Seeking Practical Advice on...Symbol Spells

[JimAde]

Now, your point must be (and I assume this is Patryn's point) is that the symbol is visible and legible at 60ft (or less). This does not mean that's it's not ALSO visible and legible at greater than 60ft. I'll buy that, but wouldn't rule it that way myself, but I can't buy the idea that you can separate them arbitrarily (i.e. making it either visible or legible but not both).

No, I maintain that it can be visible before it is legible. I'm not separating them arbitrarily, but simply assuming you can see a letter/glyph/word from a greater distance than you can actually read it.

The reason I wouldn't rule it that way, just so you know my reason in case it matters, is because the spell is high level. I can't think it would make the spell worthwhile to be so easily detected. Really, having it visible and/or (giving you the benefit of the doubt here) legible beyond the spell's range makes it near worthless, certainly making the huge expense a joke. That basically says, "Okay, don't put this down a long hallway because that's stupid."

Now that's a reason I can get behind. I'm still not sure I would rule the same way, but game balance is certainly something to consider.

 

[Jarrod]

Mmm boolean logic!

So what we have is: a AND b. This is true if a is true and b is true, and false in the three other possible cases (a false b true, a false b false, a true b false).

To invert it, that is NOT(a AND b), we want a function that is _false_ if a=true and b=true, and true in all other cases. Take the result of (a AND b) and invert it. That function is ((not a) OR (not b)).

So, the opposite of visible AND legible is ((NOT visible) OR (NOT legible)). Thus, the symbol being either not visible or not legible (or both) is acceptible.

Given that you could argue that legible implies visible, we have that it _can_ be (visible and NOT legible), but not (legible and NOT visible).

So a symbol at greater than 60 feet can be visible and not legible, and fulfil the NOT(visible AND legible) requirement.

 

[Kelleris]

The reason I wouldn't rule it that way, just so you know my reason in case it matters, is because the spell is high level. I can't think it would make the spell worthwhile to be so easily detected. Really, having it visible and/or (giving you the benefit of the doubt here) legible beyond the spell's range makes it near worthless, certainly making the huge expense a joke. That basically says, "Okay, don't put this down a long hallway because that's stupid."

I don't see why this would be the case. The party *might* (under unusual conditions) be able to spot the symbol more than 60 feet away, and tell that it's "a symbol of some sort." That hardly amounts to bypassing it, or even identifying it. I'd say the necromancer's still getting his money's worth.

As for putting it in a hallway like that, there could be valid strategic reasons why that's the best place for it, reasons that are worth the (very minor) decrease in the trap's effectiveness.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Actually, it does mean that. The opposite of "X and Y" is "Not X and Not Y". It's certainly not "X and Not Y" or "maybe X and Not Y".

No, it isn't.

We have the initial statement: (X and Y)

This statement evaluates to true when X is true and Y is true. It is false when X is false, Y is false, or both are false:

True: (X and Y)
False: (!X and Y), (X and !Y), (!X and !Y)

As you can see, if either !X or !Y is true, then the entire statement evaluates to false.

In other words, the opposite of (X and Y) is not (!X and !Y), it's (!X or !Y).

 

[Cabral]

What Patryn said ... now I can never remember which is the inverse, the converse, or the Reebok ...

 

[Shadeus]

More on topic, Symbol of Death is just nasty. Our DM threw one against us last session. He had a golem standing on top of it. When the golem moved, it revealed the symbol and let the fun ensue. A little rough to an 11th-level party, but my character didn't buy the farm on that one, so I can't complain.

The symbol spells can have criteria that trigger it (or not trigger it). If you wanted to, you could have the PCs try to figure out what the criteria is. Maybe there are some notes or something that indicate what his thought process was in designing the symbol. The alternative I see is letting them know where the symbol of death is so they can think up a way to by-pass it (teleport, for example).

If you are dealing with a high-level party, then I'd say let them stumble into it. The PCs definitely have their own nasty tactics, let the NPCs have theirs as well.

 

[Cabral]

The problem is that the Symbol of Death, being a Death effect doesn't allow any characters it kills to be resurrected except by Resurrection. As long as a party has access to Resurrection, a 7th level cleric spell, it should be okay ... as long as someone survives. Another option to revive someone slain through Death effects is Reality Revision (a 9th level Psion/wilder power).

If you use Incantations, or want to, you can also use the d20 modern SRD Incantations rules, which are more complete than the Unearthed Arcana rules, to create an Incantation for raising the dead.

 

[Infiniti2000]

My last comment on Boolean logic

We have "visible and legible within 60ft" as our basis. Let X=visible and Y=legible. Within 60ft, X = true AND Y = true. You could rewrite this as X AND Y = true and maintain correctness. Outside of 60ft, is there anything that says what happens? Actually, on second reading I don't think it does. Just being visible and legible at 60ft does not define what happens at 80ft, though a clearly valid assumption that it's visible and legible at less than 60ft should hold. Perhaps the reason for mentioning 60ft is merely to define that the symbol can be activated at its maximum range?

Nevertheless, let's assume that the 60ft range given is actually intended as a limitation (more so than the Range of the spell). The key at this point is to phrase the Boolean logic correctly. One way is to negate the original equations such as !(X AND Y) = true, or !X = true AND !Y = true. Unlike originally, these statements are no longer strictly equal. The second one with two separate statements clearly shows that both must be false (i.e. the symbol is neither visible nor legible beyond 60ft). The first can be rewritten as Patryn says to !X OR !Y which means either. The problem with that is that Patryn (and others) choose Y to be the 'culprit' rather arbitrarily and not both. Why is not merely not legible when not visible and not legible is also possible? Or, perhaps not visible but legible? The variables must be dependent if we disallow the latter choice, so that means that writing it as !(X AND Y) is inherently flawed.

Thus, if you put any limitation on it at all, it must be that neither is allowed. Do not choose one or the other.

PS I reserve the right to change my mind at a moment's notice. Particularly if I reread this later and wonder if it made any sense at all or if an argument can be made to send me to Arkum.

 

[Cabral]

I'm not positive that made sense but ... my interpretation is that the symbol spell is triggered when read and the 60 ft is a mundane limitation on how far the symbol can be read. So, my interpretation is that being visible AND legible at 60 ft is a simplified way of saying that it's legible up to 60 ft away if visible.

 

[JimAde]

Actually I just re-read the description and the caster can specify that the symbol is triggered just by being looked at (as opposed to read). The triggering creature still has to be within 60 feet, though.