Where is my Freaking Mule?!

[TerraDave]

Expanding the above, here is the (mostly complete) gear list for 4E:

Bedroll
Candle
Common Meal
Flask (empty)
Hammer
Oil (1 pint)
Pitcher of Ale
Pitons
Torch
Typical Room (per day)
Alchemical Reagents
Belt Pouch
Flint and Steel
Grappling Hook
Hempen Rope (50 ft.)
Rare Herbs
Sanctified Incense
Waterskin
Backpack
Chest (empty)
Climber's Kit
Crowbar
Luxury Room (per day)
Bottle of Wine
Feast (one meal)
Flute
Journeybread
Trail Rations
Horn
Lantern
Holy Symbol
Silk Rope (50 ft.)
Tent
Lute
Cart
Thieves’ Tools
Wagon
Glass Cutter
Camouflaged Clothing
Chain (10 ft.)
Disguise Kit
Fine Clothing
Everburning Torch
Rowboat
Camel
Riding Horse
Giant Lizard (Draft)
Warhorse
Giant Lizard (Riding)
Rhinoceros
Elephant
Sailing Ship

I mean, using rhino's to pull carts and carry stuff is a little cooler then the mule.

But still. There should be a mule.

And a pony for the gnomes and halflings.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

I would like the specifically 4E version of the Book of Mules Etcetera to talk about how a 10' pole interacts with a trap.

Can you set off a trap just by sticking a pole into it, bypassing a skill check? Does it give you a bonus? How do you decide what kinds of traps interact with poles and how that should interact with the rules?

The most successful skill challenges I've seen have been the most concrete. When we were trying to avoid being buried in the sand from a city emerging from the desert in Piratecat's game at Anonycon, the tight relationship between the challenge mechanics and the imagined scene made it easy to tell right away that wrapping your cloak around your face would help with your Endurance check once you were submerged, and also helped everyone decide which skills could be used in the challenge in the normal abstract way.

So I think the benefit of having Wizards do a book of ordinary-world stuff (even if at this point everything an adventurer might possibly want is in some previous edition sourcebook) would not be how to price it in 4E, but rather how to tackle the general question of relating 4E abstract mechanics like traps and skill challenges to ordinary objects in the imagined world.

 

[Remathilis]

Can you set off a trap just by sticking a pole into it, bypassing a skill check? Does it give you a bonus? How do you decide what kinds of traps interact with poles and how that should interact with the rules?

Just go by the Magic-Item format.

Ten Foot Pole Level 1
This simple wooden pole doesn't quite go up to eleven.
Mundane Item 5 gp
Power (Encounter): Standard Action. You automatically gain one success on any perception checks to locate traps along the floor, such as pit-traps or trip wires.

 

[Mistwell]

If one of my players wants to buy a WildMind BrayBeast, or a mirror, or a chicken (GimletBeak EggVault?) I just tell them to look it up in the book. Much quicker than ruling on-the-fly.

Why not instead tell them "OK, you do that"? Why have a player sitting there flipping pages of a book?

 

[Mistwell]

For some people, the 10-foot pole is an extraneous, unimportant detail, not even worthy of having a cost.

For others, the 10-foot pole is the most important thing in the world, and makes all the difference for their character.

WHO? For WHO is the 10-foot pole stats the most important thing in the world and makes all the difference for their character? Find me this person so we can ask them why.

Feel free to replace "10-foot pole" with any other relatively mundane, non-combat item. Believe it or not, there are gamers out there who want to "sweat the small stuff," because it forms the foundation for our games.

You tell me how looking up mundane stuff in books forms the formations of your role playing games.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Why not instead tell them "OK, you do that"? Why have a player sitting there flipping pages of a book?

Maybe because, as gamers, we tend to be that behavioral A word that Eric's grandma might blush over. Or we are Monty Python fans and really enjoy lists.

 

[Mistwell]

Expanding the above, here is the (mostly complete) gear list for 4E:

Bedroll
Candle
Common Meal
Flask (empty)
Hammer
Oil (1 pint)
Pitcher of Ale
Pitons
Torch
Typical Room (per day)
Alchemical Reagents
Belt Pouch
Flint and Steel
Grappling Hook
Hempen Rope (50 ft.)
Rare Herbs
Sanctified Incense
Waterskin
Backpack
Chest (empty)
Climber's Kit
Crowbar
Luxury Room (per day)
Bottle of Wine
Feast (one meal)
Flute
Journeybread
Trail Rations
Horn
Lantern
Holy Symbol
Silk Rope (50 ft.)
Tent
Lute
Cart
Thieves’ Tools
Wagon
Glass Cutter
Camouflaged Clothing
Chain (10 ft.)
Disguise Kit
Fine Clothing
Everburning Torch
Rowboat
Camel
Riding Horse
Giant Lizard (Draft)
Warhorse
Giant Lizard (Riding)
Rhinoceros
Elephant
Sailing Ship

I mean, using rhino's to pull carts and carry stuff is a little cooler then the mule.

But still. There should be a mule.

And a pony for the gnomes and halflings.

The Adventurer's Vault lists these mounts:

Blade spider
Camel
Dire boar
Elephant
Giant ant
Giant lizard, draft
Giant lizard, riding
Griffon
Griffon, rimefire
Hippogriff
Hippogriff dreadmount
Horse, celestial charger
Horse, riding
Horse, sea
Horse, skeletal
Horse, warhorse
Manticore
Nightmare
Rage drake
Rhinoceros
Shark, dire
Shark, riding
Trihorn behemoth
Wolf, dire
Wyvern

It also has the following Vehicles:

Apparatus of Kwalish
Airship
Chariot, Light
Chariot, Heavy
Greatship
Longship
Pinnace
Ornithopter
Wagon

Manual of the Planes adds:
Astral Skiff
Spelljammer
Planar Dromond

 

[billd91]

There was a halfling thief that a friend of mine played in a campaign some years ago who would look at that list of riding animals, notice that there was no pony or even a riding dog, and claim that the livestock purveyors were "smallists" (his term for bigots who didn't like the small races).

 

[The Ghost]

WHO? For WHO is the 10-foot pole stats the most important thing in the world and makes all the difference for their character? Find me this person so we can ask them why.

You tell me how looking up mundane stuff in books forms the formations of your role playing games.

Maybe because, as gamers, we tend to be that behavioral A word that Eric's grandma might blush over. Or we are Monty Python fans and really enjoy lists.

While I am in general agreement with the "just wing it" advice, I got to ask - why is someone wanting a book of Mundane Items so appalling that you need to challenge someone's play-style or refer to them in words that would make Grandma blush?

 

[Drkfathr1]

Yeah, there's a lot of "badwrongfun" in this thread.