D&D General Alternate thought - rule of cool is bad for gaming

[Lanefan]

I like this better, as it should kill almost any character unless they are incredibly lucky. Which is what should happen after a 1500' fall, IMO. But we have a whole thread on the subject.

In the anecdote above the level 4 character was falling far enough that the impact would have killed him outright; making the acrobatics check meant that he was at 0 HP but they were able to rush over and revive him. To much celebration and glory.

Wonderful story! Play-of-the-year stuff, that.

One question: does 5e no longer have the rule that a flying creature is grounded (or can only glide to the ground) once it's lost 3/4 of its hit points?

 

[Lanefan]

I've never understood this stance of yours that precedent must be perfect and respected until the heat death of the universe. You don't have to try to be perfect. It's not possible. It's okay to make a mistake and admit that, then course correct.

If something works one way once and then a different way the second time, one way or the other it's unfair.

Hence, precedent.

And while perfect might not be possible, that's no reason not to try to get there.

 

[Oofta]

Wonderful story! Play-of-the-year stuff, that.

One question: does 5e no longer have the rule that a flying creature is grounded (or can only glide to the ground) once it's lost 3/4 of its hit points?

I don't think I've ever heard of that rule. Of course, we likely ignored a lot of rules back in the day.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You think you'd even get a roll for anything that extreme?

There's no roll if the chance of either success or failure is zero. But if there is a roll it's implied there's at least a 5% chance either way.

Now one could argue - and I have, in the past - that 5% isn't granular enough and doesn't account for the many instances where a 1% chance would be better; but changing this requires breaking away from unified resolution mechanics, which I'm fine with but all too many are not.

I'm absolutely cool with percentage rolls for some things.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If something works one way once and then a different way the second time, one way or the other it's unfair.

Hence, precedent.

And while perfect might not be possible, that's no reason not to try to get there.

I'm as big a fan of consistency as there is, but at some point if a prior decision turns out to be dumb, sticking with it is doing as much harm to most people's play experience as changing it and more.

 

[TiQuinn]

And yet that's just the sort of thinking I want to see from the players: what happens if, based on physics, I try this?

That’d make me want to quit the game.

 

[Clint_L]

Wonderful story! Play-of-the-year stuff, that.

One question: does 5e no longer have the rule that a flying creature is grounded (or can only glide to the ground) once it's lost 3/4 of its hit points?

I'd forgotten that was ever a rule. It's not in 5e, no.

 

[Vaalingrade]

And yet that's just the sort of thinking I want to see from the players: what happens if, based on physics, I try this?

And what about the players who aren't physics majors who will be significantly hamstrung by that particular bias toward physics majors?

Or physics majors who have enough knowledge to annihilate everything in the game?

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Or physics majors who have enough knowledge to annihilate everything in the game?

That's why at Session 0 you establish "thou shalt not use thy personal knowledge of special relativity to leverage the game's FTL into causality violation".

(You also establish "thou shalt not mention that damn paper by Alcubierre, who himself no longer believes it, or thy head shall be nailed to the table. Yes, remotely.")

 

[Micah Sweet]

That’d make me want to quit the game.

While my players and I live for that stuff.