Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1112849Are you sure? Usually it specifies something if they enter it during their turn too.

In the two entries, Lava or Molten metal. All it says is if someone falls in, or starts their turn in it, they take damage. Nothing about damage on entry by just moving into the stuff. There might be an entry later. I'll post if I find anything. We still have the problem of someone surviving falling into or standing in molten rock or metal. That should be an insta-death.

Found it. Kinda. DMG page 249. Improvising damage. One of those is Wading through Lava, the other is Being submerged in lava. So going by that. Id say it seems to be implying that entry into it will cause damage. So no speed wading across a pool and avoiding damage.

Quote from: Omega;1112851In the two entries, Lava or Molten metal. All it says is if someone falls in, or starts their turn in it, they take damage. Nothing about damage on entry by just moving into the stuff. There might be an entry later. I'll post if I find anything. We still have the problem of someone surviving falling into or standing in molten rock or metal. That should be an insta-death.

Situations like that are literally why I rewrote my falling rules from the gound up with entirely non-physical "hit points."

Hit point loss is based on the difficulty of avoiding falling entirely (i.e you lose fewer "hit points" if there's a sturdy railing you could grab next to a 1000' drop than you would lose from falling while climbing a slick brick wall in a rainstorm while 30' off the ground).

As long as you have points remaining your luck and skill leave you clinging to some feature just before the plunge (i.e. the classic hanging from a ledge by your fingernails).

If you run out, then you failed to catch yourself and plunge to your death (or perhaps just to unconsciousness and the dying condition if the situation allows; ex. falling 30' onto a lawn would probably put you at dying... lava would require some deity-level magic to bring someone back since all normal resurrection magic in my setting requires a mostly intact body).

Quote from: HappyDaze;1112850Wall of Fire works the same way. You will take no damage if you can approach within inches of the "hot side" of the wall (without moving through it), move alongside it for most of your movement, and then end your move at least 10 feet away from it.

It still damages you for entering the actual fire though. You take damage the first time you enter it each turn.

So there are rules for lava damage if you start your turn or if you end your turn in the lava. I'm a bit surprised that anyone would actually need a specific rule stating that spending part of your turn (but not the beginning and/or ending your turn) swimming through lava will also cause you to incur damage. Isn't it obvious?

Quote from: Omega;1112851In the two entries, Lava or Molten metal. All it says is if someone falls in, or starts their turn in it, they take damage. Nothing about damage on entry by just moving into the stuff. There might be an entry later. I'll post if I find anything. We still have the problem of someone surviving falling into or standing in molten rock or metal. That should be an insta-death.

It should be, but not with hit points RAW.

Quote from: Bren;1112884So there are rules for lava damage if you start your turn or if you end your turn in the lava. I'm a bit surprised that anyone would actually need a specific rule stating that spending part of your turn (but not the beginning and/or ending your turn) swimming through lava will also cause you to incur damage. Isn't it obvious?

Not a matter of obvious.

It's about continually inflating hit points and D&D RAW.

As much as people talk about wanting to "tell stories" with their RPG, they will also gladly game the fuck out of the system if it means their PC won't die.

Quote from: Jaeger;1112885It should be, but not with hit points RAW.

Whether it should or should not depends on what hit points actually represent in the setting. In many anime settings particularly tough or skilled character survive all sorts of things that would be fatal in our world. Darth Managed to survive one contact with lava, albeit he was not unscathed, but he did live. Personally I prefer systems that don't use D&D style inflating hit points, but that's neither here nor there as the issue as described remains even if hit points are fixed.

QuoteNot a matter of obvious.

It seems obvious to me. Whether 10D10 dice of damage is fatal is about hit points (and what they represent). Whether immersion in lava inflicts damage even if you don't start or end your turn in the lava is a matter of what should be common sense. That it apparently is not, seems to me to be a function of people who treat RPG rules like the rules to a board game.

QuoteAs much as people talk about wanting to "tell stories" with their RPG, they will also gladly game the fuck out of the system if it means their PC won't die.

I think narrative considerations or wanting to "tell stories" is orthogonal to system gaming. It's true, some people will try to twist rules out of all recognition in their quest for character survival so they can tell a story, but others will do the same sort of thing in the interest of retaining a character they like or acquiring power regardless of any story or just because they want to one up the rest of the table. The tendency of some people to game the system and twist the rules is one of the reasons that many games (sports for example) include a referee. And here, the job of the referee is to say, "No you cannot avoid all damage by starting your turn just outside the lava, wading through it for 40' using using your Dash move, and then moving out of the lava before the end of your 60' move. You still take damage."

Swimming through lava just damages mental durability, the will to live, and luck until that last Hit Point! (Honestly, it feels like falling damage misunderstanding all over again. Better to leave some things to GM fiat. )

Quote from: Bren;1112884So there are rules for lava damage if you start your turn or if you end your turn in the lava. I'm a bit surprised that anyone would actually need a specific rule stating that spending part of your turn (but not the beginning and/or ending your turn) swimming through lava will also cause you to incur damage. Isn't it obvious?

With gamers? No.
With how other cases in the rules might imply otherwise? No.
With 5es designers. Definitely No.

Keep in mind that they carried over the WRONG and INCOMPLETE falling damage rules from pre-3e probably just so they could snicker at it and feel superior.

Quote from: Bren;1112897Whether immersion in lava inflicts damage even if you don't start or end your turn in the lava is a matter of what should be common sense. That it apparently is not, seems to me to be a function of people who treat RPG rules like the rules to a board game.

You'd think the same re: wall of fire. It makes no sense that it only sends out individually directeded waves of damaging heat at the end of each creature's turn (unless the creature actually passes through the wall on it's turn, then it doesn't get a puff of heat even if it ends its turn in the danger zone). Of course, it technically also doesn't create any light by RAW...

To be fair on the "no light" assumption. Some fires do not produce a-lot of light. Or at least not any great amount of radiant light. Sich as some of the more blue/purple-ish flames?

But I think the assumption was that they thought they did not need to spell out everything.

Quote from: Omega;1112975But I think the assumption was that they thought they did not need to spell out everything.

That may have been the original assumption, but Sage Advice has shifted to "everything not explicitly spelled out in a spell description doesn't happen."

Quote from: HappyDaze;1112922You'd think the same re: wall of fire. It makes no sense that it only sends out individually directeded waves of damaging heat at the end of each creature's turn (unless the creature actually passes through the wall on it's turn, then it doesn't get a puff of heat even if it ends its turn in the danger zone). Of course, it technically also doesn't create any light by RAW...

Yeah I'd heard that no light thing recently. :rolleyes: That too is stupid. If they didn't want the light effect of flames they should have called it Wall of Heat.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1112979That may have been the original assumption, but Sage Advice has shifted to "everything not explicitly spelled out in a spell description doesn't happen."

To be fair, though, has there ever been a time when Sage Advice wasn't complete shit?

Quote from: GnomeWorks;1113000To be fair, though, has there ever been a time when Sage Advice wasn't complete shit?

I think Crawford has raised it to new levels of shitness compared to previous editions.