As per the title. A rogue player in my game attempted to use the Critical Debilitation Feat against a creature that was immune to paralysis. The enemy had a critical failure. Being that they were immune to paralysis, I didn't know if I had the grounds to confirm that they should suffer the effects of a normal failure instead. It feels dumb that crit failing is BETTER than failing in this case, but i'd like to know if there is an official ruling about this kind of interaction.
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As per the title. A rogue player in my game attempted to use the Critical Debilitation Feat against a creature that was immune to paralysis. The enemy had a critical failure. Being that they were immune to paralysis, I didn't know if I had the grounds to confirm that they should suffer the effects of a normal failure instead. It feels dumb that crit failing is BETTER than failing in this case, but i'd like to know if there is an official ruling about this kind of interaction.
Probably not. But I'd definitely just apply the failure effect in that case, and regardless of how the rules work out it would be silly to do otherwise.
As per the title. A rogue player in my game attempted to use the Critical Debilitation Feat against a creature that was immune to paralysis. The enemy had a critical failure. Being that they were immune to paralysis, I didn't know if I had the grounds to confirm that they should suffer the effects of a normal failure instead. It feels dumb that crit failing is BETTER than failing in this case, but i'd like to know if there is an official ruling about this kind of interaction.Probably not. But I'd definitely just apply the failure effect in that case, and regardless of how the rules work out it would be silly to do otherwise.
That's what I thought. It would be awful to have an enemy crit fail a save and say "man, it'd have been better if they had only normal failed".
As per the title. A rogue player in my game attempted to use the Critical Debilitation Feat against a creature that was immune to paralysis. The enemy had a critical failure. Being that they were immune to paralysis, I didn't know if I had the grounds to confirm that they should suffer the effects of a normal failure instead. It feels dumb that crit failing is BETTER than failing in this case, but i'd like to know if there is an official ruling about this kind of interaction.
As far as an official ruling, you would technically be forced to argue that the feat did nothing in this instance. This is because of this line in Step 4 of the Checks resolution rules.
If a[n] feat, magic item, spell, or other effect does not list a critical success or critical failure, treat is as an ordinary success or failure instead.
This is further reinforced in the Playing the Game section, although less strict, but it creates consistency:
Note that not all checks have a special effect on a critical success or critical failure and such results should be treated just like an ordinary success or failure instead.
Because the feat lists a critical success and critical failure entry, this means you cannot default it to ordinary successes or failures, even if the entity which created the effect would benefit more from it that way.
Furthermore, there is precedent for abilities to not provide failure effects on a critical failure. This is mot evident in the Press feature, and isn't precisely appropriate to mention, but it once again aligns with the intent that the result doesn't change unless the rules expressly permit you.
I don't personally see a problem with a GM ruling that a non-effect on a critical failure compared to a significant effect on a standard failure means taking the worse of the two. But it is a GM call at best, and a houserule at worst.
Yea. Taking away the player's fun for a technicality. I'll take a home GM ruling any day.
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Yea. Taking away the player's fun for a technicality. I'll take a home GM ruling any day.
It's a corner case, since the odds of running into creatures immune to paralysis but not slowed are slim. Additionally, the two conditions operate completely separate from each other, as slowed affects actions received for the round, paralysis affects acting in general, two distinct affliction types not otherwise noticed to the common eye. So, an ability that provides two completely separate effects based on a result is no different than affecting someone with, say, a Chromatic Wall spell or something similar.
A GM can certainly rule that a non-effect should still suffer an effect of an easier to acquire DC result, which is reasonable, but is both A. not listed in the rules as a possibility outside of what I've cited, making it a GM call at best until it's further reviewed after the session and B. a houserule if this rules text is later found and then ignored for the sake of balance and fun. Again, reasonable. But not RAW, and also not possible in PFS play.
Either way, with the removal of the rule that PCs can't voluntarily choose to fail or critically fail checks that once existed in PF1, we can't say that this idealism kept in PF2, and with the rules text that I provided, I'm fairly certain they moved away from that process.
Furthermore, there is precedent for abilities to not provide failure effects on a critical failure. This is mot evident in the Press feature, and isn't precisely appropriate to mention, but it once again aligns with the intent that the result doesn't change unless the rules expressly permit you.
The big difference between this situation and the Press feature is that in the case of Press critical failures is denied an advantage that is given to failures, here we're making critical failure BETTER than failure.
While I understand your point, I feel saying "critical failure should always be at least as bad as failure for the one rolling it" is close to the intent.
Furthermore, there is precedent for abilities to not provide failure effects on a critical failure. This is mot evident in the Press feature, and isn't precisely appropriate to mention, but it once again aligns with the intent that the result doesn't change unless the rules expressly permit you.
The big difference between this situation and the Press feature is that in the case of Press critical failures is denied an advantage that is given to failures, here we're making critical failure BETTER than failure.
While I understand your point, I feel saying "critical failure should always be at least as bad as failure for the one rolling it" is close to the intent.
Yes, Press' "critical failures don't count as failures" rule is specific to Press trait effects, but in multiple instances of the book, you apply success and failure effects only if there are no critical success or critical failure listings in the ability, even if you would roll critical success or critical failure as an actual result.
Critical Debilitation lists a critical success and critical failure effect, therefore we can't default them to success and failure.