FAQ Update!

[dbb]

4/26/06. Of course, I haven't been keeping track of the FAQ, so I can't tell what's new and deserving of mockery and what's just deserving of mockery.

The valiant flailing in an attempt to defend the vast differences between ECL and CR are particularly comical. Why don't they just admit that ECLs are assigned to be higher than "balanced" and that people who want to play monsters ought to be aware of that? Would that be so hard?

Also note that Josh's sword-chucks fighting style is implicitly permitted by the Quick Draw answer (page 17) where it goes on about how Krusk can attack with a greataxe, release it with one hand as part of the free action of drawing a Javelin if he has Quick Draw. Grip-shifting, yo!

Other highlights include a whole lot of Polymorphing questions that I'm not even going to attempt to analyze. Should be fun.

--d.

[dbb]

Oh, and they finally realized that ride-by attack doesn't work as previously errata'd.

--d.

[Username17]

Interestingly, someone put all the chips on the table about how the feat doesn't work at all, and then Andy says they've got it right. So the feat... doesn't work at all. Weird.

Special note: PaO only affects skill points if it's cast at the permanent level.

The FAQ has been revamped to attempt to kill the difference engine. Andy says that you lose your latest gained level rather than losing your highest level. Totally different. Also, Andy says that Restoration forces you to take the same class level you lost. Which means that you can still get infinite Craft XP out of Artificer or infinite equipment out of Platinum Dragon Knight, but you can't make The Word anymore. Except that of course that doesn't make any sense at all, because Andy says that you can choose a new level if you gain XP sufficient to gain a level and that's exactly what Restoration does!

It restores XP, not levels. I have no idea what that answer is supposed to mean.

Andy continues to answer questions about his shitty Bloodlines idea. It was a shit idea. If you play with a minor enough bloodline in a campaign of limited scope - it's power for nothing. If you play with a sufficiently and properly multiclassed character - bloodline levels are broken and you get power for taking them. It was a crap idea from the start and his answer on the subject doesn't explain anything that the original text didn't - it's just an advertisement for his shitt idea.

-Username17

[dbb]

If I read the Ride-By Attack answer right, the questioner essentially proposed a house rule fix ("you can charge in a manner that would not bring you through the target's squares") and that was what the "You've got it about right" was directed to.

Then Andy goes on about how the Charge action is apparently rewritten for people who have Ride-By Attack (and only them) so they have to move straight to the closest square that allows them to attack and continue the charge. (A literalist interpretation of which would seem to leave lance charges no better off than before, since technically you can still "continue the charge" by another five feet after smacking someone with a lance -- so you are required to charge straight at them.) Apparently in the Andyverse, you can't have jousting tournaments unless everybody has Ride-By Attack.

--d.

[Book]

Re-reading both recent additions and the 04.26 addition to the FAQ, I keep seeing more and more "DM judgement" ajudications being tossed into the FAQ. Less solid rules, and more guidelines.

And an ever-burgeoning 72 page FAQ is clearly a sign that the apocalypse is right around the corner.

[Daiba]

The simplest way to handle the whole thing, as I see it, is to rule that when you overrun as part of a charge, the target can't choose to avoid you. He/she/it must make the opposed strength check (or voluntarily fail it, becoming prone).

Bam! We've achieved the designer goals of:
1) Preventing characters from easily charging through their allies.
2) Allowing Ride-by-attack to work.

[Username17]

1146434935[/unixtime]]The simplest way to handle the whole thing, as I see it, is to rule that when you overrun as part of a charge, the target can't choose to avoid you. He/she/it must make the opposed strength check (or voluntarily fail it, becoming prone).

Bam! We've achieved the designer goals of:
1) Preventing characters from easily charging through their allies.
2) Allowing Ride-by-attack to work.

But:

Those design goals are completely retarded.
and
We don't need to do that crap to people.

Honestly, the thing where if you have a line of swordsmen in formation and they see an enemy skirmirsher only one of the swordsmen is allowed to charge - that's completely dumb. That Ride-by Attack doesn't work at all is a symptom of the problem - not the problem itself. The problem is that Andy hates it when warriors other than Dwarves with Greatswords are good at their job. And then he jealously hoses their characters with new rules.

3.5 introduced new rules where:

• 
  
• Characters cannot charge through allies (dumb).
  
• Characters must charge to the closest square rather than the closest square they could attack from (dumb).
  
• Characters can't overrun even tiny creatures as part of a charge (dumb).

It's all dumb, and there's no reason for any of it. It completely hoses mounted combat - Ride-by Attack doesn't work at all and Trample is completely pointless (since you can't actually attack someone while doing it). ou could make spot fixes to these rules to barely allow characters to use their basic combat manuvers, but why?

3rd edition already had a system in which these basic combat manuvers already worked and it was totally fine. The answer is to simply not use any of Andy's adjustments to the Charge action and let lancers be good at their jobs from time to time. Is that really such an imposition?

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1146504185[/unixtime]]
3.5 introduced new rules where:

• 
  
• Characters cannot charge through allies (dumb).
  
• Characters must charge to the closest square rather than the closest square they could attack from (dumb).
  
• Characters can't overrun even tiny creatures as part of a charge (dumb).

I don't think the part about not being able to charge through allies is necessarily dumb, that part makes sense to me, it's just the other two that are stupid. Especially the overrun rules.

[dbb]

The charge through allies thing would be almost sensible if spacing were much tighter in the game, or if it were a special rule for people using the Phalanx Fighting feat (if anyone did in fact ever use it, which they don't), or for things like Gelatinous Cubes that actually do fill a whole 10' square, or if characters were not supposed to do anything unless it was their turn (as opposed to ducking, dodging, feinting, etc. -- if you weren't jabbing at your opponent throughout the combat round, flanking as it is now would make no sense conceptually).

Most of the time, though, we're talking about a situation where someone's supposed to "occupy" a whole square five feet on a side. Now, I'm not the biggest person around, but I don't even come *close* to filling a five foot square. If I turn sideways, which of course is actually the default stance for people fighting with rapiers, I fill almost none of it. And since there is no facing in D&D, I don't even have the problem of not being able to see my ally charging up from behind and busting through my square! I can totally just step aside and he can run right on through and then I can go back to whatever it is I was doing.

So yes. If we were in an alternate universe, not being able to charge through allies' squares might make sense. We're not living in that universe now, though.

--d.

[Daiba]

I really should have stated my intent explicitly.

My point was not that the 3.5 charging limits aren't dumb, but that the designers don't even think about the ramifications before they enact their errata "fixes", nor do they spend the time to look for elegant solutions.

Instead, they just "lop off the offending appendage", which forces them to come up with this mess of exceptions and extra rules for ride-by-attack.

[erik]

1146516287[/unixtime]]
Most of the time, though, we're talking about a situation where someone's supposed to "occupy" a whole square five feet on a side. Now, I'm not the biggest person around, but I don't even come *close* to filling a five foot square.

I was talking recently with friends about how a 5' square seems overly large (noting that 3 of us and a table were all within the confines of a 5' square). I'm pretty sure that number was just chosen for its convenience. I started playtesting my free-form d20 (currently taking a little break and re-assessing things) and I really want to switch over to metrics. 1 meter squares feel a lot more believable to me, and are at least as convenient as 5' squares when using battlemaps.

With 1 meter squares, the notion of not being able to charge through an ally's square would make a lot more sense.

[RandomCasualty]

1146516287[/unixtime]]
Most of the time, though, we're talking about a situation where someone's supposed to "occupy" a whole square five feet on a side. Now, I'm not the biggest person around, but I don't even come *close* to filling a five foot square. If I turn sideways, which of course is actually the default stance for people fighting with rapiers, I fill almost none of it. And since there is no facing in D&D, I don't even have the problem of not being able to see my ally charging up from behind and busting through my square! I can totally just step aside and he can run right on through and then I can go back to whatever it is I was doing.

You can't use abstraction as both an argument against the point and an argument for the point.

If you accept that you can see in all directions, you have to also accept that you take up much of that 5' square, since you're dodging about and parrying and such. That's abstract combat at work. You don't complain about it when you get to make an attack of opportunity against a horse with your spiked chain so you shouldn't complain about it here either.

A charge is something that can't be timed. It has to be in one charging motion. He can't stop for a bit and slow down and wait for you to get out of the way. Not without ruining his charge.

Now possibly there should be some rule by which you could make a reflex save to get out of the way, but in general having allies in the way should hinder a charge somewhat.

[Username17]

I could even go for a modest penalty for charging through occupied squares, like what they have for ranged attacks. That would satisfy both the desire to nerf charging and the desire to simulate the difficulties of charging past allies whp are in the midst of a raging combat without interference.

But like the ham-handed restrictions on when you can't hide, the 3.5 innovations on when you can't charge are completely inane. Something being modestly difficult does not equate to something being completely impossible for a master samurai to accomplish.

-Username17

[Crissa]

The thing which always annoyed me about ride-by and its ilk...

...Was that it wasn't part of a greater series of 'big things attacks little thing' or 'fast things attacks slow things' rules.

Why is it game mechanically harder for a berzerker to hit a guy he's running past than to hit a guy multiple times in sequence? Shouldn't Boars and Lions get attack sequences which are done at speed? Why does an elephant have to stop to do damage to a fence he can step over?

And why don't any spell-slingers ever get ride-by spell or cast on the run for certain spells?

*sigh*

-Crissa

[Crissa]

1146516287[/unixtime]]Now, I'm not the biggest person around, but I don't even come *close* to filling a five foot square. If I turn sideways, which of course is actually the default stance for people fighting with rapiers, I fill almost none of it. And since there is no facing in D&D,

Actually...

...While you 'don't fill' the space, your arms and motion do occupy portions of the space. Much like an atom is mostly empty space, but 'occupies' a much larger portion of 3d space. And that's how facing works in D&D: You could be sideways one direction, but you might not be. So the 5' is of potental positions, not absolute positions. So the guy charging might be coming through the empty space, or he might not.

Now, the part that's silly is that nearly no space in my house is a meter square wide - a normal hallway is a 'confined space' in D&D terms, even though it really isn't horribly confining. And while I can block these spaces - there's no way I can stop anything that is 'Large' or larger from forcing its way through the square I'm occupying.

And that's what the rules say: Without even a check or feat of any kind, a chihuahua can stop a horse from running past. Now, I'm not saying it's impossible for the chihuahua to stop the horse; in fact, if it does manage to intersect a hooffall, the horse will probably trip. But a trained or ridden horse is unlikely to care or even balk at a line of small Mexican dogs strung out in a line of 5' squares.

-Crissa

[Fwib]

Wouldn't a chihuahua be size tiny?

In which case, since a horse is 3 sizes large than that, it would be able to move right by. (with the doggies nipping at its legs from AoO )

[edit]Perhaps overrunning should a be a free action instead of a standard...?