Sick Rays!

[armorwars1]

Greetings

The spell "Ray of Sickness" states that it functions exactly like the Ray of Exhaustion spell, except it makes the target sickened instead of exhausted.

RAY OF SICKENING
School necromancy; Level cleric 1, druid 1, sorcerer/wizard 1, summoner 1, witch 1
This spell functions as ray of exhaustion, except the target is sickened if it fails its save and unaffected if it makes its save.

Then it lists the Ray of Exhaustion spell.

RAY OF EXHAUSTION
School necromancy; Level sorcerer/wizard 3
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (a drop of sweat)
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect ray
Duration 1 min./level
Saving Throw Fortitude partial; see text; Spell Resistance yes
A black ray projects from your pointing finger. You must succeed on a ranged touch attack with the ray to strike a target.

The subject is immediately exhausted for the spell's duration. A successful Fortitude save means the creature is only fatigued.

A character that is already fatigued instead becomes exhausted.

This spell has no effect on a creature that is already exhausted. Unlike normal exhaustion or fatigue, the effect ends as soon as the spell's duration expires.

The Ray of exhaustion spell states. "A character that is already fatigued instead becomes exhausted."

Does the Ray of Sickening have a similar affect? Those already sickened become Nauseated?

[Darkon]

Wow, that spell is terribly written. As written "Ray of Sickening" has the same function as ray of exhaustion, including the exhaustion if the target fails their save, except it also sickens them if they fail their save, and they are completely unaffected if they make their save.

In somewhat more realistic use, the functions as ray of exhaustion should only be referring to being a close range ray spell with a 1 min/level duration that has a casting time of 1 action. It should not stack sickened to nauseated, especially considering how powerful nauseated is in comparison to both exhaustion and sickened.

[Dave Justus]

Except means one thing instead of another. So instead of being exhausted, the Ray makes them sickened.

The stacking on Ray of Exhaustion happens when someone makes a save, but is already fatigued. Ray of Sickening clearly states that making a save means the subject is unaffected, so there would never be anything similar.

They are either sickened, or they are not depending on if they make their save (and like Ray of Exhaustion, if they were already sick, it would have no effect).

[Dave Justus]

Note: I do really hate Piazo's tendency to use ' functions as' when it doesn't 'function as' at all, and actually saying how it functioned would be hardly any more word count.

[LordKailas]

Dave Justus wrote:

Note: I do really hate Piazo's tendency to use ' functions as' when it doesn't 'function as' at all, and actually saying how it functioned would be hardly any more word count.

I agree, it makes it hard to determine how the buff symbols are "supposed" to work when they "function as symbol of death".