We fight monsters sometimes.

[Hussar]

Yea and thankfully my fighter keeps an inflatable castle in has backpack

Heh, mine keeps his in his codpiece.

 

[Minigiant]

Handing out powers that are used only against a specific group is a bad choice, because they require you to fight those types on a regular basis for the choice to be worth it. Thus it requires your DM to throw them at you.

The less circumstantial the ability, the better it is.

D&D has always been "I stand at the foot of the giant and stab its toes until its hit points run out". Because allowing you to scale monsters is getting more complex, and also asks to deal with things like opportunity attacks, grappling checks ("So a halfling grappling a titan's leg equals immobilization? What?"), and a whole host of other things.

They would have to be basic actions like bull rush. Things everyone can do so it would be there iff you need it an DM's wouldn't feel forced. Something like (using 4th for simplicity) a Str vs Fort for slowed agianst creature 2 sizes larger or Dex vs Fort to make a flying creature crash.

 

[Jack99]

For Vikings, the two are not mutually exclusive.

HEY! As a descendant of the original vikings, I resent that!

 

[Wootz]

Fair Enough. If you're hunting dragons or bears, then you gotta point. But what if they're hunting you?

So just for the sake of argument, let's try a little thought experimenting in shooting bears.

I assume when you are hunting bears you don't step out in front of them and shoot them man-to-bear while they are facing you? That you probably shoot them from a fair distance (from your point of view) when they aren't looking and don't even know you're there? Mostly right? And maybe you got your sidearm slung on your waist, just in case you miss and have an unfortunate close encounter? (The smart way to do it by the way.) Or maybe you got a buddy waiting to loose in case you don't drop him by surprise? Maybe all of these. (The smartest way to do it.)

But now shooting a bear who is staring right at you, or charging right at you, with a recurve bow or even a longbow (and it's real hard to shoot a longbow accurately for most fellas) that's a whole nuther kinda bear, ain't it? Or if a bear is already up on top of you, or worse yet, had ambushed you? (Instead of the other way around.)

That's a very different kind of bear for most folks I suspect than the "I'm bent over gutting a fish and get shot by a modern compound bow with modern sights blindsided sort of bear."

So there's shooting bears and dragons, and then there's shooting bears and dragons.

You shoot a stationary target center of mass, or in the back of the head (assuming you're terrifically good) from a safe distance, take him by surprise and kill him easy (the smart way it do it) and that's one kinda shooting monsters and bears. You shoot him when he's got a red-hot mean on for you, injured and with his blood up, or on the charge, or in his lair, or when he knows you're coming, and that's a whole nuther kinda magic arrow. And you better be awfully good at what ya do or easy might not be exactly how it comes off, assuming, that is, you live to tell the tale.

Well, let's get back to the fantasy aspect of the game.

Having 4 other people with you, and assuming that at least one of them can shoot magic out of their face, the fight becomes a little bit easier. Maybe even child's play. Add on to that the fact that you take control of a hero, more than your average mortal man, assume your 9th level ranger is trained with longbows and can use them to greater effect than a normal hunter, well, then you have a problem with the whole reality gap. But again, what it boils down to is your style of roleplaying, and whether or not any of it makes any sense to you.

 

[doppelganger]

Pffffffht. Obviously you haven't wrestled a Grizzly bear

I used to wrestle womp-bears from my T-16 back home, they're not much bigger than grizzlies.

 

[Mercule]

Yea and thankfully my fighter keeps an inflatable castle in has backpack

How long does it take to blow up with that little nozzle?

 

[Jack7]

Having 4 other people with you, and assuming that at least one of them can shoot magic out of their face, the fight becomes a little bit easier. Maybe even child's play. Add on to that the fact that you take control of a hero, more than your average mortal man, assume your 9th level ranger is trained with longbows and can use them to greater effect than a normal hunter, well, then you have a problem with the whole reality gap. But again, what it boils down to is your style of roleplaying, and whether or not any of it makes any sense to you.

I wish I could shoot magic out of my face. That would save a lot on shaving cream and might even impress the ladies at parties.

But I got what you were saying Wootz. I'm just saying that just because a character can, in-game, kill dragons with hand-axes or even cross bows and face magic, doesn't mean you'd want to take that way of approaching the problem. Any more than an experienced person in our world would want to, because he can, stop an on-coming semi-truck by stand twenty feet in front of it and shooting at the gas tanks with an rpg. Especially if you don't have a Plan B.

Maybe you could do it that way, but does it strike you as the best tactical maneuver you can muster?

 

[Wolv0rine]

Yea and thankfully my fighter keeps an inflatable castle in has backpack

I'm just sayin'... Leomund's Tiny Manapult can't be more than like 1st, 2nd level.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

One thing that always bugged me is that D&D assumes you fight enemies as if they are all humaniod creatures of the small or medium size standing on the ground.

Your DM may make that assumption, but not the game (at least, not up to 3Ed, AFAIK). I have no qualms about throwing opponents at a party from any direction.

And I know I'm not alone. Just a couple of years ago, our low-level party was attacked by a small group of harpies. The druid just happened to luck out and catch them in an Entangle- his best spell- as they dove on us, and we proceeded to start pelting them.

(In a black comedic twist, our attack and damage rolls were so bad, we exhausted the party supply of arrows & bolts, so the Druid had to cast Entangle again while we pelted them to death with stones. It was so bad, one PC even went so far as to cut an arrow out of a harpy to re-use it...)

I know If I were an experience adventurer, I wouldn't stand in front of a dragon with an axe. I'd jump on its back and ride it like a bull.

Oddly enough, I did this in a RBDM's homebrewed dungeon, when he threw a Huge Ancient Red Dragon at the party in room #1...for a 1st level party. It was asleep, but I figured this was merely a portent of things to come, so I had my Paladin hustle up the pile 'o' gold, leap astride its neck, and make a 2-handed stab into its left eye and used its hilt like the rope on a bucking brahma bull. Holding on with the left hand, I used the right hand to stab away with my dagger.

(Yep, should have died. Didn't. It was really, really bad- a Deus Ex Machina's worth of dwarven warriors appeared to help out, then the rest of the party joined in.)

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Handing out powers that are used only against a specific group is a bad choice, because they require you to fight those types on a regular basis for the choice to be worth it. Thus it requires your DM to throw them at you.

The less circumstantial the ability, the better it is.

Too true. However, here's an idea that I don't think the OP was saying, but the way how he said what he said kind of did... sorta...damn I'm not making much sense.

OK, how about if some monsters had an "encounter power" that was specifically designed for an enemy to use against it. Effectively, the monster donates an encounter power to an enemy, that the enemy (in most cases a PC) gets to use if they use an action point for example but that might have additional pre-requisites. In this way, any PC can "use" this encounter power but they have to meet the pre-requisites (like being in the right position or making a difficult athletics check etc.) to do so, but with spectacular results a la the Beowulf dragon example. Yeah... that could be fun.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise