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Reinboom
2009-03-29, 08:59 PM
I am slightly confused about Miss: entries on powers. Are they supposed to be allowing or disallowing?
For example, the following two Miss entries:

Half damage, and the target is not stunned.

Half damage, and the target is dazed until the end of your next turn.
Noting, the second entry is on a power that both dazes AND gives a -2 penalty to AC.

I do not understand why they put the "and the target is not stunned." on there if the "Miss:" entry is simply stating what occurs with no reference to hit.
Alternatively, I do not understand what happened to that -2 penalty to AC if instead it is purely disallowing portions of the "Hit:" entry.

Am I mistaken in thinking "and the target is not ___" to actually be just a waste of print?

Colmarr
2009-03-29, 09:02 PM
Am I mistaken in thinking "and the target is not ___" to actually be just a waste of print?

I don't think you're mistaken. It's excess wordage.

Douglas
2009-03-29, 09:07 PM
Am I mistaken in thinking "and the target is not ___" to actually be just a waste of print?
It's clarification only, possibly necessary for some people because the "half damage" part clearly is a reference to the "Hit:" entry. I think the general pattern is that if the "Miss:" entry has its own special effect in addition to any damage the listed special effect replaces the one for a hit. If there is no special effect on a miss, they note its absence.

So, for something that dazes for one round instead of "(save ends)", they just give the daze with duration. For something that dazes on a hit but only does damage on a miss, they specifically note the lack of dazing.

Orzel
2009-03-29, 09:23 PM
Th "Miss" entry often referenced to the "Hit" entry. Without clarification, a "Miss" that is a modification of the "Hit" can be confused. If the "Miss" halves the damage of the "Hit", somone could wrongfully assume the other parts of the "Hit" still happen.

Reinboom
2009-03-29, 10:01 PM
Th "Miss" entry often referenced to the "Hit" entry. Without clarification, a "Miss" that is a modification of the "Hit" can be confused. If the "Miss" halves the damage of the "Hit", somone could wrongfully assume the other parts of the "Hit" still happen.

Then it, as reiterated, indeed wasted text.

If you noted what I quoted, there are quite a few powers that have only part of them excluded in the Miss entry, hinting that the rest of the Hit entry still occurs.

Of course, this is not true, however, I find this secondary reference quite a poor way of writing these things.

Kletian999
2009-03-30, 01:10 AM
PHB2 officially declared that the Miss box will contain what happens ("Half Damage", and won't waste print denying what doesn't happen (so no "and target is not stunned" anymore)

Oracle_Hunter
2009-03-30, 01:30 AM
Of course, this is not true, however, I find this secondary reference quite a poor way of writing these things.

It is, however, a very legalistic way of writing. The whole 4E ruleset is written much like a legal document - every term that has mechanical implications is written as a Term of Art, rules cross-reference other sections explicitly and "extra wordage" is added to remove any potential ambiguities.

I believe this is WotC reacting to the "sloppy" writing of many parts of 3E and the resulting rules-lawyering / complaining / Tippyverses that resulted. It may be a bad way to write a book, but it's not a bad way to write a set of rules - particularly if you expect a horde of nerds to go over it with a fine-toothed comb :smalltongue:

TheOOB
2009-03-30, 03:28 AM
As a general rule, unless one section of a power is indented below another, it is completely independent of what comes before it. Hit and Miss are binary qualities, either the attack hits(and you do what it says in the hit section), or the attack misses(and you do what it says in the miss section). In the PHB many of the miss effect clarify that even while you are doing half the damage of the hit section none of the other text in the hit section has meaning.

Kurald Galain
2009-03-30, 06:20 AM
I believe this is WotC reacting to the "sloppy" writing of many parts of 3E and the resulting rules-lawyering / complaining / Tippyverses that resulted. It may be a bad way to write a book, but it's not a bad way to write a set of rules

I actually disagree. By writing the rules in legalistic fashion, you avert such problems only if you make zero mistakes therein.

For instance, by writing a "and the target is not stunned" in some miss effects, but not all, those nerds-with-fine-combs will take that as to mean that the effects that lack this exception do stun on a miss.

In other words, using legal wording increases, rather than diminishes, the scope and effect of rules lawyering. Check out the WOTC forums for many, many examples (my current favorite being the argument that an attack can somehow be simultaneously melee and ranged).

Oracle_Hunter
2009-03-30, 12:12 PM
In other words, using legal wording increases, rather than diminishes, the scope and effect of rules lawyering. Check out the WOTC forums for many, many examples (my current favorite being the argument that an attack can somehow be simultaneously melee and ranged).

I think that rather than increase the scope, it increases the sharpness.

When you have lots of undefined terms put together, people can disagree about a particular rule using whatever "common sense" arguments they can come up with - a very broad range of arguments. But, when you obsessively define terms it is far more difficult to make pure "common sense" arguments - the text can easily be used to justify only a small range of responses. Now, in both cases Internet Arguments generally resolve down to only a few options (usually two) but with legalistic phrasing those two options are immediately clear.

I will agree that poor wording makes life more difficult in legalistic documents; once people become used to following the text (RAW) instead of consensus-driven RAI, it is far easier to support faulty arguments with text. I think WotC is learning this as well - their Errata has been compulsively simplifying language to remove ambiguity; the Stealth rules were the start of this trend.

Person_Man
2009-03-30, 01:33 PM
I'm fine with the Hit: "X[W] and the target is Whatever." Miss: "Half damage, and the target is not Whatever" wording. It avoids confusion, and it's not like it takes up a lot of space.

Of course, occasionally including the "and the target is not Whatever" and occasionally excluding it sheer stupidity.