It just requires experience trying to uproot a tree -- like farmers of all eras have. Replace "multi-hundred horsepower tractor" with "team of horses" and "5 minutes" with "at least an hour" if you want to make the observation tech-appropriate. I have more experience with the former. My grandfather had more experience with the latter.
I suppose for DMs or players who have such experience, having this happen may have more implications. But for most folks....who cares what real world mechanics go into uprooting a tree? I would think that most players don't really care.
And I don't know if the maneuver in question on the part of the ogre must require the tree to be fully uprooted.
It's not so much the player know how strong the average ogre is relatively speaking --though the magic gauntlets are entitled ogre strength for a reason -- so much as the PCs have a basic understanding of relative strengths - particularly in their area of expertise. A high-strength Fighter may decide to pull off the same stunt especially after seeing it in action. As a DM, there are three possible responses:
- Sure! it works!
- Here are the hoops you have to jump through
- No, you can't do that; you're not special enough.
I suppose. The last of those seems a bit slanted, though, no? Wouldn't "such a feat is beyond a creature of medium size" or similar explanation be a bit more fitting? Again, there are things in the game world that the PCs cannot achieve in any game. Certainly if a PC said "I want to breath fire like that dragon did to us" you wouldn't say "you're not special enough" (Yes, a dragonborn PC can do it, but I think you understand my point).
The first has the PCs and the NPCs using the same rulings without regard to rules. The complaint a player might have is they can't really know what their characters are capable of since cool overrides rules. If cool moves become commonplace at the table, their on-sheet abilities lose value.
Lack of such a baseline knowledge or expectation could be a concern. I don't know if I agree that it would lead to the actual mechanical abilities losing value. I mean, the DM is there to let them know if something is impossible or possible, and if possible if a check is required. That doesn't really change.
The second has the PCs encumbered in their attempts to be as cool as NPCs that don't need to jump through the hoops -- how encumbered depends on the hoop design. A player may point out it'd be nice if the NPCs had the same chance of failure in their attempts. Deciding the hoops ahead of time and using them for all such attempts (i.e. using rules) negates this complaint.
I don't really follow this one. But if you mean that a player may complain that the ogre didn't have to make a STR check to knock down the tree, then I would say, as I have above in previous comments, that I would indeed establish some kind of house rule to address such concerns, i.e. Large creatures having advantage on STR checks or something similar.
The third has the PCs the least cool personalities on the board since NPCs can throw down a "genre appropriate" cool action at the DM's discretion and similarly stated PCs cannot. A player may have an obvious complaint here. Even if an NPC only ever uses one cool move, there are a lot more NPCs walking through the campaign than PCs.
Again, I don't really think this is very concerning. Because ultimately, those bad guys doing such threatening things? They lost to the PCs.
For me, it's about creating a dynamic encounter for the PCs to face and hopefully overcome rather than about faithfully simulating real world physics. Because that's an impossibility at some point, no matter what. The system breaks down eventually, no matter how strictly it's applied....so I just decide to only apply it where it is needed.
Also, I am not saying that you cannot allow PCs to attempt cool actions. Let them if that's what makes them excited to play. Because I said one thing was beyond the PCs does not mean all things are. Whatever idea my PCs come up with, I at least consider. But I think the whole "say yes" is meant as a guideline, not as an absolute. There are certain things the PCs cannot do....so sometimes you have to say no. However, I'm more than willing to give all but the most outlandish and farfetched of ideas a chance.
Should NPCs be capable of stunts the PCs cannot? Sure if the NPCs have abilities the PCs do not. If a PC works to acquire the same/similar abilities though, I feel the PC should be treated similarly to the NPCs. So if a high-strength PC gets enlarged, he should drop trees as easily as a Large NPC of similar strength. After all, why would it be genre-appropriate for one but not the other?
Sure, why not? A PC who has been Enlarged can do what the ogre can, too. I wouldn't have a problem with that. Why would I? What's to be gained by not letting that happen? Preservation of some semblance of real world physics? Meh.
I think if I compare the two scenarios....where an ogre and a magically enlarged paladin are knocking trees over at each other, and another where we stop the game to see if it's even possible, and then with a failure the ogre or the PC has wasted their turn.....I prefer the first scenario.
There are already many ways in which NPCs, in particular monster NPCs, are designed and function differently than PCs that I don't really see an issue with this. My goal is to keep things moving at the table, and for things to be exciting and dynamic.
