D&D 5E "But Wizards Can Fly, Teleport and Turn People Into Frogs!"

[Sunseeker]

Indeed. I think this is why I draw the line at keywords by default; I used to have a guy in my game that would take advantage of my leniency and preference for refluffing to set up broken synergies. That said, like your example below, I have allowed some players to alter keywords in their powers, and I have had the same allowances made for me and my characters at times.

I find it overall less of a problem in 4e, since various themes have be built into class powers. It's not hard to make a Warlock that revolves around fire or necrotic, a Paladin who favors fear and shadow(without explicitly being a blackguard), or many other things as it was in previous editions were there were just a dump of "variety pack" powers, making it difficult to make a themed character that didn't rely on repeating the same power over and over.

I think this is fine and dandy, but you're right in that you should always vet player intentions first if you're going to allow keyword changes, and a DM should always reserve the right to revoke such changes if they prove problematic. Most long-time gamers won't take issue with this, as this has long been the traditional and understood way of doing things, but not everyone is on the same page in this regard.

Sure, and DMs don't always have the stones to stand up to a player out to break the game either. That's why it's always important to get to know your players.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I find it overall less of a problem in 4e, since various themes have be built into class powers. It's not hard to make a Warlock that revolves around fire or necrotic, a Paladin who favors fear and shadow(without explicitly being a blackguard), or many other things as it was in previous editions were there were just a dump of "variety pack" powers, making it difficult to make a themed character that didn't rely on repeating the same power over and over.


Sure, and DMs don't always have the stones to stand up to a player out to break the game either. That's why it's always important to get to know your players.

Agreed. This has been a productive exchange.

 

[pemerton]

Refluffing, even the alteration of power sources(such as a Primal Paladin, a re-flavor as a champion of natural law) to the alteration of damage types is perfectly allowed in the system. Even when it isn't, it changes nothing mechanically.

On this I'm closer to what I take [MENTION=98255]Nemesis Destiny[/MENTION] to be saying: I don't worry about players' reflavouring that works around existing keywords and effecs, but changing keywords and/or effects is a houserule that I want some say in as a GM. (For instance, I just helped a player build a theme power for his Hunter of Unead theme - a variant of the Primordial Adept's close blast that is radiant instead.)

This is partly for balance reasons (eg fire with its many resistant creature vs cold with its feat buffs) and partly for fictional coherence (eg it's clear why fire causes ongoing damage and why cold slows or immobilises, but the reverse not so much).

 

[Obryn]

changing keywords and/or effects is a houserule that I want some say in as a GM.

Agreed 100%. Contrary to what other posters have said, changing keywords (and damage types) can be a pretty big deal. Extreme case scenario: There's a paragon-tier feat called Resounding Thunder. It's a boon for thunder-casters because it increases the burst/blast size of all powers with the Thunder keyword by 1. This is kind of huge, and it's a pretty common optimization trick for arcane characters - taking a feat called Arcane Admixture to add the Thunder keyword to an at-will like Winged Horde.

Cold stuff has the Lasting Frost/Wintertouched combo, which was the very first 4e optimization trick. Fire and Fear stuff is awesome for Tieflings due to Hellfire Blood. Lightning, with Mark of Storm and Storm Genasi. Radiant Mafia is another standby. About the only crappy keywords are Necrotic and Poison - but those are often balancing factors.

So while I'm great with re-fluffing powers, changing around keywords can get sketchy. I'm not always opposed - I've seen some great reskinning efforts* but if it normally costs a feat to add a keyword to one power (and people actually take that feat!) it's got some potential game impact.

-O

* Really, click the links; it's a pretty spectacular reskinned Wizard.

 

[Sunseeker]

On this I'm closer to what I take @Nemesis Destiny to be saying: I don't worry about players' reflavouring that works around existing keywords and effecs, but changing keywords and/or effects is a houserule that I want some say in as a GM. (For instance, I just helped a player build a theme power for his Hunter of Unead theme - a variant of the Primordial Adept's close blast that is radiant instead.)

This is partly for balance reasons (eg fire with its many resistant creature vs cold with its feat buffs) and partly for fictional coherence (eg it's clear why fire causes ongoing damage and why cold slows or immobilises, but the reverse not so much).

At some point this all comes down to how carefully a DM reviews a PC and how concerned they are with player power. Even if a player has a lot of power synergies because everything they do is cold and that slows, stuns, and dazes, a simple "immune to cold" creature thrown at them throws all that to the wind.

Players who build narrowly fight narrowly. Everything outside of that remains almost impossible to deal with.

EX: I'm running a campaign wherein there's a progressing apocalyptic winter, it's already covered about half the world, but for some reason it has weakened. Several nations are seizing this opportunity to tackle the problem at it's source.
A cold-themed build could be conceptually interesting, but very under-powered, since almost everything the players will fight will have some for of cold resistance or outright immunity. Fire on the other hand could be very powerful, but a disaster of extremes is bound to produce creatures of extremes, both of fire and ice. So...should a player become unreasonably powered due to my oversight and begin to take advantage of that, I have tools to resolve the situation.

Eventually we get down to the fact that DM-Player communication is the only way to resolve issues. You can have powerful players at the table, who don't throw their power in the game's face every chance they get. It's all about communication.

 

[pemerton]

There's a paragon-tier feat called Resounding Thunder. It's a boon for thunder-casters because it increases the burst/blast size of all powers with the Thunder keyword by 1. This is kind of huge, and it's a pretty common optimization trick for arcane characters - taking a feat called Arcane Admixture to add the Thunder keyword to an at-will like Winged Horde.

In the case of the sorcerer in my game, it's Blazing Starfall rather than Winged Horde!

Plus Mark of Storms, Walk Among the Fey (he's a multi-class bard) and Unlucky Teleport.

You can have powerful players at the table, who don't throw their power in the game's face every chance they get. It's all about communication.

In my game it's more about role delineation: the fighter is the multi-target melee controller; the paladin combines single target defending/attacking (esp vs bloodied targets) plus a near inability to go down (such high defences; so many surges) that makes him the default "last PC standing"; the high-damage, forced movement sorcerer; the archer ranger-cleric; and the invoker, who mixes some strong multi-target control with a lot of out-of combat lore/ritual utility.

By any typical measure the sorcerer is at the optimised end and the invoker not, but their different roles allow them to co-exist side-by-side.

 

[Sunseeker]

In my game it's more about role delineation: the fighter is the multi-target melee controller; the paladin combines single target defending/attacking (esp vs bloodied targets) plus a near inability to go down (such high defences; so many surges) that makes him the default "last PC standing"; the high-damage, forced movement sorcerer; the archer ranger-cleric; and the invoker, who mixes some strong multi-target control with a lot of out-of combat lore/ritual utility.

By any typical measure the sorcerer is at the optimised end and the invoker not, but their different roles allow them to co-exist side-by-side.

I certainly do think that by giving classes some specific roles allows them excel in a specific niche that might feel very overlapped in older editions. I mean really what is an Invoker but a Divine Wizard who specializes in controlling magics? But because they've built a whole concept around just that, it's OK for him to not be as blastery as a sorcerer, because he excels at his role.

I know some people don't like hardcoded roles, but laying out exactly what players can excel at I think makes it easier to do just that, and not make everything a damage competition. Sure, you can do that with spell schools, archetypes, or whatnot without having to explicitly label the fighter as a defender or a striker, but they still accomplish the same thing.

 

[triqui]

This really gets to the heart of it for me. I dont want D&D to be a game.Anytime when we're all sitting there and something reminds me that this is a game, rather then being in the story its a problem.

So you don't do things like rolling for initiative, saving throws, or hit point damage? Do you adjudicate that on the fly, as long as it fits in the narration?

 

[LostSoul]

[MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] could you come up with an example that shows what you mean by fictional positioning mattering even though the mechanic is disassociated?

Maybe... I think the easiest example would be tripping an ooze. So you've got a 4E Fighter with Spinning Sweep (I think - the first-level encounter power that knocks prone and does 1[W] on a hit) and you use it on an ooze. The DM says, "No, that doesn't work, it's an ooze, it can't go prone." Or what I've done with Come and Get It in the past: "No, the archers don't jump off the wall to fight you." (The dissociation coming from the "encounter power" designation.) In those cases, the "fictional positioning" - the monster being an ooze and the archers in range but on a wall - have an effect on the resolution of your action.

You could get a little more detailed, too: "I use Spinning Sweep so I sweep his leg out from under him, like it says, and then I get on top of him and stab him in the face." Now can the target get up from prone with a move action? You're on top of him, after all. He might have to make an "Escape from Grab" action to get up. I'd do this as part of the NPC's move action - a check against your Fort, or maybe have you make an Athletics/STR vs. Fort attack as an immediate action.

 

[Ahnehnois]

So you don't do things like rolling for initiative, saving throws, or hit point damage? Do you adjudicate that on the fly, as long as it fits in the narration?

Can't speak for [MENTION=6698787]timASW[/MENTION], but I ignore all of these rules and ad hoc things in certain situations if they don't fit the story I'm trying to tell.