Druids - wildshape and controlling an animal companion

[Pielorinho]

I mentioned one "philosophical" reason above for allowing it, and now here's another:

One of the golden rules of DMing, one I sort of picked up from Piratecat, is this: Let the PCs' abilities work. Making the game tougher by saying, "No, you can't do that," is just frustrating for players. When a player says, "Can I do X?" your default response should be yes.

That doesn't mean the game is a cakewalk: you give the same consideration to the bad guys, too. It just gives PCs a chance to shine, a chance to feel useful, and makes the players happy.

Daniel

 

[Rel]

If it adds to the realism and fun, okay. But sometimes DMs go overboard by putting mundane skills under the microscope in a way they would never bother to with magical abilities. IMHO any (N)PC with a skill over 15 has a "magical" ability defying the common sense and experience of the average joe on the street.

The trick here is making sure that the DM style and the PC style are either in agreement or trying to find some middle ground. I am (according to Robin Laws and his book about Good Gamemastering) a Tactician. I love logistics and planning and executing the plan. This comes through when I play and it comes through when I DM. BUT I also know that some of the other players in our group are less enthralled with this aspect of the game than I am. So, when I'm playing and especially when I'm GMing, I temper my tactical urges by keeping in mind the aspects of the game that are fun for the other players.

 

[Rel]

I mentioned one "philosophical" reason above for allowing it, and now here's another:

One of the golden rules of DMing, one I sort of picked up from Piratecat, is this: Let the PCs' abilities work. Making the game tougher by saying, "No, you can't do that," is just frustrating for players. When a player says, "Can I do X?" your default response should be yes.

That doesn't mean the game is a cakewalk: you give the same consideration to the bad guys, too. It just gives PCs a chance to shine, a chance to feel useful, and makes the players happy.

Daniel

I'm diverging off of the main topic and I hope Quasqueton will forgive me.

I picked up the same philosophy from the same source. And I agree with your earlier assertion that if the whole "swimming through the tunnel" scene is not really a challenge to the party but really just more of a exercise in number crunching (i.e. if the Handle Animal check amounts to a "Take 20") then it is best to hand wave it and get on with the fun. But sometimes the seemingly mundane task is made a true challenge for the party due to limited resources or extenuating circumstances.

For example, in my current campaign, the party Wizard gained the Teleport spell. Now the party can go anywhere they want. But there's a problem: The weight limit of the spell means that they can't move the whole party at once and it would take a minimum of two trips to get from A to B. But my resourceful players found a way around this: The Druid casts Feathers on the party members, turning them into relatively small birds and THEN the Wizard Teleports them. Simple solution but one that I didn't "hand wave". It was, in effect, a challenge that the party overcame.

Another example from much earlier in the same campaign: The party has to get across a wide river. They have a boat. But it is only a dugout canoe and can only hold two people and their gear. Still it is just an exercise in patience and taking 10 on a few rolls to successfully maneuver the boat back and forth across the river a few times. Normally, I'd hand wave this. But the party is being tracked by a band of Gnolls who are fairly close behind them. So they puzzled out a way to get them all across as quickly as possible and managed to escape just ahead of the Gnolls who were left to throw a couple javelins at the final departure of the canoe while the PC's made rude gestures at them. I didn't intend the river as a challenge but it became one due to other circumstances.

Final example: I ran a home made version of In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords at the first NC Game Day. The party had to cross a gap in a stone bridge across a chasm. The gap was 10 feet across. Normally no big deal for the average 5th level party and I'd hand wave it (or they'd suggest an easy solution so quickly that I wouldn't need to hand wave it). But this party is all but naked. Their lack of supplies means that this simple gap in the bridge is supposed to be a challenge for them. So using various means, the party manages to get across the gap and (hopefully) that process if fun all by itself.

In a feeble effort to relate this to the main topic of the thread, I'd say that the "underwater tunnel" bit sounds like a good challenge to me IF it would be difficult for most of the party to navigate it. If the NPC Animal Companion is the only difficulty, I'd play fast and loose with the rules to get the critter through the tunnel and proceed with the main part of the game.

The one caveat I'd offer there is that if the players in question love figuring out these sorts of challenges (i.e. they're Tacticians like me), I'd let them hash it out so long as it didn't threaten to absorb the majority of the session or something like that.

 

[Pielorinho]

Another example from much earlier in the same campaign: The party has to get across a wide river. They have a boat. But it is only a dugout canoe and can only hold two people and their gear.

They didn't by chance have a policeman and a thief in the group with them, and the thief couldn't be left alone with the rest of the party unless the policeman was with him, did they?

Seriously, this is a good point: sometimes such challenges are fun. Still, when you come up with such a challenge, I think it's a good idea to have "yes" be the default answer to any clever plan for bypassing it -- even if it's not the plan you'd imagined. If the druid had turned into a crocodile, towed the canoe by his teeth, and let the halfling PC ride his back, you would've allowed that to work, right? You wouldn't have stopped to think about the weight allowance of a crocodile towing a canoe, right?

You might've had the piranhas in the river be a problem, but that's not negating the PCs' plan -- that's just complicating it .

Daniel

 

[Rel]

Seriously, this is a good point: sometimes such challenges are fun. Still, when you come up with such a challenge, I think it's a good idea to have "yes" be the default answer to any clever plan for bypassing it -- even if it's not the plan you'd imagined. If the druid had turned into a crocodile, towed the canoe by his teeth, and let the halfling PC ride his back, you would've allowed that to work, right? You wouldn't have stopped to think about the weight allowance of a crocodile towing a canoe, right?

I may be spoiled by the great players that I've got but I generally design encounters without placing tremendous emphasis on "Will the players succeed?" I place more emphasis on "Can the players find a way to survive?" So long as there is some hope for survival (even survival-with-losses) for the party, I think the encounter is valid. The players almost always figure out a way to succeed and, so long as their solution seems to fit vaguely within the spirit of the rules, I let their plans work.

In your example above, yes I would have let the crocodile tow the canoe and the halfling ride his back and no I wouldn't have worried about the water-speed of a laden crocodile (is that an Amazonian Crocodile or a Nile Crocodile? ).

When I think about whether my players will succeed at a give encounter (no matter how Rat-Bastardly it is) I generally answer, "Why not? They usually figure something out that will work." Even when they don't, their screw ups tend to be at least as fun and memorable as their successes (recall my recent "Teleported to Hell" thread for a good example of that).

 

[Quasqueton]

No problem, Rel.

In my above situation, the PCs overcame the obstacle in this way:

The druid wildshaped into a crocodile, then towed most of the other PCs under the water (they just grabbed around his neck, held their breath, and hung on for the ride). The heavy, plate-clad cleric used a freedom of movement special ability to walk along the tunnel. They left the animal companion behind initially. When the druid went back to get the badger, they had already cleared the other side of monsters.

So, at first, this obstacle was a slight drain on resources and removed a minor ally from the party forces for a major battle. When they went back for the badger, it was pretty much a completed adventure already.

I like obstacles like this -- they make the PCs a bit cautious and apprehensive (how long is it? what's on the other side? who wants to be left to cross last?), and lets/makes them use some of their abilities for something other than combat, all without being directly deadly. Plus, it gives a logical reason why creatures in part A of the dungeon do not interfere with creatures in part B of the dungeon.

Quasqueton

 

[jgsugden]

I think the key underlying all of our arguments is this: If the players enjoy it, do it. If the players don't enjoy it, don't do it (or replace the players).

I've run groups where the players look bored any time there is not active combat. "The King is getting Married? I attack! I see a peasant? I attack! There is an earthworm in the road? I attack!" Any rules issue not directly related to combat slows these games down, so I minimize everything I can to compress as much violence into a session as possible.

I've run groups where characters spend days in their little house in the country discussing how they'll approach a minor change in the political structure in their country created when a king in a country hundreds of miles away dies (for reasons unknown to the PCs) and a steward (who is also unknown to the PCs) is put on the throne. The players themselves sat for days discussing the ramifications, doing research, summoning experts to provide information, casting spells to gather information, etc ... I had to make up hundreds of rules and pieces of info on the fly for that game to keep the sense of realism going. "What is on the map? I mean, specifically, what types of stains? Are there any tea stains? What do I need to roll to determine what types of stains are on the map? How long does it take?"

You're making the 'movie'. If you don't give your 'audience' what it wants, they won't enjoy it. A good 'director' can make a movie with surprising elements that 'audiences' did not realize that they enjoyed, but in general, if the players don't like what the DM does, the game is boring or annoying.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I do not think we are far apart, just seeing the same thing from different points of view. Getting back to the original question...

The Player rolled very well on his handle animal check (but I don't remember the number off hand -- it was better than the 25 needed to push a trained animal), and I allowed the action with the caveat that I might not next time. I said I wanted to think about the concept, and run it by the ENWorld rules gurus.

It seems the general consensus is Yes. What is a real open question is how long it takes to make it happen. Is the Druid's skill high enough to Take 10? Should he try a few rolls? Does he need to Take 20? If he is not in a rush, it is probably not a problem.

 

[Pielorinho]

Given Ridley's questions, here's how I handle things like this:

Player: I want to get my badger to get in my mouth so I can swim across the river with it.
Me: How're you going to do this?
Player: With handle animal: Push.
Me: You can roll, but tell me, ignoring rules -- how are you going to do this?
Player: I'll stroke my badger and calm it, and then I'll switch into badger form and tell it my plan, and then I'll switch into croc form and take it in my mouth.
Me: Cool -- roll!

Daniel