Discussion with Andras over Dragon content

doppelgreener

11:26

@Andras I'm going to mention some things here because I'd like to avoid a discussion in comments: (a) I didn't downvote your answer to my question, just in case you're wondering. I'm taking a wait-and-see approach here. (b) I see your position on allowing some material from Dragon and not other stuff "from the same source", but:

If it's not in the same article, it might be by a totally different author or in a totally different magazine and there is nobody overlooking that stuff and keeping it working well.

(c) For an example of how... phenomenally strange Dragon material can get, please consider the Amulet of Scales from Dragon 365:

Oct 10 '13 at 13:13, by wax eagle

> Amulet of Scales (D 365) - Scaling, immediate-application, encounter-long resistance to a keyword (which includes Arcane, Weapon, and the like, by the way) is nice.

We then went on to discuss this thing for over an hour, because it says "resistance to a keyword". Any keyword. Not a damage type, or a specific kind of keyword, just any one at all.

... eventually I think we concluded this can actually resist nothing at all, unless your power just so happens to have one and only one keyword, and almost none of them do.

(because resistance means your lowest resistance applies. your resistance to all other keywords is 0, probably.)

oh, and to complete (b), because I forgot to get to my point: Dragon as a whole doesn't count as "from the same source", nor does a single magazine. Nor does a single author, necessarily. Only each individual article can really be considered "a source", and anything "from the same source" would have to be from the same article. Or at least, not in the useful sense of using stuff from the same source.

You're probably assured of some internal consistency between all the material in a particular published manual, but you're not assured of any good consistency or quality between different Dragon issues, articles by the same author, or articles in the same issue.

These people get paid to produce large amounts of content, rapidly and in relatively short time frames. They do not take months like the manual authors do, so there's probably no meaningful way to say "well it's from the same source so it's ok to allow this too", like there is with manuals.

~~~

(I'm done saying my ton o' things now)

András

11:46

You are quite right in all points about Dragon quality.
I did not assume the Deft Hurler article was from the same issue or writer as the "no more than 1 feat for any at-will". I just think if you take anything from dragon, you should take everything. Deft Hurler WAS errataed after all, if WotC did not like the 1 feat article, they would have errataed it as well in the 4 YEARS since.

The multiple resistance vs multiple damage types rules are famously wrong, and they have been for years:
http://community.wizards.com/forum/4e-rules-qa/threads/3891476
http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/3105011
Should we ignore the Rules Compendium alltogether?

BESW

@András Umm. I believe that's exactly how Hobbs was saying it works.

@JonathanHobbs I do think that's incorrect, but not because of a misunderstanding of the way multiple resistances are applied.

(But that's a complicated conversation for another time.)

The relephant point for this context --the poor wording-- holds.

doppelgreener

12:14

@BESW Very well! :o

@András Rules Compendium says if you're struck with damage that is both ice and fire, if your ice resistance is 10 but your fire resistance is 0, your total resistance for the attack is 0. I'm not ignoring the rules compendium; I'm going by it.

Though what the people in those threads is discussing is a bit unclear to me (maybe because I don't have the time to sit down and read through it in totality)

@András I take the opposite stance so we won't see eye to eye there: I'd carefully consider each article of Dragon content I'm allowing. Dragon produces some good material, but it also produces some dodgy material, and allowing the bad in with the good just because it comes from the same magazine isn't a good idea.

BESW

Although 4e's generally better about errata than 3.5 was, there are still a solid handful of "Really? You're just going to leave that hanging out there?" bits which provide ample evidence Wizards is neither infallible nor even really comprehensive.

Anyway, I'm not sure what the point of the conversation is, so I'll butt out.

doppelgreener

One moment, I'm flagging to move this to another chat room

BESW

← 1 message moved from RPG General Chat

← 36 messages moved from RPG General Chat

doppelgreener

→ 12 messages moved to RPG General Chat

For those curious, this completely concerns this answer:

-1

A: Can a martial character combine a lesser style with greater style, arena training, or other at-will modifying feat?

If you are asking whether more feats can modify an at-will at the same time, the answer is No. You can learn as many as you want, but you can only use one at a time: If you choose multiple heritage feats (or feats that similarly modify at-will powers), you choose which feat modifies the power...

and this question:

7

Q: Are rulings that only feature in Dragon/Dungeon Magazine 'official'?

A recent answer presented the following ruling from Dragon Magazine 371, page 9 (emphasis added): If you choose multiple heritage feats (or feats that similarly modify at-will powers), you choose which feat modifies the power for the purposes of resolving the attack with the power. I don’t ...

dnd-4e

András

12:33

About resistances:
What if I am hit with 10 fire and 7 cold and 2 lightning as one instance, and I have 10 fire and 5 lightinig resist.

The rules say I can only apply 1 resistance for one damage instance, which is obviously nuts, why should I suffer the 2 from lightning if I have 5 resist lightning?

If an (two, ten, threehundred) obviously bad rule disqualifies a source, we could not use any books.

BESW

@András I don't think that was said, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't meant to be implied.

András

And even with your logic, picking only the rules that make sense from Dragon, I think the 1 feat for 1 at-will is a good and balanced rule.

doppelgreener

@András I'm not sure what the purpose of bringing that up is. I was just pointing out an item which makes very poor use of 4e convention (in fact, it breaks it) and thus ends up in a super problematic position.

The item as is is sort of broken and unclear.

Nothing just resists... keywords.

I put it forward as an example of what Dragon can produce. It produces good stuff too, but then it produces stuff like that.

In any case I think a question came up about that once, but I can't find it at the moment.

András

I mentioned the resist rules to show how bad any other book can be. It was not meant to be a solution for the Amulet of Scales problem.

BESW

What I said about non-errata'd features which could obviously use it was in direct response to the assertion that if errata is not provided it means Wizards thinks the feature is good (rather than that they never caught it, or didn't think it was bad enough to merit the effort of an errata, or any of a dozen other possible reasons).

But as I said before, I have no idea what the underlying point of this conversation is; it just looks like arguing over individual examples to back up a point that hasn't been established.

doppelgreener

12:43

@BESW That is more or less what it is, I think.

I'm not sure this has a correct answer and I'm not prepared to decide one for myself.

András

as a sidenote, does http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/ work for you? I wanted to find some other errors to make my point, but it seems to be down.
I mean the page is there, but I can not search.

doppelgreener

@András It does work, but I can't say I'm particularly interested. I'm not defending the books as flawless. I'm pointing out something we've already both agreed on (I think): Dragon produces some weird material.

András

@BESW I always wondered if WotC employees visited any forums to find possible painpoints

doppelgreener

and I disagree that one should just take all of it, but it doesn't matter that much if I agree or not.

Actually I take that back. It does because it affects how I'm voting, but I don't agree that all material from Dragon should be taken equally. I also am not sure whether a ruling from Dragon should have much relevance. (It has relevance to the topic, but does Dragon Magazine itself have relevance as a source of general rules, when the only people it affects are those who choose to read through it? I think not)

András

I do not use the bad parts either as a DM, I just think it is RAW enough, so I tell my players that as a houserule I will not use them.

So Official? Yes
Should be Ignored? Yes
(Amulet of Scales for example)

doppelgreener

13:19

(I had to go AFK and move some boxes and etc)

@Andras The reason why I downvoted your answer and have not yet undone that is because there's an ambiguity over whether the rule is or should be relevant. I would upvote it if it was from a manual. Because it is from Dragon Magazine, there isn't a clear answer as to whether it should be relevant or not to players in general.

On questions about rulings, I look for whether an answer can be objectively said to be correct. I cannot say it is probably objectively correct, because the ruling's source calls into question whether that ruling matters or should be ignored.

András

13:48

It is ok, the answer for number of feats is there in the forum, at least people know about it now.

Everyone can decide for themselves if they use Dragon.
I just did not know Dragon was so despised.

Ok, despised is probably a too strong word, English is not my first language.

Anyway, now I understand why it is downvoted, and I can live with it :)

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Discussion with Andras over Dragon co…