OSSR: Tome of Magic (3.5)

[Username17]

I have no idea why you'd think the 3e turning rules would be a counter point. They produce results that are not level appropriate. There was a whole thing about it. The turning rules produce level appropriate effects for almost no characters, and when they do they produce level appropriate effects for very short periods of time.

The Turning Rules are a classic example of how if you set your magical effects to some skill roll that isn't level dependent that you get outputs to the system that aren't level appropriate and therefore bad in a level-based system. I really can't imagine how or why you'd try to use that data point to argue anything differently.

If you want to claim that it is possible to have effects that are based on non-level dependent values that nonetheless consistently output level appropriate effects, I double dog dare you to make one. Because it is simply factually true that no person in the history of anything has ever made one yet. And it is my contention that it is not even possible to succeed at such a design goal, because it contains within itself a fundamental contradiction.

-Username17

[Avoraciopoctules]

If you want to claim that it is possible to have effects that are based on non-level dependent values that nonetheless consistently output level appropriate effects, I double dog dare you to make one. Because it is simply factually true that no person in the history of anything has ever made one yet. And it is my contention that it is not even possible to succeed at such a design goal, because it contains within itself a fundamental contradiction.

Hmm.

1. A magic fountain in the room right before the boss arena. Normally drinking from it causes you to roll on a gygaxian fuck-you table, but the party can spend some of the Narrative Imperative points they have acquired to fully restore HP and MP, and remove adverse status effects. NI points are not connected to any character or party advancement level.

2. During mission 3, the commanders can help out a desert warlord as a secondary objective. This gives them a Strategic Advantage Card that can be played to multiply their retinue by 1.5 in a future engagement. Retinue becomes more powerful with commander advancement, like in Warlords Battlecry.

EDIT: I was thinking of a number 3 involving paying currency for stat boosts or exchanging some kind of character turns, but that's tricky. I suppose the Bravely Default thing where you can spend SP for an Immediate-Action interrupt sorta works, since more character turns is always a level-appropriate advantage and the SP is gained by taking breaks from the game while your 3DS is in sleep mode.

[Ancient History]

1. A magic fountain in the room right before the boss arena. Normally drinking from it causes you to roll on a gygaxian fuck-you table, but the party can spend some of the Narrative Imperative points they have acquired to fully restore HP and MP, and remove adverse status effects. NI points are not connected to any character or party advancement level.

"I reject your reality and replace it with my own!

[NineInchNall]

The excluded middle is a law, not a fallacy.

[Windjammer]

The excluded middle is a law, not a fallacy.

Actually, it's both:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of ... ded_middle

[NineInchNall]

Huh. I've never seen nor heard of a false dilemma referred to that way, probably because philosophers don't call it such. The scholarly article hits that are actually within the scope of philosophy & math are very few. It appears to be a phrasing that has found purchase mostly in the less pedantic realms.

[Username17]

Regardless of how you characterize an excluded middle, Windjammer you're still simply full of shit. To label this an excluded middle anything, you'd have to show that there was in fact a middle that was being unfairly excluded. I submit that there is not.

There is simply no way to take inputs that are not level based and give outputs that are level appropriate. That's just not how functions work. It's trivially easy to take inputs that are level based and give outputs that the not level appropriate, but you're never going to be able to go the other way. Garbage in, garbage out. You're never going to have a function that gives you a smooth exponential curve as an output if the input is random noise. It simply is not going to happen because mathematically it can't.

You threw down a gauntlet saying I was making false statements because I said that something was impossible because it's actually impossible. Put up or shut up: how the fucking fuck are you going to prove me wrong? You picked a fight over something for which there is an iron clad mathematical proof showing that I am right and you are wrong, which was a stupid thing to do. You're at the level of Shadzar flipping his shit over the fact that there's no number of times you can add +1 to turn 5 into 4.

-Username17

[fectin]

You /might/ be able to get level appropriate effects by keying off an input to levels. Maybe something like getting crafting components only from CRed encounters, and scaling their value to CR? Or like triggering off XP total instead of level. Either way, I think it's objectively worse than triggering off level, but I can imagine it working.

[NineInchNall]

Regardless of how you characterize an excluded middle, Windjammer you're still simply full of shit. To label this an excluded middle anything, you'd have to show that there was in fact a middle that was being unfairly excluded. I submit that there is not.

-Username17

Yeah, this forms a true dichotomoy:

See, any skill system it is possible to have is either going to have a 1:1 correspondence with level or it isn't.

If you had said, "there's 1:1 or there's 1:3, and that's it," then that would have been dumb. Since what you said was literally "A OR ~A", it's a different story.

[TiaC]

You're at the level of Shadzar flipping his shit over the fact that there's no number of times you can add +1 to turn 5 into 4.

-Username17

Wait, was this actually a thing? I mean, it's just so very stupid, but it is shadzar.

I predict that Windjammer is going to come back and say that you can have a skill system with a 1:2 relationship to level that can produce appropriate outputs. It will be an impressive display of missing the point.

[darkmaster]

He's talking about O and AD&D's armor rules. You would subtract your bonuses from your armor and that is not how English works. So it's not really adding 1 to 5 but it is really confusing.

[Windjammer]

Huh. I've never seen nor heard of a false dilemma referred to that way, probably because philosophers don't call it such.

And I got departmental colleagues who regularly publish in the Notre Dame Journal of Philosophical Logic and elsewhere.

I agree the usage is less frequent than that of a law, but spare us your proclamations from on high on how "philosophers" use it.

Regardless of how you characterize an excluded middle, Windjammer you're still simply full of shit. To label this an excluded middle anything, you'd have to show that there was in fact a middle that was being unfairly excluded. I submit that there is not.

There is simply no way to take inputs that are not level based and give outputs that are level appropriate. That's just not how functions work. It's trivially easy to take inputs that are level based and give outputs that the not level appropriate, but you're never going to be able to go the other way.

Spare me the vitriol. I gladly concede that, from the seat of my pants, I won't come up with a concrete example of how this works in practice, fully playtested etc. That's empirical lack of evidence, not evidence that such a thing is in principle impossible, which is exactly what you argued for (and stress in your last posting).

But the mathematical concept of a function is a many:one mapping, trivially allowing different inputs to generate the same output. (Example: the exponentation to the power of 2, with a base of +2 and -2, both yield 4.) What functions really exclude are one:many mappings.

[Username17]

But the mathematical concept of a function is a many:one mapping, trivially allowing different inputs to generate the same output. (Example: the exponentation to the power of 2, with a base of +2 and -2, both yield 4.) What functions really exclude are one:many mappings.

You just lost. Because if a skill isn't based on level, then you can have the same skill total at different levels. So you might have a +13 at level 6 but you also might have a +13 at level 8. Obviously, if a +13 bonus gives you a level appropriate truename effect at level 6 it won't be a level appropriate truename effect at level 8. And vice versa.

If your inputs aren't consistently related to level, then to get level appropriate effects you're going to need to get different outputs from the same inputs. And as you've already conceded: that is a thing functions cannot do.

-Username17

[RadiantPhoenix]

Unless there is a single output that is level appropriate at every level you care about. Then you don't need different outputs from the same numbers.

[Username17]

Unless there is a single output that is level appropriate at every level you care about. Then you don't need different outputs from the same numbers.

Well remember that the level independent input can not only be the same thing at different levels, it can also be different things at the same levels - because it's level independent. So your trivial case is that you have a "function" that takes any and all possible inputs and gives the same output every time and that output happens to be good enough at every possible level of play. Which is exactly in all ways like ignoring the level independent input altogether.

-Username17

[RadiantPhoenix]

Yeah, that's probably simpler, easier to use, more reliable, more appropriate, etc., and thus better.

[Ikeren]

Spare me the vitriol.

Please don't say this. The vitriol is 90% of the reason I still hang around here. I find this site has the best odds of making me laugh out loud for precisely this reason.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Unless there is a single output that is level appropriate at every level you care about. Then you don't need different outputs from the same numbers.

Well remember that the level independent input can not only be the same thing at different levels, it can also be different things at the same levels - because it's level independent. So your trivial case is that you have a "function" that takes any and all possible inputs and gives the same output every time and that output happens to be good enough at every possible level of play. Which is exactly in all ways like ignoring the level independent input altogether.

-Username17

I think Bravely Default's SP system might actually be a pretty good example, then. SP is level independent, and what it gives you (extra turns), can manifest in a variety of different ways.

Your input and output are always SP for extra turns, but since turns are more valuable with a more advanced character, the value of this level-independent currency stays relevant.

Of course, in a system like shadowrun where you have more ways to buy extra turns, the SP system doesn't scale so elegantly.