So my group has recently gone through a fair number of changes. One of them is that we weren't able to continue meeting on our regular day and often people knew they wouldn't be able to make it each week. As a result we have a much smaller group and have been trying to keep things down to one-shots.
Since we are doing one-shots anyway, the suggestion has come up for us to become a society legal game (that and we made a few optimized but RAW characters that were able to 2 man adventures 4 levels higher than them... so some power control as well).
As I am now reading through the society rules and Traits, I came across:
your ally a +3 bonus instead of a +2 bonus
This got me thinking about interactions with Aid Another, the Order of the Dragon Cavalier, the feat: Swift Aid, and maybe even the cloistered cleric ability to aid a group instead of an individual.
Rules as Intended seems to be that the Trait is giving an additional +1 to Aid another checks. But that isn't what it is says... so how it interacts with Swift Aid is not clear. I think by RAW they don't interact and you would simply have a choice of either giving +1 as a swift action or +3 as a standard action.
The relevant Order of the Dragon Ability:
The intent again seems to be that Aid Another gives additional scaling bonuses as the cavalier levels up. RaW on this one is a bit trickier though.
Unlike the Aid Allies trait, this ability doesn't say that it replaces the normal bonus from Aid Another (though, I think that is the intent). That being the case would a second level Cavalier (Order of the Dragon), who had the Aid Allies Trait and took a standard action to Aid Another (AC) be able to give +3 to AC and +3 to hit? If he had the Swift Aid feat would he be giving +1 to AC and +3 hit as a swift action? RaW seems to say so... though again it isn't the intent, I don't think.
You could just expand the same logic out to the cloistered clerics ability... you see where this is going at this point.
So, I guess my question is how this is officially handled in Pathfinder Society play. In my home game, I could rule it a variety of different ways based on perceived intent... but we can't do that with Society play. So how would other GM's (judges?) handle this?
Sean Mahoney
I guess to formalize the questions a bit more:
IN PATHFINDER SOCIETY or by RaW:
1) How do the Swift Aid Feat and Aid Allies Trait interact?
2) How do the Order of the Dragon Cavalier ability, Aid Allies and the Swift Aid feat interact?
3) How do the Order of the Dragon Cavalier ability, Aid Allies and the Aid Allies trait interact?
4) What if a Cavalier has all three?
Bonus Question:
On a related note, for some abilities the caster or initiator counts as an ally. Is this the case for Aid Another?
Typically it would make no difference as it is a standard ability, but I could see this being advantageous as a swift action... perhaps even as a standard action instead of full defense for a sufficiently high level Cavalier.
Sean Mahoney
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This is a question I've never been able to get answered myself, and I have a cavalier who uses a similar build.
By RAW, you are always supposed to line up abilities so they give you the best advantage (ie: halving Fireball w/ a Reflex save before applying energy resistance, etc.); by extension one could interpret that the highest Aid Another bonus applies regardless of if the Aid Another was standard, move (Gang-Up Feat), or swift (Swift Aid Feat).
As a RAI, and as a player/GM who doesn't want to abuse the rules too much, I interpret Swift Aid as having meant you give aid at a -1 penalty; this means that if you aid for +4 normally, you would swift aid at +3. You could interpret the trait in the same way, but I view it as a ability that would overlap with Order of the Dragon (not stack with).
For the Bonus Question: Aid Another reads "another ally" so you cannot aid yourself... though you can aid your mount :-p
Since the aid another states it only works as long as it happens before your next turn, it is reasonable to say that this is the same... even by RAW.
Sean Mahoney