The post title pretty much sums up the question. I believe the answer is most likely yes (using spells like Overland Flight or Fly in which the flight is mentally controlled, anyway), but was somewhat surprised to see no references online to anyone ever using this tactic.
The Statue spell description is vague as to what type of actions can be taken by a caster in statue form. Perception is explicitly allowed, and the spell does not even impose a penalty, which you'd think it would. I mean, you can't turn your head to look behind you in statue form. What about other purely mental actions, though? Concentration seems as if it should be a gimme, but what about occult casters who do not need to use non-mental components? Can they still cast their spells?
A statue spell turns the subject to solid stone, along with any garments and equipment worn or carried. In statue form, the subject gains hardness 8. The subject retains its own hit points. The subject can see, hear, and smell normally, but it does not need to eat or breathe. Feeling is limited to those sensations that can affect the granite-hard substance of the individual's body. Chipping is equal to a mere scratch, but breaking off one of the statue's arms constitutes serious damage. The subject of a statue spell can return to its normal state, act, and then return instantly to the statue state (a free action) if it so desires as long as the spell duration is in effect.
On a related sidenote, the spell says nothing about AC. I'd guess the affected person would probably have the same AC as an Animated Object with a Dexterity of 0 and would count as paralyzed unless flying is an option, but that is merely a guess, as the spell doesn't mention anything about it. If the caster does not count as an object (and the spell description has nothing explicit to indicate it makes that change) and is not paralyzed in statue form when it is not the caster's turn, does that mean an opponent can coup-de-grace? What about sneak attack? A mere 8 points of hardness does very little to alleviate that kind of pain against the kind of opponents someone employing this spell would be likely to face.
Does anyone have any information on any of this?
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I fear you need to make your own rulings if you or your playing group want to use it extensively. It is one of those old spells that has never been really updated to 3.x and beyond.
I can give some non-RAW suggestion.
In Pathfinder the use of the Fly spell requires you to use the Fly skill, and the general consensus is that if you can't make the check you fall. Fly is a Dexterity-based check, so you can't use it if you can't move at all.
It changes flesh to stone, so I would reduce dexterity to 0 (or may be -) and add some natural armor. Looking Elemental Body III and IV 6 or 8 points of natural armor could be appropriate (Statue is a level 7 wizard spell, Elemental body III and IV are level 6 and 7, all several things besides changing your flesh composition, so they are a reasonable comparison for that kind of effect). Or you can consider the creature size and use the appropriate Elemental body spell.
You can change to flesh and back as a free action, so casting spells once detected isn't a problem. Casting spells without material components, and without somatic, material, and verbal components is more questionable. For sure it is still possible to perceive that a spell has been cast from the statue location.
Thanks for the response. I have a 12th level wizard who is getting close to 7th level spells, so I'm mostly just thinking over options. Although I do GM a game every other week, so I might use this against a party at some point. If I did, though, I'd want to be sure to have any homebrew rules regarding this spell nailed down in my notes first to ensure fairness to the PCs.
One more question. I understand that Fly is a Dexterity-based skill and was already anticipating a significant penalty to Fly checks because of that. However, is there a rule of which I am unaware stating that a skill like Fly that is mental in nature (when used via spell or spell-like ability) is unusable while paralyzed? A caster could still levitate in such a situation. The text for the paralyzed condition reads like so:
Paralyzed: A paralyzed character is frozen in place and unable to move or act. A paralyzed character has effective Dexterity and Strength scores of 0 and is helpless, but can take purely mental actions. A winged creature flying in the air at the time that it becomes paralyzed cannot flap its wings and falls. A paralyzed swimmer can’t swim and may drown. A creature can move through a space occupied by a paralyzed creature—ally or not. Each square occupied by a paralyzed creature, however, counts as 2 squares to move through.
The fact they call out winged flying creatures who become paralyzed as falling because they cannot flap their wings would seem to indicate that other forms of flight are at least not guaranteed to fail.
I do not read that the Statue spell prevents its target from moving normally. The fact that it is noted as (harmless) comforts me in this opinion. This spell is a high level, it wouldn't be this high if the advantages it granted were counterbalanced by the disadvantages you perceive it has.
I do not read that the Statue spell prevents its target from moving normally. The fact that it is noted as (harmless) comforts me in this opinion. This spell is a high level, it wouldn't be this high if the advantages it granted were counterbalanced by the disadvantages you perceive it has.
Clearly the caster can move normally on the caster's turn, yes, merely by using a free action at the beginning of the turn to shift to flesh and another to shift back again at the end of the turn. When it's not a caster's turn, however, could said caster use a magical flight effect to be hovering out of reach in midair in Statue form, or would it be necessary to land? Likewise, if the caster wanted to minimize the effect of a group of enemies' readied actions, could they fly in Statue mode down a corridor lined with murder holes to minimize arrow damage taken?
I cannot recall in over 30 years of gaming having ever seen a caster actually use this spell. I thought it would be fun to do something different, so I looked at it. But it feels (to me, at least) as if it is missing a lot of necessary explanatory text. Armor Class adjustment; whether or not criticals, sneak attacks, bleed damage, ability damage, and all sorts of conditions are applicable; and whether the caster does or does not count as an object vs. energy attacks and ranged attacks. All of that is left to table interpretation. As a GM I can make rulings if I have to, but I was also thinking of using the spell as a player and in both roles I was hoping maybe some of this had been thrashed out before.
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I do not read that the Statue spell prevents its target from moving normally. The fact that it is noted as (harmless) comforts me in this opinion. This spell is a high level, it wouldn't be this high if the advantages it granted were counterbalanced by the disadvantages you perceive it has.Clearly the caster can move normally on the caster's turn, yes, merely by using a free action at the beginning of the turn to shift to flesh and another to shift back again at the end of the turn. When it's not a caster's turn, however, could said caster use a magical flight effect to be hovering out of reach in midair in Statue form, or would it be necessary to land? Likewise, if the caster wanted to minimize the effect of a group of enemies' readied actions, could they fly in Statue mode down a corridor lined with murder holes to minimize arrow damage taken?
I cannot recall in over 30 years of gaming having ever seen a caster actually use this spell. I thought it would be fun to do something different, so I looked at it. But it feels (to me, at least) as if it is missing a lot of necessary explanatory text. Armor Class adjustment; whether or not criticals, sneak attacks, bleed damage, ability damage, and all sorts of conditions are applicable; and whether the caster does or does not count as an object vs. energy attacks and ranged attacks. All of that is left to table interpretation. As a GM I can make rulings if I have to, but I was also thinking of using the spell as a player and in both roles I was hoping maybe some of this had been thrashed out before.
In D&D BECSM, AD&D 1st and 2nd edition and D&D 3 and 3.5 flying with the Fly spell was a purely mental action and you could do it while paralyzed as the paralysis didn't stop mental actions. At least in AD&D 1 and 2 you could stay afloat even when unconscious.
But in Pathfinder all that has changed:
A Fly check doesn’t require an action; it is made as part of another action or as a reaction to a situation.
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Hover DC 15
1) You need to make a Fly check to stay afloat during your turn, regardless of how you fly (there is no exception for the Fly spell);
2) The paralyzed condition prevents all physical actions, sadly using the Fly skill is a physical action (again, no exception for the Fly spell).There is a small grace: unless something happens that force you to take a check, you need to take it only during your turn, so you can make the check when you act and, barring accidents, stay afloat while in statue form.
Personally I don't feel that allowing you to move while in Statue form would be unreasonable, but I suspect there is already a spell that do that.
If you allow a person to move while in statue form, I would again look at the Elemental body (Earth) spells to see how much dexterity you would lose.
P.S.: in 40 years of gaming I think I have seen it used only by a couple of creatures laying in ambush in an old AD&D 1st ed module.
And being old gamers is one of the reasons why we feel that using the fly spell should be a purely mental action. ;-)
My interpretation of flight in Pathfinder is that it requires a level of physical movement and activity, even if you don't require wings.
In statue form they wouldn't be able to move, so I think at best you "hover" in place.
But I'd honestly be more inclined to say you fall. You could maybe use levitate, which is unlike flight, to make sure you don't fall.
Mental only spells should definitely work, of course you can just become not a statue during your turn to do whatever you want. So the only real problem is ending your turn while flying and making sure you don't fall.
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My interpretation of flight in Pathfinder is that it requires a level of physical movement and activity, even if you don't require wings.
In statue form they wouldn't be able to move, so I think at best you "hover" in place.
But I'd honestly be more inclined to say you fall. You could maybe use levitate, which is unlike flight, to make sure you don't fall.
Mental only spells should definitely work, of course you can just become not a statue during your turn to do whatever you want. So the only real problem is ending your turn while flying and making sure you don't fall.
A statue spell turns the subject to solid stone, along with any garments and equipment worn or carried. In statue form, the subject gains hardness 8. The subject retains its own hit points. The subject can see, hear, and smell normally, but it does not need to eat or breathe. Feeling is limited to those sensations that can affect the granite-hard substance of the individual's body. Chipping is equal to a mere scratch, but breaking off one of the statue's arms constitutes serious damage. The subject of a statue spell can return to its normal state, act, and then return instantly to the statue state (a free action) if it so desires as long as the spell duration is in effect.
The spell never says that it is not possible to move while in stone form. Being "solid stone" seems to imply that, but other the Elemental body spells make you solid stone and don't stop your movement.
Zog is the one that said that he wants to consider the guy using it as paralyzed. The spell never says that.And, as already said, you normally don't need to make Fly check outside your turn.
And, as already said, you normally don't need to make Fly check outside your turn.
Yeah, but normally you also don't turn into solid stone either.
It's hard to parse how the rules should play out when colliding against "common sense".
Let's consider that it's a 7th level spell, and assume it just flatly gave you hardness 8, which is basically like DR 8, but potentially better since your GM might agree that your hardness is more effective against energy attacks.*
If we were to agree that turning into a statue left you as a...well statue, and further agreed that it at the very least meant treating you as having an dex of 0, dex modifier of -5 then you're going to become pretty easy to hit. And while that hardness will help, it's probably not enough to counteract the penalty you're taking to AC.
So if we go down this rabbit hole this way (which involves some jumps) then honestly I think it doesn't matter much whether or not your statue can fly. You're probably worse off turning into it than you are otherwise.
*There something in the rules about this
I see this spell thematically akin to the mutant power of Colossus from the X-Men, without the increased strength - though some of it may be simply because the character can now punch much harder as he is not worried about hurting himself.
DR 8 and no need to breathe for one hour/level is nothing to write home about for an arcane spell level 7.