Immutability of Class Fluff

[Frozen_Feet]

Are you assuming that everyone's pure-classed?

Nope. I'm assuming a certain treshold of knowledge would allow to discern classes of even a multi-classed character. Considering the rules-as-written allow sufficiently high knowledge checks to discern information no-one else has thought of ever before, I do not consider it impossible.


You'd need to have a huge breadth of experience, and be observing very carefully. Given the reality of multiclassing, you can get a fairly organic spread of class features, many of which are darn near invisible (Trap Sense, for example). Distinguishing all of that would be a nightmare. And at that point, who cares?

That paranoid Arch-Mage after your blood might care, as well as have the means to do it fairly easily. At low levels, I think the spread would also be small enough that the IG roof categories would be rather close to OOG categories known as classes; it's not too hard to pin down a 1st level wizard, for example.

But overall you are right, there's a point where classes as categories start to lose meaning. It doesn't answer my original question to Fax, though.

[sonofzeal]

Nope. I'm assuming a certain treshold of knowledge would allow to discern classes of even a multi-classed character. Considering the rules-as-written allow sufficiently high knowledge checks to discern information no-one else has thought of ever before, I do not consider it impossible.

That paranoid Arch-Mage after your blood might care, as well as have the means to do it fairly easily. At low levels, I think the spread would also be small enough that the IG roof categories would be rather close to OOG categories known as classes; it's not too hard to pin down a 1st level wizard, for example.

But overall you are right, there's a point where classes as categories start to lose meaning. It doesn't answer my original question to Fax, though.
A Wizard is a bit of a special case, because there's a tangible in-game cue - the spellbook. But telling a Fighter from a Barbarian from a Ranger from a Rogue? That's going to be extremely difficult for the lay-man in the sorts of contexts one would reasonably expect to occur. I'm certainly not against the sufficiently-educated character making occasional inferences about a person's ability. But as Fax says, it's preposterous that such things are universal. Simply put, the accessibility of class information on an in-game level should be very much the exception rather than the rule, and need never come up at all.

[Fax Celestis]

But a lot of the OOG cues double as IG ones. Some things can be both metagaming and justified in-character action, because sometimes the metagame and in-game realities overlap.

And often they don't.


It doesn't answer my original question to Fax, though.

What, that the idea of character class being an in-game defining characteristic?

Let me ask you something.

http://s1.daemonsmovies.com/mov/up/2011/02/limitless-movie-photo-11-550x320.jpg
These men. Are they bankers? Lawyers? Investment firm brokers? Tax specialists? FBI agents? Mafia men? Con artists?

http://images.starpulse.com/Photos/Previews/White-Collar-tv-28.jpg
What about this one?

http://images.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/201039//300.dicaprio.leonardo.inception.lc.040910.jpg
This one?

http://chelsea.theoffside.com/files/2011/06/reservoir-dogs1.jpg
These men?

They all are dressed the same and carry themselves in the same fashion, yet they all do very, very different things.

And if that is the case, why is it different in-game? I could draw up character sheets for each of these men, and they would all have different character sheets. Bard/Fortune's Friend, Beguiler/Psion/Cerebremancer with Oneiromancy, Factotum, Thug Rogue...and you say that someone should be able to, at a glance, determine someone's character class.

How, then, is there any crime in such a universe? How has it not squelched the rogue class out of existence due to prejudice? Or blackguards? Or necromancers? Cancer mages? Tainted scholars? Nar demonbinders? Warlocks? Binders?

This isn't Exalted: you don't have a glowing sigil on your forehead saying what class you are.

[Frozen_Feet]

What, that the idea of character class being an in-game defining characteristic?

No, the question why you feel so strongly about it.


They all are dressed the same and carry themselves in the same fashion, yet they all do very, very different things.

Which is why I've been talking about determining character class through actions and abilities, not just looks. *) I already agreed it isn't, and shouldn't be, trivial. My argument is that it's possible, and makes a degree of sense. Which is why I don't get why it's so preposterous.

*) this should also explain why all those questionable characters could exist. They can't be determined as members of the class, because no-one had an opportunity to observe them doing anything incriminating; same reason why not all criminals are brought to justice in the real world.

[Fax Celestis]

My argument is that it's possible

No, it isn't. What you are arguing is tantamount to me saying that I can determine what college you graduated from by watching how you work.

[Hecuba]

No, it isn't. What you are arguing is tantamount to me saying that I can determine what college you graduated from by watching how you work.

For some academic fields, that's actually quite possible-- if you're also in the same field (or at least well read in it). There aren't, for example, all that many schools that teach Meta-data architecture as a MLIS focus: my cousin can easily point out where her colleagues went to school by noting the small habits they have in their work. You can do similar things with macroeconomics, where the vast majority of people come from a small number of universities (which have heavy tenancies towards specific schools of economic thought).

[sonofzeal]

For some academic fields, that's actually quite possible-- if you're also in the same field (or at least well read in it). There aren't, for example, all that many schools that teach Meta-data architecture as a MLIS focus: my cousin can easily point out where her colleagues went to school by noting the small habits they have in their work. You can do similar things with macroeconomics, where the vast majority of people come from a small number of universities (which have heavy tenancies towards specific schools of economic thought).
...but such examples are very much the exception, rather than the rule. And such examples can easily exist in the gameworld without classes being any way in-game constructs. A Barbarian and a Fighter and a Ranger could all study the sword under the same master, and come away with recognizable mannerisms that an expert eye can trace.

The question is whether there is any justification for the claim that classes must be or even should be in-game constructs, and I really don't see any.

[jseah]

No, it isn't. What you are arguing is tantamount to me saying that I can determine what college you graduated from by watching how you work.
Come to think of it, this is the root of the matter after all.

Is a class representative of something tangible in the setting?
Yes: Then refluffing it becomes changing the class.
No: Then refluffing it just changes the skin and how it interacts with the setting.

[Rogue Shadows]

No, it isn't. What you are arguing is tantamount to me saying that I can determine what college you graduated from by watching how you work.

Mmn...more like you being able to guess that I went to college and maybe what I majored in and how much of a degree I got.

It'd be real difficult to pin down someone as being a Master of the Twelve Schools of Vargus-do Zodiac-Style Swordplay on sight alone...but not so hard to guess "High-level Fighter."

[Fax Celestis]

Mmn...more like you being able to guess that I went to college and maybe what I majored in and how much of a degree I got.

It'd be real difficult to pin down someone as being a Master of the Twelve Schools of Vargus-do Zodiac-Style Swordplay on sight alone...but not so hard to guess "High-level Fighter."

Or barbarian. Or swordsage, warblade, or crusader. Or non-spell variant paladin or ranger. Or swashbuckler, hexblade, samurai (either version), psychic warrior...

[Rogue Shadows]

Or barbarian. Or swordsage, warblade, or crusader. Or non-spell variant paladin or ranger. Or swashbuckler, hexblade, samurai (either version), psychic warrior...

The fact that there's an established method of determining what some classes are in-game vis-a-vis Knowledge checks, such as the Tome of Magic classes, suggests that you actually really could see someone and realize "Fighter;" and the only reason why other classes don't have similar Knowledge checks attached to them is because they were developed pre-overhaul of how classes were presented.

I am in fact, as part of an overhaul of 3.5 I'm doing, re-writing all the Core classes to use the same presentation as seen in Tome, so that will soon be remedied. In my games.

Hopefully you get a DM who uses more flowery speach than just saying "He's a fighter." But he should include that that with a successful Knowledge check that, yes, this guy is a Fighter.

[Frozen_Feet]

No, it isn't. What you are arguing is tantamount to me saying that I can determine what college you graduated from by watching how you work.

By contrast, your argument is like saying colleges don't really exists because it's impossible to determine which one someone went to.

(Never mind that it wouldn't be impossible - just progressively harder as it'd require more details from someone's person to determine.)

As for whether classes should be in-game realities, it boils down to this:

If game rules are meant to simulate rules of a setting, then a character from a setting should be able to approximate the game rules from within it.

Not all rules fit the part. But classes? To me, they look like they'd qualify. The class that's called "Wizard" is called so because their abilities would remind us of a wizard, but also like they'd reasonably remind in-game characters of a Wizard as well. (And so on.)

Now, obviously, if classes aren't consistently described like they are in the books, it's no longer the case. You can't approximate a rule from within a setting if the setting does not consistently follow that rule. But like said, at this point you've already decided your setting differs from the default.

[Fax Celestis]

The fact that there's an established method of determining what some classes are in-game vis-a-vis Knowledge checks, such as the Tome of Magic classes, suggests that you actually really could see someone and realize "Fighter;" and the only reason why other classes don't have similar Knowledge checks attached to them is because they were developed pre-overhaul of how classes were presented.Really? I would love to see a rule citation.


By contrast, your argument is like saying colleges don't really exists because it's impossible to determine which one someone went to.My argument is saying that college is indistinguishable without a piece of paper to say what it is.


If game rules are meant to simulate rules of a setting, then a character from a setting should be able to approximate the game rules from within it. Why? How long have we worked at understanding our universe, with technologies and research mechanisms far and away above that of your typical D&D world's capabilities, and yet we still do not understand our own universe?

[Frozen_Feet]

Why? How long have we worked at understanding our universe, with technologies and research mechanisms far and away above that of your typical D&D world's capabilities, and yet we still do not understand our own universe?

We do not understand it perfectly, but we have made some serious progress. We are approximating rules of our setting, and being moderately succesful at it.

And again, since the author is determining rules of the setting, nothing states the in-game world has to be as complicated as ours. Jseah's right that if we take D&D rules to be a simulation of the world, then one could get pretty far with nothing more complicated than high-school statistics.

I wouldn't be so sure about about D&D world being worse off either - that depends on availability of divination magic and people with high knowledge skills.

[thompur]

The Barbarian has the fuzzy undies
The Ranger has the green tights
The Paladin has the shiny armor
The Rogue has the shifty look to him
The Wizard has the Tall Pointy Hat (That's status, son!)
The Bard has the multi-colored tights and the lute
The Cleric has the Holy Symbol and a pious bearing
The Druid has the pet wolf
What's so hard about telling classes apart? :smalltongue:

[Lord_Gareth]

What's so hard about telling classes apart? :smalltongue:

- An elf maiden with a wolf companion summons entangling vines. Was she a druid, a cleric with the animal and plant domains, or a spirit shaman with the Wild Cohort feat?

- A hide-clad warrior cleaves into his foe with a claymore. Was he a fighter using Power Attack, a raging barbarian, a Warblade using Rabid Wolf Strike, a Swordsage initiating Mountain Hammer, a savage paladin using Smite Evil or a Favored Soul using Divine Power?

- An old man studies his spellbook and then unleashes potent magics. Was he a Wizard, an Archivist, or a Chameleon?

- A holy warrior strikes a demon in a shower of divine fury. Was he a Crusader initiating Foehammer, or a Paladin using Smite Evil?

- A sneak-thief stabs an orc in the back, ripping into his vital organs. Was he a Rogue, a Spellthief, a Factotum or a Swordsage using Assassin's Stance?

[Fax Celestis]

We do not understand it perfectly, but we have made some serious progress. We are approximating rules of our setting, and being moderately succesful at it.

All in how the world works. There is no device, science, or soothsaying item that allows one to gaze at another person and determine their profession.

[Lord_Gareth]

All in how the world works. There is no device, science, or soothsaying item that allows one to gaze at another person and determine their profession.

And even if you observe their actions it can be difficult. Someone talking about fuel-to-engine efficiency in engineering could be an auto engineer, a rocket engineer, an airplane engineer, a naval engineer or even a robotics engineer - heck, he could just be a Battlebots enthusiast! Likewise, is someone with a comprehensive knowledge of long-barrel weapon use a hunter, a sport shooter, an olympic athlete, a soldier or a gun nut? Is the girl at the library who knows all the nutrition facts a chef, a scientist, a health teacher, an athlete or a physical therapist?

And that's not even getting into how people have differing interests, specializations in their professions, hobbies that intersect with their professional world, skills and "feats" learned from their upbringing and culture, and random bits of trivia. D&D characters can - and are - equally complex thanks to multiclassing, retraining rules, feats that grant access to capabilities outside of their class, illusions, spells, and more, and all of these complexities make the idea of a class being a rock-solid in-game construct a little silly and a lot unworkable if your players expect any kind of decent verisimilitude.

[Frozen_Feet]

All in how the world works. There is no device, science, or soothsaying item that allows one to gaze at another person and determine their profession.

Yes there is. They're called "humans". Have them examine other humans long enough, and they can determine profession of that person with varying accuracy. The longer they spend doing it and the more details they observe, the more accurate they get. It's part of, for example, police work.

Again, at no point have I argued that it's trivial, or that success is independent of effort and methods. A private detective can find out your profession, college, elementary school, social security number, place of birth and lineage of two centuries, starting the deductive chain from your appearance. Is it hard? Sure. Impossible or implausible? Nope.

[Fax Celestis]

He can determine facts about you, but he cannot determine your specific capabilities.

[Lord_Gareth]

He can determine facts about you, but he cannot determine your specific capabilities.

Indeed. Your legal profession says nothing about your capabilities and vice versa.

[Flickerdart]

- An elf maiden with a wolf companion summons entangling vines. Was she a druid, a cleric with the animal and plant domains, or a spirit shaman with the Wild Cohort feat?

Ranger.



- A hide-clad warrior cleaves into his foe with a claymore. Was he a fighter using Power Attack, a raging barbarian, a Warblade using Rabid Wolf Strike, a Swordsage initiating Mountain Hammer, a savage paladin using Smite Evil or a Favored Soul using Divine Power?

Ranger with the alternate combat style from Dragon that grants PA.



- An old man studies his spellbook and then unleashes potent magics. Was he a Wizard, an Archivist, or a Chameleon?

Sword of the Arcane Order Ranger.



- A holy warrior strikes a demon in a shower of divine fury. Was he a Crusader initiating Foehammer, or a Paladin using Smite Evil?

Ranger with Favored Enemy: Evil Outsiders



- A sneak-thief stabs an orc in the back, ripping into his vital organs. Was he a Rogue, a Spellthief, a Factotum or a Swordsage using Assassin's Stance?
Ranger with Favored Enemy: Orcs

If I understand Frozen_Feet correctly, then all PCs in the world must be some kind of Ranger.

[Frozen_Feet]

He can determine facts about you, but he cannot determine your specific capabilities.

... in so far as your specific abilities are facts about you, yes he could. It'd require some pretty interesting license and means too, depending on what capability is being measured, but still.

Suppose he knows what I look; he can run through a register to see what my name is. Once he knows my name, he can pin me down on facebook and pin down my hobbies. Once there, he can take note that I practice martial arts, and what style. He can then check what dojos teach that style in my purported area of living, take note of training schedules, and visit the dojo to see how well I actually do in my chosen art. Give him few relatively simple instrument, and he can even determine exactly how hard I punch and kick.

Hell, variety of fields of life have specific rating systems just so people can know each other's abilities, or at least have mean for approximating them. Such as colored belts in many oriental MAs.

[Fox Box Socks]

If I understand Frozen_Feet correctly, then all PCs in the world must be some kind of Ranger.
...

RANGERS. RANGERS EVERYWHERE.

[Rogue Shadows]

Really? I would love to see a rule citation.

First, remember I was citing Tome of Magic.

So on that note...Tome of Magic used a new presentation system for classes that went more into their flavor and ways of impacting the world than the previous one; as well as suggestions for how to go about levelling up a character, and adapting them into campaigns where they didn't necessarily easy fit in (e.g., Shadowcasters in campaigns that don't have a Plane of Shadow).

I think Tome of Battle used the same setup. Let me check...yes, it did. These entries are under "[Class] Lore" sections of the books.

So, for example, here is the Crusader Lore section in full (Pg. 13, Tome of Battle: the Book of Nine Swords):


Crusader Lore
Characters with ranks in Knowledge (religion) can research crusaders to learn more about them. When a character makes a skill check, read or paraphrase the following, including the information from lower DCs.
DC 10: Crusaders are hot-blooded zealots whose fervor is unrelieved by wisdom.
DC 15: Crusaders follow the Sublime Way, seeking to perfect their combat skill to better serve their deity. They're not like clerics, and they don't heal the sick or exorcise undead. Crusaders possess very little overt magic, unless you consider what they can do with their swords magical.
DC 20: Crusaders can stand up to punishment that no other individual can endure, shrugging off even the most powerful of attacks.

Hmm, that's interesting...the Tome of Magic had notes that you could also make Bardic Knowledge checks, with the DC being 5 higher...guess you can't do that here.

Please recall that in all cases I mentioned, these are base classes, not prestige classes. Base classes are usually intended to be rather generic, so you can't pass this off as being tantamount to researching a given organization.

In any event, Crusaders, as a class, very clearly by this are meant to exist in-game as well as out-of game. It would be child's play to take the above and create, using the Fighter fix I'm making...

Fighter Lore
Characters with ranks in Knowledge (tactics) or Knowledge (local) can research fighters to learn more about them. When a character makes a skill check, read or paraphrase the following, including the information from lower DCs.
DC 5: Fighters are skilled warriors that approach most problems the same way: with a weapon in hand.
DC 10: Fighters are a varied lot, with many talents. A commonality is that they are experts in fighting while armored and tend to specialize in one or more fighting style. They are also difficult to drive to fear with magic.
DC 15: Fighters are notorious for their ability to simply, using their stubbornness and sheer fortitude, overcome many difficulties. They are also surprisingly mobile comatants for individuals who usually fight while armored.
A 20 or better on a check result reveals the existance of any noteable fighters in the area.
A character can make a Bardic Knowledge check in the place of a Knowledge check, but the DCs to do so are 5 higher.

[Fax Celestis]

... in so far as your specific abilities are facts about you, yes he could. It'd require some pretty interesting license and means too, depending on what capability is being measured, but still.

Suppose he knows what I look; he can run through a register to see what my name is. Once he knows my name, he can pin me down on facebook and pin down my hobbies. Once there, he can take note that I practice martial arts, and what style. He can then check what dojos teach that style in my purported area of living, take note of training schedules, and visit the dojo to see how well I actually do in my chosen art. Give him few relatively simple instrument, and he can even determine exactly how hard I punch and kick.

Hell, variety of fields of life have specific rating systems just so people can know each other's abilities, or at least have mean for approximating them. Such as colored belts in many oriental MAs.

And you boil all of this down to a sight-related Knowledge check?

[Flickerdart]

Funny - any Barbarian who worships a god qualifies for all those Crusader points - nothing is hotter-blooded than a raging Barbarian, their HP and DR makes them hard to wound, and they don't heal people or turn undead. Pick up Martial Study if the Sublime Way thing bothers you.

[Fax Celestis]

Crusaders, as a class, very clearly by this are meant to exist in-game as well as out-of game. It would be child's play to take the above and create, using the Fighter fix I'm making......and use it as a homebrew? Core material does not provide for knowledge-checks to find out what class someone is. Material predating Tome of Magic (as you demonstrated), similarly, lacks such Lore sections for base classes. It was a poor design decision then, and it is still nonsensical.

[Lord_Gareth]

To clarify: we all know that WotC treats classes as in-game concepts. This fact is not in dispute. What is in dispute is the idea that it makes any kind of sense.

[Fox Box Socks]

To clarify: we all know that WotC treats classes as in-game concepts. This fact is not in dispute. What is in dispute is the idea that it makes any kind of sense.
It doesn't.

While it's certainly useful to be able to identify NPCs based on what they're doing ("I recognize what he's doing! That hobgoblin warlord is a Swordsage!"), it does not make any goddamn sense to be able to parse out what classes someone has just by looking at them ("That Hobgoblin Warrior is casting spells while carrying a sword! Clearly this means he is a Duskblade/Swashbuckler/Fortune's Friend/Blade Dancer rather than a Wizard/Fighter/Knight Phantom").

[Flickerdart]

Pretty sure that Hobgoblin's a Ranger, mate.

[Lord_Gareth]

It doesn't.

While it's certainly useful to be able to identify NPCs based on what they're doing ("I recognize what he's doing! That hobgoblin warlord is a Fighter who spent all of his feats on Martial Study/Warblade with a little Martial Study!")

That bolded bit is the reason that classes are metagame constructs; there's a LOT of ways to do the SAME EXACT THING.

[Frozen_Feet]

And you boil all of this down to a sight-related Knowledge check?

Following the rules of knowledge skill checks, it'd be multiple checks, with each check discerning one bit of information of a character. Action for knowledge check is listed as "usually none", but since many of these answer would have to be determined for the first time, on the spot, and it'd clearly be impossible for all of them to be determined from just looking, it would require more time.

Since the DC for checks pertaining to characters is 10 + HD, this means no info about someone is trivial - so to even start to discern class, at least one rank in proper skill is required. The DC quickly reaches levels where the investigator needs pretty high Intelligence, considerable ranks in a skill, equipment and so on to reliably make, implying lots of time spend training and researching just to be able to determine that piece of information.

So no, it doesn't stretch my suspension of disbelief remarkably in a fantastic setting. Would the simplicity of knowledge rules eventually lead to people who can determine your whole life's story at a glance? Sure. It isn't the first instance where D&D allows characters to reach superhuman ability in some field.

[Thiyr]

... in so far as your specific abilities are facts about you, yes he could. It'd require some pretty interesting license and means too, depending on what capability is being measured, but still.

Suppose he knows what I look; he can run through a register to see what my name is. Once he knows my name, he can pin me down on facebook and pin down my hobbies. Once there, he can take note that I practice martial arts, and what style. He can then check what dojos teach that style in my purported area of living, take note of training schedules, and visit the dojo to see how well I actually do in my chosen art. Give him few relatively simple instrument, and he can even determine exactly how hard I punch and kick.

Hell, variety of fields of life have specific rating systems just so people can know each other's abilities, or at least have mean for approximating them. Such as colored belts in many oriental MAs.

While I agree with that, the problem for me is that it doesn't really challenge a point previously made. What you're getting from all that research is a few things. You're getting probably his modifiers eventually, hit point totals, AC, and you're finding out that this person "Twelve Schools of Vargus-do Zodiac-Style Swordplay", as Rogue Shadows put it so well (yay 8bit references :D). You're getting information, yes, but you're getting in-universe information. But Twelve Schools of Vargus-do Zodiac-Style Swordplay doesn't tell you anything about their class. For example, they use "Third school! Horns of the Charging Bull!". Are they a) using improved bull rush with dungeoncrasher? b) using rage, a sword, and knockback? c) using charging minotaur? d) a combination of these? e) something not mentioned here, like a spell?

Each of these is perfectly valid, and if the third school of Vargus-do Zodiac-Style Swordplay is "It's a very smart idea to injure your opponent and push them back with the force of your blow", then each of these is a means it could be taught. From what I've been lead to understand about upper level martial arts, a good deal of it is figuring out how to make things work for you specifically as well, so the little variations and habits aren't necessarily indicative of who taught you, as much as you figuring out how to make the lessons do what you need them to. You can, with extensive research, learn someone's master. That doesn't mean you've learned about them. this goes doubly so once you start bringing in ACFs into play (like my druid with fast movement, rage, favored enemy, and wis-to-ac. In one class, it gets some of the iconic abilities of ranger, barbarian, and druid, with a smattering of monk in there to taste. If I was studing at druidic university of the underdark, and tried to take a different direction with my druidic dissertation, my colleagues won't be able to do that like I can. And If I start teaching people, they could well just be barbarians who take track and knowledge devotion, or they could learn more traditional druiding, or rangers who just get kinda pissed off.

[Fox Box Socks]

Pretty sure that Hobgoblin's a Ranger, mate.
We can't stop here, this is Ranger country!

[Fax Celestis]

The DC quickly reaches levels where the investigator needs pretty high Intelligence

WHAT DC

Knowledge has a very limited list of its applications. "Finding out someone's class" is not one of them.

[Lord_Gareth]

We can't stop here, this is Ranger country!

Paddle faster, I hear Track checks!

[Fox Box Socks]

There are some DCs for identifying certain classes by name and in the vaguest terms ("Why yes, I have heard of Shadowcasters."), but I'm 60-75% sure there's no DC or even skill for being able to figure out how many levels of Barbarian that Gnoll has.

[Flickerdart]

There are some DCs for identifying certain classes by name and in the vaguest terms ("Why yes, I have heard of Shadowcasters."), but I'm 60-75% sure there's no DC or even skill for being able to figure out how many levels of Barbarian that Gnoll has.
Quite. The closest you can get is Knowledge: Local to learn about traits Gnolls have. Hell, if the Gnoll is a Crusader, you won't even know, because Knowledge: Religon only tells you things about Crusaders, not how to identify one. If you rely on it, then you are going to get them mixed up with a lot of Barbarians, as previously illustrated. Better make a Knowledge check for every PrC there is and compare them against what you see him doing, because that's the only way you can tell - by a process of elimination, after which you're still left with several classes that all do the same thing.

[Fox Box Socks]

There are some DCs for identifying certain classes by name and in the vaguest terms ("Why yes, I have heard of Shadowcasters Rangers."), but I'm 60-75% sure there's no DC or even skill for being able to figure out how many levels of Barbarian Ranger that Gnoll has.
Sorry. Had to be done.

[Flickerdart]

Actually, there isn't a Knowledge ladder for Rangers of any stripe. They are inscrutable.

[Frozen_Feet]

WHAT DC

Knowledge has a very limited list of its applications. "Finding out someone's class" is not one of them.

"Answering a question within your field of study has a DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions).

In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.

For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information. " (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/knowledge.htm)

You might be familiar with the quote "we're all in the monster manual somewhere". Monster entries have part that can say "advances by class level". You can extrapolate from there that with enough knowledge checks and sufficiently high skill, you could discern every single detail of an invidual monster. Including what lifestyle choices they've made to deviate from their base templates.

Learning about classes isn't many steps away from that.

Of course, to reliably do this, you need a huge number of checks and arbitrarily high check modifier, unless you decide to cheat and use magic. (Which gives such nice abilities as acquiring information no-one should be able to know.)

As long as the categories known as classes have some tangible connection to observable in-game phenomena, they can be found out from within the game. You can find evidence that this is, or at least was intended, to be the case from all over the rules.

If Lord_Gareth is right and there's no dispute of this, then we have nothing to argue on this field anymore. Classes are in-game reality, and in-game characters can learn of them since the game gives them tools to do just that.

Now, as to whether this makes sense...? Epic Forgery (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#forgery) allows a character to make convincing copies out of a document he's never seen. The game has spells that open a hotline to arbitrators and incarnations of natural laws. These would allow for pretty absurdly granular dissection of data to be made.

Would the difference between a lot of things be largely semantical, and useless to most characters? Yes. But we have a field called "semantics" here in this world. Some people obviously like arguing about the differences between acts and methods, no matter how fine.

[Fax Celestis]

Learning about classes isn't many steps away from that....but it is not listed as an option for a knowledge check.

[Lord_Gareth]

If Lord_Gareth is right and there's no dispute of this, then we have nothing to argue on this field anymore. Classes are in-game reality, and in-game characters can learn of them since the game gives them tools to do just that.

Allow me to clarify my clarification: neither side is disputing that WotC published classes as though they were in-game constructs. However, Fax, Flicker, myself, et all are stating that the idea of classes as in-game constructs should not be included in-game because it's A. silly and B. untenable, while your side is arguing in favor of WotC's writing.

I want you to stop and consider that last statement for a moment before you continue: you're arguing in favor of something WotC wrote about its settings. Contemplate that before you reply; therapists are on hand if any sudden feelings of shock or horror overcome you.*

*That last bit is a joke, not an insult.

[Rogue Shadows]

...but it is not listed as an option for a knowledge check.

"We're all in the monster manual somewhere."

Except humans. And even then the Humanoid type is.

But if Knowledge checks can be used to, "in many cases, ...identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities," and monsters can take class levels (and they can), then it's pretty easy to extrapolate from this that you can learn about the "special powers or vulnerabilities" granted by class levels.


...and use it as a homebrew? Core material does not provide for knowledge-checks to find out what class someone is. Material predating Tome of Magic (as you demonstrated), similarly, lacks such Lore sections for base classes. It was a poor design decision then, and it is still nonsensical.

*shrug* The system evolved but the core was never updated to reflect it. Probably because Wizards of the Coast was too busy working on 4E.

So we can either assume that Wizards of the Coast never intended for Knowledge checks to made made ToM-style with older classes upon the release of ToM (instead being something unique to classes listed as such); or that Wizards of the Coast intended the ToM-style class layout to serve as an example for how other classes could be learned about vis-a-vis Knowledge checks.

One of these makes sense. I'll give you a hint which one: it's the one that makes actual sense.

...

(That's the second one, BTW).

[Lord_Gareth]

Option Three: near the end of D&D's run, when the Tomes were coming out, WotC was experimenting with creating classes that had strong inherent flavor, since most (read: all) of their previous classes were highly generic and meant to fit a variety of archetypes. Since they weren't about to reverse the company stance on refluffing in 3.5 with 4e knocking down the door, they instead chose to reward the idea of creating strong in-setting flavor for classes and prestige classes with those Knowledge checks.

[Rogue Shadows]

Option Three: near the end of D&D's run, when the Tomes were coming out, WotC was experimenting with creating classes that had strong inherent flavor, since most (read: all) of their previous classes were highly generic and meant to fit a variety of archetypes. Since they weren't about to reverse the company stance on refluffing in 3.5 with 4e knocking down the door, they instead chose to reward the idea of creating strong in-setting flavor for classes and prestige classes with those Knowledge checks.

That's just a wordy version of Option 1, however.

[Lord_Gareth]

That's just a wordy version of Option 1, however.

With all the supporting "WotC's official policies bred completely idiotic design and fluff" information intact, however, which Option 1 was lacking. Always recall that 3.5 was designed by people that couldn't consistently put out the quality of GitP's own homebrew board, let alone come up with something halfway decent.

[TroubleBrewing]

However, Fax, Flicker, myself, et all are stating that the idea of classes as in-game constructs should not be included in-game because it's A. silly and B. untenable

I'm not about to go back and read through the last 20 pages again just to formulate a concise, well-thought out way to say exactly this.

That's basically my view in a nutshell. Well put, Gareth.

[Rogue Shadows]

With all the supporting "WotC's official policies bred completely idiotic policies" information intact, however, which Option 1 was lacking. Always recall that 3.5 was designed by people that couldn't consistently put out the quality of GitP's own homebrew board, let alone come up with something halfway decent.

Hey - if you're looking for decent flavor, ToM has it in spades; decent crunch, and I'm told ToB has quite the collection as well.

They just couldn't really mix them for some reason...too bad we didn't get a Tome of Magic Battle...

[Lord_Gareth]

Sadly for 3.5, the Tomes were essentially WotC testing out certain ideas for 4e for proof-of-concept. It turns out the concept worked out great in terms of class balance, incidentally, but the constraints of the system they were working with (and the inertia of all the other cascading garbage they'd published starting at Core) constrained exactly what they could play with. You'll note that the very first set of books in 4e encourages refluffing left, right, center, forward, backwards, and sideways - WotC learned its lesson. Took it almost a decade, but they learned their lesson.

[TroubleBrewing]

You'll note that the very first set of books in 4e encourages refluffing left, right, center, forward, backwards, and sideways - WotC learned its lesson. Took it almost a decade, but they learned their lesson.

With this in mind, the next natural extension is to apply it to 3.5, just like they did at the end.

Plus, as has already been stated, the Core classes are pretty generic already. Refluffing happens almost by accident in most of the groups I've introduced to 3.5.

[NNescio]

Hey - if you're looking for decent flavor, ToM has it in spades; decent crunch, and I'm told ToB has quite the collection as well.

They just couldn't really mix them for some reason...too bad we didn't get a Tome of Magic Battle...


...Exclaiming "I disrupt thee, "khedalaêvaurümihaui!" is something more appropriate for a truenamer.

*Groan*

Mind you, I find the truenaming flavour to be interesting, but the truename examples given in the book are downright horrid. As for the mechanics... urgh...

[Lord_Gareth]

I haven't seen a non-caster anything that calls their attacks, honestly (and casters only do it because the incantation is the same for each spell for each character - that is, Wizard A casting magic missile always uses the same incantation for magic missile). It'd be pretty stupid-sounding if my Warblade in the tabletop game I'm in was shouting "White Raven Tactics!" every time he gave himself an extra turn.

[Rogue Shadows]

I haven't seen a non-caster anything that calls their attacks, honestly (and casters only do it because the incantation is the same for each spell for each character - that is, Wizard A casting magic missile always uses the same incantation for magic missile). It'd be pretty stupid-sounding if my Warblade in the tabletop game I'm in was shouting "White Raven Tactics!" every time he gave himself an extra turn.

Well, the Truenamer is a special case...their powers are actually based on calling their attacks, albeit in True Speach. I guess I can see how it'd become a natural thing to do in any language the character speaks, though.

Like, a wizard who says "avada kedevara!" when casting finger of death might not actually know what the words he's saying mean beyond them being the words he has to say to make the spell work; whereas the Truenamer actually has to detail to the Universe what he wants done a different way each time he "casts" his "spells."

[Lord_Gareth]

Well, aye, but Truenamers are casters, dude.

[TroubleBrewing]

Well, aye, but Truenamers are casters, dude.

Only in the sense that their class gives them the option of "casting" "spells" that have "effects".

In reality... :smallannoyed:

Ha! A "Truenamers are flippin' useless" joke!

[Lord_Gareth]

Only in the sense that their class gives them the option of "casting" "spells" that have "effects".

In reality... :smallannoyed:

Ha! A "Truenamers are flippin' useless" joke!

Man that never gets old. Preach it, brother, preach it.

[Fax Celestis]

But if Knowledge checks can be used to, "in many cases, ...identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities," and monsters can take class levels (and they can), then it's pretty easy to extrapolate from this that you can learn about the "special powers or vulnerabilities" granted by class levels.


pretty easy to extrapolate from this that you can learn about the "special powers or vulnerabilities" granted by class levels.


extrapolate
This is the issue I take. Yes, you can, but the rules do not support it in and of themselves. I can just as easily say that I can extrapolate from the disguise skill that I can use it to conceal or alter items, but the rules do not have support for doing so.

[lesser_minion]

the idea of classes as in-game constructs should not be included in-game because it's A. silly and B. untenable, while your side is arguing in favor of WotC's writing.

The quality of WotC's writing is irrelevant. A bunch of talentless hacks can still produce worthwhile ideas once in a while.

More to the point, it is neither 'silly' nor 'untenable' for classes to have in-game meaning. See below.


That bolded bit is the reason that classes are metagame constructs; there's a LOT of ways to do the SAME EXACT THING.

The system might provide several ways to do things, but that doesn't mean that a given game will use or need more than one.

Let's go back to your elf maiden. We'll assume that she is a 'druid' -- she either worships a nature deity or the concept of nature itself, and acts as a sworn protector and caretaker of the wilds.

This doesn't mean that she has levels in Druid. That depends on your setting. It's entirely reasonable for you to decide that you don't want bear-riding bears who summon bears. So your druids might actually be Clerics, Witches, or Spirit Shamans.

But if you've depicted your in-game concept of druids, there's no reason to depict them again -- unless you have more than one kind of druid in your setting, with significant differences between them.

A class might have no meaning when out of use, but that's not surprising, and it's not the same thing as being inherently without meaning or "a purely metagame construct".

[Rogue Shadows]

This is the issue I take. Yes, you can, but the rules do not support it in and of themselves. I can just as easily say that I can extrapolate from the disguise skill that I can use it to conceal or alter items, but the rules do not have support for doing so.

There also aren't rules for sleeping. And don't get me started on buckets of water.

It is possible to run a game purely and only by the rules, but it is also stupid. The game really is set up along the lines that DMs and players alike will be making assumptions and extrapolations.

[sonofzeal]

There also aren't rules for sleeping. And don't get me started on buckets of water.

It is possible to run a game purely and only by the rules, but it is also stupid. The game really is set up along the lines that DMs and players alike will be making assumptions and extrapolations.
Indeed. And this thread is about one specific assumption - namely, whether or not class fluff is "immutable".

Now, given that the PHB has a significant amount of space devoted to Greyhawk deities, and I think we all agree that not every campaign is set in Greyhawk, it seems self-evident that books can include flavour text that may or may not be relevant in any given game. More specifically, one cannot ASSUME that such things hold, unless the DM tells you so, and one should not be surprised if they are different.

So why, then, is it in any way surprising if other flavour text entries are similarly sporatic in their applicability to any given campaign?

[Frozen_Feet]

...but it is not listed as an option for a knowledge check.

Someone with high knowledge (and other skills as required) can discern increasingly pedantic details about invidual creatures, write them down, then compare them to get pretty good idea of the spread of abilties any kind of creature could possess. Since by their default fluff, many of these abilities (or combinations of certain abilities) can be attributed to certain lifestyles, eventually the investigator could start grouping and categorizing different creatures. I claim that as the amount of data he has and time he spends analysing it grows, those categories will increaasingly resemble our picture of classes.

These actions are not precluded by the rules. The practical result is obsessive-compulsive wizards sitting in their towers, summoning widely varied creatures from all over the world to catalogue and experiment upon them. That doesn't sound too genre-inappropriate to me.

As for it being silly that someone could eventually tell the difference between virtually identical people... in real life, there are several virtually identical species of birds, mice, butterflies or what have you. Save for minute differences in behaviour or habitat, you can't tell them apart. Yet some languages give distinct names for each species.

[Fax Celestis]

It is possible to run a game purely and only by the rules, but it is also stupid.

And yet, here you are supporting exactly that.

[Flickerdart]

Someone with high knowledge (and other skills as required) can discern increasingly pedantic details about invidual creatures, write them down, then compare them to get pretty good idea of the spread of abilties any kind of creature could possess. Since by their default fluff, many of these abilities (or combinations of certain abilities) can be attributed to certain lifestyles, eventually the investigator could start grouping and categorizing different creatures. I claim that as the amount of data he has and time he spends analysing it grows, those categories will increaasingly resemble our picture of classes.
So...you're assuming that fluff is immutable to support your argument that fluff is immutable?

Not to mention, you still run into the problem whereby any number of classes acquires similar or identical class features, even before you consider multiclassing, items, etc.

[Frozen_Feet]

So...you're assuming that fluff is immutable to support your argument that fluff is immutable?

No. I'm saying that if working with set fluff-crunch combinations for classes, in-game characters could eventually discern classes. The fluff-crunch combinations could be anything else than the default, as long as they're consistent.

I stated it near the beginning of this argument that obviously you can't do that if they are inconsistent.


Not to mention, you still run into the problem whereby any number of classes acquires similar or identical class features, even before you consider multiclassing, items, etc.

Which is a matter with difficulty. I've never said it would be easy, quite on the opposite. Once again, it doesn't make it impossible.

[Rogue Shadows]

And yet, here you are supporting exactly that.

What?

No I'm not!

I'm showing that using an interpretation and extrapolation of rules for this we can find out how to apply them to that. I'm saying Rules as Written gets you only so far, that it is stupid to only go that far, and so you have to go to Rules As Interpreted, and often Rules As Believed Intended.

More importantly, though - just because you run out of RAW, doesn't mean you must immediately leap to fluff and roleplay.

[ImperatorK]

More importantly, though - just because you run out of RAW, doesn't mean you must immediately leap to fluff and roleplay.
Yeah! Who would roleplay in an RPG anyway? /sarcasm

[Rogue Shadows]

Yeah! Who would roleplay in an RPG anyway? /sarcasm

I feel you deliberately missed a point to pretend to be witty, b -

- ah, but you asked me to stop calling you that.

My point is that just because Rules As Written runs out, doesn't mean that you immediately have to assume that the rules can't be interpreted or adapted to a problem.

Like with flaming hair. Nothing in the rules suggests that flaming hair on a human is impossible, but that doesn't mean that a player or a DM should get carte blanche to make flaming hair act however they want to if there are existing rules that can be applied to the situation.

There, see how we've come full circle again?

Hmm. Gemma needs a pic at this point.

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/018/5/5/Flaming_Hair_by_WhiiteRaven.jpg
(Image courtesy of DeviantArt.)

[Lord_Gareth]

Like with flaming hair. Nothing in the rules suggests that flaming hair on a human is impossible, but that doesn't mean that a player or a DM should get carte blanche to make flaming hair act however they want to if there are existing rules that can be applied to the situation.

The bit we're protesting isn't the idea of a DM coming up with some on-the-fly rules if a player or NPC decides to do something clever with flaming hair or sparkly power attack or a duck bill for a mouth or whatever. What we are protesting is the idea that we need a solid mechanical explanation before we even hit play, which is just...absurd, honestly. Gemma's player says it's a non-damaging manifestation of elemental fire, that should be all you need for the dice to hit the table.

[ImperatorK]

I feel you deliberately missed a point to pretend to be witty
Nah. I am witty, sometimes.


My point is that just because Rules As Written runs out, doesn't mean that you immediately have to assume that the rules can't be interpreted or adapted to a problem.
Just roleplaying is easier to some people. There are even people who favor roleplaying more then the rules. :smallconfused: Would you believe that? :smalleek: /sarcasm again

[Rogue Shadows]

Just roleplaying is easier to some people. There are even people who favor roleplaying more then the rules. :smallconfused: Would you believe that? :smalleek: /sarcasm again

I would, but I'd find it irrelevant in a discussion about the mechanics of the game.

[Lord_Gareth]

I would, but I'd find it irrelevant in a discussion about the mechanics of the game.

Except we're discussing the fluff as it relates to the mechanics; that is, we're discussing the bit where the actual roleplaying happens and how mechanics relate to it.

[ImperatorK]

I would, but I'd find it irrelevant in a discussion about the mechanics of the game.
Heh. You almost had me there, but Lord_Gareth saves the day! :smallamused:

[Rogue Shadows]

Except we're discussing the fluff as it relates to the mechanics; that is, we're discussing the bit where the actual roleplaying happens and how mechanics relate to it.

Um...they do? Often?

Anything more than that and we'll launch into another 20 pages about flaming hair.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I would, but I'd find it irrelevant in a discussion about the mechanics of the game.

Th thread isn't titled "immutability of mechanics".

[Rogue Shadows]

Th thread isn't titled "immutability of mechanics".

The thread hasn't been solely about class fluff since around page 2, and we long ago passed whether or not it was about class fluff anyway.

[ImperatorK]

Um...they do? Often?
Nah. See our previous discussion.

20 pages of pointlessness avoided.

[Lord_Gareth]

Um...they do? Often?

Anything more than that and we'll launch into another 20 pages about flaming hair.

Okay, in a rallying effort to actually make you comprehend what I've been saying for these twenty pages, let's try these on for size:

- An elf maiden sends her wolf companion to attack a dragon before turning into a bear and summoning vines. Was she a druid, a spirit shaman with wild cohort, a ranger, a cleric with the animal and/or plant domains, a favored soul or a wizard with a plant fetish?

- A warrior in a chain shirt tears into his enemy with twin longswords. Was he a ranger, a warblade using Wolf Fang Strike, a swordsage initiating Raging Mongoose, a Tempest, a martial-themed rogue, or a fighter?

- An old man studies his spellbook before unleashing powerful magics. Was he a ranger (Sword of the Arcane Order), an archivist, or a wizard?

- The party's leader rallies them against their enemies, making them more accurate and damaging. Is he a bard using Inspire Courage (Perform [Oratory] for the win), a crusader using Vanguard Strike, a warblade using Wolf Pack Tactics, a cleric concentrating on his Prayer spell, or a wizard?

- A sneak-thief slays an enemy with a blow from behind. Was he a rogue, a ninja, a spellthief, a factotum, a ranger or a swordsage?

Those are just a few examples of classes that can all do the same thing, either mechanically or archetypically. How, exactly, does the specific fluff of any given class intersect with its mechanics in a meaningful fashion? I'll drop a hint: it doesn't.

[Rogue Shadows]

Nah. See our previous discussion.

20 pages of pointlessness avoided.

Assume a campaign that allows only Core Rulebook base classes and no prestige classes.

Roleplay a spellcaster. That is, someone actually capable of casting spells, not someone who just thinks they can, or who can trick others into thinking he can.

But do it without playing a bard, cleric, druid, paladin, ranger, sorcerer, or wizard, and without ranks in Use Magic Device.

...

...well? Go on. I'll wait.

Or alternatively...you can't roleplay a spellcaster successfully without having some actual, mechanical access to spells, be they through a class feature or by being able to use magical devices.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Assume a campaign that allows only Core Rulebook base classes and no prestige classes.

Roleplay a spellcaster. That is, someone actually capable of casting spells, not someone who just thinks they can, or who can trick others into thinking he can.

But do it without playing a bard, cleric, druid, paladin, ranger, sorcerer, or wizard, and without ranks in Use Magic Device.

...

...well? Go on. I'll wait.

Or alternatively...you can't roleplay a spellcaster successfully without having some actual, mechanical access to spells, be they through a class feature or by being able to use magical devices.

That's foul play. You take away all the spellcasting classes and challenge people to make a character that uses actual spells.

[ImperatorK]

Roleplay a spellcaster. That is, someone actually capable of casting spells, not someone who just thinks they can, or who can trick others into thinking he can.

But do it without playing a bard, cleric, druid, paladin, ranger, sorcerer, or wizard, and without ranks in Use Magic Device.

...

...well? Go on. I'll wait.
Heh. Haha. Haha ha hahaha ha ha! You're funny.
You're expecting me to do something, but nerf every possibility of doing it (that I could think of personally).
Clever. Very clever. But also silly. See if I care about your challenge.

[Rogue Shadows]

- An elf maiden sends her wolf companion to attack a dragon before turning into a bear and summoning vines. Was she a druid, a spirit shaman with wild cohort, a ranger, a cleric with the animal and/or plant domains, a favored soul or a wizard with a plant fetish?

Me? I dunno, I don't think I have enough ranks in a relevant Knowledge skill. Perhaps my Bard character could succeed at a Bardic Knowledge check...


Those are just a few examples of classes that can all do the same thing, either mechanically or archetypically. How, exactly, does the specific fluff of any given class intersect with its mechanics in a meaningful fashion? I'll drop a hint: it doesn't.

It does if the DM wants it to, actually, and there are at least six base classes over two books that have fluff that has a specific mechanical interaction. Not to mention a huge number of prestige classes.

As I said, it boils down to whether you believe that a) Wizards never intended for the ToM/ToB setup to be used with previously published classes, or b) Wizards simply hadn't developed the ToM/ToB setup earlier and so didn't apply it to previous classes because it didn't exist yet.

This is like with prerequisites. If your natural Strength is 11 but you're wearing gauntlets of ogre power +2, can you take Power Attack? The rules themselves are unclear. Complete Warrior suggests that you can based on material printed in that book. But it doesn't state outright for previous publications whether or not this is the case.

Similarly, can you use a Knowledge check to learn about the existance of an actual class in-game? Tome of Magic and Tome of Battle certainly suggest that this is possible.

Ultimately? It's not against the rules, so it comes down to individual GM fiat. And me, well, I like following precedent for these kinds of things.

...

...by the way, Sileia, my bard, got a 40 on her Bardic Knowledge check. So which is our draconicidal elf?


Heh. Haha. Haha ha hahaha ha ha! You're funny.
You're expecting me to do something, but nerf every possibility of doing it (that I could think of personally).
Clever. Very clever. But also silly. See if I care about your challenge.

I don't care whether or not you care or whether or not you actually do it. If there is in fact a total disconnect between roleplay and mechanics, you should be able to do it, and any failure on your part would just mean you weren't roleplaying hard enough...

...or that you're wrong and fluff and mechanics do interact.

Either way I'm satisfied.

[Lord_Gareth]

Roleplay a spellcaster. That is, someone actually capable of casting spells, not someone who just thinks they can, or who can trick others into thinking he can.

Since you didn't go ahead and define this in any meaningful fashion, here goes nothing:

Kyria Thorne, Battle Conjuror [Rogue 11]
"Olidammara preserve, would you shut up? I'm trying to think here."

Appearence: Kyria is a lean, well-muscled elf that favors light leathers, breeches and her ever-present belt of many pockets, which is usually overflowing with an odd assortment of materials and components. She keeps her blonde hair in a short pixie cut and has the grin to go with it; she always seems to be laughing at people, rather than with them. Kyria can often be found streaked with soot or grime from her arts.

Combat: Kyria would rather avoid a direct confrontation if she can, but she's not adverse to the odd scrap or even a fight to the death if something she cares about. Her opening action is to conjure one of her knives into her hand from her belt of many pockets [Mechanically: she uses her Quick Draw feat] with a quick gesture. If at all possible, she opens up the battle with an ambush, taking advantage of an unaware enemy to line up her storm of steel into their vital areas [Mechanically: Sneak Attack]. Once she's been ousted, Kyria will try and gauge the abilities of her foe and act accordingly, sweeping her cloak over herself to vanish into her pocket dimension [Mechanically: Cloak Dance feat followed up by a Hide Check].

On the defensive, Kyria makes extensive use of both protective magical items and conjured defenses to keep more physical attacks at bay; temporary walls of magic allow her to avoid extreme harm from mass-scale attacks if she times it right while phantasmal knives and short swords watch her flanks to keep foes at bay [Improved Uncanny Dodge]. If the going gets rough, Kyria vanishes into her cloak before using her [i]phantasmal stride [Tumble] to step past her enemies and flee the scene and live to fight another day.

[Rogue Shadows]

Since you didn't go ahead and define this in any meaningful fashion, here goes nothing:

Kyria Thorne, Battle Conjuror [Rogue 11]
"Olidammara preserve, would you shut up? I'm trying to think here."

Appearence: Kyria is a lean, well-muscled elf that favors light leathers, breeches and her ever-present belt of many pockets, which is usually overflowing with an odd assortment of materials and components. She keeps her blonde hair in a short pixie cut and has the grin to go with it; she always seems to be laughing at people, rather than with them. Kyria can often be found streaked with soot or grime from her arts.

Combat: Kyria would rather avoid a direct confrontation if she can, but she's not adverse to the odd scrap or even a fight to the death if something she cares about. Her opening action is to conjure one of her knives into her hand from her belt of many pockets [Mechanically: she uses her Quick Draw feat] with a quick gesture. If at all possible, she opens up the battle with an ambush, taking advantage of an unaware enemy to line up her storm of steel into their vital areas [Mechanically: Sneak Attack]. Once she's been ousted, Kyria will try and gauge the abilities of her foe and act accordingly, sweeping her cloak over herself to vanish into her pocket dimension [Mechanically: Cloak Dance feat followed up by a Hide Check].

On the defensive, Kyria makes extensive use of both protective magical items and conjured defenses to keep more physical attacks at bay; temporary walls of magic allow her to avoid extreme harm from mass-scale attacks if she times it right while phantasmal knives and short swords watch her flanks to keep foes at bay [Improved Uncanny Dodge]. If the going gets rough, Kyria vanishes into her cloak before using her [i]phantasmal stride [Tumble] to step past her enemies and flee the scene and live to fight another day.

Mmn...I hate to fail you on a technicality, but Cloak Dance isn't Core.

Also I advise you to go to page 169 of the PHB, start reading from "How does Spellcasting Work," and then look Kyria over and try to honestly tell me that you have made a spellcaster.

[Vandicus]

Since you didn't go ahead and define this in any meaningful fashion, here goes nothing:

Kyria Thorne, Battle Conjuror [Rogue 11]
"Olidammara preserve, would you shut up? I'm trying to think here."

Appearence: Kyria is a lean, well-muscled elf that favors light leathers, breeches and her ever-present belt of many pockets, which is usually overflowing with an odd assortment of materials and components. She keeps her blonde hair in a short pixie cut and has the grin to go with it; she always seems to be laughing at people, rather than with them. Kyria can often be found streaked with soot or grime from her arts.

Combat: Kyria would rather avoid a direct confrontation if she can, but she's not adverse to the odd scrap or even a fight to the death if something she cares about. Her opening action is to conjure one of her knives into her hand from her belt of many pockets [Mechanically: she uses her Quick Draw feat] with a quick gesture. If at all possible, she opens up the battle with an ambush, taking advantage of an unaware enemy to line up her storm of steel into their vital areas [Mechanically: Sneak Attack]. Once she's been ousted, Kyria will try and gauge the abilities of her foe and act accordingly, sweeping her cloak over herself to vanish into her pocket dimension [Mechanically: Cloak Dance feat followed up by a Hide Check].

On the defensive, Kyria makes extensive use of both protective magical items and conjured defenses to keep more physical attacks at bay; temporary walls of magic allow her to avoid extreme harm from mass-scale attacks if she times it right while phantasmal knives and short swords watch her flanks to keep foes at bay [Improved Uncanny Dodge]. If the going gets rough, Kyria vanishes into her cloak before using her [i]phantasmal stride [Tumble] to step past her enemies and flee the scene and live to fight another day.

I haven't really been following this thread and I'm not quite sure what its about now(seems very different from the OP), but I have to ask, aren't you sort of changing the abilities in how they work mechanically by giving them illusion like effects? If the rogue were truly able to conjure knives, he could avoid sleight of hand to draw the weapon without someone seeing it. Improved Uncanny Dodge doesn't make much sense against a rogue of higher level and doesn't explain the class feature at all(its far more fitting for karmic strike or something of that nature, allowing a person to get a counterattack from the "phantom blades" when an opponent attacks). Kyria "vanishing" with tumbling is fluffed like invisibility.

The biggest problem however, is if the person is a spellcaster, why do they use those abilities only in those specific instances, when, by the fluff, they're useful in many many more instances.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Mmn...I hate to fail you on a technicality, but Cloak Dance isn't Core.

Also I advise you to go to page 169 of the PHB, start reading from "How does Spellcasting Work," and then look Kyria over and try to honestly tell me that you have made a spellcaster.

Seriously, renaming class features is cute and all, and we all love the Barbarian Wizard (or Rogue Wizard as the case may be...)

You took away all possibilities of spell casting using the mechanics, and now you want us to present you spellcasting that the mechanics call spellcasting, instead of just the fluff?

[Lord_Gareth]

Mmn...I hate to fail you on a technicality, but Cloak Dance isn't Core.

Sorry, these days whenever I see "Core" my brain automatically translates it to "SRD".

As far as having made a spellcaster, I feel I have; Kyria uses the same mechanics as many rogues, but the fluff - the roleplaying - aspect is much different. A normal rogue Sneak Attacks you by stabbing you really really hard in the kidneys; Kyria Sneak Attacks you by conjuring steel needles into your soft, fragile little body. A normal rogue Evades...somehow (Roguespace!). Kyria Evades by conjuring a semi-solid wall of magic that provides her cover. If the player makes a point of saying she's using verbal and somatic components (or effort into explaining why she doesn't use the same) then there's no reason Kyria can't be a spellcaster. She's just a really specialized one.

[ImperatorK]

...or that you're wrong and fluff and mechanics do interact.
Nah. One exception that came up mostly because you heavily nerfed my options isn't proving anything.

"I can fly that plane, honest."
"Then prove it. I dismantle the wings, give you no fuel, blind you, oh, and take out the engine. Now fly the plane. I'll wait."
":smalleek:"

[Lord_Gareth]

I haven't really been following this thread and I'm not quite sure what its about now(seems very different from the OP), but I have to ask, aren't you sort of changing the abilities in how they work mechanically by giving them illusion like effects?

Note: Kyria isn't using illusions. She's a conjuror. She's rather insulted that you call her work 'illusion', actually. She worked hard to make real stuff!


If the rogue were truly able to conjure knives, he could avoid sleight of hand to draw the weapon without someone seeing it.

Not if the ability in question still has obvious components of some kind; in this case, the Sleight of Hand check would be used to remove those components, thus allowing him to conjure the weapon in secret.


Improved Uncanny Dodge doesn't make much sense against a rogue of higher level and doesn't explain the class feature at all(its far more fitting for karmic strike or something of that nature, allowing a person to get a counterattack from the "phantom blades" when an opponent attacks).

A rogue of higher level can get through the pattern of the weaving blades, striking at the vulnerable mage behind them. And who knows, maybe she takes Karmic Strike later on, turning them from phantom blades to Kyria's bladed rebuttal.


Kyria "vanishing" with tumbling is fluffed like invisibility.

Misunderstanding here; Kyria "vanishes" when she uses Cloak Dance; when she 'tumbles', her phantasmal stride lets her blink in and out of corporeality rapidly, avoiding attacks. If she fails her check, well, she didn't blink fast enough.


The biggest problem however, is if the person is a spellcaster, why do they use those abilities only in those specific instances, when, by the fluff, they're useful in many many more instances.

She probably uses that Cloak Dance a lot, and Quick Draw can be used to "Conjure" everything from her weapons to potions and food. Any limitations in the feats or class features can be explained as limitations in her spells; the evasion-walls feed off of the force of area attacks (or can only be summoned if her adrenaline spikes, or...), her phantasmal stride flickers too fast to be used to pass through walls or doorways, her storm of steel takes time to set up and is only really effective against beings whose anatomy would be devastated by dozens of tiny needles blowing through them, et cetera.

[Rogue Shadows]

Oh, hey, before I forget.

Why can't Kyria's "spells" be countered?


You took away all possibilities of spell casting using the mechanics, and now you want us to present you spellcasting that the mechanics call spellcasting, instead of just the fluff?

The section on magic in the PHB actually has a substantial amount of fluff...none of which really matches up withy Kyria.

That's the downside to the SRD, people aren't seeing what Wizards actually thought people would be reading...let me tell you, flipping through the my nifty softcover PHB I got with the Player's Kit, and scrolling through a Wiki or a Word document, are two very different experiences.

But anyway. If there's a disconnect between roleplay and mechanics, then it should be possible to construct someone who in-universe is considered an honest-to-goodness spellcaster by people they meet (if not necessarily a very good one), without actually using any mechanical spellcasting.

[Frozen_Feet]

Those are just a few examples of classes that can all do the same thing, either mechanically or archetypically. How, exactly, does the specific fluff of any given class intersect with its mechanics in a meaningful fashion? I'll drop a hint: it doesn't.

It only seems so because you are deliberately describing just the similiraties, but not any of the differences. Are you right that it's pretty hard to define exact class of those characters? Yes. But that's due to insufficient information, not because the task is fundamentally impossible.

Let's take this example:


- An old man studies his spellbook before unleashing powerful magics. Was he a ranger (Sword of the Arcane Order), an archivist, or a wizard?

You say you can't determine his class, but you've already narrowed down the possibilities to some group of classes that demonstrably act that way. So the old man couldn't be just any class.

You can present follow-up questions and continue the deduction from that: is he an apt survivalist? What spells can he cast? Are the spells he casts arcane or divine in nature? How tough is he physically? What race does he belong to? What's his name?

[Lord_Gareth]

Oh, hey, before I forget.

Why can't Kyria's "spells" be countered?

Who knows? Maybe the formula she uses is a closely-guarded secret designed to prevent conventional counter-measures. Maybe her magic is innate, like a sorcerer's or warlock's, and lacks a direct analogue that would enable a counterspell to occur. Maybe she's just that damn fast. Maybe the belt she keeps everything in serves as a focus or perhaps she's wrapped in a personal field that disrupts attempts to counter, dispel, and disjoin her works. Maybe the DM rules that someone does figure out a way to counter or dispel her - but then we're getting into homebrewing, which is outside of the scope of our current discussion.


But anyway. If there's a disconnect between roleplay and mechanics, then it should be possible to construct someone who in-universe is considered an honest-to-goodness spellcaster by people they meet (if not necessarily a very good one), without actually using any mechanical spellcasting.

Please, explain to me how Kyria doesn't qualify as a spellcaster from a roleplaying perspective (everyone else, feel free to chime in).

[Rogue Shadows]

By the way, I just realized that if you were clever, than given the criteria I presented, you could have made an Adept.

That would have been silly.

...by the way, you never told me the result of Sileia's Bardic Knowledge check. I'm waiting...


Please, explain to me how Kyria doesn't qualify as a spellcaster from a roleplaying perspective (everyone else, feel free to chime in).

Well, there's the problem that it's not acting like magic at all. She doesn't "conjure" - she's pulling items right out of a bag, but Conjuration is a well-defined school of magic in-universe and the actual conjurers would have a thing or two to say to her about calling the act of pulling things out of a bag "conjuring."

It can't be countered. Again, this is an actual thing that can happen in-universe. For that matter it can't be disrupted, either.

Our old friend the antimagic field makes a re-appearance, and this is where things get sticky because we've moved well beyond fiery hair at this point. Spells might have mechanical entries in the PHB but they also really do actually exist in-universe, and they really don't work in an antimagic field. Kyria's do? Why?

Spellcraft's application of being able to identify spells as they're being cast always fails when targeting Kyria. Or in other words, for some reason absolutely none of her spells are known to any other wizard, sorcerer, cleric, druid, etc.

Suddenly her spellbook, if she has one, just became something worth stealing...

So what we've got here is something that doesn't walk like a duck, quack like a duck, swim like a duck, or fly like a duck. Even a simple commoner looking at Kyria in action should be easily able to tell that she's not a real caster and is instead, at best, a liar or delusional.

Not unless she makes Bluff checks, of course. Then she can pass herself off as anything. But then again - Bluff checks are, specifically, lies and misdirection.

[Lord_Gareth]

...by the way, you never told me the result of Sileia's Bardic Knowledge check. I'm waiting...

It came up, "Holy crap, that crazy elf is trying to melee with a dragon!"


Well, there's the problem that it's not acting like magic at all. She doesn't "conjure" - she's pulling items right out of a bag, but Conjuration is a well-defined school of magic in-universe and the actual conjurers would have a thing or two to say to her about calling the act of pulling things out of a bag "conjuring."

When aiming at the point, you rolled a natural one; you can "conjure" something by summoning it as well. Such as, say, by summoning things out of her belt. Same effect, slightly different flavor.


It can't be countered. Again, this is an actual thing that can happen in-universe. For that matter it can't be disrupted, either.

Strictly speaking, it can be disrupted by Attacks of Opportunity (for those actions that allow them) and by readied actions for those that don't. The 'countered' thing is dealt with above.


Our old friend the antimagic field makes a re-appearance, and this is where things get sticky because we've moved well beyond fiery hair at this point. Spells might have mechanical entries in the PHB but they also really do actually exist in-universe, and they really don't work in an antimagic field. Kyria's do? Why?

For the same weird reason a Soulknife can conjure his mind-blade in an AMF? I'd go through a whole litany of other ideas, but I'm just going to go ahead and trust that you know I have a ton of them.


Spellcraft's application of being able to identify spells as they're being cast always fails when targeting Kyria. Or in other words, for some reason absolutely none of her spells are known to any other wizard, sorcerer, cleric, druid, etc.

Incredibly secret technique? Self-developed spells? Warlock-esque flavor? Extreme magical shorthand? Constant magic aura effect on her spell-work? The list goes on and on and on and on...


Suddenly her spellbook, if she has one, just became something worth stealing...

Maybe she does, maybe she doesn't. Mechanically, of course, she doesn't need one, but her personal journal could certainly be seen as valuable to those that want her abilities. And if they learn them, all they have to do is take rogue levels (or ninja, or spellthief, or...)


So what we've got here is something that doesn't walk like a duck, quack like a duck, swim like a duck, or fly like a duck. Even a simple commoner looking at Kyria in action should be easily able to tell that she's not a real caster.

How is this "simple commoner" supposed to tell when they're about as educated as her boots are (and possibly less so)? She looks like she's casting spells (since they have verbal, somatic, and possibly even material or focus components), she says she's casting spells, it's certainly flashy and weird like she's casting spells. Nine hells, she must be casting spells!

[Vandicus]

*Long answer to my questions
Those all seem fairly reasonable explanations. Could someone fill me in on what exactly is being discussed now? It seems fairly interesting

[ImperatorK]

Those all seem fairly reasonable explanations. Could someone fill me in on what exactly is being discussed now? It seems fairly interesting
It is widely known that fluff and crunch aren't strictly connected. Rogue_Shadows gave us a challenge. "Drive a car without tires, without a steering wheel, without fuel, blinded, on fire and without the engine." (substitute "drive" with "roleplay" and "car" with "spellcaster")
If we fail, it is proven that fluff and crunch are always connected.

[Lord_Gareth]

It is widely known that fluff and crunch aren't strictly connected. Rogue_Shadows gave us a challenge. "Drive a car without tires, without a steering wheel, without fuel, blinded, on fire and without the engine." (substitute "drive" with "roleplay" and "car" with "spellcaster")
If we fail, it is proven that fluff and crunch are always connected.

Is it sad or good that the first thing I thought when I saw that challenge wasn't, "That's impossible!" but rather, "This says 'Rogue' to me."?

[Shadowknight12]

Is it sad or good that the first thing I thought when I saw that challenge wasn't, "That's impossible!" but rather, "This says 'Rogue' to me."?

And without UMD. You should be proud.

I'd have gone with a rogue and so many wands and rods stuck in her crevices she'd hardly be able to move.

[Vandicus]

I've read over the challenge a few times, and isn't it technically answered by any race that gives (su) or SLA? True this doesn't answer the intent but it without a doubt fufills the requirements of A. core class w/out prestige, B. non-spell casting class, C. Actually able to cast spells rather than trick people that he's casting spells

[ImperatorK]

And without UMD. You should be proud.

I'd have gone with a rogue and so many wands and rods stuck in her crevices she'd hardly be able to move.
UMD is forbidden (if you mean the challenge).


I've read over the challenge a few times, and isn't it technically answered by any race that gives (su) or SLA? True this doesn't answer the intent but it without a doubt fufills the requirements of A. core class w/out prestige, B. non-spell casting class, C. Actually able to cast spells rather than trick people that he's casting spells
I was considering this, but I figured it to be too dirty a trick and it wouldn't be proving anything.

[Lord_Gareth]

I've read over the challenge a few times, and isn't it technically answered by any race that gives (su) or SLA? True this doesn't answer the intent but it without a doubt fufills the requirements of A. core class w/out prestige, B. non-spell casting class, C. Actually able to cast spells rather than trick people that he's casting spells

True, but in core alone there's A. Gnomes and B. Planetouched and that's, well, it. A bit underwhelming to truly be roleplaying a spellcaster, hence why I ganked Rogue mechanics for use.

[Hiro Protagonest]

The section on magic in the PHB actually has a substantial amount of fluff...none of which really matches up withy Kyria.

There you go again, saying the fluff can't be changed...

[Rogue Shadows]

It came up, "Holy crap, that crazy elf is trying to melee with a dragon!"

I call shennaniganry. That is well below what a result of 40 on a Bardic Knowledge check would give me, which is, "Extremely obscure, known by very few, possibly forgotten by most who once knew it, possibly known only by those who don’t understand the significance of the knowledge."

At DC 40 I should probably know more about this elf than she knows about herself.


When aiming at the point, you rolled a natural one; you can "conjure" something by summoning it as well. Such as, say, by summoning things out of her belt. Same effect, slightly different flavor.

Summoning in D&D is defined as: "A summoning spell instantly brings a creature or object to a place you designate. When the spell ends or is dispelled, a summoned creature is instantly sent back to where it came from, but a summoned object is not sent back unless the spell description specifically indicates this."

Quick Draw is not instant. Neither, for that matter, are Sleight of Hand checks. Not even ones taken at a -20 penalty to make them free actions.


Strictly speaking, it can be disrupted by Attacks of Opportunity (for those actions that allow them) and by readied actions for those that don't. The 'countered' thing is dealt with above.

Your explenation is "because I said so." At that point you might as well say that Kyria's a deity as well, with thousands upon thousands of worshippers all across the globe ready to die for her.

Good luck finding a DM who'll let that fly...


For the same weird reason a Soulknife can conjure his mind-blade in an AMF? I'd go through a whole litany of other ideas, but I'm just going to go ahead and trust that you know I have a ton of them.

Psionics actually specifically aren't spells...

...which remember do exist in-universe, they're not purely metagame constructs...


Incredibly secret technique? Self-developed spells? Warlock-esque flavor? Extreme magical shorthand? Constant magic aura effect on her spell-work? The list goes on and on and on and on...

...and none of it comes together to make her an honest-to-God spellcaster.


How is this "simple commoner" supposed to tell when they're about as educated as her boots are (and possibly less so)?

Well, your typical simple Commoner in D&D can read and write at least one language (more if nonhuman) and has an Intelligence and Wisdom of 10. This means that it's a mistake to think of them as medieval "educated as Kyria's boots" peasants: they're already much more educated and probably much smarter than people actually were in the Middle Ages (Flynn effect and all that).

These won't be simple folk caught unawares by magic since even the smallest thorp is statistically likely to have at least one spellcaster in it.


If we fail, it is proven that fluff and crunch are always connected.

No, it will prove that they're not disconnected in this instance, and likely others. In any even I didn't say "always," I said "often." I have always said "often" on this subject.

[Vandicus]

True, but in core alone there's A. Gnomes and B. Planetouched and that's, well, it. A bit underwhelming to truly be roleplaying a spellcaster, hence why I ganked Rogue mechanics for use.

Yeah, your solution was elegant in that it solved the problem in a very effective manner for any race for a class. Mine just used my inner rules lawyer to abuse a technicality. Really nice fluff design for the rogue btw, have you ever GM'd?

[Shadowknight12]

Psionics actually specifically aren't spells...

...which remember do exist in-universe, they're not purely metagame constructs...

Oh, goodie, then we get to answer your challenge with a Psion. There, you have spells.

[ImperatorK]

Oh, goodie, then we get to answer your challenge with a Psion. There, you have spells.
Not Core, sorry.

[BillyBobJoe]

So you're asking us to Make someone who can cast spells while being incapable of casting spells and placing a large number of arbitrary restrictions, otherwise fluff cannot be seperated from fluff? I think I just lost a large number of brain cells typing that sentence. Is making an impossible challenge the only way to determine this? That's like saying "You must x, except you are not allowed to x, y, z, or q. If you can't do this, I'm right about a and you're wrong about b." Seriously, what the hell.

[Rogue Shadows]

There you go again, saying the fluff can't be changed...

It probably can be, but some fluff change is in the hands of the player, and some of it is in the hands of the DM.

Case and point, the player doesn't get to decide that Olidammara is now a god of cooking as well as luck. A player character could choose to worship Olidammara as a god of cooking, but that is not part of Olidammara and that does not fall under player jurisdiction since it has an impact outside of the player character.

More pertinantly, players don't get to decide what the BBEG looks like or what he talks like. They can describe their interpretations of it, but not what it actually *is*. So if I say that this BBEG looks like Lord Zedd, the players don't get to go around saying that all the NPCs laugh at him because he looks like Gumby.

Basically the player gets to decide on the fluff as it affects their characters only. Maybe some important NPCs in the player's background or current NPC friends.

Everything else falls to the DM.

[Hiro Protagonest]

"You people have no imagination!" - the leader of the rats in Prince Caspian, after nameless soldier #137 said "Y-you're a mouse!"

[ImperatorK]

Case and point, the player doesn't get to decide that Olidammara is now a god of cooking as well as luck. A player character could choose to worship Olidammara as a god of cooking, but that is not part of Olidammara and that does not fall under player jurisdiction since it has an impact outside of the player character.

More pertinantly, players don't get to decide what the BBEG looks like or what he talks like. They can describe their interpretations of it, but not what it actually *is*. So if I say that this BBEG looks like Lord Zedd, the players don't get to go around saying that all the NPCs laugh at him because he looks like Gumby.

Basically the player gets to decide on the fluff as it affects their characters only. Maybe some important NPCs in the player's background or current NPC friends.

Everything else falls to the DM.
Uh... okay? Your point?

[Lord_Gareth]

I call shennaniganry. That is well below what a result of 40 on a Bardic Knowledge check would give me, which is, "Extremely obscure, known by very few, possibly forgotten by most who once knew it, possibly known only by those who don’t understand the significance of the knowledge."

At DC 40 I should probably know more about this elf than she knows about herself.

And yet, the crux of our fundamental disagreement is in your ability to make a check about the elf to begin with, hence why your roll turned up nothing - you know, kinda like rolling a Knowledge (Arcana) check against a Bleakborn would, since they operate on Knowledge (Religion).


Summoning in D&D is defined as: "A summoning spell instantly brings a creature or object to a place you designate. When the spell ends or is dispelled, a summoned creature is instantly sent back to where it came from, but a summoned object is not sent back unless the spell description specifically indicates this."

Quick Draw is not instant. Neither, for that matter, are Sleight of Hand checks. Not even ones taken at a -20 penalty to make them free actions.

I don't see any text saying it can't be instant, especially since it's a free action, which are by definition so fast as to not take up any time or effort. She mutters or spits her words of power, waggles her free hand and pop her knife is in it.


Your explanation is "because I said so." At that point you might as well say that Kyria's a deity as well, with thousands upon thousands of worshippers all across the globe ready to die for her.

No, I had a long and involved list of explanations, any of which I might present before a DM that asked me the same question(s) you have. I didn't ignore the idea of countering her spells, I addressed it using what I know of how magic works in the D&D universe.


Psionics actually specifically aren't spells...

And yet, they are also knocked out by antimagic fields, can be dispelled, et cetera, so forth. So if the Soulknife can do it, why not Kyria?


Well, your typical simple Commoner in D&D can read and write at least one language (more if nonhuman) and has an Intelligence and Wisdom of 10. This means that it's a mistake to think of them as medieval "educated as Kyria's boots" peasants: they're already much more educated and probably much smarter than people actually were in the Middle Ages (Flynn effect and all that).

These won't be simple folk caught unawares by magic since even the smallest thorp is statistically likely to have at least one spellcaster in it.

You're the one that keeps wanting to bring skill checks into this: show me Average Commoner's ranks in Spellcraft, Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (Psionics), Knowledge (Religion) and Martial Lore. Hint: they have none. They might know the general gist of what Tabitha, the local herb-witch, can and cannot do from experience, but that doesn't mean they have even the tiniest fraction of magical knowledge that even we the players have.

You keep saying "None of this makes her a real spellcaster" when I keep throwing down perfectly valid explanations for the anomalous behavior using in-universe logic, information and, in some cases, effects. What precisely are you finding wrong here. Fellow posters, care to chime in? Anyone agree with Shadow or myself that's willing to explain why?


Yeah, your solution was elegant in that it solved the problem in a very effective manner for any race for a class. Mine just used my inner rules lawyer to abuse a technicality. Really nice fluff design for the rogue btw, have you ever GM'd?

I've been GMing, DMing and ZMing for the last eight years, why?

[Rogue Shadows]

So you're asking us to Make someone who can cast spells while being incapable of casting spells and placing a large number of arbitrary restrictions, otherwise fluff cannot be seperated from fluff?

No...I am asking you to:

Roleplay a spellcaster. That is, someone actually capable of casting spells, not someone who just thinks they can, or who can trick others into thinking he can.

By this I meant not a Barbarian Wizard, and not an "I am the Moon" build. A spellcaster. Someone who casts spells. Spells exist in-universe as fluff as well as out-of-universe as mechanics, but if there's no actual tie between fluff and crunch then it should be more than possible to make a spellcaster who doesn't actually cast what would mechanically be considered spells.

So far...I am not impressed.

[Hiro Protagonest]

No...I am asking you to:

Roleplay a spellcaster. That is, someone actually capable of casting spells, not someone who just thinks they can, or who can trick others into thinking he can.

By this I meant not a Barbarian Wizard, and not an "I am the Moon" build. A spellcaster. Someone who casts spells. Spells exist in-universe as fluff as well as out-of-universe as mechanics, but if there's no actual tie between fluff and crunch then it should be more than possible to make a spellcaster who doesn't actually cast what would mechanically be considered spells.

So far...I am not impressed.

So you won't rest until someone who doesn't cast spells by the mechanics is restricted by mechanics like anti-magic field? Fine, impose an arbitrary restriction that Gareth's rogue build doesn't work in an AMF and call it good.

[Vandicus]

No...I am asking you to:

Roleplay a spellcaster. That is, someone actually capable of casting spells, not someone who just thinks they can, or who can trick others into thinking he can.

By this I meant not a Barbarian Wizard, and not an "I am the Moon" build. A spellcaster. Someone who casts spells. Spells exist in-universe as fluff as well as out-of-universe as mechanics, but if there's no actual tie between fluff and crunch then it should be more than possible to make a spellcaster who doesn't actually cast what would mechanically be considered spells.

So far...I am not impressed.


OK lets see. You seem to be saying that fluff and crunch have some degree of connection, and I haven't seen anyone say that fluff and crunch are completely disconnected. To be clear, is anyone actually saying that?

[ImperatorK]

You expect a spellcaster, but without spells. Your demands are contradictory, therefore will be ignored. :smallannoyed:
Also - if you don't want to see something as it is, you won't. No argument of ours will change that. Why bother?


OK lets see. You seem to be saying that fluff and crunch have some degree of connection, and I haven't seen anyone say that fluff and crunch are completely disconnected. To be clear, is anyone actually saying that?
I personally don't but there was, I think, someone earlier. I'm too lazy to look.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Rogue Shadows, of course you're not impressed. You set yourself up to not be impressed, because your challenge was rhetorical. Now that someone has answered your rhetorical challenge, in your mind, it can't be right. Not a great place to be, honestly.

That said, if you're going to totally and completely disregard the default fluff, why play D&D, or any class based system for that matter?

[Lord_Gareth]

OK lets see. You seem to be saying that fluff and crunch have some degree of connection, and I haven't seen anyone say that fluff and crunch are completely disconnected. To be clear, is anyone actually saying that?

Well, let us clarify 'connected'; no one is arguing that the mechanics shouldn't have some manner of fluff. However, one side (which I shall arbitrarily declare to be "Mine" as though I own it) supports "refluffing" - that is, replacing published/default fluff with whatever makes sense for your character. My side says that classes are essentially metagame concepts used to shorthand a list of related abilities, and thusly the fluff of the overall character is more important than what WotC vomited out onto the page.

Shadow and his compatriots, on the other hand, oppose refluffing and support using the default fluff; that is to say, they support the idea that the default fluff is 'connected' to the mechanics it was made for, and thusly that fluff is more important than the overall character, at least in the sense of, oh...say we've got a fighter that TWF's, right? His player wants to pick up Pounce to represent the savage ferocity of his attacks. "My" side would say to just pick up a level of Lion Totem Barbarian and not lose any sleep over it. "Their" side would insist that he actually seek out the Lion tribe and learn from them at the barest minimum.

[ImperatorK]

That said, if you're going to totally and completely disregard the default fluff, why play D&D, or any class based system for that matter?
You mean "If you don't use default fluff don't play D&D"?

[Vandicus]

Furthermore, doesn't the challenge ask a player to roleplay mechanics of the game without actually having access to said mechanics? It doesn't ask one to simply roleplay a spellcaster without the use of actual spells, it asks them specifically to roleplay the mechanic of possessing spells by saying that the player must actually be able to cast spells. How is roleplaying a mechanic related to fluff?

[ImperatorK]

And what is roleplaying if not interacting with the fluff?

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

You mean "If you don't use default fluff don't play D&D"?You mean "I like to argue against straw men"?

[Rogue Shadows]

That said, if you're going to totally and completely disregard the default fluff, why play D&D, or any class based system for that matter?

I'm not going to disregard the fluff. I just want the fluff to make sense. And preferably to be backed up mechanically if possible. Vice-versa is also true - mechanical benefits should be backed up by fluff.

See the funny thing is, I'm actually a centrist, not an extremist.

As for how I set up the "challenge..." Of course it seems impossiblely unfair (that is, stupid). That's because it's impossible to divorce the fluff of casting spells from the mechanics of casting spells. The impossibility of it doesn't mean that I fail, it means that I've successfully pointed out a hole in the idea that there's disconnect between fluff and crunch.


And yet, the crux of our fundamental disagreement is in your ability to make a check about the elf to begin with, hence why your roll turned up nothing - you know, kinda like rolling a Knowledge (Arcana) check against a Bleakborn would, since they operate on Knowledge (Religion).

So despite getting a result which strongly suggests that Sileia is a high- to epic-level bard, with all the experience, encounters, meeting NPCs, wisdom of past adventures, and so on, that that entails...she has absolutely no way of knowing what she's looking at, and in fact it's a miracle that she was even able to determine an elf, a dragon, and a bear on sight?

Uh...huh...


I don't see any text saying it can't be instant, especially since it's a free action, which are by definition so fast as to not take up any time or effort. She mutters or spits her words of power, waggles her free hand and pop her knife is in it.

I'm sorry, but a free action is not instant. It consumes a very small amount of time, and the DM is free to limit the number that can be performed per turn (I usually allow essentially unlimited talking, but only 2 free actions).

Further, note that there is a difference between casting a spell and the spell resolving. Take, say, magic missile, which has a casting time of a standard action, but a duration of "instantaneous." In this case instantaneous means that the effect of the spell comes and goes the moment the spell is cast, though the result can linger (e.g. cure light wounds).

In this case, "summoning" her knife isn't instantaneous: it takes as long as a free action takes, which is a short but decidedly non-zero amount of time.

The "spell" is also a free action, which is weird.

Oh! I thought of another problem! Metamagic definitely exists in fluff as well as in crunch. Why can't Kyria's spells be metamagic'd?


No, I had a long and involved list of explanations, any of which I might present before a DM that asked me the same question(s) you have. I didn't ignore the idea of countering her spells, I addressed it using what I know of how magic works in the D&D universe.

But not how spells work. I did not ask you to create a magic user, I asked you to create a spellcaster. I deliberately chose spells because they unambiguously exist in-universe - there is literally a scroll in-universe somewhere with Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion written on it somewhere in the header - as well as existing in actual, defineable, mechanical terms.

If there is a disconnect between mechanics and fluff, then it should be possible to build a spellcaster without actually using the mechanical aspects of spells. Basically you should be able to in-universe cast Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion without mechanically casting Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion.


And yet, they are also knocked out by antimagic fields, can be dispelled, et cetera, so forth. So if the Soulknife can do it, why not Kyria?

Because a soulknife is not a spellcaster.


You're the one that keeps wanting to bring skill checks into this: show me Average Commoner's ranks in Spellcraft, Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (Psionics), Knowledge (Religion) and Martial Lore. Hint: they have none. They might know the general gist of what Tabitha, the local herb-witch, can and cannot do from experience, but that doesn't mean they have even the tiniest fraction of magical knowledge that even we the players have.

Ah, sadly they don't give ranks for the average commoner's ranks in such, though the PHB DMG does provide that all those skills could be taken cross-classed, and though it is improbable to encounter such a Commoner, it is not impossible.

So say INT-10 human Commoner with 2 ranks in Spellcraft, Skill Focus (spellcraft), and Magical Aptitude feats. Total of a +7.

Wonder what this guy does for a living. Ah, let's put his remaining skill points in Perform (singing) and Perform (dancing). Why not.

Anyway, we'll say that this Commoner lived in Kyria's home town during her training so he knows her as she is just entering her delusions of magical aptitude, has known her for her whole life (not personally, but knows of her) and gets to see her at a very low level. He of course has no concept of "low-level," but he certainly has a concept of a young girl just as she's beginning to go insane and start claiming she can cast spells.

She casts a "spell" one day, he sees and rolls an 18, for a total of 25. 25 is more than enough to identify up to 9th-level spells as they are being cast, so he literally should not fail this under any circumstance because he knows for a fact that she is a very young, new spellcaster who could not possibly know any spells that test the limits of his knowledge of spells.

He gets nothing. Does not recognize the spell. At this point this guy, who is apparently a commoner dedicated to knowing about magic, is wondering if Kyria can actually cast spells, so he might go and get Tabitha, the local herb-witch (Adept 2), and ask her to check out Kyria.

Tabitha, using her higher Spellcraft modifier (say...12 Int, 5 ranks, and skill focus, for a total of +9), takes 10 while watching Kyria "cast" a "spell."

Nothing. Peturbed, Tabitha asks Kyria to do some magic for her. Kyria, still delusional, is happy to show off her talents on, I dunno, test dummies. Tabitha takes 20 this time. Her result is 29.

Nothing. Tabitha has no concept of check results per se, but she is certainly aware of the fact that she knows a lot about magic, just had twenty minutes to study Kyria, a neonatal "caster," as she performed "magic," and did not see a single thing to suggest that Kyria is, in any way, casting spells.

So now at this point...looks like a crazy person, acts like a crazy person...is a crazy person. Tabitha and the Commoner start spreading the word and checking the Yellow Pages to see if there's a mental ward nearby that can keep Player Characters in.

[ImperatorK]

You mean "I like to argue against straw men"?
It was a serious question. I didn't understand what exactly you where saying.

And once again Rogue dug himself into a hole and won't budge, no matter what we say. :smallsigh: Seriously, lets just end this. Could a Mod lock this thread, please? :smallmad: There's nothing more that's constructive to add. Let it rest.

[Rogue Shadows]

And once again Rogue dug himself into a hole and won't budge, no matter what we say. :smallsigh: Seriously, lets just end this. Could a Mod lock this thread, please? :smallmad: There's nothing more that's constructive to add. Let it rest.

I'm sorry, what hole? I asked for an in-universe spellcaster that is not mechanically a spellcaster as proof that there is a disconnect between mechanics and fluff. It's yet to be produced.

Yes, I technically left myself open to, say, an Adept, or an aasimar. That would have been clever and someone would have gotten a cookie for doing that, but that didn't happen.

Also, closing threads?

Laaaaame...

Well, not if they've devolved into flame wars or inappropriate comments, or are just spam. That makes sense.

But circular arguments always branch off again...closing threads just because they're going nowhere is laaaaame.

If a thread really isn't going anywhere then the thread will just die naturally.

TL;DR - nothing's keeping you here; if you don't want to participate in the thread anymore, then it's as simple as not entering it.

[ImperatorK]

I'm sorry, what hole? I asked for an in-universe spellcaster that is not mechanically a spellcaster as proof that there is a disconnect between mechanics and fluff. It's yet to be produced.
And you banned anything that could allow that. Laaaaame.


TL;DR - nothing's keeping you here; if you don't want to participate in the thread anymore, then it's as simple as not entering it.
Funny, because there was a different topic for the past couple of pages (that's why I started posting again) and then you came and it degenerated again into circling around. :smallannoyed:

[Frozen_Feet]

How is roleplaying a mechanic related to fluff?

If the mechanic is supposed to simulate fluff (or vice versa), then the in-game choice to cast spells doubles as mechanical choice to cast spells (and vice versa).

As should be obvious from the form of above statement, it is possible to explode the connection between "fluff" and "crunch", though the point of division is largely arbitrary. At that point, no game mechanic consistenly simulates anything, which means no fluff consistenly maps to any crunch either.

What's going on is, Shadow Rogue is demanding you to build a character according to contradictory design principles. Rules might simulate a setting, or they might not, but they can't do both at once.

So of course you can't satisfy him. You can't build a character who both heeds the rules of a simulation and explicitly breaks them (is a real magician without using any real magic). It's a paradox.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I'm not going to disregard the fluff. I just want the fluff to make sense. And preferably to be backed up mechanically if possible. Vice-versa is also true - mechanical benefits should be backed up by fluff.That part was aimed at the other side of the argument, actually.

As for how I set up the "challenge..." Of course it seems impossiblely unfair (that is, stupid). That's because it's impossible to divorce the fluff of casting spells from the mechanics of casting spells. The impossibility of it doesn't mean that I fail, it means that I've successfully pointed out a hole in the idea that there's disconnect between fluff and crunch.Hence it's a rhetorical question. The problem with rhetorical questions is that, because the questioner assumes there is no answer, any consideration is totally tainted by the assumption. Basically, I'm not impressed that you're not impressed, even if I agree with the spirit of your argument.

It was a serious question. I didn't understand what exactly you where saying.I'm saying if you're going to reinvent the system so much that any class can be fluffed as anything, why play in a class-based system at all? There's a lot of mechanical kludge in D&D mostly based off the assumption that you'd at least use some of the baseline fluff to determine what happens in the game, and there are (mostly skill-based) systems without that kludge. Heck, I see what Gareth did and applaud it, but he had to come up with an explanation for every game mechanic the rogue uses! Why spend all that time when you could just play an actual spellcaster, or better yet play in a system where that type of character doesn't require much work? The only reason I can come up with is system familiarity, but note I'm actually looking for answers here.

[Rogue Shadows]

And you banned anything that could allow that. Laaaaame.

So because a mechanic was banned it affected the fluff? I thought there was a disconnect. This must mean...that mechanics can affect fluff! Which means fluff affects mechanics! Most likely, anyway.

Now I just have to prove that this is often the case...


What's going on is, Shadow Rogue is demanding...

Er...

*cough*.

[TroubleBrewing]

Why spend all that time when you could just play an actual spellcaster, or better yet play in a system where that type of character doesn't require much work?

You can play an actual spellcaster. The only reason Gareth had to re-fluff the Rogue as much as he did was to satisfy the rhetorical request; make a "spellcaster" without using any classes that cast spells.

I would've gone with Monk, TBH. Tons of per-day supernatural abilities that can be disabled in an AMF? Sounds like a spellcaster that doesn't use spells to me.

[ImperatorK]

I'm saying if you're going to reinvent the system so much that any class can be fluffed as anything, why play in a class-based system at all? There's a lot of mechanical kludge in D&D mostly based off the assumption that you'd at least use some of the baseline fluff to determine what happens in the game, and there are (mostly skill-based) systems without that kludge. Heck, I see what Gareth did and applaud it, but he had to come up with an explanation for every game mechanic the rogue uses! Why spend all that time when you could just play an actual spellcaster, or better yet play in a system where that type of character doesn't require much work? The only reason I can come up with is system familiarity, but note I'm actually looking for answers here.
Lots of handbooks have sections on adapting the material. Refluffing is acknowledged and maybe even encouraged by creators of the game. Why should we limit ourselves?


So because a mechanic was banned it affected the fluff? I thought there was a disconnect. This must mean...that mechanics can affect fluff! Which means fluff affects mechanics! Most likely, anyway.
not really. See Gareth's Rogue "conjuror". Of course it won't satisfy you. Why would it? It would mean to admit that you're wrong.

[Rogue Shadows]

I would've gone with Monk, TBH. Tons of per-day supernatural abilities that can be disabled in an AMF? Sounds like a spellcaster that doesn't use spells to me.

Can it create Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion in-game? No?

Probably not a spellcaster, then. Remember, I specifically chose spells because they definitely exist in-universe as well as exsiting as crunch.

Oh, it doesn't have to be called Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion. It just has to be that in-universe and subscribe to it by the universe's rules, without actually being created via the method the mechanics present to you to create it.


Lots of handbooks have sections on adapting the material. Refluffing is acknowledged and maybe even encouraged by creators of the game. Why should we limit ourselves?

Because after a certain point it starts to seriously mess with the game world; case and point, Kyria the Conjurer and the Case of the Curious Commoner, as presented above.

The Commoner is now named Connor "Ciaphus" Cane, by the way.

[ImperatorK]

Lol, great. now he demands to emulate a specific spell. It gets better and better. What next? You will demand it to be painted in an invisible color and with servants that are miniature ancient dragon deities. :smallsigh:


Because after a certain point it starts to seriously mess with the game world; case and point, Kyria the Conjurer and the Case of the Curious Commoner, as presented above.
:smallsigh: Only if you work your ass of to make it so (which you clearly are).

[Rogue Shadows]

Lol, great. now he demands to emulate a specific spell. It gets better and better.

That's just my go-to example of a spell because I like its name and because I can't, off the top of my head, think of a wonderous item that duplicates it in Core. You could really insert just about any spell in its place.


:smallsigh: Only if you work your ass of to make it so (which you clearly are).

Connor "Ciaphus" Cain as a Commoner, yes, that was probably unnecessary.

But an Adept 2 with ranks in Spellcraft and Skill Focus (Spellcraft)? That is not an unbelievable being and she was still, when taking 10 (producing the average result of a Spellcraft check), able to tell that Kyria was just a troubled, delusional girl, and not a spellcaster.

Heck, an Adept 5 wouldn't of even needed the feat to produce the same check result, and one or more Adept 5s are likely to be existant in even a small village, if I recall my DMG correctly.

[Shadowknight12]

Not Core, sorry.

Oh, so he specifically removed any way to cast spells or anything that resembles it, then asked us to do it? Hah, that's almost funny, in a very sad kind of way.

Fine, I'm setting up Kyria's rival in the mage academy, Varus. Mechanically, he's a monk. Fluff-wise, he's a self-focused transmuter who "spends" all his "spells per day" to grant himself diverse abilities and powers. A lot of them DO go away in an AMF. He also likes long walks on the beach and punching people.


Case and point, the player doesn't get to decide that Olidammara is now a god of cooking as well as luck. A player character could choose to worship Olidammara as a god of cooking, but that is not part of Olidammara and that does not fall under player jurisdiction since it has an impact outside of the player character.

One of my players decided that Pelor was a god of pacifism and ultimate benevolence, and that the sects that used light to wound others (including undead) were heretics and twisting Pelor's gift for their own hateful ends. I made it a reality, and it greatly enhanced his game, as he played a pacifist, focused-healer intent on redeeming all, even undead and fiends.

No such thing as "player jurisdiction." The player should have as much input on the setting as the DM.


More pertinantly, players don't get to decide what the BBEG looks like or what he talks like. They can describe their interpretations of it, but not what it actually *is*. So if I say that this BBEG looks like Lord Zedd, the players don't get to go around saying that all the NPCs laugh at him because he looks like Gumby.

Yes, they do. My current BBEG is my player's character's ex-lover. He decided how the BBEG looks and talks like. We set up that character's personality together, and as a result, the player is far more involved in the game that he otherwise would be.

Also, I'd just roll with it. If it makes the game more fun for the players, so be it.


Basically the player gets to decide on the fluff as it affects their characters only. Maybe some important NPCs in the player's background or current NPC friends.

Everything else falls to the DM.

Wrong. Might be so in some games, but this is not the norm, nor the "right" way to do it.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Lots of handbooks have sections on adapting the material. Refluffing is acknowledged and maybe even encouraged by creators of the game. Why should we limit ourselves?I'm just saying there should be some sort of limit. Not every warblade is an egomaniacal idiot (well, that's what I got out of that intro text), but if your warblade's maneuvers are seen as spellcasting in game... why are you playing a warblade, again?

Can it create Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion in-game? No?

Probably not a spellcaster, then. Remember, I specifically chose spells because they definitely exist in-universe as well as exsiting as crunch.

Oh, it doesn't have to be called Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion. It just has to be that in-universe and subscribe to it by the universe's rules, without actually being created via the method the mechanics present to you to create it.Wait a minute, if a character can't cast MMM it's not a spellcaster? That leaves two possibilities:
(1) Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers who don't have MMM as a spell known, Wizards who don't have MMM in their spellbook, etc. aren't spellcasters.
(2) No spellcaster can replicate every single spell, and no spell can be replicated by every single spellcaster.

I'm going with (2), which leaves open the possibility of a magic user with a very limited amount of magic.

[TroubleBrewing]

Can it create Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion in-game? No?

Probably not a spellcaster, then. Remember, I specifically chose spells because they definitely exist in-universe as well as exsiting as crunch.

No MMM, but it can certainly Dimension Door and Feather Fall.

What more do you want?

No, it can't cast MMM. But it can "cast" "spells" without being a "spellcaster". It completes the challenge. And now I present the fluff:

Sir Gallant the Wise, The Sage Knight
Sir Gallant the Wise: Sage Knight to Her Majesty, the Dragon Empress of the North! From an early age, Sir Gallant was destined for greatness. His childhood was a tragic one, marred by the deaths of both of his parents in a horrible fire. Now an orphan, he was remanded to the care of the Northern Sage Knights, a wise group of individuals who train their bodies and minds in concert to become fierce unarmed fighting machines. Through various "combat arts" or "spells", they become formidable foes.

The first thing the students are taught is the art of the Sublime Quick Fist (it's late, and I'm not feeling creative with names- Hence "Sir Gallant". :smallbiggrin:). Through the use of this spell, the students strike faster than almost anyone.

Next, they are taught the art of Supreme Avoidance. This spell, which is always active, gives the students extraordinarily quick reflexes.

Okay, I'm sick of writing this crap. (Mostly because looking at the Monk entry in the PHB makes me physically ill.)

You get the idea. I'm going to go through all of the Monk's class features, even the non-supernatural ones, and refluff them to be the result of spells. You'll claim I didn't satisfy your challenge, but I did. I built a character, a "Sage Knight" who uses his "spells" to enhance his fighting. His abilities have limited uses per day, have clearly defined effects, and even (in some cases) are "as described under the ____ spell entry".

Is THIS enough to convince you that fluff can be divorced from mechanics?

[ImperatorK]

But an Adept 2 with ranks in Spellcraft and Skill Focus (Spellcraft)? That is not an unbelievable being and she was still, when taking 10 (producing the average result of a Spellcraft check), able to tell that Kyria was just a troubled, delusional girl, and not a spellcaster.

Heck, an Adept 5 wouldn't of even needed the feat to produce the same check result, and one or more Adept 5s are likely to be existant in even a small village, if I recall my DMG correctly.
There are ways to conceal spellcasting. The Rogue "conjuror" has them build in.

[lesser_minion]

So why, then, is it in any way surprising if other flavour text entries are similarly sporatic in their applicability to any given campaign?

No piece of material can affect your game unless you actually decide to use it. Nobody has disputed that, because it's self-evident.

But going from there to "classes are purely metagame constructs" is not reasonable. To use a class, you must give it meaning, and there's nothing silly about that meaning being entirely consistent with the original fluff.


Those are just a few examples of classes that can all do the same thing, either mechanically or archetypically. How, exactly, does the specific fluff of any given class intersect with its mechanics in a meaningful fashion? I'll drop a hint: it doesn't.

See this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11469837&postcount=810) post.


It only seems so because you are deliberately describing just the similiraties, but not any of the differences. Are you right that it's pretty hard to define exact class of those characters? Yes. But that's due to insufficient information, not because the task is fundamentally impossible.

This is also true.

Adaptation notes, for future reference, actually suggest mechanical changes. They fit with the view that if you want different fluff, it's typically a good idea to change the mechanics to fit (Camp 1 from the OP), not the view that if you want different fluff, you should go ahead and shoehorn it into whatever the hell you feel like (Camp 2 from the OP).

[ImperatorK]

Adaptation notes, for future reference, actually suggest mechanical changes. They fit with the view that if you want different fluff, it's typically a good idea to change the mechanics to fit (Camp 1 from the OP), not the view that if you want different fluff, you should go ahead and shoehorn it into whatever the hell you feel like (Camp 2 from the OP).
In some cases yes. But there are handbooks that talk only or mostly about fluff adaptation. Complete Adventurer, Complete Arcane, Complete Divine, Complete Mage, etc.

[lesser_minion]

In some cases yes. But there are handbooks that talk only or mostly about fluff adaptation. Complete Adventurer, Complete Arcane, Complete Divine, Complete Mage, etc.

None of these changes is significant. Swapping references to Heironeous for references to a comparable deity who you actually use? Do you honestly think anyone opposes that?

But it's not being confined to the fluff that makes a change trivial. The world won't end because you gave someone +2 to all survival checks made in wetland environments.

There's also the Hero Builders' Guidebook, but the variants there weren't actually examples of refluffing -- the PHB has never said "all sorcerers are completely lucid" or "no ranger is part of a secret society dedicated to preventing conflict between elves".

[sonofzeal]

No piece of material can affect your game unless you actually decide to use it. Nobody has disputed that, because it's self-evident.

But going from there to "classes are purely metagame constructs" is not reasonable. To use a class, you must give it meaning, and there's nothing silly about that meaning being entirely consistent with the original fluff.
It doesn't go all the way, but it weakens the "no" side to the point of meaninglessness.

Consider: "No class is an in-game construct unless you actually decide to make it so."

This follows directly from, and is merely a more specific example of, a statement you yourself described as "self-evident". If what you said is true, then by logical necessity this is true as well.

[lesser_minion]

It doesn't go all the way, but it weakens the "no" side to the point of meaninglessness.

Except it doesn't. The question is not whether or not you can change the fluff, but whether or not you should.


Consider: "No class is an in-game construct unless you actually decide to make it so."

This follows directly from, and is merely a more specific example of, a statement you yourself described as "self-evident". If what you said is true, then by logical necessity this is true as well.

I don't deny that. It has no bearing on our point:


Modifying fluff is acceptable, but only so because modifying rules, in general, is acceptable. Fluff isn't a special case to its own.

Nobody has said that it's somehow impossible to refluff things. What we have said is that you shouldn't because you can almost invariably do better by changing the mechanics.

[ImperatorK]

But people are more often against changing rules, dislike homebrewing and houseruling, heck, even adding new official material (ToB and psionics, I'm looking at you), meanwhile they often don't have a problem with changing a PCs hair color, height or fluff of a class. Some people take it up a level and have humans with flaming hair. Nothing wrong with that.
Also - should/shouldn't? I don't think so. And I strongly disagree on that last part. You gain variety and more options without the hustle of changing rules.

[lesser_minion]

But people are more often against changing rules, dislike homebrewing and houseruling, heck, even adding new official material (ToB and psionics, I'm looking at you).

And these are the people who need to step back and look at why they oppose homebrewing and houseruling. Their views do nothing to improve their games.

A character should be evaluated on its merits. Evaluating it based on how and where it deviates from published material is not helpful.

Remember that the least acceptable character of all doesn't deviate from the rules.


Also - should/shouldn't? I don't think so.

What else would we be discussing? Do you honestly think that anybody here holds a view that can be entirely disproved with a bottle of Tip-Ex and a pen?

(the use of Tip-Ex in your books is not actually recommended).

[Lord_Gareth]

The other thing you can gain from just refluffing is a greater sense of setting realism (granted, it's easy to screw it up, but if you don't it can draw your players into the world) and convenience and speed at character creation. I cannot even begin to tell you how often I've managed to same time, effort, and tears by just telling a player, "Hey, just use [CLASS X] and we'll refluff it in the direction you're taking it." Quick, easy, painless, and we get right to the Having Fun portion of the game.

[sonofzeal]

And I don't deny that. It has no bearing on my point or Frozen Feet's.

Nobody has said that it's somehow physically impossible to refluff. The answer is usually 'no', because you can get better results if you also change the rules.
Let me take a slightly moderate position then...


1) The DM is the arbiter of the campaign setting and the rules of the game. The DM should announce any "houserules" at the beginning, and after that Players should assume, within reason, that the crunch presented in the books is binding.

2) The Players, within the limits set by #1, are the abiters of their characters. They use the houserules and the crunch presented in the books to define what their character is capable of doing. They also have control of the fluff/flavour/description/roleplay of their character. The DM may have limited veto power here, but as this is the one thing that the Player controls, the Player's rights very much have priority.

3) Once a character is in play, the character is under Player control, and the DM arbitrates interactions between that character and the game world. The Player may do or describe things not covered by the rules, and the DM must decide if those actions have any consequences.



Example:

- DM says "Core+Completes, lvl 5, no houserules". Player goes and builds an elf with naturally blue hair. DM arbitrates that in game by making other elves suspicious that they're a halfbreed because no other elves have that hair, but otherwise it has no effect.

- DM says "Core+Completes, lvl 5, no houserules". Player goes and builds an elf with fire for hair. DM arbitrates that in game by allowing pyrotechnics to make them temporarily bald, and charges the player for the price of an everburning torch under the budget item "fire-hair care expenses".

- DM says "all books, lvl 10, critical fumble houserules". Player goes and builds an elven Radiant Servant of Pelor, except devoted to Corellon Larethian, under the excuse that they want to really play up the whole elven thing but also want to be a healer. DM arbitrates this by adding some Corellon Larethian related plot points into the campaign.

- DM says "all books, lvl 10, critical fumble houserules". Player goes and builds an elven Radiant Servant of Pelor, except devoted to Nerull, under the excuse that their character is confused and the player thinks it's hilarious. DM vetos, because it's not a comedy campaign.

- DM says "Core, lvl 3, polymorph line banned". Player goes and builds a Barbarian who was physically abused by his parents in the capitol and is now a merc with deep emotional issues. DM arbitrates by changing the class skill list slightly.

- DM says "Core, lvl 12, polymorph line banned". Player goes and builds a Fighter with pseudo-magical stylings, who uses various elements of magic to explain his sometimes implausibly-good swordsmanship. DM arbitrates by making some of the abilities not work in an AMF, but offers a quest to gain some limited Duskblade spells.




These sorts of things do tie in fluff and crunch to some extent. I'm okay with that, I'm not denying that sometimes that's a good idea. All I care about is that, as a player, I have some creative control. If I come up with a good, flavourful idea, that fits the Rules As Written and works within the campaign setting, I should be allowed to play it even if it deviates from expectations. As a Player I control exactly one thing - my character. Telling me I can't play a city-dwelling Barbarian because it doesn't match your preconcieved notion of what a Barbarian is, that isn't reasonable in my eyes. I would no longer trust you to allow me to play the character I want to play. I would no longer trust you to let me play the game. Changing the class skill list to reflect his heritage, hey that makes perfect sense, it's not going to invalidate my concept and I probably wasn't going to use any of the skills you removed anyway. Letting my fire-hair be extinguished by Pyrotechnics, well that's your right too. You arbitrate the rules and the interactions between characters and the world.

But the character itself is mine. Let me play him.

[Rogue Shadows]

There are ways to conceal spellcasting. The Rogue "conjuror" has them build in.

That's nice, but every single time anyone ever makes a Spellcraft check against them?

Never mind what's going to happen when Kyria tries pulling off "magic" within sight of a market guard, an elf ranger, or anyone else with a decent Spot check that sees her Sleight of Hand. Especially seeing as the fluff makes it seem like she's taking a -20 penalty each time she does it in order to do it as a free action.

No. In-universe, anyone with actual knowledge of spellcraft, or anyone with good eyes, is going to see Kyria for the sham she is.


There's also the Hero Builders' Guidebook, but the variants there weren't actually examples of refluffing

I liked that book. That was the first D&D book I actually got. Like, even before the Player's Handbook.

Which in hindsight was a bad idea because the Hero Builder's Guidebook is of dubious use without it.

But it was fun, anyway. I liked the alignment and background generation section and I normally expect my players to run through the latter if they can't think up a backstory on their own.

...

...BTW according to the alignment test I'm either NG or CG, depending on my mood.


Wrong. Might be so in some games, but this is not the norm, nor the "right" way to do it.

Of course you're point here is that there is no such thing as a "right" way to do it, though there are "wrong" ways...

But seriously? I can accept that it's not the way it's done in some games, but I willing to actually take a stand and say that it is the norm for the DM to have considerably more control than the PCs over NPC appearances.. Which is not to say that PCs don't ever get to influence it, just that it is usually one of those things that the DMs do.

Now we already know your opinion on that.

Hey, Playgrounders! Sound off.

On a sidenote, S - what do DMs actually do in your idealized campaigns? They don't have control over their own characters appearances; they have to ask player permission to give them anything more horrible than a papercut which leads to them not having full control over NPC personalities, either; they let players run any character using any splatbook, WotC published or otherwise, and are expected to adapt their campaign to include the player rather than vice-versa; and in general they seem to be less effective at DMing than a Random Dungeon/Plot Generator or a splatbook like Red Hand of Doom or Tomb of Horrors.

I mean, the only time a DM in your idealized campaign seems to take a stand about anything is at the very beginning when he refuses to let certain players play based on preferences are arbitrary as any other...and if anything this really makes them worse because, well, it makes them elitist snobs.

Say what you will about my Wrath of the GM spell, at least it shows that I'd rather kill a character than lose a player.

(And to be fair...it did allow a Fortitude save)

A DM isn't an active player in your idealized campaign...he's a slave to the whims of the player character's fantasies! What about the DM's fantasies? Why are they less valid than the PCs?

Hmm.

...damnit I just thought up a campaign setting. I'd have to somehow adapt the Mastermind system from SpyCraft d20 to D&D to make it work fairly...

...but...yeah. I am totally at some point going to start making a campaign setting with the premise of the idea being that the DM is trying to escape the tyranny of the Player Characters. A campaign setting where the construct of the "DM" is a full and complete player in their own right for a change. Like in SpyCraft.

I think it'd just be called the Dungeon Campaign Setting. With the implication that the dungeons aren't what the players quest through, it's rather the entire world, and it's a dungeon in the more classical sense for the DM. And it would be literally Player VS DM, but since we're using the Mastermind system from SpyCraft that'd actually be fair.

...wait this is sounding Ravenloft-ish. Ah, whatever.

[lesser_minion]

Let me take a slightly moderate position then...

(snipped)

Yes, that looks reasonable. I would add that a good idea is a good idea, and it shouldn't matter whether or not it fits with the rules.

And I'm not convinced that the fire hair is appropriate for all or even most games.


The other thing you can gain from just refluffing is a greater sense of setting realism (granted, it's easy to screw it up, but if you don't it can draw your players into the world) and convenience and speed at character creation. I cannot even begin to tell you how often I've managed to same time, effort, and tears by just telling a player, "Hey, just use [CLASS X] and we'll refluff it in the direction you're taking it." Quick, easy, painless, and we get right to the Having Fun portion of the game.

Less hassle I'll give you. But I think the rest can be done better by tying it into the mechanics.

[Rogue Shadows]

snip

I like all of these suggestions, and agree wholeheartedly with your points, with the additional qualify of

4) Players may have some limited control over NPCs important to their characters - the way their mother acts, the number of siblings they have, etc - but ultimately control of NPCs will fall to the DM except in special circumstances.

[sonofzeal]

Yes, that looks reasonable. I would add that a good idea is a good idea, and it shouldn't matter whether or not it fits with the rules.

And I'm not convinced that the fire hair is appropriate for all or even most games.
Granted. I'd err very much on the side of the player so I'd allow fire-hair in a more heroic or high-fantasy game, but agreed that it might be out in a more low-fantasy, gritty campaign.

As long as we agree on the principals though, I'm happy. =)


I like all of these suggestions, and agree wholeheartedly with your points, with the additional qualify of

4) Players may have some limited control over NPCs important to their characters - the way their mother acts, the number of siblings they have, etc - but ultimately control of NPCs will fall to the DM except in special circumstances.
A good addition! Glad you're on board too! These arguments can get divisive enough that it's easy to lose sight of common ground. ^^

[Fax Celestis]

But not how spells work. I did not ask you to create a magic user, I asked you to create a spellcaster. I deliberately chose spells because they unambiguously exist in-universe - there is literally a scroll in-universe somewhere with Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion written on it somewhere in the header - as well as existing in actual, defineable, mechanical terms.
Not how CORE spells work.

[Shadowknight12]

Of course you're point here is that there is no such thing as a "right" way to do it, though there are "wrong" ways...

The only "wrong" way is whatever way insists to be the "right" one.


But seriously? I can accept that it's not the way it's done in some games, but I willing to actually take a stand and say that it is the norm for the DM to have considerably more control than the PCs over NPC appearances.. Which is not to say that PCs don't ever get to influence it, just that it is usually one of those things that the DMs do.

Not really. That's not the norm as far as my experiences go. World-building is hard work, and a lot of DMs are more than glad to have a player take over some aspect. It means less work for them and ensures that the player stays invested.


Now we already know your opinion on that.

Hey, Playgrounders! Sound off.

On a sidenote, S - what do DMs actually do in your idealized campaigns? They don't have control over their own characters appearances; they have to ask player permission to give them anything more horrible than a papercut which leads to them not having full control over NPC personalities, either; they let players run any character using any splatbook, WotC published or otherwise, and are expected to adapt their campaign to include the player rather than vice-versa; and in general they seem to be less effective at DMing than a Random Dungeon/Plot Generator or a splatbook like Red Hand of Doom or Tomb of Horrors.

Oh, let's see.


World-building.
NPC creation.
Plot creation.
Subplots creation.
Locale creation.
Enemy creation.
Adaptation of players' wants and needs into the campaign.
Roleplaying.
Assorted miscellanea, such as mapmaking and the like.
Maintenance of OOC communication between players and DM.
Adjusting the campaign's parameters to keep players satisfied and invested.


And this is exclusively off the top of my head. Get deeper into a given campaign and I'll have a whole new list of things the DM in question has to do.

Everything you said, except for "less effective at DMing" is correct. I would, however, like to see some evidence of such a claim of diminished DM effectiveness, for I consider it a rather uncalled-for and mildly insulting judgement of something you're not even familiar with.


I mean, the only time a DM in your idealized campaign seems to take a stand about anything is at the very beginning when he refuses to let certain players play based on preferences are arbitrary as any other...and if anything this really makes them worse because, well, it makes them elitist snobs.

Say what you will about my Wrath of the GM spell, at least it shows that I'd rather kill a character than lose a player.

Yup, and I'm definitely in favour of elitism and segregation. I believe that people should only game with those they share affinities with, and that people with playing styles that are too diverse should really know better than decide to play together nonetheless. Or, if they do, they should not lament when dissatisfaction makes an appearance.

Say what you will about my method, at least it shows that I'd rather make a player happy than allow the fear of control loss to rule my actions.

EDIT:


(And to be fair...it did allow a Fortitude save)

A DM isn't an active player in your idealized campaign...he's a slave to the whims of the player character's fantasies! What about the DM's fantasies? Why are they less valid than the PCs?

Incorrect. The players are expected to accommodate the DM just like the DM is working to accommodate them. That is precisely why player selection is so important. Players who are not willing to give back as much as the DM is willing to give them are probably not worthy of that DM in the first place.

[Fax Celestis]

That's nice, but every single time anyone ever makes a Spellcraft check against them?

Irrelevant. Spellcraft can't identify all kinds of magic. Psionics, for example, cannot be identified using Spellcraft, instead having its own analogue skill, Psicraft.


If there is a disconnect between mechanics and fluff, then it should be possible to build a spellcaster without actually using the mechanical aspects of spells. Basically you should be able to in-universe cast Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion without mechanically casting Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion.

No, it shouldn't.

Mechanics are restricted access, and you have to achieve their heights through the right sort of leveling. In this instance, you can't cast MMM without either a scroll or enough levels in the right class.

That's not what's being argued.

What's being argued is that the text in the book that describes how a sorcerer does what he does (I AM THE BLOOD OF DRAGONS) is completely malleable.

Watch this.


Sorcerers create magic the way a poet creates poems, with inborn talent honed by practice. They have no books, no mentors, no theories—just raw power that they direct at will.

Some sorcerers claim that the blood of dragons courses through their veins. That claim may even be true in some cases—it is common knowledge that certain powerful dragons can take humanoid form and even have humanoid lovers, and it’s difficult to prove that a given sorcerer does not have a dragon ancestor.

It’s true that sorcerers often have striking good looks, usually with a touch of the exotic that hints at an unusual heritage. Others hold that the claim is either an unsubstantiated boast on the part of certain sorcerers or envious gossip on the part of those who lack the sorcerer’s gift.



Sorcerers create magic the way a poet creates poems, with inborn talent honed by practice. There are few academies that teach this style of magic, but most only practice a stricter approach to spellcasting.

Some sorcerers claim that the blood of faeries courses through their veins. That claim may even be true in some cases—it is common knowledge that certain powerful faeries can take humanoid form and even have humanoid lovers, and it’s difficult to prove that a given sorcerer does not have a faerie ancestor.

It’s true that sorcerers often have striking good looks, usually with a touch of the exotic that hints at an unusual heritage. Others hold that the claim is either an unsubstantiated boast on the part of certain sorcerers or envious gossip on the part of those who lack the sorcerer’s gift.

oh noooo what have i dooooooooooone

I made a fae-blooded, trained sorcerer possible.

[Zale]

YOU'VE DOOOMED US ALLL! :smalleek:

In a more serious tone, I think this thread has gone on far longer than needed.


Everyone has different playstyles. We can just accept this and move on with our lives.

[Rogue Shadows]

{{scrubbed}}

[Shadowknight12]

{{scrubbed}}.

You have a very narrow definition of "worthy." When you apply for a job, you have to present qualifications to get it. You will not get the job if you are not, to the eyes of the interviewer, worthy. You might still not get the job because other people were also worthy and decisions had to be made, but that's besides the point. When you go to college, you will not get a degree unless you pass the necessary courses, that is, unless you are worthy of obtaining the degree. When you seek to pass those courses, you will not do so unless the professor deems you worthy of passing, that is, unless you fulfil whatever qualifications he deems are necessary to pass it.

Being "worthy" of something merely means that you deserve it, and you deserve it only if you fulfil whatever requisites stand between you and it. When you buy something, you are worthy of possessing whatever you bought because you fulfilled the requisite to obtain it, that is, you paid the necessary amount of money to its previous owner and/or maker.

TL;DR: That's not what I meant when I said "worthy."


{{scrubbed}}

I wouldn't know, actually. I've only had to seek out players twice before, and that was way before learning the ins and outs of roleplaying. Usually, when a player asks me to DM for them and I accept, or I offer my DMing services to someone, I merely list all the benefits they will be enjoying and ask them for their cooperation in return.


{{scrubbed}}

And I am 100% opposed to elitism outside optional activities, such as education, healthcare the job market. D&D, however, is an activity that I am not forced to engage in. If I could be doing 10 other things rather than it, I don't actually have to play with people I disagree with.

When you say "only the worthy are allowed to have an education!" I am completely opposed to that. However, I am not opposed to "only those X deems worthy are allowed to play with X!" because there are always other options. You can play with Y or watch a movie or do any other recreational activity that provides you the same benefit as D&D.

What's the point in doing the opposite? In letting everyone in but establishing tight limitations on what each person can do? In the DM and the players constantly fighting for every scrap of power at the table? What for? The occasional moment of joy where something nice happens before they degenerate into arguments again? Or, at the quiet table where nobody fights, the occasional moment of joy between boredom-induced comas?

[lesser_minion]

oh noooo what have i dooooooooooone

I made a fae-blooded, trained sorcerer possible.

I just gave someone a +2 bonus to survival checks in wetland environments. Rest assured that this does no more or less to hasten the end of the world.

If you did something larger and wider reaching to the fluff, you might have a bit more to think about.

Let's take another character. This girl is a futuristic android. She uses the stats of a 6th level human sorcerer, and her 'spells' are actually advanced technology. Among them is a "Genesis Archcannon". It works by firing a quantity of matter and compressing it using magical force until it achieves fusion. In other words, it births stars at people. Mechanically, it deals 6d6 fire damage in a 20 foot spread and has a range of 320 feet.

It's a silly example, but there are plenty of things you should be asking yourself before allowing this girl into your game.

[Rogue Shadows]

What's the point in doing the opposite? In letting everyone in but establishing tight limitations on what each person can do? In the DM and the players constantly fighting for every scrap of power at the table?

Who's fighting? Not me. Not my players. Who's establishing limitations? My most recent campaign was a blend of Kingdom Hearts and Spelljammer where the PCs had practically limitless options and often surprised me on what they were capable of doing or coming up with for plans, to the point where I just assumed that they would always have a solution to a problem and so didn't bother to think up ones of my own.

This actually culminated when they were fighting the...well, let's call it the unintelligent corporeal ghost (Heartless) and the intelligent zombie (Nobody) of my own character. As part of a plot point my own character had functionally "died" in the setting and I was fully prepared to allow her to stay dead.

Instead, they managed to use a magical item I had given them and the magic altar in the fighting area that I had described in extremely unconventional ways that nevertheless still fit in with the fluff of how both should work and so were able to force the Heartless back into the Nobody and bring my character back to life.

That was awesome.

Or going back to my very first campaign, there was an airship spotted in the sky leaving a monastery full of slaughtered monks. I intended it to be a fluffy thing that we'd get back to later and for the airship to be well out of range of my player characters to actually do anything about -

Round 1: Metal tube, alcohol, rock.
Round 2: MacGuyver
Round 3: in three rounds they built a makeshift rocket launcher and shot the airship.

Me: Uh...*d%, turns up a 100* Holy crap the thing works. Make an attack roll. *natural 20, confirmed critical* Holy crap you hit it *d%* it catches fire. *d%* And is falling.

So I told each of the seven players at the time to write on their character sheets "1/7th MacGuyver"

No...there's no fighting with the DM and seldom any boredom at my gaming tables.

[Shadowknight12]

No...there's no fighting with the DM and seldom any boredom at my gaming tables.

If we're using anecdotes as currency, I have my fair share of them, and they all conclude in awesomeness. Yet you say elitism is bad?

[Rogue Shadows]

If we're using anecdotes as currency, I have my fair share of them, and they all conclude in awesomeness. Yet you say elitism is bad?

I don't see how anecdotes relating how I am not playing nor advocating the style you suggest I am, are an example of a belief or atttiude that some individuals, who form an elite, are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most weight.

i.e.,

What's the point in doing the opposite? In letting everyone in but establishing tight limitations on what each person can do? In the DM and the players constantly fighting for every scrap of power at the table?

I don't fight with my players for power, we seldom if ever having boring sessions, and I don't establish tight limitations on what each person can do but rather actively encourage MacGuyvering rocket launchers or coming up with new or interesting uses for established items.

[Fax Celestis]

Let's take another character. This girl is a futuristic android. She uses the stats of a 6th level human sorcerer, and her 'spells' are actually advanced technology. Among them is a "Genesis Archcannon". It works by firing a quantity of matter and compressing it using magical force until it achieves fusion. In other words, it births stars at people. Mechanically, it deals 6d6 fire damage in a 20 foot spread and has a range of 320 feet.

It's a silly example, but there are plenty of things you should be asking yourself before allowing this girl into your game.

Warforged artificer, psion, or sorcerer. I don't really see a problem here. I've played a time-traveling descendant of Merrix d'Cannith trapped in a warforged body before: it's perfectly feasible and the mechanics don't have to change a bit.

[Rogue Shadows]

Warforged artificer, psion, or sorcerer. I don't really see a problem here. I've played a time-traveling descendant of Merrix d'Cannith trapped in a warforged body before: it's perfectly feasible and the mechanics don't have to change a bit.

...but that's not what was posted...

This girl is a futuristic android. She uses the stats of a 6th level human sorcerer...

[Flickerdart]

...but that's not what was posted...

This girl is a futuristic android. She uses the stats of a 6th level human sorcerer...
This man is a frog ninja. He uses the stats of a pelican barbarian.
This woman is a helicopter. She uses the stats of a mind flayer.
This man is a skilled martial artist. He uses the stats of a monk.

What you're saying is "there's a reasonable way to handle this fluff mechanically but let's not use them just so this can be an argument".

[lesser_minion]

Warforged artificer, psion, or sorcerer. I don't really see a problem here. I've played a time-traveling descendant of Merrix d'Cannith trapped in a warforged body before: it's perfectly feasible and the mechanics don't have to change a bit.

So there's nothing wrong with an attack that births a star in someone's face only doing 6d6 damage? Or being available at 6th level?


What you're saying is "there's a reasonable way to handle this fluff mechanically but let's not use them just so this can be an argument".

The point to the example was that not everything should be rubber-stamped just because it uses the 'default' rules. There are limits, in other words.

[Flickerdart]

So there's nothing wrong with an attack that births a star in someone's face only doing 6d6 damage? Or being available at 6th level?
What, you want your attacks to deal more than 6d6 damage at 6th level? Then you gotta work for it. Go to star-creating class, study with a few masters of star-creating, buy a telescope and spend some time stargazing, kill three thousand boars, and look at that, now it deals more damage.

[Fax Celestis]

So there's nothing wrong with an attack that births a star in someone's face only doing 6d6 damage? Or being available at 6th level?

No, I don't think so at all. At 6th level, she's not going to be very good at it, and the star isn't going to last very long, but the point is she can still do it.

I wish more players were that inventive.

[lesser_minion]

What, you want your attacks to deal more than 6d6 damage at 6th level? Then you gotta work for it. Go to star-creating class, study with a few masters of star-creating, buy a telescope and spend some time stargazing, kill three thousand boars, and look at that, now it deals more damage.

While that gets a lot of points for style, I don't think it really answers my point.

Is it reasonable to describe an attack that deals 6d6 damage in a way that implies it does far more and also has powerful side effects that the rules don't reflect? Is it reasonable to describe a character in a way that implies she possesses far more immediately usable power than she does? And is she suitable for every game?

[Shadowknight12]

I don't see how anecdotes relating how I am not playing nor advocating the style you suggest I am, are an example of a belief or atttiude that some individuals, who form an elite, are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most weight.

And I have no idea where are you getting that I'm saying that my views are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most weight. On the contrary, to me, it's you the one that can't abide by other people's diverging playstyles, and feels a need to put them down in order to feel less threatened by them.


i.e.,

What's the point in doing the opposite? In letting everyone in but establishing tight limitations on what each person can do? In the DM and the players constantly fighting for every scrap of power at the table?

I don't fight with my players for power, we seldom if ever having boring sessions, and I don't establish tight limitations on what each person can do but rather actively encourage MacGuyvering rocket launchers or coming up with new or interesting uses for established items.

Good for you. That's not (by far) universal. It's more common for tables to have a "let us all be miserable together because we're too polite to say no" mentality.

[Fax Celestis]

Is it reasonable to describe an attack that deals 6d6 damage in a way that implies it does far more and also has powerful side effects that the rules don't reflect? Is it reasonable to describe a character in a way that implies she possesses far more immediately usable power than she does?

If your answer to both questions is 'yes', then I don't think we're going to come to any kind of agreement any time soon.

Then we're not coming to an agreement.

I take no issue with it: you can call it whatever you like as long as you stick with the mechanics.

Example: I'm going to play a grippli (http://images.wikia.com/greatwar/images/8/87/Grippli.jpg) psychic warrior in an upcoming game. My first power is prevenom weapon, which I'm going to fluff as my grippli licking the arrowhead before shooting someone with it. Grippli don't have poisonous saliva, but poison dart frogs do, and I've fashioned my grippli to appear as a poison dart frog. Thematically, it makes sense, but we all know poison dart frogs don't have Con-damaging poison. Later, when he gets hustle, I'm going to fluff that as him taking a froggish leap. Most of his powers are going to be, basically, froggified, but they change nothing of the mechanics.

[Flickerdart]

While that gets a lot of points for style, I don't think it really answers my point.

Is it reasonable to describe an attack that deals 6d6 damage in a way that implies it does far more and also has powerful side effects that the rules don't reflect? Is it reasonable to describe a character in a way that implies she possesses far more immediately usable power than she does?

If your answer to both questions is 'yes', then I don't think we're going to come to any kind of agreement any time soon.
A normal star is many thousands of times larger than a 20ft radius spread, and its effects persist for a far longer time. It is completely reasonable to assume that a sub-epic spell designed to tap into stellar energy would bring to bear only an infinitely small portion of that power, though still easily capable of killing a person outright, as well as smashing through stone or obliterating furniture completely. There's a big difference between "fusion reaction" and "celestial body", after all.

[Rogue Shadows]

And I have no idea where are you getting that I'm saying that my views are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most weight.

That's...that's kind of what elitism is. I called you an elitist and you agreed, so I made certain baseline assumptions. Apparently those assumptions were wrong, at least according to you, which means that you're not an elitist...and don't know what it means.

Yet everything your saying suggests you are an elitist. So now everyone is confused.


On the contrary, to me, it's you the one that can't abide by other people's diverging playstyles, and feels a need to put them down in order to feel less threatened by them.

Actually it's really specifically the one you described as being typical to you that seems to bug me, though in general I do take issue with innanities such as fire hair that doesn't work or assertions that there is a disconnect between mechanics and fluff, especially since the latter is demonstrateably wrong.

But no, like I said earlier in the thread, it's like you're a reverse mirror image of me. You ban people, I ban splatbooks; you ban players, I ban characters; you allow players what to me seems like an inordinate amount of control over the game world while I allow players what seems to you to be barely any control over their characters; and so on.

Both of us purport to be successful and liked DMs across multiple distinct groups despite both of us having wildly different playstyles.

Your name is even Shadowknight12 and I'm Rogue Shadows. Knight. Rogue. Which doesn't actually fit in with dynamic here because your playstyle seems much more chaotic while mine much more lawful.

The only thing we don't have is opposite-looking avatars, but that's not my fault; I've requested a changeling shadowcaster one twice now and I haven't gotten one. Which is fair, it's busy in the requst-an-avatar thread.

Honestly if I were one of the moderators I'd be looking hard at each of our posts and wondering if we're actually the same person arguing back and forth with ourselves for, I dunno, stuffs n' giggles.

(I've actually done that before on other sites. Its fun. Though I don't recommend doing it on a site you intend to actually hang out at, as getting caught is usually a bannable offense for some bizarre reason).


A normal star is many thousands of times larger than a 20ft radius spread, and its effects persist for a far longer time. It is completely reasonable to assume that a sub-epic spell designed to tap into stellar energy would bring to bear only an infinitely small portion of that power, though still easily capable of killing a person outright, as well as smashing through stone or obliterating furniture completely. There's a big difference between "fusion reaction" and "celestial body", after all.

Yes, but on a character scale the difference is largely irrelevant.

If you don't believe me, go on and set off a fusion bomb some time. Note that it is many times smaller than even the smallest star still capable of fusion. Note that you'll be dead either way unless you've got one Hell of a fridge to hide in, as well as everyone else within a very large radius

[lesser_minion]

There's a big difference between "fusion reaction" and "celestial body", after all.

That is true, but it only goes so far.

I'm not going to try to do the maths for this, but my impression is that a fusion reaction large enough to make a bang worth caring about would also be large enough to rob everyone nearby of their eyesight on a permanent basis, and it would also have some rather icky radiation-related side effects.


I'm going to play a grippli (http://images.wikia.com/greatwar/images/8/87/Grippli.jpg) psychic warrior in an upcoming game. My first power is prevenom weapon, which I'm going to fluff as my grippli licking the arrowhead before shooting someone with it. Grippli don't have poisonous saliva, but poison dart frogs do, and I've fashioned my grippli to appear as a poison dart frog. Thematically, it makes sense, but we all know poison dart frogs don't have Con-damaging poison. Later, when he gets hustle, I'm going to fluff that as him taking a froggish leap. Most of his powers are going to be, basically, froggified, but they change nothing of the mechanics.

There is nothing wrong with this. All of your fluff is reasonable given the mechanics. It presumably fits your game. I don't see anything particularly clichéd. In fact, it doesn't even look very snowflakey.

In other words, it's still not an example of "everything that uses the default mechanics should be rubber-stamped". It's an example of "this one thing should be rubber-stamped because it's pretty nice actually".

[Flickerdart]

Yes, but on a character scale the difference is largely irrelevant.

If you don't believe me, go on and set off a fusion bomb some time. Note that it is many times smaller than even the smallest star still capable of fusion. Note that you'll be dead either way unless you've got one Hell of a fridge to hide in, as well as everyone else within a very large radius
A fusion bomb is not, however, an appropriate effect for a 3rd level spell. Therefore, we scale down the reaction. If you were at all familiar with the technology involved, you'd know that such a bomb is more complicated than "fusion happens and things explode". Pure fission bombs do not, in fact, exist - fusion is used to boost the effects of the fission component. Since none is present here, the effect is lessened dramatically.

That is true, but it only goes so far. And there are still going to be side-effects -- all the icky things large releases of radiation do to people, for example.
It wouldn't be a "large" release of anything.

[Shadowknight12]

That's...that's kind of what elitism is. I called you an elitist and you agreed, so I made certain baseline assumptions. Apparently those assumptions were wrong, at least according to you, which means that you're not an elitist...and don't know what it means.

Yet everything your saying suggests you are an elitist. So now everyone is confused.

I advocate for the freedom of choosing who not to play with. If that makes me, in your opinion, an elitist, so be it. I don't mind. I do not believe for a second that my way is the right way or that my opinions carry more weight than other people's, however. If others want to put on a happy face and make the best of whatever fellow players they happen to game with, all the more power to them. I'm not one of them. If I'm not reasonably sure that my time/energy investment will be returned in the form of fun, I won't join a game or DM.


Actually it's really specifically the one you described as being typical to you that seems to bug me, though in general I do take issue with innanities such as fire hair that doesn't work or assertions that there is a disconnect between mechanics and fluff, especially since the latter is demonstrateably wrong.

Amusing, how you've failed to demonstrate such a thing.


But no, like I said earlier in the thread, it's like you're a reverse mirror image of me. You ban people, I ban splatbooks; you ban players, I ban characters; you allow players what to me seems like an inordinate amount of control over the game world while I allow players what seems to you to be barely any control over their characters; and so on.

Both of us purport to be successful and liked DMs across multiple distinct groups despite both of us having wildly different playstyles.

Your name is even Shadowknight12 and I'm Rogue Shadows. Knight. Rogue. Which ironically actually even fits in with dynamic here because your playstyle seems much more lawful while mine much more chaotic.

The only thing we don't have is opposite-looking avatars, but that's not my fault; I've requested a changeling shadowcaster one twice now and I haven't gotten one. Which is fair, it's busy in the requst-an-avatar thread.

Yes, I've noticed. I'd say it's ironic, but I usually associate irony with something pleasant. So I'll just call it "strange."

Either way, I think that this definitely proves that no playstyle is the right one and that people will have fun with DMs who have wildly different philosophies. If anything, it proves the old truism that "as long as the players have fun, the DM might well be [insert awful person here] and they won't mind."


Honestly if I were one of the moderators I'd be looking hard at each of our posts and wondering if we're actually the same person arguing back and forth with ourselves for, I dunno, stuffs n' giggles.

(I've actually done that before on other sites. Its fun).

I was a mod on another forum for a few years. Believe me, our IPs will speak the truth.

[Rogue Shadows]

A fusion bomb is not, however, an appropriate effect for a 3rd level spell. Therefore, we scale down the reaction. If you were at all familiar with the technology involved, you'd know that such a bomb is more complicated than "fusion happens and things explode". Pure fission bombs do not, in fact, exist - fusion is used to boost the effects of the fission component. Since none is present here, the effect is lessened dramatically.

Um...actually ironically I've been working on a story, the writing of which involves me looking over fusion and fission, so the first thing I notice here is starting with "pure" you've got fission and fusion reversed. Pure fusion bombs do not, in fact ,exist, etc.

Secondly you're right that fusion is a bit more complicated than "fusion happens and things explode," but using a spell and describing it as birthing a small star means that this is precisely what the spell is intending to represent, fundamentally. Even the fusion of a single pair of hydrogen atoms would release tremendous amounts of energy, tremendously more than is being suggested by the power of the spell. Heat, light, radiation, all would be far larger than your typical two-or-three-kilometer-radius patch of land (or, more precisely, everything in that radius) could actually withstand.

So the mage may think that they're birthing a small star, but that is not meshing at all with the spell's effects or mechanics.

...I need to get back to that story. I was posting it at Alternatehistory.com but then found this board and haven't updated it or been on that site for two months now. Premise: aliens crash in 1935 Italy. Told from the alien perspective.


Amusing, how you've failed to demonstrate such a thing.

Spells!

Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion is an actual thing that exists in-game as an arcane spell of the Conjuration school, both of which are also actual in-game constructs.

If you can't create a character that can in-game cast Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion as an arcane spell of the Conjuration school, without using the mechanics provided to create it as such (e.g., arcane spellcasting), then that ipso facto means that you need the mechanics to make the fluff work!

Remember that I'm using Modenkainen's Magnificent Mansion specifically, here, as I like typing it out. The same works for any spell, though. If you cannot in-universe cast dimension door as an arcane spell, both of which are fluffy, without taking levels in an arcane spellcasting class, which is crunchy, then that means that you need the crunch (the class) to make the fluff (the action of casting the spell as an arcane spell) work - which means that there is not a disconnect between fluff and crunch. Not always.

[Shadowknight12]

Spells!

Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion is an actual thing that exists in-game as an arcane spell of the Conjuration school, both of which are also actual in-game constructs.

If you can't create a character that can in-game cast Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion as an arcane spell of the Conjuration school, without using the mechanics provided to create it as such (e.g., arcane spellcasting), then that ipso facto means that you need the mechanics to make the fluff work!

Remember that I'm using Modenkainen's Magnificent Mansion specifically, here, as I like typing it out. The same works for any spell, though. If you cannot in-universe cast dimension door as an arcane spell, both of which are fluffy, without taking levels in an arcane spellcasting class, which is crunchy, then that means that you need the crunch (the class) to make the fluff (the action of casting the spell as an arcane spell) work!

Use Magic Device would beg to differ. A race with your chosen spell as a SLA would beg to differ. A race or class with a supernatural ability that emulates your chosen spell (Medusa for Flesh to Stone and Monk for Feather Fall, Tongues or Dimension Door, for example) would beg to differ.

And there are mundane ways to emulate spells, too. Take the spell Cloud of Knives from the PHBII. A beguiler with Cloaked Casting that hurls knife after knife at his foes is not that different from a rogue with Quick Draw and a whole lot of daggers.

If you are going to measure spells by the mechanical effect they have, you cannot forbid mechanical ways to get them. You cannot say "Cast Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion without casting Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion!" That's nonsensical. You can, say, however, "Cast something that looks like Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion without actually casting Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion!" That can be arranged, and that's what refluffing is about. What you are asking is the equivalent of asking someone to build you a fighter without taking the fighter class, and when they do so, complain that they don't have the fighter class.

[lesser_minion]

A fusion bomb is not, however, an appropriate effect for a 3rd level spell. Therefore, we scale down the reaction. If you were at all familiar with the technology involved, you'd know that such a bomb is more complicated than "fusion happens and things explode". Pure fission bombs do not, in fact, exist - fusion is used to boost the effects of the fission component. Since none is present here, the effect is lessened dramatically.

Is it possible to ask whether or not birthing an artificial mini-star is too powerful an effect for a 3rd level spell without bringing in nuclear physics? I'm not really in the mood for killing catgirls today.

In any event, what happens if, instead of the Genesis Archcannon compressing some non-specific 'matter' with a shaped wall of force until it achieves fusion, we use that function on a creature, or part of a creature?

Is the result suitable for a 3rd level spell? Is the result a different spell? If it's a different spell, why does it take more juice despite supposedly being the exact same action? If we can't do it at all, why not?

[Rogue Shadows]

Use Magic Device would beg to differ.

Use Magic Device is not casting something as an arcane spell.


A race with your chosen spell as a SLA would beg to differ. A race or class with a supernatural ability that emulates your chosen spell (Medusa for Flesh to Stone and Monk for Feather Fall, Tongues or Dimension Door, for example) would beg to differ.

Nope, because none of these are casting something as an arcane spell. Again: this is an actual, in-universe action. There really is in D&D all sorts of fluff surrounding arcane spells and their casting. There is seperate fluff surrounding spell-like abilities and supernatural abilities and Use Magic Device.

If you can't cast Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion as an arcane spell without actually being, mechanically, an arcane spellcaster, then that means that you need the mechanics to make the fluff work. It's really that simple.


And there are mundane ways to emulate spells, too. Take the spell Cloud of Knives from the PHBII. A beguiler with Cloaked Casting that hurls knife after knife at his foes is not that different from a rogue with Quick Draw and a whole lot of daggers.

Antimagic field.

...

...it also makes attack rolls differently and deals more and different damage, and has a larger range than throwing a knife.

So in fact, apart from the idea of hitting something at a range with a knife, they function quite differently.


If you are going to measure spells by the mechanical effect they have, you cannot forbid mechanical ways to get them. You cannot say "Cast Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion without casting Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion!" That's nonsensical.

Yes, you're beginning to see the point, then. Or, more likely, not.


You can, say, however, "Cast something that looks like Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion without actually casting Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion!" That can be arranged, and that's what refluffing is about. What you are asking is the equivalent of asking someone to build you a fighter without taking the fighter class, and when they do so, complain that they don't have the fighter class.

Actually what I'm doing is asking someone to build a spellcaster without using a spell-casting class. It's actually quite possible to build, say, a fighter without making it a Fighter. Warblade, Barbarian, Samurai...

...maybe not samurai...

...anyway, you can refluff any of these things and still get something that is, mechanically, capable of fighting just as well or even better than a Fighter (except samurai). But you can't refluff something that isn't arcane spellcasting and claim that it is because arcane spellcasting in-universe follows numerous in-universe rules that Kyria simply fails at, and the people in-universe who actually can cast arcane spells are going to have an easy time noticing that Kyria isn't what she claims to be.

[ImperatorK]

Is the result suitable for a 3rd level spell? Is the result a different spell? If it's a different spell, why does it take more juice despite supposedly being the exact same action? If we can't do it at all, why not?
Magic works in mysterious ways. A cantrip that lights your cigarette on fire can actually be a micro-super-nova that is created in by the spell. Or it can be a mini-portal to Hell and the baatorian fire is lighting the cigarette.
A spell might look like it does something grandiose, but the end effect is what matters.

[Rogue Shadows]

Magic works in mysterious ways. A cantrip that lights your cigarette on fire can actually be a micro-super-nova that is created in by the spell. Or it can be a mini-portal to Hell and the baatorian fire is lighting the cigarette.
A spell might look like it does something grandiose, but the end effect is what matters.

I'm pretty sure the latter example would be a an [evil] spell by definition, and the former would still release enough gamma radiation to kill at the very least the person casting the spell unless it was too small to actually light the cigarette.

I mean...it's a friggin' supernova, it should at least require a Fortitude save.

Do you know how much radiation there is simply in open space, never mind near supernovas?

[ImperatorK]

Catgirls, man, the poor catgirls.
And also, I don't care.

[lesser_minion]

Magic works in mysterious ways. A cantrip that lights your cigarette on fire can actually be a micro-super-nova that is created in by the spell. Or it can be a mini-portal to Hell and the baatorian fire is lighting the cigarette.

Note that we aren't discussing magic.

More to the point, neither of your examples prove anything -- the functional effect of your cigarette lighting spell is itself fluff, and neither of your suggestions have a particularly grandiose way of going about it (creating a portal to hell is analogous to what fire spells are implied to do anyway, and a 'magical micro-supernova' is just a magic spark dressed up to sound cool).

[Shadowknight12]

Use Magic Device is not casting something as an arcane spell.

You speak in mechanical terms. That is illogical. You cannot set the parameters for request fulfilment in mechanical terms, then forbid mechanical ways to achieve them. That renders the request impossible to fulfil and has no bearing on whether fluff can or cannot be divorced from mechanics.


Nope, because none of these are casting something as an arcane spell. Again: this is an actual, in-universe action. There really is in D&D all sorts of fluff surrounding arcane spells and their casting. There is seperate fluff surrounding spell-like abilities and supernatural abilities and Use Magic Device.

What you're not seeing is that a rogue who keeps his wand hidden on a sleeve, waves his hands about and mumbles mumbo-jumbo as he performs his UMD check is visually indistinguishable from a wizard casting that same spell. Mechanically they are different, yes, but fluff-wise, they are identical.


If you can't cast Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion as an arcane spell without actually being, mechanically, an arcane spellcaster, then that means that you need the mechanics to make the fluff work. It's really that simple.

No. You are still speaking in mechanical terms. None of what you're saying has any bearing on fluff. What you're saying is that you need mechanical ways to produce specific mechanical effects. That is absolutely correct. Still utterly unrelated to fluff.


Antimagic field.

...

...it also makes attack rolls differently and deals more and different damage, and has a larger range than throwing a knife.

So in fact, apart from the idea of hitting something at a range with a knife, they function quite differently.

The beguiler is in Faerun, worships Mystra and has that feat that lets him cast in an AMF. Or has that 9th level spell that specifically bypasses AMF when casting another spell.

"Makes attacks roll differently," = Mechanical term, unrelated to fluff = invalid.
"deals more and different damage," = Mechanical terms, unrelated to fluff = invalid.

What you're dismissing (i.e., "hitting something at a range with a knife") is precisely what fluff is about. Fluff is not about amount of damage or attack rolls, fluff is about the senses. How things look like, smell like, sound like, taste like and feel like. It's not about intangible things like the amount of damage it deals or the type of attack roll. Sure, mechanics influence fluff (a higher amount of damage will feel more painful than a lower amount) but it doesn't chain it. If one way deals more damage than the other, it merely hurts more, it doesn't make it "not a spell," because "not a spell" is only discernible via mechanics.


Yes, you're beginning to see the point, then. Or, more likely, not.

Actually what I'm doing is asking someone to build a spellcaster without using a spell-casting class. It's actually quite possible to build, say, a fighter without making it a Fighter. Warblade, Barbarian, Samurai...

...maybe not samurai...

...anyway, you can refluff any of these things and still get something that is, mechanically, capable of fighting just as well or even better than a Fighter (except samurai). But you can't refluff something that isn't arcane spellcasting and claim that it is because arcane spellcasting in-universe follows numerous in-universe rules that Kyria simply fails at, and the people in-universe who actually can cast arcane spells are going to have an easy time noticing that Kyria isn't what she claims to be.

The bolded part is your mistake. Arcane spellcasting, mechanically, follows rules that Kyria fails at. But these rules need not have actual fluff correlations. Not all arcane spellcasting fades in antimagic field (Orb of Fire, I'm looking at you), so what's so strange about one spell fading (Hennet's Cloud of Knives) and another one remaining (Kyria's fake Cloud of Knives)? Yes, mechanically, we all know why this happens. But that doesn't mean that in-universe, that is known. You can't prove that in-universe, people know with 100% certainty what an AMF does and doesn't do, and how to tell the difference between a spell being cast and a fake replication (without a Spellcraft check, at any rate).

You are ascribing to the people in-universe knowledge that they are not said to have anywhere.

[Kojiro]

Late to this, but:

Roleplay a spellcaster. That is, someone actually capable of casting spells, not someone who just thinks they can, or who can trick others into thinking he can.

But do it without playing a bard, cleric, druid, paladin, ranger, sorcerer, or wizard, and without ranks in Use Magic Device.

Gnome Fighter. Dancing Lights or Prestidigitation during some attacks for magical effects, or just as magic. It's sword magic. Or make them a Ranger and they can Dancing Lights something and then shoot it.

Also, I think that Zeal's "rules" from... Some amount of pages ago, maybe two, work pretty well, although really that's more or less how I believed it should work already.

[Rogue Shadows]

Also, I think that Zeal's "rules" from... Some amount of pages ago, maybe two, work pretty well, although really that's more or less how I believed it should work already.

Same here. He even agreed when I added a fourth rule: "As players control the PCs, the DM controls the NPCs."

[GuyLoki]

I don't think it can be argued that in fact some things are mechanics of the world and very specific.

Spells are a good example of that. And yes, you cannot 'cast' an arcane spell without being an 'arcane spellcaster'. You can however appear to cast it in a number of ways. A racial ability, Use Magic Device, casting Miracle (its divine!), or having a magic item that reproduces the effect WITHOUT needing UMD.

In the IC world you can create a fighter who effectively has the appearance of being a wizard. He sits and reads a book every morning, he has rings, boots, gloves, a belt, etc that all create spell effects by command word. He points his finger and says a whole bunch of jibberish and a single command word and poof, fireball happens.

Plus when someone comes close thinking "I will grapple this wizard, that will take care of him" they find out that he is in fact an incredible hand to hand combatant"

No, its not an optimized method for pretending to be a wizard. It might not be smart. But it would work.

[Zale]

I just gave someone a +2 bonus to survival checks in wetland environments. Rest assured that this does no more or less to hasten the end of the world.

If you did something larger and wider reaching to the fluff, you might have a bit more to think about.

Let's take another character. This girl is a futuristic android. She uses the stats of a 6th level human sorcerer, and her 'spells' are actually advanced technology. Among them is a "Genesis Archcannon". It works by firing a quantity of matter and compressing it using magical force until it achieves fusion. In other words, it births stars at people. Mechanically, it deals 6d6 fire damage in a 20 foot spread and has a range of 320 feet.

It's a silly example, but there are plenty of things you should be asking yourself before allowing this girl into your game.

That is the coolest example I've ever seen.

Ohhh. Are you using this as a negative example? For why not to refluff?

Sorry, but I can't tell. :smallfrown:

[Thiyr]

Let's take another character. This girl is a futuristic android. She uses the stats of a 6th level human sorcerer, and her 'spells' are actually advanced technology. Among them is a "Genesis Archcannon". It works by firing a quantity of matter and compressing it using magical force until it achieves fusion. In other words, it births stars at people. Mechanically, it deals 6d6 fire damage in a 20 foot spread and has a range of 320 feet.

It's a silly example, but there are plenty of things you should be asking yourself before allowing this girl into your game.

Honestly, this example to me doesn't seem silly at all, and I'm not seeing any issue at all with this. I think the only real change I'd make, in fact, would be to say she is some form of bio-android rather than a purely mechanical one, or otherwise should be a warforged. why don't I care about the Genesis Archcannon? Because


(creating a portal to hell is analogous to what fire spells are implied to do anyway, and a 'magical micro-supernova' is just a magic spark dressed up to sound cool).

The bolded part is the part i wish to emphasize, because that's the whole point. a magical micro-supernova lighting your cigar is just a magic spark dressed up to sound cool. Birthing a star at someone is just a fireball dressed up to sound cool. You won't be blinded/irradiated by this just as much as I can't light up my cig and then find a chunk of gold where the fire was.

[lesser_minion]

Are you using this as a negative example? For why not to refluff?

It was meant to be an example of the kind of things you might want to think about if you do refluff something. For example:

Science fiction isn't what D&D is about. This character might be absolutely great in some games, but she'd be Special Snowflake Syndrome incarnate in others.
Her fluff isn't really consistent with her mechanics -- the weapons she uses are implied to be more powerful than the crunch says they are (I made a complete hash of that point, but the idea still stands).

[Zale]

It was meant to be an example of the kind of things you might want to think about if you do refluff something. For example:

Science fiction isn't what D&D is about. This character might be absolutely great in some games, but she'd be Special Snowflake Syndrome incarnate in others.
Her fluff isn't really consistent with her mechanics -- the weapons she uses are implied to be more powerful than the crunch says they are (I made a complete hash of that point, but the idea still stands).


I still think it is a very interesting idea. Being a Special Snowflake isn't a deadly sin punishable by instant demise, after all.

Most murderous wandering hobos are Special Snowflakes after all. At least to a degree.

[Terazul]

It was meant to be an example of the kind of things you might want to think about if you do refluff something. For example:

Science fiction isn't what D&D is about. This character might be absolutely great in some games, but she'd be Special Snowflake Syndrome incarnate in others.
Her fluff isn't really consistent with her mechanics -- the weapons she uses are implied to be more powerful than the crunch says they are (I made a complete hash of that point, but the idea still stands).


Well uhh. That actually varies from campaign to campaign. The last major D&D campaign I was in was very magitech/science fictiony. My Shaper just sat around making astral construct robots. One time I made one with mobility menu choices and decided it looked like a motorcycle and rode it around for the duration. So yeah, there's something that can be said for at least paying attention to what the setting is like, but I still don't get the kerfuffle over a flaming head of hair when my other party member is a 6 foot tall insect man quad wielding greatswords or something while proclaiming he's the Duchess of York.

The point of that being most things are already really eccentric; tiny details like that honestly don't affect much unless you go out of your way to make them. Like the Rogue thing, anyone who goes through a painstakingly extensive and very specific process to uncover what they're doing will go "oh, it's just a parlour trick". Well yes, but that doesn't mean they can't call themselves a Wizard/Mage/Conjurer, given the exceedingly common man won't be able to tell the difference. Honestly, what's so wrong with wanting your character to stand out a bit from the rest of the crowd?

And the weapon is a prototype for a bigger version. Needs work. I mean after all, she's level 6. That character is a girl after my own heart, as I love crushing enemies with (fabricated or otherwise) celestial bodies.

[Zale]

Well uhh. That actually varies from campaign to campaign. The last major D&D campaign I was in was very magitech/science fictiony. My Shaper just sat around making astral construct robots. One time I made one with mobility menu choices and decided it looked like a motorcycle and rode it around for the duration. So yeah, there's something that can be said for at least paying attention to what the setting is like, but I still don't get the kerfuffle over a flaming head of hair when my other party member is a 6 foot tall insect man quad wielding greatswords or something while proclaiming he's the Duchess of York.

The point of that being most things are already really eccentric; tiny details like that honestly don't affect much unless you go out of your way to make them. Like the Rogue thing, anyone who goes through a painstakingly extensive and very specific process to uncover what they're doing will go "oh, it's just a parlour trick". Well yes, but that doesn't mean they can't call themselves a Wizard/Mage/Conjurer, given the exceedingly common man won't be able to tell the difference. Honestly, what's so wrong with wanting your character to stand out a bit from the rest of the crowd?

And the weapon is a prototype for a bigger version. Needs work. I mean after all, she's level 6. That character is a girl after my own heart, as I love crushing enemies with (fabricated or otherwise) celestial bodies.


That campaign sounds like it was awesome, just utterly awesome. :smallbiggrin:

May I sig that bolded part, by the way?

[Terazul]

That campaign sounds like it was awesome, just utterly awesome. :smallbiggrin:

May I sig that bolded part, by the way?

Go nuts! Enjoy the zany.

[Shadowknight12]

The point of that being most things are already really eccentric; tiny details like that honestly don't affect much unless you go out of your way to make them. Like the Rogue thing, anyone who goes through a painstakingly extensive and very specific process to uncover what they're doing will go "oh, it's just a parlour trick". Well yes, but that doesn't mean they can't call themselves a Wizard/Mage/Conjurer, given the exceedingly common man won't be able to tell the difference. Honestly, what's so wrong with wanting your character to stand out a bit from the rest of the crowd?

This, so much this. Basically, my entire posture on this debate is "don't sweat the details, roll with it, spend your time and energy on the stuff that actually matters."

[Lord_Gareth]

So despite getting a result which strongly suggests that Sileia is a high- to epic-level bard, with all the experience, encounters, meeting NPCs, wisdom of past adventures, and so on, that that entails...she has absolutely no way of knowing what she's looking at, and in fact it's a miracle that she was even able to determine an elf, a dragon, and a bear on sight?

Part of this is that there's multiple, completely indistinguishable ways to achieve the effects that your epic-level bard just saw, and the list is probably longer than I could rattle off the top of my head (hell, two of them are literally identical - use of animal companion and wildshape, namely). She might pull some relevant facts about the elf maiden in question, but that doesn't necessarily mean she knows her capabilities. She might know, for example, that she and her wolf companion once brought down a fiendish champion in Baator's Grand Arena and even that she did so by turning into a pterodactyl and raining hell upon him from the sky with magic, but with so many different ways to do exactly that, good fraggin' luck coming up with which one.




I'm sorry, but a free action is not instant. It consumes a very small amount of time, and the DM is free to limit the number that can be performed per turn (I usually allow essentially unlimited talking, but only 2 free actions).

Further, note that there is a difference between casting a spell and the spell resolving. Take, say, magic missile, which has a casting time of a standard action, but a duration of "instantaneous." In this case instantaneous means that the effect of the spell comes and goes the moment the spell is cast, though the result can linger (e.g. cure light wounds).

In this case, "summoning" her knife isn't instantaneous: it takes as long as a free action takes, which is a short but decidedly non-zero amount of time.

The "spell" is also a free action, which is weird.

You appear to be adding things where I didn't say them. I'm not sure what you're imagining here, but here's what I'm imagining:

Free action: Kyria invokes some verbal and somatic components and opens her free hand.

Effect: Knife appears in her hand.

So you have the free action spell cast (the use of Quick Draw) followed by the instantaneous effect (knife appears). No Sleight of Hand or other skill check necessary, as the action itself is perfectly obvious, as is the knife itself appearing - after all, it's not like it's an invisible knife. It's just a different way of interpreting how she Quick Draws her objects.


Oh! I thought of another problem! Metamagic definitely exists in fluff as well as in crunch. Why can't Kyria's spells be metamagic'd?

She doesn't have the feats or training? Her spells are incompatible with normal theories of metamagic? Hell, maybe they can be metamagic'd with a little bit of refluffing - such as, say, taking Arterial Strike to "metamagic" her storm of steel [Sneak Attack] effect.


But not how spells work. I did not ask you to create a magic user, I asked you to create a spellcaster. I deliberately chose spells because they unambiguously exist in-universe - there is literally a scroll in-universe somewhere with Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion written on it somewhere in the header - as well as existing in actual, defineable, mechanical terms.

If there is a disconnect between mechanics and fluff, then it should be possible to build a spellcaster without actually using the mechanical aspects of spells. Basically you should be able to in-universe cast Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion without mechanically casting Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion.

Look dude, nothing about Kyria's actions is inconsistent with the fluff of spells in general; they have a somatic component, in many cases they possess a verbal component, and they produce a measurable effect that alters the world around her. If you want something to produce something similar, flavor-wise, to the specific spells in the PHB then you should have laid that down as part of the challenge; you didn't. Sure, by RAW she's missing a few bits that spellcasting has by RAW (oh, hey, by the by, all the things you've been complaining about with skill checks are still mechanics) but by RAW they aren't "spells" either, they're levels in Rogue. We aren't talking RAW. We're talking flavor.


Because a soulknife is not a spellcaster.

Irrelevant. He's manifesting a supernatural ability in an anti-supernatural-crap-field. Obviously it's not impossible, which was the whole reason of bringing it up. For that matter, golems, zombies, et cetera, so forth.


Anyway, we'll say that this Commoner lived in Kyria's home town during her training so he knows her as she is just entering her delusions of magical aptitude, has known her for her whole life (not personally, but knows of her) and gets to see her at a very low level. He of course has no concept of "low-level," but he certainly has a concept of a young girl just as she's beginning to go insane and start claiming she can cast spells.

You are aware that the whole point of refluffing is finding a brand new explanation for mechanics, right? It's not "delusions"; she's causing an actual effect that looks for all the world like a spell. Sure, all the feats and class features that do it are (Ex), but if you read the description on (Ex) abilities that doesn't actually mean a hell of a lot.


She casts a "spell" one day, he sees and rolls an 18, for a total of 25. 25 is more than enough to identify up to 9th-level spells as they are being cast, so he literally should not fail this under any circumstance because he knows for a fact that she is a very young, new spellcaster who could not possibly know any spells that test the limits of his knowledge of spells.

If he's that versed in magic he should be well aware that new phenomena come up all the time; even apprentices sometimes invent new spells, and it's not out of thought entirely for Kyria to have come up with an entirely unique spread of effect. Since she's first level at this time, the only "spell" she knows is her storm of steel effect [Sneak Attack], so if he asks her, "Hey, where'd you learn that?" and she says, "Well, I made it," the problem is solved right there. He certainly knows what it looks like now.


So now at this point...looks like a crazy person, acts like a crazy person...is a crazy person. Tabitha and the Commoner start spreading the word and checking the Yellow Pages to see if there's a mental ward nearby that can keep Player Characters in.

See above. Tabitha would know it even better than the Commoner would.


Never mind what's going to happen when Kyria tries pulling off "magic" within sight of a market guard, an elf ranger, or anyone else with a decent Spot check that sees her Sleight of Hand. Especially seeing as the fluff makes it seem like she's taking a -20 penalty each time she does it in order to do it as a free action.

See the above explanation; Kyria isn't using any skill checks to draw her knives. Now, if she wants to conceal her components and draw her weapon in secret (which is what that skill check is for), then she's making the Sleight of Hand skill check. Otherwise her action is patently obvious for everyone to see, just as normal; she summons a knife to her hand.

You seem to be under the impression that Kyria is using mundane tricks and claiming to be magical, which would be entirely missing the point; refluffing her as a spellcaster means she's actually doing something "magical". She's not deluded, she's not faking, and it's not a trick; it's a new line of spells or a new brand of spellcasting entirely, which meets all of the conditions known in 3.5 for using spells or spell-like abilities. I will again reiterate that I have met the challenge you laid down and, I like to think, rather exceeded it.

[Hecuba]

Being a Special Snowflake isn't a deadly sin punishable by instant demise, after all.

I disagree. It should, at very least, get you lobotomized before it progresses into Mary-Sue-itis.



What you're not seeing is that a rogue who keeps his wand hidden on a sleeve, waves his hands about and mumbles mumbo-jumbo as he performs his UMD check is visually indistinguishable from a wizard casting that same spell. Mechanically they are different, yes, but fluff-wise, they are identical.

You're presuming here that there is not in-universe, privileged reference frame. That is, that there is not the possibility of omniscience. If there is, then there is the possibility of someone/something in the setting objectively knowing the difference.

More through refluffing can avoid this, but that makes a larger footprint on interoperability: if the rogue is not using a wand but merely something we treat mechanically as a wand, then how should others in the setting treat it fluff-wise. What, in terms of fluff, is that stick up his sleeve and who can make it work?

[Vandicus]

More through refluffing can avoid this, but that makes a larger footprint interoperability: if the rogue is not using a wand but merely something we treat mechanically as a wand, then how should others in the setting treat it fluff-wise. What, in terms of fluff, is that stick up his sleeve and who can make it work?

It is his wand. He's Harry Potter. Mages like him need wands to augment their abilities :smallbiggrin:

[Zale]

I disagree. It should, at very least, get you lobotomized before it progresses into Mary-Sue-itis.


Special person =/= Mary Sue.

How many of our characters would qualify as "Normal" or "Average"?

Unless you're a level two commoner/expert, you are special.

It becomes a problem when people go overboard with it.

[Shadowknight12]

I disagree. It should, at very least, get you lobotomized before it progresses into Mary-Sue-itis.

Some people are just special. Some people just don't fit in, don't belong, are outside the norm. These people exist in real life, and would rightly exist in D&D as well. Mary Sue is a person who has all the powers, all the virtues, all the good stuff and none of the flaws, drawbacks or costs. She is not Mary Sue because she's special. She's Mary Sue because she's a pathetic, two-dimensional character who is disgustingly perfect.


You're presuming here that there is not in-universe, privileged reference frame. That is, that there is not the possibility of omniscience. If there is, then there is the possibility of someone/something in the setting objectively knowing the difference.

More through refluffing can avoid this, but that makes a larger footprint on interoperability: if the rogue is not using a wand but merely something we treat mechanically as a wand, then how should others in the setting treat it fluff-wise. What, in terms of fluff, is that stick up his sleeve and who can make it work?

That is correct. There is nothing that indicates that omniscience is achievable in-universe for anyone other than overdeities. Maybe deities, but even that is not that clear.

To me, that's the beauty of such a way. It can be anything. It doesn't have to be one thing, it can be many. Maybe the rogue doesn't use a stick, maybe we simply say he's using that, mechanically, but instead he's been subject to terrible arcane experiments and he's gained the ability to consume the magic sealed away in a magical item in order to fuel his own powers. Mechanically, Alice the rogue is doing the same thing as Bob the rogue, but Alice's fluff says that she's draining magic from the wand to feed her own powers while Bob's fluff says that he's a Harry Potter-style wizard who uses a wand as a mere focus through which he focuses his spells.

Then Timmy the little rogue picks up another wand and he does another completely different thing: he uses the wand to tell his invisible magical friends where to cast spells towards. To him, the wand is just a stick, the magic comes from the creatures only he can see. Mechanically, he's another rogue using UMD.

[jseah]

Mechanically, he's another rogue using UMD.
Mechanically, they can all pass the same wand around and have only one effect come out of it.

Imagine this scenario:
Alice has a wand of charm
Bob has a wand of scorching ray
Timmy has a wand of knock

One day, while out making mischief on a bunch of very confused wizards, they get caught. The guards strip them down and remove all their weapons and armour. With the wizards' detect magic to help them, they remove Alice and Bob's wands.
Timmy's imaginary friends, however, told him to wear a lead lined shirt today and he hides his wand up his sleeve. Not believing they can't find his wand, the wizards break his fingers and leave them all in the same cell overnight.

Now Timmy can't use his wand due to his broken fingers (can't do somatic components, call this homebrew). To him, he can't point his stick to guide his imaginary friends to open the cell door for him.

Alice picks up his useless stick (read: wand) and opens the door with it by draining magic out of a useless stick that registers as magic to a detect spell. Alice returns his wand.

In their jailbreak, Alice gets caught, but Timmy and Bob manage to get to the courtyard. Bob borrows Timmy's wand and focuses his magical energies through a useless stick to open the jail gates.

See the problem?
Mechanically, it's just a bunch of rogues passing around a wand of knock. Fluff-wise, it makes no sense at all. Furthermore, neither Alice nor Bob have demonstrated any ability to "cast" knock until that point in time.

EDIT: I'm not saying that some explanation cannot be invented. Given a few hours to think about it, I could come up with a satisfactory explanation myself. It's just that such explanations come afterwards, which can create even more problems down the line.

[The Glyphstone]

Wouldn't the easiest fluff explanation be that Timmy is a delusional nutcase?

[jseah]

I still think it is a very interesting idea. Being a Special Snowflake isn't a deadly sin punishable by instant demise, after all.

Most murderous wandering hobos are Special Snowflakes after all. At least to a degree.
Actually, this brings up the other key difference.

Our tolerance for special cases are too different for us to agree.
Perhaps to you, the robot who shoots suns from her arm cannon is all right, but with me as a GM, that's FAR too special. If I had a player request to join a game I run with this sort of character, I'd instantly reject it.
Even warforged are kinda iffy unless I'm running a magic heavy campaign.

I want my setting to contain things that are plausible for the setting. And ONLY those things. Often, this is the reason why I cut out every other plane apart from Prime Material, Ethereal and Astral. And then only allow humanoid or human-shaped races.

[Terazul]

I still don't see how it can be "far too special" when it's still within the realm of rules. It's just fireball. Just described differently. Even if other people hear that description, they go "oh I see, she shoots a giant ball of fire", assuming they can even grasp what she's describing. Though some of the higher intelligence Wiz/Psion/Insertthinghere might catch on, and see it's just another way of replicating something they do. I mean that guy over there's fireball is the rage of his ancestors given tangible form, and this dude's is a shortlived rift to the Elemental Plane of Fire that just exists long enough to blow something up. Still fireball.

See? Flavor. No, it doesn't have to have any extra mechanical things to make it special unless you go out of your way to claim it has to, and then use it as an excuse for the character being too special. It's not like the character is demanding special treatment, or that it also has to have gravitational effects, be used as a new energy source, and for all worshipers of Pelor to bow before her might.

It's a damn fireball.

Also, you must hate summoners. And Elementals. And Demons. And Devils. And Celestials. And alot of the other wacky stuff that shows up in a D&D Setting because of the cosmology. But yes, I suppose there's a "tolerance difference." I don't look at D&D as "medieval times with some magic thrown in", but rather "crazy universe will all sorts of dudes", which it kinda is without trying to strip it down to its bare bones to something else.

[Xiander]

I have a hard time understanding why this thread has grown this big this fast. It seems to me that there is no reason class fluff should be immutable, as long as the alterations made fits in to the setting and campaign.

Example:

In a campaign set in a standard fantasy world, where most of the assumptions build into the D&D source books does not hold true, there would be nothing wrong with the three following characters:

Ethep an old mystic who through meditation, fasting and long ours of pondering the ways of the world has come to understand how some things work and as an effect of this can change the workings of the world by reciting specific haiku poems and gesturing. He keeps his poems in a book and reads them each morning to memorize the ones he finds he will need for the day. (mechanically completely identical to a wizard complete with spellbook, throw in a talking raven if you wish)

Kelgar a warrior who is actually an ancient swords master reborn into a new body, and who slowly remembers the secrets of the blade that he knew a thousand years ago when he was at his prime in his own body. (mechanically a fighter or maybe a warblade.)

Rhon a mercenary who has mastered the art of turning his mind of to let his body act to its fullest, a trick that can be dangerous as his body does not know when to stop and might strain itself to the point of breaking while his mind is not watching, and because it leaves him exhausted once his mind returns to his body. Also he never learned to read. (mechanically a barbarian.)

In a setting that has room for them, none of these characters bring anything unwanted to the game, and might be more interesting that yet another group consisting of a nigh omnipotent bookworm, a glorified jock with a sword and a temperamental savage.

Of course you can't expect any GM to accept these characters, especially not in a setting which has a different explanation for certain phenomena. (In Faerûn, for example casting magic without accessing the veawe would be very special and probably problematic, so Ethep is out.)


The greatest problem is that unless you are fine with house rules or homebrew, you have to make sure that the fluff you come up with fits the mechanics completely. Ethep might get into trouble explaining how he finds new spells, and why it costs such ludicrous amounts of money to jot down haiku, but even so, the class and the reinvented fluff are a close enough fit, that it would not be overly problematic.

In short, if the fluff fits the game, I see no reason not to use it, even if it is radically different from the fluff in the book.

[noparlpf]

Ethep might get into trouble explaining how he finds new spells, and why it costs such ludicrous amounts of money to jot down haiku, but even so, the class and the reinvented fluff are a close enough fit, that it would not be overly problematic.

OotS made fun of a perfectly legitimate RAW example of a similar situation. Power Word spells. They take up several pages of a spellbook and cost a bunch of gold to write a single, relatively simple word.

Anyway, I agree with you. I've been checking my email notifications occasionally and laughing at how long this argument has gone on.

SOLUTION: AGREE TO DISAGREE (read: please stop arguing over something like this). UNLESS ANY OF YOU ARE PLANNING TO PLAY TOGETHER IN THE NEAR FUTURE, YOUR DISAGREEMENT WILL NOT AFFECT ANYTHING.

[jseah]

Also, you must hate summoners. And Elementals. And Demons. And Devils. And Celestials. And alot of the other wacky stuff that shows up in a D&D Setting because of the cosmology. But yes, I suppose there's a "tolerance difference." I don't look at D&D as "medieval times with some magic thrown in", but rather "crazy universe will all sorts of dudes", which it kinda is without trying to strip it down to its bare bones to something else.
Summoners are fine. Demons, devils and angels regularly make appearances in my settings, unless they don't exist.

But yes, I generally look at D&D as medieval/victorian with magic (and appropriate changes), or magic-tech. Often, my villians and plots involve completely normal people doing unpleasant things. For a given value of normal of course.

Oh, and PCs aren't special people at all. NPCs are built using the same rules as PCs (32 pt buy, standard wbl); they have PC classes, adult levels range from 4 to 7 (or 9 in a magic-tech setting) on average, with less going higher to whatever level cap I plan the PCs to reach.


I have a hard time understanding why this thread has grown this big this fast. It seems to me that there is no reason class fluff should be immutable, as long as the alterations made fits in to the setting and campaign.
Precisely.

But I tend to build my setting first, then planning a campaign, THEN letting players build characters. Usually by the time characters start to get created, I will usually have a guideline that restricts character creation to acceptable limits. (eg. 32 pt buy, level 5, standard wbl, humanoids only, pick a city to start in and a hometown)

[Hecuba]

Special person =/= Mary Sue.
How many of our characters would qualify as "Normal" or "Average"?
Unless you're a level two commoner/expert, you are special.
It becomes a problem when people go overboard with it.

And when you hear "I want my character to be a unique special snowflake set apart even from the small minority of people in the setting who are uncommonly gifted or accomplished enough to warrant PC classes. That way, everyone knows how cool she is." you don't think overboard?


Some people are just special.

I would disagree. Some people like to think they or their loved ones special; the staggeringly huge majority of them are not are not. Special is something we call other people that we use to obscure the amount of work required to either get where they are or where we hope them to be.


That is correct. There is nothing that indicates that omniscience is achievable in-universe for anyone other than overdeities. Maybe deities, but even that is not that clear.

Both deities and overdeities can give out information, though they may not be so inclined. That means that there is the possibility of someone knowing that your "caster" is lying out his wazoo.

[The Glyphstone]

And when you hear "I want my character to be a unique special snowflake set apart even from the small minority of people in the setting who are uncommonly gifted or accomplished enough to warrant PC classes. That way, everyone knows how cool she is." you don't think overboard?



You've actually had someone come out and declare this as their intention/motivation in a game? That's...unusual, to say the least.

[Aka-chan]

I want my setting to contain things that are plausible for the setting. And ONLY those things. Often, this is the reason why I cut out every other plane apart from Prime Material, Ethereal and Astral. And then only allow humanoid or human-shaped races.

Doesn't that dramatically limit the adversaries/monsters you can throw your players up against, though? I mean, no demons/devils (or celestials if the characters are okay with fighting incarnations of Good), no elementals, possibly no aberrations (I forget if they're fluffed as originating from the Far Realm).


In general, I tend to fall into Camp 2. I don't see a problem with altering the fluff to fit into your game world, as long as it doesn't become too unbalancing in some way.

[Xiander]

You've actually had someone come out and declare this as their intention/motivation in a game? That's...unusual, to say the least.

I knew a player who obviously played with this goal in mind... He never actually stated this, but it was clear from his actions.

Worst player ever.

[jseah]

Doesn't that dramatically limit the adversaries/monsters you can throw your players up against, though? I mean, no demons/devils (or celestials if the characters are okay with fighting incarnations of Good), no elementals, possibly no aberrations (I forget if they're fluffed as originating from the Far Realm).
Usually, enemies are classed humanoids. Undead do exist though but even they usually have humanoid helpers.

Generally, my plots tend to focus on the society and setting the PCs live in.
eg. Rough sketch of a plot arc: (15mins work)
An empire-builder minister is choking the city by creating too much red tape. A powerful wizard turns to smuggling his magical items, not because he refuses to pay tax, but because he can't be bothered to deal with corrupt pen pushers anymore. He gets caught and calls in political favours. Hired thugs assault tax officers. Assassins get caught attempting to kill the wizard. The resulting conflagration instigates riots and causes a split in the militia. General mayhem ensues.

Either way, people are going to get hurt and there are no clear "good guys" to back. Players can help the minister or wizard or other faction. Evil PCs could even try to play all sides and spin the city into outright civil war to try and seize the reins in the chaos. Good characters might want to rescue as many people as they can.

[Frozen_Feet]

EDIT: I'm not saying that some explanation cannot be invented. Given a few hours to think about it, I could come up with a satisfactory explanation myself. It's just that such explanations come afterwards, which can create even more problems down the line.

The thing here is, if each of those character followed the default fluff, no additional explanation would be needed. The inconsistency or contradiction exists because the characters are supposed to act according to same rules when they aren't.

Really, let me put it this way:

Each skill check follows the pattern: 1d20 + ability mod + skill mod + additionals, compared to DCs.

What separates each skill from one another?

Their names. Their descriptions. What they're supposed to model in the world. Most of these are routinely chucked into the "fluff" bin.

Additional mechanical differences between them? Mostly extrapolated from what differences their real-world counterpats, as defined by their fluff would have.

As such, detaching the mechanical function of skills from their description will end you up with undefined ability; replacing the description will end you up with entirely new skill instead.

The paradox with Alice, Bob and Timmy is caused by the fact that on some level, it's insisted they follow the same rules, when by their description, they don't.

Can a GM create ad hoc-explanations for inconsistencies like this? Sure. But he might as well make the difference explicit on a mechanical level as well (simultaneously creating a guideline for further interactions).

Some occasions of refluffing work, because they stay close enough to the original descriptions to not contradict anything. Xiander's Ethep is a perfect example: he casts spells by reciting them out loud, and writes them down in a book for memorization. Sure, they are haikus, but the Wizard fluff allows for wizard-specific notations already. It even acknowledges that different wizards would have trouble reading each others' spellbooks due to that, and has rules for it.

Fireball being "birthing of a star" is more problematic, because mechanically, it doesn't model a star well. It creates a relatively small globe of fire which isn't even terribly bright; if you take the implication at face value, it means stars are born in a really lackluster way in your setting. If you don't, and the birth of a real star would follow different rules with different in-game effects, then calling Fireball "birthing a star" is a misnomer. It's not inconceivable someone would call a fireball that, after all, stars are huge balls of fire and fireball is, well, a ball of fire. It works as an analogue... but not as a real description of the event.

About "special snowflakes": It's true all people are unique; the differences might really small in some cases, but they're there. However, as you can see from the analogue, even a special snowflake is still a snowflake. I.e., it's a tiny ice crystal, and its existence stems from the same laws of nature as other snowflakes.

What some refluffing request ask for is to create a snowflake using entirely different laws. But you can make several different, even unique characters just using rules-as-written. Specialness is, therefore, not enough of a reason for anything. Additional justification is needed for consideration (such as "the game does not support this"). A GM is perfectly justified in turning down such a request if it runs counter to goals of the game ("and neither is it meant to").

(For example, you can imagine the above exchange taking place when player wants to play superman in a low-key horror game.)

[Frozen_Feet]

Doesn't that dramatically limit the adversaries/monsters you can throw your players up against, though?

Yes. That's not necessarily a bad thing, or any sort of a problem, though.

Pick up any of the Monster Manuals: have you ever used every monster in that book?

Really?

For the feel, consistency and genre of a game, cutting out excess bits of the systems is actually good. The default fantasy-kitchen-sink approach of D&D is not conductive to all sorts of games. For a one-shot, you don't need twenty-thousand different creatures. You need just one well-developed species, or even just a solitary creature.

With just one race (let's say humans) and the classes found in SRD, you can create a huge number of possible encounters. More than you will ever see in a single campaign, most likely.

[Shadowknight12]

Mechanically, they can all pass the same wand around and have only one effect come out of it.

Imagine this scenario:
Alice has a wand of charm
Bob has a wand of scorching ray
Timmy has a wand of knock

One day, while out making mischief on a bunch of very confused wizards, they get caught. The guards strip them down and remove all their weapons and armour. With the wizards' detect magic to help them, they remove Alice and Bob's wands.
Timmy's imaginary friends, however, told him to wear a lead lined shirt today and he hides his wand up his sleeve. Not believing they can't find his wand, the wizards break his fingers and leave them all in the same cell overnight.

Now Timmy can't use his wand due to his broken fingers (can't do somatic components, call this homebrew). To him, he can't point his stick to guide his imaginary friends to open the cell door for him.

Alice picks up his useless stick (read: wand) and opens the door with it by draining magic out of a useless stick that registers as magic to a detect spell. Alice returns his wand.

In their jailbreak, Alice gets caught, but Timmy and Bob manage to get to the courtyard. Bob borrows Timmy's wand and focuses his magical energies through a useless stick to open the jail gates.

See the problem?
Mechanically, it's just a bunch of rogues passing around a wand of knock. Fluff-wise, it makes no sense at all. Furthermore, neither Alice nor Bob have demonstrated any ability to "cast" knock until that point in time.

EDIT: I'm not saying that some explanation cannot be invented. Given a few hours to think about it, I could come up with a satisfactory explanation myself. It's just that such explanations come afterwards, which can create even more problems down the line.

This situation is actually not a problem. Timmy can't use a wand as per your homebrewed rule, so he can't point where to cast spells to his imaginary friends. Alice drains magic from magic items. Without wands, she can't cast spells. Bob needs the wand to focus his powers, without it, he can't use them.

What to Timmy is a useless stick, to Alice is a magic item she can drain and to Bob is a perfectly usable wand he can use to channel his powers. So far, there's nothing that doesn't make sense in both fluff and mechanics term.

The only "hurdle" you have is that you assume that all three work like sorcerers and wizards, i.e., that if they don't know a spell, they can't cast it. Obviously, they can't have that fluff in the first place, since their "spells known" changes with every wand they pick up. Instead, their spells can be refluffed not as discrete spells, like a sorcerer's or a wizard's, but as "magic" that does what they want it to do. When they're casting knock, they don't know they're using the knock spell. To all three, they're just focusing their magic source (inner power, imaginary friends, etc.) towards the obstacle du jour, i.e., a door/chest/etc.

I'd say "problem solved," but there was never one in the first place.


The paradox with Alice, Bob and Timmy is caused by the fact that on some level, it's insisted they follow the same rules, when by their description, they don't.

This is tricky statement. Mechanically, they are all following the exact same rules. Fluff-wise, you're quite right, they aren't. That's the entire point of refluffing.


I would disagree. Some people like to think they or their loved ones special; the staggeringly huge majority of them are not are not. Special is something we call other people that we use to obscure the amount of work required to either get where they are or where we hope them to be.

A valid definition, true, but you're missing other definitions as well. Some people just don't fit in. Those are, by definition, special, since they're outside the norm. Anyone who does not fit in or who deviates from what is average is, by definition, special. You may choose other words for those people, of course, but "special" is not wrong.


Both deities and overdeities can give out information, though they may not be so inclined. That means that there is the possibility of someone knowing that your "caster" is lying out his wazoo.

An overdeity can't give you information, as far as I know. They are beyond the ken of mortals.

A deity is not specifically stated to possess omniscience, merely "knowledge of its portfolio." I would doubt that even Mystra knows the actual mechanics behind magic. At any rate, it's not specifically stated anywhere that she does.

[jseah]

What to Timmy is a useless stick, to Alice is a magic item she can drain and to Bob is a perfectly usable wand he can use to channel his powers. So far, there's nothing that doesn't make sense in both fluff and mechanics term.
It is, so far, not a problem as long as the sticks they use stay separate.

In my example, it is the SAME stick that is being passed around.
Timmy's useless stick is also Alice's source of magic and also Bob's magic wand. All at the same time.
While still remaining a normal wand that any normal fluff wizard could pick up, make a CL check, and use.

A stick is either enchanted or not (useless stick vs magic item).
A wand as a source of magic either powers someone's casting or not (Alice).
A magic wand used as an arcane focus (Bob) is not a wand wizards use to store spells in.
Refluff them if you want. But don't expect them to stay the same wand.
That is not consistent. To some people and me, that is a bad thing.

[sonofzeal]

It is, so far, not a problem as long as the sticks they use stay separate.

In my example, it is the SAME stick that is being passed around.
Timmy's useless stick is also Alice's source of magic and also Bob's magic wand. All at the same time.
While still remaining a normal wand that any normal fluff wizard could pick up, make a CL check, and use.

A stick is either enchanted or not (useless stick vs magic item).
A wand as a source of magic either powers someone's casting or not (Alice).
A magic wand used as an arcane focus (Bob) is not a wand wizards use to store spells in.
Refluff them if you want. But don't expect them to stay the same wand.
That is not consistent. To some people and me, that is a bad thing.
What if, on an out-of-game level, the players simply decide to avoid situations like that and not share their trinkets? IG that decision would make perfect sense, and it wouldn't violate any rules either. OOG, okay, maybe in sufficiently arbitrary scenarios it might be important to share, but they should be able to manage anyway just fine.

And as long as they aren't sharing, there's no problem right?

[Hecuba]

An overdeity can't give you information, as far as I know. They are beyond the ken of mortals.

A deity is not specifically stated to possess omniscience, merely "knowledge of its portfolio." I would doubt that even Mystra knows the actual mechanics behind magic. At any rate, it's not specifically stated anywhere that she does.

In general, an overdeity does not give mortals information, but it's a matter on lack of reason to interact rather than lack of capacity. Regardless, they can communicate with deities, and thus communicate the information by proxy.

And I would generally say that knowing how magic functions would be within the portfolio of a deity whose job it is to constrain and order magic in such a way that allows it to function.

[Frozen_Feet]

This is tricky statement. Mechanically, they are all following the exact same rules. Fluff-wise, you're quite right, they aren't. That's the entire point of refluffing.

Oh, you mean the whole point of refluffing is creating paradoxes in the in-game world? No wonder I find it so objectionable. :smalltongue:

More seriously, Use Magic Device is for using magic devices. It's right there in the name. But Timmy is not using any sort of device, if you take his fluff at face value. As such, Alice should not be able to borrow his magic stick, since there shouldn't be one.

Fluff and crunch are part of the same continuum. They both form the rules. In the case of Timmy, Alice and Bob, the rule change either wasn't thought out very well, or wasn't followed consistently, leading to non-sensical event within the game.

Can you solve this problem? Yes. You provided one solution. That doesn't mean there wasn't a problem. By breaking the pattern of established description, it was made necessary to craft a new description so the event makes sense.

(Whether the problem can be solved was never in question. Jseah noted that at the end of his post already.)

[Morithias]

This is the way I work.

Mechanics = Game engine
Fluff = Game graphics, sound, etc.

If you have a chess board with normal looking pieces. You're playing chess.

If you have a chess board where all the pieces are dragons or ninjas, or something of that nature. You're still playing chess.

Hell in my homebrew setting the devils aren't even evil. lol

[Rogue Shadows]

Hell in my homebrew setting the devils aren't even evil. lol

Do they still have the (evil) subtype?

No...?

Then you've changed the mechanics of the game.

[Morithias]

Do they still have the (evil) subtype?

No...?

Then you've changed the mechanics of the game.

They have the "unholy" subtype. As the creator of the realm didn't want either the gods or devils to gain total control, so he made them weak against each other.

(And I swear if you claim they are two different things, I'm going to tell you that "frozen water" isn't "ice" in my next post.)

[Rogue Shadows]

They have the "unholy" subtype. As the creator of the realm didn't want either the gods or devils to gain total control, so he made them weak against each other.

(And I swear if you claim they are two different things, I'm going to tell you that "frozen water" isn't "ice" in my next post.)

Well...to be fair, mechanically, they are (years of playing M:tG are working against me here). Protection from X won't stop something with the (unholy) subtype. You'd have to create a new spell, or change the mechanics of the existing one to include (unholy) and, presumably, (holy). Which is another mechanical change...

[Morithias]

Well...to be fair, mechanically, they are (years of playing M:tG are working against me here). Protection from X won't stop something with the (unholy) subtype. You'd have to create a new spell, or change the mechanics of the existing one to include (unholy) and, presumably, (holy). Which is another mechanical change...

No it's the exact same thing, just the evil subtype is now the unholy subtype, and the good subtype is now the holy subtype. The only change is what you call it.

[Frozen_Feet]

What if, on an out-of-game level, the players simply decide to avoid situations like that and not share their trinkets? IG that decision would make perfect sense, and it wouldn't violate any rules either. OOG, okay, maybe in sufficiently arbitrary scenarios it might be important to share, but they should be able to manage anyway just fine.

And as long as they aren't sharing, there's no problem right?

Or, you could agree on the very minor houserule that they are not using the same skill, and thus their trinkets won't work for each other. Practically, it'd be nearly the same as your solution, but easier to keep track of.

Why would avoiding the problem be preferable for solving it?

[Rogue Shadows]

No it's the exact same thing, just the evil subtype is now the unholy subtype, and the good subtype is now the holy subtype. The only change is what you call it.

Well...no. Smite Evil, for example. Does it work on evil creatures only (regardless of subtype), or does it work on evil and (unholy) creatures?

The latter means that Smite Evil has become more effective, while the latter means that the removal of devils makes smite evil less effective because now an entire range of targets is gone.

Either way it's a change.

Then you get to things like Summoning spells. Summoning a devil means casting an (unholy) spell, right? So that means that Protection from Evil (which works based on alignment, not subtype) is of dubious use against the summoned creature, which might not be evil.

A new spell, Protection from Unholy, would have to be made.


Why would avoiding the problem be preferable for solving it?

That's my question for everything ever!

[Frozen_Feet]

This is the way I work.

Mechanics = Game engine
Fluff = Game graphics, sound, etc.

If you have a chess board with normal looking pieces. You're playing chess.

If you have a chess board where all the pieces are dragons or ninjas, or something of that nature. You're still playing chess.

Yes, but when you change the names and looks of the pieces too much, you make the game illegible to outside observers if you don't tell them which new piece corresponds to which old one. How the pieces look and are called is not inconsequential.

Here's an experiment for you: take an assortment of random miniatures. Place them on a chess board like you would at the start of a game. What piece each of the miniatures corresponds to is based on their starting square. (So whichever mini is on the place of the King, is the King, and so on.)

Now play a game. Next, take the same minis, and shuffle them so that none of them correspond to same pieces as before.

Are you still playing chess? Sure. Vanilla chess, even. Have you made it much more of a headeache for yourself for minimal returns? If your answer is "no", have fun remembering that the dragon who was a pawn is really now the king, and the queen who was a rook is now a bishop.


No it's the exact same thing, just the evil subtype is now the unholy subtype, and the good subtype is now the holy subtype. The only change is what you call it.

In RPGs, how you call something defines what it stands for in the game world. If "Unholy" carries no implication of evilness and demons no longer have "Alignment: Always Chaotic Evil", you've severed the mechanical connection between their typing and alignment as stated in rules-as-written.

It's a rule change, no matter how you twist or turn it. Is it so small as to be almost inconsequential? Yes. Does it make sense for your setting? I hope so, otherwise I don't know why you'd done it in the first place. I wouldn't come foaming at the mouth at you at the sight of it.

But change is a change.

[Shadowknight12]

It is, so far, not a problem as long as the sticks they use stay separate.

In my example, it is the SAME stick that is being passed around.
Timmy's useless stick is also Alice's source of magic and also Bob's magic wand. All at the same time.
While still remaining a normal wand that any normal fluff wizard could pick up, make a CL check, and use.

A stick is either enchanted or not (useless stick vs magic item).
A wand as a source of magic either powers someone's casting or not (Alice).
A magic wand used as an arcane focus (Bob) is not a wand wizards use to store spells in.
Refluff them if you want. But don't expect them to stay the same wand.
That is not consistent. To some people and me, that is a bad thing.

It is still not a problem. Have you ever heard of the expression "One man's trash is another man's treasure"? How people see the same object and think of different things? The blind men describing the elephant? None of that rings a bell? At all?

All there characters see a wand. It is a magic item. To Timmy, it's a stick that he uses to tell his imaginary friends what to do. To Bob, it's a wand to channel his powers and to Alice it's just a magic item like any other. I would assure you that you could get all three to fight among each other precisely on this same point because the object is different to each person. Then Lidda, the PHB rogue, comes up and tells them "You all so silly, that's just a magic item that any caster can use! I just trick it into thinking I'm a caster too!" and you have a fourth side to the debate.

This happens in real life, you know. Go and ask what people are to a biologist, an anthropologist, a businessman and a priest. Each of them will see the same thing (people) in utterly different ways.


In general, an overdeity does not give mortals information, but it's a matter on lack of reason to interact rather than lack of capacity. Regardless, they can communicate with deities, and thus communicate the information by proxy.

They don't do that, either. Ao didn't communicate with the deities until the Time of Troubles, and look how that turned out.


And I would generally say that knowing how magic functions would be within the portfolio of a deity whose job it is to constrain and order magic in such a way that allows it to function.

True. How magic functions mechanically, however, is another matter.


Oh, you mean the whole point of refluffing is creating paradoxes in the in-game world? No wonder I find it so objectionable. :smalltongue:

Of course they will be paradoxes to you and anyone who can't divorce fluff from crunch. The very idea of refluffing is paradoxical because in their minds, fluff and crunch are so tightly joined together that they can't fathom changing just the fluff.


More seriously, Use Magic Device is for using magic devices. It's right there in the name. But Timmy is not using any sort of device, if you take his fluff at face value. As such, Alice should not be able to borrow his magic stick, since there shouldn't be one.

You keep assuming that the world must faithfully reflect mechanics. It's like you can't comprehend a character who mechanically uses Use Magic Device while fluff-wise something entirely different happens and it is okay.


Fluff and crunch are part of the same continuum. They both form the rules. In the case of Timmy, Alice and Bob, the rule change either wasn't thought out very well, or wasn't followed consistently, leading to non-sensical event within the game.

Yes. Fluff and crunch both have rules, but they don't stem from them. Fluff has its set of rules and crunch has another. Some people like to use the same set of rules for both. This need not be so.

Furthermore, you're not proving that it is, in fact, nonsensical. Seriously, I don't know where you're all getting puzzled. To me, it's clear as water that all three are seeing the same thing (a wand) and thinking three different things. It's like showing a dice to a gambler, a tabletop player and a dice collector. The latter doesn't even use the dice, and the first two don't use it for the same things!


Can you solve this problem? Yes. You provided one solution. That doesn't mean there wasn't a problem. By breaking the pattern of established description, it was made necessary to craft a new description so the event makes sense.

(Whether the problem can be solved was never in question. Jseah noted that at the end of his post already.)

And I can't see the problem, hence why I said there wasn't one. I provided an explanation for what to me was obvious but other people seemed to be missing. It doesn't mean that there is a problem at all. Kinda like explaining someone why a diabetic keeps sugar in his house. It's not a problem, it's simply information not immediately apprehended.

[Hecuba]

They don't do that, either. Ao didn't communicate with the deities until the Time of Troubles, and look how that turned out.

"Do not" and "cannot" aren't the same thing.


Furthermore, you're not proving that it is, in fact, nonsensical. Seriously, I don't know where you're all getting puzzled. To me, it's clear as water that all three are seeing the same thing (a wand) and thinking three different things. It's like showing a dice to a gambler, a tabletop player and a dice collector. The latter doesn't even use the dice, and the first two don't use it for the same things!

And an objective description of their function would be the same. I don't care what the characters think, I care about the objective in-universe reality. The fact that one person thinks the wand a useless stick used to direct imaginary friends does not make it worthless become a worthless stick.

[Shadowknight12]

"Do not" and "cannot" aren't the same thing.

For the people who insist on following official fluff, they actually are. In fact, the "do not and cannot aren't the same thing!" philosophy is exactly the point behind refluffing.


And an objective description of their function would be the same. I don't care what the characters think, I care about the objective in-universe reality. The fact that one person thinks the wand a useless stick used to direct imaginary friends does not make it worthless become a worthless stick.

Actually, a key part of refluffing is that Timmy's interpretation is just as valid as Alice's (or else it's not refluffing, it's just playing a delusional character). This cannot happen if there is an in-universe way of figuring out who's right. Some things should be unknowable, else you end up having one official explanation, one official way of doing things, one official set of rules that govern all aspects of reality, one official interpretation of things, and everyone who believes different is objectively delusional. This ruins the entire reason behind refluffing. Anyone can play a delusional character.

Refluffing means maintaining the mechanics and adding new in-universe explanations for them that are just as valid as those that already exist.

[sonofzeal]

Or, you could agree on the very minor houserule that they are not using the same skill, and thus their trinkets won't work for each other. Practically, it'd be nearly the same as your solution, but easier to keep track of.

Why would avoiding the problem be preferable for solving it?
Because both have exactly the same result, namely that the three don't share pointy sticks. It doesn't matter whether that's through houserule or merely common agreement, since the results are indistinguishable. Neither can be preferable to the other in that case.

[Hecuba]

Actually, a key part of refluffing is that Timmy's interpretation is just as valid as Alice's (or else it's not refluffing, it's just playing a delusional character). This cannot happen if there is an in-universe way of figuring out who's right. Some things should be unknowable, else you end up having one official explanation, one official way of doing things, one official set of rules that govern all aspects of reality, one official interpretation of things, and everyone who believes different is objectively delusional. This ruins the entire reason behind refluffing. Anyone can play a delusional character.

Refluffing means maintaining the mechanics and adding new in-universe explanations for them that are just as valid as those that already exist.

So you're positing that refluffing requires abandoning an in-game objective reality? That's not a suggestion I've seen before.

On a personal opinion level, nothing should be unknowable. That prevents you from the pursuit of knowledge as a character goal (or at least makes it futile). The desire and capacity of humans to observe and understand the world around them is, by many definitions, one of the defining features of what it means to be sentient.

[Vandicus]

So you're positing that refluffing requires abandoning an in-game objective reality? That's not a suggestion I've seen before.

On a personal opinion level, nothing should be unknowable. That prevents you from the pursuit of knowledge as a character goal (or at least makes it futile). The desire and capacity of humans to observe and understand the world around them is, by many definitions, one of the defining features of what it means to be sentient.

I personally don't think there is such a thing as objective in-game reality. From the outside with a metagame perspective, classes and mechanics are actual things. To the characters and to an extent even the players, when they're in the game, reality is somewhat subjective. I doubt we all imagine spells doing the same things, and when a GM gives us flavortext, I doubt we all imagine it the same way(a source of hilarious misunderstandings much of the time).


*EDIT

Also, despite whatever your DM may tell you, he doesn't have a massive continuous universe. He has to spend time designing new stuff, and when the party goes somewhere he wasn't expecting, he has to improv it. Objective in-game reality goes out the window.

[Frozen_Feet]

Of course they will be paradoxes to you and anyone who can't divorce fluff from crunch. The very idea of refluffing is paradoxical because in their minds, fluff and crunch are so tightly joined together that they can't fathom changing just the fluff.

If you've read my replies and think I can't divorce fluff and crunch, it's no wonder you can't get my arguments. Nor did you identify the paradox correctly: the problem is that two or more descriptions of the same event are contradictory, yet it's insisted they're all correct.

Your solution makes it so that Timmy is delusional and Alice and Bob didn't know what they were doing; this solves the problem, as their description of events is proven to be faulty. Fluff of UMD was never really changed, it was all in their head. Doesn't mean the problem didn't exist; you just happened to solve it.

You keep assuming that the world must faithfully reflect mechanics. It's like you can't comprehend a character who mechanically uses Use Magic Device while fluff-wise something entirely different happens and it is okay.

Yes. Fluff and crunch both have rules, but they don't stem from them. Fluff has its set of rules and crunch has another. Some people like to use the same set of rules for both. This need not be so.

The D&D system was designed from a simulationist point of view - i.e., lot of mechanics are meant to simulate specified in-game events or objects. I already went over what kinds of difficulties it causes when you stray too far from the default definitions.

Use Magic Device means using a magic device. If your character is doing something entirely unrelated instead, then letting him use UMD modifier for that skill check is breaking the rules. Would you use a character to use Climb check to weave baskets, when there's a skill for that already?

If you allow fluff and crunch to casually contradict each other, principle of explosion follows: any skill check should be able to be used for any task, any mechanic for any event. This undermines using a premade skill list in the first place. It's much better to take the additional step and define that either that is what UMD does, no expections, or make the ability into an additional skill.

Whether it "needs to be so" is another thing entirely. You can scrap elements of the system and retrofit them for your liking if you want to go through the extra work. You can play Calvinball if you want to. But you should be able to understand by now why others might not consider it the best, or even a very good, solution.

Personally, I pick rules in accordance to what I want to happen in a game, and don't see a reason to include rules I have no need for. For example, if I don't want magic in a game, I don't include rules for it either. If someone comes asking to use magic rules for something entirely else, especially if that something is already possible, you can bet I will be questioning why. I need and want only so many rules for one thing, just like I need only one piece for the King in Chess.

[Rogue Shadows]

I personally don't think there is such a thing as objective in-game reality. From the outside with a metagame perspective, classes and mechanics are actual things. To the characters and to an extent even the players, when they're in the game, reality is somewhat subjective. I doubt we all imagine spells doing the same things, and when a GM gives us flavortext, I doubt we all imagine it the same way(a source of hilarious misunderstandings much of the time).

On the other hand...

"My armor? +3 adamantine light fortification full plate. I wouldn't leave home without it."
- Tordek (Magic Item Compendium, page 5)

[Vandicus]

On the other hand...

"My armor? +3 adamantine light fortification full plate. I wouldn't leave home without it."
- Tordek (Magic Item Compendium, page 5)

LOL at WoTC's sense of humor :smallbiggrin: . Have you ever played in a party which tries to narrow down the capabilities of new magic items and NPCs(read minions) through experimentation? Its always funny to me.

[Hiro Protagonest]

On the other hand...

"My armor? +3 adamantine light fortification full plate. I wouldn't leave home without it."
- Tordek (Magic Item Compendium, page 5)

That's a horrible example, because in game, they might know light fortification, but they wouldn't know +3. If it was like that, they would say stuff like "I'm 10th level".

[Shadowknight12]

So you're positing that refluffing requires abandoning an in-game objective reality? That's not a suggestion I've seen before.

On a personal opinion level, nothing should be unknowable. That prevents you from the pursuit of knowledge as a character goal (or at least makes it futile). The desire and capacity of humans to observe and understand the world around them is, by many definitions, one of the defining features of what it means to be sentient.

You say "abandoning," I say "never existed." In my games, some things are not known precisely to leave leeway for refluffing. Everyone who claims to understand how X works is assumed to be presenting his opinion of how X works, not absolute fact. Even deities and overdeities.

As for the rest, what is and is not unknowable is also unknowable. You can pursue knowledge as much as you want and hoard as much of it as possible. You just have to live with the fact that any part of it may be wrong and that in your entire lifetime, you may not actually apprehend even the tiniest bit of all the things you could learn. I'm a scientist and I have to deal with that IRL. Doesn't stop me from pursuing knowledge in the slightest.



I personally don't think there is such a thing as objective in-game reality. From the outside with a metagame perspective, classes and mechanics are actual things. To the characters and to an extent even the players, when they're in the game, reality is somewhat subjective. I doubt we all imagine spells doing the same things, and when a GM gives us flavortext, I doubt we all imagine it the same way(a source of hilarious misunderstandings much of the time).


*EDIT

Also, despite whatever your DM may tell you, he doesn't have a massive continuous universe. He has to spend time designing new stuff, and when the party goes somewhere he wasn't expecting, he has to improv it. Objective in-game reality goes out the window.

This, pretty much.



If you've read my replies and think I can't divorce fluff and crunch, it's no wonder you can't get my arguments. Nor did you identify the paradox correctly: the problem is that two or more descriptions of the same event are contradictory, yet it's insisted they're all correct.

Your solution makes it so that Timmy is delusional and Alice and Bob didn't know what they were doing; this solves the problem, as their description of events is proven to be faulty. Fluff of UMD was never really changed, it was all in their head. Doesn't mean the problem didn't exist; you just happened to solve it.

Why are they contradictory? That's what I'm not seeing and that's why I don't agree that the problem existed in the first place at all. You are creating a problem where none exists and then arbitrarily ascribing a solution to it.

Explain, please, where the paradox/contradiction/problem is. I just don't see it.


The D&D system was designed from a simulationist point of view - i.e., lot of mechanics are meant to simulate specified in-game events or objects. I already went over what kinds of difficulties it causes when you stray too far from the default definitions.

Use Magic Device means using a magic device. If your character is doing something entirely unrelated instead, then letting him use UMD modifier for that skill check is breaking the rules. Would you use a character to use Climb check to weave baskets, when there's a skill for that already?

What rules?

You are making assertions that are basically written traps, because they're vague enough to be true under some interpretations and false under others. Mechanically, they are not breaking any rules. They are all using a magical device (a wand). In fluff, they are only breaking a rule if you insist that the simulationist view is correct. Just because D&D was designed with certain principles in mind doesn't mean that we must agree with or perpetuate them. We are allowed to take the system and do with it what we will. If you like the simulationist approach, refluffing is anathema to you.


If you allow fluff and crunch to casually contradict each other, principle of explosion follows: any skill check should be able to be used for any task, any mechanic for any event. This undermines using a premade skill list in the first place. It's much better to take the additional step and define that either that is what UMD does, no expections, or make the ability into an additional skill.

And I can't see what the contradiction is. They are all using a magic device. Your conclusion is utterly false because it is based on false premises.


Whether it "needs to be so" is another thing entirely. You can scrap elements of the system and retrofit them for your liking if you want to go through the extra work. You can play Calvinball if you want to. But you should be able to understand by now why others might not consider it the best, or even a very good, solution.

And I never claimed that it was a good or a bad solution. I'm merely defending the continuous implications that refluffing is badwrong and a sacrilege to the One True Way.


Personally, I pick rules in accordance to what I want to happen in a game, and don't see a reason to include rules I have no need for. For example, if I don't want magic in a game, I don't include rules for it either. If someone comes asking to use magic rules for something entirely else, especially if that something is already possible, you can bet I will be questioning why. I need and want only so many rules for one thing, just like I need only one piece for the King in Chess.

Again with the written traps.

You talk of rules, in general, when you know full well that your assertions change depending on whether you talk about the rules that govern fluff or those that govern crunch. Nobody here is suggesting the creation of new rules for crunch. And for a lot of people, the "rules" that govern fluff are so flexible as to be nonexistent, so this "creation" you speak of resembles more the detailing of a new aspect of the setting and the addition of more fluff than the creation of actual rules.

[Xiander]

Yes, but when you change the names and looks of the pieces too much, you make the game illegible to outside observers if you don't tell them which new piece corresponds to which old one. How the pieces look and are called is not inconsequential.

Here's an experiment for you: take an assortment of random miniatures. Place them on a chess board like you would at the start of a game. What piece each of the miniatures corresponds to is based on their starting square. (So whichever mini is on the place of the King, is the King, and so on.)

Now play a game. Next, take the same minis, and shuffle them so that none of them correspond to same pieces as before.

Are you still playing chess? Sure. Vanilla chess, even. Have you made it much more of a headeache for yourself for minimal returns? If your answer is "no", have fun remembering that the dragon who was a pawn is really now the king, and the queen who was a rook is now a bishop.


What i get from this example is that there is nothing wrong with refluffing as long as it is done in a consistent way, to avoid headaches all around.




Refluffing means maintaining the mechanics and adding new in-universe explanations for them that are just as valid as those that already exist.

I tend to agree with this.

However you seem to be willing to risk a whole lot more inconsistency than me. If I am to play a class with different fluff than the standard, but without implementing any houserules or homebrew, i will make completely sure that there are no rules inconsistencies.

Take my earlier example of Ethep the mystic. While he plays exactly as a wizard, i will discuss some intricacies with my GM before playing him. Are there standard textbook-fluffed ages in the setting? I so how does he interact with them? Can he copy spells from their spellbooks? Is his magic essentially the same as theirs? How would they react to him?

I may prefer that he is infact not just a mage who reads out haikus instead of uttering words of power in draconic. But to achieve that i would have to get a houserule on my side: Ethep's spellbook is unreadable by other wizards and other wizards spellbooks are of no use to Ethep.

From there follows the questions: how does he learn new spells? can he use scrolls? and so on. In the end i probably should accept that Ethep is just a wizard with a poetic touch.

My two other examples are much easier to keep within the rules because the mechanics they interact with are much simpler.

All this just to say, that there is a link between fluff and crunch which one should be aware of when refluffing, to avoid to many inconsistencies. And in the end, refluffing is easiest if you are willing to spice it up with a couple of houserules.

[Hecuba]

You say "abandoning," I say "never existed." In my games, some things are not known precisely to leave leeway for refluffing. Everyone who claims to understand how X works is assumed to be presenting his opinion of how X works, not absolute fact. Even deities and overdeities.

So you're suggesting we also eliminate facts from the game-world?


As for the rest, what is and is not unknowable is also unknowable. You can pursue knowledge as much as you want and hoard as much of it as possible. You just have to live with the fact that any part of it may be wrong and that in your entire lifetime, you may not actually apprehend even the tiniest bit of all the things you could learn. I'm a scientist and I have to deal with that IRL. Doesn't stop me from pursuing knowledge in the slightest.

There is a difference between "unknown," "unknown and beyond our current capacity to know," and "unknowable." The most fundamental basis of science is the presumption of naturalism, the idea that the universe can be explained in terms of verifiable natural patterns and effects. What processes of verification are available to us may be and probably are flawed, but that is a reflection on our capacity to verify, not on whether verifiability in the abstract is possible.


Also, despite whatever your DM may tell you, he doesn't have a massive continuous universe. He has to spend time designing new stuff, and when the party goes somewhere he wasn't expecting, he has to improv it. Objective in-game reality goes out the window.

I'm aware of how improv plays into DMing, thank you. I do it often. But the fact that I may not have described some part of the game world till now does not change the fact that, in-game, it has consistently existed the whole time. It's the responsibility of the GM to try and weave that improv into the story as non-disruptively as possible.

[Thiyr]

Fireball being "birthing of a star" is more problematic, because mechanically, it doesn't model a star well. It creates a relatively small globe of fire which isn't even terribly bright; if you take the implication at face value, it means stars are born in a really lackluster way in your setting. If you don't, and the birth of a real star would follow different rules with different in-game effects, then calling Fireball "birthing a star" is a misnomer. It's not inconceivable someone would call a fireball that, after all, stars are huge balls of fire and fireball is, well, a ball of fire. It works as an analogue... but not as a real description of the event.

Or it means that birthing a star in this specific manner creates specific effect due to a variety of reasons, which distinctly limit the effects therein. The easiest one for the presented character would be limitations hardwired in to filter out excesses of light and radiation (which in turn makes the resulting kaboom less efficient until the user figures out how to compensate), due to limits placed on "dirty" weapons. Can those effects be brought out again? Depends, is there a metamagic for it? It honestly works -perfectly fine- as a description, so long as that description isn't causing the player to try and argue it does more than the statblock says. If the DM says it has unfortunate consequences, all cool imo, because the player wasn't shooting for that when he chose the spell.


About "special snowflakes": It's true all people are unique; the differences might really small in some cases, but they're there. However, as you can see from the analogue, even a special snowflake is still a snowflake. I.e., it's a tiny ice crystal, and its existence stems from the same laws of nature as other snowflakes.

What some refluffing request ask for is to create a snowflake using entirely different laws. But you can make several different, even unique characters just using rules-as-written. Specialness is, therefore, not enough of a reason for anything. Additional justification is needed for consideration (such as "the game does not support this"). A GM is perfectly justified in turning down such a request if it runs counter to goals of the game ("and neither is it meant to").

(For example, you can imagine the above exchange taking place when player wants to play superman in a low-key horror game.)

I agree with this conceptually. The thing is, "using entirely different laws" to me implies trying to change the rules by changing your fluff, and the way you wrote that seems to support that. you said "But you can make several different, even unique characters just using rules-as-written.", specifically, which is a point I really, really agree with. In general, though some hodgepodge of characters, the rules can give us a very wide cast of characters. Note, however, that we're discussing -rules- here. Someone trying to be special within the rules would be someone trying to get access to a book nobody else can use, or use homebrew, or something else, when such things are explicitly not used (or worse yet, trying to do the truly absurd and requesting to use a completely different system in game. Like trying to play your 20th level wizard in a game of All Flesh Must Be Eaten. But I digress).

But going into flufflandia, -that stuff doesn't matter-. if your mechanics come first, then the laws of your character are already done and set. If you do your fluff first, then you do your best to make mechanics fit the fluff, and at that point you're likely to have to make sacrifices on both sides (Like figuring out why your multiple-millenia old powerhouse of a character is only level 8, and is working with these random people. Yea, done that one). If you do both at the same time, sacrifices aren't made so much as you realize what can and can't be done while you're building. But even so, the end result will be a character which works under the same laws as everyone else, even if they're strange and unique. The android that is functionally a human sorcerer, the wizard who's a straightclassed rogue, and the wellspring of cosmic energy who is a warlock all work under the same laws as everyone else. The rogue is stopped by everything that stops a rogue, the sorcerer and warlock are stopped by what stops them.

That said, I will add this stipulation. The player comes up with the character's fluff. But they have to sell it to the DM. it's not that superman should be banned in horror, it's that he needs to have a reason to be afraid. It's the player's job to leave the DM an avenue to be able to do that. My personal example from before: character was a millenia-old powerhouse, yes. But this was also loosely inspired from The Nameless One (from planescape torment). In this case, he dies, he recovers for a long time, and over that time he loses power. It happens frequently enough that he's used to it, and so he ties himself to a group for a time to take advantage of them on his quest for power. He sets up emergency supply caches for when he needs them (the one he grabbed this time just happening to be conveniently at the WBL of where he's supposed to be). He's far from perfect, but he also carried himself in a manner that distinctly suggested he was nothing to be trifled with even when he was on even footing. That was all me coming up with reasons for why my character was where he was doing what he was doing. My DM used some of it for plot hooks, and otherwise it served as background for me. If Superman comes up with a convincing reason he's suddenly a first-level character in a horror game, more power to him. But that's the player's job, and the DM does have some oversight on it.

[Shadowknight12]

So you're suggesting we also eliminate facts from the game-world?

It's like you're purposefully trying to make me trip over my own words when we both know that just isn't going to happen. No, that's not what I'm suggesting. In fact, I think we both know exactly what I'm suggesting, you just disagree.

In case I'm reading deliberate maliciousness where none exists, I'll explain myself again:

My games start with the assumption that the "official" fluff is true but it's not the be-all, end-all of the setting. Then, if anyone wants to add alternate interpretations of the mechanics (refluffing), they are considered just as valid. Precisely because we start with the assumption that official fluff is not actually The One True Way, anything that is added as a result of homebrewing, refluffing and the like is never actually a contradiction, because both have the same level of validity from the start.


There is a difference between "unknown," "unknown and beyond our current capacity to know," and "unknowable." The most fundamental basis of science is the presumption of naturalism, the idea that the universe can be explained in terms of verifiable natural patterns and effects. What processes of verification are available to us may be and probably are flawed, but that is a reflection on our capacity to verify, not on whether verifiability in the abstract is possible.

There is no evidence that proves that the bolded part is actually true. Until it happens, we won't know. Whether it's unknown, unknown and beyond our current capacity to know or unknowable simply does not matter. It could be either of the three and the result would be exactly the same.

[Hecuba]

In case I'm reading deliberate maliciousness where none exists, I'll explain myself again:

No maliciousness was intended.


My games start with the assumption that the "official" fluff is true but it's not the be-all, end-all of the setting. Then, if anyone wants to add alternate interpretations of the mechanics (refluffing), they are considered just as valid. Precisely because we start with the assumption that official fluff is not actually The One True Way, anything that is added as a result of homebrewing, refluffing and the like is never actually a contradiction, because both have the same level of validity from the start.

If one mechanic says A=5, one says B=6, and one says A=B, then in general yes, there is a contradiction.

I don't think that the official fluff should have any special privileged when compared with what you or your table designs. But my (apparently flawed) understanding of your suggestion was that when they are in direct disagreement, you would say they're both correct and ignore the disagreement rather than removing or altering one of them so there is no disagreement.


There is no evidence that proves that the bolded part is actually true. Until it happens, we won't know. Whether it's unknown, unknown and beyond our current capacity to know or unknowable simply does not matter. It could be either of the three and the result would be exactly the same.
The concept of pattern verifiability is what makes evidentiary inquiry philosophically valid.

[Vandicus]

If one mechanic says A=5, one says B=6, and one says A=B, then in general yes, there is a contradiction.




Not in D&D. We have a rule for that situation. Specific rules override general rules. :smalltongue:

[Frozen_Feet]

What i get from this example is that there is nothing wrong with refluffing as long as it is done in a consistent way, to avoid headaches all around.

Yes. I just feels some claim refluffing can't cause headaches, period, or that fluff can't contradict crunch (or vice versa).


Because both have exactly the same result, namely that the three don't share pointy sticks. It doesn't matter whether that's through houserule or merely common agreement, since the results are indistinguishable. Neither can be preferable to the other in that case.

Ah, but they don't have exactly the same results. By agreeing on the house rule, it also defines NPCs can't use those trinkets, laying firm groundwork for the interaction of the trinkets with rest of the ruleset.

It's more consistent choice for both the system and the narrative, removing chance for contradiction and plotholes. It takes about the same effort, but one solves the problem, while other just avoids it.

Why is the latter better again?



Why are they contradictory? That's what I'm not seeing and that's why I don't agree that the problem existed in the first place at all. You are creating a problem where none exists and then arbitrarily ascribing a solution to it.

*sigh* The part where Timmy's useless stick is simultaneously a magic wand that can be used by all.

Obviously, it can't be an useless stick and a wand at the same time. Your solution solves it by making Timmy's assesment of the wand wrong. So all the time, UMD worked just as it's supposed to work; Timmy was just delusional about it.


Just because D&D was designed with certain principles in mind doesn't mean that we must agree with or perpetuate them. We are allowed to take the system and do with it what we will.

There's a point where ignoring facets and design intent of a system starts to undermine your reasons for using that system in the first place. There's a point where refluffing becomes rewriting large portions of the game. It follows there's also a point where the game ceases to be D&D 3.5.

If you disagree with not just me, but the system you're ostensibly using, why use it at all? That's not a rhetorical question; you can answer it. Or at least, should be able to.


You talk of rules, in general, when you know full well that your assertions change depending on whether you talk about the rules that govern fluff or those that govern crunch. Nobody here is suggesting the creation of new rules for crunch. And for a lot of people, the "rules" that govern fluff are so flexible as to be nonexistent, so this "creation" you speak of resembles more the detailing of a new aspect of the setting and the addition of more fluff than the creation of actual rules.

Of course I know they can change. I've said it multiple times even in this thread: the division between fluff and crunch is arbitrary. It depends on the player. It also depends which one is given priority when rules are changed.

What you missed was my conclusion: rules are rules. Change is a change. Refluffing is homebrewing just as much as recrunching is. Are some rules more important to some people than others? Yes. Is it easier for some people to craft some kind of rules than others? Also yes.

The argument that some people find refluffing easier doesn't invalidate the reasons some people don't. I find acetyle-oxygen welding easy, but I doubt it's that for you.

Degree of difficulty doesn't invalidate observations of the rules-as-written. You can claim some rule is stupid, but that's your business. It doesn't invalidate observations of logical inconsistencies caused by poor refluffing either. If you can provide a solution, good for you; if you can't, maybe that's a sign you screwed something up. If you don't care, fine, but the inconsistency remains.

[Shadowknight12]

No maliciousness was intended.

Then I apologise for presuming otherwise.


If one mechanic says A=5, one says B=6, and one says A=B, then in general yes, there is a contradiction.

I don't think that the official fluff should have any special privileged when compared with what you or your table designs. But my (apparently flawed) understanding of your suggestion was that when they are in direct disagreement, you would say they're both correct and ignore the disagreement rather than removing or altering one of them so there is no disagreement.

Uh, no. That's not what we're saying. What we're saying is that if mechanics A equals fluff 5 and mechanics B equals fluff 6, mechanics A can also equal All Brand New fluff 98 without generating any contradictions because there is no rule that says that "mechanics A equals fluff 5 is the actual objective truth and not a widely accepted belief."


The concept of pattern verifiability is what makes evidentiary inquiry philosophically valid.

According to some schools of thought. According to other branches of epistemology, pattern verifiability is meaningless because patterns are mental constructs and knowledge should be pursued for its own sake, rather than whether or not it is ultimately knowable or not.

And even if we go with that specific philosophy, nothing I said prevents pattern verifiability because all explanations are simultaneously true and false. Why? Because they all function based upon the same mechanic. Either they're all true and/or they're all false, because they are all equally valid. This isn't a contradiction because there is no true answer to contradict any of the others.


*sigh* The part where Timmy's useless stick is simultaneously a magic wand that can be used by all.

Obviously, it can't be an useless stick and a wand at the same time. Your solution solves it by making Timmy's assesment of the wand wrong. So all the time, UMD worked just as it's supposed to work; Timmy was just delusional about it.

Of course it can be a useless stick and a wand at the same time. Uselessness is subjective. What is useless to Timmy might not be so for Alice and Bob. A millionaire may think a hundred dollar bill is useless because his credit card can purchase anything the bill can purchase and much more. For a homeless person, the hundred dollar bill has tremendous use. This is the same. For Timmy, the stick is utterly useless because it's merely a tool for his true power to shine through. This doesn't mean that it doesn't follow the same mechanical rules.

Your assertion is right only if you follow the rule that there is One True Way to explain UMD. If that's the case, then yes, Timmy's delusional. They're all delusional, in fact. Lidda is the only one who actually knows what's going on.

If you accept that you can use the same mechanic to represent different things, then no, Timmy is not delusional. His imaginary friends are real and they need magic sticks to be told where to aim their powers at.


There's a point where ignoring facets and design intent of a system starts to undermine your reasons for using that system in the first place. There's a point where refluffing becomes rewriting large portions of the game. It follows there's also a point where the game ceases to be D&D 3.5.

If you disagree with not just me, but the system you're ostensibly using, why use it at all? That's not a rhetorical question; you can answer it. Or at least, should be able to.

Incorrect. You do not have absolutely any authority to deem whether anything I do "undermines my reasons for using that system in the first place" or not. That is firmly outside the limits of what I consider a valid discussion topic.

My reasons for using the system are as well solidly outside what I consider an acceptable discussion topic. I need not involve personal preferences to justify the validity of refluffing.


Of course I know they can change. I've said it multiple times even in this thread: the division between fluff and crunch is arbitrary. It depends on the player. It also depends which one is given priority when rules are changed.

What you missed was my conclusion: rules are rules. Change is a change. Refluffing is homebrewing just as much as recrunching is. Are some rules more important to some people than others? Yes. Is it easier for some people to craft some kind of rules than others? Also yes.

The argument that some people find refluffing easier doesn't invalidate the reasons some people don't. I find acetyle-oxygen welding easy, but I doubt it's that for you.

Degree of difficulty doesn't invalidate observations of the rules-as-written. You can claim some rule is stupid, but that's your business. It doesn't invalidate observations of logical inconsistencies caused by poor refluffing either. If you can provide a solution, good for you; if you can't, maybe that's a sign you screwed something up. If you don't care, fine, but the inconsistency remains.

We established earlier in this very thread that to some people (possible correlation: the very same people who can't divorce crunch from fluff?), the term homebrewing applied to both crunch and fluff. I would disagree, but that's because I prefer to use another term. I won't get into an argument of which is right, because I really don't mind that you use it differently.

I will state this one last time in case it's not clear: I never said that binding crunch and fluff (or using the same set of rules for both crunch and fluff) is a bad thing, wrong or that it shouldn't be done. What I am saying is that refluffing is just as valid. Refflufing is okay. That's all. No disparaging anybody else's way. Just defending a perfectly valid style from narrow-minded people who treat it like it's some unholy abomination.

Secondly, I never claimed that something was stupid. That's all you.

Thirdly, you are still not proving that there is an inconsistency. Again, all you.

Fourthly, "poor refluffing" = baseless value judgement. From someone who insists that formal logic has a place when discussing opinions, this is rather disappointing.

[Frozen_Feet]

Your assertion is right only if you follow the rule that there is One True Way to explain UMD. If that's the case, then yes, Timmy's delusional. They're all delusional, in fact. Lidda is the only one who actually knows what's going on.

Ta-dah! Finally, you got it.

The "One True Way", in this case, is RAW and how it defines Wands and UMD. By RAW, something can't follow rules of a wand without being the wand, which Timmy's magic stick couldn't have been if Timmy's delusions about it would've been correct.

It's not the "Only True Way" in the sense that UMD and Wands could never, ever be defined to be or work some other way. But in this case, there was a contradiction, and something had to be done to solve it.


Incorrect. You do not have absolutely any authority to deem whether anything I do "undermines my reasons for using that system in the first place" or not. That is firmly outside the limits of what I consider a valid discussion topic.

My reasons for using the system are as well solidly outside what I consider an acceptable discussion topic. I need not involve personal preferences to justify the validity of refluffing.

I could easily tell if your reasons are sound, but I can't, since you refuse to tell me. (You make it sound such a big deal, too. Odd, if you ask me.)

If you don't feel like examining your personal preferences, fine - a bit odd, as well, since this discussion started as a question of preference. I'll just note that D&D 3.5 is hardly the only RPG system in existence, and if you disagree with how it works, there might be a system that better suits your gaming style out there somewhere. Some systems are friendlier to refluffing than others.


Fourthly, "poor refluffing" = baseless value judgement. From someone who insists that formal logic has a place when discussing opinions, this is rather disappointing.

What, are you claiming refluffing can't be done poorly?

Also, I think I stated already: I used formal logic to illustrate a topic. What I've actually been using, and what I insist has a place in the topic, is informal logic.

[Shadowknight12]

Ta-dah! Finally, you got it.

The "One True Way", in this case, is RAW and how it defines Wands and UMD. By RAW, something can't follow rules of a wand without being the wand, which Timmy's magic stick couldn't have been if Timmy's delusions about it would've been correct.

It's not the "Only True Way" in the sense that UMD and Wands could never, ever be defined to be or work some other way. But in this case, there was a contradiction, and something had to be done to solve it.

Yes, and this does not necessarily mean that having a One True Way is wrong. Or right. Or that having multiple explanations for the same mechanic is wrong. Or right.


I could easily tell if your reasons are sound, but I can't, since you refuse to tell me. (You make it sound such a big deal, too. Odd, if you ask me.)

If you don't feel like examining your personal preferences, fine - a bit odd, as well, since this discussion started as a question of preference. I'll just note that D&D 3.5 is hardly the only RPG system in existence, and if you disagree with how it works, there might be a system that better suits your gaming style out there somewhere. Some systems are friendlier to refluffing than others.

If I cared what you thought of the soundness of my reasons, I'd share them.

There's a difference between "You prefer A or B?" and "Why do you do X?" If you cannot see such a difference, I cannot help you.

Also, I do not share the passion for learning new systems that other people have. So while that comment may be true, I simply do not care to learn another system when I can just do whatever I please with D&D.


What, are you claiming refluffing can't be done poorly?

Also, I think I stated already: I used formal logic to illustrate a topic. What I've actually been using, and what I insist has a place in the topic, is informal logic.

Precisely. Refluffing is a personal decision, and I'm no one to judge whether it's poor or not. As a rule of thumb, I may not like or agree with a given refluffing, but that doesn't make it "poor."

Indeed you have.

[Xiander]

Precisely. Refluffing is a personal decision, and I'm no one to judge whether it's poor or not. As a rule of thumb, I may not like or agree with a given refluffing, but that doesn't make it "poor."



Does this mean that even a refluff which completely fails to represent the mechanic in question cannot be judged to be poor, exept in the oppinion of the judge?

[Shadowknight12]

Does this mean that even a refluff which completely fails to represent the mechanic in question cannot be judged to be poor, exept in the oppinion of the judge?

Pretty much. "Completely fails to represent the mechanic in question" is highly subjective. I don't believe I'm entitled to pass judgement on such eminently subjective matters. To me, it might not represent the mechanic in question at all, but the refluffer might disagree. Who am I to say he's wrong?