D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[Lanefan]

It is odd, in fact. TK can move an object that weighs only up to 1000 pounds, but lets you move a Huge or smaller creature 30' in any direction, even upwards, with no mention of weight. Now I don't know about you, but I would think most Huge creatures are going to weigh several thousand pounds at least. It's like the square cube law doesn't exist in 5e, lol.

OTOH, this is consistent with how grapple forced movement (and forced movement in general in 5e) doesn't care about weights or encumbrance, only size.

EDIT: before someone says "well obviously a DM should just house rule that", the problem is, such a ruling could cause the entire grapple system to fall apart. Let's say an 18 Strength human weighs, oh, I don't know, 190 pounds (a little over 86 kg for non-Imperials). The default carry capacity rules (seen by many as being very generous to begin with) would let this human carry around Strength score x 15 pounds, or 270. With a suit of plate (65 pounds), a shield (6 pounds), a longsword (3 pounds), and a mere 7 pounds of gear, this 18 Strength human would be unable to move his evil doppleganger (created via mirror of opposition) more than 5 feet a turn...except they couldn't even do that, because when trying to move a grappled opponent, your speed is halved!

It would be pretty simple to just leave the hard weight limit on spells (i.e. drop the "huge-or-smaller-creature" clause) and not touch grapple.

Then again, if two opponents are each heavier than the other can carry, no problem: they fight in place unless one moves voluntarily. And don't forget you can drag half again your carry cap (at least I think that's still true in 5e), meaning your Str 18 guy could still move his doppleganger at least to a small extent.

 

[Maxperson]

Yeah. It is not that far fetched to apply a prone condition to an ooze.

It is knocked over instead of knocked down.

They have no up, down or sideways. How do you knock it down?

 

[Lanefan]

But how does something without hands "grapple"? After all, a green slime can't actually grab anything. For that matter, how does a snake "grapple". Snakes don't have hands. They cannot "grab" something. It makes no sense.

Snakes can constrict, which seems close enough for rock'n'roll.

I'd also point out that "detect life" no longer exists.

That's sad. Wonder why they dropped it.

 

[Maxperson]

You can always find a reason to make stuff like that work. The problem as I see it is a design philosophy that demands you find that reason.

Justification. If the "reason" involves knocking over a creature that has no "over" to knock, then it goes from "reason" to justification. You can't disorient something by knocking it over if it has no up, down or sideways. It has no such orientation to wreck.

 

[Maxperson]

This is one of those many cases in D&D arguments where it's just a matter of people being far, FAR too stuck on D&D's use of certain "best-fit" words. They see "Trip" and "Prone" as the only way to imagine what is happening.

It's not their fault, really - the game uses "trip" and "prone" for cause and effect.

But, I think that it's pretty clear that nearly every word in D&D (conditions especially, but also anything the game uses as a descriptor) is meant to mean "Usually and often this is the case, but there are many corner-cases where this word is not meant to be taken literally, and many other adjacent ideas would often fit better".

You don't "trip" an ooze and have it "fall prone". You "flip, smoosh, shake, splat, spin, splatter, etc, etc" an ooze and have it "take some time to reorient itself - anything where it is slightly less able to move and/or defend itself momentarily".

Words in D&D are usually meant to inspire, not to straight-jacket. IMO, we often get stuck on them.

They used "trip" and "prone" because those words have very specific meanings and those meanings were the context of those abilities. When you start making every ability abstract so you can apply it to everything else, meaning is lost.

3.5 defined prone to mean lying on the ground. Not smushed. Not splattered. Not shaken. Not flipped. Lying on the ground which an ooze already is.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Isn't it great how DM and players can navigate the fiction together to create new realities?

I'm sure glad WOTC never gave oozes prone immunity in their monster category/description!

 

[Corinnguard]

What if the ooze happens to be a Plasmoid while they're in a more humanoid form?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

They used "trip" and "prone" because those words have very specific meanings and those meanings were the context of those abilities. When you start making every ability abstract so you can apply it to everything else, meaning is lost.

3.5 defined prone to mean lying on the ground. Not smushed. Not splattered. Not shaken. Not flipped. Lying on the ground which an ooze already is.

I've bowed out of this conversation after stupidly stepping in a dungheap, but out of respect for you, Max, I'll not ghost your comment and give the simplest response that I can muster: I don't agree that any keywords in D&D have "very specific meanings" (so much so, that I didn't think that it was in dispute, more fool me.)

Instead, I believe that D&D keywords have "best-fit meanings" that are often, from subtly-shifted to outright contradicted by various rules. This goes for "trip", "prone", "hit", "miss", "damage", "healing"... the list goes on and on AND ON.

But, of course, you are free to not prefer that and to fight against it! Most of the time, it'll work out. Some times, you might find that the game fights back. And that's okay too! You can outlaw stuff that doesn't jive and avoid versions, like 4e, that (on the surface, at least) allow for more obvious instances of that sort of thing.

 

[Maxperson]

There is however at least one ooze that can be knocked prone. Plasmoids.

D&D is an exceptions based system. There's an exception to virtually every rule. In 3.5 I removed the ability to knock an ooze prone, because they have no up, down or sideways. There's nothing to prone, which it seems 5e recognized.

 

[Maxperson]

To be fair, isn't green slime a hazard now, not a creature? So, it doesn't have any actual combat rules regarding it.

Or am I mixing my editions again?

Really, it's never been anything more than a hazard. It was just a creature hazard in 1e that dissolved you and a hazard hazard in 5e that dissolves you. It really should have been a hazard hazard in 1e as well.