Push+Wall=save

[Wednesday Boy]

Its on the first page of a four page long thread. A helpful response should not be necessary.

Edit: Its worth noting its on the first page of a four page long thread that the question asker has already posted on.

I see it's dismissed as being immaterial but as part of the definition of hindering terrain it seems very poignant to me.

 

[James McMurray]

Goumindong, you will not convince Hyp of anything. Don't take my word for it, check his post history. He is convinced his interpretation is right, and that's how he'll stay until someone from WotC tells him otherwise.

For me, I agree with Hyp's logic, but think he's applying it incorrectly. The rules weren't written by logic professors in an attempt to trip up their students. When they give a large fire as an example of damaging / hindering terrain, I take it to mean that a large fire is damaging / hindering terrain, not that some large fires are, based on whatever hoops the DM decides to jump through to validate his whims.

Take it from me, unless you like running verbal laps with no finish line, let Hyp lanquish over verbage in his world while you keep gaming in yours.

 

[catsclaw227]

Do not be one of those people who dismisses an argument with "but that is just your opinion", you'll just be deceiving yourself

Listen, I am not "one of those people". You don't have RAW to support your opinion, and CustSrv (as much as I disagree with their stance) refutes your claims.

After all that, it remains as "just your opinion" and your own houserule. For what it's worth, I agree with you. I call walls hindering terrain. But it's a houserule until otherwise clarified by WOTC.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Conjurations and zones are a set of classification that encompass a varying set of effects. They are defined by their effects and by their effects only.

They are indicated by the presence of the 'Conjuration' keyword or the 'Zone' keyword, respectively.

It is such possible to define them in relation to each other by the difference in their effects.

Sure. If you say "A Conjuration is like a zone where none of the rules for zones apply, and these rules apply instead", you can define them in relation to each other.

It's like saying "A Close attack is like a Melee attack, but with some differences".

If you're saying that I did not do that, you're lying.

I'm saying you said "Do you know what a conjuration is? It's a zone which..."

I'm saying a more accurate version would have been "Do you know what a conjuration is? It's nota zone, and..."

A conjuration isn't a zone, so beginning with "A conjuration is a zone which..." is either a/ disingenuous, since you're fond of the word, or b/ wrong.

Terrain == "effects that encompass a square". Such your final question reads

"what does terrain have to do with a terrain feature?"

Flaming Sphere is a conjuration that occupies a square; do you consider it to be terrain?

Do you consider it a very small, mobile zone that just happens to lack the Zone keyword and follows non of the rules for zones?

-Hyp.

 

[SadisticFishing]

Huh.

What about the area right beside the wizard? It's a zone (not a Zone), and standing in it is a terrible idea if you've seen him use Thunderwave. Can't you roll a save to fall prone without being pushed?

By my interpretation, to be honest, yes. The idea is that you're letting the pushing momentum knock you over instead of push you backwards. As a martial artist who has done many yielding drills, this makes perfect sense to me.

But if you read it 100% as written, you are knocked into the Wall of Fire because it's not "Hindering Terrain".

 

[Goumindong]

I see it's dismissed as being immaterial but as part of the definition of hindering terrain it seems very poignant to me.

Then refute the argument. The statement that defines what the post is going to discuss is not the argument.

Listen, I am not "one of those people". You don't have RAW to support your opinion, and CustSrv (as much as I disagree with their stance) refutes your claims.

After all that, it remains as "just your opinion" and your own houserule. For what it's worth, I agree with you. I call walls hindering terrain. But it's a houserule until otherwise clarified by WOTC.

Custserv is not an authority. I do have RAW support for my argument. As much as you want to say that it is not so, you have provided no argument whatsoever to the contrary. If my argument is incorrect then there must be something within the argument that is false, or some counter point that can be discussed.

Why can you not produce it?

They are indicated by the presence of the 'Conjuration' keyword or the 'Zone' keyword, respectively.

Thank your for the non sequitur. Would you care to rejoin the discussion?

Sure. If you say "A Conjuration is like a zone where none of the rules for zones apply, and these rules apply instead", you can define them in relation to each other.

The two sentences are identical in meaning within the context we are discussing.

It's like saying "A Close attack is like a Melee attack, but with some differences".

It is

I'm saying you said "Do you know what a conjuration is? It's a zone which..."

I'm saying a more accurate version would have been "Do you know what a conjuration is? It's nota zone, and..."

And i am saying stop being disingenuous. You know what was said and what was meant, you are delaying and bringing up that is irrelevant to the discussion because you have no argument.

A conjuration isn't a zone, so beginning with "A conjuration is a zone which..." is either a/ disingenuous, since you're fond of the word, or b/ wrong.

You forgot option C. "A common way to make a comparison between two similar concepts"

Flaming Sphere is a conjuration that occupies a square; do you consider it to be terrain?

Flaming sphere does not deal damage upon entering it. The object instead deals automatic damage once per round. This is very much functionally different than the spaces within a wall of fire. Where the space within a wall of fire deals damage upon entering it. This is why the wall of fire itself is hindering terrain[it is a square that damages] and the adjacent area next to it is not[it is a square that the wall of fire deals damage to].

Do you consider it a very small, mobile zone that just happens to lack the Zone keyword and follows non of the rules for zones?

Actually it is a very small mobile zone that happens to follow the zone rules except where the specifics of the power and the differences between the zone and conjuration are applied. Should you know the differences between zones and conjurations you would know what this means for the power.

 

[Goumindong]

Huh.

What about the area right beside the wizard? It's a zone (not a Zone), and standing in it is a terrible idea if you've seen him use Thunderwave. Can't you roll a save to fall prone without being pushed?

Does moving into the area right beside a wizard deal damage upon entering the square?

 

[Hypersmurf]

And i am saying stop being disingenuous. You know what was said and what was meant, you are delaying and bringing up that is irrelevant to the discussion because you have no argument.

I don't know what you meant. You asked if I know what a zone is, implying that the rules for zones have any relevance whatsoever to determining the rules for Wall of Fire. They don't.

So I have no idea where you were going with that.

Where the space within a wall of fire deals damage upon entering it.

The space doesn't deal the damage. The Wall of Fire deals the damage.

It's not the terrain that damages the creature, it's the conjuration occupying that terrain.

Actually it is a very small mobile zone that happens to follow the zone rules except where the specifics of the power and the differences between the zone and conjuration are applied.

It doesn't follow any of the zone rules. We could excise the zone rules entirely from the PHB with absolutely zero effect on the functioning of Flaming Sphere, because it doesn't reference them, they don't apply to it, and they're entirely irrelevant.

I can remove every reference to "Close Attack" from the rules, and it won't alter the behaviour of my basic melee attack one bit. So for evaluation of how a basic melee attack works, any discussion of Close Attacks is irrelevant. It's incorrect to say "A basic melee attack is a Close Burst 1; Target: 1 creature in burst; Special: If you cannot see the target, you must choose a square", etc... because it's not a Close attack. It's especially incorrect if you then use this invalid 'comparison' to then start applying Close-specific rules to your basic melee attack.

I can remove every reference to "Zone" from the rules, and it won't alter the behaviour of Wall of Fire one bit. So for evaluation of how Wall of Fire works, any discussion of Zones is irrelevant. It's incorrect to call a Wall of Fire a Zone-with-a-few-special-rules; it's especially incorrect if you then start referencing Zone-specific rules and deciding they apply.

-Hyp.

 

[keterys]

... I want it to work more like hindering terrain, but honestly Goumindong your arguments are _hurting_ your case.

 

[pemerton]

But if we assume that the 4E books are to be read this way, it creates other problems.

Ah. I'm one of those who thing that sometimes they've used one style, sometimes another.

That leads to the whole "When they say 'attack' in this section, they mean 'attack power', but in that section, they mean 'ranged, melee, close, or area attack' which includes attack powers and also utility powers, and over here, they mean a power which includes an attack roll (thus excluding some attack powers), while on this page they're referring to an individual attack roll as a component of a power which includes multiple 'attacks'..." problem...

Ah. I'm one of those who thinks that this isn't a problem.

When I look at the D&D rules, I compare them to legislation. Legislation is far more important than the D&D rules - rights and liabilities amounting to millions or billions of dollars, or to years or decades in prison, turn on the meaning of statutes. Legislation is drafted by people far more experienced and highly trained than the typical RPG designer in the use of a natural language (like English) to express rules.

And yet legislation is full of examples of what you are calling "problems" eg the same grammatical construction used for different purposes on different occasions, or different words used on different occasions with no intention to mean different things on those occasions.

If these sorts of complexities can't be eliminated from legislation, with all that is at stake in respect of it and all the resources devoted to the drafting and interpretation of it, then it is unrealistic to expect them to be eliminated from the D&D rules.

Knowing that, I then think that it is unrealistic to read the D&D rules as if such complexities were not present. I prefer to read them as a lawyer would a piece of legislation or other technical document: keeping in mind the understood purpose of the text, and looking at the language used and how it appears to relate to language used elsewhere in the text, what does it seem that the author was intending to say?