Control Weather - Move With You?

[Ernest Mueller]

The S&S Player's Guide notes that Control Winds doesn't move with you; its area is "a cylinder." Control Weather is "a circle, centered on you." Does it move with you? Most other things that move with you are called emanations, like antimagic field - the only other spell I can find that uses "circle centered on you" is locate object and neither spell clarifies whether it moves with you or not. The S&S PG is silent on the subject. So does Control Weather move with the caster?

[stuart haffenden]

No, I can't see and RAW to support it moving with you.

However, if you want it to, go for it, it's hardly broken.

[Ernest Mueller]

Well, my point is that RAW says "a circle centered on you" and it has a duration, so my inclination is that RAW would mean it does move with you. Looking for a clarification related to a ruling on CW or related circle spells... "I think it should" and "I think it shouldn't" are fine but don't really help me.

[stuart haffenden]

The point is that you can play it either way. If you're the DM then that's all your players need to know.

Clarification would be nice but then so would winning the lotto but it might not happen!

I would say the "centred on you" is just for the starting position of the spell, in other words, you can't cast it centred on a different target.
Also, if the effect has a wind speed and direction it would make sence for it to move according to that rather than your position.
As you said it's not an emanation.

[SnowHeart]

I did a Google search for "Pathfinder "centered on you"" and what I found were some spells that said "centered on you" and others that said "an emanation centered on you". As the designers go to the bother of making a distinction, I would assume that distinction matters. So, if its an emanation, I'd say it follows you. Otherwise, it does not.

However, in a 3.5 campaign I just finished, we needed control weather to protect us from a blizzard, and the DM ruled that it followed us. With a 2 mile radius, having it follow you hardly seems overpowered... it's already such a huge area, it probably was just assumed you wouldn't be likely to move out of that area.

So, although I know what my ruling would be, I could certainly see a reasonable GM ruling differently.

[Shadowfoot]

An emanation continues to radiate outwards, which doesn't fit this. It is something you can concentrate on to change, so it makes sense that it stays with you to permit the change.

[Robert G. McCreary]

Control weather does not move with the caster. It affects a 2-mile-radius circle around where the caster was when he cast the spell.

[Ernest Mueller]

Thanks Rob! So it's pretty hard to use magic to keep your ship happy in the doldrums...