Anybody out there who thought they came up with something rather clever but had their creativity stifled by something not covered in the rules or the GM decided it would go wrong.
I remember one time there was a druid that used entangle which pretty much left me trapped for the rest of the battle. I had tried to cut through the entangling vines, but instead it took away my weapon and i had to make a reflex save to get out of the vines again. -_-
There was another time on a beach, I was in a row boat and there were enemies underwater. I had a sword with shock on it. I tried to turn on shock and let it send electricity through the water. Nope, GM ruled that the electricity only worked when I made a swing.
And yet another time I tried to climb a golem. Apparently it was decided that I had to make a grapple check (not a climb check) despite the fact that I didn't even plan on putting it into grappled status, I was just trying to get on top to have an advantage.
Another time, I tried to use Ray of Frost to chill a glass. Apparently it destroyed the cup.
These were a long time ago, and sure they aren't really covered by the rules, but it really was a burn out when I tried to be innovative only to get slapped in the face.
Contributor
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I understand that it can be frustrating when you want to do certain things that don't fit within the GM's view of how the rules work. I try to encourage creative thinking, as well, but each of the examples you cite are things that are pretty well covered within the rules.
1) There are specific criteria for escaping an entangle spell listed in the description. Swinging a sword at them might fall under the rules for a Strength check, but specifically cutting through the vines doesn't get you anything extra. That said, I would not have ruled that the vines took your weapon. If you can't cut them to get out, they can't become prehensile and take your sword.
2) The rules clarifications and interpretations for shock and other energy weapons are pretty clear that you can't use them that way, despite what the laws of physics might imply. It's very similar to the fact that a normal, metal weapon can't be used to convey a shocking grasp spell.
3) If the golem is active and trying to hurt you, it isn't just a "thing" that can be climbed. If you're going to get on top of it, you'll need to grab onto it, which it probably doesn't want you to do. Trying to grab an opponent against its will so that you can climb on top of it sounds like a perfect application of the grappling rules.
4) The ray of frost thing is a bit iffy for me. I might have allowed it for flavor, myself, but you could also take the view that the spell specifically does damage, so there's a chance it *could* break the glass. Also, the prestidigitation cantrip allows you to chill or warm a liquid in a glass. If there's already a spell that does what you want to do, then the GM isn't out of line for expecting you to use that spell, instead.
So, while I think that GMs need to be flexible and facilitate their players' creativity, they also have a responsibility to know and interpret the rules in a way that is consistent. In my opinion, your GM should have been able to explain his reasoning for all of the above decisions, similar to the way I just did.
If he didn't know the rules and was just making things up on the fly, then he should have given you the benefit of the doubt during the game and looked up the rules later. After that, he can come back and say, "that's how it worked before, but this is what the rules say, so this is how I'll handle it in the future."
|
|
Glass has hardness 1 and 1 hit point per inch of thickness. However, the GM might be justified in ruling that a fragile glass drinking vessel might have 0 hardness. Energy attacks generally do half damage to objects, so a Ray of Frost probably wouldn’t damage a glass with hardness 1 but could quite conceivably destroy a more fragile 0 hardness glass.
All the time, and I'm the GM. I used to be just crazy about making house rules to cover things I thought needed covered, but have managed to *almost* stop that. But occasionally there'll be an idea that I think would be cool and when I present it to my players, it's met with a nearly unanimous round of "meh".
|
Contributor
|
I agree, Mothman. That case is definitely a big "if" for me. I mean...1 hit point per 1 inch of thickness. A drinking glass is probably about 1/16 inch thick. Since you can't round down to 0 hp, I'd say that the only way to simulate reducing HP below 1 is with a loss of hardness.
Still...it's *COLD* energy...just being cold has hardly any effect on glass in real life. And, heck, even magic missiles wouldn't damage a drinking glass and they're made of magical FORCE energy.
I tend to be a bit conservative on what I allow as a GM, but I would allow the Shock sword to do a little bit of damage to enemies in water and I'd certainly allow chilling something with Ray of Frost.
There's the flip side, of course -- I can think of situations where I was disappointed that the GM didn't stifle a player's creativity.
One example: I was starting a new Pathfinder campaign as a player and we were having our first fight against some goblins. Another player's PC was hit by a goblin attack and then he asked "Can I make a Reflex save to avoid the attack?" and the GM said "Sure!" So, in the course of two minutes, that player just created a house rule that doubled the amount of rolls that we would make for every attack in combat. :-(
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think the idea of climbing up a much larger opponent is very cinematic and cool, and I’m not convinced that an application of the grappling rules is the right call (although its probably the closest thing under the rules as written that cover it); after all, you are not trying to hinder your opponents combat options, pin them, damage them (directly) or any of the other things that a successful grapple allows you to do.
I would probably allow the creature to be climbed an AoO (and a further AoO every round if it took more than 1 round to climb, after all climbing up a creature involved moving through its space). If the AoO was unsuccessful I would allow a climb check, probably with a DC in the order of about 30+.
Successfully climbing to the top of the creature would probably net you a +1 to attack for higher ground, and may enable you to flank with allies on the ground. Acrobatics checks would probably be required to maintain position as the creature moved about, and there would be little to stop the climbed creature from attempting to initiate a grapple on the climber on its turn.
I understand that it can be frustrating when you want to do certain things that don't fit within the GM's view of how the rules work. I try to encourage creative thinking, as well, but each of the examples you cite are things that are pretty well covered within the rules.
1) There are specific criteria for escaping an entangle spell listed in the description. Swinging a sword at them might fall under the rules for a Strength check, but specifically cutting through the vines doesn't get you anything extra. That said, I would not have ruled that the vines took your weapon. If you can't cut them to get out, they can't become prehensile and take your sword.
I made the reflex save to get into it in the first place. Sitting out for six minutes not knowing whether the rest of your party is faring well because a druid (who's supposed to be helping you) decided to throw up some vines from the ground. I understand making the reflex saves, but why can't one cut down some vines? I was not entangled myself, and from a realistic or even story telling perspective why couldn't I cut some vines?
2) The rules clarifications and interpretations for shock and other energy weapons are pretty clear that you can't use them that way, despite what the laws of physics might imply. It's very similar to the fact that a normal, metal weapon can't be used to convey a shocking grasp spell.
See, I've never actually seen rules that say that it can't be used that way ever. Yes it says that it deals d6 energy damage on a hit. That doesn't actually describe how it works.
In fact, the energy section says that it the energy activates by will. Fire / Ice / Electricity is turned on and off by will. Which is what I was understanding.
3) If the golem is active and trying to hurt you, it isn't just a "thing" that can be climbed. If you're going to get on top of it, you'll need to grab onto it, which it probably doesn't want you to do. Trying to grab an opponent against its will so that you can climb on top of it sounds like a perfect application of the grappling rules.
It was a huge creature bearing down on another player. I was trying to jump on top of it. (actually I think it was an Earth Elemental) It was basically a giant mass of moving rock. Grappling rules don't make sense when I was not trying to restrain the elemental or make it more vulnerable to attacks or such. I was simply trying to climb it. It certainly was large enough that I would have to climb. Do you assume that people are grappled when they have animals clinging to their shoulders.
Thinking back on it I was probably doomed to fail either way (I was new to the game), but why even bother climbing things if you need to be able to pin it down in the first place? Byebye dreams of climbing dragons.
Is it really unreasonable to want to climb the colossi that you fight?
4) The ray of frost thing is a bit iffy for me. I might have allowed it for flavor, myself, but you could also take the view that the spell specifically does damage, so there's a chance it *could* break the glass. Also, the prestidigitation cantrip allows you to chill or warm a liquid in a glass. If there's already a spell that does what you want to do, then the GM isn't out of line for expecting you to use that spell, instead.
What really bothered me was that there was apparently no way in game to reduce the power of a spell to treat one's self. I get that it's supposed to be an attack spell. But it's not like there's a drink cooling spell, and if there was it would have been excessive when it's really just a powered down version of an existing spell. I'm also not a fan of "use prestidigitation for everything ever".
But yeah, those were just a few things I've wanted to harp on. I mean, if everything I do that may be a little different is doomed to fail why even bother trying to be creative. All it does is kill immersion, and I might as well be playing a video game if I freeze to death despite the fact that I have a flaming axe that can burn enemies.
I can't say that everything I've attempted was intelligent. (Trying to put out a fire with ray of frost), but it's not like I was trying to cheat the rules or anything, I was just trying to make the most of my turn, and maybe make it a little more interesting than, "I wait for the vines to go down/the enemies to pop out of the water/the flying elf to come down (I was trying to climb the elemental to get to the elf)" and wait another 20 minutes for my turn to come around again only to say that I wait some more.
Anyway, I can't be the only one who's had ideas that they thought were awesome that were turned down, can I?
|
|
I’m usually the GM. I generally try to work pretty closely to the rules as written (or to how I believe they are intended), but I try to encourage out of the box thinking and creativity on the part of my players. I generally try to adjudicate such things within the rules where possible, but I’m happy to bend or stretch the rules slightly to err on the side of fun or coolness if needs be. I find it quite a joy as a GM when the players come up with a solution to a problem that looks like it could work and that I didn’t consider (even if it does sometimes mess with my diabolical plans!).
I’m lucky enough to be a player in a group at the moment where the main GM is pretty permissive when it comes to creative thinking. I can think of a couple of situations he’s put us into in the current campaign where I’m not sure we would have survived if we as players had restricted ourselves to the generally accepted options / rules.
|
The main problem with your examples is, that the GM wasn'tz telling you 'No, you can't' for anything that wasn't covered by the rules, he was either using existing rules (entangle, ray of frost - also the latter one could, as one of the other posters pointed out, have worked differently, but he was right in the aspect that Pathfinder Magic is not a felxible, creative system and spells can't just be altered as liked by the caster) or told you what he expected you to do for your idea (grappling for climbing the golem).
The shock weapon is another thing. I don't quite remember where (it was 3.5, not pathfinder) but it was expicitly stated somewhere, that water didn't change the effect into some sort of electrical pulse, just like you could't cast a lightning bolt to fry a whole lake (like in 2nd edition where it worked like a fireball underwater).
Taking your weapon for trying to cut through the vines comes close to 'stiffling your creativity', but the other aspects of your examples, imho, don't.
I would probably handle it the same way in my games. I am open to suggestions, but in the end, I decide what rolls a player has to make for things not covered by the rules and I (almost) certainly won't let a player do things expicitly done different by the rules just because he thinks it would be cool. That said, I never forbid a player to trie something. I may warn him that I think he couldn't do it (in the sense that it is too difficult), I may remind him of circumstances that may hinder his endeavor, but I would never forbid him to try.
Remember: creative Ideas are one thing, expecting them to be handled just as you want it and leading to the results you would like, regardless of rules or the GMs opinion is quite another.
|
I think the idea of climbing up a much larger opponent is very cinematic and cool, and I’m not convinced that an application of the grappling rules is the right call (although its probably the closest thing under the rules as written that cover it); after all, you are not trying to hinder your opponents combat options, pin them, damage them (directly) or any of the other things that a successful grapple allows you to do.
My own personal take on this would be that if they're big enough that grapple seems like it shouldn't really apply anymore, it should probably just be a climb check, likely with some pretty stiff penalties applied if they're trying to shake you off, etc.
That would allow for some Shadow of the Colossus type gaming.
I was just asking for others experiences.
For any of the things I did, you could make all sorts of arguments for or against what I tried to accomplish, the truth is though that all of those sorts of things lied in the gray area of not really covered. Because of that, things will be handled differently in different games.
In the end, it really falls down to what the GM will allow. Also, who says it was all the same GM? I've done things in some games that other games would not be possible.
Based on the responses, I guess I'm the only player ever to attempt things that their GM thought should work differently, huh?
|
|
No, that was exactly what I didn't mean to imply - and I was not trying to dismiss your experiences, either- I was just trying to remind you that there is a difference between an ideas that your gm(s) treat differently then you had thought/you would do it and stifling your imagination.
As for your question, I actually experienced both. I had gms actually telling me I could not do something not coverd by the rules/the adventure (trying to use illusion spells to appear as one of the dumb ogre mercenaries and come through the gates unmolested, stop a small fire from spreading 'because the house has to burn down' (yup, that's what he said). That is stifling your imagination. In these cases I would probably talk to the gm after the adventure.
If he sees the point (not the point in my idea, but the general point that the game (to me) isn't fun if I have to keep to a script he has in mind) I might stay in the game and, if it it is inexperience that restrains his flexibility, i will probably try to help him to improve that aspect of gming - if he wants me to. - If he just goes 'thats how I play', I will leave the game - just as you implied, I could rather play a videogame.
As a player / or as a gm, there will be often ideas that both sides think differntly of of the rules should handle them - a game where you can basically do anything you want will never cover all possibilities. In this case, the gm has to decide. He might consider your input, he might even discuss the issue (if it does not harm the game too much), but in the end, he has to decide how to resolve your idea. That is not the same thing as stifeling your imagination imho.
And then there are things that are handled by the rules (in pathfinder, for example, spells cannot just be altered on the fly without specific feats) and sometimes are important aspects of how the rules work. That might irritate you (as a player as well as a gm) but if you don't want to do exessive houseruling (sometimes leading to more problems) or try a different ruleset, you will have to work with that.
So, for your original question:
Yes, I have had my imagination stifled in games. Best thing to do is: Talk to the GM in question (best after the session). Don't begrudge him, just ask plainly why he didn't let you try what you wanted. If you have conflicting ideas on how the rules should resolve that, keep an open mind about his side of the argument.)
And apologies if I seemed patronizing or belitteling, that was not my intention. I just had a long argument with a friend that is one of the inexperienced gms, about all this and that probably left me a bit exausted about this .
The scene that actually was the last straw that brought the game to a grinding halt played a lot like this:
GM: She walks toward the battlement to greet the orcish leader.
Player: I try to stop her. I grab her arm She was tortured I don't think she is in control of her senses right now.
GM: She is too strong, she walks to the battlement, accepting the challenge.
Player: I keep at her side. I yell at the crowd "She was tortured and broken. She is too weak, she doesn't know what she is saying"
GM: The crowds gasp at her acceptance, the orc leader declares a challenge of faith.
Player: I speak in a loud and clear voice. "We know there is a wizard among the orcs. They will not play fair. I demand the challenge to be rejected!"
GM: The crowds stare in horror as an arrow is shot straight int the air and comes toward her.
Player: I try to shield her as best as I can, clinging to her body if i have to.
GM: The arrow hits her, she falls over the battlement.
Player: I try to hold her.
GM: smashing on the ground below.
Player: ...
Perhaps you can see, why I tried to differentiate between ideas that are resolved differently from what you thought they should have been and bluntly refusing to let you do anything not in the rules/script ;-)
As a DM, I like your ideas, but here's how they would've went if I were at the helm:
I remember one time there was a druid that used entangle which pretty much left me trapped for the rest of the battle. I had tried to cut through the entangling vines, but instead it took away my weapon and i had to make a reflex save to get out of the vines again. -_-
In my games, we've seen similar instances. But we always ruled that the vines were magical, and if they were intelligent enough to wrap a person up and hold them in place, they were magical enough to continue doing so if someone tried to cut themselves out. No HP or stats are given, so we assumed that for every vine you cut free, another shot up in it's place. Now, taking away your weapon is a bit of a stretch though, we'd never do something like that.
There was another time on a beach, I was in a row boat and there were enemies underwater. I had a sword with shock on it. I tried to turn on shock and let it send electricity through the water. Nope, GM ruled that the electricity only worked when I made a swing.
Again, here, magic doesn't perfectly emulate real-life physics. It's why a fire-enchanted sword can work underwater. The shocking energy dispersed by your weapon is dispersed when the weapon strikes a target, otherwise you'd shock the heck out of yourself for holding it(which is why the rules state it does not harm you). Also why there's no specific rule for simply touching enemies with your weapon and dealing the energy damage.
If shocking weapons freely flowed electricity, then we'd have ourselves an infinite power source and there'd eventually be starships and giant mechs in D&D much sooner than our own world.
And yet another time I tried to climb a golem. Apparently it was decided that I had to make a grapple check (not a climb check) despite the fact that I didn't even plan on putting it into grappled status, I was just trying to get on top to have an advantage.
See, I could get on board with this. If the golem in question was large enough, I'd love to see a player attempt a climb check. The DC would be crazy high, since the golem is moving, has moving parts(fingers could get crushed easily) and actively does not want someone climbing on it. In my games, if you could hit a stupidly high DC, then sure, I'd let you climb it. But expect it to reach back, grab you, and throw you off.
Another time, I tried to use Ray of Frost to chill a glass. Apparently it destroyed the cup.
These were a long time ago, and sure they aren't really covered by the rules, but it really was a burn out when I tried to be innovative only to get slapped in the face.
There was a 0-level cantrip in Relics and Rituals if I recall, that let the caster chill things for 1 point, maybe no damage. I used that cantrip for this very purpose quite often.
Every DM is different, but all in all I'd LOVE to see my players attempt things like you mentioned. They might not all work, but for the most part if a player approaches me with a hypothetically possible action, I'll always at least let them attempt it. The DC might be ridiculous, but you can always try. I encourage my players to "think outside the box" and do what their character would do, not just whats mathematically most efficient. Throw me any kind of action, we'll figure out a rule for it ourselves, books be damned.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
Notes on a couple of your antics:
The Shock Sword: It deals 1d6 when you make direct contact (and as others have mentioned, it only discharges on a strike, rather than flowing constantly). Although I'd hate to encourage the idea that misunderstanding how an item works entitles the errant player to extra powers, I'd probably make minor allowances for something as cool as water-shocking. However, the body of water is essentially dispersing the electricity in every direction, so that'll make a difference; dip it in a fishtank, everything takes 1d4. Bathtub, everything takes 1. Anything bigger and you need to make a touch attack to deal 1d4.
Climbing a Golem: Just how big was it? If it was within a size category or two from your own size, I'd go with a grapple check. It'd have to be really big to be able to make a climb check. But you also have to account for it moving around and such. I'd probably make you (as part of one action) first make an unarmed melee touch attack, and if that's successful you get your climb check.
Chilling a Glass: Um... why didn't you just shoot the liquid itself instead of the glass? You're talking about a spell with the potential to KO a commoner in one shot, and you expected the glass to withstand it? Really?
Based on the responses, I guess I'm the only player ever to attempt things that their GM thought should work differently, huh?
I can think of another example: I've seen players try to use the spells Unseen Servant and Floating Disk creatively (e.g. telling an Unseen Servant to hold a weapon, or using a Floating Disk to try to block a monster's path) and get shot down.
I personaly run games that encourage and reward heroic creative actions. That being said I started with Basic D&D which required creative thinking. I have played with more modern GM's that had a deer in headlights look when non-linear actions were attempted. Unfortunatly some focus on the rules so much they forget that the game should be heroic and fun for those involved.
I think the idea of climbing up a much larger opponent is very cinematic and cool, and I’m not convinced that an application of the grappling rules is the right call (although its probably the closest thing under the rules as written that cover it); after all, you are not trying to hinder your opponents combat options, pin them, damage them (directly) or any of the other things that a successful grapple allows you to do.
I would probably allow the creature to be climbed an AoO (and a further AoO every round if it took more than 1 round to climb, after all climbing up a creature involved moving through its space). If the AoO was unsuccessful I would allow a climb check, probably with a DC in the order of about 30+.
Successfully climbing to the top of the creature would probably net you a +1 to attack for higher ground, and may enable you to flank with allies on the ground. Acrobatics checks would probably be required to maintain position as the creature moved about, and there would be little to stop the climbed creature from attempting to initiate a grapple on the climber on its turn.
Honestly, pathfinder has a catch all for this kind of thing now, its called a combat manuever. That is what you would have to do at my table to climb a large or bigger enemy. The climb skill is not an appropriate rule to use for trying to get on top of someone. I assure you that if someone tried to jump on your back, a climbers kit (while potentially lethal) would not be overly helpful.
The problem with creative solutions like chopping at an Entangle spell with your sword or climbing on the back of a huge enemy is that you're effectively making house rules on the fly (assuming that the creative solution in repeatable in the future), and you're effectively making Entangle spells and huge enemies permanently weaker (by giving them additional weaknesses). That's not something I really like to do.
One possible solution is to charge a hero point every whenever the PC wants to try a cool move that isn't covered in the rules. That way, you're allowing creative solutions, but you aren't permanently adding to a list of house rules that way. I think Mutants & Masterminds works like that, for instance.
quote=HOGARTH]The problem with creative solutions like chopping at an Entangle spell with your sword or climbing on the back of a huge enemy is that you're effectively making house rules on the fly (assuming that the creative solution in repeatable in the future), and you're effectively making Entangle spells and huge enemies permanently weaker (by giving them additional weaknesses). That's not something I really like to do.quote
Actually chopping at the vines would be the equivalent of makeing a strength check to break free like the spell states you can.
The real problem I believe Ion Raven is having is the dismisal of creative ideas out of hand. This is more of a GM style issue then a rules issue. I perfer ad hoc actions and creative solutions. They show me the players are not just going through the motions.
Just because you arbitrate an action one one does not make it a house rule. Circumstances vary from encounter to encounter and there are a number of variables to weigh.
I once had a 2nd level rogue jump on the back of a troll and backstab the hell out of it. He got slammed repeatedly into walls taking automatic damage but he made his roles and held on. Using CMB versus CMD there would be little chance of him succeding without adding condional variables ( Making things up ). But it was a great moment and is still talked about by the players. In other words they lived the moment rather then rolled dice and compared it to a chart.
Entangle - GM did it right except for taking your weapon. That was bad. Swinging your sword would still be treated as a str check to break free.
Shock sword - GM did it right totally
Climb Golem - Totally a CMB vs CMD thing.
Ray of frost - Could go either way. Not a big deal either way.
If the attempt to climb the golem was pre-Pathfinder, then I'd have probably made that an opposed dexterity check or something. Invoking the grapple rules is not a horrible call by a GM caught off-guard. Not what I'd have done, but I wouldn't have complained either.
I frankly don't think any of these really qualify as stifling creativity. Perhaps the GM or GMs involved were not delicate in their rulings, but that's a different thing than stifling creativity. Without the GM's side of this, it's really impossible to say that the GMs were dismissing ideas "out of hand."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm a GM, and I basically allow anything as long as the player isn't just trying to gain a mechanical benefit.
I wouldn't even ask what spell you were using to cool the glass if it was just flavor that you were adding to the scene. I allow the sorceress in our party to describe her perform dance checks as waving lights of magic around herself to the rhythm of the bard's music, but only because I know she isn't trying to gain a bonus to her check. I'm not really a fan of punishing the players for wanting to do something cool. However, I believe there is a difference between being creative and trying to find loopholes in the rules.
Being creative is fun and interesting. Loopholes break the game.