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The boomerang argument was patently ridiculous at the time, and remains ridiculous now. From a mechanics perspective, people were arguing the weapon got the returning rune for free; nothing about the way we know the game balances weapons indicates a returning rune fits in the boomerang's power budget, and it certainly doesn't have any of the powerlevel cuts you would expect if a weapon were to get a returning rune for free. That argument doesn't withstand scrutiny, either mechanical (free returning rune is silly) or narrative (boomerangs don't come back when they hit something in real life).
Counterpoint: the first sentence of the Stunned condition is flavor text that should be totally ignored when interpreting it.
Flavor text is nearly universal and nearly universally nonmechanical, and exists 20% for stylistic and 80% for copy fit reasons.
I'll admit that this one slapped me until I doublechecked that "you can't act" is indeed treated as keyword text by the game every time it appears. The break in formatting convention on stunned is genuinely confusing (and I wish it were more obvious that "you can't act" is basically a keyword).
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The stunned one is an interesting example.
Because if we ignore the "you can't act" part it's basically no different from slowed. But if having the stunned condition during your turn at all means you can't act that's probably harsher than intended.
It does raise the question why do we have both stunned and slowed.
The description of stunned also has some interesting implication with how something like haste works with it....although rereading the description haste causes quickened with restriction on what kind of actions you take so it would interact with Stunned and Slowed in the same way.
So anyways...what's actually supposed to be the difference? It doesn't seem like there is any.
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Counterpoint: the first sentence of the Stunned condition is flavor text that should be totally ignored when interpreting it.
Flavor text is nearly universal and nearly universally nonmechanical, and exists 20% for stylistic and 80% for copy fit reasons.
Literally this. When I make homebrew I mostly add flavor text to make the whole paragraph look more symetrical and because of formatting too.
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The stunned one is an interesting example.
Because if we ignore the "you can't act" part it's basically no different from slowed. But if having the stunned condition during your turn at all means you can't act that's probably harsher than intended.
It does raise the question why do we have both stunned and slowed.
The description of stunned also has some interesting implication with how something like haste works with it....although rereading the description haste causes quickened with restriction on what kind of actions you take so it would interact with Stunned and Slowed in the same way.
So anyways...what's actually supposed to be the difference? It doesn't seem like there is any.
The duration of stunned is determined by how it ticks down. If the system had an incap spell that inflicted stunned 4, it'd eat 3A on the first turn and 1A on the second. Slowed always eats the same amount of actions every turn. I can't think of any effect inflicts stunned at high enough values for this to matter, though.
The most important difference between slowed and stunned as the game is currently designed, though, is that being stunned keeps you from using reactions until it wears off.
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The stunned one is an interesting example.
Because if we ignore the "you can't act" part it's basically no different from slowed. But if having the stunned condition during your turn at all means you can't act that's probably harsher than intended.
It does raise the question why do we have both stunned and slowed.
The description of stunned also has some interesting implication with how something like haste works with it....although rereading the description haste causes quickened with restriction on what kind of actions you take so it would interact with Stunned and Slowed in the same way.
So anyways...what's actually supposed to be the difference? It doesn't seem like there is any.
The duration of stunned is determined by how it ticks down. If the system had an incap spell that inflicted stunned 4, it'd eat 3A on the first turn and 1A on the second. Slowed always eats the same amount of actions every turn. I can't think of any effect inflicts stunned at high enough values for this to matter, though.
The most important difference between slowed and stunned as the game is currently designed, though, is that being stunned keeps you from using reactions until it wears off.
But if you ignore the "you can't act" part of the text, then that's not true (not being able to use reactions), at least as far as I can see there's nothing in the stunned description that indicates that.
You've become senseless. You can't act. Stunned usually includes a value, which indicates how many total actions you lose, possibly over multiple turns, from being stunned. Each time you regain actions, reduce the number you regain by your stunned value, then reduce your stunned value by the number of actions you lost. For example, if you were stunned 4, you would lose all 3 of your actions on your turn, reducing you to stunned 1; on your next turn, you would lose 1 more action, and then be able to use your remaining 2 actions normally. Stunned might also have a duration instead, such as “stunned for 1 minute,” causing you to lose all your actions for the duration.
Stunned overrides slowed. If the duration of your stunned condition ends while you are slowed, you count the actions lost to the stunned condition toward those lost to being slowed. So, if you were stunned 1 and slowed 2 at the beginning of your turn, you would lose 1 action from stunned, and then lose only 1 additional action by being slowed, so you would still have 1 action remaining to use that turn.
I hadn't paid close attention to the durations and how the time ticks down.
You're right that stunned is reduced by the number of actions you gain on each turn while slowed has a number it reduces you action by each turn (and includes a duration in the effect).
Although, there is some mud because stunned can also come with a duration (acting much like slowed) rather than ticking down a number of specific actions.
Honestly, if we were starting over with PF2 stunned and slowed should probably should be rolled into one condition and cleaned up.
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Myself, I think the distinction is important because in whatever game i'm playing, that descriptive text may not apply but the mechanics stay the same unless there is a house rule. Secondly, if care isn't taken, flavor text written in a casual way can just confuse things. For instance, when you see text that says prey, is it related to Hunt Prey or not? You have to make a judgment call and use context clues since prey isn't capitalized. If flavor was clearly distinguishable from rule text, it'd be easier for everyone involved on what's meant to be a mechanical effect and what's meant to be evocative as a possible outcome of the effect.
To be clear on what I meant, I meant the distinction as a negative. I get differentiating them, since they are different, but I do not think that differentiating them needs to come hand in hand with narrative text being belittled as compared to rules text since I still think they're two parts of an important whole. My issue with the term "flavor text" is the negative connotation, not the differentiation. What I find silly is saying one part of the whole is less needed than any other.
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To be clear on what I meant, I meant the distinction as a negative. I get differentiating them, since they are different, but I do not think that differentiating them needs to come hand in hand with narrative text being belittled as compared to rules text since I still think they're two parts of an important whole. My issue with the term "flavor text" is the negative connotation, not the differentiation. What I find silly is saying one part of the whole is less needed than any other.
I hear you, but this is a complicated topic. People are assigning it as a negative but it needn't be. Personally I started using flavor text to avoid the negative that had been associated with fluff text. But now flavor text is being maligned for it as well. We've already ended up on the euphemism treadmill.
We can't control the context that someone adds to a phrase. On it's surface, to me, nothing about the phrase "flavor text" indicates a judgment about the material. And even if we switched to calling things descriptive text and mechanics text, we're probably all going to still end up in the same place we are right now.
Rather, I think we have to do the harder thing of reminding people that descriptive text is important and can have meaning, and even impact on the way something is adjudicated, while also say that some portion of rules text (description) are less relevant for figuring out how to run something in our games compared to other portions of the text.
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I think y'all are missing the point of Xenocrat's example. The first line of stunned isn't "you can't act". That's the second line. Its "You've become senseless".
Now I don't think I've ever heard an argument by someone that stunned means you no longer have sight, scent, or other special senses. But now that I've said that I'm sure someone will decide to do so in a couple posts.
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I think y'all are missing the point of Xenocrat's example. The first line of stunned isn't "you can't act". That's the second line. Its "You've become senseless".
Now I don't think I've ever heard an argument by someone that stunned means you no longer have sight, scent, or other special senses. But now that I've said that I'm sure someone will decide to do so in a couple posts.
That is a great example.
Who gets to decide when to cut off the description and say that part isnt rules its just flavor. It is subjective at that point. If we take the rules to mean what they say then stunned is actually very powerful.Stunned
You’ve become senseless. You can’t act.
If that first line is ignored than stealthy characters cannot sneak off and become undetected from stunned creatures with just the sneak action. if a stunned creature is sensless then stunning has more value.
If you ignore the second line which some people have wanted to do in the past then we get into the discussion between slow and stunned again.
Lol and there is a possibility with some of these things in the game that many people have just been running them wrong.
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I hear you, but this is a complicated topic. People are assigning it as a negative but it needn't be. Personally I started using flavor text to avoid the negative that had been associated with fluff text. But now flavor text is being maligned for it as well. We've already ended up on the euphemism treadmill.
We can't control the context that someone adds to a phrase. On it's surface, to me, nothing about the phrase "flavor text" indicates a judgment about the material. And even if we switched to calling things descriptive text and mechanics text, we're probably all going to still end up in the same place we are right now.
Rather, I think we have to do the harder thing of reminding people that descriptive text is important and can have meaning, and even impact on the way something is adjudicated, while also say that some portion of rules text (description) are less relevant for figuring out how to run something in our games compared to other portions of the text.
Strongly agree!
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The boomerang argument was patently ridiculous at the time, and remains ridiculous now. From a mechanics perspective, people were arguing the weapon got the returning rune for free; nothing about the way we know the game balances weapons indicates a returning rune fits in the boomerang's power budget, and it certainly doesn't have any of the powerlevel cuts you would expect if a weapon were to get a returning rune for free. That argument doesn't withstand scrutiny, either mechanical (free returning rune is silly) or narrative (boomerangs don't come back when they hit something in real life).
It's still ridiculous but from the other direction: the thing flat out says it does something and people are arguing "it doesn't do what it says it does because of a bunch of other considerations."
It's bringing in a bunch of external arguments to try to create a case for it to not do what it says it does. It certainly wouldn't be the first weapon in the game that is not tuned correctly: Flickmaces got what, two rounds of nerfs?
That is a great example.
Who gets to decide when to cut off the description and say that part isnt rules its just flavor. It is subjective at that point. If we take the rules to mean what they say then stunned is actually very powerful.Stunned
You’ve become senseless. You can’t act.If that first line is ignored than stealthy characters cannot sneak off and become undetected from stunned creatures with just the sneak action. if a stunned creature is sensless then stunning has more value.
If you ignore the second line which some people have wanted to do in the past then we get into the discussion between slow and stunned again.
Lol and there is a possibility with some of these things in the game that many people have just been running them wrong.
Yeah this is the core problem. "You've become senseless" doesn't have a specific meaning or even a single one, since as a term it's used for being knocked unconscious but also just being hit so hard that you become unaware or disoriented for a moment.
So if you don't want to ignore that text you have to basically use the second meaning as the first one is a different condition entirely. And in that case, yeah suddenly someone could hide in plain sight against you because you're not aware of anything going on temporarily. But it works fine if you do. (Having been hit hard enough to suffer a severe concussion and lose awareness in real life, it definitely fits realism for me. That was a bad time.)
And if you start ignoring text... well, "You can't act" is clear and also a very different effect if you ignore it vs if you include it. In my experience folks generally include it since that's the big differentiator between Stunned and Slowed: Stunned costs you reactions. Without that, Stunned 2 could just be "Slowed 2 for 1 round" and it'd mean exactly the same thing.
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WRT stunned: I often forget the "senseless" part because it's omitted on the premaster GM screen, which I still use. (I never bothered to get a new one.) That's my bad.
To be clear on what I meant, I meant the distinction as a negative. I get differentiating them, since they are different, but I do not think that differentiating them needs to come hand in hand with narrative text being belittled as compared to rules text since I still think they're two parts of an important whole. My issue with the term "flavor text" is the negative connotation, not the differentiation. What I find silly is saying one part of the whole is less needed than any other.
Since I've been pretty clear about how I don't think the flavor text is important to parsing what things do, I should also be clear: I think the flavor text is a really important part of TTRPG game design, and helps keep the game from feeling like a soulless number pusher. I also think a good fit between mechanics and flavor text is an integral part of the game design. I just don't think flavor text is a good port of call to understand how to run the game mechanically in most cases.
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PF2 is made with lots of room for just make a GM call. Not nearly as much as some other games, but it is intended to have table variance.
To me though, if your going to down play any part of the text, might as well down play all of it, your in homebrew territory at that point.
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(...) For instance, when you see text that says prey, is it related to Hunt Prey or not? You have to make a judgment call and use context clues since prey isn't capitalized. If flavor was clearly distinguishable from rule text, it'd be easier for everyone involved on what's meant to be a mechanical effect and what's meant to be evocative as a possible outcome of the effect.
As a nitpick, lots of mechanical keywords aren't capitalized, such as "attack", "spell", "feat", "anathema", "trained" or "light armor".
I think "Hunt Prey" would be capitalized because it's an action (like Strike or Cast a Spell), but "prey" or "hunted prey" isn't capitalized because it's not the action itself but the aftereffects, just like lowercase "damage" is an aftereffect of a Strike.
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So if you don't want to ignore that text you have to basically use the second meaning as the first one is a different condition entirely. And in that case, yeah suddenly someone could hide in plain sight against you because you're not aware of anything going on temporarily. But it works fine if you do. (Having been hit hard enough to suffer a severe concussion and lose awareness in real life, it definitely fits realism for me. That was a bad time.)
I'm sorry you had to experience that.
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(...) For instance, when you see text that says prey, is it related to Hunt Prey or not? You have to make a judgment call and use context clues since prey isn't capitalized. If flavor was clearly distinguishable from rule text, it'd be easier for everyone involved on what's meant to be a mechanical effect and what's meant to be evocative as a possible outcome of the effect.As a nitpick, lots of mechanical keywords aren't capitalized, such as "attack", "spell", "feat", "anathema", "trained" or "light armor".
I think "Hunt Prey" would be capitalized because it's an action (like Strike or Cast a Spell), but "prey" or "hunted prey" isn't capitalized because it's not the action itself but the aftereffects, just like lowercase "damage" is an aftereffect of a Strike.
Not much of a nitpick since I'm of the opinion such things SHOULD be capitalized to make a clear differentiation of Mechanical and casual text if they aren't otherwise clearly identifiable.
To be clear on what I meant, I meant the distinction as a negative. I get differentiating them, since they are different, but I do not think that differentiating them needs to come hand in hand with narrative text being belittled as compared to rules text since I still think they're two parts of an important whole. My issue with the term "flavor text" is the negative connotation, not the differentiation.
Similar to Claxon, I'm giving it no positive or negative spin. I've been calling it fluff since the old red d&d box days and it wasn't meant to belittle it anymore than crunch was to elevate the mechanical. Some people want to take offence without actually taking the context on the entire comment and shifting the word seems pointless if whatever new term would have the same meaning.
What I find silly is saying one part of the whole is less needed than any other.
On this, I'll have to disagree. It's 100% expected that people are going to value different parts of a product from other users. An experienced players isn't going to value the 'just starting up' section as much as the others for instance. And for some users, especially those making up their own setting, the flavor text that exists for Golarion, might be of little to no importance to them. The same can be true of those that just want the mechanics: there are those of us that would truly like sections with just the mechanics. What's needed by the users of the material isn't exactly the same.
Now to illistrate the other side, I know someone that's read all the dragon-lance material for d&d even though they don't play d&d for the story and lore and couldn't care less about the mechanical bits. What's important/needed is a shifting scale depending on who you ask and what they plan to use the material for.
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I'm sorry you had to experience that.So if you don't want to ignore that text you have to basically use the second meaning as the first one is a different condition entirely. And in that case, yeah suddenly someone could hide in plain sight against you because you're not aware of anything going on temporarily. But it works fine if you do. (Having been hit hard enough to suffer a severe concussion and lose awareness in real life, it definitely fits realism for me. That was a bad time.)
Thanks. I've recovered a lot over the years. :) It was really scary for a while, not being able to do things like get in a car without nausea or eve reading anything for any length of time. You know how much text is in this game? I never thought about it until it was suddenly a barrier.
Take care of your brain, folks. It's an easy thing to take for granted.
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I think it would be more helpful if the people supporting this viewpoint provided a reason why the flavor text is part mechanical text. What are they looking to do that a DM isn't letting them do because they are focusing on the mechanical text?
I'm not sure what the point of the post is myself.
A classic example of this is fireball, where a lot of people assume that you're tossing a big ball of fire at something and would thus be stopped by, say, a window. In reality, the spell states:
A roaring blast of fire detonates at a spot you designate, dealing 6d6 fire damage.So the fireball explodes specifically at the spot where you want it to explode, allowing you to cast it so long as you have line of sight, window or no window. One could argue that this isn't really flavor text because it's mechanically relevant in this particular situation, but that is the point. Although some text is meant more for flavor than other text, all text is part of the rules, and there is very little value in trying to compartmentalize individual bits of text from one another as if they were separate.
Not really. Because later in the rulebook they go to great lengths to explain how a burst work and how spells work with line of effect and line of sight and such. You have to apply all of them to the spell.
As a DM you're only going to worry about what is relevant to the current combat, not what isn't.
I'm not sure how the flavor text changes any of it other than you could have the window blown off reducing damage in that direction by the windows hardness. You could do that for the whole structure in the area.
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The stunned one is an interesting example.
Because if we ignore the "you can't act" part it's basically no different from slowed. But if having the stunned condition during your turn at all means you can't act that's probably harsher than intended.
It does raise the question why do we have both stunned and slowed.
The description of stunned also has some interesting implication with how something like haste works with it....although rereading the description haste causes quickened with restriction on what kind of actions you take so it would interact with Stunned and Slowed in the same way.
So anyways...what's actually supposed to be the difference? It doesn't seem like there is any.
The duration of stunned is determined by how it ticks down. If the system had an incap spell that inflicted stunned 4, it'd eat 3A on the first turn and 1A on the second. Slowed always eats the same amount of actions every turn. I can't think of any effect inflicts stunned at high enough values for this to matter, though.
The most important difference between slowed and stunned as the game is currently designed, though, is that being stunned keeps you from using reactions until it wears off.
But if you ignore the "you can't act" part of the text, then that's not true (not being able to use reactions), at least as far as I can see there's nothing in the stunned description that indicates that.
You've become senseless. You can't act. Stunned usually includes a value, which indicates how many total actions you lose, possibly over multiple turns, from being stunned. Each time you regain actions, reduce the number you regain by your stunned value, then reduce your stunned value by the number of actions you lost. For example, if you were stunned 4, you would lose all 3 of your actions on your turn, reducing you to stunned 1; on your next turn, you would lose 1 more action, and then be able to use your remaining 2 actions normally....
I certainly wish it was clearer as to what was mean, but I consider "You can't act" to be rules text at this point and is an absolute statement meaning exactly what it says for mechanics. You can't act. You are stunned and can't react, free act, act or do anything until stunned whatever number is paid. That's how I run it now. It does make stunned better than slowed. It makes the Silent Whisper amp seem a whole lot better though I never seem to get it to work.
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Myself, I think the distinction is important because in whatever game i'm playing, that descriptive text may not apply but the mechanics stay the same unless there is a house rule. Secondly, if care isn't taken, flavor text written in a casual way can just confuse things. For instance, when you see text that says prey, is it related to Hunt Prey or not? You have to make a judgment call and use context clues since prey isn't capitalized. If flavor was clearly distinguishable from rule text, it'd be easier for everyone involved on what's meant to be a mechanical effect and what's meant to be evocative as a possible outcome of the effect.To be clear on what I meant, I meant the distinction as a negative. I get differentiating them, since they are different, but I do not think that differentiating them needs to come hand in hand with narrative text being belittled as compared to rules text since I still think they're two parts of an important whole. My issue with the term "flavor text" is the negative connotation, not the differentiation. What I find silly is saying one part of the whole is less needed than any other.
I’m not sure how silly this might be, but if I have one part of the whole that is flavor text, and the other part of the whole is the mechanical/game rule text, then I would imagine you only really truly *need* one of those parts. To play the game, with rules. And it isn’t the flavor part.
Sure, they both “help” to understand the game and the rules and the mechanics, but if you look at each of them, in one case, if that is all you have, then you just have flavor/description but no rule to abide by; in the other case, you might have a dry rule without narrative explanation, but you can still play the game.
I don’t need flavor text, I don’t use flavor text and it, to me, is unnecessary.
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Thing is there is no ignorable text. Its all part of the description for the thing.
We should run stunned taking into consideration both that the creature cannot act and is senseless.
That means while an enemy is stunned you can sneak to become undetected to it and then strike the stunned creature now that they are offguard to you.
Where as you could not do this as easily and without checks against a slowed creature. Stunned is stronger in this way and it loses this if you treat the first sentence as meaningless verbiage assuming it was only ever meant to give “flavor” to the condition and not impact what happens.
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The duration of stunned is determined by how it ticks down. If the system had an incap spell that inflicted stunned 4, it'd eat 3A on the first turn and 1A on the second. Slowed always eats the same amount of actions every turn. I can't think of any effect inflicts stunned at high enough values for this to matter, though.The stunned one is an interesting example.
Because if we ignore the "you can't act" part it's basically no different from slowed. But if having the stunned condition during your turn at all means you can't act that's probably harsher than intended.
It does raise the question why do we have both stunned and slowed.
The description of stunned also has some interesting implication with how something like haste works with it....although rereading the description haste causes quickened with restriction on what kind of actions you take so it would interact with Stunned and Slowed in the same way.
So anyways...what's actually supposed to be the difference? It doesn't seem like there is any.
There’s a qlippoth (the level 17 one?) that inflicts stunned 8(!) on a crit fail when it exposes its junk at you, it’s a very funny way to die.
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Also players tend to get upset when the enemy mage melts all their cool magic items.I understand it I really do. As a game completionist, nobody hates losing rare drops more than me. But again, I have to disagree because the risk of burning down the library or destroying items is precisely what causes players to start considering less destructive spells, such as those that attack the mind, or to use indirect methods like stealth. They begin employing strategy, and that is exactly what you want. That is what creates a world that feels real.
Suddenly, it’s not just about getting healed. If you mindlessly take damage, your gear breaks. The party then has a very good reason to scout ahead with familiars or rogue-like classes and to use strategy instead of brute forcing their way through. With each of these "annoying" mechanics that is lost, the game becomes more cartoonish and more shallow.
This might sound harsh, but I think you're adhering too much to the rules and not living in the fiction you created if you throw a fireball in a library will-nilly just because the text doesn't say it catches things on fire. Your actions have consequences, even if they aren't directly spelled out. Indeed, the game becomes shallow if you can use incredibly destructive spells without any consequence, but the rules shouldn't need to spell that out, only give a guideline how much destruction each spell rank is capable of. A rank 1 Breathe Fire might be able to light a torch, while a rank 3 Fireball burns it to a crisp.
If you want it to matter more mechanically, make the setting reflect that. Spell it out as such, make it a stealth mission or where you have to keep damages to a minimum.
PF1 had the infamous damage table, where if you rolled a nat 1 on a Reflex save versus damage, you'd damage a piece of equipment. You'd have to consult the table to see what would get damaged, like a magical hat to your shoes. Most likely it'd be your armour, and then you'd have to consult another table to see how much hardness and hit points your armour had, only to realise it's only a fraction of its total HP, and play continued. The game ground to a halt to see what would happen, and it's only in 5% of the cases. PF2 did away with that just to streamline things.
I think a game like what you're describing is possible, and I'm sure it exists, it's just an element of realism that Pathfinder doesn't want to bother with. (I'm recalling a different argument where someone said Pathfinder's combat and damage wasn't realistic enough, this could slot in there as well). Paizo made the decision that they didn't want to bother with armour maintenance after every single fight (and in a way, shields are a simplified version of it). Would it add to the enjoyment of the game if it was added? Maybe, for some. Would it be worth the extra rules? Definitely not.
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Thing is there is no ignorable text. Its all part of the description for the thing.
We should run stunned taking into consideration both that the creature cannot act and is senseless.
That means while an enemy is stunned you can sneak to become undetected to it and then strike the stunned creature now that they are offguard to you.While I tend to agree that you typically cannot ignore text, You really can't say thats the case here. What does 'senseless' even mean in this scenario?
Because then by using natural language we either have them unconcious which is alot more than just blinded, or just dazed which means all their senses still work but the character needs to spend time regaining their bearing which makes sense with the rest of the condition's text.
We know it doesn't knock you unconcious, and it doesn't blind you since it doesn't include the blinded condition, Can it make you unable to benefit from certain effects because you cannot think proper? Probably... GM call.
"A blast of roaring fire" doesn't deafen you, but its so much more effective at setting the scene than "range 500; area 20ft burst; Defence basic reflex save; You deal 6d6 fire damage"
If you need stunned to also provide other conditions then stunned isnt the condition doing it. Stunned is the condition that removes all senses by that first statement so it would not do something redundant and apply blind or deafened. Also its the only one that removes olfactory and tactile as there are no specific conditions for those. Besides most of blind and deafen affect actions which cant apply when you also cant act. Its not ambiguous, its an absolute statement. Ignoring it because they didnt spell out how to apply it though makes stunned much less impactful.
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If you need stunned to also provide other conditions then stunned isnt the condition doing it. Stunned is the condition that removes all senses by that first statement so it would not do something redundant and apply blind or deafened.You are missing the point that "you are senseless" does not mean "your senses does not work". Besides, are we supposed to treat it as mechanical text when its interpretation is vague and has vastly distinct meanings like being knocked unconcious,insanity or being unreponsive? But yet we are somehow supposed to connect the correct meaning to game elements on an individual basis?
Even if that were the case we do have examples in the other conditions where there is the case that it does give conditions along with descriptive text. Such as Grabbed giving you the immobilized condition while also saying "You are held in place, giving you the Immobilized condition" and invisible stating "you can't be seen. you are Undetected to everyone", Not only to show where the relevant rules for being 'held in place' is but also to remove the very ambiguity that you are infact not restrained, just immobilized.
The context is being stunned so I would go with unable to sense your surroundings. Why make it more complicated?
Besides think about this for a sec. You are in effect taking the position that the words you are senseless is meant to mean you can sense your surroundings rather than the clear meaning you cannot.
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If text is written with no mechanical connection to other rules yet it's meant to, that's just horrible writing and game design in a rules manual. And that's the position these "flavor text is rule text" people are essentially taking.
By saying that some of this text not connected directly to a mechanical effect isn't MEANT to have a mechanical effect, we're essentially saying the game designers, writers, and editors are NOT bad at their job. Because clearly there are endless examples already shared.
So when when there IS reasonable ambiguity in text where the intent is not clear about separating mechanical and non-mechanical - we often seek clarification of intent. Deadlines at Paizo are tight, and pay is relatively low. So it's understandable some ambiguity isn't caught.
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I mean those are some serious circles to get to, the condition says it sure, but we dont have to do it because the writers didn't mean what they said.
To borrow some words from Obi-Wan
It's over Anakin, I have the highground.
Added in: Aware but unable to act is paralyzed not stunned. Stunned is being unable to act and not being able to make sense of whats coming in, that's the senseless part.
So what does this mean part. Its actually working against your point.
Same for Stunned,
What has happened?: You have been rendered senseless.
What does this mean?: You can't act, and lose actions as described later in the text
A senseless creature can act so being senseless on its own cannot mean you cannot act. It means its own thing. In fact here you cannot act is not saying the exact words you cannot use actions yet it still means it. You are senseless means the in context most obvious meaning too.
Grabbed
What has happened?: You're held in place by another creature
What does this mean?: you have the off-guard and immobilized conditions. Manipulate actions has chance of failure.
Being held in place does mean being immobilized and does result in not being able to defend yourself as well as you would want for that reason. The description is further defined rather than two separate affects being described.
The difference here is you cannot act and you have been rendered senseless have a lot more conditions and specific restrictions to list if they were to do it that way and they would have to invent some.
They would have to say you cannot take move actions, strikes, cast spells, or use any activities, you have the blind condition, deafened condition, make up a new for not being able to smell.
its easier to say you have been rendered sensless, you cannot act as long as people just take you at your word instead of getting so overly litigious/"flavor" text boxing your words to no longer mean what they would mean if you just took them for their common in context meaning.
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Broadly speaking, conditions which apply subordinate conditions enumerate them in their descriptions.
You can't act. You take a –4 status penalty to AC, Perception, and Reflex saves, and you have the blinded and off-guard conditions. When you gain this condition, you fall prone and drop items you're holding unless the effect states otherwise or the GM determines you're positioned so you wouldn't.
Blinded, off-guard, & prone are called out specifically.
You can't act.
No listing of subordinate conditions. Therefore you aren't affected by any, because the condition doesn't say that you are.
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But then you encounter an issue of table variance: the fireball may or may not set the library on fire. To the GM, that’s fine. But as a player, if you try to use the fireball to burn the books so a villain can’t read them, the GM might rule that you can’t. At that point, you can’t rely on the rules to back you up anymore.
I genuinely don't think table variance is a problem since you can always like "talk to the GM" during a game. If you ask something like "so I have no personal experience with this, but I guarantee my character has experience throwing magical fire around magical tomes, if I do [this] is it liable to damage the book to the point that it's no longer readable?" and the GM will just tell you if they think that tactic is liable to work or not.
Like I might say "the book will be in pretty bad shape, but since the tome itself is non-magical it's nothing a mending spell wouldn't fix" in that situation. But I think "not knowing whether the book survives the fireball" isn't totally different from "not knowing whether the monster survives the fireball" which is just the normal fireball experience. It's a game run by dice- uncertainty is part of it.
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This is where the rules should all be written with solid technical writing, and the italicised descriptive text should be added additionally to give some idea of what a spell or effect might look like. For things like fireball, we could even add an extra rule, something like:
"Destructive [x]
A Destructive effect has an additional effect on anything it affects that has a hardness lower than the Destructive rating of the effect."
Fireball might have Destructive 12 when cast using a Rank 3 slot, while Breathe Fire might have Destructive 4. This is a hard and fast rule for what is and isn't impacted by the spell.
Fireball might even go further and say something like:
"Flammable objects affected by this spell catch fire and turn to ash if not extinguished in 3 rounds. Objects with half or less hardness compared to this spell's Destructive level are instantly turned to ash and cannot be repaired by any rank 3 or lower spell."
Keywords are amazing, and games need to stop being afraid to use them.
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This might sound harsh, but I think you're adhering too much to the rules and not living in the fiction you created if you throw a fireball in a library will-nilly just because the text doesn't say it catches things on fire. Your actions have consequences, even if they aren't directly spelled out. Indeed, the game becomes shallow if you can use incredibly destructive spells without any consequence, but the rules shouldn't need to spell that out, only give a guideline how much destruction each spell rank is capable of. A rank 1 Breathe Fire might be able to light a torch, while a rank 3 Fireball burns it to a crisp.
If you want it to matter more mechanically, make the setting reflect that. Spell it out as such, make it a stealth mission or where you have to keep damages to a minimum.
PF1 had the infamous damage table, where if you rolled a nat 1 on a Reflex save versus damage, you'd damage a piece of equipment. You'd have to consult the table to see what would get damaged, like a magical hat to your shoes. Most likely it'd be your armour, and then you'd have to...
But then you encounter an issue of table variance: the fireball may or may not set the library on fire. To the GM, that’s fine. But as a player, if you try to use the fireball to burn the books so a villain can’t read them, the GM might rule that you can’t. At that point, you can’t rely on the rules to back you up anymore.
Also, the phrase "grind to a halt" feels so weird. Isn’t this a turn-based strategy game—the type that’s meant to be slow and deliberate? Aren’t critical successes and failures supposed to be the climactic moments where you slow down and focus?
Are turn-based games supposed to be fast and furious, like one of those timed chess matches where you get only 10 seconds to think? I just feel so disconnected and lost—I can’t understand the vision or direction of the game anymore.
Table variance is mainly between tables. One GM might rule one way, another a different way. The most important part is that you should ask your GM beforehand, "hey, if I cast Fireball, will that affect the books," instead of firing the Fireball and seeing afterwards what the GM rules. But I agree, a built-in "level of destruction" would be good to have.
The "grind to a halt" problem is mainly that other players want to see what happens as well. In my experience, Player B and C have an opinion as well and go search on their devices to see if they can help find the ruling. Then everyone is furiously tapping on their devices and play will only continue when all the attention is back to the combat. Indeed, ideally Player A gets affected, but turn order continues while Player A looks up what happens to them, but I've rarely seen that happen.
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I think the criticism that's starting to emerge in this discussion is less that flavor text has no place in rules text, and more that rules text as a whole should be clear and coherent, and it's bad when elements create ambiguity or contradiction. The fact that this happens most often, though not always with flavor text I'd say is secondary to the more general concern about clarity. In this respect, we should certainly not throw the baby out with the bathwater, as flavor text does enrich rules text and often helps describe how a rules element is supposed to feel in-game, but we should certainly criticize elements of rules text that could stand to be written better, like enthrall describing how affected creatures "might give their undivided attention" when that's not how the fascinated condition works.
Another aspect of this is that because Pathfinder uses natural language to describe its rules, there are plenty of opportunities for defined in-game terms to also be the flavor in rules text: "You can flank an enemy if it’s within reach of both of you and an ally—you and your ally don’t have to be on opposite sides" is, for instance, both descriptive and grounded in mechanical definitions for terms like flanking, enemy, reach, and ally, such that its function is easy to parse and the rules text feels natural to read. In this respect, I do feel like the bit of flavor text added by default at the start of most abilities isn't needed in literally every case -- not because there's no value to flavor, but because sometimes the rules text itself is flavorful enough to fulfil that purpose already. Form and function thus don't always have to be separate from one another.
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If we want to respect the game, its designers, and our fellow players, we should treat all text in a rulebook as meaningful—because it is.
The caveat here is "except when it isn't".
Do you recall the original wording of Cloud Jump?
Your unparalleled athletic skill allows you to jump impossible distances. Triple the distance you Long Jump (so you could jump 60 feet on a seccessful DC 20 check.) When you High Jump, use the calculation for Long Jump but don't triple the distance.
When you Long Jump or High Jump, you can also increase the number of actions you use (up to the number of actions you have remaining in your turn) to jump even further. For each extra action, add your speed to the maximum distance you jump.
Compare this with the 4th printing
You unparalleled athletic skill allows you to jump impossible distances. Triple the distance you Long Jump (so you could jump 60 feet on a successful DC 20 check). When you High Jump, use the calculation for a Long Jump but don't triple the distance.
You can jump a distance greater than your Speed by spending additional actions when you Long Jump or High Jump. For each additional action spent, add your Speed to the limit on how far you can Leap.
Then compare with the remaster version
Your unparalleled athletic skill allows you to jump impossible distances. Triple the distance you jump on a successful Long Jump (so you could jump 90 feet with an Athletics result of 30). When you successfully High Jump, use the distance jumped and distance limit for a Long Jump but don’t triple the distance.You can jump a distance greater than your Speed by spending additional actions when you Long Jump or High Jump. For each additional action spent, add your Speed to the distance limit.
While this has been a case of both errata and a revision, the intended function of cloud jump hasn't actually changed. Its just that not all the text within Cloud Jump was literal rules text, even when it seems to give clear instructions on use and functionality.
You were never intended to be able break your character speed limits without spending additional resource, but the short, simple, seemingly with an example, text on Cloud Jump used to look like you just got to triple your distance and then could do other things to extend it further.
Up until the remaster, the full and complete sentence "Triple the distance you Long Jump (so you could jump 60 feet on a seccessful DC 20 check.)" did not actually do what it says to do.
To me this a good example of the "flavour" of the feat getting in the way of its actual mechanical function.
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I think the criticism that's starting to emerge in this discussion is less that flavor text has no place in rules text, and more that rules text as a whole should be clear and coherent, and it's bad when elements create ambiguity or contradiction. The fact that this happens most often, though not always with flavor text I'd say is secondary to the more general concern about clarity. In this respect, we should certainly not throw the baby out with the bathwater, as flavor text does enrich rules text and often helps describe how a rules element is supposed to feel in-game, but we should certainly criticize elements of rules text that could stand to be written better, like enthrall describing how affected creatures "might give their undivided attention" when that's not how the fascinated condition works.
100% this and you've identified the rub.
The descriptive text is good. It take an effect that might push object and people back 5ft, and explains that it's a gust of wind doing it. It allows you to enrich your RP, if you choose, by describing debris flying around, hair flowing in the wind, the cooling effect of the wind, etc.
But, it could lead to misunderstanding (not that this is the case with Airburst spell I'm alluding to, but just a potential example) that objects regardless of size get pushed around. The text of airburst is pretty easy to clarify, but someone could argue (in bad faith) that because the first sentence says everything gets pushed, and that should mean the large boulder moves. Now the second sentence makes it pretty clear that not the case, but not every potential example is so clear cut.
Like the stunned description and "you can't act". Is the inability to act descriptive? What does it mean if anything? Nothing else within the ability indicates an inability to take reactions, but some people seem dead set on saying you can't take reactions. And confusingly it seemed like at least one person said the "you can't act" was descriptive text and should be ignored, but also claimed you couldn't take reactions (which isn't otherwise supported in the text).
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Which lets be honest, people shouldn't need to go trough 2 hour VoDs for simple rules questions because the book keeps related rules in separate and unreferenced layers.
This is probably one major gripe I have with PF2. It used to be that the rules would often restate the "normal" way things operate or tell you to reference other rules bits. There was redundancy. A lot of that has been removed, making it harder to interpret the rules unless you read the physical book (I personally almost exclusively reference AoN) so finding the context is a lot harder.
I understand there are fair reasons to do so (page space being a big one) but it's less user friendly than it used to be in that aspect.
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Which lets be honest, people shouldn't need to go trough 2 hour VoDs for simple rules questions because the book keeps related rules in separate and unreferenced layers.
This is probably one major gripe I have with PF2. It used to be that the rules would often restate the "normal" way things operate or tell you to reference other rules bits. There was redundancy. A lot of that has been removed, making it harder to interpret the rules unless you read the physical book (I personally almost exclusively reference AoN) so finding the context is a lot harder.
I understand there are fair reasons to do so (page space being a big one) but it's less user friendly than it used to be in that aspect.
There also used to be a FAQ and dev participation here in the forums to explain a bunch of that, and almost none of that exists anymore. PF2 suffers for it because things that are unclear just stay that way forever (instance of damage has entered the chat).
That video for example is Mark answering questions after he left Paizo, which he did a bunch of times. I know Logan showed up on How It's Played now and then for a while too.
But the FAQ is seriously missed.
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One thing that I will say is that flavor text is inconsistent, sometimes it's pretty clear that a line is followed by a rule telling you what the text is describing. Other times that relationship is not clear. It is one thing that 4e always did well with-- separating flavor text and mechanical text to make it easier to track.
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It is one thing that 4e always did well with-- separating flavor text and mechanical text to make it easier to track.
See, I would count this among the worst things about 4e (an edition I liked a lot, actually)- my eyes would glaze over reading 4e spells and I'd have basically no clue about what happens when you cast the spell other than the mechanics. Like "1W + StrMod damage, Target is Pushed 1 square" is clear, but what actually happens?
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It is one thing that 4e always did well with-- separating flavor text and mechanical text to make it easier to track.See, I would count this among the worst things about 4e (an edition I liked a lot, actually)- my eyes would glaze over reading 4e spells and I'd have basically no clue about what happens when you cast the spell other than the mechanics. Like "1W + StrMod damage, Target is Pushed 1 square" is clear, but what actually happens?
Probably what the italic text above the spell says it does, or what the name suggests the spell does. It doesn't take a surplus of creativity to figure out how to have your character deliver Righteous Brand to an opponent.
Righteous Brand - Cleric Attack 1
You smite your foe with your weapon and brand it with a
ghostly, glowing symbol of your deity’s anger. By naming one of
your allies when the symbol appears, you add divine power to
that ally’s attacks against the branded foe.
At-Will ✦ Divine, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage, and one ally within
5 squares of you gains a power bonus to melee attack rolls
against the target equal to your Strength modifier until the
end of your next turn.
Increase damage to 2[W] + Strength modifier at 21st level.