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Bringing this back to archery: reloading a bow takes 0 Interact actions. This means processing 0 subordinate actions with the Manipulate trait.
"An activity might cause you to use specific actions within it. You don’t have to spend additional actions to perform them—they’re already factored into the activity’s required actions. (See Subordinate Actions on page 462.)" Not having to "spend additional actions" on an activity on no way means you don't process the subordinate action. The reload section is specifically about how many interact actions you have to spend to reload and this quote specifically tells us that subordinate actions spend [cost] 0, which matches with a reload 0.
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Bringing this back to archery: reloading a bow takes 0 Interact actions. This means processing 0 subordinate actions with the Manipulate trait.
The problem we have is that
1. Yes, reloading the bow takes zero Interact action (which is described as taking 1 action in the RAW).
2. But the description is "drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action". And drawing ammunition so that you can fire the weapon is extremely similar to Interact ("You use your hand or hands to manipulate an object or the terrain. You can grab an unattended or stored object, open a door, or produce some similar effect.") and to actions that have the Manipulate trait("You must physically manipulate an item or make gestures to use an action with this trait. ").
So, by the description, it sounds that the Strike of a bow should have the Manipulate trait.
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Bringing this back to archery: reloading a bow takes 0 Interact actions. This means processing 0 subordinate actions with the Manipulate trait.The problem we have is that
1. Yes, reloading the bow takes zero Interact action (which is described as taking 1 action in the RAW).
2. But the description is "drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action". And drawing ammunition so that you can fire the weapon is extremely similar to Interact ("You use your hand or hands to manipulate an object or the terrain. You can grab an unattended or stored object, open a door, or produce some similar effect.") and to actions that have the Manipulate trait("You must physically manipulate an item or make gestures to use an action with this trait. ").
So, by the description, it sounds that the Strike of a bow should have the Manipulate trait.
By that logic, an attack with a longsword should also involve an Interact action because you are manipulating an object. And it should have the manipulate trait because you need your hands for it.
But that's not the case. Not all actions that handle an object use Interact, and not all things that you do with your hands are manipulate.
Swishing around a sword to make a Strike doesn't require a separate Interact, it's just part of the action of making a Strike.
And the same for the bow; you do it all at once. As described in the Hands section on the same page as Reload (279), "You can hold a weapon with a 1+ entry in one hand, but the process of shooting it requires using a second to retrieve, nock, and loose an arrow." You don't even get the choice of loading a bow and then just keeping it loaded. (Which also prevents you from using some reactions that require a loaded weapon.)
I think that might be the whole reason they use 0 Interact; the designers had already decided ranged attacks provoked AoOs anyway (just in case someone throws an axe), and they'd settled on a 0 action reload speed because they wanted flurry archery. So then they'd have to make the Interact cost 0 actions, and not trigger a duplicate AoO aside from the one already triggered by the ranged attack itself. At which point it just doesn't seem worth to write in this Interact action that does very little. But they couldn't just say reload “—” because that has a different meaning: "An item with an entry of “—” must be drawn to be thrown". So, the best thing remaining then was just 0 Interact actions.
It seems the only real snag is the situation of being grabbed. But consider: someone with an already loaded crossbow can fire while grabbed, because the ranged attack doesn't have a manipulate trait. And someone with a really really big 2H axe can also use it just fine while grabbed. So it's not like bows get something nobody else gets. It's just impossible to get that exactly symmetric with crossbows unless you actually slap a manipulate tag directly on the ranged strike.
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Bringing this back to archery: reloading a bow takes 0 Interact actions. This means processing 0 subordinate actions with the Manipulate trait.The problem we have is that
1. Yes, reloading the bow takes zero Interact action (which is described as taking 1 action in the RAW).
2. But the description is "drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action". And drawing ammunition so that you can fire the weapon is extremely similar to Interact ("You use your hand or hands to manipulate an object or the terrain. You can grab an unattended or stored object, open a door, or produce some similar effect.") and to actions that have the Manipulate trait("You must physically manipulate an item or make gestures to use an action with this trait. ").
So, by the description, it sounds that the Strike of a bow should have the Manipulate trait.
By that logic, an attack with a longsword should also involve an Interact action because you are manipulating an object. And it should have the manipulate trait because you need your hands for it.
But that's not the case. Not all actions that handle an object use Interact, and not all things that you do with your hands are manipulate.
Swishing around a sword to make a Strike doesn't require a separate Interact, it's just part of the action of making a Strike.
And the same for the bow; you do it all at once. As described in the Hands section on the same page as Reload (279), "You can hold a weapon with a 1+ entry in one hand, but the process of shooting it requires using a second to retrieve, nock, and loose an arrow." You don't even get the choice of loading a bow and then just keeping it loaded. (Which also prevents you from using some reactions that require a loaded weapon.)
I think that might be the whole reason they use 0 Interact; the designers had already decided ranged attacks provoked AoOs anyway (just in case someone throws an axe), and they'd settled on a 0 action...
Manipulating an object that you're attacking with isn't the problem, the problem is that you're manipulating an object separate from the weapon itself (such as an arrow from a quiver) to attack. You don't need to draw ammunition to strike with a Longsword, thus making this entire comparison with a Bow incorrect. Nobody is saying interacting with the weapon itself should provoke. This is essentially a strawman argument you are making.
You can blame Paizo for that problem, as projectile weapons are designed to essentially be a binary state (which is largely because the reason for there not to be one is because it's so corner-case, like this instance here). Just as well, a character with a readied Strike with a Bow is essentially a character who has drawn ammunition ready to strike when the trigger is met. And it's not like a GM can't handwave that to work, even if the rules don't technically permit it.
The hands portion simply reinforces the idea that you need a separate hand interacting with an object separate from the weapon itself to attack with it.
Honestly, Bows shouldn't even have reload rules if they aren't meant to suffer any of the negative constraints and connotations that come with them, as you're implying. There's legitimately no reason why we couldn't adjust the Reload value to be unlisted, and redefine "Reload -" to mean you don't need any action or activity on your behalf to utilize the projectile weapon. This is ultimately just a "Do you have ammunition? You can use a Bow." statement. There's no reason for Paizo not to have gone with that approach if Bows weren't meant to suffer from reload rules.
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Manipulating an object that you're attacking with isn't the problem, the problem is that you're manipulating an object separate from the weapon itself (such as an arrow from a quiver) to attack. You don't need to draw ammunition to strike with a Longsword, thus making this entire comparison with a Bow incorrect. Nobody is saying interacting with the weapon itself should provoke. This is essentially a strawman argument you are making.
No, I'm referring back to The Raven Black, who said said that drawing an arrow absolutely had to be Interact because it handled an object with hands. But that's also the case for a sword strike, so we know that isn't always the case.
And the rules for reload 0 say that drawing and firing the arrow are part of the same action. And the Hands rules make drawing, nocking and loosing one indivisible action. So reloading a bow before firing is NOT separate from using the bow itself.
You can blame Paizo for that problem, as projectile weapons are designed to essentially be a binary state (which is largely because the reason for there not to be one is because it's so corner-case, like this instance here). Just as well, a character with a readied Strike with a Bow is essentially a character who has drawn ammunition ready to strike when the trigger is met. And it's not like a GM can't handwave that to work, even if the rules don't technically permit it.
The hands portion simply reinforces the idea that you need a separate hand interacting with an object separate from the weapon itself to attack with it.
Honestly, Bows shouldn't even have reload rules if they aren't meant to suffer any of the negative constraints and connotations that come with them, as you're implying. There's legitimately no reason why we couldn't adjust the Reload value to be unlisted, and redefine "Reload -" to mean you don't need any action or activity on your behalf to utilize the projectile weapon. This is ultimately just a "Do you have ammunition? You can use a Bow." statement. There's no reason for Paizo not to have gone with that approach if Bows weren't meant to suffer from reload rules.
I think they wanted to make a distinction between thrown weapons and weapons that use ammunition. Their ranged weapons table had a column for Reload in it but for a throwing axe the only sensible value was "—". But they also wanted to write abilities that require you to be able to quickly fire off multiple shots using ammunition, so having a separate "0" reload was useful.
Also, a house rule allowing an archer to keep an arrow nocked would make a different; that would allow bow users to make attacks with mobile shot stance for example.
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Agreed with Darksol. Otherwise we could apply the same argument to crossbows and decide that, even if they take separate actions to reload, these do not have the Manipulate trait. But RAW they do.
Okay, now we're just being silly. I can understand thinking that reloading a bow should always require a manipulate action, and I can sort of understand coming to the conclusion that's RAW even if I personally disagree. However, I fail to see how someone can read what Ascalaphus said and from that argue that the logical conclusion to what was presented is that an AoO is not triggered by an activity that requires you to perform 1 or more interact actions which, as mentioned several times by both sides of this debate, have the manipulate trait hard-coded into them.
Ascalaphus's whole argument revolves around there not being a separate interact action that needs to be done to reload a reload 0 weapon, and thus everything said doesn't work for reload 1 or higher weapons (unless they're already loaded, for obvious reasons). The same argument could not be applied to crossbows to decide that their reload actions do not have the manipulate trait, because you 100% unequivocally according to both sides of the argument perform a full interact action and do everything that goes along with that within the rules which explicitly mentions the basic action "Interact", which has the manipulate trait.
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Bringing this back to archery: reloading a bow takes 0 Interact actions. This means processing 0 subordinate actions with the Manipulate trait.
Wrong.
Reloading a bow takes an Interact action.
Performing that Interact action has a cost of 0 of your usual complement of 3 actions per turn, if performed as part of a Strike action with that bow.
The point is that 0 is a number.
Reloading the bow does not have no cost. It does have an action cost, this cost just happens to be 0, coming part and parcel with the Strike action, with cost 1 of your usually 3 actions in and of itself.
This is what 'Reload: 0' means instead of 'Reload: -', or omitting the entry entirely. The action does get performed, with all the potential reactions and interruptions it may trigger.
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Manipulating an object that you're attacking with isn't the problem, the problem is that you're manipulating an object separate from the weapon itself (such as an arrow from a quiver) to attack. You don't need to draw ammunition to strike with a Longsword, thus making this entire comparison with a Bow incorrect. Nobody is saying interacting with the weapon itself should provoke. This is essentially a strawman argument you are making.No, I'm referring back to The Raven Black, who said said that drawing an arrow absolutely had to be Interact because it handled an object with hands. But that's also the case for a sword strike, so we know that isn't always the case.
And the rules for reload 0 say that drawing and firing the arrow are part of the same action. And the Hands rules make drawing, nocking and loosing one indivisible action. So reloading a bow before firing is NOT separate from using the bow itself.
...You can blame Paizo for that problem, as projectile weapons are designed to essentially be a binary state (which is largely because the reason for there not to be one is because it's so corner-case, like this instance here). Just as well, a character with a readied Strike with a Bow is essentially a character who has drawn ammunition ready to strike when the trigger is met. And it's not like a GM can't handwave that to work, even if the rules don't technically permit it.
The hands portion simply reinforces the idea that you need a separate hand interacting with an object separate from the weapon itself to attack with it.
Honestly, Bows shouldn't even have reload rules if they aren't meant to suffer any of the negative constraints and connotations that come with them, as you're implying. There's legitimately no reason why we couldn't adjust the Reload value to be unlisted, and redefine "Reload -" to mean you
That's still a strawman because he's not saying you interacting with the bow triggers reactions, interacting with the ammunition does. Again, longswords don't have that problem, acting like it's comparable, or that that is what we are saying, is a textbook strawman.
I mean, there is the concept of Reload N/A, which means the weapon doesn't have to be reloaded to fire, or even that the weapon isn't a reload weapon at all. Thus leaving us open for Reload - to mean no activity is required to use the weapon, merely that you possess ammunition. Boom, problem solved.
All I am saying is that Paizo had plenty of ways to do as you ascribe, and they simply didn't. And I doubt the reason is because they couldn't think of it. They could always errata it, but until then, RAW and Occam's Razor suggests otherwise.
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For a Reload 0 weapon that means you need to do zero interact actions and that literally means you aren't doing anything, not that you are doing something without a cost.
I would completely agree with this, except the next sentence further articulates what Reload 0 means.
I feel like a lot of people are getting tripped up on this unrelated side-topic about subordinate actions and missing the full rules here.
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To reiterate my thoughts earlier in the thread after following this discussion:
Nothing at all here has done so much as to move me an inch toward the position that "Reload 0 involves no Interact Actions" and if anything, I think that I've further solidified my opinion that people are SERIOUSLY getting tripped up by mixed "natural language" and mechanical meaning.
In this context, I contend that 0 in Reload 0 ONLY means that it costs you no additional and separate Actions to perform the Interact required to Reload the Weapon, and does NOT exist to communicate that "no Interact Actions are taking place" because its... still a Reload, you just aren't "taxed" when performing said Interact Action because it is given special treatment where you do this automatically every time you go to make a Strike or other Attack with the Bow.
Again, to restate, the lack of an "Action cost" (as in the Resource named "Action") does not mean that no Reload is taking place, and if that were the case that would make it functionally impossible to ever actually even USE the Bow in the first place since it requires Ammo and to do that you must Load/Reload the Weapon. That logic makes the Weapon completely unusable if you're applying the rules in a consistent and non-cherry picked manner and is too-bad-to-be-real.
But there are no subordinate actions to process, you aren't even arguing for one to be added to the process.
Of course there is: That's what "This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action" means.
All that is taking place is the basic strike action, nothing else, and that doesn't have the manipulate trait.
If that's the case then the line "This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action" is meaningless is it in fact doesn't interact with Reloading. How can you say it ONLY involves a Strike if it comes right out and TELLS you you are doing MORE than a Strike?
But the Reload rule doesn't talk about action cost, it specifies how many interact actions you need to do.
They mean the EXACT SAME THING: A reload of 1 IS an action cost of 1.
For a Reload 2 weapon that means you need to take two interact actions (possibly as an activity).
Yes, an action cost of 2... Are you arguing that it doesn't cost 2 actions out of your 3 to reload a reload 2? Really the only time they aren't synonymous is when they are in an activity, and that's the point: you can read it as cost or individual action and only one way makes sense and gives an expected result. Cost works, making reload a subordinate action, and individual actions leads to a result that doesn't make sense. Seems clear to me which one is right.
For a Reload 0 weapon that means you need to do zero interact actions and that literally means you aren't doing anything, not that you are doing something without a cost.
IMO, that just is a non-starter: the explanation of reload 0 contradicts that statement. "This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action" proves there is more than just a Strike as only 1/2 that sentence is about the Strike and the other 1/2 is about the Reload... If it was zero interact actions, Reload 0 can just SAY 'Reload 0 means you don't need any Interact actions to Reload' instead of it obfuscating it abut being the same action.
And I get that this trips people up because, as The Raven Black said above, it really seems like firing a bow should have the manipulate trait. But it doesn't.
I see it the other way: I don't get how this is tripping up people. I don't get how people thing how pulling out an arrow isn't an interact with a bow in your hand but is if you drop the bow. The arrow isn't teleporting into the bow and subordinate actions fits perfectly and doesn't leave you with that feeling that something is missing.
If "Reload 0" means "Strike and Interact" then archery simply doesn't work anymore.
What exactly no longer works? Is it an edge case or are there broad aspects of the game that no longer work? I've only heard of a specific feat that no longer works.
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I expect it to be the latter as otherwise that "0" means nothing and also a whole host of other rules break down.
Literally nothing breaks down, don't be melodramatic.
It isn't unrelated though, it's the whole ball game. If "Reload 0" means "Strike and Interact" then archery simply doesn't work anymore.
This is just flatly untrue. For the most part, almost nothing changes between either interpretation, except that reactions that activate on manipulate/interact activate for one and not for the other.
This is a very low stakes debate, trying to pretend the game breaks down somehow one way or the other is silly.
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I expect it to be the latter as otherwise that "0" means nothing and also a whole host of other rules break down.Literally nothing breaks down, don't be melodramatic.
It isn't unrelated though, it's the whole ball game. If "Reload 0" means "Strike and Interact" then archery simply doesn't work anymore.This is just flatly untrue. For the most part, almost nothing changes between either interpretation, except that reactions that activate on manipulate/interact activate for one and not for the other.
This is a very low stakes debate, trying to pretend the game breaks down somehow one way or the other is silly.
That depends on whether you think the game allows actions like Strike to be modified into weird hybrid activities and still be allowed to function in things like Flurry of Blows or Spellstrike. If you don't think "Strike-but-it-includes-an-interact-that-takes-zero-actions" is the same as "Strike" for those purposes then it does sort of break the game for those weapons.
"An activity might cause you to use specific actions within it. You don’t have to spend additional actions to perform them—they’re already factored into the activity’s required actions. (See Subordinate Actions on page 462.)" Not having to "spend additional actions" on an activity on no way means you don't process the subordinate action.But there are no subordinate actions to process, you aren't even arguing for one to be added to the process.
All that is taking place is the basic strike action, nothing else, and that doesn't have the manipulate trait.
Oh come on now, that is patently absurd. You are denying that the bow weapon gets loaded with an arrow, which is what the interact action represents. Just because that interact action does not cost an additional action on top of the action you spend to Strike, does not mean it does not happen.
Else, there would be no Strike as there would be no arrow to shoot.
If we use your argument, then what happens to, say, Sudden Charge? You pay 2 actions to do3 things: Stride, Stride, Strike. But by our argumentation, since we only pay the cost for 2 actions, one of these things doesn't actually happen.
So... which of these things then gets omitted? Do we not get to move twice or do we not get to Strike at the end of the Strides?
Obviously, the whole point of the feat is to allow us to do 3 things for the price of 2 actions. But all these things happen, and all of them can draw attacks of opportunity, and thus can be interrupted.
Shooting a reload 0 weapon is the same deal: We get to do 2 things for the price of 1 action: Reload and Shoot. And both things happen, both things can draw attacks of opportunity and both things can be interrupted.
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I find it extremely strange that people think drawing ammunition and firing does not have the Manipulate trait when dropping an item or removing one hand from your weapon while continuing to hold it in another hand (two examples of the Release free action) do.It has to be taken into account that the release action has this note
Unlike most manipulate actions, Release does not trigger reactions that can be triggered by actions with the manipulate trait (such as Attack of Opportunity).So, while the manipulate trait is ok ( since it's a manipulate action ), it doesn't trigger any AoO.
Indeed. But then drawing ammunition and firing is closer IMO to the Reload action, where Manipulate triggers AoO, than to Release (Manipulate that does not trigger).
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That depends on whether you think the game allows actions like Strike to be modified into weird hybrid activities and still be allowed to function in things like Flurry of Blows or Spellstrike. If you don't think "Strike-but-it-includes-an-interact-that-takes-zero-actions" is the same as "Strike" for those purposes then it does sort of break the game for those weapons.
Oh, the game not only turns the basic actions into little activities, like in the case of striking with a Reload 0 weapon, it also provisions a way for the GM to do so for themselves if they find a situation that needs an action, but no predefined actions fit the bill.
This whole debate makes it pretty clear why Paizo was so deliberate with their definition of an action vs an activity.
"Single Actions" are defined as being, "...self-contained, and their effects are generated within the span of that single action."
"Activities" are defined as, "usually take longer and require using multiple actions, which must be spent in succession. Stride is a single action, but Sudden Charge is an activity in which you use both the Stride and Strike actions to generate its effect."
Notice how different the two definitions are? Single actions are very clearly defined as being the bulk of the ways that you interact with the world. Even if you are currently using an activity, you are also using actions within that activity. They are the building blocks as it were of the games player facing framework.
Activities on the other hand are not Solidly defined. We can infer this due to the inclusion of the term, "usually" as the very second word of it's definition. And this flexible definition really helps when you have examples of "activities" that are very clearly only priced at a Single Action like Flurry of Blows. Even though Activities "usually" require multiple actions, that is not always the case.
Using this foundational knowledge we can work through the logic involved here.
Reload tells you that if a weapon has a reload of "0", this means that loading/reloading the weapon and making an attack with it are made as a part of the same action. You don't have to spend additional interact actions to reload the weapon, but what is not being said is that the weapon no longer requires reloading. You still shoot an arrow, so you still have to knock that arrow. This is essentially turning a "Strike" into an activity, you are getting the effects of 2 different actions rolled into one "Action". So it is not unreasonable to use the rules for activities, the only other thing in the rules that are spelled out as being multiple actions happening at the same time or near enough that the distinction does not matter, to adjudicate what happens in corner cases.
As Squiggit pointed out, this is a VERY narrow issue. I can't even think of a reaction attack that targets a manipulate action that wouldn't also be triggered by the bow attack off the top of my head, and I can't be bothered to search for the one that probably exists somewhere that fits the bill.
And to note, this does also leave some neat development space for effects that alter a weapons reload stat. Think a Curse that increases the Reload of a weapon by 1, or a Rune that reduces the reload once a day for a duration or something.
If you were to for some reason increase a Bow's reload by 1, what would that look like if you assume that the bow just Doesn't require any sort of interaction to reload as a baseline?
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The good thing about having a Strike activity (of Reload and Strike) share the same name as the Strike single action is that you can use them interchangeably. You don't break other activities like Flurry of Blows and Hunted Shot by having both.
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And that if there is an Interact action added to the process then that creates big problems
Again, no it doesn't. Whether or not you make an archer roll a flat check when they're grappled is pretty much the only scenario in the game where this interaction is relevant at all.
How big of a deal that is is directly proportional to how often you're grappling archers, but doesn't really effect the system at all outside that scenario.
Either you do turn it into an activity, but then it no longer is the Strike action or you don't turn it into an activity but then you don't get to add actions or traits.
You haven't explained how or why Strike as an activity breaks anything or prevents it from being a Strike... You just saying it doesn't make it so. Strike with an Interact as a subordinate action in it is still a Strike and works... wait for it... As a Strike. This only breaks thing is you go out of your way to make it not work by trying to argue a Strike isn't a Strike so it doesnt count as a Strike because...? I'm not sure. :P
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A Strike action does not have an subordinate Interact action so if you want the reloading to be an Interact action then you need to have the attack be an Activity with the Strike+Interact subordinate actions. Problem is that this isn't the Strike action and thus it isn't usable in places where a Strike action normally is used and that would be very problematic for anyone using a bow.
I'm sorry the rules don't hold your hand for you. It's really more work than the words are worth to explain it in detail in the book. The Strike activity can be used in all the same places that the Strike action can.
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...Reload is not an action, it is a weapon statistic...
Except, by the transitive property, if Reloading takes Interacting, and Interacting is an Action, then Reloading a Reload 1 weapon is, indeed, an Action. The other exceptions for Reload weapons besides Reload 1 are already listed in the book, you just refuse to accept them and what they mean.
This is like saying Parry on weapons isn't an Action because it's a trait on the weapon, and not a defined Action in the rules.
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But there is no "essentially". Either you do turn it into an activity, but then it no longer is the Strike action or you don't turn it into an activity but then you don't get to add actions or traits.
I mean, how else can you reconcile the way the rules define actions and activities with how Reload is worded? I will admit, this is a first for me. I've never had someone read reload and wonder what happens to that interact action. It just really doesn't matter except in the most corner dwelling of cases.
...What I just don't understand is why that difference is then ignored when it comes to Reload 0 weapons.
I think that the Quick Draw feat is very interesting to look at here. It has a 1 action cost and it does pretty much the same as what you (and others) wants the Reload 0 weapon do (albeit in the opposite order) in that it allows you to "Interact to draw a weapon, then Strike with that weapon".
The difference is that you could never argue that Quick Draw is the same as the basic Strike action that you and most everyone else argue that Reload 0 weapons still use. And I just cannot understand how how they can be treated so differently.
Simply. One is a feat that allows you to do something special that you wouldn't be able to do before having said feat, and the other is something so basic to the use of an item that it is as negligible as declaring that your Fighter follows through with a swing of their sword.
It works because the Reload section of the CRB state specifically that it does, triggering the specific rule overriding the general rule.
Generally when you strike, that is the only thing you do. According to Reload, when you Strike with a Reload 0 weapon you also draw the necessary ammo, and if you strike with a Reload - weapon then you get to draw that weapon as a part of that strike.
In other words, the Reload 0 and - use of a Strike have special rules attached outlined in Reload. Why isn't there a specific basic action to cover these two weapon types?
Because printing them isn't worth the ink.
Edit to Avoid Double Posting:
...Reload is not an action, it is a weapon statistic...Except, by the transitive property, if Reloading takes Interacting, and Interacting is an Action, then Reloading a Reload 1 weapon is, indeed, an Action. The other exceptions for Reload weapons besides Reload 1 are already listed in the book, you just refuse to accept them and what they mean.
This is like saying Parry on weapons isn't an Action because it's a trait on the weapon, and not a defined Action in the rules.
Oh, and traits and actions are NOT intrinsically tied to each other. I recall a thread where the question was asked, if you use a feat like Quicken Spell to drop the Somatic component of a spell, would you get rid of the Manipulate trait on that spell. The answer from, I believe at the time Mark Seifter but could be wrong, was that at one point that was the case, however now traits are more tied to what the character is actually doing, even if for some reason they don't have to spend an action to do it. So Speaking for example is a free action, but has the Verbal and Auditory traits, etc...
So saying that the number of interact actions it takes to reload a bow is 0 does not mean that you are not still interacting with and reloading that bow. That interaction just takes so little effort that it gets wrapped up into the strike action.
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In effect this whole discussion centers around two different types of rules reading and a such we will probably never see a clear winner as in principle both sides can be right in their own way.
If you use a formalistic approach to the governing ruleset, i.e. you consider those rules like you would consider math operations or computer algorythms, a 0 is and will always be a 0 to you, and zero times something equals plain zero, no matter what.
If however you try to gauge the rules with an holistic midset, not considering anything as fluff, even if it may be written in colloquial wording, while equally applying common sense and minding the overarching rules context it is not especially hard to also follow this line of reasoning.
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I mean, how else can you reconcile the way the rules define actions and activities with how Reload is worded? I will admit, this is a first for me. I've never had someone read reload and wonder what happens to that interact action. It just really doesn't matter except in the most corner dwelling of cases.It might be simplistic of me but when the designers make a rule that says "This entry indicates how many Interact actions it takes" and then set that number to "0" I have no problem accepting that no action takes place. Especially when they clarify it with a sentence that doesn't mention an Interact action taking place.
As I see they have both mechanically and narratively described it without an Interact action and thus I'm fine with letting it play without an Interact action.
I don't know that I would call it simplistic. More like an unusual reading of the rule. And that's fine, I have certainly had moments where I read a rule and come to a startlingly different conclusion than others do. It happens to everyone at some point or another. Just look at the endless debates surrounding things like Wall of Stone and how it can be laid out or how certain conditions interact with others. There are plenty of situations where you have to make a decision as to how the rule will actually work in play.
If the stakes here were higher, then I think you'd find a lot more push back. As is, the difference between a reload 0 or - strike having the manipulate trait and it not having the manipulate trait are basically non-existent at this time. So, who really cares all that much?
Can your players still use a bow in your game? If the answer is yes, is this really that big a problem in the first place? Probably not.
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I mean, how else can you reconcile the way the rules define actions and activities with how Reload is worded? I will admit, this is a first for me. I've never had someone read reload and wonder what happens to that interact action. It just really doesn't matter except in the most corner dwelling of cases.It might be simplistic of me but when the designers make a rule that says "This entry indicates how many Interact actions it takes" and then set that number to "0" I have no problem accepting that no action takes place. Especially when they clarify it with a sentence that doesn't mention an Interact action taking place.
As I see they have both mechanically and narratively described it without an Interact action and thus I'm fine with letting it play without an Interact action.
No interact means no need to have a hand free to grab ammunition. Bows might as well be 2 handed weapons at this point.
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It might be simplistic of me but when the designers make a rule that says "This entry indicates how many Interact actions it takes" and then set that number to "0" I have no problem accepting that no action takes place.
IF that was the whole statement, I'd 100% agree with you on this ruling.
But we have a sentence right afterward that clarifies that 0 doesn't actually mean nothing happens, but rather that you reload as part of the strike. Which is substantively different than not doing it at all.
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But making an activity that IS a "Strike" no, that would open up waay to much shenanigans.
Like what?
What kind of shenigans could be had by having a one strike activity in the game?
IF that was the whole statement, I'd 100% agree with you on this ruling.
But we have a sentence right afterward that clarifies that 0 doesn't actually mean nothing happens, but rather that you reload as part of the strike. Which is substantively different than not doing it at all.
The things is that at least for me (non-native speaker here) the second sentence can still be read and interpreted both ways.
This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action.
Interpretation A: Confirmation that the Interact action is (just) a virtual part of the same action (Strike), i.e. to disregard all Interact aspects and to just proceed with the action (Strike) as normal.
Interpretation B: Reference to the fact that the Interact action is a literal part of the same action (Strike), i.e. to consider this action (Strike) inheriting all Interact aspects.
But perhaps I am simply not seeing the wood for the trees here...
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Shooting a reload 0 weapon is the same deal: We get to do 2 things for the price of 1 action: Reload and Shoot. And both things happen, both things can draw attacks of opportunity and both things can be interrupted.While I agree that we certainly are reloading our bow the thing to remember is that Reload is not an action, it is a weapon statistic. Reload does not have an action cost nor does it have any traits. What it does do is tell us how many Interact actions reloading our weapon takes (and that it can be a Interact activity if the DM so chooses).
Ah, I see that is where you are tripping up: The reloading is always just 1 (one) Interaction, same as moving up to your speed is only 1 Stride and casting a spell with 2 or 3 components is still only 1 Cast-a-Spell activity, albeit at a cost of 2 (or 3) 'actions'.
It is just that that 1 action/activity/thing has a different price in 'actions', as in how many of your usually 3 'actions' per turn it costs to do that thing. For crossbows that can be 2 actions, but it is still only 1 reload, and thus draws attacks of opportunities only once. Like a single Stride leaving multiple threatened squares also only draws AoOs once.
But even if the action cost of the reload is 0, that does not mean that no interaction happens. Else, the bow would not get loaded, could not be shot, and that is patently absurd.
Think of it as a 'buy one, get on free' deal. You only pay an action cost for the Strike, the reload is 'free'. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen, doesn't mean it doesn't provoke, doesn't mean it can't be interrupted.
Sudden Charge of course works just as it says, it is an activity that costs 2 actions and includes 3 subordinate actions (if we end up within reach for an attack).
This is a function of the basic principles of the Action rules and I don't claim anything differently, the problem is that your argument (well most everyone elses at least) does not follow those same principles when handling the attack from a Reload 0 weapon.
Shooting a bow of course works just as it says, it is an activity that costs 1 action and includes 2 subordinate actions (Interaction to load, Strike to attack).
That is a function of the basic principles of the Action rules and applies to both 'Sudden Charge' and 'Strike with a bow (or any ranged weapon with a numerical Reload statistic for that matter)'.
I'm not denying anything, I'm simply saying that to attack with a Reload 0 weapon you take the Strike action (cost of 1 action) and when doing that it is narratively described as "drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action". There is however no additional action taking place (as there are for a Reload 1 or 2 weapon).
But that's the point: The only way for there to be 'no additional action' is for the thing not actually happening, yet you yourself describe shooting a bow as "drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action". You are contradicting yourself here.
Again: Just because the action cost of performing a Strike with a Reload 0 weapon is a total of 1 does not mean that only 1 action happens. Same as Sudden Charge only costing 2 actions does not mean that only 2 things happen.
Reload 0 tells us that the cost of performing an Interact activity to load the bow for striking is 0 additional actions on top of the 1 action we pay for the Strike. But the reload does still happen obviously.
And that if there is an Interact action added to the process then that creates big problemsAgain, no it doesn't. Whether or not you make an archer roll a flat check when they're grappled is pretty much the only scenario in the game where this interaction is relevant at all.
I found another interaction in my game last week: an Attack of Opportunity that critted an archer trying to fire a bow. I ruled that Reload 0 included an Interact action, and because Interact has the manipulate trait, then the arrows wasn't drawn.
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Reload 0 was definitely a bizarre rules concession way to keep bows in their spot of the "obviously best ranged martial weapon for most characters."
I think it would have made the most sense for firing a bow to work similar to quick draw and to not work as a basic strike. Characters could chose to walk around with their bow loaded, (arrow nocked) so they could have a basic strike ready, but not have that be the case once they start firing. Then when writing abilities designed around the bow, you add a subordinate reload action into the abilities, the same as was done with crossbow and firearm abilities.
But there was a conscious design decision to make firing a bow very simple and very effective. And so we get the problematic sentence in the description of reload: "This entry indicates how many Interact actions it takes to reload such weapons." The sentence that follows it might be trying to establish the subordinate action back into the picture, by saying that drawing and firing are part of the same action, but it doesn't matter for the sake of the manipulate action because 0 interact actions are required as a part of that new draw and fire action. Reduced to a math equation firing a bow really should not have the manipulate action according to the rules.
It would be very easy to fix this issue, only adding one short sentence to the reload entry. My physical book is a first print, so I have no idea if there is room on the page to add it to the current CRB or not, but changing:
This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action.
to
This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action, which has the manipulate trait.
would fix the problem.
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Reload 0 was definitely a bizarre rules concession way to keep bows in their spot of the "obviously best ranged martial weapon for most characters."
I think it would have made the most sense for firing a bow to work similar to quick draw and to not work as a basic strike. Characters could chose to walk around with their bow loaded, (arrow nocked) so they could have a basic strike ready, but not have that be the case once they start firing. Then when writing abilities designed around the bow, you add a subordinate reload action into the abilities, the same as was done with crossbow and firearm abilities.
But there was a conscious design decision to make firing a bow very simple and very effective. And so we get the problematic sentence in the description of reload: "This entry indicates how many Interact actions it takes to reload such weapons." The sentence that follows it might be trying to establish the subordinate action back into the picture, by saying that drawing and firing are part of the same action, but it doesn't matter for the sake of the manipulate action because 0 interact actions are required as a part of that new draw and fire action. Reduced to a math equation firing a bow really should not have the manipulate action according to the rules.
It would be very easy to fix this issue, only adding one short sentence to the reload entry. My physical book is a first print, so I have no idea if there is room on the page to add it to the current CRB or not, but changing:
This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action.
to
would fix the problem.
This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action, which has the manipulate trait.
Sure, it should be more obviously stated, but it's quite clear that interacting with an item (such as an arrow) is an activity that has the Manipulate trait. At the end of the day, you are still using a hand to draw ammunition from a quiver or similar ammunition-storing container (that's readily accessible to you). Whether the activity takes an action or not is irrelevant. Suggesting otherwise is absurd.
And before we argue that Crossbows and Firearms don't have this weird inconsistency, it's actually still consistent with those other non-Reload 0 weapons, because you're not spending an action to Interact with the ammunition you need to draw to load it, since the activity is subordinated into the action to Reload the weapon, and it's still triggering and disrupting all the same, even if we took the Manipulate trait out of the Reload action, since the subordinate activity of Interact for Ammunition is still present.
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My reading of the general rules in that subordinate actions have to be called out, not implied to be present in the action taken. To do otherwise is way too confusing.
What about 0 reload repeating weapons? There is no drawing happening at all. But nothing in the Repeating trait says it acts differently than any other reload 0 weapon. In fact making these weapons work like reload 0 weapons is all that trait does.
In retrospect, I had original read the rules assuming that ranged weapons just inherently provoked attacks of opportunity and should be treated as having the manipulate trait, but after hearing mathmuse's arguments and reading the rules more closely, I think I will now run 0 reload weapons as not having the manipulate trait because they require 0 interact actions. Balance wise, it only helps bow users in fairly uncommon situations where they are already probably in a fair bit of trouble (having an enemy grab them or be in thier faces).
It also makes the whole game a lot more consistent in the most important way possible: If an ability has a trait, it will either state it directly or else call out that it incorporates a subordinate action that has that trait. Reload of 0 calls out 0 interact actions. Players shouldn't be expected to go through the mental gymnastics as reading 0 as different from none.
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Players shouldn't be expected to go through the mental gymnastics as reading 0 as different from none.
As opposed to the mental gymnastics of reloading that's not actually reloading?
My reading of the general rules in that subordinate actions have to be called out, not implied to be present in the action taken. To do otherwise is way too confusing.
What about 0 reload repeating weapons? There is no drawing happening at all. But nothing in the Repeating trait says it acts differently than any other reload 0 weapon. In fact making these weapons work like reload 0 weapons is all that trait does.
In retrospect, I had original read the rules assuming that ranged weapons just inherently provoked attacks of opportunity and should be treated as having the manipulate trait, but after hearing mathmuse's arguments and reading the rules more closely, I think I will now run 0 reload weapons as not having the manipulate trait because they require 0 interact actions. Balance wise, it only helps bow users in fairly uncommon situations where they are already probably in a fair bit of trouble (having an enemy grab them or be in thier faces).
It also makes the whole game a lot more consistent in the most important way possible: If an ability has a trait, it will either state it directly or else call out that it incorporates a subordinate action that has that trait. Reload of 0 calls out 0 interact actions. Players shouldn't be expected to go through the mental gymnastics as reading 0 as different from none.
If it has mechanical bearing, sure. But it's not like Paizo is infallible, and probably didn't think things through with certain mechanical aspects, not unlike pre-errata Battle Medicine that had table variation on how many hands were required, whether you needed Healer's Tools, what traits were involved, etc., or even current-version Quicken Spell, which doesn't remove components involved, only actions it takes to cast, so it still involves Flat 5 checks while Grabbed, or doesn't function in areas of Silence (or while Deafened). I'm of the opinion that this is an oversight by Paizo, and that the argument of "it doesn't take actions, so it doesn't provoke" is far more non-sensical, because now we have Jedi Archers who use the Force (which doesn't exist in Golarion) to reload their bows, no hands or manipulation required.
As for Repeating Weapons, let's review the trait:
A repeating weapon is typically a type of crossbow that has a shorter reload time. These weapons can't be loaded with individual bolts like other crossbows; instead, they require a magazine of specialized ammunition to be loaded into a special slot. Once that magazine is in place, the ammunition is automatically loaded each time the weapon is cocked to fire, reducing its reload to the value in its reload entry (typically 0). When the ammunition runs out, a new magazine must be loaded, which requires a free hand and 3 Interact actions (to remove the old magazine, retrieve the new magazine, and slot the new magazine in place). These actions don't need to be consecutive.
So, it says that it already overwrites the idea that it has individual ammunition slots, and is instead reliant on magazines, which load the weapon for you automatically with no action on your behalf, and that when the magazine runs out, it instead requires 3 non-consecutive Interact actions to reload it. So, for the Reload 0 part, this does not require effort from the user compared to, say, drawing ammunition from a quiver with your own hands, which is why this debate is even being brought on to begin with.
Players shouldn't be expected to go through the mental gymnastics as reading 0 as different from none.As opposed to the mental gymnastics of reloading that's not actually reloading?
Yes, I think it much harder to argue that an arrow isn't being manipulated than it is to say it is.