forums.cubicle7.co.uk
archive

I am equally baffled how anyone could not get what Deadmanwalking is saying. If he said "the word 'Hobbit' is never used in the books", then there's no way he can prove that. The onus is then on others to then say "Well, on p. 237, Chapter 4, they said "the Hobbit walked down the hill".

Deadmanwalking has said he doesn't believe there are any instances of X. If you believe there are (instances of X), then it is up to those that disagree to show the instances of X, rather than on him to show that there are no instances of X.

Majestic wrote: Deadmanwalking has said he doesn't believe there are any instances of X. If you believe there are (instances of X), then it is up to those that disagree to show the instances of X, rather than on him to show that there are no instances of X.

...and that's where the Hobbit's Art of Disappearing comes from!
You may believe Hobbits exist but, have you ever seen them?

I understand the concept of proving a negative. He is saying that a negative proves his positive idea. Since hobbits aren't shown getting hit all that often (a statement I contend anyway), they must be hard to hit. I could just as logically point out that female hobbits aren't hit at all in the books, so they must be very hard to hit indeed.

But hobbits DO GET HIT. Frodo is stabbed, gored, stung, and shot at least twice. Sam is cut on the forehead by an orc. Merry got one when fighting orcs near Amon Hen, and Pippin was knocked on the head. In the Battle of Bywater, nineteen hobbits were killed and thirty more were wounded. Even Bilbo managed to get hit with a rock at the Battle of Five Armies, though it's unclear whether that would have called for rolling against Parry.

Do hobbits get hit more than other folk? No, of course not. But hobbits, when put into the same dangerous situations as others, show absolutely no signs of being able fend off injury to any special degree.

Excellent point about female hobbits. THEY have really high Parry.

Gotta keep those male hobbit handses to themselves.

Stormcrow wrote:I understand the concept of proving a negative. He is saying that a negative proves his positive idea. Since hobbits aren't shown getting hit all that often (a statement I contend anyway), they must be hard to hit. I could just as logically point out that female hobbits aren't hit at all in the books, so they must be very hard to hit indeed.

This isn't what I was saying at all. I said that, since hobbits didn't get hit too much in the books that them having high Parry was consistent with the books. I never claimed it proved a damn thing. I said that it didn't contradict the books, not that the books necessitated it.

These are very different things, and I was pretty specific which I was saying.

Stormcrow wrote:But hobbits DO GET HIT. Frodo is stabbed, gored, stung, and shot at least twice. Sam is cut on the forehead by an orc. Merry got one when fighting orcs near Amon Hen, and Pippin was knocked on the head. In the Battle of Bywater, nineteen hobbits were killed and thirty more were wounded. Even Bilbo managed to get hit with a rock at the Battle of Five Armies, though it's unclear whether that would have called for rolling against Parry.

Without a comparison to other people getting hit that set of numbers doesn't matter much, IMO. But it's an argument I'd at least be willing to have (if you really want), rather than the one above where you seem to have profoundly misunderstood what I was trying to say.

Stormcrow wrote:Do hobbits get hit more than other folk? No, of course not. But hobbits, when put into the same dangerous situations as others, show absolutely no signs of being able fend off injury to any special degree.

Uh...okay? Hobbits of the Shire are a decently high Parry culture, but (for example) Men of Minas Tirith and Woodmen both have Parry on par with Shire Hobbits or higher. Indeed, only Dwarves, Men of the Lake, and Men of Bree fighting weak foes have notably less Parry than 90%+ of Hobbits of the Shire (who max out at Parry 12 without Gifted...most men max out around 11). I never claimed they were invulnerable or the hardest things in the world to ever to hit in the books, just that them being decently hard to hit was reasonable and not inconsistent with said books.

That's it. I said that the rules in regards to Hobbit Parry didn't actually contradict the books. That's all I said.

Now, Hobbits of Bree are a whole different thing, but also something we see none of in the books (at least in combat) and thus, like hobbit women, the books say nothing about their combat prowess one way or the other.

Forget it. There is no response I can make that doesn't violate this board's terms. Including this one, probably.

I would strongly urge everyone to always try to read everyone's posts in the best possible light. And to consider that there are many ways to express the same concepts and that everyone has a personal understanding of the material in discussion. Please, let us all be nice to each other, and try in our posts to be extra generous in reflecting upon the other person's point of view.

Especially when it comes to numerical statistics, the numbers will remain the same, no matter each player's understanding (different though it may be) of the reasons behind it.

Stormcrow wrote:Forget it. There is no response I can make that doesn't violate this board's terms. Including this one, probably.

I'm legitimately sorry if that last post came off as hostile, that wasn't my intent. It was (and is) my impression that the primary problem was you misunderstanding what I was trying to say (something that might easily be as much my fault as yours), and the above was an attempt to clarify what I'd meant.

If it came out harsher than that, once again I really am sorry. Tone is difficult to convey on the internet and I was feeling a tad attacked (in the 'putting words in my mouth' sense, and quite possibly unintentionally on your part) and thus, while not intentionally hostile, was more vehement than I might otherwise have been.

What a very strange thread this turned into.