Pramas on 4E and New Gamers

vagabundo said:
HP are recognised as much more than physical damage, I believe the PHB says skill, luck, and resolve. They are an abstract concept. Otherwise many of the Warlords powers could not work.

Of course, the wonderful consequence is that it works both ways: one could develop a power (or set of powers) whereby the character weakens his opponent's resolve by the simple medium of words. In short, one can taunt one's enemies to death.

"Ni!"

Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time.
 

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delericho said:
Where are the rules on falling into lava found?

They're covered by the actions not spelled out in the books rule.

DMG Page 42 said:
Setting Improvised Damage: Sometimes youneed to set damage for something not covered in the rules—a character tumbles into the campfire or falls into a vat of acid, for example. choose a column on the Difficulty Class and Damage table based on the severity of the effect. Use a normal damage expression for something that might make an attack round after round, or something that’s relatively minor.

These numbers are comparable to a monster’s at-will attack. Use a limited damage expression, comparable to a monster’s special powers, for one-time damaging effects or massive damage.
 


Oh, damn. I quoted the wrong bit of the post I was replying to!

Harr asked for an actual example of using the index that failed. The lava rules were one of the first things I wanted to check (because although I like "Fire & Brimstone", I don't think it fits as the general rule for a game involving creatures made out of fire). The index and table of contents failed me.
 

actually, no details

It list pits, deep water, lava, fire, but provides no rules for any.

P44 provides the save throw rule for catching yourself from being pushed into hindering terrain, but not consequences for failing it.

So, in effect, no rules for hindering terrain-lava or hindering terrain-fire are provided.
 

improvising some lava rules

My best guess was start with fire titans lava: 4D6+6 + Immobilized (save ends) maybe every turn.

and Taunting as a damager would be funny "I will taunt you viciously a second time" :)
 

hamishspence said:
My best guess was start with fire titans lava: 4D6+6 + Immobilized (save ends) maybe every turn.

Oh, you can certainly improvise it. However, I was commenting more on the ease of finding this information. Lava rules might be under "terrain", or might be under "environmental hazards" or, since this is an exception-based game, they might be hidden in some power somewhere. To know that it isn't covered, I had to read the whole of the PHB and the DMG (which, as has repeatedly been pointed out, no-one actually does :) ).

(That the DMG doesn't even give ball-park advice on how to cover this is rather poor. It strikes me as being very good on general advice, but shockingly poor on specifics in many cases. But that's another thread.)

Oh, and yes, this has cropped up in actual play - in my Shackled City campaign a PC fell into lava. The contrast with the 3.5e DMG is stark. There, 'lava effects' is listed in the index. Moreover, such is the quality of that index, I can be reasonably sure that falling onto glass, for example, isn't covered by the rules - the same is not true of the 4e DMG.

Or how about fighting monsters with gaze attacks? The rule that blind creatures are immune to gaze attacks in clearly marked in the MM glossary, but what about closing your eyes? Such a character isn't really blind, but does it count? Well yes... but that's only covered in the 'Medusa' entry!

Then we look up 'blind', which isn't in the PHB index or table of contents. However, 'conditions' is listed in the index, so that's fine. Until we find that there's a sidebar on a separate page that deals with targetting creatures you cannot see - and it's only in the ToC, not the index!

I'm sorry, but this is not conducive to finding things quickly when they're needed.
 

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