Fast Learner: What exactly are our options?


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Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

105 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Staff response: no reply required. 4 people marked this as a favorite.

Fast Learner: If I have this feat, what exactly are my choices when I gain a level in my favored class?

The relevant text:
"When you gain a level in a favored class, you gain both +1 hit point and +1 skill rank instead of choosing either one or the other benefit or you can choose an alternate class reward."

Grammatically, this feat gives you two options when you gain a level:
1) "you gain both +1 hit point and +1 skill rank instead of choosing either one or the other benefit"
OR
2) "you can choose an alternate class reward"

However, a great many people fervently believe the feat's intent is that you can choose any 2 from among the three bonuses of HP, SP, or alternate class reward. Some suggest that the current wording supports this idea, though I don't see it (and have yet to see the sentence parsed, without the removal/addition of words, in a way to support it).

In any case, it's a hot topic. Can we get it settled? Please flag for FAQing. Thanks!

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. 2 people marked this as a favorite.

FAQed (even though I agree that it is unambiguously worded in exactly the manner you have interpreted it).


my human mage pick up fast learner and all the ppl say the something 1) or 2) but if you are using race guide there more options

Chaoskin

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

I agree too (although I wish you hadn't substituted the wording "racial alternate" for "alternate class reward")

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

JohnF wrote:
I agree too (although I wish you hadn't substituted the wording "racial alternate" for "alternate class reward")

Fixed.

And wow, 12 FAQ clicks in a matter of minutes.


Well.. The sentence is very obviously telling us that if you choose alternate class reward you get none of the other bonuses. But it seems very silly, and could EASILY be a mistake.


There is already a thread with 69 FAQs on it regading Fast Learner

Even though I also rule the conservative route (A+B or C only) when interpreting this feat I would just like clarification either way.

This posting is phrased with your interpretation of how Fast Learner should be.

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Shivok wrote:
There is already a thread with 69 FAQs on it regading Fast Learner

Except that thread was marked "Answered in the FAQ", which means it's no longer in the design team's FAQ queue. It also might mean they thought the question was unclear or some such thing.


Ahh.. That may be the case I'll FAQ this one too.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

The thing is: you can *already* select an alternate racial favored class bonus without the feat, so if the feat doesn't allow you to take it in combination with another favored class bonus, there is *no reason whatsoever* for the feat to mention it.

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Revan wrote:
The thing is: you can *already* select an alternate racial favored class bonus without the feat, so if the feat doesn't allow you to take it in combination with another favored class bonus, there is *no reason whatsoever* for the feat to mention it.

If the feat said "you can gain both +1HP/+1skill" and stopped without mentioning the alternate, people would think the feat took away that option, so they had to mention that it was still available.


Without this feat your choices upon gaining a level are:
a) +1 HP
b) +1 SP
c) +1 alternate

I expect with the feat RAI is choose any two, instead of choose any one, but they must be different choices. e.g, you cannot choose AA, BB, or CC. Though the exact wording makes it look like CC could be an option. Adding my FAQ.


(You choose +1 HP and +1SP instead of one or the other) or (you choose an alternate favored bonus)

The first part, +1 HP and SP, specifies that you get that instead of a choice between the two. The second part, however, does not specify that you choose an alternate favored bonus instead of either +1 HP or +1 SP. So, your choices are as follows:

1) +1 HP and SP
2) (+1 HP or +1 SP) and favored
3) (favored) and favored <-possibly

The third option is because you always have the option to swap the decision between +1 HP or +1 SP for the favored bonus so you're doing that in the equation from option 2, swapping the +1 one or the other in parentheses for a single favored bonus and then also taking the favored bonus outside the parentheses.

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Kazaan wrote:

(You choose +1 HP and +1SP instead of one or the other) or (you choose an alternate favored bonus)

The first part, +1 HP and SP, specifies that you get that instead of a choice between the two. The second part, however, does not specify that you choose an alternate favored bonus instead of either +1 HP or +1 SP. So, your choices are as follows:

1) +1 HP and SP
2) (+1 HP or +1 SP) and favored
3) (favored) and favored <-possibly

The third option is because you always have the option to swap the decision between +1 HP or +1 SP for the favored bonus so you're doing that in the equation from option 2, swapping the +1 one or the other in parentheses for a single favored bonus and then also taking the favored bonus outside the parentheses.

You just declared that a PC with this feat no longer has "+1 HP or +1 SP" but then included it as part of the packing in #2. Your position is self-contradictory.


What I think Kazaan said (and intended) about removing the option applies only to the first sentence of the feat, not the feat as a whole. If you choose +1 HP and +1 SP you lose the 'either\or' (obviously); if you choose the racial FCB then you get it, plus you choose between +1 HP or +1 SP.

1. +1 HP and +1 SP
2. +1 HP and FCB
3. +1 SP and FCB
4. FCB and FCB (possibly - only an option really with half-elves)

Dark Archive

Assume A=HP, B=SP, and C=other favored class choice.

The feat reads perfectly clear to me. You can choose AB or C. Without the feat you can choose A or B or C.


Victor Zajic wrote:

Assume A=HP, B=SP, and C=other favored class choice.

The feat reads perfectly clear to me. You can choose AB or C. Without the feat you can choose A or B or C.

If A = HP, B = SP, C = FCB, you normally have the choice of (A or B) or C. Fast Learner gives you the choice of two separate benefits; 1) Replace (A or B) with (A and B) or 2) take a C in addition to [(A or B) or C] (because the option to take C doesn't carry an "instead of" clause. So your final options boil down as follows:

1) Without Fast Learner
(A or B) or C
2) Fast Learner first option
(A and B) or C <- note, while you could pick just C in this option, that'd be stupid.
Fast Learner second option
3) [(A or B) or C] and C <- In this case, you get a C automatically and then you also get a choice of either A, B, or C in addition, though you can't really take C twice unless you have more than 1 favored class and it's legal to take a favored bonus from a different class than the one you're leveling in.


Xaratherus wrote:
4. FCB and FCB (possibly - only an option really with half-elves)

If option four was to become a legitimate choice for the feat, I think I'd actually really start to look at it for some half-orcs and half-elves instead of sticking with my standard position of "just take toughness".

Silver Crusade

Nowhere does it say that the word "or" means "exclusive or". So I think the developers must have intended the options to be:

1. 1 hp
2. 1 sp
3. 1 acr
4. 1 hp AND 1 sp
5. 2 hp
6. 2 sp
7. 2 acr
8. 1 hp AND 1 acr
9. 1 sp AND 1 acr
10. 1 hp AND 1 sp AND 1 acr
11. 3 hp.

If they would have written it in Boolean, it would be easy. A & B v C = (A&B) v C.

&:= AND
v:= XOR

Order of operations


Except that we're not dealing with a Boolean operation here.

It is raining or the sprinklers are running. This could be a Boolean operation as it will return True if either or both operands is true. We're not dealing with that in this feat; we're dealing with the ability to choose between two options and or serves as a grammatical conjunction rather than a Boolean operator; you choose either A or B. The caveat is that only A excludes the default choice of HP or SP as an option; B does not.

Silver Crusade

It is still Boolean.

As you have pointed out, there are two logical connectives associated with the English word "or": conjunction (OR); and exclusive conjunction (XOR). Both of which follow AND in the ordering of logical operators.

We have the statement,

Quote:
You may choose A AND B "or" C.

There are only two ways to interpret that "or": either as an OR; or as an XOR.

As an OR:

Quote:
You may choose A AND B OR C.

This allows you to choose from the set (A AND B) OR C, which is equivalent to the following choices:

1. A AND B.
2. C.
3. A AND B AND C (since OR allows the possibility of both).

I am guessing we can all agree that the feat wasn't intended to provide choice 3, else it would have simply made that the default. Therefore, I believe this to be an XOR:

Quote:
You may choose A AND B XOR C.

This allows you to choose from the set (A AND B) XOR C, which is equivalent to the following choices:

1. A AND B.
2. C.
There is no possibility of both.

Those who are interpreting this sentence to allow choices such as A AND C, for example, are predicating that interpretation on a misunderstanding of order of operations between AND and XOR (or even OR)

Disjunction (AND) precedes conjunction (OR, XOR).


How do people have trouble interpreting this correctly? You either get:

A. +1 HP and +1 skill point

or

B. An alternate reward

Where is the confusion? This should be obvious even with grade school level reading comprehension.

Liberty's Edge

I am with the crowd of you get +1 1 hp and 1 SP or you get only the alternate class reward. FAQed.


Alternate bonuses aren't particularly powerful, per level (since they take 2-4 levels to gain benefit), so I'm in the "pick any two, but not the same twice" camp.


Robert A Matthews wrote:

How do people have trouble interpreting this correctly? You either get:

A. +1 HP and +1 skill point

or

B. An alternate reward

Where is the confusion? This should be obvious even with grade school level reading comprehension.

The confusion is that it's virtually a non-benefit if read the most obvious way.

You can always select the alternate reward, so the HP, or SP, or Alternate goes without saying. And there's not really much benefit to taking this over Toughness if all it lets you do is take the HP & the SP. At lower levels, Toughness is unquestionably better and it's the same after level 2. Theoretically you could take both and get +2 HP per level, but that's hardly worth it.

On the other hand, if you can take any two of the three there's a legitimate benefit.

So yes, the clear and obvious reading is as you have stated it. The question keeps coming up because there's virtually no point to the feat if that's actually the way it's intended to work.

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

fretgod99 wrote:
...there's virtually no point to the feat if that's actually the way it's intended to work.

In addition to stacking with Toughness, it also serves as a prereq for other feats.


Jiggy wrote:
fretgod99 wrote:
...there's virtually no point to the feat if that's actually the way it's intended to work.
In addition to stacking with Toughness, it also serves as a prereq for other feats.

I mentioned stacking with Toughness (which I don't think is a particularly great benefit for a feat). As for being a prerequisite, that simply means it's quite literally a feat tax. And the feats for which it's a prerequisite are hardly worth the feat tax. Improvisation is pretty solid, but it's hardly worth two feats on its own, unless that first feats gives some benefit that means taking that feat might actually be worth it.

YMMV. *shrug*


I understand the concept of feat taxes, but to be honest I dislike and disagree with them. If you look at a feat and find yourself saying, "I'd never take that feat - but I really want the one that comes after it," then the earlier feat is just a bad feat.

I'm not saying that's the case here - I just don't find "It's a prerequisite," to be a compelling argument.


It isn't a compelling arguement. But just because we are unsatisfied with how it is run doesn't mean that we can change RAW willynilly. We can however suggest a change to the feat.
Personally speaking I'm in the camp of you get +1 hp AND sp OR 1 alternate reward by RAW.
I would however never enforce RAW on this feat, and I'd let people pick any two just not the same twice (or maybe I could be convinced to allow that aswell).


"you gain both +1 hit point and +1 skill rank instead of choosing either one or the other benefit or you can choose an alternate class reward"

remove the filling:

"you gain both +1 hit point and +1 skill rank or you can choose an alternate class reward"

My reading:
either "choose 2 of 3" or "+1hp and +1SR/ACR"

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

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fretgod99 wrote:
As for being a prerequisite, that simply means it's quite literally a feat tax.

Sure, but being a feat tax doesn't mean the feat works differently than it says in order to NOT be a feat tax. The people who think Combat Expertise is a feat tax don't use that belief to justify an "interpretation" whereby the AC bonus increases while the attack penalty remains static. The feat does what it says, for good or ill.

Silver Crusade

Argent Snow wrote:

"you gain both +1 hit point and +1 skill rank instead of choosing either one or the other benefit or you can choose an alternate class reward"

remove the filling:

"you gain both +1 hit point and +1 skill rank or you can choose an alternate class reward"

My reading:
either "choose 2 of 3" or "+1hp and +1SR/ACR"

Regarding your first interpretation, please explain how to parse the sentence

Quote:
You get A AND B OR C.

so as to get to

Quote:
You get A AND B, OR A AND C, OR B AND C.

I could possibly understand and forgive your second interpretation. However, when parsing statements, disjunction (AND) always precedes conjunction (OR). It is a rule of logic. Much in the same way that multiplication always precedes addition in arithmetic.

If I said you could ride with John or Kelly and Mary, you should understand that Mary and Kelly are riding together no matter which car you pick, not you and Mary. In English, we have a method of emphasizing that ordering, namely by restating the action;

Quote:
You can ride with John, or you can ride with Kelly and Mary
Quote:
You can choose A and B, or you can choose C.

Fortunately for us in this case, Paizo has done exactly that for the sentence in question.


Jiggy wrote:
fretgod99 wrote:
As for being a prerequisite, that simply means it's quite literally a feat tax.
Sure, but being a feat tax doesn't mean the feat works differently than it says in order to NOT be a feat tax. The people who think Combat Expertise is a feat tax don't use that belief to justify an "interpretation" whereby the AC bonus increases while the attack penalty remains static. The feat does what it says, for good or ill.

I'm not disagreeing with how the language actually works. I said it'd literally be a feat tax because I don't see any real utility beyond, "but you can take feats after it". Combat Expertise may provide a benefit not a lot of people make use of, but it allows you to do something that you couldn't do before, or at the very least, lets you do something you could already do much better, and its benefit isn't completely mirrored by an already existent feat.

Here the benefit is either something you could already do (alt. favored class bonus) or something done better by another feat (Toughness). But then you can take another feat after it. So even if Combat Expertise is seen as a feat tax, there's a quantifiable benefit beyond letting you get the stuff that comes after.

So I'm not disagreeing with how it actually works, I'm simply saying how I think it should work so it's actually useful.


So people are FAQing this feat not because of an unclear rule but because the feat appears to be a weak choice?


Robert A Matthews wrote:
So people are FAQing this feat not because of an unclear rule but because the feat appears to be a weak choice?

By in large, yes. It's either badly written and should be clarified, or it's a nearly useless feat that amounts to "Extra Toughness" and acts as the prerequisite to more weak feats. (Having a high Int requirement for feats that are most useful for characters that don't have very many skill points is odd at best.)


Robert A Matthews wrote:
So people are FAQing this feat not because of an unclear rule but because the feat appears to be a weak choice?

The reason the feat is being FAQed is that even though it is clear what RAW is, everyone thinks that the intended function of the feat is something else than RAW says it is.


Funny that Devs chime in many different posts, but in this instance no one has chimed in any of the previous threads written on this subject.

cest la vie

Liberty's Edge

Lifat wrote:
Robert A Matthews wrote:
So people are FAQing this feat not because of an unclear rule but because the feat appears to be a weak choice?
The reason the feat is being FAQed is that even though it is clear what RAW is, everyone thinks that the intended function of the feat is something else than RAW says it is.

Of people that don't have any problem with the feat click FAQ in the hope of for stopping people that have problems with it from spamming this thread every other week.

Not that it will work, even if it was FAQed people that dislike it will still spam threads about it.
If you don't like the feat, why you care about it? There are hundred of other feats to choose.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

This feat is like antagonize, but only usable on forumites.


Robert A Matthews wrote:

How do people have trouble interpreting this correctly? You either get:

A. +1 HP and +1 skill point

or

B. An alternate reward

Where is the confusion? This should be obvious even with grade school level reading comprehension.

People have trouble interpreting it for the same reason people had trouble interpreting whether Sol goes around Earth or vice versa. The "obvious" answer, arrived at through shallow reading and cognitive bias, are that you get to take +1 HP and +1 SP, but it offers no benefit when taking an alternate reward; this is analogous to saying Sol goes around Earth because, when standing on Earth, it appears that Sol is moving around us. But if you read it rigorously and remove the cognitive bias, we see it for what it really is:

You normally get the choice between (+1 HP or +1 SP) or +1 Alt [note: the parentheses are important, pay attention to them]. Provision A of the feat offers you the option to replace (+1 HP or +1 SP) with (+1 HP and +1 SP). This makes your choice between (+1 HP and +1 SP) or +1 Alt. Provision B says, take an alternate reward. That does nothing to change or replace your normal, default option of (+1 HP or +1 SP) or +1 Alt; it's entirely in addition to it in the same way that a Monk's bonus feats are in addition to feats he'd take by level. If it doesn't say it's replacing anything, then it's a stand-alone bonus in addition to what you'd normally get.

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Kazaan wrote:
You normally get the choice between (+1 HP or +1 SP) or +1 Alt [note: the parentheses are important, pay attention to them].

Where are those important parentheses coming from? I presume you can back up your claim that it's "(+1 HP or +1 SP) or +1 Alt" and not "+1 HP or +1 SP or +1 Alt"? Because if you can't, that's gonna be awfully hard on your rigorous and unbiased theory.

EDIT: Also, drawing parallels between "people who disagree with me" and "people who think Sol orbits Earth" is pretty high on the dick scale.


Jiggy wrote:
Kazaan wrote:
You normally get the choice between (+1 HP or +1 SP) or +1 Alt [note: the parentheses are important, pay attention to them].

Where are those important parentheses coming from? I presume you can back up your claim that it's "(+1 HP or +1 SP) or +1 Alt" and not "+1 HP or +1 SP or +1 Alt"? Because if you can't, that's gonna be awfully hard on your rigorous and unbiased theory.

EDIT: Also, drawing parallels between "people who disagree with me" and "people who think Sol orbits Earth" is pretty high on the dick scale.

First:

PRD wrote:
As in the previous section, what is presented here is a set of alternative benefits that characters of each race may choose instead of the normal benefits for their favored class. Thus, rather than taking an extra hit point or an extra skill rank, players may choose for their characters to gain the benefit listed here.

Characters... may choose instead of the normal benefits for their favored class. What is the normal benefit for taking a favored class? You get to pick either +1 HP or +1 SP. So you either get the normal choice between +1 HP or +1 SP... OR... you get an alternate bonus. (+1 HP or +1 SP) or alt bonus.

Second:

PRD wrote:
Benefit: When you gain a level in a favored class, you gain both +1 hit point and +1 skill rank instead of choosing either one or the other benefit or you can choose an alternate class reward.

You gain both +1 HP and +1 SP instead of either one or the other benefit. That's two places, first when they introduced the alt bonuses and second in the Fast Learner feat, where they specify that +1 HP or +1 SP is considered the "normal choice" and is taken as a unit and the alternate bonus is a second option to that first option. Thus: (A or B) or C. I only take issue with people who disagree with me when they are irrational about it. If someone can come up with a truly compelling argument as to why it works the way they claim, as I have, that's fine. But the crux of all the counter-positions I've seen here thus far amount to, "it's obvious". The obvious solution isn't necessarily the correct one, Pope Urban. Moreover, if it does turn out that I'm wrong, I at least arrived at the wrong conclusion by logical methods and the fault was in the premises due to the RAW not sufficiently conveying the RAI. I'd rather be wrong by rationality than right by happenstance.


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Guys, if it were clear, there wouldn't be so many damn threads about it.


Kazaan wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
Kazaan wrote:
You normally get the choice between (+1 HP or +1 SP) or +1 Alt [note: the parentheses are important, pay attention to them].

Where are those important parentheses coming from? I presume you can back up your claim that it's "(+1 HP or +1 SP) or +1 Alt" and not "+1 HP or +1 SP or +1 Alt"? Because if you can't, that's gonna be awfully hard on your rigorous and unbiased theory.

EDIT: Also, drawing parallels between "people who disagree with me" and "people who think Sol orbits Earth" is pretty high on the dick scale.

First:

PRD wrote:
As in the previous section, what is presented here is a set of alternative benefits that characters of each race may choose instead of the normal benefits for their favored class. Thus, rather than taking an extra hit point or an extra skill rank, players may choose for their characters to gain the benefit listed here.

Characters... may choose instead of the normal benefits for their favored class. What is the normal benefit for taking a favored class? You get to pick either +1 HP or +1 SP. So you either get the normal choice between +1 HP or +1 SP... OR... you get an alternate bonus. (+1 HP or +1 SP) or alt bonus.

Second:

PRD wrote:
Benefit: When you gain a level in a favored class, you gain both +1 hit point and +1 skill rank instead of choosing either one or the other benefit or you can choose an alternate class reward.
You gain both +1 HP and +1 SP instead of either one or the other benefit. That's two places, first when they introduced the alt bonuses and second in the Fast Learner feat, where they specify that +1 HP or +1 SP is considered the "normal choice" and is taken as a unit and the alternate bonus is a second option to that first option. Thus: (A or B) or C. I only take issue with people who disagree with me when they are irrational about it. If someone can come up with a truly compelling argument as to why it works the...

Sorry Kazaan... But it is truly unclear which side you are on from my perspective. Are you saying that the feat allows you to choose between this: HP+SP OR alt reward, or are you saying any 2 of them? I think most people in this thread believe that it is HP+SP OR Alt reward.

When I personally said that it was obvious that is what I meant at least. I truly do believe, however, that the developers meant it in the other way, where you get to choose any 2 of them. Of course I have no basis for this claim other than my personal conviction. I would like to say that even though I am very certain of what RAW is, I would never ridicule people the way you have.


Lifat wrote:

Sorry Kazaan... But it is truly unclear which side you are on from my perspective. Are you saying that the feat allows you to choose between this: HP+SP OR alt reward, or are you saying any 2 of them? I think most people in this thread believe that it is HP+SP OR Alt reward.

When I personally said that it was obvious that is what I meant at least. I truly do believe, however, that the developers meant it in the other way, where you get to choose any 2 of them. Of course I have no basis for this claim other than my personal conviction. I would like to say that even though I am very certain of what RAW is, I would never ridicule people the way you have.

My initial statement (in this thread) was here. I stated that Fast Learner gives two options and only the first of those options involved replacing what you could do by default (pick either HP or SP) while the second option replaced nothing and, therefore, could be taken in addition to the default option (pick either HP or SP). I explained that the most obvious bottom-line result of this is that you could pick any two of the three with the caveat that it may be possible to select the alternate bonus twice depending on how you read it. This caused some confusion which I conjecture to have been caused by a failure to recognize the two provisions of the feat as being separated and certain individuals thought there was a contradiction in what I wrote. I corrected that by further clarifying here using more mathematical notation to help clarify the analogy. Skipping over the minor intervening re-iteration that counts marginally at best, the next major time I re-stated my position was here where I also explained the error in judgement that causes people to come to the logically incorrect conclusion at which they were arriving. I further explained the terminology I was using to explain how to correctly and logically parse the text. This, in turn, seemed to generate confusion again; from what I can conjecture, the result of confusion this time was confusing the explanation of how to properly parse the rules using logic and critical thinking with a direct representation of what was written in the rules; certain individuals thought when I brought up the parentheses, I was implying that they are explicitly present rather than a tool of logic and reason to properly process and comprehend the information. Lastly, here, I made the final call out of exactly what my position is and how the summary of counter-positions were logically lacking in significance in response to a challenge that I was treating it like a matter of "you're wrong because you disagree with me". I clarified how that accusation was incorrect and, in the process, re-stated my position thus bringing my total to four.

Four significant times I presented my position and, at the same time, demonstrated how the contrary position was logically inferior. The goal is to arrive at a logically sound conclusion for everyone. Let me say that again; my goal is for everyone to be correct. This involves those who have the correct answer knowing that they are correct so they don't discount what they have and those who are acting on an incorrect conclusion to have it brought to their attention so they can fix that error of judgement. I ridicule bad ideas and I ridicule the bad behavior of clinging to bad ideas by people who think it's some kind of contest and I ridicule the accusations that I think it's some kind of contest where I win if my idea is accepted over someone else's. And, if I lack the ability to overcome someone else's stubbornness and help them correct their wrong ideas, I hold a little bit of ridicule for myself. But I don't hold ridicule for other people. If we all share in the correct conclusion, we all win. If any of us maintains an incorrect conclusion, we all lose.

Lastly, Certain =/= Correct. Believing doesn't make it correct. What's true will be true whether everyone believes it or no one believes it or anything in between... even if there's no sentient mind to believe it.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

I've clicked the FAQ because while I think RAW is indeed (A and B) or C, I think RAI should be any 2 of A,B,C. This is predicated solely on the idea that alternate class options should be balanced choices against the normal hp/sp options. (Whether that assertion is true is a discussion for another thread). Fast Learner limiting itself to only hp/sp doesn't make a lot of logical or symmetrical sense to me, so I FAQ in the hope that my intuitive sense of how it should be is in fact the intended version and we are suffering from a slight case of poor wording.

Remember everyone, the rules are written in everyday language, not with a mind towards legal or logical specificity. Applying strict logical interpretations to a rule is almost never the intended result. If you find yourself distinguishing between exclusive and inclusive OR in a rule discussion I would say you've overthought the problem.

Edited to fix a typo.


To add a bit of levity, did you know that we didn't have hard evidence that the Earth orbited the sun until this past century? We've known it for longer because gravitational theory predicts it, but from our perspective, it would appear identical if the sun did orbit us. The first hard "proof" came from when we used telescopes to look at distant stars - and saw that they "wobbled" slightly over the course of six months, then back again - which indicated the Earth was moving in a big circle over the course of a year. They'd be more stationary if the sun was going around us.

The lesson you can take is, sometimes you can get hard proof (an FAQ answer, for example), but that doesn't mean you can't have an accurate and reasonable answer ahea of time based on known data and proven theories.

A favored class alternate bonus is designed to be on par with, or balanced with, the choice of an HP or skill point. The ability lets you get two of them instead of one. It makes much more sense that it lets you choose from 3 equivalent choices rather than the (a+b) or c option. If it was intended to only allow (a+b), it probably would not have mentioned alternate choices.

No, we don't have the "hard proof" yet, but we can apply what we do know like reasonable people to come up with a satisfying answer.


Has this been answered yet?

Designer

2 people marked this as FAQ candidate. 14 people marked this as a favorite.

The feat does exactly what it says it does (grammatically). If you have this feat you can either choose +1 hit point and +1 skill rank, or you can choose the alternate class reward.

You do not get your choice of two of the three, but it does not preclude you from taking an alternate class reward if you choose to do that instead.

Silver Crusade

Wow, so it's a terrible feat then. It's either Toughness with pre-requisites or "Toughness for Skill Ranks" with pre-requisites.

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