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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5760083" data-attributes="member: 27160">That's not what I'm saying - please look again. I'm saying that the way 4E handles this is consistent within itself. The fact that objects and creatures are different is established and quite consistently applied.The only meaning of "consistency" I can think of that you might have in mind (that justifies your claims of "inconsistency") is the meaning of "consistent with the real world". In this sense you have a valid comment - but since the world of D&D is manifestly not the real world, I'm not at all sure why you insist that it is important. "A world that is not the real world does not behave in all ways like the real world" - isn't that a case of "dog bites man"?OK, so you are using "gameist (sic)" to mean "can't be explained in terms of the game (world)"? Why not? "Can't be explained in terms of analogues in the real world, sure. But why can't a game world have creatures that are destined to fall at the first successful hit? It's not the real world, for sure - but it was never intended to be that, as I think must be pretty clear.Assuming that by "heat" you mean energy, how much water are we talking, and how much paper? If by "heal level" you mean "temperature", then what form is the heat source in? A gas flame? A burning liquid? A detonation front in a well mixed gas-air cocktail?Put it this way: put some sheets of paper into a gas cupboard with a small cloud of hydrogen or methane mixed with air and ignite the cloud. Neither will ignite the paper, but the hydrogen will hurt and the methane will give a nasty burn/scald to exposed flesh. A person totally immersed in such a cloud would suffer external burns and, if they were unlucky enough to breathe in at the wrong moment, some very nasty lung and trachea damage.Why is a world where magic works likely to work in the same way as the real world in any respect? The reason magic does not work as it does in D&D in the real world is because the laws of real world physics preclude it. If they did not, there would most certainly be people doing it! The laws of physics in a world where such magic exists cannot possibly be the same as those of the real world. It is wise for world designers to make some of their outcomes broadly recognisable to inhabitants of this universe - but they simply cannot be identical.OK; to my mind, 4E does this well. It explains the effects in system terms, which seem a little strange, but I take these terms to be the terms of "4E universe physics" - and they are certainly no more strange than the terms of Relativity theory or Quantum Mechanics...Vicious Mockery  Bard Attack 1You unleash a string of insults at your foe, weaving them with bardic magic to send the creature into a blind rage.At-Will * Arcane, Charm, Implement, PsychicStandard Action      Ranged 10Target: One creatureAttack: Charisma vs. WillHit: 1d6 + Charisma modifier psychic damage, and the target takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls until the end of your next turn.Level 21: 2d6 + Charisma modifier damage.Those are just explanations of how the characters think the power works in sundry game worlds. In 4E, the facts (verifiable by experiment) are that Vicious Mockery does what it says in the power description. Theories about why it might do this are left to the characters (and the players) to come up with.4E certainly works very differently to 3.X and earlier editions. How I am saying that 4E works differently to how it actually does you will need to explain to me; I'm baffled.I sometimes feel the same way about those claiming to see uncontestable flaws with 4E. Overall, though, I do think that both "sides" are (very) gradually getting a clearer idea of what the other is saying.</blockquote>

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