Rules Lawyers, Mettle, Orb of Fire

[ChudoJogurt]

A hexblade with mettle is attacked by the Orb of Fire.
He makes his saving throw.

Now Orb of Fire has (fortitude partial) saving throw - if one makes the saving throw, then he still takes the full damage, but isn't sickened.

Mettle, that Hexblade gers on 3rd level, says "If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), he instead completely negates the effect"
Would that mean that he also takes no damage from the Orb of Fire?

RAI aside, that seams to be the plain reading of the rules. Am I correct?

[Bayar]

It negates the effect that would be normally partial. The damage aspect has no save DC.

To put it more into perspective, the Orb line of spells are conjured objects. It would be like hitting them with a rotten apple but they negate the nausea aspect of it. They'd still have to wash up the mess on their clothes.

[Aracor]

You are correct. The hexblade would take no damage from the Orb of Fire.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yeah, the hexblade grits his or her teeth and just sorta tanks the heat without getting burned. The hexblade is just too tough to let something as little as a ball of fire stop them.

It's no less unrealistic than a rogue dodging a point black explosive in a sealed empty room.

[Aracor]

It negates the effect that would be normally partial. The damage aspect has no save DC.

To put it more into perspective, the Orb line of spells are conjured objects. It would be like hitting them with a rotten apple but they negate the nausea aspect of it. They'd still have to wash up the mess on their clothes.

Bayar, I have to ask: How does your description differ from NOT having Mettle?

[ciopo]

My understanding is that mettle negates those effect where the partial effect means something still happens to you, like cloudkill that is essentially "fortitude for half".

You do not negate the damage of an orb of fire with mettle, because the fortitude save of orb of fire is not related to taking damage.

You would completely negate the damage of a disintegrate.

"negate the effect you are saving from", the effect of orb of fire is the daze, not the spell in it's entirety

[Tzardok]

My understanding is that mettle negates those effect where the partial effect means something still happens to you, like cloudkill that is essentially "fortitude for half".

You do not negate the damage of an orb of fire with mettle, because the fortitude save of orb of fire is not related to taking damage.

You would completely negate the damage of a disintegrate.

"negate the effect you are saving from", the effect of orb of fire is the daze, not the spell in it's entirety

But the save is against the whole spell. In the spell's description it says "fortitude, partial". If it were only against the daze, the description would says something like "No, and fortitude, no effect".

[H_H_F_F]

Any DM can do with this whatever they wabt, of course, but the RAW seems pretty clear. You make a save against a spell that says "fortitude partial" and stipulates what happens to you if you fail or succeed the saving throw. Mettle means nothing happens to you if you make the throw.

RAI, they probably would have written the spell differently if they had mettle in mind - saying, "fortitude, see description" or something.

However, it makes sense for someone with a unique ability to overcome magic to be able to do that, it doesn't break immersion more than a 1000 other abilities. Game balance wise, it's a small issue (a very rare case), and it helps some martials tank a tiny bit better. That's a good. Rule of cool wise, it's badass.

I'm all for mettle stopping orb damage.

[ciopo]

does the spell say the damage is reduced by half if saved against? if yes, then with mettle you ignore the damage. If not, it seems clear to me that effect and spell are separate entities.

I don't have the book under hand, but to my memory fire orb says "fortitude partial, see text" and iirc it refers back to acid orb and then say that it dazes instead of sickening. I don't recall if acid orb is "no sickened and half damage on a save" or just "no sickened on a save, still full damage"

In other words, if you're saving against being dazed, that has nothing to do with whatever other riders a spell might have. If a save relates only to part of the effects *something* might do, mettle will negate the totality of that effect, but not the totality of the *something*

that's my opinion anyway

[Crazysaneman]

But the save is against the whole spell. In the spell's description it says "fortitude, partial". If it were only against the daze, the description would says something like "No, and fortitude, no effect".



"This spell functions like Orb of Acid, except that it deals fire damage. In addition, a creature struck by an orb of fire must make a Fortitude save or be dazed for 1 round instead of being sickened."



"A creature struck by the orb takes damage and becomes sickened by the acid's noxious fumes for 1 round. A successful Fortitude save negates the sickened effect but does not reduce the damage."



"A hexblade can resist magical and unusual attacks with great willpower or fortitude. If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), he instead completely negates the effect."


Orb of Fire acts like Orb of Acid except it does fire damage and a daze instead of sickened. Orb of Acid only allows a fort save against the sickened effect, not the damage. It specifically states "DOES NOT REDUCE THE DAMAGE". The damage can't be saved against, so the dazed effect is either resisted or not, but the damage is inevitable. The damage is NOT a lesser effect, it simply is.

[Tzardok]

Orb of Fire acts like Orb of Acid except it does fire damage and a daze instead of sickened. Orb of Acid only allows a fort save against the sickened effect, not the damage. It specifically states "DOES NOT REDUCE THE DAMAGE". The damage can't be saved against, so the dazed effect is either resisted or not, but the damage is inevitable. The damage is NOT a lesser effect, it simply is.

That doesn't matter. Mettle says "If a spell or effect allows a will or fortitude save for a reduced effect, it doesn't have an effect on you if you succesfully save". The full effect of Orb of Fire is "damage plus daze". The partial effect is "damage, no daze". The negated effect through Mettle is "no damage, no daze". Simple as the times tables.

[gijoemike]

I agree with Crazysaneman.

The save is for sickened or not. There is no 1/2 effect and the spell is completely unaffected by the mettle ability.

Mettle is effectively evasion for 1/2 damage/drain/loss on successful save. That what is was meant to be. It is worded oddly because fort and will saves sometimes do different effects that aren't damage or at least not 1/2 damage. See both Finger of Death and Disintegrate damage is dealt on a successful save, it isn't 1/2 damage. Mettle ignores that. There are spells that instead of becoming exhausted one becomes fatigued on a save. Mettle would ignore the fatigued effect.

I do have to complain about the number of spells that fort or will negate a entire element of the spell but leaves the rest alone. These spells have foolishly been marked as fort partial or will partial. When in fact the save is fort negates see text or will negates see text. All of the orb spells seem to be like this. Chill touch is like this. The save complete negates the fear/ability damage. Living creatures take the d6 cold regardless of the save.

[Crazysaneman]

That doesn't matter. Mettle says "If a spell or effect allows a will or fortitude save for a reduced effect, it doesn't have an effect on you if you succesfully save". The full effect of Orb of Fire is "damage plus daze". The partial effect is "damage, no daze". The negated effect through Mettle is "no damage, no daze". Simple as the times tables.

I agree, it IS simple. Your quote of mettle is incorrect, "If a spell or effect allows a will or fortitude save for a reduced effect, it doesn't have an effect on you if you succesfully save" is wrong. What it actually says is " If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), he instead completely negates the effect."

The only listed effect is the stun. The damage is NOT an effect of the spell modified by a save and is EXPLICITLY stated as not being reduced. The damage is inevitable. It can NOT be saved against, ergo the damage is not subject to mettle. No save, no reduction, no avoiding. It happens.

I understand what you're trying to say, that because the lesser effect of the spell is the damage but not the stun that mettle ignores it. My argument is that specifics trump general. The general is if there is a reduced effect you ignore it. However, the spell specifically says the damage is not modified (reduced) by the save. If it's not modified (reduced) by the save it can't be ignored by mettle. The stun has a reduced effect on a save but the damage does not. The spell does not get countered by mettle, mettle simply lets you ignore partial effects. There is NO partial damage. Fireball has a lesser damage effect on a save and evasions rightly ignores it on a successful save. Orb spells do not.

[ciopo]

That doesn't matter. Mettle says "If a spell or effect allows a will or fortitude save for a reduced effect, it doesn't have an effect on you if you succesfully save". The full effect of Orb of Fire is "damage plus daze". The partial effect is "damage, no daze". The negated effect through Mettle is "no damage, no daze". Simple as the times tables.

that is not what mettle says, and that is not what orb of fire says, either. I may accept ruling it that way, but the discussion is about RAW, isn't it?

I am with books now, so let me go over what I have on hand.

Mettle: "If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), he instead completely negates the effect. An unconscious or sleeping hexblade does not gain the benefit of mettle."

the distinction between "attack that would have a lesser effect on a successful save" and "effect" is important to me. Mostly because I ascribe to the school of thoughts that we can gain more than one feat from repeated castings of heroics, or resistance to different energy descriptor from multiple castings of resist energy. This informs my reading of the mettle feature.

The saving throw of Orb of acid is "fortitude partial, see text" so if I wanted to be nitpicky, the spell does not have "Fortitude partial" as its saving throw, but that's a very nitpicky answer, and not what I'd make my argument on, but if you're going to equate spell with effect, then I will counter you with the stupidest strictest reading, that is not my intention, but it's ammunition I have, so shrug

The "see text", informs us that the spell orb of acid has two effects, some damage, which have no save, and a rider sickened effect that have a save for full. My conclusion is that RAW on mettle versus Orb of Acid is "Mettle doesn't apply to Orb of acid because orb of acid does not have an effect that is applied on successful saves". Unless you're willing ot make undead/elementals immune to "orb of X", I guess.

Conveniently Opalescent glare is just above Orb of acid in the spell compendium, and is a clear example of how Mettle could be used to avoid the fear effect on a failed save if your HD is less than 6.


That reiterated, I'd have no problem with mettle negating damage of those spells that have ntohing to do with mettling them out, I do not feel that is the RAW reading, nor the RAI since it's in my opinion modeled after Evasion.

[Remuko]

That doesn't matter. Mettle says "If a spell or effect allows a will or fortitude save for a reduced effect, it doesn't have an effect on you if you succesfully save". The full effect of Orb of Fire is "damage plus daze". The partial effect is "damage, no daze". The negated effect through Mettle is "no damage, no daze". Simple as the times tables.

i agree with this, even with seeing the actual word for word quotes someone else posted of the spell and mettle. it seems clear as day to me that this is correct as written.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), he instead completely negates the effect.This is not written clearly. What is "the effect" at the end of the sentence? Is it the effect of the attack, which would include all effects that are a part of that attack, or is it the specific effect within the attack that caused the saving throw? That is, essentially, the divide in this thread, and I can see the interpretation going either way.

Hexblade was written prior to SpC. Perhaps the writer of Mettle was thinking about spells such as Ray of Exhaustion that had one effect which was reduced on a successful save, and not attacks with multiple effects (or perhaps someone will come up with an example that disproves my idle speculation). If the writer had presciently considered an attack with multiple effects, instead of writing "the effect," she could have written either "the effect that caused the saving throw" or "the attack" and clarified things one way or the other.

(As an aside, for the overly literal reading regarding "Fortitude partial; see text" differing from "Fortitude partial," the phrase "such as" kills this argument.)

[Elves]

I think it depends on whether you parse it

an attack that normally would have | a lesser effect on a successful save
an attack that normally would have a lesser effect | on a successful save

[ciopo]

I did say I did not like the overly literal reading!

I'm trying to think of circumstances other than spells to use as examples, but most of them would be classified as "fortitude negates".

The one msot prominent in my mind is stunning fist, because it's functionally similar to the "Orb of X" spell line. You have a damaging effect, with a rider that require a save, the save negates the rider.

You're ruling that Mettle negates stunning fist damage.

While I find it amusing/cool/fun that your mettle allows you to ignore stunning fist damage, (and personal opinion : thematically appropriate, it's called METTLE gornammit), I can't in good coscience agree to that.

I can see the reading being valid, but I'm internally consistent with separating "spell"(cause) and "effect".

I'm trying to find one of those spells that have "reflex for half, fortitude partial", too. Where the reflex halves the damage and the fortitude(or will) negates a rider, or something to that effect, but I can't think of any right now.

I would like to compare to pious templar mettle, too, which is functionally different enough, I think.

"A pious templar's special blessing allows her to shrug off magical effects that would otherwise harm her. If a pious templar makes a successful Will or Fortitude saving throw that would normally reduce the spell's effect, she suffers no effect from the spell at all. Only those spells with a Saving Throw entry of "Will partial," "Fortitude half," or similar entries can be negated through this ability."

I fully accept reading this as completely negating the spell, both because this is (su) compared to the hexblade (ex), and it specifically says that she takes no effect form the spell at all.

I can also see how this could be used as justification that hexblade mettle does indeed negate the spell in it's entirety, but that (su) vs (ex) seals the deal to me

Wording is important to me :)

[Darg]

The effect line is "one orb of fire." The spell has one effect. If it negates an effect, it's the entire effect unless mettle says otherwise, which it doesn't. This one is easy guys. There isn't another way to read this

[Segev]

RAI, it's very clear to me Mettle is meant to make "Fortitude, Partial" spells do nothing on a successful safe. Period.

RAW, Mettle says it negates the whole effect if you save vs. a "Fortitude, Partial" effect. Essentially, it makes "Fortitude, Partial" into "Fortitude negates." There is no other way to read it.

[ciopo]

What about those manouvers that have riders effects? I mean I can buy the narrative that mettle (name) implies that yeah, you shrug off the damage..but you still have been successfully attacked, and we already have a mechanics that reduces weapon/physical damage

I like the narrative, mandatory "merely a flesh wound" namedrop here, but really?

to each it's own, I guess

[icefractal]

I'd say that the way Orb of Fire works is fairly common for "Fortitude partial" spells - they're often in the form of "X always happens, Y happens if you fail the save". So if Mettle works in general, it works on this.

If there were really two separate effects that were resisted separately there, the save should be "None and Fortitude Negates", because there's nothing "partial" about the Fortitude save except the damage.


Rider effects are usually written as a separate thing (which often only applies if the attack does damage, so by the time you're rolling a save that's already established). While Orb of Fire could be considered conceptually similar to a plain-damage spell with a separate rider effect, that's not how it's written. And for the Orb series in particular, it's best to stick to what's written, because conceptually speaking the whole line is a mess.


And if we're talking about what kind of precedent is set:
A) Mettle, a fairly rare ability, can negate a few things it may not be intended to.
B) Mettle doesn't work for about half of what it's supposed to, because the phrasing is similar to Orb of Fire.

A is better. I wouldn't even consider it a problem if Mettle did negate certain weapon attacks entirely - plenty of spells can do that.

[Elves]

This one is easy guys. There isn't another way to read this

There is no other way to read it.

Saying there's no other way to read it is wrong.


"If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), he instead completely negates the effect"

Elsewhere, "effect" usually means the entire spell, but here, "attack" means the entire spell, whereas what's completely negated is the "effect".
"The effect" means the lesser effect that would result from a successful save.

If you parse the sentence this way:
an attack that normally would have | a lesser effect on a successful save

then orb of fire doesn't count because it doesn't have an effect that is lessened on a successful save, only one that is negated on a successful save.

To accept this reading you have to be willing to see the parenthetical as exemplary rather than primary rules text. And there is precedent for ignoring that. I forget the specific case, but for example, if a class feature said "you can ignore the ability prerequisite of any feat with an Intelligence or Strength prerequisite (such as Two-Weapon Fighting)", the example would be wrong without affecting how the ability works.

[Quertus]

Shrug. Meddle doesn't say anything about "½", only "partial" or "lesser effect". More specifically, "partial" seems defined as a subset of "lesser effect". Orb of Fire has "partial", albeit a "partial, see text".

If "partial" is a subset of "lesser effect", "partial, see text" seems reasonable to also be a subset of "lesser effect".

The scope of Meddle is an attack against which the character has made a successful Will or Fortitude save. Sounds applicable.

The results of Meddle are "completely negates the effect". Eh?

Reading #1: completely negates the effect of the attack. This is really odd: hit them with a poisoned blade, and they can take no damage.

Reading #2: negates just the effect that was reduced by the save.

Reading #1 is really funny, and I see no reason it's not RAW (and to ask whether the Ogre's Blade or monster's claws was surgical clean to negate the damage), but let's stick with reading #2.

So the question is, what is the effect that is being saved against here? Is it "daze", or is it "Orb of Fire"?

I can see either answer as reasonable, but, absent explicit wording from the spell, I'll go with save vs Orb of Fire, I guess.

[Segev]

Saying there's no other way to read it is wrong.



Elsewhere, "effect" usually means the entire spell, but here, "attack" means the entire spell, whereas what's completely negated is the "effect".
"The effect" means the lesser effect that would result from a successful save.

If you parse the sentence this way:
an attack that normally would have | a lesser effect on a successful save

then orb of fire doesn't count because it doesn't have an effect that is lessened on a successful save, only one that is negated on a successful save.

To accept this reading you have to be willing to see the parenthetical as exemplary rather than primary rules text. And there is precedent for ignoring that. I forget the specific case, but for example, if a class feature said "you can ignore the ability prerequisite of any feat with an Intelligence or Strength prerequisite (such as Two-Weapon Fighting)", the example would be wrong without affecting how the ability works.

You quoted it. I will do so again:
"If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), he instead completely negates the effect"

I added emphasis.

You have to ignore that line to pretend that the whole spell isn't negated by a successful save with mettle. Orb of fire explicitly says "Fortitude, Partial;" it qualifies for a save "completely negat[ing] the effect."

[mattie_p]

Time for comparisons with Iron Heart Surge's ability to extinguish the sun? Seems like we're getting there.

[Eldonauran]

Just throwing my two cents in. Really don't care to argue about it.

Mettle + Orb of Fire + Successful save = Full fire damage, no sickened

Yes, it means Mettle really doesn't do anything for this particular spell. Congratulations. You found a type of spell that Mettle doesn't curb stomp. Yay. Mettle still works on other spells.

[Telonius]

It seems pretty clear to me that the intent is for Mettle to be "Evasion, but for Fort and Will saves." They couldn't just copy/paste the wording, since there are other considerations - save makes you sickened instead of nauseated, etc. So they used the wording about effects.

It's worded poorly. If they'd used this:


At 3rd level and higher, a hexblade can resist magical and unusual attacks with great willpower or fortitude. If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), he instead completely negates both the lesser and the greater effect.

- it would have been a lot clearer. I don't think they considered that "the effect" could refer to the spell as a whole, in the case of spells with rider effects.

[ngilop]

I just wanna pipe in here and say

It seems people are stuck on the "If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), he instead completely negates the effect." and say "well the lesser effect of a successful fortitude save is no effect at all.

Here I am agreeing, that is why mettle is overrrated. the overwhelming majority of fortitude and will based saves are binary in their effects. That why mettle is both fort and will as opposed to evasion which is just reflex.


The orb of X spells to me still deal their damage. You roll to see if you successfully hit deal damage, then the target has to save or be Xed. If they succeed on said save, then X does not happen to them.

There are two effects, taking the damage which has no save for a lesser effect upon a successful attack and the condition applied that has a lesser effect of not even happening.

The Orb of fire isn't an effect, its the spell. The ability doesn't completely negate a spell. It negates an effect that has a save for a lesser effect which for most fort and will save based spells is 'the effect not happening'

{Scrubbed}

The same people, if you continue their logic, would say that a spell cast on you that requires 3 saves, one of each type (fort, rex, and will), if you succeed on either the fortitude OR Will save of the spell negates the entire spell.

[ciopo]

And if we're talking about what kind of precedent is set:
A) Mettle, a fairly rare ability, can negate a few things it may not be intended to.
B) Mettle doesn't work for about half of what it's supposed to, because the phrasing is similar to Orb of Fire.

I wouldn't call it "fairly rare", about uuuuuh, 10 prc have it? and third level of a base class, so a bit out of dippability range, but fairly doable

You have to ignore that line to pretend that the whole spell isn't negated by a successful save with mettle. Orb of fire explicitly says "Fortitude, Partial;" it qualifies for a save "completely negat[ing] the effect."
I point again to the difference between hexblade mettle and pious templar mettle. I have no problem agreeing to the (su) mettle completely negating spells, that's what it says it does!

Hexblade does not say it negates the spell, it says it negates the effect, I understand your position, I disagree with it :), and unlike pious templar works for things like monster special attacks and/or other such that aren't explictly spells

I do make a difference between vehicle (fire orb, in the OP question) and passenger ( the extra effect of daze/sickened/etc of the orb line ).

if it helps making sense of my position, the fact that the "extra" rider is in a separate paragraph helps me justifying my position.

Now I kinda want to find some "negative" (something) that does the likes of "whenever you take damage, roll fortitude or (this extra bad thing happens to you)" let's become immune to all damage! Maybe a bit more convoluted than that mantle thing + evasion, but funtime!

[Elves]

You have to ignore that line to pretend that the whole spell isn't negated by a successful save with mettle. Orb of fire explicitly says "Fortitude, Partial;" it qualifies for a save "completely negat[ing] the effect."
That parenthetical could be read as an example of what the ability applies to. In which case, it being wrong doesn't change the substance of the ability. Imagine something said "You get a +2 bonus against monstrous humanoids (such as ogres)". The parenthetical example is wrong, but that doesn't mean the ability also applies to giants.

[Segev]

That parenthetical be read as an example of what the ability applies to. In which case, it being wrong doesn't change the substance of the ability. Imagine something said "You get a +2 bonus against monstrous humanoids (such as ogres)". The parenthetical example is wrong, but that doesn't mean the ability also applies to giants.

No, it is clarifying what it pertains to. It is not an "incorrect example," any more than the rules saying that you can't stack two enhancement bonuses are an "incorrect example" of the same-named bonus not stacking just because somebody wants to stack enhancement bonuses.

It spells out explicitly that it fully negates spells with "Fortitude partial" saves. It can't be more clear. {Scrubbed}


At this point, you're house ruling. The RAW and the RAI are very, very clear: Mettle negates orb of fire entirely on a successful save.

[ciopo]

Are undead creatures immune to the damage from orb of X spells?

[Darg]

That parenthetical be read as an example of what the ability applies to. In which case, it being wrong doesn't change the substance of the ability. Imagine something said "You get a +2 bonus against monstrous humanoids (such as ogres)". The parenthetical example is wrong, but that doesn't mean the ability also applies to giants.

Orb of fire literally has one effect. It doesnt matter if it has parts to that effect. It is still one effect. Mettle says it negates the "effect." There is only one effect to negate. To say there are multiple effects is not how it is written.


Are undead creatures immune to the damage from orb of X spells?

Are objects immune to the effect? I don't see any rules that say an object can't be dazed.

[icefractal]

There are no "rider" effects in the Orb series. I'm going to dig up my Spell Compendium because this is getting silly.

Ok, here's Orb of Acid:

Effect: One orb of acid
...
Saving Throw: Fortitude partial; see text

An orb of acid about 3 inches across shoots from your palm at its target, dealing 1d6 points of acid damage per caster level (maximum 15d6). You must succeed on a ranged touch attack to hit your target.

A creature struck by the orb takes damage and becomes sickened by the acid's noxious fumes for 1 round. A successful Fortitude save negates the sickened effect but does not reduce the damage.
Taking damage and being sickened happen together, neither is a rider on the other. Someone immune to acid (or immune to damage in general) would still potentially be sickened.

There is one effect (damage and sickened) which you are making a single Fortitude save against to reduce it to (just damaged). The fact that other abilities exist which are rider effects has no bearing on this spell, or any other spells like it.

[sreservoir]

Are objects immune to the effect? I don't see any rules that say an object can't be dazed.

Orb of fire says only creatures are dazed. Nothing in orb of acid prevents the damage from affecting creatures, though, so I'm p sure undead take the damage and have to Fort save vs the rider, because it's an effect that also works on objects. Yes, it does something different for creatures, but then does disintegrate and that's practically the canonical example.

[Nifft]

Yeah, the hexblade grits his or her teeth and just sorta tanks the heat without getting burned. The hexblade is just too tough to let something as little as a ball of fire stop them.

Agreed, but also I want to point out the missed opportunity to say, "The hexblade is just too metal".


EDIT: In my opinion the diagnosis here is that the rules needed to be more clearly written, but unfortunately when WotC tried to write clear spell and combat rules what we got was 4e.

[Particle_Man]

FWIW the FAQ says that mettle works vs. Sound Burst, negating the damage. That is probably as close to RAW as we are ever going to get.

So it looks like, yes, Mettle is awesome. Yes, it negates Orb of Fire damage. Yes, it negates damage from a monk's Stunning Fist. Yes, it negates weapon damage if the weapon is poisoned. (Well, the Hexblade needs to make the save).

I think the Tier of Hexblades may need to be reevaluated. :smallbiggrin:

[Aracor]

The one msot prominent in my mind is stunning fist, because it's functionally similar to the "Orb of X" spell line. You have a damaging effect, with a rider that require a save, the save negates the rider.

You're ruling that Mettle negates stunning fist damage.

Not exactly. The difference is simple: Stunning Fist is a specific effect that is added to an attack. The attack is completely separate from the stunning effect. Stunning Fist isn't "damage plus rider effect". Stunning Fist is JUST rider effect after an attack.

Orb of Fire IS "damage plus rider effect". RAW, I agree that Mettle will stop the damage from an Orb of Fire. Don't like it? Use Orb of Force instead.

[ChudoJogurt]

I think the whole thing is about the meaning of the word "effect".

Orb of fire is certainly an attack - it has an attack roll and everything. The wording of the Mettle presumes tha the attack in question always has a singular effect - in this case, damage+daze. Since damage+daze > damage, Fortitude save allows to lessen the effect, and therefore Mettle should negate it entirely

However, the way Orb of Fire is written, implies, though does not state clearly, that the spell has two independent effects following from an attack - damage, and the daze. Of those, only the latter can be affected by the Fortitude save, and thus be subject to Mettle.

So, its not clear one way or another, but I think since the statement in the wording of the Mettle is much stronger and less ambiguous, the interpretation ofbthrules would lean toward the first one - an attack (for the purposes of Mettle, and unless specified otherwise) has just one big effect, no matter how many things are described in it, and of the total effect can be lessened by any Will or Fortitude save then the whole thing is negated.

[H_H_F_F]

FWIW the FAQ says that mettle works vs. Sound Burst, negating the damage. That is probably as close to RAW as we are ever going to get.

So it looks like, yes, Mettle is awesome. Yes, it negates Orb of Fire damage. Yes, it negates damage from a monk's Stunning Fist. Yes, it negates weapon damage if the weapon is poisoned. (Well, the Hexblade needs to make the save).

I think the Tier of Hexblades may need to be reevaluated. :smallbiggrin:

If you're being serious, I think poisoned weapon is categorically different. You save against the orb spell, not the daze, and you save against the posion, not the sword. Complete opposites.

[Particle_Man]

If you're being serious, I think poisoned weapon is categorically different. You save against the orb spell, not the daze, and you save against the posion, not the sword. Complete opposites.

In that case you save vs the stunning attack, not the unarmed strike of the monk.

Which is fine. It is a good distinction and stops the “save vs. the sun with iron heart surge” worries.

FAQ only talks about mettle vs. spells like sound burst. Orb of Fire fits that bill and would be negated by mettle according to the FAQ, so no damage.

[icefractal]

Wouldn't negate the attack which causes Stunning Fist or a poisoned weapon, for the simple reason that those things only trigger if the attack does damage - not if it's negated by DR for example. So the only way you're even making the save is if the damage has already been established.

Would it block Bo9S maneuvers which have a Fortitude save regardless of damage? I guess yes. Not really an issue IMO.

[Darg]

I think the whole thing is about the meaning of the word "effect".

Orb of fire is certainly an attack - it has an attack roll and everything. The wording of the Mettle presumes tha the attack in question always has a singular effect - in this case, damage+daze. Since damage+daze > damage, Fortitude save allows to lessen the effect, and therefore Mettle should negate it entirely

However, the way Orb of Fire is written, implies, though does not state clearly, that the spell has two independent effects following from an attack - damage, and the daze. Of those, only the latter can be affected by the Fortitude save, and thus be subject to Mettle.

So, its not clear one way or another, but I think since the statement in the wording of the Mettle is much stronger and less ambiguous, the interpretation ofbthrules would lean toward the first one - an attack (for the purposes of Mettle, and unless specified otherwise) has just one big effect, no matter how many things are described in it, and of the total effect can be lessened by any Will or Fortitude save then the whole thing is negated.

A spell is a single effect. Orb of fire is a single effect as stated in the "Effect" line of the description. It's very obvious that including fortitude partials would be superfluous if Mettle didn't negate them. All evidence points to Mettle negating Orb of Fire.

[H_H_F_F]

Wouldn't negate the attack which causes Stunning Fist or a poisoned weapon, for the simple reason that those things only trigger if the attack does damage - not if it's negated by DR for example. So the only way you're even making the save is if the damage has already been established.

Would it block Bo9S maneuvers which have a Fortitude save regardless of damage? I guess yes. Not really an issue IMO.

Maneuver, I tend to say yes. Poisoned weapon? No. There is no "if damage then save for stun" for the orb spells. That would imply two different events occuring, but the spell is quite clear that there is only one event. The orb hits you - make a partial fort save against the spell.

A poisoned weapon has two distinct events. You're hit by a sword - if it cuts you, the poison gets in your system. Make a save against the posion.

I haven't looked at stunning fist in a while, so I feel less comfortable stating an opinion there.

[Particle_Man]

I just checked the feat. You only make the save vs stun if you are damaged by the unarmed strike. So mettle would not retroactively negate the damage from the unarmed attack that has stunning fist attached to it.

[rel]

You make the save, mettle negates the effect.
Spell bounces. No rider, no damage.
The mail is not delivered this day.

[Telonius]

There are no "rider" effects in the Orb series. I'm going to dig up my Spell Compendium because this is getting silly.

Ok, here's Orb of Acid:

Taking damage and being sickened happen together, neither is a rider on the other. Someone immune to acid (or immune to damage in general) would still potentially be sickened.

There is one effect (damage and sickened) which you are making a single Fortitude save against to reduce it to (just damaged). The fact that other abilities exist which are rider effects has no bearing on this spell, or any other spells like it.

The wording of the spell itself draws the distinction between the effect and the damage:


A successful Fortitude save negates the sickened effect but does not reduce the damage.

The spell results in two things, an effect and damage. The sickened effect is a rider on the damage. It doesn't activate unless the attack lands.

[Darg]

The wording of the spell itself draws the distinction between the effect and the damage:



The spell results in two things, an effect and damage. The sickened effect is a rider on the damage. It doesn't activate unless the attack lands.

Except Mettle already takes care of that:


If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), he instead completely negates the effect.

Orb of fire is the attack. It is also one single magical effect as seen in the effect line. If fire resistance reduces the damage to 0, as long as the spell hits it still rolls against the daze as energy resistance doesn't disrupt a spell. Being struck does not equate to doing damage. It just means the attack roll beats the AC.

Take a look at Ray of Exhaustion. Would you really say that Mettle wouldn't negate the entire effect. Fortitude partials are all like that and the description of Mettle specifically calls them out as completely negating the magical effect of the spell.

The lesser effect of orb of fire is doing just damage. Mettle negates that effect. The lesser effect of ray of exhaustion is causing fatigue. Mettle negates that.

[ciopo]

Except Mettle already takes care of that:



Orb of fire is the attack. It is also one single magical effect as seen in the effect line. If fire resistance reduces the damage to 0, as long as the spell hits it still rolls against the daze as energy resistance doesn't disrupt a spell. Being struck does not equate to doing damage. It just means the attack roll beats the AC.

Take a look at Ray of Exhaustion. Would you really say that Mettle wouldn't negate the entire effect. Fortitude partials are all like that and the description of Mettle specifically calls them out as completely negating the magical effect of the spell.


I re-point out that Orb of X description have two separate paragraphs, that to me denotes some measure of separation between the effects of a spell. that section is called "Descriptive text", not "effect", but much as I like arguing semantic, I understand where you're coming from here, I colloquially call that the spell effect, too.

I can do bolded quote too, specifically that the actual text of orb of X are "... fortitude save negates ...", and ray of exhaustion is the perfect use case of it indeed being completely negated by mettle as opposed to partially negated (no argument here, we agree), I don't know how to do that without sounding confrontational, so if I'm sounding confrontational, I am giving out reassurance that I am not being confrontational.



The lesser effect of orb of fire is doing just damage. Mettle negates that effect. The lesser effect of ray of exhaustion is causing fatigue. Mettle negates that.

for a moment I misread that as "lesser orb of fire" and I was confused, but this brought this thought to me : I find there to be some argumentative wiggle room that "Orb of X, lesser" have no saving throw, therefore the damage portion of "Orb of X, lesser" is behaviorally the same, and the fortitude save clearly ( to me ) refers only to the sickened/dazed/etc, and negates that.

agree to disagree, I suppose?

Are you talking about Hexblade Mettle or Pious Templar Mettle? I'm more likely to accept Pious templar Mettle to completely negate a spell, because that's what it says it does. Hexblade Mettle does not say "completely negate the spell", it says "completely negates the effect"(implied, to me : "..the effect that would otherwise (do something) on a successfull save.") ( and the implication of the implied is that the damage of Orbs have no relation to the secondary effect of causing some debuff with fort negate )

[Calthropstu]

Raw you can interpret it both ways. So I'd say rule however you like. You can infinitely argue the two sides. "But it says it negates the effect if you make the save." "But it's not a partial effect save, it only applies to the extra effect. The primary effect is the damage." "But the sace applies to the spell." "It's only part of the spell."

It could go on forever like that.

[Bayar]

If the Orb of Fire spell would be negated by Mettle, Lesser Orb of Fire would be completely unaffected because it doesn't have a rider effect. That would make no sense.

[icefractal]

If the Orb of Fire spell would be negated by Mettle, Lesser Orb of Fire would be completely unaffected because it doesn't have a rider effect. That would make no sense.It's not a rider effect. :smalltongue:
But more to the point - Lightning Bolt can't be foiled by Mirror Image, Chain Lightning can. There's no guarantee that a higher level spell is better 100% of the time.

And also, if you're talking about what "makes sense", an orb of "nonmagical fire" that's hotter than even the hottest parts of the Plane of Fire, stays together in a tight ball while flung through the air, and in general acts exactly like an Evocation spell and not much like Conjuration, but is the latter just to avoid SR? That makes no sense. And Orb of Electricity/Force are even worse. The Orb series lives by RAW, it can die by RAW.

[H_H_F_F]

It's not a rider effect. :smalltongue:
But more to the point - Lightning Bolt can't be foiled by Mirror Image, Chain Lightning can. There's no guarantee that a higher level spell is better 100% of the time.

And also, if you're talking about what "makes sense", an orb of "nonmagical fire" that's hotter than even the hottest parts of the Plane of Fire, stays together in a tight ball while flung through the air, and in general acts exactly like an Evocation spell and not much like Conjuration, but is the latter just to avoid SR? That makes no sense. And Orb of Electricity/Force are even worse. The Orb series lives by RAW, it can die by RAW.

That is sort of whataboutism though. The lesser orb problem presents an internal inconsistency a DM would probably like to find a way to explain. The issue on thia front isn't RAW, it's suspension of disbelief. "You can take an orb of fire to the chest and move on, because you have supernatural grit. The lesser version, however, you're helpless against".

This is not really an arguement for why RAW mettle doesn't stop an orb spell, and more a challenge for DMs to who wish to apply RAW and keep the world believeble. Personally, if I wanted to fully preserve RAW here, I'd just give lesser orb a different expression to that of orb. For example, orb shatters on your skin and envelops you, while lesser orb is smaller and cuts through you.

RAI, I believe this is a strong arguement for orb spells being written without mettle in mind, but I don't really see that as that big of an issue.

[Thurbane]

Can I throw in a loosely related question, that I once asked in the Simple RAW thread:

How does an Orb of Electricity affect a Mechanatrix? The Mechanatrix is not harmed by electricity, and actually heals from it. However, it's entry includes this (bolding mine):


Because of a mechanatrix's electricity affinity, any electricity attack directed at it cures 1 point of damage for each 3 points of damage it would otherwise deal. The mechanatrix gets no saving throw against electricity effects.

Does this mean a Mechanatrix is automatically entangled by the spell?

[Particle_Man]

Well we could either go with the FAQ, in which case Orb of Fire is negated by the successful saving throw of the Hexblade with mettle, because Soundburst is.

The alternative is having "Some guys on the internet" say yes, and "Some other guys on the internet" say no. Which seems even less authoritative than the FAQ.

[Kitsuneymg]

I did say I did not like the overly literal reading!

I'm trying to think of circumstances other than spells to use as examples, but most of them would be classified as "fortitude negates".

Surely ToB has a number of strikes that do bonus damage and inflict a condition on a failed fort or will save?

[Darg]

If the Orb of Fire spell would be negated by Mettle, Lesser Orb of Fire would be completely unaffected because it doesn't have a rider effect. That would make no sense.


for a moment I misread that as "lesser orb of fire" and I was confused, but this brought this thought to me : I find there to be some argumentative wiggle room that "Orb of X, lesser" have no saving throw, therefore the damage portion of "Orb of X, lesser" is behaviorally the same, and the fortitude save clearly ( to me ) refers only to the sickened/dazed/etc, and negates that.

Lesser Orb of Fire has no saving throw for a lesser effect. It can't be affected by mettle, nor should it be used to infer anything because despite the similar names they are in fact completely different spells.


Are you talking about Hexblade Mettle or Pious Templar Mettle? I'm more likely to accept Pious templar Mettle to completely negate a spell, because that's what it says it does. Hexblade Mettle does not say "completely negate the spell", it says "completely negates the effect"(implied, to me : "..the effect that would otherwise (do something) on a successfull save.") ( and the implication of the implied is that the damage of Orbs have no relation to the secondary effect of causing some debuff with fort negate )

They are all the same. Going through the list, they all have the same effect if worded slightly differently each time:


Mettle (Ex): The blessing of the Silver Flame allows you to shrug off effects that would otherwise harm you. Beginning at 8th level, if you make a successful Will or Fortitude save that would normally reduce a spell's effect, you suffer no effect from the spell at all. Only those spells with a "Will partial," "Fortitude half," or similar Saving Throw entry can be negated through this ability.


Mettle (Ex): At 5th level, your devotion and single-mindedness allow you to shrug off magical effects that would otherwise harm or impede you. If you make a successful Will or Fortitude saving throw against a spell or spell-like ability that normally has partial or reduced effects on a successful save, you instead suffer no effect at all.


Mettle (Ex): Beginning at 4th level, if you make a successful Fortitude or Will save that would normally reduce (rather than negate) a spell's effect, you suffer no effect from the spell at all. Only those spells with a Saving Throw entry of "Will partial," "Fortitude half," or similar entries can be negated through this ability.


Mettle (Su): Beginning at 2nd level, you can shrug off magical effects that could harm you. If you make a successful Will or Fortitude saving throw that would normally reduce (rather than negate) a spell or other magical effect, the magic has no effect on you at all. Any spell that is normally negated by a successful saving throw is unaffected by this ability.


Mettle (Su): A pious templar's special blessing allows her to shrug off magical effects that would otherwise harm her. If a pious templar makes a successful Will or Fortitude saving throw that would normally reduce the spell's effect, she suffers no effect from the spell at all. Only those spells with a Saving Throw entry of "Will partial," "Fortitude half," or similar entries can be negated through this ability.


Mettle (Ex): Starting at 9th level, a vigilante's grim determination allows him to shrug off magical effects that would otherwise harm him. If a vigilante makes a successful Will or Fortitude saving throw that would normally reduce the spell's effect (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will partial or Fortitude half), he instead negates the effect. An unconscious or sleeping vigilante does not gain the benefit of mettle.


Mettle (Ex): At 3rd level and higher, a hexblade can resist magical and unusual attacks with great willpower or fortitude. If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), he instead completely negates the effect. An unconscious or sleeping hexblade does not gain the benefit of mettle.

They all say the same thing in different ways. You can read into it differently if you want, but being the only class to have a mettle that functions to a lesser degree than the rest, even though the language says it functions just the same, seems highly unlikely.

~~~~~~~~~~


Can I throw in a loosely related question, that I once asked in the Simple RAW thread:

How does an Orb of Electricity affect a Mechanatrix? The Mechanatrix is not harmed by electricity, and actually heals from it. However, it's entry includes this (bolding mine):



Does this mean a Mechanatrix is automatically entangled by the spell?

From what I could see of the monster (I don't know what book it's from but google says:) it doesn't have immunity. So I would say yes. All it does is convert damage into healing. It doesn't stop the spell effect from affecting you.

[sreservoir]

Hexblade and Vigilante Mettle are, in fact, expressly inferior to the other Mettle abilities: they don't work when unconscious.

My question, though, is, if you think Mettle shouldn't work on orbs with additional secondary effects, what does it work on? Fort/Will "partial" save effects are almost always written so that the "full" effect and the "partial" effect are both explicitly specified in the spell text, because there's just no default for what happens on a save the way there is for "half". Is Mettle just a bad ability that doesn't do what it says it's supposed to do?

[ciopo]

Surely ToB has a number of strikes that do bonus damage and inflict a condition on a failed fort or will save?
I didn't remember these, giving a quick look, I'm of the opinion the damage isn't negated when you save against the extra effect, but for the way they are worded/presented, I suppose hexblade mettle will negate the damage too for those that are of the opinion that it completely negate spells


Hexblade and Vigilante Mettle are, in fact, expressly inferior to the other Mettle abilities: they don't work when unconscious.

My question, though, is, if you think Mettle shouldn't work on orbs with additional secondary effects, what does it work on? Fort/Will "partial" save effects are almost always written so that the "full" effect and the "partial" effect are both explicitly specified in the spell text, because there's just no default for what happens on a save the way there is for "half". Is Mettle just a bad ability that doesn't do what it says it's supposed to do?
there are many spells that have will/fortitude partial that in the actual text aren't ".. negates", from the top of my mind, cloudkill, ray of exhaustion, those spell that deal half damage on a successfull fortitude save, Probably many of those that deal with Fear escalation, such as Cause fear that makes you shaken on a successfull save. In general, those effects that says "on a successfull save, THIS happens to you".
I understand where the interpretation that orb of fire has no effect, I disagree with the conclusion/school of thought that a spell only ever has one effect and so mettle make them all of nothing. To me one spell = one( or more ) effect(s).

To make a silly example on a spell that's alphabetically early when trying to search for examples, Blistering Radiance.

To me, very clearly, Mettle will reduce damage to nothing, but you're still dazzled. I can totally see the counterpoint coming that it says "none and fortitude partial", but the argument presented against my point of view is 'a spell is one effect', to that stance the fact that the dazzled has no save is immaterial, a successfull mettle will prevent the dazzle too. You're saving against something that esplictly says it has no save / don't mention having a save for that portion of the spell effectS / esplictly says the save do not impact that part of a spell.


They are all the same. Going through the list, they all have the same effect if worded slightly differently each time:

thank you for hunting them all down, I disagree with the notion that the wording does not matter. "it has no effect on you" of the Witch slayer to me is functionally different from "the effect is negated", especially if one spell=one effect.

to use a somewhat absurd example, if you tell me the spell is negated, to me that means if hexblade successfully saves against cloudkill, the whole 100 feet area of cloudkill is dispersed to nothing, as opposed to take no damage instead of half damage for himself only of the "no effect on you"

[H_H_F_F]

To make a silly example on a spell that's alphabetically early when trying to search for examples, Blistering Radiance.

To me, very clearly, Mettle will reduce damage to nothing, but you're still dazzled. I can totally see the counterpoint coming that it says "none and fortitude partial", but the argument presented against my point of view is 'a spell is one effect', to that stance the fact that the dazzled has no save is immaterial, a successfull mettle will prevent the dazzle too. You're saving against something that esplictly says it has no save / don't mention having a save for that portion of the spell effectS / esplictly says the save do not impact that part of a spell.


I think you're misreading the arguement - at least mine. The "none and partial" part is crucial, because the arguement isn't "A spell is one effect", but "The (specific) spell is one effect". In other words, the language of orb says you save a partial fortitude save against the spell as a whole ("Fortitude partial, see text"), a save which determines the effects of the orb. If the spell would have said "no and fortitude, see text", no one would argue on the RAW here. Again, RAW, not RAI, which in my opinion is pretty obviously on your side. The orb spell, as meant to work by the designer, should have said "no and fortitude". As written though, it's one spell with a full and partial effect determined by a save, which would mean mettle would work. I would accept any DM's judgement saying they're taking the RAI way. I also see the point of saying "why not, it's RAW, cool, and situational".

[ciopo]

I think you're misreading the arguement - at least mine. The "none and partial" part is crucial, because the arguement isn't "A spell is one effect", but "The (specific) spell is one effect". In other words, the language of orb says you save a partial fortitude save against the spell as a whole ("Fortitude partial, see text"), a save which determines the effects of the orb. If the spell would have said "no and fortitude, see text", no one would argue on the RAW here.
Oh, that's fair, my bad. I do have a problem with reading things too literally at times.


Again, RAW, not RAI, which in my opinion is pretty obviously on your side. The orb spell, as meant to work by the designer, should have said "no and fortitude". As written though, it's one spell with a full and partial effect determined by a save, which would mean mettle would work. I would accept any DM's judgement saying they're taking the RAI way. I also see the point of saying "why not, it's RAW, cool, and situational".
We can all bond over the niceness of proper editing/standardizing, eh? :D

[Quertus]

I can totally see the counterpoint coming that it says "none and fortitude partial", but the argument presented against my point of view is 'a spell is one effect', to that stance the fact that the dazzled has no save is immaterial, a successfull mettle will prevent the dazzle too. You're saving against something that esplictly says it has no save / don't mention having a save for that portion of the spell effectS / esplictly says the save do not impact that part of a spell.


I think you're misreading the arguement - at least mine. The "none and partial" part is crucial, because the arguement isn't "A spell is one effect", but "The (specific) spell is one effect". In other words, the language of orb says you save a partial fortitude save against the spell as a whole ("Fortitude partial, see text"), a save which determines the effects of the orb. If the spell would have said "no and fortitude, see text", no one would argue on the RAW here. Again, RAW, not RAI, which in my opinion is pretty obviously on your side. The orb spell, as meant to work by the designer, should have said "no and fortitude". As written though, it's one spell with a full and partial effect determined by a save, which would mean mettle would work. I would accept any DM's judgement saying they're taking the RAI way. I also see the point of saying "why not, it's RAW, cool, and situational".


Oh, that's fair, my bad. I do have a problem with reading things too literally at times.

We can all bond over the niceness of proper editing/standardizing, eh? :D

Seconding the importance of the wording. "none and partial" makes the spell explicitly 2 effects; Mettle being only effective against the "partial" effect.

This is why my stance was caged in words along the lines of, "barring more explicit wording from Orb of Fire", my vote is Mettle negates the whole spell.

[Nifft]

I think you're misreading the arguement - at least mine. The "none and partial" part is crucial, because the arguement isn't "A spell is one effect", but "The (specific) spell is one effect". In other words, the language of orb says you save a partial fortitude save against the spell as a whole ("Fortitude partial, see text"), a save which determines the effects of the orb. If the spell would have said "no and fortitude, see text", no one would argue on the RAW here. Again, RAW, not RAI, which in my opinion is pretty obviously on your side. The orb spell, as meant to work by the designer, should have said "no and fortitude". As written though, it's one spell with a full and partial effect determined by a save, which would mean mettle would work. I would accept any DM's judgement saying they're taking the RAI way. I also see the point of saying "why not, it's RAW, cool, and situational".

Yeah, it's quite RAW and it's a rather legalistic argument -- Mettle triggers on X, the text says X, no further questions your honor.

An argument based on in-universe reasoning would not go this route, and that might make the legalistic argument unsatisfying for people who really want to dig into the simulation aspects of the game, but it's a valid methodology and the conclusion seems solid.

[H_H_F_F]

Yeah, it's quite RAW and it's a rather legalistic argument -- Mettle triggers on X, the text says X, no further questions your honor.

An argument based on in-universe reasoning would not go this route, and that might make the legalistic argument unsatisfying for people who really want to dig into the simulation aspects of the game, but it's a valid methodology and the conclusion seems solid.

I agree. The OP explicitly asked to leave RAI aside and only comment on the rules as written.

As for actual gameplay - as I said, I believe it to not be unbalanced or too powerful, to be consistent with what characters with mettle should be able to do, and to be very cool.

The only real issues, in my view, is the inconsistency with lesser orb. It's not a rules issue, but a simulation issue - and as I said, it could be addressed in game.

Again, I'm not opposed to any DM deciding he's taking the RAI way here because it makes more sense to them. I'm only opposed to the view that mettle RAW doesn't affect orb spells.

[sreservoir]

The closest thing we have to RAI is the FAQ, which says this anyway:

Can you clarify the effect of the mettle class feature of the hexblade (CW)? For example, would the hexblade’s mettle eliminate both the stunning effect and the damage of sound burst? What about chaos hammer? Does it differ at all from the mettle ability gained by the pious templar (CD)?
If a character with the mettle class feature succeeds on a Fortitude or Will save against an effect that allows a save to reduce it, the effect is negated instead of merely reduced. Essentially, any saving throw entry of Fortitude half or Fortitude partial becomes “Fortitude negates,” while any save entry of Will half or Will partial becomes “Will negates.”
A hexblade with mettle who successfully saves against sound burst would not only avoid being stunned but would also take no damage from the spell. A successful save against chaos hammer would negate the slow effect and also negate the damage.
The mettle ability works the same way regardless of the class that grants it.

[Segev]

Yeah, it's quite RAW and it's a rather legalistic argument -- Mettle triggers on X, the text says X, no further questions your honor.

An argument based on in-universe reasoning would not go this route, and that might make the legalistic argument unsatisfying for people who really want to dig into the simulation aspects of the game, but it's a valid methodology and the conclusion seems solid.

Honest question, not rhetorical or loaded: what is the in-universe narrative, to you, of orb of fire and of Mettle? Please, if you're on the "Mettle doesn't stop orb of fire's damage" side, include a spell it DOES work on as well, to contrast the example.

[Calthropstu]

The closest thing we have to RAI is the FAQ, which says this anyway:

Well, that's enough to convince me. This was clearly considered at one point, and a ruling was made.

[Thurbane]

Well, that's enough to convince me. This was clearly considered at one point, and a ruling was made.

But you forgot the forum rule: the FAQ is trash and always wrong, unless it agrees with your preconceptions. :smallbiggrin:

[Darg]

But you forgot the forum rule: the FAQ is trash and always wrong, unless it agrees with your preconceptions. :smallbiggrin:

The FAQ is trash and isn't always wrong. I quoted mettle from several different classes and they all said the same thing but worded differently. I could even rearrange them to show a progressive evolution of the terminology and the meaning would still be the same. So the FAQ can rule logically, but a lot of the time I have to scratch my head at their rulings considering the context of the books. A lot of the answers were written more like an errata which is not what I am looking for if I look at it. To be fair though, there is a saying about trash and treasure.

[Calthropstu]

But you forgot the forum rule: the FAQ is trash and always wrong, unless it agrees with your preconceptions. :smallbiggrin:

My original statement was it could legit be seen to go either way. If they had ruled either way, I could accept it. So technically it is going the way of my preconcieved notions. So forum rule not broken

[Gruftzwerg]

The riddle was already solved by Segev on page 1 but as it seems people keep struggling due to misinterpreting the keywords here..


RAI, it's very clear to me Mettle is meant to make "Fortitude, Partial" spells do nothing on a successful safe. Period.

RAW, Mettle says it negates the whole effect if you save vs. a "Fortitude, Partial" effect. Essentially, it makes "Fortitude, Partial" into "Fortitude negates." There is no other way to read it.

People mistake "lesser effect" (undefined term) for sole "save roll / half" while the ability text also extends this on "save roll / partial" effects.

While "save roll / half" relates to a reduced (main) effect, "save roll / partial" is used for save rolls against "rider effects" on the "main effect".
Both are covered by Mettle. As such, a spell like Orb of Fire with an rider effect on a failed save (Fortitude, Partial) is a valid target to be entirely negated by Mettle.


If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), he instead completely negates the effect.

[icefractal]

Now that I see the actual text of the abilities, for most of them there's not even any ambiguity that it negates the entire spell:

you suffer no effect from the spell at all

Two others instead say that they negate "the effect", but given that they specify the "spell" that you're saving against, it's a stretch to say that the effect refers to something other than that:

If you make a successful Will or Fortitude saving throw against a spell or spell-like ability that normally has partial or reduced effects on a successful save, you instead suffer no effect at all.

If a vigilante makes a successful Will or Fortitude saving throw that would normally reduce the spell's effect (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will partial or Fortitude half), he instead negates the effect.

Hexblade is the only ambiguous one. I would say that an Orb of Fire is "an attack", not "two attacks", but it's a little less defined.

If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), he instead completely negates the effect.


Also, people keep referring to Orb of Fire as having a "rider" effect. You could colloquially say that and people would understand what you meant, but again, that's not how it's actually written. There is one single spell going on here which does multiple things, much like a Color Spray does multiple things if you're low HD.

[Calthropstu]

Now that I see the actual text of the abilities, for most of them there's not even any ambiguity that it negates the entire spell:


Two others instead say that they negate "the effect", but given that they specify the "spell" that you're saving against, it's a stretch to say that the effect refers to something other than that:



Hexblade is the only ambiguous one. I would say that an Orb of Fire is "an attack", not "two attacks", but it's a little less defined.



Also, people keep referring to Orb of Fire as having a "rider" effect. You could colloquially say that and people would understand what you meant, but again, that's not how it's actually written. There is one single spell going on here which does multiple things, much like a Color Spray does multiple things if you're low HD.

If you want to play the "let's get technical" game, orb of fire does NOT have a saving throw entry of "Fortitude partial." It has "Fortitude partial; see text." Since we are speaking straight rules lawyers, the difference can be argued that the "see text" is denoting that this spell has special circumstances, and that the "see text" means the entry does not exactly fit the requirements for mettle which is just "fortitude partial." I agree, hair splitting, but since the op wants rules lawyering...

[Nifft]

Honest question, not rhetorical or loaded: what is the in-universe narrative, to you, of orb of fire and of Mettle? Please, if you're on the "Mettle doesn't stop orb of fire's damage" side, include a spell it DOES work on as well, to contrast the example.

Oh, no thank you.

I'm not looking to take up the other side's argument.

I've agreed that, by legalistic reasoning which seems acceptable to the OP, Mettle does stop Orb of Fire's damage.

The fact that I can also see the other side's reasoning does not put any burden on me to take up that side of the discussion. No thank you. Feel free to do it yourself.

[icefractal]

The fact that I can also see the other side's reasoning does not put any burden on me to take up that side of the discussion. No thank you. Feel free to do it yourself.So you can see the other side's reasoning, but you can't / won't say what you see? :smallconfused:

I don't feel like that's much of a statement then, because I don't even know what the conceptual / simulation argument for "Mettle shouldn't block Orb of Fire" is. Like, Mettle's flavor is very vague. I don't have much of a mental picture of what it would look like IC, other than just someone getting a hit with a spell, the dust clears, and they're still standing there uninjured. And that picture holds up equally well for Orb of Fire as it does for, say, Disintegrate.

I have some conceptual issues with Orb of Fire too, but those could be fixed by making it Evocation with a bonus to pierce SR instead of Conjuration, in which case the Mettle question would still be valid.

[Nifft]

So you can see the other side's reasoning, but you can't / won't say what you see? :smallconfused:

I could say, but it's not on topic for the thread, so why muddy the waters?

What's there to gain from that?

[icefractal]

Ok fair enough, but what is there to gain from vagueposting either? "There's a good argument against what you're saying, but I won't tell you what it is." doesn't really add anything to the conversation.

[Bayar]

So you can see the other side's reasoning, but you can't / won't say what you see? :smallconfused:

I don't feel like that's much of a statement then, because I don't even know what the conceptual / simulation argument for "Mettle shouldn't block Orb of Fire" is. Like, Mettle's flavor is very vague. I don't have much of a mental picture of what it would look like IC, other than just someone getting a hit with a spell, the dust clears, and they're still standing there uninjured. And that picture holds up equally well for Orb of Fire as it does for, say, Disintegrate.

I have some conceptual issues with Orb of Fire too, but those could be fixed by making it Evocation with a bonus to pierce SR instead of Conjuration, in which case the Mettle question would still be valid.

That last one is easy. Think about evocation as being energy and conjuration as matter. That is why you need different rolls. With conjuration, you summon up a physical, tangible orb that you need to hit someone and bypass his armor to get to his squishy bits. With evocation, it's enough to touch him (like say shining a flashlight on him) and the energy affects him.

[icefractal]

The issue is that Evocation can create temporary energy with whatever characteristics you want, but Conjuration, since it creates non-magical matter, generally acts in accordance with its normal physical properties.

So - a blob of acid. Ok, could feasibly have a "skin" to keep it together. Stronger (significantly) than any acid out there however? Questionable. But it's close enough not to be too weird.

Fire - ok, making a gout of fire, but a compacted sphere of fire which sticks together? And is hotter than the hottest fires on the Plane of Fire? What the hell is this stuff you're conjuring?

Cold - same problem, and it's hard to visualize what this would even look like. Fire could be a ball of solar plasma (except it wouldn't stick together), but cold is .. . what?

Electricity / Sound - even worse than cold. A burst of those? Sure. A coherent ball that flies a fair distance and hits a single target? How is that a non-magical substance of any variety?

Force - the worst. Non-magical [Force] seems like a contradiction, and the way this spell is written it technically leaves indestructible force orbs layingaround.


That's on a concept level. On a gamist level, Conjuration needs to stop eating Evocation's lunch. And they would still be well worth taking with "SR: Yes, +10 to penetrate SR", like a built-in Assay Resistance.

[Quertus]

If you want to play the "let's get technical" game, orb of fire does NOT have a saving throw entry of "Fortitude partial." It has "Fortitude partial; see text." Since we are speaking straight rules lawyers, the difference can be argued that the "see text" is denoting that this spell has special circumstances, and that the "see text" means the entry does not exactly fit the requirements for mettle which is just "fortitude partial." I agree, hair splitting, but since the op wants rules lawyering...

But that's not what meddle says.

"If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial),"

It works against things which have "a lesser effect".

If "fortitude partial" is an example of a lesser effect, then surely "Fortitude partial; see text" is as well.

[Darg]

That last one is easy. Think about evocation as being energy and conjuration as matter. That is why you need different rolls. With conjuration, you summon up a physical, tangible orb that you need to hit someone and bypass his armor to get to his squishy bits. With evocation, it's enough to touch him (like say shining a flashlight on him) and the energy affects him.

Except they both need to touch to affect the target. Generally, effects that require a save to hit aren't so precise as to need to go against AC. Think about it. A flaming sphere takes up an entire space. Scorching ray or shocking grasp require touching the target in the same way as the conjured orb. If we want to be specific, the orb spells were originally evocation spells in Tome and Blood. This is the problem with the spells. They were designed as evocation spells. The secondary effects don't happen with real elements, only magical ones.

[Nifft]

Ok fair enough, but what is there to gain from vagueposting either? "There's a good argument against what you're saying, but I won't tell you what it is." doesn't really add anything to the conversation.
My post was a complement for and agreement with the legalistic argument (with which I agree, insofar as a group of players finds the legalistic approach satisfying).

There's nothing particularly vague there.


{Scrubbed}

[Calthropstu]

But that's not what meddle says.

"If he makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial),"

It works against things which have "a lesser effect".

If "fortitude partial" is an example of a lesser effect, then surely "Fortitude partial; see text" is as well.

But "see text" means special rules which cause exceptions. It could be argued that the rider is due to special rules text from "see text" and it creates an exception due to the damage NOT being a reduced effect.

[Gruftzwerg]

But "see text" means special rules which cause exceptions. It could be argued that the rider is due to special rules text from "see text" and it creates an exception due to the damage NOT being a reduced effect.

The problem that I have with that point of view is, that I don't see any indicator that Mettle would require an exclusive statement. As long as the statement is there, the requirement is fulfilled. Imho the indicators in the rule text clearly imply a inclusive way to interpret that rule (and not exclusive).

Further, as already said, "reduced damage" is only one way to trigger Mettle legally. The ability (Mettle) also clearly allows for "[save roll] partial" as legal trigger (= no reduced dmg required). It doesn't require both statements to function (and that is what you are implying with requiring the reduced part for those instances that qualify via [save] partial). Either one (of the statements) is enough to trigger Mettle.

[Segev]

My post was a complement for and agreement with the legalistic argument (with which I agree, insofar as a group of players finds the legalistic approach satisfying).

There's nothing particularly vague there.


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{Scrubbed}. I was curious what you see the in-narrative execution of Mettle as. I did not know which side you fell on, so I wanted to know what a successful use of it looked like in case your mental image of it would have Orb of Fire not successfully execute it.

I don't have a mental image of it beyond "toughing it out" or "Supermanning it." Thus, to me, there is no distinction between any possible spell that is like Orb of Fire vs whatever spells are indisputably covered.

I don't know how one might envision it working other than that. I was curious.

{Scrubbed}I was just going to ask for you to share what your "what the rules are modeling" idea is. Because you seemed to indicate you had one. And mine is not much more than "it just is."

[Nifft]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}I was curious what you see the in-narrative execution of Mettle as. I did not know which side you fell on

So when I said that I agreed with the legalistic argument, that didn't tell you "which side [I] fell on"?

Does my ability to see multiple viewpoints somehow call "my side" into question? That's a bit too ... "with me or against me" style thinking.


Asking someone to write out a contrary position is asking that person to provide a counter-argument. You should be able to understand why providing counter-arguments would tend to provoke an argument. If you're not, then I'd ask you to just put faith in the fact that it would, and ask that you notice what you did almost succeeded in baiting icefractal into an internet fight.


I don't have a mental image of it beyond "toughing it out" or "Supermanning it." Thus, to me, there is no distinction between any possible spell that is like Orb of Fire vs whatever spells are indisputably covered.

I don't know how one might envision it working other than that. I was curious.

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}I was just going to ask for you to share what your "what the rules are modeling" idea is. Because you seemed to indicate you had one. And mine is not much more than "it just is."
My point was that the legalistic argument was solid, if you're willing to accept that sort of argument. But that sort of argument isn't universally accepted, and one type of thinking that I could foresee not finding it persuasive would be players whose viewpoint is more about simulationism / in-universe narratives.

You haven't really made any argument relevant to what I actually said, and so you're not disagreeing with me in particular.

{Scrubbed}

[Segev]

So when I said that I agreed with the legalistic argument, that didn't tell you "which side [I] fell on"?

Does my ability to see multiple viewpoints somehow call "my side" into question? That's a bit too ... "with me or against me" style thinking.


Asking someone to write out a contrary position is asking that person to provide a counter-argument. You should be able to understand why providing counter-arguments would tend to provoke an argument. If you're not, then I'd ask you to just put faith in the fact that it would, and ask that you notice what you did almost succeeded in baiting icefractal into an internet fight.


My point was that the legalistic argument was solid, if you're willing to accept that sort of argument. But that sort of argument isn't universally accepted, and one type of thinking that I could foresee not finding it persuasive would be players whose viewpoint is more about simulationism / in-universe narratives.

You haven't really made any argument relevant to what I actually said, and so you're not disagreeing with me in particular.

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
At no point did I ask you to make a counterargument. I asked you to tell me what you saw the narrative explanation as being, whatever your position.

[icefractal]

But that sort of argument isn't universally accepted, and one type of thinking that I could foresee not finding it persuasive would be players whose viewpoint is more about simulationism / in-universe narratives.Ok, to put it simply - what in-universe narrative viewpoint are you foreseeing in which Mettle stopping Disintegrate would fit correctly, but Mettle stopping Orb of Fire would not fit correctly?

I don't at all care which "side" you're on, I'm curious about the above question, because even being aware of that premise, it's not jumping to mind for me.

And I don't think I'm being "baited into a fight" here, I just feel a little unsatisfied having this viewpoint brought up but not described.


And to be a little nit-picky, your post didn't read as "complement for and agreement with the legalistic argument". The wording is ambiguous, and could be read as either a mild positive, neutral, or negative statement. For example, if you'd said "This argument is excellent from a roll-player point of view, but real role-players wouldn't find it persuasive" that would be clearly a negative statement, despite containing the word "excellent". Yours is much more neutral, but to me it read as (mildly) negative.

[ciopo]

Ok, to put it simply - what in-universe narrative viewpoint are you foreseeing in which Mettle stopping Disintegrate would fit correctly, but Mettle stopping Orb of Fire would not fit correctly?

I haven't thought of it, but I'm curious about it too, now, so I'm going to think on it.

First, I'm going to think what that fortitude save means outside the context of mettle.

Orb of acid is easy enough for me to visualize, you got hit by a physical orb of acid! terrible acid burns! damage!, and it stinks! The save is specifically against getting nauseated.

so, that fortitude partial ( without mettle ) for orb of acid is clearly about not being affected by the noxious fumes the acid releases, but the acid melting your arm off? you gotta suck that up, bucko.

Disintegrate : the save partial reduces the damage from CL*2d6 to 5d6 damage, I'm visualizing it as the target gritting his teeth, clenching his butt and the ray fails to penetrate much and/or propagate along the flesh.

So, a nonmettled disintegrate would look like this : failed save green magical energy propagate from where it touched the creature, enveloping it until it's disintegrated to nothing. successfull save the disintegrate ray pierces the creature wherever it hit, but fails to propagate to the nearby flesh.

Enter the mettle, what changes for the two above scenario?

orb of acid : nothing changes! you are still hit by a ball of physical acid! it's eating your arm off! take that damage!

disintegrate : your butt clenching and teeth gritting is EXTRA strong and that ray of nothingness fails to penetrate your skin at all.


Now, I can totally see how "the acid fails to penetrate your skin at all" is a perfectly valid interpretation/narratively consistent too.

I don't agree with that because hexblade mettle specifically says effect and not spell, and what I picture (ex) mettle to be is teeth gritting / butt clenching. To use ToB examples, since there are some that are fortitude partial, I totally see how it's narratively cool that "the hexblade flexes his muscles, and the special attack of that mook bounces off his glistening pectoral", but I'm just not okay with those manouvers damage being prevented just because the hexblade saved against the rider effect of the manouvers.

I am more willing to accept that the whole orb of X is prevented when the mettle is the (su) of pious templar etc, because those ones specifically says "the spell has no effect on you". It's less of a "physical mettle, my body is strong and I shrug off your puny spell!" and more of a "my faith protect me, those spells flung to me dissipate to nothing even before reaching me".

[H_H_F_F]

A good DM who wishes to go RAW on this (EDIT: clarifying that I meant a skillful DM, not saying that going RAI would not be good DMing) will not have a hard time making it work. These things only seem problematic because we focus on them.

Let's look at orb of sound, for instance. An orb of concentrated air pressure hits you, rapturing your flesh. You can perhaps be tough enough to not go deaf, but there is no "tough enough" to not be damaged by the burst of sound, of course. What would that even look like?

Except, of course, when you're a crystaline monster hexblade dealing with shatter. Or anyone dealing with, say, lion's roar. It's the same thing - sonic damage, unavoidable air pressure coming at you. But you can tank that, because the sonic damage wasn't an orb.

Why can you save fortitude for half against sonic damage some of the time, but not always? Why is disintegrate sensible to tank ("doesn't even pierce the skin!") But orb of force not? Why can you take an energy burst (cold) to the face (you don't avoid it, you just tank it!), but not an orb?

This inconsistencies are all over the place, and the DM either ignores it, or deals by adjusting the way they describe every specific spell effect. If you wanna go the RAW way here, you can make it work.

This is a good place to mention (ex) does not equal "Possible IRL". Many (ex) abilities are explicitly supernatural (in the real world sense) - they just don't turn off in an AMF, they aren't strictly magic. For example of a description using that to justify a hexblade tanking an orb of acid: "Most men would scream as the acid would tear through their body - but you're not most men. Your body and mind are of a different sort, forged in the dark essence of your bloodline. You brace yourself, and the acid leaks away, leaving your armor eaten - but your flesh unscathed."

I wouldn't go on like that in the middle of combat, but you get the gist.

[Silly Name]

-snip-

Excellent points. I just want to add that some of the narrative dissonance comes from the way HP are defined in a very nebulous way, and "HP as meat points" stop making sense around 3rd/4th level usually.

At mid-to-high levels, you're better off seeing HP as a mix of health, stamina, focus, reflexes and some good old fashioned luck. You're not surviving attacks that would have killed you before - you're better at dodging and parrying than you were at level 1, perhaps eating a few glancing blows, which all slowly deplete your focus and stamina, until the hit that kills you actually pierces your battered armor and strikes your heart.

[H_H_F_F]

Excellent points. I just want to add that some of the narrative dissonance comes from the way HP are defined in a very nebulous way, and "HP as meat points" stop making sense around 3rd/4th level usually.

At mid-to-high levels, you're better off seeing HP as a mix of health, stamina, focus, reflexes and some good old fashioned luck. You're not surviving attacks that would have killed you before - you're better at dodging and parrying than you were at level 1, perhaps eating a few glancing blows, which all slowly deplete your focus and stamina, until the hit that kills you actually pierces your battered armor and strikes your heart.

I almost agree. I nearly always play it like that, but it takes a lot of suspension of disbelief - moreso than "meat points", in a way. The fact of the matter is HP is too broad and to game-y to realistically work that way, unless you introduce a few houserules.

Nothing does precentage damage. Which means if you have X hp and I have 20X hp, I can survive 20 times as long as you can when paralyzed and fully submerged in lava, or an acid bath, or whatever. That only makes any sense under the meat points assumption.

A bigger issue, because of how often it comes up, is static healing - so by that interpretation, lesser vigor brought me from the brink of unconciousness to full capacity 2 years ago, when I was level 1. It got my guts back in my body, fixed the crack in my skull, and healed 4 wounds in my abdomen. Now that I'm level 17, the same spell can't fully heal a tiny flesh wound in my arm - simply because I'm a better fighter then I was. It can still bring my commoner sister from being 6 seconds from death to full health.

The skilful interpretation of HP only really works for mundane combat, in extremely low magic environment. In normal play, you just have to apply a serious amount suspension of disbelief.

[Nifft]

At no point did I ask you to make a counterargument. I asked you to tell me what you saw the narrative explanation as being, whatever your position.
The thing is, I didn't say that I saw any specific narrative explanation.

You're asking me to invent one, and doing so would be a counterargument against the position I have stated.


Ok, to put it simply - what in-universe narrative viewpoint are you foreseeing in which Mettle stopping Disintegrate would fit correctly, but Mettle stopping Orb of Fire would not fit correctly?{Scrubbed}


And to be a little nit-picky, your post didn't read as "complement for and agreement with the legalistic argument". The wording is ambiguous, and could be read as either a mild positive, neutral, or negative statement.
{Scrubbed}



Yeah, it's quite RAW and it's a rather legalistic argument -- Mettle triggers on X, the text says X, no further questions your honor.

An argument based on in-universe reasoning would not go this route, and that might make the legalistic argument unsatisfying for people who really want to dig into the simulation aspects of the game, but it's a valid methodology and the conclusion seems solid.

How do you get any ambiguity out of "it's a valid methodology and the conclusion seems solid", for serious how is that even slightly ambiguous?

{Scrubbed}

Doesn't really seem negative either.

[Gruftzwerg]

A good DM who wishes to go RAW on this (EDIT: clarifying that I meant a skillful DM, not saying that going RAI would not be good DMing) will not have a hard time making it work. These things only seem problematic because we focus on them.

Let's look at orb of sound, for instance. An orb of concentrated air pressure hits you, rapturing your flesh. You can perhaps be tough enough to not go deaf, but there is no "tough enough" to not be damaged by the burst of sound, of course. What would that even look like?

Except, of course, when you're a crystaline monster hexblade dealing with shatter. Or anyone dealing with, say, lion's roar. It's the same thing - sonic damage, unavoidable air pressure coming at you. But you can tank that, because the sonic damage wasn't an orb.

Why can you save fortitude for half against sonic damage some of the time, but not always? Why is disintegrate sensible to tank ("doesn't even pierce the skin!") But orb of force not? Why can you take an energy burst (cold) to the face (you don't avoid it, you just tank it!), but not an orb?

This inconsistencies are all over the place, and the DM either ignores it, or deals by adjusting the way they describe every specific spell effect. If you wanna go the RAW way here, you can make it work.

This is a good place to mention (ex) does not equal "Possible IRL". Many (ex) abilities are explicitly supernatural (in the real world sense) - they just don't turn off in an AMF, they aren't strictly magic. For example of a description using that to justify a hexblade tanking an orb of acid: "Most men would scream as the acid would tear through their body - but you're not most men. Your body and mind are of a different sort, forged in the dark essence of your bloodline. You brace yourself, and the acid leaks away, leaving your armor eaten - but your flesh unscathed."

I wouldn't go on like that in the middle of combat, but you get the gist.

Spell/effect mechanics aren't based on common sense (e.g. "Fire spells" that can set things on fire and "Fire spell" that can't do that). They are based around balance (e.g. spell lvl; targets; dmg, Saves...). As such, houseruling them via common sense of the DM brings the risk of disturbing the tiny amount of balance 3.5 already has.
Further, the DM would need to call out all these changes and note all of em to be consistent in them (otherwise players may feel cheated).
I was a fan of such things in my beginner years, but over the course of 20+ years of D&D I started to hate those kind of adjustments. They bring more problems as they solve (e.g. players will start to expect common sense everywhere and feel unhappy if their "common sense" expectations doesn't match that of the DM..). As such, I tend to look for solutions within RAW (as far as it is possible)..

[Segev]

The thing is, I didn't say that I saw any specific narrative explanation.

You're asking me to invent one, and doing so would be a counterargument against the position I have stated.
You indicated there was one, here, and that you knew how it would - or at least what it wouldn't - be constructed:

An argument based on in-universe reasoning would not go this route, and that might make the legalistic argument unsatisfying for people who really want to dig into the simulation aspects of the game, but it's a valid methodology and the conclusion seems solid.


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[H_H_F_F]

Spell/effect mechanics aren't based on common sense (e.g. "Fire spells" that can set things on fire and "Fire spell" that can't do that). They are based around balance (e.g. spell lvl; targets; dmg, Saves...). As such, houseruling them via common sense of the DM brings the risk of disturbing the tiny amount of balance 3.5 already has.
Further, the DM would need to call out all these changes and note all of em to be consistent in them (otherwise players may feel cheated).
I was a fan of such things in my beginner years, but over the course of 20+ years of D&D I started to hate those kind of adjustments. They bring more problems as they solve (e.g. players will start to expect common sense everywhere and feel unhappy if their "common sense" expectations doesn't match that of the DM..). As such, I tend to look for solutions within RAW (as far as it is possible)..

I'm not sure if you meant to contest anything I said or not... I'm going to assume there was a misunderstanding, and that you believe I was advocating for a house rule?

Anyhow, yeah, D&D RAW and RAI aren't always consistent or sensible. A DM's job is to bring the world to life. We were discussing a spell which RAW (IMO) is negated by mettle. My post was a suggestion on how to bridge the gap and play by RAW while maintaining a sense of consistency and logic within the world.

[Gruftzwerg]

I'm not sure if you meant to contest anything I said or not... I'm going to assume there was a misunderstanding, and that you believe I was advocating for a house rule?

Anyhow, yeah, D&D RAW and RAI aren't always consistent or sensible. A DM's job is to bring the world to life. We were discussing a spell which RAW (IMO) is negated by mettle. My post was a suggestion on how to bridge the gap and play by RAW while maintaining a sense of consistency and logic within the world.

It was meant in response to you questioning regarding the inconsistency in 3.5 (e.g. sonic dmg and save for half dmg). Not really contesting anything here. Just my point of view added.

edit: grammar

[Nifft]

You indicated there was one, here, and that you knew how it would - or at least what it wouldn't - be constructed: So, because I know one characteristic which X would lack, therefore you think I have a complete and concrete picture of X which I can trivially share with you?

{Scrubbed}



I continue to resent this implication and aspersion on my character.
{Scrubbed}

[Tzardok]

So, because I know one characteristic which X would lack, therefore you think I have a complete and concrete picture of X which I can trivially share with you?


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[Darg]

Has anyone ever bothered to try and explain Evasion? You get hit in the face but your reflexes are so good you whipped up a tornado of air pressure around yourself to protect yourself from the flames that fill up a space like air. I mean seriously here. You aren't going to say that the character ducked because the fireball explodes in a sphere.

Because of this I think it's best to think of HP as drained stamina, focus, and light nonlethal damage. Having your guts on the floor and still attacking is the stuff the Die Hard feat is made of.

[Segev]

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So, because I know one characteristic which X would lack, therefore you think I have a complete and concrete picture of X which I can trivially share with you?

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}It would absolutely be on topic, and I think it quite rational to expect that, if you know that it wouldn't involve X, you have some idea of what it looks like. If I am wrong, all you had to do was say, "Oh, I don't have a specific idea; I just know it wouldn't involve X because..." and that could have continued a nice, civil conversation. Or you could have said, "I just know it wouldn't involve X, and don't feel like discussing that further," or some variation on the same, and that'd have been fine, too.

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Has anyone ever bothered to try and explain Evasion? You get hit in the face but your reflexes are so good you whipped up a tornado of air pressure around yourself to protect yourself from the flames that fill up a space like air. I mean seriously here. You aren't going to say that the character ducked because the fireball explodes in a sphere.

Because of this I think it's best to think of HP as drained stamina, focus, and light nonlethal damage. Having your guts on the floor and still attacking is the stuff the Die Hard feat is made of.

If you go with - as I prefer to - hp not necessarily representing physical harm beyond the superficial, at least not until the Last Important One, then Evasion can just represent being able to "do this all day" rather than the hp representing that keeping form being incinerated by that fireball, by whatever means you did so, being a draining thing that means you're just a little slower, a little more vulnerable to the next thing, and that much closer to being unable to prevent a genuinely lethal wound (i.e. one that drops you to 0 or fewer hp).

[icefractal]

Regarding HP, the flavor I've found to work best, personally, is the "reservoir of positive energy" one. This is similar to "meat points", in that it is literal toughness, but rather than having stone-like flesh that can barely be cut, higher HP people have a reserve of positive energy stored inside them, which is automatically applied in response to injury. That's why it takes a lot more healing to "top up" someone with 100 hp than someone with 10 hp - you're filling a larger gas tank, effectively.

Any explanation which relies on hp loss not really being injury runs into too many edge cases, IME.

[H_H_F_F]

Regarding HP, the flavor I've found to work best, personally, is the "reservoir of positive energy" one. This is similar to "meat points", in that it is literal toughness, but rather than having stone-like flesh that can barely be cut, higher HP people have a reserve of positive energy stored inside them, which is automatically applied in response to injury. That's why it takes a lot more healing to "top up" someone with 100 hp than someone with 10 hp - you're filling a larger gas tank, effectively.

Any explanation which relies on hp loss not really being injury runs into too many edge cases, IME.

I've actually done this exact thing in one campaign I ran. It was based in a fantasy version of pre-dynastic egypt (as imagined through the lense of traditional egyptian historiography, not as seen in modern research) and exp was reimagined as an actual spiritual essence within the world, Ka. Someone with a lot of Ka had more vitality, to a degree that we would consider magical.

[Segev]

Regarding HP, the flavor I've found to work best, personally, is the "reservoir of positive energy" one. This is similar to "meat points", in that it is literal toughness, but rather than having stone-like flesh that can barely be cut, higher HP people have a reserve of positive energy stored inside them, which is automatically applied in response to injury. That's why it takes a lot more healing to "top up" someone with 100 hp than someone with 10 hp - you're filling a larger gas tank, effectively.

Any explanation which relies on hp loss not really being injury runs into too many edge cases, IME.

I tend to treat it as any hp loss involving at least some cosmetic damage. A bruise, a nick, a singe... but your verve and luck and talent (or, maybe, if you're a mage of some sort, your 'magical force field') is such that you can manage to turn aside anything lethal. You're still subject to poison, or curses, or whatnot, because it still hit and still did some physical injury, even if it wasn't much, but the main loss is in whatever stamina, luck, or what-have-you that you expended in avoiding that blow killing you. In a way, the "positive energy reservoir" is just that luck, verve, energy, whatever, so even when you get that light burn or that bruised shin healed by a tiny amount of positive energy, you're still more tired, less lucky, or otherwise drained enough that you need more to be in top form. Or you're still closer to that moment when you get unlucky and that incoming hit is actually enough to deliver a lethal injury.

[Nifft]

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Well, I'm happy to stop.

What he asked for was not clarification, but an example of a position which I disagreed with.

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[Segev]

Well, I'm happy to stop.

What he asked for was not clarification, but an example of a position which I disagreed with.

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

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If you don't have an actual in-narrative idea of what a Fortitude save looks like, or even if you do but not one with Mettle, that's fine. I misunderstood what you said where I quoted you. {Scrubbed} If you believe me to be demanding an "argument against [your] own position" from you, please quote where I allegedly did so, and I will either apologize if I discover that somehow I did so and do not recall, or correct your misunderstanding of what I said.

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[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: closed for review

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: thread re-opened. Let's everyone get back on topic.

[rel]

If anyone is interested in the final consensus, here it is:

Of the 29 different people that posted so far (not counting truemane the mod)

15 argued that mettle negates the whole spell, damage included.

7 argued that mettle only blocks the sicken and the damage gets through.

7 were undecided or chose not to state an opinion.

Analysis was carried out by examining each persons initial post and ignoring any subsequent posts so it doesn't factor in people changing their minds later on.

[Bayar]

After rereading the thread, I have to concede that normal orb would be negated and chuck it up to RAW vs RAI. Though I guess nothing is stopping me from using rule 0 when I DM to fix the inconsistency between normal and lesser orbs.

[Gruftzwerg]

After rereading the thread, I have to concede that normal orb would be negated and chuck it up to RAW vs RAI. Though I guess nothing is stopping me from using rule 0 when I DM to fix the inconsistency between normal and lesser orbs.

While the decision is up to you, I like it as it is. Higher lvls spells don't have to be superior in every aspect. And if this would be a trading card game, people would cheer for such niche interactions within the rules.
And remember that this is a niche and thus not something very common. Another reason for me not to bother changing it.
Take it as you like ;)

[Jay R]

It seems clear that whoever worded the spell did not consider this question. There is no clear intent.

That makes it a DM judgment call. That's why DMs get the big bucks.

[loky1109]

15 argued that mettle negates the whole spell, damage included.


Count me in.

[Thurbane]

Count me in.

Mark me down for "mettle negates the whole spell, damage included" as well.

[Nezkrul]

Strictly RAW with no FAQ/errata - mettle negates everything. DM’s decide for yourselves.