining tradition... it's a big time saver.
|
|
According to the Invisibility text just groping about (not even searching for fine detail) into two adjacent 5ft squares takes a standard action. Sift hits a 10ft cube (which is technically eight 5ft squares, although the 'top four' may not always be useful to search) and searches them for fine detail in a single standard action.
It's basically a time saver for searching rooms, although the whole ranged thing is helpful in the right circumstances too.
To be honest it seems designed based on a bit of old 3.5 ruling - that it takes a full-round action to search a 5ft x 5ft square, or a volume that is 5ft on a side. Pathfinder having rolled all the sensory-type Skills into Perception doesn't spell out this same searching limit (at least not in the Perception Skill text), but only leaves us with a kinda' vague '... Intentionally searching for stimulus is a move action...' So if your DM takes that as meaning you can search a room of any size top to bottom in a single move action, then yes, sift becomes a little rubbish by comparison. If you're sticking to more reasonable search times, then sift simply speeds the whole process up a bit...
Player: How big was the room again?
DM: 20ft by 20ft, with a 10ft high ceiling.
Player: okay that's, what, four sift cantrips? Okay... [roll, roll, roll, roll]... what do I find?
DM: 24 seconds later, you've magically searched the room, and found...
... Compared with the dungeon-bashers' old stand-bys of individually searching the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and every single thing in the room... at the end of a 10ft pole if really maintaining tradition... it's a big time saver.
Hmm, so a metamagic widened sift might be a great way to search a room for invisible things.
Would this also count as "interacting" with an illusion spell?
|
|
Hmm, so a metamagic widened sift might be a great way to search a room for invisible things.
Even a vanilla sift seems a pretty good way to search for invisible stuff... barring access to better and more powerful magic, anyway; although how the 'no creatures' bit in the sift text would work is a question that may need to be asked when it comes to invisible people (finding the invisible Wizard's clothes but not the guy inside them seems a little on the cheesy side).
Would this also count as "interacting" with an illusion spell?
Even if it didn't, I'd imagine it'd count under the 'study it carefully' clause for getting a save.