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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3507174" data-attributes="member: 4937">I suppose that I can have nothing to do with a statement that contains "intoducing a house rule", when I'm the one that suggested the idea?That's a false analogy.  When we are speaking of the clarity of something, the fact that a large number of reasonable people can't agree over its meaning is sufficient to prove that it's unclear.  Now, if you wish to say that anyone that disagrees with you is unreasonable, then by all means make that argument.  Are you claiming that "Symbols are used as traps" is a wild guess at the designer's intention?You mean other than the historical usage of the spell, the fact that the entire write up is couched in the language of traps ('triggers', 'passwords', 'magic traps', 'disable device', etc.), the 10 minute casting time, and the various fair warning and usage qualifiers like 'plain sight and in a prominent location' and 'you can’t use a symbol of death offensively' that are clearly intended to limit the spell in some fashion.  Yeah, other than that and the fact that the write up says, "Magical traps such as symbol of death...", I don't have any evidence whatsoever to back up my assertion that the designer intended the spell to create a trap.Well, that is the trick isn't it?  I'm mean what you here call 'intuit their intention' you earlier called 'making wild guesses'.  Which is it?  Should we be guessing thier intentions and ruling based on them or not?  For example, you seem perfectly content to claim that trapping your spell books is within the intent of the designers, and I don't necessarily disagree with that, but it certainly isn't an example in the text.They only provide one example of a wrong use, and they don't explain why its a wrong use except that it is 'offensive'.  We don't really have any guidelines for knowing what is or isn't offensive, and most notably the example that you can't use a symbol as a touch attack is just that - an example.  It's clearly not from the context intended to be an all inclusive list of the wrong offensive uses of the spell, otherwise the clause "You can’t use a symbol of death offensively" would have no purpose.  We are given no examples of what might constitute an offensive use in the far more problimatic cases of a symbol triggered by viewing it (ranged attack rather than melee).I see.  Put a rule in front of 15 or 20 different DM's and get 15 or 20 completely different interpretations of the rule and that constitutes creating a problem out of whole-cloth.  There have been scores of different interpretations of whether or not the 'bouncy ball' was a legitimate usage of the spell and no one has a consistant ruling that could be applied in all circumstances in logically consistant way.  It doesn't take a weaver to see a problem here.</blockquote>

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