Thread title, basically. For a spell I'd never heard of until my Bard player picked it out at 9th level, wow.
So far in both of the fights it's been used in, it turned a rough fight into a complete slaughter. It has the Incap trait, sure, but that doesn't slow it down as much as most spells - "save vs lose an action" is still really good against bosses, and you are probably only casting this if there are also mooks around to hit.
This spell might be my new gold standard of what control casters in 2e should be doing.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
If you except the fact that it affects your allies, it's excellent.
I am more a 6th slot Slow or 7th slot Paralyze guy to be honest.
But Synaptic Pulse is 5th spell slots, so you that early than these two that I mentioned.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
If you're feeling confident, you can use one-level-lower synaptic pulse to mess with mooks while your allies benefit from the Incapacitation trait.
Not everything has to work on the boss, if you can get rid of the other problems to focus on the boss that's also good.
If you except the fact that it affects your allies, it's excellent.
Cast it one level lower and it likely doesn’t. It’s an Incapacitation spell.
That's a cool use of the trait! Incapacitation is more useful than people give credit.
If you accept the fact that it affects your allies, it's excellent.
Except for the fact that it doesn't.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Each creature in the area must attempt a Will save."
The first sentence is flavor text.
|
"Each creature in the area must attempt a Will save."
The first sentence is flavor text.
Why?
It seems to me that one should read the entire paragraph and not just bits and pieces of it (with people regularly disagreeing on WHICH bits are flavour text and which aren't).
This is Pathfinder 2, not another game. ALL the words matter.
"Each creature in the area must attempt a Will save."
The first sentence is flavor text.
This sort of thing drives me up a wall. I noticed that when first reading the spell. Without a clear ruling from Paizo, I've been ruling that the spell affects enemies, as it clearly says in the text - because the version of the spell that is indiscriminate is basically useless, and I'd rather the spell be slightly strong than complete crap.
Still, if that is flavor text, it's really bad flavor text, and Paizo needs to not print flavor text that conflicts with the mechanics of the spell.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
This is Pathfinder 2, not another game. ALL the words matter."Each creature in the area must attempt a Will save."
The first sentence is flavor text.
And the words are: Each creature in the area must attempt a Will save.
Why?"Each creature in the area must attempt a Will save."
The first sentence is flavor text.
Because the first sentence doesn't alter the "Each creature in the area must attempt a Will save." Nothing about it saying it affects the enemy precludes it from also affecting your allies.
It’s an Incapacitation spell.
I tend to ignore spells with this trait: far too often I've found myself either without mooks to use them on or having a spell that works as well without that trait...
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
It definitely affects each creature in the area. It says so right in the spell.
Even if you are feeling generous and have it ignore allies, it's just a bad spell. Any enemies low enough to be affected by it aren't a real threat anyway.
You'd be better off using Summon Entity to summon a Cloaker and having it do its Fear or Nausea moan, because after it does that it can still fight and absorb attacks.
Plus on a Standard Failure Crushing Despair is far better.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Flavor text" is a term more often used by online debaters to win arguments, than by professional game developers. I think Jason Buhlman even denounced the term recently if I recall correctly, citing that it devalued the hard work that they do at Paizo.
I believe that the expectation in 2E is that you use all the text unless something makes it clear that you don't (a formatting change or placement in a distinctly different section at the very least, which we don't see here) or you change it for your own games (which would be a house rule).
If we take another example, people used to pick Half-Elf and get the Ancient Elf Heritage with Elf Atavism. While RAW there was no issue whatsoever, dev said that the fact that Elf Atavism was written in a way that prevented Half-Elf to pick it.
And there are no real age number for the feat or the heritage, it is just « flavor » text that prevents Half-Elf to be Ancient Elf.
So « flavor » text should no be underused, because in a lots of way they seems to be RAW as swell as RAI. However here, the two texts don’t tell the same things so I guess it is GM choice until we got an official errata.
Just pick one, and don’t forget it work the same way for the monsters and NPCs and balancing will probably be good.
But we should not really underestimate the value of flavor text in PF2 I believe.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Even if you are feeling generous and have it ignore allies, it's just a bad spell. Any enemies low enough to be affected by it aren't a real threat anyway.
Sure, just, ignore my first post, with actual play experience...
Besides which, it affects enemies the same level as you just fine, and enemies the same level as you are quite dangerous (in one of the fights I mentioned in the first post, the "leader" of the enemies was the same level as the party, and ended up stunned 2 - devastating for a spellcaster).
Are you sure you are reading Crushing Despair right? Needing to fail TWO saves just to be slowed 1 (admittedly for the whole fight) doesn't seem nearly as useful as stunned 2 on a single failed save.
Honestly, Crushing Despair seems pretty weak to me, since if you assume enemies have a roughly 50% chance to save, that means a 75% chance that all you do is prevent the enemy from taking reactions for 1 round.
Crushing Despair also has a smaller area of effect and definitely affects allies.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not seeing any contradictions. The spell makes it clear that those to be affected must 1) be enemies, 2) be creatures, and 3) be in the area of effect.
I'm not seeing any contradictions. The spell makes it clear that those to be affected must 1) be enemies, 2) be creatures, and 3) be in the area of effect.
It definitely could be worded more clearly. I think that is the correct interpretation - I think Paizo is aware that a 30-foot-burst spell that affects allies that badly would be trash - but there's no need to pretend like the wording is completely plain and obvious.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I agree that it could be worded more clearly, and would not mind an errata or FAQ clarification to make it more easily understood.
...Alternate thread title now that I've been inspired by Aratorin to look into it more:
Is Crushing Despair Really Bad?
Because... it seems kinda bad. Slowed 1 for a minute is pretty nasty, but um... Slow is also a spell that exists? I suppose at 5th level Crushing Despair has a number-of-targets advantage, but that goes away HARD at 6th level, and needing two failed saves is harsh...
Is denying reactions better than I am giving it credit for? To be fair, I haven't really seen Crushing Despair in play much, so maybe it's better than I am imagining.
Crushing despair targets will, while slow target fortitude, right now in the current adventure paths and bestiary will is usually the enemies weakest stat and fortitude the strongest.
But anyway, people see Incapacitation and just dismiss a spell entirelly, but I saw a good number of times a wizard with color spray in Fall of Plaguestone and the current Aberrant that used to have paralize use both of these incapacitation spells with great success, and both either put in a higher slot or used as signature spell.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, I do see a lot of that. Incap spells definitely need either regular retraining or to be signature to stay relevant, but on the flip side they do some crazy powerful things.
The Bard player was leery of them at first (she loved Color Spray at low levels and was disappointed when it stopped being useful), but now that she understands them she just plans her spell choices around them.
And like I said in the first post, Synaptic Pulse turned two even fights into absolute slaughters, so they've certainly grown on her. :)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
...Alternate thread title now that I've been inspired by Aratorin to look into it more:
Is Crushing Despair Really Bad?
Because... it seems kinda bad. Slowed 1 for a minute is pretty nasty, but um... Slow is also a spell that exists? I suppose at 5th level Crushing Despair has a number-of-targets advantage, but that goes away HARD at 6th level, and needing two failed saves is harsh...
Is denying reactions better than I am giving it credit for? To be fair, I haven't really seen Crushing Despair in play much, so maybe it's better than I am imagining.
You're right. I misread Crushing Despair. I thought the Failure effect was just Slowed for 1 minute. It is terrible. I still think Synaptic Pulse is bad, but we have different play experiences. I've found that any enemy less than 2 levels above the party dies before even getting to act most of the time.
You're right. I misread Crushing Despair. I thought the Failure effect was just Slowed for 1 minute. It is terrible. I still think Synaptic Pulse is bad, but we have different play experiences. I've found that any enemy less than 2 levels above the party dies before even getting to act most of the time.
Wow. What kind of a party do you have?
I just ran a fight against enemies two levels lower than the party and equal in number, and they lasted two rounds. It wasn't a hard fight for the party, for sure (it wasn't supposed to be), but the enemies all got some hits in and the party used some healing.
Game 1: Rogue, Ranger, Witch, Animal Barbarian
Game 2: Giant Barbarian, Rogue, Monk, Wizard.
Both are Age of Ashes. The only difficult battles so far have been
You've probably just got really good players. When my players were still getting used to the system, they nearly got TPK'd by a single enemy 1 level higher than them (a boar).
Hm... Could be a low-level thing, honestly.
My party didn't start hitting really dangerous encounters until later in book 2. I think at low levels lots of things don't have much hit points and will die to a single crit.
We are early in book 3 now, and when even "mooks" have almost 100hp, fights are rarely resolved in a single round.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Flavor text" is a term more often used by online debaters to win arguments, than by professional game developers. I think Jason Buhlman even denounced the term recently if I recall correctly, citing that it devalued the hard work that they do at Paizo.
I believe that the expectation in 2E is that you use all the text unless something makes it clear that you don't (a formatting change or placement in a distinctly different section at the very least, which we don't see here) or you change it for your own games (which would be a house rule).
Well, the two sentences are not contradictory. It affects all creatures in the area thus all enemies in the area.
You can't dismiss the second sentence anyway. Flavor text argument is only used to dismiss the first one. And there are many spells like this one (Dispel Magic for example has the same type of issue with the first sentence in contradiction with the second one).Also, Synaptic Pulse affects everyone in PF1 and SF, which is not a proof but a clue.
And if Paizo doesn't want us to dismiss flavor text, they have to write it properly. As long as flavor text will be in contradiction with the spell description, we will have to dismiss it.
I'm not seeing any contradictions. The spell makes it clear that those to be affected must 1) be enemies, 2) be creatures, and 3) be in the area of effect.
It doesn't say #1 is exclusive. All enemies is a subset of creatures. It NEVER says 'all enemies only' so #1 is subsumed into #2.
"Flavor text" is a term more often used by online debaters to win arguments, than by professional game developers.
That's odd as I was just in a thread where James Jacobs made a big deal how fluff was a bad word and one of the words he suggested instead was 'flavor'...
If we take another example, people used to pick Half-Elf and get the Ancient Elf Heritage with Elf Atavism. While RAW there was no issue whatsoever, dev said that the fact that Elf Atavism was written in a way that prevented Half-Elf to pick it.
It's more an issue that ancient elf makes absolutely no sense as a heritage. If it did, there wouldn't be an issue with flavor text...
"You select a heritage at 1st level to reflect abilities passed down to you from your ancestors or common among those of your ancestry in the environment where you were born or grew up.": getting old isn't either of those things and brings up the question of what heritage you were before you got old. What if my elf gets old enough to qualify mid game? can I suddenly become one? :P
Flavor text argument is only used to dismiss the first one.
That's a pretty convenient argument for you.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Flavor text argument is only used to dismiss the first one.That's a pretty convenient argument for you.
So Dispel Magic doesn't affect items but affects effects? By applying flavor text over spell description, you will strongly change the rules.
Flavor text argument is only used to dismiss the first one.That's a pretty convenient argument for you.
It doesn't change the fact that he's right: it'd be like someone saying I could take the Fleet feat if they come out with a race without feet like a merfolk or Cecaelia. Or if I used a Polymorph that didn't have feet like Pest Form into a snake...
"Fleet
General
Source Core Rulebook pg. 261
You move more quickly on foot. Your Speed increases by 5 feet.
Flavor text argument is only used to dismiss the first one.That's a pretty convenient argument for you.It doesn't change the fact that he's right: it'd be like someone saying I could take the Fleet feat if they come out with a race without feet like a merfolk or Cecaelia. Or if I used a Polymorph that didn't have feet like Pest Form into a snake...
"Fleet
General
Source Core Rulebook pg. 261
You move more quickly on foot. Your Speed increases by 5 feet.
While I see the argument you are making, it becomes a bit too pedantic here; "on foot" is a term that implies unaided movement, rather than specifically requiring feet.
While I see the argument you are making, it becomes a bit too pedantic here; "on foot" is a term that implies unaided movement, rather than specifically requiring feet.
IMO, using the flavor text for anything is "a bit too pedantic". When it's clear it contradicts the actual mechanics, it's hard for me to see the different shades of "pedantic". If we're going to use flavor text to override the mechanics, where is the line on what's reasonable? If we accept "on foot" as flowery text for ground movement, why do we not accept that the first line of these kind of thing is similar 'flowery text' and is more about atmosphere than rules.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Rules text needs to be as clear, specific, and codified for RPGs as it is for games like MTG. Specific words having extremely specific and defined in-game meaning.
What Filthy Lucre said.
If Paizo intends to have flavor text in their spells, it needs to either not say anything that resembles mechanics, or be clearly delineated as flavor text.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
What Filthy Lucre said.
If Paizo intends to have flavor text in their spells, it needs to either not say anything that resembles mechanics, or be clearly delineated as flavor text.
The problem, even when discussing this spell at hand, is that no one is wrong. Most of these interpretations are internally consistent and valid because we don't have concrete metric to weigh them against.
The problem, even when discussing this spell at hand, is that no one is wrong.
I don't agree with this in this instance: one way both sentences make sense and in the other the sentences are contradictory. So one way works fine as is and the other can't work as is...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Flavor text" is a term more often used by online debaters to win arguments, than by professional game developers.That's odd as I was just in a thread where James Jacobs made a big deal how fluff was a bad word and one of the words he suggested instead was 'flavor'...
Ah! That's the one. Seems I was misremembering which was which.
I think it's a poorly worded spell.
On that, I think we can all agree.
|
|
I think it's a poorly worded spell.On that, I think we can all agree.
I only partly agree.
Because there are so many <deleted> people (at least on the boards) who insist that things have to be read in a hyper focused way with only some words counting (quite often different words depending on the reader) THEN this text is poorly worded.
But if people were just reasonable and didn't insist on a level of precision that lawyers don't achieve and that would make the books extremely turgid to read, the spell is worded quite acceptably.
Ask a normal person what the meaning of "penetrates the minds of all enemies in the area." and they'd tell you that it only affects enemies.
It is VERY clear unless you INSIST on some nebulous definition of "only some words matter and the reader gets to decide which".
Glancing up at the spell immediately above, the "flavour text" for sunburst includes the words "dealing 8d10 fire damage to creatures and objects in the area". Please clearly explain to me why "dealing 8d10 fire damage" is rules text in one spell but "all enemies" is flavour text in another.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think it's a poorly worded spell.On that, I think we can all agree.I only partly agree.
Because there are so many <deleted> people (at least on the boards) who insist that things have to be read in a hyper focused way with only some words counting (quite often different words depending on the reader) THEN this text is poorly worded.
But if people were just reasonable and didn't insist on a level of precision that lawyers don't achieve and that would make the books extremely turgid to read, the spell is worded quite acceptably.
Ask a normal person what the meaning of "penetrates the minds of all enemies in the area." and they'd tell you that it only affects enemies.
It is VERY clear unless you INSIST on some nebulous definition of "only some words matter and the reader gets to decide which".
Glancing up at the spell immediately above, the "flavour text" for sunburst includes the words "dealing 8d10 fire damage to creatures and objects in the area". Please clearly explain to me why "dealing 8d10 fire damage" is rules text in one spell but "all enemies" is flavour text in another.
You yourself clearly believe that only some words matter. You keep conveniently leaving out Each creature in the area must attempt a Will save. Ask a "normal" person what that means and they'll say it means all creatures in the area.
Assuming you are talking about Sunburst, nobody is going to argue that specific amounts of Damage are flavor text. However "A powerful globe of searing sunlight explodes in the area" is. The spell doesn't Slow a Vampire, because it doesn't have actual rules text that says it does.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I for one believe that "each creature" in this instance is referring to the aforementioned "enemies."
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I for one believe that "each creature" in this instance is a subset of the aforementioned "enemies." (To me at least) It is clearly referencing the creatures mentioned in the previous sentence.
Then why is it not worded like all the other spells that do that?
BANE SPELL 1
ENCHANTMENT MENTAL
Traditions divine, occult
Cast [two-actions] somatic, verbal
Area 5-foot emanation;
Targets enemies in the area
Saving Throw Will;
Duration 1 minuteYou fill the minds of your enemies with doubt. Targets that fail their Will saves take a –1 status penalty to attack rolls as long as they are in the area. Once per turn, starting the turn after you cast bane, you can use a single action, which has the concentrate trait, to increase the emanation’s radius by 5 feet and force enemies in the area that weren’t yet affected to attempt another saving throw. Bane can counteract bless.
Because it's badly worded. Most seem to agree on this. :P
|
|
Because it's badly worded. Most seem to agree on this. :P
I definitely concede that Bane is far better worded. I'll take Aratorin's word for it that Pulse is the exception in wording and is therefore badly worded.
In fact, I'll concede that I'm wrong above. Given that pattern, this spell is somewhat ambiguous.
Paizo EITHER left off the targets line by accident OR they failed to change the text of the spell. The text and the header do not agree.
I think that it is overwhelmingly likely that the intent of this spell is to just affect enemies but I now agree that it is ambiguous.
I stand by my point that the text and the header information are both equally important. Its NOT a matter of rules overcoming flavor text, its a case where the two conflict and hence there is ambiguity.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yes, I think we can all agree that it is poorly worded and needs clarification. That applies to a lot of stuff ATM. Such are the pains of early adoption.