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jimmy carter
2008-12-02, 08:32 PM
Alright so I run a DnD group that uses the 4th edition rules. Now that that is aside i recently ran into some DMing issues, and they wanted me to post their ‘triumph’ here. Problem One, I have traditionally run the rule that if the group rolls a hard 20 on a D20 they have an automatic success this allows them to do awesome things. Second I allow my group when doing skills to roll then tell me what they want, or do what they want then roll. Now this has lead to comical episodes. They roll a hard 20 and make an NPC do something comical typically...

They needed to infiltrate a fort used to inspect cargo to retrieve an artifact. After their kill-happy Halfling ran in and was subdued in 2 rounds and put in detention they decided to screw the plan (which I didn't know). They approached the local Mage guild with a plan for financing, they rolled a hard 20 on a diplomacy (which was a 38), and so by the rules it was a success to my heart ache. They had decided they wanted to drive 3 "casks" of alchemist fire into the inspection bays of the fort.

The casks were 8 foot diameter by 10 foot long. Not realize how much this was I agree (I was going to follow my rule). The casks were to be driven into the inspection bay by a gang of thugs which a second hard 20 got what they wanted. Now to the math and design. They were going to have the casks detonated by pulling a lever that would set of a compression cap thus puncturing the bottom of the container allowing the alchemist fire to reach an ignition source.

The cask was 8 diameter by 10 long this yields a volume [V=.785(d)(d)(h)] of 502.656cubic feet. The gallon capacity [g=7.48(V)] is 3759.867 gallons. Knowing that there is 128 fluid ounces in a gallon, that means [128(g)=(fl. oz)] that their was 481262.960 fl. oz per cask. I decided that a flask of alchemist fire is 6 fluid ounces, meaning that was [(fl.oz)/6=flask count] 80211 flasks (rounding up). There are 3 casks making a total capacity of 240632. Using the new 4th edition rules and making the weakest version of Alchemist fire that would make 481263d6 damage or 4812630 gold worth of stuff.

Now remember one guy was stuck inside. Doing a separate episode the trapped member broke out and fought his way around the fort. By random chance he found the artifact and bailed out. While at the same time group drove the 3 casks in the bays, when they went to detonate the devices malfunctioned creating a flame impingement on the casks. This Lead to a BLEVE (boiling liquid evaporating liquid explosion) basically gasses inside the container lead to a catastrophic (explosive) failure of the vessel (see this video of an example of a grill propane tank http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAyuq8sDCeg&feature=related). This basically leveled the structure. Destroying countless magic items and creating a rift to another Plane, effectively derailing the campaign, yet again.

The_Blue_Sorceress
2008-12-02, 10:44 PM
Well, I don't see anything wrong with taking natural 20s as automatic successes, so long as you don't mind stuff like this happening now and again. I'd consider capping damage on explosions like this in he future however. Not so much that it doesn't succeed, but enough so that it doesn't derail the game. Nearly 500,000d4 damage is a bit excessive.

Blue

Dark Herald
2008-12-02, 10:51 PM
Is there a question? Are you looking for advice? houserules?

Tsotha-lanti
2008-12-03, 04:33 AM
So every time the players roll a dice for no reason, they have a 5% chance to be able to make anything happen? (Because apparently common sense does not apply to automatic successes, huh?)

Yeah, great rule there.

BobVosh
2008-12-03, 04:41 AM
Well, I don't see anything wrong with taking natural 20s as automatic successes, so long as you don't mind stuff like this happening now and again. I'd consider capping damage on explosions like this in he future however. Not so much that it doesn't succeed, but enough so that it doesn't derail the game. Nearly 500,000d4 damage is a bit excessive.

Blue

Perhaps letting them have 5 million gold worth of stuff too.


So every time the players roll a dice for no reason, they have a 5% chance to be able to make anything happen? (Because apparently common sense does not apply to automatic successes, huh?)

Yeah, great rule there.

*agrees* I hate autosuccess/failure on skill roles. I hate the +/- 10 on ones and 20s as well.


Hmm, I sure hope you make a depression effect go on. Major magic distributer goes under, all those workers out of work, etc, spiraling downward out of control, BUWHAHAHAHA.

Er. Ya. Also for 5 million gold of damage SOMEONE involved with that bizarre hold complex of magic items knows a high level wizard. Someone with some sort of divining. I don't know 4th enough but I sure hope scrying/etc still exists.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-12-03, 04:48 AM
Automatic success / failure isn't the issue so much as a complete lack of common sense is. No result on any dice roll should allow PCs to do the patently impossible (what that is varies according to the game, obviously). A 20 on a Climb check does not allow you to scale a completely smooth outwardly tilting wall of ice (unless, of course, it's that kind of game; in Hero-level RuneQuest, that'd just require a regular Climb roll). A 20 on a Diplomacy check does not let you talk anyone into doing anything. This is also a Diplomacy problem, specifically - lots of people seem to think that a Diplomacy check can let you do anything. No matter how persuasive you are, the beggar won't give you his last coin; the mother won't let you kill her child; the king won't just abdicate and hand you the crown.

That's not to say that automatic success / failure doesn't suck as a rule. It does.


Also, another note on the OP: damage on stuff like alchemists' fire is not based on volume, and certainly wouldn't increase linearly with the amount of explosive material. (Heck, it doesn't even really work like that for real explosives.)

Edit: What am I thinking? I just accepted the most ridiculous premise ever - that alchemist's fire is an explosive. It is not. It's an incendiary. It's a special, extra-flammable oil. The splash damage is splash, not explosion - you throw it at something, it shatters, and flaming oil splashes on things.

Yeah, you really screwed up there, jimmy carter. (Good name choice, I guess?)

charl
2008-12-03, 05:35 AM
The only comment I can think of is that those calculations would have been much easier and nicer looking if you had been using metric. :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: Also, as mention, alchemist's fire is basically the DnD version of Greek fire, which is basically medieval napalm. It doesn't explode, unless you have some way to put it under high pressure.

KKL
2008-12-03, 05:40 AM
That has potential for awesome plot hooks for the PCs to clean up their royally huge mess.

I'd extrapolate, but at the moment I'm tired as heck.

ericgrau
2008-12-03, 05:40 AM
Dunno about 4e, but atleast in 3rd hard 20's don't apply to skill checks.

Furthermore, diplomacy is not a method of ordering people around no matter how good you are at it: There is no DC for something that isn't really diplomacy; you just plain can't do it with diplomacy.

Flasks tend to be 16 oz. pints. Check the listed weight of alchemist fire in 4e to verify (16 oz = 1 lb. = 1/2 kg). Second that many pints would be highly expensive and unlikely to be stored in large kegs; more likely even large quantities would be in seperate flasks. Not to mention safety issues. Third, again I dunno about 4e, but in 3.5e total immersion in fire does only 20d6 damage. There is a point where you simply cannot be covered with any more fire no matter how much there is around you.

I also agree with Tsotha-lanti.

KKL
2008-12-03, 05:42 AM
Dunno about 4e, but atleast in 3rd hard 20's don't apply to skill checks.

OP DID say that it was a houserule.

ericgrau
2008-12-03, 05:46 AM
OP DID say that it was a houserule.

Alright, then this applies double:

I also agree with Tsotha-lanti.
It's a lousy houserule.

KKL
2008-12-03, 06:36 AM
It's a lousy houserule.

I have to agree.

Khatoblepas
2008-12-03, 07:18 AM
So every time the players roll a dice for no reason, they have a 5% chance to be able to make anything happen? (Because apparently common sense does not apply to automatic successes, huh?)

Yeah, great rule there.

Come now, this rule may not make sense, but with a good amount of mitigation, a similar idea could work. Because, you know, common sense DOES apply to automatic successes, or should, at least. This was just a bad implementation, and sarcasm won't solve anything. First you think, "why does this rule exist?" The OP's reason was, he wanted the heroes to be able to do awesome things. However, he doesn't want the heroes to be able to derail everything by getting people to do whatever they want. Basically, one-in-a-million chances that happen nine times out of ten.

Each time the players roll, you must decide whether a 20 would be an automatic success or not. Obviously, you have to use your imagination here.

Leaping across a rooftop, after being thrown off balance by a near fatal wound? Yes.
A completely inept liar bluffing their way through the palace guards by pure chance? Yes.

The above are dramatic and cinematic, or just viable to the story as a whole.

A dry fiscal meeting with the mage guild? No.
Attempting to gain a following? No.
Bluffing the King into giving you his kingdom? No.

The above are boring, cheap, and not really very fun.

Obviously, some actions will fail no matter how high you roll, i.e ridiculous stuff, or stuff that shouldn't rely on a natural 20 alone. But things that are plausible but not probable, then automatic success should apply.

Use some common sense, and this houserule actually works (after all, heroes gotta feel heroic sometime.) So to the OP - pick and choose which natural 20s are auto successes. That way, the game won't be derailed.

jimmy carter
2008-12-03, 05:13 PM
The rule is somthing that was meant to be for cenematic movie moments, and usually it is taken with a grain of salt and rarely used. My world have a loose story line, and a moresnad box feel, and for those of you who mentioned it, yes there was a huge impact not to give away story points since my groups is reading this but yes the economy was grossly effected, the rift is a site for an infernal invasion and a massive fortification (can you smell major story flux). I did not blindly allow them to do this. I did roll against them and rolled a hard 1 on the first and a 3 on the second. I understand people run groups different ways, and nearly all of you disagree with this aparently. My group wanted me to post this as more of a humorous encounter, and show their creativity, but thanks for all your imput and critisism.

RukiTanuki
2008-12-03, 05:54 PM
As a side note, d20 Modern indicated that each successive doubling of the quantity of an explosive added a single die to the amount of damage inflicted. (It's the only place I've seen such a rule for d20 systems.) In this case, more than 2^16 == 65536x the quantity of alchemist's fire was used (but not double that), so you'd only add 16d6 damage to the amount a single vial would inflict. Certainly not rift-inducing.

*ahem* Not that I'm speaking from experience, or had a campaign hosed by a crit/fumble roll resulting in a grenade going off on a pallet of RPG rounds, or anything. :D

Tsotha-lanti
2008-12-03, 07:02 PM
That's like a reverse-geometric progression or something? Seems reasonable enough in D&D / d20. Most RPGs (Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, probably GURPS, too) use a non-linear progression for explosives.

metagaia
2008-12-03, 08:40 PM
While Jimmy's style of DMing is certainly not my cup of tea; (I would blanch as a DM and ruthlessly exploit as a PC) it's a little unfair to be so hard here, since it seems the players had fun in causing this...spectacle.

If you are going to do automatic successes, I would do them in such a way that the victory is phyrric if it's something silly. Swimming up a waterfall? take 10d6 non-lethal damage and roll a reflex save for each item to make sure it's not washed away. Ask for finance from the mages guild? Agree but make the repayment a major issue. Bluff the thieves into taking the barrels inside? Make it so that they are then immeadiately resent to the thieves guild home, which is right next to the mages guild. :smallwink:

Arkon86
2008-12-03, 08:49 PM
I'm one of the players in this group and this post was supposed to be humorous. The point was that there are problems that happen when there are very creative players that have high educations and characters with huge social mods and contacts with large and powerful organizations.



OK, This wasn't completely out of the blue. We had connections to the Mage's guild in the first place. The guild also hates the organization that we struck out at. The idea was presented to the Mage guild as an opportunity to strike a blow to this organization. The player who did the negotiating has a huge diplomacy mod and rolled insane while giving a reasonable presentation.
We ended up getting the guild to fund the operation and if we were caught then we were on our own. The GM didn't know what we were planning until the plans were presented and everything was ready to go. Our GM lets us have quite a bit of free reign when we are getting creative, even if it ends up completely screwing over something. He created the world and therefore can choose to use our actions as events that will impact the future of the world. Characters are already heroes at lvl 1 and at higher lvls they are able to impact the world in huge ways. He runs his world so that this is reflected.
The hard 20 rule hardly every applies since he only lets it work of the opposing roll is below a 5 or something. However there are times where things are impossible and things automatically fail.
Now, whether or not the explosion should have been that large the GM and I disagree but he is a firefighter and has had quite a bit of training in explosives so I didn't press the point too hard.
He decided the rift was formed from the large amount of magical items being destroyed at once.
By us not be railroaded, the campaign is free game for us to either finish or fail utterly. He has stated that if we completely screw it up he doesn't have any problem with us failing and the world being overrun. You might say that the world is ours to save or break.

Arkon86
2008-12-03, 09:12 PM
Most of the things we try to do that are pretty insane are accumponied by a huge series of rolls. Sometimes there are characters that try to do something and because they fail their rolls in such a way that they actually die. Such as leaping onto a monster flying over a pit and failing to make the leap back to land after said monster is killed (always funny). Our group sometimes runs as a cross between epic heroes and The Three Stooges, but it is fun to play that way. Half our group is evil and the other half is good ATM. It makes for an interesting dynamic.

Oh and the wagons weren't driven in by thugs. We payed bums to dress as thugs and told them that there was a 40 sec delay from when the trigger was pulled and when the carts would go up... there was no delay. As it turned out our GM decided that the bums felt they had a better shot at pulling this off if they dressed up as priests, unfortunately they happened to be dressed as priests of our Paladin's Patron God so he is now currently on the **** list and is trying to get back onto his god's favor. Oh yea, we called it "Operation, Hobo Surprise"

Trust me its not easy to take advantage of our GM, but the opportunity is there to do some huge things, they just don't always turn out well... OK, maybe they more often then not turn out poorly. But we have fun playing in our dysfunctional group.

Ravens_cry
2008-12-03, 09:29 PM
As I player I like the idea of hard 20's. It means that whatever I do that requires a role, I have a 5 percent chance of doing. Not much, but it is enough for hope.

Shpadoinkle
2008-12-03, 11:41 PM
So... you're basically complaining about a houserule that you made for a game that you're personally running?

Arkon86
2008-12-04, 12:00 AM
So... you're basically complaining about a houserule that you made for a game that you're personally running?

sigh, no one is complaining

OneFamiliarFace
2008-12-04, 12:02 AM
So... you're basically complaining about a houserule that you made for a game that you're personally running?

As has been stated, the OP is just posting a humorous story at the behest of his PC's. This isn't much different than the "what's the weirdest thing you have done to your DM" threads.

I personally wouldn't allow this to happen, but I have been questioning recently how valid keeping a stable campaign world is. If we are DMing for the players, and the players have fun doing whatever it is they did, then rock on.

It seems odd to me that so many people are out of hand bashing this DM's techniques when he has actually decided to just roll with the punches and do what a good DM should do (and something that is mentioned explicitly in the DMG): say 'yes' to your players as often as you can. Each of their actions merely leads to certain consequences which then lead to further adventure. In this case, the players now have to deal with a demonic invasion and (technically) have the deaths of all those killed by said invasion on their hands.

What usually stays my hand from saying yes is that I doubt my players would feel too worked up about something like that :-p.

Arkon86
2008-12-04, 12:08 AM
As has been stated, the OP is just posting a humorous story at the behest of his PC's. This isn't much different than the "what's the weirdest thing you have done to your DM" threads.

I personally wouldn't allow this to happen, but I have been questioning recently how valid keeping a stable campaign world is. If we are DMing for the players, and the players have fun doing whatever it is they did, then rock on.

It seems odd to me that so many people are out of hand bashing this DM's techniques when he has actually decided to just roll with the punches and do what a good DM should do (and something that is mentioned explicitly in the DMG): say 'yes' to your players as often as you can. Each of their actions merely leads to certain consequences which then lead to further adventure. In this case, the players now have to deal with a demonic invasion and (technically) have the deaths of all those killed by said invasion on their hands.

What usually stays my hand from saying yes is that I doubt my players would feel too worked up about something like that :-p.


I actually tried to join the army that was invading, not that it would have lasted long being an infernal warlock that gets his power from the invader's enemies but it would have allowed us to accomplish a couple things at the time. I was about one social skill roll away, i had gotten 2 19 or 20s and needed a 3rd one. however I rolled something like a 3 and we ended up having to fight the leader of that area to escape

Ponce
2008-12-04, 12:12 AM
I am always for reducing influence of auto failure/success or "critical fumbles." Good plans or well-built characters shouldn't be ruined by such a terrible rule.

seeker312
2008-12-04, 01:57 AM
Obviously, some actions will fail no matter how high you roll, i.e ridiculous stuff, or stuff that shouldn't rely on a natural 20 alone. But things that are plausible but not probable, then automatic success should apply.

Use some common sense, and this houserule actually works (after all, heroes gotta feel heroic sometime.) So to the OP - pick and choose which natural 20s are auto successes. That way, the game won't be derailed.

I am the PC [Paladin - Primary Tank] that rolled the hard 20s (yes there were 5 or 6 in a row) for diplomacy for the funding and bribing... hehe.. Here's a few things that happened.. there were many instances that were rolled for this to happen and people were bribed off by us also :smallbiggrin: .

Also, There was another thing that happened similar to this, but the rolls went the other direction for me. In a fight with an enormous wurm I lept onto it as the party fought... without thinking of the concequences for after the battle was over. It turned out the wurm came out of a 10 ft wide hole in the ground that was about 25 feet below where I lept on to. After numerous (low required) checks for jumping from the dead wurm's body falling into the hole failed, I wound up breaking a +3 or +4 (I forget which) weapon and converting gods just to end up surviving while my evil ally watched while eating popcorn.

The above and the OP's samples are how his house rules work. It's not one roll to determine success or failure unless it is a simple action. If it is complex such as convincing a major guild in a major city to fund a terrorist action it requres MANY rolls and I just got lucky ... and I had an enormous bonus to diplomacy anyways as he mentioned.

All in all I like the style, afterall, as Khatoblepas said,

heroes gotta feel heroic sometime.

Behold_the_Void
2008-12-04, 02:07 AM
I'm not a fan of the rule myself, I hate rolling a 1 and having the DM arbitrarily gank me, and the idea that rolling a 20 means automatic awesome is just too common an occurrence for me to take it seriously.

Coidzor
2008-12-04, 02:08 AM
Derailed the campaign? More like, segued into them having to clean up the mess they made.

OneFamiliarFace
2008-12-04, 02:12 AM
I am always for reducing influence of auto failure/success or "critical fumbles." Good plans or well-built characters shouldn't be ruined by such a terrible rule.

I'm curious, though, about what constitutes a terrible rule. If, say, all the party and DM agree on it, and they like it and have fun with it (as is the case in this scenario), then I say run with it.

Even if people don't like this particular rule, then I can still see something like extreme success or extreme failure (by hitting or missing DCs which are far beyond those required for success or failure).

That, and any good plan, even without this rule, is still subject to wild variance in success or failure based on luck or differences in resources (this is especially true if the DM doesn't take an open hand in helping the PCs), as usually the PCs advantage in DnD is not a good plan, but simply more resources. And, part of any good plan (for the DM and players) is accounting for the wild success or failure of one's plans.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-12-04, 07:10 AM
As has been stated, the OP is just posting a humorous story at the behest of his PC's. This isn't much different than the "what's the weirdest thing you have done to your DM" threads.

Where's the joke? It sounds like a story about really bad rulings.

Totally Guy
2008-12-04, 08:19 AM
Maybe have people confirm a critical success would make it more special...

Still I don't think it should work that way. Imagine all the mischief you could get up to on a take 20.

metagaia
2008-12-04, 08:25 AM
Maybe have people confirm a critical success would make it more special...

Still I don't think it should work that way. Imagine all the mischief you could get up to on a take 20.

Not my system, but I'm pretty sure taking 20 does not count as rolling a natural 20.

The idea of the natural 20 is a super-human feat achievable under only a great deal of stress (like lifting a tractor that has fallen on your friend). Taking 20 OTOH, means "I am going to take my time and keep trying until it suceeds, since there is no rush and no pressure."

Imagine trying to bash a door in (strength check) taking 20 means you keep trying until your shoulder hurts too much to carry on. A roll of 20 means you heard the scream of your only daughter behind it and chrage it suicidally.

That's what's in my mind anyways.

Arkon86
2008-12-04, 08:35 AM
Not my system, but I'm pretty sure taking 20 does not count as rolling a natural 20.

The idea of the natural 20 is a super-human feat achievable under only a great deal of stress (like lifting a tractor that has fallen on your friend). Taking 20 OTOH, means "I am going to take my time and keep trying until it suceeds, since there is no rush and no pressure."

Imagine trying to bash a door in (strength check) taking 20 means you keep trying until your shoulder hurts too much to carry on. A roll of 20 means you heard the scream of your only daughter behind it and chrage it suicidally.

That's what's in my mind anyways.



exactly
There are still things that are impossible. However, in the case of getting a guild to fund our plan, there was a real chance due to the background of each faction. We just had to be reasonable and have a **** ton of luck. Like was stated, this wasn't decided on one roll of a hard 20. There were about 4 to 5 rolls that were required. They had to be rolled after every main statement the PC made to the Guild NPC

Arkon86
2008-12-04, 08:53 AM
Where's the joke? It sounds like a story about really bad rulings.

Go back to the WoW forums.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-12-04, 09:46 AM
Go back to the WoW forums.

Well, that's a quality comeback.

Seriously, there's no way to call the ruling on the alchemist's fire anything but heinous. It's not an explosive at all, it's just an incendiary (and definitely not stored under pressure), and a linear damage progression with no cap is patently ridiculous. Allowing natural 20s on Diplomacy to get you 5,000,000 gp of free swag is an even worse ruling.

Eorran
2008-12-04, 10:09 AM
On the alchemist's fire bit, many people have pointed out it's an incendiary, not an explosive. However, in the context of large barrels subject to a jetstream fire, it WILL explode. (Water's not an explosive either, but you can produce the same result by over-heating a hot water tank with all the safeties disabled. Mythbusters has done exactly that.) BLEVE stands for boiling liquid-expanding vapor explosion, and can happen with any liquid under the right circumstances. The barrels aren't normally pressurized, but they will be tightly sealed, and the fire supplies all the heat you need. You could argue that the wood wouldn't conduct heat efficiently enough before it failed, but if you're busting out the university thermodynamics reference books in a game, you missed the point of a DM.
I do disagree with the amount of damage - the 16d6 proposed by RukiTanuki makes more sense, maybe add a bit for concussion / shrapnel effects.
I found it funny that a DM who figured out the mechanics of the explosions, and who has a lot of experience with flammable / explosive substance, would still permit PCs to have 8'x10' barrels of alchemist's fire. And where the hell did they get percussion caps?
This is basically the medieval equivalent of driving a gasoline tanker truck into the fort, then detonating it.
It sounds like an awesome story, even if it's way, way, off the wall. I think most criticisms here come because the OP made it sound really easy for the PCs to pull this off.

Mephit
2008-12-04, 10:12 AM
Go back to the WoW forums.

Please don't say that. You're on the internet, if you post something here, you have about a 80% chance of being criticised. Be happy Tsotha-Lanti isn't typing in caps. :smalltongue:

That aside, I have to agree that I'd consider this a horrible ruling. Especially with the players getting to decide what to do after they rolled. What's the use of a diplomacy check if you can't screw up badly?
But I guess as long as you guys have fun, it ain't my job to tell you what to do. Although I silently do hope that you're going to pray dearly for what you did. I know I'd do it to my players. :smallamused:

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You burned my father to a crisp."

DrizztFan24
2008-12-04, 10:37 AM
My group uses the critical success thing but I swear my die has an air bubble in it or something....always getting stuff next to the 7....but never a 20.

But now with a rift to another plane I am sensing a Retriever coming out and grabbing the artifact for a high ranking demon or some such from the PC's. Let it go or go get it?

Arkon86
2008-12-04, 11:13 AM
On the alchemist's fire bit, many people have pointed out it's an incendiary, not an explosive. However, in the context of large barrels subject to a jetstream fire, it WILL explode. (Water's not an explosive either, but you can produce the same result by over-heating a hot water tank with all the safeties disabled. Mythbusters has done exactly that.) BLEVE stands for boiling liquid-expanding vapor explosion, and can happen with any liquid under the right circumstances. The barrels aren't normally pressurized, but they will be tightly sealed, and the fire supplies all the heat you need. You could argue that the wood wouldn't conduct heat efficiently enough before it failed, but if you're busting out the university thermodynamics reference books in a game, you missed the point of a DM.
I do disagree with the amount of damage - the 16d6 proposed by RukiTanuki makes more sense, maybe add a bit for concussion / shrapnel effects.
I found it funny that a DM who figured out the mechanics of the explosions, and who has a lot of experience with flammable / explosive substance, would still permit PCs to have 8'x10' barrels of alchemist's fire. And where the hell did they get percussion caps?
This is basically the medieval equivalent of driving a gasoline tanker truck into the fort, then detonating it.
It sounds like an awesome story, even if it's way, way, off the wall. I think most criticisms here come because the OP made it sound really easy for the PCs to pull this off.



you pretty much hit the nail on the head for the explosives bit. As to the linear scaling, the explosion would have probably destroyed the building regardless, this way it was more dramatic and the GM could tell our paladin that he didn't make it away from the explosion in time and was blown through the wall in the next building doing 8D10 damage. I think to make him feel better about us blowing up the city block.

he made me design and build the caps using a hammer mechanism and still only gave them a 30% chance to work. as to allowing us to use those kind of containers, like I said, this is very sandbox world and if we can give reasons and ways to do things he tries not to stop us just because he doesn't want to deal with the consequences. Also, I think he secretly likes watching us try to clean up our messes, which usually result in a new mess.

Arkon86
2008-12-04, 11:19 AM
Please don't say that. You're on the internet, if you post something here, you have about a 80% chance of being criticised. Be happy Tsotha-Lanti isn't typing in caps. :smalltongue:

That aside, I have to agree that I'd consider this a horrible ruling. Especially with the players getting to decide what to do after they rolled. What's the use of a diplomacy check if you can't screw up badly?
But I guess as long as you guys have fun, it ain't my job to tell you what to do. Although I silently do hope that you're going to pray dearly for what you did. I know I'd do it to my players. :smallamused:

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You burned my father to a crisp."

The deciding what we do after isn't an auto success but it allows for comedy relief and lets us be creative if say we beat the counter roll by 20 or something.

The rift that formed caused us to be sucked into a time warp and when we got out the world had advanced by 10 years. There was also an infernal fortress on a side of the city. So yea, we paid for it and I'm pretty sure we aren't done paying for it.

jimmy carter
2008-12-04, 12:08 PM
We actually typically have a ruling simular to this that if you exceed the opposing roll (we use alot of opposing rolls instead of set DCs because of the dynamic nature of the world) but 15 or more then you will get a more favorable ruling.
The nature of the game is differing styles for differing groups. and with the almost table top wargame feel of 4th edition it can feel like the game goes from one combat to another.
Episodes like these (sadly this is not the first rift in space-time they made) allow a group to alter the world set the path and ultimatly get more invested in the world. I learned a long time ago some of my 'puzzles' tend to be harder and just frustrating for the group. allowing them to have a mission approch and allowing them to use the sandbox to solve it makes my life ahrder (and content they tend to just destroy) but gives them a more enjoyable feel. While still they look back on the 8-10 sessions we have had along this path and see a deffinate story that they set. which i might argue is more rewarding, but gives the DM more trouble becuase they ahve to creativly lead them throug ha story with out railroading

jimmy carter
2008-12-04, 12:13 PM
Well, that's a quality comeback.

Seriously, there's no way to call the ruling on the alchemist's fire anything but heinous. It's not an explosive at all, it's just an incendiary (and definitely not stored under pressure), and a linear damage progression with no cap is patently ridiculous. Allowing natural 20s on Diplomacy to get you 5,000,000 gp of free swag is an even worse ruling.

Well as a HazMat and explosives expert, I could take a hot water heater (full of water) and under a BLEVE condition destroy half a city block. we actually just had an incedent on my firedepartment where just this sort of thing happened. all the alchamist fire does is explode and then allows the spread of a massive combustable material. and how is it different from giving the group an artifact to complete a quest then a large sum of money(which they had a specific role for and not to pocket)

Tsotha-lanti
2008-12-04, 01:34 PM
Well as a HazMat and explosives expert, I could take a hot water heater (full of water) and under a BLEVE condition destroy half a city block. we actually just had an incedent on my firedepartment where just this sort of thing happened. all the alchamist fire does is explode and then allows the spread of a massive combustable material. and how is it different from giving the group an artifact to complete a quest then a large sum of money(which they had a specific role for and not to pocket)

That's great. I'm a professor of irrelevant make-believe at Cornell, myself. Now tell me how any amount of burning oil does more damage than being immersed in lava (preferrably without making extraneous claims that require me to make determinations about whether you're lying or not based on absolutely no supporting evidence).

Ponce
2008-12-04, 01:47 PM
I'm curious, though, about what constitutes a terrible rule. If, say, all the party and DM agree on it, and they like it and have fun with it (as is the case in this scenario), then I say run with it.

Even if people don't like this particular rule, then I can still see something like extreme success or extreme failure (by hitting or missing DCs which are far beyond those required for success or failure).

That, and any good plan, even without this rule, is still subject to wild variance in success or failure based on luck or differences in resources (this is especially true if the DM doesn't take an open hand in helping the PCs), as usually the PCs advantage in DnD is not a good plan, but simply more resources. And, part of any good plan (for the DM and players) is accounting for the wild success or failure of one's plans.

A "terrible rule" in this case is what I feel worsens the gaming experience. I don't think it makes sense for the fighter to drop his weapon every one in twenty attacks.

A 10% chance of extreme result on any die roll is way too high. It would be more reasonable if it were on a d100 so you have a 1% possibility of extreme either way, but even still it's a bit strange.

I think it is pretty ridiculous that a character has a 5% chance to succeed at pretty much anything. In OPs example, try just asking to be made Lord-Captain of the fortress, for no reason at all. Natural 20! I win!

What about a rogue trying to sneak? Thats a Hide and a Move Silently check. He has a 19.25% chance to fail purely because of rolling a natural 1 on either the Hide or Move Silently check, regardless of how good he actually is at the skills.

Tacoma
2008-12-04, 01:49 PM
TL;DR: It's your game. But you're silly.

This game world sounds more like a freeform kind of game than we're all used to. A lot of games out there give players the ability to describe the world. Standard D&D is based on the DM describing the world and the players working within it.

For example, in one of these freeform games, a player might be able to roll to see if there's a chandelier in the room that he can swing on. Or just spend some kind of points to make it be there. The DM describes some things but leaves most of it up to the players. This means if the characters are swashbuckling types, the whole world will begin to take shape as a swashbuckler's paradise. If they're powerhungry wizards, the world starts to reflect that.

Some DMs use random determination for things. For example you might not know what's in the next room until it's rolled for. The DM assumes that the room contained those things the whole time but until someone sees it, they just didn't know what was there. But really there was nothing in the room until the DM made the decision.

Other DMs use a module design system where they detail the contents of an area and that's what is there. If the room description doesn't have bits of trash on the floor that can be lit on fire, then there are no such bits of trash.

As for the specific example, it sounds like the DM didn't think there was that much alchemist fire in the kegs based on their volumes. My answer would be that the Mages' Guild gave them the wagon-kegs and filled them with some alchemist fire, but didn't fill them completely. After all, the PCs wanted the big containers, but maybe the guild just didn't have 5 million GP worth of one specific chemical.

Or maybe they realized they didn't have that much alchemist's fire and just cast a high level spell a bunch of times to make normal water more volatile. Then they filled the keg wagons with that. The spell wears off in an hour anyway.

Secondly, what stops your players from using their knowledge of science to create gunpowder? And if they can make a diplomacy check for funding (without needing to pay it back) on a natural 20, why don't they go from ruler to ruler in the world until they manage to get one to agree to another anachronism: the bank? The first people to create a banking system with knowledge of how to do it exactly right basically have access to the world's wealth plus 7x as much phantom wealth within a couple decades. Incorporating high school textbooks into your game is a recipe for disaster.

Third, 3759 gallons of oil weighs about 30,000 pounds. The wagon to carry that would weigh 6,000 pounds (normal wagons weigh 400 pounds and carry 1 ton, or 1/5th the weight of the load). Add 200 pounds for tack, lanterns, the rider, his gear, and the lever mechanism to light it. A heavy warhorse can drag 9,000 pounds at maximum in D&D. It would take at least 5 horses to drag it at a minimal speed. Seven or more horses would be more practical. I assume PETA doesn't care about the PCs killing off 7 horses and 2 bums per wagon just for a flashy entrance ... none of those PCs are "Good", right?

Fourth, if an explosion causes a rift to Hell, wouldn't every volcano be a gate to Hell many times over? Or just a gate to somewhere? Likewise wouldn't every sun be a huge gate to another dimension, which would result in matter transfer, and in the end upset the physics of the combustion?
Certainly you could just say that a sun is the result of a gate to some fire plane. But the activity of that fire would result in more rifts popping in.
And what about the fire plane itself? It's one infinite constant explosion! Seems to me like every point in every other plane would have been exposed to a rift to the fire plane just because it's infinite and it opens rifts to other planes because of its explosions.
When a meteor hits does it slam open a rift? Going to the moon would be an interesting experience. But wait, if you have a meteor hit the moon and it opens a rift to the elemental plane of water, wouldn't water flow out into space forever and ever? And since the plane of water is infinite, the vicinity of the moon (and the game world) would pretty much be full of water and uninhabitable after a few centuries? Wouldn't the planes pretty much bleed into each other like this constantly and end up in an equilibrium where matter and energy are just all roiling around and there isn't anything stable enough to produce anything like a Mages' Guild?

Finally, a BLEVE is caused specifically by a sudden drop in pressure in a ruptured pressurized container. I see absolutely no reason why the Mages' Guild would pressurize the keg wagons, why they would have the technology or magic to strengthen the kegs for pressurization, or the magic to actually pressurize it, especially when the kegs contain enough material to cause a beautiful fire anyway.
Instead, when the keg blew it would create a decent local explosion but would mostly just be a very large leak of burning fluid. Fire is very dangerous in a premodern society that builds mainly with wood. The neighborhood would be set alight and people would start asking questions. The Mages' Guild cannot protect the PCs against a Commune spell cast by a local temple that owned property nearby. Suddenly the PCs are on a very special list.

Arkon86
2008-12-04, 01:55 PM
That's great. {Scrubbed} Now tell me how any amount of burning oil does more damage than being immersed in lava (preferrably without making extraneous claims that require me to make determinations about whether you're lying or not based on absolutely no supporting evidence).

{Scrubbed} the whole damage system for things like fire and lava in DnD is rather screwed up. Considering that no matter how tough you are, whatever touches lava would pretty much be gone regardless of how fast you get away from it.
The point isn't that burning oil did this. The point is an explosion was caused by a rapid vaporization and pressure release caused by the burning oil aka and explosion. That is where the damage came from, not the burning oil itself.
What happened is quite physically possible so go back to your irrelevant professorship, I believe your cats are expecting a lecture at 3:30 today.

Tacoma
2008-12-04, 01:57 PM
Also, again, it's your game, but a natural 20 was never meant to result in superhuman results. It was just supposed to be the best result that character could have possibly hoped for given the fantasy world at hand.

So, let us say my character wants to jump to the moon. He tries and tries. After about 30 or so rounds (I'm unlucky) I roll a 20. Would you rule that my character jumps to the moon?

Of course not. That would be silly. There have to be limits. Common sense and all that.

Common sense dictates that a 5 million GP jackpot is out of the question. Killing the god of war with a muffin is out of the question. Pickpocketing the god of thieves is out of the question. Just like jumping to the moon.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-12-04, 01:58 PM
Ponce_LeRue: I think that's a 9.75% chance to fail due to nat-1s? The chance of not getting a nat-1 is 95%. The chance of not getting any nat-1s on either roll is 0.95^2, or 0.9025, so the chance of getting at least one is 0.0975, right?

It's still way too high, and you illustrate very well that multiple-roll tasks where one roll fails the entire task make the influence of nat-1s even higher (admittedly, the effect of nat-20s is less relevant in them).

Ponce
2008-12-04, 02:33 PM
Ponce_LeRue: I think that's a 9.75% chance to fail due to nat-1s? The chance of not getting a nat-1 is 95%. The chance of not getting any nat-1s on either roll is 0.95^2, or 0.9025, so the chance of getting at least one is 0.0975, right?

It's still way too high, and you illustrate very well that multiple-roll tasks where one roll fails the entire task make the influence of nat-1s even higher (admittedly, the effect of nat-20s is less relevant in them).

Yeah, you're right.

Roland St. Jude
2008-12-04, 08:32 PM
Sheriff of Moddingham: Please keep your comments directed at the content of the discussion and not the posters themselves. We don't allow flaming here.

OneFamiliarFace
2008-12-04, 11:41 PM
A "terrible rule" in this case is what I feel worsens the gaming experience. I don't think it makes sense for the fighter to drop his weapon every one in twenty attacks.

And this is a fine definition. That means that in a game which includes you, or many of these other posters who agree with you, this is a terrible rule. In a game which includes these guys, it is a rule that does not worsen the gaming experience, and so they run with it.

I know this is the internet. But I don't see the point in continuing to tell them a rule is terrible when they clearly like it. This is very similar to you telling me that, say, anchovies are a terrible topping because they worsen the pizza experience. You would be 100% correct if I were sharing my pizza with you, but, as I am only sharing it with anchovie lovers, it is a wonderful topping that only increases the pizza experience.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion on both pizza toppings and game rules, but telling me about them isn't going to change my opinion. In fact, it is going to have little effect other than causing me to feel offended or defensive. I personally find it better to have people like me, and see no reason why I should want these gentlemen to dislike me, as I will never have to play in their game or with their rule (which I also do not use in my campaigns, because I don't like it). But, really, that is just my opinion.

Ponce
2008-12-05, 12:35 AM
And this is a fine definition. That means that in a game which includes you, or many of these other posters who agree with you, this is a terrible rule. In a game which includes these guys, it is a rule that does not worsen the gaming experience, and so they run with it.

I know this is the internet. But I don't see the point in continuing to tell them a rule is terrible when they clearly like it. This is very similar to you telling me that, say, anchovies are a terrible topping because they worsen the pizza experience. You would be 100% correct if I were sharing my pizza with you, but, as I am only sharing it with anchovie lovers, it is a wonderful topping that only increases the pizza experience.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion on both pizza toppings and game rules, but telling me about them isn't going to change my opinion. In fact, it is going to have little effect other than causing me to feel offended or defensive. I personally find it better to have people like me, and see no reason why I should want these gentlemen to dislike me, as I will never have to play in their game or with their rule (which I also do not use in my campaigns, because I don't like it). But, really, that is just my opinion.

But half this thread has been nothing but people expressing their opinions about critical rolls. Are you saying I am being too argumentative? I apologize if it came out that way, I feel strongly on the issue, but I've only written a few lines on the subject here.