Okay, the Occultist has been a regular rules nightmare for me, but there's still one thing I can't figure out, and it's mainly due to lack of editing in Occult Adventures. There should really have been some clear line breaks to separate certain abilities, especially the Psychic Curse:
As a standard action, you can expend 1 point of mental focus to curse a living creature within 30 feet with your psychic magic. You can choose one of the following effects: memory lapse, mental block, or pain confusion. If you choose memory lapse, the target loses its memory of the past 1 hour per occultist level you possess. If you choose mental block, you can proscribe one specific action, such as attacking with a type of weapon, casting a specific spell, or something else suitably specific (subject to the GM’s discretion). The target can’t take that action without first succeeding at a Will save. If it fails, it can take other actions instead. If it attempts the prohibited action again on subsequent rounds, it gains a cumulative +2 bonus on the save until it succeeds. If you select pain confusion, the creature is confused for 1d4 rounds whenever it is damaged by a critical hit. The target can attempt a Will save to negate this effect. This effect lasts for 1 day per occultist level you possess. A creature can’t be under the effects of more than one psychic curse at a time. This is a mind-affecting curseUM effect. You must be at least 5th level to select this focus power.
The thing I'm interested in is where (if at all) to place the line break around the line about the Will save and its duration. The way it's written now, it could be interpreted as applying to all options, or just applying to the last option. I'll give an example of what I mean:
Option one:
As a standard action, you can expend 1 point of mental focus to curse a living creature within 30 feet with your psychic magic. You can choose one of the following effects: memory lapse, mental block, or pain confusion.
If you choose memory lapse, the target loses its memory of the past 1 hour per occultist level you possess.
If you choose mental block, you can proscribe one specific action, such as attacking with a type of weapon, casting a specific spell, or something else suitably specific (subject to the GM’s discretion). The target can’t take that action without first succeeding at a Will save. If it fails, it can take other actions instead. If it attempts the prohibited action again on subsequent rounds, it gains a cumulative +2 bonus on the save until it succeeds.
If you select pain confusion, the creature is confused for 1d4 rounds whenever it is damaged by a critical hit. The target can attempt a Will save to negate this effect. This effect lasts for 1 day per occultist level you possess. A creature can’t be under the effects of more than one psychic curse at a time. This is a mind-affecting curseUM effect. You must be at least 5th level to select this focus power.
Option 2:
As a standard action, you can expend 1 point of mental focus to curse a living creature within 30 feet with your psychic magic. You can choose one of the following effects: memory lapse, mental block, or pain confusion.
If you choose memory lapse, the target loses its memory of the past 1 hour per occultist level you possess.
If you choose mental block, you can proscribe one specific action, such as attacking with a type of weapon, casting a specific spell, or something else suitably specific (subject to the GM’s discretion). The target can’t take that action without first succeeding at a Will save. If it fails, it can take other actions instead. If it attempts the prohibited action again on subsequent rounds, it gains a cumulative +2 bonus on the save until it succeeds.
If you select pain confusion, the creature is confused for 1d4 rounds whenever it is damaged by a critical hit.
The target can attempt a Will save to negate this effect. This effect lasts for 1 day per occultist level you possess. A creature can’t be under the effects of more than one psychic curse at a time. This is a mind-affecting curseUM effect. You must be at least 5th level to select this focus power.
The placement of the Will save is important here, as the rest of the paragraph hinges on it as well (though maybe there should be an extra line break, as descriptions of effect types usually are on their own line). In option 1, it just applies to the pain confusion, meaning the other curses don't require a save. Which is powerful, granted (Witch hexes also get saves), but the first one is situational, and the second one has a built-in timer. Option 2 means it applies to everything, which is annoying on several levels: For memory lapse, it'd mean that the memory would return after a day. I'm not sure if that's intended or not, but not my main issue. My main problem with it is the mental block, since it already states it gets saves to get rid of it. If the Will save applies to this as well, enemies get two separate saves for the same effect: once when it is used, and as soon as his turn starts to determine what it can do. Meaning you expend resources, while the opponent gets two chances to get rid of it. Compare to Glitterdust or Hold Person, where targets do get a save, but only at the end of their turn. It could very well be possible enemies fail their first save but make their second, and still get to act their turn as normal.
Another case: For memory lapse, the duration is pretty vague: the last hour is gone. Maybe it's permanent, maybe it's for a day, that's unclear. In that case, the restriction of the 24-hour timer would be good to know. But for Mental Block, it's assumed people will snap out of it eventually, as the DC becomes easier every time you fail it. But pain confusion doesn't have a built-in timer, so it could mean the Will save and the reference to the duration only apply to that part.
Then again, it says you can only be under the effect of one curse at a time. If option 1 is the correct way of interpreting this, there'd be no sense in stating it, as it would only apply to the crit effect.
The more I think about it, the more I realise it must be option 2, but that'd negate most of the mental block ability.
TL;DR: Where should the line breaks be, if any? Do people roll twice for mental block curses? If so, I think that's a pretty weak ability.
I read the Mental Block effect as 'resetting', rather than terminating, when they made the save.
To offer a scenario such as:
Round 1 - Try to do forbidden action. Attempt Will save, fail, have to do something else.
Round 2 - Try to do forbidden action. Attempt Will save with +2 bonus, succeed, get to do that action.
Round 3 - Try to do forbidden action. Attempt Will save with +0 bonus, as the cumulative bonus ended the moment an action went through.