Figment Familiar archetype question


Rules Questions


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

I wanted to see how people would parse out this sentence:

"Because it is a being of its master's own mind, a figment can never serve as a witch's familiar, and it can't use any divination spells or spell-like abilities it may possess."

Specifically I'm wondering if the intent is to limit all spell-like abilities, or just those that mimic divinations. I think it can reasonably be parsed either way, and I think there is a reasonable fluff/balance argument either way as well, so I wanted to see if there was something obvious I was misreading.


I see the confusion, it says divination spells or spell-like abilities, meaning either spells and spell-like abilities that are divine, or just all divine spells AND all spell-like abilities.

Yeah that is confusing...


It is divination spells and divination spell like abilities. The entire sentence, relating to it being a limited by what the caster knows, shows that to be the case. In addition, if the or was meant to signify all spell like abilities rather than divination (spells or spell like abilities) the sentence would be something like "never be a witches familiar, can't use divination spells, and can't use spell like abilities.'


Dave Justus wrote:
It is divination spells and divination spell like abilities. The entire sentence, relating to it being a limited by what the caster knows, shows that to be the case. In addition, if the or was meant to signify all spell like abilities rather than divination (spells or spell like abilities) the sentence would be something like "never be a witches familiar, can't use divination spells, and can't use spell like abilities.'

I don't know, basically all you did was add a comma.

The Oxford comma could have been ignored for the listing.

Designer

Some random unofficial stuff on this:

In the initial formulation, it specifically referenced that ubiquitous commune SLA in particular that many improved familiars have. Also, since we freelancers wrote this before we had access to the final ACG, the book (minus anything added in development like the bloodragers) doesn't address the ACG classes; for the same reason as the witch, this prohibition would apply to the shaman.


felinoel wrote:
Dave Justus wrote:
It is divination spells and divination spell like abilities. The entire sentence, relating to it being a limited by what the caster knows, shows that to be the case. In addition, if the or was meant to signify all spell like abilities rather than divination (spells or spell like abilities) the sentence would be something like "never be a witches familiar, can't use divination spells, and can't use spell like abilities.'

I don't know, basically all you did was add a comma.

The Oxford comma could have been ignored for the listing.

Actually, the primary thing I did was move the 'and' and drop the or. The 'and' where it is in the original means we are talking about 2 things a) never be a witches familiar and b) not use divination spells or spell-like abilities. So, with that punctuation b is a single thing, the single thing being divination magic, which itself comes in two forms, spells and spell like abilities.

Grand Lodge

Felinoel wrote:
I see the confusion, it says divination spells or spell-like abilities, meaning either spells and spell-like abilities that are divine, or just all divine spells AND all spell-like abilities.
Justus wrote:
Actually, the primary thing I did was move the 'and' and drop the or. The 'and' where it is in the original means we are talking about 2 things a) never be a witches familiar and b) not use divination spells or spell-like abilities. So, with that punctuation b is a single thing, the single thing being divination magic, which itself comes in two forms, spells and spell like abilities.

No, the *primary* thing you did was fix the glaring conflating of "divination" with "divine" in Felinoel's original post. :)


It seems that, like so many other abilities(/spells/items/etc), clarity lost out to word count somewhere during the editing process. I really wish there was something we (the customers) could do in order to change that, but after 5+ years I don't see one.


Markov Spiked Chain wrote:
No, the *primary* thing you did was fix the glaring conflating of "divination" with "divine" in Felinoel's original post. :)

I didn't feel the need to comment on that, and was responding to the OP, skipping his somewhat confused restatement of the problem.

Tvarog wrote:
It seems that, like so many other abilities(/spells/items/etc), clarity lost out to word count somewhere during the editing process. I really wish there was something we (the customers) could do in order to change that, but after 5+ years I don't see one.

I have seen quite a few examples of unclear text. This however is not one of them. The sentence is put together perfectly for what it is trying to say.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Dave Justus wrote:
I have seen quite a few examples of unclear text. This however is not one of them. The sentence is put together perfectly for what it is trying to say.

I'm really not sure this is the case. Your evidence seems to be that it isn't ambiguous because it wasn't unambiguously worded to clearly indicate that all spell like abilities were excluded. That logic cuts both ways, though. It also could have been written to say something like:

"Because it is a being of its master's own mind, a figment can never serve as a witch's familiar, and it can't use any divination spells or divination spell-like abilities it may possess."

Given that it could have been stated more clearly the other direction too, it seems unlikely to say that it is "perfectly constructed".

Moreover, the fluff context doesn't actually relate necessarily to what the master knows, it merely says that the familiar is a mental construct, which can be extrapolated as a plausible reason why the familiar can't "know" things the master doesn't, or as a plausible reason why the familiar can't access spell-like abilities that the master wouldn't otherwise have access to.

Finally, I believe you are parsing the "..., and..." in the sentence incorrectly, as it is nothing more or less than a coordinating conjunction (because the clause "it can't use any divination spell or spell like abilities it may posses" is independent).

That said, I don't even think it matters if the limit is ambiguous or not, since actually (to my knowledge) this can never come up in a game RAW - in order to be a figment familiar, you have to give up "speak with animals of your kind", and in order to have a spell-like ability (as far as I know) you have to be an improved familiar, which explicitly never get "speak with animals of your kind".

Given Mark's comments above, though it seems clear what the intent was (only divinations limited, and the assumption behind the limit seems to be that improved familiars might take it). I'm content to simply play it that way in my group, but YMMV.


The "standard" way PF has worded things is that make things clear if needed. What I mean is a swashbuckler's light or one-handed piercing is meaning both are piercing. As that is the way "common" English would say it to mean that. If they meant the other way the "common" English would be one-handed piercing and light. Same for here. It's divination (spells and spell-like)


MrTsFloatinghead wrote:

That said, I don't even think it matters if the limit is ambiguous or not, since actually (to my knowledge) this can never come up in a game RAW - in order to be a figment familiar, you have to give up "speak with animals of your kind", and in order to have a spell-like ability (as far as I know) you have to be an improved familiar, which explicitly never get "speak with animals of your kind".

Actually unless I am missing something, a school familiar can be a figment and many of them have spell like abilities.


I read it like this:

"Because it is a being of its master's own mind, a figment can never serve as a witch's familiar, and it can't use any divination (spells or spell-like abilities) it may possess."

Or, in clearer words, it only prohibits spells and SLAs that are divinations.

Why?

Simple: the figment is actually a part of the mind of the mage and therefore it can only know what he knows. The mage's mind is powerful enough that this figment can run around, open doors, grab things, move things, speak, even use spells and abilities that directly influence the world around us, but it cannot spontaneously create information that is not known to the mind that created it - therefore it cannot use any kind of divination to gain information.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Dave Justus wrote:
MrTsFloatinghead wrote:

That said, I don't even think it matters if the limit is ambiguous or not, since actually (to my knowledge) this can never come up in a game RAW - in order to be a figment familiar, you have to give up "speak with animals of your kind", and in order to have a spell-like ability (as far as I know) you have to be an improved familiar, which explicitly never get "speak with animals of your kind".

Actually unless I am missing something, a school familiar can be a figment and many of them have spell like abilities.

Nope - technically school familiars modify the deliver touch spells ability, and Figment Familiars replace that power:(

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