Serpentine Bloodline Arcana

[Reynard_the_fox]

The Serpentine bloodline for sorcerers has the following arcana:

Bloodline Arcana: Your powers of compulsion can affect even bestial creatures. Whenever you cast a mind-affecting or language-dependent spell, it affects animals, magical beasts, and monstrous humanoids as if they were humanoids who understood your language.

What spells does this affect, exactly? Can Charm/Dominate Person be used like Charm/Dominate Monster? How does Hideous Laughter work?

Thanks.

[MC Templar]

It works exactly as written....

Anything with the [mind-affecting] or [language-dependent] descriptors can affect a much more dynamic groups of targets.

The saving throw DC is still based on the spell level but it means, yes, Charm person at 1st level can affect just about everything except oozes, undead, and vermin.

You can charm a wolf that is attacking you, make a basilisk laugh itself silly, can hold person on a charging Rhino.

It is potentially very potent way to expand a limited scope of spells.

[Mauril]

Also it still won't work on any outsider (even native ones, like tieflings and oreads).

Reynard, if your spell has the [mind-affecting] or [language dependent] tags on it, treat the targets as including "animals, magical beasts, monstrous humanoids" in addition to any other targets it already has. Also, consider everything from that list as sharing a language with you for the purpose of language dependent spells.

Nothing else changes about the spells. No HD cap changes. No save DC changes. No spell level changes. No casting time changes. It's the same spells with some new targets.

[Benly]

MC Templar wrote:

The saving throw DC is still based on the spell level but it means, yes, Charm person at 1st level can affect just about everything except oozes, undead, and vermin.

...or outsiders, constructs, aberrations, fey, plants, or dragons.

I did a count for another thread, and there are 85 Paizo-published CR 1 creatures of which only 34 are animals, magical beasts, humanoids or monstrous humanoids. As you level up, the proportion of animals on the list drops off sharply, while the number of outsiders and dragons rises. (Humanoids are a special case due to NPCs with class levels, but they're also unaffected by the Serpentine bloodline.)

Serpentine expands the usability of a bunch of spells, and I do think it's a viable and interesting option for an enchantment-focused character, but it doesn't come close to letting you affect "just about everything". You absolutely need a plan B.