Excerpt: powers (merged)

[drjones]

Generally interesting.

One thing that I don't particularly like and will strongly consider house-ruling



I've never liked that approach.

I'd like to consider that when a power is described as more than one type, the damage applies unless the resistance or immunity is available to BOTH damage types.

In the above example I'd like a power that deals 25 fire and thunder damage to do full damage to anyone unless they are resistant to fire AND thunder.

Just a personal quirk, and it might nor work out IRL, but I'm going to consider it.

Cheers

Thing is I think they are working it this way because they do not want to have to say 'x power does 1d8 fire, 1d8 thunder, 1d8 cold' they just say the damage and you can divide out the fraction when it comes up, which will probably me a minority of the time. Otherwise you are basically 'nerfing' resistances by only letting them work for pure damage. If I was a player under this rule I would always take the spell that did more than one type of damage and have an advantage that the monsters are not balanced for.

That's fine of course, house rules change the math, but I am not sure what what be gained in return.

 

[gizmo33]

True. But the thing is, we're not actually talking about badly-designed rules. We're talking about instances of tortured reading of the written rules to arrive at a ridiculous result. We're talking about cases of arguing against the natural, obvious meaning of phrases in order to achieve something that was clearly not intended. That's what the bag o' rats is about - not a badly-designed or even a badly-described rule, but a ridiculous interpretation of said rule.

I think the defensiveness I've seen in some of the posts ("I'd do such and such to any player that even thought about putting a rat into a bag") IMO is indicative of people who *don't* believe that they are logically on solid ground. There's no reason to be so insecure otherwise. If it's really all that natural and obvious then that's the end of it.

But IME, "natural", "obvious", "clearly" etc. are often in the eye of the beholder and players often have legitimate reasons to see things differently. The name-calling that's gone on in this thread regarding those interpretations IMO is not warranted or respectful. You're just a DM, not an expert on other people's morality/character.

So I find a strategy of "if a player uses this element of the game in the way that I didn't anticipate, they're being a jerk" is disrespectful and narrow-minded - and this goes for game designers that are tempted to be lazy about thinking through things. As much as some DMs probably hate to share control, DnD IMO is a shared environment. Players want to be creative with the elements they have to work with. You have a feat, a bag, and some rats and if you think of a way to put those together to accomplish something then it's not evil for you to do so. What's evil IMO is a DM or game designer who thinks that the only legitimate ideas are the ones that he's comfortable with. IMNSHO, to some degree a successful DM must realize that he has to share a degree of authority with the players and the rule system, otherwise you'll just wind up DMing for zombies.

 

[drjones]

I'm surprised no one has commented on the Acid Wave power. My first thought was "don't cast the brown acid wave." Dude...far out man...

Ah for the 4ed oozemaster:
Brown Wave
Daily * Arcane * Fecal
You really don't want to know. Ick.

 

[KidSnide]

So I find a strategy of "if a player uses this element of the game in the way that I didn't anticipate, they're being a jerk" is disrespectful and narrow-minded

It is not a matter of players using rules elements in a way that I didn't anticipate. That's fine. It's a matter of players using rules elements in a way that doesn't make any sense.

To take a real world analogy, someone who takes a coat hanger and repairs the plumbing on his toilet is clever. And that is an example of using a coat hanger in a way in which it was not intended. By contrast, someone who uses a coat hanger as a pair of pants is an idiot.

Similarly, the idea that a character gets +20/+15/+10 against the demon alone, but gets +20/+20/+20/+20/+20/+20 against the demon if he is surrounded by a half-dozen rats is absurd. And so, if I meet a player who does think he can get that bonus by dragging a bag of rats into the dungeon, I think that player is an...

Well, I don't think he's clever.

 

[gizmo33]

Similarly, the idea that a character gets +20/+15/+10 against the demon alone, but gets +20/+20/+20/+20/+20/+20 against the demon if he is surrounded by a half-dozen rats is absurd. And so, if I meet a player who does think he can get that bonus by dragging a bag of rats into the dungeon, I think that player is an...

Well, I don't think he's clever.

KidSnide indeed! Getting +20/.../+20 against a demon isn't the same thing as wearing a coat hanger for pants at all! There's nothing stupid about finding a way to get +20/.../+20 against a demon, whereas a coat-hanger around your waist probably doesn't do much useful. So I don't see the comparison.

Hypothetically if you have a feat that says "you can get one attack against a demon at +20 for each rat that he's surrounded by" then you'd be stupid *not* to carry a bag of rats with you. I'm sure the first person in history that tried to ride a horse got laughed at too. History is full of examples of people using all sorts of animals for all sorts of things - canaries in coal mines, etc. It only looks stupid until it works.

Ok, so there's probably not a feat that says that specifically about rats, demons, et. al. What it might say is something like "if a demon is surrounded by creatures, then you get an attack at your max BAB for each creature" or something like that. Still, rats are creatures, and a bag full of rats is not a concept that boggles the mind, so if the game designer was thinking "medium-sized creatures", "allies", or something and just wrote "creature" then it's a bad design on his part. But that happens - and if the DM wants to make an on-the-fly ruling and say "medium-creatures only, not tiny rats, for example" then I think that's reasonable.

But AFAICT, a player that reads a rule and comes to a different conclusion is not an idiot. Sure, it would have been polite for a player with any experience with DnD to instinctively know that a feat is not going to give him +20/.../+20 on all of his attacks, and to politely inform the DM of what appears to be vagueness/error in the rules. A player who aggressively assumes that he knows better than the DM here is being a jerk, not an idiot.

 

[Kraydak]

Yes, well, it was a surprise to me too, and it's an error. It's clear under the discussion of proficiency bonuses elsewhere that they don't apply to damage.

A DM who allows the bag of rats hasn't read page 40 of the DMG, where that example is specifically invoked under the discussion of (non)legitimate targets.

Would you mind horribly quoting that section? The problem I have with the idea is that there *are* situations where a rat (or a blind kobold, IIRC the original form of the Bag-o-Rats was a blind kobold) *would* be a legitimate target.

 

[Rabbitbait]

Why do we need to bother with power cards at all, why not have it exactly like the pregen character sheets we've already seen with the powers printed in full as part of the character?

I'd love it if the character generator did this and automatically worked out the variable numbers for you that become static based on your level or abilities.

I don't want a handful of cards that players will lose or get mixed up with other peoples cards.

 

[JohnSnow]

Hypothetically if you have a feat that says "you can get one attack against a demon at +20 for each rat that he's surrounded by" then you'd be stupid *not* to carry a bag of rats with you. I'm sure the first person in history that tried to ride a horse got laughed at too. History is full of examples of people using all sorts of animals for all sorts of things - canaries in coal mines, etc. It only looks stupid until it works.

Ok, so there's probably not a feat that says that specifically about rats, demons, et. al. What it might say is something like "if a demon is surrounded by creatures, then you get an attack at your max BAB for each creature" or something like that. Still, rats are creatures, and a bag full of rats is not a concept that boggles the mind, so if the game designer was thinking "medium-sized creatures", "allies", or something and just wrote "creature" then it's a bad design on his part. But that happens - and if the DM wants to make an on-the-fly ruling and say "medium-creatures only, not tiny rats, for example" then I think that's reasonable.

But AFAICT, a player that reads a rule and comes to a different conclusion is not an idiot.

You're right, he's not an idiot. He's a powergaming tweaker with no grasp on "reality" who's looking to rules lawyer any advantage he can out of the system by taking the most absurdist interpretation possible.

To provide any kind of flanking bonus (for example), the "creatures" should have to be:

a) legitimately threatening to the target in question.
b) actively attacking the target in question.

In other words, if you dump out a bag of rats, they're only a legitimate threat if you have a way to make them attack the creature in question and they can actually hurt it. In other words, if you're the Rat-King and can direct them to attack, you can use your bag o' rats. What kind of flanking bonus they provide may be another matter.

Moreover, to a demon with damage resistance 5+, the rats (who can maybe do 1 hp of damage) aren't dangerous enough to even qualify as a nuisance.

However, based on what Michele said, I imagine this is all covered in the DMG.

 

[muffin_of_chaos]

It's always funny to find a loophole in the rules. But the idea of Balance exists for a reason, not merely for the DM to maintain order in his/her campaign.
A DM that allows the rat rule as a legitimate interpretation of the rules is just a terrible DM, because unless there is a way they counterbalance the strength of the exploit, it hurts the game in general. For the players.

 

[Mallus]

But AFAICT, a player that reads a rule and comes to a different conclusion is not an idiot.

That depends on the conclusion he comes to, doesn't it?

Giz, if you're looking at the rules as tools for creating a consensus imaginary space for adventure stories, the Bag of Rats is absurd. Because actively imagining King Conan emptying a sack full of rodents in the air in front of him as a preface to the mighty hewing of foes is an undeniably ridiculous picture. It's about as 'epic' as getting really, really stoned and watching Lazytown...