Stone Shield and Elemental Weapon

[Aidyn Swain]

I'm unclear on if these two can be used together. I'm trying a multiclass with fighter and so I have AoO. Can I have both my shield up and be wielding my elemental weapon to make AoO? The wording seems a bit unclear.

Elemental Weapon says: "The weapon is still the gathered element and can be used for impulses, is expended for overflow impulses, and so on."

Stone Shield says: "You raise a floating shield of stone, orbiting around you, protecting you from harm and imbuing you with great resiliency. You Raise a Shield, turning your gathered element into the shield and gaining a +2 circumstance bonus to AC until the start of your next turn. (You can still use this shield for anything requiring a gathered element."

I think what is unclear is what it means by "turning your gathered element into the shield." How limited is your gathered element? Can it only be in one form at a time, or can I wield the weapon in one hand as my gathered element and have a piece of it break off and circle me as a stone shield.

My thoughts as a GM is I'm inclined to allow this. As I feel like the intent is to let the weapon be your gathered element and still let you make impulses as normal unimpeded with the limitation of only the matching ranged or melee blasts. Also aside from AoO I don't see much use for the Elemental weapon as it is so restricted and this seems like a match made in heaven for the tank build. I'd like to hear other thought

[Dubious Scholar]

As written, I don't think they work together. You're stuck just making normal earth elemental blasts.

But Elemental Weapon is so restricted anyways that I don't see a whole lot of use for it outside of air's low damage. (Grab a gun if your GM allows reloaded on spawn, and then break them when you have a slashing weapon that applies the lesser of bludgeoning or piercing resist)

[Nefreet]

I don't even think you can do an Elemental Blast as an AoO, since the Strike itself is subordinate. You'd have to use the Elemental Weapon stats.

And once you've Gathered an Element for either your Sword or Shield, you'd have to Gather again to create the other, which would collapse the first one.

[Unicore]

It is something that is not clear in the rules currently. Both Shield and weapon say that you can use the gathered element for other things. The weapon is not an impulse, but if you had the weapon out first, you would still be able to use the gathered element to raise a shield, as that is an impulse. The part that is confusing is whether the shield and the weapon are the same item in the same hand.

Hopefully this will be something that gets looked at in post-playtest revision.

As a GM, I am allowing both because I believe that is the intention. I haven't had anyone use it though.

[Ryuujin-sama]

The rules seem pretty clear that they are mutually exclusive as they both turn your Gathered Element into either a Weapon or Shield and go away if you lose your Gathered Element for some reason.

Then again maybe that isn't what they meant and the wording is poor or they didn't think about this interaction.

After all my interpretation of Stoke Element is different from a lot of people here, which means the more common interpretation makes Stoke Element better than I viewed it, though still of questionable worth.

[Errenor]

Ryuujin-sama wrote:

The rules seem pretty clear that they are mutually exclusive as they both turn your Gathered Element into either a Weapon or Shield

This is actually not written anywhere that a state of the element is exclusive. As far as I've seen. You also can have things like auras, wings, 5-ft cubes and other things at the same time.

[Ryuujin-sama]

Do any of those other things say they are your Gathered Element transformed into it and goes away if you lose your Gathered Element? I do not believe so.

[Unicore]

I think everyone agrees the shield and weapon would go away when you lose your gathered element (like when you block) and that would be annoying, but if you haven't used the block reaction, you still have met the conditions of elemental weapon.

There is a clear cognitive disconnect between the element being the weapon and the floating shield, but that is not something specified in the rules.

I understand why some GMs would rule that both require the gathered element to assume the form of either the weapon or the shield, but I don't see the rules requiring it.

If I gathered element into a weapon, Elemental weapon tells me the weapon is still the gathered element and can be used for impulses. The wording very much makes it sound like there is no additional restriction on what I can do with it, only that it is expended for overflow impulses.

Really, if any of the feats or abilities are going to about manipulating the gathered element into a restricted state that interferes with your ability to use that element with other feats, that needs to be stated directly in the final rules, not left to GM arbitration.

More than anything about the actual wording, having elemental weapon be restricted to using one hand, and not work at all with a feat to give you a shield is the bigger cognitive misstep for me. It feels like the intention should be for both to be possible. There is no possible way it is a balance issue for a Kineticist to have both. And even with that option available to my players, none of them chose it. Nor did I chose it. Nore did the other players with whom I have played.

[Errenor]

Unicore wrote:

There is a clear cognitive disconnect between the element being the weapon and the floating shield, but that is not something specified in the rules.

I don't see it. They are a magical constructs of a magical substance. And the rules don't exclude the element being both these things at once as you yourself say.

I agree with all the other points in your post.