Poll: poll: I control the earth and sands... Maybe just the earth.

[Riptide1]

Last night me and one of my friends got into an argument and i want to know what the escapist community thinks on the subject. The argument arouse while playing my homegrown D&D (I'm not overly wowed by 4th edition and had an idea i wanted to try).

First off there is some back round info you need to know about the mechanics of it. Rather than picking a class the players choose an element form a list of earth, water, fire, air, lightning, and telekinesis, the element chosen gives them control over the most basic from of that element. Then they get points to put into ability's like melee weapon use, support magic, ranged weapon, defense, combat magic, and unarmed combat, that they use their element through. They gain 1 ability power every level and new element power every 10. i thought this was a good idea because it gives more control over the exact powers that their characters have so they are bit more invested in their characters and the world.

Due to some current circumstances the party is down to 2 people, one an earth user who split his ability's between ranged weapons and combat magic, and a telekinesis user focused on combat magic. The current section lead them to be on a boat in a huge storm and get knocked out and swept of the side, then wake up on a beach. This is where the game came to a stop and the argument began.

The earth used wanted to use his power to dig a large hole in the sand and I said that plain earth and sand are different and so with just basic earth control he can do little more then throw around small puffs of sand (much like Toph form Avitar the last air bender when they are in the desert) because the way I see it is, to control sand effectively you need a control over both earth and air. The telekinesis user had a problem with this and argued that sand is just very finely ground earth so he should be able to control it just fine with only a control over earth. The earth user agreed with the telekinesis user but was fine with leaving it up to me.

so escapist what do you think?

It wont let me fix the poll so the first one is supposed to be, It doesn't matter, what the DM says goes.

 

[DoPo]

Rule 0, of course. For the unenlightened, it is "The DM is always right" (effectively. The wording may vary.). But what can one do when manipulating earth? I cannot say anything of what I actually think unless I know how you define "control" - maybe they require a huge chunk of earth because they lack fine manipulation (imagine trying to sculpt something with two layers of mittens on your hands) or maybe it is fine because if they can just sort of order what their elements wants to do and the element (or spirits or something else) does it for them. You can justify it both ways and you haven't told us exactly how it's supposed to work.

In the end, it's really just the DM's call. Within reason (hopefully) but it's the DM that says how things work. The DM is the god(-s), the physics and the laws of the imaginary universe. Usually players should clear things up with the DM. Still the DM shouldn't shoot down anything the players suggest. I've seem DM's who sort of tell their own story with the players as observers rather than actors ("No, you will not do that, instead you will do this").

The easiest solution I see here is to just give him a penalty of some sort. Sure, maybe sand isn't earth but it's really close. Maybe there are a lot of sand grains to control or maybe usually they would control them fine if they weren't too small, or maybe sand is only somewhat related to earth, hence harder to control. Whatever the case, I'd probably just tell the player that he has trouble controlling sand and make it more difficult than straight earth. Maybe he can refine his control over sand later on (a power? feat? I don't know) or it may be (or it could have been, in your case) a plot hook - "Hey, normally you would be able to dig the shit out of this sand, but you sense something wrong and you cannot effectively extend your mystical control over it." and make it into a side quest for the group to find out what's up with the (cursed? magical? something else?) sand.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Well, sand is just ground up rock, so their power over sand would depend on how much power they have over rocks, or, if you are worried about upsetting the balance you could say that he can control sand, but it's highly unstable to do so, and so he must roll to see how much sand he actually moves, (something like 10 being his desired amount, 0 being none and 20 being all the sand the group's standing on) So he has a danger of seriously messing up and injuring himself.

 

[Smooth Operator]

DM is always right, that is D&D law right there.

However the DM should consider if he want's to stay the DM, i.e. don't dick people over to get some grins out of their misery, offer them context... why is it that they can't use ability X, will it circumvent a challenge you constructed, break an important game element, make an upcoming battle pointless, ...?
Give them a game related reason for the rules you made, otherwise you may soon find yourself playing all by your lonesome.

 

[Rowan93]

Actually, I think most soils are more finely-ground than sand, although that varies a lot, and there are soil types that are basically sand.

I think the important question is, can the earth-user control rocks and dirt under the same skillset? If so, there's no way he can't be allowed sand. If he can't, then he has a problem, because sand is basically more like rocks than dirt.