Hi all
Hopefully this will be another quick one.
With Flesh Puppet and Flesh Puppet Horde it says you are connected to your zombies by an ephemeral string that has hardness 0 and 1 hp. It also says…
The ephemeral string can pass through physical barriers, but not barriers of magical force, and it can be damaged as though it were a physical object.
I don’t understand this. How can it pass through physical barriers but also be damaged as a physical object?
Does this mean the string can pass through walls… but if I drop a wall on the string it will break?
Would it be best to think of this from the view of the string rather than as an observer?
i.e. if the string is moving it can pass through barriers but if the barrier is moving it will hit and damage the string
How are other people running this?
Am I missing something stupidly obvious?
Hmmm… my last point would mean you couldn’t use Flesh Puppets in even a small crowd and you’d have to keep constant control of a horde to ensure their strings wouldn’t break on each other either.
This doesn’t seem right…
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From what I have seen the meaning of the word "ephemeral"as used by the game isn't defined in the rules, while the term is used in Horror Adventures and Occult Adventures.
So I would try to guess what the writer intended while my Rule Lawyer inner self cringe.
My best interpretation is that, in this instance, is a poetic way to say "incorporeal", and I will treat the line that way.
I.e., it can pass through non-magical objects and will not be damaged by mundane forces, but it can be cut or damaged by magical attacks and magical items.
It is the best RAI interpretation I can give.
Agreed! From other uses of ephemeral on aonprd it looks like they often use it when they want to say ethereal but don’t want the specific condition.
I suspect that, because the string is only nearly invisible, the writer of that spell might have been aiming for “near-ethereal”.
“Damaged as a physical object” I’m guessing was an attempt to get across that it doesn’t have the full qualities of something incorporeal or ethereal. So if you can hit it using magical force then you can treat it as a normal physical object for that hit.
Thanks for your help Diego!