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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6213077" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think that that is very much the appropriate approach and I certainly approve.  My general rule is, if I don't know how I should rule, it's a relevant skill check at DC 15.  However, and I think you reference this as well, ad hoc rule-smithing like that isn't easy and is unlikely to be fully thought out.  Stunts are wonderful, but what is wonderful about stunts is the novel and imaginative play.  One of the dangerous of ruling in favor of a stunt with an overly simple ruling is that you end up creating a situation where there is mechanically little or no risk involved in the stunt, but a potentially large payoff.  Or in other words, you've just created a mechanic that violates the natural understanding of a stunt which is high risk for a reward.   When you do that, the risk you run is that instead of being a creative stunt, this proposition will now become one which is repeated as a standard maneuver ad infinitum thereafter in every similar situation.  What you really want to do when smithing rules is create rules that are as quick to resolve as they can be for the fiction that they represent, but which still evocatively help create the experience of the fiction.   You also want to balance the spot light as much as possible.  If your ad hoc ruling is consistently favoring one approach to building a character over another, another player feels cheated - and arguably rightfully so - if he created a character under a certain understanding and now finds himself left out of the fun.  You also want in some cases simulation balance, in the sense that applying this rule consistently should ultimately leave intact the experience of the setting.  If the setting is grim and gritty, applying the ruling consistently should leave it so rather than turning it zany, comic, or into unexpected wuxia.  If the setting is Capes and Crusaders, superheroes in medieval garb, applying the rule shouldn't turn it grim and gritty.  If the combat is meant to be a tense, taunt, competitive experience, applying ad hoc rulings shouldn't turn it into a challengeless cakewalk.  And so forth.So while I agree with you about the need for DM flexibility and the need to have a DM that can smith out rules on the fly, I would also say that if you expect anything like what provoked the ruling to ever happen again, you need to formalize the rule and spend some time really thinking about its implications.As for the specific example of jumping on a monster's back and attacking it, in my campaign, this is how that proposition is handled:</blockquote>

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