CL 20 SLA. Times per day = 10 - spell level. I can work with that.
It hasn’t been mentioned but I threw a lower-level spell (7th) into a higher level slot (8th).
0. Prestidigitation
1. Comprehend Languages
2. Fox’s Cunning
3. Tongues
4. Stoneskin
5. Telekinesis
6. Heal
7. Greater Teleport
8. Mage’s Magnificent Mansion
9. Time Stop
I'm also surprised not to see a lot of interest in spells like Seek Thoughts and Discern Lies, which could transform human relationships.That's why I went with detect thoughts. Also, with shadow enchantment, you can just drop a zone of truth. Or, hell, pop dominate person and order them to speak the truth. Though I am reticent to mess with dominate spells unless in dire straits. I stayed away from stuff like [Protection from Arrows} partly because I don't plan on getting shot at, but mostly because HP are an abstraction, so having DR 10 is a nebulous concept at best.
Zone of Truth appeals to me too, except that the subjects are aware of the effect and could pivot away from questions or simply not answer.
Suggestion might be a less ethically troubling spell than Dominate Person for compelling the truth.
Protection from Arrows can be cast on others, too. I understand what you mean about hit points being an abstraction. Since modern firearms can fell an elephant (93 hp) and shoot through 1/3 inch of cast iron (hardness 10, hp 10), DR 10 starts to sound less than impressive.
alternate divine emissary list:
0. Light
1. Comprehend Languages
2. Calm Emotions
3. Tongues
4. Restoration
5. Raise Dead
6. Heal
7. Regenerate
8. Greater Teleport
9. Miracle
0. Prestidigitation (yay, I am always clean)
1. Endure Elements (yay, I am always comfortable)
2. Locate Object (yay, I found my cell phone and/or wallet)
3. Tongues (yay, no more subs or dubs for me)
4. Bountiful Banquet (yay, I no longer need to worry about a basic human need for survival and it is delicious!)
5. Commune (yay, the mysterious powers just helped me derive the Powerball numbers and definitely removed awkward moments from my dating life)
6. Heal (yay, I am always in perfect health and no longer need to sleep)
7. Mage’s Magnificent Mansion (yay, I no longer have to worry about another basic human need and I live in comfort)
8. Resurrection (yay, live and death is meaningless to me)
9. Interplanetary Teleport (yay, I am anywhere I want to be with no risk of failure)
0 Prestidigitation: there's really nothing else as useful
1 Polypurpose Panacea: hello magical sleep aid
2 Silence: because I sure could use a nice quiet spot every so often
3 Create Food and Water: I never have to worry about starving, combined with presti' to take care of that bland taste bit
4 Greater Make Whole: in case make whole doesn't apply to modern-era tech
5 Fabricate, assuming it can be used to put together my 40k models :p
6 Heal: can't think of anything better for this level
7 Greater Teleport: never have to worry about the commute.
8 Polymorph Any Object: using this on myself, I should be able to stay in dragon form for 12 hours per cast, so all day if I want.
9 Shades: mimic any conjuration spell of 8th level or lower, including summon monster for all those juicy SLAs
0 Prestidigitation - no real need to explain
1 Polypurpose Panacea - for the same reason as Darigaaz
2 Greater Detect Magic - it might be important to know what the rest of you have done
3 Arcane Sight - it might be important to know what the rest of you are doing, when you're doing it
4 Plant Growth - for the garden
5 Awaken - so I can have intelligent conversations
6 Heal - staying alive sounds good
7 Greater Teleport - it's alway sunny and pleasant somewhere
8 Moment of Prescience - succeeding at everything should be handy
9 Shapechange - fun!
Here's what I would go for:
0th: Prestigitation (obviously)
1st: Polypurpose Panacea (sleep is for the weak)
2nd: Apport Object (All the convenience of never losing your cell phone with the added utility of minor teleportation!)
3rd: Fly (I would go with Overland Flight, but it lives in level 5 alongside Telekinesis....)
4th: Dimension Door (What can I say? It's teleportation)
5th: Telekinesis (Because it's the coolest power ever)
6th: Permanent Image (Because I want to, that's why.)
7th: Limited Wish (There's a ton of spells I would want to cast of lower levels on occasion that simply aren't common enough to warrant their own spell slot. Things like curing diseases, repairing my computer, creating magical houses/making my own food, and other events that could really benefit from magic, but just aren't that common.)
8th: Polymorph Any Object (Last I checked, technology was neither magical nor 'of great inherent value,' meaning I should be able to transform a pebble into a computer. Plus, you know, I can turn into a dragon and stuff.)
9th: Wish (This is for the big stuff that needs to get done and its little brother cant deal with. Stuff like long-range teleportation, raising the dead, curing fatal wounds, creating demiplanes, and similar stuff like that.)
|
I am surprised no one has gone with planar binding...Maybe because there isn't anything to bind?
You get these spells in real life, remember, and in real life there aren't alternate planes full of magical creatures waiting for you to call them. Planar binding just brings creatures to you, it doesn't create creatures that weren't there in the first place. Summoning spells should probably likewise be off the table, and even simulacrums (other than of yourself, of course) are iffy.
There could be. No one knows for sure. Science has yet to prove that either way (as far as I know anyways).
There could be. No one knows for sure. Science has yet to prove that either way (as far as I know anyways).I am surprised no one has gone with planar binding...Maybe because there isn't anything to bind?
You get these spells in real life, remember, and in real life there aren't alternate planes full of magical creatures waiting for you to call them. Planar binding just brings creatures to you, it doesn't create creatures that weren't there in the first place. Summoning spells should probably likewise be off the table, and even simulacrums (other than of yourself, of course) are iffy.
It is very, very difficult to prove something does not exist.
Amazing how many people chose lists without some heavy duty healing in them.
Heal and remove disease are extremely important spells and can serve as your source of income. (Plenty of rich people would pay huge sums for those spells.)
And Regenerate. What would insurance companies pay for new limbs?
Raise Dead (Resurrection, True Resurrection, etc...) is definitely a cash cow.
Restore Youth (from Advanced Arcana, Volume 2) would be the king of cash spells.
0th - Stabilize
A four year old boy falls off his bike, not wearing a helmet, and inside his brain an artery tears open. A father of two, driving home late at night, has an accident and his pelvis is crushed on impact, pinning him inside the wreck. A pregnant woman is the victim of domestic abuse, arriving in an emergency room as blood soaks the towel she holds between her legs.
This spell stops death. Keep your Prestidigitation.
1st - Diagnose Disease
Know your enemy. This is the foundation of victory. Save precious hours, prevent unnecessary suffering and invasive testing. Remove risk of misdiagnosis.
2nd - Delay Pain
If all you can give is mercy, give it to the best of your ability.
3rd - Accept Affliction
Because I could never look a mother in the eyes and say I sacrificed the power to save her child from death for a few minutes of flight per day.
4th - Reincarnate
The only way to cure old age.
5th - Raise Dead
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
6th - Heal
Even if it will never be enough.
7th - Regenerate
Missing limbs, missing organs, all restored in seconds.
8th - Greater Planar Ally
Because the world needs more angels.
9th - Miracle
When all else fails.
0th - Stabilize
A four year old boy falls off his bike, not wearing a helmet, and inside his brain an artery tears open. A father of two, driving home late at night, has an accident and his pelvis is crushed on impact, pinning him inside the wreck. A pregnant woman is the victim of domestic abuse, arriving in an emergency room as blood soaks the towel she holds between her legs.
This spell stops death. Keep your Prestidigitation.
1st - Diagnose Disease
Know your enemy. This is the foundation of victory. Save precious hours, prevent unnecessary suffering and invasive testing. Remove risk of misdiagnosis.
2nd - Delay Pain
If all you can give is mercy, give it to the best of your ability.
3rd - Accept Affliction
Because I could never look a mother in the eyes and say I sacrificed the power to save her child from death for a few minutes of flight per day.
4th - Reincarnate
The only way to cure old age.
5th - Raise Dead
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
6th - Heal
Even if it will never be enough.
7th - Regenerate
Missing limbs, missing organs, all restored in seconds.
8th - Greater Planar Ally
Because the world needs more angels.
9th - Miracle
When all else fails.
Heal will make Stabilize, Diagnose Disease, Delay Pain and Accept Affliction redundant. Heal will stabilize the target cure it's disease and remove whatever gives it pain. it will remove all conditions that accept affliction will transfer.
So 4 of your 9 spells are redundant with one of them. That's why people pick up fly and prestidigitation and similar.
Metamagic Spells allowed? Specifically to raise levels to avoid overlaps
Metamagic Spells allowed? Specifically to raise levels to avoid overlaps
I always get that should be a class feature for all casters.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I have no clue why anybody would pick unseen servant... When you could pick unseen crew!
I mean, think about it: You could have 1 invisible force do your chores, but it has to stay within 75 feet, can only preform 1 task at a time, and it only has 2 str...
OR you could have 10 invisible pirates doing your chores! They have a str of 10, and can wander 1,200 feet away- That should cover most residencies. You can lounge wherever you like in your house, and your invisible pirate butlers will clean your house, without you having to be within 75 feet.
Also, they can't fight... But they could most certainly help team lift a fallen tree out of the way, help out in a car crash, speed up grocery shopping exponentially... ext. ext.
|
Okay so my spell list is making the assumption that they're SLA and don't have costly components and the no one has more than 4 HD, not picking any of the spells that replicate lower level spells because that's cheating.
0th-Mage Hand
It's a really sweet quality of life spell that just feels so good. You get to be a jedi, how sweet is that.
1st-Feather Fall
So I don't have to worry about falling off things or people around me falling off things/ being crushed by stuff. Not something I ever hope to encounter but is something I wouldn't be able to forgive myself for if it did.
2nd-Gentle Repose
For when I want to go unnoticed by people, it's a really versatile spell the effectively lets me go through life unmolested. It wont work through cameras but it's still worth it.
3rd-Remove Disease
Now this may be a bit odd but in real life their is no such thing as death by old age, only death by disease. If we step away from pure game design for a moment and look at medical science, assuming this spell removes all diseases from the target it should cure everything from bacterial/viral infections and genetic disease to Alzheimer's, Parkinson's. Effectively this spell alone is the key to immortality, you'll still age but your body will never hit the point of sever atrophy as long as you make an effort to remain fit. Do that and with this spell short of violent death you'll live forever and not have to worry about your health. And on a personal level this spell can do so much good for people in the world, not only will it let you make a killing healing cancers and such from the wealthy but it can also be used to save lives, combined with Hidden Presence no one even needs to know you were there, sidestepping the unfortunate attention.
4th-Emergency force sphere
The number 1 spell to protect yourself and people around you from sudden violence. Seriously, this spell will save your life for however long you may live I cannot over state this.
5th-FeebleMind
There will come a time when you need to defend yourself, or when someone really really crosses a line. This spell provides a nonlethal but permanent way of removing people, crush the mind but leave the body whole.
6th-Geas
Lets you direct people into acting how you wish. As a SLA it only take a standard action, no save, nothing. Really, the implications this spell has is, disturbing but I would rather have it than not.
7th-Teleport, Greater
Travel,see the world! Also useful for throwing off pursers, with access to Google maps you have vision pretty much anywhere in the world and can go everywhere.
8th-Polymorph Any Object
Yeah, stay young forever? Done. Plastic surgey? Done. Turn that gun into an equal amount of paper clips? Done. Change harmful toxic waste/pollution into something more eco friendly. Convert basic materials into more rare and useful ones. Repopulate endangered species by turning housecats into tigers ect ect.
9th-Terraform
You expect to live on this planet for a long, long time. Having the ability to repair environmental damage from climate change will be the single, most, valuable tool in your arsenals. Being able to convert inhospitable dessert into a bread-bowl is nothing short of miraculous, live long enough to assist in terraforming Mars, litteraly. Repair polluted industrial wasteland, clean up dumps that you ploy-morphed into dirt, regrow rain-forest. Will it take time, yes but you'll live long enough to make an impact.
Restore Youth (from Advanced Arcana, Volume 2) would be the king of cash spells.
If only Paizo would print volumes of spells instead of having to rely on third party publishers.
0th - Stabilize
A four year old boy falls off his bike, not wearing a helmet, and inside his brain an artery tears open. A father of two, driving home late at night, has an accident and his pelvis is crushed on impact, pinning him inside the wreck. A pregnant woman is the victim of domestic abuse, arriving in an emergency room as blood soaks the towel she holds between her legs.
This spell stops death. Keep your Prestidigitation.
1st - Diagnose Disease
Know your enemy. This is the foundation of victory. Save precious hours, prevent unnecessary suffering and invasive testing. Remove risk of misdiagnosis.
2nd - Delay Pain
If all you can give is mercy, give it to the best of your ability.
3rd - Accept Affliction
Because I could never look a mother in the eyes and say I sacrificed the power to save her child from death for a few minutes of flight per day.
All handled by
6th - Heal
Even if it will never be enough.
4th - Reincarnate
The only way to cure old age.
5th - Raise Dead
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
7th - Regenerate
Missing limbs, missing organs, all restored in seconds.
Astral Projection from a secure location (demiplane) defeats both time and death. Regeneration is moot when your body can be recreated in seconds after a non-fatal injury.
9th - Miracle
When all else fails.
9th level spells cannot be duplicated with Miracle, and it is a 9th level spell that both stops the aging process and makes you unkillable.
5th-FeebleMind
There will come a time when you need to defend yourself, or when someone really really crosses a line. This spell provides a nonlethal but permanent way of removing people, crush the mind but leave the body whole.
As someone who has watched both his grandmother and great grandmother die from Alzheimer's, I would say this is a fate far crueler than death.
Both to the target and to their family and loved ones.
9th-Terraform
You expect to live on this planet for a long, long time. Having the ability to repair environmental damage from climate change will be the single, most, valuable tool in your arsenals. Being able to convert inhospitable dessert into a bread-bowl is nothing short of miraculous, live long enough to assist in terraforming Mars, litteraly. Repair polluted industrial wasteland, clean up dumps that you ploy-morphed into dirt, regrow rain-forest. Will it take time, yes but you'll live long enough to make an impact.
Given time and resources, Create Demiplane allows you to build a better world, literally.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
2nd-Gentle Repose
For when I want to go unnoticed by people, it's a really versatile spell the effectively lets me go through life unmolested. It wont work through cameras but it's still worth it.
Gentle Repose
Components V, S, M/DF (salt and a copper piece for each of the corpse's eyes)
Target corpse touched
You preserve the remains of a dead creature so that they do not decay. Doing so effectively extends the time limit on raising that creature from the dead (see raise dead). Days spent under the influence of this spell don't count against the time limit. Additionally, this spell makes transporting a slain (and thus decaying) comrade less unpleasant.
The spell also works on severed body parts and the like.
What the heck are you doing with your life that this would prevent people from hassling you?!?
Are you in some kind of Weekend at Bernie's situation?
Teleport without error. Free round-the-world travel, no lines, no waiting, and no carbon footprint!
No one down with invisibility?
All fun and games until you try to cross a street and get run over because a driver does not see you.
|
0th - Stabilize
A four year old boy falls off his bike, not wearing a helmet, and inside his brain an artery tears open. A father of two, driving home late at night, has an accident and his pelvis is crushed on impact, pinning him inside the wreck. A pregnant woman is the victim of domestic abuse, arriving in an emergency room as blood soaks the towel she holds between her legs.
This spell stops death. Keep your Prestidigitation.
No, it doesn't stop death. It stops a very ill defined specific form of death that doesn't translate well to the real world. It wouldn't do a thing to stop someone from bleeding to death, because stabilize doesn't stop bleeding. This is why I stayed away from spells that deal with abstractions like DR and HP, because the things the game is simulating don't correlate to the simulations.
1st - Diagnose Disease
Know your enemy. This is the foundation of victory. Save precious hours, prevent unnecessary suffering and invasive testing. Remove risk of misdiagnosis.
Are you a doctor? Because you're probably not going to have a whole lot of use for this if you aren't. Additionally, the way the spell is worded I don't know if it would work on things like autoimmune diseases or cancer, which are the two conditions that generally prove the hardest to nail down a diagnosis, nor would it work on genetic diseases or the like. As far as I'm aware, all Pathfinder diseases are infections or parasites. Again, it's getting into abstractions. Assuming it does work, you can diagnose a few people each day, I guess that's something.
2nd - Delay Pain
If all you can give is mercy, give it to the best of your ability.
We have stuff to deal with pain. You'd probably be better off with lesser restoration, soothing word, or even CMW.
3rd - Accept Affliction
Because I could never look a mother in the eyes and say I sacrificed the power to save her child from death for a few minutes of flight per day.
So, instead you'll condemn yourself to death? Because that's what accept affliction would do in that case. If you could cure the condition, just do that instead. And how would you choose between two mothers who have dying children? In any case, remove disease and remove blindness/deafness are the same level, you'd be better off with one of those. You could also pick up symbol of healing, make it permanent, then anyone who gets near it gets some love.
4th - Reincarnate
The only way to cure old age.
Yeah, but who do you give it to? You're not going to cast the spell 7 billion times, in the end you're going to be playing god. I don't like that very much.
5th - Raise Dead
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
Except raise Dead doesn't destroy death, it delays it (and significantly weakens those you use it one). Eventually they'll still die of old age (unless you deign to use your limited reincarnate resources on them), and each time they come back it saps them of their vitality.
6th - Heal
Even if it will never be enough.
7th - Regenerate
Missing limbs, missing organs, all restored in seconds.
Solid choices all.
8th - Greater Planar Ally
Because the world needs more angels.
The only wrinkle in this is whether or not you're able to pay the price.
9th - Miracle
When all else fails.
Yep
Give me suggestion, mass suggestion and a recliner and I'm good.
No, it doesn't stop death. It stops a very ill defined specific form of death that doesn't translate well to the real world. It wouldn't do a thing to stop someone from bleeding to death, because stabilize doesn't stop bleeding. This is why I stayed away from spells that deal with abstractions like DR and HP, because the things the game is simulating don't correlate to the simulations.
I don't care if it doesn't stop someone bleeding to death from a severed artery. I don't care if it doesn't stop them from dying of blood poisoning. Because at the end of the day, nothing else I could choose has the potential to save more lives than this spell, and if I only get one choice, I'm gonna take the one that at least gives someone a chance at survival. This spell makes someone who's dying stabilize and heal naturally. In my books, that's a miracle.
Are you a doctor? Because you're probably not going to have a whole lot of use for this if you aren't. Additionally, the way the spell is worded I don't know if it would work on things like autoimmune diseases or cancer, which are the two conditions that generally prove the hardest to nail down a diagnosis, nor would it work on genetic diseases or the like. As far as I'm aware, all Pathfinder diseases are infections or parasites. Again, it's getting into abstractions. Assuming it does work, you can diagnose a few people each day, I guess that's something.
I don't need to be a doctor, so long as I have one standing next to me ready to hear everything I can tell them about the disease. I'd have no intention of trying to handle the workload on my own. I'd surround myself with the best team of experts I could gather. And given enough time during the hours I can't use magic, you can bet your ass I'd be earning my doctorate of medicine.
We have stuff to deal with pain. You'd probably be better off with lesser restoration, soothing word, or even CMW.
Bull. Go look around a palliative care ward. Or just watch this. Plenty of people reach the point where painkillers are simply ineffective, either due to resistance or the sheer scope of their illness. Ever seen someone vomiting nonstop from morphine side-effects when they're not too busy moaning in agony? Giving someone 20 hours without pain would be a pure miracle. People don't want to see the truth of human suffering that occurs during end of life care, but it's a real fact that our modern medicine is often inadequate when it comes to treating suffering of terminal illness.
So, instead you'll condemn yourself to death? Because that's what accept affliction would do in that case. If you could cure the condition, just do that instead. And how would you choose between two mothers who have dying children? In any case, remove disease and remove blindness/deafness are the same level, you'd be better off with one of those. You could also pick up symbol of healing, make it permanent, then anyone who gets near it gets some love.
Symbol of healing only heals wounds that would heal naturally. It doesn't heal disease, poison, blindness, deafness, or any of the other conditions handled by accept affliction. Remove disease wouldn't give someone their sight back. Remove blindness/deafness wouldn't cure a disease. And I only get one choice. So it's a numbers game, where using accept affliction can let me cure any condition seven times per day, gathering them all upon myself instead, then cure it all with a single heal. I can't see any more efficient way to help as many people per day as with this approach. And so long as the afflictions I receive aren't critically life threatening, I can probably get by with only using a heal spell on myself once every few weeks or months.
Yeah, but who do you give it to? You're not going to cast the spell 7 billion times, in the end you're going to be playing god. I don't like that very much.
I'll give it to anyone that needs it. I don't care what their race, religion, wealth or gender is, because they're all humans they deserve to live as long as possible. Maybe I can't save everyone. That doesn't matter. I'd still try anyway, if I had the power.
And perhaps, if the fates are kind, those wealthy few who would inevitably use their riches to try and get first in line might learn a valuable life lesson in compassion and equality for all, if they spent a few decades as another gender, another race, another skin color.
Except raise Dead doesn't destroy death, it delays it (and significantly weakens those you use it one). Eventually they'll still die of old age (unless you deign to use your limited reincarnate resources on them), and each time they come back it saps them of their vitality.
I'll take that trade. If I can give someone back their child, husband, father, mother, wife, even if they're weaker afterwards. And I think anyone else would take that trade too.
The above post is the reason why threads like these are a bad idea to make.
The above post is the reason why threads like these are a bad idea to make.The above post is the reason why threads like these are absolutely fascinating.
People will argue about anything.
People will argue about anything.The above post is the reason why threads like these are a bad idea to make.The above post is the reason why threads like these are absolutely fascinating.
No they won't.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
No they won't.People will argue about anything.The above post is the reason why threads like these are a bad idea to make.The above post is the reason why threads like these are absolutely fascinating.
I disagree, and therefore I'm going to separate every paragraph you wrote into individual quotes and reply to each one separately.
|
|
Stuff about simulacrum
Uh, no, you really couldn't get 7 billion simulacra in three days. Granted, there's no GM to consult, but I highly doubt that creating billions of simulacra is covered by the powerful request clause. And your simulacra would be highly unlikely to be able to use miracle themselves to self replicate (it's hard to say, because this gets into that whole abstraction thing again).
Stuff about playing god
What's wrong with that is you will be unable to respond to everyone equally. You are limited by your number of castings and by your location. Even if you attempt to be purely egalitarian, you are still by the very nature of existence, going to be choosing to save one person at the expense of another. I mean, you can spam simulacra I guess, and they can probably take care of the minor stuff (again, how powerful a simulacrum would be in this scenario is incredibly undefined). Inevitably people will get angry, and things will get really ugly. And that's what I don't like: the idea that I am valuing one person's life over another.
The question boils down to what kind of god you would choose to be and how you would go about it, after all.Yeah, call it hubris, but I'm fairly confident that I'd be better at wielding ultimate power over life and death than a mosquito.
Someone will inevitably disagree. Strenuously.
Stuff about stabilize
Here's a list of cleric and wizard cantrips that almost certainly would save more lives than stabilize: create water, detect poison, purify food & drink, drench, resistance, daze, mage hand, prestidigitation. Granted, some of those are pretty situational, but they're still less situational than stabilize, which may not have a situation outside of Pathfinder.
Stuff about pain
As someone with a chronic pain condition, I'm well aware. It's still a less useful spell than the others I mentioned.
Stuff about accept affliction
A fair point, but there's probably a more efficient way of doing it that doesn't risk the golden goose (e.g. You)
Stuff about reincarnation
Yeah, but the fact is that, regardless of how egalitarian you try to be, you're going to be leaving some people, huge numbers of people, out. Regardless of your intentions, this will cause pandemonium on a planetary scale. Once people become aware that there is someone literally walking around with the key to eternal life in their pocket, there will be riots in the streets trying to get to you. Without any hyperbole, this is something that would start wars. The irony is that eternal life would result in the death of millions or billions. Unless they just kill you. Either way, it's a pretty rough sell in my opinion.
As the question doesn't suggest restricting the answer to a single spell list... I won't.
The pro is you can, in essence, live forever (if you want). The con is that you don't get to choose your form for each life, and sometimes you'll be a gnome :(