RuleMaster said:
- If you are in an antimagic zone, you have to beat the SR for casting a spell. But what about supernatural abilities? Those don't have a caster level - how can they beat the SR? Never? Are the hit dice the caster level? What if you have already a caster level? Will it be used, if the caster level is greater than the amount of hit dice?
I'll have to fix this officially, but here's my initial thought: If the creature has spell-like abilities, use its caster level for all effects, or use its challenge rating, whichever is higher. I personally hate using Challenge Rating as an in-game modifier, but it's a more appropriate number than hit dice. Or maybe 1/2 its hit dice. Hmm.
- Can a Live-Sword cut a living being? Will it simply go through the victim? What's with clothes?
If you mean a sword created with Create Life, then it won't go through someone, but it won't deal damage. It could damage objects like clothes, though you'd actually have to use a Sunder. Of course, the flavor of a sword (or arrow) of life energy just passing harmlessly through living creatures is pretty cool, so if the player wanted it, I'd allow it, though you'd want to be consistent.
- Dispel Magic - Can certain spells excluded from dispelling and the anti-magic field? Can the signature of a certain mage be the trigger?
Not sure exactly what you mean here.
- Enlarge Person is how simulated?
I suppose you could use the Half-Giant in the Expanded Psionics Handbook, which would require Transform Humanoid 0. Or you could say that a large human is a CR 1 creature (+4 Strength, -2 Dex, reach, size penalties to attacks and AC), in which can it'd require Transform Humanoid 2. As it is in the core rules, Enlarge Person violates the normal guidelines of changing sizes, because there's no balanced way to make a fighter large at 1st level.
- How can permanent magic effects without affectable by Dispel Magic created? For example, immortality or any form of crossbreeding?
- Drain Time: Partial actions have been removed from the game. You should replace the description with "The 'start full-round action' standard action lets you start undertaking a full-round action, which you can complete in the following round by using another standard action. You can't use this action to start or complete a full attack, charge, run, or withdraw."
Affirmative.
- Maximize Spell: Should this metamagic feat still possible? After putting at least 15 MP into damage, the average damage result will be lower than the maximized version. Because the probability for average damage (or near of that) increases with more and more dice dramatically, such a feat would be must-have for archmages (level 17+).
Nope. I don't like the feat. If you want to use it, I can't stop you, but I won't endorse it. 9d6 maximized is 54, 15d6 average is 52.5. 14d6 max is 84, 20d6 average is 70. Though the spell is useless except for Heal and Evoke, it just doesn't seem right to me. I mean, there's already a way to do more damage: spend more MP. You don't need two different ways.
- Teleport - how is the velocity and the direction of the subject changed? Can this simply be chosen? Personally, I would let only the direction of the subject be changed, not the velocity, because this could be abused as Move Death 5, except that the target can still move after the slow down. But what does this mean: "If a creature or object is stilled, it cannot move on its own power from its current spot." Hangs a flying creature mid-air?
In general, I think it's agreed that teleportation is smart, and it breaks the laws of physics. Teleporting creatures and objects retain their same position and velocity relative to their frame of reference. If you're running 10 miles per hour on a track, and then you were teleported into an airplane flying 300 miles an hour, you'd be traveling 10 miles per hour relative to the floor of the planes. You would not slam into the back of the plane a speed of 290 miles per hour.
Move Death does let you make flying creatures just float in mid-air with anchor. Still would cause a creature to fall.
- Could you please describe round-by-round the casting of a teleport - this line seems to imply, that one has to use at least two rounds: "One time in the spell’s duration, the affected creature can teleport up to the listed distance as a full-round action."
Sorry. Should be a move action. That way you can cast and teleport in the same round.
- "Example Thirteen: A magical tattoo artist imbues physical enhancements into tattoos. With a tiger tattoo, she grants one customer a permanent +2 Strength using Infuse Earth 1/Gen 1, at a cost of 400 XP to her, and 4000 gp to him." In this example, you charge 4000 gp for 400 XP - that's a factor of 10. Shouldn't the factor be 5 - or 25?
No, it's 10gp per XP. It's explained near the beginning of the Permanent Spells section in Chapter Four, under Permanent Spell Basics.
- "Reusable Spells: If you know Craft Charged Item and Craft Permanent Spell, you can grant a creature or object the ability to cast a spell. If used on a creature, that creature can cast the spell at will, and you can even grant it the ability to use entire spell lists. If used on an object, you can only give it signature spells, and must set specific conditions for when those spells will trigger." What type of action is "casting at will", what type of action occurs at the triggering? Can a bow be created, which creates a normal arrow every time the string is pulled (this means, one doesn't have to have a quiver)? If this bow can teleport arrows, how many rounds does it take to fire the bow?
Basically, for creatures, you can grant spell-like abilities, which are used as a standard action (if a signature spell) or which take two rounds otherwise.
For objects, a spell can only trigger once per round, but it triggers instantly. Now, for something like a bow that produces arrows, I think it would be fair to say that the bow could create more than one arrow per round, because any given casting of Create Nature 0 could give you a lot of arrows. So yeah, for 1000 XP you could make a bow that never needs arrows.
