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Hard no.
The apparition is mostly a trapping, an in game explanation for how the animist has its power.
There's no mechanics that allow you to send your apparition out of you and do things with it (that I am seeing).
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"its not forbid so i could do it" type of mentality.
Never, ever, ever, ever allow that argument or your game will rapidly dissolve into an unplayable mess.
"I just want do drop this protector tree on the enemy from 60 ft up. That should do lots of damage and trap him, right? its not forbid so i could do it"
"I just stab him right through the heart so he dies. its not forbid so i could do it"
"My Tanuki turns into a tiny needle, crawls into the bad guys mouth and then grows inside him splitting him in two. its not forbid so i could do it"
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Hard no.
The apparition is mostly a trapping, an in game explanation for how the animist has its power.
There's no mechanics that allow you to send your apparition out of you and do things with it (that I am seeing).
I also dont see nothing about but my friend its using has his logic to ask for it, as in "its not forbid so i could do it" type of mentality.
Absolutely not! That's not how rules (typically) work, and it's certainly not how Pathfinder's rules work. Rules are not typically set up as a permissive ruleset ('everything is legal unless said otherwise), they're set up as a restrictive ruleset (nothing is legal unless explicitly said).
I would advise your friend to drop that mentality, because otherwise they're going to cause problems for you as a GM and you're likely to want to drop such a friend from the game.
Otherwise, as Pauljathome mentions, the game quickly devolves into an unplayable mess.
Best to rule that Apparitions are entities that are primarily beyond a veil that separates them from definitive interaction with the physical world, including direct, unambiguous observation. They may get a sense of things in this world, but it could be hazy, abstracted over the past and future, or seen from a completely inhuman perspective that doesn't translate well.
I would point them to Consult the Spirits as a means of obtaining that flavor of ability.
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Absolutely not! That's not how rules (typically) work, and it's certainly not how Pathfinder's rules work. Rules are not typically set up as a permissive ruleset ('everything is legal unless said otherwise), they're set up as a restrictive ruleset (nothing is legal unless explicitly said).I'd say it's more nuanced. Even for highly codified game like pf2 there are rulings in the moment, homerules, rules judgement, some degree of players' improvisation and non-standard solutions and sometimes just things which are like GM've said they are. More so in more narrative-focused games.
But yes, players demanding things to be how they like it because it's not forbidden and they think it's very 'logical' is not encouraged.
I agree there is nuance in the sense that the rules, because they're written by humans can't be written to cover everything a player might decide to do. And that is where a GM steps in to cover thing.
But more generally, the default rules are "if it doesn't say you can, then you can't". Sometimes that is narratively unsatisfying, and you choose to make adjustments to the rules. For instance, the rules don't really cover directly damaging weapons or armor.
In this case though, it's pretty straight forward for a GM to say, if you want to do this you need to take the spirit familiar feat option because that's pretty clearly the intention.
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I would advise your friend to drop that mentality, because otherwise they're going to cause problems for you as a GM and you're likely to want to drop such a friend from the game.
I know nothing at all about your friend so the following may be completely off base.
But that attitude of "I can do anything not explicitly forbidden" is often (NOT always, often) the sign of a munchkin power gamer.
The best answer that I've found for munchkin power gamers (when just kicking them out of the game wasn't a great response for "reasons") has been "I have one ironclad unchangeable rule as a GM. Whatever the players can do, the NPCs can do". It instantly shuts down almost all the munchkin nonsense.
Yeah, I tell my players that even when they're not attempting to power game.
"Remember team, anything clever you think you can do, the enemy can do as well. Especially once they've seen you do it once. Do you want to open Pandora's box?"
It usually works, but it can spiral when the player just cycles through different BS ideas and you have to keep doing a game of oneupmanship and the whole world starts feeling ridiculous.
It usually works, but it can spiral when the player just cycles through different BS ideas and you have to keep doing a game of oneupmanship and the whole world starts feeling ridiculous.
Oh, I don't play that game. If players start going down that path of ridiculous power gaming maneuvers and don't heed my warning to knock it off I usually make it clear that they're heading down the road to a TPK, though I won't say that directly.
But if a group pisses me off by abusing grey parts of the rules and I warn them that I don't like it and they continue to ignore it, I have 0 problem killing off all those characters. And doing so repeatedly until they get the message.
I've only had to actually do that once, because one particular player was insistent in doing abusive things with the rules (this was also in PF1, much more open to abuse than PF2). I created a situation that TPK'd all the characters and new characters were brought it to pick up where the old left off. And when the same player started to try BS again the other players straight up told them no, we're not doing that.
But if a group pisses me off by abusing grey parts of the rules and I warn them that I don't like it and they continue to ignore it, I have 0 problem killing off all those characters. And doing so repeatedly until they get the message.That's not a great way to handle it imo. Really, it's 100% a people problem, one of mismatched expectations. It needs people solutions (i.e. conversation followed by agreement/compromise or by parting ways), not gameplay solutions.
I don't disagree exactly.
But if I as a GM politely tell you what is effectively "please don't do that" and you ignore that, then I consider it within my rights to ignore the normal gentleman's agreement that exist until you get the picture. And while the root of the problem was 1 specific player, the other players also didn't commit to saying no we shouldn't do that either.
The TPK taught the lesson, I (as a GM) am not playing around when I ask for something (being polite is often viewed as not being serious). The other players didn't need to be taught the lesson a second time.
It may also be worth mentioning it was the first time I had GM'd for the problem player and he is well known within our group to be a bit of munchkin. To the extent that he actually refuses to play PF2 because in his words "there's nothing for me to break".
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But if a group pisses me off by abusing grey parts of the rules and I warn them that I don't like it and they continue to ignore it, I have 0 problem killing off all those characters. And doing so repeatedly until they get the message.That's not a great way to handle it imo. Really, it's 100% a people problem, one of mismatched expectations. It needs people solutions (i.e. conversation followed by agreement/compromise or by parting ways), not gameplay solutions.
Conversations first, absolutely.
But if the player doesn't change their behaviour it MAY be because they think that you're bluffing, that you won't actually be willing to enforce your parameters.
In which case, proof at the table that you meant what you said may well be the right solution.
Yes, sure, but simply removing such players from the table looks like cleaner solution than TPKing the whole party. And less hassle. At least looks like it to me.
And if the other players had spoken up and said "No we don't want to do that" I would have said the munchkin player needed to abide by the others desires or leave the table.
But when no one spoke up, I used the same broken combo (can't even remember what it was) against them.