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Old 05-09-2023, 08:54 PM   #91
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"

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Originally Posted by mburr0003 View Post
S (which is fine, it's possible I'm the only holdout against the "Area is Area" argument - ll).
No, I haven't changed my view. I've just stopped adding tot he post count because I've recognized the futility of it. Area is still Area.
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Old 05-09-2023, 10:46 PM   #92
mburr0003
 
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Default Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
IMO, it wouldn't count because it's not clearly hostile.
So rocks falling into camp from goblins above wouldn't count, because they aren't weapons therefore an outside observer wouldn't class it as hostile (presuming they couldn;t see the goblins and rocks could naturally fall).

Neither wold a geyser eruption in a an area where geyser could happen normally, or a spontaneous fire in a hot dry tinder filled forest... even if both actions were indeed from a distant spellcaster. Again, because they could be natural, and thus discounted by an outside observer.

But then a group of creatures not aware of the group are hostiles, because they "always have hostile intent"? Even if they intend to cruise on by in the hallway outside which is overlapped by the spell, never knowing the PCs are camping nearby, and thus aren't actually intending hostile intent to the PCs whom they have no reason to suspect even exist?


You've got, what to me is, an inconsistent line drawn in the sand. This is why I drill into these questions with GMs, and often change spells as a GM.
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Old 05-09-2023, 11:22 PM   #93
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"

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Originally Posted by mburr0003 View Post

But then a group of creatures not aware of the group are hostiles, because they "always have hostile intent"? Even if they intend to cruise on by in the hallway outside which is overlapped by the spell, never knowing the PCs are camping nearby, and thus aren't actually intending hostile intent to the PCs whom they have no reason to suspect even exist?
Seem to me that if a group have a general policy of robbing or killing those who cross their path, that counts as hostile intent even if they don't expect to meet anyone at that precise moment.
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Old 05-10-2023, 01:03 AM   #94
sir_pudding
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Default Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"

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Originally Posted by mburr0003 View Post
But then a group of creatures not aware of the group are hostiles, because they "always have hostile intent"?
No, enemy forces crossing your perimeter are hostile. Hence why "hostiles" is synonymous with "enemy forces".
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You've got, what to me is, an inconsistent line drawn in the sand. This is why I drill into these questions with GMs, and often change spells as a GM.
Well as I said, the intent of the spell would probably have been better served if the text included General Order 7's "fire and disorder". Personally I would include these too.

In fact just rewriting the spell so it follows the General Orders probably works as well as the "would a dog bark" version.

Edit: My actual point, which seems to be getting lost, is merely that "crossing with hostile intent" as a phrase does not require mind-reading, and certainly can apply to hostile fire.

Last edited by sir_pudding; 05-10-2023 at 03:16 AM.
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Old 05-10-2023, 05:32 AM   #95
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Default Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
No, enemy forces crossing your perimeter are hostile. Hence why "hostiles" is synonymous with "enemy forces".

Well as I said, the intent of the spell would probably have been better served if the text included General Order 7's "fire and disorder". Personally I would include these too.

In fact just rewriting the spell so it follows the General Orders probably works as well as the "would a dog bark" version.

Edit: My actual point, which seems to be getting lost, is merely that "crossing with hostile intent" as a phrase does not require mind-reading, and certainly can apply to hostile fire.
sir_pudding, is this some kind of military use of the phrase "hostile intent"? It seems like, you keep talking as if "hostile intent" has some kind of clearly defined and established idiomatic meaning that doesn't necessarily require the thing described as having "hostile intent" to intend anything, but I'm not familiar with such an idiom at all and it looks like some other people in this thread aren't either.

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Originally Posted by bocephus View Post
I treat the spell as being too basic to be able to alert on anything but a positive condition, 'maybe' doesn't alert and the spell would ignore the mortar anyway since it doesn't radiate INTENT.
Possibly, in some settings, it might actually make sense for "the intent with which they're fired" to be something that extends to the arrows themselves, and thus readable by the spell - law of sympathy and contagion, or something.

It seems like, there are at least three plausible ways this could work out -

1) what I just said. In that case, projectiles trigger it, as would, say, a mind-controlled assassin who doesn't know she's an assassin, because somebody intended them to do the caster harm and they partake of that person's intent. Varyon might've mentioned this version.

2), for instance in a more mechanistic, "technology, but it's magic", approach to magic, it reads the mind of anyone who crosses the perimeter to check for "hostile intent", possibly extending also to things like "doesn't know there are humans there but intends to kill any humans it finds". In that case, projectiles wouldn't trigger it, since they don't have minds themselves, and the mind-controlled assassin possibly wouldn't either. This seems odd since it doesn't have any mind-reading spells as prerequisites, but prerequisites don't always make logical sense. This seems to be what Bocephus is going for.

3) it does what the name says, it observes the area (maybe it summons a spirit) and barks if it sees something that looks like an attack crossing the line, although not if it sees a threat that isn't intentional by anyone. It may or may not be able to read minds of things crossing the line sufficiently to spot an evil witch disguised as a harmless old granny. (With any mind-reading version, you could limit it to "intends to attack on this occasion, before leaving the circle again", if you want to avoid the "all-purpose traitor detector" thing).
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Old 05-10-2023, 06:21 AM   #96
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Default Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"

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Originally Posted by Inky View Post
sir_pudding, is this some kind of military use of the phrase "hostile intent"? It seems like, you keep talking as if "hostile intent" has some kind of clearly defined and established idiomatic meaning that doesn't necessarily require the thing described as having "hostile intent" to intend anything, but I'm not familiar with such an idiom at all and it looks like some other people in this thread aren't either.
Even in regular English, intent doesn't require mind-reading. The noun definition (which is the relevant one here because it is a noun) "a clear purpose or function; aim", can certainly be used to ascribe hostility to attacks without knowing anything about the attacker. Note that to name something as "hostile" is a statement about intent; to some extent "hostile intent" is a somewhat redundant phrase. The prepositional phrase "with hostile intent" follows the gerund "crossing" here, and therefore modifies "crossing". So if you can make a statement about the hostility of causing a thing to cross into the area. you can identify if it is crossing with hostile intent.

Now as Kromm says this is up to GM interpretation etc. and I don't actually care what you do. I really only ever wanted to state that in a plain English reading, an arrow shot at me is crossing my perimeter with hostile intent, even though arrows obviously don't have volition.

Movies don't have volition either, but "The intent of the film is..." is a valid critical statement. I imagine this is an idiom you may be familiar with. English, in fact, ascribes intent to all manner of inanimate objects and abstract concepts, based on the assumed aim of some other person or persons. "The intent of the policy ...", "This rule is intended to...", "The use of color here demonstrates the intent to...".

In a military sense, yes, "hostile intent" is a thing. As I stated earlier my own rules of engagement on combat deployment were literally: "Positive identification of hostile action or hostile intent". I doubt that my command believed that Marines possess telepathic powers; so they likely thought we would use a common sense method of determining intent. Such as if they are aiming a weapon at us, then they are hostile.

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Possibly, in some settings, it might actually make sense for "the intent with which they're fired" to be something that extends to the arrows themselves, and thus readable by the spell - law of sympathy and contagion, or something.
If it requires magic to identify that attacks are hostile, then no one in the real world could do so. Yet most people, who aren't in this thread, probably would consider "attacks are hostile" to be a common sense truism.

Last edited by sir_pudding; 05-10-2023 at 10:51 AM.
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Old 05-10-2023, 07:39 PM   #97
mburr0003
 
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Default Re: Watchdog spell and "hostile intent"

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
No, I haven't changed my view.
Didn't say you did, just indicated I seem to be the only one who disagrees with that view. Especially when at least one other spell that actually says "perimeter" and two others do not identify what happens within the interior and it makes no sense for the interior to be treated as the boundary is (Force Dome and Utter Dome), thus indicating "Area isn't always 'Area'".

To me, sure, Area generally means Area, however there are a small handful (maybe 10ish, so a double handful) of spells where the spell's description makes it clear that they don't work as normal area spells, and thus cannot be treated as automatically working like a normal Area spell.



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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Seem to me that if a group have a general policy of robbing or killing those who cross their path, that counts as hostile intent even if they don't expect to meet anyone at that precise moment.
Sure... but...

What if the PCs are "home invaders" (as often they are in D&D DF/RPG) and the residents have no prior hostility with the PCs and no reason to suspect someone is sleeping in their beds and has eaten their porridge?

Does Goldiwarlocks wake up when the bears come home and cross her Watchdog's boundary? Does it trigger when Baby sees his bowl is empty and feels his belly grumble (presuming an Area is Area for argument's sake)?



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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
In fact just rewriting the spell so it follows the General Orders probably works as well as the "would a dog bark" version.
Which is why I elected to rewrite it for "danger sensing" or "boundary crossing within caster defined parameters of height, weight, width, etc" (and yes, I allowed to detect invisible and intangible creatures that crossed the boundary). A simple "It works to detect danger crossing it's boundary or within it's area" would cease all such "hostile intent" arguments... of course, it's possible the original author wanted it to ignore natural hazards and actually detect theiving hirelings in advance of the thievery (they had those intentions when hired). But we have no idea if that's the case.



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Originally Posted by Inky View Post
Possibly, in some settings, it might actually make sense for "the intent with which they're fired" to be something that extends to the arrows themselves, and thus readable by the spell - law of sympathy and contagion, or something.
AS someone else already suggested, and I countered with, "Sure, if that's how the metaphysics work in the campaign".

Personally, 'vanilla' Magic has always felt mechanistic (nice word - I tend to use 'scientific', but mechanistic is better) to me. Spells work in rather prescribed ways, there is no inherent religious or spiritual requirements. Of course if the group wanted magic to work that way, it's an easy enough change. But generally when I'm planning to run a spiritual/religious magic system, I prefer RPM/Energy gathering or Incantation/Effects Shaping these days.
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