Are a warlock's mystic bolts manufactured weapons?

[swoosh]

There are a number of effects that specify that they work with manufactured weapons, or natural weapons and a couple that specify they work with manufactured and natural weapons.

Mystic Bolt isn't classified as either, but the rules as written seem to generally imply that those are the only two kinds of weapons. Is there a general rule here?

Feats like Weapon Trick and spells like Sense Vitals rely specifically on manufactured weapons. There's a few other effects that specify natural and/or manufactured, which leaves as written mystic bolts sitting in a weird grey area.

[Drahliana Moonrunner]

Context matters. Your question is going to be one of those that it pretty much is going to be a case by case issues. Sometimes the answer may be yes, and other times it will clearly be no. I would say that Weapon Trick and Sense Vitals are both in the "no" category.

[ShieldLawrence]

I'd say it doesn't count as natural or manufactured.

[Ring_of_Gyges]

"The warlock vigilante attacks with mystic bolts as though they were light one-handed weapons"

I'd allow it.

[Johnny_Devo]

Due to the lack of any defined term for "manufactured weapons", I would say that you have to then look towards the other terms used in the game. Are they improvised weapons? no. Are they unarmed strikes? no. Are they natural weapons? also no.

With that in mind, I would rule that any weapon that is not any of those things fits in the last category, for the effects of things like "sense vitals" and "combat stamina".

[ShieldLawrence]

It's a Supernatureal ability. It isn't defined as being manufactured so it isn't manufactured. A Whip of Spiders can't benefit from Sense Vitals in the same way, because it's a magic effect that isn't defined as a manufactured weapon, just a type of weapon.

[Chess Pwn]

It's not anything. If anything it's a supernatural weapon.

[swoosh]

ShieldLawrence wrote:

A Whip of Spiders can't benefit from Sense Vitals in the same way

I'm not actually sure that's true. You explicitly treat a Whip of Spiders as a whip.

You might be right for Mystic Bolt though. If you are it creates another set of weird rules interactions where a lot of abilities and rules involving weapons and weapon attacks don't work right.

[ShieldLawrence]

swoosh wrote:

ShieldLawrence wrote:

A Whip of Spiders can't benefit from Sense Vitals in the same way

I'm not actually sure that's true. You explicitly treat a Whip of Spiders as a whip.

You might be right for Mystic Bolt though. If you are it creates another set of weird rules interactions where a lot of abilities and rules involving weapons and weapon attacks don't work right.

It's treated as a whip for feats and such, but still definitely not a "manufactured" weapon.

Just like Mystic Bolts aren't manufactured, they are magically created as part of attacking. They follow the rules of weapons just fine, but the effects that require a manufactured weapon won't work.

[swoosh]

Quote:

It's treated as a whip for feats and such, but still definitely not a "manufactured" weapon.

It's not treated as a whip for for feats and such. It's treated as a whip full stop. Whips are manufactured weapons. So if you're treating it as a whip, you must therefore also treat it as a manufactured weapon, because that's what whips are.

At best you can argue it's ambiguous, but there's no real text to support the assertion that they don't count as whips in that regard.

Mystic bolts are problematic because they have no such qualifier in the first place. You simply treat them as light, rather than any specific manufactured or natural weapon.

[Josh-o-Lantern]

swoosh wrote:

Mystic Bolt isn't classified as either, but the rules as written seem to generally imply that those are the only two kinds of weapons. Is there a general rule here?

Why would you assume that? Ray attacks are treated as weapon for feats such as Weapon Focus and are clearly neither manufactured nor natural. Paizo is free to create new weapon categories that don't fit the established norm.