| 3 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
The Evangelist PrC's Aligned Class feature explicitly says you gain the class features of both the Evangelist and the Aligned Class.
At 2nd level, the evangelist must choose a class she belonged to before adding the prestige class to be her aligned class. She gains all the class features for this class, essentially adding every evangelist level beyond 1st to her aligned class to determine what class features she gains. She still retains the Hit Dice, base attack bonus, saving throw bonuses, and skill ranks of the prestige class, but gains all other class features of her aligned class as well as those of the evangelist prestige class.
RAW, AFAICT this means for example a Monk 5 / Evangelist 10 has 16 Stunning Fist attempts/day, since Stunning Fist says:
A monk may attempt a stunning attack a number of times per day equal to his monk level, plus one more time per day for every four levels he has in classes other than monk.
Likewise, if said monk has the Monastic Legacy feat, it appears his base unarmed strike damage would be equal to that of a 19th level monk (5 levels monk + 9 levels Aligned Class (monk) + [0.5 x 10 levels Evangelist]), since Monastic Legacy says:
Add half the levels you have in classes other than monk to your monk level to determine your effective monk level for your base unarmed strike damage.
I think it's pretty obvious this wasn't intended, and hopefully most DM's would recognize this and rule "Aligned Class levels" don't count as "classes other than monk levels" for the purpose of anything which already grants a better progression via Aligned Class (monk).
But the RAI isn't the purpose of this thread, only what the RAW actually says. So my questions are:
1. Does anyone know of anything RAW which clearly or potentially means my above conclusions are incorrect?
2. Does anyone know of any other class features which progress (or may progress) with both class levels and any levels in "classes other than [class name]" and would thus have the same problem when combined with the Evangelist?
I would be very grateful for any input. If you think my conclusions are wrong, please link to the rules item(s) and cite the relevant rules text(s) which support your view.
You can't count a level twice for an ability. That is a rule, maybe unwritten, but it's been said by Mark.
Nearly a 100% of this would be "ask you GM" as it requires your GM to define whether or not a level in evagaleist counts for a monk level due to Aligned Class.
I'm sorry, but I don't see why a level granting Aligned Class (monk) wouldn't count as a level of monk for the purposes of class features. That is indeed what the Aligned Class RAW explicitly says it does.
Or would you also say a level gained which grants Aligned Class (wizard) doesn't necessarily mean the wizard's spellcasting is progressed, but is clearly "ask you GM"?
Or that a level gained granting Aligned Class (fighter) doesn't necessarily mean the fighter's Weapon Training feature is progressed, but is also obviously "ask you GM"?
If so, I have to ask which rules you don't consider to be nearly 100% "ask you GM"?
Or did I misunderstand what you meant?
You can't count a level twice for an ability. That is a rule, maybe unwritten, but it's been said by Mark.
As I've been trying to explain in the OP, that is not what the RAW seem to say. (Although AFAICT, the maximum wouldn't actually be to count a level twice, it would be to count a level 1 1/2 times.)
yes that's not what the RAW seems to say, hence why I told you that it's possibly one of the unwritten rules that we know is a rule because the Devs have told us they are rules.
2) oracle curses.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
|
Or did I misunderstand what you meant?
You may have.
If you do something, and a level in anything makes you say "for this calculation that level provides more than 1.0 on the calculation", then you need to ask your GM because that should only happen when explicitly written to be so (like oracle curses).
If the explicit bonus is big (say like more than 1.17 per level) then it's likely not healthy and will get changed (oracle curses changed from 1.5 to 1.167).
yes that's not what the RAW seems to say, hence why I told you that it's possibly one of the unwritten rules that we know is a rule because the Devs have told us they are rules.Is this the post you're referring to? If so, that is unfortunately not official in any way AFAICT. Please also keep in mind that regardless of how obvious we might consider the solution to this issue to be, far from all players/DMs would say the same or come to same conclusion without an official ruling. Hence why I wrote:
I think it's pretty obvious this wasn't intended, and hopefully most DM's would recognize this and rule "Aligned Class levels" don't count as "classes other than monk levels" for the purpose of anything which already grants a better progression via Aligned Class (monk).
But the RAI isn't the purpose of this thread, only what the RAW actually says.
2) oracle curses.
Ah, yes of course! Completely forgot about them. Thanks!
(BTW, I think it's great that members of the PDT trying to help people with their rules quandaries in informal channels such as the "ask anything" threads. But it's not exactly easily accessible info and there are no guarantees the reply is actually the official viewpoint of the PDT, or that the reply is in any way universally applicable to seemingly related issues. Also, I find the replies to the more complex or RAW-murky issues often consist of the opinions of the replying dev and/or descriptions of how the dev would rule it at his/her table, rather than pointers to the relevant RAW/FAQ which solves the issue.)
Or did I misunderstand what you meant?You may have.
If you do something, and a level in anything makes you say "for this calculation that level provides more than 1.0 on the calculation", then you need to ask your GM because that should only happen when explicitly written to be so (like oracle curses).
What you're saying here seems like a good rule of thumb. It's just too bad it's not found in the rules. And this is likely the conclusion someone who has at least a decent rules-fu and some solid play experience would arrive at. But for those who haven't, it's much harder to determine if or when the RAW creates suspicious results, especially in cases like this when the RAW is so explicit and the effects of adhering to the faulty RAW are far from being immediately obvious when playing.
Likewise, a less experienced DM is of course also less likely to suspect that something is off with the RAW, not to mention also less likely to make suitable house rule which solves the problem.
If the explicit bonus is big (say like more than 1.17 per level) then it's likely not healthy and will get changed (oracle curses changed from 1.5 to 1.167).Huh? What has changed regarding oracle curses' non-oracle advancement? I thought the general rule still said:
An oracle’s curse is based on her oracle level plus one for every two levels or Hit Dice other than oracle.
Please let me know what I've missed!
More importantly, what percentage of PF players do you think have the kind of knowledge required to arrive at the numbers you mention?
On a related note, one of the major reasons I started this thread is not because I believe the RAW to be murky or ambiguous, it's because I believe the RAW is crystal clear.
|
Owner - D20 Hobbies
|
Likewise, a less experienced DM is of course also less likely to suspect that something is off with the RAW, not to mention also less likely to make suitable house rule which solves the problem.
Actually the less experienced GM is why threads like this shouldn't indicate this is RAW or anything like that. This is solidly in the "Ask you GM" camp, there are a lot of info that an experience GM would know that helps understand how to properly handle this.
So we should leave this question as "Ask your GM" with should it get FAQ the unwritten rules will likely block double dipping 1 level to get more than 1 level benefit.
This is solidly in the, "no, you can't count a level for the same things twice."
But since that rule is unwritten it then falls into the
"You know this doesn't work this way so don't use it the broken way"
And if that fails to hold it it falls into the
"Ask your GM"