Some Proficiency questions

[Oly]

Now, what throws everything off is the example of "clinging to a cliff", which implies that you have to be hanging on for dear life or being sat on top of or hand-cuffed or whatever. The actual key point is "unable to use either his Dodge Defense or Parry Defense", clearly meaning if either one can't be used, then you are succeptible to sneak attacks. In the case given, clining to a mile-high cliff (it could be a 15 foot cliff - the height is irrelevant; the example is jsut dramatic liscence) that is an example where one of the Defense Types is "unable to be used"; in that case, Dodge. He could still Parry, but he can't Dodge, and is therefore succeptible.

When it says "a character is unable to use either his Dodge Defense or Parry Defense when he is clinging for life on the edge of a mile-high cliff-top" it means he cannot dodge and he cannot parry. They don't mean an "or" they mean and "and".

So therefore they're saying he's susceptible because he has no effective defence against any kind of attack.

They're talking about a very particular situation where you cannot dodge and you cannot parry. You can't draw conclusions about that when you're in a situation when you can only do one of the two.

 

[sbarrie]

The actual key point is "unable to use either his Dodge Defense or Parry Defense", clearly meaning if either one can't be used, then you are succeptible to sneak attacks.

That's not clear at all.

"Unable to use either his Dodge Defense or Parry Defense" means the same as "Able to use neither his Dodge Defense nor Parry Defense".

If you cannot use the shovel or the hammer, then you can use neither the shovel nor the hammer.

Either-or works differently in negative sentences.

I'm making a semantic argument. Sorry, God.

 

[sbarrie]

...and I didn't mean to dog pile on Sutek.

 

[Sutek]

Dont' worry, I dont' feel that you did.

The key word in my mind is "either", meaning that if either is unable to be used, then succeptibility occurs. The first example states things differently by useing the words "neither Dodge Defense nor Parry Defense", meaning that both are denied.

In other words, "neither" meaning "excluding both options" and "either" meaning "excluding one option of the two".

Grammatically, that's the way it's written and allows sneak attacks from ranged very easily.

I will conceed tat it "isn't clear", though. It also may be an American (me) versus British/European (other) way of reading it that is causing all this. In my mind, saying that either A or B is possible means A may be possible and B may be possible as well, whereas saying that neither A or B is possible means that both A and B are off limits.

 

[slaughterj]

Sutek, why not post up the general issue in the Rulesmasters Forum to get a ruling. I would do it, but it seems that everyone but you thinks it works one way, so if we post it, we might cloud it in our favor, so it seems best if you posed the question and maybe we can post in response or whatnot. Either way, I'm sure we would all like to be absolutely sure on this, because we want to play the game the right way!

 

[Sutek]

<sigh>

Well, I'm actually pretty comfortable just "doing it my way" even if everyone thinks it's wrong. (lol) I mean, I just can't seem to read it any other way than the way I've explained it above, so, for my part, I'll just bow out of discussing anymore.

If I could find the original threads where it was explained "my way" then I would, but there are hundreds of posts on the sneak attack topic, so it's darn near impossible.

If it helps, I'll say "wow, whata ya know - I'm wrong" just to end the argument. (lol)

 

[slaughterj]

Not a big deal, but I'm sure we all want to play the "right" way or know we aren't, as long as your group enjoys it, it doesn't much matter.

 

[Oly]

In other words, "neither" meaning "excluding both options" and "either" meaning "excluding one option of the two".

Grammatically, that's the way it's written and allows sneak attacks from ranged very easily.

I will conceed tat it "isn't clear", though. It also may be an American (me) versus British/European (other) way of reading it that is causing all this. In my mind, saying that either A or B is possible means A may be possible and B may be possible as well, whereas saying that neither A or B is possible means that both A and B are off limits.

Conan is written by a British company with British use of language so maybe that's it.

I'm British and if I, or someone else says to me, "if you're unable to use either Internet Explorer or Firefox then you can't get to the site" then that is understood to mean that both options are impossible. It doesn't mean that if you can use IE but not Firefox then the conclusion, in this case site access, is true.

Even simpler the statement:
"If you're unable to either A or B then Conclusion" means if A is false and B is false then the Conclusion is true.

It could be logically written as:
Not (A or B) => Conclusion

You're reading it as:
(Not A) or (Not B) => Conclusion
or
Not (A and B) => Conclusion

So maybe it is an American/British English thing but I am very confident as a native UK English speaker that that is what the British company behind the game meant.

 

[Foxworthy]

snip

I live in the US and it's the same understanding for me.