How many Tools do you Need?

[I'm A Banana]

Do you see issues with running a 4e Planescape game? I ask because I'm planning on running a 4e PS game, and I haven't sat down to think of any issues (because it will be my second 4e campaign) but I haven't though of any.

I don't think I would personally have any issues running a 4e PS game, because I'm willing to punch rules in the face to get what I want out of a game. It would depend on how close you want to hew to the core assumptions -- all tieflings being the result of a devil's pact in an ancient empire is pretty limiting for a PS campaign, and the lack of monks and psionics is a bit wonky for githzerai/githyanki/mindflayer things, and not knowing exactly what's up with the celestial side of things means "aasimar" could be pretty different....

Places where it could be really awesome are in, for instance, allowing faction members to choose philosophical powers instead of class powers, so that the Xaositect's daily ability is different than the non-faction-member Wizard, who has a different at-will power selection than the party's Indep...

The biggest problem would definately be in the "races" category, but it definately isn't insurmountable. If you don't get around to it 'till after the new Manual of the Planes and the PH2, it'll be even easier.

If "D&D" were no longer synonymous with "RPG" in most people's minds, it would be a lot easier to get some real innovation in the industry.

Interesting. I like where your brain's at with this, and I might agree. Giving other companies room to do a "dungeon survival game" or something might help the whole psychology of the industry reach a healtheir place (one where the D&D name isn't the only name in gaming). I'm not sure it'd be good for Wizards, specifically, on that note, but I've never been much of a company loyalist.

Side note: I've been having a hell of a time getting a group to try out FFZ, but I swear that one day I'm running a game of Cornerian Red Mages on Chocobos. Oh yes.

One of the first new releases of FFZ when we go through the re-launch this fall will be the red mage. Good luck getting them to try it, if you talk 'em into it, let me know how it goes!

 

[Imban]

Wouldn't common sense simply rule that out?

Maybe. My "common sense" tells me that in the following situation, a Cleave would be ruled out because of blatant physical impossibility:

...
.1.
FX2
.X.

Where F is the fighter, X is a wall, and 1 and 2 are his initial and secondary Cleave targets.

There are definitely people on this board - somewhat respectable pro-4e people, not just terrible rules lawyer types - whose "common sense" would tell them that said cleave is blatantly legal, and I'm supposed to handwave something about 1 staggering into 2 and then back into his square in order to inflict my Strength in damage on 2, or whatever.

This, in my experience, creates a clash of expectations and a possible at-the-table argument. A clarifying explanation, set down in plain text, that such a Cleave would be going through a wall and is impossible would help my game, not hurt it, even though I'm certainly capable of adjudicating that 9% of cases on the fly.

 

[med stud]

That isn't common sense though. Its a personal preference that you don't use the rules as written a certain way (ie, 'power' exploits are bad, so people shouldn't do them, though this is a pretty trivial example of a power exploit).

Furthermore, in this situation I'd say common sense supports the exploitation of the power. Your knack for cleaving into opponents doesn't care if the target of the attack is an opponent or not. It could be an ogre, a rat or a small boy named Kevin. All your character knows is that if he twists his axe *this* way, he can slice it along the flesh of someone/thing standing close by.

Plus, of course, 'common sense' means very different things to different people. The rules have to provide for: playing with friends, playing with strangers, playing with experienced folk, playing with inexperienced folk, playing with smart, stupid, old or young people, organized play, and so on and so forth. If it isn't covering situations in an understandable way for most, if not all of those situations, its failing on some level.

And personally, I find that the more people I play with (which is inevitable since I move around a lot), the more I find that what I think of as 'common sense' is not quite unique to me, but only found a very small part of the population.

I think common sense is just what is needed against your examples there. Cleave wasn't written with cleaving pet rats in mind, neither was it written as a way to break natural laws. If someone denies this, they are either obtuse or really, really dense. In any of those two cases, I'm happy to not play with them.

 

[Professor Phobos]

There are definitely people on this board - somewhat respectable pro-4e people, not just terrible rules lawyer types - whose "common sense" would tell them that said cleave is blatantly legal, and I'm supposed to handwave something about 1 staggering into 2 and then back into his square in order to inflict my Strength in damage on 2, or whatever.

Such people are crazy, and should go to a dungeon.

 

[med stud]

Maybe. My "common sense" tells me that in the following situation, a Cleave would be ruled out because of blatant physical impossibility:

...
.1.
FX2
.X.

Where F is the fighter, X is a wall, and 1 and 2 are his initial and secondary Cleave targets.

There are definitely people on this board - somewhat respectable pro-4e people, not just terrible rules lawyer types - whose "common sense" would tell them that said cleave is blatantly legal, and I'm supposed to handwave something about 1 staggering into 2 and then back into his square in order to inflict my Strength in damage on 2, or whatever.

This, in my experience, creates a clash of expectations and a possible at-the-table argument. A clarifying explanation, set down in plain text, that such a Cleave would be going through a wall and is impossible would help my game, not hurt it, even though I'm certainly capable of adjudicating that 9% of cases on the fly.

As a DM, you are perfectly in your right to rule that Cleave won't work in that situation. You are also free to rule that it works. You already have an explanation why it would work. If the rules for powers would include every possible cornercase, like the one you presented, Cleave would look like an American manual for a mixer; 10 pages of information with 100 pages telling you not to put your hand in it, etc. It would be a waste of space since there are people with perfectly functioning brains that are playing the game.

 

[Imban]

If the rules for powers would include every possible cornercase, like the one you presented, Cleave would look like an American manual for a mixer; 10 pages of information with 100 pages telling you not to put your hand in it, etc.

Actually, one of my goals for the revision of 4e powers I plan on undertaking is to not add more than one sentence of text to the typical power. No one wants this because as WotC accurately stated, it's 110-some lines of text. I'd be awful displeased with myself if my revision got up to 20.

One sentence of text per power adds up to 500 sentences over 500 powers, which is a heck of a lot of added text and page space, but not a terrible increase in complexity. Since this is going to be for an online project, I don't care at all about the former.

 

[Ulthwithian]

Imban: While I applaud your desire to 'help' the rules, and also your realization that the smallest increases normally give the best returns, I think you might be a little too optimistic in your project's reception. If someone wants to rules-lawyer a rule, it doesn't really matter how much is written about it; they'll find a corner case that isn't covered.

Luckily, for my part, I have never run into anything near the 'corner cases' (IMO, out and out rules exploitation) that is considered the norm here. Luckily, for those who would do this, they aren't around to see my likely reaction if they tried it.

 

[Imban]

Imban: While I applaud your desire to 'help' the rules, and also your realization that the smallest increases normally give the best returns, I think you might be a little too optimistic in your project's reception. If someone wants to rules-lawyer a rule, it doesn't really matter how much is written about it; they'll find a corner case that isn't covered.

Luckily, for my part, I have never run into anything near the 'corner cases' (IMO, out and out rules exploitation) that is considered the norm here. Luckily, for those who would do this, they aren't around to see my likely reaction if they tried it.

I actually don't really intend it for distribution beyond my personal gaming circle, because it seems like it may be easier to write by copying massive amounts of text from the 4e books than by using page/line errata. I'm also pretty confident that there aren't that many edge cases in the incredibly simplified powers presented in 4e.

 

[Carnivorous_Bean]

So does that make me some kind of unnatural mutant destined to a devastating implosion?

Because I happen to like what I've seen of 4e a lot ....

....and I have no intention of running a campaign in the 'default world' or even using any of the 'new' races in my campaign setting (players can roll 'em if they want, just that they're a lone interplanar traveler) ....

.... and don't have any intention of allowing Cleave to work in any way contrary to my perception of common sense, even though I prefer the new version of Cleave? For example, the bag of rats just leads to --

Round 1. Drop all weapons and shields, since you need both hands free, one to hold bag of rats, one to extract rat from bag.

Round 2. Make dexterity check to avoid dropping wriggling bag of rats (if dropped, rats scatter and are wasted), and another dexterity check to pluck one out.

Round 3. Must drop bag of rats, or hand it off to someone with a free hand, so that you can draw your weapon. If handing off, dexterity check required to avoid dropping bag. If bag is dropped accidently, dexterity check needed to avoid dropping in rat in hand as well, by reflex.

Round 4. Must draw weapon -- requires 2 dexterity checks, one to avoid dropping weapon, one to avoid dropping squirming, thrashing, biting rat.

Round 5. Make attack roll against rat. If attack is successful, cleave strikes additional target as normal. On a miss, roll to see if you cut yourself, and roll dexterity to avoid dropping the rat. Rat automatically dropped if you cut yourself -- and you're going to take full weapon damage, because you're swinging pretty hard at your own hand/arm if you've got enough momentum to hack into something else beside the rat.

See? Anyone is welcome to try the bag of rats technique in my game. Have fun spending 5 rounds with all bonuses to AC other than armor gone, in order to possibly inflict 3 points of damage.

 

[kennew142]

Luckily, for my part, I have never run into anything near the 'corner cases' (IMO, out and out rules exploitation) that is considered the norm here. Luckily, for those who would do this, they aren't around to see my likely reaction if they tried it.

I've often wondered how much these corner cases actually come up in play, and how much it's just a case of experienced GMs poking holes in the silliness that arises from overanalyzing the rules. It can be fun to argue about on the internet, but are people really trying to use these exploits. I've run literally hundreds of tables of D&D 3e in the last few years, filled with strangers, and I've never had anyone pull out bag of rats, or any of the other silliness I see worried to death on these forums.

Maybe I've been really lucky.