Shadow Conjuration, Draconic ally and other oddities

[Selion]

I'm thinking about emulating draconic ally (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/draconic-ally/) with shadow conjuration, i don't know if i understand the spell correctly:

1) will shadow conjuration let me use the spell without material component?
2) Is Draconic Ally meant to give you a medium dragon, as the spell Form of the Dragon I, or it gives a tiny pseudodragon with just the abilities from Form of the Dragon I (namely natural attacks, ability bonuses and natural armor)
3) Does the pseudodragon keep its tail attack in addition to bonus natural attacks?
4) the spell lasts 1 day/level, does it means that it's required just a single will save the first time a foe interacts with it and it lasts all that time, or a will save is required every time they interact with the dragon?
5) (this is weird) how do illusions interacts with skills like "stealth"? I mean, suppose a illusory dragon is jumping on the rooftop, on the floor below people don't know about the illusion, shouldn't it be just 20% noisy?

[Kurald Galain]

1) Correct.
2) Draconic Ally states that it gives you a pseudodragon with added abilities, not a medium-sized dragon.
3) Ambiguous; I'm leaning towards "no" based on how the Form Of The Dragon spells are intended to work.
4) Each foe gets one save. The regular rules on illusions and disbelief still apply, so a foe who disbelieves can inform his allies to give them an additional save at +4.
5) Such corner cases are for the DM to adjudicate. The idea is that shadows are real until you explicitly manifest the willpower to disbelieve them. If you haven't seen the shadow yet, you haven't done the disbelieving yet, therefore it doesn't get a bonus on stealth towards you. And once you have disbelieved it, you see it as a "transparent image superimposed on vague, shadowy form" and arguably it should get a stealth bonus for that.

[Psyren]

2) Draconic Ally states that it gives you a pseudodragon with added abilities, not a medium-sized dragon.


Disagree with this one - yes, you start with a pseudodragon, but the size change from the form spell is part of the abilities granted by that spell; this intent is clearly seen in the later versions of those spells as well, e.g. Form of the Dragon 2 includes the size bonuses very clearly as "abilities" from the spell. So the end result would be a Pseudodragon who gets adjusted to medium size. The attribute adjustments would be as follows:

Str: Base 7, +4 untyped (Tiny to Small/Medium), +4 size (form of the dragon i) = 15 Str adjusted
Dex: Base 15, -2 (Tiny to Small/Medium) = 13 Dex adjusted
Con: Base 13, +2 size (form of the dragon i) = 15 Con adjusted



4) Each foe gets one save. The regular rules on illusions and disbelief still apply, so a foe who disbelieves can inform his allies to give them an additional save at +4.

Disagree with this one as well - interaction is defined in Ultimate Intrigue as spending a move action or greater on the illusion. If you're fighting one of these, you're going to be doing that multiple times in a fight. This is the big limiting factor with these sorts of illusions, eventually even the densest person on the planet is going to roll a 20 and figure it out.



5) (this is weird) how do illusions interacts with skills like "stealth"? I mean, suppose a illusory dragon is jumping on the rooftop, on the floor below people don't know about the illusion, shouldn't it be just 20% noisy?

Again, Ultimate Intrigue covers this one - none of the people below are "interacting" with the illusion, they are being passive, so they don't even get a save to disbelieve. Nothing the dragon does gets a 20% chance until they look up.

[Segev]

The "20% real" thing is generally not supposed to be advantageous to the illusionist. I mean, it is, in that there's still 20% that can't be ignored, but it's not meant to give them stealth bonuses or the like. But especially when saves haven't been made yet, the illusory dragon is "fully there" to their senses. Arguably, with a loud enough noise to detect it through the roof, they could get a save for disbelief right then; I've always been annoyed by how readily disbelief saves get made, though, so I probably, as a DM, wouldn't give it to them unless the illusory dragon started doing more than just vibrating the building a little with its jumping.

[Kurald Galain]

Disagree with this one - yes, you start with a pseudodragon, but the size change from the form spell is part of the abilities granted by that spell
Size is not an ability. This is why polymorph spells state separately that (1) you assume such-and-such form, and (2) you gain the following abilities. Draconic Ally grants the latter but not the former.


interaction is defined in Ultimate Intrigue as spending a move action or greater on the illusion.
Fair enough, if you're using the (optional) Ultimate Intrigue rules then illusions become more-or-less useless in combat, because everybody fighting them gets one or two extra saves per round. I'd wager that most campaigns don't use UI, though.

[Psyren]

Size is not an ability. This is why polymorph spells state separately that (1) you assume such-and-such form, and (2) you gain the following abilities. Draconic Ally grants the latter but not the former.

The size bonuses granted by the spell are included in the ability list, and the definition of a size bonus is "a bonus or penalty derived from a creature's size category." So I stand by my interpretation that the size changes are intended to be included in the spell. If you don't, then none of the other abilities (like the bite and claw damage) will be accurate for a Tiny creature.



Fair enough, if you're using the (optional) Ultimate Intrigue rules

No - Ultimate Intrigue isn't listing a bunch of optional rules, it's clarifying existing rules questions that are just more likely to come up in those kinds of campaigns. That whole section is basically one big FAQ in sourcebook form.

[Kurald Galain]

the definition of a size bonus is "a bonus or penalty derived from a creature's size category."
It's clearly not the same thing, because in your above calculation you're showing the two of these separately (yes, spells like Alter Self are known to change your "size bonus" without changing your "size category"). And stacking, too. That's a clear case of RAWMMCMP :smallamused:


Ultimate Intrigue isn't listing a bunch of optional rules
That's what the intrigue at Paizo wants you to think.

[Psyren]

It's clearly not, because in your above calculation you're showing the two of these separately. And stacking, too. That's a clear case of RAWMMCMP :smallamused:

The first modifier actually comes from the "Ability Adjustments from Size Changes" table in the polymorph rules - whenever the starting creature is something other than Small or Medium, you first have to get them to Small/Medium, and then apply the effects of the spell. As the table indicates, these are actual/direct adjustments to the creature's scores, not bonuses or penalties. Rather, the spell is then what provides a bonus or penalty, typed as size. In other words, I showed them on the same line for ease of calculation, not because they are both "bonuses."


That's what the intrigue at Paizo wants you to think.

Mark Seifter explicitly stated that section was meant to answer several FAQs they'd been sitting on. It's global.