Ask Jiro presents an assortment of kobold scribes and sages to clarify Tales of the Valiant RPG rules and confirm errata sleuthed out by the ToV community!
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This month’s queries are about the Player’s Guide, on sale in hardback and pocket edition!
KeithLangley queries Martial Action options
Martial Action lets you do a weapon option as a bonus action, and the ricochet shot weapon option is exactly like a normal attack, except you can bounce the shot to ignore cover.
If I understand how these interact, you can make a ranged attack as a bonus action, but only if you can make it a ricochet shot? There’s something odd about that. “If you stand in the open, I can shoot you once, but if you hide behind something, I can shoot you twice.”
ANSWER!
Your interpretation is correct. Martial Action is intended to let you bend the rules and/or fiction a bit to do fun and cinematic fighter shenanigans in the same way that spells offer rules and/or fiction bending to spellcasters. Shoot your shot! Twice!
Blue Flash 41 and spell-swapping bards
The bard’s Magical Secrets class feature allows them to pick spells outside of the Arcane source from time to time (1st, 9th, 13th, and 18th levels). Is the bard allowed to swap them for another spell outside of the Arcane source when they level up?
ANSWER!
Magical Secrets represents the bard “unlocking” some strange, magical knowledge they wouldn’t otherwise know or understand. So, when you learn that Divine spell, you are unlocking the secret to that specific spell, not all Divine spells. In this way, a non-Arcane spell learned through Magical Secrets becomes an Arcane spell for you.
When you gain a level as a bard, you can choose one Arcane spell you know and replace it with another spell from the Arcane spell list.
Any other Divine spells are not Arcane spells for you, only the one you learned. So, you can’t learn a Divine spell from the Magical Secrets class feature then and trade it out for a Wyrd spell when you gain a level. However, you can trade it out for an Arcane spell when you gain a level.
FrostBurn326 on talent improvements and prerequisites
Several talents (such as Psycanist, Artillerist, and Noxious Apothecary) list that they have a minimum ability score needed in order to take them. It’s a little unclear when you need to have that ability score: is it before you acquire the talent, or can it be after you have acquired an Improvement that includes the talent?
As an example, if I were playing a character with 12 STR and then got to a level where I gain an Improvement, would gaining a +1 to STR (making it 13) allow me to take the Artillerist talent with that same Improvement, or would I need to wait until I gain another Improvement to gain the Artillerist talent?
ANSWER!
You can absolutely take a talent with an ability score prerequisite at the same level that you gain that prerequisite. That’s actually one of the reasons all the talents with ability prerequisites minimums are odd numbers!
Grimicus asks: pinning shot or forced movement?
The text for the Pinning Shot weapon option in the Player’s Guide says that the creature’s movement is reduced to 0 feet until the end of its next turn. If a creature is pinned, would forced movement still be able to move it, or would a pinning prevent forced movement?
And, If forced movement can move the pinned creature, would it end the pinned effect early without the need for the STR (Athletics) or DEX (Acrobatics) check normally required, since it is forcing the pinned creature away from the object that has it pinned?
ANSWER!
Forced movement would break the pin. However, there’s a solid argument for the forced movement effect to have to overcome the weapon option save DC. So, if you pin a creature and its buddy tries to free it with a shove, the buddy would need to succeed against your weapon option save DC rather than the pinned creature’s Athletics/Acrobatics. That would be up to the GM, though.
The Hunter ranger subclass has a feature called No Escape that lets you teleport. It states that as part of the teleport, you can take an opportunity attack if the target is within your weapon’s reach.
“Reach” is a specific term for melee weapons in the game as opposed to “range” for ranged weapons. If you use a bow and then teleport to within the bow’s range, can you still take the opportunity attack, or does this only work with melee weapons? It seems that many hunters go the bow route, so if it doesn’t work, it becomes a less valuable subclass feature for them.
ANSWER!
Opportunity attacks are specifically melee attacks. You can’t take an opportunity attack with a bow.
However, No Escape doesn’t say you have to move closer to the target. For melee rangers, this allows them to close on an enemy attempting to flee from them, while ranged rangers can use it to maintain their distance or even gain a more advantageous position. (Melee rangers can also use it to escape, but they’re less likely to want to.)
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