RAI always beats RAW IMO

[RoboEmperor]

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[Altair_the_Vexed]

What about RAFF? "Rules as Framework [for] Fun"?

If it's fun to accept RAI or RAW, then we take the path of fun.

[eggynack]

I have some pretty big problems with this, and they largely center on this idea that the RAI could plausibly be loud and clear in the first place. First, it's fairly atypical, in my experience, that RAI is "loud and clear". The intentions behind some text are very rarely laid bare for our perusal, and evidence supporting a given RAI position or another tends to be thin on the ground. Rules text generally has limited influencing context, and authors rarely give us some vision for rules operation outside the game.

Second, I think people sometimes, even typically, see the RAI as a lot louder and clearer than it actually is. This is most exemplified by those situations where someone claims clear RAI where we actually can find evidence of RAI, except that evidence points in the exact opposite direction. Good examples of this are fractional saves and arcane thesis. In both cases, people assume that the intended functioning is the less wonky version, that first levels don't give those big bonuses and that you can't get the reduction on multiple feats respectively. In both cases we can find actual examples of how these rules are supposed to function, and they go against these "common sense" readings.

This segues into my third point. The rules are kinda silly. A lot of your examples of loud and clear RAI here are straight up, "It'd be silly for the rules to operate in this way, so they must operate in this different way that suits my common sense better." But, y'know, the rules are weird sometimes. Often in places where there isn't any apparent kind of error. Super low level wish farming is something that is possible well within the rules. So too are any number of ludicrous imbalances, whether among classes or monsters or anything else. So much of what happens in this game is so different than how I would have designed it, failing to align with what I could consider common sense principles of design, and it's therefore pretty near impossible in a lot of cases to pick out the unintended silliness from the fully intended silliness.

Fourth, I'm kinda unconvinced, on a philosophical level, that we have meaningful and useful access what the authors intended. I'm not a mind reader. You're not a mind reader either. We're supposed to look at the text and get some understanding of the author's internal self through that? I feel like there's something broken about that process.

I don't think we should necessarily ignore RAI in all cases. Stuff like those weapon tables where the footnote got added to the damage is pretty easy to parse out, I suppose. It just doesn't seem like a good primary operational approach. In practice, the way RAI actually tends is that people enter into the text with their own biases about how the game ought to function, and then they assume the author had the same vision with no basis whatsoever.

[eggynack]

When it's not clear then it's not clear. I have no objections here.
But what does it mean for RAI to be loud and clear? Most of your examples use situations with literally no clarifying text that indicates the result you desire.



You're using not loud and clear examples as to why we shouldn't rely on RAI. Fractional BAB is actually a variant rule in UA so I don't think it can be used for a RAI argument.

I'm not really sure what your argument is here. People think that fractional saves fix this thing, and they call upon RAI in support of that idea. There's evidence otherwise. That it's a variant rule means nothing.


For Arcane Thesis, no where does it say you can only apply it once to a feat, neither is there an FAQ entry, so the RAI doesn't exist. Someone who claims "only once per spell" is RAI has literally nothing so it's not "loud and clear".

Where does greater glyph seal say it actually works for lower level spells? What text makes it obvious that drowning doesn't operate in this manner? What FAQ entry implies that you can use different spells to satisfy prerequisites? The whole idea of RAI beating RAW is that it does not rely precisely on the rules as they are written.



I think you seem to have misunderstood what I said and lumped me in with the "Ignore rules" crowd. I am placing heavy focus on "loud and clear" as in a direct official source or the like contradicting RAW. If it isn't obvious, like virtually no one debating the RAI obvious, then it's not loud and clear, so we go with RAW.

Most of your examples, as I noted, do not feature any direct official source. Your definition of intent seems as deeply rooted in notions of common sense as I have stated. It is common sense that drowning doesn't heal you, and so it must have been the intent of the authors to have that not happen.

Are you actually arguing just that we should use the FAQ and rules of the game articles? Cause part of the reason people tend away from those is that they don't actually seem all that reflective of actual intent. Take your thought bottle example, for example. This FAQ seems to think that there's some clear intent in the beginning of the experience section, but that beginning seems almost purposefully broad and inclusive to me. What does "level loss" even mean? What happens if I use a thought bottle, use my experience crafting a delicious magic pie, kill myself, have myself raised from the dead, and then access my XP. I'd undoubtedly be restoring level loss by returning to my old XP total, which means I'd be aligned with all text present even from an apparent intent perspective, and yet I'd undoubtedly be dealing with my item crafting loss.

[Crake]

I think the only real answer here is RAYDMD "Rules As Your Dungeon Master Dictates".

Honestly, that's the only rules interpretation that ever actually matters. Thought experiments and whatever can be done with RAW, or assumptions based on RAI, just make sure you specify your assumptions beforehand, and state that the build functions with these assumptions in place. People can argue about it all they want, but ultimately, the only person that matters when determining the legitimacy of a build is the DM.

[emeraldstreak]

RAI never beats RAW.

[maruahm]

My approach has been verisimilitude. Usually RAW is fine for the most part, it helps adjudicate things that have no impact on believability. RAI using what I might call "reasonable intuition" is a good backup, if RAW fails to be reasonable (e.g. drown-healing doesn't work).

And if RAW fails to model something, and the situation's still ambiguous to my intuition, then finally are we in Crake's 'RAYDMD' territory. But I generally disagree with the concept of RAYDMD—it's just a restatement of Rule Zero, which is always and trivially true. The DM and players usually tacitly agree to follow some framework for gameplay, and the point of the RAW v. RAI argument is not what the DM could do, but how the framework should be interpreted all other things held equal.

[eggynack]

so obvious no one is debating it.
See, this is what I'm talking about. When people call upon "common sense", they are saying, "This is so obvious that no reasonable person would ever debate it." And that assessment is frequently deeply lacking or even sometimes outright contradicted by other evidence. What is obvious and impossible to debate to one person may be equally obvious and impossible to debate to someone else, but in the exact opposite direction. You're relying on this nebulous trait of "obviousness", and what seems obvious can sometimes be completely and utterly wrong.



Variant rule means it's a variant rule, as in not normal. As in you can go fractional BABs if you want, or not if you don't want to. By claiming RAI you're saying the non-fractional BAB version doesn't exist at all, and the variant rule is the normal rule which means why is it even called a variant rule?
The question is how the variant rule operates. Some people think that the variant rule works one way, and some think it works a different way. There's nothing particularly abnormal about a variant rule. We can still ask questions about what should happen if they are implemented.



No spell storing item I've seen ever excluded lower level spells. I said loud and clear means so obvious no one is debating it, or official statement. Are you debating greater glyph seals cannot hold 1st-4th level spells despite being based on Greater Glyph of warding, and only has a CL11?

The loud and clear RAI of glyph seal is that it stores 5th level or lower. This is obvious.
The unclear RAI of glyph seal is that it should store 6th level or lower because it is CL11 and Greater Gylph of Warding stores 6th level or lower. This is not obvious, not by far, so we go with the RAW of 5th level instead of 6th level.
It seems reasonably obvious to me that this is its intended operation, sure. My issue here is that, when presented with other people claiming obviousness, you rely on a lack of explicit citation, something you didn't have for all of these cases. You definitely don't have it for drown healing.


Skip Williams is the author of PHB, so everything he says is RAI, unless he explicitly says it's a house rule or variant rule.

How can you say the author's remarks aren't RAI? You're saying if you go to an author of a super hero or whatnot and ask him questions, 100% of what that author says is wrong unless a comic book directly corroborates what he is saying.
So, first off, Skip Williams is not the author of Complete Arcane, the source of thought bottles. Why would something he says about Complete Arcane be absolute RAI just because he wrote a different book? Second, Skip Williams is not the author of the PHB. He is an author of the PHB. That book had tons of hands in it, and any one of them could have been the source of intent for any given chunk of rules text. Given all of this, your idea that we necessarily have access to the author's intent here seems wrong in the first case and impossible to prove in the second.

Moreover, we have to assess a pretty troublesome scenario in using the FAQ. What do we do about it being wrong sometimes? Remember that example about arcane thesis only working once per spell? A rule for whom there is an outright example in the errata proving that it works multiple times? Well, one of the people who gives the former interpretation is Skip Williams in his amazing FAQ. I quote: "Arcane Thesis reduces the total spell level of a metamagic-affected spell by one, regardless of the number of metamagic feats applied." This guy is not the perfected sage of RAI knowledge that you think he is.


See, you're picking apart what the FAQ said, which is spoken in layman, as if it were computer code, math, or lawyerese, and then creating extreme cases that blow it away, like anything written in layman. Here it's obvious you don't get the xp you spent on item crafting back, but you're intentionally giving it the computer code/math/lawyer treatment to break it and then saying the FAQ should be ignored for not being written in computer code/math/lawyerese, and that's what I have a problem with.

You say that it's obvious that you don't get the XP back, but I have no idea whatsoever what you're referring to when you say that. This case I presented was not an especially extreme one, and the clearest stated functioning of the item is just that it restores your original XP. What's your actual argument here? Do the words "level loss" really so clearly establish the functioning here that any other interpretation is impossible? You are reliant on this notion of obviousness, that any normal person would read it your way and that anyone else is some kinda robot, and it is exactly the sort of trap I said troubles this sort of approach.

[Psyren]

Either an official source or so obvious no one is debating it. No one is debating that an unconscious bleeding almost dead guy would be revived to staggered with all of his bleeding wounds closed when his head is dunked in water for a round.

Sure, but then he dies 2 rounds later without being able to stop it :smalltongue:

I have a clear example of RAW and RAI conflicting - the Erudite Unique Powers Per Day. This has been debated for over a decade, with the RAW landing on a total of either 11 UPPD, 99 UPPD, or a ludicrously higher number. The RAI (11) is viewable in the Epic Erudite entry, where it says it increases to 12, then 13 etc, but the text in the class itself is very poorly written.

[Deadline]

RAI is never loud and clear. Or to be specific, it's never clear enough to try and force some sort of ruling, unless you are the DM. As eggynack said, "RAI is loud and clear" tends to mean "my interpretation is the obviously correct one, and no one could possibly argue with it". And all I can say to that is "have you even met ... people?" :smallwink:

Seriously though, we live in a day and age where there are people who honestly think the earth is flat. :smalleek:

[eggynack]

Kinda want to go a bit deeper on thought bottle, actually. What's supposed to happen here? My initial scenario was one presented as being contrived by the player to game the system, but it could easily happen in practice. A character uses the thought bottle, crafts an item, dies, is brought back, and accesses the thought bottle. That could happen. Not even unrealistic. How much XP do they wind up with?

The text dictates that the thought bottle is usable in this scenario. It gives explicit leave to use the item in this exact context. So, does the character end up with the amount of XP they had when they used the thought bottle, or the amount they had after they made the magic item? You would seem to tend towards the latter idea, but how could this possibly be justified? The text is very specific in terms of what the thought bottle does when used, and what it does is put your XP back at the old total. The former reading, that you get the amount of XP you put in, seems way more in keeping with everything about this item. Sometimes text is ambiguous or hard to parse, but this text is not. You wind up exactly where you started.

This just doesn't seem like a particularly good reading.

[SLOTHRPG95]

RAI is never loud and clear. Or to be specific, it's never clear enough to try and force some sort of ruling, unless you are the DM. As eggynack said, "RAI is loud and clear" tends to mean "my interpretation is the obviously correct one, and no one could possibly argue with it". And all I can say to that is "have you even met ... people?" :smallwink:

Seriously though, we live in a day and age where there are people who honestly think the earth is flat. :smalleek:

I'm pretty sure that OP isn't arguing that nobody would argue with certain readings of RAI that they see as loud and clear. The point is that there's certain things for which there's a broad, overwhelming consensus about RAI. Just like there's a broad, overwhelming consensus that the earth is not, in fact, flat. The fact that there are a small number of people who insist otherwise is irrelevant.

[ShurikVch]

Note: RAI means "Rules As Interpreted"; number of possible interpretations is unrestricted...


Either an official source or so obvious no one is debating it. No one is debating that an unconscious bleeding almost dead guy would be revived to staggered with all of his bleeding wounds closed when his head is dunked in water for a round.You, know, actually, it does make sense - under the "composite hp" theory.
The "composite hp" theory says: hp number is a virtual value which describing creature's battle skill, pain, luck, fighting spirit, combat fatigue, etc.
We can see traces of "composite hp" theory in the Tome of Battle: Crusader non-magically restoring allies hp number by encouraging them.
Thus, by this theory, "bucket healing" kinda makes sense: you're know how unconscious person may recover is you splash their face with a water? OK, then what adrenalin jolt should it be if water will, actually, got into windpipe?..

Disclaimer: I'm, personally, not an adept of "composite hp" theory. IMHO, treating hp as anything but "meat points" - when every "-1 hp" means actual tangible physical damage - causing much more problems than solving...

[eggynack]

I'm pretty sure that OP isn't arguing that nobody would argue with certain readings of RAI that they see as loud and clear. The point is that there's certain things for which there's a broad, overwhelming consensus about RAI. Just like there's a broad, overwhelming consensus that the earth is not, in fact, flat. The fact that there are a small number of people who insist otherwise is irrelevant.
There are very few things for which there's a broad, overwhelming consensus about RAI, and the OP's list includes a number of things that lack such a consensus. Everyone thinks their mental version of the rules is obvious and inarguable. This isn't like the Earth's shape, because with the rules we have insanely limited information to go on. We have immediate context surrounding the rule, some vague intuitions about how rules ought to operate, and a couple of deeply flawed chunks of paratext, for the most part. If someone says that the greater glyph seal was meant to work this way, I don't have any clean means of proving them wrong.

[Red Fel]

I think the problem here is one of terminology. Let me first share my approach, step by step, and you can tell me whether you agree with each step. After that, I will examine what I perceive you to be saying, and my problem with it, and you can see what might be hanging some people up.

First, my approach.

1. Is the RAW clear? If it is, we follow the RAW and our analysis stops. For example, a medium dagger deals 1d4 damage. That's unambiguous RAW, and we don't need to delve any further.

2. If not, is that because the RAW is absent, or because it's ambiguous? That is, are the rules there, but confusing, or are they just straight-up not explained at all?

2a. If absent, can a common-sense approach extrapolate what the rules should be? For example, the Unarmed Swordsage adaptation is described generally, but no actual explanation is offered as to how to do it. It is generally agreed that "give the Swordsage the Monk's unarmed strike progression" refers to the Monk's scaling unarmed damage, and many reasonable interpretations expand that to include the various elements of the Monk's unarmed strike class feature, such as Improved Unarmed Strike, dealing lethal damage, and being a manufactured or natural weapon.

2b. If ambiguous, can a common-sense approach clarify what the RAI was? For example, the Dragonborn template may or may not change the base creature's type to Humanoid, thanks to conflicting entries in the description and sidebar. There are disputes about this. Unfortunately, it's not clear what the RAI actually was, here.

My point is this: Where the RAW is unambiguous, in my mind, RAW wins, full stop. It is only when the RAW is ambiguous or lacking that I even consider RAI.

How I perceive what you wrote, and correct me if I am mistaken, is that RAI trumps RAW, even where RAW is unambiguous. I have a problem with that interpretation. I think that, where the rules are clear, those are the rules. Yes, you can houserule, but you can't simply say, "Well, clearly they intended something else," absent an acknowledgment that it's a houserule.

[SLOTHRPG95]

There are very few things for which there's a broad, overwhelming consensus about RAI, and the OP's list includes a number of things that lack such a consensus. Everyone thinks their mental version of the rules is obvious and inarguable. This isn't like the Earth's shape, because with the rules we have insanely limited information to go on. We have immediate context surrounding the rule, some vague intuitions about how rules ought to operate, and a couple of deeply flawed chunks of paratext, for the most part. If someone says that the greater glyph seal was meant to work this way, I don't have any clean means of proving them wrong.

Are you just arguing against OP's original examples, or are you disputing the existence of any example on which there's a broad, overwhelming consensus about RAI? If the former, would you care to comment on the 4th example (the one on magic immunity update)? If the latter, then our differences are irreconcilable, and we have nothing further to discuss.

[Elricaltovilla]

I much prefer RAWWBFYT, or Rules As What Works Best For Your Table. As long as it's consistent and everyone consents, I feel it really is the best possible way to play the game. If RAW works best at your table, then great. If you need to change or reinterpret something because of an unforeseen issue, then you should feel confident in your ability to do that.

[eggynack]

Are you just arguing against OP's original examples, or are you disputing the existence of any example on which there's a broad, overwhelming consensus about RAI? If the former, would you care to comment on the 4th example (the one on magic immunity update)? If the latter, then our differences are irreconcilable, and we have nothing further to discuss.
I'm saying that the OP's original examples are typical of the sort of problems that arise when you go for this RAI-centric perspective. You have a couple RAI chunks that are broadly agreed upon (like my example of the crazy weapon damage caused by footnote formatting), and then a whole lot that people think are just "obvious" despite them in no way being so. My original post didn't even really talk about the examples. I said, "Here are some serious pitfalls of RAI," the OP said, "My argument doesn't fall into those pitfalls," and I said, "Yes, they absolutely do." I am thus arguing against neither the OP's original examples nor specific examples in a general sense. I'm arguing against the idea that this is a good approach, and the examples are reasonably illustrative as to why that's the case.

[SLOTHRPG95]

I much prefer RAWWBFYT, or Rules As What Works Best For Your Table. As long as it's consistent and everyone consents, I feel it really is the best possible way to play the game. If RAW works best at your table, then great. If you need to change or reinterpret something because of an unforeseen issue, then you should feel confident in your ability to do that.

Definitely this is the correct answer, when speaking about a given individual table. But we're mostly discussing what standards to use when debating things on this forum, where there is no given table in question.


I'm saying that the OP's original examples are typical of the sort of problems that arise when you go for this RAI-centric perspective. You have a couple RAI chunks that are broadly agreed upon (like my example of the crazy weapon damage caused by footnote formatting), and then a whole lot that people think are just "obvious" despite them in no way being so. My original post didn't even really talk about the examples. I said, "Here are some serious pitfalls of RAI," the OP said, "My argument doesn't fall into those pitfalls," and I said, "Yes, they absolutely do." I am thus arguing against neither the OP's original examples nor specific examples in a general sense. I'm arguing against the idea that this is a good approach, and the examples are reasonably illustrative as to why that's the case.

If there's one of the "whole lot of" examples that people think are obvious where said opinion is held by the vast majority of reasonable gamers/DMs, then it is in fact obvious. At this point, no additional citations or whatever are necessary. Drown healing is a classic example of this.

[eggynack]

If there's one of the "whole lot of" examples that people think are obvious where said opinion is held by the vast majority of reasonable gamers/DMs, then it is in fact obvious. At this point, no additional citations or whatever are necessary. Drown healing is a classic example of this.
But at that point, we're at "RAW almost always beats RAI". That seems rather opposed to the OP's position, especially in terms of its apparent execution. When someone says they think RAI should take precedence over RAW, what the OP is saying is usually what people mean. That what they see as obvious should be the way our rules operate. It's a dangerous perspective, because it falls into a lot of traps. When someone says that RAI should take precedence over RAW, what they typically mean, in practice, is that their initial impression of how the rules function, and how they should function, is the way they actually function. And let's be real here. I have no idea what the developers were thinking when they created the drowning rules. No way am I laying any claim to a specific intention there.

[Psyren]

My point is this: Where the RAW is unambiguous, in my mind, RAW wins, full stop. It is only when the RAW is ambiguous or lacking that I even consider RAI.

I value the clarity of your position, but in thinking about it, I'm not sure I'm on board. If a designer clearly states "that isn't what we meant to happen" or "that's not working the way we wanted it to in practice" then as far as I'm concerned, that is what wins, regardless of how unambiguous the rule on the page is. And yeah, they have official channels by which to errata or retract their rules, but those channels are often clogged up either with bureaucracy or expense, so a statement on the matter is usually enough for me.

To summarize my position another way:

1) Clear RAI > Clear RAW.
2) Clear RAI > Unclear RAW.
3) Unclear RAI < Clear RAW.
4) Unclear RAI ? Unclear RAW.

[SLOTHRPG95]

But at that point, we're at "RAW almost always beats RAI". That seems rather opposed to the OP's position, especially in terms of its apparent execution. When someone says they think RAI should take precedence over RAW, what the OP is saying is usually what people mean. That what they see as obvious should be the way our rules operate. It's a dangerous perspective, because it falls into a lot of traps. When someone says that RAI should take precedence over RAW, what they typically mean, in practice, is that their initial impression of how the rules function, and how they should function, is the way they actually function. And let's be real here. I have no idea what the developers were thinking when they created the drowning rules. No way am I laying any claim to a specific intention there.

Except I'd say that in many cases, such a large consensus exists, so that functionally we're not at "RAW almost always beats RAI." By the way, this is all putting aside the many, many places where the two agree, otherwise we're at, "the RAW/RAI distinction is almost always irrelevant," which is perhaps more useful to say at a table, but less so on this forum.

Just talking about drown healing for a second, this is the relevant text on drowning, from the SRD:


Any character can hold her breath for a number of rounds equal to twice her Constitution score. After this period of time, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check every round in order to continue holding her breath. Each round, the DC increases by 1. See also: Swim skill description.

When the character finally fails her Constitution check, she begins to drown. In the first round, she falls unconscious (0 hp). In the following round, she drops to -1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she drowns.

So while you might not want to acknowledge the intent here, I'll be so bold as to say that it's loud and clear. If your character has been trying to hold her breath for a number of rounds greater than twice her Constitution score, and then she fails her Con check on a given round, she begins to drown and drops down to 0 hit points. This text on drowning is meant to apply in this scenario, and only in this scenario. Not when you take an already-unconscious individual and throw them in the water. After all, said individual can't even hold her breath, as she's already unconscious, and is in fact dying. Drown-healing clearly goes against RAI, but that's okay it's a funny RAW thing we talk about on this forum. Practically no table would actually use it. But most of us admit that it's just a kooky RAW thing, and so yes an overwhelming majority think that it goes against RAI.

One short further aside: looking at the text, I'm not sure drown healing even works as a kooky RAW thing, or at least not in the way people seem to think it does. Either by RAW you can't hold your breath while already bleeding out and unconscious (in which case it doesn't work at all), or you can hold your breath and you have to wait for the victim patient to go through twice their Con number of rounds of breath-holding, plus however many it'll take to have them fail their check. At which point, if they're not stabilized before, they probably are now, or they're dead and it doesn't matter. And if they do stabilize during this time, just hope that you keep a careful watch on them so that you don't misjudge by a round and kill them.

[HouseRules]

I value the clarity of your position, but in thinking about it, I'm not sure I'm on board. If a designer clearly states "that isn't what we meant to happen" or "that's not working the way we wanted it to in practice" then as far as I'm concerned, that is what wins, regardless of how unambiguous the rule on the page is. And yeah, they have official channels by which to errata or retract their rules, but those channels are often clogged up either with bureaucracy or expense, so a statement on the matter is usually enough for me.

To summarize my position another way:

1) Clear RAI > Clear RAW.
2) Clear RAI > Unclear RAW.
3) Unclear RAI < Clear RAW.
4) Unclear RAI ? Unclear RAW.

Dude, the OP says your point 3 is his case 1, and your point 1 is his case 2, and have 4 examples of that case.

[Deophaun]

Go by RAW by default, and ask the DM if a) RAW is unclear, b) RAW is absurd, or c) RAW is not fun.

RAI is for psychics.

[eggynack]

Except I'd say that in many cases, such a large consensus exists, so that functionally we're not at "RAW almost always beats RAI." By the way, this is all putting aside the many, many places where the two agree, otherwise we're at, "the RAW/RAI distinction is almost always irrelevant," which is perhaps more useful to say at a table, but less so on this forum.
I have seen few such cases, where there is a clean consensus regarding some wonky or ambiguous rules text, and relatively many where the person is simply claiming the thing in question is obvious, and then says that everyone who disagrees must just be rules lawyering robots.



This text on drowning is meant to apply in this scenario, and only in this scenario. Not when you take an already-unconscious individual and throw them in the water.

What text applies in that scenario, precisely? Is an unconscious character that is thrown into the water not drowning, and thus subject to drowning rules, by your reasoning? If I toss a character that's stable at -5 HP into the water, what happens?

[Blue Jay]

Forgive me for butting in, but it seems like this thread is just begging for a series of polls with a question formatted something like this: "Which of the following rules interpretations do you think best represents the way the designers' intended the rule to function?"

[eggynack]

Assuming no one is stubborn and obnoxious, if a scenario like that appeared then it is NOT loud and clear RAI so you go with RAW.
I think everyone's kinda stubborn and obnoxious sometimes, when it comes to this kinda thing. It's happened to me more than a few times, I'm sure. You see some rules text, you come away from it with an intuitive idea of how it functions in your head, you operate with that intuitive idea for awhile, and then someone comes to you with some ridiculousness that can be accomplished by reading the rule differently. Not only is this reading deeply unintuitive to you, but this perversion of the proper reading is being weaponized to accomplish some truly bizarre and broken things. It's easy to react to that with the idea that your reading must have been somehow intended, or that this is the obvious proper interpretation.



This pertains to the topic at hand how? I think fractional BAB is unambiguously clear. You either add 0.5, 0.75, or 1 and always round down. Where is the multiple valid interpretations?

Fractional saves, not fractional BAB. With normal saves, if you take a level of fighter, a level of barbarian, and a level of monk, you wind up with a +6 reflex save. People assume that fractional saves fix this. They don't. I think they actually make it worse, giving that combination a +7.5 to reflex saves.


This is the issue I'm addressing. If the RAI is loud and clear, **** exact language, **** requiring a direct errata fixing it, **** official FAQ not addressing it, you go with RAI, because d&d is written terribly in layman. I'm saying even if there is no explicit citation, you go with RAI even if it defies RAW 100%. Like the glyph seal examp
Okay, then we're relying on this dubious notion of obviousness. Arguably okay in some contexts, but it can seriously lead you astray in some others. I think you in particular have been lead astray in some of these scenarios you list, which is illustrative of the broader issue. Also, you've dramatically changed what you mean by "loud and clear" here. When you initially responded to me, you said:


I think you seem to have misunderstood what I said and lumped me in with the "Ignore rules" crowd. I am placing heavy focus on "loud and clear" as in a direct official source or the like contradicting RAW. If it isn't obvious, like virtually no one debating the RAI obvious, then it's not loud and clear, so we go with RAW."


The reason I pressed you particularly on things like the glyph of sealing is because I think you were mistaken about your meaning there. You don't, in fact, require any sort of direct official source or the like. So, my initial argument was fair in its application to what you were saying.


Skip has been given the authority to give RAI to everything. Doesn't matter if he didn't personally wrote the chunk of text, so if he says Polymorph Any Object can polymorph things into constructs and undead, you can despite no such text ever being mentioned in the spell description.

If Skip says thought bottles are meant to be used for level loss and not item creation, then that's what they are meant to do. I don't know how much proofreading Skip did for WotC but he has the authority to give RAI.

Given the authority? What does that even mean? I thought our goal here was determining the intentionality of the authors when they wrote the rules. You can't magically give someone the power to determine intentionality. Authority matters for RAW. It doesn't matter overmuch for RAI.


Then I stand corrected. Arcane Thesis only applies once.

If Errata and FAQ directly contradict each other, the RAI becomes unclear so we go with RAW. But if there is no conflict like this we go with RAI.


The errata is RAW. Going with RAW means going with the errata. Going by RAI also means going with the example written right in the errata, because it's an example of how the rule is supposed to function as determined by the actual person who was writing the rule.


OR the FAQ makes a patently huge error that defies multiple texts in the book. Something like that. Like you said different authors. If Author and Skip disagree RAI is unclear so we go with RAW.

The FAQ did make a patently huge error here. I don't think it's a unique mistake. This is a huge hole in the idea that Skip has some deep knowledge of intention.



29000xp-500=28500xp stored. You spend 1000xp on item creation. When you use a thought bottle your xp is restored to 27500xp even if it would not restore a level.

That was kinda one of the two options I mentioned. I have no idea how this reading is supposed to comport with Skip's assertion that level loss is a necessity or whatever, but okay. I have literally no idea how you're getting here from the text. This reading you're stating seems to bear no relation to what's written, and it'd frankly be rather weird to me if the authors intended to write something this massively different from what actually happens.

Also, let's be clear here. This is not "loud and clear" to me. Does that resolve our conflict? I am earnestly expressing to you that your reading does not cleanly match up with mine, and that your claim of intent here doesn't seem to have a strong basis. What now? Do we have to return to RAW? If not, then do we have to return once I find like three other people who agree with me? How does this work?



The non-FAQ examples definitely have a consensus. You're free to contest the FAQ though.

So you have two examples? And for one of them, your claim of intent is simply that it doesn't function as written, and you have no intended replacement? I dunno, it just doesn't seem like a particularly extensive list of examples to me, and is not indicative of the breadth of such cases. They're fine examples for what they are, but it's not like they're going to overwhelm the breadth of times when obviousness has been claimed.



He dies. -1 -> death, so why would -5 be any different?

You seem to be confusing me for a "My interpretation or the highway" person.
Well, he seems to be claiming that these drowning rules are specific to characters who go through the entire process of holding their breath and doing con checks or whatever. That a character at -5 never associates with the drowning rules at all appears to be how he gets past drown healing. So, if that's the case, then he's the person for whom you should be asking why -5 would be different. Different from being positive or maybe at zero, I mean. -5 was picked arbitrarily, and I suppose it could be -1 as well.

[Psyren]

Dude, the OP says your point 3 is his case 1, and your point 1 is his case 2, and have 4 examples of that case.

I might just be tired from work but I can't begin to parse this sentence.



RAI is for psychics.

I understand why you think that, but I believe there are actually a number of sources to determine intent: parentheticals, example text, "Normal:" entries, statblocks, FAQs, articles etc. They don't exist for every circumstance but they're not nothing.

(Granted, I'm going with "FAQ" there as being closer to the leaner and more consensus-driven outfit Paizo runs, as opposed to WotC's more unwieldy Custserv et al. mechanism.)

[Cosi]

There are two reasonable questions to ask about the rules -- "what do the rules say" and "what should the rules say". In neither of those modes is RAI particularly interesting. Generally speaking, when RAI different from RAW it rarely does so in a way that provides an ideal solution to the problems RAW presents, so if you're going to give up the Schelling Point of "what the rules in the book actually say", you should get more than "some vague contradictory musings about things that might be technically more balanced". If you're changing the rules, don't try to ferret out a not-broken reading, or dig up a not-broken piece of RAI. Just sit down and -- preferably in concert with the other people playing the game -- talk through what you want the rules to do. Once you have given up on using the rules, you should no longer feel particularly constrained by the rules.

[Deophaun]

I understand why you think that, but I believe there are actually a number of sources to determine intent: parentheticals, example text, "Normal:" entries, statblocks, FAQs, articles etc. They don't exist for every circumstance but they're not nothing.
If they're alongside the rules (such as being in the PHB), then they're still RAW. Just because RAW is written conversationally doesn't make it not RAW.

If they're not alongside the rules (such as the FAQs), then it's just some guy's opinion on a product that has had a lot of hands involved in making it. The only RAI that's of any interest is from Gygax, as D&D is his baby, and he wasn't involved in 3.5. I don't care one whit what Skip Williams thinks about anything.

[eggynack]

I cannot comment on this subject as I have no experience with it, and have no desire to learn the subject because let's be honest, dipping classes is incredibly suboptimal even with mundanes unless your base class is horribad, and high saves don't mean jack.
I mean, it was just an arbitrary example. People think it does the one thing, and claim RAI in association, but they are mistaken. Pretty straightforward.




Is my point. The rule text is just as prone as I am to failure to communicate, and we should recognize that fact instead of treating it like a law book.
And my point is that I had essentially no access to your intentionality prior to this point, and thought you fully intended to say the thing that you were saying.


It's the Star Wars argument. Disney bought Star Wars and rendered most material like novels non-canon for their movies. The books weren't written to be non-canon but as owner of the franchise, Disney can make anything they want non-canon.

Disney has the capacity to generate new rules for the universe, sure, and even tell me what technically happened during a period of time. They have authority over the RAW of Star Wars. What they cannot tell me, what they can never tell me, is what George Lucas intended when he made Star Wars. You can't buy authority over authorial intent.



How do you know Skip didn't talk with Richard Baker on the subject matter?
I don't. I'd think the burden of proof would be on the fellow claiming we have some direct line to the intent here.



All we know is Skip's interpretation is usually closest to the truth because he's one of the main guys who made d&d, and if not he certainly has the authority to overrule the original authors.
Again, you're talking about authority. Authority is completely unimportant regarding intent. Intent is intent, and it cannot be sold away or rendered subservient to some boss. Intent is what the author had in mind when they were writing a thing. What would someone being the head honcho matter to that? I dunno what method you're using here to determine how the rules function, but it sure doesn't seem to be intent.



We can't restore xp loss from crafting. This is fact.
It's fact if you take this frankly kinda bad interpretation as law. That the interpretation is non-functional, in that it completely fails to comport with what the text says, is kinda telling about how bad the FAQ is as a source.


So either
1. You can't use that specific thought bottle, ever, because you spent xp on crafting. OR
2. Thought bottle restores all xp except the ones lost from crafting.

Or, option three, it just restores the crafting XP, because that plainly seems to be the RAW in this scenario, and alternate interpretations of the text are non-viable.


As you repeatedly pointed out, getting a "loud and clear" interpretation is rare which is why the list is small. I have no intention of making an extensive list. I just gave examples to show following RAW instead of RAI when RAI is patently clear is wrong.
My issue is that this general approach leads people down bad paths, in particular when an interpretation is less loud and clear than a person thinks it is. I think, in point of fact, that it leads people down more bad paths than it does good ones.


Sorcerers fueling reserve feats with heighten spell is one example of loud and clear RAI over RAW.
Polymorph Any Object polymorphing creatures/objects into constructs and undead is another.
Malconvoker's prerequisite of "summon monster III" replaced to "summon monster III or higher" is a third.
Ambrosia targeting a creature at the start of casting instead of at the end is a fourth.

There is clearly some number of obvious loud and clear RAI that has virtually 0 people debating its legitimacy.

I haven't gone particularly deep on your shorter examples, cause they were less detailed, but I'm pretty unconvinced that these qualify for your "loud and clear" requirement. This goes especially for using higher leveled spells to qualify for prerequisites, but I really don't see what is driving a lot of these claims.


It says -1 people die the next round.
It says that people at that stage in the drowning die in the next round. This person was claiming that the character is not party to these drowning rules.

[SLOTHRPG95]

Well, he seems to be claiming that these drowning rules are specific to characters who go through the entire process of holding their breath and doing con checks or whatever. That a character at -5 never associates with the drowning rules at all appears to be how he gets past drown healing. So, if that's the case, then he's the person for whom you should be asking why -5 would be different. Different from being positive or maybe at zero, I mean. -5 was picked arbitrarily, and I suppose it could be -1 as well.

Yes, those specific drowning rules are indeed meant to apply to people who go through the entire process. However, that doesn't mean that a character at -1 cannot drown. All I said is that RAW doesn't necessarily allow for the same process. However, as I hope I've made quite clear, I don't care if RAW allows that or not. As a DM, I would indeed treat a character at -1 (or -5) first placed in water as similar to one reduced to -1 purely from drowning. And as for where that gets you?


It says -1 people die the next round.

Exactly.

[eggynack]

Where did I say using heighten spell to qualify for prerequisites is loud and clear? I was saying a sorcerer with fireball, heighten spell, and a free 5th level spell slot should be able to throw 5d6 fiery bursts despite "heightened fireball" not being a "spell known".
I was referring more to summon monster there.



The latter two is just common sense.
See, it's this kinda thing that makes this sort of approach to the rules bothersome. What is your actual basis for thinking these things? Just saying common sense and leaving it at that doesn't cut it.


Yes, those specific drowning rules are indeed meant to apply to people who go through the entire process. However, that doesn't mean that a character at -1 cannot drown. All I said is that RAW doesn't necessarily allow for the same process. However, as I hope I've made quite clear, I don't care if RAW allows that or not. As a DM, I would indeed treat a character at -1 (or -5) first placed in water as similar to one reduced to -1 purely from drowning. And as for where that gets you?



Exactly.
You straight up said that this text wasn't intended to operate in this context. To quote, "This text on drowning is meant to apply in this scenario, and only in this scenario." I'm not sure why you think that the intent is this weird alternative use of the same text. If the intent is not to use the text then the intent is not to use a text.

[Karl Aegis]

I didn't pay good money to some guy on the internet to tell me what my book says. RAI doesn't exist.

[eggynack]

What does heighten spell have to do with summon monster III? I was saying a sorcerer who knows summon monster IX can take malconvoker despite not having a summon monster III as a spell known.
I didn't say heightened spells. I said higher leveled spells. Like summon monster IX.



Distilled joy talks as if you cast the spell at the moment of bliss. RAW says you target a creature after you finish casting so by RAW you target the creature in bliss after 24 hours of casting. The two are mutually exclusive.
I can't really see how, exactly, distilled joy is specifying conditions on your initial casting. There doesn't seem to be anything stopping you from casting the spell when there is no one blissful around and then hoping someone is blissful at the end of the spell. Nothing about it seems precisely non-functional, though I admit that the functioning is odd.


As for the SMIII example, see above.
I understood what the example was. I just don't see why it's common sense that this other spell would necessarily qualify you.

[Karl Aegis]

Why are you trying to argue two different spells on the same list, with different names and spell levels, are, in fact, the same spell?

[eggynack]

So you're saying a 6th level sorcerer with SMIII can qualify for Malconvoker, but the moment she retrains SMIII out after she grabs SMIV-IX, she would lose all benefits of the PrC? Does that make sense? Why would a SMIV sorcerer be incapable of malconvoker shenanigans while a SMIII sorcerer is not? What is so special about SMIII?
Yes, I am saying exactly that. Different spells, feats, abilities, items, are different. SM IX isn't a substitute for SM III just like meteor swarm isn't a substitute for fireball. What's special about SM III? Nothing in particular, but there's rarely something all that special about prerequisites. It wouldn't be insane for the rules to function this way, but there is no indication that this sort of higher level substitution was their intent.


The RAI here is SMIII or higher, and the author of malconvoker did not take spontaneous casters into consideration, only the wizard.
That's a pretty weird assumption. Maybe they wanted the class to be harder to enter for sorcerers. Maybe they wanted you to force you to have more repeatedly castable summoning options. Maybe they specifically wanted sublime chords to be denied entry.

But, if they didn't particularly take sorcerers into account, or otherwise trashed them, this PrC wouldn't be unique in that. Just look at loremaster, right there in core. It's ridiculously easier for wizards to get seven divinations than it is for sorcerers to do so. Was the intent secretly for it to be easier for sorcerers because they didn't consider this? Of course not.


The odd part here is that how you can time a moment of bliss 24 hours ahead of time. It is impossible to meet this specification for a layman, which d&d is designed for. Only a serious optimizer can time this event and not through the examples listed in the spell, but through things like persistent elation.
It doesn't seem as impossible as you claim. Only one example makes the demand that this be a moment. Most of them are more persistent forms of bliss, like a person being love struck.


So either the RAW here is wrong and we use the spell like RAI which is targeting at the moment of casting instead of at the end, or this spell is worthless except to the munchkins.
Your interpretation here isn't an unreasonable one, but, it has to be noted, some spells suck. It happens. Maybe it was intended to suck.

[Cosi]

You're both wrong. summon monster IV would not substitute for summon monster III, but once you're in the PrC, you're in, so you can retrain all you want and keep the benefits you have (and take additional levels). Also, Malconvoker is generally not a great deal and if you want combat summons you should just play a Greenbound Summoner.

[eggynack]

You're both wrong. summon monster IV would not substitute for summon monster III, but once you're in the PrC, you're in, so you can retrain all you want and keep the benefits you have (and take additional levels). Also, Malconvoker is generally not a great deal and if you want combat summons you should just play a Greenbound Summoner.
Yep, totally missed that part of the post.



-.-

I want you to tell that to one of your own sorcerer malconvoker players with a straight face, along with a divine entry Nar Demonbinder cannot qualify for Ultimate Magus or Wyrm Wizard (with arcane preparation) because Nar Demonbinder cannot cast 1st level arcane spells.
Okay? I mean, to be clear, I could always just allow a sorcerer access to malconvoker by this means just because it seems like a fine thing to do, not caring particularly that it matches neither RAW nor RAI. Y'know, a houserule. We're a fair distance away from trying to understand the intent of the designers at this point.

Edit: Also, I should ask, is the argument over now? Two people who aren't me seem to disagree with you. Does that render you wrong in and of itself?

[eggynack]

No, Cosi brought in another can of worms about whether losing PrC requirements makes you lose all benefits of that PrC or not and I'm not gonna dive into that.
Yeah, but that's in addition to agreeing with me that SM IX doesn't qualify for the prerequisite. I agree with him about the part you're talking about.



All I will say is you have intentionally been thick headed on purpose to prove your point about RAI being hard to agree upon or discern, and as a person who is not good with words and having to worth with something terribly written in layman like d&d, i am losing motivation to continue the discussion.
What I'm trying to do is gauge your metric, figuring out what you're actually doing here. You shift between a few separate competing notions of how we define RAI. Your most recent such basis is the idea that RAI only qualifies, in your terms, if it is "loud and clear", which seems to be some sort of reasonable person standard. Going by such a standard, it would seem that a decent consensus that disagrees with you, even if they are opposed by some consensus on the other side, is sufficient to make a claimed piece of RAI unworkable.

Thus, with three people out of a small population disagreeing with you, and none agreeing thus far (least as far as I can tell), it seems fair to ask whether, on that basis alone, this piece of RAI is truly "loud and clear". Would a fourth person do it? What of a fifth? At what point is it apparent that you're not just faced with a pocket of stubborn holdouts to obvious truth? And, if consensus isn't your metric for RAI, then what is?



The examples i've included, including the sorcerer one, is clear as day to anyone not trying to split hairs/nitpick/intentionally obnoxious/trying to prove a point/defy common sense on something that is not computer code.
Again, you fall into the exact same sorts of traps I said that these sorts of approaches fall into. I disagree with you, and a couple of other people disagree with you, but you have common sense on your side so I must be operating in bad faith. It's a hard thing to break out of once you've thoroughly convinced yourself that your house rules are obvious.

Edit:
There is no evidence in the Malconvoker entry that suggest that this prc wants to intentionally penalize spontaneous casters in any way to the point that entry requirement was a well thought out intentional limitation instead of an oversight. But again, I have no explicit direct quote from the author of complete scoundrel so to an obnoxious rule lawyer defying common sense I cannot win. So i'm not gonna try.

I am not the person claiming a specific intent. I think we should tend away from using intent for a wide variety of reasons. You are claiming intent, so the burden of proof to show intent is yours. Pointing out other plausible explanations of the author's intent that are consistent with all available information seems quite sufficient for this argument. I will note, additionally, that the loremaster also seems to show no explicit preference for wizard over sorcerer. Sometimes the authors screw over sorcerers unambiguously without explaining that that's what they're doing.

[Jay R]

So the reason I'm posting this thread is because many times I found clear RAI yet I had to rule lawyer it in a way to make it sound like it's RAW so people don't call it a house rule and it recently started to get on my nerves.

It's worth pointing out that RAW includes the following, from the DMG, page 6: “... you're the final arbiter of the rules within the game. Good players will always recognize that you have ultimate authority over the game mechanics, even superseding something in a rulebook.”

RAI clearly intends for the DM to make judgment calls about the rules.

This isn’t a “house rule”. It’s both RAW and RAI.

[eggynack]

First, consensus among a tiny sample size is hardly a conesnsus. Also Cosi is a RAW lawyer who will say drown healing works and can be optimized upon, which isn't wrong per say. I actually do have some degree of respect for him for the way he argues as he is very reliable in that regard and he is far from unreasonable.
What are we using here then? On what basis is it being claimed that the rule should clearly operate in this way if not because people generally seem to agree that that operation is clear?


But there is no evidence in the Malconvoker entry that suggest that this prc wants to intentionally penalize spontaneous casters in any way to the point that entry requirement was a well thought out intentional limitation instead of an oversight. But again, I have no explicit direct quote from the author of complete scoundrel so to an obnoxious rule lawyer defying common sense I cannot win. So i'm not gonna try.
As I noted in my edit, the loremaster is penalized to an arguably greater extent relative to wizards, and there is nothing in the surrounding text, implicit or explicit, that indicates that this was their intent. Sometimes different classes are better or worse at entering or using certain prestige classes. It's not exactly uncommon. All in all, there's limited evidence that their intent was to either penalize or not penalize sorcerers. It's kinda weird, incidentally, that you feel the need to insult me just because I don't think this was necessarily the intent of the prestige class.

[Cosi]

Also Cosi is a RAW lawyer who will say drown healing works and can be optimized upon, which isn't wrong per say. I actually do have some degree of respect for him for the way he argues as he is very reliable in that regard and he is far from unreasonable.

I wouldn't say that. I don't think you should run your game by strict RAW, but I think the game itself should be evaluated by strict RAW, because that's the only framework where the game can be meaningfully evaluated. As I said in my first post in this thread, there are two useful modes of analysis.

One asks "what does the game say", and that often gets stupid results. We don't even have to talk about dysfunctional things like drown healing or whatever, just the fact that you can e.g. create infinite minions with Improved Familiar (Mirror Mephit) as soon as you hit 14th level. But it's useful because "the actual rules in the actual books" are a Schelling Point.

The other is to ask "what should the rules say", and that involves approaching things like a game designer. I consider that kind of analysis much more interesting than the first kind, because the reality is that no matter how much you poke and prod at RAW, there are still things that are unambiguously super broken. It's far more productive to accept that things don't work and set about figuring how to make them work.

The problem is that this forum is much more interested in "what exactly does RAW say" or "does it matter what the rules say" than "what do good rules look like", so I end up arguing that the rules do in fact say what they say, even when the thing they say is really dumb and I would rather discuss how to implement what they are trying to do in a less-dumb way.

[eggynack]

So use your judgement. If a PrC doesn't look like it has a reason for penalizing spontaneous casters then it's not that. And Loremaster screwing over Sorcerers because the PrC requires an expansive metamagic/spell list is within its theme, where as screwing over sorcerers because of malconvoker inexplicably requires summon monster III at all times is a widely different scenario. Requiring so many metamagic and divine spells makes sense for loremaster, but requiring SMIII and only SMIII does NOT make sense.
Why wouldn't requiring a specific spell make sense? Does it not make sense that thaumaturgist requires specifically lesser planar ally instead of one of the advanced versions? Does it not make sense that arcane trickster doesn't allow you to substitute a higher level force spell that might do more (like telekinesis)? Things frequently require specific spells or whatever, and they rarely allow substitutions. It's not always some grand design that follows perfect logic. In fact, it's almost never that. It's usually just some arbitrary nonsense that they put in the way of your fun prestige class having. Were they planning to screw over sorcerers marginally? Perhaps, or perhaps not. Did they have any sort of interest in not screwing sorcerers over such that they would agree that this broader prerequisite was their intent? I'm doubtful.



1. "3.0 golems are meant to have full immunity to Su abilities too and it's on you to find a specific and direct quote from the author of Fiend Folio that says otherwise. Burden of proof is on you."

Why would that be my basis for the intent? Any actual basis for intent here would lie in how similar things were done in the design of the game. All golems in 3.5 operate this way, this magic immunity thing isn't an actual ability in 3.0, and there's a bunch of other updates that were generally handled in this way. Alternatively, screw intent. The rules say these creatures operate this way. Maybe they just do. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal.


2. "Shades lets me duplicate any conjuration spell from any spell list in the game unless you find a specific and direct quote from the author of PHB that says otherwise. Burden of proof is on you."
etc.

The spell seems to directly say that it's wizard and sorcerer spell specific. So, there you go. Not sure what the issue is here.



Let me just try to wrap up this discussion.

1. Do you accept that WotC has a lot of mistakes/errors/oversights in their work? If yes...
2. Do you think we should rule in the broken way or we should rule in the correct way?

If "correct way", discussion is over, because that's what I'm suggesting.
If "broken way" then discussion is also over because we have to agree to disagree here.
I think that they have a bunch of errors, sure. RAI strikes me as a typically wrong approach. As I said upfront, it is essentially unknowable and it has a tendency to lead people in bad directions. I think the best approach is to either stick to the rules, particularly in any kind of forum context, or use rules that you think would make for the best game. I have no idea whatsoever what the designers were thinking when they created the prerequisites for the malconvoker, and my means of acquiring more knowledge on that point are limited. If I want malconvokers to have easier prerequisites, then I'll just do that. But I won't do so thinking I have some deep understanding of designer intent, and neither will I use that altered rule when discussing the class online.


This is not true. If you feel insulted I apologize. I have no intention of insulting you and if you feel insulted it is due to my lack of communication skills.

edit: If you're referring to post #50 I said you were pretending to be obnoxious to prove a point, not that you are obnoxious.
Either I was pretending to be obnoxious, which would mean I was operating in bad faith, which is rather insulting in and of itself, or I wasn't pretending anything, and this is just how I operate, which also renders it rather insulting. The issue isn't precisely my being insulted though. It's this broad tendency to retreat into the assumption that people who don't agree with you must be doing something wrong. That they're just mindless rules lawyering robots (which is a separate insulting thing you've said). We're all just people here, trying our best to parse the rules.

[martixy]

Disclaimer: I'm, personally, not an adept of "composite hp" theory. IMHO, treating hp as anything but "meat points" - when every "-1 hp" means actual tangible physical damage - causing much more problems than solving...

Can you elaborate? As a subscriber of "composite hp", I don't have a good notion of the opposite side. You say it causes more problems than it solves - that's the part I'm interested in.

Onto the main debate:

The topic here is ultimately epistemological. Epistemology is the study of knowledge, and how it is acquired. Essentially it tries to answer the question: "How do we know that we know?"

That is how this debate should ultimately be examined.

I however do not have the will to properly examine it, nor do I have good cause to believe a proper examination won't fall on deaf ears.

Therefore I'll just address the fundamental problem briefly:
We do not, and CANNOT have sufficient justification to define something as "clear RAI".

The same stipulation that
D&D is written in layman and not computer code or lawyerese precludes the existence of "loud and clear RAI"

With the collapse of the basis, your entire argument falls apart.

An argument which I actually generally agree on, on grounds that I believe we share similar beliefs. That belief of mine may or may not be true. However, regardless of its accidental truth, it is not a justified belief, because I have no objective evidence with which to support it.

THAT is the problem we are trying to point out here.

Your map of the territory of the author's intent is only valid insofar as it applies to the territory of your game, and those that play in it with you. And when you reach that point, you might as well not be trying to map the author's intent at all, merely the territory of your game.
(The statement above is a funky way of saying "Don't try to guess RAI or author's intent, just do what works for your game.", using terminology from a book called Rationality: From AI to Zombies - which deals with human rationality and basics of epistemology, it is free, and available online (https://www.lesswrong.com/), and I highly recommend it.)

Understand that we are not arguing against the possible existence of "intent", merely for the difficulty(nigh impossibility) of objectively acquiring said intent.

[SLOTHRPG95]

You straight up said that this text wasn't intended to operate in this context. To quote, "This text on drowning is meant to apply in this scenario, and only in this scenario." I'm not sure why you think that the intent is this weird alternative use of the same text. If the intent is not to use the text then the intent is not to use a text.

I don't think we're actually in disagreement here. Everything that I said about what I'd do while DMing leaves the realm of RAW or RAI or whatever. That's "what I'd do (and have actually done) at an actual table, as what I consider a reasonable rule call for my table." That's not necessarily based on anything other than my own personal judgement as a DM. So, perhaps I didn't make myself clear earlier, when I said that I don't necessarily care about RAW, and that I tend to favor RAI when the latter is clear. I mean that for purposes of online discussion, not for actual table play. For actual table play, neither RAW nor RAI is king. RAWBFTT (Rules As Works Best For This Table) is king.

[Deophaun]

Let me just try to wrap up this discussion.

1. Do you accept that WotC has a lot of mistakes/errors/oversights in their work? If yes...
2. Do you think we should rule in the broken way or we should rule in the correct way?
"The" broken way? "The" correct way?

If only there were but two ways to interpret things, and they were labeled so clearly.

[The Insanity]

Do you think we should rule in the broken way or we should rule in the correct way?
I think we should rule "our way".

[martixy]

Some are clearly labeled broken way and correct way.

The intersection of your "Some" and my "Some" might be smaller than you imagine.

The intersection of everyone's "Some" is almost assuredly Ø
(That's the symbol of an empty set, e.g. non-existent.)

[SLOTHRPG95]

The intersection of your "Some" and my "Some" might be smaller than you imagine.

The intersection of everyone's "Some" is almost assuredly Ø
(That's the symbol of an empty set, e.g. non-existent.)

Hence in this case we eschew the universal quantifier. For example, we can say that "some things are clearly labelled broken way and correct way" if said opinion is adopted by the vast majority of reasonable individuals familiar with this particular system. This somewhat kicks the can down the road since now we need to bother defining what we mean by "vast majority," "reasonable individual," and "familiarity w.r.t. a particular (game) system." But if we do so, instead of relying only on words like "everyone" to talk about whether or not something is clear, we can actually get meaningful results. Unlike, as you properly note, almost assuredly ending up with a bunch of of empty sets.

[Erloas]

"The" broken way? "The" correct way?

If only there were but two ways to interpret things, and they were labeled so clearly.


There are a lot that can essentially be looked at like that. "If I read the rule this was I can get into this PRC 4 levels earlier than any other class can get into a PRC" is a good indication that RAI is that you should only be qualifying for PRCs at about the same levels.
Or "reading this phrase this way means I can repeat this process as many times as I want with no cost" means that isn't the right way to read it. We can be sure that RAI in any case means no infinitely/arbitrarily high skill/stat/CL/HP/wealth/spell is going to happen.
As well as "reading this spell this way means it is better in every way than this other higher level spell/spell with higher requirements/costs."
If you're going through several convoluted steps to suddenly end up with something much more valuable/powerful than other things of a similar level, then you're going against RAI.
Or if you have to completely ignore the "common use" of some term(s) to get bonus/benefit then you're working against RAI.

[martixy]

Hence in this case we eschew the universal quantifier. For example, we can say that "some things are clearly labelled broken way and correct way" if said opinion is adopted by the vast majority of reasonable individuals familiar with this particular system. This somewhat kicks the can down the road since now we need to bother defining what we mean by "vast majority," "reasonable individual," and "familiarity w.r.t. a particular (game) system." But if we do so, instead of relying only on words like "everyone" to talk about whether or not something is clear, we can actually get meaningful results. Unlike, as you properly note, almost assuredly ending up with a bunch of of empty sets.

Indeed, but that is what RAW establishes. It covers "vast majority" and "familiarity". "Reasonable individual" is a toss up either way, so we can get rid of it entirely.
And this shared ground we establish, this large intersection is what facilitates effective communication.
Without it, for any communication to happen, first we'd need to transmit each other's biases and assumptions, to establish a common base, before we can begin effectively transmitting useful information.

Keep in mind I'm not trying to defend or argue any side here, merely attempting to explain the nature of the phenomenon.

But if I were to take a side, I would indeed argue for RAI. But I'd argue for RAI, only on scales where RAI is feasible (i.e. your gaming table), where you only need to establish common ground between a handful of individuals, not on a board like this visited by hundreds, potentially thousands if people, among which establishing an intersection on matters of RAI is highly likely to yield Ø.

[SLOTHRPG95]

Indeed, but that is what RAW establishes. It covers "vast majority" and "familiarity". "Reasonable individual" is a toss up either way, so we can get rid of it entirely.
And this shared ground we establish, this large intersection is what facilitates effective communication.
Without it, for any communication to happen, first we'd need to transmit each other's biases and assumptions, to establish a common base, before we can begin effectively transmitting useful information.

Keep in mind I'm not trying to defend or argue any side here, merely attempting to explain the nature of the phenomenon.

But if I were to take a side, I would indeed argue for RAI. But I'd argue for RAI, only on scales where RAI is feasible (i.e. your gaming table), where you only need to establish common ground between a handful of individuals, not on a board like this visited by hundreds, potentially thousands if people, among which establishing an intersection on matters of RAI is highly likely to yield Ø.

This is only relevant inasmuch as one desires universal acceptance of one's arguments generally, and of one's premises specifically. Rather fittingly, if one only desires widespread acceptance, one need only seek out widespread common ground. Basically, I'm just saying that we shouldn't optimize solely for the number of people who will accept our arguments, regardless of the effect this might have on the scope of meaningful statements we can potentially make. We should concurrently optimize for audience size and argument scope.

[skunk3]

I hate it when rules discussions devolve into nerdy philosophy discussions.

Regardless of however one wants to argue, I think that it's incredibly clear *MOST OF THE TIME* when something is RAI. Of course there might be some who disagree here and there but I haven't come across too many examples of people clinging to polar opposite ideas of what RAI entails given a particular subject... at least IRL. On the internet there are always contrarians.

[SLOTHRPG95]

I hate it when rules discussions devolve into nerdy philosophy discussions.

Not just philosophy! We're also starting to devolve into mathematics, and (with any luck) linguistics. :smalltongue:


Regardless of however one wants to argue, I think that it's incredibly clear *MOST OF THE TIME* when something is RAI. Of course there might be some who disagree here and there but I haven't come across too many examples of people clinging to polar opposite ideas of what RAI entails given a particular subject... at least IRL. On the internet there are always contrarians.

Sure, I'll buy that. But good luck getting the majority of people who post on rules discussions here to agree. After all, as you rightly point out, we're on the part of the map where it says "here be dragons contrarians."

[martixy]

Not just philosophy! We're also starting to devolve into mathematics, and (with any luck) linguistics. :smalltongue:



Sure, I'll buy that. But good luck getting the majority of people who post on rules discussions here to agree. After all, as you rightly point out, we're on the part of the map where it says "here be dragons contrarians."

Just don't bring up Chomsky's universal grammar and we'll be fine. :)

Besides, I'm willing to buy that too, I just can't justify it to anyone but myself.


This is only relevant inasmuch as one desires universal acceptance of one's arguments generally, and of one's premises specifically. Rather fittingly, if one only desires widespread acceptance, one need only seek out widespread common ground. Basically, I'm just saying that we shouldn't optimize solely for the number of people who will accept our arguments, regardless of the effect this might have on the scope of meaningful statements we can potentially make. We should concurrently optimize for audience size and argument scope.

To what end?
"Audience size" seems a means to an end, and I'm not sure what you mean by "argument scope".

[ShurikVch]

Can you elaborate? As a subscriber of "composite hp", I don't have a good notion of the opposite side. You say it causes more problems than it solves - that's the part I'm interested in.Well, firstly - almost every conceivable component may be disregarded:
battle skill, pain, luck, fighting spirit, combat fatigueCombat fatigue? Some creatures - such as Undead or Constructs - are never fatigued.
Pain? Once again, some creatures are immune.
Fighting spirit? Paladins are fearless!
Battle skill? It should improve, not derogate!
Luck? Let me quote Jormengand there:
that provides a funny mental image...

"Cleric! I need a heal! That attack almost injured me!"

It's called Cure Moderate Wounds, not Replenish Moderate Luck.Also, we have injury poisons, "bleeding" rider effect, Slash Tongue spell, feats such as Lacerate, Hamstring, and Disemboweling Strike - all of it presumes nothing but gross physical harm

And it becomes even worse when coupled with such mechanics as, for example, Critical Hit: if it kills or disables somebody - it's OK; but what if the target wasn't fazed by the (supposedly) critical damage?

[jdizzlean]

I think it's time you two agree that you'll never agree, and move on.

[SLOTHRPG95]

Just don't bring up Chomsky's universal grammar and we'll be fine. :)

Yeah, I think that it's safe to say that you won't be hearing anything about UG from me.



To what end?
"Audience size" seems a means to an end, and I'm not sure what you mean by "argument scope".

"Audience size" is indeed a means to an end, and by "argument scope" I simply mean the space of all possible arguments, conditioning on said audience, without said audience rejecting said arguments.

[Deophaun]

There are a lot that can essentially be looked at like that. "If I read the rule this was I can get into this PRC 4 levels earlier than any other class can get into a PRC" is a good indication that RAI is that you should only be qualifying for PRCs at about the same levels.
But you have to now explain why that is broken. It might not be--there is nothing inherent in PrCs that makes early qualification necessarily powerful--even though such an interpretation may not be correct.

Or "reading this phrase this way means I can repeat this process as many times as I want with no cost" means that isn't the right way to read it. We can be sure that RAI in any case means no infinitely/arbitrarily high skill/stat/CL/HP/wealth/spell is going to happen.
I'm curious as to why you keep referring to RAI, when the quote was "broken" vs. "correct."

As well as "reading this spell this way means it is better in every way than this other higher level spell/spell with higher requirements/costs."
Again, why is this broken? If the higher level spell was one that no one would ever use, a lower level one that's better may be entirely appropriate and even--gasp--intended.

If you're going through several convoluted steps to suddenly end up with something much more valuable/powerful than other things of a similar level, then you're going against RAI.
Prove it. Show it me the collective thought patterns of the designers and how they combine to... oh wait... that's impossible.

You should rephrase: "you're going against my opinion of what RAI is," as all RAI is ultimately opinion.

[Remuko]

Luck? Let me quote Jormengand there:

A moment of silence for they who are no longer with us.

[Psyren]

If they're alongside the rules (such as being in the PHB), then they're still RAW. Just because RAW is written conversationally doesn't make it not RAW.

If they're not alongside the rules (such as the FAQs), then it's just some guy's opinion on a product that has had a lot of hands involved in making it. The only RAI that's of any interest is from Gygax, as D&D is his baby, and he wasn't involved in 3.5. I don't care one whit what Skip Williams thinks about anything.

That's a solid point, but consider a statblock - it's not really a rule (conversational or otherwise), so much as a demonstration of how that rule is meant to be used.

(Of course, some of those have errors too, confusing the issue further, but the principle is there.)

I do wholeheartedly agree with your opinion on Skip, but again, that's because WotC was too big to really centralize their FAQ-writing, so the guy was just allowed to talk out of his blowhole make random rulings seemingly without consulting anybody or proofreading - not because the concept of a FAQ article or online clarifications is itself bad. Skip's approach soured a lot of playgroups, but I don't think that's an indictment of a "Rules of the Game" type of vehicle in general, it just needs more rigor.

[Bphill561]

Yeah, it looks like a failed hypothesis or there would not be some much back in forth in the thread.

[HouseRules]

Yeah, it looks like a failed hypothesis or there would not be some much back in forth in the thread.

"back-n-forth" is the short form for "back and forth" not "in", so fix your typo.

One school of though:
CLEAR RAW > CLEAR RAI > UNCLEAR RAW > UNCLEAR RAI (clear for only one specific situation)

Another school of though:
CLEAR RAI > CLEAR RAW > UNCLEAR RAI > UNCLEAR RAW

The conclusion is that there is always at least these two schools of thought, and the Original Poster is in the first of the two schools of thoughts.

Edit: In Green.

[Karl Aegis]

My school of thought is:
CLEAR RAW > NO RAW > UNCLEAR RAW

No RAI, ever.

[HouseRules]

My school of thought is:
CLEAR RAW > NO RAW > UNCLEAR RAW

No RAI, ever.

So NO RAW means House Rules?

[Deophaun]

The conclusion is that there is always at least these two schools of thought
What does that even mean? That the two schools of thought simply exist? I mean, sure, just by asserting them, they exist. Not much to talk about. It that sense it strikes me more as a motte in which to retreat when the poorly defended argumentative bailey is overcome.

But then why the "at least?" That implies that circumstances change to allow more, but those will always exist. But, what's the core circumstance? Are we talking about at a table? Well, that's demonstrably not true. There are plenty of people here that don't think RAI is even worth ranking. Get any of those playing together and neither of those positions will be present. Same goes for a discussion or a debate.

As far as I can tell, the "conclusion" is either trite, or it's wrong.

[HouseRules]

What does that even mean? That the two schools of thought simply exist? I mean, sure, just by asserting them, they exist. Not much to talk about. It that sense it strikes me more as a motte in which to retreat when the poorly defended argumentative bailey is overcome.

But then why the "at least?" That implies that circumstances change to allow more, but those will always exist. But, what's the core circumstance? Are we talking about at a table? Well, that's demonstrably not true. There are plenty of people here that don't think RAI is even worth ranking. Get any of those playing together and neither of those positions will be present. Same goes for a discussion or a debate.

As far as I can tell, the "conclusion" is either trite, or it's wrong.

The post right after that defined another School of Thought. Thus, I realized that those 2 are not enough.

I am asserting those School of Thoughts. So you could say that that is my hypothesis without hard evidence.

[Karl Aegis]

So NO RAW means House Rules?

It means no rules. Throw em out. Don't use em. Avoid at all costs.

[HouseRules]

It means no rules. Throw em out. Don't use em. Avoid at all costs.

Pretty Gray Area. If you throw some rules out entirely, that is a house rule itself if they are in the core rules.

[Mechalich]

I do wholeheartedly agree with your opinion on Skip, but again, that's because WotC was too big to really centralize their FAQ-writing, so the guy was just allowed to talk out of his blowhole make random rulings seemingly without consulting anybody or proofreading - not because the concept of a FAQ article or online clarifications is itself bad. Skip's approach soured a lot of playgroups, but I don't think that's an indictment of a "Rules of the Game" type of vehicle in general, it just needs more rigor.

Yeah. In some ways it's helpful to look at the RAW vs. RAI controversy through the lens of an intensively managed game like a highly-played video game an MMO or Moba. In those games there's a clear difference between strategies, meaning choices that exploit some sort of imbalance in the rules or the meta game, and exploits, which manipulate some programming failure for an unfair advantage. It is almost universally excepted that strategizing to the hilt - even in ways that may be lousy sportsmanship or simply outright not fun for everyone involved, is perfectly okay, but exploiting will get you banned forever.

Game devs are often somewhat hesitant to alter strategies, even when they start to jam up the meta, and usually do so by minor tweaks, but they tend to react to exploits very quickly and it's a well known sign of management failure if exploits aren't rapidly rectified.

In 3.5 there's plenty of shenanigans that, while extremely cheesy and likely to get you a smack from the GM at 95+% of actual tables, are clearly permissible even within a fairly strict reading of the rules. At the same time, there are things - and healing by drowning is clearly one of them - that represent an obvious exploit due to a failure to add a clarifying line or because of a typo or some other mistake. WotC should have done a much better job at eliminating exploits that occurred via official errata (or some other official channel) than they did, rather than simply let a single person from the development team spout off on rulings from a position of dubious authority.

Unfortunately, there's long been a tendency among table-top RPG designers to continue look forward and to base their rules and rulings off the living conception of the game that they have in their head, usually with numerous attendant house rules, rather than the actual document and very little impulse to go back to review. White-Wolf, for one, was far worse in this regard than WotC ever was. It's a part of table-top game design culture that just hasn't really ever updated to the new reality of 21st century gaming.

[Karl Aegis]

Pretty Gray Area. If you throw some rules out entirely, that is a house rule itself if they are in the core rules.

Well, how many times have you used the "Prepare to throw splash weapon" full-round action that appears only in a table in the Player's Handbook with no supporting text?

[HouseRules]

Well, how many times have you used the "Prepare to throw splash weapon" full-round action that appears only in a table in the Player's Handbook with no supporting text?

Right, a RAW secondary source (even if within a core rule book). Text are Primary, and Table are Secondary.

You know, there is many RAI to solve it but no RAW to solve this issue.

If you remove the rule, then you have "already prepared thrown splash weapon" as a house rule. That is, thrown splash weapon is a consumable item under those rules.

How would I solve this issue? Like a spell, the ingredients of the thrown splash weapon do not like to be next to each other or a reaction occur, so players have to put those ingredients into a throw-able container and throw in the next round.

Edit:
Well, the weirdness is when you have splash weapon like a flask of oil, you still have to prepare a flask of oil.

Thus, I have 2 house rules listed

Already Prepared Thrown Splash Weapon - These become consumable items.
Need to Prepare Thrown Splash Weapon - These are too unstable to become consumable items, so they need to be prepared in combat.

[HouseRules]

Just for the record I'm not condoning house rules.

RAI because that's how it is supposed to work and doing things on a technicality breaks immersion for me. Not to mention playing word and rule lawyer also breaks immersion for me.
RAW because it's the rules.
House Rules is cheating. But sure, throw the mundanes a bone.
Homebrew could be fun, could be disastrous. But I still prefer d&d over your own homebrew game.

You condoning house rules that does not throw a bone to mundanes. Added Emphasis for that.

Opps, mistaken for a similar sounding word when reading too fast.

[Hackulator]

House rules is cheating? wut?

[HouseRules]

I find it weird since the RAW says that sometimes House Rules are necessary to deal with edge cases and balance issues.

Of course, staying within the published rules is more desirable to maintain consistency.

[Erloas]

Yeah, cheating just doesn't seem to be right. I'm not even sure how cheating can even be possible in a game like this. Short of writing down the wrong numbers or giving yourself extra items and hoping the DM doesn't notice. But from a rules perspective "cheating" isn't really the right term. Even the whole idea of house rules or table specific unique ruling is built into the rule book.
I think the closest you could get to "cheating" is if you're actively working against RAI but claiming it isn't a house rule. If you're changing clear RAW, then you're clearly doing a house rule.

[Mechalich]

Utilizing house rules is much more like 'modding' the game than cheating. In fact, there are even established house rule packages like E6 that you can acquire from the internet, making it even more like modding.

And...3.5 D&D is comparable to a highly buggy game like Skyrim. Sure, it functions without mods, but it has this funny tendency to crash a lot due to stability problems and beyond that there are some gaping glaring holes in the functionality that are just begging for alterations.

[Jay R]

What many people call RAW is a contradiction. The actual rules as written include “... you're the final arbiter of the rules within the game. Good players will always recognize that you have ultimate authority over the game mechanics, even superseding something in a rulebook.” (DMG p. 6)

A game in which the DM is not allowed to be the final arbiter of the rules, even superseding something in a rulebook, is a direct violation of the rules as written.

What many people call RAI has a different problem – it’s impossible. It assumes that you can always know what the writer of the rule intended, even when it contradicts what he or she wrote, and often in combination with other rules written by a different writer. Quite often no writer ever thought about those rules in combination, and so there is no intent to interpret.

There are lots of situations which no writer actually considered. For that reason, the DM must be the final arbiter.

That’s why I prefer RAIbaCDMWJIT – Rules As Interpreted by a Competent DM Whose Judgment I Trust.

[Psyren]

What many people call RAI has a different problem – it’s impossible.

I still don't think that's true.

A legal analogy - the Constitution is RAW. But something like the Federalist Papers are RAI. They're not legally binding at all, but courts still find them valuable in rendering judgements, both when a rule (law) is unclear, and when it is clear but fundamentally broken.

Another legal analogy - the Tax Code is RAW. But IRS guidance is RAI. The latter is not law either, but you can use it as a defense in court - again, both in cases when the law is unclear, and when it is clear but unjust or has an undesirable result.

That's how I view RAI vs. RAW, and why clear RAI will always trump in my view.

[Jay R]

I still don't think that's true.

A legal analogy - the Constitution is RAW. But something like the Federalist Papers are RAI. They're not legally binding at all, but courts still find them valuable in rendering judgements, both when a rule (law) is unclear, and when it is clear but fundamentally broken.

Thank you - an excellent example. The Supreme Court and the country as a whole have been arguing about what they mean for over two centuries, and there is no end in sight. Some people are completely convinced that the constitutional RAI means one thing, and others are equally convinced that it means something else.

That's why the courts need to keep trying to interpret it, and why that job will never be finished.


Another legal analogy - the Tax Code is RAW. But IRS guidance is RAI. The latter is not law either, but you can use it as a defense in court - again, both in cases when the law is unclear, and when it is clear but unjust or has an undesirable result.

Sure. But in that case, the writer of the rules (the IRS) is also the DM, so there is no difference between the RAI and the DM's interpretation.


That's how I view RAI vs. RAW, and why clear RAI will always trump in my view.

Theoretical discussion aside, I don't think we are really in disagreement on any practical matter.

I suspect that your RAI and my RAIbaCDMWJIT (Rules As Interpreted by a Competent DM Whose Judgment I Trust) are pretty much the same thing, with the only difference being that you are certain you have the clear RAI, and I don't assume I know what a stranger intended when it contradicts what she wrote.

[Karl Aegis]

What I'm saying about RAI and RAW is

RAW: John, Johnathan, and James are strong, but he is the strongest.
Debate: He refers to James because it's the last name on the list and "he" refers to the latest name.
Author: "he" refers to John because that's what I intended to say with that sentence.
RAW Lawyer: I don't give a damn what some non-source book or non-errata thing says. By the general rules in the english language "he" refers to James so James is the strongest.
RAI: John is the strongest.

So which is the truth here? Is John the strongest or James?

Language is an imperfect medium of delivering intent. When we have an elaboration of author's intent regarding a material, or something is clear mistake, we go with what the author meant is what I am saying. Screw literal parsing of the sentence.

"he", the entity referred to in a lowercase third person noun, is the strongest because the sentence is two clauses with two subjects and two verbs. In the context given, "he" in the latter clause possibly refers to some other party not mentioned in the former clause.

[HouseRules]

What I'm saying about RAI and RAW is

RAW: John, Johnathan, and James are strong, but he is the strongest.
Debate: He refers to James because it's the last name on the list and "he" refers to the latest name.
Author: "he" refers to John because that's what I intended to say with that sentence.
RAW Lawyer: I don't give a damn what some non-source book or non-errata thing says. By the general rules in the english language "he" refers to James so James is the strongest.
RAI: John is the strongest.

So which is the truth here? Is John the strongest or James?

Language is an imperfect medium of delivering intent. When we have an elaboration of author's intent regarding a material, or something is clear mistake, we go with what the author meant is what I am saying. Screw literal parsing of the sentence.

English Language Rule says that the pronouns refers to the closest proper noun that satisfy the pronouns with exceptions pointed out by Karl Aegis. Thus, it gets so complicated. The word "but" is activating the exception.

Comma matters in the Court. This is not a manner of Oxford Comma (the comma before the "and"), but about the multiple usage of the word "and" which cause different interpretation to the placement of the "Comma".

A, and B and C means A gets 50% inheritance, B gets 25% inheritance, C gets 25% inheritance
A and B, and C means A gets 25% inheritance, B gets 25% inheritance, C gets 50% inheritance
A, and B, and C means each get 33% inheritance
A and B and C means each get 33% inheritance
A, B and C also means each get 33% inheritance
A, B, and C also means each get 33% inheritance


The first two are of note and importance because they are the greatest flaws that people write in their will.
The best way to write a will sometimes is to not specifically name all of your children, because you may have more children, and modifying will may have unintended errors that you do not know or the lawyer made a mistake during the modification process.

[Erloas]

What many people call RAI has a different problem – it’s impossible. It assumes that you can always know what the writer of the rule intended, even when it contradicts what he or she wrote, and often in combination with other rules written by a different writer. Quite often no writer ever thought about those rules in combination, and so there is no intent to interpret.

There are lots of situations which no writer actually considered. For that reason, the DM must be the final arbiter.

That’s why I prefer RAIbaCDMWJIT – Rules As Interpreted by a Competent DM Whose Judgment I Trust.
The way I see RAI, at least in the cases were it isn't an obvious typo, is "what would the writers have intended if they had known about this interpretation or combination." They clearly didn't see that combo of abilities, but you can bet they didn't intend to give an ability that gives someone infinite power or gold. If it is completely out of line with other parts of the system then that is not what was intended.
That's something that any competent and reasonable player or dm could see. "I don't think they intended this to break the game" is a very easy assumption to make about intent. So an interpretation that breaks the game versus one that doesn't, should always default to the one that doesn't.

There are also plenty of situations where two readings are just different but not brokenly so, which isn't as vital, but not many people argue those points as hard.

[Psyren]

Thank you - an excellent example. The Supreme Court and the country as a whole have been arguing about what they mean for over two centuries, and there is no end in sight. Some people are completely convinced that the constitutional RAI means one thing, and others are equally convinced that it means something else.

That's why the courts need to keep trying to interpret it, and why that job will never be finished.

Right, and the court in this analogy is your GM. But my point is that the authorial intent (Federalist Papers) behind a rule can carry just as much weight as the rule itself (Constitution) when making a ruling. Ultimately the GM is the one who has to rule, not the player or designer.


Sure. But in that case, the writer of the rules (the IRS) is also the DM, so there is no difference between the RAI and the DM's interpretation.

Actually that's incorrect, the legislature (Congress) writes the rule. IRS would be part of the executive branch. The judiciary, who ultimately makes the decision (GM in this analogy, again), considers both sides when rendering said judgement.


Theoretical discussion aside, I don't think we are really in disagreement on any practical matter.

I suspect that your RAI and my RAIbaCDMWJIT (Rules As Interpreted by a Competent DM Whose Judgment I Trust) are pretty much the same thing, with the only difference being that you are certain you have the clear RAI, and I don't assume I know what a stranger intended when it contradicts what she wrote.

A stranger can tell you their intent pretty plainly though. It just might not be in the same place as what they originally wrote down.

[Cosi]

Saying "the DM decides" is engaging in a really bad form of "what should the rules say" discussion. The whole "the DM is sole arbiter, everyone agrees with him or leaves" is just a holdover from Gygaxian DMing styles of the past, and like most things about Gygaxian DMing it is incredibly terrible.

[icefractal]

The OP sounds like it's more about Rules As Make Sense than RAI. Which is a more useful concept anyway, but also one that only works within a limited group.

The problem with using it in discussion is that people have a wide range of standards for what's "reasonable", and ultimately there's no objective way to decide between them.

For example, I would consider drown-healing as "not reasonable" and not use it when GMing. But I would consider Alter Self into a winged form (in 3.5) as "reasonable", because that's directly what the spell does, and it doesn't really break things. Someone else might consider it completely non-reasonable because it's mostly better than Fly. And a third person might consider drown-healing reasonable.

In an individual gaming group, people can often come to a consensus that fits everyone's tastes well enough. On a forum, not so much; just too many people involved.