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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6874549" data-attributes="member: 42582">Your example of RAW also contains an unstated premise, something along the lines of &quot;four days worth of healing is the same as four lots of one day's worth of healing&quot;. It assumes that the cumulation of days, and of the causal effects of the passage of time, is not governed by some non-linear mathematical function.That may be self-evident - I don't have a strong view. (I recall that there was a lot of controversy in the early days of 5e over whether or not short rests are similarly cumulative, only with &quot;hours&quot; in place of &quot;days&quot;.) I don't think it's much more self-evident, though, than that jugs hold water or that flames can set combustible materials alight. (Arguably being able to hold water, or being capable of lighting combustible materials, is a constitutive property of being a jug or being a flame respectively.)What the chance of combustion taking place is is not something that can be as easily extrapolated. Similarly for the degree of impedence to swimming from wearing metal armour. But all this tells us is that the point where application of the rules runs out and the creation of new rules, or principles, or rulings, or house rules, or whatever you want to call them, is vague.(A side issue here, but relevant to any discussion of the application of rules, is the point made by Lewis Carroll in his well-known paper on &quot;What the tortoise said to Achilles&quot;. If we reduce all our rules of inference to premises in the argument, then we will end up with an infinite regress of premises. Hence, whenever rules are being applied and consequences determined, there must be some unwritten rule of inference that is applied. On[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s account, that is not RAW, and hence (on that account) every decision in the application of a rule goes beyond RAW. That conclusion seems counterintuitive to me.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6874549, member: 42582"] Your example of RAW also contains an unstated premise, something along the lines of "four days worth of healing is the same as four lots of one day's worth of healing". It assumes that the cumulation of days, and of the causal effects of the passage of time, is not governed by some non-linear mathematical function. That may be self-evident - I don't have a strong view. (I recall that there was a lot of controversy in the early days of 5e over whether or not short rests are similarly cumulative, only with "hours" in place of "days".) I don't think it's much more self-evident, though, than that jugs hold water or that flames can set combustible materials alight. (Arguably being able to hold water, or being capable of lighting combustible materials, is a constitutive property of being a jug or being a flame respectively.) What the chance of combustion taking place is is not something that can be as easily extrapolated. Similarly for the degree of impedence to swimming from wearing metal armour. But all this tells us is that the point where application of the rules runs out and the creation of new rules, or principles, or rulings, or house rules, or whatever you want to call them, is vague. (A side issue here, but relevant to any discussion of the application of rules, is the point made by Lewis Carroll in his well-known paper on "What the tortoise said to Achilles". If we reduce all our rules of inference to premises in the argument, then we will end up with an infinite regress of premises. Hence, whenever rules are being applied and consequences determined, there must be some unwritten rule of inference that is applied. On[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s account, that is not RAW, and hence (on that account) every decision in the application of a rule goes beyond RAW. That conclusion seems counterintuitive to me.) [/QUOTE]

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