Had a player come up with an interesting idea/question.
If you used Harrying or Covering fire with a conserving fusion, and succeed by 'hitting' the 15 AC target, do you get your ammo back? You hit the AC, but didn't actually hit anyone in particular.
I know it's a rules vs reality check, and probably just GM discretion, but if you're covering someone, you're intentionally missing. Does the gun somehow know you're intentionally missing, just to provide covering fire, and refuse to refund the ammo because you're not actually trying to hit your target, and you meant to shoot over his head?
I assume either way if you 'miss' the 15 AC target for covering fire you get your ammo back. Because then the gun must have thought "Man you REALLY missed intentionally not hitting that guy, have a pity bullet."
The way the Conserving fusion ever made sense for me in a fluff sense is that it is in fact the installation of a 'precognitive sight' on the weapon in question. So unless the ammunition will affect something mechanically, by hitting a target (or engaging in harrying/covering fire), the weapon simply doesn't fire. So yes, if you succeeded in the harrying/covering fire attempt, you use ammo. If you don't the gun doesn't fire. This is the only way I have visualized Conserving to work in a way that doesn't seem ridiculously cartoonish and break immersion.
I assume the point about "as though the weapon had never been fired" is specifically about the ammo not being consumed, and that the gun does actually go off in some fashion.
Otherwise a gunner with poor aim (or poor dice rolls) would be sitting there, just aiming and cursing at himself, as his weapon never actually shoots anything according to anyone watching.
Rules vs logic again there...
Yeah but think of the labor that magic must do.. if we are taking into consideration 'magical logic'.. the work of getting a little dodad to tell the trigger 'no' when it doesn't meet the condition (striking a target or otherwise accomplishing the goal aka harrying fire) seems quite trivial compared to teleporting them back into the clip of the gun.
So yeah in my world the hapless gunner would just be aiming, cursing, and continuing to have a red light or something similar flash indicating to anyone familiar with a conserving fusion what is going on.
Yeah, its called "Conserving", I note, not "Returning" or "Replenishing". All it takes a simple, low powered divination, versus needing some kind of more elaborate matter/energy transformation.
This idea hurts rather than helps your conclusion given Conserving is the higher level more complex effect to create than fusions like Returning and Called, so it'd make more sense for it to use the more complex manner of working than returning rather than it being simpler.
But, there is no reason to assume Conserving works in any particular manner since there is no information on how it works.
But, there is no reason to assume Conserving works in any particular manner since there is no information on how it works.Except that we know exactly how it works. I even quoted a relevant blurb upstream.
So, here's the entire description, from AoN:
Weapons with the conserving fusion preserve their ammunition and charges after a miss. When you miss with a ranged attack roll, your charge or ammunition is not consumed, as though the weapon had never been fired. This fusion does not prevent your weapon from malfunctioning or breaking as a consequence of your attack. Only weapons that use arrows, batteries, darts, flares, grenade arrows, mini-rockets, rounds, or scattergun shells as ammunition can benefit from a conserving fusion.
It is very specific. Your charge or ammo is not consumed. Ergo, it is never fired. The fusion does not replace a fired round or used battery charge; it doesn't let you fire the round or use the charge in the first place.
The second bolded text doesn't necessarily follow because of the first. If it doesn't do anything until after you've missed, you've already pulled the trigger and the effect has missed your intended target. This should also count for miss chances when you did hit the AC.
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The second bolded text doesn't necessarily follow because of the first. If it doesn't do anything until after you've missed, you've already pulled the trigger and the effect has missed your intended target. This should also count for miss chances when you did hit the AC.
Right, concealment and all that.
So likely if you miss on the 20% or 50% concealment, you don't spend ammo. But if that concealment had x number of charges, it would consume one of those charges.
What if you missed someone with Mirror Image up by 5 or less? That definitely still counts as a miss in terms of Conserving working, but it would still knock out a mirror image charge.
I know how I'd rule all these mechanically, and a lot of things break down when you try to make complete sense of them in the nitty gritty, but I enjoy the discussions and theories anyway.
I personally think the ammo is actually fired and then magically refunded if you miss the target you're actually trying to hit. Why/how this works and how it's distinct from auto/harrying/cover fire or shooting at a wall deliberately to damage it vs hitting the wall behind a creature target after a miss (which doesn't do anything by the rules) I leave as an exercise to the reader.
I think if you miss because of concealment on a ranged attack roll you still "miss with a ranged attack roll." You just didn't miss because of the ranged attack roll.
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Looking for a realistic explanation also gets weird when you put Conserving on a weapon with Automatic. Do I still have an empty clip\battery if all shots hit? What if only some hit? And what if none hit?I think at some point we came to a decision on this, that it was basically going to up to your GM based on how many weird interactions this brings up?
Yeah but think of the labor that magic must do.. if we are taking into consideration 'magical logic'.. the work of getting a little dodad to tell the trigger 'no' when it doesn't meet the condition (striking a target or otherwise accomplishing the goal aka harrying fire) seems quite trivial compared to teleporting them back into the clip of the gun.
So yeah in my world the hapless gunner would just be aiming, cursing, and continuing to have a red light or something similar flash indicating to anyone familiar with a conserving fusion what is going on.
I love the logical-but-not-game-rules extrapolation of this, that in-world you could take this fusion, wave your gun in the general direction of the enemy, and just pull the trigger as fast as you possibly can, and when one of those reckless shots would potentially hit, the gun actually fires.
I'd say No. You weren't aiming at anyone so you didn't miss your target.