Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[S'mon]

Typical. So the conception is DMs using alignment behave like prats and a -for-tat would be DMs not using alignments play in a consequence-free environment. I guess we are both happy now.

My George Lucas/ep III analogy reflects my actual game experience. Back ca 2001 running 3.0 I had
two Monk players with Lawful Neutral on their character sheets. Their behaviour was sometimes Evil. Eventually I told them that their Alignment had shifted to LE. This then caused them to go Full Evil, much more Evil than before, much more Evil than if I had not told them about the shift.

As for consequences - in my Southlands game there were massive in-world consequences for Varek's behaviour, the conflict kept escalating, leading to his eventual death at the hands of a thousand-strong Necromancer-controlled ghoul horde as he held a bridge over the river long enough for his allies to evacuate the doomed town behind him. The drama of his heroic but doomed last stand, indeed of the whole arc, would have been destroyed if I had told the player "You're Evil now" the moment
he killed the captured noblewomen. "You're Evil now" is a GM hammer declaration which
IME is inimical to any possibility of genuine drama or pathos.

Edit: If I GM d6 Star Wars I will of course track Dark Side points and tell a player if they've gone over to the Dark Side. But it can lead to silly results. Eg in one of the last d6 SW games I ran, a captured Jedi PC used the Dark Side to break out of jail and Samson-smash the Imperial starbase where he was held, wreaking a lot of havoc before his inevitable death. The local Imperial fleet was badly weakened, causing it to be defeated in a later battle with the Rebel Alliance. The PC behaved as a classic altruistic Hero, giving his life for the greater good, but the rules said he died a bad guy because he, being unarmed, had used the Dark Side to fight the Imperials. If he had cut them up with a lightsaber he'd have been fine.

 

[pemerton]

On value

So Orcus is not a perfect exemplar of the Undead, nor Demogorgon an exemplar of mindless destruction?

I took it as obvious that undeath and mindless destruction are not values. I have to confess it never occurred to me that someone would think otherwise.

Why can’t a given value itself be evil?

For the same reason that a given square can't be triangular?

Values are valuable. Worth nurturing and pursuing. It's pretty much inherent in the notion of evil that it is to be avoided, and that nurturing it is the wrong thing to do. Good: the most general term of commendation in English; Evil: the most general term of condemnation.


On mechanical consequences

Given “he could lose a level from being hit by a Wight” was not sufficient to suggest losing a level from alignment change was reasonable

As I've already posted, multiple times (at least twice) in reply to you, I don't regard level-draining undead as a good mechanic either. Hence I don't use them. Their presence in the game certainly doesn't make me more relaxed about XP loss from changing alignment.

I fail to see how arbitrarily denying the player access to his familiar (whether by saying “it took a hp of damage” or some other mechanism not arising directly from action resolution mechanics) is philosophically different

<snip>

I fail to see how “1 hp damage would eliminate the familiar” equates to “it is OK for me to arbitrarily remove the familiar without an action resolution which would do 1 hp to the familiar”.

<snip>

I sure wish someone versed in 4e would also look this over – it would not be hard for me to be way off base.

You are way off base, and apparently have no understanding of the action resolution mechanics of D&D 4e. I didn't "arbitrarily remove the familiar without an action resolution."

For the third time, I will post the relevant action resolution mechanics from the DMG's description of the Eye of Vecna (pp 165, 168):

When an artifact decides to leave, it moves on in whatever manner is appropriate to the artifact, its current attitude, and the story of your campaign. . .

A malevolent artifact such as the Eye of Vecna has no compunctions about leaving its owner at the most inopportune moment . . .

The Eye of Vecna consumes its owner, body and mind. The character dies instantly, and his body crumbles to dust.​

And for the second time I will post the relevant action resolution mechanics from the rules for skill challenges:

DMG pp 74, 76
What happens if the characters successfully complete the challenge? What happens if they fail?

When the skill challenge ends, reward the characters for their success (with challenge-specific rewards, as well as experience points) or assess penalties for their failure.

Beyond those fundamental rewards, the characters’ success should have a significant impact on the story of the adventure. Additional rewards might include information, clues, and favors, as well as simply moving the adventure forward. . .

Skill challenges have consequences, positive and negative, just as combat encounters do.

DMG2 p 86
Here are some options you might want to account for in desiging a skill challenge: . . .

* Voluntarily taking damage . . . or sacrificing a healing surge.​

The notion that a consequence of a skill challenge cannot include a familiar taking damage is something that you and [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] have dreamed up. It has no foundation in any 4e rules text - as anyone can see from the passages I've just posted.

And I will post more relevant text, I believe for the first time, from the DMG p 42:

Actions the Rules Don’t Cover
Your presence as the Dungeon Master is what makes D&D such a great game. You make it possible for the players to try anything they can imagine. That means it’s your job to resolve unusual actions when the players try them. . .

Setting Improvised Damage: Sometimes you need to set damage for something not covered in the rules - a character stumbles into the campfire or falls into a vat of acid, for example.​

The player in my game had his PC take an unusual action - namely, while holding back the flow of soul energy, diverting it from Vecna to the Raven Queen as he and his friends had intended. I had to adjudicate it. As part of that, I had to set damage - namely, the damage that an angered Vecna would inflict - which the rules didn't cover. I did so.

In other words, the action resolution mechanics were engaged.

Did any failure in this part of the SC inflict damage on “all the PC’s”? If so, or if it had, would this also incapacitate the familiar, given it had only one hp, or was it generally exempt from the above consequences, not itself being a PC?

I don't recall. But the familiar was in passive mode, so no, it would not have taken any such damage.

I don’t get how the PC’s wee to get 8 medium + 4 hard successes overall. I count three options in the first list

<snip>

So you set the rules, but then you don’t follow your own rules.

<snip>

So, again, just changing the rules on the fly.

I don't think you understand how a skill challenge works. Here is the summary version:

* The GM describes the situation;

* the players describe their PC's actions (the sequence is negotiated informally, or can be determined via initiative roll if negotiations break down);

* those actions are matched to skill checks via GM-player negotiation; checks are then made and success or failure noted;

* if the check succeeded, the situation changes to include (among other things) the outcome the PC was aiming for;

* if the check fails, the situation also changes but will not include that particular outcome;

* any mechanical consequences (expended action points or powers, damage taken etc) are noted;

* the next action is declared and resolved; etc.​

My notes are advice to me, not rules for adjudication. They record my thoughts on how I would adjudicate likely actions the players might declare for their PCs. If the players declare different actions, they can be resolved differently. If I think of something better when the situation is actually being played out, of course I'll do that!

To say that I broke my own rules would be like saying that a GM who didn't follow the "Tactics" guidelines in a monster entry had broken the rules. Sounds pretty video-gamey to me!

So, to summarize, it was not the game mechanics or action resolution system that shut the familiar down. It was not even your previously defined consequences for failed rolls or potential to access bonuses for one or more rolls. It was not a consequence of a failed roll. It was an off the cuff decision that, if the player decided to make a certain decision in-game, he would lose access to a class feature.

You are correct that it was an off-the-cuff decision. Many GMs make off-the-cuff decisions. The 4e DMG has a whole page - page 42 - devoted to adjudicating off-the-cuff decisions by both players and GMs.

Some people prefer their RPG experience to be prescripted, and playing is just reading from the script. I am not such a person.

But you are not correct that it was not the game mechanics or action resolution system that shut the familiar down. I have quoted the relevant mechanics above. (In some cases for the second or third time).

If a player tells me “I fight on the defensive this round”, taking an AC bonus, for which reason his attacker misses instead of hitting, I would not then decide “Well, as you were fighting on the defensive, your familiar scurried into the path of the blow and was hit instead of you.”

Which is relevant how?

How does that have any bearing on the adjudication of the consequences for deciding to divert a flow of souls from Vecna to the Raven Queen, when said flow of souls is being effectuated via your familiar in which is implanted the Eye of Vecna?

And if he made his Religion roll to address the second stage (which I don’t think he did in a prayer to the Raven Queen – could he not pray to one of his other deity contacts?), that seems like a success in the skill challenge, not a failure to preserve his familiar, which is not mentioned at all in the stakes, other than “sensing Vecna’s presence” (which seems to have no mechanical impact on the skill challenge) or, if the challenge fails, losing the familiar to Vecna.

I have already discussed this at length.

The player put the Eye of Vecna into his familiar. Deliberately. To bring Vecna into play as a balancing influence against Levistus, to whom the familiar reports. Then about half-a-dozen sessions later I put Vecna into play very prominently and deliberately, by (i) inviting the player to make an Insight check, and then (ii) when he succeeded, telling him that he could sense Vecna operating through his familiar to suck up the flow of souls. And then asking him what he wants to do about it! And whether he wants to redirect the souls back to the Raven Queen (their "natural" destination, but for Vecna's interference).

Now, for some reason you don't believe me about this, although the only evidence you are citing to the contrary is another post by me! Can't you see how absurd this is? - that you're citing my own GMs notes that I provided you with as evidence that I don't know what was going on in my own game!

Furthermore, you - an avowed non-4e player - are telling me that I misapplied the mechanics for a skill challenge because, in the course of play, I departed from my preparatory notes! As if they were some sort of script that I would just hand out to all my players to save us the trouble of actually playing the game.

To be honest, I've really lost track of what you're trying to prove here.

I am not arguing that the player was not warned his familiar was in danger. I am not arguing that the play was, or was not, good. I am asserting that you placed the player’s access to a class feature at stake based on the behavioural choice his character made.

How did the player lose access to a class feature? Do you even know what the class features are for an invoker in 4e? Do you even know how it is that the player comes to have a familiar, or what the mechanics are that govern familiars? Do you know how long the familiar will take to recover? Do you know the rules for curses and diseases in 4e? Do you know the mechanics for encounter balancing in 4e? Do you know what effect it has on the mechanical effectiveness of a 4e PC to have an encounter power placed onto the daily recovery cycle by some adverse effect?

My best guess is that you know basically none of these things. On what basis, then, are you lecturing me about my conformity or non-conformity to 4e's action resolution mechanics?

But putting the issue of class features to one side, how do you propose to put anything at stake in an RPG, except via the behavioural choices - otherwise known as actions - performed by a PC?

I don't know of any other way. Which then allows for two possibilities: either, when I said upthread that I am not interesting in judging my players' evaluative and expressive responses as part of refereeing the game, I meant (i) that I don't want any stakes or consequences in my game, or (ii) by "judging my players' evaluative and expressive responses" I meant something different from "figuring out the ingame consequences of their actions".

And guess what - with number (ii) we have a winner! I've lost count of how many times I've posted this, but to recap: I am not interested, as part of my refereeing of the game, in judging my players' evaluative and expressive responses. That is, I am not interested in judging, as part of my refereeing of the game, whether the actions they declare for their PCs are good or evil; honourable or dishonourable; rational or irrational; brave or cowardly; etc etc. And in circumstances where their views about such matters are intimately bound up with their relationships to exemplary gods - eg in circumstances of paladinhood - that means that I am not going to have those gods express a contrary view either.

This has no bearing on whether I am going to judge that a player who sets out to have his PC thwart Vecna angers Vecna. That's not about judging an evaluative or expressive response. That's about playing Vecna in accordance with the stakes that have been set up by the player, escalated by me, and then pushed to crunch time by the player's choice to have his PC thwart Vecna.

To reiterate: judging that Vecna is angry has no implications for whether the player's action declaration for his PC was or was not the right thing. And part of the reason for this, as I have explained at some length, is that not only was the player not setting out to realise, via his PC's action, some value to which Vecna is committed, but he was in fact setting out to thwart Vecna.

Then why is it incapacitated at all? Is a temporary loss acceptable, but a longer term or permanent loss unacceptable? Where is the line drawn?

I believe that I have already indicated that I do not regard hit point damage as the same thing as losing a class feature. It is not a rewriting of the player's character. It is an ordinary part of the game's action resolution mechanics. In 4e, other aspects of those mechanics include things like healing surges, power recharges, action points and the like.

Where is the line drawn? How many angels can stand on a head of a pin? I haven't worked out, in advance, and for all time, the scope of mechanical consequences in 4e. Nor have the designers, except in the prosaic sense that they've stopped designing for it: for instance, MV2 gave us the curse rules which are a riff on the disease rules. H2 gave us the first occurrence in print of monsters whose attack could deprive a character of access to an encounter power, as well as the first occurrence in print of using loss of access to an encounter power until an extended rest is taken as a possible consequence in a skill challenge; up to that point I'd only seen creatures that drained healing surges. I don't think I've yet seen an attack that can drain action points, but such a thing is in principle quite viable. (There are plenty of abilities and items that can confer them.)

What I do know, though, is that imposing consequences that play with rechargeable abilities, and with their recharge times, is core to the game. And has basically nothing in common with permanently changing a character's class and/or level.


On adjudication of evaluative judgement

you go on to dismiss the plain English meaning as inconsistent with your use of the term. How does that align with your previous, extended, insistence that Good and Evil in the game rules must be interpreted in accordance with their ordinary English usage?

I don't insist that "good" and "evil" be used in their ordinary English sense: I just point out that this is what D&D does. (As the 2nd ed PHB says, "good characters are just that.)

I have explained what I mean by evaluative judgement. If you want a dictionary reference, I point you to this, from the Collins English Dictionary: expressing an attitude or value judgment.

this scene evaluates the PC’s actions in the eyes of his deity, as played by you, contrary to your previously stated unwillingness to engage in precisely such an evaluation.

You keep imputing to me views that I haven't expressed.

I have said that I am not interested in judging the correctness of a player's evaluative and expressive responses, as part of my refereeing of the game. And in the scene at issue, I did not do that. The player wanted to play out a scene in which he discusses, with his god, doubts about his resolution. In playing out that scene, I am not adjudicating the correctness of the player's response. I am affirming his response and playing along with it. It is in the same general category, although not identical, to the player who wants his/her paladin to fall.

this your claim that this scene was framed under the action resolution rules of the game is categorically erroneous

This is becoming comical. Can you please quote the passage from the 4e rulebooks that states that a GM is not permitted to frame a scene in which a dead PC talks to the Raven Queen?

Nope? No such passage? Thought as much. Besides the passages from the DMG I already quoted, there is also this, from MoP p 53:

Foremost of the Shadowfell’s inhabitants are the dead. Each day brings droves of displaced souls from the natural world. They congregate here, searching for answers, meaning, or just a safe place to bide their time.​

And also this, from Open Grave p 22:

All souls come to the Shadowfell, and sooner or later they pass through the Raven Queen’s Citadel in Letherna, except for those souled undead that evade the fate she decrees.​

OK, so now that we've established that there is no such rule, and that the game expressly contemplates the spirits of the dead meeing with the Raven Queen, can you just let this one go?

To compare two possible in-game occurences:

1. Invoker says “I will channel the souls to the Raven Queen. I know this choice puts ongoing access to my familiar at risk.” The familiar is, in fact, removed from his control for some period, without him having any ability to prevent this result – it occurs if he makes the behavioural choice in question.
   
   
2. Fighter says “I will strike down the man in my path. I know this choice reflects a lack of respect for life, and could jeopardize my Good alignment, potentially costing me a level.” The level is, in fact, lost, without him having any ability to prevent this result – it occurs if he makes the behavioural choice in question.

You seem to perceive a fundamental difference between the game philosophy of the two.

Yes and no. First, are the statements uttered by the character or the player? I am assuming that they are being uttered by the player. (For instance, I assume that the Fighter in the second example is not being deliberately played by his player as confused about the nature of the choice - which could be the case if the player knows that the action would be justified self-defence, but for some reason the fighter does not).

That assumption made, only the second involves evaluative judgement. But it strike me as comparable to the player who plays his/her paladin to fall - the player affirms that his/her PC is not living up to the requirements of his/her code. Hence - putting to one side my extreme dislike of level loss and its ilk as mechanical consequences - the GM in imposing the consequence is simply affirming the player's choice. That is, the GM does not have to adjudicate the player's judgement (if we put to one side [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION]'s question upthread, about the GM who doesn't let the paladin fall because s/he deems the action not sufficiently evil).

You pay a lot of service to “PC Conception” in the lengthy passages I have not quoted. What if his conception is “great warrior”? Does he get to override to hit and damage rolls? Perhaps his conception is “as a shadow in the night” – do his Stealth checks succeed automatically? Why is only consistency with their deity or philosophy placed entirely under the player’s control? I’ve certainly played in games where my conceptual vision of the character failed to manifest due to the dice not co-operating, or due to errors in my own realization of the vision, through design or play. Why is my “moral vision” the only aspect of concept mandating exclusive player control?

First, do you realise that "lip service" is an insult? It implies a lack of sincerity. Are you really intending to imply that I am insincere in taking seriously a player's conception of his/her PC?

Second, am I now obliged to justify all my preferences to you? I mean, what if I answered "That's just how I like it - I care about evaluation more than description"? Would that be unacceptable for some reason?

But in fact, the player can fail at Stealth checks yet not have his/her conception of his/her PC as "a shadow in the night" negated, and the warrior be defeated yet the player's conception of his/her PC as a great warrior not be negated - that is part of the point of fortune-in-the-middle mechanics, which particularly abound in the version of D&D that I play.

The invoker player's conception of his PC is as a might wizard and sage. And his familiar was shut down by Vecna. Does that show that he is somehow a failure as a mage? Not at all - Vecna, the greatest necromancer the world has ever known, struck out at him through his familiar, and all that Vecna could accomplish was to shut it down. He could not even reduce the imp to dust! The invoker's magical power is greater than even he had realised!

That is the beauty of fortune-in-the-middle!

 

[pemerton]

Even by the standards of this thread, this seemed a little tangential:

OK, so just to be clear you're now actually denying that Tolkien's Aragorn is the inspiration for the Ranger class, and that instead he inspired the Paladin class?

What makes you think I'm denying that? The ranger not only echoes Tolkien in the class name and some of the level titles (eg Strider, Ranger) but rangers are (like Aragorn) expert trackers who, when they become lords, can wield Palantiri.

But how does that have any bearing on my contention upthread, which you appeared to deny, that Tolkien's depiction of Aragorn is based on the trope of divinely ordained kingship, which includes the notion that "The hands of the king are the hands of a healer" - and also the idea that the king will be a greater leader (17+ CHA)?

To the best of my knowledge, when the paladin class was authored the author had in mind Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. But it's not as if Poul Anderson conjured the tropes of that story (or Morgan le Fay, who appears in it) from whole cloth!

So the PC is only protected by magic in retrospect when he survives to achieve his goals? Ultimately, Camelot fell, and it was not Arthur’s sin which caused it to fall. As for the “healer”, reviewing that passage, he used herbalism, satisfying a prophecy that he was the Rightful King. At no other point in the entire trilogy does he demonstrate any healing skills, and even these may or may not be magical, rather than herbalism.

As I said to Imaro, I could post that "a" is the indefinite article in English and you would dispute it.

You're now arguing (i) that Camelot enjoyed no divine protection during Arthur's period (and I don't see how the fact that the sin was not Arthur's - which is itself up for grabs - is relevant), and (ii) that Aragorn was not steered to his kingship by divine providence and had no particular capacity to heal.

Is this really your considered view, or are you just trying to score points?

 

[pemerton]

If I GM d6 Star Wars I will of course track Dark Side points and tell a player if they've gone over to the Dark Side. But it can lead to silly results.

I don't know much about d6 SW, but from what you say it sounds like the rules might be a bit wonky.

 

[Hussar]

Pemeton - don't the 4e familiar rules let you bring back a dead familiar in one day? Iirc that's the rule. Perhaps N'raac is confusing earlier edition familiar rules which are significantly more punishing.

 

[Imaro]

The rules for a familiar state that it has 1 hp.

The rules for artefacts moving on, and for the Eye of Vecna moving on, I already quoted upthread (from the DMG pp 165, 168):

When an artifact decides to leave, it moves on in whatever manner is appropriate to the artifact, its current attitude, and the story of your campaign. . .

A malevolent artifact such as the Eye of Vecna has no compunctions about leaving its owner at the most inopportune moment . . .

The Eye of Vecna consumes its owner, body and mind. The character dies instantly, and his body crumbles to dust.​

How is it disregarding the rules for this artefact to have Vecna inflict 1 hp of damage on the familiar in whom it is implanted? Are you saying that it is permissible to have the imp crumble to dust, but not to have the imp take 1 hp of damage?

Ignoring for a minute the fact that the rules for implanting the Eye of Vecna into a familiar are made up whole cloth by you any way since the rules for the artifact don't address this... Now I asked if the familiar was in passive mode further back in the thread but never received an answer but you finally did say...

I don't recall. But the familiar was in passive mode, so no, it would not have taken any such damage.

Well if it was in passive mode and familiars don't take damage while in passive mode... I'm curious how did the Eye of Vecna damage it since in passive mode it can't be damaged by any effect? Was the player informed that the Eye of Vecna could damage his familiar while it was in passive mode beforehand? Or is there something else about the scenario that will be revealed now that wasn't mentioned beforehand?

Honestly I'm not seeing why it's so hard for you to admit that you weren't following the rules or using the resolution mechanics as outlined by the books when you punished the character?

Pemeton - don't the 4e familiar rules let you bring back a dead familiar in one day? Iirc that's the rule. Perhaps N'raac is confusing earlier edition familiar rules which are significantly more punishing.

Well @Hussar , earlier in the thread @pemerton also said the familiar was gone for an indeterminate amount of time... again ignoring resolution mechanics for a DM fiat call.

 

[Sadras]

Throughout this thread the alignment side has repeatedly stated the need for the DM to adjudicate player alignment. This has been consistent throughout the thread. This is considered one of the biggest reasons why we need mechanical alignment.

Yet every example of a DM actually adjudicating alignment is brushed aside with the idea that we are insisting on bad DM's.

Its not that I had a problem with the adjudication of alignment, instead I have a problem of how it was presented by S'mon: Rather flippantly, no scene framing as if it were a loss of hit points rather than something which could involve some heavy roleplay, a skill challenge of sorts and the like.

As I have said before, I have never had to adjudicate a scenario such as this - even a purposefully fallen paladin/cleric. Recently I DMed my first ever resurrection of a PC and it was pretty intense - I researched heavily, I drew up the ritual which fell back heavily on the setting thematically on how it had to be done, who would have to do it and the necessary material components for such an event to occur. I framed the scene and prepped dialogue to some degree. I have it on m/word if you want to see what I'm referring to.
It was quite a significant event in our campaign - the players definitely understood the gravity of the moment. Maybe that is just me.

I just can't for the life of me imagine a DM of my age - turning to the player and just saying "okay for your action, change your alignment to evil." as if that was the extent of it. I mean that is just badwrongunfun! There would have been some serious table discussion beforehand - nevermind the in-game moments I would have preferred to have included.

 

[Cadence]

Actually no. In a chaotic system you have emergent properties that cannot be predicted.

Sorry, was trying to get at it not being random. If someone had observed the same system with the same starting value before and knew where you were at in the process then they would know what was coming next. Like if you were making a "random number table" using some fixed pseudo-random number generator and fixed seed, and I had already used themand gone farther out than you're at now -- then as long as I know how many numbers you've drawn I know exactly what your next one is. If I didn't know one of those three things then I couldn't tell it apart from randomness and wouldn't know what was coming next.

 

[Sadras]

But, the difference for me would be context. In a Mechanical Alignment game, the DM must judge PC actions based on the alignment elements set out in the phb, not based on the
NPC in question. Alignment definitions don't change based on who you are talking to.

For me, judgement would be based on the portfolio of the deity that the player chose. The player in choosing a deity has basically said that they will abide by the tenets of that deity. And these tenets are usually pretty clear cut. At least far more clear than alignment.

Okay, for clarity purposes if the deity oversees Strength, Sun and Beauty domains/spheres - you find it is easier to evaluate a character's alignment with those tenets rather than with Good, Evil, Lawful and Chaotic?

 

[pemerton]

Pemeton - don't the 4e familiar rules let you bring back a dead familiar in one day? Iirc that's the rule. Perhaps N'raac is confusing earlier edition familiar rules which are significantly more punishing.

Generally a familiar comes back after any rest. In this particular case, a short rest may not be enough.

And to satisfy [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION] and [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION], who are the self-appointed 4e police, I quote from p 57 of module H2 (authors Richard Baker and Mike Mearls):

This skill challenge involves the adventurers and a spectral manifestation of Vecna. . .

Each PC loses two healing surges and the use of one encounter power and one daily power for the rest of the adventure. . .

Each PC loses two healing surges and the use of one encounter power for the rest of the adventure. . .

Each PC loses one healing surge for the rest of the adventure.​

I'm not sure why a precdent would be needed, but here we have one for consequences of a skill challenge involving Vecna in which those consequences include changing the normal recharge rate for a resource or ability.

It's weird being told I'm wrong in my 4e framing and adjduciation by one poster who, by his own admission, doesn't know the 4e mecahnics, and by another poster who is one of the most prominent ENworld critics of that edition.

Ignoring for a minute the fact that the rules for implanting the Eye of Vecna into a familiar are made up whole cloth by you any way since the rules for the artifact don't address this

So now my player is a bad player too, for having his PC implant the Eye into his imp rather than himself? We 4e players like to think outside the box like that - none of this videogamey drop-down menu approach to play for us!

In fact, not only did my player have the idea, but he made up the rules too, including that he lost an eye corresponding to that of his familiar.

Now I asked if the familiar was in passive mode further back in the thread but never received an answer but you finally did say...

<snip>

Well if it was in passive mode and familiars don't take damage while in passive mode... I'm curious how did the Eye of Vecna damage it since in passive mode it can't be damaged by any effect?

I was answering N'raac's question about taking damage. At the moment when the familiar was doing Vecna's bidding and diverting the souls to him, I think it was rather active. Certainly active enough to suffer consequences from Vecna via the Eye!