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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8424482" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Yes. You are simply restating my point. 4e and 5e are identical both in how they handle interrupts, and in how they handle "dying". Neither is fully "linear" - which is contrary to what you asserted upthread. And neither involves "shouting an ally's hand back on" or a character recovering from maiming or blinding through sheer force of will (by rolling 20+ on a death save).</p><p></p><p></p><p>I've read it. It's for all intents and purposes identical to the 5e rules. Both allow a "dying" creature to recover by sheer force of will - ie it turns out (non-linearly) that the creature wasn't dying at all.</p><p></p><p></p><p>There is on answer to your question. The game hasn't yielded an answer yet. [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER] said exactly as much upthread - the game leaves it ambiguous, much as a filmmaker might leave us uncertain what the condition of a character is. Again, I point out that 5e is no different in its dying rules. And it is no different from the Shied spell rules - <em>did the attack hit, or not? </em>We don't know until the player has decided whether or not to cast a shield spell - a decision which, in the fiction, must have taken place <em>before </em>any literal hit takes place.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I think this is needlessly aggressive. I know the rules very well. "Dying" is a technical term (defined in the PHB, p 277). Like <em>immobilised</em>. An immobilised creature, in 4e D&D, can still be moved (eg picked up and carried), just not under their own power. A "dying" creature can still recover, whether by their own will to live (roll 20+) or the inspiration of another. As I've said, it is no different from 5e which has exactly the same recovery rule.</p><p></p><p>I'm puzzled by the fact that on the one hand you criticize 4e for being overly technical, but then you also criticize its rules for zero hp by ignoring the technical notion of <em>dying </em>and reading that as if it carried its natural language meaning. I also don't understand how you narrate spontaneous recovery in 5e D&D?</p><p></p><p></p><p>You seem to ignore the examples I've given. In the 2nd LotR film, Aragorn falls from a cliff, but recovers after dreaming of Arwen. This is an example of recovery via one's own will to live. Clearly he was not, in fact, dying. In the LotR book, Frodo is stabbed by an Orc chieftain and swoons. The other characters think he is dead or dying, but are wrong, He recovers when Aragorn picks him up and carries him.</p><p></p><p>The notion of the "will to live", perhaps inspired by another, is not foreign to adventure fiction.</p><p></p><p></p><p>No. I said "I can imagine contexts in which the most apposite narration would be not that the character recoiled at all, but that they never approached - eg if the ability was used as an immediate reaction after having been readied in response to a character moving towards the Wight." Obviously you are not describing such a context.</p><p></p><p></p><p>There is no rule in 4e D&D that says you can't jump onto another creature's back, and obviously the mount rules only make sense if the opposite is true. The movement rules permit moving through the square of an enemy two sizes larger or smaller (eg dwarf PC vs dragon). The Rules Compendium notes that Acrobatics might be used to somersault over a foe of the same size (p 133). And as p 42 of the DMG says, it is up to the GM to adjudicate improvised actions. Nowhere does it say that a fighter can't leap onto the back of a much larger foe and act from there.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Technically, the dwarf is not in the dragon's space. The dwarf is on top of the dragon's space.</p><p></p><p>Most of the time the 4e rules don't pay much attention to verticality, but obviously in a fight against a dragon from a flying tower verticality becomes very important.</p><p></p><p></p><p>This seems to be a report of your experiences. I've got no reason to doubt that this is what you experienced. But I think you should be cautious in generalising to others, particularly those who appear to have read page 42 of the DMG more closely than you, and extrapolated from that plus the rest of the rules to get a richer sense of the possibilities the game opens up.</p><p></p><p>I also think, as a general rule, that if one person found a game to play poorly by doing X, and another person did Y instead and found the game to play well, that is a reason to at least question whether X is what the designers really had in mind for their game.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8424482, member: 42582"] Yes. You are simply restating my point. 4e and 5e are identical both in how they handle interrupts, and in how they handle "dying". Neither is fully "linear" - which is contrary to what you asserted upthread. And neither involves "shouting an ally's hand back on" or a character recovering from maiming or blinding through sheer force of will (by rolling 20+ on a death save). I've read it. It's for all intents and purposes identical to the 5e rules. Both allow a "dying" creature to recover by sheer force of will - ie it turns out (non-linearly) that the creature wasn't dying at all. There is on answer to your question. The game hasn't yielded an answer yet. [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER] said exactly as much upthread - the game leaves it ambiguous, much as a filmmaker might leave us uncertain what the condition of a character is. Again, I point out that 5e is no different in its dying rules. And it is no different from the Shied spell rules - [I]did the attack hit, or not? [/I]We don't know until the player has decided whether or not to cast a shield spell - a decision which, in the fiction, must have taken place [I]before [/I]any literal hit takes place. I think this is needlessly aggressive. I know the rules very well. "Dying" is a technical term (defined in the PHB, p 277). Like [I]immobilised[/I]. An immobilised creature, in 4e D&D, can still be moved (eg picked up and carried), just not under their own power. A "dying" creature can still recover, whether by their own will to live (roll 20+) or the inspiration of another. As I've said, it is no different from 5e which has exactly the same recovery rule. I'm puzzled by the fact that on the one hand you criticize 4e for being overly technical, but then you also criticize its rules for zero hp by ignoring the technical notion of [I]dying [/I]and reading that as if it carried its natural language meaning. I also don't understand how you narrate spontaneous recovery in 5e D&D? You seem to ignore the examples I've given. In the 2nd LotR film, Aragorn falls from a cliff, but recovers after dreaming of Arwen. This is an example of recovery via one's own will to live. Clearly he was not, in fact, dying. In the LotR book, Frodo is stabbed by an Orc chieftain and swoons. The other characters think he is dead or dying, but are wrong, He recovers when Aragorn picks him up and carries him. The notion of the "will to live", perhaps inspired by another, is not foreign to adventure fiction. No. I said "I can imagine contexts in which the most apposite narration would be not that the character recoiled at all, but that they never approached - eg if the ability was used as an immediate reaction after having been readied in response to a character moving towards the Wight." Obviously you are not describing such a context. There is no rule in 4e D&D that says you can't jump onto another creature's back, and obviously the mount rules only make sense if the opposite is true. The movement rules permit moving through the square of an enemy two sizes larger or smaller (eg dwarf PC vs dragon). The Rules Compendium notes that Acrobatics might be used to somersault over a foe of the same size (p 133). And as p 42 of the DMG says, it is up to the GM to adjudicate improvised actions. Nowhere does it say that a fighter can't leap onto the back of a much larger foe and act from there. Technically, the dwarf is not in the dragon's space. The dwarf is on top of the dragon's space. Most of the time the 4e rules don't pay much attention to verticality, but obviously in a fight against a dragon from a flying tower verticality becomes very important. This seems to be a report of your experiences. I've got no reason to doubt that this is what you experienced. But I think you should be cautious in generalising to others, particularly those who appear to have read page 42 of the DMG more closely than you, and extrapolated from that plus the rest of the rules to get a richer sense of the possibilities the game opens up. I also think, as a general rule, that if one person found a game to play poorly by doing X, and another person did Y instead and found the game to play well, that is a reason to at least question whether X is what the designers really had in mind for their game. [/QUOTE]
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