For the specter's Spectral Corruption, does the incapacitation trait apply to both the attack roll and the saving throw?
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For reference: Specter and Incapacitation
Pedantic RAW you could read it such that the attack roll would have Incapacitation. Checks to prevent incapacitation are increased by a stage, and hostile action checks by the attacker are reduced by a stage.
But knowing how probabilities work, I would rule that as too good/bad to be true. You shouldn't double-dip on rolls like that. It is harsh enough for the ability to need both an attack roll and a save against the effect. Having the incapacitation effect on just the save against the corruption should be fine.
Wouldn't it also be the only case of incapacitation applying to an attack roll? I can only think of saves having it.
There is also Scare to Death that has a similar setup.
The action has a skill check that the attacking character rolls. Then the defender makes a save. The action as a whole has the Incapacitation trait.
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I would say it is probably a typo, since there are effects which specify which components of a given ability are affected by Incapacitate, and which are not, and is written to make those distinctions apparent.
But RAW is clear; both attack roll and saving throw would be affected, since the entirety of the ability has the trait. My suspicion is because the effect can turn the tide of the battle against the PCs favor significantly, though of course it's not imbalanced to rule that only the save portion is Incapacitate, since then it's just plain worse than a 1 action attack.
True, now I remember a discussion about it on this boards. Anyway, that's still a skill check with four scaling levels of success; an attack roll does nothing on a simple miss, and it would feel pretty bad to roll a hit and still completely fail. Not to mention decreasing the level of success of both the attack/skill roll and the save.
There is also Scare to Death that has a similar setup.
The action has a skill check that the attacking character rolls. Then the defender makes a save. The action as a whole has the Incapacitation trait.
Except if the incapacitation effect applies, then the critical failure on the check never happens, so there's no follow-up save.
Except if the incapacitation effect applies, then the critical failure on the check never happens, so there's no follow-up save.There is also Scare to Death that has a similar setup.
The action has a skill check that the attacking character rolls. Then the defender makes a save. The action as a whole has the Incapacitation trait.
Which is another good argument that the ruling that incapacitation would apply to the same ability twice is too bad to be true.
Except if the incapacitation effect applies, then the critical failure on the check never happens, so there's no follow-up save.There is also Scare to Death that has a similar setup.
The action has a skill check that the attacking character rolls. Then the defender makes a save. The action as a whole has the Incapacitation trait.
I meant to type "critical success" on the check in case someone was confused.
In practice what's happen is that Spectral Corruption Strike only will hit if it critical success and then will roll the DC normally.
IMO I agree with Darksol. This is probably a typo because this practically forbids the GM to use Spectral Corruption if the creature has a level inferior to the PC whats most sense is considere that this incapacitation have to be applied into the DC check.
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"The subordinate action doesn’t gain any of the traits of the larger action unless specified"
So there's no incapacitation into DC check only in the Strike check. That's exactly what I said. That's why I think this was a typo.
Sorry my mistake wasn't into the subordinate actions but in how I read the Spectral Corruption. Due the Strike check coming before and conditioning the DC check I instinctively misunderstand it as the Strike check was the main check of the activity instead of DC and ignored it as a subordinated action.
No
because Subordinate Actions
Okay, I guess I had it backwards. Oops.