A player in one of my games has recently begun using a new power which fascinates his enemies and confuses his DM. Here's the ability text:
Aurora Borealis (Sp): At 9th level, you can create a sheet of cascading colors. This power acts as a wall of fire, but it inflicts cold damage and does not radiate heat. However, one side of the aurora designated by you fascinates creatures within 10 feet, up to a maximum of 2 HD of creatures per sorcerer level. A Will save negates this fascinate effect. The save DC is equal to 10 + 1/2 your sorcerer level + your Charisma modifier. You may use this ability for a number of rounds per day equal to your sorcerer level. These rounds do not need to be consecutive.
The text doesn't say what type of action is required to activate this power, so it should presumably be a standard action. The text does say that the power "acts as a wall of fire". I suppose that means that it does 2d6+level damage (albeit cold rather than fire) to those passing through and also that you can make a wall or ring up to a certain size based on your caster level. The duration must be different though since Wall of Fire lasts for concentration + 1 round/level whereas Aurora Borealis can only be used for 1 round per level each day.
Is concentration required to maintain Aurora Borealis? If concentration is not required then I suppose the wall would continue to exist, fascinate, and burn up rounds of use per day until the caster dismissed it somehow. Dismissing a spell is usually a standard action, but Wall of Fire is not dismissable. Does Aurora Borealis differ from Wall of Fire in this regards? Can it be dismissed as a standard action? As a swift action? As an immediate action if your friend is about to be bullrushed through it?
There are two options which make the most sense to me:
1 - You create the wall with a standard action and must spend a standard action each round to maintain the wall
2- You create the wall as a standard action. It lasts to 1 round per level unless you dismiss it as another standard action.
I'm pretty sure that most players will want to put the wall in place as a standard action and either maintain or dismiss it as a free action, but I'm not convinced that is how it should be played.
The (Sp) part means Spell-Like Ability, and without the Quicken Spell-Like Ability feat all SLA's are standard actions.
Generally, if a spell-like ability doesn't say it requires concentration to maintain, it doesn't. So, standard action to create, standard action to dismiss (see Combat), and you're free to do whatever the rest of the time.
If these abilities work like the cleric abilities, then they are a standard action to create. They do not take an action to dismiss, because they only last one round. They must be maintained (a non-action) if the character wishes for them to stay.
There is not, sadly, a definitive ruling in the text that this works this way (which I find incredibly irksome). Instead it's understood. The ability is used for a number of rounds, rather than having a number of uses. A use takes an action. Maintaining the use does not.
Here's the post where Sean Reynolds clarified this. While the first part applies to supernatural abilities, the second is for all abilities that function in rounds rather than usages.
http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz2m0d?Cleric-Domain-Ability-Actions#4
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O.o
Sean said that it is not an action to maintain the Liberation(Su) ability, which does not require an action to start.
SKR wrote:
"So it starts automatically (not an action). And as there no sense in actively maintaining an ability that starts automatically, it should stop automatically, too (not an action)."
It sounds like he was saying that since the ability doesn't require an action to start it shouldn't require an action to stop either. Aurora Borealis (and Divine Presence) do require actions to start though, so that logic isn't helpful for them. Liberation would clearly stop when it is no longer needed. When would an Aurora Borealis be no longer needed?
Later on Sean says "That's pretty clear too" after quoting the part of the Divine Presence ability which says "Activating this ability is a standard action". I guess that to you it looked like Sean was confirming that Divine Presence works the same way as Liberation. To me it looks like Sean simply confirmed that it is a standard action to start Divine Presence(Su) but didn't say anything about what type of action it is to maintain or even if it can be maintained.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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While I cannot clarify the final published official RAW, I can certainly clarify the authorial RAI for the ability, and it's pretty much what is stated above.
1. It's an SLA, so unless otherwise stated activating it is a standard action.
2. As for concentration, it is "as wall of fire," which has a duration of "concentration + 1 round/level." Since the aurora borealis ability only can be used for up to 1 round/level, in theory you COULD concentrate on it but there's no reason to do so since the duration is capped at your level in rounds anyway.
3. As for whether it takes an action to dismiss, the "as wall of fire" qualifier is useless, since by RAW wall of fire is not dismissible (as in, it doesn't have a (D) under its duration). That kind of dismissal is a standard action. The general rule of play that I've seen for abilities that you can use for a number of rounds per level is that you can turn them off at any time and save the rest of the rounds per day for later. I don't think this is explicitly delineated in the rules, but in general I think it works fine.
The downside for this SLA is that ruling it that way essentially means you can use it to spam 1-round-duration area damage+fascinate effects. Just don't maintain it and then activate it again on your next turn. New saving throws all around for a new use of the ability. Given this, it might be reasonable to limit the ability to once per day (duration = level in rounds) and give additional uses of the ability every X levels afterwards. This is only if you feel like it's too strong as a spammable ability. If you think it's fine, then don't worry about it.
Hope this helps.
The downside for this SLA is that ruling it that way essentially means you can use it to spam 1-round-duration area damage+fascinate effects. Just don't maintain it and then activate it again on your next turn. New saving throws all around for a new use of the ability. Given this, it might be reasonable to limit the ability to once per day (duration = level in rounds) and give additional uses of the ability every X levels afterwards. This is only if you feel like it's too strong as a spammable ability. If you think it's fine, then don't worry about it.
Hope this helps.
While that can be powerful, if I understand you correctly, it means the person with this ability is using their standard action every round to reactivate this power. That alone is a balancing point. Causing that save is the ONLY thing they are doing in the fight and they are eating up a limited daily resource doing it.
And the range is only 10 feet from the wall.
Sean said that it is not an action to maintain the Liberation(Su) ability, which does not require an action to start.
SKR wrote:
"So it starts automatically (not an action). And as there no sense in actively maintaining an ability that starts automatically, it should stop automatically, too (not an action)."It sounds like he was saying that since the ability doesn't require an action to start it shouldn't require an action to stop either. Aurora Borealis (and Divine Presence) do require actions to start though, so that logic isn't helpful for them. Liberation would clearly stop when it is no longer needed. When would an Aurora Borealis be no longer needed?
Later on Sean says "That's pretty clear too" after quoting the part of the Divine Presence ability which says "Activating this ability is a standard action". I guess that to you it looked like Sean was confirming that Divine Presence works the same way as Liberation. To me it looks like Sean simply confirmed that it is a standard action to start Divine Presence(Su) but didn't say anything about what type of action it is to maintain or even if it can be maintained.
Eh, that's a fair interpretation. I don't think you're correct, mainly because that interpretation makes almost all of these abilities not only nearly useless, but also gimmicky (your spell would "turn off" at the start of each round, forcing you to start it back up again and make enemies re-save), but, like you said, the wording is vague and not well-addressed.
*shrug* Play it how you want, in the absence of a hard ruling.
Brogue, my personal take on it would actually be that you turn the power "on" as a standard action and then "off" again as a standard action. Alternately I could see it requiring concentration every round (though I think that would make the power a little weak). I was just offering some alternate ways I thought it might sensibly work based on existing rules for other spells and powers.
It doesn't sound like my take is a popular one though. I'm ok with changing it so that dismissing these particular effects is a free action though it is never stated anywhere in the rules that dismissing them is a free action (as Jason Nelson mentioned, dismissing effects is usually a standard action)
The general rule of play that I've seen for abilities that you can use for a number of rounds per level is that you can turn them off at any time and save the rest of the rounds per day for later.
My assumption here would be that you mean the caster can turn off the effect during his or her turn as a free action. However, you also say, " Just don't maintain it and then activate it again on your next turn", which makes it sound like the power must be maintained, presumably as a free action, or it will go away. The difference is significant since it affects what happens if the caster gets KO'd, stunned, dazed, etc.
I guess I'll just see how the players want this power to work and let it work that way. My campaign has a lot of plants and some undead too, so spamming Fascinate won't really be a game breaker even if it does become a common tactic.