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The operative's Evasion ability states,
"If you succeed at a Reflex save against an effect that normally has a partial effect on a successful save, you instead suffer no effect. You gain this benefit only when unencumbered and wearing light armor or no armor..."
Powered Armor has this to say, "The cockpit of powered armor is too small to fit a person wearing heavy armor. If you’re wearing light armor while in powered armor, you gain the higher of the EAC bonuses and the higher of the KAC bonuses between the two suits of armor, and you take the worse maximum Dexterity bonus and armor." Implying you can wear light armor while in powered armor.
So my question is simply, RAW, does the operative's evasion ability work when one is in powered armor and light armor.
Grammatically, I can't figure out a way to parse the Evasion ability other than, "You gain this benefit only when...wearing light armor or no armor..." to mean anything other than as long as you are wearing light armor regardless of what else you are wearing you benefit.
Can anyone provide an alternative explanation that jives with the grammar of the sentence that precludes powered armor and light armor combos allowing evasion.
This doesn't seem to be intended by the rules(but who are we to actually say this without dev comment), but I also can't figure out why it doesn't work besides arguments along the lines of "well it shouldn't work so therefore it doesn't."
Or could a developer/design team member chime in and clarify that evasion does not work when a character is wearing powered armor.
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r u serious
If you are wearing both Powered Armor and Light Armor, you are not "only...wearing light or no armor", you are wearing both light and Powered Armor. Ergo, it does not function.
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If you are wearing both Powered Armor and Light Armor, you are not "only...wearing light or no armor", you are wearing both light and Powered Armor. Ergo, it does not function.
But that's not what the clause says it says "only when wearing light armor" not "only wearing light armor," they don't mean the same thing.
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Grammatically, I can't figure out a way to parse the Evasion ability other than, "You gain this benefit only when...wearing light armor or no armor..." to mean anything other than as long as you are wearing light armor regardless of what else you are wearing you benefit.
I believe the answer is no because a player would be wearing light armor AND power armor. Since power armor is not part of the legal options for evasion, the AND part would not allow the use of evasion.
This would be true if a character was wearing light armor AND heavy armor.
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Grammatically, I can't figure out a way to parse the Evasion ability other than, "You gain this benefit only when...wearing light armor or no armor..." to mean anything other than as long as you are wearing light armor regardless of what else you are wearing you benefit.I believe the answer is no because a player would be wearing light armor AND power armor. Since power armor is not part of the legal options for evasion, the AND part would not allow the use of evasion.
This would be true if a character was wearing light armor AND heavy armor.
That's kind of the whole point of my question, I don't see any exclusion only a permission in the language, it says you have to be wearing light armor but it doesn't say you have to ONLY be wearing light armor, only that it doesn't work UNLESS you are wearing light armor.
"You gain the benefit only when wearing light armor," as opposed to, "you gain the benefit when only wearing light armor(and no other armor)"
I agree that the RAW grammar is sketchy. I think "only when wearing" on a straight read means that if you're wearing light armor (or no armor), it works.
I don't think that's RAI, but I think the question is valid because of the wording and the way RAW is interpreted for Society play.
Since the PA augments physical abilities, I see no reason why no power armour can use Evaison.
But then, I'm a sucker for speed builds with unreasonable amounts of metal on person.
Grammatically, I can't figure out a way to parse the Evasion ability other than, "You gain this benefit only when...wearing light armor or no armor..." to mean anything other than as long as you are wearing light armor regardless of what else you are wearing you benefit.I believe the answer is no because a player would be wearing light armor AND power armor. Since power armor is not part of the legal options for evasion, the AND part would not allow the use of evasion.
This would be true if a character was wearing light armor AND heavy armor.
Clothing is not part of the legal options either...
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Clothing is not part of the legal options either...
This. For those claiming you can only be wearing light armor, why would evasion work with second skin with clothing over it. What about the ability makes it mean "light but no other armor" and not "light armor and nothing else."
I understand the mobility necessary for evasion argument but I don't see where this isn't just a straight up "how we think it should work because its called evasion and calls out light armor" sort of argument and not a rules as written argument.
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There are three types of armor (light, heavy, powered), and five ways you can wear armor (no armor, light armor, heavy armor, powered armor, powered armor with light armor). "Powered armor with light armor" is never used as a game term to describe rules interactions because the limitations imposed by wearing powered armor still apply, so technically there are four options. As written, evasion allows only two of those options. Or to put it in another way, wearing light armor doesn't affect the fact that you're still wearing powered armor, a type of armor that evasion doesn't work with.
Disallowing options through omission (in this case, not mentioning the armor types that you cannot use evasion with) is a very common writing strategy in Paizo's products. Frankly, listing all the options (and combinations of options) that don't work would result in books twice the size they are now.
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Disallowing options through omission (in this case, not mentioning the armor types that you cannot use evasion with) is a very common writing strategy in Paizo's products. Frankly, listing all the options (and combinations of options) that don't work would result in books twice the size they are now.
I think this is the heart of the problem and really what I'm getting at with this post, disallowing options through omission is always going to be less clear than restrictive writing, and is also problematic as a future proofing solution.
Lets suppose Paizo comes out with a brand new armor option tomorrow, we'll call it superlight armor, its even less dex restrictive than light armor but has some sort of other niche use and you can wear it with light armor, would it work with evasion? Per your analysis, no, but it may RAW, and arguably it probably should work with evasion since its even more flexible than regular light armor but we're left with a completely open question unless Paizo now devotes words to this interaction in the new book(more words later to save words in the past.)
But even beyond that, I disagree with the assertion that writing in this manner would lead to an appreciable larger book, there aren't that many cases where something like this comes up, I can think of specifically two, the Armor Solarian ability and this, I'm sure there are more but its not like every sentence needs a new clause about not working with X or Y.
In the end, if the clause means, "Light armor and no other armor or no armor" it should say that instead of "as long as you're wearing light armor" which is what it says now.
I think the following change to the wording would make RAW/RAI match, and not be too wordy.
"You gain this benefit only when unencumbered and wearing either only light armor or no armor..."
It's two extra words and it's much clearer.
I also think the following house rule would be in some ways more restrictive, but reasonable, and potentially open you up to using it with a future 'super-light' armor.
"You gain this benefit only when unencumbered and suffering no armor check penalty..."
Of course, that opens up to using it with heavy armor with no ACP, assuming that's possible, which is obviously not RAI. However, I'd personally find that acceptable as a DM as a houserule, because if it has no ACP I don't see it hindering movement in any way.
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Shaudius, that's not how it works. Your hypothetical superlight armor would (should) have an entry that explains the rules interactions. No reason to clutter every armor-dependent ability with additional verbiage when you can just say "when you are wearing superlight armor with light armor, you count as wearing light armor for the purposes of effects and abilities..." or something like that.
I'm aware that powered armor doesn't have "still counts as powered armor even if you are also wearing light armor", but I'm sure that everyone (you included) understands that's how it works.
RAW is a myth; all text is meaningless without interpretation, and interpretation requires understanding and accepting concepts like the aforementioned "disallowing through omission". I'm not saying that there aren't cases where rules text is too ambiguous to understand (there certainly are!); I'm just saying that this isn't one of those cases.
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I think the following change to the wording would make RAW/RAI match, and not be too wordy.
"You gain this benefit only when unencumbered and wearing either only light armor or no armor..."
I agree. As Pantshandshake mentioned, some (/a lot) of the rules text comes from Pathfinder, and some things weren't updated to explicitly mention things like powered armor, but still, I think it's pretty clear how it's intended to work. And it simply doesn't make sense that wearing *more* armor under powered armor would make you more limber.
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RAW is a myth; all text is meaningless without interpretation, and interpretation requires understanding and accepting concepts like the aforementioned "disallowing through omission". I'm not saying that there aren't cases where rules text is too ambiguous to understand (there certainly are!); I'm just saying that this isn't one of those cases.
The problem with this is that there's no canons of construction document that I'm aware of with regard to Starfinder rules, so your canon of construction of "disallowing through omission" isn't anything someone can just point to in their interpretation.
In the absence of that sort of document, I am only left to fall back on my interpretation skills I've picked up through my legal training and that leads me to the first thing I look to being the plain meaning of the text(this is true for every interpretation school), and the plain meaning of this text is that as long as you're wearing light armor that's a sufficient condition regardless of what else you're wearing.
Rules as Written is just a shorthand way of saying Plain Meaning interpretation as far as I'm concerned. You only look to other things if this is ambiguous or if there's some other canon of rules construction that would lead you to a different conclusion.
On a fundamental level, I'm not sure why we're okay with loose rules text from a professional company that is literally asking us to pay money for rules (as well as flavor). I'm just asking for better both in responses to rules queries as well as more time being spent making rules clear in the first place. I don't know why this is too much to ask. Anything else just feels like a money grab, as in, we sell you this product and that's our only focus, we'll get around to clearing up rules when we feel like it, I understand that's where the money comes from, but it honestly feels like being taken advantage of. I mean this isn't the topic of this thread, but its been 8 months and we still don't even know how riding a drone works, the various issues with batteries and technological items, and any number of other issues that are easy enough to answer.
I understand why these things don't get fixed, but I'm not really sure how to express them here without literally putting Paizo on blast for how they operate their company (in short as a company of 50 run like a company of 5,000, everything comes back to that really.)
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Grammatically, I can't figure out a way to parse the Evasion ability other than, "You gain this benefit only when...wearing light armor or no armor..." to mean anything other than as long as you are wearing light armor regardless of what else you are wearing you benefit.I believe the answer is no because a player would be wearing light armor AND power armor. Since power armor is not part of the legal options for evasion, the AND part would not allow the use of evasion.
This would be true if a character was wearing light armor AND heavy armor.
That's kind of the whole point of my question, I don't see any exclusion only a permission in the language, it says you have to be wearing light armor but it doesn't say you have to ONLY be wearing light armor, only that it doesn't work UNLESS you are wearing light armor.
"You gain the benefit only when wearing light armor," as opposed to, "you gain the benefit when only wearing light armor(and no other armor)"
Nice, I give you a logical explanation and you ignore it.
A character wearing light armor AND power armor (or heavy armor) does not meet the "wearing light armor" qualifier because the character is wearing TWO types of armor.
It is that clear.
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Clothing is not part of the legal options either...Grammatically, I can't figure out a way to parse the Evasion ability other than, "You gain this benefit only when...wearing light armor or no armor..." to mean anything other than as long as you are wearing light armor regardless of what else you are wearing you benefit.I believe the answer is no because a player would be wearing light armor AND power armor. Since power armor is not part of the legal options for evasion, the AND part would not allow the use of evasion.
This would be true if a character was wearing light armor AND heavy armor.
Clothing is not armor. So a character wearing clothes under their armor is still only wearing ONE suit of armor.
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Nice, I give you a logical explanation and you ignore it.A character wearing light armor AND power armor (or heavy armor) does not meet the "wearing light armor" qualifier because the character is wearing TWO types of armor.
It is that clear.
That's not a logical explanation because you're reading words into a sentence that just aren't there. "wearing light armor" does not mean "only wearing light armor" in any sense of the English language. No where is "wearing light armor" stated to be exclusive of other types of armor.
One of these two statements is logically consistent, and its not your statement.
1)
a. This only works if its sunny.
b. It is raining and sunny.
c. This does not work.
2)
a. This only works if its sunny.
b. It is raining and sunny.
c. This works.
Only 2 is a logically sound chain 1 is not. Your response is 1.
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Clothing is not armor. So a character wearing clothes under their armor is still only wearing ONE suit of armor.
Please point to the part of the evasion rule where it mentions anything about only ONE suit of armor, you can't because it doesn't exist. You are literally creating a condition on the statement that doesn't exist.
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....So maybe Starfinder is not the game for you since it has so many holes in it?
I love Starfinder, I love the setting and I love Starfinder Society(and I especially love how responsive Thrusty is to things which are in his control, which sadly isn't this.)
It is because I love Starfinder that I want Paizo to be better at answering these rules questions, because I'm pretty sure I know how evasion should work(but how can I be sure completely?), but the way they've written it makes it not work like they probably intended it to work, this is a very easy question to come into a thread and answer, Evasion doesn't work if you're wearing Powered Armor even if you're wearing Light Armor under it, but they haven't, and I am doubtful they will (Mikko, while an awesome writer and contributor, I'm fairly certain is not on the design team.)
Look, Paizo has great customer service for their shipment and such(I've never had an issue that wasn't resolved within hours of asking it), and a great Starfinder Society team in place(again shoutout to Thrusty), but the Starfinder Design Team doesn't seem willing or unable to answer rules questions by and large in a timely or efficient manner and its frustrating because there are lots of areas that would be greatly improved by having these things answers.
The game has been out for 8 months and there's still issues that have been present since day one, through two additional hardcover books with a third on the way in three months, and I still can't tell you how to ride a drone or how to replace the battery in your 10 charge weapon, that's practically a dereliction of duty.
Heck, I even had a Starfinder Socity VO tell me it works exactly the opposite of how its written with no justification besides its a proper reading of the English language (which it clearly isn't based on how the English language works) and he told me that other VOs agreed, so we literally have a bunch of SFS VOs making up a ruling based on something other than the text of the rule, that is a problem. So here we are, a thread where people are telling me how something works not because that's how English is written, not because the rule is ambiguous but because they are literally ignoring the text of the rule in favor of reading something into the rule that just isn't there and have the gull to tell me that somehow English works in a way that it doesn't work.
This is why we need an active design team, because in the absence of one, people, including SFS VOs can just make up how they think the rule should work and language be damned because we're not going to get an answer to simple questions by the people in charge of writing the rules in the first place. I'm sorry but I expect better and I'm not gonna stop talking about it until we get better because I what Starfinder to be successful, sometimes it feels like more than Paizo does.
seriously, r u serious
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If there is an obvious and intuitive explanation for a trivial ambiguity, use the obvious explanation.
The problem with this line of thinking is that what I think is intuitive and obvious and what you think is intuitive and obvious may or may not be the same thing. That's fine for a home game because we can sit down and agree on the rules before it ever becomes an issue but is absolutely untenable in organized play.
Of course they can never eliminate every ambiguity, but what I think they can reasonably be expected to do is write the best they can to minimize such ambiguities and what they can certainly do is not take 8 months (if not far more) to answer questions have existed since the game came out, I'm not sure why this is too much to ask. We as customers should demand more because what were getting now is, as nicely as I can put it, inadequate.
If there is an obvious and intuitive explanation for a trivial ambiguity, use the obvious explanation.The problem with this line of thinking is that what I think is intuitive and obvious and what you think is intuitive and obvious may or may not be the same thing. That's fine for a home game because we can sit down and agree on the rules before it ever becomes an issue but is absolutely untenable in organized play.
What someone may think is the absolute objective grammar will not be what someone else reads as the absolute objective grammar. If anything the RAW IS LAW proponents tend to disagree with each other more than anyone else.
I prefer the preponderance of evidence myself. Either putting on a flak jacket lets your 20 ton mech suddenly do cartwheels out of a tac nuke or "light armor" and "light armor AND power armor" aren't the same catagory: its a copy pasting error from pathfinder into starfinder.
That is not a difficult decision to make.
And yes, that IS the rules. It is not house rules, home brew, or any less THE RULES Than chainsaw grammar dissection extreme. It is common sense rules interpretation and it is by far the most common way DMs read things.
If there is an obvious and intuitive explanation for a trivial ambiguity, use the obvious explanation.The problem with this line of thinking is that what I think is intuitive and obvious and what you think is intuitive and obvious may or may not be the same thing. That's fine for a home game because we can sit down and agree on the rules before it ever becomes an issue but is absolutely untenable in organized play.
That's only a problem if you think every person's thinking is entitled to equal respect. But you're off in flatearther territory here.
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That's only a problem if you think every person's thinking is entitled to equal respect. But you're off in flatearther territory here.
I would hardly call taking the text of something at its word and no further (i.e. as long as you're wearing light armor it doesn't matter what else you're wearing) as the same thing as denying something backed up by centuries of hard evidence.
Re: BNW: Powered Armor isn't something that exists in the real world, the evasion ability isn't something that exists in the real world, you can move faster in the lowest level powered armor than you can in every heavy armor in the CRB except 4 (assuming a base speed of 30).
We can say that it doesn't make sense to allow evasion when you're wearing powered armor, but if it makes sense to move as fast as you normally can in it, why doesn't it make sense for you to be able to dodge out of the was as fast. It working with powered armor is not inherently inconsistent with logic.
You can absolutely ignore the text (which again, I am still not seeing an actual argument for an alternative grammatical reading only readings which add words into the sentence or construe words in the opposite order) and go with an interpretation that allows it to not work with powered armor but that is no more logical or "preponderance of the evidence" than allowing it to work with powered armor since we actually know nothing about what aspect of light armor allows evasion to work and what doesn't (is it ACP, is it speed restriction, is it max dex? The answer is likely none of these things.)
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Can you use Evasion while only wearing Powered Armor? (No.) Why would adding Light Armor underneath that make you better able to evade?
This isn't a hard question.
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Shaudius,
I honestly believe you would not allow a player to use evasion in power armor or in heavy armor, even if they had light armor under it. I do believe you would allow a player to use evasion if they were wearing clothes under light armor.
The way we see things are different. I am not going to waste any more of my time and the readers of the boards time debating with you.
So it comes down that you don't like how the rules were written. Can't say I like how they are written either. But I plan to use them in a manner that I believe they were intended.
You raise very good points. But you are also coming across as condescending and arrogant. Unfortunately, so am I.
So I am stopping.
We can say that it doesn't make sense to allow evasion when you're wearing powered armor, but if it makes sense to move as fast as you normally can in it, why doesn't it make sense for you to be able to dodge out of the was as fast. It working with powered armor is not inherently inconsistent with logic.
The argument is NOT that it is inconsistent to work with powered armor.
The argument is that it is inconsistent to not work with a naked pilot in powered armor, but to suddenly start working with a pilot wearing second skin. THAT is what makes no sense. You're not addressing that even though its been brought up multiple times.
You can absolutely ignore the text
Stop that.
Deriving meaning from the text by means other than grammatical dissection is not ignoring the text. Its an important and necessary step in rules interpretation. The meaning might not be possible from your grammar scheme but it is CERTAINLY possible
Your grammar dissection is not being ignored. Its been taken into consideration, given the weight it deserves, and dismissed because it is not the only thing that matters. Sense, evidence, reason, providence, fairness and game balance are all things you consider when reading the text.
(which again, I am still not seeing an actual argument for an alternative grammatical reading only readings which add words into the sentence or construe words in the opposite order)
Don't need one. What on earth (or off it in this case ) makes you think that a completely nonsensical answer is more likely the intent than paizo either flubbed up or expected common sense to kick in?
once we actually know nothing about what aspect of light armor allows evasion to work and what doesn't (is it ACP, is it speed restriction, is it max dex? The answer is likely none of these things.)
Its that it's light armor. It's the thematic armor for operatives and rogues and the game wants a reason to keep them in it instead of dipping soldier and spending a feat.
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The argument is NOT that it is inconsistent to work with powered armor.
The argument is that it is inconsistent to not work with a naked pilot in powered armor, but to suddenly start working with a pilot wearing second skin. THAT is what makes no sense. You're not addressing that even though its been brought up multiple times.
That's not an inconsistency though, its like the raining and sunny argument, its like saying it doesn't work when its raining but it works if its sunny, its not inconsistent to work when its raining and sunny even if it doesn't work when its just raining because the important thing is the sunny part, and in this the important thing is the light armor part. It may not be the result you think is correct but its not an inconsistency.
Stop that.
Deriving meaning from the text by means other than grammatical dissection is not ignoring the text. Its an important and necessary step in rules interpretation. The meaning might not be possible from your grammar scheme but it is CERTAINLY possible
Your grammar dissection is not being ignored. Its been taken into consideration, given the weight it deserves, and dismissed because it is not the only thing that matters. Sense, evidence, reason, providence, fairness and game balance are all things you consider when reading the text.
But the text is the only thing we all actually have in common, that's the problem, in a normal legal interpretative context we have all sorts of other things to go on which we share, in a legal framework this consists of things such as, legislative history, canons of construction, framers intent, etc. and courts have relied on each of those things to varying degrees through the years, each person may choose which things are most important to them in a given arena but they have all been established as tools in interpretation. Here all we have is the text and then what people think about things because no such framework has been set forth from Paizo as to how we should be looking at rules(to my knowledge). What makes sense to you, and what makes sense to me, and what makes sense to someone else, are based on our own experiences and may be completely different because all we have to go on is the text and what we think about things.
Don't need one. What on earth (or off it in this case ) makes you think that a completely nonsensical answer is more likely the intent than paizo either flubbed up or expected common sense to kick in?
I disagree that its nonsensical, and no one outside of the dev team has the authority to tell anyone what is and is not nonsensical because as I said above we have no common source besides the text with regard to Paizo rules.
Expecting common sense to kick in implies that everyone has the same opinion on what common sense is in a given scenario, they don't. That's the whole problem, the only common thing we all share is the text of the rule, everything else is just us carrying our own baggage into the rules and deciding things based on it, which can and may lead to widely varied results, that's not good.
Its that it's light armor. It's the thematic armor for operatives and rogues and the game wants a reason to keep them...
That's just like, your opinion, man.
That's not an inconsistency though
It is a ridiculous inconsistency.
Just because Starfinder is a created world aka a science fiction world or science fiction fantasy setting doesn't mean that it makes absolutely no sense.
its like the raining and sunny argument
No one cares.
I don't care what it grammatically has to SAY. It is patently obvious what the rule MEANS. If breaking out my 5th grade grammar book means that the only doesn't get to draw an arrow to mean "only light armor" .. so what? The rules obviously aren't written to withstand that sort of dissection.
its like saying it doesn't work when its raining but it works if its sunny, its not inconsistent to work when its raining and sunny even if it doesn't work when its just raining because the important thing is the sunny part, and in this the important thing is the light armor part. It may not be the result you think is correct but its not an inconsistency.
Again. Grammar is not the only measure of consistency.
An operative in 13 tons of armor: can't evade
An operative in 13 tons of armor and a chainmail bikini= Backflip city
The world makes a level of sense and that is vastly inconsistent with it.
But the text is the only thing we all actually have in common
And yet the vast majority of people, even in an environment that heavily promotes the idea of playing by the rules if not the raw, says oh hell no to this. Why?
Having the text in common is not having an interpretation method in common.
Here all we have is the text and then what people think about things because no such framework has been set forth...
I disagree that its nonsensical, and no one outside of the dev team has the authority to tell anyone what is and is not nonsensical because as I said above we have no common source besides the text with regard to Paizo rules.
Its part of a DMs job to read rules and yes shut down blatant rules lawyering and raw shenanigans, of which this is now an ur example up there with shield master.
That's just like, your opinion, man.
Last time i heard that it was with regards to gravity.
She was a harsh mistress.