Terrain Stride, Geomancer Archetype Feature

[Terran318]

The Occultist's Geomancer archetype has a feature called terrain stride that says the following.

Terrain Stride (Su): At 5th level, as a swift action, a geomancer can expend 1 point of mental focus invested in the terrain to increase all of his movement speeds by 10 feet. At 5th level, the geomancer can expend 2 points of mental focus invested in the terrain to instead increase all of his movement speeds by 20 feet. This affects only movement speeds he already has.

This replaces aura sight.

Being as there's no duration listed for this ability, how do I tell how long it's supposed to last once used?

[I grok do u]

Just hiding under previous ability description.

Geomantic Focus (Su): When a geomancer invests mental focus into his implements for the day, he can store some of it in the surrounding terrain. As long as he remains in physical contact with the terrain, he gains the survivalist resonant power and the ability to use the terrain stride, dominion, and wall of terrain focus powers as appropriate for his level.

[Terran318]

Right, but that just says I can *use* the ability. It doesn't give a duration for how long it lasts. Dominion for example has a duration listed and the resonant power lasts for as long as there is focus invested in the object. Am I meant to take it that after using terrain stride I keep the speed boost indefinitely as long as I'm not in midair or something? If I do leave contact with the terrain do I lose the speed boost or does it come back when I come back into contact with it?

[I grok do u]

I would interpret that way; once you activate it you have the speed boost until you are no longer in contact with the terrain. So realistically, it is only boosting walk, burrow, and climb speeds for extended periods. That seems appropriate for a geomancer to not have a boost to fly that a theoretical 'aeromancer' might have.

Strict RAW, I would go with that after losing contact the speed boost ends at the end of the player's turn. The player would then have to spend additional points and a swift action to regain the terrain stride.

So the player could use a boosted fly speed to get up into the air, but they would not have that extra movement on their next turn. The player would then have to reactivate it once they are on the ground.

House rule wise, I would actually consider that as long as the player begins and ends his turn in direct contact, terrain stride will continue. So jumps, running, hopping down from boulders or branches, etc, none of those would automatically break the effect.

Terrain specific, greater longstrider with potentially extended time shouldn't be breaking any game.

[Terran318]

Thanks for the input! It was a big help.

[Belafon]

The Pathfinder Society Campaign Clarifications included the following errata for the ability.

Quote:

Page 66—The duration of a geomancer's terrain stride ability is 1 hour.

I definitely suggest that if anyone ever comes across anything without a clear answer, you check the PFS Campaign Clarifications document. A few of those clarifications are specific to PFS (no crafting, no leadership, etc.) but the vast majority of them are "We got tired of waiting for the people over on the Design Team to get off their duffs and make needed/obvious FAQs and errata, so we did it ourselves."

Mandatory Disclaimer because someone is going to come in complaining about how "PFS has no authority to make changes to the Core Pathfinder Rules for everyone!" No, they do not. However if you find something like this ability - clearly missing some text or contradicts itself - that doesn't have a FAQ entry; then this document full of rulings made by Paizo employees who were in regular contact with the Pathfinder Rules Team is usually the best source you are going to find.