Does the Life Bubble spell protect against the Irradiate spell and areas of radiation

immunitiespathfinder-1epoisonspells

The life bubble spell in Pathfinder 1E gives the following immunities to its targets:

This shell enables the subjects to breathe freely, even underwater or in a vacuum, as well as making them immune to harmful gases and vapors, including inhaled diseases and poisons and spells like cloudkill and stinking cloud.

Both stinking cloud and cloudkill are "conjuration (creation) [poison]" spells, and neither actually says that the spell creates an inhaled poison. Cloudkill specifically mentions that:

Holding one’s breath doesn’t help, but creatures immune to poison are unaffected by the spell.

This would suggest that life bubble protects against area-of-effect poisons, even if the poison is not inhaled and does not require the targets to breathe.

Radiation counts as a poison effect. Like stinking cloud and cloudkill, it is a poison that is not inhaled or dependent on breathing. However it is not, strictly speaking, a gas or vapor.

The irradiate spell is a "conjuration (creation)" effect that affects all targets as though they are exposed to an area of radiation, although the spell effect does not persist. The spell lacks the "poison" subtype but it creates radiation, which is a poison.

Would life bubble therefore make its targets immune to irradiate?

Would it make them immune to all radiation areas?

As a point of reference, the Starfinder system (same authors as Pathfinder 1E) also has a life bubble spell, which does not protect against radiation.

Best Answer

No. Ask your GM for confirmation, though.

I propose that the text in life bubble about cloudkill is either an exception or simply incorrect. Removing this one odd point we are left with a spell that does exactly what it says otherwise.

  • You can breathe, even under water or in a vacuum
  • Inhalation poisons and spells like them do not affect you
  • You have protection from temperature and pressure changes*

Radiation is not at all an inhalation effect, and life bubble does not protect against poisons that aren't inhaled (or cloudkill), typically contact and injury poisons. Unfortunately the writers of the Technology Guide did not deign to specify which Radiation is, but it does give

Radiation suffuses a spherical area of effect that can extend into solid objects.

This does not sound like inhalation at all. Because it does not fall into the protected categories, life bubble does not interact with Radiation, including the spell irradiate.

*As GMJoe correctly points out, life bubble (APG, 2010) pre-dates the Radiation rules (Tech, 2014) and the spell has not been revised. Reading between the lines, it does sound like it's intended to protect against passive environmental effects. Because of this, having it affect Radiation is a very reasonable table-ruling. Under this ruling, the irradiate spell would also be ineffective against a target with life bubble because it uses the rules for Radiation except the area and DC, as outlined in the spell.

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