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I’m just going to generally call for a, “Please let’s not.” riiiiiiiiight here.
1) I have a hard time telling if either of you are being at all serious or entirely saccharine and disingenuous, and
2) if it’s the former further clarification will not help while if it’s the latter both should really take a break and find something that feels better than arguing with someone who is wrong on the internet, and
3) as interesting and compelling as retreading the 2013 train wreck that was the tail terror thread (in which I participated!) is, I don’t feel that it was or is good for the community in general to argue so deeply over what are ultimately good things for good people to enjoy with good friends.
As a relatively permissive GM, I not only have no problem with this in general, but I’d broadly be okay if it actually saw play at my table. Why? Because it would be kind of fun. Expensive, but fun. And if my players were feeling shut out, that’s a whoopsie on my part as a GM and I’d want them to find a way to feel better about their contributions. That said, if a player who was an active participant felt bad about the experience and how it Sussex out, as painful as it would be for me, I’d want to hear it - I can’t read minds and I need good feedback to notice problems and improve; thus at a given table it is best to actually have a discussion when personality clashes arise.
On the forums, I’ve long been a passionate prominent of “words mean what they mean” - especially when anyone is trying to debate the nature of RAW - and I often focus on emphasizing allowing players to do things or effects to accomplish things because I think that usually makes for a better gaining experience. And after years of reading the forum... I’ve realized that people sometimes disagree. XD
Further, as at least one of Devs have noted (and done so at me), they don’t always intend to make literal RAW what the words mean. His particular statement noted that GMs and players should use “common sense” when interpreting rules: what’s fascinating, however, is that I did not find what he thought of as common sense anything resembling what I would have thought was common sense. Others did, of course, and good for them, but that’s really irrelevant to the fact that a lot of solid arguments and strong and clear reading of actual RAW was... dismissed by the person who’d written it as not being common sense.
And I think this is important - he was not being insulting nor denigrating anyone: he was explaining how he felt he was designing the rules and what the rules were for seemed (to him) to be quite obvious, linguistically and in the larger context of the game. Yet many people (myself included) disagreed, and I don’t think either he or they were wrong.
Instead, I find things like the fact that Spellcraft means you can identify a spell without seeing someone do anything “because glowing magic lights are in the pictures” (pictures are the arbiter of rules, now? - it was not) and “didn’t you notice they changed the wording” (every time they omitted a text element {even for spacing} is intentional major design change? - it was not), or the fact that Juju Oracle the second version did not retcon Juju Oracle the first version out of existence (though later it did), or the fact that fantasy people with bizarre heritage are unable to gain the morphology of those heritages (but they can get entirely different morphology) entirely unintuitive and lacking an obvious or reasonable clarification in the rules. This doesn’t make the designers wrong. (I mean, the can be, but that’s just because they’re people. We’re fallible you know.)
Instead it makes this idea that we all have if “common sense” require quite a bit of localization and personal understanding. Anyone who writes things, especially when you have a space budget, and especially when you want to be both flexible and clear... rubs into problems. I have written things that are 100% crystal clear and entirely obvious and incapable of being mistaken are, of course, entirely misread and misconstrued and misunderstood and a whole host of other mis- things. And it’s not because the other people are dumb or bad. It’s because I wasn’t as clear as I thought. And when I’ve had those things reviewed by the first person that didn’t get it? Misconstrued or misunderstood. Third time by that third person? ...it’s not what I wanted to say anymore. It means something else, feels like something else and isn’t the original expressed concept at all.
And that’s just people taking something we all agree is clear and obvious and easily worded for clarity and running it through just us, friends who hang out and presumably communicate pretty okay by talk English gud.
In this case, though? We have a pretty solid consensus of rules text and RAW. Some people are okay with it, and think it feels pretty good (like me), while others are disgusted with munchkin cheese mongering and can’t fathom how we have a good time at our tables when the extreme end will inevitably be pushed to its limit, and others think it’s a good thing that wasn’t at their table but it’s good that others can enjoy and a whole host of other thoughts and feelings besides. And I dare say that’s all informed by our very different life and gaming experiences as well as our personal thoughts and hopes and expectations.
All that to say: I like everyone in this thread and generally appreciate the contributions of you all, whether I agree with you or not; also, here’s hoping we can all enjoy one another’s company despite not liking the sound of the way someone implies they pay the game for our personal game play experience; and something else that I forgot because I suffer ADD pretty bad. XD
(This was not an official statement nor a suggestion that we stop talking or leave the thread - merely a broad suggestion from a fellow poster that we leave the topic at hand, maybe acknowledge each other’s opinions with a silent nod of mutual acceptance, and then enjoy the forums as a whole.) :D
There was a permissions problem with my first link.
This is really nice picture. Cool!
The reason I reject this is presupposes that attacks of opportunity that might be provoked from Init 18 on Init 20 would or wouldn’t proc based on whether he would choose to move after Init20 had finished his action.
Like, if Init20 had, say, 40 move and went after Init14 who was 40ft away, and Init18 was in range at any point of an AoO (like, say, 20 ft ahead of Init14, but 20 ft. away from Init20) but would voluntarily (on his turn) move through in such a way that would not place him along the path of the AoO he would otherwise have received, the resolution of actions according to that picture would require that he declare whether or not he is moving (and thus ineligible for making the AoO) prior to being able to accomplish his AoO (sometime in the midst of Init20’s move).
Obviously that is not how the rules are supposed to go, as Init20 must resolve his entire set of actions so that Init18 can make appropriate choices.
Make sense?
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I'm wondering how many people who think the wand sharing trick is okay, would feel the same if the GM used the same loophole against the players.As a GM, the difference in giving 50 NPCs one 50-charge wand and giving 50 NPCs fifty 1-charge wands is formation, action economy, Attacks of Opportunity, initiative, and a feeling of justification.
I made an account just to fight with this.
On the side of RAW vs realism, I have always tended to be more RAW oriented in most groups because there are a lot in-house rules that tick me off due to bigger picture balance issues + trying to mistakenly apply real life physics/reality to a cosmos that most likely abides by different rules as mere mortal non special character npcs hold back the demons at the maw.
So I am totally ok with sticking to rules over our perceived notions of realism, this however is not one of those situations and why having a live GM to make completely arbitrary calls is better for the game and average player's experience. You want to maintain a suspension of disbelief and you want to throw out rules that make no sense if you were to apply them literally on both a realism AND an in game no fun at all result (I am looking at you perception distance penalty rules which I assure you every last person on these forums never abides by 100% of the time every game).
That being said, there are several texts in the rules that suggest a GM should have an arbitrary limit. Rule 0 is the obvious vague one, but free action rules should bring insight. The limit of free actions is situational/arbitrary/GM discretion, those are the RAW rules specifically in free action economy becuase at some point you can't do an infinite amount of action free actions, so what is reasonable will always be an arbitrary number, it is very reasonable and fair for a GM to apply this to infinite wand passing. My number 1 rule is to have fun. So if you as a GM do not care, then let your players do silly things like that (though please do not force it upon them with a tribe of kobolds doing the same thing).
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This is really nice picture. Cool!
Thank you!
Make sense?
Yeah, my picture breaks down for a couple of things like AoO and delaying. I was starting to think about how those might fit into that picture but too many higher priority things to do right now (like my actual job). ;-)
whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat you have a life, nah, man, get outta here!
:D
(Hope things go smoothly at work!)
I made an account
Welcome! Glad you're here! :D
That being said, there are several texts in the rules that suggest a GM should have an arbitrary limit. Rule 0 is the obvious vague one, but free action rules should bring insight. The limit of free actions is situational/arbitrary/GM discretion, those are the RAW rules specifically in free action economy becuase at some point you can't do an infinite amount of action free actions, so what is reasonable will always be an arbitrary number, it is very reasonable and fair for a GM to apply this to infinite wand passing. My number 1 rule is to have fun. So if you as a GM do not care, then let your players do silly things like that (though please do not force it upon them with a tribe of kobolds doing the same thing).
Yeah, basically. That's what GMs do - arbitrate (also story-tell, but in a prepatory and reactive manner rather than a dictatorial one; it's a very flexile and wiggly job, GMing).
Point in fact, there are various rules, FAQs, and suggestions which clarify that free actions aren't limitless.
First, talking is a free action, but it clarifies that anything beyond a few sentences is too much.
Second, there was the much-maligned FAQ that expressly limited someone to, "about three free actions" (it was vague like that, but it gave the implication that you couldn't have more than three, and this immeeeeediately shut down several very basic character builds, like anyone that ever had to load things into a ranged weapon because of mild rules interactions and several other very weird cases that broke things; though I note it was a soft limit, not a hard one - a vague off-hand suggestion, even in FAQ form, rather than a hard "this is how it should be" thing).
And there are a few other elements of the same nature. And while none them actually prohibit the PeasantRailGun or similar, there are enough ideas present that many can get the gist. And there's enough freedom present that many can do something different. And that's pretty cool, honestly.
So if I understand most people's opinions correctly. If a carpenter and his mate were to put up a wall, the carpenter could double his nailgun productivity by dropping it and having his mate pick it up and insert the next nail before dropping it again.
Surely, it would be more efficient for the carpenter to keep hold of the nailgun and insert all the nails himself. If his mate had a second nailgun then the nail into wood rate could be double the carpenter alone.
Returning to the sorcerer and his rogue mate. The fastest way spells could be cast is if the sorcerer casts one spell immediately after another, rather than dropping the wand and having his mate cast the next one after picking it up. That would, at best, be as quick as the sorcerer using the wand himself. It certainly wouldn't be twice as quick.
The RAW explicitly states that a round is 6 seconds long. The rules then go on to describe a series of actions that can be taken within a round that seem to approximate 6 seconds of activity. But the RAW do not explicitly state that each character's actions occur simultaneously. The RAW do explicitly state that each character's player takes their turn in initiative order and some people appear to have interpreted that to mean that a round is divided equally amongst the number of PCs/NPCs and monsters. So if there were 10 actors involved, each would conclude their portion of the round in 0.6 seconds and be motionless (AoO and immediate actions excepted) for 5.4 seconds.
Now I don't really believe that anybody seriously considers the second interpretation to be correct. So to deliberately (and deliberately is the key term) use that interpretation to gain advantage is cheesy and can be considered to break the overarching a round is 6 seconds of simultaneous activity rule.
For the record, if the sorcerer used the wand and was subsequently disarmed and then the rogue picked up and used the wand within the same round, I would be fine with it. It was an opportunistic reaction to events as they unfolded, not a deliberate (that word again) attempt to serialise the round.
Heh.
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This is cheese. It is using the turn based nature of the game rules to disrupt the simultaneous activity they are trying to portray.Do you give people killed or incapitated before they had acted during that round their turn's worth of actions? Because otherwise characters killing or incapitating people before they acted also "[use] the turn based nature of the game rules to disrupt the simultaneous activity they are trying to portray". If say a Barbarian pounces and kills an enemy at lower initiative first round of combat, that enemy never gets to attack, if everythign in a round supposedly happens simultaneously, that can't be right.
If a Barbarian can make half a dozen attacks before their target can make even a single one despite those actions allegedly happening siumltaneously, a person using and dropping a wand before another person started to act is not any more cheesy.
but can 50+ people say use, drop, pick up and say use a remote control, fire a gun, or swing the same sword in 6 seconds?
that's why this breaks down. It becomes absurd at a point and a physical impossibility to boot. I think the little loading screen message in Pathfinder: Kingmaker handles this pretty well though; "a move or a standard action each takes about 3 seconds to accomplish" which would make this nonsense a non-issue.
Exactly. I would likely make an off the cuff ruling that two people sharing a wand is okay. 50 people clearly isn't, even though nothing in RAW specifies such. Where exactly do you cut the line? Eh, I'm probably only letting 2 people share the wand, under the idea that a standard action is 3 seconds, and two people could theoretically share the same wand in a 6 second span, even if there's a little wiggle room with the handing it over part.
However, RAW doesn't cover everything and GMs shouldn't feel constrained just because the rules didn't cover this situation.
(It kind of does in that it explicitly sets the limits of free actions at the GM's purview, though, doesn't it? Or is that only for individual characters?)
(It kind of does in that it explicitly sets the limits of free actions at the GM's purview, though, doesn't it? Or is that only for individual characters?)
Are you suggesting that that given an infinite number of characters stood in a line, the only explicit limiting factor in the RAW for the number of times that a single item can be used in a round is the total number of times it can be dropped - and that figure is at the GM's discretion.
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(It kind of does in that it explicitly sets the limits of free actions at the GM's purview, though, doesn't it? Or is that only for individual characters?)Are you suggesting that that given an infinite number of characters stood in a line, the only explicit limiting factor in the RAW for the number of times that a single item can be used in a round is the total number of times it can be dropped - and that figure is at the GM's discretion.
Yes, but also
Rule 0 (even real life court can be arbitrary) using other norms as guidelines is completely acceptable, there are other free action specific limitations like talking turning into an action
It is not the job of rules to think of every silly possibility.
(It kind of does in that it explicitly sets the limits of free actions at the GM's purview, though, doesn't it? Or is that only for individual characters?)
Are you suggesting that that given an infinite number of characters stood in a line, the only explicit limiting factor in the RAW for the number of times that a single item can be used in a round is the total number of times it can be dropped - and that figure is at the GM's discretion.
I mean, if the world you're standing on is an infinite, flat, featureless plane () with normal gravity equalized across the entirety of it, and you had an infinite line of characters ready to go, that's some interesting and exceptionally bizarre GM fiat you got running there already, and I'd have to ask my GM what, exactly, they were doing and why.
:)
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(It kind of does in that it explicitly sets the limits of free actions at the GM's purview, though, doesn't it? Or is that only for individual characters?)Are you suggesting that that given an infinite number of characters stood in a line, the only explicit limiting factor in the RAW for the number of times that a single item can be used in a round is the total number of times it can be dropped - and that figure is at the GM's discretion.I mean, if the world you're standing on is an infinite, flat, featureless plane () with normal gravity equalized across the entirety of it, and you had an infinite line of characters ready to go, that's some interesting and exceptionally bizarre GM fiat you got running there already, and I'd have to ask my GM what, exactly, they were doing and why.
:)
Like it. I believe that some planes of the abyss are sentient and can move. The plane itself could substitute for the infinite line of characters.
I was also imagining a scenario where a wizard is facing a halfling rogue accompanied by an infinite line of giants. The halfling attacks the wizard, who teleports away, suffering an AoO in the process. It is now the giants' turn and they toss the halfling in turn to where the wizard has teleported to.
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Did someone say shenanigans?