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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amaroq" data-source="post: 5136204" data-attributes="member: 15470">Hmm .. I suppose I alternate between "not very" and "extremely".In general, my theory is "make the players feel like their character is awesome!" That manifests in different ways, of course."Want to Jump as part of a Move and Grab a creature at the apex of the jump?" Awesome! Let's roll! "You want to try what?" Fine, you can try, but I'll set the DC's so high you shouldn't be able to hit them - and not tell you what those are. What? You rolled a 20, and an 18, for the two skill checks I asked for .. plus your mods? Criminy, now I've got to figure out how this works!!Building a monster, I'll follow the Monster Builder guidelines for HP, defenses, etc, for balance .. but then I'll make up my own powers with fairly little concern for "are they balanced", and much more concern for "do they feel threatening?" However, I'll usually "prep" an encounter by figuring out a lot of the rules ahead of time, and for that I'm pretty solidly rules based.For example, the archers are shooting off the second floor balcony? Okay, if I were a melee fighter, I'd try to get up there. How would I do that? I might use a rope .. let's set a DC for that .. and a much easier DC if you have a Grappling Hook ... I might want to Climb .. hmm, maybe I should give the balcony arches so they have something to Climb .. okay, lets set a DC for that, and note both the "I succeed" level and the "I fall" level ... okay, I might want to Jump and grab the ledge .. okay, lets calculate the DC for that, running, and standing .. now let's set another (easier) DC for pulling yourself up .. hmm, if you fail that, maybe its an Endurance check to have enough going for you to pull yourself up again .. oh, what if somebody climbs most of the way, then falls? They should totally have a last-ditch-chance to put themselves in the "grabbed the ledge" state .. cool, here's the DC for that. So, coming into the encounter, I've got a lot more stuff "prepared" than my characters actually try ... in practice, I wound up with one Jumper, no climbers, no ropes, no grappling hooks, two people trying ranged attacks from the floor, and two others heading off to find a staircase .. and making it to the balcony through I route I hadn't prepped but found perfectly legitimate.But past that, I'm fairly House-Rule-ey, so we have a number of different house rules in play, including an "Awesome Point" mechanic which basically lets the character break the rules in some way ... e.g., if my jumper's maximum Jump was a 19 (due to armor) and the jump DC was 20, she could have used an Awesome Point to succeed anyways. I'm less worried about "allowing" something cool and having it turning out unbalanced: I'd much rather reward a cool idea, and then inform the player that it was a one-off and won't be repeatable every time they need to .. X.</blockquote>

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