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Another instance where an attack doesn't have the Attack trait.
Just because something doesn't have the Attack trait doesn't mean that it is not an attack. (like saving throw spells)
And just because something does have the Attack trait doesn't prove that it is an attack. (see Escape action)
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Another instance where an attack doesn't have the Attack trait.
Just because something doesn't have the Attack trait doesn't mean that it is not an attack. (like saving throw spells)
And just because something does have the Attack trait doesn't prove that it is an attack. (see Escape action)
I don't think this is correct. You're conflating attacks and hostile actions here.
The attack trait is exactly the thing that makes something an attack. A saving throw spell isn't an attack, doesn't increase MAP, but is hostile enough to break invisibility. Escape is an attack, increases MAP, but might not be hostile enough to break invisibility.
I don't know if it's intended that the froghemoth can constrict swallowed creatures, but currently it appears that it can.
Personally I don't think it can use grater constrict on swallowed creatures, and that's how I would run it if I were to GM.
But it's not explicitly disallowed by the rules.
I don't think this is correct. You're conflating attacks and hostile actions here.Another instance where an attack doesn't have the Attack trait.
Just because something doesn't have the Attack trait doesn't mean that it is not an attack. (like saving throw spells)
And just because something does have the Attack trait doesn't prove that it is an attack. (see Escape action)
I think the game rules conflate attack and hostile action. In several places they use the word attack when they mean a hostile action or a damaging effect instead of using the term solely for an action with the Attack trait. Such as this one for the swallow whole ability.
If the creature had the Electric Arc cantrip, could it cast it at the creature it had swallowed whole? Electric Arc isn't an attack.
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I don't think this is correct. You're conflating attacks and hostile actions here.Another instance where an attack doesn't have the Attack trait.
Just because something doesn't have the Attack trait doesn't mean that it is not an attack. (like saving throw spells)
And just because something does have the Attack trait doesn't prove that it is an attack. (see Escape action)
I think the game rules conflate attack and hostile action. In several places they use the word attack when they mean a hostile action or a damaging effect instead of using the term solely for an action with the Attack trait. Such as this one for the swallow whole ability.
If the creature had the Electric Arc cantrip, could it cast it at the creature it had swallowed whole? Electric Arc isn't an attack.
I think you may have stumbled on the answer to the question of how we stop constrict from working on swallowed-whole creatures, and it's not because of attack traits or hostile effects. It's about line of effect.
To affect someone with just about anything, including electric arc, you need line of effect to them. The question is, do you actually have line of effect to things in your stomach? I think the answer is mostly a No.
I don't think we have like an exact canonical rule for what part of your body spells come out of. Maybe they zap from your fingertips or begin from your mouth. But I think it's a reasonable assumption to make that it has to start on the outside of your body and then you draw a line to your target to see if the line of effect is unblocked.
In the case of casting electric arc on something you've swallowed, or trying to constrict something you've swallowed, or attacking something you've swallowed, or casting a heal spell because you were Dominated last round and accidentally swallowed a friend too - in all those cases, you can't because your own body is blocking line of effect.
I think the clause about not being able to attack swallowed creatures is a bit poorly chosen because it's not just attacks that you can't do, and it makes more sense to say that you just have no reach or line of effect there (unless you're a very specific monster with such a special ability).
And that the froghemoth seems to combine constrict and swallow whole is more an unexpected rules interaction than an actually intended feature. (Although it's kinda cool in a gratuitously nasty way.)
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Seeing as the froghemoth has a long lashing tongue and tentacle arms I suspect that those are the appendages that do the constricting.
The reason why constrict damage makes sense while in the mouth is because the tongue is doing it, and the tentacles do it outside the mouth. But neither of those extend into it's own stomach. Where you would be when swallowed.
Like it's not explicitly spelled out and stated, but I think RAI you shouldn't get constrict damage on a swallowed creature because it doesn't make sense.
I think you may have stumbled on the answer to the question of how we stop constrict from working on swallowed-whole creatures, and it's not because of attack traits or hostile effects. It's about line of effect.
Being pedantic, I dunno - it is a very short and unblocked line from the stomach lining of the attacking creature to the target that has been swallowed whole. Sounds like they have line of effect to me. The swallowed creature is allowed to make Strike attacks against the stomach, after all.
But on a more practical level, we have already seen this misuse of the word 'attack' being fixed in errata.
The Horse Animal Companion used the word at first - which allowed the support benefit when using spell attacks. That was later changed to Strike, and most recently to Melee Strike while mounted.
Or how about the Polymorph trait errata to change "only attacks you can use" to "only attacks you can Strike with" so that you could still use Escape while in Dragon Form.
There are still a lot of places in the rules that use the word 'attack' to mean something different than just actions with the Attack trait.
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But on a more practical level, we have already seen this misuse of the word 'attack' being fixed in errata.
Isn't that more an argument against your point though? Your claim is that "attack" and "Attack" are different concepts entirely.
The fact that errata is making changes to abilities to specify specific types of actions seems to contradict that.
Changing something from attack to melee strike shows us that we are interpreting attack correctly, but that Paizo wants to change that specific ability to only apply to a certain subset of actions instead.
Isn't that more an argument against your point though? Your claim is that "attack" and "Attack" are different concepts entirely.
But on a more practical level, we have already seen this misuse of the word 'attack' being fixed in errata.
If the rules were consistent and made sense, then yeah - there wouldn't be a problem. If using the word 'attack' in the rules always directly equated to 'actions with the Attack trait', then that is fine.
But that isn't how the rules currently are. The developers are working on fixing that, but they haven't gotten to all of them yet. So right now there are strange effects from blindly following the rule that an attack is an action with the Attack trait. Such as this one where you can use Greater Constrict or Electric Arc on an enemy that you have Swallowed Whole, but can't use Strike, Trip, or Produce Flame on them.
Yes, but there's a fundamental difference between "I think this ability is written in error" and the attack/attack word salad that was mentioned earlier.
It might technically be different. But it is related.
There is a difference between an 'attack' as it is used in common language and an 'attack' = Attack trait action as it is defined in the rules. That difference is what is causing rules and abilities to be written in error in the first place and what makes them hard to notice in proofreading passes.
The standard language meaning of 'attack' would better equated to the game term 'hostile action'.
So that causes a lot of confusion when we read an ability like this because we don't know whether their usage of the word 'attack' is rules accurate in meaning only actions with the Attack trait, or if it should be interpreted as 'hostile action' or 'Strike' or 'action that could cause damage' etc.
That is what causes the confusion of "there are attacks that are not Attacks, and not all Attacks are attacks."
Or to translate it fully into game terms: "There are hostile actions that are not Attacks, and not all Attacks are hostile actions."
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The other problem being that the defined game terms don't match up with people's intuitive understanding of the words used.
If I said to a typical role-player, "Casting Electric Arc is not an attack, but escaping from being tied up is." It is very likely that they would think I was wrong.
Because they aren't going to intuitively translate that to the game rules terminology of "Casting Electric Arc is not an action with the Attack trait, but Escape to escape from being tied up is."
It is much more likely that someone who just wants to play the game is going to interpret that as "Casting Electric Arc is not a hostile action, but escaping from being tied up is." Which very clearly is not accurate and makes no sense.
If you are swallowed whole, you are grabbed. Greater Constrict doesn't have the attack tag. You can use it when things are grabbed, and also when they are swallowed whole. Like when they're in your gullet.
If you want to talk about RAI I think it makes perfect sense that an apex predator like the Froghemoth which is "capable of devouring dinosaurs and even dragons" would have an ability to render that prey disabled rather quickly upon consumption, rather than give it a chance to claw its way out.
You RAI argument misses that Swallow Whole continues to do its initial damage every turn The swallowed creature takes the listed amount of damage when first swallowed and at the end of each of its turns while it’s swallowed.. So its prey is being devoured just fine.
RAW so far I agree with you that technically the Froghemoth can also Greater Constrict creatures it has Swallowed Whole.
Where it comes potentially unstuck is with The monster’s mouth or jaws no longer grab a creature it has swallowed which is telling us that the creature is out of reach of the mouth and jaws. I think it is perfectly reasonable for a GM to presume that the Greater Constrict action uses the Froghemoth's mouth, jaws or limbs. These cannot reach inside the Froghemoth's stomach and therefore this ability probably fails the Line of Effect rules.
So as a judgement call, no I would not have this Greater Constrict work on Swallowed creatures without further evidence.
The specific creature triggering this question is the Froghemoth.
Can you constrict a creature which has been swallowed whole?
Swallow Whole
** spoiler omitted **...
While constricting only requires that you have a creature that is grabbed or restrained by you, there's two basic fundamental issues that create a problem with this working.
1. In order to have someone grabbed or restrained, you generally need an appropriate limb to do so. This can range from a jaw, to an arm/tentacle, to feet, etc. A good rule of thumb for such things in regards to creatures is that the limbs you use to grab/restrain with are going to be the limbs you likewise should be able to constrict with. A stomach/esophagus is not one of those limbs, especially since the creature does not have the kind of internal control with its body compared to its jaws or tentacles, and isn't one of the limbs used as a means to grab foes (i.e. doesn't possess Improved Grab as part of its attack). I would be highly suspect of a GM trying to double-dip this, because it largely feels unintended for constrict to function in this manner.
2. A creature that's swallowed can't be attacked by the creature swallowing it. This is written more in a "plain english" form of attacking, instead of a game term form of Attacking, which essentially means no hostile activity can be done against it, which includes Constrict. Just as well, the creature can't see what it's swallowed (which means it has no line of sight to the creature to constrict), and it can't reach what it's swallowed (which means it has no line of effect to the creature to constrict), so its ability to actually be able to utilize a Constrict action on such a creature isn't valid, despite having Otherwordly Vision (which only works on invisibility, ethereality, and illusionary effects, none of which being eaten constitutes as).
Slightly off topic, but still about the "grabbed" condition and about some of the logic surrounding it:
If a creature is "grabbed" it is also "immobilized". So if a Crawling Hand grabs a creature, is it also immobilized? How does that make sense?
There is a joke in here somewhere about constipation and "passing" a saving throw but I don't think I'm the one to make it...
Same as if a Sprite or Toy Poppet player character grapples a creature.
Though by default, they could only do that to small size creatures such as Halflings, Goblins, or Gnomes. Being size Tiny and grappling a medium size creature would require the Titan Wrestler feat - that familiar's can't get.
And this is no different than an Orc player character being able to grapple an Adult Black Dragon, but would need the Titan Wrestler feat in order to grapple an Adult Blue Dragon.
Same as if a Sprite or Toy Poppet player character grapples a creature.
Though by default, they could only do that to small size creatures such as Halflings, Goblins, or Gnomes. Being size Tiny and grappling a medium size creature would require the Titan Wrestler feat - that familiar's can't get.
And this is no different than an Orc player character being able to grapple an Adult Black Dragon, but would need the Titan Wrestler feat in order to grapple an Adult Blue Dragon.
Grapple and Grab are different actions. Successfully grappling leads to the grabbed or restrained condition (depending on crit). Successfully grabbing leads to the grabbed condition.
While the Grapple action does have the size category rule (and would require Titan Wrestler). The Grab rule doesn't.The main difference is that the Grapple is a skill action available to everyone, while the Grab is a monster action only available to monsters with specific features.
In any case, the Tiny Crawling Hand does have that feature and can Grab. But I really dunno how it could immobilize someone. But RAW it would.
Ah. Well, I first saw the Crawling Hand and didn't look further than that.
As for a Crawling Hand using Grab and immobilizing an Adult Blue Dragon - not sure. I guess we get creative in the narrative. Or GM Overrule it so that Grab follows the size rules of grapple.