Unseen Servant and Enlarge Person

[Daiv]

TL:DR Enlarge person does NOT affect an Unseen Servant, nor anything that the Unseen Servant is carrying.
Right or Wrong.

Long Version.
I am a 4th level Wizard with a Heavy Crossbow. I purchase Large Sized Crossbow Bolts (From Baubs Crossbow Hut).
One morning, out in the field. I cast Unseen Servant, and I name him James. After Breakfast, I hand James the quiiver of Large Crossbow bolts to carry, twlling James to hold these out for me.
Some time later (while James is still active), My party is attacked. I cast Enlarge Person on myself. My Crossbow gets Large. James, however, does NOT change size, and nothing Jame is carrying is enlarged. SO, My large Crossbow Bolts are Still the perfect size for me to use, AND, Crucially, easily accessible to me. I can take them from James and reload the crossbow with them (I have Rapid Reload for heavy Crossbow, so Move action).
Hilarity Ensues.

(For the record, the ideal state is to combine this with Gravity Bow, and True Strike. +20 to hit, with 3d8 damage per, and a 19-20 crit range. Not bad for a 1st level wizard, No?).

[Melkiador]

We're not even sure if the servant is a creature, and there is nothing to suggest it is a humanoid.

Quote:

An unseen servant is an invisible, mindless, shapeless force that performs simple tasks at your command.

It sounds a lot like a variant version of an aether elemental.

Ant haul would triple its carrying capacity, if your DM is in the camp that the servant is a creature. I personally believe it is a creature, as the spell has the "creation" tag which only makes creatures and objects, and the servant seems more like a creature than an object.

[Weables]

eh, yes it works. youre also taking 3 rounds in combat to attack someone. sure you're gonna hit and do decent damage. there's also a decent chance your target will be dead before you get to attack. its a good strategy in theory, in practice I find as a player that people who do this end up frustrated, but thats my personal experience.

edit: taking something from your servant would be a move action, and so would be reloading your crossbow. so that's a full round to reload, by the way.

[Azothath]

this has been known and done for 20+ years... different GMs react differently. You have a detail or two wrong but they are incidental.

[Meirril]

Save yourself a spell, and just drop the crossbow bolts before you cast Enlarge and pick up the case after you grow.

Also the unseen servant can help load the crossbow which won't reduce the time, but it will eliminate the need to take the bolts from it. It isn't like the unseen servant is participating in the combat otherwise.

Gravity Bow is a good buff. True Strike is questionable. True Strike needs to be cast between each shot, and it could of been an offensive spell cast on its own, and casting it is wasting actions when you have 2 other buffs running with short duration.

Just casting Enlarge Person and Gravity Bow means only having 9 rounds left on your buffs. If you can improve your caster level that will give you 10 more rounds.

This means your opponents have had 2 actions before you start to do anything about them. It won't matter how much damage you do if the rest of your party gets overwhelmed before you get a shot off. A first round Sleep could of taken half of your enemies out of the fight and made the encounter go from deadly to trivial.

As a wizard this doesn't seem like a good idea. But if you built a Magus to do this trick, it would work better. For one thing the Magus can cast spells while getting his attacks off.

[blahpers]

An unseen servant is not a creature. It's a spell effect, a force that obeys your commands. You can't enlarge it, you can't ant haul it, and so on. It does what it does. If you want to lift a bigger rock, use more unseen servants, use a different spell, or hire someone to pick it up.

Stuff that an unseen servant is carrying is not being carried by you (I'd argue that such stuff isn't attended at all), so if you enlarge yourself, that stuff will not be affected.

TL;DR: Daiv's method is perfectly cromulent.

[Melkiador]

A spell effect can be a creature. That’s what summon monster is. And creation spells only make creatures or objects, so it has to be one of those things

Also,the servant has the mindless quality, which is a quality attributed to creatures. I just don’t see any evidence that the servant isn’t a creature.

[blahpers]

Melkiador wrote:

A spell effect can be a creature. That’s what summon monster is. And creation spells only make creatures or objects, so it has to be one of those things

Also,the servant has the mindless quality, which is a quality attributed to creatures. I just don’t see any evidence that the servant isn’t a creature.

Yes, a spell effect can be a creature. Unseen servant is not such a spell effect.

Re: creation spells: Is an acid arrow an object or a creature?

Re: "mindless": An unseen servant is mindless in the same way that a rutabaga is mindless. They don't have the mindless quality; they simply lack minds.

Re: evidence: For one, it has an effective Strength score rather than an actual one; an actual creature wouldn't need that qualifier. Continuing that trend, it lacks almost every statistic or property that creatures possess, including size, ability scores, hit dice, and damn near all of the fields you'd find in a Bestiary block. The spell description defines the very few and very specific ways in which it is sort-of-creature-like so that you know how to adjudicate it, but that doesn't make it a creature--otherwise, they'd have simply made it a creature.

[Melkiador]

An acid arrow is an object. I’m not sure what you’re getting at there.

Rutabagas aren’t described as “mindless” in the rules. Creatures are.

Creatures without stats isn’t unusual. The valet and footman from ultimate equipment also don’t have stats. Do you believe that they aren’t creatures?

[blahpers]

Based on those answers, I don't think we're going to see common ground here.

[Meirril]

"An unseen servant is an invisible, mindless, shapeless force"

Summon Monster line of spells are conjuration(summoning). Unseen Servant is "conjuration(creation)".

The number one indicator that it isn't the creature is "The servant cannot attack in any way; it is never allowed an attack roll. It cannot be killed, but it dissipates if it takes 6 points of damage from area attacks. (It gets no saves against attacks.) If you attempt to send it beyond the spell’s range (measured from your current position), the servant ceases to exist."

It can't be killed. Nothing that triggers off of 'death' benefits here because it is a force, not a living thing. If you want to think of it as a construct of pure magic go ahead, but that isn't correct either. It is uniquely a force that obeys simple commands with no intelligence nor instinct of its own. How does it work? Magic. Doesn't need to be explained beyond its description.