We could fall down a rabbit hole of dozens of subordinate actions if every step that required an action to perform on its own created a subordinate action whenever performed as part of another action. Reloading a crossbow requires drawing a bolt, so the Interact action to reload must also require an Interact action to draw. For playability, a line must be drawn after which the lesser actions are absorbed into the overall action without a chain of subordinate actions. I believe that for Reload 0 the line is drawn before creating a subordinate Interact action.I don't think there is a reason to draw any line. There are only a finite number of things your character can or will be doing at any one time.
We don't need a dozen-step chain to render an action too awkward to implement. Four steps would be bad enough.
For reloading a crossbow, that means drawing and placing the bolt in the crossbow.
This list left out setting the trigger mechanism, pulling back the bowstring, and regripping the crossbow into shooting position again.
For a bow that means drawing and knocking the arrow.
I don't see how one is more or less complicated than the other. In one case you draw and load without shooting. In the other you draw and knock then loose.
The crossbow, with the drawing back the string during reload and the regripping afterwards qualifies for Reload 1 while the bow qualifies for Reload 0.
Trying to claim that there are so many, "dozens of subordinate actions" involved feels like blowing it way out of proportion.
I exaggerated with regard to Pathfinder's simplified crossbow. To get a dozen steps, I would have to talk about loading a real-life heavy crossbow with a goat's foot lever (more on the lever at a 7-minute video at Tod's Workshop). The crank crossbows are also complicated.
Reload is always an Interact action:
Reload
Source Core Rulebook pg. 279 3.0
While all weapons need some amount of time to get into position, many ranged weapons also need to be loaded and reloaded . This entry indicates how many Interact actions it takes to reload such weapons. This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action. If an item takes 2 or more actions to reload, the GM determines whether they must be performed together as an activity, or you can spend some of those actions during one turn and the rest during your next turn..
No it’s not. It says right there in the text you quoted that Reload 0 has no interact actions.
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No it’s not. It says right there in the text you quoted that Reload 0 has no interact actions.Reload is always an Interact action:
Reload
Source Core Rulebook pg. 279 3.0
While all weapons need some amount of time to get into position, many ranged weapons also need to be loaded and reloaded . This entry indicates how many Interact actions it takes to reload such weapons. This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action. If an item takes 2 or more actions to reload, the GM determines whether they must be performed together as an activity, or you can spend some of those actions during one turn and the rest during your next turn..
Haven't we been over this? No interaction happening would mean no reload happening would mean no ranged Strike happening. Reload 0 means that the reload interaction costs 0 additional actions on top of the 1 action for the Strike itself. No more, no less.
I think you are thinking about this backwards. MSS doesn't stop Ranged Strikes from provoking entirely, it only stops them from provoking by virtue of them being ranged strikes. It doesn't stop any other trigger as far as I can tell.
The feat states that "...your ranged Strikes don't trigger Attacks of Opportunity, or other reactions that are triggered by a ranged attack.".
I would like to hear your reasoning for why this feat supposedly does not do what it says it does.
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Haven't we been over this? No interaction happening would mean no reload happening would mean no ranged Strike happening. Reload 0 means that the reload interaction costs 0 additional actions on top of the 1 action for the Strike itself. No more, no less.
That is your interpretation of the reload 0, not what the text there actually says, which is why this is conversation in the first place. There is clearly more than one way to read this text and dismissing other readings doesn’t actually resolve the issue.
The feat states that "...your ranged Strikes don't trigger Attacks of Opportunity, or other reactions that are triggered by a ranged attack.".
I would like to hear your reasoning for why this feat supposedly does not do what it says it does.
Sure. Two main reasons really.
1. The Trigger of Attack of Opportunity is as follows.
A creature within your reach uses a manipulate action or a move action, makes a ranged attack, or leaves a square during a move action it’s using.
Mobile Shot Stance prevents the ranged strike from satisfying the third criteria listed, since it doesn't trigger by virtue of being a ranged attack. However, MSS does not grant the strike blanket immunity to triggering reactions for any other reason. If the intention was to say that the Stance users strikes simply don't trigger reactions, they could have just said that. Instead they specify that this applies to AoO as well as other reactions triggered by ranged attacks. Which leads to...
2. Simple consistency. Why should Attack of Opportunity be treated differently than any other reaction not triggered by a range attack? Why should disrupt prey be able to trigger on an MSS bow shots manipulate trait, but not AoO, even though they share that trigger in common?
No it’s not. It says right there in the text you quoted that Reload 0 has no interact actions.Reload is always an Interact action:
Reload
Source Core Rulebook pg. 279 3.0
While all weapons need some amount of time to get into position, many ranged weapons also need to be loaded and reloaded . This entry indicates how many Interact actions it takes to reload such weapons. This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action. If an item takes 2 or more actions to reload, the GM determines whether they must be performed together as an activity, or you can spend some of those actions during one turn and the rest during your next turn..Actually It says that if this (entry) is 0, drawing ammunition and firing are part of the some action. It never explicitly says it doesn't happen, that is the part you are filling in.
As Unicore pointed out, there is more than one way to read this text. Personally I reject the reading of reload 0 meaning a reload doesn't happen. And read this as more in line with the bombs entry.
The additional text of of the 1+ hands entry, and the too good to be true clause in ambiguous rules.
My own interpretation of the sentence, "This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action," is that it means, "Reload 0 skips Interacting to reload because the ammunition is drawn, loaded, and fired during the Strike with no Interact action." The sentence was supposed to call out that this is an exception to reloading via Interact action, but it was written poorly.
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I think you are thinking about this backwards. MSS doesn't stop Ranged Strikes from provoking entirely, it only stops them from provoking by virtue of them being ranged strikes. It doesn't stop any other trigger as far as I can tell.The feat states that "...your ranged Strikes don't trigger Attacks of Opportunity, or other reactions that are triggered by a ranged attack.".
I would like to hear your reasoning for why this feat supposedly does not do what it says it does.
Suppose that to load a bow the archer takes a free-action Interact before the ranged Strike to draw the arrow and nock it to the bowstring. The enemy with Attack of Opportunity ability can take an Attack of Opportunity against the archer during that Interact, before the ranged Strike. Thus, the enemy can bypass the protection that Mobile Shot Stance provides to ranged Strikes.
If instead the Interact action is a subordinate action to the Strike, then the GM can argue that though the Attack of Opportunity is taken during the Strike, it is triggered by the Interact action not by the Strike, and therefore the enemy can still take the Attack of Opportunity.
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Where do the rules say that a Reload action has the Manipulate trait? For that matter, where do the rules say that "Reload" is an action? Just point me to the page number(s).
Reload follows the rules for the Interact action, which has the Manipulate trait. This is consistent because each "Reload" feat states you "Interact to reload your weapon," and the general rules state how many Interact actions it might take to reload. In short, if you don't Interact to reload, you don't reload, as there is no other means or activities described in the book to reload your weapon. It doesn't matter if it doesn't take an action to do, or if it takes 3 or more actions to do. And no, we can't look to Strike as reloading your weapon because it doesn't reference reloading in any way, and we can't use Reload 0 as "other means" to reload your weapon because it's not clearly defined one way or the other, using itself to defend itself is a rhetorical tautology.
Again, we can't say things trigger because you don't spend actions on it based on precedence of Kip Up and Release needing to specify you don't trigger reactions, despite being Free Actions to do, or any subordinate actions which occur within a specific activity (such as Quickened Casting) based on the simple nature of those action costs being subsumed into the activity in question. If the idea is "you don't spend an action on it, so it doesn't trigger reactions," then none of the above shouldn't trigger anyway. Granted, Paizo sometimes makes abilities pointlessly redundant (Monk's Flurry of Blows, anyone?), but they are subtly consistent with these rules in particular.
I think you are thinking about this backwards. MSS doesn't stop Ranged Strikes from provoking entirely, it only stops them from provoking by virtue of them being ranged strikes. It doesn't stop any other trigger as far as I can tell.The feat states that "...your ranged Strikes don't trigger Attacks of Opportunity, or other reactions that are triggered by a ranged attack.".
I would like to hear your reasoning for why this feat supposedly does not do what it says it does.
Suppose that to load a bow the archer takes a free-action Interact before the ranged Strike to draw the arrow and nock it to the bowstring. The enemy with Attack of Opportunity ability can take an Attack of Opportunity against the archer during that Interact, before the ranged Strike. Thus, the enemy can bypass the protection that Mobile Shot Stance provides to ranged Strikes.
If instead the Interact action is a subordinate action to the Strike, then the GM can argue that though the Attack of Opportunity is taken during the Strike, it is triggered by the Interact action not by the Strike, and therefore the enemy can still take the Attack of Opportunity.
Now take this process to another level and put a Ranger using Hunted Shot in melee reach of a Marilith or Ettin, or even just in reach of multiple foes. How many AoOs are triggered by two ranged strikes along with two reload 0? Per the counter-argument, that would be 4 separate AoOs triggered for 1 action.
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Now take this process to another level and put a Ranger using Hunted Shot in melee reach of a Marilith or Ettin, or even just in reach of multiple foes. How many AoOs are triggered by two ranged strikes along with two reload 0? Per the counter-argument, that would be 4 separate AoOs triggered for 1 action.I think you are thinking about this backwards. MSS doesn't stop Ranged Strikes from provoking entirely, it only stops them from provoking by virtue of them being ranged strikes. It doesn't stop any other trigger as far as I can tell.The feat states that "...your ranged Strikes don't trigger Attacks of Opportunity, or other reactions that are triggered by a ranged attack.".
I would like to hear your reasoning for why this feat supposedly does not do what it says it does.
Suppose that to load a bow the archer takes a free-action Interact before the ranged Strike to draw the arrow and nock it to the bowstring. The enemy with Attack of Opportunity ability can take an Attack of Opportunity against the archer during that Interact, before the ranged Strike. Thus, the enemy can bypass the protection that Mobile Shot Stance provides to ranged Strikes.
If instead the Interact action is a subordinate action to the Strike, then the GM can argue that though the Attack of Opportunity is taken during the Strike, it is triggered by the Interact action not by the Strike, and therefore the enemy can still take the Attack of Opportunity.
Except you don't trigger any because you aren't spending actions for those reloads and ranged strikes, because the rule everyone keeps spouting is "0 actions spent = 0 reactions." You aren't spending actions for those strikes and reloads, so no reactions can occur.
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Except you don't trigger any because you aren't spending actions for those reloads and ranged strikes, because the rule everyone keeps spouting is "0 actions spent = 0 reactions." You aren't spending actions for those strikes and reloads, so no reactions can occur.
I finally created a thread to debate this point, later than I promised. It's unimaginatively named Subordinate Actions.
In researching the lengthy introduction to that thread (My elder daughter says wall of text is my natural writing style. My daughters are very insightful.) I noticed that Darksol the Painbringer has been the only person who said "0 actions spent = 0 reactions." However, he did not say it until comment #268 on Thursday. Is Darksol the Painbringer trying to state what he thinks other people are arguing?
My own argument that reloading a bow does not trigger Attacks of Opportunity is not because subordinate actions have some kind of immunity, but that the reloading is not a subordinate action. "Reloading" is a verb, and a better verb phrase would be "drawing and nocking an arrow," and a verb is not an Action nor a Trait and therefore does not have any traits built into it.
I tried to summarize the issue that this thread revolves around above. It really boils down to whether or not you believe subordinate actions need to be explicitly mentioned by name, or if the description of an ability or rule should be interpreted according to other rules elements that sound the same.
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Maybe people would like to go back and read the rules about other actions on page 462 of the rule book which tells us:
Sometimes you need to attempt something not already covered by defined actions in the game. When this happens, the rules tell you how many actions you need to spend, as well as any traits your action might have.
Reload is not a defined action in the game. It is a trait of weapons which does exactly what is described in this rule about other actions, it tells you explicitly how many interact actions you must take to reload the weapon.
The debate here is whether requiring 0 interact actions turns Striking with a bow into an activity that has a subordinate interact action, or whether 0 interact actions means there are no interact actions associated with striking with a bow, the same way that striking with a spiked chain or a Kusarigama might involve elaborate movements and gestures with your hands, potentially even releasing one hand from the blade of the weapon for a brief moment to extend its reach, but not in a way that gives the strike a new trait, because we know that with bombs, when a strike action with a weapon requires the addition of the manipulate trait, the developers have the exact language to be able to do so.
Other actions (page 462) explicitly tells us that the rules will tell us when to add actions and traits to other actions.
This means either you believe adding 0 interact actions to a strike with a reload 0 weapon means you believe it is still just a basic strike action (the full action of attacking with a weapon that can be attacked with in one round), or you believe striking with a reload 0 weapon has become an activity that includes a strike action and an interact 0 action.
My reading of “other rules” is that the description of the reload attribute of ranged weapons would need to call out this change either by giving the strike the manipulate trait, like happens for bombs, or by explicitly stating the addition of a subordinate action.
Thinking about this more, it seems very clear to me that none of the other rules about striking with a bow work if reload 0 turns that strike from a single action to an activity with a subordinate interact action. That is just not how actions work and so any other activity that gave you a strike action would be impossible because just like quick draw and every other example activity of combine actions, you cannot combine combined actions within other activities.
If the intention of reload 0 was simply to give the manipulate trait to strike actions made with weapons with this reload entry, then directly adding the manipulate trait to those strikes is both the easiest way to put that into the rules, and the only way to make it play nice with the rest of the game.
That's a p good idea, but gosh if it doesn't sound familiar to me :3Thinking about this more, it seems very clear to me that none of the other rules about striking with a bow work if reload 0 turns that strike from a single action to an activity with a subordinate interact action. That is just not how actions work and so any other activity that gave you a strike action would be impossible because just like quick draw and every other example activity of combine actions, you cannot combine combined actions within other activities.
If the intention of reload 0 was simply to give the manipulate trait to strike actions made with weapons with this reload entry, then directly adding the manipulate trait to those strikes is both the easiest way to put that into the rules, and the only way to make it play nice with the rest of the game.
The issue is, that wasn’t what happened. Maybe because the developers decided it wasn’t necessary?
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Except you don't trigger any because you aren't spending actions for those reloads and ranged strikes, because the rule everyone keeps spouting is "0 actions spent = 0 reactions." You aren't spending actions for those strikes and reloads, so no reactions can occur.I finally created a thread to debate this point, later than I promised. It's unimaginatively named Subordinate Actions.
In researching the lengthy introduction to that thread (My elder daughter says wall of text is my natural writing style. My daughters are very insightful.) I noticed that Darksol the Painbringer has been the only person who said "0 actions spent = 0 reactions." However, he did not say it until comment #268 on Thursday. Is Darksol the Painbringer trying to state what he thinks other people are arguing?
My own argument that reloading a bow does not trigger Attacks of Opportunity is not because subordinate actions have some kind of immunity, but that the reloading is not a subordinate action. "Reloading" is a verb, and a better verb phrase would be "drawing and nocking an arrow," and a verb is not an Action nor a Trait and therefore does not have any traits built into it.
You're really going to say I am strawmanning? The argument has always been that, if you don't spend an action to interact, you don't interact, which means all associated traits don't apply to the activity in question, in this case, striking. Which boils down to "0 actions spent = 0 reactions triggered = 0 actions disrupted." Boiling down the argument to its bare essentials doesn't mean that's not the argument being made. Subordinate action rules don't change this concept because then it would have to imply that reloading is subordinate to the action of striking, and it's not because it doesn't outright say it is one.
The premise of this thread is to ask whether a subordinate action is baked into a strike action taken with the bow. The answer to that question has to be no, because all reload 0 weapons would be incapable of making strikes if the act of firing them combined two actions into an activity. The rules about actions and other actions make it clear that the intended design goal of traits and actions is for subordinate actions to be called out within the activity that adds them and the same for adding traits. We see examples of this being done throughout the game.
I believe it is most fair to Darksol to summarize their position as: if reload 0 does not turn the strike action into an activity, then it it impossible to attack with a bow because the bow can never be reloaded, reloading a weapon requires an interact action, the common language of describing what happens during a reload makes it feel like the intention was for striking with a reload 0 weapon to be an activity with a subordinate interact action and that didn’t get resolved well in the final rules.
I would agree that the best way to resolve all of this, if the goal is to make the strike action resemble an activity with a subordinate interact action, is to just add abit about reload 0 weapons getting the manipulate trait and then either adjusting the language of repeating as a trait or not, depending upon how those are intended to work.
However, it still seems perfectly reasonable to me to not assume a mistake was made in the writing of reload 0, and that the intention of that text is not to add a game breaking subordinate action to the strike action, making it an activity, but instead that language is there to explain how you do not have to add an interact action to the strike action to fire a bow because reloading 0 can modify the strike action by not adding any interact actions to it, but acknowledging that the description of the strike needs to include the idea of nocking an arrow as well as firing it. Reload 0 is a logical place to add language about adding the manipulate trait to strikes with these weapons, but I disagree with Darksol that such language is necessary for firing reload 0 weapons to work. The purpose of the descriptive text within reload 0 could be to make it clear that adding the trait was not necessary. Perhaps the language could have been clearer about this intention (and a FAQ about it would certainly make this clearer), but nothing in the reload 0 description does what we are told the rules will do when we add either traits or subordinate actions to another action.
You're really going to say I am strawmanning?
No, I am saying that so many people have been throwing around so many arguments about a hidden Interact action that I cannot keep track of them all. When you said, "because the rule everyone keeps spouting is '0 actions spent = 0 reactions.'" yet I did not see everyone sprouting that rule, I lost track of whether you were stating your own idea or summarizing someone else's idea.
The argument has always been that, if you don't spend an action to interact, you don't interact, which means all associated traits don't apply to the activity in question, in this case, striking. Which boils down to "0 actions spent = 0 reactions triggered = 0 actions disrupted." Boiling down the argument to its bare essentials doesn't mean that's not the argument being made. Subordinate action rules don't change this concept because then it would have to imply that reloading is subordinate to the action of striking, and it's not because it doesn't outright say it is...
The problem with saying "0 actions spent" is that subordinate actions are not spent, i.e. they are not compared to the budget of three actions per turn. Nevertheless, subordinate actions are taken, therefore, they trigger reactions.
On the other hand, I have been arguing that 0 actions taken means no reactions, because the situation has no actions nor traits to react against. I claim that reloading an arrow into a bow is not an Interact action, therefore, no Interact actions are taken. I claim that Reload 0 weapons are called out as an exception to reloading must take an Interact action. A reload without an Interact has no manipulate trait.
The difference between "spent" and "taken" sometimes matters, so I lose track of whether a person thinks they are synonyms or whether the person has a different concept about subordinate actions.
The premise of this thread is to ask whether a subordinate action is baked into a strike action taken with the bow
Incorrect.
You are right. The premise of this thread is asking if a strike action with a bow gains the manipulate trait, and the discussion that ensued was trying to figure out where, how, and if that trait would get added to the action, with many posts assuming it gets added because they read a strike action with a bow necessarily adding a subordinate action to the strike for the reload. This led to much discussion about why that is or is not possible according to the rules.
You're really going to say I am strawmanning?No, I am saying that so many people have been throwing around so many arguments about a hidden Interact action that I cannot keep track of them all. When you said, "because the rule everyone keeps spouting is '0 actions spent = 0 reactions.'" yet I did not see everyone sprouting that rule, I lost track of whether you were stating your own idea or summarizing someone else's idea.
The argument has always been that, if you don't spend an action to interact, you don't interact, which means all associated traits don't apply to the activity in question, in this case, striking. Which boils down to "0 actions spent = 0 reactions triggered = 0 actions disrupted." Boiling down the argument to its bare essentials doesn't mean that's not the argument being made. Subordinate action rules don't change this concept because then it would have to imply that reloading is subordinate to the action of striking, and it's not because it doesn't outright say it is...The problem with saying "0 actions spent" is that subordinate actions are not spent, i.e. they are not compared to the budget of three actions per turn. Nevertheless, subordinate actions are taken, therefore, they trigger reactions.
On the other hand, I have been arguing that 0 actions taken means no reactions, because the situation has no actions nor traits to react against. I claim that reloading an arrow into a bow is not an Interact action, therefore, no Interact actions are taken. I claim that Reload 0 weapons are called out as an exception to reloading must take an Interact action. A reload without an Interact has no manipulate trait.
The difference between "spent" and "taken" sometimes matters, so I lose track of whether a person thinks they are synonyms or whether the person has a different concept about subordinate actions.
I would be summarizing the ideas of others, just in a more satirical way. I'm sorry that it didn't come across as that initially.
I suppose there is a technical difference between spent and taken, but it really doesn't matter in this case for two simple reasons:
1. If it's based off of actions spent, then it breaks Subordinate Actions, which clearly are designed to not follow this rule. Granted, Reload 0 isn't a Subordinate Action, the idea is that the rules word it in a way that it kind-of is in an attempt to make the weapon function seamlessly compared to any other Reload weapon. Ergo, it's a "Subordinate Action" in the sense that it behaves like one, but isn't labeled one for game balance purposes. (Remember when this edition was supposed to remove all of these "Like X" effects from existing to streamline the game?) Granted, I subscribe to the idea that it's not, and it can't be for other game balance reasons, but this fails to address that the actions being spent are irrelevant to what causes a trigger, making this a meaningless argument.
2. If it's based off of actions taken, then it's off of an action you either can't take (by nature of it being undefined), or won't take (by nature of it having traits involved, which is what is needed for reactions to trigger). Just because you don't take an action to do something doesn't mean the activity involved can't trigger reactions by proxy. This is why Kip Up and Release has specific clauses stating they don't trigger reactions when using them, despite them not costing an action to do (and are labeled Free Actions by proxy). And while the argument of not taking an action means you don't trigger reactions is solid, this comes at an impasse when we consider projectile weapons must be Reloaded before each Strike, and not taking a Reload means you don't Reload your weapon, which means you can't Strike with it.
In either case, the side that says you can't be disrupted by reactions/flat checks loses out one way or the other. If we go one route, it breaks game continuity on an unexpected level, or is essentially a strawman. If we go the other route, they disobey the rules already set forth by the game by disregarding implied traits or stating that you don't reload a reload weapon. In my genuine opinion, based on how the rules are currently written, the most conservative approach really is that bow strikes trigger reactions and can be disrupted, not unlike a strike with a Bomb. And the only other defense that was proposed was "It doesn't have the trait, so it shouldn't trigger." In which case, I call that a major inconsistency with balance and rules expectations.
To compare, Bombs are some of the weakest ranged attacks in the game, only made viable with specific Alchemist builds, and yet they are considered to be a Strike with the Manipulate trait, with the only explanation being that they are "complex." (I would expect it to be an Advanced weapon if that was genuinely the case.) However, they are only a one-handed martial thrown weapon at the end of the day. Compared to a Bow, which expressly is written to require two hands to wield, and comes with a lengthy entry detailing crucially how such a weapon is wielded and reloaded, which requires multiple hands and cites verbatim what is essentially an Interact Action, I call shenanigans in regards to design consistency.
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You are right. The premise of this thread is asking if a strike action with a bow gains the manipulate trait, and the discussion that ensued was trying to figure out where, how, and if that trait would get added to the action, with many posts assuming it gets added because they read a strike action with a bow necessarily adding a subordinate action to the strike for the reload. This led to much discussion about why that is or is not possible according to the rules.
It's not adding a subordinate action, it's applying reload rules to their proper conclusion appropriately without disregarding them for their own convenience.
The rules state that Projectile weapons must always be reloaded prior to each strike. So, it creates a paradigm of Load Weapon -> Strike with Weapon -> Load Weapon -> Strike with Weapon -> Repeat until Encounter Over.
So, we have a "conditional" Strike chain. In order to Strike with it, you must (Re)Load it. Loading requires Interacting, based on every Reloading feat referencing the Interact action. And keep in mind, I'm not even including that you must spend an action to Interact; the feats with Reloading don't cost additional actions to Interact to reload, so it's safe to say that you are reloading without an added action cost tied to them, even if it's because they are Subordinate Actions.
Now, does Reload 0 mean you don't have to reload your weapon? No, it doesn't. It never did at any point in time. Referencing "the rule" for the millionth time this thread:
This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action.
To make it clear, the value and entry only means it doesn't take an action to do, and is instead part of the action to Strike with. This does not read as "You don't reload your weapon" to me, nor should it to anyone else. Except it has been, countless times, to the level of facepalming that is beyond acceptable to put up with. The idea that we don't "reload our weapon" for it being Reload 0 shouldn't have even been considered, and yet it was.
At best, it could be argued that Reload 0 doesn't include manipulate to reload. And heck, I could agree with this for Reload 0 weapons. At least, if we ascribed to the "0 actions spent = 0 reactions trigger/disrupted" theory.
But there's one other facet we are not including in this discussion: 1+ Hand weaponry rules. That's right, the bow's inherent mechanics for loading itself is really what is causing a lot of hooplaw here. Guess what the rules for that are:
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.
So we are told that, to wield a 1+ Hand weapon, you need one hand free to retrieve, nock, and loose ammunition, in addition to holding it in one hand. The Reload 0 rules tell us that this activity is part of the same action as Striking with it. Seems pretty basic.
The problem is that this is practically a 1:1 description of Interact, the same action type used to Reload:
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.
So, we have a clear description telling us that you use two hands for wielding a 1+ hand weapon, one of which is being used to retrieve an object (arrow) stored on your person (in a quiver), not unlike an Interact-based action to Reload your weapon. The idea that we are "reloading but not reloading," or "interacting but not interacting," are both bogus with these two concepts included. The amount of actions spent doesn't matter. The amount of actions taken to perform it doesn't matter. What matters is that the rules describe what you are doing 1:1 with existing rules, without giving an exception to them.
Tell me where it says the reloading of that weapon doesn't include interacting, or that they don't trigger reactions, without citing spending actions (which doesn't matter), subordinate actions (not taking place here, it's clearly an independent forced action chain), or not taking actions (which means you can't strike with your weapon anyway).
With a bow, reloading gets folded into the simple Strike action. That doesn't mean that it doesn't happen, and it also doesn't mean that it requires an Interact action.
When you Strike with any weapon (or without) the game doesn't get into the small details of what is actually happening, things like shifting your weight, angling the blade, aiming for a particular opening, dislodging the weapon back from the spot you hit. Some of these 'subordinate actions' certainly do happen in the game world, but are considered irrelevant from the rules viewpoint, and folded into the simple Strike action.
So yes, an archer has to pick up an arrow and nock it, but it's deemed to be quick and easy enough that it doesn't require an action, nor does it leave an opening for a reaction.
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it's deemed to be quick and easy enough that it doesn't require an action, nor does it leave an opening for a reaction.
[citation needed]
I don’t know who is saying 0 actions = 0 reactions either. Strike actions don’t trigger reactions. A reload 0 weapon strike is an action, not an activity. The rules do not say you add a subordinate interact action to the strike. They say you add 0 interact actions to the strike. Striking with melee weapons also have 0 interact actions.
There is some descriptive text within the description of reload 0 that is leading a lot of people to assume a subordinate interact action is implied, but that would be the most confusing and rule convoluting way to say that strikes with reload 0 weapons add the manipulate trait.
This thread has been going in circles since the exact same positions were given, explained, and even linked since the second page of the thread.
Clearly this is ambiguous if no common understanding has been met, the only thing that's happening for the last 5 pages of posts is circular argumentation and bickering. I have my own stance here and I feel it's grounded in RAW, but clearly, nobody here can authoritatively state they have the "right" answer.
We are either going to get errata on the issue to clarify this, or it's going to continue to be a GM call as it is now.
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Specifically:
Reload is an attribute of ranged weapons, it is not an action or an activity. The grouping of actions to reload a weapon is a prime example of "Other actions" on page 462.
Sometimes you need to attempt something not already covered by defined actions in the game. When this happens, the rules tell you how many actions you need to spend, as well as any traits your action might have. For example, a spell that lets you switch targets might say you can do so “by spending a single action, which has the concentrate trait.” Game masters can also use this approach when a character tries to do something that isn't covered in the rules.
With weapons with a reload value of 1 or more, it is pretty clear how to handle this. Nobody is arguing that an activity cannot only take one action, or that it magically does not take on the traits of the actions it combines. I think we maybe should all drop the language of "subordinate action" because that is not actually a rules term. There are just actions and activities.
Actions can be modified by the rules to do different things and get new traits.
Activities can be combinations of actions into activities that require more or less actions than those actions might take to complete on their own.
Activities cannot be substituted for actions unless the rules explicitly say so.
Taking the strike action and turning it into the activity combining an interact action with the strike action would make it not a strike action any more. It would make it some kind of unnamed activity. This does wreck havoc with the rules and creates a lot of needlessly complicated scenarios for people to try logic their way through, and would have been incredibly easy to avoid by using the terminology and rules written into the game.
Taking the descriptive text as modifying the descriptive text of the strike action with a bow, without assuming it changes the strike into an activity or adds any traits (because the game tells us that would be need to be explicitly stated in the rules) actually lets the whole game mechanics work seamlessly. The issue is that it creates some imaginative disconnect with some players who think the strike action cannot possibly include any other bodily movements than what they think of as "firing a bow."
I don't think that this is an unreasonable reason to want to question the intention of the rules here and have a conversation about this. Developer feedback would be wonderful, but it is possible that this is a debate that is happening in house too, and that there is not a general consensus on what the intention is...or it could be too far down the list of priorities to try to address.
My suggestion for players is, if you feel like firing a reload 0 weapon needs to include the manipulate trait, do it by adding the trait to the strike action for reload 0 weapons and not by trying to mentally gymnasticize your way through the mine field of turning the strike action into an activity. Way too many moving parts become a head ache if you try to do this, especially because it becomes an unnamed activity with no description of order, so you end up having to make up the whole process for your table, and as we have seen, even people who want to go this route, don't have a shared vision of how to do it.
This is because the rules as written do not play nice with creating new unnamed activities and shunt it immediately into GM fiat.
Another possibility is that this situation is not as complicated as all of that, and striking with a bow is just a single action that does not have the manipulate trait, and the text in reload 0 is there to help you visualize how this is still just 1 strike action.
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I don’t know who is saying 0 actions = 0 reactions either. Strike actions don’t trigger reactions. A reload 0 weapon strike is an action, not an activity. The rules do not say you add a subordinate interact action to the strike. They say you add 0 interact actions to the strike. Striking with melee weapons also have 0 interact actions.
There is some descriptive text within the description of reload 0 that is leading a lot of people to assume a subordinate interact action is implied, but that would be the most confusing and rule convoluting way to say that strikes with reload 0 weapons add the manipulate trait.
I just quoted somebody who just said that it doesn't take an action to reload, nor does it trigger a reaction. This means 0 actions = 0 reactions/disruptions. It's a paraphrase, not a quote. I genuinely think people on your side purposefully do not read what others on their side say, and disregard paraphrasing, to conveniently point out that "nobody said this," when it is further from the truth.
Again, reload 0 doesn't mean you don't reload your weapon, nor is Striking with a Reload 0 weapon an activity, it's the basic rules of projectile weapons stating you must Reload before each Strike. You spend 0 actions to Reload, then you Strike. Very simple stuff. The issue comes from Reload 0 having language tying the Reload to the Strike, which is wholly unnecessary by comparison to any other Reload weapon in the game that simply doesnt work that way.
And if the complaint is "Bows trigger just as many times as Crossbows, so it's not actually superior," I call shenanigans when the benefit to Bows is the reduced action cost, better ability support, and comfortable range.
If reload 0 said that the interaction required to load this weapon became a free action, then that would 100% back up what you are arguing Darksol, and might be the way to errata it if it is important for there to be a separate interact action happening in the process of firing bows.
I am not sure free actions can interrupt activities though, so that might make feats that have you take two strikes with a bow not work if that free action can’t happen within the activity.
I do not believe there are 0 action actions not contained within an activity that are not free actions or reactions. If that is the position you are arguing thinks 0 actions = 0 reactions, then the problem here is that “0actions” is a made up term. Actions either take actions, are free actions or reactions, or are part of an activity. I stopped using the word subordinate action because it is not a game term and didn’t seem valuable to this conversation. I would suggest we drop 0 action actions as a term as well.
An action that takes no actions to perform is a free action by itself, or part of an activity if it is combined into other actions.
PF2 can add the manipulate trait to a single action if that action now has the complex hand gestures such an action should require, it cannot add actions to other actions without making those actions an activity.
but what about grabbed?
Grabbed doesn't prevent you from making a Strike, it doesn't prevent you from reaching for your arrow either.
it's deemed to be quick and easy enough that it doesn't require an action, nor does it leave an opening for a reaction.[citation needed]
It's absorbed by the Strike action, which doesn't have Manipulate. In-game the reloading happens, but it isn't relevant rules-wise; the quick and easy part is my fluff.
There is some descriptive text within the description of reload 0 that is leading a lot of people to assume a subordinate interact action is implied, but that would be the most confusing and rule convoluting way to say that strikes with reload 0 weapons add the manipulate trait.I think the logic they were going for is that they didn't want free action reload, but they still wanted bows to fire multiple times around. So they came up with the weird recoil rules to fit in there.
In any case I agree that Strike doesn't have the manipulate trait (even if you do a free interact as a subordinate action).
Wy does it have to be an Interact? You can do a lot of stuff with your gear that isn't an Interact, why shouldn't you be able to reload a bow?
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but what about grabbed?Grabbed doesn't prevent you from making a Strike, it doesn't prevent you from reaching for your arrow either.
It's absorbed by the Strike action, which doesn't have Manipulate. In-game the reloading happens, but it isn't relevant rules-wise; the quick and easy part is my fluff.it's deemed to be quick and easy enough that it doesn't require an action, nor does it leave an opening for a reaction.[citation needed]
Ah, yes, the "Strike doesn't have manipulate" argument. Classic, really. The problem is that the Strike action does nothing to reload your weapon, and requires disregarding reload rules for it to make sense. Striking does not reload your weapon, and Reload 0 rules don't change this.
Also, fluff is an offensive term, stop using it.