Preview Monday: Three Multi-Variable Spells Beginning with A

by Tim Wallace

Here is are a few preview spells from tomorrow's post: Multi-Variable Spells – 3rd-5th Level Spells Beginning with A.

ABSORB TOXICITY

School necromancy; Level alchemist 3, druid 4, sorcerer/wizard 5, witch 4

Casting Time 1 standard action

Components V, S, M (a thorn from a poisonous plant)

Range personal

Target you

Duration 10 minutes/level or until discharged

Saving Throw see text; Spell Resistance no

You absorb the toxicity of your surroundings, becoming toxic as a result. While under the effect of this spell, you are immune to diseases and poisons with which you come into contact. When you are exposed to a disease or poison, you can choose to absorb it. Doing so ends the immunity due to this spell to any disease and poison other than the one you absorbed. You remain immune to the new affliction until this spell ends. Casting absorb toxicity on yourself a second time does not allow you to absorb a second toxin, but instead resets the duration of the effect to its full 10 minutes/level.

While you have a disease or poison absorbed, you can use a melee touch attack to transfer that affliction to another creature. A missed attack does not discharge the spell, and you can try to transfer the affliction again in subsequent rounds. If you hit, this spell is discharged, and your target must make a saving throw against the transferred affliction (DC equal to this spell's save DC or the affliction's save DC, whichever is higher) or suffer its effect or initial effect immediately. The target then continues to suffer from the affliction's normal effects.

If the spell's duration expires before you have transferred the affliction, you are exposed to any absorbed poison or disease as if you had transferred it to yourself, but you gain a +2 bonus on saves against that particular instance of the poison or disease.

Diminished Effects The spell’s duration is reduced to 1 minute/level or until discharged.

Heightened Effects The spell’s range becomes touch and its target becomes one living creature.

AIR WALK

School transmutation [air]; Level alchemist 4, cleric/oracle 4, druid 4; Domain air 4

Casting Time 1 standard action

Components V, S, DF

Range touch

Target creature (Gargantuan or smaller) touched

Duration 10 min./level

Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance yes (harmless)

The subject can tread on air as if walking on solid ground. Moving upward is similar to walking up a hill. The maximum upward or downward angle possible is 45 degrees, at a rate equal to half the air walker's normal speed.

A strong wind (21+ miles per hour) can push the subject along or hold it back. At the end of a creature's turn each round, the wind blows the air walker 5 feet for each 5 miles per hour of wind speed. The creature may be subject to additional penalties in exceptionally strong or turbulent winds, such as loss of control over movement or physical damage from being buffeted about.

Should the spell duration expire while the subject is still aloft, the magic fails slowly. The subject floats downward 60 feet per round for 1d6 rounds. If it reaches the ground in that amount of time, it lands safely. If not, it falls the rest of the distance, taking 1d6 points of damage per 10 feet of fall. Since dispelling a spell effectively ends it, the subject also descends in this way if the air walk spell is dispelled, but not if it is negated by an antimagic field.

You can cast air walk on a specially trained mount so it can be ridden through the air. You can train a mount to move with the aid of air walk (counts as a trick; see Handle Animal skill) with 1 week of work and a DC 25 Handle Animal check.

Diminished Effects The spell’s duration is reduced to 1 minute/level, and the target is outlined in a soft blue light which imposes a –4 penalty on Stealth checks to hide and allows other creatures to target the square it is in if the target is invisible.

Heightened Effects The spell’s target changes to creatures touched, but you divide the duration in 10-minute intervals among the creatures touched.

Notes This spell combines the effects of the following spells: air walk and communal air walk.

ARCANE SIGHT

School divination; Level alchemist 3, inquisitor 3, magus 3, sorcerer/wizard 3, witch 3

Casting Time 1 standard action

Components V, S

Range personal

Target you

Duration 1 min./level (D)

This spell makes your eyes glow blue and allows you to see magical auras within 120 feet of you. The effect is similar to that of a detect magic spell, but arcane sight does not require concentration and discerns aura location and power more quickly.

You know the location and power of all magical auras within your sight. An aura's power depends on a spell's functioning level or an item's caster level, as noted in the description of the detect magic spell. If the items or creatures bearing the auras are in line of sight, you can make Spellcraft skill checks to determine the school of magic involved in each. (Make one check per aura; DC 15 + spell level, or 15 + half caster level for a nonspell effect.)

If you concentrate on a specific creature within 120 feet of you as a standard action, you can determine whether it has any spellcasting or spell-like abilities, whether these are arcane or divine (spell-like abilities register as arcane), and the strength of the most powerful spell or spell-like ability the creature currently has available for use.

As with detect magic, you can use this spell to identify the properties of magic items, but not artifacts.

Arcane sight can be made permanent with a permanency spell.

Diminished Effects The spell’s duration becomes concentration, up to 1 minute/level.

Heightened Effects The spell’s range becomes touch and its target becomes one creature.