Hot answers tagged spells
26
I would say no, for several reasons:
Ray of Frost on the PFSRD.
Ray of Frost does not freeze things, by RAW. There are spells that specifically say that they cause certain elemental effects (for example, Fireball specifically says that it "sets fire to combustibles") but Ray of Frost is not one of them. While it might be able to cool water or make a ...
24
All Summon spells fall under the Conjuration school, which imposes additional restrictions.
Specifically:
A creature or object brought into being or transported to your location by a conjuration spell cannot appear inside another creature or object, nor can it appear floating in an empty space. It must arrive in an open location on a surface capable of ...
24
Old School Approach
Wishes should be worded, or at least able to be worded, in character voice. Since your character is ignorant of the mechanics of his universe, he's unable to voice that wish to affect the mechanics.
As a GM, if a character wished for that, Sure, the character never misses by rolling a natural 1 - in whatever dice games the character ...
24
First look up Girallon's Blessing
It's a level 3 spell you can find in Savage Species 66 or Spell Compendium 106 (they have major differences, so make sure you look at both of them), and grants multiple extra arms based on caster level and size. It has limits and restrictions, but sets useful precedents:
One of the basic uses of wish is to mimic other ...
23
A creature knows when it makes a successful saving throw against a spell.
A creature that successfully saves against a spell that has no obvious physical effects feels a hostile force or a tingle, but cannot deduce the exact nature of the attack.
(Source)
In addition, a creature can identify a spell after having rolled a saving throw against a spell ...
21
Well, Rope Trick descriptions reads as follow:
The upper end is, in fact, fastened to an extradimensional space that
is outside the multiverse of extradimensional spaces (“planes”).
Well, what is an "extradimensional space" then?
A number of spells and magic items utilize extradimensional spaces,
such as rope trick, a bag of holding, a handy ...
21
The best answer is to come to an agreement with the DM. While there are avenues you might pursue to mitigate what he’s doing, getting into an arms race is a losing proposition and isn’t any fun. Explain that you are aware that the Wizard class is phenomenally powerful, but that you have no interest or intent on breaking his game. Point out how ...
20
Ars Magica
Ars Magica has a set of 5 techniques (to create, to perceive, to change, to destroy, and to control) and 10 forms (animal, air, water, body, plant, fire, image, mind, earth, and power). You can combine the techniques and the forms to quite literally create effects of that combination on the fly, and then research spells for easier/more powerful ...
19
"Best friend" is the right approach. You absolutely would do things if your best friend asked you, that you would not do for a random charismatic stranger you just met at a bar ("Hey, can I hold your treasure while you go to the bathroom?" "OK!"). If you asked the ensorcelled person to do something which they would NOT do for their best friend ("Let's kill ...
18
Yes, you can wish for it, but you probably won't get it.
A wish can automatically do any of the following:
duplicate other spells (with max spell level depending on whether it's a wizard/sorceror spell and whether the spell's school is prohibited to you)
undo otherwise permanent spells such as geas or insanity
create a nonmagical item worth no more than ...
18
There's no fictional reason why the blinding effect wouldn't be effective on zombies and skeletons: they have to visually sense you somehow, and there's nothing in their descriptions that indicates that they have the power to see through barriers and obscuring effects.
Rule-wise, glitterdust doesn't make any special exceptions for undead of any kind, and ...
17
Adjusting to the situation is important. Many good ideas have been mentioned already; here's some suggestions on when to use them:
Fall! or Trip!
Golden in precarious terrain or situations. I once had particular success with "Fall" against a charging guard captain... as he was mounted on a warhorse at the time. Leading the charge.
Also, instant death ...
17
From the SRD:
Spells Gained at a New Level
Wizards perform a certain amount of spell research between adventures. Each time a character attains a new wizard level, she gains two spells of her choice to add to her spellbook. The two free spells must be of spell levels she can cast. If she has chosen to specialize in a school of magic, one of the two ...
16
They would not stack
It's covered by this sentence:
In most cases, modifiers to a given
check or roll stack (combine for a
cumulative effect) if they come from
different sources and have different
types (or no type at all), but do not
stack if they have the same type or
come from the same source (such as the
same spell cast twice in ...
16
Yes, at least for blindness caused by Blindness/Deafness
Blindness/Deafness has the following duration:
Duration permanent (D)
Checking the duration against the rules:
Permanent
The energy remains as long as the effect does. This means the spell is vulnerable to dispel magic.
(emphasis added)
It's also worth noting that Blindness / ...
16
Implication One: Difficulty
Adding attack and defense values into how saves works affects the difficulty of many kinds of monsters.
Soldiers and monsters that are higher level than the party will be harder than in the normal system: they will have an easier time shrugging off save-ends effects the party puts on them, and the party will have a harder time ...
16
Yes, you can. Specialization is a Wizard class feature that affects Wizard spellcasting only. It has no effect on spells from other classes. Complete Arcane, for example, explicitly suggests multiclassing with Sorcerer to get your missing spells.
Complete Arcane pg. 185
One way around at least part of this restriction is for a specialist wizard to ...
16
The Elven Spell Lore feat (from Player's Handbook 2) can change the damage type of one spell. In this case, Magic Missile. It requires either a high intelligence score or being an elf, and only works for prepared spellcasters with spellbooks.
For a more convoluted method, you can add fire damage to Magic Missile by using a combination of Snowcasting (from ...
15
The spell creates a wall of force blades, which would fill its area; there is no "line of effect" relevant to its ongoing damage effect. If you believe in "rules over realism" then it's just a wall of damage and such a dodge wouldn't work - both the character and the tub and anything along would take the damage separately. In a more simulationist world, ...
15
Unless the effect says to make a saving throw immediately, as when avoiding being pushed into a pit or something, a creature makes saving throws at the end of its turn for each of the effects that a save can end. (Rules Compendium, page 228). In this case, your spell would go into effect on your attack, and at the end of the other PCs turn, he'd get to make ...
15
Resurrection
This spell functions like raise dead
[...]
Constructs, elementals, outsiders, and undead creatures can’t be resurrected.
Raise Dead
Target: Dead creature touched
[...]
Constructs, elementals, outsiders, and undead creatures can’t be resurrected.
Dragons aren’t listed, and so can be raised normally.
15
Thunderwave
close blast 3, each creature in the blast
Hit: 1d6 + Int mod thunder damage, and you push the target a number of squares up to your wisdom modifier
Piece 1: Thunderwave is a close blast 3, and targets every creature in the blast.
Note: A close blast X is an X-by-X box that does not include the origin square but has at least one of ...
14
Yes, you can.
It is a case explicitly stated in the Ironwood spell's text.
[...] Using this spell with wood shape or a wood-related Craft check, you can fashion wooden items that function as steel items. Thus, wooden plate armor and wooden swords can be created that are as durable as their normal steel counterparts. These items are freely usable by ...
14
Here is the AD&D first edition version.
First, it depends on whether you are talking about the clerical or mage version. The clerical Darkness was actually the reverse of the Light spell. The PH makes no mention of how it affects infravision or ultravision... only the duration and area of effect.
Now the Mage spell, Darkness 15' radius, does state ...
14
One of the great beauties of role playing is that you use your imagination to solve problems the dungeon master throws at you (in some cases the problems may be ones that you yourself created). Like a 10' pole, I think Mage hand could definitely be used for a lot of different scenarios including combat.
Perhaps an Orc king is disarmed by the fighter and you ...
13
Prestidigitation is pretty much the catch-all spell for minor magical effects, used to show that magic users aren't limited to just large, flashy spells. The effects listed in the spell description are just examples, and shouldn't be taken as an exhaustive list. It's left vague on purpose, such that players can be creative with their use of magic. The GM ...
13
I don't think it really gets any better than "Autodefenestrate!"
A cruel DM will make the NPC perform a language check to know what the hell you're trying to tell it to do, unfortunately. But you can argue that in the event of a failed check, the NPC should be forced to perform its best guess as to your meaning; hilarity may be expected to ensue.
Does ...
13
The maximum height would be 1200 feet (400 + 800 for level).
I assume you could see out to the horizon on the open sea.
For an earth-like world, distance to the horizon is approximately 46.26 miles at that height.
Expanded details:
If this were a druid caster:
At level 3, the height would be 520 for a distance of 27.82 miles. (Minimum caster level)
At ...
13
This seems to be a case of the creature description being based on a development version of a spell that was changed before publication, but the bloody skeleton's ability wasn't updated to match. Or the design notes for the bloody skeleton read something like "or 0 hp on blessed ground" and the developer that actually wrote the text didn't do due diligence ...
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