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Damage of two types but immunity to one
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<blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 5218444" data-attributes="member: 51942"><p>The concept "effect" is vague. It's just some consequence of a rule or power usage - basically, just <em>something</em>. Is having 2 pounds of beef equivalent to two separate pounds? Distinguishing discrete, atomic effects amongst a power's consequences is ill-defined. So, irrespective of the specifics concerning immunities, let's hope this argument doesn't hold the balance.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I agree, and it's worth highlighting this notion to underline the fact that the "rules" are <em>not</em> complete. Obviously, there's always rule 0 (the DM), but more subtly than that, weird corner cases or undefined rule behavior does occur and it's better to deal with it sanely than to go over rules with a fine-tooth comb when the particular corner case you're dealing with may simply have been an oversight.</p><p></p><p></p><p>The rule text is written in common-sense English. If something that resist arbitrarily strong poison, one might say it's immune to poison. If it can resist the effects of arbitrarily high temperatures, you might say it's immune to the effects of high temperature - or in a fantasy setting, immune to <em>fire</em>. There's no need for the rules to state that immunity to damage is equivalent to "infinite" resistance <em>if</em> that's a natural assumption to make in English. I don't think that equivalence is sufficiently obvious to make it an unwritten rule, but it's natural enough to make it unfortunate use of terminology if it <em>doesn't</em> hold and isn't explicitly addressed.</p><p></p><p>The game makes any number of assumptions it never describes or states. Essentially, all those bits of common sense and knowledge the players (including DM) are presumed to have are truisms - and that's a bunch.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Perhaps it's not an exception rather than a misconception however - which would suggest that the assumption isn't an odd one to make. And the opposite approach isn't clearly stated either, which makes RAI and reasonable assumptions that much more relevant - just as you say:</p><p></p><p>...which is exactly what I think too: neither approach to immunities is clearly supported by the rules text which just omits this information; and it's probably best for the game to require immunities to all damage types, though it's not common enough to matter much either way.</p><p></p><p>Regardless, even if we <em>could</em> conclude something from the rules, it's obviously not stated clearly and would require too much semantic trickery to have faith that the results actually represent rules by design rather than by coincidence.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="eamon, post: 5218444, member: 51942"] The concept "effect" is vague. It's just some consequence of a rule or power usage - basically, just [I]something[/I]. Is having 2 pounds of beef equivalent to two separate pounds? Distinguishing discrete, atomic effects amongst a power's consequences is ill-defined. So, irrespective of the specifics concerning immunities, let's hope this argument doesn't hold the balance. I agree, and it's worth highlighting this notion to underline the fact that the "rules" are [I]not[/I] complete. Obviously, there's always rule 0 (the DM), but more subtly than that, weird corner cases or undefined rule behavior does occur and it's better to deal with it sanely than to go over rules with a fine-tooth comb when the particular corner case you're dealing with may simply have been an oversight. The rule text is written in common-sense English. If something that resist arbitrarily strong poison, one might say it's immune to poison. If it can resist the effects of arbitrarily high temperatures, you might say it's immune to the effects of high temperature - or in a fantasy setting, immune to [I]fire[/I]. There's no need for the rules to state that immunity to damage is equivalent to "infinite" resistance [I]if[/I] that's a natural assumption to make in English. I don't think that equivalence is sufficiently obvious to make it an unwritten rule, but it's natural enough to make it unfortunate use of terminology if it [I]doesn't[/I] hold and isn't explicitly addressed. The game makes any number of assumptions it never describes or states. Essentially, all those bits of common sense and knowledge the players (including DM) are presumed to have are truisms - and that's a bunch. Perhaps it's not an exception rather than a misconception however - which would suggest that the assumption isn't an odd one to make. And the opposite approach isn't clearly stated either, which makes RAI and reasonable assumptions that much more relevant - just as you say: ...which is exactly what I think too: neither approach to immunities is clearly supported by the rules text which just omits this information; and it's probably best for the game to require immunities to all damage types, though it's not common enough to matter much either way. Regardless, even if we [I]could[/I] conclude something from the rules, it's obviously not stated clearly and would require too much semantic trickery to have faith that the results actually represent rules by design rather than by coincidence. [/QUOTE]
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