Would (haha) like to get some clarification on the intent of this spell...
Can Shape Wood expand a twig into up to 20 cubic feet or shrink 20 cubic feet of wood into a twig? (expand or shrink)
Can Shape Wood entrap an unwilling NPC in some way in a wall of wood or like wrap a branch around someone's legs or arms?
Can Shape Wood create a metal gear solid box/basket for concealment? Or how about a cutting line of sight to prevent casting a spell against a target?
Can Shape Wood be used with a stick with the tip pushed into a lock to expand and pop a lock (brute application of pressure)? Or like slipped under a portcullis and used like a jack to lift something...
Could a bundle of sticks be used rather than a single piece? How well grafted do they need to be to contribute to the piece of wood
Does cactus/succulent plant flesh count as wood? Leaves? Flowers? Could wood be used to convert to a wall of leafy vines? Are rose bushes wood? Could shape wood be used to create difficult terrain? across how many squares?
Is a coconut wood? Could a tree trunk be shaped into multiple coconuts?
Can wood be shaped into edible roots like lotus root? Can it be shaped into poisonous woods like arsenic? Can it be shaped into medicinal woods like willow bark (pain killer)?
It says no intricate parts or fine details, but how much text could be formed to leave a message with a casting of this spell before it becomes intricate?
It says no moving parts, but wood is flexible... could I form a bow minus the drawstring?
Some guidance please. There are so many possible shenanigans in this spell...
Is a carrot woody enough? I suddenly want to play an awakened rabbit and try to play an entire campaign using only this one spell after reaching level 3.
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The spell specifies a piece of wood, up to a certain bulk, which can only be interpreted as a single piece of wood IMO.
So multiple pieces of wood doesn't work, though as a GM I'd be willing to ignore this honestly.
Wood is generally accepted as coming from a tree. Carrots definitely aren't trees. "Woody shrubs" is a grey area, but I'd probably allow 1 woody shrub to count.
You can't expand the volume, but the volume can be reshaped. The spell doesn't touch on using less volume in the creation of the object, but if it had to be exactly the volume of wood to create exactly the volume of object that would be needlessly restrictive.
You can absolutely not do anything with the spell that would inflict any sort of harm or condition on a NPC. If you could, the spell would specify how that works.
You could create a big wooden "box" (with only 5 sides)....but everyone will see the box. Don't expect NPCs to be stupid like in Metal Gear.
Can you break a lock with it? No.
The spell lets you make an object out of wood, anything else isn't permitted.
Basically, no shenanigans allowed.
Edit: I would allow you to make the wooden part of a bow. So you would just need a replacement string to have a functional bow. That's basically one of the use cases for this spell.
But basically anything that isn't using the spell to make a wooden object, is outside of what the spell can do.
I take it another way, which is you make a bow. But it's so crude that you couldn't sell it to anyone.
If a GM ruled that it counted as improvised I wouldn't complain.
Going back to using the spell to open a lock....I wouldn't let you just "grow" a piece of wood that would pop open the lock.
But you could make a (wooden) picking tool. It would probably have a penalty because it's wood and not metal, but I would totally let you make it and use that attempt to open the lock. You could also make any manner of tool (wooden crowbar?) to try and open up the lock. Probably not going to help much since the wood is likely to break before you force open the lock, but I'd let you try.
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Theres no shortage of usage for wooden wedges and a mallet except for what the GM doesn't allow.
Its not going to be quick or clean but its absolutely capable of forcing things open.
Yeah, but that's not what the OP was imagining I think.
The open was imagining sticking a splinter in the key opening and changing its shape to force the lock open, without a check. At least that's what i think they were imagining.
If you create a mallet and a wedge, and want to put the wedge in between the shackle and body of the lock and pound it in...that's an option. Shape Wood only comes into play if you are making the mallet or wedge out of wood. It's going to be some sort of strength check to break the item. I'm not letting the spell do it for you.
The key point I'm trying to make here is, the spell itself absolutely WILL NOT and SHOULD NOT on its own force things open. That is beyond what the spell can or should do. But it can make wooden tools that would allow you try it with mundane methods.
If you want to open a lock with a spell, that is literally what Knock spell is for. We absolutely shouldn't let one spell rob another's lunch.
I guess, to the OP, "inventive" spell use is pretty discouraged in PF2, but it's not written very explicitly as such.
Spell only do exactly what they say, and if you're trying to "add" effects to what the spell can do by being creative, the short answer is that the spell simply doesn't work that way.
However, all of that is dependent on your GM.
If I were your GM and you tried to put a splinter into a lock and break the lock by growing the splinter, I would tell you that either the splinter falls/pushes out of the opening as it grows, or the wood breaks against the metal of the lock and stops growing, or something along those lines. You absolutely aren't turning Shape Wood into a free unlock/Knock spell.
Can Shape Wood create a metal gear solid box/basket for concealment?
Shape wood can only target wood, and has no effect on metal, gears or otherwise.
Can Shape Wood create a metal gear solid box/basket for concealment?Shape wood can only target wood, and has no effect on metal, gears or otherwise.
I know you're making jokes, but I did have to reread the question a few times to realize he was reference Snake of Metal gear solid using a box to hide from enemies.
Thanks for the responses. Still curious if the community in general would consider reshaping the wood into rough impeding shapes spread on the ground for difficult terrain since creating cover also seems like a legitimate use.
Thanks for the responses. Still curious if the community in general would consider reshaping the wood into rough impeding shapes spread on the ground for difficult terrain since creating cover also seems like a legitimate use.
I think any amount of unworked wood that's big enough to make difficult terrain and/or cover with the spell would be enough to be difficult terrain and/or cover without the spell. The spell doesn't move the wood, so it has to already be in place so...
It's 20 cubic feet in volume so that's 2' x 2' x 5': so around Medium size. Or a cube, 2' 8 1/2" per edge. It's not a lot of volume to work with: cover would require making it fairly thin and require losing volume in making a base so it'd stand so it might get knocked over with the 1st attack. As for as difficult terrain, it'd not even be a foot deep covering a square and you can only make a rough shape so, again, if you have enough wood in a square that it might be difficult terrain, you might be able to... make difficult terrain.
Thanks for the responses. Still curious if the community in general would consider reshaping the wood into rough impeding shapes spread on the ground for difficult terrain since creating cover also seems like a legitimate use.
Yeah, you're main problem there is going to be finding a big enough piece of wood in the right area.
As noted by Graystone, the spell won't reposition the wood or the final product for you. And it can only create 1 item at a time (at least how I interpret it).
You could in theory, with a large enough volume of wood, create a "field of caltrop like things" that have pieces interconnecting them that I would let count as difficult terrain. I wouldn't let them deal damage, they're not going to be sharp enough to cause harm on their own. The real problem is figuring out how much volume translate to how many squares of difficult terrain. With 20 cubic ft of volume, I'd probably let you do like 4 square of difficult terrain at most, and that's maybe too generous. One 5ft by 5ft square is 25 square ft, to make it 20 cubic feet, it can be only ~3/4" thick, but that is a solid "floor" at that point. So I say spread that out to create openings to trip people up, 4 squares of difficult terrain. But again, wherever the wood source is at, that's going to be the "point of origin" of the final product (though I wouldn't require it to be at the center).
Spending a spell slot and 2 actions to maybe make 4 squares of difficult terrain is something I'd be willing to allow.
Not that it changes anything, but a cuboid of 20 cubic ft of volume would be approximately 2.7ft in each dimension (but if you want to know exactly find the cube root of 20).
I'm not sure why I decide to type this, but I did...so yeah.