Phylactery of Positive Channelling


Rules Questions

Scarab Sages

previously my merciful healer bought a phylactery of Positive Channeling - recently, because the language of the device days it increases the damage done to undead in channeling by +2d6, I was told that I might not be allowed to use it because the character cannot do damage to undead through channeling (it also indicates the extra dice goes for healing - but the emphasis on the item is damage to undead.

Is this true, did I buy an illegal item for my character

TIA


This item allows channelers of positive energy to increase the amount of damage dealt to undead creatures by +2d6. This also increases the amount of damage healed by living creatures.

so yes it heals the living more and damages undead more.

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

It's not illegal for you. Essentially, it has two abilities, but you simply can't use one of them.

The Exchange

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This is a rules question, but it says it works either way. You were told you might not be allowed to use it. I doubt that many GMs are so well-versed on this issue that they'd call you on it. You have two ways to handle it:

1) This is a non-issue, so relax and play the game. It works as you believed. If some rules-lawyer GM wants to play the semantics game, then you oblige them and don't add the extra 2d6 in the spirit of moving the game along.

2) Any time you play under a new GM you bring it up at the beginning of the game and ask them to rule whether you can use it or not.

Personally I would do #1. The item is not 'illegal' in either respect.

Grand Lodge

The character can't do damage to undead by channeling positive energy, is this correct?

If that's correct, increasing his positive energy output, will still mean you can't channel against undead.

This item only increases how much positive energy you can channel. If your class is limited to not being able to harm undead, this item will not change your class restriction.


Dhjika wrote:

previously my merciful healer bought a phylactery of Positive Channeling - recently, because the language of the device days it increases the damage done to undead in channeling by +2d6, I was told that I might not be allowed to use it because the character cannot do damage to undead through channeling (it also indicates the extra dice goes for healing - but the emphasis on the item is damage to undead.

Is this true, did I buy an illegal item for my character

TIA

I think there's three different questions at play here:

1) Is it legal for your character to purchase the item?
Absolutely. It's a legal item whether your character can use it or not. Even if your character does not channel energy, you could quite easily carry around the phylactery, let a cleric use it during a scenario, and get it back a the end of the scenario. It's mechanically no different from fighters who carry around wands of cure light wounds. (It's significantly more expensive, though, and I can't imagine anyone actually wanting to do this...)

2) Can your character use the item to increase the channel dice when you channel to heal?
Yes. It says so explicitly, right there in the item description. It does not matter whether it was the first sentence or the last sentence, whether it was the main purpose of the item or added as an afterthought. It's there, so you can use it. (The only reason this would be an issue is if there were some indication that the statement in question was a typo or if there was some errata about the item. I am not aware of anything like this, though.)

3) Can your character use the item to channel to harm undead?
This is an interesting question. Depending on the exact wording of your archetype's channel ability and how it aligns with the exact wording of the item, you could theoretically argue that the phylactery increases your "channel to harm" dice from 0d6 to 2d6. My first instinct is no: this reading of the item is neither RAW or RAI, but I'm willing to admit that the answer could vary from class to class and archetype to archetype. For example, could cleric or paladin archetypes that trade out channel energy use the phylactery to get it back? Probably not, but I could be wrong.

Did I hit the actual question you were asking?

Scarab Sages

Gwen Smith wrote:

TIA

I think there's three different questions at play here:

The issue was that since the primary purpose of the item was to harm undead with a secondary effect of healing others, that since I could not do the first, I could not get the second.


As mentioned, the item is legal to buy and wear whether you can use it or not.

The item NOWHERE states that one usage or the other is "primary" and the other is "secondary".
That doesn't really matter though, because what matters is if either function is subordinated to the function of the other,
such that you need to be able to do one in order to do the other. Anybody throwing around justifications of "primary or secondary usage"
is just demonstrating that they are pulling stuff out of their ass and don't have a handle on what the RAW states.

More importantly, there is no subordination of the second sentence to the first. The item description says:

Quote:

This item allows channelers of positive energy to increase the amount of damage dealt to undead creatures by +2d6.

This also increases the amount of damage healed by living creatures.

There is no subordination, it just says it allows certain people to do X and separately states that Y also happens to certain creatures : the subject of the sentences aren't even the same, the first's subject is the channeler, the second's subject is the targets of a healing channel. Technically, the latter sentence could be better worded since it doesn't state the amount of the healing increase [is the same amount] or that it is restricted to modifying positive channels.

If we replaced the second sentence with "this also grants the wearer a +10 armor bonus", a fighter who cannot channel energy at all would also gain that effect, as it's not subjugated to utilizing the first sentence... And in the first place, the subject of the first sentence is not itself "only positive energy channelers who can damage undead", the subject of that sentence is "positive energy channelers" and what that first sentence allows just happens to meaningless if you can't already damage undead (in order to benefit from an increase to that damage). That's just the standard meaning per the English language when you craft separate sentences with the second starting with "This also [does]...". If you want to tie it to a requirement of utilizing the first sentence, there are ways to actually do that, grammatically. That wasn't done here.

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