Confirmed: Magic items and summoned monster stats in PHB

[Raven Crowking]

As far as Tolkein goes, the dwarves are given bows by Beorn in The Hobbit, and run out of arrows in Mirkwood, making their bows useless.

I'm reading The Hobbit to my older girl right now, and we are just about to read "Flies and Spiders", where this happens. And those bows would have been useful against the spiders, had they not wasted their ammo on black squirrels and white deer.



RC

 

[Wormwood]

And those bows would have been useful against the spiders, had they not wasted their ammo on black squirrels and white deer.

That's the risk you take grinding low-level mobs.

 

[hong]

As far as Tolkein goes, the dwarves are given bows by Beorn in The Hobbit, and run out of arrows in Mirkwood, making their bows useless.

... Thus conveniently allowing the elves to capture them. Those damn storytellers.

 

[Celebrim]

The difference is they're not all minutiae.

No, the difference is you decided that they were not minutiae. The difference is you decided that they were non-significant. We haven't established what the criteria for this decision was, especially given how (unlike say encumberance) extremely easy and non-time consuming tracking things like ammunition and food is.

I find the opposite in the groups I game with. Then again, I game exclusively in high-trust environments.

I have no idea what 'the opposite' means in this context. I would think that the opposite is that players are more likely to be exactly sticklers for minutiea when doing so would impose a penalty on them. Or in other words, those groups have players who consistantly keep track of arrows, encumberance, food, and every sort of 'realistic minutiae' that solely by tracking is to thier disadvantage, but who on the other hand are fine to hand wave any minutiae which by tracking exactly would be an advantage to them. That would indeed be a 'high-trust' environment, and I much prefer to play with players that keep track of thier own character sheet so I don't have to, but that also doesn't seem to be what you are saying.

That's cool...Exactly...The trick is how to reach accommodations so that players with differing play priorities/verisimilitude requirements can game at the same table.

Let's backup and look how this got debate got started. Some of us claimed that by the rules, summoned creatures were not completely in the control of the players. For example, control of summoned creatures requires communication, and that requires not only a common language but that the summoned creature have the understanding to perform the instructions. This claim was met with extreme dismay and ridicule, among which was the claim that not letting the player have complete control of a summoned creature would be as ridiculous was keeping track of ammunition. To that I have responded, "Wait a minute... keeping track of ammunition isn't ridiculous either. There are some very good reasons for keeping track of ammunition."

To that, primarily the responce has been for the most part variations on, "Oh yeah. Well its far too time consuming and gets in the way of play."

And that strikes me as an utterly bogus argument, because the amount of time it takes is being greatly exaggerated. What I'm hearing is really, "If it takes any time at all, then that is too time consuming." And that suggests that there is a deeper reason for ignoring it.

However, whatever the reasons may be, I'm not suggesting that groups where everyone could care less are having 'badwrongfun' because they don't always explicitly track these things. If that's all you are trying to prove, you are arguing with the wrong person. Alot of the discomfort people are having with 4e is that the game seems to be moving to explicitly or implicitly saying that the way that they play is not the right way to play.

 

[Raven Crowking]

That's the risk you take grinding low-level mobs.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

In TH, the dwarves are trying to bring down a deer or squirrel on the trail, because they are also running very low on rations.

RC

 

[Insight]

I doubt I'm the only one who'd like to see 4E shapeshifting to be more like the options presented in PHB2. In essence, for the uninitiated, your character takes on certain attributes, but you don't actually become an animal. Makes bookkeeping a lot easier.

 

[hong]

I'm not sure what you mean here.

In TH, the dwarves are trying to bring down a deer or squirrel on the trail, because they are also running very low on rations.

That's what you get when you're trying to fudge a way to get dwarves captured by elves.

 

[BryonD]

I find it a really gross misrepresentation to claim that "trust" is in any way remotely related to people's enjoyment of a more simulationist style game.

 

[BryonD]

I doubt I'm the only one who'd like to see 4E shapeshifting to be more like the options presented in PHB2. In essence, for the uninitiated, your character takes on certain attributes, but you don't actually become an animal. Makes bookkeeping a lot easier.

I am certain you are right. But I also doubt I am the only one who is willing to put a bit more effort in in exchange for a wider range of options.

 

[FireLance]

Perhaps you would find it different if you read the chapters in question rather than quickly scanning them?

EDIT: Excepting, of couse, the Black Gates, which is told with Pippin as the POV character, and says almost nothing about what the other members of the Fellowship did.

Right - there was one fight with wargs before the Fellowship reached Moria in which Legolas retrieved his arrows (except for one) after the battle.

In Moria, he was shooting arrows up to the point that he ran from the Balrog. Also no mention of running out of arrows at the Pelennor Fields, or the earlier battles with the Haradrim (although he probably did not need to fight much as the Dead did most of the work there).