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Thread: The Rapier conundrum!
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2018-06-05, 07:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-06-05, 07:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
This is exactly my thinking. D&D 5e is about archetypes, not realism. It's not an attempt to simulate any "realistic" set of events. It's to portray fictional archetypes doing heroic things.
I'm firmly in the "everybody's magic" (past T1 of course) camp. Whether you're channeling the ambient magic through an emotional connection (rage), becoming partially one with the liminal planes (rogue, my head-canon for evasion), or using it through intense martial training (fighter), they're all magic. Not spell-casters. They don't do magic, they are magic. Just like a dragon's flight is magical but doesn't fail in an anti-magic zone (which is horribly misnamed, but that's a separate conversation).
I'm also a heretic--I actually made HP = meat canon in my setting by tweaking some parameters.
You can have a world where the surface phenomena are tuned to look basically identical to our world without any of the underlying parameters/laws/facts of nature being the same. Of course Occam's Razor doesn't like this one bit, since it requires a few extra entities (epicycles on epicycles!), but it's doable. And also allows for things that our universe doesn't, like magic. Since most fantasy universes are explicitly generated by Divine action (who aren't really subject to the same laws the normal creatures are), Occam's Razor isn't a binding principle (not that it ever is, but again, that's a separate conversation).Dawn of Hope: a 5e setting. http://wiki.admiralbenbo.org
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2018-06-05, 08:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
Respectfully, I think you're missing the point. Obviously the real world contains atoms, and therefore any part of your life relies on the mechanics of atoms in a technical sense.
But modern atomic theory didn't show up in any recognizable form until after 1800. The world still existed and largely made sense to people before the discovery of atoms. When you read the works of Shakespeare or Jane Austen, you don't encounter an alien, impossible world just because they were writing their stories in a world where atoms "don't exist" in a narrative sense.
In D&D, there's nothing stopping you from saying "in this world, atoms don't exist and everything is composed of the four primal elements in various proportions, and by coincidence it forms humans that look, sound, and act exactly like the ones in the real world". In fact, the default cosmology pretty much encourages it.
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2018-06-05, 08:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
You can describe it exactly as you did, however doings so requires these things to rely on magic. Which brings us back to having the whole world need magic and everyone being magical to some extent. I don't hold to having a cosmos built of just 4 "elements" and then also saying mundanes can't be better than your local gym rat.
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2018-06-05, 08:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
This line of reasoning doesn’t really follow. A cosmos built on “the four elements” isn’t necessarily any more magical than a cosmos built on “atoms.”
All this doesn’t mean that I think a barbarian should be limited based upon what your meathead roommate can benchpress. If you want to think of it as mystical energy or whatever, that’s fine. My real personal preference is a world where such things are fundamentally mysterious. If you know how something works, is it really magic?
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2018-06-05, 08:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
To my mind, yes. That is the principle of the wizard. They get their power by study. They learn how magic works, and then use it. To me it is like a person studying automotive tech and then building a race car. I usually consider magic to be a fundamental force of the D&D universe that can be understood and used like anything else.
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2018-06-05, 08:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
I think you're talking past each other here. I think you agree that "guy-at-the-gym" is bad. But you're using "magic" to mean something like (if I understand right) "anything that deviates from science as known on Earth" or "everything that's not how we explain it".
Is magic:
a) the collective name for the set of things that cannot be done on Earth, even if they're normal in-universe? By this definition you can have "magical" science that's just as real as Earth science, for that universe. If Platonic mechanics actually is the operating law of the universe, then this definition would call it magic, but someone in-universe wouldn't call it magic. In this definition, both a dragon's flight and a fireball are magical.
b) a name for the set of things that cannot happen spontaneously due to the laws (however those are established) of the fictional universe? So a dragon's flight, by this definition is non-magical, but a fireball spell is (because dragons fly naturally while fireballs don't just happen all by themselves).
Note that the default for 5e (according to the PHB sidebar on the Weave) is that everything is magic, but not all magic is magic magic. Only the second category is affected by things like counterspell, detect magic, dispel magic, antimagic field, etc.
So the whole "fighters are non-magical" thing depends on your definition. By the default, they are magic. That's how they action surge, second wind, survive things that would kill a "normal" Earth human, etc. But they don't do magic (unless they're an EK).Dawn of Hope: a 5e setting. http://wiki.admiralbenbo.org
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2018-06-05, 09:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
PhoenixPhyre, you are correct in that I am going a bit off topic.
I think you have nailed it. Unfortunately both the weave background magic and what casters do are called magic, making things more confusing (kinda like the term "level"). Please return to your regularly scheduled debate.Last edited by Mellack; 2018-06-05 at 09:05 PM.
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2018-06-05, 09:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
I agree that there's significant terminological confusion. Boo.
On topic--I've never really seen people do the whole "well, DEX is better" approach or the converse. Mainly because I play with mostly new players who are focused on replicating an archetype, not weighing mechanical options.
There's a barbarian who goes sword-and-board. There's a wizard who mainly prefers to blow stuff up (and rolls horribly). That wizard played a monk who had to be reminded to actually use her ki points. There's my bardlock, who took alert (which, incidentally, has saved my bacon quite a few times this campaign) and still usually doesn't end up high on the initiative charts, despite a 16 DEX and a +9 modifier (JoAT is the other +1). Because my dice hate me on Perception and Initiative checks.
I've played with a tiefling moon druid. A paladin who preferred the scimitar and didn't pump STR. Etc.
So I don't see much of the optimization complaints I always hear. I've never seen PAM (and players resist using polearms because of aesthetics). I've never seen SS or GWM either.Dawn of Hope: a 5e setting. http://wiki.admiralbenbo.org
Rogue Equivalent Damage calculator, now prettier and more configurable!
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2018-06-05, 09:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
Small but very important nitpick, that went from being an emergent property of older editions to an explicit design element of 5e. PCs in a certain level band are action heroes. As they get higher, they turn into superheroes and then stuff out of myth and legend.
Which is one of the big things that "guy at the gym" was made to counter. Your barbarian 20 isn't that buff guy at the gym or even The Mountain. He's the freaking Hulk. And we should understand that the world makes special exceptions for these people, even if they aren't explicitly doing it by casting spells.
This gets into the rules as physics vs. rules as interface debate. But we kinda need rules in order to play a game. If magic is a thing, especially if it's a thing that PCs can use, you need rules for it too.
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2018-06-05, 10:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
I owe Peelee 5 Quatloos. But I am going double or nothing that Durkon will be casting 8th level spells at the big finale.
I bet Goblin_Priest 5 quatloos that Xykon does not know RC has the phylactery at this point in the tale (#1139).
Using my Bardic skills I see the fate of Belkar...so close!
Using my Bardic skills I see the fate of goblinkind!
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2018-06-05, 10:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
I have always thought of that as an abstraction necessitated by D&D's initiative system where each character acts then effectively freezes while the next person acts. Outside the abstraction, the characters are ducking out of the way (I even gave penalties back before 5e's 'no minor penalties' concept for being out on a ledge or the like where there is no where to duck to). If we had a system like Hero System or Runequest, where you can interrupt an opponents turn to do something, they would have to take an action to duck, etc., but that's simply incompatible with the rest of the D&D system.
oD&D had 8th level fighting men characters who were literally called superheroes, and could attack 8 individual (weak) enemies in the same time a normal character could attack one, could see invisible enemies, was immune to fear, and (depending on which combat set you were using) might need 8 opponents to simultaneously hit him before he would drop. That's pretty much James Bond, Jason Borne, and a bit of Batman rolled into one.
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2018-06-06, 09:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
I understand resolving initiative is different than the narrative of what happens (that is “frozen” character’s vs everything occurring in the same ~6 seconds). This doesn’t change what I was saying about fireball.
You have the “naked barbarian” (or whomever else really) surrounded by goblins. Fireball goes off centered on the Barb. Mechanically, Barb takes hit points after failing on the Dex Save. How do you narrate the Barb not being damaged by the explosion that kills/burns/melts all the goblins, which are further from the epicenter of the blast, if not “he’s really super humanly tough and shrugs of the burns he took?”
Did the Barb move outside the area of the fireball, like by diving away? If so why are they not now physically located outside the area of the blast? Did they dive away, then magically teleport back into their prior position?
Did they ‘duck and cover’? If so, with what, their great axe? They ducked under their cloak? Fireballs go through cloaks (otherwise, just wear a cloak for immunity to fireballs). If they dropped to avoid the blast, why aren’t they now probe?
How do you narrate not taking damage from a blast that destroys everyone/everything else?
Likewise, how do you narrate an unarmored barbarian being bitten by a T. rex and Restrained then bitten again, while still being restrained, without superhuman toughness? I get you can narrate “hits” as close calls, but the fact the Barb is restrained by the bite (unable to move) means they’re in the t rex’s mouth. Armor can’t be deflecting the chimps because they’re not wearing armor. Anything that tries to narrate around the Barb in the t rex’s mouth comes across the “then why can’t the T. rex bate anyone else while the Barb is Restrained” question. So how do you narrate this outside of the Barb being superhumanly tough?
These aren’t corner cases (the restrained issue is true of anyone fighting a T. rex or creature with similar ability, and the gireball issue is the same with any AoE with a Dex sv).
Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t understand the “HPs don’t actually reflect actual damage to the body because it’s better to narrate around that” when there’s no way to narrate around it.
Don’t get me wrong, play as you find fun, but when people make general statements like “HP aren’t meat points” (which isn’t true RAW and at best is a personal preference kind of supported by RAW) I always wonder about this.Last edited by RSP; 2018-06-06 at 09:49 AM.
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2018-06-06, 10:25 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
You're strawmanning in the other direction: that hit point damage is never actual physical damage. Nobody said that. It is not exclusively physical, but some still occurs. People survived things like shark bites, falls from great heights, being hit by lightning or gunshot wounds to the head in real life.
Random bystander: "Can you believe there was a gap in that explosion just big enough to fit not-Conan? Talk about lucky!"
Random Bystander: "How could you survived that?"
Not-Conan: "I've turned away from the fire and covered my head. Less serious burns that way. Stupid goblins looked straight into it. "
Random bystander: "Wait, how did he... did the wingless dragon thing caught his arm between its teeth? Look how it's shaking him around as it tries to bite him. [insert luck god of your choice] must really like not-Conan!"
Random bystander: "If I haven't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe someone could curl so quick to fit into this monster's mouth whole without being touched by its teeth!"
Random bystander: "Not-Conan, why haven't you been biten in half?"
Not-Conan: "I've put my legs against the monster's (is there a special word in english for upper part of the inside of the mouth?) and pushed with all my strength. Got some teeth marks, but nothing serious, it couldn't bite me properly."Last edited by JackPhoenix; 2018-06-06 at 10:27 AM.
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2018-06-06, 10:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
This is a good point, and my concept of “magic as the unknown” isn’t fully consistent with playing a rule-based game. That’s a tension that I think is inherent to the genre - you can find plenty of discussion of this problem from fantasy writers, such as NK Jemisen.
My only answer is just to do the best you can to keep it a bit mysterious, while letting the players in on what their characters know. I think of D&D magic as a set of established tricks or shortcuts without any thorough theoretical underpinning - similar to Discworld or The Magicians, where wizards exist, but learn not to try to delve too deeply into just exactly where their power comes from. Turtles all the way down and all that.
(Not that different from our own world, maybe? Maybe this obfuscation doesn’t actually solve the mundanity problem of magic in a magic world).
I think you just insist on a level of consistency that I don’t think is important. You narrate things however it works in the moment. most of the time, things work a bit better if you don’t make HP meat until a character is almost out of them. When things aren’t fully consistent, you increase the level of abstraction a bit. Problem solved.
Are level 20 barbarians superhumanly tough? Absolutely. Can’t really get around that. The narration doesn’t have to get any deeper than that, though - they aren’t superhumanly tough because they have adamantine bones or megadense muscles or magical tattoos protecting their skin or anything else (unless the player and DM agree to refluff things). They are just tough.
On the other hand, imagine a cutscene, where the players witness the execution of someone they know to be a 20th level barbarian (let’s say he’s an ex-PC). The blade of the guillotine falls. Does this NPC barbarian’s toughness provide any protection? Nah.
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2018-06-06, 10:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
It might not change what you were saying, but it does directly address it.
I am positing that you do narrate the barbarian surviving where the goblins do not by saying he dodged, ducked and covered, and did other things commensurate with the concept of a dexterity saving throw. As to why they are not now farther from the blast epicenter, it is because creating a system where they are allowed such movement off turn is an added complication that, although there are a few systems out there that use it (Champion/Hero System's 'abort to dodge' method and RuneQuest's action point system), the player base has consistently determined to be too complicated, especially with this new edition of D&D which focuses on reducing the battle time compared to 3e and 4e. Is there a disjoint? Yes, undeniably. Simplifications do that. Of course the idea of these characters who are constantly moving during a battle having fixed positions is a simplification to begin with.
The 'what are they ducking under?' question is a bit more complex. It would be better to say 'well, they duck around the corner, or behind a tree if above ground,' but then the DM has to populate their battle scene with trees and corners, and apply bonuses and penalties to the fireball saves based on relative position (and thus favor the person who can plan their battle behavior to stay close to bonus points). All of which is doable, and causes less disruption to verisimilitude, but is a complication it is unclear very many people want. Mind you, I do/did tend to give -1 to -3 penalties or so to fireball saves when you were out on a ledge or the like where there's 'no where to dodge to' (and would still do, if this edition handled that penalty-granularity better), so I do favor some of that kind of thing.
My central premise is that any simplification is a balancing act, you choose where your suspension of disbelief breaks down. But in the end you still narrate the barbarian surviving the face-melting fireball by being a combination of nimble and lucky, as well as resilient.
Likewise, how do you narrate an unarmored barbarian being bitten by a T. rex and Restrained then bitten again, while still being restrained, without superhuman toughness? I get you can narrate “hits” as close calls, but the fact the Barb is restrained by the bite (unable to move) means they’re in the t rex’s mouth. Armor can’t be deflecting the chimps because they’re not wearing armor. Anything that tries to narrate around the Barb in the t rex’s mouth comes across the “then why can’t the T. rex bate anyone else while the Barb is Restrained” question. So how do you narrate this outside of the Barb being superhumanly tough?
These aren’t corner cases (the restrained issue is true of anyone fighting a T. rex or creature with similar ability, and the gireball issue is the same with any AoE with a Dex sv).
Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t understand the “HPs don’t actually reflect actual damage to the body because it’s better to narrate around that” when there’s no way to narrate around it.
Don’t get me wrong, play as you find fun, but when people make general statements like “HP aren’t meat points” (which isn’t true RAW and at best is a personal preference kind of supported by RAW) I always wonder about this.
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2018-06-06, 11:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
So this goes against your previous post of “no plot armor=dead.” It seems you agree that HPs aren’t necessarily plot armor but also represent physical damage. Do we then agree that using HP to not die is a form of resistance and the T Rex example then stands?
Also: changing Fireball to not be a 20’ radius blast is changing the RAW, so doing so wouldn’t strictly speaking, be within the rules.
If the barbarian is hanging from the T Rex’s tooth, why can’t he drop? If he’s hanging from the tooth, why can’t the T Rex bite someone else?
Narrative is fine to kill characters (though, again, I’d not use that technique on PCs), but that’s different that HP=Plot Points, and generally outside the rules of combat.
By stating barbarians are superhumanly tough, aren’t you then saying they are, by necessity, not in the same category of what we can be here in real life? Is this just semantics of “magic” vs “super powers” or somesuch?
Unless I’m mistaken, this seems like a retraction of your previous statement that PCs are constrained to that which real people can do (as real people can not, by definition, be superhumanly tough), and it’s the magic of the world which creates the opportunity to do things outside the real of “real.”
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2018-06-06, 11:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
If the characters are ducking away from the Fireball, why don't they spend any movement, change their position, interact with any spells (like Booming Blade) which respond to movement, or wind up prone? What does "making a Dex save" actually entail besides rolling a die?
IMO there are bigger problems with the "plot armor" view of HP (contact poisons for one; fungibility of HP under Cure Wounds and especially Vampiric Touch for another) but the Fireball thing is a flaw in the mechanics-first 5E approach to roleplaying.
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2018-06-06, 11:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
Except they didn’t do that stuff. They failed their save, so why do they get credit for dodging, ducking, etc? Why does ducking, that is making your profile smaller, allow a medium sized creature to become smaller than the profile of a small creature? If “taking up less space” is what’s saving you, why aren’t the much less taking up goblins safe as well?
It’s just an example of trying to force the narrative to fit something it really doesn’t; why not just have an organic narrative that actually fits what’s happening?
I don’t think we horribly disagree on how this stuff is interpreted, I just always find it odd that some people (not even necessarily the people currently here discussing) insist on HP not being toughness, or “meat points” or wounds, when that’s fully in the game. Again, it’s just a curiosity regarding the idea of “I’m going to find some way, any way, to narrate/explain this without any reference to the character’s actually taking damage, because that works better narratively, even though there is no way to organically narrate this other than the character taking some damage.” It’s basically working against the idea of having a narrative in the first place.Last edited by RSP; 2018-06-06 at 11:43 AM.
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2018-06-06, 11:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
If you agree that HP aren’t really applicable outside of PC combat, and are instead an abstraction to allow for PC combat, we are on the same page, generally.
Did I say that PCs are limited to what real people can do? I don’t think I did, but it’s possible I guess. My position is that a mundane PC is best represented by an action hero. An action hero does not have any superpowers, but regularly does things that are not possible for an actual human being to do, such as shrugging off injuries, falling from great heights, leaping over great distances, and never once using the bathroom. The important point here is that these deeds aren’t explained by any particular superpower, or really by anything at all other than the hero’s awesomeness.
It’s the belief that an explanation is necessary that I object to. My position is that there is no consistent and satisfying explanation for hit points (or leveling up, or many other things), and so it’s best to happily skate along the surface.
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2018-06-06, 11:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
No, I don't think we're in huge disagreement. I don't feel that HP can convincingly fit into an either/or meat/plot armor category. They are a pacing mechanism and am okay with it. The game has hole you can poke in the logic that can be filled with a rather unsatisfying 'yes, the barbarian can shrug off a goblin-face-melting fireball even though he failed his save because, uh, I guess he's just that tough,' or with, 'look, a system which realistically models this would be frightfully complex, just roll with it.' Neither is completely satisfactory.
yeah. This is pretty good.Last edited by Willie the Duck; 2018-06-06 at 11:46 AM.
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2018-06-06, 11:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
I gotcha; and I wasn’t trying to put words in your mouth or anything. Apologies if that occurred. I have no problem with somethings not needing an in-game explaination. I’m mostly responding to the idea that non-casters somehow need to be considered in real world terms, which it sounds like we’re not arguing different points on anymore.
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2018-06-06, 12:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
It does not. I've never claimed that HP are exclusively plot armor, and even with plot armor, characters in fiction still recieve some injuries. "Using hit points not to die, which means relying on whatever defensive actions or plot armor is relevant for the situation", however, is different from "I'm doing absolutely nothing, letting the T. Rex to chew on me for who knows how long, with not even the slightest attempt to defend myself, just to be smartass".
Also: changing Fireball to not be a 20’ radius blast is changing the RAW, so doing so wouldn’t strictly speaking, be within the rules.
If the barbarian is hanging from the T Rex’s tooth, why can’t he drop? If he’s hanging from the tooth, why can’t the T Rex bite someone else?
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2018-06-06, 07:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
The fantasy genre has a lot of subgenres with different rules. The knights in King Arthur's court use strength. The King of France's musketeers use dexterity. Lowlifes on the streets of Lankhmar are a mix of both.
Why would you expect any of those things? None of those things happen when a character in melee dodges, parries, or attacks enemies on any and all sides of themselves. An awful lot of moving around narratively does not count as movement mechanically.
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2018-06-06, 08:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
That one is actually easy. I simply do not assume the Fireball is a uniform sphere of damage. Rather it is several swirls of fire with significant gaps.
For Average Joes, we make the simplifying assumption that their chance of finding those gaps is zero (e.g. they are usually KO'd or killed even if they make their save).
For people marked by destiny for potential greatness, HPs, superior saves, Evasion or similar, spells/magic items or the Hand of Fate can combine to help them find those gaps and avoid a direct hit that would kill. Yes, even a tied up, unconscious, paralyzed, stripped of his loincloth, and wearing nothing but tanning lotion barbarian gets lucky a "surprising" amount of the time -- he often survives while the crowd of goons surrounding him all die.I owe Peelee 5 Quatloos. But I am going double or nothing that Durkon will be casting 8th level spells at the big finale.
I bet Goblin_Priest 5 quatloos that Xykon does not know RC has the phylactery at this point in the tale (#1139).
Using my Bardic skills I see the fate of Belkar...so close!
Using my Bardic skills I see the fate of goblinkind!
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2018-06-06, 11:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
I'm sorry, but the thread is already in TL;DR category, and judging from the latest posts before mine, probably has run its' course and devolved into irrelevant banter about the nature of hit points or how you dodge an explosion (please, entertain me, how does an explosion have anything to do with a rapier?)
Anyway, on topic: even a full plate armor isn't a seamless full-body suit. Sharp points can "pierce" the seams and harm you. That's what the armor class represents: how difficult it is to harm you with a targeted attack. AC does NOT represent how hard your armor is and whether it can bend or break the weapon.
A rapier isn't really just one weapon; it's a category of various similar weapons, just like any weapons, particularly in 5th edition. They come in various sizes and arguably in different shapes as well. In other words, a foil (sword) is just as much a rapier as a spanish basket rapier.
What matters is that a weapon which counts as a rapier is light enough that it can be used with agile techniques instead of brute force.
On the matter of broken rapiers and the evidence. ANY weapon can break in use. A rapier is not special in that regard.Last edited by Arkhios; 2018-06-06 at 11:43 PM.
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2018-06-07, 12:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
The rapier, as that term would be understood by a typical non-specialist, is mainly an early modern weapon. It doesn't really fit in a medieval or earlier setting, and if that's the level of technology you're assuming in your world it's perfectly reasonable to leave rapiers out. There are no rapiers in my World of Battersea, even though I like the weapon, because the technology is roughly early Roman Empire.
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2018-06-07, 07:23 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: The Rapier conundrum!
You yourself just said that thread has probably devolved, and then want us to explain how the current topic relates to the OP? You came to the party at 4:00 AM when the actual rager of a party is over and it's just the host cleaning up bottles and a few guys debating the last sportsgame while waiting for their ubers and ask them to explain why this party isn't so great?
If you're asking why it devolved, well, what else was going to happen? The original poster clearly did not know as much about rapiers as they had hoped and their point kind of crashed and burned. Once the piling-on was done, all that was left was exploring a more generalized Dex-build over Str-build, fairness of stat disparities and whether the game should emulate genre fiction or real life or whatnot. So in other words, just what threads post-purpose do.
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2018-06-07, 07:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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2018-06-07, 07:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
Re: The Rapier conundrum!
I don't care if he hates it. I don't even care if he comes and says, "whelp, looks like this has wandered 50 miles from the point. OP if you're still reading, my response to your question is..." He just seemed to expect people to justify their actions to him, which... no.