Can’t exit stances?

So some stances say that the only strikes you can make in that stance are (insert strike name here). Like crane stance you can only make crane strikes. That’s fine, I get that, price you pay for being in that stance. However. . . If you only have one stance. . . How do you get out of it?

A stance is a general combat strategy that you enter by using an action with the stance trait, and that you remain in for some time. A stance lasts until you get knocked out, until its requirements (if any) are violated, until the encounter ends, or until you enter a new stance, whichever comes first. After you use an action with the stance trait, you can’t use another one for 1 round. You can enter or be in a stance only in encounter mode.

If you only have one stance feat (say you are level 2), then. . . Are you locked into that stance for a whole Combat? If you are a monk in stumbling stance and some dudes pop up across a ravine and start shooting you, do you have no options to stop acting drunk and pull out your crossbow? You can’t violate it’s conditions (being trained in deception), you have no other stance feats to enter, so I guess you have to wait for them to knock you out and hope your friend revives you in order to shoot them?

This is weird, I could've sworn there was text saying you could exit a Stance as an action somewhere, but I can't find it now. It seems you might be right which is...very odd, to say the least.

Key worlds here are: "until its requirements (if any) are violated,"
So if stance requires to use only specified strike, and you pull out crossbow and shoot - you violate a stance and thus exit from it.

Key worlds here are: "until its requirements (if any) are violated,"

So if stance requires to use only specified strike, and you pull out crossbow and shoot - you violate a stance and thus exit from it.

This is definitely how I would rule it. However, I don't believe the part about what strikes you can make is actually listed as a requirement in the requirements section and is more of an effect of the feat.

Pretty much. Bill sees a dude bearing down on him with some sort of... I dunno, whip-chain-dagger-chainsaw-kobold-Cuisinart, and knows that he has to stop him before the guy gets too close and hits ‘frappe’. Bill is in Gorilla Stance (I have no idea why, it’s not a very good style overall), so he’s stuck using his gorilla strike.

Well, Bill says screw that, and whips out his Longbow (Yay Monastic Archery), and shoots the guy. Gorilla Style is broken, and Bill is back in his normal, non-style form.

Actually, the wording is a bit different.

You enter a seemingly unfocused stance that mimics the movements of the inebriated—bobbing, weaving, leaving false openings, and distracting your enemies from your true movements. While in this stance, you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to Deception checks to Feint. The only Strikes you can make are stumbling swing unarmed attacks. These deal 1d8 bludgeoning damage; are in the brawling group; and have the agile, backstabber, finesse, nonlethal, and unarmed traits. If an enemy hits you with a melee Strike while in this stance, it becomes flat-footed against the next stumbling swing Strike you make against it before the end of your next turn.

You PHYSICALLY can't make any other kind of strike than the stumbling unarmed strikes while in that stance. The game does NOT allow you to pull the trigger on that crossbow. At least, RAW.

No, the only Strikes you can make, and stay in that stance, are Stumbling Strikes. It’s not computer code, you are supposed to apply common sense. You can only use those Strikes if you want to stay in the Stance. Use any other type of Strike, or weapon, in Peafowl, for example, and you lose the stance because you broke the Requirement of one specific type of attack.

That's not what the text says. And it seems that they tried to make second edition much like computer code so that there is no guessing at how the rules work.

In a previous thread about this, many joined the consensus that an action to return to a "generic stance" was reasonable. Without it costing an action, there were a few shenanigans.

Let’s put this into perspective then: by your logic, going into a Stance that isn’t Mountain Stance locks you into a single form of combat for the rest of the fight, unless you have two or more Styles, correct?

If I’ve misunderstood you, please let me know, I’m not trying to put words in your mouth here, just trying to figure out your reasoning.

If this were true, every Monk that has only one Style that’s like Crane, is effectively a robot for the rest of their combat forever. They can NEVER use any other form of attack other than their Style attack because they temporarily lose all their intelligence and ability to comprehend that what they are using possibly isn’t the best method.

Matter of fact, that literally applies to all other Styles in the game, too. If a Fighter, Champion, Swashbuckler, Bard, etc. has only one Style and it calls for only one type of Strike, they quickly become a one trick pony.

Edit: So I went through and looked at all the Monk Stances real quick. None of the APG stances have any Requirements on them. At all. Prerequisites, yes, no Requirements. 8 of the others from the other books all have the same Requirement: You are unarmored. So if you can’t voluntarily leave a Stance in combat, and you’re not in Mountain and jump, the only way out of a Stance loop in that situation is either for someone to put real armor on you, or to have a single 10th level Feat called Prevailing Position.

Let’s put this into perspective then: by your logic, going into a Stance that isn’t Mountain Stance locks you into a single form of combat for the rest of the fight, unless you have two or more Styles, correct?

If I’ve misunderstood you, please let me know, I’m not trying to put words in your mouth here, just trying to figure out your reasoning.

If this were true, every Monk that has only one Style that’s like Crane, is effectively a robot for the rest of their combat forever. They can NEVER use any other form of attack other than their Style attack because they temporarily lose all their intelligence and ability to comprehend that what they are using possibly isn’t the best method.

Matter of fact, that literally applies to all other Styles in the game, too. If a Fighter, Champion, Swashbuckler, Bard, etc. has only one Style and it calls for only one type of Strike, they quickly become a one trick pony.

First off, most styles don't have the text that they limit the kind of strike you have access to. Tiger style doesn't, for example. Point blank shot doesn't. I am saying FOR THE STYLES THAT DO, there is this weird rules gap where you are forced to act a certain way, with no 'out.' And if you are playing with a rules lawyer GM or at a Con or in society play where the rules REALLY matter, then it MIGHT become a problem. I'm not saying that SHOULD be the way, I'm saying RAW that's what it looks like. And they aren't robots, you can be in a stance that limits strikes and do other things: Make skill checks, feed a friend a potion, pull a switch, push a button, grab a McGuffin.

I am saying: FOR THE STYLES THAT LIMIT STRIKES, I have found this weird interaction with the rules that is problematic. I was hoping that A) Some ruling/eratta had been made on it, b) There was another rule somewhere that fixed it that people could point me to, or C) Maybe it was Working as Intended. I DON'T KNOW, thus I was asking a question.

Thank you for following up with the concern with it, seriously. So, out of 17 Stances for Monk, 8 of them lock you into a particular attack for their Style. That’s 47%. That’s a lot. So, one of three things has happened, as far as I can tell. Either it’s not supposed to be a situation where you are locked into one mode of combat for an entire fight, and you can just drop out when you need to, or you are locked, and potentially screwed, especially with Rain of Embers. This leads me to believe that it’s supposed to be a situation where you can just drop out when you need to, there’s text missing about it costing you an action to leave your Stance, or Paizo screwed the pooch bad here and didn’t catch it by form locking people.

Thank you for following up with the concern with it, seriously. So, out of 17 Stances for Monk, 8 of them lock you into a particular attack for their Style. That’s 47%. That’s a lot. So, one of three things has happened, as far as I can tell. Either it’s not supposed to be a situation where you are locked into one mode of combat for an entire fight, and you can just drop out when you need to, or you are locked, and potentially screwed, especially with Rain of Embers. This leads me to believe that it’s supposed to be a situation where you can just drop out when you need to, there’s text missing about it costing you an action to leave your Stance, or Paizo screwed the pooch bad here and didn’t catch it by form locking people.

Exactly. Personally I'm of the opinion it should take an action

So, there are two big issues with the concept of a ‘normal stance’: The first, and lesser issue, is that it codifies a normal state as an action you have to take. This gets into some of the same issues that drove me away from Exalted 3E, where literally anything you want to do has rules keywords and regulations involved with it. There be dragons.

The second, and much bigger issue, is that Stances have a hard rule associated with them: You cannot be in a Stance when combat of any form starts. That means that literally everyone on both sides would have to use their first Action to go into ‘Normal Stance.’

So, there are two big issues with the concept of a ‘normal stance’: The first, and lesser issue, is that it codifies a normal state as an action you have to take. This gets into some of the same issues that drove me away from Exalted 3E, where literally anything you want to do has rules keywords and regulations involved with it. There be dragons.

The second, and much bigger issue, is that Stances have a hard rule associated with them: You cannot be in a Stance when combat of any form starts. That means that literally everyone on both sides would have to use their first Action to go into ‘Normal Stance.’

I didn't say not being in normal stance stopped anything. Just, Normal stance and 'not being in a stance,' have the same effect (no bonus or penalty). So not being in a stance is fine, and then separately, you can enter 'normal' stance.

I would make it as soon as they do something that can't be done with the stance, they drop out of the stance. If they want to get back in it, they spend an action. Not like any of the stances are very powerful.

The only reason the designers limited the stances near as I can tell was for purposes of stacking at lvl 20 for Mountain and Crane stance. I can't find another reason mechanically why they even bothered to limit stances for a monk class that does weak damage, can't defend as well as a champion, and literally gains no power that makes it better than any other class from a stance.

If you let the player fall out of a stance as a free/no action. It won't affect the monk's already weak power level at all.

Note that most (maybe all) of the Stances that lock you into a specific Strike have defensive bonuses and weaker (or situational) Strikes. It's obviously a trade-off that Paizo doesn't want bypassed by not using the Stance's Strike (and say a weapon).

Except somebody could bypass that by dropping in and out of Stances (which is why the activate one Stance/round rule is in place). If somebody could Strike twice by other means (weapon/Animal Barb/etc.), then switch to Crane Stance, they'd be getting all the benefits (including its excellent Reaction) with no downsides. Next round they drop out (for free?) and repeat.
I see this as shenanigans.

I have let my monks to get out of an stance for free, and I didn´t feel it was a OP. They have to use 1 action for getting the stance up again, and you can only use 1 stance action per turn.

For example the Mountain Stance, they can use it as a "Raise shield", were every turn they get it up, or they can leave the stance on and use 3 actions for other things.

Note that most (maybe all) of the Stances that lock you into a specific Strike have defensive bonuses and weaker (or situational) Strikes. It's obviously a trade-off that Paizo doesn't want bypassed by not using the Stance's Strike (and say a weapon).

Except somebody could bypass that by dropping in and out of Stances (which is why the activate one Stance/round rule is in place). If somebody could Strike twice by other means (weapon/Animal Barb/etc.), then switch to Crane Stance, they'd be getting all the benefits (including its excellent Reaction) with no downsides. Next round they drop out (for free?) and repeat.
I see this as shenanigans.

While I personally don't see it as shenanigans, it's easy enough to just make exiting a Stance an action (which is what I'll do if I ever run this game).

That way doing what you say would take them all turn, assumign they started in the defensive stance. And if they wanna do that instead of other things, more power to them.

While it is technically correct that specific attacks like the 'crane wing attack' are not listed in the feat Requirements of the individual stance feat's description, keep in mind the rules were written by a fallible human beings. I don't think it is unreasonable to interpret a stance's specific attack action as inclusive to what the Stance trait considers a requirement when it says "A stance lasts until... its requirements (if any) are violate," in the trait description on page 637.

Here is my reasoning, using Crane Stance as the model: 'crane wing attacks' simply can't be listed in the feat Requirements (with an upper case 'R') for the Crane Stance feat because the PC needs to enter the stance in order to acquire that attack. In other words, the PC would never meet the Requirement to enter the stance if that were the case.

Now, if we take the text for Crane Stance:

You enter the stance of a crane, holding your arms in an imitation of a crane’s wings and using flowing, defensive motions. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to AC, but the only Strikes you can make are crane wing attacks. These deal 1d6 bludgeoning damage; are in the brawling group; and have the agile, finesse, nonlethal, and unarmed traits....

In effect, the 'crane wing attack' is now a requirement (with a lower case 'r') to remain in the stance. Thus, violating this requirement (by attacking with a weapon or typical fist Strike, for example) violates the requirement that Crane Stance specifically spelled out within the content of the feat's description. This act of violation discontinues the stance: a free effect as a result of the impermissible use of a weapon Strike action.

Think of it like a contract: if a company states that only I can use my access card, it doesn't physically restrict me from handing that card to another person to use, it just means that I will face consequences for doing so. Likewise, the Crane Stance feat does not state that you are physically incapable of any strike beyond the 'crane wing attack.' So it is entirely reasonable to interpret a weapon strike as an action that violates the terms of the stance, rather than an action that you become physically incapable of performing.

My further evidence being the writer's intent to replicate a martial artist: a martial artist in the real world is physically capable of making other kinds of attacks while adopting a crane stance, they simply choose not to. Paizo is attempting to replicate this. My suggestion to clarify the situation would be to change the requirements line in the Stance trait description to read "A stance lasts until... its terms (if any) are violated..."

While it is technically correct that specific attacks like the 'crane wing attack' are not listed in the feat Requirements of the individual stance feat's description, keep in mind the rules were written by a fallible human beings. I don't think it is unreasonable to interpret a stance's specific attack action as inclusive to what the Stance trait considers a requirement when it says "A stance lasts until... its requirements (if any) are violate," in the trait description on page 637.

Here is my reasoning, using Crane Stance as the model: 'crane wing attacks' simply can't be listed in the feat Requirements (with an upper case 'R') for the Crane Stance feat because the PC needs to enter the stance in order to acquire that attack. In other words, the PC would never meet the Requirement to enter the stance if that were the case.

Now, if we take the text for Crane Stance:

CR-p158 wrote:

You enter the stance of a crane, holding your arms in an imitation of a crane’s wings and using flowing, defensive motions. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to AC, but the only Strikes you can make are crane wing attacks. These deal 1d6 bludgeoning damage; are in the brawling group; and have the agile, finesse, nonlethal, and unarmed traits....

In effect, the 'crane wing attack' is now a requirement (with a lower case 'r') to remain in the stance. Thus, violating this requirement (by attacking with a weapon or typical fist Strike, for example) violates the requirement that Crane Stance specifically spelled out within the content of the feat's description. This act of violation discontinues the stance: a free effect as a result of the impermissible use of a weapon Strike action.

Think of it like a contract: if a company states that only I can use my access card, it doesn't physically restrict me from handing that card to another person to use, it just means that I will face consequences for doing so. Likewise, the Crane Stance feat does not state that you are physically incapable of...

That all sounds reasonable. The big issue here is we need some sort of concencus for things like orginized play, where 'rules left up to GM interpretation" are the banes of everyone's existence.

Note that most (maybe all) of the Stances that lock you into a specific Strike have defensive bonuses and weaker (or situational) Strikes. It's obviously a trade-off that Paizo doesn't want bypassed by not using the Stance's Strike (and say a weapon).

Except somebody could bypass that by dropping in and out of Stances (which is why the activate one Stance/round rule is in place). If somebody could Strike twice by other means (weapon/Animal Barb/etc.), then switch to Crane Stance, they'd be getting all the benefits (including its excellent Reaction) with no downsides. Next round they drop out (for free?) and repeat.
I see this as shenanigans.

Exactly. It's already limited. No use making it an action to drop the stance. Soon as they drop it, they lose any benefits. If they want to move from stance to stance every other round, then they can have at it. It won't increase their power any and will likely weaken it.

Castilliano wrote:

Note that most (maybe all) of the Stances that lock you into a specific Strike have defensive bonuses and weaker (or situational) Strikes. It's obviously a trade-off that Paizo doesn't want bypassed by not using the Stance's Strike (and say a weapon).

Except somebody could bypass that by dropping in and out of Stances (which is why the activate one Stance/round rule is in place). If somebody could Strike twice by other means (weapon/Animal Barb/etc.), then switch to Crane Stance, they'd be getting all the benefits (including its excellent Reaction) with no downsides. Next round they drop out (for free?) and repeat.
I see this as shenanigans.

Exactly. It's already limited. No use making it an action to drop the stance. Soon as they drop it, they lose any benefits. If they want to move from stance to stance every other round, then they can have at it. It won't increase their power any and will likely weaken it.

Which works fine for everything except the scenario that Castilliano pointed out. Where the benefits of the stance are in play when it is not the player's turn and the drawbacks are in play when it is.

So then a player can game the system by dropping out of the stance at the beginning of their turn for free - thus freeing themselves from the drawbacks of the stance. They then spend two actions with no drawbacks, and spend their third action (the one with highest MAP penalty) to re-engage the stance and gain all of the benefits of the stance when it is not their turn.

So they get all the benefits of the stance, with none of the drawbacks. All for the low price of their weakest action of the round.

I agree with those saying you don't need to (or should have to) spend an action to leave a stance.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

Note that most (maybe all) of the Stances that lock you into a specific Strike have defensive bonuses and weaker (or situational) Strikes. It's obviously a trade-off that Paizo doesn't want bypassed by not using the Stance's Strike (and say a weapon).

Except somebody could bypass that by dropping in and out of Stances (which is why the activate one Stance/round rule is in place). If somebody could Strike twice by other means (weapon/Animal Barb/etc.), then switch to Crane Stance, they'd be getting all the benefits (including its excellent Reaction) with no downsides. Next round they drop out (for free?) and repeat.
I see this as shenanigans.

Exactly. It's already limited. No use making it an action to drop the stance. Soon as they drop it, they lose any benefits. If they want to move from stance to stance every other round, then they can have at it. It won't increase their power any and will likely weaken it.

Which works fine for everything except the scenario that Castilliano pointed out. Where the benefits of the stance are in play when it is not the player's turn and the drawbacks are in play when it is.

So then a player can game the system by dropping out of the stance at the beginning of their turn for free - thus freeing themselves from the drawbacks of the stance. They then spend two actions with no drawbacks, and spend their third action (the one with highest MAP penalty) to re-engage the stance and gain all of the benefits of the stance when it is not their turn.

So they get all the benefits of the stance, with none of the drawbacks. All for the low price of their weakest action of the round.

However, you just pointed out there is a cost, or restriction. You have to pay a whole action to avoid the restrictions, while if you abided by the restrictions you have all of your actions. So you get a benefit similar to raising a buckler with it, by spending an action. You also still have to be unarmored. Yes, if you further invest and get the crane reaction, you can get access to it each round by resetting the stance with a single action cost. But sure, if you didn't do something to set yourself out of the stance, that reaction would be free. Now you're basically having to re-buy it with an action.

If you have a problem with fighters flapping a stance. Make a rule you can't 're-stance' a stance that you started in that turn. Simple enough. Then if you want to make an action to 'unstance' it would remove the status of considering being in the stance at the beginning of the turn.

But in my estimation, as is, the choice of breaking the stipulations of the stance is having to re-buy it with an action.