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Ruffians and Fatal (lemmy.ca)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/pathfinder2e

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/19889099

So, over on the subreddit there's a post that caught me off guard. I'm not experienced enough with the game to know the ins-and-outs of all of classes, so when someone posted asking about Ruffian Rogues and Picks.

From the comments, this appears to be a Thing of Great Contention within the Pathfinder space (or, at least within that Pathfinder space; I find r/Pathfinder2e to be a rather... idiosyncratic place, personally).

The long and short of it is that Picks have the Fatal d10 trait, but Ruffian specifies:

You can deal sneak attack damage with any weapon, not just the weapons listed in the sneak attack class feature. This benefit doesn't apply to a simple weapon with a damage die greater than d8 or a martial or advanced weapon with a damage die greater than d6. (Apply any abilities that alter the damage die size first.)

(Emphasis mine.)

A lot of words have been published over how the Ruffian doesn't lose Sneak Attack on a critical hit, but this seems pretty straight forward from the text here that it does. Weird and stupid, and something I'd never personally enforce, but clear and straight forward nonetheless.

This is the updated wording from Player Core 1, no less, and Ruffian's text was updated in the remaster, so there was an opportunity to reword or clarify that was not taken, so I'm not sure what others are reading from this that I'm not.

How do you interpret this situation? How would you judge it at your table?

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[–] Rezbit 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I only have 2 months experience with pathfinder, but no one else has posted yet so I want to at least contribute!

In conjunction with the Ruffian text you included, here is the Pick Fatal text:

Fatal 1d10: The fatal trait includes a die size. On a critical hit, the weapon's damage die increases to that die size instead of the normal die size, and the weapon adds one additional damage die of the listed size.

I think as written I agree that it feels pretty clear that the Ruffian would no longer get to apply sneak attack damage, as the damage die of the Pick is no longer a d6, and thus does not meet the Ruffian requirements.

At the table though, I would totally understand allowing it! (though idk how that affects things game balance wise in terms of weapon choice for the Ruffian, and subclass balance against the other Rackets)

If you want to get super wordy about it, I could see an alternate argument. The Ruffian thing says to apply any abilities that alter the die size first, but it's a weapon trait that is changing the die size. With my brief system experience though, I have no idea if it's stated somewhere that 'abilities', as referenced in the Ruffian text, are just meant as a catch-all term or if 'abilities' in this type of context specifically means some kind of ability that you choose to apply.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The Ruffian thing says to apply any abilities that alter the die size first, but it’s a weapon trait that is changing the die size.

Yeah, and that's the only way I can make the argument make any sense. But "ability" as a piece of system jargon doesn't make sense here. Capital-A Abilities are Strength, Dexteity, Constitution, etc., and they don't have an effect on damage dice size. From that, there's no reason to not interpret the word in the general sense.

And in the general sense, the Fatal trait gives the weapon the ability to use a higher damage die, contextually.

It kind of feels like there's a secret language underpinning all of this, and I cannot tell whether it's in the books, or in the minds of players.

[–] Rezbit 2 points 6 months ago

Great point, that all makes sense to me!

I don't think it's a language thing, it's just people wanting more power rather than less. Any multiplayer PvE game forum always has a post complaining about nerfs being wholey unneccessary when they happen, and claim that players should only ever be buffed. Never mind the balance of the enemies and other systems in the game that would need to be adjusted to the ever increasing power level lol

In the case of your post, I think that allowing sneak attack to work with Fatal boils down to Balance vs Player Feel. I think the balance detriment will be less than the improvement to player feel, which is why I think it makes sense to allow this to work if that's what the table agrees to.

(saying that though, personally I prefer sticking to the rules and wouldn't use it, but I feel like in majority of cases it's net positive to allow)