D&D 5E (2014) Warlock and Repelling Blast

ryan92084 · Jan 7, 2016

[MENTION=6799940]Zorku[/MENTION] Happy birthday. May your DM rule eldritch blasts as being cumulatively repelling or not, sequential or not, and dispelable or not as is advantageous to you at the time

Noctem · Jan 7, 2016

oy vey

Ovinomancer · Jan 7, 2016

Zorku said:
Yeah. Red Herring.

I'm not attacking him for conjecture.
I'm not attacking him for conjecture.
I'm not...

Saying it over and over doesn't actually make it true.

Here's your statement that I keyed off of:

Zorku said:
What you've quoted does not say what you are claiming it says. For what you're claiming you would need a quote that talks about actions being indivisible snapshots; that other actions cannot happen in the middle, but rather before or after, and at this point we know there is no such text in the book. It seems to me that you're trying to argue this as though I've said that you don't need to have started one of the VSM components until you've already shot off two lasers. If that's the case this is a lovely then this is a lovely little scarecrow fallacy, and if that's not the case then you're sorely lacking in the kinds of quotes you would need to support your interpretation of spell casting.

The bolded part is what I was responding to. You had just, in the post prior to the one quoted, offered an explanation that had no rules quotes that could support your interpretation of spell casting. I then commented that you shouldn't throw rocks at an unsupported conjecture when you just made one yourself. Especially if it was the direct cause of the post you were lamblasting.

So, yeah, not a red herring, you did attack his conjecture as unsupported by the rules. You did it immediately after making your own unsupported conjecture. Nothing in my statement implied any kind of rightness or wrongness to either conjecture, nor did it, in any way, imply that you were wrong to say that Arial was presenting conjecture as rules. Those were entirely orthogonal to my point, which was a gentle chiding over being aggressive towards someone's else's conjecture after so recently providing your own conjecture..

Did I ever pose a false dichotomy? If not, then I haven't done the same thing as him. I thought you liked all of these debate terms. Why are you so reluctant to recognize them now?

I don't know, I certainly didn't say you did. Your failure here is to realize that I wasn't attacking that aspect of your post, but the requirement that his conjecture have rules backup right after you posted a conjecture that didn't have any rules backup. I found that to be less than fair. Your actual analysis of Arial's argument's worth I was silent on, until later, when I clearly said that I agreed it wasn't a good argument. Three times I've said that now and you're still on as if I disagree with your overall analysis rather than the very narrow point of being churlish over conjectures not being supported by the rules.

Yeah, that's why I didn't call it a non sequitur when I was talking to him. That's why I usually stylistically explain the problems I see instead of calling out a fallacy in a vacuum. Since it's not in the quote anymore I'll repeat this: I'm only calling fallacies like this in this weird response chain you've provoked, to give you less to get distracted by.

And I didn't respond to you calling it a non sequitur until you did. What matter when you leveled the allegation? Timing doesn't change it's impropriety. Also, if you refer to Arial's argument as a fallacy, then you're calling that argument a fallacy. You can't cabin your argument to only apply within the context of your exchange with me. That's special pleading (since your fond of naming fallacies all the sudden).

Ok, I'll parse it for you: There is- an argument- here. It- is about- facts- and logic. The presence- of conjecture- is- irrelevant.

No, our argument is about my statements regarding conjecture. It's logically impossible to discuss my statements about conjecture without discussing the presence of conjecture. I get that you're trying very hard to shift this from my narrow comment on conjecture into the larger argument of whether or not Arial was right, but, honestly, I don't really care about that argument. I didn't find Arial's argument as quoted as persuasive, I said so, and yet you're still prosecuting that. What I did say was that you both engaged in extra-RAW conjecturing in your responses to each other, and then you suddenly demanded that he adhere to providing RAW for his conjecture -- something you had also failed to do. I commented on that, and that alone.

I know I can't erase it. What I've done instead is stop supporting it. Consider this a victory. I offer no defense for the conjecture I made, and honestly the only degree to which I ever defended it was as an illustration of the point I was making.

I don't care. I didn't find your conjecture any more persuasive than Arial's, and didn't respond to either you of on the merits of your conjectures. I only responded on the narrow front of your shifting to requiring proof of support for conjecture, which was a standard you had not held yourself to immediately prior. I did it in a way that was, I had thought, a good natured ribbing. Apologies that you've found it so offensive.

Do you understand why I don't accept it when you say that I'm a hypocrite for using conjecture? It's got at least a little bit to do with me never having complained about him using conjecture. I've complained about two fallacies in two of his posts. If you're not going to talk about either of those (or after disrespecting me this thoroughly, if you're going to talk about anything from this series of posts other than those fallacies,) then I'm done talking to you.

Hah. You've called me a liar and I'm disrespecting you?

Also, I didn't call you a hypocrite, although I can see where you got that. I was pointing out a double standard, which can occur accidentally, and, to me, can include hypocrisy or not. Generally, I only reach for hypocrisy when I think it's intentional. Everyone's allowed mistakes, especially in making impassioned arguments about things you like.

But, that said, I also didn't say anything remotely close to 'using conjecture is bad.' I limited my statement to requiring rules backup for a conjecture you found wrong, when you had just presented a conjecture that was similarly unfounded in the rules (and slightly more so, in my opinion, but that, again, isn't a bad thing).

I am actually a bit relieved that you've stopped to think about the tangled mess you've put me through. This has been an absolutely abysmal opening to my birthday.

Sorry, but, while I wish you a better birthday as I hold no rancor or animosity towards you, I'm not the least bit guilty that your birthday has had a bad start because I have defended myself against your charges of dishonesty.

Arial Black · Jan 8, 2016

Without getting in the middle of Zorku and Ovinomancer in their domestic dispute, I note that neither of them agree that the rules which say that the VSM components are required in order to cast a spell means that those components must be fully completed before the spell duration starts.

So I ask them: what do you think that the RAW I quoted about components means in terms of the relationship/timing between casting and duration?

Arial Black · Jan 8, 2016

For me, while the rules of D&D have drifted over the years, most of the concepts that the rules help us produce in the game have stayed constant. For example, the meaning of the 'instantaneous' duration has stayed unchanged, even if the words used to describe it are briefer in 5E than they are in 3E. The briefer description lends itself to misinterpretation, but I don't think that the actual way instantaneous spells work has changed at all!

BTW, the 3.5E and 5E spell descriptions of scorching ray are almost identical, except the 3E line about all the targets having to be chosen in advance. However, that line was redundant anyway, because the consequence of the instantaneous duration already meant that all the rays must be used in that same instant. Since 5E has retained the instantaneous duration, this has not changed. I don't believe that the concept of scorching ray, which was 'shoot a number of simultaneous rays of fire', suddenly changed in 5E, without any wording indicating any such change.

I find the idea of rays shot with enough time between rays to see what they do, and using that information to choose who to target next, to be absurd for a spell that is defined as instantaneous and 'the magic exists only for an instant', and a totally unnecessary bit of absurdity that has consequences beyond these two spells.

Zorku · Jan 8, 2016

Arial Black said:
Without getting in the middle of Zorku and Ovinomancer in their domestic dispute, I note that neither of them agree that the rules which say that the VSM components are required in order to cast a spell means that those components must be fully completed before the spell duration starts.

So I ask them: what do you think that the RAW I quoted about components means in terms of the relationship/timing between casting and duration?

I've already responded to this exact question.

Zorku · Jan 8, 2016

Ovinomancer said:
Saying it over and over doesn't actually make it true.
Hah. You've called me a liar and I'm disrespecting you?

No, I stated that you've said something that is untrue. Lying carries the extra baggage of intent, and for someone to be a liar comes down much more to continued intention to lie after having recognized that they've told a lie. There's some room in there for willful ignorance and other behavior that would frustrate Spock, but that's the gist of it. Rather than attacking your character, I was pointing out a mistake. The part of this that reflects on your character is how willing you are to accept the mistake and try not to repeat it, provided that I've done my job in explaining how it's a mistake to begin with.

I think I have, and you've violated the boundary I laid out in my previous post, so this conversation is over, and I won't be having any new ones with you unless I think that your character has changed.

Noctem · Jan 8, 2016

Zorku said:
I've already responded to this exact question.

Yup you did.

Ovinomancer · Jan 8, 2016

Zorku said:
No, I stated that you've said something that is untrue. Lying carries the extra baggage of intent, and for someone to be a liar comes down much more to continued intention to lie after having recognized that they've told a lie. There's some room in there for willful ignorance and other behavior that would frustrate Spock, but that's the gist of it. Rather than attacking your character, I was pointing out a mistake. The part of this that reflects on your character is how willing you are to accept the mistake and try not to repeat it, provided that I've done my job in explaining how it's a mistake to begin with.

I think I have, and you've violated the boundary I laid out in my previous post, so this conversation is over, and I won't be having any new ones with you unless I think that your character has changed.

I'll say my pieces again, for clarity after all the weird redefining you attempted:

1) you made a wild, unsupported conjecture in response to Arial to try to explain how his idea might not work.
2) Arial responded, mostly ignoring your actual conjecture, and instead provided his own wild, unsupported conjecture about components.
3) You responded, and did a halfway decent job of arguing against Arial's conjecture. You then told him that he shouldn't make such conjectures without being able to back them up with the rules.
4) I noted the fact that you had just done the same, in the post Arial was responding to, and that maybe you lacked the rhetorical high ground to tell other people to not do what you just did. I didn't say anything about whether or not you were correct.
5) An argument ensued in which you seemed to be arguing that you were right that Arial has no rules backing, and I argued that that's not what I said, I said you had just done the same kind of conjecturing that Arial had done.
6) This continued, to the point where you insisted that the conjecturing wasn't the argument, that the argument was that Arial had said something not in the rules and you corrected him. I found this a bit frustrating because I hadn't commented on the correctness of your claim, but on the proverbial pot and kettle issue.
9) and here we are. I still contend my original statement is 100% factual and true -- you both provided unsupported, extra-RAW conjectures while disagreeing with each other. You told Arial he shouldn't do that (make conjectures that are unsupported). I pointed out the contradiction between your actions and words. I still think Arial was wrong (and you were wrong with your conjecture prior to his) and that you did a passable job of pointing that out in the same post you told him to either put up rules for his conjecture or stop making it.

And now you're threatening me with withholding your accusations of falsehood, your strange insistences of what I'm allowed to say in my defense and what I'm not, and your general good opinion of me all because I won't admit I was wrong (what I'm supposed to be wrong about, to be perfectly honest, I'm still unclear on). I'm very sorry you feel that way, but not very sorry that it means you'll stop.