Spell Resistance Rule [3.5] Mis-Written: A Modest Proposal

[Duke of Urrel]

Why would you doubt that? It says see text. That's not descriptive text. It's fundamentally the text of the spell.

I don't doubt the phrase "See text" at all, and I didn't mean to disparage or dismiss the main text of the Cure Light Wounds spell by calling it "descriptive." I hope I take this text as seriously as you do. However, I doubt that anything in the main text itself makes clear that no creature gets a saving throw against the Cure Light Wounds spell except for Undead. Indeed, the phrase "Will half" in the spell's Saving Throw line seems to indicate that every creature gets a Will save against it. Only the parenthetical word "(harmless)" in the Saving Throw line explicitly rules out this interpretation. (And it does so before the reader's eyes even reach the clause "see text.")

As I said, there are many spells with the word "(harmless)" in the Saving Throw line and (significantly, I believe) also in the Spell Resistance line. My proposal is based upon the notion that there is a reason for this. This, I believe, is that saving throws are not voluntary options that creatures can take even while they're unconscious, but in fact involuntary events that happen by default, unless a creature consciously chooses otherwise.

You and Chronikoce seem to believe, to the contrary, that saving throws are always voluntary options, even for unconscious creatures, simply because they don't count as actions. That's okay, but that's not what I choose to believe about nonactions and unconsciousness. I believe that while you are unconscious, you either make saving throws by default or don't make them by default, but you cannot change the default. You can change the default only while you are conscious.

• In other words, if a spell is both actually and explicitly identified as "(harmless)," then the default is that you make no saving throw. You can choose to make a saving throw anyway only if you're conscious, because this choice is voluntary and that requires consciousness.
• On the other hand, if a spell is of the normal non-harmless kind, the default is that you make a saving throw. You can choose to forfeit your saving throw only if you're conscious, because this choice is voluntary and that (in my opinion) requires consciousness.

This is how I choose to read all spells with the "(harmless)" indicator, and there are many of them. The Protection from Energy is another example. Here, there is nothing in the spell's main text that indicates that the spell's target makes no saving throw by default. Only the parenthetical word "(harmless)" in the spell's Saving Throw indicates this. Again, others may choose to say that even an unconscious creature who receives the Protection from Energy spell can unconsciously choose not to make a Fortitude save against it, but that's not how I choose to interpret the rules. I choose to say that the parenthetical word "(harmless)" in the spell's Saving Throw line is what makes the difference here. Since the Protection from Energy spell is of this "(harmless)" kind, it does not, by default, trigger any saving throw from the affected creature.

This has not been proved to any sufficient extent.

I agree that I haven't proved anything, but I think I have provided some good circumstantial evidence for my point of view.

More to the point, it's completely unclear that, even if it happens, this is the mechanism being used. Specifically some magical off switch on the part of the spell in question. It could just be the spell telling the creature's body to default to this or that mode.

This is how I imagine a spell works when it is harmless and explicitly identified as "(harmless)": the spell itself switches off a creature's saving throw. You may find this implausible, but I find it implausible that the creature chooses to switch off its saving throw even when it's unconscious. This is a clash of competing implausibilities!

The issue with your path is that it makes no sense in the context of a game following the prevailing rule of "specific overrides general". I contend that rule C does not contradict any other rule, but even if it did, that would just be that line's fundamental purpose. It's very possible that the alternate rule is better for the game, but that doesn't make the original rule a mistake.

It's not clear to me what is specific here and what is general. Spells that are both actually and explicitly identified as "(harmless)" are a specific category of spells that allow saving throws. According to what I call rule A, spells of this kind make an exception to the general rule of saving throws, which is that if a spell allows a saving throw, then every creature affected by that spell makes one by default (and by necessity if the creature is unconscious and cannot forfeit its saving throw voluntarily). If rule C is changed according to my proposal, it becomes a general rule that explicitly refers back to, and therefore effectively contains, a specific rule, namely rule A.