Is it ever a good idea to hit the party?

[Dross]

In the current campaign I've had to initiate friendly fire twice, both of which were on a surrounded rogue. While OOC we know that the rogue can only fail on a 1 against my wand wielder, IC we have known the rogue is most likely to come through unscathed. (well, saving once out of two ain't bad ).

It just isn't a tactic we use unless it is required. The meat shields always try to place themselves to heard our foes into areas that allow us to rain damage on them from several sources.

As an aside, why would a party keep someone that doesn't care if they hurt their comrades unless it is necessary?

 

[Vegepygmy]

As general policy, I don't have a problem with it. Combat is inherently dangerous; if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

And you know what I find interesting? Very rarely does anyone talk about the duty of front-line types to position themselves in a way that will allow area-effecters to avoid them. I don't know how many times I've had a perfect opportunity to blast a bunch of bad guys without putting a scratch on any of my allies ruined by one of those allies running up and putting himself smack in the middle of things when he could quite easily have delayed his turn and let me get my area-effect off first.

Do that, and I'm gonna chuck my fireball anyway. (Yes, I know I could ask my fellow player to delay, etc., etc. But doing so makes me feel like I'm running everybody's character for them, and I dislike that even more.)

 

[Al'Kelhar]

As a couple of posters have observed, the answer is about whether the rest of the players are "cool" with it.

In my long-term gaming group, I have traditionally played the wizard, from 2E, 3E through to 4E. I have a well-known reputation for playing neutrally-aligned wizards who view combat as a numbers game - which in D&D it is. My wizards are therefore quite prepared to include allies in an AoE attack if the net outcome of that attack is likely to be beneficial for the party.

Given that, once initiative is called, everyone in the group forgets role playing completely and becomes a tactical wargame expert, counting squares and assessing the optimum combinations of movement and attack, we don't care. As far as I'm concerned, if the rogue happens to move into a position to get a sneak attack - i.e. optimising his damage output - and that happens to put him somewhere in the optimum area for an AoE attack, he can suck it up.

Also, in our group, instances of friendly fire have become part of the enjoyment of the game - frankly, we find AoE attacks gone wrong hilarious. Seldom a session goes by when I am not reminded of my wizard's attempt at clearing the walls and ceiling around her and the party of giant rats using a scorching burst centred on her - that proceeded to hit her and every party member but missed every single rat. But we don't play a serious game.

So, "is it ever a good idea to hit the party". Damn straight. Just make sure you're still friends with everyone at the table afterwards.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[Lanefan]

For me, it depends entirely on the character(s) I'm playing at the time.

If I'm playing a blaster who is either too chaotic or too cold-hearted to care (and I've played both), then I'll just blast 'em all and if they die the gods will sort 'em out. One character I'm playing at the moment *is* a cold-hearted bitch of a wizard; cold-hearted enough to actually pick her spots and blast friendlies only if said friendlies happen to be some or all of those party members she feels are not up to her standard (about half of them including my other character; yes, I get to argue with myself now and then).

But if I'm playng a frontliner who is getting blasted I'm going to look at it a little differently. Prime example here is my character Lanefan, from whom I take my name here: he's been fried to death by friendly wizard fire on more than one occasion in the past. Result: after much time and great expense he now owns a +2 Wizardslayer Longsword, and knows how to use it.

So, "is it ever a good idea to hit the party". Damn straight. Just make sure you're still friends with everyone at the table afterwards.

Well put, sir!

Lanefan

 

[delericho]

That's a legitimate argument, but I think it's missing the intentionally larger-than-life, heroic aspect of D&D. The PCs are heroes; they're better, stronger, faster than ordinary people, and they know it. And they're also a little bit nuts. You have to be pretty crazy to take on a bunch of seven-foot hyena-men with axes who have you outnumbered two to one.

Certainly, some characters are Big Damn Heroes, or a bit crazy, or whatever, in which case I can agree with them having no problem with it. Much as I said about the Wizard in my first post, that should be an in-character consideration for the target of the friendly fire.

One thing I really hate, though, is that odd D&Dism of the character deliberately stepping off the cliff/taking the fireball/allowing himself to be stabbed because the player knows he has 50 hit points, and it's only 8d6 damage, so she's done the calculation. The moment the player deliberately treats the character as nothing more than a playing piece in this manner, my suspension of disbelief gives up.

(The distinction is this: if the character is the sort who would be okay with taking that damage, even working under the assumption that it would kill him, then that's okay. If the player decides her character will take the damage purely because she knows it won't kill him, I have a problem. It's a matter of not drawing attention to the fact that the rules are in use because they work quite well, despite not being even slightly realistic.)

YMMV, of course.

 

[Kzach]

One thing I really hate, though, is that odd D&Dism of the character deliberately stepping off the cliff/taking the fireball/allowing himself to be stabbed because the player knows he has 50 hit points, and it's only 8d6 damage, so she's done the calculation. The moment the player deliberately treats the character as nothing more than a playing piece in this manner, my suspension of disbelief gives up.

That's when, as a DM, you introduce the githzerai revenant assassin that stabs the guy for 200 odd damage in one hit

 

[jcayer]

This is common in my game. Both the Rogue and Fighter have taken friendly fire on numerous occasions. Hell, there have been a few nights the fighter took more damage from the Wizard than from anything it fought.

For a while, the wizard would joke, Dragonborns(our fighter) are the easiest things to hit.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Insufferably stupid and made far worse with 4e very closed ended critical damage system. Try this crap in 1E and 2E and all your gear might be rolling saves vs magical fire. Even 3E had some checks and balances against this since if the victim of friendly fire rolled a "1", they had a chance of a magic items getting broken.

Some might say this was a good change. I have played years of campaigns in every edition (one could say i'm a grognard) and never played where we made saves for our equipment.

Ultimately, however, the thread was asking if you think its OK to target party members, and your answer is clearly no. I am not sure why you had to bend that simple answer into a complaint about the 4e ruleset.

DS

 

[Bullgrit]

It's #11 in the Murphy's Laws on Adventuring list.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/253421-murphys-laws-adventuring.html#post4733316

Total Bullgeek

Bullgrit

 

[Akaiku]

One thing I really hate, though, is that odd D&Dism of the character deliberately stepping off the cliff/taking the fireball/allowing himself to be stabbed because the player knows he has 50 hit points, and it's only 8d6 damage, so she's done the calculation. The moment the player deliberately treats the character as nothing more than a playing piece in this manner, my suspension of disbelief gives up.

In 4th ed, hp isn't flesh wounds. If you have 50 hp, 8d6 sword stabs ALWAYS miss, just some miss much less then you'd want them to. You DO manage to land correct (or mostly) cause you are awesome. And that fireball can't possibly beat your anti-roasting skills, it's only an instant, and you did use that non-flammable oil on your plate to keep it from rusting. It will remove eyebrows and be uncomfortable though, and might distract you from pulling it off again.

Hp is a measure of how cool you are at not dieing, same as other defenses.