Manipulating Terrain

Really useful article. I used terrain to great effect when I played 4E and now I can use the same principles easily in Pathfinder. I'll have to stat up a tipping wall as well, which was one of my favorites although the alchemical bench may be even better. The bubbling cauldron also goes great with fights against witches and hags. Thanks, Stephen.

I especially liked the chandelier rules. I could see applying those rules to jungle vine swinging as well. I may have to introduce that to my Serpent Skull campaign.

Nice work!

Very nice blog! I always like to reward players who try to lean their characters into the cinematic, and this is a nice set of ideas. Thanks!

I like it, but I think the Rug is too easy. If there are multiple opponents on the rug, I think the DC should be higher (+2 per creature above 1).

Otherwise, good article!

Those Blink Crystals are an awesome device for setting up defense in your evil lair (tm).

By placing them say, at the side of your throne, your henchmen and lieutenant can quickly leap from your side, to your foes flank, making your once confident enemy suddenly surrounded.

Of course all lair thrones these days should also come equip with a button that activates a create pit spell.

Added to d20pfsrd.com Hazards/Terrains section.

I like the ideas on some of these, but not sure about the implementation. For example, why even a DC 10 Strength check to pull the rug out, and then allow a saving throw? Pathfinder already has rules for tripping, so shouldn't using the rug to trip use the CMB rules and provide a bonus if the character makes a Str check? Even a strong character - Str 18, won't make the strength check 25% of the time.

The same thing applies for furniture as cover - those Str checks seem awfully high for furniture that a strong character could probably just lift based on carrying capacity.

For the alchemical devices, the CRs look very high for the effects the produce. CR 16+ for 4d6 damage? As terrain and not traps, I am not sure if a CR is even appropriate.

I like the ideas being presented here, but I don't think the right approach is to create a bunch of different kinds of terrain and then assign DCs and saving throws and other mechanics to each one. This approach tends to make people focus on individual mechanics when the real goal should be to get Game Masters to think about terrain itself as interactive, and give them guidelines about how to incorporate interactive terrain into their encounters with general advice and guidelines so that GMs are encouraged to come up with their own ideas.

Here are ten, off-the-top-of-my-head examples of how a character could incorporate active terrain into their actions:

1. Throwing dirt into someone's face.
2. Rolling a boulder down a hill.
3. Yanking a chain attached to a wall.
4. Scooping a handful of coals from a fire onto someone.
5. Throwing a lit oil lamp on someone.
6. Using a pot lid as a makeshift shield.
7. Dumping a bucket of soapy water on the floor.
8. Tipping a bookshelf onto someone.
9. Slamming a door into someone's face.
10. Tangling someone up in a bedsheet.

The potential uses of terrain are quite literally infinite. But nobody is ever going to come up with mechanics for all of them. A GM simply needs to know some guidelines about adjudicating these actions and providing a way for the attempt to be ruled successful or unsuccessful.

GMs have been doing this for years. Here is how I would rule on each of these if a character attempted these actions (or if an NPC did):

1. If you are prone or crawling on a dirt floor, grabbing a handful of dirt is a free action. Otherwise it's a move action that provokes an attack of opportunity. Throwing it in the face is a ranged touch attack that blinds the opponent for 1d3 rounds unless they make a reflex save, in which case it does nothing (the target successfully closes their eyes and avoids the dirt).
2. This is a str check with conditional modifiers based on the boulder's size, position and orientation. A successful check means the boulder rolls down the hill on a straight line. Any creature within the path makes a reflex save or gets hit by the boulder for 1/2 the damage they would receive from falling the same distance the boulder has traveled.

etc...

Anyone can make these things up, and the goal should be to encourage GMs (and players) to view terrain items as interactive game components and to be creative about exploiting them in encounters, or even in non-combat situations.

I agree with brassbaboon. I'd like to see next week's blog be about more general guidelines instead of just specific examples. And I'd like to add that I'm interested in destructible terrain, like crates in a warehouse being used for cover. I know how to damage objects, that part is easy. What I'd like is advice on how to track it, when a miss should count as hitting the terrain, that kind of thing, without it becoming a massive chore.

I agree with brassbaboon. I'd like to see next week's blog be about more general guidelines instead of just specific examples.

This blog was the third of three. The first blog had general guidelines and this third one has specific examples.

I thought of something like this before in an encounter where the PCs encounter a ghost that moves freely around book shelves in a library. The PC fights the ghost but have to navigate around the shelves when the ghost does not. The PC's can knock over the shelves making the area rough terrain with a chance of losing balance over the books

Talynonyx wrote:

I agree with brassbaboon. I'd like to see next week's blog be about more general guidelines instead of just specific examples.

This blog was the third of three. The first blog had general guidelines and this third one has specific examples.

I did go look at the two previous blog entries on terrain. They were not in the same vein, they were about creating terrain that players move around on or in. Examples used were fighting on a frozen lake, or dealing with a building on fire, or razor-sharp rocks...

This was the only blog entry I saw that dealt with physically utilizing terrain elements as part of the encounter. The other blog articles seemed mostly to be about how to design and manage terrain movement and environmental effects.

Also good things to discuss, but not the same as this blog entry, not to my interpretation anyway.

I'd say the first one also generally covers the manipulation of terrain, however I agree that it was more overview then guidelines.

If you want to run out and generate your own set I suggest looking a few places. First is the "Page 42 for Pathfinder", nice breakdown of DCs by target CR.
http://gneech.com/rpg/page-42-for-pathfinder-revisited/

Second I notice Stephen using similar rules for traps when it comes to damage and spell effects. What's missing from a more genetic "terrain" list are movement, 'buffs', and a few other indirect things like creation of covet and smoke.

Really, I think what one can say is that the most useful tool would be getting various existing rules collected in one place to support quick look-up for "dynamic" terrain. Which is really what were talking about here.

Love the cauldron!

The chandelair, rug, etc. were also cool.

Great little article!

This blog was the third of three. The first blog had general guidelines and this third one has specific examples.

I think for multi-part Blogs (which often have intervening material), having a ?jump list? saying ?See Part 1, Part 2...? would be most helpful.

Honestly, besides the fact that some of the quality can be spotty (see above complaints about crunch), I really think the focus should be on issuing Errata and FAQs. There?s really tons of stuff that could be dealt with.

I?d also like to know how long is the list of items that ?can?t? be Errata?d because of the ?preserving page number reference? issue. I don?t know, maybe it?s only 1 or 2 items. Maybe it?s 50 items. Or more. I don?t know if the ?preserving page number reference? rule might be revisited depending on the number (or total importance of) this list of ?can?t do? Errata, but it seems like something reasonable to take a look at instead of ignoring it. At the least, these are things that Paizo would definitely want to address in a ?new version?, which could include the ?Entry Level Rule-Set?.

I also think that moving away from the ?Errata is only issued on re-print? would be more efficient... There?s no reason it can?t be issued on an on-going basis, and of course still rolled into the latest printing whenever a new one goes out. It just seems like a better way to actually get Errata dealt with, rather than leaving it to the last second and probably not get all of it. You guys seem to have problems accurately scheduling what can be done in a fixed time period, and with all the other time demands you have it seems like Errata is skimped on. Actually scheduling on-going work on it seems much more likely to see solid results.

Also, has Paizo gone thru all the Errata reported to the Errata thread BEFORE the flag system was implemented?

1. If you are prone or crawling on a dirt floor, grabbing a handful of dirt is a free action. Otherwise it's a move action that provokes an attack of opportunity. Throwing it in the face is a ranged touch attack that blinds the opponent for 1d3 rounds unless they make a reflex save, in which case it does nothing (the target successfully closes their eyes and avoids the dirt).

That would be a Dirty Trick combat maneuver.

I wouldn't bother asking anything having to do with faq* or errata* at this point.

Cool! Now make 'em scale on-the-fly and we'll be good to go. ;)

-The Gneech

Good stuff here sir. Good stuff.

I like it, but I think the Rug is too easy. If there are multiple opponents on the rug, I think the DC should be higher (+2 per creature above 1).

Otherwise, good article!

I think utilizing the rug shouldn't be a strength check vs. reflex save; rather, it looks like a standard CMB check. As CMD already includes the opponent's dexterity modifier, so there's no need for a reflex save.

That minor gripe aside, I like it a lot! Well done, Stephen! :)

Casts Raise Thread...

Finally reading through this (whilst pretending to be busy at work)... I think the fact these are Strength checks and Reflex saves and the like makes sense, basically because the CMB / CMD thing already has a bunch of potential modifiers which could make these object-based options look a bit wonky. E.g. if these were CMB-based my Str 3 / Dex 20 Wizard with the Agile Manuevers Feat could flip heavy tables and pull rugs out from under people with the best of them!

As for the Strength check DCs being high I don't think it's really a question of whether you could, ultimatly, flip that table or not (that's carrying capacity, or taking 20), but rather whether you can quickly flip it in a burst of strength during combat.

The one thing I find a bit weird is that flipping a table covered in alchemy stuff is a Standard action, but flipping a table covered in anything else is a Move action...