Chemlak wrote: Time for a reductio ad absurdum:***
I really, really, really, REALLY can't see that scenario being an intended consequence of the text of the spell.
This scenario was essentially suggested by Malachi. I agree with you. In the context of the game, I believe that "move" is synonymous with "has a turn." So electing not to move, or being unable to move, still ends the spell after the last person in the coupling has taken their turn that round. Nor do I think the chance to catch up, so to speak, extends beyond a single round.
Yes, someone could literally argue that both players have to "move." Just like someone could argue that "you" have to move and that if someone moves you, it doesn't count. I'm not suggesting either one of those interpretations. One can argue all manners of things with games like these because language often lacks precision, even when it's clear in the author's head.
What I think is important to understand is that if I'm right, it just means the spell works the same when the GM goes to turn based movement as it does when not moving in turns. I'm simply positing that the spell's authors recognize that turn based movement would artificially cancel the spell if we don't give the other creature a chance to move back into range. As I stated before, even out of combat, we have to take our moves sequentially. So this is about the nature of the spell and the nature of how we play the game, coupled with very specific and unique language in the spell description. I haven't seen another spell which I think makes the same allowance.
To use my own argumentum ad absurdum, as soon as you cast the spell, you can never take a double move again and both subject and target have to slinky their way around...for the next hour or more. The spell would be silly if we don't provide a work around for turn based movement. Grant it, there are plenty of oversights in the 3.5/PF rule set, so if it is an oversight or the author really didn't think about it, it wouldn't be the first time.
Here's something I'll share which you may find interesting. In 3.5, the Share Spell ability is worded differently. Here's what it says,
3.5 SRD wrote: Share Spells (Ex)
At the druid’s option, she may have any spell (but not any spell-like ability) she casts upon herself also affect her animal companion. The animal companion must be within 5 feet of her at the time of casting to receive the benefit. If the spell or effect has a duration other than instantaneous, it stops affecting the animal companion if the companion moves farther than 5 feet away and will not affect the animal again, even if it returns to the druid before the duration expires.
The way Share Spells is written in 3.5, once you cast a non-instantaneous spell, Druid and AC are forced to slinky around. I think that's a major oversight. I noticed that PF got rid of this aspect of Share Spell. You have to wonder if it was because it was nonsensical for it to work this way. It would be great to find some post on the topic, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone point it out.
As I said to others, thanks for responding.
N N 959 wrote: The way Share Spells is written in 3.5, once you cast a non-instantaneous spell, Druid and AC are forced to slinky around. I think that's a major oversight. I noticed that PF got rid of this aspect of Share Spell. You have to wonder if it was because it was nonsensical for it to work this way. It would be great to find some post on the topic, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone point it out. They didn't get rid of it, actually. They just split it up. Share Spells in Pathfinder lets you cast a spell on your companion or on yourself, so there's no 'slinky' there; however, Improved Share Spell functions like the original Share Spell (uses almost identical wording: "If the spell or effect has a duration other than instantaneous, it stops affecting the creature if it moves farther than 5 feet away from you.") in that you cast it once on yourself and it also affects your companion as long as he remains within 5 feet of you.
There is a bit of difference here: Although the RAW technically says that companions go on their own initiative (see the "Animals and their Tricks" article on the PF blog), in most circumstances GMs assume the companion will go on the same initiative as the master (if for no other reason than the master usually has to give the companion a command before it will do anything).
So the fact that they are acting on the same initiative may have some impact on the ease of maintaining such a spell.
Personally, this is what I do (house rule) if people want to maintain spells like Shield Other - one of the two has to delay initiative and match with the other person, and then their 'moves' can be coordinated.
Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't even know about IPS. I am very curious how PF sees this working in combat, per RAW. I'm curious what the rationale is behind a spell that imposes 5' distance restriction?
Quote: So the fact that they are acting on the same initiative may have some impact on the ease of maintaining such a spell. Since Paizo didn't come up with this rule, and as you point out, took it verbatim from 3.5, I should point out that 3.5 also mandates that animals have their own init. And while they often act after given commands (essentially a Delay), they can act on their own.
Quote: Personally, this is what I do... I should hope most GMs would employ some interpretation or mechanism which allows two targets to keep the spell up in-combat. I was actually going to advocate your approach much earlier on in this thread when looking at the Bean Pole example, but technically, a bad guy could Delay to act between the two. Would you then force the first person to Delay again? But I do agree that if both move consecutively, you'll reduce the chance for wonky outcomes.
I appreciate that you're attempting to get it to make sense; a worthy goal.
As far as I can tell, what you advocate is that the first of the linked pair has their turn, but the distance between them is not checked until after the second guy has his turn. If the second guy ends up within range of the first guy then the spell is still going, but if he ends up out of range then the spell ends at that point.
If this is the case, it has its own problems.
What if the first guy (the monk from the previous example) runs 480-feet away on his turn. The second guy hasn't had his turn yet so the range is not checked. This means that if the monk gets attacked the shield other spell is still working, despite being hundreds of feet away!
The second guy could be wearing full plate and only be able to run 60-feet, tops! He can't hope to be back in range after his own turn, but the spell is still going strong!
He might take a very different route to end up in the same place, so even with simultaneous movement and even with both guys ending their moves adjacent, they could have been out of range during that simultaneous movement.
The second guy might have no intention of even moving in the same direction! With simultaneous movement, one could go east and the other west, but with your rule the spell would still be going strong until the second guy finishes his turn.
It seems that your 'solution' simply changes one set of oddities for another set.
First, I completely agree with your observations. Based on RAW, one person can move 400ft and be subject to an attack before the other has to move. Per RAW we would resolve that attack and damage before the other moved. This is, no doubt, why many advocate a requirement that the first to move Delays to move before/after the second...to avoid this outcome. However, even so doing, we might still encounter the problem you've illustrated.
My response is that if we remember that technically, all the actions happen simultaneously, then this reality cuts both ways. If one subject moves such that we know the other subject cannot get back in range, then the spell ends immediately. Why? Because both are considered to have moved together. So even if the other person hasn't taken their turn, we already know that when their turn happens they won't be in range.
The only other problem is if the other subject intends to move into range and then does not, for whatever reason. If a player were using this spell and they communicated their intent to maintain the distance while taking normal moves. Then, in the few cases where something happened as soon as someone moved, I'd keep track of the damage/attack roll. If the subject did not move back in range I'd retcon the previous outcome.
Grant it, there could be some metagaming here by the second person to move, but the rules generally aren't written to specifically stop metagaming. I would also think player and GM could resolve a plausible outcome and the player would agree not to metagame or accept a GM's fiat in such cases.
Malachi Silverclaw wrote: It seems that your 'solution' simply changes one set of oddities for another set. Yes and no. Every rule has some rough edges where a specific or unusual circumstance result in the game getting figuratively snagged or hung up. While my interpretation may not have the sharp edges and cleaner cuts of the conventional approach, I believe the piece fits the overall puzzle better. It's important to remember that I'm only advocating that the spell description allows for two targets to do what they do out of combat, in combat: Move per the rules and maintain their proximity. I'm not advocating a change or fix, but an understanding that makes the spell congruous in and out of combat.
N N 959 wrote:
The only other problem is if the other subject intends to move into range and then does not, for whatever reason. If a player were using this spell and they communicated their intent to maintain the distance while taking normal moves. Then, in the few cases where something happened as soon as someone moved, I'd keep track of the damage/attack roll. If the subject did not move back in range I'd retcon the previous outcome.
And what happens when A moves away, the BBEG smacks A but because of shield other A is still safe, 2 other PC's and 5 mooks take their actions based on that outcome, then B decides not to (or because of the way the mooks moved can't - or he gets tripped or fails to cast dimension door defensively, or any number of others things). Do you backtrack everyones moves and start over from A taking lethal damage from the BBEG?
And if you do and the redo of everyone leaves B free to actually move to A like he intended you are now in a paradox.
Players and NPC's need to be able to take their turns based on known outcomes of previous actions.
bbangerter wrote: N N 959 wrote:
The only other problem is if the other subject intends to move into range and then does not, for whatever reason. If a player were using this spell and they communicated their intent to maintain the distance while taking normal moves. Then, in the few cases where something happened as soon as someone moved, I'd keep track of the damage/attack roll. If the subject did not move back in range I'd retcon the previous outcome.
And what happens when A moves away, the BBEG smacks A but because of shield other A is still safe, 2 other PC's and 5 mooks take their actions based on that outcome, then B decides not to (or because of the way the mooks moved can't - or he gets tripped or fails to cast dimension door defensively, or any number of others things). Do you backtrack everyones moves and start over from A taking lethal damage from the BBEG?
And if you do and the redo of everyone leaves B free to actually move to A like he intended you are now in a paradox.
Players and NPC's need to be able to take their turns based on known outcomes of previous actions. Yeah, I can't imagine a PFS DM making 'Schrodinger's rulings', even with the best will in the world.
At least everyone knows where they are (literally and figuratively) with the concept of the spell ending the moment the targets are far enough apart.
bbangerter wrote:
And what happens when A moves away, the BBEG smacks A but because of shield other A is still safe, 2 other PC's and 5 mooks take their actions based on that outcome, then B decides not to (or because of the way the mooks moved can't - or he gets tripped or fails to cast dimension door defensively, or any number of others things). Do you backtrack everyones moves and start over from A taking lethal damage from the BBEG?
And if you do and the redo of everyone leaves B free to actually move to A like he intended you are now in a paradox.
Players and NPC's need to be able to take their turns based on known outcomes of previous actions.
Yeah, that might bet a little tricky. Kind of like when people forget they have AoO's and the GM has to go back and roll them. Or when people remember their AC was higher or lower for some reason and the GM has to go back and fix it. Or when the GM forgets to tell someone something crucial and the GM has to rewind the combat. Happens a lot in games I've played.
However, I agree with others that it would make sense that if two people are communicated their intent to coordinate their actions, the first person always Delays until after the second person. This probably eliminates the likelihood of the above scenario by an order of magnitude if not two or three.
As a GM, if you know two people are under this spell, it's not difficult to anticipate the binary outcome of the spell applying or not. It's not like the GM has no idea that the spell might get broken.
I agree it's a lot simpler to just refuse to let two people tied together to ever move more than the length of their rope. I'm sure inexperienced GMs will go that route. It's also a lot simpler to ignore flanking attacks, AoO's, Cover, Soft Cover, distance restrictions on Hoping Up, Grapple modifiers, and any other number of things that complicate the game. YMMV.
If the two targets of the spell happen to be next to each other in initiative order it would be easy to deal with. Requiring one of them to delay so that they are next to each other in init is not an appropriate way to handle the spell (sounds like something an inexperienced GM would require... :).
As a long time player and GM I'm perfectly capable handling complex rules and interactions. If I want more realistic simulations of something I'm perfectly capable of house ruling them in. But RAW stops at that point. Forgetting a detail (like a point of armor, or when my paladin player forgot he had a blur spell going so shouldn't have been hit for 63 points of damage) is one thing, believing a ability was purposely designed to have that kind of potential retconning built into it... I'm not buying it.
Given that for every thing else in combat a players actions are completely resolved when the players turn ends, it is pretty tenuous to suggest that this one spell was intended to operate outside of that mold, particularly basing it off the use of word 'and' instead of 'or'. If the intent was really to break that mold this is the one place they should have really spelled out the divergence instead of leaving it up to reader interpretation of a conjunction word.
Could it be clarified on its intended operation? Sure. But I don't believe it needs to be, it is sufficiently clear as stands.
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