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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6959526" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'll admit to not having read the whole thread - just the first page, and then the most recent few pages. I opened the thread yesterday because I saw that [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] had posted in it, and Hriston is a reliably interesting poster with whom I often find myself in agreement.I did read Hriston's post that you quoted. In fact, I think I XPed it. That one can, in language, distinguish an event from a state doesn't necessarily mean that there are distinct metaphysical entities. It may be, for instance, that the "event" is nothing more than the state being one thing up to time t, and then another thing from t onwards.I am hoping that Hriston responds to my post 390, because that will help address the practical question about who can hide when and under what conditions.And here's a related question. First, to set it up: I assume that Hriston would agree that if an elf is in view, and then it starts snowing, the elf can become hidden by the falling snow. But what happens if it is already snowing and the elf is visible - can the elf try to become hidden (eg as I said in post 392, in virtue of there being a sudden swirl of snow, such that the elf vanishes)?This relates to the interpretation of the rules for hiding and for perception. It also connects to bigger design questions like whether or not "let it ride" (ie no retries unless circumstances radically change) applies, and what counts as a radical change of circumstance: if it is snowing but an elf has chosen not to try and hide, and hence has come under observation, can s/he suddenly change his/her mind and make a DEX roll? And how should we understand the sudden swirl of snowing suddenly occurring - it is a magical ability of the elf, and if so why is it DEX (rather than, say, WIS or CHA) that is checked?To me, these seem to be the interesting questions. I don't think the rules answer them in any clear way - they are (in my view) fairly poorly drafted, and these questions really go to deeper matters of how we understand fictional positioning and the nature of elven magic within the fiction, rather than questions of mechanics and action economy.</blockquote>

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