Dysfunctional Rules VIII: When General Trumps Specific

[bekeleven]

As has been brought up in previous threads, the rules sometimes work better if you assume that corpses are creatures with the dead condition. As almost invariably gets brought up immediately after, other rules work better if you assume they are objects.

The divide between creatures and objects is enough to create a number of dysfunctions. In fact, it treads in similar territory as PaO dysfunctions and intelligent item dysfunctions. If we didn't have a moratorium on PaO, we would probably include them in PaO's section in the handbook. Which, of course, would be half of the handbook.

[ShurikVch]

What is a corpse, but all the parts of a body severed from its animating spirit?

Corpse is something which can be affected by the Raise Dead spell - unlike it's severed parts

The rules don't permit cutting up creatures

Except...

Spoiler: They actually permit it

Show

An opponent can attack a giant squid’s tentacles with a sunder attempt as if they were weapons. A giant squid’s tentacles have 10 hit points each. If a giant squid is currently grappling a target with the tentacle that is being attacked, it usually uses another limb to make its attack of opportunity against the opponent making the sunder attempt. Severing one of a giant squid’s tentacles deals 5 points of damage to the creature. A giant squid usually withdraws from combat if it loses five tentacles. The creature regrows severed limbs in 1d10+10 days.

An opponent can attack a giant octopus’s tentacles with a sunder attempt as if they were weapons. A giant octopus’s tentacles have 10 hit points each. If a giant octopus is currently grappling a target with the tentacle that is being attacked, it usually uses another limb to make its attack of opportunity against the opponent making the sunder attempt. Severing one of a giant octopus’s tentacles deals 5 points of damage to the creature. A giant octopus usually withdraws from combat if it loses four tentacles. The creature regrows severed limbs in 1d10+10 days.

Krakens strike their opponents with their barbed tentacles, then grab and crush with their arms or drag victims into their huge jaws. An opponent can make sunder attempts against a kraken’s tentacles or arms as if they were weapons. A kraken’s tentacles have 20 hit points, and its arms have 10 hit points. If a kraken is currently grappling a target with one tentacle or arm, it usually uses another limb to make its attack of opportunity against the sunder attempt. Severing a kraken’s tentacle or arm deals damage to the kraken equal to half the limb’s full normal hit points. A kraken usually withdraws from combat if it loses both tentacles or three of its arms. A kraken regrows severed limbs in 1d10+10 days.

A hydra can be killed either by severing all its heads or by slaying its body. To sever a head, an opponent must make a successful sunder attempt with a slashing weapon. (The player should declare where the attack is aimed before making the attack roll.) Making a sunder attempt provokes an attack of opportunity unless the foe has the Improved Sunder feat. An opponent can strike at a hydra’s heads from any position in which he could strike at the hydra itself, because the hydra’s head writhe and whip about in combat. An opponent can ready an action to attempt to sunder a hydra’s head when the creature bites at him. Each of a hydra’s heads has hit points equal to the creature’s full normal hit point total, divided by its original number of heads. Losing a head deals damage to the body equal to half the head’s full normal hit points. A natural reflex seals the neck shut to prevent further blood loss. A hydra can no longer attack with a severed head but takes no other penalties.

Each time a head is severed, two new heads spring from the stump in 1d4 rounds. A hydra can never have more than twice its original number of heads at any one time, and any extra heads it gains beyond its original number wither and die within a day. To prevent a severed head from growing back into two heads, at least 5 points of fire or acid damage must be dealt to the stump (a touch attack to hit) before the new heads appear. A flaming weapon (or similar effect) deals its energy damage to the stump in the same blow in which a head is severed. Fire or acid damage from an area effect may burn multiple stumps in addition to dealing damage to the hydra’s body. A hydra does not die from losing its heads until all its heads have been cut off and the stumps seared by fire or acid.

A hydra’s body can be slain just like any other creature’s, but hydras possess fast healing (see below) and are difficult to defeat in this fashion. Any attack that is not (or cannot be) an attempt to sunder a head affects the body.

Targeted magical effects cannot sever a hydra’s heads (and thus must be directed at the body) unless they deal slashing damage and could be used to make sunder attempts.

Also:
Vorpal weapons cuts the heads off
Clutch of Orcus, Heartclutch, and Heart Ripper spells are all remove the heart, which (IMHO) is a body part

So what about the skill points that get flushed by a mohrg zombifying a creature?

By my personal ruling, they should get their skills back, but the number of points should be corrected in case of changed Int score

EDIT: Also, dead creatures get weird when you consider a petitioner or a ghost, both of which are templates. Is the corpse a creature, or is the ghost a creature? If they're both creatures, then surely they're the same creature?

For extra fun, there was the Putrefaction spell in Dragon #300, which kills the target creature, animate the corpse as Zombie, and turn the soul into Ghost

Does a corpse have a wisdom score?

Is there anything which disprove it?

Since a corpse of a creature is not the same as the creature itself, we cannot assume that a wisdom score is inherited.

Why, exactly, we cannot assume that?

[Jormengand]

For extra fun, there was the Putrefaction spell in Dragon #300, which kills the target creature, animate the corpse as Zombie, and turn the soul into Ghost

This would definitely imply that the body is meant to be a separate thing from the creature, and I would assume therefore that the body is not actually a creature.

[Inevitability]

This would definitely imply that the body is meant to be a separate thing from the creature, and I would assume therefore that the body is not actually a creature.

Somehow, this dicussion has gone from a skill-erasing trick to a materialism-dualism debate.

[Andezzar]

Is there anything which disprove it?

Why, exactly, we cannot assume that?

Wisdom describes a character’s willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition. While Intelligence represents one’s ability to analyze information, Wisdom represents being in tune with and aware of one’s surroundings

Ever experience a corpse that is aware of its surroundings, has willpower or intuition?

[Inevitability]

Ever experience a corpse that is aware of its surroundings, has willpower or intuition?

Allow me to point out that a comatose human has no intuition, nor willpower, nor awareness and despite all those things does possess a wisdom score.

[bekeleven]

First comment:

A paralyzed character is frozen in place and unable to move or act. A paralyzed character has effective Dexterity and Strength scores of 0 and is helpless, but can take purely mental actions.

Get your act together, paralysis.

Second comment:

The general rule of thumb for freedom of movement is that it stops anything preventing you from spending an action to move normally (e.g. web, grapples) but if you can't act, you still can't move. For instance, if you are hit with Sleep, you can't move normally while asleep because you don't have actions with which to move.

Freedom of Movement, however, opens with this:

This spell enables you or a creature you touch to move and attack normally for the duration of the spell, even under the influence of magic that usually impedes movement, such as paralysis, solid fog, slow, and web.

Slow isn't a condition you'll find in the index. Rather, it refers to a specific spell:

A slowed creature can take only a single move action or standard action each turn, but not both (nor may it take full-round actions). Additionally, it takes a -1 penalty on attack rolls, AC, and Reflex saves. A slowed creature moves at half its normal speed (round down to the next 5-foot increment), which affects the creature’s jumping distance as normal for decreased speed.

There's multiple ways to resolve this interaction.

1. Freedom of Movement lets you move normally, but not act normally. Meaning that when you spend move actions, you can move at your full normal speed and you don't suffer penalties on your attacks, but still only get partial actions each round. In other words, it fixes exactly what it states it fixes.
2. As a case of specific beats general, creatures under Freedom of Movement can't be Slowed. In other words, the fact that Slow prevents people from taking full-round mental actions isn't because it prevents you from acting in in a general sense, but instead is an edge case caused by how the abstractions of real-time action modeling interact with each other.
3. Creatures under the effects of both spells can take a full round action or a full round of actions, so long as every action taken is a move, an attack, a run, a withdraw, a charge, or a full attack. In every other case, they must take a partial action. In other words, The spell specifically allows you to move and attack without penalty.

Thoughts?

[Debatra]

The paralysis thing should definitely be included.

As for FoM, that one might be worth its own thread before bringing it here.

[Gemini476]

So, you know Drown Healing and how it sets your hit points to specific points? Turns out that nonlethal damage has a similar thing going.

If your nonlethal damage exceeds your hit points, you are unconscious.

unconscious: Knocked out and helpless. Unconsciousness can result from having current hit points between –1 and –9, or from nonlethal damage in excess of current hit points. A character who is unconscious as a result of having current hit points between –1 and –9 who becomes stable has a 10% chance every hour to become conscious. A character who is unconscious as a result of having nonlethal damage in excess of current hit points has a 10% chance every minute to wake up and be staggered.

staggered: Having nonlethal damage exactly equal to current hit points. A staggered character may take a single move action or standard action each round (but not both, nor can she take fullround actions)

So it turns out that it's really difficult to knock someone out long-term with nonlethal damage. I was not aware of this, for some reason. You have a 50% chance of waking up within seven minutes, 75% within 13 minutes, 90% within 20 minutes, and 99% within 40.

Also, I'm not entirely sure but I think the only place this random wakeup rule can be found is in the PHB's glossary?

[Andezzar]

Where is the dysfunction?

[Debatra]

Where is the dysfunction?

As mentioned, it's like Drown-Healing. If you have 10 HP and 1000 nonlethal damage, you have a 10% chance every minute of spontaneously losing 990 points of nonlethal damage.

[Andezzar]

And how does that not function? It works perfectly well. You may not like that you have the same chance to become conscious whether you have 1 point of nonlethal damage over your current HP or 1000, but that does not cause the rule to not work.

[Debatra]

And how does that not function? It works perfectly well. You may not like that you have the same chance to become conscious whether you have 1 point of nonlethal damage over your current HP or 1000, but that does not cause the rule to not work.

Neither does Drown-Healing, or a lot of our dysfunctions.

What this thread is for:

• Rules that clearly do something that is pointless or self-abnegating (EG Focused Lexicon is a feat that provides nothing but a penalty, no-one can use Chain Power, Hindering Opportunist helps your enemy).
• Rules that do something that is vastly contrary from anything that could possibly be the intended effect (Drown Healing, Greater Reversed Seek the Sky lasts forever, Reversed Mystic Rampart is meant to lower someone's saves but actually drops a tower on them).
• Rules that cause an non-resolvable game state (Peerless Archers can stack infinite attacks of opportunity)
• Rules that don't define something well enough to use it ("Distracted", "Minimum Caster Level", "Paladin spell", "Primary Ability Score", "Special Material", anything missing a range or other variables).
• Rules that, while they don't actually have a negative impact on the game as a game, do stop it making sense (EG fire and acid don't do fire and acid damage, you can fall 9 feet onto your head and take no damage, falling creatures deal no damage if they land on you).
• Two or more rules combine to cause an above problem (AC bonuses and bonus feats exist, but bonuses are only applicable to die rolls so no they don't).
• As a general rule, if you need to write a house rule for it.

What this thread is not for

• Typos (Weapon deals 1d33 or 1d43 damage because 3 isn't superscript; "Share Lesser Form" mistyped as "Share Laser Form".)
• Dysfunctions that only arise because of a specific reading of the text (In combat, everyone is flat-footed until they act, so they must have been flat-footed whenever they weren't in combat, even though the text only specifies that they're flat-footed in combat. Someone who can't be flanked can't have a person on each side of them because if they did, they would be flanked.) Unless every possible reading of the text is dysfunctional no matter how you read it (even if it's dysfunctional in different ways).

[Andezzar]

None of those apply to recovering from unconsciousness caused by nonlethal damage.

[Jormengand]

Okay, let's put this another way: if you hit someone fifteen million times with a sap in 3.5, or if you punch them fifteen million times, or both, they are still almost 97% likely to wake up in the next 10 minutes. This is in the same category as drown healing on the basis that it makes no goddamn sense.

[Troacctid]

You can have the staggered condition without having nonlethal damage equal to your HP. See for example the Staggering Strike feat.

[Bucky]

You can have the staggered condition without having nonlethal damage equal to your HP. See for example the Staggering Strike feat.

By implication, Staggering Strike deals nonlethal damage equal to the target's HP.

[Ehcks]

Okay, let's put this another way: if you hit someone fifteen million times with a sap in 3.5, or if you punch them fifteen million times, or both, they are still almost 97% likely to wake up in the next 10 minutes. This is in the same category as drown healing on the basis that it makes no goddamn sense.

You already knocked them unconscious. You can't knock them more unconscious. By doing non-lethal damage, you are preventing yourself from killing them, or even doing any permanent harm. They'll just wake back up eventually.

[Troacctid]

By implication, Staggering Strike deals nonlethal damage equal to the target's HP.

Remember again what this thread is not for.

Dysfunctions that only arise because of a specific reading of the text (In combat, everyone is flat-footed until they act, so they must have been flat-footed whenever they weren't in combat, even though the text only specifies that they're flat-footed in combat. Someone who can't be flanked can't have a person on each side of them because if they did, they would be flanked.) Unless every possible reading of the text is dysfunctional no matter how you read it (even if it's dysfunctional in different ways).

[Debatra]

Staggering Strike is irrelevant. You don't have to have NL equal to your HP to be staggered, but you can't have more NL than HP and be conscious.

[zergling.exe]

Staggering Strike is irrelevant. You don't have to have NL equal to your HP to be staggered, but you can't have more NL than HP and be conscious.

With some exceptions like Diehard and that one incarnum glove thingy, and even those I think are only when you have negative HP and not when you have positive at all. Which would probably be dysfunctional. Is that in there already?

[Debatra]

Not sure about any incarnum stuff, but Diehard is specifically for the negatives.

[The Viscount]

With some exceptions like Diehard and that one incarnum glove thingy, and even those I think are only when you have negative HP and not when you have positive at all. Which would probably be dysfunctional. Is that in there already?

The Rageclaws and Bloodtalons only prevent you from falling unconscious or being disabled if at negative HP, they don't interact with nonlethal damage.

[zergling.exe]

The Rageclaws and Bloodtalons only prevent you from falling unconscious or being disabled if at negative HP, they don't interact with nonlethal damage.

And that's where the dysfunction is. You can be unconscious from nonlethal damage, then get injured to -5 HP and you are suddenly conscious and active again.

And if you say this doesn't happen, how do they work when you have 0 nonlethal? You're HP is less than your nonlethal damage so unconscious right?

[Gemini476]

And that's where the dysfunction is. You can be unconscious from nonlethal damage, then get injured to -5 HP and you are suddenly conscious and active again.

And if you say this doesn't happen, how do they work when you have 0 nonlethal? You're HP is less than your nonlethal damage so unconscious right?

There's probably an argument to be made of whether you actually have 0 nonlethal damage or if you just have no nonlethal damage, and how that interacts mathematically with negative hit points.

[No brains]

I just had an idea relating to that skill-erasure issue with zombies. Aren't there rules for giving skill points to awakened creatures and incarnated constructs? How are those decided?

[Flickerdart]

I just had an idea relating to that skill-erasure issue with zombies. Aren't there rules for giving skill points to awakened creatures and incarnated constructs? How are those decided?

By hit dice.

Skill points equal to (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1) per Hit Die, with quadruple skill points for the first Hit Die, if the construct has an Intelligence score. However, most constructs are mindless and gain no skill points or feats.

Skill points equal to (4 + Int modifier, minimum 1) per Hit Die, with quadruple skill points for the first Hit Die, if the undead creature has an Intelligence score. However, many undead are mindless and gain no skill points or feats.

However, skill points are not gained retroactively. The creature will only gain more skill points through advancement after gaining intelligence.

An incarnate construct gains no skill points for becoming a living creature, but if it gains levels, it acquires skill points normally.

Undead do not regain any skills or feats they had in life.

[weckar]

Here's a mildly interesting one: The Justicar's Hog-Tie ability cannot actually be used to tie hogs as it only works against humanoid-shaped creatures.

[Inevitability]

Here's a mildly interesting one: The Justicar's Hog-Tie ability cannot actually be used to tie hogs as it only works against humanoid-shaped creatures.

Not sure this is dysfunctional. It's not like it needs a houserule to fix, is it?

[Debatra]

There are a few things in the handbook just because of an oddity with their names. Whether or not they should be there hasn't been discussed much.