goofy wayfinder questions

[ohako]

huh, I thought I posted this...well, let's try again

Adventurer's Guide wrote:

wayfinder:

wayfinder: A small magical device patterned on the design of ancient Azlanti relics, a wayfinder is a compact compass typically made from silver and bearing gold accents. While it serves as a badge of office for agents of the Pathfinder Society, a wayfinder is as much a handy tool as a status symbol. With a command word, the bearer can cause a wayfinder to shine (as per light). A wayfinder also acts as a nonmagical (magnetic) compass, granting a +2 circumstance bonus on Survival checks to avoid becoming lost. All wayfinders feature a small indentation designed to hold a single ioun stone. A ioun stone slotted in this manner grants the bearer its normal benefits as if it was orbiting her head, and resonates its powers with the wayfinder, replacing its ability to shine with a different power.

shining wayfinder:

shining wayfinder: A shining wayfinder appears as a polished silver compass. In addition to the usual functions of a wayfinder (including the ability to create light) a shining wayfinder can be used to cast detect evil—when so used, its needle points not to the north but rather to the nearest source of evil within 60 feet. Once per day, a shining wayfinder can be used to cast protection from evil upon the wayfinder’s bearer. A shining wayfinder functions only for a creature that is good-aligned. When held by an evil creature, the shining wayfinder’s needle spins in a frantic circle. When held by any creature that is both nonevil and nongood, the needle does not point to anything in particular (not even to the north).

Pathfinder Society Primer wrote:

discerning wayfinder:

Discerning: This wayfinder functions as

normal, except the user can cast detect magic at will in
place of light.

musical wayfinder:

Musical: The crafter of this wayfinder constructed
it with the ability to play back a sentimental, enchanting
melody when it is opened and the compass needle is
pressed. This wayfinder functions as normal, except the
user can cast lullaby at will in place of light.

Core Rulebook wrote:

lullaby's duration:

concentration + 1 round/level (D)

detect evil's downside:

If you are of good alignment, and the strongest evil aura's power is overwhelming (see below), and the HD or level of the aura's source is at least twice your character level, you are stunned for 1 round and the spell ends.

I have questions! So many!

1) A wayfinder doesn't cast light, and it doesn't let you cast light either. It lets you activate it (for 50 minutes at a go, I presume) to shine like using light. Does a musical wayfinder work in the same fashion? That is, when you activate it, that the effect goes off on one of the corners of your character's square, and that it follows you around as the wayfinder moves. Correct?
2) Isn't causing an AoE debuff (even a minor one with a Will DC of 10) a bad idea?
3) Lullaby (and detect evil and detect magic) have a duration involving concentration. For how long may a wayfinder concentrate?
4) Detect evil does something bad to you if your target is a lot more evil than you. What is a shining wayfinder's number of hit dice? What is a shining wayfinder's alignment, and what happens to it when it's struck by an overwhelming aura?
5) Say my character is a wimpy Shelynite, and is always happy to talk about ways to mitigate encumbrance. Can I get a shining wayfinder, and on the way back home can I get it shaped into a holy symbol and have the musical enhancement? I think the only thing cooler than having a cool-looking holy symbol is if you turn the bird's tail and have it actually play a tinkly little song.

[Starglim]

edit: 3. The musical wayfinder allows the user to cast lullaby, so the user is the caster and must concentrate. Same answer for a discerning wayfinder. The description of the shining wayfinder's effect uses the passive voice and seems ambiguous in itself, but the description of its operation makes it more likely that it detects evil as long as the character commands it to do so and watches the needle, taking some amount of attention, probably as much as concentrating on a spell.

4. A shining wayfinder has a caster level of 3. I'd use that. It looks as if it gains some of the effect of 2 rounds of detect evil immediately, but never proceeds to the third round. If it detects an overwhelming aura, it seems the spell ends. Can an object be stunned? A construct couldn't, but if not, the effect seems both confusing and trivial.

I'd probably say the needle momentarily points at the overwhelming aura, then the detection power ends, doesn't work again as long as that aura is in range, but the wayfinder's other powers still work.

5. I'd say that a shining wayfinder is a wayfinder, so the character owns a wayfinder, can put wayfinder enhancements on it and can replace the light function that a shining wayfinder has, but others might disagree. Some enhancements won't work if the wayfinder doesn't have the feature that the enhancement would replace.

[ohako]

Okay, so far so good. A musical wayfinder acts like a staff then, with the user being the caster in all respects, yes? This seems to open a separate can of worms.

1) Can the user make the lullaby sound emanate from anywhere within medium range (as the spell), or is the effect always centered on the wayfinder?
2) Is the lullaby’s save DC modified by the user’s Charisma modifier?
3) When the user stops concentrating, does the lullaby continue for a number of rounds equal to the user’s caster level? What if the user doesn’t have a caster level?

I thought that for everything but staves, it was always supposed to be the item doing the casting, not the user. I think this gets weird with concentration duration spells, however.

[Starglim]

ohako wrote:

A musical wayfinder acts like a staff then, with the user being the caster in all respects, yes?

That's quite an overreach. It acts like a potion in that it counts the user as the caster, for spell mechanics that need to know who is casting and controlling the effect.

The save DC is based on the item's effective casting statistic. The wayfinder casts 0 level spells, so it has a casting stat of 10.

The standard wayfinder has caster level 5, so the effect lasts for 5 rounds after the user stops spending actions to maintain it.

Your point 1. is interesting and hasn't been answered yet.

[ohako]

Starglim, that is a clever way of thinking about it. Thank you.

If a regular wayfinder is a flashlight, and a sparking wayfinder is a zippo lighter, I should probably assume that a musical wayfinder is a somewhat detrimental music box.

[ohako]

aalllthough, it does seems weird that a non-caster could be forced to make a concentration check if they take damage while concentrating on a lullaby. The circumstances of that happening are probably pretty weird in and of themselves.