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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 4946494" data-attributes="member: 53980">By that logic the bite of a cobra that deals poison damage and a swing from a gargantuan titan's 2-ton greatclub should be identical because they both deal hp damage.  Never mind that the first must have inflicted at least a minor puncture in order to inflict the poison and that being directly struck by a 2-ton club would probably liquefy Hercules himself.  D&D mechanics are simplifications of fantasy world effects.  In the first case the hero probably got bit by the cobra but was tough enough to shrug off the worst effects of the venom.  In the second he probably dodged the club and took damage from the nearby impact as it struck the earth like a meteor.To put it another way, there's no scientific reason why a dagger (1d4) shouldn't be just as deadly as a longsword (1d8).  Six inches of good steel can kill you just as dead as two feet of it, and with about the same effort (assuming an unarmed opponent).I see no reason why prone can't be: guy knocked on his butt, guy knocked on his back, guy knocked on his stomach, guy flipped and propped up in a corner on his neck and shoulders with his legs in the air, snake knocked over after rearing up and needing to writhe for a moment to regain control, or even ooze splattered across the nearby area but rapidly reforming like the liquid terminator.  Why would you use six different mechanics to model those when one is sufficient?You're right, there's no overriding gameplay reason why it is necessary.  There's also no overriding gameplay reason why it's necessary to deny it, with the added bonus that players usually find it more enjoyable for their powers to work as intended rather than arbitrarily not function (sorry, that's a giant/cat/dragon and I can't envision you tripping it so you can't).  You're already "breaking" reality by letting pointy sticks kill the thing (for the sake of fun and convenience) so why not let the guy with the trip power "bend" reality (also for fun)?I agree that it's good to challenge your players by having some monsters be resistant or immune to the PCs' tricks, I just strongly disagree that the DM should be encouraged to do so arbitrarily.  It's one thing to create a (4e) ooze that is immune to tripping or a (4e) undead immune to crits.  It's an entirely different thing to grant groups of creatures blanket immunities because you happen to feel like it.I'm quite aware actually.  My party once had to take down an elder black pudding via this method in 3.5.  Appallingly, we realized too late that we didn't have a single bludgeoning weapon or damaging spell among the lot of us.  In our defense, we had been expecting to fight an unborn god rather than a pudding (the DM chose the stats of an elder black pudding to model the unborn god of fear).  Our only saving graces were that most of us had high reflex saves and multiple attacks.  We prevailed, but it was a long and very brutal combat.The OP seems to be planning to run 4e however, which follows a different philosophy than 3.x.  Lots of creatures in 3.x have blanket immunities against abilities (undead immune to sneak attack).  That doesn't mean that it's necessarily good advice for a 4e DM, which does away with most mass immunities and follows a different design in general.The well thought out justifications are not just a forum thing, at least for me.See, in my games it goes more like:<Player1> Spinning Sweep on the ochre jelly<Me> << (Assuming I couldn't see a justification for it.) You're knocking the slime prone? How are you doing that? >><Player1> <><Me> << Fair enough, roll it. >>If something seems like it shouldn't work I first try to think of a way that it could work, and I ask the player to do the same.  It never takes longer than a few moments for someone to come up with something plausible.In the time I've been running 4e I've said no to a player exactly once, and that was because when I asked him about it he decided it was stupid after all and requested to take a different action (it involved a bloodied troll that would have had to jump into the center of a bonfire due to the Fighter's Come and Get It).  If your players are okay with it, fair enough.  If everyone is happy it's definitely not badwrongfun.  However, I've had the misfortune of playing under a DM who would arbitrarily deny certain effects that he deemed "unrealistic", even if the player had a justification for why it should work and despite that it upset the player (this DM wouldn't let the player take back his action either).  I learned a lot from that guy actually (in the sense of how not to run a game).  The DM is there to act as a fun-inspiring arbiter rather than a my-way-or-the-highway tyrant, and it's a "subtle" difference that many but not all DMs seem to grasp (and no, I'm not suggesting that you are a tyrant DM).  Your advice of "striking down nonsense" did strike me as having dangerously tyrannical interpretations though (again, I'm not suggesting that such was your intent).</blockquote>

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