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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lizard" data-source="post: 4087167" data-attributes="member: 1054">Until he confronts real players doing real player things, not following scripted encounters. Real players stress the rules to the breaking point, and beyond. They will not follow the "spirit" of the rules or the "narrative" intent. If there's a power which can be used every 5 minutes, they will use it every five minutes, not "once per encounter". If they can move a friend beyond their normal movement rate by using an "attack" intended for an enemy, they will do so. Saying it's the DM's job to balance broken rules by issuing mandates about "story" and "just do it right" is saying the designers have failed to do their job. I am not willing to say this is the case until I see the rules. Again, if you want that kind of DM absolutism, play Amber.I had no trouble doing this in 3x. But 3x also gave me rules for how strong the table was, how much characters could lift, and so on. What happens when it's not goblins, but ogres? Wouldn't being able to apply a modifier based on size category -- such as existed in 3e grapple rules -- be more appropriate? So I'd rule "Strength check using the grapple size mods to pull the rug, then they make a balance check to stay upright. You also provoke an AOO from anyone threatening you, since you can't defend yourself while pulling a rug.". Just as easy, but with more resources to cover more interactions of conditions -- such as them having balance skill, or being quadrupeds. (Indeed, even in your simple example, shouldn't a Goblin Rogue -- trained in Acrobatics -- be better off than a Goblin Thug, who is not?)Allowing any action to be a simple roll with no mods tends to make some actions FAR too effective in combat. Given the level-based modifiers to all checks, using the simple rules you described, it would be very easy to trip a pit fiend, when it shouldn't be. So the DM either just says, "No, you can't do that!", or on-the-fly creates modifiers and conditionals for each particular circumstance, which are likely to be inconsistently applied in future games.I never had trouble just checking off kobolds when they had 4HP. But giving them "They explode when you prick 'em" as a "feature" means that for any situation where they NEED hit points (perhaps a kobold cleric uses a spell to give them temporary hit points? Or an attack drains hit points, vampirically?) much harder. It's a false simplification. It assumes that if you don't care 95% of the time, you won't care 100% of the time. This seems to be a common theme in the 4e design process -- ignore edge cases. Make the game work more smoothly for *most* cases -- and fail completely for the minority.But as Terry Pratchett noted, "One in a million chances happen nine times out of ten."(Many have commented that the 3e grappling rules fail for multi-limbed attackers and other such situations, even if they work for "normal" or "as intended" cases. 4e takes that philosophy to the extreme, and balances it by, it seems, telling the DM to 'make something up' or 'just don't let it happen'. We'll know for sure when we see the DMG.)I disagree. I think it will lead to endless argument and nitpicking because there is too much unspecified, and because arbitrary rules calls tend to vary with the situation and the DMs mood.</blockquote>

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