Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6111397" data-attributes="member: 42582">This "theme" in D&D is confined to 3E. In AD&D there was no rule the Plane Shift wasn't accurate. The 3E auto-inaccuracy feature seems to be a consequences of merging 5th level cleric Plane Shift with the plane-hopping ability of 7th level magic-user Teleport Without Error, plus noting the undesirability of scry-buff-teleport as a tactic.Given that scry-buff-teleport wasn't in issue in the episode Hussar has described, it is not going to destabilise the balance of the game to (for instance) just free-narrate that the PCs arrive outside the city walls, or (if the dice are rolled) to move throught the travel part pretty quickly.That's what summoning a huge centipeded would be. That's a pretty clear example of using a player resource (which is also a PC resource) to transition the scene.If they can cast Plane Shift maybe the can cast Commune, or Divination, or Legend Lore, or have a druid or ranger with decent Intuit Direction.You're working with a pretty liberal definition of house rule! Can you point me to the page(s) in the 4e rulebook that I'm houseruling out?<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The players didn't seek it out. I assume they hoped to avoid it, but the dice came up badly. This is a general feature of a certain sort of ruleset. As for deploying resources to transition, the summoning of the centipede is precisely that! [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], who summoned the centipede, has expressly told us as much. The difference between the centipede and the teleport in this respect is that the centipede requires a type of GM permission that a teleport spell would not. Hussar and I are expressing a view on when we want the GM to grant such permission. I don't pay much attention to sci-fi games, but I think I saw a reference to Diaspora recently on an RPGnet thread. I can certainly see how some "genre-policing" would be required. In my 4e game it generally relates to adjudicating the "gonzo fantasy" factor, and in mechanical terms gets bound up with setting DCs and damage by reference to page 42. A comment and question relating to this thread: it seems to me that adjudicating action declarations by reference to genre is a different GM role from permission being required as such for the PC to take a move in the gameworld. So, say in relation to the "siege of the city" situation being discussed in this thread, it seems to me their is a difference between the following: Players 1: We wait for the bombardment to start, and then once it does we rush in close to the city walls and try to scale them Plyaers 2: We wait for the bombardment to start. Once it does, I jump up and grab hold of a boulder flying overhead, and ride it Mighty Thor-style over the city walls.[/iindent] Of these, only number 2 seems to me to require any sot of GM "permission", in a D&D game, before we move on to action resolution,and that is because it, at least arguably, violates genre constraints. What's your take? </li> </ol></blockquote>

Verification