Official D&D Sage Advice Compendium Updated

DQDesign · Feb 2, 2019

[MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION]

"I mean, have you had issues with disintegrate and low level half-orcs with this racial trait? If not...why are you guys even discussing it beyond a footnote minor observation?"

For my side, because wotc issued an official interpretation of the problem. So, if you are right, they are wrong, because the situation is a minor footnote and does not require any official interpretation (this is my opinion, for example).
Otherwise, you are wrong, they are right and there was a strong necessity of officially stating that half-orcs are especially resistant against disintegration. In this last case, I expect them to have this fact driven to all the necessary consequences, including first of all updating canon fiction justifying why this happens.
otherwise the system is disconnected by fiction and, therefore, intrinsically incoherent.

FrogReaver · Feb 2, 2019

DQDesign said:
which, divided by 0, is equal to infinite.
so half-orcs are still infinitely more resistant to disintegration than anything else XD XD XD

Correction: You can't divide by zero.

However the limit of that divided by X as X approaches zero from the left does go to infinity. It actually goes to negative infinity if X approaches zero from the right.

Mistwell · Feb 2, 2019

DQDesign said:
[MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION]

"I mean, have you had issues with disintegrate and low level half-orcs with this racial trait? If not...why are you guys even discussing it beyond a footnote minor observation?"

For my side, because wotc issued an official interpretation of the problem. So, if you are right, they are wrong, because the situation is a minor footnote and does not require any official interpretation (this is my opinion, for example).
Otherwise, you are wrong, they are right and there was a strong necessity of officially stating that half-orcs are especially resistant against disintegration. In this last case, I expect them to have this fact driven to all the necessary consequences, including first of all updating canon fiction justifying why this happens.
otherwise the system is disconnected by fiction and, therefore, intrinsically incoherent.

Someone asked the question so they answered it. That doesn't make it important or a "strong necessity" to respond. And it's even less a "strong necessity" for you to make a big deal out of a theoretical situation neither you nor anyone else here has ever encountered concerning a 0.00047299171028% chance of something odd happening IF a higher level wizard were to expend a higher level spell slot to use disintegrate on a low level half-orc NPC who also had this ability. That scenario itself has infinitesimally small odds of happening, and then we add even more infinitesimally small odds of the unusual result, and all this really adds up to is pages of debate about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

If you need a game which is "coherent" for even one in ten trillion scenarios without a DM ruling, I suspect you will remain dissatisfied with gaming your whole life. My hope however is you come around to acknowledging this is kinda an absurd debate you're having for fun and not really a serious issue for the game.

Yunru · Feb 2, 2019

FrogReaver said:
Correction: You can't divide by zero.

However the limit of that divided by X as X approaches zero from the left does go to infinity. It actually goes to negative infinity if X approaches zero from the right.

I think you've got your polarities reversed there?

FrogReaver · Feb 2, 2019

Yunru said:
I think you've got your polarities reversed there?

YES LOL

Proof that purposefully being pedantic rarely pays off

Just like there's always a bigger fish in the sea. There's always a bigger pedant than me.

Mistwell · Feb 2, 2019

FrogReaver said:
YES LOL

Proof that purposefully being pedantic rarely pays off

Just like there's always a bigger fish in the sea. There's always a bigger pedant than me.

Nobody is a bigger pedant than [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] !

Swarmkeeper · Feb 3, 2019

DQDesign said:
which, divided by 0, is equal to infinite.
so half-orcs are still infinitely more resistant to disintegration than anything else XD XD XD

Except for Zombies. So, I guess divide by something else?

Paul Farquhar · Feb 3, 2019

DQDesign said:
[For my side, because wotc issued an official interpretation of the problem.

wotc issued an interpretation of what happens when a player character (or NPC built as a player character, and hence a major character) is targeted by Disintegrate. Since thy have never stated "ALL NPC half orcs have the relentless endurance ability" there is no conflict.

Now, if you want to argue that giving a monster relentless endurance should have a bigger effect on CR than is indicated by the DMG, I would say sure, as it means the monster will survive one more hit than it otherwise would. I would also say it really doesn't matter - the DMG has guidelines for estimating CR - something that is in reality impossible to quantify. For example, if the mob is low level and has less than 7 hp relentless endurance effectively doubles it's survivability, since it takes two shots to kill rather than one. But if it has 400 hp it makes little difference.

Hussar · Feb 3, 2019

DQDesign said:
[MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION]

"I mean, have you had issues with disintegrate and low level half-orcs with this racial trait? If not...why are you guys even discussing it beyond a footnote minor observation?"

For my side, because wotc issued an official interpretation of the problem. So, if you are right, they are wrong, because the situation is a minor footnote and does not require any official interpretation (this is my opinion, for example).
Otherwise, you are wrong, they are right and there was a strong necessity of officially stating that half-orcs are especially resistant against disintegration. In this last case, I expect them to have this fact driven to all the necessary consequences, including first of all updating canon fiction justifying why this happens.
otherwise the system is disconnected by fiction and, therefore, intrinsically incoherent.

Few points.

1. WotC is under no obligation to update canon fiction for events that are not canon in the game. What canon events have shown orcs surviving disintegrate spells? It's possible that half orc PC's can do so, but, so what? None of that is "canon". It just happens in your game. IOW, it's up to you, the DM to come up with a justification. Your inability to do so is not a failure of the game.

2. The system is and always has been disconnected to the fiction. It is a mistake to pretend that somehow there is any real correlation. Any correlation between the system and the fiction is entirely reliant on the DM and the players. You think I'm wrong? Then you explain to me what 10 HP of damage looks like.

3. Banging the "incoherency" drum in an RPG is a fruitless exercise. But, hey, keep on shining you brilliant diamond.

5ekyu · Feb 3, 2019

DQDesign said:
[MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION]

"I mean, have you had issues with disintegrate and low level half-orcs with this racial trait? If not...why are you guys even discussing it beyond a footnote minor observation?"

For my side, because wotc issued an official interpretation of the problem. So, if you are right, they are wrong, because the situation is a minor footnote and does not require any official interpretation (this is my opinion, for example).
Otherwise, you are wrong, they are right and there was a strong necessity of officially stating that half-orcs are especially resistant against disintegration. In this last case, I expect them to have this fact driven to all the necessary consequences, including first of all updating canon fiction justifying why this happens.
otherwise the system is disconnected by fiction and, therefore, intrinsically incoherent.

uhhh... sorry but is this really all about some now trivial discrepancy between fiction and mechanics in an RPG that has covered some 40 years of development?

I take it you have not had problems with countless other RPGS that had glitches between fiction and mechanics at some small scale?

I take it you do not understand that "rulings over rules" and the wholehearted embrace of house rules for specific campaigns means that a piece of fiction describing a specific campaign event may well be just an expression of a house rule or ruling that fits that specific campaign better in the minds of its players aka the author?

gee - hope you never read my campaign references or recaps or such - likely there would be a meltdown cuz we really dont get that hung up on stuff being precisely RAW.

See, in one of our recent sessions - a character got an "otherworldly experience" right before leveling up and we tied some of the aspects of that experience to her leveling up gains - even tho thats not required in the rules. We all liked it. It was fun. But its certainly not RAW so... by all means start a thread and explode about how its not strictly necessary to have an otherworldy experience to get darkvision by leveling up.

Enjoy.