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2 years ago ::
Jun 08, 2011 - 10:44AM
#41
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Date Joined:
Sep 13, 2007
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Just to throw something different into the mix: HEALER'S LORE
When you restore hit points to a creature by using a cleric power that has the healing keyword, add your Wisdom modifier to the hit points regained, but only if the healing involves the creature spending a healing surge.
The basic disagreement is that one camp asserts that:
"As if you spent a healing surge" is granting you an exception to any other phrasing such as "When you spend a healing surge..."
Whereas the other claim is that you get to heal without spending a surge, but no exception is granted.
Neither side has a solid case for their reading. There is no proof to be had one way or the other other than circumstantial. To that end I present the following rules analogy on the nature of "exceptions":
Shift
Limitation: Cannot shift while prone
Power X
Effect: Shift 3 squares.
The claim being made is similar to the above in that Power X granting you the ability to "Shift 3" also allows you to ignore the "cannot shift while prone" limitation. We know that this is clearly not true. There is no explicit exception granted to shifting while prone.
vs.
Power Y
Effect: Shift 3 squares. You may shift even if prone.
Here is a different power that has the explicit exception. In the case of this power you may shift while prone becuase it says you can. This is the explicit nature of exceptions.
The same is true of "as if you spent a healing surge". Exceptions need to be explicit or they aren't exceptions. "Effects that trigger if you had actually spent a surge may trigger from this effect". Without such text there is no exception.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 08, 2011 - 11:06AM
#42
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Date Joined:
Apr 22, 2001
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"As if" is an explicit exception; healing the same amount you'd heal on a surge is what healing as if you spent a surge means.
Your analogies aren't matching up with the language in question at all. If you had a feat, or a power that was an immediate reaction to being knocked prone, that said "you may move as if you weren't prone," then you'd be able to shift just fine. Acting "as if" something else had happened is in and of itself an explicit exception; you trigger any other rules "as if" something else were true even if it's not. That's what "as if" MEANS.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 08, 2011 - 11:27AM
#43
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Date Joined:
Jun 18, 2009
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A person claims "I can drive drunk as if I was fully sober". They get pulled over, the cop smells alcohol, pulls out a breathalizer, and then hauls the driver off to jail. "As if" doesn't cause exceptions, nor do the 4e rules make a statement anywhere about "as if" causing exceptions. It's not a keyword, it's just the english language. You don't spend a surge when you receive CLW. If you had spent a surge, you would qualify for specific bonuses. "As if" just helps you to know how many hit points you receive.
The rules are too ambiguous for a definitive answer here. I fully respect the arguments to the otherwise, but I'm not convinced. For that matter, I'm not sure I'm even trying to change your opinion. I'll go with what my DM says until Wizards clarifies the situation.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 08, 2011 - 12:03PM
#44
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Date Joined:
Apr 22, 2001
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A person claims "I can drive drunk as if I was fully sober". They get pulled over, the cop smells alcohol, pulls out a breathalizer, and then hauls the driver off to jail.
Again, that analogy doesn't line up with the rules in question; there's nothing that says you can't be arrested if you're driving as if you were sober, and nothing that says claiming you drive as if you were sober makes it so. If there's a rule that says "in situation x, you won't get pulled over if driving while sober," then you won't get pulled over if you're drunk and driving as if you were sober. If you got pulled over in that situation, you weren't driving as if you were sober, you just thought you were. Since CLW doesn't instruct you to just think that you were healed as if you spent a healing surge, the properly formed analogy still supports my position.
"As if" doesn't cause exceptions, nor do the 4e rules make a statement anywhere about "as if" causing exceptions. It's not a keyword, it's just the english language. You don't spend a surge when you receive CLW. If you had spent a surge, you would qualify for specific bonuses. "As if" just helps you to know how many hit points you receive.
"As if" has a clear meaning in the english language, so it doesn't need to be defined as a keyword. If you're healing differently than when you spend a surge, you're not healing as if you spent a surge; you're ignoring the plain meaning of the english phrase. It has to trigger any healing that comes from "when you spend a healing surge" to work at all; if you need to "break" some other rule to do what a power says, then the power has to be an exception to that rule.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 08, 2011 - 12:49PM
#45
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Date Joined:
Feb 16, 2010
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well you still gain hp 'as if you spent a healing surge', althrought you are not gaining hp 'as if you spent a healing surge while carrying all your current items'.
now lets talk about exclusion vs inclusion in the american version of the english language.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 08, 2011 - 1:07PM
#46
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Date Joined:
Jun 15, 2004
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In regard to rules, I would normally interpret "as if" to mean the "the same as", or more specifically "exactly the same as for all purposes, except where indicated otherwise". If it's preceded by a condition (example: "regain hit points as if"), then I would expect it to apply only to that condition ('hit points' in this case), as that is a specified restriction... but I wouldn't make further restrictions unless they were specified; so that statement would seem to encompass any riders specifically related to HP.
Examples:
PHB p.114, Pinpointing Arrow: "You can attack an invisible target as if it wasn’t invisible."... would we limit this to negating concealment, or would we allow other (attack specific) riders like sneak attack, combat advantage, etc.? I would interpret the latter, based on the term "as if".
PHB p.233, Dancing Weapon: "You can deliver basic attacks and attack powers through the dancing weapon as if you were holding it yourself"... I would assume that means that we would treat it as being held for all purposes related specifically to the attack.
PHB p.246, Wavestrider Boots: "You can move across liquid surfaces as if they were normal terrain"... I would interpret this as treating the liquid as normal terrain for all purposes related to movement (also: the word "can" in the phrase denotes this as optional for the wearer).
Another reference, fwiw (i.e. not that it'll neccesarily help):
PHB p.58: "Regaining Hit Points: Some powers allow you or someone else to regain hit points. Sometimes the recipient of this benefit needs to spend a healing surge (page 293), but if a power description includes the wording “as if . . . had spent a healing surge,” then the beneficiary gains the appropriate number of hit points but does not spend a healing surge to do so."
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2 years ago ::
Jun 08, 2011 - 1:56PM
#47
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Date Joined:
Apr 22, 2001
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well you still gain hp 'as if you spent a healing surge', althrought you are not gaining hp 'as if you spent a healing surge while carrying all your current items'.
If you are carrying all your current items, those are fuctionally equivilant statements. It's only if you weren't carrying all your current items that those two would have a different result. Or do you have an argument that CLW treats items differently than feats or PP abilities or the like?
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2 years ago ::
Jun 09, 2011 - 6:40AM
#48
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Date Joined:
Feb 16, 2010
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my point being that you state:
If you gain hp 'as if you spent a healing surge', and don't gain beneifts that require the use of a healing surge, then its not 'as if you spent a healing surge'.
in fact it is 'as if you spent a healing surge', its just 'as if you spent a healing surge' naked, which is still true. hence the jibe at exclusion vs inclusion.
My main point of contention with this is that those benefits REQUIRE the use of a healing surge, i have yet to see ANY feat/power that requires an action to gain a beneift, that you gain the benefit without doing the required action.
example:
If you stand on X, you gain Y.
Act 'as if' you stand on X, without doing it.
You dont gain Y from pretending you stood on X.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 09, 2011 - 6:53AM
#49
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Date Joined:
Nov 14, 2009
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my point being that you state:
If you gain hp 'as if you spent a healing surge', and don't gain beneifts that require the use of a healing surge, then its not 'as if you spent a healing surge'.
in fact it is 'as if you spent a healing surge', its just 'as if you spent a healing surge' naked, which is still true. hence the jibe at exclusion vs inclusion.
My main point of contention with this is that those benefits REQUIRE the use of a healing surge, i have yet to see ANY feat/power that requires an action to gain a beneift, that you gain the benefit without doing the required action.
The problem is that you are not suddenly featless and equipmentless. Some magical D&D entity doesn't wisk away your gear, feats, and other abilities when you use the power. That doesn't make any sense.
We all understand your point. You think that these benefits require the actual expenditure of a healing surge. What you seem incapable of understanding is that when you use a power like CLW, the power expressly states that you are effectively spending a healing surge without actually expending it. CLW is essentially a healing surge proxy (as far as regaining hit points anyways, other non-healing effects clearly do not function). It does this because CLW says it does this; it is specific in this regard.
If you need to treat an event as if some other event occurs, then whatever triggers on the "some other event" should be triggering. I don't understand how this is not clear by now.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 09, 2011 - 6:59AM
#50
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Date Joined:
Feb 16, 2010
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my point being that you state:
If you gain hp 'as if you spent a healing surge', and don't gain beneifts that require the use of a healing surge, then its not 'as if you spent a healing surge'.
in fact it is 'as if you spent a healing surge', its just 'as if you spent a healing surge' naked, which is still true. hence the jibe at exclusion vs inclusion.
My main point of contention with this is that those benefits REQUIRE the use of a healing surge, i have yet to see ANY feat/power that requires an action to gain a beneift, that you gain the benefit without doing the required action.
The problem is that you are not suddenly featless and equipmentless. Some magical D&D entity doesn't wisk away your gear, feats, and other abilities when you use the power. That doesn't make any sense.
We all understand your point. You think that these benefits require the actual expenditure of a healing surge. What you seem incapable of understanding is that when you use a power like CLW, the power expressly states that you are effectively spending a healing surge without actually expending it. CLW is essentially a healing surge proxy (as far as regaining hit points anyways, other non-healing effects clearly do not function). It does this because CLW says it does this; it is specific in this regard.
If you need to treat an event as if some other event occurs, then whatever triggers on the "some other event" should be triggering. I don't understand how this is not clear by now.
its 'not clear' because noone has proven that
If you need to treat an event as if some other event occurs, then whatever triggers on the "some other event" should be triggering.
i dont undestand how you can think you have proven anything of the sort.
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