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I had a conceptual itch that the Eldritch Emissary* template happened to scratch perfectly, except for on little thing: Antimagic Susceptibility

Antimagic Vulnerability (Su): Because an eldritch emissary is a magical projection of a place of power, it is vulnerable to antimagic spells and spell-like effects as if it were a summoned creature. Any antimagic effect must first overcome the emissary’s spell resistance. A dispel magic spell that overcomes the emissary’s spell resistance will force it to discorporate for 1d4 rounds as if it were a suppressed magic item.

Emphasis mine.

But AMFs suppress Supernatural abilities... So do I vanish when I walk into one, or is that part of AMS redundant?

*Look in Towers of High Sorcery, p148 for further details.

MarineByzaro
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RAW, there might be some argument that antimagic field suppresses the antimagic vulnerability, rendering it inoperative and preventing the emissary from being affected by the antimagic field in any special way. But even RAW, there is an open question as to the order of effects here: exposure to an antimagic field triggers both the suppression of antimagic vulnerability as well as the actual effect of the vulnerability. Who’s to say whether one or the other happens first? (The DM, that’s who, even RAW, since the order of effects is undefined by the rules.)

Outside of RAW, it seems we should take the author at their word that antimagic field does extra-nasty things to an eldritch emissary. The choice to mark the vulnerability with “Su” is pretty clearly an error. Towers of High Sorcery is a third-party book by Sovereign Press, not Wizards of the Coast. It was an “official Wizards of the Coast licensed product,” but all that means is that Sovereign Press had an appropriate contract with Wizards of the Coast (read: paid them enough money) to get to use that logo (no doubt as a part of the larger deal to use the Dragonlance intellectual property). I don’t know Sovereign Press very well per se, but Wizards of the Coast themselves didn’t have a great reputation for careful editing, and third-party publishers were generally reputed to be far worse. To find an error on a highly technical matter is rather par for the course.

KRyan
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While I agree with @Kryan’s conclusion, I find different reasoning more persuasive: specific beats general.

This ability talks about what happens when the emissary is subject to an anti magic field. The general effect is that supernatural abilities are suppressed; the specific effect is that an emissary might wink out. While it is definitely an… unusual design choice to label it (Su), that doesn’t change the specificness or the overall effect.

Moving briefly to speculation, maybe the author meant to indicate that the emissary’s very existence is a supernatural effect, so the antimagic suppresses that existence? That aligns with the “like a summoned creature” text, though only winking out for 1d4 rounds is a special case. Either way, the specific effect here goes off instead of the general effect of antimagic.

fectin
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  • This may well have been the author’s thought, but it doesn’t really work. Nothing in antimagic vulnerability says antimagic vulnerability has any specific exceptional reaction to antimagic field, which is what you’d really need for specific-beats-general to apply. The general rule here is that supernatural abilities are suppressed in an antimagic field. The specific rule here is... something that has nothing to do with any supernatural ability’s reaction to antimagic field. They don’t interact at all. – KRyan Jun 28 '22 at 22:53