5.13 Special Ability Mechanics
5.13.1 Touch Range
Some abilities affect creatures or objects that you touch. You can only touch creatures that are adjacent to you. Touching a creature that is not an ally requires an attack against the target’s Reflex defense, which is usually mentioned as part of the ability’s description. Some creatures cannot be touched, such as incorporeal and intangible creatures.
5.13.2 Noticing Abilities
Using an ability normally requires some obvious effort or action on your character’s part. You can decide how your character uses abilities to fit their style and the tone of the game you are in. For example, one character might dramatically shout the names of their attacks, while another character might make trace runes in the air to cast their spells. A single character could also have multiple styles for their different abilities. The only general requirement is that it must be obvious to a casual observer that you are doing something, unless the ability is specifically Subtle.
Similarly, abilities normally have visual and/or auditory effects when used. You can also decide the style of these effects, with the requirement that they must obviously be the result of your character using an ability.
Spells and rituals have additional requirements that make them easier to notice and harder to use (see Spells and Rituals).
5.13.3 Invalid Targets
You can always attempt to use a targeted ability on an invalid target. For example, you can try to cast a healing spell on a rock if you want, even if the healing spell only affects living creatures. If the target is still invalid when the ability resolves, the ability has no effect on that target. However, it still affects any other targets of the ability normally.
5.13.4 Targets In Unknown Locations
You can try to use a targeted ability even if you don’t know exactly where your intended target is. To do so, describe your intended target, such as “the creature hiding somewhere in those bushes”, and choose a 5-foot square. If your chosen square contains your intended target, your ability has a 50% miss chance. At the GM’s discretion, choosing the wrong square or missing due to the miss chance may have unintended consequences, such as affecting a different valid target.
5.13.5 Primary and Secondary Targets
Some abilities that affect multiple targets distinguish between their primary and secondary targets. For example, the chain lightning spell affects secondary targets within a small radius around a primary target. If an ability does not mention secondary targets, all of its targets are primary targets.
Unless otherwise specified, abilities have the same effect on their primary and secondary targets. However, line of effect for secondary targets is always measured from the primary target, rather than from the ability’s source. Line of sight is still measured from the ability’s source. This can allow you to hit secondary targets behind walls if you can still see them or otherwise target them, and if there is no obstacle separating from the primary target.
5.13.6 Measuring Area Shapes
Cone: A cone extends from the point of origin in a quarter-hemisphere, up to the given length. A square is affected by a cone if it is within the cone’s 90 degree arc and all of the square’s points of intersection are no more than the cone’s length away from the cone’s point of origin.
Cylinder: A cylinder extends out from the point of origin in a circle, up to the given radius. Cylinders also have a specific height. Unless otherwise specified, a cylinder’s height is the same as its radius.
Line: A line extends from the point of origin in a straight line, up to the given length. Lines also have a specific width and height. Unless otherwise specified, a line-shaped ability affects an area 5 feet wide and 5 feet high. The affected squares are chosen such that they stay close to the chosen line as possible. All squares affected by a line must be contiguous, so every square is adjacent to another affected square, disregarding diagonals.
If a line-shaped effect has its area increased, only the length of the line increases unless otherwise noted.
Sphere: A sphere extends from the point of origin in all directions. Any ability which only specifies a radius for its area is sphere-shaped.
Wall: A wall is like a line, except that its width is not defined in squares. Narratively, all walls have a nonzero width. Mechanically, walls are considered to have no width and simply occupy the boundary between squares. Like lines, some walls are shapeable.
All walls share the following common properties unless their description says otherwise. A wall’s height is equal to half its length for straight walls, or half its radius for circular walls, to a minimum of 5 feet high. The entire wall is considered to be a single object, and is attacked and destroyed as a single unit. All of a wall’s defenses are 0, but like other objects, they are immune to critical hits. Most abilities that create walls indicate how many hit points the wall has. If an ability does not specify a wall’s hit points, it does not have hit points and cannot be destroyed with damage.
If you create a wall within a space too small to hold it, it fills as much of the space as possible, starting from the middle of the chosen space. This can allow you to completely block off small tunnels.
Walls can normally be created within or adjacent to occupied squares, but not within solid objects. If a wall has hit points, it cannot be created inside the space of a single creature, but it can be created between two adjacent creatures.
5.13.7 Functioning Like Other Spells
Many spells and rituals say they “function like” some other spell or ritual, often with some noted changes. Except as otherwise noted, they retain all of the original effects and targets of the spell. However, they do not have the same rank upgrades as the original spell or ritual.
5.13.8 Impossible Spells and Rituals
When you try to use a spell or ritual in an impossible way, the ability fails with no effect. This most commonly happens if you attempt to declare an invalid target for a spell.
5.13.9 Ability Durations
An ability’s duration determines how long its effect lasts. Abilities can have one of several different kinds of durations.
If an ability targets creatures or objects directly, the effects travel with the subjects for the ability’s duration, even if the subjects go outside the ability’s initial range. If an ability creates or summons objects or creatures, they last for the duration of the ability, and are capable of moving outside the ability’s initial range. Such effects can sometimes be destroyed prior to when their duration ends.
Attuned Abilities
Many abilities last as long as a creature attunes to them. For details, see Attunement.
Conditions
Many abilities impose conditions on their targets. A condition lasts until it is removed. You can remove conditions by taking a short rest or using the recover ability (see Recover). There are several other abilities that can also remove conditions.
Sustained Abilities
Sustained abilities have the Sustain tag. They last as long as you take an action to sustain them each round. The type of action required is always specified in the ability’s tag, such as “Sustain (standard)” for a standard action, or in the ability’s description.
At the start of each action phase, the ability is dismissed unless you take the appropriate action to sustain the ability. This happens before your normal turn, so you and your allies can’t gain the benefits of a sustained ability without you sustaining it.
Some sustained abilities include “attuneable” in the tag before the action type. When you use or sustain that ability, you can choose to attune to it. If you do, it gains the Attune tag and loses the Sustain tag, so it stays active as long as you stay attuned to it.
Taking an action to sustain an ability only allows you to sustain a single use of that ability. However, you can sustain multiple separate abilities at once if you have available actions. You can never sustain the same ability more than once.
You can normally only sustain an ability for up to 5 minutes. Sustaining an ability beyond that point is strenuous, and requires an Endurance check (see Endurance).
Permanent Abilities
Some abilities last permanently. Such abilities never expire on their own, but can be dismissed or removed by other abilities appropriately.
5.13.10 Combining Effects
Abilities do not generally affect the way another abilities function. However, sometimes multiple effects can be in conflict on a creature. If one effect makes another effect irrelevant or impossible, the latter effect is ignored. If two effects both conflict with each other, the most recent effect takes precedence, and the other is ignored. Unless otherwise noted, two different uses of the same ability are always considered to be conflicting with each other.
All abilities will still have as much of their effect as possible. It is possible for an ability to be partially effective in this way.
5.13.11 Suppressing Abilities
Abilities can be suppressed by effects such as the suppress magic spell. While an ability is suppressed, it has no effect. However, if it stops being suppressed, its effects continue as if they had not been interrupted.
5.13.12 Ability Tags
Many abilities have tags that describe the nature of the ability. Many of these tags have no game effect by themselves, but they govern how the ability interacts with spells, other abilities, unusual creatures, and so on. For a list of ability tags, see Ability Tags.