I know there's always lots of discussion about whether you count as your own ally or not, but I've not been able to find anything about who can count as your ally. Must it be a mutual thing? Can you consider someone an ally who doesn't consider you an ally in return? Must you actually consider them an ally, or can you just consider them an ally for a short while in order to get some benefit and then consider them an enemy again whenever you feel like it?
This is specifically relevant to me because there is an Inquisitor NPC in my setting who may (or may not) end up in combat with the PCs (they may ally themselves with him, but it's like 50/50). I'm debating between going Preacher or keeping Solo Tactics.
I think it'd be kind of awesome and insidious if he could take Swarm Scatter or Back to Back and get an AC buff when they surround him. Or Outflank/Precise Strike if he can maneuver it right to get to of the party members next to each other.
On the other hand, I sort of fear the precedent. If it works, Inquisitor PCs just got a whole lot more dangerous...
Allies and Enemies are distinct, although they aren't thoroughly defined - it's kind of assumed that people innately understand who's an "ally" and who's an "enemy" during a fight.
It's kinda like "the car drives on wheels" and someone asks "define 'on'"
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However, there IS a real question here:
When you have a 3-way fight, can the other two parties count as you're allies when you're both attacking the same target, or are they never your allies and always your enemies, regardless of whether both of you are attacking the same target, etc.
Mexican Standoffs or certain battles involving armies of Dwarves, Men, Eagles, Orcs, and Elves make for some very odd questions about who is whose friend
The rogue talent Unwitting Ally is one way that an opponent becomes an ally.
If you bluff the enemy into thinking you are a friend, that is another.
You may also be able to use diplomacy or intimidate as well.
If you use magic (Charm Person, et. al.), you can do this.
I do know you can exclude some party members from spells like bless. I don't see why you could not include potential allies as allies. However, I do think that anyone who is a declared enemy, will never be an ally unless you expend effort as per the first paragraph. Any included for an effect still gain the benefit if they become neutral or enemies, so be careful.
/cevah
Edit: added 2nd paragraph after reading the entire post.
The rogue talent Unwitting Ally is one way that an opponent becomes an ally.
If you bluff the enemy into thinking you are a friend, that is another.
You may also be able to use diplomacy or intimidate as well.
If you use magic (Charm Person, et. al.), you can do this.
Sadly, that means you'd have 10 levels of Rogue.
Having 10 levels of Rogue is INFINITELY better now than it used to be, but if your intention is to be an Inquisitor, and you're not playing past lv15, then it's not extremely useful, sadly.
But, yeah, there is that somehow.
The NPC is an 8th level Heretic Sanctified Slayer with the Reformation Inquisition in a no-magic-items E8 game.
As he is a Sanctified Slayer, he gets a Slayer Talent (and more with post 8th feats). Slayer weirdly lists Unwitting Ally as an option under the basic slayer talents, and yes, he took it. Frankly, I didn't even realize it was an advanced Rogue talent. However, that just helps with flanking and only for 1 round per target.
The point of the character is that he used to infiltrate illegal cults and weed out heretics, but, something happened that kind of broke him. He's gone mad and sort of switched faiths to the one he was previously hunting, but a twisted version of it. When the PCs encounter him, it'll be tense, but unclear. He's doing something...wrong...but he's also crazy and thinks he's doing something good, so, the theme of it is, to some degree, uncertainty.
I think it would be thematic for him to count enemies as allies, but, it turns out, there is a Sanctified Slayer in the party as well, so, I want to be careful about setting precedents.
