NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5323007" data-attributes="member: 22779">I have two problems with this though.First, is it required that a particular power works the same way every single time?  If the power knocks the opponent prone, does the flavour of that power have to be set in stone before it can be used?  Or can we adjust the flavour to suit the situation.  So, using the same power, I can narrate it two different ways even though the effect (knock opponent prone) is exactly the same.If, OTOH, the flavour has to be set in stone beforehand, you wind up with the situation where every power becomes situational.  The rogue can't backstab undead.  Can you "trip" a flying creature?  Can you, indeed, grapple a swarm?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />If the flavour has to be specified beforehand, then the answer will be defined beforehand.  If the flavor of the trip power is that you sweep the legs, then anything without legs can't be tripped.Which brings me to my second objection.  When options are specific and situational, two things, IME, happen.  First, general will always trump specific.  Sure, in that special situation you might rule, but, because the player has no real control over the situation, that special ability is just so much wasted ink.  So, players being fairly smart, will choose vanilla options over specific options just so they know their choices will come into play.Secondly, you create endless corner cases because the specified description can't possibly cover all situations.  You trip by sweeping the legs.  Ok, how many legs?  Can I trip a giant spider?  Carrion Crawler?  Yuan-Ti?  So on and so forth.  It tends to cause all sorts of disagreements at the table because no one can agree whether something should apply or not.The two approaches have strengths and weaknesses.  The Flavour approach gains flexibility - the DM can apply it based on his own judgement.  But, it loses out on consistency and predictability.  The Mechanical approach loses flexibility.  You might have pretty ridiculous situations (tripping a Gelantinous Cube) that are allowable by the mechanics.  But, you gain predictability and consistency at the table.  The players know what to expect when they try to use an ability.It all depends on what you want to get out of things.</blockquote>

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