What do people think of these feats and magic aura rules?


Homebrew and House Rules

Scarab Sages

I've had these feats floating around in my houserules for awhile even if they're very rarely used and I figured I may as well post them here and see if there's a balance issue that might explain why or if its just an area my players have never been particularly interested in. I have occasionally speculated respeccing them into traits rather than feats.

Magic Sensativity
Some people are born with the innate ability to sense magical power in the world around them. This usually occurs with generations living in locations with high amounts of magic. Those who possess this ability are speculated to have been the first wizards manipulating the magic around them rather than their own internal magical abilities.

Prerequisites
This feat can only be taken at first level.

Benefit
You have a natural sensativity to nearby magic and will sense it when in the presence of a being or item with magical power (magic items, sorcerers, active spells, etc). You can sense this magic at a range of 1 foot per rank in perception. You are also able to sense the relative strength of an aura although if multiple aura's are present you'll only sense the most powerful one.

Variations
Over the years I've dabbled with the idea of allowing the person with it to sense the type of magic at a certain number of ranks e.g. 10 but the above is the basic feat. I have also considered just giving it to arcane magic users at 1st level as a free feat.

Magic resistance
Occasionally a person is born with the innate ability to resist magic to a small degree.

Prerequisites
This feat can only be taken at first level.

Benefit
You have a natural resistance to magic being cast on you and gain spell resistance of 5 + 1/2 class levels.

Variations
Originally this was 5 + class levels but I revised it to 1/2 so its useful but not as powerful as some races get.

Magical Aura's
I was never happy with how long magical auras lasted given the relative power levels to create them so I changed the rules as follows.

1) For aura strength Faint is renamed to Weak and a new category is made of "faint" for active cantrips.
2) If using mythic rules a mythic item or spell moves the aura category up by 1 to a maximum of overwhelming.
3) Duration of the lingering dim aura is adjusted to account for the faint category and the randomness is removed to avoid intermittent trails as follows . . .

Faint: 6 rounds.
Weak: 6 minutes.
Moderate: 1 hour.
Strong: 6 hours.
Overwhelming: 6 days.

4) If the source of magic remains in location for its full duration the strength of the lingering aura increase by 1 step while its duration at the level decreases by 1. That is cantrips can never leave more than a dim aura as there isn't enough magic to soak into the surrounding area. Otherwise it works as follows . . .

2nd level wand
When moved around leaves a dim aura for 6 minutes.
If left in one spot for 6 minutes will leave a faint aura for 6 rounds then a dim aura for 6 minutes before dissipating entirely.
Leaving it in that spot for any longer than 6 minutes has no effect on these auras.

Artifact
When moved around leaves a dim aura for 6 days.
If left in one spot for 6 days will leave a faint aura for 6 hours then a dim aura for 6 day's before dissipating.
If left in that spot for another 6 days will leave a weak aura for 1 hour then a faint aura for 6 hours then a dim aura for 6 day's before dissipating.
If left in that spot for another 6 days it will leave a moderate aura for 6 minutes, a weak aura for 1 hour, a faint aura for 6 hours and a dim aura for 6 days before dissipating.
If left in that spot for another six days it will leave a strong aura for 6 rounds before trailing off as detailed above.
Even with artifacts leaving them in one spot for more duration than this will never leave an overwhelming aura behind.

Thoughts?

EDIT
While getting dinner I thought of a better way to handle lingering magic as I've not used those rules in a while so the above post has been edited.

Shadow Lodge

Magic SensativitySensitivity - Is using this ability an action of any sort? Considering how easy it is to get Detect Magic cantrip in a party, does this feat serve a purpose or is it just a flavor choice? Also, tying anything to 'ranks in perception' tends to limit that option to classes with a lot of skill points.

Magic resistance - The poor scaling means anyone who takes this feat will retrain out of it around 8th level or so (the point at which your SR 9 can't stop a spell from an equal level caster), which probably makes it a 'not great' idea. With proper scaling, it's probably too powerful to offer as a single feat: Maybe full scaling with a low cap (say SR 10), and then a chain of followup feats to increase the cap (say 15, 20, and 25) instead?

Magical Aura's - I honestly can't remember magical auras ever coming into play in PF, so I'm not certain what you are attempting to achieve here.

Scarab Sages

In order . . .

1) No passive/free action.
2) Just a flavor choice.
3) It's an old feat as I said rarely taken I think when I made it I didn't want it going off level for some reason. Of course ranks are limited by level so meh. Can be swapped to that easily enough.
4) Hmm maybe SR of 5 + 1/2 level can be taken up to 3 times increasing the base value by 5 each time? I.e. Magic Resistance = 5 + 1/2 level, Magic Resistance x 2 = 10 + 1/2 level, Magic Resistance x 3 = 15 + 1/2 level.
5) Mainly reflavoring to taste. I had a few issues with how magic auras work specifically . . .
A) As written magical items and creatures don't actually leave any kind of trace behind regardless of their power. If you destroy a wand it leaves a lingering aura, if you sit an artifact of dark necromantic power in a tomb for a thousand years it leaves no indication it was ever there when moved. This rule expands the lingering aura to occur if the object or creature moves through an area like a scent trail not just if you have the active thin in front of you or if it was destroyed.
B) Even the destruction of an artifact only leaves a trail for 1d6 days. I felt that should be longer so an artifact or deity level being leaves a trail for weeks now not just potentially one.
C) Given B above I moved it from d6 to just 6 that way you don't get a trail where one part lasts 6 days and another one made later vanishes after 1.
D) Personal dislike of the fact a sorcerer (and similar) classes are written as having innate magic but they don't leave magic behind like spells or items do. Now if you have innate magic you leave a trail behind you that can be detected with detect magic. This is my main source of concern in that there would need to be some way to hide these trails to prevent you just being tracked easily either a feat or item.

Take for example the discovery of the artifact repository in mummy's mask. Instead of . . .

"Finally if detect magic is cast in this chamber, the entire room has a dim magical aura, centered on the effigy to the north. The nature of the aura is difficult to identify but a PC who succeeds at a knowledge arcana check determines that until recently, the room held a source of overwhelming necromantic power. After 24 hours this aura fades away." with a special exception to the normal rule of an object needing to be destroyed to leave an aura which if a player know's could make them think the object here was destroyed hence the aura.

Now compare it to this scenario . . .

"Finally if detect magic is cast in this chamber, the entire room has a strong aura, centered on the effigy to the north. The nature of the aura is difficult to identify but a PC who succeeds at a knowledge arcana check determines that until recently (less than a week ago), the room held a source of overwhelming necromantic power. After 6 days this aura fades to moderate." Picture your group of 3rd level adventurers finding this room and realizing that the remaining power after whatever was left here was removed is still on par with something lvl 11 to 20. Not the object itself but its lingering aura is still stronger than anything they can currently do.


Magic Sensitivity is fine as written from an overall viewpoint. It is not overly powerful and it is useful, but in practice, would be unusable for most PCs and adventurer NPCs. Unlike detect magic which is directional. There is no focusing (which is fine, it doesn't have to allow that), but it also makes no allowances for magical items on the character themselves. Since we have to look at PCs and adventurers using the feat, not just average Joe, they will likely have their own items that will always be interfering with their readings unless something has a stronger aura.

I might suggest that any magical items or spells on them for longer than 1 hour are 'acclimated to', meaning their own normally carried gear will not affect them and any long spells, like mage armor as well (after 1 hour), though other spells will hinder their sensitivity. And possibly any acclimated item out of their radius for longer than 10 minutes becomes unattuned. That lets a character drop some gear and move out of range if they really need to check something. As it reads right now, for a normal, properly-equipped adventurer [magical gear for their level] (and all their allies nearby with their own gear) it would be hard to effectively use for a PC. Unlike detect magic that you can direct away from an area.

Magic Resistance, probably works like Taja the Barbarian says. Maybe you can have an addition Improved version available at character level 9 or so that increases the bonus, which means rather than retraining it out can be built upon but isn't made too powerful by itself.


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I don't like these feats.

You can get detect magic as a cantrip by dipping a level into nearly any spellcasting class.

Spell resistance is a double edged sword. It protects you from hostile magic and "protects" you from helpful magic. You have to spend a standard action to drop spell resistance so an allied cleric can heal you.

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