Tome of Battle

[Roxlimn]

Ulzgoroth:



The dream spell requires the recipient of the message to be asleep. This is not the same state as the one you attain by being knocked out. This is quite clear from the rules, even if you somehow dispute it's realism.

What is fluff? Why is it meaningless? 'Fluff' does not contain numbers, dice, and keywords, it seems clear. But things that you are terming 'fluff', and other things often branded as such, include descriptions of how an effect occurs. Those are not irrelevant to mechanics. An effect is not defined only by the set of dice rolls it entails.


I didn't say it's meaningless. I said that it makes no sense to argue against fluff using mechanics. It's just not possible to do so. Whenever you do that, all you're doing is saying that you prefer the fluff that some of the existing mechanics already support, and don't care for this new fluff. That's all fine and good, but let's not pretend that it's anything more than what it is - a slavish devotion to existing fluff.



By default, you can use clerical magic without a patron god. Some settings change this. Whether you can or you can't, it impacts on the how things will work in the game. If you decide that all sorcerers do in fact get their power from draconic blood, this impacts on how things work in the game. There is very, very little that you can say that has no impact at all on how things actually work.


Nonsense. Okay. So sorcerers get their powers from long-deceased Dragon ancestors. What's changed? Nothing!

It might have an impact on story elements or narrative elements, but it won't have an effect on mechanics in the game.



I can make it work, though not in a way I like...I just have to add the (Su) tag to it, and everything is fine. I have yet to see a non-supernatural description of the ability that actually fit its properties.


"I'm so boring I make everything else around me mundane by extension."



It's perfectly believable. There are plenty of ways for them to do it. However, if they add magic to their repertoire, they are doing what I mentioned a few posts back (and you immediately changed topic on) and diluting their focus on the mechanical use of weapons to study at least some limited part of the manipulation of magical energies. Unless you make the manipulation of magical energies a trivial skill, which carries logical consequences of its own, this will cut into their sword time.


The manipulation of magical energy IS a trivial skill. A mewling apprentice can become an Archmage within a year!!!! Does that not say anything? If a 27 year old newly freed apprentice can go from Magic Missile to Wish in one year, why can't a warrior pick up a magic trick or two along the way?

Bringing "logical consequences" into a game that violates logic on almost every level, especially in the fluff to mechanic sense, is ridiculous.

Your analogy is, again, fluff based. If you're going to reject my fluff on the basis that you don't like it, you could at least be honest about it and say it baldly.

I didn't say that you had to like the fluff I made. I just said that it was possible to fluff it within the parameters you described.



The DM is not the adversary of the players. The NPCs, in many cases, are. Playing them as extras who do nonsensical things just for plot/player convenience, in my opinion, undermines the entire basis of the game.

1 might be right, though considering the import of Save or Suck I don't know...but is this really only about IHS?


Real people do stupid things in real life all the time for all kinds of reasons. I'm not talking about understandable stupidity for love or ideals or somesuch thing in which you intentionally sacrifice efficiency and power for some certain end.

No. I'm talking about people sticking their fingers into their blenders to "fix" a stuck blade. In fact, the more people there are, the greater the chance that they'll collectively do something stupid, like stampede towards the fire or trap themselves within a burning building.

Quite apart from my thinking that IHS isn't the end-all and be-all of the Warblade class, it ALSO isn't all that unrealistic for entire populations to do stupid things.



However, you have now explained how IHS might work, in a way that implies certain creatures (or a certain collection of creatures) have an ability not normally attributed to them. That's fine. It isn't fine if you don't complete consistency by actually specifying the ability, though. It's absolutely viable for the fey to be able to do for others something they can't do for themselves. But they do need to possess a mechanic for doing so.


They do. IHS. I thought that that was rather clear. I don't have to specify abilities in my monsters because I'm not in the habit of disseminating dossiers of them for my players to peruse at their leisure.



I don't know anything about Sha'ir, and I'm not sure what exactly you mean by 'shaman' (Spirit Shaman?). However, Druids and Clerics do indeed do magic themselves. Their magical abilities are determined by personal traits, and their spells come from them, not from anyone else. When a cleric casts a spell, it does not cause a god to use a spell-like ability to produce the effect. In fact, I'm pretty sure some gods have cleric levels...

It is true that their abilities depend on a source outside themselves, which can be cut off by actions of their own (and in some cases by the actions of others). Nonetheless, when the druid casts Dominate Animal, the effect is generated by and sourced from the druid.


Where the heck are you getting that?

"The druid, however, claims no mastery over nature."
"...most get their spells (supernatural effects) from the power of nature."
"She gains her magical powers... ...from nature..."
"Druids cast divine spells much the same way clerics do..."

"A cleric uses the power of his god..."

Clerics and Druids don't have powers. The powers they wield are gifts from the forces they worship.

We don't know what happens exactly when a cleric casts a spell. In 2e, some supplements rather explicitly laid out which of a God's servants were creating the effect for the Cleric's benefit, but such detail isn't included in 3e (to allow for Clerics of causes, I suppose).

It's altogether possible that each petition by a Cleric for an effect is seen to personally by the God she worships. Certainly, that could be true in a Greek D&D setting. That's one rationale why certain spells are simply off-limits to Clerics. The god simply won't hear of it!



Why do you assume that freak chance isn't a major factor in myths, just like in so many other stories? Just about every Tom Clancy book has at least one completely unpredictable random event that is critical to the plot. When you write a story, you're fudging every single roll. When playing D&D, you let the dice fall where they may, so one in a million chances don't come up every time.


Yeah. I'll tell that to the next group I DM when it turns out that all their characters are good for is to plant root crops as serfs and no heroic opportunity ever comes their way. Heroes, are, after all, extraordinary characters, so these one-in-a-million characters with their wildly improbable life stories shouldn't come by all that often.

[Ulzgoroth]

I didn't say it's meaningless. I said that it makes no sense to argue against fluff using mechanics. It's just not possible to do so. Whenever you do that, all you're doing is saying that you prefer the fluff that some of the existing mechanics already support, and don't care for this new fluff. That's all fine and good, but let's not pretend that it's anything more than what it is - a slavish devotion to existing fluff.

It might have an impact on story elements or narrative elements, but it won't have an effect on mechanics in the game.

Bringing "logical consequences" into a game that violates logic on almost every level, especially in the fluff to mechanic sense, is ridiculous.
These three quotes, especially the third, tell me that there really is no point continuing this discussion from my side. I understand every word you use (except maybe your usage of 'fluff'), and even the sentences, but the reasoning behind them is more alien to me than Cthulhu. I exaggerate not at all here, Cthulhu isn't all that alien...

Is it just me who thinks that claiming that logical consequences have no place in an RPG is complete gibberish?:smalleek:

[Roxlimn]

Logical consequences are all fine and good in their place, but not when it gets in the way of a good story, and in this case, a good game!

What, indeed, is the logical consequence of making magic much like any other skill that characters can develop? What is the consequence of saying that warriors can pick up magical skills?

I'll tell you what.

Gishes and holy knights, dedicated templars and evil invisible warriors are the logical consequence. Truly, such character concepts have no place in D&D, and hardly ever occur in Western myths, much less modern fantasy.


And what is the logical consequence of a Bard being able to cast an arcane Cure Light Wounds...?

This must be why Wizards and Sorcerers can cast it, too. No? Well, why not?

I'll leave that to you.

[Ulzgoroth]

Ah...something I can argue with.

Logical consequences are all fine and good in their place, but not when it gets in the way of a good story, and in this case, a good game!
A good story, or good game, to my mind requires respect for logical consequences. I doubt we can get much out of this point, because I don't think our perspectives on what makes a story or game good are likely to be compatible...

What, indeed, is the logical consequence of making magic much like any other skill that characters can develop? What is the consequence of saying that warriors can pick up magical skills?

Gishes and holy knights, dedicated templars and evil invisible warriors are the logical consequence. Truly, such character concepts have no place in D&D, and hardly ever occur in Western myths, much less modern fantasy.
...are we reading the same posts? Who said magic isn't much like any other skill (at least in D&D...you've been pointing out plenty of myths where it wasn't), or that knowing how to use a sword precluded learning it? It certainly wasn't me. But you've fragged that scarecrow very nicely, I don't deny.

And what is the logical consequence of a Bard being able to cast an arcane Cure Light Wounds...?
Well, to be honest I've never liked the bard concept much, but I'll take that...:smallamused:

This must be why Wizards and Sorcerers can cast it, too. No? Well, why not?

I'll leave that to you.
Arcane magic isn't much of a grouping, to begin with. It's just magic that isn't based on a source of power outside yourself. Wizards and (generally) Bards have developed entirely separate methods of controlling this magic using only whatever potential is present in every sentient being, and the differences in their methods lend themselves to different effects. Perhaps if either method were more completely studied, they would overlap fully. Perhaps not. Wizardry is not a finished science, and as any wizard will assure you bardic magic isn't a science at all.

Sorcerers have an innate magical capability that appears to exactly replicate the capabilities of Wizardry. It may be that whatever enables sorcery manipulates magic in a manner similar to the trained mind of a wizard, though why this would be so is anyone's guess. (One possibility that might also be known in-game is that wizardry was in fact developed by an effort to reproduce the effects of sorcery [possibly as practiced by dragons], and so in fact the trained mind of a wizard is attempting to emulate the natural sorcerous aptitude.)

Got more? You may well be able to stick me with some problem I can't reconcilable within the provided material, though. I don't think it was written with nearly as much attention to detail as it ought to have...

[Roxlimn]

Ulzgoroth:



A good story, or good game, to my mind requires respect for logical consequences. I doubt we can get much out of this point, because I don't think our perspectives on what makes a story or game good are likely to be compatible...


Let's take Star Wars or Indiana Jones. Regardless of your personal tastes, these can hardly be said to be bad stories. Even so, the plots are rife with logical inconsistencies, to say nothing of outright fabrications or ridiculousness of other sort.

We forgive these lapses because they would otherwise get in the way of the story. Likewise, if it makes for a good game, you shouldn't let something as trivial as logical consequence get in the way.



Wizards and (generally) Bards have developed entirely separate methods of controlling this magic using only whatever potential is present in every sentient being, and the differences in their methods lend themselves to different effects. Perhaps if either method were more completely studied, they would overlap fully. Perhaps not. Wizardry is not a finished science, and as any wizard will assure you bardic magic isn't a science at all.


That's not consistent. If they have entirely separate methods of controlling the magic, how can they interpret each other's gestures with equal ease? How come they can generally use each other's items and magical implements, down to the spell components, with the exception of a few illogical holdouts?



Sorcerers have an innate magical capability that appears to exactly replicate the capabilities of Wizardry. It may be that whatever enables sorcery manipulates magic in a manner similar to the trained mind of a wizard, though why this would be so is anyone's guess. (One possibility that might also be known in-game is that wizardry was in fact developed by an effort to reproduce the effects of sorcery [possibly as practiced by dragons], and so in fact the trained mind of a wizard is attempting to emulate the natural sorcerous aptitude.)


If one has been developed to emulate the other, how come Wizard spells depend on Intelligence, and Sorcerer spells depend on Charisma? If Wizards were emulating Sorcerers, shouldn't final effects like DC depend on a similar attribute in them as in Sorcerers? Why would knowledge of spells in Wizards depend on intellect, and in Sorcerers, personal magnetism? How does personal magnetism make you more knowledgeable about magic formula?

Because it's magic? Wouldn't that be tantamount to admitting that it doesn't make sense?

[Matthew]

Roxlimn


Shrug. The focus, of course, is different because such tales ascribe certain characters to villainy and certain to heroism, and the forms their magics would take would conform to these values.

Just because they name one "magic" and the other "virtue" doesn't mean that one is less supernatural than the other, or even that one is more dependent on patron than the other.

Well, okay, you'vre piqued my interest now. I will have another read of Le Morte D'Arthur and see if I can find evidence of Arthur's Knights using Supernatural, Divine or Arcane Magic.


In D&D, divine favor IS magic. If Maneuvers can be said to be magical, then I don't see where divine favor can be said to be distinct.

Well, Divine Favour can manifest itself in many forms and in D&D it can manifest itself simply as Hit Point total. Even so, there is a distinction to be made between different types of 'magic', both in D&D and Mythology. For D&D we have Arcane, Divine, Spell Like Ability and Supernatural effect. Tome of Battle effects are for the most part Extraordinary with some Supernatural.
Some thoughts on the way this discussion is progressing:

1) How far do Mythological Heroes make use of Magic? We certainly need to define Magic in this context and also direct ourselves to particular texts. So far, the common texts under discussion appear to be The Odyssey, The Illiad and Le Morte D'Arthur.
2) Your argument, as far as I understand it, is that any occurence of Magic or otherwise seemingly Supernatural event in the context of these stories with beneficial effects for the Hero constitutes a basis for seeing the Hero as making use of Magic or Supernatural Class Features.
3) My contention is that the kinds of Magical and Supernatural effects that take place in these texts, with regard to the Heroes, are already accounted for within the game and do not necessitate the creation of a new mechanic to represent them.


My point is simple. If, as you allege, that these occurrences could simply be the result of extraordinarily lucky rolls, then count how many occur in myths and tell me if it's possible to reliably recreate such situations on the basis of luck alone.

Quite a tall order, but let's restrict ourselves to Le Morte D'Arthur and see what comes of it. Afterwards, we can extend the method to other texts and see what comes of that.
To be clear, I am not asserting that Heroes deserve lucky rolls, I'm saying that lucky rolls can be ascribed to Divine Intervention, as can unlucky rolls. I think it is fair to say that you are seeing the story first and then looking for a game mechanic to describe it. I am looking at the game mechanics and looking for a story to explain it.


And I think differently. To avoid getting hung up on terminology, replace "magic" with "supernatural." That way, you don't get tripped up on the trappings.

"Supernatural worlds" should have heroes who use "supernatural" means. Conventional mythology is steeped in the supernatural, and most of its heroes drip it from beginning to end.

You can't swim in a supernatural pool without getting wet.

Certainly, there is some degree of the Supernatural about any Mythological Hero, but what is the frequency? Does it justify the use of different Base Classes and mechanics?


I'm telling you to account for the form. Greek mythology is not the same as D&D mythology so we have to make allowances. Given these allowances, Greek heroes in their world are just as supernatural as any ToB class would be in D&D!

I am accounting for form. Off hand, there is very little within The Illiad or The Odyssey that I would consider cause to consider using a Base Class beyond Fighter/Scout for the Heroes.


"Shaping the energies around you" certainly implies that it's not in you. Even Sorcerers don't actually have supernatural power innately in them. They just instinctively know how to use it.

Warlock would be closer to that score, but wouldn't a Warlock cleave rather close to what Merlin is like?

A warrior being one who uses magic external to him is not much different from a Wizard or a Cleric who ALSO uses magic that's external to him.

This view is very much a result of Complete Mage. Prior to that, unlike Divine Magic, the source of Arcane Magic was left very vague 'direct manipulation of mystic energies' is about as close as you come. That said, what is the ultimate source of Divine Magic really? Deities and Forces also draw their Divine Power from somewhere, perhaps even from Mortals themselves, if you follow the Deities need Worshippers model.
That said, it is one thing for a Hero to channel Arcane or Divine magic and quite another for it to be used on the Hero's behalf.


It's a nice spread. The collection is said to have initially been collated in the late medieval period, but the tales vary from immediate post-Roman trappings to Late Medieval with firearms.

Certainly, the iconic Grimm warrior-hero could be said to be a mail-clad heavy cavalry soldier with a conical helm.

Sounds interesting.


The settings were shaped by the rules just as much as the rules were shaped by the settings. Possibly more.

If you could read any prose from before 2e, you would understand. FR even made a big deal of the 2e rules change, heralding it as the Time of Troubles. That certainly doesn't speak much of your thesis.

Heh, well I have read in the past a great deal of pre 2e prose and post 2e prose. Certainly the game mechanics are often perceptable, but its a heavy mix either way.
Given that there were all of five or six novels published for the Forgotten Realms prior to the Avatar Series and that the Avatar Series itself had very little to do with Rules Change, I think that you are laying too much emphasis on this idea.


If you allege that ToB doesn't correlate well with prose written with previous editions in mind, then you would be right. It's self-evident that ToB is new, and not liking it on that basis, while understandable, is not reasonable.
Once again, to be clear, I do not dislike ToB, I just don't see it as necessary. I have no problem using ToB Base Classes, I just don't agree that they are better representations of Mythological Heroes, generally speaking, than what is already available.

[Ulzgoroth]

Let's take Star Wars or Indiana Jones. Regardless of your personal tastes, these can hardly be said to be bad stories. Even so, the plots are rife with logical inconsistencies, to say nothing of outright fabrications or ridiculousness of other sort.

We forgive these lapses because they would otherwise get in the way of the story. Likewise, if it makes for a good game, you shouldn't let something as trivial as logical consequence get in the way.
I think they could be said to be bad stories. I would categorize both as entertaining pulp, able to amuse so long as you refuse to actually think about them any more than you absolutely have to.

That's not consistent. If they have entirely separate methods of controlling the magic, how can they interpret each other's gestures with equal ease? How come they can generally use each other's items and magical implements, down to the spell components, with the exception of a few illogical holdouts?
Several possibilities for spellcraft checks:
-Spellcraft is a weakly magical skill, and permits you to directly sense magic to a degree. As a result, you can perceive the influence of spell components outside your own tradition of magic without comprehension of the components themselves. Attempting to comprehend even components familiar to you would be too time-consuming to be useful.
-The study of spellcraft includes field-recognition of spell components used by all casters (After all, you don't actually have to be a caster to use it). When identifying spells in action, there isn't time to think through what the other mage's actions would imply if you were the one performing them, so there is no bonus for sharing a tradition.
-Spell components are closely tied to spell effects, and have much in common among even the most diverse traditions of magic. However you raise your power and do the more subtle manipulations, the outward components for a given effect are distinctive. Students of spellcraft pay equal attention to components for effects they cannot themselves produce, for obvious practical reasons. (This is my favorite)

More than one of the above may apply. The third, slightly modified, also explains why any arcanist needs bat droppings if they want a fireball. Seemingly the outside power source for divine casting can fill in for many of the material components used by arcane casters.

If one has been developed to emulate the other, how come Wizard spells depend on Intelligence, and Sorcerer spells depend on Charisma? If Wizards were emulating Sorcerers, shouldn't final effects like DC depend on a similar attribute in them as in Sorcerers? Why would knowledge of spells in Wizards depend on intellect, and in Sorcerers, personal magnetism? How does personal magnetism make you more knowledgeable about magic formula?

Because it's magic? Wouldn't that be tantamount to admitting that it doesn't make sense?
Charisma is more than simply personal magnetism. It represents 'force of will', the mental/spiritual analogue of strength, of which personal magnetism is a consequence. As such, it governs the power of supernatural special abilities, as a general rule, including the innate casting of sorcerers.

Sorcery was almost certainly not 'developed' to emulate wizardry, since Dragons, the original sorcerers, generally are more ancient than any of the wizardry-using races. Wizardry might have been developed to imitate the capabilities of sorcery. That doesn't mean it works exactly the same way. Wizards use complex mental constructs to achieve what sorcerers do by force of will directed through innate gifts, thus requiring intelligence rather than raw spiritual power. But through their different internal mechanisms, both act on the magic in the same way, giving them roughly identical capabilities.

[Jasdoif]

I think they could be said to be bad stories. I would categorize both as entertaining pulp, able to amuse so long as you refuse to actually think about them any more than you absolutely have to.This is something that works well for more passive entertainment, like movies. It loses much of its effectiveness when it comes to entertainment that promotes thinking about it, like roleplaying.

[Roxlimn]

Ulzgoroth:



I think they could be said to be bad stories. I would categorize both as entertaining pulp, able to amuse so long as you refuse to actually think about them any more than you absolutely have to.


Stories are meant to entertain. If these stories entertain, then doesn't that mean that they're good ones? Apart from your own opinion, I'm referring to these stories because of their general appeal, not just because I think that they're great. You have your own definition of what makes a great story, and your own set of your own preferences which you believe is objective. If you refuse to accept that your opinion is subjective, we'll never get anywhere.



-Spellcraft is a weakly magical skill, and permits you to directly sense magic to a degree. As a result, you can perceive the influence of spell components outside your own tradition of magic without comprehension of the components themselves. Attempting to comprehend even components familiar to you would be too time-consuming to be useful.


So it's just "magical" enough that it doesn't have to completely make logical sense? If the method for casting for each class is different, why should the magic for each be the same? You can sense the somatic components without really understanding them, because the skill is magical? Meaning it doesn't make sense?



-The study of spellcraft includes field-recognition of spell components used by all casters (After all, you don't actually have to be a caster to use it). When identifying spells in action, there isn't time to think through what the other mage's actions would imply if you were the one performing them, so there is no bonus for sharing a tradition.


Nonsense! The actions you perform yourself are always more familiar to you than theoretical knowledge you never have any direct experience of. There are any number of scientifically based reasons for why this is true, and it's borne out in practice in real life. It's even consistent in some magical systems. Not having time to think doesn't factor into it. When you have auditory, visual, tactile, and somatic memory of the method of doing an activity, you don't have to think to recognize another one doing the same thing.



-Spell components are closely tied to spell effects, and have much in common among even the most diverse traditions of magic. However you raise your power and do the more subtle manipulations, the outward components for a given effect are distinctive. Students of spellcraft pay equal attention to components for effects they cannot themselves produce, for obvious practical reasons. (This is my favorite)


So the method for casting each type of spell is different, even though the only observable parts of the techniques of casting them are exactly the same, and they produce the exact same effect?

So, I'm chopping my wood the exact same way you do, and I'm producing the exact same effect, but our traditions are different because unobservable and unconfirmable parts of each technique are thought to be different (although there's no proof of such an imaginary distinction because it's never observable?)?


Conversely, I wiggle my pinky while doing the mambo, and you wiggle your index finger while doing the mambo, but these little differences somehow matter even though doing the mambo does the exact same thing?

And I can wiggle my index finger, too, and do much the same thing? That makes no sense. My method for chopping wood and your method for chopping wood are same enough that our practices are equally identifiable to either of us, but I can't even understand how your technique allows you to cast spells I can't?



Charisma is more than simply personal magnetism. It represents 'force of will', the mental/spiritual analogue of strength, of which personal magnetism is a consequence. As such, it governs the power of supernatural special abilities, as a general rule, including the innate casting of sorcerers.


Okay. Explain how "force of will" gives me the knowledge of how to cast a spell my less forceful colleague can't even understand?



That doesn't mean it works exactly the same way. Wizards use complex mental constructs to achieve what sorcerers do by force of will directed through innate gifts, thus requiring intelligence rather than raw spiritual power. But through their different internal mechanisms, both act on the magic in the same way, giving them roughly identical capabilities.


Why does magic react to mental construction in the same way it reacts to mere force of will? If Cha is "spiritual power," why do Clerics base their magic on Wisdom?


And most importantly, is it really all that important to go through all the niggly little details further exposition will undoubtedly lead and THEN explain all of that to your players in your campaign primer?

Personally, I have more important things to put in there.

Matthew:



1) How far do Mythological Heroes make use of Magic? We certainly need to define Magic in this context and also direct ourselves to particular texts. So far, the common texts under discussion appear to be The Odyssey, The Illiad and Le Morte D'Arthur.


We can't define magic for all these settings because each setting defines magic in its own way - part and parcel of the world view unique to each setting. If you want to be extremely broad about it, I would say "any effect that would be impossible in the real world that's favorable to the hero."



2) Your argument, as far as I understand it, is that any occurence of Magic or otherwise seemingly Supernatural event in the context of these stories with beneficial effects for the Hero constitutes a basis for seeing the Hero as making use of Magic or Supernatural Class Features.


If Clerics and Sha'irs in D&D can call on extraplanar beings for favors and call it "magic," I don't see why a Greek hero can't call on Athena for a favor and call it "magic."



3) My contention is that the kinds of Magical and Supernatural effects that take place in these texts, with regard to the Heroes, are already accounted for within the game and do not necessitate the creation of a new mechanic to represent them.


Technically, everything in these tales could be accounted for using d20 Modern and an incredible amount of rule-fudging and incredibly lucky rolls. That doesn't mean that d20 is the best system for running a D&D-type of high fantastic adventure.

I could say that d20 Heroes in D&D who survive all kinds of massive damage are incredibly lucky - I would expect PC heroes to all BE incredibly lucky. It's your own fault if you're not lucky. Or I could just raise the massive damage cap and let all PC Heroes do it routinely, as they're expected to.



Quite a tall order, but let's restrict ourselves to Le Morte D'Arthur and see what comes of it. Afterwards, we can extend the method to other texts and see what comes of that.
To be clear, I am not asserting that Heroes deserve lucky rolls, I'm saying that lucky rolls can be ascribed to Divine Intervention, as can unlucky rolls. I think it is fair to say that you are seeing the story first and then looking for a game mechanic to describe it. I am looking at the game mechanics and looking for a story to explain it.


That makes no sense. D&D is supposed to be designed to emulate fantasy and mythological stories. That's the entire point. The mechanics are made to order to allow players to do this. In themselves, they have no absolute consistency that can't be called into question.

Goal comes first, and that goal is the emulation of fantasy adventure. You make the mechanics to allow you to reach your goal. If a new mechanic does it better than the old one, then it's a better mechanic!



Certainly, there is some degree of the Supernatural about any Mythological Hero, but what is the frequency? Does it justify the use of different Base Classes and mechanics?


So the Cleric class really doesn't need to have a Turn Undead mechanic because few stories ever really dwell on that? Makes no sense to me.



I am accounting for form. Off hand, there is very little within The Illiad or The Odyssey that I would consider cause to consider using a Base Class beyond Fighter/Scout for the Heroes.


You COULD do it, and then do a heck of a lot of fudging. Or you can do it with ToB with less fudging and more fun for the players. The latter mechanic allows you to emulate the story better and it's more fun. Two goals met, few downsides. The latter mechanic is thusly superior.

If you argue that you CAN use Fighters to do ANY warrior, then I could also argue that even the Cleric class shouldn't exist, since that would be "better" emulated with a Fighter using lots of Diplomacy to appeal to his God for unspecified amounts of aid.



That said, it is one thing for a Hero to channel Arcane or Divine magic and quite another for it to be used on the Hero's behalf.


Since the rules leave it vague, I would say that the distinction is meaningless in D&D. As far as D&D is concerned, two Clerics could be doing the exact same thing, only one is "channeling," whatever that means, and the other is being directly aided by his God who does these effects for him.



Sounds interesting.


I highly recommened it. Many of the Grimm tales have made it into classic pop fantasy. It's certainly a great resource.



Given that there were all of five or six novels published for the Forgotten Realms prior to the Avatar Series and that the Avatar Series itself had very little to do with Rules Change, I think that you are laying too much emphasis on this idea.


That not true. The rules changes from 1e to 2e were quite profound. The setting and the stories in them took a decidedly obvious change to account for these changes. I daresay that much of the reason why so many deadly warriors in the Realms after 2e are dual-wielders is a direct result of the obscene power-up that style got in 2e.

[Matthew]

We can't define magic for all these settings because each setting defines magic in its own way - part and parcel of the world view unique to each setting. If you want to be extremely broad about it, I would say "any effect that would be impossible in the real world that's favorable to the hero."

I wasn't suggesting one definition, I was suggesting defining magic for each context.


If Clerics and Sha'irs in D&D can call on extraplanar beings for favors and call it "magic," I don't see why a Greek hero can't call on Athena for a favor and call it "magic."

Okay, look, here's the difference. Clerics can do two things. In 1e they had to contact extraplanar creatures to receive Spells, which they could then cast at any time following. In all editions they can open gates to other planes and require extra planar beings to come forth, using other magics to bind them to their will. None of this is the same as praying to a Deity to intervene directly in events. That was handled by another mechanism in 1e that assigned a percentage chance to a Deity hearing such prayers and was available to any Character. In my opinion, it's not the same thing and it's self evidently not the same thing. I think if we cannot agree to perceive the difference between a Character actually using magic and a character asking another to use magic on their behalf we stand no chance of coming to an agreement.


Technically, everything in these tales could be accounted for using d20 Modern and an incredible amount of rule-fudging and incredibly lucky rolls. That doesn't mean that d20 is the best system for running a D&D-type of high fantastic adventure.

I could say that d20 Heroes in D&D who survive all kinds of massive damage are incredibly lucky - I would expect PC heroes to all BE incredibly lucky. It's your own fault if you're not lucky. Or I could just raise the massive damage cap and let all PC Heroes do it routinely, as they're expected to.

Obviously we all have our own expectations of what is 'a good game of D&D'. I don't need ToB Classes within my D&D Mythology or to mechanically represent Arthurian or Hellenic mythology. I have just been going through Le Morte D'Arthur, and I can say that the majority of combats are basically exchanges of blows until one combatant surrenders or is slain. Sounds to me exactly like the Fighter (moreso than I would have imagined).


That makes no sense. D&D is supposed to be designed to emulate fantasy and mythological stories. That's the entire point. The mechanics are made to order to allow players to do this. In themselves, they have no absolute consistency that can't be called into question.

No, D&D is a game, not a mythological simulation. The fact that it would require heavy reworking to accurately depict any sort of mythology beyond D&D mythology speaks to that.


Goal comes first, and that goal is the emulation of fantasy adventure. You make the mechanics to allow you to reach your goal. If a new mechanic does it better than the old one, then it's a better mechanic!

If X does Y better than Z and Y is your aim, sure. However, emulating 'fantasy adventure' is all in the minds eye. A lot of this turns on whether you want more or less to be mechanically resolved. I don't need precise mechanics to represent abstract combat. If you prefer this method of play, that's fine with me, but that doesn't make it absolutely better.


So the Cleric class really doesn't need to have a Turn Undead mechanic because few stories ever really dwell on that? Makes no sense to me.

Eh? That's not what I am saying. I am saying if I want to represent those mythologies I have no need of ToB, and yes it also follows that I have no need of Clerics or anything else that would not 'fit'. There is no one mythological basis for D&D, it draws on a huge number of sources.


You COULD do it, and then do a heck of a lot of fudging. Or you can do it with ToB with less fudging and more fun for the players. The latter mechanic allows you to emulate the story better and it's more fun. Two goals met, few downsides. The latter mechanic is thusly superior.

If you argue that you CAN use Fighters to do ANY warrior, then I could also argue that even the Cleric class shouldn't exist, since that would be "better" emulated with a Fighter using lots of Diplomacy to appeal to his God for unspecified amounts of aid.

I just don't agree that ToB handles these mythologies any better. Come up with an example of where ToB does and maybe we can talk about it. Honestly, though, you're coming at this from a completely different perspective than I am. You want the mechanics to represent a story, I see the story as the result of the game.
I'm not arguing that Fighters are the perfect Base Class, all I'm saying is that I don't need ToB to create Heroes who are similar to those found in Arthurian or Hellenic Mythology.


Since the rules leave it vague, I would say that the distinction is meaningless in D&D. As far as D&D is concerned, two Clerics could be doing the exact same thing, only one is "channeling," whatever that means, and the other is being directly aided by his God who does these effects for him.

No, the rules are quite clear on how this works. All Clerics channel Divine Magic. The meaning is obvious, the effects pass through that Character via Spell Casting or Turning Undead.


That not true. The rules changes from 1e to 2e were quite profound. The setting and the stories in them took a decidedly obvious change to account for these changes. I daresay that much of the reason why so many deadly warriors in the Realms after 2e are dual-wielders is a direct result of the obscene power-up that style got in 2e.

Sorry, but you're dead wrong here. What Characters do you have in mind as Dual Wielders? I have a compilation of 2e Heroes of the Realms and I can count on my hand the number that use two Weapon Fighting.
If you have Drizzt and Artemis in mind I need direct you no further than 1e and Unearthed Arcana. Drow + Double Specialisation = better than the 2e version. Drizzt was actually more powerful in 1e than 2e, as his Drow heritage gave him Two Weapon Fighting with equal sized weapons with no penalties for free and Rangers could double Specialise with Scimitars (+3 AB and +3 DB).

[Ulzgoroth]

Stories are meant to entertain. If these stories entertain, then doesn't that mean that they're good ones? Apart from your own opinion, I'm referring to these stories because of their general appeal, not just because I think that they're great. You have your own definition of what makes a great story, and your own set of your own preferences which you believe is objective. If you refuse to accept that your opinion is subjective, we'll never get anywhere.
As opposed to your opinion, which is obviously objective? You actually wrote "these can hardly be said to be bad stories". I said that I can and do consider them to be bad stories. And you go on to tell me that (a) I'm wrong and (b) my opinion is an opinion...:smallconfused:

And if you're going on to say that they're good stories because they are popular (I can't quite tell)...when did quality become democratically determined?

So it's just "magical" enough that it doesn't have to completely make logical sense? If the method for casting for each class is different, why should the magic for each be the same? You can sense the somatic components without really understanding them, because the skill is magical? Meaning it doesn't make sense?
No. The skill is magical, in this case, because it enables you to perceive things completely undetectable to people without it. This might imply that you shouldn't be able to identify spells when in a null-magic zone, and would imply that you couldn't identify spells that are stifled at casting by one (because the magic never responds to the components in that case), so I suppose this version would entail some mechanical change.

The verbal and somatic components (might) do the final shaping of the magical effect to be released. Via spellcraft, you can perceive that final shaping, and from it draw clues about what the spell being shaped will do, because while the methods of manipulating the magic are different, everyone is ultimately using the same 'magic field' (or something loosely analogous), as evidenced by the universality of magic-disrupting effects. Thus all spells, once cast, are subject to the same 'physics', meaning all charm person spells have much the same 'shape' once formed.

Nonsense! The actions you perform yourself are always more familiar to you than theoretical knowledge you never have any direct experience of. There are any number of scientifically based reasons for why this is true, and it's borne out in practice in real life. It's even consistent in some magical systems. Not having time to think doesn't factor into it. When you have auditory, visual, tactile, and somatic memory of the method of doing an activity, you don't have to think to recognize another one doing the same thing.
Ah. So you find it trivial to tie someone else's shoes or tie (if ties are part of your environment)? It's widely accepted that even relatively minor context shifts can take an action from essentially reflexive to a fairly difficult cognitive exercise. This is a much wider shift...when you cast a spell, you're inside the magic and are both running on ingrained training and directly aware of what you're actually doing. When you're looking at someone else's hands moving, or hearing them speak verbal components, you have a completely different level and kind of knowledge than you would if you were doing the casting yourself. So you resort to trained recognition rather than trying to imagine what you'd be doing if you held your hands like so, and recited...you can't quite hear what...

I don't really know, but it seems plausible to me that WWII fighter pilots recognized the maneuvers their enemy was making by linking the behavior of the other's plane to the maneuver directly, not by trying to infer from that what's happening in the cockpit and working from there. This is analogous.

So the method for casting each type of spell is different, even though the only observable parts of the techniques of casting them are exactly the same, and they produce the exact same effect?

So, I'm chopping my wood the exact same way you do, and I'm producing the exact same effect, but our traditions are different because unobservable and unconfirmable parts of each technique are thought to be different (although there's no proof of such an imaginary distinction because it's never observable?)?
Well, when you're manipulating invisible powers, using parts of yourself that as a rule can't be seen by others (at least while you're alive), it shouldn't be at all surprising that there are important parts of the activity that are not outwardly visible. But let me run with your analogy...

Perhaps not every creature in the monster manuals would choose to chop wood with an axe (or even be able to lift an axe). But for those that might, the outward motions would have a lot in common for a kobold, an illithid, and a planetar. Inside, however, these are working very differently. In some cases (though maybe not the ones I picked) there are different muscle groups involved. In all three, the deeper metabolism is so divergent as to defy comparison. In practice this is mostly observable from implications...the way Illithids consume brains, and planetar don't eat in any sense understood by humans. Their nervous systems likewise have substantial differences. But when they marshal their musculature, metabolism, and nerves to chop wood, the motion of the axe is much the same.

Conversely, I wiggle my pinky while doing the mambo, and you wiggle your index finger while doing the mambo, but these little differences somehow matter even though doing the mambo does the exact same thing?

And I can wiggle my index finger, too, and do much the same thing? That makes no sense. My method for chopping wood and your method for chopping wood are same enough that our practices are equally identifiable to either of us, but I can't even understand how your technique allows you to cast spells I can't?
This is not analogous. The differences between divergent casting techniques run all the way down to the most basic source and manipulation of energy. Not a matter of wiggling a different finger.

Okay. Explain how "force of will" gives me the knowledge of how to cast a spell my less forceful colleague can't even understand?
Knowledge? What does 'knowledge' have to do with it? Sorcerer spell casting is a matter of power, not knowledge. If you don't have the charisma to cast level 5 spells, that means you can't power them, not that you can't understand them.

Why does magic react to mental construction in the same way it reacts to mere force of will? If Cha is "spiritual power," why do Clerics base their magic on Wisdom?
Wizardly mental constructs and the very specific inborn capability (understood by no one, quite probably) through which a sorcerer can use their will to work magic exert influence on the 'mystic energies' in the same basic way. This might be coincidental, or might be the consequence of wizardry being invented by people using sorcery as a template. Both the mental constructs and the sorcerer's gift are ways of leveraging purely mental actions into (meta-)physical actions on the external magic.

To the second, because clerics aren't powering their spells with their own force of will, they're channeling power from an outside source. Remember?

And most importantly, is it really all that important to go through all the niggly little details further exposition will undoubtedly lead and THEN explain all of that to your players in your campaign primer?

Personally, I have more important things to put in there.
You don't have to give out all this information, or whatever alternative version of it you might make up. It goes much deeper into the underpinnings of magical manipulation than PCs are likely to need, and is very possibly beyond anything known within the game anyway. And depending on the players, might bore them. But as you've pointed out, magic is part of the world. Since the DM is responsible for what happens in that world, you really ought to have a sense of what can happen. It comes up sometimes...if a cleric's god dies, what happens to their powers? Can a sorcerer possibly loose their powers through brain damage that doesn't do anything else noticeable? If someone takes the 'dragon blood' concept a bit too literally, and decides to transfuse themselves in order to gain power, does it kill them? Make them look stupid? Work? Does possessing a sorcerer's body cause you to develop sorcerous powers, and will they stay with you if you return to your old body?

If the players ask you about how something works, you can hide behind the DM screen and say their characters don't know. But if what you're hiding is 'I pulled it out of my hindquarters and have not the slightest idea', that's likely to eventually become obvious.

[Roxlimn]

Matthew:



I think if we cannot agree to perceive the difference between a Character actually using magic and a character asking another to use magic on their behalf we stand no chance of coming to an agreement.


It really depends on context, what you mean by "gifts" and which particular reference you're insisting on using. There are parts of 2e in which Clerical spellcasting was detailed to the point where the game specifies which of a Cleric's spells was granted by which of a god's servants. And by "granted," I mean "acting on a request."

This is the reason why in earlier editions, if you went to a place where that god has no influence (like in another god's demesne), then Clerics had no spells. That seems to be a rather direct reference to how things were done.

These mechanisms are left unspecified in 3e one way or the other, so it seems a little premature to conclusively say that it's the Cleric that's doing the effect themselves. In all editions they can "open gates and call on other beings," but in all cases, this is an allied creature that's friendly to the god in question, so it's a little dubious about how much of that is just a request and how much of it is self-created. Unlike Wizards, Clerics don't force an unfriendly creature to answer a call in this way.



Obviously we all have our own expectations of what is 'a good game of D&D'. I don't need ToB Classes within my D&D Mythology or to mechanically represent Arthurian or Hellenic mythology. I have just been going through Le Morte D'Arthur, and I can say that the majority of combats are basically exchanges of blows until one combatant surrenders or is slain. Sounds to me exactly like the Fighter (moreso than I would have imagined).


Well, if it's just exchanges of blows, then doesn't it sound like a Warrior more than it does a Fighter? After all, Fighters are kind of expected to know various extraordinary Feats and such.

In any case, since it seems like we have to go to brass tacks, I'll go through my copy and see what particular excerpts I can refer you to so that you can see what I mean.



No, D&D is a game, not a mythological simulation. The fact that it would require heavy reworking to accurately depict any sort of mythology beyond D&D mythology speaks to that.


The fact that it has its own mythology now doesn't mean that incorporating elements of other mythologies into it would be a bad thing. In fact, that's usually seen as a good thing.

Many of D&D's classical mechanics are derived from mythological inspiration. The fact that putting all this into a mish-mash results into an amalgamated monster doesn't mean that it now is its own animal and should reject such material. Mechanics that make D&D heroes more like mythological heroes are a GOOD thing.



A lot of this turns on whether you want more or less to be mechanically resolved. I don't need precise mechanics to represent abstract combat. If you prefer this method of play, that's fine with me, but that doesn't make it absolutely better.


A Warblade isn't more demanding to run than a Fighter. Its moves aren't more precise. They're more flavorful, but frequently, getting particular Fighter moves to work takes a lot more of this "precision" than just picking up a maneuver and running with it.



You want the mechanics to represent a story, I see the story as the result of the game.


I want the mechanics to flavorfully represent aspects of classical myths. Once the mechanics are like that, I can live with it generating its own story. I don't just take the mechanics as a living entity unto themselves that HAVE to be run the way they do in order to "play D&D."

Whenever I have a campaign vision, it has certain elements to it that differentiate it from others before. These narrative elements require mechanical translation so that it will be a more palpable element in the game. Sure, I can flavor a Fighter as a Greek Hero OR as a Byzantine Knight, but they're built the same and do exactly the same things, it wouldn't be as fun as two builds that actually are different.



No, the rules are quite clear on how this works. All Clerics channel Divine Magic. The meaning is obvious, the effects pass through that Character via Spell Casting or Turning Undead.


No, the meaning is NOT obvious. It is to you, but saying "it's obvious" is really just another way of saying, "I don't really have any basis for what I'm saying."

If you don't like Clerics as an example of this, then I would point out the Sha'ir instead. That's pretty much unquestionable. He calls his small genie friend and asks him to hunt down effects for him. That's quite explicit.

And he's a "spellcaster."



If you have Drizzt and Artemis in mind I need direct you no further than 1e and Unearthed Arcana. Drow + Double Specialisation = better than the 2e version. Drizzt was actually more powerful in 1e than 2e, as his Drow heritage gave him Two Weapon Fighting with equal sized weapons with no penalties for free and Rangers could double Specialise with Scimitars (+3 AB and +3 DB).


He could actually do the same in 2e, IIRC. The TWFighters I'm referring to isn't the major characters in stories and such. There's a number of them who are that way, but there's also the number of strangely ubiquitous two weapon styles that evolved in Faerun in 2e. There's a Waterdeep style that employs two weapons, and elven one that does the same, and a drow one that does the same. And they seem to meet each other in novels rather frequently.

There are a number of examples in the Crystal Shard Trilogy, some more in the Moonblade trilogy, yet a few more in accounts involving Entreri. I'm feeling rather a bit sheepish to admit that I've read so much bad fiction, but there it is.

[Matthew]

It really depends on context, what you mean by "gifts" and which particular reference you're insisting on using. There are parts of 2e in which Clerical spellcasting was detailed to the point where the game specifies which of a Cleric's spells was granted by which of a god's servants. And by "granted," I mean "acting on a request."

No, that's 1e your thinking of and it was by Spell Level.


This is the reason why in earlier editions, if you went to a place where that god has no influence (like in another god's demesne), then Clerics had no spells. That seems to be a rather direct reference to how things were done.

That was actually for regaining Spells, if I recall, not for Casting them.


These mechanisms are left unspecified in 3e one way or the other, so it seems a little premature to conclusively say that it's the Cleric that's doing the effect themselves. In all editions they can "open gates and call on other beings," but in all cases, this is an allied creature that's friendly to the god in question, so it's a little dubious about how much of that is just a request and how much of it is self-created. Unlike Wizards, Clerics don't force an unfriendly creature to answer a call in this way.

Have to check on the details, as this likely differs between editions.


Well, if it's just exchanges of blows, then doesn't it sound like a Warrior more than it does a Fighter? After all, Fighters are kind of expected to know various extraordinary Feats and such.

Yes if the Character is an NPC, no if he is a PC.


In any case, since it seems like we have to go to brass tacks, I'll go through my copy and see what particular excerpts I can refer you to so that you can see what I mean.

Fair enough.


The fact that it has its own mythology now doesn't mean that incorporating elements of other mythologies into it would be a bad thing. In fact, that's usually seen as a good thing.

I agree.


Many of D&D's classical mechanics are derived from mythological inspiration. The fact that putting all this into a mish-mash results into an amalgamated monster doesn't mean that it now is its own animal and should reject such material. Mechanics that make D&D heroes more like mythological heroes are a GOOD thing.

Sure, but I'm not saying it shouldn't draw on other material. I am just saying that D&D has its own Mythology. That Mythology itself is open to change. I have no problem with it changing.


A Warblade isn't more demanding to run than a Fighter. Its moves aren't more precise. They're more flavorful, but frequently, getting particular Fighter moves to work takes a lot more of this "precision" than just picking up a maneuver and running with it.

I never said it was. All I said was that if you like these mechanics that's fine with me, I can do without them.


I want the mechanics to flavorfully represent aspects of classical myths. Once the mechanics are like that, I can live with it generating its own story. I don't just take the mechanics as a living entity unto themselves that HAVE to be run the way they do in order to "play D&D."

And truly that is no big deal. I have no problem with people playing D&D the way that they want to. I do not reject your style of play, but I do contest your thesis.


Whenever I have a campaign vision, it has certain elements to it that differentiate it from others before. These narrative elements require mechanical translation so that it will be a more palpable element in the game. Sure, I can flavor a Fighter as a Greek Hero OR as a Byzantine Knight, but they're built the same and do exactly the same things, it wouldn't be as fun as two builds that actually are different.

Sure, and that's a game preference. I prefer broader classes, you prefer narrower ones; hardly a big deal.


No, the meaning is NOT obvious. It is to you, but saying "it's obvious" is really just another way of saying, "I don't really have any basis for what I'm saying."

Actually, I was referring to the flavour text with regard to the Cleric, where it says "Clerics are masters of divine magic, which is especially good at healing. Even an inexperienced cleric can bring people back from the brink of death, and an experienced cleric can bring back people who have crossed over that brink. As channelers of divine energy, clerics can affect undead creatures. A good cleric can turn away or even destroy undead; an evil cleric can bring undead under his control." If you don't regard that as obvious, well then we shall just have to agree to disagree.


If you don't like Clerics as an example of this, then I would point out the Sha'ir instead. That's pretty much unquestionable. He calls his small genie friend and asks him to hunt down effects for him. That's quite explicit.

And he's a "spellcaster."

That's Al Qadim is it? I'm not really familiar with the Sha'ir, but I seem to recall that setting rejecting any Divine Force, except a Philosophy? Is that right? I don't remember.


He could actually do the same in 2e, IIRC.

Nope, not until Skills and Powers anyway and his listing at that time in The Heroes Lorebook (or whatever it was called) was quite illegal.


The TWFighters I'm referring to isn't the major characters in stories and such. There's a number of them who are that way, but there's also the number of strangely ubiquitous two weapon styles that evolved in Faerun in 2e. There's a Waterdeep style that employs two weapons, and elven one that does the same, and a drow one that does the same. And they seem to meet each other in novels rather frequently.

You're thinking of Bladesinging, I think, which builds on Two Weapon Fighting, but doesn't require it. Fighting Style Specialisation was an interesting innovation of Skills and Powers.


There are a number of examples in the Crystal Shard Trilogy, some more in the Moonblade trilogy, yet a few more in accounts involving Entreri. I'm feeling rather a bit sheepish to admit that I've read so much bad fiction, but there it is.

Sure, but Two Weapon Fighting was possible and effective before 2e. There was some degree of improvement in what could be done in 2e. The Crystal Shard Trilogy and Moonshae Trilogy (which I suppose is what you mean by Moonblade?) were published between 1987 and 1990, which predates most of the really effective 2e TWF material.

[Roxlimn]

Ulzgoroth:



As opposed to your opinion, which is obviously objective? You actually wrote "these can hardly be said to be bad stories". I said that I can and do consider them to be bad stories. And you go on to tell me that (a) I'm wrong and (b) my opinion is an opinion...


Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that they're good just because I may like them. I'm saying that they're good because they're undeniably popular. LOTS of people like them. You can't argue that, and there's no interpretation that will make that untrue.

You're saying that popularity is no guarantee of that a story is good, but I'm willing to contest that. Unlike other things, a story is meant to entertain. Whatever other qualities it has, its entertainment value is its last and final arbiter. If many people like it and are entertained by it, then despite any perceived failings it may have, it's still a good story.

You could look at it in the manner of an axe. Popularity or mechanics doesn't define a good woodchopping axe. The only criterion for that is how well it chops wood. It doesn't matter whether it has X elements or violates Y precepts for axe design. If it chops wood well, it's a good axe.

And both Indiana Jones and Star Wars chop the wood rather well.



No. The skill is magical, in this case, because it enables you to perceive things completely undetectable to people without it.

The verbal and somatic components (might) do the final shaping of the magical effect to be released. Via spellcraft, you can perceive that final shaping, and from it draw clues about what the spell being shaped will do, because while the methods of manipulating the magic are different, everyone is ultimately using the same 'magic field' (or something loosely analogous), as evidenced by the universality of magic-disrupting effects. Thus all spells, once cast, are subject to the same 'physics', meaning all charm person spells have much the same 'shape' once formed.


1. The skill enables you to perceive completely undetectable things because?

2. So all the major indicators of magic are the same, the "field" is the same, and we cast spells much the same way. And yet divine magic occasionally has characteristics that arcane spells don't have, and multiple arcane spellcasting classes can't understand each other's writings. But divine ones would.



Ah. So you find it trivial to tie someone else's shoes or tie (if ties are part of your environment)? It's widely accepted that even relatively minor context shifts can take an action from essentially reflexive to a fairly difficult cognitive exercise. This is a much wider shift...when you cast a spell, you're inside the magic and are both running on ingrained training and directly aware of what you're actually doing. When you're looking at someone else's hands moving, or hearing them speak verbal components, you have a completely different level and kind of knowledge than you would if you were doing the casting yourself. So you resort to trained recognition rather than trying to imagine what you'd be doing if you held your hands like so, and recited...you can't quite hear what...


If I know how to tie my shoe, I'm going to be able to tell if someone else is tying his shoes.

If I know how to tie someone else's shoe, likewise.

Why should it be that looking at someone casting a spell and casting it yourself should be so different, and why should it be that I can identify someone casting a spell I have no idea of how to cast myself just the same as a spell I have specialized in?



I don't really know, but it seems plausible to me that WWII fighter pilots recognized the maneuvers their enemy was making by linking the behavior of the other's plane to the maneuver directly, not by trying to infer from that what's happening in the cockpit and working from there. This is analogous.


Still doesn't compute. If I've done the maneuver and have seen it, I'll be able to identify it instantly. If I've read about the maneuver and have never seen it in play, then oughtn't I have much more difficulty spotting it being done?

Spellcasters don't get circumstance bonuses for having identified the same spell previously. Heck, a spellcaster could cast the exact same spell one after the other, and another spellcaster could identify the first and botch the second.

"Hey, isn't that a Fireball?"
"I can't tell."
"But he's doing the exact same movement he was doing just before, and THAT was a fireball."
"Really? Maybe it's not. It's not like all fireballs are cast the same way, even though I can recognize one being cast by a divine caster even if it required radically different components, or even no components at all."



But when they marshal their musculature, metabolism, and nerves to chop wood, the motion of the axe is much the same.


Exactly. Whatever other things are going on, the real deal is the same each time. So how come the techniques are different again? Are you going to tell me that a planetar raising its axe isn't actually raising its axe? Or that it's a subtly different "raise" of the axe, even though it looks the same and does the exact same thing? What's the significance of that? Nothing. It chops wood the same way.



This is not analogous. The differences between divergent casting techniques run all the way down to the most basic source and manipulation of energy. Not a matter of wiggling a different finger.


So they're profoundly different, and yet all are somehow equally identifiable regardless of how I cast?



Knowledge? What does 'knowledge' have to do with it? Sorcerer spell casting is a matter of power, not knowledge. If you don't have the charisma to cast level 5 spells, that means you can't power them, not that you can't understand them.


If you don't have that Charisma, you don't get the Spells Known. You DON'T get the Spells Known. That means that you can't cast the spell, even if you somehow gain a 5th level spell slot through some other means.



This might be coincidental, or might be the consequence of wizardry being invented by people using sorcery as a template. Both the mental constructs and the sorcerer's gift are ways of leveraging purely mental actions into (meta-)physical actions on the external magic.


So they're just the same but different because one reacts to force of will, and the other not? Makes no sense. If one construct a mental construct emulating a manner of casting dependent on force of will, it ought to follow that other elements of your casting also ought to depend on force of will also.



To the second, because clerics aren't powering their spells with their own force of will, they're channeling power from an outside source. Remember?


So channeling a spell outside of yourself and doing it with your own force of will is similar enough that they're mutually intelligible?



If the players ask you about how something works, you can hide behind the DM screen and say their characters don't know. But if what you're hiding is 'I pulled it out of my hindquarters and have not the slightest idea', that's likely to eventually become obvious.


You could say "your character doesn't understand at this time," and they wouldn't know any better! It's even more effective if you can parcel out such detail when their characters succeed on higher rolls, so it's never apparent when you're just withholding high level information, or you're just pulling things out of thin air.

Seriously. This "logical consequence" thing is just completely bogus. It helps, but it's not absolutely necessary.

[Roxlimn]

Matthew:



No, that's 1e your thinking of and it was by Spell Level.

That was actually for regaining Spells, if I recall, not for Casting them.


You would be referring to the 1e paradigm whereby 1st-3rd level spells were powered by the Cleric's own faith and 4-5th by lower sevitors, and 6th and 7th by the god's personal servants or the god himself.

That's not it.

Now that you've jogged my memory, it may be an S and P thing, though I can't be sure. Seems definitely 2e, though.



Yes if the Character is an NPC, no if he is a PC.


Why the difference? Should there be a difference between the two? If we're going to be all gung-ho and down with it, why even bother with an elite array? Everything's just the result of extraordinary chance. Let's roll with that.



Sure, and that's a game preference. I prefer broader classes, you prefer narrower ones; hardly a big deal.


I think you mean "generic" rather than "broader."



That's Al Qadim is it? I'm not really familiar with the Sha'ir, but I seem to recall that setting rejecting any Divine Force, except a Philosophy? Is that right? I don't remember.


Yup. That's it, but there's a port into 3e. Sha'ir is not divine. It's arcane. Clerics in Al Qadim are different also, but they don't cast spells this way.



Nope, not until Skills and Powers anyway and his listing at that time in The Heroes Lorebook (or whatever it was called) was quite illegal.


IIRC, there was a Drow supplement that accounted for all his TWF shenanigans, giving back his advantages in 1e for being drow.



You're thinking of Bladesinging, I think, which builds on Two Weapon Fighting, but doesn't require it. Fighting Style Specialisation was an interesting innovation of Skills and Powers.


Nope. There is a TWF style developed in Evermeet that the Elves favored. It's not Bladesinging.



Sure, but Two Weapon Fighting was possible and effective before 2e. There was some degree of improvement in what could be done in 2e. The Crystal Shard Trilogy and Moonshae Trilogy (which I suppose is what you mean by Moonblade?) were published between 1987 and 1990, which predates most of the really effective 2e TWF material.


Moonblade - the one with Danilo Thann in it, not the one with the Moonshae Isles in it. (God, why do I know so much terrible prose?!?). 2e TWF, though, was pretty brutal right out the gate. I know because I pursued a Ranger in 2e with that style and he absolutely killed. Very effective. 1990 was just about the time 2e was published and released. 1989 was the exact year of release, IIRC, though I could be mistaken. That's just about coincident with these books. Crystal Shard was published 88, then 89, then 90.

[Matthew]

This is the reason why in earlier editions, if you went to a place where that god has no influence (like in another god's demesne), then Clerics had no spells. That seems to be a rather direct reference to how things were done.

That was actually for regaining Spells, if I recall, not for Casting them.

Looking into High Level Campaigning it seems that Priests lose Casting Levels by Divine Agreement:


For example, if a priest whose deity resides on Mount Celestia visits The Abyss, the character loses seven levels of spellcasting ability. This effect has nothing to do with the properties of the planes themselves, it arises from a mutual agreement that prevents the entire multiverse from erupting into an interplanar war.

That's not the result of distance between Deity and Priest (which is a rule of thumb for determining this effect). It could be that the Deity is with holding power or it could be that he removes that power. High Magic worlds and low Magic Worlds also effect the Cleric's Spell Casting, though a Deity can over rule even this.

[Edit]



You would be referring to the 1e paradigm whereby 1st-3rd level spells were powered by the Cleric's own faith and 4-5th by lower sevitors, and 6th and 7th by the god's personal servants or the god himself.

That's not it.

Now that you've jogged my memory, it may be an S and P thing, though I can't be sure. Seems definitely 2e, though.

They were granted (i.e. given), rather than powered, but yeah we'll have to look towards particular sources (and I suspect there will be disagreemnet between them)


Why the difference? Should there be a difference between the two? If we're going to be all gung-ho and down with it, why even bother with an elite array? Everything's just the result of extraordinary chance. Let's roll with that.

The difference is because Warrior is an NPC Class and Fighter is a PC Class.


I think you mean "generic" rather than "broader."

I think both would apply.


IIRC, there was a Drow supplement that accounted for all his TWF shenanigans, giving back his advantages in 1e for being drow.

Doubtful, the main problem was the lack of Specialisation as an Option for Rangers until Skills and Powers (whereas in 1e it was available to Rangers). I'll take a look at Drow of the Underdark, I have it somewhere.


Nope. There is a TWF style developed in Evermeet that the Elves favored. It's not Bladesinging.

Okay, source it for me and I'll take a look.


Moonblade - the one with Danilo Thann in it, not the one with the Moonshae Isles in it. (God, why do I know so much terrible prose?!?). 2e TWF, though, was pretty brutal right out the gate. I know because I pursued a Ranger in 2e with that style and he absolutely killed. Very effective. 1990 was just about the time 2e was published and released. 1989 was the exact year of release, IIRC, though I could be mistaken. That's just about coincident with these books. Crystal Shard was published 88, then 89, then 90.

Moonblade, ehy? Hmmn, can't find it on the Forgotten Realms Booklist on Wikipedia either. No idea about that one.
[Edit]
Songs and Swords is Danilo Thann, apparently originally published as The Harpers Series. Too long ago for me to remember the details, I'm afraid.

1989 was indeed the release date for 2e, but Drizzt was a result of the 1e rules. I'm not sure how you made such a great TWF 2e Ranger, he should have sucked compared to a TWF 2e Fighter, since he would be denied Weapon Specialisation. Both would suck compared to a 1e TWF Hand Axe Double Specialist, of course.

[brian c]

So, Prof. Matthew and Prof. Roxlimn, you guys having fun?

[Matthew]

Sure, it's a lot of fun to learn about and debate this sort of thing. I'm off to look up this Sha'ir Base Class.

[Roxlimn]

brian c:

Yes, much. Care to join in? :)

Matthew:



That's not the result of distance between Deity and Priest (which is a rule of thumb for determining this effect). It's an external effect on the Cleric. High Magic worlds and low Magic Worlds also effect the Cleric's Spell Casting, though a Deity can over rule even this.


I think it works better conceptually if you look at it from a Deity perspective. Why say that it's an external effect when it makes much more sense when considered in the sense that the Deity is acting directly when spells are cast? That way, a Deity granting a spell in his enemy's territory really is pretty much doing an open act of war.



The difference is because Warrior is an NPC Class and Fighter is a PC Class. The latter is supposed to better than the former.


True, but if all heroes could just rely on improbable chances anyways, that ought not to make a difference whatsoever. A wildly lucky Warrior is still better than a lousy-luck Fighter.



Okay, source it for me and I'll take a look.


I'll try.



Songs and Swords is Danilo Thann, apparently originally published as The Harpers Series. Too long ago for me to remember the details, I'm afraid.


That would be the Harper trilogy, yes. I think that the trilogy contains a battle between Waterdeep TWF style and Evermeet TWF style.



1989 was indeed the release date for 2e, but Drizzt was a result of the 1e rules. I'm not sure how you made a great TWF 2e Ranger, he should have sucked compared to a TWF 2e Fighter, since he would be denied Weapon Specialisation. Both would suck compared to a 1e TWF Hand Axe Double Specialist.


I'm not sure how you would create a TWF Fighter well using only the PHB of AD&D. Please refresh my memory.

[Ulzgoroth]

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that they're good just because I may like them. I'm saying that they're good because they're undeniably popular. LOTS of people like them. You can't argue that, and there's no interpretation that will make that untrue.

<snip>

And both Indiana Jones and Star Wars chop the wood rather well.
...I said we likely had incompatible opinions of what made a good story. And here we get you asserting a definition of 'good', as applied to story, that I have already stated I do not agree with. Can we drop that now?

1. The skill enables you to perceive completely undetectable things because?
Honestly, I wouldn't even try to answer that question. It's on the same level as "what exactly do wizards construct in their minds to produce magic?", or "What does the writing on a scroll look like, exactly?". Or for that matter "How do you say that in common?". If I try to pretend to have a skill that is physically impossible to possess in our reality, the best possible result is harmless BS.

Unless you mean 'how is it possible that they do that'. It is clearly established, by wizardry, that the unaided mind/spirit of a sentient creature can interact with magic. Spellcraft (in this particular envisioning) employs the same basic capability to feel the magic rather than to exert force on it.

2. So all the major indicators of magic are the same, the "field" is the same, and we cast spells much the same way. And yet divine magic occasionally has characteristics that arcane spells don't have, and multiple arcane spellcasting classes can't understand each other's writings. But divine ones would.
Yes, with a quibble on 'much the same way'. And the bit about magical writings...I can delve into that one if I need to, but what you wrote, as I understand it, isn't the normal situation.

To expand, there are several parts to casting a spell. Verbal and somatic components are only one part, and by no means the most important (since they can usually be dispensed with entirely, with the correct adaptations). They happen to be closely tied to the spell's effects, however, in a manner that holds regardless of how you do the other parts of the casting. They are not exactly the same across different traditions...bardic spells can never be cast without a 'verbal' component, clerics and druids use somatic components that are unhindered by armor...but there is sufficient commonality that recognizing their implications is universal.

The deeper differences between the traditions of magic relate to inward, earlier stages of the spellcasting process.

If I know how to tie my shoe, I'm going to be able to tell if someone else is tying his shoes.

If I know how to tie someone else's shoe, likewise.

Why should it be that looking at someone casting a spell and casting it yourself should be so different, and why should it be that I can identify someone casting a spell I have no idea of how to cast myself just the same as a spell I have specialized in?
I think you overestimate your perceptive capabilities, actually, but that aside.

If you knew 75 different ways to tie your shoes, would you be able to figure out which one someone is doing? When you can't see the laces and they're 50 feet away? That's more akin to the spellcraft problem. If you had memorized what each of those ties looks like from the outside while it's being performed, you might manage it. If you have to figure out just by looking where each finger is and what they're doing, I don't think you've got a hope.

Still doesn't compute. If I've done the maneuver and have seen it, I'll be able to identify it instantly. If I've read about the maneuver and have never seen it in play, then oughtn't I have much more difficulty spotting it being done?

Spellcasters don't get circumstance bonuses for having identified the same spell previously. Heck, a spellcaster could cast the exact same spell one after the other, and another spellcaster could identify the first and botch the second.
Skills are intended to be broader than that. Your spellcraft rank represents (for this application) your overall effective capability in recognizing maneuvers spell components, not book learning or field experience alone. Exceptional familiarity with a single sort of spell isn't handled by the skill system as provided (except for specialist wizards). If you had been specifically trained to oppose some specific kind of caster, being able to obtain a spellcraft bonus against their spells would make some sense...

Such concentrated training is probably best represented by a homebrew feat.

"Hey, isn't that a Fireball?"
"I can't tell."
"But he's doing the exact same movement he was doing just before, and THAT was a fireball."
"Really? Maybe it's not. It's not like all fireballs are cast the same way, even though I can recognize one being cast by a divine caster even if it required radically different components, or even no components at all."
If it required no components, you'd wouldn't be able to recognize it by spellcraft. You have to see or hear the components.

For the real issue...that d20 roll only need apply if you're distracted at the time, or deliberately straining the edge of your competence. Rolling poorly can be accounted for by missing important elements of the component, or not thinking clearly due to whatever is stressing you too much to take 10. So when you fail the second roll, you're probably not aware that he's doing the exact same movement he was before.

Exactly. Whatever other things are going on, the real deal is the same each time. So how come the techniques are different again? Are you going to tell me that a planetar raising its axe isn't actually raising its axe? Or that it's a subtly different "raise" of the axe, even though it looks the same and does the exact same thing? What's the significance of that? Nothing. It chops wood the same way.
No, the real deal, the basis of how they are able to swing the axe, is enormously different. Only the fact that they move their hands a certain way, the presence of the axe (which in the case of the spell is an ephemeral part of the casting, not a solid object) and the consequence are the same.

The essential difference is in how the energy to swing the axe came to be present, and how it was handled before it became kinetic energy of a moving axe. These are determined by the physiology of the axe-wielder, which represents the magical tradition (class) of the caster, and can be any number of things despite all of them managing to swing the axe into the wood with almost the same hand motion.

I think we're using this analogy differently. In my analogy, swinging the axe is casting the spell, the swing of the axe might be considered the spell, and the cutting of the wood the spell effect. I get the impression that you're using the wood being cut to represent the spell instead, which is a very different thing...

So they're profoundly different, and yet all are somehow equally identifiable regardless of how I cast?
Because you're looking at a layer that's much the same. Somatic and Verbal components, as I said, are closely related to the spell effect. Specific verbal/somatic components are dictated by a specific spell effect, with relatively little leeway. The profound differences exist in the purely mental/spiritual components of the spell. While this isn't trivially true, I see nothing suggesting that it is untrue.

If you don't have that Charisma, you don't get the Spells Known. You DON'T get the Spells Known. That means that you can't cast the spell, even if you somehow gain a 5th level spell slot through some other means.
This is technically true, somewhat to my surprise. However, "To learn or cast a spell, a sorcerer must have a Charisma score equal to at least 10 + the spell level" also means that you can't cast the spell, even if you have a 5th level spell slot and somehow knew the spell anyway. So I don't see your point. Also as far as I can tell you do recieve the 5th+ level spell slots even if your cha is 14. You're just barred from casting them. In fact, you could use them to cast spells of 4th level or lower.

So I think you are correct that you cannot (by blind RAW) allocate spells known without the critical charisma score, but since the ability to know spells is meaningless for a sorcerer without the ability to cast them I don't see any significance to this.

So they're just the same but different because one reacts to force of will, and the other not? Makes no sense. If one construct a mental construct emulating a manner of casting dependent on force of will, it ought to follow that other elements of your casting also ought to depend on force of will also.
...no. So they're not at all the same in how they work, but exactly the same from the limited (and non-personified) perspective of the 'mystic forces'. The mental construct does not duplicate the sorcerer ability to channel force of will into magic, it duplicates the way in which that magic is effected. It's emulating the output of the sorcerer's black box gift, not the black box itself.

So channeling a spell outside of yourself and doing it with your own force of will is similar enough that they're mutually intelligible?
Er, no they aren't...not between clerics and sorcerers, anyway. The verbal and somatic components are mutually intelligible, for reasons discussed previously.

Also, not channeling a spell outside yourself. Casting a spell based on energy received from outside yourself and channeled through you. While casting the spell you draw on energy from your outside source (since you lose access to your ready spells if cut off from it), but most of the spell architecture is already within you at that point (because which spells you have is committed during your meditation).

You could say "your character doesn't understand at this time," and they wouldn't know any better! It's even more effective if you can parcel out such detail when their characters succeed on higher rolls, so it's never apparent when you're just withholding high level information, or you're just pulling things out of thin air.

Seriously. This "logical consequence" thing is just completely bogus. It helps, but it's not absolutely necessary.
Unless your PCs are at all inquisitive (and thus test things) or make connections between things you pulled out of thin air at different times without checking them against each other, and find an implication that leads them to break the game/invent infinite free power/blow the material plane into a cloud of rapidly diverging demi-planes (these may all occur simultaneously). Or for a more mild result, require you to ret-con some of your history so that their 'interesting exercise' is no longer catastrophic.

If it's mutually accepted that the players will do their utmost to avoid exploring the setting in any way, you may avoid this problem. But that's kind of the same as how you avoid being bothered by the flaws in Star Wars. As Jasdoif observed, this is more likely to be problematic in roleplaying than in a movie.

[Thrawn183]

omg, the WALLS of text

[Roxlimn]

Thrawn183:

Walls of Text are really effective at keeping out trolls. Unfortunately, they're also really effective at keeping out everyone else. Maybe we should be using Bigby's Hand Text effects instead?

Ulzgoroth:



...I said we likely had incompatible opinions of what made a good story. And here we get you asserting a definition of 'good', as applied to story, that I have already stated I do not agree with. Can we drop that now?


Well, it is rather central to the point. If we can't agree on this, then whatever else follows is really rather pointless.

I've been egging you to provide walls upon walls of text to demonstrate that "logical consequences" frequently involves paragraphs upon paragraphs of mostly boring text that would really only be exciting to the DM.

And most of it doesn't even involve any mechanics whatsoever, just as I said. You can provide rolls upon rolls of fluff on paper to justify the fey IHS thing, OR you can provide just enough and parcel it out slowly. "It's magic!" really isn't all that bad a fallback every now and then, either.

Fluff for fluff's sake doesn't require mechanics. It never did.



Unless your PCs are at all inquisitive (and thus test things) or make connections between things you pulled out of thin air at different times without checking them against each other, and find an implication that leads them to break the game/invent infinite free power/blow the material plane into a cloud of rapidly diverging demi-planes (these may all occur simultaneously). Or for a more mild result, require you to ret-con some of your history so that their 'interesting exercise' is no longer catastrophic.


I honestly can find nothing particularly alarming about saying (in a purely fluff sense) that a particular variety of fey can grant a Warblade a 3rd level effect like IHS.



If it's mutually accepted that the players will do their utmost to avoid exploring the setting in any way, you may avoid this problem. But that's kind of the same as how you avoid being bothered by the flaws in Star Wars. As Jasdoif observed, this is more likely to be problematic in roleplaying than in a movie.


Actually, I find otherwise. In a setting like D&D, you say "it's magic," and everyone carries on. Magic doesn't need explanation because at the end of it all, it devolves to "it's magic" anyways, regardless of how convoluted you had to be to get there. You'll notice that we're kind of already getting there with the skill thing, although I have no doubt we'll get there eventually with everything.

[Matthew]

I think it works better conceptually if you look at it from a Deity perspective. Why say that it's an external effect when it makes much more sense when considered in the sense that the Deity is acting directly when spells are cast? That way, a Deity granting a spell in his enemy's territory really is pretty much doing an open act of war.

Honestly, I prefer the idea that a Cleric is given a portion of Divine Power to use as he will and that's the view supported in the 3e Complete Divine on page 6 ["Clerics and other divine spellcasters receive their spells by praying to the deity, who bestows upon them a measure of divine power."], but I wouldn't be surprised to find it contradicted elsewhere. Deities and Demi Gods makes a distinction between Divine Spells and Divine Intercession (p. 18), as does Defenders of the Faith, which discusses Divine Intervention and the effects of Gate Spells (pp. 16-18).
The 2e Rules seem less than straight forward about it, but the Cleric description appears to say the same thing, that the Deity bestows Spells upon the Cleric when he prays for them, not when he Casts them.


True, but if all heroes could just rely on improbable chances anyways, that ought not to make a difference whatsoever. A wildly lucky Warrior is still better than a lousy-luck Fighter.

Hit Points, I think, are the abstraction intended to offset luck in combination with Feats, but yeah, Fighters and Warriors are equally at the mercy of bad and good Die Rolls, that's the nature of the game. I don't really view that as a negative quality or one that needs fixing. I can understand why there are those who do, I just don't have the same desire.


I'm not sure how you would create a TWF Fighter well using only the PHB of AD&D. Please refresh my memory.

Okay, here we go.

1e Core (1978)
Under this system only specific weapons could be used 'Off Hand' in combination with a primary, specifically Dagger and Hand Axe. The penalties were -2/-4, which could be offset with a high Dexterity (16 = -1/-3, 17 = 0/-2, 18 = 0/-1).
Rangers had no special benefit in this regard and there was no Weapon Specialisation. However, rangers did get +1 DB/per Level against Ginat Class Creatures (which were defined as: Bugbears, Ettins, Giants, Gnolls, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, Ogres, Ogre Magi, Orcs, and Trolls).

1e Unearthed Arcana (1985)
Two Weapon Fighting remained the same under this system, except that Drow traded their +1 to Hit with Bows and Swords for no penalties when Two Weapon Fighting.
Specialisation Rules allowed for Characters to begin with +3 AB and +3 DB with a single weapon by expending two Weapon Proficiencies. This is contradicted later when the Ranger is instructed to have proficiency in four weapons by Level 4, which means he would have to wait until Level 10 to Double Specialise. Fighters, however, had no such problem.
Regardless Drizzt at Level 10 [his listed level in the 1e Savage Frontier (1988) and first game appearance] would have been pretty kick ass, especially against Giant Class Creatures (whose list was expanded to include: Bugbear, Goblin, Ogre Mage, Cyclopskin, Grimlock, Ogrillon, Dune Stalker, Hobgoblin, Orc, Ettin, Kobold, Quaggoth, Flind, Meazel, Tasloi, Giant, Norker, Troll, Gibberling, Ogre, Xvart and Gnoll).

Drizzt, Ranger 10
Attacks: 2 Primary, 1 Off Hand,
THAC0: 11 (8) [AB 13]
Damage: 1D8+3/1D8+3/1D8+3 (1D8+13/1D8+13/1D8+13)

2e Core (1989)
Key differences in this edition were that Two Weapon Fighting was expanded to allow any Small Weapon to be used in the Off Hand. Drow no longer had the Two Weapon Fighting Bonus, but Rangers in Light Armour (Studded Leather or Lighter) suffered no penalties. However, their lack of ability to Specialise boded ill, as this reduced their number of Attacks as well as attack and Damage Bonuses. The Special enemies of the Ranger were reduced to one Race, such as Orc, against whom they gained +4 AB, but no DB.

Fighter 1
Attacks: 1 or (3/2)
THAC0: 20 or (19)
Damage: 1D8 or (1D8+2)

Ranger 1
Attacks: 1 or (1 Primary and 1 Off Hand)
THAC0: 20 or (16)
Damage: 1D8 or (1D8 Primary and 1D6 Off Hand)

At Level 7, the Fighter would move to 2 Primary Attacks per Round, the Ranger to 3/2 Primary and 1 Off Hand.

To create an effective Two Weapon Fighter using the PHB, you would need a high Dexterity Fighter who specialises in use of the Short Sword, which would result in:

Fighter 1
Attacks: 3/2 Primary and 1 Off Hand or (3/2 Primary and 1 Off Hand)
THAC0: 20 or (19) [Penalties range from -2/-4 to 0/-1]
Damage: 1D6+2 and 1D6+2

Such a Fighter is also able to wear Heavy Armour whilst doing so, which tends to bring them well above what can be achieved with Ranger as a Front Line Combatant.

2e Complete Fighter's Handbook
Key difference was the creation of Fighting Style Specialisations and additional Weapon Proficiencies gained from Intelligence. The result was that a Character could expend 2 Weapon Proficiencies to negate all Two Weapon Fighting Penalties and use same sized One Handed Weapons.

Fighter 1
Attacks: 1 Primary and 1 Off Hand or (3/2 Primary and 1 Off Hand)
THAC0: 20 or (19)
Damage: 1D8 and 1D8 or (1D8+2 and 1D8+2)

Ranger 1
Attacks: 1 or (1 Primary and 1 Off Hand)
THAC0: 20 or (16)
Damage: 1D8 or (1D8 Primary and 1D8 Off Hand)

2e Player's Option
Later on it became possible for Rangers to Specialise and Warriors to gain Weapon Mastery at later levels, which squared things up a bit, though Combat and Tactics had a completely different take for some reason.

[Ulzgoroth]

Well, it is rather central to the point. If we can't agree on this, then whatever else follows is really rather pointless.
You'll have to be a bit more clear. If we have to agree that 'popular' is the definition of 'good', forget it. Otherwise, be more specific please.

I've been egging you to provide walls upon walls of text to demonstrate that "logical consequences" frequently involves paragraphs upon paragraphs of mostly boring text that would really only be exciting to the DM.
Y'see, as a player, I really would eat that stuff up. And come back with 'but what about...' questions to elicit more. So your cunning maneuver runs into a little problem there, at least as far as delivering your point to me.

The other thing is, it's not as if anyone but the DM has the slightest need to know this (or whatever alternative structure you use), unless it becomes relevant to gameplay. Though you might give some gist of it to people with both interest and Knowledge: Arcana just so they can be accurately erudite in character.

And most of it doesn't even involve any mechanics whatsoever, just as I said. You can provide rolls upon rolls of fluff on paper to justify the fey IHS thing, OR you can provide just enough and parcel it out slowly. "It's magic!" really isn't all that bad a fallback every now and then, either.

Fluff for fluff's sake doesn't require mechanics. It never did.
Fluff is a term I have come to hate over the course of this discussion. I don't actually think there is any such thing as 'fluff'. There is material that describes how things are in general language, and there is material that describes how things are in specific and limited game-engine terms. These are both describing the same thing. The only sense in which one is less important than the other is that the (poor excuse for) balance of PC to PC and PC to NPC/Monster power is governed chiefly by the game-engine text, and thus the other text is somewhat easier to tweak without devastating effects on the ability to run a game. This is what is usually called 'fluff'.

You can of course change (or invent from scratch) fluff, non-fluff, or both. What makes things come apart at the seams is when the resulting construct is self-contradictory. And, to circle back to the fey IHS thing, without further changes you have created something that conflicts with various parts of the existing IHS fluff and non-fluff, and which specifies the existence and some properties of a creature not previously existing, or properties not previously existent of a creature you already have. And it's very likely that changes will ripple outward from there when these are reconciled. Which isn't a bad thing, unless you insist that nothing has changed at all.

I honestly can find nothing particularly alarming about saying (in a purely fluff sense) that a particular variety of fey can grant a Warblade a 3rd level effect like IHS.
Well, since I find that an incredibly vulnerable mechanic, I'll throw out an example. Having discovered that the warblade gets this wonderful ability from a relationship with the fey, the other party members decide to go looking for similar fey. Maybe they're only looking to befriend these fey in hopes of receiving the same benefit, rather than taking any of the more worrying approaches. What happens?

Actually, I find otherwise. In a setting like D&D, you say "it's magic," and everyone carries on. Magic doesn't need explanation because at the end of it all, it devolves to "it's magic" anyways, regardless of how convoluted you had to be to get there. You'll notice that we're kind of already getting there with the skill thing, although I have no doubt we'll get there eventually with everything.
The same could be said of physics. At least, Newtonian...I don't know enough of the relativity/quantum stuff to say whether there's a clear 'why? Because that's what we observe' line.

The thing is that line comes up when no one has an experiment that looks behind it. And there are a lot of experiments you can run as a general rule. The usual line of 'think of the consequences' is more related to questions like 'what exactly regulates TFD altitude and locations for Summon Monster spells?'. Questions of deep (or even shallow) fantasy physics are more likely to be accessible if someone asks and you decide to answer...they probably aren't of too much interest or testablity to adventurers unless the DM introduces something that meddles with them. Or, as I think you did with your change in IHS 'fluff', directly exposes them to interference.

[lord_khaine]

Well, since I find that an incredibly vulnerable mechanic, I'll throw out an example. Having discovered that the warblade gets this wonderful ability from a relationship with the fey, the other party members decide to go looking for similar fey. Maybe they're only looking to befriend these fey in hopes of receiving the same benefit, rather than taking any of the more worrying approaches. What happens?


thats pretty simple, either the fey dont like being used, or else the players pick up the feat martrial study to get the maneouver as well, who cant then also be granted by fey.

[Roxlimn]

Couldn't have put that better myself.

Ulzgoroth:



You'll have to be a bit more clear. If we have to agree that 'popular' is the definition of 'good', forget it. Otherwise, be more specific please.


Simply that your definition of "good" applies to you and you only. And I'm not talking here about you.



Y'see, as a player, I really would eat that stuff up. And come back with 'but what about...' questions to elicit more. So your cunning maneuver runs into a little problem there, at least as far as delivering your point to me.


Yes, but you aren't everyone. In fact, I don't have any players who ask me for more fluff than I already have, and I don't make that much.



There is material that describes how things are in general language, and there is material that describes how things are in specific and limited game-engine terms.


"How things are" doesn't need to be logical. Lots of things in real life aren't. This is especially true when we're describing magic.



And, to circle back to the fey IHS thing, without further changes you have created something that conflicts with various parts of the existing IHS fluff and non-fluff, and which specifies the existence and some properties of a creature not previously existing, or properties not previously existent of a creature you already have. And it's very likely that changes will ripple outward from there when these are reconciled. Which isn't a bad thing, unless you insist that nothing has changed at all.


Absolutely. Nothing mechanical has changed at all. I can make up all kinds of nonmechanical fluff to expound on the flavor of this fey thing, but I'm sure you'd be able to make up likely ones yourself if you only tried.



The thing is that line comes up when no one has an experiment that looks behind it. And there are a lot of experiments you can run as a general rule. The usual line of 'think of the consequences' is more related to questions like 'what exactly regulates TFD altitude and locations for Summon Monster spells?'. Questions of deep (or even shallow) fantasy physics are more likely to be accessible if someone asks and you decide to answer...they probably aren't of too much interest or testablity to adventurers unless the DM introduces something that meddles with them. Or, as I think you did with your change in IHS 'fluff', directly exposes them to interference.


Sorry, I don't see anything particularly inconsistent or difficult to manage about that change in fluff. If you ask, I will answer up to a point, and since I'm making it up whole cloth without any intention to change mechanics whatsoever, it's going to end up consistent and without a change to mechanics whatsoever.

[Ulzgoroth]

thats pretty simple, either the fey dont like being used, or else the players pick up the feat martrial study to get the maneouver as well, who cant then also be granted by fey.
It being impossible for the party members to develop a good relationship with the fey, unless there's an actual reason for it, amounts to the DM thwarting thought with fiat.

As for martial study...suppose the party is level 6, only the warblade is a martial adept, and none of the others have taken martial study for an Iron Heart maneuver yet. Iron Heart Surge requires one Iron Heart maneuver. So besides the fact that you would be demanding they spend their feat on something that didn't cost the warblade a feat, with weaker mechanics besides (why is it I can't call on the fey more than once per 'encounter'?), they have to actually spend two feats, and can't obtain 'the assistance of the fey' until they hit level 10 (and subsequently gain a feat they can spend on martial study).

And there is no way unless you adapt the rules to better fit the new 'fluff' for them to get the same 'assistance' the warblade does without taking warblade levels. Fey apparently hate all spellcasters.

Simply that your definition of "good" applies to you and you only. And I'm not talking here about you.
So, you can either tell me where you were trying to go with your choice to define 'good' in terms of popularity, or not. It's entirely up to you.

If I understand your thrust correctly, and I am not certain that I do, my point applies to me and anyone else in the population that does consider coherency to be necessary to a good (role playing) game. Which you may be claiming is a minority, on anecdotal evidence.

"How things are" doesn't need to be logical. Lots of things in real life aren't. This is especially true when we're describing magic.
If you believe something in real life to be illogical, you are making a false assumption, or horribly abusing the word 'logical'. Unless you're trying to make a very deep assertion about the limitations of mathematical logic that I don't feel qualified to analyze without some serious study.

Absolutely. Nothing mechanical has changed at all. I can make up all kinds of nonmechanical fluff to expound on the flavor of this fey thing, but I'm sure you'd be able to make up likely ones yourself if you only tried.

Sorry, I don't see anything particularly inconsistent or difficult to manage about that change in fluff. If you ask, I will answer up to a point, and since I'm making it up whole cloth without any intention to change mechanics whatsoever, it's going to end up consistent and without a change to mechanics whatsoever.
I can think of reasons it absolutely does not work as described without substantially altering existing mechanics. I don't think my inability to see a way through is entirely based on my view that it wouldn't be good fluff even if it had mechanics that fit.

For instance, you arbitrarily refused to address the issue about the antimagic field...

[namo]

The problem with 'why's is that it's always possible to ask "but why <insert last answer provided> ?".


It being impossible for the party members to develop a good relationship with the fey, unless there's an actual reason for it, amounts to the DM thwarting thought with fiat.

There is a reason for it. Or rather, an infinity of reasons - just pick one.
- The only fey they manage to meet is the one that gave IHS to the warblade in the party, and he can only share it once.
- The only fey they encounter are of the opposite alignment and don't want to help.
- The feys are at war and don't have time to deal with whiny adventurers
- The party members don't have the right mental/physical/mystical training - the transfer of the ability is a failure.
Note that if the players want, any of these can be transformed into a side quest to solve the problems.

Or... they can grant it :

As for martial study...suppose the party is level 6, only the warblade is a martial adept, and none of the others have taken martial study for an Iron Heart maneuver yet. Iron Heart Surge requires one Iron Heart maneuver. So besides the fact that you would be demanding they spend their feat on something that didn't cost the warblade a feat, with weaker mechanics besides (why is it I can't call on the fey more than once per 'encounter'?), they have to actually spend two feats, and can't obtain 'the assistance of the fey' until they hit level 10 (and subsequently gain a feat they can spend on martial study).

And there is no way unless you adapt the rules to better fit the new 'fluff' for them to get the same 'assistance' the warblade does without taking warblade levels. Fey apparently hate all spellcasters.

No, see above : they need training/the fey's power is waning/their chakras are not open... That's the fluff answer.

Mechanically speaking : if they a mechanical advantage (IHS), they need to 'pay' for it with feats/class levels/...
Whether it is balanced for them to have to spend a feat and to only be able to use it 1/encounter is [u]an issue distinct from the fluff above[u].


If you believe something in real life to be illogical, you are making a false assumption, or horribly abusing the word 'logical'. Unless you're trying to make a very deep assertion about the limitations of mathematical logic that I don't feel qualified to analyze without some serious study.
Human behaviour is illogical, and it shapes the world we know. Logic can only really be applied to formal (read: mathematical) systems anyway.


I can think of reasons it absolutely does not work as described without substantially altering existing mechanics.
?
I'm curious to see them.


For instance, you arbitrarily refused to address the issue about the antimagic field...
What was it ? Sorry, I didn't read everything.

[Ulzgoroth]

Note that if the players want, any of these can be transformed into a side quest to solve the problems.
Yes, my objection was more to the DM in some manner declaring it inherently impossible, rather than presenting some obstacle. It's happened before, so it can't be completely impossible. Though 'not completely impossible' could theoretically entail restoring an extinct race of fey.

No, see above : they need training/the fey's power is waning/their chakras are not open... That's the fluff answer.

Mechanically speaking : if they a mechanical advantage (IHS), they need to 'pay' for it with feats/class levels/...
Whether it is balanced for them to have to spend a feat and to only be able to use it 1/encounter is [u]an issue distinct from the fluff above[u].
The fey's power could be waning, but in that case it would also be more difficult for them to grant the power to other warblades, and if there were a warblade with an Iron Heart maneuver, they wouldn't need any of this song and dance.

As for needing training/magibabble...ok. Pardon me. Fey don't hate all spellcasters. They hate, or at least have great difficulty interacting with, all people who aren't warblades. Specifically, their gift is only available only to those who have learned one of: Disarming Strike, Steel Wind, Steely Strike, or Wall of Blades at some point. Or are warblades and have learned Punishing Stance. Oh, and the ability to re-use their gift is dependent on your maneuver recovery mechanism, if you have levels in any martial adept class. Which does very odd things indeed if you are a crusader.

The balance isn't influenced particularly by the fey business, so that's no concern. Except insofar as normally having allies (and benefiting from this) is not something that costs you in terms of levels, feats, or skill points. You can have Pelor in your corner without spending anything, though presumably there is some reason for it. The explanation of why fey have an ability that can only ever be applied to people with a certain martial skill interests me greatly, however.

Human behaviour is illogical, and it shapes the world we know. Logic can only really be applied to formal (read: mathematical) systems anyway.
In what sense is human behavior illogical? Unpredictable, yes, in violation of rational agent assumptions, probably, but illogical?

?
I'm curious to see them.


What was it ? Sorry, I didn't read everything.
The easy hard one is that IHS works perfectly well in an Antimagic field, since it is an extraordinary effect rather than supernatural. I suppose this isn't actually insurmountable, if you have no objection to treating the (ex) tag as meaning nothing other than 'is immune to effects that regulate magic'. And claiming that this is 'fluff' rather than 'mechanics'.

How about:
-There is nothing that can be done to the one relevant fey, other fey, or every fey in the multiverse that effects the IHS ability. Despite the fact that there is some fey causing this to happen, allegedly. Despite the possibility of
-The fey is able to end effects that, to say the least, are not meant to be subject to mortal magic. It can dispel the Power of Truth salient divine ability, for instance, which has no mechanism by which it can be restarted.:smalleek: Similarly, it can destroy traits of planes. (Admittedly, this was a problem before the fey became responsible for the effect.)
-Being under the effect of Mind Blank does not impact the use of this ability. Nor does any other barrier between you and the fey, including ones based in the structure of the multiverse or the powers of overdeities.

[Roxlimn]

Ulzgoroth:



It being impossible for the party members to develop a good relationship with the fey, unless there's an actual reason for it, amounts to the DM thwarting thought with fiat.


Lots of things are impossible on the face of it, with seemingly no reason. In real life, too. I don't see why this is all that incredible. Moreover, players CAN get it. They just need to get IHS and they have the same power, too.

There are mechanical effects, of course, of the manner you say, but that's also not really very hard to explain. In fact, they sound less like reasonable objections and more like the things a whiny offensive player might say.

"Why do I have to spend a feat?"
"You don't have to. You can spend a level on Warblade like he did."
"But I'm a Wizard!"
"Tough."

"Why can't I call on the fey more than once per encounter?"
"I don't know. Why don't you ask them?"
"Well, I ask them."
"They like him better."
"But I have higher Charisma!"
"So?"
"Doesn't that mean that everyone ought to like me better?"
"Do you like Jay Leno?"
"Ugh."
"Well, he's supposed to be a very likable person in general..."

The only reason you can't think up a way to make this fluff reasonable is because you don't want to, and that's the truth.



So, you can either tell me where you were trying to go with your choice to define 'good' in terms of popularity, or not. It's entirely up to you.

If I understand your thrust correctly, and I am not certain that I do, my point applies to me and anyone else in the population that does consider coherency to be necessary to a good (role playing) game. Which you may be claiming is a minority, on anecdotal evidence.


No. I'm basing it on statistic evidence. Lots of people like stories that aren't logically consistent, therefore, it must not be all that important to a majority of people.

You can call this "popularity," to make it sound derogatory and trite, but the fact is, it's objective data on behavior and taste.



If you believe something in real life to be illogical, you are making a false assumption, or horribly abusing the word 'logical'. Unless you're trying to make a very deep assertion about the limitations of mathematical logic that I don't feel qualified to analyze without some serious study.


Real life isn't math. There are a lot of things in life that are true, but illogical.



I can think of reasons it absolutely does not work as described without substantially altering existing mechanics. I don't think my inability to see a way through is entirely based on my view that it wouldn't be good fluff even if it had mechanics that fit.


Your inability to make reasonable fluff for it is based on your dislike of what I've proposed. Your antipathy is illogical, but it's there all the same.



For instance, you arbitrarily refused to address the issue about the antimagic field...


Not true. I said that that's not a cut-and-dried issue, so I'm not going to comment on it. Many DMs don't interpret it the way you do, and I, in particular, do not. If IHS does away with AMF in your rulings, then that's something only you have to deal with.

[Talya]

What I like about TOB, is the amazing multiclassability of the base classes in it. I am not convinced a 20 warblade, 20 swordsage, or 20 crusader is really all that great. They are inflexible and boring, the only real customization you get are their maneuver choices. Well, those and stances. I prefer the stances, as at least one of them (2 for a warblade at 20) is "always on." But when you mix those classes with existing ones, they still improve. You can have much fun mixing those classes into existing base-class and PrC builds to much advantage.

I was really worried when I first read about this book that the new mechanic it added would be largely useless to pre-existing classes, but this isn't the case. Finishing a melee PRC at level 16, then stacking 4 levels of warblade on the end of it does significantly add to the character (and you've got almost as much warblade functionality as if you were a level 12 pure warblade.)

[Ulzgoroth]

You are right. My last post is definitely...tainted. I'm not sure how much of it is irrational as a result, but I'm going to try to make a clean break, and escape the effects of quoting too much too.

Once more, with sanity!

Atomic actions
As originally written, IHS is an action the initiator takes, and that's it. You just break free of an effect. As re-written, the initiator 'asks for help' in some manner:

"The faeries he gamboled with in the garden took a liking to him, and thereafter would free him from unfavorable enchantments, as long as he dared to ask for their help."
Then the faeries free him from unfavorable...well, more than just enchantments, but in any case. The point is, it's no longer something solely dependent on the initiator. In fact, initiating the maneuver merely communicates with some fey or group of fey. Then they help you out. The presence of NPCs in the loop for how the ability works makes it functionally different from something that you do entirely on your own.

Association
To learn IHS, you must know an Iron Heart maneuver. Consequently, you must know (or have previously known): Disarming Strike, Steel Wind, Steely Strike, Punishing Stance, or Wall of Blades. It is completely impossible for someone who has never known any of those to learn IHS, unless I've missed something.

Why do you have to know one of a specific small set of weapon techniques to gain the aid of the fey? Never mind the cost of the learning. What is the connection between these particular ways of putting sharp metal into people's bodies, and the ability to call on the fey for aid?

Somewhat relatedly, why is it that there are four distinct ways in which you can recover the ability to 'call on the fey', depending on which, if any, of the three ToB classes you have taken? Especially, why do crusaders have so little control over whether or not they can do so?

Universality(?)
Is this re-write the mechanism behind Iron Heart Surge for every character, or is the maneuver now different for different people? That is, does learning Iron Heart Surge now have the a special affiliation prerequisite?

[namo]

About IHS disrupting divine effects : as you mentioned, this is absurd. No one is disputing the need for IHS to be houseruled.


Association
To learn IHS, you must know an Iron Heart maneuver. Consequently, you must know (or have previously known): Disarming Strike, Steel Wind, Steely Strike, Punishing Stance, or Wall of Blades. It is completely impossible for someone who has never known any of those to learn IHS, unless I've missed something.

Why do you have to know one of a specific small set of weapon techniques to gain the aid of the fey? Never mind the cost of the learning. What is the connection between these particular ways of putting sharp metal into people's bodies, and the ability to call on the fey for aid?
This one I agree is tough. That is, the concept of prerequisite is often hard to explain fluff-wise. Example in Core : why does Whirlwind Attack, a static technique, requires you to learn Spring Attack ? Why do you need Combat Expertise to learn Improved Disarm ? Game balance, obviously.
So, I could come up with something, but I doubt it would be very convincing.


Somewhat relatedly, why is it that there are four distinct ways in which you can recover the ability to 'call on the fey', depending on which, if any, of the three ToB classes you have taken? Especially, why do crusaders have so little control over whether or not they can do so?
Er... because ?
Again, just use your imagination. Perhaps in this campaign, crusaders receive their maneuvers from fickle feys.


Universality(?)
Is this re-write the mechanism behind Iron Heart Surge for every character, or is the maneuver now different for different people? That is, does learning Iron Heart Surge now have the a special affiliation prerequisite?
It could be the same or it could be different. Just like in a given world all warlocks could be of fiendish descent, in another of fey descent, in yet another a mix of the two, plus some draconic warlocks...

[Roxlimn]

Ulzgoroth:



Then the faeries free him from unfavorable...well, more than just enchantments, but in any case. The point is, it's no longer something solely dependent on the initiator. In fact, initiating the maneuver merely communicates with some fey or group of fey. Then they help you out. The presence of NPCs in the loop for how the ability works makes it functionally different from something that you do entirely on your own.


Well, that depends on how you further "fluffify" (did I just invent a word?) this NPC reaction. Spirit Shaman implore their spirit companions for aid, and in the case of Wu Jen, a Guardian spirit likewise aids him as well. Some "fluff" for Barbarians portray their Rage as spiritual in origin, sometimes the product of direct action by their ancestor spirits, but none of these NPC actions is actually mechanized the same way, and none of them are really the same as normal NPC reactions. Too, a Cleric doesn't use Diplomacy or Bluff to convince his Deity to grant his requests, or to grant him divine energy to channel, if you prefer to fluff it that way.

If these NPC actions can be represented by relatively simple class-based creature-initiated powers, I don't see why IHS can't be the same way.

As long as you don't specify a mechanical difference, the functionality is exactly the same.

As another example, people can describe combat in any of a variety of ways, describing Expertise as "imposing the shield before me more studiously" and Power Attack as "a more powerful swing" or as "a momentum swing from a sweep," but again, none of these really impact the functionality of each one. Functionally, each Fighter Power Attacks much any other if they're mechanically similar, regardless of how they fluff it.

Yes, the Power Attack example doesn't include NPCs, but that's not the point. Unless you change the mechanics of it, the function is the same.



Why do you have to know one of a specific small set of weapon techniques to gain the aid of the fey? Never mind the cost of the learning. What is the connection between these particular ways of putting sharp metal into people's bodies, and the ability to call on the fey for aid?


Likewise, you need to know 4 levels of Cleric spells before you can cast Raise Dead and moreover, every other Cleric of your faith knows the exact same requests you do. How likely is that, particularly for itinerant churchless Clerics who don't worship gods but causes?

In fact, every Cleric of every faith in the world has remarkably similar spell effects. Why can't they use arcane-like effects? Do the gods not grant that sort of function? Are these gods less powerful than Wizards? Does this imply some sort of limited imagination on the part of the gods or something? It's ludicrous, but we just invent fluff to explain it away.

The same is possible here. Is it all that unlikely that such fickle fey would want some proof of the "worthiness" of heroes they bestow such help unto? If they're going to set some sort of internally decided criteria, then it's very likely to be completely arbitrary, and why not the prerequisites for IHS? Are other Fighters all that bad? Maybe not, but these are fey we're talking about here. Who knows why they chose such rigorous and specific criteria?



Somewhat relatedly, why is it that there are four distinct ways in which you can recover the ability to 'call on the fey', depending on which, if any, of the three ToB classes you have taken? Especially, why do crusaders have so little control over whether or not they can do so?


It's related to the user, I suppose. Again, easy enough to explain, if you give it half a chance. Just as each warrior's "recovery" reflects some abstract readiness in combat, it's possible that the same thing is required to ask for the aid of the fey.

For instance, a Crusader's random maneuver slate could reflect a dependence on the ebb and flow of battle to use his expertise, rather than the brick wall of arbitrary "divine inspiration." Just as he has to wait for an opportunity, an opening to use his strikes, he may need to wait for some opportunity to give himself enough time to mentally summon his friends - he's otherwise too busy just trying not to get killed.

For Warblades, it could be related to their bold daring - they have to steel their wills to dare summon such beings before they can call for aid again.

It's all just fluff, after all. Eventually, you will come up with some internally logical way to rationalize it.



Is this re-write the mechanism behind Iron Heart Surge for every character, or is the maneuver now different for different people? That is, does learning Iron Heart Surge now have the a special affiliation prerequisite?


It's just fluff. Each Warblade or Crusader or other character can make up his own fluff, just as it is for every class feature for every class in D&D. One's a Barbarian Wizard who casts his spells written on animal skins and using no material components. Another is a Collegiate Wizard who requires esoteric components wrung from even more esoteric theories to call upon universal magical energy. They both cast the same Fireball, even though the fluff for each is different.

Matthew:

I seem to have lost my copy of Le'Morte d'Arthur. I'll see if I can purchase one tomorrow. Sorry for the delay.

[Skjaldbakka]

You seem to be talking in circles here. The example of fey granting IHS because they like the warblade is a bad one, but it was just an example. Fey-granted IHS certainly wouldn't be (ex.), which is the problem I have with IHS (apart from some apparently heinous things can get rid of that I hadn't thought of because my games don't deal with salient divine powers and Epic spells). IHS could be (ex.) for a great number of effects, but there are to many things that it can do that aren't humanly possible -thus the need for it to be a (su.) ability - or to have some restrictions on what it can stop. Perhaps a conditional (su.) trait? Of course that would be alot more work than just calling a duck a duck.

As to why I think the fey example breaks down. I am a warblade, and thus have the grace of the fey. For some reason I decide that I hate the fey, and go on a genocidal rampage against fey. And yet, they still give me the power to throw off effects? Even effects they try to use to stop me from killing them?

[Roxlimn]

The fey stop helping you and you find that your own belief in them was what was doing it in the first place. Wretched tricksters! Even more reason to hate them!

[Green Bean]

As to why I think the fey example breaks down. I am a warblade, and thus have the grace of the fey. For some reason I decide that I hate the fey, and go on a genocidal rampage against fey. And yet, they still give me the power to throw off effects? Even effects they try to use to stop me from killing them?

As to why I think the magic example breaks down. I am a wizard, and thus have the manipulate the power of the Weave. For some reason I decide that I hate Mystra, and go on a genocidal rampage against her worshippers. And yet, she still gives me the power to cast spells? Even spells I use to kill her clerics?

[Matthew]

Matthew:

I seem to have lost my copy of Le'Morte d'Arthur. I'll see if I can purchase one tomorrow. Sorry for the delay.

No problem, I am giving it another read myself at the moment. I think you might be able to find the text online. Just in case you're interested, here's a link to the TEAMS (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/tmsmenu.htm) Website, which has made a large number of Middle English Texts available over the years.

Hope my above post (#273) helped to clear up the other issues.

[Skjaldbakka]

As to why I think the magic example breaks down. I am a wizard, and thus have the manipulate the power of the Weave. For some reason I decide that I hate Mystra, and go on a genocidal rampage against her worshippers. And yet, she still gives me the power to cast spells? Even spells I use to kill her clerics?

Actually, in this example, Mystra strips your ability to use the weave. You'll never use magic in the realms again (unless you petition whats-her-name, the goddess that made the shadow-weave). This example doesn't break down because it is actually well-defined within the setting.

btw, you actually can get in Mystra's good graces and gain special abilities independent of class levels and feats. As opposed to the fey example, which requires a lot of setting support for one ability. Otherwise you get arbitrary knee-jerk explanations like this:



The fey stop helping you and you find that your own belief in them was what was doing it in the first place. Wretched tricksters! Even more reason to hate them!

Not to mention that Fey-granted IHS has even less justification for not being a supernatural ability.

[Green Bean]

Actually, in this example, Mystra strips your ability to use the weave. You'll never use magic in the realms again (unless you petition whats-her-name, the goddess that made the shadow-weave). This example doesn't break down because it is actually well-defined within the setting.

btw, you actually can get in Mystra's good graces and gain special abilities independent of class levels and feats. As opposed to the fey example, which requires a lot of setting support for one ability. Otherwise you get arbitrary knee-jerk explanations like this:


The point I'm trying to make was that no matter what[ you define anything's source as; if it's limited or destroyed within campaign, it'll vanish. If you decide to change the fluff of the bard so that it draws its power from dragons, and kill the dragons, then the power vanishes. A druid draws power from nature, so if something exceedingly horrible happens to it, then they'll obviously be reduced in power. IHS is no different; describing it as coming from fey means that random fey-genocides will affect it, saying it's an empathic link to nature will have problems if everyone turns into those villains from Captain Planet.

Campaign specific events aren't something you can hold against an ability or power. Going back to the fey example, what if you change it to sorcerers getting powers from the fey? Would that be acceptable? It makes about as much sense as getting it from dragons.

[Ulzgoroth]

The point I'm trying to make was that no matter what[ you define anything's source as; if it's limited or destroyed within campaign, it'll vanish. If you decide to change the fluff of the bard so that it draws its power from dragons, and kill the dragons, then the power vanishes. A druid draws power from nature, so if something exceedingly horrible happens to it, then they'll obviously be reduced in power. IHS is no different; describing it as coming from fey means that random fey-genocides will affect it, saying it's an empathic link to nature will have problems if everyone turns into those villains from Captain Planet.

Campaign specific events aren't something you can hold against an ability or power. Going back to the fey example, what if you change it to sorcerers getting powers from the fey? Would that be acceptable? It makes about as much sense as getting it from dragons.
If that were the actual approach I'd have much less objection to the whole thing. Making the mechanics of things fit their in-game basis is good. However, Roxlimn's statements on this have been that the description, or 'fluff' will have no effect on the actual use of the ability. If you go make war on the fey who are providing your power:

The fey stop helping you and you find that your own belief in them was what was doing it in the first place. Wretched tricksters! Even more reason to hate them!

Only, of course, they weren't lying until the DM decided that they had to be so that the mechanics could remain entirely independent of the things they purport to represent.:smallyuk:

[Skjaldbakka]

Going back to the fey example, what if you change it to sorcerers getting powers from the fey? Would that be acceptable? It makes about as much sense as getting it from dragons.

It is my understanding that the 'sorcerers gain power from dragons' fluff is more along the lines of dragons are inherently magical creatures, and the sorcerer has a draconic bloodline of some sort, and thus inherited some of that mojo, not dragons grant powers.

A sorcerer that received powers from the fey on those same lines would be just fine. I believe there is a sourcebook that discusses this vary thing.

The point I'm trying to make is that IHS should be supernatural. Saying it comes from fey, or dragons, or the Grand Pumba doesn't make it feel any less like a supernatural ability.

[Merlin the Tuna]

IHS could be (ex.) for a great number of effects, but there are to many things that it can do that aren't humanly possible -thus the need for it to be a (su.) ability - or to have some restrictions on what it can stop.I reject your premise.
Extraordinary Abilities (Ex)

Extraordinary abilities are nonmagical, though they may break the laws of physics. They are not something that just anyone can do or even learn to do without extensive training."Not humanly possible" does not equal "supernatural," or else skills would very quickly become supernatural abilities (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=12393614&postcount=239) as well.

[Skjaldbakka]

"Not humanly possible" does not equal "supernatural," or else skills would very quickly become supernatural abilities as well.

I reject your argument. That is a problem with some skills. A problem that is shared by Iron Heart Surge. There are many applications of IHS that aren't supernatural effects. Likewise, most skill applications aren't supernatural either. But there are some effects that IHS, and some high level skill checks, can create, that ARE supernatural.

How many other effects can you name that remove spell effects from a target that aren't supernatural(or spell-like). Slippery Mind can, but it is very limited. Name one effect that can remove a Baleful Polymorph spell, a Dominate Person spell, and a Bestow Curse spell, that aren't supernatural or spell-like.

[Reel On, Love]

I reject your argument. That is a problem with some skills. A problem that is shared by Iron Heart Surge. There are many applications of IHS that aren't supernatural effects. Likewise, most skill applications aren't supernatural either. But there are some effects that IHS, and some high level skill checks, can create, that ARE supernatural.
Why is that a problem? D&D doesn't assume that characters won't be able to do inhuman things without magic--that'd be stupid. a high-level archer can fire five arrows at a guy next to him in six seconds... and kick him in the face, too, if he has Snap Kick. A rogue... see Evasion, below. At level two.
For chrissake, the description of Extraordinary effects specifically says they can break the laws of physics and otherwise be impossible!

You said, "IHS does humanly impossible things, thus it needs to be (Su)".
Merlin said, "But (Ex) abilities can explicitly do humanly impossible things, (Su) abilities aren't required for that."
You said... "But they shouldn't be able to"? Is that it? Well, then, good luck redoing all of D&D to make that fit, because it directly contradicts one of the fundamental premises of the game.


How many other effects can you name that remove spell effects from a target that aren't supernatural(or spell-like). Slippery Mind can, but it is very limited. Name one effect that can remove a Baleful Polymorph spell, a Dominate Person spell, and a Bestow Curse spell, that aren't supernatural or spell-like.
Slippery Mind is a very good one, and mentioning it means you already know there's precedent: "I flex my mind and avoid the magical geas" is okay, but "I roar with effort and shake off the magical geas" isn't? Evasion allows you to entirely avoid a fireball in a 5' by 5' by 5' room. Mettle lets you shrug off things like Baleful Polymorph; it's just that Mettle is immediate and Iron Heart Surge takes you a moment.
You can't use IHS under the effect of Baleful Polymorph or Dominate Person. As for Bestow Curse, try making your freakin' saving throw--like with Mettle.

What's more, there are many unique or almost unique effects in the game.Rage is (Ex), Animal Companion is (Ex), Venom Immunity is (Ex), TIMELESS BODY is (Ex). That's right. You just plain stop aging until you suddenly keel over.

[Skjaldbakka]

Mettle doesn't throw off baleful polymorph. Netither does it apply to any of my examples, which are save negates. A successful save does. Up to this point I haven't been arguing the point that IHS is incredibly overpowered (which it is).

The real problem I have with IHS is that you can transform using it. You can get turned into a toad, and then next round, next week, next year- you can turn back into you. That is a transformation effect. How the hell is that not supernatural!



You can't use IHS under the effect of Baleful Polymorph or Dominate Person.

How do you figure? You can still move and take standard actions under both. If the dominator doesn't give you a command that takes up your standard action, or specifically command you not to use IHS, you can- unless I missesd something.

[Reel On, Love]

Mettle doesn't throw off baleful polymorph. Netither does it apply to any of my examples, which are save negates. A successful save does. Up to this point I haven't been arguing the point that IHS is incredibly overpowered (which it is).
If you make a save against an ability that has a partial effect even on a successful save, Mettle negates that. So if a wizard throws down a Maw of Chaos and I shrug off the dazing, Mettle lets me walk right through the magic chaos-jaws.
IHS is only overpowered in absurd situations--"I IHS the Dire Winter!"


The real problem I have with IHS is that you can transform using it. You can get turned into a toad, and then next round, next week, next year- you can turn back into you. That is a transformation effect. How the hell is that not supernatural!
I dunno, how the hell is not aging not supernatural?

In D&D, Supernatural doesn't cover everything physically impossible. All (Su) means is that something is "magical"--which is different from "humanly impossible"--and goes away in an Antimagic Field (but ignores SR, Dispel, etc). All (Ex) means is that something

So it would be possible for an effect that transforms you to be (Ex). "Extraordinary" EXPLICITLY SAYS "may break the laws of physics".
That said, IHS doesn't transform you. It destroys the spell, thus restoring your natural form (in the same way that going into an AMF while under the effects of Baleful Polymorph does).

[Roxlimn]

Ulzgoroth:



Only, of course, they weren't lying until the DM decided that they had to be so that the mechanics could remain entirely independent of the things they purport to represent.


They may not have meant to lie. By telling you you're free, they free you by inducing the belief. It's a little like hypnotism, you might say. By making you think you can, they enable you to do so. So in a way, they weren't lying to you when they say that they free you. They just didn't tell you how they were doing it.

It's fluff man. I don't see what the problem here is other than you insisting that fluff has to be your particular way or the highway. It's not like it's the only way I fluffed IHS, either.

[Ulzgoroth]

They may not have meant to lie. By telling you you're free, they free you by inducing the belief. It's a little like hypnotism, you might say. By making you think you can, they enable you to do so. So in a way, they weren't lying to you when they say that they free you. They just didn't tell you how they were doing it.
I think you were perfectly well aware of what I was saying there. But just to eliminate any possibility of subtlety: The DM realized you had done something incompatible with his 'fluff', and decided instead of making the mechanics obey the explanation, to change the explanation on you under cover of 'you can't prove it wasn't this way all along'.

This makes the entire game nothing more than a cheap coverup for the 'mechanics' that are obviously just sacred enough to never differ from the sourcebook for any reason, but not sacred enough to actually be supported by the 'fluff'.

It's fluff man. I don't see what the problem here is other than you insisting that fluff has to be your particular way or the highway. It's not like it's the only way I fluffed IHS, either.
If "my particular way" means the 'fluff' actually working with the 'mechanics' rather than being stretched over whatever you feel like sticking in there without concern for whether it makes any sense, then yes. Otherwise, not really. I think I addressed "It's fluff man" a few posts up...

You did offer a couple other covers for IHS. One of them required that your backstory include apprenticeship to a wizard, and to my mind indicated ranks of Spellcraft... The other I can't recall at the moment.

[Roxlimn]

Ulzgoroth:



This makes the entire game nothing more than a cheap coverup for the 'mechanics' that are obviously just sacred enough to never differ from the sourcebook for any reason, but not sacred enough to actually be supported by the 'fluff'.


The game is the mechanics, man. If you just want the fluff, you don't need to play D&D to make it!

Fluff is something you layer on the mechanics. Yes, it's a layer-over and it can be anything you want. You can't justify mechanical limitations on the basis of fluff, and you can't substitute mechanics for fluff. They are altogether separate elements, though they do interact.

I don't hold any mechanic sacred in any way whatsoever. For that matter, I don't hold any fluff sacred. I'm just saying that a change in fluff doesn't necessarily mean a change in mechanics, and vice versa.

For me, mechanics support the fluff. Mechanics for its own sake is stupid. If the mechanics don't support the fluff, change the mechanics.



If "my particular way" means the 'fluff' actually working with the 'mechanics' rather than being stretched over whatever you feel like sticking in there without concern for whether it makes any sense, then yes. Otherwise, not really. I think I addressed "It's fluff man" a few posts up...


1. My fluff works with the mechanics just fine. You simply don't like the way it does. That doesn't mean that it doesn't work. That's just your own inherent bias.

2. "Making sense" is overrated. Magic by nature doesn't make sense. You can layer any number of logical constructs on it to hide this, but in the end, it's there simply because it's there. Indeed, this is true of real life existence as well. You only make whatever sense out of life as you choose to. In the end, it's not about logic or reason, but about faith. And faith doesn't make sense.

[Ulzgoroth]

For me, mechanics support the fluff. Mechanics for its own sake is stupid. If the mechanics don't support the fluff, change the mechanics.
I agree wholeheartedly. But all this time, you've been attempting to slap specific fluff on a mechanic that I cannot possibly imagine is the one you would have made up to fit that fluff. Even if you do insist that they aren't actually incompatible. And insisting, over and over, that fluff is unimportant and utterly changeable. I've been arguing from mechanics instead of from fluff because their compatibility is the same either way, and the mechanics are more clearly defined than the specks of fluff that are supposed to be responsible for them.

I admit I have some inclination to write or re-write the fluff to fit pre-existing mechanics rather than write new fluff and new mechanics, for a few reasons, but the intent there is to create fluff that the mechanics support.

1. My fluff works with the mechanics just fine. You simply don't like the way it does. That doesn't mean that it doesn't work. That's just your own inherent bias.
That's a nice, if repetitive, accusation, but you seem to have stopped even trying to support it. If you're going to tell me why I'm wrong, do it with reasoning rather than claiming to read my mind. Please.

2. "Making sense" is overrated. Magic by nature doesn't make sense. You can layer any number of logical constructs on it to hide this, but in the end, it's there simply because it's there. Indeed, this is true of real life existence as well. You only make whatever sense out of life as you choose to. In the end, it's not about logic or reason, but about faith. And faith doesn't make sense.
I certainly don't know about in the end, but in the middle a great deal of 'it' is about logic and reason. Like the construction and development of the computer you are presumably using to post here. And every other piece of technology that makes modern civilization function. ...I'm afraid to attack this as closely as I'd like to to avoid treading near the RL religion rule.

Can you name one thing in real life that you can show to not make sense? Because there's a difference between not making sense and not being understood.

Magic is, or is derived from, alternate physics. That's all, by the very meaning of physics, it can be. It doesn't need to make any sense in context of our reality, but it it's own context it defines sense. Someone within a standard D&D setting who thinks it makes no sense that a properly trained, sufficiently intelligent human can create a fireball by purely mental processes is in the same category as someone in real life who thinks it makes no sense that rocks sit on the ground.

[Roxlimn]

Ulzgoroth:



I agree wholeheartedly. But all this time, you've been attempting to slap specific fluff on a mechanic that I cannot possibly imagine is the one you would have made up to fit that fluff. Even if you do insist that they aren't actually incompatible. And insisting, over and over, that fluff is unimportant and utterly changeable. I've been arguing from mechanics instead of from fluff because their compatibility is the same either way, and the mechanics are more clearly defined than the specks of fluff that are supposed to be responsible for them.


I mention three such possible fluff choices, any of which are okay. You're the one who's obsessing about one such fluff instance that I just pulled from off the top of my head.

Fluff is important, but it's not all that constrained by mechanics. The same mechanical representation can be fluffed any of several different ways. What I'm saying is that while mechanics ought to support fluff, a set mechanic can be made to support several different fluffing.

As long as the mechanics of the ability doesn't change and is never made to change, there's no mechanical difference, and no, one instance of fluff doesn't lead to a chain of necessary reasons that end the world.



That's a nice, if repetitive, accusation, but you seem to have stopped even trying to support it. If you're going to tell me why I'm wrong, do it with reasoning rather than claiming to read my mind. Please.


Not at all. You've proven that with enough effort, you can make totally and seemingly nonsensical mechanics work with different kinds of fluff. The fact that you're willing to do this for some fluff but not for others tells me that it's a simple matter of willingness to do it, rather than an impossibility, as you imply.



Can you name one thing in real life that you can show to not make sense? Because there's a difference between not making sense and not being understood.


All right. What is the meaning of life? Where is the sense in a person living only long enough to know that he is suffering, and then to inflict loss and pain on his family? What is the purpose of existence? What is the sense of existence?



Magic is, or is derived from, alternate physics. That's all, by the very meaning of physics, it can be. It doesn't need to make any sense in context of our reality, but it it's own context it defines sense.


What makes you think that magic is simply alternative physics? In D&D particularly? There doesn't seem to be anything that points to this in my view. Magic is magic, and it's not fully understood and it's not subject to repeatability and experimentation the way physics is.

[Starbuck_II]

All right. What is the meaning of life? Where is the sense in a person living only long enough to know that he is suffering, and then to inflict loss and pain on his family? What is the purpose of existence? What is the sense of existence?

To learn. And pass the tests of life. And return.

Where to depends on other factors.

Done. See how simple that was.
Silly humans can't precieve how simple life is.

Back to the base qustion:
A better question would be: Why the Platapus? I can't imagine how anyone can explain this evolution.

[Roxlimn]

StarbuckII:

Really? And all those little boys and girls who live short miserable pain-filled lives because of congenital defects and little to no modern medical aid, what do they learn? What kind of sick tests can be passed by a blind toddler who can't even hold his food down because he vomits too frequently from constant pain so severe it makes grown men pass out? You have a sense for that, too?

[Ulzgoroth]

I mention three such possible fluff choices, any of which are okay. You're the one who's obsessing about one such fluff instance that I just pulled from off the top of my head.
I picked it because it was the easiest target, and the one that most obviously struck me as failing to fit. You insist that it's completely fine, so the target doesn't go away.

Fluff is important, but it's not all that constrained by mechanics. The same mechanical representation can be fluffed any of several different ways. What I'm saying is that while mechanics ought to support fluff, a set mechanic can be made to support several different fluffing.

As long as the mechanics of the ability doesn't change and is never made to change, there's no mechanical difference, and no, one instance of fluff doesn't lead to a chain of necessary reasons that end the world.
It's true. There are quite a lot of different descriptions that can be supported by a specific mechanic. That is not the same thing as saying that all descriptions are supported by a given mechanic. If I proposed that the 'disarm' action be restated as staring at the enemy so hard they drop their weapon, would you think that was fine? With all the existing rules for disarmament staying exactly the same.

Not at all. You've proven that with enough effort, you can make totally and seemingly nonsensical mechanics work with different kinds of fluff. The fact that you're willing to do this for some fluff but not for others tells me that it's a simple matter of willingness to do it, rather than an impossibility, as you imply.
:smallyuk: :smallfurious: :smallmad: :smallannoyed:
...I'd like to get to :smallamused: , but I haven't yet.

All right. What is the meaning of life? Where is the sense in a person living only long enough to know that he is suffering, and then to inflict loss and pain on his family? What is the purpose of existence? What is the sense of existence?
Um. What?

Three of those four questions are philosophical artifacts whose 'significance' derives entirely from shoddy language. If you can tell me what the noun phrase 'meaning of life' means non-recursively, I'll see what I can do for you (but see unknown vs. nonsensical). I may as well throw back: "what is the meaning of egg?"

I have to ask you to stop trying to make me take a run at theology. I'm fairly sure that I don't have to name a religion to set off the religion rule, and I don't feel like finding out the hard way. Philosophy does not exist in anything concretely measurable, so it isn't relevant anyway.

The other is also meant as a philosophical question. But I will say that you can probably find an explanation (if not a 'sense', as you want the word to mean) in sufficiently detailed electrochemical evaluation of the person's brain at the right point or points in their life. Plus a whole lot of such examinations of other brains and some heavy computational work to extract some meaning from your results. The measurement alone is a hard problem, though...no one has a good way of getting a state-read on a functioning brain.

What makes you think that magic is simply alternative physics? In D&D particularly? There doesn't seem to be anything that points to this in my view. Magic is magic, and it's not fully understood and it's not subject to repeatability and experimentation the way physics is.
First of all, I see a great deal of repeatability in D&D magic. Seeing as, you know, you can cast the same spell over and over. Oh, and someone else can too. So yes, there is repeatability. And besides the experimentation described in spell-research fluff, it is certainly the case that you can run experiments regardless of anything else. Anything can be an experiment.

But even more than that, you're loading assumptions onto the word physics that aren't implied. Physics is how causality works, that's all (It's sometimes described as the study of matter and energy, but that's cyclic since it also defines those terms). Provided that you have causality at all, you have physics. And since you're running your world from the real one, you most certainly do have causality. Even if you don't want it.

A better question would be: Why the Platapus? I can't imagine how anyone can explain this evolution.
Why not the Platypus? I was asking for a demonstration that something doesn't make sense, not an example of something you can't make sense of.

That said, there are people who make their job working on the answer to that question. A predictably good jumping-off point, if you really care, is Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme).

[Roxlimn]

Ulzgoroth:



I picked it because it was the easiest target, and the one that most obviously struck me as failing to fit. You insist that it's completely fine, so the target doesn't go away.


And yet even if you prove it untenable, it's not a very big issue at all in the scheme of my assertion. It simply proves that that particular fluff was untenable, and you're quite a ways off from that one as is.

I'm just trying to tell you that you're tilting at windmills.

If you like that sort of thing, tilt away.



It's true. There are quite a lot of different descriptions that can be supported by a specific mechanic. That is not the same thing as saying that all descriptions are supported by a given mechanic. If I proposed that the 'disarm' action be restated as staring at the enemy so hard they drop their weapon, would you think that was fine? With all the existing rules for disarmament staying exactly the same.


It would be a spectacularly bad piece of fluff, but as long as the mechanics don't change, it won't ruin a game.



The other is also meant as a philosophical question. But I will say that you can probably find an explanation (if not a 'sense', as you want the word to mean) in sufficiently detailed electrochemical evaluation of the person's brain at the right point or points in their life.


I'm sorry, but your wanting for all fluff to "make sense" from an in-game perspective is inherently a philosophical question. If you can't answer the philosophy of it, then you fail to prove your point.

For what it's worth, empiricism and rationalism (?) have been at odds since time immemorial, and there seems to be no clear winner on that score. This is just an informative aside, in case you decide that you have a way to completely discredit empiricist and behavioralist schools of thought.



First of all, I see a great deal of repeatability in D&D magic. Seeing as, you know, you can cast the same spell over and over. Oh, and someone else can too. So yes, there is repeatability. And besides the experimentation described in spell-research fluff, it is certainly the case that you can run experiments regardless of anything else. Anything can be an experiment.


Not at all. D&D magic is both repeatable and nonrepeatable. Outside of extraordinary feats, a person's casting of fireball is not the same as another. One does 6 damage, another does 25, in subsequent rounds, by absolutely the same caster.

Furthermore, extremely similar fireball effects can be created by different casters, even though one looks like a ball of fire and one looks like a ball of ghostly fire, and a third looks like god knows what else. And they don't even have to be invoking the same powers or using the same technique.

"Experimentation" in the magical sense is used here very loosely. It's not the same rigorous technique used by physicists and I dare you to prove that it is so in every D&D world.



But even more than that, you're loading assumptions onto the word physics that aren't implied. Physics is how causality works, that's all (It's sometimes described as the study of matter and energy, but that's cyclic since it also defines those terms). Provided that you have causality at all, you have physics. And since you're running your world from the real one, you most certainly do have causality. Even if you don't want it.


Physics is the body of knowledge accumulated from the study of empirical physical sciences as defined by the Scientific Method. If something doesn't conform to this, then it's simply not "physics."

Physics is not the study of causality. That falls under philosophy, and the study of causality under philosophy ranges from Neoplatonism to Rationalist Metaphysics, to Causality in Chinese Taoist Elementalism. Causality is one of the assumptions you make when you study physics, but physics itself does not prove causality, nor is it the only thought structure that has causality.

That is, even if you have causality, you may or may not be talking about physics.

D&D's structure of mythology based references flies in the face of causality of even the most extreme metaphysical form.

If you can prove the universality of causality in Arthurian legend, Beowulf, or Lord of the Rings, please do so concisely.

[Starbuck_II]

Why not the Platypus? I was asking for a demonstration that something doesn't make sense, not an example of something you can't make sense of.

That said, there are people who make their job working on the answer to that question. A predictably good jumping-off point, if you really care, is Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme).

They didn't edxplain why it is the way it is.

They said, " researchers still don't know" to many things. So currently, "Why the Playpus" is a perfect answer to something that doesn't make sense.


To change topics:


Physics is not the study of causality. That falls under philosophy, and the study of causality under philosophy ranges from Neoplatonism to Rationalist Metaphysics, to Causality in Chinese Taoist Elementalism. Causality is one of the assumptions you make when you study physics, but physics itself does not prove causality, nor is it the only thought structure that has causality.

That is, even if you have causality, you may or may not be talking about physics.

D&D's structure of mythology based references flies in the face of causality of even the most extreme metaphysical form.

If you can prove the universality of causality in Arthurian legend, Beowulf, or Lord of the Rings, please do so concisely.

Physics is the study of nature (greek word for nature). The study of the nature order of things.

This is a subset of logos (reason).

Mythos (maqgic/Divine maqgic) is a not logos thus physics ca'nt explain magic by defintion.
At the very least Divine magic because it involves divinity (whetyher directly like cleric or indirectly like Druid).

Universal causality? The One?
Idealism is belief in some fundamental & something not in nature created everything.
First concieved by Anaxamander called the "Boundless".
Pythagoras said Numbers did.

So really, this is basically a D&D philsophy question (physics and philosophy are closely linked).

[Serenity]

So Iron Heart Surge needs to be made more specific about what magic it can and cannot undo. Fair enough. You've shown one instance where the mechanic needs work. But tell me, setting aside instances like shrugging off Baleful Polymorph, what's so very supernatural about it? Through indomitable force of will/supreme effort/sheer grit and determination, you claw free from magical hindrances. That's the sort of thing fantasy heroes should be doing.

Crusader healing strike? Hit points are an abstraction. They cover actual wounds, tiring and becoming less able to dodge, luck/divine favor, etc. Witnessing a compatriot scoring a telling blow, and drawing the inspiration/adrenaline rush to get back in the action is simply heroic mettle.That it becomes somewhat dodgy in the very specific instance when a negative hit-point character also has senses-depriving status effect is not a big enough objection to make it supernatural. That you are lying bleeding out does not necessarily preclude witnessing the effort.

[Ulzgoroth]

I'm just trying to tell you that you're tilting at windmills.

If you like that sort of thing, tilt away.

It would be a spectacularly bad piece of fluff, but as long as the mechanics don't change, it won't ruin a game.
Maybe it's unimportant to you. It seems to me a perfectly good representative of the 'who cares about coherency' approach. Which you stand up for again here...

Does it not bother you that I can trivially construct a situation in which the exact same actions are taken, insofar as the target can discern, but the mechanics don't permit a disarm attempt to be made?

I'm sorry, but your wanting for all fluff to "make sense" from an in-game perspective is inherently a philosophical question. If you can't answer the philosophy of it, then you fail to prove your point.

For what it's worth, empiricism and rationalism (?) have been at odds since time immemorial, and there seems to be no clear winner on that score. This is just an informative aside, in case you decide that you have a way to completely discredit empiricist and behavioralist schools of thought.
You know, I didn't start talking about dead European gibberish-emitters. I swear I didn't. Just to find out what you're talking about required reference to wikipedia. I still fail to see the relevance.

Based on that preliminary reading, the meaning seems to be that rationalists consider axioms pulled out of thin air...or someplace...to be the origin of knowledge. For some reason. (arguably, trusting in any senses qualifies, but that trivializes the topic). I have no idea why you're identifying me with them...I can't think of anything I've said that supports that idea. Whereas empiricists are characterized by saying 'you people need to pull your heads out and look around for a minute'. And in some rather extreme cases by 'you need to stop thinking'...while making complicated logical arguments to that effect, I assume. Behavioralism doesn't seem to be covered as a philosophy. I hope they make slightly more sense when presented by a better source.:smallconfused:

I don't know what you mean by 'answer the philosophy of it'. Feel free to clarify.

Not at all. D&D magic is both repeatable and nonrepeatable. Outside of extraordinary feats, a person's casting of fireball is not the same as another. One does 6 damage, another does 25, in subsequent rounds, by absolutely the same caster.

Furthermore, extremely similar fireball effects can be created by different casters, even though one looks like a ball of fire and one looks like a ball of ghostly fire, and a third looks like god knows what else. And they don't even have to be invoking the same powers or using the same technique.
I'm trying to understand how you think a sentence meaning (A and not A) can ever be meaningful...

Also, while it is suggested that you can make the appearance of a fireball vary, when speaking of wizards it is also true that you can have several wizards casting from a single spellbook. How much variation exists between people using the exact same writeup of the exact same spell is left an open question, but it certainly cuts out some sources of variation.

Maximize exists, and while only level 11 wizards (with nothing better to do) will be maximizing fireballs directly, the ability to do so is not particularly extraordinary among them. That aside, it is up to the architect where the randomness comes from in your nd6. There are so many factors not directly addressed by the game rules and potentially not subject to measurement by known in-game means that I would have no difficulty attributing that variation to factors not controlled for by the spell, which is designed for quick deployment in the field, not theoretical research.

Also, whether or not our causality includes metaphorical rolled dice, I see no problem with such existing in another world. 6d6 damage is readily measurable. You just need to run a number of trials, collect the statistics, and try to restrain your head from exploding at the conclusion. You can measure the damage by the thickness of some material...gold, say...melted through.

"Experimentation" in the magical sense is used here very loosely. It's not the same rigorous technique used by physicists and I dare you to prove that it is so in every D&D world.
'rigor' generally means 'think of every variable that probably matters, try to lock it down, and see if you get consistency'. Working to that standard of rigor, in-game 'physicists' running mage guilds would have no difficulty at all deriving quite a bit of the game mechanics.

D&D's structure of mythology based references flies in the face of causality of even the most extreme metaphysical form.

If you can prove the universality of causality in Arthurian legend, Beowulf, or Lord of the Rings, please do so concisely.
I dispute your premise. D&D may be inspired by those (though I'd say that the first two are doubtful), but I see no reason to think it is rooted in them, or claims their events as its own. Particularly in the current edition. Any number of people will cheerfully point out that LotR, in particular, is messy to adapt at some points.

The only common causality you'll find for those disparate pieces of fiction is probably the real-world causality driving all the writers involved. And if you find that in a complete form, please publish. Or ascend to godhood, if you prefer.

They didn't edxplain why it is the way it is.

They said, " researchers still don't know" to many things. So currently, "Why the Playpus" is a perfect answer to something that doesn't make sense.
Is there a difference in definition of 'not making sense' between us? I understand not making sense to be a distinct condition from not being fully explained. Due to the incompleteness of physics, I think it would be accurate to say nothing is fully explained...

Physics is the study of nature (greek word for nature). The study of the nature order of things.

This is a subset of logos (reason).

Mythos (maqgic/Divine maqgic) is a not logos thus physics ca'nt explain magic by defintion.
At the very least Divine magic because it involves divinity (whetyher directly like cleric or indirectly like Druid).
Um, if you want to make these claims you had better define those words. As far as I can see, the first paragraph directly states that magic, being part of 'nature' by any reasonable definition in a fantasy world, falls under the domain of local physics.

Though honestly, this entire debate seems to be a simple matter of disputing my use of the word physics. I don't believe my usage to be incorrect, but wouldn't it be simpler to offer another word that would offend you less? Unless there's something unclear about what I mean by it?

[Roxlimn]

Ulzgoroth:



Maybe it's unimportant to you. It seems to me a perfectly good representative of the 'who cares about coherency' approach. Which you stand up for again here...

Does it not bother you that I can trivially construct a situation in which the exact same actions are taken, insofar as the target can discern, but the mechanics don't permit a disarm attempt to be made?


No, the exact same actions aren't made. One is a disarming glare, the other one is not. Those are not the same actions.



I don't know what you mean by 'answer the philosophy of it'. Feel free to clarify.


Your need to "make sense" is borne out of a sense of some inherent logic of causality to a fictional world -a view that is somewhat supported by the rationalist school of thought. An empiricist would not care whether an event made sense or not. It's more important that it occurred at all and was observed.



Also, while it is suggested that you can make the appearance of a fireball vary, when speaking of wizards it is also true that you can have several wizards casting from a single spellbook. How much variation exists between people using the exact same writeup of the exact same spell is left an open question, but it certainly cuts out some sources of variation.


It's also possible that two Wizards from the same school and university can't do this, whereas one of these Wizards and some Barbarian "shaman" can share skins and books. This doesn't decrease variation. It increases it!



Maximize exists, and while only level 11 wizards (with nothing better to do) will be maximizing fireballs directly, the ability to do so is not particularly extraordinary among them. That aside, it is up to the architect where the randomness comes from in your nd6. There are so many factors not directly addressed by the game rules and potentially not subject to measurement by known in-game means that I would have no difficulty attributing that variation to factors not controlled for by the spell, which is designed for quick deployment in the field, not theoretical research.


I could say much the same thing about why the fey work as mysteriously as they did in relation to IHS crunch.



Also, whether or not our causality includes metaphorical rolled dice, I see no problem with such existing in another world. 6d6 damage is readily measurable. You just need to run a number of trials, collect the statistics, and try to restrain your head from exploding at the conclusion. You can measure the damage by the thickness of some material...gold, say...melted through.


Except that no one really can measure all that reliably what level a Wizard actually is, and assuming that fireball damage is indicative is a luxury we have from this side of the mechanical screen. AND all this assumes that there are no further attenuating circumstances like various feats and character quirks that the characters in question may or may not believe to have an effect (but which we would know).

Complete causality would be difficult to determine at this point.



'rigor' generally means 'think of every variable that probably matters, try to lock it down, and see if you get consistency'. Working to that standard of rigor, in-game 'physicists' running mage guilds would have no difficulty at all deriving quite a bit of the game mechanics.


You're mistaken. We've had great difficulty in real life just determining very simple truths and we use all kinds of conceptual structures like statistics, the scientific method, and probability mechanics that these guys don't have.

Regardless of that, the point I'm getting at is that experiments in physics are quite detailed, quite rigorously applied, and adhere strictly to principles of the scientific method. These same things cannot be said to universally apply to the study of D&D magic.



I dispute your premise. D&D may be inspired by those (though I'd say that the first two are doubtful), but I see no reason to think it is rooted in them, or claims their events as its own. Particularly in the current edition. Any number of people will cheerfully point out that LotR, in particular, is messy to adapt at some points.

The only common causality you'll find for those disparate pieces of fiction is probably the real-world causality driving all the writers involved. And if you find that in a complete form, please publish. Or ascend to godhood, if you prefer.


You can't dispute what you don't understand. I'm saying that D&D's mythological framework is very similar to the myths which inspires it. There is no root causality in D&D mythology that I can determine any more than there is in these myths. If you can show otherwise, please do so.

[Ulzgoroth]

No, the exact same actions aren't made. One is a disarming glare, the other one is not. Those are not the same actions.
...ok. But in one case, the glare comes from a real person, within 5 feet, armed with a greatsword, and free to move. In another, it comes from an illusion of the exact same thing, for which the will save is failed (if allowed at all). In a third, the person is holding a dagger with an illusion of a greatsword wrapped around it.

By the mechanics, the first is standard, the second fails automatically, and the third has the modifiers for a light weapon instead of a two handed weapon. Never mind that you wouldn't, at least by my reading, even get a save against either of the illusions as a result of the 'disarm'.

Your need to "make sense" is borne out of a sense of some inherent logic of causality to a fictional world -a view that is somewhat supported by the rationalist school of thought. An empiricist would not care whether an event made sense or not. It's more important that it occurred at all and was observed.
Er. No, actually. The only way you can claim that a fictional world lacks causality is to claim that the real world does, since the game exists within it. The benefit of simulating an internal causality is to hide the fact that ultimately things inside the game happen because the DM says so.

I suppose the assertion that the real world possesses causality could be regarded as a 'rationalist' idea. But by the writeup I saw, rationalists don't actually care whether the real world has causality, because the entire point is that truth is derived without interacting with it. As opposed to the empiricists, who you are characterizing by the later ones who seem to have decided that their 'philosophy' lacked sufficient fireball-component insane. The early empiricists pretty much stood for not just making things up, in the hallowed tradition of the greeks, but rather trying to actually check what's true.

...you're also misrepresenting me. I don't say you can look at something and say it doesn't make sense. I say you can look at something and take it as a data point from which to draw conclusions.

It's also possible that two Wizards from the same school and university can't do this, whereas one of these Wizards and some Barbarian "shaman" can share skins and books. This doesn't decrease variation. It increases it!
Unless you're referring to caster level differences (easily measured to some degree, see below) or specialization (an in-character decision, well known), then both the school wizards and the shaman (who is really a wizard, somehow or other) can do so, guaranteed.

My point was that all preparing from the same page knocks out the 'any spell with the statblock is fireball' source of variation. Part of the whole scientific analysis business...

I could say much the same thing about why the fey work as mysteriously as they did in relation to IHS crunch.
I'm not sure how it would apply, since IHS completely lacks random factors...but sure, what factors?

Except that no one really can measure all that reliably what level a Wizard actually is, and assuming that fireball damage is indicative is a luxury we have from this side of the mechanical screen. AND all this assumes that there are no further attenuating circumstances like various feats and character quirks that the characters in question may or may not believe to have an effect (but which we would know).

Complete causality would be difficult to determine at this point.
Caster level can be readily measured by the duration of an unextended shield spell. Maybe you need one of those hugely expensive clocks to measure it, but that's not an overwhelming problem. You don't know that this correlates with fireball power, and discovering that would actually be a bit tricky until you tested with maximized fireballs (use a rod), but you'll quickly find that it correlates with the durations of many other spells, and can expand from there.

Levels of spellcasting may be impossible to measure exactly, but you'll almost always get accuracy to a two-level range by judging from the highest level spells they can cast. Stick a +6 headband on them overnight, and that almost goes up to essentially always (unless you run into level 17+ wizards with under 13 int...).

What other character quirks could enter into it? Metamagic and sudden metamagic are consciously activated...and can be controlled for, for that matter, by using rods at all times.

You're mistaken. We've had great difficulty in real life just determining very simple truths and we use all kinds of conceptual structures like statistics, the scientific method, and probability mechanics that these guys don't have.

Regardless of that, the point I'm getting at is that experiments in physics are quite detailed, quite rigorously applied, and adhere strictly to principles of the scientific method. These same things cannot be said to universally apply to the study of D&D magic.
Maybe they don't have them. I'd say when you mix int-18 people and dice or card games, statistics and probability will drop out eventually. If dragons gamble, probability has probably been well-studied for longer than humanoids have been using fire. More to the point...a single wizard could quite plausibly invent all three. It is possible that no one is scientific about things. But that only means that it hasn't been subjected to experimentation (not plausible. Really not), not that it isn't subject to experimentation.

Maybe you're right in physics, to some degree. Though the fact that theories are not only fairly often overturned but are expected to be should suffice to demonstrate that there are limits. Speaking from my own science of biology, rigor quite seriously means that you've stabilized enough variables that you don't see any unexpected variations. Often for fairly generous standards of expected variation, because there are an enormous number of minor, difficult or impossible to regularize factors that sway things. But we still get things done.

You can't dispute what you don't understand. I'm saying that D&D's mythological framework is very similar to the myths which inspires it. There is no root causality in D&D mythology that I can determine any more than there is in these myths. If you can show otherwise, please do so.
I've read the LotR trilogy and The Hobbit and a translation of Beowulf. Only background cultural levels of Arthurian legend...I can't touch your scholarly discussion of that. D&D bears little resemblance to LotR. Less to Beowulf...unless you can tell me how to rip someone's arm off with a grapple check? Or, for that matter, how you run away and eventually die as a result of such a wound?

Also, what D&D mythology? Do you mean the game settings? In that case, the lack of a specified causality (at least, in the grossly undetailed PHB setting...I don't know either Eberron or Faerun well enough to comment) is to some degree a feature...many aspects of the game are deliberately left to the DM/group.

[Roxlimn]

Ulzgoroth:



By the mechanics, the first is standard, the second fails automatically, and the third has the modifiers for a light weapon instead of a two handed weapon. Never mind that you wouldn't, at least by my reading, even get a save against either of the illusions as a result of the 'disarm'.


So the appearance pf something may not coincide with its other characteristics. I don't find anything wrong with that. Balls which appear identical could be steel or plastic.



Er. No, actually. The only way you can claim that a fictional world lacks causality is to claim that the real world does, since the game exists within it. The benefit of simulating an internal causality is to hide the fact that ultimately things inside the game happen because the DM says so.


The ultimate causality of real world events is still in question. Feel free to dispute it at your local university.

Despite that, I can claim that a fictional world lacks causality even if you could somehow definitely prove that a real ultimate cause exists because it's fiction. There are benefits to simulating internal causality, but verisimilitude is served both by seeming causality and events which appear to have no rhyme nor reason.

This is so simple a concept that I'm at a loss as to how to further explain it.



...you're also misrepresenting me. I don't say you can look at something and say it doesn't make sense. I say you can look at something and take it as a data point from which to draw conclusions.


Any of which could be possible or probable until you have more data, which itself is limited by the process of its acquisition. The Uncertainty Principle at work.



Unless you're referring to caster level differences (easily measured to some degree, see below) or specialization (an in-character decision, well known), then both the school wizards and the shaman (who is really a wizard, somehow or other) can do so, guaranteed.

My point was that all preparing from the same page knocks out the 'any spell with the statblock is fireball' source of variation. Part of the whole scientific analysis business...


Specialization is a mechanical process. It may or may not be in-character. You have 0 basis, none whatsoever, to assert that this is by nature an in-character decision. I'm throwing this down right here, right now. Put up or shut up. Show me where this is by nature in character.

The preparation of fireball between Wizards is NOT guaranteed. In fact, to decipher the writings of another wizards requires either read magic or the requisite Spellcraft check. Preparing spells from another spellbook means more spellcraft checks.


Please substantiate your claim that any three wizard specimens who can cast fireball can all prepare it from the same written spellbook.



I'm not sure how it would apply, since IHS completely lacks random factors...but sure, what factors?


Really? IHS completely lacks any fluff based random factors? Please elaborate. Please demonstrate the reality of this fictional construct.



Caster level can be readily measured by the duration of an unextended shield spell. Maybe you need one of those hugely expensive clocks to measure it, but that's not an overwhelming problem.


That's because you're working with apriori knowledge that this is so. It's easy to discover things you already know about. This "test" shows nothing more than that a person who knows what and where to look for his target will find it, not that a fictional wizard who doesn't even know what the scientific method is, and who is firmly grounded in mythological worlds and beliefs can do so.



Levels of spellcasting may be impossible to measure exactly, but you'll almost always get accuracy to a two-level range by judging from the highest level spells they can cast. Stick a +6 headband on them overnight, and that almost goes up to essentially always (unless you run into level 17+ wizards with under 13 int...).

What other character quirks could enter into it? Metamagic and sudden metamagic are consciously activated...and can be controlled for, for that matter, by using rods at all times.


More of the same. I could challenge you to show me examples of actual character concepts who have this extensive a grasp of metagame concepts that are derived through such experimentation as you describe, but it would be largely a pointless exercise.



Maybe they don't have them. I'd say when you mix int-18 people and dice or card games, statistics and probability will drop out eventually.


Really? Are you basing that on your knowledge of that which you call "physics," or are you extrapolating real world events from a fictional causality you "discovered" while playing a commercial entertainment form?

Wow. Int=18 characters + card games and dice = statistical analysis. That must explain why worlds such as Eberron and Faerun, Mystara and Dark Sun, worlds with thousands upon thousands of years of history are awash in statistician NPCs and complex mathematics.

Market analysis using probability mathematics by the Dragonmarked Houses must be quite sophisticated. One wonders why it never actually shows up in written works.



If dragons gamble, probability has probably been well-studied for longer than humanoids have been using fire. More to the point...a single wizard could quite plausibly invent all three. It is possible that no one is scientific about things. But that only means that it hasn't been subjected to experimentation (not plausible. Really not), not that it isn't subject to experimentation.


The very assumption that magic is subject to the scientific method is itself questionable. This is absolutely not true in Faerun, where the nature of magic is determined by the thoughts and whims of only one individual - Mystra. Whether this is true in other settings is an open question, but I doubt it, and you've done nothing to show that the notion is even plausible.

All you've done is drawn wild improbable assumptions one after another and say that they're true.



Maybe you're right in physics, to some degree. Though the fact that theories are not only fairly often overturned but are expected to be should suffice to demonstrate that there are limits. Speaking from my own science of biology, rigor quite seriously means that you've stabilized enough variables that you don't see any unexpected variations. Often for fairly generous standards of expected variation, because there are an enormous number of minor, difficult or impossible to regularize factors that sway things. But we still get things done.


I'm a medical specialist - an anesthesiologist, so I've done a fair number of medical and biological experiments myself.

We DO get things done, but the skeptical scientist realizes that there are no facts beyond the barest observations, only suppositions and theories. The latest theory lasts only as long as the next one. The fact that we get things done is no proof of objective truth. It just means that we kind of know how to get a specific effect from doing a specific action, but there are no guarantees, and there are innumerable exceptions. It's very much like magic, actually.

Physical scientists often fall into the trap of assuming that what they know is objective and true. You're a biologist! You should know better!

The very best scientists realize that science is only a body of knowledge that's only as good as the assumptions of the scientific method. Science can neither prove nor disprove that God exists, for instance, because subjects of that nature are beyond the limits of the scientific method.

Rigorous experimentation only means that we're making certain to not very likely utterly make a fool of ourselves by our own standards, though even that's not entirely foolproof, as the saying goes.

Science does not prove causality and never will, because its entire body is founded on the assumptions of causality and empiricism. Any claims to that kind of "proof" is only quite obviously a circular argument.



Also, what D&D mythology? Do you mean the game settings? In that case, the lack of a specified causality (at least, in the grossly undetailed PHB setting...I don't know either Eberron or Faerun well enough to comment) is to some degree a feature...many aspects of the game are deliberately left to the DM/group.


Precisely. Causality within the game is not an assumed thing. In fact, as many people will tell you, scientific empiricism and causality more or less go out the door the moment you enter their shared campaign. Myths don't have to make scientific sense, and trying to make sense out of them that kind of is missing the point.

That's how D&D is, or can be, if you allow it to be.

Ergo, fluff like the IHS ones I posited are thoroughly plausible.

[Ulzgoroth]

So the appearance pf something may not coincide with its other characteristics. I don't find anything wrong with that. Balls which appear identical could be steel or plastic.
Yes, but when the only interaction is looking at them...

But then, it isn't really. Blindness doesn't prevent this effect, nor would invisibility on the part of the attacker. It may be a disarming glare, but by the mechanics it isn't a visual effect. Hmm. I think you're right. If the only fluff for the disarm is what I wrote, then it can probably fly (badly, but that was understood). It isn't entirely without impact, though. It's now much more difficult to recognize a disarm attempt, at least from the outside. You could easily justify pretending to make a disarm attempt (not making rolls, but looking as if you're doing so to anyone except the target, or possibly to the target as well) as a free action at least once during a full attack, or faking improved disarm by feigning a disarm attempt without provoking AoO.

The ultimate causality of real world events is still in question. Feel free to dispute it at your local university.

Despite that, I can claim that a fictional world lacks causality even if you could somehow definitely prove that a real ultimate cause exists because it's fiction. There are benefits to simulating internal causality, but verisimilitude is served both by seeming causality and events which appear to have no rhyme nor reason.

This is so simple a concept that I'm at a loss as to how to further explain it.
I assume you mean in the philosophy department, where some people are interested in inherently useless questions? If there is no causality, there is no possible basis for making any decisions, because by definition you can have no idea what any outcome will be. That's what it means. Do you actually think there's any point in gaming under such circumstances?

You can't claim a fictional world lacks causality accurately (assuming causality in reality). Because the DM is a source of causality, even if it isn't a causality subject to simple mathematical models. Getting a grasp on the whims of nature personified is a field of study that might well come more easily to the average D&D character than more conventional physics.

Specialization is a mechanical process. It may or may not be in-character. You have 0 basis, none whatsoever, to assert that this is by nature an in-character decision. I'm throwing this down right here, right now. Put up or shut up. Show me where this is by nature in character.

Some wizards prefer to specialize in a certain type of magic. Specialization makes a wizard more powerful in her chosen field,
The words 'prefer' and 'chosen' seem fairly clear to me.

Also there exist references to specialist wizards being referred to as transmuters, illusionists, etc...

The preparation of fireball between Wizards is NOT guaranteed. In fact, to decipher the writings of another wizards requires either read magic or the requisite Spellcraft check. Preparing spells from another spellbook means more spellcraft checks.

Please substantiate your claim that any three wizard specimens who can cast fireball can all prepare it from the same written spellbook.
You know perfectly well I didn't claim that. I made explicit exceptions. Within those exceptions...the decypher check goes away with assistance from the or with read magic (which every wizard can cast...preparing it without a book is a class feature). The second check can't be freely bypassed, but it can be repeated as many times as necessary (over several days), and the DC is 18. Most wizards will succeed trivially (take 10), but any will eventually pass it by repeated effort. This does necessitate an additional exception for any wizards with untrained spellcraft, I suppose...but aside from the unlikeliness of that their gross incompetence would make itself clear pretty quickly, even if you try to claim that they wouldn't be aware that they had absolutely no idea what they were trying to do.

Really? IHS completely lacks any fluff based random factors? Please elaborate. Please demonstrate the reality of this fictional construct.
:smallconfused: No, it completely lacks any mechanical random factors to explain with fluff based random factors. Incorporating random factors into the fluff only makes the reliable functionality more confusing, I would have thought...

That's because you're working with apriori knowledge that this is so. It's easy to discover things you already know about. This "test" shows nothing more than that a person who knows what and where to look for his target will find it, not that a fictional wizard who doesn't even know what the scientific method is, and who is firmly grounded in mythological worlds and beliefs can do so.

More of the same. I could challenge you to show me examples of actual character concepts who have this extensive a grasp of metagame concepts that are derived through such experimentation as you describe, but it would be largely a pointless exercise.
So it's grossly unreasonable that anyone might suspect that the duration of spells (whose durations vary) might relate to the strength of the caster? If you ever examine that, you'll quickly find that a great many spells have their durations stuck together. This confirms that you're tracking something meaningful. From there it's just study.

Likewise, it's completely reasonable that magic users would link the sophistication of the spells a mage can cast with their mastery of the art. It's also likely this would wind up conflated with the spell-duration measure of strength, depending on the frequency of the special cases in which these are unlinked.

Yes, a PC doing these things would probably be metagaming. But it's only because the player knows what they'll find, and picks the experiments to find it. There's nothing unreasonable about running those experiments without the foreknowledge.

The very assumption that magic is subject to the scientific method is itself questionable. This is absolutely not true in Faerun, where the nature of magic is determined by the thoughts and whims of only one individual - Mystra. Whether this is true in other settings is an open question, but I doubt it, and you've done nothing to show that the notion is even plausible.

All you've done is drawn wild improbable assumptions one after another and say that they're true.
I don't particularly see why that would be a problem...Mystra's whims are just another hard-to-measure variable. You can get around those. Either those whims are usually very, very predictable or this is an example of badly broken fluff, since I'm fairly sure the wizard class functions normally there under most circumstances.

Science does not prove causality and never will, because its entire body is founded on the assumptions of causality and empiricism. Any claims to that kind of "proof" is only quite obviously a circular argument.
Why do you keep trying to pin me against flagrantly stupid positions I haven't taken? Of course science can't prove causality. Causality is a prerequisite for any of it to make sense, as you said.

Similarly, of course science doesn't produce absolute certainties, even within the assumption of causality. Really, it's a nice, inspired rant, but I'm not sure why it was leveled at me.

Precisely. Causality within the game is not an assumed thing. In fact, as many people will tell you, scientific empiricism and causality more or less go out the door the moment you enter their shared campaign. Myths don't have to make scientific sense, and trying to make sense out of them that kind of is missing the point.

That's how D&D is, or can be, if you allow it to be.

Ergo, fluff like the IHS ones I posited are thoroughly plausible.
Myths (at least, often) do make sense, internally. Individual myths, or closely associated groups of myths. When you try to cram several different myths under the same sense, your results may vary.

If you don't assume causality (within the game or otherwise), how do you do anything? Not assuming causality is equivalent to saying 'nothing I do need relate to anything that happens'. Not 'I may not get the result I expect', but rather 'there is no way to have an expectation'.

[Roxlimn]

Ulzgoroth:



But then, it isn't really. Blindness doesn't prevent this effect, nor would invisibility on the part of the attacker. It may be a disarming glare, but by the mechanics it isn't a visual effect. Hmm. I think you're right. If the only fluff for the disarm is what I wrote, then it can probably fly (badly, but that was understood). It isn't entirely without impact, though. It's now much more difficult to recognize a disarm attempt, at least from the outside. You could easily justify pretending to make a disarm attempt (not making rolls, but looking as if you're doing so to anyone except the target, or possibly to the target as well) as a free action at least once during a full attack, or faking improved disarm by feigning a disarm attempt without provoking AoO.


Feints are managed using the Bluff skill, and since your fluff doesn't change that mechanic, either, using the "glare" fluff doesn't make it any easier to feint a disarm that way than it is using any other way - it's all the same Feint.



I assume you mean in the philosophy department, where some people are interested in inherently useless questions? If there is no causality, there is no possible basis for making any decisions, because by definition you can have no idea what any outcome will be. That's what it means. Do you actually think there's any point in gaming under such circumstances?


Causality is not the same as association or functional behavior. Centipedes can hunt fairly effectively on their own, without any evidence of causal thought concepts.

Philosophy is not the practice of asking useless questions. It is, in fact, the practice of asking highly useful questions, just not ones that people normally think to apply to problems that need their application. Science itself is a product of philosophy, and I doubt that anyone questions the usefulness of that body of knowledge.

One can associate flooding with rains, even if the association isn't 100% accurate, and even if you don't know that the rains cause the flooding. Association is not the same as causality.



Because the DM is a source of causality, even if it isn't a causality subject to simple mathematical models. Getting a grasp on the whims of nature personified is a field of study that might well come more easily to the average D&D character than more conventional physics.


As a matter of course, DMs are the Prime Cause of every campaign - a veritable creation god, in a sense. Even so, studying a DM to predict his whims is not physics, and it's not even established that one can reliably predict using scientific method the entirety of the behavior of an individual.



The words 'prefer' and 'chosen' seem fairly clear to me.

Also there exist references to specialist wizards being referred to as transmuters, illusionists, etc...


Hm... It may be true that some PCs can make the specialization choice as an in-game decision, but the relation doesn't seem to be exclusive at that. This means that you can't really tell whether a given Wizard is a specialist or not, simply because he never chose to be. Perhaps his player chose Specialization as a method for characterizing his PC's unique flaws and powers, without the character himself making this conscious choice.

This would definitely be so in a world where the DM has ruled that all Wizards are Transmuters.



This does necessitate an additional exception for any wizards with untrained spellcraft, I suppose...but aside from the unlikeliness of that their gross incompetence would make itself clear pretty quickly, even if you try to claim that they wouldn't be aware that they had absolutely no idea what they were trying to do.


You can't make the exceptions you are making and still validate your claim. The fact that you have to make stipulations about the claims means that it's not universally applicable, and that destroys the entire claim.



No, it completely lacks any mechanical random factors to explain with fluff based random factors. Incorporating random factors into the fluff only makes the reliable functionality more confusing, I would have thought...


If the functionality is reliable, despite the random fluff, then the functionality is not confusing - it's reliable despite the random fluff.

Seems simple enough.



So it's grossly unreasonable that anyone might suspect that the duration of spells (whose durations vary) might relate to the strength of the caster? If you ever examine that, you'll quickly find that a great many spells have their durations stuck together. This confirms that you're tracking something meaningful. From there it's just study.


Yes. It IS grossly unreasonable. You take it for granted as simple because you already know about it. The simplest things are often the ones that are the hardest to discover. The underlying structure of the atom is almost absurdly simple, and yet it took a lot of men their lifetimes and more to ferret out the answer, and even then, they only succeeded because they were working on the efforts of thousands of years of speculation and study before them.

It's not reasonable to presume that NPCs will hit on the exact kind of experimentation to prove what you already know to be true, and instantly accept that it's true because it is. That's fairly preposterous, actually.



I don't particularly see why that would be a problem...Mystra's whims are just another hard-to-measure variable. You can get around those. Either those whims are usually very, very predictable or this is an example of badly broken fluff, since I'm fairly sure the wizard class functions normally there under most circumstances.


There are some circumstances in the Realms which are fairly unpredictable. The Wild Mage and Wild Surge mechanics just barely touch on the possibilities of Mystra's possible behavior, to say nothing of the Chosen, and the effects of Mystra's favor on some other individuals.

It's not "badly broken" fluff just because it more concretely elucidates that magic is unpredictable. It's just something that you don't particularly like and never actually knew about. Have an open mind.



Similarly, of course science doesn't produce absolute certainties, even within the assumption of causality. Really, it's a nice, inspired rant, but I'm not sure why it was leveled at me.


You said that magic was like physics - like science, in other words. That's why you say that magic is causal. No. You're assuming that magic is causal, and relating it to science is just relating it to yet another thing which assumes the truth of causality. In other words, that entire line of reasoning is flawed and circular.

You can't use the "magic is like science" argument.



Myths (at least, often) do make sense, internally. Individual myths, or closely associated groups of myths. When you try to cram several different myths under the same sense, your results may vary.


Other than assuming that the entire world is ruled by the unpredictable whims of childish gods, please "make sense" out of the Iliad and the Odysessy.

[Ulzgoroth]

Feints are managed using the Bluff skill, and since your fluff doesn't change that mechanic, either, using the "glare" fluff doesn't make it any easier to feint a disarm that way than it is using any other way - it's all the same Feint.
It's not a feint, mechanically. It's producing the appearance that you are doing something...specifically, a disarming glare...without actually doing it. This has no mechanical effects whatsoever. The only impact is that PCs and NPCs watching don't know whether or not you just made a disarm attempt. The combat mechanics make no statement on what others see when you use special actions.

Causality is not the same as association or functional behavior. Centipedes can hunt fairly effectively on their own, without any evidence of causal thought concepts.

Philosophy is not the practice of asking useless questions. It is, in fact, the practice of asking highly useful questions, just not ones that people normally think to apply to problems that need their application. Science itself is a product of philosophy, and I doubt that anyone questions the usefulness of that body of knowledge.

One can associate flooding with rains, even if the association isn't 100% accurate, and even if you don't know that the rains cause the flooding. Association is not the same as causality.
What are you using causality to mean? I'm not speaking of causality as a concept, or a mental construct...I'm speaking of causality within the mechanics of the world. You don't have to know what they are. But they do exist.

Also, while I don't deny that life can exist without a causal analytical system, reasoned decision making does rely on it. Without it, you can't chose to walk up the side of the hill to get to the top.

You can't make the exceptions you are making and still validate your claim. The fact that you have to make stipulations about the claims means that it's not universally applicable, and that destroys the entire claim.
What am I claiming that is destroyed, again? This conversation feels like the displacer beast comics...

If the functionality is reliable, despite the random fluff, then the functionality is not confusing - it's reliable despite the random fluff.

Seems simple enough.
Can you, speaking directly, tell me what the point of this particular thread was? I have no idea what you're trying to demonstrate. Somehow or other this makes something about the fey IHS less problematic, I seem to recall?

Yes. It IS grossly unreasonable. You take it for granted as simple because you already know about it. The simplest things are often the ones that are the hardest to discover. The underlying structure of the atom is almost absurdly simple, and yet it took a lot of men their lifetimes and more to ferret out the answer, and even then, they only succeeded because they were working on the efforts of thousands of years of speculation and study before them.

It's not reasonable to presume that NPCs will hit on the exact kind of experimentation to prove what you already know to be true, and instantly accept that it's true because it is. That's fairly preposterous, actually.
So, to be perfectly clear. If you know two wizards, and one can make a horse appear for 8 hours, and the other for an entire 24, the thought would never cross your mind that the 24-hour summoner was the more powerful mage? Stop thinking about metagaming for a minute and put yourself there. Wouldn't that be the obvious conclusion from looking at those events? It could be wrong...it's about as obvious as feathers being less subject to gravity than lead. It just happens that it wouldn't be, under D&D mechanics. Incorrect theories of equal simplicity are harder to come up with, because few spells have scaling factors other that caster level in the very simple system provided.

There are some circumstances in the Realms which are fairly unpredictable. The Wild Mage and Wild Surge mechanics just barely touch on the possibilities of Mystra's possible behavior, to say nothing of the Chosen, and the effects of Mystra's favor on some other individuals.

It's not "badly broken" fluff just because it more concretely elucidates that magic is unpredictable. It's just something that you don't particularly like and never actually knew about. Have an open mind.
I admit I don't much know the Forgotten Realms setting. But again...wizards, much of the time, function exactly as per the PHB, don't they? And whether or not they've done the homework, we know how precisely repeatable and uniform that makes things, yes? So...factoring in special input from Mystra is necessary for a complete model, but a simple one that makes the same predictions as a Greyhawk mage-theorist would isn't going to be wrong most of the time. And when it is, it is easy to see (at least, if you're aware of the god's involvement) what's likely to have caused the unexpected behavior.

Which is where I get 'badly broken'. If it's entirely dependent on the whims of Mystra, why do you get PHB-grade completely reliable magic whenever you don't have special attention?

You said that magic was like physics - like science, in other words. That's why you say that magic is causal. No. You're assuming that magic is causal, and relating it to science is just relating it to yet another thing which assumes the truth of causality. In other words, that entire line of reasoning is flawed and circular.

You can't use the "magic is like science" argument.
Ah. No, no I didn't. I said magic was part of physics within fantasy settings, but that has nothing to do with being 'like science'. Physics is a science. It is also used to refer to what that science studies. I am employing the latter usage.

Assuming causality is a dead horse, I thought. Magic in the game is exactly as causal as physics in reality.

Other than assuming that the entire world is ruled by the unpredictable whims of childish gods, please "make sense" out of the Iliad and the Odysessy.
Your restriction is unreasonable. Besides basic factors of gravity and such, just about everything is ruled by childish gods in that setting. I wouldn't say unpredictable, though. They're not exactly a mass in a uniform gravity field in vacuum, but many of their actions are predictable.

[Roxlimn]

Ulzgoroth:



It's not a feint, mechanically. It's producing the appearance that you are doing something...specifically, a disarming glare...without actually doing it. This has no mechanical effects whatsoever. The only impact is that PCs and NPCs watching don't know whether or not you just made a disarm attempt. The combat mechanics make no statement on what others see when you use special actions.


The combat mechanics say nothing about awareness of a disarm attempt whether you attempt it or not, whatever the fluff. By that argument, even regular disarms with the regular fluff won't be detectable, either.



What are you using causality to mean? I'm not speaking of causality as a concept, or a mental construct...I'm speaking of causality within the mechanics of the world. You don't have to know what they are. But they do exist.


Causality is a mental construct. It is nothing but a mental construct. It is a thought process that does not have meaning independently in the real world. Causality refers to a relationship between two events wherein one event causes another. "Causes" is a reference to a relationship made by the mind between two observations.



Also, while I don't deny that life can exist without a causal analytical system, reasoned decision making does rely on it. Without it, you can't chose to walk up the side of the hill to get to the top.


Reason and causality are not necessarily coincident. You can make a reasoned decision without precisely knowing the causal relationships between what you observe; without even operating on the presumption of causality itself.



What am I claiming that is destroyed, again? This conversation feels like the displacer beast comics...


You're saying that magic is causal by necessity and that it makes sense in the manner of science. I just showed you that it's possible for several mages, all casting fireball, to have wildly varying effects, and may have differential understandings of one another, contrary to what is reasonable.



Can you, speaking directly, tell me what the point of this particular thread was? I have no idea what you're trying to demonstrate. Somehow or other this makes something about the fey IHS less problematic, I seem to recall?


You were saying that introducing fey fluff into the mix is problematic because it introduces a bevy of random factors that somehow must necessarily be filled out and completely justified, whereas we don't even do that for something as mechanically random as fireball.



So, to be perfectly clear. If you know two wizards, and one can make a horse appear for 8 hours, and the other for an entire 24, the thought would never cross your mind that the 24-hour summoner was the more powerful mage? Stop thinking about metagaming for a minute and put yourself there. Wouldn't that be the obvious conclusion from looking at those events?


No. Duration is something that can be extended through the normal metamagic tricks, or something that could be inherent in the manner of the casting Wizard as a secret technique or as any of a number of other game mechanics. There are so many variables involved that individualize each casting of a spell that it's impossible to tell just from one spell with one variable which mage is the more powerful.

Over a series of effects and the number of effects created, one could make a general impression, but that's about it. Certainly, to presume some kind of numerical relationship would presume the D&D characters could measure time as accurately as we can, and would actually take the time to do so.

Yes, it appears ridiculous, but as a fellow scientist, I would have expected you to know that the most ridiculously obvious things are often the discoveries that are the last to be brought to light.



I admit I don't much know the Forgotten Realms setting. But again...wizards, much of the time, function exactly as per the PHB, don't they? And whether or not they've done the homework, we know how precisely repeatable and uniform that makes things, yes? So...factoring in special input from Mystra is necessary for a complete model, but a simple one that makes the same predictions as a Greyhawk mage-theorist would isn't going to be wrong most of the time. And when it is, it is easy to see (at least, if you're aware of the god's involvement) what's likely to have caused the unexpected behavior.


Again, you're assuming that these people have metagame knowledge you're privy to. They don't. They don't know which variables are normal, which have been subject to Mystra's or some other god's interference, or god knows what local effects.

Most of the time, they function according to the PHB. And the Player's Guide to Faerun. And the FRCS. And whatever regional splatbook happens to be in effect. And whatever other local magic happens to be in place, like a mythal.

Or a dead magic zone.
Or a wild magic zone.
Or a fey magic area.
Or...

You get the picture.

With so many confounding principles in the way, plus the direct interference of any number of gods and the Goddess of Magic herself, it's a wonder anyone knows anything at all.



Which is where I get 'badly broken'. If it's entirely dependent on the whims of Mystra, why do you get PHB-grade completely reliable magic whenever you don't have special attention?


Read the FRCS. It's there. It isn't badly broken, though. You just don't happen to like it.



Ah. No, no I didn't. I said magic was part of physics within fantasy settings, but that has nothing to do with being 'like science'. Physics is a science. It is also used to refer to what that science studies. I am employing the latter usage.

Assuming causality is a dead horse, I thought. Magic in the game is exactly as causal as physics in reality.


That's a statement of conclusion, not an argument. Magic is NOT "like what science studies" because it's supernatural - something which is not or beyond "natural."

Magic in the game cannot be shown to be as causal as physics, except in some very limited ways.



Your restriction is unreasonable. Besides basic factors of gravity and such, just about everything is ruled by childish gods in that setting. I wouldn't say unpredictable, though. They're not exactly a mass in a uniform gravity field in vacuum, but many of their actions are predictable.


It's not unreasonable because D&D calls on the same type of mythological framework as these myths do. Greyhawk Gods and Faerun Gods and Ravenloft Powers are all personality-driven centers of reality-changing power. Reality itself is shaped by the whims of these people. You can't study anything with any certainty because the very laws of magic, if there can be said to be such laws, are malleable. The laws of physics are not.

[Ulzgoroth]

The combat mechanics say nothing about awareness of a disarm attempt whether you attempt it or not, whatever the fluff. By that argument, even regular disarms with the regular fluff won't be detectable, either.
No, because what you see falls within what you call fluff in many cases. When you watch a normal disarm with normal fluff, you see the disarmer swing at his opponent's weapon. At least, under what I would consider the normal fluff...

Causality is a mental construct. It is nothing but a mental construct. It is a thought process that does not have meaning independently in the real world. Causality refers to a relationship between two events wherein one event causes another. "Causes" is a reference to a relationship made by the mind between two observations.
Then what is the meaning of the phrase, to which you have previously not objected, of 'as causal as reality'? Since, by your (re)definition, causality is a concept that is only tangentially associated with reality.

Are you, in fact, insisting on a phenominalist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenalism) worldview? Because in that case, we may as well stop. Actually, you may as well, since you have no reason to think you're communicating with another entity.

Incidentally, Mirriam-Webster online seems to universally disagree with your definition. Though how much that means...

Reason and causality are not necessarily coincident. You can make a reasoned decision without precisely knowing the causal relationships between what you observe; without even operating on the presumption of causality itself.
Really? Please provide an example of decisionmaking that does not presume causality.

You're saying that magic is causal by necessity and that it makes sense in the manner of science. I just showed you that it's possible for several mages, all casting fireball, to have wildly varying effects, and may have differential understandings of one another, contrary to what is reasonable.
Your boundaries of reason need to be wider. And I'm not sure what 'differential understandings of each other' means...

You were saying that introducing fey fluff into the mix is problematic because it introduces a bevy of random factors that somehow must necessarily be filled out and completely justified, whereas we don't even do that for something as mechanically random as fireball.
Not a bevy of random factors. A bevy of specific and not at all random factors, thus my confusion as to relevance. Also, I have no problem with expounding possible random factors for the nd6 spells, if you want.

No. Duration is something that can be extended through the normal metamagic tricks, or something that could be inherent in the manner of the casting Wizard as a secret technique or as any of a number of other game mechanics. There are so many variables involved that individualize each casting of a spell that it's impossible to tell just from one spell with one variable which mage is the more powerful.
Now you're being a skeptic before testing. Sure, if you know of these possibilities you'll have to add qualifiers to the hypothesis. If you don't, or if you decide that despite necessary qualifications (which everyone in science has to deal with) it's not a bad idea, you can work with it. And if you do know about all those reasons to qualify your hypothesis, you also will know some obvious ways to mitigate them. Like stripping your test subjects of magic items and issuing a lesser rod of extend spell. If you don't, and your test subjects are either very unusual or not very cooperative, you may be thrown off and give up the hypothesis. Fortunately for science, you aren't the only possible person to make the discovery.

Over a series of effects and the number of effects created, one could make a general impression, but that's about it. Certainly, to presume some kind of numerical relationship would presume the D&D characters could measure time as accurately as we can, and would actually take the time to do so.
You're thinking not only like a scientist (which you were recently insisting didn't exist in context) but a particularly...demanding one. You can make the hypothesis, and quite likely in setting claim its universal accuracy, without ever testing it. Look at Plato. You can also conduct a few tests, and find that your hypothesis is indeed predictive, and crow about that a bit.

Tests will produce (a) agreement, (b) experimental errors, or (c) rare correct results disagreeing with the theory due to factors not accounted for, to inspire improvements.

Time measurement need not be especially accurate. Small hourglasses should be plenty for some quantitation on short-duration spells, and just comparing the two spells side by side is a good start. Also, water clock (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#waterClock).

Yes, it appears ridiculous, but as a fellow scientist, I would have expected you to know that the most ridiculously obvious things are often the discoveries that are the last to be brought to light.
Eh? Maybe...like what, though?

You get the picture.

Read the FRCS. It's there. It isn't badly broken, though. You just don't happen to like it.
Not interested in reading the FRCS, frankly. And apparently I would have to to discuss this any further.

That's a statement of conclusion, not an argument. Magic is NOT "like what science studies" because it's supernatural - something which is not or beyond "natural."

Magic in the game cannot be shown to be as causal as physics, except in some very limited ways.
Please provide a non-cyclic definition of 'nature' for which a non-empty outside exists, or can exist. I'm aware that it's used in such a way, but then it's also used to exclude anything shaped by sapient beings despite those things not being considered 'supernatural'.

As causal in that its function is simulated by the GM, who is in turn functioning under the rules of physics. I can't see how you can generate causality from non-causality or the reverse.

It's not unreasonable because D&D calls on the same type of mythological framework as these myths do. Greyhawk Gods and Faerun Gods and Ravenloft Powers are all personality-driven centers of reality-changing power. Reality itself is shaped by the whims of these people. You can't study anything with any certainty because the very laws of magic, if there can be said to be such laws, are malleable. The laws of physics are not.
Only if you deliberately define reality incorrectly. The gods are part of reality. Their powers don't warp or violate the laws of physics or mundane magic. They may (depending on setting) have forms of action that cannot be replicated by non-divine means, but those are accounted for in the complete form of the laws.

[Roxlimn]

Ulzgoroth:



No, because what you see falls within what you call fluff in many cases. When you watch a normal disarm with normal fluff, you see the disarmer swing at his opponent's weapon. At least, under what I would consider the normal fluff...


No. What each character is aware of is tactical information that has mechanical representation. I don't believe that you necessarily see a "disarm attempt" with the "normal fluff" at all, particularly since nothing is mentioned in that regard. In all probability, someone who wants to disarm you is going to go through great lengths to disguise the fact, so I don't see where it ought to be immediately apparent.

Note that you don't have to be armed to attempt a disarm, so it could very well be a maneuver like a throw.



Then what is the meaning of the phrase, to which you have previously not objected, of 'as causal as reality'? Since, by your (re)definition, causality is a concept that is only tangentially associated with reality.

Are you, in fact, insisting on a phenominalist worldview? Because in that case, we may as well stop. Actually, you may as well, since you have no reason to think you're communicating with another entity.


I'm not insisting on any particular world view other than that which is not causal in the "physics" sense that you use. Causality not being tied to reality is not simply my viewpoint, but a basic viewpoint of all right-minded philosophers. If you insist on a rationalist view, you can do so, but you ought to at least be aware that other views are possible.



Really? Please provide an example of decisionmaking that does not presume causality.


When I put my foot on my car's pedal, it goes faster. I don't know that my foot doing that causes the car to go faster, and in many cases, it doesn't; but in general, when I do so, the car goes faster.

Thus, when I want to go faster, I put my foot to the pedal and hope that it does.



Your boundaries of reason need to be wider. And I'm not sure what 'differential understandings of each other' means...


No. You're just using pointless rhetoric to make a nonexistent point.



Not a bevy of random factors. A bevy of specific and not at all random factors, thus my confusion as to relevance. Also, I have no problem with expounding possible random factors for the nd6 spells, if you want.


A bevy of specific factors which I don't bother to expound on and never will. I don't see how this is different from a bevy of random factors which most DMs don't expound on and never will.



Now you're being a skeptic before testing. Sure, if you know of these possibilities you'll have to add qualifiers to the hypothesis.


No, I'm acting like foreknowledge of a fact gives you all kinds of advantages in "discovering" them since you already know about them. Assuming that PCs know the fundamental workings of the game mechanics is metagaming and unreasonable.



You're thinking not only like a scientist (which you were recently insisting didn't exist in context) but a particularly...demanding one.


I'm thinking like a scientist, because you're asking us to presume that Wizards in D&D would also do so just because AND use such behavior to exactly determine just the right kinds of tests to unveil game mechanics. I don't find it reasonable.



Eh? Maybe...like what, though?


Mendelian genetics is ludicrously simple, yet for the longest time, thousands of years, no one thought about it.



Please provide a non-cyclic definition of 'nature' for which a non-empty outside exists, or can exist. I'm aware that it's used in such a way, but then it's also used to exclude anything shaped by sapient beings despite those things not being considered 'supernatural'.


"Nature" being anything not produced by a spell, supernatual ability, or spell-like ability, as defined in D&D.



As causal in that its function is simulated by the GM, who is in turn functioning under the rules of physics. I can't see how you can generate causality from non-causality or the reverse.


What in D&D makes you think that the GM is functioning under the rules of physics? The detailed formula for falling speed in the chapter titled "Gravity" in the PHB or the one entitled "Relativity" in the DMG?



Only if you deliberately define reality incorrectly. The gods are part of reality. Their powers don't warp or violate the laws of physics or mundane magic. They may (depending on setting) have forms of action that cannot be replicated by non-divine means, but those are accounted for in the complete form of the laws.


Substantiate. Please show that D&D gods or any mythological god can be said to be functioning under any thought that might be interpreted as "physics." To my view, none of the flight of Norse or Greek gods has been defined in any way in physics.

I don't see how you can say that the mythical powers of mythical gods "don't violate the laws of physics."

[TimeWizard]

"I came in here for an (ToB) argument!"
"Oh, I'm sorry, this is (Philosophical Fluff) abuse."
-Monty Python

[Ulzgoroth]

No. What each character is aware of is tactical information that has mechanical representation. I don't believe that you necessarily see a "disarm attempt" with the "normal fluff" at all, particularly since nothing is mentioned in that regard. In all probability, someone who wants to disarm you is going to go through great lengths to disguise the fact, so I don't see where it ought to be immediately apparent.

Note that you don't have to be armed to attempt a disarm, so it could very well be a maneuver like a throw.
Certainly they may try to make it unclear that they're attempting to disarm you before they do so. As they do, you make an opposed attack roll, which it seems you ought to know about (though not necessarily whether you're resisting a sunder or disarm...I'd say you do, but it could be done either way). If you succeed, you know whether the opposed roll related to a sunder or a disarm (since the disarm allows a counter-disarm), and failure would make the distinction fairly clear as well.

But what I was trying to refer to was when A attempts to disarm B, what does C, a nearby third party, see?

The note on unarmed disarms holds to some degree, though in that case the disarmer grabs the weapon out of the disarmed's hand (or off their person, in a variant usage). Which would be pretty distinctive.

I'm not insisting on any particular world view other than that which is not causal in the "physics" sense that you use. Causality not being tied to reality is not simply my viewpoint, but a basic viewpoint of all right-minded philosophers. If you insist on a rationalist view, you can do so, but you ought to at least be aware that other views are possible.
That's nice. Maybe those right-minded philosophers ought to arrange for their definition of the term to be printed somewhere. Because I cannot find a single entry in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary that is compatible with that use of the word. Maybe you'd like to tell me what you mean by it?

Also, please stop this offensive association of my positions with rationalism. Either that, or make some effort to justify it in clear terms.

When I put my foot on my car's pedal, it goes faster. I don't know that my foot doing that causes the car to go faster, and in many cases, it doesn't; but in general, when I do so, the car goes faster.

Thus, when I want to go faster, I put my foot to the pedal and hope that it does.
That's still causality. Maybe the pedal doesn't cause the car to go faster :smallconfused: . But the only reason you are putting your foot on it is that you expect doing so to increase the chance of the car going faster. This is causal reasoning. If you didn't suppose causation for practical purposes, you'd have no reason to push the pedal.

Probabilistic elements (or elements not included in your deliberately narrowed vision) don't eliminate this.

No. You're just using pointless rhetoric to make a nonexistent point.
As opposed to not at all addressing what I write, and accusing your opponent of pointlessness. Right.

No, I'm acting like foreknowledge of a fact gives you all kinds of advantages in "discovering" them since you already know about them. Assuming that PCs know the fundamental workings of the game mechanics is metagaming and unreasonable.

I'm thinking like a scientist, because you're asking us to presume that Wizards in D&D would also do so just because AND use such behavior to exactly determine just the right kinds of tests to unveil game mechanics. I don't find it reasonable.
If you are unwilling to suspend a little disbelief and listen when I say that I am talking neither about a game nor about PCs here, I can't hope to communicate. At all. This is about why it isn't at all true that magic can't be studied inside the setting.

I can tell you that science would be impossible if people were as unwilling to work with non-conclusive evidence as you are being. In fact, it's absurd...nothing is ever proven in the sciences. If a theory is found to be not in contradiction of available results (that you trust) and to be predictive, that's all you can hope for. Well, elegance is nice too. This theory could readily be found to be predictive and (I'd say) elegant. Consistency is the weakest point, depending on how well control is handled.

Mendelian genetics is ludicrously simple, yet for the longest time, thousands of years, no one thought about it.
Simple is not the same as obvious. Mendelian genetics is simple (and actually an oversimplification), but I fail to see how it's obvious.

"Nature" being anything not produced by a spell, supernatual ability, or spell-like ability, as defined in D&D.
This definition written where? Er...and you might want to provide an internal definition of spells and supernatural/spell-like abilities. Unless we're defining 'nature' in a way only meaningful from outside the game (that is, outside the universe).

Also, by that definition gods are part of nature. Since they aren't produced by spells, supernatural abilities, or spell-like abilities so far as I know...and I sure wouldn't like to meet the thing with the spell or ability.

What in D&D makes you think that the GM is functioning under the rules of physics? The detailed formula for falling speed in the chapter titled "Gravity" in the PHB or the one entitled "Relativity" in the DMG?
Um, the GM isn't functioning under the rules of the game. The GM, sitting at a table, is functioning under the rules of physics in the real world. Remember?

Substantiate. Please show that D&D gods or any mythological god can be said to be functioning under any thought that might be interpreted as "physics." To my view, none of the flight of Norse or Greek gods has been defined in any way in physics.

I don't see how you can say that the mythical powers of mythical gods "don't violate the laws of physics."
Ah. You mean, perhaps, that people who study the mechanics of reality don't usually try to conduct experiments in fictional universes that they have no entry to? Astounding.

Assuming that said gods and powers are indeed mythical (as I generally do), they would violate the laws of physics in the real universe. In a universe where they existed, however, that would be meaningless. By definition, a law of physics is something that can't be violated. If a supposed law of physics is violated, it means that you were wrong about the law. This may mean that the correct forms of the laws of physics have clauses specifically naming deities in them. Cost of doing science in a place with active gods.

[Starbuck_II]

"I came in here for an (ToB) argument!"
"Oh, I'm sorry, this is (Philosophical Fluff) abuse."
-Monty Python

Philosophy + D&D seem connected, no?

[Bassetking]

"I came in here for an (ToB) argument!"
"Oh, I'm sorry, this is (Philosophical Fluff) abuse."
-Monty Python

You just earned seventeen baskets of Man-snuggles.

[Ceridan]

Wow, it seems you happy few have dominated this thread and turned it into a philosophical debate. Normally I would applaud you. This Tread is about Tome of Battles, not blocks and blocks of physics and philosophy. Please keep on topic and stop g#d d@$n block texting. If not please start another thread and BLOCK away. Thank you.

[Ceridan]

I have found that the Tome of battle has virtually replaced the need for the fighter from the core book. This was needed. If the fighter was a horse it would have been put down long ago. The warblade can use fighter only feats, same BAB, better saves, more skill points and better skill selection and does not have to rely on a full attack to be effective. Good bye fighter, your tragic tale will be song by bards.

[Dhavaer]

I agree with the above. I'd also like to put in that I find choosing maneuvers much more enjoyable than choosing spells. Possibly because there's less of them, but more enjoyable nonetheless.

[Thrawn183]

I like the flexibility of spending a feat to learn a tripping maneuver without taking improved trip. It lets me make a character that is decent at tripping without essentially being "all that he can be."

I also really, really like the way martial adepts benefit from multiclassing. To be honest, Warblades make me willing to take more levels of Fighter than I ever would have before. Ironic, no?