Tomes of the Ancients
Before we delve into the meat and potatoes of rules lawyering, it’s important that we get a few terms straight. Courtesy of 1d4chan, these are:
The Golden Rule: “The GM makes the rules; don’t argue with the GM.”
Rule Zero: “Roleplaying games are entertainment; your goal as a group is to make your games as entertaining as possible.”
Sure there will be outliers and “um, actuallies” from the periphery, but by and large these are the rules of the land. Have fun. Don’t argue with the guy who’s running the universe. Ask any group of gamers if they believe in these rules and the majority will agree. This includes the same gamers who swim in the murky waters of the rules forums. And it is these gamers that I most want to discuss.
There’s this anxiety among such denizens that someone, somewhere, is “not playing right.” And as one of these denizens, I can tell you that my greatest fear is that (O dear gods, no!) it might be me. I cannot tell you how many hours I’ve spent on this stuff. Can my horse attack if I charge with a lance? When do I apply damage from armor spikes? Can they tell I’m using magic if it’s a silent spell? The fictional lives of my favorite characters may depend on these answers, and it’s vital that I get them right. So I head to the forums, and there we argue and we parse. We talk about “rules as written” vs. “rules as intended,” and always we refer back to the text. What exactly does it say? How is it unclear? And since it’s unclear, where do we go next? We’ve got no choice at this point but to strike out into an unknown wilderness of YouTube videos, searching for panel discussions and ancient forum threads that may contain developer commentary. Did they ever clarify? Please somebody, tell me that they clarified!
To someone who’s never gone through this process, I’m sure it looks obsessive bordering on neurotic. However, I think it’s endemic to RPGs as a medium. There’s no other hobby that tries desperately to simulate a living world, gives you hundreds of pages explaining exactly how that world works, and then says, “Just do what the GM says. Don’t worry about it. We’re all here to have fun.” We desperately wish for some figure in authority to say, “This is how it works. This is the one true ruling.” But in the end, The Golden Rule and Rule Zero are the only authority we’ve got.
Question of the day then. Have you guys ever gone on a wild rules hunt? What drove you to it, and did you ever get a satisfying resolution to your question?
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I believe one such “adventure” was launched when I tried to make an Aarakocra Monk whose main “attack” would be grappling foes, flying up, and laughing at them as they’d die win or lose grapple checks from the falling damage. There was some discussion about weight limits and in the end the GM just said no and I was very sad because it was such an amusing idea. (Also very munchkinny so I agree with them saying no, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be sad about it too.)
I once *thought* about underwater grappling. I feel like that’s about as far as you *want* to go into that.
In a game I’m currently running the PCs are fighting giant ants and one had the brilliant idea to use Prestidigitation to cause a foe to have the same smell as them (which is important since ants identify friend and foe largely through pheromones they spray on enemies and friendlies alike). Prestidigitation has no rules for using on foes. I COULD have just said no. Or made the target roll a save. Instead I just rewarded the player for creative thinking and said it worked, but every enemy gets a save to see (smell?) through the effect. (Also I kind of wanted to give them every edge possible at this point as I rather grossly overcompensated for them cakewalking their way through the previous combats in this dungeon and they’re current on round 9 which is probably only halfway through this fight.)
I recently re-read the 5E Awakened Mystic Unearthed Arcana to remind myself what it even did and was wondering what I could use it for and came to the idea of putting together a 5th level Hunter Ranger with Horde Breaker and whatever level Order of the Immortal Awakened Mystic that would get the Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert feats and the Archery Fighting Style so I’d have a low to mid level character that could make up to four attacks a round that have a Dex mod + prof bonus – 2 penalty to attack that do +10 damage each that I can spend PP to add extra d10’s to on hits (this gets even crazier if I get up to level 5 Awakened Mystic btw because why wouldn’t it?). All of THAT is clear cut, yeah I can do it. The question is… what in the world happens when I try to use Sharpshooter that way in combination with Ethereal Weapon (which allows you to substitute your attack roll for the opponent making a Dex save for half damage)?
Yeesh. Let’s take these in order.
— Grapple Bird: You think that’s bad? Try figuring out what happens when you grapple with a burrow speed.
— Underwater Grappling: I just tried thinking about it. Now is smells like burnt toast in my office, and my nose started bleeding. Actually, i ‘t sem to mo my l hnd t the mmnt…. 87u9ijm
— Prestidigitatant: That is exactly the kind of cool idea and GM adjudication that is supposed to happen in these games. Well done both of you.
— Ethereal Cheatyface: I’m no 5e guru, but isn’t Ethereal Weapon a melee weapon only kind of thing?
Burrow grappler… well it’s not falling damage abuse but everything about that IS completely maddening.
Ethereal Weapon, in the open to whatever you want to use it for whenever possible style that makes me love 5E, just says “weapon”.
Oh gods, my campaign is an absolute nightmare with rules, most notably with one particular character: Our “Soul Forger.”
While our DM allows him to do what he does, both me (An artificer(A broken, incomplete class that has so much potential…)) and my brother (The brawler) are sufficiently irked by the crap he pulls. For starters, he has this “family pet” ox that he brings everywhere and uses as a mount. I have yet to see a SINGLE ride animal check roll, but our DM does make INT rolls to see if it can make an action in combat. Also, WHO BRINGS AN OX INTO A VOLCANO! It’s a wonder it didn’t die from heat exhaustion halfway through our way to the den of some magma dragons. I would say that’s a bit of a folly on our DM’s part, BUT STILL, I WANTED SOME OX BURGERS!
I may want to point one thing out before getting on with the next rant. Being an online community, we play over MapTools. Now, a number of us opt for using physical dice, even our DM. But none do it as terrible as our “Soul Forger.” Now, going back to the last comic, this is EXACTLY the kind of shit he pulls, or at least me and my brother believe. He has always been quick to call his rolls, and never are they below 15. Except twice. The first time seemed too deliberate for it to be coincidence: Drinking alcohol. The second, he got a face full of ice magic that backfired on him during our trip into the volcano, all the while a couple of us were saying “Come on, roll a 1!”. There may have been a third time, but it was likely for something minor.
If it were up to me, I would have everyone roll using MapTools dice roller. But at least the others who use their own dice actually are honest about it, and consistently fail their rolls. (Our poor wizard can never get a spell to work…)
Now, I’ve always been more of a “rules as interpreted” kind of person, and will go to great lengths to understand how something should work, and honestly, I never did agree with how punching weapons, such as a cestus a gauntlet, or some brass knuckles WEAKEN a monk or a brawler. Let me ask you this: What would hurt more, being punched by a bare fist, or being punched by a fist with metal plating or spikes on it?
Well that depends. Does the fist in question glow with an awesome power? Does its loud roar tell you to grasp victory?
Bummer about your online cheater. That’s not the sort of thing you can really fix as a player. If it bugs you, I’d suggest asking your GM to enforce the dice roller app.
Sadly, no. I do believe our DM ruled against enchanting one’s fist at some point in the past when it came up in discussion. But as the Artificer in the group, I’ll have something to allow our Brawler in the group to wreck havoc soon, and having only just found out about the Courageous weapon enchant, that something will be even stronger!
I have no doubt that I can get my brother’s strength to above 30 easily, or any other orc/half orc for that matter.
He ruled in favor of the existing magic items that allow for enchanted fists, not against enchanted fists in general. You were making unnecessary amounts of work for yourself is all.
but yeah, the Soul Forger is kind of a pill.
On a related note, does a mecha count as an unarmed strike?
More seriously, why on earth wouldn’t cestus/boot/similar things have a line like “The wielder of a [foo] may choose to treat any attack made with it as an unarmed strike”?
That depends. Are you piloting the mecha or are you just clubbing people to death with it? In the second case, definitely not if you’re dual wielding them.
After I read the part about the ox I spent about an hour unsuccessfully searching for a copy of that Aqua Teen Hunger Force clip where Frylock says “We’re 3000 miles below the Earth’s surface. A cow would melt under these conditions.”
Now I really want to know what the 1987 Dragon Magazine XII #7 says about disbelieving an illusion. Unfortunately, I don’t have the google-fu to find the article.
Page 18: https://annarchive.com/files/Drmg128.pdf
Thanks. After reading the article, I will with certainty say that while it is a decent ruling for handling illusions in AD&D, it probably shouldn’t be used in Pathfinder (because having a 22+ Wisdom shouldn’t just make you immune to illusions).
What!? You dare disparage the holy texts?
*table flip*
For real though, I think it’s informative to go back to the foundation of this old argument for some perspective. You’re right of course that it’s not 100% applicable, but it’s interesting to have that old-school context swirling around in your head.
…..one of my favorite “um, actually”s came from something i noticed about the cantrip Prestidigitation. Specifically the part about being “able to heat, cool, or flavor X pounds of nonliving material” (i forget the exact amount mentioned). Now, i’m one of those kinds of guys who sees this, and it gets the wheels turning. and from that turning wheel came the thought: “Do zombies count as ‘nonliving material’?”
So i asked a couple of the other GMs at the local game store, and the conclusion was that yes, they in fact do. And anyone in the up-and-up of food sciences would know that smells are keyed to flavors. So now there’s a warlock in the party who, for whatever reason, is making these friendly zombies smell like chocolate, oranges, leather, etc.
Well shit. Why not make these zombies smell human? They turn on one another, begin eating, and the zombie plague takes care of itself!
Prestidigitation is a quick source of piddly income for low-level mages, get a few pounds of dough (or buy flour and make some) and flavour them (cherry, raspberry, mint) then sell by the ounce as gum.