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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JiffyPopTart" data-source="post: 8039330" data-attributes="member: 4881">OP:  I don't really have an interpretation on your take of the RAW with surprise and hiding and all the stranger interactions between the two.  My GM philosophy is that it is my job to adjudicate in a way that makes sense between what the players are trying to accomplish in the world their characters live in and the rules that govern how their actions are supposed to work in the game itself.I am going to give you a good example of "When RAW only goes wrong" that happened to me in an actual D&D game (although this was many many years ago and in 1e).In the story, our characters (the PCs) had captured a bad guy and tied him up in a chair.  He was immobilized.  He was just some low-level human thug who we were trying to question.  During the questioning my character, a wizard, picked up a cocked and loaded heavy crossbow and pointed it at the thugs head and demanded an answer from him.  When the thug refused to talk I said I was going to kill him with the crossbow.RAW doesn't work #1:  According to the rules of 1e, my wizard cannot use a crossbow.  Despite having an 18 on my Intelligence stat, technically I am unable to pick up a loaded crossbow, point it at something I want to shoot, and pull the trigger to shoot it.  Now, if you want to argue that doing so in a battle is different than shooting a guy tied up in the chair, I would 100% agree with you.  It makes no logical sense, however, to not allow a character to shoot a tied up target at less than 1' distance when all they have to do is literally pull a trigger.After finally arguing my case enough to shoot the NPC in the head with a heavy crossbow we get to the second point.RAW doesn't work #2:  I was asked to "to-hit" on the heavy crossbow.  For a point-blank headshot on a helpless low level target.  At a severe penalty because "wizards don't use crossbows normally".  Really?  OK fine, I hit AC5.RAW doesn't work #3: I was asked to "roll damage" and rolled a 1.  For a point-blank headshot on a helpless low level target I did 1 damage?  Really?  How about I throw down the crossbow, tell everyone to leave the room, and then just fireball the whole place because this is ridiculous.******The point of my anecdote above is to say that no set of RAW rules is going to make sense, or even be preferable to use 100% of the time.  Your job as the GM should to apply the rules in the circumstances that make sense, go narrative when they don't, and even improv in the corner cases as they come up.  I don't think its advisable, or good gaming, to expect that you can hammer out a flowchart to follow that will ALWAYS make sense.That being said, if your gaming group prefers to play with a solid set of rules that are always followed instead of trusting you to GM a fair take, all the power to you and your players.  I just feel that doing this actually opens you up to some strangeness that might get exploited (like in 4e when the darkness spell actually made light or the bag-of-rats.</blockquote>

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