thenobledrake's page

Shapable walls that run along gridlines does not really fit with the examples and conflicts about pathing trough the same space twice. Similarly the phrase Double Back is rather vague, Because for me that means a U-turn.

What I feel like is likely to have happened is that whoever wrote particular wall spells is not the same author to have written the paragraph of general wall rules.

That would perfectly explain why wall of stone seems nebulous at best because you definitely can put a wall of some sort that has a 5-foot thickness and can be shaped freely (I can't think of a specific one off hand) in a configuration that two 5-foot sections are adjacent to each other in a way that makes the wall then 10-feet thick, but layering a wall of stone has no clear line that can be drawn between what is still "on the border between squares" and what is officially in the square and thus had to have entered the same space.

I solve that problem by leaning on the word "adjacent" as it relates to the grid spaces when handling a wall of stone, instead of letting it benefit from the general definition as would related to its self. So the wall of stone can have adjacent sections which are each 1-inch thick and on opposite sides of a grid square (i.e. the wall is on the south border of this square and the south border of the square adjacent to it to the north), but can't have more than an inch of thickness on any given "border between squares".

Of course, all of my talk on wall of stone remains entirely in the hypothetical because my players just never take wall spells - despite their potency, the action cost and need for particular encounter parameters to really shine push them to other options.

The game is written as if they expect exploration mode to be a usable part of the game mechanics, and exploration activities to be a good thing to use.

If you had a trap that you had a 60% chance of spotting in Search mode, and doing it in encounter mode with repeat Seek actions gave you 10 rolls, that'd result in a (1 - 0.4^10)*100 = 99.99% chance of finding it.

Clearly, that can't be how the game was supposed to work.

A thing people can often forget when talking about game rules is the "right tool for the job" philosophy.

Things don't have to be exactly the same or even produce the same results across different scenarios if the goal of different scenarios is different.

That's how come we have the different play modes; they intend to serve different purposes, not be a singular cohesive thing. And in that effort exploration mode is more about not forcing the people at the table to constantly be saying every individual thing their character does - especially because the timing of it would often interrupt the GM trying to describe things - or else get stuck in a situation of their character having not been doing something because the player didn't mention it no matter how reasonable it was to believe that everyone would assume it had happened.

So the player says they're looking out for stuff and that sets up the Search exploration activity and then whenever a reason to roll shows up they get a roll without interrupting their GM and without fear of "you didn't say you checked for traps, so your character is a complete buffoon with no sense of self preservation and didn't check for traps despite being well-versed in the process" (which is somehow generally accepted as fine even among people that view meta-gaming as an awful behavior and get on a player's case if they even catch a suspicion that the player might have thought a different thought than their character should have if it benefits the player/character).

Yet once an encounter is going, that same "free" situation is no longer the desirable outcome so the tool changes and the player does actually have to use their finite game-play resource to Seek, and on the flip side the opportunity cost of picking that action repeatedly rather than some other thing the player likely views as being "more fun" more than pays for the increased overall odds of success.

You're contravening the exact text of Avoid Notice, and effectively suggesting the player never make any stealth checks at all and only roll initiative.

How could you even tell if an encounter is triggered or not to know to roll initiative?

Because there is no reason to assume that successful stealth means no encounter "is triggered."

Encounter does not always mean combat. Encounter can mean stealth.

So no, I'm not suggesting that a player never make any stealth checks at all and only roll initiative - I'm suggesting that the things which call for stealth checks are themselves actions taken during encounter mode of play.

The character attempting to move stealthily past a location full of potentially hostile creatures that potentially may notice them is not resolved in a "roll stealth. If it's high enough, that's all we need and the situation is resolved." fashion.

Instead it is resolved like any other encounter would be - you roll initiative at the start, utilize actions and environment to your benefit, and if things play out as you hoped you reach your victory condition. The difference is that instead of trying to get an opponent to 0 HP before they get you to 0 HP, your goal is to use whatever cover and concealment are actually available and your character's skill to move about.

It's really not that different from how people figure out a combat encounter is about to happen - it just doesn't presume the encounter state as only possible as a failure condition when stealth is involved.

My take on this is a simple two-part style:

One, we don't want to be quibbling on technicalities of specific word choice to justify an interpretation as valid because it's un-fun to do in the middle of game time. Especially if you're a player on the receiving end of a GM explaining how technically they aren't being an overly-antagonistic goon at the expense of your character.

And Two; if any part of your wall can be drawn as a + it is an invalid wall.

There's no actual rules citation which can be pointed at to support there being two checks which cannot also be shown to be speaking about a singular check.

And since the game-play outcomes are both smoother and more favorable to a player actually being able to accomplish the task they set out to accomplish with it being a singular check, made not upon declaration of trying to Avoid Notice or some other nebulous moment of exploration but only once there are actual defined creatures in an actual defined encounter - i.e. when you'd have rolled initiative if none of the characters were trying to Avoid Notice.

People read it as being 2 checks because they are used to the idea that just saying "make a check" means roll the dice and don't hesitate to consider that in Pathfinder every time the game actually says to roll the dice it also outlines what to expect as far as the DC and results in an explicit fashion rather than leaving all that stuff implied (and without guidance for the GM to base things on without looking up nu-referrenced other parts of the game rules).

And while I won't take the time in this post to cover ever aspect, I will address Quiet Allies since that is a thing which I've seen people think of as proof that I am wrong: The feat is not saying that there's one roll "during exploration" and then everyone rolls another check for initiative. It is saying this:

Everyone rolls Stealth for their Initiative roll. Whichever of those rolls was the one that had the lowest modifier also determines everyone's detection status.

The "This doesn’t apply for initiative rolls." bit is not saying there's more than the one check involved normally in avoiding notice, it's saying that the entire party doesn't get a single initiative result because of this feat.

...give the players no baseline whatsoever.

The rules do give a baseline. It's even a baseline that is just as clearly stated as the one that was in place in 1st edition.

Just because the baseline is that description matters does not make that not a baseline.

You're acting like Aid just says "Yes, your character can attempt to help other characters do things. Work with your group to figure out what the rules for that process will be." when it doesn't.

There's no way for a player to get their foot in the door if their GM is doing stuff like Ravingdork's GM...

And that remains true no matter what the rules on the book are or how they are phrased. The problem Ravingdork is having is not that the rules are designed to be variable, it's that their GM is causing variation in a way that is not being communicated or is not making sense to the player trying to interact with them.

Even if the DM cares about the rules, in 2E the players ultimately have no leverage in rules negotiations

The argument you're making here is "bad GMs can use rules to justify their bad GMing". That's completely irrelevant because you literally can't write rules that prevent a GM from screwing over their player's with them - especially not since "change any rule you want" is a rule that is written in every RPG ever, so whatever the GM does is always technically rules as written.

And you continue to present an inconsistency because you present a strict wording as entirely fine because a GM will be working with the players to make it more open and engaging, and a wording that assumes that same kind of GM-player relationship as being awful because the GM could theoretically be hindering the players instead of working with them.

It's also worth noting that the 2E default isn't more restrictive or less restrictive than 1E; it's as restrictive or free as your DM allows, which could in fact result in it being narrower than 1E (and it pragmatically seems to have ended up that way for Ravingdork, here).

No, that's not worth noting.

It's one part factually incorrect because "unless the GM house-rules it you must use the same check as the effort being assist" is demonstrably and unquestionably more restrictive than "you will describe your approach and that will determine which check you can use to assist an effort, with the GM making the final determination of what can work".

And then one part completely pointless statement because all you're saying is "a GM can mess up the game" but you're also acting like that's only possible in one case and not the other - because you're being inconsistent - as if it's literally impossible for the same process of not adhering to the PF1 wording "because it makes sense to the GM" can't lead to a bad outcome from a player perspective.

Actually, aren't you the person I was arguing about metagaming with a while back, the one that said their DMs often wantonly blocked completely reasonable actions because they were """metagaming?""" Surely you should understand the idea that the rules vesting free rein in the DM and giving the players nothing to claw back agency with is bad. Everything the rules explicitly allow you is a tool the DM cannot take away from you if they care about the rules. Is your experience simply that the DM won't care, will operate on DM fiat regardless, and thus won't be open to negotiation?

Yes, I am the person you had that conversation about metagaming with. You have the situation backwards, though.

The reason meta-gaming is the bugbear that it is traces to it being specifically called out and GMs that stick to the letter, rather than consider intent, of rules. To use it as an analog to the rules being discussed now, the meta-gaming problem I previously spoke on would be equivalent to how some of the posters in this thread are making current Aid more restrictive, difficult, or less beneficial because they have presupposed it is supposed to be a particular thing.

And also the only person arguing that the GM won't care, will do whatever they want regardless, and the players won't get their reasonable shake is you. I'm all for believing that the GM is going to make a genuine effort to provide a good experience for their players, and think even the folks screwing up aid in this thread believe they are moving the needle in the right direction - they aren't intentionally and deliberately making rulings because it will suck for their players and that is their desired goal.

Which is why it's not a waste of time to point out when their conclusions are moving the needle in the wrong direction, since their own players are far more likely to just go along with any non-deal-breaker level of reduced fun on account of how deeply the "it's the GM's game, deal with it or leave" attitude is stuck into the hobby despite the obvious unhealthy nature of it.

You're also making some strange assumptions that 1E and 2E players are the same...

Every player is always that player, and I am assuming nothing past that.

...that I run my 1E and 2E tables the same,...

Nope. Full stop. I have not said one thing about how you run either game, in fact. All I have done is engage the ideas you have presented in this PF2 discussion within the context of it being a PF2 discussion.

The game doesn't even imply negotiation over the check type occurs

You are correct, it's not an implication. It is, however, a statement.

The phrasing of the rule is describing a negotiation, so it doesn't actually matter that it doesn't literally use the word "negotiation" in doing so. Especially if being read by a GM that is planning on engaging with their players in a collaborative and beneficial way.

What is possibly allowed is truly quite wide! But what is guaranteed is basically nothing.

It's only "basically nothing" if we presume that a GM is going to be defaulting to "No".

You're actually the one hung up more on the theoretical than the practical in this conversation. In a practical case, a player will say that they want to Aid. Their GM will ask them how they plan to do it. The player will, if they aren't sure of what they are going to use as their explanation for how a particular skill would work, probably either ask if they can use a specific skill which will invite conversation about how that would work or say the most basic thing about joining in on the effort and using the same skill as the character they are aiding.

So the new rule works pretty much identically to the old rule in practice whenever it's not naturally expanding out to what you're saying your experience of PF1 tables would do. The only difference being that what you describe as being common house-rules for PF1 are the rules-as-written default in PF2.

And if dealing with a GM that really doesn't like house-ruling, it should be obvious that PF2's deliberately variable rule is an upside over a strict wording like PF1 had because they wouldn't be doing like you're suggesting and willingly deviating from a strict default rule but somehow wanting to lock down a more adaptable wording because they are afraid of deviating from defaults.

(Though, fwiw, I think a lot of DMs of 1E would've let this through anyways.)

It's all calvinball negotiations and the GM has the final say, which is pretty uncharacteristic for the system.

It's bonkers to me that you said both of these things.

You argue that having a restrictive default is actually better because a GM can always just throw it out on a whim if the player asks by way of a cool-sounding idea (literal calvinball). And at the same time you ignore that if the rule says "you aid with the same skill" that is going to have players not bother to even ask if they can aid using something else so your "a lot of DMs of it would've let this through" claim is highly inaccurate because they'd not even have the opportunity since their players just aren't even bringing up the idea as they already know the rules say no - since asking for rules you know to be changed to suit you is something many players realize is obnoxious behavior.

But you might not actually be allowed to help someone else lockpick with your own thievery skill if the DM thinks it sounds silly

And now you're arguing inconsistently because your position is both that the GM using their own opinion to decide how the aid situation can play out is both good (when it opens up the restrictive older version of the rules) and bad (when it closes down the more open current rule).

And the whole thing has the tone of "...but what if my GM sucks?" or "...but what if my GM doesn't want the same things from the game as I do?" which are not actually valid arguments; the rules can never force a GM to not be running in the opposite direction of their players, and as such shouldn't even bother trying. The rules should instead assume that this collaborative game is being played collaboratively and make its rules in ways that work just fine when that is the case - like the Aid rule and it's default of the player describing what they are trying to do to help and the GM decides which check will best represent that.

That style means both your examples actually work fine because the player describes the tea service process to help out with the diplomacy-over-a-meal situation and the GM agrees that makes sense (because it does), and in the other scenario the player describes how they are aiding in lock picking by helping hand over tools and giving suggestions as to which techniques to use - or even just holds the tension tool while the other person uses their hands to operate multiple picks at once - and the GM doesn't have the reaction you describe (which I'd describe as "the GM thought up something stupid, decided that must be what the player was talking about, and then shot down the entire idea instead of asking for the player to explain what seemed like a stupid idea at first" which is just awful communication and game-play) so they realize it makes sense to have thievery aid thievery to pick a lock.

And that lands me at a really important thing you also seem to be not thinking of; Since the rule is that the player describes their attempt, Aid often does actually use the same skill to aid because the player is thinking of how to help and lands on the most basic idea of just joining in. Like how the most obvious way to help pry a door open is to get your hands on the same crowbar and help apply leverage. You don't actually have to come up with a way to explain that you're actually using your knowledge of how doors are built and reinforced to direct the athletics-using character with your crafting training - but you also don't have the rules having already said no to you being able to try that before you ask and hoping that even though the rule is clear your GM won't get annoyed you're trying to bend the rules to suit you.

So your entire phrasing of a situation where negotiation is actually the rule and is phrased without specifics because it would easily take an entire chapter of a book to cover enough of the reasonable examples of cross-check Aid to even approach the intended versatility of the current rule as "calvinball" just seems, to me, like having missed the point and now just scrambling to call it bad so you don't actually have to admit having goofed even though you did nominally say you did. It's that old adage where anything before the "but" wasn't genuine.

...the general rule is you use the same skill to aid as the person is using...

Since someone else already pointed out there's no language to support this conclusion actually present in the description of Aid, I just want to focus on the reason behind why this kind of thing often happens:

You have, even if you didn't mean to and didn't realize you were doing it, held onto an idea presented by a different set of rules and applied it to this set of rules even though the text of the rules is entirely different.

It's a really common thing and is likely behind a number of the takes in this thread which in one way or another reduce the versatility and effectiveness of the Aid action. A lot of people don't even realize that they are presupposing how things work and then reading the rules expecting the illogical case of being told "this rule is different than it was in the last edition" in some way other than by the rules text just not being the same words and phrasing.

But just allowing it with no exceptions is barging in on OFA Swash's territory.

Aid is the player describing how they try to aid and the GM deciding what kind of check the player makes.

One For All is the player explicitly getting to guarantee their Aid attempt is using the Diplomacy skill. The feat also guarantees the action grants panache which would also otherwise be up to the GM's determination. Getting to guarantee things like that is all it takes for the feat to be valuable, it doesn't also need to be un-screwing the basic process of Aiding (which yes, making it so you need the skill being used to aid that skill is screwing the action because it makes it only useful to whatever the party has redundancy in - and even produces some nonsensical situations like not being able to aid your ally in identifying magic because you want to roll Arcana and they are rolling Occultism).

I feel like having the rules not include an analog to the PF1 text mentioned upthread is both intentional, and useful for the PF2 rules.

Sometimes it makes perfect sense to the people playing the game in the particular scenario they are in that a diagonal move be possible, or not possible, and having a rule call out that one of those things is actually incorrect means the rules are getting in the way.

So the current situation of it being up to the groups perspective and preferences is just skipping the part where the rule gets applied inconsistently because of reasoning like "yeah, you can't move through a corner, but this is a really open kind of corner so actually you can"

If a rule genuinely doesn't make sense without a particular piece of text that text is definitionally not "flavor text."

I think that what might be going on with thinking that flavor text is actually necessary to see how rules work is misidentifying text that is descriptive of something as always being "flavor text" when it could instead be a piece of "rules text" that happens to be descriptive of something.

With the boomerang, the trait and it's function are clear and mechanical in nature and the flavor text is clearly just flavor because it has no mechanical details within it - there being no such rules element as a "successful throw" being the key.

Because once you don't treat "successful throw" as being synonymous with "successful Strike" there's no inconsistency in the rules of how the thing works.

To go with the analogy of boats not having a rule that says they float; the "successful throw" line is just like boats floating because we all know that boats do flow and we also all know that if you throw a boomerang in a particular way its trajectory curves back to the thrower - unless it collides with something else along the trip.

I think if a GM is hitting the argument that whatever they do is technically RAW, that GM is in need of taking a step back and deeply considering not what they are allowed to do within the letter of the rules but the why behind whatever it is that they are doing.

Especially so when it comes up in a context like this one where it was basically someone saying "don't use RAW as an excuse for a power trip that inconveniences your players"

If literally shooting the target doesn't provide a distraction, why would pretending to shoot them provide a distraction?

Game play.

We don't need any other reason for why something works how it works in a game besides that.

However, I'd also mention that "literally shooting the target" is not a thing that generally happens in the fiction of the game. You make a Strike and you roll an attack and the result is some amount of "damage" but none of that is ever actually literally weapon making contact with flesh unless it is the thing that has caused the target to be dead. Even things which produce a "dying" situation are not assured to have been actual dangerous contact rather than just a close call given how - for game play reasons - a character can be fine just moments later.

Also, the same reasoning you're trying to shut down this part of game-play with would apply to a wide variety of actions in the game. Such as "If literally trying to kill the target doesn't frighten them, why would talking a little trash before you do so?" since just like Aid is a separate action Demoralize is.

All this is doing is taking a MAP strike with a low chance of success and turning it into a bonus with a much easier DC, for doing literally exactly the same thing. That's not a case for why this is a good idea: it illustrates the problem perfectly. Even at MAP 10, a DC 15 strike is trivial for a high level character.

That's not all it does. It also encourages a different mindset in a player; doing something collaborative instead of just what your character can do on their own.

That's important in a game that is, like PF2 is, trying to encourage team-oriented play.

It would go a long way toward making things more standardized.

Which is not really a thing that is worth aiming for in this case.

To highlight what I mean, I'll point you to someone else's statement in this thread about what they would "never allow" at their table; an archer aiding a melee attack by way of a fake shot.

I would allow an archer to aid a melee attack. If they wanted to use their attack modifier they'd need to actually fire an arrow, which I'd allow since it just means spending ammunition alongside needing to make the roll. If they wanted to full-on fake that they were going to shoot, I'd call for Deception as they make a big show of being about to shoot but then not actually releasing the arrow.

The current writing in the book supports both of our takes on this, and neither of us are in "I changed the rules" territory to get our desired outcome.

If the book made examples to try to standardize the experience across our tables, it's not unrealistic to think that what would happen if the examples fit my style - that the other poster has likely already thought of and said "no way" since their declaration was a confident "never" rather than an "I don't think I would" - is simply that said other poster would call the rule and it's examples goofy and then refuse to use them.

If instead it used examples that fit that other poster's style and encouraged a hard-line stance, or worse actively encouraged letting the action and reaction get spent even when there is no possibility of success, I can say with confidence I would call it a goofy rule and alter it to work the way the current situation does for my group.

So the extra effort to standardize this element that is intentionally a "fit to your group" element would not lead to a greater degree of standardization, it'd only risk leading to lower confidence in rules quality and increased count of house-rules.

It's deliberately a "gut" based mechanic because this is a segment of the game where it really does produce the best results for variance to be encouraged, instead of locking down which skills/proficiency can be used to assist which other skills (which often locks down the idea of helping each other to only redundantly trained parties) and in which situations (which often locks down the rule to only a single character being able to attempt to aid no matter the task and no matter how many different forms assistance could reasonably be provided in).

Keep it worth it? Isn't it one of the most powerful and easily accessible buffs in the game?

The hypothetical benefit not lining up with the practical benefits aside, there's more to the consideration of something being worth including in a game than just how powerful and accessible it is.

You've got to sit in the mind of the player and consider which you would rather do, and if you're not struggling to say which in at least a fair number of imaginable circumstances, then one of those options isn't up to snuff.

For a rough example; would a player rather use an action and reaction to set up Aid, or would they rather cast the shield spell and hang on to their reaction to use the shield block-like feature it provides?

Would a player rather Aid, or hang on to their reaction for Reactive Strike and spend the action that would require use for set up to swing at a high MAP and hope for a high roll?

And as you get higher in the levels of the game the number of things a player might rather do increases considerably, so making the Aid action continue to get better is functionally required so that it isn't only a "you might try this until you level into a better option" action which would make it fair to call it wasted space in the book.

With something like heroism and flanking, you could be talking about a 9 point swing in favor of the PCs!

Don't miss the forest for the trees by over-focusing on one side of the game play mechanics. That 9 point swing needs to be weighed not just on how that sounds like a really significant number but also by how much resources, both in build and play terms, had to be spent to get there and also the other part of the mechanics themselves like how HP values increase faster than damage values and that means that increased critical hit rates aren't a larger increase in time to kill, meaning the end result of the thing you're having a worried reaction about is game-play being mostly the same after all the "wild" stuff.

Which is why we don't have a lot of reports of high-level play being much faster than low-level play in regards to how long enemies remain obstacles to the party.

"handwave-y clauses" are exactly what keeps the Aid action worth including in the game.

Without them it would be an action that basically only allows for redundant skills to provide a benefit that is easily not worth the cost because of all the other options a character can have to spend their reaction on and then also find something else meaningful to do with a single action.

Even the trivial DC is deliberate (especially given the DC dropped by 5 with remaster updates) so that the action can remain worth considering actual use of past the initial stages of the game (which funnily enough people used to talk about how that was the worst time to try to use the action before the DC was lowered)

Feats like Intimidating Glare which do not use the language "when you use the [name] action" in their description apply whenever the action they modify is done - whether it is as a subordinate action or not.

For me, I feel like the things people aren't considering that are the most important for this discussion are the following:

First, and most importantly, a Pathfinder Society way of handling it is completely irrelevant to how the rule is genuinely intended to work. Even without it having been to check on what the rules no longer actually are to get an idea of what they are supposed to be now I would point this out because, well, what is good for an organized play league is not necessarily what is good for a home-game group and if the rules were intended to facilitate organized play as some form of "correct" the rules would be the society notes instead of them needing to exist as a note.

And secondly that unlike so many of the anathema in the game we are presented a clear answer to the question of how much stuff you aren't supposed to do is allowed before a defined consequence happens. This is no "if you make a habit of upsetting your deity they might eventually revoke the powers they gave you or punish you in some way". It's a clear "if you do the thing, your magic will be wonky until you fix it."

Which to me means the anathema must be a self-inflicted case or else an intrinsic part of the nature of the character's magical process. And in either of those cases that means there is no room for "well, technically..." arguments of the sort a player might set themself up with to try and justify something that they don't actually feel they were genuinely allowed to do.

So the "how do you know when the anathema was broken?" question becomes one of knowing it when you see it because there either won't be any question at all that something wasn't allowed (example: an envy runelord casts fireball with any targets in the area), or when the questions come the player's defense will make the intention behind the actions apparent enough to pass judgement on (example: an envy runelord casts summon elemental so that not-their-character can burn something down).

The ultimate point being though, players shouldn't be playing with options that when they read the anathema they start looking for what they can "get away with"; they should only be making choices that lead to anathema they are actually interested in playing with rather than against so they should be looking for how to skip everything elemental and void-themed if looking to play an envy runelord - like picking a different summon spell instead of one that has the root word of a thing they are meant to be avoiding baked in.

They very much should not. I don't want to play OfficeFinder 2.

And having my hero fatigued because "It's midnight!" gets me back to reality. It's not heroic at all and it doesn't make sense in a game where my Barbarian has +20 Fortitude and Juggernaut.

Ah... but that's just the slippery slope that is as easily applied to any limitation a character might face on account of the reasoning behind it boiling down to what you find "too real" is "you can't just keep an adventuring day going indefinitely".

A thing which is primarily couched in game-play reasons rather than any attempt at mirroring the real world.

I really find this rule ridiculous. Most humans stay awake for more than 16 hours without being fatigued, sleeping 8 hours per night is far from a generality. Actually, many young humans can stay awake for 2 consecutive days and function normally.

Game rules don't need to match real life, they need only make a game-play condition that bears consequences that are relevant enough to create a choice point.

So it doesn't at all matter whether "you can't just adventure forever without penalty" is "realistic" or not.

However, I'd suggest that your assessment of "function normally" is a skewed one. Sleep deprivation is a serious thing, and even though people (especially when young) can operate in a way that it seems like they are functioning they absolutely are not at the same level of functionality they would be at if they were well-rested.

The game is not any harder to learn than most of the rest on the market. It's actually easier than a wide variety of them too.

Most of the "this game doesn't teach new players" rhetoric comes from people with something to un-learn rather than someone that doesn't have information and goes to the game material to learn it.

For example, the problems people have had with encounter design and spell casting both stem from someone (sadly an AP author in some cases, leading to "but the pros did it, so it's actually right, right?" thoughts) carrying forward the idea of how those things work from some other source such as a prior edition or different game. People learning this game as their first game having fewer issues in those avenues.

There's really no way to fix that because the thing that would solve it (writing the game material assuming the reader already knows a different thing and telling them explicitly to not do the things this book doesn't say to do) would complicate and clutter the language and leave anyone not needing to be told "what you know about games other than this one is not actually relevant to how to run this game" with more chances to misunderstand what the rules are saying.

One thing that PF2 could steal from D&D is weapons having secondary effects, with fighters being the masters of using those secondary effects. I know that PF2 has critical effects and that Fighters are the best at scoring critical hits. Still, a system where every attack has a minor effect attached to it would make "just" swinging a weapon each round feel more engaging without adding a lot of extra overhead or decision-making to the game.

It's funny how perspective colors the relationship of different game systems.

Because where you are saying that PF2 could take a particular thing from D&D I am seeing a thing which D&D just recently "we'll do that too"'d from PF2 because the it's-not-a-new-edition D&D "weapon mastery" details are basically just a take on PF2's weapon traits and critical specializations blended together (and then made artificially limited so that gaining more as you level up can be presented as if it were a meaningful benefit even though you already picked the most relevant and/or can swap out for the most relevant options at regular intervals).

The problem with fighter "lack of identity" is that it is artificially constructed.

It's only because people think of every martial as being a "weapon master" of some sort that the class which actually has that as its niche looks like it is missing something.

The cause of that is all those other martial classes tracing their lineage back to being "it's a fighter, but..." in design, so even though PF2 has more unique pieces of each class people look at fighter as the "vanilla" martial (with the context of vanilla in this case being treated as the absence of flavor rather than a flavor itself).

This is a really confusing claim to me.

In my experience, players more often than not limit themselves to a particular weapon even if there isn't a specific increase in stats for one. They also limit themselves to a particular weapon because of all of the other mechanical differences that can come up before a fighter has to pick a weapon group to be even better with.

So to lay the feeling of being limited on getting an increased proficiency strikes me as odd because most players were already locked-in on their weapon choice just because it had a particular trait they liked, and most that weren't locked-in at that point got locked in once runes started getting added to a weapon. Meaning that in practice there's no change in play happening at the time weapon mastery group is chosen.

I'm with Graystone on the interpretation that the words used seem specifically chosen to make the personal rune not actually a staff.

If it were meant to follow the standard rules of preparing a staff there is far more straightforward language that could be used to convey that point which would also allow different phrasing to be used on the portion about what happens when you have an actual staff merged with your personal rune polearm/spear because the "adding its charges" part would either be absent or else produce a different confusion point as we don't have anything telling us that we can't expend a slot for additional charges on the prepared staff if we already expended a slot for the (non-existent by the actual rules phrasing) additional charges on the personal rune.

thenobledrake wrote:

I see removing the rule that's easy to forget (the "yes, you crit and rolled awesome, but this creature type gets to ignore part of that" single-target damage clause).

Its also easy to forget because it almost never comes up. Maybe if you have a level 1 fighter or barb with runic weapon fighting a troop, but by higher levels HP inflates enough that I have yet to see it come up at a table.

That's also true.

The one time I've seen it come up in the past was a giant instinct barbarian landing a high-rolled crit on a shambler troop and the slashing weakness pushed the damage total over 60 which would have taken it from full HP to the 8 square threshold if not for the rule.

It seems to me like the changes can be summarized as:

Specific shaping and spacing instead of vaguely implying 16 spaces on the map could be occupied and effectively sharing stats.

Removal of the clause that damage from particular sources be treated differently.

Altered details for non-damaging effects so that there is not the extreme case of needing to affect every creature in the area and only a special clause for an effect that has a non-action/fleeing/non-participant kind of effect.

So I fail to see what "trickier" or "complicated" you're talking about. I see removing the rule that's easy to forget (the "yes, you crit and rolled awesome, but this creature type gets to ignore part of that" single-target damage clause), and covering a lot of the weirdness that Form Up used to imply was possible, which are both just improvements in ease of use. And alongside those is effects the players have being made more likely to be able to have some use since they no longer operate on an all-or-nothing basis, which makes facing a troop less onerous for the players.

Looks like improvements across the board to me.

Crawling through keyholes won't be allowed.

This is exactly why the allegedly confusing redundancy is necessary; players are definitely going to read the spell and think that which tiny creature they choose is going to matter because a spider and a rat are both "Tiny" even though they aren't the same specific dimensions (just like someone 6'3" and someone 5'2" are both Medium and don't have different rules interactions in this game despite one not being able to reach the top shelf in my actual kitchen) - and the spell is clarifying that not to be the case.

If that bit of text weren't there it'd just be another place where people argue about what is or isn't actually valid according to the wording of the rule, and it only presents as "confusing" when viewed from the perspective of already understanding the outcome of not being able to crawl through keyholes and the like.

For those of you insisting I'm wrong about how communication can still get turned into a bad thing; look at ElementalofCuteness's post and the way the phrasing suggests that being told an error hadn't happened has screwed up the situation.

I'm not talking slippery slope that might happen, I'm talking observation of historical fact on the matter and a "slope" we're already seeing people at the bottom end of.

Even the "It is true, but only in communities where there's trust that they really well get back to us." statement is doing the very things I was talking about in that it presumes the only explanation for things not going well is the designer-side of the scenario by putting the weight on the designer-side to make sure none of the fan-side feel like they have a reason to distrust them rather than putting any responsibility on the fan-side of the situation to not be unreasonable and distrust designers that are genuinely trying just because that effort doesn't match expectations the fan-side set in their own minds without any particular reason.

And that's why the only responses being made to my comments are vague (the good ones) and framing a near strawman out of the extreme end of the idea by implying the game is currently unplayable because of a lack of response (so bad it's basically admission of not having an actual counter point) instead of talking about any specifics on things I've argued; like how I say the fans will arbitrarily decide it's been too long without an update that isn't "working on it, more info later" and no one has even tried to offer up an idea of how long is objectively too long that isn't a hyperbolic "it's been 6 years."

This kind of thing goes the bad way so often and so consistently that even communities that win praise for how they behave become memes among people that aren't pleased with how what they wanted to happen didn't happen. So even as you have a case of the devs communicating with and listening to the fans you also have fans insistent that the devs don't know the first thing about what the fans want from the game and have no interest in finding out because they are detached from how the players actually play the game - and more communication isn't a thing that can actually change that. It can, however, make the devs even more stressed out by the fact that no matter what they do someone is going to insist it is proof that they are screwing up the game.

As has been demonstrated a billion times over across the internet, people are always way more welcoming and thankful for a “nothing to report, but we’re working on it/have seen it” report than silence.

That's not even remotely true.

The initial response to that kind of reply might seem favorable, but the attitude quickly turns when the time that passes before a response happens exceeds some random person's personal idea of what has been enough time, or when enough of those sort of responses have been made to go past some random person's personal idea of how many is a reasonable number.

You will literally see people complaining about someone taking the time to come say "nothing to report" instead of spending that time working on making something worth reporting if you go look for it. You'll also see any reasonable and transparent explanation of a delay being picked apart by people that were going to be pissed no matter what - but because of the communication now they have something to latch onto instead of just a vague, angry, "why won't they tell us what's going on?"

That's what has happened over and over throughout the entirety of this and many similar hobbies.

That's why so many companies try to keep communication down to specific forms at specific times or in specific ways and even the ones that do try to be open and constant with communication change that aspect over time. So it is better to hold communication until there is something with some meat to it to say or some dire circumstance that is necessitating what would otherwise be premature communication, because even though that too will have fans being unreasonable about it it at least minimizes the exposure and thus the fatigue that comes from dealing with agitated people.

... Which is why nonspecific defenses and "no one can really agree" arguemnts feel kind of toxic. They rely on abstracting reality away to present a position that can't be argued against because it's grounded in nothing.

The problem here is that you're doing the very thing that you're pointing at as being the problem with what I said.

In order for it to matter that someone has been waiting "six years" we have to in a non-subjective manner determine that the question you frame as being important is actually one of genuine importance... which I have to say doesn't seem like is likely in the case you're talking about because your framing suggests that it wouldn't be plausible that the vast majority of groups have already plugged in what they believe the thing "should" work if they even experienced an issue in the first place and have been playing the game just fine for the entire six year time period mentioned.

What you have done in your response is illustrated exactly what I was talking about; the issue, whatever it is, that you're talking about you are willing to frame as a thing the company is screwing up because they didn't answer the question you wanted answered with the kind of answer you wanted (lack of response, including lack of acknowledging the question has been asked, is it's own kind of answer) within what you felt was the reasonable time frame to give such an answer.

Companies that make games are basically damned if they do and damned if they don't on this kind of thing. If they stay out of the situation they get negative reactions for lack of communication. If they communicate they invariably get negative reactions to that communication. Fanbases suck at self-recognizing this kind of thing too, so people genuinely don't realize how/when they are being unreasonable with stuff like "they said X and it hasn't happened in Y time, so clearly they were lying" or even just "I asked a question and didn't get a response" and acknowledging that a reason besides the company sucking at what they do exists for that case. Y'know, like asking a question that puts the team in the position of having to carefully consider how to answer so as to provide understanding to a customer that doesn't have it yet isn't insulting to that customer's intelligence in the way that answering with a page reference for the location of the relevant rule that isn't even uncleanly written that the customer is misunderstanding (or even understanding, but not liking and asking about to try and get it changed) or saying the question doesn't need a response would be.

There is a very clear and easy middle ground to me between “random designer tweets out what they personally think is the answer to RAI without checking with others and then people run with” and “radio silence until an errata comes up and then if it doesn’t get answered then you have to roll the dice again”.

It’s “have someone come and tell us all in a public space that they’ve seen this and will talk about it, and then come and tell us the RAI and if things might change once they’ve had a group discussion and come to a real decision”. Preferably they can then go as far as to post a “questions we’re looking into” master list everyone can see so we know that even if it takes a few months they’ve seen and will get to it one way or another.

I’m disappointed that they’ve basically gone with radio silence unless you win the private email lottery, and then you can either get an answer or a “wait until errata maybe deals with it”. To be clear, I’m not blaming Maya because they didn’t give the impression this was their preferred route either and at the end of the day they’re not the one who can generate the answers.

The problem with your "easy middle ground" is that turn around time is not something people will ever agree about how much is actually on the table and or reasonable.

Just like we're already seeing from you being comfortable with the phrasing of "radio silence until an errata comes up", fans are prone to think a dev could just pop in for 5 minutes and answer a question and everything would be awesome - no matter how much said fan knows they don't know about what that dev's daily schedule is like.

So even with someone taking a genuine stab at spending some of their work hours checking through community questions to then provide "we are aware of this issue" messages and work the solutions and then come back with them, there's strong (like nearly assured) odds that the fans are going to feel like they've been told an issue is being checked on but that it actually isn't because it couldn't possibly take this long to sort it out. And then the end result of attempting to be more communicative with the community is that community getting even more convinced there's no meaningful communication happening, especially if any part of that communication involves telling people what they view as being an issue actually isn't or the official response being not the thing the person was hoping it would be (which I'll never understand why sets people off so badly; if you know you don't want a particular answer, you don't need to ask the question, just house-rule the thing you do want and get on with your day).

For D&D5 there were long years of Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford twittering rules clarifications, sometimes contradicting eachother or themselves, and even when the Sage Advice Compendium cleared up a lot of things, a lot remained unresolved.

It would be nice to have a more structured way of asking questions, like a scoring board where the community could upvote issues.

Let's not forget to mention the thing which happened that was even worse than Mike & Jeremy providing answers not in line with each other or even themselves; when Jeremy said something that wasn't even possible according to the language in the book and then changing the rules text so it matched his incorrect tweeted answer instead of admitting the answer was incorrect.

I've always had a problem with the idea of an official way for people to ask question and have a reasonable expectation that they would get an answer. It is one of those things which sounds like a great idea yet it seems to invariably arrive at misuse, mistreatment, or both.

I have dozens of times throughout the years where a rules discussion I was having with someone turned into me having wasted every moment I spent involved because no matter how much I could quote the book, explain the meaning of the sentences in the book based on their context and structure, and no matter how many other people would chime in to back up the points and evidence, the other person believed an "official answer" was needed and they were going to try and get one. Even when the language in question wasn't unclear, it just clearly said something that person wanted to not be the case. And yet an official answer would be sought and then when the answer was officially given - despite effectively having been a developer taking time to say "yes, the text in the book is correct." - many of those people that insisted on having an official answer were not actually pleased by receiving one. Some of them would even go the route of not just what they could have been doing the whole time and saying "I don't need an official answer, I can house-rule in a way that works for me and my group." but actually being angry at the team for the official answer not being what they wanted it to be.

And in that experience I've seen that if you can directly ask the team behind a game questions that the questions are going to be heavily laden with pointless ones where someone asks what is obvious to most readers or is asking the same question that has already been answered because they are hoping for a different answer. When doing what all it would take to actually prevent that misuse it basically just turns the system back into what we fundamentally already have; we can talk about what we think is wrong and the devs will eventually clarify or correct what they pick up on as important enough issues to be worth the effort.

Plus the direct nature of the call and response is basically how come way back when you could get on the official forum and find people arguing against what the person put in charge of the official rules said - again as a result of people for whom it's not just "official" that matters, it's that their own view of the rules has to be the thing which is "official" or even the official answer is "wrong" - or outright being abusive towards staff because of the interaction between fan and staff not having gone the way the fan was hoping that it would.

Basically the entire reason that we have so little contact with Paizo staff while on this message board is because of trying to let the community ask direct questions and add their voices to the conversation that resulted from doing so.

Didnt I write just that?

No, because your statement was backed with a meaning that supported your other statement "He has a point" where as what I was saying is there's no valid point to be found in the territory of treating lack of redundant mention of a general rule as being the same thing as presence of an explicit specific rule.

Considering that most other classes do state that the starting equipment from features has to be common...

Some authors choosing to be redundant does not mean that any that do not were actually writing statements that specifically counter the general rules established elsewhere in the book.

There's even a passage of text in the book, though I can't recall exactly where at this moment, that covers this kind of misplaced expectation that "it doesn't say I follow the general rule" is the same as "it says exactly what way in which I don't follow the general rule."

This is likely a significant part of the reason why Paizo chose to write this edition in the "to be read as casual language" style that they did; because it's absolutely a pain to make sure everything doesn't just convey the same meaning, it does it with the exact same phrasing, so no one thinks they caught a special exception just because one author picked not saying you get to do something special as their method of conveying they didn't say that while some other author used extra steps to reach the same result.

Pixel Popper has a good point about making sure not to indicate "no effect" when you mean "redundant effect" so that you don't misinform a player.

There were plenty of times in the campaigns I've played thus far in which a redundant effect happened to serve an important purpose, whether it was me using Snagging Strike despite that I was flanking the target so that my ranged attack using allies could also get the benefit of their target being off-guard, or someone moving into a flanking position even though the flanked target was currently prone so that when they stood up they would still be off-guard, or a sword critical hit causing off-guard with a timer on it and that serving a purpose even if the target was already grabbed at the time it happened.

Telling a player "that did nothing" would give the wrong impression, and if it were actually true would also mean having changed the rules of the game.

Yeah, all I'm seeing here is that you've had bad GMs*...

Yes, I have had bad GMs. Specifically of the variety that were bad GMs because they were following suggestions found in the rule-books in the spirit that it appeared those suggestions were made.

Or to phrase that differently; I had GMs that were bad because they believed meta-gaming was something that needed to be policed.

You are repeatedly displaying an inability to understand that tables can have different social contracts and implicit rules.

No, I'm not. I'm just not conflating "expectations and rules can vary" and "there's no such thing as being able to evaluate if a rule or expectation is internally inconsistent or not".

I understand that table variance exists, it's just not relevant to this discussion which is about whether or not a particular thing people mean when they say the phrase "meta-gaming" actually makes any sense. And it doesn't because it is internally inconsistent; literally every table that says "we try not to meta-game because meta-gaming is bad" can be demonstrated as selectively applying their own definition of "meta-gaming" because none exists that can be applied consistently outside of the definitions that are entirely incompatible with the "is bad" and "try not to" parts of the statement because they identify the process of meta-gaming (player knowledge impact character actions) as the unavoidable part of game-play that it is.

Yet even as they agree that players shouldn't be stuck in thought processes such as "my character doesn't know how many HP they have, so they can't try to run away because their HP are low" some people will still think "...your character doesn't know that will work well so it's unfair that you're trying to do it." and not restrict that to explicitly edge case moments where it's actually reasonable to say no one would ever take that action just to see what happens - also know as the things more accurately called "cheating" than "meta-gaming" because what is different about them is not player knowledge being involved, it's knowledge the player actually shouldn't have or the character would genuinely need in order to choose what they are choosing and definitely does not have it.

The act of defending meta-gaming as being a real and avoidable thing that has a negative impact while also insisting it is an entirely nebulous subjective thing that each table has their own definition of that are all valid (unless, apparently, used by someone you deem a "bad GM") does nothing for the hobby other than empower bad GMs to give terrible experiences to their players and players to also cause bad experiences for themselves and potentially others by using the idea of meta-gaming being a bad thing to lead themselves to disruptive actions they believe they "must" do.

That's why it was good when WotC tried to re-define the term to apply only to thinking of the game in game terms which might lead you to the wrong conclusions (such as the example provided in the relevant passage being a player believing a monster must be within the party's ability to fight because they think the GM is adhering to the encounter building guidelines, rather than potentially showing a powerful foe there is no intention of combat with). Unfortunately, that definition got no traction because a significant reason the old definition is a problem in the first place is the deeply-rooted assumption that the only reason anyone would disagree with the definition is because they are the very "bad player" that the idea is presented as stopping from doing the "bad thing" that helps justify immediate dismissal of incompatible ideas.

Slurping noodles is impolite, except at the dinnertables at which it is polite.

In both cases there is a clear and reasoned explanation which applies to the case and can be explained but then not have the explanation fall apart because it's not actually the slurping that matters, it's what you're thinking when you are doing the slurping that matters.

Which is to say, that's not even kind of a good analogy for meta-gaming.

Magus taking psychic archetype isn't metagaming,* except at the tables which it is.

It isn't a special case of meta-gaming at any table because it does not matter what a class feat gets spent on it was equally a choice made because of player-knows-rules-material reasons.

Which is the thing I am getting at. There is no magical "well, it's actually a whole other thing from just playing the game normally" that varies from table to table, even though you may find some table that uses the word "meta-gaming" when talking about why they don't allow the choice. What they actually mean to be saying is "I don't like how that works, so I don't allow it", and that's fine - and actually a case of something subjective which while I don't agree with is not actually something which I can say is objectively incorrect since unlike saying "that is meta-gaming" (and meaning that to mean it is a thing you're supposed to avoid doing) which is presenting something as an objective fact.

I don't really care what is the "correct" definition of meta-gaming, frankly.

Then why would you involve yourself in discussion of the definition of the concept?

It's not the thing people that want to watch out for it say it is, it's a natural and unavoidable part of game-play as a result of there not being any way for a person to play a game without knowing it is a game and - even if they try really hard to just never do so - picking up at least something about how the game functions.

You can even test for whether it is the actions and the character that are "a problem" by doing a thought experiment about when something is or isn't inappropriate.

For example, your character has had an enemy approach so that the character is within the enemy's reach. When, if ever, is it "meta-gaming that you should avoid because meta-gaming like that is bad" to move away? Does whether it is or isn't meta-gaming of that sort change depending on whether it is Step, or Stride? Does whether it is or isn't meta-gaming of that sort change depending on any other factors such as the character's build, 'usual combat pattern', the creature's actual abilities, how much the player genuinely knows about the creature in question, or how much the GM thinks (correctly or otherwise) the player knows? And if yes, why?

Because this is exactly the kind of thing which strikes the "Hey, you can't do that, that's meta-gaming" response - but somehow only when the GM is really hoping to smack a character with a creature's reaction and the player has picked some course of actions that doesn't trigger that reaction, and how reasonable it is to have done so from an in-character perspective gets drowned out entirely by "your character wouldn't know" even though knowing the outcome is not typically a requirement for trying something - like how I don't need to know that someone is going to read a post of mine and change their mind in order to make said post hoping that they realize "a player can have their character do something actually nonsensical but beneficial like triggering a demon's vulnerability to some situation based on their vice and that'd be weird" doesn't prove "it's not fair for a player to use a bludgeoning weapon instead of a sharp one when their character sees an ooze" to also be true no matter how much someone wants to pretend there's no meaningful difference between those examples.

That's why as a GM it's part of your job to translate the rules into things that are happening to bring immersion. Your character generally understands what most of the rules are via cause and effect, you can see those things happening.

Which is why some of the biggest problems that a GM can cause start with trying to obscure what the players are being told.

Often GMs make choices they think are doing one thing which are actually doing another. Like how a GM might view letting players know how many HP their enemies have left as a thing which they don't want to do in a specific matter because that is "unrealistic" and they will not consider that hearing the HP totals is like a very detailed and accurate description of what the character can see which has been translated into clear and concise language for the player that has next to zero risk of misunderstanding as a result. Yet the GM will also not realize that the reason a game like Monster Hunter can "not show health bars" is because the game actually does "show health bars" because that's exactly what seeing differing damage values depending on which parts of the creature you hit and seeing the visual changes in the creature's movements, posture, and even audio is doing - indicating how far along the gradual progression toward capturable or dead you currently are, and how fast you're traveling towards that state.

So some GMs will try to do like Monster Hunter does instead of being like various games that use an actual health bar, but will also not be detailed enough in their descriptions. The result being the players have almost no sense at all how a fight is going and have to hope that despite this they are not misjudging whether they are in over their heads or not. So by avoiding MMO health bars but missing the harder to hit target of Monster Hunter feedback on creature condition, they land at old school Final Fantasy equivalent where the creature's sprite on the screen still looks the same no matter how many turns you've taken and you've got no idea whether there are 200 HP left to go or 200,000 HP left to go - unless you've looked at information you wouldn't normally see in course of game-play (read the Monster stats) or you've used particular magic (though unlike Final Fantasy's Libra, I think PF2 mostly limits explicit HP knowledge to friendly targets outside of currently-in-playtest Necromancers).

And it's a topic that has amused me a bit over the years because at the tables which are trying to keep to a description alone and avoid "health bars" equivalents, many GMs seem not to consider it related that players constantly have to be reminded how things look as they say something like "it's looking pretty rough". In effect having "health bars" despite wanting to not, they are just something you "push a button" to see and then they fade away until you do it again. Meaning same end result but far more effort taken to get there.

I could be misreading this, but it sounds to me you're approaching most tables like you're expecting a purer wargame, and that's just not how a lot of TTRPG tables play.

You're highlighting what I was talking about when I mentioned that the way people that think meta-gaming is a real thing that is avoidable and negatively impacts the game come off as working backwards from the conclusion to prove that to be the case, because none of what I said has anything to do with "purer wargame" or any other particular play style.

And in fact the times that I have seen the most harsh takes and actions as a result of meta-game worrying, it has been in cases where a player was playing their character thinking entirely in terms of doing what seemed sensible in a scenario described to them - and the GM interjecting with "no, you can't do that." with the flawed presumption that "your character wouldn't know that it is a good idea" is the same thing as "your character would think it is a bad idea and try something else first" because the very idea that meta-gaming is avoidable and negative flags every case where the player might know about the game they are playing as "unfair".

I would also say that someone's inability to give a good, clear definition of metagaming for their table doesn't mean there is no such thing as "metagaming."

Okay. I wouldn't say that either. Which is why I said the proof that metagaming isn't the thing many people believe it to be is that no consistent definition that has been given can be applied.

It's not some tables saying "I know meta-gaming when I see it" but not being able to articulate what they think meta-gaming is. It's the description of the process of meta-gaming that people who strive to prevent it from happening can give being equally applicable to game-play that the same people take no issue with.

Whether or not what a character is doing in a given scenario is acceptable play or "bad" should not depend upon asking "is this a new player, or an experienced one?" if the intention is to have decisions be character-based rather than player-based. And the same is true of an experienced player and the outcomes they pick because "you can use what you know about the game to choose something that won't be beneficial" and "you can use what you know about the game to choose to try to have your character learn/remember something which gives you permission to do something other than choose something you know won't be beneficial" are just as much "you only did that because you know" as the action being disallowed by "you can't use what you know about the game to choose something that will be beneficial." is.

Personally, I think "no metagaming" edicts amount to a request that players prioritize a game's narrative cohesion over mechanically optimized play when the two conflict.

And literally all I have ever seen it do is serve as a limiter to experienced player's options and behaviors that less experienced and knowledgeable players are not beholden to and embolden the behavior in which a GM effectively plays in a "no fair, you're supposed to fall for my tricks!" kind of attitude where it seems clearly not to be whether the player was playing their character in a believable way within the narrative that seems to be the problem but that the scenario didn't play out the way the GM wanted to and to force it to have to the GM has declared not doing what they wanted you to do "cheating." and then has made up an impossible to actually not have done explanation for how they are certain you definitely are cheating to distract from the root of the situation being, in effect, "you must play 'dumb'"

You can look at it from the building/characterization direction instead, if it helps: "I want to make a character who's polite, even to their enemies. But I don't feel like optimizing with Intimidate lets me do that."

And there we go with the other classic activity that crops up in meta-gaming related discussions when someone is trying to show how meta-gaming is a real and avoidable negative thing; animated object: goal post.

You set the parameters of the example before I responded to it and said nothing at all to indicate the case was "this character is supposed to polite, even in combat, and the player isn't actually sticking to their statement of that intention" rather than entirely normal behavior for a character with the presumption the "inconsistency" was inherently a problem because it coincided with a mechanical benefit. And now that you've changed the parameters you're glossing over that the parameters you've moved to are not inherently superior to any other set of possible parameters so using them to imply a problem in play is spurious at best. "Someone could play a character that should behave differently" is not proof that a player is behaving inappropriately with their character.

And in closing; I urge you to deeply consider that something which entirely depends on the table being something which entirely depends on the table is proof that it's not a "real" thing. If it's bad faith play, it should be bad faith play at any table not explicitly saying the equivalent of "We like street ball. It's only a foul if you need a hospital visit afterwards." about what they agree is bad faith play but would like to incorporate any ways.

Because treating it as variable and elusive and personal to a group is trying to have it both ways and make it a parallel argument to "There's no one right way to play the game. Except for my way, it'd be perfect for everyone." by saying that whatever a particular person thinks is meta-gaming is definitely meta-gaming, no matter who else might say "no, it's not."

To be honest, calling "metagaming" is usually a way to try to bludgeon disruptive players back into line

In my experience, both in the hobby itself and talking about it in various spaces both on- and off-line over the years, it's not "disruptive players" which are bludgeoned with it in most cases - it's players the GM is incorrectly identifying as disruptive because the inherently-antagonistic presentation of the concepts of meta-gaming results in fair and reasonable play marked as "disruptive."

Like how you can have a DM literally tell the players they are looking at a troll by saying "You see a troll barreling toward you" rather than some description of the shape, size, and coloration of whatever mysterious creature the character sees and yet the player is expected to either spend actions having their character figure out what they are looking at or pick an action the player specifically knows is a poorer choice so that they can be proven to not have "meta-gamed".

I don't think there's a consensus view on what is and isn't metagaming

This is the direct and obvious result of the "meta-gaming is bad and must be avoided" side of the discussion deliberately refusing to accept any coherent definition for the term that can be consistently checked and isn't effectively altered the moment the GM decides what a player did has to have been unfair and their proof is because it was a good thing to do and nothing more.

While the "meta-gaming is actually a fairly useless thing to call out because the bulk of game-play is itself reliant upon meta-gaming and cannot possibly be anything else, so we should really just focus on whether what happened in game was allowed to happen or was cheating" side of things can provide a very clear and consistent definition of the term.

When what the player knows about the game materials is incorporated into the decision made for what a character will do. I.e. the thing which is happening when you choose your method of attack, no matter what you know, no matter what you choose. The other side, however, will insist that it's only actually meta-gaming if the choice you make is one you know is beneficial and it isn't previously established in a specific way that the character also knows that, and if you are actually ignorant of the benefits of your choice or are choosing something because you know that it's not the best choice then that is a completely different thing despite the identical process both in and out of your head.

As to all of your "Fair to ask" questions; nope, those are all stupid and pointless questions to which the answer is "we're playing a game, just shut up and play the game" because you may as well be asking "why do you keep using a melee weapon? Ranged weapons exist and are much safer to use because you can be so far away from your enemies" with how you are presuming that "the fact that this is mechanical advantageous should be over-ruled unless a personality trait I've decided is relevant is present in the character" is a valid stance when the reality is that the mechanics of the character and how they behave are allowed to be the same thing even if it seems like that makes someone a little more inconsistent or unpredictable as a character.

And I mean, seriously. "You're so nice out of combat."? That's a joke, right? I'm a generally nice person. I'll make small talk, smile and wave at neighbors walking their dogs. I tip well. And I don't start any trouble without a good reason... but it's not even a bet, it's a sure thing, that if you put me in a situation anything like combat I am going to do anything and everything to dismantle my opponent physically and mentally so that I can minimize the harm that comes to myself, maximize my chance of survival, and maybe even manage to develop a reputation that reduces the chances that someone that knows that reputation is willing to take a disagreement with me to the level of combat. Behaving in different ways related to the context of a situation isn't just entirely normal, it's also actually reasonable. Which this just highlights what I bring up when the topic of meta-gaming comes around; you didn't even consider explanations outside of "the player chose this for an advantage, and that's unfair" for the situation that happens in play - and if you follow the general process these conversations tend to have had over the decades I've been having, your response to my suggestion that actually everything is totally fine and normal is likely to be along the lines of "well of course someone trying to get an unfair advantage would say that, you're just making excuses for your bad play behavior." because "meta-gaming is bad and should be avoided" is heavily prone to people working backwards from that conclusion instead of actually questioning if it might not be entirely true.

The transfer rule mentioning extra runes a weapon couldn't normally have go dormant is there to shut down the problematic conclusions of A) you can't transfer runes between items that are currently full so instead of being able to swap the +2 potency and +3 potency of two different fully-runed weapons you would have to include a rune stone in the process and transfer the +3 potency off the weapon onto the rune stone no, wait, that's also against the rules because now the weapon has property runes and no potency rune to allow them... which makes the process of transferring be something that can be as simple as it should be instead of nickel-and-diming the player as they take every rune off a weapon onto rune stones to then put them back on to weapons in a different configuration.

And B) if you "transfer" a 4th rune onto an item it works just fine because you didn't "etch" it there, you only "etched" the first 3 and this one is just there because you totally intend to (you promise) come back soon and take one of the runes off.

It's not at all something that we should look at and treat as a reason why when Blessed Armament doesn't stipulate that the weapon you choose have a potency rune and space for another property rune that isn't proof that Blessed Armament is making an exemption.

Basically, the way the rules are meant to be read and understood is that we read the thing we are actually trying to figure out - in this case Blessed Armament - and we read any specifically referenced rules - in this case there are none - and we read any general rules for that aspect of the game - in this case, that is actually the rune limiting rules.

Where some people are failing this process is that we only apply the parts of whatever general rules are relevant that aren't contradicted by the thing we are actually trying to figure out. Which is why the context of not stating limitations counts not as "so those limits apply" but as an exception to those limits - because if this feature requires a weapon to have a potency rune and it doesn't say so then it isn't just "using the normal rules" it is [i]non-functional and misleading[/b].

The feature says, to put it simply, "you get a rune." If the general rules then elaborate upon that as "you don't get a rune" that's clearly a contradiction and thus proof of exception being necessary. And that's just obvious when you ask "what happens if you pick a weapon with no potency rune?" that the answer isn't "you can't do that." because the feature says you can.

I always assumed characters new how their mechanics work so s rogue knows that they are good at taking advantage of an enemy bring distracted by an ally.

This is one of the things which I think shows how what the hobby treats as the traditional view on what meta-gaming is and what should be done about it are rooted in inherently GM-versus-players mentality.

To the most concerned about meta-gaming, the mechanics of the game are genuinely off limits to base any decision upon.

To everyone else the mechanics of the game are simply out-of-game representations of in-game details that would be genuinely absurd for a person not to have any sense of about themselves.

Like a rogue having no idea why they want to grab a shorter, lighter weapon than their burly ally prefers to use because "characters don't possess any knowledge of the game's mechanics."

As to why the change leads folks to thinking we lost an extra property rune. Its the difference between getting a rune (which would follow rules for runes on weapons) and gaining the 'effect' of a rune which doesn't actually give a rune but only the benefit of it.

The explanation for the thinking doesn't make any actual sense as a result of being inconsistent, though.

You state that people were able to parse the difference between gaining "effect of a rune" and having the actual rune, which implies a degree of ability to understand how things can be implied by the words chosen rather than needing to be explicitly stated because what actually is the effect of a rune is not a fully defined parameter the book provides to us. Then that ability is entirely absent when instead parsing what the text which says both "Select one weapon or handwrap..." without a limit that the selected weapon must have a potency rune (thus making it an explicit statement which disagrees with the rules that would limit how many runes a weapon can have, so a "specific trumps general" case) and "...you grant the armament a property rune..." which is just as much of a distinction as "it says "effect" not the actual rune" because it says you not the weapon.

So I persist in my belief that it is not the current wording itself which is cause for the belief that the rule is any different than it was, it is a comparison of the current text to the previous text matched with presumption the reason for altered wording has to be altered meaning. Synonymous phrases are allowed to exist in the game, though, so that need not be the case.

"If it is genuinely what your character would do, and it's still disruptive or not beneficial to you... create a better character."

No matter what it is that a character would do, the character is still entirely up to the player to devise, so there isn't actually any "it's not within my control" element like the claim is implying to be the case.

It is circular reasoning of this being what you have chosen because it is what you have chosen being presented as if it were some kind of point of integrity.

Well correct me if I’m wrong but it looks like the next step is for Maya to confirm for us how this works and if it’s intentional.

And this would be why when I saw that Maya had responded to someone's inquiry with a definitive answer as was done, my only thought was "oh no... here we go again."

This is what always happens when someone presents the potential for a "truly official" answer; some people will argue against anything and everything else no matter the quality of the reasoning behind it or the clarity of cited evidence so that literally only "official comment" counts for anything.

And after "official comment" is made, what happens then? Somebody says the official stance is bad, if not also continuing to insist it is actually wrong.

I think it’s pretty clear cut that it takes a slot and is worthless...

Then you have two questions to answer;

What positive evidence leads you to the conclusion? For clarity, I mean which words that are present in the feature itself indicate to you that your conclusion is the clear one, and why.

And why would it be worthless on purpose with the game including guidance telling us to make stuff work with our group instead of sticking to strict wording in the book? By which I mean to question you're entire ability to believe that you are correct when you actually want to be incorrect.

The most likely reason why Disable Device wasn't written as a general skill action is because of what NorrKnekten mentions; the variability written in about difference of traits or requirements for the action.

By which I mean that if you look at things which are general skill actions they are following a pattern in which everything except one variable is constant so that you are at most dealing with one trait that fits the associated trait involved and the blank that is which skill to check being filled with a new skill name.

So Disable Device would have necessitated a lot more word count to cover how and why the variables might change and would end up in a position of either literally every possibility is explicitly covered (and any hazard that falls outside the pre-defined action parameters has to be errata'd to fit inside them) or some hazard still manages to fall outside of the rules covered in the description and cause confusion.

Why change the words, and then change them back in Battle Harbinger, if not to change the meaning?

You're presuming that a difference in wording was a planned thing. That's rarely the case when more than one writer is involved in writing something and no one is explicitly doing the job of checking every wording to make sure any time something is said it is with the exact same phrasing.

The game includes a mention that sometimes a rule will be referenced by a rule that interacts with it and sometimes it won't, yet the generally established case still applies even if it isn't referenced specifically because the writers don't want the readers to assume a difference in words used must be interpreted as a difference in meaning.

No restrictions are mentioned here, but a lack of restrictions is also not mentioned here. That means the only things we have to go on are the existing rules for Runes, and the fact that the wording was changed.

We also have the game convention guidance on ambiguous rules that tells us, to paraphrase, not to stick to a wording's strict outcome if it makes for an unusable ruling.

Which not having any coverage of what happens should a champion attempt to use their blessed armament feature on a weapon that the general rules would not allow a rune to be added to unquestionably is.

The rune rules aren't vague and have restrictions. These rules don't have anything in them to suggest they ignore those rules anymore, whereas they used to.

At this point, the main thing I have to go on to suggest the intent didn't change is that the new feature is "too bad to be true".

It is true that the rune rules aren't vague and that they have restrictions.

It's also true that the effects of blessed armament aren't vague. What's not true is the part about suggesting an exemption to the rune rules. The new text does suggest the normal rules don't apply because it says "select one weapon or handwraps..." rather than saying "select one weapon or handwraps... which has a potency rune", and by not re-stating the limit.

What it is that the wording no longer does that it use to is explicitly state not to follow the normal rules. And the only reason for any confusion is comparison between the two phrasings as there is literally no room in the new wording for rune rules to not be excepted by the wording used.

Truthfully, I think the rewording was done to reduce word count and the rune count confusion is an unintended consequence.

The rule is you can only etch a number of runes onto a weapon equal to its potency rune value. But this is not etching a rune, it is being granted by the spirit.

That's what I was meaning when I said that if we didn't have that original version of the text I don't think we'd have people expecting that the limit would apply.

For me I feel like if we'd have never had the first wording we'd have two groups of understanding of the current wording:

Group A being the people that are sure that it doesn't count against rune limits because that feels like a feature that you could end up feeling is useless if the GM happens to hand out a bit of treasure that you end up using that is already rune-filled, and find extra confidence in their conclusion from the lack of mentioning the details of how an already-full-runed weapon and this feature interact (pick a rune to have be "turned off", the whole item shuts off, you choose between what the item actually has or what you can effectively provide it, etc.). As there is effectively a lack of information explaining how besides "it just works" to handle the situation.

And Group B being the people that are either feeling sure about that it counts as a rune but might confront problems from the mentioned lack of information later on if the situation even comes up, or are already in a state of thinking they know how it is supposed to work yet are also aware the text doesn't cover that functionality explicitly.

So mostly the reason why we could use a clarification in the FAQ is to make sure that people aren't having a bad experience as the result of making up some of that missing information in a way that their group isn't actually a fan of. And until then we should all stick to the advice given for when rules seem to cause problematic or nonfunctional outcomes and not stick strictly to "it doesn't say it does let you have an extra rune" and instead stick strictly to "it does not explain what happens if you do the thing you theoretically aren't supposed to do, so it just works."

I like it for flavor, but in terms of power I'm a little torn.

Because of the level the feat is available and how treasure guidelines work it is behind the level at which a party might already have found the equivalent item as treasure, including at each of the levels that it upgrades.

That means that the altering what the weapon is and the unlimited mundane ammunition factors of the feat are meant to carry the difference and I'm not entirely certain that is enough for the opportunity cost of a class feat since use of weapons is not something the class otherwise shines at. And much of the point of the feat can be covered in a limited fashion by using the runic weapon spell.

I don't really have a clear idea of how I think it could be changed to be definitely worth the investment though, since most of the basic ways in which a character would be more encouraged to use the weapon could easily over-shoot the mark.