Rules Lawyering
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i disagree with your ruling on the "flycycle"
>':-D
if there was someone on a floating disc and they tried to push the wizard, following basic physics, (never a good idea when magic is involved) the pusher cannot move the wizard away from the disc, it would follow him, all they would be doing is pushing themselves off the disc.
>':-D
if there was someone on a floating disc and they tried to push the wizard, following basic physics, (never a good idea when magic is involved) the pusher cannot move the wizard away from the disc, it would follow him, all they would be doing is pushing themselves off the disc.
While I admire the ingenuity, this ultimately seems like a really bad idea for players. Duration of the spells could result in being stuck in a really bad spot, a trap with an anti-magic shell could go from a minor inconvenience to instantly fatal. If the wizard is knocked out, depending on how high up they are, the fighter is a lot of trouble.
That's usually how I deal with this sort of thing. If it makes sense, the person can do it, but it's just an opportunity for me to deduce how to defuse it. A guy is abusing the rules around Ring of Invisibility? Put them up against a few mercs with blind fighting. That sort of thing. I'm not saying you actively discourage this by always thwarting the players (because I have to admit, the flycycle is awesome) but they have to expect their enemies to adapt to the situation as well.
It's how the game stays fun. A longsword +1 is great when the rest of the party has normal longswords. When everyone has a longsword +1, then you usually need a longsword +1 to get by. Otherwise the fun is gone. It's like turning on invincibility in a video game. What's the point?
That's usually how I deal with this sort of thing. If it makes sense, the person can do it, but it's just an opportunity for me to deduce how to defuse it. A guy is abusing the rules around Ring of Invisibility? Put them up against a few mercs with blind fighting. That sort of thing. I'm not saying you actively discourage this by always thwarting the players (because I have to admit, the flycycle is awesome) but they have to expect their enemies to adapt to the situation as well.
It's how the game stays fun. A longsword +1 is great when the rest of the party has normal longswords. When everyone has a longsword +1, then you usually need a longsword +1 to get by. Otherwise the fun is gone. It's like turning on invincibility in a video game. What's the point?
Well, the disk provides a force (arcane force vectors? Not that normal physics is completely relevant with magic of course) towards the caster, while the caster has essentially resistance-less horizontal movement due to levitate. If you hook your legs over the edge of the disk (or otherwise brace yourself so you don't push yourself off), and give the caster a shove... the caster will be the one to move rather then the disk (because the disk has a persistent force applied towards the caster) - and then the disk magically putters over towards the caster.RikSharp said:
As for not abusing such things, we've had a few of our own tricks thrown back at us (literally in the case of using single pebbles with area silence on them against casters, when one such caster threw a handful of pebbles disguising a silenced one at us).
The time with the centaur flotilla happened when we raided a keep secured by an army of dire orcs and managed to sneak the whole party through to the boss's quarters and vault. Stuck with only utility spells at the top of an alerted fortress with hundreds of enemies... we figured out a way to take the balcony exit.
Although in this case we used fly, so didn't have the levitation movement issue.<- H.L.V. Centaur
I'd think the last thing you'd want to do is to interdict the notion of physics into a fantasy rules discussion and certainly don't want to make a rules arbitration of a fantasy game based on a real-world notion. In some settings it would be more appropriate, but not in a traditional setting that uses the concept of "magic" as one of its foundations. It WILL become a can of worms that will keep cropping up over and over again. Oil and Water.RikSharp said:
You should have been there for the "Elven Orbital Bombardment Machine", or the "Invisible Crystal Ball Spy Satellite" discussions. It's a shame we could never get them to work as expected.aegios187 said:
I've never had much trouble with rules lawyers in any of the campaigns I've run. I generally have a simpllified version of the rules from whatever system I use. I mostly use tristat, which is fairly loose on rules anyway, so the only things I really take into account are the die rolls and a few other things like that. I keep my games fairly realistic in terms of what's possible and what's not, but I'm always willing to talk thing out with my players. We mostly play by my "House Rules" which have only been modified...once I think after we reread a part of the rules and came to the conlcusion that it meant one thing when we thought it meant another.
Dear Escapist staff: I think I just fell in love with all of you.
You've also given me all kinds of ideas for my game on Friday. Thanks.
You've also given me all kinds of ideas for my game on Friday. Thanks.
my group tends to do insane things. For instance, we're running an Exalted game heavily influenced by Avatar the Last Airbender, and each of us has the ability to "bend" different elements. The one true invention in that regard in our game, is the Woodbender. Wood is not an element in Avatar, but it is in Exalted. The other forms of bending work chiefly like their Avatar counterparts - Waterbenders can shape and move water, as well as freeze it, fire benders can create and manipulate fire, earthbenders can levitate and shape earth, airbenders can create gusts of wind and control air currents.. The woodbender has actually the most real "power", as he can "move and levitate plantmatter, as well as cause it to miraculously grow."
That last power is really the crux of it all. We have used that woodbender for many many utilitarian tasks, including turning our wooden ship into a wooden submarine (with the help of the waterbenders to keep it waterproof and help it move).. We also took a boat designed to skim along the sand, launched it off a ramp provided by the earthbender, grew wooden wings just before it took off.. It glided down safely off the bluff into the water, and then we repurposed it to be a sailing boat.
That woodbender can do some pretty amazing things.. we've made several submarines in our sessions... No other bender has the amount of flexibility that that woodbender does, and that's because we basically had to come up with rules and situations where woodbending "fit".
several of our players are also always trying to come up with ludicrous "power armors"
But I think that the Storyteller inadvertantly gave me the best one in a recent game. I don't think even he realizes how good it is yet.
I'll save that for a special occasion to show him
That last power is really the crux of it all. We have used that woodbender for many many utilitarian tasks, including turning our wooden ship into a wooden submarine (with the help of the waterbenders to keep it waterproof and help it move).. We also took a boat designed to skim along the sand, launched it off a ramp provided by the earthbender, grew wooden wings just before it took off.. It glided down safely off the bluff into the water, and then we repurposed it to be a sailing boat.
That woodbender can do some pretty amazing things.. we've made several submarines in our sessions... No other bender has the amount of flexibility that that woodbender does, and that's because we basically had to come up with rules and situations where woodbending "fit".
several of our players are also always trying to come up with ludicrous "power armors"
But I think that the Storyteller inadvertantly gave me the best one in a recent game. I don't think even he realizes how good it is yet.
I'll save that for a special occasion to show him
Interesting point, and I agree that consistencyis always important. However, that is not to say that you must become a lawyer to be consistent. Personally, I think rules through logically and question their effects. For instance, here I would have questioned "Why does the floating disc automatically follow? Does it have a primitive intelligence, or is it simply a tehter effect?" Logically, the second makes more sense. This begs the second question: "If the Floating disc is pushed, what happens to the levitating wizard?" By the assumption that they are connected via a tether-like force, the levitating wizard would be dragged behind it. This is because, given that hand motion of your average wizard (i.e. not strong) is enough to propel the wizard sideways as given by the original description, levitation does not give any particular stability in the air. Then, it follows that trying to push the wizard like that would just result in Newton's third law biting you in the behind and no motion once the wizard and disc are 6' apart. So simply pushing will not move the pair anywhere.
Of course, the wizard could probably just use a gust of wind, or the other chracter could fire an arrow with a rope or some other means of pulling and so move the pair that way instead.
Of course, the wizard could probably just use a gust of wind, or the other chracter could fire an arrow with a rope or some other means of pulling and so move the pair that way instead.
The stick is 10 ft, and the range of the floating disc is 6 ft. This means that there are 4 feet of stick outside the disc's range. Because of this, the wizard could apply constant force on the stick, and constantly accelerate. The only limit to speed in this case is the warrior's ability to balance on the disc against the increasing air drag.
You artificially limit the movement distance by computing the actions like a computer (warrior pushes, wizard moves, then disc moves back into range) when in fact all of this happens simultaneously.
Add a rope tied around the disc and you get a magical air chariot (with a wizard horse).
You artificially limit the movement distance by computing the actions like a computer (warrior pushes, wizard moves, then disc moves back into range) when in fact all of this happens simultaneously.
Add a rope tied around the disc and you get a magical air chariot (with a wizard horse).
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I have to say here and now, the stealth bomber idea is absolutely beautiful. I'd disagree with the floating disc/levitation ruling (it actually popped more than once in games I've played in).
Still, despite the technicalities, I do agree with the basic premise of the article. Making rulings does require a bit of organized thought behind it.
Still, despite the technicalities, I do agree with the basic premise of the article. Making rulings does require a bit of organized thought behind it.
Magic may be involved in making a Floating Disk. Certain physical constants will prevail even in settings where magic is just as real as gravity, however magic has the unique ability to negate paradoxes.Caliban1972 said:
Consider the disk tethered magically to the wizard's waist, and the fighter on the disk is capable of staying on the disk while applying a force against the tether. Whether it's his exceptional balance, friction against the disk itself, or the fact that he's tied himself to an invisible floating platform made of magical energy, the game world would reasonably allow for the situation to occur.
One could argue minutia indefinitely about the tensile strength of the magical tether, how much force the fighter could apply before crushing the wizard's bones or destroying the pole, and so on. Assuming the fighter merely holds slight pressure against the wizard, who is not affected by gravity by Levitation, that force has to go somewhere. One could argue that even this small amount of force, held for long enough, would accelerate the pair infinitely - creating a free energy paradox. Or, a clever DM can find a middle ground that keeps the game moving forward, while maintaining a consistent sensibility in relation to the game world. You can really only go so far with the physics of these situations before it becomes pointless because of the magic being a factor in the first place.
Am I to understand that is a magical version of a low orbit ion cannon that shoots elves out of it? If that is indeed so I say fuck the rules and interpretations, make it so number one.CaptainCrunch said:
When I was reading through those important books I noticed that Rangers can get a shark as an animal companion so I had the best idea ever. Have a wizard cast create water and levitate on it so I could take my shark any where. Who wouldn't freak the fuck out at a magic flying shark that can drown you if it makes a successful grapple check?
Not so sure about the disc trick (the "pusher" might push himself off his floating disk... that could hurt), but the article gave excellent advice. Nice simple version of legal interpretation too. Rules lawyers are a godsend in playtesting by the way. Never playtest without one
Interesting... If a little convoluted. The problem I foresee is that some variants of "rules lawyer" do it because tinkering with the minutiae of the rules or arguing to gain an advantage are what they enjoy, much like one player enjoys the tactics and excitement of combat and another likes the characterization and dialogue of role-playing. While consistency is important, if something like this crops up too often, it creates the danger of slowing things down to the detriment of everyone who doesn't find the particulars of half-monster prestige multi-classing the subject of fascination.
At the risk of sounding flippant, sometimes there's more virtue to just "winging it", a skill that every GM should learn. There will absolutely be times when a serious and/or recurring problem demands this kind of deep analysis, and certainly a GM should appear to be fair and consistant for the long-term health of the campaign. But there are other times when it would be well to just make a ruling and move on.
The particular problem raises different questions to me as a GM; I think I would possibly come to a similar conclusion, but for different reasons. The peculiarities of "levitate" (a second level spell) are clearly in place to differentiate it and weaken it in comparison to "fly" (a third level spell, and one which allows movement in all directions.) It's hard to imagine a case where a magician with access to and need for "fly" would put "levitate" on the same spell list. The letter of the law is that this spell is to be used for horizontal movement, and this spell is not, excepting the ceiling rule to prevent it from lacking the most basic functionality. Conversely, though, the players' "flycycle" idea is a rather novel way of using two spells to overcome the inherent limitation of "levitate", and such innovation should be rewarded (not least because it encourages such lateral thinking and makes the game more enjoyable for everyone involved.) A brief look over the two spells might suggest that the thusly-created "flycycle" could work for, say, floating across a pit, but would certainly lack the agility of someone casting "fly". And the caster of the disk might have to keep a constant concentration on the act of keeping the disk where he or she wanted it (with the pole), as the disk will try to keep returning to 6' from the caster whether he or she wants it to or not. Likewise, the character on the disk might require similar concentration to keep "on balance" on the invisible platform enabling his or her horizontal momentum. I wouldn't advise taking such an arrangement into combat.
At the risk of sounding flippant, sometimes there's more virtue to just "winging it", a skill that every GM should learn. There will absolutely be times when a serious and/or recurring problem demands this kind of deep analysis, and certainly a GM should appear to be fair and consistant for the long-term health of the campaign. But there are other times when it would be well to just make a ruling and move on.
The particular problem raises different questions to me as a GM; I think I would possibly come to a similar conclusion, but for different reasons. The peculiarities of "levitate" (a second level spell) are clearly in place to differentiate it and weaken it in comparison to "fly" (a third level spell, and one which allows movement in all directions.) It's hard to imagine a case where a magician with access to and need for "fly" would put "levitate" on the same spell list. The letter of the law is that this spell is to be used for horizontal movement, and this spell is not, excepting the ceiling rule to prevent it from lacking the most basic functionality. Conversely, though, the players' "flycycle" idea is a rather novel way of using two spells to overcome the inherent limitation of "levitate", and such innovation should be rewarded (not least because it encourages such lateral thinking and makes the game more enjoyable for everyone involved.) A brief look over the two spells might suggest that the thusly-created "flycycle" could work for, say, floating across a pit, but would certainly lack the agility of someone casting "fly". And the caster of the disk might have to keep a constant concentration on the act of keeping the disk where he or she wanted it (with the pole), as the disk will try to keep returning to 6' from the caster whether he or she wants it to or not. Likewise, the character on the disk might require similar concentration to keep "on balance" on the invisible platform enabling his or her horizontal momentum. I wouldn't advise taking such an arrangement into combat.