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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4416143" data-attributes="member: 42582">My problem with the rules forum is that this is not its typical approach.When lawyers read a document (say a contract, a statute, or a deed of trust) the aim is to recover, via objective canons of interpretation, the intention expressed by the document. This often requires imputation of one or more purposes, the drawing of implications, the disregarding of obvious errors in grammatical tense or number, etc.The rules forum tends to prefer a literalist reading even if it is absurd. This is not a lawyer's approach - not even the most conservative textualist says that documents should be construed in an absurd fashion if the text in question admits of some other tenable and non-absurd reading.To illustrate by way of example: Seal of Binding says that "the target can't be affected by any attack other than this one". There is a debate as to what "attack" means here. The lawyer's approach is to note that "affects" is cognate with "effect", and that Attack Powers (including Wall of Fire) are what have effects, and hence to conclude that a creature hit by Seal of Binding cannot be damaged by a Wall of Fire. This is also the most sensible interpretation, as it renders Seal of Binding less broken.The feat Evasion (slighly rephrased) says "you take no damage from . . . an area or close attack . . .  when that attack misses you but deals damage on a miss." The lawyer's approach here is most naturally to interpret the word "damage" in the phrase "no damage" as referring to the damage that (but for the feat) one would be dealt on a miss, and not to other damage that might be dealt by the attack (eg if it creates a zone). This interpretation is consistent with earlier versions of Evasion (in 3E, and 1st ed Monks) and makes the benefit from the feat more consistent and less dependent on the number of published zone-creating powers that also have miss effects.A consequence of these interpretations is that "attack" has a slighly different meaning on the two occasions. A lawyer can tolerate that if it is the price of otherwise sensibly-reasoned interpretations.When the rules forum dismisses this sort of interpretation as "RAI" rather than "RAW", or as taking illegitimate account of purposive or pragmatic considerations, it has abandoned lawyer-like interpretation for something quite different.</blockquote>

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