Toughest GM call you've had to make?

I'm looking for really good examples of the extremes of GMing — those situations that arise in which there are no good precedents in the rules. These things do happen, and it falls to the GM to make the call, often without enough time to practice solid game design.

What is the toughest ad-hoc GM ruling you've had to make in Pathfinder RPG? What was the situation? How did you rule in the end? Are you happy with the ruling? What would you rule today if faced with the same situation?

Also, I'd like to keep this specific to Pathfinder RPG.

I'm looking for really good examples of the extremes of GMing — those situations that arise in which there are no good precedents in the rules. These things do happen, and it falls to the GM to make the call, often without enough time to practice solid game design.

What is the toughest ad-hoc GM ruling you've had to make in Pathfinder RPG? What was the situation? How did you rule in the end? Are you happy with the ruling? What would you rule today if faced with the same situation?

Also, I'd like to keep this specific to Pathfinder RPG.

Mine is ignoring all of the crappy "is this evil" threads on this board...

Should a Shadowdancer be able to shadowstep out of being in a dragon's mouth due to a Snatch maneuver?

Ultimately I allowed it as I couldn't find a reason not to, but it was and is very much against my strongest instincts.

Toughest has to be removing a longtime friend from our group due to ongoing problems with everyone in the group.

Realizing I could not run an 8 player party when 2 of the players could not/would not take the time to learn the 3.5 ruleset and telling them so without leaving bad blood between us.

Honestly, the toughest rules call I have to make usually involves some stupid exception I allowed because it 'makes sense'. I have one player who really likes to play the rules to their fullest, and if I give even slightly on a core concept, he abuses it to it's fullest.

So, I end up having to be really strict with that one player, which often means looking up rules in mid-game. One example is being asked if he can use Acrobatics to get up from prone as a free action. I assume it's to avoid an AOO, which sounds plausible to me; as a martial artist, I know the benefits of being able to get to one's feet while avoiding attack and what's more, I know it works.

Suddenly, he's finding all sorts of uses for this "free action" that's not counting as a move action. My fault, 100%, but it's frustrating.

After a particularly distasteful game where they started breaking the fingers of an NPC to get him to tell them who his employer was, telling my players that I was not going to run an evil game and if that sort of thing happened again I would seriously have to consider dropping the campaign entirely.

I don't care HOW pissed they were that he was an assassin and just offed the wizard's familiar.

Edit:

One example is being asked if he can use Acrobatics to get up from prone as a free action. I assume it's to avoid an AOO, which sounds plausible to me; as a martial artist, I know the benefits of being able to get to one's feet while avoiding attack and what's more, I know it works.

Suddenly, he's finding all sorts of uses for this "free action" that's not counting as a move action. My fault, 100%, but it's frustrating.

There may be 3.5e feat for this (and I recall never liking it). Also, according to the 3.5e SRD, getting up from prone as a free action is a DC 35 Tumble check - which doesn't avoid the AoO. On the other hand, tumbling to avoid an AoO is a DC 15 check (DC 25 if you are in an enemy's space), and I would apply the -10 modifier for accelerated tumbling if someone were trying to stand as a free action; that's certainly not half speed movement.

Thus, according to my interpretation of the rules, the player should be subject to two Tumble checks: a DC 35 check to stand up as a free action, and a DC 25 or DC 35 check (depending on whether an enemy is in their space) to avoid the AoO. Not that multiple enemies increases the DC by +2 for each after the first.

I had a player well up in tears, but not quite burst into the sob. The BBEG was just about to fall, but hit and killed the PC by 1 point..

At the time I was doing public dice rolls, for transparency.

... The full blown sob from the player was about 1-2 seconds away...

So, I looked around the table rather alarmed, and another player threw me an idea. "Wouldn't they get a height bonus?"

And as a GM I don't see myself in the business of absolute simulationalism to the point that I have to make people miserable. Plus the player was moving away soon anyway...So I took it and ran with it.

"Yeah, that would give the a 1 point bonus to their AC, yeah!"

Which was not the rules, but I sold it. The player exhaled a huge sigh of relief. The BBEG was defeated after a properly tough battle, and everybody had a good time.

It was in a 3.5 game during a very high level adventure (17th level or so if I recall). The party was in a keep inside a volcano on the Plane of Fire. There was a little girl (5 years old) who had been kidnapped from the material plane by an Efreeti cult that believed the girl would one day grow up and destroy the Plane of Fire and bring about an endless Ice Age on the material plane. The rest of the party was inside the keep battling the cults army of fire elementals. The wounded Efreeti leader used the battle as a distraction to sneak outside to sacrifice the little girl. Luckily the fighter was already outside. He drew his bow and rolled extremely well and killed the Efreeti leader.

The fighter could hear more Efreeti's on the far side of the wall to the keep and he knew he didn't have much time to get to the girls position if he wanted to protect her. Unfortunately there was a lake of magma between them. So the fighter decides that the little girls life is more important than his well being and dives into the magma (20d6 per round) and began to swim to the other side.

This was the first and only time I have ever fudged any rolls. I really wanted him to succeed because it was cool. But even fudging the dice he hadn't even made it half way. So I let him make fort saves to reduce the damage. But when I calculated that his HP at something like -80 (even after fudging) I finally had to tell him that he had died just as he reached the far shores. That was tough for me because it not only meant that his super heroic action was a failure, but that the whole party had failed their mission and let a little girl die. I don't like killing off children.

Toughest call I've ever had to make is the first time I killed one of my younger daughter's characters. Her character, a druid, had bravely rushed in to deliver a crucial touch attack to the BBEG, a hill giant cleric, absorbing a powerful attack of opportunity on the way in. Her attack succeeded (I don't remember what spell) setting the BBEG up for defeat. However, she was now trapped inside the creature's full attack range, and no way she was going to survive that. So I had to either fudge the rolls or kill my daughter's character. She was looking right at me with her big 11-year old doe eyes, the ones all females of the species know instinctively how to employ to break our hearts. I sighed and rolled the dice. No fudging. Triple digit damage. Instant death.

To her credit, there were no tears, and no protests. In fact, she was kind of proud of how heroically her character had died and acted much more mature about it than many adults I know would have. I have cool kids. Must have gotten it from their mother.

I once had a player (some arcane caster) say he wanted to pick up some dirt to throw in an enemy's face (enemy had no AoO's remaining) to blind it. Since he was standing on rather healthy grass, I asked for a DC 3 strength check to rip up some earth.

He failed.

Honestly, the toughest rules call I have to make usually involves some stupid exception I allowed because it 'makes sense'. I have one player who really likes to play the rules to their fullest, and if I give even slightly on a core concept, he abuses it to it's fullest.

So, I end up having to be really strict with that one player, which often means looking up rules in mid-game. One example is being asked if he can use Acrobatics to get up from prone as a free action. I assume it's to avoid an AOO, which sounds plausible to me; as a martial artist, I know the benefits of being able to get to one's feet while avoiding attack and what's more, I know it works.

Suddenly, he's finding all sorts of uses for this "free action" that's not counting as a move action. My fault, 100%, but it's frustrating.

I have had a couple players like this. One of them was a fellow who really knew the rules until he wanted to pull something and suddenly he was rules illiterate. I let him get away with a lot and regretted it. If I was running a game with him now I would have been a lot tougher on him.

I was running a game where an Enchanter had enslaved a number of wizards and used them to create a magical item sweat shop. (by taking away their spellbooks and only letting them prepare certain spells) The wizards were forced to comply because the young daughter of the waizards was basically entralled. And the wizards couldn't even look at her because exploding Runes was scribed on her face.

The PC's, after some intense battles, defeated the enchanter and were in the process of trying to free the wizards when A PC decided to grapple the daughter to stop her tantrum.

I fudged teh rules to allow the PC's saves to not look, which they failed. The blast would have killed the daughter and ALL the PC's in their weakened post battle state, and to prevent the campaign from ending and failing all the quests I said "the recently freed wizard conterspelled the effect as it went off". And reasoned that the wizard had the spell prepared already to work on crafting more exploding runes.

It was hard not to kill the players for their poor playing, but we were having so much fun i didn't want it to end there.

I was a game master for a class of 12 middle school players, 3 of whom were diagnosed with ADHD and one of whom was off his meds "as an experiment," according to his mom. They all had fun and that's what counts. it just required tons and tons of energy.

So the "tough call" was to roll with it, rather than start drinking.

Thus, according to my interpretation of the rules, the player should be subject to two Tumble checks: a DC 35 check to stand up as a free action, and a DC 25 or DC 35 check (depending on whether an enemy is in their space) to avoid the AoO. Not that multiple enemies increases the DC by +2 for each after the first.

Yeah, I was nowhere near that tough on him. I have the tendency to make a ruling based on the situation at hand. It's served me pretty well because, honestly, I've never gamed with anyone that interested in twisting the rules until now. My previous players would have taken my light ruling as generosity and appreciated it, not tried to find a loophole they could use that ruling in again in the future to avoid other rules. I've had to learn the hard way to either stop and look up the rule if I don't know it or say "this is how I'm ruling this time, but if I find an official ruling, I'm going to implement it in the future." Stinks that I have to cover myself like that, but letting one player exploit my generosity isn't fair to the others.

I once had a player (some arcane caster) say he wanted to pick up some dirt to throw in an enemy's face (enemy had no AoO's remaining) to blind it. Since he was standing on rather healthy grass, I asked for a DC 3 strength check to rip up some earth.

He failed.

Not a "tough call" situation, but a fun, similar story nonetheless. The group is fighting a fire elemental, and they are all pretty low level and are having trouble with his DR. The wizard decides that he is going to try and pump water from a nearby hand-pump and start dumping it on the elemental (the cleric, who ALWAYS prepares create water, had decided not to today).

Wizard goes over and the pump is badly rusted and hasn't been used in a hundred odd years, so I figure a DC 10 Str check to get it going. Wizard rolls a 1 and strains his back, leaving him prone on the ground.

The cleric, not, for the moment, concerned about the wizard, but liking the idea goes over and tries again. Rolls a 1. Prone on the ground with a strained back.

Rogue decides that he must now do this because he is better and stronger than everyone else (not really, but that's his character), and besides, it is a decent idea. Goes over. And, yup... rolls a 1.

Finally the fighter thinks "hmm, that pump is taking out all my allies as I sit here getting destroyed by this fire elemental. I'll just break the pump off and let the resulting spray of water kill the elemental, because that's how these things work...." So he chucks his sword at the pump as hard as he can... and rolls a 1, lodging his sword in the lever mechanism and jamming it.

I guess the closest I came to a "tough call" was how to avoid a total party wipe at this point. I decide the fire elemental just sort of gives up and watches, laughing, as the party destroys itself. He lets the fighter pick up his groaning, incapacitated comrades and walk out alive. He has to leave his sword, though.

I was running a 3.5 campaign set in the kingdoms of kalamar setting. the group had made noise about using firearms and gunpowder in the campaign "just to try it out". so i agreed, and researched the rules and adjusted the adventure accordingly.
everyone started out at 5th level. one guy decided to be a rifleman, and bought 10lbs of the powder, divided between 3 powder horns, each holding 1lb of powder, and a keg holding the last 7lbs.
their job was to go into the moutains and seek a path to the otherside for the kalamar army. resistance was expected, but unknown to the type. so they went in expecting drow and driders. i designed the mountains with orcs and kobolds.
their first encounter was with the kobolds. the kobolds were led by a 1st level rogue. through the fighting, the wizard rolled a nat 1 on an attack, so i told him that he dropped his wand of fireball.
the rogue kobold, seeing "oooo shiny", dove and successfully snatched up the wand. laughter burst out from everyone as i mimed the way the kobold held it up. i then stated that there is an XX% chance, i forget what, that he would attempt to use it. so i rolled and i made it. made my UMD skill for the kobold, and then KABOOM!
all the pcs had to make a REF save, and we had a house rule stating that anything flammable caught in any time of flames had to make a ref save. unfortunetly, the powder keg failed, and it cooked off. i think the rule was 1d6 dmg per ounce of powder used in improvised grenade (ie throwing your powder horn). laughter went away as they saw me pull out 112 d6 for damage.

i wasnt allowed to dm again for a year... :(

Toughest call I had to make was allowing the party to be TPK'd. I'm not a killer DM and generally have players play the same character for the entirety of one of my campaigns (which can go on for years). But this one instance was just fate. The encounter wasn't even a very difficult one, but the PC's all rolled horribly round after round and even though I fudged my rolls to take it easy on them they wound up getting taken out. Everyone felt awful.

Fortunately, I had one of my best campaigns to date right after that one but we still bring that one TPK campaign up every once in a while.

Toughest call I had to make was allowing the party to be TPK'd. I'm not a killer DM and generally have players play the same character for the entirety of one of my campaigns (which can go on for years). But this one instance was just fate. The encounter wasn't even a very difficult one, but the PC's all rolled horribly round after round and even though I fudged my rolls to take it easy on them they wound up getting taken out. Everyone felt awful.

Fortunately, I had one of my best campaigns to date right after that one but we still bring that one TPK campaign up every once in a while.

That's the sucky part for me, too. Great player, fun character, does everything right, dies anyway.

Them's the breaks...

Allowing a (single) character to survive a completely impossible encounter. Somehow. . . for *some* reason. . . I let them worm their way out it.

I was a game master for a class of 12 middle school players, 3 of whom were diagnosed with ADHD and one of whom was off his meds "as an experiment," according to his mom. They all had fun and that's what counts. it just required tons and tons of energy.

I would have carried a stun gun just in case. . . .

Toughest call I have made to date as a GM is to become one for a player that has been one for over a decade.

It's my first time running anything, and its a highly political campaign where his character's intent is to become the Emperor of Taldor and reclaim all its lost provinces. So, yeah, it's tough.

I've been working my tail off misdirecting him, I think, getting him all upset about the emotions displayed by the Bard NPC I've sent, essentially, to do all the boring "hey, we need the sewers drained in our kingdom and you have to talk to 500 people to get it done" work as he's starting out, and forcing a choice between her and his perfect queen NPC for the passed few sessions when there really isn't one at all.

But yeah, GMing is a tough call, always. When discussing game with your players, how much do you allow to slip as you're trying to set up their challenges? It's really hard to know, for me.

I once had a dragon encounter with my group in 3.5. The dragon was making maximum use of the hover mechanics and was blasting the PCs with breath while biting them from maximum reach (dragons have big reach with their bite weapon). The plan was to have the dragon fight like this until he was at 50% life, then he'd drop and fight them in melee.

All their ranged weapons were practically ineffective against the dragon's AC (he was APL + 4, very difficult). Spells all failed against his SR. Melee couldn't get close to him - the PCs didn't have a fly spell available and they were mostly melee-based. The PCs couldn't run because the dragon could move faster than all of them, even while hovering.

So basically I had a choice -- either let them all die or make up some crap.

As an ad-hoc rule, I basically let them have the Strike Back feat for free (ready an action to strike an attacking creature with reach). Allowing melee to hit him let his HP drop until he eventually landed (and got slaughtered). In retrospect, I *never* would do that now. A dragon that strong should most likely kill the party.

In the toughest choice I've made in the last couple of years, I chose poorly.

Campaign Background
That campaign was set in a bubble universe. Generations ago, as humans see things, there was a war in which someone killed, as inpermanently slew, the God of War. (If you're familiar with the backstory for the Chainmail miniatures game, it was much like that.) So the other gods panicked and set the PC's continent in its own sealed demiplane until everyone who was alive at the time died. And elves live a long time; liches, even longer.

The gods had given the demiplane twelve powerful guardians (if I can rip-off Chainmail, I can rip off Steven King, too.) that could supply power to clerics wishing to cast spells, but would otherwise act to keep the boundaries secure. And I set up two of the guardians to be succeptible to corruption, for high-level storylines.

But the gods had wiped knowledge of themselves from the world. Everybody remembered that there had been gods, but nothing else. How many deities, their names, portfolios, ... nothing. Almost no physical records remained. Temples were stripped bare. The clues that did remain were vague and raised more questions than they answered.

And a new player wanted to join the campaign. A very long-term DM herself (her campaign from 1979 is still running) she wanted to play a cleric, and the idea of the actual gods intrigued her. Was there a way she could play a cleric of those gods?

The Choice I Blew
I was torn between (a) keeping the backstory of my campaign pristine, and (b) accomodating her wishes. I'd established that there had been powerful time magic involved in some aspects of the war. It was certainly possible that a cleric might have been torn out of time and then reappear in the present. Since she wasn't around when the memory purge swept through the world. She'd be alone, withut her temple brethren. Without her god. And with 12 very powerful guardians looking to kill her.

I agreed. I explained the history of the gods as her character would have understood them.

And so we introduced her as the party broke open a long-lost vault and released her from her time-lock. And then, as news of the character rippled through the world, the player's schedule changed and she had to drop out.

I had already broken some of the important tenets of my campaign, for no good reason.

--

I once had a dragon encounter with my group in 3.5. The dragon was making maximum use of the hover mechanics and was blasting the PCs with breath while biting them from maximum reach (dragons have big reach with their bite weapon). The plan was to have the dragon fight like this until he was at 50% life, then he'd drop and fight them in melee. All their ranged weapons were practically ineffective against the dragon's AC (he was APL + 4, very difficult). Spells all failed against his SR. Melee couldn't get close to him - the PCs didn't have a fly spell available and they were mostly melee-based. The PCs couldn't run because the dragon could move faster than all of them, even while hovering.

Something like that happened recently in a 3.5 campaign I was playing in. At 9th level, we faced a huge water elemental. One character was all about sneak attack damage and poisons. Another, 2-weapon fighter ws all about doing lots of small-damage attacks per round. I was playing a bard. We had a half-dragon monk, all about flurry of blows.

None of which meant squat against a character with spell resistance, immunity to poison, DR and no discernable anatomy. It just kept hitting us and hitting us. Finally, as we were each one blow away from dropping, I looked at the DM and asked, "Have we taken its hit points down to double digits yet?"

"Nope."

"How did you expect us to attack it?"

"Hadn't occurred to me. You did such short work of the umber hulk last week."

The next round, we noticed a hole in the ceiling with a rope hanging down.

None of which meant squat against a character with spell resistance, immunity to poison, DR and no discernable anatomy. It just kept hitting us and hitting us. Finally, as we were each one blow away from dropping, I looked at the DM and asked, "Have we taken its hit points down to double digits yet?"

"Nope."

"How did you expect us to attack it?"

"Hadn't occurred to me. You did such short work of the umber hulk last week."

The next round, we noticed a hole in the ceiling with a rope hanging down.

Sometimes encounters like this are actually great... they do a lot to build party cohesion amongst the survivors. It's great that now the next time they run into something like that, the party will retreat in lock-step or else employ an agreed-upon plan. That's actually good gaming, though it comes at the high price of humiliation.

Chris Mortika wrote:

None of which meant squat against a character with spell resistance, immunity to poison, DR and no discernable anatomy. It just kept hitting us and hitting us. Finally, as we were each one blow away from dropping, I looked at the DM and asked, "Have we taken its hit points down to double digits yet?"

"Nope."

"How did you expect us to attack it?"

"Hadn't occurred to me. You did such short work of the umber hulk last week."

The next round, we noticed a hole in the ceiling with a rope hanging down.

Sometimes encounters like this are actually great... they do a lot to build party cohesion amongst the survivors. It's great that now the next time they run into something like that, the party will retreat in lock-step or else employ an agreed-upon plan. That's actually good gaming, though it comes at the high price of humiliation.

what i like to do sometimes is to have the party encounter a creature that far exceeds their party level capabilities. its not because i like to do a TPK, but to teach the group that it is ok to run away, or avoid the encounter.

I agree. (This wasn't an avoidable or optional encounter until that hole and rope appeared.)

Jiggy wrote:

I once had a player (some arcane caster) say he wanted to pick up some dirt to throw in an enemy's face (enemy had no AoO's remaining) to blind it. Since he was standing on rather healthy grass, I asked for a DC 3 strength check to rip up some earth.

He failed.

Not a "tough call" situation, but a fun, similar story nonetheless. The group is fighting a fire elemental, and they are all pretty low level and are having trouble with his DR. The wizard decides that he is going to try and pump water from a nearby hand-pump and start dumping it on the elemental (the cleric, who ALWAYS prepares create water, had decided not to today).

Wizard goes over and the pump is badly rusted and hasn't been used in a hundred odd years, so I figure a DC 10 Str check to get it going. Wizard rolls a 1 and strains his back, leaving him prone on the ground.

The cleric, not, for the moment, concerned about the wizard, but liking the idea goes over and tries again. Rolls a 1. Prone on the ground with a strained back.

Rogue decides that he must now do this because he is better and stronger than everyone else (not really, but that's his character), and besides, it is a decent idea. Goes over. And, yup... rolls a 1.

Finally the fighter thinks "hmm, that pump is taking out all my allies as I sit here getting destroyed by this fire elemental. I'll just break the pump off and let the resulting spray of water kill the elemental, because that's how these things work...." So he chucks his sword at the pump as hard as he can... and rolls a 1, lodging his sword in the lever mechanism and jamming it.

I guess the closest I came to a "tough call" was how to avoid a total party wipe at this point. I decide the fire elemental just sort of gives up and watches, laughing, as the party destroys itself. He lets the fighter pick up his groaning, incapacitated comrades and walk out alive. He has to leave his sword, though.

First rule in avoiding TPK - not causing arbitrary and significantly penalizing effects of rolling a 1, especially on rolls that are not attacks and thus where a 1 has exactly zero effect by the rules.

First rule in avoiding TPK - not causing arbitrary and significantly penalizing effects of rolling a 1, especially on rolls that are not attacks and thus where a 1 has exactly zero effect by the rules.

Don't you know that adventurers spend roughly 5% of their lives as unlucky, bumbling idiots? I know that my players need to make balance checks for every move action ever, so once every minute or so (whenever they roll a 1) they stumble...into lava and/or dog poo (whatver makes for a "more interesting story" at the time). And making a spot check? Yeah, every 20 times they try to see something a hungry bird flies by and plucks out their eyes. Forgery? That ink they were using turns out to be highly poisonous; Fortitude save or die. You don't even want to know what happens when a player rolls a 1 on a concentration check to urinate in a public bathroom...

Ringtail, I suspect that many of those situations are out of combat, and allow the character to Take Ten. (At least, I'm hoping that characters aren't trying to pee in a public bathroom during combat. But nervous bladders are what they are, and sometimes you gotta go.)

I'm not a fan of "a roll of '1' is an automatic fumble for whatever you're doing" but I don't mind the "a roll of '1' is a threat of fumble" analogous to critical hits.

Ringtail, I suspect that many of those situations are out of combat, and allow the character to Take Ten. (At least, I'm hoping that characters aren't trying to pee in a public bathroom during combat. But nervous bladders are what they are, and sometimes you gotta go.)

I'm not a fan of "a roll of '1' is an automatic fumble for whatever you're doing" but I don't mind the "a roll of '1' is a threat of fumble" analogous to critical hits.

Dog poo and public bathrooms don't count as dangerous/stressful circumstances that prevent taking ten?

First rule in avoiding TPK - not causing arbitrary and significantly penalizing effects of rolling a 1, especially on rolls that are not attacks and thus where a 1 has exactly zero effect by the rules.

Normally I try not to. My players really like having horrible things happen to them, though, and get perversely excited anytime anybody rolls a 1. I felt obliged to indulge them when the first one happened, and it was particularly exacerbated by the fact that the wizard was of venerable age and had a strength score of 4.

As each successive person rolled ones, they all declared that they too had pulled their backs and began rolling around helplessly on the ground.

I'm not a fan of "a roll of '1' is an automatic fumble for whatever you're doing" but I don't mind the "a roll of '1' is a threat of fumble" analogous to critical hits.

I've started using this rule recently, not because of the story above, but just because it makes sense to me, to great success. A 1 is an auto-failure on any roll where it would be a fumble. Roll again against the same DC. Any failure means a critical failure. Any success means a normal failure. If the person has critical focus or some similar effect, they get the +4 on their fumble confirm rolls if they also would have gotten it on a critical confirmation roll.