D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023

[overgeeked]

Once, I had an "ooze-themed" dungeon and there was a rare Golden Slime that the party might find on the random encounter table. It healed you of damage...at the cost of giving your armor the Broken condition. Our artificer tried to capture one as a pet.

I'm a fan of Dragon Quest so occasionally drop slimes from that franchise in. The group was thoroughly confused by the Metal King Slime. Come to think of it, it should have been a Swedish bard.

 

[roger semerad]

I'm a fan of Dragon Quest so occasionally drop slimes from that franchise in. The group was thoroughly confused by the Metal King Slime. Come to think of it, it should have been a Swedish bard.

That's a great thing to slip in for people who don't know what it is. Just make sure none of your players are DQ fans. Because if they are everyone will try playing a high initiative, crit-fisher build and start creating... problems.

 

[CleverNickName]

First, I fully regret being the person that mentioned the gelatinous cube and tripping example. No good deed goes unpunished.

Second, while all of the jello and snail examples are fun, I do think people are mistaking the ease of turning over a piece of jello with a 10' cube. Not only in terms of size, but in terms of weight. If the gelatinous cube is as light as water, then it weighs over 62,000 pounds.

If it was the same as Jell-o, however, it would weigh a little over 39,000 pounds. And have a 10'x10' base. Just ... pointing that out.

Yep. The problem isn't that it's cube-shaped, or that it's flexible. The problem is it weighs almost thirty tons. You'd need heavy machinery to overturn that. Conan is pretty strong, but unless he's driving a bulldozer, that cube ain't going anywhere it doesn't already want to go.

 

[darjr]

I'm a fan of Dragon Quest so occasionally drop slimes from that franchise in. The group was thoroughly confused by the Metal King Slime. Come to think of it, it should have been a Swedish bard.

Wait? What is that?!

 

[Zeromaru X]

Not only in terms of size, but in terms of weight. If the gelatinous cube is as light as water, then it weighs over 62,000 pounds.

Bad example. D&D characters are considered to be strongest/more dexterous/etc. than the average commoner. An 18 in str basically means the fighter is almost superhuman, Comic book wise super human.

And this is specially true in 4e, were it is stated in the flavor that adventurers are special individuals cut above the common people.

Again, this happens in fantasyland, not in "Not-Medieval-Europe".

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Bad example. D&D characters are considered to be strongest/more dexterous/etc. than the average commoner. An 18 in str basically means the fighter is almost superhuman, Comic book wise super human.

Again, this happens in fantasyland, not in "Not-Medieval-Europe".

.... um, okay. But even Superman isn't trying to trip a 10x10x10 cube that weighs 62,000 pounds.

Seriously, I think that the greatest loss in institutional knowledge was the disappearance of the waterbed, because people seem to lack a knowledge of what "heavy" means.

 

[Zeromaru X]

But even Superman isn't trying to trip a 10x10x10 cube that weighs 62,000 pounds.

Nope. He just rewinds time by flying contrary to the Earth's rotation... Again, fantasyland.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Nope. He just rewinds time by flying contrary to the Earth's rotation... Again, fantasyland.

Sure. Because when you read comics, it is in keeping with the fiction that he can rewind time; whereas it would seem weird and break the suspension of disbelief if he tried to trip an incredibly heavy object that had a completely stable base.

Just because something is "fantasyland," doesn't mean that there aren't expectations. Now, if you just want to say, "But the rule says I can do it, so I can," that's fine. But if you're going to say, "But it's fantasyland, so anything goes," then that's not going to work for a large number of people.

 

[CleverNickName]

.... um, okay. But even Superman isn't trying to trip a 10x10x10 cube that weighs 62,000 pounds.

Seriously, I think that the greatest loss in institutional knowledge was the disappearance of the waterbed, because people seem to lack a knowledge of what "heavy" means.

SO TRUE. People forget just how heavy water is. It's so much heavier than most people think it should be. Like, the perception is that if a 10' wave of water crashed into you, you would just have to hold your breath and swim for 10 feet. But no. What actually would happen is a half-ton of force would crash into your chest and crush your lungs, shatter your ribs, dislocate your shoulders, and knock you unconscious.

 

[Kannik]

More rules don't, in fact, reduce arguments. More rules usually lead to more arguments. This is true in games, and, in fact, in most aspects of life (think of the prolixity of a legal code, or arguments about accounting).

Heh, this is one thing I noticed during our first 4e test sessions vs our long-running 3e games (where many more things were specifically called out or ruled). One of the opposing fighters wrapped their weapon around one of the characters and pulled to slam them into their spiked armour for additional damage. And rather than an immediate objection of the "wait, is that a grapple, shouldn't I get a save, what are the rules for this..." variety, the reaction instead was "oh damn, that's mean... but cool!"