New Game of Death: Battle Royale of the GAWDS

[reapersaurus]

umm.. isn't Maturak standing right next to the 20' high Forcecage?

Since when should a non-aerodynamic weapon 60' long with a 40' top be granted the ability to drop ALL it's damage in a 5' square on Maturak?

It's just as likely to hit nearby him and expend the majority of it's damage on the ground nearby Maturak.

It's also MORE likely that it would hit the Forcecage first.

Ahh... the irony of Martok getting screwed by his own screw-spell is delicious.

 

[Berk]

if I recall correctly a falling object travels around 300' a round in game mechanics. marturak is flat-footed essentially because I am invisible and the attack originated from me, hence no dex mod to ac.

if you wanna add reality into a fantasy game I can come up with several accurate reasons why what happened happened. I could also come up with several very far fetched but completely accurate reasons also just for the loving sake of quantum mechanics.

now we can all just say, well what happened happened so live with it. I actually asked clockwork about the tree tokens before the game. Going around insulting someones ingenuity just because you happened to get the very short end of a stick in the first part of the game is silly and childish.

Before you start raving about something inane again you should just be lucky that my character forgot to use one of his most powerful weapons. I won't say what it is, since it will give too much away about my char, but since I forgot about it before play began I can't use it at all. Which sucks cuz well, several people prolly woulda been dead already if I remembered.

Ok, my rant is done.

 

[SA-Jinx]

Ok, my rant is done.

Ingenious? Certainly. Fair? Not really...

While I think its funny that Mr FancyPants McLizardBoy got his ass handed to him by an oak tree - you got 90 damage for 100gp. Thats hardly fair.

Finally, while I think this game is fun and its not likely I win will because my character isn't twinked enough - I do think the number of "house rules" being thrown around and such makes for very unpredictable and frustrating play.

I know because I've fallen into a similar trap. I think it would have been a good idea to atleast discuss something this significant with players before making a decision.

And I'm still annoyed the lich survived my disintegrate, damn that would have been hilarious if he'd been toasted.

 

[Hammerhead]

Allow me to state, that as a non-participant in this GoD, who is very annoyed at large amount of griping done by players, I find two actions, arbitrarily ruled by clockwork joe, to be horribly unfair. Both invovle Martok. The first is the ruling of Jade's Quest spell, which, although broken to begin with, was treated unfairly by Martok's interpretation of it; killing someone is not protecting them. However, this action is done with.

However, the ruling of the tree is completely unfair. A 100 gp item should not be able to cause 90+ points of damage, with no real way to avoid it. I mean, a ranged touch attack?

Dropping a tree could be likened to using other large, heavy objects, like boulders launched from a catapult; treat it as a siege weapon, and Martok gets no base attack or dexterity.

If it is not treated like a siege weapon, then perhaps a Deflect Arrows feat could used to knock it out of the way. Clearly, DA could not knock it out of the way, but treating it as a siege weapon is a way to make it immune to DA and still maintain internal consistency.

Further, a Reflex save could be allowed to move out of the way of the tree. Another fair way to handle the situation. True, the tree covers a wide area, but a fireball covers more area and allows a save.

However, long wooden objects like trees spin when they are dropped through the air, and their large surface area with many branches, twigs, roots, etc. make it impossible that the entire mass of the tree could be distributed upon one target.

Further, Maturak is next to a cube of force. If the spinning tree clipped it, which it likely would, it could miss Maturak completely, or at least not strike Maturak with full force.

One could also argue that the tree, springing from a feather token, is a magical effect that would be unable to affect anyone in an Antimagic Shell.

The current interpretation of Martok's Tree of Death (TM) completely destroys any semblance of game balance or internal consistency in this game. Would the gods allow the most powerful weapon in the battlefield to be a tree? I think not! The ruling on the Tree of Death currently lends credence to reapersaurus's claims of clockwork joe's unfairness.

Oh, and Berk/Martok, I'm sure that everyone is real thankful that you forgot to use your uber ability that everyone would have no chance against. /e rolls eyes.

 

[Saepiroth]

berk; a suggestion.

did you ever explicitly drop that wine goblet that was made by the wish a few rounds ago? apperently, it bequaths the effect of some sort of healing spell. potentially, an actual Heal. in that case, take a hit off it and be healed of that and the damage from before. it doesn't counter the incredible unfairness of being slammed all to fcuk* by a 100 GP item, but you do have to remember than the gnome had to make a reflex save to remove the oak tree when a feather token was used before. one must wonder what would have happened if he had failed...
I personally think a rerolling by treating you as having half cover from the edge of the forcecage and allowing you a reflex save for damage avoidance would be in order. you should have been able to move off through the branches as it came down around you. and if it fell bottom first, then the roots would have assuredly skipped off the cage. a significantly sized oak tree has thick maintrunk roots out about as wide as it's canopy, and light roots that potentially go out about as wide as it is tall.

though, i do find the decided unfairness entertaining. you see, though it may not be appropriate to an actual Game of Death in your opinions, i think that it has some good merit. i think it should continue to be played out as the pure thought exercise that it is, and that final scores should not be added to GoD totals unless there is a consensus by objective observers at the end of the game.

of course, to explain my affection for the disorder, i am a fan of adding randomness to everything; that includes armor rolls and hardlined 1/20 rulings. take me with a pinch of salt.


*censorship! "oh noes!"

 

[Number47]

I guess I better pipe up on the Tree of Death, too, since everyone is.

First, there are obviously no rules to fully cover this scenario. Whatever clockworkjoe decided HAD to be houseruled. Second, there are rules for how falling objects to damage and cwj seemed to try to follow these. Third, the first thing I said when I read it was "you can't do that, a tree token has to be tossed on solid ground". Then I read the item again. It creates a huge, non-magical tree, no restrictions noted. I see no way that cwj could have said no to it. So, in essence, I basically agree with how he ruled everything because he is the DM and seemed to have at least tried to figure it out.

On the other hand, I wouldn't have done it the same way. If we all posted the way we thought it should be done, I think we would wind up with about twelve different methods. Offhand, I think I would have made into an area attack of, say, a twenty foot radius centered on character with ranged touch to hit. On a miss of the ranged touch, use grenade-like weapons chart. Damage in the radius would be something on the order of 8d6 on the low end, maybe 12d6 on the high end regular physical damage, reflex save for half. Not sure what DC I would set the save, but you get the idea of how I would do it.

All in all, I think Maturak would have taken a hefty amount of damage from the tree regardless. Yes, it is a little cheesy to get so much from a cheap magic item. It is also cheesy to have AMF in an arena setting, or to be able to cause three hundred points of damage from a single charge. We all have a few cheesy things up our sleeves. This is the game we're playing.

 

[clockworkjoe]

Obviously the tree is a touchy issue. I've decided to change my ruling a bit. I should also say, part of the reason the tree trick worked so well is because it was unexpected. Even for seasoned characters, having a tree appear and fall on you is a bit unexpected.

An attack must make a ranged touch attack with a -10 penalty regardless of distance. Maturak was flat footed for this because he could not see the invisible. He did hear the tree right before it hit, thus, Maturak is allowed a DC 10 reflex save (which he made) for half damage. The tree does 20d6 damage (max for falling). Since characters will be expecting this from now on, Characters who make both a a DC 20 listen check and a DC 10 reflex save avoid the tree entirely. If a character only makes 1 check, half damage is taken.

To be honest, I'm surprised this got that kind of reaction. Macallan transformed into a massive dragon and Ancryx has an army of very powerful constructs.

Personally, I would like to hear what other GMs would rule on that trick. A tree token is not very balanced when viewed in this light, but about 3/4 of the characters here are pulling similar tricks.

As for the tree spinning side to side, I don't think a cylinder with its weight evenly distributed falling 100 feet with no crosswinds going would rotate that much.

 

[green slime]

Well, as an opinion has been asked for, I would have ruled that the tree token cannot spring into being in midair, that it would need to be cast upon the ground.

Regarding dropping items on people, the attack roll would suffer non-proficiency penalty, and that, seen from above, would give the target a bonus to AC as ranged attacks versus a prone target. Miss as per a Grenade attack. Then, the damage from the weight would be divided by the number of 5 feet squares and applied over all within the area, with a Reflex save equal to the number of dice of damage.

I really detest falling objects as weapons...

 

[Saepiroth]

Obviously the tree is a touchy issue. I've decided to change my ruling a bit. I should also say, part of the reason the tree trick worked so well is because it was unexpected. Even for seasoned characters, having a tree appear and fall on you is a bit unexpected.

hey, i really liked it. i can just see that some people could have taken it in a REALLY pissed off manner.

you probably should have just mentioned that you were only rolling it as 20d6 and he got a medium-bad roll. i think without dice listed people assumed the worst.

edit; oh yes, a question about the forcebubble... is it impervious to spells (and psionics) like a type 2 forcecage? or is it just a physical entrapment?

 

[clockworkjoe]

Well, as an opinion has been asked for, I would have ruled that the tree token cannot spring into being in midair, that it would need to be cast upon the ground.

Regarding dropping items on people, the attack roll would suffer non-proficiency penalty, and that, seen from above, would give the target a bonus to AC as ranged attacks versus a prone target. Miss as per a Grenade attack. Then, the damage from the weight would be divided by the number of 5 feet squares and applied over all within the area, with a Reflex save equal to the number of dice of damage.

I really detest falling objects as weapons...

That seems a little more dangerous as it lets Martok hit more than one person at a time and the tree would do 20d6 damage since it easily weighs over 40 tons. And a -4 to hit and a+4 to ac only gives a -8 penalty but then armor would factor in.

Well, I don't want everyone to see me as biased so I did change the ruling. I didn't give it as much thought as I should. Sorry if I worsened your opinion of the game

edit to say that the beads of force is going to be treated as a forcecage, the type that is completely enclosed since that seems to be the spirit of the item.

edit again to say that my quest ruling is also based on my dislike of the spell. I also allowed Jade to switch out any quest spells she had with other level 6 cleric spells.