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<blockquote data-quote="Lyxen" data-source="post: 8425192" data-attributes="member: 7032025"><p>Because a word says what it says. If they did not mean dying in the descriptive sense, why did they use THAT word ? So the first interpretation that comes to mind is actually dying. </p><p></p><p>My turn, why do you insist that this word actually means "not dying" ? Just to support your narrativism ? Then, for me, it's an excellent goal, my only point is that you should not have to do this if you want a narrative game.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I am absolutely not outraged at either treatment (and I'm not criticising 4e in particular over 5e), I am concerned by your extremely biased reading of the rules to justify your narrativism, that's all.</p><p></p><p>And I totally support you in your narrativism, believe me, my point is only that you need to read the rules in such a biased fashion to support it. You need to say "the rules say "dying" but they don't mean that and I'm going to ignore it so that my story makes sense."</p><p></p><p>My only point here is that if you go with a lighter and less constrained system that does not insist that you are dying at 0 hp, you have much more narrative freedom without needing to twist the meaning of simple words to achieve it.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Actually, this is not true, because 5e is much more careful about what it says. So where 3e's interdiction is absolute and actually causes lots of problem with the interpretation of powers (it is no longer squares, these are cubes, and the aberration of distance computation becomes ridiculous if you look at diagonals, and more - see below), 5e is more open: "A creature's space is the area in feet that it effectively controls in combat, not an expression of its physical dimensions...A creature's space also reflects the area it needs to fight effectively." And that's it, after that it's up to the DM to make rulings as to whether a creature's space is intruded upon, what are the consequences in terms of not being able to fight effectively, all of that without needing to compute squares or cubes to see which one fits into which other, how you are in range or not. But in 4e, how do you adjudicate all this, I honestly have no idea.</p><p></p><p>In 5e, using Theater of the Mind, it's really easy, the guy on the back certainly does not bother a huge dragon, but he has disadvantage on everything he attempts because the dragon is certainly moving and thrashing below him. End of the story, no rules were harmed in the making of this decision, and I have zero problem of ranges and areas of effect, they are exactly where I describe them to be.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It's interesting that you use that sentence in complete isolation of the section in the DMG, which is, as usual, extremely technical and only covers things like giving a +2 to an action, casting an action as a check and improvising damage. The latter, by the way is totally ridiculous, because basically it says that you have to dimension the damage from the brazier according to the level of the character doing the pushing.</p><p></p><p>Thank god for bounded accuracy, but in any other edition of the game, a brasier does a bit of damage and it's fun, you don't need silly computations like this. And then the DMG suggests to add the sneak damage on top ? Of course, pushing someone into a brazier by kicking is such a precise attack, that brazier is so sneaky, you know...</p><p></p><p>Anyway, that section is once more all about being technical and balanced, and in the context of such a controlled game, it's not surprising. </p><p></p><p>There is nothing in there about jumping on the back of a dragon, and moving there, but one thing is sure, you winged a huge part of the rules to achieve that, and I'm sure you did not use the recommendations of the rest of page 42 (and honestly, basing your whole philosophy on one sentence in one book that leads to a section that has little to do with improvisation and claiming that it's the intent of the designers is more than a bit exaggerated to me).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is great narration, but again with zero support from the rules and ignoring tons of them, I can't even count how many there, for example when you teleport, you do not take grappling people with you, PH p. 286: "Immobilized: Being immobilized doesn’t prevent you from teleporting. If you were immobilized because of a physical effect, <strong><u>such as a creature grabbing you</u></strong>, you can teleport away and are <u><strong>no longer</strong></u></p><p><strong><u>immobilized or restrained</u></strong>, if applicable."</p><p></p><p>By the way, Ygorl has phasing as well, so by any rules and narration principles in my game, no one could have hold on to him anyway, he would just have phased through you.</p><p></p><p>Again, great narration, but I stand by my opinion after reading that new account, you are playing a very technical game with very precise rules, but ignoring tons of them when it suits you for narration, when the game (as is 4e's wont) constrains you really strongly about what you can do.</p><p></p><p>And in the case of capturing Ygorl, there was absolutely no reason to ignore the rules or invent new ones, the PCs did nothing extraordinary, and actually did something that I would have deemed very silly in my games, trying to grapple a lord of Entropy looking like this <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" />D):</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]145204[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>That being said, Ygorl has always been one of my favourite beings in D&D ever since the Fiend Folio, so I suppose they were just enthusiastic.</p><p></p><p>So I'm asking you, what is the benefit of using such a technical and precise environment when you spend half your time adjudicating rules on the fly anyway, and forgetting about these rules (and you are lucky no one at the table does what some of my players do, try to understand what is happening so that they can play in that spirit - not even ruleslawyering, as some of my players, one in particular, is a specialist about gimping himself anyway) ?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>And still, flying is just "hopping around the battlefield". You never had flying PCs ? Did that not totally frustrate them ? Because for us, it was just looking silly and impossible to narrate properly...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lyxen, post: 8425192, member: 7032025"] Because a word says what it says. If they did not mean dying in the descriptive sense, why did they use THAT word ? So the first interpretation that comes to mind is actually dying. My turn, why do you insist that this word actually means "not dying" ? Just to support your narrativism ? Then, for me, it's an excellent goal, my only point is that you should not have to do this if you want a narrative game. I am absolutely not outraged at either treatment (and I'm not criticising 4e in particular over 5e), I am concerned by your extremely biased reading of the rules to justify your narrativism, that's all. And I totally support you in your narrativism, believe me, my point is only that you need to read the rules in such a biased fashion to support it. You need to say "the rules say "dying" but they don't mean that and I'm going to ignore it so that my story makes sense." My only point here is that if you go with a lighter and less constrained system that does not insist that you are dying at 0 hp, you have much more narrative freedom without needing to twist the meaning of simple words to achieve it. Actually, this is not true, because 5e is much more careful about what it says. So where 3e's interdiction is absolute and actually causes lots of problem with the interpretation of powers (it is no longer squares, these are cubes, and the aberration of distance computation becomes ridiculous if you look at diagonals, and more - see below), 5e is more open: "A creature's space is the area in feet that it effectively controls in combat, not an expression of its physical dimensions...A creature's space also reflects the area it needs to fight effectively." And that's it, after that it's up to the DM to make rulings as to whether a creature's space is intruded upon, what are the consequences in terms of not being able to fight effectively, all of that without needing to compute squares or cubes to see which one fits into which other, how you are in range or not. But in 4e, how do you adjudicate all this, I honestly have no idea. In 5e, using Theater of the Mind, it's really easy, the guy on the back certainly does not bother a huge dragon, but he has disadvantage on everything he attempts because the dragon is certainly moving and thrashing below him. End of the story, no rules were harmed in the making of this decision, and I have zero problem of ranges and areas of effect, they are exactly where I describe them to be. It's interesting that you use that sentence in complete isolation of the section in the DMG, which is, as usual, extremely technical and only covers things like giving a +2 to an action, casting an action as a check and improvising damage. The latter, by the way is totally ridiculous, because basically it says that you have to dimension the damage from the brazier according to the level of the character doing the pushing. Thank god for bounded accuracy, but in any other edition of the game, a brasier does a bit of damage and it's fun, you don't need silly computations like this. And then the DMG suggests to add the sneak damage on top ? Of course, pushing someone into a brazier by kicking is such a precise attack, that brazier is so sneaky, you know... Anyway, that section is once more all about being technical and balanced, and in the context of such a controlled game, it's not surprising. There is nothing in there about jumping on the back of a dragon, and moving there, but one thing is sure, you winged a huge part of the rules to achieve that, and I'm sure you did not use the recommendations of the rest of page 42 (and honestly, basing your whole philosophy on one sentence in one book that leads to a section that has little to do with improvisation and claiming that it's the intent of the designers is more than a bit exaggerated to me). This is great narration, but again with zero support from the rules and ignoring tons of them, I can't even count how many there, for example when you teleport, you do not take grappling people with you, PH p. 286: "Immobilized: Being immobilized doesn’t prevent you from teleporting. If you were immobilized because of a physical effect, [B][U]such as a creature grabbing you[/U][/B], you can teleport away and are [U][B]no longer[/B][/U] [B][U]immobilized or restrained[/U][/B], if applicable." By the way, Ygorl has phasing as well, so by any rules and narration principles in my game, no one could have hold on to him anyway, he would just have phased through you. Again, great narration, but I stand by my opinion after reading that new account, you are playing a very technical game with very precise rules, but ignoring tons of them when it suits you for narration, when the game (as is 4e's wont) constrains you really strongly about what you can do. And in the case of capturing Ygorl, there was absolutely no reason to ignore the rules or invent new ones, the PCs did nothing extraordinary, and actually did something that I would have deemed very silly in my games, trying to grapple a lord of Entropy looking like this (:D): [ATTACH type="full"]145204[/ATTACH] That being said, Ygorl has always been one of my favourite beings in D&D ever since the Fiend Folio, so I suppose they were just enthusiastic. So I'm asking you, what is the benefit of using such a technical and precise environment when you spend half your time adjudicating rules on the fly anyway, and forgetting about these rules (and you are lucky no one at the table does what some of my players do, try to understand what is happening so that they can play in that spirit - not even ruleslawyering, as some of my players, one in particular, is a specialist about gimping himself anyway) ? And still, flying is just "hopping around the battlefield". You never had flying PCs ? Did that not totally frustrate them ? Because for us, it was just looking silly and impossible to narrate properly... [/QUOTE]
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