Weapon with Coating rule and applying poisons


Rules Discussion


Let's say we have a weapon with the Coating rune on it. The rules say that

Quote:
Effect For 1 minute, you can apply stored oils and poisons to the weapon without needing any hands free. Applying them takes the same number of actions as normal. An oil or poison applied this way pours directly from the extradimensional space onto the weapon, and when it's fully applied, its empty vial is ejected.

Let's say I have a posion stored inside and I have already activated the rune. Applying the poison is normally a 2-action activity with the manipulation trait. It\s clear that it still is a 2-action activity, but does it still have manipulate trait, since now I can do it without using hands and it's just directly poured from an extradimensional space?


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No, that activation doesn't have the manipulate trait.

Applying poisons in the usual manner has the manipulate trait because it requires an interact action.

Activating the rune is a command activation so it doesn't add the manipulate trait.

For more confirmation, earlier in the description they explicitly state that activating the rune does not require an interact action.

Quote:
Stowing or retrieving an item in the space requires an Interact action, except when using the rune's activation.

So you are good to go. :)


I wasn't asking about activating the rune.

Activating the rune is a one-action command activity, yes, but it doesn't coat the wepaon with poison right away. It only allows to coat it later (within 1 minute), and the coating takes "the same number of actions as normal", which is usually two.

And I'm asking about this second activity, the using of stored poison. The command to activate the rune is already in the past, the rune is active and I'm spending those two addictional actions to apply the poison. It's not an Interact activity, as you pointed out, so yeah, I don't see a reason to say that it would have manipulate trait. But I'm not convinced that it requires a second command (which woud give it auditory and concentrate traits).


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So this rune is a little weird.
At first I thought activating it applied the poison for you...but it doesn't.
It allows you to apply the poison with free hands. So basically it's exactly the same as when you would regularly apply poison, but you don't need to draw the vial or have it in hand, and you don't need hands to apply it to your weapon either. But it still takes the normal number of actions, and is otherwise completely like doing it as though you had the poison in hand and pretend like you had enough extra hands to hold your weapon, the poison vial, and anything else you already held, and extra hands to apply the poison (although that hand and the hand holding the vial might be the same).

Now...since you don't need hands to apply the poison I would say the action should lose the manipulate trait, but raw it doesn't explicitly say that. However, I think that's more an oversight.

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