DDXP characters - unexpected tactics?

[Hypersmurf]

So, you're upset about not being able to exercise control over an enemy's hostile power's effect on you, except in obvious situations where it would result in an insta-kill, and instead allows you to be inconvenienced (prone aka hanging on the edge of the cliff) rather than dead?

Either being able to drop prone instead of being moved should be an option whenever the power is used against you, or the power should be able to be used as normal in a potential instakill situation.

-Hyp.

 

[fafhrd]

Either being able to drop prone instead of being moved should be an option whenever the power is used against you, or the power should be able to be used as normal in a potential instakill situation.

-Hyp.

Dropping prone is likely a free action wouldn't you think? Free actions can be taken on anyone's turn. It remains to be determined if they can act as interrupts, but even so, you could drop prone preventatively. Then the question is, does being prone negate forced movement or even some forms of forced movement?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Dropping prone is likely a free action wouldn't you think? Free actions can be taken on anyone's turn.

Based on SWSE, I'm guessing dropping prone will be a minor action (only on your turn), unless you're trained in Acrobatics, in which case a check will let you do it as a free action (which could be taken on someone else's turn).

(Though it's amusing to envisage someone trying, and failing, to fall over )

Then the question is, does being prone negate forced movement or even some forms of forced movement?

Well, forced movement can only move someone somewhere they can get by walking, and if you're prone, you can't walk at all, so you can't get anywhere by walking... right?

-Hyp.

 

[hong]

In Escape from Sembia one of the encounters was vs skeletons on a rocky mountain pass. To the left of the party was a "sheer drop off" or something along those lines. Whenever an effect attempted to push or slide a creature off the cliff, we were informed that the enemy had a chance to "save itself". Presumably a saving throw was rolled, and a pass resulted in the creature falling prone in the last non cliff square he occupied.

This DM was a moron. The whole POINT of having a sheer drop-off is so that you can push people off it.

 

[fafhrd]

Well, forced movement can only move someone somewhere they can get by walking, and if you're prone, you can't walk at all, so you can't get anywhere by walking... right?

I see. Well, now I know the tactic I'll use if I ever come across that picador bridge of doom.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I see. Well, now I know the tactic I'll use if I ever come across that picador bridge of doom.

Don't count on it working - isn't there also (finally!) a rule on crawling in 4E? (I seem to remember this from the DDXP material)

 

[Bagpuss]

This DM was a moron. The whole POINT of having a sheer drop-off is so that you can push people off it.

So a player you wouldn't mind being pushed off a cliff routinely by monsters with no save. They removed Save or Die, by making it just Die?

 

[hong]

So a player you wouldn't mind being pushed off a cliff routinely by monsters with no save. They removed Save or Die, by making it just Die?

1. Nobody said anything about sheer drop-offs being routine elements of encounters.

2. A sheer drop-off can be into a 10' deep pit (1d6 damage) just as easily as it can be a mile-high cliff. If a DM really wants to have mile-high cliffs in their game, that's their problem.

3. If I don't want to be pushed off the cliff, I don't go near the cliff. If someone wants to push me off, they have to maneuver me there first. Tactics, you know?

4. As a DM, I have no problem playing the monsters stupid. I try to kill the PCs using Marquess of Queensberry rules, while they're free to shove me off cliffs.

 

[tomBitonti]

(Though it's amusing to envisage someone trying, and failing, to fall over )
-Hyp.

That is completely precious.

 

[Tuft]

1. Nobody said anything about sheer drop-offs being routine elements of encounters.

2. A sheer drop-off can be into a 10' deep pit (1d6 damage) just as easily as it can be a mile-high cliff. If a DM really wants to have mile-high cliffs in their game, that's their problem.

3. If I don't want to be pushed off the cliff, I don't go near the cliff. If someone wants to push me off, they have to maneuver me there first. Tactics, you know?

The cliffs are just an evocative simple example. I've had fights in rooms with pits of green slime or molten lava, on spiral ramps curving down into deep caves, in the branches of giganormous trees, on the sloping roof of a wizard's tower, in crumbling, ruined castles, and on barges and boats. All pretty equivalent cases...

I would not say that maps like these are routine, but they are not that uncommon...