|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The RAW currently is no item.I don't think you can state that the RAW is clear when there are 2 sentences stating the exact same thing but with a slight difference. There's an ambiguity, and this is the origin of these discussions.
RAW as-is is clear, since, as stated previously, there is no opposition between no item and no magical item.
Might there be a typo in the RAW ? Maybe.If there is no typo, it is unsatisfying because of all the examples given above that show how it would make sense for an eidolon to be able to use mundane items. So it does not sound like RAI.
If there is a typo, it is just as unsatisfying because the eidolon can use a mundane weapon and just as soon as you put a +1 rune on it, with no other change, the eidolon cannot use it. Which also does not sound like RAI.
Which is why I stated RAW clear but RAI unclear.
The current wording of the RAW, typo or not, is infuriatingly frustrating. And I fear we will never get a clarification here because the question was already asked in the playtest and no answer was given.
At my table, I would rule that the Eidolon cannot activate items and cannot benefit from the magical properties of items but that it can use the mundane properties of items, even magical items, just fine.
But, for PFS, I would go with my usual rule in case of ambiguous/debated RAW : expect table variance, use the worst interpretation and build accordingly. In this case : no item at all.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Your example doesn't fit because everyone knows you don't murder, they know that rule.
But pathfinder the game is different, if someone say's you cannot use a gun, that doesn't mean you can't murder at all, that means ability to use it, the character will probably murder with sword or spell instead. We are being given rules for a game, so it does come back to the idea of why bother with specifics, unless the intent was mundane items where ok
I note that you used the word "intent" there. That's kind of my point. There's all sorts of space to argue that the Rules As Intended are one way or the other. Rules as Intended are often subject to debate, and I'll agree that this is a particularly debate-worthy issue, for a number of reasons. Rules As Written, though, are quite clear.
You're trying to pull in stuff about "everybody knows" and "why". That's not what Rules As Written does.
"Eidolons can't use items, full stop" is pretty silly though, since you can give your angel eidolon the medicine skill, and it gets innate healing spells, but it can never use healer's tools?
A psychopomp eidolon can never row a boat?
A fey eidolon can never pick a lock, since they can't use lockpicks?
The only rule I'm inclined to enforce regarding eidolons and items are "your eidolon can't invest in items without the eidolon trait, and not more than two, but shares your investiture as specified in the class details." Since restricting an eidolon from doing things that should clearly be possible with its morphology (can your canine Beast Eidolon fetch a ball?) is absurd.
RAW is often silly. Unfortunately, as we've been discovering, any way that you could read and interpret the rules simply winds up being somewhat silly. The "Eidolons can't use items" is at least internally coherent if we imagine the eidolons as manifested spirits of magic and intent that are limited in the ways that they can interact with the world. That's not satisfying, necessarily, and there's some Summoner character concepts that it's very unsatisfying for, but it's at least an internally coherent explanation.
RAW does not traffic in implications at all. The whole point of RAW is that it's not subject to interpretation.Language is an interpretative process by definition. There's no such thing as "not subject to interpretation."
Okay. Fair. It was an imprecise use of that word on my part. It's a bit pedantic, but I certainly don't have any grounds on which to complain about that. I try to restate, clearer.
It's not subject to subjective interpretation, because as soon as you allow in the subjective things in it becomes a matter of individual interpretation, and the entire point of RAW is lost. RAW is straight-up "What do the written rules say, taken plainly, on their face?". As soon as you step into what the written rules imply, you're talking about RAI... and I'm not aware of anyone here who's arguing that that's clear.
Your example doesn't fit because everyone knows you don't murder, they know that rule.
But pathfinder the game is different, if someone say's you cannot use a gun, that doesn't mean you can't murder at all, that means ability to use it, the character will probably murder with sword or spell instead. We are being given rules for a game, so it does come back to the idea of why bother with specifics, unless the intent was mundane items where ok
I note that you used the word "intent" there. That's kind of my point. There's all sorts of space to argue that the Rules As Intended are one way or the other. Rules as Intended are often subject to debate, and I'll agree that this is a particularly debate-worthy issue, for a number of reasons. Rules As Written, though, are quite clear.
You're trying to pull in stuff about "everybody knows" and "why". That's not what Rules As Written does.
RAW is often silly. Unfortunately, as we've been discovering, any way that you could read and interpret the rules simply winds up being somewhat silly. The "Eidolons can't use items" is at least internally coherent if we imagine the eidolons as manifested spirits of magic and intent that are limited in the ways that they can interact with the world. That's not..."Eidolons can't use items, full stop" is pretty silly though, since you can give your angel eidolon the medicine skill, and it gets innate healing spells, but it can never use healer's tools?
A psychopomp eidolon can never row a boat?
A fey eidolon can never pick a lock, since they can't use lockpicks?
The only rule I'm inclined to enforce regarding eidolons and items are "your eidolon can't invest in items without the eidolon trait, and not more than two, but shares your investiture as specified in the class details." Since restricting an eidolon from doing things that should clearly be possible with its morphology (can your canine Beast Eidolon fetch a ball?) is absurd.
We disagree on RAW, not on RAI.
The sentence: "You can't use magic items." implies that you can use normal items. The implication comes from english, and as such is part of RAW.The same way the sentence "The dragon can’t use Breath Weapon again for 1d4 rounds." implies that the dragon can use Breath Weapon after that. The RAW reading of this sentence contains the implication and no one states that, per RAW, we don't know if the dragon can breath again after 1d4 rounds.
You're trying to defend a specific way of reading english that would be RAW. But English is not a programming language and as such carries a lot of implications. Ignoring the implications makes your reading wrong, not better.
This rule is unclear. Per RAW, as it comes from the way it's written. That's why people start speaking about the intent, because we can't determine the rule directly from the way it's written and stating that the rule is clear is nearly insulting. We should stop the discussion about RAW and English, as it's a rabbit hole, and quite an obvious one.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We disagree on RAW, not on RAI.
The sentence: "You can't use magic items." implies that you can use normal items. The implication comes from english, and as such is part of RAW.
The same way the sentence "The dragon can’t use Breath Weapon again for 1d4 rounds." implies that the dragon can use Breath Weapon after that. The RAW reading of this sentence contains the implication and no one states that, per RAW, we don't know if the dragon can breath again after 1d4 rounds.
You're trying to defend a specific way of reading english that would be RAW. But English is not a programming language and as such carries a lot of implications. Ignoring the implications makes your reading wrong, not better.This rule is unclear. Per RAW, as it comes from the way it's written. That's why people start speaking about the intent, because we can't determine the rule directly from the way it's written and stating that the rule is clear is nearly insulting. We should stop the discussion about RAW and English, as it's a rabbit hole, and quite an obvious one.
I'm trying to defend reading English by its plain, unadorned meaning, when discussing the Rules As Written. The dragon with their breath weapon can breathe again after 1d4 rounds because by default they can breathe as much as they like, and they have only the 1d4 round limitation, which expires. If there was another rule that said "The dragon can’t use Breath Weapon again for 5 rounds." then it would be 5 rounds, because they don't contradict, and therefore both apply. That's how RAW works. Lack of clarity in RAW only comes when terms are ill-defined, and we actually have well-defined terms here.
Now, it's pretty clear what actually happened here. These are two different versions of the same rule. Either there was a miscommunication somewhere, or they changed their mind partway through and edited the one but not missed the other (in either direction) or there was a moment of unprofessionalism where two different people were writing two different parts and disagreed with one another or something similar. It is pretty clear that having these two statements be saying two different things was not the intended or desired outcome. As such, if you're looking for RAI, then the fact that RAW goes one way or the other doesn't really mean a lot.
Rules As Written, though? Yeah. RAW is about the "programmatic" literalist interpretation. That's what RAW is. Admittedly, that's what a lot of people don't like about it. If you don't like RAW, and you think it's silly, that's fine. You're in good company. Don't go trying to redefine it, though.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm trying to defend reading English by its plain, unadorned meaning, when discussing the Rules As Written. The dragon with their breath weapon can breathe again after 1d4 rounds because by default they can breathe as much as they like, and they have only the 1d4 round limitation, which expires. If there was another rule that said "The dragon can’t use Breath Weapon again for 5 rounds." then it would be 5 rounds, because they don't contradict, and therefore both apply. That's how RAW works. Lack of clarity in RAW only comes when terms are ill-defined, and we actually have well-defined terms here.
Now, it's pretty clear what actually happened here. These are two different versions of the same rule. Either there was a miscommunication somewhere, or they changed their mind partway through and edited the one but not missed the other (in either direction) or there was a moment of unprofessionalism where two different people were...
I'll rephrase my thoughts: You have an interpretation of the rules, and it looks like it comes from your own definition of RAW. You're trying to force on us (at least on me) your definition of RAW for us (me) to agree with you. But it won't work.
People here both know how to read english and what Rules As Written means. I disagree with you, and stating that it's because I don't know how to read rules won't help you to convince me.
RAW...
The problem with your arguments is that RAW does not exist in PF2. Not the way you are trying to use it, anyway. The rules as written include the instruction on page 444 of the Core Rulebook to interpret the rules so they work as intended.
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
t
It's not subject to subjective interpretation,
Language is a subjective process by definition. There's no such thing as "not subject to subjectivity."
RAW is a myth. It always has been, it always will.
Natural languages are inherently ambiguous with no single clear cut meaning.
If you want to get away from theory, lets look at the reality of lawyers. They work long and hard at hideously high cost in order to produce language that is unambiguous. That language is darn near unreadable by a non lawyer at least partially in an attempt to make that language unambiguous.
But as countless court cases and law suits show, even those efforts aren't sufficient and the language remains at least somewhat ambiguous.
Paizo is writing text that actually has to be read by real people, that cannot be too turgid or people just won't buy the books. That language is absolutely RIDDLED with ambiguities even if you don't look too hard. And if you put on your "pedantic DELIBERATELY trying to misread things" hat then the ambiguities grow and grow.
To be clear, that is NOT in the slightest an insult to the Paizo authors. It is just a fact arising from the fact that they're writing the rules in English, exacerbated by the fact that they're trying to make their English readable and, ironically, clear.
Edit: As an aside, I'll point out that aimost all COMPUTER language programs have some ambiguities in them (unspecified or undefined behaviour for those who know what those terms mean). We can't even get our computers to unambiguously understand what we mean :-)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
RAW is a myth.
As much as I agree with that, I think it's a bit more complex.
I agree that it's a myth or a belief, but I don't think dismissing it will bring us anywhere close to mutual understanding.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Language is a subjective process by definition. There's no such thing as "not subject to subjectivity."
RAW is a myth. It always has been, it always will.
Now this? This I can respect. I don't necessarily agree with the position 100% but I absolutely respect it.
In the face of it, I can assert only that if RAW is a myth, then RAI is even more of one, and we're all just doing the best we can with what we have in front of us as we go along. The point, in my mind, of the myth-that-is-RAW is to have something that lets you at least remove as much ambiguity as you can, so that you have a baseline to start with.
So, how are they intended here ? Because it is still quite unclear to me for the reasons I mentioned above : no reading, whether with magical included or not, makes sense to me.
So, I'll agree that both here are unsatisfying, but, unfortunately, I think that the "cannot use items at all" version does make sense to me, at least as an internally coherent idea.
Basically, Eidolons are spirit creatures, brought into physicality by their summoner, and not even all the way there. In order for them to usefully interact with something, it needs to be something that has been magically aligned specifically to work with the thing that they are. Otherwise, it basically slips right through them. That angel may appear to be wielding a fiery sword (if you took Energy Heart) but that sword is not a sword. It is part of the eidolon's function - one of the few ways it has to reach from its semireal state and interact with the world. An eidolon cannot trip if it does not have a trip attack. It cannot grapple if you have not taken Advanced Weaponry to give it that ability. Its attacks and abilities are the scraps of power by which it may affect the world, and it has no others. It is poorly defined by the laws of the world - stitched into it by the will of its summoner. How can it go from Huge to Tiny in a moment, while keeping a reach of 15? This is how. These are the rules that its summoner has managed to convince reality to accept - all of them simple things, one at a time, backed by the summoner's own life-force (because in this world all things that live and move must have life, and that's the only life that the summoner has available to them).
Now, this explanation is unsatisfying. It is deeply unsatisfying. For one thing, it forces the player to subscribe to a very specific idea of what an Eidolon must be, and one of the wonderful, glorious things about the summoner is the wide variety of character concepts that it opens up (and that this explanation cuts off at the knees). It's unsatisfying because if eidolon combat maneuvers really are limited to that degree, they really ought to have stated that explicitly somewhere, rather than leaving it up to implication. It's unsatisfying because darnit, if I have a pet murderwolf attached to my soul, I want to be able to play fetch with him from time to time.
So I don't like it, and I won't be running it that way if I ever run a game, but I think it at least holds together and makes sense.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
We disagree on RAW, not on RAI.
The sentence: "You can't use magic items." implies that you can use normal items. The implication comes from english, and as such is part of RAW.
The same way the sentence "The dragon can’t use Breath Weapon again for 1d4 rounds." implies that the dragon can use Breath Weapon after that. The RAW reading of this sentence contains the implication and no one states that, per RAW, we don't know if the dragon can breath again after 1d4 rounds.
You're trying to defend a specific way of reading english that would be RAW. But English is not a programming language and as such carries a lot of implications. Ignoring the implications makes your reading wrong, not better.This rule is unclear. Per RAW, as it comes from the way it's written. That's why people start speaking about the intent, because we can't determine the rule directly from the way it's written and stating that the rule is clear is nearly insulting. We should stop the discussion about RAW and English, as it's a rabbit hole, and quite an obvious one.
You’re ignoring the rule in the Key Terms sidebar that says, flat out, that Eidolons cannot use any item if it doesn’t have the Eidolon tag. That rule about magic items doesn’t contradict it.
I agree that it’s overly restrictive, but I’m not seeing any ambiguity that currently, Eidolons cannot use any item that specifically lacks the Eidolon trait.
|
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
RAW is a myth.As much as I agree with that, I think it's a bit more complex.
I agree that it's a myth or a belief, but I don't think dismissing it will bring us anywhere close to mutual understanding.
I think that accepting it would help us a lot.
A great many discussions pretty much end up with a bunch of people saying that "the rules are absolutely 100% clear and they state X" with a different bunch of people saying "the rules are absolutely 100% clear and they state Not X (something inconsistent with X)"
I think that we need to recognize that in almost all of these cases the reality is that the rules ARE ambiguous. It doesn't matter in the slightest what some exceedingly nitpicky grammatical argument says, or some argument stringing together 15 different rules across 5 books, the reality is if a reasonable number of reasonable people disagree then the rules ARE ambiguous, pretty much by definition.
And it doesn't matter if an individual is unconvinced (even if that individual is me :-) :-)). If a reasonable number of reasonable people are getting a different meaning then the only conclusion is the rule IS ambiguous.
Very, very occasionally a near complete consensus forms with all but a lone voice agreeing on the meaning of something. In THAT case I think it is reasonable to declare the argument settled.
I think we'd see a LOT more signal and a LOT less noise in these discussions if people could just accept that.
Note - I'm talking about people in general, NOT specific individuals.
You’re ignoring the rule in the Key Terms sidebar that says, flat out, that Eidolons cannot use any item if it doesn’t have the Eidolon tag. That rule about magic items doesn’t contradict it.
I agree that it’s overly restrictive, but I’m not seeing any ambiguity that currently, Eidolons cannot use any item that specifically lacks the Eidolon trait.
You are ignoring that the sidebar is a summary of the rule. It is not the whole of the rule.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
A great many discussions pretty much end up with a bunch of people saying that "the rules are absolutely 100% clear and they state X" with a different bunch of people saying "the rules are absolutely 100% clear and they state Not X (something inconsistent with X)"
I think that we need to recognize that in almost all of these cases the reality is that the rules ARE ambiguous. It doesn't matter in the slightest what some exceedingly nitpicky grammatical argument says, or some argument stringing together 15 different rules across 5 books, the reality is if a reasonable number of reasonable people disagree then the rules ARE ambiguous, pretty much by definition.
And it doesn't matter if an individual is unconvinced (even if that individual is me :-) :-)). If a reasonable number of reasonable people are getting a different meaning then the only conclusion is the rule IS ambiguous.
Very, very occasionally a near complete consensus forms with all but a lone voice agreeing on the meaning of something. In THAT case I think it is reasonable to declare the argument settled.
I think we'd see a LOT more signal and a LOT less noise in these discussions if people could just accept that.
Note - I'm talking about people in general, NOT specific individuals.
Chuckle I'm thinking that the specific individual is often me, you, or a couple of the other people in this thread.
While I agree that the language is often ambiguous I don't think making a general rule is helpful. Normally the problem is there are a lot of unspoken assumptions in language and conventions which vary and are inconsistent. Especially across dialetics, cultures and other groups. Sometimes language is clear, sometimes its subjective. Sometime we can work through things with secondary clues and re examine these assumptions, other times its fruitless.
In this case the rules have a black and white statement in direct contradiction to the most sensible reading of the rules, so its going to remain ambiguous and be interpreted differently.
We disagree on RAW, not on RAI.
The sentence: "You can't use magic items." implies that you can use normal items. The implication comes from english, and as such is part of RAW.
The same way the sentence "The dragon can’t use Breath Weapon again for 1d4 rounds." implies that the dragon can use Breath Weapon after that. The RAW reading of this sentence contains the implication and no one states that, per RAW, we don't know if the dragon can breath again after 1d4 rounds.
You're trying to defend a specific way of reading english that would be RAW. But English is not a programming language and as such carries a lot of implications. Ignoring the implications makes your reading wrong, not better.This rule is unclear. Per RAW, as it comes from the way it's written. That's why people start speaking about the intent, because we can't determine the rule directly from the way it's written and stating that the rule is clear is nearly insulting. We should stop the discussion about RAW and English, as it's a rabbit hole, and quite an obvious one.
Given that PF2 is very much a permissive set of rules that only allow for actions covered by said rules, your reading it as an implication simply doesn't make sense. In point of fact, PF2, as written, cannot imply things that don't have bespoke mechanical interactions because it doesn't give us any means by which to resolve an implied rule. Furthermore, I doubt you could find any other 'implied rules' without torturing the meaning of what is written as you are attempting to do here.
Your reading of RAW is wishful at best and malicious at worst.