When Fluff and Crunch Collide!

[DubiousYak]

So I'm interested in the strict PFS RAW environment if the descriptive text of an ability conflict with the crunch, what wins?

I have two examples, and I want your opinion on them. I would come to differing conclusions on these so I want your opinions.

You are a Slyph Alchemist with Cloud Gazer feat and Smoke Bomb Discovery.

Does Cloud Gazer work on the Smoke Bombs? It functions as Fog Cloud, and Cloud Gazer should let you see three times as far. But Smoke Bomb says it is Smoke in the first sentence. I'd rule they did not work together, but others have disagreed with me.

Now there is the Crypt Breaker archetype.

Quote:

Alkahest Bombs (Su): A crypt breaker’s bombs are specially designed to work best against constructs and corporeal undead-two foes commonly encountered in ancient tombs. Known as alkahest bombs, these bombs deal acid damage instead of fire damage. Alkahest is an alchemical fluid that eats away unliving flesh and animated constructs, but it doesn’t work as well against other targets. Against constructs and corporeal undead, alkahest bombs deal 1d8 points of damage, plus 1d8 points of damage for every odd-numbered level instead of 1d6. Against all other creatures, alkahest bombs deal 1d4 points of damage, plus 1d4 points of force damage for every odd-numbered level. This ability otherwise functions as and replaces the standard alchemist bomb class feature.

My understanding is that for PFS we ignore RAI (and James Jacobs comments) and go with RAW - just do Force damage to all other creatures even though the two conflict.

Both of these circumstances are description conflicting with crunch and I'm not sure the proper way to rule these now. What do you guys think? Are there precedents of this to inform this decision?

[Ragoz]

1. Functions as Fog Cloud and you can see through fog with Cloud Gazer.

2. I'm not sure what the conflict is. Against constructs and corporeal undead it deals acid damage. Against everything else it deals force damage.

[Grrr De'Bonaire]

I am fluff.

My enemies go crunch.

[DubiousYak]

Guys, I'm asking for precedents so I can build a case for one or the other.

Are there other ruling where the description and the crunch clashed and there was a ruling? That should help inform how to rule these in PFS.

[BigNorseWolf]

There's really no overarching general case for this. Sometimes it goes one way sometimes it goes another.

I'm not seeing any way to not let the slyph see 15 feet in the cloud.

I don't see a contradiction in the latter, unless it was an outright typo ..eyup. outright typo. DM's call. That ones a pretty blatant typo, some dms will want to correct it some wont.

[claudekennilol]

Once you've actually played a lot of PFS you'll realize that "PFS is RAW" is nonsense. Different people (and thus different GMs) will have their own opinions on what different things mean. That's about as simply as I can state it.

[trollbill]

If something is clearly RAW, the RAW wins out. If something is not clearly RAW, the RAI can and should be used to help determine the ruling. That does not mean everyone will rule the same, so there is table variation. The biggest problem is when RAW seems clear to the player so they build expecting no table variation only to discover that the GM does not see it as clearly as the player.

[Kurald Galain]

An important rule for PFS is to not build characters based on controversial interpretations of the rules (or if you do, expect your character to not work as expected with some GMs).

Imho, Smoke Bomb creates a fog cloud (because the ability says so) and thus Cloud Gazer works with that. Alkahest bombs deal acid damage (because the ability says so) and the word 'force' is clearly a copy/paste error that should be ignored.