shroudb's page

Going just by the title, I'd say that the highest ranking mage of ANY school would be eligible for the title.

Something like Archmage of Magical Engineering, Archmage of Ars Grammatica, and such.

It doesn't have to be that different Archmages are of equal power though.

To me it's more of a title of station rather a title of power.

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Similarly to the squire/knight example abovementioned, where someone may have been knighted due to pedigree, connections, and such, and barely know where to point the pointy bit towards to, and another may have been a battle hardened veteran of war that got the title from his achievements.

well... to start with, convincing the bard to at least switch to a finesse weapon instead of an axe with +0 Str could help.

But from the get go, with such a composition and such (as you put it) "negative mastery", the best you could do is working with the GM to convince him to target Summons more, and then use more Summons yourself as the sorcerer just to put extra bodies on the battlefield for the enemies to whack. Illusionary creature could work similarily.

but it still needs to gm to have the enemies focus more on siad summons rather than the squishy actual casters that are handling the frontline.

Foil Senses says that you take precautions against "special senses" and tells you to look at the sidebar to see what are those.

the sidebar for "detecting with other senses" tells you that it is about:

If a monster uses a sense other than vision, the GM can adapt ways of avoiding detection that work with the monster's senses.

Darkvision only enhances Vision, so Foil Senses shouldn't help there since it covers everything else except Vision.

It will help with stuff like echolocation, smell, lifesense, spiritsense, and whatever other weird sense a monster may have, but not with vision related things.

for me it also totally depends on the actual circumstances, like, the rock climber example you gave, hanging from a rock and jumping to the next rock... i would say that would be part of the climb check overall.

on a dangling from a rope and swinging sort of scenario, i might call for an acrobatics check, and etc.

What does a Sudden Leap used in conjunction with Cloud Jump look like?

They do not combine very well:

Sudden leap is 2 actions for a Long/High Jump + Strike.

Long Jump already has a Stride in it, so realistically, you are looking at Stride + Jump + Strike all in 2 actions, with the added benefit that you can also go Vertical.

And with double the limits on the distance jumped without adding actions BUT with doubling the jump DC to silly levels.

So, you could (theoretically with a high enough roll) in 2 actions move up to 3 times your speed and strike, or move your speed horizontally and up to double your speed upwards and strike.

Cloud Jump enhances your jumps, vertical or horizontal, with adding more distance WITHOUT increasing the DC (but with extra actions) for long jumps, and making your verticals go really high.

Cloud Jump is also a modification on the base jump actions, so you can combine them with whatever jumps actions you want to do, or with other jump modifications like Quick Jump.

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So, overall, Sudden Leap is better action compression BUT only when you want to do all those things together. And to go over your speed in jump distance you start to get into ridicusly high DCs.

Cloud Jump on the other hand can be only 1 action for a very high jump, or more actions for a very long jump (up to 3 times your speed for 3 actions, while sudden leap is up to 2 times your speed for 2 actions).

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The only "combination" I see is that if you have both, you don't have to increase the DC on the double distance jump on the sudden leap, which is something great when it appears, but not something that i think will appear often.

NorrKnekten wrote:

I'm not to sure on what it is exactly that want clarification.

But yes, Creatures automatically observe something in plain sight. That is a creature that lacks atleast standard cover or concealment. It is covered under senses under Perception and Detection

Player Core pg. 433 2.0 "Precise Sense" wrote:

Average vision is a precise sense—a sense that can be used to perceive the world in nuanced detail. The only way to target a creature without having drawbacks is to use a precise sense. You can usually detect a creature automatically with a precise sense unless that creature is hiding or obscured by the environment

This remains rather symmetrical with

Player Core pg. 244 2.0 "Stealth/Hide" wrote:

If you successfully become hidden to a creature but then cease to have cover or greater cover against it or be concealed from it, you become observed again.

So yeah, if you open a door and 20 orcs are hiding in the room, then those 20 orcs all need their own hiding spot. Barring any purple ones with Legendary Sneak.

I think the clarification I want is why is that rule there for Hide but not for Sneak? To me, that implies that Undetected has a higher threshold for detection than Hidden does.

Maybe Hide in particular is just a poorly written action? Perhaps the verbiage that says if you lose your concealment/cover is superfluous? To me, it seems to be put there with a purpose, and then it is purposely different in the Sneak rules.

NorrKnekten wrote:

There is a segment in the GM core in regards to how you set up the encounter and marching order to accompany characters attempting to be stealthy, but this does not seem like the issue here.

Yeah, not the issue here. That's also confusing and difficult to get through all the rules on it, but it is there and consistent. We may not have run it exactly correct here, but that wasn't really the issue.

Sneak is just the movement from place A to place B while remaining hidden.

That's why Sneak says that if by the end of the movement you do not have cover/concealment, you automatically become observed.

But on another's creature's turn, even if you manage to Sneak from behind boulder A to behind boulder B, if the creature moves behind the boulders, he can now clearly see you.

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Hide/Sneak is very intuitive in the system once you get it once right. To put it in simple terms:

You are standing behind a boulder not tall enough to fully cover you:
You are observed by the enemy since he can see you, but you have some cover from the boulder.

You Hide behind said boulder on your turn: You are now Hidden. That means the enemy can't see you, but he knows you are there.

You stealthily move (Sneak) from behind the boulder you were to another point that the creature still doesn't see you. Assuming you roll high enough, you move without making noise and without the enemy seeing you during that move.

Now the enemy knows you are somewhere, but doesn't know if you are still behing boulder A, you moved behind boulder B, you are behind Tree A, tree B, or anywhere really: you are Undetected by the enemy.

The enemy never even knew you were in the room: Unoticed.

shroudb wrote:

MagnificentMelkior wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Razing applies "whenever" you deal damage to an object.

But as far as the OP question stands, things are indeed more murky. Imo, in my tables, I would say that the Corrosive rune is the one dealing the damage and not the weapon (since you would in fact deal 0 "weapon" damage to the item but only the acid damage of the rune).

IF the corrosive rune was instead somewhat different like "deal your weapon's damage to the object" then I could see the razing rune being applied, but not how it currently works.

But have you considered the rules that define weapon property runes? It says "Property runes add special abilities to armor or a weapon in addition to the item’s fundamental runes"

Therefore, the corrosive rune critical effect is a special ability of the weapon its attached to. Therefore, any damage dealt by that ability (which is the weapon's ability now) is dealt by the weapon.

Yes, I have. I gave you my opinion on how the Corrosive rune is worded. You don't do any "weapon damage" in my opinion. So Razing wouldn't work. Adding a special ability to a thing, whatever that thing is, doesn't mean tht the damage isn't still coming from said ability.

A lightning zap 10ft away by lightning rune wouldn't cause more item damage because the weapon said lighning came out from was a sledghammer either. Both are abilities triggered by the runes.

That's as far sa RaW goes from my reading. And that's what I would tell my player.

BUT on real actual play, I would also throw the player some bonuses when he's hitting stuff that I think that razing would help, to even out the fact that razing is indeed a weak Trait and it makes players feel good to do some cool stuff at times with their weapons. But that's not a Rules argument.

Razing doesn't require "weapon damage." though, so why are you putting that in quotes? Its irrelevant. Razing requires you to deal damage with the weapon, which is not the same thing....

because razing isn't some sort of magical thing, it comes from the weapon being able to do more damage to structures/objects because of what the weapon is/how it's built.

an axe is better at cutting trees. A bolt coming out of an axe, wouldn't cause a tree to take extra damage just because the bolt originated from an axe.

as a straight up game example, there are in fact enemies printed with "weakness to axe" because they are tree enemies. If a barbarian with a shocking greataxe crits and a lightning bolt flies from his axe to one such enemy, i wouldn't apply the weakness either.

so, when damage isn't coming from the weapon damage itself, for me it wouldn't activate it.

But if a player tried to cut a tree using an axe and not a sword, i would give them a bonus despite there not being something "mechanical" to show that axes cut trees better than swords.

Razing is the mechanical equivalent of "this weapon is built to destroy objects better". But that's not a magical effect, nor something supernatural. That "property" isn't transferable to stuff attached to the weapon anymore than the "versatile" property of a sword being able to both slash and pierce being trasferable to those runes.

if acid comming out of the weapon isn't becoming "sharper" because it comes out of a sword, i don't see how it becomes "more destructive" when it comes out of a sledgehammer.

shroudb wrote:

Razing applies "whenever" you deal damage to an object.

But as far as the OP question stands, things are indeed more murky. Imo, in my tables, I would say that the Corrosive rune is the one dealing the damage and not the weapon (since you would in fact deal 0 "weapon" damage to the item but only the acid damage of the rune).

IF the corrosive rune was instead somewhat different like "deal your weapon's damage to the object" then I could see the razing rune being applied, but not how it currently works.

But have you considered the rules that define weapon property runes? It says "Property runes add special abilities to armor or a weapon in addition to the item’s fundamental runes"

Therefore, the corrosive rune critical effect is a special ability of the weapon its attached to. Therefore, any damage dealt by that ability (which is the weapon's ability now) is dealt by the weapon.

Yes, I have. I gave you my opinion on how the Corrosive rune is worded. You don't do any "weapon damage" in my opinion. So Razing wouldn't work. Adding a special ability to a thing, whatever that thing is, doesn't mean tht the damage isn't still coming from said ability.

A lightning zap 10ft away by lightning rune wouldn't cause more item damage because the weapon said lighning came out from was a sledghammer either. Both are abilities triggered by the runes.

That's as far sa RaW goes from my reading. And that's what I would tell my player.

BUT on real actual play, I would also throw the player some bonuses when he's hitting stuff that I think that razing would help, to even out the fact that razing is indeed a weak Trait and it makes players feel good to do some cool stuff at times with their weapons. But that's not a Rules argument.

NorrKnekten wrote:

So it really does seem like shroudb has the correct reading in that Razing only applies when its the weapon dealing the damage. So I expect it to come down to wether or not a GM considers the runes on a weapon to be part of the weapon. and on a case by case basis I wouldn't consider the arc of electricity from a Shock rune to trigger the Razing Trait after all.

I know it's sacrilegious to some here but I would allow it, simply so as a GM I could say lines like, "As Gorgoth swings his mighty hammer across the Goliath's shield the heavy hammer bursts in power, the resulting corrorsive ichor seeping into the vulnerable metal, sizzling with zeal when combined with the massive weapons' blow. You shatter his shield in a moment of glory."

Narratvely wise, I do tend to give the more fringe case Traits (like razing) bonuses when I can just so that the player feels nice.

But I do not base such rulings on strict RaW interpetations, instead i more or less freeform/handwave big power boosts when they could have applied.

As an example, I recently allowed a player with a Razing weapon to straight up break a wooden ceiling without checking numbers or such, just because his weapon is suppossed to be good vs structures.

Razing applies "whenever" you deal damage to an object.

which does mean, that if someone shield blocks your strike, you will indeed do more damage to the shield than what you'll deal the person behind the shield (Scenario 3 in Kelseus post).

But as far as the OP question stands, things are indeed more murky. Imo, in my tables, I would say that the Corrosive rune is the one dealing the damage and not the weapon (since you would in fact deal 0 "weapon" damage to the item but only the acid damage of the rune).

IF the corrosive rune was instead somewhat different like "deal your weapon's damage to the object" then I could see the razing rune being applied, but not how it currently works.

I like how things are written in a more casual way in general.

But...

The writers MUST take extreme care to use keywords when keywords are relevant and not use keywords when not relevant.

Because, as an example, with the exact same authority, with the exact same spell, a different thread may pop out asking if the caster should roll for Concealment as an example:

While aoe are exempt from it "normally", the "flavour text" clearly says that the affected ones are "targets" which would run into Concealment.

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RaI is in the eye of the beholder, and my reading is that "whispering baleful secrets" neither discerns friend from enemy (it's not like you're walking next to an enemy and whisper in his ear) nor is it actually a "targeted" spell, despite mention of both foes and targets in the descriptive text.

They give you the Grab/Knockdown Action for that limb that you choose.

Grab:

Requirements: The monster's last action was a successful Strike that lists Grab in its damage entry, or the monster has a creature grabbed or restrained;

Effect If used after a Strike, the monster attempts to Grapple the creature using the body part it attacked with. This attempt neither applies nor counts toward the creature's multiple attack penalty.

The monster can instead use Grab and choose one creature it's grabbing or restraining with an appendage that has Grab to automatically extend that condition to the end of the monster's next turn.

Knockdown:

Requirements: The monster's last action was a successful Strike that lists Knockdown in its damage entry;

Effect The monster attempts to Trip the creature. This attempt neither applies nor counts toward the monster's multiple attack penalty.

It's still an Action to perform eithr of those (Improved Grab and Improved Knockdown instead are Free actions)

I had to improvise mechanics for harvesting raw materials in my campaigns. One factor that shroudb overlooked is that the Earn Income downtime activity is for a downtime job that typically spans weeks. Imagine someone with a job as a duskwood lumberjack. Duskwood trees are rare. Their locales are guarded: the Verduran Forest is tended by druids who make treaties with lumbering companies, Darkmoon Vale is inhabited by kobolds, dire wolves, and werecreatures, and the Screaming Jungle is a deadly jungle flanked by natives who dislike outsiders. Thus, seeking duskwood as a job would involve a great deal of time negotiating with the natives and then searching for a duskwood tree. Finding the tree is a jackpot, a payoff for weeks of work, say 5 weeks. Thus, 34 days of no harvest followed by one day of 35-fold harvest. An 8th-level master of Nature would earn 3 gp per day, so multiply that by 35 to get around 105...

my idea for the Earn Income was indeed somewhat different:

it reaches about the same 1 month plus something for a full duskwood item, which is priced at 350gp. Which would require a level 11-12 master craftsman to pull off.

Again, this is fundamentally different from putting it into an adventure as loot, in which case I'd only have to be careful about the amount I would give the adventurer's access to depending on their level.

shroudb wrote:

A simple branch of duskwood had the same hardness and hp as a full blown steel shield.

that would mean that if anyone wanted to "harvest" duskwood as a normal business, he would need extremely specialized equipment to cut and process it, let alone how difficult it would be to actually process it into an intricate and precise form like a weapon or an armor.

as for PCs getting some by smacking the branches with their weapons, you'd have to account for the actual damage they would cause to the actual product, how much they would destroy its value by not harvesting it properly, how small the market for such an expensive material is (it doesn't matter if you have a 2000 gp statue if no one wants a 2000 gold statue...), and etc

The way I would "handle" PCs trying to harvesting it for profit would be fairly simple: Earn Income, of a sufficient high level Task, with maybe a big circumstance bonus on the roll due to the availability of the rare material to begin with, and then the result would be simultaneously how much "usable" wood is both harvested and you found a buyer for.

also do note that the "branch" is not a small twig, given that a 1 bulk object (which is alredy processed) is only 350gp, it's safe to assume that the "branch" refers to one of the main branches of a tree at least.

If I came across a whole g!##@~n dusk wood tree and cut off some seven foot long hunk of branch, I would just quit if you told me I somehow only harvested 28gp worth of duskwood. If you’re going to b*~@*%#% that hard don’t have the f!~@ing tree in the first place. Don’t jangle it in front of me like shiny car keys and joink it away with some b&+$@%#& subsystem roll that doesn’t model the in world situation in the slightest.

my explanation was more about what's happenning in the in-game world to not have the economy collapse (which a simple duskwood tree is trivial if you think that there are actually items worth more than kingdoms as you level up).

no, if i put a tree for a party, the most probable outcome would be to either:
a)already planned to have that as part of your expected earnings/loot as you adventure/level up
or
b)have you struggle to find an actual buyer for a 7ft long hunk of wood (which would in honestly be totaly dependent on where you are trying to sell said loot)

i've been playing for long enough to be on both sides of the table when adventurers come across a "huge door made of adamantine" to know what's happenning next^^

I always like free booze, either for you, or for your friends/targets/npcs, so Bottomless Stein and/or Flask of Fellowship are always nice to have, even on a much higher level character.

A simple branch of duskwood had the same hardness and hp as a full blown steel shield.

that would mean that if anyone wanted to "harvest" duskwood as a normal business, he would need extremely specialized equipment to cut and process it, let alone how difficult it would be to actually process it into an intricate and precise form like a weapon or an armor.

as for PCs getting some by smacking the branches with their weapons, you'd have to account for the actual damage they would cause to the actual product, how much they would destroy its value by not harvesting it properly, how small the market for such an expensive material is (it doesn't matter if you have a 2000 gp statue if no one wants a 2000 gold statue...), and etc

The way I would "handle" PCs trying to harvesting it for profit would be fairly simple: Earn Income, of a sufficient high level Task, with maybe a big circumstance bonus on the roll due to the availability of the rare material to begin with, and then the result would be simultaneously how much "usable" wood is both harvested and you found a buyer for.

also do note that the "branch" is not a small twig, given that a 1 bulk object (which is alredy processed) is only 350gp, it's safe to assume that the "branch" refers to one of the main branches of a tree at least.

Errenor wrote:

>When a character uses Taunting Strike are they *using* the Taunt Action as well?

-Yes, but it's modified by the Taunting Strike: "you Taunt the target"

>Does that mean that a character uses Taunting Strike and with Group Taunt they get to pick three targets to be taunted?
-No. "you Taunt the target".

>Does a character who is Raging lose the ability to use Taunting Strike and Armored Counterattack? Shouldn't those feats then have the Concentrate trait as well?
-No, you can use them as they don't have Concentrate trait. But Taunts inside of them don't work. No, they shouldn't, you are free to use or not to use them as you like. Combined activities in the game don't get traits of subordinate actions (and shouldn't).

>Does a character with Shielding Taunt and Group Taunt choose three enemies when they raise their shield?
- No. "then Taunt a creature".

Group Taunt does not have an action, it's not discrete like Elf Step. "When you use Taunt". By your logic from answer #1 if they are Using Taunt then they get to pick 3 targets. If they are not USING Taunt then the action doesn't have the concentrate trait. Likewise by your logic when someone uses Spellstrike it doesn't provoke Reactive Strikes because the Spellstrike doesn't have the Manipulate trait. The Spellstrike can't be stopped by the Silence spell because it doesn't require speaking.

As much as I'd love for it to work like you say (my current character build depends on it) there are logical and lexical inconsistencies in your explanation.

This is an official rules question, I need the PFS answer for this so I'd LOVE to have a weigh-in from the authors or devs, but if anyone else can point out any other explicit interaction that accounts for this?

That concentrate trait on Taunt doesn't even make sense to me. Smashing your weapon on your shield and screaming provocatively seems less "concentratey" than giving explicit trained orders and those don't have the Concentrate trait...

As the rest of the posters pointed, but to make it a bit more clear how and why it works that way:

While an Activity doesn't inherit the traits of the subordinate actions, the subordinate actions themselves still carry them.

So, as a simple example:
Sudden Charge:
Sudden Charge doesn't have either the Move or the Attack Trait itself as an ability.
But the Strides within the Sudden charge have the Move Trait (and thus may provoke Reactive Strikes) and the Strike within it still has the Attack Trait (and thus progresses and uses MAP).

Similarily, when you do something like a Taunting Strike:
It has neither the Attack nor the Concentrate trait by itself, but the Strike will have the Attack Trait (and thus progresses and uses MAP) and the Taunt will have the Concentrate Trait (and thus cannot be used while raging).

just because I like to see the world burn:

if attacks are only:
melee
ranged
spell

then what are "melee or ranged impulse attack rolls"?

keeping in mind that impulses, while magical are specifically not "spells".
and keeping in mind that while they can be made in melee or range, they are also not using either Str or Dex for their calculations but they are using impulse DC which is based on Con to calculate their attack bonus.

Cheers :P

Would gaze Sharpe as steek stack with Rogues precision damage with a dual class rogue/Exemplar.

You can only have 1 source of Sneak damage, but as many sources of different Precision damage as you want.

So, as long as something is not named "Sneak" it can stack with Sneak.

The only abilites I'm aware of that improve your own degree of success do so only if you are the defender. For instance, a high level wizard that succeeds on their saving throw gets a critical success instead.

Do you have any example of an incapacitation ability that could conflict with another degree changing effect?

Yeah, as I said in my OP, the thing that popped that question in my mind was when I was theorycrafting a Talisman dabbler Fan Dancer.

There are talismans that turn success to crit success for Performance and Incapacitation Performances.

As another general example, the Sash of Prowess also turns Acrobatics and Athletic Successes to Crit Success once per day. Edit: Sleeper Hold is an Athletics check with Incapacitation on it.

Not sure if there are other examples, but this one was the one that brought it to my attention.

That is a large part of why I was looking into this build, yes. I very much dislike one roll to hit per round type of builds. The thought that I could, if I was set up with panache and standing beside an enemy, do a finisher into save cantrip for a strong round, sounded good to me. But yeah, sounds like it might be a bad idea.

IF you have actions to spare, don't fall into the trap of only doing 1 finisher a round as your only attack.

if you have the opportunity to do a normal strike into a finisher, especially with stuff like combination finishers and the failsafe of still doing some damage on a miss with your finisher, you'll end up on average doing more damage.

As for skill yes the only get Arcane +2 + int modifier on a int based class so that 7 skills to start and an additional on at level 10 and 20. On top of that Knowledge is Power.

So... in your opinion, Sorcerers should have a blank "-2 penalty on Charisma checks" because with their +4 Cha modifier they would get a better modifier than a non-Cha class, right?

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The FACT that Wizards get less Skills because their primary is Int is simply put, faulty logic. The "bonus of Int" is more Skills.

That is the bonus of INT it has absolutely NOTHING to do with your class.

So, by slapping the wizard with the least amount of skill training, paizo has by definition shafting the class just because.

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Again, the suppossed library nerd class is also simultaneously the one with the least amount of trained skills and knowledges just because.

I mean, it's quite clear, no?

The mirrored aegis emits an aura in a 15-foot emanation that protects you and all allies in the aura from harm, granting a +1 status bonus to AC.

15ft emanation aura that grants +1 status to AC. The only time "you" is referenced is when it says "you and all allies".

If we are questioning the AC bonus applying to the allies, why aren't we questioning the AC bonus applying to you then, since you are only referenced as a target alongside the allies?

I feel this whole tangent about Gaze Sharp as Steel doesn't take into account that this whole discussion began because we were arguing that most exemplars switch between 2 ikons and ignore the 3rd one. Gaze Sharp as Steel can be a good option for ranged exemplars, but that doesn't solve the issue of the 3rd ikon since ranged exemplars are still going to be switching between their ranged weapon ikon and Gaze Sharp as Steel ignoring the 3rd ikon.

Usually your 3rd Icon is a Utility one.

I see no issue with that, having two "primary" things you usually alternate and having a 3rd one for things that you want to be able to do once in a while.

Especially later on, with extra Transcendence feats, there are a lot of options like "oh, this things heals, let me switch to the thing that stops healing" or "I need to turn on flight now cause enemies are flying".

Even base Icons can be seen as more utility/circumstantial ones, like, you won't be switching to your Scar when you are full HP, but you will be switching when you want to heal, or you won't be using your Wreath when noone is under a negative condition, you won't be using your cornucopia until you want to drink/pass on that heal/buff, and etc.

Atlatal? Exemplar has some reload cheats, and upping it to 1d8 via Humble Strikes would make it not terrible. A lot of flavor there, as the Ikon is technically the hunk of curved ___ that's the throwing lever, and the arrows/darts are just ammo.

The Alchemical Crossbow is simple just for the sake of Alchemist, and would then up to 1d10 + 1d6 in the hands of an Exemplar. If you want to be a shooter and max your damage, that is a very tempting pick.

Hand Cannon if you want the flavor of it, but is just kinda worse than many crossbow options.

Longspear would be a 1d10 reach weapon.

Most out there pick is Fire Lance. 1d6 --> 1d8 via Humble, and it's Fatal d10.

It's both a normal spear and a gun. If you stick a Returning rune on this, you can cheese the 1A Interact normally needed to mode swap via just throwing the thing (you decide your grip when if flies back to you). In this case, the GM might/should rule that it doesn't get the damage of a spear if thrown in gun grip, but even RaW that would still count as an improvised 1d4 --> 1d6 weapon I think.

Now that I read this again, yeah, this weapon is 100% a dev error. If you leave it loaded and never shoot, it's just a much better spear due to having the Fatal d10 trait. The firearm range is 10 flipping ft, so it's got more range if you throw it. But stab or throw, getting a Fatal d10 spear thanks to the [uncommon] power boost makes it very appealing.

No idea wtf the designer was attempting with that one. There very little reason to ever shoot it. Best I can come up with is that the Fatal trait is intended to not apply to the spear grip? But it would need Jezail's "Fatal Aim __", or other instructive text for that Fatal to only work in the 2-H gun mode...

From the way I read Fire Lance, you won't be getting the fatal if you use it as a Spear, because what it says is that it is a ranged weapon that "A loaded fire lance can be wielded as a normal spear,".

A "normal Spear" doesn't have the Fatal Trait.

Keep in mind that repeating the same action to aid against the same target would probably increase the Aid DC.

Repetition: Aiding the same creature multiple times can have diminishing returns. In particular, if you try to repeatedly Aid attacks or skill checks against a creature, the GM will usually increase the DC each time as your foe gets more savvy.

I can only say that I don't agree at all. It's not that kind of a feature. Nothing is written that there should be some 'on' switch to use this effect. If you have it - you can use it (and you also need bloodline focus spells for that, I'm not sure taken slot spells from bloodline count as "sorcerous gifts"). You just repeat same things where nothing supports your view.

Finoan wrote:

It is much like the Psychic archetype. The dedication does not give you the Unleash Psyche class feature, and no archetype feat grants it. So you can technically take the Psi Burst feat, but will not be able to use it since the action has the Psyche trait.

And, they are not even close. Because Unleash is the only way to use Psyche actions, and you can't get it. But to use Blood magic you just need bloodline focus spells - and you can get them. There's no Blood Magic trait which says you must have Blood Magic feature from your bloodline, there's no any other restrictive language anywhere.

But Blood Magic is part of your Bloodline, that's where it is listed.

So, you getting an alternate blood magic effect, without having a blood magic feature, is what we're saying.

of course, as you say, it could have been clearer (or else there wouldn't be a debate), but imo at least, it's clear enough.

I've attempted to make several exemplar characters since the class' release, and I've found that in almost every instance, another class does it better.

Exemplar with a rifle? Gunslinger has better action economy and raw numbers.
Exemplar archer? Ranger does it better.
Melee exemplar? Barbarian and fighter topple it easily.
Bag of tricks exemplar? Bard and rogue have WAY more options available.

Every concept (more than those shown above) that I've come up with has failed to find a niche that some other class didn't fulfill better in almost every way.

So, what then, is the exemplar class supposed to be doing? It has a strong conceptual niche, but it's mechanical niche--whatever that's supposed to be--seems more and more lacking to me.

What are your thoughts on the class' role and abilities?

"X does it better" leaves the question of what "it" is though.

If "it" is "damage" then yes, the pure martials are better doing damage than an Exemplar.

If "it" is "damage+support/utility" then Exemplar is better.

Exemplar has great damage every other turn, and not-so-great damage the other half of his turns. Instead, in those turns he has support/utility transcendences.

So, to go back to your gunslinger example, a Rifleman Exemplar will have great damage the turns he transcends his rifle Icon, and then he has the other turns doing support/utility that the gunslinger cannot do PLUS some damage.

So, let's say that you have Skybearer's and Wreath as your other Icons:
You could start with the spark in your rifle, shoot (getting the extra bonus damage since the spark is in the gun), free action reload, and AoE damage (while the enemies are still close together) transcend out of the gun and into the pelt.
Next round you Stride, pick up your fighter and put him next to the enemy, and continue your Stride away from the enemy, then free action reload, then shoot with the spark now in the gun to get the immanence bonus. Next round you can free action reload as you start a Binding shot to deal both damage and immobilize an enemy out of position, as you transcend to something different, like the Wreath to give attack bonuses to the rest of the party and get ready to dispel negative conditions from allies the next round. And etc.

NorrKnekten wrote:

No,

you get trained in skills, the spellist and can later pick up bloodline spells with a feat, but you get no other benefits from the bloodline.

Guys, Explosion of Power is a feat. It doesn't have any prerequisites. Dedicated sorcerers can take feats and bloodline spells through feats. We know how blood magic effects work. The feats says: "You know the following blood magic effect. Blood Magic—Explosion of Power". So you do. I don't see absolutely any reason to forbid that. Yes, PCs with sorcerer dedication can get their first (?) bloodline effect at the 16th level for a 16th level feat. You don't need any "other benefits from the bloodline".

Blood Magic though IS a "benefit from your bloodline" since your Bloodline is where the Blood Magic is described.

So the archetype saying "you don't get other benefits from your bloodline" would exlude getting the feature "blood magic" altogether is my reading.

A different way to see it is that you are able to steel yourself against the frightful presence of a dragon for a very short period of time, but they are so frightful that after just a minute after the initial shock, it still comes back.

Do you have explicit rules source/errata saying the trip in this feat has to be made with limbs/body weight and thus the target has to be in the PC's unarmed reach?

Because honestly I do not see any such restriction.

Strike
Hit and damage
Attempt trip

That's it.

To piggy back on that:

Slam Down specifically removes the requirement of "having a hand free" which is the only mention of "hands" in the entirety of Trip Action.

So,the rules are pretty explicit that you do NOT use your hands.

My point is: if you're not within reach to do the trip (the weapon does not have the Trip trait, but it does have the reach trait), does the slam down still execute?

The Trip itself is done with the body, or with limbs performing a sweep - it is not done with the reach weapon, but must be executed at melee reach (whatever that may be). The feat does not grant Trip to a weapon, complimenting its other traits, i.e., Reach, nor does the feat specifically state that it grants Trip to the weapon, meaning it must be done at base reach of the creature performing this feat.

Given that you have no errata to present, your tone has become combative, and the wording is not vague in that it does not grant Trip to the weapon being used - I thank you for your interpretation and will politely disagree with your reading of the rule. Thank you for responding.

I'm not combative, but claiming that there's need for an errata, for an ability that perfectly clear states what it does, tells to me that you already "know" you are correct and refuse to listen to the explanations given:

A Trip is done by whatever method you're are doing it:
It can be done with your hand.
It can be done with a Trip weapon.
It can be done with spells.
It can be done with Feats.
And etc.

In this case, it is specifically done via the Slam Down feat, which says absolutely nothing about you needing to b adjacent to an enemy to perform.

So, you simply do what the feat tells you to do.

So the player is right, and no errata is needed.

---

Let me give you a direct example why you're wrong:

Telekinetic Maneuver.
Rank 2
Range 60ft

With a rush of telekinetic power, you move a foe or something they carry. You can attempt to Disarm, Reposition, Shove, or Trip the target using a spell attack roll instead of an Athletics check.

According to your logic, because it doesn't specifically says that this Trip can be done in the range of the spell, even though the spell has 60ft range, you STILL need to be adjacent and have a free hand.

---

P.s.
When every single poster in both of your threads disagrees with your interpretation, you should really stop and think that maybe it's you who's wrong and not everyone else.

shroudb wrote:

For slam down:

The player is right, as long as you can hit the target, you can then trip it.

For incorporeal vs tumble through:
tumble through is not a strength based action, often, it has other effects riding alongside the "moving through" a creature base effects, so there's no reason why you can't cartwheel through a ghost (even if you can simply move through the space).

similarily, you could move easily beneath the legs of a sufficiently huge target without a check, but you can still "try" to cartwheel through them instead.

As far as the rules go, it checks out. But even for flavour, "panache" indicates going the extra mile for flamboyance and daring, and what's more daring than doing a cartwheel -that may even fail- just to get your style points instead of boring ol' w"walk through".

Do you have a rules source/errata for that? The slam down text implies that you can trip while wielding a two-handed weapon regardless of having a hand free (implying you can attempt a standard Trip action), not that you Trip with the weapon (which would state that you could add the Trip trait to the weapon for the purpose of the Slam Down action, receiving the benefit of its potency rune, and utilizing other traits on the weapon, such as reach) used for the slam down action.

Likewise, does this mean you can tumble through an empty space for the Panache? Tumble through specifically calls out that you must 'try' to enter the space:
You Stride up to your Speed. During this movement, you can try to move through the space of one enemy. Attempt an Acrobatics check against the enemy's Reflex DC as soon as you try to enter its space. You can Tumble Through using Climb, Fly, Swim, or another action instead of Stride in the appropriate environment.

The space of an incorporeal creature can simply be passed through; one needn't try; it would also imply that you're deliberately making the space of the incorporeal creature into difficult terrain rather than regular terrain; in moving through...

It does not simply say "you can trip while holding a two-handed weapon".

It specifically says "if you hit, do a Trip". So, if you hit (using your Reach), you do a Trip.

It is a as simple as that. No need for errata, the source says what the feat does.

---

For tumble through, you can indeed tumble through empty terrain, but in that case there's no check, so no panache (because panache is the result of a check). But in case of moving through a space that there's a creature, you can always do a check, so you can get panache.

For slam down:
The player is right, as long as you can hit the target, you can then trip it.

For incorporeal vs tumble through:
tumble through is not a strength based action, often, it has other effects riding alongside the "moving through" a creature base effects, so there's no reason why you can't cartwheel through a ghost (even if you can simply move through the space).

similarily, you could move easily beneath the legs of a sufficiently huge target without a check, but you can still "try" to cartwheel through them instead.

As far as the rules go, it checks out. But even for flavour, "panache" indicates going the extra mile for flamboyance and daring, and what's more daring than doing a cartwheel -that may even fail- just to get your style points instead of boring ol' w"walk through".

I don't think there's a rule for it (or if it is, I've missed it) but what do you people think is the order of operation if:

you are using an Incapacitation ability but you also have something that increases success to critical success and you roll a success vs a higher level enemy?

Would the order of operation be:
success->failure due to incap-> you don't improve anything since you no longer have a success
or
success->critical success->back to success due to incap

it is very fringe scenario, for my case, it only came up in theorycrafting a fan dancer+talisman dabbler, but maybe there are more cases for it.

From actual play experience, it hardly matters:

At the levels you can do that (10+) you have enough slots that even on easier encounters you want to use at least some of your actual spells.

And as always, you want to use slot spells as early as possible compared to focus spells.

So, you usually want to start with a vessel and slot spell for round 1. If you choose to switch to double vessel from then on, you need to spend next round the action to switch, and since you're casting your second vessel spell on the second round there's no need for double sustain yet.

So it's only on round 3+ that double sustain comes into play and only if you forgo the 2nd round slot spell in favour of the second focus spells (which usually means it's an easy fight to begin with).

Fire junction is specifically only for the fire damage of your Impulses, not for all damage of your fire impulses.

Increase the damage die size of fire damage dealt by the impulse by one step.

If you use two-element, half of that damage will be physical and thus not benefit from the junction.

inherently, nothing gives you said information by default just because someone has that condition.

but narratively wise, for my tables, it will depend how he got the condition.

As an example, if you are possessing someone, you probably can tell how athletic the body you are controlling is. but if you simply casted dominate on someone, then you wouldn't know except from what you've noticed yourself.

that said, you can always command someone to do something like "use your most powerful offensive spell", "try to do maximum damage to this one" and etc, and they should comply with the directions you gave them.

worst case scenario, since talking is free, you can always command them to tell you what they can do ("what's your most powerful spell", "are you good at tripping enemies" and etc)

@shroudb

You provided a list of types of actions from the rules. You then proceded to point out that "subordinate" was not in that list.

You concluded, and I quote: "So, by default, a subordinate action is NOT an action."

shroudb wrote:

Something not being an Action and something not being (as an example) a Strike are two different things.

If something is not an action, it cannot, ever, be a Strike since a Strike is an Action.

"Action" is a set. The types (Activity, Basic, Free, and Reaction) are subsets. Step, Stride, Strike, etcetera are components of the set Basic Actions. There is some overlapping as Reactive Strike is a Reaction and, technically, an Activity since it includes a Strike Basic Action subordinate action with a modified action cost and trigger conditions.

Something not being an Action, by definition, excludes all elements of the set "Action" which, thusly, excludes all elements of all subsets. If it is not an action, then it not anything from the set "Action."

You reinforce this with:

shroudb wrote:

When you are performing an Activity, the "Action" you are performing is that Activity from start to finish. As part of that Activity you may do subordinate actions, but these specifically are not counted as actions, neither for cost*, nor for specification**.

So, according to your rhetorical structure, when you perform Skirmish Strike or Sudden Charge, you never perform a Strike. You only perform Skirmish Strike or Sudden Charge.

In that case, nothing that interfaces with "Strike" may apply to any part of Skirmish Strike or Sudden Charge because those are the actions and their constituent parts are not actions (based on: "a subordinate action is NOT an action"). If the constituent parts are not actions, then mechanics that apply to Actions cannot apply to the constituent parts.

In other words, if a subordinate action is not an action, then...

Who and where it says that you can only do a Strike as a basic Action?

No, you misconstrued my argument:

An "action" is a specific thing defined in the rules.

A Strike can be, by default, a basic action, which is something defined.
A Strike can ALSO be part of an Activity, which is also a defined thing.

When you do an Activity noone said you can't Strike. What is being said is that the actual Action you are performing, according to the rules, is the Activity itself.

Nothing in the rules even hints that a Strike can only be a basic action, to the contrary actually there are direct examples of a Strike being a subordinate action, which is part of the Activity type of Action.

The ways subordinate actions operate is also very clearly defined in the activity section of the rules.

---

Further proof is actually what you say about Reactive Strike:

Reactive Strike is a Reaction, another defined type of Action.

And it includes a Strike.

Once more we have a Strike included in another type of action apart from basic Action.

---

So, your sentence that a Strike can only be a basic Action is demonstrably false and goes contrary to what the Raw says.

Double Strike combines the damage, no? Isn't it then fair to assume that both strikes are made simultaneously and therefore should both gain the benefit of an off-guard target?

Personally I think that the stealth rules are written so open ended exactly so they can accommodate tables that run it like that.

So, like most of the rules that hinge on "ask the gm if..." you should really ask your GM if both, one, or none, get the bonus.

Can't see why it wouldn't work.

You put a bleeding poison on a bullet that can deliver basically a bloodthinner.

Raw seems fine, Rai/balance wise neither consumable ammo nor poisons are very powerful, so even in conjunction with each other, I doubt they'll break anything.

shroudb wrote:

And "subordinate actions" is not part of them. So, by default, a subordinate action is NOT an action.

Uhm... if a subordinate action is not an action, then a subordinate Strike is not a Strike and, therefore, Sneak Attack can never apply to a subordinate action Strike (since, you know, it is, by default, "NOT an action").

/smh

Why?

Something not being an Action and something not being (as an example) a Strike are two different things.

When you are performing an Activity, the "Action" you are performing is that Activity from start to finish.

As part of that Activity you may do subordinate actions, but these specifically are not counted as actions, neither for cost*, nor for specification**.

*As directed by the general activity rules
** As pointed out since subordinate actions are not a type of "actions".

shroudb wrote:

Witch of Miracles wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Less than a shorthand, and more like building blocks, yes.

That's why activities often change how the base actions behave (adding dices, speed, removing stuff, adding and removing traits from them, and etc).

The game has a handful of said base actions, and uses them to build the more complex actions (activities). All the rules are easily referenced this way without having to repeat them all the time, and stuff that are suppossed to influece the base parts of the game (like weapon specialization adding damage to your attacks as an example) can be easily accounted for in current and future content with extreme ease.

The thing is, either the game is telling you to use a strike when it says to strike, or it isn't. You are saying that the game is not telling you to use a Strike when it says to use a strike inside of an activity; it is saying this in lieu of copypasting the rules for Strike into every activity.

So you would say Rogue does not get Sneak Attack on any attack but a Basic Action Strike. This is a necessary consequence of your position. Do you agree with that statement?

No, I don't, because thankfully the game tells us to

Quote:

This subordinate action still has its normal traits and effects

And sneak attack is an effect of a Strike.

This is not logically available to you. Strike is a named action. Sneak Attack specifically refers to a Strike by name. It does not refer to any trait or effect of Strike; it specifically says Strike.

When your enemy can't properly defend itself, you take advantage to deal extra damage. If you Strike a creature that has the off-guard condition with an agile or finesse melee weapon, an agile or finesse unarmed attack, a ranged weapon attack, or a ranged unarmed attack, you deal an extra 1d6 precision damage. For a ranged attack with a thrown melee weapon, that weapon must also be agile or finesse.

And since you get ALL the effects of stuff that affect "the named Action Strike" with a subordinate action Strike, you get it.

Your logic failed you here.

---

How about you answering my question for a change though:

If you can only do an action after an activity completely finishes, if a subordinate action is the same as the base action, how do you start it?

to finish it off since I do have to go sleep now:
The game clearly tell us all the types of actions:

There are four types of actions: single actions, activities, reactions, and free actions.

And "subordinate actions" is not part of them. So, by default, a subordinate action is NOT an action.

shroudb wrote:

Less than a shorthand, and more like building blocks, yes.

That's why activities often change how the base actions behave (adding dices, speed, removing stuff, adding and removing traits from them, and etc).

The game has a handful of said base actions, and uses them to build the more complex actions (activities). All the rules are easily referenced this way without having to repeat them all the time, and stuff that are suppossed to influece the base parts of the game (like weapon specialization adding damage to your attacks as an example) can be easily accounted for in current and future content with extreme ease.

The thing is, either the game is telling you to use a strike when it says to strike, or it isn't. You are saying that the game is not telling you to use a Strike when it says to use a strike inside of an activity; it is saying this in lieu of copypasting the rules for Strike into every activity.

So you would say Rogue does not get Sneak Attack on any attack but a Basic Action Strike. This is a necessary consequence of your position. Do you agree with that statement?

No, I don't, and no it isn't.

Because thankfully the game tells us to

This subordinate action still has its normal traits and effects

And sneak attack is an effect of a Strike.

---

How about you answering my question for a change though:

If you can only do an action after an activity completely finishes, if a subordinate action is the same as the base action, how do you start it?

shroudb wrote:

You do not have to invent anything though?

That's the whole reasons that paizo gave us the building blocks called base actions. To make more complex maneuver without hving to have a page describing each one of them.

In short:

My position is that when I use "Act together" is use the action called "Act together". That action may tell me to attack...

So, on what you are saying, Skirmish Strike says to Step and Strike. ("Your feet and weapon move in tandem. Either Step and then Strike, or Strike and then Step.") But what you should read is not what is written, but something like this: "Your feet and weapon move in tandem. Either [perform the rules text of Step] and then [perform the rules text of Strike], or [perform the rules text of Strike] then [perform the rules text of Step]."

This is literally what I mean when I say that you have to be saying the game uses Strike "as a shorthand."

Less than a shorthand, and more like building blocks, yes.

That's why activities often change how the base actions behave (adding dices, speed, removing stuff, adding and removing traits from them, and etc).

The game has a handful of said base actions, and uses them to build the more complex actions (activities). All the rules are easily referenced this way without having to repeat them all the time, and stuff that are suppossed to influece the base parts of the game (like weapon specialization adding damage to your attacks as an example) can be easily accounted for in current and future content with extreme ease.

Finoan wrote:

That is the rule. That is the containerization. An activity contains its subordinate actions and using the activity is not the same as using any of its subordinate actions: not its first one; and not its last one.

That alone doesn't imply any containerization. It just says that activities are not identical to the actions they ask you to perform, that using Flurry of Blows is not identical to striking two times in a row. Containerization is an entirely separate assertion from the identity assertion made here.

shroudb wrote:

snip

So here's the thing. To understand your position at all, I need you to answer one question. Do you believe you actually perform a Strike when the game tells you to in an activity like Skirmish Strike? Or do you think the game just tells you to perform a strike "as a shorthand" and you never perform any action that is named "Strike"?

I am taking the game at face value. The abilities tell you to perform a Strike; I say you perform a Strike. Do you think you are not performing a Strike when activities include a Strike? Do you think that a Summoner using a Strike as part of Act Together is not actually performing a Strike? Do you think Rogue gets sneak attack on Skirmish Strike if they have flanking?

The way Trip parses this, for better or worse, gives an extremely clean answer to these questions: yes, you do perform a strike, and it is a strike just like every other strike. This just doesn't. It requires you to invent the existence of Strike* and divine when the rules mean to include strikes-in-activities when they say Strike, and when they don't.

You do not have to invent anything though?

That's the whole reasons that paizo gave us the building blocks called base actions. To make more complex maneuver without hving to have a page describing each one of them.

In short:

My position is that when I use "Act together" I use the action called "Act together". That action may tell me to attack someone, and the way I do that is referencing the base action Strike.
When I do a "Vicious Swing" I use the action Vicious Swing, look at the base action Strike, modify it as I'm told to, and attack. But I'm still doing a Vicious Swing, not a Strike.

There are four types of actions: single actions, activities, reactions, and free actions.

Activities usually take longer and require using multiple actions, which must be spent in succession. Stride is a single action, but Sudden Charge is an activity in which you use both the Stride and Strike actions to generate its effect.

You can use only one single action, activity, or free action that doesn't have a trigger at a time. You must complete one before beginning another.

Let me ask you back:

At the end of the Sudden Charge, did you finish a Strike, or did you finish a Sudden charge? Because you need to finish the Sudden Charge to do your next action.

Quote:

The rules clearly separate the effects of a subordinate action from the subordinate action actually counting as said actions.

This is, unfortunately, a misunderstanding—one I shared. The exact wording is "using an activity is not the same as using any of its subordinate actions." All it ultimately means is that using Skirmish Strike, for example, is different from doing Step and then Strike without using it. It is natural to further read into this that "using Skirmish Strike means you don't actually do a step or a strike," but that would contradict the plain rules text of Skirmish Strike that says you step and strike.

You get the all the traits and effects of the base actions, but they do not count as said base actions, that's all there is to it, there's no hidden text, nor something that is difficult to imagine how it actually works.

The part about free actions granted by activities is also completely wrong:

there are no "free actions" granted by an Activity.

there simply is 0 text that even indicate that things magically transform to "free actions" which are a core type of actions and an actual mechanical term.

---

The way it works like that is due to what is an action, simultaneous actions, and etc:

There are four types of actions: single actions, activities, reactions, and free actions.

An Activity is a type of action by itself.

When you start an Activity you NEED to finish the Activity before doing any other action:

You can use only one single action, activity, or free action that doesn't have a trigger at a time. You must complete one before beginning another. For example, the Sudden Charge activity states you must Stride twice and then Strike, so you couldn't use an Interact action to open a door in the middle of the movement, nor could you perform part of the move, make your attack, and then finish the move.

When you start an Activity, you need to finish the whole Activity before doing any other action.

The Activity itself is the "action" you are doing despite having multiple subordinate actions inside of it.

By RAW, what you Finish at the end of a Sudden charge is NOT a Strike, it's a Sudden Charge (because you have to finish the activity you started before being able to do anything else that isn't a free action with a trigger or a reaction).

To give you an example:
If you had an Action with "the last action you did was a Stride" as a requirement, you couldn't "start a Sudden Charge", Stride (as part of the Sudden Charge), do that Action, and then continue, because you are still doing Sudden Charge, NOT "Stride".

---

For simplicity sake, the best way (imo) to view it is as Base Actions being the building blocks of actions in the pf2 system. There are only a handful of them, but you can combine them together to make new "actions" without having to have pages and pages of rules for each one of said new actions.

So, instead of having to write "you move 5ft without provoking reactions and then make a melee attack using X modifier" you write "you do a step and strike".

You define the base building blocks in the base actions, and then mush them together in the Activities to make new types of actions.

---

Hopefully last edit:

I think the whole misunderstanding and all those issues arose from the very wrong decision of the developers to call literally everything "an action"

You have actions defined as a measure of how many things you ca do (you get 3 actions at the start of your turn)
You have actions defined as everything you do (free actions, reactions, activities, single actions)
You have actions used interchangably with "single actions"
You have Base Actions referenced in other parts of the RaW instead of the previously used term of "single actions".

And that leads us to nonsense like "single action activity" like a flurry of blows, that is NOT a "single action" but costs a "single action" it may be or may not be an "action" (for stuff like Ready) depending on your reading of if the "word" action used on a rule is about all types of actions, base actions, measure of actions used, and etcetcetc

shroudb wrote:

So, a subordinate Strike, as an example, will get affected by everything that affects Strikes but it is NOT a Strike as far as "what action I am doing".

I can only see this as a contradiction.

It's not possible for a sub-Strike to both match as a "Strike" yet you are not performing a "Strike."

If you don't perform "Strike," then abilities that specify "when you successfully Strike" cannot trigger.

that's word for word the RAW though.

You may not like it, but I put the entire paragraph on subordinate actions to not hide anything:

A subordinate action benefits and is affected by everything that would affect said basic action but it is NOT that base action.

You may dislike it, but that's what it is.

If that wasn't the case, you'd have Haste giving you Vicious Blows and other nonsense.

Oh, and you would also need to explain how "your next action" hits a match upon the activity-opener-action, without that behavior interfering with your interpretation.

Again, the text directly explains this trigger/match is what happens, and that this behavior is why Skirmish Strike isn't compatible w/ "next action Strike" abilities....

You are the only one saying nonsense like "activity-opener-action".

There is no "shadow chain of actions"
No "opener action"
No "closer action".

All those are mental constructs that you inserted and do not exist anywhere in the book at all.

p.s. the text gives AN EXAMPLE of why it is not the same action but an activity. It has nothing to do with order of things.

There is only "an activity":

an activity that includes a Strike wouldn't count,because the next thing you are doing is starting an activity, not using the Strike basic action

That's what you are performing.

The activity may contain modified subordinate actions, but those specifically do not count as said actions:

Using an activity is not the same as using any of its subordinate actions.

they are only affected by the things that would have effected the basic actions they represent:

This subordinate action still has its normal traits and effects, but it's modified in any ways listed in the larger action.

NorrKnekten wrote:

Shield block in this system is supposed to be a means to gain what essentially amounts to resistance(hardness) while being bound to a resources limiting how many times you can use it without a rest (shield health).

We can see this in the playtest materials where shields removed a set amount of incoming damage but instead gained "dents" depending on the damage of the bloced attack, being unable to be used when broken.

It is not supposed to be a secondary healthbar.

Eh, your mostly correct but at high levels if someone takes Quick Repair and gets to legendary in crafting you could literally fix your shield every round (multiple times a round) for 1 action. Meaning you can extend the life of your shield a decent amount for 1 action, while still contributing otherwise with your other two actions.

Ehh... There are some caveats to the actual Repair action that makes it much harder to do that.

The very first sentence of the repair action:

You spend 10 minutes attempting to fix a damaged item, placing the item on a stable surface and using the repair toolkit with both hands

While Quick repair addresses the time/actions saved, it does nothing for the rest conditions of the base action.

Even if someone argued that your hands are "a stable surface", you'd still need 2 free hands to actually use Repair.

So, at Legendary proficiency, at minimum, the whole activity would take 2 actions to release the Shield, repair it, and re-equip it, assuming your other hand is free. 3 actions if the other hand isn't free. And that's for 25-50hp heal on the shield.

Not sure how worth it is to spend your whole round for 25/50hp repeatedly.

Angwa wrote:

Skirmish Strike is not a flat chain of anything. Next action or previous action abilities will never find a Strike or Step, only Skirmish Strike.

You are accidentally adding text that does not exist, and this is causing you to contradict yourself, then loophole around the contradiction as best you can.

If the system will "only find Skirmish Strike" and never the Step or Strike, then that is what happens. You don't get to invent text from nothing to then modify that behavior. That's the end of it, sub-actions never trigger for their names.

Yet you invent some special loophole why this effect does not block Sneak Attack from finding/ matching sub-Strike, while simultaneously blocking next/prev.

If a sub-Strike registers for for Sneak attack, then it also registers and is saved in the "prevAction" variable, so to speak. You cannot cheat this without inventing a mechanical rule that does not exist.
Either sub-actions match for their action name, or they do not, or there is text that dictates when this & is not true. That hypothetical text would need to be some instruction as to the containerization / temp scope behavior.

Again, the text outright says that "next action" abilities do not work, because the next action is not the sub-action, and is instead the activity.

This method of design does *not* create a symmetrical blocker at the end, it only happens at the front, where you pay the action cost via the activity-action.

_____

You are falling into the same pot hole where you need to invent some kind of special temp scope consideration to create a loophole reason for Sneak attack, etc, to still work. Inventing such a mechanic where no text exists should be proof positive that the loophole was never needed in the first place, and that something else is going on.

The system really is written so that every activity starter is itself an action, even without any of the sub-actions.

This is most obvious thanks to spellcasting being an activity...

No.

It has been told to you several times already:

The rules clearly separate the effects of a subordinate action from the subordinate action actually counting as said actions.

So, a subordinate Strike, as an example, will get affected by everything that affects Strikes but it is NOT a Strike as far as "what action I am doing".

Now, if you want to argue specifically if "is a subordinate action counting as as last action" the Raw is more muddy BUT we have, as an example that it's most certainly not counting as 1st action.

So, since 1st action was simply given as an example, the more reasonable reading is that it also covers "last action" as well.

But, indeed it can be somewhat argued, hence the table variation.

But all this shadow chain actions that you are saying is kinda nonsense.

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An action might allow you to use a simpler action—usually one of the Basic Actions—in a different circumstance or with different effects. This subordinate action still has its normal traits and effects, but it's modified in any ways listed in the larger action. For example, an activity that tells you to Stride up to half your Speed alters the normal distance you can move in a Stride. The Stride would still have the move trait, would still trigger reactions that occur based on movement, and so on. The subordinate action doesn't gain any of the traits of the larger action unless specified. The action that allows you to use a subordinate action doesn't require you to spend more actions or reactions to do so; that cost is already factored in.

Using an activity is not the same as using any of its subordinate actions. For example, the quickened condition you get from the haste spell lets you spend an extra action each turn to Stride or Strike, but you couldn't use the extra action for an activity that includes a Stride or Strike. As another example, if you used an action that specified, “If the next action you use is a Strike,” an activity that includes a Strike wouldn't count,because the next thing you are doing is starting an activity, not using the Strike basic action

So, as an example for this thread:

The Subordinate Strike has all its effects, including breaking stealth, but using double strike does NOT count as using Strike.

For the bolded example given, I want to point out that it's given as an example of "not counting as using the action" not as an example of "order of when an action is used". Which is why I said that the more reasonable ruling also includes last actions, since for those as well "using the activity is not the same as using the subordinate action".