The description of each runic script is presented in a standard format. Each category of information is explained and defined below. The primary difference in scripts are a script’s design, the lack of components (all scripts only have verbal components), and its overload ability. Runic scripts follow the same rules for normal spells when it comes to range, duration, area, effects, targets, casting time, saving throws, and Spell Resistance.
Name[]
The first line of every script description gives the name by which the script is generally known.
Design (Subdesign)[]
Beneath the script name is a line giving the design of rune (and the subdesign) to which the script belongs. Designs are rune magic’s parallel to the eight schools of magic; each group conforms to a general theme, but their effects are more broad than the normal schools of magic allow. Subdesigns are the equivalent of a subschool of magic.
Every script belongs to one of six runic designs as well as a subdesign, as described below.
Alteration[]
Alteration scripts change the physical form. These spells can change the shape of an object or of a living creature or alter their properties.
Enhancement: An enhancement script is one that improves upon a creature or object, making it stronger, faster, or more durable.
Debilitation: Scripts of the debilitation subdesign impart harmful effects and penalties upon creatures.
Polymorph: A polymorph script transforms your physical body. Each polymorph script can grant you a number of benefits, including movement types, resistances, and senses.
If a polymorph script causes you to change size, apply the size modifiers appropriately, changing your armor class, attack bonus, Combat Maneuver Bonus, and Stealth skill modifiers. Your ability scores are not modified by this change unless noted by the spell. Unless otherwise noted, polymorph scripts cannot be used to change into specific individuals.
You can only be affected by one polymorph script at a time. If a new polymorph script is cast on you (or you activate a polymorph effect, such as wild shape), you can decide whether or not to allow it to affect you, taking the place of the old script. In addition, other scripts that change your size have no effect on you while you are under the effects of a polymorph spell.
Creation[]
Creation scripts create something from nothing, or assemble unworked or broken material into a complete form. They also are responsible for creating life, including healing ailments and mending wounds..
A creature or object brought into being by a creation script cannot appear inside another creature or object, nor can it appear floating in an empty space. It must arrive in an open location on a surface capable of supporting it.
The creature or object must appear within the script’s range, but it does not have to remain within the range unless otherwise specified.
Animation: The animation subdesign creates a construct of pure magical energy and breathes life into it. When the script ends or is dispelled, the construct vanishes as if it never existed to begin with. An animated construct also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower.
Generation: A generation script manipulates matter or force to create or repair an object in the place the scribe designates. If the script has a duration other than instantaneous, magic holds the generated object together, and when the script ends, the created object vanishes without a trace. If the script has an instantaneous duration, the generated object is merely assembled through magic. It lasts indefinitely and does not depend on magic for its existence.
Healing: Certain creations heal creatures or even bring them back to life. These scripts can also cleanse a creature of harmful ailments.
Protection: A protection script makes a defensive ward to shield creatures or entire areas from harm.
Destruction[]
Destruction scripts manipulate energies that harm and destroy. These spells most commonly employ negative energy, force effects, or sonic blasts to harm creatures and objects. Destruction can also destroy magic itself, removing ongoing effects or suppressing magic items.
Affliction: Affliction scripts utilize negative energy and death effects to ravage foes, often inflicting painful conditions and hindering effects.
Ruin: The ruin subdesign are scripts that use pulses of arcane force and ear-splitting sound to wrack their targets, shattering them to pieces.
Unraveling: The unraveling subdesign are scripts that cancel out magical energies. These scripts can end ongoing script effects or prevent them from taking hold in the first place.
Invocation[]
Invocation scripts call upon the forces of nature. These spells can invoke the primal energies of fire, air, earth, and water, manifest plants and animals, or even control light or the weather.
Blessing: Blessings grant a creature a potent boon from nature itself.
Celestial: Celestial invocations call upon the powers of the heavens above, using the sun, moon, and stars to light the way or to sear foes.
Natural: The natural subdesign creates simulacrae of living things, typically plants and animals. However, these are not completely real, as they are simply energy given a familiar form: once the script that manifested those things ends, the objects or creatures in question vanish.
Primordial: The primordial subdesign controls the base elements of the wilds. This includes shifting the earth, conjuring flames, or altering the weather.
Manipulation[]
Manipulation scripts alter the flow of time and space and control the fundamental laws of existence.
Conviction: A conviction script manipulates the four great cosmic energies: chaos, evil, good, and law. All of these scripts utilize these energies in some way, typically basing their effects on their targets’ alignments.
Gravity: A gravity script alters the direction or strength of gravity in some way. This can lift and move objects from a distance, allow a creature to soar through the air, or crush foes to the ground.
Teleportation: A teleportation script transports one or more creatures or objects a great distance. The most powerful of these scripts can cross planar boundaries. The transportation is one-way and not dispellable, unless otherwise noted.
Teleportation is instantaneous travel through the Astral Plane. Anything that blocks astral travel also blocks teleportation.
Time: A time script alters the flow of time in some way, speeding it up, slowing it down, or stopping altogether, either for a single creature or in an area.
Revelation[]
Revelation scripts are the domain of the mind. These scripts can enhance or dull the senses or control thought and emotion.
Detection: A detection script allows you to notice things you otherwise couldn’t. It might improve your natural senses, or let you perceive a location miles away.
Many detection scripts have cone-shaped areas. These move with you and extend in the direction you choose. The cone defines the area that you can sweep each round. If you study the same area for multiple rounds, you can often gain additional information, as noted in the descriptive text for the script.
Lead sheeting or magical protection blocks a detection script, and you sense that the script is blocked.
Insight: An insight script is one that enhances your mental acuity, allowing you to better process information. The strongest of these scripts allow for telepathic communication or even a limited form of precognition, informing you of events before they occur.
Thought: The thought subdesign are scripts that control emotions and thought. These scripts can either influence a creature’s behavior or emotional state. All scripts in this subdesign are mind-affecting.
[Descriptor][]
Appearing on the same line as the design and subdesign, when applicable, is a descriptor that further categorizes the script in some way. Some scripts have more than one descriptor.
Runic scripts use the same descriptors as normal spells do, including those added in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Magic and the new descriptors added in Paths of Magic, and they function in the same manner as they do for spells.
Level[]
The next part of a script description gives the script’s level, a number between 0 and 9 that defines the script’s relative power. This number corresponds to the level the script is for the archivist class. A script’s level affects the DC for any save allowed against its effects, as well as determining how many times each day the scribe is capable of casting it.
Fundamentals[]
Scripts that are level 0 are considered “fundamentals”, scripts that are incredibly simple to cast and learn. A scribe tracks his fundamentals known separately from his normal scripts known, as shown in the scribe’s class description. Unlike scripts of level 1 or higher, fundamentals can be cast an unlimited number of times each day, but do not generate runic charge.
Fundamentals must still be scribed onto a surface to be cast, but do not count against the scribe’s total amount of scripts he has prepared. He can have one of each fundamental he knows prepared at a time (unlike scripts of 1st level or higher, which can be scribed multiple times to get additional castings).
Components[]
Scripts do not have typical components as spells do. They do not require material components, nor do they ever have somatic components (meaning armor and shields do not interfere with their casting).
However, all scripts require the scribe to speak; his words resonating with the runes upon his belongings. As such, to cast a runic script, you must be able to speak in a strong voice. A silence spell or a gag spoils the incantation (and thus the script). A scribe who has been deafened has a 20% chance of spoiling any script he tries to cast.
As all runic scripts have the same “components”, this line is omitted in the descriptions of each script when compared to a typical spell description.
Overload[]
Each script’s description is followed by a listed Overload effect. This overload effect only applies if the script is overloaded with runic charges. In most cases, an overload effect increases in power based on the number of runic charges used.