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Misfortune (Ex): At 1st level, as an immediate action, you can force a creature within 30 feet to reroll any one d20 roll that it has just made before the results of the roll are revealed. The creature must take the result of the reroll, even if it's worse than the original roll. Once a creature has suffered from your misfortune, it cannot be the target of this revelation again for 1 day.
So here is the question - what does "suffer from your misfortune" mean? For example - if i use Misfortune and grant an ally who rolls 1 an reroll, and for the second roll, the result becomes 20 - this person does not suffer from Misfortune but actually benefits from it, does that mean i can use Misfortune again on him? or does the word "suffer" here actually mean "affected"?
Actual I would like an official comment on this one, I ran a game Monday and one of the players was a Paladin/Oracle with the misfortune ability. He attempted to use his misfortune ability on another player when they rolled low and at the table I ruled that the act of causing misfortune to another player would not be allowed.
I felt that this would be a violation of the PvP rules if I allowed him to effect the rolls of other players when he saw fit. Was I wrong with this decision?
As someone who uses the rerolls on teammates, I personally think it was the wrong decision. Is it powerful? Yes. But you are also taking a penalty for it in the form of a second non scaling curse. In addition, since it is an immediate action you can only do it once per turn and as long as you are not employing a 15 minute adventuring day, you can only do it to each ally once per day.
It was probably an unintended use of the ability that allows the archetype to be flavorful, cool, and ultimately leads to people actually wanting the Roleplaying aspect of having two curses.
If a fighter is in the middle of 4 bad guys, the wizard can ask permission to lob a fireball with him in the radius.
I believe also, that a character could accept having this cast on them.
PVP is player vs player. Not player helping player. Or player letting another player cast something on them- even if its detrimental.
IMO, for PFS its perfectly legal to let this happen even if it isn't exactly in the spirit of the ability. (it is, afterall, supposed to be a detriment to the target not a boon).
-S
Something you're missing:
Missfortune revelation does not give you ability to "grant rerolls" - it is very clear in its description that you are forcing a reroll -before- the result of original roll is revealed, and forcing the target to use result of second roll, regardless of which roll is higher or lower. Therefore, you cannot use it in response to your ally rolling low or foe rolling high - you must gamble.
I do believe that renders the rest of discussion moot, as you cannot use this revelation in a manner you are trying to.
I guess that would depend on if "the results of the roll" mean success vs failure or the "results of the roll" meant the literal number on the die.
Basically- does the PC have to say they want to use the ability before the DM rolls the die or can they see the number (but not the result) and then decide.
-S
I guess that would depend on if "the results of the roll" mean success vs failure or the "results of the roll" meant the literal number on the die.
Basically- does the PC have to say they want to use the ability before the DM rolls the die or can they see the number (but not the result) and then decide.
-S
I see where you're coming from, but I won't try to debate that, as it leads to an argument on semantics - namely, meaning of word "result".
In my mind, result of a roll is a number on a die, whereas outcome of a roll is success or failure - but I will allow it's possible that's not what ability dev intended when ability was written.
This has just occured to me - it perhaps illustrates the absurdity of the "revealing the results of a roll":
For a number of actions, rolling a 1 is always a failure and rolling a 20 is always a success; so if your enemy rolled a 20 on an attack, you couldn't (by above logic) force him to re-roll since success has already been revealed (likewise for ally rolling a 1)? :)
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I guess that would depend on if "the results of the roll" mean success vs failure or the "results of the roll" meant the literal number on the die.
Basically- does the PC have to say they want to use the ability before the DM rolls the die or can they see the number (but not the result) and then decide.
-S
I see where you're coming from, but I won't try to debate that, as it leads to an argument on semantics - namely, meaning of word "result".
In my mind, result of a roll is a number on a die, whereas outcome of a roll is success or failure - but I will allow it's possible that's not what ability dev intended when ability was written.
Yes, but in that case this power would literally have no actual effect. 'Roll twice and take the second roll' is exactly the same, statistically, as rolling once.
For the power to have an affect, you have to have something from the first roll inform the second roll -- either by knowing what that number is, or by forcing the result to be the worse of the two.
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The ability is very clear that you do it after the roll but before the result.
The question is- what is the result.
so if Andro is right, how does the game table work? How does it *have* to work?
It has to go like this:
Dm rolls die. everyone avoids looking at the number.
Player says "umm Misfortune on him! make him roll again!"
DM rolls another die. looks at both, compares them, takes the worst, and goes on.
Now keep in mind- the DM (And the table) has to do this for the entire group every single die roll for every person until the guy with MF has used it up for that person.. because otherwise the die roll is obvious and the player gets screwed out of their ability.
And what if the table uses a common method of multiple attacks where you do all the d20's at once?
Does the guy lose the ability to decide to reroll that 3rd attack since the die are on the table already?
Whether its "semantics" or not, I think its safe to say that the designers didn't intend to re-write the way you roll dice in order to make use of this ability.
So how should it work?
Monster attacks PC. Rolls a 17.
PC says, crap this dude is big and hurts, I'm going to use my Misfortune to force a second roll on that.
or hey that 7 doesn't look too bad- I'll keep my roll for now.
Or Ha! a 1, not even touching that.
or DANG a 20! reroll that sucker!
Note that in none of the cases does the PC know the outcume.
WHile a 1 is uaually a miss and a 20 is usually a success- those two coming up are uncommon enough that they shouldn't be used to dictate how the ability should otherwise work.
Now, there is a way around a 1 and a 20. Since the results can't be known when they get the reroll, a 1 and a 20 aren't eligble for a Misfortune. Why? Because the ability says the result can't be known before hand- and a 20 is an auto hit and a 1 is an automiss.
(so no forcing the bad guy to reroll his auto hit, and no letting an ally reroll that auto miss)
The language certainly supports it.
-S
In my games, I allow the use of misfortune after the full result with modifiers is known. That makes everything easier, and makes the ability slightly more useful, but not too much so.
In my games, I allow the use of misfortune after the full result with modifiers is known. That makes everything easier, and makes the ability slightly more useful, but not too much so.
I personally have no issue with that- whatever works for your group works.. But its a houserule sadly, and isn't supported by the wording of the ability.
-S
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so if Andro is right, how does the game table work? How does it *have* to work?
It has to go like this:Dm rolls die. everyone avoids looking at the number.
Player says "umm Misfortune on him! make him roll again!"
DM rolls another die. looks at both, compares them, takes the worst, and goes on.
Actually, the bolded part is wrong, which is why Andro's reading makes no sense at all (as opposed to just being annoying).
"The creature must take the result of the reroll, even if it's worse than the original roll."
Under his system, it would be:
Dm rolls die. everyone avoids looking at the number.
Player says "umm Misfortune on him! make him roll again!"
DM picks up the die and rolls it again and goes on.
Ah-sorry. I was still thinking as if it was like the Misfortune hex.
(must they name 'em the same thing? sheesh)
I do agree with you though.
Not being able to see the die first basically makes it worthless if its not even take the worst of the two.
Basically its "roll a die, don't look at it, then reroll it and take that one".
might as well take the original roll then, your odds are absolutely identical of getting whatever, either way.
-S
I am happy to get some discussion on this question I brought back to life. If I can beg your indulgence here is more of the story of what happened, why I disallowed it and why I want a offical ruleing on use of misfortune on other party members.
Our player who was able to use this ability tried to use it on a critical conformation roll where one of his party members rolled a 1. I asked him to read me what is said under the ability before I allowed it. He read the text from the book and I made a ruling at the table that he was "using an ability that causes allies to "suffer". Its how the ability reads in the discription and judged this to be an act he could not use an ability that causes "misfortune" on allies reguardless of the fact that its not causing a negative effect.
I pointed out that the fortune ability is what should be used and since he could not do that then I was not going to let him start using misfortune on other PC's and we moved on. Later on he was put in a situation where his faction mission called for him to make a bluff check against other party members and wanted to know if he could misfortune the roll and again I said no.
The second instance is more important since he wanted to use the ability on other pc's for his own advantage. The way I look at is this was the more clear violation of the PvP rules and made it more important to see If I could get a clarification on the use of misfortune on party members.
Misfortune can be used on anyone within 30 ft. of you, including party members and even yourself. The downside is that you can only use it once per day per target.
Fortune can only be used on yourself. Its main advantage is that you get multiple uses of it.
The name "misfortune" is somewhat misleading, but even though you can use it on party members, you're still more likely to be able to use it on enemies (since you can only use it once per target).
The abilities are primarily used (in my experience) to reroll party failed saves, enemy criticals, and enemy successful saves, with the occasional party failed attack thrown in.
The second instance is more important since he wanted to use the ability on other pc's for his own advantage. The way I look at is this was the more clear violation of the PvP rules and made it more important to see If I could get a clarification on the use of misfortune on party members.
You are talking in PFS terms, not general rules terms. Using a beneficial ability on an ally is never considered PvP regardless of fluff text. If the ability has potential to harm the ally, it would only violate PvP restrictions if the target character's player did not permit the other player's character to target his with the ability.
In this case, the misfortune revelation of the dual-classed oracle archetype is potentially beneficial and a GM cannot restrict your players from using it on one another in a PFS scenario. Perhaps one day they'll wisely errata the revelation to function more like the misfortune hex ( forcing a reroll and giving the worse of the two rolls), but until then PFS dual-cursed oracles can use it to both hinder their enemies and help their allies.
EDIT: For an example of something mostly beneficial but potentially dangerous to other PCs, check out the Reckless Aim feat from Blood of Fiends. It's PFS-legal, but you can't use the feat when shooting at an opponent engaged in melee without the permission of any other players who stand a chance of getting hit.
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Right, I'll throw in my .02$ as well.
I think we can all (ok, all but one) agree that if you want it to do anything then the player has to see the die roll before deciding.
If you don't get to see the roll then this ability does nothing.
I am also in the boat of you use it on party members who roll a 2 on a save, the orc barbarian that just rolled a 20 to hit the party mage and any oter "Oh..... crap...." moment.
you give up a lot to get this, yes it's a great ability, but the cost is also great.
Misfortune can be used on allies and yourself to reroll a bad roll. it's poorly named. It is far from the only ability to be poorly named. To compare, witch's misfortune hex specifically has you taking the worse of the two rolls; misfortune revelation has you take the new roll, regardless of which is better/worse.
Misfortune is basically a really awesome revelation you can get at level 1 to make up for...
1) Having a whole other curse that you'll never get enhanced benefits from
2) Losing all of your mystery class skills
3) Losing your first few mystery spells for ones that range from average to awful.
That's a LOT of extremely front-loaded suck to endure. Misfortune is the consolation prize.
I'm going to add something to this even more fairly interesting
in a sense of interest...
another s "fortune" can be the misfortune of somebody else, meaning though you used the ability on your ally this means if it in sense makes things for your ally better...it's quite unfortunate for the opponent
if you cast it on the opponent it's plausible to be unfortunate for your ally meaning the ability in itself can be either "bad or good" by forcing the result only once it can change a dynamic of the battle...and mostly change the ideal of something being the "forced roll" it MAKES the roll re roll it's better to use on allies yes... but if that DM is laughing a tad.... well...cast it on his "monster that's going" and blamo ..if he was laughing it nat 1 though.. and you saved it.. that's a unfortunate effect for yourself see in all mannerism it fits for a 1st level ability being neither great nor disappointing though
It's not like a normal Misfortune more like a...change of "fates line" a curse if you will or a blessing from cursing others etc. it's very semi far fetched but that's what it seems to be written "as"
Given the fact that there's a separate revelation at level 5 for making your own rerolls, and that this one is called misfortune, it is very clearly intended only to be used against enemies (although it doesn't explicitly say so, so if you're one of those weird rules lawyer types, knock yourself out).
"Affected" means "you have used this ability on them." Whether it works out for you is irrelevant.
"Before the results" means the die gets rolled, you look at it, you do some quick estimating to work out if that's going to be a success (or if your table is the sort that accepts that BABs and ACs can be worked out on the fly, as the GM casually announces it worked, practically speaking) but before people move on to rolling damage/looking up what a spell does/moving on to the next player's turn, you say "I use misfortune on that" and then they reroll.
So basically "before the result" means, you don't get to go "OK, that hits me. Before I decide if I'm going to make you reroll it though, let's see how much damage you're theoretically doing."