| 2 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
Looking for some agreement on my interpretation of a Swashbuckler with the Cape of Feinting being able to spend an entire combat daze-locking a target.
Three times per day, the wearer can spend a standard action to purposely miss an opponent, performing a dramatic feint that causes that opponent to lose its Dexterity bonus to AC until the wearer's next turn. If a swashbuckler wearing the cloak of feinting performs the superior feint deed or uses this cape's ability, the opponent is also dazed until the start of the swashbuckler's next turn.
Superior Feint (Ex) : At 7th level, a swashbuckler with at least 1 panache point can, as a standard action, purposefully miss a creature she could make a melee attack against with a wielded light or one-handed piercing weapon. When she does, the creature is denied its Dexterity bonus to AC until the start of the swashbuckler's next turn.
The way I read it: the swashbuckler with the cape can daze-lock a target, trading their standard action to make the monster unable to act. There is no usage limit and no cost associated to this; they can literally spend the entire combat standing next to the Boss Monster and keep it from acting (no saves allowed) while the party murders it?
My reasoning: I see the cape has describing two separate points. First is that you can, 3/day, force an opponent to lose their dex for a round. Second is that a swashbuckler with the cape gets an upgraded effect with their superior feint deed, unrelated to the 3/day ability.
It really isn't much different than a witch with slumber/cackle, but it seems a bit powerful. There's also the fact that daze doesn't work on a fair number of creatures. And the item is a solid 14k, which isn't exactly chump change. Is my interpretation correct?
Yes. You can perma-daze anything in the game with a swashbuckler and this item. There is a reason it was banned in PFS, and I would recommend banning it in any home game as well.
I would go the other way on interpreting this item and say that it is never the intent of the designers to put any item into the game that would allow you to 'anything-lock' anything in the game.
With that assumption in mind I believe the item was meant to allow you to daze something only when your using it's three times per day power. So you can daze something for only three rounds at best, not forever.
Forever would be silly and absolutely broken. I doubt that was the designers goal.
That makes good sense. I figure it would be fine with a tweak to remove the deed part of the item. So a swashbuckler can still daze someone with it, but only when using the item's ability (and thus limited to 3/day).
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
With that assumption in mind I believe the item was meant to allow you to daze something only when your using it's three times per day power. So you can daze something for only three rounds at best, not forever.
Forever would be silly and absolutely broken. I doubt that was the designers goal.
That's not an interpretation, as it's explicitly contradicted in the text:
If a swashbuckler wearing the cloak of feinting performs the superior feint deed uses this cape's ability, the opponent is also dazed until the start of the swashbuckler's next turn.
It explicitly lists two things that can trigger the daze: one of them is using the listed deed, and the other is using the 3/day ability.
The item may be broken, and it's certainly within your rights to modify or ban it in your games, but pretending that the intent of "triggers when you do X or Y" was to actually mean "triggers only when you do Y" is dishonest.
I don't know why so many GMs seem to be so afraid of labeling something a "houserule" that they'll choose to instead pretend that the designers wrote the explicit opposite of what they meant. What is so wrong with acknowledging what the text actually says and then just choosing to change it?
|
Yes. You can perma-daze anything in the game with a swashbuckler and this item. There is a reason it was banned in PFS, and I would recommend banning it in any home game as well.I would go the other way on interpreting this item and say that it is never the intent of the designers to put any item into the game that would allow you to 'anything-lock' anything in the game.
With that assumption in mind I believe the item was meant to allow you to daze something only when your using it's three times per day power. So you can daze something for only three rounds at best, not forever.
Forever would be silly and absolutely broken. I doubt that was the designers goal.
That isn't what is written though. It clearly states that Superior Feint will daze as well with this item. I assume the item was written with the incorrect assumption that superior feint cost panache and couldn't be used all day.
But as written it does what it says it does, which is allow a 7th level swashbuckler to daze something forever by using their standard action to do so.
does not seem that broken to me it take your turn to stop someone else turn alot of things are immune to daze.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Actually, yeah it looks like only Behemoths have any rules regarding daze, and it is just that they automatically recover from it, not that they are immune to it.
So yes, a level 7 swashbuckler could stand next to an Ancient Wyrm and let his party murder it (might take awhile, but it will happen).
does not seem that broken to me it take your turn to stop someone else turn alot of things are immune to daze.
The problem is that a 7th level swashbuckler can dance around an any level anything and daze lock it for as long as the swashbuckler can stay awake.
In a normal game where the GM decides to only send CR-appropriate monsters, and knows not to send standalone BBEGs to solo the party, it might not be that broken. But if your party wants to seek out a Pit Fiend or a Solar or a Jabberwock, it shouldn't be possible for a 7th level character to lock it down infinitely with no check, no save, so SR, no resource use, etc. As the item is written, it allows this to happen.
That's not an interpretation, as it's explicitly contradicted in the text:...
Sometimes common sense trumps absolutism and strict adherence to questionable grammar.
Unfortunately, that "or" in the text does seem to make daze-locking possible. It has potential for abuse, but any good combat should have multiple opponents so it likely won't break the game, most of the time. That said, it still could use a fix. Others have suggested tying the dazed condition to stunned (which I thought it used to be), which would work. You could also limit that usage to 3/day, and it would still be a useful item if one of your players has it and wants to keep it.
|
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sometimes common sense trumps absolutism and strict adherence to questionable grammar.Common sense can tell you it probably isn't supposed to be written that way.
Common sense cannot tell you it ISN'T written that way.
Pretty much this.
The grammar is not questionable. Reading "whenever you do X or Y" to mean "whenever you do X or Y" is not absolutism or strictness, it's literacy. It is what the sentence actually says.
Should it have said that? Probably not. But it does, and claiming it says something else is simply wrong.
3/day daze is a decent ability for a 14k item.
.
blast from the past
this is the cape that bignorsewolf and I got banned from PFS