Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
I pointed out the sandboxy nature of this one.I don't understand why you would use readymade modules as a point of comparison. Of course they're pretty linear!
I pointed out the sandboxy nature of this one.I don't understand why you would use readymade modules as a point of comparison. Of course they're pretty linear!
Oh, so, in the fiction, player A tells player B that they lost a larger percentage of their hitpoints than player B did. That's odd, have you introduced hitpoints into the fiction of your game as a real thing that exist and can be measured?Former has lost a larger percentage of their hit points.
They represent how badly hurt people are, and characters know that ones who have lost a larger portion their hit points are more seriously hurt. This is observable and knowable to them, they can make decisions based on this. The hit points represent something that also exists in the fiction. This makes them an abstraction, but not meta. Even if you wouldn't run hit points this way (and many people don't) this shouldn't be that hard to get.Oh, so, in the fiction, player A tells player B that they lost a larger percentage of their hitpoints than player B did. That's odd, have you introduced hitpoints into the fiction of your game as a real thing that exist and can be measured?
I hate to say it, but it looks like hitpoints are pretty meta because you don't have any in-fiction explanation for them. For me, this is perfectly fine. I can see it's a problem if you're blanket declaring meta things to be bad, though, as this might expose that it's only meta things you're not used to being labeled bad and the ones you are used to are just plain hard to see.
SHOCKING (details at 11)We have quite different responses to this.
Yeah. It's plausibly a different interpretation of "fair play" and also the fact that every description says "it" and nothing more (and I'd have to ponder the potential for shenanigans before allowing a familiar to carry something into the pocket dimension).This seems to leave open who/what else might be in the pocket dimension. Can the familiar grab something and take it into the pocket dimension? Can something grab it and come along for the ride? I don't see that there is any contradiction of the rules or the fiction in the redcap scenario: rather, it's about what is considered "fair play" in situation framing.
Eh. I'd think the caster would know how the spell worked. I think it's the fact the player had no warning as to the possibility that's really grating on my nerves about it. Like, that seems like a time when as a caster I'd just right off that particular incarnation of the familiar, rather than bring the redcaps that close to me--and I'd expect my character who's casting the spell to anticipate the possibility.This was not the PC’s initial casting of Find Familiar…it was already on scene and he sent it out to scout, and the redcaps jumped it. The PC was unaware at that point because it was more than 100 feet away. He dismissed it to a pocket dimension per the spell, and then brought it back within 30 feet (this allows you to dismiss and bring back your familiar multiple times with a single casting of the spell). The redcaps came along for the ride.
Again, it’s not in the rules in any way….but it’s less clearly overriding the rules. At least, that’s how it seemed to me.
I find this confused. I mean, even in this context, where you've forced hitpoints to be wounds (despite the rules telling you otherwise, so a clear houserule), the relation to actual wounds is, at best, arbitrary and vague. You cannot even quantify the results of the fictional example without a reference to the actual maximum hitpoint value. So, in order to calibrate the fiction, you have to have access to non-fictional information -- this seems like a meta thing, yes?They represent how badly hurt people are, and characters know that ones who have lost a larger portion their hit points are more seriously hurt. This is observable and knowable to them, they can make decisions based on this. The hit points represent something that also exists in the fiction. This makes them an abstraction, but not meta. Even if you wouldn't run hit points this way (and many people don't) this shouldn't be that hard to get.
Cool. We can also call D&D a dictatorship rather than a democracy and the same would also mostly apply. The point being that people being able to leave a table doesn't make D&D a democracy anymore than people emigrating from a dictatorship makes it a democracy. Some people are willing to suffer through quite a bit of abuse from a GM for a variety of reasons.I have no stake in this particular discussion, but a lot of the things you bring up also apply to living in a democracy: people stay because their friends and family are there (and leaving may not beca realistic option). They may feel that none of the good people they know want to run for government, and thus vote for the least bad option.![]()
I find this confused. I mean, even in this context, where you've forced hitpoints to be wounds (despite the rules telling you otherwise, so a clear houserule), the relation to actual wounds is, at best, arbitrary and vague. You cannot even quantify the results of the fictional example without a reference to the actual maximum hitpoint value. So, in order to calibrate the fiction, you have to have access to non-fictional information -- this seems like a meta thing, yes?
It indeed is rather odd that healing more epic people takes more potent magic. One thing I liked about 4e healing surges was that it allowed healing to be proportional to the recipient.Let's run a different experiment. Using the same example I gave earlier -- character A has a large gash and character B has a scratch -- and without reference to any maximum hitpoint value, what level of healing spell is necessary to fix both? I do not see how you can answer this question without reference to non-fictional things like maximum hitpoint value and/or character level and class to estimate maximum hitpoint value. Any answer to this would appear to require finding some proxy to estimate this number. And that's assuming you could do better at estimation of % hitpoint loss than "A lost a higher percetage than B."
So, absent the actual game numbers, I'd like to see a way this could be answered.
I have a slightly different take -- neither of your examples are about overriding rules. Making a ruling you can't shoot arrows into water to successfully hit an underwater target isn't an override of rules. To me, the difference here is that in the first example, the GM had an outcome in mind -- the hag escapes -- and had described the hag as swimming away underwater. Then there was a negotiation between you and the GM as to why your declared action to shoot the hag failed. This went through a few iterations, with the GM putting their best reason according to the situation to show why it failed. First was distance, but you had an answer to that. Second was inability to see, which you had an answer to. Third was the fact that even if the first two failed, you still can't shoot a target underwater, and that's where it ended. This outcome was always there, it just took the GM walking through what they thought were simpler answers to get there. As far as I can see, the GM was not retconning the situation to achieve their goal.
So, on second take, this first example of the escaping hag wasn't Force (although it might have gone there), but rather just poor communication and the GM having enough fictional reasons to deny the action but needing to find the one the player didn't have resources to marshal against. We do not know if the GM would have allowed the shot if the player had a resource that said they can shoot into water with no penalties, so benefit of the doubt is needed.
While I 100% understand your conclusion that the fleeing hag undermined some rules and I would have probably ruled it differently myself, I’m not sure it undermined any rules.
Sharpshooter allows you to ignore cover penalties (and range penalties): it doesn’t give you line of effect if you didn’t already have it. Likewise, Hunter’s Mark gives rangers a preternatural edge in tracking and detecting marked creatures, but again, does not grant line of effect if it does not otherwise exist.
On a featureless plain, you are absolutely correct that you have both the range and the line of effect to shoot the hag. In a swamp, with trees everywhere, boggy marshes and overgrowths, and with the hag already at 160’ it is not unreasonable that you would not have a shot.
Since you did have Hunter’s Mark on her, I would have probably allowed a hard Survival check: you aren’t tracking her, you are trying to triangulate her position so you can anticipate a break in the swamp where she will have to cross your field of view so you can shoot her. If you succeed, you position yourself to take a shot (this has no incidence on your ability to use Hunter’s mark to track her to her lair).
My only point here is to ask you to consider that maybe the DM wasn’t mistaken, he simply had a different conception of the combat area and failed to adequately communicate it to you.
In reading @hawkeyefan's account of the unshootable hag, I don't get any sense that there was an established fiction about the hag's cover, from which it followed that she couldn't be shot. It sounds much more like the GM had decided that the hag was going to escape, and then authored backstory and tried to disapply rules in order to justify that result.
No, it's a house rule. 5e is pretty clear that it means a multitude of things, including luck, skill, will to continue, and health. If you whittle that down to just physical wellbeing, that's a houserule to edit the rule as presented. I mean, is this controversial? I can very easily say that your houserule really has nothing to do with this argument -- you can go your way or the book's way and the things I'm saying do not change.It is an abstraction. The representation being somewhat vague and not perfectly working in every conceivable situation doesn’t mean it stops being an representation. And of course HP measurs health (among other things) so this is merely an interpretation, not a house rule.
Well, this is completely ignoring what I was talking about/asking in order to make an unrelated comment on how 4e's healing surges were tied to the max hitpoint stat in a way that 5e hit dice are not. That doesn't address the question, either, as I could just as easily ask how many healing surges would be needed to heal each character respectively and it wouldn't change the question at all. Given that your response doesn't connect with the question and raises a topic that doesn't address it at all, one could say this was a non sequitur.It indeed is rather odd that healing more epic people takes more potent magic. One thing I liked about 4e healing surges was that it allowed healing to be proportional to the recipient.
Fair. I did later say more was needed, and this does seem like it established the hag was visibly swimming. I hadn't looked at the underwater combat rules but rather relied on the fact that arrows are effectively useless for shooting into water in real life. Mea culpa.That's a reasonable take. I don't quite agree because There was nothing established that the ranger didn't have line of sight. In fact, I had shot the hag in the previous round. She then dived into the water (which had been established as being about hip deep in most areas) and we were told we could see her swimming away with surprising speed (indicating to us that she had a swim speed).
In looking at the rules as they relate to underwater combat (not precise rules for this occasion, but likely the closest rules we have) it indicates that ranged attacks have disadvantage unless they're spear-like or crossbows. So I think disadvantage would have been a better way to handle it rather than simply denying the attack can take place.