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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5307247" data-attributes="member: 82106">Sure, but there are things he CAN do and things he CAN'T do. He may be the Burninator himself, but your character isn't all powerful. Is it REALLY that big a deal if he can't grab a swarm or climb a waterfall? I mean I'd put it this way. If a player said "Hey, I'm going to throw my cloak over that swarm and 'grab' it." then bingo he's got something going on there. If he wants to stick his frost blade into a waterfall and 'hit' it to freeze it, well we can at least look at that and see if it seems somehow feasible and give him a chance at it, at which point he may have a frozen waterfall he can do stuff with. I just don't buy the argument that ALWAYS everyone can use every power they have regardless of the situation in the game world and it 'just works'. Most of the time it WILL and I'd never be the one laying roadblocks in the way of PCs using their standard powers, nor am I prone to saying 'no' to page 42 stunts. Just not every PC will always have the resources needed to apply to every situation. That's why there are other party members. The wizard's Ray of Frost may be better at freezing waterfalls and his Scorching Burst may be better for burning up a swarm. OTOH the mighty fighter's sword is likely a LOT better for breaking stuff and is likely to be quite a bit more useful against certain monsters as well. The trick for the DM is not to overdo it. You're entirely correct, 'realism' is a very thin sort of justification for things, but I think it is reasonably important to retain a certain degree of consistency in the game world such that the player's can apply their understanding of how things work in the real world within reason. The guy playing the grabby fighter can reason that grabbing a bunch of bugs is not going to work well, nor is climbing a waterfall. Once the mechanics get TOO far outside of what we understand from actual life experience then how are the players supposed to figure out how to do anything? It can be fun now and then to have something crazy that is just totally unexpected but for the most part the world should work like the real world enough that the players can reason about it.</blockquote>

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