Rules Question - Give your opinion

[S'mon]

mmm... tasty grubs!


mmm... tasty giant butterflies!


mmm... braaaaaiiiinnnnsssss


mmm... other adventurers...



-O

Yeah, I do that. Every. Time. But I'm coming to think it should be the player's job not mine, and if they can't/won't do it, then screw them. I have twenty other things to be thinking about, the player has one PC and his powers.

Edit: Most of my players are fine about this 'flavour text'; Kerranin in particular is excellent.

 

[BobTheNob]

I want to see the occasional monster that can't be knocked prone, that can't be dazed, that can't be stunned, that can't be hurt by implement attacks, that can't be hurt by weapon attacks, etc.

Yes, I agree with this on the basis of a caveat.

In 4e there are tight structures in how power mechanics work. I just dont think that such house rules should happen as "blanket rules" (e.g. a blanket rule of size vs prone) but as specifics, particularly creature specifics. If you dont want Tiamat being knocked over by a tail swipe, build that into Tiamat. If a giant turtle cant be knocked prone, build it into a giant turtle. Dwarves have resistance to being knocked prone, why cant other creatures?

Its not a kick in the teeth that prone doesnt work for one fight, but its is a real kick in the teeth if you blanket rule it and as a result a players ability is nerfed as a long term consideration.

 

[the Jester]

Yeah- I'm okay with specific creatures being immune to a given pc's shtick. Nothing wrong with that.

A good counter might be an immediate reaction that lets a creature get up when knocked prone; that way if the party can do it twice in a round, they can keep the monster down (at least until its turn).

 

[Unwise]

I will make the player(s) do the descriptions from now on for what they are doing to make something get knocked prone, hopefully this will initiate a bit more RP in the fight encounters as well. That is always more fun to me personally when players use their imaginations as to describe a scene and what their characters are doing in the fight instead of only something like, "I'm doing sly flourish."

I once used this as a game mechanic style fix for an issue I was having in another game system. A couple of players were spamming the same attacks every time. I made them come up with a description of what they were doing. After they used the same description twice, the boss monster caught on to it and they granted combat advantage (or that systems equivelant) until they did something else.

This presented an interesting option, the players could keep using the ability, but it was only effective if they came up with a description that made sense and was not predictable. It was a meta-game of its own and led to very cool fight scenes. Other players started describing their attacks, even though I did not require them to.

I can see where the OP is coming from, it does seem silly, but as others have said, I think as a group you need to find a way for it to fit the narrative.

That being said, there are a lot of times where monsters should have resistances that are not in their stat block (eg. acidic creatures that are not resistant to acid). It makes good sense for a giant snake to not be knocked prone. I mean, they are prone all the time anyway. Some golems ignore prone, as do some oozes I think. Your in a tricky situation though, a fine balance between sensible monster design and circumventing PCs abilities. Unlike most I have little problem with gimping certain abilities now and then to make fun encounters. My players have learnt that fair needs to yeild to fun.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

We had this problem early on in our campaign. I'm a hammer warrior - its what I do. My twin hammer weilding Avenger has invested in feats and powers that take advantage of my weapons.

So we're facing this 20 foot tall whatever (it was so early in the campaign that I don't even remember what it was). I do an attack, hit and announce that I knock it prone. The DM says that's not possible, its 20 foot tall, like a 2 story building. I asked if the stat card said it couldn't be knocked prone, and he answered honestly, no. I then said that yes I could. The DM says, think about it, you're character is 5'8", and you're bowling over a 20 foot tall behemoth.

Point taken.

But...I ask him to think about it this way; I'm not running up, using my human strength, and lifting a 20 foot tall monster off the ground and slamming it onto its back. Heck no, a call for a strength check (which I would and should fail miserably) would not be unwarranted in that scenario...but rather imagine my warrior slamming his hammer into the side of the 20ft monsters leg, and it dropping to one knee in response, with all the benefits from "prone" then applying. Or that the magical energy from the Power I'm using is what knocks the creature prone. Either works just fine.

Remember, to a hammer warrior, everything is a nail.

 

[Riastlin]

Remember, to a hammer warrior, everything is a nail.

My wrathful hammer runepriest would most definitely agree!

As mentioned above, I think its fine to have certain monsters be immune or resistant to certain schticks. Heck, Tiamat could be granted a save vs. prone (a save she'll make 80% of the time given her natural +5 bonus btw). But in general, I do agree that you shouldn't be routinely screwing over a PC's theme just because.

In a bit of irony, while I realize the idea of a human, halfling, etc. knocking over such a large creature seems unlikely, look at how this will affect the PCs over the course of the campaign. During heroic tier, its unlikely to have too much of an effect. Most of the monsters they fight will be medium or small (with a few large critters thrown in). As they become more powerful though, they'll be fighting more and more large creatures and as they head toward epic even huge creatures become a lot more common. The irony becomes, as the heroes become more and more godlike, they become less and less able to do their schtick if we were to just rule "You can't do that because the monster is too big, etc." In fact, this type of ruling could actually render some higher level powers more or less useless.

In fact, I think part of the reason that WotC assigned power sources to all classes is that there's this idea that even for the dumb fighter, its more than just practice. His training and natural exceptional ability has allowed him to tap into this source of power that most people can never dream of being able to touch. Its this power that adds that extra bit of oomph to his attacks. If you really need a logical explanation, there it is. The real fact of the matter is that the rules in any RPG can only ever cover so much real estate. We are playing a game where wizards, elves, dragons and vampires don't cause anyone to bat an eye. If we're willing to accept that, why can't we accept that a fighter might be able to put a dragon off balance with a single blow? If we wanted the rules to cover every possible scenario in a completely realistic manner, the books would be thousands of pages. Revflavor it if you need to, but don't make rulings that essentially say "Prone is essentially ignored by the bad guys once you reach a certain level -- though they can still knock the PCs prone."

That being said, its still perfectly valid to mess with their schtick every now and then.

 

[DracoSuave]

This is a game based around the concept of characters gaining ever greater power and eventually being able to challenge gods and primordials on their own terms. This is a level where a completely nonmagical character can acquire the option of being able to cheat death by the simple act of walking out of hell whenever he feels like. He's not doing some magic hocus pocus. He's not calling on the gods. He's just standing up, and walking out. And he's doing it automatically, because he can. This is the same game where, without magic, a character can grow to double his size simply because it's his destiny to be awesome. And you're worried about a demigod-level dwarf knocking over something paltry like a naga?

Start doing things like 'But you're tiny and it's large and it doesn't work by physics' and you're forgetting the entire point behind the game is power fantasy. Plus the question is loaded, because you're asking of Joe Snibbly, the janitor can do it, and Joe Snibbly isn't a D&D character or equivalent mythology.

Instead, can Batman do it? Can Kratos? Can Heracles? Can Samson? Can Doctor Doom? Can Captain America?

Of course they can, because they're not supposed to be realistic, they're supposed to be awesome.

 

[Horatio]

In one of my games, a halfling attacked a giant with a dagger and made him "prone". I discribed it somelike this:

You hit the giant's foot sensitive spot and now he tries to stand only on one of his legs, the other being too hurt to use for now, flailing his hands a bit.

This made him a bit off balance, lowering his speed, rendering him unable to shift, granting combat advantage to melee attackers, and make it worse for ranged attackers to attack him, because of the unpredictability of his moves on one leg.
Hmm, almost sounds like the same penalties a prone character would have

 

[Marshall]

Yeah- I'm okay with specific creatures being immune to a given pc's shtick. Nothing wrong with that.

A good counter might be an immediate reaction that lets a creature get up when knocked prone; that way if the party can do it twice in a round, they can keep the monster down (at least until its turn).

You wanna discourage proning Huge+ critters? Give 'em a free Close Blast attack when they hit the ground. Say a fort attack with decent damage that knocks prone. See if PCs really want to trade prone for damage and prone.

 

[Unwise]

IMO it's important to remember just who the characters are. It seems silly for a human to knock Tiamut prone, and it is, but it is not unusual for Hercules to knock a huge titan prone.

Remember that by epic tier, the character are minor demi-gods, or the equivilent there of. I really don't see a problem with them doing, well, pretty much anything. These are people that would kick achilles and conan's butts and can arm-wrestle Hercules.

I feel that D&D has an inherent and sublte genre shift between tiers, by epic the genre is closer to Thor comics than LotR. I picture paragon tier as being the crazy hong-kong movie level of power.