New 4E Battle Tactic: Murder Pinball

[The 13 Wise Buttlords]

It's pretty simple, actually. Embarrassingly simple, in fact.

Throw up a zone conjuration. Wall of Fire or Blade Barrier works best, though Cloud of Daggers will certainly work in a pinch.

Now just have your party use forced movement on your foes through the conjurations. Watch that damage skyrocket past what 4E intended for you to do.

For example, say your wizard threw up Freezing Cloud. Your ranger then uses, say, Thundertusk Boar strike and pushes them through 4 squares of Freezing cloud, That can add up to quite a bit more damage if your friends use their pushing powers, too.

Silly? yes. Idiotic? yes.

[Maxus]

It's pretty simple, actually. Embarrassingly simple, in fact.

Throw up a zone conjuration. Wall of Fire or Blade Barrier works best, though Cloud of Daggers will certainly work in a pinch.

Now just have your party use forced movement on your foes through the conjurations. Watch that damage skyrocket past what 4E intended for you to do.

For example, say your wizard threw up Freezing Cloud. Your ranger then uses, say, Thundertusk Boar strike and pushes them through 4 squares of Freezing cloud, That can add up to quite a bit more damage if your friends use their pushing powers, too.

Silly? yes. Idiotic? yes.

Grinning at the thought? yes.

[virgil]

Still seems weird that a square with overlapping damaging zones can only damage with one zone.

And you just know they'll try to errata that you only take the damage for entering the zone once per round or something, at least as once the tactic becomes widespread.

[Koumei]

And you just know they'll try to errata that you only take the damage for entering the zone once per round or something, at least as once the tactic becomes widespread.

Of course they will. Because heaven forbid those "move someone" powers actually do something useful for once!

[Amra]

Um... this tactic is explicitly recommended in the DMG.

Using forced movement to pull, push, or slide a creature onto ice, or into a pit, or into a cloud of daggers is a clever tactic.

And lots of other related stuff. However, in true muddled style the text then goes on to conflate hindering terrain with "unsafe squares" and leaves you utterly uncertain as to whether or not you're supposed to allow a saving throw for creatures being forced into, say, a cloud of knives. If you go with the literal interpretation (that only pits, precipices and fire grant a save) then the tactic stands. Even if the DM allows the save, you at least end up with the creature prone so it's all good.

If you go with the literal literal reading of the rules, the creature you attempted to force ends up prone at the edge of a precipice regardless of the terrain they were in to start with, which is some pretty funky shit.

And people say 4E is boring... :twisted:

[Koumei]

But they probably didn't consider doing it more than once in the same turn - they probably thought "summon knives, push, done." instead of "summon knives, bounce-bounce-bounce-bounce."

And only shoving them into the area once is the same as just casting the area on them in the first place. It's the rebound that starts paying off.

[The 13 Wise Buttlords]

And you just know they'll try to errata that you only take the damage for entering the zone once per round or something, at least as once the tactic becomes widespread.

Of course they will. Because heaven forbid those "move someone" powers actually do something useful for once!

Which just leads to simulation-breaking stupidity.

For example, say you have a warlord, a ranger, a paladin, and a cleric.

The cleric casts Blade Barrier to create a line of hate. The sword-based classes keep knocking the person they hate through the blade barrier with their powers or whatever.

This creates some rather unfortunate options for the game designers.

Allow the characters to get their Pinball on with their powers. Every time you enter a square of pain, you take damage.

Only allow it once per round. That's just idiotic; so once you get stabbed by the cloud of knives or frozen once, you're just as safe spending half your time in the square of pain as your entire round. It's simulation-breaking in the worst way and definitely not what the rules intended, since the DMG actively wants you to push enemies through every unsafe square they want. Besides, you get pushed through a tiled zone filled with poison daggers and make your way out the other side only to meet a ninja who pushes you back and then you're invincible? C'mon.

Only allow it once per turn, which allows for the tactic at a reduced rate of effectiveness while simultaneously exposing how stupid this system is. Expect a lot more warpriests in this case, all of whom will be selectively overlapping their own zones of hate and pain.

I'm cool with either having a viable tactic or having the tactical system of 4E exposed for the sham it is. Or both. I just want them to pick one.

[Maxus]

So...When I get home, want me to post this tactic on ENWorld and see what the reaction to it is?

[Psychic Robot]

Yes.

[Angry_Pessimist]

So...When I get home, want me to post this tactic on ENWorld and see what the reaction to it is?

I can already predict what happens;

"What a clever tactic!"

or

"But the rules say that you can't!"

or

"It's not a problem because the DM can fix it lolololol!"

[Ice9]

As mentioned here, 4E's non-Euclidian geometry means that even with a push/pull, you can zig-zag people through a wall for more effect. Of course, this really reaches its peak when a Blood Mage does it - it seems like you could actually be dealing 3E-style damage for a couple rounds.

[Maxus]

It's up. I took the original post of this thread, and took out that "past what 4e expected you to do" sentence and replaced it with something like, "What 4e would let you do normally". Less confrontational.

Watch as much as you like.

[MartinHarper]

As mentioned here, 4E's non-Euclidian geometry means that even with a push/pull, you can zig-zag people through a wall for more effect.

The non-Eucidian geometry isn't a requirement for this stuff. You could do the same with 3e diagonal rules.

I hope there'll be a clarification on the saving throw rules Amra mentions. It seems like a pretty simple question: do I get a saving throw against being pushed into a wall of fire? Any votes for which way the ruling should go?

Being pinballed through the cloud means more damage than standing in the cloud, which is a bit silly. I'd be tempted to fix that by doubling the damage if a creature starts and ends its turn in a damaging square.

[The 13 Wise Buttlords]

Being pinballed through the cloud means more damage than standing in the cloud, which is a bit silly.

First of all, the whole idea is fucked up, because say you have a pissant cloud of dagger zone overlapping a freezing cloud zone.

Getting knocked five squares through the freezing cloud zone does less damage than getting knocked two squares through a freezing cloud and a cloud of dagger zones? Or since someone went through the freezing cloud zone first, they become immune to the effect of the cloud of dagger zone? What happens if they go through the cloud of dagger zone then the freezing cloud zone? Do they just suddenly heal that one point of damage and have to take new freezing cloud zone damage?

Secondly, I don't think it's silly from a roleplaying perspective at all.

Say you're in a square where there's a sword suspended in midair that spins in place rapidly like a circular saw. You stumble into it and get sliced up.

Then two people who hate you see that and come up with the brilliant idea of shoving you back and forth through the sword square.

Should the person be immune to the swording? I don't think so. I personally think that if you take a minor, standard, or move action or get hit in a square that's not safe, it should subject you to the attack in the zone.

With that in mind, spells will have to be rebalanced to do lower damage overall, but it makes more sense than someone being just as safe doing backflips and swinging chainsaws in the middle of a firewall than someone who tries to get the hell out of dodge.

[The 13 Wise Buttlords]

I mean, c'mon, being hurled through a 30 foot wall of fire should cause more injury and misery than being hurled through 5 feet of fire, all else being equal.

So, to make things totally fair, there should be two kinds of damage for a zone.

There should be the 'hurled through a painful wall of hate' damage which adds up depending on how many squares you go through.

And there should be a 'you're trying to do shit while on FIRE, dumbass' damage, which can be reduced if you take the 'endure' action. At the beginning of the round, you take damage. You use up up to your standard, move, and minor action on enduring which reduces damage significantly if you have to stay in a fire zone. If you're trying to leave a hate zone, you designate whatever appropriate actions (if you want to) to use then take your leftover ones. So if you try to run out of a zone, you can use your standard and minor actions to neem the damage almost down to zero at the cost of doing nothing else or if you want to be Billy Badass you can run through the fire to attack the dragon, taking all three forms of this damage AND 'hurled through a painful wall of fire damage'.

[Voss]

Wait, ENworld as actual rules that you can't call someone on trying to pass off their house rules as real rule interpretations? That shouldn't be surprising at this point, but damn. Thats fucked up.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

I think you're under the erroneous impression that being pushed through multiple squares of one of these zones does more damage. It looks to me like, as written, you only get to apply the damage once per time pushed into the cloud, even if you push the target through multiple squares. The key is the wording about "entering or starting your turn" in the zone.

It's still an awesome tactic (at least by 4e standards, though). It looks like Blade Barrier is by far the best way to cheese this tactic out, though, particularly if you can stack the ongoing damage from multiple trips through the barrier.

EDIT: I read this thread before ENWorld would let me see the thread over there, so I didn't see the same objection there.

And...

Wait, ENworld as actual rules that you can't call someone on trying to pass off their house rules as real rule interpretations? That shouldn't be surprising at this point, but damn. Thats fucked up.

Yeah, that is pretty amazing. The Barney the Dinosaur antics never cease.

[Leress]

If there's a way to stun the enemy to keep them in there it could work.

[Voss]

I think you're under the erroneous impression that being pushed through multiple squares of one of these zones does more damage. It looks to me like, as written, you only get to apply the damage once per time pushed into the cloud, even if you push the target through multiple squares. The key is the wording about "entering or starting your turn" in the zone.

Quite probably true. But it doesn't prevent some of the longer slide effects to juggle some poor fucker out and in and out and in (until you reach the limit of the slide). At higher levels you can easily hit 8 to 10 squares, which is 4 or 5 'entries' into the effect. Thats an extra 40-50 damage easily. At levels 6-15, you might even actually care about that damage.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Oh, I'm fully aware that the target can be juggled in and out of the area by one long movement or several coordinated ones. That's why I mentioned the bit about stacking ongoing damage from Blade Barreier.

And also, I've checked the DMG, p. 66, referenced by one ENWorld poster. It looks like there's an actual definition of hindering terrain as terrain that inhibits movement or damages creatures without blocking line of sight. Now, the interesting thing is that Wall of Fire specifically says it blocks line of sight, so it's not hindering terrain; thus, no save. Blade Barrier specifically creates difficult terrain, which isn't subject to a save. Cloud of Daggers is ambiguous, since there's no word on what kind of terrain the zone is and nothing about whether it blocks line of sight.

[Koumei]

Also, thanks to the wonders of "EXCEPTION BASED DESIGN IS AWESOME", it doesn't count as hindering terrain, simply because it doesn't say that it does.

[Amra]

Except that it does, because a fire is specifically listed in the DMG examples as hindering terrain. Of course, a Wall of Fire might be different. Or not. Nobody fucking knows, of course.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

I just posted a pretty convincing argument that a Wall of Fire can't possibly be considered hindering terrain, if I do say so myself. Not that it makes any difference on ENWorld, where people are still pulling stuff out of their asses in spite of being pointed to the section of the DMG that contains all those nice, detailed definitions of terrain types.

Anyway, I'm inclined to think a power would have to mention that it creates a specific kind of terrain in order to do so. The fact that Blade Barrier explicitly mentions that it creates difficult terrain sets that precedent.

[Amra]

Coo-er, a proper rules discussion! It has been a while since I've had one of those... Link to thread?

[Amra]

There's only one argument I can make that says Wall of Fire isn't hindering terrain: the hindering terrain description explicitly states that it allows line of sight, whilst the wall does not. Likewise, obscuring terrain blocks line of sight but explicitly has no effect on movement, whilst the Wall of Fire does.

Because they've phrased their rules in a stupid way and have no definitions, guidelines or advice for combining terrain types, the Wall of Fire can't be both hindering AND obscuring terrain because it would then explicitly not hinder movement OR block line of sight.

It's a given that we'd have to call it both terrain types though. Yeah, I know, not RAW but there's no way to interpret the terrain created by the fire "as written". Therefore it's hindering terrain because it, well, "hinders", and obscuring terrain because it obscures. If we want to use these effects sensibly, we can do nothing but ignore the bits where both terrain types explicitly cancel each other out.

Of course, due to the marvel that is exception-based design we could just as easily argue that as the specific always overrides the general, the Wall of Fire doesn't create *any* sort of terrain because it doesn't say that it does, and therefore you can be forced through it without let or hindrance.

If they'd said that hindering terrain "does not necessarily block line of sight" and obscuring terrain "does not necessarily affect movement" we wouldn't be in this pickle!

My argument is that the only way you can deal with it that works - and I appreciate this isn't what's written down - is to say that the intent of the rules is such that someone gets a saving throw before being battered through the Wall of Fire.

Of course, it's still a decent tactic because they end up prone and adjacent to the wall. They take 1d6+Int at the start of their turn, have to take a move action to stand and another move action to get to you, at which point you bat them back again.

So... you can't call it hindering terrain by RAW, for sure, which leaves you with the option to either break the rules and allow the saving throw, or not break the rules, call it an exception, and not allow a saving throw.

Or handwave it and say it works however you like, which blows.