The Gaming Den

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1083707971[/unixtime]]
And all of this costs you an action - which means that this action you automatically miss.

He used an action to cast the spell. Sounds fair to me. Trading an action for an action is generally ok.

And if it's a real tree - it costs you your whole turn. And if it's a fake tree with no Wizard in it, you get a save. And if it's a fake tree with a wizard in it you get a save and suffer an attack of opportunity.

There is no save, it's automatic disbelief if you pass straight through it. "A character faced with proof that an illusion isn't real needs no save."

Moving right through the tree does that.

Or just jolly well taking a 5' step to a non-flanking square and pummeling the guy if you are Dodge trarget boy?

Cause you gotta metagame to do that and that's just not acceptable. To deliberately not flank you are using out of game knowledge.

Flanking helps you hit people. You're having trouble hitting your target and you're missing him and hitting someone else. So you want more accuracy. So flanking should help you in this situation, not hurt you. The only reason you wouldn't want to flank here is if you're pointing a page in the complete warrior.

So if the center of the opposing army falls back, you have to use metagame knowledge to not immediately attempt to overrun them?

Makes me wonder how that trick could ever fail to work, considering that in the real world we can't access metagame knowledge.

I'm really getting bored with this. Your argument is totally without merit.

-Username17

Mod Edit: Too far, Frank.

RC, your reasoning is based on a false assumption: That flanking is a tactic that should always win. Everyone else here pretty much disagrees. Sorry, but if you want to convince us, you'll have to change arguements, because none of us see the logic in your arguement.

-Des

Desdan_Mervolam at [unixtime wrote:1083717455[/unixtime]]RC, your reasoning is based on a false assumption: That flanking is a tactic that should always win. Everyone else here pretty much disagrees. Sorry, but if you want to convince us, you'll have to change arguements, because none of us see the logic in your arguement.

I'm not saying it should "always" win, but I'm saying that it should help you hit your opponent, or at least be something neutral.

You do certain things because they produce various results. True Strike for instance helps you hit things. So if you're constantly missing someone you cast true strike and you expect that to help you. You don't expect using true strike will cause you to automatically miss. It just doesnt' make sense. At worst you can't hit the guy with true strike or without truestrike, but you should never be able to hit the guy without TS, but always miss when you cast True strike.

The same is true for flanking. Flanking helps you hit. If your problem is that you can't hit your target, then flanking is exactly where you want to be to maximize your chances.

Having flanking do something that's totally counter to what its supposed to do is really bad. Now *not* flanking makes it easier for you to hit something.

This sort of "up is down, down is up" kind of ability just strikes me as being bad game design.

I don't think however that I'm going to convince anyone, so I'm going to stop posting to this thread, as right now the argument is more or less a dead topic. By now I've convinced the people who I can convince and those who are against me have pretty much made up their minds.

So I've had enough of this debate anyway.

I'm not saying it should "always" win, but I'm saying that it should help you hit your opponent, or at least be something neutral.

You've never done or watched any spear fighting, have you? If you have allies on the other side, it restricts your own abilty to make powerful thrusts. Not very important in knife fighting, but when you start talking polearms, it comes up a lot.

That was the basis of the Roman anti-phalanx tactics - you slipped some guys with short swords into the mix and infiltrated them into the phalanx. Anyone who made it through the forest of pointy sticks into the main block of enemies could then start slaughtering everyone because they had no way of turning their weapons on the short sword men because other members of their own team were in the way.

In game terms - they flank you all to hell and gone, but thanks to your special training they can't hit you at all.

Read a book. Look at actual ancient tactics and stop blathering about how such and such a technique based on actual fighting styles doesn't make sense. [Rest of post deleted. - fbmf]

-Username17

I think we're going to bring this one to a close.

Game On,
fbmf