Do you like "off screen" events to be rules-plausible?

[Phlebas]

I'm happy to bend the rules a bit, but given how many rules-compatible stuff could be used (wandering monster anyone?) i'm not sure i see the need to go too far away from the RAW unless you are trying to make a plot / flavour point.

With a king dying in an accident, the biggest question will always be why he wasn't ressurected / raise dead rather than the manner of his death and that tends to damage the 'immersion' factor if it happens too often.....

 

[Phlebas]

...........
Or, if a family survives a tornado flattening their house, do they gain xp as if they had a CR 10 encounter? A single tornado would bump them almost to third level. Suddenly that 5 year old, by virtue of surviving a tornado, is almost a 3rd level commoner? Heck, chuck in a couple of dust storms and everyone in the village is now 5th level.

But, hang on, that completely violates the guidelines on settlements. How could you have 1st level NPC's if every bit of nasty weather can gain you xp? A fire is CR 6. Tornado is CR 10. Dust storm is CR 3. I'm sure there are more in the environmental books as well.
..............

{threadjack}
I tend to follow the theory that there's many more commoner 2's, 3's (or experts) in villages than the guidelines - more for flavour than any impact on the game / rules, as it does tend to make settlements a little less brittle and be able to survive the general D&D environment without making PCs irrelevant. I hadn't thought of using disasters to justify this......
{end threadjack}

 

[FireLance]

This just in:

Jason Killed By Falling Timber; Argonauts Baffled

Jason, leader of the Argonauts and retriever of the Golden Fleece, died yesterday after being struck by timber falling from his ship, the Argo.

"This is unbelievable," said Heracles, demi-god and fellow Argonaut, "That piece of timber couldn't have weighed more than 200 pounds, and it couldn't have fallen more than 30 feet. That's at most 3d6 points of damage. We're talking about a guy who defeated harpies, plowed a field with fire-breathing oxen, and got past a dragon here. There's no way that he could have had 18 hp or less."

As Jason was asleep when he was struck by the falling timber, there was speculation that it might have been a coup de grace. However, Argonaut Castor rejected this theory. "A coup de grace has to be made with a melee weapon, a bow or a crossbow. A piece of falling timber is none of these." Castor's twin, Pollux, also ruled out the possibility that Jason had encountered a naturally-occuring save or die trap. "Once we rule out special effects like alchemical devices and poison, mechanical traps simply deal damage. As far as I know, only magical traps can create save or die effects."

Argonaut Orpheus has a more sinister theory. "I'm convinced that Jason was cursed by the gods," he said. "That business with Medea ruffled a lot of feathers. If, as it seems likely, there is no natural explanation for Jason's death, surely we must look for a supernatural one." The clerics of the various gods could not be reached for comments by press time.​

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

The problem is that if the king is high-level (20th level fighter is the now-textbook example), the DM *is* expressly stating that the king was an awesome nigh-invulnerable near-god, and also that he died by a common accident.

I of course agree. In which case my POINT is the same - that the DM needs to disabuse the players/PC's of the idea that it WASN'T just an accident. That is part of what the DM is there for.

The counterpoint is basically saying that 20th level fighters only have the properties of 20th level fighters when it's convenient for them to have those properties for the narrative, but this counterpoint doesn't satisfy me.

Well, in my own games this is not without truth. PC's (and even NPC's) need to follow the path of The Rules, but they must also know when to DISREGARD The Rules because they simply do not and cannot cover everything (and I wouldn't want them to anyway).

And for me, this seems contrived, limited, and ultimately not very much fun for me (and causes me to loose faith in the DM).

And it was only a simplistic example for the discussion at hand which is questions of rules plausibility, not contrived, unimaginative plots and scenarios (which that would, admittedly, be).

"Make Stuff Up" sucks as a rule.

Are we even playing the same game? How can you play D&D and NOT repeatedly make stuff up when the rules come up short?

 

[sinecure]

We may be asking the wrong question. What CR were those horses?

"The King fell off his horse and died! Mind you, his horse was a wildshaped druidic assassin using natural spell to cast multiple finger of death (hoof of death?) spells while in horse form. But still..."

I've learned that if they are Piratecat horses, they have the psionic template.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

This just in:

Jason Killed By Falling Timber; Argonauts Baffled

Argonaut Orpheus has a more sinister theory. "I'm convinced that Jason was cursed by the gods," he said. "That business with Medea ruffled a lot of feathers. If, as it seems likely, there is no natural explanation for Jason's death, surely we must look for a supernatural one." The clerics of the various gods could not be reached for comments by press time.​

It's unfortunate that there were no witnesses to Jason's magically endowed (and arguably higher level) ex wife cursing his to die in that exact manner, before her sudden disapearance. (except the audience, of course ) The Gods help those who curse for themselves?

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

This link is pretty elucidating: http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/d&d-calibrating.html

If this king is supposed to be a 'realistic person,' he's not going to be a 20th level fighter. And if he *is* a 20th level fighter, it's jarring for me to see him die like a realistic person would die.

That link is one of the major reasons I fell in love with the idea of E6 (sixth level is as high a level as a mortal can achieve and from then on out, mortals only gain feats that a sixth level character could qualify for)

That makes the Williams from England that died by falling off horses at most sixth level. But, this isn't a discussion of E6.

Such freak accidents can be simulated with rules, but (in my opinion) there's already quite a bit of rules. The DM needs to be free to rule that there are special situations where falling off a horse can kill anyone.

Just my opinion...

 

[mmadsen]

If the PCs interact with Isildur he's not going to have 5 hp. He'll be bad-ass, same as Sauron.

Or Smaug. Or the fell feast flying over Legolas et al. at night. Or the witch-king.

Who all died by one arrow shot or a couple sword thrusts.