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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 7168410" data-attributes="member: 15700">A certain thread sparked this thought, and then I had it again while watching a show and realized that my own personal experiences and expertise affects how I make rulings in the game, and was curious to see how everyone else handled this.For example, people make a lot of assumptions about how hard something is, how possible it is, etc without actually knowing anything about it.  We all do it.  I've heard plenty of DMs say, "No, you can't do that because it's not really possible."  when in fact it might surprise you.For example, if the party is out in the woods, and it's been raining pretty steady for days on end without a break and a player says, "I'm gonna make a fire for camp.", I have heard, "You don't have any luck.  Everything is soaked and won't light."  or "Mmmmm....OK, but it's gonna be a DC 25 check because it's pretty much near impossible in this weather."  That seems like a pretty typical ruling, right?Here's the thing though.  It's really not that hard to make a fire in those situations.  All you have to do is find fatwood.  I've done it several times.  For those that don't know, fatwood is usually the inner core of a pine tree branch or trunk that is inundated with sap.  No matter how much it's been raining, if you get a piece of fatwood and do some feathersticking (cutting it into thin curling strips), you will have a fire.  But to my point, that's something I know only because I've done it, and I wouldn't expect others to know that.  So if I were the DM in that scenario, and the PC had survival, I would allow it without even a roll (it is pretty easy to do if you have the knowledge).Or a second example is climbing, like a rock face or mountain climbing.  Most people who have never done it assume there is a large strength requirement needed.  Nope.  It's all technique.  In fact, if you use your arms to pull you up, you'll burn out and get muscle failure very fast.  If anything, all climbing checks would be DEX, not STR.  Sorry DEV team, you got that one wrong.  Same with survival.  That should be intelligence, not wisdom.  As a survivalist myself, it relies WAY more on actual knowledge than decision making skills, because the decision making skills are a no brainer if you have the knowledge to begin with.  The only decision making skills are "get security, get shelter, get food, all in that order".  Without the knowledge you're screwed.Another example is a hard lesson I learned in land NAV in the army.  The shortest distance is not the best solution.  You're gonna burn yourself out getting from point A to point B in a straight line if you have to go down into draws and climb spurs.  Much better to stick along the ridgeline, even if that means the distance is doubled.  You'll have more energy, and it will probably be faster.These are all examples of errors from assumptions I see in the game often.  So what am I getting at?I have come to the conclusion that if a PC is skilled in something, even if I myself don't see a way for it to work, I will assume that the PC has skills I just don't know about and will find a way to make it work unless it's something REALLY crazy.  It also has the side effect of really making the ranger have a bigger impact in the game (which is what most people want).  Wilderness exploration is a big part of the game, and unfortunately most of us just skim by it pretty fast, getting to the encounter bits.  But a party without a ranger (or someone else with survival and navigation skills) should be getting lost A LOT, running out of food and water often, and being absolutely miserable because they can't make proper shelter or fire (without magic).  Speaking of experience, having spent time miserable in my early days not knowing what I was doing, as a ruling I'd even enforce a penalty to skill checks, saving throws, and if it got bad or long enough, attack rolls.  I can hear you all getting your indignation going at that last statement, but if you've ever spend a week out in the woods wet, cold, hungry, and covered in bug bites, you'd agree with me <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  Again, which makes the ranger a valuable class to have.I know I rambled, but I'd be curious to see what experience and expertise you've had in certain areas and activities, and how that made you do some houseruling to your games.*Disclaimer*This thread is not to argue of whether or not something someone says can actually happen.  Everyone has their own ideas for their table, so that means they are right if it works.  I will assume that someone with experience in something is a subject matter expert on the topic, so if I have no experience in the activity, it would be pretty disingenuous of me to argue with them on it based on incorrect assumptions I may have (probably from watching a movie or reading a book that was wrong).</blockquote>

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