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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9299593" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>But that's precisely what "natural language" means in 5e. Don't define your keywords. You don't need to! Just use <em>natural language</em> and everything will be <em>fiiiiiine.</em></p><p></p><p>Spoiler alert: Everything was not fine.</p><p></p><p></p><p>They also weren't promising natural language would fix these problems. 5e did promise that. Again, that was <em>the whole point.</em> Saying that the synthetic part could be dispensed with entirely.</p><p></p><p></p><p>According to the 5e designers that's exactly what it means.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Uh.....<em>okay.</em> That's not at all what anyone, <em>ever,</em> complained about. The problem wasn't the detail. The problem was <em>that there were keywords at all.</em></p><p></p><p>4e's keywords work great as keywords. I challenge you to give me a single one that isn't clear and effective at describing what it means mechanically. The thing people hated was <em>that it was synthetic at all.</em></p><p></p><p></p><p>Verisimilitude has nothing to do with it. I genuinely have no idea why you mention it. People almost exclusively complained about keywords because they were any form of jargon <em>at all.</em></p><p></p><p></p><p>Except sometimes you can, and "how light works" is actually super complicated without rules clarity. Consider, for example, the weird <em>and not very verisimilitudinous</em> case of Warlock darkvision. If you're a human or dragonborn and you take Devil's Sight, you have crap vision in dim light, but as soon as it becomes pitch-black, you can actually see <em>better</em> than an elf! Even the elf experiences some of this, as their darkvision radius <em>doubles</em> as soon as the light is completely gone.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Unless you can't, because there are times that that isn't true. For example, the Frightened condition. It <em>does not</em> stop applying simply because a creature closes its eyes, turns away, or in some other way avoids attempting to view the target, even though that (by definition) means the Frightened creature does not actually have line of sight at that moment; the mere potential that it could is enough, even if it isn't using that potential right this second. However, it does stop applying if the creature that caused that condition becomes invisible; the mere theoretical potential that the creature could be looking at the one that frightened it is irrelevant, only the actual, physical ability to see it matters. Both of these cases have been defended by Sage Advice answers as coming from a plain, common sense reading of the term "line of sight," but they conflict. They even leave open a clear conundrum: what happens with a victim creature is afflicted so, the causing creature goes invisible, but the victim creature has <em>opt-in</em> ability to see invisible things?</p><p></p><p></p><p>Hide, line of sight, Arcana, Survival, and check are all synthetic terms here. Arguably, "magical lore" is as well, since I've no idea what counts as "lore" or not, it would need to be explained. They all have to be actually defined, without that they're meaningless fribble. Line of sight is a borderline case, I'll admit, since that's about something that almost verges on how a real world thing works, but I count it because (as noted) it actually isn't as simple as that, due to how it interacts with other rules.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9299593, member: 6790260"] But that's precisely what "natural language" means in 5e. Don't define your keywords. You don't need to! Just use [I]natural language[/I] and everything will be [I]fiiiiiine.[/I] Spoiler alert: Everything was not fine. They also weren't promising natural language would fix these problems. 5e did promise that. Again, that was [I]the whole point.[/I] Saying that the synthetic part could be dispensed with entirely. According to the 5e designers that's exactly what it means. Uh.....[I]okay.[/I] That's not at all what anyone, [I]ever,[/I] complained about. The problem wasn't the detail. The problem was [I]that there were keywords at all.[/I] 4e's keywords work great as keywords. I challenge you to give me a single one that isn't clear and effective at describing what it means mechanically. The thing people hated was [I]that it was synthetic at all.[/I] Verisimilitude has nothing to do with it. I genuinely have no idea why you mention it. People almost exclusively complained about keywords because they were any form of jargon [I]at all.[/I] Except sometimes you can, and "how light works" is actually super complicated without rules clarity. Consider, for example, the weird [I]and not very verisimilitudinous[/I] case of Warlock darkvision. If you're a human or dragonborn and you take Devil's Sight, you have crap vision in dim light, but as soon as it becomes pitch-black, you can actually see [I]better[/I] than an elf! Even the elf experiences some of this, as their darkvision radius [I]doubles[/I] as soon as the light is completely gone. Unless you can't, because there are times that that isn't true. For example, the Frightened condition. It [I]does not[/I] stop applying simply because a creature closes its eyes, turns away, or in some other way avoids attempting to view the target, even though that (by definition) means the Frightened creature does not actually have line of sight at that moment; the mere potential that it could is enough, even if it isn't using that potential right this second. However, it does stop applying if the creature that caused that condition becomes invisible; the mere theoretical potential that the creature could be looking at the one that frightened it is irrelevant, only the actual, physical ability to see it matters. Both of these cases have been defended by Sage Advice answers as coming from a plain, common sense reading of the term "line of sight," but they conflict. They even leave open a clear conundrum: what happens with a victim creature is afflicted so, the causing creature goes invisible, but the victim creature has [I]opt-in[/I] ability to see invisible things? Hide, line of sight, Arcana, Survival, and check are all synthetic terms here. Arguably, "magical lore" is as well, since I've no idea what counts as "lore" or not, it would need to be explained. They all have to be actually defined, without that they're meaningless fribble. Line of sight is a borderline case, I'll admit, since that's about something that almost verges on how a real world thing works, but I count it because (as noted) it actually isn't as simple as that, due to how it interacts with other rules. [/QUOTE]
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