Keep watch spell and its implications

[Tierre]

The spell description says:
"This spell enables the subjects to stand watch or keep vigil throughout the night without any ill effects.

The subjects suffer no fatigue and gain all the usual benefits of a full night's rest.

The subjects gain hit points as though from resting, wizards may prepare their spells as though they had slept for 8 hours, and so on. Effects that rely on actual sleep or dreaming are ineffective, though the subjects are still susceptible to effects that would put them to sleep, such as sleep or deep slumber. Any vigorous activity, including fighting, immediately ends the effect, and the affected creatures must either have the spell cast on them again or sleep for the remaining hours to avoid fatigue and gain the benefits of a full night's rest."

This is from D20PFSRD.COM

Also it targets "one creature touched/2 levels"

So questions are as follows:
1) Is it 1 creature at 1st level and 2 at 4th or 0 at 1st and 1 at 2nd?

2) My wizard can never sleep again at the cost of 1 1st level spell which actually replenishes after sleep? Cool, gimme two of that:)

3) A fighter can "rest" in heavy armor and never sleep for the cost of 1st level wand (50 days at least)? Which also includes the fact that wizard will be able to cast it on more people in time.

4) Can wizard craft scrolls at night? It is not a "vigorous activity". Maybe even craft wondrous items and brew potions? I don't see anything in spell description stopping me. Also he can write spells in the spellbook and learn new spells from scrolls for all night. The best spell for your wizard:)

5)Can a player use craft skills at night? Tanning a hide is not that vigorous and gemcutting is not vigorous at all. Or craft alchemy.

Those are the things i want to know and then i will rise another question - can i make it permanent?:) Because it is so good that i will make an item with 1/day use anyway.

[Are]

1. It's technically 0 at 1st level, 1 at 2nd level, and 2 at 4th level. It should have said "one creature touched/2 levels (minimum 1)" to work on one target at level 1.

However, since the spell is a 1st-level spell, I would assume the intent is that it should actually work even at CL 1.

2-3. Apparently so.

4-5. You'll have to stand watch or keep vigil throughout the night, though, so there's no option to do other things like crafting. That's how I'd run the spell, anyway. It would be far too good for 1st level if it were to allow an extra 8 hours of regular activity.

[Tierre]

Yes, but why not make a crafting vigil?:)

[Tierre]

Ok nobody wants to commnet more on this, so i will ask some more. What is considered keep watch and stand vigil? Do you only go around tha campsite and look around or can you for example repair your boots while others sleep? Or read a spell from the scroll? Or make a potion brewing vigil:)

[Drachasor]

Crafting would probably be ok if you weren't working hard at it. I think making magical items is probably a mentally vigorous activity.

What counts as "vigorous" activity is up to the DM though. As well as whether "This spell enables the subjects to stand watch or keep vigil throughout the night without any ill effects" means you can only keep watch/vigil. I don't think it does given the vigorous activity statement, which seems to put a more extreme limit on things.

Overall a Ring of Sustenance definitely gives you more options, though it costs a little bit of money.

[Claxon]

I wouldn't allow the user to craft any sort of magical item. I might allow crafting of mundane things (because they're irrelevant after a few levels), but extra crafting magical would upset balance.

Ultimately its up to your DM and what they think is appropriate. The spell isn't even a core spell, so many DMs wouldn't allow it in the first place.

[Seraphimpunk]

"lesser restoration" will already alleviate most of the downside of a long night of keeping watch.
2nd level spell for most, but 1st level spell for guys like rangers and paladins.

it removes the fatigued condition.
no stipulation on for how long, just : removes the fatigued condition, as one of its possible uses.

1st level spell to let you ignore it only for standing watch doesn't seem egregiously broken.

[FrodoOf9Fingers]

You can already craft and keep watch. That's mentioned in the creating magical items section. So why not be able to use this spell and craft items? Heck, in the movie avatar, the main character literally crafts a spear and keeps watch :). If you did do crafting though, it would only be half effective in my games since your attention is split

[Tierre]

Well i guess it's really ok to give them 25% penalty on mundane crafting and 50% penalty on magical. And any activity like reading scrolls or writing spells to spellbook would be twice longer and you will get -2/-4 to your perception while you're at it. But then all the party is up full night and 4 checks will alleviate this penalty:) And all of them will do something useful.

[Shinoskay]

Hello. So I just had a situation where I was looking at keep watch.

I tried looking around for it but cant find it. once someone showed me thing where you can do light crafting like alchemy while under the effects of keep watch but my current gm is of the notion the spell means to only 'keep watch' and doesnt even permit movement from the camp site.

anyone have any faq entries or anything about this spell?

[CMantle]

Shinoskay wrote:

my current gm is of the notion the spell means to only 'keep watch' and doesnt even permit movement from the camp site.

He's being needlessly overbearing. He's reading flavor text and narrowing the use of the spell down to the flavor text. "Enables the subjects to stand watch or keep vigil throughout the night without any ill effects..." does not restrict the subject to doing only that, in fact, this isn't even the benefit of the spell. The benefit of the spell is: "The subjects suffer no fatigue and gain all the usual benefits of a full night’s rest. The subjects gain hit points as though from resting, wizards may prepare their spells as though they had slept for 8 hours, and so on..."

and the *only* restriction on how you do not gain this benefit is here: "Any vigorous activity, including fighting, immediately ends the effect"

TL:DR? It doesnt matter what you choose to do over the night, as long as you do not engage in 'vigorous activity' (left up to GM discretion) you gain the bonus of Keep Watch. The rest is just flavor text

[Coidzor]

Is he overly and narrowly literal about everything or most things?

If not, you'll probably have to work at communicating with him to find out what about the spell upsets or offends him before you can determine if persuasion is possible or worth the time and effort that would have to be invested.

Making sure that the issue isn't due to some personal grievance or issue that the GM has with you would also be good as part of covering your bases. Ditto for some kind of beef they have with you on behalf of someone else.