D&D 5E Is it houseruling to let a torch set fire to things?

[FrogReaver]

So by RAW water doesn't extinguish fire. Gravity does not exist. Movement can be done straight up without fear of falling. I can walk through walls.

Now imagine you have a rule that says a tinder lights a torch. You have no rule that says a torch lights a torch. Is RAW saying - torch cannot light a torch? Nope. RAW is silent on the vast majority of things. Just like it is silent on what exactly fireball will burn up and destroy and what it will not.

No it isn't. Those dismissals aren't over what a house rule is. They are over the inappropriate inclusion of house rules into a discussion about RAW.

as such I submit that raw alone is worthless and meaningless. Raw only works and makes sense in regards to a medieval fantasy world.


If it's not written word for word in the book, it's impossible for it to be RAW. Whether or not your addition is a house rule or not is irrelevant to whether or not your inclusion is RAW, so it's still not appropriate for a RAW discussion.

 

[AnimeSniper]

Okay... almost as bad as the one game where the DM had us hunt down a group of brigand who took shelter in a falling apart house in an old forest.
When we found them our Ranger managed a Crit arrow hit to a torch wielding brigand who when hit by his arrow dropped his torch on the straw spread across the house catching it on fire which traveled to the heisted spirits stored in the back... long story short big boom and we burnt down a part of the old forest and got a few dryads mad at us. Apparently on keg of spirits was leaking across the straw

 

[Maxperson]

So is a fireball igniting a torch a house rule or RAW? Or is it something else?

Since neither one is in the rules, both would be house rules.

 

[Maxperson]

House rules?

That would be what "For me" means, yes.

 

[Maxperson]

So by RAW water doesn't extinguish fire. Gravity does not exist. Movement can be done straight up without fear of falling. I can walk through walls.

Now imagine you have a rule that says a tinder lights a torch. You have no rule that says a torch lights a torch. Is RAW saying - torch cannot light a torch? Nope. RAW is silent on the vast majority of things. Just like it is silent on what exactly fireball will burn up and destroy and what it will not.

RAW is silent on a lot of things. The DM has to assume a great deal, but what you assume has no impact or bearing on what I assume, so your assumptions only apply to.....................your house.

Oh, and you should probably read fireball. It does say what it will burn.

 

[Maxperson]

Okay... almost as bad as the one game where the DM had us hunt down a group of brigand who took shelter in a falling apart house in an old forest.
When we found them our Ranger managed a Crit arrow hit to a torch wielding brigand who when hit by his arrow dropped his torch on the straw spread across the house catching it on fire which traveled to the heisted spirits stored in the back... long story short big boom and we burnt down a part of the old forest and got a few dryads mad at us. Apparently on keg of spirits was leaking across the straw

Back during 2e, our DM let a player play a dwarven wizard, but said that the 20% failure rate would basically cause spells to be affected as if cast by a wild mage if a 20 or under was rolled on percentile dice. We were near a city on a great, dry plain and he tried to cast invisibility. It triggered a wild surge and he accidentally launched an invisible fireball that proceeded to set off an invisible fire that ran wild across the plain. We took off and barely escaped. We have no idea what happened to the city or other inhabitants in that area.

 

[FrogReaver]

Awful strange how similar most of our houses really are. With the infinite number of possible disagreements almost any of us would be able to go to another table with a different style and still play without changing the vast majority of what we do at all.

RAW is silent on a lot of things. The DM has to assume a great deal, but what you assume has no impact or bearing on what I assume, so your assumptions only apply to.....................your house.

Oh, and you should probably read fireball. It does say what it will burn.

 

[Maxperson]

Awful strange how similar most of our houses really are. With the infinite number of possible disagreements almost any of us would be able to go to another table with a different style and still play without changing the vast majority of what we do at all.

Agreed. There are a lot of similarities, but there will also be a lot of differences. Some might have fireballs set trees on fire. Others might say the fire is over with too soon. Every table will be different with different rules on how they play the game.

 

[pemerton]

I honestly can't tell if this poll is serious or not.

Well, as the creator of the poll, I can report that it was intended to be serious. Here is the post on the other thread where I announced my intention to start this thread. If you're interested, it will give you some context.

But the fact that people apparently openly disagreed about whether a torch could set things on fire seems, to me, to bring into question the very concept of "natural language."

The question is not about the physical properties of torches, so much as whether or not the rules of the game, as they are written in the rulebook, allow that a torch might set other flammable things, such as another torch, alight.

 

[pemerton]

When you open up the definition of that dirty word enough, as some try to do, you get into a situation where every single rule (even the ones spelled out in the books) could be construed as houserules. Because the DM still has to decide if each of those rule exists at their table. And so, every table could rule differently. Thus, all rules are houserules.

I made this point in the other thread.

There's also another way to put it: back in the late 19th century Lewis Carrol published an article in the journal Mind, called "What the Tortoise said to Achilles". In the article, Carrol made the point that every inference requires application of a rule which, if it were written down as an express premise, would then require another rule of inference to move from premises to conclusion. If one insisted that this new rule of inference be written down, the same issue arises - etc, etc, giving rise to an infinite regress.

The lesson is that every application of a rules requires drawing upon a rule of inference which (on pain of regress) can't itself be written down as a premise in the reasoning.

In maths and logic, the rules of inference are modus ponens, modus tollens etc.

In applying the rules of D&D, which aren't formal logical rules and which draw upon natural language and rely upon intuitions about the imagined circumstances within the fiction, the "rules of inference" include things like the imaginative/interpretive process that allows the making of comparisons and extrapolations, the drawing together of similar but not identical cases (eg lit torches, burning oil and alchemist's fire all do fire damage, and also are all capable of setting things alight in virtue of being aflame), etc.

If this counts as houseruling just because it draws upon intuitions and principles that aren't written down, then every moment of adjudication will be houseruling.

what about the questions I asked concerning fireball?

I addressed it upthread (though with reference to scrolls rather than torches, and with reference to Burning Hands - which contains the same rules text - rather than Fireball).

Self-quoting:

Take Burning Hands as an example:

As you hold your hands with thumbs touching and fingers spread, a thin sheet of flames shoots forth from your outstretched fingertips. Each creature in a 15-foot cone must make a Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 3d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

The fire ignites any flammable objects in the area that aren’t being worn or carried.​

Like Moldvay Basic and 4e's fireball spell descriptions, the description here only refers to damage to creatures. There is also the stipulation about objects that are neither worn nor carried. Does this mean that if an enemy wizard is holding a scroll, and my PC blasts him/her with Burning Hands, then that scroll is immune from being damaged or destroyed unless my GM makes a house rule? Is the non-house ruled default that, even if the mage lies dead and charred, the scroll is pristine and untouched?

To me that seems like it would be a weird view to hold, made even weirder by the text on p 87 of the SRD (which is pretty similar to the stuff on pp 65-66 of the 4e DMG):

Characters can also damage objects with their weapons and spells. Objects . . . can be affected by physical and magical attacks much like creatures can. The GM . . . might decide that certain objects have resistance or immunity to certain kinds of attacks.​

It seems to me that deciding what happens to the scroll (does the player make an INT check to see if his/her PC can successfully ignite the scroll? does the GM roll hit points for the scroll?) is an issue of adjudication, but not of house ruling.