With the legendary skill feat Unified Theory, can you substitute an Arcana check in place of a check from any other tradition as the primary caster of a ritual?
I would generally say yes, you could substitute Arcana for other traditions using Unified Theory.
While Unified theory does stipulate "actions" instead of activities, I believe in this case the difference is relatively moot. A ritual is really just a very long series of independent actions after all, all culminating in a single check from the primary caster.
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I wouldn't allow it.
The feat is meant for actions and activities that can be used with different skills depending on the tradition of the target effect. You could use Unified Theory to identify a ritual via the Identify Magic activity. But you can't use it to perform a ritual since the ritual itself doesn't call for different skills depending on some magic tradition.
And yes, I'm aware that some rituals alow for multiple different skills to be used. But that's something different and not attached to anything that has to do with magic tradition.
I would agree with beowulf99 on this one. Looking at the wording for Unified Theory, Rituals, and how sample Ritual's are presented I just am not reaching the same interpretation as Blave.
I can definitely understand where Blave is coming from, and I even had the same thought initially.
But what convinced me was the existence of rituals with optional final checks of differing traditions. Why shouldn't a powerful enough Wizard be able to use his Arcane knowledge to control the weather? Or Resurrect the dead?
Also as a Level 15 feat requiring a Legendary skill, this doesn't feel in the realm of "too good to be true".
I would agree with beowulf99 on this one. Looking at the wording for Unified Theory, Rituals, and how sample Ritual's are presented I just am not reaching the same interpretation as Blave.I can definitely understand where Blave is coming from, and I even had the same thought initially.
But what convinced me was the existence of rituals with optional final checks of differing traditions. Why shouldn't a powerful enough Wizard be able to use his Arcane knowledge to control the weather? Or Resurrect the dead?
Also as a Level 15 feat requiring a Legendary skill, this doesn't feel in the realm of "too good to be true".
Because the arcane tradition doesn't interact with vital or spiritual essence, which is what is used to bring the dead back. They might be able to understand the magic at play but they can't replicate it through arcana.
By RAW, a ritual is neither a skill feat or an action. You could house rule otherwise, but it is pretty clearly not a thing based on RAW and flavor.
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Maybe one or both of you would be able to further break down Blave's interpretation? Because I may be misunderstanding something.
I could see it not applying to some rituals but assuming the ritual used a magic tradition and an associated skill check I am having trouble seeing an argument for why it would not apply.
The Arcane Tradition does interact with the Vital and Spiritual essences. The presence of False Life on the spell list solidifies that. According to the CRB, it is just generally poor at doing so. My argument is that Unified Theory allows an arcane caster more flexibility in interacting with those essences through an understanding of the underlying mechanics. Hence why it allows you to use Arcana to identify divine magics with no penalty.
Rituals are in an interesting place. It is true that they are not a skill feat or an action, however they are an activity which is just a series of actions in one "group". Since modifiers that modify actions within an activity still apply, if they didn't then any attack activity would be purely worse due to item bonuses and the like no longer applying, Unified theory would apply to the individual actions within that activity.
My contention is that since there are multiple rituals that allow for multiple traditions, Arcane casters should be able to use Unified Theory to make up the difference and enable them to cast any ritual. Going back to the Control Weather example, how is that not based on Flavor? How many mad wizards are there in fiction that cause crazy storms?
Plenty of flavor to back up my interpretation, and the wording RAW is just vague enough to allow for it as well.
Also Legendary skill feat and all that. It feels in line with other Legendary skill feat power levels, and doesn't strike me as feeling too good to be true.
There is also the line in rituals that allows a GM to modify any modifiers and add or change any primary or secondary checks that would, even if you are correct and Unified Theory were not allowed to work on Rituals, allows for Arcana to be the primary check in any ritual at GM discretion anyway.
Under that lens, why not allow a legendary Wizard control the weather using their primary skill and Unified Theory? Feels very flavorful to me.
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Maybe one or both of you would be able to further break down Blave's interpretation? Because I may be misunderstanding something.
I could see it not applying to some rituals but assuming the ritual used a magic tradition and an associated skill check I am having trouble seeing an argument for why it would not apply.
Blave's contention is that Unified Theory is referencing actions like "identify" wherein you pick the tradition of the object being identified. So if you have a Divine object to identify, you have to roll religion. Unified Theory allows you to use Arcane for that check with no penalty.
Same for Trick Magic Object or Identify Spell. The Trick Magic Object point is what makes me think that Unified Theory should be allowed to count for Rituals. If you can cast a scroll of Heal with Arcane, why not Resurrect?
I don't see anything wrong with going a step further and allowing that same Arcane user to use Unified Theory to perform Rituals, as many rituals are also modal. It is applying the same logic, that the Arcane user understands the underlying magical concepts enough to make up the difference and get an effect.
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I would agree with beowulf99 on this one. Looking at the wording for Unified Theory, Rituals, and how sample Ritual's are presented I just am not reaching the same interpretation as Blave.I can definitely understand where Blave is coming from, and I even had the same thought initially.
But what convinced me was the existence of rituals with optional final checks of differing traditions. Why shouldn't a powerful enough Wizard be able to use his Arcane knowledge to control the weather? Or Resurrect the dead?
Also as a Level 15 feat requiring a Legendary skill, this doesn't feel in the realm of "too good to be true".
Because the arcane tradition doesn't interact with vital or spiritual essence, which is what is used to bring the dead back. They might be able to understand the magic at play but they can't replicate it through arcana.
By RAW, a ritual is neither a skill feat or an action. You could house rule otherwise, but it is pretty clearly not a thing based on RAW and flavor.
I am not sure I agree with the statement that a ritual is not an action. On page 461 of the CRB:
"There are four types of actions: single actions, activities, reactions, and free actions".
I interpret this to mean that all activities are considered to be an action.
Also on page 461 of the CRB under Exploration and Downtime Activities:
"Outside of encounters, activities can take minutes, hours, or even days."
On page 408 of the CRB:
"While a ritual is a downtime activity" -> thus a ritual *is* an action - specifically a downtime activity action.
On page 268 of the CRB:
"Whenever you use an action or a skill feat that requires a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, depending on the magic tradition, you can use Arcana instead."
So my interpretation of the Unified Theory feat is that when performing the Atone Ritual, a Primary Caster with this feat *could* use an Arcana Check instead of a Nature (Druid) or Religion (all others) check - since this check is being done as part of a downtime activity action. This would also hold true for any Secondary Casters involved in the downtime activity action that have the Unified Theory feat.
I am not sure I agree with the statement that a ritual is not an action. On page 461 of the CRB:
"There are four types of actions: single actions, activities, reactions, and free actions".
I interpret this to mean that all activities are considered to be an action.
Also on page 461 of the CRB under Exploration and Downtime Activities:
"Outside of encounters, activities can take minutes, hours, or even days."
On page 408 of the CRB:
"While a ritual is a downtime activity" -> thus a ritual *is* an action - specifically a downtime activity action.
On page 268 of the CRB:
"Whenever you use an action or a skill feat that requires a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, depending on the magic tradition, you can use Arcana instead."
So my interpretation of the Unified Theory feat is that when performing the Atone Ritual, a Primary Caster with this feat *could* use an Arcana...
Thanks, this looks quite clear that Arcana can be used in this situation. If we don't get a developer ruling, I think the facts you assembled give the best answer we have access to.
it's a check that requires one or two different skill checks, independent of the magical tradition.
This is wrong. The primary skill check is specifically tied to the tradition the ritual falls under.
Though the relationship is reversed, it's tradition based on skill check rather than skill check based on tradition and you could argue that causes problems.