I am just starting to wrap my head around the different notations for heightening spells. Sometimes there is a + followed by a number, and sometimes there is a specific level listed.
So for the shield spell they list improvements for heightening for 3rd,5th,7th, 9th level.
Is there any reason they couldn't just use: "Heightened (+2) The shield's hardness increases by 5"
Seems like it would have saved space. Or am I missing a reason to list out specific levels for heightening in this case?
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Don't have the books yet, but if each heightening is spelled out, I'd expect at least one of them to be more or less than hardness +5.
If each increase is exactly +5, it might have been different at some point in development, which made it necessary listing each level individually.
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Yeah.. I guess they could have just said "Heightened (+2) The hardness increases by 5." and that would have gotten the point across...
It is nice to just glance and see the total hardness without having to do any math...
I wonder if it was a space/editing thing. Shield appears at the end of the page. The 3 extra lines it takes to list out all of the levels, instead of just writing the shorthand, very nicely squares off the page visually. I can see that as the sort of thing that makes an editor crack a small smile :)
Isn't Shield a cantrip?
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Isn't Shield a cantrip?
Yes,and ?
Isn't Shield a cantrip?
It is. But that doesn't really change anything, does it?
Isn't Shield a cantrip?
If you are unaware, cantrips automatically heighten
I don't remember, but are cantrips 1st level spells? In PF1 they were 0th level spells, so Heightened (+2) would make it a 2nd/4th/6th/8th level spell instead of 3rd/5th/7th/9th level?
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Is there any reason they couldn't just use: "Heightened (+2) The shield's hardness increases by 5"
Seems like it would have saved space. Or am I missing a reason to list out specific levels for heightening in this case?
+5 doesn't match. The base hardness is 4. That would lead to 4, 9, 14, 19 hardness instead of the the intended 4, 10, 15, 20.
I would think they write it out that way because it's a cantrip. You can just do "Heightened +1" on a level one spell that gets better with every higher spell slot you use for it because you're actually picking a higher level slot. Cantrips cant be put into a higher spell slot. they just improve. So you can't say +3 since you arent using a higher level spell, you're just using an improved spell on base.
Dunno if they're all like that, but that's my guess. Also, are cantrips even counted as 0 level spells, or just their own category? if the latter, then you cant add +3 to somethign that doesnt have a number.
+5 doesn't match. The base hardness is 4. That would lead to 4, 9, 14, 19 hardness instead of the the intended 4, 10, 15, 20.
Is there any reason they couldn't just use: "Heightened (+2) The shield's hardness increases by 5"
Seems like it would have saved space. Or am I missing a reason to list out specific levels for heightening in this case?
I don't have my book with me, but I am pretty sure the base hardness is 5, otherwise I wouldn't have started the thread.(i could be wrong)
The most compelling reason is that maybe because of being a cantrip (which are NOT 0-level spells) the level of the cantrip itself is always ever-changing (level-1 at PC levels 1 & 2 etc) so it doesn't make sense to use the "+" notation.