| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Saying someone is cheating carries a moral implication. If you aren't trying to make a moral implication, that people making house rules is immoral, than you should stop using the term for this discussion.I'm glad that you object to the term so strongly. You should.
A good number of people on these 'fudging' threads give the following advice: "never let your players know".
Why?
First a sub-group of them say never let your players know that you will 'fudge' dice rolls at all, as they (reasonably) won't trust your results after that. I see that we've abandoned defense of this.
That has nothing to do with anything I said in my post.
You say fudging is cheating. On page 402 it says the GM is allowed to change any outcome or rule as they see fit. It's in the book, therefore it can't be cheating. Therefore, any analogy you make to cheating is incorrect.
you are the law in your world, and you shouldn't feel bound by the dice.
You can make a moral claim about the game itself and Paizo's writing staff, but you can't claim a GM is cheating. It's printed in the book that the GM is allowed to do it. I just quoted it. Please address how following the rules in the book is cheating.
Any statement you make about how fudging is bad is just personal opinion. It's in the rule book, but the power is given to the GM's discretion. Since it's in the rule book, it is part of the game. You can't claim people who are doing what it says in the rule book are cheating at the game, that is in fact the opposite meaning of cheating. You may dislike fudging, but your personal preference cannot be used as a moral judgement on other people.
[ridiculous hyperbole]It is actually more accurate to say that removing the GM's authority to fudge rolls is cheating. You aren't following the rulebook, therefore cheating. [/ridiculous hyperbole]
Saying someone is cheating carries a moral implication. If you aren't trying to make a moral implication, that people making house rules is immoral, than you should stop using the term for this discussion.I'm glad that you object to the term so strongly. You should.
A good number of people on these 'fudging' threads give the following advice: "never let your players know".
Why?
First a sub-group of them say never let your players know that you will 'fudge' dice rolls at all, as they (reasonably) won't trust your results after that. I see that we've abandoned defense of this.
That has nothing to do with anything I said in my post.
You say fudging is cheating. On page 402 it says the GM is allowed to change any outcome or rule as they see fit. It's in the book, therefore it can't be cheating. Therefore, any analogy you make to cheating is incorrect.
you are the law in your world, and you shouldn't feel bound by the dice.You can make a moral claim about the game itself and Paizo's writing staff, but you can't claim a GM is cheating. It's printed in the book that the GM is allowed to do it. I just quoted it. Please address how following the rules in the book is cheating.
Any statement you make about how fudging is bad is just personal opinion. It's in the rule book, but the power is given to the GM's discretion. Since it's in the rule book, it is part of the game. You can't claim people who are doing what it says in the rule book are cheating at the game, that is in fact the opposite meaning of cheating. You may dislike fudging, but your personal preference cannot be used as a moral judgement on other people.
[ridiculous hyperbole]It is actually more accurate to say that removing the GM's authority to fudge rolls is cheating. You aren't following the rulebook, therefore cheating. [/ridiculous hyperbole]
Actually it is cheating. The book even says so according to my post on the previous page, but the book also says it is better to cheat sometimes than it is to let the dice run the game.
Actually it is cheating. The book even says so according to my post on the previous page, but the book also says it is better to cheat sometimes than it is to let the dice run the game.
They use the word cheating, but it doesn't bring across the meaning they are trying to achieve, so add the word fudging and go on to define what fudging is.
The thing is though, that something cannot logically be cheating when it is also considered an acceptable practice. Cheating is an unacceptable practice, therefore anything that is acceptable behavior cannot be cheating.
Therefore, if someone describes an acceptable behavior at their table, calling that cheating only serves to be inflammatory and judgmental.
House rules alter the rules for one specific table. Fudging is on-the-fly house rules by the GM. Some people may not like fudging, but that is merely their preference of play style. Imposing that preference as a moral judgment is perhaps the highest magnitude of arrogance in gaming.
You may dislike fudging, but your personal preference cannot be used as a moral judgement on other people.
+1
And it is just unecessary. We could have confined this debate to the merits of fudging vs not fudging, and discussed (as we have been) how different GMs and players prefer different things.
It is just common courtesy to avoid insulting someone if you can. There was just no need for anyone to attack fudging as morally wrong - even if that is how you feel.
Is it really too much to ask that you defend your postion without calling some of us bad people?
|
Oh and Mr. Marco Polo? Yeah, many of you no fudgers wouldn't like him. He does stuff like:
- Jumping off a roof to slam into the wall of another building in hopes of knocking it down onto a roomful of goblins. (It was a rather badly build structure, so he thought. He did knock a bit of dust off the walls though.)
- Jumping boots-first onto a goblin with the express intention of doing lethal damage
- Grabbing a goblin by the legs and dunking it head first into a boiling pot of clam chowder
- Using a goblin as a club
- Using a goblin as a thrown weapon
- Drop kicking a goblin
- Using a goblin as a landing pad (do you detect a pattern here?)
Does he play a lot of Blood Bowl?
I think he'd quite like the Greenskins team.
Is it really too much to ask that you defend your postion without calling some of us bad people?
Yes, because some of us...you are bad people and not stating that would be a lie of ommission and some posters can no stand for a lie.
That said, Air Breathers suck...Truth be free!
Do what they did to Mr. Fishy threaten him with an ECL.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You say that, but...Well, the computer doesn't let me do that.Computers don't cheat. ^-^
Actually, you can also cheat solitaire on the computer. If you hold the Shift-Ctrl-Alt down while dealing a card; it deals one instead of three. So while not guaranteeing a win, it significantly increases your odds of winning.
For the record, I fudge rolls occasionally. I don't consider it cheating. And I let my players know up front that I do it; I don't tell them during games when I actually am. We play to have fun, not to let the dice ruin an evening's enjoyment.
If you don't like fudging, that's cool. Just don't accuse me of being an evil person. While we are adults; we are playing a game. It's not brain surgery. Have a nice day.
:)
Why wouldn't you just simply say 'Okay you wanted to be an _____, so I'll let you' rather than purport that 'Yeah I rolled that 1% chance, what luck!'.
In many cases, like reincarnate cases or situations in which the random probabilities have given you an unlikely outcome (crit with a greatsword, 6s on most of the d6s rolled for damage, etc) it's less a case of getting a specific desired outcome as much as it is bounding the results in an ad hoc way. Reincarnating player rolls a result that wouldn't be easily playable given the situation (or one the DM or player would find difficult to work into the campaign), so the DM bumps it to the closest more agreeable outcome on the table. Particularly unlucky roll for the PCs (lucky for the NPC) yields damage at the upper end of the range and far away from the mean so the DM knocks some of the rolled damage off. Neither is looking for a particular outcome, just looking to rule out other outcomes as not fitting the moment.
That erodes trust in impartiality, in what is generating the 'random' events, etc. Perhaps you have this 'awesome' story to tell... I've seen that in many DMs. The problem is it's an RPG game and not story time or a book reading.
It may not be quite as passive as reading a book in the sense that the participating reader cannot affect the outcome, but in all RPGs there is definitely an element of story time. The players have their input, the dice have their input, and the DM has his input.
It may not be quite as passive as reading a book in the sense that the participating reader cannot affect the outcome, but in all RPGs there is definitely an element of story time. The players have their input, the dice have their input, and the DM has his input.That erodes trust in impartiality, in what is generating the 'random' events, etc. Perhaps you have this 'awesome' story to tell... I've seen that in many DMs. The problem is it's an RPG game and not story time or a book reading.
I have to agree here. James has made some compelling points, but I don't think this is one of them. Playing a tabletop RPG is like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure scenario. There is a story to be told. That story is influenced by both the GM and the players.
It is not purely driven by the dice. That would be more like Madlibs: wild, illogical and totally based on whims of fate rather than a cohesive plot. There's a reason that modules, APs, etc. give background information on characters and events and tell you what should occur (note: not must occur) when time passes or other events happen -- because there is a logical progression of events to take place, a story to be told. The GM totally has the right to run a story; a wise one will do so in conjunction with the players, for ultimately if the players don't like the story, the GM will find himself telling it alone.
|
|
Ok all of these hyperbolic statements about how the only reason any GM fudges is due to an immature need to screw the players and prove how superior they are and how stupid the players are* has made me want post again.**
Is anyone arguing that? Bueller?
The arguement goes more like this: "The most egregious of all available reasons for a GM to fudge is due to a misguided need to have their story proceed the way they want it to, rather than allow random chance (enhanced, of course, by agreed-upon and predetermined modifiers) to dictate the results of substantially important events in the game."
Let's at least be clear on what's being said.
You haven't told me why fudging a reincarnate roll so the player can try a new race is detrimental to the game or even trust.Why wouldn't you just simply say 'Okay you wanted to be an _____, so I'll let you' rather than purport that 'Yeah I rolled that 1% chance, what luck!'.
What happens when the next player uses reincarnate and really wants something that's a much higher chance? Do you deny that to them? Why? You're suddenly playing favorites.
And when something really off the wall happens to the party, do you feel that you have to curb it? If you don't do so it's more reasonable for them to assume that you've altered a more likely scenario into this convoluted one than for it to occur naturally. This is one of the reasons why some people claim that if you are going to 'fudge' never let the players know that you 'fudge' at all. I think in this discussion we can safely label this 'fudging' as cheating even if we disagree on other scenarios.
What you've done is introduced a possibility that it's not the dice and random chance within a framework, but rather your subjective choice. When faced with an event that's 1 in a billion (or even less likely) what do you consider most likely to be the case?
That erodes trust in impartiality, in what is generating the 'random' events, etc. Perhaps you have this 'awesome' story to tell... I've seen that in many DMs. The problem is it's an RPG game and not story time or a book reading.
There's really nothing wrong with just letting the system play out. You might 'lose' at solitaire every so often, but you're playing the game rather than just choosing an inane way to suit a deck.
You also have not explained what you would have done in the scenario where the night was about to be a bust because everything went wrong for the whole table.I thought that I did. The simple answer is that you roll with it. You can make anything flavorless, it doesn't mean the base is wrong but rather what you're...
I'm going to first apologize for how the quoting looks. I'm stuck using my phone and trying to quote properly is a PITA.
Changing the outcome of the reincarnate roll is well within what could have happened anyway. We've all seen two 20s come up back to back, which has a lower chance of happening than 1%. If a player is really hoping to come back as an elf and I roll GM Choice, I'll let him be an elf. There is no harm in letting the player have what he wants in this case. What would you do as GM if you rolled GM Choice? Would you pick an aquatic race while they are in a desert? It is completely your choice as GM. It should be noted that I rolled Troglodyte, which would have been unfun for him and everyone else. Had I rolled up elf, dwarf, human, etc, I would not have changed the outcome. I took a result that no one wanted and turned it into one that made the player happy. It wasn't an unnecessary die roll. It was a change to the result that didn't make the game fun anymore.
My players come to the table to enjoy themselves. 4 of them have families and drive. For 30 minutes each way to game. They want to have fun. For them fun includes random chance but when that randomness starts to get in the way, they want me to fix things. What they don't know, and never know, is if and when I do that. They know that I will let a character die. Every player has had their character die at least once. I leave it up to them to figure out what they want to do about that when it happens. I do have a few inexperienced players that forget things they can do or misunderstand how something works. Sometimes I have to get involved to guide them. It's no different than fudging.
As for the session that went to crap because of bad die rolls from all involved, if the GM let that happen I would have been pissed. The GM's job is to make sure everyone has fun. If no one is having fun, then the GM has failed. Remember that everyone, even the GM was rolling like crap. No one, not even the GM was happy. It was just roll you d20 and pass die die to the left. The GM should step in and do something. Bringing the fight to an end is one way.
You are making it sound like there is a moral obligation to never fudge or you're going to lose all your friends and burn in Hell because you lied.
|
|
The foundational rule to an RPG is "have fun". Without that end, the game is utterly meaningless. The trust in a GM to provide the players a fun experience without being bound to dice results is a far higher order of trust than only trusting GM's to be fun when bound to only dice results. The dice, after all, are a lower-order mechanism than the GM.
You know what's fun? Last words. Heroic, self-sacrificing deaths. Reacting appropriately to those deaths when they're happening to other people at the table. Rolling new characters. But players are often deprived of those pleasures on the basis of someone else's interpretation of fun.
The great part about RPG's (when they're well made, as this one is) is that there's literally almost no part of them that isn't fun on some level. The parts that aren't necessarily "fun" are, at least, instructional in some way shape or form. Character death does not equal anger or hurt feelings, at least, it need not. Players should really learn to take these things in stride. If they do, they will (and I mean, categorically WILL) have more fun.
|
|
You know what's fun?
Telling your fellow players what you enjoy in the game.
Cause then the group can cause that to happen more.
No matter whether it is heroic sacrifices or good guys always winning.
No one idea of fun is better than another.
Agreed, but I guess I'm just saying that shouldn't even really be necessary, because it's all pretty good fun, if you only allow it to be.
The foundational rule to an RPG is "have fun". Without that end, the game is utterly meaningless. The trust in a GM to provide the players a fun experience without being bound to dice results is a far higher order of trust than only trusting GM's to be fun when bound to only dice results. The dice, after all, are a lower-order mechanism than the GM.You know what's fun? Last words. Heroic, self-sacrificing deaths. Reacting appropriately to those deaths when they're happening to other people at the table. Rolling new characters. But players are often deprived of those pleasures on the basis of someone else's interpretation of fun.
The great part about RPG's (when they're well made, as this one is) is that there's literally almost no part of them that isn't fun on some level. The parts that aren't necessarily "fun" are, at least, instructional in some way shape or form. Character death does not equal anger or hurt feelings, at least, it need not. Players should really learn to take these things in stride. If they do, they will (and I mean, categorically WILL) have more fun.
Rolling a character is loads of fun. I roll up characters I'll never play all the time just for the joy of fiddling with the mechanics. Right now, in fact, I'm converting Jade Regent monsters and NPCs for use in a Gestalt game I'll probably never run.
But if I were rolling up a new character because the one I had first crafted had been shanked by a lucky critical--doing this while my friends were still playing, and then, even after I finished making the sheet, having to wait while the DM tried to find a logical place to introduce me into whatever bizarre milieu the party was in--that would suck the joy out of it considerably. Just personally speaking.
The foundational rule to an RPG is "have fun". Without that end, the game is utterly meaningless. The trust in a GM to provide the players a fun experience without being bound to dice results is a far higher order of trust than only trusting GM's to be fun when bound to only dice results. The dice, after all, are a lower-order mechanism than the GM.You know what's fun? Last words. Heroic, self-sacrificing deaths. Reacting appropriately to those deaths when they're happening to other people at the table. Rolling new characters. But players are often deprived of those pleasures on the basis of someone else's interpretation of fun.
The great part about RPG's (when they're well made, as this one is) is that there's literally almost no part of them that isn't fun on some level. The parts that aren't necessarily "fun" are, at least, instructional in some way shape or form. Character death does not equal anger or hurt feelings, at least, it need not. Players should really learn to take these things in stride. If they do, they will (and I mean, categorically WILL) have more fun.
What's intersting to me is that the debate I'm having with James is because I didn't fudge and I let a character die. The players wanted to bring the character back. All I did was was work within the framework of the spell and what the players were doing already. The player didn't even say "I hope I come back as a dhampir." He just wanted to keep his good Dex score.
|
There is this wonderful game that you could be playing, but you are electing not to do so rather in essence choose a very inefficient manor to suit a deck of cards.
-James
You say that like the game we are playing is any less wonderful than the game we could be playing.
A no-fudging game is just as wonderful as a fudged game.
My players come to the table to enjoy themselves.... They want to have fun. For them fun includes random chance but when that randomness starts to get in the way, they want me to fix things.I see this as no different from say (to overuse this analogy) when you've decided to play solitaire, but realize that because of how the cards lie you're not winning and will likely lose. So you take a card from under a stack and put it on the top of the pile. Suddenly you're winning again.. perhaps you do this rarely or perhaps with quite a frequency even over the course of a single game.
Now is there anyone that's going to bust down your door to brand you evil for this? No. But are you cheating at solitaire? Yes. You've taken a simple game and altered it to a very inefficient way to suit a deck of cards.
Perhaps all you wanted was to kill time. Either way does that whether you are playing a game or inefficiently suiting a deck of cards. But the two really aren't the same and that's really the crux of it.
I'm of the opinion that you do a disservice to all involved here. There is this wonderful game that you could be playing, but you are electing not to do so rather in essence choose a very inefficient manor to suit a deck of cards.
-James
First, I have fudged twice in 2 years. I usually let the dice fall where they may.
Second, I think the GM does a disservice when his players go home unhappy.
Third, I don't think the GMing fixing things has to be fudging dice. He can make all kinds of adjustments. Whatever is doen should be what is ultimately best at that time.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Rolling a character is loads of fun. I roll up characters I'll never play all the time just for the joy of fiddling with the mechanics. Right now, in fact, I'm converting Jade Regent monsters and NPCs for use in a Gestalt game I'll probably never run.
But if I were rolling up a new character because the one I had first crafted had been shanked by a lucky critical--doing this while my friends were still playing, and then, even after I finished making the sheet, having to wait while the DM tried to find a logical place to introduce me into whatever bizarre milieu the party was in--that would suck the joy out of it considerably. Just personally speaking.
Perhaps this experience might cause you to select the "Fortified Armor Training" feat in your next build, or to invest in Shield Specialization. These options, often seen as "underpowered" or "nonoptimal" feat selections, might enable the game to be played without the GM having to perform factual acrobatics in order to keep everyone alive. The options exist to deter the kind of freak critical you're describing.
Also, if sitting with friends (or at least acquaintances) and eating pizza and laughing at funny accents isn't fun at ALL unless you have a horse in the race yourself...I mean, there are entire podcasts devoted to just listening to other people play, and that doesn't factor in actually being there. I swear, you really can have fun while rolling a character and letting others finish the battle. I've done it, so I know it can be done. It's a matter of mindset.
|
|
"Football is pretty good fun, if you only allow it to be."
Yeah, but I don't want to play football.
I don't know what this is supposed to mean, TOZ.
It scores a '9' on my internal snark-o-meter, but a flat '3' on the making-sense-o-meter.
Substitute "RPGs" for football in this sentence, and now I'm asking why you're sitting around a table with polyhedral dice on it and little plastic likenesses of monsters and the like.
You don't want to play football, don't play it. But don't go stand on the sidelines in a uniform.
|
|
How are players being deprived of fun when they themselves want the p402 rule applied? Are my players playing the game wrong?
A fair question, and the answer is "of course not".
But, are you really asking them? Other than once at the beginning of the game, I mean, which is tantamount to agreeing to the terms and conditions of a website that you don't know if you're going to derive any value out of before you agree. Of course you say "Yeah, sure" - because otherwise you get redirected to Google or wherever.
I mean, look, if you as a GM determine that a fight is going to end badly - really badly, that is, with no chance of redemption - if you at that point say to your players "You're all going to die unless Elminster shows up and frys the bad guy. Do you want me to do this?", then that's fine. You're really asking them at a time when it matters, and they can give you an informed answer. I have no problem with that (although I'd never answer "yes" to the above question as a player). I agree that Pg. 402 is in the rulebook, hard stop. If everything's going to happen the way the GM says it does regardless of what the dice say, though, and I'm not even going to have any say in that, then I'm playing GM-Happy-Fun-Time, not Pathfinder (or Gurps, or RIFTS, of whatever).
In Bob's case above, I'm with james when he says he simply would have dictated the resurrection results, and wouldn't have bothered rolling the dice. However, I'm not going to rake Bob over the coals for what he did. That's a relatively minor matter. Making it so the initial character didn't die in the first place, though - that's something I pretty much can't condone. People need to learn to live and let die. The game teaches us to not get too attached to things. It's a good lesson. It doesn't inhibit fun in any real, tangible way.
|
|
I've done it, so I know it can be done. It's a matter of mindset.I don't want to do it. I reject that mindset.
Why do you act like that choice is a categorically bad decision?
You don't want to have fun? <checks avatar for proboscis and hat>
Really, man, we're not connecting, here. I'm not understanding. Not wanting to have fun isn't categorically bad, but neither is it a common perspective in general, let alone among gamers.
not stating that would be a lie of ommission and some posters can no stand for a lie.
If someone pointedly doesn't answer a question, they're making the truthful answer painfully clear, n'est-ce pas?
I'm of the opinion that you do a disservice to all involved here. There is this wonderful game that you could be playing, but you are electing not to do so rather in essence choose a very inefficient manor to suit a deck of cards.-James
Speaking of cards, this looks a lot like you're playing the badwrongfun card.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You don't want to have fun?
...rolling a character while the game continues on. (My penchant for brief statements comes back to bite me I see.)
There isn't a measurement unit for fun. You're pretty much either having fun or not.
Thus you need to know what causes you and your players to not have fun. And then avoid those situations.
Rolling a new character and waiting to have him introduced is an example of a fun-ender for my group, and not for yours.
Speaking of cards, this looks a lot like you're playing the badwrongfun card.
Yeah, I tried to point out that both games are wonderful, but I don't think he's hearing it.
How are players being deprived of fun when they themselves want the p402 rule applied? Are my players playing the game wrong?A fair question, and the answer is "of course not".
But, are you really asking them? Other than once at the beginning of the game, I mean, which is tantamount to agreeing to the terms and conditions of a website that you don't know if you're going to derive any value out of before you agree. Of course you say "Yeah, sure" - because otherwise you get redirected to Google or wherever.
I mean, look, if you as a GM determine that a fight is going to end badly - really badly, that is, with no chance of redemption - if you at that point say to your players "You're all going to die unless Elminster shows up and frys the bad guy. Do you want me to do this?", then that's fine. You're really asking them at a time when it matters, and they can give you an informed answer. I have no problem with that (although I'd never answer "yes" to the above question as a player). I agree that Pg. 402 is in the rulebook, hard stop. If everything's going to happen the way the GM says it does regardless of what the dice say, though, and I'm not even going to have any say in that, then I'm playing GM-Happy-Fun-Time, not Pathfinder (or Gurps, or RIFTS, of whatever).
In Bob's case above, I'm with james when he says he simply would have dictated the resurrection results, and wouldn't have bothered rolling the dice. However, I'm not going to rake Bob over the coals for what he did. That's a relatively minor matter. Making it so the initial character didn't die in the first place, though - that's something I pretty much can't condone. People need to learn to live and let die. The game teaches us to not get too attached to things. It's a good lesson. It doesn't inhibit fun in any real, tangible way.
But that's not entirely what happened. The issue was that the result rolled was troglodyte, which would have been bad for the game. Since I wanted everyone to have fun, I figured to throw the player a bone. Had the result been halfling (like is was for a human wizard who died), then the dice determine the outcome. That's the difference. I did give the dice a chance. The dice would have taken away from the fun.
I understand that most people see a need to overrule the dice. I've recommended using hero points, but apparently that puts too much choice in the players' hands and causes their brains to explode, so only the GM can do it. OK, let's accept that as a baseline assumption.
Assuming that's all true, then, can someone explain again why it's so important that you lie to the players and tell them you're not changing rolls, altering results, etc., when you actually are? And the usual response of "so they'll think I'm not doing it" is not one I believe, unless your players are either under 10 years old or are dumber than dirt. So, even if you can't be honest with the players about it, try and be honest answering this question to some anonymous dude on line, OK?
Because if a GM announced, "Guys, is that like five 20's in a row I just rolled for Team Monster? I'm rerolling that crap with a new die!" I'd totally understand. Him/her coming out and saying it is something I could even respect.
On the other hand, "Uh, why no, I didn't change anything! It's just your miraculous luck that prevents any PCs from ever dying! Yes, even though we've been playing for 4 years and every combat ends with everyone at exactly 1 hp!" is something that would make me walk out the door without pausing to pick up my character sheet.
Thank you for immediately proving my point.
What, that you, personally, don't see the point and don't want to be bothered with them?
It doesn't matter to me in the slightest bit if you fudge every roll, or just the ones that make PCs maybe die, or just the ones that happen on alternate leap years. All I want to know is, when you are doing it (regardless of frequancy or anything else), why it's necessary to lie to the players and pretend like you aren't.
Latest example of Fudging in my game (about a month ago) :
Players are escorting a wagon back to town. The scouts (a witch catfolk and a barbarian half-orc) state they are going to proceed 'about a hundred feet in front of the wagon, and about 100 feet behind' to look for ambushes.
They get ambushed of course, and I have them roll perception checks. I roll randomly to see who's in front at the time, and who's behind (they didn't specify). The witch comes up in front. The squishy, unarmored, unshielded, I got no hit points, witch. Now, the witch rolls a perception check just good enough to notice the ambush as he enters the kill zone.
So, as GM, I have a choice. I can do exactly what the players stated. In which case, the 12 mook archers will unload on him in the surprise round with him probably flat footed (not that it matters, his AC is 14 with no armor or spell), or I can 'fudge' a bit, and have the ambush occur as they're tightening up to confer on the travel time, and who's doing what for lunch, etc. Given the generally low rolls on the ambush spotting, this seems appropriate.
Afterwards, I explain to the party (who still almost got TPK'd because they split up and sent their big bad barbarian and monk against the 3 big bads while everyone else split up to chase mooks with bows, who ran and attacked each round) why I overrode their decision on what to do. They all agreed that it would not have been fun to be TPK'd, or to have the witch (new character) die in his first round of combat, so they are all 100% fine with me making fudges now and then, as long as I have a really good reason for it.
Now, per several people in this forum, we are immature badwrongfun people apparently.