A different Create Pit vs Reflex Save question


Rules Questions

Sovereign Court

First off, a thank you to the Development Team is in order for actually giving us a ruling generally covering the "do you get a reflex save when Create Pit is initially cast if you're immobile" question. So many FAQ requests go unanswered, so a hearty "thank you" goes out for at least giving us some precedent for those interested in "RAI" in making rules-lawyering discussions.

Secondly: This is not a thread meant to complain about said ruling. Even though I don't agree it was the BEST possible ruling with regards to setting precedents, it is what it is and it's official.

Those caveats out of the way, here are my questions about a fundamentally different corner case involving Create Pit and reflex saves. One I haven't seen brought up in the lengthy discussions on this general topic in either thread, so I felt this warranted a new thread entirely.

What if, instead of simply being paralyzed as posited in the FAQ'd question, one is rooted in place and unable to move, miraculously or otherwise, to outside the AoE? Consider a target standing on terrain that was affected by Stone to Mud, and then back from Mud to Stone after a hostile sunk up to his knees and ended up very firmly locked in place. (or perhaps was simply entangled and rooted, for a less contrived example)

Does the floor of the AoE become magically lowered to be the floor of the pit? I'd suspect it does, rather than the floor simply winking out of dimensional reality. I think the sensible ruling in this case is the victim is automatically at the bottom of the pit in such a case, which would be a net effect of having been safely placed at the bottom of the pit and avoiding any fall damage. However, in the more advanced Pit spells like Acid Pit and Hungry Pit, this would mean the target is automatically placed in harm's way, which seems counter to the intent of the FAQ.

However, in going with the spirit of the FAQ, giving the rooted victim a "miraculous" or context-ignoring reflex save is also giving a corresponding (and by RAW, "undeserved" or out of turn) additional save to simultaneously escape whatever effect was rooting him in the first place.

Thoughts?


Could also now be part of the sloped sides of the spell. That floor is moving somewhere and if the argument is your attached to the floor then your going with it.


It's possible that the "hole" formed in the surface is originally very small, and that it distorts the floor as it expands. In this interpretation, their anchor point is possibly moved out of the pit area.

One could argue that using a point as the inception rather than a surface requires less "space cutting," which would likely consume more energy than "space warping" (As an example, any mass can distort space, but it takes an infinitely dense mass to put a singularity in it)


The opening of the pit is extradimensional, as is the interior. If it is used on the deck of a ship, targets don't end up below decks or in the water, they end up in a stone pit. The original floor is a nonissue while the spell is in place.

Sovereign Court

Java Man wrote:
The opening of the pit is extradimensional, as is the interior. If it is used on the deck of a ship, targets don't end up below decks or in the water, they end up in a stone pit. The original floor is a nonissue while the spell is in place.

Can you cite something that says the floor of the pit is stone no matter what the surface in the AoE is/was?

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EDIT: Ninja'd. This was not a reply to the post directly above it. Ironically, it seems relevant anyway.

Create Pit wrote:
Since it extends into another dimension, the pit has no weight and does not otherwise displace the original underlying material. You can create the pit in the deck of a ship as easily as in a dungeon floor or the ground of a forest.

One would think that any discussion of a question (gaming-related or not) would begin with a gathering of the existing information, so that nobody wastes time coming up with ideas that were never valid in the first place.

But I guess not...?


You no longer have a horizontal surface of sufficient size, and the location is invalid as a place to cast.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I don't think it matters whether the floor is stone or not - it's not the same thing as it appears under (it doesn't displace the original material). That still exists underneath the pit.

If the rooting is attached to the ground, the pit means it doesn't have that thing to root to any longer. If you can't put it in without severing the person, it's not a horizontal surface of sufficient size and so the spell fails.

Edit: Ninja and unintentional ninja, apparently. :-(


deusvult wrote:
Java Man wrote:
The opening of the pit is extradimensional, as is the interior. If it is used on the deck of a ship, targets don't end up below decks or in the water, they end up in a stone pit. The original floor is a nonissue while the spell is in place.
Can you cite something that says the floor of the pit is stone no matter what the surface in the AoE is/was?

Okay, the actual reference is to the walls of the pit, no mention id made of the floor, I assume they are the same. From the spell description on the PRD "The pit's coarse stone walls have a Climb DC of 25."


In corner cases like this the call will likely fall to the GM since the PDT likely won't make a ruling for every situation that shows up. They can answer this one, and then someone can cite another less likely example.

As for the actual question you have to ask a few questions. Does the pit trump whatever is holding the person in place. As an example if the person is trapped in stone does the pit pull the person from the stone they are trapped in?

If so I would say the person get a reflex save to avoid the pit. If not then it doesn't matter because they will stay trapped in stone above the pit.

One could say they pull the stone(containing the victim) into the pit also, but that still tears the stone from the surrounding stone. In that case I say they do get a reflex save. If they make it they are still trapped in stone, but not in the pit.


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The obvious implication of the ruling is that you always get a save. If you just use that assumption then most of these questions answer themselves. Especially since most of the corner case questions are essentially asking "how can I deny a save?"

Sovereign Court

Java Man wrote:
deusvult wrote:
Java Man wrote:
The opening of the pit is extradimensional, as is the interior. If it is used on the deck of a ship, targets don't end up below decks or in the water, they end up in a stone pit. The original floor is a nonissue while the spell is in place.
Can you cite something that says the floor of the pit is stone no matter what the surface in the AoE is/was?

Okay, the actual reference is to the walls of the pit, no mention id made of the floor, I assume they are the same. From the spell description on the PRD "The pit's coarse stone walls have a Climb DC of 25."

OTOH, there is the following passage:

PRD, Create Pit wrote:
When the duration of the spell ends, creatures within the hole rise up with the bottom of the pit until they are standing on the surface over the course of a single round.

That, in my view, strongly suggests that the floor of the pit is indeed the floor of whatever surface the pit was cast upon. Well, technically, the floor in the former AoE becomes what was at the bottom of the pi. The spell doesn't include language about changing ship's deck or forest floor to stone after the spell is over, so the floor that comes up must have been the same floor that went down.

Thorin001 wrote:
The obvious implication of the ruling is that you always get a save. If you just use that assumption then most of these questions answer themselves. Especially since most of the corner case questions are essentially asking "how can I deny a save?"

Actually, I'm asking what's worse: denying a save or giving a "free" bonus save that you're not entitled to. (to simultaneously escape from a rooting effect while making your save vs Create Pit)

And, as for the "always get a save"... that's demonstrably untrue. The FAQ does not reverse the following language in the spell:

Create Pit wrote:
Creatures subjected to an effect intended to push them into the pit (such as bull rush) do not get a saving throw to avoid falling in if they are affected by the pushing effect.

The FAQ seems to be saying that you always get a savings throw when a spell is initially cast... NOT necessarily that you always get a savings throw in all contexts.


I too would like to complain about the ruling.

I had hoped the Pit line of spells would simply be removed from the game. A divisive and tedious spell that is just over played and causes disputes.


So the extra dimensional hole that comes with its own stone walls, and does not displace any underlying material, uses the underlying material of the floor as the base of the pit. If this were the acid pit upgrade, would the acid damage the original flooring? If the spell is cast in an area with a spiked floor, do the victims take damage for falling on spikes?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

"does not otherwise displace the original underlying material" implies to me that the surface of that underlying material isn't displaced, it's simply covered up. There's a plane of pit entry and it sits directly on top of what the person was standing on before.


If the spell made a pit that sunk into the floor then the original material would matter. It does not do that.

It creates a specific extraplanar space. That extraplanar space is actually on another dimension and no extraplanar space, as a general rule, is ever said to take material from the area the caster is in when it is cast. It takes on whatever the book says it takes on. Anything outside of whatever the books says it does is an exception, and exceptions need to be stated, not that it really matters. The "made of stone" is mostly flavor text. The important part is the climb DC.

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