D&D 4E Pemertonian Scene-Framing; A Good Approach to D&D 4e

[Argyle King]

I think you are both partially correct. Just to facilitate that discussion:

CaGI requires LoS and LoE, it is a burst 3, so LoE is required to the enemy, and it specifically targets only enemies you can see, so LoS (and non-invisible etc) is also required. You can argue some fine points here with Tremorsense and such, but basically you have to be able to 'see' the enemy, and if you can see it, then presumably it can see you too, barring some corner-cases.

In 4e spell effects, AoEs etc are not 'terrain' and thus cannot technically be hindering. You can force-move people through walls of fire without saves. This could indeed be an issue for some people, but again the DM is free to add requirements and exceptions for specific situations as he sees fit. You can argue that this is in fact what the 4e developers expected would happen (though you could as easily argue otherwise too). Some spell effects WILL of course block LoS and thus CaGI, though most of those are not also damaging zones.

Upon further reflection, I wouldn't say it necessarily bothered me. However, I would say it added some amount of comedy to how I envisioned the 4E world.

In a similar comedic vein, I remember using Mirror Sphere and causing an enemy with a swallow whole attack to eat itself.

 

[pemerton]

In a similar comedic vein, I remember using Mirror Sphere and causing an enemy with a swallow whole attack to eat itself.

That could be comedic. But with the appropriate narrative tone, it could instead be Lovecraftian.

 

[pemerton]

Walking over to a place in the battle field and doubling over in pain, seem like to very different kinds of actions to me. The first involves a good deal of agency and free will, the latter has a lot more involuntariness to it.

What makes you think that Come and Get It leads its targets to walk to a place in the battlefield? Of the various ways that I've narrated CaGI it in my game, and seen others discuss their narration of it line, "walking over" has never come up.

When CaGI is used, there are two squares (= 10') between fighter and target. While my knowledge of hand-to-hand combat is sketchy, that doesn't strike me as a separation in which people "walk". It is a separation in which people manoeuvre, feint, lunge, are wrong-foooted by their enemies, etc. That is how I narrate Come and Get It - and lunging and then being caught out by a more skilled combatant strikes me as much in the same vein as doubling over in pain.

And for those who think that it couldn't be a lunge, because the NPC is moving out of turn order - do you really see your gameworld as a stop-motion one? I envisage my gameworld as being (macroscopically) continuous and dynamic, just like the real world. And hence enemies are lunging, feinting, jockeying for position and the like all the time.

As I've posted in the past, you can create corner cases that put pressure on my narration - if a naked knife fighter with a chain around his ankle (= restrained, in 4e terminology), for instance, uses Come and Get It, it's harder to see this as jockeying for position and exploiting reach and skill to draw in one's opponents. But how often is that scene coming up in anyone's game (4e or otherwise)? My guess would be once per campaign at best, and at that point some sort of ad hoc narration or adjudication will probably cover it.

 

[Argyle King]

That could be comedic. But with the appropriate narrative tone, it could instead be Lovecraftian.

Had I been further into the show Supernatural at the time, I would have thought about "bibbing" as performed by Leviathan.

 

[Bedrockgames]

What makes you think that Come and Get It leads its targets to walk to a place in the battlefield? Of the various ways that I've narrated CaGI it in my game, and seen others discuss their narration of it line, "walking over" has never come up.

When CaGI is used, there are two squares (= 10') between fighter and target. While my knowledge of hand-to-hand combat is sketchy, that doesn't strike me as a separation in which people "walk". It is a separation in which people manoeuvre, feint, lunge, are wrong-foooted by their enemies, etc. That is how I narrate Come and Get It - and lunging and then being caught out by a more skilled combatant strikes me as much in the same vein as doubling over in pain.

hoc it.

i have no experience with swords and fencing. My only experience is with boxing and martial arts, but ten feet is a good deal of space between two people. However the issue isn't how the person is getting there (walking, lunging, etc) it is that they are being forced to move there by the pc. If you have no issue with that, that is great. I imagine come and get it fits for your game. I have a seriously difficult time accepting this power.

 

[Bedrockgames]

". It is a separation in which people manoeuvre, feint, lunge, are wrong-foooted by their enemies, etc. That is how I narrate Come and Get It - and lunging and then being caught out by a more skilled combatant strikes me as much in the same vein as doubling over in pain..

Again, if that works for you, then I encourage you to continue doing so. In no way am I saying you ought to share my concerns about the power. But for me, the problem here is, in effect, the npc has no choice about lunging either....the lunging arises as an after the fact explanation of the use of come and get it.

 

[pemerton]

the problem here is, in effect, the npc has no choice about lunging either....the lunging arises as an after the fact explanation of the use of come and get it.

For me, this relates to the stop-motion issue. The NPC is in a combat situation, and so is lunging, ducking, weaving etc the whole time. The use of Come and Get It signals that the fighter's timing is superior to the NPC's. It's not about forcing the NPC to do something. It's about being better than the NPC at something that both parties are involved in, namely, melee combat.

As I said upthread, there are corner cases - knife fighters, for instance - where this narration may not work. In my experience they rarely come up, and when they do other narrations are available. The first time Come and Get It was used in my game, the fighter ran across a room and up some stairs to a gallery (Might Spring, Athletics skill power) and then used Come and Get It on some goblin archers, including some who had just run down the stairs beneath the trap door at the back of the gallery.

I narrated this as some of the goblins (those with the PC between them and the fighter) not stopping their run in time before he could cut them down. The ones who were partway down the stairs and came back up, I narrated as being scared of being cut down from behind while fleeing and so turning around to face the PC instead. When I posted about this episode, [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] suggestsed another possibility that would have worked equally well - treat the forced movement from Come and Get It as, in effect, an interrupt on the archers' declared movement (this fits nicely with the anti-stop-motion reading of the power).

Anyway, some examples of my take on the power.

 

[S'mon]

BTW this thread has convinced me not to let CAGI drag enemies through obviously damaging spell effects, should that ever come up! It's pretty unlikely but a theoretical corner case.

 

[S'mon]

Hmm - maybe this is a "Unique Feature" of D&D that some folk find essential (even if I find it to make no sense)?

I think magic as unnatural, outside the natural order, is a real-world religious trope and also seen in Modernist swords & sorcery fiction, so it has antecedents. But applying those to D&D would have magic be Infernal or from the Far Realm, not the quasi-scientific approach to magic the game usually takes.

Personally I've moved strongly away from that trope to much more of a "magic is part of the world" approach, and I'm happy 4e facilitates that.

 

[pemerton]

BTW this thread has convinced me not to let CAGI drag enemies through obviously damaging spell effects, should that ever come up!

My group had CaGI and Wall of Fire in the same party for a while - but because WoF blocks LoS, I don't think it ever came up.