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Paganboy28
2009-08-26, 02:11 AM
Ok maybe I am being dumb... but what does RAW mean?

Rules as written?

CyberRebirth
2009-08-26, 02:13 AM
Yep, Rules as Written is correct

sonofzeal
2009-08-26, 02:22 AM
The Spanish Optimization: Our single great weapon is fear, and supplies...... our two great weapons, fear, and supplies and ruthless efficiency...... our three devastating weapons fear, supplies, ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the RAW!...I'll go out now...

(credit to RadicalTaoist)

lesser_minion
2009-08-26, 04:55 AM
That's essentially right.

A RAW interpretation of a rule generally looks only at what can be inferred directly from the text, without attempting to work out the meaning that was intended or attempting to interpret how the situation would work in the game world (many rules intentionally ignore certain aspects of reality because they would make the model too complicated. Every rule is a compromise between working in general and being three thousand pages long...)

PId6
2009-08-26, 05:05 AM
The Spanish Optimization: Our single great weapon is fear, and supplies...... our two great weapons, fear, and supplies and ruthless efficiency...... our three devastating weapons fear, supplies, ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the RAW!...I'll go out now...

(credit to RadicalTaoist)
No one ever expects the Spanish Optimization!

BobVosh
2009-08-26, 05:13 AM
Hm! She is made of harder stuff! Cardinal Fang! Fetch...THE CHAROPS CHAIR!

Zeta Kai
2009-08-26, 05:15 AM
It means you should check out some stickied threads, like this one (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18512).

Fiendish_Dire_Moose
2009-08-26, 05:25 AM
What does RAW mean? Well, these days us hardcore RAWers don't know anymore. It used to stand for something; you know what I mean?. The Rejects Ejecting Walruses used to be about launching walruses out of catapults into skyscrapers. It used to be about FUN! Nowadays it's about tearing down the-

Oh. Oh you meant something different..... I'm...Going this way. *exits, stage left*

sofawall
2009-08-26, 05:33 AM
You seem to have spelled REW, not RAW.

Fiendish_Dire_Moose
2009-08-26, 05:44 AM
You seem to have spelled REW, not RAW.

Curses!. A hole in my scheme.

BobVosh
2009-08-26, 06:10 AM
Curses!. A hole in my scheme.

You obviously have been away for a while. It was updated to Rejects Aerating Walruses. That way we could have camo with RAW threads.

Zergrusheddie
2009-08-26, 06:17 AM
Rules as Written:
Your character with a Spell Component Pouch and Quick Draw can produce a mountain of bat guano as a Free Action and then run away as the components stop others from chasing you.

Rules as Intended:
"No, Eddie! I am not letting you pull out 10 tons of crap out of something smaller than your wallet!"

BobVosh
2009-08-26, 06:19 AM
Rules as Written:
Your character with a Spell Component Pouch and Quick Draw can produce a mountain of bat guano as a Free Action and then run away as the components stop others from chasing you.

Rules as Intended:
"No, Eddie! I am not letting you pull out 10 tons of crap out of something smaller than your wallet!"

Actually you don't have to rule 0 that. There is no rule on how much 10 tons of crap prohibits someone from following. So you can just ignore it.

Irreverent Fool
2009-08-26, 06:43 AM
Actually you don't have to rule 0 that. There is no rule on how much 10 tons of crap prohibits someone from following. So you can just ignore it.

Not only that, but bat guano has no listed weight.

obnoxious
sig

lesser_minion
2009-08-26, 06:45 AM
RAW also gives us the Wall of Quarterstaves, the (frankly even worse) Tower Shield of Invisibility (a Tower Shield provides cover, thus you can use the hide skill, which hides you along with all your equipment - including the shield behind which you are hiding) and The Giant's Church of Universal Ignorance.

Oh, and you may also wish to consider buying some 10ft. ladders....

RAW does even better in 4th ed, giving us 'squircles' and the 'end of round cleanup' where characters who don't finish their move on solid ground mysteriously lose all forward momentum

Random832
2009-08-26, 06:47 AM
Not only that, but bat guano has no listed weight.A full spell component pouch does, though... and while it certainly isn't smaller than your wallet, it also doesn't hold 10 tons of anything

ericgrau
2009-08-26, 07:33 AM
"Rules as Written", but often used to thinly disguise "Rules as I Interpret Them" in order to provide a more definitive answer than may be warranted. Often the interpretation used is an excessively literal interpretation in their favor (see 10 tons bat guano above), but other crazy interpretations in the player's favor also happen. Usually if the interpretations weren't in the player's favor no sane person would come to such a conclusion from a natural reading of the rules.

bosssmiley
2009-08-26, 08:44 AM
RAW also gives us the Wall of Quarterstaves, the (frankly even worse) Tower Shield of Invisibility (a Tower Shield provides cover, thus you can use the hide skill, which hides you along with all your equipment - including the shield behind which you are hiding) and The Giant's Church of Universal Ignorance.

Oh, and you may also wish to consider buying some 10ft. ladders....

To break in half and use in the Peasant Railgun I presume?


RAW does even better in 4th ed, giving us 'squircles' and the 'end of round cleanup' where characters who don't finish their move on solid ground mysteriously lose all forward momentum

Squircles? Is that connected to the AoE of 4e's iconic Firecube spell? (I no speaky 4E-nese)

RAW - rules as written
RAI - rules as intended (by the writers)

Thanks to lazy editing and poor maths skills there is often a massive gap between these two concepts.

Zen Master
2009-08-26, 08:57 AM
It's one half of a logical fallacy. The other part is Rules as Intended.

The general view is, that RAI is simply guesswork, whereas RAW is the only solid foundtion on which the game may rest.

It is a fallacy because it completely ignores the fact that until logical positivism gives us a language that is free of equivocation, RAW is almost as open to interpretation as RAI - but less flexible, meaning that where the designers messed up, RAW leaves no recourse but to ignore it and play with whats in the book.

These discussions, however, are only for those who care more about the rules than the roleplay. With possible additions - for instance, I have only a theoretical interest.

lesser_minion
2009-08-26, 08:58 AM
4e considers the diagonal length of a square to be the same as the length of its sides (no counting every other square twice when moving diagonally, and ranges in 3 dimensions are the greater of the horizontal and vertical distance between the attacker and the target). It doesn't actually refer to the resulting non-Euclidean shapes as 'squircles', but it's a decent description of what they are.

As you pointed out, there is also the fact that all areas in 4e are square, leading to the awesome Firecube spell. So at least squircles are consistent.

The ladders are generally broken in half and sold as 10ft poles. After all, the Commoner Railgun causes the object travelling faster than the speed of light to deal damage as a normal thrown object of its size when it hits someone.

Fiendish_Dire_Moose
2009-08-26, 08:59 AM
So, I looked it up, and through thousands of years of research, I figured out what RAW truly means.

It means, "uncooked". :3


4e considers the diagonal length of a square to be the same as the length of its sides (no counting every other square twice when moving diagonally, and ranges in 3 dimensions are the greater of the horizontal and vertical distance between the attacker and the target). It doesn't actually refer to the resulting non-Euclidean shapes as 'squircles', but it's a decent description of what they are.

As you pointed out, there is also the fact that all areas in 4e are square, leading to the awesome Firecube spell. So at least squircles are consistent.

The ladders are generally broken in half and sold as 10ft poles. After all, the Commoner Railgun causes the object travelling faster than the speed of light to deal damage as a normal thrown object of its size when it hits someone.
And that's why I use hexes.

kamikasei
2009-08-26, 09:07 AM
It's one half of a logical fallacy. The other part is Rules as Intended.

The general view is, that RAI is simply guesswork, whereas RAW is the only solid foundtion on which the game may rest.

This is nonsense.

RAW is simply a way to provide a common ground for discussions of the rules. No one suggests that the only way to play the game is with the strictest reading of the rules as they are written in the books, but if we want to discuss the rules in a forum such as this one it does us little good for everyone to insist that the rules say what they feel they were meant to say. We can, of course, usefully discuss what they were meant to say but in many (most?) cases this requires first recognizing that they in fact fail to say that. With that recognition, we can move on to figuring out what the designers actually meant the rule to do and whether you want to modify it to do that or something else in your game.

RAW is contrasted not only to RAI but also to "common (but possibly incompatible) houserules". Your description of "the general view" is simply a strawman.

Aotrs Commander
2009-08-26, 09:08 AM
And that's why I use hexes.

I use feet myself, and just have the square grid for reference ('cos it's easier to draw dungeons on a square grid).

Kurald Galain
2009-08-26, 09:43 AM
The general view is, that RAI is simply guesswork, whereas RAW is the only solid foundtion on which the game may rest.

That is certainly not the general view. For instance, RAW leads to such unplayable oddities as healing-by-drowning, whereas RAI is frequently known because the developers have stated so.

Mushroom Ninja
2009-08-26, 10:40 AM
Oh, and you may also wish to consider buying some 10ft. ladders....


Oh god, don't even start me on the ladders. Everyone in the party I'm DMing for bought one of these just to spite me and the carrying/encumbrance system.

kamikasei
2009-08-26, 10:43 AM
The fact that they're 10 feet long isn't the problem - that's not RAW vs RAI, that's just the handwaving inherent in the encumberance system. It's that one 10-foot ladder, presumably constructed out of two 10-foot poles, is cheaper than the list price for a single 10-foot pole.

shadzar
2009-08-26, 10:48 AM
Rules as Written. The thing is you got to figure out whether that means with or without errata.

Also if it says something is only for dawizards, then wizards cannot have it....So you must obey the typos as well. :smallbiggrin:

Doc Roc
2009-08-26, 10:49 AM
I'm going to take a gentler stance here. Raw is generally much less unclear than it is made out to be within the general functioning of the system. This isn't always true, a lot of idiot-balls made it through editing. On the other hand, considering the sheer volume of material, that's not shocking. What's shocking is the lack of errata and the use of stealth errata in the form of intent statements, cust serv rulings, and sage rulings that have left even things that should be simple to rule on, like the functioning of Leap Attack, very confusing.

Cases like the drowning rules do exist, but people often forget that there's not really a simple RAW rule for stopping the drowning once it starts.

Mushroom Ninja
2009-08-26, 10:51 AM
After all, the Commoner Railgun causes the object travelling faster than the speed of light to deal damage as a normal thrown object of its size when it hits someone.

Actually, it generally throws the object at significantly less than lightspeed (but still pretty darn fast).

To hit lightspeed, you'd need something like 1187178134 peasants.

sofawall
2009-08-26, 11:07 AM
I got 1.18028527 × 10^9 peasants.

Mushroom Ninja
2009-08-26, 11:13 AM
I got 1.18028527 × 10^9 peasants.

You're number is probably closer to the truth than mine. I only rounded to the nearest .1 when converting from meters to feet.

sofawall
2009-08-26, 11:15 AM
I just typed it into google and cooked up some copypasta.

lesser_minion
2009-08-26, 11:17 AM
1,199,169,832 peasants by my count.

You can halve that because only a standard action is needed to throw, giving a final answer of 599,584,916.

So yeah, it's apparently just a high - but Newtonian - velocity. Which means that it really does only do d6+str mod. damage if it hits (if it neared lightspeed, you could argue that it was a Collosal++++ ridiculous size club and hit for massive damage).

Epinephrine
2009-08-26, 11:17 AM
I figured out what RAW truly means.

It means, "uncooked". :3

I think you mean ... UNCOOKED.


And that's why I use hexes.
I like hexes for 2D, but they are no better for 3D. I can see the advantage to squircles and sphubes (or are they cuberes?) in that the squares fill (tile) 2D surfaces, while the square's 3D representation (the cube) is space-filling and regular in 3D.

That's a nice trick that simply can't be done with hexes - hexes fill 2D nicely, but you end up with hexagonal prisms (fill 3D space, but irregular) for 3D movement.

So you simply declare that there is no Euclidean metric in your world, and rely on either the Tchebychev distance (as 4e apparently has, and the unit circle is a square), or the Manhattan distance (the unit cricle is a diamond).

Mushroom Ninja
2009-08-26, 11:18 AM
After all, the Commoner Railgun causes the object travelling faster than the speed of light to deal damage as a normal thrown object of its size when it hits someone.

Actually, the object doesn't do damage like a thrown object. It gets its damage from exploitation of the "falling object damage" system in the DMG.

kamikasei
2009-08-26, 11:19 AM
The key is that the last commoner in the chain doesn't throw the object, but just lets it go.

Mushroom Ninja
2009-08-26, 11:23 AM
The key is that the last commoner in the chain doesn't throw the object, but just lets it go.

Yup. Then he sits back and watches the enemy walls explode (although he's probably too busy burning alive to notice, since the air has probably caught fire).

lesser_minion
2009-08-26, 11:42 AM
Doesn't that require the object to be falling, however?

Which would be, unless you are making human chains dangling over a cliff, not exactly all that likely.

sofawall
2009-08-26, 11:45 AM
I dislike the whole "Just let go" argument, because that is not RAW. As a thought exercise built entirely on silly but accurate RAW, why are these Rules As Make Sense sneaking in?

Mushroom Ninja
2009-08-26, 01:45 PM
Doesn't that require the object to be falling, however?

Damage on falling object table is based on distance fallen or, in other words, velocity at time you hit the ground. The peasant railgun launches an object at a high velocity ([#peasants*5/6] ft/sec.). To find damage, we use the velocity the object was launched at.

ericgrau
2009-08-26, 02:45 PM
I dislike the whole "Just let go" argument, because that is not RAW. As a thought exercise built entirely on silly but accurate RAW, why are these Rules As Make Sense sneaking in?
That's a catchy term and abbreviation. I'm gonna use RAMS from now on whenever discussing the rules, if you don't mind.

sofawall
2009-08-26, 02:59 PM
Hey, cool, I made a term.

Doc Roc
2009-08-26, 03:56 PM
I like it too, can I keeps?

olentu
2009-08-26, 04:12 PM
Damage on falling object table is based on distance fallen or, in other words, velocity at time you hit the ground. The peasant railgun launches an object at a high velocity ([#peasants*5/6] ft/sec.). To find damage, we use the velocity the object was launched at.

If the peasant drops the item then the item will just be dropped in his space or possibly an adjacent space.

Edit: Though I guess the adjacent space could be over a cliff.

Mushroom Ninja
2009-08-26, 07:00 PM
If the peasant drops the item then the item will just be dropped in his space or possibly an adjacent space.


When it is dropped in his space, it goes from a velocity of [#peasants*5/6] ft/sec. to zero. All that energy from its velocity has to go somewhere...
yes to answer this question, you do have to kill a catgirl or two

Milskidasith
2009-08-26, 07:13 PM
Not by RAW.

By RAW, you have an object that passed a few million feet in six seconds and then just stopped. By RAWEWRWPMIMA/S (Rules As Written Except When Real World Physics Make It More Awesome/Sane), then it might do high damage.

Yes, RAMS should be our new term, I agree.

RAMS should be the nice in-between between RAI rule 0 territory, and RAW crazy. So, stuff like "Drowning stops when you leave the water, but it doesn't actually keep you from dying otherwise" is RAMS.

Zeta Kai
2009-08-26, 08:06 PM
Yes, RAMS should be our new term, I agree.

Rules As Makes Sense?

Milskidasith
2009-08-26, 08:12 PM
That's what was stated earlier, yes.

olentu
2009-08-26, 08:17 PM
When it is dropped in his space, it goes from a velocity of [#peasants*5/6] ft/sec. to zero. All that energy from its velocity has to go somewhere...
yes to answer this question, you do have to kill a catgirl or two

Well if we are going to be making up things outside the rules then the obvious answer is that the energy goes back to where it came from in the first place.

Doc Roc
2009-08-26, 08:21 PM
New Rule: The Gameverse preserves itself to the best of its ability, except where contraindicated by the RAW. In short, Grubb Physics.

SlyGuyMcFly
2009-08-26, 08:35 PM
As you pointed out, there is also the fact that all areas in 4e are square, leading to the awesome Firecube spell. So at least squircles are consistent.


But since a square has the same length along it's edges as along it's diagonals, we go around in a full circle and end up with perfectly spherical fireballs. I think. Squircles make my head hurt.

Milskidasith
2009-08-26, 08:37 PM
Perfectly Scubical Firesphubes?, you mean?

Mushroom Ninja
2009-08-26, 08:50 PM
Not by RAW.

By RAW, you have an object that passed a few million feet in six seconds and then just stopped. By RAWEWRWPMIMA/S (Rules As Written Except When Real World Physics Make It More Awesome/Sane), then it might do high damage.


You're probably right about that. However I don't think the Peasant Railgun or the Phantom Steed Collision Explosion count as RAWEWRWPMIMA/S. The "S" jumped ship a long time ago. :smallwink:

Mushroom Ninja
2009-08-26, 08:53 PM
Well if we are going to be making up things outside the rules then the obvious answer is that the energy goes back to where it came from in the first place.

I prefer to think of it as a logical extension of the rules, but yeah, things work a lot better in D&D when you ignore the basic laws of physics.

olentu
2009-08-26, 09:16 PM
I prefer to think of it as a logical extension of the rules, but yeah, things work a lot better in D&D when you ignore the basic laws of physics.

I suppose that I do not consider it ignoring the basic laws of physics. Instead I see it as saying that D&D does not necessarily have the same laws of physics as the real world.

ericgrau
2009-08-27, 12:03 AM
I see physics and D&D getting along just fine most of the time, but people's poor understanding of physics and D&D don't get along as often. Silly stuff doesn't tend to get along either. There are some things that don't (not just counting magic), but usually nothing you'd notice.

Skorj
2009-08-27, 12:13 AM
I see physics and D&D getting along just fine most of the time, but people's poor understanding of physics and D&D don't get along as often. Silly stuff doesn't tend to get along either. There are some things that don't (not just counting magic), but usually nothing you'd notice.

Nah, there's a ton of stuff in D&D's high magic system that can't be reconciled rationally with any sort of physics, even if you add new natural laws. I've played homebrews where it all did try to be rational, and there was a stark contrast.

For example: how would Enlarge work? Do your molecules get bigger? You couldn't breath. A lot of spells know friend from foe in a way that makes great sense unless you look at it closely. The blaster spells you can sort of rationalize, but so many of the batman spells only make sense as "a Wizard did it". Obviously that's not a problem with verisimilitude, but actual realism (even in a modified reality) is right out.

ericgrau
2009-08-27, 12:19 AM
I specifically made magic an exception when I said that there were only a few other exceptions besides magic.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-08-27, 12:24 AM
I see physics and D&D getting along just fine most of the time, but people's poor understanding of physics and D&D don't get along as often. Silly stuff doesn't tend to get along either. There are some things that don't (not just counting magic), but usually nothing you'd notice.Except the skill system and foot speed, both of which break what's achievable by humans by about level 5 without magic.

olentu
2009-08-27, 12:28 AM
I see physics and D&D getting along just fine most of the time, but people's poor understanding of physics and D&D don't get along as often. Silly stuff doesn't tend to get along either. There are some things that don't (not just counting magic), but usually nothing you'd notice.

Well I would say that it seems quite similar to the physics in our world but I was talking about the things that do not fit with the way the real world seems to work when I said that D&D does not necessarily have the same laws of physics as the real world.

Though now that you mention it I see no reason why magic could not be included in a formulation of physical laws to describe D&D. In fact it is quite reasonable that magic would have to be included to have a complete system.

Eldariel
2009-08-27, 12:41 AM
Except the skill system and foot speed, both of which break what's achievable by humans by about level 5 without magic.

Surprisingly enough, the speeds work alright if you assume all Humans are level 1. The world record for 100m sprint right now is Bolt's 9:58 which gives us a speed of ~10,41m/s. Level 1 Barbarian with Run-feat runs 200' in 6 seconds, which is 60,96m/6s or 10,16/ms.

Give our Barbarian Dash-feat and his speed goes up to 225'/6s or 68,58m/6s or 11,43m/s. Now, this may seem faster than Bolt's time, but we'll have to remember that unlike in D&D, in real world people accelerate. This means that Bolt's maximum speed is like to be way higher than 10,41m/s. So we can conclude that Bolt is a level 1 Human Barbarian with Run and Dash-feats, hindered slightly by physics.

Mushroom Ninja
2009-08-27, 07:10 AM
Though now that you mention it I see no reason why magic could not be included in a formulation of physical laws to describe D&D. In fact it is quite reasonable that magic would have to be included to have a complete system.

That actually makes a lot of sense. Since there's magic in the D&D world, it would only be logical to assume that it is part of physics system and thus accounts for the really weird stuff in it (like the weirdness of the turn structure and 4e squircles).

Fax Celestis
2009-08-27, 10:14 AM
hindered slightly by physics.

Aren't we all.

Optimystik
2009-08-27, 10:16 AM
Aren't we all.

That's what caster levels are for. :smalltongue:

Curmudgeon
2009-08-27, 11:14 AM
Damage on falling object table is based on distance fallen or, in other words, velocity at time you hit the ground.
No, that's not correct if we're talking RAW. That's your extension of the rules by factoring in non-RAW mechanics. By RAW, falling is directly responsible for damage; the sudden change in velocity at impact has nothing to do with it. So running horizontally at a wall just makes you stop instantaneously, and there's no damage to you or the wall.

lesser_minion's point is very apropos.

Mushroom Ninja
2009-08-27, 11:23 AM
No, that's not correct if we're talking RAW. That's your extension of the rules by factoring in non-RAW mechanics. By RAW, falling is directly responsible for damage; the sudden change in velocity at impact has nothing to do with it. So running horizontally at a wall just makes you stop instantaneously, and there's no damage to you or the wall.

lesser_minion's point is very apropos.

You're absolutely right. All physics exploitation is RAW+P (Rules as Written + Physics).

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-08-27, 11:16 PM
Surprisingly enough, the speeds work alright if you assume all Humans are level 1. The world record for 100m sprint right now is Bolt's 9:58 which gives us a speed of ~10,41m/s. Level 1 Barbarian with Run-feat runs 200' in 6 seconds, which is 60,96m/6s or 10,16/ms.

Give our Barbarian Dash-feat and his speed goes up to 225'/6s or 68,58m/6s or 11,43m/s. Now, this may seem faster than Bolt's time, but we'll have to remember that unlike in D&D, in real world people accelerate. This means that Bolt's maximum speed is like to be way higher than 10,41m/s. So we can conclude that Bolt is a level 1 Human Barbarian with Run and Dash-feats, hindered slightly by physics.Toss the Quick trait in there. too, for 275'/6 seconds, 83.82m/6s, or 13.97 m/s. 7.158 seconds to travel 100m. It's nearly done in one round. D&D fails to model much of anything well.

Snag Skill Focus:Jump, have a 16 Str, and max ranks in Jump, and a 1st level Human Barb with the Quick trait hits DC 30(the world record) on a roll of 12. 38 is doable one time out of every 20. Even at 1st level, we can do things far beyond humans without even getting into casting.

Eldariel
2009-08-27, 11:17 PM
Toss the Quick trait in there. too, for 275'/6 seconds, 83.82m/6s, or 13.97 m/s. 7.158 seconds to travel 100m. It's nearly done in one round. D&D fails to model much of anything well.

Snag Skill Focus:Jump, have a 16 Str, and max ranks in Jump, and a 1st level Human Barb with the Quick trait hits DC 30(the world record) on a roll of 12. 38 is doable one time out of every 20. Even at 1st level, we can do things far beyond humans without even getting into casting.

Note how that's all the fault of the "Quick"-trait :P

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-08-28, 12:26 AM
Note how that's all the fault of the "Quick"-trait :PWell, I forgot the fact that the Run feat adds +4 to jump checks, so even after banning that Trait I can still hit DC 38, higher if you grab 18 Str and Rage. And we haven't even started on long-distance running. I'm sure that we could break the 4 minute mile like a toothpick. Even at 1st level, no magic, D&D does not model reality at all.

Eldariel
2009-08-28, 12:47 AM
Well, I forgot the fact that the Run feat adds +4 to jump checks, so even after banning that Trait I can still hit DC 38, higher if you grab 18 Str and Rage. And we haven't even started on long-distance running. I'm sure that we could break the 4 minute mile like a toothpick. Even at 1st level, no magic, D&D does not model reality at all.

I reject your reality and substitute my own!