jgbrowning, Rystil Arden, and Hypersmurf talk amongst themselves

[Nail]

LOL

Excellent, Rystil, excellent.

 

[andargor]

O,k, I'll try:

jgbrowning, Rystil Arden, and Hypersmurf walk into a bar.

- Rystil Arden says to the others, "I thought that as Rule Lawyers, we had to pass the bar?"

(Badum-pishh)

Andargor

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

It has to be done...

jgbrowning, Rystil Arden, and Hypersmurf walk into a bar.

They all take 1d4 Bludgeoning damage.

 

[Rystil Arden]

It has to be done...

jgbrowning, Rystil Arden, and Hypersmurf walk into a bar.

They all take 1d4 Bludgeoning damage.

I don't know about the others, but I manifested Biofeedback, so I won't take any damage at all unless its a 4 on the d4. Oh, and it probably misses Hypersmurf because of his Size bonus to AC for being Diminutive and his Haste bonus to AC for being Hyper.

 

[azmodean]

Just to get in my pedant quota for the day, I believe these are the pertinent SRD quotes, from "Combining Magical Effects" and "Duration"

One Effect Makes Another Irrelevant: Sometimes, one spell can render a later spell irrelevant. Both spells are still active, but one has rendered the other useless in some fashion.

also

If the spell affects creatures directly the result travels with the subjects for the spell’s duration.

Note that it uses subject, not creature, which IMO indicates that type changes (even to non-creature or dead) do not effect the existence of the spell, though they may make it irrelevant.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Just to get in my pedant quota for the day, I believe these are the pertinent SRD quotes, from "Combining Magical Effects" and "Duration"

also

Note that it uses subject, not creature, which IMO indicates that type changes (even to non-creature or dead) do not effect the existence of the spell, though they may make it irrelevant.

Wow, finding that in the SRD is really neat. If I had known that that was explicitly spelled out, it would have been so much easier than trying to use examples to illustrate that it is definitely a principle that 3.x follows.

 

[jgbrowning]

Like I said, who needs rules when you can just make stuff up?

Nice to see the quotes — I'll have to remember them in the future.

joe b.

 

[Pielorinho]

Dangerous, that.

-Hyp.

Heh, I disagree (let's see if we can get this engine going again!)

While the last SRD quote makes part of the issue clear, I think that jgbrowning was approaching this from a different perspective from Hypersmurf. The latter seems to be arguing from a highly technical reading of the rules, in which it's appropriate to build arguments by cross-referencing passages and assuming that every word is written the way it is for a precise, almost programmatic reason.

The former seems to be arguing from a common-sense approach: reading the rules as a whole, and trying to figure out what the gist of them ought to be, and not worrying so much about whether the adjective on page 67 combined with the footnote on page 312 lead to a certain conclusion.

I far prefer the common-sense approach to rules. It makes sense to me thata giant isn't affected by dominate person, so that's how I'll rule it. Whether the word "humanoid" is repeated in paragraph 2 is immaterial: the gist of the spell is that giants aren't affected by it.

Either approach to the rules is appropriate, I think: programmatic readings are fine, as long as everyone in the group likes them, and the same caveat applies to common-sense rulings. But I like the common-sense approach much more.

Daniel

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Conversely, it seems common-sensical to me that a mental effect isn't negated by a shape change that leaves all your mental faculties untouched. Especially in cases where the destination form is just a bigger humanoid (as opposed to an ooze, construct, aberration, etc).

 

[Pielorinho]

Conversely, it seems common-sensical to me that a mental effect isn't negated by a shape change that leaves all your mental faculties untouched.

Fair point, and this argument carries a lot more weight with me than whether "humanoid" is repeated as an adjective in the second paragraph of the description.

I'd probably argue that since the spell is mentla-only , and since it affects the minds of humanoids and not the minds of giants, there must be some difference in mental faculties that occurs when you change from a humanoid to a giant.

But then, I think type-changing rules are terrible, and I've house-ruled them away in my game.

Daniel