Quick Question regarding Familiar of Ongoing Misery

[Nectarian]

Hi,

this might sound like a stupid question, but english is my second languague, so I am a little bit unsure how the wording of this Ability is meant to be read.

"When you Cast or Sustain a hex, your familiar can curse a creature within 15 feet of it, prolonging the duration of any negative conditions affecting it by 1 round."

I am unsure if "any negative condition" does mean every negative condition on the target, or just one? I am aware of the limitations (only Conditions with a timed ending), but that could still be a lot.

It feels like "every", but in the back of my head there's a voice that shouts "this is far too strong. You can't extend all conditions that you AND your Mates put on the enemy with a single one-action evil eye" (as far as I understand, Hex Cantrips are still Hexes, so they should trigger the abillity).

Also, this sounds a lot of a "modern" version of PF1's Cackle/Chant... targeting only one creature but extending non-hex-debuffs as well. PF2e's Cackle, on the other hand, was nerfed down significantly, compared to it's PF1 Version (at least at first glance), so I don't think a (more or less) passive abillity shoud just grant this effect.

[Nectarian]

also, with "every", I didn't necessarily mean all conditions, but any combinations of conditions you want(that fit the description). Just to be clear what I meant.

[The Raven Black]

This was tackled recently on an Advice forum thread about the Resentment Witch.

The consensus was as follows :

Captain Morgan wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

Finoan wrote:

"You can call me any day of the week." Unless you have really long phone calls, you are prevented by practicality from calling on multiple days with the same call. But all days are available.

"You can take anything you can carry." Not usually limited to one item.

"You can get that in any color." Again, practicality means that you only get one color, not the choice of wording.

"Choose any that apply." I often see this in survey choices.

Your examples are not using any + plural but any + singular. I understand these fine.

From Internet, it looks like it's puzzling a lot more people than just me.

Well, at least, it's not crystal clear to everyone as Ravingdork and Morgan seem to have the same reading I got (and Morgan is also fluent in latin, so I don't question their English :D).

Finoan wrote:

So "prolong any negative conditions" means that you could choose as many as you want that qualify - but you can also choose only some that qualify and decide not to prolong others that do still qualify, but that you don't want to prolong for some reason. If it said "prolong all negative conditions" then you wouldn't have that option. If you use the ability on that target, then every last one of their negative conditions would be prolonged whether you wanted them all to or not.

I trust you. But still I question the choice of any over all: Is there really a reason to extend only some negative conditions and not all? So I wonder if it could be a typo.

If it's really meant to be all conditions then the discussion on how to extend 2 of them is moot. And it's also much more powerful than I first read it. I'd still love an errata to replace any by all so it becomes crystal clear to everyone.

Correction: I agree with Finoan here and am not fluent in Latin. I am a professional corporate writer, though. My English chops are pretty solid.

If Ongoing Misery were meant to be singular, it should have sad "a condition" instead of "any condition." That language might have also made it clearer that this has a to be a codified condition from the conditions chapter, as opposed to anything which inflicts some kind of penalty. "Any" can be read as more open ended.

So I think you're reading it right : any combination you want.

[The Raven Black]

The discussion about this on the thread starts here

[Nectarian]

Thanks Raven Black,
I found that discussion myself,but wasn't sure the consensus was "final", but thanks, that helps me out a lot.

[Finoan]

Nectarian wrote:

Thanks Raven Black,

I found that discussion myself,but wasn't sure the consensus was "final", but thanks, that helps me out a lot.

It is as final as any other consensus on these forums. Without official errata or clarifications there will always be some lingering concern and dissent.

[The Raven Black]

Finoan wrote:

Nectarian wrote:

Thanks Raven Black,

I found that discussion myself,but wasn't sure the consensus was "final", but thanks, that helps me out a lot.

It is as final as any other consensus on these forums. Without official errata or clarifications there will always be some lingering concern and dissent.

That is true and, for PFS at least, it is best to assume the worst possible interpretation.

[Themetricsystem]

I don't think there has even been a PFS ruling on that question yet and your question isn't a language barrier problem at all, it's just sloppy mechanical writing.

You as a GM would have to make a call on what it means or if you're a player you'll have to discuss it with whoever is running the game.