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I recently finished 7 goals on my Silver Crusade faction card, but when I went to use the Paragon feature, I was terribly confused. Let me see if I can try to explain. Below is the text from both the year 6 and year 7 faction cards (you'll see why as I explain). (Note that I am using the year 7 version.)
SILVER CRUSADE YEAR 6
SOLDIER OF PEACE (2+ goals): You reduce the penalty on attack rolls to deal nonlethal damage with lethal weapons by 2; if you already suffer no penalty on such an attack, you instead deal 1 additional point of nonlethal damage. Once per adventure before casting a spell, you may choose to replace half the lethal damage dealt with an equal amount of nonlethal damage.
ANOINTED (4+ goals): You gain a +2 sacred bonus on Charisma-based checks made against good creatures and on saving throws against spells and effects with the evil descriptor. Once per adventure as a swift action, you may grant a weapon you wield the benefits of bless weapon for one round.
PARAGON (7+ goals): When you or an ally purchases the spellcasting service raise dead, resurrection, or true resurrection, reduce the Prestige Point cost by 25%. When you cast any of these spells, reduce the material component cost by 25%. When activating either the Soldier of Peace or Anointed boon, you may grant the benefit to one ally you can see instead of receiving it yourself.
SILVER CRUSADE YEAR 7
SOLDIER OF PEACE (2+ goals): You reduce the penalty on attack rolls to deal nonlethal damage with lethal weapons by 2; if you already suffer no penalty on such an attack, you instead deal 1 additional point of nonlethal damage. Once per adventure before casting a spell, you may choose to replace half the lethal damage dealt with an equal amount of nonlethal damage.
MIRACLE WORKER (4+ goals): Once per adventure, you can use the lay on hands class feature as though you were a paladin whose level equals the number of goals you have completed.
PARAGON (7+ goals): When you or an ally purchases the spellcasting service raise dead, resurrection, or true resurrection, reduce the Prestige Point cost by 25%. When you cast any of these spells, reduce the material component cost by 25%. When activating either the Soldier of Peace boon, you may grant the benefit to one ally you can see instead of receiving it yourself.
Notice that the second reward changed from year 6 to year 7. In year 6, it was the "Anointed" boon and you could use your Paragon reward on it. In the year 7 Paragon reward, it says "either the Soldier of Peace boon", but doesn't list the new "Miracle Worker" reward. Either the word "either" needs to be removed or "or Miracle Worker" needs to be added. Which should it be?
The wording of the Soldier of Peace reward to deal non-lethal damage sounds like it's an "always on" kind of thing. This is fine if you're using it yourself, as it only "activates" when you strike for non-lethal damage. How do you use the Paragon reward to activate Soldier of Peace to "grant the benefit (e.g. "reduce the penalty on attack rolls") to one ally"? If you only "activate" it when you use it, how do you grant that benefit to an ally who is attacking on their own initiative and may or may not be attacking for non-lethal?
If you wish to grant them the ability to do non-lethal with a spell, does it take your "once per adventure" ability or is it in addition to that? And, again, how do you both "activate" it (e.g. cast a spell) AND "grant" it? If you begin casting the spell, but grant the non-lethal ability to someone else, what happens to YOUR spell?
What kind of action is it to use one of these rewards (specifically in combat)? Do you have to activate it using a standard action? Move action? Free action? Swift? Immediate?
Finally, how many times can you use that last line of your Paragon reward per adventure or should it be removed entirely?
We talked about this at the table, but no one had any better answers than I did, so I finally just scrapped the idea of using the rewards, at all. After working so hard GMing mods and keeping up with all of the requirements I'd like to be able to actually USE them.
Sign me loyal, but confused!
Marcia
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8
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These are my personal opinions.
- The season 7 Paragon reward should remove the word 'either', to read, "When activating
eitherthe Soldier of Peace boon, you may grant the benefit to one ally you can see instead of receiving it yourself."
- Using the Paragon reward to grant the Soldier of Peace reward to an ally should be not an action, or at most a free action.
- Using the Paragon reward to grant the Soldier of Peace reward to allow an ally to deal nonlethal damage with a spell uses your once per adventure use of that ability.
- Using the Paragon reward to grant the Soldier of Peace reward to reduce the penalty on dealing nonlethal damage with lethal weapons by 2 can be used as often as you like, however you cannot use that aspect of the reward yourself in any round in which you grant the ability to an ally.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Hamburg
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I agree on removing the word "either". It's obviously an oversight when the text from the season 6 card was copied.
I'm actually not sure if you can even share the static abilities, because they are not activated. In that case, only the abilities that start with "once per day" can be shared, but it does use up your one use of the ability for that day.
Since no kind of action is mentioned for Soldier of peace, activating the ability should be no action on itself but rather part of the action the ability is activated on.
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These are my personal opinions.
- Using the Paragon reward to grant the Soldier of Peace reward to allow an ally to deal nonlethal damage with a spell uses your once per adventure use of that ability.
So, what's your take on "activating" that boon? By a strict reading, you would "activate" it by starting to cast a spell, but then, instead of applying it to YOUR spell, you would let your companion make their spell non-lethal. This has several problems - 1) what happens to your spell? and 2) how do you time it, so that your spells are simultaneous?
To me it only makes sense if it says something like: "Instead of using the Soldier of Peace boon for casting a spell yourself, you may grant the benefit to one ally you can see." If that's what is meant, it makes sense, but as worded, it is confusing and ambiguous.