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D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: Is Warlock broken?
« on: September 18, 2016, 09:22:59 PM »Do you see why I brought up Hold Person as an example of how SorO's claim that "any debate about the rules is always ignoring the rules" is basically nonsense?It THAT is what it is about, then I agree with you. I do not believe that any debate about the rules is always ignoring the rules, because I believe rules are inherently debatable. The problem, in my view, is when people dismiss the FAQ out of hand, even though it is usually right.
As for Nausea: I'm surprised that this one is your favourite, since it is plenty obvious that Freedom of Movement does not cure nausea. That would be silly.
Sure, entirely possible. But the fact remains that the person answering our questions doesn't necessarily know what they're talking about. And, beyond that trust issue, mistakes like this one raise a lot of hard questions. Why would the FAQ have rule altering power over the normal books, and not have it over the errata? And, the other way, if the FAQ doesn't have the ability to alter the errata, then why would it have the power to alter the books? To what extent can it alter the books? If the books are unambiguous about something stupid, like monks lacking proficiency with their unarmed strikes, and the FAQ says otherwise (which it might, but I don't recall), then do we call that a "good ruling" because it squares with intent, or do we ignore that ruling like we would for the arcane thesis entry? Where do we draw the line between a good ruling and one that should be ignored, and how do we systematize those differences in a way that squares with actually being rules?I agree with a lot of that. The thing is, I do not expect the rules to always have a RAW answer, because they don't. You will not be free of RAW failures if you get rid of the FAQ, and in fact you'll have more, because the FAQ solves more problems than it causes.
Mistakes make things weird, in other words. They force us to consider that other things might be mistakes, and they blur the line between rule change and weird inaccuracy. As Chemus noted, with errata, you know where you stand. The errata always wins, because it has ultimate correction power. With the FAQ, anything could mean anything. And that's a lot of why someone wouldn't want the FAQ as a source of rules at all. Because it creates some really complicated problems that lack RAW solutions.
Problems are only really complicated because the CO community started treating D&D rules like a programming language. That's probably why WotC felt the need for the fluff/crunch separation and strict formatting in 4e: people's rules-lawyering was getting out of hand. But 3.5 remains the same, and if you expect everything to have a universally-agreed-upon RAW answer, too bad: you will not get it. My answer to all those hard questions is this: you will have to think and implement what is best for the game. That is something you should be doing with any rule, whether FAQ or errata or printed book, because any rule could be in error. The final answer will be the one that makes the most sense, which may or may not be the one in the book or errata or FAQ. Consider all the sources, including the FAQ, and make a rational decision. It does not have to be the same as at every table, because it not Rules As Played Everywhere.