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<blockquote data-quote="Arial Black" data-source="post: 7772377" data-attributes="member: 6799649"><p>I agree with you that, from a game design perspective, you could handle it either way. My objection is not that it could not be handled that way in the rules; my objection is that it makes no sense to handle it that way in the fiction, given that the game rules should enable the fiction.</p><p></p><p>I don't think it is an unreasonable burden to expect the players to have to use their intellects to handle things they do know and things they don't. Coping with the uncertain is part of the challenge.</p><p></p><p>Will that first baddy be killed by one beam, or will it take more? How many will it take? These are things that neither the player nor their character would necessarily know for a fact, although each could have an educated guess.</p><p></p><p>In previous editions it was no hardship for the caster of <em>scorching ray</em> to choose the target for each beam <em>before</em> any are resolved, because that matched the fiction of an instantaneous effect and the player/PC has to make judgement calls. This is a good thing.</p><p></p><p>If both ways of resolving the instantaneous effect made sense then I would have no objection for a game design which chose one over the other. My problem here is that one option makes sense in the fiction while the other does not, and JC seems to have chosen the one that does not.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Arial Black, post: 7772377, member: 6799649"] I agree with you that, from a game design perspective, you could handle it either way. My objection is not that it could not be handled that way in the rules; my objection is that it makes no sense to handle it that way in the fiction, given that the game rules should enable the fiction. I don't think it is an unreasonable burden to expect the players to have to use their intellects to handle things they do know and things they don't. Coping with the uncertain is part of the challenge. Will that first baddy be killed by one beam, or will it take more? How many will it take? These are things that neither the player nor their character would necessarily know for a fact, although each could have an educated guess. In previous editions it was no hardship for the caster of [i]scorching ray[/i] to choose the target for each beam [i]before[/i] any are resolved, because that matched the fiction of an instantaneous effect and the player/PC has to make judgement calls. This is a good thing. If both ways of resolving the instantaneous effect made sense then I would have no objection for a game design which chose one over the other. My problem here is that one option makes sense in the fiction while the other does not, and JC seems to have chosen the one that does not. [/QUOTE]
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