A worry about "special case monster abilities"

[I'm A Banana]

With the way the rules currently work, I don't have a real probelm with that. I put it into the same category as severing limbs and heads... Technically, anyone should be able to do it. Rules-wise, it only works on specific creatures, or when you are weilding a specific magic weapon.

With things like this, I'd wish they'd either be in the game, or not, not this halfway-between state where you need to jump through special hoops to be able to achieve it.

If they're in the game, and anyone should be able to do it, it should be a basic rule.

If they're not in the game, they shouldn't be in the game.

Giving it to a monster or a magic weapon is weird to me, like telling me I can only eat a good meal if I cast the yummy spell.

 

[Pbartender]

With things like this, I'd wish they'd either be in the game, or not, not this halfway-between state where you need to jump through special hoops to be able to achieve it.

If they're in the game, and anyone should be able to do it, it should be a basic rule.

If they're not in the game, they shouldn't be in the game.

Giving it to a monster or a magic weapon is weird to me, like telling me I can only eat a good meal if I cast the yummy spell.

It depends on your point of view, I guess. I look at it this way...

As far as the rules are concerned, you can't do it. Nobody can do it. But magic, feats and special abilities are the means to break those sorts of rules and do things you normally couldn't.

In all honesty, it's been like that to one degree or another since the game began three decades ago.

 

[jaer]

I've been thinking about this, and I've worked out why this example, the Bugbear Strangler and his human shield, is so particularly annoying. It's not just because, in theory, anyone could do it (there is no possible way this would take "years of training" to do - people learn to do similar things in a matter of weeks). The idea that it takes special training to strangle someone is particularly ludicrous. To do it well, sure, but ineptly? PCs should be able to.

Not that I am a typical "PCs shouldn't do things real people can't do" person, but who really learns how to deftly swing someone around in front of them quick enough and percisely enough so that the person they are holding takes a hit instead of them?

Really, attacking into a grapple should endanger both parties, and anyone can easily use their opponent as a shield...that is typical and normal and can be represented by a simple application of "this person has extra AC against your attack, and you might hit your opponent." This is not anything special. Using someone as cover as a deterent for people to attack you is fairly normal (i.e., they typical hostage situation).

But the Strangler in this case isn't using the "meat shield" as a deterent from being attacked. He is using the Meat Shield to take the hit for him, which is a very percise maneuver. The training it would take to see a sword swing coming, and twist around to put your opponent there to meet the attack right at the end of it so the attacker can't turn aside the swing is considerable....that would take a lot of time and practice and experience in handling a grapple, not just to get the timing right, but to have the strength to do it. This is something most people who are training to skewer people with swords or blast enemies with spells are not practicing. (Also not something someone encased in plate armor should be able to do at all, but the last thing I want to see is armor penalties to grapple checks, so never mind!)

Anyone who can learn this trick in a few weeks is someone who is already a proficient physical combatant, someone who is well-trained in martial arts and hand-to-hand combat (which could include fighters and rogues and other melee characters). But at the very least, this should be a feat, not just an in-grapple move like pinning. But if grappling is not normally something worthwhile for a fighter or rogue to do because few to none of their class abilities are tied to grapple-based fighting, why would they bother adding this feat to the PH1? If no class (or tiered path for that matter) is currently designed to be a grapple fighter, very few people would bother taking grapple-based feats and it would be deemed a waste of space by most people.

As for the actual strangulation...that just takes a garrot wire to handle easily, and honestly, I would love to see PCs have a way of stealthily silencing guards (when it takes a few rounds of combat to kill anything past 1st level, how does one prevent the guards calling out a warning without a silence spell?), so a rogue with a garrot wire sneaking up and strangling a guard works for me and is something I would like to see, even if I need to modify rules for it to be feasible for PCs to be able to do.

 

[heirodule]

To some extent the whole issue does remind me of the "toss sand in the enemy's eyes" issue. You let a PC blind an NPC by tossing sand in the NPCs eyes, 'cause it sounds like a cool and very cinematic trick. Thereafter, the PC insists on using the same maneuver, using the same rules established in the first case in damn near every combat for the end of time. After all, it's not magic, as other have noted, so once you establish the rule, they should be able to do it all the time. Which makes it much more vital to think about and balance such tricks once you've established them. I can definitely see the designers being willing to give this ability to a special case monster, but not be willing to commit to giving this as a PC-capable ability without a lot more thought.

"I cast glitterdust"
"I cast glitterdust"
"I cast glitterdust"
"I cast glitterdust"
"I cast glitterdust"
"I cast glitterdust"
"I cast glitterdust"


(start of nearly every Living Greyhawk combat with a wizard or bard)

 

[Lord Zardoz]

So basically, 4e is already showing the signs of having problems with the design philosophy they chose to implement.

Namely, that a capability that should seem to be in the hands of any person (and was, though in an unsatisfactory way, in 3e) is impelemented in a monster entry in a way that would be unbalanced for a PC to have.

"That's okay, guys, we'll get it right in the next PHB!"

Ew.

I suppose that you do have a point, but I do not agree.

While it does break plausibility to a certain extend, I am not entirely sure that this is the sort of problem that Mearls is wrong about trying to keep the list of things everyone can do at any time to a minimum. A good example from 3rd edition is the idea that a Human fighter with 13 Str and the Power Attack feat can trade attack bonus for damage, but an Ogre Figter with 23 strength but not the feat cannot. There were a number of posts about how Power Attack was the sort of thing anyone ought to be able to do.

I look at this as a case of a Bugbear having a racial feat that most other creatures do not. If I decide I want an Ogre to be able to do the same, I will customize the ogre in question. I expect that for 90% of the DM's on this board, this is the sort of problem that will be a non issue.

I also expect that for 10% of Dm's this will be a sticking point if they try to stick to the rules as written a little to closely.

Anyway, it is early yet. Feel free to start throwing e-mails and forum posts around complaining about it, and perhaps they will change it.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

But the Strangler in this case isn't using the "meat shield" as a deterent from being attacked. He is using the Meat Shield to take the hit for him, which is a very percise maneuver. The training it would take to see a sword swing coming, and twist around to put your opponent there to meet the attack right at the end of it so the attacker can't turn aside the swing is considerable....that would take a lot of time and practice and experience in handling a grapple, not just to get the timing right, but to have the strength to do it. This is something most people who are training to skewer people with swords or blast enemies with spells are not practicing. (Also not something someone encased in plate armor should be able to do at all, but the last thing I want to see is armor penalties to grapple checks, so never mind!)

If I think about it, most villains in movies definitely _lack_ this feat or special ability. Often enough they taking their hostage and trying to protect themselves, and then the hero shoots them in the head.

 

[AZRogue]

Okay, I have to agree with Ruin.

The reason why THIS PARTICULAR CASE (the Bugbear ability) bothers the Hell out of me so much is because that ability is something that the game has really needed for, like, ever. It's something the game has always lacked (maybe it was in some remote splatbook, but I'm very picky with those). Villains should take hostages. It's that simple. It's not something I've thought a lot about because, frankly, since it's always been like that I think I just developed a blind spot, but it seems pretty obvious to me after some consideration.

The GOOD is that it seems like the ability will either be easy to add to critical NPC encounters (mwahahahahahahaha!) or that there will at least be some mechanic in place to help with such things.

 

[jaer]

Okay, I have to agree with Ruin.

The reason why THIS PARTICULAR CASE (the Bugbear ability) bothers the Hell out of me so much is because that ability is something that the game has really needed for, like, ever. It's something the game has always lacked (maybe it was in some remote splatbook, but I'm very picky with those). Villains should take hostages. It's that simple. It's not something I've thought a lot about because, frankly, since it's always been like that I think I just developed a blind spot, but it seems pretty obvious to me after some consideration.

The GOOD is that it seems like the ability will either be easy to add to critical NPC encounters (mwahahahahahahaha!) or that there will at least be some mechanic in place to help with such things.

Indeed. The biggest problem is that grappling was not an effective deterent from attacking people in the grapple. For the most part, it sucked to grapple someone. Villian starts a grapple and suddenly he
- isn't threatening
- has no dex (sneak attackable!)
- no movement
- reduced to natural or light weapons
- can't cast (for the most part)
- has a 50% chance of not being hit by missile weapons

In the typical 3e fights (4 PCs vs 1 bad guy), getting into a grapple was pretty much doom! If a monster didn't have Swallow Whole, there was rarely a reason for a creature to grapple. There are more negatives to it that benefits. if the monster had rake or some other attack when the grapple happened, I would always Imp Grab, rake, drop the grapple. There was no reason to maintain it from round to round.

Why is it that only missile attacks have a chance to hit either opponent in a grapple? If two people are tusselling in the same square, a sword strike could hit either. Any attack against equal sized opponents should have a chance to hit either. If an opponent is 1 size larger, make it a 75%/25% chance; 2 larger, no chance to not hit the one you want.

I understand the opponets lacking dex, but no way should that allow for a sneak attack...how can you line up a stab to the liver if the opponent keeps shufflinf around and his liver is covered by your friend?

Once an opponet is pinned by your friend, there should be no chance to hit your friend (but if your friend is being attacked, it can still hit either, your friend being able to cover himself with the pinned opponent) and sneak attacks should be viable against the one who is pinned. Movement should be slowed, but doable.

It should be like any hostage situation, really - the bad guy has the peasent girl pinned and is using her to defend himself from the PCs. If they attack him, they stand a good chance of hitting the girl instead.

That is how I would like to see the grapple rules changed. I don't think a grapple was beneficial enough for most creatures (even ones with Imp Grab) or PCs engage in one. Pinning was like the poor-man's Hold Person. You could try to get out of either every round, but a wizard drops a Hold Person and the target is held; wizard goes on to blast other people with spells. Monk pins an opponet, it takes 2 rounds, and now the monk can do nothing more than maintain the pin, taking themselves out of combat.

 

[Counterspin]

I think it's pretty obvious that they're trying to avoid the 3e trip issue, where the only useful combat maneuver was trip, when you came right down to it. In order to maintain niches, you have to make it so that nothing which everyone has access to outshines the niche powers, because otherwise the niches are abolished, because everyone uses the more effective universals. Thus grapple has to be pretty low powered, and so there's no rules to use others as a human shield. Sounds fine to me.

 

[FourthBear]

What I am worried about in this is making options like throwing sand in the eyes, using people as human shields and grappling in general more frequent than I would like to see in a campaign. Making grapple more effective and beneficial may make it more attractive for characters to use, but do we really *want* that? Do we want characters grappling more often than they swing a sword? And this goes for dedicated grappling characters as well as dilettantes. I know that I've DMed characters who have specialized in tripping or disarming. I have to admit I got tired of seeing them trip and disarm all the flippin' time. I hope that when people create these combat options that they consider why a character *wouldn't* use this tactic in every battle. I'd hate to see the majority of battles practically become running gags with the number of PCs, enemies and others using all available at hand as human shields.

Oh, and ditto to Counterspin.