Summoner has a "different" Magical trait?


Secrets of Magic Playtest General Discussion

The Exchange

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The summoner has a "magical" key term on page 17: "The magical trait is a stand-in for your summoner’s magical tradition. Whenever you see it in an ability, replace it with your summoner’s tradition."

And this is used in the traits section of some feats.

However, there is already a "magical" trait defined in the Core Rules as: "Something with the magical trait is imbued with magical energies not tied to a specific tradition of magic. A magical item radiates a magic aura infused with its dominant school of magic.
Some items or effects are closely tied to a particular tradition of magic. In these cases, the item has the arcane, divine, occult, or primal trait instead of the magical trait. Any of these traits indicate that the item is magical."

And on page 299 of the Core Rules (in the Magical Traditions section): "Some types of magic, such as that of most magic items, don’t belong to any single tradition. These have the magical trait instead of a tradition trait."

Having this different functioning trait definition between what's in the Core Rules and what's specific to summoner feats could cause confusion - for example, the summoner "Ranged Evolution" feat on page 23 has "deals 1d6 damage and has the magical trait" - does this mean it actually just has the "magical" or does this trait change to the tradition of the summoner? Confused.

@Paizo devs - any chance of changing the name of this summoner "magical" trait to something different that doesn't clash with an existing trait?


Specific over general

The magical trait gets replaced, for the Summoner features, with the tradition trait of the Summoner's Eidolon. The traditions all already indicate that something is magical (for overcoming resistances, for example)

The use of the 'magical' trait is consistent with the CRB definition, and the key terms on p 17 tells you what to do with it where you see it in the Summoner class entry (replace it with the Summoner's magical tradition, which is defined by the Eidolon they choose)


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It would be better to change it to something else, like 'Tradition' or 'Magical Tradition'.

Sovereign Court

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I don't think overloading the CRB trait with a different one in this book is a good idea. Using a "tradition" placeholder trait is less likely to be confusing.


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Yeah. Tradition seems like a good stand in that will be robust for any other features that need a similar treatment. Giving Magical a specific use just for Summoner seems really clunky.

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