Goblin Picador

[Lonely Tylenol]

That hit points don't cause lasting damage does not mean that they are not associated with wounds. That PCs regain all their hit points does not mean that they are unwounded.

I'm not sure why you want to continue this discussion on every thread, but I wish you would stop beginning all your posts with a straw man argument regarding the rules, other posters, or both.

QFT. There is already a thread for this. If you don't like that thread, start a new one for complaining about HP. All this cross-posting of snarky commentary concerning pet peeves by everyone with pet peeves is really starting to stink. If you have a dead horse that you think needs more beating, by all means start your own thread. But your horse is dead, and we don't need to watch you beating it, because it ain't gonna get up and dance.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I apologize, just tired of sitting around whilst others concoct arguments that hold no bearing. If my Suspension of Disbelief allows me to understand overnight healing, why must I be told so often that I am wrong?

As to the Picador's abilities, I would assume they are more in line with the Bugbear Strangler and a monster ability, not a weapon ability.

I get the feeling that this sort of thing is what they meant when they were talking about how it matters now what weapon you take as a fighter. This is exactly the sort of thing I envision fighters being able to "unlock" by being proficient in a particular weapon.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I get the feeling that this sort of thing is what they meant when they were talking about how it matters now what weapon you take as a fighter. This is exactly the sort of thing I envision fighters being able to "unlock" by being proficient in a particular weapon.

Can you say Dragon-hunter!

 

[med stud]

When someone says it's more believable to recover from grave injuries in 10 days than 6 hours, and realistically those injuries would take a person a year or so to recover from with modern medical science, their sense of "realism" and "believability" is so skewed as to not merit those descriptive terms.

And that doesn't even touch on the fact that hit points have never been realistic. Ever.

Amen. A playable RPG will not have realistic or believable healing times. If realistic/believable is out, then it makes sense to have playable healing times instead.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Well, I'd say that logically, the goblin could just drop the rope, but that kind of simulationist thinking is verboten.

By Hypersmurf, maybe. But applied to the rest of us, it's just more hyperbole.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I would respond like this:

"Roll for it. Standard action, Str vs. Fort. On a hit you can pull him 3 squares. If you miss, you can only pull him 1."

I wonder how you would rule on this:

"I want to grab the tether and wrap it around my massive forearms, then swing him into his loser friends!"

I would probably say something like: Str vs Fort to yank the goblin off his feet as a standard action, then Str vs AC to hit as a standard action; 1d6+Str damage to both goblins.

I guess that means you need to spend an action point. Cool. Maybe give a penalty to all attacks if it's a standard and a lesser action.

Forcing a player to spend an action point in order to pull off something ridiculous but flashy is a perfectly acceptable trade-off, IMO. I'm going to use that.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

"So, what you're saying is that this plate is actually ultra-rare plate, since no one but orcs has a need for it, and I just need to find 30 orcish warlords who could use a set, keeping in mind that orcish warlords tend to be rich and can afford things like high-quality armor?"

And high-level minions who will kill you for a fortune in orcish plate armour?

 

[frankthedm]

My criticism above is one I absolutely expect to hear if I use this monster in combat. The picador will throw his harpoon, snag some big strong PC, and the first words out of that player's mouth will be, "Okay, I drag him along. He's a goblin, how the heck is he going to hold me in place?" It's a totally rational and logical response.

"How? He's diggin in and holding tight." And if the player makes a good point, then you make a ruling. You tell the player "Sure, standard action, Str vs. Fort. If you win, move up to your speed and gobbo's gotta chose whether to be pulled along or to let you keep the harpoon."

 

[william_nova]

If they want to explicitly make hit points cuts/bruises/exhaustion/stress, then, they should not build mechanics into the game which imply explicit wounds.

Suppose I have a monster called the Hobgoblin Executioner who wields a Great Big Axe. He has a per encounter power which slices off a limb, with the effect of you drop anything you were holding and take 2d10 damage. The game effect is 'drop items and take damage', but the flavor text is 'the hobgoblin chops your arm off'.

Tell me your SOD isn't fried when you take a healing surge and grow it right back. (Assuming you're not playing a Newtborn.)

Change it to 'Hobgoblin Limbcrusher' who wield a big hammer and hits you so hard your arm goes painfully numb, and it makes a lot more sense. Game effect remains the same, SOD is much less affected.

Change the Picador to a Lassooer, and ditto. Same game rules. Same cool tactical effects. Less head-go-splodey. (The lasso has blades in it, so it still does cutting damage)

Keep everything consistent. Put the burden of the imagination on the designers to come up with Cool Game Effects that fit with the new "hit points DO NOT, EVER, represent actual physical wounds of any severity" paradigm, and not ask the player base to fanwank everything to justify it.

I find it really funny that some folks keep insisting 4e is more of a straight minis wargame than ever before (the 4e sux camp), while other folks are saying the rules are not Simulationist enough, which seems to imply the game isn't wargamey enough (also the 4e sux camp).

Personally, I've played tons and tons of RPGs. None are perfect. All of them sacrifice some mechanics for others, attempt to get one feel at the expense of another. Personally I don't see 4e as a wargame or a brutal WoW'ing down.

As a disclaimer, I played 1e and 2e, but I swore off 3e. I hated it. Now 4e, that's more the game I think it always should have been.

So say what you will, but WotC got me back. Never thought I'd be saying that. But come Keep on the Shadowfell I will be back. Playing D&D.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

This looks like a great monster concept; my worry is that WotC won't do the work to rationalize how its abilities work in combat, in a way that stands up to player scrutiny.

It's kind of a blind spot WotC has. They'll go to extravagant lengths in every other regard to make the DM's life easier. But then they put in mechanics like the picador harpoon--mechanics which will cause major suspension-of-disbelief issues without a carefully-thought-out explanation--and slap on a shaky bit of fluff that even a mildly inquisitive player will tear apart.

My criticism above is one I absolutely expect to hear if I use this monster in combat. The picador will throw his harpoon, snag some big strong PC, and the first words out of that player's mouth will be, "Okay, I drag him along. He's a goblin, how the heck is he going to hold me in place?" It's a totally rational and logical response.

Now, I can think up explanations that will cover this situation. Maybe the picador is crazy strong for a goblin (he is, in fact), and he grabs onto a nearby terrain feature and hangs on like grim death. Or maybe once he's harpooned you, he knows how to keep you off balance so you can't set yourself to pull away.

Either of these could work, but I don't want to have to stop and think them out mid-combat while the game comes to a screeching halt. And not every DM is as good at rationalization as I am. It would be really nice if WotC would put the same effort into the interface between mechanics and game world that they do into the mechanics themselves; that interface is, after all, where the rubber meets the road. WotC's game systems tend to be like cars with massively powerful, perfectly machined engines, which are sitting on four flat tires.

Of course, we haven't seen the full monster entry, and I might be wrong. Maybe WotC has come up with a really clear, well-considered, robust explanation for the picador's abilities. But, based on past experience... I kind of doubt it.

I think this a list of very good and well thought out concerns, even though non of us don't quite know the rule exceptions 4e has.