"Planar adaptation has no effect when cast upon your native plane".But can you cast it there? Say, I intend to go to the plane of fire. Can I cast adaptation before casting plane shift, or do I need to wait until I'm already there and literally on fire before I start adapting?
Planar Adaptation T5, that's the burning question... it's only Rst Fire 20.
A creature might want to research the Plane of Fire before popping into any location (like an active volcano, chasm of fire, etc). They might want other mundane and magical protections for unforeseen accidents... I'd leave wooden armor at home.
|
Planar adaptation does not say is that you gain immunity to the harmful effects of the plane you are currently on, but rather that you gain immunity to the effects of "a particular plane of existence." Which strongly implies that you select the plane while casting.
But it really doesn't make much sense if you can't cast planar adaptation (plane of fire) on the material plane, but you could make a detour to the plane of air and cast planar adaptation (plane of fire) there.
So I treat the last sentence of the spell as meaning something similar to "Planar adaptation provides no benefits when you are on your native plane." In other words I allow you to cast the spell and choose the plane of fire while on the material plane, but you don't get the fire resistance (or anything else) while on the material plane.
Yeah, it's a tiny bit unclear, but not game-breaking.
|
Range personal
Target you
Duration 1 hour/level (D)
Description
Planar adaptation grants you immunity to the harmful environmental effects of a particular plane of existence, including such hazards as toxicity, extreme temperatures, and lack of air. Additionally, you gain energy resistance 20 to a single energy type prevalent on that plane (choose one if more than one type is equally prevalent). Planar adaptation has no effect when cast upon your native plane.
As I interpret it, the writer meant:
"Planar adaptation has no effect upon the environmental effects of your native plane."but he thought that you had to target a plane, so he used a phrase that can be easily misunderstood.
I am not a native English speaker, so I can be mistaken, but "cast upon" can be paraphrased as "throw to", i.e. cast targeting the plane.
It is perfectly logical that planar adaption should not protect from the environmental effects of your home plane (as an example, it should not protect from the toxic gas of a fumarole when walking in it on Earth or from the vacuum of space) as the spell should protect the target from the normal range of environmental effects, not from those that are unusual in that plane.
The only trouble I have with the above interpretation is that a high-level caster native from the plane of fire (as an example) can't protect his guests from his plane with the Mass version.
Planar adaptation grants you immunity to the harmful environmental effects of a particular plane of existence, including such hazards as toxicity, extreme temperatures, and lack of air. Additionally, you gain energy resistance 20 to a single energy type prevalent on that plane (choose one if more than one type is equally prevalent). Planar adaptation has no effect when cast upon your native plane.
This spell has two significant items in the descriptions. The first one is the fact it protects you from the effect of a particular plane. The phrase particular plane is the significant part. It does not say it protects you from the effects of the plane you are on. That means you can choose for it to protect you from the effects of any single plane you want.
The second significant item is the clause that the spell has no effect when cast upon your native plane. This is what is causing all the problems. The strictest interpretation of this would mean that it does not work if you cast it on your native plane. This leads to the situation where you have to move to a different plane before going to the plane you are actually traveling to. Since many planes are hostile to creatures from other planes this may means, you will need to travel to a safe plane before traveling to the one you actually want to visit. The other interpretation would be that when you choose your native plane as the plane to be protected against it has no effect. While this may not be RAW, to me this is definitely RAI.
This does seem to make it so that you cannot use the mass version to protect a non-native on your native plane. But if you are using the second interpretation it will still work. The description states that the spell has no effect if cast on your native plane. It does not state you cannot cast it; just that it has no effect. If the target of mass planar adaption is not native to the plane the spell will have its normal effect. Again, this is based the second interpretation so may not be strictly RAW but looks to be RAI.
This is the way I have the spell work in games I run.