I think one thing to keep in mind about the posts made regarding rules on these (or any other) forums is that the people posting, for whatever reason, aren't just using a house rule to solve their issue. Those that are using house rules (like me) don't have a reason to post and certainly don't want to get embroiled in a rules argument with someone on the interwebs over an issue that was already house-ruled and solved. Those who choose to speak up aren't necessarily a representative sample of the entire population.
I mentioned it on another thread, but up until the internet got going, (say, around the time of the publication of 3E) the only way to get a rules clarification was to write to dragon magazine and wait for mailing the mail, hope it was picked for Sage Advice and then wait for the magazine to be printed. Given a best case scenario of a two month wait, house-ruling was reasonable if not necessary.
I'm not sure if the newer generation of RPG-ers have lost touch with their creativity, but they certainly have different means to express it.
ImperatorK: Yikes. Spoilers, broseph, not quotes.
When I GM, I love situational modifiers. I don't mean just giving people a +2 on X roll because of favorable conditions or whatever. I mean, giving an entirely new or a very heightened effect for clever thinking and/or good planning.
Example:
The party was going through the kobold caverns, and I had written in a bit extra, so that there was actually a brood nest. To get to it, they had to be shown the secret entrance, where they had to crawl through a tiny space about 30 feet. At the end of it, the mites who had raided caverns and almost wiped out the kobolds were waiting (the party had promised to kill the mites and attacked them at level 1 but one of them almost died when they took out the giant whiptail centipede, so they had to flee - I decided the mites retaliated after 1 month with a full raid, and the party took too long to come back).
The party ranger pulled out a thunderstone and had it tossed in the middle of the rights. As they were in caverns, I upped the DC by 2, increased the radius by 5', and stunned anyone who failed their save for 1d4 rounds.
Later that game, he asked if he could throw multiple thunderstones at once for some sort of increased effect. I ruled he could throw up to 3 at a time as a standard action, with each one after the first increasing the DC by 2.
I think the rules are there to make the game easier to play and more balanced. if I don't know I rule I look it up because it's easier than to make it up. If I don't agree, as a DM I change it (as a player I let the DM decide). When I don't get a rule or don't get why a rule works a certain way I ask here, to get input.
Most important rule: good role playing beats the dice.
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Between the thread title and the original post, I'm confused. If a group believes there is an issue with a particular rule in the book, they house rule it. Isn't that being creative? Imaginative? I don't think the issue is with the specific house rules themselves, which some have decided to share, it's whether you are a slave to those rules, or the core.
ImperatorK: Yikes. Spoilers, broseph, not quotes.
Don't know why, but that statement makes me laugh.
When I GM, I love situational modifiers. I don't mean just giving people a +2 on X roll because of favorable conditions or whatever. I mean, giving an entirely new or a very heightened effect for clever thinking and/or good planning.
Example:
** spoiler omitted **
YES! These are the kind of things I expected to see in this thread. Not letting the rules (house or core) bog the game down. Here's my example which is the direct opposite of Vendis'
In a game the other day, the Fighter, torch in one hand and weapon in the other, entered a room. Inside were two baddies standing in front of a bed getting ready for battle. Instead of dropping the torch at his feet, the Fighter wanted to throw it onto the bed.
What happened?
Game stopped. GM looked in the book for 5 min about throwing improvised weapons, AC, squares, etc. Then rolled d% with some made up number for the thing to catch fire. Whatever. Forget the damn book. How much fun would it be just to say "OK you throw the torch on the bed and it lights up right behind them."?
Done.
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I had a DM in second edition who maligned the existence of kits, he felt that the reliance on TSR to come up with characters stopped players from coming up with their own concepts and working with the DM could accomplish anything they needed.
I mostly agree with that DM.
@Vendis: My little brother once asked if he could make some sort of flashbang using Thunderstones, so we whipped up two versions: an alchemical sunrod/thunderstone combo and a more potent wondrous item with increased radius, duration, and DC. His kobold rogue loved those things!
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I don't care how you run your home game.
I do care when you come on the boards and make proclamations about how unbalanced and broken the game is, and then time shows you have added house rules to your home game that skew balance and break the game.
If you are happy in your home game, awesome. But you don't get to complain about it being broken if you are the one who broke it.
That's fine for your playstyle, but from my perspective I find it ludicrous that a fighter cannot shoot a longbow point blank without provoking but a wizard has a better than 70% chance cast a spell that murders everything within 60 feet, and even then doesn't provoke.Just get rid of the "casting defensively" option. It's pretty absurd to begin with.I don't see an issue with it.
All the wizard is doing is talking and waving his hands in an elaborate manner. I see the concentration check as him "keeping his nerves".
OK so maybe some ducking and dodging is involved also. :)
When you are trying to fire a bow all of that ducking and dodging would really mess your shot you.
2. I use the Diplomacy and Polymorph rules from GiTP.
4. Class abilities, feats, and magical effects that give extra attacks (such as TWF, Flurry of Blows, Haste, etc.) grant these extra attacks to standard action attacks as well (but only once during a full attack).
6. Iteratives and additional attacks from TWF, ITWF and GTWF are at +0/-5/-5/-5 instead of +0/-5/-10/-15.
I have been using the Diplomacy rules from GiTP for a while, but I have never seen the polymorph rules. Do you have a link.
As for 4 and 6 I was thinking of 4 as houserule. I will playtest it in my next game, and I will consider 6 also.
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That's fine for your playstyle, but from my perspective I find it ludicrous that a fighter cannot shoot a longbow point blank without provoking but a wizard has a better than 70% chance cast a spell that murders everything within 60 feet, and even then doesn't provoke.Just get rid of the "casting defensively" option. It's pretty absurd to begin with.I don't see an issue with it.All the wizard is doing is talking and waving his hands in an elaborate manner. I see the concentration check as him "keeping his nerves".
OK so maybe some ducking and dodging is involved also. :)
When you are trying to fire a bow all of that ducking and dodging would really mess your shot you.
You and I have very different ideas of magic! :)
You and I have very different ideas of magic! :)That's fine for your playstyle, but from my perspective I find it ludicrous that a fighter cannot shoot a longbow point blank without provoking but a wizard has a better than 70% chance cast a spell that murders everything within 60 feet, and even then doesn't provoke.Just get rid of the "casting defensively" option. It's pretty absurd to begin with.I don't see an issue with it.All the wizard is doing is talking and waving his hands in an elaborate manner. I see the concentration check as him "keeping his nerves".
OK so maybe some ducking and dodging is involved also. :)
When you are trying to fire a bow all of that ducking and dodging would really mess your shot you.
I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but Fighters (and Zen Archers and Rangers) can with the proper training do as you wish: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/point-blank-master-combat
I probably oversimplified it, but my point was that he is not required to stand in one spot why casting the spell. However all of the movement, dodging and so on, could make him lose the spell if he is too distracted by the greataxe trying to cleave him in half.
In a game the other day, the Fighter, torch in one hand and weapon in the other, entered a room. Inside were two baddies standing in front of a bed getting ready for battle. Instead of dropping the torch at his feet, the Fighter wanted to throw it onto the bed.
What happened?
Game stopped. GM looked in the book for 5 min about throwing improvised weapons, AC, squares, etc. Then rolled d% with some made up number for the thing to catch fire. Whatever. Forget the damn book. How much fun would it be just to say "OK you throw the torch on the bed and it lights up right behind them."?
Done.
That's the sort of thing I do all the time. If I -know- there are rules for it but don't know them, I might do a quick Google search or flip through the hardcopy (which is tabulated with little sticky note things to make it quicker), but if I am not sure or rule block is too long to read, I will just say, "Okay, the bed will catch fire in 1d4 rounds and start spreading."
I think two of my three players appreciate that, but not for the creativity aspect or anything - to them, it just speeds the game up, and they get to do the stuff they want to. The third player is the only other guy in the group that knows the rules as well or better than I do, and so if I do one of these ad lib rulings and it doesn't match up to what the book says or what he thinks it should be, there is a little tension, but it's not that big of a deal.
I think there are three kinds of things that could be considered "house rules".
- Campaign rules. These are mostly adjustments to the guidelines of the game. For example, when I GM, I use 15 or 20 point buy, and rule that players can have a maximum ability score of 17 and minimum of 10 (after racial adjustments). I also tell the players that there is no Magic-o-Mart that has every item in stock at book prices.
- Game etiquette. This comes down to asking everyone to play in a way that encourages everyone (including the GM) to have fun. My strongest suggestion here is that players don't focus on rules exploits. I ask players to avoid action-denial builds or excessive save-or-suck magic. I also ask that the players act as a team, not a bunch of lone-wolfs, or chaotic-stupid mental patients.
- Rule changes. These are actual changes to the rules. This is currently a very short list, but includes things like making 0-1 level detect spells operate on line-of-effect (no detecting through doors and walls).
By putting the focus on the first two, I generally avoid having to do much in the way of actual rule changes. I like this because it lets me keep more options in the game, rather then ban things because they could be exploited.
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The game assumes that a gm will pick monsters that are fair but challenging for the group. The only change you need to wreck / break pathfinder is to pick monsters based on story or taste rather than for how their stats play against the party.I don't care how you run your home game.
I do care when you come on the boards and make proclamations about how unbalanced and broken the game is, and then time shows you have added house rules to your home game that skew balance and break the game.
If you are happy in your home game, awesome. But you don't get to complain about it being broken if you are the one who broke it.
Nope. You go by CR you should be fine, regardless of what monster the GM picks as long as the players create a group rather than individuals who happen to travel together.
This is why I alway challenge people to pick an adventure path or module for comparison, since they can't know the make up of your group.
It is a team game, with everyone working together to fill all gaps.
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But simply because every time you post about a house-rule somebody else expresses dislike of it doesn't prove that people are against house-rules as a whole, it just shows that in the 100% subjective realm of houserules, SOMEBODY is likely to dislike your personal house-rule, thinking their house-rule is better, or it's better to stick with RAW.
I think it's also important to recognize that people express disatisfaction with the RAW, opinions that it's broken/unbalanced/whatever... ALL THE FREAKING TIME. So I just don't see some prejudice against house-ruling, albeit everybody has their own rationale for how they run their games (RAW vs. a little/alot of houserules).
I would say that on a 'board etiquette'/communication clarity basis, it's HIGHLY recommended to specifically call out when you are discussing a house-rule scenario (regardless of the forum/sub-forum you're in), and the same goes for 3.5/3rd Party Publisher material.
I agree with what your saying to a point. I most certainly always point out to a person where a suggestion is coming from be it 3.0 / 3.5 or a house rule.
One of the points i was trying to make (besides the obvious point) was that people try so hard to create a certain concept of a character but seems like the rules do not always allow it to be the way they want. So they end up settling for something close and therefor not as fun as they would like.Good debates on casting defensively also I never considered removing the non AoO from a 5ft. step.
My standard PF/3.5 House rules
1. Armor Check Penalty applies to Reflex saves
2. Evasion - requires them to use an immediate move action equal to 1/2 their move speed. (thats provokes AoO) - They gain a dodge bonus to AC on this move action equal to the level in the class that gave them evasion. The purpose is to gain cover of some sort to gain the benefit of evasion. The move has to be simplest/shortest move possible to achieve the protection from the effect... Could be as simple as dropping to the ground or diving behind another PC or wall.
3. Imp. Evasion "as above" but they can move their full move speed.
4. Infection Rules for wounds from Green Ronin Thieves World.
5. Retraining of Feats. But it cost gold/time and you must find an instructor to do the training.
I have more for custom games but those are standard for my PF/3.5 games.
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I have been using the Diplomacy rules from GiTP for a while, but I have never seen the polymorph rules. Do you have a link.
2. I use the Diplomacy and Polymorph rules from GiTP.
Are you guys referring to GiTP (Giants In the Playground)? I do not know the optional rules you are talking about for Diplomacy and Polymorph, I would love a link as well.
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2. Evasion - requires them to use an immediate move action equal to 1/2 their move speed. (thats provokes AoO) - They gain a dodge bonus to AC on this move action equal to the level in the class that gave them evasion. The purpose is to gain cover of some sort to gain the benefit of evasion. The move has to be simplest/shortest move possible to achieve the protection from the effect... Could be as simple as dropping to the ground or diving behind another PC or wall.
3. Imp. Evasion "as above" but they can move their full move speed.
Sweet, free movement. I'll get my caster buddy to help me maneuver into position.
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Sweet, free movement. I'll get my caster buddy to help me maneuver into position.2. Evasion - requires them to use an immediate move action equal to 1/2 their move speed. (thats provokes AoO) - They gain a dodge bonus to AC on this move action equal to the level in the class that gave them evasion. The purpose is to gain cover of some sort to gain the benefit of evasion. The move has to be simplest/shortest move possible to achieve the protection from the effect... Could be as simple as dropping to the ground or diving behind another PC or wall.
3. Imp. Evasion "as above" but they can move their full move speed.
Nope. No cigar for you... nice try though but i think like a player as well. lol As said above it has to be the shortest simplest move (Dm has final say). Usually involves dropping to the ground or stepping behind a fellow PC. larger moves cause AoO's.
- This solved several problems in my games.1. The AoO + Dodge bonus to AC from class that gave you evasion prevented a ton of dips for evasion. Which was an issue in my group as I have alot of NPC casters in my encounters.
2. The group, as a whole, had an issue with how evasion worked. So I am standing in the the middle of a 20 ft room and a fireball goes off... I make my evasion roll and no damage...? My group did not like that so we can up with this rule and it works very well.
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I used the rule for over 2 years but ironically PF came up with something similar...
Cartwheel Dodge
You use your knack for avoiding damage to reposition yourself in combat.
Prerequisites: Evasion class feature, improved evasion class feature, acrobatics 12 ranks.
Benefit: When you successfully use improved evasion to avoid taking damage, you can move up to half your speed as an immediate action. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity as normal.
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Personally I think PF is far too easy. A balanced, suboptimal party treats CR appropriate challenges as a walk through. The power of a well built team vs. cr is huge.The game assumes that a gm will pick monsters that are fair but challenging for the group. The only change you need to wreck / break pathfinder is to pick monsters based on story or taste rather than for how their stats play against the party.I don't care how you run your home game.
I do care when you come on the boards and make proclamations about how unbalanced and broken the game is, and then time shows you have added house rules to your home game that skew balance and break the game.
If you are happy in your home game, awesome. But you don't get to complain about it being broken if you are the one who broke it.
Nope. You go by CR you should be fine, regardless of what monster the GM picks as long as the players create a group rather than individuals who happen to travel together.
This is why I alway challenge people to pick an adventure path or module for comparison, since they can't know the make up of your group.
It is a team game, with everyone working together to fill all gaps.
Equal CR is supposed to be easy. A party should be able to do 4 equal CR challenges a day without serious issues or significant risk.
Equal CR encounters exist to burn resources to soften the party for the big fights.
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One thing I'd bear in mind is if someone's coming to the boards to ask for a ruling, that there's probably a reason house ruling isn't acceptable. For example:
- The issue is regarding PFS, as other posters have discussed
- A player and a GM are having a rules disagreement and one or the other is trying to get some meat to their argument by analyzing the rules
- A GM is trying to understand a rule better, or find a way around a rule without unintentionally breaking the game (a GOOD house rule fixes things, a BAD house rule can really mess things up)
- Someone is trying to understand the rules before they house rule away the issue
I don't think people disregard house ruling--simply that all the people who are using house rules that work don't really have a reason to come here and talk about it very often. :) People are going to come when they have a question or are frustrated than when everything's going right; it's the nature of the Internet. Remember that what you see on the message boards does not represent all gamers, just the gamers who have difficulty with something, and I try to give them the benefit of the doubt that they have a reason for having that difficulty (although often my advice is indeed "ask your GM to make the call").
Also as mentioned above, house rules aren't an automatic fix, necessarily. I have seen a GM implement a house rule without fully foreseeing the consequences, and then have the PCs suddenly get a boost in power. So sometimes double checking how a rule is supposed to work before changing it is a really wise idea.
House ruling is of course of value and every group I play with has their own set of house rules. When we have rules questions, it's usually because we have opposing interpretations we want to resolve before implementing a house rule, or not. Of course the GM has the last word, but the way my groups tend to work is the whole group discusses rules issues because more POVs on contentious issues generally ensures all options get explored before a ruling is made. When the GM makes the final call s/he makes sure everyone knows what it is clearly and that everyone understands the reasons why the call is made, and since they participated in how the GM got there, they don't feel like things are unfair. And if everyone knows about and agrees on the house rule ahead of time, that means happy GM and players and no arguments during session.
I like to know if people do alot of house rules or if your a core rule person and why?
My rule of thumb for myself is for any system I'm new to, FIRST run the system by the book as much as I possibly can. I want to understand fully the rules and how they work in practice before I start tinkering. I've encountered many situations where a rule ends up working differently than I imagined it to, and the rules I suspect need changing end up being fine, where the problem "rule" is often something entirely unexpected. Likewise, the house rules I've discovered in groups that are broken are ones that a GM implemented without playing RAW first to get a feel for it and didn't really understand the consequences of changing it.
THEN as I run, if we encounter problems with the rules as written, I may make a call and set it before the group to incorporate a house rule to fix an issue. I also take note of other problems that rise up, and also once I have a feel for the rules, I can also try some house rules for things I'd like to test, even if they didn't come up in the campaign (for example, now that I've played awhile, I feel like I need to test out running a game with pre-errata brass knuckles [with some further clarification], so monks can essentially more cheaply enchant their unarmed attacks, even though there weren't a lot of monks in my last campaign--no PCs and only a few NPCs).
So for my first Pathfinder campaign I had extremely few house rules, but for my next I'll have a few more now that I have a feel for the system.
Between the thread title and the original post, I'm confused. If a group believes there is an issue with a particular rule in the book, they house rule it. Isn't that being creative? Imaginative? I don't think the issue is with the specific house rules themselves, which some have decided to share, it's whether you are a slave to those rules, or the core.
ImperatorK: Yikes. Spoilers, broseph, not quotes.Don't know why, but that statement makes me laugh.
When I GM, I love situational modifiers. I don't mean just giving people a +2 on X roll because of favorable conditions or whatever. I mean, giving an entirely new or a very heightened effect for clever thinking and/or good planning.
Example:
** spoiler omitted **
YES! These are the kind of things I expected to see in this thread. Not letting the rules (house or core) bog the game down. Here's my example which is the direct opposite of Vendis'
In a game the other day, the Fighter, torch in one hand and weapon in the other, entered a room. Inside were two baddies standing in front of a bed getting ready for battle. Instead of dropping the torch at his feet, the Fighter wanted to throw it onto the bed.
What happened?
Game stopped. GM looked in the book for 5 min about throwing improvised weapons, AC, squares, etc. Then rolled d% with some made up number for the thing to catch fire. Whatever. Forget the damn book. How much fun would it be just to say "OK you throw the torch on the bed and it lights up right behind them."?
Done.
Yeah, agree on that. To be fair, the dms that have most slowed the game down looking for some obscure rule have been new guys in my experience. They want to rely on the rules for they are a bit anxious and take comfort in what the rules tell them. Vets will just go with it (or know even the obscure rules). I recall a guy who was normally a pathfinder dm was playing a 3.5 game with me as dm, and he said all the combat manoeuvres were far too complex, in that they are different checks. I disagreed, the sections were just long and not that well written, so it would take a while the first time you read it or if you hadn't read it before and wanted to know, how do I sunder? Or how do I grapple.
So to keep it damn simple, I hit the books after the game, and summarised all the combat manoeuvres on to one simple hand-written page. If this, do this, this applies, etc etc etc. Because, damn, as someone who has done a lot of editing, there was a lot that could be done. For the guy new to the system, he was greatly slowed and didn't get it. Then I explained why each was different, what it involved and why we didn't use pathfinder's CMD.
Wanting to rely on the rules is okay, but then you must know them whatever your game is. If you don't, it will take time to find what is written. If you truly though, truly want to keep stuff moving smoothly, you do a bit of prep, or you make things simpler and don't even bother making the research check to find what you are looking for. You want to throw a small status at someone and knock them off a ledge? Give me a str check and I'll make the luck roll. The wrong answer in that situation would be "let me try and look this up". There are plenty of ways to do things and keep it moving fast, with rolls and input from the players.
One thing I'd bear in mind is if someone's coming to the boards to ask for a ruling, that there's probably a reason house ruling isn't acceptable. For example:
- The issue is regarding PFS, as other posters have discussed
- A player and a GM are having a rules disagreement and one or the other is trying to get some meat to their argument by analyzing the rules
- A GM is trying to understand a rule better, or find a way around a rule without unintentionally breaking the game (a GOOD house rule fixes things, a BAD house rule can really mess things up)
- Someone is trying to understand the rules before they house rule away the issueI don't think people disregard house ruling--simply that all the people who are using house rules that work don't really have a reason to come here and talk about it very often. :) People are going to come when they have a question or are frustrated than when everything's going right; it's the nature of the Internet. Remember that what you see on the message boards does not represent all gamers, just the gamers who have difficulty with something, and I try to give them the benefit of the doubt that they have a reason for having that difficulty (although often my advice is indeed "ask your GM to make the call").
Also as mentioned above, house rules aren't an automatic fix, necessarily. I have seen a GM implement a house rule without fully foreseeing the consequences, and then have the PCs suddenly get a boost in power. So sometimes double checking how a rule is supposed to work before changing it is a really wise idea.
House ruling is of course of value and every group I play with has their own set of house rules. When we have rules questions, it's usually because we have opposing interpretations we want to resolve before implementing a house rule, or not. Of course the GM has the last word, but the way my groups tend to work is the whole group discusses rules issues because more POVs on contentious issues generally ensures all options get explored before a ruling is made....
Yeah, that can flow and be a good idea, to try it all by the book first. Reminds me of a vampire game. We were doing a bit of hack and slash and we had to learn how to dodge and keep our characters alive. We finally understood the mechanic, and rocked pretty hard for a while. Then, the dm changed how dodge was done, what was rolled, it was just so confusing. Then we got chopped up and died. Before we had knowledge and confidence, then we had confusion and lost.
Ah yes, that one DM. I remember him. He asked if his I would allow his cleric's deity to descend and save his hide while I was running the crimson throne campaign. Amusing times. He also wanted to change the rules on intimidate. He wasn't happy his cleric could be intimidated. Being a man of faith should put you above that. I told him there was an easy way to be immune to intimidate: play a paladin. He didn't want to.
Hmmn, I did forget a houserule we've been using since we started Pathfinder; if you specialize as a wizard, you also get one extra cantrip (of your school, of course) per day. We usually give this to universalists, too (arcane mark or prestidigitation? Sure...)
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I agree with you for all things that are home games.
but.
Pathfinder Society operates under The Rules. Not the rules as altered by your DM or the rules as some dude on the internet say they are but the rules as they are supposed to be as written by the designers.
Yeah but, I don't really think they are even trying. I'm playing in my first PFS game this next week and I've already lost all respect for it. Apparently if I wear a T-Shirt that says "Pathfinder" on it I get to make a free reroll, and apparently my paladin isn't allowed to share gold with other PCs.
Worrying about what the game designers are trying to do when they put crap like this in there after the fact is really pointless. I have a hard enough time dealing with RAW. I can't believe whats in the PFS manual.
yes, but here's the main difference. In a home game, you're not facing the possibility of groups of players farming gold off of disposable PCs to gain an unfair advantage. In PFS that potential would exist without the "thou shall not give GP/Items/Etc to other PCs". It sucks, but it is a valid solution to that potential problem (which would be exploited by certain types).
As to house rules in general, I'm all for them for home games. For a prebuilt campaign (such as an AP), I will stick primarily to the rules it was designed around, though there are eventually tweaks.
For a complete homebrew, the core ruleset still is in place (i.e. - I am probably not going to completely revamp the combat system or magic system), but there can be tweaks on all things from level of magic, the pantheon, tweaks amongst the various races, allowed/disallowed feats/spells/classes/archetypes/races, mechanical differences in some aspects of the combat or magic systems, etc. It all depends on the type of game the folks I play with and I want to play.
One other thing that was brought up was that having a solid ruleset diminishes creativity. That makes no sense to me. If the ruleset is solid enough for you and your game, great. If not you tweak it. You still need creativity to create a compelling storyline with fleshed out and interesting NPCs. This in not something that the ruleset really dictates.
I have lots of house rules... One of the oldest is a haggling mechanic that a guy just made up on the spot, we've used it for years now.
I'd really like to hear more details about this, if you don't mind. Sounds cool!
My group has been strangely resistant to house rules, and it's been bugging me lately. Whatever house rules we DO have are more the product of ingrained habit acquired through outdated or misinterpreted rules (we had been getting AoO details wrong for a long time until someone took Come and Get Me and started trying to figure out some of its applications; and I don't know why/where it came from, but for some reason we've been locked into the assumption that you can only say six words per round in combat, and that you can only speak on your turn).
I guess part of the issue is that we've got one player who is very mechanics-heavy in his outlook, so messing with the published rules would be a potential source for conflict. I'd personally love to try and shake things up to make combats a little more cinematic, but whattaya gonna do?
I don't think there's a dearth of creativity out there. What I see in all of the questions, debates over RAW, and all that is a lack of ownership. There aren't enough GMs really taking ownership of their games and the rulings they make in the process of running them.
The way I see it, if you don't know a rule, don't like a rule, are faced with an action a PC wants to take that isn't covered by a rule, the GM should think for a moment, take ownership of the situation, and make a ruling that makes sense for the situation at hand.
