Who's on first? (Forked Thread: [WotC_Logan] Why is Tiamat Huge?)

[Serendipity]

Deleted due to false premise. Nothing to see here, move along.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'll repeat what I said in the various thread, too:

This isn't a practical question, it's a design philosophy question. Should game design for D&D focus on what is economical for minis to do? I'd say no, but I'm horribly biased because I have an innate urge to vomit whenever I have to push little pieces of plastic around.

It also really does suck that the most powerful dragon in the game isn't also the largest dragon in the game....I mean come the heck on!

I'd prefer a Shadow of the Colossus version of Tiamat (or ANY or ALL of the gods!) than a plastic toy version of Tiamat.

Yes, it is a very philosophical thing...

In 3E, size category mattered due to modifiers to attacks and AC.

In 4E? Mechanically, it's only interesting if you're counting squares, e.g. using the grid.

So "Gargantuan" or "Huge" can just be used as a common language term if you don't use minis. Outside of D&D, would anyone assume that Gargantuan is larger then Huge? Or vice versa? Or would they just assume that its standing for something really big? If you hate minis, don't use the terms like they are used in Minis. Huge tells you its big. If you like it bigger then something else, then make it so.

I think if the goal of 4E is indeed to promote miniature play and make them a useful tool, they should avoid giving monsters that are harder (more expensive and more cumbersone) to use in play. If miniatures are irrelevant, size categories are not really meaningful.

 

[ferratus]

This is largely an inherited problem from 3e. The huge colossal red dragon was ludicrously big, didn't work for minis play, and didn't have any rules for using the colossal creature as terrain.

So why don't we fix it? Keep creatures we want to fight as huge or smaller, where they will make money as minis and are a believable size, and make monsters where they are an adventure unto themselves (instead of a monster) gargantuan and colossal. Sort of like the Kadathach in Dungeon Magazine.

 

[justanobody]

I think if the goal of 4E is indeed to promote miniature play and make them a useful tool, they should avoid giving monsters that are harder (more expensive and more cumbersone) to use in play. If miniatures are irrelevant, size categories are not really meaningful.

Problem...who even has or can get one of the limited number of out of production, for over a year, Tiamat DDM minis?

Size isn't the only problem with relating the game rules based on minis, but when there is no mini available to even use for people newly buying the product giving the rules, then why bother with a mini that no one can even get to use that is that size?

 

[Imp]

Well ok. As I see it:

- the whole thing is an edge case

- it's easy to houserule Tiamat as a size larger. If you're using minis, just increase the size of the base, right?

- where the problem is: it's also easy to overlook & forget why Tiamat may be smaller than some of the other dragons that the party may have encountered over the course of the campaign – unless you knew that Tiamat was smaller because the mini was smaller, you could wind up on a wild goose chase for explanations, which is annoying. Basically, it's a sneaky anomaly.

- fighting a great big monster is a scenario where minis get less useful. You are either where it can strike you, or you're not. (It also ignores the concept of adventurers being underfoot or climbing on it, which seems like it would happen more often than not.)

- broadly, I support the idea of making giant-monster-fighting a different sort of abstract challenge, as KM has proposed – and by the way, Kamikaze Midget, was it you who outlined that sort of approach to fighting a sea serpent a while back, before 4e came around? Because I remember that looked really, really excellent.

It does seem kind of difficult to come up with rules for that sort of fight, though – you'd want a lot of variation, but within guidelines. Lots of conceptual work.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Kamikaze Midget, was it you who outlined that sort of approach to fighting a sea serpent a while back, before 4e came around? Because I remember that looked really, really excellent.

Si. That's how I know the idea is somewhere in one of the designers' minds, really: one of the designers came into that thread and was all "yes, that is a good way to do it!"

It does seem kind of difficult to come up with rules for that sort of fight, though – you'd want a lot of variation, but within guidelines. Lots of conceptual work.

A very rough draft would treat it like a Skill Challenge. Overcoming the Skill Challenge allows you to access her Weak Point(s). Failure means you've been damaged and she destroys more of the countryside. As you achieve more successes, the consequences for failure get greater and greater (this is epic, after all -- you can kill someone, it's okay!). Once you access her Weak Point, you can roll attacks and deal damage for a round or two before having to hit the next Skill Challenge.

So, for Tiamat, you'd have probably 5 skill challenges, one per head. Each one might even be something of a theme (hitting the white head requires agility and power, while nailing the red head requires more subtlety and strategy!).

The Skill Challenge system isn't ideal for this, and kind of needs some work in general, but the principle is there.

 

[Mark]

That's a shame, because they were good show pieces as well as miniatures.

What do you mean by "good show pieces?"

 

[Thasmodious]

It also really does suck that the most powerful dragon in the game isn't also the largest dragon in the game....I mean come the heck on!

Really? Size = power?

Hmm, I think someone might be compensating for something...

Oh, it isn't a problem. It is an excuse for people to take a small complaint from a game they don't even play and blow it up into a huge issue so they can complain for the next week about it.

Spot on.