If I Shield Block with a spined shield, and all but one of the spines is destroyed, can I still make five ranged spine attacks? Whether or not any of the spines are destroyed, is there a limit to the number of ranged spine attacks I can make?
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It seems pretty clear to me...
Five jagged spines project from the surface of this steel shield (Hardness 6, HP 24, BT 12). The spines are +1 striking shield spikes. When you use the Shield Block reaction with this shield, the spines take the damage before the shield itself does. When the shield would take damage (after applying Hardness), one spine snaps off per 6 damage, reducing the damage by 6. The shield takes any remaining damage. When there are no spines left, the shield takes damage as normal.
When all the spines are gone, you lose the ability to attack with them until the spines regenerate the next day.
Activate Single Action Interact; Effect You shoot one of the shield’s spines at a target. A fired spine uses the spikes’ statistics, but it is a martial ranged weapon with a range increment of 120 feet.
Shooting Spikes or absorbing damage with them destroys them. You can't attack with them (melee or ranged) if you don't have any spikes left.
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Unless we are talking about Schroedingers spikes the five on the spined shield have two distictive states: there or not there. If a spike is there it can be used to block damage or be used for the ranged strike action (along with any melee attacks as long as there is at least one spike remaining). If it is not there it can't be used for either of the two until the next day when they all grow back. So you can either shoot five times or block damage five times or any combination in between.
There's nothing that says you can't shoot the spines more than once though, nor is there anything that says you can't keep shooting spines so long as there is one left undestroyed.
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It does say the spikes don't return until the next day. Since ammunition is generally destroyed in PF2, I'm not sure how you'd shoot the same Spike mulitple tmes in a single day.
It does say the spikes don't return until the next day. Since ammunition is generally destroyed in PF2, I'm not sure how you'd shoot the same Spike mulitple tmes in a single day.
Really? It looks to me like the words "when all the spines are gone" is in the section describing the spines getting destroyed, and may well be referring to that alone. They do not appear in the next section in which it talks about spines being fired as ranged attacks, which I'd argue (devil's advocate) has no bearing.
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It says you shoot one of the shield's spikes at the target. Things you shoot at targets are ammunition, which - by the rules - are destroyed on being fired.
And I don't buy the "devil's advocate" bit, sorry.
I mean, did you - upon carefully reading the thing and thinking about it - really expect most people would come and say "sure, it's infinite"? You're a smart guy, RD. You know better than that.
And there's still the rule that anyhing that seems too good to be true, it most likely isn't true. Having no ranged option is usually an accepted downside of using the sword + shield fighting style. Having a decently powerful ranged attack with a VERY large range increment and effectively unlimited ammo that doesn't need to be reloaded or costs you any interact actions to switch to? Yeah, that would be one of those "to good to be true" things in my opinion.
If you still WANT to read it your way, what do you expect anyone to answer? Why even ask? It's obvious that there's nothing in the shield's description that explicitely states "any Spike you shoot at the target is destroyed".
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Really? It looks to me like the words "when all the spines are gone" is in the section describing the spines getting destroyed, and may well be referring to that alone. They do not appear in the next section in which it talks about spines being fired as ranged attacks, which I'd argue (devil's advocate) has no bearing.
While formatting of rules can be a legit issue and depending on preference almost always be improved upon, I don't think that this is an issue for the Spined Shield. The line "When all the spines are gone, you lose the ability to attack with them until the spines regenerate the next day." is its own separate line describing melee and ranged attack options alike and as such it should not matter if it is listed before or after the ranged attack option.
...When all the spines are gone, you lose the ability to attack with them until the spines regenerate the next day.
.
Activate Single Action Interact; Effect You shoot one of the shield’s spines at a target. A fired spine uses the spikes’ statistics, but it is a martial ranged weapon with a range increment of 120 feet.
vs
...Activate Single Action Interact; Effect You shoot one of the shield’s spines at a target. A fired spine uses the spikes’ statistics, but it is a martial ranged weapon with a range increment of 120 feet.
.
When all the spines are gone, you lose the ability to attack with them until the spines regenerate the next day.
If "shooting" isn't clear enough that it uses the spike, as it's, you know, shooting off of the shield, and nothing says it comes back or magically regrows or anything, then I don't think anything said here will be able to convince you. Every argument I can possibly make revolves around the fact that shooting a spike uses a spike, and that Paizo is assuming that's common knowledge.
You're a smart guy, RD. You know better than that.
Yes I am. Yes I did. And yet I persisted.
Why even ask?
No corner case is too edgy for ol' Ravingdork!
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Oh boy, oh boy! Four things, somebody please point out any flaws in my following the RAW here because I desperately want to be wrong about items 2,3, & 4:
1) I do not believe that these Spikes can or DO return to the Shield after being used meaning that if you used them all, the shield cannot be used to fire the Spines again until the next day so your initial concerns about the limits of it, I believe, aren't warranted but after digging into things I found other problems...
2) The Spines are NOT described as Ammo and therefore do not break or disappear when used, instead, they're far more like a Javelin which CAN be recovered.
3) The Shield fails to note that the previous days' Spikes go away, decay, disappear at all, instead, it just makes brand new ones every day.
4) The Spines from this shield ARE +1 Striking Shield Spikes, they're not "treated as if" they were +1 Striking Shield Spikes, they just literally ARE that weapon. You can detach them and use them with OTHER Shields as well and even probably "recover" the Spines after you use them every combat to keep "recycling" them, they're not destroyed or lost after all. This Shield gives you a LEGAL and VALID way to permanently duplicate +1 Striking Shield Spikes that do NOT go away when the day ends, can be further improved with both Property and Fundamental Runes, and can be sold to create an endless supply of coin.
Note: The RAI here seems pretty straightforward in terms of what it's intended to do but the RAW here... well, it's an infinite money exploit, that is, if you can find a steady stream of NPCs who will buy +1 Striking Shield Spikes or the Runes that you also legally transfer off the Spikes every day, up to 12 free Runes per day assuming you have access to enough craftsmen who can perform that work for you.
Oh boy, oh boy! Four things, somebody please point out any flaws in my following the RAW here because I desperately want to be wrong about items 2,3, & 4:
1) I do not believe that these Spikes can or DO return to the Shield after being used meaning that if you used them all, the shield cannot be used to fire the Spines again until the next day so your initial concerns about the limits of it, I believe, aren't warranted but after digging into things I found other problems...
2) The Spines are NOT described as Ammo and therefore do not break or disappear when used, instead, they're far more like a Javelin which CAN be recovered.
3) The Shield fails to note that the previous days' Spikes go away, decay, disappear at all, instead, it just makes brand new ones every day.
4) The Spines from this shield ARE +1 Striking Shield Spikes, they're not "treated as if" they were +1 Striking Shield Spikes, they just literally ARE that weapon. You can detach them and use them with OTHER Shields as well and even probably "recover" the Spines after you use them every combat to keep "recycling" them, they're not destroyed or lost after all. This Shield gives you a LEGAL and VALID way to permanently duplicate +1 Striking Shield Spikes that do NOT go away when the day ends, can be further improved with both Property and Fundamental Runes, and can be sold to create an endless supply of coin.
Note: The RAI here seems pretty straightforward in terms of what it's intended to do but the RAW here... well, it's an infinite money exploit, that is, if you can find a steady stream of NPCs who will buy +1 Striking Shield Spikes or the Runes that you also legally transfer off the Spikes every day, up to 12 free Runes per day assuming you have access to enough craftsmen who can perform that work for you.
Okay, so a few things:
1. By definition a shield spike that isn't attached to a shield is not able to function, so even if it's not ammunition it's clearly not a normal, functioning shield spike anymore after shot. You can argue it's broken instead of destroyed if you want, but that's a little dubious for two reasons:- The item costs 360gp. 5 +1 striking shield spikes cost 500gp. Anyone could simply snap off or use the shield spikes, fix them up a bit, and attach them to new shields to get 5 +1 striking shield spikes.
- These spikes clearly don't work as normal shield spikes. I know the wording isn't that they "function" as them, but still, a normal shield spike doesn't break off when you use shield block.
2. As you mentioned, the RAI is clear. So clear, in fact, that any GM worth their salt won't allow it unless they're purposely running a silly campaign where anything goes kind of thing. This is far, far beyond too good to be true.
3. And finally a more rules based answer rather than logic or common sense based: The shield says that "When all the spines are gone, you lose the ability to attack with them until the spines regenerate the next day." Note that this is the only spot where regenerating spikes is mentioned, so, if "gone" means destroyed, which makes sense, since the shield is magically creating these objects and probably has a limited amount of magic it can supply at once, then it wouldn't regrow ones that you harvested runes from (again, something that shouldn't be allowed since that's 500gp worth of runes on a 360gp item, but lets run with it for a second). Granted, you could argue that gone simply means off the shield, and if we weren't in the realm of ridiculousness right now, then I'd actually say go for it. I'm just saying even with the very, very odd way of reading the shield's abilities there's STILL a way for a GM to say "Yeah, nah, those things don't grow back, since the magic's still there." Though, it really shouldn't get to that point in the first place.
Oh boy, oh boy! Four things, somebody please point out any flaws in my following the RAW here because I desperately want to be wrong about items 2,3, & 4:
1) I do not believe that these Spikes can or DO return to the Shield after being used meaning that if you used them all, the shield cannot be used to fire the Spines again until the next day so your initial concerns about the limits of it, I believe, aren't warranted but after digging into things I found other problems...
2) The Spines are NOT described as Ammo and therefore do not break or disappear when used, instead, they're far more like a Javelin which CAN be recovered.
3) The Shield fails to note that the previous days' Spikes go away, decay, disappear at all, instead, it just makes brand new ones every day.
4) The Spines from this shield ARE +1 Striking Shield Spikes, they're not "treated as if" they were +1 Striking Shield Spikes, they just literally ARE that weapon. You can detach them and use them with OTHER Shields as well and even probably "recover" the Spines after you use them every combat to keep "recycling" them, they're not destroyed or lost after all. This Shield gives you a LEGAL and VALID way to permanently duplicate +1 Striking Shield Spikes that do NOT go away when the day ends, can be further improved with both Property and Fundamental Runes, and can be sold to create an endless supply of coin.
Note: The RAI here seems pretty straightforward in terms of what it's intended to do but the RAW here... well, it's an infinite money exploit, that is, if you can find a steady stream of NPCs who will buy +1 Striking Shield Spikes or the Runes that you also legally transfer off the Spikes every day, up to 12 free Runes per day assuming you have access to enough craftsmen who can perform that work for you.
Now what if I want to upgrade the 'runes' on my Spined Shield's spikes? It's a nice enough item now, but what about +2 Greater Striking spikes? Can I use the spines to recreate the gnomish snarlshield (shield with the Disarm trait) of old?
Asking for a small wild-haired friend.
Specific armor and weapons can't benefit from property runes, but fundamental runes are totally fair game.