Rulebooks and "Specific" words

[Zioalca]

So, I had a question about how Remove Disease works and was about to post it in the rules section but managed to find my answer in a round-a-bout manner. The rule books could really do a better job of highlighting words that are something in the book. For reference, here is why I had trouble with and was going to ask a question about the spell Remove Disease. The spell description states:

Healing magic purges disease from a creature’s body. You attempt to counteract one disease afflicting the target.

Taking a few glances at that as well as the multiple diseases afflicting one of my players, I was trying to figure out what to do with it. Finally I found that the keyword that was counteract. I really wish they would do something to make it obvious that counteract is a thing you can find else where in the rule book. If the above read as:

Healing magic purges disease from a creature’s body. You attempt to counteract one disease afflicting the target.

I would have known that counteract wasn't just a choice wording there but an actual thing in the rule book. I've come across multiple items like this that could use something to better catch your attention.

[ExOichoThrow]

I agree, Paizo could do a much better job of highlighting keywords and terms.

[Grankless]

It is weird that it's not capitalized and delineated, but it is in the same section of the CRB as literally every other magic rule, which you should have read before you start doing wizard tricks.

[Zioalca]

While you are correct, if I had to look this up mid-game I would have been kind of stuck on what to do. Both the CRB and Archives of Nethys list the spell the exact same way and in the middle of running a game I'm much more likely to try and look this up on AoN where I would have been just as stuck and confused. Not to say it is in any way a fault on AoN, they simply list these things as they are in the books. I just wanted to voice my opinion that bringing attention to a keyword in a spell or really anything from item to spell to feat would be beneficial for all. I think you agree with that.

[Ventnor]

Maybe something Paizo should have done was make counteract a trait of the spell.

[Zioalca]

That would have definitely helped

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Might be worth posting a brief erratum about in the CRB Typos / Mistakes / Etc Post Errata 1.0 thread.

Possible fixes:

* give a Counteract trait to every spell/feat/ability/thingy that tries to counteract anything

* capitalize every instance of "counteract"

What other words cause this problem?

[Moppy]

I once thought, "why doesn't Paizo emphasise the keywords"?

Then I wrote some homebrew rules and emphasised the keywords, and every other word was highlighted, and it looked like it had been written by a crazy person.

[Zioalca]

Moppy wrote:

I once thought, "why doesn't Paizo emphasise the keywords"?

Then I wrote some homebrew rules and emphasised the keywords, and every other word was highlighted, and it looked like it had been written by a crazy person.

I totally considered that myself. That's why I think the tag might be the way to go.

[Ubertron_X]

I wonder why they did not use the same wording for Remove Disease like they did for many other instances, because if they did use standardized wording it would also be clearer when keywords are being used.

For example Neutralize Poison: "You pour healing magic through the target in an attempt to cure one poison afflicting it. Attempt a counteract check against the poison."

And from this I guess it is much easier to ask yourself "What is a counteract check? Lets look it up in the appendix!" (or use the search function on AoN).

[Tarik Blackhands]

Zioalca wrote:

Moppy wrote:

I once thought, "why doesn't Paizo emphasise the keywords"?

Then I wrote some homebrew rules and emphasised the keywords, and every other word was highlighted, and it looked like it had been written by a crazy person.

I totally considered that myself. That's why I think the tag might be the way to go.

Frankly if you're bolding every other word that might just be a sign the system could be use some trimming down. I've seen games like Lancer that have no problems bolding all their keywords and not looking like a lunatic wrote them.

[breithauptclan]

Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Zioalca wrote:

Moppy wrote:

I once thought, "why doesn't Paizo emphasise the keywords"?

Then I wrote some homebrew rules and emphasised the keywords, and every other word was highlighted, and it looked like it had been written by a crazy person.

I totally considered that myself. That's why I think the tag might be the way to go.

Frankly if you're bolding every other word that might just be a sign the system could be use some trimming down. I've seen games like Lancer that have no problems bolding all their keywords and not looking like a lunatic wrote them.

On the other side of the coin, it could be that Lancer has too much descriptive text intermixed with its mechanics rules. If we can fully and succinctly describe the entire effects of a spell with a handful of keywords and a few conjunctions, that sounds good to me. Though that may just be my day job catching up with me

[Temperans]

Keywords are important because you can reuse them to avoid having the same thing expressed 3+ different way and later down the line change what one of the things mean.

But using too many keywords makes the whole thing feel like a technical manual for a programing language. Which is just as problematic.

Pathfinder always had a lot of Keywords because its a really big system with lots of moving parts. And I really would had liked that they had fixed the highlighting of when a keyword was used. They have done italization for spell names, I dont know why they didnt use something for keywords.

[Tarik Blackhands]

breithauptclan wrote:

Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Zioalca wrote:

Moppy wrote:

I once thought, "why doesn't Paizo emphasise the keywords"?

Then I wrote some homebrew rules and emphasised the keywords, and every other word was highlighted, and it looked like it had been written by a crazy person.

I totally considered that myself. That's why I think the tag might be the way to go.

Frankly if you're bolding every other word that might just be a sign the system could be use some trimming down. I've seen games like Lancer that have no problems bolding all their keywords and not looking like a lunatic wrote them.

On the other side of the coin, it could be that Lancer has too much descriptive text intermixed with its mechanics rules. If we can fully and succinctly describe the entire effects of a spell with a handful of keywords and a few conjunctions, that sounds good to me. Though that may just be my day job catching up with me

It's an interesting idea, but I chose Lancer for a reason. That being its mech section is an extremely elegant and efficient piece of rules writing. Define a handful of core things up front (what's an object, what's a character, etc) and then all the other relevant tags and noteworthy bits of mechanics are bolded for clarity. Works well, is succinct, and avoids the "written by a lunatic" thing. The basic point of the matter if your mechanics descriptions are an unwieldy pile of tags...odds are something can be done to trim that down whether in terms of mechanic being too complicated in and of itself or your core system has too many fiddly bits ticking inside.