But a shark can't breath acid! (and other conundrums of the educated gamer)

[gregunderscorem]

So in your experience, how "realistic" do people tend to like D&D campaigns? In some cases, magic is the obvious answer to any oddities, and in others it's for game balance or flow or just the fact that PCs are heroes, but sometimes you just have to ask yourself: can a halfling barbarian weighing 35 lbs really carry 50 lbs and still be only lightly encumbered?

For me, there's kind of a fuzzy limit between the right amount of common sense and too much. It always starts off pretty simple, like calculating the hypotenuse from across the bridge to the top of the tower ("See? that's actually three range increments."), but eventually you're arguing about the impossible ecology of the monsters in a dungeon crawl, or the geological implications of the volcano over the evil lair, and things tend to go downhill from there.

Thoughts? Stories? Nonsensical rules you just can't stand?

[Aharon]

In a world where the players can do impossible things from the start, I don't tend to think about that a lot.

[DrWeird]

Step 1: Get yourself and a friend in a nice, open area.

Step 2: Make sure your carrying weight (Overhead?) is more or equal to their weight, and the same goes for them for your weight.

Step 3: Pick up your willing friend into the air.

Step 4: Then, have him pick you up.

Step 5: From there, pick him up, and repeat ad naseum. Which might be quick.

Step 6: Achieve (vertical) Flight.

The rules really overlook some basic physics like this, which was largely an example, but this could go under common sense; still, it's one of those inconsistencies I picked up. Also, I think since picking up an object is a free action, you could reach extreme altitudes in under six seconds.

Next stop, Celestia.

[Duos Greanleef]

We had a similar instance last night.
Th halfling rogue had just scaled a clock tower via a rope with a grappling hook.
Ranger McSmashdumb decided it would be a good idea to try and climb that rope as well.
The halfling had only made it about a third of the way up the tower, and wasn't going to be able to reuse the rope to climb further. So, in anger (with a natural 18 STR check) he lifted the grappling hook and dropped it to the world below.
The rogue is 3'2" and the Half-Orc weighs 250lbs naked.
Gotta love fantasy dice.

[Il_Vec]

can a halfling barbarian weighing 35 lbs really carry 50 lbs and still be only lightly encumbered?

On latin america it is kinda common to see small people, sometimes very elderly, who can carry a lot of weigh and go up and down mountain passes all day long.

the volcano over the evil lair

That is a sight to be seen.

[jiriku]

My beef is not that the setting should be consistent with real-world physics, but that the setting should be consistent with itself.

For example, if my DM tells me that the world is basically fantasy Earth, even down to all the continents being the same place and in the same shape, then I expect the laws of physics to be what I'm used to. If I find a way to drop a 12-ton weight from 30 miles up in the atmosphere, it had better make a a hell of a crater when it hits, not just deal 20d6 damage to anyone in the 5'-square it lands in.

OTOH, if my DM says the moon is actually the eye of a god and the stars are actually pinprick holes in a great black curtain that separates the world from the astral plane, that's fine. But when aliens from another planet invade, I'm going to look at him funny, because according to this world's cosmology, there are no other planets for aliens to come from.

[Sir Swindle89]

But a shark can't breath acid!

actually the shark would be fine breathing no matter the Ph level, it's more a shark that takes more damage (even if that damage is getting stabbed in the fin repeatedly) than 10+his hit points can't breath at all!

That being said i draw the line when it stops amusing me.

ex. letting a winged shadow varag monk take a feat to deal damage to himself and others through sonic booms= fun

ex. assigning winged shadow varag monk an arbitraty acceleration/ deceleration rate because he's going "too fast"= not fun, just nerfing a guy because he built for one (pointless) thing too strongly

it's a game, it's fun reality shouldn't make your game less fun, it does that to every thing else already.

[Greenish]

But a shark can't breath acid!

Apply Acid-born template from Dungeonscape. Now the shark can breath acid, is immune to acid damage, and has an acid bite attack.

[Telonius]

Awaken him and give him a level of Warlock, and he can shoot laser beams too!

[gregunderscorem]

Apply Acid-born template from Dungeonscape. Now the shark can breath acid, is immune to acid damage, and has an acid bite attack.

Ah, I knew I was asking for trouble when I named the thread that, but I just couldn't resist the reference to one of my favorite OOTS scenes.

For further consideration: The Acid-born Shark in any natural environment would quickly have their bloodstream swamped with urea to lethal levels in an attempt to maintain osmotic balance as the soils and other surround materials are dissolved into the aquatic medium.

But that's clearly too much thinking. That level of realism would obviously derail game flow (and this thread) but still I am compelled to point it out. I'm assuming this tic applies to some of my fellow gamers as well?

[Greenish]

For further consideration: The Acid-born Shark in any natural environment would quickly have their bloodstream swamped with urea to lethal levels in an attempt to maintain osmotic balance as the soils and other surround materials are dissolved into the aquatic medium.

Only if you assume that acid ignores hardness.

[mootoall]

Oh, the commoner rail gun ... the perfect example of D&D physics.

[Tiki Snakes]

If we start from the assumption that there is, infact, an acid-born shark floating around in the lake of acid infront of us, then the logical assumption is that it already has some biological mechanism to deal with that.
Because look, there it is.
If it had lethal levels of stuff in it's blood-stream, it would have died a long time ago, and we wouldn't have been able to find and see it in the first place.

[Greenish]

If we start from the assumption that there is, infact, an acid-born shark floating around in the lake of acid infront of us, then the logical assumption is that it already has some biological mechanism to deal with that.

Indeed, since the acid-born template has other, seemingly unrelated effects to the creature, it's fair to say that it's physiology is adapted to the life in acid lakes and seas of the bad guys' lairs.

[Godless_Paladin]

So in your experience, how "realistic" do people tend to like D&D campaigns? In some cases, magic is the obvious answer to any oddities, and in others it's for game balance or flow or just the fact that PCs are heroes, but sometimes you just have to ask yourself: can a halfling barbarian weighing 35 lbs really carry 50 lbs and still be only lightly encumbered?

For me, there's kind of a fuzzy limit between the right amount of common sense and too much. It always starts off pretty simple, like calculating the hypotenuse from across the bridge to the top of the tower ("See? that's actually three range increments."), but eventually you're arguing about the impossible ecology of the monsters in a dungeon crawl, or the geological implications of the volcano over the evil lair, and things tend to go downhill from there.

Thoughts? Stories? Nonsensical rules you just can't stand?

For me, this is the wrong question. What is desired is a consistent world with maximum verisimilitude and immersion. You want to maintain a certain atmosphere, and suspension of disbelief. Whether those things are actually realistic is not actually a concern to just about anybody. In fact, if we're talking about suspension of disbelief with modern audiences, sometimes Reality is Unrealistic. Cinematographers now purposely add in stuff like "lens flares" to make things more "realistic" even though it is anything but. This is because when people say "realistic" they often don't actually really mean "like reality," whether they realize it or not.

People care that Magic A is Magic A, not that you broke the Square Cube Law by making Monstrous Scorpions exist as functional creatures.

[gregunderscorem]

Discussion on acid-shark physiology is not at all why I started this thread but it's so cool I don't even care.

My inner nerd dances with glee (and awkwardly).

[gregunderscorem]

For me, this is the wrong question. What is desired is a consistent world with maximum verisimilitude and immersion. Whether those things are actually realistic is not actually a concern to just about anybody. In fact, if we're talking about suspension of disbelief with modern audiences, sometimes Reality is Unrealistic.

Consistency is key, especially for immersion, which leads to the best games, I couldn't agree more. I was just wondering where people tended to draw the line.

[Godless_Paladin]

Consistency is key, especially for immersion, which leads to the best games, I couldn't agree more. I was just wondering where people tended to draw the line.

You may want to check the post you just quoted, I edited it a bit while you were apparently already replying.

[Draconi Redfir]

you guys are all missing the point here.


can sharks breath LAVA!?

[Sir Swindle89]

you guys are all missing the point here.


can sharks breath LAVA!?

can you oxygenate lava?

[BenInHB]

My beef is not that the setting should be consistent with real-world physics, but that the setting should be consistent with itself.

This is the key.

Remember if you can do it i want to be able to do it too.

I hate it when the DM has the bad guys break rules that i have to follow with no explanation for why they don't apply the same.

[FuryOfMetal]

Me and my gaming group deduced that half dragons have downs syndrome. However I forgot how we came to the conclusion that dragons would have more or less chromosomes than a human....

I had to chant the phrase "They're magic damnit!" to get them to carry on playing.

[Volthawk]

you guys are all missing the point here.


can sharks breath LAVA!?

Well, acidborn does say it can be adapted for lava-breathing things, "in defiance of all logic" (quote from the book).

[mootoall]

For me, this is the wrong question. What is desired is a consistent world with maximum verisimilitude and immersion. You want to maintain a certain atmosphere, and suspension of disbelief. Whether those things are actually realistic is not actually a concern to just about anybody. In fact, if we're talking about suspension of disbelief with modern audiences, sometimes Reality is Unrealistic. Cinematographers now purposely add in stuff like "lens flares" to make things more "realistic" even though it is anything but. This is because when people say "realistic" they often don't actually really mean "like reality," whether they realize it or not.

People care that Magic A is Magic A, not that you broke the Square Cube Law by making Monstrous Scorpions exist as functional creatures.

OH DEAR GOD SO MUCH TVTROPES IT HURTS MY BRAIN

[Mercenary Pen]

Has to be said, my first and most frequent house rule is this:

The laws of physics do not exist. Occasionally the magic of the setting emulates them relatively closely in ways described by the game rules or by myself, but otherwise no such luck.

[Admiral Squish]

Oooh! Make it a horrid shark! It's bigger, nastier, with better NA, a bigger, badder bite, as well as being both immune to acid and delivering an acid bite attack.

[Fuzzie Fuzz]

Meh, most oddities are hand-waved away with magic. The one thing that really gets my group, though, is the fact that geometry completely breaks down, since moving diagonally on a grid is technically the same distance as moving straight. Right triangles are equilateral. Math fails. Universe implodes.

I've decided that the world is actually curved on a 4th-dimensional plane, and space itself is squished in such a way that all the diagonals are shorter than normal, and the straight lines are stretched.

[Greenish]

moving diagonally on a grid is technically the same distance as moving straight.

Moving diagonally is actually 1.5 squares.

[herrhauptmann]

Moving diagonally is actually 1.5 squares.

In 4E, diagonal is the same distance as the cardinal directions. That could be what Fuzzie plays primarily

Oooh! Make it a horrid shark! It's bigger, nastier, with better NA, a bigger, badder bite, as well as being both immune to acid and delivering an acid bite attack.

Dire sharks. They have bony ridges sticking out of their bodies like all Dire creatures do, except that sharks Don't. Have. Bones.

[Drakyn]

Dire sharks. They have bony ridges sticking out of their bodies like all Dire creatures do, except that sharks Don't. Have. Bones.

Well, there is one possible source of those bony spikes. The dire shark just grew extra teeth through its skin all over its body.
That's one hardcore fish.