| manituan |
One of my players made a warpriest Human Cleric lvl 1 with Deadly Simplicity (simple favourite weapon) + Syncretism (martial favourite weapon). He picked a Bastard Sword and increased the damage dice by 1 step. I thought this had to be wrong. But after reading through it, asking in Discord and talking with my player I think he's right and it's RAW.
It all comes down to the definition of "Prerequisite" and its wording. I think that by clarifying this definition, this specific cleric issue will be solved too. I added it just as an example, for context. The actual question comes now.
(Core Rule Book, pg. 18)
Prerequisites: Any minimum ability scores, feats, proficiency
ranks, or other prerequisites you must have before you can
access this rule element are listed here. Feats also have a level
prerequisite, which appears above.
We're not native English speakers, so maybe there's a misunderstanding in there. But from what I gather, the word "Access" refers to getting the feat or ability. Not about using it. "Requirement" on the other hand specifies that it's about using it. So if you get a feat somehow (Syncretism) you could use it regardless if you satisfy the prerequisite conditions or not.
The way I understand it personally is that Prerequisite is about getting the feat AND using it afterwards. Both. But that would be RAI. From the prerequisite's definition text, I can't give this to my player and say it's RAW. There's room for interpretation there.
I'd appreciate if a Paizo dev could confirm both the intent behind the term "Prerequisite" and add some clarification on Syncretism. Having a Bastard Sword with a d10 weapon damage die is an impactful change and I want to be sure it's intended before allowing it.
Thanks.