"Centered on Giants"?


GM Discussion

4/5 5/5

On page 72 of the Giantslayer AP's first book, the "Centered on Giants" sidebar wrote:
The rules for many character options in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook and other Pathfinder RPG products often assume that creatures are Medium or Small. In the case of a handful of spells with areas that feature a “radius emanation centered on you” such as antimagic field, aura of doom, and zone of silence, as well as some of the spells presented in this section, this can result in an area that is effectively useless when coming from a Large or larger caster. As an optional rule (and one that is recommended if you are running this Adventure Path), when a creature casts an emanation or burst spell with the text “centered on you,” treat the creature’s entire space as the spell’s point of origin, and measure the spell’s area or effect from the edge of the creature’s space. For instance, an antimagic field cast by a fire giant would extend 10 feet beyond his space (effectively increasing the emanation’s radius by 5 feet).

As PFS GMs, could we/should we use this optional rule when running Large or larger spellcasters?

I ask for a very specific reason:
When running Eyes of the Ten, Part II, Chorkak's antilife shell is useless without making such an allowance.

5/5 *****

This was addressed in a FAQ HERE.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Well, you can't import optional rules from APs into PFS, but a very similar FAQ exists in the core rules:

FAQ wrote:

Big creatures and centered effects: If a Large or larger creature has up an effect “centered on you,” does that mean that sometimes the emanation doesn’t even affect the creature’s entire space, let alone anything else?

No, when such a creature uses an emanation or burst with the text “centered on you,” treat the creature’s entire space as the spell’s point of origin, and measure the spell’s area or effect from the edges of the creature’s space. For instance, an antimagic field cast by a great wyrm red dragon would extend 10 feet beyond her 30x30 foot space, for a total of a 50 foot diameter.

4/5 5/5

Thanks, andreww. I was certain a definitive answer was out there somewhere; I just wasn't searching in the right place and couldn't find it.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

The weird part about the FAQ is that it has to be "centered on you" - you wouldn't be able to apply this to Magic Circle Against Evil.

Note that the same language features in the Giantslayer optional rule, which is from roughly the same time of publication. And that one then lists Silence as an example, which not actually a spell "centered on you", but can be cast on a creature.

I think that gives you some room to make a GM call to treat all "cast on a [large] creature" spells the same way regardless of whether they're self-only spells.

4/5 5/5

What's strange to me is why that sidebar even exists in that AP (unless the FAQ was updated after the AP was published). That "optional rule" isn't really an optional rule anymore; it's now RAW, right?

4/5 5/5

Thanks, Lau.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

They probably scavenged the optional rule and recycled it as FAQ.

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