It's unfortunately a little borderline/ fuzzy.
By default, the "targets" of a 10 ft burst is simply every creature that AoE hits.
It's up to the GM to decide if that "... to the ears of your foes" bit does then narrow down and specify that it only harms foes.
I'd wager that most GMs will rule the spell to be friend-unsafe, but the wording does leave room for the opposite ruling.
Most of the time, friend-safe AoEs will be careful and clear with their language, using phrasing like "allies/creatures/enemies in the area" instead of that unclear "the targets."
That first line cannot be ignored as irrelevant flavor text. However, it also is not phrased using game mechanics terminology. The purpose is to give a default narrative description of the spell or ability so that people can understand what it is intended to do.
So when the first line says 'foes' in the first line, that isn't the game term of 'enemy' used when talking about ally and enemy.
There are AoE spells that do target only allies or only enemies. Such as Divine Wrath targeting only enemies. But it specifies that it has limitations on the targets when discussing the game mechanics of the spell's effects, not just its narrative description in the first line.
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So when the first line says 'foes' in the first line, that isn't the game term of 'enemy' used when talking about ally and enemy.
What do yo think the word means, then?
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It's frustratingly inconsistent wording. Compare this:
You channel the fury of divinity against your foes. You deal 4d10 spirit damage to enemies in the area, depending on their Fortitude save.
To this:
You howl a lament of damned souls. Each living enemy in the area takes 8d10 void damage depending on its Fortitude save.
To this:
You whisper baleful secrets that transcend language and carry magically to the ears of your foes. The words take physical form, weakening the life force of the targets, each of which must attempt a Fortitude save.
The first two clearly say that the effect only hits enemies.
The third one is oddly worded because it doesn't say "enemies", but it also doesn't say something like "creatures in the area must attempt a Fortitude save", which is what you'd expect if it hit everything in the area. (Or not mention it at all and use the default of everything, like Fireball does.)
You effectively have to make a ruling on if you think the description is a statement of intent for what it should do (in which case your player is correct and it hits only enemies), or just narrative and doesn't mean anything based on what the rest of the text says.
In this case there at least isn't a contradiction in the text, which does happen (using another PC2 example):
Water is the source of life, and you draw upon this primordial force to heal your allies' wounds. A gentle ring ripples out from you in a 15-foot emanation, restoring 5d6 Hit Points to creatures in the area.
That says allies in the description, but then says "creatures in the area" right afterward, which includes enemies. Effects that only target allies say "allies in the area". So the first sentence is contradicted by the second sentence. This is one of those cases where people tend to go "flavour text doesn't count", though Paizo has said that isn't really true in the past (and people sometimes use the "flavour text" argument for any text that is inconvenient for the interpretation they want to use).
But for Whispers of the Void, it reads to me like its intended to only target enemies and a different writer used different wording. The text at least doesn't contradict itself, so there's that. But no one can really prove that, so the GM will have to make a ruling.
Unfortunately PC2 was a really messy book for things like this.
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I seriously have to wonder why there is not a low level metamagic feat for casters to exclude 1 target that would otherwise be affected by a spell.
It would honestly help with a lot of casters, and be an actually rewarding feat to select.
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In this case I think does refers to the intended use case, not a mechanical limit.
“This spell carries a ball of fiery destruction to your foes” would be a fine intro to Fireball and consistent with Paizo quality.
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What do yo think the word means, then?So when the first line says 'foes' in the first line, that isn't the game term of 'enemy' used when talking about ally and enemy.
A narrative meaning of 'foes'. The people that you intend to harm with the spell. Either because they are mechanically your enemies that you need to defeat in order to conclude the encounter, or because you have made a judgement call to damage anyway out of necessity.
The typical case for these damaging or harmful AoE spells is to cast them in a way where they include as many enemies as possible and don't include any allies in the area of the spell's effect. So having the narrative description of the spell reflect that seems reasonable. But it doesn't mechanically override the targeting rules of the spell.
If the spell lists 'Area: Burst' then an evocative description about 'blasting foes' isn't going to change that. It can also be used to blast allies too if you really feel like it.
If the spell is supposed to be more selective in its targeting, then in will need to clearly state that in the mechanical description of the spell's effect. Like Divine Wrath does by stating "You deal 4d10 spirit damage to enemies in the area".
But now I feel like I am just repeating myself. Are you actually confused by my logic and reasoning, or are you just nitpicking at the wording of my post because you don't like what I said but have nothing better to argue against it with?
But now I feel like I am just repeating myself. Are you actually confused by my logic and reasoning, or are you just nitpicking at the wording of my post because you don't like what I said but have nothing better to argue against it with?
Nah, more like I just found the logic of "foes and enemies mean different things" to be really weird to parse and sort of an objective-first reading so I was curious what your broader logic was. Thank you for sharing it!
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I know developers and others try to say don't ignore what some people call flavor text, but in many cases it results in confusion and not clarity.
If we ignore the first sentence, then everything else is consistent with expectations. The spell is a 10ft burst, that would hit everyone in that area, not only enemies.
There are all sorts of spells that need (not so) flavor text in order to exclude targets from the AoE. All emanations and aura spells affect all creatures by default, and need body text to change that.
A huge number spells with that targeting are buffs, and without a key bit of body text, including from those opening flavor lines, you'd be empowering your foes.
If Bless had said "All targets gain a +1..." instead of "allies", the only thing left would be that opening bit of flavor body text saying:
"Blessings from beyond help your companions strike true."
That "companions" word would be the only thing limiting the effect to allies.
And to be consistent, I'd have to say that single word would be sufficient to limit the targets to allies.
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The really annoying part about adjudicating this spell is that the text technically is not in conflict with itself, it's just that a lot of readers think the RaI does not match the RaW.
"Targets" is very fluid and "low impact" of a term, genuinely the least meaningful word to use there. It's kinda the placeholder word that all body text should aspire to replace with something more informative or flavorful, because it's so empty.
Body text does change what creatures are the spell's targets. The issue is that we have so much precedent with those opening spell sentences being "unrequired" for mechanical adjudication, that we don't think that "foes" phrasing should update the spells mechanical targeting.
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In general, these forums are *heavily* skewed toward "RaW purism" and really don't like the idea of RaI overruling RaW, because that genuinely is an entirely different discussion without RaW's greater degree of objectivity.
It's these particular situations, where the RaW just barely seems to be in error, that can spark the more fraught discussions.
Like it or not, body text has mechanical affects. The opening line's phrasing does genuine exclude allies from those "baleful secrets."
There is no text at all dictating what happens to allies in the area, and by RaW purism, nothing happens unless text says it does.
To elaborate a bit more: that 2nd sentence directly continues from the first. It specifies it's those magical words that harm the targets and invoke a Fort save.
And those words only arrive at the ears of your foes.
Is there a dev error somewhere? Should there be another line saying what the magics do to allies in the AoE? Should the "foes" line be swapped with "creatures?"
It's up to the GM to adjudicate.
You whisper baleful secrets that transcend language and carry magically to the ears of your foes. The words take physical form, weakening the life force of the targets, each of which must attempt a Fortitude save.
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I think the reason people aren't big on RAI (rules as intended) is because in many cases it's not clear what the intention is, although Too Bad to be True or Too Good to be True "test" can help guide us.
A buff spell like Bless? I would say it's pretty clear (also the text is actually clear and you were providing an example of something that could be made unclear by removing certain text) that the intention isn't to make your enemy also more accurate. But something like an area of effect damaging spell? Much less clear if it should or shouldn't impact allies in the area.
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RaI arguments are still RaI arguments, though they are maligned too much here on the forums.
There are plenty of harmful AoE spells that are friend-safe, especially in the Divine list. The Remaster was kinda stuffed with them.
Wot.Void is not at all a 1:1 replacement of what came before (and Enervation's opening not-flavor line does say "any creature it touches" btw)
Wot.Void even swaps into the [auditory] trait, which adds a lot of other considerations. It's only a replacement in the niche of inflicting persistent void damage.
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It is certainly aggravating as a player/reader for me to know that a single lazy word swap could have removed all ambiguity from the spell, but I spend effort to minimize my hypocrisy.
By RaW, Wot.Void genuinely does only deliver it's magics to foes.
And while I might shake my fist at Paizo for what genuinely may be a mistake on their part, because this is not at all a balance worry, I am not going to spend any effort into RaI nerfing a spell that is very meh once it needs to be Heightened.
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It's being consistent with the reverse, too. There a number of spells that seem like there was a RaW oops that makes the darn thing near useless, and a small RaI edit to the text would be a big help to its practicality.
As long as there's not some other reason for me to proposition my GM with a houserule fix, I'm not going to spend time on making such RaI appeals. I'll just move on and search the list for another spell without that problem.
One "accidentally friend-safe" spell isn't a priority for me to spend effort on normalizing a house-rule RaI nerf.
(and Wot.Void genuinely may have been RaI intended to be friend-safe from the start, there's legit no hints for it to be RaI-wrong.)
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It's certainly possible that the intention for whispers of the void could go either way (enemy only, or everyone).
Dev's like it or not, people discount flavor text and they need to be more precise when using game terminology.
As you mention, it could have been as simple as editing the text to say:
You whisper baleful secrets that transcend language and carry magically to the ears of your foes. The words take physical form, weakening the life force of the enemy, each of which must attempt a Fortitude save.
Remove the word targets (because its' an burst spell which doesn't have targets in the first place) and replace with the word enemy, and now it's clear that it only affects enemies. Not even a word count change.
Is that the intention for how it should function? Maybe. It's not clear to me.
As written, I would continue to have it affect everyone in the burst. Being a 10ft burst, it can likely be positioned to only affect enemies, though you may struggle to get more than 1 enemy without also affect an ally.
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Body text does change what creatures are the spell's targets. The issue is that we have so much precedent with those opening spell sentences being "unrequired" for mechanical adjudication, that we don't think that "foes" phrasing should update the spells mechanical targeting.
Not just unrequired: sometimes they're directly contradictory. Like Waters of Creation.
I don't think people should ignore the "flavour text" either, but its a learned behavior from cases where its necessary to do that because the two don't line up at all. Past editions had an awful track record at this. Over time the community came around to ignoring that in favor of the mechanical text so that there would be a common understanding of how things work.
PF2 is often better about it, but PF2 also has standardized terminology and formats for spells like this that sometimes Paizo just doesn't bother following. If Whispers of the Void was written the same way that Divine Wrath is, it would be clear and we wouldn't be having this conversation.
In general, these forums are *heavily* skewed toward "RaW purism" and really don't like the idea of RaI overruling RaW, because that genuinely is an entirely different discussion without RaW's greater degree of objectivity.
Not really: everyone agreed pretty quickly on what Arcane Cascade's RAI was and ignored RAW for literally years without much fuss.
The issue with RAI is that intent often isn't actually clear and people project their own interpretation onto it. I'm going to pick on Waters of Creation again, but what's the intent there? No one can possibly know the answer to that. The flavour text contradicts the mechanics text that comes immediately after it. We have to ignore one of them due to the contradiction, and the flavour text is going to lose that battle every time. And every time that happens, the belief that flavour text is secondary gets reinforced.
For Whispers of the Void, is the intent that it only hits enemies? In my answer, I said yes, probably. But I'm just making an educated guess and I don't actually know what was intended.
Because if you took the same flavour text and slapped it on Fireball, does Fireball now ignore allies? Or do we know that must be wrong because we have literally decades of understanding of how Fireball works and thus know to ignore that as narrative flourish?
That's the whole problem with flavour text at the end of the day: sometimes it's relevant and sometimes it's just flat out wrong and we have to guess which case is which.