[PF] Full Pouch spell

[Power]

Time to make a thread dedicated to the crazy spell that is Full Pouch:

FULL POUCH
Source Arcane Anthology pg. 20
School transmutation; Level alchemist 2, arcanist 2, bard 2, druid 2, hunter 2, inquisitor 3, investigator 2, occultist 3, ranger 3, skald 2, sorcerer 2, wizard 2
CASTING
Casting Time 1 swift action
Components V, S, M (alchemical reagents or herbs worth 1 gp)
EFFECT
Range touch
Target 1 object touched
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw Fortitude negates (object); Spell Resistance no
DESCRIPTION
You cast this spell as you draw out a consumable alchemical item to use. The object must be an alchemical item, but not a dose of disease, a poison, a magic potion, or another type of consumable item. The item divides itself into two nearly identical copies and the newly separated one is delivered into your hand. The new item functions as the original in all ways except the copied item suffers a slight reduction in quality. Saves against the new alchemical item’s affects [sic] use the original item’s save DC or the save DC of this spell, whichever is higher.

So, for 1 swift action and 1 gp (if you use False Focus you can waive this cost as an arcane spellcaster, if you take Eschew Materials you can waive this 1 gp cost on any caster, and if you wear a 5k gp Robe of Components you can cast it 50 times per day before dipping into your own pockets), you can make a permanent copy of any alchemical item, and have it upgrade to the save DC of the spell instead of the item too.

I think it's pretty unambiguous that the following lists constitute alchemical items:

• Alchemical Reagents
  
• Alchemical Remedies
  
• Alchemical Tools
  
• Alchemical Weapons
  
• Concoctions
  
• Tinctures

There are also two more lists that include clearly contain alchemical items:

• Firearm Ammunition
  
• Siege Ammunition

Somewhat more ambiguous is whether Herbs count as alchemical items. At the least, it seems reasonable to assert that the herbs that require processing with Craft (Alchemy) constitute alchemical items in their processed form. (Incidentally, as vegetable matter, you can recreate herbs with Minor Creation, including through usage of Greater Shadow Conjuration, which is obtainable on any full spellcaster through the Veiled Illusionist PrC. Of course, this does not work for herbs you want to use as material components.)

Fungal Grafts may or may not count as alchemical items, but they are not consumables (as grafts remain an active part of the user) so they are not valid targets regardless.

Drugs are a more unusual topic. They do explicitly constitute alchemical items (see Drugs and Addiction: "Drugs are alchemical items") so they should work fine, but owing to how drugs parallel and employ the poison rules for some of their mechanics, there are GMs that will houserule that drugs qualify as poison for rules purposes (which would also mean that taking drugs causes a Paladin to fall, as using poison is a code of conduct violation), even though PF always distinguishes drugs from poisons (and at no point says anywhere that drugs are to be treated as poisons), so that is something to bear in mind. Then there is another side of the argument, which is that drug addiction is explicitly a disease, and therefore a dose of drug can also be treated as a dose of disease (which is an invalid target for Full Pouch), which would be an interesting argument to make (Is the disease of addiction considered part of what the drug dose is carrying or a reaction on the user's part to the drug? At any rate, drugs certainly aren't conventionally classified as disease doses). Lawyering and house rules aside, it seems like drugs would be a valid target for Full Pouch also, since they are indeed consumable alchemical items and not counted among either poisons or diseases, but it looks like the saving throw DCs against addiction would be raised to Full Pouch's DC, but at least you can use the spell to make a copy of Antiplague for a +5 alchemical bonus to fortitude saves vs disease before imbibing drugs, and don't forget you can always cast a spell with a lower DC, as if casting with the minimum spellcasting ability score required to be able to cast spells of that level (ie. you can go down to DC13 unless you're Inquisitor or Ranger, in which case it's DC14). You can also just wear a Periapt of Health which will render you immune to all diseases. If you are going to use drugs, you may want to use Amp to boost the drug's effects.

Clearly, this spell has a lot of potential to do things for you, so I figure we may as well make a thread about what would be some good uses of Full Pouch.

[TiaC]

There's the trick with Tea of Transference, Echoing Spell, and  Ki Channel.

Full Pouch on Tea of Transference lets you turn Ki into channel uses or spell slots (up to 2 less than your highest level spell). Ki Channel lets you turn channel uses into more Ki. Echoing spell lets you get two uses out Full Pouch, one to recover itself, one to regain channel energy or another spell. Once it's off the ground, you can get infinite spell slots up to 2 levels lower than your highest level spell as well as infinite ki and channel energy.

It's a high-level combo, since you need a Ki pool, 3d6 channel, and an Echoing Full Pouch that's two levels lower than your highest level spell.

[Power]

That's a pretty good stunt. Looking over it, if you want to use Echoing spell with Tea of Transference you're normally looking at a 5th level slot which in order to be restored with a Tea of Transference requires access to 7th level spells, which is pushing it a bit. If you use Magical Lineage magic trait and Wayang Spellhunter region trait, you can discount Full Pouch's metamagic by 2 points for a 3rd level Echoing Spell instead of 5th level, which means you only need access to 5th level spells to get going here, which is much more reasonable. But that only works with the pre-errata Echoing Spell. I believe Echoing Spell has been nerfed as a consequence of an infinite spell loop using Spell Perfection.

Incidentally you can use a Phylactery of Positive Channeling to raise your channel dice by 2, but it doesn't really matter since this combo already has infinite ki points, infinite channels, and infinite spellcasts anyway. You can also get a ki pool with the Perfect Style feat and you can get a single channel energy through the Empyreal wildblooded bloodline which means it is also available to Exotic Heritage and later on Improved Eldritch Heritage (Empyreal). You get at least 3d6 channel energy this way anyway, so you don't need a phylactery for this either.

[zook1shoe]

fungal grafts are neither alchemical items, nor consumable.

the most expensive ones i could find are...

* Blightburn Paste for $5k, since it is not a dose of disease. its just some radioactive paste that activates when opened.

its consumability could be arguable. but it mentions nothing about turning off the radiation if closed, so that would easily make it consumable. its also made of animal fat, which would breakdown after time.

* Antidote and Antivenom used against Fool's Leprosy are also $5k each

[Power]

One thing that occurs to me is spamming Tanglefoot Bags and using them as alchemical reagents for Slow to mass inflict staggered+tanglefoot bag, especially since you get to enjoy higher tanglefoot DCs through Full Pouch. You can also just throw them with the Quick Throwing spell (which is one of the few ways to full attack with alchemical items, along with playing an Underground Chemist Rogue).

It occurs to me you may actually want a Heighten Spell feat with Full Pouch as it makes a great spell to spam on your downtime days (or extra slots left over at the end of the day, for spontaneous casters) to collect higher DC alchemical items.

Fire Wheel Fireworks and Coughing Dragon Fireworks let you mass-inflict blind and sickened, respectively. Noxious pig is also an AoE DC20 fort save or nauseated for 1d4 rounds. Cytillesh stun vial makes for an AoE DC20 will save or be stunned for 1d2 rounds (or confused for 1 round for people outside the primary AoE).

[zook1shoe]

didn't even see the whole "increased DC" thing, thats really nice

oh, and your quote on the spell lists it as a "1 standard action", but you mention and the link shows "1 swift action"

[Nytemare3701]

didn't even see the whole "increased DC" thing, thats really nice

oh, and your quote on the spell lists it as a "1 standard action", but you mention and the link shows "1 swift action"

The description of the spell says you cast it AS you pull out an item, so I think it's consuming your swift in addition to the action to pull+use an alchemical item.

[zook1shoe]

makes sense

the comment was intended to be about the mistake in the quote, for others that might see it and be confused.

[Power]

The description of the spell says you cast it AS you pull out an item, so I think it's consuming your swift in addition to the action to pull+use an alchemical item.

*sigh* That will be a rules SNAFU of its own. It's an instantaneous duration spell (ie. effects are permanent and not dispellable) and there are no limits or conditions saying anything about whether or not you must use your copied item right away, especially considering the presence of a clause meant to deter the use of this as a money-printing spell, which implies you can give away copies to others. It gets even sillier when you take into account factors outside your control, like someone readying a disarm maneuver to slap the item out of your hand right after you draw it (and deliver a copy in your hand). What happens to the item then?

In my opinion, if the item was compelled to be used instantly or otherwise have some form of restriction or disappearance occur should it leave your possession/control, these conditions would have been detailed in the spell. Instead the only caveat is one against selling duplicated alchemical items ("the copied item suffers a slight reduction in quality"), which suggests that the intention is in fact that people can indeed hold on to them and give them to others since otherwise such a caveat would be utterly unnecessary and pointless.

So basically, you can use swifts to copy a consumable alchemical item whenever you draw it, and get a permanent copy (until it's used, anyway) like the spell's duration indicates and you can do whatever you like with it.

[zook1shoe]

i think that it'd would be more than reasonable to have a spoil-timer on the new one, like 1 hour or 24 hours

[Power]

Yeah, I could certainly see some house-ruling happening with this spell. I'm just not keen on house-rules being achieved through selectively interpreting text to GM's preference. That's not honest conduct and GMs who do this sort of thing have no right to complain about lawyering imo. When it comes to rules and mechanics, a GM should be honest with players instead of playing these sorts of games, because players should be able to take a GM's word at face value on these matters.

Generally speaking though mechanics should be better worded by their designers and editors so we won't have to deal with rules arguments in the first place.

[Nytemare3701]

In the case of this spell, there's plenty of qualifying language that makes the intent pretty clear:

You cast this spell as you draw out a consumable alchemical item to use.

Pretty clear when the spell is being cast. What action are being used here is ambiguous though.

You cast this spell as you draw out a consumable alchemical item to use.

The spell assumes you are using the item.

[Power]

Yeah, in this case it's a viable argument, but it results in its own rules mess with lots of gut calls on the particulars following it, so it's got variation written all over it. The counterargument could just as easily be made that this is unsupported by the rules mechanics which at no point feature any stipulations regarding obligatory usage/duration/possession/etc. of the duplicate item as this text would seem to require if those are the intended rules. That's why I called it a rules SNAFU.

Me, I'm generally of the opinion that the more you have to invent rules conditions and mechanics on your own as a consequence of the interpretation you chose, the more you are really just house-ruling without recognizing it as such.

My take is that given the presence of a clause that is clearly designed to prevent people from selling duplicated items (which should be functionally impossible if the duplicated item were under a "use it or lose it" condition as your reading would demand), the presence of a deliberate mechanic for an action that can only be performed when you are keeping a duplicated item without consuming it strongly suggests that keeping duplicated items is meant to be possible.

[Power]

Hm, it looks like Alchemical Tinkering could allow you to bypass the requirement against copying poisons by transmuting copied alchemical items into poisons. It also gives you access to a much wider ranger of alchemical items in general.

[zook1shoe]

you could touch an appropriate item, make a temp copy, and Full Pouch the temp for a permanent version. rise and repeat.

[Power]

That's got some room for rules variation in there. It could easily be ruled that since you get an exact copy the copy you get also has the transmutation spell effect on it which will expire at the same time the original does and revert into the same item. But that would also open up use of Full Pouch as a means of duplicating spell effects that are applied to objects. And then there's the potential ruling that you would just get an exact copy of the alchemical item as it would be without any spells affecting it, so you just get the original item instead of the transmuted form.

Also, found an alchemical item outside the usual categories: Lover's breath. Outside of social applications, it's also useful for UMD and you can get +2 initiative if you are using Noble Scion (of War) to make initiative rolls into a charisma check.

[Power]

Found a few items outside the usual list of alchemical items under Black Market, but may require GM adjudication on whether or not to count them as alchemical items.

Also, Wasp metheglin may or may not count as an alchemical item. It certainly gives an alchemical bonus, at any rate, but it's classified as a drink. There are a number of items that give alchemical bonuses under the Food and Drink list. My overall leaning is that food and drink does not count as alchemical items even if it gives an alchemical bonus, but this is firmly "Ask your GM" territory.

Heathensnuff is a drug that is explicitly counted as a poison, which could lend support to the interpretation that drugs are poisons, but this item is also using mechanics that drugs typically do not (frequency) and it has unique ability score damage for addiction that does not abide by drug rules, so it is using poison rules all the way. My take is that this was an early attempt at drugs (Cities of Golarion was published in November 2009) before the Gamemastery Guide (publ. June 2010) codified the drug rules, so it should not be interpreted as indicative of anything regarding drug mechanics.

[Power]

Wyrm's Breath Bitter gives you the ability to belch as a move action and deafen and sicken enemies for 1 round with an easy save against the spell, which is now a much better save thanks to Full Pouch. However, it will also sicken the user unless they pass a save, so probably you will want to use Soothe Syrup to offset that boosted save.

Bloodgorge also has potential for those self-bleed builds, like if you worship Shax or are playing a Holy Vindicator.

[Nanashi]

Given the items created aren't locked to you, and the DC is set by spell instead of user, a familiar should be able to use it for an action economy boost. There's some immune to sicken (Clockwork is the most obvious. Even without checking all the options it's likely at least one undead familiar option exists and likely something with it as a non-type immunity).

[Power]

If you want to use it with familiars for an action economy boost, I'd say one spell that goes well with Full Pouch is the Quick Throwing spell. The Quick Throwing spell, unlike the Quick Draw feat, makes no restriction against drawing alchemical thrown weapons, so you can just have your familiar, animal companion, etc. full attack with thrown alchemical weapons.

The downside is that the Quick Throwing spell only appears on the Paladin, Hunter, Ranger, Magus, Bloodrager, and Antipaladin lists, out of which only the Hunter/Ranger gets both Quick Throwing and Full Pouch. However, the Magus can get Full Pouch with Spell Blending arcana, Bloodrager can get it with Urban Bloodrager, and Paladin can get it with Unsanctioned Knowledge as well as the Hunting Paladin or Wilderness Warden archetypes, but the archetypes only give it for 1 spell per spell level (although you can refresh those spells with Pearls of Power). You could also simply UMD a wand of Full Pouch, but then you're spending 91gp per alchemical item copy.

For the likes of Wizards, you're probably casting that Quick Throwing as a wand using UMD, and UMD is what familiars are commonly used for in PF, since it is so effortlessly easy to get UMD ranks on everything now.

Also, updated the OP to note that you can also recreate many forms of firearm ammunition and siege engine ammunition with Full Pouch.