A quick question to those who think that Uncanny Dodge protects against feinting, stunning, grappling, and all conditions except being immobilized: do you think that this is actually how the rule
should be handled or do you think that it's a stupid mistake due to apparently ambiguous syntax? If it's a mistake due to ambiguous syntax, why the big fuss; why not just house-rule it to the reasonable version and move on?
(However, I don't think that the syntax is ambiguous--I more or less agree with Caliban: people are constructing arguments to make what is clear seem ambiguous and creating confusion that isn't really present in the text).
Quasqueton said:
She retains her [smooth complexion] even if she is [set on fire] or [dowsed with acid]. However, she still loses her [smooth complexion] if [she decomposes after death].
So, can her skin be blemished by a dagger cut? By frostbite? By bee stings?
Or is her smooth complexion *only* protected against fire and acid?
He cannot be killed even if caught in an atomic blast or thrust into the sun. However, he can still die of old age.
So, can a sword in the heart kill him? Can decapitation? How about starvation? Or is he only protected against an atomic bomb and the sun's core.
A lot of the argument for "Uncanny Dodge works against feints" seems to turn on examples like this. Unfortunately for those who want to make this case, the argument is inconclusive.
In the cases above, the examples gain their persuasive power not from the gramatical construction of the sentence but from the perceived severity of the situations described. The examples don't rest upon questions of grammar at all but rather upon questions of perceived severity and what other information can be inferred from the given statements.
My reaction to the first one is conditioned by this being a D&D thread. Since, being set on fire, doused in acid, cut by a dagger, stung by bees (poison), and frozen are damage types of similar severity in D&D, I interpret the sentence in a non-exclusive manner. After all, lots of creatures in D&D are immune to several damage types but not others. A troll for instance, suffers no permanent harm even when frozen with cold or cut with a sword but can still be suffocated or starved. (He suffers permanent harm from being burned or doused in acid too but the sentence will not generally be understood to exclude such damage).
On the other hand, the second example, "He cannot be killed even if caught in an atomic blast or thrust into the sun. However, he can still die of old age" seems to be describing a far less vulnerable state. Since atomic blasts and being thrust into the sun are some of the most severe forms of damage that we know, and dying of old age is generally thought to be a different kind of thing altogether, the implication is that the character is immune to lesser forms of physical harm. Why bother telling us that a character cannot be killed by an atomic blast if he can be killed by dynamite (a similar but less severe cause of death)?
The negative structure of the second example also differentiates it from the first. Cannot be killed is a much stronger statement than "retains smooth complexion." When it is followed by two superlative examples of the most dramatic and surest ways to kill someone imaginable, it implies that lesser measures won't work. The first statement, OTOH, with its positive nature ("retains smooth complexion") and non-superlative "even if"s does not necessarily carry the same implications. Even if "doused in acid" certainly implies that the lesser condition of "splashed with acid" would not damage her complexion. It makes no guarantees about greater conditions however. How about immersed in acid? What if she's flayed alive or fed into an industrial paper shredder?
Now, applying this to the text at hand "retains dex bonus even if flatfooted or attacked by an invisible opponent. Still loses dex bonus if immobilized", it seems to me that the structure of this statement is significantly different from either of the two examples. Flatfooted, attacked by invisible opponents, and immobilized are all the same kind of thing: condition descriptions for a living character. The first two conditions, are also recognizably less severe than the third. (It's therefore more analogous to "remains conscious even if struck with a baseball bat or sapped with a nightstick but loses consciousness if struck by a Mack Truck at 60 mph" than "remains alive even if at ground 0 of a nuclear blast or cast into the sun but can die of old age").
What is in question is whether a third condition (successfully feinted) is also implied by the statement or can be inferred from it. Now, unlike the "splashed by acid/doused with acid" or the "struck by a baseball bat/struck by a mack truck" examples, the feinted condition is not a lesser version of the same condition specified. Nor does it appear to be a less severe condition in general (like "targetted with a nuclear blast/cut with a dagger"). Instead, it seems, like the troll example above, to be a condition of similar severity. And the "even if X or Y" statement doesn't imply "even if Z" where Z is a dissimilar condition of equal severity to X and Y. . . just like it doesn't imply "even if Z" where Z is a similar condition of greater severity than X or Y. (It does, however, if Z is a similar condition of lesser severity than X or Y, which is why a lot of the examples--particularly the nuclear blast/cast into the sun example--are misleading).
