What is Love?
Greetings, and welcome everyone to this Romance Week edition of Obscure Arcana. Sometimes you might not want to destroy your foe in the usual way—with fire, rocks or a sword. But would instead want to use the power of love! Now, a lot of magic ignores love (such as the classic restriction on the wishes from a genie, for example), and it’s understandable why. Love is a powerful non-magical force, and if it is mixed with magic to any large degree, the power can be overwhelming. That doesn’t mean that magic and love can’t get along, however, and these spells capitalize on that power!
False Love
The subject of this spell is filled with an insatiable desire to please you. While under the effect of a false love spell, the target becomes obsessed with you, forsaking food, drink, and, to some extent, his own safety, in pursuit of your attention.
The target immediately drops anything he is holding and begs you to order him upon a task. If you do not give him a task, the target spends each round following you and begging for orders until you do so (ordering a creature under the effects of a false love spell is a move action). The target will attempt to perform any action ordered by you, within the limits of his abilities; however, actions out of its nature allow a new saving throw with a +2 bonus. After completing a task, the target will immediately return to you as fast as he can, forgoing sleep and rest until he reaches you, telling you about all the hardships that he faced in your service, and begging you for another task to complete.
Noticing that the creature is acting out of the ordinary is extremely easy, and a DC 5 Sense Motive check will reveal that the target is under the effects of a compulsion spell.
Fatal Attraction
You hold out your arms and pucker your lips, inviting a creature to give you kiss. If the target fails a Will save, he immediately moves towards you (as an immediate action, during your turn when you cast the spell) and attempts to kiss you. Obstructions and difficult terrain affect the target’s movement as normal, and if he does not make it to a space adjacent to you as part of this immediate action, he moves as close as he can and then the spell’s effect ends.
If the target successfully makes it to an adjacent space, he kisses you and is filled with feelings of love and compassion so strong that his heart might fail. The target must succeed on a Fortitude save or suffer 10 points of damage per caster level.
Creatures that would normally be attracted to creatures of your gender suffer a -2 penalty to their saving throws to resist this spell. If this spell is cast on a creature without a mouth, it fails.
Mood Lighting
With a small flourish of your hand, the illumination increases or decreases by one step in the affected area: bright light becomes normal light; normal light becomes dim light; dim light becomes darkness—or vice versa. If the spell’s area is centered around a creature, that creature may attempt a Will save to resist the effect, in which case the spell fails.
Additionally, if used in a particular way, this spell grants a bonus on certain skill checks. If mood lighting is used to lower normal lighting to dim lighting, and there is only one other creature in the affected area besides you, you gain a circumstance bonus equal to your Charisma modifier on all Diplomacy, Bluff, and Intimidate checks made to influence the other creature in the affected area.
Roses/Thorns
At the time of casting, you must choose between either the roses or thorns effect.
Roses: A bouquet of sweet-smelling roses appears in your hand and a cone of rose petals flies forth. Any creatures in the affected area must succeed on a Fortitude save or be dazzled for 1 minute. Additionally, you may designate a single creature within the affected area. If that creature fails its Fortitude save, he must also make a Will save or have his attitude towards you become friendly for 1 hour per caster level. The target gains +4 on this Will save if you or your allies are threatening or attacking him. The dazzling effect does not count as threatening for the purposes of this ability.
Thorns: Thorns fly out from your fingertips in a cone, dealing 1d4 piercing damage per caster level (to a maximum of 10d4) to each creature in the affected area. A successful Reflex save halves the damage.
True Love’s Bond
You forge a bond of love that empowers the two targets. Both targets must willingly enter into this bond when the spell is cast. If either wishes to resist it, the spell fails and the material components are wasted. When bonded, both are filled with strong feelings of affection and love, such that each target increases the abilities of the other while within a certain range. A character can bond to any other willing creature, provided the creature fully understands the ramifications and nature of the bond (subject to GM discretion). A creature can only be bonded to a single other creature at any time. Multiple castings of true love on the same targetnegate previous ones.
While within 30 feet of each other, both targets gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls, caster level checks for overcoming spell resistance, skill checks, saving throws, and initiative checks. If they are within 15 feet of each other, this bonus increases to +2, and if they are adjacent to one another it increases to +3.
Additionally, if both targets are adjacent to one another, the true power of this spell is unleashed. At this range, both targets are treated as having an AC equal to the higher AC from among the two targets. The same is true of base attack bonuses and base saving throw bonuses (for example, Tark, a 17th-level barbarian, and Krata, a 17th-level sorcerer, are under the effects of the true love spell and are standing adjacent to one another. Both would use Tark’s base attack bonus of +17/+12/+7+2, Tark's’s AC of 27, Tark’s base Fortitude bonus of +10. At the same time, both characters would use Krata’s base Will save bonus of +10. Since they both have a base Reflex save bonus of +5, neither of their Reflex saves would be affected).
Additionally, while adjacent in this way, any damage that would be dealt to one target is halved, with the other half dealt to the other target. The damage is halved after applying any damage reduction, energy resistance, or other defensive abilities of the target that would normally be hit, and the other target does not apply any relevant defenses to the damage he receives in this way (for example, if Tark is hit by a battleaxe, taking 19 points of damage after applying his damage reduction, he would take 10 points of damage and Krata would take the other 9. Even if Krata was affected by the stoneskin spell, and therefore possessed damage reduction of her own, she would not be able to apply it to this damage.).
Finally, while adjacent, if one of the targets moves during his turn, the other target may choose to move with them, in order to remain adjacent. The target cannot move further in this way than he would normally be able to move in a single round, and such movement counts against the number of actions that the target can take during his next turn (for example, if Tark charges an opponent 40 feet away, Krata can choose to move with him, even though it isn’t her turn. If she does, and her movement speed is 30 feet, then on her next turn she will have already used two move actions, and will only be able to take a single swift action.).