How to use the Material Manipulator Mesmerist's Revision ability


Advice


The Material Manipulator archetype for the Mesmerist adds Wizard transmutation spells to his spell list, and also gets the powerful, long, and yet vague Revision ability.

Revision (Su):
At 3rd level, a material manipulator can revise a creature’s body to change its appearance. He can use revision a number of times per day equal to 3 + his Charisma modifier. Using revision is a standard action (or a swift action if the material manipulator uses it on himself ), and the material manipulator must be able to touch his target. An unwilling target must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC = 10 + half the material manipulator’s mesmerist level + his Charisma modifier) to negate the effect.

At 3rd level, the material manipulator can adjust the target’s height and weight, increasing it or decreasing it to any height or weight within the standard range for creatures of the target’s type and size category (Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 169). At 6th level, he can adjust the target’s gender, physical traits (such as nose size, fingernail length, and foot shape), and pigmentation (including eye, hair, and skin color) to any natural variation for creatures of the target’s type (and heritage, if applicable). At 10th level, he can adjust the target’s age, rewinding the target’s age to as young as a young adult (approximately 8 years old for a human) or progressing it to as old as venerable. This causes the target to gain aging bonuses and penalties and adjust its size as appropriate for its new age, but doesn’t confer any other benefits gained from aging (such as additional racial Hit Dice, supernatural abilities, and so on). At 14th level, he can adjust the target’s type or subtype, as per polymorph. At 20th level, he can instead adjust the target’s type as per greater polymorph. This ability is a polymorph effect, and the subject of a revision cannot end the effect early by any means unless the material manipulator permits it. The material manipulator can stack multiple adjustments from this ability into the same polymorph effect—for instance, a 14th-level material manipulator can adjust himself into an orc, reduce his age to that of a young adult, give himself large feet and a bulbous nose, and change his gender.

This effect lasts for 10 minutes per mesmerist level. At 10th level, the effect lasts for 1 hour per mesmerist level, or 1 minute per level if he uses it as polymorph. At 20th level, the effect lasts indefinitely, or 10 minutes per mesmerist level if the material manipulator uses it as greater polymorph and causes the target to assume a form with a different type than its true form. The mesmerist can dismiss this effect as a free action.

Clothing and equipment worn by the target is not affected by this effect—gear does not resize to suit the wearer’s new form, nor does it merge into her body. Gear unable to be worn or wielded as a result of this effect falls to the ground in the wearer’s space.

This ability replaces touch treatment and rule minds.

Ok, what can we use this for?

At 3rd level you can only change height and weight. While this may seem purely cosmetic, a GM allowing a certain amount of realism would let you use this to strip non-magical armor off an enemy (after a touch attack and Fort save) by making them maximally fat and tall/short as appropriate; see the bolded last paragraph. Out of combat you can maybe help with some disguises and sell some (very short-lived) cosmetic diet services.

At 6th level you can now switch genders plus do more cosmetic things. Again, with a permissive GM an in-combat gender swap might be helpful as part of demanding a creature's surrender ("throw down your weapon or you'll never be cured of this curse!") or some circumstance penalties to an enemy discombobulated by the change. But it's more of a reach. Out of combat you're more able to sell useful cosmetic services to rich people, but they still don't last very long until...

10th level rolls round and you have hours of duration. Oh, and you can rewind age, which means at 10th level a party of four can never die from age. A 24 Charisma mesmerist has 10 uses at 10 hours per day, a party of four only lives/ages 96 hours a day. If you're willing to permit some slow natural aging you can use this in combat occasionally to apply some aging penalties instead. Sucks to get the Young template or venerable aging penalties.

14th level is where this gets even more special, if poorly written. I believe the intent is that you simply apply the (14+ minutes per use) effect as the Polymorph spell, rather than actually change type, which no other magic in Pathfinder can do. Since you drop all your gear, this isn't that great as an offensive PC use. Alter Self for a size/vision bonus isn't too bad (and works with your gear), plus you can modify a familiar or animal companion into an Air Elemental or appropriate Beast Shape II form to engage in more effective scouting or combat. And of course Beast Shape II has plenty of Tiny animal shapes for offensive uses against weak Fort enemies who lack useful SLAs. Then you pick up their gear.

Oh, my that capstone. You can sell permanent (unless you choose to dismiss it) youth, a race/sex change, and a beautiful new appearance 3+Cha modifier times a day. Yes, they'll age again, which means they'll just pay you again down the road. (Or they'll Dominate you and keep you as their plaything; be careful!) The extra Greater Polymorph options are almost beside the point, but you can turn a bunch of minions into large Elementals or medium Dragons if you want. Leadership + 150 low level followers converted over a few weeks by Form of the Dragon I and released on a coordinated rampage to release their breath weapons before you turn them all back to their normal forms is a pretty hilarious image.

What other shenanigans can people think of for this ability?


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I think a lot of the earlier stuff is meant to handle things that are implied by the disguise skill.

Under the modifiers for disguise, the check faces a -2 for gender (level 6), a -2 for race (level 14 with the subtype stuff?), and a -2 for age category (level 10).

However, there is also a +5 for "minor details only". I suspect that this might include height at level 3 and all the junk at level 6.

But this means that it is still rather poorly written. It LOOKS like random fluff, and takes my active interpretation in order to get it to have a mechanical effect. If it is supposed to have such an effect, then it should have said so- the only reason why I think it should ahve effect is the obvious question 'then why bother giving us that ability?'.

So, if this is how it works, then you might get a +11 to disguise (maybe +21 because it is a polymorph effect that gets a +10? Even if that is true, should those even stack?)

Liberty's Edge

I was looking up how to use the spell list expansion, and found only this thread. In case someone else ever finds it I leave a half-hour's work comparing 0th- and 1st-level sor/wiz spells from the PRD's index with the mesmerist spell list on AON:

Quote:

0th

mending

1st
alchemical tinkering (ratfolk)
alter winds
ant haul
body capacitance
bouncy body (goblin)
break
crafter's curse
crafter's fortune
damp powder
dancing lantern
endothermic touch (lizardfolk)
enlarge person
erase
expeditious excavation
fabricate bullets
feather fall
gravity bow
jump
jury-rig
liberating command
long arm
longshot
magic weapon
marid's mastery (undine)
mirror polish
mirror strike
monkey fish
negative reaction
reduce person
refine improvised weapon
reinforce armaments
shadow weapon
snapdragon fireworks
stone fist
strong wings (strix)
sundering shards
touch of the sea
unerring weapon
urban grace (half-elf)
weaken powder
windy escape (sylph)
youthful apperance

Some good gets in there - mending, enlarge/reduce person, liberating command, feather fall, gravity bow, ant haul, depending on what your group composition is and your own build.


It may be easier to use a spreadsheet if you want to make comparisons faster than half an hour per spell level.

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