DangerousPuhson
Should be playing D&D instead
It was more or less what you were saying, but to be fair you did call it "valid criticism" and qualify it with "IMO", so I guess I was wrong to lump in it with the other absolutist views.
Beroic! DId you steal a page from Malrex's book and post post while drunk drunk? ;P...that that what you think I think?
And then it regains its semi-rigid shape after six seconds? And if it loses its shape wouldn't it increase the floor area it covered?Knocking it prone probably means you're damaging the gel structure that allows it to hold a semi-rigid shape. Take a hot knife and slice through the bottom of a jello cube sometime for an illustration of how this works.
In 4e, oozes are not immune to being knocked prone:We talking 3e or 4e? I'm pretty sure oozes were immune to being knocked prone, no? Or am I thinking of critical hits?
[Emphasis added]Prone
* The creature is lying down. However, if the creature is climbing or flying, it falls.
* The only way the creature can move is by crawling, teleporting, or being pulled, pushed, or slid.
* The creature takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls.
* The creature grants combat advantage to attackers making melee attacks against it, but it gains a +2 bonus to all defenses against ranged attacks from attackers that aren't adjacent to it.
A creature can end this condition on itself by standing up. A creature can drop prone as a minor action.
This condition can affect limbless creatures, such as fish and snakes, as well as amorphous creatures, such as oozes. When such a creature falls prone, imagine it is writhing or unsteady, rather than literally lying down. The game effect on that creature is the same as for other creatures.
I agree entirely. My approach to mechanics is that they are an aid to adjudication of actions that apply to most cases. They are useful as a guideline to help DMs adjudicate consistently in most situations, and to help players assess their odds of success at most actions. However, if applying the mechanics leads to an absurd result, the mechanics have to be overruled.To me, this is the point where I feel it's more of a boardgame than a roleplaying game (even if technically not true). Fiction first, I say: If it just doesn't make any sense in the fiction, then make a ruling to override the mechanics. And if it's an ooze-centric campaign, make a new rule.
I disagree. D&D 3e has a table in the DMG with expected wealth by level. It's a guideline, sure, but it does create expectations: I've had a player who was frustrated because he was unable to realize his pre-planned character build for lack of money. He expected to have roughly x gold pieces at level y, which would have been enought to buy several items synergizing with his planned character build.You cast bad light on later editions for something entirely out of their purview - Magic items can only ever proliferate a game via one of two inputs: 1) an uncreative module author, or 2) the DM. That's it, two sources - if you worry about magic items getting out of hand, those two are literally the only culprits to which blame/responsibility can be assigned. It's not the system. Don't blame the system for the failings of individuals.
Made me smile.(But I fulfilled my quota the next evening when both of the party's spellcasters died. )
This made me laugh out loud.(But I fulfilled my quota the next evening when both of the party's spellcasters died. )
Every edition with treasure tables, and encounter tables graduated by monster strength, creates expectations. Which is, let me take a few minutes to confirm ... every edition, starting with the Magic/Maps Determination Table in Monsters & Treasure, and the Monster Determination and Level of Monster Matrix in The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. Heck, the Monty Haul campaigns Gygax complained about resulted from using his own treasure tables.Anyway, expected wealth by level, CR, EL etc. are guidelines and can be useful for some purposes. But they also create expectations incompatible with some playstyles. Hence, 3e etc. are inherently less suitable for sandboxes, among other things.
I disagree. D&D 3e has a table in the DMG with expected wealth by level. It's a guideline, sure, but it does create expectations: I've had a player who was frustrated because he was unable to realize his pre-planned character build for lack of money. He expected to have roughly x gold pieces at level y, which would have been enought to buy several items synergizing with his planned character build.
1) That table is for estimate purposes only. It's primary use is during character creation, when the DM wants players to start beyond level 1. Your player was wrong to align his wealth expectations with it, because it's an estimate. It'd be like if he got angry that he rolled a 3 for his Barbarian's hitpoints on level up because the book says that the average roll is 6.5, so he should have 6.5.Anyway, expected wealth by level, CR, EL etc. are guidelines and can be useful for some purposes. But they also create expectations incompatible with some playstyles. Hence, 3e etc. are inherently less suitable for sandboxes, among other things.
I'm familiar with this line of argument (including "For DM eyes only.") and I disagree.1) That table is for estimate purposes only. [...] Your players should not be building expectations about the game based on information in the Dungeon Master's guide.
Is not addressing every individual point to be made on the matter "handwaving"? Who's handwaving anything?Expectations created by the rules - and a host of other factors - are part of the game, a psychological factor not to be underestimated. Handwaving such things seems no different than arguing, say, that you can always ignore or change a rule a.k.a. invoke rule zero. Consider me unimpressed.
There's a difference between an entire core book, and a single table - this is an absurd comparison.Rolemaster has one of its three core books, Arms Law, entirely dedicated to attack and critical hit tables. It's certainly possible to run a non-violent game with Rolemaster, but I do think the mere presence of Arms Law shapes expectations and hangs over ANY Rolemaster game (quite possibly ironically, as in "We thumb our noses at Rolemaster and have another session without any combat, LOL!", or creating suspense, as in "When will we finally break out Arms Law and find out exactly how our characters die?").
Think of oozes as an assembly of contained, self-repairing, cells which expand, shrink, flex, compress, rotate etc. to produce the ooze's movement. So yeah, you cut or smash a few of them and it temporarily loses rigidity before it either shifts new cells into place or repairs the damaged ones.And then it regains its semi-rigid shape after six seconds? And if it loses its shape wouldn't it increase the floor area it covered?
Sure, I think if you tag oozes as immune to mental effects you cover most of the egregiously difficult cases to explain, but if there's some difficulty, ruling oozes as just immune to being knocked prone is a relatively minor buff that I don't think would mess with the core math of monster creation in 4e.Also, another problem is that the same maneuver is used to knock humanoids prone. And you can use different weapons, so you might be proning with a club, or your fist, or a net. And even if you justify that example, there many different proning powers, and some may imply that it's more of a shove than a trip, or a blow to the head, or a blow from a missile weapon, or that they fall down because they are dizzy or confused, or think they are falling in an illusory canyon, or for any other number of reasons - all of which you also have to justify as being the same maneuver or spell used on humanoid creatures with a very different mind and anatomy.
I don't really care about most other oozes, you could flip over an ochre jelly or a gray ooze and I would see it being out of sorts of a few seconds. But a gelatinous cube is a cube. If you flip it over or knock i ton its side it is still cube shaped.Think of oozes as an assembly of contained, self-repairing, cells which expand, shrink, flex, compress, rotate etc. to produce the ooze's movement. So yeah, you cut or smash a few of them and it temporarily loses rigidity before it either shifts new cells into place or repairs the damaged ones.
Sure, I think if you tag oozes as immune to mental effects you cover most of the egregiously difficult cases to explain, but if there's some difficulty, ruling oozes as just immune to being knocked prone is a relatively minor buff that I don't think would mess with the core math of monster creation in 4e.
It is up to 1 XP for a gold piece of treasure won through risk perilous to the character’s level, but not certainly 1 XP for every gold piece that is written on your character sheet.Am I missing something