).I find myself getting absolutely turned off to the discussion of "balance" in games.
And that's... odd, coming from me. I love balance discussions, or did. But anymore, I Just. Don't. Care.
Yeah. I don't know. Just felt like sharing, without (further) derailing another thread.
So... other than discussing whether balance for balance's sake is worth it, not much to discuss from my end.
I love balance discussions, or did. But anymore, I Just. Don't. Care.
I understand completely.
In days of old, discussing balance was like discussing the weather in Buffalo. Winter was too cold. Spring was too short. Summer was too hot. Fall was too winter. There was plenty to complain about, and lots of room for creative solutions to the imbalance that surrounded us.
But now... it's like discussing the weather in Hawaii. Every now and then, you can complain that last night's rain caused some morning puddles to make you have to jog around them. But other than that, there isn't a whole lot to complain about, which means there isn't a whole lot to fix, which means there isn't much to get creative with.
4e has turned us into two old men passing by on a sidewalk.
"Nice balance we're having, today."
"Yep."
I love balance discussions, or did. But anymore, I Just. Don't. Care.
I understand completely.
In days of old, discussing balance was like discussing the weather in Buffalo. Winter was too cold. Spring was too short. Summer was too hot. Fall was too winter. There was plenty to complain about, and lots of room for creative solutions to the imbalance that surrounded us.
But now... it's like discussing the weather in Hawaii. Every now and then, you can complain that last night's rain caused some morning puddles to make you have to jog around them. But other than that, there isn't a whole lot to complain about, which means there isn't a whole lot to fix, which means there isn't much to get creative with.
4e has turned us into two old men passing by on a sidewalk.
"Nice balance we're having, today."
"Yep."
Which is AWESOME.
I think the weather analogy is pretty apt.
It really feels like 4e gets the most discussion of balance (after all, you can find it in almost any thread around here), when really, it's one of the games with the least to talk about in that regard. Like discussing snowstorms in California (if I may use something more close-to-home).
EDIT:
I'm getting less interested in the discussion (from primarily an observer's point of view) more because of the nature of the discussion of late. It seems to be just two sides making the same points over and over again (which is what most arguments around here are), detailing why either balance is good for fun or why balance ruins fun.
This, too, is probably playing a big part in it.
It's often less "two old men discussing the weather in Sunny California," and more "two old men shouting the same things over and over at each other, regarding the weather in Sunny California."
No matter what game we played, as long as that person got to do what they wanted to do then they were happy. If our buddy over here nuked the hell out of the encounter everybody would cheer and plan for the next encounter.
Which is AWESOME.
For the game itself, yes. But not for those who like to talk about it, or like to feel like game designers themselves by houseruling the crap out of a broken system
It's like the post-game discussion of a perfect sports match. There's nothing to really talk about anymore since it's all just "that was awesome", "yeah, and so was that", "yeah, you're right". There's no more opportunity to say "he deserved the win more" or "the referee was in the wrong there". There's nothing to discuss when it's all done properly.
No matter what game we played, as long as that person got to do what they wanted to do then they were happy.
If everyone gets to do what they want to do, the game you played was in balance
Which is great if you enjoy playing the game, and not so great if you aspire to fix other people's game systems. ;)
4e has turned us into two old men passing by on a sidewalk.
"Nice balance we're having, today."
"Yep."
You just made my list.
...of awesome people.
But really, I've never cared much about balance. I've only ever cared about fun. Balance mattered in that it had the potential to interfere with my player's enjoyment of the game, but I was never trying to craft an eternally spinning top. If there was a rule that had the potential to be exploited and allowed my players to trample my monsters ruthlessly, as long as it did not derail the game and they had fun doing it, I didn't really care. When it sucks all the challenge out and they get bored it comes into play again (so once more when it comes to balance I am "a fan") but I never felt that balance should be considered the ultimate goal of a roleplaying game.
Its nice we dont have those problems anymore.
I'm not sure what you think you mean by 'context' at this point.
How's this for a context: a Fantasy RPG? That people may actually try to play at some point?
Context is what's happening in the narrative at a given point in time. Its constantly changing and as such the thematics we overlay upon the mechanics must also be constantly changing to meet it.
In 3e an earlier, they were 'spells,' yes, and spell meant a /lot/ of things. It meant it would be subject to dispell magic, anti-magic zones, and magic resistance. It meant it'd have components. IN AD&D, it'd've be 'memorized.' In 4e 'spell' means a power with the Arcane keyword, and that's about it. The Arcane keyword affects how a power interacts with a few feats, and not much else.
There is just a lot less fluff - very nearly none at all - getting conflated with rules, now. Which is quite the improvement, allowing, among other things, one to seamlessly re-fluff powers without having to re-write rules. Because the fluff and the rules, they are separate. Get it?
Fluff doesn't get conflated with the rules any more or less then any other edition. Spells in AD&D have lots of mechanics, sure, but the fluff is just is easy to change as in 4e. You just have to make more changes because there are more mechanics, but that goes without saying. I wouldn't saying that 4e sucks for reflavoring because PDQ is better at it (as a product of its mechanical minimalism), obviously their is value to those interrelations that give 4e some advantage over PDQ.
Anyway, you've got all those mechanics, you can still flavor them however you want. Seriously, go do it and watch how gameplay completely doesn't change when you use spoiled milk instead of bat guano!
Rules can, have, and do. Rules can be /changed/, of course. You're offering another of the endless corellaries of the Oberoni fallacy, here. You can change the rules, therefor it doesn't matter how thematically klunky the rules may be.
They can't, because of they regulate things beyond gameplay, they are no longer rules of a game. They're something else.
Like, in MTG, their is a rule you must use actual MTG cards. This isn't actually a rule of the game, its a component standard used for organized play. You could print proxies or even write the names of cards on index cards and you'd still be playing MTG.
There is no "changing the rules" because this isn't an issue of rules, its an issue of thematics. Not that changing thematics is any better, really. You paid the same money for them that you did for the rules, so changing either one is sort of a waste.
It is, in fact, quite different. One of the minor but innovative little changes 4e made. You don't need to change the rules in 4e to change the 'fiction' or 'narrative' or 'thematics' or whatever you want to call flavor text. In prior eds, you did, because flavor text was part of the rules.
You can keep saying that, but it wasn't any more then it is in 4e or chess. You can change the thematics of fireball and still be playing the same game just like you play with your Simpsons set or Romans vs. Egyptians set and its still chess.
While organization was also markedly improved, that's not the whole of it. Teasing out flavor text from mechanics isn't /just/ organizational, it removes the flavor text from the rules of the game, making it easily mutable without having to institute house rules. Given the excessive emphasis on the 'RAW' in the community since 3.0, that's a good thing, indeed.
Its purely organizational. You could just take the mechanics and rewrite the rulebook to get the same gameplay while having completely different thematic elements.
Thematics being mutable is one of the key conceits to gaming. The idea that the rules of a game can undo this conceit is absurd.
Can we take this conversation about refluffing elsewhere please.
But I think the desperate defense which amounts to
"Everybody just build codzilla and ignore everything else and pretend its something else".is hilarious dont you?
Thematically prejudiced design where fighting men are lame tools...instead of the heart of fantasy kind of requires defending.
Unless you start changing rules (like saying the grenade lobber doesn't have a spellbook for example) then when two Wizards meet (except one is a grenadier) you'll run into things like this.
You can try to work around them, but I'm not sure if it'd be worth the bother.
The grenaider dying, and then leaving behind his spellbook, and the aspiring Wizard saying "Hey, I'd like to see that" and then learning Fireball from the spellbook isn't all that out there. It's a situation that could happen, and it's totally valid for him to read the spellbook and learn Fireball. Or, at the very least, spending a few hours reading over it and suddenly knowing how to build grenades.
Because those are the rules. If the other Wizard reading the spellbook doesn't end up with the ability to make an attack that's entirely like a Fireball, you're breaking them.
But I'm not intentionally picking innapropriate thematics. I'm just taking a regular old Wizard, coming across this reflavored dude, and showing things that basically would make no sense at all when the two interact with each other.
Unless you start changing rules (like saying the grenade lobber doesn't have a spellbook for example) then when two Wizards meet (except one is a grenadier) you'll run into things like this.
You can try to work around them, but I'm not sure if it'd be worth the bother.
The grenaider dying, and then leaving behind his spellbook, and the aspiring Wizard saying "Hey, I'd like to see that" and then learning Fireball from the spellbook isn't all that out there. It's a situation that could happen, and it's totally valid for him to read the spellbook and learn Fireball. Or, at the very least, spending a few hours reading over it and suddenly knowing how to build grenades.
Because those are the rules. If the other Wizard reading the spellbook doesn't end up with the ability to make an attack that's entirely like a Fireball, you're breaking them.
I'm really not seeing any problem here or how something fails to make sense. When the situation comes up, you flavor it. The wizard can learn how to cast fireball from the dying grenadier's spellbook, how is that a problem? We might flavor that as the wizard being totally distraught at seeing his friend die, he invents a new spell to bring the destruction of is buddies deadly gadgets. Seriously, stop picking intentionally inappropriate flavor. It is literally like complaining 4e is broken because your monk can kick an ooze in the leg and knock it prone. Flavor your attack and what the prone condition means to an ooze differently and the problem is gone. No difference here.
Anyway, if you want to make this a spectrum, that fine, but then someone else can easily say its not worth the bother reflavoring over 4e's mechanics when they could be playing PDQ.
Also I don't know PDQ but I prefer systems as flavor lite as possible. I'm mostly with 4e because it's well known and more suited towards new players, I'd pick something lighter if I could get enough players together.
They're not inappropriate flavor. They're rules situations, with rules answers, that require you to basically deviate from the rules set out by the system in order to get the flavor you are looking for. The more you need to do that, the more rules you ignore, the more you (should) realise you are fighting the system. The rules are trying to tell you exactly how every situation should be handled, and you're ignoring them. That's a difference in concept between systems.
Also I don't know PDQ but I prefer systems as flavor lite as possible. I'm mostly with 4e because it's well known and more suited towards new players, I'd pick something lighter if I could get enough players together.
Except, I'm not deviating from the rules or ignore the rules. I'm reflavoring them and the system isn't fighting me. You're taking the rules, applying some innapropriate flavor and saying "Look, the rules don't work" when they would if you had flavored them appropriately. The Wizard and the Grenadier completely works if you just use a little context rather then trying to take one mechanic reflavored and another 100% as written as say "They don't fit." Ooze, Dragon's Tail Sweep and Prone all over again.
Its no different then ignoring the italicized text in 4e or making a character who doesn't look like the artwork in the book. Sure, you're "wasting" part of the book you spent money on, but I'm not exactly sure how that's any more of a problem then ignoring all of the powers that I'll never get around to making a character that uses them. I'm keeping the mechanics, changing the flavor, just like you can in 4e and, in fact, any game ever made (assuming you can work in the media the game is made in. Considering RPGs are made in our imagination, that restriction is meaningless. Its tougher for video games, but people even manage rethemes of them inspite the technical barriers).
Also, PDQ is as flavor light as possible, extremely mechanics light and 100% free. Google it. I think its terrible because if I'm going to go that light I'll just do pure freeform, but check it out.
We're playing Third Edition D&D. I am playing a wizard with a spellbook. I don't have fireball, but I do have the Improved Counterspell feat, which lets me counter any spell with a spell of the same school.
We then encounter a grenadier in his abode. The grenadier is a wizard you have reflavored (but not house ruled) to lob grenades instead of spells.
First we encounter the grenadier's apprentice, who had been equipped with a necklace of fireballs that you have reflavored to be a belt of grenades. The apprentice is joined by several guards who are equipped with flasks of oil that they light and toss. My wizard prepares to counterspell the apprentice, and finds that, despite a successful Knowledge (Arcana) check, he is unable to counter these grenades. He then prepares to counterspell the guards' flasks of oil, but is unable to do so. Fortunately, we defeat the apprentice and the guards. My wizard uses the identify spell to identify the properties of the reflavored necklace of fireballs. However, the identify spell does not also identify any properties of the flasks of oil, and in fact, while the belt of grenades radiates as magical to my wizard's detect magic spell, the flasks of oil do not.
We encounter the grenadier himself. Combat ensues. My wizard readies an action to counter whatever the grenadier does. The grenadier casts fireball, which you reflavored. I roll a successful Arcana check to determine what spell has been cast and the school in which that spell is found (evocation). I then expend my memorized shout spell, which is also in the evocation school, to counter the NPC grenadier's reflavored fireball grenade.
After we defeat the grenadier, we search his possessions, amongst which would be his spellbook, which would include fireball (possibly reflavored as instructions for building an impromptu grenade).
- How do you explain the fact that my wizard can conterspell the grenadier's reflavored fireball grenade, but not the apprentice's reflavored necklace of fireball belt of grenades, or the guards' flasks of oil?
- How do you explain that my wizard can identify and detect magic on the reflavored necklace of fireballs, but not on the flasks of oil, even though they are reflavored to both operate under similar nonmagical principles?
- How do you explain that my wizard can learn to cast fireball from the grenadier's reflavored spellbook, or alternately, that my wizard, who doesn't even own flint and tinder, can now built impromptu fireball grenades?
At least we have 4e
It seems a decent midway point.How do you explain the fact that my wizard can conterspell the grenadier's reflavored fireball grenade, but not the apprentice's reflavored necklace of fireball belt of grenades, or the guards' flasks of oil?
I'm not seeing the problem. Can you explain why there is a inconsistency here? It seems that using the default flavor is equally inconsistent. Why can't the wizard use his magic to disable a flask of oil or a necklace of fireballs with his arcane magic? The answer in both cases is the mechanics say so, so we create thematics that work with it.
How do you explain that my wizard can identify and detect magic on the reflavored necklace of fireballs, but not on the flasks of oil, even though they are reflavored to both operate under similar nonmagical principles?
How do you explain the fact that under the default flavor, the wizard has to cast identitify to know what the necklace of fireballs is or its command word, even though he just saw someone use it? How come in 4e, you need an arcana check to indentify a weapon's magical properties, even if that weapon is reflavored as being non-magial?
Rules that function purely outside of gameplay are the easiest simplest to reflavor because no matter what you do, gameplay won't be effected. Indeed, you can functionally ignore and it isn't houseruling because the mechanics are left completely in tact. I mean, would it be houseruling to say that the party knows that the oil and the grenades make fiery explosions without using a mechanic to determine if they know that, considering they just fought against people who threw said items at them, making fiery explosions?
How do you explain that my wizard can learn to cast fireball from the grenadier's reflavored spellbook, or alternately, that my wizard, who doesn't even own flint and tinder, can now built impromptu fireball grenades?
You are intentionally creating inappropriate flavor. The wizard wouldn't be "learning from his spellbooks" or "making impromtu fireball grenades without appropriate materials". He would creating his own fireball spell, inspired by the grenades destructive power.
This isn't outrageous behavior by the wizard, particularly a wizard who chose to specialize in counterspelling. But it seems that the system is not well-designed to accommodate the attempts to reflavor a wizard into a grenadier.
I seriously don't see any problematic issues in your example.
How do you explain the fact that my wizard can conterspell the grenadier's reflavored fireball grenade, but not the apprentice's reflavored necklace of fireballbelt of grenades, or the guards' flasks of oil?
- How do you explain that my wizard can identify and detect magic on the reflavored necklace of fireballs, but not on the flasks of oil, even though they are reflavored to both operate under similar nonmagical principles?
I would explain this exactly the same way that I would in vanilla 3e - ie you can not dispel magical items using your counterspell and you also can not dispel non-magical items with your counterspell.
This is like asking why your blue gun that shoots blue people does not work against green and red people.
- How do you explain that my wizard can learn to cast fireball from the grenadier's reflavored spellbook, or alternately, that my wizard, who doesn't even own flint and tinder, can now built impromptu fireball grenades?
This is even easier to answer, the wizard (5th level or higher) can learn to cast fireball from the grenadier's reflavored spellbook because it is a 3rd level wizard spell.
If the wizard does not have the components necessary to cast (build) a fireball grenade then he can not cast it.
This isn't outrageous behavior by the wizard, particularly a wizard who chose to specialize in counterspelling. But it seems that the system is not well-designed to accommodate the attempts to reflavor a wizard into a grenadier.
It is kind of outrageous for a specialist counterspelling wizard to expect to dispel everything even things that are not spells. What does this "specialist" want to do next, dispel melee and ranged attacks as well?
How do you explain the fact that under the default flavor, the wizard has to cast identitify to know what the necklace of fireballs is or its command word, even though he just saw someone use it?
I don't know. It's a silly rule regardless I don't think I've ever used the Identify spell. It was sch a pointless waste of resources.
How come in 4e, you need an arcana check to indentify a weapon's magical properties, even if that weapon is reflavored as being non-magial?
Actually you don't. You just need to hold the item for a few minutes to figure out what it does.
I would explain this exactly the same way that I would in vanilla 3e - ie you can not dispel magical items using your counterspell and you also can not dispel non-magical items with your counterspell.
Yeah, but the whole point of the situation is the the necklace and the oil bottles are items, but the grenade is not. The grenade is not an item, it's a spell. It should be suspectible to counterspell, even though in-game it's supposed to be an item.
Once you say "well, the grenade is an item so counterspell doens't work" you've stopped reflavoring and started houseruling.
Ongorth: I'm not seeing the problem. Can you explain why there is a inconsistency here? It seems that using the default flavor is equally inconsistent. Why can't the wizard use his magic to disable a flask of oil or a necklace of fireballs with his arcane magic? The answer in both cases is the mechanics say so, so we create thematics that work with it.
No, the answer is that counterspelling only works on spells, not items, and the necklace of fireballs and flask of oil are items. But in the scenario above, you have reflavored the fireball spell to have the qualities of an item. Now, the fireball, necklace of fireballs, and flasks of oils are all forms of incendiary items, and yet counterspelling works on one of those items, but not others.
wrecan: How do you explain that my wizard can identify and detect magic on the reflavored necklace of fireballs, but not on the flasks of oil, even though they are reflavored to both operate under similar nonmagical principles?
Ongorth: How do you explain the fact that under the default flavor, the wizard has to cast identitify to know what the necklace of fireballs is or its command word, even though he just saw someone use it?
That is untrue. Identify is only needed to find out those qualities of a magic item you haven't already observed. If a wizard overhears the command word, they don't need identify to uncover it.
So, please answer my question. Why does identify and detect magic confirm the qualities of the reflavored necklace of fireballs (by, for example, telling the PC wizard the strength of those grenades still active on the grenade belt), but will not tell the wizard whether the flasks of oil do or do not have any hidden qualities that the wizard may not have observed... even though both the flasks and the necklace have been reflavored into incendiary devices.
Ongorth: How come in 4e, you need an arcana check to indentify a weapon's magical properties
You don't. In 4e, Arcana is not used to detrmine the properties of any object, magical or mundane.
Ongorth: Rules that function purely outside of gameplay are the easiest simplest to reflavor because no matter what you do
The scenario does not involve "rules that function purely outside of gameplay". Identify and detect magic are rules that function within gameplay.
Ongorth: The wizard wouldn't be "learning from his spellbooks" or "making impromtu fireball grenades without appropriate materials". He would creating his own fireball spell, inspired by the grenades destructive power.
That works. Now kindly answer the unresolved questions above. For your convenicnece, I'll repeat them below:
- How do you explain the fact that my wizard can conterspell the grenadier's reflavored fireball grenade, but not the apprentice's reflavored necklace of fireball belt of grenades, or the guards' flasks of oil?
- Why does identify and detect magic confirm the qualities of the reflavored necklace of fireballs (by, for example, telling the PC wizard the strength of those grenades still active on the grenade belt), but will not tell the wizard whether the flasks of oil do or do not have any hidden qualities that the wizard may not have observed... even though both the flasks and the necklace have been reflavored into incendiary devices?
First of all, you cannot counterspell magical items in 3e. Counterspelling can "disrupt the casting of the same spell by another character".
Second of all, in the scenario above, the fireball, the necklace of missiles, and the flasks of oil have all be reflavored so they all appear to be items. But if this means the reflavored fireball can no longer be counterspelled, you've gone beyond reflavlring and gone into the realm of houseruling.
Shasarak: It is kind of outrageous for a specialist counterspelling wizard to expect to dispel everything even things that are not spells.
But it's not outrageous for him to expect to be able to counterspell reflavored spells, because reflavoring is not supposed to come with mechanical advantages. If reflavoring allows someone to transfor a spell into a spell that cannot be counterspelled, that's a distinct mechanical advantage, one that clearly goes beyond 3.5's guidelines for reflavoring
The answer should be that you cannto reflavor a spell to be an item because "item" is a term with mechanical consequences. And that gets back into the discussion being had earlier. Even though Third Edition had rules for reflavoring, the system itself was not as amenable to reflavoring becuase so many mechanics interacted in ways that make it difficult to accomplish the reflavoring.
The specific example here is reflavloring something magical into something nonmagical. Third edition makes this problematic because it mechanically treats magical and magical items differently. 4e does not, and thus makes it easier to reflavor.
Shasarak: What does this "specialist" want to do next, dispel melee and ranged attacks as well?
No. He wants to counterspell spells. But the reflavoring means a grenade might be a spell, or it might not be a spell, and there's no internally consistent way to explain why one grenade can be dispelled and one cannot.
Oddly enough, you can even use it to figure out the name of a power that generated a zone, which to me sounds like a really silly rule that doesn't really belong in the game. It should give you a breakdown of what the zone does, not a piece of fluff attached to it. (Unless the DM wants to tell you "this is commonly known of a 'Zone of X' in these areas", of course)
Technically 4e also differentiates between magical and non-magical objects, since you can use the detect magic Arcana skill feature to find magic items.
It only allows the detection of magic conjurations, zones, enduring phenomena (which is expressly stated not to include magic items), and sources of magical power (with the examples given not including magical items). Fireballs and necklaces of fireball don't qualify as any of these things.
Now, lots of people tell players to use Arcana to have their PC find magic items, but that's the house rule. A PC should always be able to spot remarkable objects, whether it is remarkable as technology or magic item.
Sense the presence of Magic: 1 minute
DC: DC 20 + one-half the level of a magic item, power (conjuration or zone), ritual or magical phenomenon within range.
I wouldn't be surprised if they did considering it's one of the oldest books in print around now but I don't remember any errata to Arcana...
Shasarak: I would explain this exactly the same way that I would in vanilla 3e - ie you can not dispel magical items using your counterspell and you also can not dispel non-magical items with your counterspell.
First of all, you cannot counterspell magical items in 3e. Counterspelling can "disrupt the casting of the same spell by another character".
So why would you argue that you can? You must be confused because you can not argue both sides at once.
Second of all, in the scenario above, the fireball, the necklace of missiles, and the flasks of oil have all be reflavored so they all appear to be items. But if this means the reflavored fireball can no longer be counterspelled, you've gone beyond reflavlring and gone into the realm of houseruling.
Exactly. They all appear to be items but they are not. One is a magic item, one is a mundane item and one is a spell. Due to the power of reflavouring they may appear to be similar items but because reflavouring does not give you a mechanical advantage, a successful spellcraft roll would allow the PC to know exactly what the "fireball" grenade is.
The only one who seems to be edging towards houseruling is you.
Shasarak: It is kind of outrageous for a specialist counterspelling wizard to expect to dispel everything even things that are not spells.
But it's not outrageous for him to expect to be able to counterspell reflavored spells, because reflavoring is not supposed to come with mechanical advantages. If reflavoring allows someone to transfor a spell into a spell that cannot be counterspelled, that's a distinct mechanical advantage, one that clearly goes beyond 3.5's guidelines for reflavoring
Exactly and no one has claimed that a reflavoured "fireball" grenade can not be counterspelled.
Well, no one except for you.
The answer should be that you cannto reflavor a spell to be an item because "item" is a term with mechanical consequences. And that gets back into the discussion being had earlier. Even though Third Edition had rules for reflavoring, the system itself was not as amenable to reflavoring becuase so many mechanics interacted in ways that make it difficult to accomplish the reflavoring.
Except that no one is making a "fireball" grenade into an item. It may appear to be an item because of reflavouring but for all mechanical purposes it is a spell.
The specific example here is reflavloring something magical into something nonmagical. Third edition makes this problematic because it mechanically treats magical and magical items differently. 4e does not, and thus makes it easier to reflavor.
Except that it is not non-magical. If you cast detect magic then you would see that it was magical. If you used spellcraft you could identify the spell. If you used counterspell then you could dispel the "fireball" grenade.
The edition is not making it problematic, it is you that is creating non-existant problems. For reflavouring to be truely effective you need to work within the narrative created by the reflavouring. As Ongorth rightfully points out "It is literally like complaining 4e is broken because your monk can kick an ooze in the leg and knock it prone. Flavor your attack and what the prone condition means to an ooze differently and the problem is gone"
Shasarak: What does this "specialist" want to do next, dispel melee and ranged attacks as well?
No. He wants to counterspell spells. But the reflavoring means a grenade might be a spell, or it might not be a spell, and there's no internally consistent way to explain why one grenade can be dispelled and one cannot.
There is a very simple internally consistant way to explain why one grenade can be dispelled and one cannot - they are different types of grenades. One is a spell grenade, one is a item grenade and the last is a mundane grenade.
Making it into a spell grenade also basically removes the whole idea of the reflavor; considering the idea was a batman-wizard who doesn't actually know magic, just fancy alchemical tricks.
(Probably doesn't help that you need to be a spellcaster to use craft(alchemy) though, yet another one of those rules interfering with your reflavoring)
I would explain this exactly the same way that I would in vanilla 3e - ie you can not dispel magical items using your counterspell and you also can not dispel non-magical items with your counterspell.
Yeah, but the whole point of the situation is the the necklace and the oil bottles are items, but the grenade is not. The grenade is not an item, it's a spell. It should be suspectible to counterspell, even though in-game it's supposed to be an item.
But the "fireball" grenade is not an item, it is a spell.
The "wizard" grenadier can not give his "fireball" grenade to his cleric firend to use. The party Rogue can not use his use magical item skill to use the "fireball" grenade (but he could if it was a "fireball scroll" grenade or maybe a "fireball wand" bandalier full of grenades)
When you reflavour fireball as a grenade you only get narrative control you do not get a mechanical benefit.
That means if you do not have any components (what ever you have reflavoured them to be) then you can not use the "fireball" grenade.
If you are in a anti-magic field then you can not use the "fireball" grenade.
If you are silenced then you can not use the "fireball" grenade (unless you have taken the appropriate feats to cast spells without somatic components).
How you explain why you can not use it is up to you to fit within the story narrative. Maybe you could say that the "fireball" grenade got wet and was a dud. Maybe you could say that you used it but missed causing no damage. Who knows.
Once you say "well, the grenade is an item so counterspell doens't work" you've stopped reflavoring and started houseruling.
Yep, so it is lucky that I never said that isn't it.
Lots of rules interact with lots of other rules in sometimes very minor and sometimes very obvious ways. Not being able to use grenades while silenced is a pretty good example of something that's likely to come up and really hard to explain. Anti-magic fields, likewise.
You can always try to reflavor, but really the spell system doesn't lend itself for that kind of thing at all
Now the melee combat system on the other hand, did a fairly decent job. Mostly because it was just "I swing for X", which is really easy to reflavor.
Did they change it? In my PHB it's listed as an option, all the way at the bottom:
Sense the presence of Magic: 1 minute
DC: DC 20 + one-half the level of a magic item, power (conjuration or zone), ritual or magical phenomenon within range.
I wouldn't be surprised if they did considering it's one of the oldest books in print around now but I don't remember any errata to Arcana...
That house rule is in my book too.
Which, again, was entirely our point. You can try to reflavor a fireball into a grenade, but you'll have so many possible situations where it'll become an issue that it's really hard to do so. 3e is really riddled with situations where you'll run into issues because of reflavoring, due to the way it's built.
Lots of rules interact with lots of other rules in sometimes very minor and sometimes very obvious ways. Not being able to use grenades while silenced is a pretty good example of something that's likely to come up and really hard to explain. Anti-magic fields, likewise.
You can always try to reflavor, but really the spell system doesn't lend itself for that kind of thing at all
Now the melee combat system on the other hand, did a fairly decent job. Mostly because it was just "I swing for X", which is really easy to reflavor.
But it is not really hard to explain.
Maybe your grenade is voice activated? "Computer... Computer... (McCoy hands Scotty the mouse) Aye. Hello computer."
Maybe the capacitor is not fully charged.
Maybe the stars are not in alignment.
Maybe your character did not want to use the "fireball" grenade in this situation.
Hells teeth, man, if you want to reflavour then reflavour.
I'm not. I'm arguing that you cannot justify reflavoring a spell and a magic item to both be mundane items, because it requires changign the mechanics. Do you understand that reflavoring is not simply an in-game illusion? The reflavored fireball/grenade is supposed to be a mundane grenade, not an illusion that causes a fireball spell to appear to be a grenade.
Shasark: They all appear to be items but they are not.
Ah, so you don't understand what reflavorign involves. When reflavored, they are all supposed to be actual mundane items and not magical, and yet mechancially they are suppsoed to operate no differently. This does not work in 3e because magical and mundane items are treated differently.
Shasarak: Exactly and no one has claimed that a reflavoured "fireball" grenade can not be counterspelled.
Right, but Ongorth hasn't been able to explain why you can have two objects described as grenades, and supposed to be grenades for all purposes, but are treated differently when subject to other spells. Nor have you, except to the extent that you seem to think reflavoring is just a synonym for "phantasmal force".
Shasarak: Except that no one is making a "fireball" grenade into an item.
That's exactly what the hypothetical posits. The fireball is now flavored as an item. It doesn't merely "appear" to be an item. It's now a grenade.
Shasarak: Except that it is not non-magical.
Then it hasn't been reflavored. If it's magical, it's not a grenade. It's just a fireball with an illusion spell on it. Which means the grenadier is not a grenadier -- he's an illusionist. Which means, there is no reflavoring in 3e because you can't "reflavor" a spell to appear as something else. You can only have the spellcaster layer an illusion of something else over a spell, which is entirely different.
Shasarak: There is a very simple internally consistant way to explain why one grenade can be dispelled and one cannot - they are different types of grenades. One is a spell grenade, one is a item grenade and the last is a mundane grenade.
So the grenadier is not a grenadier -- he's an artificer. As I said, you cannot reflavor 3e magic into mundane items. It is Ongorth who believed you could. Glad to see you agree with me and disagree with Ongorth, even though you seem to think the reverse is true.
Maybe your character did not want to use the "fireball" grenade in this situation.
Shasarak, you're not followign the conversation. The DM is the one reflavoring. The player is simply trying to use his character's abilities, and the Dm's attempts to freflavor a fireball into a mundane grenade (something Ongorth believed was possible) keeps running into mechanical issues.
Pluisjen and I (and apprrently you) believe thatyou can't reflavor a fireball spell into a mundane grenade in 3e because magic and mundanity have mechanical differences. I agree with you that this should be something that is elemental to grasp, but Ongorth doesn't seem to see any problems with it and whenever the mechanical issues are pointed out to him he claims not to understand what the complaint is.
As for 4e Arcana detecting items, the phrase you quoted is not in the Comepndium. I velieve Arcana got stealth-errated when the Rules Compendium came out, and I would not be surprised if that was intended to address issues with reflavoring powers to represent mundane actions. Arcana no longer has any ability to detect anything to do with items or powers. It identifies zones (whatever the cause), the lingering effects of rituals (which would include martial practices), and "magic power sources", as wel as certain types of monsters. You can also use Arcana to spontaneously change the appearance of your own non-Martial powers (as opposed to reflavoring, which is supposed to occur when you build the character).
I note the Compendium has the following line in the Arcana section:
"This use of the skill is not normally used to identify powers, magic items, or their effects."
Shasarak: So why would you argue that you can?
I'm not. I'm arguing that you cannot justify reflavoring a spell and a magic item to both be mundane items, because it requires changign the mechanics. Do you understand that reflavoring is not simply an in-game illusion? The reflavored fireball****-grenade is supposed to be a mundane grenade, not an illusion that causea fireball spell to appear ot be a grenade.
First - no one is claiming that the "fireball" grenade is a mundane item, except for you.
Second - no one is trying to change any mechanics, except for you.
Third - everything that is described in a game of DnD is a shared illusion. There is no mechanical difference to a PC saying that he is casting fireball, meeting the relevant V,S,M costs and doing Xd6 fire damage and a PC saying that he is casting "fireball" grenade, meeting the relevant V,S,M costs and doing Xd6 fire damage.
Fourth - no one is claiming that the "fireball" grenade is a mundane item, except for you.
Shasark: They all appear to be items but they are not.
Ah, so you don't understand what reflavorign involves. When reflavored, they are all supposed to be actual mundane items and not magical, and yet mechancially they are suppsoed to operate no differently. This does not work in 3e because magical and mundane items are treated differently.
Ah, so you dont understand what reflavouring involves. I was wondering why you kept on coming up with irrelevant examples.
Evidently, in your eyes, only mundane items can be reflavoured which is not at all what the actual rules in the DMG say.
Shasarak: Exactly and no one has claimed that a reflavoured "fireball" grenade can not be counterspelled.
Right, but Ongorth hasn't been able to explain why you can have two objects described as grenades, and supposed to be grenades for all purposes, but are treated differently when subject to other spells. Nor have yoiu, except to the extent that you seem to think reflavoring is just a synonym for "phantasmal force"/
Only if "imagination" is synomous in your mind to "phantasmal force"
I notice that you have not bothered to explain exactly why three different types of "grenades" all appear to be the exact same "grenade" when in fact one is mundane, one is a magic item and one is a reflavoured fireball spell.
Shasarak: Except that no one is making a "fireball" grenade into an item.
That's exactly what the ypothetical posits. The fireball is not flavored as an item. It doesn't merely "appear" to be an item. It's now a grenade.
Nope. It is a "fireball" grenade.
Shasarak: Except that it is not non-magical.
Then it hasn't been reflavored. If it's magical, it'ss not a grenade. It's just a fireball with an illusion spell on it. Which means the grenadier is not a grenadier -- he's an illusionist. Which means, there is no reflavorign in 3e because you can't "reflavor" a spell to appear as something else. You can only have the spellcaster layer an illusion of something else over a spell, which is entirely different.
Nope. Again reflavour does not equal mundane.
Shasarak: There is a very simple internally consistant way to explain why one grenade can be dispelled and one cannot - they are different types of grenades. One is a spell grenade, one is a item grenade and the last is a mundane grenade.
So the grenadier is not a grenadier -- he's an artificer. As I said, you cannot reflavor 3e magic into mundane items. It is Ongorth who believed you could. Glad to see you agree with me and disagree with Ongorth, even though you seem to think the reverse is true.
If you want to call your wizard an artificer, and Ongorth wants to call his wizard a grenadier and I want to call my wizard Montgomery Scott then what rules exactly stop us from doing that?
That is not true. Let's review the history here.
AbdulAlhazred (post 19): "good luck 'refluffing' a pre-4e spellcaster into anything else"
Ankiyavon (post 20): States it is "easy", in pre-4e editions "to refulff magic as tech" and specifically uses "grenade" as an example. He is clearly talking about a mundane grenade replacing a magical effect.
AbdulAlhazred (post 21): "there's a fundamental difference between a grenade and a fireball"
Ankiyavon (post 23): "30 minutes spent reading a spellbook vs 30 minutes putting a grenade together = fluff"
Salla (post 26): "But why can't you throw the grenade without saying the same thing every time?"
Ongorth (post 30): "Reflavor "saying the same thing every time" as something else."
Pluisjen (post 31): "an enemy Wizard can make a spellcraft check and identify that the "grenade" you're throwing is actually a Fireball."
Ongorth did not respond to plusijen, so pluisjen had to restate the question...
Pluisjen (post 71): "So how would you explain the fact that any Wizard in the world can look at your grenade and say "ah, it's a Fireball"? "
Ongorth (post 72): "The player knows it has certain mechanics which she can represent in game in any manner he wishes that is thematically appropriate"
Pluisjen (post 74): "with the Fireball grenade, not only does he know all the mechanics (which are word for word equal to fireball) , he can actually counterspell your grenade with his Fireball."
Ongorth (post 75): "How is that a problem? Just flavor the identifcation and counterspelling to something thematically appropriate."
Pluisjen (post 76): "I'd like to hear an example of a fireball countering a grenade."
Ongorth (post 77): "it completely depends on the situation. Without context, no flavor makes sense."
wrecan (post 86): So, given Ongorth's request, I provide a hypothetical that provides context. My example involves a DM reflavoring a fireball, a necklace of fireballs, and lit squibs as mundane grenades, just like ankiyavon (post 20) and ongorth (post 72) said could be done easily pre-3e. I then ask Ongorth to explain how in this context, you can reflavor a magical fireball to a mundane grenade without house ruling things like counterspelling and identify, or the fireball itself.
So, contrary to your statement, I am not the only one discussing a spell reflavored to be a mundane grenade. Everyone in the conversation si discussing this... except you.
Shasarak: no one is trying to change any mechanics, except for you.
I'm not trying to change anything. I offered a hypothetical consonant with exactly what ankiyavon and ongorth said was possible pre-3e (reflavoring a fireball spell to be amundane grenade) that showed that you cannot reflavor a magic spell to be a mundane item precisely because the mechanics treat spells and mundane items differently.
Shasarak: There is no mechanical difference to a PC saying that he is casting fireball, meeting the relevant V,S,M costs and doing Xd6 fire damage and a PC saying that he is casting "fireball" grenade, meeting the relevant V,S,M costs and doing Xd6 fire damage.
He is, if that fireball-grenade is supposed to be mundane, because then the fireball is subject to detect magic, dispel magic, and identify (among other spells), but the mundane grenade is not. And if that mundane grenade is, there's no way to explain why it is, and yet other reflavored grenades (like the lit squib and the necklace of fireballs) are not.
Shasarak: Fourth - no one is claiming that the "fireball" grenade is a mundane item, except for you.
You're first and fourth points are duplicative.
Shasarak: Evidently, in your eyes, only mundane items can be reflavoured which is not at all what the actual rules in the DMG say.
No. Magic can be reflavored to be othe rmagic. Mundane can be reflavored to be othe rmundane. But you cannot -- pre-4e -- reflavor magic to be mundane and vice versa, because magic and mundane effects are subject to different mechanics. In order to accomplish such a reflavoring, you have to alter those mechanics, which results in a house rule.
Shasarak: I notice that you have not bothered to explain exactly why three different types of "grenades" all appear to be the exact same "grenade"
I said they were all reflavored to be mundane grenades and nonmagical incendiary objects. I did not say they appear to be the exact same grenade.
Shasarak: If you want to call your wizard an artificer, and Ongorth wants to call his wizard a grenadier and I want to call my wizard Montgomery Scott then what rules exactly stop us from doing that?
The rules that treat magical and nonmagical effects differently, such as the rules for counterspelling, and detect magic, dispel magic, and identify spells. Because, I have shown above, Ongorth had claimed that a fireball could be reflavored into a mundane grenade. Do you now agree with me that Ongorth is wrong?
Maybe your character did not want to use the "fireball" grenade in this situation.
Shasarak, you're not followign the conversation. The DM is the one reflavoring. The player is simply trying to use his character's abilities, and the Dm's attempts to freflavor a fireball into a mundane grenade (something Ongorth believed was possible) keeps running into mechanical issues.
Wrecan, I am following the conversation but not your illogical examples.
For example, it is not the DM reflavouring, it was the player reflavouring his characters abilities to "appear" to be using grenades.
Can you please find a quote where Ongoth wants to reflavour a fireball into a mundane greanade?
Because if someone could reflavour a fireball into a mundane greanade, then that grenade could be given to anyone, could be used at any time, would not be subject to the restrictions that a fireball spell is and in fact would be something entirely different to a fireball spell reflavoured as a grenade.
Which I have never once seen Ongoth claim.
I have seen you make the claim.
I have seen Plusjen make the claim.
But I have never seen Ongoth do it.
Pluisjen and I (and apprrently you) believe thatyou can't reflavor a fireball spell into a mundane grenade in 3e because magic and mundanity have mechanical differences. I agree with you that this should be something that is elemental to grasp, but Ongorth doesn't seem to see any problems with it and whenever the mechanical issues are pointed out to him he claims not to understand what the complaint is.
Nope, not me.
But I can see that Ongoth and I are arguing for reflavouring a fireball spell to appear to be a grenade, while Wrecan and Pluisjen are arguing something else entirely.
For what it is worth, I completely agree that allowing wizards to create mundane grenades from their spells would certainly be a houserule. Luckily I am not claiming that at all.
While it might have been more difficult to re-fluff stuff in those prior editions (which I... really don't agree or disagree with), one of the "dirty secrets" is that... it was a lot easier to homebrew material, in part because of how unbalanced the whole game was. More leeway, if you will, because of the wide range of "acceptable" crap.
Nod. It's easier to mess with mechanics in a game that's already a mess - you don't risk making it a whole lot worse. It's initmidating to even try with 4e - not to mention a great deal of work when it comes to classes, because of the class struture with an exhaustive power list for every class.
I do wonder how much the current emphasis on balance is to blame for the "ghettoization" of homebrew and house-ruled solutions. (Though I'd put more blame on the reliance on an official character generator that doesn't [easily?] accept homebrew material.)
My guess would be: not much. The abhorrence of 'house rules' and enshrinement of 'RAW' started quite early in 3e. I think it has more to do with the dynamics of an on-line community vs the more locally-oriented groups of earlier decades, linked by 'Out on a Limb' or, latter, the odd BBS.
it is not the DM reflavouring, it was the player reflavouring his characters abilities to "appear" to be using grenades.
No. Ankiyavon did not specify who was doing the reflavoring when he introduced reflavoring magic to appear ot be a mundane grenade way back in post 20.
Shasarak: Can you please find a quote where Ongoth wants to reflavour a fireball into a mundane greanade?
Post 75, when Ongorth accepted pluisjen's example of reflavoring a fireball into a mundane grenade and said it could even accommodate a Spellcraft check.
Shasarak: Because if someone could reflavour a fireball into a mundane greanade, then that grenade could be given to anyone, could be used at any time, would not be subject to the restrictions that a fireball spell is and in fact would be something entirely different to a fireball spell reflavoured as a grenade. Which I have never once seen Ongoth claim.
Right. Because that would contradict his argument that there's no problem reflavoring a fireball to be a mundane grenade. Like you, I would be surprised to see Ongorth claim something that contradicted his own position.
Shasarak: I can see that Ongoth and I are arguing for reflavouring a fireball spell to appear to be a grenade, while Wrecan and Pluisjen are arguing something else entirely.
No. Ongorth is arguing that a fireball can be a mundane grenade. That's what everybody in this thread involved in the reflavoring discussion has been discussing except you.
Shasarak: I completely agree that allowing wizards to create mundane grenades from their spells would certainly be a houserule.
Great! Then you, I, pluisjen, AbdulAlhazred, Salla, and Xun all disagree with Ongorth and ankiyavon! Marvelous. I know you don't think Ongorth was talking about a mundane grenade, but it really doesn't matter what you or I think Ongorth was talking about. It only matters what Ongorth thinks Ongorth was talking about. And if Ongorth and Ankiyavon come on and claim they weren't talking about reflavoring a fireball to be a mundane grenade, because such a thing would be house-ruling, all the better! Because then none us are disagreeing about the limits of reflavoring in 3e, and that means that AbdulAlhazred's statement way back in post 19 that refluffing a spellcaster into a nonspellcaster would be, to say the least, difficult, is absolutely agreed upon by all parties involved! Yay!
Here's how it works, in your example.
-You cannot counterspell the flasks of oil, in either version, for consistent reasons.
-You cannot counterspell the necklace of fireballs in Core because it is an item. You cannot counterspell the necklace of fireballs in Reflavorland because it is a completed grenade that requires no activation, only a pin to be pulled.
-You can counterspell the fireball in Core because it is a fireball. You can counterspell the grenade in Reflavorland because it is not a completed item, it requires some final priming, and a wizard can expend magical energy to negate the priming.
The reason why you can only do this with a Fireball spell (unless you have the Improved Counterspell feat or any other such thing) is because in order to get your hands on the proper kind of anti-priming energy, you need to start by negating your own primed energy that would have had a similar result to the grenade. (In other words, the grenade would have exploded with a 20 foot radius ball of fire; a Fireball explodes in a 20 foot radius ball of fire; these are similar, and therefore the Fireball can be inverted to negate the grenade).
There exists no contradiction here that does not exist in the Core rules.
Shasarak: no one is claiming that the "fireball" grenade is a mundane item, except for you.
That is not true. Let's review the history here.
AbdulAlhazred (post 19): "good luck 'refluffing' a pre-4e spellcaster into anything else"
Ankiyavon (post 20): States it is "easy", in pre-4e editions "to refulff magic as tech" and specifically uses "grenade" as an example. He is clearly talking about a mundane grenade replacing a magical effect.
AbdulAlhazred (post 21): "there's a fundamental difference between a grenade and a fireball"
Ankiyavon (post 23): "30 minutes spent reading a spellbook vs 30 minutes putting a grenade together = fluff"
Salla (post 26): "But why can't you throw the grenade without saying the same thing every time?"
Ongorth (post 30): "Reflavor "saying the same thing every time" as something else."
Pluisjen (post 31): "an enemy Wizard can make a spellcraft check and identify that the "grenade" you're throwing is actually a Fireball."
Ongorth did not respond to plusijen, so pluisjen had to restate the question...
Pluisjen (post 71): "So how would you explain the fact that any Wizard in the world can look at your grenade and say "ah, it's a Fireball"? "
Ongorth (post 72): "The player knows it has certain mechanics which she can represent in game in any manner he wishes that is thematically appropriate"
Pluisjen (post 74): "with the Fireball grenade, not only does he know all the mechanics (which are word for word equal to fireball) , he can actually counterspell your grenade with his Fireball."
Ongorth (post 75): "How is that a problem? Just flavor the identifcation and counterspelling to something thematically appropriate."
Pluisjen (post 76): "I'd like to hear an example of a fireball countering a grenade."
Ongorth (post 77): "it completely depends on the situation. Without context, no flavor makes sense."
wrecan (post 86): So, given Ongorth's request, I provide a hypothetical that provides context. My example involves a DM reflavoring a fireball, a necklace of fireballs, and lit squibs as mundane grenades, just like ankiyavon (post 20) and ongorth (post 72) said could be done easily pre-3e. I then ask Ongorth to explain how in this context, you can reflavor a magical fireball to a mundane grenade without house ruling things like counterspelling and identify, or the fireball itself.
So, contrary to your statement, I am not the only one discussing a spell reflavored to be a mundane grenade. Everyone in the conversation si discussing this... except you.
Why is it that in all of the posts that you quote from Ongorth, that he never once mentions turning a fireball spell into a mundane grenade?
Is it just coinsidince that the very thing you accuse him of doing, you can not actually find an example of? Hmmm.
As for a fireball spell counterspelling a "fireball" grenade, if we look at the rules describing counterspelling in the PHB it mearly says: By doing so, you are using the spells energy to disrupt the casting of the same spell by another character.
It has no set description of what that disruption is, what it looks like or any flavour effect at all.
So for your example: Wrecans artificer selects Ongorths grenadier as his target for his counterspell and readies his action. Ongorth tries to throw his grenade (tries to cast fireball). Wrecan reacts with his readied action and makes his Spellcraft check - success - Wrecan now knows that Ongorth is trying to cast fireball and casts a fireball of his own that successfully counters Ongorths spell.
But what does that look like in the game? I could describe like so:
Wrecan sees his dread enemy Ongorth pulling his infamous grenade from his belt - this time he is ready, but which grenade is he going to use this time? Ah ha, he is going for the incendory grenade - timing his counter to perfection just as Ongorth mutters an arcane phrase to his grenade and winds back for the throw, Wrecan sends a jolt of arcane power that disrupts the precise balance of destructive energies inside the grenade. Ongorth gives a yell of suprise as his grenade crumbles harmlessly in his hand.
Shasarak: no one is trying to change any mechanics, except for you.
I'm not trying to change anything. I offered a hypothetical consonant with exactly what ankiyavon and ongorth said was possible pre-3e (reflavoring a fireball spell to be amundane grenade) that showed that you cannot reflavor a magic spell to be a mundane item precisely because the mechanics treat spells and mundane items differently.
But Ongorth never said that he was reflavouring it to be a mundane item and that is the problem.
Shasarak: There is no mechanical difference to a PC saying that he is casting fireball, meeting the relevant V,S,M costs and doing Xd6 fire damage and a PC saying that he is casting "fireball" grenade, meeting the relevant V,S,M costs and doing Xd6 fire damage.
He is, if that fireball-grenade is supposed to be mundane, because then the fireball is subject to detect magic, dispel magic, and identify (among other spells), but the mundane grenade is not. And if that mundane grenade is, there's no way to explain why it is, and yet other reflavored grenades (like the lit squib and the necklace of fireballs) are not.
Yep, still the same problem here - no one said that he was reflavouring it to be a mundane item and that is the problem.
Shasarak: Fourth - no one is claiming that the "fireball" grenade is a mundane item, except for you.
You're first and fourth points are duplicative.
Yes, you repeated yourself so I was trying to make it clear.
Shasarak: Evidently, in your eyes, only mundane items can be reflavoured which is not at all what the actual rules in the DMG say.
No. Magic can be reflavored to be othe rmagic. Mundane can be reflavored to be othe rmundane. But you cannot -- pre-4e -- reflavor magic to be mundane and vice versa, because magic and mundane effects are subject to different mechanics. In order to accomplish such a reflavoring, you have to alter those mechanics, which results in a house rule.
If you use the same premise that you have used ie reflavouring magical spells as mundane items, then 4e does not do this either. A sorcerer can not take an encounter 3 power and make it into a mundane item.
Shasarak: I notice that you have not bothered to explain exactly why three different types of "grenades" all appear to be the exact same "grenade"
I said they were all reflavored to be mundane grenades and nonmagical incendiary objects. I did not say they appear to be the exact same grenade.
Yes you did. And you wanted to know why the exact same grenade had three diferent types of mechanics.
Shasarak: If you want to call your wizard an artificer, and Ongorth wants to call his wizard a grenadier and I want to call my wizard Montgomery Scott then what rules exactly stop us from doing that?
The rules that treat magical and nonmagical effects differently, such as the rules for counterspelling, and detect magic, dispel magic, and identify spells. Because, I have shown above, Ongorth had claimed that a fireball could be reflavored into a mundane grenade. Do you now agree with me that Ongorth is wrong?
I agree that you are wrong and have seen no evidence that the point that you are trying to argue against was ever presented.
for solid internal consistency -- the hallmark of debate worth having.it is not the DM reflavouring, it was the player reflavouring his characters abilities to "appear" to be using grenades.
No. Ankiyavon did not specify who was doing the reflavoring when he introduced reflavoring magic to appear ot be a mundane grenade way back in post 20.
Shasarak: Can you please find a quote where Ongoth wants to reflavour a fireball into a mundane greanade?
Post 75, when Ongorth accepted pluisjen's example of reflavoring a fireball into a mundane grenade and said it could even accommodate a Spellcraft check.
When I look at post 75 I see Plusjen talking about a Fireball grenade and I see Ongorth talking about flavoring the identification and counterspelling to something thematically appropriate.
He also mentions reflavouring a scimitar to look like a frying pan, but I guess you are cool with that because of it being mundane.
I do not see him trying to claim that a "Fireball" grenade is somehow mundane (unless you are confusing Plusjen with Ongoth)
Shasarak: Because if someone could reflavour a fireball into a mundane greanade, then that grenade could be given to anyone, could be used at any time, would not be subject to the restrictions that a fireball spell is and in fact would be something entirely different to a fireball spell reflavoured as a grenade. Which I have never once seen Ongoth claim.
Right. Because that would contradict his argument that there's no problem reflavoring a fireball to be a mundane grenade. Like you, I would be surprised to see Ongorth claim something that contradicted his own position.
And yet that is what you are accusing him of doing.
Shasarak: I can see that Ongoth and I are arguing for reflavouring a fireball spell to appear to be a grenade, while Wrecan and Pluisjen are arguing something else entirely.
No. Ongorth is arguing that a fireball can be a mundane grenade. That's what everybody in this thread involved in the reflavoring discussion has been discussing except you.
No. Wrecan is arguing that a fireball can not be a mundane grenade.
Ongorth is arguing that a fireball can be reflavoured into a grenade.
Maybe you are in the wrong thread?
Shasarak: I completely agree that allowing wizards to create mundane grenades from their spells would certainly be a houserule.
Great! Then you, I, pluisjen, AbdulAlhazred, Salla, and Xun all disagree with Ongorth and ankiyavon! Marvelous.
Umm. No sorry you misunderstood.
I know you don't think Ongorth was talking about a mundane grenade, but it really doesn't matter what you or I think Ongorth was talking about. It only matters what Ongorth thinks Ongorth was talking about. And if Ongorth and Ankiyavon come on and claim they weren't talking about reflavoring a fireball to be a mundane grenade, because such a thing would be house-ruling, all the better! Because then none us are disagreeing about the limits of reflavoring in 3e, and that means that AbdulAlhazred's statement way back in post 19 that refluffing a spellcaster into a nonspellcaster would be, to say the least, difficult, is absolutely agreed upon by all parties involved! Yay!
Yes I agree because I really dont think that either of us could claim to know exactly what Ongorth (or Ankiyavon) thinks about your mundane grenade idea.
Personally I think Ongorth should have stuck with his example of reflavouring his fireball into the Bond market. "Everyone in a 20 foot radius is hit by flaming pork belly futures - make a reflex save for half damage"
Okay. So you're saying that in Reflavourland, a mundane item that "requires some final priming" can be counterspelled? So why can't my wizard counterspell a brewed potion that is on the verge of completion? Why must my wizard expend a memorized 4th level evocation spell (such as the aforementioned shout) to "negate the priming", but not, say, an abjuration spell (such as fire trap)?
Ankiyavon: In other words, the grenade would have exploded with a 20 foot radius ball of fire; a Fireball explodes in a 20 foot radius ball of fire; these are similar, and therefore the Fireball can be inverted to negate the grenade.
My wizard has Improved Counterspelling. He's not using a fire-based spell to negate your grenade. He's using shout. In fact, he can't use his fire-based spell -- fire trap -- because it's in the abjuration school, and the mundane grenade can only, for some reason, be countered with evocation magic.
Shasarak: Why is it that in all of the posts that you quote from Ongorth, that he never once mentions turning a fireball spell into a mundane grenade?
Wrecan: Because Ongorth, like most human beings, doesn't feel the need to repeat the blindingly obvious. Since he is repsonding to Pluisjen, who is discussing reflavoring a fireball into a mundane grenade, he assumes people will fbe able to follow the conversation.
Given this discussion began with AbdulAlhazred claiming that you can't reflavor a spellcaster into a nonspellcaster, Ongorth's comments would make zero sense if he were talkign about reflavoring a fireball spell into a grenade spell. Such an argument would be entirely nonresponsive to the topic at hand. So I'm goint to assume Ongorth is actually responding to the topic at hand until he tells me otherwise.
Shasarak: Wrecans artificer selects Ongorths grenadier as his target for his counterspell and readies his action. Ongorth tries to throw his grenade (tries to cast fireball). Wrecan reacts with his readied action and makes his Spellcraft check - success - Wrecan now knows that Ongorth is trying to cast fireball and casts a fireball of his own that successfully counters Ongorths spell.
Shasarak, can you pelase tell me what your position is? Because earlier you agreed that you cannot reflavor a fireball spell into a mundane grenade, and now you seem to be defending that very position. And if you have now changed your position perhaps you can explain why the wizard's ranger companion cannot pick up these reflavored fireball spells and throw them?
Shasarak: no one said that he was reflavouring it to be a mundane item and that is the problem.
At a minimum, ankiyavon just did in the post above yours, which thus confirms my interpretation of ths conversation. Since ankiyavon is the first person who mentioned converting spells into mundane grenades.
Shasarak: If you use the same premise that you have used ie reflavouring magical spells as mundane items, then 4e does not do this either. A sorcerer can not take an encounter 3 power and make it into a mundane item.
He can reflavor it to be a mundane effect improvised using the components he has as his reflavored implement. Particularly, if he plays an artificer.
wrecan: I said they were all reflavored to be mundane grenades and nonmagical incendiary objects. I did not say they appear to be the exact same grenade.
Shasarak: Yes you did.
Quote me saying that.
Shasarak: I agree that you are wrong and have seen no evidence that the point that you are trying to argue against was ever presented.
Perhaps you should look at ankiyavon's latest post, which confiorms that's exactly what we've (and by "we" I mean everyone but you) been taling about all this time.
When I look at post 75 I see Plusjen talking about a Fireball grenade and I see Ongorth talking about flavoring the identification and counterspelling to something thematically appropriate.
Then you're reading it wrong. I quoted the entire exchange above. Pluisjen is talking about a fireball reflavored as a mundane grenade, because he is adopting ankiyavon's example from way back in post 20, which ankiyavon has just confirmed was a discussion of a fireball pell being reflavored into a mundane grenade. I don't know why you are so insistent that we have not been discussing reflavoring spells into mundane tech. The entire discussion makes no sense if read the way you claim.
wrecan: I would be surprised to see Ongorth claim something that contradicted his own position.
Shasarak: And yet that is what you are accusing him of doing.
I am arguing that Ongorth is wrong. Not that he contradicted himself.
wrecan: Ongorth is arguing that a fireball can be a mundane grenade.
Shasarak: Wrecan is arguing that a fireball can not be a mundane grenade.
Those are not mutually inconsistent statements.
Shasarak: Maybe you are in the wrong thread?
You really should have read Ankiyavon's latest post before you decde to get snarky about what the thread has been about. Are you really going to stick to your position that Ongorth was arguing that a fireball can be reflavored into a magical grenade?
Why is it that in all of the posts that you quote from Ongorth, that he never once mentions turning a fireball spell into a mundane grenade?
Because Ongorth, like most human beings, doesn't feel the need to repeat the blindingly obvious. Since he is repsonding to Pluisjen, who is discussing reflavoring a fireball into a mundane grenade, he assumes people will fbe able to follow the conversation.
And yet it seems that it is not the case because you are claiming things that he never said.
It is almost like you have built up this giant man made of straw that you are gleefully tearing down.
Given this discussion began with AbdulAlhazred claiming that you can't reflavor a spellcaster into a nonspellcaster, Ongorth's comments would make zero sense if he were talkign about reflavoring a fireball spell into a grenade spell. Such an argument would be entirely nonresponsive to the topic at hand. So I'm goint to assume Ongorth is actually responding to the topic at hand until he tells me otherwise.
I believe that Ongorth said in post 42 that "you've got all those mechanics, you can still flavor them however you want. Seriously, go do it and watch how gameplay completely doesn't change when you use spoiled milk instead of bat guano!"
So I going to have to stick with assuming Ongorth is talking about reflavouring rather then your definition of houseruling.
Shasarak: Wrecans artificer selects Ongorths grenadier as his target for his counterspell and readies his action. Ongorth tries to throw his grenade (tries to cast fireball). Wrecan reacts with his readied action and makes his Spellcraft check - success - Wrecan now knows that Ongorth is trying to cast fireball and casts a fireball of his own that successfully counters Ongorths spell.
Shasarak, can you pelase tell me what your position is? Because earlier you agreed that you cannot reflavor a fireball spell into a mundane grenade, and now you seem to be defending that very position. And if you have now changed your position perhaps you can explain why the wizard's ranger companion cannot pick up these reflavored fireball spells and throw them?
I agreed that you cannot reflavor a fireball spell into a mundane grenade.
I disagree that you cannot reflavor a fireball spell into a grenade.
The rules specifically say: "A magic missile could be a dagger shaped burst of energy, a fist like creation of force or a demonic head that spits a blast of energy." These are all examples of reflavouring. I say that if it is possible to reflavour your magic missile into a "demonic head that spits a blast of energy" then you should be able to reflavour it as a grenade exploding or flaming pork belly futures.
If you want me to explain why a ranger can not pick up these reflavoured fireball spell and throw it then I could say that the grenade is keyed to my magical aura or once the grenade is activated by the wizard that it must be thrown straight away (before it explodes), or that the ranger is not a follower of Shasarak and it would be heresy to allow a non-believer to throw the holy handgrenade of Shasarak, or that the ranger never thought to ask to throw the grenade. Honestly if we are reflavouring then it could be any reason.
Shasarak: no one said that he was reflavouring it to be a mundane item and that is the problem.
At a minimum, ankiyavon just did in the post above yours, which thus confirms my interpretation of ths conversation. Since ankiyavon is the first person who mentioned converting spells into mundane grenades
Wait, is it Ongorth that said it, or Ankiyavon? Where is this fabled internal consistancy?
Shasarak:If you use the same premise that you have used ie reflavouring magical spells as mundane items, then 4e does not do this either. A sorcerer can not take an encounter 3 power and make it into a mundane item.
He can reflavor it to be a mundane effect improvised using the components he has as his reflavored implement. Particularly, if he plays an artificer.
There is no restriction on who could reflavour except (in this example) that they must be able to cast fireball.
wrecan: I said they were all reflavored to be mundane grenades and nonmagical incendiary objects. I did not say they appear to be the exact same grenade.
Shasarak: Yes you did.
Quote me saying that.
In post #86, you asked the question:
1. How do you explain the fact that my wizard can conterspell the grenadier's reflavored fireball grenade, but not the apprentice's reflavored necklace of fireball belt of grenades, or the guards' flasks of oil?
This seems to indicate (to me) that the wizard has the possibility of being confused between the oil grenade, the necklace of fireball grenade and the fireball spell grenade. So why would the wizard be confused if they looked like different types of grenades?
In which case, would the wizard also be confused by seeing a Fireball spell, a Empowered Fireball and a Delayed Blast Fireball? While they are all flaming balls of fire, they are not the same spell and the same with your example.
Shasarak:I agree that you are wrong and have seen no evidence that the point that you are trying to argue against was ever presented.
Perhaps you should look at ankiyavon's latest post, which confiorms that's exactly what we've (and by "we" I mean everyone but you) been taling about all this time.
Or we could just wait to see what Ongorth thinks since you have been ragging on him pretty hard.
Okay. So you're saying that in Reflavourland, a mundane item that "requires some final priming" can be counterspelled? So why can't my wizard counterspell a brewed potion that is on the verge of completion? Why must my wizard expend a memorized 4th level evocation spell (such as the aforementioned shout) to "negate the priming", but not, say, an abjuration spell (such as fire trap)?
I didn't say it's mundane. It's hyper-tech or super-science. It's not something that any ordinary person can do, because mechanically, it's not something that any ordinary person can do. It's something that only someone who is specifically trained in the construction and use of these items can do.
It's not magic. It's also not mundane.
My wizard has Improved Counterspelling. He's not using a fire-based spell to negate your grenade. He's using shout. In fact, he can't use his fire-based spell -- fire trap -- because it's in the abjuration school, and the mundane grenade can only, for some reason, be countered with evocation magic.
I explicitly called out "unless you have Improved Counterspell or similar abiilty". I only bothered to give an example of how it works by default; because by definition, having different abilities means that you have different abilities and can do different things with your different abilities.
(The difference between fire trap and fireball is because they have different effects. They do not both create a 20-foot radius ball of flame from an origin point. The fact that you can't counterspell delayed blast fireball with fireball and vice versa is a problem in Core as well.)
It seems in every example of where things don't work, the counter involves invoking inappropriate flavor, or applying a mechanic that doesn't apply. The "fireball" grenade is a spell, mechanically, 100% identical to fireball. It is not an item, so it is neither a magical or non-magical item. The thematic construct "grenade" may or may not be able to be used as an to create the thematic effect "explosion" in non-mechanically arbitrated scenarios by anyone, but only the character who memorized the spell "fireball" may use the grenade to generate the mechanical effects of fireball.How you theme that relies completely on the situation.
No, the answer is that counterspelling only works on spells, not items, and the necklace of fireballs and flask of oil are items.
Exactly my point. The mechanic says we can't and its up to us to apply a thematic reason why that is so. The wizard can counterspell the firebal grenade because the rules say he can and can't counterspell the oil or the necklace because the rules say he can't. The reasons for this could be any number of reasons: perhaps the "fireball" grenade was poorly constructed do the wizard was able to douce to the fuse by conjuring a water into its encasement, but the necklace of fireball grenade was better constructed and his attempt failed. That's just as reasonable a thematic reason as one fireball got counterspelled because it was cast as a spell, but the other couldn't be counterspelled because it was cast from an item. Its thematic justification for a mechanical distinction, not vice versa.
So, please answer my question. Why does identify and detect magic confirm the qualities of the reflavored necklace of fireballs (by, for example, telling the PC wizard the strength of those grenades still active on the grenade belt), but will not tell the wizard whether the flasks of oil do or do not have any hidden qualities that the wizard may not have observed... even though both the flasks and the necklace have been reflavored into incendiary devices
Why don't they? The information being relayed about a mundane item is purely thematic (there's no mechanic for telling the players what a mundane item does), so why not flavor this as the wizard using his spell? Or, for convenience, have some non-gameplay thematic event explain the items as its a mechanical non-issue anyway. "He heard some guy talking about it", a purely non-mechanical effect can give the exact same effect as the supposedly mechanical "cast identify."
4e, of course, continued the improvement trend, and officially segregated flavor and mechanics. That was an organizational change, but it carried a very real mechanical consequence in that the rules explicitly used only mechanics, not flavor text, for resolution. That improved playability - gone were intermidable arguments about what a spell description might mean or how an odd use of it might have to be resolved. As a result, you can run your game 'RAW,' while your players freely re-flavor their characters and powers without any mechanical issues. It's not a huge deal - not nearly as significant and the improvement in class balance or encounter guidelines - but nice.
I sure hope the next edition of 1830 includes a line in the rulebook clarifying that your train companies don't need to develop the exact same route they did historically. As its written now, it isn't made specifically that the names of the cities and train companies are flavor text, so people call me a cheater when I build a route with the B&O into Montreal.
Why do the rules need to tell you that you can do things that are universally true? Should also remind you, if during the game you have to urinate, to take a short break and go to the bathroom?
Why do the rules need to tell you that you can do things that are universally true?
Are you bucking to get a corollary of the Oberoni Fallacy named after you?
Yes, you when rules & flavor text or inextricably entwined, you /can/ simply change the rules. That is universeally true. It doesn't make said conflating of flavor and mechanics a good thing.
Are you bucking to get a corollary of the Oberoni Fallacy named after you?
It's official! Getting up during a game of 4e D&D to use the bathroom is a houserule.
And one I wholeheartedly suggest.
Seriously, flavor, by it's fundamental nature can't be "inextricably intertwined" with mechanics. The entire concept makes no sense. Keep the mechanics, flavor as appropriate. If you can't do it, well, umm, sorry?
It makes me think about people who say Blazblue isn't a competitive fighting game, because the mechanics are too heavy that the game is an excerise in fighting the system rather then fighting the opponent.
People who say that need more practice mode.
Not liking something is not the same thing as it not being something.
From the 3.5 DMG: A magic missile could be a dagger shaped burst of energy that flies through the air. It also could be a fistlike creation of force that bashes into its target or the sudden appearance of a demonic head that spits a blast of energy.
OK, so 3.5 took a faltering step in that direction. Without context, though, that could be from a passage about Rule 0 or even creating new spells. That asside, assuming it is in the context of re-flavoring, 3.5 still hadn't weeded fluff from mechanics the way 4e has, so in trying to implement such an option, you'd still have tease out what were things you could change vs what you couldn't: What Ongorth calls an 'organizational issue,' but is also necessarily, a rules issue.
Can you find similar quotes for AD&D or other earlier rule sets?
Spell Thematics, but as the 3.5 rules RAW allow you to do the same (without the mechanical bonus of making your spells harder to identify) I would have thought that was a trap option.
There were a lot of 'traps' in 3.5, Spell Thematics may well have been one of them. At the time, though, the inclusion of a feat that let you do something was often taken as 'proof' that you /needed/ the feat to do it. :shrug: I'm glad those days are past...
It seems that the most common objection is "that the reflavouring does not make sense" which is easily answered by "then find a way to make it work".
Which is actually the answer in 4e as well, I get the impression that the objection is that in 4e the part that you can hijink with is kept distinct from the part that you cant, and so its intrinsically easier.
It's also that in 4e, you might get a simulationist objecting that your fluctuating-bond-market-attack that you can make because you're allowed an MBA (pi) is shattering his verisimilitude, but the mechanics all still work fine. If you try that hijink in 3.5 or AD&D, OTOH, your DM's going to need to aprove it, and there would be mechanical consequences were he so foolish as to do so.
Which hypothetical mechanical consequences do you mean?
Mechanics being so ill-defined in the old days, almost anything...
DM: you can't hit the Werewolf with that.
Loony Player: Sure I can, these bonds are denominated in pounds /stirling/!
Which hypothetical mechanical consequences do you mean?
Last two times asked, the hypothetical consequences involved creating new mechanics, applying it to the actual mechanics in a manner that created a conflict and then pointed out the created conflict.
I wouldn't hold my breath.
That's untrue. Schools aren't divided by "type of effects". They are seperated out by types of purpose. Abjurations spells are intended to inhibit other things. Evocation spells are intended to hurt other things. They might each use the same effect (ie., generating fire). It's not the effect that makes one abjurative and the other evocative -- it's the intent of the spell's creator.
Fire seeds are conjuration spells that lets you turn acorns into incendiaries. Fireball is an evocation spell that grenerates a pea-sized pellet that becomes an indendiary when thrown. Why are fire seeds conjurative and not transmutative? The spell doesn't explain. It just is. Why is fireball evocative and not conjurative? The description doesn't explain. It just is.
If you were told the effect of spell you'd never previously read, you would not be able to discern its school. The school is not directly related to its effect.
If you have a truly insane level of system mastery, such that you are aware of every single relevant mechanic that even peripherally touches on the item you are reflavoring, it is not exceptionally difficult to reflavor in prior editions.
With this I agree. However, I think this means you now agree with AbdulAlhazred that reflavoring a spellcaster into a nonspellcaster is very difficult for someone who lacks your admittedly insane level of system mastery. Nobody (to my knowledge) posited it was impossible.
Which hypothetical mechanical consequences do you mean?
Well first of all, he'd be house-ruling this thing called a "melee basic attack", which doesn't exist in 3e.
Seriously, if someone wanted to describe his unarmed melee attack as a physical manifestation of damage caused by metaphysical fluctuations in the bond market, and the DM was okay with it, I don't see why that would be any more difficult in 3e than in 4e. It still provokes an attack of opportunity, must target someone within 5 feet of you, and does the damage of an unarmed attack, and counts as a touch for any effects triggered by touching someone.
There were a lot of 'traps' in 3.5, Spell Thematics may well have been one of them. At the time, though, the inclusion of a feat that let you do something was often taken as 'proof' that you /needed/ the feat to do it. :shrug: I'm glad those days are past...
Lines like this crack me up. You have the insight to know that you don't actually need a feat to reflavor things, but you condemn 3e for needing a feat to reflavor things?
That's like knowing that 18xx games play better with poker chips, then condemning 1830 for not mentioning poker chips in the rule book as being a mechanical issue. Sure, it'd be nice to mention it, but as far as the mechanics of the game is concerned its irrelevant as the means by which you track your money isn't a mechanic! Bringing poker chips (your insight) gives you a better play experience without changing the mechanics!
Seriously, would adding the line to a D&D rulebook (any edition) that says "When chosing a component to represent your character, do not pick a shard of broken glass" would be a mechanical improvement? Not using shards of broken glass would certainly improve the play experience, but its certainly not a mechanic and not needed because it merely provides insight that you (hopefully) have already learned.
Fire seeds are conjuration spells that lets you turn acorns into incendiaries. Fireball is an evocation spell that grenerates a pea-sized pellet that becomes an indendiary when thrown. Why are fire seeds conjurative and not transmutative? The spell doesn't explain. It just is. Why is fireball evocative and not conjurative? The description doesn't explain. It just is.
IIRC, conjurations bring a force from another place (possibly another plane), while Evocations bring a force into being ex nillo.
So, when an AD&D magic-user casts a fireball, he's bringing fire into existance that did not exist before. He may be channeling some sort of mystic energy from another plane and transforming it into fire, or it may be litterally from nothing. Conversely, when an AD&D Druid casts Fire Seeds, he brings actual, pre-existing fire from elsewhere in nature or from the elemental plane of fire, and binds it into some acorns or holly berries.
I'm mildly annoyed that I still remember that.
There were a lot of 'traps' in 3.5, Spell Thematics may well have been one of them. At the time, though, the inclusion of a feat that let you do something was often taken as 'proof' that you /needed/ the feat to do it. :shrug: I'm glad those days are past...
You have the insight to know that you don't actually need a feat to reflavor things, but you condemn 3e for needing a feat to reflavor things?
Given a line that implies you can reflavor things, and a feat that implies you need it to reflavor things, at the very least, we can conclude that the 3.5 rules were inconsistent.
Not that we really need further evidence of that.
It seems that the most common objection is "that the reflavouring does not make sense" which is easily answered by "then find a way to make it work".
Which is actually the answer in 4e as well, I get the impression that the objection is that in 4e the part that you can hijink with is kept distinct from the part that you cant, and so its intrinsically easier.
The worst one for me was the Bards at will Vicious Mockery.
Huh, Do you have players singing your momma wears army boots at zombie. It's a spell? For my Bard who has a religious druidic bent (and mcs druid too) and when he is vming a creature he is singing creations song of undoing and convincing reality the subject is worthless and should be removed from the weave of history... if the subject is sentient he is magically inducing suicide.. atleast that is the final stroke, til then its pretty much old fashioned demoralizing... I am not necessarily great at coming up with mocking melodies.
Is that artwork in 3e rules too? Because I don't think they specifically mentioned that they aren't. And they're in the rulebook. They must be a rules.
I'm still not sure how the intrinsic properties of games fail to apply to 3e.
4E has many flaws, but its reflavoring rules are simple and direct, and the flavor itself is 99% removed from any mechanical interference. It's simple and pliable. The differences between the two editions are astoundingly obvious, and discussing the subject any further would be preposterous.
Lastly, Spell Thematics is not a trap option, as (IIRC) it actually CAN allow you to create the effect of a dragon breathing flame as part of a Fireball spell, and it uses just such a thing as an example in the Feat Description. It also makes counterspelling harder, as well as gives you an extra Caster Level for specific spells of your choice.
In short, quoting yourself can sometimes be useful, but when the post you quote is simply wrong, you're really not proving anything.
In short, quoting yourself can sometimes be useful, but when the post you quote is simply wrong, you're really not proving anything.
Fortunately, he's right so this doesn't apply.
I'm still not sure how the intrinsic properties of games fail to apply to 3e.
1) They put limiters on those properties in both 4E nd 3.5, namely, that you can only reflavor specific things, and only to a specific point. 4E's limiters are simply less restricitive.
2) I'm not sure absolutely everyone agrees with you that reflavoring is an intrinsic property of all games. Living Greyhawk certainly didn't.
In short, quoting yourself can sometimes be useful, but when the post you quote is simply wrong, you're really not proving anything.
Fortunately, he's right so this doesn't apply.
Where? I missed that bit, sorry.
@Garthanos: Yes, that was the point, to prevent people from going beyond the bounds of reflavoring. If I cast a Fireball spell, and enemy soldiers see a giant dragon appear and breathe fire, they might decide to flee out of fear. That's what an Illusion spell is supposed to be doing, so I'm making it obsolete by doing something I shouldn't be.
Everyone already has an intimidate skill... how do you picture it working? Players should be flavoring ie describing what they are doing with there Intimidate skill and the way I see it that really should be appropriate to and involve expressions of the characters normal at-will powers with impressiveness dial up a notch and actual effects dialed down to incidental ie they could break or sear incidental things in the environment and similar non-effects the effect is just an intimidate attempt. But yes no two for the price of one.
Because I really can not see how the description of a fireballs "glowing , pea sized bead" has any more or less mechanical implication then shield of faiths "gleaming shield of divine energy"
RTFM. 4e PH1, p55.
4e: The 'gleaming shield of divine energy' is in the flavor text, which explicitly has no mechanical effect. For the actual effect of the power, you refer to the mechanics that follow the text. In this case "The targets gain a +2 power bonus to AC until the end of the encounter." The spell thus provides no illumination, for instance.
OTOH, Hallowed Circle, for example, produces a zone of bright light per it's Effect Line.
3e (and earlier): the 'glowing, pea-sized bead' is in the spell description, which include rules. Is it 'rule' or 'flavor?' In 3e, that's a matter of DM interpretation - if the DM judges changing the size or luminosity or shape doesn't make the spell 'more powerful,' then it's changeable, otherwise, it may not be. In 2e, the same judgement could be made to decide which attributes could be altered by Sense Shifting. In 1e the spell was what it was. You could research a fireball that did something other than cough forth a pea-sized ball of flame that streaked to it's target and detonated with a low roar,' if you so desired.
But why would I place any more weight on p55 of the 4e PH1, if I ignore p34 of the 3.5 DMG? It does not make any logical sense to follow one rule and ignore the other.
Wasn't ignoring it. The above is based on the rules of each edition. Specifically, see the underlined bit, which is how the 3.5 DMG rule you mention would aply.
I could accept that if there were in fact rules to cover what exactly "glowing" means, what exactly "pea-sized" is and exactly how much noise a "low roar" created.
The rules of 3e were not that exact - in part precisely because they were still muddled with a lot of 'fluff.' The rules of each earlier ed less so, in turn. They required more interpretation on the part of the DM. One DM might rule that a fireball's glow momentarily illuminated the area it traversed, another might not. One might have the fireball's 'low roar' heard miles away, another not in the next room. (The size a pea, OTOH, is not that hard to imagine.)
There were endless arguments over what spell descriptions meant - as this discussion further illustrates.
The only 4e power I can think of that caused so much consternation was Commander's Strike...
But there are no rules to cover these examples, so logically we would have to assume that they are flavour text.
There are a /lot/ of one-off rules in spell descriptions, even moreso prior to 3e - if you considered them all flavor text, you'd hardly have many spell-casting mechanics left.
And yet in 4e I still need to have line of site to the target square to be able to cast fireball. The combat rules may be a little clearer but the same result remains in both editions.
Line of Effect, actually. In 4e, a feature may be blocking terrain, provide cover or concealment (or superior or total versions therof). An Area spell needs Line of Effect. Cover and concealment don't block line of effect. So, a 4e fireball spell can pass through an arrow slit, grating, curtain, shrubbery, iron cage, or any of a wide variety of things so long as they are not designated as blocking terrain. Not only a firebal, but any Area power. It's quite consistent, and entirely independent of any flavor text of said power. Fireball, Sleep, and Stinking Cloud, for instance, would all behave quite similarly as far as establishing the origin square goes.
In AD&D, say, a fireball would go off if it impacted something prematurely. There was, however, no handy 'touch attack' rule like in 3e, so the DM would have to decide what obstructions it might pass automatically, which with some chance of success, and what might stop it completely. He'd rely on the spell description for details to help that judgement. One of them would doubtless be the relative size of the the effect described. Sleep, OTOH, though also an AE, didn't have that issue, at all, it just affected an area.
The mechanics don't let you shoot fireball through terrain features (the line of effect mechanic).
Yes, it does. "A line of effect is canceled by a solid barrier... You must have a clear line of effect to any target that you cast a spell on or to any space in which you wish to create an effect... An otherwise solid barrier with a hole of at least 1 square foot through it does not block a spell’s line of effect."
The fireball spell creates an exception to the rules for line of effect. While the typical 3e rules for line of effect let you cast a spell only if a barrier has a 1-square foot opening or greater, the fireball spell lets you cast through barriers whose holes are merely pea-sized (which is smaller than 1 square foot). If you do so, however, you must make a ranged touch attack, or the fireball will trigger at the opening, not the intended target.
Other spells don't operate this way. Lightning bolt cannto be shot through a pea-sized opening. Freezing sphere cannot be cast through a pea-sized opening.
The terrain feature needs a specific mechanical quality assigned to it in order for you to do this. The thematic description is irrelevant. You are creating ad-hoc mechanics (assigning a quality to a terrain feature that lets fireball ignore the line of effect rules) and pointing out that the ad-hoc mechanics you created changed the mechanics.
I didn't create anything. You, apparently, are ignorant of 3e's line of effect mechanics.
Please do not give examples where someone specifically and intentionally changes a mechanic and then complain that the mechanics aren't the same. The fact that a game can be used incorrectly is immaterial to the conversation.
Please do not criticize people's examples until you educate yourself on the mechanics of the game being discussed. It's pretty annoying to watch you insult people due to your own ignorance.
And yet in 4e I still need to have line of site to the target square to be able to cast fireball.
The combat rules may be a little clearer but the same result remains in both editions.
Even if it were true (And it's not), this is a complete non sequitur to what was being discussed. The "pea-sized" exception to 3e's line-of-effect rules was given as an example of something that people had been describing as fluff, but is in fact a mechanic. Again, Ongorth will write this off as 3rd edition being bad at delineating between mechanics and fluff, but that's largely the point.
3d edition has a lot of stuff that appears to be fluff and turns out to be mechanical. Line of effect, for example, has a rule that an opening must be one-foot square to provide line of effect through it. Fireball has an exception to this for pea-sized openings, but requires a ranged touch attack to prevent the spell from discharging in the opening rather than at the intended point of detonation.
The use of "pea-sized" appears to be flavor, but it turns out that it's a mechanical description. This of course impacts on the your ability to reflavor fireball as an any reflavoring needs to accommodate this mechanic (because reflavorign is not supposed to alter mechanics). It's just another example of how 3e is less amenable to reflavorign becaus eit has all sorts of little niggling mechanical limtiatiosn that need to be accommodated.
Now, 4e's line of effects rules are more straightforward. "A clear line from one point to another point in an encounter that doesn’t pass through or touch blocking terrain" (Rules Compendium, page 313.) Blocking terrain is a defined game term: "A type of terrain that blocks squares, often by filling them. Examples: Walls, doors, and large pillars. Blocking terrain provides cover, interferes with movement around it, and blocks line of effect." (Rules Compendium, p. 309)
That's it. 4e Line of effect is based on the terrain, and doesn't have exceptions for "pea-sized holes". Just as Ongorth suggests it should. 4e Fireball has no exception for "pea-sized" holes. It doesn't require additional checks to cast through narrow openings. Either there's blocking terrain or there isn't.
Now, I'm not saying that 4e's fireball is objectively better than 3e's. Lots of people love the wrinkles associated with pea-sized holes and some DMs enjoy throwing in openings between pea-sized and one-foot to add a new strategic element to a game with a fireball-throwing wizard.
All I'm saying is that the more mechanical oddities get pasted onto any given game element (like fireball), the more difficult it becomes to reflavor that game element. That shouldn't be a remarkable statement, except people have their edition war hackles raised and don't want to concede anything no matter how remotely innocuous the comment is.
I didn't create anything. You, apparently, are ignorant of 3e's line of effect mechanics.
You quoted the exact line that shows I'm right. Line of effect is blocked by a solid barrier. If fireball can go through it, you need to assign the barrier some mechanical quality that allows you to use fireball through it. You can't use the flavor text to justify it doing so any more then you can in 4e (note example). In either case you could create an ad-hoc mechanic that says "this barrier does not block line of effect for the purpse of the spell fireball" but in neither game is it neccessary to do so. To say that you can use a fireball through a mechanical barrier in 3e is clearly creating new mechanics to justify the flavor, which is intentionally breaking the established conceit in order to complain that the conceit is broken. If we intentionally break the same conceit in 4e, guess what? Same exact thing happens.
This isn't even a case of "I messed up the motion for Gigas Breaker, this game is too hard, its broken" anymore, its now "I intentionally did the wrong motion for Gigas Breaker and the move didn't come it, see I proved its broken."
If you are apply the conceit we are discussing, a wall in 3e could have a basketball sized hole in it and you wouldn't be able to cast fireball through it for the same reason you can't cast a 4e fireball through it: the wall has the mechanical value solid terrain feature. However, if you used the thematic description as inspiration to give it such a mechanical property, you could cast it through it in either edition if your table allows for such ad-hoc mechanics.
Please do not criticize people's examples until you educate yourself on the mechanics of the game being discussed. It's pretty annoying to watch you insult people due to your own ignorance.
Ironic!
You quoted the exact line that shows I'm right. Line of effect is blocked by a solid barrier.
A solid barrier with smaller than a one-foot hole. Did you read the whole quote?!
If fireball can go through it, you need to assign the barrier some mechanical quality that allows you to use fireball through it.
Wait instead of placing the exception in the only spell in which it's useful, you think it makes more sense to place this quality in every terrain feature that this one spell might interact with? And you think 3e is confusingly badly organized now?!
You can't use the flavor text to justify it doing so any more then you can in 4e
But it's not flavor text. It's mechanical text.
To say that you can use a fireball through a mechanical barrier in 3e is clearly creating new mechanics to justify the flavor
No, it's not. It's applying the mechanical text of the fireball spell. I created no new mechanics! Why do you think otherwise?
If you are apply the conceit we are discussing, a wall in 3e could have a basketball sized hole in it and you wouldn't be able to cast fireball through it for the same reason you can't cast a 4e fireball through it: the wall has the mechanical value solid terrain feature. However, if you used the thematic description to describe it such a mechanical property, you could cast it through it in either edition if your table allows for ad-hoc mechanics.
But the rules for pea-sized holes aren't flavor. They're mechanical! I don't know you possibly think otherwise.
In short, can you please explain in simple declarative sentences what your point is? Because right now you appear to be arguing that thetext in the 3e fireball spell allowing someone to cast the spell through a solid barrier with a pea-sized hole is flavor. Which makes no sense whatsoever.
Wait instead of placing the exception in the only spell in which it's useful, you think it makes more sense to place this quality in every terrain feature that this one spell might interact with?!
This is an interaction between multiple game elements and as such they must, at some point reference each other. Fireball has the property of being able to pass through barriers that have the "does not block fireball" property. This is given the flavor text of fireball coming from a pea-sized projectile and the wall having a whole large enough it shoot a pea through it. How is that not sensible?
Because right now you appear to be arguing that thetext in the 3e fireball spell allowing someone to cast the spell through a solid barrier with a pea-sized hole is flavor. Which makes no sense whatsoever.
How doesn't it make sense? In 4e, if you cast a spell that creates (thematically) as ton of light, it doesn't cancel the concealment (mechanic) from an enemy who is hiding in the shadows (thematic). The idea of having flavor text have no mechanical impact is the exact concept under scrutiny. If it "makes no sense" in 3e, it "makes no sense" in 4e.
Game mechanics "exist" without flavor. Indeed, some games in finished their form exist without thematics. Noting this quality of games, all flavor is mutable, bound not by the mechanics of the game, but thematic consistency of the presentation.
Ongorth: This is an interaction between multiple game elements and as such they must, at some point reference each other. Fireball has the property of being able to pass through barriers that have the "does not block fireball" property. This is given the flavor text of fireball coming from a pea-sized projectile and the wall having a whole large enough it shoot a pea through it. How is that not sensible?
Because it's utility is outweighed by the need to add a mechanical line to every terrain in the game simply to accomodate an exception in one spell. It's end up become aesthetcially unpleasing and space-wasting.
Exception-based rules work better if the exception is list in the feature causign the exception (ie, fireball) rather than in every instance of the rule.
wrecan: Because right now you appear to be arguing that thetext in the 3e fireball spell allowing someone to cast the spell through a solid barrier with a pea-sized hole is flavor. Which makes no sense whatsoever.
Ongorth: How doesn't it make sense?
Because the pea-sized aspect of the 3e fireball has express mechanical consequences, which, by definition, means it's not flavor -- it's a mechanic.
Ongorth: The idea of having flavor text have no mechanical impact is the exact concept under scrutiny.
Right, which is why the "pea-sized" language in the 3e fireball spell is a horrible example. It's not flavor text precisely because it has express mechanical impact.
Ongorth: Game mechanics "exist" without flavor.
The can exist without flavor. They don't have to be that way. Here, the "pea-sized" aspect of the 3e fireball is presented in a flavorful way, but it is definitely a mechanic because it expressly creates an exclusion to the line-of-effect mechanic.
Ongorth: Noting this quality of games, all flavor is mutable, bound not by the mechanics of the game, but thematic consistency of the presentation.
Right. But since the "pea-sized" aspect of the 3e fireball is bound by the mechanics of the game, that aspect of 3e fireball is not mutable.
And yet in 4e I still need to have line of site to the target square to be able to cast fireball.
The combat rules may be a little clearer but the same result remains in both editions.
Even if it were true (And it's not), this is a complete non sequitur to what was being discussed. The "pea-sized" exception to 3e's line-of-effect rules was given as an example of something that people had been describing as fluff, but is in fact a mechanic. Again, Ongorth will write this off as 3rd edition being bad at delineating between mechanics and fluff, but that's largely the point.
But you are wrong, the "pea-sized" description in fireball is fluff - there is no mechanical effect other then what basically comes down to "you must have line of sight" which is exactly what 4e has. Except that 4e has separated the line of sight rules away from the spell description to the combat section. It really does not matter if I describe the fireball "pea" as being a handgrenade as long as there is no mechanical change.
3d edition has a lot of stuff that appears to be fluff and turns out to be mechanical. Line of effect, for example, has a rule that an opening must be one-foot square to provide line of effect through it. Fireball has an exception to this for pea-sized openings, but requires a ranged touch attack to prevent the spell from discharging in the opening rather than at the intended point of detonation.
No fireball talks about "narrow openings" such as an arrow slit - no mention of "pea-sized openings". I guess that must be an extra mechanical effect that you have added.
The use of "pea-sized" appears to be flavor, but it turns out that it's a mechanical description. This of course impacts on the your ability to reflavor fireball as an any reflavoring needs to accommodate this mechanic (because reflavorign is not supposed to alter mechanics). It's just another example of how 3e is less amenable to reflavorign becaus eit has all sorts of little niggling mechanical limtiatiosn that need to be accommodated.
Again no mechanical description, just 3e description that you must have line of sight to the target.
If it was a mechanical description then there would be mechanics for "pea-sized" and "arrow slit".
Now, 4e's line of effects rules are more straightforward. "A clear line from one point to another point in an encounter that doesn’t pass through or touch blocking terrain" (Rules Compendium, page 313.) Blocking terrain is a defined game term: "A type of terrain that blocks squares, often by filling them. Examples: Walls, doors, and large pillars. Blocking terrain provides cover, interferes with movement around it, and blocks line of effect." (Rules Compendium, p. 309)
That's it. 4e Line of effect is based on the terrain, and doesn't have exceptions for "pea-sized holes". Just as Ongorth suggests it should. 4e Fireball has no exception for "pea-sized" holes. It doesn't require additional checks to cast through narrow openings. Either there's blocking terrain or there isn't.
Exactly the same for 3e - either you can cast or you can not. Changing the fluff of the "pea-sized" ball has no effect on the casting mechanics.
Now, I'm not saying that 4e's fireball is objectively better than 3e's. Lots of people love the wrinkles associated with pea-sized holes and some DMs enjoy throwing in openings between pea-sized and one-foot to add a new strategic element to a game with a fireball-throwing wizard.
This is what Ongorth talks about when he says that people change the mechanics and then say that it does not work. There is nowhere that says that you could shoot a fireball through a "pea-sized" hole unless the mechanics for arrow slit have been changed to mean "pea-sized". Luckily there is no mechanic for arrow slit so you can refluf it to mean "pea-sized" if you would like.
Lets look at an absurd level of refluffing. Lets say that I decide that the "pea-sized" bead on my fireball is going to be a 5 foot flying pink elephant. You may imagine that I have changed the mechanics but let us look at the situation where I want to cast through one of your "pea-sized" arrow slits - how exactly does a 5 foot flying pink elephant fit through a "pea-sized" arrow slit? Well since we are refluffing, I am going to refluff it so that the elephant's trunk pokes through the hole and stretches and stretches until the whole elephant amusingly "pops" through where it then continues to the target upon which it erupts in a 20 foot radius spread of paper confetti.
As long as I make my ranged touch attack successfully to pass through the "pea-sized" arrow slit, follow all the normal rules for V,S,M (which I have reflavoured into blowing a "elephant" whistle which summons my "fireball" elephant), target within 400 ft+40ft per level, and do xd6 damage per level (to a maximum of 10d6) exactly what mechanics have I broken?
All I'm saying is that the more mechanical oddities get pasted onto any given game element (like fireball), the more difficult it becomes to reflavor that game element. That shouldn't be a remarkable statement, except people have their edition war hackles raised and don't want to concede anything no matter how remotely innocuous the comment is.
I understand what you are saying and I can totally agree that some people can find it hard to reflavour - after a ten hour work day I just want to fireball something, to hell with the pink elephants - but to deliberately confuse flavour for mechanics is disingenuous.
Because I really can not see how the description of a fireballs "glowing , pea sized bead" has any more or less mechanical implication then shield of faiths "gleaming shield of divine energy"
RTFM. 4e PH1, p55.
4e: The 'gleaming shield of divine energy' is in the flavor text, which explicitly has no mechanical effect. For the actual effect of the power, you refer to the mechanics that follow the text. In this case "The targets gain a +2 power bonus to AC until the end of the encounter." The spell thus provides no illumination, for instance.
OTOH, Hallowed Circle, for example, produces a zone of bright light per it's Effect Line.
3e (and earlier): the 'glowing, pea-sized bead' is in the spell description, which include rules. Is it 'rule' or 'flavor?' In 3e, that's a matter of DM interpretation - if the DM judges changing the size or luminosity or shape doesn't make the spell 'more powerful,' then it's changeable, otherwise, it may not be. In 2e, the same judgement could be made to decide which attributes could be altered by Sense Shifting. In 1e the spell was what it was. You could research a fireball that did something other than cough forth a pea-sized ball of flame that streaked to it's target and detonated with a low roar,' if you so desired.
But why would I place any more weight on p55 of the 4e PH1, if I ignore p34 of the 3.5 DMG? It does not make any logical sense to follow one rule and ignore the other.
Wasn't ignoring it. The above is based on the rules of each edition. Specifically, see the underlined bit, which is how the 3.5 DMG rule you mention would aply.
The DM is the final arbiter of every game in every edition of DnD. He would be within his rights to do exactly the same thing to a 4e power.
So this would be some kind of inverse Oberoni Fallacy - the rules are broken because the DM can change the rules?
You do not have to stick with the default flavor of "pea-sized" and "hole".
Of course you don't. But it's still wrong to say that "pea-sized" and "hole" don't have mechanical consequences. Pea-sized is the adjective used to describe the minimum size of the opening needed to cast through a barrier. It's specifically what creates an exception to 3e's line of effect rules, which use the word "opening" (a synonym of "hole").
If you are saying that "one foot square", "opening", "hole", and "pea-sized" are all mutable flavor, then I'm really not sure what a mechanic is under your view.
Of course you don't. But it's still wrong to say that "pea-sized" and "hole" don't have mechanical consequences. Pea-sized is the adjective used to describe the minimum size of the opening needed to cast through a barrier. It's specifically what creates an exception to 3e's line of effect rules, which use the word "opening" (a synonym of "hole").
If you are saying that "one foot square", "opening", "hole", and "pea-sized" are all mutable flavor, then I'm really not sure what a mechanic is under your view.
Pea-sized and hole don't have mechanical consequences. An underlying mechanic that you have assigned the terrain feature is what causes you to be able to ignore line of effect rules. The flavorful adjectives don't.
If the rulebook said under the entry for dwarf "after drinking a stout ale, you may regain HP equal to your healing surge value" that, by itself, has no value. You need to have some mechanical construct "stout ale" for this rule to interact with. This "mechanic" is meaningless without creating a second mechanic for it to interact with. Without it, you have nothing but a bit of flavor. Indeed the mechanic itself is basically useless: you could simply design an item called dwarven ale whose effect is "if consumed by a dwarf, you regain HP equal to you healing surge value" and achieve the same mechanical interaction.
Pea-sized and hole don't have mechanical consequences.
Of course they do. A "hole" is a quality a terrain feature must have to allow you to cast spells through it. The relevant sizes for "holes" are less than pea-sized, pea-sized to one square foot, and larger than one square foot.
If the rulebook said under the entry for dwarf "after drinking a stout ale, you may regain HP equal to your healing surge value" that, by itself, has no value.
By itself, no. But that means it's incomplete, not valueless.
Similarly, the "pea-sized" is a mechanic, but it requires you to cross-reference a given terrain feature for the size of the hole it may contain.
The fact that a mechanic requires you to look elsewhere for the rest of the mechanical interaction does not mean it is not a mechanic.
In fact, under your view almost every mechanic is not a mechanic because almost every mechanic requires you to refer elsewhere in the rulebooks for their interaction.
"An orc dies when it is reduced to 0 hp" would not be a mechanic, because we don't know from this sentence what "orc", "dies", "reduced", and "hp" mean. I suppose at some really pedantic level, we don't know what "An", "when", "it is" and "to 0" mean either.
So doesn't your argument reduce to the concept all information is fundamentally unknowable and therefore there is nothing that can be described as a mechanic?
In the end, "pea-sized" is a mechanic, because it related to other "mechanical constructs" in a mechanical way. The fact that those other mechanical constructs are not found in the rules or description for the 3e fireball is irrelevant.
A "hole" is a quality a terrain feature must have to allow you to cast spells through it.
So hole is the name of a mechanical construct whose definitive mechanical quality is that it overrides the line of effect rule with respect to (certain) spells?
The fact that a mechanic requires you to look elsewhere for the rest of the mechanical interaction does not mean it is not a mechanic.
If the element has no interaction within the rules that creates a mechanical effect or the element is extraneous to creating the mechanical result, its not a mechanic.
The pea-sized mechanic is the equivilent of a "mechanic" in 1830 saying you get a $50 bonus to your run if it includes both New York and Los Angles. Los Angles isn't on the map, so it doesn't matter. You can, however, make a new mechanic that adds Los Angles to the map. Then it would be a mechanic, but only because you made a change to how the game functions mechanically. Simply reflavoring Chicago as Los Angles would not be sufficient.
So hole is the name of a mechanical construct
I have no idea what you mean by "mechanical construct". "Hole" is the mechanical concept. It may be referred to by the word "hole" or by a synonym in the English language.
whose definitive mechanical quality is that it overrides the line of effect rule with respect to (certain) spells?
Well, it has that quality. I don't know if it's "definitive". I'm not sure what "definitive" means in this context.
The fact that a mechanic requires you to look elsewhere for the rest of the mechanical interaction does not mean it is not a mechanic.
If the element has no interaction within the rules that creates a mechanical effect or the element is extraneous to creating the mechanical result, its not a mechanic.
It has interaction with the rules! Why do you keep saying things that are obviously untrue? It just requires cross-referencing to determine the full extent of that mechanical interaction.
The pea-sized mechanic is the equivilent of a "mechanic" in 1830
Really? You're pulling out obscure games as analogy? The point of an analogy is to make your point more accessible, not more obscure. Shall I analogize the ridiculousness of that tactic to the history of the cedilla in medieval Spanish literature?
I have no idea what you mean by "mechanical construct". "Hole" is the mechanical concept. It may be referred to by the word "hole" or by a synonym in the English language.
Hole is a thematic concept, however the word hole may be used to reference a mechanic, but we must keep in mind thematic concepts are subject to reflavoring.
Well, it has that quality. I don't know if it's "definitive". I'm not sure what "definitive" means in this context.
Definitive meaning that it is what provides its definition. The definitive quality of the "hole mechanic" is that you can ignore line of effect for (certain) spells. Everything else about the "hole" is thematic and as such replacable without changing the definition of the mechanic.
It has interaction with the rules! Why do you keep saying things that are obviously untrue? It just requires cross-referencing to determine the full extent of that mechanical interaction.
Because it is obviously true.
The "pea-sized" exception to 3e's line-of-effect rules was given as an example of something that people had been describing as fluff, but is in fact a mechanic...
Line of effect.. has a rule that an opening must be one-foot square to provide line of effect through it. Fireball has an exception to this for pea-sized openings, but requires a ranged touch attack to prevent the spell from discharging in the opening rather than at the intended point of detonation.
The use of "pea-sized" appears to be flavor, but it turns out that it's a mechanical description.
There is, I suppose, an alternative interpretations - there almost always is in paleo-D&D.
The Fireball's 'narrow opening' rule uses an Arrow Slit as an example. An arrow slit might be less than a foot wide, but it's total area is easily more than a square foot. Thus, the fireball's exception to the rule might not be that it can be fired through a less-than-1sq-foot opening, but that to go through a 1-sq-ft opening, it needs you to make tha touch attack roll.
Changing 'pea-sized' could still transform it from flavor to rules, though, if you made it too large to fit through a one-foot square opening, for instance.
That inconsistency in having rules and fluff mixed together makes the rules more ambiguous, and thus makes both interpreting (even understanding) the rules /and/ modifying the 'fluff,' more difficult.
Now, 4e's line of effects rules are more straightforward. "A clear line from one point to another point in an encounter that doesn’t pass through or touch blocking terrain" (Rules Compendium, page 313.) Blocking terrain is a defined game term: "A type of terrain that blocks squares, often by filling them. Examples: Walls, doors, and large pillars. Blocking terrain provides cover, interferes with movement around it, and blocks line of effect." (Rules Compendium, p. 309)
That's it. 4e Line of effect is based on the terrain, and doesn't have exceptions for "pea-sized holes". Just as Ongorth suggests it should. 4e Fireball has no exception for "pea-sized" holes. It doesn't require additional checks to cast through narrow openings. Either there's blocking terrain or there isn't.
Now, I'm not saying that 4e's fireball is objectively better than 3e's.
Well, it's clearer. A clear rule is objectively better than a murky one - better phrased, at any rate.
Hole is a thematic concept, however the word hole may be used to reference a mechanic, but we must keep in mind thematic concepts are subject to reflavoring.
In this case the word "hole" is referencing a mechanic, as explained. You keep trying to backtrack up along the argument so as to avoid dealing with this.
The definitive quality of the "hole mechanic" is that you can ignore line of effect for (certain) spells.
No, that's one quality of the "hole" mechanic. There may be others. One problem with 3e is that things that are not immediately apparent to have mechanical consequence may ultimately turn out to have mechanical consequence.
For instance, the amount of noise made may appear to be fluff, until you realize that the Listen rules require knowledge of hos loud something is.
So I am not willing to say that the fireball's hole mechanic's "definitive quality" is altering the line-of-effect mechanic, because it may have other "definitive qualities". (And could you have chosen a less confusing name for this concept?)
Everything else about the "hole" is thematic
We don't know if "everything else" is thematic because that require us to cross-reference the sentence desribing the hole against all other potential mechanics to see if there is any interaction.
It has interaction with the rules! Why do you keep saying things that are obviously untrue? It just requires cross-referencing to determine the full extent of that mechanical interaction.
Because it is obviously true.
Except you contradicted yourself. You admit the "hole" refernces a mechanic (which is apparrently unnamed) and then turn around and say it have no mechanical interaction. But since the only reference in fireball to the interaction with the line-of-effect mechanic is the "hole", that's what's interacting.
You're trying to thread a mighty fine needle that essentially devolves into mechanics being utterly unrelated to the words being used to describe them.