The mantle of magma/frozen heart spells each have an option that deals damage based on a nebulous condition of "touch"
Heart of Ice: Your body temperature plummets to blistering cold. Any creature that touches you, or that hits you with a melee unarmed attack or non-reach melee weapon attack, takes 2d6 cold damage.
Heart of Fire: Your body's temperature becomes so hot that any creature that touches you, or that hits you with a melee unarmed attack or non-reach melee weapon attack, takes 2d6 fire damage.
I want this to work on a grapple (as long as it's a free hand grapple or using a weapon like fangwire, obviously this shouldn't work with a reach gill hook grapple), but a grapple is a lasting effect.
An easy ruling since grapple needs to be maintained would be to apply the damage once every grapple check you make. But it doesn't feel right to apply it as little as once a turn when you're keeping and opponent grabbed and they would take the same damage from hitting you with a held sword.More satisfying: apply it 3 times a round (assuming the opponent stays grabbed). This makes sense but I have no idea when to apply the additional procs and it can't just be all at once when you grapple. Maybe as a bonus when you successfully maintain after a full round?
One last idea is that we don't bother with time running and every action the grappler or the grapplee takes while the grapple is going procs the damage. This is simple to do and doesn't negate the longer contact even if the opponent manages to escape as their first action but it's also a LOT more potential procs than every other options and might not be intended.
As a tangent question: do you think using your own unarmed attack while under the effects of heart of fire should apply the touch damage? The spells also have options that give you better unarmed strikes but they specifically give you the same damage as the touch option ton top of other effects.
Flaming Sphere also only does its damage once per turn to a creature that is sharing its space. No matter how many times you sustain the spell during a round.
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You’re not going to like this, but the spell lists it’s specific methods of damage and they all require the action of the opponent to make the contact in order to receive damage. The caster making contact does nothing. The opponent has to actively touch or use an unarmed against the caster for the damage to trigger. The caster initiating physical contact trying cause the spell to do damage won’t work. The spell doesn’t say when contact is made but when the creature touches or makes unarmed attacks against the caster specifically as to how damage is dealt.
Sorry :(
Good call for flaming sphere, I'll argue to my GM that grapple maintain is similar to a spell sustain.
I don't think touch is a defined action or trait in the rules. It says touches you or hits you with a melee unarmed attack or non-reach melee weapon attack. So by the common english meaning of touch, if I'm touching them, they're touching me.
There's an argument for touch being there for touch spells maybe but that would be a vague wording next to two specific wordings.
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I don't think touch is a defined action or trait in the rules. It says touches you or hits you with a melee unarmed attack or non-reach melee weapon attack. So by the common english meaning of touch, if I'm touching them, they're touching me.
There's an argument for touch being there for touch spells maybe but that would be a vague wording next to two specific wordings.
You are making a case for pragmatism, but not for game mechanics. If the caster could touch the opponent and cause the damage, it would say that in the description via something to the effect “your unarmed attacks now add fire/cold damage…”, but it doesn’t. Also, if it was designed to do damage any time unarmed contact was made, it would say that as opposed to the description it gives.
In what situations would the opponent touch the caster then?
We're excluding attacks because those are explicitly called out with precise words.
That leaves us with only touch spells as the opponent's maneuvers are covered by the attacks. Again if that's the only case "touches you" is supposed to cover, it could have called out touch spells in detail.
A problem with that interpretation is the effect also applies to "any creature that touches you", including friendlies.
If a friend wants to 1 action heal me they take damage, okay. But if I reach out to touch them and then they cast the spell, are they not affected?
Is a familiar fine hanging on my shoulder as long as I picked him up and put him there?
I think being too tight on the rules only makes the situation muddier here.
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Touch would include attempts to grapple, shove, trip, and even disarm as long as it was done with a hand or equivalent appendage. A friendly would get hurt by touching the caster with a spell as would a familiar riding due to it actively touching the affected caster. Any creature does mean any.
By the way, athletics checks are not unarmed attacks. They are checks that have the attack trait for purposes of MAP, but are explicitly not called out as attacks for things like True Strike.
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A friendly would get hurt by touching the caster with a spell as would a familiar riding due to it actively touching the affected caster. Any creature does mean any.
The opponent has to actively touch or use an unarmed against the caster for the damage to trigger. The caster initiating physical contact trying cause the spell to do damage won’t work. The spell doesn’t say when contact is made but when the creature touches or makes unarmed attacks against the caster specifically as to how damage is dealt.
This is the inconsistency I was pointing at. Of course if a familiar climbs on the caster with its own action, it will take damage.
But if the caster touching an opponent doesn't deal damage because it's the caster doing the touching and not the opponent, then when a caster picks up a familiar (caster is initiating the physical contact) and puts it on their shoulder, the familiar has taken no action but it is now resting on a hazardous body.By your interpretation, the familiar doesn't take damage from this.
A friendly would get hurt by touching the caster with a spell as would a familiar riding due to it actively touching the affected caster. Any creature does mean any.The opponent has to actively touch or use an unarmed against the caster for the damage to trigger. The caster initiating physical contact trying cause the spell to do damage won’t work. The spell doesn’t say when contact is made but when the creature touches or makes unarmed attacks against the caster specifically as to how damage is dealt.This is the inconsistency I was pointing at. Of course if a familiar climbs on the caster with its own action, it will take damage.
But if the caster touching an opponent doesn't deal damage because it's the caster doing the touching and not the opponent, then when a caster picks up a familiar (caster is initiating the physical contact) and puts it on their shoulder, the familiar has taken no action but it is now resting on a hazardous body.
By your interpretation, the familiar doesn't take damage from this.
The familiar has to hold on to you to ride you. When that happens, it is actively touching you in its own accord.
Now you are the one making a case for pragmatism instead of game mechanics.
A familiar riding on your shoulder doesn't need to spend an action to hold on.
If this sounds like insufferable hair splitting, it is. I'm just crafting this scenario to point out how absurd the "caster can't initiate contact" clause is.
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Now you are the one making a case for pragmatism instead of game mechanics.
A familiar riding on your shoulder doesn't need to spend an action to hold on.
If this sounds like insufferable hair splitting, it is. I'm just crafting this scenario to point out how absurd the "caster can't initiate contact" clause is.
So what is your point here? Your original post dealt with trying to use the spell in an offensive instead of defensive manner. An explanation was given as to why that doesn’t work, and since you have wanted to nitpick tangential aspects of the explanation. Yes, the specific rules on whether the familiar is touching you or you are touching it when it is on your shoulder isn’t defined. One can look to mount rules, but there is no direct connection to familiars with it, and I don’t see making both the character and familiar use an action each for it to be on the character’s shoulder/pocket/satchel/etc. However, none of that matters to every other application of the spell in question. The bottom line is the spell doesn’t allow you to grab or touch an opponent and cause spell damage. The opponent (or ally) must be the one to initiate contact via touch or unarmed attack for the spell to do damage.
Don't get so heated up. An explanation was given by you only. Both our viewpoints hold about the same authoritative value since we're both players of the game, not devs.
For me it's not in question that the caster can be the one initiating contact, that's just what the text says and there is no ambiguity. Especially since seeing it that way results in absurd situations.
I've also talked with my GM since my last post and he agrees on the subject so that part doesn't concern me anymore.
My question was on what frequency should the damage be applied. Because the caster initiating the contact does make that part ambiguous and the ruling you go with greatly affects the efficiency of the spell.
And I've been given a satisfying answer for this with a comparison to a similar effect.
There is no question that it works that way RAW.
"touches you" is not a defined basic action in the rules like "melee attack" or "unarmed strike" are. The only mention of touch in the general rules is touch range for spells, which explains that a touch spell requires touching the target, without codifying touch any further than the text for heart of fire does.
Unlike this, the rules for "attack" specifically call out a strike or other action with the attack trait, both terms defined somewhere in the rules.
Rules don't become flavor text because the words making them up don't link to a different rule on nethys, this is not a "rules don't say I can't" argument. The rules explicitly say what they say and there needs to be a specific rule precedent to interpret touching differently than by the normal meaning.
Now on the RAI front, the damage from the fiery grasp option clearly deals the same 2d6 fire damage (on a strike only, not a grapple) and it appears to me as unintended to double dip the 2d6 fire damage if you make a lava fist strike while you also have fiery heart. Because that damage number being the same represents the same effect. But that was just a side question the the main question I had in OP which was, how often to we apply the effect.
fwiw I can see where the confusion is coming from. "Touch" can both mean "the act of touching someone" and "two objects in contact", someone you grapple isn't touching you, but they are touching you.
It's applied zero times because "any creature that touches you" requires the Creature to be the Actor, not the subject.
What rule or what interpretation principle for the rules is this pulled from?
This has been repeated a lot of times during this thread but each time no reasoning has been provided for it.It's exactly for the reasons you noted: touching as an action is really only defined for Touch spells.
Touching is NOT an action defined in the touch spells rules. Touching is normal language used to describe what a range of touch is for touch spells. The Touch Range rules paragraph doesn't define a touch action nor does it set out to do so because it's an unrelated part of the rules.
Fiery body is a way better example of rules we can use to decipher the intent of the devs. Both the effect and wording are similar, and the rule of applying the damage once per turn closes both loopholes of executing multiple actions that result in touching and the ambiguous question of prolonged contact.So if that were RAW (which is it not) your caster could simply use three actions every turn to auto-hit three times for 6d6 damage.
It literally is Rules As Written. Unless a specific rule of treating touch as a keyword trumps the general rule of treating touch as the normal meaning. The best case we have is treating the Touch Range rules as an hint that touch should be a keyword, but again, this is Rules As Interpreted.
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Touches is a verb, in other words, it describes an action taken by the Creature which would qualify for the effect, simply being the subject of a grapple is not an action taken on the part of the opponent in this situation and the effect does not apply.
Now, if it said "is touching" that would be a different story, but that isn't what the ability says.
That's not how passive and active voice works in english.
If I say France borders Italy, that sentence is correct and neither is actively taking action. "borders" is a verb here.
Verbs certainly aren't limited to describing actions either. In fact you just gave example of a verb describing a state of being.
Unless the rules specify all verbs in the rules only describe actions...
Touches can just mean in contact with.
Example where the ground touches the sky or the line where his property touches mine
There is no such thing as passive/active activities or states in english, there is passive and active voice. And you've just been given two examples by Gortle and me of how you can use both for the same meaning and it will change the tone and emphasis of your sentence but not its meaning.
Many damage procs being too good to be true is exactly why I've asked about how often the damage would apply, and inner fire would indicate a limit of once per turn. The rules as they are written are definitely in need of a sane interpretation and there is an argument to be made for heart of fire not working at all on an action taken by the caster but this is 100% the domain of interpretation.
We ought to be arguing over how we should interpret the rules, but you're so confident in your incorrect claim that your interpretation is RAW that you're trying to put the english language on trial. I felt a little arrogant writing that your reading is factually incorrect, but after going over it over and again with each response, I'm fairly sure of myself.
Instead of having a very off topic argument about the english language it's probably easier to take another look at the heart of fire wording:
any creature that touches you, or that hits you with a melee unarmed attack or non-reach melee weapon attack
What do we have?
hits you with a melee unarmed attackhits you with a non-reach melee weapon attack
These two items are precisely worded, refer to established explicit rules and designate a specific type of action taken with specific means.
touches you
By your interpretation (Each time a creature takes an action that touches you), this would include:
>casting a touch spell on the opponent
>touching the opponent for no reason in particular
>grappling/tripping the opponent with a free hand or appendage
>grappling/tripping the opponent with an unarmed strike with the appropriate trait (like gorilla stance)
>hitting the opponent with a with a melee unarmed attack (this is called out detail in the other item, why is that needed if it's already covered?)
this would NOT include grappling/tripping the opponent with a non reach melee weapon (like fangwire), even though this would mirror the clause about melee weapon attacks.
It's simply implausible that touch is meant to be a term with the same degree of exactitude as the two other items next to it. It's encompassing actions that aren't related to each other and the way the spell is written out, there's clearly an intent to be precise when describing which specific actions trigger the effect.
you do not mix passive and actives states in the same sentence in casual English. As Metric pointed out, in order for it to have your meaning it must say:
"is touching" to indicate a state of being, rather than an action.
No. There is a clear break in the sentence. Two different phrases. It is perfectly acceptable language.
the too good to be true rule is good enough reason to throw out your interpretation. Being able to do 6d6 damage to any creature you grapple each round for 10 rounds is many times too powerful. Further in the passive states it doesn't specify how often to apply leading to an incomplete thought.
It is not too good to be true. There is no balance problem with it at all. Just stop touching the cold thing. 2d6 damage once per turn is not going to break anything. There are other things that do similar amounts of damage eg Implement of Destruction.
Yes it requires the GM to make a call about it. But so do much more common effects. If I were GMing such an effect as Heart of Ice I would have it do its damage once per round to a target if they were grappled or grappled by the caster.
You're confused over your own words. A verb can denote an activity, a state or both. Yes, we agree on that.
Unless considering a verb that is exclusively activity or state (which touch is not), there is no grammatical, semantic or semiotic distinction between [passive and active activities], nor between [passive and active states].
There is a distinction between [passive and active voice] which is what you're thinking about but it irrelevant to the subject.
From the context of the sentence when a creature touches you is using the action verb form.
This has been said many times during the thread, multiple times someone tried to say it was RAW despite clearly being an interpretation from context.
Your interpretation is best summarized as "because touch is used in the active voice, it means we have to understand it as only the active meaning of the verb touch".
1. this is not an interpretation of rules, it's an interpretation of english
2. common english sentences do not adhere to this interpretation. See:
where the ground touches the sky
3. the implications of this interpretation make wonky rules situations arise
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From the context of the sentence when a creature touches you is using the action verb form.
But it does say that. It says is
Any creature that touches you commaThat is not necessarily active.
Have you noticed that both of these examples are permanent states of being rather than temporary?
This has nothing to do with anything else, and it's not even true. Property can change, the horizon will be different in a valley or on the beach.
It's clear at this point that you aren't reading the replies in this thread. You're just derailing the discussion further into off topic english language debate and the rules aren't even in sight anymore.|
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Not at all, and frankly I think the conversation is DOA at this point as it's blatantly apparent that OP is unwilling to listen to opinions that don't confirm the interpretation they want to arrive at.
These kinds of effects spell out when they apply (in other words it does NOT say it applies if YOU initiate or attempt a grapple or otherwise make a Touch attack) and they are always permissive and describe under what circumstances X or Y applies. The rules do and cannot ever exist in a format where they specifically and infinitely go on about situations where something does NOT apply because no amount of dead trees or file size could accommodate that kind of ruling. If a rule doesn't spell out that it works in a specific way it quite simply does not work in that manner.
Another one on the books for the failure to strictly codify the RAW as opposed to using the oxymoron that is described as "natural language."
These kinds of effects spell out when they apply (in other words it does NOT say it applies if YOU initiate or attempt a grapple or otherwise make a Touch attack) and they are always permissive and describe under what circumstances X or Y applies.
That is simply not true or Interrupt Charge would do nothing.
AOO and similar effects specify "leaving a square during a move action" but "attempts to move away from you" is not the same as using a move action that moves you on the grid. But precisely because books don't have infinite paper, and because it's tedious to write like a lawyer, sometimes you trim some fat off the top.There are multiple points in the rules where a wording doesn't refer to a keyword defined in a general rules paragraph. The way we work around that is first by comparing with similar effects, second by making a judgement call about intent.
If a rule doesn't spell out that it works in a specific way it quite simply does not work in that manner.
If we were to follow this logic, the "any creature that touches you" part would be flavor text. Because it doesn't explicitly spell out anything like the two precisely worded and 100% unambiguous triggers that come after it.
it's blatantly apparent that OP is unwilling to listen to opinions that don't confirm the interpretation they want to arrive at.
I'm not reticent to change my mind but the leitmotiv of this thread has been to back up opinions about my reading of the rules with attacks against my understanding of english instead of pointing at rule precedents.
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Not at all, and frankly I think the conversation is DOA at this point as it's blatantly apparent that OP is unwilling to listen to opinions that don't confirm the interpretation they want to arrive at.
Rubbish. The language is actually vague. Some people have a conclusion that they like and are insisting that the language requires this conclusion. It doesn't. Which you are more or less agreeing with in the rest of your statement. All I'm saying is the other interpretation is technically valid. Unwilling to listen, and do not agree, are not the same thing.
The rules do and cannot ever exist in a format where they specifically and infinitely go on about situations where something does NOT apply because no amount of dead trees or file size could accommodate that kind of ruling.
I reject that as a premise. Language can easily be much tighter. PF2 is only about 90% tight. It could easily be 99.9% and we would have only two pages of clarifications for the CRB.
If a rule doesn't spell out that it works in a specific way it quite simply does not work in that manner.
The rules are just too vague and open in many places. Some are outright inconsistent and incomplete. The rules demand interpretation.
Another one on the books for the failure to strictly codify the RAW as opposed to using the oxymoron that is described as "natural language."
On that you have my agreement.
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The rules do and cannot ever exist in a format where they specifically and infinitely go on about situations where something does NOT apply because no amount of dead trees or file size could accommodate that kind of ruling.I reject that as a premise. Language can easily be much tighter. PF2 is only about 90% tight. It could easily be 99.9% and we would have only two pages of clarifications for the CRB.
I think maybe I must have failed to make clear what I was saying here so I'll clarify because the statement is an objective concrete fact.
The rules explain what CAN be done and function to define the system in that manner. The rules do NOT define what CAN NOT be done because that is literally impossible to do (at least with modern technology or humans at the helm) given that if the intent is to say that Class X can do Y then the way one would have to write this in a prohibitive rules architecture would be to state everything that is NOT allowed which stretches into infinity, therefore we must view the rules as they are written as being what defines what CAN be done and anything that is not spoken on is not permitted.
As for disagreeing about the interpretation of this, as others have noted this is up to everyone to decide first if they feel the rule is vague (which I most certainly do not believe to be the case at all here but that's fine), and if so how they want to run things, perfectly fine and normal. I simply don't think it works the way OP is insisting and arguing it does/how they want it to work because the ability itself and every other one similar to it list the kind of things that trigger the effect and every single one of them involves an Action being taken by the creature that would be harmed and they all describe examples taken by that creature rather than provide any footing for the individual benefiting from such effects to be able to take a single Action of their own and then gain bonus rider effects to it via the spell/effect/feat/trait/ability.
I simply don't think it works the way OP is insisting and arguing it does/how they want it to work because the ability itself and every other one similar to it list the kind of things that trigger the effect and every single one of them involves an Action being taken by the creature that would be harmed and they all describe examples taken by that creature rather than provide any footing for the individual benefiting from such effects to be able to take a single Action of their own and then gain bonus rider effects to it via the...
I've been insisting that by a strict reading of the rules there was no doubt that touch is mutual. I've been defensive about this because I've been told that it was not RAW, which it is. The argument against it was to interpret it as a strictly defensive ability based on context, that's the definition of rules interpretation.
I've not been arguing about RAW because I want to stick to the rules to make something happen:contact being prolonged in the case of a grapple means needing to make a judgement call about how often to apply the damage anyway.
The RAW interpretation for whether or not the caster can initiate contact also requires interpretation, just later down the chain of events.
Any solution we can arrive at is rules as interpreted.
In fact this issue would still need interpretation if the caster couldn't initiate contact since the other creature can still grapple you themselves and spend the turn doing something other than actions that require touching you.
The rules explain what CAN be done and function to define the system in that manner. The rules do NOT define what CAN NOT be done because that is literally impossible to do (at least with modern technology or humans at the helm) given that if the intent is to say that Class X can do Y then the way one would have to write this in a prohibitive rules architecture would be to state everything that is NOT allowed which stretches into infinity, therefore we must view the rules as they are written as being what defines what CAN be done and anything that is not spoken on is not permitted.
When I see "hits you with a melee unarmed attack or non-reach melee weapon attack" I see effort has been put into making the trigger clear and unambiguous.
If "touches you" was meant to refer only to touch spells, it would not have taken much more space to write "targets you with a touch spell" and achieve the same degree of precision and unambiguity.If "touches you" was meant to refer to touch spells and grapples/trip but not those of the caster, you could have eschewed the precise wording on unarmed strikes and weapon attacks by writing "any action taken by another creature that causes them to touch you" as the single trigger for the effect.
It's also bad writing because it puts two mostly unrelated events in a bundle next to two events that are pretty similar to each other but still get described in detail.
You can argue that possibility one is a little bit longer yes. But I don't think the book was this tight on available space.
Anyway, this is my reasoning for why "touches you" should be interpreted by the natural meaning as opposed to *checks notes*
Hitting the caster with a melee unarmed strike or a non reach melee weapon attack involves an Action being taken by the creature that would be harmed, therefore the third trigger in the same sentence must have the same property of only being taken by the creature that would take damage.
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Okay this time I am being a little caddy, but would the expression “That love letter truly touched my heart.” trigger damage from the spell? Of course not. Just because you want touch to be a more generalized meaning, doesn’t make it. It requires the other to be the actor.
We all get what you want and most have fully disagreed with your view and have stated why, but you insist on fighting by trying to make the word “touch” be far more encompassing than game mechanics would allow. Anyway, that is enough from me on this. I’m out.
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Touch (being in physical contact with)
and
Touch (reaching out to initiate physical contact with)
Are both literal meanings.
“That love letter truly touched my heart.”
Is metaphorical. This is obviously said in bad faith.
The rules precedent from with Inner Fire:
https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2982
..any creature that hits you with an unarmed attack, tries to Grab or Grapple you, or otherwise touches you takes fire damage equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1)...
Inner fire has the exact same vagueness as mantle of the magma heart, that's not proving anyone's point.
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Yes and? Have you missed the "otherwise"?
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Yeah, nevermind, you're jumping to attack the people trying to help you understand and have no interest in actual conversation or fully understanding the rules here.
Everyone who chimed in here has been part of the community for years, some of us have been in the sauce for well over a decade and we have been around the block and through the thick of these kinds of conversations and seen/participated in discussions over questions about the rules many times before so we recognize exactly where you're coming from and what you're trying to do, it's not going to work. You'll have to try harder and have ACTUAL rules that represent your position instead of "/shrug I dunno man, touch has many meanings outside of the context of the game so it's ambiguous to me..." especially if you're going to come out of the gate with "bad faith argument REEEEE" as a response to someone pointing out the holes in your position. That's a surefire way for the constructive and polite members of this community to ignore your questions.
I've been part of "a" community for pathfinder, even if I haven't been on the forums up until recently. I didn't think that would make you think any less of me.
I haven't "come out of the gate" calling anyone out for answering in bad faith. That came after I tried to have a discussion about the rules on the rules discussion forum.
Very little rule discussion has happened. Mostly it's been derailed trying to shut down discussion by debating english grammar and then policing my tone.
I believe it's fair to call bad faith the argument for comparing the two literal meanings of "touch" to a metaphorical one.
And I believe it's needlessly antagonistic for you to act like it's a knee jerk reaction to people disagreeing with me.
you're jumping to attack the people trying to help you understand and have no interest in actual conversation or fully understanding the rules here.
Wow. This is ridiculous and one eyed. The other poster made an clear point and you are making a personal attack against them.
You are continuing to try to marginalise and isolate them, when other people are clearly supporting them.
Your argumment is all emotion and no fact. You continue to see one point and not the other.
Touches as a word can be an action, but it also can just be a state of being. The word has two meanings. The writers have not made it completely clear. The fact that is is active in one part does not make it automatically active in the other when there is a clear break in the sentence.