See subject. Interesting situation last night. Player wanted to have his Shadowdancer shadow provide flanking against a Vampire.
Input?
|
Can a mage armed only with a dagger threaten and provide flank against an opponent with 10 hardness?
In other words is the ability to flank reliant on actually hurting your opponent or just able to attack them?
RAW interpretation, the latter is correct and the shadow flanks.
The former is not unreasonable especially if a critical hit or coup de grace with the weapon couldn't do 1 point of damage.
Work good, last long time.
Shadows can attack, so they can threaten. All you need for a flank is for someone to threaten n the far side of the enemy. You do not need to be able to actually hurt the target to provide a flank.
Can a mage armed only with a dagger threaten and provide flank against an opponent with 10 hardness?
In other words is the ability to flank reliant on actually hurting your opponent or just able to attack them?
RAW interpretation, the latter is correct and the shadow flanks.
The former is not unreasonable especially if a critical hit or coup de grace with the weapon couldn't do 1 point of damage.
Contrarily, can a mage that is using just unarmed attacks threaten?
The equivalency is does the strength drain of the shadow equal "non-lethal" attacks of a normal human, or are they considered to be lethal regardless?
Flanking does not specifiy lethal or non lethal attacks.
Flanking does not specifiy lethal or non lethal attacks.
Actually, it does. Although I probably should have specified unarmed, non-lethal attacks instead of just non-lethal
I am completely unaware of this, care to enlighten me? If you refer to the fact that without IUS you do not threatwn with US, that is not what I said.
I am completely unaware of this, care to enlighten me? If you refer to the fact that without IUS you do not threatwn with US, that is not what I said.
That is what I was referring to. What I am getting at is that US is considered to be non-threatening. As that is the case, how can the only attack the shadow can make be threatening when it is even less effective than the US of a normal character. Moreover, both it and the vampire know it.
Other nonlethal attacks can threaten, a character with IUS choosing to do nonlethal can threaten. Its not about lethal/nonlethal, its about having enough training to effectively fight with no weapons. The shadow has enough "training" to threaten with its attacks.
Edit: logically, I agree there is serious doubt to the effectiveness of the shadow as a flank buddy, but RAW it works.
Other nonlethal attacks can threaten, a character with IUS choosing to do nonlethal can threaten.
Manufactured Weapon/Improved Unarmed Strike/Natural weapon based attacks that have the option to do lethal damage can threaten.
Unarmed strikes that have no option/ability to do lethal damage do not threaten.
These attacks have no way to do damage the vampire at all, not even non-lethally. They are incorporeal, non-magical (so not even 50% damage) natural weapon attacks and use negative energy -- they cannot physically effect the vampire in any way shape or form.
Its not about lethal/nonlethal, its about having enough training to effectively fight with no weapons.
Ok, now this is where you are getting interesting. Can you provide citation/refernce? (I understand and agree with you on the end result -- I'm just looking for argumentative support).
Yep, see above for my points. This is not as silly as a 4 str, level one commoner with a broken dagger threatening a Balor. RAW it works, logically sounds stupid.
you can deal lethal damage with an unarmed strike even if you don't have IUS, you just incur a -4 penalty to attack, a sap only deal non lethal damage but you can take the -4 penalty to attack to deal lethal damage, the ability to deal lethal damage has nothing to do with flanking or threatening an oponent, the only time it say that unarmed strike do not threaten and flank, is when you don't have IUS when you have IUS you are considered armed for the purposed of being offensive and defensive, normally you are not armed when being unarmed, natural weapon are weapon thus you are armed and any thing that can make a touch attack is considered armed and thus both natural weapon and touch attack can threaten and flank (if they are melee attack of course)
John, first, fantastic -- this clears things up enough to define the reasons why it still threatens/flanks and the unarmed strike argument is a red herring.
Lastly -- Punctuation, man! :D
Yep, see above for my points. This is not as silly as a 4 str, level one commoner with a broken dagger threatening a Balor. RAW it works, logically sounds stupid.
Yeah, I really thing the threatening rules need a overhaul.
Well, in this particular odd circumstance, I think that the shadow should not be able to provide a flank. I know it is contrary to raw, but my feeling is this:
If a creature/character, etc, is *knowingly* unable to affect the enemy in any way shape or form (cf. shadow vs. vampire), then the enemy should be able to ignore that combatant.
Note that ignoring a combatant makes the enemy treat the ignored combatant as an "unaware" creature. With the attendant penalties to being flat footed, etc.
So, if the ignored combatant whips out some sort of attack that wasn't otherwise known to the enemy, then you can do some serious damage along the lines of coup de grace with full sneak attack, etc.
Ignoring or not ignoring enemies on the field of battle would be a free action that would happen on the enemy's turn -- but if it with an attack by a ignored enemy, that enemy is not ignored for the remainder of the turn unless deliberately ignored again.
I'll have to write this up more fully and put it in the Conversions forum.
you can deal lethal damage with an unarmed strike even if you don't have IUS, you just incur a -4 penalty to attack, a sap only deal non lethal damage but you can take the -4 penalty to attack to deal lethal damage, the ability to deal lethal damage has nothing to do with flanking or threatening an oponent, the only time it say that unarmed strike do not threaten and flank, is when you don't have IUS when you have IUS you are considered armed for the purposed of being offensive and defensive, normally you are not armed when being unarmed, natural weapon are weapon thus you are armed and any thing that can make a touch attack is considered armed and thus both natural weapon and touch attack can threaten and flank (if they are melee attack of course)
John, first, fantastic -- this clears things up enough to define the reasons why it still threatens/flanks and the unarmed strike argument is a red herring.
Lastly -- Punctuation, man! :D
Yep, see above for my points. This is not as silly as a 4 str, level one commoner with a broken dagger threatening a Balor. RAW it works, logically sounds stupid.
Yeah, I really thing the threatening rules need a overhaul.
yeah i know i'm still learning to make my statement better and doing paragraph and all, at least i have put comma in my huge statement :P
just to say there is and there is no facing in pathfinder, but there is a rule when facing a creature with gaze, is that you can decided to only look at the creature shadow or leg movement but incur i think a 20% miss chance to hit that creature and you get 50% chance to evade the gaze attack, if you decide to blindfold yourself or not look at all at the creature the creature is considered invisible (and you evade 100% of the time the gaze).
so if we take the last thing we can decide that the vampire do not bother at all to look at the shadow and the shadow is now considered invisible against the vampire thus giving no flank bonus, same...
If you can take Gaze attack mechanics and apply them to anything except Gaze attacks, then I can take Hydra mechanics and automatically decapitate every enemy I face (that has a head) via Sunder rules. The mechanics written for each sort of activity (Gaze attacks in this instance) are usually only meant to be applied for said activity, as taking them to external sources breaks the game in unintended ways.
Also, just because you can't see a creature doesn't mean they can't flank you. Per RAW, the requirements for flanking are that:
A. You threaten the target with a weapon or attack of some sort.
B. You are on diametically opposite sides of the target.
C. You are making melee attacks.
If you fulfill those requirements, you gain the benefits of flanking. (You can be ranged and grant flanking benefits, but you can't personally benefit from flanking due to using a ranged weapon.) There are feats that may change those requirements (such as the Gang Up feat), but you would still otherwise have to fulfill the other requirements listed.
Invisibility or flat-footedness do not factor into the flanking rules, and they never have, not even since 3.X.
Well, in this particular odd circumstance, I think that the shadow should not be able to provide a flank. I know it is contrary to raw, but my feeling is this:
If a creature/character, etc, is *knowingly* unable to affect the enemy in any way shape or form (cf. shadow vs. vampire), then the enemy should be able to ignore that combatant.
Note that ignoring a combatant makes the enemy treat the ignored combatant as an "unaware" creature. With the attendant penalties to being flat footed, etc.
So, if the ignored combatant whips out some sort of attack that wasn't otherwise known to the enemy, then you can do some serious damage along the lines of coup de grace with full sneak attack, etc.
Ignoring or not ignoring enemies on the field of battle would be a free action that would happen on the enemy's turn -- but if it with an attack by a ignored enemy, that enemy is not ignored for the remainder of the turn unless deliberately ignored again.
I'll have to write this up more fully and put it in the Conversions forum.
The enemy could ignore the combatant, but not in the way you're proposing.
He could simply assume his actions will accomplish nothing, and so the enemy will plan his future actions in accordance with that assumption, which is acceptable. But permitting them to outright deny flanking due to some perceived notion (that players will no doubt call meta-gaming on) is something that is probably unintended since we have special abilities and feats that are meant to do exactly that, of which they require investment from the creature's behalf to acquire. In other words, granting free feats when the developers created said feats for such options to not be free benefits.
Granted, it's not necessarily a bad houserule, but it's both not a good houserule either, and is also as acceptable an answer as "Ask your GM," which we all know is a catch-all that leads to table variation.
The enemy could ignore the combatant, but not in the way you're proposing.He could simply assume his actions will accomplish nothing, and so the enemy will plan his future actions in accordance with that assumption, which is acceptable. But permitting them to outright deny flanking due to some perceived notion (that players will no doubt call meta-gaming on) is something that is probably unintended since we have special abilities and feats that are meant to do exactly that, of which they require investment from the creature's behalf to acquire. In other words, granting free feats when the developers created said feats for such options to not be free benefits.
Granted, it's not necessarily a bad houserule, but it's both not a good houserule either, and is also as acceptable an answer as "Ask your GM," which we all know is a catch-all that leads to table variation.
If the creature providing the flank is a known commodity, as in this case a shadow, then an knowledge check would be enough to know that the shadow doesn't intrinsically have an attack that can effect the vampire. So, I could logically see a vampire ignoring the shadow, and thus that shadow would not provide the necessary threat to allow for flanking.
Now, if the shadow were to pull something unusual out of thin air (perhaps a touch spell), then his first attack would be very interesting, and from then on, the vampire would know not to ignore, and if the rogue is smart, holds his attack and is now able to sneak attack the vampire.
Then the vampire would know he is screwed, unless he can affect the shadow and bypass his incorporeal nature.
This idea isn't fully fleshed out 100% enough to establish a hard rule to reference -- and it has nothing to do with PFS. It's strictly the game table I play at that would be impacted.. and those who want to adopt it.
Because there are some obvious ridiculousness when it comes to the threaten rules.
It seems pretty clear that by RAW the shadow does indeed flank.
Oh, that part is agreed. Not arguing that point (only played devil's advocate because I needed some references).
would a creature be able to flank a monster if the creature wasn't actually a credible threat(cant do more dmg over the monsters dr and generally cant effect the monster in anyway)
Yes. The threatening rules are based on your ability to make an attack against the target, not on your ability to do damage to the target. Another way of looking at that, could a creature that can't deal damage still place his foot that the target stumbles a little, grab his cloak and tug on it, or do anything else that is distracting? The game doesn't give us exact mechanics for what a flank partner is doing to grant his ally +2 to hit in melee - but there are plenty of ways to fluff that - the commonly excepted way of fluffing that is attacking with the weapon - but that isn't even necessarily accurate as a spell caster can provide flank while never intending to use their weapon.