Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
How do the backswing, forceful, and sweep traits work for Weapon Infusion? All three traits specify "when you attack again with the same weapon", but (a) Elemental Blast isn't really a weapon, and (b) even if it were, each Weapon Infused Elemental Blast would be its own new weapon, not the same one.
Under the general rule of "assume abilities do something", I would probably rule that you can benefit from forceful on subsequent Blasts as long as you made your first Elemental Blast that round forceful as well. Backswing and sweep really seem to have no purpose at all, even interpreted generously, because even when they work they just give you the same benefit as agile, which Weapon Infusion could also give you.
Am I just misunderstanding this ability? Are these effects more useful while multiclassing, maybe? Agile is certainly quite good, if you're (say) a fighter with Agile Grace multiclassed into kineticist. But I just don't see any useful purpose for backswing or sweep, even if your GM rules that they work at all.
Sweep and Backswing are literally always worse than Agile so yeah idk.
In the playtest, blasts had their own traits so being able to take Backswing or Sweep would be useful for a blast that already had agile, feel like it might be an artifact of a design iteration where that was still true.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
All right, at least I'm reading that right. It did seem odd but if different elements provided different traits in the playtest, it makes more sense.
But what about Forceful? Does my ruling seem reasonable? Or being even more generous, just treat "Elemental Blast" as all one weapon for the purpose of Forceful, even if earlier Elemental Blasts didn't have it?
Seems reasonable to me. As written it doesn't do anything since it's not a persistent weapon, but it's clearly supposed to.
Interestingly, forceful is somewhat stronger on blasts than on weapons due to the increased amount of damage dice, though I suspect you're still better off picking agile most of the time. So I don't think your more generous version would feel very different, either.
Use Backswing on the first, then Agile on the second and third, perhaps? Gives a small bonus to the attack role of the second blast for a total modifier -3 instead of -4.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
No, you clearly can't stack Backswing (or Sweep) and Agile. If you want the 2nd blast to benefit from Backswing, it has to actually have Backswing on it.
Actually Dragonborn might be right. Backswing is worded differently than Sweep or Agile. It activates when you miss and gives you a bonus on the next attack.
Dragonborn3 wrote: Use Backswing on the first, then Agile on the second and third, perhaps? Gives a small bonus to the attack role of the second blast for a total modifier -3 instead of -4. I've actually done this multiple times. It should work given you use weapon infusion before each attack. But I agree it's reasonable to read either way since it's arguably not the same weapon.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Squiggit wrote: Actually Dragonborn might be right. Backswing is worded differently than Sweep or Agile. It activates when you miss and gives you a bonus on the next attack. Hmm. It's clear that the original wording of Backswing never considered the possibility that a weapon might have Backswing for one attack, and then lose it for the next. Still, I think it's unreasonable to expect that an attack without Backswing (or any other similar trait) can still benefit from it.
Paul Zagieboylo wrote: Squiggit wrote: Actually Dragonborn might be right. Backswing is worded differently than Sweep or Agile. It activates when you miss and gives you a bonus on the next attack. Hmm. It's clear that the original wording of Backswing never considered the possibility that a weapon might have Backswing for one attack, and then lose it for the next. Still, I think it's unreasonable to expect that an attack without Backswing (or any other similar trait) can still benefit from it. Disagree. There's nothing in the language of the trait that works against you. You fulfill the conditions to gain the bonus while you have the weapon trait, perfectly normal.
As far as reasonableness is concerned, the alternative is that the trait is completely superfluous and pointless, because this is literally the only use case for backswing. That strikes me as even more unreasonable.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
I would certainly argue against any interpretation that treats Backswing and Sweep differently, no matter how they happen to be worded. I think it's quite clear that the original wording never considered that a weapon might change traits from attack to attack, because... that just wasn't possible, and no one thought about it.
However, I also have considerable respect for your argument that "abilities should do something", especially abilities that come with investments as heavy as a class feat. And even by your reading, Sweep clearly does absolutely nothing at all (that isn't already covered by Agile), and Backswing only by a pretty tortuous reading. So I would consider supporting an even more generous ruling that adding any of these three traits to your first attack (chosen before you swing) grants you the corresponding bonus on your second and third attacks (regardless of what you add to those ones), especially considering that otherwise the only melee trait that Weapon Infusion usefully adds to your first attack is Reach (which is pretty good, but still). Although I would still rule that Forceful only increases to 2/die on your third attack if both of your first two had it.
I know I'm not running a PFS game, and I can rule however I want. I just wanted to get some discussion going about what rulings would be reasonable.
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