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Hoping for a rules clarification from Paizo on the Order of the Cockatrice Braggart Ability.
Order Abilities: A cavalier that belongs to the order of the cockatrice gains the following abilities as he increases in level.
Braggart (Ex): At 2nd level, the cavalier can spend a standard action to extol his own accomplishments and battle prowess. He receives Dazzling Display as a bonus feat. He does not need a weapon in hand to use this ability. The cavalier receives a +2 morale bonus on melee attack rolls made against demoralized targets.
The bolded sentence ends in a period; separating clauses and causing a minor dispute.
Is the intent that he can use dazzling display as a standard action (it is normally a full-round action)?
Or does he gain Dazzling Display as a bonus feat, and he gains a separate special ability to extol his accomplishments and battle prowess as a standard action. This would allow him to boast very quickly, by using this ability to condense everything he says into a six second period of time.
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hoping for a rules clarification from Paizo on the Order of the Cockatrice Braggart Ability.
Order Abilities: A cavalier that belongs to the order of the cockatrice gains the following abilities as he increases in level.
Braggart (Ex): At 2nd level, the cavalier can spend a standard action to extol his own accomplishments and battle prowess. He receives Dazzling Display as a bonus feat. He does not need a weapon in hand to use this ability. The cavalier receives a +2 morale bonus on melee attack rolls made against demoralized targets.
The bolded sentence ends in a period; separating clauses and causing a minor dispute.
Is the intent that he can use dazzling display as a standard action (it is normally a full-round action)?
Or does he gain Dazzling Display as a bonus feat, and he gains a separate special ability to extol his accomplishments and battle prowess as a standard action. This would allow him to boast very quickly, by using this ability to condense everything he says into a six second period of time.
If it isn't intended to give Dazzling Display as a standard action, what would extolling accomplishments and battle prowess even do? Talking is a free action, but you can now do it as a standard action?
Basically one side there is an argument for it being a standard action. The other side argues it has no mechanical advantage and is basically flavor text, but you could use it to say a lot of words in a short period of time (speaking being a free action, but limited by time.
Dunno why people think there's a chance of an official answer to their one question, they haven't done it that way in years. And they don't seem to be releasing FAQs any more either.
On this one, cavalier order abilities almost always include just one ability at a given level and use words like 'in addition' when they have more than one. All the text here refers to the same thing.
It gives you dazzling display, lets you do it as a standard action, and reflavors it as "bragging" instead of waving your weapon around so you don't need to be armed to do it.
I mean, I figure you still could use "full action, needs a weapon" dazzling display because you have the feat, but why would you?
Organized Play Developer
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It gives you dazzling display, lets you do it as a standard action, and reflavors it as "bragging" instead of waving your weapon around so you don't need to be armed to do it.
I'm not a designer, and this is not an FAQ or official clarification.
The quoted text above is how I've always understood and seen that ability used, including at organized play tables and with other people here in the office.
The reading where it lets you brag as a standard action to no mechanical effect isn't really the kind of thing I'd expect to see us intentionally publish, particularly because the "time limit" of free action speech is up to each GM and is generally considered a free action because it can safely overlap with the other actions you're taking. Even though Pathfinder is a turn-based game, the abstraction is that there is overlap between all of your actions and turns when viewed through the lens of what's actually happening. A round isn't six seconds per person, it's a single six-second period shared by every creature in the encounter. Speaking isn't a free action because it's only expected to last for half a second, it's a free action because it's not something that's expected to meaningfully interfere with whatever else you might be doing.
It probably would have been better to write it as,
"The cavalier receives Dazzling Display as a bonus feat, but can use it as a standard action by extolling his accomplishment. He does not need a weapon to use Dazzling Display in this way."
It probably would have been better to write it as,
"The cavalier receives Dazzling Display as a bonus feat, but can use it as a standard action by extolling his accomplishment. He does not need a weapon to use Dazzling Display in this way."
Yeah, but things like this are bound to happen. The hundreds can find the problems that the one can not. And being that we probably aren't getting any errata or edits, we'll just have to use our own best interpretations.
It's so sad that future clarifications of PF1 seem to be dead.