How does Solarian's Eclipse Defence work?

[Solly Noobie]

The wording of the Solarian revelation: Eclipse Defence seems ambiguous, implying that the attack roll made will cause damage to the attacker. My GM ruled that it's not true and I agree with him --- but the wording of this revelation still bugs me. Is it really true that it is not a counterattack and only a roll to see if the Solarian takes half damage?

[BigNorseWolf]

It's really only a counter attack roll to do no damage. It's a sort of watered down version of a swashbucklers parry.

You can cause your melee weapon to exert a gravitational pull, drawing strikes to meet it. If a creature hits you or a creature adjacent to you with a melee attack and you’re wielding a melee weapon, you can make a melee attack roll against the attacking creature as a reaction. If your attack exceeds the attacking creature’s KAC + 8, you don’t deal damage ; instead, the target’s attack deals only half damage.
When you are attuned or fully attuned (BNW note, this means "attuned graviton per the faq clarification) , you gain a +4 bonus to your attack roll to use this revelation.

If your attack roll is high enough then You parry the blow. A parry doesn't deal damage. If your attack roll isn't high enough, nothing happens.

Reading if x then y as not x therefore not y is sometimes conversationally implied, but not technically correct.

If you are a ski instructor, then you have a job.
You are not a ski instructor.
Therefore, you have no job

It's still really good though, in starfinder it is VERy hard to meatshield for your other melee, being able to reduce their damage by half is a pretty big deal

[Solly Noobie]

So follow-up questions:

1. A lot of stellar revelations can be used if attuned to either graviton and photon mode unless it specifically states it has to be in one of the two modes to use specific abilities for a particular revelation. So how is this revelation different from those ones?

[Solly Noobie]

Nevermind, found the FAQ related to your response: https://paizo.com/starfinder/faq

[Darg727]

I don't think it removes your attack from the start. The way it is written is that you make an attack roll and only if the attack exceeds KAC+8 does it not deal damage. So E/KAC to KAC+8 you hit the creature and KAC+9 or more you don't deal damage.

[HammerJack]

Darg727 wrote:

I don't think it removes your attack from the start. The way it is written is that you make an attack roll and only if the attack exceeds KAC+8 does it not deal damage. So E/KAC to KAC+8 you hit the creature and KAC+9 or more you don't deal damage.

No, the revelation has you make an attack roll. It doesn't say you make an attack. This is just like how all combat maneuvers make an attack roll, but don't make a normal attack to deal damage. Nothing says to remove the damage, because there was never any damage to remove.

[Darg727]

HammerJack wrote:

No, the revelation has you make an attack roll. It doesn't say you make an attack. This is just like how all combat maneuvers make an attack roll, but don't make a normal attack to deal damage. Nothing says to remove the damage, because there was never any damage to remove.

"If your attack exceeds the attacking creature’s KAC + 8, you don’t deal damage"

Yes it does. This is different from combat maneuvers which specify "make a melee attack roll against the opponent’s KAC + 8."

CRB wrote:

An attack roll represents your attempt to hit your opponent in melee or from range on your turn in a round. When you make an attack roll, you roll a d20 and add your attack bonus (see Ranged Attacks and Melee Attacks below, as well as the Basic Attack and Damage Bonuses sidebar on page 241). Various other bonuses can apply from class features, feats, and so on. If your result equals or exceeds the target’s Armor Class, you hit and deal damage

By default, a successful attack roll deals damage. A combat maneuver only does something at KAC+8. Eclipse defense does not have you make an attack roll against KAC+8. It says you make an attack roll, by default against the target's normal E/KAC, and if you exceed KAC+8 (combat maneuvers only have to exceed KAC+7) do you not deal damage.

[Xenocrat]

No, a succesful attack roll does not deal damage as a default.

If it's an attack, it does damage.

If it's a spell, it does the spell effect.

If it's a combat manuever, it does the manuever effects.

CRB page 240: "An attack roll represents your attempt to hit your opponent in melee or from range on your turn in a round."

What it takes to hit, and what effect it has if you succeed, depends on what type of attack roll you are making.

Here you're making a special one with the threshold of success and effects listed in the ability that grants the attack roll.

[BigNorseWolf]

Darg727 wrote:

By default, a successful attack roll deals damage.

You are specifically making an attack roll against KAC +8 not against KAC.

If you hit the KAC +8 with this maneuver, it tells you that you don’t deal damage

If your attack surpasses KAC but is lower KAC +8 then you've completely missed. A miss by default does no damage.

[Darg727]

Xenocrat wrote:

No, a succesful attack roll does not deal damage as a default.

CRB page 240: "An attack roll represents your attempt to hit your opponent in melee or from range on your turn in a round."

If you finish the paragraph, it does tell you that "If your result equals or exceeds the target’s Armor Class, you hit and deal damage." Combat maneuvers provide an exception in how they work: "make a melee attack roll against the opponent’s KAC + 8. The effects of success vary depending on the maneuver, as described below." You roll against KAC+8 and then on a success you do what it says. As I will mention below this does not happen. The book relies on explicit exceptions to change how this works.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

You are specifically making an attack roll against KAC +8 not against KAC.

Except the ability contradicts this with how it is written.

Eclipse Defense wrote:

you can make a melee attack roll against the attacking creature as a reaction.

It says nothing about making an attack roll against KAC+8. In fact with the way the next sentence is written, "If your attack exceeds the attacking creature’s KAC + 8," it would actually be against KAC+9. An attack roll only has to match AC, not exceed it, to hit.

[BigNorseWolf]

Darg727 wrote:

Except the ability contradicts this with how it is written.

Eclipse Defense wrote:

you can make a melee attack roll against the attacking creature as a reaction.

It says nothing about making an attack roll against KAC+8.

If your attack exceeds the attacking creature’s KAC + 8, you don’t deal damage ; instead, the target’s attack deals only half damage. (which yes, is very weird for an attack roll in that you have to exceed not meet the DC it sets)

Your attack and attack roll are the same thing. Your attack doesn't have a value otherwise

What you're doing reading it as a damaging option is a fallacy called denying the antecedent.

If the inns sign reads

"No green dragons allowed"

Then that logically means red dragons are allowed right? Nope. The status of red dragons is technically unknown. Conversationally, the allowance is implied because why else would you be that specific? But technically you don't know if they're allowed or not.

If you surpass the KAC +8 you deal no damage but only take half damage from the strike

If you do not surpass the KAC +8 you... you cannot just reverse the results of everything in the if statement and say therefore you don't do damage.

The argument for it being a hit is really weak and the argument for no damage is very very good.

Big picture: You can cause your melee weapon to exert a gravitational pull, drawing strikes to meet it <--- that s not going to hurt anyone using a weapon. People try to dismiss fluff all the time , it very rarely works. The ability is listed as a parry and that helps you resolve ambiguities if you can read something two ways.

Nothing is listed as the results of a failure vs kac +8, therefore the result is nothing.

[Darg727]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

If you do not surpass the KAC +8 you... you cannot just reverse the results of everything in the if statement and say therefore you don't do damage.

How is it reversing the results when it is the natural progression of reading the ability...

You make a melee attack roll. The rules say you do damage if you hit. The ability only provides an exception to this when you hit KAC+9 or more. You can say the argument is weak, but the rules say otherwise.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Nothing is listed as the results of a failure vs kac +8, therefore the result is nothing.

Read the rules for rolling an attack. It flat out says you do damage. As it's a melee attack the rules tell you what to do. Gravity surge doesn't tell you what a failure entails. It just references other rules exactly like Eclipse Defense.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Big picture: You can cause your melee weapon to exert a gravitational pull, drawing strikes to meet it <--- that s not going to hurt anyone using a weapon. People try to dismiss fluff all the time , it very rarely works. The ability is listed as a parry and that helps you resolve ambiguities if you can read something two ways.

Or you attack with your weapon and if the ability fails to pull the weapon to your weapon you are still swinging the weapon which has momentum to hit the attacker. It's not dismissing fluff to interpret the ability this way. Grapple has a two tier approach, it's not impossible for other things to have it as well.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

What you're doing reading it as a damaging option is a fallacy called denying the antecedent.

If the inns sign reads

"No green dragons allowed"

Then that logically means red dragons are allowed right? Nope. The status of red dragons is technically unknown. Conversationally, the allowance is implied because why else would you be that specific? But technically you don't know if they're allowed or not.

Yours is the fallacy. My reasoning is based on rules written in the CRB and the contextual consistency of terms referencing those rules. To make your fallacy argument more accurate to what I am doing, I'm using sources to prove that red and other colored dragons exist to say that red dragons exist.

If the intention is for it to work as you say, the ability could have so easily been written more simply and clearly without wasting words.

[BigNorseWolf]

Darg727 wrote:

How is it reversing the results when it is the natural progression of reading the ability...

If you DO Exceed KAC +8 you DO NOT deal damage

Which you are reading as

If you DO NOT Exceed KAC +8 then you DO deal damage

Quote:

You make a melee attack roll. The rules say you do damage if you hit. The ability only provides an exception to this when you hit KAC+9 or more. You can say the argument is weak, but the rules say otherwise.

The rules don't say that any time you make an attack roll you deal damage. Just because you use that mechanism when you make an attack does not mean that any time you use that mechanism you're making an attack.

Difficulty Class (DC)
Source Starfinder Core Rulebook pg. 8
This is the target number a creature must meet or exceed when attempting a check in order to accomplish a given task.

Abilities are exceptions to the rules. What the special ability says is -instead of the normal rules of attack AC and Deal Damage use these rules - . The normal rule is that if you fail to hit a difficulty class you fail and nothing happens.

Combat maneuvers use the same language

Combat Maneuver

As a standard action, you can attempt one of the following combat maneuvers. For each maneuver, choose an opponent within your reach (including your weapon’s reach, if applicable) and then make a melee attack roll against the opponent’s KAC + 8. The effects of success vary depending on the maneuver, as described below.

Combat maneuvers don't have a clause where if you miss KAC +8 but exceed KAC then you fail at the maneuver but deal damage anyway.. otherwise there's no downside to trying the maneuvers.

Quote:

Grapple has a two tier approach, it's not impossible for other things to have it as well.

Grapple lists a two tiered approach.

Actually, you're proposing grapple has a three tiered approach. Grapple uses the same language for an attack roll, so what you're saying is that

Lower than KAC= miss
Kac to KAC +7= regular melee hit
KAC +8= grapple
KAC+13= pin/swallow your head.

It's not impossible,

Quote:

Yours is the fallacy.

Which one? There's a difference between something being wrong and an error in logic called a fallacy.

Quote:

My reasoning is based on rules written in the CRB and the contextual consistency of terms referencing those rules.

Assuming that the rules are perfectly consistent would be an error. The rules are written as Normally x but most special abilities are written as exceptions to the rules.

This ability, much like combat maneuvers, replaces the entire rule for attacking and damage.

Quote:

To make your fallacy argument more accurate to what I am doing, I'm using sources to prove that red and other colored dragons exist to say that red dragons exist.

No. For that analogy to work I'd have to be arguing that attack rolls that deal damage don't exist. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm saying they're not applicable in this very specific circumstance.

Quote:

If the intention is for it to work as you say, the ability could have so easily been written more simply and clearly without wasting words.

I'd be interested to see you take a whack at it. It's not as easy as people think.

Lots of things mess with the wording. Style, readability, they've even edited words out so they could fit a picture on the same page. That one looks like they copy pasted the combat maneuver wording for consistency, but for some reason you're still reading it differently than the combat maneuvers.

[Squiggit]

BNW is clearly in the right here. Nothing within the text of Eclipse Defense says or implies you treat it as a normal attack or connects it to the normal attack rules.

[The Artificer]

Squiggit wrote:

BNW is clearly in the right here. Nothing within the text of Eclipse Defense says or implies you treat it as a normal attack or connects it to the normal attack rules.

I also agree with this.

[Darg727]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

The rules don't say that any time you make an attack roll you deal damage.

CRB, pg240 wrote:

An attack roll represents your attempt to hit your opponent in melee or from range on your turn in a round. When you make an attack roll, you roll a d20 and add your attack bonus (see Ranged Attacks and Melee Attacks below, as well as the Basic Attack and Damage Bonuses sidebar on page 241). Various other bonuses can apply from class features, feats, and so on. If your result equals or exceeds the target’s Armor Class, you hit and deal damage.

Are you saying this quote from the CRB does not exist? Are you saying explicit exceptions to rules cannot exist within the rules?

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Just because you use that mechanism when you make an attack does not mean that any time you use that mechanism you're making an attack.

What? If it says you are making an attack, you make an attack. Are you maybe referring to spells and casting spells as a spell-like ability in the "Magic and Spells" chapter of the CRB? If so, the book doesn't say that ALL supernatural abilities function like spells. It only uses the words "many of which."

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Difficulty Class (DC)

Source Starfinder Core Rulebook pg. 8
This is the target number a creature must meet or exceed when attempting a check in order to accomplish a given task.

Abilities are exceptions to the rules. What the special ability says is -instead of the normal rules of attack AC and Deal Damage use these rules - . The normal rule is that if you fail to hit a difficulty class you fail and nothing happens.

Please provide rules citation to prove what you just said. I've been through the book several times, but might have missed it.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Combat maneuvers use the same language

Combat Maneuver

As a standard action, you can attempt one of the following combat maneuvers. For each maneuver, choose an opponent within your reach (including your weapon’s reach, if applicable) and then make a melee attack roll against the opponent’s KAC + 8. The effects of success vary depending on the maneuver, as described below.

Combat maneuvers don't have a clause where if you miss KAC +8 but exceed KAC then you fail at the maneuver but deal damage anyway.. otherwise there's no downside to trying the maneuvers.

They absolutely do not use the same language. If they did it would say to make a melee attack roll against the opponent and if you exceed KAC+7 do the effect described. Instead it says to "make a melee attack roll against the opponent’s KAC + 8." Very different language. The Eclipse defense does not tell you to roll against KAC+9. It just tells you to roll against the attacking creature.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Actually, you're proposing grapple has a three tiered approach. Grapple uses the same language for an attack roll, so what you're saying is that

Lower than KAC= miss
Kac to KAC +7= regular melee hit
KAC +8= grapple
KAC+13= pin/swallow your head.

I already wrote this above, but because you missed it:

Quote:

Combat maneuvers provide an exception in how they work: "make a melee attack roll against the opponent’s KAC + 8. The effects of success vary depending on the maneuver, as described below." You roll against KAC+8 and then on a success you do what it says.

Because you are rolling against KAC+8, it's impossible for your "Kac to KAC +7= regular melee hit" to exist. Eclipse Defense does not tell you to roll against the target's KAC+9, just the target itself. In any other situation this would default to the target's E/KAC. I don't see why this would be any different.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

No. For that analogy to work I'd have to be arguing that attack rolls that deal damage don't exist. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm saying they're not applicable in this very specific circumstance.

Yet, you haven't really provided any tangible evidence of what you are saying.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

I'd be interested to see you take a whack at it. It's not as easy as people think.

"You can cause your melee weapon to exert a gravitational pull, drawing strikes to meet it. If a creature hits you or a creature adjacent to you with a melee attack and you’re wielding a melee weapon, you can make a melee attack roll against the attacking creature's KAC + 9 as a reaction. If you succeed, the target’s attack deals only half damage."

Simple, easy, less words and characters, and mimics the format of a combat maneuver.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

That one looks like they copy pasted the combat maneuver wording for consistency, but for some reason you're still reading it differently than the combat maneuvers.

....

Combat Maneuver wrote:

make a melee attack roll against the opponent’s KAC + 8. The effects of success vary depending on the maneuver, as described below.

Eclipse Defense wrote:

make a melee attack roll against the attacking creature as a reaction. If your attack exceeds the attacking creature’s KAC + 8, you don’t deal damage; instead, the target’s attack deals only half damage.

I...don't understand how one can see that as copy and pasting. They don't even work mechanically the same way; let alone needs to have said that the attack doesn't deal damage on a success.

[BigNorseWolf]

Darg727 wrote:

Eclipse Defense does not tell you to roll against the target's KAC+9, just the target itself. In any other situation this would default to the target's E/KAC. I don't see why this would be any different

Ok, I think i found the problem.

Eclipse defense has to be made as a reaction (wouldn't do much as a standard move or swift action)

The wording would be clearer if you were swinging at a number.

But it would be really really weird to take a reaction against a static number out of the game, reactions are taken in response to an observable stimulus in game.

So the wording was changed slightly.

I don't know why you think that wording MUST mean that it does damage without ever spelling it out. Changing some but not all of the qualities nested in an attack roll is NOT logic, or math, it's a subjective call. Someone not giving you proof for a subjective process is a given. Claiming that evidence less than proof is no evidence is completely disingenuous.

If you miss a DC nothing happens is the default in the game. If you try to hack a computer and dont then obviously.. you don't hack the computer. If you try to engineer a door open and don't well then the door doesn't open. If you try to hit someone and miss then you missed.
You tried to hit someones KAC+8 (or +9 cause i think that part was an error) and you missed that DC then you missed and nothing happens. Sometimes things happen when you miss, but those need to be spelled out. Otherwise nothing listed nothing happens.

[Milo v3]

Regardless of the RAW, the intent is pretty blatant.

[Xenocrat]

"I could do this somewhat lame effect if I hit KAC+8, or this much better effect if I hit KAC. I, an intelligent person, wonder whether this is what Paizo intended."

[Darg727]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Darg727 wrote:

Eclipse Defense does not tell you to roll against the target's KAC+9, just the target itself. In any other situation this would default to the target's E/KAC. I don't see why this would be any different

Ok, I think i found the problem.

Eclipse defense has to be made as a reaction (wouldn't do much as a standard move or swift action)

The wording would be clearer if you were swinging at a number.

But it would be really really weird to take a reaction against a static number out of the game, reactions are taken in response to an observable stimulus in game.

So the wording was changed slightly.

I don't know why you think that wording MUST mean that it does damage without ever spelling it out. Changing some but not all of the qualities nested in an attack roll is NOT logic, or math, it's a subjective call. Someone not giving you proof for a subjective process is a given. Claiming that evidence less than proof is no evidence is completely disingenuous.

If you miss a DC nothing happens is the default in the game. If you try to hack a computer and dont then obviously.. you don't hack the computer. If you try to engineer a door open and don't well then the door doesn't open. If you try to hit someone and miss then you missed.
You tried to hit someones KAC+8 (or +9 cause i think that part was an error) and you missed that DC then you missed and nothing happens. Sometimes things happen when you miss, but those need to be spelled out. Otherwise nothing listed nothing happens.

The rules are there to tell you how things work. If the rules say one thing and you claim another, how is it disingenuous to ask for evidence of your claim? Calling rules subjective literally means you can just throw away your rulebook.

This is an attack roll, DCs do not apply. The ability has you make an attack roll against AC, not KAC+9. If you hit someones AC, by default you do damage as the rules say. The ability then provides an exception at rolling KAC+9 or higher by removing your damage and reducing the damage of the attackers hit.

Xenocrat wrote:

"I could do this somewhat lame effect if I hit KAC+8, or this much better effect if I hit KAC. I, an intelligent person, wonder whether this is what Paizo intended."

Right, I can use a lame full-round action to charge or I can use this much better standard action to do a superior charge or even have the option to bull rush AND do damage.

So yes, I as an intelligent person can definitely see Paizo intending it to be an attack or damage reduction by the roll of the dice. It is definitely not of a power level that outstrips all other revelations one can choose.

[BigNorseWolf]

Darg727 wrote:

The rules are there to tell you how things work. If the rules say one thing and you claim another, how is it disingenuous to ask for evidence of your claim?

The rules do not say one thing and I'm saying another. you are INTERPRETING the rules one way and I am interpreting them another.

I am not calling you disingenuous for ASKING for evidence, I am calling you disingenuous in dismissing the evidence. You are insisting your side has platonic evidence that it is right and it does not.

As far as I can tell your f(x) is to add the rules together. To me they look far more like a replacement.

Taking the stance that I ,everyone else, and really everyone you bring this up with is going to reach the same conclussion, aren't reading the rules and cheating just isn't going to fly.

Quote:

Calling rules subjective literally means you can just throw away your rulebook.

No. It means you need to read evidence for and against a position, but if you assume that there is zero subjetivity in a system that requires interpretation you are going to misread that rulebook badly

Quote:

The ability has you make an attack roll against AC, not KAC+9.

This is an argument, not a fact. I think it's a pretty bad one. You are assuming that the ability keeps more of the nested rules of the attack than it does. The ability replaces the entirety of how an attack works: its against kac +8/9 not KAC and it parries half the damage on an attack instead of damaging them. BOTH qualities have been replaced by the special ability.

[Leon Aquilla]

I read the rule just now and I don't see how anyone could reasonably construe it to do anything except parry/reduce damage.

[BigNorseWolf]

Leon Aquilla wrote:

I read the rule just now and I don't see how anyone could reasonably construe it to do anything except parry/reduce damage.

I believe its because "make an attack roll" and the KAC+8 are separated by a period.

(Make an attack Roll) If the result is greater than KAC+8 deal no damage and parry the blow for half damage

Which is being parsed as

Make an attack roll = Roll VS KAC and deal damage if you meet or exceed the KAC

Roll VS KAC and deal damage if you meet or exceed the KAC. If you exceed the KAC by 8 parry the blow for half damage but deal no damage.