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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8387497" data-attributes="member: 6801228">"you might not be aware you are doing it" is not the same as "be honest with yourself". It also assumes I am not self-reflective enough to realize why I do the things I do. Either way, this you telling me that you know me better than I know myself.I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you have to understand that the way you have been posting has consistently implied that everyone who is disagreeing with you, or who has put forth examples is lying and trying to deceive you, because we are reallly all powergamers who want the most technically powerful things for all the wrong reasons.Which is why I have taken great pains to self-reflect and try and catch myself when I do so. Which is why you, who do not know me, is constantly telling me that I have no idea what I am really thinking or feeling is very frustrating.You understand how people work right? The entire point of the post was that people will ask this question, and then there will be disagreement. Maybe the player did ask when they leveled up, and the DM went "hmm, this is unclear, let me check with the internet so I don't make the wrong call" (yes, I know that whatever ruling they make is the "right call" for their table, but people like validation and often ask others to confirm their decisions are correct, especially in a complex ruleset) and then the discussion starts online. Or maybe they ask at level 1, because they know they want to take armorer, and they don't get a new cantrip until level 10, so they want to make sure that the cantrip they take now will be usuable at level 3 when they are going to have this unclear interaction. The problem is, you can't read minds. You have no idea what their "real intent" is. Some people just like planning ahead. I've met people with sticky note boards who are planning out their next year in advance. I think those people are crazy, but since they exist it is easy to imagine a player might take five minutes to plan out their choices for the next few levels.Every single rule, even the ones he hasn't come up with? Clearly ridiculous. A lot of them so we get an idea of how they will likely handle situations? No, it isn't ridiculous, it is making sure that the expectations match and everyone is on the same page.And no one is talking about hours of minmaxing or dozens of hypotheticals. But, you know, if a player chooses a Thief Rogue because they want to use their Fast Hands ability to throw Alchemist Fire, and the DM is going to rule that Alchemist Fire takes an attack action and Fast Hands doesn't allow for that, then that is a pretty fundamental part of their character that just got changed. Maybe enough that they want to play a different character now, because the only reason they went with Thief was to throw alchemist fire. And right now, you are just going to accuse them of being a "powergamer" because you think they are only thinking about the power of the ability, but they are thinking about the story of a guy throwing bombs all over the battlefield. You can keep judging people by what you think their intent is, but I don't think you are going to get very far with that.And no one is suggesting this, though it might be fair to allow an arcana check to figure this out once the player's end up there, if this is a known plane of existence. And I certainly would be very cautious about doing this in the first place, because there is no way for the player's to make meaningful decisions in the story if they have no idea what is going on. Perhaps a short rest spent studying the effects of the plane on their magic to get an idea of the changes they are facing? But, before the game starts? Obviously not. Though, I will also point out that I wonder about the point of homebrewing a plane of existence specifically to mess up certain spells the players are using. It is often a bit heavy-handed I've found.What about at level 4 when they take the feat and they are one level away from learning fireball? Is there still no reason they would know what happens if they cast a spell they are studying using an effect they know? Maybe the player is asking you early just because they know they are planning on taking the feat to be Elsa and they are curious about how you are going to handle things. Maybe they want to catch everything on the ground on fire, because they like the idea of their spell being shunting all the heat out of an area and into the ground. You keep judging that their only intent and their only concern is power. With zero evidence other than "you know their type"And I'm glad she had fun, but you know if a person's story is they want to play a pyro who uses fire, and then you make all fire magic worthless, you've pretty well slaughtered the story they want to play. Sure, in real life when your plans are upended and ruined and everything changes, you have no choice but to adapt, but in a game the player would have been more than happy to play something else, and then let their pyro character shine in a different game. That isn't powergaming, that is just avoiding unneeded frustrations.And this is why people also keep getting annoyed at you. You really think that people who are powergamers care for nothing but personal power, yet you have at least one poster on here who is a proud power-gamer and they powergame for GROUP power. And then you accuse other people of being powergamers because we want to be in-line with the curve, and therefore by association we are selfish jerks who don't care whose fun we ruin as long as imaginary numbers get bigger.Which is why no one is making it. What we are acknowleding is that there are certain points of the rules that are heavily debated. And, the players who know this, often ask the DM how they fall on those rules. Not to selfishly destroy the game, or because they are obsessed with power, but because they figure it is likely to come up and they'd rather ask before the game rather than have to interrupt the game to ask you then. They may be trying to be considerate, and instead you will accuse them of being selfish.Then don't. An easy "this is the standard way, but different planes have different rules" is likely sufficient. And, if they know planar travel is going to be a big thing, then they can study the planes and have a reason to know things like how the different planes affect magic. This isn't about "gimping" collective imagination, it is about trying to figure out what the collective imagination is, because people have different views.And what if they are getting rid of something they haven't used for six levels? Are they not allowed to pick a good option because now that option is good when before it wasn't? When they retrain abilities are they supposed to analyze every option and then pick the one that  doesn't increase their power, or are they expected to just pick what they want? Because there is a difference between someone who plans to retrain from level 1, and someone who is retraining, and looking at the options as they currently stand.And if those rulings are made after a group discussion and with the group understanding why they were made, then there is no problem. We aren't talking about locking you in Amber, never to move from strict rules, from session zero. We are talking about people are expecting a situation to come up, and are asking ahead of time, so you don't have to make a split-second decision in the heat of the moment. Heck, I'd love for players to come to me like this, because it gives me time to look it over, check and make sure I'm not missing something that will cause problems, and give them a single clear answer, instead of having to do it at the table, tell them I might change it, then go and scramble to look at the various rules to make sure I have an answer by next session.Proof of what? You are saying the only reason for this is powergaming for MOAR POWER. I'm just pointing out that from what I know of optimizing and powergaming, it actually is considered a bad choice to do. It's like saying someone only cares about horsepower when they are asking for the specs on a Tesla. They might not, and a person who DOES only care about horsepower is probably not looking at this car anyways.I'm being sarcastic man. You are jumping on every single thing as though the player is screaming in your face at session 0 to demand you bow before their build. Instead, there might be a dozen different reasons for their choices and/or questions. Personally? I ignore the material component cost of spells like Booming Blade. I find the idea of a Booming Blade cast by smashing a bottle of beer over someone's head hilarious. Other people would tell me that the only reason I could possibly have for making that change is to powergame by... doing something. I literally don't know what, but I'm sure someone will accuse me of it.  It has literally happened to me. The DM made a ruling on my Rogue's Fast Hands ability, then later they changed it because they forgot the original ruling. Then I ended up asking again later on because I knew they had changed it and neither one of us could remember which way she had changed it. It isn't about being stupid, it is about information overload. And when you have a game that can go months without combat (we are doing a play-by-post) then it becomes really easy to forget. Heck, I've forgotten the names of NPCs and even the name of the villain. Sometimes people forget things, especially when they have to make it up on the fly instead of when there is a consensus and discussion at the start.</blockquote>

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