Close Burst 1 - when is it not a close burst ??

[the Jester]

I refuse to gimp players based solely on flavour text. The power is the power and you alter the flavour somewhat, to suit the situation. Anything other than that can result in badwrongfun.

This. Don't search for excuses to screw the players. Flavor text is flavor only, not rules.

(Whether this separation is a good thing or not is a different topic entirely.)

 

[The Red King]

This. Don't search for excuses to screw the players. Flavor text is flavor only, not rules.

(Whether this separation is a good thing or not is a different topic entirely.)

Exactly! You have to reward the players for thinking outside the box, and don't be so ridgid. Give it to them, and remember it for when an NPC can use that kind of thing against them!

 

[Unwise]

On a semi-related note, I ask my PCs how it is that they took out a minion.

In movies, minions tend to be defeated by a punch to the nose, a backhand, a kick to the jewels, a falling chandelier, a rug pulled up or the backstroke of a swing, shield bashing them unconscious or braining them with the hilt of the weapon, or a dismissive samurai style gutting move without breaking stride.

The wizard of decent level can turn a guy to ash, freeze them solid or drive them insane. Remember that the PC is a real badass and the power of their fireball incinerates most people instantly. The fact that they tend to fight equally badass monsters means that this fact is often lost entirely if the DM does not tease it out now and then.

Minions are a chance for the players to be cool and stylish. If you just did 40 damage to a guy that has effectively 1 HP, you pretty much get to call the shots on what happens to him.

This has led to some pretty cool character-through-action developments in my group. For instance, one psycho guy always takes out minions in the most over-the-top and bloody way possible. The assassin only ever does the absolute minimum damage needed to neutralize in the most efficient way possible, a true professional he only kills those he is paid to kill, "he does not do freebies". The cleric only subdues people, he mercilessly shatters jaws and knees, but leaves people alive to repent later.

This effectively gives each person a fighting style. Before asking how people took out minions, nobody had any idea how their characters fought and certainly not how their comrades fought. It leads to character defining of a most interesting type.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Do you take the flavor text into account when working out if an enemy is affected by a close burst attack.?

Technically, no, flavor does not override mechanics. Check out the top of PH1 p55 if you want to see it in black & white.

Rather, flavor can be freely adjusted to fit the character concept and how that interacts with the mechanics and the situation. If the Warden is somehow flying, for instance, a Close Burst 1 power that normally represents a magically localized earthquake could instead represent a magically localized tornado.

 

[S'mon]

Exactly! You have to reward the players for thinking outside the box, and don't be so ridgid. Give it to them, and remember it for when an NPC can use that kind of thing against them!

There's a massive inversion going on here. I'm saying that if Ogremoch has a power that causes earthquakes, PCs who fly to avoid it should indeed be able to avoid its effect, even if the crunch doesn't specifically say so. That is the exact opposite of screwing over the players.

 

[Balesir]

There's a massive inversion going on here. I'm saying that if Ogremoch has a power that causes earthquakes, PCs who fly to avoid it should indeed be able to avoid its effect, even if the crunch doesn't specifically say so. That is the exact opposite of screwing over the players.

It's not screwing over the players, but it's gimping them of a good scrap with Ogremoch. If their characters have ways to fly (and, if they're taking on Ogremoch I'm thinking that's likely) then you just made one of its powers irrelevant.

Added to that, if a being can create an earthquake to order I really don't have difficulty envisioning that also affecting the space above the quaking ground - be it through flying debris, mini-tornadoes, or whatever.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There's a massive inversion going on here. I'm saying that if Ogremoch has a power that causes earthquakes, PCs who fly to avoid it should indeed be able to avoid its effect, even if the crunch doesn't specifically say so. That is the exact opposite of screwing over the players.

There's a big difference between telling a player that the power he uses may not work in whatever situation rubs the DM the wrong way. Players may or may not know ahead of time why or when the DM will nerf their powers. As someone stated above it can lead players to simply pick damage only powers that have generic fluff lest they tempt fate.

Giving an NPC/Monster distinctive powers which help drive its story and make narrative sense OTOH is in no way shape or form impacting the players in a negative way, how could it? My monsters powers work almost entirely by the power of narrative. Monsters in general are narrative beasts with mechanics included purely to facilitate their use.

For that matter if you want to houserule PC powers AHEAD OF TIME before the player has to decide to take them and add many complex clauses explaining exactly when they're going to work and not work, that's at least consistent and I don't really see a downside except it probably clutters up the game with things that are really rather rarely significant.

Honestly, there's nothing wrong with weird situations interacting with powers. In general though I'd want to err on the side of letting the PCs have more cool results than taking things away. DMs seem always tempted to find reasons to nerf things. Instead add coolness by making things work BETTER sometimes. The warden's Earthquake power doesn't just make the earth move, it accesses the power of the elements. Even the very air shudders and tosses, water, fire, etc too. Not going to come up often, but it will neatly explain most anything and the player gets to think "Oh, cool, that's even better than I ever knew!" while in reality the game goes on ahead fine because he got exactly what the rules gave him anyway. Sometimes PCs will get more than they are entitled to even, but again that should be cool. Indeed Scorching Burst can set the grass huts on fire, yippee!

The end result is you can take the sharp lines drawn by the mechanics and just blend them in. I have never yet had to tell a player that something they could do didn't work in order to do this. Narrative is more flexible than most people seem to be wanting to give it credit for.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Fun Story: I was talking to a 3.x player who had never played 4e, and telling him that yeah it's ten times more balanced than 3.x but it has its flaws. As an example I mentioned how a wizard could stunlock a dragon. (This was before a lot of errata.)

His response was "As a DM, I just wouldn't let it work." I asked what exactly he meant, to which he replied "Well, dragons are much too big to be stunned."

As a general rule, I feel it is the goal of the DM and players to make the flavour match the mechanics. So in this instance, the ground shakes so violently that some rocks fly 8 feet up, striking the low hovering monster.

I am yet to find this to be a hassle in D&D, I think everything is pretty explainable.

Ditto. If I can't think of a specific explanation at the moment that the power is used, I default to "Well, it's magic, which operates under its own weird rules." I consider every encounter/daily power to be magical already -- even martial ones -- so I've yet to run into a power I can't explain.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

I don't understand how a close burst 1 would *not* affect a flying creature that is 1 square in front of you and 1 square up...

The Compendium states that a burst goes in all directions, affecting all squares up to the limit stated by the power.

Unless the power states specifically that the target must be on the ground, then I can't see how it would fail to be affected...

Just my 2 cents worth...

 

[Viking Bastard]

On a semi-related note, I ask my PCs how it is that they took out a minion.

In movies, minions tend to be defeated by a punch to the nose, a backhand, a kick to the jewels, a falling chandelier, a rug pulled up or the backstroke of a swing, shield bashing them unconscious or braining them with the hilt of the weapon, or a dismissive samurai style gutting move without breaking stride.

There was a fan made GURPS book on cinematic combat going around the pre-3e interwebs, that had a tremendous influence on my gaming style. One of the rules in the book was about 'mooks' (effectively minions) who could be insta-killed with a description. You didn't need to roll anything to kill a mook, you just descibed how you were gonna take him out ("I grab him by the head and smash him against the stove"), but you could never use the same description twice.

This resulted in a lot of really entertaining games as the players kept finding more and more inventive ways to take out mooks. When I switched from GURPS to 3e, I kept that rule.