What Does Unified Theory Actually Do?


Rules Discussion

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Liberty's Edge

Why would "starting to make a meaningful connection about the common underpinnings of the four traditions of magic and magical essences, allowing you to understand them all through an arcane lens" enable you to use Arcane instead of Nature in place of Medicine thanks to Natural Medicine, which has nothing to do with "the four traditions of magic and magical essences" ?

Definitely B.


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The Raven Black wrote:

Why would "starting to make a meaningful connection about the common underpinnings of the four traditions of magic and magical essences, allowing you to understand them all through an arcane lens" enable you to use Arcane instead of Nature in place of Medicine thanks to Natural Medicine, which has nothing to do with "the four traditions of magic and magical essences" ?

Definitely B.

Definitely garbage, too. The trap feats are real.


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If you think a level 7 skill feat lets you swap out three magic skills for one, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Especially when those skills are consistently limited by proficiency tier. This lets you act as though you had legendary Religion/Occultism/Nature, as long as it's related to magic knowledge. Untrained Nature still auto-identifying level 10 spells and primal magic with Recognize Spell, and able to figure out divine magic entirely with Arcana.

It also interacts completely with Trick Magic Item, Recognize Spell, and Identify Magic, to make it so that everything scales off Arcana. (And also lets you hit everything with Clever Counterspell, as a side note - without it, you need to have all four tradition skills leveled.)

Scarab Sages

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The Raven Black wrote:
Why would "starting to make a meaningful connection about the common underpinnings of the four traditions of magic and magical essences, allowing you to understand them all through an arcane lens" enable you to use Arcane instead of Nature in place of Medicine thanks to Natural Medicine, which has nothing to do with "the four traditions of magic and magical essences" ?

Because Legendary skills requires suspension of disbelief? See also Scare to Death, Legendary Sneak, and Reveal Machinations.

Using Natural Medicine to Treat Wounds isn't that great, btw, even if you're legendary. It just means you don't have to have Medicine trained to Treat Wounds (and you'll never be good at it). That isn't a problem with a high-INT class, they have trained skills to spare. Ditto using Arcana to Command an Animal. No, the key benefit of interpretation A would be using Arcana for Recall Knowledge for creature Identification. Basically, it's part of the L10 Ranger class feat Master Monster Hunter, but a level 15 skill feat.

Cyouni wrote:

If you think a level 7 skill feat lets you swap out three magic skills for one, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Especially when those skills are consistently limited by proficiency tier. This lets you act as though you had legendary Religion/Occultism/Nature, as long as it's related to magic knowledge. Untrained Nature still auto-identifying level 10 spells and primal magic with Recognize Spell, and able to figure out divine magic entirely with Arcana.

It also interacts completely with Trick Magic Item, Recognize Spell, and Identify Magic, to make it so that everything scales off Arcana. (And also lets you hit everything with Clever Counterspell, as a side note - without it, you need to have all four tradition skills leveled.)

In theory the interpretation B of Unified Theory is good, but in practice it's underwhelming.

Using Arcana instead of other skills for Identify Magic sounds good, until you realize that you can already use Arcana to identify about 95% of magic items without Unified Theory. Recognize Spell is fine, but a +1 circumstance bonus on a save against monsters that use innate spels isn't great. Trick Magic Item is fine, but using wands and scrolls (with below-level spells and high gold price) in general isn't good enough to build around.

If you need to qualify praise Unified Theory by saying it's useful if you are a counterspell build, or If/whenever you find a magical item lacking the 'Magical' trait, or if you want to invest in and be better at using scrolls and wands from other traditions, then Unified Theory is too niche. The other Legendary skill feats I mentioned are good without qualification. Everyone who uses those skills benefits from those feats.


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Cyouni wrote:

If you think a level 7 skill feat lets you swap out three magic skills for one, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Especially when those skills are consistently limited by proficiency tier. This lets you act as though you had legendary Religion/Occultism/Nature, as long as it's related to magic knowledge. Untrained Nature still auto-identifying level 10 spells and primal magic with Recognize Spell, and able to figure out divine magic entirely with Arcana.

It also interacts completely with Trick Magic Item, Recognize Spell, and Identify Magic, to make it so that everything scales off Arcana. (And also lets you hit everything with Clever Counterspell, as a side note - without it, you need to have all four tradition skills leveled.)

But it doesn't do that on a full basis, though. Recall Knowledge isn't included (the biggest reason you'd take this feat), as well as other skill feats that aren't magic dependent. It also doesn't let you bypass training requirements for said feats, which really hurts its viability of substitution (Which shouldn't even be there to begin with, given Paizo's design philosophy on the matter.) This is why Natural Medicine is a major trap feat to begin with, and I pity the poor souls that possess it.

Identifying magic is usually hard to do simply because magical enemies are almost always above-level by at least 1 or 2, or are using spells you simply don't have access to. Even then, you're burning a skill feat plus a reaction to have any chance of knowing what happened before any effects take place. But really, most every spell is so obvious and apparent in its effects that being able to recognize the spell is a waste of effort and resources. Do I really need to make a check to know a Fireball went off?

Also, counterspelling has nothing to do with tradition and everything to do with Spell DCs and both having the spells in your book and prepared to use. Is the spell being cast off-tradition from what you can cast? Sorry, no dice then. Can't Counterspell a Synesthesia as a Wizard because you don't have the spell. It's also fool-hardy considering the above uphill battles apply here, too, fighting BBEG spellcasters constantly. It's the biggest reason why Counterspell builds are a waste of time and effort, plus are also pretty limited in scope. This existed in PF1, it has not changed in PF2.

And Identifying magic items? The rest of the party has that covered. Since they will probably be maxing it out for Recall Knowledge purposes, among other reasons, they should cover this gap for you.

For a Legendary Skill Feat, I could take Multilingual and get more out of my feat than this.


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NECR0G1ANT wrote:
If you need to qualify praise Unified Theory by saying it's useful if you are a counterspell build, or If/whenever you find a magical item lacking the 'Magical' trait, or if you want to invest in and be better at using scrolls and wands from other traditions, then Unified Theory is too niche. The other Legendary skill feats I mentioned are good without qualification. Everyone who uses those skills benefits from those feats.

And yet Legendary Linguist only matters if you are heavily into language-dependent effects, consistently run into enemies that speak weird languages, and are the party face. Legendary Survivalist is only good if you constantly run into completely inhospitable environments solo. Legendary Medic only if you're getting hit by long-term deaf/blind/doomed/drained and are in an area where you can afford to spend an hour treating someone.

Yet those are still unquestionably a legendary feat.


I don't understand why are you people arguing still. It's a Wizard feat, so the meta-reading of the books defintiively supports going for a narrow and weaker reading.

And given all the Wizard content and erratas so far, this definitively reads as intended.

Case closed.

Scarab Sages

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NemoNoName wrote:
I don't understand why are you people arguing still. It's a Wizard feat, so the meta-reading of the books defintiively supports going for a narrow and weaker reading

...Unified Theory is a skill feat.


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Cyouni wrote:
NECR0G1ANT wrote:
If you need to qualify praise Unified Theory by saying it's useful if you are a counterspell build, or If/whenever you find a magical item lacking the 'Magical' trait, or if you want to invest in and be better at using scrolls and wands from other traditions, then Unified Theory is too niche. The other Legendary skill feats I mentioned are good without qualification. Everyone who uses those skills benefits from those feats.

And yet Legendary Linguist only matters if you are heavily into language-dependent effects, consistently run into enemies that speak weird languages, and are the party face. Legendary Survivalist is only good if you constantly run into completely inhospitable environments solo. Legendary Medic only if you're getting hit by long-term deaf/blind/doomed/drained and are in an area where you can afford to spend an hour treating someone.

Yet those are still unquestionably a legendary feat.

Legendary Linguist is awesome for being able to discern secret texts and languages that the party might not know. What sucks is that it requires an effective feat tax for replacement. It's like a permanent Tongues spell, and since Tongues can't be permanent, it has a unique power that not even 10th level magics can replicate fully.

Legendary Survivalist lets you ignore food and drink requirements, and all temperature requirements. Still doesn't let you survive in the vacuum of space, for example, though, since you still need to breathe. And as you state, it only affects you, not the party. Any other spells or abilities able to do what it does, though? No? That's why it's Legendary. And it blows Legendary Guide out of the water.

Legendary Medic is niche as well, but it beats having to rest 8 hours for a condition to go away before a boss fight coming up. And again, few abilities let you remove conditions at-will, cost free, which is why it's Legendary.

So let's compare those to Unified Theory. I can use Arcana in place of 3 skills for:

-Trick Magic Item Skill Feat
-Learn a Spell
-Recognize Spell
-Identify an Item

The first, while interesting, is hard to work with via action economy as well as WBL standards. At what point is a Wizard gonna be walking around with a Level 9 Heal Wand, for example, over something else? Very little if ever. Interesting for Alchemist to supplement their alchemical items, but between bad buffs and poor spell DCs, it won't do a whole lot compared to having more alchemy stuffs.

The second is borderline useless. Consider that since spells are tradition-based and scrolls and wands and staves aren't tradition-specific like they were in PF1. Unless it's a Non-Arcane spell being learned (such as from multiclassing), the skill substitution won't have any actual applications. The odds of such Spellcasters multiclassing into something that isn't Arcane is pretty slim.

The third is similarly portrayed, as most spells are easily identified from their effects. For any non-Arcane spells, burning a reaction (or even an action) for something obvious is a poor waste of actions. Even with counterspells, the spell must be on your list, and you need to overcome the spell level with your spellcasting modifier, not your Arcana, which has different scaling.

The fourth is only prevalent with specifically-traditional items and nothing else. Chances are, the spellcaster in your group who has the tradition will be the one to identify it and consequently use it. This can also probably be done with the Craft skill, and a 1st level Skill feat, Crafter's Appraisal. The fact a 1st level skill feat trounces this should be evidence enough for how bad it is.

So, compared to the previous Legendary feats? It doesn't do anything practical or even unique that can't be replicated little elsewhere. It's hot garbage and should be skipped over basically any other feat in the game. Even Natural Medicine is better!


NECR0G1ANT wrote:
NemoNoName wrote:
I don't understand why are you people arguing still. It's a Wizard feat, so the meta-reading of the books defintiively supports going for a narrow and weaker reading
...Unified Theory is a skill feat.

My apologies, I mixed it up. Nevermind.


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NemoNoName wrote:
NECR0G1ANT wrote:
NemoNoName wrote:
I don't understand why are you people arguing still. It's a Wizard feat, so the meta-reading of the books defintiively supports going for a narrow and weaker reading
...Unified Theory is a skill feat.
My apologies, I mixed it up. Nevermind.

To be fair, only 4 of the current 12 classes have any major reason to do so, and only one, the Wizard, will do so on a regular basis, so the confusion is understandable. The Sorcerer, Witch, and Alchemist might and can, but aren't anywhere near as much a guarantee.

We might see two more, with one other staple being the Magus, and the Summoner on occasion, but it's a niche choice to begin with, with the Wizard having it because of the Learn a Spell rule, and potentially the Magus now, too. Everyone else is circumstantial at best, and even if so, is done for the same exact reasons. None of which is for this skill feat.


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The Recognize Spell skill feat gives you a +1 circumstance bonus to saving throws or AC if you critically succeed on your secret Arcana/Religion/Nature/Occultism check against it. Seems to me that having Unified Theory means its much more likely for you to get this bonus against every spell cast against you.


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Cyouni wrote:

If you think a level 7 skill feat lets you swap out three magic skills for one, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Especially when those skills are consistently limited by proficiency tier. This lets you act as though you had legendary Religion/Occultism/Nature, as long as it's related to magic knowledge. Untrained Nature still auto-identifying level 10 spells and primal magic with Recognize Spell, and able to figure out divine magic entirely with Arcana.

It also interacts completely with Trick Magic Item, Recognize Spell, and Identify Magic, to make it so that everything scales off Arcana. (And also lets you hit everything with Clever Counterspell, as a side note - without it, you need to have all four tradition skills leveled.)

You're missing the point.

The point is that an investigation into a feat's effects, with complete understanding of all possible interactions with other game elements, should not be necessary to understand its mechanics.

You should be able to clearly understand what the feat does and doesn't do simply by reading its entry.


It's my opinion that the line of:

depending on the magic tradition

is meant to be ignored. And you should be able to use ut for recall knowledge checks. That is how I would run it without further clarification.


Zapp wrote:
Cyouni wrote:

If you think a level 7 skill feat lets you swap out three magic skills for one, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Especially when those skills are consistently limited by proficiency tier. This lets you act as though you had legendary Religion/Occultism/Nature, as long as it's related to magic knowledge. Untrained Nature still auto-identifying level 10 spells and primal magic with Recognize Spell, and able to figure out divine magic entirely with Arcana.

It also interacts completely with Trick Magic Item, Recognize Spell, and Identify Magic, to make it so that everything scales off Arcana. (And also lets you hit everything with Clever Counterspell, as a side note - without it, you need to have all four tradition skills leveled.)

You're missing the point.

The point is that an investigation into a feat's effects, with complete understanding of all possible interactions with other game elements, should not be necessary to understand its mechanics.

You should be able to clearly understand what the feat does and doesn't do simply by reading its entry.

No offense, but the feat is written perfectly clearly.

Is it a skill action/feat that uses "a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, depending on the magic tradition"? If so, it applies.

My misunderstanding re: rituals could have been easily solved by referencing it again. Rituals are spells, and are thus not a skill action/feat despite the fact that there are skill checks involved in the casting.

Scarab Sages

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Cyouni wrote:

No offense, but the feat is written perfectly clearly.

Is it a skill action/feat that uses "a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, depending on the magic tradition"? If so, it applies.

My misunderstanding re: rituals could have been easily solved by referencing it again. Rituals are spells, and are thus not a skill action/feat despite the fact that there are skill checks involved in the casting.

Then the feat is grammatically incorrect. "depending on magic tradiitons" implies that you can use Arcana for some magic traditions but not others. If the feat is meant to do as you claim, then it should read "Whenever you use a skill action or a skill feat that requires a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, and depends on a magic tradition, you can use Arcana instead"

Liberty's Edge

Question: Would Consult the Spirits work for this allowing the Wizard to choose one of the associated Skills and always be able to use Arcana to determine the results?

What about Sacred Defense?


nicholas storm wrote:

It's my opinion that the line of:

depending on the magic tradition

is meant to be ignored. And you should be able to use ut for recall knowledge checks. That is how I would run it without further clarification.

This is perfectly valid once the description is too dubious. Same for those allow only for skill checks related to magic only.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I'd say RAW no on both counts. Neither feat cares about magical traditional at all, much less has a variable skill requirement based on one.

NECR0G1ANT wrote:
Then the feat is grammatically incorrect. "depending on magic tradiitons" implies that you can use Arcana for some magic traditions but not others.

That's correct though? For things like Learn a Spell you use Arcana for the arcane traditional but not the others normally.

Quote:

If the feat is meant to do as you claim, then it should read "Whenever you use a skill action or a skill feat that requires a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, and depends on a magic tradition, you can use Arcana instead"

Disagree, your proposed rewrite would actually change the meaning of the feat, the use of 'and' turns it into two separate requirements that must both be fulfilled, rather than 'depending on...' being used to qualify the substitution.


Themetricsystem wrote:
Question: Would Consult the Spirits work for this allowing the Wizard to choose one of the associated Skills and always be able to use Arcana to determine the results?

Probably yes! Once we don't have Supernatural Abilities (Su) in PF2 this will be considered as magic. So in both interpretations the Unified Theory allow you to pick this feat and also allow you to choose what spirit do you to call. You simply understand every magic related skill ability as part of other traditions as a part of same thing and can use these skills in all ways using this knowledge as base.

Themetricsystem wrote:
What about Sacred Defense?

Depends.

The prerequisites "you follow a deity" can be interpreted as "you only need to choose a deity to believe" or as "you need to be devoted like a Cleric or Champion to be considered a follower of deity". I tend to interpret the second because these class have the Deity and Deity and Cause that's explicitly say you are a Deity servant.

So even with Unified Theory if you don't have these classes/archetypes you can't select this feat.


Cyouni wrote:
My misunderstanding re: rituals could have been easily solved by referencing it again. Rituals are spells, and are thus not a skill action/feat despite the fact that there are skill checks involved in the casting.

Given that rituals are a type of magic that specifically does not require a spellcaster, I think Unified Theory should help. It has been specified not to in errata, but that's a load of bull and will be house-ruled away IMC.


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YuriP wrote:

Depends.

The prerequisites "you follow a deity" can be interpreted as "you only need to choose a deity to believe" or as "you need to be devoted like a Cleric or Champion to be considered a follower of deity". I tend to interpret the second because these class have the Deity and Deity and Cause that's explicitly say you are a Deity servant.

What? No. Under your definition people who show up for church every Sunday but aren't trained to be pastors themselves don't "follow a deity". If you had to be a Cleric or Champion to use this feat it'd say so.


Themetricsystem wrote:

Question: Would Consult the Spirits work for this allowing the Wizard to choose one of the associated Skills and always be able to use Arcana to determine the results?

What about Sacred Defense?

Both would be no. The first doesn't depend on a magic tradition, it depends on a skill. The second doesn't depend on anything except following a deity.


Staffan Johansson wrote:
Cyouni wrote:
My misunderstanding re: rituals could have been easily solved by referencing it again. Rituals are spells, and are thus not a skill action/feat despite the fact that there are skill checks involved in the casting.
Given that rituals are a type of magic that specifically does not require a spellcaster, I think Unified Theory should help. It has been specified not to in errata, but that's a load of bull and will be house-ruled away IMC.

I think that based on the flavour of the feat that's perfectly fair, but as written it clearly doesn't apply. You said it yourself - it's a type of magic, not a skill action or feat.


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Cyouni wrote:
Themetricsystem wrote:

Question: Would Consult the Spirits work for this allowing the Wizard to choose one of the associated Skills and always be able to use Arcana to determine the results?

What about Sacred Defense?

Both would be no. The first doesn't depend on a magic tradition, it depends on a skill. The second doesn't depend on anything except following a deity.

Even though Sacred Defense has the Divine trait on it, which is a magical tradition, as defined in its definition entry, and one of the magical traditions that Unified Theory can be used in place of?

Regardless of whether it does or doesn't, the fact of the matter is that you can't use Arcane over Religion for either its scaling or meeting its skill requirements, meaning you're still burning one of your other 3 Legendary skills for it to be at an appropriate level, and all you're really gaining is utilizing your Intelligence modifier in place of your Wisdom modifier.

Poor, poor use of a Legendary Skill Feat slot.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Cyouni wrote:
Themetricsystem wrote:

Question: Would Consult the Spirits work for this allowing the Wizard to choose one of the associated Skills and always be able to use Arcana to determine the results?

What about Sacred Defense?

Both would be no. The first doesn't depend on a magic tradition, it depends on a skill. The second doesn't depend on anything except following a deity.

Even though Sacred Defense has the Divine trait on it, which is a magical tradition, as defined in its definition entry, and one of the magical traditions that Unified Theory can be used in place of?

Regardless of whether it does or doesn't, the fact of the matter is that you can't use Arcane over Religion for either its scaling or meeting its skill requirements, meaning you're still burning one of your other 3 Legendary skills for it to be at an appropriate level, and all you're really gaining is utilizing your Intelligence modifier in place of your Wisdom modifier.

Poor, poor use of a Legendary Skill Feat slot.

Still not dependent on a tradition. This is like complaining "why can't I use Scare to Death to Coerce".

But yes, if you are planning on increasing multiple magic skills to legendary simultaneously, Unified Theory does lose a third of its value. On the other hand, if you don't, Unified Theory is worth three legendary skills (that also scale off their best stat for any Int caster) so long as the topic is magic.


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Cyouni wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Cyouni wrote:
Themetricsystem wrote:

Question: Would Consult the Spirits work for this allowing the Wizard to choose one of the associated Skills and always be able to use Arcana to determine the results?

What about Sacred Defense?

Both would be no. The first doesn't depend on a magic tradition, it depends on a skill. The second doesn't depend on anything except following a deity.

Even though Sacred Defense has the Divine trait on it, which is a magical tradition, as defined in its definition entry, and one of the magical traditions that Unified Theory can be used in place of?

Regardless of whether it does or doesn't, the fact of the matter is that you can't use Arcane over Religion for either its scaling or meeting its skill requirements, meaning you're still burning one of your other 3 Legendary skills for it to be at an appropriate level, and all you're really gaining is utilizing your Intelligence modifier in place of your Wisdom modifier.

Poor, poor use of a Legendary Skill Feat slot.

Still not dependent on a tradition. This is like complaining "why can't I use Scare to Death to Coerce".

It really isn't, though.

Unified Theory wrote:
Whenever you use a skill action or a skill feat that requires a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, depending on the magic tradition, you can use Arcana instead.

Sacred Defenses is a Skill Feat with the Divine trait on it. What does the Divine trait have to say?

Divine wrote:
This magic comes from the divine tradition, drawing power from deities or similar sources. Anything with this trait is magical.

So we are told that anything with the trait is magical. Anything. Logically, this is including Skill Feats. Plus, "this magic comes from the divine tradition." Does that not match what Unified Theory is meant to apply to, which are Nature, Occult, or Religion checks associated with magic traditions? Because if not, then you're literally saying the feat doesn't do what it says it does.

Cyouni wrote:
But yes, if you are planning on increasing multiple magic skills to legendary simultaneously, Unified Theory does lose a third of its value. On the other hand, if you don't, Unified Theory is worth three legendary skills (that also scale off their best stat for any Int caster) so long as the topic is magic.

But the feat effects do not scale, which is why a feat like Natural Medicine is so stupid and horrible to utilize outside of the Trained tier of proficiency: Because all of the skill feats and abilities that Medicine needs to keep pace with the adventure cannot be accessed with or benefit from Nature, or even Natural Medicine, since any bonus or opportunity you could get from it requires Nature, not Medicine. This is the Natural Medicine of Legendary Skill Feats, and even that is being generous.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Does that not match what Unified Theory is meant to apply to

Nope, it doesn't.

Whether or not that makes it a bad feat is another issue entirely.

Quote:
Because if not, then you're literally saying the feat doesn't do what it says it does.

No, he's saying that the feat doesn't do what you want it to (and maybe what it should) do. It still does what it says it does, which is allow for a substitution on a very narrow scope of activities.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Does that not match what Unified Theory is meant to apply to, which are Nature, Occult, or Religion checks associated with magic traditions? Because if not, then you're literally saying the feat doesn't do what it says it does.

No, what Unified Theory applies to is when you make an Arcana/Nature/Occult/Religion check, and which you make is dependent on a magic tradition.

Sacred Defenses doesn't change which skill it uses based on the tradition, thus it does not qualify. You can try and approach it from a primal basis, but it's still a divine requirement that uses Religion. Now, identifying someone else's Sacred Defenses would qualify.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
But the feat effects do not scale, which is why a feat like Natural Medicine is so stupid and horrible to utilize outside of the Trained tier of proficiency: Because all of the skill feats and abilities that Medicine needs to keep pace with the adventure cannot be accessed with or benefit from Nature, or even Natural Medicine, since any bonus or opportunity you could get from it requires Nature, not Medicine. This is the Natural Medicine of Legendary Skill Feats, and even that is being generous.

Okay, riddle me this.

You are untrained in Nature, and can identify primal magic at legendary capacity without taking penalties, using your best skill, and auto-scaling with every feat that works with it.
Trick Magic Item scales with Arcana despite being based on three other skills.
Recognize Spell scales with Arcana even if it's not an arcane spell.

How in the world does that not count as scaling?

This is not true of other things, such as Natural Medicine, Acrobatic Performance, or Crafter's Appraisal, because everything that qualifies under Unified Theory is literally designed to scale with it. For example, Trick Magic Item has this line:

Quote:
If you’re a master in the appropriate skill for the item’s tradition, you instead use the trained proficiency bonus, and if you’re legendary, you instead use the expert proficiency bonus.

The appropriate skill for the item, whichever tradition it is, becomes Arcana, and you're legendary in Arcana. For Recognize Spell, the appropriate skill becomes Arcana, and instantly lets you identify 10th level spells of any tradition where you'd fail to do so before.

Scarab Sages

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NECR0G1ANT wrote:
Then the feat is grammatically incorrect. "depending on magic traditions" implies that you can use Arcana for some magic traditions but not others. If the feat is meant to do as you claim, then it should read "Whenever you use a skill action or a skill feat that requires a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, and depends on a magic tradition, you can use Arcana instead"
Squiggit wrote:

That's correct though? For things like Learn a Spell you use Arcana for the arcane traditional but not the others normally.

Disagree, your proposed rewrite would actually change the meaning of the feat, the use of 'and' turns it into two separate requirements that must both be fulfilled, rather than 'depending on...' being used to qualify the substitution.

The text of Unified says “Whenever you use a skill action or a skill feat that requires a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, depending on the magic tradition, you can use Arcana instead.”, which implies you can swap out Arcana for some magic traditions (like Primal?) but not others (like Divine?). The text doesn’t make sense and needs clarification.

As for my proposed rewrite, other people have been saying that Arcana can be used if a skill action or feat requires a check (either Nature, Occultism, or Religion) that is related to a magical tradition. That is in fact two separate requirements. The text of my rewrite would support that interpretation more than the current Unified Theory text does. Although if RAI was really to limit it to Identify Magic, Recognize Spell, and Trick Magic Item, then ideally the text should say that explicitly and unambiguously.


Squiggit wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Does that not match what Unified Theory is meant to apply to

Nope, it doesn't.

Whether or not that makes it a bad feat is another issue entirely.

Quote:
Because if not, then you're literally saying the feat doesn't do what it says it does.
No, he's saying that the feat doesn't do what you want it to (and maybe what it should) do. It still does what it says it does, which is allow for a substitution on a very narrow scope of activities.

Obviously, the feat doesn't do what I want it to do. That's not really the point. The point is that not even they know what the feat does because they didn't parse the traits and their definitions correctly. Unless we're going to say traits don't matter, in which case, why have a trait with a definition tying it to a magical tradition when apparently the obvious intent is that it's not magical or tied to a tradition of magic (both of which the trait prove to be an outright lie based on its description).


Cyouni wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Does that not match what Unified Theory is meant to apply to, which are Nature, Occult, or Religion checks associated with magic traditions? Because if not, then you're literally saying the feat doesn't do what it says it does.

No, what Unified Theory applies to is when you make an Arcana/Nature/Occult/Religion check, and which you make is dependent on a magic tradition.

Sacred Defenses doesn't change which skill it uses based on the tradition, thus it does not qualify. You can try and approach it from a primal basis, but it's still a divine requirement that uses Religion. Now, identifying someone else's Sacred Defenses would qualify.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
But the feat effects do not scale, which is why a feat like Natural Medicine is so stupid and horrible to utilize outside of the Trained tier of proficiency: Because all of the skill feats and abilities that Medicine needs to keep pace with the adventure cannot be accessed with or benefit from Nature, or even Natural Medicine, since any bonus or opportunity you could get from it requires Nature, not Medicine. This is the Natural Medicine of Legendary Skill Feats, and even that is being generous.

Okay, riddle me this.

You are untrained in Nature, and can identify primal magic at legendary capacity without taking penalties, using your best skill, and auto-scaling with every feat that works with it.
Trick Magic Item scales with Arcana despite being based on three other skills.
Recognize Spell scales with Arcana even if it's not an arcane spell.

How in the world does that not count as scaling?

This is not true of other things, such as Natural Medicine, Acrobatic Performance, or Crafter's Appraisal, because everything that qualifies under Unified Theory is literally designed to scale with it. For example, Trick Magic Item has this line:

Quote:
If you’re a master in the appropriate skill for the item’s tradition, you instead use the trained proficiency bonus, and if you’re
...

Okay, so you're parsing the feat as having to be able to utilize all 4 skills (like what Trick Magic Item does), instead of just each skill individually, meaning tradition traits, like Divine, don't actually matter or do anything to your interpretation. That would make sense, except Trick Magic Item includes Arcane in its list of choices, meaning it doesn't actually follow that line to the letter like you're doing.

On top of that, that's super duper restrictive. It makes being restricted to magical traditions look like someone who was given a Get Out of Jail Free card. I'm all for conservative readings usually, but "or", in the English language, is usually used to combine binary (or in this case, trinary) sentences into single sentences, primarily to both get the same meaning across in speech/communication, all the while presenting brevity. In this case, it refers to each skill individually, not collectively (which is what the word "and" is meant to convey, in a way similar to the word "or").

If we did take that reading as you intend, then trying to identify, say, a Scroll of Regeneration, wouldn't be plausible, as identifying a spell not on all 3 lists doesn't meet the stringent requirements. The requirements have to be looser than that for the feat to even work as you want it to, because again, if we are arguing that it has to be usable with all 3 non-Arcane traditions, then it doesn't apply.

Scaling with skill proficiency is not the same as scaling with skill modifier. In the hypothetical Arcana for Sacred Defense option, I must still be a Master in Religion to take the feat, because Unified Theory doesn't let me circumvent requirements, and I must still be Legendary in Religion to get the increased temporary HP value, because Religion isn't Arcane for me except for when I roll the check. Same concept with Natural Medicine and the entire Medicine skill feat tree. Even if I use Nature in place of Medicine for the skill check for a +2 Circumstance bonus to the roll, I still need the appropriate Medicine training to both A. select the relevant feats, and B. receive the relevant proficiency scaling for those feats/abilities I chose. This is what I am talking about when I say there is no scaling involved.

With your Trick Magic Item argument, I'd like to point out that it's in a similar conundrum to the above, as Arcane isn't the appropriate tradition for, say, a Scroll of Regeneration, which is Primal or Divine. Nature and Religion are. The feat doesn't let you change the appropriate tradition used to activate the skill feat or identify the item and so on. All you're doing is using your Arcana in place of the relevant skill for the check, you don't actually have that level of training in the relevant tradition to gain the increased proficiency boosts from the feat, a requirement separate from what the feat modifies.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Unless we're going to say traits don't matter

Nobody's saying that, it just doesn't fulfill all the requirements for the substitution so it's not particularly relevant here.

NECR0G1ANT wrote:
As for my proposed rewrite, other people have been saying that Arcana can be used if a skill action or feat requires a check (either Nature, Occultism, or Religion) that is related to a magical tradition. That is in fact two separate requirements.

Yes, that's the houserule some people have proposed, but saying "I want to change the feat to do this" is different than saying "the feat should say this for clarity purposes"

Yes, the feat kind of sucks. So just... change it. Not a big deal. Maybe Paizo will errata it to be more useful later. Or maybe they think it's fine and won't. Either way.

Scarab Sages

Squiggit wrote:
NECR0G1ANT wrote:
As for my proposed rewrite, other people have been saying that Arcana can be used if a skill action or feat requires a check (either Nature, Occultism, or Religion) that is related to a magical tradition. That is in fact two separate requirements.

Yes, that's the houserule some people have proposed, but saying "I want to change the feat to do this" is different than saying "the feat should say this for clarity purposes"

Yes, the feat kind of sucks. So just... change it. Not a big deal. Maybe Paizo will errata it to be more useful later. Or maybe they think it's fine and won't. Either way.

No, that's not a house rule that some people have proposed, it's how they (not I) interpret RAW. If UT is intended to apply to Identify Magic, Trick Magic Item and Recognize Spell only, then the text of UT should mention that explicitly.

This is a Rules Discussion thread, not a Homebrew and House Rules thread. So saying "Just change it" isn't meaningful, to be honest.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
NECR0G1ANT wrote:
Squiggit wrote:
NECR0G1ANT wrote:
As for my proposed rewrite, other people have been saying that Arcana can be used if a skill action or feat requires a check (either Nature, Occultism, or Religion) that is related to a magical tradition. That is in fact two separate requirements.

Yes, that's the houserule some people have proposed, but saying "I want to change the feat to do this" is different than saying "the feat should say this for clarity purposes"

Yes, the feat kind of sucks. So just... change it. Not a big deal. Maybe Paizo will errata it to be more useful later. Or maybe they think it's fine and won't. Either way.

No, that's not a house rule that some people have proposed, it's how they (not I) interpret RAW. If UT is intended to apply to Identify Magic, Trick Magic Item and Recognize Spell only, then the text of UT should mention that explicitly.

This is a Rules Discussion thread, not a Homebrew and House Rules thread. So saying "Just change it" isn't meaningful, to be honest.

I doubt they would put that it just effects those specific things since that would prevent it from being able to be used in future additions. For future proofing some of it has to be let vague/broad.


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Squiggit wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Unless we're going to say traits don't matter
Nobody's saying that, it just doesn't fulfill all the requirements for the substitution so it's not particularly relevant here.

But it ticks all of the boxes relevant to the feat's description. It's a skill feat that uses Religion, and is tied to a magical tradition by proxy of the trait's properties. This is like saying a Domain Focus spell isn't a Divine spell because it's not a spell slot. Both have the Divine trait, which is what denotes it as being tied to the tradition, and that it's magical.

What does Trick Magic Item have that Sacred Defenses doesn't that makes it valid by comparison? No Occult or Nature options? It's about the only difference I can discern.

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