Oberoni wrote:Is false. There is no conflict, no "stronger statement."
I am having problems here. Namely, I can't figure out whether you are being sarcastic or stupid. However, since it is nonetheless possible that you may have inadvertently convinced someone of this spurious reasoning - I will pretend that you were just being stupid.
The statement was:
Me wrote:However, if I say "You can go to the Boardwalk if you do your homework" and I say "You can't go to the Boardwalk if you have not cleaned your room" there is a conflict - one of the statements must be determined to be stronger in that instance.
Can and
Can't (a contraction of Can Not) are "mutually exclusive opposites. It's like how things are
either "hot" or "cold" and not both. You either "can" do something, or you "can't". If one statement says that you
can do something, and another says you
can't - then you are still in a binary state where you either can or can't do the thing, so one of the satements is false (havig been overridden by the other).
In fact, you not only need a priority to interpret those two statements - you also need a
ground state. In short, you need to know what would be true if neither statement took effect because it is entirely possible that that will happen.
See: if you do your homework and clean your room - there's no problem with interpretation. The statement that you
can go to the Boardwalk triggers, and the statement that you
can't does not. So you can go to the Boardwalk.
If you don't do your homework or clean your room, there is also no problems. Quite simply the statement that you
can't go has triggered, and the statement that you
can go has not. So you can't go.
But if you don't do your homework and do clean your room - things get sticky. Neither statement at that point says that you can go. Neither says you can't go. At that point you can either go or not go based upon the
ground state - whatever would have been true if neither statement had been made at all. That's probably available from the context these statements were made in - but it's not contained in either statement.
And if you do your homework and don't clean your room - statements are in conflict. One statement says that you can go, the other says you can't. Whichever one is stronger wins. Since these are just two statements, there is no way to know.
Now, it would make intuitive sense if the stronger statement had the same value upon triggering as the ground state; so that if the ground state was that you couldn't go the statement that you could not go if don't clean your room takes precendence; and if the ground state is that you can go the stronger statement is that you can go if you do your homework. Why? Because if the other statement is stronger, than the weaker statement is completely superfluous and has no effect on anything.
If you can't go unless a statement that allows you to triggers - and the statement that allows you to overrides the statement that prevents you - the statement that prevents you makes no difference. Cleaning your room, in this case, would have no effect at all upon whether or not you could actually go under any circumstances.
Which means that's probably not what was meant. But not necessarily. People make useless statements all the time. Our President is internationally famous for it.
So there are four possible ways to intrepret those two statements:
* Ground State: Can't go * Can't go beats Can Go
* Ground State: Can't go * Can go beats Can't Go
* Ground State: Can go * Can't go beats Can Go
* Ground State: Can go * Can go beats Can't Go
But in the equivalent situation in the D&D books - there is in fact only
one correct interpretation. The ground state is that you can't turn into things unless something tells you that you can; and whatever the elemental wildshape description says you can turn into beats the sum total of all other rules in the entire game because it is the Primary Source for itself.
Psifon wrote:So what if you just limited the ability to the forms (that meet the other criterion) in the Monster Manual. This would eliminate both the whole template issue, and stop the data mining problem in one fell swoop.
As a house rule of course.
Well... no it doesn't. The ability to turn into a Leopard at 5th level is still unbalanced, whatever you do. The data mining problem is
reduced - but there's plenty of ways to break the system with just the basic monster manual. You can't Phoenix Duplicate without the Moster Manual Two, but you can Balor Mine with just the 3.5 Core Books.
I am simply unconvinced that stopping "some" power loops is in any way helpful. After all, that just makes it more likely that in a four person party, one of the players will have a remaining powerloop and none of the other players will. Short of infinite power - all the players having "lots of power" doesn't actually break the game.
One player having lots of power, however, does.
-Username17