You do fucking win at D&D.

[K]

There really is no interpretation where CoP is not affected by a mind-blank without saying that all the divination-foiling spells don't actually foil the actual spells from the Divination school. All divinations target the caster or otherwise work indirectly.

[DSMatticus]

It's really not even that. It's just a question of "information? How does it work and what does it mean?" The relevant part of mind blank is a blanket prohibition against gathering information through divination. Does a given usage of divination reveal information about a mind blanked subject? If the answer is yes, mind blank stops that.

So, does asking about some event Z shared by Y and X reveal information about X? Uhh, yes. No shit. X is a participant in Z. Asking about Z, even if the literary 'subject' of your question is Y, necessarily reveals information about X. Mind blank steps in and says no. Funny story: if you cast mind blank in a universe following real world physics, it would essentially make your entire lightcone immune to divination, because any event in your lightcone arguably contains information about you. Disclaimer: do not try to combine D&D and any kind of high-level physics ever.

In all honesty, though, I doubt even the people who wrote mind blank have put as much thought into as we have. But that's RAW for you.

Edit: wait, I was supposed to drop it. I'm terrible at this.

[Roog]

Listen, here's the preposterousness of what you're arguing.
1) X and only X is going to attack Y today.
2) Y casts CoP and asks "is Y going to be attacked today?"
3) CoP says "yes, Y is going to be attacked."
4) Absolutely no information about X has been imparted to Y.
That's trivially bullshit. You have learned something about X. You have information about an event he is going to participate in. You may not know it's information about X, but the information itself is still objectively about X and now you have it so you have unwittingly gathered information about X, something mind blank expressly forbids.

If you follow that logic, then consider what it means for a day when no one would attack you.
If you get confirmation that no one will attack you, then that gives you information about X.

[Kaelik]

I would say so. House rules for things like how critical hits work (whether you roll twice or double the result of your roll, whether or not bonuses are doubled or just the dice, etc. etc.), what counts as being threatened (almost always this is interpreted according to whatever the GM thinks "threatened" means in context, not according to any objective mechanical definition), whether or not you auto-fail all rolls on a 1 (and likewise auto-win on a 20) or just saves and attack rolls because yes, actually, I have played games where skill rolls auto-failed on a 1, how attribute rolls work, whether or not you round up or down literally anything measured in fractions and likewise whether you succeed or fail when the DC and the total roll are precisely equal, and how you get XP are extremely, absurdly common. I have seen at least half of these show up in every game of 3.X I have ever played, and when GMing I regularly have to reteach people the RAW on things like criticals and auto-failing skill checks on a 1 because out of the two or three groups they've played with, not one of them happened to use the RAW instead of one of the common house rule variants. They are so common that it is a waste of time to learn which one happens to be RAW because any given gaming group stands a significant chance of using something else anyway. I don't know what kind of idiots you play with that they'd rather sacrifice an entire campaign rather than houserule blatant cheese, but the answer to this problem is you need a new group, or failing that, team up with someone else to play the Wish and the Word. 3.X RAW delivers all kinds of absurd results, and that is not news and not particularly important to a discussion of whether or not divinations make high-level play impossible.

Hey Cham, you are still an idiot. The fact that you ran into three whole groups, one of which houseruled skills to auto fail on a 1 has nothing to do with the fact that most groups don't houserule that.

And when you are trying to argue that people should houserule to defeat blantant cheese... wtf? Do you actually think houseruling to add an auto fail on a 1 prevents any cheese at all?

It makes something arguably take longer, but does nothing to actually stop it. Unless of course you just become immune to ability damage before casting, in which case, it does nothing. So no, you dumb shit, you don't get to argue that an extremely rare houserule that no one uses is essential because it prevents cheese. It doesn't even prevent cheese.

[DSMatticus]

If you follow that logic, then consider what it means for a day when no one would attack you.
If you get confirmation that no one will attack you, then that gives you information about X.

There's actually a very big but kind of subtle difference between those cases. In my example, X and ~X behave differently, which forces CoP to behave differently when it is allowed to consider X. In your example, X and ~X behave exactly the same, which forces CoP to behave exactly the same whether it's considering X or not. Essentially; it only gives you information about X if CoP is considering X in its answer. If CoP isn't considering X (or if you don't know if CoP is considering X), then it doesn't give you information about X (and this means it's possible for CoP to be wrong, but that's obvious; if mind blank prevents divinations from collecting information about you, then divinations that try to collect information occasionally have to just plain be wrong).

Going back to the bigger picture: your example shows that if CoP works on people with mind blank, it will give information about people with mind blank. That's obvious. The point is it doesn't work in the first place. CoP cannot consider what X is doing when it answers your question.

Edit, clarifying: So it will answer 'no.' And it will happen to be accidentally correct, but you, as the character, won't actually know whether a mind blanked ninja is going to gank you because CoP can't tell you that. It has promised you no non-mind blanked ninjas will gank you.

Mind blank scrubs your existence out of divination effects. That's really the only way it can work, RAW.

[Red_Rob]

It makes something arguably take longer, but does nothing to actually stop it. Unless of course you just become immune to ability damage before casting, in which case, it does nothing.

Really? I always thought CoP didn't do ability damage...

You must succeed on an Intelligence check against this DC to avoid a decrease in Intelligence and Charisma. If the check fails, your Intelligence and Charisma scores each fall to 8 for the stated duration, and you become unable to cast arcane spells. If you lose Intelligence and Charisma, the effect strikes as soon as the first question is asked, and no answer is received.

It specifically avoids using the words "damage" anywhere, which I'm sure they would have done if that's what they meant. It seems like its an arbitrary effect that just makes them lower.

[Kaelik]

Really? I always thought CoP didn't do ability damage...

Fair enough, but all the more reason that houseruling a 1 to auto fail is fucking stupid and no one does it other than Cham.

Because you rely on ones knocking your players out of the game for weeks to balance the fact that you give them perfect information from CoP is pretty much the dumbest possible way of playing it, so if you have to houserule to get to that point, then just houserule any number of better limitations on CoP that make it balanced even when someone doesn't roll a 1.

[Grek]

You can also dodge the CoP problem by just using Commune. 0% chance of backfiring and knocking you out, 0% chance of stat penalties, 100% chance of getting a friendly god. And you can get access to it as a wizard at level seven, if you're willing to burn a feat on Improved Familiar.

[fectin]

Actually, I've run into the "1 always fails" houserule fairly often too. I don't like it, but its usually only worth an eye roll.

[virgil]

Actually, I've run into the "1 always fails" houserule fairly often too. I don't like it, but its usually only worth an eye roll.

It's more than eye roll when they have you make that DC 5 Climb check out of combat, to go up a cliff on a knotted rope (so >+5 to Climb) from a ledge, and you fall to your death because of a natural 1.

[Red_Rob]

We actually use the opposite house rule - nothing auto-fails on a 1 or auto-succeeds on a 20. It makes mooks go obsolete a little faster, but we like playing High Fantasy anyway so that has never cause an issue. And nothing makes a player feel like a badass like killing 3 guys without having to roll a dice.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

We actually use the opposite house rule - nothing auto-fails on a 1 or auto-succeeds on a 20. It makes mooks go obsolete a little faster, but we like playing High Fantasy anyway so that has never cause an issue. And nothing makes a player feel like a badass like killing 3 guys without having to roll a dice.

I am interested in how this plays out. I'm guessing threat is untouched, but crits only happen if the attack would hit anyway?

[Korwin]

Actually, I've run into the "1 always fails" houserule fairly often too. I don't like it, but its usually only worth an eye roll.

The only time I saw this rule is, when they think its an actual rule and not an HR.
Telling them, thats not RAW, you are playing an HR usually is enough to get it dismissed.

[RobbyPants]

We actually use the opposite house rule - nothing auto-fails on a 1 or auto-succeeds on a 20. It makes mooks go obsolete a little faster, but we like playing High Fantasy anyway so that has never cause an issue. And nothing makes a player feel like a badass like killing 3 guys without having to roll a dice.

I am interested in how this plays out. I'm guessing threat is untouched, but crits only happen if the attack would hit anyway?

If you can't hit on a natural 20, then there's no reason to worry about confirming a threat (unless I totally misunderstood you).

It's actually a nice rule. It saves you from 20-hunting with mooks. If you know the PC is un-hittable, then there's no reason to even roll. Simply declare them all misses and move on.

Other than that, with or without the house-rule, a DM really shouldn't be using dozens of mooks unless they're willing to use some form of mob/unit template to streamline things.

[Red_Rob]

To be honest the effect on the game is pretty minimal, it just cuts down on a lot of rolling which usually produces very little effect. The group just felt that a 5% auto-failure chance was too high due to the number of rolls made through an average campaign. The Orc Barbarian got her Fort save so high she couldn't fail most at-level effects, but removing the 5% failure rate just meant she didn't occasionally just keel over to something she should have laughed off.

The two memorable occasions were when the Samurai got the drop on a couple of goblins around level 3 and auto-killed both with a whirlwind attack, and a group of ogres around level 7 that couldn't hit the Druid-Tome Monk, so they started trying grabs. By provoking AOO they basically doubled his kill rate. I can't think of any times it caused a problem - there are so many ways to attack things in D&D that if someone had an untouchable AC or couldn't fail a Fort save, there were other things you could try that could affect them.

It's not a major house rule, it's just one that due to the scaling of enemies tends to make the PC's more awesome rather than less. Some people might like the "anything goes" randomness, but we all agreed those random 1's and 20's mainly bit the PC's on the ass rather than helped them and we didn't like it.

[Mistborn]

Spinning back to what stated this thread.

Whatever your character is, whoever they are, they have goals. Desires. There will be those that oppose or obstruct those goals and desires, and either you are able to deal with those obstacles or you are not.

This is the very definition of both winning and losing, as if Bob the Barbarian dies to the first Orc he encounters he can forget about ever saving his sister from the chieftain, and likewise if he not only succeeds but so impresses the survivors with his might that they end up helping him later out of respect for a fellow warrior both he, and his player are winning.

Everyone wants to win D&D, because no one wants to play the guy who dies without accomplishing anything even though random chance dictates that this might occur. Everyone wants to be that badass hero, and thereby win.

though GC may have flamed out afterwords does anyone disagree with this framing of winning/losing WRT D&D.

[Wrathzog]

I was down with his message until he started defining what Winning really meant.

[virgil]

I was down with his message until he started defining what Winning really meant.

Essentially this. Winning being your goal is one thing, but his definition of winning being 90%+ SGT success rate against monsters that are easily half the RNG above what they should be for their CR, and you should kick over the sand castle of all 'losers' until they run home to mum...

[Mistborn]

I was down with his message until he started defining what Winning really meant.

Essentially this. Winning being your goal is one thing, but his definition of winning being 90%+ SGT success rate against monsters that are easily half the RNG above what they should be for their CR, and you should kick over the sand castle of all 'losers' until they run home to mum...

How about my corollary that the DM fudging dice and brewing up some magical tea in order to let you "win" deflates any sense of accomplishment you could get form "winning" D&D.

[virgil]

How about my corollary that the DM fudging dice and brewing up some magical tea in order to let you "win" deflates any sense of accomplishment you could get form "winning" D&D.

I am against fudging dice and am very much one to try to be consistent and upfront with my players and the rules they use. There's a certain amount of MTP every DM uses, no matter how 'objective' they may claim, because D&D isn't that objective.

[Fuchs]

I get my sense of accomplishment from D&D, such as there is one, when everyone at the table has fun. "Winning" D&D really doesn't give me any sense of accomplishment since the game provides an illusion of challenge.

[nockermensch]

I was down with his message until he started defining what Winning really meant.

Essentially this. Winning being your goal is one thing, but his definition of winning being 90%+ SGT success rate against monsters that are easily half the RNG above what they should be for their CR, and you should kick over the sand castle of all 'losers' until they run home to mum...

How about my corollary that the DM fudging dice and brewing up some magical tea in order to let you "win" deflates any sense of accomplishment you could get form "winning" D&D.

Seriously, Misty. It's 2012 now. If I want to feel good by winning a no-mtp, merciless random combat simulator, I'll chose one from among the dozens of videogames that give me exactly that. It was a slow day here so I was playing crawl online. The longest I managed to go today was with a lvl 9 deep elf wizard, that found a staff of wizardry. Then on the orc mines I decided to teleport away from a big group of orcs and ended randomly besides a fucking ogre, that finished me in one hit. Shit was so cash, etc.

So not only D&D is a poor-cousin to videogames in the kind of game you're proposing, but it's also an inherently "unfair" simulator, because the DM adjudicates the enemy actions and a lot of situations in the game depend exclusively of DM's goodwill to work: From the results of divination spells, to how exactly the NPCs will react to which kind of encounter you'll find down the road.

The conclusion is that any feelings of "winning" you can extract from D&D are already false and empty. If you like winning, in a way that won't make people laugh at you on the internet, pick any other game genre.

[Mistborn]

So many barrels of cock around me...

I want to suck them all

Well it's clear you've learned nothing from our exchange. Then you're an intellectually vapid asshole with warped ideas about RPGs. Once again I'm going to point you to theRPGsite I think you belong there. I'd respond to your points but there is no reason for me to engage with someone as intellectually dishonest as you.

[nockermensch]

Well it's clear you've learned nothing from our exchange.

I think my irony meter just broke.

[Mistborn]

Your position is indefensible. Due to the fact that D&D is not as mechanistic as a video game. You claim that rules and rolls should be subservient to your masturbation story. Then you post shit like this.

From that point on, it'd be a lie to say the game kept the same objectivity. Sure, there are moments when what "should" happen next is not clear, and then people are suddenly back into a purely "fair encounters" mindset but pretty soon another storyline develops and probability gets the short end of the stick to allow it.

When the DM has a favorite player and you chose to keep playing with them, you don't even have to worry about optimizing more than the DM's pet. In fact, as you just found, doing that is a liability. What you do in these situations is to behave, in character, as if the DM's pet is the show's protagonist (which is already true). You'll notice that in a lot of shows, the sidekicks seem to have more fun than the protagonist, and now you can be a sidekick. Truly, the party shouldn't ever be in real danger, because the DM won't kill the favorite guy. And if you play a support character that helps the protagonist to perform better (bard, support cleric, enchanter) you're basically immortal in that campaign.

Experienced basketweaver DMs don't want their campaigns to end in the first adventure, so SOMETHING MAGIC will happen that will keep your clown party alive in every encounter that should by the rules trucidate you. Trust me. It's crazy fun.

DMs that play lose with the rules and feel threatened by class abilities usually tend to care a lot about creating stories and role playing, by some perverse materialization of Stormwind Falacy. Therefore, engage aggressively in roleplaying too. By the end of the first adventure, your character should have at very least: One love interest (be sure this one has levels and/or money and/or some other kind of power), one friend and one "friendly rival" (be sure the DM intends this one to die later) chosen from what you have determined, are DM favorite NPCs. While these NPCs are alive, your character is pretty much immortal.

[quote="nockermensch]Kids playing cops and robbers have to adjudicate everything. This is a lot of work. In a RPG with more people playing, having to do that would simply cut down the fun. Therefore, I want the legacy material of D&D that me and my group tend to consider cool and iconic (races, classes, spells, wacky polearms, you name it) AND I want to discard whatever parts of the same material that I feel that detract from the fun. This kind of having the cake and eating it too is a completely possible position in this situation. Case in point, I want games where somebody casts Bigby's Crushing Hand and people gasp at the badassness just implied, but then if the story demands there's some appropriate asspull that destroys the hand. You can only break expectations if you build them first.[/quote]

This is why all you've done lately is attack me, because you real position is indefensible. Now are you going to explain yourself or are you going to stay frozen fast.