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So one of my solarian players recently pointed out a vagueness in the rules for solarian revelations.
Some revelations have text in their second half that gives you a bonus or makes them better when you are 'attuned or fully attuned'. For example:
When you are attuned or fully attuned, you can activate this revelation as a reaction when targeted by a bull rush, disarm, reposition, or trip combat maneuver, in which case it defends against only that attack.
Based on the verbiage in the Graviton Mode and Photon Mode entries for the Solarian, I'd always assumed that these powers got their attunement benefits whenever you were attuned to the mode that matched the power. Ie, you got the attunement benefit of Gravity Anchor only while attuned to Graviton, since its a graviton power.
However, my player pointed out that it doesn't say this explicitly anywhere. Instead, he argued that the attuned or fully attuned clause is intended to limit the improved version of the revelation to only combat against significant enemies.
How are people ruling on this? Is there some description or entry I missed that clarifies it?
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So one of my solarian players recently pointed out a vagueness in the rules for solarian revelations.
Some revelations have text in their second half that gives you a bonus or makes them better when you are 'attuned or fully attuned'. For example:
When you are attuned or fully attuned, you can activate this revelation as a reaction when targeted by a bull rush, disarm, reposition, or trip combat maneuver, in which case it defends against only that attack.Based on the verbiage in the Graviton Mode and Photon Mode entries for the Solarian, I'd always assumed that these powers got their attunement benefits whenever you were attuned to the mode that matched the power. Ie, you got the attunement benefit of Gravity Anchor only while attuned to Graviton, since its a graviton power.
However, my player pointed out that it doesn't say this explicitly anywhere. Instead, he argued that the attuned or fully attuned clause is intended to limit the improved version of the revelation to only combat against significant enemies.
How are people ruling on this? Is there some description or entry I missed that clarifies it?
I ruled against myself (as a Solarion) and went counter to how your player interpreted it. It seemed "obvious" to me that the intention was attuned or fully attuned in the appropriate mode - otherwise it's effectively an "always on" boost.
(The cited text, for example is obviously a combat-specific benefit, so you're nearly always going to be attuned/fully attuned when it might come into effect - your player's interpretation is a lot of verbiage to basically say "you can't do this against insignificant opponents, or the round after activating a zenith revelation" why rule those situations out?).
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Re-reading the solarian:
Once you reach 3 attunement points in a mode,
you become fully attuned to that mode. Some of your stellar
revelations are zenith revelations, which can be used only
when you’re fully attuned to one mode or the other.
Zenith revelations are powerful stellar revelations that require
you to be fully attuned in a stellar mode. After using a zenith
revelation, your stellar mode immediately becomes unattuned.
A revelation that says it lasts for 1 round or until you leave
the associated mode lasts for whichever of these durations is longer. You can use stellar revelations both in and out of combat,
but since you can’t enter a stellar mode outside of battle, any
revelation that lasts for 1 round or as long as you’re in a stellar
mode lasts only 1 round if you’re not in combat.
Based mostly on the last quote, I would say you must be attuned to the specific mode to gain the benefit of the 'when attuned or fully attuned' line of a stellar revelation.
There is room for the other way of running things.
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So you think the bonus “when you are attuned or fully attuned...” bit (which only lasts for the triggering attack is usable in both in photon or graviton mode with equal efficacy?
It basically means “you can also do this unless you’re fighting very weak foes, or you’ve just had your turn and used a zenith revelation, thus becoming unattuned”. It seems like a really weird limitation to put on it to me.
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No, I agree with you on that bit. I meant the “if you are attuned or...” bit - basically when you use it as a reaction. That’s what the OP was asking about.
When you are attuned or fully attuned, you can activate this revelation as a reaction when targeted by a bull rush, disarm, reposition, or trip combat maneuver, in which case it defends against only that attack.
The bolded statement negates the difference between photon and graviton duration. Taking your interpretation is basically “you can always do this, except in two very infrequent corner cases” which just seems odd to me - why go to so much trouble ruling out something that hardly ever happens?
It basically means “you can also do this unless you’re fighting very weak foes, or you’ve just had your turn and used a zenith revelation, thus becoming unattuned”. It seems like a really weird limitation to put on it to me.
I didn't think about this angle to it, but it makes a lot of sense. For example, the Flare power has...
When you create a flash of light as a standard action and you are attuned or fully attuned, you can instead choose to make all enemies within range dazzled for 1 round (no save).
It makes no sense to waste the verbiage on just saying 'you can only do this in combat against significant foes' because thats the only time you'd want to use it in the first place.
Thanks for the perspectives guys.
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No, I agree with you on that bit. I meant the “if you are attuned or...” bit - basically when you use it as a reaction. That’s what the OP was asking about.
When you are attuned or fully attuned, you can activate this revelation as a reaction when targeted by a bull rush, disarm, reposition, or trip combat maneuver, in which case it defends against only that attack.The bolded statement negates the difference between photon and graviton duration. Taking your interpretation is basically “you can always do this, except in two very infrequent corner cases” which just seems odd to me - why go to so much trouble ruling out something that hardly ever happens?Oh, I see what you mean and it points out some details I had not noticed before. Thanks! :) I think what they mean is:
-If you spend a move action to do this, the duration depends on if you are graviton or photon attuned and it will potentially defend against several of those attacks.
-If you spend a reaction to do it instead, it only defends for that (single )attack.
You might want to spend your move action on something else like moving towards your target and rather use the reaction because you get better action economy, and that also depends of the tactical situation. If you spend a move action and you are graviton attuned it will count against all of those attacks
Leave the move action out of it for a bit (that’s not controversial).
For some reason, on a literal interpretation, they’ve decided that everyone can use gravity anchor as a reaction unless you’re fighting foes who are so weak as to not be a significant threat or if you’ve just used a revelation which makes you unattuned.
That seems like such a peculiar restriction. The alternative view (that I think was intended - my theory is there was a general explanatory note that was lost in editing) is that a Solarion can use gravity anchor in either mode, but it’s only available as a reaction if you’re in graviton mode.
There are some others which have similar weirdness* on the literal reading.
* In my opinion.
It basically means “you can also do this unless you’re fighting very weak foes, or you’ve just had your turn and used a zenith revelation, thus becoming unattuned”. It seems like a really weird limitation to put on it to me.I didn't think about this angle to it, but it makes a lot of sense. For example, the Flare power has...
When you create a flash of light as a standard action and you are attuned or fully attuned, you can instead choose to make all enemies within range dazzled for 1 round (no save).It makes no sense to waste the verbiage on just saying 'you can only do this in combat against significant foes' because thats the only time you'd want to use it in the first place.
Thanks for the perspectives guys.
As another perspective - I’d point this out to the player, but I’d let them be the judge on how it worked in my game.
I don’t think the literal interpretation is particularly overpowered, just oddly formulated. As such, I’m happy to go with the reading that lets PCs get more frequent use of their abilities (even though I don’t think that was the author’s intent).
For me (as a player) I enjoyed restricting myself in that way - it gave me a tactical choice to make. I suspect otherwise I’d have just always gone photon mode.
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I am the player in this situation. Let me start by saying that I could very well be wrong, I'm not fighting for this ruling it's just how I read it.
I do want to point out that if it is the way I read it there would be three situations excluded, not two.
1. You’re fighting very weak foes.
2. You’ve just had your turn and used a zenith revelation, thus becoming unattuned.
3. You aren't in combat at all.
The third one would be the key one I think. Since out of combat game time isn't measured in rounds you could then basically spam revelations to solve a problem. That's why they have the 'if you are attuned' caveat in my opinion.
Yeah, I didn't mention that with regard to the reaction in particular (I don't know if it's just our group, but we don't go into true "action economy" mode except when we're in combat, so that's kind of ruled out already).
The "out of combat" would make sense to me as a reasonable restriction - except I would have thought they'd just say that - the attuned/not attuned wording seems really strangely constructed to me.
I'm just offering perspective, by the way - I don't think it's really important from a power level. To me, whatever makes sense to the player is the rolling I'd go with. I think your ruling is the literal reading - for me, I found the more restrictive interpretation useful in distinguishing between the two modes. Otherwise, it's pretty much just about which zenith revelation are you building up to.
Out of combat is irrelevant in this situation though - it doesn't matter whether it takes a move action or reaction if you're not in combat.
Out of combat is irrelevant in this situation though - it doesn't matter whether it takes a move action or reaction if you're not in combat.
There's a narrative difference between bracing for something and responding to someone doing it to you.
The wording seems to clearly rule out using this revelation responsively, to me.
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Out of combat is irrelevant in this situation though - it doesn't matter whether it takes a move action or reaction if you're not in combat.There's a narrative difference between bracing for something and responding to someone doing it to you.
The wording seems to clearly rule out using this revelation responsively, to me.
If someone is trying to do something to you out of combat it triggers combat and you roll initiative first. So it doesn't matter whether it takes a move action or reaction if you're not in combat.
Maybe we play it differently. I can easily imagine an NPC trying to push us around or something without going into combat. I guess one could equally well declare that combat had started and resolve it as a one-action bull rush, but I don't think that's how it would be resolved at our table.
Well, in the situation that brought this up I was using gravity hold not gravity anchor. There could definitely be out of combat uses for it.
It would be nice to have an official clarification.