D&D 4E Should terrain be move vulnerable to damage in 4E?
- Thread starter frankthedm
- Start date
frankthedm
First Post
Bingo. I comboed the pillar and tree entries into the wall tables for ease of reading, The notes 1, 2 and 3 only apply to walls.Ahglock said:
IceFractal
First Post
Likewise, I'd like more destructable terrain. I once tried calculating how deep a crater fireballs and other destructive spells would be causing - a few inches deep, at most. Worried about that off-target lightning bolt bringing down the cavern? Don't be, it barely puts a scratch on stone, or even wood. Not very exciting.
There is one factor though - the huge disparity between in-combat time and out of combat time. In combat, a wall would have to breakable in three rounds or less to have any chance of a dramatic effect. Out of combat, that means you can smash through three walls per minute!
So I think you pretty much have to make a choice:
* Dramatic fights, and either make your dungeons out of force walls or have them tunnelled through in minutes.
* Terrain is moot in combat, but walls are an actual impedement to motion.
There is one factor though - the huge disparity between in-combat time and out of combat time. In combat, a wall would have to breakable in three rounds or less to have any chance of a dramatic effect. Out of combat, that means you can smash through three walls per minute!
So I think you pretty much have to make a choice:
* Dramatic fights, and either make your dungeons out of force walls or have them tunnelled through in minutes.
* Terrain is moot in combat, but walls are an actual impedement to motion.
frankthedm
First Post
Hence this thead.IceFractal said:
magical hardening in 3E double hardness and doubles HP. If 4E walls have 1/2 the HP of a 3E wall, then magical hardening might instead quadruple the walls HP.
3 ideas
1. Maybe just make thinner walls a default, not every wall needs to be load bearing thickness.
2. decrease wall HP exponentially for thinness under 5'. Thus masonry, thin pillars and maybe hewn walls can be taken down, but digging through the dungeon is not easier, unless the whole blasted thing is made up of thin walls.
3. Let big monsters apply the size bonus on breaking doors to also breaking walls. This does not help PCs much, but at least big bruisers can rip through the dungeon. "Larger and smaller creatures get size bonuses and size penalties on Strength checks to break open doors as follows: Fine -16, Diminutive -12, Tiny -8, Small -4, Large +4, Huge +8, Gargantuan +12, Colossal +16."
Varianor Abroad
Explorer
I think dungeon walls are not cottage walls. Perhaps more games should take place in small, unsuspecting villages?
(But otherwise I wholeheartedly agree with your point.)
(But otherwise I wholeheartedly agree with your point.)
Chris_Nightwing
First Post
I'd like the rules to be a bit broader too - Warlocks can basically drill through any material of any thickness given enough time!
it's great
We do this in our games and it's awesome. It leads to tons of unexpected events/scenarios, etc.
We use a modified item/structure save system than core, and I will most likely move the same system to 4E. Due to this, I always check for damage to structures, or natural environment, items, etc.
From one adventure, that my friends completed back in about march, let's just say some of the terrain/structural events that occurred in that one adventure.
Setting: 'the complex', a 90% underground, huge 'scientific/magical' research facility; players woke up as prisoners and had to escape.... over 20 levels down, fully 3D mapped, and tons of freedom in that players could have escaped via climbing up some shafts they found, but due to some excellent roleplaying (by a charmed individual, he was able to convince, not via dice rolls, but actual roleplaying/acting, for everyone to descend further).
* critical explosion, as the party tried to turn off a magical machine...with energy being funneled through it. THey opened and released some energy without actually shutting the flow first (through the focus which was a captured demon); I rolled for it, and failed...the energy tore through the outer shell piping, through the inner shell, out into the rest of the complex. the release caused a critical explosion and caused a temporary black hole type effect below them. They ran before this, but caused the entire center column to collapse into the 'gate'. I then had to estimate how the dungeon change. It got pulled into this gravity well, and entire levels of it collapsed or was bent in, metal piping bent, bricks shattered, etc. after that, rest ofthe place was going through a wrecked complex with tons more hazards
* due to a villain there, who had some..random effects...a wild psion type, who couldn't control powers, when injured, i rolled to see if she could control her anger, if not, soemthing happened as she lost it, and unleashed energy (similar to that of an alter reality/wish/reality revision effect). THing was, her group was below the players in the complex, so i was rolling for the rooms they completed, and where they went, so stuff was happened that they ddin't understand, due to her doing her own thing as well.
WHen she lost it, several stuff happened:
* she turned about 5% of the complex temporarily to ice. I had to then figure out what happens to structures that wouldn't be able to handle being turned toice (ie. mechanical featuers like gears for example.
* later, she caused about 25% of the complex to turn into water. everything...water. the party was in this huge arboream type chamber, and suddently, the walls, cieling, most of the plants, floors, etc all turned. They then fell 100 feet down into a sudden ocean of water into the lower levels (bypassing alot actually, but this was not planned...it was fully random from her wild power, so it was fun)...I then had to figure out, how the above levels came crashing down on them,etc. and that was a very tense 3 or so hours of gameplay
* the party ended using a disintegrate scroll to blow a hole in a pipe, to cause water to flow in..this flooded a chamber where the final battle was happening.
* however, at that time, her random power kicked in causing temp to drop, causing much of the water to freeze... so there was a frozen ocean in a huge chamber, with some of the party trapped
* then it got bad!!! another random effect, as ice started to break, a tornado formed inside...it broke the ice and made an ice twister inside, 4000 ft below the ground inside the complex, and began ripping thru the ceiling, etc.
* players began retreating..they said screw the battle
* they got to an escape tunnel and started using items/spelsl to climb up...as they did, the level below turned to slime...and there was an explosion inside. they have no idea what happened..
* above, on the surface, they found under snow/ice where a large section collapsed due to what happened below while they were down there.
* before escaping the mountains, they also were part of an avalanche (caused by a hunting white dragon)
some smart thinking there gave some of the players alot of exp.
As a note, teh wild psion i made, that couldn't control her power, causing all sorts of stuff to happen, I named her "Satya". Same name my wife wants to use in the future if we have a daughter.
Satya, is Sanskrit for "Reality". I named her that, since her wild powers, could cause reality to be altered.
From the above, I fully support anything that makes more sturctured rules for environment alteration
Sanjay
We do this in our games and it's awesome. It leads to tons of unexpected events/scenarios, etc.
We use a modified item/structure save system than core, and I will most likely move the same system to 4E. Due to this, I always check for damage to structures, or natural environment, items, etc.
From one adventure, that my friends completed back in about march, let's just say some of the terrain/structural events that occurred in that one adventure.
Setting: 'the complex', a 90% underground, huge 'scientific/magical' research facility; players woke up as prisoners and had to escape.... over 20 levels down, fully 3D mapped, and tons of freedom in that players could have escaped via climbing up some shafts they found, but due to some excellent roleplaying (by a charmed individual, he was able to convince, not via dice rolls, but actual roleplaying/acting, for everyone to descend further).
* critical explosion, as the party tried to turn off a magical machine...with energy being funneled through it. THey opened and released some energy without actually shutting the flow first (through the focus which was a captured demon); I rolled for it, and failed...the energy tore through the outer shell piping, through the inner shell, out into the rest of the complex. the release caused a critical explosion and caused a temporary black hole type effect below them. They ran before this, but caused the entire center column to collapse into the 'gate'. I then had to estimate how the dungeon change. It got pulled into this gravity well, and entire levels of it collapsed or was bent in, metal piping bent, bricks shattered, etc. after that, rest ofthe place was going through a wrecked complex with tons more hazards
* due to a villain there, who had some..random effects...a wild psion type, who couldn't control powers, when injured, i rolled to see if she could control her anger, if not, soemthing happened as she lost it, and unleashed energy (similar to that of an alter reality/wish/reality revision effect). THing was, her group was below the players in the complex, so i was rolling for the rooms they completed, and where they went, so stuff was happened that they ddin't understand, due to her doing her own thing as well.
WHen she lost it, several stuff happened:
* she turned about 5% of the complex temporarily to ice. I had to then figure out what happens to structures that wouldn't be able to handle being turned toice (ie. mechanical featuers like gears for example.
* later, she caused about 25% of the complex to turn into water. everything...water. the party was in this huge arboream type chamber, and suddently, the walls, cieling, most of the plants, floors, etc all turned. They then fell 100 feet down into a sudden ocean of water into the lower levels (bypassing alot actually, but this was not planned...it was fully random from her wild power, so it was fun)...I then had to figure out, how the above levels came crashing down on them,etc. and that was a very tense 3 or so hours of gameplay
* the party ended using a disintegrate scroll to blow a hole in a pipe, to cause water to flow in..this flooded a chamber where the final battle was happening.
* however, at that time, her random power kicked in causing temp to drop, causing much of the water to freeze... so there was a frozen ocean in a huge chamber, with some of the party trapped
* then it got bad!!! another random effect, as ice started to break, a tornado formed inside...it broke the ice and made an ice twister inside, 4000 ft below the ground inside the complex, and began ripping thru the ceiling, etc.
* players began retreating..they said screw the battle
* they got to an escape tunnel and started using items/spelsl to climb up...as they did, the level below turned to slime...and there was an explosion inside. they have no idea what happened..
* above, on the surface, they found under snow/ice where a large section collapsed due to what happened below while they were down there.
* before escaping the mountains, they also were part of an avalanche (caused by a hunting white dragon)
some smart thinking there gave some of the players alot of exp.As a note, teh wild psion i made, that couldn't control her power, causing all sorts of stuff to happen, I named her "Satya". Same name my wife wants to use in the future if we have a daughter.
Satya, is Sanskrit for "Reality". I named her that, since her wild powers, could cause reality to be altered.
From the above, I fully support anything that makes more sturctured rules for environment alteration
Sanjay
Thornir Alekeg
Albatross!
The 4e DM just needs to make all those walls into load-bearing walls and place an NPC engineer with the party. "Don't break through that one! The whole place will come crashing down! We better go find the red key, instead."Aloïsius said:I think not. If the PC are able to destroy the wall, it will rob the DM of his power to nose-lead them through the tunnels and corridors of the Dungeon. So, no sunder, no breakable wall. Look for the red key to open the red door, then, look for the blue key.
* the above post is an exorcism*
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