Kineticist Thundering Infusion Wording

[LilyHaze]

Thundering Infusion: "Your lightning brings with it a peal of thunder. Whenever your infused blast hits a foe and penetrates spell resistance, that foe becomes deafened, even if the blast doesn't deal damage."

Does this only apply when it penetrates spell resistance, or does it just apply on whoever it hits?

[LilyHaze]

Any ideas, anyone?

[Deadbeat Doom]

"-Hits a foe and penetrates spell resistance..."

That is not an either/or situation, so I'd say it works if you hit and penetrate SR; the Thundering Infusion just doesn't care whether the blast makes it through energy resistance/immunity..

[LilyHaze]

Deadbeat Doom wrote:

"-Hits a foe and penetrates spell resistance..."

That is not an either/or situation, so I'd say it works if you hit and penetrate SR; the Thundering Infusion just doesn't care whether the blast makes it through energy resistance/immunity..

Right, but it only applies to enemies that have SR to begin with? So Joe Thugman isn't deafened?

[Josh-o-Lantern]

I guess it would depend... does it work like Natural Armor? A creature without NA is treated as having NA 0. Does a creature without a listed SR have and effective SR 0?

[someweirdguy]

I think the wording was RAI to imply that, if a creature has SR, the spell has to penetrate it to deafen it.

The way it is worded does seem to imply by RAW that the creature isn't deafened unless it had spell resistance.

I think it should have been written like this - "Your lightning brings with it a peal of thunder. Whenever your infused blast hits a foe, that foe becomes deafened. Your blast has to penetrate spell resistance, but the foe is deafened even if it doesn't deal damage."

[LilyHaze]

That was exactly my problem with it. It seems a little strange to only function against enemies with Spell Resistance, but the "and" ties the two conditions together.

And that's a good question Josh. If all enemies with less than 1 SR are considered to have SR 0, and thus you auto-penetrate it, then this is a non-issue.

[Imbicatus]

If the target has SR 0, then you penetrate it on a hit. I don't see the confusion here. If you have two rules interpretations where one of the interpretations allows the power to function and one doesn't then go with the one that allows it to function.

[LilyHaze]

I'm restricted to PFS exclusively, so I'm always looking for definitive answers to questions when I can find them.

[Imbicatus]

So am I. I have never played with any pfs GM who would rule that a clause that reads if you bypass SR means that an ability only works if you target a creature with SR.

Edit:

Think of it like this: if Thundering Infusion only worked on targets with SR, then spell resistance, an ability that only serves to resist magical effects, would in fact make you more vulnerable to magical effects than someone without it. Does that make any sense to you?

[Grumpus]

I had also wondered about this infusion.
Since the deafened has no duration listed, i assume it is permanent, which to me seems pretty overpowered for just a 1st level power (and if I remember correctly there is no 'burn' cost too).

Thats why I think it may only work on creatures with a SR listed.

[Imbicatus]

It's a level one infusion with 1 burn cost. Deafened is a minor debuff though. It's only a 20% failure for verbal spells,and a -4 to initiative. It's really not that powerful.

[blackanthrax]

someweirdguy wrote:

I think the wording was RAI to imply that, if a creature has SR, the spell has to penetrate it to deafen it.

The way it is worded does seem to imply by RAW that the creature isn't deafened unless it had spell resistance.

I think it should have been written like this - "Your lightning brings with it a peal of thunder. Whenever your infused blast hits a foe, that foe becomes deafened. Your blast has to penetrate spell resistance, but the foe is deafened even if it doesn't deal damage."

Agree. I think that's exactly what it's supposed to mean.

You only need to hit (in this case SR is just a 2nd AC) and regardless if all damage gets soaked you would still deafen your target..

otherwise you need to overcome AC, SR and the enemy needs to fail a fort save, which would render this infusion useless.

[wpnmstr26]

The ruling in our PFS today was that if the enemy has no SR, the infusion will not work. Main argument was the clause of needing to hit AND penetrate SR, and since there's no rule stating a creature without SR listed has SR=0, there's no SR to penetrate, and thus the infusion does nothing. It might not make logical sense, but it doesn't have to. That's just how it is. It's only a LV1 infusion, so it's not gonna be terribly useful anyway.

[blahpers]

Oh, PFS, you never change.