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And with logic like this, it is clearer and clearer why some people think the wizard is godlike...
Or you mean the contingency? Because you know right before I die isn't a clear enough clause? Seriously?!?
In their capacity to survive defeat, high level wizards are very close to godlike. Survival, while important, is not the same as being unbeatable.
I've not even trotted out the big guns. The ones I would actually be using if I were a paranoid wizard.
For example: Nothing posted as a counter to wizards, including the tetori monk, would ever pose even 1 second of genuine danger to a truly paranoid wizard. He's sitting several levels deep inside nested Demiplanes. What you were fighting was an astral projection.
Sorry, gear swaps won't really do anything permanent. His real gear is located on his real body.
You could beat him, possibly even entrap him, but not kill him. AMF would temporarily shut him down, dismissal and banishment could send him away, neither actually harms him. Trap the Soul is your best option and you need to know his name for it to be reliable. Paranoid wizards guard their names carefully.
@AVH: I stand corrected. The wizard will need a 2 or better on the save. If he's susceptible to mind affecting spells.
I know, we're horrible.
==Aelryinth
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I know, we're horrible.
==Aelryinth
But I still love you all.
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You are all still wrong.No one is wrong for the table they are playing at.
Many are very much wrong to think that wouldn't be completely laughed out of many, if not most, tables, with the person proposing it either being sarcastic or forever branding King Cheese of Limburger Mountain.
Laughed out of WHAT table? Seriously...there is not a single table I have sat at that would cause a problem with the clauses I have made. In fact if you as a GM made a fuss about it, it would be you who would get replaced. A GM without players isn't a GM at all afterwards. Then again, almost everyone I play with can also run games..and do in fact run games so it's not like we are hurting for a GM...so we are not willing to take really bad ones who seem to think it is their job to screw over the players as much as possible.
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What I 'think' people are trying to say is that Shrink Item ignores air when shrinking stuff.
That's patently not true. If you shrink down a hollow sphere and don't shrink the air, then it's going to explode on you. Ditto a house, boat, or other object. Shrink Item CAN shrink a hot air balloon...and keep the balloon hot and inflated, too. If it can't shrink the air, it can't do that.
And if you start saying air doesn't take up space, I'm going to start making up big glass spheres, extremely thin, and fill them up with lots and lots of poison gas, and abuse the heck out of your interpretation of the rules.
Shrink Item can shrink flames and convert them to paper. It can certainly do so with air, and must, if it is to work.
There's no difference to Shrink Item between a 40 gallon barrel filled with wine and one filled with disease-bearing gas and one filled with normal air. It's all still the same volume.
==Aelryinth
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What I 'think' people are trying to say is that Shrink Item ignores air when shrinking stuff.
That's patently not true. If you shrink down a hollow sphere and don't shrink the air, then it's going to explode on you. Ditto a house, boat, or other object. Shrink Item CAN shrink a hot air balloon...and keep the balloon hot and inflated, too. If it can't shrink the air, it can't do that.
And if you start saying air doesn't take up space, I'm going to start making up big glass spheres, extremely thin, and fill them up with lots and lots of poison gas, and abuse the heck out of your interpretation of the rules.
Shrink Item can shrink flames and convert them to paper. It can certainly do so with air, and must, if it is to work.
There's no difference to Shrink Item between a 40 gallon barrel filled with wine and one filled with disease-bearing gas and one filled with normal air. It's all still the same volume.
==Aelryinth
Teepees are collapsible. Collapse it...shrink it...open it up. :p
What I 'think' people are trying to say is that Shrink Item ignores air when shrinking stuff.
That's patently not true. If you shrink down a hollow sphere and don't shrink the air, then it's going to explode on you. Ditto a house, boat, or other object. Shrink Item CAN shrink a hot air balloon...and keep the balloon hot and inflated, too. If it can't shrink the air, it can't do that.
And if you start saying air doesn't take up space, I'm going to start making up big glass spheres, extremely thin, and fill them up with lots and lots of poison gas, and abuse the heck out of your interpretation of the rules.
Shrink Item can shrink flames and convert them to paper. It can certainly do so with air, and must, if it is to work.
There's no difference to Shrink Item between a 40 gallon barrel filled with wine and one filled with disease-bearing gas and one filled with normal air. It's all still the same volume.
==Aelryinth
If someone at your table casts a fireball, do you make it explode prematurely because it collides with the air?
Your reasoning is not bad Aelryinth, but it appears to me that you let your appreciation for the narrative, interfere with the mechanics of the game.
Now this is speculation on my part, so I apologize if I am incorrect in the following assumptions.
For instance, you appear to be of the conviction that if you cast shrink item on an object, you can actually see it turn physically smaller, as its physical form diminishes and it becomes clothlike. But the spell does not say that that is what happens. It is a quite pleasant thematic picture of the spell, but there is nothing stopping us from just assuming the wizard touches the object and *poof* it is smaller and clothlike, as if by magic :D (pun intended)
I'm all for the narrative, but you cannot let it interfere with how the game is played, or you are not being fair to your players. If you are going to change how the game is played to maintain the theme, you need to let your players know that you intend to do so, and not insist that it is the rules as written.
Is it so hard to accept that if you ask how a sphere shrinks, without the air inside it bursting it, the answer is, very truthfully, "A wizard did it"?
Endofrant. :)
On an unrelated note, what is this the
'total volume' rules
I've searched high and low, but I could not find any such rules. Can you provide a link, or pageref?
-Nearyn
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Laughed out of WHAT table? Seriously...there is not a single table I have sat at that would cause a problem with the clauses I have made.You are all still wrong.No one is wrong for the table they are playing at.
Many are very much wrong to think that wouldn't be completely laughed out of many, if not most, tables, with the person proposing it either being sarcastic or forever branding King Cheese of Limburger Mountain.
I can think of quite a few you wouldn't be invited to sit at...
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Again, I am going to point out that the side arguing you can have a hat that also becomes a teepee that blocks not-magic after it is activated by not-magic is saying that the other size "let your appreciation for the narrative, interfere with the mechanics of the game."
Let that sink in for a minute...
I can think of quite a few you wouldn't be invited to sit at...Laughed out of WHAT table? Seriously...there is not a single table I have sat at that would cause a problem with the clauses I have made.You are all still wrong.No one is wrong for the table they are playing at.
Many are very much wrong to think that wouldn't be completely laughed out of many, if not most, tables, with the person proposing it either being sarcastic or forever branding King Cheese of Limburger Mountain.
You make an arbitrary claim that "most tables" - a statistic pulled out from nowhere as you have nothing to back it up - wouldn't allow it. It's countered by an anecdote of one player's experience. You decided to counter that with your own anecdote.
What makes you think your made-up statistics and anecdotes are any more relevant than someone else's anecdotes?
@AVH: I stand corrected. The wizard will need a 2 or better on the save. If he's susceptible to mind affecting spells.
How do you make the save with 2 or better when your will save is 16 + WIS* and the spell DC is 24** ?
(*your will save : 12 [base] + 8 [mind blank] - 4 [feeblemind] + WIS [certainly between 0 and 2])
(**the spell DC : 10 [base] + 5 [spell level] + 9 [normal INT for 20 lvl menace])
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I can think of quite a few you wouldn't be invited to sit at...Laughed out of WHAT table? Seriously...there is not a single table I have sat at that would cause a problem with the clauses I have made.You are all still wrong.No one is wrong for the table they are playing at.
Many are very much wrong to think that wouldn't be completely laughed out of many, if not most, tables, with the person proposing it either being sarcastic or forever branding King Cheese of Limburger Mountain.
You make an arbitrary claim that "most tables" - a statistic pulled out from nowhere as you have nothing to back it up - wouldn't allow it. It's countered by an anecdote of one player's experience. You decided to counter that with your own anecdote.
What makes you think your made-up statistics and anecdotes are any more relevant than someone else's anecdotes?
Because I'm not arguing that I shrunk a magic tee pee hat on mah head that stops your not-magic when it is hit with not magic, then complaining that people don't agree wizards are overpowered.
Maybe they aren't. Maybe if you go "Hey, that magic tee-pee hat thing is kind of silly..."
I bet you'll also argue the magic tee pee hat wouldn't take a head slot, wouldn't you?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What I 'think' people are trying to say is that Shrink Item ignores air when shrinking stuff.
That's patently not true. If you shrink down a hollow sphere and don't shrink the air, then it's going to explode on you. Ditto a house, boat, or other object. Shrink Item CAN shrink a hot air balloon...and keep the balloon hot and inflated, too. If it can't shrink the air, it can't do that.
And if you start saying air doesn't take up space, I'm going to start making up big glass spheres, extremely thin, and fill them up with lots and lots of poison gas, and abuse the heck out of your interpretation of the rules.
Shrink Item can shrink flames and convert them to paper. It can certainly do so with air, and must, if it is to work.
There's no difference to Shrink Item between a 40 gallon barrel filled with wine and one filled with disease-bearing gas and one filled with normal air. It's all still the same volume.
==Aelryinth
If someone at your table casts a fireball, do you make it explode prematurely because it collides with the air?
Your reasoning is not bad Aelryinth, but it appears to me that you let your appreciation for the narrative, interfere with the mechanics of the game.
Now this is speculation on my part, so I apologize if I am incorrect in the following assumptions.
For instance, you appear to be of the conviction that if you cast shrink item on an object, you can actually see it turn physically smaller, as its physical form diminishes and it becomes clothlike. But the spell does not say that that is what happens. It is a quite pleasant thematic picture of the spell, but there is nothing stopping us from just assuming the wizard touches the object and *poof* it is smaller and clothlike, as if by magic :D (pun intended)
I'm all for the narrative, but you cannot let it interfere with how the game is played, or you are not being fair to your players. If you are going to change how the game is played to maintain the theme, you need to let your players...
Your fireball example is a burst, and completely facetious, I have to say. In case you didn't know, they actually REMOVED volume as a qualifier on fireballs. It used to be that it took up a volume of 33,500 feet...you know, the cubic area of a 20' diameter sphere. Which is 335 feet of 10' hallway, if you get my drift. And the fireball expanded out to the full VOLUME of the blast.
Bursts don't do that, stopping at any intervening obstacles.
Do you let your characters take a Stone SHape, squish it down to a 1/8 inch plane, and use it to make a diagonal slide on a wall 12' thick and 80 feet long? Which will bring down a major castle wall, like, instantly as it's weight makes it slide down the incline. Because that's what you're saying with volume. Even though the spell says it gets manipulated in one cubic foot blocks.
I'm going to make a globe and fill it with poison air. It's going to be big but very thin so it fits your volume rules...maybe only a cubic foot of glass if you melt it down. Because you're ignoring the 'air' inside, I've now got these poison gas clouds shrunken down and in paper form I can tote out, throw, shatter with a word, and lay down the poison gas. I could do the same with a hot air balloon.
Because that's how you're treating volume.
This gets even crazier if you're dealing with compressed air, where the whole point of the containment device is the air inside it.
And yes, the teepee takes up MUCH less volume if you fold it down. But you aren't putting a folded teepee on your head. You're putting an intact, fully erected one, and it takes up more space then one compacted down. The spell will differentiate between each because it preserves the form that they are in. Shrinking down a massive hot air balloon or an empty tent is going to require considerably more volume then shrinking down a bundle of silk wrapped tightly up. If you want it instantly useful, you need to compensate.
Although how you balance a teepee of any size straight up on your head for long periods of time is a question all its own.
Like I said, Shrink Item considers a barrel full of water and a barrel full of air to use the same volume. Just because it's hollow doesn't excuse the volume of spell required to envelope it. You get into REAL abuse if you don't treat it all the same.
==Aelryinth
@Aelryinth:
And the volume rules?
Shrink item specifically states it shrinks the item to 1/16 it's original size and 1/4000 it's original volume... hence it obviously measures item cubic size and item volume seperately.
I can think of quite a few you wouldn't be invited to sit at...Laughed out of WHAT table? Seriously...there is not a single table I have sat at that would cause a problem with the clauses I have made.You are all still wrong.No one is wrong for the table they are playing at.
Many are very much wrong to think that wouldn't be completely laughed out of many, if not most, tables, with the person proposing it either being sarcastic or forever branding King Cheese of Limburger Mountain.
You make an arbitrary claim that "most tables" - a statistic pulled out from nowhere as you have nothing to back it up - wouldn't allow it. It's countered by an anecdote of one player's experience. You decided to counter that with your own anecdote.
What makes you think your made-up statistics and anecdotes are any more relevant than someone else's anecdotes?
Because I'm not arguing that I shrunk a magic tee pee hat on mah head that stops your not-magic when it is hit with not magic, then complaining that people don't agree wizards are overpowered.
Maybe they aren't. Maybe if you go "Hey, that magic tee-pee hat thing is kind of silly..."
I bet you'll also argue the magic tee pee hat wouldn't take a head slot, wouldn't you?
Do you realize what you just claimed? You just said that because you're not the one making the argument, it means that your anecdotes hold more weight than someone else's anecdotes.
That your personal experience is more important than another person's personal experience.
Do you not see anything wrong with that?
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I can think of quite a few you wouldn't be invited to sit at...Laughed out of WHAT table? Seriously...there is not a single table I have sat at that would cause a problem with the clauses I have made.You are all still wrong.No one is wrong for the table they are playing at.
Many are very much wrong to think that wouldn't be completely laughed out of many, if not most, tables, with the person proposing it either being sarcastic or forever branding King Cheese of Limburger Mountain.
And I have already said there are quite a few tables you would asked to leave as the GM...your point? What makes your experience most tables and not mine? There seems to be more people on the forum who seem to be more towards me then you on the forum...so going by that, I would say my experience is more along the most line then yours actually. So yeah, I honestly fail to see where your coming from other then to say that your group local plays pretty dang different from mine or many others in the forum.
Alright you're both medusa, now break it up and back to your corners.
Nearyn, if you can find rules that allow you to subdivide volumes willy-nilly as you like somewhere in the rules, that's 'total volume' by your definition.
I tend to be more adhering to the cubic feet and total size per caster level which is part of the AoE rules.
1/16 of normal size and 1/4000th of volume simply means that it shrinks by a factor of 16 in all 3 dimensions equally (4096 is 16^3). I'm not sure where you're getting that being different from 'cubic area.'
here's another counter example. If you cast Rock to Mud, and unknown to you, the area underneath your spell 10' down is actually a cave, does your spell suddenly cover twice as much area as it attempts to 'make up' for the 'air space'?
Nope. The air space is included in the volume of the spell. You don't get to shift the area rules around to increase your spell size. And since the air within a shrunken object is likely part of the spell (otherwise you might get catastrophic pressure release) that means it is included in the volume of the spell.
==Aelryinth
Aelryinth you realize you are arguing total volume, then reduce that to 1/16th which reduces the total volume to 1/4000?
You are hitting the rules equivelent of double jeparody.
Also the air around the object is no more a part of the object than the air around you is part of you when you cup your hands.
5 pages in two days...
So is this still about "Schrodinger's Wizard"?
The silly thing about it is that, what people describe as "Schrodinger's Wizard" can really be one wizard with cash and thus very so much possible.
1) Wizards can change their spells daily
2) What spells they don't have the slots for, or are just missing they can use scrolls for
3) If they don't have the scroll, they can teleport and get the right scrolls.
"Schrodinger's Fighter" on the other hand happens to be a bunch of fighters.
1) Fighters cannot change their feats daily
2) Fighters cannot usually supplement their feats with some other resource
3) Fighters cannot simply buy more feats
Wizards are custom tailored because that's how wizards work, they're versatile.
Fighters grow into a single use and get locked into it. Sure a fighter who has focused on using a great sword can use a bow, but he won't be any better than a Ranger or even a Paladin using it if he hasn't thrown any focus onto it.
I just hate the whole term. This thread treats it like it's the creation of the people who say wizards can do such and such. But I only ever see it called Schroedinger's Wizard by the people who disagree, as a form of insult. A wizard can't on the spot do anything at all, of course not. Given some time, he can likely solve any problem with a decent spellbook, and if he varies his spells prepared well, he has fair odds of an immediate solution (if not the best possible one). He *can* learn every spell in the game (if so, I'd expect him to use his free level up spells for the expensive material component spells and craft some blessed books), but...you never need that many spells. Some are pretty redundant with each other, too.
In any case, as someone mentioned WAAAY back, Sorcs and Oracles literally can be a "Schroedinger Wizard" thanks to Paragon Surge, though. With the two traits to reduce metamagic cost of one spell by 1 level, he can even quicken it with a 5th level slot, though quickening gets much more practical at 15th level w/ Spell Perfection.
Do you let your characters take a Stone Shape, squish it down to a 1/8 inch plane, and use it to make a diagonal slide on a wall 12' thick and 80 feet long? Which will bring down a major castle wall, like, instantly as it's weight makes it slide down the incline. Because that's what you're saying with volume. Even though the spell says it gets manipulated in one cubic foot blocks.
I've advocated exactly this kind of thing several times on these forums, but I think you knew that already. The only legitamate argument I've heard against it is that you can't get fine detail with stone shape--which 1/8 of an inch arguably is. Still, totally doable by removing a 1 inch slab or 2 inch slab.
And yes, the teepee takes up MUCH less volume if you fold it down. But you aren't putting a folded teepee on your head. You're putting an intact, fully erected one, and it takes up more space then one compacted down. The spell will differentiate between each because it preserves the form that they are in. Shrinking down a massive hot air balloon or an empty tent is going to require considerably more volume then shrinking down a bundle of silk wrapped tightly up. If you want it instantly useful, you need to compensate.
Although how you balance a teepee of any size straight up on your head for long periods of time is a question all its own.
It doesn't technically have to be a teepee, it just has to be something that blocks line of effect in its full size. I just said teepee because it's something people can easily visualize.
Like I said, Shrink Item considers a barrel full of water and a barrel full of air to use the same volume. Just because it's hollow doesn't excuse the volume of spell required to envelope it. You get into REAL abuse if you don't treat it all the same.
As a GM, you have the power to prevent abuse without changing the way a spell works you know.
Actually the thread at this point kind of reeks of trollbait considering the OP hasn't been back in a long while and it's now just us usual suspects again.
Maybe it was just a ploy to bring us all to the same thread?!?
*paranoid teleport!*
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Actually the thread at this point kind of reeks of trollbait considering the OP hasn't been back in a long while and it's now just us usual suspects again.
Maybe it was just a ploy to bring us all to the same thread?!?
*paranoid teleport!*
Well you would have teleported if it wasn't for the Dimensional Anchor spell on you...
I do nothing if not epicly stefan ;D
Use one skill point on Profession: Tailor.
Spend a Sunday making your custom huge wizard hat.
Fold it up.
Cast Shrink Item.
Unfold on head.
Walk into AMF and enjoy your cozy abode.
The OP seems to enjoy digging up dead horses, surely.
In this hobby, there's a lot of dead horses to dig up. I think that's why Necromancy is so prevalent.
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Use one skill point on Profession: Tailor.
Spend a Sunday making your custom huge wizard hat.
Fold it up.
Cast Shrink Item.
Unfold on head.
Walk into AMF and enjoy your cozy abode.
One problem, you are going to have to convince a DM that clothing material is enough to stop an emanation, seeing as how cloth has tiny holes in it.
GM fiat basically which in turn doesn't work as a valid argument on a message boardm
Nearyn, if you can find rules that allow you to subdivide volumes willy-nilly as you like somewhere in the rules, that's 'total volume' by your definition.
I tend to be more adhering to the cubic feet and total size per caster level which is part of the AoE rules.
1/16 of normal size and 1/4000th of volume simply means that it shrinks by a factor of 16 in all 3 dimensions equally (4096 is 16^3). I'm not sure where you're getting that being different from 'cubic area.'
here's another counter example. If you cast Rock to Mud, and unknown to you, the area underneath your spell 10' down is actually a cave, does your spell suddenly cover twice as much area as it attempts to 'make up' for the 'air space'?
Nope. The air space is included in the volume of the spell. You don't get to shift the area rules around to increase your spell size. And since the air within a shrunken object is likely part of the spell (otherwise you might get catastrophic pressure release) that means it is included in the volume of the spell.
==Aelryinth
... There are no 'total volume rules', are there? I'm giving you the chance. Twice now, I have asked you to tell me where I can find these so-called 'total volume rules', you referenced earlier, but you don't do it. I realize this is not the rules forum, but when you discuss legality, you need the rules to support your argument. And making up rules, does not add to your argument. Do you have -any- idea how much you undermine your own credibility here? Aelryinth, seriously. You seem to be far more math-savvy than I am, and you obviously have an appreciation for the narrative. These are both good things, but don't reference rules that don't exist, or use the 'rules' label to add credibility to your argument, if you cannot provide citation. I realize you probably don't mean anything mean-spirited when you do it, but I get a bit offended by it, because I feel like it is just being assumed I won't fact-check what I am being told, and that I will just roll over and accept anything, anyone says, if they use the word 'rule'.
-Nearyn
I, on the other hand, did provide a credible rules source to my claim.
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Do you realize what you just claimed? You just said that because you're not the one making the argument, it means that your anecdotes hold more weight than someone else's anecdotes.
That your personal experience is more important than another person's personal experience.
Do you not see anything wrong with that?
If I was saying that, I might.
Of course I am saying the person who makes the claim that something is universal has the burden of showing it is true?
So, nope.
If I say the moon is made of cheese, the burden is not on someone else to show otherwise.
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Well you would have teleported if it wasn't for the Dimensional Anchor spell on you...Actually the thread at this point kind of reeks of trollbait considering the OP hasn't been back in a long while and it's now just us usual suspects again.
Maybe it was just a ploy to bring us all to the same thread?!?
*paranoid teleport!*
Doesn't work. He has a magic hat...
I love these threads, because they show that the people on the "Wizards are totally broken" are the same people that break them by coming up with ridiculous, game breaking cheese.
And hopefully they all find each other and play together. Far, far away from the rest of us...
Do you realize what you just claimed? You just said that because you're not the one making the argument, it means that your anecdotes hold more weight than someone else's anecdotes.
That your personal experience is more important than another person's personal experience.
Do you not see anything wrong with that?
If I was saying that, I might.
Of course I am saying the person who makes the claim that something is universal has the burden of showing it is true?
So, nope.
If I say the moon is made of cheese, the burden is not on someone else to show otherwise.
I asked you why you thought your anecdote holds more weight than someone else. You responded with "because I'm not the one arguing..." You quite literally said that because you are not the one making an argument, it means your anecdotes hold more weight. It's right up there where you and I and everyone else can read it. Right there. Lying about it won't make what was written any less true.
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I'm not making an anecdote.
I am saying that because your game "culture" allows something, that isn't a valid position to say it must be allowed. Much in the same way if your "Culture" allows for many things, that doesn't mean that other cultures "must" allow those things.
I think the hat thing is silly. I also think lots of things the "Wizards are broken" crew do are silly. But I don't have to play with them.
And as long as they don't say "This is allowed" at any table but the one they are playing at, I don't care.
But when you start to say "Mah crazy magic hat must be allowed!" we will have a disagreement.
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@AVH: I stand corrected. The wizard will need a 2 or better on the save. If he's susceptible to mind affecting spells.How do you make the save with 2 or better when your will save is 16 + WIS* and the spell DC is 24** ?
(*your will save : 12 [base] + 8 [mind blank] - 4 [feeblemind] + WIS [certainly between 0 and 2])
(**the spell DC : 10 [base] + 5 [spell level] + 9 [normal INT for 20 lvl menace])
The wizard I am building has a base 24 will save. Not counting the +8 bonus Mind Blank adds to saves vs. Mind Affecting spells or the potential +5 bonus from the weapon he's carrying.
I was assuming you would manage a much higher DC than 24 when I made my statement.
*I'm not really playing Schrodinger's wizard. I do have a character sheet and many parts are written down. I'm just not finished reassembling him. It is not a process I intend to rush and spell selection alone will take me at least 8 to 12 hours as I decide on my balance between offence and defense.
I'm not making an anecdote.
I am saying that because your game "culture" allows something, that isn't a valid position to say it must be allowed. Much in the same way if your "Culture" allows for many things, that doesn't mean that other cultures "must" allow those things.
I think the hat thing is silly. I also think lots of things the "Wizards are broken" crew do are silly. But I don't have to play with them.
And as long as they don't say "This is allowed" at any table but the one they are playing at, I don't care.
But when you start to say "Mah crazy magic hat must be allowed!" we will have a disagreement.
No one is arguing that the Dungeonmaster is not allowed to employ rule 0. Nothing 'must' be allowed. As long as everyone at the table is having fun, all is well.
The reason I (and, I suspect, the rest who back me up) say "This is allowed" is because that if a gaming group sat down, and the DM did not house-rule anything, the trick would be legal by the rules as written.
If you don't believe the trick is legal, say so, and I will be more than happy to provide citations to back up its legality. If you are arguing that, while the trick may be legal, you have not played at a table that would allow it, that is completely fine, just don't claim that these tables' houserules are RAW.
-Nearyn
I'm not making an anecdote.
I am saying that because your game "culture" allows something, that isn't a valid position to say it must be allowed. Much in the same way if your "Culture" allows for many things, that doesn't mean that other cultures "must" allow those things.
I think the hat thing is silly. I also think lots of things the "Wizards are broken" crew do are silly. But I don't have to play with them.
And as long as they don't say "This is allowed" at any table but the one they are playing at, I don't care.
But when you start to say "Mah crazy magic hat must be allowed!" we will have a disagreement.
What you say here is valid, and very different from what I called you on above. What I called you on was your statement that "many, if not most, tables would laugh it away." That right there is a statistic that you can't back up (or else you would have backed it up when I first called you on it). It is a belief based on your personal experiences - which makes it an anecdote.
So either back up your claim that most tables would laugh it away (you made *that* argument, and as you said above, the person making the claim has the burden of proof), or simply admit that you made an error, that you would like to retract that statement until proof can be found, and you would like to stick with your valid argument quoted in this post.