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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8423971" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I have two (related) responses to this.</p><p></p><p>Here's the first: Pages 72-73 of the 5e D&D Basic PDF, under the heading "Making an Attack", say</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><strong>Determine Modifiers.</strong> The DM determines whether the target has cover and whether your have advantage or disadvantage against the target. In addition, spells, special abilities, and other effects can apply penalties or bonuses to your attack roll. . . .</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><strong>Resolve the attack.</strong> You make the attack roll. On a hit, you roll damage, unless the particular attack has rules that specify otherwise . . .</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">To make an attack roll, roll a d20 and add the appropriate modifiers. If the total of the roll plus modifiers equals or exceeds the target's Armoo Class (AC), the attack hits. The AC of a character is determined at character creation . . .</p><p></p><p>When I compare that text to the Shield spell, which is triggered by <em>a hit</em> and which adjusts AC <em>other than at character creation</em> and <em>not</em> because the GM determined that someone has cover, and which retroactively applies the adjusted AC to the attack roll that <em>has already been determined to hit</em>, what sense am I to make of it? It's obviously fortune-in-the-middle. And it's obvious that the attack, although it <em>hit</em>, because if it didn't, the spell wouldn't be triggered, also didn't <em>really</em> hit. Because it's character as a hit or a miss is <em>reassessed</em> by reference to the new AC total.</p><p></p><p>You seem happy to go along with the above, and yet imply a completely different approach to the Dying condition in 4e. On what basis? None that you've articulated: it's clear that <em>dying</em>, in 4e, works the same way as <em>hit</em> in 5e - it is subject to revision based on subsequent action declarations and resolutions. Eg if in fact someone restores the notionally dying character to a hit point total greater than zero, then it turns out they weren't dying after all. This was obvious to everyone at my table as soon as we read the game rules. And it's even built right into the description of the dying condition on page 295 of the 4e PHB: a player who rolls 20+ on a death saving throw is able to spend a healing surge, with the result that their PC is no longer unconscious and dying. 5e D&D has a very similar rule (p 76 of the Basic PDF; instead of spending a surge the character regains 1 hp). In the 4e Rules Compendium, p 260 (but not in the 4e PHB, nor on the 5e Basic PDF) an additional gloss is added to this rule: the character "taps into his or her will to live".</p><p></p><p>No one thinks that a character who has been (say) disembowelled has a 1 in 20 chance to miraculously recover. Hence it follows, if the character rolls 20+ on their death saving throw, that they weren't disembowelled! (Or maimed, or blinded, etc). The situation is no different when a warlord speaks an Inspiring Word.</p><p></p><p>Here is the second thought: your interpretive approach produces absurdities, including but not limited to: a character is hit by an attack but then casts a shield spell which triggers some sort of time travel to undo the hit; a character is dying from mortal wounds but then recovers with all maiming and other fatal damage miraculously healed because the player rolled a 20 on the death saving throw; a character is bleeding to death and a spoken word heals the wound.</p><p></p><p>My interpretive approach produces coherent and even compelling fiction: just in the nick of time, like Dr Strange, the character erects a magical defensive barrier (we revise our initial thought that the fiction contained a hit, due to the mechanical cue provided by the declaration of the casting of a shield spell); like Frodo in LotR, the character seemed to have been skewered by a mighty blow, and had collapsed as if dead or dying, but in fact they had just swooned, and their resolve now returned they can carry one (we suspend forming any judgement about the meaning in the fiction of having fallen to 0 hp until the death save process has worked itself out).</p><p></p><p>Notice that there is no difference between 4e or 5e as far as interpretive process goes, for either shield (an immediate interrupt triggered by being hit by an attack, in both editions) or "dying" at zero hp (which is nearly the same in both systems, except that 4e has the additional option that a warlord can speak an Inspiring Word which has the same practical effect as rolling a 20 on the save).</p><p></p><p>What you describe here is a departure from the process stated in the 5e rules. Which require <em>a hit</em> to trigger the shield spell. You are building the retcon into your "common sense" adjudication!</p><p></p><p>No it's not. <em>Dying</em> means <em>at zero hp and rolling death saves</em>. Just like in 5e, in fact, as I've already set out in detail above.</p><p></p><p>This is your assertion. I could say the same about a cleric's miracles, which seem to eclipse in number the miracles attributed to saints and the like in actual historical records. The proper comparison is fantastic or super-powered serial fiction - comics are the most obvious example, but REH's Conan stories could also be pointed to. </p><p></p><p>Well, again, all I can report is that no one was puzzled at my table. Encounter powers are trying harder; daily powers are trying <em>even harder</em>, and the effect of the beholder gaze is not to "pre-fatigue" you (it doens't drain powers) but to make it so hard to act that even your best is not better than your ordinary typical (ie an at-will ability). The idea isn't unique to 4e D&D: it is found in portrayals of "reality distorting" effects, mostly in comics and film (where there would typically be a type of rippling visual overlay to represent the effect).</p><p></p><p>I don't understand your question. A Deathlock Wight's Horrific Visage does not affect or create a zone. It is a blast - ie it affects everyone within a certain distance to one side of the wight - ie everyone the wight is looking at! The damage is obviously psychic damage (this was clarified by a later errata, in 2010 I think; but was evident to me from the start).</p><p></p><p>No rules were ignored. Nothing was played incorrectly. What errors are you purporting to have found?</p><p></p><p>I don't even know what you mean by this, but as someone who has a reasonable amount of experience with rules-heavy RPGs (Rolemaster, RuneQuest, AD&D, 4e D&D) my experience is that 4e is incredibly robust and easily adjudicated "on the fly".</p><p></p><p>Huh? When Spider Man and Wolverine team up they are about equally powerful. Nothing about the success of their team up (either in the fiction, or from the perspective of a reader) depends on them having different power levels.</p><p></p><p>And the statement, more generally, makes no sense. If everyone is happy, then everyone is. If everyone is living a dignified life, then everyone else. If everyone is free, then everyone is. There are many concepts which can be deployed comparatively and yet are able to be universally instantiated.</p><p></p><p>And the idea that a RPG is <em>better</em> because some players have more access to the resources to affect play than others do seems very odd to me.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, for me the fiction is much more important than it's mechanical instantiation. I find it convenient to use the same resolution process as much as possible, because it reduces special-case fiddliness and having to remember multiple subsystems; and the fiction carries its own weight.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8423971, member: 42582"] I have two (related) responses to this. Here's the first: Pages 72-73 of the 5e D&D Basic PDF, under the heading "Making an Attack", say [indent][b]Determine Modifiers.[/b] The DM determines whether the target has cover and whether your have advantage or disadvantage against the target. In addition, spells, special abilities, and other effects can apply penalties or bonuses to your attack roll. . . . [b]Resolve the attack.[/b] You make the attack roll. On a hit, you roll damage, unless the particular attack has rules that specify otherwise . . . To make an attack roll, roll a d20 and add the appropriate modifiers. If the total of the roll plus modifiers equals or exceeds the target's Armoo Class (AC), the attack hits. The AC of a character is determined at character creation . . .[/indent] When I compare that text to the Shield spell, which is triggered by [i]a hit[/i] and which adjusts AC [i]other than at character creation[/i] and [i]not[/i] because the GM determined that someone has cover, and which retroactively applies the adjusted AC to the attack roll that [i]has already been determined to hit[/i], what sense am I to make of it? It's obviously fortune-in-the-middle. And it's obvious that the attack, although it [i]hit[/i], because if it didn't, the spell wouldn't be triggered, also didn't [i]really[/i] hit. Because it's character as a hit or a miss is [i]reassessed[/i] by reference to the new AC total. You seem happy to go along with the above, and yet imply a completely different approach to the Dying condition in 4e. On what basis? None that you've articulated: it's clear that [i]dying[/i], in 4e, works the same way as [i]hit[/i] in 5e - it is subject to revision based on subsequent action declarations and resolutions. Eg if in fact someone restores the notionally dying character to a hit point total greater than zero, then it turns out they weren't dying after all. This was obvious to everyone at my table as soon as we read the game rules. And it's even built right into the description of the dying condition on page 295 of the 4e PHB: a player who rolls 20+ on a death saving throw is able to spend a healing surge, with the result that their PC is no longer unconscious and dying. 5e D&D has a very similar rule (p 76 of the Basic PDF; instead of spending a surge the character regains 1 hp). In the 4e Rules Compendium, p 260 (but not in the 4e PHB, nor on the 5e Basic PDF) an additional gloss is added to this rule: the character "taps into his or her will to live". No one thinks that a character who has been (say) disembowelled has a 1 in 20 chance to miraculously recover. Hence it follows, if the character rolls 20+ on their death saving throw, that they weren't disembowelled! (Or maimed, or blinded, etc). The situation is no different when a warlord speaks an Inspiring Word. Here is the second thought: your interpretive approach produces absurdities, including but not limited to: a character is hit by an attack but then casts a shield spell which triggers some sort of time travel to undo the hit; a character is dying from mortal wounds but then recovers with all maiming and other fatal damage miraculously healed because the player rolled a 20 on the death saving throw; a character is bleeding to death and a spoken word heals the wound. My interpretive approach produces coherent and even compelling fiction: just in the nick of time, like Dr Strange, the character erects a magical defensive barrier (we revise our initial thought that the fiction contained a hit, due to the mechanical cue provided by the declaration of the casting of a shield spell); like Frodo in LotR, the character seemed to have been skewered by a mighty blow, and had collapsed as if dead or dying, but in fact they had just swooned, and their resolve now returned they can carry one (we suspend forming any judgement about the meaning in the fiction of having fallen to 0 hp until the death save process has worked itself out). Notice that there is no difference between 4e or 5e as far as interpretive process goes, for either shield (an immediate interrupt triggered by being hit by an attack, in both editions) or "dying" at zero hp (which is nearly the same in both systems, except that 4e has the additional option that a warlord can speak an Inspiring Word which has the same practical effect as rolling a 20 on the save). What you describe here is a departure from the process stated in the 5e rules. Which require [i]a hit[/i] to trigger the shield spell. You are building the retcon into your "common sense" adjudication! No it's not. [i]Dying[/i] means [i]at zero hp and rolling death saves[/i]. Just like in 5e, in fact, as I've already set out in detail above. This is your assertion. I could say the same about a cleric's miracles, which seem to eclipse in number the miracles attributed to saints and the like in actual historical records. The proper comparison is fantastic or super-powered serial fiction - comics are the most obvious example, but REH's Conan stories could also be pointed to. Well, again, all I can report is that no one was puzzled at my table. Encounter powers are trying harder; daily powers are trying [i]even harder[/i], and the effect of the beholder gaze is not to "pre-fatigue" you (it doens't drain powers) but to make it so hard to act that even your best is not better than your ordinary typical (ie an at-will ability). The idea isn't unique to 4e D&D: it is found in portrayals of "reality distorting" effects, mostly in comics and film (where there would typically be a type of rippling visual overlay to represent the effect). I don't understand your question. A Deathlock Wight's Horrific Visage does not affect or create a zone. It is a blast - ie it affects everyone within a certain distance to one side of the wight - ie everyone the wight is looking at! The damage is obviously psychic damage (this was clarified by a later errata, in 2010 I think; but was evident to me from the start). No rules were ignored. Nothing was played incorrectly. What errors are you purporting to have found? I don't even know what you mean by this, but as someone who has a reasonable amount of experience with rules-heavy RPGs (Rolemaster, RuneQuest, AD&D, 4e D&D) my experience is that 4e is incredibly robust and easily adjudicated "on the fly". Huh? When Spider Man and Wolverine team up they are about equally powerful. Nothing about the success of their team up (either in the fiction, or from the perspective of a reader) depends on them having different power levels. And the statement, more generally, makes no sense. If everyone is happy, then everyone is. If everyone is living a dignified life, then everyone else. If everyone is free, then everyone is. There are many concepts which can be deployed comparatively and yet are able to be universally instantiated. And the idea that a RPG is [i]better[/i] because some players have more access to the resources to affect play than others do seems very odd to me. Well, for me the fiction is much more important than it's mechanical instantiation. I find it convenient to use the same resolution process as much as possible, because it reduces special-case fiddliness and having to remember multiple subsystems; and the fiction carries its own weight. [/QUOTE]
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