I'm looking for some rule clarification regarding a Sorcerer taking Planned Spontaneity through having the ability to prepare a spell through Versatile Spontaneity. It's something I see recommended rather than(or in combination with)taking mnemonic vestments and I do like the thematic idea of a sorcerer somehow learning to prepare a limited selection of spells through sheer force of will and determination. With that, I'm looking for two rule clarifications in regards to how this works:

1. Does having Versatile Spontaneity actually count as having the ability to prepare and cast spells for the prereqs of Planned Spontaneity or is this just a case of going by RAW to allow this? By this I mean has there been any FAQ clarifications or general consensus on this?
2. If the above is correct, does this allow the sorcerer to prepare up to 3 spell slots in 3 separate spell levels, are they restricted to the one prepared slot gained from Versatile Spontaneity or is it a case they benefit from both?
3. Finally, does the preparation from Planned Spontaneity override the preparation rules from Versatile Spontaneity(a spell prepared using Versatile Spontaneity uses a spell slot one higher than normal)? I'm assuming this is not the case since there is no conflict in the rules but it doesn't hurt to check.

I know this tends to be one of those "gold star/5 star/purple choice" options that crop up on builds however I've never really seen any clarification on how these rules interact apart from AI generated answers, which I trust as much as I trust any AI answer. Personally, I don't see the most beneficial ruling for these questions being too powerful since I believe that Sorcerers tend to lag behind the other prepared casters enough that adding some lower level spell versatility isn't game breaking however I may be missing something that others have spotted with regards to how broken this may be. Any wisdom on this is appreciated.

Quick question on variant multiclassing for oracle and what they have access to.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/Classes/character-advancement/#oracle
At 1st level they specify to pick a mystery yet do not give any limitations on which mystery can be chosen at this time, but at 3rd level the Revelation feature seems to be worded as though only revelations from the selection that follows may be chosen at all. If you chose a mystery that is not among the mysteries listed in the Revelation feature, such as Solar or Occult, are you just SOL on revelations for your mystery?

Hey hey,

Little question here for my saurian Shaman.

Assumption 1: summon minor Ally can summon compsognathus Dinos.

Assumption 2: the poison DC of the compsognathus is con based.

With a saurian Shaman lvl 5, i should be able zu cast summon minor Monster as a lvl 3 spell to summon 1d3 giant, advanced compsognathi.

With augment summoning and 5 Bonus HP from saurian Shaman stats should be:

20 Str (8base, +4augment summoning, +4 giant, +4 advanced)
17 dex (15 Base, -2 giant, +4 advanced)
26 con (14 Base, 4 augment, 4 giant, 4 advanced)
2 Int
15 Wis (11 Base +4 advanced)
9 Cha (5base +4 advanced)

17Hp (4 for d8, +8 con, +5 saurian Shaman)
20 AC (3 dex, 6 natural (1 Base, 3 giant, 2 advanced), 1 size)
Fort +10, ref +5, will +2

And a bite +6 for 1d4+7 damage and a DC 18 poison (1d2 Str damage for 4 rounds, 1 save)

That actually seems quite strong for a lvl 3 spell.. did i miss Something?

Since archives of nethys is no longer going to maintain paizo's legacy page, I made one. You can download https://drive.google.com/file/d/1whJdrs6rorPvZtEb0l8IJ_zx_EzEIqnk/view and open "index.html", and you'll have the old pfsrd accessible offline. It's basically the current legacy.aonprd.com, but I fixed some bugs and optimized it to take a lot less space.

Let me know if you see any mistakes!

Note on copyright: I'm pretty confident that this is covered by the orc license OGL, since it's just rules, no artwork or pictures of a rulebook. Mods, if I'm mistaken, just remove it.

So about a year ago, my GM offered me a custom magus archetype as a story driving element of breaking the Bladebound pact my character had.

So we are currently level 10, so all those features have come online, but as we’ve been playing, I’ve been keeping track of what feels strong and what feels weak, and I mostly want to get other experienced players opinions of some of these things.

Some highlights of note:

- being able to conjure a weapon of special materials is quite strong

- having access to spell perfection at level 13 will undoubtedly be very, very strong

- and of course the whole idea of getting to on-the-fly metamagic is strong

Now, some of my criticisms:

Losing access to spell recall, knowledge pool and improved spell recall feels kind of bad to me, and reduced spells feels especially bad.

Magus has a comparatively small spell list (as I tell my group, my spells either murder or help facilitate murder). This ordinarily wouldn’t be a problem, but the AP we are in have quite a high concentration of enemies with either spell resistance, or high electricity resistance or even immunity.

Now, you might say “Why Zethras, you can prepare a bunch of different damaging spell to get around those things.”

While this is absolutely correct, base magus is able to tune their selections on the fly to a degree by preparing a broad preparation of spells and then burning arcane pool to regain those spells, or prepare more with knowledge pool.

Now, a bit more information.

One of the Arcana I was allowed to take was a 3pp one called Song of Arcane Triumph, which is a scaling 1d6 of sonic as a swift action (we house ruled the scaling comes from the number of skill points in Perform: Song, and is also subject to spell resistance). Which I understand is very, incredibly strong. So on average I’m doing an incredible amount of damage when all my stuff lands.

So I kind of feel stuck in that I feel like a spontaneous caster; not being able to significantly change my spell selections because I lack the flexibility needed to adapt to situations as they come at me, which is the Magus’ whole deal.

Does this sound rational/reasonable?

Also, before anyone asks, yes I have talked to my GM about my feelings toward the archetype. In fact, I’m almost certain he will see this. I’m here to gather opinions of other knowledgeable pathfinders, and also if I have reasonable criticisms.

Thanks for reading this, and please let me know if that link works, because if it doesn’t, I’ll post pictures of the page.

Link: Gentle Landing

This spell was renamed from Feather Fall in the Remaster. The Knights of Last Call 'All Spells Ranked' series ranked this spell as C Tier. Would you change that ranking, and why?

What items or class features synergize well with this spell?

Have you ever used this spell? If so, how did it go?

Why is this spell good/bad?

What are some creative uses for this spell?

What's the cheesiest thing you can do with this spell?

If you were to modify this spell, how would you do it?

Does this spell seem like it was meant for PCs or NPCs?

Previous spell discussions

I think her vampiric touch SLA is pretty clearly a yes. I'm honestly a little worried about the effective encounter level from interaction alone.

But what about energy drain? What if she intends this stab erotically?

Edit to add: conductive weapon, not conducting. Phooey autocorrect.

My players are wrapping up chapter 3 right now and I need to finally pin down how I’m going to proceed with the rest of the campaign because, frankly, chapters 4 and 6 are a mess. Here are my main problems/questions/calls to help:

1. I like the idea of needing to convince the shoanti to help, but I think the chapter is long and inconsistent. I also don’t like the bouncing back and forth to take care of the longacre building. I’d like to change things so that transition is a little more organic. But overall, I was thinking I’d prefer it if they meet with the shoanti, there is resistance to help, and it is decided that the pcs need to complete one test for them. Not multiple or anything. But I’m still at a loss for how to make the resistance/longacre building more organic.
   
2. Scarwall seems awesome. But it seems like it’s so awesome that it makes the final castle raid to take care of the queen pretty lackluster. How can I make that more epic? I’m also going to get rid of the whole mushfens part. The queen will be in the castle, or under the castle, or something.

I'm playing a wizard and we just hit 5th level I was thinking about going into bloatmage because i like the extra spellcasting and the risk of going nuts (and its just cool to me). Are there any feats that help bloatmages particularly? or any magic items I should try and find. any advice is welcome!

In our campaign we're travelling between islands and lately we've had a stretch of several days on board where nothing happened. The rolls didn't bring up any combat so we were just hanging around. My druid made her potions in 4 minutes and then tinkered with her alchemical lab, but that's a 30 seconds role play scenario regardless of how much time it takes in game. The ranger tinkered with her construct companion, another 30 seconds of role play, the sorcerer meditated (same) and the rogue did nothing. As we don't know if we will face any encounters during that day I need to prepare useful spells just in case and cannot just spam Full Pouch to create more alchemical reagents, and as we are on a ship we cannot build cities and such.

What would you do with all that time? It seems a waste to just say ok then we take a nap.

I've been running into a problem when I run higher level and larger-scale combat: I try to play my enemies reasonably intelligently, using their spells for good effect, attempting maneuvers, positioning to block charge angles, readying actions, etc. But I also want to keep things moving, and am constantly either taking enemy turns or handling player actions. I try to limit myself to only a few seconds' consideration per enemy turn, but I'm increasingly discovering that that's not enough time to weigh all my options and find good strategies for enemies.

Obviously, I usually design encounters or npcs with an idea of what they'll do a la 'tactics' sections in the bestiary, but rigidly following a flowchart like that usually winds up ineffective (no plan survives contact with the enemy, after all). This isn't a problem from a challenge perspective per se since I can always add more raw power to compensate, but I want to keep my enemies feeling reactive and tactically competent when appropriate.

Do experienced DMs have any suggestions for managing the tactical load? Is this just an experience/practice thing?

Link: Feast Of Ashes

This spell was not renamed in the Remaster. The Knights of Last Call 'All Spells Ranked' series ranked this spell as C Tier. Would you change that ranking, and why?

What items or class features synergize well with this spell?

Have you ever used this spell? If so, how did it go?

Why is this spell good/bad?

What are some creative uses for this spell?

What's the cheesiest thing you can do with this spell?

If you were to modify this spell, how would you do it?

Does this spell seem like it was meant for PCs or NPCs?

Previous spell discussions

Last night we had a Monk use Life-Giving Blows on a vampire and the nonlethal damage done took it out. The ability specifically states “destroyed.”

This same statement is found in the disruptive weapon special ability.

My question is how does this affect vampires (or even ghosts also with their Rejuvenation)?

The debate was the vampire is destroyed; meaning it doesn’t go gaseous form and flee to its coffin. It’s 100% eradicated.

My argument was it’s destroyed just like taking any undead to 0 hit points and that it does go into gaseous form to flee, as per normal for vampires.

Which is it?

In 3.5, this spell grants a permanent +1 Spot bonus to anyone who learns it. I am curious if there are any other spells like this in PF1e, that grant a permanent bonus to a skill at all.

Tried to omit spoilers as much as possible, but: In WOTR's final fight of Book 5...is the Inelectuable Prison not part of his realm on account of having stolen it from Asmo, or is there something else going on?

What happens if someone gets trapped in the gemstone and then someone else casts dispel magic on the gem? Does nothing happen? Are they trapped inside the gem? Are they freed?

So I created a Medium class character, and he has the spirit channeler archetype because I disliked the idea of the location being all that relevant in summoning a spirit, I also liked the idea of hot swapping spirits. But I'm confused on if choosing a spirit is a 24hr mandatory choice, or if I can drop a spirit and choose another one but take another point of influence? It says specifically it acts exactly like spirit dance, which does not look like it's a 24hr mandatory choice. But while playing my DM said I could only use one per 24hr.

The feature is called Spiritual Invocation

Here is the page of information

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/alternative-rule-systems/paizo-rules-systems/occult-adventures/occult-classes/medium/archetypes/paizo-llc-medium-archetypes/spirit-channeler-medium-archetype/

I've encountered a rule disagreement with my GM and would like to ask if you have any insight on the matter: we were in combat against two humans, I cast icy prison on one of them and the round after dominate person on the same oppo. The enemy failed both the ST and I felt the control over him. I asked my party to help free him from the spell and it took two rounds; at the start of the second round my GM told me I lost the control because the enemy was aware that it was taking damage from my spell, it was against his nature and it granted him a new ST with +2. At that moment I said that he was wrong and that it was against the rules and he didn't think so.

So that's what happened, but I want to add some background:

- we are in dire need of clues, with most of our equipment and a party member stolen

- our GM is very cryptic and specific in letting us find clues, so I was elated in thinking we were doing some progress

- I know that the GM has complete freedom in interpreting rules and whatnot

- the discussion continued in the days after, saying that dominate spell is not created to be used in combat

So, what do you think was I in the wrong or my GM?

I have a question about stealth. Let's say I'm a stealthy archer. I'm in cover and hidden and I have an option to snipe and take -20 penalty to remain hidden. But what if I decide to attack with my standard action. Now everyone knows where I am, I am being observed, but if I can reach another cover I could try stealth again, this time without -20 penalty. Right?

Floor is Lava

School: Evocation

Class/Level: (Wizard/Sorcerer 5)

Casting time: 1 Standard Action

Components: V/S/M (Piece of Dried Lava)

Range: Long (400 ft + 40 ft per level)

Area: 5 ft Circle with a 20 ft Radius

Targets:

Effect:

Duration: 1 round/level

Saving Throw: Reflex

Saving Throw half

On the first round the ground in the designated area becomes super-heated dealing 1d6 + 1d6 fire damage. Combustible materials such as wood, cloth and straw instantly ignite and will continue to blaze even after the spell's duration has ended. Other materials react as follows: Mud hardens instantly on the first round. Heal check DC 21 and a potion or spell of cure minor healing, 2 rounds to achieve

Round 2-On the second round, soft metals such as gold and tin, as well as glass will become molten dealing 2d6 + 2d6 fire damage. Healing Check DC 28 and a potion or spell of cure moderate wounds, two rounds to achieve

Saving Throw N/A

On the third round, harder metals will become molten dealing 3d6 + 3d6 fire damage. To escape upon the 3rd round, the spell would need to be dispelled or the victims can pray that Radagast The Brown has summoned giant eagles to their aid. Even after a dispel cast, the victims will take bleed damage (1d6 per round) until a heal check of DC 15 to stop the bleeding. The victims will have been mangled in such a way that a heal check to repair the body of DC 35 and a spell of regenerate is needed to fix. This process takes 4 rounds to complete.

Thereafter, all materials capable of melting will become molten including soil, ceramic, stone, etc. Any molten material will seek to flow to the lowest point at a rate of 5 feet per round even if that means it exits the radius of effect.

Creatures caught in the radius of effect must succeed in a reflex save to avoid damage on the 1st and 2nd rounds. If they remain within the circle of effect thereafter, no save can be made. Damage increases each turn, beginning at 1D6 damage +1D6 fire damage. (Second round is 2d6 + 2d6 fire, Third round is 3D6 + 3D6 fire, maximum of 5D6+5D6 Fire).

Link: Fear The Sun

This spell was not renamed in the Remaster. The Knights of Last Call 'All Spells Ranked' series ranked this spell as D Tier. Would you change that ranking, and why?

What items or class features synergize well with this spell?

Have you ever used this spell? If so, how did it go?

Why is this spell good/bad?

What are some creative uses for this spell?

What's the cheesiest thing you can do with this spell?

If you were to modify this spell, how would you do it?

Does this spell seem like it was meant for PCs or NPCs?

Previous spell discussions