I Hate Bards

[DracoSuave]

You need line of effect to the creature you're teleporting to affect it.

Nothing in teleportation says that you don't, therefore the general rule applies. The exceptions it does make are towards the destination square, where you don't need line of effect but do need line of sight.

 

[malraux]

You say that like it's a bad thing.


The one thing nobody has mentioned so far is that when the bard hit the purple worm he could have teleported it. What if the DM let that happen and left the swallowed character behind? Would that be:

A. Cool;
B. A poor interpretation of the rules; or
C. Both.

Oh, its definitely both. Heck, I'd let a character make an attack to do a Heimlich maneuver and force the character out (even though that's not how the Heimlich works) or use prestidigitation to super-spice some food to give the worm indigestion and give the character a bonus escape attempt at a bonus. Those are creative solutions that I'd totally let happen.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You need line of effect to the creature you're teleporting to affect it.

Nothing in teleportation says that you don't, therefore the general rule applies. The exceptions it does make are towards the destination square, where you don't need line of effect but do need line of sight.

You need LoE to the TARGET of a power. I just read through the RC tonight on this out of curiosity. An 'ancillary effect' that works on some other creature besides the target falls squarely through a hole in the rules. EVERY rule WRT to what you can or cannot effect specifically talks about a target, which is a tightly defined term. Thus an effect which affects a non-targeted creature HAS NO RULES about LoE or LoS or in fact no other default rules at all.

The teleport rule, at least in the RC, states only that you need LoS to the destination. Presumably they didn't mention the creature being teleported on the assumption that it is covered under targeting rules, except in this case it isn't because it is not a target.

Thus NO RULE covers this at all, except 'the user of the power must have LoS to the destination'. This is why I stated in my previous post that technically Iconik's interpretation is perfectly supportable by a narrow reading of RAW. I think it is NOT the intended reading, BUT the whole thing really isn't all that clear-cut.

Consider splash effects as I did above. Those clearly would tell you that you really should have LoE to any affected but untargeted creatures. OTOH there are a SLEW of leader powers that have ancillary effects on allies that aren't the target. Some class features as well. SOME of them state things like 'that you can see', but a LOT of them don't. It really isn't clear that LoE or LoS or visibility in general SHOULD apply to those. I think once again this is a 4e gray area that you can't just rule one way or the other for all situations and get RAI in all of them.

In other words I think the 'you must have LoE' argument is reasonable, but so is the other position that you don't.

 

[Vendark]

You need LoE to the TARGET of a power.

Actually, it says target of an EFFECT. You can be a target of a power's effect without being the target of the power.

 

[Istar]

At the end of the day, the DM is King !!!
Let the PC's have their say, but at the end of the day you are ruling and creating the world and the creatures in and what they do.

The PCs control one thing, their character, they tell you what they do.

You control all else.

Sounds like they are walking all over you.

You need to stand up and take back control.

They dont need to understand how or what the monsters do, just know what is happening to their PC.

This kind of control can actually add to the roleplay.

"You thought you would have been hidden from this great beast but somehow it found you, maybe showering more often could be useful".

"The powers of the bard are mighty, and your comrade felt your powers, but it was to no avail".

And when they ask why

The standard answer is "Who is your PC talking to".

When they ask again "You besiege the gods for answers but to no avail".

Or 3rd time "The wailing of your character attracts another of the great beasts".

 

[RigaMortus2]

The party was able to make out the forms of a few giant desert beetles a little ways in the distance. This was supposed to be a battle encounter but the bard (gamebreaking bard) was able to mimic the sound of the beetles natural predator (a dragon - which are rare in my world but not so much along this mountain range) and scare them off. He patted himself on the back and scared the beetles off. The party was a little upset that he screwed them all out of xp.

So they defeated the encounter, though not the way you had planned, and you didn't give them XP for it?

 

[Saeviomagy]

What I don't get is... why does it matter? The bard did something, someone's life was saved, everyone should feel happy. The only way this entire event should be unhappy is if you all got into a bitter rules argument about it, in which case you all need to cool down, and the only reason it matters at all is if you intend to use more purple worms in future and you want some consistency in how effective this spell is against them.

On the beetle thing. It seems weird to not reward XP on the grounds that you allowed one person to make a single roll to end a combat and then blame it on the person who rolled. XP isn't some sort of behavioural bludgeon, and it almost looks like you're trying to use it to either guilt-trip or place a bounty on the head of this player. I can't imagine why else you'd be so specific about why XP wasn't awarded. What should we do with the bard? Burn her!

 

[RigaMortus2]

OK. So my friend is txting me saying we're wrong.

Please see Rule of Thumb thread here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/295017-good-rule-thumb.html

I didn't agree with this post before, but now I see the validity of it. And considering your post count is 54 (atm) and your friend's is probably 0...

Edit: FWIW, after reading the actual text of the power that was posted, and reading all other responses, my call as a DM would have been to allow it. On the basis that all it mentions is that the ally needs to be within 5 squares of the caster, which they are. The problem is that the "effect" is a rider effect based off the Hit line, the ally doesn't have it's own Target line entry, so the typical rules about LoE/LoS may not apply.

Anyway, I would happily rule that it works in favor of the Bard...

 

[jbear]

I'm not getting the whole 'your player is being abusive' and 'you are letting them walk all over you' responses.

It seems like you and your group are having a good time.
It seems like you give them liscence to push the rules to limit and think outside the box.

But you find that your Bard does it in a way that sometimes gets on your nerves? Or just tries to push you so often that you are getting a little annoyed and need to express that and get some feedback from fellow players?

In the specific case of the teleport from the worm:

It seems from reading the thread that the interpretation of the legality of the PC from inside the worm is far from clearcut.

The worm does have a special mention about the fact that swallowing cuts off LoS/E. That's a fairly good indication for me that you're right to think that it would cut them off from the Bards magical effect as well.

But the fact is that the Bard's ally is about to die in there? Is that right? 2hp left and probably suffering from gastric acid burns? (I am not familiar with the creature) This is when I would hope that my players would try and pull something out of their Rs and save their friend.

This is why I have added a houserule to my game (stolen from PCat's game). Each player has an encounter power called 'Do something Cool'. They can use it to alter their powers or magic items' effects in ways that make sense or interact with the 'terrain' in awesome ways etc. etc.

When I had a situation like the one you describe, which comes into the grey area of 'I'm not sure you can actually do that', then this solves that problem no fuss. Of course the player would have to tell me how that works: 'I wait until the worm opens its gaping maw to roar, and just at that moment I fire 'enter power's name here' down its throat sending arcane waves of fey energy down into its belly and teleporting Frank from inside, away to safety.'

The cool thing about adding a feature like this to the game is that players start thinking: 'what do I want to do' as opposed to 'what can I do', which is an awesome element to have in the game. It certainly keeps things dynamic and the DM on their toes.
It also means that ALL the players have the same chance to bend the rules in exciting ways once in a fight.
It also means that players who want to bend things a little too far can't do it every single time, but often enough to keep them well happy.

As for the Beetles: Not awarding XP not only 'punishes' the Bard, which you say you wanted to do to teach him a lesson that he shouldn't act without consulting the group, it also effectively punishes the rest of the group as well, for something they had no part in. Do you really want to punish a player for having a good idea? Do you really need to teach the player anything? Is that even your role (he seems to know the game well enough). Surely acting alone without consulting the group would quite naturally inform the player of the consequences of doing that when eventually it happened in a siuation where it simply backfired: Imagine he rolled a natural 1 on his imitaion (bluff) check: 'Oh, dear, it seems you have accidently imitated the beetles mating call ... and they all seem suddenly very excited, scuttling directly towards the source of the call... that is of course... towards you'. If you didn't want to reward him for going rambo on the group, maybe you could have given the group xp equal to a minor quest and told him: 'normally I'd give you full XP. It was a good idea and it worked, but I don't want to encourage you to make decisions on your own that affect the entire group'.

Or as others suggested, you could have turned that into a simple skill challenge: 3 successes needed: Nature to know about the beetles natural enemies, and to know what sound that creature makes, Bluff to imitate that noise and maybe arcana to stir the wind? (dragon swooping) or cause a shadow to flit across the rock? And there you have the XP sorted out that you can fairly award the group. It would alo give the other players time to get in on the act and help out with the ruse, and get to feel part of the Bards actions.

Double Crit: That's a house rule you've brought into the game. Anyone could have rolled it. You can't resent a player for having hot dice. And I guess you have to deal with the consequences of introducing a house rule that can kill a creature outright. You could alter it and make it deal 'bloodied damage' to the creature, or hold the right to reduce a double crit on a major villain to 'bloodied instead of dead'

[MENTION=11586]RigaMortus2[/MENTION]: The Rule of Thumb is rubbish advice, and I think you probably think that yourself too. Besides, what do you mean by referring the OP to the Rule of Thumb? He's totally open to everyone's rule's interpretations/clarifications, and not arguing with anyone at all.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

bovine's feces.

If the rules (both as written and as intended) clearly state that you need to see the origin and destination to target a creature with teleport effect, then no, you cannot ruin the DM's carefully prepared encounter with that cheese. This doubly applies when the text of the purple worm specifically states that there is no line of sight, nor line of effect to creatures swallowed.

Players are encouraged to find creative application of skills and powers in order to get through some encounters, as far as they don't explicitly break the rules.

Running off some giant beetles with some skill use and quick thinking? Absolutely! (and the bard should have gotten his share of xp from that encounter)

Come up with some new "interpretation" of a power, in order to completely bypass the abilities of a solo monster, creating an anticlimax? Absolutely not!