It’s not an infinite loop with a plain reading of the spell text. Therefore, I would correct your statement to : “It’s only an infinite loop if the DM says it is.”
Though on second glance, you may not have been responding to me, in which case, my apologies.
I’ve told the story before, but I’ll say that new editions can definitely cause problems if your DM doesn’t comprehend that the new edition is actual new rules and not just an “update” to the old rules.
I started playing D&D when 3.5 was current, but the DM had been DM-ing since 1st Ed. He rendered spellcasters virtually unplayable by trying to enforce 1st- and/or 2nd Ed. rules on them in a 3.5 game.
Oh yeah, and Penny Arcade’s take on “crowdsourcing”:
Then again, though, the developers themselves can make that mistake, too. For instance, the 3.x spell Rope Trick contains a warning that it can be dangerous to bring one extradimensional space into another, and the rules spell out consequences for putting a Bag of Holding into a Portable Hole or vice-versa, but they never actually lay out hazards of nested extradimensional spaces in general. Which led many experienced DMs to assume that the old rules were still in force, while their new players had no clue of the risks.
Hey, it’s the publishers’ fault for trying to pass 4E off as D&D. If they wanted to make a completely new game, they shouldn’t have called it Dungeons and Dragons.
Here’s Pun Pun the super kobold, which abuses several infinite loops. I find the new method dodgy since it involves assuming Pazuzu’s decision is already set from the beginning – but the old method (which is now, unfortunately, a wall of text) is pretty solid. Note that no (sane) DM will ever allow Pun-Pun to be played, the point is that the rules abuses exist.
Edit: Though I guess it’s not only spellcasters – it’s not an infinite loop, but my friend once showed me a legitimate 10th level or so Dervish spec (may not have been pure Dervish) that got something like 10k attacks per round.
And there’s a build for a Crusader that manages to pull off infinite damage with each attack, using a toothpick (but oddly, it won’t work with anything bigger than a toothpick).
I’m sorry, but isn’t there still a DM or does the computer subscription resolve the roles and arbitrates the game? I mean who cares if there are some holes, a good ref fills in the holes and keeps the game moving.
Flame shield on.
The issue is that I find many D&D players to adhere strictly to the rules. The first 2 editions have a “wing it if you don’t like it” cause but not for 3 and 3.5. For the latter I notice a tendency to follow the rules at all cost.
I think it is because the game is rules heavy so it attracts rules lawyers. Some players may not like what is happening to them in game and will spend a disproportionate amount of time justifying themselves. Then there are rules lawyers who only stick to the official rules and splat books.
I still remember in my first game of D&D 3.5 the DM and a player argued for an hour whether he can cast dimensional door to escape a grapple from evard’s black tentacle. Can you cast spell when grappled? Check rules and argue. Check the components for the spell. Check whether the caster can touch others while being grappled to bring them along. Some of these things aren’t in the rules, if I am right and the DM was adamant that the caster cannot escape with dimensional door.
Perhaps there is an inherent me vs. the DM mindset at work here or the players are more simulationist (a fancy term among the rpg committee meaning a form of play where the rules are consistent and that consistency is what bring enjoyment). They treat the rules as if it’s a board game and the DM can only create challenges within the framework of the rules and cannonical materials - spells, monsters etc because the designers know best and all those are balanced.
In more rules lite system the GM can allow such actions at the cost of some meta game currency, such as Fate or Luck points.
The D&D 4 approach is to list down all possible discrete choices. Which IMHO makes the DM redundant during combat. The Neverwinter Nights game on Facebook is my cite.
Flame shield off.
Speaking as a 4E GM… the fact that the rules offer a fairly complete set of options doesn’t mean that those are the only options you can use. Role-playing games are about imagination. If all you’re doing is using the rules in the books, you’re missing the best part.
Back on D&D Next (which is not yet being called 5th Edition by Wizards, and probably won’t be), the intent seems to be to create a meta-version of D&D that allows players and GMs to mix and match rules and options from the many editions to suit their tastes. EN World has a decent set of information:
Wizards is in this for the money, of course, but the designers are in it to try to make a new iteration of the grandfather of RPGs. have no idea if they’ll be able to pull this off, but I’m fascinated by the attempt.
Of course. Just that the people I know tends to just play to the rules.
Granted. I would apply that to 4E, which was indeed a whole new game, mechanics-wise. Not so much 3.x, though, since that was supposed to be “fixing” the problems with previous editions, at least as I understand it.
I guess it depends on what definition you’re using for “rules lawyer”. I’d agree that the player you described was an ass. Straight up trying to twist the rules as far as they go without breaking them. I’d like to think, naturally, that my own rules-lawyering was more benign.
I only argued rules on my own behalf in cases where my DM’s interpretation (or lack thereof) was rendering my character useless and/or unplayable. For example, in one instance my lowbie sorcerer wanted to cast a spell at an enemy who was hiding behind a pillar. In order to get line-of-sight on him, I needed to move 10 feet and then cast the spell, but the DM didn’t want to allow it because, “casting a spell is a Full-round Action”, meaning I couldn’t move and cast the spell in the same round. That was a clear example of how he was stuck in 1E/2E, and didn’t realize that in 3.x, the majority of spells did not require Full-round Actions. The spell I wanted to cast required only a “Standard Action”, and under 3.x rules I was allowed to take both a Move Action and a Standard Action in the same round.
In another game he made the same kind of mistake with spellcasters having to make Concentration checks if they took damage while casting a spell. He was again assuming “Full-round Action” for spells, which, by his interpretation, meant that if the spellcaster took damage in the previous round, a Concentration check was necessary before they could cast a spell in this round. And so in battles he’d set up enemies with crossbows, in hidden locations, who did nothing but take potshots at the PC spellcasters in order to force them to make Concentration checks. And given most arcane spellcasters’ AC, they would take at least some damage from these potshots and have to make freakin’ Concentration checks every single time they tried to cast a spell (and fail those checks almost every time, resulting in fizzled spells). I was sure that wasn’t right, and I went to the official forums and explained the situation (I didn’t want to argue about it at the table until I was sure I was correct). The unanimous answer I got was that the DM was completely bungling the rule interpretation there. As one person explained it, the DM would have been correct in 1E where a spell required starting casting in one round and the spell actually going off in the following round … because any damage they took would happen while the spell was being cast. Whereas in 3.x, where casting most spells can be started and completed on the same turn, damage taken in the previous round has no bearing whatsoever. Concentration checks are only required in the event of the caster taking damage while the spell is being cast. Which meant an enemy making a successful Attack of Opportunity during the casting.
And then there was the bungling of the rules for Two-Weapon Fighting that would have, followed to its logical conclusion, had our ranger eventually making 16 basic attacks per round, before all the Cleaves and Greater Cleaves were figured in. At level 7, this ranger was already going through entire crowds of enemies like a lawnmower, in a single turn, and then on my turn my fighter would pick an enemy (if any were left standing) and go “Whack. Okay, I’m done.” It was already taking, at level 7, 15 minutes just to resolve the ranger’s attacks during a single turn. I thought about what it was going to be like if we made it to level 20 and said, “Now waitaminnit!”
Being brand-new to the game and having no experience with previous editions, I had bought the PHB and read it cover-to-cover in order to “catch up” to the more experienced players in the group. Over the course of many sessions, it became apparent to me that the DM hadn’t done more than skim the new rules.
While I agree that the DM was wrong in his methods, this is a case where he fell bass-ackwards into a legal result.
You can in fact, using 3.5 rules, arrange for a crossbowman to force a caster to make a C
While I agree that the DM was wrong in his methods, this is a case where he fell bass-ackwards into a legal result. You can in fact, using 3.5 rules, arrange for a crossbowman to force a caster to make a Concentration check every round.
The crossbowman “Readies an action to fire at a creature casting a spell.” When one of the ambushed party starts casting, the crossbowman attacks the caster. This is during the casting of the spell, so any damage will force a Concentration check.
After that readied action is taken, the crossbowman’s action now occurs immediately before the spellcaster he attacked, allowing him to reload and ready to fire on spellcasters again.
ETA : Reported part-post to be deleted.
I agree with Mister Rik in cases when the rules are interpreted wrongly causing one unable to enjoy the game.
I don’t think there’s a hard and fast rule for when it is okay to be a rules lawyer or not; I tend to notice such disputes to happen more often in rules heavier games, which is why I try to avoid them.
(Just curious, can you really use Dimensional Door to escape a grapple from Evard’s Black Tentacles?)
My personal favourite was always the Artificer who’d reach omniscience by dunking his head in a bucket of water (because the drowning rules are silly). Then, after making some doodads, gained omnipotence by throwing himself off a cliff.
Looks like it. According to the d20srd you can cast a spell while grappled if it:
Dimension Door is a standard action and has no somatic or material components. So assuming you pass your concentration check you should be able to DD away.
I’m familiar with Pun-Pun. I guess that is an infinite loop, but it’s so far out there as to be obviously unintentional. With as many rulebooks as are involved, I think some quirks were bound to arise. The problem is clearly the Sarrukh species - and that’s a simple fix. “We’re not playing the Forgotten Realms, you can’t use the Sarrukh.” To bring us back to the original point, I don’t think Pun-Pun is a reflection on the ‘tier system’ or ‘if you can cast spells, you win’. Just a quirk of one poorly designed ability.
On the bright side, re-reading the Pun Pun entry jogged my memory about where the feats were that allowed you to gain the abilities of creatures you wild-shape into. I was recommending them to my party’s new Druid, but couldn’t remember the source.
That’s interesting. I’ve been saying that I think the new D&D would benefit from a two or three tier approach - D&D Basic, with fairly stringent class roles and a limited menu of options, playing a lot like fourth edition; D&D where you have a pool of points to spend as you level up, so you can buy the things on the Basic list, or other things entirely, from an expanded menu; and then AD&D, where you still have ‘levels’, but the class system essentially goes away in favor of a point-buy system. And characters from each of the tiers use the same mechanics, so you could have one guy running a simple character, and another running an advanced one, and it wouldn’t matter much in terms of raw power.
I will say this, I think each edition has done something right that makes it shine for me (and a lot of things wrong, but that’s what house rules are for).
The biggest changes I’ve been happy about in the past two editions are the death of THAC0 with 3, and depth being added to the non-casters in 4th edition that doesn’t require you to go out of your way to add that depth through various source book feats that may or may not be allowed by your DM.