How do YOU wing it?

[Mystery Man]

I don't bother to tell the player a DC. I simply say: "Make a Jump check."


Frankly, I think telling the players the DCs is a bad DMing habit that needs to stop. Even if you do know the specific DC for any given situation, don't tell them the exact odds - just things like "should be easy", "looks dangerous", or "are you nuts"?

This is just good DMing, it's best to leave the DC unknown.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I don't know if this stream-of-consciousness post of yours is in reply to my post, but it seems that you're suggesting my Reflex save/Strength check concept is somehow "incorrect."

Well, I wasn't. Otherwise I'd have quoted your post. I was actually referring to the original "the save DC for not slipping off the slanty castle is easy" comment.

However, if you want to make something of it:
The balance check is to move around the slanty castle. There are DC's in the book and everything. Winging it isn't really necessary.

Reflex save if he *misses the Jump check*. Reflex save to *avoid falling*. That's what Reflex saves are for, bright eyes.

Hey, guess what, that's in the book too! If you miss a jump check by 5 or less, you get a reflex save dc 15. Make that? You're clinging on for dear life.

Me, I just shorthand that by saying "jump check", all the implications of which are in the rulebook. Ignoramus.

If he *makes* the Jump check, Strength check to hang on,

You mean if he *fails* the jump check and *makes* the reflex save, right?

Well, the book says that to CLIMB, you make a CLIMB check. But hey, I'm sure the players in your game never take ranks in it anyway, what with it being useless and all, so I guess you're fine there since an unskilled climb IS a strength check.

because I'm assuming that if he *makes* the jump, he's seated on the dragon's back. Your idea of a Balance check is okay too, but doesn't quite fit with how *I* was envisioning the situation.

Well, I'd say he's standing on the back of the dragon, and that a dragons back isn't a smooth, flat floor. Standing about on one in flight is gonna be difficult.

Mind you, I'd also say that a high DC ride check (26 or so? 20 for the base "free action mount/dismount", +2 for moving target, +2 for hostile target, +2 for doing it while falling) would put you properly in the saddle, negating the need for balance.

That's all depending on how the player describes the thing, and which will probably go best for him. Ultimately, this sounds cool, so I want it to work and I'll suggest to the player that he go with what will work best.

At any rate, you seem to have missed the point entirely that there are *different* ways a DM could handle the said situation.

Yup. But some of them go with the rules and some go against. I feel that if the rules cover what you're doing, there's no real need to make up stuff. If the rules don't cover what you're doing, find something close and go with that. You'll often find that there are multiple 'within the rules' ways to accomplish a scenario.

And finally: let the player have input on what mechanic to use.

For instance I'd also accept: Jump check to within 5 of the DC (to put you in the square next to the dragon) followed by a charging grapple (touch attack, opposed grapple check). It seems unlikely to me that a PC would be better off trying this (given the average stats of a large dragon) than the jump-save-climb-balance or jump-save-climb-ride version though.

There's 'winging it' and then there's 'ignoring the skill points that PC's have invested in balance, climb and jump'. I'd much rather reward players for having the tools for the job than assign arbitrary save DCs.

Your rules cross over into the second version, and make the game less fun for anyone who's decided to invest those points.

 

[Saeviomagy]

This is just good DMing, it's best to leave the DC unknown.

Except if you say "it's a 20ft jump", the PC can probably estimate the DC himself from the rules. And then be annoyed when he rolls that much and still fails.

If, on the other hand, you say "it's a 20ft jump, so that's a DC of 20, and I'll add on another +5 because you're trying to jump onto a moving target", he'll probably say "fair enough" and just roll.

Leaving DC's unknown only really works for situations where the PC/player cannot estimate the difficulty of the task, like knowledge checks, search checks and the like, or where totally unknown factors are coming into play (ie - if there was an invisible wall that the PC had to leap over, but he was just trying to leap across a chasm, the DC for that would be secret).

 

[barsoomcore]

There's lots of times where revealing the DC ahead of time INCREASES the fun.

"Okay, you need to make a Fortitude Save! Right now! Beat a 23!"

The whole group gathers around to watch the die bang and bounce its way to the result, and a whoop of cheering as a successful number comes up.

Come ON. How is that not fun?

Of course, there's lots of fun in hiding the DC, too.

"Okay, roll your Sense Motive check. Hm, he SEEMS honest."

 

[Christopher Lambert]

Frankly, I think telling the players the DCs is a bad DMing habit that needs to stop. Even if you do know the specific DC for any given situation, don't tell them the exact odds - just things like "should be easy", "looks dangerous", or "are you nuts"?

I almost never tell them DCs (unless it's something easy like jumping 15 feet between two high-rish buildings... okay, maybe that's not actually easy but I do like to have some idea of what kind of DC to expect/aim for).

But when the PC's take a completely unexpected turn in the plotline, that's when you have to "wing it". And for that there is just one simple rule to follow:

"What is the single most exciting, cool thing that could possibly happen RIGHT NOW."

Learned that one from Piratecat.

But here's another hint: Go to the bathroom.

I am so stealing this idea, too.

One other final hint: I write up index cards for all my bad guys to use in the popular "index card initiative system".

I do something similar for D20 Modern, but I need to create about 50 more cards. I'm not kidding. More for when I run D20 Past, too!

The balance check is to move around the slanty castle. There are DC's in the book and everything. Winging it isn't really necessary.

Not if you can't remember them, especially when you have so many other things to deal with... you forget things, and looking them up isn't so fast.

Well, I'd say he's standing on the back of the dragon, and that a dragons back isn't a smooth, flat floor. Standing about on one in flight is gonna be difficult.

Mind you, I'd also say that a high DC ride check (26 or so? 20 for the base "free action mount/dismount", +2 for moving target, +2 for hostile target, +2 for doing it while falling) would put you properly in the saddle, negating the need for balance.

I think more than +2 for hostile target, especially if it's a dragon

That's all depending on how the player describes the thing, and which will probably go best for him. Ultimately, this sounds cool, so I want it to work and I'll suggest to the player that he go with what will work best.

Sounds good.

 

[Patman21967]

you sir, are correct

Those are fate points, and IIRC, the only purpose they serve is to keep you from dying at the last minute. Hero Points are from Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed and are a bit like Action Points on steroids; except of course, that PCs don't get nearly as many of them.

And since I am not familiar with action points....We used to use fate points for anything really important, not just avoiding death, kinda sounds like the same thing, only different :\

 

[Patman21967]

we must be a bunch of S.O.B's

There's lots of times where revealing the DC ahead of time INCREASES the fun.

"Okay, you need to make a Fortitude Save! Right now! Beat a 23!"

The whole group gathers around to watch the die bang and bounce its way to the result, and a whoop of cheering as a successful number comes up.

Come ON. How is that not fun?

Of course, there's lots of fun in hiding the DC, too.

"Okay, roll your Sense Motive check. Hm, he SEEMS honest."

We all sit around yelling 1 or 3 or some low number to the poor schmuck making the roll, then laugh our asses off when it comes up, which it does alot. But we also sit around busting on each other half the night

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Yup. But some of them go with the rules and some go against. I feel that if the rules cover what you're doing, there's no real need to make up stuff. If the rules don't cover what you're doing, find something close and go with that. You'll often find that there are multiple 'within the rules' ways to accomplish a scenario.

Do you have the rules memorized? And if you don't, do you really want to break up the flow of the game to look the details up?

I'm all for looking up the rules in advance if you know what to expect for any given situation. But one the game starts flowing, it is perfectly okay to make something up on the spot. Resist the temptation to look up every little detail - for it is questionable if this makes the game better...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Except if you say "it's a 20ft jump", the PC can probably estimate the DC himself from the rules. And then be annoyed when he rolls that much and still fails.

It's a jump onto a hostile, moving, freaking dragon. He doesn't have a yardstick to estimate the distance to the dragon at its closest point (and even if he had, the dragon would have moved somewhere else by the point he finished measuring it), and since he is unlikely to have done this before, he cannot possibly have an idea of the circumstance penalty for jumping on a hostile (if possibly surprised) dragon.

Frankly, the DM is fully justified in coming up with any DC he wants for this stunt (personally, I'd set a low one - if I'd bother to set a fixed one at all - because I think this sort of stunt is cool), and if the player argues, I can only recommend hitting him over the head with the Unearthed Arcana hardcover until he stops.

If he doesn't trust the DM's judgement to come up with something reasonable on the spot, then why the heck is he playing in that DM's campaign?

 

[Harmon]

Winging it comes from years of having Players grab at stuff outside the box as it were. Imaginative players will always come up with something to make you wonder- how the hell-? Well its a cool idea.

Talk to your players, talk about the action that the character wants to take- "what do you guys think- intelligence check DC20-ish to land on the dragon as it flies by? Followed by a rider check DC25- I am thinking."

I have found this method works pretty well.

Big thing- don't penalize your Players for coming up with imaginative things to do, encourage it. The PC missed timed the dragon, the dragon sweeps back around and the two grab at one another giving them Dex checks or something else.

Count the feet to "ker splat"- "you dropped at a thousand feet, missed the dragon at 980. The dragon looks at you as you fall past him- okay, so your yelling at him, he swoops down and after you, at 700 feet he bites your cloak and grabs at you- oh, missed his Dex check," and so on.

Given drama to the situation and the dice rolls are meaningless.