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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6874606" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>That is introducing a degree of precision into the statement of the rule that you didn't use first time round, and (as best I recall) neither did I.</p><p></p><p>Suppose the rules state <em>One day's rest restores 1 hp</em>. That is no longer stated as a liner function (unlike <em>Rest restores one hp per day</em>, which is stated as a linear function). My view is that the difference between these two ways of stating the rule is editorial, not substantive; and that in either case there is no house ruling involved in inferring that 7 days rest restores 7 hp; and that in both cases the drawing of this inference is an act of rules application/adjudication.</p><p></p><p>If we were discussing a physics textbook rather than an RPG rulebook then the difference <em>would</em> be substantive, and not merely editorial; but we're not.</p><p></p><p>The extrapolation from <em>fireballs do fire damage</em> and <em>fire damage is the sort of thing caused by dragon breath and conjured flams</em> and <em>flaming torches, burning oil and alchemist's fire all do fire damage</em> (all of which are things expressly stated in the Basic PDF) to <em>a fireball might set combustible materials alight</em> is, for practical purposes, no more conjectural than the mathematical extrapolation involved in the healing example.</p><p></p><p>What the chance of the fireball setting things alight is is a different matter. The Basic PDF gives little guidance on this, though on p 66 there is the following:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Characters can also damage objects with their weapons and spells. Objects are immune to poison and psychic damage, but otherwise they can be affected by physical and magical attacks much like creatures can. The DM determines an object’s Armor Class and hit points, and might decide that certain objects have resistance or immunity to certain kinds of attacks. (It’s</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">hard to cut a rope with a club, for example.) Objects always fail Strength and Dexterity saving throws . . .</p><p></p><p>This doesn't help a great deal with a fireball - a fireball automatically does full damage to an object (failed DEX save) but extrapolating from this mechanical state of affairs to the in-fiction question of whether or not a fire has started is left as an exercise for the referee.</p><p></p><p>But that there is an in-principle chance of combustible material being set alight by the fireball (and probably a higher chance than by a flaming torch, given the latter does only 1 hp of fire damage) strikes me as hard to deny, given everything that the rules say.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6874606, member: 42582"] That is introducing a degree of precision into the statement of the rule that you didn't use first time round, and (as best I recall) neither did I. Suppose the rules state [I]One day's rest restores 1 hp[/I]. That is no longer stated as a liner function (unlike [I]Rest restores one hp per day[/i], which is stated as a linear function). My view is that the difference between these two ways of stating the rule is editorial, not substantive; and that in either case there is no house ruling involved in inferring that 7 days rest restores 7 hp; and that in both cases the drawing of this inference is an act of rules application/adjudication. If we were discussing a physics textbook rather than an RPG rulebook then the difference [I]would[/I] be substantive, and not merely editorial; but we're not. The extrapolation from [I]fireballs do fire damage[/I] and [I]fire damage is the sort of thing caused by dragon breath and conjured flams[/I] and [I]flaming torches, burning oil and alchemist's fire all do fire damage[/I] (all of which are things expressly stated in the Basic PDF) to [I]a fireball might set combustible materials alight[/I] is, for practical purposes, no more conjectural than the mathematical extrapolation involved in the healing example. What the chance of the fireball setting things alight is is a different matter. The Basic PDF gives little guidance on this, though on p 66 there is the following: [indent]Characters can also damage objects with their weapons and spells. Objects are immune to poison and psychic damage, but otherwise they can be affected by physical and magical attacks much like creatures can. The DM determines an object’s Armor Class and hit points, and might decide that certain objects have resistance or immunity to certain kinds of attacks. (It’s hard to cut a rope with a club, for example.) Objects always fail Strength and Dexterity saving throws . . .[/indent] This doesn't help a great deal with a fireball - a fireball automatically does full damage to an object (failed DEX save) but extrapolating from this mechanical state of affairs to the in-fiction question of whether or not a fire has started is left as an exercise for the referee. But that there is an in-principle chance of combustible material being set alight by the fireball (and probably a higher chance than by a flaming torch, given the latter does only 1 hp of fire damage) strikes me as hard to deny, given everything that the rules say. [/QUOTE]
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