Meeting minimum feat prerequisites

[Scion]

This is not a fair example

::sighs:: whatever.

You can no longer make use of your car insurance as long as you don't have a car

when I run out of gas I no longer have a car? Nice. I'll be sure to tell the insurance company that I am not going to pay them as my car has suddenly dissapeared.

Now, the reason it's not a fair example is that car insurance often applies to you when you're driving other cars.

so you are saying that my example doesnt work because you are assuming facts not in evidence? In fact, you are assuming things that are completely untrue and then saying that it doesnt work because these new items break the system?

No, if you want to be fair to the example you have to actually use the example. Not make up strawmen and insert things that were not there to begin with.

It is simple. I have a car. Because I have a car I can get insurance on that car. My car runs out of gas. I can no longer use my car. However, by some strange quirk of fate, I still have car insurance.

Under your system this logic chain fails. Under mine it is completely true.

In real life this logic chain works just fine.

Now, real life and the game dont always have many parallels, however this is merely an example of how things relate, the chain works in both.

the fact that your car doesn't run means that you aren't deriving any benefit from your car insurance. This is due to the setup of things.

Not deriving any benefit from my insurance? Sure I am! If someone hits my car while it is parked there then my insurance company still fixes things, they might even put gas into the tank so that I can use it again.

Just because my car isnt working doesnt make my insurance turn off.

A fairer example would be "Can you defeat Nixon in a presidential race?"

For you to race, you must be alive. For him to race, he must be alive.
Nixon is not alive.
Thus, Nixon cannot run for the presidency.
Thus, you cannot defeat Nixon in a presidential race, because he can't run.

You do not have the prereqs in order to run against one another. Your example fails right away.

To compare them, your guy couldnt even get power attack in the first place, he never had 13 str.

 

[moritheil]

I have made no such assertion.

No, but as I said, it can easily be said that you need strength to make a Cleave, so your assumption is implicit. Sure, that is an assumption, but that's all we're doing at this point. You assume facts that lead to the conclusion that yours is the glorious and true path, and that my interpretation of the RAW is flawed. I point out other assumptions that could just as easily and realistically be made that lead the other way.

I also find this interpretation logical, but I'm coming to see that you and I do not have the same logical thought processes. Still trying to figure out how one can work hard and train at being born to a line descended from effreeti.

 

[moritheil]

You do not have the prereqs in order to run against one another. Your example fails right away.

To compare them, your guy couldnt even get power attack in the first place, he never had 13 str.

No, see, that's the point. You don't meet the prereqs for Cleave. That's why you can't Cleave when you have less than 13 str.

Nixon was alive once; he's just not alive now. Your character had 13 str once; he just doesn't have it now.

EDIT: Changed it to You don't "meet" the prereqs for Cleave, to be less ambiguous with the wording.

 

[moritheil]

It is simple. I have a car. Because I have a car I can get insurance on that car. My car runs out of gas. I can no longer use my car. However, by some strange quirk of fate, I still have car insurance.

Under your system this logic chain fails. Under mine it is completely true.

In real life this logic chain works just fine.

Now, real life and the game dont always have many parallels, however this is merely an example of how things relate, the chain works in both.

Please note that I said above: The car insurance company does not fundamentally care if you have a car. They are a business. They care about making money. You keep paying them money, and don't get into accidents? Great! They'll keep insuring your car. They don't really know, at any given moment, if you have a car, unless they're spying on you.

Cleave, by way of contrast, fundamentally "cares" about whether or not you qualify for the feat. It's right there in the SRD quote: when you cease to meet the prereqs, you can't use the feat. That further implies that it "knows" when you cease to meet the prereqs.

 

[moritheil]

if you have the feat (in this case power attack) and can't use the feat, then cleave is fine. If you lose the feat then you canb't use cleave.

I can just as easily assert that you can't "use" the feat for the purposes of qualifying for Cleave. There's no RAW that anyone's quoted that unambiguously proves this one way or another.

 

[Scion]

I can just as easily assert that you can't "use" the feat for the purposes of qualifying for Cleave.

Sure, you can say it, but without raw backing it is merely your opinion and a houserule.

There's no RAW that anyone's quoted that unambiguously proves this one way or another.

Actually there is, you just dont like it.

 

[moritheil]

Sure, you can say it, but without raw backing it is merely your opinion and a houserule.

Actually there is, you just dont like it.

No, my statement is entirely valid. You can't prove that you can use the feat to qualify for other feats because that little snippet of text you have from the SRD doesn't explicitly state so. Please stop waving it around as if it does, and actually look at the thing.

You state that it doesn't need to state it, but that's because you refuse to consider the possibility that you cannot use a feat you currently do not have access to to meet the requirements of other feats. You further state that my assertions are unqualified, and try to claim legitimacy, when in reality, yours aren't any better qualified. You don't seem to like my arguments, perhaps because I put in the throwaway line about Ranger, since Patryn had covered the most direct argument and I had to put in something new if I was going to be contributing to the thread. I suspect that this biased you against all my subsequent statements. Or maybe it was my admittedly sloppy shortening of "does not have, for all intents and purposes, because he does not have access to" to "does not have."

I tried to follow your arguments and got stuck. You assert that feats are training, and the product of hard work, after I mention Bloodline of Fire. Could you maybe give me a run-through of how one can work hard, and be born by a Calishite descended from effreeti? As I said above, if you can explain that to me, I'll probably understand the rest.

 

[Scion]

You can't prove that you can use the feat to qualify for other feats because that little snippet of text you have from the SRD doesn't explicitly state so.

The burden of proof is way in your court, and you have put up nothing to support your position.

By default, you have the feat. All that you need for other feats in the chain is to 'have' the prereqs, not be able to 'use' them.

Again, the burden of proof is on you. Without it the default will be as I have said it, unless someone wishes to houserule it.

You have the feat, if you fail in the prereqs you still have it, you simply cannot use it.

This mystical 'have but doesnt count for anything' as far as I can tell you made up wholecloth.

Provide some proof.

I tried to follow your arguments and got stuck.

My guess is that this is because you simply want what you are saying to be true, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Even when you yourself can provide no evidence at all.

You assert that feats are training, and the product of hard work, after I mention Bloodline of Fire. Could you maybe give me a run-through of how one can work hard, and be born by a Calishite descended from effreeti?

I explained this before, but you are taking it the wrong way.

The prereq for the feat is that you were born a certain way, the 'feat' itself is training yourself to be able to use this ability.

There could very well be people out there with the same, or at least very similar, bloodline but they dont get the ability. Because they didnt take the feat. They didnt figure out how to make it work and so it is forever lost to them (if this feat can only be taken at first level, I have no idea where it is from or what it does, I can only assume from what you have written).

You are talking about one conclusion and useing pieces from a different arguement, they do not connect in the way you are placing them.

The being born a certain way is a prereq, it is something that is just like having that str of 13 in this instance.

The actual feat is bringing forth your ability to 'use' it for something.

Without that feat the bloodline doesnt matter at all, a person could just say, 'I have blood of the whatever in me somewhere' and generally it'd be ok. No game effect (unless the dm wants to make it so, but then it is out of the pcs hands).

 

[moritheil]

The burden of proof is way in your court, and you have put up nothing to support your position.

Totally wrong. You are the one who has to prove that you retain the feats.

Take a look at PrCs. If you lose access to them, you lose access to all the benefits of the PrC, including meeting requirements for feats.

Clearly a "cascade failure" paradigm of feats is in effect here.

This is a logical conclusion.

Furthermore, the statement that you cannot use feats that you no longer qualify for hints at this very same cascade failure paradigm. If in doubt, should we not err on the side of disqualification for feats? (Of course, you admit no doubt and no weakness, even if it is shown to you explicitly, so I don't imagine that this will do much for you. But I hope.)

My guess is that this is because you simply want what you are saying to be true, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Even when you yourself can provide no evidence at all.

No, actually, I was saying that I didn't understand it as a polite way to say that you were wrong. I was giving you an out, in case you wanted to realize that feats do not necessarily represent training. You refused to take it, but that's your choice.

 

[moritheil]

so you are saying that my example doesnt work because you are assuming facts not in evidence? In fact, you are assuming things that are completely untrue and then saying that it doesnt work because these new items break the system?

No, if you want to be fair to the example you have to actually use the example. Not make up strawmen and insert things that were not there to begin with.

It is simple. I have a car. Because I have a car I can get insurance on that car. My car runs out of gas. I can no longer use my car. However, by some strange quirk of fate, I still have car insurance.

Under your system this logic chain fails. Under mine it is completely true.

In real life this logic chain works just fine.

Now, real life and the game dont always have many parallels, however this is merely an example of how things relate, the chain works in both.



Not deriving any benefit from my insurance? Sure I am! If someone hits my car while it is parked there then my insurance company still fixes things, they might even put gas into the tank so that I can use it again.

Just because my car isnt working doesnt make my insurance turn off.

Just as a side note - you said this example covered a situation where the char no longer benefits from Power Attack since his str drops below 13.

In good faith, I tried to fix it so that, accordingly, you wouldn't benefit from the insurance.

Instead you scoffed at me and noted that you DID still benefit from the insurance, and you COULD use it still - when your car got hit.

Do you see why I called it a bad example?

If the example were to be true to form, you would no longer be able to use the insurance in any way whatsoever, just as you no longer benefit from Power Attack and cannot use it. (To make this clear: You cannot still use "part of" Power Attack in the way that you could use part of your insurance coverage. Instead the RAW states that you cannot use Power Attack, period. You cannot use Power Attack at all.)