Counting as your own ally


Rules Questions


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The FAQ states that you count as your own ally except when it does not make sense. When does it not make sense?
I put it here so the rules team can give examples.


If you're waiting for an official response from the rules team, then you will probably be waiting a while.

But one example: the Perfect Aid ability grants additional bonuses to "your ally" when you use the "aid another" action. Since you can't use the aid another action to give yourself a bonus, it doesn't work to grant yourself a bonus. The cavalier's Aid Allies ability is similar. In neither of those situations does it make sense to count as your own ally.

The Lend Judgement spell lets an ally benefit from one of your active judgments. Again, it doesn't make sense for that ally to be yourself.

More significantly, the murderous command spell causes a creature to "[attack] its nearest ally." As it is always closer to itself than to anyone else, that would always cause it to attack itself if it counted as its own ally. I consider this to "not make sense" for two reasons -- one, spells to compel suicide are much more powerful than first level, and second, if it was supposed to be a suicidal command, saying "attack itself" would be much more straightforward than "attack the nearest enemy, which is always itself."


I would probably state it thus:

You count as your own ally unless: the spell or effect states otherwise; you are already benefitting from the effect; the benefit requires an action that you cannot use on yourself (such as "aid another"); or counting as your own ally would be detrimental to you.


There are abilities where I don't think it makes sense, but others disagree. That is why examples should be given, and I am in no rush to get an answer since this question is not as important as other questions that I am waiting for answers on.

PS: Please hit the FAQ button. :)


I'll FAQ, but I'd personally rather have a general rule like I stated rather than (or at least along with) examples.

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