Hi all,
I've been planning on making a caster druid with an animal companion for Strength of Thousands, but my GM and I are a bit confused over some of the wording for a few of the companions.
For most Companions, their Support benefit fires if you "successfully Strike" an enemy. Ok, easy, makes sense. For others, such as the ape and badger, their support benefit is conditional upon "if you hit and deal damage".
Ok, so what does a "hit" mean? Can I Chain Lightning around my own Large ape and debuff a whole collection of enemies? What if they save but I still deal damage - that's effectively a hit, right?
I couldn't find any definitions in the glossary for the CRB, or any answers online.
I noticed this is the wording as well on the ranger's precision strike ability, and this question has been raised before in regards to that, but I haven't seen any answers - just table rulings. This is important as a caster as I'd like to avoid Strikes as much as possible. There are a few options.
1. It's just another way of saying a successful Strike
2. It's just another way of saying a successful attack roll (and including spell attack rolls)
3. It's specifying being successful in any spell or Strike, including one that requires a save but the enemy must fail the save
4. It's specifying any spell or strike - including if the enemy would save but could not completely avoid the effect. It is written this way specifically to exclude snares and persistent damage.
I think that, as druids are so closely aligned with animal companions, it'd be strange not to have at least a few that synergised with a few caster builds - so I'm inclined to think any of these answers are possible.
Should add that I found this section in the CRB, which seems to imply 3 or 4 - but as it's being used for illustrative purposes I don't want to use it as definitive.
"In the midst of combat, you attempt checks to determine if you can damage your foe with weapons, spells, or alchemical concoctions. On a successful check, you hit and deal damage."
Thanks in advance - interested in both errata and if you've encountered this on your table as well.
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"Sucessful Strike" means doing the Strike action and get at least a success on it. A Strike is always a physical attack with a weapon or unarmed attack.
Hit and deal damage means you have to roll an attack roll - either a Strike or a spell attack -, get at least a success on it and deal at least 1 point of damage. So hitting a fire elemental with Produce Flame will not count since you hit, but don't deal any damage. Likewise, a hit with Ray of Enfeeblement also doesn't deal any damage an and doesn't count.
Spells or effects with saving throws are never Strikes and never "hit" a target. (I'm ignoring effects like Disintegrate which can "hit and deal damage" despite also having a save attached.)
That's the table ruling we've made too for now, but can you cite or show me the rule for that? Is that just your table ruling too?
The wording I quoted from the CRB seems to imply "hitting" is an action made by the player, but is otherwise fairly ambiguous. I have just found in my sleuthing though some extra bits from the Encounter section of the CRB.
Each time you are hit by an attack or fail a save on a narrow surface, you must succeed at a Reflex save (with the same DC as the Acrobatics check to Balance) or fall
You are flat-footed on uneven ground. Each time you are hit by an attack or fail a save on uneven ground, you must succeed at a Reflex save (with the same DC as the Acrobatics check to Balance) or fall prone.
That seems to agree with you! They're specifying "failing saves" and getting "hit by an attack". I can't think of what else they would be saying by specifying "failing saves" except a spell that had a save.
Thanks for taking the time! I hope that gets errated at some point.
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The quote in your first post is a general explanation, not a hard rule text. Even if it were a hard rule text, it still says "you attempt checks". Since you don't attempt checks on save spells, the sentence wouldn't apply to them.
Agreed, it isn't fully spelled out in the rules. It is relying on interpreting the English the rules are written in.
'Successful Strike' is fairly well defined. It means using the Strike action and getting at least a success. You don't have to actually deal damage, so if an enemy had slashing resistance 10 and you didn't roll high enough damage to overcome that, the support ability would still happen.
'Hit and deal damage' is less well defined. 'Hit' probably means Successful Strike, so 'successful strike and deal damage' would mean that you would have to use a Strike action, succeed, and deal enough damage to overcome any damage resistance that the enemy has in order to trigger the support ability.
However, 'Hit' could also be interpreted to include spell attacks and maybe even spells with saving throws. Magic Missile even uses the same rules language - 'hit and deal damage'.
It automatically hits and deals 1d4+1 force damage.
Finally, 'Hit and deal damage' may mean using a Strike action and dealing damage - no requirement to succeed at the Strike action. So something like Certain Strike would let you trigger the support ability on a Strike action that gets a fail result. This is probably the least likely intended interpretation, but is arguably the most closely aligned to the actual wording used.
And of course there is Spiritual Weapon where you don't actually make a Strike - you are using either Cast a Spell, or Sustain a Spell. However, the spell is making a Strike action. So does that Strike action that the Spiritual Weapon makes trigger the support ability of an animal companion?
Probably not. But that is definitely a very ambiguous and undefined ruling.
Hit is never defined in the rules. By looking at the definitions of AC and where critical hits are mentioned it seems like a hit is intended to be a success against AC (so produce flame can hit but trip can't). That's never defined anywhere though, but I'm certain that's what's intended.
I'd rule along the same lines as Blave.
In this game you have to get comfortable with making some of your own decisions sometimes instead of trying to find a direct rule quote for everything. The game relies on you applying your best judgement to deal with odd cases, and more openly so than PF1.
Yeah, agreed. If no one replied, I would've been fine. My issue is that this is a pretty basic oversight that's been repeated in a few places - I thought for sure there must be some errata or obvious definition I was missing. And failing all else, might prompt the devs to put in an errata update!
The ruling we're sticking is pretty in-line with what everyone else has been saying - a "hit" is a Strike, spell with attack roll, or spell that describes itself as "hitting" the enemy ie. magic missile