Body Control
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Spheres of Guile
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Operatives of the Body Control sphere are skilled at meditation and unlocking the limits of their internal physiology. They can make their bodies do extraordinary things otherwise thought possible only with magic.

Associated Skill: Escape Artist.

You gain the following benefits when you gain the Body Control sphere.

When you gain the Body Control sphere, you gain 5 ranks in Escape Artist, plus 5 ranks per additional talent spent in the Body Control sphere (maximum ranks equal to your Hit Dice). If you already have ranks in Escape Artist, you may immediately retrain them.

Skill Leverage: You unlock skill leverage with the Acrobatics and Escape Artist skills.

You also gain the Meditate and Slip Past abilities.

Meditate [approach] (Ex)

Adopting this approach is a swift action. While you maintain this approach, you gain some conscious control over your physiological processes and your emotional responses determined by the (control) talent you choose when you adopt the approach. You can endure certain effects listed in the talent when you fail an ability check, skill check, or saving throw against an effect permitted by your current (control) talent. To endure an effect, you attempt an associated skill check as a swift or immediate action. The DC and effect depend on whether it was an ability check, saving throw, or skill check.

  • Ability Check (twice the DC): If your skill check succeeds, you get a +2 insight bonus on the ability check, which can cause you to succeed instead of fail.
  • Saving Throw (DC 150% the save DC): If your skill check succeeds, you get a +3 insight bonus on the saving throw, which can cause it to succeed instead of fail.
  • Skill Check (DC 5 + the skill check DC): If your associated skill check succeeds, the failed skill check becomes a success.

When you meditate, you may add up to two (control) talents to the approach, but you cannot have more than one unless at least one of those talents has the [utility] tag.

You gain the Maintain Stamina talent when you gain the Body Control sphere.

Maintain Stamina (control)

You can endure any failed ability check, skill check, or saving throw to avoid the exhausted, fatigued, nauseated, paralyzed, or sickened conditions.

Slip Past (Ex)

You can move through a space as narrow as half yours without squeezing, as narrow as one-quarter your space at half speed, as narrow as your shoulders at one-quarter speed, and as narrow as your head at a rate of 5 feet per full-round action. You can move freely through the spaces of creatures one size category closer to yours (usually reduced from three sizes different to two sizes different; you still provoke attacks of opportunity). You can use your Escape Artist modifier in place of your Acrobatics modifier for checks to move through the spaces of creatures closer to you in size and to avoid attacks of opportunity.

Associated Feat: Serpentine Compression (Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Monster Codex).

Body Control Talent Types

Clarity

Some talents are marked (clarity), allowing you to trigger an effect whenever you abandon a meditate approach that has lasted at least 1 round. You may only apply one (clarity) talent at a time. You can apply the clarity talent even if the approach was ended by something outside your control (such as you losing consciousness).

Control

Some talents are marked (control), granting you additional benefit options when you meditate.

Body Control Talents

Confounding Escapist

You can use your ranks in Escape Artist in place of your base attack bonus and your Dexterity modifier in place of your Strength modifier for combat maneuver checks to grapple. Your grapple attempt does not provoke an attack of opportunity from the target.

In addition, when you escape a grapple with Escape Artist and reverse the grapple, you can damage your opponent with the same action.

Associated Feat: Improved Grapple.

Endurance Training [utility]

You have trained your body to use only what it needs. You need only half the usual amount of food or water. You treat exposure to hot or cold environments as if they were one step safer for you (such as treating extreme cold as severe cold). You get a +3 insight bonus on Constitution checks to avoid nonlethal damage from starvation or thirst, as well as on saving throws against diseases and poisons with a frequency of 1 day or longer. For every 5 ranks in the associated skill you possess, the bonus increases by 1.

You may sleep in medium armor without becoming fatigued. If you sleep without armor, you can get a full night’s rest in 6 hours. For every 5 ranks in the associated skill you possess, you reduce the total required by 1 hour. At 5 ranks, you can reduce your sleep time in light armor. At 10 ranks, you can sleep comfortably in heavy armor and can reduce your sleep time in medium armor.

Associated Feat: Endurance.

Lightning Escapist

You can attempt to escape from an entangling effect as a standard action or escape from restraints in 1d4 rounds with no penalty for rushing. By accepting a –2 penalty, you can attempt to escape from a grapple or maintain a grapple as a move action or escape from restraints as a full-round action.

In addition, you get a +1 insight bonus on combat maneuver checks to grapple, to Combat Maneuver Defense against grapple attempts, and on Escape Artist checks to escape a grapple or pin, entangling effect, and restraints; this bonus does not stack with that from Improved Grapple (or Greater Grapple). The bonus increases by 1 for every 5 ranks in Escape Artist you possess.

Associated Feat: Greater Grapple.

Loose Restraint

You take half the usual penalties for squeezing and the entangled and grappled conditions.

Intense Meditation

As a swift or move action, you can concentrate on your current meditation to add an additional (control) talent to the current meditation until the end of your next turn. For every 7 ranks in the associated skill you possess, you can take this talent again. Each time you do, the number of (control) talents added is increased by 1.

Optimal Recovery

You heal twice the usual amount of hit points and ability damage from rest and from the treat deadly wounds task of the Heal skill. Bonuses to these values are not doubled. You can also use your associated skill modifier in place of your Heal modifier to heal yourself and you take no penalty for lacking a healer’s kit when healing yourself.

If you possess at least 5 ranks in the associated skill, you can also recover from either 2 points of ability drain or 1 temporary negative level each day when you rest long enough to recover hit points.

Perfect Parallel

You can share the space of any creature who considers you an ally. While you are in an ally’s space and neither of you is helpless, you and your ally each occupy one corner of your shared space for the purpose of determining soft cover (if either of you is large enough to provide the other with cover). You can change which part of the space you are in as part of any movement or as a swift action. Flanking provides no bonus to hit either of you (although it does permit sneak attacks). You can use soft cover from an ally in your space to hide if your ally is no smaller than you, but while you are hidden only you gain cover.

Push Through

While you maintain the Maintain Stamina (control) talent, you take no numerical penalties from the fatigued or exhausted conditions while you meditate (although they can still prevent you from taking certain actions or activating abilities like rage). You can also ignore up to 2 total points of ability penalties and ability damage to each physical ability score, which increases by 2 for every 5 ranks in the associated skill you possess.

Reflexive Meditation

You can meditate as an immediate action to preempt the action of another creature. If you do so, you can endure an effect as part of the action to meditate and the meditation only lasts until the end of your next turn (it does not last long enough to use a (clarity) talent).

Sleep Mastery [utility]

You can optimize your body’s sleep patterns. You do not abandon your current approach while you sleep, although you do not become more alert while you sleep (meaning some approaches are not useful to maintain while asleep). If your sleep is interrupted, you do not lose any progress toward getting enough rest for the night.

Clarity and Control Talents

Breath Control (control) [utility]

You can hold your breath for an additional 1 minute per rank in the associated skill you possess while meditating. In addition, while meditating and holding your breath, you do not have to stop holding your breath to speak. Instead, you lose 1 minute of remaining breath per round that you speak.

You can endure a failed saving throw from any suffocation or inhaled effect or a failed Constitution check attempted to hold your breath. If you are still holding your breath when your meditation ends, you lose any remaining additional time added by the meditation but still have all of your normal amount of breath remaining.

Circle Dodge (clarity, control)

You meditate on an opponent’s movements, moving as one with it. While you meditate, as a (control) talent you can end your movement in that creature’s space. While you are in an opponent’s space, you and the opponent each can determine cover as if in whichever part of the space is most advantageous to yourself or itself; neither of you has cover from each other or against attacks that hit both of you. If you are the same size or one size apart, you both take penalties for squeezing. If you attack the creature whose space you share, you are effectively flanking it with yourself unless it has all-around vision. You have positional concealment from the creature as long as you are in its space and have not attacked it since the start of your last turn (which gives you concealment unless it has all-around vision).

While you meditate, you can ready an action to move with your target as a move action. This readied movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity from the target opponent as long as you end your movement within its threatened area. When an opponent moves and either of you is in the other’s reach, you can abandon your meditate approach as a (clarity) talent to move up to your speed to follow it. Your movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity from the moving opponent but you must end your movement in a space they threatened during their movement. If you do not end your movement in their threatened area at the end of their movement, you provoke an attack of opportunity from them when they move beyond reach of you as if you had moved out of their threatened area.

Control Reactions (control)

You can endure a failed Reflex save (you must succeed at an associated skill check to get the bonus). You can also protect yourself from a Reflex saving throw you already succeeded against using an immediate action. Either way, as long as you succeed at the saving throw, you are completely unaffected by the effect even if it would normally deal half damage or have some other partial effect.

Controlled Sleepwalking (control) [utility]

You can maintain your meditate approach even after you fall asleep (the only time this talent functions). You are not immobilized while you sleep and can take one planned, methodical physical activity during sleep while still getting the benefits of rest as long as you meditate. You cannot react to unexpected problems, or interact with other creatures beyond simply keeping a casual pace behind someone, or use most Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (other than taking 10 or making prolonged use of Craft, Disable Device, Perform, or Profession you planned out while awake). You could perform simple labor or travel a safe route you are familiar with.

While sleepwalking, you are effectively oblivious (see alertness rules)—you can pay attention only to things you have right at hand involved in performing your action. You can perform a controlled sleepwalk for no more than 1 hour of your sleep time, plus another 1 hour per 5 ranks you possess in the associated skill. You choose before you go to sleep what the activity is and cannot change the choice once you begin. If the activity becomes infeasible, you mime an approximation for the rest of the period you intended to sleepwalk, and become no more alert than you would otherwise be while asleep.

Emotional Restraint (control)

If an Intimidate or Perform check would succeed against you or any skill check would be used to give you a disorientation condition, you can gain a +3 insight bonus to the DC to affect you as an swift or immediate action; this can cause the skill check to fail, but only against you (not other targets). You can also endure any charm, emotion, or fear effect. The first time you fail a saving throw against a suitable effect each round, you endure it reflexively without using an action; the GM secretly rolls the associated skill check for you.

Intentional Movements (control)

You can take 10 on an Acrobatics, Climb, Fly, or Swim check even while in combat. You can spend 1 use of skill leverage to use your Escape Artist modifier in place of your usual skill modifier for the check.

Iron Concentration (control)

You can endure a failed concentration check in a manner similar to a failed saving throw or a failed saving throw against effects with the pain descriptor or that would make you fascinated, distracted, oblivious, or asleep (provided you succeed at an associated skill check against the same DC).

Poison Manipulation (clarity, control)

While you meditate, as a (control) talent you can prolong the frequency of a poison affecting you by your ranks in the associated skill (measured in the poison’s usual time units). For example, a poison with a frequency of 1 minute would increase its frequency to 4 minutes if you have 3 ranks in Escape Artist. You add half your associated skill ranks as a bonus to your saving throws against poison effects (minimum +1).

In addition, as a (clarity) talent you may excrete through your skin a dose of poison you cured through successful saving throws since you adopted the meditate approach. This excreted poison does not affect your skin and can be collected for later or applied to an object as a move action. You do not risk exposing yourself to it for 1 round after your meditation ends.

Regain Senses (clarity)

When you abandon your meditate approach, you may roll a new save against an ongoing blindness, charm, deafness, emotion, or sleep effect you are suffering from that you failed a saving throw against. You get a +1 insight bonus to the new saving throw for every 4 ranks in the associated skill you possess (minimum 1). If you succeed, you get the normal benefits of success. If you fail, the effect does not worsen but you cannot use this talent against the same effect again.

Regulate Heat (control) [utility]

While you meditate, you are not harmed by being in a hot or cold environment. You can exist comfortably in conditions between -50 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit (-45 and 60 degrees Celsius) without having to attempt Fortitude saves and you treat more extreme cold or heat as one step less severe. Your equipment is likewise protected. You can also endure saving throws to avoid choking on smoke. This talent does not provide any resistance to fire or cold damage.

Shake It Off (clarity)

Choose an ongoing spell or effect on you that gives you the exhausted, fatigued, nauseated, paralyzed, or sickened condition. You attempt a new saving throw against the effect’s save DC.

You get a +1 insight bonus to the new saving throw for every 4 ranks in the associated skill you possess (minimum 1). If you succeed, the effect ends. If you fail, you cannot use this talent against the same effect again.

Stony Demeanor (control) [utility]

While you meditate, you get a +4 morale bonus on Bluff checks to lie, make a claim, or mislead a creature’s skill check. The bonus increases by 1 for every 5 ranks in the associated skill you possess. Additionally, if you successfully resist a mind-affecting effect, creatures observing you must succeed at a Sense Motive check opposed by your Bluff or associated skill check (whichever is higher) to determine if you are affected or not.

Staunch Wounds (clarity, control)

While you meditate, as a (control) talent you reduce any ongoing or new bleed you experience by your operative ability modifier. (It returns to its usual value when your approach ends.) In addition, as a (clarity) talent you may either automatically stabilize when reduced to negative hit points or attempt an associated skill check to end any bleed damage affecting you as if you received magical healing (DC 15 or the Heal or caster level DC listed for the bleed effect).

Steel Skin (control, clarity)

While you meditate, as a (control) talent you gain a +1 enhancement bonus to your natural armor, increasing by 1 for every 5 ranks in the associated skill you possess.

In addition, as a (clarity) talent you may prolong this bonus to natural armor until the end of your next turn (even though your approach has ended).

Exceptional Talents

Complete Recovery

Prerequisites: Associated skill 10 ranks, Body Control sphere (Optimal Recovery).

You recover from all ability damage and ability penalties to one ability score of your choice whenever you rest long enough to recover hit points. Once per week, you can remove 1 permanent negative level at the same time.

If you possess at least 15 ranks in the associated skill, you can regenerate a lost body part instead of removing a permanent negative level.

Decrease Mass (control) [utility]

Prerequisite: Body Control sphere.

You can decrease your mass while you meditate, which reduces your weight by 50%, granting you the following benefits:

  • You may spend 1 use of skill leverage as an immediate action to reroll a failed Climb check, Swim check, or Acrobatics check to balance.
  • You are always considered to have a running start for Acrobatics checks to jump. When you high jump, you can clear a distance equal to half your Acrobatics result. When you long jump, you can clear a distance equal to twice your Acrobatics result (but not farther than the maximum distance you can move in the round).
  • Wind effects and location-based traps treat you as if you were one size category smaller; if you have a fly speed, you can use your Escape Artist modifier in place of your Fly modifier if it is better.
  • Falling damage you take is measured in d4s.
  • You do not sink in quicksand, lava, thin ice, or snow (although you are not protected from any harm that you might take for simply standing on the substance). If you were already under the surface of quicksand or lava, you float 10 feet upward at the end of each of your turns, up until your whole body breaks the surface (allowing you to stand on it).
  • You do not sink in water, acid, oil, or other liquids if you charge or run across it. If you turn or otherwise walk on a liquid, you sink immediately.

If you would come under the effect of Decrease Mass and Increase Mass at the same time, they cancel each other out.

Energetic Touch (control)

Prerequisites: Associated skill 5 ranks, Body Control sphere (Regulate Heat).

You can emit incredible cold or heat from your hands while you meditate. You choose heat or cold to emit when you apply this talent. You can change the temperature as a swift action. Your unarmed attacks and metal weapon attacks gain either the flaming weapon property or the frost weapon property. Alternatively, you can make a touch attack as an attack action or during a full attack in order to deal 1d6 points of cold or fire damage per 5 ranks in the associated skill you possess.

In addition, you can shatter mundane cold glass objects or work metals with low melting points with your hands, including copper, tin, and lead. You can reshape 1 cubic foot of the metal with 1 minute of work. This allows you to attempt Craft checks with these metals using your hands as masterwork artisan’s tools, making progress measured in hours rather than days. You also gain the benefits of Regulate Heat while using this (control) talent.

Expel Kinetic Energy (clarity) (Su)

Prerequisite: Body Control sphere.

When you abandon your meditate approach, each creature within 10 feet of you must succeed at a Reflex save or be pushed back by 5 feet. If they fail by 5 or more, they also fall prone. For every 5 ranks in Escape Artist you possess, Expel Kinetic Energy affects every creature within an additional 10 feet from you and they are pushed back an extra 5 feet on a failed save.

Expel Life Energy (clarity) (Su)

Prerequisites: Body Control sphere, living or undead creature.

When you abandon your meditate approach, you can emit a burst of your own life energy to affect living and undead creatures within 10 feet. For every 5 ranks in Escape Artist you possess, Expel Life Energy affects every creature within an additional 5 feet from you. You must spend hit points to activate this talent, but no more than the number of ranks in Escape Artist you possess and never enough to reduce you below 1 hit point. Living creatures other than you in the area are healed of 1d4 hit points per hit point you spent and undead in the area take the same damage (Will save for half damage). Once you use this talent, you cannot use it again until you naturally heal hit points from rest.

Special: If you are undead, you expel negative energy instead of positive energy, and its effects are reversed (healing undead and damaging living creatures).

Featherweight (Su)

Prerequisites: Associated skill 5 ranks, Body Control sphere (Decrease Mass (exceptional)).

When you Decrease Mass, you can further reduce your weight to a tiny fraction, which adds the following additional effects.

  • Wind effects and location-based traps treat you as if you were an additional size category smaller (two smaller including Decrease Mass).
  • You fall no more than 60 feet per round, and never take falling damage.
  • Increase each of your speeds by 10 feet (this gives you a +4 bonus to Acrobatics checks to jump as normal). When you high jump, you can clear a distance equal to your Acrobatics result. When you long jump, you can clear a distance equal to triple your Acrobatics result. You can end your movement in mid-jump, in which case you continue your movement on your next turn.
  • You do not sink in any liquid or break any fragile surface due to your weight (although you are not protected from any harm that you might take for simply standing on the substance). If you were already under the surface of a liquid, you float 30 feet upward at the end of each of your turns, up until your whole body breaks the surface (allowing you to stand on it).
  • By holding a cloak, tarp, blanket, or other loose article and flapping or angling it with two hands, you can gain a fly speed of 15 feet with clumsy maneuverability. You lose your Dexterity bonus to Armor Class (if any) while flying this way.

Hold Onto Life

Prerequisites: Associated skill 10 ranks, Body Control sphere (Staunch Wounds).

You are not staggered while disabled and meditating with Staunch Wounds. You can endure a failed saving throw from any death or negative energy effect (if it allowed a save and you succeed at the Escape Artist check).

If you would be reduced below 0 hit points or killed by hit point damage, you must abandon your meditate approach but as a (clarity) effect you gain enough temporary hit points before taking the damage to remain at 0 hit points, to a maximum number of temporary hit points equal to twice your associated skill ranks.

Impossible Escape (control) (Su)

Prerequisites: Escape Artist 10 ranks, Body Control sphere (Incredible Flexibility (exceptional)).

You can stretch your body into dimensions beyond the material plane. You can move freely through the spaces of creatures one size category closer to yours (usually reduced from one size different with the base sphere and Incredible Flexibility to no difference, allowing you to move through all creatures’ spaces; you still provoke attacks of opportunity). You can move through any space wider than your head without slowing and you can slip through a gap narrower than your head but wider than a finger at half speed by succeeding at a DC 35 Escape Artist check. You cannot end your movement squeezing through a space your head cannot fit and the surface’s hardness cannot be higher than the number of ranks you possess in Escape Artist.

As a move action, you can supernaturally teleport to a space adjacent to your natural reach. You must be able to see or touch the location you teleport to.

Increase Mass (control)

Prerequisite: Body Control sphere.

You can increase your mass while meditating, which increases your weight by 50%. This has the following effects.

  • You can endure an opponent’s successful bull rush, drag, grapple, reposition, or trip combat maneuver check like an opponent’s skill check except if your check succeeds you get a +3 insight bonus to your combat maneuver defense which can cause the maneuver to fail.
  • You can endure your own failed bull rush, drag, grapple, reposition, or trip combat maneuver check or a failed ability check or saving throw against an effect that would knock you prone or move you against your will (as long as you succeed at an Escape Artist check).
  • Wind effects and location-based traps treat you as if you were one size category larger, but if you have a fly speed, your maneuverability worsens by one step.

Incredible Flexibility [utility]

Prerequisites: Escape Artist 5 ranks, Body Control sphere.

You can move through any space wider than your shoulders without slowing, or through a space no wider than your head at half speed (by succeeding at a DC 30 Escape Artist check). You can move freely through the spaces of creatures one size category closer to yours (usually reduced from two sizes different with the slip past ability to one size different; you still provoke attacks of opportunity). In addition, you can slip through a gap narrower than your head in an object with hardness less than the number of ranks in Escape Artist you possess. The gap must be at least as wide as your finger (or similarly minor appendage), you must arrive in a space wider than your head within a distance no longer than your natural reach, and you must succeed at a DC 35 Escape Artist check as a full-round action.

Iron Solidity (Su)

Prerequisites: Associated skill 10 ranks, Body Control sphere (Increase Mass (exceptional)).

While you Increase Mass, you can choose to octuple your weight and gain the density of solid iron, with the following additional effects.

  • Each of your speeds is reduced by 10 feet. Traps and wind treat you as an additional step larger (two steps including Increase Mass).
  • You gain damage reduction 5/piercing or adamantine. For every 2 ranks in the associated skill you possess beyond 10, your damage reduction increases by 1.
  • You sink 20 feet each time you end your turn in acid, water, or a similarly dense liquid.
  • You are considered armed when making unarmed attacks, and you increase the damage die for your unarmed attacks by one step.
  • The bonus from using your immediate action with Increase Mass increases to 5.

Stretchy Limbs

Prerequisites: Associated skill 10 ranks, Body Control sphere

You can spend a swift action to increase your reach by 5 feet until the start of your next turn.

Subjective Gravity (control) (Su)

Prerequisites: Associated skill 5 ranks or Knowledge (planes) 5 ranks, Body Control sphere.

While meditating, you can control your effective direction of gravity, as if you were on a plane with subjective directional gravity. You also negate any height bonuses opponents above you would receive if you are standing on a horizontal surface. You can calculate the distance of your high jumps as if they were long jumps oriented in any direction. (As mentioned in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: GameMastery Guide, you can move normally along a solid surface by imagining “down” below your feet).

If suspended in midair, you fall in a straight line 150 feet in the first round and 300 feet in each succeeding round. To stop, you must change the designated “down” direction to counteract your fall, reducing your falling speed by one step each round.)

You can choose this talent a second time if you possess at least 10 ranks in the associated skill or Fly. When you do, you gain a supernatural fly speed of 30 feet with poor maneuverability while meditating.

Temperature Mastery (control)

Prerequisites: Body Control sphere (Regulate Heat).

Choose either cold or fire. You heat or cool your skin in order to gain resistance to the chosen energy equal to 5 + your ranks in the associated skill you possess for as long as you meditate. You can change this choice while meditating by spending a swift action. You also gain the benefits of Regulate Heat while you use this talent.

Drawbacks

Incredible Stamina

You do not gain the Slip Past ability, and you gain the Endurance Training talent instead.

Physiological Focus [alternate start]

You use Heal instead of Escape Artist for the associated skill, and unlock skill leverage with Heal in addition to the usual skills.

Thermoregulation [utility start]

You do not gain the Maintain Stamina (control) talent. You gain the Regulate Heat talent instead.

Body Control Sphere Feats

Exceptional Discipline

You have mastered your body so completely that you can control its processes without even a thought.

Prerequisites: Associated skill 11 ranks, Body Control sphere.

Benefit: Choose one (control) talent you have. You have its effects permanently, as if constantly meditating on it. The effect of the chosen talent does not benefit from any other talents you have unless you are maintaining the meditate approach and choose the (control) talent as the applied talent (and you cannot use any (clarity) effect it has unless you adopt that approach and then end it).

Archetypes Specializing in Body Control

Adamant Disciple

Adamant disciples train their body to be as resilient as possible, and are capable of withstanding the deadliest of blows.

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