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Animal Archive version of Shield Companion
School abjuration; Level antipaladin 1, druid 1, paladin 1,
ranger 1, sorcerer/wizard 1, witch 1
Target your animal companion, familiar, or fiendish servant
This spell functions as shield other but affects only the caster’s
animal companion or familiar. Spellcasters from classes that do not
normally gain an animal companion, familiar, or fiendish servant
but who gain one through an alternate class feature, archetype, or
prestige class can prepare and cast this spell as a 1st-level spell if
they are capable of casting spells.
Advanced Class Guide version of Shield Companion
School abjuration; Level paladin 2, ranger 2, shaman 2,
sorcerer/wizard 3, summoner 3
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target your companion creature
Duration 1 hour/level (D)
Saving Throw Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance
yes (harmless)
This spell creates a special mystical connection between
you and your companion creature—animal companion,
bonded mount, eidolon, or familiar—which allows you
to transfer its wounds to you. The creature gains a +1
deflection bonus to AC and a +1 resistance bonus on saves.
As an immediate action when your companion takes
damage, you can take that damage yourself to prevent
your companion from being harmed (similar to shield
other, except the damage is not split between you and the
target). Forms of harm that do not involve the loss of hit
points, such as charm effects, temporary ability damage,
level drain, and death effects, are not affected. If the
creature suffers a reduction of hit points from a lowered
Constitution score, you cannot take that damage on behalf
of your companion creature because it is not hit point
damage. When the spell ends, damage directed to you by
the spell is not reassigned to the subject.
If you and your companion move out of range of each
other, the spell ends.
Same name. Similar spell but some differences in caster level and function.
Animal Archive ADR entry: Spells: all spells on pages 24-25 are legal;Advanced Class Guide ADR entry: Spells: all spells on pages 162-199 are legal for play.
No mention of the spell in campaign clarifications or the FAQ for Advanced Class Guide.
So I took the Animal Archive version for my Lunar Oracle. The Advanced Class Guide version is in my mind worse but also doesn't have Cleric as an option.
Last night I used the Animal Archive version of the spell on my Tiger and the GM had never heard of it. After a heated discussion he declared that since the Advanced Class Guide version of the spell came out after the Animal Archive version that the Animal Archive version wasn't legal.
That new always superseded old.
While it would be nice if a dev could comment on this I do feel that whichever way the ruling goes it needs some comment somewhere explicitly mentioning that both versions of the spell with the same name are legal or that one of them is not.
Exactly what the Campaign Clarification document is for.
I'm not sure why this was moved to the rules forum, as there doesn't seem to be any real rules question to be addressed. The two spells are quite different, and fairly clearly should have different names, and the fact that they both have the same name was probably an oversite. If the two spells were 'Companion Shield' and 'Shield Companion' there would be no particular issue.
There isn't any general rule for how to evaluate two very different things with the same name, other than the obvious one of treating them as different things.
In a home game, a GM would have to determine if he was going to allow both versions or not, but for PFS that is the job of the campaign clarification document and, assuming both versions are allowed, since this is indeed likely to cause confusion it would probably be useful to at least mention somewhere that the spells although sharing a name, are in fact different spells. Long term it would of course behoove Paizo to rename one or the other.
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Yep, this is PFS specific.
GM was quite simply mistaken.
There is no general rule that new supercedes old.
Both versions are explicitly legal as per additional resources document.
There is absolutely no need for a campaign clarification.
This kind of mistake is relatively easy to make for a GM though, so a quiet word pointing out the additional resources should be sufficient for next time. If the GM persists asking politely where the 'new supercedes old' rule is, or refer upwards to a venture bod.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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In just about every other game I can think of, a newer publication with the same item would supersede the text in an older publication. In particular, that's the case in Magic: the Gathering, which is admirable for it's rigorous approach to rules and game design.
But it doesn't work that way in PFS. It can't.
Those other games aren't selling access to their rules texts, they're selling playing cards. You can look up the authoritative, most recent text of any Magic card on Gatherer. But to play the card in a tournament, you have to own the card. Any old printing will do, but you use the text from the newest printing.
PFS is different. When we buy a book to use as Additional Resources, we're basically buying information. The right to look up something and point to it and say "I'm using that".
If a book is a legal source for something according to Additional Resources, then you can use the text as printed there. Unless changed by Clarifications (free access), errata (free access), FAQ (free access), Guide (free access) or PFS Leadership forum/blog post (free access).
If it's reprinted in a different book, with changes, you're not automatically allowed to use the text in the new book. Because maybe you don't own the new book, and then per the rules for Additional Resources you can't use it. But your old book is still legal per Additional Resources, so you could still use the version in the old book.
Now then, what if you did own both books? You could use either. It's not reasonable for Paizo to force a worse deal on people who buy more books after all.