The Rule of Cool


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


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How often do you, as a GM, bend or alter the rules for the sake of narrative?
I've often heard the "rule of cool" used in a somewhat casual or flippant manner. Like, "we're here to have fun. What's the harm in allowing something awesome?" But I've been looking more closely at my storytelling of late, and I'm starting to see that what is often referred to as a more relaxed approach may well be the key to better storytelling and better games.

A (sort of) brief example:

I have a player in my regular group who is not very good with the mechanical aspect of the game. They struggle to make a character above 3rd level, keep track of more than a couple of magic items, remember the specifics of even basic rules like charging and often compute their modifiers/rolls/totals incorrectly.

With that said, they are a remarkably attentive player. They are very well-read and share an understand of mythology and folklore with me that makes telling stories with them easy as breathing, even while running a game with them is like pulling teeth. They are quick to pick up on subtle story elements or details in the narrative. Sometimes, to the point that the elements or details they're seeing patterns in or deriving meaning from are not ones that I actually planned for.

In our current game, there was an encounter with a faerie spirit of the ice and wind, a siren who's captivating song lulls wanderers into a peaceful sleep as they freeze to death.
Upon shaking off the effects of the spirit's song and taking some damage, most of the players began to take hostile actions themselves.
But this player tries to talk to the spirit. "I'm a hunter and a tracker, why would I want to fight this thing?" So they make an appeal to the spirit. They realize the spirit isn't specifically trying to murder them; it just doesn't realize that the cold will eventually kill them, or even that they are unique, autonomous beings who can feel pain and experience suffering.
The player then declares that they draw their sacred bone knife, an item I gave them at character creation and had a specific idea for down the line. They figured they could intimidate the spirit into leaving them alone and end the fight sooner, saving the party some resources and avoiding the needles killing of a wondrous-- if perilous--creature.
Now, the spirit had damage reduction, but I hadn't written down that it could be overcome by such a weapon. But I decided to allow it.

I think one of the most important aspects of any role-playing game is player agency. Player choices should have consequences; good for informed, thoughtful choices and bad for those that are not.
The player described above is not "good" at Pathfinder by any stretch of the imagination. Despite the fact they've been playing 3rd, 3.5 and Pathfinder 1st for nearly 20 years, they just don't have a head for the mechanics, the strategy or the actual system. But...they're a good player to have at the table. They explore and interact with the setting and have an intrinsic understanding of story structure.
I think that strictly adhering to the rules when your player is trying to use the information and the world you present to them to make informed decisions is worse gamemastering than not. The fact that their choices don't mesh exactly with the (extremely precise) mechanics in Pathfinder seems like a poor reason to discouraged such engaged and attentive game play.


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I wholeheartedly agree. I adopted the term from another system, but in my groups we call things like this "situational modifiers". Its a pseudo-mechanical way to explain how storytelling elements and role-play can impact the game play. Its where mechanics and story blend in my mind, and even if they don't always succeed perfectly, I think its what game designers are hoping to achieve when they create game mechanics. Human creativity is boundless though, so no system will ever have a rule for every possible circumstance. Inserting a little flexibility into the awesome (but sometimes rigid) framework of the game is no bad thing. Like all good things though, moderation is important. The only pitfall here is if one player's freedom or agency starts to run roughshod over other players' characters who have built themselves mechanically to handle the same issue. I don't think that's a likely issue from your post though.

Shadow Lodge

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I don't see how letting a player intimidate an opponent into backing down is breaking any rules. I'm assuming you had them roll an intimidate check, with circumstance bonuses for their roleplaying bit with the sacred knife. This sort of thing is great, it only adds to the game. Mechanics are there to support storytelling, not pigeonhole you into set ways of playing.

On the other hand, I strongly suggest against letting mechanics be completely overwritten by roleplaying. In the above example, if the character has no skill at intimidate and rolls a 4, they should fail. Yeah, they had a nice idea, but their PC doesn't have the skill to pull of their plan. If you let them succeed without rolling, then there's no purpose in ever having an intimidate skill. Might as well just remove charisma and social skills from the game at that point. Roleplay and mechanics should support each other, not overwrite each other.


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I didn't mean to suggest that allowing a player to roll Intimidate in combat was breaking the rules; it's allowing a monster's DR to be overcome by a source other than the listed one.

But yes to mechanics being overwritten by role-playing. The whole "if you eat to use Bluff, tell me what you want to say first and I'll assign a penalty or bonus as I see fit" mentality of social skills drives me crazy. If your total is a 34, you tell a smooth, believe lie. If it's a 7, it's pretty obvious to even dim-witted people that you're making crap up.
Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate are the only skills people try to use backward; no one goes "oh, you want to jump? Which foot do you lead with, and what techniques do you use to try and get the most air?" It's nonsensical.


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Quixote wrote:

I didn't mean to suggest that allowing a player to roll Intimidate in combat was breaking the rules; it's allowing a monster's DR to be overcome by a source other than the listed one.

But yes to mechanics being overwritten by role-playing. The whole "if you eat to use Bluff, tell me what you want to say first and I'll assign a penalty or bonus as I see fit" mentality of social skills drives me crazy. If your total is a 34, you tell a smooth, believe lie. If it's a 7, it's pretty obvious to even dim-witted people that you're making crap up.
Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate are the only skills people try to use backward; no one goes "oh, you want to jump? Which foot do you lead with, and what techniques do you use to try and get the most air?" It's nonsensical.

When it comes to social skills, the big reason is that, if skills are unequal, players will naturally want to roll their best skill even if it's not the most accurate skill - ESPECIALLY if it's Diplomacy.

I know a player who honestly believes that Diplomacy is a free action, with results that should be on par with the most powerful Enchantment spells as long as he rolls a 20+ on the check. And he'll roll diplomacy while starting to talk to your NPCs in that voice that dads use when they're about to take away their kids' Lego privileges.

He'll also roll Diplomacy while trying to lure bandits to the back of the cart to help themselves with our wealth... and then get all "DEEEENG IT" when forced to roll Bluff.


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I interpret and use the rule of cool to allow players' actions to succeed where the rules are unclear. After the session I work out what the best mechanic should have been snd apply that for future sessions. My favourite example that I have seen on this forum is using feather fall to control a landing after being thrown over a wall by a catapult. Rule of cool says, great inventive idea but no idea how to work out if it succeeds, so it succeeds. After the session, I consider the fly skill to be pertinent and assign a suitable DC to time the casting perfectly to avoid landing hard or travelling horizontally a few feet above the ground.

In the case of diplomacy and similar social skills, I ask the player to give the gist of what they are attempting to convey and assign a modifier to the roll based on the relevant character stat.

I also have a rule of cheese, which is used to stop lineal game mechanics interfering with the simultaneous simulation of events. The best example of the top of my head is the wizard who turns around on the spot to provoke an AoO before casting a spell so the opponent can't attack during the spell. I call the action cheesy and carry on, in this case rolling an AoO during the spell casting.

Shadow Lodge

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Baiting aoos is a perfectly valid, if risky, tactic. Not taking an aoo is also allowed (though I'd only do that with an intelligent foe). Combat reflexes is also a thing.

Spinning in place is neither an action, nor does it provoke. There is no facing in pathfinder.

Changing a creatures DR.. that's a bit of a tricky one to me.

On the one hand, I alter a lot of monsters for my home game. I consider it personalizing them for my setting. I have different views of how creatures fit into my world and alter things accordingly to fit them closer to my homebrew fluff.

On the other hand, making that sort of choice on the fly in the middle of a fight is possibly setting a dangerous precedent. For something like DR, it normally requires a limited resource or special ability to bypass. The player needs to have found/purchased a weapon of the proper type, or have a power like smite evil. So if that sacred knife was something the pc acquired from performing a spirit a quest in game or something like that, I'd consider allowing it. If it was just a 2gp dagger that they call their spirit knife for rp, I'd say no. The reason is that I'd be giving them a free way of bypassing dr because they told a good story. That could lead to the player always having a story to try to bypass dr for free on every monster.


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Most of my players are mechanics. That is, they focus hard on the crunch of the game and the system we're using at the time. As such, there's not usually much chance to use the "rule of cool" in my games unfortunately.

I run games using my own setting but incorporating the Golarion deities. At character creation I always remind my players that Sarenrae is the goddess of Redemption among other things. That means that some foes might be redeemed. In other words, this isn't a video game where monsters/foes are random bags of loot with attacks and defenses.

My players generally ignore my reminder. To them, if they spot a threat in their midst it was obviously placed there specifically to murder them and if they can't murder it first then one of us isn't doing their job right.

Now years ago I DID have a player who got my way of thinking. He played a paladin and the very first encounter of the first adventure I had a group of reskinned sprites descending on the party to try and incapacitate the party so the fey could get into a mausoleum they were guarding.

Even though we'd rolled initiatives, since the paladin's came up first, he asked if he could try Diplomacy since we hadn't ACTUALLY made any attacks yet. I relented, said sure, and the player launches into an epic soliloquy about respect for religion, faith and the importance of resolving differences with debate instead of always resorting to combat.

He then made his Diplomacy check, rolling a natural 19 and then adding his +6 to that. It was nearly a DC 25 which would've been enough to modify ANY attitude at least one step so I just stopped combat right there. The fey engaged in said debate and IRL the 2 of us chatted in character about the value of letting tradition dictate what happens with the dead instead of allowing "nature to take it's course" which was the stance of the sprites.

Spoiler:
That wasn't the first time the paladin used unconventional tactics in the game. It also wasn't the last time those sprites showed up. A subplot developed with the PCs helping some fey creatures even though they had to kill several evil mites. When the grave sprites showed up to perform a "natural" burial they thanked the party for sparing some of the fey and marked them with an Arcane Mark ability as faerie friends. This paid dividends when the party tried hacking off more than they could chew at a local megadungeon.

The campaign ended at level 3 with the paladin's epic death. He squared off against a charging wyvern to buy the party time to escape. The other PCs started to flee but turned to help their friend at the last minute. What followed was a series of attacks, a missed Poison save, an aerial Grapple and finally falling damage plus Lay on Hands that saw the paladin still barely alive as the wyvern fled and the party came back to his body on the ground. The last of his Con was drained away by Poison damage the next round and he died in the midst of the friends he'd saved one last time.

So the grave sprites suddenly materialize from the trees, sensing the fall of the paladin. Despite their nature the fey, having demonstrated a knowledge of religious practices in the past, dutifully read the paladin his last rights in Iomedaen tradition, laid his body upon a slab which they surrounded with magical foliage and embedded his longsword as a grave marker. At this point dozens of different fey had arrived on the scene and lent their own powers to protect the area in a faerie circle.

The arcane marks upon the PCs were made permanent, giving them and others they passed this mark to access to the faerie ring. Within the circle healing increased. Eventually I was going to make the paladin's grave a place of holy pilgrimage.

Bottom line: I'd use the rule of cool more if my players wanted to invoke it.


IMO, the "Rule of Cool" is one of the worst things introduced to roleplaying. A player should be able to go into any game and know that the basic rulebook he has will for the most part be how the game is played. Allowing people to do things that violate the rules, simply because it's cool, is not fair to a player who has developed his character according to the rules of the game.


TxSam88 wrote:

IMO, the "Rule of Cool" is one of the worst things introduced to roleplaying. A player should be able to go into any game and know that the basic rulebook he has will for the most part be how the game is played. Allowing people to do things that violate the rules, simply because it's cool, is not fair to a player who has developed his character according to the rules of the game.

I play my table essentially opposite of this statement.

Sure there are rules, and I am sure they are well-intentioned... but it's a fantasy game. Rules can take a hike when it comes to having fun, playing a fantasy game.

You better bring way more than just an understanding of the rules. I don't care how perfectly you mastered your character creation within RAW/RAI... I care about how you play your character. Having a robot that knows every rule is not conducive to fun gameplay.

Having a creative, invested, and silly player having fun with their character is WAY more important to a good session... in my opinion and experience.


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TX Samila: are you a player in my games? That's like, spot on for what several of them have said.

For my players "cool" is a 70% or better chance of success with a mechanic their character was built for. Then, once you're a hammer, all of your problems look like nails.

Say the PCs come to a locked door. This is bad game design, but what if the characters HAVE to get through this door to continue? The lock is a Good lock (DC 30) and the PCs are level 2.

Even if a character in the party has Disable Device they likely only have it at anywhere from a +5 to +9 on their character b/c no one really BUILDS for being the Disable Device person. So let's assume a +9; there's no mechanical way for this character to pop the lock on a D20 roll.

Now what?

Well, the obvious choice is to break the door down. You could do that, alert monsters in the area, and deal with the consequences. However there's other solutions that might involve using Knowledge checks to know who built the door/lock, or the mechanism itself, to grant a +2 on the check through Aid Another. Maybe someone uses Prestidigitation to amplify the sound of the lock tumblers or make task lighting. Maybe you try Acid to score the lock or freezing it with a combination of spells.

All of those and more might be tried to grant a +2 Circumstance bonus to the person picking the lock. If that person takes 20 and spends the time (likely about 2-8 minutes) working on it, along with these Circumstance bonuses, they might be able to get the lock open with the help of the party they're in.

My only point is some mechanics are SPECIFICALLY WRITTEN to be open to interpretation by the GM. So yes, everyone should sit down to the table with the same level of expectation of the mechanics working the way they should, but knowing that the GM can still arbitrate in corner cases that SOME actions don't work as expected or may fall outside the norm of the mechanic that governs them.


@VoodistMonk, I agree with you. You've stated it well! The rules are a tool to support interesting narration, not and end in and of themselves.

Unless a table is running its game primarily as a fantasy combat simulator - no judgement here, and pen and paper Diablo can be fun^^ -, the ruleset shouldn't impact the outcome of the story more than marginally. What truly matters are the characters, the setting and the events.

In the OP's story, I feel the change to DR was a tweak in the setting to make the event more interesting, I believe this is role-playing of quality from the Game Master. It could have been another adjustment of the rules had they been using the Warhammer Fantasy ruleset rather than the Pathfinder one but the idea underlying the story, the idea that drives the adjustment still is the same and just as interesting.


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Spoiler:
Now, all of the above being said, as a player I have a HUGE problem with inconsistent rules.

I played a game where 5' steps were possible in Difficult Terrain. Sometimes. By SOME people. But not my character. Ever.

That same game I peered into some undergrowth. The GM said the moon was out. I specifically asked "what PHASE is the moon in" He shrugged and said it was nearly full. I followed up with "is there any cloud cover?" He said no.

My character, a half-elf wizard with a bonus Skill Focus: Perception and a Trait that gave her Perception as a class skill (for a total of +11 in Dim light thanks to her Owl familiar) managed a total roll of 29 on my Perception check and saw nothing. She confidently stepped into the undergrowth only to drop instantly to negative HP from 2 Shocker Lizards sitting 10' away.

Later, after the fight wrapped, I calmly tried to ask how I'd missed the lizards. "It was too dark, you couldn't see them" was the response. The GM COULD have said that their Stealth check was just too high but no; it was too dark.

Too dark for a PC with Low-Light vision, under a nearly full moon with a clear sky, trying to view something that at the time was 15' from her face with a Perception check of 29.

I chose to leave the campaign after that

Bottom line: the rule of cool isn't a license for a GM to just decide what happens in a scene b/c they WANT it to happen


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@Mark Hoover 330, it seems your Game Master created an uninteresting narration, as the events don't fit with neither the character nor the setting.
If talking to your Game Master about the meta-game issue of completely unmet expectations didn't help, you leaving the campaign was wise, there would have been little for you in it but frustration.

About house rules I make/implement after the characters are created, I allow my players to modify their characters accordingly.

If however it had been narratively important for your character to fall to the lizards, so as to provide a cue for the introduction to the story of an intervening N.P.C. for example, I'd have had you not notice them in time either.
- sidenote: Perception/Spot/Notice rolls are hidden at my table, I like the passive mechanics of 5e -


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So sorry man. Arbitrary rulings suck. If there's a house rule or limit from the get go, fine, but otherwise that's not okay. Too many people don't seem to understand that "Low-Light Vision" is "Night Vision" its what all natural nocturnal animals possess if they have sight. All that takes is a tiny bit of starlight or some other light source, sometimes miles away. Only in true pitch blackness is "Dark Vision" required. Point is, with that moon you should have been able to count the scales on those lizards.

Side personal rant: You can aide another to heal someone, horses do let you travel faster, and yes you can knock them prone!


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I try to avoid it. I've seen rule of cool used to reward players the DM liked, and to pull the rug out from under players the DM didn't like. I think I'd be even handed about it, but it's hard to be certain.

I do let things work intuitively though, even if the rules don't support it. The bone knife example is interesting in that the monster has no way of knowing what it is other than that it's unusual. Even if the creature knew what sorts of things it was immune to, it may believe there are unknown counters to that immunity.


The bone knife is irrelevant considering that the GM already allowwd the PC to casually strike up a conversation with a combatant.

Even if the ice spirit hadn't singled the party out as an intentional target, it is clearly content watching everything it sings to die. Unless this ice spirit is cursed in such a way that it cannot stop its own song, it is clearly evil.

Therefore, the rules were already thrown out in order for the PC to be talking instead of fighting, fleeing, or freezing to death. Unless, level 3 characters are already smashing 25+CHA hostile Diplomacy checks...


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"So they make an appeal to the spirit. They realize the spirit isn't specifically trying to murder them; it just doesn't realize that the cold will eventually kill them, or even that they are unique, autonomous beings who can feel pain and experience suffering."

Does that cover your contingency?


Not really, no.

I have a hard time believing this "benevolent" ice spirit just randomly lulls things to sleep in the bitter cold... completely unaware that the things freaking die. It is either Evil, or really d@mn stupid.

"Hush wandering party, don't you cry...

The friendly little ice spirit will sing you a lullaby...

Hush freezing party, don't say a word...

The friendly little ice spirit will, oh, you're all dead, huh, why does this keep happening?"

It's honestly a nonissue and mostly irrelevant to the OP, though.


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Pathfinder is a simulationist system so often times rule of cool is passed to the side in favor of creating a realistic world. If the rules are unclear then it's all good to rule in favor of the players. The rules SHOULD facilitate the cool to begin with so having to bend or outright break them may mean the game system is failing to produce fun results.

I typically have a more rules lite system to play on other days from my simulationist game days so I can enjoy both types.

(Like driving a hovercycle off a ramp and kicking it into the second floor of a building to see it explode, FFD6 I love you so much)


Mark Hoover 330 wrote:


All of those and more might be tried to grant a +2 Circumstance bonus to the person picking the lock. If that person takes 20 and spends the time (likely about 2-8 minutes) working on it, along with these Circumstance bonuses, they might be able to get the lock open with the help of the party they're in.

This is the sort of thing I really don't like. Why? Because its cool when your level 2 rogue does this on the impossible lock. And then they do it on the next lock. And the next. And every lock after that.

You need to create a unique method to help the player overcome this situation. If you let them be 'cleaver' they will expect to be 'cleaver' every time. On the other hand, if you put in a decent excuse of why they get a bonus this time or bypass the challenge it keeps the adventure moving without creating a headache later.

Like in this case, after the rogue makes a few attempts have everybody else roll a perception. Highest roll notices something shiny in a crack in the floor near the door. The shiny something is a piece of brass. Getting it out of the crack is going to be a DC 20 Disable Device check. The key is really wedged into the crack, tight enough that Mage Hand alone won't work but Mage Hand would provide a +5 bonus to the disable device roll.


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Meirril wrote:

This is the sort of thing I really don't like. Why? Because its cool when your level 2 rogue does this on the impossible lock. And then they do it on the next lock. And the next. And every lock after that.

I disagree. When I am a player, I do try to recognise which moments are those that the Game Master allowed/helped to happen because it did make for an interesting storytelling at a given point and I do not try to use them as precedent nor have expectations of future gameplay based on them. An example is how our group was able to find the misplaced scroll - that stated obscure rights granted to the peasants living on the land we were awarded - we were looking for in an immense library. After having unsuccessfully tried a few methods, we used spurious logical thinking and tongue-in-cheek associations to decide it had been shelved with treatise of ancestral forestry techniques and this is where we found it.

At this moment, it made sense meta-game-wise to let us find it, we had been at it for an hour in real life.
The following adventure, having unearthed an ancient magical cannon not far from our manor, we wanted to learn more about it. We were unable to find the texts that discussed its usage and its methods, only texts mentioning its existence. We players consciously didn't try pseudo-logic again as it wasn't narratively meaningful to do it again and again. Later in the adventure, we almost TPKd fighting a horrible demon that was using a dead dragon as a host. The cannon, as we learnt later, was a demon-slaying piece of artillery. The dragon, and its elven prince rider, had taken part in a war against such demons generations and generations prior.
The information on what the cannon was and how to use it would have been relevant and useful. It was behind a gate of the same kind we had gone through earlier using the rule-of-cool. None of us thought it would have been cool to apply it again. We almost got killed, characters a campaign and half deep, in a universe with no resurrection. The combat was epic as we had almost no chance but luck was on our side a few times. It made for great memories.


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Meirril wrote:
This is the sort of thing I really don't like. Why? Because its cool when your level 2 rogue does this on the impossible lock. And then they do it on the next lock. And the next. And every lock after that.

There is an official mechanic for that: Hero points. It rewards creativity (or persistence, depending on situation), but can be used only so often. It's fair because every PC has the same amount of points, and it's very accessible power because even a newbie player can easily ask a GM "Can I do this? Maybe with a hero point?".

I mean, I handwave some things ("no, you don't have to bother with ammo", "yes, at that level you easily make the skill check"), I let them approach minor problems in unconventional ways ("yes, you can turn the locked door into bread") and I even add content if players consider it cool (talk about a wizard tower made players want to actually visit it). But when the stakes are high, my players will have to rely on using the existing mechanics to win.


SheepishEidolon wrote:
Meirril wrote:
This is the sort of thing I really don't like. Why? Because its cool when your level 2 rogue does this on the impossible lock. And then they do it on the next lock. And the next. And every lock after that.

There is an official mechanic for that: Hero points. It rewards creativity (or persistence, depending on situation), but can be used only so often. It's fair because every PC has the same amount of points, and it's very accessible power because even a newbie player can easily ask a GM "Can I do this? Maybe with a hero point?".

I mean, I handwave some things ("no, you don't have to bother with ammo", "yes, at that level you easily make the skill check"), I let them approach minor problems in unconventional ways ("yes, you can turn the locked door into bread") and I even add content if players consider it cool (talk about a wizard tower made players want to actually visit it). But when the stakes are high, my players will have to rely on using the existing mechanics to win.

There is a huge difference between using a hero point and the GM allowing the players to make up enough bonuses to pass the check. OP's example could of been passed with a hero point and a roll of 14+ (which should be handwaived as a take 20).

Unconventional should be encouraged. It is a different way to approach the same problem, and it should be an approach that is specific to this problem. What I object to is giving the players a bonus for something extra that they did that could be applied to every use of the skill.

Using KS: Engineering, or history, or whatever to grant aid another bonuses to Disable Device implies you should be able to do this in the future. Using spells that don't give skill boosts to give skill boosts without explaining why it works now but won't work later. Pouring oil in a lock for an extra +1 to skill. All of this is the kind of things I'm say should be avoided unless you want to give your players a permanent bonus.


VoodistMonk wrote:

Not really, no.

I have a hard time believing this "benevolent" ice spirit just randomly lulls things to sleep in the bitter cold... completely unaware that the things freaking die. It is either Evil, or really d@mn stupid.

"Hush wandering party, don't you cry...

The friendly little ice spirit will sing you a lullaby...

Hush freezing party, don't say a word...

The friendly little ice spirit will, oh, you're all dead, huh, why does this keep happening?"

It's honestly a nonissue and mostly irrelevant to the OP, though.

Continuing from "why does this keep happening"

"Wait, what happened, where am I? What are these things laying beside me? Poor darlings appear to be sleeping. I love helping the woken lull back to sleep. Oh look, here come some woken now. Perhaps they need a lullaby..."

I'm not saying this is DEFINITELY what's happening here V to the M, but I'm suggesting that perhaps a "spirit" that has no awareness of autonomous beings or their feelings can't make long-term memories, kind of like a "Momento" type situation.

Whatever the case, by RAW you generally can't use Diplomacy while already engaged in combat. But the GM allowed it, so right there, regardless of the DR issue we've stepped outside the norm.


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Outside the norm, sure, but not outside the rules.
"Diplomacy is generally ineffective in combat and against creatures that intend to harm you or your allies in the immediate future."
the use of "generally" means that sometimes it can work even if the harm is intentional, and says nothing about unintentional harm which is scenario as presented.

The 1 minute of continuous interaction does seem to limit the use of diplomacy to change attitudes within combat, but we still have a single round request.


No, I know that word "Generally" is in there. That's the same "generally" I used to justify a paladin talking down some attacking sprites in my example above.

That "generally" is also the reason why I suggest that there are some mechanics in the game specifically designed to be open to GM interpretation. These purposeful gray areas can be frustrating to mechanic types of players but they are written into the system so that certain scenes or niche cases can happen outside of the norm.

IMO though, there's a huge difference between allowing Diplomacy to happen in the midst of combat or assault and removing the capability of Low Light Vision seemingly at random. While I mostly GM and have come to easily accept the will of GM's over some scenarios where something outside the norm fits the narrative better I have the same level of frustration with that other kind of GM.


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Wow, a lot of strong opinions here. A few clarifiers of the situation mentioned in original post:

The Blackfoot tribe believes that the northern lights are the nets and lines of spirits, cast into this world to snare mortal souls and pull them into the sky.
Their hunters carry knives made of ivory or bone, blessed by their shamans, to cut through those nets if they ever find themselves ensnared.

So any character of the Blackfoot tribe started the game with a +1 dagger.

As for the spirit of ice and snow, it's actually a really common trope with spirits and faeries and the like. Their minds don't work like ours. They are ancient and young, innocent and alien. They lack empathy, like a kid stepping on an ant.
It's a far more subtle concept than the normal "Good/Evil" axis of D&D can easily handle, but I just tend to not go into too many details about it. Which serves the theme of those encounters just fine, actually. Too much detail spoils the mystery.

In regards to using Diplomacy in a "combat" situation, I'm not really sure I understand. Are people really saying that asking "what are you doing?" or "what do you want?" are impossible questions to blurt out in a dangerous situation?
And on top of that, it's not like someone walked up to the characters, declared their intent of murder, and started swinging. This creature was unknowingly and indirectly putting the character's lives at risk, just by being around.

Now, addressing the topic more broadly again:

A lot of posts here seem to be expressing the sentiment of "give an inch, they'll take a mile." Like, if you give your players the option to do something extra or slightly outside the rules one time, they'll do it all the time.
I just feel like there's a huge difference between a player trying to be interesting and tell a compelling story and one trying to take the system for a ride and Be The Best. To stop the latter, I think a GM has full rights to be as inconsistent as they need to be. Play nice, you get cool toys. Be a jerk and your toys get taken away.

So my player took the information about the settin, recalled it in a situation that seemed similar and then spent two rounds in initiative trying to put their plan into effect.
Blows were exchanged, hit points were lost, experience was given. The encounter ended with the spirit backing off, hurt and confused, while they exchanged some information, etc.

The point of this thread is twofold. The first was to open a discussion about players who are trying to engage with the world the GM presents, to be active participants in the story. The other is to demonstrate that, for some players, this sort of contribution is the only meaningful kind they can add. They don't understand the finer points of the game's mechanics (or even the general ones), and they really just...can't.

There is no greater reward for me, as a GM, than a player who takes the world I have created and the story I have begun to tell and runs with it. Actually shows an interest in it, beyond what they'll get next level and what magic items they need.


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ErichAD wrote:

Outside the norm, sure, but not outside the rules.

"Diplomacy is generally ineffective in combat and against creatures that intend to harm you or your allies in the immediate future."
the use of "generally" means that sometimes it can work even if the harm is intentional, and says nothing about unintentional harm which is scenario as presented.

The 1 minute of continuous interaction does seem to limit the use of diplomacy to change attitudes within combat, but we still have a single round request.

That single round request has an associated feat with substantial restrictions.

You can do this in combat, but your whole team basically has to offer the enemy team a full round of actions against you - and the check is even higher than a Hostile reaction adjustment. Also, from the enemy's perspective, you can't possibly succeed if you're trying to use the truce to claim victory or weaken their advantages through a 1-minute delay.

You might also fail if your allies are unwilling to go along with your peacenik gambit (allowing enemies to make Sense Motive checks at DC 20 or your Bluffs.)


Allowing Diplomacy to ruin encounters is something I try to avoid. Try it the other way and see how well the party responds to being told what to do simply because the enemy has a higher Diplomacy than their Sense Motive. Nope, sorry, I know you hate him, but he has a really good point... so stay your blade, kiss and make up, you're friends now...

Ridiculous.

Rule of Cool is letting a swallowed whole Rogue get Sneak Attack inside the Jotund Troll, and then allowing the Rogue to stay inside to continue carving instead of hopping out after doing adequate damage to free himself. It was a race to see who ran out of HP first, mano a mano, may the best man win... and, eventually, the top half of the Jotund Troll fell lifelessly to tge ground, leaving the bloodied Rogue standing on the stumps of the Troll's hips.

Freaking cool.


In an openly hostile combat, I'm going to agree with you VMonk. But, as has been pointed out, the OP's scenario is different from that. If anything this Sprite sounds almost like a living embodiment of a natural hazard or a spell trap. I'm not arguing that the way the scene went down was completely within the bounds of RAW, but I do think that there were enough extenuating circumstances to make an argument for RAI, especially if you count the lines at the beginning of most RPG books that talk about "Fun" or "Story" being the most important thing. I don't have my PHB accessible right now, or I'd pull the direct quote.

TLDR: Talk down the angry bloody bandit chief mid fight, no
Diplomacy with a dazed, confused, sleepwalking, or otherwise impaired being, maybe.


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VoodistMonk wrote:
Allowing Diplomacy to ruin encounters is something I try to avoid.

I don't allow anything to "ruin encounters", period. Why would I do that? I work hard on my games. Why on earth would I let anything ruin any part of them?

The whole Diplomacy thing seems to be the main focus for some reason, so I'll reiterate: does anyone really think that asking "what are you doing?" or "what do you want?" are impossible questions to blurt out in a dangerous situation?
I suppose I should clarify, though: does anyone think that asking questions like those above and possibly getting some kind of a useful answer is impossible?
I don't mean within the rules of the game, specifically. In actual reality. Which...I mean... the game is meant to simulate reality and such, no?


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No, asking "What are you doing?" in combat is a Free action so there's no problem with this. Having a monster STOP doing what it's doing after a short conversation with the PC or PCs, that's where the rules factor in.

Per the rules, using Diplomacy to influence a creature's attitude is "generally" not available as an option in combat. Once the battle is joined, most foes won't change their attitude and quit attacking from mere words. I don't think the same restriction is there on Intimidation.

Also upthread you said "give 'em an inch, they'll take a mile" is a concern. I'd agree with that and go further: if the GM is so convinced that their story is more compelling than the rules they'll occasionally bend or violate the rules in favor of the narrative too.

Thing is: where does that end?

I'm with Voodist the Nudist upthread who suggested that the rule of cool is for when a rogue carves their way out of a troll. Combat actions, being more cinematic... that's a good place for the rule of cool. Except there too GMs can get a big head.

One guy in one of my games is obsessed with the Final Fantasy games. He wrote a PF campaign loosely based on them and had certain scenes meant to emulate the "cutscenes" of the video games. Having guards bust in from offscreen and toss alchemical stun weapons that automatically put the characters to sleep was just one example.

I only heard about this from another player, but supposedly the players immediately turned to this GM and said "ok, what kind of save do we need to make?" The GM was confused. "No, this was a Surprise round; you're just knocked out." The table erupted in arguments and play halted for about 20-25 minutes.

See, that's extreme but it happens. Sometimes GMs abuse the rule of cool to force an event or outcome b/c it feels cool. Players can TRY that sort of thing but GMs can always just disallow things.

Bottom line: there needs to be a social contract at the table of what the Rule of Cool means to all participants and how loose and free you want to be with the rules.

As I've said, most of my players are mechanics that ONLY do things by RAW. I tend to be a bit more flexible but I defer to that style with them. Upside, most of us have fun; downside; no one at the table tries anything without at least a 70% chance of success unless there's absolutely no other option.

In the OP you describe the following:

1. a spirit creature attacks the PCs dealing damage with a Captivating Song ability
2. The inventive player with the bone knife shakes off the effects and uses a Free action to question the spirit
3. The spirit explains itself (I suppose using an Immediate action)
4. The player with the bone knife then tried to intimidate the spirit; if using the Intimidate skill to change the spirit's attitude (make it feel fear and empathy, alien concepts to it) this means that the player spoke in an intimidating fashion while brandishing their bone knife for a minute, during which time presumably combat was halted
5. The spirit's DR didn't say anything about being affected by Bone so, as GM, you decided it WAS in fact scared of that substance and thus complied with the intimidation

Did I get that right? 'Cuz I think that's pretty much the RAW of what you said in the OP.

If that's not how it went, you probably deviated from RAW the moment the Player interrupted the spirit's captivating song with their words. If everyone had fun, no foul - you're all good.

Its just not the RAW of PF1 is all. As folks have suggested, the rules are more guidelines. Except to my players, to whom the rules are a weirdly sacred text.


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All the time! As the Bard said "The play is the thing!"


Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

...upthread you said "give 'em an inch, they'll take a mile" is a concern. I'd agree with that and go further: if the GM is so convinced that their story is more compelling than the rules they'll occasionally bend or violate the rules in favor of the narrative too.

Thing is: where does that end?

That's not a vote against what I'm talking about, that's a vote against being a bad GM. The fact that I could drive my car through an orphanage doesn't make cars bad, only bad drivers.

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:
In the OP you describe the following...Did I get that right? 'Cuz I think that's pretty much the RAW of what you said in the OP.

To be clear:

1. the spirit's song and aura of cold take effect, resulting in some negative effects (endure elements effects dispelled/suppressed, cold damage and fatigue).

2. The character of the player in question breaks free from the fascination effect and spends their turn talking to the spirit.

3. There is a brief back-and-forth between spirit and character.

4. Seeing that the spirit is just too unaware of it's own abilities and their effect on mortals, the character, thinking their blessed knife that could cut the northern lights, which are part of the spirit world would be useful against this spirit as well, drew the weapon to menace the creature with it.

5. The spirit had DR/cold iron, but I figured the knife ought to count as such in this case, or be a valid alternative.

6. The other players, seeing the spirit was not an immediate threat anymore, ceased hostile action and everyone dropped out of initiative order.

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

If that's not how it went, you probably deviated from RAW the moment the Player interrupted the spirit's captivating song with their words. If everyone had fun, no foul - you're all good.

Its just not the RAW of PF1 is all. As folks have suggested, the rules are more guidelines. Except to my players, to whom the rules are a weirdly sacred text.

I'm confused. I'm not looking for validation or permission. I broke the rules, deliberately and to good effect. That's my point. When you have a player that is trying to interact with your world and tell a story with you, you should encourage that sort of thing. Especially when the player's contribution to the game will not ever be from the mechanical/tactical quarter, but also just in general.

The other option, "you menace the spirit with the knife...and it doesn't seem to care. Guess that knife isn't especially effective against spirits like this, after all" -- it's thematically inconsistent, results in one player spending 2+ turns in combat accomplishing nothing and encourages video game logic over the regular kind.

Shadow Lodge

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For me it depends on who I'm playing with. It's all about trust. With some players I can say f-- RAW, toss the rulebook out the window, and have a better experience for it. When I play a home game with my longtime friends, I know they want to make it a fun experience, and tell a good story, not "win." So I can give them a mile and let them run with it.

If I'm playing with a group of strangers or worse, some schmucks I know who see the game as a competition, then I'll beat them with the rulebook because they will ruin the game if I don't enforce every rule. If I'm running at a con, then I won't give the players an inch even if I know and trust everyone, because we don't have time to run a mile; we have to finish in the 4 hour slot.


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OP seems less like rule of cool and more like what I consider the good practice of adapting scenarios to what players actually do. Players do not know what you're thinking, and you can't predict what they're going to try, so it pays to be flexible and let them build their own solutions. It's so easy for groups to go into a death spiral when you've got one solution to a situation in mind and aren't willing to budge on it. It doesn't even sound like the player's lack of system mastery was really playing into the situation above. They had an idea that made sense, so they tried to sell their story to the monster. If you were going to make it fail, I'd say it's at least a little bit on you to communicate that the monster might be immune or resistant to this thing.

The problem I see most often when GMs WON'T be flexible is that the players try a solution similar enough to what you intend that when it fails, they write off the correct solution as well and then what do you do?

I remember years ago in a game, the GM set up a puzzle where there was a riddle and the solution was to stick a light source into this big black beam. We had tried a few different permutations of shining a light through the source (into the beam) right away, and the GM told us it didn't work. He stuck to his guns, and we spent hours of a very unpleasant session trying to figure out the stupid riddle that we'd already figured out. It sucked.

As for genuinely bending rules, I help out a bit behind the curtain here and there. I don't turn blatant failures into successes, but if the players are doing something interesting, I usually give more leeway and opportunities for second chances. Spectacular failures at just the wrong moment can be really cool too though.

Generally with things like combat, I'm doing slight edits on occasion to make it all feel better and keep everyone involved.

With diplomacy stuff, I'm usually keeping power dynamics in mind. I think some players get the idea that diplomacy should be able to resolve any confrontation, and I don't really go with that. The enemy has to at least be motivated to hear you out and believe that you're close to equal footing or you have some kind of advantage before they'll negotiate. You might be able to bluff or intimidate your way to that point, but there's a lot of times where you're just gonna have to beat some sense into an enemy and THEN negotiate.


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I can't seem to edit, but I wanted to add this:

I had a similar situation to OP very recently actually: I have a very new player in my current game. Last session, they encountered a powerful, intelligent undead that was bound to protect a particular door. I hadn't really counted on them trying to meaningfully engage with the skull because it was mostly going to just say some extremely nihilistic things at them that would make it obvious that all they really had to do was accept its viewpoint as correct and it would let them go through.

Well they sent the low int character out to talk to it and it wound up being a very long and confusing (amusing) conversation of her just not getting it and therefore not responding properly. This conversation also gave the players the notion that maybe this all really sucks for the big skull guy, which was another thing I hadn't really been thinking about.

So they're not saying the right things and he's not going to let them through, but they've decided that skullzy doesn't like his job, so they started chasing that thread. So I couldn't really let this work for them because he's not really got a choice about what he's doing, but I decided to go with him just being tired. So first I had him start threatening the group in a way that *very specifically* told them all of his combat abilities. The new player, possibly not really getting the scale of things, decided to try Cure Moderate on him in such a way that I could tell they expected it to do more than it was really going to do, probably because it's the most powerful healing they currently have access to.

This would have gone very badly for them, of course. They'd do a tiny amount of damage and start a difficult fight in a bad spot, so here's where I really gave them some leeway because I understood what the player was trying and I felt like they should get *something* for it: I had Skullzy, still running with the idea that he was being unsubtly helpful, declare that hahaha the player's healing magic was SO pitiful, that it didn't even pass his minimum threshold for response, and that gosh they could probably cast that three more times before his programming would even kick in. Player got the message that the spell isn't that great, but they still got to do something with it and have the moment of preparation that I'd meant for them to have.

So that's how I adapt situations and also play gentler with players who don't know the game so much.


Yes, the "rule of cool", as I mentioned before, seems to have this frivolous or casual connotation. I was expanding it's definition and trying to make it a bit more concrete.

I still don't quite get the "if you do it once, they'll expect you to do it again, so don't do it ever" philosophy.
The fact that some players/GM's will, at some times, try to abuse some rules or the bending thereof, is not a reason to stop using or bending those rules. It's a reason to stop the abuse.
If I'm running a game, my word is law. You can offer your input. Once. After that, shut up and play the game. If you don't like the story I'm inviting you to tell with me, there's the door.
If I'm playing in your game and l I disagree with your ruling, I'll offer my input. Once. After that, I'll either shut up and play or I'll leave. I've left plenty of tables; my free time is too precious for me to waste it not having fun. But sometimes I'll tolerate the occasional (or even frequent) burr as someone learns the finer points of the craft.


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I learned how to play AD&D 1e using equal parts rulebook and Rule of Cool and I still use the RoC to this day. If a player wants to try something that would either require us to stop the game while someone digs and digs for the rule on it or would prohibit the character from doing something that would be very fun or make for a very dramatic or exciting scene, I activate the use of the RoC.

I've played with my group for years, some of them going back 35 years. It's our style. I know that's not for everyone but we're not playing the game for anyone but ourselves. We don't have any way to set up a table to play so we don't use miniatures, either. We sit around on three couches and a huge oversized chair in a sort of conversation/gaming pit. That's also the way I learned to play. While at times in the past tables were available the Theater of the Mind works so much better for us. We did try using minis for a short time when we were playing at an FLGS but we decided it slowed the game down too much waiting for players to halt the action, reach over, or even have to stand up to reach their figure and reposition it.

I firmly believe the use of the Rule of Cool and the Theater of the Mind has made me a better GM. It's helped me and my group to visualize things more and develop more detailed and dynamic descriptions of things. I realize this would be a handicap for some, if not most other players or GMs. It would be a hindrance for me to play in a group that is a stickler for the rules. And never having to search for a group of people to fill a chair in all my years may have made it very difficult for me or some of my group to play in game nights with other people. A couple of my guys do have other groups that they participate in, but they drive two and a half hours one way just to be a part of the ones I run, which tells me that I have a couple of very good and supportive friends and that for them, at least, I'm doing something right. Something cool, if you will.

The Exchange

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Ok, here's a GOOD story of using the Rule of Cool - it's a bit long so I am going to Spoiler it - it has some spoilers for the PFS scenarios First Steps and Confirmation in it.

First Steps and Confirmation spoilers:

I'd like to mention two games I was involved with a while ago, two with an odd connection - First Steps and then Confirmation...

The First Steps was run by a beginning Judge - her first game (our 13 year old judge - with the next youngest person at the table was her mom - but that is another story). Mostly it was a lot of fun... the judge really liked Ledford and the lack of complex tactics for that character. He takes an ax, goes berserk and just start hitting things. She liked him so much so that she built a "look alike" character for him and took it into the next game as a PC - so we played Confirmation with a Halfling Barbarian with a great ax named Ledford (the halfling, not the ax).

Anyway - second game was a lot of fun - and the final blow was glorious!

The PCs are rushing out of the cave to save the little halfling lady and shooting at the Big Bad. Ledford (from the back of the party) moves out of the cave up to the difficult area (the trees), and draws the potion of Feather Step (from the back pack). Next round he drinks the potion and moves up to 10' short of the stream. Then the third round he charges across - jumping the stream (I was running the game and wasn't sure if he could charge and jump - but heck, I'm not going to stop the game at this point and look it up! So - Rule of Kewl and all that) so over the stream he jumps! - right into combat with the BBE. Big Bad swings an AOO and misses "the Mustache with Feet". The little guy rolls his first (and only) nat "20" of the night, and just barely confirms the crit (thanks in part to the Bards singing). This, backed up with the damage from the missile fire (Force Missiles from the Evoker Wiz and arrows/bolts from the other players) and the BBE is down - dead.

So yeah, the male Halfling barbarian charged the monster and put it down with one Ax blow! Saving the female halfling bard.... fade to next scene (hay! the barbarian is run by a 13 year old girl! So clean up those thoughts you gamer geeks you!)

And thus the Big Bad from the old intro game killed the Big Bad from the second intro game... and just to finish it out, I bothered to look the rule up. Nope - you can't charge if there is anything like a stream in the way... except for the Rule of Kewl!


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the only harm in allowing something awesome is when it flies directly in the face of established precedent or rules to an abusive degree.

I generally "Rule of Cool"-it when its a situation that does not have a clearly defined rule but makes somewhat plausible sense. Probably the most typical example of this is jumping onto the giant monster's back. It's a fairly standard trope that never seems to be defined in most any rule set. So typically, I'll give it a moderate check number and allow the player to body surf the ogre or whatnot. Doesn't net any mechanical advantages normally, but typically the big thing will spend a turn or two trying to get the flea off.

As for the described scenario, I agree with others upthread that is just an example of situational changes.

Otherwise I've always used Rule of Cool to explain the unexplainable, but awesome things that typically happen in such games. First I ever heard of it was Rifts, when trying to explain why pychic cowboys are wrangling a seven-head hydra while riding cyborg horses.

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