D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[clearstream]

There is a difference between "meaningless" and "redundant". The claim has been that the text in question is the latter.

It sounds like you agree at the very least that what would be significant as rules text would be redundant as an observation. Here is the full paragraph.

A minion is destroyed when it takes any amount of damage. Damage from an attack or from a source that doesn’t require an attack roll (such as the paladin’s divine challenge or the fighter’s cleave) destroys a minion. If a minion is missed by an attack that normally deals damage on a miss, however, it takes no damage.​

Of the three sentences, one is chosen to be observation. How is this putative observation identified as such rather than picking some text to be rules and choosing other to be redundant observation? Or are none of the three sentences in that paragraph rules?

 

[Enrahim]

It sounds like you agree at the very least that what would be significant as rules text would be redundant as an observation. Here is the full paragraph.

A minion is destroyed when it takes any amount of damage. Damage from an attack or from a source that doesn’t require an attack roll (such as the paladin’s divine challenge or the fighter’s cleave) destroys a minion. If a minion is missed by an attack that normally deals damage on a miss, however, it takes no damage.​

Of the three sentences, one is chosen to be observation. How is this putative observation identified as such rather than picking some text to be rules and choosing other to be redundant observation? Or are none of the three sentences in that paragraph rules?

All the sentences would be redundant? The first 2 sentences describe in other words that it has 1 hp (what that means), while the third is a reformulation of the sentence written after the hp of every minion in the book (which clearly is spesific to the monster, and hence overrides the damage on miss entries with less sepecificity)

 

[Maxperson]

That sort of argument came up upthread. Essentially, the relevant game text is taken to be a meaningless observation whereas I am taking it to be a meaningful rule.

One principle that I apply to rules interpretation is that, given a choice between two interpretations, one of which voids the text of meaning, the interpretation that retains meaning in the text is preferable. That's not my only reason for interpreting as I do of course.

No text is being voided of meaning with what I'm saying. The text in the DMG simply means what the 1 hit point in the stat block means. D&D, and other games, quite often repeat information in multiple areas of the game.

What is happening is that we have two different meanings being attached to the statement in the 4e DMG. One which works along side the other rules of the game and sticks to the same meaning of destroyed as is used everywhere else when a monster is reduced to 0 by PC attacks. And one which treats this one use of destroyed the same as very explicitly well defined exceptions such as vampires being destroyed by sunlight.

You seem dead set on treating a vague use of destroyed, as is used when monsters such as undead, constructs, etc. are reduced to 0, like the few very specifically defined exceptions.

 

[clearstream]

All the sentences would be redundant? The first 2 sentences describe in other words that it has 1 hp (what that means), while the third is a reformulation of the sentence written after the hp of every minion in the book (which clearly is spesific to the monster, and hence overrides the damage on miss entries with less sepecificity)

Yes, and the whole paragraph is repeated in in the MM Glossary. Therefore to call out just one sentence as "redundant" isn't right: it's all redundant.

The third sentence is confirmed as a rule, seeing as it is repeated on every minion. So that text while redundant, is not just an observation. Clearly it doesn't cease to be a rule just because it's repeated.

It is therefore right to say that this paragraph containing three sentences contains at least one rule. To assert that the first two are observations becomes picking and choosing as there's nothing about those sentences that differentiates them from the third that the designers packaged them with.

I see why @Maxperson entertains it in support of their argument, but it continues to appear arbitrary. With no explanation for how text supposed to amount to needless observations is distinguished from rules. And giving "destroyed" a special meaning here when it is everywhere else used with consistency.

 

[Moving Pictures]

This is the third time people have twisted my words into something ridiculous simply because they either didn't read the whole post or didn't read the person to whom I was responding originally.

Welcome to the Interweb.

 

[Hussar]

I think I follow you. You seem to believe that I read

A minion is destroyed when it takes any amount of damage.​

​

As​

​

A minion is destroyed if and only if it takes any amount of damage.​

​

But nowhere do I propose doing so! I read "when" as simply "when" (non-exclusive). Hence your worry here relates to some interpretation other than mine.

Ok. so, if "when" is non-exclusive, then it includes being killed. Thus, the rule for not dealing lethal damage applies.

You can't have it both ways. Either destroyed includes "killed" (non-exclusive interpretation), which means you are wrong, or destroyed doesn't include killed (exclusive interpretation) which means that minions are immortal which is obviously a ridiculous interpretation (which I think we both agree on).

Either way, your interpretation doesn't hold water.

 

[Hussar]

You seem to be equating specific rules exceptions like indestructible, destroyed by sunlight, and triple skulls with a general statement that creatures with 1 hit point are destroyed by any damage. If I have 1000 non-minion children with 1 hit point, all 1000 will be killed by any damage.

Killed/destroyed by any damage is just a function of having 1 hit point, not some special exception mechanic. The game has no ability to do a partial hit point of damage, so any damage will kill/destroy something with 1 hit point.

You are also equating specific forms of destruction such as indestructible, triple skulls, and destroyed by sunlight with the general destroyed that happens whenever ANY undead, elemental, construct, etc. hits 0 hit points.

The death knight has no special destroyed mechanic, yet is destroyed and not killed, and can be knocked out. The same with many demons, elementals, etc.

Destroyed without something very specific like sunlight, doesn't preclude being knocked out. Minions are not destroyed by any specific mechanic. They are destroyed simply by being damaged by anything as a result of having only 1 hit point. If your argument were correct, they wouldn't have any hit points at all, because they wouldn't need that 1 hit point to represent what is lost when damaged. They would simply have no hit points and would be destroyed upon being damaged. That they have 1 hit point indicates that the "destroyed by any damage" is the same as the "killed by any damage" that any non-minion beast or humanoid with 1 hit point has.

Let's not forget the cherry picking too. After all, zombies, skeletons, ghouls, wights, specters and ghosts all can be destroyed AND incapacitated. Never minding every construct in the game. But, apparently, even though I can incapacitate a ghoul or a zombie, it becomes impossible to do so to a ghoul or zombie minion.

And we get right back to the endlessly shifting goalposts that characterize any of these conversations. Minion is just a game mechanic that has no real in game meaning and was never meant to. An orc's HP don't suddenly change because he picks up a bow and becomes a skirmisher. If the orc has entered the combat as a brute, it stays a brute, regardless of what changes to his weaponry occur during combat. The rules aren't meant for that. Combat roles for monsters are simply a short hand abstraction for creating interesting combat encounters. They are not meant, in any way, to be a reflection of the in game fiction. Instead, you are intended to build that fiction IN PLAY as a result of what happens in play.

Exactly what people claim to want to do when they play an RPG. That whole, "My game has no story". "My game's story only emerges after the fact". Well, guess what? 4e gives you the building blocks for your story, but, it's up to you, the player to create the story after the fact. ((You here being the general you, not anyone in particular))

 

[Hussar]

Yes, and the whole paragraph is repeated in in the MM Glossary. Therefore to call out just one sentence as "redundant" isn't right: it's all redundant.

The third sentence is confirmed as a rule, seeing as it is repeated on every minion. So that text while redundant, is not just an observation. Clearly it doesn't cease to be a rule just because it's repeated.

It is therefore right to say that this paragraph containing three sentences contains at least one rule. To assert that the first two are observations becomes picking and choosing as there's nothing about those sentences that differentiates them from the third that the designers packaged them with.

I see why @Maxperson entertains it in support of their argument, but it continues to appear arbitrary. With no explanation for how text supposed to amount to needless observations is distinguished from rules. And giving "destroyed" a special meaning here when it is everywhere else used with consistency.

Except that your interpretation of the word "destroyed" gives ludicrous results - immortal minions that can never be killed since they can only be destroyed. OTOH, if destroyed includes "killed" then the rules for dealing non-lethal damage apply. No one is saying that it's not a rule. Minions certainly are destroyed when they take 1 HP of damage. Fair enough. No problem. But, we're saying that destroyed includes killed (since it obviously does) and therefore the rules for applying non-lethal damage also apply, since they also apply to any creature like undead or constructs which can also be incapacitated by damage unless that specific creature type contains an exception to the rule.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Can we go back to arguing if the Darkness spell cast in complete dark will actually generate light?

That was fun.

 

[Maxperson]

Can we go back to arguing if the Darkness spell cast in complete dark will actually generate light?

That was fun.

I missed that tangent. What the heck was the argument for it generating light?