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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 6163608" data-attributes="member: 5143">And here's one of my big problems with improvising and it's likely effects.  If improvising almost always is able to make an enemy irrelevant or even defeat an enemy faster than using the rules in book, then improvising becomes the ONLY choice.  Why attack for 1d8 damage when an improvised action causes rocks to fall on the enemies head and kill them instantly.  Or locks them in a corner, unable to get out for days.I prefer improvising to work WITHIN the rules in order to keep in balanced with the rest of the rules rather than it be external from the rules and something the DM makes up.  Of course, this ends up with me saying "no" most of the time to improvising because as I said above, if improvising becomes the best option, then it will be done every round.  If it's done every round then I either have to make up rules every round(for games where there aren't good improvisation rules) or I have to figure out WHICH improvised rules to use.  Either way, it's more work for me as a DM.  I'd prefer players stick to defined options the majority of the time.The risk he was talking about was the risk the DM rejects your improvisation outright.  If you "hit the Daily button", you know the daily power will, in nearly 100% of cases, have the effect listed in the book.  If you improvise an action your DM might assign it at-will damage or encounter damage instead of daily damage.  The DM might determine that it only qualifies for damage a couple levels lower than you.  They might decide that using p42 for this particular improvised maneuver isn't appropriate and make up a new mechanic all together.  Or, they might simply say "No, I don't think that's possible unless you have an appropriate power for it".  This may or may not use up your action to do it.Your character is likely willing to take the risk.  He's an adventurer.  However, the risk is entirely out of game, so it's only player risk.Rules are props in improv drama.  However, D&D is NOT improv drama.  I'm keenly aware of this, especially now when I just finished attending 6 shows of the Dungeons and Dragons Improv Show that has been running in my city at our Fringe Festival for 5 years now.  It is a super popular show and is hilarious.  They use d20s as a prop to decide what happens in many scenes.  However, the DM who narrates and helps run the show has been known to completely ignore the dice rolls by assigning arbitrarily large bonuses whenever the scene doesn't go the way he thinks would be the most entertaining.This works fine for an improv show whose primary goal is to be funny and entertaining to the audience.  It doesn't work nearly as well in a game with 6 players who care about their characters way more.  When you might be playing the same character for years on end, their success and the success of your quest can be rather important to you.  The rules help to make sure that outcome is fair.  Because in the case of a normal D&D game, the players are ALSO the audience so what entertains them is often their character succeeding(or at least having a reasonable chance of succeeding). My point is that you wouldn't do it if that was the reason.  But balance reasons are somewhat more important reason not to add a power.I understand you don't seem to like Mike Mearls.  Keep in mind, he was also lead designer on 4e D&D and also on D&D Next.  The rules exist the way they were BECAUSE of Mike Mearls.My point was that if the guy responsible for a lot of the 4e math says "Yeah, when we made some monsters, we screwed up and gave them powers we didn't expect to be as powerful as they were" even though they had months of playtest time, that random additions of powers to monsters isn't a good idea for a DM who likely doesn't playtest it at all.  "Don't add stuns to monsters" isn't that "common sense" when the designers did it.I, personally, never changed a single monster in the multiple years of running 4e.  I was too intimidated to try because I was afraid I might not consider a balance issue and accidentally TPK the party.  Which was my entire point.  Having the rules be as structured as they are in 4e makes it very difficult to stay within the spirit of the rules while improvising.  The spirit of the rules, of course, being "All of these monsters are balanced and work well".That table exists, sure.  But I'm not sure you'd use it when you have rules in Athletics itself for what DCs are.  That's the problem, there are 2 completely different systems at work.  One under the skill that says "X surface is DC 10" and another one that says "When improvising assume an easy DC for PCs of level 20 is 15."  Is this particular DC 10 or 15?  It depends which set of rules you are using.</blockquote>

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