Lava Rules..

[robertliguori]

What happens to lava when submerged in lava? Perhaps Circular Finger-Sized Miscellaneous Magical Item of Contingent Transmutation Into Nonliving-But-Animate-Being When In Lava will be the new Ring of Feather Fall. After all, since you're not living, you can't die, and therefore can parade around happily, and wave high to the kobold minions not being attacked and therefore also alive down there.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

No, no, no. You need to appropriately apply 4E rules here:

Lava: When you fall into lava, you die. At the end of your next turn, you get a save to end the effect.

 

[Rechan]

ENOUGH of this SCIENCE stuff.

I am going to go do the back stroke in some lava. Excuse me.

 

[shilsen]

No, no, no. You need to appropriately apply 4E rules here:

Lava: When you fall into lava, you die. At the end of your next turn, you get a save to end the effect.

Olgar wins the thread.

 

[Psion]

No, no, no. You need to appropriately apply 4E rules here:

Lava: When you fall into lava, you die. At the end of your next turn, you get a save to end the effect.

 

[nerfherder]

No, no, no. You need to appropriately apply 4E rules here:

Lava: When you fall into lava, you die. At the end of your next turn, you get a save to end the effect.

I'll be sure to bring this excellent suggestion to the attention of the other designers when we next meet at SammichCon 2008.

 

[Rel]

This rule provides an elegant solution for all those GM's out there who don't care to run 4e campaigns. Simply have your campaign world be composed entirely of lava.

 

[Xath]

A few things I see here. I played in quite a few games at D&D XP which involved lava. In the 7 games I played, none of the 1st level characters actually fell into the lava pit (you do get a save to avoid the fall). I don't forsee it being that big of a deal.

Also, don't forget, this is all coming from a rules-lite preview game. Perhaps they included lava=instadeath in the rules packets because there's no way a 1st level character would survive a fall anyway, even with rolled damage.

 

[wingsandsword]

A few things I see here. I played in quite a few games at D&D XP which involved lava. In the 7 games I played, none of the 1st level characters actually fell into the lava pit (you do get a save to avoid the fall). I don't forsee it being that big of a deal.

Wouldn't that make it a save-or-die effect? I don't mind them, but I thought part of the whole design philosophy of 4e was that save-or-die is bad, hence why spells that were formerly save-or-die now do HP damage.

Also, don't forget, this is all coming from a rules-lite preview game. Perhaps they included lava=instadeath in the rules packets because there's no way a 1st level character would survive a fall anyway, even with rolled damage.

While this is possible, you'd think WotC would realize everything in those rules would be picked apart and dissected so they would need to be clear about things to avoid people misconstruing them. A statement more like "Lava is extremely dangerous, it does more than enough damage to kill any character in this preview instantly if they fall in regardless of any saving throw". would have prevented this whole thread.

In 4E no creature will be immune to fire. Red dragons, fire elementals, the god of fire (ok, maybe that one is immune) will instantly die when submerged in lava.

Are you serious about that one or not? I honestly can't tell.

 

[Derren]

Are you serious about that one or not? I honestly can't tell.

Yes I am, unless you and your group have nothing against handwaving things and creatures who walk/dive through lava but can still be damaged by fireballs.

Fire archons only have fire resistance 30 and it was said several times that 4E does away with immunities (well not all immunities as the undead preview shows...) which leads to being made out of fire are still damaged by fire. And when lava is indeed a instant kill there is no reason why such fire resistant beings also should not die immediately.