That’s Not How the Force (of Gravity) Works!
I used to think that Paladin was Fighter’s nemesis. After a few more years exploring Handbook-World though, I’m beginning to suspect it might be gravity. You’d think the dude would invest in some boots of the cat or something.
Today’s nugget of Handbook advice is near and dear to my heart. That’s because some of my favorite gaming moments come courtesy of what I’ll call “creative rules misunderstandings.” For example, I once found my hotshot goblin fighter pilot cuffed to his mortal enemy via a set of dimensional shackles. The mortal enemy in question had just failed a save against a very vengeful intelligent magic item, and was intent on prematurely ending our alliance of convenience.
“Hey GM!” says I. “Can I use my lock picks as an improvised weapon?”
“Sure. Why would you want to though?”
“It’s the only way I can justify dispelling attack on the dimensional shackles.”
“Don’t you need to deal sneak attack damage to trigger that ability?”
“Well I mean… the lock is flat-footed, isn’t it? No way it’s expecting to get sneak attacked.”
It is only by the grace of Gamers 2 that he allowed the maneuver. The roll was good, the shackles popped free, and my goblin lived to shank another day. I felt like a million bucks for coming up with a clever solution, and it remains one of my favorite gaming moments to this day.
It was a similar story just last session. My party was on a rescue mission to the esoteric dimension of dreams. Portals had opened up in a mine for some reason. A bunch of dwarves were getting their souls sucked by a pack of animate dreams. The party was split between the waking world and nightmare-land, and it fell to my gnomish mesmerist to buy time while the victims were evacuated back to reality.
“So you know how my guy is a practicing psychologist?”
“Sure. You put ranks in Profession (counselor).”
“And one of the first abilities he gets is called ‘towering ego.’ So speaking as a mind mage, is there any way I can exert an effort of will to shape a localized area of this plane?”
After a bit of GM chin-stroking: “Go ahead and give me a Will save.”
I proceeded to crank a succession of nat-15+ rolls. Sections of floating dreamscape capsized and dumped my enemies off the map. Iron domes closed around them. I even got into an ad-hoc Harry Potter force-of-will duel. They were cool moments. I felt like a badass. But there are some notable few subtleties afoot.
In the first place, I knew exactly what I was asking for. In both the lock-picking and the dream-fighting scenarios, I was attempting a low-probability-of-success stunt. The dice very much had to be in my favor. I was also using thematically appropriate abilities and character traits to earn the right to make those checks. And in both cases, the effects were relatively minor. The lock was all about slipping free as a standard action rather than a full round (I needed my move to flee my attacker!). Meanwhile, for all the flash and glitz of those dreamscape manipulations, they all boiled down to variations on “make one enemy skip its next turn.”
So by all means, Fighter! Make your case for a creative interaction between displacement and falling damage. Just don’t be too surprised if your demands for a high-probability-of-success/major effect/thematically inappropriate rules call don’t go your way.
As for today’s discussion questions, why don’t we all share our own “creative rules misunderstandings” with the class? When were you able to talk your way into a “that’s not really what the mechanic does, but I’ll allow it” scenario? Did it follow my suggested rubric of low probability/minor effect/thematically appropriate? Or did you manage to get away with something a bit more eyebrow-raising? Whatever your shenanigans, let’s hear all about ’em down in the comments!
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I predict Fighters next encounter with THE FLOOR (as seen in Ultima) will be from one of the following:
Misunderstanding that a Snapleaf is a consumable, not a passive item.
Failing his reflex save against a Create Pit spell (especially Hungry Pit).
Reverse Gravity spells slamming him into the roof.
Fighter testing out an ability to land on his feet rather than fall prone… Which produces interesting results when he’s KO’d or killed by the fall.
Fighter surviving what should be a lethal drop. Unfortunately, whatever he landed on/into (Dragon, Gelatinous Cube, Black Tentacles…) is worse than the fall damage.
Fighters hoarding tendency bites him when the DM checks how heavy he is for a section of floor that collapses if there’s too much weight.
Being forced to apply Spell Resistance against Wizards Feather Fall spell and nullifying it, despite being a willing recipient.
Entering an Anti-Magic field whilst flying via magic.
Allowing a less-than-savory caster to cast Treacherous Teleport.
Doing a stunt or complex ride/fly check whilst riding a flying critter/vehicle. See also ‘not reading the fly/ride rules’.
Fighter taking his munchkin tendencies to the obvious next step – using the fall damage offensively by landing on a monster to gib it instantly. Whether he does it accidentally/intentionally, or ‘misses’ the target during the fall is a matter of comedy.
Not investing in the ‘Use Rope’ skill of 3.5e… leading to a direct sequel of the very first comic. Lumberjack Explosion may also tag along.
Misunderstanding that certain fly effects need to be activated BEFORE you start falling to your death.
One sec. Copy + pasting into my “totally original ideas that I didn’t rip off from anybody” file.
It’s not ripping off if you credit the person! :p
Eyebrow-raising examples:
Having sufficient DR from any source can largely immunize you from falls, especially with the Cat Boots. Which in turn means you never fall prone either, as you took no lethal damage. To compound it, stuff like wearing adamantine armor can somehow reduce said damage.
Arguing that fall damage can’t hurt you unless the ground is made of cold iron/silver, for creatures with DR/cold iron or DR/silver. Likewise, creatures with such DR are immune to papercuts, injections/surgery and such unless appropriate tools are used.
Having at least 6 fire resistance makes you immune to damage from being on fire (d6 per round for mundane fires). Thus, there is no downside to being permanently on fire (outside of social reasons, property damage or damaging your own gear) and lets you casually walk into a burning building. Whether it interferes with spellcasting is dubious though.
> Thus, there is no downside to being permanently on fire
Well I just snorted mint tea out my nose. So thanks for that.
DR sufficient to render you immune to falls would have to be pretty immense. Even 15 or 20 DR would only block all damage from 40- or 60-foot falls about half the time. And DR doesn’t stack.
(Getting enough DR to protect you from 10-foot falls most of the time is doable, of course.)
Don’t know what edition you guys are referencing, but it is extremely arguable that damage reduction would work against falling damage in 3.5, since it only works against “weapons and natural attacks”. The ground isn’t a weapon.
There is one specific armor property reducing falling damage, but it’s pretty niche: https://realmshelps.net/magic/armor/Anti-Impact
3.5/PF specifically say that DR works against weapons and natural attacks, and that it doesn’t work against “energy attacks (even nonmagical ones), spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities”. Environmental damage that doesn’t deal energy damage are unremarked upon, and hence subject to DM discretion.
A literal reading of the rules agrees with you, but also suggests that DR would be ineffective against branches falling from a tree, even though it works against that same branch if an ogre picks it up to use as a club. (More practically: Traps are generally not weapons or natural attacks.) So I’m pretty sure most DMs would rule that DR affects fall damage without even realizing they were making a ruling.
Put on the Boots of the Cat, which always minimize fall damage. Maximum fall damage in Pathfinder is 20d6, so maximum fall damage is 20 with the boots. You need only 20 DR as such to be completely immune to fall damage. It’s a good basis for recreating the Hulk as well!
For reference, DR 20 is basically the highest DR you can get. It’s the kind of thing you see on epic and near-epic monsters, and can generally negate something like 30-50% of the physical damage they deal. It’s tough to get DR 20 for an extender period of time, even at 20th level; at a glance, you need to either accept a brief duration or stack some stuff that people argue about whether it can be stacked.
Here, have a rabbit hole.
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2m4fb?Falling-and-Damage-Reduction
Make of it what you will.
> Arguing that fall damage can’t hurt you unless the ground is made of cold iron/silver, for creatures with DR/cold iron or DR/silver. Likewise, creatures with such DR are immune to papercuts, injections/surgery and such unless appropriate tools are used.
Fortunately for the unlucky werewolf needing surgery, historically most scalpels *were* made from silver. The Fae may be a bit out of luck though.
This running gag can be improved if we get to see the outlines/holes Fighter produced every time he fell down this one specific Majestic Canyon, side-by-side.
Some say he carved that very canyon over millions of years!
My players in a Paranoia-like game (wherein your PC was a pregen and instantly replaced if you died) wheedled, finagled, and planned on the RAW that an energy-pistol set to “Overload” (primed one-too-many times via the Variable Charge modification from D20 Future Tech) would detonate at the END of a round.
One PC with 1 hp left (no med kits available), chose to swap his working pistol with a teammate via a series of “drop a weapon as a free action,” “draw a weapon as a free action during movement,” etc. allowing the teammate to move to minimum safe distance before the wounded player set off the charge to kill himself and a swarm of critters.
Abused the rules a bit, but very clever and effective!
“You can not have a meaningful campaign if strict time records are not kept” – gygax
The players had just beat up a dragon and were chasing down its minions to clean up after themselves, and they noticed that a particularly distinctive kobold was missing. After some investigating, they found a secret room and clear signs of a scroll having been used in the middle of it, as well as a journal they believe belonged to the missing kobold.
Well at that point, theyre stuck, because they werent there when the kobold teleported out and have no idea where she went. So the party sorcerer gets the idea to try and use his Arcana skill to basically trace the teleport, and combine it with the journal (which they presumed correctly was in the possession of this kobold for a long time). I roll for the check, he gets a disgusting total of like over 30, so I allow him to roll the teleport spell with the “description” chance of success, which only has a 25% chance of safely reaching the destination. The lucky sod gets a 99 on the percentile dice to see what happens and gets an absolutely safe, perfectly accurate teleport to this poor kobold’s backup lair, which she and I were both not prepared for.
I’ve actually seen the “trace the teleport” thing before! I quite like your “description” chance of success as a way to adjudicate the roll, though I might have still had ’em teleport 1d10 x 100 ft off center, forcing them to do a bit of local investigation rather than straight up surprising the kobold by appearing on top of her.
All things considered though, this looks like a rock solid improvised ruling to me. Well played on all sides!
Kind of the opposite, but I remember one time the game at the local game shop ground to a halt for 10-15 minutes (out of a 90-minute session) because one player wanted to mount a druid shapeshifted into a giant eagle in the middle of combat.
They were both willing to spend their entire turns on the maneuver, they provided several mechanical interpretations of the plan (up to and including grappling), but the DM wouldn’t allow it. He was afraid it would be abused in the future and be broken, somehow.
That’s terrible and I hate it.
I understand if it’s organized play and you have to get things right, but at some point you’ve got to make a ruling and let the fiction happen.
I don’t think anyone had fun that night.
Almost makes me glad that shop’s decided not to do in-store gaming any more. (I think they’re trying to just be a comic store.)
So this is a Palladium Fantasy RPG story, but the principle should apply all the time. I was playing a Fire Warlock… it’s a pure elemental caster where all the spells are fire in some way, shape, or form. The character is a prankster and troublemaker. I forget WHAT we were fighting, but as soon as I hit it with fire, probably because the GM was sick of letting me incinerate everything, this foe was notably immune to fire.
“O rly?” “Yas rly.”
“…my dear GM, nothing is immune to fire.”
He laughed. He explained to me in little words that immune to fire is immune to fire is immune to fire.
Undaunted, I baited the enemy who had incapacitated the other two party members into a tall building, and barricaded myself inside. I shouted some taunts and cast Immunity to Fire on myself (it’s a buff in PFRPG, does what it says) and set a couple of firewalls in the room. Predictably, he breaks the door down, and we engage in a merry little chase. My actions at this point are purely defensive. We get up to the fifth floor or so… I’m playing a ratfolk, I’m a lot smaller than this guy. I’m standing next to a window.
“I hope you are quite prepared to die. Ta!” and jump out the small window.
The GM is perplexed. I explain.
“Combat time wise, he’s been chasing me around in this building, and even worse, just bashing through things to get to me, ya? Things like beams, staircases, and such. Load bearing things. I set the building on fire about two minutes ago.”
GM “Yes, and…?”
“Burning buildings collapse. He’s on the 5th floor of a building he’s been wrecking the whole way up which is also ON FIRE. Don’t you think it’s about time you checked to see if the building is still standing?”
The GM was stunned. He rolled a few dice… The building collapsed and his fire proof guy, well. We aren’t sure if he was killed by getting crushed or impaled, but dead is dead, and it was rather directly caused by him and fire.
“NOTHING is immune to Fire.”
Love it. Always a good day at the office when you and your character simultaneously outsmart the other fellow.
It actually reminds me of My Hero Academia, where everyone is a one-trick pony tasked with Maslow’s Hammering their way to creative victory.
To me… it was using the tools and abilities I had to overcome a challenge specifically focused to be hard for my character. In his own words, once he’d gotten the other two out of the fight, he expected to just kill Kanos.
I’m not a fan of the killer GM. He did later kill the character with SUDDENLY DRAGON. Even outside of it being suddenly dragon, I maintain the actual kills were BS. Was a TPK. Pretty sure he just didn’t want to GM anymore.
That’s too bad.
I had a fun Mutants & Masterminds game where I (Colossus) and my buddy (The Flash) were up against a baddie with both our powers. We couldn’t hit him hard enough to put him down. Wound up doing a classic “lure him into a jail cell” scenario, slamming the prison’s energy barrier into place with a bait-and-switch.
These kinds of “I beat the overtuned thing” scenarios are some of my favorites… But it helps when you’ve got an ally rather than an enemy behind the screen.
If you think My Hero Academia’s heroes are impressive, you should read Worm. Taylor kicks ass with butterflies*.
*And also other bugs. But it should be noted that she kicks ass well above the power level you’d expect to be vulnerable to spider bites and stuff.
Heh. Looks like Fighter’s been taking tips from 8-Bit Theater’s Fighter: “If we can just *dodge* the ground, we’ll be fine.”
I think my most creative bit of rules-twisting was in a 3.5 game where my bard used Message to eavesdrop on a whispered conversation: She received the target’s whispers as “replies” and just never whispered anything back herself.
Had a player in Exalted parry the ground once. It was a weirdly Zen moment.
Love that wiretap idea. Very creative indeed.
So relating to Looney Toons hijinks like in the above comic, thanks to the Athletics skill, one of my characters got into a lot of it. At one point we were defending a location at the top of some stairs. Whenever the baddies would charge up the stairs I’d shove them down in a slapstick pileup.
Later we were at an enemy stronghold. We found a trapdoor to a secret escape tunnel outside the exterior stables. For some reason it was very important for the artist to include an anvil in the map of said stable. I had an idea: We block the secret escape-route with the anvil, then we’d go in. If the baddies tried to escape we’d have them cornered. Later a baddie did try to escape, they went up the ladder 20′, but couldn’t get the hatch to budge. They tried cutting it open… Only for an anvil to slam them down the 20′ hatch. We all laughed. Then we thought aboot what that would actually look like outside of Looney Toons logic. Then we all got quiet.
I have a new in-game challenge for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHuQy0mqW5I
Do you realize that on Exalted using dispalcement to negate fall damage would be a stunt? 🙂
And an awesome one 😀
Also since we are speaking rules misunderstanding, how is that this guy isn’t on the comic? 🙁
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/cessation-of-hostilities
It has been a while since we last saw him. Pretty sure he can out run the aggravated damage from the fire 🙂
Also Laurel, that arch looks even better than before:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/adventurers-be-trippin 🙂
Gotta pay attention, son. Thaumaturge may be perma-dead, but his last appearance was pretty recent:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/unhallowed-rites-part-6-beyond-the-veil
Nah, i know that was BBEG on disguise foiling Demon Queen plans and part of his own schemes 🙂
> BBEG foiling Demon Queen plans and part of his own schemes
Now why would you suspect a silly thing like that? >_>
Because the comic only updates twice per week so it got behind the anime 😛
I think Fighter might have confused Displacement with Blink. Both give a 50% miss chance, but Blink’s the one that halves your fall damage. In 3.5, anyway.
Blink and you’ll miss [the ground].
I’m interested in how things would work if displacement actually made the ground miss. Would it displace Fighter enough to make him dodge the planet? Assuming Earth size, we’re talking about 6400 km to steer clear of the ground. In one single round. So the acceleration would be several order of magnitude higher than the one from the sudden stop from impacting the ground. Though technically the rules say the damage is from collision, not from sudden acceleration (as far as physics are concerned, a deceleration is just an acceleration in the opposite direction). So maybe he’d take no damage from dodging the entire planet… But then he’d have to deal with the fact that he dodged the planet, and that’s where we enter “eventually Fighter stopped thinking” territory. Though one could question whether he ever started thinking in the first place…
Reminds me of the “actually immovable rod” that just hangs in space relative to nearby celestial bodies.
so… preventing falling damage?
-easy:
(PF rules set) you ready an action to hit the ground once you reach it.
you deal what ever damage you do to the ground. and since when weapons attack they do not take damage from striking their target, same goes for you.
The assignment was not to cause ME psychic damage.
rephrasing a line from “the gamers 2”
“How much XP do I get for the GM?”
Just enough to level up. Congrats. Please enjoy your new level of GM.