Spiked Chain, Enlarge Person, and Whirlwind Attack

[Philodendron]

Many other questions were answered in this thread....

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=193205

Thanks to all for your input - and for the link to the old thread.

On a side note, is there a way to search for old threads? I haven't found one yet...

 

[frankthedm]

Thanks to all for your input - and for the link to the old thread.

On a side note, is there a way to search for old threads? I haven't found one yet...

You're welcome.

Well google is how i seach for stuff on this site. Kinda clunky, but it works. Put in;

site:enworld.org

and every other seach paramater you want, like say this;

site:enworld.org frankthedm spiked chain

you'll get this;

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:enworld.org+frankthedm++spiked+chain
google.com/search?q=site%3Aenworld.org+frankthedm++spiked+chain

 

[eamon]

I take issue with this because it implies that common sense and plain reason ARE "ground truth." Is it ever the case in reality that if your common sense tells you something, it must be true? Or is reality better described by a set of rules that describe physical laws?

The idea that you need to have a say in something for it to be true is quite dangerous IMO and has ruined more than just games.

But this discussion is veering off into something other than rules. Let's just say that the basic premise of the two approaches is very different - and unsurprisingly, the results can be different.

We're talking about games, not physics. If everyone at the table agrees with an interpretation, it flies. The rules are nothing more than an agreement to guide how everyone will play. And unlike other games, in which the rules are actually reasonable in size, nobody knows all the D&D rules. Rulings in-game thus depend to a large part on a small number of frequently used rules - and common sense.

The game is most playable when the game world functions as all players expect it to. When it doesn't, you either get disagreements (and the game bogs down as you look for a rule or wait for a ruling), or inconsistencies: the actions of PC's depend on their players grasping the consequences of their (and others') actions. If their intuition doesn't match the actual events, then PC's will inevitable do things based on false assumptions, and suspension of disbelief will be shattered. A believable character doesn't spend half an hour attempting something obviously impossible.

In a very real sense (though not very immediate), the rules are defined by the players' intuitions. At their best, they're a compromise the most number of players can most easily live with and whose effects most naturally match our expectations.

I want to point out a recent thread about evard's black tentacles. That thread essentially concludes that the spells works in the fashion which is least surprising - that the tentacles of the spell try to grapple everyone, all the time, indiscriminately. There is a rules based argument which could lead to the conclusion that those black tentacles selectively grapple new entrants and those they already have a hold on. The point isn't which interpretation is "right": it's that the majority of posters there choose to follow common sense both above literal rules and the FAQ. It's the principle of least surprise: a surprising rule is a bad rule, and given choice, you should choose to interprete it in the least surprising manner.

 

[moritheil]

The point isn't which interpretation is "right": it's that the majority of posters there choose to follow common sense both above literal rules and the FAQ. It's the principle of least surprise: a surprising rule is a bad rule, and given choice, you should choose to interprete it in the least surprising manner.

Intuition means nothing until you have experienced how the world works and have the basis for said intuition. For most of us, that occurs for the real world when we are children.

But in this system of interpretation the game world is a world apart. It does not play by the same rules. Your intuition is meaningless until you have accumulated experience with these rules and gotten used to how the other world works.

The rules are nothing more than an agreement to guide how everyone will play. And unlike other games, in which the rules are actually reasonable in size, nobody knows all the D&D rules.

That's not how my groups tend to play, but perhaps that's because the DMs where I am take pains to be competent. As you said, the rules are an agreement on how people will play, and if you simply run by the seat of your pants, that's fine for gaming but you aren't playing by the rules.

Furthermore, this is a rules forum and discussion of what "most people think" often winds up wildly divergent from what one's actual gaming group thinks; it is of no practical value. The opinions you mention on evard's tentacles are influenced mostly by prior rules under which it did grapple everything. The same thing happened in the past with a discussion of spell immunity. There are still rules at the basis of these decisions.

Or would you allow a new player to create water inside a dragon's brain simply because he insists the restriction "doesn't make sense" to him?

I don't think that in your insistence that common sense is always right, you have allowed for the possibility of other fundamental premises. I also think you refuse to acknowledge the usefulness of this paradigm in settling obnoxious complaints by people who want to get around the rules (deliberately or otherwise.)

I am not demanding that you play by strict RAW; I am only pointing out that some people do that and it has its merits. Your insistence that your way is the only proper way to play strikes me as a little strange.

 

[mvincent]

I am not demanding that you play by strict RAW; I am only pointing out that some people do that and it has its merits. Your insistence that your way is the only proper way to play strikes me as a little strange.

Ditto from the opposing side. However, we are merely trying to relate that:
1) (Many) more people will find your way strange than our way
2) The rules and their writer's are not perfect, nor should we expect such. Some common sense is the expected default in interpreting them.

 

[Nail]

FWIW: IMC larger (or bigger) creatures don't have the strange "donut of doubt" posited here.