Heavens spirit animal and the meaning of "flesh"

[Sigil Baram]

My friend who is GMing our campaign seems to think "flesh" in the Spirit Animal ability of the Heavens spirit refers specifically as skin.

I, however, had assumed this was just an odd choice of words on Paizo's part and that it was meant to mean that the familiar's hair, fur, scales, etc, not just skin and the wording was meant to prevent items and equipment the familiar was wearing from being affected and maybe give them normal eyes.

I would say this is just an aesthetic issue, except, according to our GM, if we actually wanted to make use of, say, a cat spirit's star-chart-flesh we would have to shave it or it would need to be a hairless bread? To me that kind of defeats the purpose or would lead to very disgruntled spirit animals...

Quote:

Spirit Animal: The flesh of the shaman's spirit animal accurately reflects the stars that would be visible in the night sky, no matter where the animal is or the time of day. It can thus be used as a star map. In addition, it gains a fly speed of 5 feet; if the animal already has a fly speed, its fly speed increases by 10 feet. While the animal is flying, a small nimbus of light surrounds it.

[Milo v3]

Your GM is being weird.

[I'm Hiding In Your Closet]

More accurately, your DM is being Lawful Stupid.

The game expects you to have, for want of a better term, common sense when reading the rules.

That said, if you want to/have to turn that around on him, you can point out that it specifically says your Spirit Animal can be used as a star chart, therefore it can regardless of (literal) "fluff."

Spoiler:

*shrives self with cat-o'-nine-tails, bottle of cognac, and a bag of plastic eyeballs for using the 'f-word,' even as pun*

[Milo v3]

Could be worse I suppose, I mean flesh is under the skin so no animal would work with it if the GM is trying to abuse RAW.

[I'm Hiding In Your Closet]

A lot of people think flesh DOES refer to epidermal tissue (I thought it meant ALL layers of skin and muscle, am I wrong?), and I think that's what's going on here; this DM IS abusing the RAW (or at least being stunningly obtuse about its intended meaning).

[Milo v3]

I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:

A lot of people think flesh DOES refer to epidermal tissue (I thought it meant ALL layers of skin and muscle, am I wrong?), and I think that's what's going on here; this DM IS abusing the RAW (or at least being stunningly obtuse about its intended meaning).

Flesh is "the soft substance consisting chiefly of muscle and fat that is found between the skin and bones of an animal."

[Brew Bird]

Google defines flesh as follows:

Google wrote:

the soft substance consisting of muscle and fat that is found between the skin and bones of an animal or a human.

So I guess you actually have to skin your spirit animal, not just shave it.

If Google can't even convince your GM that they're being overly pedantic, then nothing will.

[I'm Hiding In Your Closet]

Brew Bird wrote:

If Google can't even convince your GM that they're being overly pedantic, then nothing will.

The Unabridged Oxford English Dictionary would be far better (not that it should be anywhere close to necessary).

[Quentin Coldwater]

Random question that's going to make me look like a serial killer: how deep do I go before my skin becomes flesh? Is it the layer you lose when you get a sunburn, or is it deeper? I've always thought of my skin as the outer part of my flesh.

[Kileanna]

Flesh is what's under epidermic tissue, dermic tissue and connective tissue.
Muscular tissue (muscle) and adipose tissue (fat) is what we call flesh. Not 100% sure if connective tissue will be considered flesh or not.

[Jader7777]

More that one way to something something.

[Mercutio Menschjaeger]

Did you know that blood is a type of connective tissue?

*sips something out of a thermos*

Pardon, this thread is making me hungry....