Could someone back me up about water walk? The spell text is crystal clear, yet some people are convinced that there are multiple ways to read it.

@Szega To be honest it sounds like the 60 feet per round upward could last the full hour

I wouldn't rule it that way, but it gives per round movement and does not really specify if that fades

@SirCinnamon It does not! "When you target" is clear. It happens when you target someone

at casting

@Szega It could help if you cited more of the spell description, rather than parts of sentences

@Szega But it doesn't say when you target, it says IF you target

@MikeQ The rest is irrelevant

@SirCinnamon Still restricts the effect to the time of casting

@Szega Except it lasts multiple rounds

It also seems weird that you only become buoyant at the beginning of the spell, and then return to regular buoyancy so you can swim downward again

@SirCinnamon It last until you are the surface, yes. It starts pulling them at the casting. But the general effect says nothing about it. If they wanted to do the spell something else, they would have written it differently

@Szega Thats an RAI not RAW argument

It doesnt specify when the effect ends

@MikeQ It is not wierd. It is an additional effect of the spell, it saves drowning an unconscious people

It starts pulling them at the casting, and no detail is given on that pull ending

@SirCinnamon "to the surface" it ends when you reach the surface

@Szega But would unconscious people immediately sink afterwards?

"the spell carries the target to the surface of the liquid at a rate of 60 feet per round" could imply that the creature is buoyant every round for the spell duration

@Szega That's a pretty large assumption

@SirCinnamon There may be some unclarity. Can you use an ability while unconscious, even if the ability does not say that you have to take an action to use it?

@SirCinnamon that is not an assumption, it is in the text

@Szega You are pulled towards x every round does not innately imply it ends when you reach x

@MikeQ It still would not work if you cast it on someone on the shore. Now that would be wierd

@Szega No

@goodguy5 Spheres are centered on a grid intersection

A creature cannot be perfectly in the middle

@SPavel AoE spheres, at time of casting

@Szega Sorry, I disagree with you here. I feel more like it ties magic balloons to you for the duration

@goodguy5 There are multiple ways to phrase the spell to do what you guys say, but they did not write it that way

@Szega There are multiple ways to say "until they reach the surface" but they didn't say that either. They didn't specify.

^

Phrasing of part of wind walk: "If a creature is in cloud form and flying when the effect ends, the creature descends 60 feet per round for 1 minute until it lands, which it does safely. If it can't land after 1 minute, the creature falls the remaining distance."

What they did specify is that this effect only effects creatures under water when cast

Key part, "until it lands"

@SPavel Not even creatures 10x10x10 in size?

@Szega no, they specified what happens, IF, you cast it on a creature that is under water

If cast on a submerged creature, they gain this extra bouyancy

@goodguy5 Yes, which means this say nothing about a creature on solid ground at time of casting

If cast on someone who is on land, they don't have the extra effect

@SirCinnamon Whats the point to this? If you don't want to sink, better find a bathtub to cast the spell in?

@Szega I think you're right, the buoyancy is an extra affect in certain circumstances

@Szega If you're casting waterwalk you're likely near a body of water. Like you said they tacked on a buoyancy provision to rescue drowning people

@goodguy5 If it worked that way always, sure. But this is a weird thing as a restriction

@Szega But your answer could use some work. It comes off very confrontational and doesn't explain itself well. Your comment on the other answer is also redundant (since you are posting an alternative answer).

@Szega That's what I'm saying, that it's not a restriction.

@GreySage My answer is not confrontational (I hope?). my comments are, I give you that. And comments will die anyway and I'm irate

@goodguy5 RAW it is

Let me read over it again, but I think we disagree on this.

(if that's what they wanted it to do)

@T.J.L. Isn't in here?

@goodguy5 No, I am saying that these are separate phrasings

and they used what they did on purpose

yes, that's my point

@GreySage they don't show up in the ping autocomplete, so they haven't been here for a couple of weeks. (or haven't spoken when they have been.)

@goodguy5 Ok, then we agree on this.

Well, We agree what you're supposing.

I was just making sure I understood your stance

oh, neat. I just realized that this will get you out of an avalanche. it mentions snow

@goodguy5 Yes, apparently snow is liquid

Everything is a liquid if you're hot enough

@SPavel wood isn't

@doppelgreener wood -> ash -> molten carbon

I mean, it's no longer wood at that point, but it is liquid

@doppelgreener Carbon melts when heated, in 10+ ATM pressure

that's not liquid wood though, yeah :P

So go to Venus and have adventures there; as a bonus it is already very hot

Although not 3800K hot

@doppelgreener you mean this isn't really melted wood?

yes

(hah)

@goodguy5 Yes, after the initial rise, you can opt to sink

@Szega but, then how do you get back out?

the treefolk have been after abatron for years to get that misleading name changed

@goodguy5 you swim?

no... but I mean.... like...

Abatron would be a pretty good Dark Lord name

how do I climb out of the water onto the water?

@goodguy5 you can stand on it. It's magic [ jazz hands ]

@doppelgreener I wonder what happens if you put wood in a really hot liquid.

@goodguy5 No liquid hot enough to burn carbon

So you can stand on the water surface, but you can't grab on to it (from below)?

@Szega So, the only thing keeping the surface solid is your intent at the time?

@MikeQ You can push your hand out and push yourself up

@goodguy5 yeah

@goodguy5 have you seen Naruto. That's how I picture it. Same as if you use Earth Glide as an Earth Elemental

@DavidCoffron Indeed

@goodguy5 that's a good question. like, what if you had an all-nitrogen environment, a vat of molten iron, and dumped wood in the iron?

^

Okay, Szega. I understand your stance. I am still unsure if I agree with it or not

Sublimation of the top layer if the iron was hot enough

@goodguy5 great :)

yalescientific.org/2010/05/…

>What if you tried melting wood in a vacuum, where there is no oxygen to begin the oxidation process? This clever idea still fails. Although the water and volatile matter would evaporate in the vacuum, the long cellulose fibers in wood would strongly inhibit wood’s transition to the liquid state. Heat might break the carbonyl bonds in cellulose, leaving behind carbon in charcoal form or carbon dioxide.

>although facilities capable of creating such conditions exist, there is no published literature that has tested this hypothesis.

laaaame

@SPavel So, it ends up becoming burnt wood, even though it doesn't burn.

@goodguy5 Its like someone sends a wave through a carpet. You might fall over, but do not sink if you do not want to

Walking on troubled water has historical precedent too!

@GreySage Pretty lame right

Would be neat to liquefy wood then cast stuff out of it

@Szega The concern was really "is the wave solid?"

@SPavel New homebrew spell: Meld with Wood

@goodguy5 yoincoild try to run up the wave. Or climb the wave, but once it hits you it's like getting hit by a regular wave (Strength save or prone most likely)

@goodguy5 I consider the air/water boundary the "surface", not accounting for surface tension

@MikeQ That already exists I think

@SPavel there is meld into stone and tree stride

@goodguy5 The creature has to make a Charisma saving throw to wave back, or else they will seem unfriendly

You can move on it like its solid. It's not treated as solid in every case.

@Szega one more thing about your answer.

@goodguy5 I meant in contrast to the first effect.

Insert here the discussion about "what is a willing target"

@kviiri woah, no. We are NOT having that discussion.

@goodguy5 Thanks to internet magic, the entirety of the discussion is virtually contained in my message above. It's already over! You can't stop it!

Do you have implied consent to cast a beneficial spell on an unconscious target?

@kviiri I think there is a question on the mainsite about that

@goodguy5 Implied verbal but not explicit written consent, so you couldn't, for example, stream an MLB game

@goodguy5 did they fill out a permission slip?

@goodguy5 I think the question is rather: can an unconscious creature be not willing?

*shudder*

@SPavel I wouldn't be surprised, but if there isn't, I sure won't be the one to create it

@Szega yes. definitely.

Not sure if 5e changed how this works, but back in the day there were two kinds of willing - willing for a "willing creatures only" spell, for which unconscious counted, and "willing to forego a saving throw" for which they did not.

Because 3e was thesaurus averse, there was a lot of confusion between these two.

and, i mean, c'mon, think of the real-world implications of the idea that unconscious = not unwilling. the creep factor there is through the roof.

Hooray, you cannot save a drowning person if they are unconscious with water breathing

Boatloads of karma be damned, I think there's enough of questions about making problems out of good rules by analyzing them too much and I don't want to contribute to it.

^^

This would be a good time to point out that the game rules are not comparable to civil/criminal law

@doppelgreener I get that, but I think we can rise above that

And a "rules lawyer" is not an actual lawyer

@SPavel I was mainly thinking in terms of non-sapient things like beast companions, mounts and such.

@Szega there are definitely times i'd conveniently ignore or genuinely forget about this, like that situation probably

@MikeQ but actual lawyers do make some of the best rules lawyers (I used to play with a lawyer friend)

@doppelgreener I do not get the point of the restriction. Why would someone not want to be able to breathe underwater? What is the downside?

And now unconscious creatures should be making saves for cure wounds

thanks JC

alright, I'm going home.

@goodguy5 Actually, CW does not have that restriction

you can force someone to heal, even if they do not want to!

oh? I thought you had to be willing

just checked. not in 5e

The classic tactic of healing undead to kill them wouldn't work (although I think that tactic is a goner in 5e too?)

yeah, no positive/negative energies

that's JC's perspective anyway

(and i can't want anything really when i'm unconscious.)

@doppelgreener I crave cheesy toast even when unconscious

In most situations being able to target unconscious creatures makes more sense I think.

And poses fewer problems than the opposite

I think this illustrates a huge and very common problem with designer tweets - they absolutely do not think about these things when designing the spells and then make weird snap rulings

Because if they had thought about the things, they would have made the text less ambiguous

@SPavel Haha, yes!

@Szega In the vast majority of situations, "allies are willing, hostiles are not, PCs are willing if their player is" is very sensible.

If only the very sensible designers had sensibly included that sensible text into the books :(

@kviiri also undead specifically cannot be affected by CW if iirc.

The whole "person's will" thing... well, JC inherently assumes we're talking about a person here.

@kviiri Yeah, can you dimension door a construct? (eg homunculus)

Can you dimension door your pet dog?

Is explaining to the dog how magic works and what you're trying to do to it a standard or a full-round action

What if I want to bring my normal but reliable horse Nonsapience along? The thing doesn't have a will in the human sense. And even if it has enough will, it lacks understanding about what "teleportation" means and can't really meaningfully consent to it.

This is why I don't use tweets as rules

I'd be totally down with a spell that only worked on sapient beings, or worked different according to degree of sapience

@SPavel There are some that require X points of Int to work

like hideous laughter afair

@Szega Hm, not quite the same thing though

That said, I think common sense works wonders here and trying to complicate the issue by thinking about the implications of "willingness" is best enjoyed only in chat games... and even then, in moderation.

@SPavel no, please no. Especially not with the lack of clarification on what makes a sapient creature in 5e. See any discussion about intelligent steeds.

@Rubiksmoose Presumably, the spell would come with rules that explain it

@SPavel Like all of 5e's illusion spells? :P

@kviiri Rule zero. Fun and common sense should generally motivate gameplay if the written rules would do the opposite. After 20 minutes of out-of-game debating of whether the cleric can heal their unconscious ally, the DM can handwave and declare that the healing works, the ally was willing, no more questions, let the game continue.

I think the various domination and communication spells in 3e did a decent job by explicitly stating that you can't communicate/give orders that the creature can't understand

@MikeQ A GM certainly can, sure. But many GMs get caught on with this kind of over-analysis too.

I'm actually a bit anxious at the thought of GMing 4e again

I've mostly played in groups, contexts and systems where I can disclaim a lot of the thinking to my players and don't have to carry the basics myself. But this game, many players are new to the whole thing

@kviiri I learned to DM on 4e, the rules are pretty forgiving and straightforward if memory serves

4e is very generous with keywords, etc

@MikeQ As you know, there's more to social than a dice roll.

@SirCinnamon Well, I blundered pretty badly once

@kviiri We've all been there

By not following the encounter building instructions, I mean

That's one thing where things go south fast

@kviiri Wow, that is a refreshing thing to hear

If you followed the encounter instructions for most D&D editions, everyone would die

Like, not even in-game, things would physically get out of hand in the real world

@SPavel The thing is, 4e distinguishes in part between monster level and power. My mistake was pitting the players against higher-level but low-power monsters.

@SPavel I have the scars to prove it

What resulted was an encounter that wasn't exactly hard for the party but wasn't right by any measure either. They needed really good rolls to even hit their target, who wasn't doing much damage in return either.

@KorvinStarmast Triangular scars on the soles of your feet?

@kviiri Seems like high HP easy to hit opponents are most satisfying to fight

So you can feel like you are contributing but they don't go down like a chump

As for social, I'm still unsure why that thing is one of the three pillars of DnD adventures because I don't think I've ever had a fun social scene in DnD.

At least, when it's a one or two monster deal

With minions, you want the reverse - the varmints need to hit hard enough to warrant attacking

CoS came close, but ruined it by having too many NPCs.

4e minions were a good idea

@kviiri some GMs are much better at it than others

@SPavel My two cents, low-hp easy to hit are the best. Their problem is, DnD doesn't really handle them well in numbers without hacking some "squad" mechanics in.

@kviiri @kviiri it involves some.improvising on way of the GM (and an understanding of the NPCs motivation and personality through preparation) which is lacking for some

@kviiri Low HP and easy to hit means that your encounter ends quickly unless you have a lot, in which case it's just distributed high HP

High HP + easy to hit also gives the baddie room to perform a fighting retreat instead of committing to a fight to the death every time

@SPavel I think that was his point. Distribute HP is better than a couple big guys

@SPavel The distribution makes a lot of difference though. Killing a goblin feels like you're doing something. Scratching off a few percent off the bad guy doesn't, at least after the first few times.

@SPavel No, mindflary scars on my brain from my mother in law...

That's why I think I'll steal a page off the JRPG game book and have multi phase boss monsters.

@KorvinStarmast Oh right

that conversation

Fortunately, other than being very old fashioned (and not in the cocktail way) my future MIL is fine

@kviiri You can generalize that to multi-phase combats

Instead of fighting the Evil Warlock (200hp), you'll fight the Evil Warlock (50hp), then Evil Warlock Skeretoru Formu (50hp) and then Super Warlock 9001 (50hp) and so on. Each form has its own powers.

@MikeQ Yep

@DavidCoffron Sure, but many systems provide both the players and the GM tools to work the social scenes with, and that makes things quite a lot easier.

DMG has some, but I doubt anyone who I've played with uses those.

@kviiri That gets old unless used sparingly (such as just BBEGs)

@SPavel Yep, just BBEGs is the idea.

In closing, I will offer you this comic castlesandcooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/…

Or perhaps played for laughs, for example on a minion

I also like BESW's model of constructing large monsters out of smaller pieces.

"Adventurers! Stop them!" dies immediately "Hah, you think you have bested me? Behold!" dies immediately again "That wasn't even my final form!" dies "Ok, now you've really made me mad, no more Mr. Nice Guy!"

That way every PC gets to kill him

@SPavel If it's minor variations on "Evil guy who dies twice in a row" then yeah, that's too video gamey.

@DavidCoffron In my previous group, "we want better non-combat" and "we want better social scenes" were recurring discussion topics, but the problem was, we never came to an actionable solution because people are quite stuck in the paradigm that as long as the init order is off, the game runs on pretty much no rule apart from "ask your GM what happens". That left us with only one idea on improvement: "the GM should just do more/better non-combat/social". But that's not really actionable.

But you could have an encounter where you split up the "boss" enemy into 2 enemies, and one hides out for most of the fight

That's because the players don't want to be restricted

Players like combat rules because combat rules let them kill stuff, but they can already talk to stuff

The GM's whim is a restriction too!

@MikeQ I was actually drafting boss ideas the other night, and "asteroid boss that splits into minions whenever damaged" was in :)

@kviiri PCs: After we accidentally blew up the mayor's house while clearing the basement of rats, I can't believe he doesn't trust & love us!

Also PCs: I bet the mayor is a secret lizard person, we can't trust him.

@kviiri Evil sorcerer that curses the PCs' gear to be "smart weapons" with Bluetooth connectivity and Googlor Assistant

@kviiri In my campaign, I have a certain type of enemy that has formed a devil-pact, so when it dies, a devil temporarily takes over its body for X rounds

It's similar to the enemy that auto-resurrects as a zombie

@MikeQ What is the motivation for this devil to attack the PCs?

If I were a devil who suddenly controlled a body, I'd immediately seek to further my evil agenda

You could also have a wizard who's in a big animated suit of armor, so once the PCs defeat the armor, they fight the wizard. It's like an evil Kinder egg.

@MikeQ Evil wizard, and when you kill him, his body animates as a zombie and his soul becomes a ghost and they both fight you again

@SPavel It's complicated and very specific to the story I'm running. The tl;dr is that they're malicious lesser devils and are effectively possessing a dying body.

And of course, there is a "boss" version of them, who is possessed by a more powerful devil. But only one.

@SPavel 2 superheroes meet in a bar. One asks the other, "What's your superpower?" "I can fly and shoot lightning, what's yours?" "I can have rational conversations with people" "How is that a super power?" "I dunno, but it seems like no one else can do it."

@GreySage Everyone thinks that they are the only person in the world capable of having a rational discussion

@SPavel everyone else can have rational discussions too. It's just that their rationality is wrong ;P

@DavidCoffron Game theory typically defines rational decisions as maximizing expected profit given the current set of expectations, so your statement is indeed quite close to the mainstream on the field!

Murrnin all

Howdy @Ben

How are we today

Not dead, so that's a good start. How about ye?

That is a good start. I am actually feeling a lot better than I was yesterday :)