Author Topic: Suspension of disbelief and rules  (Read 9428 times)

Offline ImperatorK

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Suspension of disbelief and rules
« on: November 19, 2011, 10:56:35 PM »
Situations where you look at the rule(s) and think to yourself "Man, this is ridiculously stupid! There's no way it works like that in my game!". Sometimes it's nothing major, like the fact that a Monk isn't proficient in unarmed strikes. You can houserule it and then it makes sense to you and everyone is happy.
But sometimes, when you houserule (or interpret) it your way you will make life harder for classes or concepts that already have it hard. What then? Leave it and be annoyed by it or change it, but shaft some players character?
To the point:
Did you have such a tricky situation? What was it?
Would you change it or leave it?
Do you know of any rules that could lead to such tricky situation?

One example: Dragonwrought kobolds. :D (although it's more about balance and cheese)
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Offline SneeR

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2011, 01:37:03 AM »
The ssize modifiers are a little unbelievable at times. Making them "more realistic" would shove the rusty baton even farther up the fighter's butt, though...
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Offline Bozwevial

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2011, 02:22:31 AM »
The ssize modifiers are a little unbelievable at times. Making them "more realistic" would shove the rusty baton even farther up the fighter's butt, though...
And then you start getting into silly territory like that covered in the Immortals Handbook, which decrees that things that are large enough attacking things that are small enough always catch those things flat-footed. Their reasoning I think hinges on the fact that a Medium fighter's sword swing covers a much smaller distance than that of a Macro-Fine fighter's sword swing, but both happen in the same amount of time. Therefore the Macro-Fine fighter is swinging his sword much faster, even though size category increases don't result in movement speed increases.

After a certain point, the extra layer of authenticity you get from tweaking the rules like that isn't worth the additional complexity.

I've never sat down and read that thing cover to cover. I kind of want to do that now.
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Offline ImperatorK

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2011, 08:42:11 AM »
I'd like to add that I'm not necessarily talking about "realism". More about things that you personally think are nonsensical or stupid.
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Offline veekie

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #4 on: November 20, 2011, 09:26:52 AM »
Many of the lower level effective spells. Grease, Glitterdust, Color Spray etc are more party tricks than things you would imagine a serious wizard using.
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Offline Mooncrow

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #5 on: November 20, 2011, 12:32:48 PM »
I'd like to add that I'm not necessarily talking about "realism". More about things that you personally think are nonsensical or stupid.

I try to limit the number of changes I make to the rules, my list of house rules is long enough just changing the things that I think need to be changed for the game to work :p  If it's nonsensical or stupid in a way that limits fun or weakens weak characters, then out it goes.  If it does the opposite, then it stays in, most likely.

Offline Prime32

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #6 on: November 20, 2011, 03:47:49 PM »
The ssize modifiers are a little unbelievable at times. Making them "more realistic" would shove the rusty baton even farther up the fighter's butt, though...
And then you start getting into silly territory like that covered in the Immortals Handbook, which decrees that things that are large enough attacking things that are small enough always catch those things flat-footed. Their reasoning I think hinges on the fact that a Medium fighter's sword swing covers a much smaller distance than that of a Macro-Fine fighter's sword swing, but both happen in the same amount of time. Therefore the Macro-Fine fighter is swinging his sword much faster, even though size category increases don't result in movement speed increases.

After a certain point, the extra layer of authenticity you get from tweaking the rules like that isn't worth the additional complexity.

I've never sat down and read that thing cover to cover. I kind of want to do that now.
On that note, the PF version of Armor as Damage Reduction. Large or larger attackers ignore armor*, even if they're fighting creatures of the same size. What.

*The exact size depends on whether your armor is magic, what its made of, and whether you have DR.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2011, 04:23:13 PM by Prime32 »

Offline veekie

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #7 on: November 20, 2011, 04:09:47 PM »
Another one with vancian magic. Running out of high level spells do not impede your ability to crap out low level ones at full power and vice versa.
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Offline SneeR

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #8 on: November 20, 2011, 06:51:53 PM »
Another one with vancian magic. Running out of high level spells do not impede your ability to crap out low level ones at full power and vice versa.

And you can use that feat to make low-level spells into higher ones...
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Offline veekie

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #9 on: November 20, 2011, 11:26:15 PM »
That feat, oddly enough, makes things better.
Everything is edible. Just that there are things only edible once per lifetime.
It's a god-eat-god world.

Procrastination is the thief of time; Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves; The vast concerns of an eternal scene.

Offline SneeR

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #10 on: November 22, 2011, 10:15:45 PM »
AC bonuses not stacking always bugged me from the first time I heard about it. I think that, if you want to wear a suit of full plate fitted to the outside of your set of full plate, you will be very hot, but untouchable!

Also, why not stack multiple shields? If you want to wear a tower shield in both hands, good for you! Enjoy the insane AC, Mr. No-Free-Hands.

Dodge bonuses stack but no others? BS.
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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #11 on: November 22, 2011, 11:25:40 PM »
AC bonuses not stacking always bugged me from the first time I heard about it. I think that, if you want to wear a suit of full plate fitted to the outside of your set of full plate, you will be very hot, but untouchable!

Also, why not stack multiple shields? If you want to wear a tower shield in both hands, good for you! Enjoy the insane AC, Mr. No-Free-Hands.

Dodge bonuses stack but no others? BS.

1) Use a Tower Shield for Cover
1a) the tower shield no longer provides a shield bonus to ac, giving you a cover bonus instead.
2) Use another shield for a shield bonus to AC

Who says you can't use more than 1 shield at once?   :P

Offline SneeR

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #12 on: November 22, 2011, 11:31:38 PM »
AC bonuses not stacking always bugged me from the first time I heard about it. I think that, if you want to wear a suit of full plate fitted to the outside of your set of full plate, you will be very hot, but untouchable!

Also, why not stack multiple shields? If you want to wear a tower shield in both hands, good for you! Enjoy the insane AC, Mr. No-Free-Hands.

Dodge bonuses stack but no others? BS.

1) Use a Tower Shield for Cover
1a) the tower shield no longer provides a shield bonus to ac, giving you a cover bonus instead.
2) Use another shield for a shield bonus to AC

Who says you can't use more than 1 shield at once?   :P

But what about full plate for my full plate?
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Offline Basket Burner

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #13 on: November 23, 2011, 07:57:09 AM »
Yo dawg I heard you liked full plate so I put full plate on your full plate so you could full plate.

Offline ImperatorK

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #14 on: November 23, 2011, 09:18:22 AM »
AC bonuses not stacking always bugged me from the first time I heard about it. I think that, if you want to wear a suit of full plate fitted to the outside of your set of full plate, you will be very hot, but untouchable!

Also, why not stack multiple shields? If you want to wear a tower shield in both hands, good for you! Enjoy the insane AC, Mr. No-Free-Hands.

Dodge bonuses stack but no others? BS.
Balance reasons... yeah.
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Offline InnaBinder

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #15 on: November 23, 2011, 10:24:08 AM »
Mine's one that will probably catch some flak around these parts.  I hate how Evasion and its ilk allow you to dodge between the heat molecules of an incoming firestorm.  In my games, any Evasion-like ability instead lets the character treat damage rolled as all 1s, unless 1/2 damage would be less than that, in which case use the lower value.  Improved Evasion halves that damage again, with a successful save.  I recognize and have noticed that this makes Evocation marginally less crapulent, but I'm okay with that.
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Offline RobbyPants

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #16 on: November 23, 2011, 11:14:33 AM »
Mine's one that will probably catch some flak around these parts.  I hate how Evasion and its ilk allow you to dodge between the heat molecules of an incoming firestorm.
If I were going to patch it for realism's sake, I'd let anyone with Evasion move up to their base speed on a successful save. If it put them out of the AoE, they'd take no damage. Once they're out of the AoE, they're movement ends.
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Offline InnaBinder

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #17 on: November 23, 2011, 11:20:28 AM »
Mine's one that will probably catch some flak around these parts.  I hate how Evasion and its ilk allow you to dodge between the heat molecules of an incoming firestorm.
If I were going to patch it for realism's sake, I'd let anyone with Evasion move up to their base speed on a successful save. If it put them out of the AoE, they'd take no damage. Once they're out of the AoE, they're movement ends.
Doesn't solve the issue that happens by RAW when a 3rd level Rogue is in a 2.5' x 2.5' broom closet when he triggers a Fireball trap, and somehow takes no damage.
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Offline oslecamo

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #18 on: November 23, 2011, 11:49:16 AM »
Mine's one that will probably catch some flak around these parts.  I hate how Evasion and its ilk allow you to dodge between the heat molecules of an incoming firestorm.
If I were going to patch it for realism's sake, I'd let anyone with Evasion move up to their base speed on a successful save. If it put them out of the AoE, they'd take no damage. Once they're out of the AoE, they're movement ends.
Doesn't solve the issue that happens by RAW when a 3rd level Rogue is in a 2.5' x 2.5' broom closet when he triggers a Fireball trap, and somehow takes no damage.

Ever played Touhou? Simply put the fireball is actually composed of a series of fire waves and smaller spheres packed togheter, not a 100% solid sphere. They're just packed so togheter that it indeed looks like a single ball. But if you have insane gaming dodging skillz, you can just put yourself in the "safe" areas!

Plus hey, it's a very common fiction staple that a closed building explodes and the hero/villain escapes walks out with just a few bruises even if he's suposedly a normal human. :p

EDIT: And there's even a considerable amount of real-world cases where people miracously survive point-blank explosions at short range with just a few scratches, not enough to even classify as 1 HP damage.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2011, 11:54:27 AM by oslecamo »

Offline veekie

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Re: Suspension of disbelief and rules
« Reply #19 on: November 23, 2011, 12:51:39 PM »
Yeah, heat waves and pressure aren't fully homogenous, and any bullet hell game would show you what you could swear was a single AoE, yet with plenty of space to duck between.

One minor one is putting magic gear on over stuff like plate armor. Magic boots, meet platemail.
Everything is edible. Just that there are things only edible once per lifetime.
It's a god-eat-god world.

Procrastination is the thief of time; Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves; The vast concerns of an eternal scene.