gplayle's page

I think the reaction was mostly due to the false dichotomy you've presented between inductive and deductive reasoning. In all sets of rule not everything can possible be spelled out explicitly; this is true of legislation and game rules. I think people take exception to your assertion that explicit statement is more valid that the very logical reading of the arcane builder feat. There is no more evidence to be gathered on this front; as is true for most of the PF rules. So when you say, you appreciate the comments but didn't really find what you are looking for, I believe most of the commenters are looking for you to realize that your desire for a more explicit statement is a faulty assumption; particularly in an open-ended and constantly expanding rules set.

The default logic should be if an ability is not explicitly grant, it's not implicitly granted, rather than, if a power could be read as implicitly granting an additional ability it should be assumed as granted unless it is explicitly denied.

So while I cannot fault your politeness, I truly believe people are looking for recognition that you are misunderstanding the appropriate way to read PF rules. that the assumptions that underlie your argument are faulty, and that there remains no open question on this topic.

I didn't present any false dichotomy between inductive and deductive reasoning. I understand that not all rules can be spelled out explicitly. That's totally fine. But with base order logic, anything that has implicitness to it means there must be an inductive order. With induction, there is variance, meaning interpretation is allowed and intrinsic. (However small room there might be between piecing things together.) With this in mind, only deductive things can be "valid". Anything with induction must be strong or weak. Labeling inductive logic with the aspect of "valid" is just simply wrong. Pure and simply wrong. So my assertion that explicit statements are more valid is correct of logic, and the only correct way. Hence, and I want to make sure I express this abundantly clear, I was ASKING for an explicit confirmation. Everyone jumping down my throat, for asking this question, was unwarranted. Everyone jumping down my throat, saying I had no right to attempt to interpret anything, when there is inductive connections, was also not warranted.

The strong logical reading of arcane builder is exactly what everyone said. I will grant them that. I agree. I agree the weak logical reading of arcane builder is what I was hinting at. I was asking if there was a way to move from reading this rule as being strong or weak, to gaining a valid or invalid confirmation. Having a valid confirmation is an extremely better way of knowing something, when it comes to Epistemology. With induction, even the strongest connections have a little bit of what is know as "epistemic luck". (Tanget thought, this message board is saying "epistemic" and "tanget" is spelled incorrectly. I think that's kind of funny.)

The rule had a small room for interpretation. So when I said I didn't find what I was looking for, I mean directly, an explicit confirmation; not the strong inductive connection, which everyone was expressing, that I could see for myself prior to post, and in which I agreed.

I mentioned that if I could not get this type of answer, that would have been fine, but the confirmation was what I was looking for; not that I was asserting anything like others have been placing on me. My original post was a question. It was not a post to settle a dispute in which I made a hard claim about the rule; in which others were trying to tell me I was wrong.

This post went from a question to others trying to tell me that I was wrong, that the rule didn't have room for interpretation, and that I was intentionally reading the rule incorrectly.

The default logic should be if an ability is not explicitly granted, it's not implicitly granted? I would say that isn't exactly true either. I will say that is generally what should be done, but the whole idea of RAW and RAI shows that default logic is not always the case 100% of the time. Again...which leads to variance.

Well, maybe that's what people are looking for. Maybe they are looking for more. Or maybe they have other intentions.

Again...I will grant them the strong inductive connection between the rule and what should happen. But I cannot grant them that this rule didn't have at least a small room for interpretation and honestly that's what this is all about. That people think there isn't any small room when there is, at least when it comes to inductive connections.

So...I'll go along with the inductive answer. That's fine. If someone said "I don't think you're going to get the kind of confirmation you're looking for" instead of what was said, and in the tone in the way I was reading it...Well, yeah.

I actually did not read your post in a rude tone. You were attempting to explain things. So thank you for that. As for your claims that I was false about inductive and deductive reasoning, no. If it helps you believe me, I even taught Logic at the university level. Granted this doesn't make me perfect, but inductive reasoning...well, I hope you are seeing what I'm leading towards, haha.

gplayle...

Saying that no-one gave you "hardcore, concrete, explicit confirmation" is not accurate.

Without a feat, how fast would your character "normally" make a magic item?

I don't want to go through this again. I said there is some vagueness to it because there is implied connections. I thanked everyone for their comments.

Your argument is pretty much the same as the one that was used by some who argued that a human taking Racial Heritage (Kobold) and the Tail Terror feats gave you a tail because Tail Terror says "You can make tail slap attacks with your tail." and doesn't list having a tail in the prerequisites. The devs ruled that it does NOT give you the required tail and that the requirement was implied.

If a discovery, feat or other ability would allow you to do something that implicitly requires another item, feat, etc... you must meet that requirement even if the Prerequisite text doesn't state it.

In the case of this discovery the requirement be able to already craft items is implied and the discovery itself does NOT give you that feat for free.

Dude...seriously? I make a cordial, sincere comment about everyone's comments and being fine with what everyone says, and you make a comment like that?

And as for your analogy...it's not congruent. The idea I would look at is if Racial Heritage gives you another limb. Gaining an ability to do something and magically having another limb are different.

And just for measure I went and looked up the comments you were referencing:

"'Benefit: You can make a tail slap attack with your tail.' Racial heritage lets you be considered as a Kobold for "Requirement: Kobold", it never says anything about being granted additional limbs"

You referenced having a tail with Tail Terror feat, when it should be referencing being if considered a Kobold, for Racial Heritage, if it gives you a tail. As well as Tail Terror seems more explicit because it says "your tail" than implicit. So having a tail is an explicit requirement for taking that Feat.

But even saying the rule was implied shows interpretation can be different. It's only when things/rules are explicit do interpretation claims lose credibility.

With my question for Arcane Builder, my question wasn't whether it was implied requirement, I was asking for something more explicit. I was quite fine with any implied ruling, considering I mentioned I would be fine that my GM sided with what others were saying. I wanted some hardcore, concrete, explicit confirmation and no one gave me that.

So, I want to go back to my original post and mention that I only said "seems" and that I was asking for a "hardcore confirmation".

I didn't really get the confirmation I wanted, but your answers were helpful. So...with that said, thank you for that and all the comments.

As for jbadams...I saw like maybe 3. One of those people was the person you mentioned, as I didn't read his last comment. I didn't feel like going back and looking for all the places I saw them...so you can stick me with that if you want. *Shrugs*. I've been doing a lot of research on this wizard build.

As for an earlier comment, I did bring it up with my GM, and he agrees with what was the overall sentiment. (Which I already admitted I would be fine with that.)

So, thanks again for the comments.

2) Game balance. If this ability does what you suggest, what wizard would ever pick up the item creation feats when they can sub this ability in for it as any feat they gain? Also, Scribe Scroll: a completely wasted class feature, and more expensive than any other item creation ability, if you are right, since a wizard has to spend a feat to scribe scrolls faster, but not any other type of item.

The onus is on you to demonstrate that the discovery must incontrovertibly allow the feat to be bypassed, meaning you must show that "normally" means "even characters without the item creation feat can create items", and also show that this ability as you read it is balanced against the item creation feats themselves.

I agree with your comment on game balance. I already kind of said that. You would just pick this discovery if the ability to craft the item is intrinsic to the discovery. As for Scribe Scroll, I see your logic, but sometimes games just do that. Give you something of value, unless you go another direction. It happens.

As for the onus part. I never made a concrete claim about what the discovery does entail. The claim I made was that the discovery is disputable and I'm looking for concrete confirmation. The onus is not on me for that.

Now I'll go with you that the onus is on me with context to my GM and the campaign I'm playing, but not for proving something about a rule I didn't write and that is, at least, somewhat debatable. Saying the onus is on me is very close to the "Begging the question" fallacy.

gplayle wrote:

Yes, my modified version would allow for bonded items because bonded items are treated as if the character has that feat/ability (even if it is only that specific item.)

Except that you said "create an item", and people would argue that by RAW you don't actually create your bonded item, you add enhancements to an existing item. Your intended meaning would therefore require additional wording to allow that possibility.

There may also be other exceptions that would not otherwise be covered, the arcane bonded item just happens to be the one myself and others thought of; it takes a lot of research to properly establish the impact of a small change in wording.

Look at it again. I gave two versions of how to word the prerequisites:

"Prerequisite: Appropriate magic item feat [or could write "ability to create magical item"]"

Do you agree with me that to create a magical item, one must have the proper magical item feat? I think you do.

Do you agree with me that to alter/enhance a magical item or to alter/enhance a regular item into a magical item, one must have the proper magical item feat? I would also say you agree to this.

Going from the rules of other sections, specifically the section on adding new abilities, one must have the proper magical item feat. As for a bonded item, the rules state that the character is treated as having this feat for this bonded item.

My modified version does not need to make that explicit because it piggybacks off of adding new abilities and bonded item preconditions. With the rule the way it was before, it was not clear about how it piggybacks off of the other concrete rules.

My modified version of either "appropriate magic item feat" is clear about creation or enhancement, or the other way to write it "ability to create magical item" must have the ability before taking that discovery, which means one must be able to create a magical item, which means the feat, which means to alter/enhance as well, intrinsically. Considering a bonded item is treated as such, the progression works naturally downward.

Either way of the modified version, the prerequisite is checking if the character has the feat (or with regards to bonded items, treated as having the feat).

Ultimately, that is my biggest problem with the way Arcane Builder is currently written. It doesn't check (like when you write code, the computer checks for certain parameters), but with games like this if it doesn't check then it doesn't need to check. And not only does the discovery not check, it says explicitly "select one type of magic item...you create items of this type" without saying that it must go through a check. This is the way logic works and why I'm not intentionally misinterpreting this; unless someone can get me a concrete confirmation. I don't think it is likely as I don't suspect people would have communication to the writer(s) of that Arcane Discovery.

Again, what others?

As written, your modified version wouldn't allow for use on an Arcane Bonded Item as the currently written version does, which I feel may explain why it's written as-is.

Yes, my modified version would allow for bonded items because bonded items are treated as if the character has that feat/ability (even if it is only that specific item.)

gplayle wrote:

Casual Viking wrote:

gplayle: No one is going to support your obviously wrong interpretation. Calling us mean for disagreeing with you accomplishes nothing. Let it go.

Dude, I didn't call anyone mean.

"Who doesn’t want to find information that confirms what they are looking for? That question seems as an attempt to be a slight; to reduce credibility of my post, and thus, holds no real value."

That's fine. I said "seems". Either, it isn't and we can move on in that the person's comment wasn't a slight (only just a possible interpretation); or the comment was a slight, and that person really is mean. (If the person really was being mean and acting out such negative intentions, then anyone could call that person mean and shouldn't be criticized for calling someone mean. That being said, I did not make any concrete claim of anyone being mean.)

I'm sorry that everyone thinks I'm intentionally misreading/misrepresenting this discovery. I'm not. Although, honestly, the discovery, if what everyone is saying is true, most likely should have been written like this:

Prerequisite: Appropriate magic item feat [or could write "ability to create magical item"]

Benefit: Select one type of magic item you can create (potions, wondrous items, and so on). Items of this type are created 25% faster than normally, and gain a +4 bonus on Spellcraft checks, or other appropriate checks, to craft items of this type.

Special: You may select this discovery multiple times; its effects do not stack. Each time you select this discovery, it applies to a different type of magic item.

It is 7 or 8 words difference and clears up every issue I have, and what seems to be others have had as well.

gplayle: No one is going to support your obviously wrong interpretation. Calling us mean for disagreeing with you accomplishes nothing. Let it go.

Dude, I didn't call anyone mean.

"Normal" in this context refers to the time it takes to produce an item, not the items produced.

This is what I said to dragonhunterq:

Now, if you mean normal, as one would be able normally perform a task, which I think you mean

"As one would be able normally perform a task", (should have typed it "as one would be able, normally, to perform a task"). But the point of the statement is that it intrinsically has the aspect of time included.

You saying there is nothing to even imply this, then why doesn't it just come out and say it instead of the confusing linguistics? Or why is it that others have had the same question?

I'm looking for a hardcore, concrete, confirmation of what this truly means. If one can supply it, fine, otherwise, RAW/RAI/GM discretion for my specific campaign is all that I care about.

Also, it would be incorrect to list just one prerequisite feat, as there are several choices (Craft Arms and Armor, Craft Wondrous Items, etc.) and you only need one of those feat, not all of them.

I suppose they could have said "one of the following feats" and then listed every one of the magic item crafting feats. That's excess word count that isn't necessary because the general crafting rules say you NEED the appropriate feat to craft any magical item. This discovery does not change the general rule . If it did change the general rule with a specific rule it would need to actually say so. It does not say so, so it does not change the general rule.

In short, you cannot assume an overwriting specific rule unless that rule is specifically specified.

Blake, the prerequisite could have easily said "related Item Creation feat for craft item" without having to go into all the different specific ones. The idea of claiming prerequisites or explaining other preconditions for whatever is so things can be with least confusion as possible. It says "choose" and "can craft" specifically in the benefit section of the feat.

To Cavall:

Does a class that gives away free item creation feats really need to skip the need for free item creation feats?

This is not RAW it's an intentional misreading.

Explain what you mean here please? Because the way I'm reading your comment is you gain the creation feat for free and not needing to use a feat or bonus feat.

If Wizards get a free item creation feat without having to use up a feat one gets because of class or through natural progression, please show me.

And I'm not intentionally misreading. Are you omniscient or can read my mind and intentions? (Intentional sarcastic, rhetorical question.)

To dragonhunterq:

I would agree with you if it weren’t for the fact that Craft skill has this covered. With Craft skill, and whatever area you choose, you create normal items, normally. As, with that said, the item creation feats are all magical items. They aren’t normal item creation.

Now, if you mean normal, as one would be able normally perform a task, which I think you mean, then that is fine, but we are still where I started in that the RAW reads, “select one type of magic item.” Which still leads me to think that this could possibly mean that the discovery has the feat intrinsically part of the discovery.

You're saying without the prerequisite feat, but the discovery has no prerequisites. Again, leading to what I said, that RAW and RAI does not have a clear separation as some are wanting to claim.

To jbadams:

The idea isn’t whether you personally would rule it or not, it is to know and understand the truth of the rule. With that idea in mind, the RAI to me doesn’t seem so clear.

Now I would agree with you for:

25% faster than 'not possible' is still not possible. Likewise, a +4 bonus on a check you are not allowed to attempt does not allow you to attempt the check.

If you can’t do something, you can’t do it at a decreased time nor make a check related to something you can’t do. My argument, with the RAW, is that it does possibly read to allow you to do it, so your piece of explanation is irrelevant. There isn’t a clear separation of RAW and RAI with this discovery.

The idea is to find some ammunition in which if my GM doesn’t read it the same way, be able to convince the GM. If he doesn’t allow it, he doesn’t allow it. That is fine.

And you finding the same threads I did and reading people that agree with you is anecdotal evidence/confirmation bias.

As for arcane bonded item not needing the relevant feat to improve that specific item, that is a weak premise. As for Arcane bond item it reads:

“A wizard can add additional magic abilities to his bonded object as if he has the required Item Creation Feats and if he meets the level prerequisites of the feat.”

The reason this works so well for a bonded item is because the bonded item is treated as if the character has such creation feat. It states preconditions for desired improvement on said item. So that part of your argument is worthless for understanding Arcane Builder.

Or were you just hoping someone would give you an answer you liked?

Who doesn’t want to find information that confirms what they are looking for? That question seems as an attempt to be a slight; to reduce credibility of my post, and thus, holds no real value. But as I said earlier, I'm really looking for the truth. As for my initial post, I asked for a hardcore confirmation about this. You have not given me one. If you can, that would be just fine. I'll go with what is true, and then work my on.

I know this question was kind of already posted and I looked at those questions, but it doesn't really answer the question. I have looked over Arcane Builder and the discovery doesn't have any requirements. Not only that, the discovery if going by RAW,

"You have an exceptional understanding of the theory behind creating magical items.

Benefit: Select one type of magic item (potions, wondrous items, and so on). You create items of this type 25% faster than normal, and gain a +4 bonus on Spellcraft checks (or other checks, as appropriate) to craft items of this type.
Special: You may select this discovery multiple times; its effects do not stack. Each time you select this discovery, it applies to a different type of magic item"

This seems to allow the character to create the item.

The key area I'm focusing on, with consideration to RAW, is "You create items of this type 25% faster than normal". It says straight out that you create the item with the modifier of having the increased speed of creation. Also, necessary and sufficient condition logic would lead one to realize that a person cannot create an item 25% faster if they could not already create the item. Seeing there is no item creation feat that is a prerequisite, the discovery covers the item creation feat that the person picks as stated from the benefit. The +4 gained modifier to the check adds to the case I'm stating.

Can I get a hardcore confirmation on this?