Hi, I have a quick question about Zealous Rush (the 8th level Cleric feat) and the spell Bless.
Zealous Rush's wording says that you "bless yourself on the move," but since Bless is a spell that affects more than yourself since it's an emanation, it doesn't seem to work with Bless going by RAW.
However, it does feel like RAI is that Bless should be able to trigger the feat, given that they chose the word Bless in the description. It also makes sense, thematically and mechanically, with it being an 8th level feat. Otherwise, it only works on the narrow range of self-buffs like Heroism or self-heals.
How would you rule this feat at your table? I'm 50/50 on it myself. Letting Zealous Rush work on aura-like effects seems reasonably powerful for an aura buff build.
you are in 1st edition pathfinder forum. Zealous Rush is a 2nd edition feat. flagged to move.
Woops, thanks!
Greetings. Looks like the thread made its way here.
I would say that the intent is that the spell needs to be cast in a way that it is only possible to affect you or your own equipment.
So casting 1-action or 2-action Heal on yourself would qualify, as would casting Runic Weapon on your own weapon. But casting 3-action Heal would not qualify even if it only affected yourself (which is an inefficient use of Heal, but that is beside the point).
To be a bit more loose about it, I could see allowing spells that could potentially affect more than just yourself as long as they don't affect more than just yourself. We already have to be into this territory a little bit regarding Heal. The spell itself is capable of targeting someone else. But as long as you target yourself with it, then it qualifies. Casting Rank 2 Resist Energy clearly qualifies as long as you target yourself. Casting Rank 4 Resist Energy should also qualify as long as you also only target yourself even though it is possible to target both yourself and another ally.
The biggest question then becomes non-instantaneous spells that target an area. Spells that during the round that you cast them only affect yourself, but in later rounds could affect someone else. Spells like Bless or Focusing Hum.
Ultimately, I think this is a GM call to make. I can see a couple of ways of running it.
One is that spells that can, during their duration, affect additional targets don't qualify even if they don't affect anyone else during the round cast. I think this is the most rules-accurate way of running it.
Another option is to allow the spell to qualify as long as the spell doesn't happen to affect anyone else during the first round that it is cast. The difficulty here is that it is hard to measure exactly how long that needs to last for - the end of the caster's turn, or until the start of their next turn. If the prohibition lasts until the start of their next turn, do they have to undo their actions if an ally (or somehow an enemy) does something that causes them to be affected (such as moving themselves into the area where Bless is)? Or does the spell instead just not affect them until after that even though it should?
So I think the first way of running it - that Bless doesn't qualify - is the safer option for the GM to use. Though there are options for the GM to allow more loose reading if desired.
The word 'bless' being used in that first sentence isn't really a factor in the game mechanics. It isn't referencing the Bless spell specifically. It is using it as a generic term for divine spells cast by a Cleric.
Agreed, allowing it to be used if there's no one around would quickly become a massive headache. Great reply and very in-depth, thanks!
I'm honestly surprised that they worded the feat in this way. As mentioned, they use the word bless in the feat description itself, and allowing it to work on Bless would encourage teamwork further by allowing self-focused players to still buff their allies. But like your well-made post says, Bless and similar spells don't seem to work with it.
I do recognize that they just used the word bless as a general term, no worries there. It's just odd that they'd pick the name of one of the arguably most popular spells to use as the generic term then make the feat not work with Bless, lmao.
I wonder if it's partially meant to give them some design space for later on? A level 10 or 12 feat that widened the applicability of Zealous Rush would slot in nicely.