Questons Wotco Didn't Expect Us To Ask

[willpell]

I think there needs to be a new generalist thread for some of the off-the-wall questions I'm good at coming up with (and I'm sure I'm not the only one). There are a lot of assumptions built into 3E which have been proven thoroughly invalid by the playerbase, and so a number of questions lack a satisfactory answer. I thought it would be good to start talking around the general topic of how to open up more options than the company ever thought we would need.

First on the docket - I'm working on an Unbodied. And it strikes me how little information there is to help you figure out how to play a character with no corporeal form. Do you still get Wealth by Level even though you have no body to carry items on? What do you do with that money? How do you maintain the illusion of being whoever you pretend to be, when you're not actually physical and can be detected just by walking through the space you seem to occupy? Do you have Chakras to bind Soulmelds to? If you shape a Soulmeld, where does it go? Can you bind vestiges? Can you Truename telepathically when you have no actual voice? For that matter, can you cast spells with somatic components? This is not even getting into the fact that we aren't told how (or whether, apart from one mention of them having ancestors) the Unbodied reproduce; we certainly don't get anything resembling a culture for them. They're awesomely cool, but there are just a slew of questions associated with them.

This thread is about things like that.

[Roguenewb]

For true naming, I'm zaqs great handbook he calls it the universe hears just fine rul, truenamig is not effected by sound rules. Yup. Wbl doesn't appear from the heavens. In theory you found it killing monsters, so you'd still get it. As for how to spend the wbl it depends whether your ethereal (like a ghost) or simply incorporeal
If your ethereal people can plane shift and give you your gear and it'll be solid for you and incoeporeal to the normal world.

[Venger]

the ghostly grasp feat from libris mortis would really help save you a lot of time and money. you can use corporeal items without them having to be ghost touch, so that helps a lot.

what are you going to take levels in? 4RHD and an LA of 4 is brutal, you dont have a ton of room left.

[Psyren]

While I get the gist of your thread, regarding Unbodied specifically there are in fact answers to your questions if you know the pertinent rules.

1) Of course you (can) still get WBL. Imagine being a contributing party member, but with a low strength score (say, you're a gnome beguiler who dumped it, or you got strength-drained by a Shadow during a bad fight.) You would just have to coordinate with your party to carry your stuff for you. The same solution works here, and extradimensional storage doesn't even make it a blip for the more musclebound members of the party. In a pinch, Unbodied can use their at-will Telekinetic Force to move items around, including once again a bag of holding or similar.

2) What else would you do with money? Buy things. Specifically, they could pay for consumables (like scrolls) that the other party members (or a hireling) can use on them. Or donate to the party fund so the other party members can beef up their own protections. Remember that spells/powers can be cast on them normally; they only have a chance of ignoring damage. And as suggested above, you can use ghost touch items and Ghostly Grasp as well.

3) The same way you trick anyone into thinking you're something other than what you are - with bluff and disguise checks. Your TK ability must be used to maintain the illusion in some circumstances, e.g. accepting items that others hand to you.

4) Unbodied have a Con score but no limbs, and so only possess two chakras - Heart and Soul. (MoI pg. 170.)

5) So long as you can draw the seal (e.g. with your TK ability), you can bind vestiges just fine. You can even perfectly hide your signs.

6) Unbodied cannot speak and therefore cannot Truespeak.

7) Unbodied have no hands and therefore cannot perform somatic components.

8) In the XPH, it's implied that they can't reproduce, that there are perhaps only X Unbodied in the world and no more. This is a fluff question though, so it varies by the DM and his campaign-world decisions. If you do want more info on them, I recommend Psionics Unleashed, which does flesh them out quite a bit. (no pun intended.)

[willpell]

what are you going to take levels in? 4RHD and an LA of 4 is brutal, you dont have a ton of room left.

I don't shy away from that problem when necessary; some may remember my talking about a Doppelganger Cleric of Lastai, that's the same base ECL. However the Unbodied has it a little better; he's functionally got Psion levels gestalted onto his MoHu hit dice (which are +1 BAB so it's sort of like Fighter, except with smaller HD and the inverse of the saves...odd, that last part, I find it hard to picture Blackscale Lizardfolk dodging fireballs and then getting poisoned to death). So he can take an actual Psion level at ECL 9 and he'll be a Level 5 telepath with slightly better BAB and much better HD, plus Incorporeal which is a huge defensive boost and not much of an inconvenience to manifesters. Either that or I'll go into some PrC, since I have a fondness for auto-qualifying with a beginning character...not sure offhand what the options are.

[Psyren]

@ Venger: Recall that losing ML (whether from LA, multiclassing, dead levels etc) is not nearly as painful as losing CL. This is simply a function of how the psionics system works differently than the magic one. If an Unbodied Telepath 12 (ECL 20) takes Practiced Manifester, they get a ML of 20 and end up nearly on par with full psions in most respects, while also maintaining extremely strong passive defenses.

Unbodied keep pace in several ways:


- Augmentation: psionics keeps many low-level powers far more relevant in the late-game than low level spells. For instance, Astral Construct is a first-level power, but your minions can (at least physically) keep pace with SMIX or SNAIX.

Discounted Powers: A corollary to the above, several powers that are equivalent to top-level spells are discounted for psions, with the expectation that you will augment later to achieve these levels of power. For instance, Time Stop is 6th-level for Psions, Dominate Monster is 4th-level, and SMIX and Polar Ray are 1st-level. So even if a psionic character misses out on 9ths, they're still capable of 9th-level effects.

- Expanded Knowledge: Though restricted to the Telepathy discipline, Unbodied can pick up key powers (like Astral Construct, Remote Viewing and Metamorphosis) from other disciplines as needed. They can even change these out via Psychic Reformation.

- Granular Resource: Thanks to power points, Psions can near-perfectly convert low-level "spell slots" to higher ones. This means that even missing out on top-level progression, a manifester with missing ML can effectively cast as many of its strongest powers as a full-CL magic user can. They do have to cannibalize their lower-level powers to do it, but in most adventuring days these aren't used up anyway (e.g. in more discrete systems like Vancian.)

Combine all those inherent advantages, with the added strength that being Unbodied provides (e.g. permanent incorporeality, and the ability to hide manifesting ability) and it's clear to see that Unbodied are one of the few good +4 LA races out there.

Finally, their telekinetic force auto-augments as they gain HD, and it ignores SR/PR. A high-enough level Unbodied can fling the Tarrasque about like a ragdoll, at-will, without spending a point of PP.

[the_archduke]

4) Unbodied have a Con score but no limbs, and so only possess two chakras - Heart and Soul. (MoI pg. 170.)



/nitpick

having no limbs only removes the hands and arms chakras, creatures with no discernible anatomy have only heart and soul

/nitpick

[Venger]

/nitpick

having no limbs only removes the hands and arms chakras, creatures with no discernible anatomy have only heart and soul

/nitpick

That is correct. Being monstrous humanoids, unbodied don't have the "no discernable anatomy" special ability, nor do they possess amorphous form.

unbodied, RAW, still have shoulders in the brain stem, and feet in their occipital lobe

you still theoretically have: crown, feet, brow, shoulders, throat, waist, heart, and soul.

you're still probably better off going psion, as the earlier math had demonstrated.

[Psyren]

Fair enough, I did mistakenly equate "no limbs" and "amorphous body." So they do get the chakras Venger listed.

My point stands though - the answers are there to be found. Let's give the devil (i.e. WotC) his due; there's plenty of actual screw-ups to call them on.

[The_Snark]

If an Unbodied Telepath 12 (ECL 20) takes Practiced Manifester, they get a ML of 20 and end up nearly on par with full psions in most respects, while also maintaining extremely strong passive defenses.

Unfortunately, no. Practiced Manifester can't increase your ML to higher than your Hit Dice. An Unbodied Telepath 12 has 16 HD; it already has a ML of 16, so the feat provides no benefit.

You're right in general, losing ML doesn't hurt quite as much as losing CL (though lost power points hurt more than you might think; psions tend to burn through PP faster than spellcasters go through spells). But in this specific case, it's no use. Practiced Manifester can't help you overcome level adjustment.

[willpell]

@ Venger: Recall that losing ML (whether from LA, multiclassing, dead levels etc) is not nearly as painful as losing CL.

I do not entirely see how this is true. Practiced Manifester aside (and that only gives you +4, which is enough for Unbodied but not enough if you add another template on top of it), losing manifester level means not being able to augment as high. It's true that you have somewhat better options than a Vancian caster, but given that the spell list is about nine times as long as the psychic power list (accounting for all books; nearly every book adds more spells while only a handful add powers), it seems dubious to give psions the advantage in this regard; they both suffer pretty heavily from missing levels.


Finally, their telekinetic force auto-augments as they gain HD, and it ignores SR/PR.

Read Telekinetic Force again. It only affects objects, never creatures. And even with an ML of 20, the maximum weight affectable is 625 pounds; the Tarrasque weighs tons, and even an Ogre is probably beyond you, unless he's on a diet or something.


/nitpick
Having no limbs only removes the hands and arms chakras, creatures with no discernible anatomy have only heart and soul
/nitpick

The Unbodied, y'know, have no body. They may not have been printed with Amorphous Form or anything, but it's clearly implied by their nature. Frankly I don't even understand how they can be attacked by ethereal creatures or damaged by a Ghost Touch Fireball; they're just a disembodied mind, it shouldn't be possible to affect them with anything other than Will saves. Though obviously this would be unbalanced, the alternative is nonsensical.

[Psyren]

But in this specific case, it's no use. Practiced Manifester can't help you overcome level adjustment.

Huh, so it can't. In which case a Psion Uncarnate might actually be a better option (despite not gaining permanent incorporeality until later) as they would be able to fill in the 4 dead levels with PM, and gain all of the benefits of an Unbodied in the process.


It's true that you have somewhat better options than a Vancian caster, but given that the spell list is about nine times as long as the psychic power list (accounting for all books; nearly every book adds more spells while only a handful add powers), it seems dubious to give psions the advantage in this regard; they both suffer pretty heavily from missing levels.

There are indeed more spells but you're missing my point. Most low-level spells become obsolete quickly, whether due to damage caps or save DC caps or redundancy etc. I'll repeat my example - SMI becomes useless in a fight very quickly, forcing the vancian caster to continually learn the next spell up the chain. And if he starts losing caster levels, that next spell takes longer to get to and he becomes less powerful. The same is true of spells like Charm Person.

The Psion who loses ML (say, to a PrC like Psion Uncarnate) doesn't have to wait to get to those new rungs on the ladder. He can access them with Practiced Manifester while the wizard has to wait (or pick a PrC that doesn't lose CL.)


Read Telekinetic Force again. It only affects objects, never creatures.

Fine, not big T then, but you're splitting hairs. Let's go with a Titan (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/titan.htm) instead - grab hold of his plate mail or his weapon (attended objects can be targeted) and fling him around with that. Or grab a Balor's sword/whip, at least until he lets go.


And even with an ML of 20, the maximum weight affectable is 625 pounds; the Tarrasque weighs tons, and even an Ogre is probably beyond you, unless he's on a diet or something.

By ECL 20 you should really plan on having more ML than your class levels provide. Get Overchannel, an ioun stone, bead of karma, Midnight Augmentation etc. The point there is that the cap is only as high as what you can pile on to raise it; psionics has far fewer hard caps than magic.

[the_archduke]

The Unbodied, y'know, have no body. They may not have been printed with Amorphous Form or anything, but it's clearly implied by their nature. Frankly I don't even understand how they can be attacked by ethereal creatures or damaged by a Ghost Touch Fireball; they're just a disembodied mind, it shouldn't be possible to affect them with anything other than Will saves. Though obviously this would be unbalanced, the alternative is nonsensical.

Nope. They have a body. they are huge, ethereal brains. Per page 170 of MoI, that gives them every chakra but hands and arms. Read Venger's post again. He explains where the chakras would go.

[the_archduke]

Unbodied are also disgustingly broken in E6. Unbodied 4/Telepath 1/Thrallherd 1 may be the most powerful build in E6. Chill out underground and have unending waves of believers and thralls handle whatever problem you have.

[willpell]

There are indeed more spells but you're missing my point. Most low-level spells become obsolete quickly, whether due to damage caps or save DC caps or redundancy etc. I'll repeat my example - SMI becomes useless in a fight very quickly, forcing the vancian caster to continually learn the next spell up the chain. And if he starts losing caster levels, that next spell takes longer to get to and he becomes less powerful. The same is true of spells like Charm Person.

Right you are. I've often struggled with the decision of whether and how to change those issues.


Fine, not big T then, but you're splitting hairs.

The fact that TK Force can't affect creatures is the entire reason TK Thrust and TK Maneuver exist. For better or for worse, D&D breaks spells and powers that ought to have broad, sweeping utility down into very specific subsets (though a fair number of things should have received this treatment but did not - Polymorph being the ur-example).


Let's go with a Titan (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/titan.htm) instead - grab hold of his plate mail or his weapon (attended objects can be targeted) and fling him around with that. Or grab a Balor's sword/whip, at least until he lets go.

This may be RAW-legal but I would houserule against it, on the basis that the titan's armor contains the titan and thus his weight anchors it, so you can't move it unless you can match the extra weight. Also keep in mind that you have the telekinetic equivalent of one hand, albeit a very strong one. They ought to have given you an effective Strength score for yanking a weapon out of someone's hand, but I guess the object's Will save somehow fulfills that function, stupidly enough.


By ECL 20 you should really plan on having more ML than your class levels provide. Get Overchannel, an ioun stone, bead of karma, Midnight Augmentation etc. The point there is that the cap is only as high as what you can pile on to raise it; psionics has far fewer hard caps than magic.

Hm....this is worrisome. What Ioun Stone affects psionics?


Nope. They have a body. they are huge, ethereal brains.

No, they look like huge ethereal brains, sometimes. From the EPH:


The unbodied are a race of former humanoids that have successfully cast off their physical bodies and now exist as pure mind. However, using its assume likeness ability, an unbodied can take any shape it desires. The most common forms in which an unbodied appears are a noble human (either male or female)
dressed in dramatic fashion, a disembodied brain, or a simple globe of light. But the only real limit to an unbodied’s form is the creature’s imagination. Some unbodied go about as Large dragons, others as Small animals, and a few in nightmarish assemblages of limbs and goo. When in such physical forms, they do not give off light but mimic a solid,
physical presence (though interaction usually reveals their incorporeal nature).

"Take shape" does seem to imply a physical presence, but not necessarily so; a spotlight has the shape of a cone but you can't touch it and push it around, not even with another spotlight. The Unbodied can look like a brain, or like anything else no larger than Large, but it never actually is any of those things.

[dspeyer]

As for WBL, you might spend some on services. Assuming transparency, a 17th level NPC psion(telepath) will grant you the 3rd level power of your choice for 16530gp. It's one of your powers known ever afterwards.

[Psyren]

The fact that TK Force can't affect creatures is the entire reason TK Thrust and TK Maneuver exist. For better or for worse, D&D breaks spells and powers that ought to have broad, sweeping utility down into very specific subsets (though a fair number of things should have received this treatment but did not - Polymorph being the ur-example).

Which is pretty ridiculous if you ask me. Yes, "toolbox spells" are the most easily broken, but why break up that one? It's hard to get more iconically psionic than TK, yet arcane magic does it better for some reason, since all three powers are encapsulated in the one spell. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/telekinesis.htm)

But I digress.



This may be RAW-legal but I would houserule against it, on the basis that the titan's armor contains the titan and thus his weight anchors it, so you can't move it unless you can match the extra weight. Also keep in mind that you have the telekinetic equivalent of one hand, albeit a very strong one. They ought to have given you an effective Strength score for yanking a weapon out of someone's hand, but I guess the object's Will save somehow fulfills that function, stupidly enough.

I wasn't trying to get around the Titan's weight actually. Enough cheese can get your ML ridiculously high (see the "tricks" link in my sig.) Again, the big difference is that psionic powers are uncapped.

The one-hand bit doesn't matter to me considering that psions can easily get to Huge size (or possibly larger.) So even if you go by the manifester's hand, well, they can get pretty big hands if they want.



Hm....this is worrisome. What Ioun Stone affects psionics?

All of them, but I was specifically referring to Orange in this context. Any magic item that affects CL affects ML via transparency.

And don't get me started on ever-abusable +1 manifester arrows, a few quivers of which could allow you to lift a castle.

All of that is TO of course.

[olentu]

All of them, but I was specifically referring to Orange in this context. Any magic item that affects CL affects ML via transparency.

You know despite all the times I have heard that said I have never actually seen an argument showing that exact thing without relying completely on a favorable DM ruling. Would you mind going over your take on the matter.

[Ashtagon]

Unbodied are also disgustingly broken in E6. Unbodied 4/Telepath 1/Thrallherd 1 may be the most powerful build in E6. Chill out underground and have unending waves of believers and thralls handle whatever problem you have.

Didn't someone upthread say they also have 4 RHD? Between the RHD and the +4 LA, that should make them unplayable in e6. Or am I missing some obscure rule?

[willpell]

As for WBL, you might spend some on services. Assuming transparency, a 17th level NPC psion(telepath) will grant you the 3rd level power of your choice for 16530gp. It's one of your powers known ever afterwards.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. The Unbodied manifests as a Psion, so he gains 2 powers per level (eventually tapering off to 1 at certain levels IIRC) regardless of whether or not he has a source for any of them. An Erudite certainly would like hiring NPC Psions to expand his repetoire, but an Unbodied is no better at being an Erudite than he is at being a Wilder - his racial manifesting doesn't stack with anything other than Psion levels, so all he gains compared to a Doppelganger Erudite is a bunch of PP.


Which is pretty ridiculous if you ask me. Yes, "toolbox spells" are the most easily broken, but why break up that one? It's hard to get more iconically psionic than TK, yet arcane magic does it better for some reason, since all three powers are encapsulated in the one spell. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/telekinesis.htm)

It's a much higher-level spell for wizards, so the psions get started doing it far earlier. They have to use up a lot of their powers known, while a sorcerer needs only one spell known, but the sorcerer will have very few slots to devote to it while the psion will have a slew of PP and the ability to fine-tune his usage. I haven't compared them side-by-side but it doesn't seem as though the arcane caster is better per se, he's just bundled the effects together into a single difficult-to-learn spell.


And don't get me started on ever-abusable +1 manifester arrows, a few quivers of which could allow you to lift a castle.

Where the dickens are those described?

[willpell]

Another vein of unexpected questions: Familiars and Psicrystals. They get all your Skills, but they usually have no manipulative appendages, and a Psicrystal has no appendages period except for the ectoplasmic legs you can make it grow. So there are a LOT of really weird scenarios.

[Venger]

Didn't someone upthread say they also have 4 RHD? Between the RHD and the +4 LA, that should make them unplayable in e6. Or am I missing some obscure rule?

that was me, and they do in fact have 4 RHD of monstrous humanoid, making them an ECL booster of 8, so a 1st lvl psion unbodied is an ECL 9 character, thus (RAW) ineligible for E6.

if your DM cut down on the LA for unbodied, then you maybe might find them usable, but I don't know of anyone who'd say that 5 psion levels are equal to an ECL booster of 4.

[mattie_p]

that was me, and they do in fact have 4 RHD of monstrous humanoid, making them an ECL booster of 8, so a 1st lvl psion unbodied is an ECL 9 character, thus (RAW) ineligible for E6.

I'm not overly familiar with E6, so I do not know if thissource (http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/E6_(3.5e_Sourcebook)/Rules) is accurate, but it indicates that an LA +4 race would receive a 0 point buy, and thus make it legal for E6.

[willpell]

Okay, moving in a new direction: Incarnum. Totemists have Wild Empathy. Totemists have a +4 bonus to use Wild Empathy on a Magical Beast that matches their bound totem. Using Wild Empathy on a Magical Beast is an automatic penatly of -4, and is only even possible if the MB has an Intelligence of 2 or less. Otherwise, you're using Diplomacy, and the Totemist has no bonuses there. Anyone besides me see this as a problem?

[Lord_Gareth]

Okay, moving in a new direction: Incarnum. Totemists have Wild Empathy. Totemists have a +4 bonus to use Wild Empathy on a Magical Beast that matches their bound totem. Using Wild Empathy on a Magical Beast is an automatic penatly of -4, and is only even possible if the MB has an Intelligence of 2 or less. Otherwise, you're using Diplomacy, and the Totemist has no bonuses there. Anyone besides me see this as a problem?

Nope. What it means is that Totemists, effectively, don't suffer the normal penalty for using Wild Empathy on animal-intelligence Magical Beasts. Since those beasts are their totems, I see no issue with this whatsoever.

[willpell]

Not really on-topic for the thread, but I don't feel like making a new one. What would be the best and/or most accessible sources for information on Sun Elf (or Gray Elf for non-Faerun worlds) society? I'm looking for day-in-the-life stuff to provide for a character who lives in a society containing both races, a mountaintop city where the Suns are most of the population but the Grays hold most of the city's leadership roles. I want the elf society to be fairly traditional and hidebound, but at the same time this is a huge city in a setting that likes to be obsessively and lavishly detailed, so I want a lot of cosmopolitan detail that I can throw in while still keeping things very Elf-centric.

[willpell]

Back on the topic, such as it is.

What are the best skills to model a character being familiar with formal logic or having an understanding of higher mathematics? Knowledge skills devoted to these subjects won't do anything per RAW because there are no standardized checks requiring that knowledge, and Profession supposes that anyone will pay the character to practice these fields, which seems like a stretch in a medieval setting. Is there anything in a 3rd party supplement which deals with this topic?

[TuggyNE]

What are the best skills to model a character being familiar with formal logic or having an understanding of higher mathematics? Knowledge skills devoted to these subjects won't do anything per RAW because there are no standardized checks requiring that knowledge, and Profession supposes that anyone will pay the character to practice these fields, which seems like a stretch in a medieval setting. Is there anything in a 3rd party supplement which deals with this topic?

Craft (mathematical theory)? :smalltongue:

[Dusk Eclipse]

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. The Unbodied manifests as a Psion, so he gains 2 powers per level (eventually tapering off to 1 at certain levels IIRC) regardless of whether or not he has a source for any of them. An Erudite certainly would like hiring NPC Psions to expand his repetoire, but an Unbodied is no better at being an Erudite than he is at being a Wilder - his racial manifesting doesn't stack with anything other than Psion levels, so all he gains compared to a Doppelganger Erudite is a bunch of PP.
Psychic Chirurgery (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/psychicChirurgery.htm) Specifically the Transfer Knowledge
use
If desired, you can use this power to directly transfer knowledge of a power you know to another psionic character. You can give a character knowledge of a power of any level that she can manifest, even if the power is not normally on the character’s power list. Knowledge of powers gained through psychic chirurgery does not count toward the maximum number of powers a character can know per level.

So yes an Unbodied can pay money for more Powers Known (finding a level 17 Telepath is another matter entirely; but I do know there is one stated up in Secrets of Sarlona, incidentally she is the founder or at least current Leader of the Tashalastora Monastery).



Where the dickens are those described?

Right here in the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/weapons.htm#manifesterWeapon)

Manifester
This kind of weapon generates 5 power points once per day that the wearer can use when manifesting a power he knows. These power points must all be used on the same power. As usual, a psionic character cannot pay a power’s cost with power points from more than one source, so the power points in the weapon must be used for discrete manifestations.

Moderate clairsentience; ML 8th; Craft Psionic Arms and Armor, knowledge of any 3rd-level power; Price +16,000 gp. Now, they don't allow you to break the ML Cap (IIRC there are some Kalashtar/Inspired only Dragonshards that allow you to do that); but you can use them to manifest any Power with a cost of 5 PP or less. There are several useful powers in this range, for example Psionic Minor Creation and Dimension Hop.

[Fable Wright]

Right here in the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/weapons.htm#manifesterWeapon)

Manifester
This kind of weapon generates 5 power points once per day that the wearer can use when manifesting a power he knows. These power points must all be used on the same power. As usual, a psionic character cannot pay a power’s cost with power points from more than one source, so the power points in the weapon must be used for discrete manifestations.

Moderate clairsentience; ML 8th; Craft Psionic Arms and Armor, knowledge of any 3rd-level power; Price +16,000 gp. Now, they don't allow you to break the ML Cap (IIRC there are some Kalashtar/Inspired only Dragonshards that allow you to do that); but you can use them to manifest any Power with a cost of 5 PP or less. There are several useful powers in this range, for example Psionic Minor Creation and Dimension Hop.

You can do better than that. Use Bestow Power and reduce the manifesting cost by 1 through any number of tricks, transfer 4PP to yourself per arrow.

[Dusk Eclipse]

You can do better than that. Use Bestow Power and reduce the manifesting cost by 1 through any number of tricks, transfer 4PP to yourself per arrow.

Cool, never thought to use them that way. Now the easiest way should be the Torc of Power Preservation (XPH version) or Earth Power right?

[Psyren]

Another vein of unexpected questions: Familiars and Psicrystals. They get all your Skills, but they usually have no manipulative appendages, and a Psicrystal has no appendages period except for the ectoplasmic legs you can make it grow. So there are a LOT of really weird scenarios.

It's mainly so they can Aid you, or for the non-manipulative skills (e.g. Spot, Listen, UPD etc.) But for skills like Open Lock where they would need to manipulate something, you can either get UPD ranks and an dorje of something like Microkinesis/TK Force, or you can share a shapeshifty power like Metamorphosis with them. Or you could just go with an Elemental Envoy, as they have limbs.


Back on the topic, such as it is.

What are the best skills to model a character being familiar with formal logic or having an understanding of higher mathematics? Knowledge skills devoted to these subjects won't do anything per RAW because there are no standardized checks requiring that knowledge, and Profession supposes that anyone will pay the character to practice these fields, which seems like a stretch in a medieval setting. Is there anything in a 3rd party supplement which deals with this topic?

Architecture/Engineering? You have to be pretty good at math to be good at those two subjects.

Going by the Geometer, Spellcraft encapsulates a fair amount of math as well.

[TypoNinja]

Things they never expected us to ask, oh geeze I hit these all the time.

So much of the game economy (and crafting rules) assume an economy of plenty. It's merely a matter of going to market to get what you need, GP and raw materials are essentially interchangeable. Not so in a more wilderness/survival themed game.

How much does quarried stone cost? Mithril, Adamantine, and cold iron by the lb? What percentage of adamantine fullplate is actually made of adamantine? Does a cold iron dagger need to be all cold iron or just the blade? How about a regular steel core with just a cold iron shell? What exactly are those magical ingredients you use when crafting magic items?

Frustratingly enough for the burgeoning blacksmith, there's also no stats for an anvil. On that note, exactly how much coal does a blacksmith go through?

How many herd animals do we need for a self sustaining population? If you have a fishery set up with 1000 fish in it, how many can you safely harvest per season?

How do you figure out what skills are used when constructing a building? The walls are stone working ok, but what about the interiors? How much of the crafting is each skill?

The list goes on.

[Fable Wright]

Cool, never thought to use them that way. Now the easiest way should be the Torc of Power Preservation (XPH version) or Earth Power right?

Midnight Augmentation also works. Cheaper than Torc, less prerequisites than Earth Power, and you can do it while hovering or underwater. It's probably the easiest, but the others apply cost reduction to everything, so call it a tossup.

[Psyren]

MA only applies to powers that can be augmented though, whereas the other two cheapen everything whether you can (or choose to) augment them or not.

[willpell]

The thing with Manifester Arrows obviously doesn't work quite as well as people are thinking. The weapon enchantment is applied to a batch of 50 arrows, and the result is that there are 5 power points in that batch. Not 5 per arrow. So it's no cheaper than using manifester swords. Meanwhile, even if you did have an absurd quantity of manifester weapons, you're still not getting past the level cap, so no "lifting a castle" is possible. You have to be able to fit the castle's entire weight/volume (whichever applies, I forget) within one manifestation, which is probably impossible even at epic levels unless there's a metapsi which can double or triple your ML calculations.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The thing with Manifester Arrows obviously doesn't work quite as well as people are thinking. The weapon enchantment is applied to a batch of 50 arrows, and the result is that there are 5 power points in that batch. Not 5 per arrow. So it's no cheaper than using manifester swords. Meanwhile, even if you did have an absurd quantity of manifester weapons, you're still not getting past the level cap, so no "lifting a castle" is possible. You have to be able to fit the castle's entire weight/volume (whichever applies, I forget) within one manifestation, which is probably impossible even at epic levels unless there's a metapsi which can double or triple your ML calculations.

While I'm certainly not saying that the manifester arrow trick isn't cheesy, it is raw. Saying that there's only 5pp in the batch of arrows is like saying that a batch of flaming burst arrows only does 1d6 +2d10 fire damage after all 50 arrows are fired, or that only the first one to succesfully strike gets the bonus damage.

Manifester arrows certainly wasn't intended, but it is RAW. It's just a TO exploit that would never fly in a normal game.

[willpell]

The enchantment of the arrows with a +1 does not give the quiver a total of +50; the value of the enhancement isn't multiplied by the number of arrows, it's just co-located to every arrow. You can use 5 power points from the first arrow you take out of the quiver, but they are the same 5 power points that are co-located in every other arrow of the bunch; if you spend 3 from the first arrow and then draw out another arrow, that one has 2 power points left, and if you spend 1 of those, the third arrow has 1. The arrows can be fired separately, but as far as the Manifester enchantment is concerned, they're all a single object, whose qualities are no more separate than different inches of a sword's length.

[Lord_Gareth]

The enchantment of the arrows with a +1 does not give the quiver a total of +50; the value of the enhancement isn't multiplied by the number of arrows, it's just co-located to every arrow. You can use 5 power points from the first arrow you take out of the quiver, but they are the same 5 power points that are co-located in every other arrow of the bunch; if you spend 3 from the first arrow and then draw out another arrow, that one has 2 power points left, and if you spend 1 of those, the third arrow has 1. The arrows can be fired separately, but as far as the Manifester enchantment is concerned, they're all a single object, whose qualities are no more separate than different inches of a sword's length.

[Citation needed]

No, seriously. Citation needed. Go forth and quote for us the part of the SRD which backs up your statement. I'm certain one of the optimizers hereabouts can quote our side.

[The Random NPC]

The enchantment of the arrows with a +1 does not give the quiver a total of +50; the value of the enhancement isn't multiplied by the number of arrows, it's just co-located to every arrow. You can use 5 power points from the first arrow you take out of the quiver, but they are the same 5 power points that are co-located in every other arrow of the bunch; if you spend 3 from the first arrow and then draw out another arrow, that one has 2 power points left, and if you spend 1 of those, the third arrow has 1. The arrows can be fired separately, but as far as the Manifester enchantment is concerned, they're all a single object, whose qualities are no more separate than different inches of a sword's length.

So what you're saying is the Manifester enchantment is a special case that other +1's such as Flaming aren't?

[Flickerdart]

The enchantment of the arrows with a +1 does not give the quiver a total of +50; the value of the enhancement isn't multiplied by the number of arrows, it's just co-located to every arrow. You can use 5 power points from the first arrow you take out of the quiver, but they are the same 5 power points that are co-located in every other arrow of the bunch; if you spend 3 from the first arrow and then draw out another arrow, that one has 2 power points left, and if you spend 1 of those, the third arrow has 1. The arrows can be fired separately, but as far as the Manifester enchantment is concerned, they're all a single object, whose qualities are no more separate than different inches of a sword's length.
Nothing in the text suggests that this is how it should work. The only relevant rules are:

The 2000gp +1 price is "for 50 arrows, crossbow bolts, shuriken, or sling bullets."

A manifesting weapon (or arrow, as the case may be) "generates 5 power points once per day that the wearer can use when manifesting a power he knows."

Your interpretation is also doubly incorrect in that a given arrow only provides the 5 PP once, and if you don't use all of it, you waste the rest.

[willpell]

It doesn't say "or arrow". "This kind of weapon" in this case means the entire quiver, not the individual arrow, since you craft one Manifester enhancement (along with a +1 bonus), paying 16K gp to imbue the Manifester enhancement into the entire quiver. If the enhancement were Flaming instead, you would imbue "capacity to deal 2d10 fire damage per attack" into the entire quiver of arrows, just as you would imbue it onto a sword; the difference is that the sword can make any number of attacks but only one at a time, while the arrows each produce one attack but could be divided up among a line of archers and all 50 fired in one round. But that's no different than if the sword's wielder had some stupidly epic version of Haste cast on him that gave him 50 melee attacks. It's still one enchantment, whose effects are applied once per attack. Manifester doesn't apply once per attack, it applies once per day, and it can only produce 5 power points, per day, per +16K gold weapon enhancement

(Flickerdart is however correct that I got the "save some for later" part wrong; you only ever get to manifest one power, which under my interpretation means one power per quiver per day.)

[Flickerdart]

It doesn't say "or arrow". "This kind of weapon" in this case means the entire quiver, not the individual arrow, since you craft one Manifester enhancement (along with a +1 bonus), paying 16K gp to imbue the Manifester enhancement into the entire quiver. If the enhancement were Flaming instead, you would imbue "capacity to deal 2d10 fire damage per attack" into the entire quiver of arrows, just as you would imbue it onto a sword; the difference is that the sword can make any number of attacks but only one at a time, while the arrows each produce one attack but could be divided up among a line of archers and all 50 fired in one round. But that's no different than if the sword's wielder had some stupidly epic version of Haste cast on him that gave him 50 melee attacks. It's still one enchantment, whose effects are applied once per attack. Manifester doesn't apply once per attack, it applies once per day, and it can only produce 5 power points, per day, per +16K gold weapon enhancement
A "quiver" is not an item nor any other sort of entity within the game.

Riddle me this. I want to buy a quiver of manifesting arrows, and pay 1000gp for 25 arrows. How many PPs do they give me?

[willpell]

50 +1 manifester arrows (I'm calling this set of ammunition a quiver, though you're right that the book doesn't use that term, probably to keep anyone from thinking it was the container that was getting enchanted*) cost 350 + 2,000 + 16,000 = 18,350 gp. So if you wanted to purchase 25 such arrows, they would come from a set of 50 that had been crafted, split in half, and the halves sold individually (presumably for 9,175 gp, though realistically the merchant could ask for less or more at his discretion). This would be rather a gyp on the part of the seller, because both halves of the original set would contain the same manifester enchanmtent*, so if the purchaser of the other 25 arrows used the 5 power points earlier in the day, you would not be able to do the same. The DM could model this easily enough by rolling a 50% chance of you being able to access the power points at any given time (unless he had a specific NPC in mind for the purchaser of the other half and wanted to imagine whether he was using powers that day). If you purchased only 10 arrows from that original set, you'd have a 20% chance of being able to use the power points on any given day. (You could try to manifest a buff first thing in the morning when you woke up, but other users might very well have thought of the same trick, so the flat percentage chance is a reasonable abstraction regardless of the circumstances.)

* Players of Magic the Gathering will know why I'm using the word "enchantment" in this context; the fact that it means something different in D&D is a persistent nuisance to me. Substitute 'weapon enhancement magic aura" or whatever if you want to be technical.

[TuggyNE]

A "quiver" is not an item nor any other sort of entity within the game.

Riddle me this. I want to buy a quiver of manifesting arrows, and pay 1000gp for 25 arrows. How many PPs do they give me?

Per the SRD, arrows are sold in bundles of 20 standard, not 25.

[Flickerdart]

50 +1 manifester arrows (I'm calling this set of ammunition a quiver, though you're right that the book doesn't use that term, probably to keep anyone from thinking it was the container that was getting enchanted*) cost 350 + 2,000 + 16,000 = 18,350 gp. So if you wanted to purchase 25 such arrows, they would come from a set of 50 that had been crafted, split in half, and the halves sold individually (presumably for 9,175 gp, though realistically the merchant could ask for less or more at his discretion). This would be rather a gyp on the part of the seller, because both halves of the original set would contain the same manifester enchanmtent*, so if the purchaser of the other 25 arrows used the 5 power points earlier in the day, you would not be able to do the same. The DM could model this easily enough by rolling a 50% chance of you being able to access the power points at any given time (unless he had a specific NPC in mind for the purchaser of the other half and wanted to imagine whether he was using powers that day). If you purchased only 10 arrows from that original set, you'd have a 20% chance of being able to use the power points on any given day. (You could try to manifest a buff first thing in the morning when you woke up, but other users might very well have thought of the same trick, so the flat percentage chance is a reasonable abstraction regardless of the circumstances.)

* Players of Magic the Gathering will know why I'm using the word "enchantment" in this context; the fact that it means something different in D&D is a persistent nuisance to me. Substitute 'weapon enhancement magic aura" or whatever if you want to be technical.
Uh-huh.

So, say I buy a full set of 50 arrows. And then shoot 1, so it's broken. How many PPs does the apparently quantum-entangled "quiver" grant me now?

[TuggyNE]

New instant communications system, using cheap magic ammunition:

Get 50 +1 flaming arrows
Distribute one to each correspondent, reserving one for yourself
To communicate, command the arrow to turn on or off in a prearranged fashion
All arrows will of course simultaneously turn on and off because they all come from the same enhancement batch, communicating to each correspondent the desired transmission
For wider bandwidth, or return communication, acquire similar frost and shocking arrows, as well as similarly-enhanced bolts, sling stones, and shuriken; corrosive, psychokinetic, or sonic ammunition may also be of use
For best results, develop information theory first, and apply liberally to mindless constructs


What could possibly go wrong?

[willpell]

Per the SRD, arrows are sold in bundles of 20 standard, not 25.

The PHB says arrows come in sets of 20, while the DMG says they come in 50. The PHB was rushed to print early, so I'm inclined to treat the DMG as the later revision, although it makes little difference as long as the arrows aren't being enchanted.


Uh-huh.

So, say I buy a full set of 50 arrows. And then shoot 1, so it's broken. How many PPs does the apparently quantum-entangled "quiver" grant me now?

Shooting an arrow wouldn't count as breaking the weapon, since it's designed to work thsi way. It would be like hitting your hammer against an anvil and having a little tiny corner of it flake off; magic weapons aren't "broken" by a little wear and tear in the course of normal use.

[TuggyNE]

Shooting an arrow wouldn't count as breaking the weapon, since it's designed to work thsi way. It would be like hitting your hammer against an anvil and having a little tiny corner of it flake off; magic weapons aren't "broken" by a little wear and tear in the course of normal use.

Um...
Magic Ammunition and Breakage
When a magic arrow, crossbow bolt, shuriken, or sling bullet misses its target, there is a 50% chance it breaks or otherwise is rendered useless. A magic arrow, bolt, bullet, or shuriken that hits is destroyed.

That seems fairly clear to me; that particular bit of ammunition is gone, lost, finito, sayonara, down the drain, trashed.

[willpell]

New instant communications system, using cheap magic ammunition:
What could possibly go wrong?

Funny, but wouldn't work that way. The wielder controls what the enchantment on a specific subset of the multi-part weapon does. Hence the possibility for the wielder of the other half of your manifester arrow set to use the power points for the day, so you don't get to.

(Anyway, IMO even if my version does have abusive applications, they are less abusive than getting 250 extra power points a day.)


Um...

That seems fairly clear to me; that particular bit of ammunition is gone, lost, finito, sayonara, down the drain, trashed.

Yes, but the enchanted weapon is not "an arrow", it is "a set of 50 arrows". All with one enchantment on it, which grants "all arrows within this set" access to the same single spell effect. The single collective enchantment, created with Craft Magic Weapons/Armor, is the "server" from which each arrow "downloads" its enhancement bonus) For a set of +1 Flaming Manifester Arrows, the "server" provides each one with a continuous +1 enhancement bonus, a user-activateable flaming quality, and a "password" which allows access to the daily resevoir of power points. But that resevoir isn't in the arrow, and isn't affected by the arrow's breakage, any more than the flaming enhancement of one arrow is affected by firing another arrow from the set. They each host their own "copy" of the enchantment, but multiple copies never stack, and the power point resevoir remains in the central hub until accessed.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The PHB says arrows come in sets of 20, while the DMG says they come in 50. The PHB was rushed to print early, so I'm inclined to treat the DMG as the later revision, although it makes little difference as long as the arrows aren't being enchanted.



Shooting an arrow wouldn't count as breaking the weapon, since it's designed to work thsi way. It would be like hitting your hammer against an anvil and having a little tiny corner of it flake off; magic weapons aren't "broken" by a little wear and tear in the course of normal use.

What about when half the arrows have been destroyed be being succesfully shot into enemies?

I don't leave half my sword in a hobgoblin's liver, and if I did the sword would lose its magical properties, because it would be broken.

Why are your magically quantum entangled manifester arrows still considered a whole weapon when half of them have been destroyed?

[willpell]

Why are your magically quantum entangled manifester arrows still considered a whole weapon when half of them have been destroyed?

The sword is still an effective weapon as long as it has enough of a blade left to cut or stab things. (Breaking a sword would entail snapping it off close to the hilt, leaving not enough left to slash or parry with.) Likewise, the arrow-set is still an effective weapon as long as any arrows remain to be fired.

[TuggyNE]

(Anyway, IMO even if my version does have abusive applications, they are less abusive than getting 250 extra power points a day.)

While my example was deliberately abusive (in a way) it was also an exaggeration of some of the natural implications this explanation tends to have. Those implications must then be explained away by further complications, and so forth.


Yes, but the enchanted weapon is not "an arrow", it is "a set of 50 arrows". All with one enchantment on it, which grants "all arrows within this set" access to the same single spell effect. The single collective enchantment, created with Craft Magic Weapons/Armor, is the "server" from which each arrow "downloads" its enhancement bonus) For a set of +1 Flaming Manifester Arrows, the "server" provides each one with a continuous +1 enhancement bonus, a user-activateable flaming quality, and a "password" which allows access to the daily resevoir of power points. But that resevoir isn't in the arrow, and isn't affected by the arrow's breakage, any more than the flaming enhancement of one arrow is affected by firing another arrow from the set. They each host their own "copy" of the enchantment, but multiple copies never stack, and the power point resevoir remains in the central hub until accessed.

I admire your dedication, and desire to avoid abuse of manifester, but surely the easier way to fix it is to fix the wording of the specific enhancement, not to contort your view of all weapon abilities with odd ideas of "servers" and "downloading"? Just correct the bad design already, don't try to justify how it's actually not broken if you squint in a sufficiently clever fashion.

This new explanation raises some problems, as alluded to. The most obvious one is this: how does this connection between arrows of a set function across, say, interplanar boundaries? Can it be traced, or blocked more precisely than with a dispel? For that matter, where is the central hub, or did the mages that designed ammunition enhancement also design a secure P2P storage protocol? Why would they even bother with such a complicated system; how is it more efficient?

Of course, the problem of X/day effects on ammunition can be serious, but I think a better approach is to just disallow them; the magic of those precisely-limited enhancements simply cannot be distributed among the ammunition.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The sword is still an effective weapon as long as it has enough of a blade left to cut or stab things. (Breaking a sword would entail snapping it off close to the hilt, leaving not enough left to slash or parry with.) Likewise, the arrow-set is still an effective weapon as long as any arrows remain to be fired.

So, assuming you're the dm, if an enemy sunders my longsword and you describe it as having broken my blade in half, I still have an effective shortsword? or does having my longsword's hp reduced to zero cause it to explode into unusable shards each and every time? Even without a handle, if I'm wearing gauntlets, I can pick up the severed blade and continue to use it right? It's still an effective weapon. Maybe call it a dagger now?

[willpell]

Those implications must then be explained away by further complications, and so forth.

I am fine with this. Such explanations are quality worldbuilding, and among the most fun I have as a D&D GM.


I admire your dedication, and desire to avoid abuse of manifester, but surely the easier way to fix it is to fix the wording of the specific enhancement, not to contort your view of all weapon abilities with odd ideas of "servers" and "downloading"? Just correct the bad design already, don't try to justify how it's actually not broken if you squint in a sufficiently clever fashion.

When I want to know what a rule does, I tend to look it up in a rulebook (usually a PDF on my computer since they reduce time flipping pages). If I decide to contradict the rulebook, I have to remember my ruling, or remember where I wrote it down. It'd better if I can find a way to make the RAW work as RAI by exercising what I regard as basic logic. Obviously they can't have meant for a quiver of +1 arrows that costs the same as a +1 sword to have given 50x as many power points. So I just use common sense and imagination to figure out how the magic would have to work, in order to produce a result which is consistent with both RAW and reason.


This new explanation raises some problems, as alluded to. The most obvious one is this: how does this connection between arrows of a set function across, say, interplanar boundaries?

Just as well as your circulatory system functions while you're standing in the middle of a portal with one auricle and one ventricle of your heart in the PMP and the other in Baator or wherever. You're still connected, being made out of flesh, and so the spell is still connected, being made out of magic. The magic just doesn't care about fiddly details like spatial position; the arrows don't have to be physically connected, as long as they are conceptually connected (much as a set of mirrors made by the same glazier are conceptually connected, and so they all open onto the same hallway in the Plane of Mirrors, as described in Manual of the Planes - I realize this is optional and it isn't actually how the Mirror Plane works in my game, but the principle is valid nonetheless).


Can it be traced, or blocked more precisely than with a dispel?

No. It's not a signal or a transmission; it doesn't break down into component parts that can be separated. It is in many places at once, but always one thing - kind of like a deity's ability to perceive multiple disparate locations, given how half of all magic comes from deities. I would personally take it a little further, saying that the spell exists in "thought space", and multiple items can partake of the same magic the same way multiple minds can think the same word, without the original word having to move in and out of their minds, or be "beamed" from its location into those minds (though certainly you can fluff the mechanics of consciousness as working exactly that way, if you prefer it to the idea of remote omnipresence and co-location).


For that matter, where is the central hub

In the same kind of inaccessible nondimensional space which contains the extra mass of an 8-foot werewolf while he's in the form of a 5-foot human. Magic works entirely because it isn't required to follow scientific laws such as "matter can't be created or destroyed". There are some mysteries which simply cannot be solved, some places you can't go no matter how powerful you are, and the universe works because of those mysteries.


Why would they even bother with such a complicated system; how is it more efficient?

It's the only way it can possibly work, according to my universe's metaphysics. This is justified by the fact that it works this way and not some other way - which I know formal logic likes to dismiss as circular reasoning, but I prefer to think of it as what the Greeks referred to as telos - a thing which completes itself.


but I think a better approach is to just disallow them; the magic of those precisely-limited enhancements simply cannot be distributed among the ammunition.

Well I suppose if you want to do it the easy way....


So, assuming you're the dm, if an enemy sunders my longsword and you describe it as having broken my blade in half, I still have an effective shortsword? or does having my longsword's hp reduced to zero cause it to explode into unusable shards each and every time? Even without a handle, if I'm wearing gauntlets, I can pick up the severed blade and continue to use it right? It's still an effective weapon. Maybe call it a dagger now?

It would be my responsibility as DM to describe an effective sunder as having broken your blade short enough that you can't use it any more; if only the tip breaks off, that probably means the weapon has lost HP but not been completely sundered. As for wielding the broken blade, I guess that would count as an improvised weapon, and treating it as a dagger or a shortsword seems reasonable. (Remember that shortswords do "piercing" damage rather than "piercing or slashing", so a broken longsword probably doesn't work very well as a shortsword, probably doing only slashing damage unless the break was at a sharp angle, but the broken-off tip might do shortsword damage if it's big enough to get a good impaling stab that would hurt more than a dagger.)

Per RAW a sword broken in half this way is supposed to lose its magic, but I might rule otherwise depending on the exact circumstances; maybe give the player a Spellcraft roll to be able to evoke the lingering magic in his sword's broken blade and have the bonus remain, I dunno. Under no circumstances, of course, would I allow the player to break the sword into two functional pieces and have it count as two weapons of its original enahncement value. Even if the mechanical effect is the same, the idea is what matters in matters of magic.

[Mithril Leaf]

While you are entirely in the right as far as that being interesting and fun (I would probably enjoy playing in your games, it'd be pretty crazy at times) please don't try to argue that it's either RAW or RAI, as it is neither. It's entirely possible that someone at WotC wanted 50 manifester arrows to give 250 power points. RAW says that the individual item gives it, as well as saying that you enchant 50 items of ammunition for the cost of 1 normal weapon. Exploitive and silly, but RAW.

[Flickerdart]

Shooting an arrow wouldn't count as breaking the weapon, since it's designed to work thsi way. It would be like hitting your hammer against an anvil and having a little tiny corner of it flake off; magic weapons aren't "broken" by a little wear and tear in the course of normal use.
Ahem.

A magic arrow, bolt, bullet, or shuriken that hits is destroyed. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#magicAmmunitionandBreakage)

So I shoot my arrow, it breaks as per the rule above, do I get less PP from the "collective consciousness" of its quiver-brothers?

[Kuulvheysoon]

The designers likely made magic enchantments apply to ammunition differently because they were of finite supply, while the enchantment on a sword is effectively infinite.

Really, the designers just goofed. I found that by inserting the "This property cannot be applied to ammunition" clause that I've avoided these shenanigans (well, that and a Gentleman's Agreement).

[willpell]

So I shoot my arrow, it breaks as per the rule above, do I get less PP from the "collective consciousness" of its quiver-brothers?

Nope. As long as one or more arrows from the original set still exists, the set still exists. The power points are in the set, never the individual arrows. When the last arrow is destroyed (by hitting, or by failling the 50% chance to not be destroyed when it misses), the last connection between the spell and the physical world is lost; until then, every still-extant arrow serves as a link to the spell, giving you the option to use the power points from the spell. Destroying those arrows has no more effect that destroying cell phones which contain your phone number would have on your own phone, but if exactly 50 phones in the world (and nothing else, including your own brain) had your number, then when the last of those phones was destroyed, nobody would ever be able to call your phone again, though your number would still exist, lost to all human access. (Maybe a quest to the Astral Plane could find expended Manifester enchantments whose weapons are destroyed, floating freely in ineffable form, and turn them into cognizance crystals at a slight discount from the usual price of crafting same.)

[Flickerdart]

Nope. As long as one or more arrows from the original set still exists, the set still exists. The power points are in the set, never the individual arrows. When the last arrow is destroyed (by hitting, or by failling the 50% chance to not be destroyed when it misses), the last connection between the spell and the physical world is lost; until then, every still-extant arrow serves as a link to the spell, giving you the option to use the power points from the spell. Destroying those arrows has no more effect that destroying cell phones which contain your phone number would have on your own phone, but if exactly 50 phones in the world (and nothing else, including your own brain) had your number, then when the last of those phones was destroyed, nobody would ever be able to call your phone again, though your number would still exist, lost to all human access. (Maybe a quest to the Astral Plane could find expended Manifester enchantments whose weapons are destroyed, floating freely in ineffable form, and turn them into cognizance crystals at a slight discount from the usual price of crafting same.)
Excellent. What, then, stops me from shooting 49 arrows from the quiver, then buying a new quiver of 50, shooting 49 from that quiver, and repeating until I have 50 arrows, each imbued with the full 5 PP from its original set?

[God Imperror]

But when you only have one arrow could you get the 5 power points, or not?

If so what keeps an artificer from enchanting the set, and selling one arrow (the chosen one) and then regaining the experience from the rest of arrows effectively destroying them?

Make it a psionic artificer for more awesomeness.

[olentu]

Hmm, there are somethings that came up in the discussion that I was wondering if you guys could source for me if it is not too much of a bother. They are probably obvious but I can not recall just where they are located (it is probably the lack of sleep). The things I was wondering about are the statement that fixed cost weapon abilities only cost 1/50 the normal price when put on ammunition and the restriction on enchanting exactly 50 pieces of ammunition at one time.

[The Glyphstone]

How much wood could a Dire Woodchuck chuck if a Dire Woodchuck could chuck wood?

[Flickerdart]

Hmm, there are somethings that came up in the discussion that I was wondering if you guys could source for me if it is not too much of a bother. They are probably obvious but I can not recall just where they are located (it is probably the lack of sleep). The things I was wondering about are the statement that fixed cost weapon abilities only cost 1/50 the normal price when put on ammunition and the restriction on enchanting exactly 50 pieces of ammunition at one time.
The section of the DMG for pricing magic weapons has a note that the cost of a magic weapon is the cost for 50 units of magic ammunition.

[God Imperror]

Hmm, there are somethings that came up in the discussion that I was wondering if you guys could source for me if it is not too much of a bother. They are probably obvious but I can not recall just where they are located (it is probably the lack of sleep). The things I was wondering about are the statement that fixed cost weapon abilities only cost 1/50 the normal price when put on ammunition and the restriction on enchanting exactly 50 pieces of ammunition at one time.

Table 7-9, page 222 of the DMG specifies that the cost (of a numeric enhancement) is for 50 arrows, crossbow bolts, or sling bullets. I can't remember any source specifying that 50 arrows need to be enchanted at the same time.


How much wood could a Dire Woodchuck chuck if a Dire Woodchuck could chuck wood?

Is it an European or an African Dire Woodchuck?

Edit. swordsaged :smalltongue:

[olentu]

The section of the DMG for pricing magic weapons has a note that the cost of a magic weapon is the cost for 50 units of magic ammunition.

Yeah, but unless I am missing something that table that only covers modified enhancement bonus pricing and not fixed cost abilities. I do not think the DMG has any fixed cost weapon abilities but still that leaves me wondering.

[Psyren]

I'm going to paraphrase what I originally responded to this thread with:

"While I get the gist of your thread, there are in fact answers to your specific questions if you know the pertinent rules."

The manifester arrows thing is a clear example of this. Not knowing, for example, that magical ammunition breaks on impact is not a fault of the designers, it's a fault of the person reading their rules.

[TypoNinja]

I'm going to paraphrase what I originally responded to this thread with:

"While I get the gist of your thread, there are in fact answers to your specific questions if you know the pertinent rules."

The manifester arrows thing is a clear example of this. Not knowing, for example, that magical ammunition breaks on impact is not a fault of the designers, it's a fault of the person reading their rules.

You also can't put manifester on ammunition.

All the enchantments suitable for ranged weapons include the phrase "bows, crossbows, and slings bestow this ability upon their ammunition." Manifester lacks this clause.

If you cannot enchant a ranged weapon with it, it stands to reason you also can't enchanted the ranged weapon ammo.

[Psyren]

You also can't put manifester on ammunition.

All the enchantments suitable for ranged weapons include the phrase "bows, crossbows, and slings bestow this ability upon their ammunition." Manifester lacks this clause.

If you cannot enchant a ranged weapon with it, it stands to reason you also can't enchanted the ranged weapon ammo.

I suggest you look again; (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/weapons.htm) "manifester" is on both tables (melee and ranged). So no matter which one you consider an arrow to be, it's legal.

[Flickerdart]

You also can't put manifester on ammunition.

All the enchantments suitable for ranged weapons include the phrase "bows, crossbows, and slings bestow this ability upon their ammunition." Manifester lacks this clause.

If you cannot enchant a ranged weapon with it, it stands to reason you also can't enchanted the ranged weapon ammo.
Um, no. That makes no sense. Why in the world would an enchantment need to read that a bow with the property bestows the property upon its ammunition...if you could just put it on the arrows? Besides, if you look on the table, you'll notice that Manifesting is listed under Ranged Weapon properties just fine.

[TypoNinja]

Sorry poor wording. Let me try again.

Ranged weapons typically bestow their bonuses upon the ammunition they fire, +1 flaming, bane, whatever.

The enchantments that are suitable for these purposes all list that clause next to them that the ranged weapon gives it to the ammo. Anything with that clause is also suitable to enchant ammo directly, anything without is not. So you can have a manifester Bow just not a manifester set of arrows.

Most of the reasons for why is pretty obvious, something like Lucky (1 a day reroll) is suitable for a wielded weapon. Getting a full set of enchanted arrows that let you reroll every attack roll ever for such a low price is comically outside the bounds of the power as intended.

[Flickerdart]

Most of the reasons for why is pretty obvious, something like Lucky (1 a day reroll) is suitable for a wielded weapon. Getting a full set of enchanted arrows that let you reroll every attack roll ever for such a low price is comically outside the bounds of the power as intended.
Which is why Lucky is not on the Ranged Weapons table. Manifester is.

Your conclusion that "ranged weapons bestow this upon their ammunition" means "only this stuff can be on ammunition" is rendered demonstrably false by the fact that Manifester appears on the table that says what can be applied to ranged weapons, but lacks that text.

[Arbane]

If my character has ranks in Knowledge: Local, what happens if they move to another town/continent/plane?

[Lord_Gareth]

If my character has ranks in Knowledge: Local, what happens if they move to another town/continent/plane?

Knowledge (Local) is chosen for a specific location or venue, such as Knowledge (Local: Waterdeep) or Knowledge (Local: Acerak's Tomb), so you still know everything you know about whatever venue your Knowledge was in.

[TypoNinja]

Which is why Lucky is not on the Ranged Weapons table. Manifester is.

Your conclusion that "ranged weapons bestow this upon their ammunition" means "only this stuff can be on ammunition" is rendered demonstrably false by the fact that Manifester appears on the table that says what can be applied to ranged weapons, but lacks that text.

I feel like you are still missing the point. There is a difference between enchanting a ranged weapon and ranged ammo. Incidentally your "demonstrably false" is nothing of the kind. The fact it appears on the ranged weapon table says nothing about if it should go on ammo or not.

You can have a manifester bow, its on the weapon table, that gives you the extra power points.

You can't have manifester ammo, because the enchantment does not indicate the magic is compatible with ammo, unlike the ones that specify they are.

Even aside from rules indicating that some magic works on ammo and some doesn't, common sense kicks in when you realize the nature of the bonus is completely unsuited to being applied to a consumable resource like ammo. It's clearly never intended to give you the bonus per shot, that's a ludicrous number of PP for a comically small amount of money. It likewise falls apart when you try and figure out how much of the ammo you need for the benefit.

Enchanted ammo needs to only provide bonuses that work as part of an attack, bonus damage being by far the most common. Static powers, or x times a day powers simply fall apart when you try to apply them to consumable ammo rather than the wielded weapon.

If the typical behavior for enchanted weapons is to pass on their enchantment to fired ammunition, then it is not a stretch to realize that those powers that a weapon cannot bestow on ammunition are not passed on because that magic is not compatible with the ammo medium. If the weapon won't do it, you can't enchant it directly either.

[Flickerdart]

If the typical behavior for enchanted weapons is to pass on their enchantment to fired ammunition...
It's not. There's a special line that indicated when this is the case as an exception to the general rule.

[Venger]

Knowledge (Local) is chosen for a specific location or venue, such as Knowledge (Local: Waterdeep) or Knowledge (Local: Acerak's Tomb), so you still know everything you know about whatever venue your Knowledge was in.

they changed that from 3.0 to 3.5. in 3.0, you are wholly correct. in 3.5, you ca move wherever you like and local still applies

[Togath]

Knowledge (Local) is chosen for a specific location or venue, such as Knowledge (Local: Waterdeep) or Knowledge (Local: Acerak's Tomb), so you still know everything you know about whatever venue your Knowledge was in.

Actually, as far as I can tell from reading the skill descriptions for both 3.5 and pathfinder, no, knowledge local works anywhere.
edit: ninjaed

[TuggyNE]

You can't have manifester ammo, because the enchantment does not indicate the magic is compatible with ammo, unlike the ones that specify they are.

I believe you have this backward. Enhancements can generally be applied to melee weapons, ranged weapons, and ammunition with equal impunity, unless they're noted to not function on a particular type. However, projectile weapons won't transfer the enhancement to their ammunition unless specified. Therefore, you can make manifester ammunition, but a manifester bow does not make its arrows manifester as well. (Good thing, too.) Worse, the tables for melee and ranged weapon abilities are for generating random weapons, not specifically for determining eligibility (although arguably they serve as a good indication of intent).


Even aside from rules indicating that some magic works on ammo and some doesn't, common sense kicks in when you realize the nature of the bonus is completely unsuited to being applied to a consumable resource like ammo. It's clearly never intended to give you the bonus per shot, that's a ludicrous number of PP for a comically small amount of money. It likewise falls apart when you try and figure out how much of the ammo you need for the benefit.

Exactly, and that is why the ability needs to be specifically barred from working on ammunition. Common sense is not common, so a rules-heavy system like 3.5 needs to be precise, not handwave important things like this.

[willpell]

Excellent. What, then, stops me from shooting 49 arrows from the quiver, then buying a new quiver of 50, shooting 49 from that quiver, and repeating until I have 50 arrows, each imbued with the full 5 PP from its original set?

Since that would involve paying the +16,000 from the manifester enchantment 50 times, I see no problem with that. It would be no different than buying 50 manifester daggers to haul around. Assuming psionic item crafting is that common in the gameworld, completely possible, but rather pointless. 5-PP Cognizance crystals are substantially cheaper (9000 gold), so the only benefit to being a manifester weapon is that it's also a weapon, enabling you to use it as a weapon. (Come to think of it, this is kinda silly and I should probably drop the enchantment's cost to 9000 in my campaign.)


But when you only have one arrow could you get the 5 power points, or not?

Yep.


If so what keeps an artificer from enchanting the set, and selling one arrow (the chosen one) and then regaining the experience from the rest of arrows effectively destroying them?

Make it a psionic artificer for more awesomeness.

Hm. I'm not too familiar with the Artificer, which is Eberron-only; I haven't studied its ability to "drain" items for XP, and have no idea whether it's fair or what implications it has. You're off in at least one particular: there is no "chosen one" arrow, every still-extant arrow has exactly the same connection to the weapon enhancement as every other such arrow. I have no idea exactly what an artificer (who I assume would have to be a psionic artificer in order to craft a psion-specific enhancement, though that's debatable given that I don't play with full psionics-magic transparency but it is RAW, so I may be mixing up the details) draining a weapon's magic would do in this case; it's possible that he could cheat someone by selling them an arrow for more than it's worth, but it's just as possible that he'd be unable to do so, I haven't figured it all out.

[Flickerdart]

Since that would involve paying the +16,000 from the manifester enchantment 50 times, I see no problem with that. It would be no different than buying 50 manifester daggers to haul around. Assuming psionic item crafting is that common in the gameworld, completely possible, but rather pointless. 5-PP Cognizance crystals are substantially cheaper (9000 gold), so the only benefit to being a manifester weapon is that it's also a weapon, enabling you to use it as a weapon. (Come to think of it, this is kinda silly and I should probably drop the enchantment's cost to 9000 in my campaign.)
Completely different things - the WBL guidelines would mean that after you'd spent 49 arrows, you would be entitled to all that money back, so you're still only really paying the cost once unless the DM chooses to disregard what little balance 3.5 still has.

[willpell]

Completely different things - the WBL guidelines would mean that after you'd spent 49 arrows, you would be entitled to all that money back, so you're still only really paying the cost once unless the DM chooses to disregard what little balance 3.5 still has.

What? No, WBL does not give you back the value of fired arrows, drunk potions, spent wands and so forth. The GM tracks how much wealth he's given the player, not how much the player has. Otherwise it would be absurd to ever pay full price for permanent weapons; you could just buy temporary ones essentially for free.

[Starbuck_II]

What? No, WBL does not give you back the value of fired arrows, drunk potions, spent wands and so forth. The GM tracks how much wealth he's given the player, not how much the player has. Otherwise it would be absurd to ever pay full price for permanent weapons; you could just buy temporary ones essentially for free.

Yeah, the treasure you get adventuring is higher than WBL because they asume you spent stuff on consumables and then the DM should recompensate you for it.

Really that is what the DMG says. Pg 54 (Treasure Values): "If your adventure has less treasure, plant enough treasure not related to encounters to match the value"

[Flickerdart]

What? No, WBL does not give you back the value of fired arrows, drunk potions, spent wands and so forth. The GM tracks how much wealth he's given the player, not how much the player has. Otherwise it would be absurd to ever pay full price for permanent weapons; you could just buy temporary ones essentially for free.
So what you're saying is, if you ever use any consumable ever, you're screwing yourself over permanently? That's absurd. Read "Behind The Curtain: Treasure Values" on page 54 of the DMG, it states exactly the opposite of what you are claiming, in paragraph 3.

[Lord_Gareth]

they changed that from 3.0 to 3.5. in 3.0, you are wholly correct. in 3.5, you ca move wherever you like and local still applies

Then someone needs to firmly slap the writers for PGTF, because they didn't get the memo either, the bastards.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Then someone needs to firmly slap the writers for PGTF, because they didn't get the memo either, the bastards.

Not entirely sure, but I believe that the Realms might be an exception to the rule (with Regional feats, and all that). In fact, Underdark, one of the first 3.5e books, mentions the skill Knowledge (Underdark Local). Hell, it's a pre-requisite for the Prime Underdark Guide

[willpell]

So what you're saying is, if you ever use any consumable ever, you're screwing yourself over permanently? That's absurd. Read "Behind The Curtain: Treasure Values" on page 54 of the DMG, it states exactly the opposite of what you are claiming, in paragraph 3.

Consumable items offer you power at a fraction of the price. An Oil of Magic Weapon is much cheaper than a magic sword. If you pay, what is it, 100 GP for an Oil, but you keep getting new Oils, then you just paid 100 GP for something that's equivalent to a 2000-gp weapon enhancement. Using a scroll or something does not mean you're "screwed over", it means you made a choice to have more power today and less tomorrow instead of the reverse.

[Flickerdart]

Consumable items offer you power at a fraction of the price. An Oil of Magic Weapon is much cheaper than a magic sword. If you pay, what is it, 100 GP for an Oil, but you keep getting new Oils, then you just paid 100 GP for something that's equivalent to a 2000-gp weapon enhancement. Using a scroll or something does not mean you're "screwed over", it means you made a choice to have more power today and less tomorrow instead of the reverse.
Irrelevant. The rules quite clearly state that the game expects a DM to give out more gold if a player has less than a certain amount. They say nothing about when you get the money, so it's not at will or anything, but what you are saying is, by the rules in the primary source on DMing, wrong.

[willpell]

Well, following rules literally even when they're obviously dysfunctional is exactly how one breaks the game and is cheesy. As DM, I have a responsibility to ignore the rules any time they are contrary to the health of the game. And players who have a problem with my doing that are probably also contrary to the health of the game, at least unless they're the only players I can find (and in that case I would probably just recognize that the game cannot be healthy at the moment, and table it until something changes).

[TuggyNE]

Well, following rules literally even when they're obviously dysfunctional is exactly how one breaks the game and is cheesy. As DM, I have a responsibility to ignore the rules any time they are contrary to the health of the game. And players who have a problem with my doing that are probably also contrary to the health of the game, at least unless they're the only players I can find (and in that case I would probably just recognize that the game cannot be healthy at the moment, and table it until something changes).

While in this case that is indeed true, I believe the original point of flickerdart's example was to identify where the problem lies. If you have two means of correcting a problem, and one involves banning a particular problematic combination, and the other involves fiddling with WBL and general magic item mechanics in order to be mostly more or less correct in the majority of identified cases... well, which one is the superior option? Strict RAW, in this situation, cannot be allowed to stand (because it is absurd, and abusive); the only real question is which part to ignore.

[willpell]

While in this case that is indeed true, I believe the original point of flickerdart's example was to identify where the problem lies. If you have two means of correcting a problem, and one involves banning a particular problematic combination, and the other involves fiddling with WBL and general magic item mechanics in order to be mostly more or less correct in the majority of identified cases... well, which one is the superior option? Strict RAW, in this situation, cannot be allowed to stand (because it is absurd, and abusive); the only real question is which part to ignore.

My answer. It is never preferable to bar a player's creativity by saying "you can't have that" when you can instead say "that's too good and could break the game, so if you want it, you have to accept these restrictions and interpretations". That way, if the player wants it for reasons that have nothing to do with breaking the game, he can have it.

Great example: Divine Metamagic. It's a neat idea, and it's also absurdly strong. The quick fix is to just ban it, but if a player wants to play a cleric who channels the energy of the higher planes to accomplish works of wonder in order to cow foes into surrendering and uplift the spirits of the masses, I don't want to have to tell him "Nope, you have to play a core-only Bard instead, I don't allow clerics because they're teh borkzorz". So I'd rather impose limits on the more powerful applications of Divine Metamagic (including, for example, not allowing the player to buy 4 extra levels of it with every Extra Turning feat, as that feat is clearly balanced on the assumption that Turn Undead uses are a not-too-useful resource which can be given away very cheaply). I nerf the DMM until I'm satisfied it's safe, and then I allow it. If the player whines that it's useless now, then maybe he only wanted it because he wanted to break the campaign, and I've got no sympathy for him. As long as he wasn't being a munchkin, I'm letting him roleplay the general kind of character he wants, to as great of a power level as I'm comfortable with, so everybody wins.

[TuggyNE]

My answer. It is never preferable to bar a player's creativity by saying "you can't have that" when you can instead say "that's too good and could break the game, so if you want it, you have to accept these restrictions and interpretations". That way, if the player wants it for reasons that have nothing to do with breaking the game, he can have it.

Fair enough in general, perhaps, but is the idea of having a lump of arrows out of which one can draw 5pp once per day actually useful enough to spend any effort salvaging? (If there actually is a valid and more or less immediate use case, then that would be time enough to figure out how to make it work.)

[God Imperror]

My answer. It is never preferable to bar a player's creativity by saying "you can't have that" when you can instead say "that's too good and could break the game, so if you want it, you have to accept these restrictions and interpretations". That way, if the player wants it for reasons that have nothing to do with breaking the game, he can have it.

In this case the restriction being don't shoot arrows because I don't care about refunding consumables so eventually you will run out of money?

Or

If you get manifester arrows remember to keep one stashed in your backpack, otherwise the point of a manifester weapon is lost, because I find it stupid?


Great example: Divine Metamagic.

Oh, boy...


It's a neat idea, and it's also absurdly strong. The quick fix is to just ban it, but if a player wants to play a cleric who channels the energy of the higher planes to accomplish works of wonder in order to cow foes into surrendering and uplift the spirits of the masses, I don't want to have to tell him "Nope, you have to play a core-only Bard instead, I don't allow clerics because they're teh borkzorz". So I'd rather impose limits on the more powerful applications of Divine Metamagic (including, for example, not allowing the player to buy 4 extra levels of it with every Extra Turning feat, as that feat is clearly balanced on the assumption that Turn Undead uses are a not-too-useful resource which can be given away very cheaply).

That cleric is expending at least 3 feats then, one for the original metamagic, one for the divine metamagic of said feat and extra turning. Important (limited) resources of the cleric are going away. It is assumed that it is also going to have some nice charisma, which otherwise could be a dump stat, so stats are going to take a hit too.

Other completely different thing is "nerf" nightsticks.


I nerf the DMM until I'm satisfied it's safe, and then I allow it. If the player whines that it's useless now, then maybe he only wanted it because he wanted to break the campaign, and I've got no sympathy for him. As long as he wasn't being a munchkin, I'm letting him roleplay the general kind of character he wants, to as great of a power level as I'm comfortable with, so everybody wins.

I don't know your table, I don't know you personally, so it is hard for me to express disagreement, though I believe that I would be really unhappy and uncomfortable if I had to run every feat, skill, character class feature, weapon enchantment, mundane armor, by the DM to see their houserules. It is really hard for me, at least, to think of a character concept if I cannot think of ways of making it useful. Nerfs just make it harder for me (again I am speaking personally here) to design a character I would like to play, specially if the nerfs are applied at posteriori.

[willpell]

Fair enough in general, perhaps, but is the idea of having a lump of arrows out of which one can draw 5pp once per day actually useful enough to spend any effort salvaging?

You still have the ability to draw 5 pp out of your arrows. You just don't have the ability to draw 250 pp out of your arrows, unless you spent 800,000 gp for the privilege. Because that is what that much PP is worth, according to the manifester enhancement (although, again, the cognizance crystal disagrees).

I agree that manifester ability on weapons (arrows or otherwise) is very cool and "worth salvaging"...it just needs to be costed fairly. Which might be 9K rather than 16, or even less since one of my players says cognizance crystals are overpriced and I'm semi-inclined to agree with him. I don't know why the designers thought it should be so expensive to have extra PP, and so very much more expensive to have that PP in the form of a weapon. I just know that when one player buys a manifester sword for for some amount of gold, another buys a manifester bow for the same amount of gold (counting the cost of normal arrows), and a third buys manifester arrows for the same amount of gold (counting the cost of a normal bow), the third guy does not get to have 50 times as many power points at his disposal. Just because the writers did not understand the rules they were writing (or, more to the point, the editors did not understand the rules they were flagging as ready to publish), that is no reason I should tolerate the game being unfair to some players.


(If there actually is a valid and more or less immediate use case, then that would be time enough to figure out how to make it work.)

I have no idea what this means.


In this case the restriction being don't shoot arrows because I don't care about refunding consumables so eventually you will run out of money?

I very seriously doubt anyone will ever shoot so many arrows that they run out of money. If it was obviously going to happen in my game, I would probably take corrective action, and that action might well involve giving the player more gold. It would not, however, include telling the player that it doesn't matter how flagrantly wasteful he is with his expenditures because I will just give him that much more. If one player is carefully rationing his potions to make them last, and another drinks a 750-gold potion of CSW every time he gets a papercut while idly thumbing his way through the Squanderer's Quarterly, then yes, eventually, the latter player is going to have less gold. I will not be impressed if he decides to complain about it, at least not as long as the first player is still at the table.

Aside: You know, the sillier aspects of the D&D paradigm - the fact that your average adventurer is basically a murderous hobo, and various subsets thereof - might be treasured genre conventions and all, but they would not be able to flourish if DMs didn't keep playing into them. At my table, NPCs are people too, and a player who pushes them around like they don't exist is going to be in for a lot of headaches, while the player who actually roleplays living in the world, instead of just looting it for treasure and killing anything that annoys him, will prosper.

Anyone who knows Knights of the Dinner Table, think of Sara; I would give her the kind of game she obviously wants to play, no matter how much Bob and Dave and Brian whinge about it. In the comic, BA splits the difference to some extent, but faces continual frustration from the refusal of anyone other than Sara to meet him that way, and maybe this isn't very PC of me, but I think that proves that Sarah is a better person and deserves more happiness than the Three Amigos.


If you get manifester arrows remember to keep one stashed in your backpack, otherwise the point of a manifester weapon is lost, because I find it stupid?

Again, I do not find manifester arrows stupid, or any other negative; I'm completely fine with them existing, as long as they're handled properly. (In fact I'm giving them to one of my players, who is not even close to 16K WBL, because the character is far from optimized and I don't feel bad about giving her extras, and this discussion convinced me that an item which was both a weapon and a Cognizance Crystal was cool and I should give her one.) What I do have a problem with is the ability to exploit an obvious mistake in the rules, in an attempt to get 50 times as much power as you've paid for the right to wield.


That cleric is expending at least 3 feats then, one for the original metamagic, one for the divine metamagic of said feat and extra turning. Important (limited) resources of the cleric are going away. It is assumed that it is also going to have some nice charisma, which otherwise could be a dump stat, so stats are going to take a hit too.

Leaving aside that I don't hugely approve of Charisma ever being a dump stat (not that I like everyone maxing out on it either)...you're suggesting that the player isn't getting what they paid for, when they're playing a class that is already well above the curve in its potency even without DMM. Seriously, corebook-only Cleric is already strong (I don't think it's too strong, but that's because I'm very willing to rule that God Says No when the player tries to get away with crap, just as I'm very willing to have a wizard's spellbook stolen if he gets too used to his Tier 1 status). A member of this class has no trouble contributing to the party's success; they absolutely do NOT need the kind of GM freebies that I might give to someone who was playing a Knight or a Truenamer or some other dysfunctional class.


Other completely different thing is "nerf" nightsticks.

I may very well do exactly that. For right now I haven't added them into my game in the first place; when I do ger around to reading them, if I decide they're obvious cheese (as I've repeatedly heard it suggested they are), I may nerf them, or I may have them continue to not exist. If a player hasn't asked for them, I'm free not to decide anyway.


though I believe that I would be really unhappy and uncomfortable if I had to run every feat, skill, character class feature, weapon enchantment, mundane armor, by the DM to see their houserules.

You have to do that anyway. Most DMs are just a little more likely to say "no problem" than I am. And even I am more likely to say "no problem" than I used to be, as I grow more comfortable with the role, while simultaneously finding myself with less time and energy to be the fussbudget I tend toward being. When I am up to doing such fussing, I try to make it easier on my players by keeping a public record of everything I've changed. They can browse through my little library of houserules and every once in a while they'll notice something has been adjusted, or they'll mention something and I'll point out how I've changed it. I don't do this for every little thing, only what I've identified as a problem case - bringing something up to me automatically means I have to identify it as either "no problem" or "problem", but trying to sneak stuff past me is not a good way to build a productive player-GM relationship, as I'll very likely call foul on the trick as soon as you whip it out, or at most let you get away with it once as a reward for being clever, then demand that it be changed to something I deem reasonable (which screws with narrative continuity so I'd rather say "no" the first time, but I do get how that can feel punitive to the player, so I'll think about allowing it once).


It is really hard for me, at least, to think of a character concept if I cannot think of ways of making it useful.

Your definition of "useful" is what I regard as being the problem here. My bar for "not useful" is the Truenamer. The Fighter is perfectly playable; he can't kill a Pixie, sure, but then it's my responsibility not to force him to kill a pixie or lose the game. That's no different from my responsibility not to make the wizard face nothing but monsters with built-in antimagic fields. If the Fighter and the Wizard are side-by-side, balancing the scales between them will be harder, and I might deem it impossible. But that still doesn't mean the fighter is "useless"; he just flourishes in a different environment, and I need to keep the Wizard out of that environment as much as I do the Fighter out of the Wizard's.


Nerfs just make it harder for me (again I am speaking personally here) to design a character I would like to play, specially if the nerfs are applied at posteriori.

Well, maybe you're just used to a crazier game than I'm comfortable running. I like my setting to be magical, but not to make magic the auto-win button that it is in RAW 3.5; I like to make it seem like something resembling normal life is still possible there. The Tippyverse is a neat concept, but I wouldn't want to go to the trouble of running it, at least not without a how-to-run guide that's FAR more helpful than any D&D book I've ever seen. (I don't think there's a single published scenario I could stand to run out of the box; if they're not thick with Gygaxian silliness or fantasy cliches that are too hackneyed for me to tolerate, they still are rendered unplayable by the simple fact that they require me to constantly flip back and forth through the books and look everything up, because the statblocks will say "monster can cast spells X, Y and Z" without actually telling you what those spells do. It's certainly not what I would regard as acceptible adventure design.)

[God Imperror]

I guess than my main concern with your point of view, is... if you don't like D&D 3.5 (other editions have a better knack for balancing different classes or don't have such a large number of supplements or options) why do you play it?

There are several other games that seem much more suitable to what you seem to intend to play.

If you like d&d 3.5 for any reason, and you really want to play it, it is quite clear that you have a lot of ideas about it, may I encourage you to go to the homebrew setting section, or the world building subsection, and start working on your ideas?

I am sure that there are a lot of people that share your point of view, I myself for example dislike playing casters, and would like to see a less magical D&D 3.5 setting were everything was thought off.

[Flickerdart]

Willpell, I...I don't think you understand why WBL exists.

The point of WBL isn't to pay out a rationed wage to the players. The point is to ensure that at any given level, they have enough magical gear to match what the system expects them to have. By saying "no, if you ever spend any money on a consumable it's gone forever" what you're doing is destabilizing an important balance metric for no reason.

[Roguenewb]

This conversation is really boiling down to Willpell not getting the whole RAW does stupid stuff point...

No one has ever argued that it is balanced and desirable for manifester arrows to grant 250 pp. They shouldn't, and we all agree with that point. However, according to RAW, they do. Stop trying to say they don't. You can houserule that they don't, and you probably should, but in RAW, they do.

The WBL and consumables issues is shockingly in the same boat. According to some really, really stupid text in the DMG, your players are supposed to have X gp worth of gear at any time. Not, strangely enough, to have been given X gp, but to currently have X gp. I would never, ever run a campaign like this, I give X gp, where X is the value of each encounter. If my players go from level 10 to 11 fighting 13 level 10 encounters, and they get 10 level 10 treasures, and done! Technically however, if half that value is potions, and they drink them, the DMG wants me to give more treasure to make up for it. That's dumb, but's its RAW

tl;dr We all think lot's of RAW is dumb, stop saying that the RAW is pure and fixed, admit what is a houserule and what isn't/

[Flickerdart]

I would never, ever run a campaign like this, I give X gp, where X is the value of each encounter. If my players go from level 10 to 11 fighting 13 level 10 encounters, and they get 10 level 10 treasures, and done!
Eh, personally I feel that the entire point of a GM rather than a computer being in charge is to do better than this. If the PCs fight nothing but hordes of giant scorpions (who are notorious for their lack of savings accounts), then they're obviously not going to make a lot of money, but it'll be balanced out by the dragon at the end who keeps the scorpions around to deter travellers from his amazing treasure vault of wonders. Someone using up a potion is a lot like someone fighting a scorpion encounter - for a little while after that, they're behind the curve in terms of wealth, but in the near future, the DM can and should bring them back up to par.

[TuggyNE]

You still have the ability to draw 5 pp out of your arrows. You just don't have the ability to draw 250 pp out of your arrows, unless you spent 800,000 gp for the privilege. Because that is what that much PP is worth, according to the manifester enhancement (although, again, the cognizance crystal disagrees).

Not the point. No one is arguing that you should get 250pp out of manifester arrows; instead, the premise is that you can, and the question is (primarily) whether you should fix this problem by forbidding manifester arrows, specifically, or by implementing a general change to magic weapon rules in order to make manifester no longer grant 250pp on arrows.


I agree that manifester ability on weapons (arrows or otherwise) is very cool and "worth salvaging"...it just needs to be costed fairly.

Manifester weapons, in general, are fine. I was specifically asking whether you thought manifester ammunition was, in itself, worth the effort of houseruling around it. I personally do not think it is; I believe it to be an oversight on the part of the authors, and not worth fixing; the "cool factor" of drawing energy from arrows is already disturbed by the bizarre hoops you have to jump through to make it work in a balanced way.


I have no idea what this means.

If you have a player whose concept involves drawing psionic energy from arrows, that would be the time to figure out how to make it work, if you must. Otherwise, just soft-ban it and tell them "manifester doesn't work on ammunition until further notice". Once in a while, take the easy way out. :smallwink:


Your definition of "useful" is what I regard as being the problem here. My bar for "not useful" is the Truenamer. The Fighter is perfectly playable; he can't kill a Pixie, sure, but then it's my responsibility not to force him to kill a pixie or lose the game. That's no different from my responsibility not to make the wizard face nothing but monsters with built-in antimagic fields. If the Fighter and the Wizard are side-by-side, balancing the scales between them will be harder, and I might deem it impossible. But that still doesn't mean the fighter is "useless"; he just flourishes in a different environment, and I need to keep the Wizard out of that environment as much as I do the Fighter out of the Wizard's.

In theory, there is no difference; in practice, the number of monsters with built-in antimagic fields is lower than even the number of pixies (never mind the other creatures that pose similar challenges to Fighters), and therefore the Fighter requires much more intervention to remain viable; the chief problem with the Wizard is the reverse: keeping them from making the monsters unviable. Each imposes a burden on the DM, and the burdens do not cancel out.


No one has ever argued that it is balanced and desirable for manifester arrows to grant 250 pp. They shouldn't, and we all agree with that point. However, according to RAW, they do. Stop trying to say they don't. You can houserule that they don't, and you probably should, but in RAW, they do.
[...]
tl;dr We all think lot's of RAW is dumb, stop saying that the RAW is pure and fixed, admit what is a houserule and what isn't/

Quoted for truth. RAW must, in very many cases, be fixed; honestly admitting it that is the first step to figuring out how best to deal with it.

[lunar2]

back to the unbodied topic. yes, unbodied can use spells that have somatic components, just like all other non-humanoid casters. if you take a level in a casting class, then you know somatic components usable with your natural form. in the unbodied's case, that may mean that they vibrate, or move their thoughts a certain way,or randomly fire of bits of TK force to cause wind gusts, or whatever, but they can cast spells just fine, if they have the levels to do so, and are in their natural, body-less form.

@manifester arrows. so, if the entire quiver has 1 enchantment, then that means i can use a make whole spell on the last arrow to get 49 more free arrows since the quiver is a single magic item, right? niiice. and hey. that's not even abusive, since that just makes the arrows as good as other weapons, not better.

[Doug Lampert]

Willpell, I...I don't think you understand why WBL exists.

The point of WBL isn't to pay out a rationed wage to the players. The point is to ensure that at any given level, they have enough magical gear to match what the system expects them to have. By saying "no, if you ever spend any money on a consumable it's gone forever" what you're doing is destabilizing an important balance metric for no reason.

IIRC the part that says to give more wealth says to do so if they are SUBSTANTIALLY behind or ahead over several levels. It never says or implies that the players should have EXACTLY WBL every instant, if it did then you'd get replacement GP or gear the INSTANT you used a consumable, and that would be the only possible loot other than when you level since your WBL can't otherwise increase till you level.

If you seriously think RAW calls for monsters to give no loot until you level (required to stay at WBL) then exactly what do you think the rules for how much loot monsters drop are for? Or the rules for rolling random loot?

Normal use of consumables is factored into WBL, you'll have real trouble falling substantially behind or ahead over multiple levels based on that. But WBL is what you collect minus a small discount for reduced price sale and consumable usage, it's expected that PCs will remain roughly on track with no GM intervention at all, and roughly on track within several levels is all it actually requires.

DougL

[Flickerdart]

IIRC the part that says to give more wealth says to do so if they are SUBSTANTIALLY behind or ahead over several levels. It never says or implies that the players should have EXACTLY WBL every instant, if it did then you'd get replacement GP or gear the INSTANT you used a consumable, and that would be the only possible loot other than when you level since your WBL can't otherwise increase till you level.

If you seriously think RAW calls for monsters to give no loot until you level (required to stay at WBL) then exactly what do you think the rules for how much loot monsters drop are for? Or the rules for rolling random loot?
Uh...that's nothing at all like what I claimed. In fact, it is precisely the opposite of what I am saying. How could you possibly misinterpret what I said to mean this? I am seriously at a loss here. You may be interested in post #98 of this thread, in which I elaborate on my stance and clearly demonstrate it has nothing to do with the strawman you're setting up here.

[willpell]

I guess than my main concern with your point of view, is... if you don't like D&D 3.5 (other editions have a better knack for balancing different classes or don't have such a large number of supplements or options) why do you play it?

D&D is the only game that will ever have Slaads or Beholders or Githyanki in it, probably the only game where dragons come in ten colors, almost certainly the only game where nature is personified in rival deities where one is Good and the other is Neutral, and I have an interest in all of those things. As for 3.5, that's mostly a "lesser evil" thing; I can't even begin to comprehend 1st or 2nd edition rules and have heard almost nothing about 4th edition that I liked, so until 5th comes out, my only choices are between 3.5, 3.0, and Pathfinder. I strongly dislike the Pathfinder design ethos and don't want to learn how much it changes the system, and while 3.0 has a few things in it which I like, I mostly agree 3.5 is better.


If you like d&d 3.5 for any reason, and you really want to play it, it is quite clear that you have a lot of ideas about it, may I encourage you to go to the homebrew setting section, or the world building subsection, and start working on your ideas?

I may do exactly that eventually. But there's a LOT of homebrew, of very mixed quality, and I don't feel a great need to contribute very much to that glut. In general, my version is mostly consistent with RAW in general, as long as one doesn't fixate on every triviality and demand that it be played with not the slightest bit of deviation from the original text, no matter how dysfunctional. I make large numbers of fairly minor adjustments and come up with something that is basically similar to what appears to be RAI; I don't think it necessarily needs to be called homebrew.


The point of WBL isn't to pay out a rationed wage to the players. The point is to ensure that at any given level, they have enough magical gear to match what the system expects them to have. By saying "no, if you ever spend any money on a consumable it's gone forever" what you're doing is destabilizing an important balance metric for no reason.

The system isn't even remotely balanced even with that metric, so I see no reason why I should adhere to it at the expense of the basic logic which dictates that flagrant expenditure of consumables will eventually mean being less rich than if you'd relied on infinitely reusable things. I'll do individual, case-by-case adjustments if a player has fallen behind through no fault of their own, but I don't need to stringently follow a rule which so obviously isn't doing what it was intended to anyway.

[Flickerdart]

The system isn't even remotely balanced even with that metric, so I see no reason why I should adhere to it at the expense of the basic logic which dictates that flagrant expenditure of consumables will eventually mean being less rich than if you'd relied on infinitely reusable things. I'll do individual, case-by-case adjustments if a player has fallen behind through no fault of their own, but I don't need to stringently follow a rule which so obviously isn't doing what it was intended to anyway.
How do you figure that? The wealth by level system is perfectly competent at allowing nonmagical classes access to the magical tools they need to survive at higher levels, provided that you use it correctly. Though if you're docking permanent money from people for every potion they use, I can see why you'd think it was broken.

[Heliomance]

New question: If a Flaming Bow bestows the Flaming property on its ammunition, and you use it to shoot an arrow, and miss, and make the 50% chance for the arrow to remain intact, can you then go and pick it up and have a free Flaming Arrow?

[Psyren]

Well, following rules literally even when they're obviously dysfunctional is exactly how one breaks the game and is cheesy. As DM, I have a responsibility to ignore the rules any time they are contrary to the health of the game. And players who have a problem with my doing that are probably also contrary to the health of the game, at least unless they're the only players I can find (and in that case I would probably just recognize that the game cannot be healthy at the moment, and table it until something changes).

Is anyone arguing otherwise? :smallconfused:

I thought this thread was about rulings that could go either way, not clear-cut rulings which would be broken if used in play unmodified.

(In other words: "I don't know how this works" vs. "I know how this works, but it's silly and should be changed.")

[Mithril Leaf]

New question: If a Flaming Bow bestows the Flaming property on its ammunition, and you use it to shoot an arrow, and miss, and make the 50% chance for the arrow to remain intact, can you then go and pick it up and have a free Flaming Arrow?

This reminds me of the whole grabbing instant conjurations out of the air thing we had a while back. As a connected question, can instant conjurations be used if they are caught through that advanced version of arrow grabbing who's name eludes me?

[willpell]

How do you figure that? The wealth by level system is perfectly competent at allowing nonmagical classes access to the magical tools they need to survive at higher levels, provided that you use it correctly. Though if you're docking permanent money from people for every potion they use, I can see why you'd think it was broken.

Uh, yeah, no. The magical classes get those same tools on top of their existing capabilities, so they still far outshine the nonmagical classes, even without cheesy infinite-wish tricks, unless the GM bends over far backward trying to keep the Fighter and Rogue relevant compared to the Wizard and Cleric. Besides which, CRs are a complete crapshoot; there is no guarantee that a party with correct WBL, potions or no potions, will get a not-too-easy, not-too-hard fight out of a correct-CR creature, so this sacred balance that WBL is supposed to preserve never existed in the first place.

[Flickerdart]

Uh, yeah, no. The magical classes get those same tools on top of their existing capabilities, so they still far outshine the nonmagical classes, even without cheesy infinite-wish tricks, unless the GM bends over far backward trying to keep the Fighter and Rogue relevant compared to the Wizard and Cleric. Besides which, CRs are a complete crapshoot; there is no guarantee that a party with correct WBL, potions or no potions, will get a not-too-easy, not-too-hard fight out of a correct-CR creature, so this sacred balance that WBL is supposed to preserve never existed in the first place.
Um...what are you on about now? None of that has any relevance to my post. What I said was that WBL allows melee to survive. I didn't say it makes them competitive with magic classes. I didn't say the CR system was balanced. But claiming that because all of this other stuff isn't equal, you should shaft melee even more by counting consumables permanently against them is kind of the opposite of logic.

[Psyren]

The idea of WBL is so the melee can keep pace with the Monster Manual, not necessarily with the casters in their party. The latter won't happen without significant revision of the magic system, and/or restricting casters to lower-tier versions.

There a bare-minimum standards that all characters have to meet - things like their good saves being able to reliably succeed, or melee classes being able to reliably land (and avoid) attacks, or frontliners having reasonable protection from poison and disease. Magic items allow characters without spells to check off these boxes.

[willpell]

things like their good saves being able to reliably succeed, or melee classes being able to reliably land (and avoid) attacks

IMO, you shouldn't be able to do those things too reliably; the whole point of rolling dice is to generate risk and uncertainty, thereby making the game more interesting since its outcome is not a foregone conclusion.

[God Imperror]

D&D is the only game that will ever have Slaads or Beholders or Githyanki in it, probably the only game where dragons come in ten colors, almost certainly the only game where nature is personified in rival deities where one is Good and the other is Neutral, and I have an interest in all of those things. As for 3.5, that's mostly a "lesser evil" thing; I can't even begin to comprehend 1st or 2nd edition rules and have heard almost nothing about 4th edition that I liked, so until 5th comes out, my only choices are between 3.5, 3.0, and Pathfinder. I strongly dislike the Pathfinder design ethos and don't want to learn how much it changes the system, and while 3.0 has a few things in it which I like, I mostly agree 3.5 is better.

I don't normally recommend 4 edition, but I am biased, at first my table disliked it because there was much less material than it was in the 3.5, also while checking the 4th edition PHB we saw that half elfs have a bonus to constitution and that has remained as an inside joke. Though since then we have played a pair of campaigns mostly with stuff from the 3 phb and it's been okay, even good.

It is certainly more balanced than 3.5.


I may do exactly that eventually. But there's a LOT of homebrew, of very mixed quality, and I don't feel a great need to contribute very much to that glut. In general, my version is mostly consistent with RAW in general, as long as one doesn't fixate on every triviality and demand that it be played with not the slightest bit of deviation from the original text, no matter how dysfunctional. I make large numbers of fairly minor adjustments and come up with something that is basically similar to what appears to be RAI; I don't think it necessarily needs to be called homebrew.

The suggestion was for you to write it, not necessarily search for an existing thread saying exactly what you want.

I have to ask for the benefit of the doubt on the RAI part, some of the adjustments that I've read that you make are so complicated that Occam's razor leads me to believe that they are hardly RAI, because they are not the most simple explanation. And even then, RAI, unless you are a game designer talking about the parts that you designed, shouldn't matter at all for rule discussions.


The system isn't even remotely balanced even with that metric, so I see no reason why I should adhere to it at the expense of the basic logic which dictates that flagrant expenditure of consumables will eventually mean being less rich than if you'd relied on infinitely reusable things. I'll do individual, case-by-case adjustments if a player has fallen behind through no fault of their own, but I don't need to stringently follow a rule which so obviously isn't doing what it was intended to anyway.

It is in fact doing what it intended pretty well. Think for example that there are only 3 players in a group, and they decide that one wants to play a sorcerer who is going to take care of the arcane problems, a second one wants to be a melee fighter with a BFS, and the third one wants to be a rogue. Said party doesn't have access to healing unless they resort to wands or potions. If said party uses wands or potions to heal are they to be punished reducing their wealth? Or are they to be politely asked to play a healbot?


New question: If a Flaming Bow bestows the Flaming property on its ammunition, and you use it to shoot an arrow, and miss, and make the 50% chance for the arrow to remain intact, can you then go and pick it up and have a free Flaming Arrow?

Why not shoot a chicken? Flaming chickens are awesome.


IMO, you shouldn't be able to do those things too reliably; the whole point of rolling dice is to generate risk and uncertainty, thereby making the game more interesting since its outcome is not a foregone conclusion.

You always fail in a one and there is a big difference on needing a 19 to succeed or an 8, for example.

[willpell]

4th is certainly more balanced than 3.5.

Yes, and it serves as excellent proof that being balanced is not the sum total of what makes a game good. I do however believe it is a necessary ingredient.


The suggestion was for you to write it, not necessarily search for an existing thread saying exactly what you want.

I was describing the scenario as I see it because I am hesitant to add to the problem. The forum needs better homebrew, not just more homebrew (though it probably has a fair amount of good stuff already, I just have a hard time finding it). My creations may be good enough for me, but I won't put them up unless I think they have at least a chance of being good enough for someone else.


some of the adjustments that I've read that you make are so complicated that Occam's razor leads me to believe that they are hardly RAI, because they are not the most simple explanation.

Occam's Razor is BS.


Said party doesn't have access to healing unless they resort to wands or potions. If said party uses wands or potions to heal are they to be punished reducing their wealth? Or are they to be politely asked to play a healbot?

The amount of healing they can afford to purchase serves as a limiting factor on how much damage they can afford to let themselves take, and thus forces them to take threats seriously. Otherwise they could freely use reckless "nova" and "scorched earth" tactics to destroy huge numbers of enemies regardless of the cost to themselves. By limiting their healing, you force them to face the possibility of their destruction, encouraging them to roleplay their character's own self-preservation instinct and deepening their immersion in the game.


You always fail in a one.

On attack rolls, yes, but not on skill checks and the like.

[God Imperror]

Yes, and it serves as excellent proof that being balanced is not the sum total of what makes a game good. I do however believe it is a necessary ingredient.

4th edition is quite a good game with some good ideas that solve some of the problems of 3.5. I am not saying that it is necessarily better, but it is different and you might like it if you try it.


I was describing the scenario as I see it because I am hesitant to add to the problem. The forum needs better homebrew, not just more homebrew (though it probably has a fair amount of good stuff already, I just have a hard time finding it). My creations may be good enough for me, but I won't put them up unless I think they have at least a chance of being good enough for someone else.

Fair enough, though it is a good source of criticism.


Occam's Razor is BS.

That sir is offensive beyond measure. I hope you are seriously joking.


The amount of healing they can afford to purchase serves as a limiting factor on how much damage they can afford to let themselves take, and thus forces them to take threats seriously. Otherwise they could freely use reckless "nova" and "scorched earth" tactics to destroy huge numbers of enemies regardless of the cost to themselves. By limiting their healing, you force them to face the possibility of their destruction, encouraging them to roleplay their character's own self-preservation instinct and deepening their immersion in the game.

That works perfectly within the wealth by level. What you, not refunding consumables, get is that they are punished at level 10 (having less gold, because they have already expended it) due to the high mortality rates of 1st level characters.


On attack rolls, yes, but not on skill checks and the like.

Saves are not skill checks. You can fail saves on a 1. We were talking about saves, weren't we?

[willpell]

That sir is offensive beyond measure. I hope you are seriously joking.

I meant what I said sincerely, although I apologize for putting it so bluntly, I've been trying to watch that. But I firmly believe that assuming that the simplest explanation is most correct is nothing more than intellectual laziness. I've heard OR more technically defined as "the explanation with fewest unfounded assumptions is most likely to be correct", but even there, I see absolutely no sane reason to believe that's true. Our world is riddled with insanity and contradiction; its operating principles are almost certainly *not* simple and elegant, and making unfounded assumptions is probably the best way of understanding them.


That works perfectly within the wealth by level. What you, not refunding consumables, get is that they are punished at level 10 (having less gold, because they have already expended it) due to the high mortality rates of 1st level characters.

1st level characters shouldn't have any higher mortality against CR 1 foes than 10th level characters do against 10th level foes (at least this would be true if CRs were not horribly inaccurate as a matter of course).


Saves are not skill checks. You can fail saves on a 1. We were talking about saves, weren't we?

Well a 5% chance hardly suffices to grant much uncertainty anyway. You virtually always succeed, so there's still little reason to take matters seriously.

[God Imperror]

I meant what I said sincerely, although I apologize for putting it so bluntly, I've been trying to watch that. But I firmly believe that assuming that the simplest explanation is most correct is nothing more than intellectual laziness. I've heard OR more technically defined as "the explanation with fewest unfounded assumptions is most likely to be correct", but even there, I see absolutely no sane reason to believe that's true. Our world is riddled with insanity and contradiction; its operating principles are almost certainly *not* simple and elegant, and making unfounded assumptions is probably the best way of understanding them.

Weren't we talking about intentions behind the design? You truly want me to believe that an overly complicated explanation that doesn't fit what's written there is much more likely than the fact that the designer wanted to make the thingie work as he wrote but he mistakenly forgot something?

You are really telling me that?

Second you are seriously comparing our world with rules beyond our grasp to D&D with rules clearly written on paper? Really?


1st level characters shouldn't have any higher mortality against CR 1 foes than 10th level characters do against 10th level foes (at least this would be true if CRs were not horribly inaccurate as a matter of course).

wizard vs housecat is a common enough example. And there are not many things at lvl 1 that can survive an orc warrior charging with a greataxe.


Well a 5% chance hardly suffices to grant much uncertainty anyway. You virtually always succeed, so there's still little reason to take matters seriously.

How the hell do you always ONLY fail on a one with your 3 saves? Please tell me.

[willpell]

You are really telling me that?

No, I was speaking generally. When someone brings Occam's Razor up, I refute it. Even if it happens to be true in that instance, that doesn't mean it should be taken as truth at all times and under all circumstances, which it pretty much is by everyone other than me (assuming they've even heard of it). It's a seductive notion, appealing to human beings' desire for order and simplicity in their lives; that's exactly what makes it dangerous.


Second you are seriously comparing our world with rules beyond our grasp to D&D with rules clearly written on paper? Really?

The D&D world is meant to have versimilitude; it is meant to seem like a living, breathing universe. Therefore, it has millions of unwritten rules, things not spelled out in the RAW but which would be true of your life if you actually lived in that setting.


wizard vs housecat is a common enough example. And there are not many things at lvl 1 that can survive an orc warrior charging with a greataxe.

This is why, if you're level 1, you don't go out and pick fights. The ideal dungeon for level 1 characters is an abandoned ruin, completely empty of any form of life. Exploring a few dozen of those dungeons and gaining 50 or so XP a pop just for overcoming the structural hazards of abandoned buildings is a lot more sensible than going out looking for optimized orc fighters. (And really, the Wizard should be casting Sleep on the housecat.)


How the hell do you always ONLY fail on a one with your 3 saves? Please tell me.

A level 15 monk or favored soul has all their saves at +10. By that level, 18s in all three stats and a Cloak of Resistance +5 should be well within their WBL, so they hit DC 20 saves on anything but a 1. They may face things with higher save DCs than that, but not always. At earlier levels the DCs should be lower than that, though it'll be harder to have all three stats high enough without a generous point buy; still, a single-good-save character is probably making that save nearly all of the time.

[Psyren]

IMO, you shouldn't be able to do those things too reliably; the whole point of rolling dice is to generate risk and uncertainty, thereby making the game more interesting since its outcome is not a foregone conclusion.

Yes, but if good saves don't succeed reliably, what's the point of them being good? The idea is not for the Rogue to be afraid of rolling his Reflex, or to prioritize avoiding situations where he might be asked to. Rather, the idea is for him to be confident against attacks against that save, yet be challenged occasionally with a forced weak save (Fort or Will.) Sure there will be the rare spectacular failure of a good save, but these should be the exception rather than the rule.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Yes, but if good saves don't succeed reliably, what's the point of them being good? The idea is not for the Rogue to be afraid of rolling his Reflex, or to prioritize avoiding situations where he might be asked to. Rather, the idea is for him to be confident against attacks against that save, yet be challenged occasionally with a forced weak save (Fort or Will.) Sure there will be the rare spectacular failure of a good save, but these should be the exception rather than the rule.

This is somewhat true, but different people have different opinions on -how- reliable a good save should be.

To use the example of a 15th level rogue saving against an 8th level spell: unless dex is his attack stat, a 14 is a reasonable assumption. Tack that onto a +9 base save, along with a +4 gloves of dex and a cloak of resistance +4 for a ref save of +17. An 8th level spells DC is, at minimum, 22. That's saving on a 5 or 80% of the time. If however that 8th level spell is cast by a wizard with a headband of intellect +6 the DC becomes 25, meaning the rogue saves on an 8, that is 65% of the time. I personally think that saving 2/3 of the time with your good save is acceptably reliable, but some people will disagree as a matter of opinion. This is something that must be accepted.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and unless an opinion is based in misinformation it can -not- be wrong.

[Jeff the Green]

No, I was speaking generally. When someone brings Occam's Razor up, I refute it. Even if it happens to be true in that instance, that doesn't mean it should be taken as truth at all times and under all circumstances, which it pretty much is by everyone other than me (assuming they've even heard of it). It's a seductive notion, appealing to human beings' ydesire for order and simplicity in their lives; that's exactly what makes it dangerous.

Actually, no. Occam's razor, properly stated (all other things being equal, the explanation requiring the fewer ad hoc hypotheses is more likely true) is mathematical fact and can't be denied without simultaneously denying the last hundred years of mathematics. C.F. (http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/01/12/occams-razor-bayes-theorem/)


This is why, if you're level 1, you don't go out and pick fights. The ideal dungeon for level 1 characters is an abandoned ruin, completely empty of any form of life. Exploring a few dozen of those dungeons and gaining 50 or so XP a pop just for overcoming the structural hazards of abandoned buildings is a lot more sensible than going out looking for optimized orc fighters. (And really, the Wizard should be casting Sleep on the housecat.)

That sounds incredibly boring to me, and I imagine to most other players. Moreover, it doesn't make sense. Why would traipsing around abandoned buildings make a fighter better at fighting?

[DeusMortuusEst]

I meant what I said sincerely, although I apologize for putting it so bluntly, I've been trying to watch that. But I firmly believe that assuming that the simplest explanation is most correct is nothing more than intellectual laziness.

Indeed it is and that isn't what OR is about. If you believe that you've seriously misunderstood it.


I've heard OR more technically defined as "the explanation with fewest unfounded assumptions is most likely to be correct", but even there, I see absolutely no sane reason to believe that's true. Our world is riddled with insanity and contradiction; its operating principles are almost certainly *not* simple and elegant,

This is morel like it, and while I'm inclined to disagree with you regarding how the world operates, I think that might be depending on perspective.


and making unfounded assumptions is probably the best way of understanding them.

Yea, no. I'd like to see you try and design a space shuttle based on guesswork. My guess? It probably wouldn't work very well.

OR isn't saying that simple is true, it is saying that if we have different ways of trying something, e.g through experiments, the way that makes the fewest assumptions should be the preferred one, as it leaves the fewest holes to explain later.

[willpell]

Actually, no. Occam's razor, properly stated (all other things being equal, the explanation requiring the fewer ad hoc hypotheses is more likely true) is mathematical fact and can't be denied without simultaneously denying the last hundred years of mathematics. C.F. (http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/01/12/occams-razor-bayes-theorem/)

That "proof" relies on you accepting the notion of probability, which every dice roll in my 10+-year gaming career has demonstrated to my satisfaction is a fallacious assumption. As far as I'm concerned, all random events are fundamentally unknowable as to their outcomes, and any theory that claims to predict them is just guesswork. No matter how reliable it has been in the past, it can never be counted on to remain so in the future.


That sounds incredibly boring to me, and I imagine to most other players.

Well if they'd rather hilariously get their characters killed facing danger, that's their business; if they want to have fun that way, that's their right. Me, I want to have fun bringing a character to life, which includes having him react the way I would react in his shoes, unless his personality is radically different from mine (which is a tall order and often beyond my abilities, though it can be interesting to try sometimes).


Moreover, it doesn't make sense. Why would traipsing around abandoned buildings make a fighter better at fighting?

That's D&D for you. Adventure for six weeks in the Desert of Eternal Thirst, level up, put a skill point in Swim. (Conversely, adventure under water for five weeks, don't level up, and remain exactly as talented at swimming the entire time, learning absolutely nothing from your experiences until you kill a sufficient number of nefarious mollusks.)

[Jeff the Green]

That "proof" relies on you accepting the notion of probability, which every dice roll in my 10+-year gaming career has demonstrated to my satisfaction is a fallacious assumption. As far as I'm concerned, all random events are fundamentally unknowable as to their outcomes, and any theory that claims to predict them is just guesswork. No matter how reliable it has been in the past, it can never be counted on to remain so in the future.

I. Buh. Whah?

Please tell me you're pulling a Poe.

If a random event's outcome is unknowable, if previously validated theory can't be expected to remain valid, then a 3d6 should be as likely to turn up "chicken" as 11.

[willpell]

Indeed it is and that isn't what OR is about. If you believe that you've seriously misunderstood it.

Well that's the most-often quoted form; it may be inaccurate, but it's the one most people have ever heard of, and I think that's more important. In time, the day-to-day reality of society changes to reflect people's beliefs about it; the physical laws of the world may not change (personally I believe they do, but will admit that this appears to be baseless superstition to anyone but myself), but nonetheless, humanity interacts with the world the way it thinks the world is, regardless of any truth that isn't immediately and undeniably obvious to the naked eye and the uneducated mind. A lie, repeated often enough, becomes the new truth, because no-one remembers it was false anymore.


Yea, no. I'd like to see you try and design a space shuttle based on guesswork. My guess? It probably wouldn't work very well.

Well certainly if I designed it, it wouldn't work; I'm terrified of heights and would never even try to fly into space with any protection which I was not 100% sure would work. I lack such sureness even with regard to space shuttles (or whatever NASA is flying these days). AFAIC, any space program is asking for volunteers to throw their lives away on an attempt at glory; I believe those volunteers have the right to accept that risk (whether the agency has a right to spend the public's tax money building the craft is more dubious IMO; the rights of the individual are sacrosanct to me), but if you tell those volunteers that you KNOW they'll be safe, you're lying, because a 0.0000000000000001% chance of death is STILL the possibility of death, and thus you're a liar if you say it WON'T happen. As long as you qualify the statement as "we're pretty sure" or something, demonstrating that you do not actually KNOW what you're talking about, but just have an educated guess, the person you're talking to gets to decide fairly whether they trust your judgment. But if you say you KNOW, IMO that makes you a murderer when something goes wrong, and it's nigh-inevitable that something will.


OR isn't saying that simple is true, it is saying that if we have different ways of trying something, e.g through experiments, the way that makes the fewest assumptions should be the preferred one, as it leaves the fewest holes to explain later.

But I like explaining holes; it's fun!


I. Buh. Whah?

Please tell me you're pulling a Poe.

Dont' know that expression.


If a random event's outcome is unknowable, if previously validated theory can't be expected to remain valid, then a 3d6 should be as likely to turn up "chicken" as 11.

"Chicken" is not a possible result on 3d6, but 3 and 18 are both possible results, and sometimes they happen...far more often than Probability would dictate. I know this from personal experience, and I'm certain it isn't sample bias. Unusual results on dice rolls are actually, measurably more common in my past experience; I've observed this many times in many media, and found that the statistical bell curve is very nearly the opposite of what actually happens at the gaming table.

[Jeff the Green]

Dont' know that expression.

Poe's Law. In its original expression not appropriate for the forums, but generalized it's "It is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish a parody of a ridiculous belief from a sincerely held ridiculous belief.



"Chicken" is not a possible result on 3d6, but 3 and 18 are both possible results, and sometimes they happen...far more often than Probability would dictate. I know this from personal experience, and I'm certain it isn't sample bias. Unusual results on dice rolls are actually, measurably more common in my past experience; I've observed this many times in many media, and found that the statistical bell curve is very nearly the opposite of what actually happens at the gaming table.

Probability allows for—hell, requires—there to be occasional strings of unusual results. I doubt any unusual results you or anyone else has seen is truly significantly different (in the statistical (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance), not colloquial, sense) from what probability would dictate. If it is, I strongly encourage you to publish your results in a peer-reviewed journal. Until you do, I'm going to assume that the reason you believe you've falsified probability theory is the same collection of everyday fallacies and cognitive biases that make me, say, see faces in clouds or think any interaction with a woman means they secretly dig me.

Probability theory is true in the same way quantum theory and evolutionary theory are true. Not only is it backed by literally thousands of studies, entire technologies and sciences rely on it being true. We could not, say, predict when and where a hurricane will make landfall without it (and we do so remarkably precisely). MRIs and CT scans wouldn't work without it. Casinos would be going broke right and left if it weren't true.

And, honestly, I think you know it's true too, even if you don't realize it. Every time you can't find your keys and think "Now, where could I have put them," rather than "Damn those leprechauns, always stealing my stuff!" you're intuitively using probability theory. Every time you choose to stop at a red light rather than risk a ticket or a crash, you're using probability theory. Every time you make any decision at all, you're using probability theory, since you never know precisely what's going to happen, you can just estimate the odds.

[God Imperror]

I start to believe that my, personal, problem with the reading of willpell's opinions is that most of the time they are stated as absolutes and since I don't share most of them I heat up a little. Sorry if at any point I loose some of my temper.


No, I was speaking generally. When someone brings Occam's Razor up, I refute it. Even if it happens to be true in that instance, that doesn't mean it should be taken as truth at all times and under all circumstances, which it pretty much is by everyone other than me (assuming they've even heard of it). It's a seductive notion, appealing to human beings' desire for order and simplicity in their lives; that's exactly what makes it dangerous.

So you refute argument's just cause they have the words "occam's razor" in it regardless of the sense they could make?


The D&D world is meant to have versimilitude; it is meant to seem like a living, breathing universe. Therefore, it has millions of unwritten rules, things not spelled out in the RAW but which would be true of your life if you actually lived in that setting.

Debatable, a world with a floating eyeball with tentacles that fires lasers hardly strikes me as having verisimilitude. Accepting that magic exists and that physics don't is probably the right path. But it makes an oversimplified approximation to accept that D&D's world would work like ours. Therefore, even if it were to have millions of unwritten rules, you would have no way to know how to rule on them. Regardless, we are not discussing about unwritten rules here, we are discussing on written rules as they are written.


This is why, if you're level 1, you don't go out and pick fights. The ideal dungeon for level 1 characters is an abandoned ruin, completely empty of any form of life. Exploring a few dozen of those dungeons and gaining 50 or so XP a pop just for overcoming the structural hazards of abandoned buildings is a lot more sensible than going out looking for optimized orc fighters. (And really, the Wizard should be casting Sleep on the housecat.)

I won't call an orc (a race in the monster manual and iconic in fantasy) warrior (an npc class associated with the orc) with a two handed weapon (listed in the orc's description) as something optimized. If you call that optimized I am sorry but I cannot stress my point further.

(The housecat is probably winning initiative, or ambushing via hide the wizard, once in melee the wizard needs to cast defensively... the cat could potentially make the save against sleep, the wizard should cast magic missile since it makes at least 2 hp (the hp of the cat) with no save nor attack roll)


A level 15 monk or favored soul has all their saves at +10. By that level, 18s in all three stats and a Cloak of Resistance +5 should be well within their WBL, so they hit DC 20 saves on anything but a 1. They may face things with higher save DCs than that, but not always. At earlier levels the DCs should be lower than that, though it'll be harder to have all three stats high enough without a generous point buy; still, a single-good-save character is probably making that save nearly all of the time.

That is a huge investment of wealth (and stats) since they are investing in 3 stats.

There is only a 15 CR monster on the monster manual the marut (there is also a sample vampire) the marut has attacks with save DCs of 31 so if using core only it is quite possible that said monk will end facing creatures with DCs higher.


This is somewhat true, but different people have different opinions on -how- reliable a good save should be.

To use the example of a 15th level rogue saving against an 8th level spell: unless dex is his attack stat, a 14 is a reasonable assumption. Tack that onto a +9 base save, along with a +4 gloves of dex and a cloak of resistance +4 for a ref save of +17. An 8th level spells DC is, at minimum, 22. That's saving on a 5 or 80% of the time. If however that 8th level spell is cast by a wizard with a headband of intellect +6 the DC becomes 25, meaning the rogue saves on an 8, that is 65% of the time. I personally think that saving 2/3 of the time with your good save is acceptably reliable, but some people will disagree as a matter of opinion. This is something that must be accepted.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and unless an opinion is based in misinformation it can -not- be wrong.

I agree with both the 2/3 saves opinion and the fact that everyone is entitled to one.


That sounds incredibly boring to me, and I imagine to most other players. Moreover, it doesn't make sense. Why would traipsing around abandoned buildings make a fighter better at fighting?

D&D experience is weird in that regard normally though my main problem with the mindset of not doing anything at lvl 1 (other than walking around) is why don't they just start at a higher level and do the same thing but with possible encounters?


That "proof" relies on you accepting the notion of probability, which every dice roll in my 10+-year gaming career has demonstrated to my satisfaction is a fallacious assumption. As far as I'm concerned, all random events are fundamentally unknowable as to their outcomes, and any theory that claims to predict them is just guesswork. No matter how reliable it has been in the past, it can never be counted on to remain so in the future.

I would like waffles with my verisimilitude.


That's D&D for you. Adventure for six weeks in the Desert of Eternal Thirst, level up, put a skill point in Swim. (Conversely, adventure under water for five weeks, don't level up, and remain exactly as talented at swimming the entire time, learning absolutely nothing from your experiences until you kill a sufficient number of nefarious mollusks.)

So in this case you are open to use raw?


If a random event's outcome is unknowable, if previously validated theory can't be expected to remain valid, then a 3d6 should be as likely to turn up "chicken" as 11.

As an anecdote once my dice ended in a bowl of chicken soup, it has never happened again so I don't dare to say that it is likely.


Well certainly if I designed it, it wouldn't work; I'm terrified of heights and would never even try to fly into space with any protection which I was not 100% sure would work. I lack such sureness even with regard to space shuttles (or whatever NASA is flying these days). AFAIC, any space program is asking for volunteers to throw their lives away on an attempt at glory; I believe those volunteers have the right to accept that risk (whether the agency has a right to spend the public's tax money building the craft is more dubious IMO; the rights of the individual are sacrosanct to me), but if you tell those volunteers that you KNOW they'll be safe, you're lying, because a 0.0000000000000001% chance of death is STILL the possibility of death, and thus you're a liar if you say it WON'T happen. As long as you qualify the statement as "we're pretty sure" or something, demonstrating that you do not actually KNOW what you're talking about, but just have an educated guess, the person you're talking to gets to decide fairly whether they trust your judgment. But if you say you KNOW, IMO that makes you a murderer when something goes wrong, and it's nigh-inevitable that something will.

Beware, don't walk outside, burning meat balls of glory might fall from the skies.


"Chicken" is not a possible result on 3d6, but 3 and 18 are both possible results, and sometimes they happen...far more often than Probability would dictate. I know this from personal experience, and I'm certain it isn't sample bias. Unusual results on dice rolls are actually, measurably more common in my past experience; I've observed this many times in many media, and found that the statistical bell curve is very nearly the opposite of what actually happens at the gaming table.

You know that is quite possible that you are biased?

[Venger]

"Chicken" is not a possible result on 3d6, but 3 and 18 are both possible results, and sometimes they happen...far more often than Probability would dictate. I know this from personal experience, and I'm certain it isn't sample bias. Unusual results on dice rolls are actually, measurably more common in my past experience; I've observed this many times in many media, and found that the statistical bell curve is very nearly the opposite of what actually happens at the gaming table.

pulling a poe refers to Poe's law, the tendency for it being difficult to tell the difference between someone who is parodying a philosophical extreme and someone who is genuinely adhering to it.

Occam's razor, as mentioned, is not an absolute, but rather a guideline. The solution with the smallest number of complications tends to be true, not is always true. you have a point that it is frequently misquoted as something along the lines of "the simplest solution is always correct" which no one here, yourself included, was arguing was the case.

as far as your objections towards a normal bell curve on rolling dice, I actually have a very simple explanation for that which has nothing to do with math or philosophy, but simply about how most companies make their dice. colonel louis zocchi, the guy who invented the polyhedral dice we all enjoy playing with so much, does a much better job explaining it in an entertaining manner than I would:

there you are (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR2fxoNHIuU)
and part 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxmkWrDbn34&feature=relmfu)

tl;dr: the basic gist in these is that many companies make their dice in a mold, leading to a plastic spur on the side when they're snapped off the frame. they put them in a rock polisher-type thing to buff off the rough edges. this obviously causes uneven wear and makes the dice roll unevenly, reinforcing the logically unsound notion of dice being lucky/unlucky, or that the bell curve in a vacuum is incorrect.

of course, in real life the bell curve doesn't always have immediately obvious manifestations, just like how physics that teach you how to calculate stuff in a frictionless plane of uniform density isn't much good in the real world. but as far as dice go, there's your answer.


Beware, don't walk outside, burning meat balls of glory might fall from the skies.

If all the raindrops were lemondrops and gumdrops... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbJEqSj7Wkk#t=0m50s)

[Jeff the Green]

As an anecdote once my dice ended in a bowl of chicken soup, it has never happened again so I don't dare to say that it is likely.

Heh. It's for just this reason I don't like saying things are impossible. Hell, I've had dice break before to give me 21 on a 1d20 roll. It's less likely than a 3 on 3d6, which still is 0.03 times as likely as an 11.

[DeusMortuusEst]

Well that's the most-often quoted form; it may be inaccurate, but it's the one most people have ever heard of, and I think that's more important.

[Citation needed]

It may be used that way by some people, but as one person (which I do believe you are, unless the willpell account is tied to some sort of global hivemind) I sincerely doubt that you have had the chance to observe even a percent of all the people that know about OR and how they use it.


In time, the day-to-day reality of society changes to reflect people's beliefs about it; the physical laws of the world may not change (personally I believe they do, but will admit that this appears to be baseless superstition to anyone but myself), but nonetheless, humanity interacts with the world the way it thinks the world is, regardless of any truth that isn't immediately and undeniably obvious to the naked eye and the uneducated mind. A lie, repeated often enough, becomes the new truth, because no-one remembers it was false anymore.

An interesting proposition and perhaps it is true for certain philosophical or mythological claims. However, there is a difference between unfounded ideas and scientific research, which, by the looks of it, I'm not entirely sure that you understand.


Well certainly if I designed it, it wouldn't work; I'm terrified of heights and would never even try to fly into space with any protection which I was not 100% sure would work. I lack such sureness even with regard to space shuttles (or whatever NASA is flying these days). AFAIC, any space program is asking for volunteers to throw their lives away on an attempt at glory; I believe those volunteers have the right to accept that risk (whether the agency has a right to spend the public's tax money building the craft is more dubious IMO; the rights of the individual are sacrosanct to me), but if you tell those volunteers that you KNOW they'll be safe, you're lying, because a 0.0000000000000001% chance of death is STILL the possibility of death, and thus you're a liar if you say it WON'T happen. As long as you qualify the statement as "we're pretty sure" or something, demonstrating that you do not actually KNOW what you're talking about, but just have an educated guess, the person you're talking to gets to decide fairly whether they trust your judgment. But if you say you KNOW, IMO that makes you a murderer when something goes wrong, and it's nigh-inevitable that something will.

There is a difference between unfounded guesswork, which you were talking about earlier and estimations based on research and experiments. I agree that we can never truly prove that anything is true outside of mathematics, but that does not mean that all un-probvable theories are equally likely to be wrong.

Further, science and good scientists never say that they know anything to be absolutely true (and (all) mathematicians are not scientists), just that some things hasn't been disproved yet.


But I like explaining holes; it's fun!

So do I, but I like to explain holes that makes me progress in my understanding of the universe.

To ignore what we know and try and explain cumbustion engines with leprechauns for example would probably not lead me to build a better engine. It might be fun, but I won't get very far in my new car.

[ahenobarbi]

That "proof" relies on you accepting the notion of probability, which every dice roll in my 10+-year gaming career has demonstrated to my satisfaction is a fallacious assumption. As far as I'm concerned, all random events are fundamentally unknowable as to their outcomes, and any theory that claims to predict them is just guesswork. No matter how reliable it has been in the past, it can never be counted on to remain so in the future.

This proves only that you don't know enough about probability theory to understand what you observed (and quite possibly your observations are very inaccurate).


A lie, repeated often enough, becomes the new truth, because no-one remembers it was false anymore.

Meh. To believe this you have to get rid of any reasonable meaning of "truth" first.


I'm terrified of heights and would never even try to fly into space with any protection which I was not 100% sure would work.

You do know nothing works with 100% probability, right?


But I like explaining holes; it's fun!

Science isn't about making up problems to solve them for fun (that's mathematics) it's about explaining reality as observed.


"Chicken" is not a possible result on 3d6, but 3 and 18 are both possible results, and sometimes they happen...far more often than Probability would dictate. I know this from personal experience, and I'm certain it isn't sample bias. Unusual results on dice rolls are actually, measurably more common in my past experience

Data or didn't happen (just kidding, why would I trust data from on dice rolls from internets?).


Probability theory is true in the same way quantum theory and evolutionary theory are true. Not only is it backed by literally thousands of studies, entire technologies and sciences rely on it being true.

It's true than any science (it requires only human reasoning to work correctly and science relies on reasoning and data (that always includes some error)).

[willpell]

Until you do, I'm going to assume that the reason you believe you've falsified probability theory is the same collection of everyday fallacies and cognitive biases that make me, say, see faces in clouds or think any interaction with a woman means they secretly dig me.

Both of those phenomena have other explanations which I find easier to believe than "we're all really stupid and constantly believe things that aren't true". Faces in clouds is pattern recognition; it's our way of making the world be more interesting in our imaginations than it is in reality, and it's the basis of virtually all human endeavors since the beginnings of civilizations - we think, therefore, things are. And I should probably not get into gender theory but suffice to to say that your assessment of female psychology is consistent with that of mankind in general since the dawn of time, and our species wouldn't be here if that method weren't effective (albeit not in the way we expect it to be).


Probability theory is true in the same way quantum theory and evolutionary theory are true. Not only is it backed by literally thousands of studies

All of which are written in technical jargon comprehensible only to scientists, and filled with assumptions that scientists claim to have proven through exactly such studies. It might not actually be a gigantic conspiracy of mutual backscratching where everyone agrees to back up each other's assertions, shut out any outsider who questions their self-proclaimed wisdom, and uses arcane mumbo-jumbo to obfuscate the truth until nobody can possibly second-guess them...but if it was all that, it would look pretty much exactly the same as it does.

This is the premise of the Technocracy faction in Mage: the Ascension, my favorite RPG of all time - they have cleverly disguised their "magic" to appear exactly the same as modern technology or social sciences, and they get away with crap specifically because nobody understands science well enough to prove them wrong, other than actual scientists who they are always either recruiting or puppeteering to ensure that they don't see through the facade. I'm not insane enough to think real life actually is like that (if only because it gives our real-world scientists too much credit), but the fantasy matches reality very smoothly because the fundamental nature of this world is NOT something that can EVER be completely and certainly known, so fantastic interpretations like this will ALWAYS be plausible.


entire technologies and sciences rely on it being true. We could not, say, predict when and where a hurricane will make landfall without it (and we do so remarkably precisely).

Oh really? Like a week ago, they thought Isaac was going to hit NOLA like another Katrina, and instead it veered off at the last minute. Weather forecasting is AT BEST an inexact science.


MRIs and CT scans wouldn't work without it.

Now, that's a statement I have no counter for, which is unusual and refreshing. Can you elaborate?


Casinos would be going broke right and left if it weren't true.

Hardly. Everyone who goes into a casino knows that the "odds" are strongly against them; they subconsciously program themselves to lose more often than they win in order to fulfill the expected paradigm (and the fear that a player who's too "lucky" might well bump into a pair of very large men on his way out, who would like to have a word with him out back, certainly doesn't hurt with this process).


Every time you can't find your keys and think "Now, where could I have put them," rather than "Damn those leprechauns, always stealing my stuff!" you're intuitively using probability theory.

No, I'm searching my memories and/or using deductive reasoning to decrypt my own thought process. The location of the keys is not random, it is factual; the only question is whether my mind is sharp enough to perceive it in the record of my own past, or a reconstruction thereof.


Every time you choose to stop at a red light rather than risk a ticket or a crash, you're using probability theory.

No, you're obeying the law because you've been indoctrinated to believe it is inviolate (criminals being those in whom the brainwashing doesn't fully take).


Every time you make any decision at all, you're using probability theory, since you never know precisely what's going to happen, you can just estimate the odds.

Or you can not care about the odds and just do whatever you feel like, accepting whatever consequences come as being the unarguable will of the world (or the architects of your own destiny, if you believe them to be a bit more specific), which is pretty much how I live my life.


I start to believe that my, personal, problem with the reading of willpell's opinions is that most of the time they are stated as absolutes and since I don't share most of them I heat up a little.

This is completely fair, and I'm sorry if I've upset you. I am always entirely certain that I know the answers, even if I wish I didn't, and this is as frustrating to me as it is to everyone else.


So you refute argument's just cause they have the words "occam's razor" in it regardless of the sense they could make?

Pretty much. If a person believes in such a theorem, it says something about the worldview they're willing to accept, the level of critical thinking they demand of themselves; I can't help but feel that I'm a little better than them because I don't settle for the easy answer. I try not to be a jerk about it, but I'm badly out of practice. Might have something to do with peoples' persistent refusal to meet me halfway.


Debatable, a world with a floating eyeball with tentacles that fires lasers hardly strikes me as having verisimilitude.

If that is the case, I feel sorry for you. Every creature that evokes such impressions in me, I either draft an explanation for it or I bar it from my campaign world. I settle for nothing less than a supremely vibrant, believable, elegant high-fantasy world; sometimes the explanations for things are in dream-logic, but there is never any ridiculous thing that's there "just because" even though all sanity and decency scream for it to be left out. (Hence why I regularly use the word "Gygaxian" as a mild insult.)


Accepting that magic exists and that physics don't is probably the right path.

Physics can't completely not exist, but it can behave somewhat differently as a result of magical or other fantastic intervention. I couldn't accept a world in which there's no such thing as gravity, but I can easily accept a world in which a fletcher's "craft soul" causes the arrows to fly as straight as he designed them to, regardless of ballsitics theory. It's not that ballistics theory doesn't exist, it's that it only works for the benefit of people who expect it to work (or against people who tick off the Fates by being hubristically certain it won't).


Therefore, even if it were to have millions of unwritten rules, you would have no way to know how to rule on them.

I follow my instincts, heart, imagination, muse - whatever you want to call it. I don't need to have all the answers, just the right one for the situation.


I won't call an orc (a race in the monster manual and iconic in fantasy) warrior (an npc class associated with the orc) with a two handed weapon (listed in the orc's description) as something optimized. If you call that optimized I am sorry but I cannot stress my point further.

He's designed to deal damage and he deals a lot of damage; what more do you need to qualify as optimized?


That is a huge investment of wealth (and stats) since they are investing in 3 stats.

Two out of the three are stats that nearly everyone benefits from having a lot of (for HP, Initiative, and probably AC). Wisdom is safely dumpable if you don't mind being dense and twitchy, but that still means anyone whose inherent good save is Wisdom will probably end up with pretty good saving throws across the board - when was the last time you made a character who dumped Constitution? About the only exception is Clerics since they probably wear heavy armor and accept a low DEX.


There is only a 15 CR monster on the monster manual the marut (there is also a sample vampire) the marut has attacks with save DCs of 31 so if using core only it is quite possible that said monk will end facing creatures with DCs higher.

Hm. Certainly most wizards won't have a 31 on their spells, so this seems a bit high...then again the marut isn't an Evil monster, so maybe the designers figured they could make it overpowered since you could talk your way out of fighting it, or just to make it better at enforcing the laws it was made to enforce. Then again, maybe all monsters have way higher DCs than I've realized; I haven't read them in enough detail to be sure.


D&D experience is weird in that regard normally though my main problem with the mindset of not doing anything at lvl 1 (other than walking around) is why don't they just start at a higher level and do the same thing but with possible encounters?

In game terms that is pretty much exactly the thing to do; I'm mostly finished trying to make interesting adventures for L1 characters (although if I took over at Wotco one of the first things I'd do for D&D is start creating more and better adventures for low levels; the design of nearly all published material skews absurdly high, so more players play high levels, and the problem self-perpetuates). But in gameworld-reality terms, people start at the beginning of their lives; they have no choice about being level 1 for however long it takes to level up for the first time. It's implied in much of the fluff that most of them never will.


I would like waffles with my verisimilitude.

Don't you understand? The waffles were inside you all along! *waves wand*


Beware, don't walk outside, burning meat balls of glory might fall from the skies.

A life lived in fear is a life not lived at all. We are always at risk of everything; an airplane could fall out of the sky onto your head right now, nothing you can do will stop it, if that is what's destined to happen. So we should disregard all risks (to ourselves, not to others; that would be assault) and do anything that we feel like doing. I don't feel like living in fear of certain things, but I do feel like living in fear of other certain things; whether those things are either likely or actually dangerous has nothing to do with either decision.


You know that is quite possible that you are biased?

Everyone is biased; that's the whole point of us being individuals. The person who has no flawed, inaccurate opinions is the person who knows everything for an absolute fact, and he's bored out of his skull because he already knows everything that will ever happen and has to sit through it all happening anyway. Our entire existence is defined by our ignorance and our capacity for snap judgments; that's what makes surprising and diverse and interesting to live through. (Though I think the ratio is way off; we could stand to be about 90% omniscient and enjoy much smaller capacities for bias and ignorance, a fact I plan to bring up in the event I am ever given the opportunity to advise someone on universe-construction, who has the capacity to actually do it.)


It may be used that way by some people, but as one person (which I do believe you are, unless the willpell account is tied to some sort of global hivemind) I sincerely doubt that you have had the chance to observe even a percent of all the people that know about OR and how they use it.

Ahah! Now you're speaking my language. That's pretty much the exact kind of thing I tend to say when someone says a "most people" kind of thing. I was speaking of my general impression of "most people" from living in our society, watching our media, interacting with the man on the street in my town; of course it's not completely accurate worldwide. I speak from my perspective and my understanding of the truth; I cannot do otherwise.


An interesting proposition and perhaps it is true for certain philosophical or mythological claims. However, there is a difference between unfounded ideas and scientific research, which, by the looks of it, I'm not entirely sure that you understand.

Scientific research I'm fine with, but there's a limit to the results that you can get through pure research alone; what I have a problem with is the scientific community, which I firmly believe is a community first and scientific second. Like any organization, it eventually comes to prioritize its own survival, its own success, its own power bloc, over any idealistic principles in whose name it might have originally been founded. If you have a billion dollars in grant money waiting for you to prove that you know something, then you're going to prove that you know something, whether or not you actually do. The possibility of corruption exists in any system, and the bigger the system is, the more certain it is to be corrupt - that's not probability, that's just basic logic and the nature of human beings acting in groups.

I trust only the results of individual observation and experimentation, my own or that of people who have proven to me that I should respect them. Thousands of faceless strangers who all claim to have proved each others' assertions do not easily win their way past my skepticism. If they have a reason why it would profit them to convince me of a certain perspective, then I'm inherently less likely to believe any evidence they present as proof of that belief. The way to get me to believe in you is to have absolutely no reason to want to manipulate me, and almost nobody can fulfill that requirement.


I agree that we can never truly prove that anything is true outside of mathematics

Mathematics is one of the least provable fields, since it has very little observable reality outside basic arithmetic. Every mathematical "proof" is built on the backs of previous "proofs", and the assumptions that are at the very base of that chain of supposed evidence are faulty. The first rule of mathematics is "a = a", but I know that to be false, because I am not equal to myself; I am always changing. So if numbers can constantly change their values as long as nobody's looking at them, what possible proof can you mathematically derive? None. As long as there are observable quantities, you can perform basic operations on them which will produce reliable results. The moment you have to guess, assume, or trust the claims of another, you are no longer certain of anything, and thus you don't really know anything.

(As usual, this is all just my opinion, but it is what I feel and believe to be true based on my own experiences, and it's unlikely anyone can ever convince me to believe otherwise with mere words. Not impossible, but unlikely.)


To ignore what we know and try and explain cumbustion engines with leprechauns for example would probably not lead me to build a better engine. It might be fun, but I won't get very far in my new car.

The leprechaun explanation might not be as far off as you think. We're told that the pressure of expanding gas atoms is what drives the piston, but you haven't seen those atoms any more than you've seen a leprechaun; perhaps the real reason why an engine works is just as invisible as the atom, and the results of electron microscopes which claim to have measured the atom have been falsified for an ulterior purpose. How would you ever know if such a thing were true? All you can do is tinker with stuff and see what happens, and that's what real science is about. Real science could build a working car, albeit probably more slowly and less efficiently than following a formula taught by the viziers who claim to have deciphered the secret laws of science for you. But then, look at the state of our environment today, and ask yourself whether being fast and efficient is always a good thing.


Meh. To believe this you have to get rid of any reasonable meaning of "truth" first.

You must not have understood my meaning. Before Columbus proved the world was round, absolutely everyone in Europe was 100% certain it was flat. That was the truth at that time; they lived their lives in accordance with that belief, and reality never proved them wrong. Truth is an observed phenomenon; it doesn't exist as an absolute. In other words, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, not only is there no sound, but there is no tree and no forest. It is only when someone enters the forest, either at that time or later (but not so much later that the tree has rotted away and left no trace) that the tree retroactively has always existed there.


You do know nothing works with 100% probability, right?

Yes, and strangely enough, things keep breaking or screwing up. It's almost as if - gosh - the world doesn't "want" to be perfectly predictable. Which is exactly what I already said.

[DeusMortuusEst]

I think that I'll just step out of this discussion before I say something stupid.

Now, if you excuse me I'll go watch Carl Sagan for a while and try to restore some of the faith in humanity this thread has taken away from me. :smallfrown:

Oh, and by the way. The idea that the earth was round was known to the ancient greeks. It's a factoid that it was Columbus, or people in his age that discovered this. If you're going to debate, at least have your facts straight.

[Terumitsu]

...I'm not even certain that I should even be tossing my two cents in here simply because.. My mind, she is boggled.

Still, while there are several things that I am actually insulted by in the previous post, there is one thing that needs to be remedied:



You must not have understood my meaning. Before Columbus proved the world was round, absolutely everyone in Europe was 100% certain it was flat.


This is Wrong. It is a myth. It was known that the world was a sphere since the time of the ancient Greeks as one could observe a ship 'sinking' below the horizon line as it traveled farther away indicating that the surface of the world had curvature. The only thing that was iffy was just how Large the world was. Not the shape.

[willpell]

I think that I'll just step out of this discussion before I say something stupid.

I've been watching what I say this whole time to avoid breaking the TOS. But I don't blame you if you'd rather just walk away; I kind of wish I could do the same.


Oh, and by the way. The idea that the earth was round was known to the ancient greeks. It's a factoid that it was Columbus, or people in his age that discovered this. If you're going to debate, at least have your facts straight.

Known to the ancient greeks, then promptly forgotten after their downfall. Technically we have no way of knowing that the planet wasn't cubical before the Greeks, became round as a result of their proof, became flat at Medieval Europe's insistence, and is now back to being round again because we decided we liked that idea. It's contrary to what we think we know about the universe, but once again, we can never be sure of anything, not when all our knowledge is suspect and prone to possible deception.

[God Imperror]

This is Wrong. It is a myth. It was known that the world was a sphere since the time of the ancient Greeks as one could observe a ship 'sinking' below the horizon line as it traveled farther away indicating that the surface of the world had curvature. The only thing that was iffy was just how Large the world was. Not the shape.

It is not exactly true, everyone but Columbus new that the Earth was larger than Columbus believed, it is sourced (page 48 / 51 (http://books.google.es/books?id=973rHUc_q_0C&printsec=frontcover&client=firefox-a&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false)) that Columbus estimation was wrong.


Known to the ancient greeks, then promptly forgotten after their downfall. Technically we have no way of knowing that the planet wasn't cubical before the Greeks, became round as a result of their proof, became flat at Medieval Europe's insistence, and is now back to being round again because we decided we liked that idea. It's contrary to what we think we know about the universe, but once again, we can never be sure of anything, not when all our knowledge is suspect and prone to possible deception.

Here some info from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth) or in case you automatically disregard wikipedia as a valid source here (http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/SS05/efs/materials/FlatEarth.pdf) Stephen Jay Gould writes on the subject.

By the way, in this you are incorrect and mistaken.

[Psyren]

I thought this thread was about rulings that could go either way, not clear-cut rulings which would be broken if used in play unmodified.

(In other words: "I don't know how this works" vs. "I know how this works, but it's silly and should be changed.")

Reposting in an attempt to understand what this thread was supposed to be about.

[willpell]

Okay, so instead of the ur-example of truth's liquidity being "Columbus 'knew' the earth was flat," it's "20th-century society 'knew' Columbus 'knew' the earth was flat". Either way my point stands - a widely enough believed misconception is true, for everyone who believes it, until the number of those believers drops low enough that their belief becomes the discredited one. As long as they are the majority, they can behave as if their preferred fiction is true (though they'll have great difficulty sustaining their belief in the face of immediate contrary evidence); those who insist upon a contrary truth, even with substantial-but-not-irrefutable evidence, are powerless to argue with those who outnumber them by a sufficient margin. I merely take the extra step of believing that the actual truth is changing in these cases, which is impossible to disprove, though most non-me people find it counterintuitive.[citation needed]


By the way, in this you are incorrect and mistaken.

Thank you.


Reposting in an attempt to understand what this thread was supposed to be about.

Oh, wait, you thought I had a topic? My mistake, I should have been clear that this was one of my "random collections of vaguely related subjects, up until the moment it goes completely off the rails" threads. I think it's about the seventh one to date; I'm trying hard to keep it from crashing and burning quite as hard as its predecessors.

[ahenobarbi]

Mathematics is one of the least provable fields, since it has very little observable reality outside basic arithmetic. Every mathematical "proof" is built on the backs of previous "proofs", and the assumptions that are at the very base of that chain of supposed evidence are faulty. The first rule of mathematics is "a = a", but I know that to be false, because I am not equal to myself; I am always changing. So if numbers can constantly change their values as long as nobody's looking at them, what possible proof can you mathematically derive? None. As long as there are observable quantities, you can perform basic operations on them which will produce reliable results. The moment you have to guess, assume, or trust the claims of another, you are no longer certain of anything, and thus you don't really know anything.

(As usual, this is all just my opinion, but it is what I feel and believe to be true based on my own experiences, and it's unlikely anyone can ever convince me to believe otherwise with mere words. Not impossible, but unlikely.)


You seem to not understand mathematics at all. It's the closest to "absolute certainty" we can get. Because only thing it requires to be true is "human minds work correctly".

Anything else requires that assumption and correct empirical data (and thus is less reliable).


The first rule of mathematics is "a = a", but I know that to be false, because I am not equal to myself; I am always changing.

This just means you forgot something (time) in doing your math.

you(t) = you(t)


You must not have understood my meaning. Before Columbus proved the world was round, absolutely everyone in Europe was 100% certain it was flat. That was the truth at that time; they lived their lives in accordance with that belief, and reality never proved them wrong. Truth is an observed phenomenon; it doesn't exist as an absolute. In other words, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, not only is there no sound, but there is no tree and no forest. It is only when someone enters the forest, either at that time or later (but not so much later that the tree has rotted away and left no trace) that the tree retroactively has always existed there.

I clearly understood what you meant and that's what I call <<getting rid of any reasonable meaning of "truth" first>>. What you describe is not "truth" but "popular opinion".

And if the tree didn't fall why would one see a fallen tree when ([s]he|it) visits the place?

(side notes: Columbus didn't prove Earth (rough) ball (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_(mathematics)), it was known well before that Earth is not flat (and it was quite easy to notice))

[Jeff the Green]

Now, if you excuse me I'll go watch Carl Sagan for a while and try to restore some of the faith in humanity this thread has taken away from me. :smallfrown:

Can I join you?



Reposting in an attempt to understand what this thread was supposed to be about.

"Supposed to be?" Pshaw. Too late for that.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I'm not going to jump into the middle of this cluster**** because we've already established in previous threads that willpell missed lacks the motivation and the tools needed to understand the basics of many fields and trying to explain why math and science aren't actually a global conspiracy would take a lot more time and effort than anyone wants to give, and it's more fun to just sit back and watch the train wreck anyway, but I do have one request:


Well certainly if I designed it, it wouldn't work; I'm terrified of heights and would never even try to fly into space with any protection which I was not 100% sure would work. I lack such sureness even with regard to space shuttles (or whatever NASA is flying these days).


A life lived in fear is a life not lived at all. We are always at risk of everything; an airplane could fall out of the sky onto your head right now, nothing you can do will stop it, if that is what's destined to happen. So we should disregard all risks (to ourselves, not to others; that would be assault) and do anything that we feel like doing. I don't feel like living in fear of certain things, but I do feel like living in fear of other certain things; whether those things are either likely or actually dangerous has nothing to do with either decision.

If you're going to have a paranoid, arrogant, fairly nonsensical, contrary-to-reality approach to life, could you at least attempt to have an internally consistent paranoid, arrogant, fairly nonsensical, contrary-to-reality approach to life?

[Arbane]

Oh, goodie. This will end up just like the Binder thread did.

Willpell versus Science. Round 2. FIGHT!

[Aegis013]

Or you can not care about the odds and just do whatever you feel like, accepting whatever consequences come as being the unarguable will of the world (or the architects of your own destiny, if you believe them to be a bit more specific), which is pretty much how I live my life.

Since we're on the topic of world views anyway, I'll toss my hat into the ring. As far as believing in architects of destiny, and remembering (maybe misremembering, correct me if so) you having mentioned dealing with depression/depressive episodes before, I would like to inform you that studies have shown* people who believe they have more control over events or general circumstances in their life (after all, you can choose what you perceive, you've shown that well through some of your more difficult-to-accept claims about how the world functions) are far less likely to suffer from depression. So rise up! Kick the architects of destiny to the curb and pierce the heavens! Or you know, don't. It's your choice in the end.

*Here's some reference (http://www.macses.ucsf.edu/research/psychosocial/control.php), paragraph 5 being pertinent.



Pretty much. If a person believes in such a theorem, it says something about the worldview they're willing to accept, the level of critical thinking they demand of themselves; I can't help but feel that I'm a little better than them because I don't settle for the easy answer. I try not to be a jerk about it, but I'm badly out of practice. Might have something to do with peoples' persistent refusal to meet me halfway.


This is a pretty arrogant standpoint, as I'm sure you're aware. I'm not going to attempt to discredit your standpoint, but keep in mind Herbert Simon's Bounded Rationality Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality) says that even though to some of us your world views might seem absurd on their face, and ours might seem the same to you, we're all justifying everything with our own logic.



A life lived in fear is a life not lived at all. We are always at risk of everything; an airplane could fall out of the sky onto your head right now, nothing you can do will stop it, if that is what's destined to happen. So we should disregard all risks (to ourselves, not to others; that would be assault) and do anything that we feel like doing. I don't feel like living in fear of certain things, but I do feel like living in fear of other certain things; whether those things are either likely or actually dangerous has nothing to do with either decision.


So, what criteria do you use for determining what to fear? Because I honestly use probability theory. When I think a poor outcome is very likely, I'm more cautious due to concern about how likely I think the poor outcome is, like you and going into space. Only if you're absolutely sure you will be ok would you consider it, because you know there is a higher chance of dying due to an accident in space or in a space shuttle than there is of a plane or a meteor hitting you right now. Isn't that probability theory at work?



He's designed to deal damage and he deals a lot of damage; what more do you need to qualify as optimized?


And to the topic of optimization; I posit that you need to define "a lot of damage" to reliably know whether or not he does. In my opinion, 1d12+5 (x3 on a crit, and I'm assuming 20-21 str) isn't a lot of damage, ignoring crits for simplicity, you see an average of 12 damage rounded up on a charge. If I say "a lot of damage at level 1 is being able to manage, without crits, 20 damage or better on average with a single round's attack or attack sequence." Then this orc here won't work. However, the same Orc as a Warblade with a Greatsword using Power Attack, Punishing Stance, and Sapphire Nightmare Blade can see 4d6+7; an average of 21 damage.

You need a definition or metric of what qualifies as optimized to qualify as optimized. With my definition, the warrior does not qualify as optimized.

[Lord_Gareth]

I'm going to make one - one - effort to help you understand why mathematics and statistics works, Willpell. Just one. I'm not coming back to debate this with you.

Don't think of mathematics as an area of study. Obviously, it is an area of study, but ignore that for the moment. Mathematics is a language which we use to describe relationships and behaviors that we observe in reality. Like any language, one must learn to speak it, and some people are more fluent than others, but the more proficiency one gains in it, the more accurately one can describe one's subject. A layman can tell you, for example, that an object moving really fast will hit really hard. A casual student will inform you that force is equivalent to the mass of the object in question times its acceleration. A scholar will actually calculate it for you.

This is the biggest reason that mathematics is found in every other school of thought and discipline; it's the universal language that can be applied to any set of observable circumstances. It's used in war, logistics, business, science, cooking - every single field of human study uses mathematics to frame its questions and answers because it's been proven time and again to produce reliable results that allow its users to interact meaningfully with the world around them. Sometimes, of course, we are wrong, just as sometimes a writer makes a typo or a native speaker to a language will slur or stumble, but then it's human error - not a problem with the system itself.

Statistics is, admittedly, the red-headed stepchild of mathematics but that's mostly because many people don't appreciate the fine distinction between odds and certainties. We latch onto fragments of stat-math without actually learning the discipline and then marvel at the results we get because they seem so inconsistent. If I tell you there's a one-in-six chance that a 1d6 will come up any given number, most people will assume that in six throws each number will come up once, when what that actually means is that you've only got a one-in-six reliability on any given number. To quote S.M. Stirling - "The dice have no memory." Calculating the odds of any given number coming up X times in a row will produce increasingly unlikely statistics, but that doesn't make it impossible - just increasingly uncertain.

Going further, the behavior of the dice at any given table is a small sample of the overall group of 'dice rolling in various places'. An uncountable number of variables affect each roll and skew the numbers one direction or another because of things as small as air flow in a room or as large as a tilted table. Sure, if you drop a 1d6 in a vacuum chamber onto a perfectly level surface you've got one in six odds that any given number comes up, but I'm willing to bet that you and your group don't really play in airless vacuum chambers, aye?

The universe not behaving according to your understanding is not a reason to dismiss those disciplines which seek to understand the universe. It's a reason to learn more about them so that you might get the 'for laymen' explanation and understand it. Might I suggest making friends with some mathematics students? Hell, GitP's own unofficial IRC channel has quite a few. Meet up with them and try to listen for awhile. It's quite an education.

[sonofzeal]

Okay, so instead of the ur-example of truth's liquidity being "Columbus 'knew' the earth was flat," it's "20th-century society 'knew' Columbus 'knew' the earth was flat". Either way my point stands - a widely enough believed misconception is true, for everyone who believes it, until the number of those believers drops low enough that their belief becomes the discredited one. As long as they are the majority, they can behave as if their preferred fiction is true (though they'll have great difficulty sustaining their belief in the face of immediate contrary evidence); those who insist upon a contrary truth, even with substantial-but-not-irrefutable evidence, are powerless to argue with those who outnumber them by a sufficient margin. I merely take the extra step of believing that the actual truth is changing in these cases, which is impossible to disprove, though most non-me people find it counterintuitive.[citation needed]
If reality conforms itself to the most common beliefs... and most people believe the universe is static and self-consistent............ :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

[willpell]

This just means you forgot something (time) in doing your math.

you(t) = you(t)

My observations contradict that.


And if the tree didn't fall why would one see a fallen tree when ([s]he|it) visits the place?

Because he expected to, or was destined to, and it retrroactively became true for his benefit (or to his detriment).


If you're going to have a paranoid, arrogant, fairly nonsensical, contrary-to-reality approach to life, could you at least attempt to have an internally consistent paranoid, arrogant, fairly nonsensical, contrary-to-reality approach to life?

Never. My moods are inconstant, and so my perspective on the world shifts like the tides, and that is as it should be.


I would like to inform you that studies have shown* people who believe they have more control over events or general circumstances in their life (after all, you can choose what you perceive, you've shown that well through some of your more difficult-to-accept claims about how the world functions) are far less likely to suffer from depression. So rise up! Kick the architects of destiny to the curb and pierce the heavens! Or you know, don't. It's your choice in the end.

Where did I say you could choose what to perceive? I desperately wish that was true; I would perceive myself living in a gigantic, spotlessly clean castle so that I wouldn't have to interact with the reality of my cramp, cluttered, periodically insect-infested room. I could perceive a supermodel lying in bed with me, without having to go to the bother of actually winning the attentions of one. Being able to control our perceptions would make us like gods; it's probably my most fervent wish. I never said we could control our perceptions; I only said that they alter reality around us. They do NOT alter reality solely for our benefit, save perhaps in some very large Afterschool-special fashion where it's "to your benefit" to survive a harrowing miserable experience and be a stronger person in the end. Which is certainly not "benefit" according to your moment-to-moment consciousness, and that is the real "you" according to me. That is the one that I think should be in charge, and to the dickens with what some larger entity thinks is good for us in the long run.


we're all justifying everything with our own logic.

And so we should. I simply advocate that the process should not stop when we slam into a wall of natural law.


So, what criteria do you use for determining what to fear? Because I honestly use probability theory.

My fears, irrational as they are, appear to be hardcoded into my brain as a result of my past self's formative experiences. I desperately wish it were otherwise, but even today, I have no fear of things which I rationally know to be dangerous, and much fear of things I rationally know to be harmless, because rational knowledge has nothing whatsoever to do with whether one's primitive fight-or-flight instincts have been activated by childhood traumas and now flood one with panic hormones at the most nonsensical of stimuli.


And to the topic of optimization; I posit that you need to define "a lot of damage" to reliably know whether or not he does. In my opinion, 1d12+5 (x3 on a crit, and I'm assuming 20-21 str) isn't a lot of damage, ignoring crits for simplicity, you see an average of 12 damage rounded up on a charge.

12 damage is a lot. A first-level cleric with +3 constitution bonus has only 11 hit points. A Rogue has less than that and doesn't wear armor. A Wizard is so squishy that the minimum damage on the orc's roll probably puts him down, and the maximum damage kills him instantly. Two successful hits from the Orc will almost certainly put down even the fighter, which means that two CR 1/2 orcs versus the fighter of a level 1 party is an ECL 1 fight which is very capable of ending in a TPK, if the orcs get lucky hit rolls and lucky saves against the Wizard's one spell which has a chance of putting them down.


If reality conforms itself to the most common beliefs... and most people believe the universe is static and self-consistent............ :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

Then it is - for those people. But those who believe otherwise may still suffer the consequences of their refusal to conform, because the cosmos refuses to relinquish them completely into their own personal universe, yet still their beliefs will interfere with the overall paradigm. It's like trying to slam on the brakes while your car is going 200 mph - you can slow down, but you can't entirely stop because there's too much force acting on you. So the world is mostly static and self-consistent, even if you want it not to be, but your wanting keeps it from being completely so, usually to your detriment. And you can't choose whether or not to want it, not even if you know wanting it would be better for you, any more than you can choose to stop being human. Your beliefs, your worldview - they are YOU. They are what makes you what you are, and they change only when they change; you ahve no control over the process, because the world denies you that level of power over your own destiny, knowing you would have no need for a world if you could make your own experiences.

[TuggyNE]

I think we can safely add two questions to the list as originally proposed:

Whether higher math is or can be valid by its nature
Whether the universe behaves consistently for different people


I say "safely" because neither WotC nor almost any other company could reasonably have expected those questions. :smalltongue:

[sonofzeal]

My observations contradict that.The "you" at precisely 8:37 pm January 3rd 2012 was different than the "you" at precisely 8:37 pm January 3rd 2012? What observations were these, exactly? :smallbiggrin:


Then it is - for those people.
Then each of us lives in our own universe, and meaningful conversation between people is impossible at any level.


But those who believe otherwise may still suffer the consequences of their refusal to conform, because the cosmos refuses to relinquish them completely into their own personal universe, yet still their beliefs will interfere with the overall paradigm. It's like trying to slam on the brakes while your car is going 200 mph - you can slow down, but you can't entirely stop because there's too much force acting on you. So the world is mostly static and self-consistent, even if you want it not to be, but your wanting keeps it from being completely so, usually to your detriment. And you can't choose whether or not to want it, not even if you know wanting it would be better for you, any more than you can choose to stop being human. Your beliefs, your worldview - they are YOU. They are what makes you what you are, and they change only when they change; you ahve no control over the process, because the world denies you that level of power over your own destiny, knowing you would have no need for a world if you could make your own experiences.
Well.... let's go back to science for a moment.

In 1936 a fellow named Carl D. Anderson was performing the latest in a series of experiments, each probing deeper into the nature of elementary particles. Even back then we had a fair idea about these things, but there were a few different predictions, and a few different things that could have happened to confirm one group or another.

Instead they got the Muon, to which the general response was "who ordered that?" And the thing is, nobody had. Absolutely none of the rival models contained anything like that. It didn't verify anyone's model.

If reality was morphic in the way you describe, such surprises should be impossible. The results should have fallen along the most widely-held model, or the model held by the people doing the experiment.

Reality is not so obliging.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I think we can safely add two questions to the list as originally proposed:

Whether higher math is or can be valid by its nature
Whether the universe behaves consistently for different people


I say "safely" because neither WotC nor almost any other company could reasonably have expected those questions. :smalltongue:

Well, "perception shapes reality" is one of the fundamentals of Planescape, so it's entirely possible that WotC could have seen someone asking about that. Just not in the context of, y'know, reality.

[willpell]

The "you" at precisely 8:37 pm January 3rd 2012 was different than the "you" at precisely 8:37 pm January 3rd 2012? What observations were these, exactly? :smallbiggrin:

I am very often, if not usually, of multiple minds about everything. It is quite common for there to be two simultaneous and contradictory versions of my mind existing at the same time in the same place, each perceiving itself and the other as they fluctuate through varying degrees of presence.


Then each of us lives in our own universe, and meaningful conversation between people is impossible at any level.

This is essentially what I believe to be the case. I say things which others interpret as meaning something other than what I intended to say, which I almost immediately forget anyway. My experience of all interaction is that of a kaleidoscope - pretty colors shifting in vaguely predictable ways, producing interesting vistas, with little if any meaning or logic to them.


If reality was morphic in the way you describe, such surprises should be impossible. The results should have fallen along the most widely-held model, or the model held by the people doing the experiment.

Reality is not so obliging.

Perhaps he was subconsciously longing for a surprise. He might himself never have known; we are all enigmas, living in the shadow of a thousand generations of instinctual baggage, combined with the programmed traumas and fixations of our youth. This is why I have often said free will is a myth, much as I wish it could be otherwise. We are not ourselves unless we are free to choose, and I certainly am not, or I would choose to be 100 pounds lighter this instant without any effort whatsoever. The world offers us limited choices and constraints on our ability to choose them; as far as I'm concerned, what freedom remains is too negligible to be worthy of the name.

[Aegis013]

Where did I say you could choose what to perceive? I desperately wish that was true; I would perceive myself living in a gigantic, spotlessly clean castle so that I wouldn't have to interact with the reality of my cramp, cluttered, periodically insect-infested room. I could perceive a supermodel lying in bed with me, without having to go to the bother of actually winning the attentions of one. Being able to control our perceptions would make us like gods; it's probably my most fervent wish. I never said we could control our perceptions; I only said that they alter reality around us. They do NOT alter reality solely for our benefit, save perhaps in some very large Afterschool-special fashion where it's "to your benefit" to survive a harrowing miserable experience and be a stronger person in the end. Which is certainly not "benefit" according to your moment-to-moment consciousness, and that is the real "you" according to me. That is the one that I think should be in charge, and to the dickens with what some larger entity thinks is good for us in the long run.

I never said you said it. I said it, I simply attempted to use your assertions to support it. Why did you think I was saying you said it? (non-rhetorical) And I do believe it too. So by your assertion that the universe is consistent for a person based upon their beliefs/perceptions, I am actually doing it, too. I'm doing it all the time. I have excellent selective perception, I'm pretty good at ignoring things and moving my thought energy onto other things, which in turn results in those things being more common/prevalent/frequent in my perception of life. There is literature about this concept. It is called the Law of Attraction. If it sounds appealing to you, you may wish to research it further.

[Wings of Peace]

Oh, goodie. This will end up just like the Binder thread did.

Willpell versus Science. Round 2. FIGHT!

Can I get a link to that fight? I really want to read it now.

[sonofzeal]

I am very often, if not usually, of multiple minds about everything. It is quite common for there to be two simultaneous and contradictory versions of my mind existing at the same time in the same place, each perceiving itself and the other as they fluctuate through varying degrees of presence.
That's not unheard-of (though potentially a sign of Dissociative Identity Disorder). However, we can still take "you" to be the sum composite of all of those, and it's usually convenient to do so for conversational purposes.




This is essentially what I believe to be the case. I say things which others interpret as meaning something other than what I intended to say, which I almost immediately forget anyway. My experience of all interaction is that of a kaleidoscope - pretty colors shifting in vaguely predictable ways, producing interesting vistas, with little if any meaning or logic to them.
This... strikes me as completely unfalsifiable, as any evidence I can possibly present is simply more pretty colours. It also sounds like a profoundly lonely way to live your life, and a profoundly useless one since nothing meaningful could ever be accomplished in such a universe.

It also runs at direct odds to the amount of time and effort you have spent on this conversation, when you could be out... I dunno, warbling at the songbirds, or stirring your alphabet soup, and have just as much meaning. Might I enquire how much time you spend on activities like those in a week? :smallwink:

[DeusMortuusEst]

It may be used that way by some people, but as one person (which I do believe you are, unless the willpell account is tied to some sort of global hivemind) I sincerely doubt that you have had the chance to observe even a percent of all the people that know about OR and how they use it.


I am very often, if not usually, of multiple minds about everything. It is quite common for there to be two simultaneous and contradictory versions of my mind existing at the same time in the same place, each perceiving itself and the other as they fluctuate through varying degrees of presence.

Huh, I was closer than I thought.


If reality conforms itself to the most common beliefs... and most people believe the universe is static and self-consistent............ :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

This should be possible to test. Just do a commercial/news story in china and india telling them that some random person (I'm willing to be the test subject here) has died on the other side of the world.

Since that would reach out to a lot more people who have ever met me and know that I exist, I should die on the spot, since most humans would expect me to be dead, or doesn't know that I exist at all.

[TheFallenOne]

Dear Thread,

It exacts a lot of restraint for me to not respond here at length. But I rest unburdened in the justified and hopefully true belief almost everyone here is already of one mind with me anyway.

Love,
TheFallenOne

[Fallbot]

Can I get a link to that fight? I really want to read it now.

Here you go. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=243726)

Everyone is showing admirable restraint here, and honestly I'm disappointed. The last thread was a treasure.

[ahenobarbi]

Here you go. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=243726)

Everyone is showing admirable restraint here, and honestly I'm disappointed. The last thread was a treasure.

Thanks, I'll read that rather than arguing here :smallamused:

[willpell]

There is literature about this concept. It is called the Law of Attraction. If it sounds appealing to you, you may wish to research it further.

I have heard of that "law", and it strikes me as blaming the victim and rubbing salt in their wounds. "Well of course your life isn't going well - you're being negative about it! Just blithely pretend everything is going to be okay, or else you're personally responsible for the fact that it isn't." No thank you. I prefer to believe in a universe which consoles and compensates the unfortunate, while cutting the better-off-than-they-have-earned-the-right-to-be down to size.


However, we can still take "you" to be the sum composite of all of those, and it's usually convenient to do so for conversational purposes.

I don't feel this to be accurate. It's more like multiple versions of myself fighting for control. Not quite literally enough to call it MPD, but I'm often inclined to compare it to my (probably inaccurate) understanding of quantum mechanics.


It also sounds like a profoundly lonely way to live your life, and a profoundly useless one since nothing meaningful could ever be accomplished in such a universe.

"Meaning" is overrated. All that matters is that we either are glad we exist, or do not exist. I exist and am only sometimes glad of it; that is a problem. Others seem to think their periodic suffering somehow imbues "meaning" into their lives; I would like to opt-out of the trade that they have volunteered for, but they refuse to allow anyone else to choose differently than themselves.


Might I enquire how much time you spend on activities like those in a week? :smallwink:

Probably one of the reasons I've put so much energy into threads like these lately is that I've cut way back on video games. Took up Half-Life this weekend, so maybe you'll see a bit less of me for a while.

[Kaje]

As great as the binder thread was, it's not nearly as epic as the warlock thread.

[prufock]

Someone is wrong on the internet!? Goodness gracious.

[Starbuck_II]

As great as the binder thread was, it's not nearly as epic as the warlock thread.

Do you have a link? This might require investigating.

[Menteith]

Do you have a link? This might require investigating.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=251363

[Arbane]

I have heard of that "law", and it strikes me as blaming the victim and rubbing salt in their wounds. "Well of course your life isn't going well - you're being negative about it! Just blithely pretend everything is going to be okay, or else you're personally responsible for the fact that it isn't." No thank you. I prefer to believe in a universe which consoles and compensates the unfortunate, while cutting the better-off-than-they-have-earned-the-right-to-be down to size.


On the other hand, I take a great deal of comfort in the indifference and unfairness of the universe (thank you, Babylon 5), so I reject both the "Law of Attraction"'s and your belief in cosmic fairness. Both strike me as wishful thinking unencumbered by any connection to reality.

Anyway, back to questions WotC didn't expect anyone to ask: What the heck has a level 1 elf character been DOING for the last 40 years?

[willpell]

Anyway, back to questions WotC didn't expect anyone to ask: What the heck has a level 1 elf character been DOING for the last 40 years?

This is an excellent question with many answers which are fun to consider. It's hard for us to comprehend patience in the Internet age, but if you read what people did for fun before Television (or for that matter Radio), there are some staggering examples of the lengths people will go to preoccupying themselves. Think of a guy who has an antique silverware collection and spends a hundred hours a month lovingly polishing every fork and spoon to keep them in pristine condition. Or the way monastic scribes would painstakingly copy every letter of an ancient illuminated manuscript by hand. You can still find examples of this sort of behavior today, but it's far less common. Just turn the principle up to 11 with elves (and to a lesser extent dwarves); they would fixated on the tiniest minutia, and often scrap a project the first time anything goes wrong, specifically so they can waste time starting again from scratch.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Anyway, back to questions WotC didn't expect anyone to ask: What the heck has a level 1 elf character been DOING for the last 40 years?

As I explained in another thread on the topic of elves and aging: It's really quite simple. Elves are perfectionists who raise mere living to an art form, and given that, the 3e rules bear out the aging discrepancies.

Let us assume that anything mundane you can do in 3e that isn't explicitly covered by the rules can be expressed as a skill or ability check. "Notice something large in plain sight" is a DC 0 Spot check, for instance--a check that cannot be failed by anyone with at least 10 Wis and no distractions, even if they're untrained, but a skill check nonetheless. Most of the time, you can ignore those checks, because they're impossible to fail, so humans and halflings and dwarves and all the rest simply take 10 on them. However, elves cannot abide doing anything less than perfectly, so they take 20 on every single check, which takes 20 times as long as making the check normally.

Every. Single. Check. Walking? DC 0 Balance check. Talking? DC 0 Diplomacy check. Eating? DC 0 Dex check. Using the bathroom? Er, you get the idea. That explains why everyone inexplicably sees elves as being the most beautiful, most awesome, etc. beings out there despite their mediocre stats: Eating a sandwich will take them an hour where it would take a human 3 minutes, but by Corellon it'll be the most-gracefully-eaten sandwich you ever did see!

Now, this only applies when actually taking actions; while elves trance they're taking no actions, and therefore acting at "normal" speed. As well, it's very impolite to interrupt others while they're being awesome, and elves are very fair and equal-minded people, so they spend half their time being awesome at things and half their time patiently watching other elves be awesome at things. So for 1/6 of any given day they're trancing, and for 3/6 of any given day they're not taking any actions, and for the remaining 2/6 of any given day they're taking normal actions but taking 20 times as long to do them. (15 years to reach adulthood * 2/6 of the time taking actions * 20 "take 20" penalty) + (15 years to reach adulthood * 4/6 of the time not taking actions * 1 normal time) = 110 years on the dot, exactly what it says on the chart.

When an elf leaves home, of course, he realizes that the terribly uncouth and uncultured non-elves don't tolerate such a thing or appreciate his awesomeness, so he has to get by with taking 10 on everything, and essentially starts living life on a human scale. This explains why non-adventuring elves are the mythically beautiful and graceful and awesome elves of legends, while adventuring elves are much more down-to-earth and seem a lot more like humans with pointy ears. The only chance they have to really indulge themselves is while they're out on an adventure--elves trance for 4 hours while his companions sleep for 8, so an elf has 4 hours per day to be the elfiest elf he can possibly be while no non-elves are there to watch and judge him.

According to the DMG, we can assume that there is a 10% chance of having a wandering monster/random encounter per hour. This means that there is a (1 - .9^4) chance that a random encounter happens while an elf is being elfy during the 4 hours he has to himself, or a 30% chance rounding to one significant figure. So he has roughly a 70% chance to be elfy for 1/6 of the day without interruption (sometimes much less, sometimes much more, depending on when he's interrupted, but we can assume it balances out), meaning he acts elfy roughly 1/8.5 of the time. Thus, while humans take 20 years to get from adulthood to middle age, elves take (20 years to reach middle age * 1/8.5 of the time taking elfy actions * 20 "take 20" penalty) + (20 years to reach adulthood * 7.5/8.5 of the time taking human-y actions * 1 normal time) = ~65 years to do so, which puts them at middle age at ~175 years, exactly what it says on the chart.
Conclusion: Given 3e RAW, elves must age at the given rates. So there. :smallcool:

[willpell]

That was beautiful :smallbiggrin:

[Kelb_Panthera]

As I explained in another thread on the topic of elves and aging: It's really quite simple. Elves are perfectionists who raise mere living to an art form, and given that, the 3e rules bear out the aging discrepancies.

Let us assume that anything mundane you can do in 3e that isn't explicitly covered by the rules can be expressed as a skill or ability check. "Notice something large in plain sight" is a DC 0 Spot check, for instance--a check that cannot be failed by anyone with at least 10 Wis and no distractions, even if they're untrained, but a skill check nonetheless. Most of the time, you can ignore those checks, because they're impossible to fail, so humans and halflings and dwarves and all the rest simply take 10 on them. However, elves cannot abide doing anything less than perfectly, so they take 20 on every single check, which takes 20 times as long as making the check normally.

Every. Single. Check. Walking? DC 0 Balance check. Talking? DC 0 Diplomacy check. Eating? DC 0 Dex check. Using the bathroom? Er, you get the idea. That explains why everyone inexplicably sees elves as being the most beautiful, most awesome, etc. beings out there despite their mediocre stats: Eating a sandwich will take them an hour where it would take a human 3 minutes, but by Corellon it'll be the most-gracefully-eaten sandwich you ever did see!

Now, this only applies when actually taking actions; while elves trance they're taking no actions, and therefore acting at "normal" speed. As well, it's very impolite to interrupt others while they're being awesome, and elves are very fair and equal-minded people, so they spend half their time being awesome at things and half their time patiently watching other elves be awesome at things. So for 1/6 of any given day they're trancing, and for 3/6 of any given day they're not taking any actions, and for the remaining 2/6 of any given day they're taking normal actions but taking 20 times as long to do them. (15 years to reach adulthood * 2/6 of the time taking actions * 20 "take 20" penalty) + (15 years to reach adulthood * 4/6 of the time not taking actions * 1 normal time) = 110 years on the dot, exactly what it says on the chart.

When an elf leaves home, of course, he realizes that the terribly uncouth and uncultured non-elves don't tolerate such a thing or appreciate his awesomeness, so he has to get by with taking 10 on everything, and essentially starts living life on a human scale. This explains why non-adventuring elves are the mythically beautiful and graceful and awesome elves of legends, while adventuring elves are much more down-to-earth and seem a lot more like humans with pointy ears. The only chance they have to really indulge themselves is while they're out on an adventure--elves trance for 4 hours while his companions sleep for 8, so an elf has 4 hours per day to be the elfiest elf he can possibly be while no non-elves are there to watch and judge him.

According to the DMG, we can assume that there is a 10% chance of having a wandering monster/random encounter per hour. This means that there is a (1 - .9^4) chance that a random encounter happens while an elf is being elfy during the 4 hours he has to himself, or a 30% chance rounding to one significant figure. So he has roughly a 70% chance to be elfy for 1/6 of the day without interruption (sometimes much less, sometimes much more, depending on when he's interrupted, but we can assume it balances out), meaning he acts elfy roughly 1/8.5 of the time. Thus, while humans take 20 years to get from adulthood to middle age, elves take (20 years to reach middle age * 1/8.5 of the time taking elfy actions * 20 "take 20" penalty) + (20 years to reach adulthood * 7.5/8.5 of the time taking human-y actions * 1 normal time) = ~65 years to do so, which puts them at middle age at ~175 years, exactly what it says on the chart.
Conclusion: Given 3e RAW, elves must age at the given rates. So there. :smallcool:

Still one of the best uses of math and RAW I've seen in a long time.

[Gnorman]

Arguing with willpell is like the laws of thermodynamics.

You can't win. You can't break even. And you can't get out of the game.

[Fallbot]

Arguing with willpell is like the laws of thermodynamics.

You can't win. You can't break even. And you can't get out of the game.

Well it would be, if the Laws of Thermodynamics weren't lies made up by the Scientist Illuminati to control the masses, that could be disregarded if enough people didn't believe in them.

[Zombimode]

I have to ask for the benefit of the doubt on the RAI part, some of the adjustments that I've read that you make are so complicated that Occam's razor leads me to believe that they are hardly RAI, because they are not the most simple explanation. And even then, RAI, unless you are a game designer talking about the parts that you designed, shouldn't matter at all for rule discussions.

Ockhams Razor has nothing to do with game design. Trying to apply OR to something game-related will not bring forth desirable results. That is because game design has different goals then the field OR makes a statement about.

OR talks about commitments when choosing between alternative explanations. It is not a systematic principle, that is something following from a specific theory. It is rather a pragmatic one.
This results in OR being a usefull principle for a wide range of people, regardless of their theoretic differences.
But it also means that, usually, that OR is not sufficient for finding and choosing explanations. You will also need systematic principles.

[killem2]

Why is it that starting ages for certain classes are different, but when you go to multiclass you don't have to wait any particular length of time?

Want to be a wizard? Easy become a fighter first, then after just a few short months you can be a wizard. Who needs all that pesky studying anyway.

[willpell]

@ Killem2: Good one! I may have to add an age requirement for wizards to my Whiteleaf setting to avoid that issue, as it is a setting which explicitly acknowledges that magic > nonmagic in virtually every scenario (at least for humans and demihumans), and so people taking one level of fighter for the HP and then jumping into Wizard seems like it would be a fairly regular occurrence if not somehow restricted.


Arguing with willpell is like the laws of thermodynamics.

You can't win. You can't break even. And you can't get out of the game.

Those laws can be broken in time; we just need to figure out how to recapture the lost heat. Granted it has a lot of space to get lost in, so this is unlikely to be easy, but I think in the ten billion years or so that it would take for the cosmos to succumb to heat-death, we could at least make enough progress to slow the tide, if we can manage to go that entire time without completely destroying our society (or species) and having to relearn science from scratch. I suspect that we've already done that at least once in this planet's history, and if I'm right it set us back thousands if not millions of years. But if we could stay civilized and scientifically powerful for, oh say, 40,000 years, I firmly believe that we could accomplish more than simply to open a rift into Chaos and end up fighting Orks and Tyranids forever.

[Gnorman]

{{scrubbed}}

[Arbane]

Ockhams Razor has nothing to do with game design. Trying to apply OR to something game-related will not bring forth desirable results. That is because game design has different goals then the field OR makes a statement about.

I'd argue it does, sort of. The simplest rules-set is usually the best one. Or to paraphrase Occam, "Do not add new stats unnecessarily."


Those laws can be broken in time; we just need to figure out how to recapture the lost heat. Granted it has a lot of space to get lost in, so this is unlikely to be easy, but I think in the ten billion years or so that it would take for the cosmos to succumb to heat-death, we could at least make enough progress to slow the tide, if we can manage to go that entire time without completely destroying our society (or species) and having to relearn science from scratch.


9_9

Dood, try learning science from something besides old Doctor Who reruns. ENTROPY DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.

[Zombimode]

I'd argue it does, sort of. The simplest rules-set is usually the best one. Or to paraphrase Occam, "Do not add new stats unnecessarily."

I don't think thats true. Game are diverse and what is needed for a game, including the complexity of its rules, depend for the most time on the intent of the game in question.

Take card games for example.
If you want to make a very casual very family friendly game, that can be played in almost any environment, regardless of age and mental commitment of the players, you desing a game with very simple rules, like Mau-Mau. Despite its simplicity, Mau-Mau is not a bad game. For what it is, it is quite good.

But if you want a more engaging game, something that rewards (and allows) high levels of skill, maybe you are better of with a more complex game, like MTG. MTG is full of "new stats". Every set introduces new mechanics. And, despite its complexity, MTG is a very good game.

Of course you dont need to have complexity in rules to have complexity in gameplay; take Go for example. Does that mean MTG is unnecessarily complex? I would say "no", at least with how I understand necessity in this context: MTG is loved for what it is, the same way that Go is loved for what it is.

Bottom line: the diversity of goals in game design makes a principle like OR ill-suited for it. Maybe you could formulate more specialised principles inspired by OR.

[willpell]

Dood, try learning science from something besides old Doctor Who reruns. ENTROPY DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.

I have seen far fewer Dr. Who reruns than I would like. Here's a Wikipedia definition of entropy that more or less matches my understanding of it, though I derived it from various sources over time:


Entropy is the thermodynamic property toward equilibrium/average/homogenization/dissipation: hotter, more dynamic areas of a system lose heat/energy while cooler areas (e.g., space) get warmer / gain energy; molecules of a solvent or gas tend to evenly distribute; material objects wear out; organisms die; the universe is cooling down. Entropy, like time, runs in one direction only (it is not a reversible process). One can measure the entropy of a system to determine the energy not available for work in a thermodynamic process, such as energy conversion, engines, or machines. Such processes and devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when converting energy to work. During this work, entropy accumulates in the system, which then dissipates in the form of waste heat.

The bolded sentence is both meaningful and nonsensical; entropy is not reversable unless you can reverse time, but reversing time could also reverse entropy, and I see no reason to believe that this act will remain impossible forever; it is simply beyond our abilities right now. Even if we can't ever stop the process of entropic waste of energy, I believe there is no reason to think we will not someday discover a larger truth of which our current "matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed" understanding is only a shadow, and will use this knowledge either to import energy from another dimension or to just plain create it ex nihilo after having determined that this is less impossible than we now think. We have come from steam engines and semaphore to transatlantic jets and satellite telecom in a couple hundred years; given a million without social collapse, I'm certain we would routinely accomplish feats that seem utterly inconceivable today, and taking entropy out of the cosmic equation should be on that list.

[Zombimode]

You seem to equate the ability of building a steam engine with the ability of reversing time. The technological advancements you have cited all work on the same principles. The difference of the ability to constructing an ox cart and the ability to construct a hover tank are just questions of magnitude.
Reversing time is not just a higher magnitude then constructing a hover tank. It is in fact an entirely different category of ability. This is why your argument of ever increasing technological progress fails in this regard.

[TheFallenOne]

{{scrubbed}}

[Venger]

Well, Sheldon Cooper's objection notwithstanding, there are degrees of wrongness.

That's actually from this strip of xkcd (http://xkcd.com/386/)

Regarding degrees of wrongness, here are Isaac Asimov's thoughts on the matter (http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm)

[Lord_Gareth]

{{scrubbed}}

[Icewraith]

Constructing an ox cart and a hover tank are actually separated by more than magnitude of ability.

This is something most people overlook and is one of the more consistent and glaring errors in most sceince fiction.

An ox cart has an external power source (an ox) on which it is dependant. However you can hook up just about anything capable of movement to an ox cart and it will move with enough effort, and it's pretty difficult to come up with situations where the ox cart fails to perform as a wheeled transport.

A hovertank has an internal power source, and if it does not hover, fails at being a hovering tank. It is therefore constrained by the maximum density of stored energy your technological base can acheive, subject to limits on time, space (gravity), and strength of materials.

Time travel does not "reverse time" it just moves you in a way you're not capable of moving. Think of a box on a moving conveyor belt as a human moving in time- it is physically impossible for you to move backwards, you only move with the conveyor belt, and the conveyor belt only moves in one direction. You don't acheive time travel by reversing the converyor belt, you acheive time travel by someone picking the box up and moving it to some other point on the conveyor belt. You need to move independantly of the conveyor belt to acheive "time travel." The trick is you need that "someone" to do the moving.

Last I checked, we weren't sure if curving spacetime in this manner is physically possible in our universe. Assuming it is possible, we then need to be able to develop the ability to curve spacetime. The only thing we know to be able to curve spacetime is mass, and mass has a defined relation to energy.

Once you get past designing spacetime curves that are extreme enough to enable potential time travel, or even rapid interstellar travel, without ripping to bits anything within the vicinity of the effect, you get into reliably acquiring and processing the energies needed to acheive that. Here's where we get back to energy density.

To acheive the sort of energy concetrations that might have the remotest chance of sufficiently curving spacetime to allow for time travel, you need.... even more of the sort of energy concetrations that would definitely sufficiently curve spacetime to allow for time travel. When you realize that we've figured out fission and are working on fusion, and the sort of energies to curve spacetime sufficiently are described by black holes, we're going to need energies on the level of entire stars to even have a shot at this. Since it's going to be really, really difficult for us to come by more than one star, I don't think we're capable of acheiving the energy density needed to even think about time travel, even if the universe was set up to allow it.


Good job on looking up the definition of entropy on Wikipedia. However, you neglected to continue your research to discover what a reversible process actually is.

Even if you could reverse time, you wouldn't know it because you would have reversed time- you would have returned everything to the positions, velocities, accelerations, and energy states it was occupying at the time you reversed to (including yourself, and the electrical pattern your brain had at the time, so you would not retain future knowledge), from which point things would proceed normally. This would only be possible if everything in the universe was a reversible process (thermodynamically), which, if you'll look it up on Wikipedia, you'll discover is impossible. If you're thinking of time travel, or if anyone's interested in a brief refutation of it, see the spoiler. If you're actually thinking of trying to reverse time everywhere, that would require even MORE energy.

Basically, everything we've ever made obeys the laws of the universe. If you try to break the laws of the universe, the laws of the universe break you. We've just gotten better at finding out what those laws actually ARE.

Treading in this sort of water really shouldn't be attempted without an understanding of differential equations, or at least calculus. What is your mathematical background, willpell?

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Restrained or not, this thread seems to have devolved into insulting and trolling a specific poster. Don't do that. It's also way, way off the topic. Thread locked.