A very basic, but important question. Are mechs considered creatures for spell targeting?
If not many damaging spells would not work on them as they either directly target creatures or only damage creatures.
On the other hand, this would also mean spells like Baleful Polymorph, Build Trust and Borrow Corruption would work on them.
It states in the playtest rules that for the purpose of resolving effects, treat them as vehicles. It doesn't seem to expand anymore on this.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Yep, they are vehicles clearly.
(just to note, nothing actually prevents player owning assault gunship besides space in their starship :p)
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This question honestly reminds me of the guy who argued that grenades were recoverable after being used.
Sometimes, you gotta stop being a rules-lawyering munchkin and use common sense.
rabidaardvark wrote: This question honestly reminds me of the guy who argued that grenades were recoverable after being used.
Sometimes, you gotta stop being a rules-lawyering munchkin and use common sense.
Where does common sense leave you when you can polymorph a robot or a person in power armor?
"A person in power armor" is still just a creature with some equipment. You can replace 'power armor' in that sentence with 'light armor' or 'heavy armor' or 'a handful of blenders' and it doesn't change anything.
And a robot is... just a robot. Much like a living creature, but not technically 'living.'
A mech is not a creature.
Pantshandshake wrote: "A person in power armor" is still just a creature with some equipment. You can replace 'power armor' in that sentence with 'light armor' or 'heavy armor' or 'a handful of blenders' and it doesn't change anything.
And a robot is... just a robot. Much like a living creature, but not technically 'living.'
A mech is not a creature.
Please quote me the rules which say that.
Ixal wrote: Pantshandshake wrote: "A person in power armor" is still just a creature with some equipment. You can replace 'power armor' in that sentence with 'light armor' or 'heavy armor' or 'a handful of blenders' and it doesn't change anything.
And a robot is... just a robot. Much like a living creature, but not technically 'living.'
A mech is not a creature.
Please quote me the rules which say that. Which part? The part where power armor is armor? I assume how its called 'armor' and is in the 'armor' section of whatever book it shows up in is enough.
Or the part where a robot is just like a living creature, but not alive? I guess you could take a spin through the list of aliens, and notice that robots are (gasp!) creatures with the construct type. Which is... you know... a creature that is created by being constructed.
Or the part about a mech not being a creature? So far, they're referred to as vehicles.
Or the part where it doesn't matter what kind of equipment a creature is holding or wearing? That would be because none of the polymorph spells mention equipment at all, but do require the target to be 'a creature.' Which is satisfied by both a robot, or a living being, either of which can be wearing anything from 'nothing' to 'everything,' including 'anything'. Whereas a mech, that's a vehicle.
Pantshandshake wrote: Ixal wrote: Pantshandshake wrote: "A person in power armor" is still just a creature with some equipment. You can replace 'power armor' in that sentence with 'light armor' or 'heavy armor' or 'a handful of blenders' and it doesn't change anything.
And a robot is... just a robot. Much like a living creature, but not technically 'living.'
A mech is not a creature.
Please quote me the rules which say that. Which part? The part where power armor is armor? I assume how its called 'armor' and is in the 'armor' section of whatever book it shows up in is enough.
Or the part where a robot is just like a living creature, but not alive? I guess you could take a spin through the list of aliens, and notice that robots are (gasp!) creatures with the construct type. Which is... you know... a creature that is created by being constructed.
Or the part about a mech not being a creature? So far, they're referred to as vehicles.
Or the part where it doesn't matter what kind of equipment a creature is holding or wearing? That would be because none of the polymorph spells mention equipment at all, but do require the target to be 'a creature.' Which is satisfied by both a robot, or a living being, either of which can be wearing anything from 'nothing' to 'everything,' including 'anything'. Whereas a mech, that's a vehicle. The part where it says that mechs are not creatures even though they fulfil the vague criteria we have for it.
Because technically, mechs aren't objects either and thus immune to pretty much all spells as none of them specifically target vehicles. Its either creature or object and mechs are neither.
I mean, mechs lack most the basic things I would expect from a creature statblock. Like stats. Or the ability to take an action without a pilot. Or a basic form of intelligence. Or any sort of independent agency.
I'm not going to dispute the whole targeting thing with you, you're 100% correct that plenty of things only target creatures, and that needs a long hard look and some corrections.
But I read your assertion about what a mech 'is' as basically "It exists, so its a creature!" as flawed and incorrect.
Pantshandshake wrote: I mean, mechs lack most the basic things I would expect from a creature statblock. Like stats. Or the ability to take an action without a pilot. Or a basic form of intelligence. Or any sort of independent agency.
I'm not going to dispute the whole targeting thing with you, you're 100% correct that plenty of things only target creatures, and that needs a long hard look and some corrections.
But I read your assertion about what a mech 'is' as basically "It exists, so its a creature!" as flawed and incorrect.
The definition of creature is:
Creature
A creature is an active participant in the story or world. This
includes player characters (PCs), nonplayer characters (NPCs),
and monsters
And when you are fighting a giant mech its very hard to dispute that it is not a participant in the story.
No way how you rule, there are problems.
1. If mechs are creatures because they are normal combatants in tactical combat which was designed in a way that you fight creatures you have things like the polymorph trick
2. If mechs are objects they are very vulnerable to certain spells like discharge which would instantly power them down with no save (as objects were never expected to be combatants, those spells are not balanced for being used against an enemy) while on the other hand immune to several damaging effects which do not list objects as targets or being effected like call cosmos
3. If mechs are exclusively vehicles then the technomancer or mystic player will be very bored when fighting on foot against a mech as there are about 5 spells in the whole game that can affect vehicles and none of them usable in combat.
They clearly state that mechs are treated as VEHICLES, which are not creatures.
Ixal wrote: Pantshandshake wrote: I mean, mechs lack most the basic things I would expect from a creature statblock. Like stats. Or the ability to take an action without a pilot. Or a basic form of intelligence. Or any sort of independent agency.
I'm not going to dispute the whole targeting thing with you, you're 100% correct that plenty of things only target creatures, and that needs a long hard look and some corrections.
But I read your assertion about what a mech 'is' as basically "It exists, so its a creature!" as flawed and incorrect.
The definition of creature is:
Creature
A creature is an active participant in the story or world. This
includes player characters (PCs), nonplayer characters (NPCs),
and monsters
And when you are fighting a giant mech its very hard to dispute that it is not a participant in the story. Without a pilot, a mech has NO actions. Therefore, it is not a creature. It has no volition of its own, and more than a enercycle does, and thus is not an ACTIVE participant. It is a VEHICLE.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
CorvusMask wrote: Yep, they are vehicles clearly.
(just to note, nothing actually prevents player owning assault gunship besides space in their starship :p)
Corvus, why do you have to rub it in? :(
Ixal wrote:
The definition of creature is:
Creature
A creature is an active participant in the story or world. This
includes player characters (PCs), nonplayer characters (NPCs),
and monsters
And when you are fighting a giant mech its very hard to dispute that it is not a participant in the story.
The key word there is "active." A mech doesn't participate, or make decisions, or have any effect on anything by itself. Any semblance of that is because it has a pilot. Sorry, 'operator' is the word they use in the doc. If I hit someone while driving my car, I'd have a very hard time convincing anyone that my car was the active participant and I just happened to be there.
As to your other points, I agree that there are some pretty glaring errors here, regarding targeting and spell effects and such. I'm of the opinion (without doing any research) that the better way to address this would be to expand the target/effect rules for spells, and leave the mechs as vehicles. Changing mechs to creatures would mean that plenty of spells need to be changed anyway, as well as making some more errors (like a Skittermander grappling a huge mech, for example. Unless you already can do a combat maneuver against a mech? I didn't notice if that was a thing in the doc or not.)
Pantshandshake wrote:
The key word there is "active." A mech doesn't participate, or make decisions, or have any effect on anything by itself. Any semblance of that is because it has a pilot. Sorry, 'operator' is the word they use in the doc. If I hit someone while driving my car, I'd have a very hard time convincing anyone that my car was the active participant and I just happened to be there.
As to your other points, I agree that there are some pretty glaring errors here, regarding targeting and spell effects and such. I'm of the opinion (without doing any research) that the better way to address this would be to expand the target/effect rules for spells, and leave the mechs as vehicles. Changing mechs to creatures would mean that plenty of spells need to be changed anyway, as well as making some more errors (like a Skittermander grappling a huge mech, for example. Unless you already can do a combat maneuver against a mech? I didn't notice if that was a thing in the doc or not.)
Nothing suggests that you can't perform combat maneuvers against a mech. They even have special parts to defend against them.
So a skittermander grappling a mech is totally possible.
Ixal wrote:
Nothing suggests that you can't perform combat maneuvers against a mech. They even have special parts to defend against them.
So a skittermander grappling a mech is totally possible. If they've got specific parts to defend against a CM, then yeah, I guess you'd be right.
I dislike that (for some maneuvers) as much as I dislike the whole creature/object/vehicle targeting business, personally.
Pantshandshake wrote:
If they've got specific parts to defend against a CM, then yeah, I guess you'd be right.
I dislike that (for some maneuvers) as much as I dislike the whole creature/object/vehicle targeting business, personally. Problem is that SF removed size modifiers from CMs, so a small skittermander has a good chance grappling a gargantuan monster or mech.
And as I said before, in my opinion the initial combat system was never intended that the PCs fight vehicles, only creatures. Thats why so many artifacts pop up.
They tried to add "and objects" to damage spells but even that was not done consistently.
Also, it seems the term object was intended to describe only inert things which have either be wielded by a character or are part of the environment and not combatants which is why you have something like discharge.
Ixal wrote:
1. If mechs are creatures because they are normal combatants in tactical combat which was designed in a way that you fight creatures you have things like the polymorph trick
2. If mechs are objects they are very vulnerable to certain spells like discharge which would instantly power them down with no save (as objects were never expected to be combatants, those spells are not balanced for being used against an enemy) while on the other hand immune to several damaging effects which do not list objects as targets or being effected like call cosmos
3. If mechs are exclusively vehicles then the technomancer or mystic player will be very bored when fighting on foot against a mech as there are about 5 spells in the whole game that can affect vehicles and none of them usable in combat.
1) Mechs are not creatures, therefore irrelevant.
2) Mechs do not use charges, they use a power plant. They could be disabled for 1d4 rounds IF they fail their Fortitude save (yes, mechs do get Fortitude saves, some frames list bonuses to them), which is not much different from effects that can be placed on PCs. That spell is not imbalanced.
3) This comes down to the definitions of spell targets, something better resolved by adjustments to the individual spells themselves.
Ixal wrote:
Problem is that SF removed size modifiers from CMs, so a small skittermander has a good chance grappling a gargantuan monster or mech.
And as I said before, in my opinion the initial combat system was never intended that the PCs fight vehicles, only creatures. Thats why so many artifacts pop up.
They tried to add "and objects" to damage spells but even that was not done consistently.
Also, it seems the term object was intended to describe only inert things which have either be wielded by a character or are part of the environment and not combatants which is why you have something like discharge.
It's less the size modifier for me, and more the actual maneuvers themselves.
Example, the grapple. It's not too far out into imagination land to allow a skittermander to grapple a huge living thing. Grab something and twist real hard, living things don't like pain, etc. But like you said about PCs 'fighting' vehicles, I fail to see how anything that can't physically lift a mech or a truck off the ground can grapple it.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
NightTrace wrote: CorvusMask wrote: Yep, they are vehicles clearly.
(just to note, nothing actually prevents player owning assault gunship besides space in their starship :p)
Corvus, why do you have to rub it in? :( ? I wasn't trying to rub it in
Oh wait, you mean lack of vehicle space in spaceships? ;D See that is why you gotta invest into the big ships and npc crew!
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