A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

[pemerton]

I narrate parts of actions all the time. I've literally said, "The fireball streaks from your hands and explodes around your enemies. Roll damage."

So do I. That narration doesn't tell us anything about the effect the fireball will have on targets - it leaves it open that some may remain conscious, some may die, and yet others may be knocked out.

Step 1: The wizard casts fireball. In doing so a ball of lethal fire is projected towards the enemy or a pea that will explode, depending on the edition.

This is not an accurate description of fireball in any edition of D&D. (It may be accurate for Chainmail - I'll defer to [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] on that.) In any edition of D&D, fireball is a ball of fire, but we don't know whether or not it's lethal until we determine what effect it has on those who are caught within it. And that requires (although, in 4e, is not exhausted) comparing the damage it inflicts to the hit points of those affected.

Perhaps by lethal you mean dangerous or even really dangerous. In which case a 4e fireball is as dangerous as any other fireball in any other version of D&D. It can incinerate those caught within it! (A fireball does fire damage, and as we are told in the PHB (p 55), the fire keyword signifies [e]xplosive bursts, fiery rays, or simple ignition.)

The lethal fireball impacts the enemy dealing a lethal damage type to the victim. The first 37 points of damage consist of this lethal fire damage type since the victim isn't at 0 yet.

To reiterate, whether or not the fireball is lethal can't be known until we know whether or not it kills someone.

If a fireball does 37 hp of damage to a target who has 38 hp remaining, then clearly it is not - in respect of that person, at least - a lethal ball of fire, as it didn't kill them! The best we can say is that the fireball may have been lethal, in that under some not-too-improbable circumstances it may have killed them. Which, as I already said, is true in 4e as much as in any other edition of D&D.

If something can reasonably be expected to cause death, it would be lethal force.

And? A fireball in 4e can be reasonably expected to cause death. The fact that, on some occasions, it doesn't doesn't meant that it wasn't/I] something that could be reasonably expected to cause death. I mean, you've already indicated that in your D&D games sometimes some characters find themselves caught in fireballs, or red dragon breath, and yet don't die.

Step 3: The last 1 hit point goes away and the player has to decide AFTER the enemy hits 0, whether to keep the fire damage lethal and let it potentially kill the enemy, or mystically turn it into fluff bunny sauce and just knock out the enemy. If he does, he has to go back in time and turn the lethal fire non-lethal so that none of the damage is lethal now.

This makes no sense. The rule is: when the person burned by the fireball is reduced to zero hp, the player whose PC cast the fireball decides what happens to the victim. So the player gets to decide whether or not the fireball is lethal in its effects. This doesn't require "time travel". It isn't a decision about the nature of the fire. It's a decision about the nature of its effects on this affected person.

You accept the proposition that not every caught in the area of a fireball must die. The player has the authority (under the rules of the game) to decide whether or not this target of the fireball who was reduced to zero hp is such a being. It's not time travel. It's not even necessarily director stance, although that's how we tend to treat it at my table: nothing precludes a particular table taking the view that the caster can control the flames as they explode and lick at the target, modulating their intensity so as to cause unconsciousness but not death.

Also, I'm not sure how much "fluff bunny sauce" you've interacted with, but to me it doesn't sound like something that would knock someone unconscious. You seem to have this odd conception of knocking someone out as a gent;le act rather than the violent act that it is.

You realize that that order is not actually mandated by anything. That until you have completed the entire action, you cannot actually narrate anything, same as anything else in combat. So, this process sim approach to gaming, while perfectly valid, is not the only approach.

Furthremore to this, even following Maxperson's order doesn't have the implication he thinks it does, because his "steps" make assumptions about the lethality of a fireball which aren't supported by an edition of D&D, each of which allows that some people caught in fireballs may not die.

And this has nothing to do with the "fortune in the middle" aspect of death saves - which, I agree with you, mean that you can't confidently narrate lethal wounds until that whole process is sorted out.

What I mean is that the 4e approach to determining whether or not a fireball kills someone or knocks them out could be applied in Moldvay Basic, which has no death save mechanic. Because the only difference between this 4e rule and the Moldvay one is that, in Moldvay, zero hp = death whereas the 4e mechanic says zero hp = death or unconsciousness (attacking player's choice).

Beyond that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] et al are right that 4e certainly lacks such a division. Its simply not MECHANICALLY correct talk about lethal and non-lethal types of damage in either that game, or as [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] points out, in 5e either. Classic D&D also lacked such a distinction (there was a sidebar in 2e IIRC with some optional rules, and 1e had a rule that only applied to dragons).

if they didn't have that division, you couldn't knock anyone out. There must be both lethal and non-lethal damage types in order for you to both strike to kill and strike to knock out.

Absolute hogwash!

In my Rolemaster games, the PCs would knock out foes regularly: sometimes because attacks would reduce their concussion hits below the "conscious" threshold without reducing them below the "dying" threshold; sometimes in virtue of an appropriate result on a crit table.

In my 4e game, the PCs knock out foes in virtue of their players' entitlement to choose the result which occurs at zero hp. This doesn't depend on any notio of "lethal" vs "non-lethal" damage. It just requires a rule which says when your PC drops a foe to zero hp, choose whether the result is unconsciousness or death. It's a very simple rule which does not require any notion of "non-lethal damage", "non-lethal attacks", "fluffy bunny sauce", "time travel", or any of the other spurious notions you are introducing into its analysis.

 

[pemerton]

When compared to 5e, the 4e rules for zero hp are more expressly different for GM-controlled and player-controlled characters.

In the PHB (p 295), the rules for death saves and death at negative bloodied (which in 4e is an issue of cumulation, not a single strike) are expressly said to apply to you - ie the player. In the Rules Compendium (pp 260-61) they are said to apply to adventurers. Here is the passage that governs NPCs/monsters (PH p 295, RC p 296 - the rules text is almost identical in both sources):

Monsters and characters controlled by the Dungeon Master usually die when they reach 0 hit points, unless you choose to knock them out (see “Knocking Creatures Unconscious”). You generally don’t need to stalk around the battlefield after a fight, making sure all your foes are dead.

Monsters and characters controlled by the Dungeon Master usually die when their hit points drop to 0, unless an adventurer chooses to knock them unconscious. Adventurers generally don’t need to stalk around the battlefield after a fight, making sure all their foes are dead.​

As best I recall there's no discussion in any 4e rulebooks of when a GM might depart from what is "usual", but maybe there's something I'm forgetting.

 

[Maxperson]

Wow, you quote the point and then cannot read the first word. Note, if you actually read that sentence, it proves that the standard rule is that things fall unconscious and then make death saving throws, however, most DM's have a monster die the instant it drops to 0 HP. They wouldn't have to spell it out this way otherwise.

If most people do something a certain way, that is by definition the standard way to do something. That's what standard means. So the standard is to have monsters die at 0.

 

[Maxperson]

Perhaps by lethal you mean dangerous or even really dangerous. In which case a 4e fireball is as dangerous as any other fireball in any other version of D&D. It can incinerate those caught within it! (A fireball does fire damage, and as we are told in the PHB (p 55), the fire keyword signifies [e]xplosive bursts, fiery rays, or simple ignition.)

Perhaps by lethal I mean what I've told you I mean a half dozen times.

To reiterate, whether or not the fireball is lethal can't be known until we know whether or not it kills someone.

If a fireball does 37 hp of damage to a target who has 38 hp remaining, then clearly it is not - in respect of that person, at least - a lethal ball of fire, as it didn't kill them! The best we can say is that the fireball may have been lethal, in that under some not-too-improbable circumstances it may have killed them. Which, as I already said, is true in 4e as much as in any other edition of D&D.

Your pedantry and sophistry are tiring and have forced this.

le·thal
/ˈlēTHəl/

adjective
sufficient to cause death.
"a lethal cocktail of alcohol and pills"

harmful or destructive.
"the Krakatoa eruption was the most lethal on record"


Let me know if you actually want to engage in discussion, rather than misstate my position time and time again.

 

[Aldarc]

Max posts this about Hussar:

Your pedantry and sophistry are tiring and have forced this.

And then once again appeals to dictionary definitons. LOL.

 

[Maxperson]

Max posts this about Hussar: And then once again appeals to dictionary definitons. LOL.

When people refuse to understand simple English and continually misstate positions(a tactic you are familiar with), it forces them.

And rejecting Dictionary definitions as a matter of course like that just proves that you have no real argument. Definitions are how we understand each other. Without them words wouldn't be words. Go troll someone else.

 

[Aldarc]

When people refuse to understand simple English and continually misstate positions(a tactic you are familiar with), it forces them.

Yes, I am familiar with how you do that to me and others.

And rejecting Dictionary definitions as a matter of course like that just proves that you have no real argument.

Conversely, relying on them does not prove that you have a real argument either. I even pointed this out to you earlier.

Definitions are how we understand each other. Without them words wouldn't be words. Go troll someone else.

I think that you will find that contemporary cognitive science and linguistics would disagree with this assertion or at least provide a far more nuanced perspective, especially given how lexical definitions are artificial.

I think that you are a bit stuck in your ways, Max. I would only recommend that you provide a bit more awareness and textual savvy to allow for and be mindful of the ambiguity that exists in the interpretation of rules and texts. I suspect it would be of great benefit to reducing how abrasive, eisegetical, and Manichaean some of your interpretations can be. Like with the dictionary example above, there is far more complexity, nuance, and ambiguity than you appear to give credit for existing.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Perhaps by lethal you mean dangerous or even really dangerous. In which case a 4e fireball is as dangerous as any other fireball in any other version of D&D. It can incinerate those caught within it! (A fireball does fire damage, and as we are told in the PHB (p 55), the fire keyword signifies [e]xplosive bursts, fiery rays, or simple ignition.)

To reiterate, whether or not the fireball is lethal can't be known until we know whether or not it kills someone.
.

That is a ridiculous argument. This is like arguing that a gun isn't lethal because it can't kill a bear in one shot. Or like arguing a knife's lethality can't be known until after the stabbing (and again making an argument that it wasn't really lethal because it took two or three stabs to kill the person). I don't even know what you guys are disputing but this is up there with hairsplitting word play arguments. Aldarc makes a valid point about definitions. But there are still broadly accepted meanings of words. When people say lethal it is pretty obvious they mean "this has potential to kill someone", not "this 100% absolutely will kill every person in every single circumstance." The only time your use of the word makes sense is in an after the fact statement like "The fireball proved lethal for Harry". Clearly if he wasn't killed by it, then the word is not applicable in that case.

 

[Kurviak]

All rules are suggestions. In any case, it's not a house rule to play the game the way they suggest.

I think you need to improve your reading skills, the paragraph starts with “most”

 

[Kurviak]

Perhaps by lethal I mean what I've told you I mean a half dozen times.



Your pedantry and sophistry are tiring and have forced this.

le·thal
/ˈlēTHəl/

adjective
sufficient to cause death.
"a lethal cocktail of alcohol and pills"

harmful or destructive.
"the Krakatoa eruption was the most lethal on record"


Let me know if you actually want to engage in discussion, rather than misstate my position time and time again.

Do you realize that with that definition you’re not changing anything about the discussion. The 4th edition fireball has the same potential of bean lethal as any other edition fireball but adds narrative control to the players on what happens on zero hp. That doesn’t have anything to do with the lethality of the fireball but the fictional results of it.