|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Alright, already have read people asking about False Focus on here (found in Inner Sea Magic). Now I am having issues with it and a caster with Symbol of Mirroring. Basically using the Focus it can bypass the 100gp cost of the spell, and make a large, unlimited number of them during downtime for the party. Does this seem fair? If not any ideas how to curb it or make it more balanced?
Symbol of Mirroring references Symbol of Death for how it functions (AoE burst centered on the symbol, must remain near symbol for images to remain active, etc). The images only remain for 1 round/cl after leaving the area anyway so, even with CL of 114 through various benefits (highest cited claim I've seen for CL), you're looking at a max of 11 minutes and change before the image(s) wear off anyway.
HOW-
WHERE-
WHAT-
I DONT EVEN
This is a weird spell, but it sounds like it creates the benefit of the spell for friends AND enemies, i.e. anyone within 60' of the symbol.
If this is for a home game, I would be inclined to rule as a GM that according to RAI "surface" refers to a wall, floor, or other part of an immobile structure, and the player couldn't just spam symbols unless they are leaving them behind. I'm pretty sure they aren't supposed to be portable.
Peet
What Peet said about the having an effect on everyone.
Personally I like false focus but it's hardly something I use on every character.
Reading the spell and symbol of death as well it seems like this trick comes with quite a few problems
For eksample "To be effective, a symbol of death must always be placed in plain sight and in a prominent location."
"This spell functions as symbol of death, except it instead creates one illusory duplicate of each creature within 60 feet of the symbol."
"As a default, a symbol of death is triggered whenever a creature does one or more of the following, as you select: looks at the rune; reads the rune; touches the rune; passes over the rune; or passes through a portal bearing the rune. "
So it need to be visible it need to activate and it need to be activatet before the bad guys close in or they Will benefit as well.
I am not a Big fan of false focus because it is a mechanic that begås to be exploitet but this one is ok i Think.
|
|
Thanks for the responses. Some retorts to the above though.
As per Symbol of Death: "You also can attune any number of creatures to the symbol of death, but doing this can extend the casting time. Attuning one or two creatures takes negligible time, and attuning a small group (as
many as 10 creatures) extends the casting time to 1 hour. Attuning
a large group (as many as 25 creatures) takes 24 hours." Which means you can attune a PC party in one hour, and won't effect enemies. So basically with one day or two of downtime, with it being free, you could easily make a huge number of Symbols of Mirroring for the future.
For default visibility, all you need to do is scribe it on a spear head or staff, amulet, or cloak easily.
In terms of timing, it's mainly only being used in a dungeon or combat situations, and the member has to move beyond 60 ft. for it to start ticking down. Most parties don't spread out like that ever.
However I do like what Peet said, in terms of it supposed to be on a "surface", that it should be a wall, floor, and other pat of immobile surface.
Thanks for the responses. Some retorts to the above though.
As per Symbol of Death: "You also can attune any number of creatures to the symbol of death, but doing this can extend the casting time. Attuning one or two creatures takes negligible time, and attuning a small group (as
many as 10 creatures) extends the casting time to 1 hour. Attuning
a large group (as many as 25 creatures) takes 24 hours." Which means you can attune a PC party in one hour, and won't effect enemies. So basically with one day or two of downtime, with it being free, you could easily make a huge number of Symbols of Mirroring for the future.
For default visibility, all you need to do is scribe it on a spear head or staff, amulet, or cloak easily.
In terms of timing, it's mainly only being used in a dungeon or combat situations, and the member has to move beyond 60 ft. for it to start ticking down. Most parties don't spread out like that ever.
However I do like what Peet said, in terms of it supposed to be on a "surface", that it should be a wall, floor, and other pat of immobile surface.
I think you have that backwards... attuning makes it so they don't activate/aren't effected by the symbol.
So, sure: If your party wanted they could exclude themselves from the beneficial effects of this spell.
"This dungeon isn't hard enough... Quickly Debbie... I mean Darkstar! Uncover your glyph of increase difficulty level and lets buff our foes!"
Symbol of Mirroring references Symbol of Death for how it functions (AoE burst centered on the symbol, must remain near symbol for images to remain active, etc). The images only remain for 1 round/cl after leaving the area anyway so, even with CL of 114 through various benefits (highest cited claim I've seen for CL), you're looking at a max of 11 minutes and change before the image(s) wear off anyway.
sorry to necro the topic, but seriously: how in the world could one manage to jack up their CL that high, and is it across the board or only in a specific situation or on a specific spell (like abusing spell perfection's feat-bonus-doubling ability)?
i'm assuming it's the latter, but in the case of the former i'd be worried about the state of the game itself.
Symbol of Mirroring references Symbol of Death for how it functions (AoE burst centered on the symbol, must remain near symbol for images to remain active, etc). The images only remain for 1 round/cl after leaving the area anyway so, even with CL of 114 through various benefits (highest cited claim I've seen for CL), you're looking at a max of 11 minutes and change before the image(s) wear off anyway.sorry to necro the topic, but seriously: how in the world could one manage to jack up their CL that high, and is it across the board or only in a specific situation or on a specific spell (like abusing spell perfection's feat-bonus-doubling ability)?
i'm assuming it's the latter, but in the case of the former i'd be worried about the state of the game itself.
Easiest way is through the coven hex, or similar ability to aid caster level. There was a thread recently about it which pretty much broke that small caster level of 114, heck I can get upwards of 300 without much effort.
could you point me to that thread (my searching seems to yield nothing) if you've got a link handy? you dont have to go hunting if you dont though, i can keep looking.
personally the best i can squeeze out on a single character is in the mid-thirties (and with lots of effort). it'd take a lot of people even with that CL to hit more than 300.
Well, if you can get a witch allied with a hag, get your GM to okay leadership, and get a bunch of level one witch followers, you could arrange them very carefully to get 108 witches close enough to give you a +1 to caster level. Assuming you're at level 20 with the Bloatmage Initiate feat, Varisian Tattoo feat, and the Orange Prism Ioun Stone, you should pretty easily be able to get your caster level to 131 for every spell of your chosen school. If you give them all the Allied Spellcaster feat, and they have all prepared the spell you're going to cast, you can boost your caster level for that spell by another 8 to 139.
That's assuming I understand all of that and have added it up correctly, which I may not have.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2r6pu?Challenge-Highest-caster-level#13
Here it is, sorry about it not being a pretty link I'm on my phone at work
Also note that it's pretty easy in theory to circumvent the extra bodies with simulacrums of yourself.
ah, so an incredibly specific setup(s).
i see they're also missing the circlet of the moon (-2 through +2 CL depending on the phase of the moon), bloatmage adept (+1 CL with soem drawbacks), and slotting an orange prism into a wayfinder not only keeps its base effect, but then applies a 1d4-2 bonus (meaning an overall bonus of -1 through +2 counting the base ioun stone bonus).
neat tricks though.
ah, so an incredibly specific setup(s).
i see they're also missing the circlet of the moon (-2 through +2 CL depending on the phase of the moon), bloatmage adept (+1 CL with soem drawbacks), and slotting an orange prism into a wayfinder not only keeps its base effect, but then applies a 1d4-2 bonus (meaning an overall bonus of -1 through +2 counting the base ioun stone bonus).
neat tricks though.
Specific to maximize gains yes but most can be gained by just having access. Such as an accursed sorcerer that just made simulacrums of himself would work just fine without anything extra.