Hi all,
Clear Spindle resonsance power says:
"Protection from possession and mental control (as protection from evil)."
Does this mean, that the power only works against mind control from evil spells or creatures, or does this mean this power function as the spell, but works on mind control from all sources?
Protection from Evil works against any form of possession or mental control. Even from good creatures. So it works as the spell, but the spell works very broadly!
Pretty sure the protection from evil only protects from evil creatures. I'm also pretty sure this has been hashed out multiple times.
.... you are correct. I'm not sure how I missed that line.
wtb protection from compulsion
Anyways. With that being the case, it only works against evil creatures, as those are called out.
Luckily, most things that compulse are evil.
Yeah. Protection From Alignment has been changed considerably in pathfinder. And yes... It would appear that this particular item only works against evil creatures.
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Hang on a minute. Where does Protection from Evil say the protection against compulsions affects only evil creatures?
Quote: Second, the subject immediately receives another saving throw (if one was allowed to begin with) against any spells or effects that possess or exercise mental control over the creature (including enchantment [charm] effects and enchantment [compulsion] effects, such as charm person, command, and dominate person. This saving throw is made with a +2 morale bonus, using the same DC as the original effect. If successful, such effects are suppressed for the duration of this spell. The effects resume when the duration of this spell expires. While under the effects of this spell, the target is immune to any new attempts to possess or exercise mental control over the target. This spell does not expel a controlling life force (such as a ghost or spellcaster using magic jar), but it does prevent them from controlling the target. This second effect only functions against spells and effects created by evil creatures or objects, subject to GM discretion. "Subject to GM discretion" is... wacky.
Furthermore, consider Protection from Good:
Quote: This spell functions like protection from evil, except that the deflection and resistance bonuses apply to attacks made by good creatures. The target receives a new saving throw against control by good creatures and good summoned creatures cannot touch the target. So if you use Protection from Good, it has no effect on enchantments or compulsions from good creatures, and still blocks them from evil creatures?
Sounds to me like someone at Paizo nerfed protection from evil without thinking it through... Contrast with 3E, which said "This second effect works regardless of alignment."
The more I think about it, the more I think this is a candidate for "worst-considered rules change I've yet noticed in Pathfinder".
Let's say you want to prevent compulsion effects from a true neutral character. You are completely screwed. There is no way to do this, at all, ever, because the only protection from compulsion in the game is reliant on a character having a non-neutral alignment.
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seebs wrote: Let's say you want to prevent compulsion effects from a true neutral character. You are completely screwed. There is no way to do this, at all, ever, because the only protection from compulsion in the game is reliant on a character having a non-neutral alignment. A couple of things:
First, I'm pretty sure there are some other anti-enchantment effects around; I've heard of them, but I don't see them used much because PfE is usually better in the games I've played.
Second, as long as your game treats alignment as more than just a team jersey, true neutral NPCs are some of the hardest to make enemies of, so you're not likely to have to deal with it very often (and for the times you do, there's always Will save boosts).
I think I'm going to invoke the Nick Fury clause at that point. I am aware of their decision, but given that it is a *ahem* ill-considered decision, I am electing to ignore it.
There is no benefit to this change. Protection from <alignment> worked the way they did for good reasons, and this change utterly invalidates core mechanics.
Problem #1: There is no way at all to get protection against compulsions produced by non-evil creatures. The wording used for Protection from Good, Protection from Law, and Protection from Chaos explicitly restricts the changes in behavior to the deflection/resistance bonuses. This means that they do not change the compulsion defense to apply to good/law/chaos.
Problem #2: Even if you fix that, this leaves us with a world in which you can have reliable protection against compulsion effects against anyone who isn't true neutral, but true neutrals can always use charm/compulsion powers.
Problem #3: A big part of the design intent of these spells was to have a reliable defense against compulsions that wasn't contingent on guessing the alignment of your enemies.
This is a bad change. I can concede that it's theoretically possible that there was a justification, but I am pretty sure the justification does not come close to making up for how badly this breaks things.
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And I'm sure the 20 minutes you spent pondering this yourself is likely to produce a far more accurate assessment of its practical effects than the months spent by teams of professional game designers and the years of actual gameplay from the entire community.
seebs wrote: I think I'm going to invoke the Nick Fury clause at that point. I am aware of their decision, but given that it is a *ahem* ill-considered decision, I am electing to ignore it.
There is no benefit to this change. Protection from <alignment> worked the way they did for good reasons, and this change utterly invalidates core mechanics.
Problem #1: There is no way at all to get protection against compulsions produced by non-evil creatures. The wording used for Protection from Good, Protection from Law, and Protection from Chaos explicitly restricts the changes in behavior to the deflection/resistance bonuses. This means that they do not change the compulsion defense to apply to good/law/chaos.
Problem #2: Even if you fix that, this leaves us with a world in which you can have reliable protection against compulsion effects against anyone who isn't true neutral, but true neutrals can always use charm/compulsion powers.
Problem #3: A big part of the design intent of these spells was to have a reliable defense against compulsions that wasn't contingent on guessing the alignment of your enemies.
This is a bad change. I can concede that it's theoretically possible that there was a justification, but I am pretty sure the justification does not come close to making up for how badly this breaks things.
It's not a bad change.. it's a good change. Because the way it worked before you had protection against EVERYONE no matter what the alignment was, good, evil, neutral.
2. Again neutral creatures aren't likely to be as predatory as evil ones and we're talking sentients, not animals.
3. It was never meant to be absolute immunity against everyone which is how your interpretation of the text would work out. It wasn't in 3.5.
4. This is not a rules change, this is a correction of a popular misreading of the existing text. So go tell Nick Fury to swallow his cigar.
Jiggy wrote: And I'm sure the 20 minutes you spent pondering this yourself is likely to produce a far more accurate assessment of its practical effects than the months spent by teams of professional game designers and the years of actual gameplay from the entire community. Do you seriously expect me to believe that anyone spent "months" on this single one-line change? Because I don't believe that for a minute.
LazarX wrote: 3. It was never meant to be absolute immunity against everyone which is how your interpretation of the text would work out. It wasn't in 3.5. Uh.
It absolutely was. This was explicit in the text. Pathfinder didn't add a sentence here. They replaced it. 3E/3.5E said, explicitly, "This second effect works regardless of alignment."
1st Edition didn't have the protection from possession, which was added in 2nd edition, but both 1st edition and 2nd edition explicitly state that the protection against being touched is regardless of alignment, and 2nd edition states that the protection against possession is also regardless of alignment.
I love Jiggy's responses before he's had caffeine.
So, reading protection from good/law/chaos closely: It appears that they provide additional saves against effects from corresponding sources, but the immunity clause stays fixed to evil sources only.
That strikes me as compelling evidence that this change was not carefully vetted or considered. There's a superficial change to the other spells, but it doesn't quite parallel the changes made to the wording of the rest of the spell.
This is absolutely a change to how the spell worked in D&D, and there's no evidence available to me suggesting that the change was carefully evaluated.
There's other changes. Protection from evil in 1E/2E prevented ANY summoned creatures from touching the subject. In 3E, an exception was made for good creatures only. Pathfinder extended that to non-evil creatures. This, similarly, strikes me as a pretty significant change, and one with significantly harmful implications. Evil wizards can summon neutral creatures, and their summoned neutral creatures can attack someone under the effects of protection from evil... Which they couldn't before.
In the absence of a clear statement of reasoning showing why this change is a good idea, I'm gonna stay with considering it a bad idea. Game designers make mistakes. That's why there's errata, and it's why there's competing games.
My best guess is that the designers may have thought that "this second effect" referred to the possession immunity, rather than to both the saves and possession immunity. But the entire paragraph is "the second effect", which is wording that parallels text that's been there since 2nd edition. But even so, it's still broken to have all four spells provide one effect that applies only against evil creatures.
Nefreet wrote: I love Jiggy's responses before he's had caffeine. I don't. I like it when people are actually interested in discussing the rules. I don't like it when they poison the well aggressively, turn the tone of the entire thread hostile and abusive, and subvert any attempt to seriously discuss the implications of a rule.
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Caffeine consumed. Post deleted.
...where am I?
seebs wrote: Nefreet wrote: I love Jiggy's responses before he's had caffeine. I don't. I like it when people are actually interested in discussing the rules. I don't like it when they poison the well aggressively, turn the tone of the entire thread hostile and abusive, and subvert any attempt to seriously discuss the implications of a rule. I'm the same way until I've had my coffee, and I warn people as such.
It's just nice to see other ppl operate the same way.
It can be amusing, but it is counterproductive.
I'm pretty goal-focused in Rules Questions.
So, I have a thought experiment.
Protection From Good wrote: This spell functions like protection from evil, except that the deflection and resistance bonuses apply to attacks made by good creatures. The target receives a new saving throw against control by good creatures and good summoned creatures cannot touch the target. Protection from Evil wrote: Second, the subject immediately receives another saving throw (if one was allowed to begin with) against any spells or effects that possess or exercise mental control over the creature (including enchantment [charm] effects and enchantment [compulsion] effects, such as charm person, command, and dominate person. This saving throw is made with a +2 morale bonus, using the same DC as the original effect. If successful, such effects are suppressed for the duration of this spell. The effects resume when the duration of this spell expires. While under the effects of this spell, the target is immune to any new attempts to possess or exercise mental control over the target. This spell does not expel a controlling life force (such as a ghost or spellcaster using magic jar), but it does prevent them from controlling the target. This second effect only functions against spells and effects created by evil creatures or objects, subject to GM discretion. Do you believe that protection from good provides immunity to attempts to possess or exercise mental control over a target from good creatures, evil creatures, both, or neither? Why?
Rules-as-written, I would assert that it's pretty clear that it provides the immunity only to spells and effects created by evil creatures or objects. The updated protection from good wording clearly covers only the second saving throw.
This conversation should be screenshotted and included in the online dictionary of the word "pedantic".
I'd apply the same benefits of Protection from Evil vs. Evil creatures to the recipient of a Protection from Good spell vs. Good creatures.
And I think any other rational GM would do the same.
Jiggy wrote: And I'm sure the 20 minutes you spent pondering this yourself is likely to produce a far more accurate assessment of its practical effects than the months spent by teams of professional game designers and the years of actual gameplay from the entire community. Wow, that was uncalled for.
First, I don't get the reverence afforded game designers. I don't mean to be harsh, but the pay sucks for a reason. This ain't rocket science, folks.
Second, who nominated you to speak for the "entire community?" (Though if your goal was to make that community seem even more insular, then congrats: You have succeeded.)
Nefreet wrote: This conversation should be screenshotted and included in the online dictionary of the word "pedantic". I'm sure I've seen you around Rules Discussion before, but you seem like you're not used to it?
Quote: I'd apply the same benefits of Protection from Evil vs. Evil creatures to the recipient of a Protection from Good spell vs. Good creatures.
And I think any other rational GM would do the same.
I believe you're looking for the Advice forum. This is Rules Discussion, where we are trying to determine what the rules actually say.
Okay, just imagine for a moment: What if the wording of the rules mattered?
It would be stupendously easy to just write "This spell functions like [i]protection from evil[/b], but the protections apply to good creatures instead of evil creatures." Instead, we got two sentences which go into detail about which specific effects they change. Why?
The most likely answer is that, in 3rd Edition, the spell only had two effects which were alignment-dependent, so only those two effects were changed.
But for some reason, when changing the spell for Pathfinder, Paizo chose to add an additional clause to name an additional effect which was altered, instead of merely simplifying the description significantly. Why? Well, one reason might be that they were intentionally restricting it to the second save aspect, and not intending to affect the immunity.
But that'd be silly.
So why did they add more words rather than using dramatically fewer words?
PRD says:
Quote: This spell functions like protection from evil, except that the deflection and resistance bonuses apply to attacks made by good creatures. The target receives a new saving throw against control by good creatures and good summoned creatures cannot touch the target. Why doesn't it say:
Quote: This spell functions like protection from evil, except that the protections defend against good creatures. Simpler, easier to understand, shorter. Normally that would be preferred.
My conclusion: I don't think they fully thought it through. I think it's pretty clear that the intent would be to change the whole thing, but that isn't what's said. And that supports my contention that the rules change as a whole was not considered as carefully as it probably should have been.
We also have the interesting trait that there is no defense at all against possession by neutral creatures now, which is a pretty huge change. And so far, I've not seen a single explanation of why the change should be needed. I've seen an assertion that it's not a "change", just a "clarification", but I think that's a complete non-starter. That some of the effects of protection from evil affected all creatures regardless of alignment, and were identical in protection from good, has been crystal clear through 30+ years of D&D. This is a change that Paizo made for some reason. I personally can't think of a reason for it, though; I don't see any benefit to it, and it introduces serious loopholes.
I nominate him.
I'm sure others would, too.
seebs, rules don't actually say anything.
They are written, and require reading.
There is a fundamental difference between the two.
Nefreet wrote: I nominate him.
I'm sure others would, too.
And many others would not. How about we all stick to speaking for ourselves?
Nefreet wrote: I nominated him.
I'm sure others would, too.
Look, if you find actually discussing the rules offensive, you could always just, you know. Not spend so much time in the Rules Discussion forum. This is far from the first thread in which I've seen you get all derisive about discussions of rules-as-written, and I honestly don't get it. What is the attraction of the rules discussion forum if you find it upsetting when people actually talk about what the rules say? Why are you on a forum that has a reminder on every post saying "We want our messageboards to be a fun and friendly place" if your sole contributions to a thread are going to be deriding the other users and praising a sarcastic flame, then nominating someone who went with a sarcastic flame rather than discussing the rules as a representative of the community?
What are you looking for here? Why is it important to you that people who actually enjoy talking about the rules and analyzing them be treated with derision and hostility?
Nefreet wrote: seebs, rules don't actually say anything.
They are written, and require reading.
There is a fundamental difference between the two.
And you call others pedantic?
Thanks for reminding me why I generally avoid the rules forum like the plague...
Nefreet wrote: seebs, rules don't actually say anything. The word "say" is consistently used in English to refer to the information communicated by a body of text.
Quote: They are written, and require reading.
There is a fundamental difference between the two.
This is all sound-bite with no actual content.
There is a distinction between Rules-as-Written and Rules-as-Intended. It is usually helpful to understand the RAW before trying to reach a conclusion about RAI. This is especially true if you're pondering the reasons for or implications of a given change.
seebs wrote: Why is it important to you that people who actually enjoy talking about the rules and analyzing them be treated with derision and hostility? I don't get it either, but it sure happens a lot. I can only assume it is out of some sort of misguided one-true-wayism.
I remember once on the MacRumors forums encountering someone who wrote this long piece about how Apple didn't want or need programmers to use their products, they wanted their products only used by trendsetters who were wearing expensive suits, because that would improve their product image. This was offered as an explanation of why a user's dissatisfaction with a technical shortcoming of a product should be disregarded.
The desire to attack anyone who criticizes the company is mysterious to me. Pathfinder is a really good system. It has in many ways hugely improved on 3e/3.5e D&D. But it has flaws, and sometimes the designers make bad calls. Getting angry and defensive about discussion of those flaws does not make the game better, or make discussion more productive.
seebs wrote: The desire to attack anyone who criticizes the company is mysterious to me. Pathfinder is a really good system. It has in many ways hugely improved on 3e/3.5e D&D. But it has flaws, and sometimes the designers make bad calls. Getting angry and defensive about discussion of those flaws does not make the game better, or make discussion more productive.
UNCLEAN! YOU MUST BE CAST OUT! ;-)
Seriously, though, I think it might be like fan loyalty.
Fan loyalty is a lovely thing, and insanely counterproductive in most cases.
In any event, in the absence of an actual specific benefit to the rules change that there is absolutely no way to get a defense against neutral summoned creatures, or protection against possession by neutral attackers, I'm just going to stick with the 3.5E rules, which worked fine.
bugleyman wrote: Jiggy wrote: And I'm sure the 20 minutes you spent pondering this yourself is likely to produce a far more accurate assessment of its practical effects than the months spent by teams of professional game designers and the years of actual gameplay from the entire community. Wow, that was uncalled for. Yes, it was. Had a bad morning, took it out on seebs. Totally inappropriate, and entirely my fault. Sorry, seebs; if I wasn't past the 1-hour delete/edit window, I'd delete it. My apologies.
Jiggy wrote: bugleyman wrote: Jiggy wrote: And I'm sure the 20 minutes you spent pondering this yourself is likely to produce a far more accurate assessment of its practical effects than the months spent by teams of professional game designers and the years of actual gameplay from the entire community. Wow, that was uncalled for. Yes, it was. Had a bad morning, took it out on seebs. Totally inappropriate, and entirely my fault. Sorry, seebs; if I wasn't past the 1-hour delete/edit window, I'd delete it. My apologies. Apology accepted. And I may have not exactly been helping on the tone front myself.
Also, I've re-read this a couple of times, and my first time through I didn't think any part of the second effect was being altered, because I missed the change to the second sentence in good/law/chaos. I'm not sure whether it's better or worse to have it referring to the second-save effect but not to the immunity.
I know that sometimes the design team have reasons for things that I haven't spotted yet; for instance, the reason for SLAs to count as prerequisites was originally a mob which had a dimension door SLA, and was supposed to have Dimensional Agility. But I have just plain not come up with a single case where the Pathfinder version of Protection from Evil makes a better ruling than the 3.5E version, and I can think of lots of cases where it creates serious problems, even if you fix up the other three spells a little.
I think 3E was right to make an exemption to the "no contact from summoned creatures" for good creatures (for protection from evil), I think extending that to neutral creatures is probably a bad idea. And I am still convinced that "regardless of alignment" was a better way for the anti-possession effect to work.
Jiggy wrote: Yes, it was. Had a bad morning, took it out on seebs. Totally inappropriate, and entirely my fault. Sorry, seebs; if I wasn't past the 1-hour delete/edit window, I'd delete it. My apologies. Well done, sir. +1 respect point. *tips hat*
seebs wrote: Nefreet wrote: seebs, rules don't actually say anything. The word "say" is consistently used in English to refer to the information communicated by a body of text. How people "consistently use" a word doesn't mean they're using it correctly.
seebs wrote: Nefreet wrote: They are written, and require reading.
There is a fundamental difference between the two.
This is all sound-bite with no actual content.
There is a distinction between Rules-as-Written and Rules-as-Intended. It is usually helpful to understand the RAW before trying to reach a conclusion about RAI. This is especially true if you're pondering the reasons for or implications of a given change.
I'm of the philosophical belief that there is no such thing as "rules as written".
Everything we read, we interpret.
If rules spoke, we wouldn't have the numerous branches of Christianity that we do, and we would have no need of judges to interpret the Constitution.
Gaming rules are no different.
You believe in the distinction of rules-as-written, and rules-as-intended.
I believe there are instead two types of RAI: rules-as-intended, and rules-as-interpreted.
Some rules are legitimately unclear, like the various mounted combat rules, light and darkness interactions, and other less defined instances.
But on this topic, I believe the answer is clear, and I stick by the belief that any rational GM will handle it appropriately.
The Design Team has more important things to focus on than clarifying that Protection from Good actually does what its name implies.
seebs wrote: Also, I've re-read this a couple of times, and my first time through I didn't think any part of the second effect was being altered, because I missed the change to the second sentence in good/law/chaos. I'm not sure whether it's better or worse to have it referring to the second-save effect but not to the immunity. Looking at the 3.5 and Pathfinder versions of both PfE and PfG, I'm thinking that the omission of immunity in PfG was just an oversight/typo. They pretty much just took 3.5's PfG, inserted the new-save thing, cleaned up the resulting run-on sentence with a touch of rephrasing and a period, and either (A) forgot to reference immunity, or (B) thought that referencing the new-save effect was equivalent to referencing the entire "second effect" paragraph in which it appears. It's also possible that the design team made a decision to make the "second effect" alignment-based but then handed off the edits to an intern or a layout person or some other non-designer to do the actual typing/editing, and the wording was less than precise as a result.
Quote: I know that sometimes the design team have reasons for things that I haven't spotted yet; for instance, the reason for SLAs to count as prerequisites was originally a mob which had a dimension door SLA, and was supposed to have Dimensional Agility. The way I understand that one (based on commentary from SKR), is that the design team had been wanting for a while to have SLAs function more similarly to spells, but didn't want to re-write the rules in order to get there. Then they spotted the rule that says SLAs already count as spellcasting prereqs for item crafting, decided that could be used as a precedent, confirmed that no rules actually prevented SLAs from counting for other things as well, and issued a FAQ that announced a new (compared to 3.5) intent without having to change any actual rules text.
Just, you know, in case you were curious. :)
Quote: But I have just plain not come up with a single case where the Pathfinder version of Protection from Evil makes a better ruling than the 3.5E version, You wouldn't call "protection from evil now protects you from evil and not from non-evil" a good thing?
Quote: and I can think of lots of cases where it creates serious problems, even if you fix up the other three spells a little. Like what? You mentioned the inability to give yourself immunity to enchantments from neutral casters, but what are the rest of the "lots of cases"?
I actually don't think it's a "good thing", because neutral creatures are extremely common for summons. In D&D, if an evil wizard summons an elemental to attack you, protection from evil protects you. In Pathfinder, it doesn't.
You can't get immunity to possessions from neutral casters, nor can you get a second save against their charms or compulsions. That means that a neutral enchanter who hires out to evil people can be utterly devastating. Since 3E and Pathfinder have allowed for many ghost-type creatures to be non-evil, that makes them suddenly much more powerful than they used to be.
If you had also a "protection from neutrality", that might work, except that either it's 5/3 as powerful, or 1/3 as powerful, as any of the other protections. Or it has to invent some new distinction between "protection from neutrality between good and evil" and "protection from neutrality between law and chaos".
To put it another way: In 1e and 2e, there was a clear considered choice to make the protection from evil (or good) auras block contact from *all* summoned creatures. I can see a reason to take that away for the ones matching the presumed alignment of the caster, but it's so very easy to come up with neutral summons. An evil caster won't be going after you with lantern archons, but they might well use elementals...
I think that's a pretty serious hole, and a significant nerf. And I don't think it actually makes a better spell, because the nature of good-vs-evil (or law-vs-chaos) in D&D and Pathfinder is such that neutral is often part of your opposition in a given fight. Making it so that there's absolutely no defense whatsoever against neutral creatures is pretty bad.
It also creates a very strange asymmetry, in that magic circle against evil works on neutral creatures if and only if you're using it for containment. It would make more sense if either:
1. It worked against nongood creatures all the time, and so did protection from evil.
2. It didn't work against "nongood" creatures, just evil creatures.
... But if you do the latter, then you can't use planar binding on elementals at all ever, and that's even worse!
seebs wrote: ... But if you do the latter, then you can't use planar binding on elementals at all ever, and that's even worse! You CAN... it just becomes a good deal more riskier. Pity the Witch however who gets the planar binding spells on her spell list, but not the magic circle ones.
That however should be addressed as a separate issue. I think the best fix for the summoning issue would be to simply replace the magic circle spells with appropriately drawn diagrams for a specific cost.
so are we ignoring champions of balance candy and spells like counterbalancing aura and dispel balance and ardor's onslaught because I do not want to spoil whatever this thread is trying to be
seebs wrote: I actually don't think it's a "good thing", because neutral creatures are extremely common for summons. In D&D, if an evil wizard summons an elemental to attack you, protection from evil protects you. In Pathfinder, it doesn't. "Neutral creatures are extremely common for summons"? Unless I missed something, elementals are the only creatures capable of being summoned as TN. That's a very small part of the list. And at least in my area, elementals are very rarely summoned for combat (though summoning an earth elemental for scouting is fairly common, but that's a moot point for this discussion).
In any case, having one option in summoning that can be used as an answer for protection seems like a good thing to me. If you don't know your enemy has protection, you typically summon something with lots of attacks and run a good chance of getting burned. If you're astute enough to be aware of your enemy's protection, you're rewarded by having the option of summoning something else to get past it.
That setup looks like a good thing to me.
Quote: You can't get immunity to possessions from neutral casters, nor can you get a second save against their charms or compulsions. That means that a neutral enchanter who hires out to evil people can be utterly devastating. First, I'm fairly sure there are spells that protect against enchantments without alignment restrictions, they're just not these spells.
Second, lack of immunity =/= major problem. Enchantments grant saves, just like a bajillion other spells. Why is the lack of immunity to mind control worse than a lack of immunity to disintegrate or the lack of immunity to hold person or the lack of immunity to plane shift?
Third, someone who does murder-for-hire for evil people is not neutral. If your GM prefers alignments to be nothing more than team jerseys and/or multiclass limiters (i.e., no paladin/druids), that's fine, but the complications that arise as a result are not the fault of the system and have no bearing on whether PfE is well-designed.
There might occasionally be a neutral person being blackmailed or otherwise forced to act evil, but if this is a constant threat than it's because the GM is a dick, not because there's something wrong with PfE.
Quote: Since 3E and Pathfinder have allowed for many ghost-type creatures to be non-evil, that makes them suddenly much more powerful than they used to be. Ghost wrote: Although ghosts can be any alignment, the majority cling to the living world out of a powerful sense of rage and hatred, and as a result are chaotic evil—even the ghost of a good or lawful creature can become hateful and cruel in its afterlife. So a non-evil ghost is supposed to be rare. Additionally, a ghost doesn't carry any inherent enchanting power, so it's only relevant if it's the ghost of an enchanter. So just like with living neutral enchanters (perhaps moreso, in fact), neutral ghost-enchanters are going to be rare enough enemies that it probably means the GM is out to get you in a very metagamey sense.
Quote: I think that's a pretty serious hole, and a significant nerf. A nerf is not necessarily bad. Even in Pathfinder, it's still one of the most powerful spells in the game, and is 1st level and on a million spell lists. It really needed to be toned down.
If you are looking for spells that reference other spells for how they work, and all the gaps/unintended consequences, the "Hand/Fist" spells are full of fun and inconsistencies.
So, to address the point brought up earlier in this thread. Yes I believe that Seebs has probably done a closer critical read of the spell text than the developers have. I choose to believe this, because evidence tends to indicate that the developers are competent when writing mechanics in English, and slip-ups like the ones shown in this thread are probably due to inattention and not incompetency in writing clear and consistent mechanics.
My view is, "protection from evil" ought to protect me from anything an evil character is likely to summon (most evil characters won't summon good creatures, I figure?), because it's supposed to be the defense against summoned creatures.
The immunity thing may not be a major problem, but the issue here is that it's an *imbalance*, because you can get immunity to possession from any caster who's not true neutral.
As to the summon list... Oh! I had missed a thing: The fiendish/celestial qualifiers. Although... Huh. You know what? I am not sure that changes anything. So far as I can tell, a celestial badger is still neutral-aligned. The template doesn't say it changes the creature's alignment. ... Ahh, but the creatures then match your alignment.
Which means that a neutral caster can summon celestial or fiendish creatures, and they continue to be neutral, but that an evil caster summoning them will get evil fiendish ones. Very strange.
I found the utility of "immune to possession attempts" to be a pretty good deal. And I will concede, this may have made the spell too powerful, but its duration is short enough that in practice it wasn't usually up, and it's impractical to try to keep it up all the time.
If I were in a game which kept the previous behavior, I don't think I'd find myself thinking "gosh, this should be nerfed". This may be in part because I've had "protection from evil" providing complete protection against natural attacks by summoned creatures for about 30 years now, and I'm used to it. :)
I should point out: I totally admit that I am Very Pedantic. I spent about ten years on an ISO programming language committee as a hobby, not representing an employer. :P
seebs wrote: I should point out: I totally admit that I am Very Pedantic. I spent about ten years on an ISO programming language committee as a hobby, not representing an employer. :P But you do understand the rules are written with the assumption that they will not be read that strictly and that the message assumes you understand context and apply it?
seebs wrote: My view is, "protection from evil" ought to protect me from anything an evil character is likely to summon (most evil characters won't summon good creatures, I figure?), because it's supposed to be the defense against summoned creatures. Why? According to whom? How would you know what the purpose of PfE is "supposed to be"?
Quote: The immunity thing may not be a major problem, but the issue here is that it's an *imbalance*, because you can get immunity to possession from any caster who's not true neutral. I find the idea of "you can usually protect yourself from X, but there's still a circumstance you have to watch out for" to be a desirable thing in a game.
Quote: Which means that a neutral caster can summon celestial or fiendish creatures, and they continue to be neutral, but that an evil caster summoning them will get evil fiendish ones. Very strange. See above.
Quote: This may be in part because I've had "protection from evil" providing complete protection against natural attacks by summoned creatures for about 30 years now, and I'm used to it. :) Bingo. This is what I was (in poor form) trying to get at before: it's not that the design team is infallible or incapable of mistakes or poor decisions, but they are more prone to making decisions based on what's actually good for the game in a broader sense than just "What I'm used to is good, taking something away is bad".
If D&D had never existed and we were starting with Pathfinder, I bet you wouldn't be complaining that a spell called protection from evil only protected you from things that were evil, and didn't protect you from things that are not evil. In fact, I bet if Pathfinder were the beginning and D&D were a spinoff, you'd be asking why in the world they would decide to make one-third of the effect of "protection from EVIL" apply to all alignments.
The ability or inability to see that is the difference between being a designer for the leading fantasy RPG on the market and being stuck here in the forums with me. ;)
James Risner wrote: seebs wrote: I should point out: I totally admit that I am Very Pedantic. I spent about ten years on an ISO programming language committee as a hobby, not representing an employer. :P But you do understand the rules are written with the assumption that they will not be read that strictly and that the message assumes you understand context and apply it?
Honestly, it's not just that I don't think the rules are always intended to be read that pedantically, it's also that they aren't always not intended to be read that pedantically. Consider all the discussions about full attack actions or attack actions. There's a general inconsistency in that sometimes you really are expected to read something quite precisely as-written and not try to think about whether it makes sense, and other times you really are expected to apply some judgment, and which is which can be very hard to predict.
That said: I find that it is often a very useful strategy to start with a very strict reading, and only move away from that if there seem to be obvious problems or contradictions. Most of the time, the rules work fine even read quite pedantically. And some of the time when there are ambiguities, thinking about what's ambiguous and why they said it that way can be very useful.
Jiggy wrote: Why? According to whom? How would you know what the purpose of PfE is "supposed to be"? Familiarity with the literature. This is a sort of general magic thing; most magic systems think that a binding will in general protect against or contain summons, or block possession, without regard to alignment. :)
Quote: I find the idea of "you can usually protect yourself from X, but there's still a circumstance you have to watch out for" to be a desirable thing in a game. A circumstance, sure. But "this alignment has absolutely unambiguous and significant mechanical benefits which other alignments cannot obtain by any means" is not a circumstance, it's a balance flaw.
Quote: If D&D had never existed and we were starting with Pathfinder, I bet you wouldn't be complaining that a spell called protection from evil only protected you from things that were evil, and didn't protect you from things that are not evil. I might not, but I would likely be complaining about the lack of a protection from neutral. And if someone proposed that some aspects of the spell be alignment-bound, and others just apply generically because that's how magic circles work, I'd accept that resolution as cleaning up the problem nicely. In short, good characters shouldn't be casting "protection from evil", they should be casting "protection from nongood".
What's all this about "a binding" protecting against summons and how "magic circles" work? What are you talking about?
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