DDXP characters - unexpected tactics?

[hong]

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...

Sure. And in all cases, I don't see a problem with pushing people off them. Heck, you can even do it in 3E (bull rush). The lethality or otherwise of the drop is something the DM explicitly controls.

 

[D.Shaffer]

Or you could be a paladin 1, starting your turn more or less where you want to, within 5 squares of the target you want to mark and within 5 squares of a marked ally. While those conditions aren't automatic, they are fairly liberal, and let you minor to mark your ally, move->minor to (re)mark your foe (clearing the ally of his mark) and standard->attack of choice. Precious little opportunity cost there.

You've just essentially given up two actions to get rid of a mark, actions that might have been better spent doing other things. In this particular situation? Sure, it was at little cost. Everything was in just the right spot that it was worth doing, barring other issues. That sort of creativity SHOULD be rewarded, IMO, but I still dont see marking your own guys as being all that good an idea 'in general'.

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

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

-Hyp.

The trick isn't throwing yourself at the ground. It's throwing yourself at the ground and missing

In so far as "dropping prone" as a swift/minor action or free action, it's not so much that nobody could do it as a free action whether trained or untrained. It's more a matter of doing it and not hurting yourself in the process, which is what the trained aspect covers.

 

[Surgoshan]

Aragorn rolled a 1 to fall off a warg.

 

[Dausuul]

Sure. And in all cases, I don't see a problem with pushing people off them. Heck, you can even do it in 3E (bull rush). The lethality or otherwise of the drop is something the DM explicitly controls.

Who was it recently said that "the sins of the previous edition do not excuse the sins of the next?" The 3E "bull rush you off a cliff" mechanic was very high on my personal list of Dumb.

And while you may be willing to play your monsters stupid, I'm certainly not... at least not when the monster ought to be smart. My players are tactically savvy enough to recognize when I'm "dumbing down" a monster that should properly be cunning and vicious.

 

[Just Another User]

In so far as the halfling pally goes, it could well be that in most of the original playtests, the folks playing the paladins simply didn't use such a cowardly tactic. Most folks that I've seen play paladins play them as the stand-up and stand tall do-gooders that lead from the front.

That was the source of many of the problems with 3e, at least if the legends are true .
Apparently at the times when they tested 3e they played characters as they expected the players to play them, the fighter as a frontline combattant, the cleric and druid as healers with some combat capacity, the wizard as artilllery, etc they never considered, for example, that someone coudl want to use a cleric as a melee monster, "if someone want to fight in melee" they said " then it would create a fighter, why they should use a cleric for that?"
And from there CODzilla was born.

I hope they did a better job with the playtesting this time.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Who was it recently said that "the sins of the previous edition do not excuse the sins of the next?" The 3E "bull rush you off a cliff" mechanic was very high on my personal list of Dumb.

And while you may be willing to play your monsters stupid, I'm certainly not... at least not when the monster ought to be smart. My players are tactically savvy enough to recognize when I'm "dumbing down" a monster that should properly be cunning and vicious.

Well, it's a gamist vs. simulationismn problem that can only be solved with one side losing something. Can you pull, push or otherwise move opponents around or not? If you cannot, why not? In real life, this could conceivable happen! If you can, what do you do with endless cliffs of death, they become totally unbalanced! Off course you could add mechanical hoops in such cases, but that means to the ability to detect hidden pit traps by determining the difficulty to bullrush a blind kobold around the room...

My best suggestion is - avoid these cases, unless you are willing to accept the consequences. (And that may be making players unhappy by killing their characters for playing a monster smart, or making them unhappy because you dumb down your monster, or by destroying verisimilitude to the additional protective hoops.)
I would - despite my strong gamist self - clearly explain my players that they should avoid dropping from great heights, and it's their responsibility to avoid that, not mine.

 

[hong]

Who was it recently said that "the sins of the previous edition do not excuse the sins of the next?" The 3E "bull rush you off a cliff" mechanic was very high on my personal list of Dumb.

What on earth is wrong with bull rushing someone off a cliff?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

What on earth is wrong with bull rushing someone off a cliff?

Feather Fall.

 

[Dausuul]

What on earth is wrong with bull rushing someone off a cliff?

The fact that it's a straight-up contest of Strength, that's what. If I'm playing the most nimble halfling in the world, a 20th-level rogue to boot; and I'm near the edge of a cliff; and a drunken ogre comes charging at me; can I nimbly spring aside at the last moment and watch him go tumbling to his doom? Can I even just step aside and not fall myself? Nope. I've got to beat the ogre's Strength check, with a +4 bonus for his size and a -4 penalty for mine, and if I lose, over I go.

I've got no objection in principle to shove-you-off-a-cliff mechanics, in fact I think they're a splendid thing if done well. But bull rushing is not done well.