Encouraging player creativity is a good thing, but does that remain true even when the plan is ill-advised? Should GMs go out of their way to “let it work?” Or is it incumbent on creative players to accept negative rulings with good grace?
For example, suppose an excited first-time player declares, "I've got it you guys! I know how we can cross the chasm! I'll just cast a fireball at my feet, and rocket jump like it's TF2!" Do you go out of your way to "yes, and" such a maneuver, or is it time for 6d6 fire damage worth of painful lessons?
In that instance the caster should know beforehand that Fireballs have zero concussive force. If the spell had an effect that blew targets X distance, then hypothetically it could add X to a jump, but the execution would be ridiculous to manage. In that case it'd take a desperate situation for me to allow even the attempt, and at long odds (though with enough levels, PCs could make such odds, being superhuman at some point).
Otherwise I'd say the demarcation cannot be determined; it'll remain a matter of eyeballing each situation, combo, context. Plus there's the tone of the campaign that matters. In a cartoonish campaign, I'd allow much more while in a grimdark one, much less. In fact, in one PF1 module I ran Scooby-Doo style, players could accumulate points toward pulling off stunts (which themselves could earn them said points). In other ones, I just give a flat look which other players will interpret for the questioner as "That looks says you'll die". Another funny thing some of my regulars have noticed is if I ask to verify what you're doing, there's a reasonable chance you should be asking yourself too. I don't want to kill somebody because I misheard or led them to a misunderstanding of the situation.
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Eyeballing the effects asked for is the best method imo.
I once allowed a character to set a small brush fire on the outside of a goblin village with Produce Flame, then use Gust of Wind to blow the flames towards the village. This did no immediate damage to anything, as the flames were an "off screen" issue the goblins had to deal with, but it did make the parties mission a bit easier by disrupting patrols and just generally causing chaos.
If that character had asked if he could use Gust of Wind to deal extra damage to a character by blowing fire at them, I'd be much more leery of allowing it. Generally the buck stops for me in encounter use of spells.
As long as an out of combat use is clever and doesn't solve Every problem, I'm usually fine with it.
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Definitely a table variation thing. Some tables like slapstick, rule of cool, and letting things ride
To be more specific, though, GMs shouldn't "go out of their way" to ensure any cockamamie scheme has a chance of success, just as players shouldn't expect anything they can possibly dream up to be met with a "yes, and".
Rules exist to provide consistency, and if you want to throw that aside the whole group needs to be on board.
With spells you need to be careful. If fireball propels you across a chasm, why doesn't it throw enemies off a cliff? What does that do to the player who took a feat that lets them jump further who could have had this moment to shine?
"Yes, and" has become a buzzword instead of a bit of theory that GMs read about and consider whether to apply it to their games. It isn't a something that should be applied as a rule, and it's more appropriate for roleplay stuff, not mechanical stuff.
If a player has their ex-soldier character walk up to a soldier in a column of soldiers and be like "Dave! It's been ages! You still with the 5th regiment?" - roll with that soldier actually being their old buddy dave - that is a good use of "yes, and"
If a player wants to jump on an enemies back (something the rules don't cover) - that is when the GM should ask "does this seem possible?" and then if it is, come up with how to adjudicate the action.
If a player wants to make a spell do a thing it doesn't actually do, that can then be applied in other contexts and invalidates other possible character creation choices, that is a time to say "no, it doesn't work that way".
A quick litmus check is "does this replicate the effect of another ability/feat/spell/item" - if so, the only way that the character can do that thing is to select that option in character creation/obtain that item.
That's not to say spells can never do extra things - I would say most fire spells would ignite an oil slick or dry grass or set off gunpowder, but that kind of stuff mostly falls into the "obvious environmental effects" category.
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"Yes, and..." reflects an improv theater mindset. IMO rules shouldn't be improvised (at least not in PF2). Otherwise one might as well improv the whole affair (which isn't necessarily a bad thing!).
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A Reddit user once wrote something that made me realize there is a rule in PF2 for most "creative" spell uses beyond what the spell actually is described to do: The Aid action. Aid requires to sacrifice and action to help. Casting or sustaining a spell that has no useful effects would count as an action for Aid for me.
Wizard wants to cast Dancing Lights to confuse the ogre the party is fighting? Cast it and use a reaction when an ally attacks to Aid using Arcana. On the following round the wizard can sustain and Aid with the lights again.
Wizard wants to help rocket jump with fireball? Cast it and when the ally makes the Long Jump spend a reaction to Aid using Arcana, maybe against a higher DC. Also the ally has to make a reflex save.
The Aid action is luckily so broad that it is usable for many creative uses.
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"Yes, and...," applies to scene setting and not breaking immersion. "No, but...," allows you to stay within the rules, but leaves room for creativity. A player asking to use a fireball to launch themselves into the air isn't going to get much more than a "No, but you can certainly try," from me, if I'm being honest.
However, here's an example from a recent-ish game of mine. I had a player ask to climb atop the dragon they were fighting and hack away at it's eye. I told him that while there weren't explicitly rules that let him do so without some sort of feat (well, with less flowery language), he could attempt an Athletics check to climb the dragon (either two successes or a critical success) and then a critical against its flat-footed AC to make it blind until it uses 3 actions to clear its sight. He found it agreeable and lo and behold actually pulled it off! Admittedly, that barbarian could have used his actions much more effectively, but he enjoyed it the entire time!
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"Creative use of spell" always crosses the line when it is not done in good faith.
If "creative use of spell" is a mostly singular event that fits the current moment / narrative / characters there is few reasons for the GM not to roll with it. If however "creative use of spell" ought to be used to more or less game the system on a regular basis this is where I would draw the line.
For example I would easily allow using Wall of Stone to create a three dimensional shelter to ward innocent bystanders from an incoming breath attack, however (as per my interpretation of the spell and governing rules) not for boxing in of said enemy using 4 walls and a roof.
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I remember once, I wanted to flip a large round table onto three charging goblins to flatten them.
The GM, concerned that I was stepping on the toes of specialized trip builds, allowed it with a DC so high, that there was no hope save for a natural 20.
Later, I wanted to wrangle a flying peryton with a rope and grappling hook to bring it to ground.
The GM, concerned that this would forever ruin flyingencounters, allowed it with a DC so high, that there was no hope save for a natural 20.
Seeing a trend? So was I. It was not long before the other players were yelling at ME to stop being so "creative" and just have my fighter hit the thing.
"It'd be dead by now if you'd just stop with your trick fighter shenanigans!"
No, It'd be dead in amazing fashion if I had any sincere cooperation from the GM.
I do agree there needs to be a line, but many GMs don't allow for getting within a mile of it.
Love the Aid advice.
That reminds me of Starfinder's combat maneuvers. Hit their KAC+8! Good effin luck!
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I think the GMG has some fairly solid advice on this;
Another powerful tool you can use to help you say “Yes,
but” when you’re unsure of the game impact is to allow the
idea to work just this once, letting your players know that
this is part of your decision. For instance, maybe you think
a PCs attempt to Grapple a spider to aim its web attack at
another foe is so fun you have to let them do it, but you’re
worried that the effect would be so powerful that the PCs
would just carry around a spider to shoot webs for the rest
of the campaign. By making it a one-time effect, you can
have fun but don’t have to worry about whether you’re
setting a disruptive precedent for later on.
I think it's a good test to ask "would you do this all the time", then it probably should a feat or suchlike. If it's something that makes sense in that particular unique situation, that's different.
"Monsters big enough to be a kind of terrain" is rules territory I'd be happy to explore as GM.
I wonder if the rules on riding sentinent creatures (LOAG) can help there a bit. It was "each of the two loses an action or the rider falls off" if I remember right.
Since the monster won't save actions, the PC climber would fall off every round and would have to Grab an Edge to stay on the monster. The PC would only have 2 actions or risk to fall off again. I don't know if that too restrictive to be fun, though. :/
Reaching a certain bodypart could be one or a few Climb or Balance actions.
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"Monsters big enough to be a kind of terrain" is rules territory I'd be happy to explore as GM.
I actually took a stab at it with my Moving Castle.
Players loved it.
"Yes, and..." reflects an improv theater mindset.
"Yes, and...," applies to scene setting and not breaking immersion.
Very specifically, "Yes, and" is not a rule to literally say yes to everything. It's a direction to nudge people in, under the assumption that most adults are not creative enough.
When I play with my kids, I definitely do NOT apply the "Yes, and" mindset - they are too creative.
"Can my sprite use telekinetic projectile to throw a big rock downward and propel myself to the top of the cliff?"
"No."
Should GMs go out of their way to “let it work?”
My general rule is this: I'm happy to play along with creative solutions, but the difficulty of the creative solution can only be a little easier than the straightforward solution.
In the above example, let's say the goal is to get up to the top of the cliff. One way is to fly - Fly and Air Walk are 4th level spells, and Telekinetic Projectile is a cantrip, so I'm very reluctant to allow the substitution. But if someone with a swim speed wants to throw a Decanter of Endless Water (Item 7) up and then swim up the waterfall to to top of a cliff, I'm much more amenable to it (even if it doesn't quite make physics sense).
Every once in a while, especially in my home games, players come up with solutions that I didn't forsee as a GM. Those are the only times I allow a substitution that's significantly easier, and just consider it my bad for missing it during game prep.
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I thoroughly appreciate creativity. However, the creative ideas do have to interact with how the 'world' actually works.
"Can I cast fireball to propel myself?"
No, fireball doesn't do that. I'll tell you what though, if you cast fireball into a very sturdy box with 5 sides and the open side facing down, I'd allow that to build sufficient force for propulsion. Forewarning, I will be comparing the damage of the fireball to the hardness and Hit points of the box.
I like player creativity, but magic in games is not “magic” in the conceptualization of being able to change reality at will. The physics of magic is not something to think too much about because it breaks quickly. Instead, you have to work with game mechanics and balance. Allowing purely offensive spells to serve out of combat utility functions quickly devolves into “my character can do what ever they want because of magic.”
There are plenty of fun games and collaborative story telling methods for exploring that imaginative space, but that quickly devolves in a game like PF2 to “casters get to do everything” and make skill feats a sad joke.
Jump is a spell. Flavoring it to be casting something like fireball and rocket jumping is totally fine with me as a GM. Getting the benefit of being able to turn fireball into a flexible slot doesn’t feel creative to me, it feels like one player making a cheesy power grab. In instances like this, I think it is better to default to the mechanics than an imagined physics (fire ball creates 0 concussive force some how and it’s energy instantly dissipates).
I like the idea of folding creative spell use into an aid another action and even giving sizable circumstance bonuses for doing so, but trying to regularly use combat spells for non-combatants problem solving undermines utility spells as well as skill feats.
I like player creativity, but...Allowing purely offensive spells to serve out of combat utility functions quickly devolves into “my character can do what ever they want because of magic.”
...it feels like one player making a cheesy power grab.
Was that your line of thinking when you rejected my attempt to fireball a naga bandit in the hopes of melting all the copper coins it stole from us over it as a kind of distraction/debuff?
(There is no wrong answer; I'm just genuinely curious how our GM thinks.)
I like player creativity, but...Allowing purely offensive spells to serve out of combat utility functions quickly devolves into “my character can do what ever they want because of magic.”
...it feels like one player making a cheesy power grab.
Was that your line of thinking when you rejected my attempt to fireball a naga bandit in the hopes of melting all the copper coins it stole from us over it as a kind of distraction/debuff?
(There is no wrong answer; I'm just genuinely curious how our GM thinks.)
I generally think that everyone would rather fireball not be capable of damaging objects than the alternative, that it can melt coins. I prefer consistency with that.
I generally think that everyone would rather fireball not be capable of damaging objects than the alternative, that it can melt coins. I prefer consistency with that.I like player creativity, but...Allowing purely offensive spells to serve out of combat utility functions quickly devolves into “my character can do what ever they want because of magic.”
...it feels like one player making a cheesy power grab.
Was that your line of thinking when you rejected my attempt to fireball a naga bandit in the hopes of melting all the copper coins it stole from us over it as a kind of distraction/debuff?
(There is no wrong answer; I'm just genuinely curious how our GM thinks.)
Well, I do like consistency. :)
An important thing with adjudicating actions is consistency. If you rule that fireball melts coins, then you need to apply that every time someone casts fireball, including when the enemy casts it, and probably need to apply it to other fire spells. (Unless you and the players decide that the initial ruling was in error, then you change the ruling - but you apply the change consistently as well, it should never be "I am doing this because it is convenient for this one character/npc")
A quick litmus check is "does this replicate the effect of another ability/feat/spell/item" - if so, the only way that the character can do that thing is to select that option in character creation/obtain that item.
This is the 'right' thing to do. But it is also exhausting. It requires that at least the GM knows all of the available feats and spells in the game - or that may be printed in the game later.
For example, a character might want to ask around town looking for information about an enemy that they are tracking - but doesn't want to draw attention to themselves while doing it. The GM and players might not be aware that Discreet Inquiry exists - especially if they are running with only the core rule book.
As ravingdork points out, handling this situation by setting the DC too high to be possible just feels like a troll option.
Currently my solution for skill feats is to make the attempt at a reasonable DC, but make it take more time. For combat this would cost additional actions, for exploration or downtime it would take more minutes or hours respectively.
My reasoning being that most skill feats are either permanent abilities that don't even require skill checks (Express Rider), or non-standard options for a skill that cost a single action (Bon Mot). Having an ability to do something non-standard with a skill but having it cost two actions and a skill check isn't going to step on the toes of any of these skill feats.
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Yeah I agree with that. Skill feats should look like cool new shiny things. Not "we used to just be able to do this with the skill, but can't anymore because now there's a skill feat for it".
So I prefer quality of life skill feats like Continual Recovery (accelerate the cooldown on Medicine) over "need to have it to make it viable" ones like Pickpocket.
I'm generally happy with players using their stuff creatively, but I'm on the look out for two things:
- a player trying to hog the spotlight due to their awesome trick.
- a player attempting to circumvent huge portions of the adventure through their creativity.
For the latter I acknowledge that diagetically the character would want to avoid danger, get to the end with minimal effort sure, but it feels disrespectful to the work I put in (and the other players) to like "jump immediately to the end of the murder mystery because of your creative reading of the rules."
That reminds me of Starfinder's combat maneuvers. Hit their KAC+8! Good effin luck!
I've never understood why combat maneuvers are so hard to pull off in that game. I really ought to hunt for dev commentary on the subject, because I find that mess baffling. :/
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One of my favorite spells for "creativity" is shrink item. If I have a wizard able to cast this I will inevitably have a pouch of shrunken 600lbs stones to use in miscellaneous situations. Need a pressure plate held down. "Boulder" Need a quick barricade for a door "Boulders". Need cover from ranged enemies "Boulders". So many simple uses for big rocks and of you add 4th lvl shape stone to the mix you can have a pouch of 600lbs marbles/perfect blocks with very little difficulty and things start to get touchy.
One of my favorite spells for "creativity" is shrink item. If I have a wizard able to cast this I will inevitably have a pouch of shrunken 600lbs stones to use in miscellaneous situations. Need a pressure plate held down. "Boulder" Need a quick barricade for a door "Boulders". Need cover from ranged enemies "Boulders". So many simple uses for big rocks and of you add 4th lvl shape stone to the mix you can have a pouch of 600lbs marbles/perfect blocks with very little difficulty and things start to get touchy.
PC insta-killed in their own avalanche when they enter an anti-magic zone.
But more meaningful might be that the spell only lasts a day, so it's not like you can store more than what's fitting to your power level.
You want to burn those slots? Go ahead; it doesn't look like you're getting anything better than what a 3rd level spell could achieve.
About the only shenanigan available would be casting the day before so you have the slots the next day for adventuring, but beware losing track of time. :)
One of my favorite spells for "creativity" is shrink item. If I have a wizard able to cast this I will inevitably have a pouch of shrunken 600lbs stones to use in miscellaneous situations. Need a pressure plate held down. "Boulder" Need a quick barricade for a door "Boulders". Need cover from ranged enemies "Boulders". So many simple uses for big rocks and of you add 4th lvl shape stone to the mix you can have a pouch of 600lbs marbles/perfect blocks with very little difficulty and things start to get touchy.
So... Minecraft?
It stays small until there's room for it to grow, so if you just leave them in a sack it's permanent.
I like Shrink Item on doors.
Hmm, forgot about that, though it seems as soon as you open the pouch wide enough for the stone to start to grow, it'd fully grow and expand right out of the pouch (pushing it to the side, undamaged). It wouldn't wait for you to pull it all the way out. (Of course clever pouch design could get around this I suppose.)
And in antimagic, I'm not sure that rule would hold.If one's going to get cheesy, there's no reason to bother with a sack (too fiddly). The caster could use a variety of substances to bind the stones, i.e. paper wrappers or whatever else might fade/dissolve/burn away when you cast specific spells. Have summoned creatures (perhaps flying) swallow them wrapped in very thin chocolate or meat. When the summoned creature dies, the stone expands, perhaps in midair.
Not that I'd necessarily allow any of this. I'd lean toward expansion being about significant barriers, thing with relevance, not pouches.
If pressed, one question I find gets around players wanting such shenanigans is to ask the players how they'll feel when the bad guys start using the same tricks, perhaps en masse.
"The orcs up on the hill all spit out coins which turn into perfectly rounded boulders of about 80 Bulk each." (though logs might be better)
"I thought you said it was an army?"
"Yep. One whose caster units have had years of prep time."
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Why a door when it wouldn't fasten itself in place nor make an opening in any wall you placed it against? It'd just be a big plank, wouldn't it? (And that's not addressing doors having separate components which is messy business.)
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Also, this ceases to be "creative spell use" early on, and just becomes an exploit.
It stays small until there's room for it to grow, so if you just leave them in a sack it's permanent.
I like Shrink Item on doors.
Hmm, forgot about that, though it seems as soon as you open the pouch wide enough for the stone to start to grow, it'd fully grow and expand right out of the pouch (pushing it to the side, undamaged). It wouldn't wait for you to pull it all the way out. (Of course clever pouch design could get around this I suppose.)
And in antimagic, I'm not sure that rule would hold.If one's going to get cheesy, there's no reason to bother with a sack (too fiddly). The caster could use a variety of substances to bind the stones, i.e. paper wrappers or whatever else might fade/dissolve/burn away when you cast specific spells. Have summoned creatures (perhaps flying) swallow them wrapped in very thin chocolate or meat. When the summoned creature dies, the stone expands, perhaps in midair.
Not that I'd necessarily allow any of this. I'd lean toward expansion being about significant barriers, thing with relevance, not pouches.
If pressed, one question I find gets around players wanting such shenanigans is to ask the players how they'll feel when the bad guys start using the same tricks, perhaps en masse.
"The orcs up on the hill all spit out coins which turn into perfectly rounded boulders of about 80 Bulk each." (though logs might be better)
"I thought you said it was an army?"
"Yep. One whose caster units have had years of prep time."---
Why a door when it wouldn't fasten itself in place nor make an opening in any wall you placed it against? It'd just be a big plank, wouldn't it? (And that's not addressing doors having separate components which is messy business.)
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Also, this ceases to be "creative spell use" early on, and just becomes an exploit.
The door thing is unrelated to the keeping a shrink item thing - the door thing they are referring to is that you can shrink a locked door and then just pick it up and move it out of the doorway (which is an old creative use of shrinking magic that spans many editions)
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Ooh I so love shrink item. I used to play a wizard with the archetypal cone hat. It was actually a teepee that he had miniaturized. Whenever he walked into an antimagic field, it would expand to its full size, protecting him with full cover.
He would also dispel it when things got rough, to get immediate full cover.
Is a door a unique object when attached to a wall? I would rule no as a GM. Dealing with non-discrete things as valid targets for a spell gets really wonky. How would it shrink in the first place without breaking the wall?
Ooh I so love shrink item. I used to play a wizard with the archetypal cone hat. It was actually a teepee that he had miniaturized. Whenever he walked into an antimagic field, it would expand to its full size, protecting him with full cover.
He would also dispel it when things got rough, to get immediate full cover.
There's a fine line between "protect" and "entrap"... :P
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Is a door a unique object when attached to a wall? I would rule no as a GM. Dealing with non-discrete things as valid targets for a spell gets really wonky. How would it shrink in the first place without breaking the wall?Don't see why it wouldn't be. All else fails, ask what side of the wall the hinges are on and shrink them.
Don't see why it would break the wall, it would just...shrink. Although if there was/is an Enlarge Item spell I'd love that too to actually break weak walls.
Allowing PCs to target a component piece of another object, that is physically part of that object is generally a bad idea as a GM. Would you let your PCs target the arch stone of a bridge over a massive Canyon? While an enemy army marches over the bridge? Every GM should make their own ruling, but I treat objects as the whole of an individual discrete thing to avoid letting the spell be used to disable component pieces of terrain, hazards and traps in ways that feel intended to bypass the purpose of these things in the game. It the whole object fits within the parameters of the spell, I am fine with its use though. Break the door off the wall first and it becomes a legitimate target.
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You could target a door and assume that the item doesn't shrink instantly and uniformly, allowing one set of hinge fasteners to shrink and come loose before the shrinking of the door itself causes the hinges to spread apart and break (think disney cartoon magic). Or you could imagine it as going POOF and appearing in the center of its original mass, now the new size.
The GM could say "the object must gradually and uniformly change in size without obstruction" I don't know which individual components of a door could be shrunken gradually without some set of fasteners needing to be spread or broken, though. Even targeting a single rivet would require one end to force it's way through the rest of the material.
The notion of targeting a block in the foundation of a building or wall actually seems harder to argue against. After all, if you say it's part of the wall it's in and therefore not an individual object, you could also say that boulder is part of the field it's in.
I think the most consistent ruling is to just allow doors, boulders, and keystones to be shrunken. Nothing in the spell says they have to be unattached or sitting perfectly on a flat, rigid surface. Destroying a bridge would require quite some set-up, you'd have to physically be next to the keystone and then have to deal with the collapse and potential bodily harm. Even then, it's a pretty uncommon scenario, and if it's that big of a problem just GM handwave and say "the ancient structure was imbued with minor magics and therefore can't be targeted by Shrink Item"
I'm struggling to come up with a scenario where Shrink Item would dramatically affect the game and wouldn't be fine to solve with some other handwave if it was that important.
I think that the position that a door isn't an object is a pretty controversial position to take in ontology.
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I think that the position that a door isn't an object is a pretty controversial position to take in ontology.
"[F]or ontology, it is useful to distinguish the terms 'reality' and 'actuality'. In this view, an 'actual entity' has a philosophical status of fundamental ontological priority, while a 'real entity' is one which may be actual, or may derive its reality from its logical relation to some actual entity or entities. For example, an occasion in the life of Socrates is an actual entity. But Socrates' being a man does not make 'man' an actual entity, because it refers indeterminately to many actual entities, such as several occasions in the life of Socrates, and also to several occasions in the lives of Alcibiades, and of others. But the notion of man is real; it derives its reality from its reference to those many actual occasions, each of which is an actual entity. An actual occasion is a concrete entity, while terms such as 'man' are abstractions from many concrete relevant entities."
Yeah, ontology is something we should look at to determine whether the shrink item spell in Pathfinder 2E works on a door.
I think that the position that a door isn't an object is a pretty controversial position to take in ontology."[F]or ontology, it is useful to distinguish the terms 'reality' and 'actuality'. In this view, an 'actual entity' has a philosophical status of fundamental ontological priority, while a 'real entity' is one which may be actual, or may derive its reality from its logical relation to some actual entity or entities. For example, an occasion in the life of Socrates is an actual entity. But Socrates' being a man does not make 'man' an actual entity, because it refers indeterminately to many actual entities, such as several occasions in the life of Socrates, and also to several occasions in the lives of Alcibiades, and of others. But the notion of man is real; it derives its reality from its reference to those many actual occasions, each of which is an actual entity. An actual occasion is a concrete entity, while terms such as 'man' are abstractions from many concrete relevant entities."
Yeah, ontology is something we should look at to determine whether the shrink item spell in Pathfinder 2E works on a door.
Umm, more generally it is literally the field of discussing what constitutes a "thing" or "object" and where the distinctions between a thing and its environment start and end, and how you classify things. Whether a door is a discrete object or just a component of a house is literally an ontological question.