The Gaming Den

So, for no particular reason, here's some spells:

Severing Border (9th)
immediate, close, shapeable L, momentary (D)
Forms a border around a contiguous volume that must include the caster. The border is barely visible, but absolute - anything inside is treated as being on a separate plane from the outside, and there is no line of effect or even line of sight between the two (the border appears transparent, but it's more like a viewscreen - gaze attacks and similar won't work). The border can be created through unattended objects, regardless of their durability.

Bubble Shield (2nd?) [Force]
personal, brief (D)
Creates a thin shimmering sphere around you, like a soap bubble. The sphere is transparent to non-physical attacks (such as energy), but prevents physical contact and resists physical attacks. Attacks doing less than 5L damage are bounced off harmlessly; if it was a melee attack the bubble gets a Trip attempt against the attacker. Attacks doing more than that deal damage as normal, and break the bubble if they're piercing or slashing.

Reverse Bubble Shield (8th?) [Force]
personal, brief (D)
As Bubble Shield, but anything solid that comes in contact with the sphere must make a Fortitude save or become a bubble and pop. Unattended objects don't get a save. Big objects are destroyed one 10' cube at a time.

Complete Dispersal (9th) [Teleportation]
medium, radius 10'
Anything within the area is divided into as many parts as desired, and each of those parts is sent anywhere within range of Teleport. Living creatures and attended objects get a Will save. Being split apart is fatal to most creatures; for those like Trolls, it deals 20L damage.


For Severing Border and Complete Dispersal, I'm aiming for them being 9th level spells - so if they're insufficiently awesome, how should they be improved? For the other two, I'd curious what level you'd put them at, having the effects that they do.

The format I'm using is here, if it's not clear from the above:

The stat-blocks are exception-based - in the actual sense. The default spell has:
Components: V, S
Casting Time: Standard action
Range: Touch
Target: See text
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: See text
Spell Resistance: Yes if it affects targets directly or creates a magically active continuing manifestation. No otherwise.

Only exceptions to this are noted, via keywords:
Components: silent, still, material [cost], focus [cost]
Casting Time: immediate, swift, 1-round, ritual [length]
Range: personal, close, medium, long
Area/Effect: ray, radius [size], spread [size], line [size], cylinder [radius x height], aura [radius], shapeable [number of 10' cubes]
Duration: momentary (three rounds), brief (five minutes), quarter (until next sunrise, sunset, noon, or midnight), day, duration [length], permanent
SR: natural (not resisted when it normally would be), resisted (resisted when it normally wouldn't be)
Others: nray (stopped as per Detect Magic), disbelief (Will save, works as per Figments), discharged

Or in the text, if no keyword applies.


"L" is used to refer to caster level, in both the text and keywords. So for example:
"duration Ld" -> Lasts 1 day/level
"doing Ld6 damage" -> Doing 1d6/level damage
"less than 5L damage" -> Less than 5 damage per caster level

Any combat checks made by spells (such as Bubble Shield) use caster level for BAB and [casting stat] for Strength.

And finally, Artifacts and intelligent items always count as "attended"

Here's some controversial ones (because they have odd mechanics):

Harmless Presence (6th?) [Mind-Affecting]
personal, aura 30', brief
Anyone in the area must make a Will save to notice that you've made any hostile action, including wielding a weapon, stabbing them with said weapon, casting a spell at them, and so forth. They get another Will save every time they're personally affected by your hostile actions (so every time you stab them, for instance). Creatures that leave the area without having noticed their wounds will do so automatically after five minutes, and get another save immediately if their condition worsens.

Xeno's Pivot (8th?)
medium, radius 20', brief, natural
Space is warped so that the center of the sphere is vastly more than 20' from the edges. Working from the outside in, the first 5' is 50' across, the second is 500', the third is a mile, and the innermost is 10 miles. So someone standing in one of the center squares is about 6 miles and a bit from the outside of the sphere. Anyone in the area when the sphere is created is considered to be in the middle of their band, and can make a Reflex save to jump two bands outwards (so worst case, 300' from the edge if they were at the center to start with).
When the spell ends, if there are too many people or things to fit in the unwarped area, treat it as being shunted by a Teleport.


And exploring the dystopia that is mind-uploading:

Mind Instance (2nd?)
focus, ritual 5m, permanent
You create a pseudo-mind in a crystal. The pseudo-mind counts as an intelligent being (same type as you) for any purely mental effects such as Telepathy. It actually has mental stats of 1, but you can make them appear to be anything up to your own (Sense Motive for someone to determine they're talking to basically a bot). Likewise, it has no skills, but can appear to have any that you possess. It has memories (up to L weeks of actual data, but spread over whatever span you want), a personality, and an apparent alignment. It can learn new facts, but only has L minutes of memory.
Focus: A crystal worth at least 100 gp. The crystal can't be re-used unless this spell is dispelled from it.

Mental Model (6th?) [Mind-Affecting]
focus, ritual 5m, close, permanent
As Mind Instance, but the pseudo-mind is actually intelligent and based on a target conscious person (which can be yourself). If the target is unwilling, they get a Will save to negate (and they must stay within range for the whole casting time anyway). It can have mental stats up to the target's, and skills up to half the ranks of the target. It does not get any other abilities like spellcasting. It has the same personality and alignment as the target, and L% of the target's memories (100% if the target is willing).
Focus: A crystal worth at least 100 gp per HD of the target. The crystal can't be re-used unless this spell is dispelled from it.

Sculpt Mind Instance (5th?) [Mind-Affecting]
focus, ritual 5m
You change the personality, alignment, percieved type, memories, stats, and skills of the target mind instance. If the mind instance is from Mental Model, it gets a Will save. You can raise the instance's mental stats up to your own if desired, and give it any skills you possess at up to half your ranks. You can remove any memories as desired, and add up to L months of new memories (spread out over whatever time-span you want).
Focus: A crystal containing a mind instance.

Mental Substitute (4th?)
focus, personal, day, discharged
You set up a mind instance to be targetted in your place by a mind-affecting effect. You must decide whether to use the instance (and discharge the spell) before making your save. If the effect would kill you, it destroys the instance.
Focus: A crystal containing a mind instance.

Mental Model is pretty broken; even 1% of a victim's memories is enough to find out what you want to know if you can choose the 1%.

I made a spell that was a slightly (well if you want to get all picky about it, infinitely) more extreme version of Xeno's Pivot, but I realized the borders make things pretty incoherent, or at least lethal. Think: What happens to you while you are passing through the surface of one of the bands?

Regarding Bubble Shield, you might want to take a look at this spell:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spell ... rce-sphere

You don't get to pick the L% (they have a L% chance of remembering any given thing you care about), but it's still pretty potent, especially as you can make multiple and cross-reference them. Probe Thoughts is 6th though, and seems about on par (you get the answer to 1 question/round, 1-minute casting time, so in the 5m it takes to cast Mental Model you could get 40 questions answered).


Re: Xeno's Pivot; within the sphere, the bands actually are that wide, so you would have to walk 275' to get from the center of the outer band to the center of the next band. To an outside observer, you would have appeared to move 5' very slowly (and be flat). The only time it gets crazy is when the spell ends, which I'm counting as being like a Teleport-shunt - that is, if you cram several square miles of stuff in there while the spell is in effect, then when it ends the stuff will try to occupy the immediate vicinity, taking some damage the farther it has to move, and anything that doesn't remotely fit will be destroyed by the shunt damage.

But that is the reason I didn't go with my original idea - Xeno's Wall, which would be a 2D wall where the front and back are infinitely far apart. Stepping in and out of the "edge" was - problematic. Making it a sphere avoids that.


Emergency Force Sphere is pretty sweet, actually, I'm going to take that if I ever have a 7th level non-Evocation-banning Wizard. Comparing Bubble Shield:
+ Might trip people who hit you
+ Hardness 5L is generally better than Hardness 20.
- Pops instantly instead of having 10L hp.
-- Doesn't protect against energy attacks.
-- Not an immediate action

Based on that, I'm going to say that Bubble Shield may be a 2nd level spell. Or maybe I should make it an immediate action and 3rd level.

Umm, I think you misunderstood my point about Xeno's Pivot. Let's just consider the outer surface, then. The outer band is 10 times bigger (in each dimension, because it's a sphere) on the inside than on the outside.

For the simple and obvious mapping function (polar coordinates, it's a sphere), when a person crosses from the outside to the inside, if they were half as tall as the sphere before, they still are. They do not perceive the sphere to be larger on the inside, because they are the same amount larger. Only creatures who were on the inside when the spell is cast perceive it as larger; when they leave the sphere, they'll still be shrunk.

If you use the other mapping function (when you touch the boundary, you are transported across it at that point and scaled appropriately), you'll actually experience the size change of the sphere, but if you reach out and tap the top of the sphere, you'll fall 11 miles to your death.

Infinitely long tunnels are much less problematic. That's just a pair of holes leading to an extradimensional space, dude.

Actually, that's a good point - things inside the sphere should look increasingly tiny, which I'm not sure is what I want. To clarify, this would use the second mapping function - you scaled as you cross the border. I don't think it would need to be an instantaneous transport though - you can be halfway across the border, because the scaling is a smooth ramp.

But yes, if you fell in at the top, you would fall for 11 miles or so. That part isn't a problem, IMO, as by the time people are casting high level spells at you, you should be able to fly - and 11 miles is several rounds of falling, IIRC.

And I'm not sure why I thought the wall version was problematic - I think I was originally thinking of it as an increasing gradient over several squares (which does have some border weirdness), but if it's actually 2D and you just can't step in/out of the "side", then it's pretty straightforward:

Wall of Xeno (?th)
medium, flat wall L/3, brief
You create a wall, infinitely thin in one dimension, but containing a vast distance. The front and back of the wall are considered to be L miles away from each-other. Anyone in the path of the wall can make a Reflex save to decide which side they end up on, otherwise you choose. You can't step into the wall from the side (ending up on one side or another) and people "inside" the wall can't step out of it that way either. When the spell ends, if there are too many people or things to fit in the unwarped area, treat it as being shunted by a Teleport.

Oh, but it does need to be an instantaneous transport. What happens if you're touching the top with your finger and the lower side with your boot?

BTW, my version of Wall of Xeno is only 100 meters deep so that really fast runners (the martial guys) can overcome it with their muscles.

There's no hard border where it suddenly changes to 1:10 scale, it's a smooth (albeit exponential) transition. Like this:


So while you'd look strange to an observer, there's no reason you couldn't be part-way across the line.


Miles might be too far, but 100 meters seems too close - you're still in range of archery and long-range spells at that distance, and it compares pretty poorly to Wall of Force. Unless you're talking about a lower-level one, which might be fine.