Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5626871" data-attributes="member: 4937">Right.  I understand that.Let's break this down.I claim that there is a unversal standard for when initiative applies that handles the flatfooted condition in a way that is consistantly believable.  I see the two as related.  I cited multiple examples showing that if you consistantly applied the rules in the manner that they were written that the results in varying situations were what you would intuitively expect.You claim there is no universal standard for when initiative applies, and that the throw for initiative is a matter of DM fiat.  You also claim that that the flat footed rule results in unbelievable situations which requires the DM to fiat overrule whether the flatfooted condition applies.  You come up with an example that demonstrates the implausibility of the flat footed rule, and the implausibility of it depends almost entirely on the fact that you've subjected the throw of the initiative to DM fiat.  To which I respond, yeah, it's bad rule if you break it blindly.  That shouldn't be very difficult to understand.     Well, I don't know about 'wrong', but they certainly aren't following the rules.Yes, but again, that's not what I suggested.  Every battle does begin with everyone being flat footed, but not every battle begins with at least someone being flat footed at the time of the first attack.  By ignoring the non-attack actions that transpire at the start of the battle, you set up a situation where every battle is an ambush - even if it involves a set peice engagement where the two sides are marching at each other across a large field.  No, I've read the rules and the strict literal interpretation of the RAW gives reasonable results.  I've then noticed that a lot of people give unreasonable metagame interpretations, and then complain about the unreasonable results that follow up on that.  I'm therefore pointing out that by a strict reading of the rules, these highly unreasonable situations don't happen.   So therefore, which of us is more likely to be reading the rule correctly? Yes, because you have observed the enemy.  In battle speak, you have made contact with the enemy.   And for the purposes of the rules we must make the battle begin no latter than that point, else we are ignoring whatever actions that the transport crew may have taken in response to seeing the opposing force and according to this model of combat that is critical.  It's nonsensical to suggest that though the transport Helicopter crew has detected the enemy and responded to the threat, that they still must be treated as if they were oblivious to the threat.  The rules do not say that.  They say as soon as you have observed a foe and had a chance to act, regardless of the act you take, you can no longer be treated as oblivious to the threat.The rules do for combat encounters.  You aren't required to run every encounter as a combat encounter, but if there is hostility or potential hostility present then you probably should.   To do otherwise leads to wierdness.  How is it subjective?  According to the rules, you have no choice but to throw initiative.  It's subjective to delay. To my knowledge, I haven't done so.  I was pointing out that there isn't a binary relationship here.  A rule can be good because it simulates reality, even if it isn't perfectly realistic.   A rule which 'undermines realism', as you put it, can still be defended on the grounds that it simulates reality.  The question then becomes, "If it is good to simulate reality, why is not not better to simulate reality more perfectly?"  The answer is, sometimes a more perfect simulation of reality has some other cost.  Typically there is diminishing margins of return.  A more realistic rule is better than a less realistic rule, but past a certain point the complexity of each increasingly realistic rule undermines the advantage gained by increasing realism.Not only is that not arbitrary by definition, but speaking as someone who has at times made his living writing modelling software and designing engineering solutions, the degree of accuracy of the model can often be definitively shown to be necessary and sufficient and the amount of error introduced by the simplifying assumtions can likewise be show to be forgivable and sufficient over a wide range of conditions and certainly the ones you are interested in.    If they all have the run feat, then they are not all equally easy to hit while running.  You are denied your dex bonus when running if you have the Run feat.Speaking as some one who tweaks the SRD quite a lot, I disagree.  But by all means, have at it.  Reflex saves aren't independent of your dex bonus.  Anything that changes your dex bonus changes your reflex save.</blockquote>

Verification