3e, DMs, and Inferred Player Power

[shilsen]

I feel violated just thinking about that...

You've never heard of a portable hole?

 

[Hussar]

And my work here is done. Hehehe.

 

[Raven Crowking]

To me, there is only three possible outcomes for the intimidating gnome story:

A) Gnome is allowed to try, fails and the party giggles about a rather spectacular and unique way to perish.

B) Gnome is allowed to try, pulls the rolls out of his vas deferens, and possibly causes the dragon to miss for one round, thus possibly saving a party member. Party giggles about a very spectacular success and tells the story for weeks to come.

C) DM flat out nixes the idea. Players talk about what a putz the DM is for ignoring the RAW in favour of his cool critter.

Personally, I'd MUCH rather be in party A or B. C just isn't all that interesting for me.

What about:

D) DM uses the RAW, states that the gnome can make the check, but has a -12 modifier due to size difference on his roll, whereas the dragon gains a +2 circumstance modifier to the DC due to the dragon wiping the floor with the PCs, making this a roll that cannot be pulled out of any portable hole by this particular gnome, unless he used a d30. Following this the player:


(1) Says, "Yeah, I guess it's not going to work. Can I take another action instead?" or

(2) Says, "What a putz you are, DM, for thinking there should be a +2 circumstance modifier when clearly there shouldn't!"


RC


EDIT: My point is merely that "player fiat" occurs whether or not you follow the RAW. Bad players and bad DMs have a lot in common.

That said, I have to admit that I find this initimidate vs. a dragon side argument a bit tedious because (1) this is an area that the RAW covers pretty well, and (2) in most cases, this is an area where the RAW and the supposed DM fiat end up with the same result. At the most, four points difference in the DC (from very, very unlikely to impossible) .... which is the same as the tumble from a table example.

IMHO, the RAW does work extremely well from a game design standpoint. However, (also IMHO), campaign design trumps game design. It is more important that the rules fit the game than that they are followed slavishly.

The problem with bad DMs (and players) is that they cannot determine when variance from a rule is appropriate....or when slavish devotion is not. The 3.X system makes this easier for the players, because following the rules is almost always appropriate from the player's standpoint. However, the DM still has to decide whether or not to allow (for example) various spells and feats into his campaign world. If the DM is not looking for generic D&D, s/he must invest in the modification of rules.

Eberron, Oriental Adventures, and Forgotten Realms (again, for example) all show how this creative DM tinkering should work. New things are added. Some old things may be subtracted. What fits in a world is kept. What should be in a world, but does not yet exist, must be created. Rules might need tweaking to handle new situations. This is all part of good DMing.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

BTW, I don't know how many of you have played 1st Ed ADD&D, but if you read the introduction to the 1st Ed DMG (which the 3.0 DMG was designed to emulate, including using the same dungeon as an example, and having some illustrations which were modelled off ones in the older book), there is a bit by Gygax in which he claims that only games using official TSR rules are really D&D. In other words, even back then we had the beginning of "Please use the RAW, because it'll put money in our pockets."


RC

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Raven Crowking, Do you ever have a critter attack at a PC when you know that the PC's AC is too high for the monster to possibly hit?...

Or is metagame knowledge commonly used at your table?

The Dragon does not know if this Gnome is indeed the terrible Master Monk of legend that can Quivering Palm him to death.
The Gnome does not know if an Intimidate can work..

Until he tries!


If said Gnome/Dragon encounter happened at my table, I would tell the PC.. "Dude, the Dragon is wiping the floor with your party.. its improbable that you can scare it.. but if you want to try, go right ahead."
The power the PC wields with knowing the rules can't influence this because of two reasons:
1) I know the rules better than he does
2) I know the circumstances better

IMHO, this is a better way to go than flat out deny the action.

Incidently, I am running Eberron and use Action Points.. so the chance could be a bit higher, but still what are the odds of one dice at 19 and the other at 1?
I think this sidetrack has been sufficently beaten. The argument boils down to whether its better to GM by allowance or by denial.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Raven Crowking, Do you ever have a critter attack at a PC when you know that the PC's AC is too high for the monster to possibly hit?...

Or is metagame knowledge commonly used at your table?

Unlike skill checks, a natural 20 always succeeds on attacks. Also, if there were rats when the PCs were low-level, there are still rats when they are high level.

If said Gnome/Dragon encounter happened at my table, I would tell the PC.. "Dude, the Dragon is wiping the floor with your party.. its improbable that you can scare it.. but if you want to try, go right ahead."
The power the PC wields with knowing the rules can't influence this because of two reasons:
1) I know the rules better than he does
2) I know the circumstances better

IMHO, this is a better way to go than flat out deny the action.

Sure, you and I would probably handle the situation similarly, except that I would merely say, "Are you SURE you want to do that? Okay, roll your check." The player would, honestly, have no way of knowing whether or not I "played fair". For the record, as I said earlier, I think the RAW covers this pretty well, and I am not at all worried about having the dragon taken aback momentarily by a crazed gnome.

Either way, though, the player might feel hard done by if his "KEWL" action didn't work. There is a growing trend among players to think that their actions should work just because they want them to.

Sometimes cool things do work. If you build your character to have a high Intimidate score, then you should get the benefits of it. The DM's "But it's a dragon!" probably applies to the dragon as well ("But I'm a dragon!") and can easily account for the one-round penalty from Intimidate.

I once ran a game where a PC hung from a rope like a circus acrobat and fired arrows (successfully) at a grick that was attacking another climbing PC. The player built his character to do just this sort of thing, and it worked.

The players require that the RAW be followed enough to allow them to know what they reasonably can do if they make choices X, Y, or Z in character creation. Going back to the beginning of this thread, that does not mean that the DM has to allow choice Z in the campaign world.

Likewise, if the DM flat-out rules that something won't work, you can get up from the table if you're incredible offended by the decision. Or you can try to do something else. It depends upon your group dynamic and how much you trust the DM based on past actions. Making the game fun is everyone's responsibility, and as the players gain more power to determine what is likely in 3.X, they also gain more responsibility to make it fun for all involved, including the DM. Get up or game on. Don't waste everyone's time whining at the table.

If earlier versions of the game tended to produce a few really bad DMs, so does 3.X produce more bad players than any previous edition.

It's something we all have to work on if the hobby is going to continue to prosper.


RC

 

[Varianor Abroad]

If earlier versions of the game tended to produce a few really bad DMs, so does 3.X produce more bad players than any previous edition.

No, the bad DMs and players exist that way due to natural tendencies. Rules can actually help mitigate that a lot. Much of the so-called "badness" however is really a complete difference in preferred play styles.

Growing the hobby requires community service, patience, teaching abilities, and a great level of maturity and tolerance for those different play styles.

 

[FireLance]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to nitpick here maliciously or anything...I'm just taking your advice on reading the rules, and at least from my 3E point of view, it won't work, because...

I think the rule was changed in 3.5e. The SRD reads:

Quivering Palm (Su): Starting at 15th level, a monk can set up vibrations within the body of another creature that can thereafter be fatal if the monk so desires. She can use this quivering palm attack once a week, and she must announce her intent before making her attack roll. Constructs, oozes, plants, undead, incorporeal creatures, and creatures immune to critical hits cannot be affected. Otherwise, if the monk strikes successfully and the target takes damage from the blow, the quivering palm attack succeeds. Thereafter the monk can try to slay the victim at any later time, as long as the attempt is made within a number of days equal to her monk level. To make such an attempt, the monk merely wills the target to die (a free action), and unless the target makes a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 the monk's level + the monk’s Wis modifier), it dies. If the saving throw is successful, the target is no longer in danger from that particular quivering palm attack, but it may still be affected by another one at a later time.

Good on you for checking the rules, though.

And to repeat what I said before...it isn't about rewriting the game, it's about adjudicating a specific situation. A situation in which a gnome barbarian (diminuitive foe) who is part of a group that gets its collective butt kicked by a dragon thrice his size tries to intimidate the same dragon. As a DM, I HAVE to ask myself (and the player in question) what reason there should be in that situation for an intimidation attempt to be an action that could be even remotely successful. If that barbarian flies into a rage and manages to hit the dragon for some nice damage, and tries the intimidation attempt the round after, sure, you have the "rat in a corner effect" or whatever you want to call it. Might even be good for a circumstance bonus. But out of the blue?

That's one thing I like about the slightly abstract nature of the D&D rules. The player or DM can describe how the gnome demoralized the dragon any way they want - it doesn't have any effect on the actual game result. Maybe the gnome started frothing at the mouth and the dragon thought he was rabid or a frenzied berserker. Maybe he uttered such a horrible threat that the dragon was distracted for six seconds. Maybe he used the favorite catchphrase of a famous gnome dragonslayer. Certainly, I have no problems visualizing something like that happening "out of the blue". Like I mentioned, the dragon doesn't go from confidence to panic in a single round. It's just hesitating for a while, in case things aren't what they seem.

Comparing this specific situation to something general, or the supernatural Quivering Palm to the mundane Intimidate skill, does not really do this justice either, does it? And in the end, it should be a question from the player to the DM if he allows a skill check, not a demand that he should be allowed under all circumstances, just because the short skill description in the PHB only gives a few examples how it should work instead of a heap of exceptions when it shouldn't. That's what the DM is there for, even in 3E...to judge if a situation and a player idea warrant a check of any kind.

I suppose I see it this way. The player describes what he wants to do, and the DM decides what is the best way to determine whether he succeeds or fails. If the player decides that his gnome character wants to try and scare the dragon, and the DM decides that the Intimidate skill doesn't apply, it's like the DM ruling that a character can't use the Hide or Move Silently skills when he's trying to sneak past a monster. I have no problem with the DM saying that the attempt doesn't work if the applying the rules results in an impossibly high DC, or the creature has some special ability that prevents the attempt from working (e.g. a creature immune to fear, in the case of intimidate, or a creature with tremorsense or blindsight in the case of Hide and Move Silently). I do have a problem if the DM ignores the rules or decides that the attempt doesn't work simply because he doesn't want it to. After all, I signed up to play D&D, not DM May I.

 

[Drowbane]

Wow, has 2e been forgotten already? 3e hasn't even begun the "Arms Race" in comparison...

 

[Raven Crowking]

No, the bad DMs and players exist that way due to natural tendencies. Rules can actually help mitigate that a lot. Much of the so-called "badness" however is really a complete difference in preferred play styles.

Sorry, no. I am not a relativist. As a Sith, I am forced to deal in absolutes.


Darth Crowking