So our party currently has some downtime, and we were given a hefty amount of money to spend during this time. I had thought of designing a custom spell based on a spell I saw in the Occult rulebook (I think the spell was called Analyze Aura). My character is a 7th-level Bard with one level in Pathfinder Chronicler, in case that makes any difference.
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Detect Emotions
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School: Divination (Mind-Affecting)
Level: Bard 2
Casting Time: 1 standard action
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Range: close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: one creature
Duration: 1 round/level
Saving Throw: Will partial
Spell Resistance: No
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Description: You peer into your target's mind, learning a general summary of their current emotional state, as well as its attitude towards you or any other creatures within 30 feet of it. For the duration of the spell and for 1 hour afterward, you gain a +4 circumstance bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate and Sense Motive checks you attempt against the target. A Will save negates the circumstance bonus, but does not stop you from learning the creature's emotional state and attitudes.
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Does that seem like a reasonable spell? Does it need a buff/nerf/whatever? Let me know your thoughts.
The analyze aura spell has several options, this one is quite similar to Emotion Aura.
The differences are (along with this spell only being one of a several choices for the other) are that the your bonuses are twice as high, and your spell has a save, while the other has none.
Given those things, I would say that this spell is pretty balanced against the other other, and I don't think the other one is bad, so I'd probably ok it. As a player, I don't think I would take this as one of my few bard spells known, but there are plenty of reasonable and published spells of which that is true of.
You didn't include the components. Verbal and Somatic seem about right to me.
You didn't include the components. Verbal and Somatic seem about right to me.
Damnit, I just knew I was forgetting something. Yeah, V/S makes sense.
Also, one more question, when I have my character design this spell, will it need to replace one of his spells that he already knows? Or will it just be added to his list of spells known?
The limited rules on research in the Core Rule Book are focusing on prepared, rather than spontaneous casters. I wouldn't limit it to only them, but creating a new spell essentially just means that the spell now 'exists' and you would still need to have it be one of your spells known if you want to cast it. Spell research should in no way give you more spells known.
The limited rules on research in the Core Rule Book are focusing on prepared, rather than spontaneous casters. I wouldn't limit it to only them, but creating a new spell essentially just means that the spell now 'exists' and you would still need to have it be one of your spells known if you want to cast it. Spell research should in no way give you more spells known.
Fair enough, I was actually thinking of swapping out Heroism for that anyway, as I now have Good Hope, and I'll be using that as my main "buff the party so they can kill things more" spell.
Just as a reference, my other 2nd-level spells are:
Glitterdust - "make things blind so they can't see well enough to hit me"
Sound Burst - Actually managed to use this to save our party a few sessions back from a pack of sinspawn that were chasing us
Invisibility - We have a rogue in the party, so I often like to play "make the rogue turn invisible so he can sneak up behind baddies and utterly murder them with a sneak attack"