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The Blood Money spell has caused a lot of RAW & balance controversies over the years. This prior RPG Stack Exchange thread was extremely useful for me in explaining the Casting Time criteria that a given companion spell would need in order to be paired up with Blood Money. And I agree completely with Hey I Can Chan's assessment of James Jacobs' 1st ruling (linked above) being the ruling that should be in use.

Alas ... in some further reading of other Blood Money rules-threads on other forums, it seems some folks have some disagreement over which spells can be paired with Blood Money based on this specific text of the spell:

Material components created by blood money transform back into blood at the end of the round if they have not been used as a material component.

I come to all of you acknowledging that Blood Money (a Swift Action casting-timed spell) is ideally meant to be paired up with a spell that has a Standard Action casting-time, like Stoneskin. But some people seem to think that a spell with a casting-time of 1 Round, like Gilded Whispers, still falls into the category of being legal to use with Blood Money.

So I'm looking for clarification on what specific casting-time criteria is legal for a given spell to be effectively paired with Blood Money.

SevenSidedDie
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Crai
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1 Answers1

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To measure the one-round existence of the material components created by the spell blood money, start measuring as soon as the creature starts casting the followup spell in the same round as the spell blood money and finish measuring right before the same initiative count in the next round. Thus if the material components created by the spell blood money—that have a duration of instantaneous yet they "transform back into blood at the end of the round if they have not been used as a material component"—haven't been used by that time, they're gone. This means such components can totally be used in casting a spell that has an entry of Casting Time: 1-round like the spell gilded whispers. (The coin that's an ersatz focus for the spell gilded whispers must still be provided by the caster normally.)

James Jacobs confirms this in his first (and accurate) ruling on the blood money spell: "Keep in mind that blood money only really works if you cast a spell that has a casting time of 1 round or less, since the components created vanish after that time."

Hey I Can Chan
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  • Gotcha. That makes perfect sense now. I wasn't viewing the "1 round or less" component as really extending that far forward (before the same initiative count for the next round of the Blood Money caster). Thank you! – Crai Jul 13 '17 at 22:36
  • @Crai You're welcome. Glad to've helped. Note that the spell blood money, while it appears on d20PFSRD, isn't, like, generally available unless the GM makes it so. For all the hue and cry over the spell, if I remember correctly, one caster in Rise of the Runelords has the spell. That's it. The spell appears nowhere else in the entirety of the tens of thousands of pages of Pathfinder material. I find it remarkable how many fixate on the spell while ignoring its extreme obscurity. And now every spell designer is forced to take into account blood money. Yuck. – Hey I Can Chan Jul 13 '17 at 22:48
  • it's also in the anniversary edition of Rise of the Runelords, and it is legal in PFS play, requiring only that a player wishing to provide it to their character own a copy of valid source material (RoR or similar). I think the PFS legality without restriction to participation in any particular chronicles or any special record sheet stuff, coupled with the fact the spell is one of the most powerful in the game, and there's no easy way to replicate its effects, has lead to its fame. – Please stop being evil Jul 14 '17 at 04:15
  • @thedarkwanderer If a spell is so good that only a fool wouldn't take it, then the spell shouldn't be a spell at all and, instead, be a class feature… because, essentially, the spell's become a class feature, whether the caster wants it or not, as every designer must keep that spell in mind when designing new spells. (And while I appreciate that the spell's legal for Pathfinder Society, Society rules don't necessarily apply to home games!) – Hey I Can Chan Jul 14 '17 at 07:55