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Hello everyone,
I have a question regarding the Exemplar's Only the Worthy feat at level 4. It reads:
"You can designate your ikons as movable by only your own hand, leaving them fixed in place as surely as if they were lodged in stone. Whenever you Release an ikon, you can spend an action to command it to remain motionless. While motionless, the ikon can be moved only if 8,000 pounds of pressure are applied to it or if a creature uses Athletics to Force Open the ikon with a DC equal to your class DC. You can Release your ikon over an adjacent prone enemy to hold them down with the ikon’s motionlessness—while so Released, you can’t use the ikon, but the enemy must succeed at the Athletics check to Stand or to move. The ikon automatically flies back to your hand when the effect is broken or if you spend an Interact action to hold out a hand and draw it back."
My question is on the second part of placing your ikon on someone to force an athletics check. Does this mean they need an Athletics check to stand or move, or does it mean they need to make the Athletics check to force open and move the Ikon and then stand or move.
In the first example it would be an Atheltics check in order to stand or move. If it is this example is that atheltics check still a force open check adding to MAP of the enemy.
The second would be two actions, one to force open and then another to stand or move.
thoughts?
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The way the 2nd restatement uses "the enemy must succeed at the Athletics check" shows that there is only 1 check that the ability can prompt. An Athletics check to Force Open.
While this does mean any foe must pass the Force Open check to move or Stand, they can still do other things, like Strike, cast spells, etc.
And yes, Force Open is it's own 1A thing, and does not have a 2nd action included in that check. It's somewhat like Sickened and Retching in that way, the entire action is a fail-able chance to remove the imposed penalty.
And yes, the interaction with the attack trait means that this action-tax is pretty nasty for a lot of foes, needing to pick between attacking someone or escaping the restraint with their fresh MAP 0 action.
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Do note that this does have 2 main downsides, that the foe must be Prone first, and that you need to leave your Ikon upon the foe and cannot use it while it's holding them down.
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What is kinda wild, and what I totally forgot before re-reading it now, is that Force Open has a -2 penalty baked in to all attempts.
Using your body, a lever, or some other tool, you attempt to forcefully open a door, window, container or heavy gate. With a high enough result, you can even smash through walls. Without a crowbar, prying something open takes a –2 item penalty to the Athletics check to Force Open.
So, uh, I think RaW this penalty should be there due to Force Open being specifically invoked like that.
There's no text to indicate you skip the -2 for the feat, and it could have been written to use any other invocation of Athletics that was not Force Open.
Well you can draw a crowbar and try to move the Mjolnir! kkkkk
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The way the 2nd restatement uses "the enemy must succeed at the Athletics check" shows that there is only 1 check that the ability can prompt. An Athletics check to Force Open.
While this does mean any foe must pass the Force Open check to move or Stand, they can still do other things, like Strike, cast spells, etc.
And yes, Force Open is it's own 1A thing, and does not have a 2nd action included in that check. It's somewhat like Sickened and Retching in that way, the entire action is a fail-able chance to remove the imposed penalty.
And yes, the interaction with the attack trait means that this action-tax is pretty nasty for a lot of foes, needing to pick between attacking someone or escaping the restraint with their fresh MAP 0 action.
.
Do note that this does have 2 main downsides, that the foe must be Prone first, and that you need to leave your Ikon upon the foe and cannot use it while it's holding them down.
.
What is kinda wild, and what I totally forgot before re-reading it now, is that Force Open has a -2 penalty baked in to all attempts.
Using your body, a lever, or some other tool, you attempt to forcefully open a door, window, container or heavy gate. With a high enough result, you can even smash through walls. Without a crowbar, prying something open takes a –2 item penalty to the Athletics check to Force Open.So, uh, I think RaW this penalty should be there due to Force Open being specifically invoked like that.
There's no text to indicate you skip the -2 for the feat, and it could have been written to use any other invocation of Athletics that was not Force Open.
Do you think that the -2 penalty would apply here? The -2 penalty is stated for prying something open. Example, of when it says with a high enough check you can smash through a wall. I don't think a crowbar is helping you smash through that wall. The check is to move the object not actually pry open the object.
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It's honestly surprisingly unclear, most stuff in pf2 I've read doesn't allow for that kind of wiggle-room where the crowbar sentence could be referring to all Force Open, or it could be introducing the rule only to a newly introduced sub-set of uses of Force Open at the same time.
Imo, I would expect this ruling to actually be pretty split and random per GM.
Some will read that crowbar bit applying to all Force Open, and some will read it applying only to any Force Open that "makes sense" to need a crowbar or other tool. What's bizarre is how this penalty is constructed to the default that you avoid with the tool.
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Personally, I hate that my tendency to keep it simple stupid is leading toward this outcome, but Force Open is written so strangely with that default penalty.
I would rule that every Force Open that's bare-handed / without a fitting tool is taking that penalty. Leverage as a force multiplier is universal. And I'd be sure to let weapons work as such tools when appropriate.
So yeah, I'd say Only The Worthy victims might struggle to get the Ikon off their ankle if they don't have something they can wedge under it and pry with.
The feat could have used a blank "Athletics check with the attack trait" but specifically chose Force Open, which puts a whole lot of "why" weight into that -2 pry-tool mechanic.
One reason to favor the -2 penalty is that it effectively gives legendary track class DC proficiency to this one exemplar ability, and the having to use a twinned/second/unavailable ikon to pin someone is already a big sacrifice before you look a the athletics bonuses of most creatures you'd want to pin with this and who will have a good chance to get free.
There are a few high level creatures with no athletics, though, and it's very funny to imagine permanently pinning them with this.