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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 5463960" data-attributes="member: 1165">Unfortunately not all DMs are skilled.I was in a short WHFRPG campaign last year, with a relatively new DM. (Not to diss the DM. I have a lot more experience and screw up a lot too!)He plotted an intelligent encounter. We started at the bottom of the hill, and the bad guys, who were archers, were on the top, a very good place for archers to be! But they were weak vs melee, so if we ever got to them... pulverizing time! Naturally, it takes more time to get up the hill than to charge the same horizontal distance against archers, so they get more shots. There wasn't cover either. So far, rules independent.How do you get up the hill?In 3.x, you go up at half speed. Make an Athletics check (DC 15) to climb at full speed. This benefits strong, athletic characters, but you take armor check penalties. Fail and you go up at half speed. You could be a gnome cleric with a Strength score of six and heavy armor and still try -- the worst is you move at half speed. You were rewarded for choosing a certain "build" but not punished for not having it. (I believe there were more complicated rules if the terrain was wet or slippery.)In WHFRPG, the rules are a mess. (It often has rules for rules sake, with lots of complicated tables for things like being afraid.) I don't even know if there were rules for that situation. The DM invented some. Fair enough. Unfortunately, he called for Athletics checks. Seems fair, right? We were just starting out, and Warhammer characters have an average 30 statistic. My own character had a 40 Strength, and most had less; I believe only one character was actually stronger (in Warhammer, you use an ability score as your skill, before you gain "levels" and can maybe boost a few). So my chance of pulling the skill check was 40%, better than most characters (no penalty for armor though, which is ... weird).If we failed the checks, we made no progress up the mountain, while the arrows rained down!After failing two checks, my PC attached a rope to a spear and threw it up the hill, then pulled himself up. Flavorful? You betcha. Realistic? Nope. I was pulling myself up with a relatively slender wooden shaft that hadn't sunk all that far into the rocky ground... and my character, being plenty strong, wasn't a small guy, and he was still wearing chainmail. Said spear should have broken.By the time he got to the top of the hill, our one gunner PC had taken them out. Yay group dynamics! My noble fighter could do nothing, our law priest could do nothing, there was no options for "aid another" (forget a lack of rules, it just wouldn't have been realistic), etc.In a situation like that, maybe having decent rules would have been a better idea.The rules weren't that easy to use.Overrun, bull rush, trip, grapple and disarm all provoked attacks of opportunity without the proper feat, several of which (eg disarm) had completely nonsensical requirements (you need brains* and ... defensive fighting, which also requires brains?). Furthermore, all those attacks had big restrictions (counteracting the occasional "goodness" of them). It's hard to use any of those abilities except disarm on a large or bigger opponent, and disarm is kind of pointless when facing a dragon.(One reason monks were so weak; they could only really use their abilities against humanoid NPCs, which were weak against everything, unless they were flying invisible wizards, that is.)In 4e, you can use those special attacks much more easily, except disarm and maybe overrun. Make an attack vs Fort (or maybe Ref for trip). If you hit, apply the effect. No opportunity attack that I've seen. Simple, easy, and if a situation that the rules don't cover come up, you still have existing rules for reasonable guidelines. (You don't need a set of rules for a "flying tackle" when you already have simple rules for bull rushing, tripping, etc.)*Not that there's anything wrong with rewarding smart PCs, but smart PCs should have abilities where their intelligence would logically come into play.</blockquote>

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