Freebies
As per usual, the Handbook offers sound advice… up to a point. When it comes to rules disputes and close calls, I will always advocate for a “call the close ones in the player’s favor” approach. Sure your big ol’ GM head is full of nagging thoughts like “I’m not sure that’s how it works” and “this will set a terrible precedent,” but in 99 cases out of 100 players aren’t trying to worm their way into Munchkinland. They’re just after a fun moment right now. Examples from my own table include: Do alchemist wings take an action to activate? Can I move diagonally between two grappling creatures? And of course there’s the ever-popular, “Am I allowed to charge?” Most of the time it’s not worth the argument: Just let the player do the thing.
But if accommodating quirky ideas in the name of creative play is best practice for GMs, there’s an important corollary for players. Make your case, sure. But once your GM has made the call, don’t be the guy at the table who grinds things to a halt to argue your side. When I’m a player, I make it policy to treat mechanical disputes like pizza delivery. If I can’t find the relevant rule in two minutes or less, it’s on the house. Sure there might be a Jeremy Crawford tweet or some relevant Sage Advice floating out in the ether — Dude, I’ve seen it! Just give me a few more minutes to google it. — but ain’t nobody got time for that. Unless it’s a matter of TPK, you can always drop your GM a follow-up message between sessions. In other words, be right after the game. Have fun now.
In the specific case of the argument between Street Samurai and the wraith in today’s comic, I think that’s a pretty clear case of “the rules don’t work like that.” Honestly though, if the table busts out laughing at a well-timed invocation of Clarke Rule #3, I don’t think there’s any harm in taking a middle-road. Say it with me GMs: “I’ll allow it, but only once!”
That of course brings us to our question of the day. Have you ever gone against your rules-instincts as a GM to give a player the benefit of the doubt? And as a player, have you ever managed to sneak a close one past your GM? Tell us all about your “DM’s choice” moments and “expect table variation” rulings down in the comments!
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I am not typically a fan of players arguing why their (usually grasping at straws) reasons for wanting some advantage should be allowed. Still, there are times when a player will make a good case, so I can’t just ban such arguments completely.
So I have a rule: You get to make your case once, and I promise to give it fair consideration. If I say no, though, then shut up and live with it.
I’ve seen far too many games derail into angry, nitpicky arguments about physics to be kind to that variety of “creativity”.
(Honestly, I’ll pretty much shoot down any plan that breaks game rules in the name of science on the spot. Science, in a fantasy game, ruins sessions, friendships, and campaigns.)
Down with science! Destroy the machine god! Suffer no robot to live!
I had a player who was an Eldritch Knight (5e), which allowed him to summon his weapon to him regardless of where it was. He asked me if he could pay a blacksmith to leave his sword on the coals, and get a small fire damage boost when he summoned it later.
My first reaction was “nah, there’s a reason damage boost are to come by”, but after thinking a bit about it, I allowed it. It’s not like it would be gamebreaking to add a D4 to a single attack, and it’d cost him money and probably get him some odd looks, so whatever.
Also he completely forgot about it before using it even once, so whatever.
In the same game, the players asked if they could get access to magic weapons relatively early. Again, my knee jerk reaction was to say no, because that’s not how 5e is balanced, but eventually I relented. There’s plenty of ressources for weak magic items out there, and if it makes them happy and forces them to choose between saving up their ressources or spending now to get some minor advantage, well, why not.
I tend to have relatively reasonable players, though. I’ve had the displeasure of playing with not so unreasonable players before, and it can be a real drag. As you said, if you spend more than two minutes debating, then the GM needs to shut it down.
It’s a good call pointing out player personality. Like I said in the OP, in 99 cases out of 100 the player is just trying to be creative and clever. But Munchkins are a thing and do exist, so this mess always comes with a dose of “use your best judgment.”
in this specific case I would have simply asked:
Do you want your (Sufficiently Advanced) Technology to fail inside an Anti Magic Field?
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
That is exactly the sort of response to the question.
Well no, you see, I would like to have my techno-cake and eat it too. Because reasons.
I’m in a game right now playing as a warforged barbarian. Our task was to get a black brier wolf heart (a creature I’ve never heard of before). Being a gentle soul type character I didnt want to kill them. And instead just take one to our destination (as they were the guardians of some great wall and were the only ones who could pass through it. Thanks to our druid we learned that this was a test for not only the adventurers, but also the pups of this small pack of wolves. Well our DM never specified how big these wolves were. I figured the pups were the size of normal fucking wolf pups, so I said I pick one up and carry it out, think the tiny pupper wouldnt be able to do much to me. Turns out the pups are the size of normal wolves and it brings me down to 1 HP in one hit. The next hit was a crit that would have killed me outright. We were only a few sessions into the campaign and I suggested that the wolf ripped my arm off instead of killing me. The DM agreed, saying he really liked my character idea, and just had me go unconscious and lose an arm.
“I have an idea! I rip my own arm off as a distraction, thus saving my life.”
“Like a gecko’s tail?”
“Exactly! It’s a defensive maneuver that all barbarians learn.”
Problem is it doesnt grow back and my main weapon is two-handed
Sucks for losing an arm, but I do think in the same books that have Warforged, they also have interested weapons. Just replace your missing limb with a sweet flail arm or something.
Hell of a lot easier said than done in this campaign.
So in a pirate game one of our players was playing a monkey person Varaan or something and during a stealth check in the woods we were almost spotted, I instructed said monkey person to make some monkey noises to throw the guy off our scent. Dm had him roll and he rolled poorly.
“What did he do make unrealistic monkey noises?” I asked surprised a roll was even needed.
“Y’know what your right you get a +10 to bluff checks to be a monkey.”
“Good because he is in fact a monkey.”
Nice. This is exactly the sort of call I appreciate from a GM. 🙂
I think I prefer leaving the numerical bonuses out of it though. That’s something I’m trying to work on myself: allowing mechanical interactions to just become “it works” rather than explaining my rationale with numbers. Helping immersion etc. etc.
On this particular issue, it would seem to me perfectly logical that nonmagical energy weapons should be able to damage incorporeal foes (which are already kind of B.S. to begin with), so I’d give Street Samurai the electric damage from her sword thing but not the regular cutting damage.
Though I guess that would mean that you could technically beat a ghost to (re-)death with a torch. Which I’d be okay with. (The PC still has to work for it, with the added bonus that it would be funny.)
Amusingly enough, I believe that’s the case in Starfinder. The rule there is that incorporeal are, “Immune to all nonmagical kinetic attacks. All energy attacks and magical kinetic attacks deal half damage (50%) to it.” So it seems you can straight up go ghost busting with a welding torch.
Ghost: “I’m coming to kiiiiiiill you!”
Adventurer: “Acid flask!”
Ghost: “Aaaagghhh!!!”
So maybe Pathfinder didn’t want its ghosts vulnerable to buckets of chlorine. Flamethrowers and lightning still feel like they should be fair game, though.
See Aragorn vs ringwraiths a la weathertop
I would indeed watch Aragorn fight ghosts with a blowtorch.
on a tangent: the distinction (or lack thereof) between Magic and Alchemy is why I don’t like the PF1 Alchemist.
From the book „ he infuses the concoction with a tiny fraction of his own magical power“
So in short: no magic = no power, which kind of sucks.
Believe me, I feel you on the alchemist front. Trying to parse its interactions with the magic rules was all kinds of crazy-making.
yeah, right? what was even the point of calling it Alchemist rather than „not quite a wizard“
as a DM I house rule that away, at the cost of number of bombs per day.
instead of level+IntMod it’s IntMod+3 (like channel energy) but it’s pure alchemy and no magic.
As a player I had a reputation for knowing the rules well enough that I was deferred to since I could be trusted to mention them even when they were unfavorable to the party.
As a DM I know the rules well enough that the players defer to me since they know I’m not out to get them.
It has worked out quite well.
How noble. Now take your axe blow and like it.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/the-high-ground
I do. I’m playing a game, and if I ignore the rules of the game when it’s to my benefit then I’m cheating.
Why Samurai Street visor always says >9000? I get it’s a reference to something i didn’t care to watch. But wouldn’t the visor be more helpful to SS if it got a reading other than the >9000? Neither D&D nor PF got >9000 CR encounters, i think o_O
On the contrary: https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Neutronium_golem
Of course the >9000 CR monster ill be third party material. Unless it’s very good i don’t like third party material,you shouldn’t too. US has a bi-party system, third parties are anti-american. So tell me Colin are you a communist or have relationships with people ho is? 😛
The future has had terrible, terrible CR inflation, so the scale is different. Future!Peasants are CR 1000, for example.
(This is basically what happened in Dragonball, where the “Over 9000!!” meme originated. At the time, Power Level 9000 was insanely strong, but the series has gone on for so long and everyone has leveled up so constantly that today a Power Level 9000 couldn’t even scratch most of the cast.)
Dragonball? So thatis why I didn’t recognize the series. Never like It, very unoriginal
In a certain way is good to know that inflation will also ruin power-levels. In a certain way that is sad too… Unless the party goes to the future and use their inflation-adjusted power-levels to kick asseses. Good plot hook for a The Witcher/Cyberpunk Red crossover
Currently I’m letting a player in one of my 5e games shove things into Create Bonfire’s bonfire to provoke it’s save and damage even though I know by the rules it shouldn’t really work like that. Because it’s a reasonable enough ask for a cantrip that is otherwise very limited. Though at the time I made the call, it was just a “Sure, I’ll allow that this time. I’ll have to think about if we’re keeping that forever though.”
I’m sure I’ve had many other cases of such things on both sides of the screen. Though I do try to know the actual rules. But sometimes something seems fun or reasonable enough to allow/argue for and other times I think the suggestion (mine or otherwise) is actually better than the rule as written.
And I absolutely agree with “lean in the favor of the players”. So much so that in my games all my rounding is done not up or down but “whichever direction favors players”.
Then again I’m also the kind of GM who makes sure players have higher than standard stats and start out with a bonus Feat or such. (Although in the case of the feat this is more of the case of I think the rules should actually just be that way in the first place as Feats are a lot of the fun of D&D and there are tons most people never take even though they’d like to in theory because their builds just can’t afford to when they only have so few and need to balance taking those against improving their stats.)
Not having create bonfire’s text up in front of me, I can confirm that your ruling does indeed sound plausible. Why not let a gamer feel clever?
I’d like to give PF2e a closer look as far as the feats thing go. The different kinds of feats there seem to lean towards more creative and flavorful options than the standard “hit thing > hit thing better” progression.
My group has dipped into PF2e to check the system out.
– Each ancestry (read: race) has its own set of feats which you choose from every 4 levels, starting at 1st.
– Each class has its own set of feats which you choose from every even-numbered level.
– Both of the above categories let you choose from new feats at each level they’re available, though you can always pick from a lower-level set.
– There’s a list of “general feats”, which also includes “skill feats” that are categorized by skill and gated by your proficiency level with that skill. You can pick a skill feat any time you’re granted a general feat, but not vice versa. General feats are every 4 levels starting at 3rd while skill feats are every even-numbered level.
– Skill feats tend to either modify the use of that skill or enable actions that would be fictionally associated with it, so very much in the vein of flavor > raw power.
– There are very few “feat trees” overall, and the ones that do exist are nowhere near as complicated as D&D3e/PF1e can get.
Do you find that, with the pelthora of feats, people are going for ones that fit character concept, or is there still a tendency to default to choosing for mechanical power?
I’ve only played PFv2 once, so I can’t say for certain. As with any system, there was a desire to pick by power. But with being my first time, I tried sticking close to a “suggested build” (they have several for each class, if a player is feeling indecisive). Beyond that, I just picked what I wanted. As long as you’re not playing with minmaxers, I think the broader selections of feats at least allows more opportunity to try “unusual builds” or add in more exotic classes/races into the game.
If you get a call in your favor — WRITE IT DOWN!
Damn. That could have been a coimc in its own right. Imagine Wizard furiously scrabbling in her component pouch for proof of [insert weird ruling here].
In our last session, the DM chucked a deadly encounter against a eight cultists, four air elementals, two myrmidons (CR 7 air elementals inhabiting suits of plate armor), a winged Elf priestess whose race I can’t remember the name of, and whatever the hell the beastie (it had legendary actions) on the other side of the portal she was trying to open was. We were trying to take care of a magical storm hanging over a city that this cult was apparently causing. This fight took place inside of the city’s ruined keep.
Now, this was an absolute slog of a fight, even though we were 6 7th level characters, 5 of whom punch above their weight class. The only reason we survived is probably that we realized the elementals took damage whenever the priestess did. Even then, when we killed her the elementals and myrmidons were all still at 20-35% HP, while the Barbarian and Monk were both rolling death saves and the Cleric was busy keeping our Bard with 36 max HP on his feet.
The only members who were in somewhat decent shape were my Fighter (who had already blown most of his resources focusing the priestess) and the Bloodhunter (she was at half HP and getting dogpiled by the 3 remaining elementals). The part that is relevant to this comic’s question is that, since I figured we were screwed if nothing turned the tide right away, I asked the DM if I could use Action Surge again if I took a level of exhaustion at the end of my turn, and he agreed to it. I took down an elemental and one of the myrmidons. The Bloodhunter took out the other remaining elementals, leaving only one of the myrmidons, which was very confused after the portal finished closing and was promptly finished off.
In the end, we gained:
1. An in-universe excuse for me to take a Barbarian level dip
2. Enough XP to almost level up twice
3. A magic spear and robe that have yet to be identified
4. A base of operations, though it’s quite the fixer-upper at the moment.
“Can I make a heroic effort to save my friends at the expense of my own health and well-being?”
“No. That’s against the rules of my fantasy universe.”
This sort of action should always be encouraged, rules be damned. Just as long as it’s not an “every fight” situation, the occasional burst of “impossible even in the setting” Limit Break is what draws a lot of people into fantasy gaming. Doing the impossible is a goal of every gamer I know!
One of my players asked if lightning damage would spread out in water. I ruled that anything within 10ft of the lightning would take 1/4 of the damage.
She was very happy when I let her do a Wall of Water-Wand of Lightning Bolt combo.
That one has come up in my games as well. You can rest assured that your decision was backed up by at least one rulebook:
That always seemed reasonable to me.
So way back when in 3.5 I was playing a ranger. I was the last man standing with two orcs left who could both charge me on their turn. I had lost over half my health dealing with other enemies so I asked my GM if I could knock two arrows with a -4 penalty to hit. He allowed it and I ended up killing both the orcs whereafter I could chuck my companions full of healing potions. That really made me feel like the hero of the day.
Nice! I wouldn’t want to play in a game where I couldn’t reenact Men in Tights:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Multishot
For serious though, I think that “you can attempt it but with a penalty” is a great solution in these situations. Much better than “it’s impossible because there’s already a feat that does that.”
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/manyshot-combat
In my view, those feats provide a good baseline for the “you may attempt it but” type rulings. I suppose that the fear is that players will begin SPAMing those maneuvers, but in my experience it’s almost always a one-time sort of thing when this kind of tactic is allowed.
GJ all around says I!
Street Samurai, your world has magic too. You know your sword is distinguishable from magic. Ergo, it is insufficiently advanced.
For the sake of a scooby doo themed one shot, I let the Shepherd Druid Shaggy have a spirit animal “mastiff” that gave everyone longstrider or expeditious retreat (chosen individually each turn) whenever they started a turn within 60ft of it.
I also let them use the wild shape variant familiar summon rule to have a mastiff summoned as a familiar, with the caveat that if they wanted to access the totem while the familiar was active, the effect would always center on the familiar (it might sound a bit OP, but it was nothing more than a medium size familiar, since it didn’t have any of the attacks that made it stronger than a dog, plus dropping the dog to 0 would have unsummoned it and caused the totem to disappear with it)
Druid Shaggy, Barbarian Daphne, Velma Artificer, Paladin Freddy, and another Barbarian Scrappy/guest star)