Can a swarm be grabbed?

[P1NBACK]

It means the fiction means something...and it isn't a board game. On the other hand, I still want the guy playing the Grappler Fighter to have fun for the next hour while we run the combat. Since almost every one of his powers becomes quite a bit more ineffective if he can't grab an enemy, I can imagine it might be kind of frustrating to have all of them fail. So, I'll allow him to grab the swarm and simply abstract it enough that I don't have to describe it.

Wrong. You're saying that you roleplay and then when you get to combat everything is abstract (i.e. a boardgame). I'm speaking specifically about combat. And if you get to combat and the fiction ceases to matter, well, you're not playing an RPG at that point. You've switched into "boardgame" mode. If you're letting the grappler fighter use his powers with no fictional circumstances backing them up, then that's weak.

I think this is the reason why some gamers who stuck with 3.5 hate 4E, because you actually have to work to make the fiction stick in 4E combat, whereas 3E kind of relied on the fiction.

 

[Fifth Element]

One of my favorite OGL games is Iron Heroes. In there, you've got some badass martial classes able to perform all sorts of amazing moves in combat. But the mechanics don't use this sort of narrative logic to balance classes against each other. Instead, you have in most cases the use of pools, with the characters actually performing some specific actions or preparation or moves in the game world to be able to gather "tokens", which they then are able to spend on these amazing moves. This is an in-game explanation that does not affect my suspension of disbelief, personally.

I'm unclear why you couldn't just imagine the same actions happening in 4E. Does it have to be the result of a die roll in order to count for martial characters? Descriptive stuff doesn't count? I mean, back in the old days that's all we had - if the fighter's player didn't describe his attacks colourfully, it was just "hit" or "miss".

Seems to me you can use the same justification in 4E as you do in Iron Heroes, only without all the pool bookkeeping.

 

[Scribble]

Wrong. You're saying that you roleplay and then when you get to combat everything is abstract (i.e. a boardgame). I'm speaking specifically about combat. And if you get to combat and the fiction ceases to matter, well, you're not playing an RPG at that point. You've switched into "boardgame" mode. If you're letting the grappler fighter use his powers with no fictional circumstances backing them up, then that's weak.

I think the players in this case are deciding the fiction that backs it up.

I think this is the reason why some gamers who stuck with 3.5 hate 4E, because you actually have to work to make the fiction stick in 4E combat, whereas 3E kind of relied on the fiction.

See I disagree here- I kind of find it the other way around.

I like games like 4e that give you a rule, then let you decide for the most part about the corner cases and weird oddities.

In a game like 3e because the guy writing the rule thought it shouldn't apply "realistically or whatever" to swarms it wouldn't apply to swarms, and it would say so.

Cool if that works for you, but me? I tend to start thinking, but what about this case, or this case... Or what about...

Now if you're looking for a way to actually have whatever the effect is apply to what the designer thought it should apply to, you have to jump through hoops to make it work.

So for me, 4e style is much easier to work with.

Imaginations are different in each person, and so are "knowledge levels." What one person knows as a "fact" another person might know is actually BS.

Just gimmie the rule and I can decide how it applies.

Different strokes n all that.

 

[P1NBACK]

I think the players in this case are deciding the fiction that backs it up.

That's exactly what I am saying. Read my previous post. No fiction = no mechanics. Otherwise, you're just playing a boardgame.

If one of my players says, "I use my 'Grappling Strike' power to immobilize the swarm!"

My immediate response is, "Awesome. How do you do that?"

If he doesn't have any fictional justification, then it simply doesn't happen. This whole, "if it's in the rules it should happen" is a boardgame mentality. What I'm trying to accomplish is fiction with the rules there to facilitate that.

See I disagree here- I kind of find it the other way around.

I like games like 4e that give you a rule, then let you decide for the most part about the corner cases and weird oddities.

I never said anything in my post about "corner cases" - so I really don't get how you "disagree" here.

In a game like 3e because the guy writing the rule thought it shouldn't apply "realistically or whatever" to swarms it wouldn't apply to swarms, and it would say so.

Cool if that works for you, but me? I tend to start thinking, but what about this case, or this case... Or what about...

No, I think the same applies to 4E rules. Can you fictionally immobilize this target? Yes? Cool. You do it. No? Sorry, you can't.

There are no "corner case". Every case is the same. Can you fictionally justify it? If so, then you do it.

Now if you're looking for a way to actually have whatever the effect is apply to what the designer thought it should apply to, you have to jump through hoops to make it work.

So for me, 4e style is much easier to work with.

Wtf are you talking about? I don't think the designers look at each scenario and write out whether it applies in each situation. They make a general rule about how to "grab" something and immobilize. It takes common sense and fiction for that rule to be invoked.

Imaginations are different in each person, and so are "knowledge levels." What one person knows as a "fact" another person might know is actually BS.

Just gimmie the rule and I can decide how it applies.

Different strokes n all that.

I'm not talking about "facts". I'm talking about fiction. If you say, "I grab the swarm..." I'm simply going to ask, "Sure. How do you do that?"

If you can't come up with something fictionally, you can't do it. Period. If your answer is... "Uh, I don't know... This power says I can..." I'm gonna say, "I don't give a . I need to know HOW you do it."

This has nothing to do with "facts" or "knowledge" or "reality" and everything to do with "fiction" and "justification".

If you're playing the game that has "Condition Red" and "Condition Blue" you might as well be playing a boardgame.

There's a reason they added "you are lying down" to the prone entry which was VERY missing from the original entry. It's because fictionally, it matters.

I honestly find it very sad to see people playing with the idea of "rules first" and "fiction second".

For me, it's Fiction First, then determine where the rules come in to adjudicate that.

Unfortunately, the way 4E is designed, it's easy to fall into that trap. So, I understand.

 

[Mallus]

I'm fairly sure the correct answer to the question, "can I grapple an ooze/a swarm?" is to turn around and ask the players "how do you intend to grapple the ooze?". If they provide a halfway reasonable, or, since we're speaking about D&D, a mostly unreasonable response, that's still somewhat clever in a kooky, child-like way, then the answer is equivocally "yes".

 

[Scribble]

That's exactly what I am saying. Read my previous post. No fiction = no mechanics. Otherwise, you're just playing a boardgame.

Relax man.

I agree with you that rules adjudication should go through the fiction "filter" first.

All I'm saying is I prefer games that don't try to pre-bake the rules with a lot of what the designer thought was the fiction that fits the rule.

In my opinion, this lets ME decide how best to fictionally interpret the rule more easily.

In my opinion, 3e pre-baked more rules then 4e does, so I find working as a DM with the 4e rules easier.

It's a personal opinion/preference that's all.

 

[Initiate]

I don't understand why everyone is getting their panties in a knot. It's all about personal preference, if you don't like the way one person interprets the rules don't play with them, it's that simple. It's only a game guys, calm down.

 

[AllisterH]

Actually..I distinctly remember a thread discussing the pros and cons of at-will versus encounters and dailies and it was related to ToB.

The suggestion of having at-wills modified by a "penalty/tax" system for using he same power repeatedly (the trip monkey syndrome) was the original idea behind Iron Heroes/ToB martial characters.

In practice, it was really tricky to implement as the player now had to keep track of how many times they had used the specific power, cross reference it against a formula (say -1 to attack every time this at-will is used past the 1st time) apply the tax and then the player would then have to revaluate whether or not the power was "good".

Indeed..the token system from Iron Heroes was, on paper, brilliant, but in practise Mearls mentioned to not working as well...

 

[P1NBACK]

Relax man.

And, this is why I never presuppose people's emotive qualities over text on the internet. Really? You can tell that I'm not relaxed? ...

I agree with you that rules adjudication should go through the fiction "filter" first.

Sweet. That's exactly what I was saying. Some people here don't.

All I'm saying is I prefer games that don't try to pre-bake the rules with a lot of what the designer thought was the fiction that fits the rule.

In my opinion, 3e pre-baked more rules then 4e does, so I find working as a DM with the 4e rules easier.

I disagree that 3E pre-bakes the rules more. Certainly, 4E does so in some instances of the rules. It's why there's a power for every possible "maneuver" you can do. I have 100 different ways for 100 different scenarios to knock someone prone or whatever - and that's tied to mechanical methods, not fictional. Honestly, it's jarring to the fiction. I'm not saying I don't enjoy the cool powers and the variations, but I think I can objectively disagree on the point you're trying to make.

3E had generic maneuvers, like "Disarm", "Attack", "Sunder" etc... Very generic things you could do that could apply to a variety of fictional circumstances (like some of the 4E generic moves [Bull Rush, Grab, etc...]).

Honestly, if I were designed 4E, I would have went with a more modular approach using the 4E chassis - but, then you could play the game forever without an infinite number of splats... But, I digress.

It's just one of those things 4E sacrificed a bit with the powers system. I still prefer 4E to 3E (by far), but I do miss this aspect of previous editions.

 

[Odhanan]

I'm unclear why you couldn't just imagine the same actions happening in 4E. Does it have to be the result of a die roll in order to count for martial characters? Descriptive stuff doesn't count? I mean, back in the old days that's all we had - if the fighter's player didn't describe his attacks colourfully, it was just "hit" or "miss".

Seems to me you can use the same justification in 4E as you do in Iron Heroes, only without all the pool bookkeeping.

Not to me. In one case for instance you have an Armiger taking on the charge of his opponent and using the strength of the incoming attacks to build up his own response, which is an in-world explanation of the way you accumulate tokens to then spend on Armiger class abilities in combat, whereas Crack the Shell, the Fighter attack power (PHB p. 79) does not come with any in-world explanation whatsoever as to why a Fighter could perform this move only once a Day.

I mean, it's not rocket science. If you don't see the difference, Iain, I won't be able to help you there. It's crystal clear to me.