Drafty couldn’t even find the energy to yell as she buried her pick in the chest of the sahuagin in front of her, killing it instantly.
The thing’s body immediately fell to the ground, and it was all Drafty could do not to collapse as well. How long had they been fighting? She knew it couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes at most, but it felt like it had been hours. Her muscles were aching, her breath was coming in gasps, and her armor felt like it weighed a ton.
Risking a quick glance around, she could see that everypony else looked as tired as she felt. But at least they were all still standing, and…was it her imagination, or were their enemies finally starting to thin out? Maybe, just maybe they could-
BOOOOOOOOOM!
Drafty – along with everyone else, friend and foe alike – froze as a tremendous crash rang out. A split-second later she recovered, glancing left and right to try and ascertain what had happened, but what she saw didn’t make any sense. From out of nowhere, two large piles of wooden wreckage had appeared about twenty feet away on either side of them, as though it had started raining houses. The sheer incongruity of what had happened, along with the slow realization that she’d have died if those had fallen in slightly different locations, was enough to momentarily drive all other thoughts from her mind.
Belatedly, she glanced behind her. Barely noticing that Cozy and the others near her were okay, she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding as she saw that Lex and Cloudbank were alright. But her calm was shattered as she realized that the other ponies along the edges of the pier were fighting to repel monsters that were coming up from the sides. Even as she watched, one of them fired its crossbow at Lex, narrowly missing him.
And further back was a monstrous mass of darkness, impossible to get a good look at save only for the bright blue glow of its eyes and the constant sense of motion around it. The sight of it was terrifying, and Drafty had to resist the urge to turn and run as far away as she could. Instead, she looked back towards her front…and immediately ducked, giving a frightened yelp as the tip of a spear thrust right over her head, drawing a painful cut across her scalp.
Their reprieve, it seemed, had ended. Hefting her pick, Drafty tried to put the gigantic monster behind her out of her mind. Hopefully Lex and Cloudbank would be able to take care of it.
Somehow.
Lex tried to get up, tried to put his hooves under him and raise himself off the ground, but his body refused to comply. Fighting down a rising sense of panic, he made another attempt, and it was no more successful than the first. He even attempted to call upon his dark magic to turn into a shadow, even though he knew it had already been completely expended.
“Lex!” Cloudbank yelled as she ran over to him. “What’s wrong?!”
“It…didn’t work…” he gasped. “I can’t…bind…it…”
For a moment, Cloudbank gave him an uncomprehending look. Then her expression turned into one of shock and despair as his words sank in. “No…” For a moment her jaw worked soundlessly as she tried to process what he’d told her, shaking her head in denial that after everything they’d gone through, after how hard they’d fought and struggled, they were all going to die here. It couldn’t end like this! It wasn’t fair!
“NO!” she yelled, her angry denial unable to fully conceal her desperation. “You think of something! Right now you figure something out! We-”
Before she could say anything else, the pier gave a sudden shudder, as though struck by a tremendous impact, and began to sway alarmingly. Cloudbank gave a cry of fright, one that was echoed by the vanguard ponies around them as they struggled to retain their footing. Even the monsters climbing the sides seemed to be surprised, with more than a few falling back into the water. “What’s happening?!” screamed Cloudbank, having to repress the urge to spread her wings and fly away, knowing that she’d be at the mercy of the wind if she did. “What’s happening?!”
“The kraken!” Lex’s response was a wheezing yell. “It’s attacking…the pier!” He wasn’t sure why the monster was trying to knock them into the water rather than simply crushing them directly, but ultimately it made little difference. One way or another, they were going to be killed and there was nothing he could do about it.
This shouldn’t be happening! he raged internally. I was winning! I WAS WINNING! Until that monster had activated whatever those magic sigils on its body were, he had almost been able to take control of it with the Night Mare’s power! Just a little more, and it would have been defenseless and this would all have been over! I can’t lose again! Not when-
Wait…magic sigils? It had impeded the Night Mare’s power, the power that the goddess had directly imbued him with, by using magic? But the Night Mare’s power wasn’t spellcasting, nor was it anything like the dark magic of his horn, or any other sort of magic that he’d ever seen or heard about. So why would a magical effect be able to interfere with it?
“You shall contain a fragment of my essence within you, your very body a symbol of my power.”
Lex’s eyes widened as the words of the Night Mare came back to him. He hadn’t paid much attention at the time, since the sensation of her blessing had made it difficult to think, let alone parse her words, but now he rapidly turned them over in his mind. A second later he came to a conclusion, and a desperate hope formed in his mind…just as the pier shuddered again, and began to list dangerously to the right.
“We’ve gotta get off this thing!” hissed Aria, her face twisted in fear. Normally the water held no terror for her, but right now they were surrounded, and she had no doubt that her former comrades would tear her apart as soon as she was within their reach.
“She’s right!” Cloudbank looked at Lex. “We need to fall back!”
“No…” Lex’s voice was still strained, struggling under labored breaths, but his face had regained its determination, and it brought Cloudbank to a halt. “One…more try…”
“Are you completely out of your mind?!” raged Aria. “If you want to die, go ahead! But you’re not taking me-” Her words were cut off abruptly as the end of a scythe swung around to point directly at her face.
“You go and help the others,” ordered Cloudbank coldly, nodding her head at where the vanguard ponies on the right side of the pier were trying to steady themselves and fend off the monster horde at the same time, leveling Severance at Aria in a silent threat.
“You’re crazy!” Aria snarled, baring her teeth at Cloudbank and giving her a hateful glare. But the pegasus was unmoved, meeting her gaze directly, and a moment later Aria looked away, cursing as she headed towards the embattled ponies. Cloudbank watched her go for just a moment, turning away only after seeing Aria slide next to one of the vanguard ponies and knock some sort of lobster-like creature away with a swing of her thick tail.
Satisfied, she turned back to Lex. “What do we do?”
“Get ready…” He didn’t elaborate as he held his left hoof towards the kraken, clenching his jaw as he concentrated fiercely.
The Night Mare’s power had been impeded by magic, but that meant that it could be empowered by it as well. Since she had imbued his physical self with a shard of her divine essence, then that should mean that it could be heightened by the same overcharging as his other magic was when he flooded excess magic through his body. It was a complete guess, but it made sense…and it was the only hope they had left.
Barely noticing as Cloudbank nodded and slowly moved towards the end of the pier, Severance held in her jaw, Lex looked at the kraken and focused with everything he had…
As Tlerekithres activated his tattoo – invoking the spell resistance it contained – he felt that unknown power that pony wizard was radiating instantly recede. Suddenly it wasn’t some terrible, threatening creature anymore. It was just a small, pathetic herd animal…one that he had allowed to live for too long. Now that he’d managed to shake off whatever it had done to him, it was time to make sure that it couldn’t try anything else.
He reared back a tentacle, ready to smash both the wizard and the pier to pieces, but thought better of it as he saw the winged pony – the one with the powerful magical weapon – move closer to her companion. That scythe had sliced the ship fragment he’d thrown at them in half with a single blow; putting any part of his body anywhere near it would be unforgivably foolish. But how to attack them, then?
The answer came to him a moment later, and had Tlerekithres been capable of smiling he would have done so as one of his tentacles lashed out…under the water. Striking the support beams of the pier, he felt the structure shake under the blow, uncaring that he could also feel that several of his slaves had been caught up in his attack and squished. A moment later he struck the pier again, and this time several of the supports broke, causing the entire thing to begin to tilt. Just one, maybe two, more hits, and they’d all be dumped into the water, where his remaining slaves would-
All of a sudden the pony radiated that unknown power again, far stronger than before. In an instant, Tlerekithres felt it overwhelm him utterly, completely overriding the spell resistance from his tattoo. Fear – an emotion that he hadn’t felt in centuries – washed over him, and for an instant it was all he knew.
“Stop.”
The word came from the pony wizard, and although it was barely a whisper, Tlerekithres felt as though the sky itself had fallen on him. In an instant, his body became unbearably heavy, his limbs weighed down as though they were made of stone. “N-No…!” he raged, but it was useless. An instant later, he saw the other pony, the one carrying the magic scythe, charging down the pier towards him, and Tlerekithres knew that he had seconds left to live.
He couldn’t attack, he couldn’t get away…but he could still think, and a thought was all it took, another of his tattoos glowing as he activated the spell it contained.
Lex felt as though his entire body was on fire.
It had taken absolutely everything he’d had to push the Night Mare’s power to the necessary level, but it had worked. Even as he felt his organs twist and rupture, even as blood filled his mouth, he grinned victoriously. He’d bound the thing, forcing it to stop its movement. For the next sixty seconds, there was nothing it could do. A wet, rattling breath was the closest he could come to laughing, able to relax just slightly now that he’d successfully overcome the creature. His eyes slid to Cloudbank, and for a moment he wondered if she knew that this was her chance.
He needn’t have worried. In her mind, Cloudbank heard Severance tell her what had happened, and she charged forward, ready to end this once and for all. She was a third of the way there…halfway…three-quarters…!
Then another series of magic sigils glowed on the creature’s body, and Cloudbank felt herself come to a halt. Confused and alarmed, she tried to keep moving, but all of a sudden her body wouldn’t obey her. What was-
Kill the pony wizard.
The voice – different from Severance’s – flashed through her mind, and Cloudbank felt her terror skyrocket at the unknown presence. She tried to fight, tried to deny what she’d just been told to do, but even as she did she felt herself turn around. A moment later she charged again, this time right towards Lex. “S-Sev’rance!” she muttered, only barely able to make herself so much as speak. “Hlp meee!”
Severance’s reply was to coldly tell her to help herself. A moment later she felt the weapon’s presence withdraw from her mind completely, and it was as though she was wielding just another lump of unfeeling metal. Panicking, Cloudbank tried to figure out what to do, trying to stop herself in the few seconds she had left before she reached Lex, who was now looking at her with a horrified expression as he realized what had happened and knew that he was powerless to do anything about it.
A second later she was standing over him, and she couldn’t stop herself as she raised Severance high above her head only to immediately bring it down in a lethal arc. In that moment, lightning lit up the sky, thunder pealed across the bay, and Severance cut through the air, through flesh, and through bone.
But not Lex’s.
It took Cloudbank a moment to realize what had happened, and when she did her eyes widened. Someone else had dived in and pushed Lex out of the way, taking the strike that had been meant for him. But it hadn’t been Sonata or Cozy or even Aria that had sacrificed themselves for him. And as she looked at the pony that was currently pinned to the ground via the scythe in her mouth, Cloudbank felt herself begin to shake in horror, and a moment later a scream erupted from her throat.
“DRAFTY!”
Tlerekithres heard his puppet scream, and suddenly felt the magic that he’d used to control her vanish as she somehow found the strength to resist him. That meant that she’d likely be on him in a few moments…which left him with only a single option remaining. It was costly, but it was the only thing he could do if he wanted to survive this battle, let alone win it.
The tattoo he activated then was the only one he had left that could possibly save him now. He had plenty of others, but they were for magical effects such as increasing his physical strength or striking incorporeal creatures, none of which were currently helpful. Only this one – which could only be used once, and then would be expended until he found another slave able to cast this particular spell, which could warp reality itself within certain limits – could still make a difference.
Still held immobile, but able to speak, Tlerekithres invoked the spell. “I wish I was immune to the power binding me.”
8156120
I know. The way I understood it was that it worked the same way a transmutation works: You can, somehow (I don't know HOW, but you can) resist it with your mind, which means that you can mentally resist physical changes to your body (somehow... Again, I'm not clear on how exactly this works). My assumption thus was that the illusion affected your physical body in some way (altering your sensory input by affecting the sensory organ or rather, warp the input before it reaches the brain or similar organ) and by succeeding the will save/disbelieving it, you end that manipulation, negating that alteration, but leaving the imperfect source (the outline of the wall) intact.
True, but that way it still has to interact with the belief of the target. After all, if you get hit by such and illusion and believe it the first time, you take 100% real damage, and when you then disbelieve it, the exact same thing hits you again... But somehow does less damage. Further, the damage you took beforehand doesn't suddenly get reduced: You still took the 100% hit, which means that that damage has to be real, right?
Also, like I've said before, there are cases where disbelieving an Illusion (Shadow) increases the damage it can deal, which would mean that you may have gotten hit with 100% damage by something which would normally deal 120% damage.
Jep, they are rather... confusing. Again, what I said was just how I made sense of it, so it's likely to still be wrong :3
Its at this point that Discord wishes to file a complaint?
Hopefully Severance is so efficint at their job that the wound takes them to zero HP, or even negative, but tehrs teh Con variation, which eans enough minimum healing and they dont die, or is everyone far too gone, so that attempting a heal, and not reaching the minimum points needed immediately kills them?
But if the kraken manages to end the Stop, which is only a few seconds anyway, all it has to do is reach under the pier, lift the front half up and fold it over, and its got a Sushi Taco?
Hmm... Normally I'd say that Wish would win out, because the Night Mare is an Evil Deity, meaning her Channeling would be negative energy, and Death Ward, a Level 4 Spell, specifically makes immune against it. But then I looked back at Lex's character build and realised that he had untyped Channeling instead of following the guideline stated in Censure (counting Channeling as Specialized by only affecting a single group of targets), in which case he'd still only affect a single type of creature (Magical Beasts) but still have to choose between Positive and Negative energy.
I mean, in 3.5, you could get Life Ward or Death Ward, making Channeling Immunity pretty much a Cleric 4 spell, well within the limits of a Wish. Pathfinder, however, doesn't offer Life Ward as an option.
So yeah, my bias would still go towards Wish working, but I have no idea if that would be correct RAW.
8156186
Amusingly enough, I remember an old Greyhawk module in AD&D 2E where it mentioned that if the PCs use wish or similar reality-bending spells, Iuz and similar gods and god-like beings in the immediate area (i.e. on the same plane and within several hundred miles) are aware of it. I don't remember what the module was, unfortunately, but it was a cool idea that was never touched on again, insofar as I know.
Of course, that wouldn't apply here anyway, since Tlerekithres used a limited wish.
Aw, you're hoping that Drafty is dead?!
That aside, I think you're referring to the old Vitality and Wound Points optional rule from the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana (and d20 Star Wars), which we're not using here.
That's not a time stop effect. As for that idea, it's not a bad one, but the pier is still at least partially intact, and has been built to be resilient, so it's not quite at the point where it can flip it the way an angry gamer would the table, yet.
8156222 A few things that need to be noted:
First, the spell that Tlerekithres invoked was limited wish, rather than wish.
Secondly, although the Night Mare is an evil deity, I don't see the channeling ability that she gave Lex as being negative energy, per se. Truthfully, I've never liked the fact that deities of myriad portfolios would be made to take such a binary stance regarding positive or negative energy, which is why I appreciated it when Pathfinder offered variant channeling (heck, a lot of specialty priests in AD&D 2E simply didn't have the ability to turn or command undead at all, since that wasn't related to their god's portfolio). Even Eclipse doesn't require that channeling abilities be positive or negative, as Thoth noted, which is why Lex's channeling is specifically called out as being a variant (and can't affect the undead).
Of course, that leaves me in the rather awkward position of having to say what exactly the energy he's channeling is, and the best answer I have is that it's specifically the Night Mare's own divine power. That might seem like a semantic difference, but it's up there with how deities that have cleric levels are granting their own divine spells, rather than having to pray to someone else.
So Severance helped by withdrawing its power so that Cloudy's attack wasn't as deadly?
8156572 You know, I actually thought of having that be the case. But sadly, Severance shares its mistress's temperament - if you ask for help, then you're not worthy of receiving it.
Also, congrats on making the thousandth comment!
8156347 Limited Wish should still be able to apply a Level 4 spell, which Life Ward used to be and Death Ward still is.
My reasoning was, when I believed that Lex channeled negative energy and applied the specialization listed in the description of Censure, Death Ward was within limits of Wish (and still is within limits of Limited Wish), so the Kraken would win out. Even if it were Pathfinder Variant Channeling, which says that
and continues to reference positive and negative energy further, I would find that Death Ward would be able to hold it off. Now, of course, I don't have any RAW argument against either side winning because untyped Channeling doesn't exist outside of Eclipse.
Now, I would say that while I am aware of Thoth's statement on the matter, I'd also like to point out that he says that
and they weren't available in every setting. As such, I would still argue that, since the spells that normally protect/ed against Channeling were all level 4, in a world in which Channeling is still as destructive as it used to be, but simply uses other sources, someone would invent an effect against that specific energy source with roughly the same level (4).
In conclusion, my statement hasn't really changed: I still feel like Limited Wish should protect the Kraken, but I have no RAW to stand on.
8156599 You're making some salient points, but I still disagree. That's not because I don't think that what you're saying has merit, but because I'm approaching it from a different philosophical standpoint. (I will grant that I'd overlooked the notation on Pathfinder's variant channeling about it explicitly stating that it modified positive or negative energy that was channeled, though; I'd recalled that as being more focused on mechanics than actually stating what the energies were, but it looks like I misremembered.)
Part of the issue is that I have a general objection to wish (as well as limited wish and miracle) being rigorously held to the limits of "as per what any other arcane spell of 8th-level or below, or a divine spell of 7th-level or below, etc. can do." That drives me up the wall, because it's quite clearly a general guideline that's being interpreted as a hard-and-fast rule. It's not even consistent with itself - a wish spell can:
Being able to heal multiple creatures of all of the damage they've suffered is most closely equivalent of mass heal, which is a 9th-level cleric spell. If we presume that not being able to use any of the other effects of a heal spell (i.e. ending that laundry list of adverse effects) is worth a 2 level reduction, then that might seem to justify it, but I'd argue that having no upper limit on the amount of healing it can grant (as it explicitly states that it heals "all" damage on the affected creatures) is worth bumping it up by 1 level, so that's an 8th-level divine spell effect, which should be outside of wish's power.
To put it another way, a wish spell was never intended to act like a (greater) anyspell (or, from The Practical Enchanter, greater invocation). Third Edition introduced that particular guideline to act as a rough guide to how powerful a wish should be, but everyone took that far too literally (along with quite a few other aspects of the game rules). A wish is supposed to be open-ended in what it can possibly do, with the GM adjudicating its level of power and the implementation of its casting (via what the caster wishes for). It was one of the few spells whose effects weren't explicitly and rigorously defined, allowing for a great degree of variability, which is how I still treat it.
With regards to death ward, I agree that as written it's supposed to grant immunity to negative energy effects, including channeled negative energy. The problem with this is that, just like in 3.5, channeled energy was viewed as a very niche ability when those spells were written, and so their absolute nature wasn't seen as a problem. This raised some odd issues with regard to things that came later, like divine feats (again, in 3.5), where an enemy could spend a turn/rebuke attempt to gain a completely different effect. So now you had someone wondering if a death ward made them immune to the extra damage they'd receive from an evil cleric that used Divine Might. They certainly never had anything as variable as what Eclipse allowed for. While allowing for a low-to-mid-level spell to absolutely defeat higher-level spells isn't unprecedented (just look at true seeing), I don't think I'd allow that to defeat any sort of Conversion effect that was used by a negative energy channeler, unless the effect itself was necessarily using negative energy, for example.
All of which is to say that I'm not wild about the idea that all of channeling can be shut down by a 4th-level spell effect. After all, if "someone would invent an effect against that specific energy source with roughly the same level (4)" as you noted, then we should see spells that make you completely immune to fire, acid, electricity, etc. at that level, rather than spells that only provide various levels of resistance instead. Particularly when the energy in question is divine energy (e.g. what the other half of a flame strike spell is composed of).
8158106
It specifically says that it can do exactly that (it can produce/do any of the following) and when a spell says it can do a specific thing... Well, I don't expect it to lie, to be perfectly honest, though I have to say that the wording of Limited Wish in particular has always bugged me for the exact opposite reason: You can produce effects of similar power without a real guideline on what "similar power" might entail. I prefer the wording of Wish where it says "You can do that and specifically that. You can try harder, but then it's up the the DM, which means it's probably gonna create more problems than it solves, often due to it not solving the problem at hand in the first place".
I actually had to double-check on this one. I had no idea Wish could even do that. Even considering that there are arcane healing spells in 3.5, they came out way later than Wish. So yeah, I have no idea how that idea came to be. That is bizzare.
...Well, I can see that, but what exactly does this mean in this context? I mean, to me it sounds like this is an upgrade to the way Wish is normally (if wrongfully) used in most games. To me it seems that this is an argument FOR Wish's ability (or rather, it's potential) to remove effects beyond the listed effects.
I can see what you mean. Personally I'd say that it doesn't affect Divine Might, but I can see why you would say that it get's negated.
I agree with that too, though I believe that Thoth's article you linked about the alternate sources of channeling he mentioned that it being something "related to the energy type in question" was not fluff, but a hard rule, so every negative energy channeler, at least in Eclipse, would use effects that are necessarily using negative energy. I could have misinterpreted that though. I always get a little confused when it comes to that article.
I would actually stand by that statement: If someone were to be able to Channel Elemental Energy (Fire), I wouldn't find it unusual for such an Immunity-spell to pop up.
I'm not sure if it matters, but James did specifically mention in one of his Q&As that Force, Negative Energy and Positive Energy are, at least in some way, different from Elemental Energies (if it matters, in 3.5 there is a spell called Force Ward, which is level 4 and counterspells Force spells automatically, even if it technically doesn't make you immune). For another idea, consider this: The spell Energy Immunity is level 7, sure, but it allows you to choose. See it like this: If Energy Immunity were to be build as a Greater Invocation, we would be able to draw from a very limited list of level 6 spells that provide immunity to a specific energy type. Further, Energy Immunity, and thus the spells it would allow you to choose from were it a Greater Invocation, last(s) for 24 hours. If we decrease that by 3 steps (from 24 hours to 1 hour/level to 10 min./level to 1 min./level), removing 3 spell levels in the process... We'd arrive at 5 individual level 3 spells that provide Immunity to a specific energy type for 1 min./level. One could even argue that we'd be able to subtract another one for their inability to stack, but let's say the Greater Invocation doesn't stack. Now, Death Ward is a level higher, but it also protects against a whole other slew of things.
Of course, this would be based on the idea that Elemental and non-elemental energies are equal, which seems to be the case as we can make a creature Immune to Force, but Vulnerable to Sonic (non-elemental and elemental, respectively) via Energy Infusion.
When it comes to Divine Energy, well, you listed Flame Strike. Flame Strike says that:
It doesn't seem to me like it says that Divine Energy cannot be resisted, just that it cannot be reduced by resistance to fire-based attack, which makes sense because Divine Energy isn't Fire Energy.
Even if we were to say a Level 4 spell isn't enough, and I will admit that there are, RAW, no spells at level 4 or lower that provide Immunity to elemental damage. Level 4 spells are listed as the lowest type of effect it could replicate: A non-sorcerer/wizard spell that is forbidden to the caster. If we just say it isn't forbidden, we'd rise to level 5, which, in 3.5 would include AoE Immunity against at least two energy types (via Antifire and Anticold Sphere).
In conclusion, I can see why your point is valid, but I wouldn't say it's the only possibly right statement one could make on what limited information we have.
8158651
It's not a question of the spell "lying." It's a question of the description offering a delineation between what can be "safely" wished for and what it can't. (That's leaving aside issues of the plasticity between what a wish can do in 3.5 vs. Pathfinder. Notice how the 3.5 version of wish explicitly talks about being able to make up to 25,000 gp in nonmagical items, or can create or add power to a magic item? That's not in the Pathfinder version.)
d20 magic, in the Core Rules at least, is extremely specific in its effects. Each spell is laid out with extreme rigor, having clearly-delineated effects and a boatload of keyword typing, even before you get to the actual description of the spell. Those restrictions nicely eliminate ambiguity, but they also eliminate a great deal of creative applicability (particularly compared to previous editions, where the looser parameters allowed for greater flexibility). Wish was supposed to be the spell that put that flexibility back in due to its variable nature, but tempered it with the warning that the wording of your wish could be perverted. This isn't to say that it didn't have limits on what it could do - it absolutely did; you couldn't wish yourself to be a god, for example - but how a wish was granted was paramount.
The 3.5/Pathfinder version created a division, wherein you used existing spells as guidelines to delineate what a wish could do safely, with only "greater" effects making perversion of intent possible. And I think that's a shame, because it means that you're now flipping through books and consulting online resources to try and find a spell that most-closely matches what you're looking for...to say nothing of arguing over how a similar-but-still-different spell's level would be modified if the spell worked slightly differently to grant you what you want, etc. That's far less interesting, and certainly less evocative, than making a grand-yet-careful wish - worded in-character - and seeing what the GM does with it.
I believe that's a legacy issue, as wish in previous editions allowed for the caster to wish away harm to themselves and their allies - among a few other things - without being debilitated. Otherwise, the casting of a wish spell placed a severe strain on them that took quite a while to heal. Though the need to be careful how you worded it was still there as well.
As mentioned previously, what that means is that wish now has a "safe harbor" provision. If you can comb through a sourcebook and find a spell that is within its guidelines, a wish won't be perverted, as per the spell description. That's a fairly major boost, considering that in previous editions any casting of wish could potentially be turned against you if your wording was too lose and the GM was inclined to mess with you (or was playing an NPC that was so inclined, such as an angry efreet).
To be fair, situations like that were usually fairly easy to figure out, since there's an intuitive difference between effects that directly affect you, and those that directly affect someone else, who then affects you. So I think most people would say that Divine Might still works...but corner-cases did pop up from time to time.
I think that he was being literal also, but the way I see it "related" to negative energy doesn't mean that it's negative energy specifically. If you use a spell conversion, then, well...a "conversion" means that it's no longer the original type (unless the converted spell also uses negative energy). So if you convert negative energy into a blindness attack a la blindness/deafness, does that work? I'd say so (though the use of "call upon the powers of unlife" makes it ambiguous if it's using negative energy or not), but there's room to argue the point either way.
The problem there is that Pathfinder (as opposed to 3.5) has no such immunity-spell (that I can recall), and yet fire - while not commonly channeled - is still extremely common as an attack form. If we look at such things from a deterministic point of view, a spell to be immune to fire altogether should be far more common than one to be immune to negative energy. There might be a lot of undead and evil clerics out there, but fire monsters and fire-casting spellcasters seem even more common.
There are a number of points to address here.
The first one is that James Jacobs comments are of questionable weight. While I agree with the point he's making in the post that you linked to, there's a danger in presuming that everything he posts anywhere on the internet with regards to Pathfinder is at the level of a FAQ, let alone errata. That's because, despite his title at Paizo, he's not the sole voice of the company, and his answers likely don't get input from other people that normally get it where game rules are concerned. For example, Erik Mona is Paizo's Chief Creative Officer / Publisher, whereas Jason Bulmahn is "just" the Lead Designer and Owen K.C. Stephens is a Developer - there's an argument to be made that Erik outranks them, and yet he had an idea vetoed by them when he wanted to create a new armor type for Red Sonja's chainmail bikini. So I take what James Jacobs posts in that thread with a very large grain of salt.
Moreover, while I can understand why he'd say that positive and negative energy, and force, aren't elemental energies, this opens up a can of worms that he doesn't really go into. That's because he's saying what elemental energies aren't without saying what they are, and that's a problem, because it leaves their definition ambiguous. Are "elemental energies" energies tied to the elemental planes (i.e. fire for Fire, acid for Earth, cold for Water, and electriticy for Air)? If so, what does that make sonic, since there is no Plane of Sound?
Similarly, elemental immunity is a bad example, as it specifically protects against hit point damage and nothing else, so it wouldn't help against channeled energy (for anything besides direct damage) anyway, as you noted. Leaving aside the consideration that Pathfinder apparently hasn't seen fit to add spells that grant immunity to a particular energy type back into the game, there's an argument to be made that death ward is essentially the same as elemental immunity anyway, since the things it's protecting against are all directly damaging effects anyway, just not necessarily via hit points (e.g. energy drain, death effects, etc.). That's why I was down on the expansion of "channeled negative energy" to mean other effects too, since the intent seems (to me) to be clearly more concerned with direct damaging applications.
Yeah, that's another reason why Jacobs' answer doesn't seem like a very good one, since it's making an artificial distinction. Again, I can see why he did that in reference to the question asked, but he was clearly painted into a corner (via game-ist rules rather than simulationist ones).
No, but on the other hand, there are no spells, magic items, class abilities, monsters, etc. that grant resistance or immunity to divine energy that I'm aware of. That would collectively seem to paint a picture that this is an energy that plays by somewhat different rules, since the usual methods of overcoming it don't seem to be applicable...which makes sense, given that this is supposed to be a direct application of a god's power.
Sure, but this gets into a few other issues, such as Pathfinder being different in its reluctance to hand out total immunity to particular energy types via spells. Moreover, as noted, I'm not sure that death ward was ever intended to be as expansive as it's being made out to be, as the spell was designed to defeat the deleterious applications of directly being hit with negative energy to cause damage - it's just that most of the "damage" isn't necessarily hit point based (as opposed to things like negative levels or instant-death effects), so the spell's wording needed to be broader than normal. I question if it could stop blindness/deafness.
I'm not trying to say that my point of view is the only valid one; just that it does have validity unto itself.
8159454 That's a fair point. Though I'd still have a single concern... But I'd say that that's simply my dislike of no-save-just-suck abilities, especially when there is no spell to immunize yourself with (even the 3.5 Blasphemy-line could be countered with Spell Immunity, if you knew what you were up against), rather than an actual reason.
8164556 To be fair, spells that hit you with a debilitating effect and don't allow a save - or even an attack roll - do exist in the game (though even then they typically allow spell resistance, something that most PCs don't have). Just look at maze, for example, or any of the power word spells. Bear in mind that even a spell that deals divine damage, such as flame strike, could be stopped by a spell immunity or greater spell immunity if it was of a low enough level.
Insofar as Lex's channeling goes, my point was that I was arguing against a blanket immunity to it (and all channeling) via a single relatively low-level spell. Given that it's already an ability that's useless versus everything that isn't of the proper creature type, that doesn't seem too overly restrictive (particularly since there are other ways of fighting back against it, as Tlerekithres' spell resistance spell demonstrated).
Damn death flag!
Rage aside, whatever protected Cloudbank from the aboleth's psychic influence either wore off or it was useless to the Kraken's sigil. Still, I'm curious if a sigil capable of granting wishes be capable of opposing a goddess' powers. Then again, with Lex apparently drained of magic and Severance leaving Cloudbank to fend for herself...there's not much either of them can do. Things look bad, really bad.
8167408 I've long been of the opinion that the way to write good action scenes is to continually escalate things in a point-counterpoint manner. Each side should respond to what their opponent has done in a manner that ups the ante, ratcheting up tension as both sides are pushed further and further to try and overcome their enemy. In this case, Tlerekithres has just hit back against Lex's dramatic last-ditch effort, and in doing so turned the tide in his favor...or has he?
Oh shit.
Oh the irony.
This kraken is way too smart for its own good.
The Guardians in front reached the kraken, and started hacking at it with all sorts of meld weapons:swords, flails, maces. The archers had swapped to enchanted arrows, with the power of undo, and the mages kept casting edit over and over. The typo empire would not fall so easily.