Smokestick: This alchemically treated wooden stick instantly creates thick, opaque smoke when burned. The smoke fills a 10-foot cube (treat the effect as a fog cloud spell, except that a moderate or stronger wind dissipates the smoke in 1 round). The stick is consumed after 1 round, and the smoke dissipates naturally after 1 minute.
It would seem that you are right. And wrong. FAQ?
The Goz masks would solve the fog issue but don't really help ericpants's ifrit- well, they don't help him utilize Firesight, at any rate.
Man, even an Alchemist's Smoke Bombs are treated as fog cloud!
Sadly, the only easy way to get a smoke effect seems to be the Eversmoking Bottle, and at 5,400gp, it'll take a while before you can utilize it. Also, you get that darned smoke everywhere, as you've already noted. I don't have time to look into it right now, but I'll try to find another way to put some smoke down. I've been dreaming up my ifrit, too, and wanted to mold him around Firesight.
Any way to confine the smoke around an ifrit so that it's not obstructing the view of your entire party?
Or is there possibly another option for the use of firesight where using smoke/fire for concealment wont hinder the group?
Edit: Because someone is probably going to say it. Smokesticks are not actually smoke, but fog.
Is someone actually going to make the call that smokesticks are fog, and not smoke? That is... well, I would have choice words for anyone who wanted to make that call... and they wouldn't be pleasant words.
Use smokesticks.
Remy, I think that most home games will rule that all the "smoke" stuff that acts as fog cloud is smoke, rather than fog for determining if a Goz Mask sees through it or if Firesight sees through it.
That he's asking about an ifrit character, now, when they are the race boon being handed out for PFS events, indicates that this is probably for *PFS, and that kind of judgement call is a little beyone "use common sense," which is a rule in organized play.
*Assuming I'm right, ericpants didn't post on a PFS board, since he was asking for advice that wasn't necessarily PFS specific.
Even in PFS... it is smoke. It is called 'Smokestick". It makes numerous references to being 'smoke'...
There isn't any way to call it not... smoke.
I'm failing to grasp why Firesight could ever be interpreted to not work with a smokestick.
Firesight lets you see through smoke. Smokesticks make smoke. Someone with Firesight can see through the smoke that a smokestick makes.
What am I missing?
'Treating it like Fog Cloud' doesn't change what it is made of. To 'treat' something like another thing, it by definition isn't that other thing.
A smokestick isn't a fog cloud spell, the 'effect' of a smokestick "smoke fills a 10-foot cube" is 'treated as' a fog cloud spell. This is a quick and dirty way to give the #s, like concealment etc.
But smoke is smoke, no matter how you try to define it otherwise. The description calls it 'smoke' four times. Four times! (There are only 3 sentences… too. It calls it smoke more times than there are sentences in the description, and it is even in the freaking name of the item)