Planar Travel

[Zapp]

I'm generally wondering which, if any, options Pathfinder 2 offers for planar travel at not-very-high levels?

In my case, the players have befriended a Djinn who - long story short - ended up in their home town.

One player came up with the clever suggestion to use Banishment as a relatively quick and painless one-way ticket home.

And so I am looking for creatures that their allies might talk to, on their behalf.

Problem is, even though Banishment is a level 5 spell, there are very few Bestiary critters of around level 10 that know the spell.

(The party itself is only fifth level, but they do know a couple of power brokers with friends of roughly double that level)

And another thing: Banishment only works away from your home plane - so a planar ally (or similar) can't banish anyone from the Material Plane anyway!

Before I massage these constrains, are there any other canon approaches to use? I'm not experienced in Pathfinder lore. For example, had this been on Forgotten Realms I would have known there are plenty of portals strewn around (not that this helps with planar travel, but still). Are there some kind of permanent gates on Golarion?

The djinn is an efreet from the Golarion-equivalent of City of Brass, if that helps.

[tonyz]

A 9th level spellcaster could cast banishment - it’s in all four traditions. If they know someone who knows someone... problem solved. You could always make a short side quest of it, or just rule that the local high priest would be happy to help, depending on how much effort you want the PCs to put into it.

But djinn can plane shift as an innate spell! Why does he need the players’ help to get home?

[Zapp]

tonyz wrote:

But djinn can plane shift as an innate spell! Why does he need the players’ help to get home?

Sorry I meant the genie race, not the relatively high level specific creature.

(Specifically, an ifrit inhabiting a human body. Even more specifically, a living wildfire. Not someone who can switch planes by herself)

[steelhead]

There are portals in Golarion to other planes. The elf gates are just one example of those. I'm not at home to do a search for portals. Are you trying to get the players to travel back to the genie's home plane or the city specifically?

[Zapp]

In the simplest form, they just want to buy her a one-way ticket home. She's been burning down their city while dreaming (while she's a happy-go-lucky party gal while awake, her "hateful and merciless" Efreeti nature manifests as a subconscious arsonist* "ghost"), so they want to get rid of her in a way that doesn't force them to kill her.

*) I imagine arson isn't a crime in a city where nothing can be set on fire or where everything's already on fire :)

So one player came up with the suggestion: wouldn't Banish plop her back to her city? Sure, the spell is usually used against hostile demons or whatever. But in this case, the spell effects could be exactly what everybody wants.

And indeed it would - the spell says she would be deposited at (or close enough to) the last place on the plane in question she visited.

Crucially, no planar gates or tuning forks or anything unavailable to 5th level heroes would be needed.

The old 3rd Edition Dismissal spell should be an alternative, if available in PF2, because it crucially lacks any "must be cast on caster's home plane" language.

[Captain Morgan]

tonyz wrote:

A 9th level spellcaster could cast banishment - it’s in all four traditions. If they know someone who knows someone... problem solved. You could always make a short side quest of it, or just rule that the local high priest would be happy to help, depending on how much effort you want the PCs to put into it.

The answer was in the first post. Not sure why it hasn't been acknowledged, but you don't need 3x content or to comb through the bestiary.

[Zapp]

Captain Morgan wrote:

The answer was in the first post. Not sure why it hasn't been acknowledged, but you don't need 3x content or to comb through the bestiary.

ONE answer was in the first post.

If that is all you have, then well... that I kept discussing should have been a clue. Basically, it's not ideal for my story to procure a level 9 NPC caster.

If, on the other hand, what you're saying is it is the ONLY solution, then I thank you for saving me the trouble of looking through all the books. And now that I know there isn't a fully RAW solution, I will probably tweak the rules to allow a creature that does work well with the story to cast a version of Dismiss/Banish that works. (Probably as a ritual)

Cheers

[Captain Morgan]

Zapp wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

The answer was in the first post. Not sure why it hasn't been acknowledged, but you don't need 3x content or to comb through the bestiary.

ONE answer was in the first post.

If that is all you have, then well... that I kept discussing should have been a clue. Basically, it's not ideal for my story to procure a level 9 NPC caster.

If, on the other hand, what you're saying is it is the ONLY solution, then I thank you for saving me the trouble of looking through all the books. And now that I know there isn't a fully RAW solution, I will probably tweak the rules to allow a creature that does work well with the story to cast a version of Dismiss/Banish that works. (Probably as a ritual)

Cheers

If you're intent on finding something with Banish as a spell, just search Archive of Nethys.

http://2e.aonprd.com/Search.aspx?query=banish

There doesn't seem to be anything, so yeah, just making up an appropriate monster up is fine. Or make an appropriate monster an NPC caster. Monsters can become casters too. See Gug Savants, for example. A dragon could learn it as well-- the spells listed in the bestiary is just a suggested loadout. Any dragon you want to feel unique should have a unique spell list.

[Zapp]

I have already text-searched the pdf rulebook, and the spell is "Banishment" (and there are a few monsters being able to cast it), but yeah. I'll have a CR 9+ monster be able to cast a version of it.

What I needed the collective wisdom for was more on "Golarion lore"; i.e. if there were any special story or tradition considerations I should keep in mind. (Such as the aforementioned proliferation of portals in the Realms)