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<blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 3054745" data-attributes="member: 2011">Many of us come here to these boards for thoughtful analysis of the rules. When thoughtful analysis from many people tends to indicate one pretty solid interpretation (as in the Energy Weapon debate) and the FAQ just flat out states a new rule that is not written anywhere and might disagree with that solid interpretation, then yes, it is &quot;rules revision&quot; as opposed to &quot;rules clarification&quot; and is sometimes in disagreement with what many rules literalists are reading in the rules.The problem with using the FAQ is that it tends to be the opinion of a few WotC people who might not have thoughtfully analyzed the rules. This has repeatedly been evident in the FAQ.One person at WotC states one thing and another person there states another. That's human nature.The track record of the FAQ has not been one of crystal clarity. There have been flat out mistakes which the rules explicitly disagree with. So, letting the FAQ come to the rescue is not always the best course of action.The FAQ (and even these message boards) should be used as a guideline. But, always ruling as per the FAQ is basically always ruling as per some other DM (in this case, the Sage).Player: &quot;PHB page xx says this.&quot;DM: &quot;I do not care. The FAQ says that and the FAQ is canon.&quot;Instead, each DM should decide for himself based on what is reasonable and generally available to his players within the rules themselves, and not always use the FAQ as canon. The FAQ as a guideline is reasonable. The FAQ as canon is suspect. IMO. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue&nbsp; &nbsp; :p"&nbsp; data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="KarinsDad, post: 3054745, member: 2011"] Many of us come here to these boards for thoughtful analysis of the rules. When thoughtful analysis from many people tends to indicate one pretty solid interpretation (as in the Energy Weapon debate) and the FAQ just flat out states a new rule that is not written anywhere and might disagree with that solid interpretation, then yes, it is "rules revision" as opposed to "rules clarification" and is sometimes in disagreement with what many rules literalists are reading in the rules. The problem with using the FAQ is that it tends to be the opinion of a few WotC people who might not have thoughtfully analyzed the rules. This has repeatedly been evident in the FAQ. One person at WotC states one thing and another person there states another. That's human nature. The track record of the FAQ has not been one of crystal clarity. There have been flat out mistakes which the rules explicitly disagree with. So, letting the FAQ come to the rescue is not always the best course of action. The FAQ (and even these message boards) should be used as a guideline. But, always ruling as per the FAQ is basically always ruling as per some other DM (in this case, the Sage). Player: "PHB page xx says this." DM: "I do not care. The FAQ says that and the FAQ is canon." Instead, each DM should decide for himself based on what is reasonable and generally available to his players within the rules themselves, and not always use the FAQ as canon. The FAQ as a guideline is reasonable. The FAQ as canon is suspect. IMO. :p [/QUOTE]

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