Pathfinder readthough – Chapter 9: Magic

Now we get to the thing that makes the Dungeons and Dragons games somewhat unique, I think – the magic system. Or if not unique (lots of games have magic, and lots do it differently, better, or both), then perhaps it’s that .love it or hate it, the Vancian magic system is a staple of the genre, and Pathfinder builds off of that tradition. This chapter gives the rules for the magic system for those characters who can cast spells. This includes Wizards, Sorcerers, Clerics, Rangers, Paladins, Druids . . . just to start. It’s also possible for some non-casters to pick up some spells too: Rogues can pick up some minor magic, and I’m sure that option exists with the proper Feats allowed.

Casting Spells
Well, first you have to pick one. Knowing it is only enough if you’re one of those classes that can cast any spell they know at any time (subject to the limits on number of spells of a particular type they can cast per day). If you can’t just make stuff up that way, you must memorize, in advance, a number of spells based on your level and class. You can memorize multiple copies of a spell (again, subject to the limits on number of spells at a given level), but for these types of spellcasters, knowing “Wrigley’s Destroying Club” isn’t enough – you must memorize it ahead of time.

Concentration (and Distraction)

To cast a spell, you concentrate on it, subject to distraction. Though the key bit is delayed until rather later, the spell is most often cast right at the instant before your turn comes again – that is, you declare you cast the spell, and right before your turn comes again, your effect occurs. This allows every Tom, Dick, and Hairy to try and disrupt you. 

Distraction can come in many forms, and this section hits all of them. Injury, being grappled, getting slammed with a spell your own self, getting jostled or otherwise shaken-not-stirred, getting tornadoed, or being entangled. You can also “cast defensively,” which means that if you pass a DC 15+2*Spell Level check, you don’t provoke Attacks of Opportunity. Implicit here is that casting spells do provoke such attacks.

Most disruptions simply trigger a check with a DC proportional to the amount of disruption, and each disruption method has its own calculation. Check the handy table on p. 207, or the Pathfinder Reference Document, of course.

Counterspells

You can also use a spell to disrupt another caster. You have to delay your action with a Ready, and when your foe casts a spell, you can make a Spellcraft check at DC 15+your foe’s spell level. If you succeed, you may cast the freakin’ exact same spell being flung at you as a counterspell. Otherwise, you might try Dispel Magic, but that doesn’t always work (some spells can’t be vamoosed by dispel magic, but that’s a spell-by-spell thing). Given how few spell slots you get per day (and maybe if you’re always resting and renewing, this isn’t an problem), I would wonder how often counterspells get used.

Spell Failure

If a spell fails, by and large it just fizzles. No big deal other than the wasted slot and turn. No apparent backfires, dimensional warps, or generally icky consequences. Of course, if you’ve just lost or wasted one of the three memorized spells that makes you a unique special flower, well, that might piss you off a bit.

Special Spell Effects


The key bit here is the (brief) description of what spell bonus types stack and don’t. Dodge bonuses, circumstance bonuses (?), and racial bonuses seem to stack, but most other bonuses and penalties do not, and you only take the worst one. I could see this particular rule being roundly ignored. It’s equal opportunity both ways – since penalties stack as well – and would simplify game play.

Also here is a quick discussion of resurrection, which is the re-merging of the departed soul (literally departed – it goes on vacation on some other plane of existence, and you’re leaving it a voice mail to come back to work) with the body of the fallen. If he doesn’t want to come back, he doesn’t have to. And if enemies want to keep him away, there are ways of either trapping or warding the soul . . . or you can just filch the body, since you need it for the spell!

Multiple Spell Effects


This entire section made me want to dig out my +3 Red Pen of Editing, and write “stop being so wishy-washy” over and over. This little section is in rather desperate need of a few examples. Generally, if you’re providing different types of effects (like a DEX buff and a STR buff, or Enlarge Person and a CON boost or something) things probably go to plan. You can’t give multiple stacking spells of the same type: Two +1 boosts to STR are just +1, and a +1 and a +2 only gives you the benefit of the larger one. Finally, if you cast a series of spells with similar effects, usually it’s the most recent one that applies.

It also throws you under the bus with nice vague advice like “sometimes a spell can make another spell irrelevant!” Gee, thanks. This section is basically some vague GM guidelines, and there aren’t many nuggets here.

Spell Descriptions

At over 100 pages, Chapter 10 is the largest chapter in the book, and it’s “nothing” but spell after spell. So in Chapter 9, we break down the content of the spell descriptions, and what they mean.

School of Magic


Most belong to one of eight schools.

• Abjuration: protection spells. Some such spells, especially if multiple spells are laid on top of each other, are detectable by Perception.
• Conjuration: Movement and alteration of living creatures and some objects, I think. There are subschools which are pretty descriptive. Calling spells brings a critter to you from another plane. Creation forms magical constructs that disappear when the spell is over. Healing conjurations make you all better. Summoning brings a pre-existing creature or object to you, which goes back to where you sent it when killed or dismissed. Finally, Teleportation spells are when you’ve got to move it move it, and instantly transport things from place to place.
• Divination: See secrets, know the future (the GM’s bane), find hidden things. 
• Enchantment: Mind-affecting spells that change how the subject views you (charms), or force behavior (compulsions).
• Evocation: boom sticks. Creating and manipulating magical energy, often in highly visible ways to cause damage.
• Illusion: deceiving the senses of others. There are several kinds of illusions, such as figments (false sensations), glamers (glamour? altering how something looks, tastes, feels, etc.), and others. You’ll generally treat an illusion as real unless you take the time to interact with it, whereupon careful study might reveal and dispel it – that’s a saving throw.
• Necromancy: Dead things, Mikey. Dead things. The undead, manipulating the forces of life and death.
• Transmutation: Changing the properties of a thing or person from one form to another. This can inlcude polymorph to change your own body or that of another. There’s a very large block of text here on polymorph, so if that’s going to be your thing, you’d best read it.

I will have to admit that at this point, my brain just started shouting out “my God, the tedium!” I know that these rules are core to a caster’s mission in life. How they prepare spells, what the limits are to casting, how they’re recorded in the spellbook, etc.

But the writing is terribly terribly dull. For a book filled with iconic characters, I really wish they’d have used them more to provide flavor and examples.

Still:

Preparing Spells


You must rest for 8 hours, and then take 15 – 60 minutes to prepare your slots. Somewhere buried in there (Prepared Spell Retention) it gives what is a pretty good explanation for this “memorization” thing. You are actually effectively partially casting, and then “hanging” the spell, subject to finalization and execution later.

I should note that the new(ish) GURPS magic system introduced in Monster Hunters – Ritual Path Magic – has something very, very like this. You take the time and energy to cast a spell into a focus, called a charm or dweomer, and then when it’s time to cast the spell, you crush or otherwise activate the item. Spells can take a long time to prepare, and the ability to generate a monster (ahem) spell repertoire is limited to your magic power and really how much time your friends will let you spend muttering incantations before you head out to kill stuff.

If you’re playing a wizard or sorcerer – or any spellcaster, since the rules for Divine spellcasting are best summarized as ‘exactly the same thing, with this small handful of changes – you will want to read these rules a few times, and discuss them with your GM to see if he has any house rules to (hopefully) smooth things along in game.

Short version though. You rest for the night (8 hours), you spend about an hour to prepare stuff. If you’re disrupted in your rest you either need to make it up or prepare fewer spells. It seems to take roughly 60-90 seconds per spell regardless of level (about an hour, maximum of 40-60 spells total memorized, ish).

You can leave spell slots open and prepare them later. If you are facing a journey where you can make frequent stops of about an hour, this might be the best way to ensure you don’t leave yourself utterly without the ability to be flexible. It still takes at least 15 minutes to get this done, and you may not abandon a previously memorized spell in this process. You may only fill an empty slot.

Spellbooks

The rules put a lot of thought into the wizard’s spellbook, which is exactly 100 pages, no more, no less. Each spell, from zero-level to 9th level, is one page. Magical writing is a sort of personal arcane shorthand that has as much to do with how your character interprets magic as with any sort of formalism. Thus, it takes a bit to unravel another wizard’s shorthand, which is why it takes so darn long to read them.

It’s a neat trick – DC 20 + the spell level.

You can also prepare a spell from another person’s book, but you have to make a Spellcraft check (DC 15+level) to do it. Copying a spell is a similar check, but it costs a bunch of money: square the spell’s level x 10 gp (5 gp flat cost for 0-level spells). You must be writing in solid gold ink or something – or the ink itself is magical. Still, as they say in my neck of the woods, that’s ‘spendy.’

You can sell a spellbook as loot for half the gp cost of all the spells it contains. The spellbook of a powerful caster that might have 4 spells per level x all 10 possible levels of spells is worth about 5700gp. Not bad as treasure.

Divine Spells

Pretty much just like Arcane spells, but you prepare them at a time of your choosing instead of right when you wake up. Also, any spell slot of appropriate level or higher can be used to cast a healing (or inflict harm) type spell, so you don’t need to prepare those in advance, per se, but you will need to decide what you need to give up as you go. This also works for summon nature’s ally if you’re a druid.

Special Abilities

Some abilities mimic that of spells in certain ways.

Spell-like Abilities are not exactly spells, but duplicate the function of a spell and are definitely magical in nature. You can just ‘turn them on’ with a standard action with no verbal, somatic, material, or focus requirement, and they do not provoke Attacks of Opportunity. However, they can be dispelled and don’t work in areas that disallow magic. 

Supernatural Abilities cannot be disrupted in combat – so they’re wicked cool – and thus aren’t subject to spell resistance or dispel magic, but they don’t function in antimagic areas.

Extraordinary Abilities may look like spells and feel like spells, but they’re not. They’re not magical, can’t be dispelled, don’t suffer the effects of antimagic or dispel magic . . . basically they break the laws of physics for reasons that are not magical or anything. 

Parting Shot