Aw3som3-117's page

Thanks, so if I'm doing the math correctly. Trip is the first attack, it succeeds, (Ogre's +12). The second attack is base minus -5 from the 12 making it +7. The target is flat-footed -2 to their AC.

That means the Ogre Warrior could of attacked +12/+7/+2 if it was just swinging away but;

If It tripped first +12 then Strike +7/+2 but the AC was reduced by 2 lets just call it +9/+4 (yes I know that's not actually right because it should circumstance negative to AC to the target, due to like effects not stacking it could matter.) In the end the Ogre loses a damaging attack at +12. That hardly seems the sensible thing to do for the ogre, like ever if its a solo monster against the party, as it's designed in Torment and Legacy. Really I'm just making sure I'm not missing a hidden benefit to trip.

Yeah, that's basically correct. Often times single enemy fights end up being very unga boonga I hit I deal damage because no one else can capitalize on their tactical plays. Some abilities will still be useful, but trip typically isn't one unless they have an ability that lets them do it easier (like the "knockdown" creature ability that allows you to use an action to trip after a hit without having to roll for it)

Oh, also, it's worth noting that if it has AoO, then tripping is a great way to force someone to trigger that

Just discovered this interesting bit in the description of the Cantrip "Protect Companion":

Heightened (+2) The reaction reduces the damage by another 10, and you lose 5 more Hit Points. If you want to lose fewer Hit Points, you can choose to lower the damage reduction and HP lost to what any lower-level version of the spell could do without lowering the spell’s actual level.

So this cantrip specifically allows you to cast it at a lower level than that to which it is currently heightened. It seems to me that if you could do that by default, this wouldn't need to be there.

Personally I don't really see that as proof it shouldn't be allowed to be done for other spells as much as it is proof that at least one of the people working on the wording for this spell realized that it's either not RAW or unclear RAW whether this is allowed and that this spell in particular really needs it to be allowed to function as intended. So, to clear up any possible confusion, and to make sure no matter how people read heightening this spell still works, they made sure to include it in the spells description.

The way I see it it could be read as overwriting the current rules, reminder text, or something in between where they want to force one interpretation of unclear rules for this specific spell because they see that it could cause problems.

IMO it's not so much an issue with focus spells as it is something that likely fell through the cracks when writing the rules for heightening spells in the first place.

It seems as though it's generally assumed that the heightened effects will be better than the non-heightened effects, so when you pump more spell juice into the spell you get a better effect, which makes sense, but as mentioned there are times where you may want a lesser effect. I'll be the first to admit this isn't RAW based on what we have right now, but in my game if it ever came up I would definitely house rule it that the heighten effects aren't automatic but rather are optional, so no matter what you do you can't unheighten a focus spell, the spell will always be your level/2 rounded up, but you can choose any heighten effect equal to or lower than the spell's level.

I believe you made the correct ruling here. Foil Senses only works for Avoid Notice, Hide, and Sneak. The rogue would indeed make special precautions against infra-red while sneaking, however, sneaking only requires creatures "you were hidden from or undetected by at the start of your movement" to be rolled against. There's no indication that it does anything for creatures that you aren't hidden or undetected to. Now, if the rogue were to go invisible, then hide, and then sneak away, that would work.

There is a bit of a wrench thrown into this interpretation because of the wording of invisibility where it just flat-out says you become undetected, but personally I think that's pretty obviously an error in the wording for invisibility, as it should be conditional on the senses of the creatures around you. After all, why would turning invisible make you undetected to something that couldn't see you in the first place?

Squiggit wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Players shouldn't be expected to go through the mental gymnastics as reading 0 as different from none.

As opposed to the mental gymnastics of reloading that's not actually reloading?

Yes, I think it much harder to argue that an arrow isn't being manipulated than it is to say it is.

I also find it hard to argue that attacking with a sword doesn't involve manipulating the sword. However, it would be absurd to say that it has the manipulate trait because we aren't given any indication that it does.

I understand the argument that striking with a reload 0 weapon has the manipulate trait even if I personally disagree with it and find the arguments lackluster to say the least, but everyone bringing in the literal meaning of the English word manipulate isn't really helping that side of the argument. Not everything in pf2 that involves manipulating an object has the manipulate trait. In fact, most don't.

There's merits to various writing styles. Not to mention it's a several hundred page document. Honestly it doesn't seem particularly egregious to me, especially when quoted in context as that isn't even the full sentence.

Characters of spellcasting classes can cast a certain number of spells each day; the spells you can cast in a day are referred to as spell slots.

Taken in context it's rather clear that it's talking about the number of spells you can cast each day. It just doesn't repeat that in the second half of the sentence.

And then after the quoted sentence it goes on to talk more about increasing spell slots as you level and higher level spell slots.

For reference: Spell Slots

As Squiggit said, it gives the feat and an additional bonus. If that part of the sentence was just supposed to be a reminder it would say something along the lines of

- "you gain Combat Climber as a bonus feat, which reduces the number of free hands required to Climb by one, and you reduce the number of hands required to trip by one."

but as it stands it pretty explicitly says it gives you the feat and also reduces the number of hands required on top of that.

Gisher wrote:

I hold that all of those statements are true. A potion is activated and used up when you drink it. But it isn't exclusively activated that way. Nowhere does the book say that "A potion is a magical liquid which can only be activated when you drink it."

That's a mathematical way of reading the sentence, but not a natural language one. In natural language, when you state something like that you imply that it's the only way of doing it. Actually, nothing states that potions can only be activated when you drink or feed it but still if a GM allows to activate potions in an alternate way you'll consider that a house-rule and not a perfectly acceptable interpretation of RAW.

Anyway, it's not really important as I agree with you it's the general consensus.

I disagree that only one of the two interpretations presented (Gisher's and not yours) is "a mathematical way of reading the sentence, but not a natural language one." as there isn't really "a" natural language way of reading the sentence. It very much depends on context and what the reader is expected to understand / think about the situation. Saying that "this is what this sentence means" is already very limiting if we're talking about "natural language".

The explanation Gisher gave may have been a very structured way of looking at it, but really he was only pointing out the lack of structure, saying that if they wanted it to be a strict "this is exactly how it should be read" kind of deal, then it would have to be written in a very structured way, mentioning explicitly that it can "only" be activated in such a way, as that leaves a lot less interpretation to the reader.

As it stands there are multiple ways of reading the sentence, which unfortunately suffers from having some of what I like to call "invisible words" that the reader is seemingly supposed to fill in. The sentence "A potion is a magical liquid activated when you drink it" could mean
1. A potion is a magical liquid typically activated by drinking it
2. A potion is a magical liquid which can only be activated when you drink it
3. A potion is a magical liquid and one of the ways to activate it is by drinking it
And probably a couple others that I can't think of off the top of my head.

And when there are multiple ways of interpreting a sentence in natural language it can become problematic to say that only one of those interpretations is valid (in this case your claim that only the 2nd option is valid) because it can lead to exactly these kinds of questions that you yourself claim should be resolved with a simple "just let it happen anyway" ruling, whereas from my perspective it's not even "let it happen" as much as it is "well, yeah, that makes sense, so I'm going to assume that's what they meant and not insert a strict definition and stick to it regardless of how strange of a scenario it puts me in."

As written it doesn't technically need a duration. It describes exactly what the spell does, including how long it can have an effect:
"Any creature that's in the area or enters the area before the start of your next turn..."

It would probably be a good idea for them to give the spell a duration for clarity, but it isn't really necessary.

And then, yeah, for the Amped version it specifies how long it can be sustained, so all good there.

If it helps with the image of it, remember that if you (and by extension your Companion) are fighting something, then it's likely within four levels of you. Granted, four levels is a lot in terms of power in this game, but you're still going to be in the same ballpark of power. We're not talking about common citizen vs threat that can take out a city. We're talking threat that can take out a city vs a party of 4 that has a good chance of stopping it.

So, as Castilliano mentioned, this isn't just some mundane animal. It is a great hero's Animal Companion.

I think the technical answer is that combination just kind of breaks and isn't valid anymore at level 2, but I'd be surprised if many GMs ran it that way and am guessing most would say to just take runelord dedication at 2nd level. Beyond that I'd expect a lot of table variation.

Reading through some of the comments I feel like I'm missing something: where in the rules does it say that a readied action needs to have a trigger that you can describe in character / notice in the game world? I know that's a thing for 5e, but in pf2 the ready rules simply say to set a trigger. Exact text is below:

"Ready (2 actions)
You prepare to use an action that will occur outside your turn. Choose a single action or free action you can use, and designate a trigger. Your turn then ends. If the trigger you designated occurs before the start of your next turn, you can use the chosen action as a reaction (provided you still meet the requirements to use it). You can’t Ready a free action that already has a trigger.

If you have a multiple attack penalty and your readied action is an attack action, your readied attack takes the multiple attack penalty you had at the time you used Ready. This is one of the few times the multiple attack penalty applies when it’s not your turn."

As far as I can tell this means that any trigger that other abilities are allowed to use should be available for the ready action as well, so other reactions gained from feats are great examples of possible triggers.

If I'm wrong I'd be happy to be pointed to the reference, but I've seen it said a couple times now that your character needs to be able to perceive the trigger in the world for it to work as if that's just common knowledge and I'm struggling to find that in the rules.

EDIT: Did some more digging and apparently it's in the GMG. I rescind my statement. Still kind of annoying that's not in the actual rules for Ready that players see though

I'm saying that (9d10, 2d10 from areas or persistent) that "from areas" is shorthand for "areas that the golem starts its turn in" not "area effects in general".

I never interpreted the ability that way as it seems to make more sense to me to be referring to area damage in general, but looking at the full "Harmed By" text I can at least see where you're coming from, even if I disagree that that's likely what was meant.

Looking at it closer it seems like the "Harmed By" text is likely just oddly worded, since if we take "If the golem starts its turn in..." to be an important part of the definition then technically something like fireball would do nothing to a Wood Golem as a fireball can't target a creature and it doesn't leave a persistent effect behind.

And by the way, here we have another case of permissive vs prohibitive reading. "If you don’t already have one, you gain a focus pool of 1 Focus Point" is ok if you read it only as permissive: "you gain a focus pool if you don't have one", but this doesn't mean "you get strictly nothing if you already have a focus pool". And the focus pool increase is covered by the cited rule above.

Well said. A lot of people mistake "if" for the much stronger "if and only if". The statements "If X is true, then Y is true" and "X is false, but Y is true" are not mutually exclusive / contradictory. For the second statement to be a contradiction the first would have to be something along the lines of "Y is true if and only if X is true" or "If X is true, then Y is true, and if X is false, then Y is false".

That being said, I still think the wording could be a little clearer.
My first idea would be to simply get rid of the general rule and change the wording on abilities that grant a focus pool to say "or increases your focus pool by 1 to a maximum of 3 if you already have one"
Or, if they deem that to be a little clunky, then the best they can do might be to keep it mostly the same and simply add an extra word to the general rule, saying: "If you have multiple abilities that would give you a focus pool, each one adds 1 Focus Point to your pool."

Personally I'd say that with how much Paizo's been trying to distance themselves from gotcha mechanics and legalistic wording overwriting the natural reading I think what's currently there is likely intended to already work that way and people are reading too much into the statement "if you don't already have a focus pool", but, of course, removing ambiguity is always a good thing.

From a RAW perspective it looks like you're right. Though, if I was the GM I'd probably allow it to not grow when becoming mature as long as the companion's base size is at least one smaller than it is now.

Cone is the only one that I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around what it's supposed to look like. Emanation, burst, and aura I believe are all 3 dimensional and work based on how many squares you are away from the target, which can get a little weird to count with 3d movements and the whole every other diagonal = 2 squares thing, but if you do it enough you get used to it.

Of course, if the bears's damage is separate, it has to deal with damage resistance separately too.

Can't have your cake and eat it too.

Resistances and weaknesses. Sometimes your cake is extra sweet ;)

I literally just had a low level game where the bear support and a sword both triggered weakness to slashing on a zombie

Yep, if it's in the aura I don't see any issue. The damage is from the bear, so it's a separate damage roll, and the bear is most definitely an ally.

I'm going to assume you mean Swipe, not Sweep, which is a weapon trait.
In which case the key parts of the ability for your question are:
1. "A Swipe counts as two attacks for your multiple attack penalty" meaning that after using swipe your next attack would be made as if you had already made two attacks that turn, i.e. at a -10 (or -8 for an agile attack)

And 2. "Make a single melee Strike and compare the attack roll result to the ACs of up to two foes" meaning that for the roll itself you treat it as a single roll, so in your example of using a single strike action prior to using the swipe feat the roll you make for swipe would be at a -5 (or -4 for an agile weapon)

From Targets:
Some effects target or require an ally, or otherwise refer to an ally. This must be someone on your side, often another PC, but it might be a bystander you are trying to protect. You are not your own ally. If it isn’t clear, the GM decides who counts as an ally or an enemy.

As far as I'm aware this is the only official definition of what's meant by an "ally" in the rules. So, the question becomes: is a weapon "someone on your side"? I would say no. The ability's name doesn't override the fact that it's an inanimate object. However, if someone disagrees with me there's already a built in way to do so without the rule quoted above: "If it isn't clear, the GM decides who counts as an ally or an enemy."

Personally I think it's pretty clear, again notice the "who", not "what" even in the description where it says the GM decides, but if one determines that it's ambiguous the default answer is to ask the GM.

Couple of questions on dual-class:

Is it possible to have a group where some are dual-class and some are not?

Yep, no reason you couldn't

Would it make the dual-class player feel more OP than those who are not?

Generally speaking, yes.

In the GM guide, it mentions refraining from allowing a dual-class character to double-up on advantages (e.g. fighter/ranger with flurry hunter's edge or barbarian/fighter where high damage plus fighter accuracy). The work-around is not allowing combinations that double down on a narrow ability. Is there any class combination that should simply not be allowed? Our other GM thinks any two Melee or any two spellcasters should not be allowed; I (the other GM) think anything goes with a few exceptions where specific combos give a huge advantage. Wondering your opinions?

It kind of depends on what you're going for here.

in the dual-class guide, it mentions that you take the highest of the saving throws between the two classes (in many pairings makes an expert in all three)...how big of an impact is this in reality? We have discussed taking the saving throws from one class proficiency from one class but not the other.

It makes them more well-rounded when it comes to defense in the same way they'll be more well-rounded with what they can do on their turn. It's up to you if you want that. Ultimately it doesn't change a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, but you'll definitely notice a boost in defensive power especially as things like juggernaut and evasion start kicking in.

When building encounters, should they be built differently or will they pretty much function the same, just a larger variety of actions? I know the book says similar, but I am curious if it plays this way.

They can be built similarly for sure, just keep in mind your players will be at least somewhat stronger than the general encounter building rules expect for the same number of equally leveled regular characters. Some groups will want to compensate for that, others just want to feel strong.

You can't use the ability and stay your normal size, but you don't get anything out of the ability if you don't grow, so saying you "have to" doesn't make much sense. Just... don't use that action. It's not like you need to grow to 10ft to rage or something like that. It's a separate action.

You re right sorry, its the Giants Stature you can't not use the size increase.

I mean, without the size increase the ability does nothing (since the increased reach comes from the size), so I'm not really sure what you mean by that

Dryades wrote:

The existence of triggers that say “you are about to roll initiative” in contrast to “you roll initiative” makes me inclined to think Battle Cry wouldn’t affect initiative. Most of those triggers alter initiative rolls or results so it would make sense why they would clearly need to happen before the initiative roll instead of after. It seems like a deliberate difference.

Uhm, wouldn't 'you are about to' indicate that the Battle Cry does indeed happen before initiative is actually rolled? In that case, surprise wouldn't even matter. Imagine a bunch of bandits jumping the party, and the Barbarian or whoever letting loose their Battle Cry, giving the bandits second thoughts about that ambush (and thus a penalty to their initiative)...

Uhm... that's what they were saying. Battle Cry says "When you roll initiative", not "you are about to roll initiative". Their point was that the existence of different abilities that say "you are about to roll initiative" makes them inclined to think that "when you roll initiative", which is what Battle Cry says, should be treated differently. I personally don't necessarily agree with this reasoning given that the same thing is said in different ways many places throughout pf2 sourcebooks, but it is definitely a relevant piece of evidence.

It's worth noting that if you're consistent and don't just always do what's in the player's favor then there is always going to be the possibility of a feels bad man moment. If you apply juggernaut first, then if the original roll was a crit suc it won't apply and then the lowering by 1 step will happen resulting in a regular suc. If, on the other hand, juggernaut applies second, then you could roll what would be a success, which gets pushed down to a fail, which juggernaut doesn't apply to.

There's positives and negatives to both methods in the long run. Personally I'd recommend just picking a way that feels right (perhaps even asking the player which way they think it should work) and sticking with it going forward.

I'm not sure if this was errata'ed at some point or if it was just a typo in your original message, but the text actually reads "The ally is unharmed by the triggering damage."

Similar, but slightly different. If it said triggering "attack" as is in the original post then I'd agree that it implies the attack effectively doesn't go through, but I think as written right now only the damage doesn't go through.

GM OfAnything wrote:

Your interpretation may feel “black and white” to you, but clearly it is not. Evidenced by all the people who don’t share your reading.

No. Absolutely not.

Its not an interpretation. People are choosing to read something that isn't there. Which is fine. They are making an assumption, and filling in a hole based on subjective expectation.

Regardless of what I think about this specific issue I just wanted to back up Gortle here: just because there is a disagreement doesn't mean that one interpretation is not unequivocally correct. If that was the case then pretty much everything in the game is ambiguous since at least one person will undoubtedly read it wrong and even after it's explained to them still be convinced they're right. Not to mention that the rules forum is a place where many such people congregate.

Gisher wrote:

GM OfAnything wrote:

Book of the Dead is a book to support certain kinds of campaigns. It is going to include tweaks to make those campaigns more enjoyable. Kind of like how the GMG includes the Free Archetype rules.

Where does Paizo say that the rules in this book are variant rules?

That’s not what he said.

The side bar, however it’s phrased, doesn’t mean PCs in my own campaign can suddenly start casting Soothe on their summoned undead minions.

I mean, there's a way they could do that though. Either they could not give these PC options the undead trait, or they could add a special rule in these dedications to allow the PC to receive healing from non-positive healing effects despite what the undead trait says, which is what it sounds like they wanted based on the example sidebar mentioned above. Personally that's how I'm going to run it anyway, but if that was RAI then they kinda messed up on RAW as far as I can tell.

Actually, since it just mentions "attack" and not a "strike" doesn't that mean if you're doing strict RAW the horse's support action works on spells? Which, btw, can have upwards of 20 damage dice (maybe more, idk). It also just checks that "your weapon" has the jousting trait, not that you're using that weapon for the attack, so it could give you up to 40 bonus damage (80 on a crit). I know no one here is claiming this is how it works, but I think it's worth pointing out if we're talking about "what's RAW?" for the ability rather than how it should work.

Ultimately, at my table it works by assuming it's intended to function like the thing that there is rules for: "counting damage dice". Once we start trying to read intent into the presence or absence of a word or two in the ability it kind of breaks down in my opinion, but by all means keep discussing.

What is power attack if not an ability that adds damage dice? It sounds exactly like what the description of counting dice was made for when it says you "don’t count extra dice from abilities, critical specialization effects, property runes, weapon traits, or the like."

The whole reason for this line is because there are many abilities in the game that increase the amount of dice you roll and the type of dice rolled are the same as that of the weapon, which is shortened for convenience to "deal an extra die of weapon damage" or something similar, but the designers wanted this to not interact with abilities that count the amount of damage dice so they made sure to add something that says that it doesn't count. That way they can be sure that whenever they say something is based on the number of damage dice it scales fairly linearly with the damage of the weapon itself. I fail to see what the purpose of the section about counting damage dice is and what it would exclude if power attack is not among them.

Agreed with Darksol. Otherwise we could apply the same argument to crossbows and decide that, even if they take separate actions to reload, these do not have the Manipulate trait. But RAW they do.

Okay, now we're just being silly. I can understand thinking that reloading a bow should always require a manipulate action, and I can sort of understand coming to the conclusion that's RAW even if I personally disagree. However, I fail to see how someone can read what Ascalaphus said and from that argue that the logical conclusion to what was presented is that an AoO is not triggered by an activity that requires you to perform 1 or more interact actions which, as mentioned several times by both sides of this debate, have the manipulate trait hard-coded into them.

Ascalaphus's whole argument revolves around there not being a separate interact action that needs to be done to reload a reload 0 weapon, and thus everything said doesn't work for reload 1 or higher weapons (unless they're already loaded, for obvious reasons). The same argument could not be applied to crossbows to decide that their reload actions do not have the manipulate trait, because you 100% unequivocally according to both sides of the argument perform a full interact action and do everything that goes along with that within the rules which explicitly mentions the basic action "Interact", which has the manipulate trait.

I agree with Captain Morgan, both in the final conclusion and that example 4 is the most debatable. The way I see it a rune is a part of the weapon, but I can understand someone saying that it's separate.

Aw3som3-117 wrote:

Btw, I'm aware that this is not an argument for or against shooting a bow having the manipulate trait, though, I have my opinions about that as well. The point is simply that there is a big difference between saying that striking with a bow contains subordinate actions and pointing out that some activities that take one action to perform contain multiple subordinate actions.

You'll note that I was specifically replying to it "would cause weird interactions with abilities that tell you to make a normal Strike": I'm just pointing out that the interactions already happen. I don't see how it's substantially different when it's it's an ability that asks for a strike vs just using an ability that uses the same mechanics.

Yep, I was just making my intensions clear

As for the rest of your response, I think the distinction is pretty clear in that one is fundamentally changing the way in which a basic action works and therefore makes it non-functional as a subordinate action itself whereas the other is a completely separate action that cannot be used as a subordinate action in the first place and therefore does not break by becoming something more than just a strike. If that is not a substantial difference in your eyes, then nothing I say is going to change that. I explained my view, and you explained yours. Guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

Ascalaphus wrote:

Also, making all bow Strikes contain some subordinate action would cause weird interactions with abilities that tell you to make a normal Strike.

How is it weirder than Bullet Dancer Reload? One action to "Strike with a simple firearm, and then Interact to reload that same firearm"? It's officially spelled out as 0 separate actions to reload... Or Running Reload, where you "Stride, Step, or Sneak, then Interact to reload" in one action. Or Final Shot where you Interact to reload then Strike in one activity? Dance of Thunder and getting to Step, Strike Interact to reload multiple times as an activity?

How about Reloading Trick where "You Interact to reload your hand crossbow and Strike with it"... It sure SOUNDS the same as what you do with a bow. If having a reload as subordinate action in a bow Strike if problematic, then there are plenty of other abilities that follow that pattern and would already be as much, or more, of a problem. Plenty of actions/activities allow for 0 action reloads already.

The difference is that what you're referencing are activities that are very much not the standard strike action. You can not, for example, use Quick Draw and in replace of the strike action it mentions instead do a Bullet Dancer Reload to draw the weapon, fire it, and then reload. An activity with a strike subordinate action and another subordinate action is not the same as a strike, so saying that striking with a bow with reload 0 is actually a 1 action activity that includes both the interact action and the strike action as subordinate actions makes it impossible to use as a subordinate action in other abilities that call for a strike.

Btw, I'm aware that this is not an argument for or against shooting a bow having the manipulate trait, though, I have my opinions about that as well. The point is simply that there is a big difference between saying that striking with a bow contains subordinate actions and pointing out that some activities that take one action to perform contain multiple subordinate actions.

Maybe mathmuse will correct me. But I don't think that 0 is technically positive either.

But in any case, the parenthetical '(if it is positive)' is meant to be applied to just your INT bonus. Not the entire expression.

Correct, 0 is "non-negative" but it's not "positive". That being said, it doesn't really matter in this scenario, as "additional languages equal to 0" has no effect regardless of if it applies or not.

Aw3som3-117 wrote:

as that makes martials with certain class features that seem like they stack with damage in battle forms much more effective than not only other martials with features that don't stack, but also spellcasters, who obviously are not going to have such features.

I mean, doesn't that work both ways? If you make those class features not work, then classes that don't rely on those mechanics end up being "much more effective" instead because they don't lose features in the process.

I'm not really sure that serves a specific balance purpose.

I'll admit that the martial classes in general are a bit of a grey area in terms of RAW, so I probably should have left that part out, but I thought my point about how it puts casters who use these spells at a serious disadvantage to be a pretty good point. Why would a caster's battle form be objectively worse than the vast majority of martials who pick it up, even at a slightly lower level through a archetype? And why would the barbarian feature that adds it's rage to it be called out as an exception to the normal spell's rules?

"Aw3som3-117 wrote:

Hopefully what I just said isn't controversial

NGL this reads kind of backhanded. Not sure if that was your intent here.

That was not the intent. It's been a while since I've seen one of these battle form threads and I legit forgot what parts of it people disagreed about and was trying to be helpful saying something that I thought was clear and uncontroversial. But apparently I tripped into one of the major conflicts around the topic, which honestly doesn't really surprise me considering how little agreement occurs around these spells' intentions, further showing how much we need clarification. So as to not turn this into the 500th thread that reaches 100+ posts about battle forms this will be my last reply in this thread.

Sorry if anything I said came across as rude or aggressive, but reading back on it I really don't see that being the case. Perhaps it's a case of the implied voice of the text being lost in translation due to being, well, text.

There are a lot of questions that really need clarification when it comes to battle forms, at least if the threads on this forum are anything to go by, so for the sake of not hopefully not dredging up too much of that I'm not really going to try and answer the question from a RAW perspective, but rather would just like to poing out that from a balance perspective it probably shouldn't, as that makes martials with certain class features that seem like they stack with damage in battle forms much more effective than not only other martials with features that don't stack, but also spellcasters, who obviously are not going to have such features.

Hopefully what I just said isn't controversial, but I have a feeling I'm quickly going to realize that it was, as pretty much everything about battle forms seems to be.

My whole point is just: Descriptive text is not mechanical one and as such shouldn't be applied.

Isn't that kind of a self-referential statement, though? If your definition of descriptive text is one that doesn't involve mechanics, which you just admitted can be difficult to figure out at times, then aren't you basically saying that text that don't affect mechanics don't affect mechanics?

I don't really see flavor text that way when it comes to character motivation, and for anathema, edicts, and so forth I think the most important thing is the character's intentions, not whether it hits certain things on a check list.

You're right that for most things there's a clear delineation wherein the first sentence or two of an ability will tell you what's happening in the game world (i.e. what your character sees/does) so you can picture it and be more immersed, and the rest is typically talking about what that looks like from a player's perspective. Anathema aren't really set up that way, though. Let's take animal instinct, for example. This is the full text: "Flagrantly disrespecting an animal of your chosen kind is anathema to your instinct, as is using weapons while raging." What does "flagrantly disrespecting" mean? No definition is given in terms of mechanics. Does that mean it should be ignored? Of course not, as it's specifically called out as anathema.

As for superstition instinct specifically I can see an argument either way, though, even if interpreted fairly loosely it's still one of the most restrictive anathema in the game, so I'd be inclined to err on the side of allowing things that aren't explicitly mentioned, but I feel like at this point the discussion has strayed pretty far from that specific instinct, so I'm not sure how relevant that is at this point.

Gortle wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

Do I have to go through the whole book to show you that you actually never apply descriptive text?

No. Because we do reference descriptive text when we try to interpret the spell. It has a use.

If it contained mechanical information you would merely say it was not descriptive text but rule text. The line between them is not always clear.

You're not answering my question.

There were a lot of things that were said, and quite frankly that was one of the most throw-away lines imo, as it sounds sarcastic and is, quite frankly, unrealistic, so it's not surprising no one asked you to do so, but rather explained an alternative way of looking at things that may make one change their mind about the distinction between "descriptive text" and "rule text".

On a separate note, I'd like to point out that in the eyes of people who disagree with you on this point (myself being one of them) anathema are the biggest example of applying descriptive text, so if you don't see it as being relevant here, then of course nothing else in the book is going to convince you, so no, there would not be a use in going through everything in the book and saying "see, this doesn't use it either".

Mhm, it totally depends on the expectations you set up for your players. As long as it's consistent, and players can work around it like Ravingdork mentioned I think having intelligent creatures act based on their pre-conceived notions can be an interesting addition to the game, but it's definitely not for every group.

Ravingdork wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

As a side note, I've always seen monsters with at least a little bit of intelligence targeting healers. So, it looks like most people know about healing magic, I don't know why illusion magic would be so arcane.

Do they target the healers before or after they openly use healing magic?

If it's before then we run into the same problem mentioned above of there being semi-omniscient actors. If it's after, then there is no issue whatsoever as, when you actually see wounds closing via magic and dying people rising back to their feet, it's pretty blatant what's generally happening.

"Let's focus on the cleric!

Orc Warrior: The what???
- The one with a big holy symbol raised when they cast spells.
Orc Warrior: The big what???"

Orcs know about Clerics, they know clerics are healer, they know about healing magic and they most often can tell the difference between a cleric and a commoner. Golarion is a high magic world, magic is common and basic knowledge of magic is expected from anyone with a glimpse of intelligence.

Basically this ^^^

Intelligent creatures will use what they've seen in the past to make assumptions about their current situation. Often they'll be right, but sometimes they'll be wrong. For example, the cleric could easily be one who focuses more on harm and other offensive capabilities than heal, and the rogue that they didn't think much of in terms of healing may have a somewhat concealed healer's kit that they're incredibly good at using in combat. So yes, in some circumstances creatures can target the "healer" (or rather, what they assume is a healer) before they've used heal, but only in the right context.

Captain Morgan wrote:

I'm mostly just not convinced the fighter is aware the rogue is moving from their space at all. That's part of why we have the GM rolling secret checks for attack rolls and such.

'Awareness' doesn't figure into it.

By strict RAW,

- the Rogue is not undetected, and thus a legal target
" If you attempt to Strike a creature, the creature remains flat-footed against that attack, and you then become observed."
Even if the Rogue is invisible, he will still be merely hidden, and the rules are clear on the Hidden condition:
"While you're hidden from a creature, that creature knows the space you're in..."

- he does attempt a move action, which triggers an AoO
"Trigger: A creature within your reach uses a manipulate action or a move action, makes a ranged attack, or leaves a square during a move action it’s using."

- an AoO does get resolved before the triggering action
"You can use a reaction on anyone’s turn (including your own), but only when its trigger occurs."

Movement in Encounters says an AoO can trigger "Each time you exit a square" (once per move action), and "If you use a move action but don’t move out of a square, the trigger instead happens at the end of that action or ability." Nothing mentions triggering at the start of a move action. Only in the middle, or at the end if you didn't move.

So the first trigger would actually be moving out of the square, not when they "attempt a move action", at which point the target is already undetected since you're undetected "during your movement" on a success.

If AoOs did trigger at the start of an attempted move then I would 100% agree with you, and just reading the AoO rules makes it look like they do, so I understand that interpretation. I just happened to look this up before due to questions about interrupting standing up from prone, so I knew this specific exception about move actions exists.

cavernshark wrote:

The text is clear that you distrust spellcasters and magic generally -- so using it yourself is almost certainly not intended, even if purely legalistic reading might allow it. This isn't a legalistic game as much as people in this thread and elsewhere want it to be.

If I may, I love your use of the text as written to dismiss a "legalistic" reading.

Your reading is clearly a hyper legalistic one as you ask not only to enforce rules but also to enforce fluff.

At your table, would you allow a sorcerer to gain their power after birth, through exposition to magic or a divine intervention for example, even if the text is clear that you gain them at birth? What difference do you make with someone who wants their Superstition Barbarian to accept magic but to just be excellent at fighting it?

Legalistic is not the same thing as restrictive. In the context of cavernshark's post it was indeed an accurate usage of the word, and actually shows that they agree with your interpretation of RAW, but in their opinion it is "almost certainly not intended", which is a claim about RAI.

I really think you're reading too much into their intentions and taking the counter opinions a little too personally on this one. All that cavernshark said was that the way they see it RAW says you can, but it seems to be against the concept of the anathema. This is a statement that can, of course, be disagreed with, but let's not pretend they were making any more definitive claims than the opposition or that the term "legalistic" was used in any way derogatorily, especially considering it wasn't even directed at anyone nor at a specific argument, even.

Also, flavor text isn't "fluff" for anathema. Anathema are the most loosey goosey parts of the rule and are very much something that should be discussed with a GM.

One thing for your GM to keep in mind with whatever method you choose: the game balance assumes that you have a steadily increasing amount of money to buy magic items as a campaign progresses. If the party puts a lot of resources into something like resurrect, then it may be a good idea to either find a way to give the party a discount (perhaps through a quest, though, it sounds like that's not something they want to do, which is fine), or to get the party more resources in some upcoming sessions. It could be as simple as just putting some extra loot over the course of the next level or 2 you go through, so it hurts for a bit but you're back on track eventually.

That's not required, of course, but something to keep in mind for sure.

Hmm, this is an interesting one, because once the sneak happens it's already 100% too late for the fighter to identify where the rogue is, but at the same time at one point it knew where they were (hidden, but detected) and then all of a sudden it no longer was confident that the rogue was where they thought it was (undetected). I can see an argument for that change to be enough for the fighter to attempt an attack on that square and hope they're still there at that point.

Although, the more that I think about it that really shouldn't work because the fighter would have no way of knowing that a move action happened, and so it couldn't actively trigger the reaction. For all the fighter knows they could have lost the rogue for a number of reasons, some of which don't involve moving.

All in all I'd definitely say on a successful check they get away with no AoO, as the AoO trigger may have happened, but it wasn't noticed, and therefore it can't be used.

Isn't that basically what I said?

On a separate note, I think the intention of golems' immunity to "spells and magical abilities other than its own" is to make it immune to spells, and to cover its basis, immune to things that essentially function as spells but aren't technically spells, or, put another way "magical abilities" i.e. abilities that are fundamentally magical in nature. Swinging a weapon is not, imo, an ability that is fundamentally magical, and the runes on the weapon don't change that even if there is some kind of magic involved. Under normal circumstances this would just be my opinion and I would totally understand people disagreeing, but as Squiggit mentioned the math just flat-out doesn't work if we treat the golem as immune to weapon runes, and there's nothing to indicate that it would be immune to some runes but not others, so at the very least I think that kind of has to be the case.

I think it has to do with the difference between physical and magical damage?

Like golems (and other creatures) have a resistance to something called ''physical''

** spoiler omitted **

Which is differentiated from

** spoiler omitted **...

What's quoted is not a difference between physical and magical damage, but rather between physical damage and energy damage. Even the definition of physical damage mentions it comes from "a handful spells" and energy damage can likewise come from non-magical means as Ascalaphus mentioned. In fact, the rules for physical damage as quoted mention that "Ghosts and other incorporeal creatures have a high resistance to physical attacks that aren't magical (attacks that lack the magical trait)." What would be the point of saying "that aren't magical" if physical was the opposite of magical?

As written, and I believe purposefully, physical damage simply refers to piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning and is used so the rules don't need to say "piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning" over and over again. Magic and mundane means can both deal physical damage.

DR isn't really a thing in PF2. Resistance rules have very much changed, and quite frankly, I don't know the right answer to the question as asked, but the way I read it there are effectively two resistances given. One is to attacks from undead, and the other is to negative damage. With that in mind, as "resist all" isn't mentioned (and is a special exception to the general rules of resistance) it should be treated simply as 2 separate resistances in the same way resistance to piercing and bludgeoning is, and so imo it should never apply more than twice to a single hit: once for the negative damage, and once for the separate resistance to undead. The other option would be it only ever triggering once, which I think is perhaps even more reasonable, but I definitely wouldn't allow it to act like resistance all against undead, as resistance all is a special exception and so it would need to be called out more specifically.

It's very possible I'm missing something, but figured I'd throw my 2 copper in there.

Assuming you know it's weakness