A D&D Test

[the Jester]

RoE just became the besty defense against shadows. You hit everyone with one of those spells and then slaughter all the shadows!!

This works best if your str is 1 to begin with.

Actually, there is a pc in my halfling game (Federico the kobold jester) who, until he raised it to 2 at 8th level, had a str of 1. He was once hit by a RoE... and shrugged it off.

 

[Egres]

Monks suffer a -4 penalty when they use their unarmed strikes cause they aren't proficient with them.(unarmed strikes are simple weapons).

 

[Nareau]

... although... I just had a thought. I can't see anything in 3E that would prevent the 10% chance each hour of becoming conscious-but-disabled, when you're dead. You couldn't become undisabled (enabled?), since you can't be healed while dead, but you'd at least be able to take move actions without falling unconscious again

You know, I always wondered where all the random undead came from in D&D. Thanks, Hyp!

(Great responses, by the way. This is a very entertaining read. )

Spider

 

[Lasher Dragon]

Had this discussion a while back... apparently in 3.5 there is no way to decapitate an enemy (short of vorpal I suppose). Even if they are paralyzed, prone, helpless, and already in the negatives. Makes finishing off trolls a bit more of an exercise in creative thinking.

 

[werk]

better then dying.

My mental image of this encounter...

Party is attacked by shadows
Party zaps everyone with RoE
Party falls to ground under tremendous strain of own body weight
Shadows touch, touch, poke, but can't kill, soon grow bored and wander off.
Wandering goblin happens upon the flaccid party...and grins evilly.

 

[rowport]

The Ring of Evasion grants the Evasion ability. The text of the Evasion ability states that "Rogues and monks cannot use evasion in medium or heavy armor."

The text of Evasion is the wrong place for this; it should only appear in the description of the class feature, or, alternatively, the note in the Evasion ability should make it clear that this limitation only applies to Evasion granted by the Evasion class feature of Rogues and Monks.

But as written, if you are a Rogue, and you have a Ring of Evasion, then the text of the Evasion ability applies... and it states that Rogues can't use Evasion in heavy armor.

Someone with no Rogue or Monk levels is not restricted in this way.

Hyp-

I understand your point here (although I think it is kind of needlessly pedantic) but then how do you account for conflicting class ability descriptions? For instance, the Trapfinding ability says "...a rogue (and only a rogue)..." but now the Scout has the same ability. Does the Rogue desciption invalidate the Scout's? That seems... counterintutive. Or silly.

 

[KarinsDad]

Sure.

Ray of Enfeeblement states "The subject's Strength score cannot drop below 1."

The intention, in all likelihood, is "This penalty cannot reduce the subject's Strength score below 1." But that's not what it says; if you're hit by a RoE, you're the subject, and thus as long as the spell is in effect, your Strength score cannot drop below 1. Shadows kill people by reducing Str to 0; if your Str can't drop below 1, you can't be killed by a Shadow.

I think as with all rules, common sense must apply as well.

There are rules that contradict and there are rules where the designers merely forgot to be explicit. This is a rule that is not explicit.

We all know that this sentence means that RoE cannot drop the Strength below 1 and is applicable only to the previous sentence in the spell description.

How do we know that?

Well, because it is an attack spell, not a defensive spell. It is also common sense. And although I am not a proponent of nebulous designer intent, I am a proponent of common sense.

The Ring of Evasion grants the Evasion ability. The text of the Evasion ability states that "Rogues and monks cannot use evasion in medium or heavy armor."

The text of Evasion is the wrong place for this; it should only appear in the description of the class feature, or, alternatively, the note in the Evasion ability should make it clear that this limitation only applies to Evasion granted by the Evasion class feature of Rogues and Monks.

But as written, if you are a Rogue, and you have a Ring of Evasion, then the text of the Evasion ability applies... and it states that Rogues can't use Evasion in heavy armor.

Someone with no Rogue or Monk levels is not restricted in this way.

"The evasion ability can only be used if the shadowdancer is wearing light armor or no armor."

A Shadowdancer does not have to have a level in Rogue or Monk, but is STILL restricted in this way. So, your sentence here is in error, even if you take this literally.

Every instance of evasion in the books specifies that the character using it cannot do so in medium or heavy armor. Unfortunately, they specify this by explicitly calling out the character class which allows for the literal loophole.

Evasion also states: "A helpless rogue does not gain the benefit of evasion." and "A helpless monk does not gain the benefit of evasion.".

But, it does not state this for ShadowDancer. But, it is pretty clear that evasion doesn't work when the character is helpless, not that this only applies to Monks and Rogues.

Feats and abilities generally work exactly the same for all characters, regardless of which character is using the feat or ability UNLESS the feat or ability explicitly calls out that it is different. Calling this out by omission is implicit (and subjective), not explicit (and objective).


There are literal loopholes like these which although amusing, are not convincing. They are merely an oversight on the part of the designers to be explicit enough that the loophole does not exist.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

There are literal loopholes like these which although amusing, are not convincing. They are merely an oversight on the part of the designers to be explicit enough that the loophole does not exist.

Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure that's the whole freakin' point.

 

[Kemrain]

Related to this is the strangeness found in the animate dead spell and the stone to flesh spell.

(A sideline question that has come up is: Is this flesh [created by stone to flesh cast upon a statue,] edible if food stores are low?)

Apparantly someone's never played Nethack!

- Kemrain the Healer.

 

[Philip]

There are literal loopholes like these which although amusing, are not convincing. They are merely an oversight on the part of the designers to be explicit enough that the loophole does not exist.

One person's loopholes are another's RAW.

But if you become an object when you die, does it mean attackers don't get +4 to hit your dead body because object's can't be prone? Or are objects prone by definition? Is a dead person harder to hit than a sleeping person?