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Apparition's Possession
You relinquish control of your physical body to an apparition,
allowing it to fully unleash its spiritual power at the cost of
your own agency. Until the start of your next turn, you are
immune to control effects and spells that attempt to influence
your actions, such as charm or command, unless its spell rank
is more than half your level. However, the only actions you
can take are to Stride, Strike, Cast an apparition Spell, Cast a
vessel Spell, or use an action that has the apparition trait.
So, first of all, it only works on spells, not abilities (like a Harpy's Lure, Kelpie's stuff). Secondly, it only works on spell-casters who are either your level, or below your level (depends on how the math shakes out. A level 11 caster has access to 6th levels pells like dominate, meaning it works on a level 11 animist who isn't level 12 yet). Thirdly, there are a lot of monsters that get access to spells much earlier than their level would indicate, which makes this ability useless against them (Succubus, Vampire Count, Invidiak).
It also runs the opposite problem of, at level 20, there is no way to mess with them because max spell rank is 10, even if Tar Baphon is trying to compel them.
Easy solution: Change it so that you are immune to (yadda yadda) from creatures, traps, haunts, and hazards of up to your level+3. So if you are fighting some big boss who is party level +4, you can still fall victim, otherwise, immune. If you think that is too powerful, knock it down to your level +2.
So, first of all, it only works on spells, not abilities (like a Harpy's Lure, Kelpie's stuff).
Apparition's Possession
You relinquish control of your physical body to an apparition,
allowing it to fully unleash its spiritual power at the cost of
your own agency. Until the start of your next turn, you are
immune to control effects and spells that attempt to influence
your actions, such as charm or command, unless its spell rank
is more than half your level. However, the only actions you
can take are to Stride, Strike, Cast an apparition Spell, Cast a
vessel Spell, or use an action that has the apparition trait.
I think you just misread that.
Secondly, it only works on spell-casters who are either your level, or below your level (depends on how the math shakes out. A level 11 caster has access to 6th levels pells like dominate, meaning it works on a level 11 animist who isn't level 12 yet). Thirdly, there are a lot of monsters that get access to spells much earlier than their level would indicate, which makes this ability useless against them (Succubus, Vampire Count, Invidiak).
I think this is similar wording to other similar abilities, I'm prepared to be proven wrong though.
It also runs the opposite problem of, at level 20, there is no way to mess with them because max spell rank is 10, even if Tar Baphon is trying to compel them.
I don't mind that as a capstone, that might just be me though. It's immunity to a very specific type of effect at the cost of 1 action per round.
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So, first of all, it only works on spells, not abilities (like a Harpy's Lure, Kelpie's stuff).
Apparition's Possession
You relinquish control of your physical body to an apparition,
allowing it to fully unleash its spiritual power at the cost of
your own agency. Until the start of your next turn, you are
immune to control effects and spells that attempt to influence
your actions, such as charm or command, unless its spell rank
is more than half your level. However, the only actions you
can take are to Stride, Strike, Cast an apparition Spell, Cast a
vessel Spell, or use an action that has the apparition trait.I think you just misread that.
I don't think I did. While the fluff part of it says it works on effects, it only gives you concrete rules for how it works on spells. Harpies call and Kelpie's lure do not have spell ranks.
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My problem with Apparition's Possession is that it is such an active ability (the animist has to spend an action each round) for a defense that is incredibly passive and tied into metadata that GMs are going to arbitrate in a lot of different ways.
How clear is it that that character is "possessed" by something? Should mind controlling foes be able to tell what that means? Can they tell the level of the character well enough to realize "this ability just wont work of them?" It is such specific and blanket immunity...except when it is not, that there is a lot of room for some GMs just to only ever target the character when the ability will do nothing, while other GMs might make the ability a ton better by playing the enemies as not knowing.
It is an interesting idea, and maybe one of the intentions of play testing it is to see how GMs handle it in play, but I think it is potentially much more problematic than incapacitation because a character can always critically fail a save and thus it is possible that a spell is not completely wasted. "Not likely to be useful" is just so different from "a certain waste of actions unless the character has access to knowledge that no one knows if they should have it or not."
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They don't have spell ranks, therefore they don't have a spell rank more than half your level, therefore they're always blocked by Apparition's Possession.
OR they don't have spell ranks, therefore they aren't spells, therefore it doesn't work. Pathfinder 2e has always sided on the rule of conservative. If it doesn't explicitly say it does it, it doesn't do it. It doesn't explicitly say what to do with non-spells, so it doesn't work on non-spells.
Any ability with a Level can have an effective Rank!(Details of language cleanup coming henceforth in winter...)
=)
Effective rank, yes, effective spell rank? No.
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OR they don't have spell ranks, therefore they aren't spells, therefore it doesn't work.
That logically doesn't make sense. Why would a prohibition against high level spells automatically prohibit all non-spell effects too?
Remember spell ranks are only mentioned to describe which effects bypass your immunity. So when you say it isn't mentioned, it isn't mentioned in the sentence describing which effects you can't block.
I mean, the obvious answer here is that Paizo just missed including a bit about effects of your level or higher, which makes this whole discussion meaningless, but if you really want to obsess over RAW pedantry, you might as well at least be accurate about it.
It doesn't explicitly say what to do with non-spells
I mean it literally says you're immune to them.
Can't imagine why this is the hill you're choosing to die on. It's both so pointless (because it's clearly an editing thing) and the argument is so obviously nonsensical.
Wouldn't it make more sense to talk about the actual problems with the ability?
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Part of the shift from level to rank is because rank only means one thing now. Nothing in the game has a rank that isn’t a direct correspondence to what spell rank stands for. I am sure the clarity will come in the player core and not need to be spelled out in the animist ability description, if this ability stays in a form anywhere close to this.
It is definitely the all or nothing nature of the ability that will create the most hard feelings between players and GMs. At the same time, you don’t have to use the ability except when it feels like it might be protecting you, in which case, you might be spending an action just to make yourself untargetable. But if it just means all mind control abilities get directed at your allies, it kinda becomes a bad teamwork choice to turn it on.
Part of the shift from level to rank is because rank only means one thing now. Nothing in the game has a rank that isn’t a direct correspondence to what spell rank stands for. I am sure the clarity will come in the player core and not need to be spelled out in the animist ability description, if this ability stays in a form anywhere close to this.
It is definitely the all or nothing nature of the ability that will create the most hard feelings between players and GMs. At the same time, you don’t have to use the ability except when it feels like it might be protecting you, in which case, you might be spending an action just to make yourself untargetable. But if it just means all mind control abilities get directed at your allies, it kinda becomes a bad teamwork choice to turn it on.
I can see that. Maybe instead of an Immunity, the spirit can do a counteract check against the control effect, as it tries to push out the other thing trying to control you. That way there is actual counter-play, and the dm just doesn't use abilities on another target.
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It might be that in the new Core, the counteract rules refer to something akin to effective spell rank instead of counteract level.
Or the play test wording is inadequate.
It feels to me like the ability is definitely meant to apply to more than just spells, and I trust the devs will make it happen on final release.