There are plenty of things that are made for balance over making sense to be sure, but in this instance, you have to go out of your way to pick an option that doesn't make sense instead of picking one that does...
I still stand by my ruling.
It makes plenty of sense to think that each action/activity chosen directly causes a single effect no matter how many targets or subordinate actions it has. That concept works for spells, multi-target abilities, multi-hit single-target abilities, and simple actions equally.
It makes plenty of sense for a character who recognizes that the Summoner/Eidolon are linked - and have the option - to pile all of the damage of their ability onto just the Summoner and expect that it will take the Eidolon down with them. There is little reason that a Monk with Flurry would choose to spread their damage across multiple opponents in general. Even less reason with a pair of opponents that are obviously linked.
And it avoids strange balance problems with abilities that are supposed to be multi-target (and require their damage to be spread across different characters in order to avoid spike damage on one character) from bypassing that in the specific case of Summoner.
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Even if you disagree it's how the class was designed in order to prevent double damage in class that share the same hit points between two "chars".I think that is a good balance point to bring up.
A lot of multi-hit abilities are forced multi-target. You have to choose separate targets for each attack. The reason is because these multi-hit things would be too much to handle if it was allowed to pile onto one character.
If you think splinter volley is harsh to face with a party of Rogue, Fighter, Champion, Bard normally - imagine how much more it would suck if the Wood Golem was allowed to make all four attacks against just the Fighter. Or even just two attacks each on the Fighter and Bard. So why would it be appropriate to do that to the Summoner?
In other cases, the multi-hit ability is allowed to be targeted to the same character. Flurry of Blows, Double Slice, Magic Missile, and so on. In those cases I would note that the rules for the Summoner state that anyone who sees one notices that the two creatures are linked at a fundamental level. Deciding to attack only one of them instead of targeting both should not be considered metagaming.
No. That is now why they were built. Multitarget attacks were meant to allow that big creature to attack everything around him like you see in visual representations of such creatures.
The creature still has the ability to attack the same creature multiple times. That would be far more effective against a summoner or eidolon any time a creature sees sigil.
I despise badly written rules. It was the bane of my existence to have to deal with too many of these in PF1 that caused table arguments. Now this one is very badly written, far too broad, and could have been easily prevented by having a separate hit point pool.
Now I have to figure out what the designer intended, then get into debates with people on the forum, then figure out what abilities it applies to, and then argue about that with players. I hate that type of rule with a passion.
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There are plenty of things that are made for balance over making sense to be sure, but in this instance, you have to go out of your way to pick an option that doesn't make sense instead of picking one that does...I still stand by my ruling.
It makes plenty of sense to think that each action/activity chosen directly causes a single effect no matter how many targets or subordinate actions it has. That concept works for spells, multi-target abilities, multi-hit single-target abilities, and simple actions equally.
It makes plenty of sense for a character who recognizes that the Summoner/Eidolon are linked - and have the option - to pile all of the damage of their ability onto just the Summoner and expect that it will take the Eidolon down with them. There is little reason that a Monk with Flurry would choose to spread their damage across multiple opponents in general. Even less reason with a pair of opponents that are obviously linked.
And it avoids strange balance problems with abilities that are supposed to be multi-target (and require their damage to be spread across different characters in order to avoid spike damage on one character) from bypassing that in the specific case of Summoner.
I'm not ruling that way. I don't agree with you. Effect is way too broad a term.
My ruling is if it requires an individual attack roll against a target, then it's an effect that individually targets.
If it is a single attack roll hitting multiple targets, then I will apply the rule.
That's how I'm going delineate it.
every Subordinate Action in an activity is its own effect.I'm still not sure how I would define "effect" since that is such a broad term in these types of games.The game's official definition isn't sufficient for some reason? I already quoted it earlier.
Anything you do in the game has an effect.So
You know something is badly written when this is the rabbit hole you're heading down where everything from the ability itself to the subordinate actions to anything in the game is an "effect." You're in the someone was not thinking too clearly when they wrote that territory.
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You know something is badly written when this is the rabbit hole you're heading down where everything from the ability itself to the subordinate actions to anything in the game is an "effect." You're in the someone was not thinking too clearly when they wrote that territory.
I disagree that it's particularly confusing. Everything has an effect, even beyond the rules that's just casual usage of the word too. Flurry's effect is to let you make two strikes, which in turn are their own abilities with their own effects.
That just sort of logically follows, imo. The most confusing part here isn't the rules, but some deliberate attempts to obfuscate them in this thread by acting like Fireball and Flurry of Blows do the same thing.
every Subordinate Action in an activity is its own effect.I'm still not sure how I would define "effect" since that is such a broad term in these types of games.The game's official definition isn't sufficient for some reason? I already quoted it earlier.
Anything you do in the game has an effect.So
I thought about it, I would respond by agreeing with you. Until I reread the rules about activities (and deleted my post):
An activity typically involves using multiple actions to create greater than you can produce with a single action, or combining multiple single actions to produce that’s different from merely the sum of those actions. In some cases, usually when spellcasting, an activity can consist of only 1 action, 1 reaction, or even 1 free action.
An activity might cause you to use specific actions within it. You don’t have to spend additional actions to perform them—they’re already factored into the activity’s required actions. (See Subordinate Actions on page 462.)
You have to spend all the actions of an activity at once to gain its effects. In an encounter, this means you must complete it during your turn. If an activity gets interrupted or disrupted in an encounter (page 462), you lose all the actions you committed to it.
So no. When you execute an activity with subordinated actions even these subordinated action are now a part of the greater effect of the activity.
So no. When you execute an activity with subordinated actions even these subordinated action are now a part of the greater effect of the activity.
You are conflating activities with effects: you replied to "every Subordinate Action in an activity is its own effect" and all you proved that subordinate actions are part of the activity they come from and... well, yeah that's how it works but what does that have to do with effects? Where does it plainly state that subordinate actions aren't effects or that the "greater effect" takes precedent over discrete subordinate effects in regards to summoners hp's?
IMO, we have the opposite conclusion from the rules, where it's quite clear that subordinate actions can trigger reactions and have different traits than the activity they are part of, proving that they are in fact discrete effects apart from the whole "greater effect". As I pointed out before, "the effect Sudden Charge might not trigger an AoO but the Stride effect within it does" which is all I need for proof.
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You are conflating activities with effects: you replied to "every Subordinate Action in an activity is its own effect" and all you proved that subordinate actions are part of the activity they come from and... well, yeah that's how it works but what does that have to do with effects? Where does it plainly state that subordinate actions aren't effects or that the "greater effect" takes precedent over discrete subordinate effects in regards to summoners hp's?
That rule is:
if you and your eidolon are both subject to the same effect that affects your Hit Points, you apply those effects only onceNotice that it uses singular effect, then plural effects, to refer to the same thing inside one sentence. I think this is exactly the situation
we are talking about. Everything has an effect, the subordinate actions and the activity.
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You are conflating activities with effects: you replied to "every Subordinate Action in an activity is its own effect" and all you proved that subordinate actions are part of the activity they come from and... well, yeah that's how it works but what does that have to do with effects? Where does it plainly state that subordinate actions aren't effects or that the "greater effect" takes precedent over discrete subordinate effects in regards to summoners hp's?That rule is:
if you and your eidolon are both subject to the same effect that affects your Hit Points, you apply those effects only onceNotice that it uses singular effect, then plural effects, to refer to the same thing inside one sentence. I think this is exactly the situation
we are talking about. Everything is an effect, the subordinate actions and thesuperordinate actionactivity.
I agree, "Everything is an effect" and IMO that means a Flurry of Blows is an effect that grants 2 Strike effects and the more specific effect is the strikes and not the overarching activity effect. In this instance, flurry of blows isn't an Attack and it doesn't do any damage to a target: you have to go into the discrete subordinate effects to deal damage and those are single target damage effects unaffected by the summoner's hp rule. That rule is for things like a fireball effect, that actually does affect multiple targets at once: Mutiple discrete attacks are different a single attack that affects multiple creatures.
In this instance, flurry of blows isn't an Attack and it doesn't do any damage to a target: you have to go into the discrete subordinate effects to deal damage and those are single target damage effects unaffected by the summoner's hp rule.
The rules are just not that tight that I could accept such a procedure based argument. The most specific damage rules don't even define what an instance of damage is. There is not even a way to take a fixed amount of damage. It is all very loose.
PF2 often reaches across boundaries with its descriptions and you just have to work it out the best you can.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't know, this whole deal seems pretty clear to me just from a natural interpretation. Fireball is one effect that simply affects multiple targets. Meanwhile Flurry of Blows, Whirlwind Strike, Scorching Ray and similar targeted things produce multiple effects, e.g. some flavour of Strike.
The real question in my eyes is whether it is really fair to only apply the literal meaning of the summoner's "you are only affected once by the same effect" rule here. Because I'm of the opinion that the spirit of the rule is to mitigate the problems of the summoner essentially being two juicy targets, meaning it should apply against the latter as well.
Agreed. You are choosing between the more natural interpretation, or the game balance interpretation.
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For spells, there's no question about how it is handled. Spells have a single effect. For Scorching Ray, that is meant to hit each target at most once, RAW is in line with RAI. For Magic Missile, I could see an objection as RAI is not really in line with RAW as Magic Missile can affect the same target multiple times. But I really don't expect this case to be raised ever as Magic Missile is first and foremost a single target ability.
For activities with multiple subactions, RAW is unclear. As such, I'll apply RAI. When the activity is meant to be a quick succession of attacks that can hit a single target, like Flurry of Blows, there's no reason to apply damage once. But when the activity is meant to be a single AoE attack resolved through multiple Strikes, like Whirlwind Strike, it's legitimate to apply the damage only once.
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It's a badly written rule. When breith cites a rule statement that everything has an effect basically implying that every single thing in the game is an "effect", the rule has jumped the shark and should be listed for errata for the sake of clarity.
I know my criteria for this are going to be something like the following:
1. Single attack roll against AC like a Swipe or a Volley (I'm changing this to agree with Superbidi at least a bit more), apply the higher damage rule.
2. Multiple attack rolls against each target even if single ability, applies individually. Damage will double dip.
3. Save spell that hits all targets like AoE spell or chain lightning, apply the rule of higher damage per save.
4. Magic Missile, Flurry of Blows, Hunted Shot things that allow multiple attacks from a single "effect" that can target a single or separate target, then I apply them separately to each target. Double dip can occur.
Any other strangeness that comes up, I'll figure out when it happens. But the above is my guideline for how I will apply the rule until I completely rewrite the class into a much better state than it is currently in.
Sorry for this occurring in this thread. But action economy is a big plus for the Summoner, so as far as post-CRB action economy goes summoner is good.
But this rule for how you run the dual hit point pull affected by hit point pool affecting effects seems to greatly change the experience one has with the class. I run it more harshly than it seems others have been doing. I'm really not sure what Pathfinder Society does. I don't know what was intended other that don't completely screw the player with double fireball damage, but not sure what was intended for things like Flurry of Blows or Magic Missile.
It's another reason why I think the dual hit point pool is clunky, badly written, and creates situations like this discussion. I absolutely despised these types of ambiguous rule situations in PF1 that were exploited by rules lawyers to more favorable readings because of obvious ambiguity and overly broad definitions.
I've never seen this situation being raised. Multi target attacks like Whirlwind Attack often have a limited range and as such rarely hit both the Summoner and the Eidolon. And even if they do, chances are high it won't be raised as you need the attack to hit both the Summoner and the Eidolon.
With this discussion, I also realized that if an AoE effect hits both the Summoner or the Eidolon and one of them is critically succeeding at the save then you can't use Protective Bond as only one of the 2 is affected by the damaging effect.
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Sorry for this occurring in this thread. But action economy is a big plus for the Summoner, so as far as post-CRB action economy goes summoner is good.
No worries. I'm just happy to have sparked some good discussion.
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I also realized that if an AoE effect hits both the Summoner or the Eidolon and one of them is critically succeeding at the save then you can't use Protective Bond as only one of the 2 is affected by the damaging effect.
The wording covers that
If you and your eidolon would take different amounts of damage from the area effect, you take the lower amount of damageZero is an amount.
I also realized that if an AoE effect hits both the Summoner or the Eidolon and one of them is critically succeeding at the save then you can't use Protective Bond as only one of the 2 is affected by the damaging effect.The wording covers that
If you and your eidolon would take different amounts of damage from the area effect, you take the lower amount of damageZero is an amount.
You're right. I was focusing on the Summoner description that was only kicking in if both the Summoner and the Eidolon take damage. But the feat is more general.
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I agree, "Everything is an effect" and IMO that means a Flurry of Blows is an effect that grants 2 Strike effects and the more specific effect is the strikes and not the overarching activity effect. In this instance, flurry of blows isn't an Attack and it doesn't do any damage to a target: you have to go into the discrete subordinate effects to deal damage and those are single target damage effects unaffected by the summoner's hp rule. That rule is for things like a fireball effect, that actually does affect multiple targets at once: Mutiple discrete attacks are different a single attack that affects multiple creatures.You are conflating activities with effects: you replied to "every Subordinate Action in an activity is its own effect" and all you proved that subordinate actions are part of the activity they come from and... well, yeah that's how it works but what does that have to do with effects? Where does it plainly state that subordinate actions aren't effects or that the "greater effect" takes precedent over discrete subordinate effects in regards to summoners hp's?That rule is:
if you and your eidolon are both subject to the same effect that affects your Hit Points, you apply those effects only onceNotice that it uses singular effect, then plural effects, to refer to the same thing inside one sentence. I think this is exactly the situation
we are talking about. Everything is an effect, the subordinate actions and thesuperordinate actionactivity.
Let's go. Let's review and analyze each point to make it clearer.
Effects, by game definition are:
Anything you do in the game has an effect. Many of these outcomes are easy to adjudicate during the game. If you tell the GM that you draw your sword, no check is needed, and the result is that your character is now holding a sword. Other times, the specific effect requires more detailed rules governing how your choice is resolved. Many spells, magic items, and feats create specific effects, and your character will be subject to effects caused by monsters, hazards, the environment, and other characters.
Just like anything you do in the game has an effect, that goes for activities as well. So activities have an effect and this is defined in them. But due to the doubts with the subordinate actions, I will explain the context from the inside out, from the subordinate actions to the final activity.
What the subordinate action rule says about effects is:
An action might allow you to use a simpler action—usually one of the Basic Actions on page 469—in a different circumstance or with different effects. This subordinate action still has its normal traits and effects, but is modified in any ways listed in the larger action. For example, an activity that tells you to Stride up to half your Speed alters the normal distance you can move in a Stride. The Stride would still have the move trait, would still trigger reactions that occur based on movement, and so on. The subordinate action doesn’t gain any of the traits of the larger action unless specified. The action that allows you to use a subordinate action doesn’t require you to spend more actions or reactions to do so; that cost is already factored in.
Note that what it's referring to in subordinate actions here is just that the effects of subordinate actions invoked and possibly modified by an activity apply normally. However, at no time does he explain that these effects run separately, only that they continue to be applied normally.
And now let's see what the Activities say about their effects, including the effects of subordinate actions:
An activity typically involves using multiple actions to create an effect greater than you can produce with a single action, or combining multiple single actions to produce an effect that’s different from merely the sum of those actions. In some cases, usually when spellcasting, an activity can consist of only 1 action, 1 reaction, or even 1 free action.
An activity might cause you to use specific actions within it. You don’t have to spend additional actions to perform them—they’re already factored into the activity’s required actions. (See Subordinate Actions on page 462.)
You have to spend all the actions of an activity at once to gain its effects. In an encounter, this means you must complete it during your turn. If an activity gets interrupted or disrupted in an encounter (page 462), you lose all the actions you committed to it.
See that here it makes it clear that an activity is "combining multiple single actions to produce an effect that’s different from merely the sum of those actions".
So while you may have to resolve the effects of different and/or multiple subordinate actions through separate checks, in the end the effects are combined. The game in practice doesn't care about the test to define if the effects are independent or not, it never did! This is even reinforced in the effects rule:
While a check might determine the overall impact or strength of an effect, a check is not always part of creating an effect. Casting a fly spell on yourself creates an effect that allows you to soar through the air, but casting the spell does not require a check. Conversely, using the Intimidate skill to Demoralize a foe does require a check, and your result on that check determines the effect’s outcome.
I understand that it is natural to associate effects with rolls, but that was never the idea, effects are usually associated with actions or activities and never with rolls. Rolls are effect modifiers that actions can use, and this is pretty clear in spells. When you cast a spell, its effect is applied and the spell is spent and the effect is resolved by the save, when someone critically passes the save does not mean that the activity of that spell was not performed, nor that it has no effect, but that the her effect was "nothing happens".
Then, finally, we have the rule for how the summoner and the eidolon resolve effects that affect the hit points of both that use all of this:
Lastly, the connection between you and your eidolon means you both share a single pool of Hit Points. Damage taken by either you or the eidolon reduces your Hit Points, while healing either of you recovers your Hit Points. Like with your actions, if you and your eidolon are both subject to the same effect that affects your Hit Points, you apply those effects only once (applying the greater effect, if applicable). For instance, if you and your eidolon get caught in an area effect that would heal or damage you both, only the greater amount of healing or damage applies.
So even an opponent uses something like the Double Shot activity and hits both the summoner and the eidolon, only the Hit that deals the most damage applies!
This seems strange because we instinctively created the idea that the fact that the summoner has 2 bodies would cause him to receive both damages and that due to an instinctive interpretation that only effects that have a single dice roll that is applied to both targets it would be. But the thing is not like that, the rule never contained that.
What happens is that the rule of shared hit points between the summoner and the eidolon in practice gives you a greater risk but also a greater benefit. While it makes the summoner easier to take damage by having 2 potential targets, it also protects him from suffering doubled effects by having both his and the eidolon's bodies hit. That simple!