Does Barded Spear stack clumsy on multiple castings, or does Duplicate Effects prevent it?

[Ardroid]

Hey everyone,

We had a rules discussion at our table regarding Barded Spear (Battlecry! pg. 71) and how it interacts with the Duplicate Effects rules.

Barded Spear says:

The spear remains lodged within a creature it hits, making the target clumsy 1 (or increasing its clumsy condition by 1 if it is already clumsy) for 1 minute or until the spear is removed with a successful Athletics check against your spell DC as an Interact action.

Duplicate Effects says:

When you're affected by the same thing multiple times, only one instance applies, using the higher level or rank of the effects, or the newer effect if the two are equal.

The question is:

If a caster successfully hits the same target with multiple castings of Barded Spear, does clumsy increase by 1 each time (since the spell explicitly says it increases the condition if already clumsy)?

Or does Duplicate Effects apply, meaning only one instance of Barded Spear can affect the target at a time, so a newer casting replaces the older one instead of stacking?

Points of discussion:

- Each spear remains lodged and must be removed separately or together.

- The spell explicitly includes language about increasing clumsy.

- Duplicate Effects generally prevents stacking of the same effect.

How would you rule this RAW? And do you think this is intended to stack?

Thanks in advance!

[Errenor]

I think it's not intended to stack. It's clumsy 1, or, if an enemy is already clumsy for another reason, increase clumsy by 1 which increase lasts as written for a time or until a spear is removed. But it does not stack with itself and Duplicate Effects rule works.

[Nelzy]

"or increasing its clumsy condition by 1 if it is already clumsy"

is a specific rule that beat general rule of duplicate effects, so RAW it would stack up even with itself.

if thats intended thats another story, and i leave that to your GM.

[Claxon]

Yeah, the wording here isn't very precise unfortunately.

When worded as "or increasing the clumsy condition by 1 if it is already clumsy" to me read as though it could increase it even if the source is another barbed spear.

But, I don't think that was the intention. I think it was the intention that barbed spear would increase clumsy to 2, if the target already had the clumsy condition from another source.

However, the poor wording as mentioned doesn't preclude it from self stacking and its somewhat unclear if the duplicate effects rule should take precedence. I mean, IMO it definitely should, but the wording isn't as clear as it could be.