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Probably an obvious question but if you take an ability/feat/other that modifies something else either another feat or just general stats e.g. point blank shot that gives +1 to attack/damage if in 30 feat can you chose not to use it? For example if a ranger has point blank shot can they chose not to apply the feat and have a worse to hit/damage even though their 15 feet away from their target? Or if you have dodge and crane style and are fighting defensively could you opt to just use the normal +1 from dodge or no bonus at all if your trying to bait an enemy in close?
Before anyone asks I know normally you wouldn't want to not apply something you took I'm just wondering if its an option as I've just been told it is.
For the most part there is no reason you have to use an ability, but there will be some exceptions. If the ability is something you have to activate or is tied to something you have activate you should be able to choose not to use it. A good example of this is the feat power attack. You don’t have to use power attack if you don’t want to. There are plenty of times when it makes no sense to use power attack. On the other hand, some abilities the character has no control over. The best example of this is the aura of a cleric or paladin. Other than using something like undetectable alignment or something similar a cleric or paladin cannot choose to no use the aura class feature while they have it.
With a feat or a skill, you will almost always be able to choose when you use it. If you could not it would make trying to teach the ability nearly impossible. A lot of times when you are teaching something you need to demonstrate the difference between using the ability and not using the ability. Without being able to show the difference how are you supposed to demonstrate the ability?
Most of the time if you have to roll to succeed you can choose to fail. If you can choose to fail, there is no reason you cannot choose to use the ability at a lower level.
Probably an obvious question but if you take an ability/feat/other that modifies something else either another feat or just general stats e.g. point blank shot that gives +1 to attack/damage if in 30 feat can you chose not to use it?
Sadly, it is not an obvious question. The question is surprisingly not addressed by the rules.
There's at least one feat where turning it off would be beneficial but clearly against how it works (Bloatmage Initiate), but whether that's indicative of a general unwritten rule even for purely beneficial feats is up in the air.
I think most everyone will agree that you probably should be able to not use e.g. PBS, but ultimately, it's an "ask your GM" thing.
I think the answer is it depends. Taking the Ranger example above, yes they can always miss on purpose. But if they are deliberately missing but trying to make it look like you tried to hit could be construed as a bluff attempt.
Alternatively, you could venture into houserule territory. Say make a called shot for somewhere close e.g between the legs or just past the ear and have a second roll to hit if the called shot failed.
I would point out that in order to use a style you have to choose to enter the stance, and can usually only have a single style active at one time. That makes it pretty clear that in the case of crane style you can choose not to use it.
Most of it is going to be common sense. I understand the idea of having a well-defined rule, but some things really don’t need to be explicitly defined.
PBS is just attack bonus and damage. You can surely elect to do less damage by not pulling the bowstring back so far, and you can elect to be less accurate by rushing the shot or jumping up and down or otherwise doing it badly. This is independent of PBS, and applies to anyone, feats or not. Likewise you could ignore Precise Shot or Weapon Focus or Spell Focus or Skill Focus or Improved Bull Rush or Combat Casting in the same way.
Holding back is actually harder than it sounds. Especially in a combat situation. Your instincts from all of your training kick in. Something like a called shot would be most appropriate. You could fight defensively to lower your attack bonus, but I don’t know a good way to lower the damage if you do hit hard.
Using the wording of the feats themselves as well as the wording of a few other feats for comparison…
You are especially accurate when making ranged attacks against close targets.
Benefit: You get a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons at ranges of up to 30 feet.
There is no optional wording to be found. While you are within 30ft your attacks simply are improved. As opposed to something like Power Attack:
You can make exceptionally deadly melee attacks by sacrificing accuracy for strength.
Prerequisites: Str 13, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: You can choose to take a –1 penalty on all melee attack rolls and combat maneuver checks to gain a +2 bonus on all melee damage rolls. This bonus to damage is increased by half (+50%) if you are making an attack with a two-handed weapon, a one handed weapon using two hands, or a primary natural weapon that adds 1-1/2 times your Strength modifier on damage rolls. This bonus to damage is halved (–50%) if you are making an attack with an off-hand weapon or secondary natural weapon. When your base attack bonus reaches +4, and every 4 points thereafter, the penalty increases by –1 and the bonus to damage increases by +2. You must choose to use this feat before making an attack roll, and its effects last until your next turn. The bonus damage does not apply to touch attacks or effects that do not deal hit point damage.
Power attack can be started whenever you wish, but once you choose to use it, it remains active until your next turn starts. This technically makes it possible to attack normally on your first attack then switch to power attack for the rest of the round. You could even normal attack for your entire turn, and power attack on all AoOs. But what you cant do is Power attack at the start of your turn then normal attack at any point after until the start of your next turn.
Now lets look at style feats. For Crane style.
As a swift action, you can enter the stance employed by the fighting style a style feat embodies. Although you cannot use a style feat before combat begins, the style you are in persists until you spend a swift action to switch to a different combat style. You can use a feat that has a style feat as a prerequisite only while in the stance of the associated style. For example, if you have feats associated with Mantis Style and Tiger Style, you can use a swift action to adopt Tiger Style at the start of one turn, and then can use other feats that have Tiger Style as a prerequisite. By using another swift action at the start of your next turn, you could adopt Mantis Style and use other feats that have Mantis Style as a prerequisite.
From the rules as written, you can only drop a style by using another swift action to switch styles. Presumably this means styless is itself a style that is always assumed to be active if no other style is. I’ve seen people say it is a free action to drop a style, and while I agree that it should be, the rules very clearly define it as being dropped as part of a swift action to adopt a new style stance. Regardless though, it is a conscious effort made on YOUR turn only.
Holding back is not that hard for someone who is actually trained in combat. If it was that difficult it would mean a black belt in a marital art would literally kill l children when they are teaching them. When you are sparing with someone you usually pull your blows, so you don’t put someone in the hospital when practicing. The people who have trouble holding back are usually untrained.
Since feats and class abilities usually represent skill and training not using most of those should not be a problem. Some feats or class abilities represent permanent alterations of the character, but those are rare. So, something like bloatmage initiate will not be able to be turned off but point-blank shot will be able to be turned off.
The other thing people are forgetting is that if the feat has a prerequisite and for some reason, he loses the prerequisite he can no longer use the feat. Crane Style has a prerequisite of dodge, which has a prerequisite of DEX 13. So, someone with the full crane style feats with a 13 DEX gets hit with an attack that reduces their DEX by 1 does not gain the benefit of dodge or any of the crane style feats. Does it really make sense that an injured person is able do something that a fully healthy person can?
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You aren’t in a life or death situation when “fighting” children. It’s not the same thing. And it’s not like a black belt fights children, he instructs them.
We do have the rules for dealing nonlethal damage though.
The other thing people are forgetting is that if the feat has a prerequisite and for some reason, he loses the prerequisite he can no longer use the feat. Crane Style has a prerequisite of dodge, which has a prerequisite of DEX 13. So, someone with the full crane style feats with a 13 DEX gets hit with an attack that reduces their DEX by 1 does not gain the benefit of dodge or any of the crane style feats. Does it really make sense that an injured person is able do something that a fully healthy person can?
That attack would have to inflict specifically Dexterity Drain, not Dexterity Damage for them to lose access to the feat. The rules spell out the effects of permanent and temporary ability damage and drain quite clearly. Ability Damage is not much different than a temporary ability penalty in pathfinder, both are Temporary and only penalize the effects of the affected ability, they don’t actually change the ability score in regards to prerequisites. Ability Damage however can reduce an ability to 0 resulting in various forms of incapacitation or even death, while an ability penalty cannot. Ability Penalties go away when the inflicting condition expires, while Ability Damage recovers naturally at a rate of 1 point per day. Ability Drain on the other hand actually reduces the ability score by the inflicted amount and does not recover with time.
@Chell Raighn I specified the attack reduces the STAT, and there are other things besides ability drain that can reduce a stat. Aging the character can reduce a physical stat. Your point while true has no bearing on the argument.
@Melkiador a child will probably have about 3 HP (4 + 1 for favored class -2 for CON from young template). That means a character with a 14 STR will deal on the average 4 points of damage (1d3+2). According to the rules for non-lethal damage they will be knocked out and have taken 1 real HP. You really think that someone training a child is going to be doing knocking them out with every hit. A black belt is probably going to be a lot higher than 1st level and more than likely doing a lot more damage than 1d3+2. A 4th level fighter with a 16 STR and weapon specialization unarmed is doing 7 points of damage (1d3+5), so the child is taking 4 real points of damage. That is enough to reduce him to -1 HP and means the child has to make a DC 10 roll con roll with a -2 penalty or take further damage. That kid is going to be in the hospital. There was never any mention of this being a life-or-death situation. The fact that post is about being able to not use some of your bonuses suggests that is not the case.
I am not really all that combat trained, but I used to play around with some stick fighting when I was younger and never put anyone in the hospital or even knocked anyone out. If I could do that a teenage messing around with his friends with no combat training I would imagine that someone who was actually trained could easily do the same.
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I am not really all that combat trained, but I used to play around with some stick fighting when I was younger and never put anyone in the hospital or even knocked anyone out. If I could do that a teenage messing around with his friends with no combat training I would imagine that someone who was actually trained could easily do the same.
Your stick fighting training was based in not hurting people while "scoring points". It's not like you'd been training how to cause the most damage with every strike.
I'm just saying, holding back in a life or death situation isn't that easy. In that situation, you're all adrenaline and reflexes, which is why soldiers are trained so rigorously.
The only training, I had was from hanging around the SCA. I went to some of the practice session’s people hosted and listened to what the people running it had to say. Mainly what I learned was how to hold and control a “sword”. Part of the control was proper use of a pivot to increase the power and control out of your swings. So, yea my “training” did include how to hurt s someone. My buddies and I picked up a couple of cheap boken from an import store and fooled around with them. None of us had any formal training or participated in any competitions. Looking back at it, it was kind of stupid thing to do but we here just out of high school and everyone at that age does stupid things. There were a couple of bruises once in a while, but even those were rare. According to what is being posted here we should have been knocking each other out on a regular basis.
It seems as though the discussion has become rather circular. From what I can read there are three different arguments which are all ignoring each other:
1. In a non-life threatening scenario, eg missile fire at a target, training a student etc, is it possible to deliberately miss or hit with minimal force.
2. In a non-life threatening scenario is it possible to deliberately miss or hit with minimal force whilst appearing to attack with deadly intent. Eg a loyalty test.
3. In a life threatening scenario is it possible to deliberately miss or hit with minimal force. Eg being attacked by a possessed party member
A1: Yes
A2: Bluff or called shot based houserule mechanic territory
A3: For simplicity I would use the non lethal combat rules and apply the -4 to hit penalty.
Probably an obvious question but if you take an ability/feat/other that modifies something else either another feat or just general stats e.g. point blank shot that gives +1 to attack/damage if in 30 feat can you chose not to use it? For example if a ranger has point blank shot can they chose not to apply the feat and have a worse to hit/damage even though their 15 feet away from their target? Or if you have dodge and crane style and are fighting defensively could you opt to just use the normal +1 from dodge or no bonus at all if your trying to bait an enemy in close?
Before anyone asks I know normally you wouldn't want to not apply something you took I'm just wondering if its an option as I've just been told it is.
While you cannot willingly fail an attack roll per the rules, I say that's HORSE FEATHERS! Luckily, there are mechanics for these exact scenarios. Namely attacking Non-lethally with a -4 penalty. It is definitely harder to take a weapon specifically created to kill and your training with that weapon has been nothing but "here's how you kill someone with this remorseless and insanely sharp piece of metal" then use it to instead subdue a target, so the -4 penalty is warranted. And, if you want to be good at this style of combat, there's the Merciful enchantment, Bludgeoner Feat, or Jaguar's Grace (slayer talent) you can take to remove the -4 penalty. You can also use the 3pp feat Nonlethal Force if you play with 3rd party content.
That being said, in the case of your Point Blank Shot, you cannot suppress the +1 att/dmg, but you can say "I'd like to make a non-lethal attack with a -4 penalty" before making the attack and instead cause subdual damage that won't kill the target (hopefully). Alternatively, you can say "I'd like to fire a Warning Shot and attack the 5ft square in front of the creature", and attacking a 5ft square is AC 5.
In the case of dropping your AC on purpose, you cannot willingly drop your AC. I suppose you could purposely become flat-footed, drop your shield, or something to that effect, but it takes 1 minute to doff your Armor, and takes 1d4+1 minute to doff Half-plate or Full-plate.
The idea that you cannot willingly fail an attack roll is ridiculous. If someone is skilled enough with a bow they can shot the wings of a butterfly, they can easily avoid hitting a human sized target. Being more skilled at something is supposed to give you more control over the situation not less. Things like weapons specialization are often the ability to hit vulnerable spots on the target. It could be something like hitting the person in an area that is already wounded so it causes more pain. If I have the ability to hit the wounded shoulder, that does not mean I cannot hit the targets legs. The game abstracts certain things to make it playable, but this level of rules lawyering is kind of absurd.
Don’t forget that if you do more non-lethal damage then the target has all further damage is lethal damage. That means a highly skilled combatant cannot subdue an ordinary person. Take a 12th level fighter with 20 STR, weapon focus, greater weapon focus, weapon specialization, greater weapon specialization, and weapon training +2. The fighter does 1d8+11 points of damage with a long sword. That means he does a minimum of 12 points of damage. He attacks a 1st level commoner with 4 HP doing 12 points of non-lethal damage. The commoner has 4 HP so 8 is real damage. That puts the commoner at -4 HP when the fighter is doing minimum damage. The 12th level fighter has a 25% chance of straight out killing the commoner in a single blow when trying to subdue him. Take a 1st level warrior with the same STR attacking the same target does 1d8+5 damage. Doing minimum damage that means the commoner to 2 HP and knocked out. On an average roll the commoner is down to -2 HP. Unless the warrior gets a critical hit, he has no chance of killing the commoner. Why is the cannon fodder better at subduing a farmer than a highly skilled fighter?
The idea that you cannot willingly fail an attack roll is ridiculous. If someone is skilled enough with a bow they can shot the wings of a butterfly, they can easily avoid hitting a human sized target. Being more skilled at something is supposed to give you more control over the situation not less.
With ranged attacks willingly missing an attack is as simple as targeting a space instead of a creature and then hitting an AC5. So easy that most GMs wont even make you roll for it… at worst you target an AC7 because you’re targeting a space behind a creature which now has soft cover from the creature. If you somehow miss that shot, you still miss the creature, only now you might miss more obviously.
With melee however is when we run into problems with the rules… there aren’t really any riles for melee to take advantage of to deliberately miss… the rules for attacking into a space for melee use the AC of any creature that may potentially be in that space… and if you hit that AC you hit the creature of there is one there. Which means if you try to use “I target the space he’s in instead of targeting him directly” to miss in melee, you very well will still hit your target unless you would have missed normally. In the real world you COULD easily miss on purpose with a melee weapon while looking like you were trying to hit the target, but in pathfinder you would have to target an adjacent space which would be quite obvious that you are trying to miss…
Somethings don’t need to be specifically defined by the rules. When you have a situation where no character is going to be negatively impacted and performing the act in real life is simple you don’t need to have it defined in the game. By this standard a character relieve themselves because it is not covered by the rules.
The game is supposed to be about having fun, not blindly following a set of rules. When a supposed highly skilled warrior has to kill an innocent person because he has to use every bonus he has instead of being able to knock them out, that is absurd.
Are you really saying a 20th level fighter with a 20 STR with weapon focus, greater weapon focus, weapon specialization, greater weapon specialization all in unarmed strike, improved unarmed strike and focused weapon training in unarmed strike has to deal 2d8+13 damage when slapping someone? That is enough damage to kill a lot of low-level NPCs.
@Mysterious Stranger
Let's say said 20th level fighter has sworn an oath to do the King's bidding. But the king orders the fighter to take their best shot at a helpless innocent. The fighter really doesn't want to kill the innocent but must also be convincing for the king, who is a highly skilled fighter himself.
If the fighter doesn't use their skills and techniques then they will be found to be an oath breaker, if they do they will likely kill the innocent. How would you rule a way out for the fighter?
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People can say, 'Just don't pull your bowstring as hard' but some bows require a flat amount of pull to even fire correctly, and unfortunately, that doesn't actually apply to the vast majority of things PBS applies to, like firearms or crossbows. You can't really pull the triggers lightly. However, if the situation is reasonable, like a bowstring or throwing a dagger or maybe even a sling... then a GM could take that into account. It's not in the Rules for a player to make that decision though. All you can do is state a reasonable case.
The flip side of that though is how do you use a firearm to to get that extra to hit/damage in a way you can't not do it though? Somehow you are doing something different now that makes you more accurate and damaging so something has to be causing it. While it may not be pulling the bowstring further back previously you did say d20 +1 and d6 damage while now its d20 +2 and d6+1 damage. There is a physical change from having this feat compared to someone who doesn't have it even if everything else about the two of you (twin sisters say) is identical.
I do agree there are feats like toughness that would result from training that can't be undone at will though.
@Hugo Rune
I am not sure what you are asking? This seems to be more of a paladin falling question. Unless the fighter was under a compulsion to obey the king, the fighter can decide to use or not use his bonuses from the skills and techniques he has including power attack it he has it. If he fails to use the skills and techniques he would be in violation of his oath if he chose not to use all of his abilities including power attack. Doing so would have no game effect unless he had some ability tied to keeping his word or obeying the king. If it were a paladin who somehow had those feats, they would probably be screwed either way.
@Senko
The extra accuracy and damage form point blank shot could be that you are targeting areas that are more vulnerable. The way to not get the damage would be to aim for more protected areas. With point-blank shot you aim for an area where the armor is weaker, without it you hit the armor where it is stronger. With point-blank you aim for the throat; without it you aim for the shoulder.
I will just add that "taking 1" is a thing that should just be considered part of rule 0 and will cover most of the examples listed above. Most of the rest is the actual meat and potatoes where most options will just either be covered already by "you have a choice intrinsically" or will have their own unique takes on things like "toughness vs. PBS".
@Mysterious Stranger
Not necessarily a Paladin fall scenario, it could be a show of loyalty during the infiltration of an organisation. A shoot your companion in the head type scenario. The point is the character has to appear to be trying their best but actually trying to fail. I have suggested that bluff or a houseruled mechanic is required. What is unclear from your statements is whether you believe the feats etc can be dropped in such a situation.
Yes, there is no reason the feats have to be used. I would agree a bluff check would be appropriate at this point to fake the character was trying. But if he succeeds in the bluff it might call into question how skilled he actually is. If the king is already aware of his skill even the bluff might not be enough. If the king knows how skilled the fighter is there will probably be some penalties based on the believability of the lie. For example, if the king has personally witnessed the fighter single handedly killing huge dragon that might be considered an impossible lie.