Font of Inspiration grants less points than people think

[RobbyPants]

I have not been trolling you and as I and others have already said multiple times now, Resetting IP is not a houserule it is RAI.

Is it also RAW? Something that is RAI but not RAW is exactly a houserule.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

At it's most extreme definition , "Encounter" would allow a FoI Nova per skill check.


I figure between 4e using the word encounter so much, and the obvious handwave 3e definiton in use for so long ... this ain't gonna be that easy to tease out.


Encounter: The Definition
 http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11923


... and the spawning thread for that, editted to 3 posts.

(click to show/hide)

JaronK
Quote from: The_Mad_Linguist on September 30, 2010, 07:59:09 PM
Quote from: Prime32 on September 30, 2010, 07:39:24 PM
I believe an encounter was defined as "1 minute" somewhere.
An encounter is anything with an EL.

TML, that doesn't fit with the FAQ on Factotums.  The goal of this thread is to figure out what the designers mean when they say things, and especially considering that same FAQ was written by the guy who wrote the Factotum, at least for that purpose "anything with an EL" won't cut it.

Meanwhile, what's the source for this 1 minute thing?  I've never heard of it.

JaronK



Snakeman830
Tome of Battle sets it to 5 minutes after anything noteable happens for the encounter to be officially over.



SorO_Lost
Encounter
An encounter usually drains the parties resources in some manner. HP, spells per day, healing, limited magic item usage, and so on but not always. The level of the encounter is hard to judge and takes into account several factors. The DMI & DMGII contain details on this and if you still have questions on how to handle encounter levels this is the wrong thread to ask them (see the GM Gameology subforum).

Defined types
Combat: A fight between the party and a single or group of monsters and/or traps.
Negotiation: Roleplaying and/or skill checks to achieve the desired results though noncombat interaction between two or more people.
Environmental: Weather, earthquakes, landslides, fast moving water, and fires to name a few.
Problem-Solving: mysteries, puzzles, or riddles. Likely it creates no drain on resources but annoys the crap out of your players, give them some XP to make up for it.
Judgment Calls: Do you chop the arm off the guy stealing food for his family? See also roleplaying rewards (DMG).
Investigation: A long term combination of negotiation & problem solving, ie when saying 'friend' in elven just isn't worth a reward.
Sources: DMG, Encounters, pg50.
See Also: Adventures (DMG).
Note: Abilities that reset via start of a new encounter may also regenerate at the rate of once per ten rounds or so (FAQ ruling (link?)), there is not set time span on how far the encounters must be spaced apart to count as separate encounters but it is advised to be five minutes (source?)

[SorO_Lost]

I have not been trolling you and as I and others have already said multiple times now, Resetting IP is not a houserule it is RAI.

Is it also RAW? Something that is RAI but not RAW is exactly a houserule.

Not at all Robby, words are a means to encode an idea and transmit it to another, whom in turn must decipher the words back into an idea. RAI is truly the purest form of interpretation, but people like you and Kelik use what I like call "RAW". And yes those quotation marks are intentional, I rarely ever dignify a fallacy or incorrect opinion as RAW nor do I wish to insult the rulebook's RAW text by assuming they were written with such a unique IQ level.

So as a little background for you, a definitional retreat is a logical fallacy based on changing the meaning of a word to deal with an objection raised against the original wording. An equivocation is another one based on the misleading use of a term with more than one meaning by glossing over which meaning is intended at a particular time. And you can never forget the fallacy of accent, it's a specific type of ambiguity that arises when the meaning of a sentence is changed by placing an unusual prosodic stress, or when, in a written passage, it's left unclear which word the emphasis was supposed to fall on.

For example, "I didn't say you were wrong" vs "I didn't say you were wrong". Two very same sentences with two very different meanings and both of those are fallacies unless you can prove which word , if any, is supposed to be stressed. How many times in the last year have you seen that come up in a pointless language debate? And how many times have I popped in telling you are stupid it is? And how many times must I do so again before people finally learn to grasp the concept?

No one really knows the answers to those questions, but I suspect you'll want to refute this entire post huh? 

[Jackinthegreen]

I have not been trolling you and as I and others have already said multiple times now, Resetting IP is not a houserule it is RAI.

Is it also RAW? Something that is RAI but not RAW is exactly a houserule.

The exact rule quote in Dungeonscape page 16 bottom left is as follows:

"At the beginning of each encounter, he gains a number of inspiration points determined by his level (see Table 1–1)."

It comes down to how one interprets the "RAW" of this (and pray to Gygax that people can debate it civilly.)  The rules don't actually say what happens to unspent inspiration points at the end of an encounter, though the FAQ did attempt to clarify it by saying:

"When playing a factotum (Du 14), what happens to
inspiration points unspent at the end of the encounter?
Unspent inspiration points are replaced when the factotum
returns to his full number of points once an encounter ends."

I say "attempt to clarify" because what they wrote doesn't make sense in the context of the factotum rules, or at the very least they're shifting stuff around.  It's at the beginning of an encounter, not at the end, that the factotum gains inspiration points.  "Replaced" is assumed to mean "overwritten" from the looks of it.  So if a level 20 factotum had 4 points at the end of the encounter then they'd be replaced by the 10 the factotum is normally allotted when encounters begin.  Or end.  Or something.

This is one of the ones I'm calling "They fucked up the editing badly enough that making the mechanic functional and reasonable requires putting the rules in a context different from what just the book itself can strictly convey."  Which is probably one of the reasons Rule 0 is around; to try to cover for poor editing.

[Ice9]

You know, I hadn't looked that carefully at the Factotum before, so I hadn't realized that it wasn't just a 4E style encounter mechanic - ie., you can recharge IP with a few minutes rest.  If encounter is supposed to be meta, like an entire day of investigating crime in a city might be a single encounter, then ugh, that's terrible, it encourages stupid tricks to recharge.

Wizard: "I can't read this note, it must be in code.  Hey Factotum, do that skill mojo you do."
Factotum: "Can't, I ran out of inspiration back at noon."
Wizard: "Oh ... well, I'm just going to go have a smoke.  Wait here a minute."
* Wizard walks around corner, summons a Fiendish Badger, tells it to go attack the Factotum. *
* Factotum regains IP!  And easily defeats the badger. *
* Wizard walks back around corner. *  "How about now?"
Factotum: "Yup, I can decode it now.  Some random wildlife bit me and it really sparked my creativity!"

I mean yes, that example is blatant, but where do you draw the line?  There might be a legitimate reason that the PCs want to go investigate the shady bar (where they'll probably get into a brawl) before continuing the research they're doing.  Still dumb to make that the best course of action.

[Samwise]

Is it also RAW? Something that is RAI but not RAW is exactly a houserule.

Not at all.
By that standard, every non-combat encounter is a houserule, even though by RAW you can have non-combat encounters. Actual creativity rates even worse.
Go down that path too far and you wind up with 4E's attempt at mathematical perfection of combat, encounter and monster design, and treasure assignment by lots.

[Kaelik]

You know, I hadn't looked that carefully at the Factotum before, so I hadn't realized that it wasn't just a 4E style encounter mechanic - ie., you can recharge IP with a few minutes rest.  If encounter is supposed to be meta, like an entire day of investigating crime in a city might be a single encounter, then ugh, that's terrible, it encourages stupid tricks to recharge.

Indeed, one of the many many many many problems with the Factotum Class is that unlike even most other encounter based classes, it doesn't lay out a non-encounter system for controlling resources. Something as simple as an action cost to refresh IP, or specific period of rest, could vastly improve the class by negating 70-80% of the times DMs would even have to come up with an answer to whether or not an encounter is occurring, and the resulting class would be nearly identical in power (except for the inability to store up IP from previous encounters, but again, that's a bug not a feature).

Not at all Robby, words are a means to encode an idea and transmit it to another, whom in turn must decipher the words back into an idea. RAI is truly the purest form of interpretation, but people like you and Kelik use what I like call "RAW". And yes those quotation marks are intentional, I rarely ever dignify a fallacy or incorrect opinion as RAW nor do I wish to insult the rulebook's RAW text by assuming they were written with such a unique IQ level.

This is basically nonsense. You are claiming that it is literally impossible for any person to ever even conceive of a class that can save up points between encounters, but that's silly. It's not a very good design, but the idea that no one could ever even conceive of it, such that when someone writes rules that do that you have to "not speak english" to believe that the words mean what they actually mean, instead of some completely different thing they don't mean is just crazy talk.

Far more likely, the words mean what they mean in natural english, and the person either did or didn't make a mistake, but finding that out would require asking them.

How many times in the last year have you seen that come up in a pointless language debate? And how many times have I popped in telling you are stupid it is? And how many times must I do so again before people finally learn to grasp the concept?

And there's the rub, it's not actually about whether or not the rules do or don't say X, it's about you thinking that when there is any question at all about what the rules mean, that anyone who thinks differently than you is an idiot who is incapable of reading, because only your personal conception of what was meant could ever be right.

Yeah, most people who spend any serious amount of their time professionally reading or writing quickly learn that this is nonsense, there are often multiple possible interpretations to something written, and to claim that yours is always write and that anyone who disagrees with you is an idiot basically just proves that you are rejecting what is actually said in favor of your conception of it.

[faeryn]

Yeah, most people who spend any serious amount of their time professionally reading or writing quickly learn that this is nonsense, there are often multiple possible interpretations to something written, and to claim that yours is always write and that anyone who disagrees with you is an idiot basically just proves that you are rejecting what is actually said in favor of your conception of it.

I don't mean any offense by this, but do you not see how you are doing this exact same thing right now? All of us have admitted that by RAW the rule is non-sense, but your the only one rejecting the RAI, or well not really rejecting it but insisting that it's not RAI but instead a houserule. When everyone is aginst you it's time to swallow your pride and aaccept it or agree to disaagree insteaad of constantly rejecting the notion.

[Kaelik]

Yeah, most people who spend any serious amount of their time professionally reading or writing quickly learn that this is nonsense, there are often multiple possible interpretations to something written, and to claim that yours is always write and that anyone who disagrees with you is an idiot basically just proves that you are rejecting what is actually said in favor of your conception of it.

I don't mean any offense by this, but do you not see how you are doing this exact same thing right now? All of us have admitted that by RAW the rule is non-sense, but your the only one rejecting the RAI, or well not really rejecting it but insisting that it's not RAI but instead a houserule. When everyone is aginst you it's time to swallow your pride and aaccept it or agree to disaagree insteaad of constantly rejecting the notion.

The RAI is a houserule. Rules as Intended really just means "whatever I think it should be" sometimes what you think it should be is the rule that actually exists, sometimes it isn't. But in this case the RAW says something, and you are making up some completely different rule and saying "this is what they meant!" and they probably did mean that, but they didn't say that.

Understanding that written words can have different interpretations doesn't mean that anything you make up is a valid interpretation.

There are like, 3-4 interpretations of what Font of Inspiration does. It's super shittily written, so it could be any of those different things, because "gains X" can mean a lot of different things, especially the way the special section is written, and it's made even worse by using the same language as the rule that absolutely has to be houseruled to function, the regular Inspiration gain mechanic.

But that doesn't mean that you would be correct if you claimed that Font of Inspiration really grants 10 points of inspiration when you take the feat the first time, because even though what it does say is unclear, that's clearly not what it says.

Likewise, the actual rules for Factotum clearly don't say anything about losing IP when you gain IP, or a maximum IP, or a refresh. They may have meant to write something like that, but they clearly didn't.

Saying that something is "RAI not a houserule" is repeating that red isn't a color, it's a colour, over and over. It doesn't stop being literally nonsensical no matter how many times you say it.

[faeryn]

Given the fact that it was addressed in the FAQ, there is some pretty solid evidence that it is infact RAI to reset your IP per incounter not stack it... Sure the FAQ may not be considered an official rules source, and I'd have to call my self a hypocrit to ever claim otherwise given how many times I've argued against FAQ rulings on some things. But when the FAQ makes a much needed clarification about something that was poorly defined it tends to stand as the only rule source that can keep some broken mechanics in check or functional. My main issue with the FAQ is when an FAQ answer does a complete 180 from what is written in multiple rules quotes or turns a useful and functional ability into complete garbage.

Since the Dungeonscape book was never errata'd or udated for 3.5 the FAQ is regretably the only source of information we will ever have on clarifications and corrections to the material from that book.

Here's a complete record of everything in the FAQ about the Factotum & Inspiration Points

Factotum
When playing a factotum (Du 14), what happens to
inspiration points unspent at the end of the encounter?
 Unspent inspiration points are replaced when the factotum
returns to his full number of points once an encounter ends.
 Does the factotum (Du 14) meet the requirements for
activating spell trigger or spell completion items, such as
wands and scrolls?
The factotum lacks a spell list. While he chooses spells
from the sorcerer/wizard lists, this is not the same as having a
true class spell list. Thus, a factotum cannot use spell trigger or
spell completion items without Use Magic Device or some
similar ability.
Can a factotum (Du 14) use his “cunning insight” to
boost his save outside of combat (for example, against a
poison trap)?
 Yes, you can use such abilities outside of combat. An
“encounter” is more than a combat, but it also includes any
other significant event in the game such as stopping to bash
down a door, navigating a rickety bridge, or dealing with a trap.
If the characters have a minute or two to catch their breath and
rest, assume that the last encounter has ended and all per
encounter abilities refresh.
 I have two questions related to the factotum (Du 14) and
sneak attack:
 1. Can a factotum spend more than one inspiration
point on cunning strike to gain more than 1d6 points of
sneak attack damage?
 2. Can a factotum of 19th level use cunning brilliance to
emulate a rogue’s sneak attack ability?
 Answering your questions in order:
 1. Yes, you can use multiple inspiration points to gain
additional sneak attack damage.
 2. It’s reasonable to assume that sneak attack is an
extraordinary ability. When in doubt, the DM should decide if
an unmarked ability qualifies. Anything that lacks a clear,
supernatural element should be fair play.
How many spells does the factotum (Du 14) get per day?
The table seems to list just the maximum spell level he can
prepare/cast, but not the number of spells that can be
prepared or cast per day.
 The wording of text for arcane dilettante seems to imply
that the factotum can prepare and cast each spell chosen no
more than once per day but that he gets to use the spell as a
spell-like ability if he chooses to use 1 inspiration point. Is this
correct?
 The factotum gains 1 spell per day at 2nd level, 2 at 4th,
and so on. The number of spells is hidden under the Special
header of table 1-1, page 15 of Du. The arcane dilettante ability
is listed again each time the factotum gains another spell.
 To use a spell, you must spend 1 inspiration point. Once
you use a spell in this manner, you cannot use it again for the
day. A factotum always uses his spells granted by arcane
dilettante as spell-like abilities.
Can a character with spell-like abilities, such as a
warlock or factotum, craft alchemical items as if they were
a spellcaster?
 The rules are a bit vague on this point, but it’s easiest to
treat a character with spell-like abilities as a spellcaster for this
purpose.

That is litterally all we've ever been given to in any simi-official statement to correct the errors in the Factotum's class description. I may not agree witht he FAQ very often, but this is one of the few times where I do agree with it. If you want to claim that as houserules that's your perogative, but to the rest of us, that is not a houserule but RAI, and any arguments about that point are futile. If you want to call it a houserule thats up to you, just don't insist that we all are wrong for calling it RAI when the only source we have for corrections on the book's mistakes outlines it as RAI.

[Kaelik]

It's not a COLOR it's a COLOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You... Like.... WTF?

Look, the rule is stupid. The factotum is poorly written garbage for a number of reasons. You obviously have to houserule it's basic fucking mechanic to be functional at all.

It doesn't matter that you and some other people agree on your favorite houserule. It really doesn't. That doesn't make any of the other things said less true. They all still remain true no matter how much you and other people agree on the "best" houserule. No one ever said it was hard to fix this one specific aspect of the Factotum with a houserule. Of course it's easy. The fact that it is so easy is part of the reason the Factotum is poorly written garbage. (Other issues include, daily limits on a bunch of abilities, and not being able to do anything level appropriate in combat at basically any level, and having way too few IP at every level). But the fact that you can come up with a fix doesn't make the problem not exist. That was established in 2002. I have no idea how you time traveled from 15 years in the past to the present day and read the Factotum class before reading about the Oberini Fallacy, but your ability to fix a problem by ignoring the rules and making up your own, no matter how many people agree that your new rules are better than the old ones, doesn't make the old rules not shit.

Also, your agreed upon best houserule is less good than other houserules which take like 30 seconds to think of any type, since they already exist in other classes.

[faeryn]

Did you even read any of my previous post? You calling it a house rule does not change anything. It is RAI and arguing over that is pointless. Just because there wasn't an official Errata for it and the only source of correction we have in any even remotely offiicial form is the FAQ does not lead to dismissal.

Yes, the original printed rule is poorly written. No one is arguing over that. The RAI for how Inspriation is meant to work has been around for years via the FAQ, as disliked as the FAQ may be. It's still the only source we have for corrections on Dungeonscape material.

If you wish to repeat "it's a colour not a color" try looking at your own argument through that lense. I've said it multiple times in various ways now as well. We are NOT going to agree on this so agree to disagree. If you wish to continue down this road then I may as well respond to your posts with a carbon copy of your very argument, but I won't instead I am ending this argument right here. Do NOT continue this argument, there will be no conclusion or consensus between us. We WILL disagree and that's all there ever will be between us on this. So rather than continue to argue in circles for pages lets once again agree to disagree and move on. Any further attempt to continue this argument will be responded with "Agree to disagree" and that is all.

[Kaelik]

Yes, the original printed rule is poorly written. No one is arguing over that.

Except all the people who started and then kept doing exactly that. Like you, up until at least yesterday:

Resetting IP is not a houserule it is RAI.

Look, am I happy that you have now backed 1000000% of your previous completely wrong claims? Sure. But let's not pick any bones about this, you started by contradicting my claim that the Factotum needed to be houseruled to function by questioning whether I had ever even read the factotum's abilities.

If you now admit that you do and have to houserule the factotum to function, that's great, but that also makes me right and you wrong from two pages ago, so don't start whining about how no one ever said the things you said yesterday.

[faeryn]

Agree to disagree

[Zionpopsickle]

If you now admit that you do and have to houserule the factotum to function, that's great, but that also makes me right and you wrong from two pages ago, so don't start whining about how no one ever said the things you said yesterday.

You know, this is the thing that really pisses me off about rules arguments like this.  The bolded section is what you actually care about.  Its not about the rules or the game or the hobby.  Its about being right in the rules argument and the other person being wrong.  Its the kind of pathetically juvenile form I would expect from teenagers arguing about Call of Duty, not grown men and women arguing about the rules to a game that has been old for nearly a decade now. 

Really, looking through the rules of DnD, they are so complex with so many self contradictions that everyone is playing with some houserules, period.  So pretending that a player using an interpretation of badly written rules to play a specific class is somehow an inferior method of play is literally just pointless confrontation. 

The rules of 3.5 had poor technical writing but were written in a way that implied that they were a technical ruleset and the playerbase liked this idea because it felt "hard" and compared to 2nd it was.  But compare it to a real technical ruleset, even a week technical ruleset and you will see how poorly written and reliant on player interpretation the 3.5 rule set really is.  Pretending that RAW is some grand arbiter of rules righteousness is just silly because so much of RAW is a fiction, a set of interpretations with broad agreement, because there are major elements that are serious lacking in the foundational rules.

[Kaelik]

If you now admit that you do and have to houserule the factotum to function, that's great, but that also makes me right and you wrong from two pages ago, so don't start whining about how no one ever said the things you said yesterday.

You know, this is the thing that really pisses me off about rules arguments like this.  The bolded section is what you actually care about.  Its not about the rules or the game or the hobby.  Its about being right in the rules argument and the other person being wrong.

No, the thing I care about is the thing I said two pages ago: "The Factotum is a garbagely designed class that is garbagely written too, and since you already have to houserule it to make it even remotely functional, you might as well houserule the IP to be whatever number you think is correct, instead of worrying about how much IP a Factotum can or cannot get by taking an also poorly written bandaid web feat."

So you know, it's actually about the rules and the hobby. If I just wanted to "win an internet argument" I would just come in on the side that everyone already agrees with, and then I'd have won! The reason I'm arguing in favor of a specific side is because I think that side is fucking right.

[SorO_Lost]

The bolded section is what you actually care about.

I honestly doubt Kaelik really cares about what or who is right or wrong. For him, it's purely about the pointless arguing.

Consider a tangent observation of Minecraft, some online FPSes, or probably the single largest example Ultima Online. The ability to grief people, to bully with the dual excuse of anonymity to both prevent reprisals (you don't know me!) and to argue you're better than that (I'm not picking on you, I do this to all), is the driving force of those games. Like it or not, people are addicted to the emotions they feel from those games. Like they'll rage quit when losing not because they are losing but because they need to exaggerate the emotion because their rage feels like an amazing upper and when winning tell you it's the best game ever because they genuinely feel like they are winning at something, even if it's an fabricated reality of their situation. And since they can't experience these feelings in any other way in life so they indulge in it again and again like any other form of addiction.

Tl;dr: Kaelik wants you to feed the troll, but you should just give him a pity hug.

[Kaelik]

The bolded section is what you actually care about.

I honestly doubt Kaelik really cares about what or who is right or wrong. For him, it's purely about the pointless arguing.

Consider a tangent observation of Minecraft, some online FPSes, or probably the single largest example Ultima Online. The ability to grief people, to bully with the dual excuse of anonymity to both prevent reprisals (you don't know me!) and to argue you're better than that (I'm not picking on you, I do this to all), is the driving force of those games. Like it or not, people are addicted to the emotions they feel from those games. Like they'll rage quit when losing not because they are losing but because they need to exaggerate the emotion because their rage feels like an amazing upper and when winning tell you it's the best game ever because they genuinely feel like they are winning at something, even if it's an fabricated reality of their situation. And since they can't experience these feelings in any other way in life so they indulge in it again and again like any other form of addiction.

Tl;dr: Kaelik wants you to feed the troll, but you should just give him a pity hug.

Oh goody, another person who posts an entire paragraph of amateur psychology explaining their totally sensible and not at all pathetic belief that everyone who disagrees with them about RPG rules is a mentally unhealthy loser. Because remember kids, arguing about RPG rules on an RPG rules forum makes you a pathetic bully, but passive aggressive screeds about other people is the height of civil intelligent discourse, and the only way to prove you are above petty insults!

[faeryn]

Everyone drop the argument already... I already told him that if he attempts to continue it I will reply with only "Agree to disagree" and I have done exactly that... It's clear neither of us will agree on anything and that this argument will continue to just go in circles endlessly so any attempt to continue it is futile and pointless. Rather than exasperate the topic I've offered an option to end the argument peacefully with no resolution and just move on. That is what I plan to do and I would hope the rest of ya'll will as well.

[Amechra]

You know, the weird thing is that I think this is the first large-ish, virulent argument we've had on these boards in... I dunno, a year or two?

I just thought I'd bring that up.