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<blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 7145658" data-attributes="member: 6669384">Sure.An example of &quot;Reading a statement in a vacuum&quot; would be &quot;... doing 5 D10 of damage to the target&quot;, while ignoring the fact that damage has consequences, death being one of them.&nbsp; But that requires that you read and understand more than that one line of text.Reading 3.5 rules without common sense, on the other hand, will reveal that the &quot;dead&quot; condition doesn't necessarily include any kind of incapacity.&nbsp; In theory, being dead doesn't render a character unconscious, nor stop them from acting normally.&nbsp; Having their hit points dropped to or below zero results in &quot;unconscious&quot;, but spells like &quot;Finger of Death&quot; and &quot;Slay Living&quot; don't do hit points, they just kill.&nbsp; Therefore, letter of the rules, read while ignoring common sense, a character killed that way doesn't really miss much, in terms of action.&lt;Tangent&gt; (yeah, I'm bad with these) I play tested the original Bard's Tale for Computer Gaming World magazine many years ago.&nbsp; I discovered that a character dropped to exactly zero hit points in that game was effectively immortal.&nbsp; The program, when assigning damage, saw a character with zero or fewer hit points as dead and left them alone. The part that dealt with whether on not the character was able to act apparently had &quot;dead&quot; defined as &quot;less than zero&quot; hit points.&nbsp; Zero was still functional.&nbsp; Since I first noticed this oddity when the part Bard got twacked, I referred to it as &quot;The Immortal Bard Bug&quot; in my review. &lt;/Tangent&gt;&nbsp;&nbsp; So in the post I was responding to, when the author argued that the spell never said it could burn doors, it looked as if he was saying that it only affects items clearly and explicitly listed.&nbsp; (Probably not his intent, but that's what came out.)&nbsp; He seemed to be reading the spell as if there were no other rules to read or apply.&nbsp; I responded in kind.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Greenfield, post: 7145658, member: 6669384"] Sure. An example of "Reading a statement in a vacuum" would be "... doing 5 D10 of damage to the target", while ignoring the fact that damage has consequences, death being one of them. But that requires that you read and understand more than that one line of text. Reading 3.5 rules without common sense, on the other hand, will reveal that the "dead" condition doesn't necessarily include any kind of incapacity. In theory, being dead doesn't render a character unconscious, nor stop them from acting normally. Having their hit points dropped to or below zero results in "unconscious", but spells like "Finger of Death" and "Slay Living" don't do hit points, they just kill. Therefore, letter of the rules, read while ignoring common sense, a character killed that way doesn't really miss much, in terms of action. <Tangent> (yeah, I'm bad with these) I play tested the original Bard's Tale for Computer Gaming World magazine many years ago. I discovered that a character dropped to exactly zero hit points in that game was effectively immortal. The program, when assigning damage, saw a character with zero or fewer hit points as dead and left them alone. The part that dealt with whether on not the character was able to act apparently had "dead" defined as "less than zero" hit points. Zero was still functional. Since I first noticed this oddity when the part Bard got twacked, I referred to it as "The Immortal Bard Bug" in my review. </Tangent> So in the post I was responding to, when the author argued that the spell never said it could burn doors, it looked as if he was saying that it only affects items clearly and explicitly listed. (Probably not his intent, but that's what came out.) He seemed to be reading the spell as if there were no other rules to read or apply. I responded in kind. [/QUOTE]

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