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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 2554385" data-attributes="member: 22779">B.U. and others.  I actually find that I agree with pretty much everything you're saying.  I think there are far more similarities than differences in our approach.  Just to back off a bit from the impartiality thing - It's my goal to be impartial, but, also, there is the realization that 100% impartiality is impossible.  I will always lean one way or the other.  However, I do seriously try to remain impartial.  If a creature's act will result in the death of a PC and I feel that the action is warranted, then it's new character time.  One missed die roll in my last session meant that instead of three unconcious PC's, had I hit, I would have had three dead PC's.  Just a point about the jumping thing.  I'm not sure where the problem is.  Of course you are going to have interpretations.  That's a given.  The point always has been that the starting point is exactly the same.  At no point is anyone suggesting that a completely different skill or other roll should be made.  That the DC is slightly different is simply a style difference.  Again, to go with the Referee idea, different ref's will make different calls.  Does that mean they are using different rules?  Of course not.  They are all starting from the same place.On the arrow thing, I would likely do something similar.  However, one thing I would not do is change, or announce new rules AFTER the action was taken and then not allow the player to change his action.  That's a perfect example of what I mean by ad hoc DM'ing that should not be allowed.  While the call may be perfectly realistic, by forcing the player to use new rules the DM has done wrong.  The player announced his action with the understanding that the RAW would be used.  Had he known that new rules would be in effect, he might have chosen a different act.  Whether the call is realistic or not is irrelavent.  It's just a case of the DM saying, "Aha, gotcha, yer screwed.  Aren't I just a nasty boy?"  Like I said, access to feats or templates or whatever can be done outside of game.  That's perfectly fine in my books.  However, if I suddenly change established rules without warning, then I'm wrong.  It's like the DM who suddenly ups the AC of his BBEG because the PC's are hitting too often.  Or the DM who insists that such and such "just can't happen" because he doesn't like the result.Here's another example.  In a recent discussion with some other DM's we were talking about a situation in one of the games being run.  The party faced off with a young red dragon.  The dragon was kicking the party's butt when one of the players, a gnomish barbarian (ok that one's a little weird to me too) announced that he wanted to intimidate the dragon.  In 3.5 rules, if successful, the dragon would have some penalties to attack in the next round.  A number of DM's flat out said they would NEVER allow a PC to intimidate a dragon, regardless of the rules.  When I asked why not, I was told that dragons can never be intimidated, because, well, they're dragons.To me, this is a gross violation of DM's powers.  There is no reason to automatically rule failure.  The barbarian's chances were pretty slim anyway (IIRC, he needed a 19 or a 20), but that's beside the point.  It wouldn't matter to them if the chances were 100%, they would still rule that the PC had zero chance of success.  Most of the justifications were what I would call, story based.  I reject that.  I do not feel it is the DM's role to automatically rule one way or the other.  When the players take an action that has a chance of success, then let the dice decide.  That it's "stupid" is not a reason for DM's fiat.</blockquote>

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