FailedLilCatGod's page

These are cool but it would be nice to see some new apex items designed for the mental stat martials who have to sacrifice their key stats for their attack stats. (inventor, investigator, thaumaturge, alchemist)

Is there any reason why the errata shouldnt include some way for spellcasters to use some of the animal companion support benefits?

The number of spells that require an attack roll (as opposed to a saving throw) is quite limited. Then again, I recall looking for a proper definition of "hit" in the rulebook and not finding one, so you might interpret that to mean when you cast a spell and the target fails their saving throw.

That was indeed the main takeaway, More than anything im hoping to make it a little more official though. I think there is a good design opportunity here to make some interesting companions that are more oriented to work with casters who might not make strikes as often but do deal damage through spells. The beastmaster archetype makes them very accessible and expands its build options if spellcasters can make use of support benefits as well.

Thanks for the heads-up. I've flagged for errata on ones like the horse that erroneously put "attack" instead of "Strike." Bird correctly calls out Strike already at least.

Fantastic! Any thoughts on the others that dont specify strikes but would be fine if they supported spells as well? Horse was a clear outlier, but with a little rewording I think that allowing a few animal companions to work with spellcasters could be interesting.

So I just skimmed through the Animal Companions, and the Horse is the only one that seems like it would be problematic.

Horse seems to be implying that it's a weapon attack that it provides a benefit to. Though to be fair it doesn't specify that. The 2nd sentence about "if the weapon..." is the implication. And aside from that, most of those "add +1 damage per die" effects are tied to weapon damage dice, which of course caps out at the max Striking rune - and a level 3 Fireball outstrips that already. Finally, and this is always veeeery thin ice, but "common sense" would indicate that the horse's charge ability is all about lending momentum to the attack, which implies a physical weapon not a spell effect.

Aside from that... I don't see any issue with those support benefits which do not specify Strike being applied to spells.

That was my takeaway as well, wanted to post about it to spread a bit more awareness and hopefully increase the chances of an errata for the horse and a slightly clearer wording for the others that communicates that better :>

Quote:

The summary was a sort of consensus on the fact that the ambiguous wording on the support benefits intend to make use of strikes to trigger, but with very broad interpretations one could make the case that they work on spells as well.

I strongly disagree with the assertion that you need a "very broad" interpretation here. It implies that this is some weird or off the wall reading of the rules, when it's really just what the abilities say they do in a very plain and direct fashion.

Although I do agree that the horse benefit has weird interactions with spells, that's a problem specifically with the horse's support mechanic, not the general rule.

That was my conclusion as well! However, I was representing more or less the way opinions were leaning during that discussion rather than expressing my own. It was a long bout of Rules as written vs rules as interpreted!

I think those that say "if you hit and deal damage to a creature in your Animal Companions reach" read perfectly RAW to be used with spells - If it was intended for attacks with weapons only, it would say Strike, right?

Were there any in specific you were thinking of?

That was something that came up for sure! The generous interpretation (by how the text reads in plain) does suggest they work with spells, however... when we get to examples like the horse which reads in a way that after 10 feet of movement your next spell attack could deal an additional 20 damage just from a level 3 searing light, or upwards of 70 for a heightened one... it gets a little muddled!

Mostly just bringing attention to these interactions and hoping that they get looked at and hopefully validated as spells and/or strikes proper.

Hello everyone!

First, some context. A few weeks ago I began building an Oracle with the Ancestors mystery and was looking for ways to efficiently make use of all my actions regardless of what ancestor was aiding me that turn. At some point I ended up looking into the beastmaster and that sent me down this rabbit hole!

On an initial read of the companions I was simply looking at their stats and what not, when it suddenly dawned on me! Some of the support benefits suffer from some ambiguous wording while some others specifically require strikes to trigger. This didnt seem right, I thought, so I took it to Discord to ask for some extra opinions from some lovely people and that prompted a small debate.

The summary was a sort of consensus on the fact that the ambiguous wording on the support benefits intend to make use of strikes to trigger, but with very broad interpretations one could make the case that they work on spells as well. With an errata soon in the horizon this pushed me to make this post.

My intent with this post is to make the case in favor of rewording some of the support benefits to work with spells without any ambiguity. Bar one interpretation (The horse in particular could be very broken if it was allowed to work with spells as is written) I think it would be an overall benefit to the game and promote even more build diversity given the fact that the beastmaster dedication gives easy access to an animal companion for any class, martial and spellcaster alike!

Tl;Dr: Making a post to argue in favor of support benefits triggering off of spells.