Forced movement abilities

[drjones]

At what level are you allowed to use bridges and boats?

Seems like any situation where there is an obstacle to get over to reach the falling part would offer a significant bonus to the save. Ie. a handrail.

So unless you are adventuring in a OSHA un-certified dungeon where the bridges and boats don't have handrails you should be pretty safe. And if you are then I hope you know enough to avoid standing next to the bottomless pit.

Also I would guess there will be a raft of anti-movement abilities like 'Stand Your Ground' that one can focus on.

 

[VannATLC]

Since Fey Step is a move action and charge is a standard action, you'd need some sort of hypothetical feat/power/item that lets you interrupt your charge action with a move action. Sort of a reverse version of Spring Attack.

I'd be happy to let my players blow Fey Step for charge.. less movement, but not OA's against them.

 

[med stud]

What's lethal about a bottomless pit?

Dehydration, I guess .

If "bottomless" is just a poetic description for a really deep pit I would say terminal velocity would be the lethal part.

 

[Kraydak]

ha! This exact scenario happened in last night's game. Jeremy Crawford's wizard got knocked off the bridge by a hurled boulder (ogres got good aim). He went unconcious rather swiftly and was on his way to a quicker death when my eladrin warlord dived in to save him. Grabbed him, tossed him onto shore, and fey stepped out before she burned up herself. It was awesome, if I can say so.

...uh, nothing of content to add except that I was amused to see precisely the scene we encountered here.

As it happens, I fail to see any way the above works with "Die, no save!" lava rules.

 

[Revinor]

When it doubt, look at the movie reference.

Moria as portrayed by Lord of Rings movie. Gandalf, uber-powerful 30lvl wizard who has chosen only utility spells, got owned by immediate reaction, pull 3 squares from Balrog. Before that, entire Fellowship was very lucky when confronting non-pushing archers - amount of non-protected steep stairs surrounded by 'bottomless' pits in Moria was staggering. With ranged attack causing push, none of the party would survive going down these stairs.

 

[Carnivorous_Bean]

I don't know. In 3e Eberron, having fights over lava and stuff seemed pretty common, at least in the (published) games I played. You wouldn't want to do that in 4e from what we've seen.

Also, it just seems odd to me that the 15' tall giant with a sword is less scary near lava then a goblin with a harpoon...

Put differently, it is _really_ hard to kill someone with a single blow in 4e (or 3e past level 3 or so) but it's easy to push them around and kill them that way. That seems neither "realistic" nor consistent with the genre or previous editions or other FRPGs.

This whole argument seems specious to me. The hazards do not exist unless you put them there. You can have a pit without it being 2 miles deep, unlike a bodak, which is either save or die, or not present all all. And unless you absolutely require the most extreme, exaggerated hazard possible to put drama into your games, then there's still no problem.

I think that most people would be as averse to being pushed into a good-sized campfire as into a river of lava. And they'd also prefer not to be pushed over a 6' drop, even if it's not the Grand Canyon. This way, you'd be saving those instantly-lethal hazards for very rare and epic fights -- as is appropriate for them. If you're constantly using lava as a terrain hazard, and it doesn't kill you when you fall in it, then lava is pretty anticlimactic. Increasing the lethality of certain hazards will make them rare, wondrous, and dreadful, the scene of fights with demon lords and ancient dragons, not petty scuffles with kobolds.

In short, I think the increased lethality of extreme hazards will improve storytelling, by making them rare and interesting rather than run-of-the-mill. A fight over lava or an abyss will be one to be remembered in song and story.

 

[lvl20dm]

First rule of dungeon-building: if you make a pit, a player will fall into it. Ergo, don't make your pits deeper than you are willing for your players to experience. Same rule can apply to just about anything else seemingly lethal that you as DM control.

This is very true! As a DM we have a responsibility to make sure the challenges the party encounters are not too difficult/lethal (unless we want to make an encounter that the party can't complete through combat). Does anyone remember that old 3e adventure The Forge of Fury? I ran it as a DM and played through it as a player. One of the first rooms of that dungeon has a pit that is something like 250 feet deep into a subterranean river - it's a 3rd level adventure. Just crossing the bridge prompted a balance check at DC 10 or so, if you failed you fell - you could save yourself with a climb check at DC 10-15 or so. Not surprisingly, the Cleric in halfplate carrying a heavy shield with a Dex of 10 fell to his death when crossing what looked like a perfectly fine bridge. That struck as far too lethal a hazard for a 3rd level party.