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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5222158" data-attributes="member: 42582">My point was that this is at odds with verisimilitude, and hence that a desire for verisimilitude tells against your reading of the (pre-errata) text.I don't have trouble getting it - I just don't agree with it. I agree that the rules don't expressly talk about the separation I favour. But they don't expressly talk about the "effects of effects" that you favour either. Both are implications that we are drawing from poorly-written rules. All I'm saying is that my implication is as consistent with the express words as yours, and I also think it fits better with the examples in the rules, and I think it is better for verisimilitude and for fun. I therefore favour my implication. I have no objection at all to you using your implication, but I do object a little bit to you describing it as "rules as written" when it is not expressly there in the rules.Nowhere is this expressly stated. The rules don't talk about "entire powers". They don't use adverbs like "every" or "all". You are drawing an implication. I don't at all object to you doing so - some implication has to be drawn, given that the express wording of the rules is deficient. But I think a different implication is the better one to draw.You've got better knowledge than me of a wider range of powers, and none of these examples are springing into my mind at present. Are you able to tell me where to find a couple? (I don't have DDI, but have all PHBs and all Power books except Primal.)I don't think this is right - the PHB3 rule clarifies that the non-damage effects of powers with no keyword but a damage keyword are still suffered by creatures with immunity to that keyword. Or to put it another way, the PHB3 rule clarifies that Immunity: X - where X is a damage keyword - is immmunity to damage only, and not to the other effects of those powers. Or to put it yet another way, which I don't think you will like because it is expressed in a way that favours my implication over yours, it clarifies that the non-damaging parts of a power are not governed by the damage keywords that characterise that power.You posted upthread that without the PHB3 wording on immunities, the rule on PHB p 55 that "immunity to one keyword of a power does not protect a target from the power’s other effects" would only come into effect very rarely (when there was a discrete sub-effect of a power of the sort that you mentioned also in the post I'm replying to). One implication of my view is that the PHB3 wording is clarifying in order to achieve what was already there, rather than changing as dramatically as you think that it has.I think these examples are a bit orthogonal, though, because they don't force us to have to make sense of the keyword rules.I half agree with this and half disagree. The rules literally make no sense, because they simultaneously assert that powers are effects and that powers have effects - ie the rules are confused as to the part-whole logic of powers and effects. You have your preferred approach to constructing a coherent logic of parts and wholes here. I have mine. We are both engaged in something more than just reading the literal text. We are both drawing implications and arguing for them. If you like, we are engaged in constructive interpretation of the rules text. It doesn't follow from this that either of us is ignoring the text. Obviously, you're not. Given that my posts refer extensively to the text, neither am I. As to the question of whether, from a claim that the rules text is literally nonsensical, I can nevertheless reach a conclusion about what the rules are - I think this is quite possible. I know from my non-gaming experience that this can be done with legal texts, and with philosophical texts, so I've got no doubt that it can be done with gaming texts. Interpretation of a flawed text need not be just making it up. It can, at least on some occasions (depending on the nature of the flaw(s) and the other evidence available to support the interpretation) be working out what the text has "really" said. We do it all the time in ordinary conversation, correcting for the solecisms and mis-statements of our interlocutors. It can be done with written texts also.And as I said, I think you're overly sanguine about this. Professional legal drafters are far better trained, far better paid, and have far better institutional support - precedents, judicial decisions, organisational memories, centuries of practice to draw upon - than do RPG designers, and they still manage to produce literally nonsensical texts a good portion of the time. It's no surprise that the D&D designers have done so as well. In these circumstances, there is no alternative but to try to extract some coherent interpretation out of the literally nonsensical text. Even in legal interpretation, one relevant consideration here can be what we would like the rules to be. In game rules interpretation, this consideration should be paramount, given that all the other factors that constrain this consideration in the legal context are not in play - ie there is nothing at stake but fun.I agree. But your interpretation is not what the rules say either. We are both drawing implications. And I think my implication fits better with the rules text overall (subject to the examples of the powers with discrete sub-effects - the wording of these, depending on what it is, might persuade me that you're right).When did I do that? I focused on the rules text pretty closely, including the examples it includes and the phrase "immunity to one keyword of a power does not protect a target from the power’s other effects".Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by this phrase.Well, I've already made it pretty clear that in my view the rules as literally written are not coherent, because they have a confused logic of parts and wholes. But I've also made it pretty clear that I think better or worse interpretations can be argued for. And I also hope I've made it pretty clear that I think it is unrealistic to hold rules drafted by game designers to standards of literal precision that even the best legal drafters are not always able to meet.</blockquote>

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