What is really "adjacent?"


Rules Questions


5 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

I've been in a few discussions with a friend, and we vehemently disagree about this one topic. He claims that "adjacent" means everything within a creature's area along with everything surrounding a creature, while I am fairly certain that it's only the surrounding squares.

From his side of the fence, he uses the following:
1) In the combat section, there is a statement that "Opponents within 5 feet are considered adjacent to you." Therefore, everything 0-5 feet is adjacent to you.

2) Familiars must be considered adjacent to you for a caster to use Alertness, and they are often in the same square as the character.

3) Tiny creatures have to be in the same square as you to attack. If "adjacent" was only surrounding squares, then nobody would be able to attack creatures in their own square.

And here are my answers to each:
1) In the combat section, there is a statement for splash weapons which is "A hit deals direct hit damage to the target, and splash damage to all creatures within 5 feet of the target." Using the same interpretation of "within" means the original target is hit for both base and splash damage, which is clearly not the case.

2) The wording for familiars is that they must be "in arm's reach." Therefore, if a character can reach their familiar, then they benefit from Alertness. Adjacency is not required.

3) There is a notable difference between a tiny creature attacking a target, and a tiny creature hiding in a target's backpack. What's more, tiny creatures do not have adjacency mentioned when their threat range is reduced to zero feet. A valid alternate statement to describe tiny rules is "cannot attack adjacent targets, must occupy the same square as the target to attack."

As a small conclusion, his interpretation of adjacent is everything in your squares and all surrounding squares. My interpretation is everything in surrounding squares only.

In case you're wondering how this disagreement came to be, the other guy wants to abuse the mechanics of Skald's Vigor with a Bloodrager's Tumor Familiar with the Valet Archetype in conjunction with the Amplified Rage feat. He wishes to keep this familiar fused to his back (and hidden entirely) while still getting all the benefits from it as if it was adjacent to him for the purposes of the teamwork feat.

He complains that my interpretation of adjacency is too strict, but also complains that making familiars 24/7 valid targets for AoE spells, attacks of opportunity, and so forth is unfair.

What're the rules on what is adjacent and what isn't? Can you attack creatures in your own square? How would you deal with a player trying to eke out huge bonuses from their familiar being on the battlefield, but not wanting the familiar to be a battlefield target?


Saint_Yin wrote:
Can you attack creatures in your own square?

Yes to that one. If you're not using a reach weapon, you can attack something in your own square.


Rules Qoute:
" With a typical reach weapon, you can strike opponents 10 feet away, but you can't strike adjacent foes (those within 5 feet)."

Any foe within 5 ft is adjacent.


Not counting your own square as "Adjacent" leads to a whole lot of problems in this system.

Familiars don't function as they are intended (you know damn well the archetypal "Raven sitting on shoulder" image was what they were going for with Familiars and Alertness).

Many spells that affect adjacent targets now don't work on attacking Tiny creatures for some reason.

Tiny creatures or Ratfolk sharing a space an no longer use Teamwork Feats with each other, or can use the Bodyguard Feat.

You an't attack Tiny creatures, or swarms, or anything else sharng your square any more.

And finally, it does not say "in adjacent squares", it says "adjacent".

There is a difference, and the distinction is used for a few abilities.

You taking offense at an honestly pretty sub-optimal, if kind of neat strategy (seriously, he's spending 3 Feats and either dipping into a 3/4 BaB class or stunting his casting and Song progression by dipping into Bloodrager to get +2 hit and +3 damage for what in most cases is only going to be a few rounds a day unless he really commits to gimping himself with a long term multiclass) is no reason to start picking nits about random aspects of the combination so you can break a number of things only tangentially related to it as well.


Logical fallacies and twisted interpretations abound.

A familiar must be AT LEAST adjacent to you. That their abilities continue to work when they are in the same square does not redefine "adjacent." It's just common sense.

That Tiny creatures must enter your square to attack you, likewise does not redefine the word. The game abounds with special attacks, spells, features, etc., that are exceptions to the rule without redefining the rule.

That what the player wants to do is not entirely game breaking is irrelevant to whether he is using a word within its actual meaning. The GM may allow the strategy anyway, but still want to know the meaning of the term.

Adjacent in the game takes its meaning from these two Merriam-Webster definitions:

b : having a common endpoint or border <adjacent lots> <adjacent sides of a triangle>
c : immediately preceding or following

It does not count the squares touching the squares that are adjacent to your square. If you allow that, where does it end?

"Well... now I think the squares touching the squares that touch the squares around my square count as adjacent, too! Yeah. In fact, everybody in town is adjacent to me. I think I'll make one roll and try to hit them all at once."


Bruunwald wrote:
If you allow that, where does it end?

"adjacent foes (those within 5 feet)"

It starts where your body ends, and it ends 5 feet away from that.


Adjacent also has a much simpler meaning. "Next to" or "nearby".

I'm sure nobody would try to claim that something is not next to or nearby you if it is within 5 feet.

"Adjacent squares" are defined. Simply "adjacent" is not.

As the devs have repeatedly stated, the rules are not meant to be parsed as legal text, they are meant to be read as essentially "plain speech".

You'll give yourself much less of a headache if you use the simplest definition of the word.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I think your friend is correct. The worst thing I can see happening is a mounted character who shares his space AND his Escape Route feat with his mount to basically become immune to movement related attacks of opportunity. If anything I think that's fine considering the feat investment, and the fact that anyone else could do the same thing more efficiently for a mere 2,000gp.


This actually is a huge deal for tiny creatures, and affects many, many feats and abilities. I'd like to see this clarified. FAQed.

For example, consider a tiny creature with the Step Up feat:

Quote:
Whenever an adjacent foe attempts to take a 5-foot step away from you, you may also make a 5-foot step as an immediate action so long as you end up adjacent to the foe that triggered this ability.

Or Stand Still:

Quote:
When a foe provokes an attack of opportunity due to moving through your adjacent squares... An enemy can still take the rest of his action, but cannot move. This feat also applies to any creature that attempts to move from a square that is adjacent to you if such movement provokes an attack of opportunity.

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