NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5473349" data-attributes="member: 22779">Pawsplay - I'm not sure if your example fits your idea of "a lot of adjudication".  You're positing a pretty corner case example, although one that can come up, and calling that a lot of adjudication.  How often does a PC ready an action against an opponent with a 15 foot reach?  I'm going to say that's not a frequent occurance, certainly not something that's going to come up all the time.Although, your point is well taken.  Heck, the whole "go swimming in lava" thing irks some people to no end, despite the fact that, well, how often does lava actually feature in a D&D game...  RC - I was cogitating your Human Torch example and I realized something.  Both approaches can give the same results and frequently will.  For example, in your example, the Fiction First ruling is that the Human Torch goes out if he's doused in water because that speaks to a certain level of verisimilitude.  A Mechanics First approach could come up with the same result, although for different reasons - The Human Torch's power's are pretty powerful - flight, including extremely fast flight, nova blast, the ability to turn off his powers, etc - so the water limitation is simply a balancing element to bring it in line with the rest of the Fantastic Four.Conversely, you could argue that lots of things actually do burn underwater, so, why not the Human Torch?  So, you have a Fiction First approach that lets him burn underwater, for a certain level of verisimilitude, and a Mechanics First approach that says that his powers are in line with the rest of the FF and thus don't need to be restricted.Granted, this doesn't cover lack of oxygen - but then, dying from lack of oxygen is likely a bigger worry than not being able to light a fire.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  My point is, just like the thread title says, if all roads lead to Rome, does it matter how you got there?  And, beyond that, even if it does matter, can you tell the difference after the fact?Are the Human Torch's limitations fiction first or mechanics first?  I don't know.  You can make a pretty good argument either way.  AFAIC, since it could go either way, what difference does it make?In other words, I don't really care about how you got to the end point, it's the end point that matters and since you cannot reverse engineer the decision process after the fact, it doesn't really matter.</blockquote>

Verification