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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3371640" data-attributes="member: 4937">It's very different in that the player knows both the limitations of the technology and that the technology can be improved and how the technology can be improved.This argument is based on assumptions about the technology which cannot necessarily be justified.  In particular, in the example the character is trying to develop a spell which causes a physical effect and doesn't depend on line of sight.  (You can't see inside the skull.)  The DM is perfectly justified in ruling that this is an Epic effect (go looking through the spell list for things that cause a physical effect and don't depend on line of sight), not telling the player that this is in fact an Epic effect, set the spellcraft DC to 60 or so, and letting the player waste as much research time as they want.It's not important whether it is or not.  What is important is that players know much more about how technology works than they know about how magic works, and there are much easier options for a DM setting limits to how magic works that don't break the internal consitancy of the game than there are for a DM to break the laws of physics without breaking the internal consistancy of thier game.  In fact, I'd say the average DM can't explain why a gun doesn't work in his campaign world.  This is why typically DM's avoid introducing explosives into a campaign world.  Once you admit the existance of explosives, it becomes very difficult to restrict guns except by fiat.  You can do it, but it isn't necessarily intuitive how you'd do it.You know, I've been justly accused of alot of things - arrogance, bombast, nerdiness, being over confrontational, and so forth - but I'm fairly widely considered to be a 'smart' guy.  Do not assume that you can just control that sort of group dynamic by simply trying to get the players to act reasonably (for example, by pointing out that thier players couldn't possibly know what they know), because first of all, its a not a grey issue (no DM insists that a character not know anything that the player knows), and second of all its a bad idea to turn the situation into some sort of contest of wills which is exactly what it will turn into when you just flat out tell a player 'No.'.  Probably.  That sort of player is always trying to game the DM and I pity the poor inexperienced DM that tries to control one, but as I said magic and technology are very different cases.  That sort of player will probably try to claim that his character background qualifies him for bonus feats at first level, but I would hope even innocent DM's would see through that argument.  (If not, the answer is some tactful variation on, 'You can write a background for a high level character and attach it to a 1st level character, but you can't then claim that in doing so your character is high level or even that you wrote a good background.  If you want to have a character that has survived alot of hardships, play my game and you'll have lots of chances, but don't invent the hardships and imagine that you survived them. 'K?')And all the DM 'No's' in the world can't make a player play the game in a functional social manner, which is why its widely accepted wisdom that you shouldn't tell a player 'No'.  Look it up.No, it shows that I've had alot of experience.   What I've discovered over the years is that even your friends can be unreasonable at times.  This is especially true if you are playing with a group of really smart people.If you think, "I'm the DM so this is the way its going to be." is an elegant way to address the inevitable table conflicts, then you haven't been doing this for long.   Suggestions like this suggest to me that you've not been playing as long as I have.  Touch attacks (meaning armor becomes absolutely irrelevant) are just a bad idea.  Consider the multiple threads on whether spells that allow this are fundamentally broken.</blockquote>

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