Debilitating trick and AoE weapons

[HammerJack]

COM added the alternate feature Operative's Arsenal.

Quote:

At 8th level, choose one of the following weapon types: advanced melee weapons, longarms, heavy weapons, or any one special weapon of your choice. You gain proficiency with the chosen weapon type (or weapon, if you chose a special weapon). In addition, you can use trick attack with weapons of the chosen type. You do not add trick attack damage to such attacks, but the target is still flat-footed and you can use debilitating trick. At 13th level, you can choose a second type of weapon from the list.This replaces triple attack and quad attack.

Now, most weapons with AoE effects are unwieldy, and cannot be used to trick attack. (I am assuming that Operative's Arsenal is never going to receive an errata like Debilitating Sniper, as there is none need for one).

However, there are exceptions, as wieldy blast weapons exist, as do wieldy bows and grenade launchers.

So, how do you interpret the interaction if trick attack with the Blast and Explode properties?

BLAST
For blast, I believe the best option is to count as single target as the target of the trick attack, and have others affected normally. I don't see a lot of gray area on this one, but I figure it's worth including.

EXPLODE
Here is where I expect to see multiple interpretations, including:

A (the one plausible interpretation). Your target is a grid intersection, so trick attack cannot be declared on a creature I'm the area.

B (the other plaudible interpretation). You attempt to trick and debilitated one creature in the intended area of the explosion.

C (the wrong one). I also expect someone will argue they should be able to trick all creatures in the affected area. I would say this is definitely wrong.

Any thoughts?

Additional note: I do not believe any wieldy line weapons exist, but they should works the same way as blast.

[HammerJack]

Side question, if anyone thinks Explode Interpretation A is correct: What do you consider to be a hit, for purposes of applying debillitation?

A failed save? Damage sustained? Being in the blast area even on a successful save with evasion?

[Pantshandshake]

Well, if you really want to boil it down, the ‘trick’ and the ‘attack’ part are separate things. Reading the trick attack rules, there’s nothing in there saying you even need to trick and attack the same target, though there really wouldn’t be a reason to even think about that until Operative’s Arsenal came out.

I’d say, when using Operative’s Arsenal to perform a trick attack with a non-standard (for Operatives) weapon, the target of your ‘trick’ can be anything that your weapon could legally hit. So, anyone within the cone on a blast weapon, the AoE of an explode weapon, or in the line of a line weapon (if a non-unwieldy one exists.) However, trick attack is definitely a single target thing, so I'm not advocating all the targets in the cone or AOE or line are tricked, just one. Probably the one closest to the Operative, though Operative's choice seems fine too.

On a side note, this thread makes me think that we’re probably going to see explode/line/unwieldy heavy weapons with the Free Hands thing at some point, which is going to make this ridiculous, and I can’t wait for the ‘discussion’ to start.

[HammerJack]

I don't actually see what Free Hands heavy weapons would add to this question that isn't already possible. What am I missing?

[Pantshandshake]

If you have enough free hands they lose Unwieldy and thus become eligible for trick attacks.

[HammerJack]

I know that. But since there are already explosive and blast weapons that are not unwieldy and can be used for trick attacks today, what would be new about it?

[Pantshandshake]

The main difference is that there actually aren't any non-unwieldy explosion weapons.

There are 10 weapons with line or blast that do not have unwieldy.
3 Line weapons, the Frailty Cannon series, with abysmal damage.
2 Heavy Blast weapons, the Stellar Cannons, doing 2d12 at lvl 10 and 4d12 at lvl 15.

And 5 Blast longarms, the Scattergun line, which have just the worst ranges. I don't imagine anyone really wants to be within 30 feet of a group of enemies.

Personally, I'd love it if the operative in my group would start dropping some hefty plasma explosions on the mooks and hit the boss with a little debilitating trick magic.

But I'd bet not everyone feels that way, and I'm looking forward to their anguish when they share it on the internet.

[HammerJack]

There are grenade launchers and weapons that can be used with grenade arrows that are not unwieldy. How do those not qualify? I would read them as having the same interaction as, say, a plasma cannon with Free Hands.

[Pantshandshake]

If the weapons you're describing exist, I am unable to find them in the Archives.

[HammerJack]

Really? The NIL grenade launcher and the bow are right there in the CRB. So are grenade arrows.

http://aonsrd.com/WeaponDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Merc&Family=NIL%20Grenade %20Launcher

https://www.aonsrd.com/WeaponDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Bow&Family=None

https://www.aonsrd.com/WeaponDisplay.aspx?ItemName=I&Family=Grenade%20A rrow

Were you trying to search Nethys for the explode property? You won't find it directly on the weapons that fire grenades, because they use the specific explode property (which includes radius) of the ammunition.

[Pantshandshake]

Whoops, misread your post. I thought you were saying those were unwieldy. You're correct, there are wieldy (I hate that word. Non-unwieldy?) weapons that you can use for AoE attacks currently.

But I discounted weapons that use grenades as ammo since those are probably the least sustainable weapons in the game for everyday use, in terms of the cost of buying the ammo.

We can say that once in a great while, sure, an operative might do something with a grenade launcher or grenade arrows, but I think we can agree that doing that even once per fight is going to be prohibitively expensive without GM intervention or something.

[HammerJack]

Sure, the weapons are expensive to use, but that doesn't mean there's no reason to figure out how they work when they are used.

[HammerJack]

On a side note, I think the "what counts as a hit with explode weapons?" Question may also apply to some Stunt and Strike options, which can be used with unwieldy explode weapons, as well.