Forked Thread: Can Illusionary Pit be used on a flying creature?

[RyvenCedrylle]

Agreed. In 4E, narrative description does not equal mechanics on a 1:1 basis. It's sort of the 'all chickens are birds but not all birds are chickens' idea. The narrative description of laying on the ground is part of the condition 'prone,' but the condition 'prone' in totality is a mechanical effect meaning 'takes a penalty to perform certain actions until a move action is sacrificed.' Thus an ooze is 'prone' when it needs to piece itself back together. A flying creature is 'prone' when it hits the ground hard or is rapidly losing altitude. A character caught in glue could be considered 'prone' as well, even while standing, if they can wipe it off with something. Illusionary Pit works fine on flying creatures in 4E.

In 3E and lower, though, you're SOL, buddy. Shoulda picked up Web.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Or the dragon sees the chasm and is less concerned with the chasm but more the sudden sensation that he's falling into it. He thought he was flying... now he's falling? Time to overcompensate, and thusly the dragon glides down and lands awkwardly onto the ground.

Nice, I really really like this........pity is I am never clever or quick enough to come up with these believable and interesting 'fluff' explanations for crunch! I am on the side of the fluff is exactly that but it is a pity WotC didn't give numptys like me a little more help for 'on the fly' re-fluffing!

 

[Aloïsius]

The advantage of illusory pit is to make creature prone.
The advantage of flying is to not fall prone in pit. And to stay away from land-based ennemies.

If it's unijust to deny the PC the use of their spell, it will be unjust to deny the (flying) PC the utility of his power. Things go both ways.

Something more : the game is about finding strategies, solutions, tricks. Now, we have two choices. Either the players and the DM are trying to think "in character" or they are playing an abstract strategy game.

To each his own, that's two different style of play. They are both perfectly valid, as long as everyone enjoy them.
Myself, I can't enjoy a game where flying creature fall prone in illusory pits or where people trip gelatinous cube, where "come get some" makes fleeing enemies go backward to be slaughtered, or where a rogue can fire 9 bolts in a round with a crossbow, at 9 different enemies.
Of course, we could take 15 minutes each time one of this situation occurs to find a plausible explanation. I'd rather say say "no, try something else, it's not appropriate" or rewrite the power pre-emptively. There are far enough perfectly working powers that don't cause me headaches so that I can house-rule or restrict what I want to house-rule or restrict. And, no, it's NOT unfair to the players, because the rules are the same for all, and because this is not an adversary game but a story based game, where both players and DM collaborate to have fun and tell cool stories. And while tripping ooze maybe fun in some kind of stories, it's not in many other.

 

[Arkhail]

I agree with everything being said about not restricting the effects of a power to the flavor text description…but…at the same saying that it's somehow not fair or somehow debilitating that a power wouldn't work on a flying creature is silly. Different powers are meant to work in different ways and there is nothing wrong with that.

As far as THIS particular power and THIS particular usage, the Psychic keyword is there and this does Psychic damage so it seems to be pretty cut and dry to me.

 

[Bagpuss]

While I think it should work without a problem on flying creatures.

I do however feel that a ranged knock prone, at-will needs to be looked at again due to the effect that status condition has on flying creatures. It's probably too powerful.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Conversely, I don't think the illusionary pit spell has any reminder text in its rules entry limiting it solely to affecting land-bound foes, save for the flavour text which suggests that it might not work on air-borne foes. In this case, it is more of a grey area, because fluff is not covered in the rules, and should not affect the manner in which a spell works.

In the very least, I don't think illusionary pit was designed/balanced on the assumption that it would be useless against flying foes.[emphasis mine]

Actually I believe your conclusion is built on a foundation of jello. I do not think any edition of the D&D rules thought through flying with any degree of care. 4e is no exception. In fact, the designers reducing access to flying effects might reasonably be interpreted as an attempt to avoid the topic altogether.

Do you believe the designers considered flying when designing every effect?

 

[jedrious]

While I think it should work without a problem on flying creatures.

I do however feel that a ranged knock prone, at-will needs to be looked at again due to the effect that status condition has on flying creatures. It's probably too powerful.

Where's the ranged at-will that knocks prone?

Phantom Chasm is a DAILY power

 

[Solodan]

I don't see the problem here. If the spell actually created a pit, then there would be an issue. The spell creates the sensation of falling in a bottomless pit - an illusion. Just because it has wings, doesn't mean that such a powerful sensation has no effect on the enemy.

I think its a wicked cool image, drenching up the childhood fears of a flying creature falling helplessly.

 

[DrSpunj]

Where's the ranged at-will that knocks prone?

Phantom Chasm is a DAILY power

This is a very important point! Everyone in this thread keeps referring to "Illusory Pit" or something like that and it's been months since I read the Dragon article where these powers appeared.

The At-Will power is Illusory Ambush which has a range of 10 and does psychic damage and imposes a -2 penalty to attacks until end of next turn.

Phantom Chasm is a daily power, an Area burst 1 with a range of 20 that does psychic damage and also immobilizes and knocks the target prone until the end of its next turn on a hit. On a miss it only immobilizes the target; it does not knock the target prone!

With that information, considering it's a Daily power and the only one a 4th level Wizard has available, I'd let it affect a flying creature, Dragon or otherwise. I'm not sure I or any of my players would be mentally quick enough to come up with any of the various re-flavorings offered here right away but this is a psychic assault that should have some reasonable effect on a flying creature with a hit. While the dragon might take some damage if hit with the power and floats down & then falls because of the prone condition it's not likely "out of the fight" entirely. If the Wizard is lucky enough to pull this off it will be a very memorable fight for the party which is exactly what I'd be working towards for my players with a Dragon encounter!

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Illusory Pit would be a fine spell if land based creatures was all that mattered, but as soon as flying creatures come into the mix one has to ask about the wisdom of a 1st level spell that takes out a flying creature whether it hits or misses...?

I agree that the 'effect' line in this 1st level daily is the problem when used against flying creatures. I am in favor of allowing powers to work in three dimensions, but I am not in favor of adding falling damage as a freebee to a 1st level power...which some might claim would be the natural result of an immobilized flying creature.

I also agree that the printed flavour text should be altered by the players in an inventive manner to narratively fit the powers action into the game....that is, IMHO, one of the reasons to play RPGs... and its a way to make sense of 'tripping' an ooze and other oddly fluff'ed rules.