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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 999506" data-attributes="member: 259">You do something that make the game no longer fun for your players.  That's how you break the system.  I'm not a C++ programmer, I'm not a legislator, and I'm therefore not much interested in any other definition. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I'm completely willing to break rules if it encourages my players to come up with unusual ideas.  An example from last session (not involving skills, and indeed showing how my philosophy doesn't just benefit the skillsmonkeys out there):The characters were fighting the undead "ghosts" (closer to wights in stats, a homebrew monster) of the massacred inhabitants of a monastery devoted to a moon goddess.  I described them as glowing with faint silvery moonlight as they fought, described how the shimmering light made it difficult to hit them.The party shadowdancer was unconscious, but her shadow (which I'd already ruled was semiautonomous) was up and moving.  Rather than try to strength-drain or wrestle the ghosts, she declared that the shadow would flow over them, shrouding them in darkness and cutting off their connection to the moon goddess.I was completely surprised by this -- and how do you rule such an attack?  What are the rules for an incorporeal being trying to flow over a corporeal being?  And what effect would it have -- obviously, I hadn't come up with stats on what would happen if these critters were covered in shadow?Screw the rules, I decided:  it's a totally cool thing to do.  So I let her do it with a simple touch attack.  And because I want to encourage cool combats, I allowed her shadow to hold a brief conversation with the suddenly-freed soul of the monk she'd flowed over, before the monk slumped to the ground freed of the curse of being undead.Too powerful?  Naah -- it was unusual, and there were plenty of opponents for everyone else to fight, and so it gave her something fun and useful to do in the battle.  She'll probably never get another chance to use the maneuver.  And while the party druid couldn't have pulled it off, the party druid has her own arsenal of tricks.  Next combat, the druid might decide to turn into a raven and fly at the eyes of the enemy's warhorse, and I'll decide that that's a cool maneuver and give her a handle animal check DC 20, +5 circumstance bonus, to panic the horse she's flying at.  Everyone's got their own tricks, and the more creatively and spectacularly people use them, the bigger bonuses I'll offer them in reward.Daniel</blockquote>

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