Though I'm still 'fighting' for my right to fail, I have to agree--the mechanic is super elegant.
;)
btw, have a silly question: Acid Splash allows one to target 2 creatures within 5 feet of each other. Adopting the '5-feet = 1 square' rule, does that mean that the creatures have to be adjacent to one another, or that there can be at most 1 square between them (bypassing the adv. diagonal distance thing)?
Hmm, the checks and attacks examples were added to make a point of how it might go in a more familiar domain (i.e., in real life, we KNOW we can do these things. Unfortunately, we haven't figured out how to cast Dominate Person yet)
They are not part of the question
Rather, a line of thought I considered potentially useful for the discussion
well, discussion == getting at the answer
Does that help/should I add it to the comments of the question?
most spells read "you must make a saving throw" and I think that's pretty clear that it can't be declined
taking disadvantage lets you swing chance towards failing pretty heavily without losing the spirit of the chance that it still might miss/fail which I think is important
Hmm, I don't know if per-spell distinctions would be a very fruitful approach. Compare Acid splash to what you have above: "a target must succeed on a Dex saving throw or take 1d6 acid damage;" "The target must succeed on a Charisma saving throw or be banished." In this case, the action you 'must' do is succeed the throw OR face the consequences. Clearly "must" isn't used in the same sense as in Burning Hands. Not to mention that the disjunction
@Miniman just credit me (link to my answer, that's all that's required by the license). I do that all the time and I think it's more important to have complete answers than for one person to get the credit.
@Khashir yeah, that's an issue worth looking at specifically actually. How they use language like that should be dictated by a style guide and it should have specific different meaning...but it (sadly) probably means the same thing
I've been playing 5e for a while now, and mercifully this hasn't come up yet, but it's definitely on it's way.
When a caster casts burning hands, how is that properly mapped onto a standard 1" battle mat? The easy response is a 3x3 square, and that's the method I've told myself I'm going to use....
@Khashir just a note, it's often a good idea to wait a day or so before an accept, that way you give answers some time to breath, be edited, commented upon and improved.
(also solicit additional answers)
it's OK and in bounds to move the check mark around, but it can sometimes make people mad
My current non SE home is the reaper mini forum. Mostly because sometime in the next month or two I'm going to have a very large box of their minis delivered and Ima need help figuring out how to paint them all
I've mostly backed RPG products so far. A few non RPG ones, like a really cool cardboard standing desk (which delivered early...which was just wow), and THE OOTS KS (which is still mostly rpg...but hey it's comics). My wife is more broadly based in her funding, but we've yet to be had...most projects are late, but we try to be discerning about what we support
it seems like most physical products the creators understand their industry a bit better (also KS is harsher on them to be more prepared for their KS).
I feel like you should be able to sell magic loot in a large city, but not really anywhere else
my issues are that this kind of analog to medieval/early Renaissance economy falls apart because they fail to take into account all those magical abilities to make all sorts of things, the author handwaves it in the previous post about making agriculture only slightly more efficent, but I should think the ability of magic to improve complex mechanical processes to be of much greater impact.
@Khashir when you come back, the two articles linked here
@JoshuaAslanSmith agree with this, that's something rather huge to handwave. although the typical practical day to day impact of magic seems rather low in POL/FR
