How do YOU wing it?

[Gort]

Usually what happens in the games I play is something like this:

Player: Hey, I'm going to jump off the castle onto the dragon! Jump... 32!
DM: Cool, you made it onto the dragon. Now you need a climb check to hang on.
Player: (Aside) Uh, I didn't put any ranks in climb. Hey, maybe I can use my ride skill! Lessee. (To DM) Well, I wanna ride the dragon, can I use my ride skill?
DM: Uh, I guess that works too.
Player: 74!

Oh, and my own great reason for winging things is that I haven't thought something through properly, and when I actually say it to someone else, there's some giant flaw in my story. We recently had a girl aged twenty who was born forty years ago. My way of dealing with this is to try and look enigmatic and say things like, "There may be something at work here that you don't know about", and "So, why d'you think that is?"

Then when they start discussing what could've happened to cause this strange freak occurrence, you steal their best idea and write it into the story. Then they all think you had it all along

 

[Psion]

There's lots of times where revealing the DC ahead of time INCREASES the fun.

"Okay, you need to make a Fortitude Save! Right now! Beat a 23!"

The whole group gathers around to watch the die bang and bounce its way to the result, and a whoop of cheering as a successful number comes up.

Come ON. How is that not fun?

Of course, there's lots of fun in hiding the DC, too.

"Okay, roll your Sense Motive check. Hm, he SEEMS honest."

The fundamental difference here is if the character is going to KNOW they failed.

 

[Gort]

Yeah, but if you tell them the DC beforehand, as long as it's a reasonable DC, then it's THEM failing to roll the required number.

Whereas if you don't tell them the DC, it's you arbitrarily assigning a number higher than what they rolled.

(From the point of view of the players)

That's why I like the idea of defense rolls. That way, when the big bad cleaves you in two, it's not the DM killing you, it's you failing to prevent yourself being killed.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Not if you can't remember them, especially when you have so many other things to deal with... you forget things, and looking them up isn't so fast.

If I can't recall a DC, then I find that it's easy to estimate one.

But I'd definately be using balance DC's and not reflex saves.

I think more than +2 for hostile target, especially if it's a dragon

Well - he's got to FIGHT the thing afterwards. That's where the difficulty comes in.

Actually thinking about it again, I'd probably add the dragon's touch ac bonuses to the DC, representing the dragon getting out of the way.

Which means that most dragons would get EASIER to hit than my original +2. In fact, it's probably going to be a -2.

Remember - dragons are not lightning quick or particularly maneuverable in the air.. They're big and tough.

Do you have the rules memorized? And if you don't, do you really want to break up the flow of the game to look the details up?

Chances are either I or one of my players knows an appropriate rule.

I would expect that if a player has a character with ranks in certain skills that they know how those skills work.

The DM doesn't need to know the entire rule book - he just needs to know enough to run his NPCs. The players, also, don't need the entire book - they just need their own characters.

I'm not talking about "stop the game, we need to look up grapple checks" sort of stuff. I'm just talking about "climb uses the climb skill" "keeping your balance uses the balance skill" etc.

It's a jump onto a hostile, moving, freaking dragon. He doesn't have a yardstick to estimate the distance to the dragon at its closest point (and even if he had, the dragon would have moved somewhere else by the point he finished measuring it), and since he is unlikely to have done this before, he cannot possibly have an idea of the circumstance penalty for jumping on a hostile (if possibly surprised) dragon.

The guy's an adventurer. If he's got a lot of ranks in jump, then he's probably been jumping. He's probably got the ability to make a guess about whether he's a dead cert for a jump, or when he's only got a fractional chance of making it.

That's why I tell him the numbers. It represents that knowledge. If there are numbers he doesn't know yet, then I'll tell him that fact.

"Normally a 20ft jump with a running start would be DC 20, but aiming for a moving, hostile target is going to make it a bit more difficult than that. Not more than 30 though".

And voila - the guy now knows that his paltry +5 to jump is most likely not going to cut it. Or that his +19 to jump will only have a slim chance of failure. Or that his +15 to jump is around about a 50/50 chance.

Frankly, the DM is fully justified in coming up with any DC he wants for this stunt

Agreed, but within limits. If the guy is jumping when the dragon is 5 feet away, the DC should be around about 5-10. If the guy is jumping when it's 30 feet away, it should be about 30-40. If the target had fly (perfect), it should be higher. If it's large, it should be lower. Etc.

If he doesn't trust the DM's judgement to come up with something reasonable on the spot, then why the heck is he playing in that DM's campaign?

 

[reanjr]

Some GMs don't like to wing it. Some aren't good at it (like me), some are uncomfortable with it, some are hard-core rules lawyers and consult the rulebooks, etc.

Let's give an example. Your players are onboard a floating magical castle, fighting an evil potentate. Said potentate grabs a magical pendant and activates it, tilting the castle wildly to the side. It doesn't affect him, but it affects the players.

IMO coming up with a save DC to avoid being tossed overboard is easy. However, what if a player, dangling off the side (now bottom) of the castle wants to jump through a window and slowly come around the potentate (in order to surprise him)? What if he wants to jump on the potentate's pet dragon (who was flying around, hoping to grab a morsel)? That's a moving target that gets AoOs and grapple checks!

Now you probably need a Jump DC. How do you figure it out? The rules don't really cover this situation.

Do you base it on the player's Jump score? Do you pick a high and heroic number (eg DC 30)? Do you base it on average Jump skill values for all the players? What if they vary quite a bit (you've got an agile rogue and a clunky dwarven cleric)? Do you even know how good these skills are?

IMO it shouldn't be level-dependent so I'd make it a Dex check (DC 20).

[edit] More specifically, the Jump check should determine if you can make it that distance (the DC of which should be in the PHB), but the landing on it would require a Dex check. I much prefer making difficult actions like this multiple checks rather than one really high DC check because it allows players to try wacky things, but still makes it difficult. I might give him a Reflex save as well if he fails the Dex check to grab a tail or something.

 

[Corsair]

Back on the general topic of "winging it":

I tend to prepare at least one or two sentences describing the general personalities and motives of every NPC the players are likely to encounter. I have one sheet of paper each session which is just a list of these folks. I plan out a general idea of what I expect the NPCs to do, and what their goals are, but then I just let the PCs do what they want.

This makes it more fun for me, because I end up effectively playing 5 or 6 (or 7 or 12) seperate mini-characters over the course of a session, just the way that the players get to play their characters.

 

[bloodymage]

I wing it all the time and since I don't do d20, it's pretty easy. In fact I wrote an article for KoDT on the subject sub-titled, "Preparation, Percentiles and Chutzpah". That's really all ya need. And before you slam me for the contradiction, maybe you should read the article. It's in Issue #74. Preparation refers to the folders with floorplans, NPCs, dungeons, and other generic stuff that can be whipped out as needed.

 

[velm]

'winging it' usually happens right after I say "You do WHAT?"
Those are usually the memorable times. When the pc's do unexpected things. Things that will usually terminate an adventure. At that point, I have just sat there for a few seconds and thought about it in my head and just to do the 'logical' thing as I ask myself "self, could this work?" or I just take a 'logical' step and say "Hmm, what would happen if Player 'x' this?" and just take it from there. I usually 'go with the flow.'
I try not to give out DCs as it can sometimes ruin it, and like someone else said, think of a 'magic' number and see what they roll. A lot of times, the PCs will drive the adventure. It can also really add some spice to it as well. I try to just go with it. If there is a ruling that might apply, if I think I can look it up in under a minute, I might give it a shot, otherwise, I just go for it. When it was just a buddy of mine who showed up once, he talked me into running an adv for him as we had some down time. I had a low level character who came across a goblin war party, instead of the standard combat, he decided he wanted to parley with them. I thought about it, and I let him have a go with it. It was a really really interesting time. He actually used skills, something that he normally did not do. Then he was lead to a Necromancer in a cave, he ended up convincing the necromancer that he come to study from him because of the 'necromancers greatness.' I ended up scrapping the adventure after about 15 minutes because of some things he did, but he did not ever know until after it was over and I told him.