Saving throw to fall prone

[Stalker0]

Good question. I suppose both ways could be reasonable, though I'd very mildly lean towards no save - unless someone has a relevant rule section? It strikes me as reasonable that you'd be at a disadvantage when you're prone.

You are, I get combat advantage against you.

No where in the catching oneself description does it state you have to be standing to use it. The main purpose of it is to prevent a creature getting knocked off a cliff into lava without any way to save himself. By being prone its even easier for me to get a power off on you, but you still get a save to save yourself.

 

[Nikolai II]

It fundamentally doesn't make sense that you can make a saving throw, which essentially benefits you, to acquire a condition which you already have acquired. Logic, too, dictates that if you've fallen down, you can't re-fall-down without getting up.

This looks like a job for customer service, to me.

Heh. Customer service, in all honesty, tends to give out advice about as good as the first forum poster.. so once the thread has gone on a while you can usually find better solutions..

In this case, either works. It is kinder to keep allowing saves, but it is faster to only allow partial saves (as you suggest) and thus say that things always have to get worse somehow.

No need to give a minus to any saves though. Prone at first successful save, over the edge but hanging on by hands (if available) second time, automatially down at the third is harsh enough.

 

[butwait]

It fundamentally doesn't make sense that you can make a saving throw, which essentially benefits you, to acquire a condition which you already have acquired. Logic, too, dictates that if you've fallen down, you can't re-fall-down without getting up.

A saving throw to become stunned (save ends) could work, to simulate grabbing the edge of the cliff. I'd want to give a bonus (+5?) to attempts to dislodge a stunned monster's "grip". This gives some tracking problems but I figure pushing someone off a cliff is easy enough to remember happening.

To be complicated, different types of forced movement might be handled differently. I don't see a warlord's forced movement working as well on a prone opponent as a bull rush would, but maybe it's just me. Mixing the fluff into existing mechanics is harder when the conditions are so generalized.

 

[Warbringer]

My reading is that when being pushed into a aquare with a hazard you make a save and if you make the save you end up prone. Prone is the result, not not being prone at the start and becoming prone (if that makes sense)

Not that it matters, but it is hard to move someone who is already prone

 

[AuraSeer]

It fundamentally doesn't make sense that you can make a saving throw, which essentially benefits you, to acquire a condition which you already have acquired. Logic, too, dictates that if you've fallen down, you can't re-fall-down without getting up.

You're looking at it the wrong way around. The target isn't saving to acquire the prone condition. He's saving to avoid forced movement.

It's like a 3E save for partial effect; fail and take "full damage" (get pushed over the cliff), or succeed and take "partial damage" (fall prone in current square). If you are already suffering from the effect that would be applied, then nothing happens because prone-ness doesn't stack.

There's nothing that prevents you from attempting this save if you're already prone, just as there's nothing preventing a stunned creature from being targeted by a stun power, or an immobilized creature from being hit with more glue pots. The effects can be applied any number of times, even though they don't stack.

 

[Switchback]

^

Isn't falling to the ground the thing that helped him stop the forced movement though? Though I suppose you could still make the case that being on the ground is what then helps him make additional saves. But if its not going to the ground that is saving him, then shouldn't a creature get a save before being forced *any* amount of squares regardless if he is at the edge of something dangerous?

Could a creature intentionally fall prone and try to save from being pushed a square just because he didn't want to be moved, regardless of a dangerous terrain behind him? Say he doesn't want to lose his flanking position and would prefer to get just get up on his turn and then attack.

The rules don't allow for that option, but maybe they should have?

 

[Switchback]

-dp-

 

[MeMeMeMe]

You're looking at it the wrong way around. The target isn't saving to acquire the prone condition. He's saving to avoid forced movement.

That's exactly how I see it, too.

 

[MeMeMeMe]

Isn't falling to the ground the thing that helped him stop the forced movement though?

Falling to the ground is a side effect.
As with many elements of 4e (including many instances of forced movement itself) the rules don't tell you how or why something is happening. The group is left to describe how and why themselves. So, in this instance, the prone guy makes his save by clinking to paving stones; in that instance, the thunderwave is defkected by a nearby outcrop and the effect misses him entirely (since he manages to make his save, he stays close enough to the ground for it to go over his head).

Basically, the rules tell you the effect, then you explain how and why it worked that way.

 

[eamon]

You are, I get combat advantage against you.

No where in the catching oneself description does it state you have to be standing to use it. The main purpose of it is to prevent a creature getting knocked off a cliff into lava without any way to save himself. By being prone its even easier for me to get a power off on you, but you still get a save to save yourself.

Yep, makes sense, rules-wise.

Barring some more dramatic condition (inability to perceive said lava and cliff, say), it looks reasonable in these rules to allow a save each time you're pushed.