D&D 4E 4e and reality

[jbear]

@OP: I think I know what you are talking about, but I'm not sure the two examples given are the most explicit.

As Kobold Boots points out, the rule about passing between enemies diagonally is to be applied or not at the DMs discretion. If your going to try and squeeze past my two skilled guards with massive tower shields I might apply the rule. However whatever the case it seems like a good moment for the DM. Player wants to pull of a move squeezing between two foes. The rules say that you can only do that at the DMs discretion. Dm decides the player has to describe how he gets past their defenses, adding some narrative goodness to the game, and if he's convinced the player rolls an easy, medium or difficult Acrobacy check depending on the level of conviction/difficulty of the foes in question due to size or relevant natural features. Give a bonus +2 if the description is really good.
All pretty standard practice for me, and I don't really consider any of it house ruling.

The same goes for the prone enemy. WHy not jump his square? It's totally plausible. You can totally do it within the framework of the rules. Go through the above steps and voila, move on with the game. A poor roll might mean that he jumped too low and the opponent got a swing at his legs with the standard -2 to the attack for being prone. Again, this situation seems pretty simple to resolve within the framework of the rules. I wouldn't consider any of that house ruling, or even near.

Personally, as a DM, I want to know what it is the PC wants to do. Then I project that onto the framework of the rules. Using the guiding principal fundamental to 4e of 'Say Yes', I apply that to situations where things aren't quite explicit in the rules but are plausible within the game and find a way for the PCs to be able to achieve what they want to do. I don't need to make a 'house rule' every thime this happens, all I need to do is use my knowledge of how to resolve situations within the framework of the rules, and make a 'ruling'.

That's how I see it at least. That's why i love 4e. I can 'see' how it works and can resolve any situation. I haven't picked up a book in over a year to make a ruling.

 

[Alex319]

I'm fine with something "creating an extradimensional prison", but "removed from play" is RIGHT OUT! Leave it back in Magic the Gathering, where I'm fine with acknowledging I'm playing a card game...

By the way, they don't call it "removed from play" in MTG anymore. It's called "exiled" now.

 

[RHGreen]

From WIKI

Verisimilitude, with the meaning ˝of being true or real˝ is a likeness or resemblance of the truth, reality or a fact's probability. It comes from Latin verum meaning truth and similis meaning similar

Verisimilitude has its roots in both the Platonic and Aristotelian dramatic theory of mimesis, the imitation or representation of nature. For a piece of art to hold significance or persuasion for an audience, according to Plato and Aristotle, it must have grounding in reality.

The idea that credibility, and in turn verisimilitude, rested on the reader's sense of the world encountered opposition because of the dilemma it created: every reader and every person does not have the same knowledge of the world.




Verisimiltude applies to the game reality and does not have be an exact copy of our own.

Fireballs work within the reality of game and so verisimiltude is maintained even though we cannot do it in ours. Making an ooze prone does not make sense even within the reality of the game. Basic actions and movement are grounded in our reality because these basic laws of physics are not being overidden by any special fictional logic.



I'd rule that you can't pass through. It should work exactly like the diagonal rules for walls and columns. The enemies are next to each other and don't want you to pass. Simple as that really.

 

[Solvarn]

Anyone else had issues with groups that decide to house rule on the fly because it's more realistic? My group recently threw out that you can't move between two oppenents when they are diagonally next to each other. And that you can move through an oppenents square if they are prone.

Maybe it bugs me more than it should since I'm playing a charging barbarian and the diagonal movement thing hampers my character. Or it could just be that on the fly rules changes drive me nuts.

You are right to be annoyed, that is a really stupid houserule. Each square is a five foot space, there isn't any reason why you shouldn't be able to pass through, it isn't a hard corner or anything. I would have you provoke an attack of opportunity from both creatures though.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Fireballs work within the reality of game and so verisimiltude is maintained even though we cannot do it in ours. Making an ooze prone does not make sense even within the reality of the game. Basic actions and movement are grounded in our reality because these basic laws of physics are not being overidden by any special fictional logic.

A warrior slams a humanoid enemy with his shield and knocks him flat on his back. He has to get up to fight effectively. The same warrior slams an ochre jelly with his sheild, the jelly goes 'splat' against the wall/floor, and must re-form it's psuedopods before it can attack effectively. A mage casts a spell that rhimes the room with ice, causing a humanoid enemy to slip, he takes a moment to get to his feat to fight effectively again. A gelatinous cube also caught in the area is temporarily frozen to the floor, the viscosity of it's unnatural protoplasm altered by the sudden change in temperature, it seems to hessitate for a moment as unaffected inner cytoplasm cycles to the affected areas, restoring 'normal' motility.

An ooze is a completely impossible critter in the 'basic laws of physics' it's very inclusion in the game has overriden them by some special fiction - the only 'logic' being that Arneson and Gygax saw 'The Blob.'

D&D is not Shadowrun or Dresden Files - it's not a normal, rational, world just like our own with magic layered over it. It's a fantasy world, based on myth, legend, litterature, film and fiction.

 

[RHGreen]

I quote "My bard made a Gelatineous Cube cry so hard it died."

Explain that one away.

ADD: You have given me food for thought in how condition states should be designed. I've found 'general', in an RPG, works far better than 'specific' in game logic and imaginational improv.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm really not that familiar with the 4e Bard, so I'm missing the specific power reference.

However, the idea of a mythic bard affecting an innanimate object is hardly outragous - they could probably make a statue cry. 'Bard,' itself, is celtic, and the bards of celtic myth and legend could blight an entire land with Satire, never mind a single monster. Orpheus was said to have played so sweetly that when enemies threw stones at him, the stones refused to strike him.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

You are right to be annoyed, that is a really stupid houserule. Each square is a five foot space, there isn't any reason why you shouldn't be able to pass through, it isn't a hard corner or anything. I would have you provoke an attack of opportunity from both creatures though.

You know, at first I thought it was stupid, too. But it makes sense.

If you have two enemies adjacent to each other vertically or horizontally, you cannot move between them, end of story, because there is no square to enter. Why would you suddenly be able to move between them because one of them moves to a position that is diagonal ON THE GRID? The enemies are still adjacent, so you should still not be able to go in between them.

For arguments' sake, lets say that there are 12 inches between adjacent combatants. According to 4e, whether you are diagonally related to your buddy, or horizontally/vertically related, you are adjacent. Thus, you are 12 inches apart in all positions. Why can you walk through one 12 inch gap, but not the other?

 

[Tony Vargas]

4e does have a couple of inconsistencies when it comes do diagonals. You can move past the edge of a square, for instance, no matter how 'square filling' the obstruction in it may be, but you cannot move past the corner of a square that's completely filled with blocking terrain. So, if you want a 'line' of medium creatures (or non-square filling obstructions like pillars) close enough together to stop movement past them, they would have to be arrayed like a wall effect - each sharing sides, not corners, with two others.

That's consistent with the rule about moving past corners, but it's inconsistent with the way diagonal distance is counted.

It's like the square circles, and artifact of trying to make the game 'simpler.'

Overruling it just introduces a different inconsistency.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Overruling it just introduces a different inconsistency.

QFE.

I have found this to be the case more often than not in most game systems with most "realism" house rules. Making something more "realistic" for one person at the table often has the effect of making it less "realistic" for at least one other.

Given this, I humbly suggest that in most cases simply getting on with the game is better than initiating a little kangaroo court session in place of playing the game.

But I might be biased. IME, the guy calling for changes to how fighting works is usually the guy whose closest exposure to actual fighting is complaining about how Peter Jackson screwed up Legolas. The guys at the table who have military, martial arts, or even SCA experience are actually far more relaxed. Possibly because they are more aware of exactly how ridiculously abstract even the best PnP combat rules are.