The Ninja’s Vanishing Trick

[Asphesteros]

Godwyn wrote:

What is with the antagonism towards Asphesteros? He is simply calling out , correctly, what the rules EXPLICITLY say. Whatever may be implied by those rules, no one has so far quoted a PF rule saying otherwise. Was it likely yet another oversight in the PF/3.5 copy paste, yes. Have the devs essentially admitted the mistake, yes. Does the PF Core Book give an answer other than what Asphesteros has said to someone; who did not play 3.5; and does not look outside the book for rules that the book is supposed to cover? No, it does not.

However everyone thinks it should work, and however everyone plays it anyways, the core book does not explicitly allow tumbling through an opponents square.

Thanks Godwyn.

[Kazejin]

The vanish trick isn't that broken. The primary condition for sneak attacking is flanking; which is to say, as long as he can flank (which is pretty damn easy in most battles) then he can sneak attack just as easily. Giving him one extra way to get his sneak attack isn't really grounds for game-breaking when it's already a rather simple task; and he can only vanish X many times per day. The most advantage he's getting honestly is being able to move without provocation, and even that isn't game-breaking. There's plenty of other ways to accomplish it, and plenty of ways to counter it.

If you really want to be a jerk about it though, just put him in a boss battle where all the enemies can cast See Invisibility as a spell-like ability. Nothing like homebrew challenges to piss off the players.

---As for the other issue---

Godwyn wrote:

What is with the antagonism towards Asphesteros? He is simply calling out , correctly, what the rules EXPLICITLY say. Whatever may be implied by those rules, no one has so far quoted a PF rule saying otherwise. Was it likely yet another oversight in the PF/3.5 copy paste, yes. Have the devs essentially admitted the mistake, yes. Does the PF Core Book give an answer other than what Asphesteros has said to someone; who did not play 3.5; and does not look outside the book for rules that the book is supposed to cover? No, it does not.

However everyone thinks it should work, and however everyone plays it anyways, the core book does not explicitly allow tumbling through an opponents square.

The point that everyone else is making in response is just as valid, though. The book doesn't explicitly allow you to do a great many number of tasks, its not just the isolated incident that he's referring to. The RAW has many oversights on what it does or doesn't say in a literal fashion; yet you don't see arguments about (most of) the rest of them. Why? Because we use simple logic and make rational follow-ups to the implied consent.

Asphesteros is technically correct in saying that the RAW doesn't explicitly include tumbling, however it's implied very strongly but the rest of the content -- strongly enough that his argument is rather silly in the grand scheme. The book doesn't give explicit permission to a great many things that we already understand we are capable of doing. So are we to assume that we can't, even though we know for a fact that we can? That seems unreasonable to me. The book does not have to spell everything out in plain English for the RAW nazis. Some stuff is just common sense. The book wouldn't reference the ability to move through enemy squares if the ability didn't exist. It's just simple logic.

[Asphesteros]

Kazejin wrote:

The book doesn't explicitly allow you to do a great many number of tasks, its not just the isolated incident that he's referring to. The RAW has many oversights on what it does or doesn't say in a literal fashion

I don't have a problem with that either. There's tons of holes in the book that need to be filled with houserules, and houserules to fix badly written rules. Problem is confusing what's acutally a houserule as RAW. Maybe I am just being pedantic, but there is a difference. But maybe also some others are also being a bit too defensive or dismissive in being so insistant themselves that a houserule is actualy RAW, not just admitting a commonly used houserule is a houserule and moving on.

[BigNorseWolf]

Quote:

However everyone thinks it should work, and however everyone plays it anyways, the core book does not explicitly allow tumbling through an opponents square.

There is a difference between "does not explicitly allow it" and "does not allow it". One is a legitimate interpretation, one is the house rule. What he's basically saying is "your interpretation isn't legitimate" which requires a MUCH higher standard of evidence than what he's showing here. Not to mention when he tries to say that the Developers interpretation isn't legitimate either. Oh, AND another section of the book which DOES explicitely say you can do it is ALSO in error.

So what we have is a choice between one possible reading that jives with the rest of the book, near universal opinion, and the developers, and another possible opinion in contradiction to all of the above. He's presenting it as a case where the raw is explicitly on his side to the degree that it can override raw elsewhere and a dev and its not: its one possible reading of the rules and a very pedantic one at that. He's presenting it as the ONLY possible reading.

[Kazejin]

Asphesteros wrote:

I don't have a problem with that either. There's tons of holes in the book that need to be filled with houserules, and houserules to fix badly written rules. Problem is confusing what's acutally a houserule as RAW. Maybe I am just being pedantic, but there is a difference. But maybe also some others are also being a bit too defensive or dismissive in being so insistant themselves that a houserule is actualy RAW, not just admitting a commonly used houserule is a houserule and moving on.

The problem is that the RAW contradicts itself. The book makes an extremely clear reference to the ability to use an acrobatics check to tumble through an enemy square in one section, and it's still referenced again in the skill section; even though the RAW in the skills section happens to omit the precedent, "You can move through an enemy square."

The question then becomes, why would the content (twice) imply that you had such an ability if you didn't? The only logical response is that you do have the ability. Otherwise, the content wouldn't ever have to point it out.

Basically, you're saying that we can't assume the RAW allows it if the RAW doesn't explicitly say you can. However, the RAW also doesn't explicitly say you can't. It does, however, imply that you can. When the literal RAW can neither confirm nor deny, the next step is to read the implication. Therefore, the only logical way to proceed is to assume that you can. I'm not getting why this concept is the cause for such a heated debate. It's clear that the RAW intends for the ability to exist, even if it doesn't come straight out and say it does. That's why the book keeps referencing it.

[Asphesteros]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

There is a difference between ....

Well then we just misunderstand each other. Gowyn understood what I was saying, and so did Kazejin.

[Asphesteros]

Kazejin wrote:

The problem is that the RAW contradicts itself.

Right, I agree. I talked about that before. Tumbing is clearly referenced in the combat section, it implies it's a substitute for overrun same as it was in 3.5, clearly says it's explained in Acrobatics, but it's not there. It LOOKS like it's there at first gance - but the only thing that could be the overrun substitute is just a one line DC entry, which the text makes a point of explicitly saying it's for something else.

All the rest is speculation. The community, as we know, just went ahead and houseruled it - ported concepts from 3.5 tumbing to resolve the contradition, and just lets the DC serve double duty, asterix-shmasterix.

It's possible it was just an oversight to not include real tumble rules, stating how it's an alternative to overrun, explaining what happens on a fail, whether there is a training requirement (the reference in combat implies there is, as there was in 3.5), etc. Or could have been they meant to take out 'tumble' as a substitute for overrun, and the refereces in combat are artifacts of an earlier draft. But either way so many people play with tumbling their own way anyway, could be they see no point trying to fix what the community doesn't even recognise is broken (Seeing what happened what I brought it up, I wouldn't blame them!).

It is worth noting that it is a houseruling, though. Anyone who likes to play by RAW shouldn't feel obligated to the common houserule over the plain text, same as any who doesn't like the RAW can houserule/fix/reinterpret to suit their taste.

[Kazejin]

Asphesteros wrote:

Right, I agree. I talked about that before. ...

Don't you think you're being a little too nazi on the issue though?

It's not really a houserule if the RAW addresses it openly. The point of "its not RAW because the skills section doesn't say it," is rather silly. The entire book is RAW material, not just the skill section. The combat section very openly and bluntly says that you can use Acrobatics for that purpose, which means the RAW still supports it. Just not in the section it should have been in. Is that really such a hard point to concede to?

[Allia Thren]

God, I don't know why I'm coming back to this thread...

Yes, it does not explicitly say in the acrobatic section that you can move through an enemies square, because it's being said at another place already.

Hey, can I use the morningstar to beat people over the head with it? Because, you know in the section about morningstars it doesn't actually say I can do that.