just because the other people were more insulting to you doesn't mean you should be insulting back.
Perhaps then you shouldn't blame an entire side of an argument because you have a problem with what I said then?
As to the alleged borderline insult, I don't think there is a nice way to tell someone that they were munchkining, got busted, and can't complain that they didn't see it coming when people were standing out there with "the end is near!" warning signs.
I take it you never hung out on the charop boards, then, as dozens of builds were made around figuring out how you could get the same stat to as many possible things.
This would be incorrect.
Well, Michael Brock's comment on the Pistolero/Mysterious stranger combination is a pretty good indication that the there was merit in the assumption that untyped ability modifier bonuses stacked.
Considering that it was not only banned, but banned with NO rewrite allowed it was a better indication that double dipping was against the intent of the rules.
Yes, but in specific topics on a forum that many people don't even bother visiting most of the time. It may certainly have been on your radar, but as we can see from this topic there are some people who have been blindsided by it. Let's not forget that not everyone reads these topics.
Its not a matter of the boards. Its a very well known and important rule that you can't stack the same thing with itself. If you were doing something that kinda sorta may have been that you should have known that you kinda sorta maybe might not ought to be doing that.
Considering Inquisitors, it's not that well known or obvious. :)
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"double-dipping" I'm aware, but where does this really become a problem?
Prior to this FAQ, dipping into Monk + Sacred Fist would give double Wisdom Modifier to AC as untyped bonus.
Another more notorious combination was Pistolero + Mysterious Stranger, which would give Dexterity Modifier to gun damage twice before an Ultimate Combat errata corrected it.
There were a couple and there would have undoubtedly been more in the future.
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Considering that it was not only banned, but banned with NO rewrite allowed it was a better indication that double dipping was against the intent of the rules.
Except they chose to address it by saying "Ok, this instance of double dipping does not work" instead of eliminating it altogether, like they did here. If they didn't want double dipping, then it was completely illogical to not resolve similar cases. So no, I think you're incorrect about how obvious it was. Just because it was obvious to you does not mean it was obvious to everyone.
I'm not sure what you mean by "no rewrite," but if you're referring to rebuilds, Michael Brock allowed rebuilds until March of that year (see further in the topic).
EDIT: change of tone
Interesting, thanks!
It doesn't seem that bad to me, but again, I prefer unintentionally better PCs than unintentionally worse PCs. :)
EDIT: also, apologies do any weird formatting things - iPads make such things difficult sometimes. :)
In which case, excellent job displaying a lack of understanding of others' perspectives as well as a complete lack of interest in those things which may impact others' enjoyment of the game! Well done!
The rules are not written with objective, clear, consistent, and perfect terminology. They intersect, react weirdly, contradict, get nonsensical, and very often have two perfectly valid interpretations that force a human being into making a rational decision wherein either one could be the "correct" answer as decided by an all too human design team.
You have been here long enough to know that. You should not have any faith left in perfection of the rules to shake here.
(To be clear, the above is meant to be humorous and sarcastic.)
Whether or not it's your intent, you are arguing that people who don't think like you are foolish. Please stop that.
I can't stop people from reading into things. And I find your above insinuations against eggplant prices totally unconscionable.
Except they chose to address it by saying "Ok, this instance of double dipping does not work" instead of eliminating it altogether, like they did here.If they didn't want double dipping, then it was completely illogical to not resolve similar cases
Because this is a big design issue with far reaching effects and PFS tries very hard NOT to make rules rulings in that case. Its completely logical for the organized play section not to try to do the design teams job.
So no, I think you're incorrect about how obvious it was. Just because it was obvious to you does not mean it was obvious to everyone.
That I was right wasn't that obvious.
That this was a real possibility that I was right was.
No stacking is a pretty basic rule of the game, and if you're deep enough "under the hood" to be trying to hotwire dex to dex you should have figured out that this MIGHT come back to bite you in the but.
I'm not sure what you mean by "no rewrite," but if you're referring to rebuilds, Michael Brock allowed rebuilds until March of that year (see further in the topic).
and then after that if you were still using it, your character was probably permadead or unplayable. I can't recall them EVER doing that to another character.
Okay, so you hung out on the charop boards, saw the builds that stacked the same stat to everything, and still came to the conclusion that none of it worked and that wasn't how the community assumed it worked? Help me out, I'm confused here.
Or just never saw those builds? Its not that confusing
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Because this is a big design issue with far reaching effects and PFS tries very hard NOT to make rules rulings in that case. Its completely logical for the organized play section not to try to do the design teams job.
I might be mistaken, but was it not eliminated with an errata to Ultimate Combat? That would have had to come from the design team...
Whatever, the fact of the matter is you are frustrating people by telling them they should have seen it coming. It is not providing any benefit to this conversation. I'm sure that's not your intention but you might consider not doing that. Unnecessary friction is unnecessary.
EDIT: Change of tone.
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D&D 3.5 had an official statement on the Wizards site that specifically disallowed using the same stat to modify something more than once -- so this FAQ actually confirms a certain degree of compatibility with D&D 3.5.
Whatever, the fact of the matter is you are frustrating people by telling them they should have seen it coming.
And people are frustrating me when they say it was impossible to see coming. So THEY Should stop posting!
That doesn't work either.
To be clear (again) That this WAS coming wasn't clear. That this MIGHT be coming was.
It is not providing any benefit to this conversation. I'm sure that's not your intention but you might consider not doing that. Unnecessary friction is unnecessary.
It is necessary. This has happened before. It will happen again.
People think that the rules interact perfectly: that they never contradict, they never imply more than one thing, they never have more than one equally valid meaning.
What falls out of that philosophy is the idea that if you can make an argument by the rules that you can do something, then that thing is legal regardless of any other rules to the contrary, game balance, sense or logic.
This is an especially bad approach when an argument gives your character a mechanical advantage. Instead of comparing the relative merits for and against something in a holistic fashion, people focus in like a laser one the ONE thing saying that yes, they can get more +s and more monster decapitating goodness. Everything that says no gets ignored everything else that says no because the rules can't possibly contradict right?
Sense, reason, logic, and game balance are just as important considerations as raw when looking for the meaning of the words. This game doesn't run on raw and when people forget that weird things happen.
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Because this is a big design issue with far reaching effects and PFS tries very hard NOT to make rules rulings in that case. Its completely logical for the organized play section not to try to do the design teams job.I might be mistaken, but was it not eliminated with an errata to Ultimate Combat? That would have had to come from the design team...
Whatever, the fact of the matter is you are frustrating people by telling them they should have seen it coming. It is not providing any benefit to this conversation. I'm sure that's not your intention but you might consider not doing that. Unnecessary friction is unnecessary.
EDIT: Change of tone.
While BigNorseWolf is being his usual rude and insulting self he does have a valid point. Even if there were tons of builds that used double dipping the debate over whether it is valid has been raging for years. Its not like it was a completely unquestioned practice and just suddenly the design team one day woke up and decided to change it.
Considering we had feats like Double Slice or Dragon Style which let us add strength bonus(or strength and a half in Dragon Style's case) to damage and told us how it normally worked should have been an indicator for how double-dipping wasn't an option. Or else we would have gotten 1.5X strength with off-hand weapons and 2.5X strength with unarmed strike.
Not obvious. Just suspect.
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Oh, crap! I'm only allowed a few words per day since my capture summoning and binding that I totally arranged, but I realized I hadn't shown up to make a social commentary about how it seems people are getting more irritated than they should, so I should do that before I run out of-
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As far as I'm concerned, this thread is evidence enough that the new FAQ rule (and it IS a new rule) is quite confusing to the average roleplayer.
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Guys drop it with graystone. He's repeatedly said he doesn't want to discuss that in this thread.
As far as I'm concerned, this thread is evidence enough that the new FAQ rule (and it IS a new rule) is quite confusing to the average roleplayer.
A positive modifier is a bonus.
The source is the number on the sheet.
Nothing here is new.
The FAQ itself is confusingly worded (mostly that they're not changing the wording on paladins divine grace, which would require an errata and errata are only done on new printings) but the end result is very clear and easy for new players to understand: Each of your ability bonuses is a bonus, bonuses don't stack with themselves.
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D&D 3.5 had an official statement on the Wizards site that specifically disallowed using the same stat to modify something more than once -- so this FAQ actually confirms a certain degree of compatibility with D&D 3.5.
Was it part of CustServ? Because CustServ wasn't actually a rules source and repeatedly got their own rulings wrong.
Edit: I checked the most recent CustServ FAQ anyway. Nowhere in it is an FAQ that states what you claim it does. In fact, there's one that the Monk, Ninja, and Swordsage AC bonuses don't stack because the class feature has the same name and is thus the same source. The other bit in the FAQ about stacking untyped bonuses was talking explicitly about items like the Orange Prism Ioun Stone
This was an article for the wizards.com site that specifically discussed the subject of double dipping ability scores and not something from Customer Service. I will see if I can track it down this evening.
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Personally, I feel like I'll be ignoring this FAQ, at least for the time being. As is, I feel like this creates more confusing cases than it 'fixes.' I may be wrong in that regard, but until I see something otherwise...
In particular, I don't think that the FAQ, as is, is a very good FAQ. It changes the rules to make an exception to an exception, on top of now changing how one needs to look at sources. Untyped bonuses no longer can be assumed to stack in all cases as the rules previously said they did. Now, instead of looking at the immediate source of something, you have to backtrack through other possible sources to check stacking.
I have to very much so agree with Tacticslion on their internal consistency point. Especially, when this change (which is very much a rules change) is apparently not going to be reflected in errata.
But, I suppose we will just have to see how things ripple for now.
Guys drop it with graystone. He's repeatedly said he doesn't want to discuss that in this thread.
Thank you! :)
So how about a vote guys in order to simplify where this thread is going?
Vote yes if you think the new FAQ is ok as is.
Vote no if you think it needs changing to simpler language that is easier to understand.
Note: this is completely different than if you agree wiyh the ruling in the first place, it has been made clear that doubke dipping is not really going to be ok, so lets stay away from that part of the argument.
I am just trying to keep this thread something that the develpers will continue to weigh in on.
I think it's fine as is. Though I feel it could be easier/simpler by using ability type. But other than doing that, I don't know of a way they can say it doesn't stack without it being a source. Otherwise it would stack.
I'm fine with it. Its spirit is dead on. I trust the design team enough to think they wouldn't have used that interesting wording unless there was a good reason for it.
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Sorry
So just curious if Mark reads this and feels like answering, but now with the new FAQ on dragon ferocity, how does that interact with power attack? And is it a different answer if I'm a monk or not?
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"Source" was never defined before in the rules and the usual (but not unanimous) interpretation from the printed text was that "source" was the ability/feat/spell/item that granted the effect. That makes the FAQ confusing.
The idea that this somehow isn't an erratum because the design team unanimously decided that the game always worked that way? That's preposterous. The rules text doesn't touch on the subject at all, since the designers never bothered to define "source" and the plain English definition is too ambiguous to be useful.
The FAQ doesn't actually wreck much, but I suspect it will create more questions than it answers, as now "source" has a strange "if/else" definition similar to that of a characteristic function. That doesn't simplify things. Better to simply state the erratum that "bonuses from the same ability score do not stack unless they are of different types" and leave the definition of "source" as it was already implied. It's functionally identical but less muddy than the existing text.
TL;DR: Human up, admit this was a muck-up, call it an error, and toss it in the queue for the next CRB printing. Or don't. I'm just a pig. : D
Slightly trollish side note: Has anybody raised the idea that critical hits don't work any more because you're benefiting from the same ability score twice or more?
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So how about a vote guys in order to simplify where this thread is going?
Vote yes if you think the new FAQ is ok as is.
Vote no if you think it needs changing to simpler language that is easier to understand.Note: this is completely different than if you agree wiyh the ruling in the first place, it has been made clear that doubke dipping is not really going to be ok, so lets stay away from that part of the argument.
I am just trying to keep this thread something that the develpers will continue to weigh in on.
I think it should be changed to make ability bonuses a typed bonus and should drop the entire idea of multiple sources. That way just makes SO much more sense. If there is really a good reason to try to force the source way through, I'd like to hear them. Seeing that might make the source option easier to take.
Slightly trollish side note: Has anybody raised the idea that critical hits don't work any more because you're benefiting from the same ability score twice or more?
Somehow multipliers work but adding doesn't. Just remember that multiplying had NOTHING to do with adding. :P
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Slightly trollish side note: Has anybody raised the idea that critical hits don't work any more because you're benefiting from the same ability score twice or more?
As befits a "trollish" comment, even in jest, this isn't relevant.
Consider. If this were a problem, it wouldn't have anything to do with the FAQ but it would be a general problem with critical hits. Since, e.g., you have enhancement bonuses doubling (but bonuses of the same type don't stack with themselves), or the untyped bonus from Point Blank Shot (but untyped bonuses from the same source don't stack). So any way about it, this FAQ would just add to the list it wouldn't create a brand-new problem.
But of course there's not a problem here at all. Because specific overrides general. And the combat chapter tells you just how <critical hits> work.
A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together.
It's funny, after a decade (more! Plural?) of playing it as an actual multiplication of a single result, it took Play-by-Posts to clarify to me that you roll twice and add instead of multiplying. Weird and kind of hilarious. It actually exceeds "Phrenthic" and "Neolithid" as my longest-held highly erroneous reading failure. :)
/tangent
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It's funny, after a decade (more! Plural?) of playing it as an actual multiplication of a single result, it took Play-by-Posts to clarify to me that you roll twice and add instead of multiplying. Weird and kind of hilarious. It actually exceeds "Phrenthic" and "Neolithid" as my longest-held highly erroneous reading failure. :)
/tangent
I have seen both forms used very frequently, with multiplying being more popular at high levels. Rolling two, three or even four set of dice can take up quite a bit of time, especially when your original damage roll is something like 12d6.
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It's funny, after a decade (more! Plural?) of playing it as an actual multiplication of a single result, it took Play-by-Posts to clarify to me that you roll twice and add instead of multiplying. Weird and kind of hilarious. It actually exceeds "Phrenthic" and "Neolithid" as my longest-held highly erroneous reading failure. :)
/tangent
If it helps, I did the same for years.
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It's funny, after a decade (more! Plural?) of playing it as an actual multiplication of a single result, it took Play-by-Posts to clarify to me that you roll twice and add instead of multiplying. Weird and kind of hilarious. It actually exceeds "Phrenthic" and "Neolithid" as my longest-held highly erroneous reading failure. :)
/tangent
It wasn't until... 3, no 4 campaigns that my group collectively figured the rules for criticals out, which was 2 campaigns after we figured out how crit confirmations worked.
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I used to think that a druid's wild shape was limited to one form per size category. Probably went on for three years before I discovered the forums.
Ah, crit confirmations!
"It auto-hits on a critical, and has a crit range of 18-20, so any time it rolls 18 or higher we auto-hit!"
Alas, the rules disagreed.
(For what it's worth, I might as well note that in my more informal games, I waive the confirmation roll altogether - it saves time and is far more fun.)
Also, it's really nice that I'm not alone! XD
(And, for the record, it's "Phrenic" and "Neothelid". Stupid dyslexia. :D)
This was an article for the wizards.com site that specifically discussed the subject of double dipping ability scores and not something from Customer Service. I will see if I can track it down this evening.D&D 3.5 had an official statement on the Wizards site that specifically disallowed using the same stat to modify something more than once -- so this FAQ actually confirms a certain degree of compatibility with D&D 3.5.
Was it part of CustServ? Because CustServ wasn't actually a rules source and repeatedly got their own rulings wrong.
Edit: I checked the most recent CustServ FAQ anyway. Nowhere in it is an FAQ that states what you claim it does. In fact, there's one that the Monk, Ninja, and Swordsage AC bonuses don't stack because the class feature has the same name and is thus the same source. The other bit in the FAQ about stacking untyped bonuses was talking explicitly about items like the Orange Prism Ioun Stone
I had no luck. I remember reading the article on-line, and I found some (broken) links to it, but apparently the last reorganization of the wizards.com site has caused this article to be nearly impossible to locate if it is still there at all.
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Perhaps this will help? All those old articles got moved into their site archive, an archive I was lucky enough to find again about a year ago. Lucky for you, I thought to record its new location.
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I had no luck. I remember reading the article on-line, and I found some (broken) links to it, but apparently the last reorganization of the wizards.com site has caused this article to be nearly impossible to locate if it is still there at all.
After you posted this, I tried looking around. The best I could do was some rules of the game article archives (specifically, those regarding stacking). I couldn't find anything regarding double dipping ability scores in particular, though.
For anyone else who wants to try here is a link to the archives. [LINK]
I think it should be changed to make ability bonuses a typed bonus and should drop the entire idea of multiple sources. That way just makes SO much more sense. If there is really a good reason to try to force the source way through, I'd like to hear them. Seeing that might make the source option easier to take.
If they defined "ability" as a bonus type then you could not stack any two stat bonuses. If you have an class feature that lets you add your wisdom to AC and another that lets you add your intelligence to AC those would both be bonuses with the "ability" type and would not stack. So you go from ability bonuses can't be stacked with themselves to no two ability bonuses stack.
I think it should be changed to make ability bonuses a typed bonus and should drop the entire idea of multiple sources. That way just makes SO much more sense. If there is really a good reason to try to force the source way through, I'd like to hear them. Seeing that might make the source option easier to take.If they defined "ability" as a bonus type then you could not stack any two stat bonuses. If you have an class feature that lets you add your wisdom to AC and another that lets you add your intelligence to AC those would both be bonuses with the "ability" type and would not stack. So you go from ability bonuses can't be stacked with themselves to no two ability bonuses stack.
I meant ability as the group of individual stats. NOT the word ability. I thought that would be obvious but I guess not.
SO to clarify, abilities should be typed, as in strength bonus or intelligence bonus being their own separate bonuses.