| Lane123 |
Is Ebb and Flow worded poorly? It states "You can pull forth both positive and negative energy simultaneously to harm your enemies and heal your allies. If your next action is to cast a 1-action or 2-action heal or harm spell, choose one creature in range that would be harmed by the spell, and choose another creature within range that would be healed by the spell. Your heal or harm targets both creatures."
The way that it is worded, it sounds like you pick either Heal or Harm, and pick one undead and one living target and cast it on both. This way you damage the undead and heal the living, or vice-versa.
I feel as though this is wrong though. First off, it requires Versatile Font as a prerequisite. There is no reason you need to be able to channel negative energy if channeling positive energy on two targets was one of the potential uses, and vice-versa. Second, the flavor text explicitly says you're supposed to be channeling both positive and negative energy simultaneously. That is the exact opposite of how RAW works. Channeling both simultaneously would be casting Heal and Harm at the same time, not casting Heal at two different targets. I get that flavor text isn't rules, but I think in this instance the flavor text is good evidence that the RAW are not the RAI.
I think the way it was supposed to work was basically the same as Twinned Channeling from 1e. You pick two targets, both living or both undead, and cast Heal on one and Harm on the other. This way you MUST do damage to one target and heal another, no cheesing by having a Dhampir in the party so you get double healing.
| HumbleGamer |
I don't see any issue with either requirements and flavor text.
Requirements: Versatile font ( aka, it's a feat you can only have if you have a versatile font. Exclusive feat. ).
Flavor Text:
You can pull forth both positive and negative energy simultaneously to harm your enemies and heal your allies
It's quite different from
you can pull forth simultaneously both positive and negative energey
It means you are able to, because of your ability to pull forth both positive and negative energy, to simultaneously harm enemies and heal allies.
But even reading the flavor text in a different way, the feat seems quite clear to me ( how it works, along with its requirements ).
| Lane123 |
You said it's clear to you how the feat works, but you didn't actually explain how you think it works. Do you think the feat was intended to cast the same spell twice (either 2x heal or 2x harm) such that you MUST target one undead and one living target? Because yes, that is what the rules as written say but I have no idea how you think the feat requirements and flavor text match that.
I think you're confused about what my question is. I understand how the rules as written work. My confusion is that the flavor text and feat requirements make absolutely no sense based on how the RAW work. I was asking if the rules as they are written could potentially be different from how they were intended to be used.
Also just to make sure, you stated that the purpose of the feat was to allow you to harm enemies as well as heal allies. But since you already had to have Versatile Font, you were already capable of doing this. The feat would be to allow you to do both at the same time, but in a way that does not require both positive and negative channeling. Why do you need to be able to channel both types of energy in order to be able to channel only one type but on two targets?
| HumbleGamer |
You said it's clear to you how the feat works, but you didn't actually explain how you think it works. Do you think the feat was intended to cast the same spell twice (either 2x heal or 2x harm) such that you MUST target one undead and one living target? Because yes, that is what the rules as written say but I have no idea how you think the feat requirements and flavor text match that.
I think you're confused about what my question is. I understand how the rules as written work. My confusion is that the flavor text and feat requirements make absolutely no sense based on how the RAW work. I was asking if the rules as they are written could potentially be different from how they were intended to be used.
Also just to make sure, you stated that the purpose of the feat was to allow you to harm enemies as well as heal allies. But since you already had to have Versatile Font, you were already capable of doing this. The feat would be to allow you to do both at the same time, but in a way that does not require both positive and negative channeling. Why do you need to be able to channel both types of energy in order to be able to channel only one type but on two targets?
I gave for granted it was not what you were suggesting, referring to the 1e version.
1) Choose harm or heal
2) choose 2 targets ( one of them has to be healed by the spell you chose, and the other harmed. For example, choosing the heal spell, human for the healing and undead for the damage).
3) resolve
...
Kinda in a hurry ( I'll eventually add another post later ).
| Lane123 |
Ah. Yes, that is how the rules are written. But why do you need to be able to channel negative energy in order to hit two targets with positive energy? And how is hitting an undead and a living target with positive energy at the same time pulling forth "both positive and negative energy simultaneously"? Yes, it is simultaneously harming one target and healing another, but it's doing both using a single channel type. If you did what RAW says the feat does, then you would NOT be using positive and negative energy simultaneously.
Again, I understand how the feat works as written. My question is not what the rules say. May question is if what the rules say is different from what Paizo intended for the rules to say.