Forced movement abilities

[hong]

Maybe your gaming group is different, but mine is the sort that will try to exploit any possible advantage, no matter how absurd it sounds. I can see it already: I am describing a coronation ceremony in the royal throne room, but everyone at the table stops listening to me as soon as they hear the word 'fireplace.'

"Wait...there is a fireplace in this room?! How big? Is it burning? Is it big enough to shove someone into it? How long would it take me to light it? Can I position myself so that the guards are between it and myself? Omigosh, omigosh, omigosh...there's a fireplace here!"

I don't know about you, but shoving people into a fireplace, and then having them dance around with their butts on fire, sounds awesome to me. In fact, I've got to use that in the next pub brawl I run!

 

[CleverNickName]

I don't know about you, but shoving people into a fireplace, and then having them dance around with their butts on fire, sounds awesome to me. In fact, I've got to use that in the next pub brawl I run!

You are right, it does sound fun. But at a coronation ceremony in the royal chamber? (Okay, that sounds fun too. But you know what I'm getting at. )

I'm not saying that it shouldn't be used. I just don't want it being used all the time, that's all. I don't want game mechanics to detract from the setting, especially when I am trying to set the mood for story line advancement.

 

[WanderingMonster]

I think that is at 10th level, when you get your Ring of Boating, then the other one at 20th level when you get your Ring of Bridge Crossing, or whenever you get to it after that.

Wrong. 4e says you can't wear your ring of boating until 11th level. (with the second one coming at level 21, not 20)

 

[Almacov]

At least one report from the D&D Experience has said that, if forced movement pushes you into hazardous terrain, you can make a save to fall prone in the last "safe" square instead of being pushed into the hazard.

Yep, so it's not the players with push effects that are scary. It's the DM's Drow Wand Mage with teleportation effects that should fill one with terror. =P

"Combat Teleport Reaction, after (Melee) atk against this creature by adj enemy; +13 vs Will; tport that enemy up to 3. If no longer within enemy's reach, atk fails. Rchg6."

 

[mach1.9pants]

So, save or die then

ROFLMAO, some things never change now matter the edition. I almost spit my coffee on the LCD!
Edit:/OffTopic.. I wouldn't let any push/pull etc work beyond a barrier. Yes you could push some on off a cliff edge, but not over the side of a boat (They'd stop at the gunnels) or out a window (they'd stop at the wall). Maybe if it was a less the knee height obstacle, but otherwise they would stop there.

 

[Cadfan]

Anyway, I'm a bit concerned about the various forced movement abilities in 4e, such as the tide-of-iron, the goblin picador, the force blast of the hobgoblin warcaster and so on. Basically their effectiveness seem to be more or less proportional to the danger of the environment.

Yep.

Lesson- don't send the characters into environments which can auto kill them, then put in monsters that can push them into environmental hazards.

But putting them in environments which harm them, rather than kill them outright, is fine.

If you need guidelines on how to do this, check the section on traps. Compare the damage your environmental hazard does with the damage dealt by traps of various levels, and you'll know about what is reasonable. Heck, a 10' cliff and an uncovered 10' pit are the same thing, technically speaking.

Re, boats: Water is no longer an auto-kill environmental hazard. The way nobody in D&D could swim was a relic of the 3e skill system, in which many characters had plate mail proficiency, but did not have Swim as a class skill. This resulted in them not putting ranks in Swim, and ending up with swim checks in the -9 range. DMs, knowing that the Paladin and Cleric would die instantly upon encountering the smallest of streams, declined to include said streams as locations for fights. Other players, relying on this tendency, then skipped putting ranks in Swim, completing the vicious cycle.

Nowadays, in 4e, a minimum of skill ranks are free as you level up, and the armor check penalty is smaller. Plus, Swim has been rolled into another skill, so you get more out of training in it if you choose to do so, meaning characters are more likely to make that choice.

Re, fireplaces and coronation ceremonies: That is not a problem with fireplaces. That is a problem with your players pushing nonviolent, nonthreatening, nonopponent NPCs into fireplaces just because they can.

 

[hong]

This can be thought of as another example of 4E shifting encounter complexity from individual monsters, to the encounter as a whole. Previously if you wanted the potential for an instant kill, all you had to do was use a monster with instakill powers. There were plenty of these. In fact, past a certain point, most monsters could kill if not in 1 round, then certainly in 2. Conversely, players with instakill powers could be hard to defend against consistently, because of the way saves scaled with level. This made it difficult to avoid instakills (whether on the DM or player side) even if you weren't aiming for that effect.

In 4E, if you want the potential for an instakill via something like bottomless pits, it has to be an explicit decision on your part. This itself should help address the instakill issue: if you don't want people falling into pits, then you simply don't use them. Not every combat has to have a pit, and it's not like one will suddenly open up because you overlooked some obscure monster ability.

However, this brings with it the necessity of designing the rest of the encounter so that if a pit exists, then it isn't too easily exploited. If you have a pit, but your monsters don't have any powerful shoving ability, then it's okay. If you have something like the goblin picador, a big part of whose schtick is to shove people around, then it becomes much more dangerous.

 

[brehobit]

However, this brings with it the necessity of designing the rest of the encounter so that if a pit exists, then it isn't too easily exploited. If you have a pit, but your monsters don't have any powerful shoving ability, then it's okay. If you have something like the goblin picador, a big part of whose schtick is to shove people around, then it becomes much more dangerous.

Which raises two questions:
#1 is it realistic that terrain be so deadly thing in a fight?
#2 is it fun that terrain be so deadly in a fight?

I think 1 is "rarely" and 2 is "sometimes"

 

[catsclaw]

However, this brings with it the necessity of designing the rest of the encounter so that if a pit exists, then it isn't too easily exploited. If you have a pit, but your monsters don't have any powerful shoving ability, then it's okay. If you have something like the goblin picador, a big part of whose schtick is to shove people around, then it becomes much more dangerous.

In one of my delve runs, for the medium combat there was a 20' pit and a pair of gnome illusionists. Turns out, gnome illusionists can "Startle". Attack vs. Will, on success shift the target one square. Two people got spooked to the bottom of the pit (and took 2d10 damage).

Given that this was a "medium" encounter, I'm pretty sure the system is set up so you can have environmental hazards, and enemies that exploit them, as low as first level.

 

[hong]

Which raises two questions:
#1 is it realistic that terrain be so deadly thing in a fight?
#2 is it fun that terrain be so deadly in a fight?

I think 1 is "rarely" and 2 is "sometimes"

Note that being shoved off an edge can mean anything from 1d6 damage to instant death. Someone who puts a mile-high cliff into an adventure for 1st level PCs has nobody to blame but themselves.