| 5 people marked this as FAQ candidate. 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So, how many Deliquescent Gloves DO you get for the 8000 gold?
Do you get a pair (one for each hand) or just one?
My current DM says one glove total. I can understand your confusion though.
The confusion is there, but it makes no sense to have definitions that name the Gloves as one item, and yet it is treated as if it were a Glove, not Gloves.
As you can see here, the flavor description says this:
These heavy leather gloves ripple and flows at the wearer’s command, reshaping to fit any hand, claw, tentacle, or alien limb.
It contradicts itself in the very first sentence; if it were a pair of gloves, wouldn't it work to fit two hands, two claws, two tentacles, or two alien limbs, and not one?
There are then several other sentences that follow which refer to a singular "hand" or on other occassions, "gloved hand."
Majority rules would dictate that the Deliquescent Gloves are mislabeled, and should instead be called Deliquescent Glove, especially considering the mechanics that are written for its function.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Since you can only have one magic item in the hand slot, does it actually matter if it's one glove or two?
Since you can only have one magic item in the hand slot, does it actually matter if it's one glove or two?
Called shot to the hand or arm? Debilitating blow? Suddenly the single glove is unusable.
The confusion is there, but it makes no sense to have definitions that name the Gloves as one item, and yet it is treated as if it were a Glove, not Gloves.
As you can see here, the flavor description says this:
These heavy leather gloves ripple and flows at the wearer’s command, reshaping to fit any hand, claw, tentacle, or alien limb.It contradicts itself in the very first sentence; if it were a pair of gloves, wouldn't it work to fit two hands, two claws, two tentacles, or two alien limbs, and not one?
There is no contradiction here. It does not say it only fits to one, it says it fits any hand, claw, tentacle, or alien limb.
"A pair of gloves fitted to your hand" is not suddenly one glove because the plural is not used for the word hand. The general assumption is that your hands are going to be the same size and shape.
Therefore it is redundant to say "two hands" in most cases. It was an attempt to save space, not a contradiction in the slightest.
|
Maybe the line "These heavy leather gloves" refers to the type of item. As in "(All) Deliquescent Gloves are heavy leather gloves."
Then it moves on to talk about the effect of the single glove you are purchasing?
I agree the first sentence could be clearer, but the rest of the entry refers to a single glove. I would say (to the OP's question) "Just one."
Given the way the rest of the entry is worded, a bit of confusion is understandable:
The wearer’s melee touch attacks with that hand deal 1d6 points of acid damage. If the wearer uses that hand to wield a weapon or make an attack with an unarmed strike or natural weapon, that attack gains the corrosive weapon special ability.
The wearer’s gloved hand is protected from the acid ability of oozes, allowing him to use that hand to attack oozes with unarmed strike or natural attack without risk of harm from contact with the ooze. These unarmed strikes and natural attacks never cause an ooze to split.
This doesn't look much like space-saving or an effort to reduce redundancy, to me. This looks like one glove that had it's fluff and crunch written by two different people with something lost in translation.
|
|
I actually agree, and I am very much a "not everything needs clarification" kind of guy.
All of the rest of the gloves use a consistent number throughout - they refer to single gloves using the words "glove" and "hand" and they refer to pairs as "gloves" and "hands." My "explanation" that perhaps the first sentence was describing the type of item isn't consistent with other entries either. I.e.: we either need to be inconsistent with readings regarding number, or with those regarding description.
Honestly, at the end of the day I'd say house-rule it and press on, but I suppose that doesn't really add anything to the conversation. I'm gonna stick with my first answer.
The confusion is there, but it makes no sense to have definitions that name the Gloves as one item, and yet it is treated as if it were a Glove, not Gloves.
As you can see here, the flavor description says this:
These heavy leather gloves ripple and flows at the wearer’s command, reshaping to fit any hand, claw, tentacle, or alien limb.It contradicts itself in the very first sentence; if it were a pair of gloves, wouldn't it work to fit two hands, two claws, two tentacles, or two alien limbs, and not one?There is no contradiction here. It does not say it only fits to one, it says it fits any hand, claw, tentacle, or alien limb.
"A pair of gloves fitted to your hand" is not suddenly one glove because the plural is not used for the word hand. The general assumption is that your hands are going to be the same size and shape.
Therefore it is redundant to say "two hands" in most cases. It was an attempt to save space, not a contradiction in the slightest.
Going based off of my education from grade-school english class, how it's written has everything to do with there being a "redundancy" or not, or whether it's an inconsistency with its subject matter.
As it's written, the ripple and the flowing, both from the wearer's commands at the (specified) heavy leather gloves, allow those same gloves to fit into any (singular) hand/claw/tentacle/alien limb. I.e. the RAW says the two pairs of gloves fit into one hand.
With that in mind, the intent of there being 2 gloves, both required to fit the same hand for its effects to occur, is best reflected with the rest of the text, and stating that alone having 2 separate gloves working on 2 separate hands is a "redundancy" is hardly a coherent argument, given that the changes needed to be made to the as-written text not only clarifies that it is supposed to be a pair of gloves, one for each hand (and not a pair of gloves, both of which used for the same hand), but also doesn't confuse the reader into thinking that Deliquescent Gloves (a plural [proper] noun) is the same subject matter as a Deliquescent Glove (a singular [proper] noun) in both visuals and physical mechanics.
Given the way the rest of the entry is worded, a bit of confusion is understandable:
This doesn't look much like space-saving or an effort to reduce redundancy, to me. This looks like one glove that had it's fluff and crunch written by two different people with something lost in translation.The wearer’s melee touch attacks with that hand deal 1d6 points of acid damage. If the wearer uses that hand to wield a weapon or make an attack with an unarmed strike or natural weapon, that attack gains the corrosive weapon special ability.
The wearer’s gloved hand is protected from the acid ability of oozes, allowing him to use that hand to attack oozes with unarmed strike or natural attack without risk of harm from contact with the ooze. These unarmed strikes and natural attacks never cause an ooze to split.
Expanding upon your point, I'd rather look at it this way:
You are correct in that there are 2 people involved with it, and that there was something lost with the conversion.
However, upon further examination, it appears to be an item created before it hit Pathfinder, since it uses several similar subjects. From there, I extrapolate that the first guy made it as a single glove item, and the second (conversion) guy either didn't know it was supposed to be a single glove item and simply ignored the changes needed to be made, or he tried to make it a glove pair item and simply copy-pasted the original text without making the proper editations needed to reflect his desired changes.
Unfortunately, since we don't know the original source (that is, the pre-Pathfinder version of the item), we can't really say for sure which of the two explanations above is the valid one, and even with it, we can't really tell anymore if the intent is that there are 2 gloves (i.e. 2 "hand-limbs") for this single hand slot instead of 1 glove for the single hand slot, unless we get the weigh-in from the original designer for these gloves.
I hit the FAQ on the OP for this exact reasoning, and I suggest everybody else does the same so we get this resolved. (And before people argue; yes, it's important.)
Going based off of my education from grade-school english class, how it's written has everything to do with there being a "redundancy" or not, or whether it's an inconsistency with its subject matter.As it's written, the ripple and the flowing, both from the wearer's commands at the (specified) heavy leather gloves, allow those same gloves to fit into any (singular) hand/claw/tentacle/alien limb. I.e. the RAW says the two pairs of gloves fit into one hand.
With that in mind, the intent of there being 2 gloves, both required to fit the same hand for its effects to occur, is best reflected with the rest of the text, and stating that alone having 2 separate gloves working on 2 separate hands is a "redundancy" is hardly a coherent argument, given that the changes needed to be made to the as-written text not only clarifies that it is supposed to be a pair of gloves, one for each hand (and not a pair of gloves, both of which used for the same hand), but also doesn't confuse the reader into thinking that Deliquescent Gloves (a plural [proper] noun) is the same subject matter as a Deliquescent Glove (a singular [proper] noun) in both visuals and physical mechanics.
You're both over and under thinking this at the same time.
English is full of this sort of thing.
You say "I'm going to wash my hair", not "I'm going to wash my hairs". You clearly mean plural to anyone with a solid grasp of the language, despite the fact that "as written" you just said you were going to wash your singular hair.
"Fits in the hand" does not preclude something from fitting into either or both hands, despite the fact that it only specifies a single hand.
In the opposite direction, you put on a pair of pants, even though it's really one single article of clothing, not two as that implies.
I hit the FAQ on the OP for this exact reasoning, and I suggest everybody else does the same so we get this resolved. (And before people argue; yes, it's important.)
I still don't see what practical difference it makes.
I still don't see what practical difference it makes.
The immediate situations that spring to mind in which the distinction becomes important would be:
Called shots / Debilitating strikes (as previously noted)
Two Weapon Fighting
Going based off of my education from grade-school english class, how it's written has everything to do with there being a "redundancy" or not, or whether it's an inconsistency with its subject matter.As it's written, the ripple and the flowing, both from the wearer's commands at the (specified) heavy leather gloves, allow those same gloves to fit into any (singular) hand/claw/tentacle/alien limb. I.e. the RAW says the two pairs of gloves fit into one hand.
With that in mind, the intent of there being 2 gloves, both required to fit the same hand for its effects to occur, is best reflected with the rest of the text, and stating that alone having 2 separate gloves working on 2 separate hands is a "redundancy" is hardly a coherent argument, given that the changes needed to be made to the as-written text not only clarifies that it is supposed to be a pair of gloves, one for each hand (and not a pair of gloves, both of which used for the same hand), but also doesn't confuse the reader into thinking that Deliquescent Gloves (a plural [proper] noun) is the same subject matter as a Deliquescent Glove (a singular [proper] noun) in both visuals and physical mechanics.
You're both over and under thinking this at the same time.
English is full of this sort of thing.
You say "I'm going to wash my hair", not "I'm going to wash my hairs". You clearly mean plural to anyone with a solid grasp of the language, despite the fact that "as written" you just said you were going to wash your singular hair.
"Fits in the hand" does not preclude something from fitting into either or both hands, despite the fact that it only specifies a single hand.
In the opposite direction, you put on a pair of pants, even though it's really one single article of clothing, not two as that implies.
Of course it is, and in those contexts, those are exceptions to the general rule. Glove and Gloves aren't an exception to the general rule.
In that case, Hair is no different in both singular and plural context, the same way Moose is any different in both contexts. When a singular noun becomes the same as the plural noun in both spelling and usage, but different in object(s) in the case of Hair, the plural noun becomes the more common usage, and it's contextually accurate to specify "a single strand of hair," instead of "hairs," since for what "hairs" is being applied to, it has no contextual difference from "hair," and therefore falls into disrepute.
"Pair of Pants" is used instead of "Pant," since "Pant" not only has a separate verb-usage, but is also short-hand for "Pant-leg," the same way "Pair of Pants" is short-hand for "Pair of Pant-legs," and as such is used to separate the context between a singular pant-leg and (a) plural pant-leg(s).
Though I could discuss this stuff at length, we are getting off-topic, so back on subject with the gloves...
The item spells out several factors that involves the usage of a single "glove" or "gloved hand," even though Gloves, in their written context, imply that there is more than one (commonly, there are 2 when referring to the plural noun of glove). It is highly inconsistent, and by majority rules, the much more specified "glove/gloved hand" trumps the "gloves" that are titled for the item.
It also messes with mechanics. A Monk wearing Deliquescent Gloves cannot use its properties if their hands are full when performing unarmed strike, or even if the hand wearing the item in question is holding, say, a Klar while the other has an Earthbreaker. The attacks with the Klar would receive the benefits of the Glove(s), while the Earth Breaker would not based on that factor alone.
For your interpretation to work, a lot of errata/fixing needs to be made, and while I'm personally fine with it, saying that's the intent of the Devs is quite a stretch given the evidence that's stacked against you.