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I am building a character who is a Half Giant using a cannon as a two handed firearm.
Can I use Blast Shot ammo and Vital Strike together? Blast shot uses language very similar to the scatter firearm quality but specifically ISN'T scatter as there are also numerous differences, particularly the absence of any language about not including extra damage from precision, vital strike, etc the way scatter does. In fact it even says "it deals it's normal damage on a hit".
Any rules interpretations or even just opinions are welcome.
So you are clearly in a somewhat houserule zone here. My preference would be to use a standard firearm and increase it to proper size. You are attempting to take rules for a siege engine operated by a crew and shoehorn them into a personal weapon.
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Nothing houserule about it. It's firmly within both RAW and RAI territory actually.
From the firearms section:
"In most cases, a Large or larger creature can use a siege firearm as a two-handed firearm, but the creature takes a –4 penalty for using it this way because of its awkwardness."
Regardless, the premise was never in question. The question was whether or not Vital Strike could be used with a cannon using Blast Shot ammunition, which is a question that would still be relevant even if using a crewed cannon on the ground.
Huh, learn something new.
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Blast shot uses language very similar to the scatter firearm quality but specifically ISN'T scatter as there are also numerous differences, particularly the absence of any language about not including extra damage from precision, vital strike, etc the way scatter does.
Most likely because either the author or developer assumed this was already covered by the general rules for siege engines which already say "[...] siege engines do not deal sneak attack damage or any other kind of precision damage." That doesn't specifically call out Vital Strike, but it's pretty likely that it was assumed that was already covered.
The other thing that's a bit unclear is whether or not you're using an attack action when you fire the cannon; for an indirect-fire weapon like a catapult you're definitely not using the attack action (you're making a targeting check), but the action type to fire a direct-fire siege engine is never defined. The "[large creature] can use a siege firearm as a two-handed firearm" could potentially override that limitation, which would just leave the RAW vs. RAI of siege weapons being able to Vital Strike at all per the rule on page 159 that says "As large and imprecise weapons, siege engines do not deal sneak attack damage or any other kind of precision damage."
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Despite it's name Vital Strike is absolutely not precision damage. Its more like a critical hit. It's a multiplier on your base damage, which is why you don't multiply the damage on crit, you add it because in Pathfinder you don't multiply multipliers, you add them. And you can definitely crit with a cannon.
It was also made clear by James Jacobs a while back that the intention of vital strike was for it to be used with any weapon in which you make an attack roll to hit with. Which firearm siege weapons qualify as. And since you are making a regular attack with it, ("A direct-fire weapon uses a normal attack roll"), vital Strike definitely should work with a direct fire siege weapon.
Blast Shot is the weird one though as it's not really direct fire anymore. Though it does specify that you make an attack roll against all targets. I'm really not sure about that one.
It isn't clear to me whether using a siege firearm as a two-handed weapon changes the action type required to load, aim, and fire said weapon. If not, then Vital Strike would be a no-go as it requires using the standard attack action. If it does, then you should be good to go.
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It isn't clear to me whether using a siege firearm as a two-handed weapon changes the action type required to load, aim, and fire said weapon. If not, then Vital Strike would be a no-go as it requires using the standard attack action. If it does, then you should be good to go.
The actions required to load and aim a siege weapon are separate from the standard action used to fire it, regardless of how you're using it. Much the same way reloading a crossbow is separate from firing it. You can reload a musket in one turn and then fire it on a separate turn (using vital strike even).
Why would direct fire siege weapons be any different when the action used to actually attack with it is exactly the same action as any other weapon?
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Despite it's name Vital Strike is absolutely not precision damage. Its more like a critical hit. It's a multiplier on your base damage, which is why you don't multiply the damage on crit, you add it because in Pathfinder you don't multiply multipliers, you add them. And you can definitely crit with a cannon.
It was also made clear by James Jacobs a while back that the intention of vital strike was for it to be used with any weapon in which you make an attack roll to hit with. Which firearm siege weapons qualify as. And since you are making a regular attack with it, ("A direct-fire weapon uses a normal attack roll"), vital Strike definitely should work with a direct fire siege weapon.Blast Shot is the weird one though as it's not really direct fire anymore. Though it does specify that you make an attack roll against all targets. I'm really not sure about that one.
I'm very aware of how Vital Strike works. Part of your claim in the OP was about how Blast Shot didn't have the same text as scattershot; my point was that it likely wasn't included because whomever wrote or developed the siege engine was aware that there was already a similar clause that applied to all siege engines and didn't believe it was necessary to repeat (particularly likely if the page was really tight during copyfitting and they were looking for text to cut).
There's also a distinct difference between an attack roll and an attack action; you make attack rolls all the time for things that aren't attack actions (like each individual attack in a full attack). So a "normal attack roll" is just letting you know that direct-fire engines aren't making an aim check like indirect-fire engines.
You are almost certainly not intended to be able to Vital Strike with siege weapons, but given that you're already using 3pp materials to activate this build the best thing for you to do here is ask your GM.
It isn't clear to me whether using a siege firearm as a two-handed weapon changes the action type required to load, aim, and fire said weapon. If not, then Vital Strike would be a no-go as it requires using the standard attack action. If it does, then you should be good to go.
For some reason I thought it was a full-round action to fire a siege weapon. Nevermind--you should be good to go anyway.
I'm very aware of how Vital Strike works. Part of your claim in the OP was about how Blast Shot didn't have the same text as scattershot; my point was that it likely wasn't included because whomever wrote or developed the siege engine was aware that there was already a similar clause that applied to all siege engines and didn't believe it was necessary to repeat (particularly likely if the page was really tight during copyfitting and they were looking for text to cut).
Which clause is that?
but given that you're already using 3pp materials to activate this build the best thing for you to do here is ask your GM.
Eh. One could just rephrase the question the same way with a Large creature (e.g., a human affected by enlarge person) wielding the cannon. It seems worth exploring.
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I'm very aware of how Vital Strike works. Part of your claim in the OP was about how Blast Shot didn't have the same text as scattershot; my point was that it likely wasn't included because whomever wrote or developed the siege engine was aware that there was already a similar clause that applied to all siege engines and didn't believe it was necessary to repeat (particularly likely if the page was really tight during copyfitting and they were looking for text to cut).
If saving space is the only reason to leave out seemingly important details then why write a paragraph that only includes some of the info and makes assumptions about the rest, when saying "A cannon using Blast Shot has the scatter quality" would have contained ALL of the necessary details without assumptions, and done so in a fraction of the words?
There's also a distinct difference between an attack roll and an attack action; you make attack rolls all the time for things that aren't attack actions (like each individual attack in a full attack). So a "normal attack roll" is just letting you know that direct-fire engines aren't making an aim check like indirect-fire engines.
You are right, but we are referring to a weapon here, siege weapons are repeatedly referred to as weapons... ALL weapons have the ability to use the attack action to make an attack roll with it. Firing a siege weapon isn't a special type of attack, it's simply a weapon using the attack action to use like any other weapon. I was just pointing out the "normal roll" to rule out any argument that it may not have counted as an attack action due to any perceived differences in the roll made to attack.
You are almost certainly not intended to be able to Vital Strike with siege weapons, but given that you're already using 3pp materials to activate this build the best thing for you to do here is ask your GM.
"Ask your GM" isn't really an answer that belongs in the Rules Forum. The point of this thread is looking for RAW and RAI answers, I'll ask my GM if none can be found. And the Half Giant isn't really a requirement of the build, any of the numerous means of becoming large or holding weapons as a size larger will suffice.
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Which clause is that?
The one I quoted in my first post on this page. It's page 159 of Ultimate Combat "As large and imprecise weapons, siege engines do not deal sneak attack damage or any other kind of precision damage."
If saving space is the only reason to leave out seemingly important details then why write a paragraph that only includes some of the info and makes assumptions about the rest, when saying "A cannon using Blast Shot has the scatter quality" would have contained ALL of the necessary details without assumptions, and done so in a fraction of the words?
I can think of a lot of reasons.
1) Siege weapons aren't normally used like this and the scatter property was being written with different expectations in mind that the siege engine writer didn't think would mesh properly.
2) The person who wrote the siege rules didn't even realize that the scatter property existed since they were both being written and developed at the same time.
3) The person developing the siege weapons didn't believe this situation was something that could possibly come up.
4) One sentence wouldn't have been enough to fill the page and would have left a gap at the bottom, so they needed enough text explaining it to fill that space but not as much text as it would have taken to reprint a line that was already stated and which the developer didn't believe needed to be reprinted.
5) The "Large and larger can wield siege weapons as two-handed weapons" rule didn't exist at the time this was written and was itself added during copyfit because the developer thought it would be cool or any of twenty other variations on "The person writing one didn't realize this weird rules situation would come up with the other."
It might help to understand that each spread in a book is planned and ordered before it's ever written. Someone at Paizo knew a year before Ultimate Combat was printed that they needed 10 pages to talk about siege engines. Then they contracted those 10 pages out to some number of freelancers (or possibly internal employees). Many months later, they got those turnovers and started stitching them together in development, likely while a different developer or designer was stitching together all of their own turnovers for the firearms chapter.
Then all of these bundles were sent off to editing, after which they went on to art and art laid them out. The laid out version then went back to the developers, who now not got to see whether or not the art and word counts they ordered fit on the page the way they expected. Some number of them didn't (there will always be some number of them that don't, whether because the art has a bigass spear that cuts through area you thought you could put words, because one author used way more multisyllable words than expected, or something of that nature) and needed to be copyfit; typically the ideal way to do this is to remove redundant text that can be found elsewhere, exchange big words for small, add flavor text, try to manipulate rules text into a smaller space, etc.
Remember, the number of pages available and the material to fill them with was ordered long ago; they can't just run over onto an extra page, and they're not going to leave ugly dead space. They have to maximize the page they've got with the materials they ordered, and all they can really do is add or remove words until everything fits.
You are right, but we are referring to a weapon here, siege weapons are repeatedly referred to as weapons... ALL weapons have the ability to use the attack action to make an attack roll with it.
That's not true. We already know that indirect-fire siege weapons do not use the attack action. "Normal attack roll" doesn't imply anything about the action type, just how you resolve it. There are actually far more things in Pathfinder that require normal attack rolls and aren't attack actions than things that are.
"Ask your GM" isn't really an answer that belongs in the Rules Forum.
Perhaps not, but things that come about as a result of 3pp mechanics typically go in the 3pp forums, not the core rules forums. However, as Blahpers noted there are 1pp ways to do it so it's worth discussing. That being said, there are some notable gaps in the siege rules that don't seem to be defined anywhere, so it's entirely possible there is no clear RAW answer to your question, at which point the RAW answer is, in fact, "Ask your GM".
If you don't want to ask your GM and would prefer to see how they rule it at the table, your best answer is going to be "RAW a Large creature can wield a siege engine as a two-handed firearm. Since it's a two-handed firearm, I can make attack actions with it. Since blast shot does not have the exact same text as scattershot, which specifically notes Vital Strike as an exception, I can Vital Strike with blast shot against all affected creatures."