Empowed confusion?

[lukelightning]

Can you empower confusion, so that the "random actions" are heavily weighted towards "do nothing", "flee", or "attack nearest creature"?

 

[Vegepygmy]

Will you believe me if I just say, "No, of course not"?

 

[IanB]

All variable, numeric effects of an empowered spell are increased by one-half.

The confusion table is not an effect. It is just a table you roll on to see what the effect will be. Thus, it is not affected by Empower Spell.

 

[Nail]

The confusion table is not an effect.

The table itself? I guess that's true......

 

[pawsplay]

Are you sure?

How do you determine the effect of the confusion spell? Where do you look?

You determine the effect with the chart. Thankfully, the determination is itself not an effect, or we would have a serious recursion problem.

 

[Nail]

Cross-posting editting goodness!

 

[frankthedm]

Are you sure?

How do you determine the effect of the confusion spell? Where do you look?

The Confused condition.

Confused
A confused character’s actions are determined by rolling d% at the beginning of his turn: 01-10, attack caster with melee or ranged weapons (or close with caster if attacking is not possible); 11-20, act normally; 21-50, do nothing but babble incoherently; 51-70, flee away from caster at top possible speed; 71-100, attack nearest creature (for this purpose, a familiar counts as part of the subject’s self). A confused character who can’t carry out the indicated action does nothing but babble incoherently. Attackers are not at any special advantage when attacking a confused character. Any confused character who is attacked automatically attacks its attackers on its next turn, as long as it is still confused when its turn comes. A confused character does not make attacks of opportunity against any creature that it is not already devoted to attacking (either because of its most recent action or because it has just been attacked).

 

[Sejs]

Only if you can also maximize Reincarnation.

Anyway, no. Empower works on numeric variable effects, the effect of the Confusion spell is to apply the confused condition.

And while the confused condition is resolved by rolling and referencing a table, it is not itself a numeric variable effect.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Generally speaking percentile dice are not the effect or even part of the effect, they are a mechanic with which to generate the actual effect.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Prismatic Spray is an interesting one.

The colour of the ray is variable, but it is not numeric. However, the number of rays striking an opponent is both variable and numeric; on a roll of 1-7, the number is 1, and on a roll of 8, the number is 2.

So with an Empowered Prismatic Spray, a roll of 1-7 results in 1.5 rays striking a target (rounded down to 1), and a roll of 8 results in 3 rays striking a target.

The other effects of Empowering the spell are to increase the duration of the blindness (2d4 rounds), and the Con damage resulting from a successful save against a green ray (1d6 points).

The d8 die roll is not multiplied by 1.5, because while it is variable and numeric, it is not an effect of the spell; rather, it determines what the effects of the spell are.

-Hyp.