| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Is a rune that is modified by a diacritic rune count as 1 rune or 2 for the purposes of feats like etch transpose (i.e., one action to move a rune). From the wording it sounds like the diacritic rune alters the base rune and makes a 'new rune' thus RAI/RAW I believe it counts as 1 single rune instance.
Per the Diacritic Trait:
"A diacritic can never be applied by itself, and any effect that would remove or invoke the base rune always also removes or invokes the diacritic rune."
So I assume Transpose Etching, which would remove a rune from one place to put it on a different target, also moves the Diacritic with it.
I agree, once you've added the diacritic they're a whole unit.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Definitely needs a tidbit of clarification. The diacritic trait text suggests they remain two separate runes, but anything that "removes or invokes the base rune always also removes or invokes the diacritic rune."
Transpose Etching acts as an edge case that begs the question of the above wording's specificity. Transpose says, "You move any one of your runes within 30 feet to a different target within 30 feet." This "move" does necessarily remove the base rune from the original target, so the diacritic must also be removed; however, the diacritic trait does not specify what happens when the base rune it reapplied elsewhere, so the result is technically vague.
A simple fix would be to rephrase the diacritic trait text as: "Any change to the base rune, such as removal, transfer, or invocation, also applies to the diacritic rune."
The two runes are still separate however, which is critical for the composite invocations since the diacritic can be a different tradition than the base rune. This seems to be one of the main benefits of diacritics as far as I can tell.