The Gaming Den

The 4e thread got me thinking of dissociated mechanics in 3e that bugged me a little. Three off the top of my head..

1 Evasion
2 5-foot steps (regardless of size)
3 The prohibition on two creatures in the same square

Never thought there were a lot. Can anyone think of more? Were they ever a problem for you?

Well, I'm even less sure what dissociated mechanics are than I am about disassociated mechanics being more than a useless buzzword, but I'll bite on outright silly rules results:

3 The prohibition on two creatures in the same square

This only applies to non-helpless creatures. You can totally move through and end your movement in the same square as helpless enemy. And then if something renders you helpless in that square, someone else can enter it (although at double movement cost) and be rendered helpless, and so on and so forth.... So if you stagger some sleep spells, you can fit the entire platoon in a single pup tent.

You really can't. It's just that the combat rules don't prevent it, because they (explicitly) only deal with how much space you need to move and fight freely. For every other use, you're supposed to figure out volumes and such.

Evasion never bugged me at all. The character is just better at finding good cover to dive for, and perhaps messes with his outfit so it works better when he has to dive for cover.

Josh_Kablack wrote:Well, I'm even less sure what dissociated mechanics are than I am about disassociated mechanics being more than a useless buzzword

Those words are synonyms, they mean exactly the same thing.

Vebyast wrote:Evasion never bugged me at all. The character is just better at finding good cover to dive for, and perhaps messes with his outfit so it works better when he has to dive for cover.

Evasion can be weird narratively. Diving for cover or whatnot sounds good, except the ability works even on a flat, featureless plain. Heck, you could be floating in an absolutely featureless void (and if you lack a fly speed, be unable to move at all), have an arbitrarily large fireball detonate with you at the center, and still Reflex save for half/no damage. I guess you just dodge on a 4th axis or something.

Evasion doesn't have to be disassociated at all.

The Rogue knows that he can take no damage from a fireball bead that hits him in the face. The player knows the same thing. The Rogue just being that good is totally the same information that the character and the player are making their decisions based on.

Wait, why doesn't fireball hurt you if it hits you in the face?

Reflex save vs AoE in general has the potential for a lot of weirdness. You can explain it as putting equipment in the way (shield, equipment, clothing) if terrain isn't available but there are edge cases where it just don't make any sense. Maybe fireballs work like falling; tuck and roll with it!

Fectin already mentioned the space thing; it's just a representation of the amount of free room you need to fight actively, not how much physical space you take up. Aren't there rules for squeezing a bunch of people together in a square somewhere that cover physical space? Probably not any good ones, and probably multiple contradictory sets.

The five foot step thing is kind of weird. Basically, a medium creature's free movement is a short leap; a large creature's free movement is a lunge; a huge creature's free movement is shifting onto a different foot; and so on. Larger creatures being less able to position themself may be entirely reasonable and the desired result. After all, imagining the tarrasque doing a short hop of its entire body length in the middle of an attack routine tearing apart a few buildings is kind of silly.

Kaelik wrote:Evasion doesn't have to be disassociated at all.

The Rogue knows that he can take no damage from a fireball bead that hits him in the face. The player knows the same thing. The Rogue just being that good is totally the same information that the character and the player are making their decisions based on.

Yeah, most of these require some additional assumptions before they become dissociative issues at all. But with the additional assumption, "evasion works as an improved ability to take cover or interpose protection," then the circumstantial inability to do that is dissociative if evasion triggers anyway.

E.g., a rogue charging across an open plain to a guy with a wand of fireball. From the rogue's perspective, the lack of cover is suicidal. From the character perspective, the lack of cover is irrelevant.

CAN take no damage. As in, if the rouge makes his dex save.

The reason I bring up two creatures in the same square is that I had to put two players in a square once in a game I DMed.

Short version: Four medium creatures were fighting at the bottom of a 10 x 10 pit, 20 feet deep. The monk jumps into the pit. All four squares at the bottom are taken, I cant move him back to the 'last legal square' because its in midair and I'm not going to say 'You can't do that, I don't know the rule for that'
I had him land in the same square as the fighter, take a few AOOs for falling through a threated square and gave them both -4 to attack, best I could do. There should be a rule for it other than just saying it cant happen.

Edit: I guess you could use the Squeezing rules if you had to.

...You Lost Me wrote:Wait, why doesn't fireball hurt you if it hits you in the face?

Because you are a fucking rogue, and you therefore get to not be hurt. How is that any different from asking why the rogue gets to stab the guy in the back for 30 times the damage of the fighter? The thing is whether the character knows it too, and knowing you can't be fireballed is not in any way damaging to the game.

The turn structure is always the thing that causes the most cognitive dissonance for me. I know it's the only sane way to do things, but the whole "I move 60 feet and kill someone, now you do the same" always leads to some weirdness.

Also, the fact that some drunk guy with his fists and a master swordsman with two short swords were equally easy to hit always bugged me. Parrying is a thing, and D&D doesn't account for it at all. It always seems that D&D combat consists of the combatants taking turns to smack each other as hard as they can, and the only way to protect yourself is to layer on padding like a training dummy.

On a side note, I've never played 4e and don't particularly have an opinion on it, I just really dislike mechanics that don't represent the fluff well. I think it started in Magic when they moved from top down design (How do we make a card that feels like it does X?) to bottom up design (Which mechanics make for a fun play experience? Now let's put those on some cards). Although it makes for a better game, the loss of immersion takes away some of the reason to paly it in the first place for me.

Isn't two weapon defence supposed to simulate parrying?

Or are you ignoring that because of how terrible it is?

Also you straight up get extra attacks against drunk dudes with their fists because they provoke an attack of opportunity on their turn.

-Username17

Only if the guy attacks you with his fists. If you run up to a guy with a sheathed sword and swing at him, then in his turn he draws and attacks, you have the same chance of hitting him before he draws his sword as after. Most people would intuit that drawing a sword would make it easier to defend yourself, but it doesn't. Dissociated mechanic.

Red_Rob wrote:Only if the guy attacks you with his fists. If you run up to a guy with a sheathed sword and swing at him, then in his turn he draws and attacks, you have the same chance of hitting him before he draws his sword as after. Most people would intuit that drawing a sword would make it easier to defend yourself, but it doesn't. Dissociated mechanic.

What? If he doesn't draw his sword and attacks, you have two attacks on him instead of one. If he draws his sword and attacks he is attacked one time instead of two. Drawing the sword makes him much better at defending himself, in that the mechanics say he is attacked only once instead of twice.

Or are you getting your panties in a bunch about the turn order thing? The thing where even though in game he is drawing his sword at about the same time that you're trying to stab him, that the game represents this with distinct turns that go one after another? I agree that turn structures are dissociated in that the characters specifically don't live in a world where people are taking turns while the players are representing the action through the medium of distinct turns. But that doesn't mean every single perturbation of the turn order counts as another dissociated mechanic.

Drawing a sword and defending yourself makes you suffer less attacks against you than if you don't draw your sword. The game chooses to represent this in terms of attacks of opportunity rather than AC adjustments, but it's still associated. The player knows that using a sword in combat makes them take less damage and the character knows that wielding a sword in combat makes it easier to defend themselves. What more do you want?

-Username17

Punching someone while wearing gauntlets you are treated as unarmed. If those gauntlets have a nail sticking out of them, you are considered armed.

For that matter, elbowing someone in the face is considered an unarmed attack. Wearing armour spikes makes it an armed attack. These spikes deal more damage than a dagger, yet do not impede movement or skill use.

Meanwhile a Zombie that lurches at someone while unarmed is treated as being armed while making a slam attack. A necromancer can still order them to punch people, in which case they are treated as being unarmed and stop dealing lethal damage.

Also, an Ogre that punches someone is treated as unarmed, but because of reach, will not provoke an attack from a human sized opponent wielding a sword. Even though the Ogre's fist has to enter the targets space in order for them to strike the target.

FrankTrollman wrote:Drawing a sword and defending yourself makes you suffer less attacks against you than if you don't draw your sword. The game chooses to represent this in terms of attacks of opportunity rather than AC adjustments, but it's still associated. The player knows that using a sword in combat makes them take less damage and the character knows that wielding a sword in combat makes it easier to defend themselves. What more do you want?

What I want is something that doesn't only work in the specific situation in which the defender attacks back. This is the same trap the 4e designers fell into. The problem comes from representing a defensive penalty but predicating it on an offensive action which may never come up. What if the guy doesn't attack back, but withdraws, or 5' steps and casts a spell, or goes total defense? Suddenly having a sword makes absolutely no difference to how easy it is to hit someone.

This is why abstracting too far is dangerous. You end up with something that works in the general sense but the edge cases get all weird.

Red_Rob wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:Drawing a sword and defending yourself makes you suffer less attacks against you than if you don't draw your sword. The game chooses to represent this in terms of attacks of opportunity rather than AC adjustments, but it's still associated. The player knows that using a sword in combat makes them take less damage and the character knows that wielding a sword in combat makes it easier to defend themselves. What more do you want?

What I want is something that doesn't only work in the specific situation in which the defender attacks back. This is the same trap the 4e designers fell into. The problem comes from representing a defensive penalty but predicating it on an offensive action which may never come up. What if the guy doesn't attack back, but withdraws, or 5' steps and casts a spell, or goes total defense? Suddenly having a sword makes absolutely no difference to how easy it is to hit someone.

This is why abstracting too far is dangerous. You end up with something that works in the general sense but the edge cases get all weird.

Wait... why should a sword in the hands of your target make it harder or easier to hit them if they are running away? Shouldn't the sword only matter if they are standing and fighting?

-Username17

One word....

grappling.

Evasion is magic, plain and simple ... the problem is trying to create mundane explanations for it. Same issue as say trapfinding, clearly magic.

MfA wrote:Evasion is magic, plain and simple ... the problem is trying to create mundane explanations for it. Same issue as say trapfinding, clearly magic.

In fact as an (Ex) ability it is explicitly non-magical.

Extraordinary Abilities (Ex)

Extraordinary abilities are nonmagical, though they may break the laws of physics. They are not something that just anyone can do or even learn to do without extensive training.

These abilities cannot be disrupted in combat, as spells can, and they generally do not provoke attacks of opportunity. Effects or areas that negate or disrupt magic have no effect on extraordinary abilities. They are not subject to dispelling, and they function normally in an antimagic field.

Definition of "disassociated mechanic": A game rule that Kaelik defends by saying, 'Don't ask how how it works; it just does!'.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:

MfA wrote:Evasion is magic, plain and simple ... the problem is trying to create mundane explanations for it. Same issue as say trapfinding, clearly magic.

In fact as an (Ex) ability it is explicitly non-magical.

Non magical in a rules sense, but if it breaks the laws of physics we can safely call it magical from our point of view ... an evading rogue could slip into a non dimensional space when the fireball explodes as an Ex ability from a rules point of view.

MfA wrote:

angelfromanotherpin wrote:

MfA wrote:Evasion is magic, plain and simple ... the problem is trying to create mundane explanations for it. Same issue as say trapfinding, clearly magic.

In fact as an (Ex) ability it is explicitly non-magical.

Non magical in a rules sense, but if it breaks the laws of physics we can safely call it magical from our point of view ... an evading rogue could slip into a non dimensional space when the fireball explodes as an Ex ability from a rules point of view.

They could, but that isn't how the ability is explained. If you change the world to fit the mechanic, the mechanic ceases to be disassociated. I call this 'avoision', not evasion.

Divine oracle evasion, for example, is based around knowing ahead of time where some kind of nadir in the magnitude of the damage will be, and being there when it goes off. That flavor works totally fine.

If evasion let a rogue move to the closest cover or edge of the effect, that would work too.