D&D 4E 4e and reality

[eamon]

There are 20 swarms spread over several encounters in the first part of one my campaigns. It's insect/arachnid based initially and so, as many swarms are insects there are therefore a good chunk of swarms in that part of my game.

Wow, that isn't what I expected! A house-rule is campaign-dependant, and I don't think that just changing swarms would do it there. Of course, if swarm immunities were in core, so might be countermeasures; and I'm not suggesting there shouldn't be any of those!

"Swarms" not being a common creature type is irrelevant. I make the game and I decide what is in it. If I decide I want to run a delve into a crypt, it doesn't matter a damn if undead are "uncommon" in the game, because that's the predominant enemy. The theme of the adventure dictates the enemies: Not how common they are in the book.

Right, and in all campaigns I've ever played in or DM's swarms have never been a predominant creature type. You know, particularly if swarms are predominant, I'd expect the DM to want to expand the rules concerning them; add flavor, tactics, countermeasures, and more detailed combat mechanics. But, to each his own.

So if I adopted such positions as this thread, certain players would be absolutely useless in that game.

That's false; you're misrepresenting what I said, which explicitly mentioned that such rules were not intended as major balance changers and that in the unlikely event they would be in your campaign, you'd need to take other balancing actions.

This is the perfect example of missing the point entirely, PCs can be allowed to retrain options they find completely useless. You can't retrain a creature making your powers or core class features utterly useless. ESPECIALLY when it's the DM and not the default games assumptions that have made those useless.

Again, you're ignoring what I said, the relevant bit being here that you should not only be upfront about all such rules, but actively solicit discussion by the players. People won't pick options that conflict with such house-rules, or only pick them after consultation and the necessary adaptation to make them workable.

I.e., if you screw over a player, then you're not doing it right.

Or grabbing a phasing creature, or critically hitting an undead creature without vital organs and such forth. I mean, there are so many holes in the way 4E does that once we start this we're never going to end until we might as well pretend we're playing Final Fantasy. Where every creature is a ton of random immunities to anything interesting and the game becomes a contest of figuring out what debuffs actually work on it.

Grabbing a phasing creature: sure, that can go too, if you want to; however, it's not clear that phasing is that precise - who says the grabber's hands dont phase along with the creature? After all, phasing creatures aren't completely immaterial; perhaps a save would be a better idea; but in any case the effect is limited and as such it's a question of how much detail you want in your rules. I certainly don't see the problem with critically hitting an undead creature. Who says they don't have weak spots? As a matter of fact, isn't it zombie lore that they can take all kinds of hits and dismemberment, but cutting off their head is final? And indeed they're particularly vulnerable to crits in 4e, not immune.

I'm only trying to address obvious nonsense, not load up every monster immunities. For that matter, it doesn't necessarily have to be an immunity: if you're willing to reimagine a gelatinous cube as being a standing wave of sludge, say, then it really could be prone with all it's implications. I just want the fluff to not contradict the rules given the fact that there's limited fidelity. Fixing the fluff is fine with me, as long as you can and do (and that means do it consistently and predictably).

Once again, I invoke the slippery slope argument. As mentioned however, I'm into making things interesting and immunities are flat out boring to me. Now if the ooze expands its size and makes difficult terrain (or a damaging zone) when knocked prone (as it spreads out when out of shape) now we're actually making something that's interesting. Just saying "Your power doesn't work" = yawwwwwwn.

Sure, that's a fine solution. I'm interested in consistency, not per se in immunities.

Of course, if making an ooze prone very unattractive, it may as well be an immunity for all the tactical options that remain; worse even, since powers that prone and do other things get worse.

Having targeted, selective "immunities" or "unusual effects" if you will makes things more interesting, not less, precisely because you can't just reuse the same old shtik in each combat. That argument only works for characters that have other options, those that don't will need to find a workaround (and good class design helps here too: overly pigeonholed classes make workarounds hard to fit in).

 

[Hussar]

/snip

Compare it to disarming a trap - a challenge that cannot be overcome by many PC's - in a sense, a challenge that immune to all "attacks" by most PC's. Is this a problem? I'd argue that it's not a problem; PC's may have differing strengths and weaknesses, and such immunities only become a problem when they:

/snip

Unless you like prone gelatinous cubes to have an AC bonus versus ranged attacks. Or, being able to walk through one that's unconscious.

Disarming can be overcome by pretty much all PC's. Set the trap off. Trap is overcome. Virtually any PC can disarm a trap, it's just that only certain PC's can do it better.

Worrying about whether the rules work for exactly ONE creature (not a type, just one very specific monster) is where 3e went wrong IMO. Look at the opening of the 4e PHB. Simple rules, many exceptions. The G. Cube is just an outlier. It's not like the prone rules have that wonkiness often. If it really bothers you, by all means make the exception.

But, having an entire creature type, particularly a fairly common creature type, be immune to basic tactics is poor design.

Again, IMO.

 

[P1NBACK]

I agree, but it's boring to make it immune and doesn't add a single thing.

LoL. Swarms are immune to forced movement. You might wanna houserule them not being immune, since that might be "boring".

Voice in the Darkness is immune to: blinded, gaze, sleep. Oh no! My wizard can't put it to sleep! How BORING.

Tainted Ooze is immune to: gaze, pull/push/slid. Oh no! My fighter built around slides is USELESS!

Firebird is immune to: you guessed it - fire! Oh no! My tiefling is ruined!

Gnoll Scavenger is immune to: disease, poison. OH MY LORD! Now what will we do? Our poison powers DON'T WORK!

This game SUCKS! It's so BORING!

Nevermind those fictional circumstances that make immunity make sense. It's tooooooo borrrring.

Hey DMs, if you want to make swarms immune to grapple, just make a custom monster swarm with "grab" in the immune line. Problem solved. You're playing by the rules and it serves whatever fiction you want. If I want to design a swarm of super tiny insects that simply can't be grabbed, I can. It's not boring, it just means that's part of the creature, just like a gnoll scavenger is immune to poison because it eats poisonous all the time and has developed an immunity.

Good luck, DMs. Serve the fiction in the best way you can.

Edit: For those interested, search for "Immune" in the Compendium and you'll find more than 1200 "official" creatures with built in immunities from "knocked prone" to "poison" to "fire" to "fear" to "nonmagical fire" to "moon frenzy" to "illusion" to whatever... Immunities are still in 4E D&D and can serve an important function in the fiction and the game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@Pemberton, the issue of who is 'in charge' of what rules are used and how is really largely irrelevant. A DM might decide on his own how he's going to run things, the players might decide, they all might decide together, etc. It simply isn't germane to the question at hand. In any game ultimately the players vote with their feet if nothing else. DM Fiat is simply not relevant to this discussion. We could all sit here and employ highly elaborate phraseology and talk about the application of the rules via whatever process is in place at the table or just talk about it in terms of being in the DM's sphere, etc. Most groups follow the DM's lead to varying degrees, so it makes more sense to simply refer to the whole thing in that context. It is fine if it is understood to be more broad than that, but also remember that the DM is uniquely in the position to know what game elements are likely to be important and often wants to present them in specific ways. Players don't. This makes the type of rules questions we're talking about here more likely to be meaningfully relevant to the DM.

[MENTION=78116]Aegeri[/MENTION], sure you can devise an example of a situation where you don't find it advantageous to make a specific ruling in a specific way, but I'd also point out that in your particular situation ALL melee weapon users are going to be at a disadvantage. So are ranged single-target power users for that matter. Characters with a good dose of area and close powers OTOH are going to have a significant advantage. Odd that you don't find that to be a problem...

As P1NBACK and eamon have tried to allude to with varying degrees of success the game has always entailed an element of the unknown and of variability in effectiveness of specific tactics in given situations. This IS an aspect of the game that creates variety and adds interest. Sure, we can argue about what the very most effective general ways to do that are, whether it is resistances/vulnerabilities/immunities or other mechanics but any of these things can be used judiciously to both create variety and give a sense of interacting with a complex world that you explore and interact with instead of a formulaic and limited set of universal rules that always work the same way. Personally I find that the players I DM for DEMAND that kind of approach to the game. Maybe if I ran an LFR game I'd consider a different approach, but frankly rigid adherence to the rules for the sake of the hobgoblin of consistency just doesn't cut it in the circles I game in. YMMV.

The rules are a set of tools, one of several tools in the DM's box of tools. Going back to Pemberton's favorite blog post what I get out of it is that all of that is secondary to the structure of the story and the functioning of the game world within it's own set of parameters. Sure, you want to use a system that matches what you want to do since that will be the best tool, but it is only ONE tool amongst many. I'm all for players being active equal participants in deciding how the game works. Again I don't think that is the issue here. The question is about whether or not a degree of flexibility in applying the rules serves the game. I think it does.

Sure, you can make slippery slope arguments and player entitlement arguments etc all you want, but I think they're largely overblown. Players can adapt to unusual circumstances. The DM can decide in flexible ways how and when fluff can be adjusted to best work out any given situation and when making a few minor tweaks to the rules is the better approach. The rulespocalypse you guys allude to is simply IMHO a boogeyman. It hasn't shown hide nor hair of itself in decades of play IME. I go by the play of the game at the table and what I've found is that overall players are happier with a less rigid approach to the rules which have lower precedence than how the actual specific game is playing at the table. OK, someone can't grab a swarm. Really just isn't that big a deal, they can use some other tactics or rely on their allies to deal with that problem. If they see it as a persistent issue they can equip themselves to handle it in some fashion. If no existing way seems to exist within the rules to do that and they desire one then we'll come up with an option they can employ. I find that much more entertaining than the alternatives. Apparently so do the players I DM for. If anything they ask for it. Again YMMV and you can do whatever works for your group but I'm pretty sure your approach is not always the one I'd choose.

Overall it is an interesting discussion, but I sense that there's really not much more that can be said on either side that hasn't been already.

 

[Aegeri]

I'm only trying to address obvious nonsense, not load up every monster immunities.

You see, the greatest flaw in your logic and what cripples your entire argument chronically is what is "obvious nonsense" to you isn't to someone else. Many DMs think critically hitting an undead creature is "Obvious nonsense" (such as a wraith). Their logic is just as good as yours is. That's the problem, when you start making groups of creatures randomly immune to things based on how they offend your sensibilities you are no longer logically balancing the game. Just throwing random immunities on things you feel like. That's not good game design IMO.

Especially because as mentioned, swarms are already immune to forced movement and take 1/2 damage from melee/ranged attacks. Why do you feel they need further immunities on top of their already significantly strong condition resistance? Do you just feel some PCs should be even more useless than they already are while doing half damage?

Personally I don't think so. Then again I don't decide to just stick immunities onto things at my whim, because everyone else has different ideas about what should/shouldn't be immune to what.

On feat taxes

t's a feat tax if you're required to take it; this isn't.

This isn't opinion, this is pretty demonstrable fact from just how prevalent poison immunity in the game is. If you want to use poison, you MUST take the feat or have poison spells be useless in a wide array of situations. Many creatures are immune to poison, outside one of the most significant groups of monsters like undead there are numerous other creatures poison immune. Poison immunity is far more debilitating than even fire immunity, because as I mentioned it also negates all your non-damaging conditions (not just the damage). That makes it huge.

In short, you must take the relevant anti-poison immunity feats or find yourself useless if you want to actually use a lot of poison keyword damage and powers. You'll deal no damage OR inflict effects. It's a feat tax, pure and simple.

LoL. Swarms are immune to forced movement. You might wanna houserule them not being immune, since that might be "boring".

They are vulnerable to bursts and blasts though, plus don't have special protection against many effects. This compensates a strong immunity and resistance. You seem to have missed where I said I don't mind immunities if there is something that makes them interesting. Swarms are interesting, because mechanically they interact with the rules very differently - they can occupy enemy spaces for example.

My argument is that adding another immunity to an important aspect of how some characters operate is just bringing swarms over from "interesting" to "Boring". On your other points, you can find a lot of examples of various immunities while entirely missing the point I made.

That point is there aren't groups of monsters generally immune to anything, those that are like swarms compensate with something else. Undead are a good example, they tend to be resistant to necrotic but are vulnerable to radiant. Therefore they have an advantage offset by a disadvantage, their disadvantage being pretty common in most parties with a divine character as well. On the other hand, immunity to a straight condition that is very common (sleep isn't a common condition btw) like grab or prone would be boring - there is nothing the PCs can do to get around it. On the other hand, few creatures are actually immune to these conditions like Torog for example is immune to prone, but honestly do you think the crawling god should worry about that?

This is okay, because Torog is an exception - a precious snowflake amongst monsters and therefore his immunity makes him stand out. Personally I think there are far better ways of doing it, of which not a single counter argument has been offered against any of them I note. Same with the stun immune Daemon guardian, it's a precious snowflake among a rare assortment of monsters. I don't inherently have a problem with these things, but I just prefer different ways of enforcing disadvantages or immunities.

Snowflake immunities like the tembo being immune to forced movement are okay.

Making an ENTIRE CREATURE GROUP immune based on your personal whims is just boring.

That's just IMO.

Gnoll Scavenger is immune to: disease, poison. OH MY LORD! Now what will we do? Our poison powers DON'T WORK!

I'd like to point out this is a good example of how "doing it wrong" goes. Note how many monsters are poison immune. y=You'll soon see why I noted to eamon using poison basically requires a feat tax, or be useless against a wide array of monsters. Poison immunity is very prevalent, even outside undead and that was my core point.

If I want to design a swarm of super tiny insects that simply can't be grabbed, I can. It's not boring

It's boring, because I could make a power that makes it an interesting and relevant tactical choice. If you grab them, the creatures swarm over you and deal heavier aura damage, or inflict ongoing damage, or even slow/immobilize whoever grabbed them. On the other hand saying "That just doesn't work" isn't anywhere near as interesting - but again it depends on the amount it is used. Making the odd swarm immune to grab would be interesting, because it presents a different tactical choice. Every swarm being immune to grab is boring. That's the difference to me.

sure you can devise an example of a situation where you don't find it advantageous to make a specific ruling in a specific way, but I'd also point out that in your particular situation ALL melee weapon users are going to be at a disadvantage. So are ranged single-target power users for that matter. Characters with a good dose of area and close powers OTOH are going to have a significant advantage. Odd that you don't find that to be a problem...

Nope, because the party has both burst and area powers. As they do, they gain interesting tactical choices when facing swarms, needing to hold them back while the area and burst attacks whittle the swarms down. At the same time, while I put the melee and single target characters at a disadvantage in many encounters, I don't penalize them even further than they already are because swarms offend me in some other way. I don't - for example - make them immune to critical hits with ranged and melee attacks as well (which is just as plausible as being grabbed incidentally).

Swarms have advantages and a disadvantage, the party has a wide array of skills so can take advantage of the disadvantages, while the melee guys can contribute. I don't stop the melee guys status effects and abilities from working. I don't punish more than the base rules already do. You are welcome to feel like punishing melee characters even more by denying them effects on a swarm, for example how do you know a swarm of insects "prone" anyway? By the time you're done I'm certain the melee characters might not even bother rolling dice on their turn, just say "I take total defense" and just not bother contributing to the game.

Because that's what you're basically doing to those players. On the other hand, when they get a legitimate choice - not just simply saying "Your effects don't work", that makes the game better and keeps players who are at a disadvantage still invested in the game.

It's for that reason I've been heavily minimizing daze and stun effects against PCs as well.

 

[pemerton]

the issue of who is 'in charge' of what rules are used and how is really largely irrelevant.

<snip>

the DM is uniquely in the position to know what game elements are likely to be important and often wants to present them in specific ways. Players don't.

<snip>

The rules are a set of tools, one of several tools in the DM's box of tools.

<snip>

I'm all for players being active equal participants in deciding how the game works. Again I don't think that is the issue here. The question is about whether or not a degree of flexibility in applying the rules serves the game.

<snip>

The DM can decide in flexible ways how and when fluff can be adjusted to best work out any given situation and when making a few minor tweaks to the rules is the better approach.

I think the pargraphs I've excerpted show it actually matters quite a bit who is "in charge". Are the players equally active? Or is the GM who gets to decide?

My practical experience - and I don't think it's particularly atypical - is that rules like "Rule Zero" or WW's "Golden Rule" are in practice reserved to the GM. That is, the GM gets to decide when and how to suspend or vary the action resolution rules from situation to situation, and the players are expected to go along with it. The players, typically, are not conferred a corresponding privilege.

No doubt many groups of players are happy with a game where the GM is the principal arbiter of action resolution - after all, you see a lot of affirming references to Rule Zero on these boards - but I personally don't like it at all. I also wonder about the GM being "uniquely in the position to know what game elements are likely to be important" - it is certainly possible to play a game in which the players, through their character build choices, through the backstory they build into their PCs, and through the relationships they develop over the course of play, determine to a significant extent what game elements are important.

If I as a GM get not only to build and play the adversaries, but also get to determine at a fundamental level what game elements they will consist in, and also get to determine, from moment to moment, what resources and capacity the players have, via their PCs, to deal with those adversaries, then what exactly is the role of the players?

Sure, you can make slippery slope arguments and player entitlement arguments etc all you want, but I think they're largely overblown.

Maybe, although I've had experiences which bear out the concerns that Aegeri and I are expressing. And, as Aegeri said, "There are lots of ways to do something for an hour (the rough time of one encounter in 4E) and not enjoy yourself - DnD shouldn't be one of them."

I therefore prefer not to start down the slope at all.

 

[pemerton]

I was reading the 3E DMG the other day and looking at skill checks.

<snip>

I didn't get that far, but I didn't see a point where it told DMs to ignore the rules.

I think the 3E DMG says something in the introductory chapter about the GM having the power to suspend the rules in the interests of fun. And the 3E PHB mentions "rule zero" as the GM's ultimate authority over PC build. (I frequently see "rule zero" used more genrally, though, to describe the GM's discretion over the rules.)

If I get a chance when I get home, and remember, I'll look up my copies.

Rule zero is on p 4 of the 3E PHB. It alerts players to the fact that their GM may have house rules or campaign standards that govern character creation, and which take priority over the rules in the PHB.

As for the 3E DMG:

Page 6: The secret is that you're in charge. . . you get to decide how your player group is going to play this game, when and where the adventures take place, and what happens. You get to decide how the rules work, which rules to use, and how strictly to adhere to them.

Page 9: When everyone gathers around the table to play the game, you're in charge. . . you're the final arbiter of the rules within the game. Good players will always reconize that you have the ultimate authority over the game mechanics, even superseding something in a rulebook.

Page 18: The DM really can't cheat. You're the umpire, and what you say goes. . . A good rule of thumb is that a character shouldn't die in a trivial way because of some fluke of the dice unless he or she was doing something really stupid at the time. . . Even if you decide that sometimes it's okay to fudge a little to let the characters survive so the game can continue, don't let the players in on this decision.​

These are all in Chapter 1 - Dungeon Mastering. I don't know for sure whether or not there is simlar stuff in later chapters, but I don't recall any.

To me, at least, this suggests an approach to the game mechanics that is different from that advocated by Vincent Baker, Ron Edwards, Luke Crane et al, and closer to White Wolf or 2nd ed AD&D. For the reasons given in my latest post replying to AbdulAlhazred, I'm personally not a big fan.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I was in a D&D Encounters game last night, and I was playing Yuka, the pre-gen Mul Brawling Fighter. I used Serpent's Coils on a Dust Devil. The Dust Devil isn't a swarm, but it is an elemental that's nothing more than a vortex of wind and sand. The DM couldn't find anything about it being immune to being grabbed, so, like the power says, I grabbed it.

No one ran screaming from the table, their suspension of disbelief and faith in D&D forever shattered.

I think the expectation of realism is overblown and largely theoretical. Most players can handle that a game like D&D is not going to be that terribly 'realistic.'

For me, personally, I've played in more realistic games, and they're not that much fun. If I want realism, it's waiting outside my door, 24/7.

 

[LostSoul]

As for the 3E DMG:

Page 18: The DM really can't cheat.​

Oh yeah, that. I had a laugh at that! I don't know why I forgot about that quote.

One interesting thing I'm experiencing playing my 4E hack is that I'm finding it easier to DM, even though I put in all these places for judgement calls based on the fiction. For example - Silverleaf can use Evasive Strike whenever his foe is "distracted". I have to decide if the foe is distracted or not, enabling him to jump back and fire a couple of arrows.

Reading your posts it's making me think - if there are no strict rules on when to apply the mechanics, not only do you have to know the rules, but when to apply them! It's a lot of pressure. It suggests to me that you need to know why the rules work the way they do, how one rule affects the rest of the game and influences the choices the players make, in order to make a decision. That's something that not a lot of games go into detail about ('Time is what makes recovery of hit points meaningful').

My hack has some principles that make it easy, and I don't have to worry about if I should apply the action resolution rules or not. The rules say when you use them, and I have been following that, and it's making DMing much more comfortable. There are some other rules that I'm discovering, such as "If you don't know how long an action takes, make it take one "wandering monster" cycle."

 

[P1NBACK]

Just throwing random immunities on things you feel like. That's not good game design IMO.

Are you saying the designers put immunity to disease/poison on undead "randomly"? You're saying, that's not good game design?

I think you're wrong. I think the designers said, "Well, undead probably shouldn't get diseased because it doesn't make much sense. Ok. They're immune to disease. Note that."

...

That's bad game design?

Likewise, if a DM decided that tiny swarms of creatures (or massive swarms of large creatures) can't be grabbed, then that's him saying, "Well, you know this swarm of HUMANS (you know, like a gargantuan Angry Mob) ... It doesn't make much sense for them to be yah know, grabbed by one human. So, let's put immune to grab on there..."

That's not bad game design. That's GOOD game design.

Especially because as mentioned, swarms are already immune to forced movement and take 1/2 damage from melee/ranged attacks.

And, I'd be just as happy saying "You can force this swarm of rats to move using that special tactic (like the example earlier of a character taking a large board and pushing a swarm of rats back...)."

It's called ... Common Sense.

Why do you feel they need further immunities on top of their already significantly strong condition resistance? Do you just feel some PCs should be even more useless than they already are while doing half damage?

Personally, I think half damage from melee and ranged attacks is BAD design. I'd rather someone be able to do full damage rather than grab a swarm. But, that's just me.

This seems like a case where the designers were trying to make the controller more useful against swarms (a metagame design plan) instead of just going with the fictional aspects of swarms.

In fact, I'm tempted to just house rule swarms to take full damage from melee and ranged, be vulnerable to area attacks, and in some cases, immune to grab.

DMs are allowed (and encouraged) to make custom monsters. It depends on THAT monster what it's abilities are. If I decide a particular swarm can't be grabbed, then so be it. I write "Immune: grab" on the sheet and we're done.

Personally I don't think so. Then again I don't decide to just stick immunities onto things at my whim, because everyone else has different ideas about what should/shouldn't be immune to what.

We're not sticking immunities "at our whim". We're saying, "Hmmm, that'd be kind of dumb if a zombie could get a disease, or a rat could get filth fever... Let's make those immune to those conditions."

Guess what, that's what the designers did.

This isn't opinion, this is pretty demonstrable fact from just how prevalent poison immunity in the game is. If you want to use poison, you MUST take the feat or have poison spells be useless in a wide array of situations.

Let's hope your build isn't a one-trick pony, and if it is, let's hope the DM considers this when planning the campaign. Or, better yet, collaborate and say, "DM, I want to play a poison-focused guy." "Player, sure, if we're going to do that, I don't want a ton of undead." "Hey! what about my cleric? That means my radiant powers are slightly weakened." "Alright, well, I'll pick up that feat that let's my poison work on undead (holy poison or something) and we can have some undead." "Sure, you can get that around level 4, so I'll start introducing the undead sub-plot around then." "Great!" "Great!" "Great!"

Many creatures are immune to poison, outside one of the most significant groups of monsters like undead there are numerous other creatures poison immune. Poison immunity is far more debilitating than even fire immunity, because as I mentioned it also negates all your non-damaging conditions (not just the damage). That makes it huge.

And, strangely, the 4E designers use it liberally. Hmmm....

In short, you must take the relevant anti-poison immunity feats or find yourself useless if you want to actually use a lot of poison keyword damage and powers. You'll deal no damage OR inflict effects. It's a feat tax, pure and simple.

This is not a feat tax. Lol... Feat taxes are feats that you need for the inherent math in the game to work. Having your poison attacks work on poison immunity creatures is not a feat tax. That's a laughable scenario. That's like saying, "This monster has a speed of 7! That means I have to take that feat that gives me a +1 to my speed to be as fast! FEAT TAX!"

Gimme a break, man.

They are vulnerable to bursts and blasts though, plus don't have special protection against many effects. This compensates a strong immunity and resistance. You seem to have missed where I said I don't mind immunities if there is something that makes them interesting. Swarms are interesting, because mechanically they interact with the rules very differently - they can occupy enemy spaces for example.

And, that has nothing to do with immunity to grab. If the designers of 4E had put "Swarms are immune to grab attacks..." in the rules, you'd be trying to defend how THAT was balanced. Gimme a break. What is interesting to YOU should not be design parameters. That's lousy design.

Immunities are interesting if they make sense. Plain and simple. An undead creature being immune to disease makes sense.

My argument is that adding another immunity to an important aspect of how some characters operate is just bringing swarms over from "interesting" to "Boring". On your other points, you can find a lot of examples of various immunities while entirely missing the point I made.

Yeah... That's you imposing your opinion of "interesting" on everyone else. That's not really much of an argument.

If I say, "Swarms being resistant to melee attacks is boring!"

Well, that's my opinion and doesn't have much to do with anything. You find that perfectly acceptable, and I'd rather have swarms take full damage from melee attacks and not be able to be grabbed (actually, I don't care if they are grabbed if it makes sense fictionally... same as I don't care if a swarm of rats are "pushed" if it makes sense fictionally).

By your logic, it's perfectly acceptable for a character to "grab" a swarm if it makes NO sense, yet it's completely unacceptable for a swarm to be pushed (because... they have an interesting vulnerability that makes up for it!)... That means you're fine with shoe-horning players into tackling your encounter in the ONE prescribed manner (area attacks).

Nah... I'll let them do what they want if it makes sense in the fiction (like taking up a board and pushing back a swarm [DMG page 42 FTW!]) and not let me do stuff that doesn't make sense (like a single man grabbing a gargantuan mob of humans with his bare hands).

That point is there aren't groups of monsters generally immune to anything, those that are like swarms compensate with something else. Undead are a good example, they tend to be resistant to necrotic but are vulnerable to radiant. Therefore they have an advantage offset by a disadvantage, their disadvantage being pretty common in most parties with a divine character as well. On the other hand, immunity to a straight condition that is very common (sleep isn't a common condition btw) like grab or prone would be boring - there is nothing the PCs can do to get around it.

That's funny because there's nothing to offset the undead's immunity to disease/poison. I guess that's "bad design" as you suggest.

Also, there are creatures immune to being knocked prone. Whirling Blades Automaton is one of them. Why? Because it makes sense.

On the other hand, few creatures are actually immune to these conditions like Torog for example is immune to prone, but honestly do you think the crawling god should worry about that?

This is okay, because Torog is an exception - a precious snowflake amongst monsters and therefore his immunity makes him stand out.[/Quote]

There you go... Now, you're getting the picture. Good work.

Personally I think there are far better ways of doing it, of which not a single counter argument has been offered against any of them I note. Same with the stun immune Daemon guardian, it's a precious snowflake among a rare assortment of monsters. I don't inherently have a problem with these things, but I just prefer different ways of enforcing disadvantages or immunities.

All of my monsters are precious snowflakes. I'm sorry yours aren't. And, by precious snowflakes, I think you mean "interesting". Right?

Hmmm. Immunity = interesting? Wait a second...!

Snowflake immunities like the tembo being immune to forced movement are okay.

I get it. You're starting to see the list of immunities that are in 4E and you're like, "Wtf? All this I've been saying kind of doesn't make sense when you look at it like that..."

Making an ENTIRE CREATURE GROUP immune based on your personal whims is just boring.

That's just IMO.

Like swarms being immune to forced movement? Yeah. Gotcha.

No one, not one single person, is suggesting giving creatures immunities based on "personal whims". Everyone is suggesting such rules based on common sense and fictional circumstances - the same reason WotC gave undead immunity to disease. It's common sense, and makes sense in the fiction.

Maybe the undead in your world are actually "partially living" still. FINE. Take away their immunity to disease and poison. THAT'S OK!

I'd like to point out this is a good example of how "doing it wrong" goes. Note how many monsters are poison immune. y=You'll soon see why I noted to eamon using poison basically requires a feat tax, or be useless against a wide array of monsters. Poison immunity is very prevalent, even outside undead and that was my core point.

No, that was my core point. There's already a precedent for immunities in the game. If a DM deems it appropriate for a particular creature to be immune to a particular source of damage/effects, then so be it. If that is what works for her campaign/adventure/world, then so be it.

It's boring, because I could make a power that makes it an interesting and relevant tactical choice.

Yeah. Like swarms being immune to forced movement. So much for that choice...

What it does actually, is give players the option to come up with creative ways to tackle (pun intended) something outside of their normal "power allotment".

Damn! We can't push this swarm into the furnace nearby with our powers! How could we do it? Or, maybe we should figure out another way to beat them besides pushing them! Let's lure them away from the furnace (so we don't get pushed in), and take them down in the hall, where our wizard can get up high on the stairs and blast them with AoE attacks.

If you grab them, the creatures swarm over you and deal heavier aura damage, or inflict ongoing damage, or even slow/immobilize whoever grabbed them.

Huh? Swarms can move over you without you grabbing them.

On the other hand saying "That just doesn't work" isn't anywhere near as interesting - but again it depends on the amount it is used. Making the odd swarm immune to grab would be interesting, because it presents a different tactical choice. Every swarm being immune to grab is boring. That's the difference to me.

And, I'm sure every swarm being immune to forced movement is "boring" as well? Sure. That's fine. CHANGE them.

Maybe every swarm being grabbed is "boring" to me. Fine. Change it!

Nope, because the party has both burst and area powers

Not all parties. The last swarm I ran against a party didn't have any lick of area attacks. Guess what? The fight dragged on because of the stupid melee resistance. *shrug* I'll change that next time.

As they do, they gain interesting tactical choices when facing swarms, needing to hold them back while the area and burst attacks whittle the swarms down.

Except if they don't have area attacks... Damnit! Now all those PC builds are USELESS! ... Not really.

At the same time, while I put the melee and single target characters at a disadvantage in many encounters, I don't penalize them even further than they already are because swarms offend me in some other way. I don't - for example - make them immune to critical hits with ranged and melee attacks as well (which is just as plausible as being grabbed incidentally).

Why wouldn't a swarm be susceptible to critical hits? That doesn't make any sense.

Swarms have advantages and a disadvantage, the party has a wide array of skills so can take advantage of the disadvantages, while the melee guys can contribute.

Nah. The melee guys who don't focus on grab in that situation get shafted. better change the whole game.

I don't stop the melee guys status effects and abilities from working. I don't punish more than the base rules already do.

Neither does making them immune to grab. Slowed, immobilized, etc.. would still work.

You are welcome to feel like punishing melee characters even more by denying them effects on a swarm, for example how do you know a swarm of insects "prone" anyway? By the time you're done I'm certain the melee characters might not even bother rolling dice on their turn, just say "I take total defense" and just not bother contributing to the game.

It depends on the swarm and the fiction. That's what we've been trying to tell you.

Because that's what you're basically doing to those players. On the other hand, when they get a legitimate choice - not just simply saying "Your effects don't work", that makes the game better and keeps players who are at a disadvantage still invested in the game.

You're using hyperbole as your argument. Awesome.

No. No one ever suggested saying, "Your effects don't work". What was suggested was using common sense and fictional cues to determine whether an effect should work or not (the same as WotC decided disease shouldn't "work" on undead).

Just like the rat swarm example. I don't give a rat's ass (pun intended) if they are "immune" to forced movement. If the player gives me a common sense approach to pushing the rats, I'm going to pull up page 42 of my DMG and let them try it.

It's for that reason I've been heavily minimizing daze and stun effects against PCs as well.

Good. Way to houserule. I salute you.