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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5221975" data-attributes="member: 42582">Which already makes no literal sense, as powers are not effects - they have effects.You are now deploying a logic of parts-and-wholes applied to effects which, as far as I can see, is not expressly part of the rules - the rules never talk about some effects being parts of other effects, rather they talk about powers having effects - and is therefore something you are introducing by implication. I don't accept the implication is necessarily there.Again, you are using the notion of "the effects of an effect" which is already going beyond the express language of the rules.Well, the word "heavy", predicated of a car, indicates that a car is a heavy object. The word "wheeled", predicated of a car, indicates that a car is a wheeled vehicle. This is just like the word "poison", used of a power, indicates that the power is a poison effect. It doesn't follow that every part of the power is a poison effect, just as it doesn't follow that every part of a car is heavy - the hubcaps are not - or wheeled - the petrol tank is not.To generalise - the logic of parts-and-wholes that you are deploying is not the only one available. An alternative logic, which (in my view) is closer to ordinary English usage, allows that a whole can be described as an X-ish thing even if only some parts of the whole exhibit X-ness. Furthermore, I think the references on PHB p 55, and in the PHB3 errata, to individual effects of powers (such as damage, stunnning, etc), suggest that it is this alternative logic which the designers had in mind.I don't see how this is relevant to my post - I didn't make either claim. Although it seems to me that Customer Service probably is WotC, unless there's some sort of outsourcing arrangement that I'm not familiar with.I think that you are being overly sanguine about identifying the rules as written. As I've pointed out, your own analysis depends upon the imputation of a logic of parts-and-wholes that is not an express part of the rules text.My take on the issue of "rules as written" is this: D&D designers do not have the same degree of training or institutional support as do the authors of legislation and other legal instruments. It's therefore natural that D&D rules will, on occasion, be at least as difficult to interpret, and as dependent for their interpretation upon implications and imputations, as are statutes, contracts, wills and so on. In these cases of legal interpretation, it is impossible to separate the question of "the law as written" from questions of intention, desirability of outcomes, consistency with common sense and so on. The same is true for the rules of D&D, only moreso, given that the sorts of considerations that tell against a liberal approach to legal interpretation (eg principles of legislative supremacy, the rule of law etc) are not operative in the context of a game, where there is really very little at stake and the possibility of subsequent correction is always there.I think that verisimilitude (eg pre-errata immunity to fire doesn't stop you being zapped by the radiant damage of blazing starfall) and fun (a more elaborate power with more keywords doesn't become more liable to being blocked by resistances and immunities) are better served by implying my logic of parts-and-wholes rather than yours. And while both are consistent with the express rules text, as I already said I think mine fits better with the examples and the errata, which parse powers into their various constituent effects.This is a separate point, I think. The solution would be to make "thunder" an effect type as well as a damage type (like poison). Another similar oddity would be creatures with icewalk still being vulnerable to being knocked prone by powers like Icy Terrain. From the design point of view, presumably at a certain point verisimilitude is compromised in the interests of simplicity.</blockquote>

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