| 7 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Answered in the FAQ. 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hello,
A friend of mine is running an Oracle and having a bit of a problem with the Life Oracle's Energy Body ability. Specifically, we're unsure as to how many times per round the ability can be triggered, and the text is not explicit.
Does anyone have an official ruling or a RAW breakdown on how the ability should work so he can give it to his DM? For ease of assistance, I've quoted the relevant text below.
Thanks!
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I don't have an official ruling, just some experience as a GM.
Well i would hazard a guess, If you were using Energy body to pass through a living allied creature's square, you can heal it 1d6+1 per level, the text says once per round.
I think if a creature passes through your square, you can choose weather or not to heal it.
Although i suppose you could argue, people could form a cogna line and run through the Positive energy elemental to get healing,
As a GM, i would say, if multiple people pass through you, i would only allow one healing per round.
So in a round you can a) pass through a an allied creature and heal them1d6+1 per round b) heal yourself for 1d6+1 per level per round, or, if someone passes through you, you can heal them 1d6+1 per level.
That is what i would suggest.
I don't see any ambiguity. Could you clarify what you are troubled by? It seems straight forward to me.
I don't see any ambiguity. Could you clarify what you are troubled by? It seems straight forward to me.
The question is whether the ability activates once per round per ally, or once per round period.
In other words, if life oracle A has allies B, C, and D standing nearby and activates Energy Body, can each of them pass through the oracle to heal 1d6+L damage, or only one of them? By one reading, the restriction is per ally; that is, each ally can only gain the benefit once per round. By the other reading, the restriction is total uses; that is, only one ally can gain the benefit once per round.
Aptly stated, AvalonXQ, thank you. And, yes, that is the crux of my question. :)
Ah yeah, I wasn't focusing on the right part of the bolded.
If we look at the "it" in the third clause, it's clear that the "it" is referring to the ally, as otherwise there would not be subject verb agreement (you doesn't match it). If we just replace that with "the ally", I think it makes the meaning much clearer.
Once per round, if you pass through a living allied creature's square or the ally passes through your square, [the ally] heals 1d6 hit points + 1 per oracle level.
Or, just by rearranging the sentence around:
Once per round, [the ally] heals 1d6 hit points + 1 per oracle level, if you pass through a living allied creature's square or the ally passes through your square.
Since [the ally] is the subject and the part with "if" is a restrictive clause, I would say that the once per round is keyed to the ally and not to you.
Another argument is more from a balance perspective. This ability is already so weak and circumstantial compared to the cleric's abilities that I would err on the side of boosting it a bit than beating it back down.
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I do not believe this has been addressed in a FAQ, at least since the last time I've checked.
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I originally thought it should affect all allies who pass through you...but this line made me change my mind:
You choose whether or not to heal a creature when it passes through your space.
If it affected all allies, then that line would be useless.
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I'm not sure I'd prefer some dev clarification. I think the line about choosing targets is set so you're not healing peeps against your will by having them take flying leaps through you.
The number of allies passing through has no bearing on the duration as written. The only thing affecting duration is how long it stays on.
The bolded section seems to indicate that the healing part only activates once per round.
Breakdown:The duration is equal to rounds per caster level.
The number you(the oracle) can heal someone by using this ability is once per round.
PS:nice avatar Brogue.
Ah, that's a very succinct breakdown, Jen. I find myself in fully in accord with your breakdown with one exception: I don't necessarily think the ability is weak, even if it only allows one heal per round. The ability to temporarily gain the elemental subtype is quite powerful. Immunity to poison, bleed, paralysis, stunning, drowning, suffocation, flanking, sleep effects, and critical hits is quite good. Depending upon the leniency of your GM, gaining then losing the subtype might even wipe poison or bleed effects, or reset your drowning/suffocation timer (honestly not sure if there's RAW supporting either side of that; I'd intended to research that next. ;-) )
We play a pretty rough game, and the ability is almost worth taking just for that, regardless of the healing (plus you just look cool :)).
And, in addition . . . not all of the revelations are necessarily the same, or even similar, in terms and scope of power. There are definitely different . . . tiers of desirability between the different available mysteries.
Either way, though, barring a direct post from an official, I think you have the right of it, so thank you very much for your quick response. :)
This, with life link or shield other is quite nice. Heal yourself while saving hit points of your allies!
Don't forget it is also a damage shield against undead and makes you immune to crits, precision-damage, and stunning. It is a very powerful ability.
No problem.
It seems to me that the oracle is very versatile. I will look into playing one someday.
I had a similar question about the wording when I played an oracle in Kingmaker. My thought was the healing from energy body could be used at most once per round in total based on the comma placement.
I originally thought it should affect all allies who pass through you...but this line made me change my mind:
You choose whether or not to heal a creature when it passes through your space.If it affected all allies, then that line would be useless.
I think that's just there to clarify that you get to choose if a creature that steps into your space gets healed, so you don't have to worry about healing your enemies. "Ally" is a descriptive term, not a mechanical one.
Ally is actually a game term. Many spells use it to refer it as the limiting factor on who can be affected by it.
I know this is off topic, but what if an undead creature has a claw, claw, bite? Would you deal 1d6 + 1CL per attack?
I once played a life oracle that got swallowed by a skeletal dragon. I started laughing and no one knew why. I used energy body and the dragon (and the GM) did not find it funny.
I originally thought it should affect all allies who pass through you...but this line made me change my mind:
You choose whether or not to heal a creature when it passes through your space.If it affected all allies, then that line would be useless.
I agree with you.
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Oracle of Life, Energy Body: How many times per round can I use this ability to heal someone?
The text says "once per round." Regardless of whether you are passing through an ally's square or an ally is passing through your square, the healing can only occur once per round.—Pathfinder Design Team, 05/09/13
The healing can only occur once per round.
FAQ: http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fn#v5748eaic9qllSorry if I'm simply being dense... but, this still seems a bit ambiguous. Could the clarification simply state that "this affects any number of allies in a given round, up to once each" or "this may only affect a single ally per round".
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The healing can only occur once per round.Oracle of Life, Energy Body: How many times per round can I use this ability to heal someone?
The text says "once per round." Regardless of whether you are passing through an ally's square or an ally is passing through your square, the healing can only occur once per round.—Pathfinder Design Team, 05/09/13
The question was How many times per round can I use this ability to heal someone. That is not the same question as how many people per round can I heal.
This still doesn't answer the question if it is once per ally per round or once period per round. The FAQ answers whether you can move over an ally and heal them, and then have them move over you and get healed again (you only get healed once per round).
It doesn't actually clarify if the ability can be used on multiple different allies, it only confirms that an individual ally can only be healed once.
From the OGC, FAQ entry on Energy Body:
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How many times per round can I use Energy Body to heal someone?
The text says "once per round." Regardless of whether you are passing through an ally's square or an ally is passing through your square, the healing can only occur once per round.
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Characters do not get rounds. They take turns during a round. If Ally A ducks through your space and gets healed, nobody else gets healed that round.
If the power was intended to be used once per ally, it would say 'once per turn'.
The healing can only occur once per round.Oracle of Life, Energy Body: How many times per round can I use this ability to heal someone?
The text says "once per round." Regardless of whether you are passing through an ally's square or an ally is passing through your square, the healing can only occur once per round.—Pathfinder Design Team, 05/09/13
The question was How many times per round can I use this ability to heal someone. That is not the same question as how many people per round can I heal.
This still doesn't answer the question if it is once per ally per round or once period per round. The FAQ answers whether you can move over an ally and heal them, and then have them move over you and get healed again (you only get healed once per round).
It doesn't actually clarify if the ability can be used on multiple different allies, it only confirms that an individual ally can only be healed once.
How are you going to heal multiple allies if "the healing can only occur once per round"?
You're not.
I've always read it as once per round per person, not just once period...
It seems clear the intent is that you can move through a line of say 8 people and heal 8 people...
It seems clear that the intent is exactly the OPPOSITE of that since it says "Once per round" AND the FAQ says "whether you are passing through an ally's square or an ally is passing through your square, the healing can only occur once per round."
The healing happens once per round. It was barely ambiguous before. Now it's not at all.
Once per round.
Period.
I've always read it as once per round per person, not just once period...
It seems clear the intent is that you can move through a line of say 8 people and heal 8 people... but you can't heal 8 people 24 times by passing through the same point repeatedly.
I never even considered it until this thread, and I still can't find an interpretation of the text that would suggest that intent.
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I'm not sure how you get that it clear.
Once per round, if you pass through a living allied creature's square or the ally passes through your square, it heals 1d6 hit points + 1 per oracle level.
The sentence above is not indicated once per round for the caster but for the one passing through or being passed through.
Oracle of Life, Energy Body: How many times per round can I use this ability to heal someone?
The text says "once per round." Regardless of whether you are passing through an ally's square or an ally is passing through your square, the healing can only occur once per round.
—Pathfinder Design Team, 05/09/13
All they clarified was that the healing can't occur for that target more than once per round, the question was "how many times can I heal someone with it" and the answer is once, it never clarified if you couldn't heal multiple targets because it doesn't need to since the original wording makes only reference to individuals.
The intent seems clear that you can fly through multiple people and heal multiple people. From a design point it fits with other abilities. From a balance point of view it's still limited to oracle levels.
Declaring impericly that you're right and it's not ambiguous is silly.
It says "once per round".
"Once per round" is not ambiguous.
Once. Singular. Uno. One time.
However you slice it, it means "only a single time per this unit of measurement lasting 6 in-game seconds we call a round".
It works once per round. Not "as many times per round as people pass through your square or you pass through theirs".
Not "once per round PER PERSON".
Once per round.
There is no ambiguity here if you understand the word "once".
What occurs? Healing.
How many times can it occur? Once.
That's it.
It says, "Once per round, X." Once X happens, that's it. As soon as you heal somebody with X, you're done.
The healing can only occur once per round.Oracle of Life, Energy Body: How many times per round can I use this ability to heal someone?
The text says "once per round." Regardless of whether you are passing through an ally's square or an ally is passing through your square, the healing can only occur once per round.—Pathfinder Design Team, 05/09/13
The question was How many times per round can I use this ability to heal someone. That is not the same question as how many people per round can I heal.
This still doesn't answer the question if it is once per ally per round or once period per round.
It does answer that question: it is once per round.
That answers both questions because if it is just once per round, there is no need to worry if it can affect one target multiple times or how many targets it cant affect. It's used one time only per round, the usage only has one target. It also doesn't matter whether or not the target is purple, if you were wondering.|
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I see the point you're making, and what you feel the FAQ is addressing, but to contend it's crystal clear is ridiculous. You and I both know that many times when a FAQ candidate has been marked as answered, it wasn't really answered and later the exact opposite was clarified once others got to looking at it.
If it's really once per round period, it's still a cool ability but it'll definatly have lost some of it's luster in my eyes.
If it's the way I'm picturing it from the wording of the phrase and the FAQ, it's not some how incredibly more powerful than your stance.
Either way it needs a clearer FAQ because the language indicates it's talking about the same target being healed multiple times cannot happen.
If the FAQ was meant to say only one 1d6+1/lvl happens only once period per round it should of said something clearer to that effect. The question was how many times can I heal someone (a person) and the answer was "once per round and only once regardless of how many times they move through" basically.
the answer in the FAQ if your stance is correct should only be "healing only occures once per round, ignore all other text after once per round except the damage healed."
IF it's only once per round including text to clarify it doesn't matter how many times a target moves through the energy body oracle is not only irrelevant but also needlessly confusing. Considering that I'm left with the option that all this does is clarify that each target can only be healed once per round but you can heal multiple people if multiple people move through you or you move through multiple people.
Either way it needs a clearer FAQ because the language indicates it's talking about the same target being healed multiple times cannot happen.
"It needs to be clearer because it very clearly disagrees with how I think it works and that can't POSSIBLY be right."
And this ability is still awesome simply because of the truckload of Immunities you get,
which is pretty rare given Pathfinder's change to Polymorph to no longer give you Type/Sub-Type.
(this just gives you Sub-Type, you remain Humanoid or whatever and in fact this is fully compatable with a simultaneous Polymorph effect)
I believe Half-Elves can now alternate Racial Favored Class Bonuses, picking extra Spells Known some levels (Human) and extra Class Level equivalent for one Revelation other levels (Elf).
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Either way it needs a clearer FAQ because the language indicates it's talking about the same target being healed multiple times cannot happen."It needs to be clearer because it very clearly disagrees with how I think it works and that can't POSSIBLY be right."
or I simply read that the clarifying information is added to clarify and that if it was as simple as it only heals once period not once per target that there'd be no need to clarify the bit about moving through.
Including that gives a strong indication that the intent is for it to be a mobile clinic that heals anyone it moves through, even if it moves through more than one person.
We disagree and raw you're probably correct, despite the ambiguous language involved here.
Hello,
A friend of mine is running an Oracle and having a bit of a problem with the Life Oracle's Energy Body ability. Specifically, we're unsure as to how many times per round the ability can be triggered, and the text is not explicit.
Does anyone have an official ruling or a RAW breakdown on how the ability should work so he can give it to his DM? For ease of assistance, I've quoted the relevant text below.
Thanks!
** spoiler omitted **
once per round...
...there'd be no need to clarify the bit about moving through...
Of course there's a reason to clarify that in the RAW, there is a major difference between automatically healing the very first living ally to pass thru you (or you pass thru them) with no choice on your part irregardless of whether they need any healing, and you choosing to apply the single usage on a subsequent ally who passes thru/is passed thru. If that clarification didn't exist, the "Once per round, if..." wording would FORCE the application of the Once/Round ability on the first living ally passing thru/etc, preventing you from using it on an ally who NEEDS the healing later in the round (on your turn or their's).
Just because you think something might be superfluous doesn't change RAW functionality. The rules are in fact superfluous in many places, that doesn't change the fact that 'Once per round' means 'once per round' and 'per ally' is never mentioned anywhere in the RAW. There's no ambiguity here, "Once per round" mean "once per round".
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Feel free to continue arguing that you think it's perfectly clear and I must be wrong.
I've stated
We disagree and raw you're probably correct, despite the ambiguous language involved hereThis doesn't change the fact that
Once per round, if you pass through a living allied creature's square or the ally passes through your square, it heals 1d6 hit points + 1 per oracle level. You may use this ability to heal yourself as a move action. You choose whether or not to heal a creature when it passes through your space.Could of been more accurately written as
An ally may move through you or you can heal yourself as a move action for 1d6+1/lvl. This can only occur once per round
If you'll note the difference is that the targets are all contained in the same sentence and aren't broken up by a second sentence and that it is clear that the intent is only one single heal for 1d6 +1/lvl is done per round.
The first and original wording leaves the intent ambiguous if it means that a creature can only be healed once per round and you may only use it as a move action to heal yourself once per round.
Regardless of your arrogant pronouncement that it's perfectly clear, the english language says that the way they puncutated it, it's not.
First off:
could of
Don't get all high and mighty by stating your superior mastery of the English language. ;)
The punctuation is just fine.
The way it's worded goes like this:
Once per round , if you pass through a living allied creature's square or the ally passes through your square , it heals 1d6 hit points + 1 per Oracle level .
You may use this ability to heal yourself as a move action .
You choose whether or not to heal a creature when it passes through your space .
There is no ambiguity here.
I see the confusion; it revolves around the overloaded term "someone". (This is why I have a love/hate relationship with the English language.)
The term "someone" in the FAQ context is a free variable. It is not bound to a particular ally at any point in the FAQ. Put another way, it isn't
"How many times per round can I use this ability to heal a given someone?"
It's
"How many times per round can I use this ability to heal any someone?"
How many times can you heal someone? Once. You can heal someone once. Once you've healed someone, that is it. If you want to heal another ally, you'll have to use the ability again.
Rynjin has done a great job breaking down the grammar. In some circumstances, it may say something about the wording of the rule if such a breakdown was necessary. It's true that the use of the word "someone" is not the least ambiguous wording of the rule. But it seems sufficient for the majority of readers to understand, and you simply aren't going to get the God-Emperors of Technical Writing to work on tabletop roleplaying games (as opposed to, say, nuclear launch systems operation guides). These folks are way better than most rules writers that I've seen, but they're still human, limited by individual perspective, space and time requirements, and other tasks competing for their attention.
Regarding that last bit: There are far greater ambiguities for the design team to work on--not to mention their regular job of, you know, designing the game. Maybe they'll revise the FAQ in light of the continued confusion, but they may not. If you don't feel the ruling is convincing enough, do it your way instead.
(settles back to await the inevitable "B-b-b-but PFS" posts)
The word "someone" isn't in the RAW, it's in the FAQ, and the RAW is unambiguous just on it's own, as Rynjin laid out. /quibble