TwoSix
Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer
I switched over to threaded, and now I can see some (like yours!), but a whole section of today is missing. What happened with the "ignore" function?
D&D 5E Geniuses with 5 Int
TwoSix
Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer
That's a terrible analogy. There's no mechanic tying trees to wood, or the ground to dirt. The only thing that does that is the desire of the DM and players to maintain genre fidelity.
Knowing you would disapprove a pretty tame concept is all I need to know about you and your play style.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
First, you don't know any such thing. I love the concept. It just doesn't require changes to how spells to work. Magic is like that. Sometimes it forces you to do things you might not otherwise do, such as tell what you know.
Second, I have had the same issue with new posts. Reverse the post order in your site settings so that new posts are on page one. That works as a temporary fix.
I officially out of this thread.
I've reported to the mods that I can't see or in any way access beyond p29 right now- this is a blind posting- and I doubt anything of substance will change with further discussion, so I won't be back when the problem clears. Adieu, omnes.
I've reported to the mods that I can't see or in any way access beyond p29 right now- this is a blind posting- and I doubt anything of substance will change with further discussion, so I won't be back when the problem clears. Adieu, omnes.
BoldItalic
First Post
Not sure, but this was on twitter:
Morrus @Morrus Apr 8
EN World's "Ignore" system is now a "Block" system. Much better for privacy control!
It's around that time that the threads started misbehaving. Maybe not coincidence. I have one person on ignore who posts in this thread. If I un-ignore him, the thread becomes well-behaved again and p.33 is accessible. Set him to ignore again and it stops at p.28
My guess is that pages are allocated according to total posts, including ignored ones, but only filled with non-ignored ones leaving phantom pages at the end.
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TheCosmicKid
Hero
Something else is going on: you're arguing in bad faith. You're attributing every character and player action you disapprove of to a hostile motivation when no such motivation is in evidence. Yeah, you're absolutely right that I'm pissed at you now, but it has nothing to do with your "finding an alternate interpretation of the Int ability", and everything to do with you repeatedly insinuating that everybody who disagrees with you is malicious, psychologically damaged, or both, and displaying more interest in these invented faults than in what people are actually saying. Were you not performing the tabletop gaming equivalent of "Well, you only say that because you're a Nazi", we could still be talking about this amicably.
See? You're doing it again. I don't know what you think you "realize" about me, but I strongly suspect it is not accurate. Do you think I've had bad experiences with ragequitting players or ragequit myself? I've literally never left anyone's table because of playstyle incompatibility, amicably or otherwise, nor had anyone leave mine. As for temper tantrums and insults, that's exactly what you're describing yourself as doing in this post. Or did you think "fools" was a term of endearment? Peacefully leaving the table is fine, but that's not what you said you'd do.
Hah! "Good faith." Your initial acknowledgment that you were in the wrong gave me hope that we could continue in good faith, as did your acknowledgment of my point about Insight versus Deception. Then, in your follow-up, you revert to the pattern of illicit motivation attribution by calling Bruce "adversarial" and not "supportive". Reading through that post the first time, my heart sank when I got to that line. This is exactly the behavior I was calling you on way back when you gave your mea culpa. "Get that beam out of your eye", remember? It's been the same beam all along. Only now, you can't seem to admit or even realize what you're doing, instead kicking it up to the meta level by psychoanalyzing me (badly) for having the temerity to get annoyed by it. "Good faith"? Not even close. I don't think you're capable of it.
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happyhermit
Adventurer
Gaah, it's threads like these with "camps" that made me "quit" the internet for awhile. Anyways, much has been argued about but I have a question and comment.
So, what if the question posed to Eloelle was along the lines of "Do you think you know the answer?" What would ZOT or insight say about her answer then?
As for all the other stuff, I know it will sound negative but it reminds me very much of things I have seen with certain very young players. They often balked at having any real weakness and would just play off things in other ways. For example, "My character is such a bad-ass, they are super attractive and charismatic, agile, smart and wise. Oh, yeah, they wouldn't do that great on ___ checks if they tried them, but they don't anyways." Now, I am not saying that a system that allows this is not good, I just see very, very little benefit to it.
It also doesn't make sense that if the character were simply to step aside from those constraints (such as the wounded character) within the narrative, their stats would suddenly skyrocket or no longer reflect their abilities in any way. For example, if the burly guy with an injury were to suck it up and use the rest of his body to make a strength check, their stats no longer make sense.
If the system laid out in the book didn't work as well as it does, then I might see the need to play counter to the definitions of the stats provided, but I still wouldn't see the need to claim that it is RAW, that seems like simply arguing for the sake of argument.
The stats are described several times in the PHB;
pg12
Strength; measures; Natural athleticism, bodily power.
Intelligence; measures; Mental acuity, information recall, analytical skill
pg 173
Strength, measuring physical power
Intelligence, measuring reasoning and memory
It doesn't say "Intelligence measures how well the PC will perform on intelligence checks" which it very easily could instead of providing those intuitive descriptions.
So, frankly, while I see nothing wrong with choosing to treat the abilities differently it is clearly not RAW or RAI in 5e.
So, what if the question posed to Eloelle was along the lines of "Do you think you know the answer?" What would ZOT or insight say about her answer then?
As for all the other stuff, I know it will sound negative but it reminds me very much of things I have seen with certain very young players. They often balked at having any real weakness and would just play off things in other ways. For example, "My character is such a bad-ass, they are super attractive and charismatic, agile, smart and wise. Oh, yeah, they wouldn't do that great on ___ checks if they tried them, but they don't anyways." Now, I am not saying that a system that allows this is not good, I just see very, very little benefit to it.
It also doesn't make sense that if the character were simply to step aside from those constraints (such as the wounded character) within the narrative, their stats would suddenly skyrocket or no longer reflect their abilities in any way. For example, if the burly guy with an injury were to suck it up and use the rest of his body to make a strength check, their stats no longer make sense.
If the system laid out in the book didn't work as well as it does, then I might see the need to play counter to the definitions of the stats provided, but I still wouldn't see the need to claim that it is RAW, that seems like simply arguing for the sake of argument.
The stats are described several times in the PHB;
pg12
Strength; measures; Natural athleticism, bodily power.
Intelligence; measures; Mental acuity, information recall, analytical skill
pg 173
Strength, measuring physical power
Intelligence, measuring reasoning and memory
It doesn't say "Intelligence measures how well the PC will perform on intelligence checks" which it very easily could instead of providing those intuitive descriptions.
So, frankly, while I see nothing wrong with choosing to treat the abilities differently it is clearly not RAW or RAI in 5e.
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Guest 6801328
Guest
Once again, it has nothing to do with the "rules". This is not changing a rule, any more than is having a Sorcerer narrate his spellcasting as throwing playing cards. It only changes a rule if you let the narration drive the mechanics. If the Sorcerer suddenly decides that he can throw a few extra cards, or even if the DM says "Sorry, you're facing into a hurricane force wind so you can't throw cards", then the narrative has crossed the line into mechanics.
Funny that you mention how this reminds you of 'younger players' wanting to be good in every way. It seems like one of the oppositions to this sort of RP is based on the fear that some players will try to cross that narration/mechanics line, once you let them control the narrative. And they might. And maybe that's a good reason to not allow it at your table. But that's very different from saying that it breaks a rule.
The passages you quote from PHB are not rules because they don't define any mechanics. HOW do they measure natural athleticism, mental acuity, etc. There's no function, no equation, no rule. Some text is simply meant to add color to the mechanics.
This is from the description for an Oath Paladin:
Unlike the descriptions for Str and Int, this passage at least prescribes something concrete and specific: Devotion Oath paladins afix images of angelic wings onto their gear. Seems pretty unambiguous. But are you seriously going to tell me that a player who describes himself as helmetless and without a coat of arms (backstory: too poor for such finery) is breaking the rules?
G
Guest 6801328
Guest
Huh. A really long response I posted to Max a couple hours ago has vanished.
Huh? The saving throw is an event, involving the roll of a d20 looking to match or equal a target number, which occurs in the real world.
Within the fiction no roll is being made! Something like the following is taking place (Gygax's DMG, p 81):
A character under magical attack is in a stress situation, and his or her own will force reacts instinctively to protect the character by slightly altering the effects of the magical assault. This protection takes a slightly different form for each class of character. Magic-users understand spells, even on an unconscious level, and are able to slightly tamper with one so as to render it ineffective. Fighters withstand them through sheer defiance, while clerics create a small island of faith. Thieves find they are able to avoid a spell's full effects by quickness . . .
In the case of [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION]'s warlock, although the player's die roll is a failure in the fiction we imagine that the character's patron (i) protects her, and (ii) mandates that she maintain the ongoing deceit - which, in this case, means revealing whatever information the GM has given her player access to in virtue of the character having a 5 INT.
The outcome is thus the same as if the character knew nothing (due to a more typical characterisation of a 5 INT) and handed over all that information under the compulsion of a ZoT.
It may be all that matters to you, but it is largely irrelevant to [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] or to me.
The function of stats in an RPG is not, in my view, to frame what the character can do. It is to frame what moves the player is permitted to make, and to resolve those moves once made. In the case of TwoSix's 7 STR sorcerer, the upshot of STR checks will tend to be poor rather than good (because of the stat penalty), and TwoSix has already told us what, in the fiction, will be the explanation for that - namely, the character's withered arm.
I don't see how this is houseruling at all. Back in his DMG (p 15), Gygax observed that
The dexterity rating includes the following physical characteristics: hand-eye coordination, agility, reflex speed, precision, balance, and actual speed of movement in running. It would not be unreasonable to claim that a person with a low dexterity might well be quite agile, but have low reflex speed, poor precision, bad balance, and be slow of foot (but slippery in the grasp).
All TwoSix is doing is applying this idea to STR - his character is brawny, but with an enfeebled dominant arm.
And just as, in Gygax's example, having his/her PC be "slippery in the grasp" won't allow a player to avoid the adverse consequences of a low DEX, so in TwoSix's case being brawny won't allow avoiding the adverse consequences of a low STR. In both cases, it is the duty of the player (and to a lesser extent of the whole table) to ensure that the narration is consistent with the mechanical outcomes.
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