Except that because of "Rulings Not Rules"... practically every game IS modified.
So? How does that negate the need or desire to have a strong foundation that rules provide?
And if we were talking about foundation rules of the game, then you'd possibly have a point. But we're not. We're talking about WotC wasting their time and scrapping their editorial policy just so a couple people can have it down in writing that an obscure, practically never-to-come-up situation has an "official" rule connected to it...
Which is why I see on no less than three boards hundreds of posts per board discussing it. Because it's vague, obscure, and practically never-to-come up. If it had such a small impact, why are so many people talking about it? Why are
you talking about it?
presumably so that they can then go to another table and dictate to their new DM "Well, uh... actually... should one of us choose to play a PC with a negative CON modifier and choose to roll for our hit points... we can at the very least get 1 hit point when we level up even if we roll poorly."
Or perhaps so that people who've been playing D&D with prior editions know "hey, despite D&D all the way back to Basic in the 70s always allowing a minimum of 1 on a die roll no matter your Con, now you can roll negative numbers. FYI".
Or perhaps so people know as a baseline when going to a new game that doesn't have a house rule about Con and HP that if they put a negative modifier creating score in Con they could lose HP if they roll.
Or perhaps so a DM who wants to use the RAW can point to it when a player from a previous edition goes "but that's not how the game was played back in 1/2/3/4th edition!"
To which the DM at the new table would most likely say "I run my game how *I* want... so you can take your Sage Advice 'Well, actuallys' and go for a long walk off a short pier." As is his or her right to do. Because again... Rulings, Not Rules.
Ah, so you prefer to play with DMs who are so close minded they won't even consider other viewpoints? Maybe you like that kind of autocratic style in your game. I prefer someone open minded and amenable to change if presented with good reasons why. That's how I run my own games. But then I'm not a jerk who says "I run games how *I* want, and screw you for having a different opinion, one backed up by the person who designed the game!"
Yeah, this was my first thought when I read that too. For me, the point of buying the rulebooks is for the foundation and outline of how the game works. For things like this? That may not ever even come up in a came? If they did come up I'd just make a ruling right there and move on. That doesn't mean the "rules mean so little to" me, and there's a HUGE middle ground between houseruling "you get at least 1 hp per level" and "just go full theater of the mind and make your own stuff up."
Sage advice is, and has always been since the beginning, just one guy's opinion of how they think it should probably work. Yes, that one guy works at the company and had input in the game design, but that doesn't mean SA is sacrosanct (no pun intended).
I never said it was sacrosanct, but his original post was essentially saying "who needs rule clarifications?".
I provided reasons for why people would want rulings.
He also said rule clarifications and rules don't matter, because house rules and DMs. So the logical conclusion of rules not mattering is... not wasting time and money on the PHB, MM, and DMG. After all, if you're just going to house rule it, why bother with the rules at all? Just make it up as you go along.
After all, the DM plays *his* way, and if you don't like it leave.
