During our last session my character was in combat against the rest of the party. As a ninja my character threw a smoke bomb to conceal herself. The sorcerer cast Ashen Path on himself and the party's medium to see through the smoke. When read, Ashen Path it doesn't seem like it helps with seeing through mundane smoke, but only with magical smoke. The first part seems to be talking about breathing in smoke. Would a smoke cloud obscuring sight be considered an ill effect?
Ashen Path
Source Blood of the Ancients pg. 13
School transmutation; Level arcanist 2, cleric 2, druid 2, hunter 2, oracle 2, ranger 2, sorcerer 2, warpriest 2, wizard 2
Casting
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Effect
Range touch
Target living creature touched
Duration 10 minutes/level
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
Description
You grant the creature touched the ability to breathe with ease air that is contaminated with ash, spores, smoke, dust, or the like. The creature suffers no ill effects from natural airborne irritants or contaminants and gains a +4 bonus on saving throws against magical effects that involve any of these contaminants. In addition, the creature can see through magical obscuring effects caused by dense ash, smoke, fog, or similar concealment up to a distance of 60 feet, although this spell does nothing to enhance sight in dark or shadowy conditions. You can cast this spell on multiple creatures, but if you do, divide the duration evenly among all the creatures you touch (to a minimum duration of 10 minutes per target).
https://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Ashen%20Path
You grant the creature touched the ability to breathe with ease air that is contaminated with ash, spores, smoke, dust, or the like. The creature suffers no ill effects from natural airborne irritants or contaminants and gains a +4 bonus on saving throws against magical effects that involve any of these contaminants. In addition, the creature can see through magical obscuring effects caused by dense ash, smoke, fog, or similar concealment up to a distance of 60 feet, although this spell does nothing to enhance sight in dark or shadowy conditions. You can cast this spell on multiple creatures, but if you do, divide the duration evenly among all the creatures you touch (to a minimum duration of 10 minutes per target).
The bolded part of the description specifically states it does.
Mysterious Stranger wrote: You grant the creature touched the ability to breathe with ease air that is contaminated with ash, spores, smoke, dust, or the like. The creature suffers no ill effects from natural airborne irritants or contaminants and gains a +4 bonus on saving throws against magical effects that involve any of these contaminants. In addition, the creature can see through magical obscuring effects caused by dense ash, smoke, fog, or similar concealment up to a distance of 60 feet, although this spell does nothing to enhance sight in dark or shadowy conditions. You can cast this spell on multiple creatures, but if you do, divide the duration evenly among all the creatures you touch (to a minimum duration of 10 minutes per target).
The bolded part of the description specifically states it does.
So you see the obscured sight as an ill effect due to irritants and contaminants? Let me ask a question, if a party is in a naturally misty area would you still consider the mist to be an irritant or contaminant?
Yes.
Mist can be harmful to someone who is sick or otherwise has trouble breathing.
Mysterious Stranger wrote: Yes.
Mist can be harmful to someone who is sick or otherwise has trouble breathing.
I'm talking about a healthy adult. Like being in the fog on a foggy day. Is fog irritating the average person's eyes to impair their vision, or is fog vapors just obscuring sight past a person's natural view? The smoke from the smoke bomb say you can see 5ft into it, but smoke beyond 5ft is obscured.
I'm not trying to argue to argue, but I don't consider the obscurity of mundane smoke, fog, or mist as an irritant or contaminant. I would agree with your point if you couldn't see through the smoke at all, but you can see 5 ft into the smoke while being out of the smoke. When you are not in it how is it irritating or contaminating the character? That has to mean that the obscurity of vision is not due to an irritant or contaminant. I picture move as an obstacle like a wall of that makes sense.
I disagree with Mysterious Stranger that the part about "ill effects of irritants and contaminants" allows for sight.
To me that sentence has to be taken in context with the previous sentence which is "You grant the creature touched the ability to breathe with ease air that is contaminated with ash, spores, smoke, dust, or the like". To me the line about "ill effects" has to do with breathing related issues nothing to do with sight.
If the spell didn't explicitly call out in the next sentence that it specifically allowed you to see through certain kinds of obstructions, I would say it never allows you to see through things. If the first two sentences regarding ill effects including sight, I would expect it to be worded differently to say something like "ill effects (including sight)".
And then going into the fact that ashen path explicitly states magical effects for vision, does imply mundane effects are excluded by RAW.
However, to be honest I think that's silly. Usually I think of things as being able to piece mundane effects not magical, and having it the other way around is odd to me.
RAW I think it's correct to not allow vision through mundane effects, but I don't personally feel it should be run that way.
Claxon wrote: I disagree with Mysterious Stranger that the part about "ill effects of irritants and contaminants" allows for sight.
To me that sentence has to be taken in context with the previous sentence which is "You grant the creature touched the ability to breathe with ease air that is contaminated with ash, spores, smoke, dust, or the like". To me the line about "ill effects" has to do with breathing related issues nothing to do with sight.
If the spell didn't explicitly call out in the next sentence that it specifically allowed you to see through certain kinds of obstructions, I would say it never allows you to see through things. If the first two sentences regarding ill effects including sight, I would expect it to be worded differently to say something like "ill effects (including sight)".
And then going into the fact that ashen path explicitly states magical effects for vision, does imply mundane effects are excluded by RAW.
However, to be honest I think that's silly. Usually I think of things as being able to piece mundane effects not magical, and having it the other way around is odd to me.
RAW I think it's correct to not allow vision through mundane effects, but I don't personally feel it should be run that way.
My DM sided with my view and I agree with what you said. With this being the first time playing a character with disguise I noticed that some spells couldn't see through non-magical sources. Even trueseeing has a hard time with it.
I'd have to disagree w/Claxon and agree instead with Mysterious Stranger. While I get Claxon's point, the second sentence does seem to expand on the first as far as breathing in irritants, it specifically uses broad language saying "suffers no ill effects" in reference to natural, airborne contaminants. Under the Environment sections Mist or Fog reduces the distance of Perception checks; that's an ill effect due to contamination of the air by mist. My own ruling in my game would be that under the effect of an Ashen Path spell you ignore the penalty to Perception.
Your GM has already ruled however so that is how things will need to run from here on out in your game.
I agree with Claxon. RAW, it allows you to see only through smoke and fog generated through magical means.
RAI, that seems very strange, as magical means to generate smoke or fog can generate normal smoke or fog, but the character with Ashen Path will still see through it.
To an extremely strict reading of the text of the spell, it never has benefits for the creature's vision:
Quote: the creature can see through magical obscuring effects caused by dense ash, smoke, fog, Literally, it says that the magical effect should be generated by "dense ash, smoke, fog, or similar concealmen", not by a spell or supernatural ability.
How many "dense ash, smoke, fog, or similar concealment" do you know that generate a magical effect impeding vision?
Even more fun, it will only allow the creature to see through the magical effect, not through the ash, fog, or smoke.
Based on that, I would say that someone at Paizo had done some very bad editing.
So over the course of 9 years of this game being in production and supported by Paizo, not a single creator ever came up with a spell to see through non-magical smoke, fog, mist or similar effects? I know there's a Witch's hex, racial abilities, Domain power, Arcane school ability and maybe an Oracle power for it, but with all the weird spells made over all that time NO ONE came up with a way to see through a smoke-filled room?
I mean, Fogcutter Lenses are 8k GP and use the combination of Darkvision and Fog Cloud to justify their function. the RAW on Ashen Path only lets you see through magical effects. Apparently a smoldering brazier and bad ventilation is all that stands between a villain and total obfuscation in this game.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote: So over the course of 9 years of this game being in production and supported by Paizo, not a single creator ever came up with a spell to see through non-magical smoke, fog, mist or similar effects? I know there's a Witch's hex, racial abilities, Domain power, Arcane school ability and maybe an Oracle power for it, but with all the weird spells made over all that time NO ONE came up with a way to see through a smoke-filled room?
I mean, Fogcutter Lenses are 8k GP and use the combination of Darkvision and Fog Cloud to justify their function. the RAW on Ashen Path only lets you see through magical effects. Apparently a smoldering brazier and bad ventilation is all that stands between a villain and total obfuscation in this game.
I think it is part of the "No, the wizard shouldn't have a way to solve all problems." mindset.
On the other hand, most forms of blinsight will allow someone to bypass smoke, fog, or ash.
Echolocation is a 4th or 5th level spell, depending on the class, Fey form III a 6th or 7th level spell, Magical Beast Shape 7th, and Thoughtsense 4th or 5th, all of those can give a form of blindsight.
Pathfinder 1e is mostly designed around the idea that parity breaking is a major no-no. Yes, some things will still bypass this or stuff went through the cracks, but parity breaking should not be as common place as the fog cloud spell is. If you want the mist/fog in effect, you should have to deal with it as much as your enemies; if you don't want it in effect, gust of wind. Even when Ashen Path came out, a lot of people really didn't like its low level and thus spammable parity breaking power, which is especially effective for ranged effects; this wasn't helped by it being released in 2018 when all amount of quality control had been thrown out the window.
I do not allow the Ashen Path spell in my games for this reason. It's just a low power cheese spell without a major counter as you can't dispel it against a target because you can't target them and without essentially metagaming you can't also just assume it's that spell (as there are other similar effects released in the same book; also not including fogcutting lenses as these are a giant item and taking this as your eye slot late game locks you out of many more powerful effects that can't do what this does) to area greater dispel into it.
Basically, my recommendation is pick a better cheese than expect one released post 2016 to make any sense.
[not PFS legal] Ashen Path:T2
so in a RAW reading yes, strictly RAW no (can't see through non-magical smoke etc as it is not specifically listed).
The spell has problems, mainly the last line making it communal.
There are oracle revelations and such that do something similar but fire->smoke, water->fog.
GM Advice: follow Org Play(PFS) guidelines and deal with exceptions on a case-by-case basis.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote: I'd have to disagree w/Claxon and agree instead with Mysterious Stranger. While I get Claxon's point, the second sentence does seem to expand on the first as far as breathing in irritants, it specifically uses broad language saying "suffers no ill effects" in reference to natural, airborne contaminants. Under the Environment sections Mist or Fog reduces the distance of Perception checks; that's an ill effect due to contamination of the air by mist. My own ruling in my game would be that under the effect of an Ashen Path spell you ignore the penalty to Perception.
Your GM has already ruled however so that is how things will need to run from here on out in your game.
He could change his ruling depending on what the section talks about. It is why I made the thread. To see if there was something in the rules about it or if someone can make a compelling argument.
I would ask if the section says that mist and fog are ill effects or something along those lines. It seems like you are declaring it an ill effect from irritation or contamination due to lack of vision through the fog. Like I asked before, if you are out of the fog and can see 5ft in and not beyond that how are you suffering from a irritant or contamination?
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Boneboy711 wrote: Mark Hoover 330 wrote: I'd have to disagree w/Claxon and agree instead with Mysterious Stranger. While I get Claxon's point, the second sentence does seem to expand on the first as far as breathing in irritants, it specifically uses broad language saying "suffers no ill effects" in reference to natural, airborne contaminants. Under the Environment sections Mist or Fog reduces the distance of Perception checks; that's an ill effect due to contamination of the air by mist. My own ruling in my game would be that under the effect of an Ashen Path spell you ignore the penalty to Perception.
Your GM has already ruled however so that is how things will need to run from here on out in your game.
He could change his ruling depending on what the section talks about. It is why I made the thread. To see if there was something in the rules about it or if someone can make a compelling argument.
I would ask if the section says that mist and fog are ill effects or something along those lines. It seems like you are declaring it an ill effect from irritation or contamination due to lack of vision through the fog. Like I asked before, if you are out of the fog and can see 5ft in and not beyond that how are you suffering from a irritant or contamination? the common issue(problem) is you've latched onto some flavor text and are working that phrase. You are trying to create a mechanic based on fluff. You have to back up/widen your point of view to a bit wider scope in judging a spell description.
You also have to compare it to other spells.
The basic problem is this spell comes from a PPC book and it's not reviewed by the core line at Paizo (to reduce costs) so they are creative but notoriously have some wording problems.
As I pointed out; Fire-Ash-Smoke are in the same descriptor theme, Water-Fog-Mist are in the same descriptor theme. See Revelations and Feats. So this spell broaches that thematic barrier and that's an issue.
The spell is communal which is typically 1 spell level higher than the base spell and that's a BIG issue. Water Breathing:T3 is a 3.5 import so (like many OGL things) it escaped that nerfing/rule.
The spell does multiple things and generally Paizo tried to be specific with spells and keep them to 1-2 effects. Personally I'm not a fan of that design choice but I understand the desire for generic simplicity.
As this is the Rules forum some posters are just going to give you an opinion based on RAW along with how the spell works and not wander into Advice. As the thread history builds comments and advice will appear.
My Advice is for your Home GM to edit the spell. Change it to D2. Allow the user to see 30ft through mundane or magical obscurement or concealment created by Ash, Smoke, Cinders, gain Energy Resistance [fire]3, a +4 enhc bonus for saves versus inhaled afflictions, environmental effects, and effects that produce[blinded, exhaustion, fatigued, nauseated, sickened, staggered] condition from ash, smoke, cinders, dehydration, and fire mundane or magical effects and spells with the word Ash or Smoke in their title. No benefit for Mist, Fog, Cloud or spells with a water descriptor or effect.
Add Communal Ashen Path:D3 with 60ft and Energy Resistance [fire]5.
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