Slimes and oozes vs. prone

[babinro]

They can suffer from a condition with identical mechanical game effects.

This is really the way to go in my opinion. People don't like some conditions based on their names and the visual representations they provide. My players hate that immobilize creatures can stand from prone for example. Or that a slowed creature can Charge.

Don't think of the ooze being knocked prone as much as being debilitated by the attack in such a way that it requires a move action in order to properly stabilize and attack at peak effectiveness once again.

 

[the Jester]

Yes, or rather:
They can suffer from a condition with identical mechanical game effects.

Bingo.

Many conditions just need a little reskinning when they seem incongruous.

 

[Amaroq]

I'm very much with babinro and TheJester.

The game effect applies, full stop. Its up to the creativity of the DM (or, using DM jujitsu, on the player) to give the fluff description of how the power or effect worked and made sense in the context it was used.

 

[LostSoul]

Do you care enough about what happens in the game world - the fluff - to make it have an effect on resolution?

If no, then they can have the prone condition by any power that says they can.

If yes, then maybe; it depends on what's happening in the game world.

 

[DracoSuave]

Do you care enough about what happens in the game world - the fluff - to make it have an effect on resolution?

If no, then they can have the prone condition by any power that says they can.

If yes, then maybe; it depends on what's happening in the game world.

This.

Altho in the case of having abilities that knock prone... you're better off figuring a way to make a slime less mobile as description than simply saying 'You can't trip a slime.'


For example, the cold from Icy Terrain may cause parts of it to congeal, causing a loss of mobility until those parts are slimed over to non-essential positions in the greater ooze-body.

 

[DragonXNIK]

Or in the case of a Martial Class tripping a gelatinous cube, have the Fighter/Ranger/Warlord create a gash in the ground in front of the cube, and the cube will then fall into it and stand like a d6 balanced on an edge. Making it unable to move until it corrects its orientation or re-gels to be parallel with the floor. Unless you're trying to trip a (as far as I am aware, non-existent) flying ooze, damaging the ground beneath the ooze/slime can be used to explain prone in most situations, since Gravity is not really anyone's friend. And if you're worried about difficult terrain forming haphazardly, just say the ooze abandons part of itself in the gash, and that part dries out to cement the hole.

 

[keterys]

Or, the other 'more realistic' alternative - it's always prone naturally, and provokes from 'crawling' everywhere

I'm with the 'condition as appropriately described' crew.