The GM is correct. The nanites are only working for the one round, so anything not done within that time can't benefit from the nanites. If you have a way to keep a boost that lasts shorter than an action or timed roll constantly up and recycled without disrupting your actions, then you can benefit, but having your nanites active for 6 seconds will not help you remove a disease, for example.
(And before anyone says that nanomedicine would totally cure a disease, sure it would, but those nanobots would need to be active in your for days, months, etc. constantly protecting you. You know what else works on the nanoscopic scale to remove disease and certainly can't remove all or even most pathogens within a person in six second: actual white bloodcells.)
Aside from the tattoo's only being active for a round, the usage of the word "surge" directly tells you its not something active for an extended period of time. There may not be any clear RAW on this, because splatbooks were never designed with edge cases in mind, but the RAI is quite clear that this isn't a bonus that lasts for as long as the role is needed, it is simply around for a very brief period of time. To use the previous example of disease, you could surge the nanites to prevent yourself from catching the disease as soon as you are exposed, but not the day over day checks.
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The glow having a duration doesn’t mean the bonus has a duration as well. It seems to just work for however long the next roll takes.
It’s not like you stop glowing once you use it to make an attack. You keep glowing for the duration of one round. The bonus and glow are separate functions.
In our game of Iron Gods, the GM likewise ruled it as only functioning on a 1 round check.
I’d say that’s a house rule. And an unnecessary one at that. Getting the bonus on a d20 roll that takes longer than 1 round is far from overpowered.
Hey, for those wishing to check the source, here's a linked quote:
Nanite Surge (Ex): An android’s body is infused with nanites. Once per day as an immediate action, an android can cause her nanites to surge, granting her a bonus equal to 3 + the android’s character level on any one d20 roll; this ability must be activated before the roll is made. When an android uses this power, her circuitry-tattoos glow with light equivalent to that of a torch for 1 round.
So it's worth noting that I'm part of this game , and I'm not the GM. I also read it as an ability with a finite duration.
One big thing for me is that it's an immediate action. This means you use is as a reaction to something, it's not a proactive sustained surge, it's an immediate surge of power/speed/whatever.
I compared it to the Investigator's Inspiration, which has specific wording allowing it to be used on longer duration checks. Note that using Inspiration on Saving Throws is also an immediate action, so AwesomenessDog's example of saving against a disease would also prohibit the use of Inspiration, since in this case the action would be reactive .
Inspiration (Ex): An investigator is beyond knowledgeable and skilled—he also possesses keen powers of observation and deduction that far surpass the abilities of others. An investigator typically uses these powers to aid in their investigations, but can also use these flashes of inspiration in other situations.
An investigator has the ability to augment skill checks and ability checks through his brilliant inspiration. The investigator has an inspiration pool equal to 1/2 his investigator level + his Intelligence modifier (minimum 1). An investigator’s inspiration pool refreshes each day, typically after he gets a restful night’s sleep. As a free action, he can expend one use of inspiration from his pool to add 1d6 to the result of that check, including any on which he takes 10 or 20. This choice is made after the check is rolled and before the results are revealed. An investigator can only use inspiration once per check or roll. The investigator can use inspiration on any Knowledge, Linguistics, or Spellcraft skill checks without expending a use of inspiration, provided he’s trained in the skill.
Inspiration can also be used on attack rolls and saving throws, at the cost of expending two uses of inspiration each time from the investigator’s pool. In the case of saving throws, using inspiration is an immediate action rather than a free action.
That's my take on it.
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Nanite Surge (Ex): An android’s body is infused with nanites. Once per day as an immediate action, an android can cause her nanites to surge, granting her a bonus equal to 3 + the android’s character level on any one d20 roll; this ability must be activated before the roll is made.
When an android uses this power, her circuitry-tattoos glow with light equivalent to that of a torch for 1 round.
It says on "on any one" roll. It doesn't say "on a fast roll". Or "on a roll that takes less than one round".
And we've already established the bonus is independent of the glow. It's not like you can activate it and get the bonus on all of your attacks for one round, as long as you are glowing. Activating just has a side effect of making you glow for one round. That side effect has nothing to do with the bonus. If you were in an area of deeper darkness and used this ability, you would still get the bonus, but your tattoos wouldn't glow.
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. . . That's my take on it.
I understand your positions, MrCharisma, rorek55, and AwesomenessDog, but I agree with Melkiador and Iamacup. You're reading limitations into something that aren't specifically listed. Not unlike how you're describing immediate actions themselves.
. . . One big thing for me is that it's an immediate action. This means you use is as a reaction to something, it's not a proactive sustained surge, it's an immediate surge of power/speed/whatever. . ..
Much like a swift action, an immediate action consumes a very small amount of time but represents a larger expenditure of effort and energy than a free action. However, unlike a swift action, an immediate action can be performed at any time—even if it’s not your turn. Casting feather fall is an immediate action, since the spell can be cast at any time.
Using an immediate action on your turn is the same as using a swift action and counts as your swift action for that turn. You cannot use another immediate action or a swift action until after your next turn if you have used an immediate action when it is not currently your turn (effectively, using an immediate action before your turn is equivalent to using your swift action for the coming turn). You also cannot use an immediate action if you are flat-footed.
An immediate action is, effectively, a swift action that can be used at times a swift action normally cannot be used. That's it. Just because it can be used as a reaction doesn't mean it can only be used as a reaction. (Hmm... are there places you can use a swift action flat-footed? I don't know off the top of my head...)
As to the inspiration of the investigator, is a skill you take 10 or 20 on a skill check? It is. When your character is not in immediate danger or distracted, you may choose to take 10. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, calculate your result as if you had rolled a 10. It doesn't stop being a skill check just because you don't roll. I don't know why the investigator calls it out. It's redundant. Maybe a third party publisher is just trying to be more concise (maybe to save on word count or just to be easier to use... either way).
Wait... I take it back. I understand now why inspiration feels the need to call out differences... it's because it's treating skill checks, attack rolls, and saves, with different rules for the different d20 rolls under one ability. Free vs. Immediate. 1 vs. 2 pts. Some checks are free... It's still redundant to call out taking 10 and 20 on skills, though.
Surge is not inspiration, though it bares a superficial similarity. It's much more straight forward. Once per day. Immediate action to activate (which only matters in combat). Next Roll (no stipulated limitations, but you don't roll for taking 10 or 20 so...). Level + 3 bonus. Your tattoos glow for one round. That's it.
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i'll just add that even if the nanite surge is only a moment of heightened ability -it's not really a problem even if the task take over a round. think of it as using the bonus in the most crucial part of the operation. after all you only roll once for the entire process. not a few times over it.
"we're loosing him, his heart beat is almost gone. he's going to die - DO SOMTHING"
"not yet! I'm not losing another one! i just need to put the...- THERE!" (insert cinematically glowing cg lights)
..'it should be fine now, patch him up.." (aaand fade..)
(far away voices)" Daddy, is Patches going to be alright?"
"don't worry Pumpkin, that Vet is the best in the Empire"
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i'll just add that even if the nanite surge is only a moment of heightened ability -it's not really a problem even if the task take over a round. think of it as using the bonus in the most crucial part of the operation. after all you only roll once for the entire process. not a few times over it.
I like to think of it as the nanites creating a subroutine that runs until the check is completed.
As for investigator, why are we bringing up investigator? They both can give a bonus to skill checks and they both can take an immediate action. What does that have to do with using nanite surge for checks that take longer than one round?
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Surge is not inspiration, though it bares a superficial similarity. It's much more straight forward. Once per day. Immediate action to activate (which only matters in combat). Next Roll (no stipulated limitations, but you don't roll for taking 10 or 20 so...). Level + 3 bonus. Your tattoos glow for one round. That's it.
Honestly, I can’t read surge any other way, and nothing here so far has come close to demonstrating how it can be interpreted any other way.
Actually IIRC you can't take immediate actions while flat footed. If you're not in combat, then you're flat footed. You become not flat footed after you get a turn in initiative, which is in combat.
So nanite surge can't be used out of initiative/combat at all.
"A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed, unable to react normally to the situation""You also cannot use an immediate action if you are flat-footed."
Re: Investigator.
I brought it up because it's a similar ability, but it specifically calls out that it can be used for checks that take longer than a round . Nanite Surge doesn't say you can't do this, but it doesn't specifically say you can either.
If that doesn't change your mind about anything that's fine, I just wanted to be clear about why I brought it up.
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"A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed, unable to react normally to the situation""You also cannot use an immediate action if you are flat-footed."
If you aren't in combat, then you can't be flat footed. Being flatfooted is defined by being in combat. So immediate actions can be used out of combat fine.
The only real limitation would be initiative checks, because:
1. When combat begins, all combatants roll initiative.
And even those are possible if you happen to have an ability like Uncanny Dodge, which makes you immune to being flat footed.
I brought it up because it's a similar ability, but it specifically calls out that it can be used for checks that take longer than a round . Nanite Surge doesn't say you can't do this, but it doesn't specifically say you can either.
To be clear, investigator doesn't specifically say you can use it on checks that take longer. That's more of an inference. And specifying for taking 10 or 20 is necessary, because those use different mechanics than a standard roll or check.
Nanite Surge is talking about "rolls". Inspiration is talking about "checks". Taking 10 or 20 is done as a check, not a roll.
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"A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed, unable to react normally to the situation""You also cannot use an immediate action if you are flat-footed."
If you aren't in combat, then you can't be flat footed. Being flatfooted is defined by being in combat. So immediate actions can be used out of combat fine.
The only real limitation would be initiative checks, because:
1. When combat begins, all combatants roll initiative.And even those are possible if you happen to have an ability like Uncanny Dodge, which makes you immune to being flat footed.
Just the opposite. You are always flat footed out of combat.
A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed, unable to react normally to the situation
Unless you are in a combat, you have not yet acted during a combat, and therefore flat footed
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Flat footed is obviously not meant to be read the way you are trying to read it. Otherwise spells like feather fall would be useless. The Flat footed state exists only in combat.
In other words, there are two ways to read the text. One way makes sense in relation to other parts of text and one way doesn't make sense in relations to other parts of the text. Which one of the two to choose should be obvious.
I compared it to the Investigator's Inspiration, which has specific wording allowing it to be used on longer duration checks. Note that using Inspiration on Saving Throws is also an immediate action, so AwesomenessDog's example of saving against a disease would also prohibit the use of Inspiration, since in this case the action would be reactive (although you could use Inspiration on your check to treat someone else's disease).
To be fair, my reasoning wasn't about the ability being an immediate action, but that it's a surge (implying short duration) and has a duration of a secondary effect that furthers that assumption. With something like Investigator's Inspiration or Swashbuckler's Charmed Life, you using the ability for a disease wouldn't mean you're waking up the next day with one less use of the ability, it would mean you slowly used your last charge of the ability through the previous day to spend the immediate action just as you wake up before you regain uses (but requiring a use to be left over in the first place). This is of course also assuming you don't rule that you can't spend the immediate action in your sleep to better save from disease, because you can't take an immediate action while unconscious/don't know when the trigger will happen.
Keep in mind it's also not unusual for an ability to mention you have an ability to do something you could already do, just for clarity.
Unarmed Strike: At 1st level, a monk gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. A monk's attacks may be with fist, elbows, knees, and feet.
This doesn't mean that only the monk can use unarmed strike with their fist, elbows, knees, or feet. But that text is left there just for clarification instead of for addition.
Similarly, if we had another ability that was a carbon copy of Nanite Surge, but also said, "This ability may be used on rolls that cover a long time period". Then that still wouldn't be proof that Nanite Surge couldn't otherwise be used that way too. All it means is that one writer or editor felt like clarifying things and another writer or editor felt that the clarification wasn't needed.
Redundant or clarifying text often exists until it gets cut for page count.
Every rule has its complications. For this one, while I do think it can be used on rolls that take a long time to resolve, there are more questionable cases. For instance, taking 10 or 20, or when used with abilities that let you roll multiple times and take the best result.
Actually, taking 10 represents a single "roll". It just represents being careful. It does not take any longer than a usual check. Taking 20 represents taking 20 rolls, which is what causes that confusion.
It’s not even an argument, per-se but I am a little surprised this rule, which is likely the most clearly written rule in PF, is being twisted, and I really do want to understand why.
Yeah it's not really an argument. We have a rules-clarification thread on our app-of-choice where we discuss things like this. During the game the GM made a quick decision, the player accepted it and we moved on. Then between sessions we talk about it and see if we want to make a decision about how to rule in future. So "discussion" is probably a better word.
Just to clarify, the reason I don't want to be super involved because I don't really want to block another player at the table. This is a discussion between him and the GM. My word probably gets a bit more weight at our table than the other players since I'm the most experienced with the rules, and I don't really want to influence the GM's decision unfairly. I've really already said my piece, but for clarification, here's how I came to my conclusion:
The rule is very general. Almost nothing in the game affects "any d20 roll". At our table I use that language as a shorthand for Shaken/Sickened penalties, because it's easier to say and to remember than "any attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks", but there are a handful of checks that are d20 rolls not affected by the Shaken condition . The list of things that actually affect any d20 roll is quite small.
This particular one seems more of an unintended oversight than an intentional rule, as AwesomenessDog said earlier:
There may not be any clear RAW on this, because splatbooks were never designed with edge cases in mind ...
Now this doesn't mean the rules don't allow it. If we go strictly by RAW they clearly do , but I've never been a huge proponent of strict RAW.
If we look at DERVISH DANCE vs SLASHING GRACE and FENCING GRACE, we see 3 abilities that mostly do the same thing, but Slashing/Fencing Grace were clarified to be unusable by a Magus thanks to an FAQ . This means that by RAW Dervish Dance is still usable with Spell Combat, but that's extremely unlikely to be intentional. It's more likely because Paizo don't put out FAQs regarding campaign setting books like the Inner Sear World Guide which brought us Dervish Dance .
There are plenty of examples of this, but we don't really need to go looking because Nanite Surge is pretty much a perfect example. The wording is extremely generalised, it's from a book that will never see any kind of FAQ or clarification, and while it doesn't explicitly state that the ability only lasts 1 round, it does include a 1-round timer in the side-effects of the ability.
The immediate action activation and the word "Surge" also give a sense of fleeting enhancement.
noun
a sudden powerful forward or upward movement, especially by a crowd or by a natural force such as the tide.
"flooding caused by tidal surges"
verb
(of a crowd or a natural force) move suddenly and powerfully forward or upward.
"the journalists surged forward"
The key word there is Suddenly.
So yes there's a lot of speculation, inference and reading into the author's intent, but when all of the speculation, inference and reading seem to be pointing in the same direction it becomes pattern.
______________________________________________________________
I don't really want this used as a proof, it's just an explanation of how I came to my conclusion.
EDIT: Also for what it's worth, our GM decided on the night that Nanite Surge has a max duration if 1 minute, so it wasn't limited to 1 round at our table.
Just going to point out that a “sudden” event refers to the beginning of the event and does not necessarily have anything to do with the end of an event. You can “suddenly” begin moving through deep space and continue to move for eternity.
Just going to point out that a “sudden” event refers to the beginning of the event and does not necessarily have anything to do with the end of an event. You can “suddenly” begin moving through deep space and continue to move for eternity.
Yes but are you still really moving through deepspace if you died from decompression a couple minutes later?[/s]
The "Big Bang". Expansion happened very suddenly and then continued indefinitely.
The main point is that even if an action can be started/activated suddenly, that has nothing to do with how long that action lasts.
Nanite Surge affects any d20 roll, including the Heal Check roll required for a surgery that would take several hours. If you include the restriction "can only affect abilities that take less than 1 round or less than 1 minute, then this is a house rule.
The nanites glowing like a torch for 1 round is nothing more fluff text that would only ever be important when you're trying to sneak up on a drow, or if you're in the Mos Eisley Cantina and their policy is to "not serve their kind here".
Also, Immediate Actions CAN be taken outside of combat. Have you ever rolled a 1 while traversing a rickety rope bridge and tried to cast Feather Fall and your GM said "sorry mate, you fall to your death because you're not in combat"? Ya. right.
The weird thing is that I don't see why anyone feels like they need to make a house rule to nerf this ability. It's good, but the strongest things it can do are more combat based anyway. Using the ability once per day on some skill check that you probably could have made anyway if you had built for it and taken 10 doesn't seem too abusive.
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Also, Immediate Actions CAN be taken outside of combat. Have you ever rolled a 1 while traversing a rickety rope bridge and tried to cast Feather Fall and your GM said "sorry mate, you fall to your death because you're not in combat"? Ya. right.
As sucky as that would be, can you please show me where the game explicitly says you can take immediate actions out of combat?
Or even where it says you're not flat footed out of combat? RAW.All I can find are the quotes I've already made that say "A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed, unable to react normally to the situation"
"You also cannot use an immediate action if you are flat-footed."
I've looked, but maybe I'm not looking in the right place
A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed
If you aren't in a combat, you are not flat footed. Flat footed doesn't exist outside of combat.
Heck, using your reasoning, a character would no longer be flat footed after the first combat of their career, because they would have already acted during a combat at some point in time.
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A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footedIf you aren't in a combat, you are not flat footed. Flat footed doesn't exist outside of combat.
Heck, using your reasoning, a character would no longer be flat footed after the first combat of their career, because they would have already acted during a combat at some point in time.
So you say you are never flat footed,unless you actively decide to fight, and then you become flat footed after starting a fight?
And by your reasoning, you have dex to ac vs traps that don't work during intitive
Technically, the GM is who decides if you are in combat.
But it does seem likely you aren't considered flat footed to attacks from traps.
Dodge Bonuses
Dodge bonuses represent actively avoiding blows. Any situation that denies you your Dexterity bonus also denies you dodge bonuses. (Wearing armor, however, does not limit these bonuses the way it limits a Dexterity bonus to AC.) Unlike most sorts of bonuses, dodge bonuses stack with each other.
Trap Sense (Ex): At 3rd level, a rogue gains an intuitive sense that alerts her to danger from traps, giving her a +1 bonus on Reflex saves made to avoid traps and a +1 dodge bonus to AC against attacks made by traps. These bonuses rise to +2 when the rogue reaches 6th level, to +3 when she reaches 9th level, to +4 when she reaches 12th level, to +5 at 15th, and to +6 at 18th level.
So, if Trap Sense gives a dodge bonus to attacks from traps, then traps must not be causing the flat footed condition by default.
And then check out this archetype:
Careful Disarm (Ex): At 4th level, whenever a trapsmith attempts to disarm a trap using Disable Device, she does not spring the trap unless she fails by 10 or more. If she does set off a trap she was attempting to disarm, she adds double her trap sense bonus to avoid the trap. This ability replaces uncanny dodge.
So, they trade out the ability to be immune to flat footed to gain a double bonus against something they can't use if they are flat footed?
The intent seems pretty clear that attacks from traps don't create the flat footed condition.