Title. Investigator PC is going to fight a Grim Reaper. They are inside the GR's Aura of Misfortune. Investigator wants do Devise a Stratagem. What happens?
1)They declare intent to do it, use an action, and nothing happens. If they want to Strike the reaper later, they must roll twice, take the lowest, and not use Intelligence.
2)They declare intent to do it, use an action, nothing happens. If they want to Strike the reaper later, they roll only once, but can't add Intelligence.
3)Something else?
I'd like someone to point me to a clear rule, if possible, but I'm open to discussion.
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Core Rulebook pg. 632: "If a fortune effect and a misfortune effect would apply to the same roll, the two cancel each other out, and you roll normally."
This means #3, something else: you spend the action for Devise a Stratagem and when you go to strike, "you roll normally". This means you ignore both Aura of Misfortune and Devise a Stratagem and just roll your d20 once and make a normal Strike. However, saying "nothing happens" would be incorrect as you still used Devise a Stratagem and affects based on that would still activate as the d20 effect is delayed: things like Known Weaknesses would still activate as that happens before Devise a Stratagem attempts to modify your d20 and gets canceled.
I think you can even still use the Intelligence substitution and precision damage. The only thing that the Misfortune effect cancels out is the rolling not-normally.
So to quote with changes:
You assess a foe's weaknesses in combat and use them to formulate a plan of attack against your enemy. Choose a creature you can see
and roll a d20. If you Strike the chosen creature later this round,you must use the result of the roll you made to Devise a Stratagem for your Strike's attack roll instead of rolling. You make this substitution only for the first Strike you make against the creature this round, not any subsequent attacks.When you make this substitution, you can also add your Intelligence modifier to your attack roll instead of your Strength or Dexterity modifier, provided your Strike uses an agile or finesse melee weapon, an agile or finesse unarmed attack, a ranged weapon (which must be agile or finesse if it's a melee weapon with the thrown trait), or a sap.
If you're aware that the creature you choose is the subject of a lead you're pursuing, you can use this ability as a free action.
It is a bit debatable since you aren't substituting the roll you pre-rolled on the attack. But I think that is the best RAI following of the rules. A Misfortune effect should only remove the Fortune part of effect - not completely remove an entire class feature.
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I think you can even still use the Intelligence substitution and precision damage. The only thing that the Misfortune effect cancels out is the rolling not-normally.
So to quote with changes:
It is a bit debatable since you aren't substituting the roll you pre-rolled on the attack. But I think that is the best RAI following of the rules. A Misfortune effect should only remove the Fortune part of effect - not completely remove an entire class feature.You assess a foe's weaknesses in combat and use them to formulate a plan of attack against your enemy. Choose a creature you can see
and roll a d20. If you Strike the chosen creature later this round,you must use the result of the roll you made to Devise a Stratagem for your Strike's attack roll instead of rolling. You make this substitution only for the first Strike you make against the creature this round, not any subsequent attacks.When you make this substitution, you can also add your Intelligence modifier to your attack roll instead of your Strength or Dexterity modifier, provided your Strike uses an agile or finesse melee weapon, an agile or finesse unarmed attack, a ranged weapon (which must be agile or finesse if it's a melee weapon with the thrown trait), or a sap.
If you're aware that the creature you choose is the subject of a lead you're pursuing, you can use this ability as a free action.
I've been trying to figure out how to self-apply a misfortune effect so that I can Strike my main target with no MAP, regardless of dice. One idea is to use a Ceru as a Specific Familiar. You command the Ceru (with one action) to use Turn of Fate (two actions for the Familiar?) to remove your "Fortune" effect on a bad DaS roll.
I was thinking that, yes, your DaS class feature does get invalidated when this occurs and you cannot substitute INT. The entire Devise a Stratagem feature has the Fortune trait, not just the substitution roll.
In situations where you don't want the DaS feature to be invalidated, though, simply get out of the aura. Fire at the reaper with a bow from range.
Yeah, DaS has the fortune trait. Invalidating the rolling part but not invalidating the substitution of attributes feels weird. Hence my doubt. I believe, in the interest of not completely boning my player, I will have the PC waste the action, but attack normally if they do it with dex afterwards.
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Yes. The whole effect is Fortune and gets canceled.
Let's see that quote again.
Core Rulebook pg. 632: "If a fortune effect and a misfortune effect would apply to the same roll, the two cancel each other out, and you roll normally."
So the part that cancels out is the part that applies to the roll.
Now, reading the rules on Devise a Strategem, that doesn't cancel out your ability to swap in int... or at least it doesn't do so directly. On the other hand, swapping in int is triggered by actually making the substitution, which it [i]does[i/i] cancel, so you still don't get any int-swap.
Yeah, DaS has the fortune trait. Invalidating the rolling part but not invalidating the substitution of attributes feels weird. Hence my doubt. I believe, in the interest of not completely boning my player, I will have the PC waste the action, but attack normally if they do it with dex afterwards.
So, technically, the result should be that they roll and keep the die, and then when they go to substitute it, it instead burns out in canceling the misfortune effect and they attack normally.
That said, it's not wasted. Spending an action canceling a misfortune effect might well be worthwhile.
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Let's see that quote again.Core Rulebook pg. 632: "If a fortune effect and a misfortune effect would apply to the same roll, the two cancel each other out, and you roll normally."
So the part that cancels out is the part that applies to the roll.
I don't think you get to pick which part cancels out. "The two cancel each other out" full stop is the description of what happens. There's no splitting a fortune (or misfortune) effect into multiple components. It also means any riders attached to the misfortune effect don't work either.
I'm curious if you are saying that because you feel that it is strict RAW, or if you think that Investigator is going to be too powerful if they are allowed to spend an action to get INT substitution and a bit of precision damage even in the face of a Misfortune effect.
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I'm just discussing how the effects are written. I wouldn't even necessarily call it 'strict' imo, it's just the basic rules interaction. There's no implication of subdivision like there is for, say, the Auditory trait.
It applies the other way too, like if our Investigator was standing in an Animist's discomfiting whispers they wouldn't take void damage on a miss either, because the fortune and misfortune effects cancel each other out.
It would be pretty hard to make the Investigator too powerful, they're the worst class in the game by a lot. You'd be better off just giving them the int substitution and precision damage for free all the time if that's where your head is.
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Yes. The whole effect is Fortune and gets canceled.Let's see that quote again.
Core Rulebook pg. 632: "If a fortune effect and a misfortune effect would apply to the same roll, the two cancel each other out, and you roll normally."
So the part that cancels out is the part that applies to the roll.
Now, reading the rules on Devise a Strategem, that doesn't cancel out your ability to swap in int... or at least it doesn't do so directly. On the other hand, swapping in int is triggered by actually making the substitution, which it [i]does[i/i] cancel, so you still don't get any int-swap.
Yeah, DaS has the fortune trait. Invalidating the rolling part but not invalidating the substitution of attributes feels weird. Hence my doubt. I believe, in the interest of not completely boning my player, I will have the PC waste the action, but attack normally if they do it with dex afterwards.So, technically, the result should be that they roll and keep the die, and then when they go to substitute it, it instead burns out in canceling the misfortune effect and they attack normally.
That said, it's not wasted. Spending an action canceling a misfortune effect might well be worthwhile.
The condition depends on the roll part. But the consequence concerns the whole effect, not just the roll part of it.
That is the RAW, no matter what we think it should be or how we try to contort the RAW to this vision of ours of what should be, in this case that it punishes the Investigator which is definitely not the mightiest class in encounters.