Shun the Dark Chaos spell RAI

[redking]

What are the Rules As Intended for Shun the Dark Chaos?

[Zaq]

I understand all the words in that sentence, but I don't understand what you're asking. Do you feel like the way the spell is often used is somehow not RAI? Take abyssal heritor feats that you no longer want and turn them into useful feats. That seems pretty straightforward?

[redking]

That seems pretty straightforward?

That part is straightforward enough. Its when you Embrace the Dark Chaos then Shun the Dark Chaos later that the RAI question must be raised. Shun the Dark Chaos clearly says "any" feat. It looks like psychic reformation on steroids and I am wondering if that was the RAI.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

That part is straightforward enough. Its when you Embrace the Dark Chaos then Shun the Dark Chaos later that the RAI question must be raised. Shun the Dark Chaos clearly says "any" feat. It looks like psychic reformation on steroids and I am wondering if that was the RAI.The RAW are ridiculously clear. There really is no way to misunderstand what is written. If the Dark Chaos Feat Shuffle isn't intended, the devs had a rather crazy way of going about laying it right out for anyone to use.

[Crake]

Abyssal heritor feats indicate some level of corruption by the abyss, either willingly (by taking the feat yourself), or unwillingly (by having someone cast embrace the dark chaos on you while unconscious, or via story mechanics). The RAI of shun the dark chaos is about cleansing that corruption, while embrace the dark chaos is about, well... embracing that corruption.

Whether or not it was designer intention for people to use the two spells together to replace feats is negotiable.

[Segev]

If it was intended by the writers, they didn't call out that use directly, and the fluff doesn't talk about people using the two spells together to change feats arbitrarily. It talks about embracing or cleansing corruption, with these being treated not as a revolving door but as character-defining decisions that mark real change towards or from evil.

If it was intended by the writers, it was likely that they wanted to slip it by editors or something. At least, if I were writing a plot about sneaking something I knew couldn't pass muster into the game, that's how I'd write the characters trying to do it doing so: sneak two things with a simple interaction past overworked editors and line editors that look thematic taken in isolation, have obvious reason for both existing, but carefully don't mention that they can be used serially. Thus, it is not RAI by the line editors, if this is the case.

It's possible it was intended that you perform the Dark Chaos Shuffle, but it seems strange that no mention of this would be made, given that other methods for changing your feat choices arbitrarily are clearly spelled out as to that being their intent, with sharper costs and balance restrictions on when and how it can be done.

Therefore, whether there were writers who secretly intended the Dark Chaos Shuffle or not, I do not believe the people with final authority on what is and is not published intended these two spells to be used in that fashion. I believe the intention is what is clearly spelled out in the fluff surrounding them: You're likely only using one or the other, and doing so is a character-shaping choice meant to represent willingly seeking dark power, or struggling to cleanse yourself of an unwanted taint. Not to briefly dip your toe in abyssal evil only to come out cleansed but with different capabilities.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If it was intended by the writers, they didn't call out that use directly, and the fluff doesn't talk about people using the two spells together to change feats arbitrarily. It talks about embracing or cleansing corruption, with these being treated not as a revolving door but as character-defining decisions that mark real change towards or from evil.

If it was intended by the writers, it was likely that they wanted to slip it by editors or something. At least, if I were writing a plot about sneaking something I knew couldn't pass muster into the game, that's how I'd write the characters trying to do it doing so: sneak two things with a simple interaction past overworked editors and line editors that look thematic taken in isolation, have obvious reason for both existing, but carefully don't mention that they can be used serially. Thus, it is not RAI by the line editors, if this is the case.

It's possible it was intended that you perform the Dark Chaos Shuffle, but it seems strange that no mention of this would be made, given that other methods for changing your feat choices arbitrarily are clearly spelled out as to that being their intent, with sharper costs and balance restrictions on when and how it can be done.

Therefore, whether there were writers who secretly intended the Dark Chaos Shuffle or not, I do not believe the people with final authority on what is and is not published intended these two spells to be used in that fashion. I believe the intention is what is clearly spelled out in the fluff surrounding them: You're likely only using one or the other, and doing so is a character-shaping choice meant to represent willingly seeking dark power, or struggling to cleanse yourself of an unwanted taint. Not to briefly dip your toe in abyssal evil only to come out cleansed but with different capabilities.Abyssal chaos, not Abyssal evil.

[newguydude1]

It looks like psychic reformation on steroids and I am wondering if that was the RAI.

of course it is. selecting racial bonus feats or weapon proficiency is not rai. but retraining feats selected at level up is.

psychic reformation is a 4th level power that in one casting lets you retrain all your feats at once.

dark chaos shuffle is two 8th level spells that cost 500xp total to retrain one feat. higher spell level and significantly higher xp cost demands an additional benefit. and that additional benefit is the ability to fill your lower level feat slots that you qualify for right now, and not back then.

[redking]

of course it is. selecting racial bonus feats or weapon proficiency is not rai. but retraining feats selected at level up is.

Right. Reasonable people accept that.


psychic reformation is a 4th level power that in one casting lets you retrain all your feats at once.

Psychic Reformation cannot change feats that are mandated by class levels, such as the item creation feats granted to artificers. Embrace/Shun can do that.


dark chaos shuffle is two 8th level spells that cost 500xp total to retrain one feat. higher spell level and significantly higher xp cost demands an additional benefit. and that additional benefit is the ability to fill your lower level feat slots that you qualify for right now, and not back then.

There are probably not huge balance problems in doing it. I do wonder if retraining feats granted by virtue of classes like the artificer was intended.

[newguydude1]

I do wonder if retraining feats granted by virtue of classes like the artificer was intended.

thats a hard no. think about it. the spells by themselves and not as a combo.

shun the dark chaos is supposed to be a spell that lets a former character that took abyssal heritor feat have a way out of their evil choices for atonement.
embrace the dark chaos is supposed to be a spell that corrupts good characters into embracing the abyss.

you can only obtain abyssal heritor feats at level up.

so put all this together, the answer is no. absolutely not. there is no indication whatsoever that says embrace the dark chaos's intent was to change your 100 proficiency feats into abyssal heritor feats.

were talking about designers who forgot that psicrystals can pickup feats, or wrote an entire book (magic of eberron) without knowing their own psi-like ability rules and got every single monster stat block wrong, or wrote an entire book (draconomicon) based on innate spellcasting monsters not using material components and even tells you to look at monster manual for confirmation when monster manual literally says the exact opposite, that innate spellcasters must have material components on hand. they dont know what theyre doing and they made a mistake here.

i dont blame them for this one though. i was fixated on dark chaos shuffle and it took an optimization forum to get me the idea of using proficiency feats gained via class level. and i dont care for it. just no. fitting all the feats i want into my build is one of the main things i find fun with this game and getting infinite feats just blows away all the fun i have with character building.


There are probably not huge balance problems in doing it.
the worst abuse i can think of is changing out all 7 feats at 1,3,6,9,12,15,18 into epic feats the moment you hit level 21. but i dont think thats a big deal. epic is supposed to be whack and only epic spellcasting is op. all the other spellcasting epic feats is just metamagic stuff.

[Segev]

Abyssal chaos, not Abyssal evil.
Granted, but my core point doesn't change.

of course it is. selecting racial bonus feats or weapon proficiency is not rai. but retraining feats selected at level up is.

psychic reformation is a 4th level power that in one casting lets you retrain all your feats at once.

dark chaos shuffle is two 8th level spells that cost 500xp total to retrain one feat. higher spell level and significantly higher xp cost demands an additional benefit. and that additional benefit is the ability to fill your lower level feat slots that you qualify for right now, and not back then.

The dark chaos shuffle probably isn't broken, no. It's just not how it was intended to be used, at least not by the people who had final approval authority over the books. If it was intended to be used that way, it would have made some sort of mention of such.

It certainly wasn't intended for feats granted as ribbons to be traded out for any feat you might happen to want. Because that definitely would have been mentioned, and it would have cost something closer to other feat-retraining things that can help you do total rebuilds.

[Thurbane]

Can't believe that this hasn't occurred to me before, but Dark Chaos Shuffle would let you swap out default feats on a familiar or animal companion, right?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Can't believe that this hasn't occurred to me before, but Dark Chaos Shuffle would let you swap out default feats on a familiar or animal companion, right?So long as the critter is willing, yes. There's nothing stopping you.

The question is, who chooses the feat you swap to? You? Or the critter? Because it might be difficult to convince a T-Rex that it wants Ancestral Relic and not Leadership so it can eat all of the food now following it around.

[Segev]

So long as the critter is willing, yes. There's nothing stopping you.

The question is, who chooses the feat you swap to? You? Or the critter? Because it might be difficult to convince a T-Rex that it wants Ancestral Relic and not Leadership so it can eat all of the food now following it around.

Leadership wouldn't work for that. It isn't a magical compulsion. It represents actual efforts and deeds put into gathering a following. This is why your Leadership score takes hits for being cruel or getting a rep for having dead followers. A T-Rex who eats his followers isn't going to be able to have much of a Leadership score, and a DM would be well within his rights and reason to say it simply can't have the feat if it isn't going to do something to earn/keep the loyalty of the followers.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Leadership wouldn't work for that. It isn't a magical compulsion. It represents actual efforts and deeds put into gathering a following. This is why your Leadership score takes hits for being cruel or getting a rep for having dead followers. A T-Rex who eats his followers isn't going to be able to have much of a Leadership score, and a DM would be well within his rights and reason to say it simply can't have the feat if it isn't going to do something to earn/keep the loyalty of the followers.The T-Rex has an Int of 2. It wants food to come to it. It's not its fault that it doesn't understand the intricacies of human(oid) relations, or that they know what's about to happen and don't want it to.

[Crake]

The T-Rex has an Int of 2. It wants food to come to it. It's not its fault that it doesn't understand the intricacies of human(oid) relations, or that they know what's about to happen and don't want it to.

Leadership also requires DM approval to take. Perfectly reasonable for a DM to say a t-rex is ineligible for leadership.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Leadership also requires DM approval to take. Perfectly reasonable for a DM to say a t-rex is ineligible for leadership.The point is that, even if you want to swap your animal companion's feats out for other things, if the companion wants something else, it's going to go for that, not what you want. And most animals want safety, food, and sex, and not necessarily in that order. And how do you convince an animal that it wants a fast healing aura or a magic item when it doesn't even know what those things are or why it should want them?

[Thurbane]

The point is that, even if you want to swap your animal companion's feats out for other things, if the companion wants something else, it's going to go for that, not what you want. And most animals want safety, food, and sex, and not necessarily in that order. And how do you convince an animal that it wants a fast healing aura or a magic item when it doesn't even know what those things are or why it should want them?

Animal Companions are supposed to be very loyal - I'm sure a quick Speak With Animals and it would view your feat suggestions pretty favourably...

[Elves]

There is mention of using the two together:
"The subject can regain its original Abyssal heritor feat (and lose the replacement feat) by means of embrace the dark chaos, miracle, or wish."

If the DM doesn't want you to use the combo they can just disallow it. Plus, if you can't do it yourself, what kind of person is willing and able to cast both these spells on you? Somehow I doubt it's as easy as rolling into the shop. You either need a mad wizard who's really into experimenting with abyssal energy infusions, or you need to go back and forth between demon worshippers and holy people eager to redeem you. That's probably gonna raise some eyebrows.

[Crake]

Animal Companions are supposed to be very loyal - I'm sure a quick Speak With Animals and it would view your feat suggestions pretty favourably...

Yeah, and worst case, you can slap it with a fox's cunning spell to give it some higher reasoning skills to explain.

At the same time, feats are often a rather meta character feature, so explaining it IC may not even be necessary. For example, how does one "choose" to gain ancestral relic, or wild cohort as an IC decision?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

At the same time, feats are often a rather meta character feature, so explaining it IC may not even be necessary. For example, how does one "choose" to gain ancestral relic, or wild cohort as an IC decision?Given how many things explicitly work with things like character level, feats, and skill points, they're obviously an in-world construct as much as they are a metagame construct. Seriously, there are a ton of them. Feats, spells, skills, psionic powers, magic items, and more.

[Crake]

Given how many things explicitly work with things like character level, feats, and skill points, they're obviously an in-world construct as much as they are a metagame construct. Seriously, there are a ton of them. Feats, spells, skills, psionic powers, magic items, and more.

Some have in world context, yeah, ones that grant discreet abilities, like natural spell, power attack, improved disarm whatever. But others are a little more nebulous and meta-gamey to say "I want ancestral relic" or "I want leadership" as a result of "cleansing the corruption of your abyssal connection"

Not saying you can't pick them, just saying it's more of an OOC decision, rather than an IC one.