The rules keep stealing my thunder!

[billd91]

That's a great example of what I was bringing up in my original post. I love when players think of stuff like that. When the ruling isn't so obvious, I try to make it up on the fly. But as you said, by following the way the rules work, a trick like that usually isn't worth the effort.

I'll try to bend the rules within reason and make them simple so that when I do tell a player how he can perform that action, he'll still want to do it.

Gotta love those generic +2 circumstance modifiers for doing interesting things that could conceivably have a mechanical benefit.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

INRE the OP

Next time have them sunder the arrows themselves (nobody ever has magic arrows anymore) or if you want to be a non-fathered-mouse-DM declare the bowSTRING isn't magical and have them sunder that.

DS

 

[gizmo33]

Really?

"What is it?" is an unanswerable question when it refers to a player making a knowledge check to find out what an undead is?

Yes, really, and that's why I said it. The question "what is it?" makes an assumption that's not true. The question is a leading question, that is simple, plain, and not a matter of opinion. You keep saying that it's "valid", but you don't say on what basis. Leading questions force the person asked them to reframe the context away from the other persons agenda. It's exactly what telemarketers do. They ask you "how many do you want to buy?" not "do you want to buy?". It's an aggressive tactic, and IMO has no place in a situation that is not supposed to be adversarial.

"Passive-aggressive" has it's own set of attributes. It's about finding ways to be aggressive without have to acknowledge your intent or be accountable. Using words like "fine" in situations that obviously aren't fine. Asking questions that aren't questions or contain implicit assumptions.

In the end that's my opinion on it. I don't think that telling me that the question is valid is going to convince me that it is. If you don't believe me - the next time you go before a judge for a traffic ticket, ask him "so when do I get to leave?" before he's made his ruling. I believe that you will then gain a sudden appreciation for what I'm saying.

Certainly, "did I make my roll?" is not nearly as good a question in this case. That's easily interpretable as "Did I roll my dice?", which is either a very bad question or a very funny question, depending on the asker's intent.

That's just a matter of vocabulary. "Making the roll" is an idiom of the language that means "did I succeed at the roll". Certainly you must be able to comprehend what "Whew! I made my saving throw!" means. Same thing in this case.

And as far as the character knows, he succeeded on his Knowledge check, whether or not he did or not.

I don't recognize this from the SRD description for the knowledge skill. I don't see anywhere where to consequences of failure would cause the character to have false knowledge. It's possible, but I don't think the rules spell it out. In a situation where the roll determines whether you know something or not, it seems to be general practice to allow the player to make rolls when their success or failure is immediately evident. That's why they wouldn't roll spot or listen checks. Were this not the case, then the person in the thread who made those dice rolls was out of line for third reason as well - because I should have rolled the checks for him. But apparently, both he and I were under the impression that this wasn't the case. It's a simple enough thing for the DM to establish anyway.

 

[JustinA]

Rules lawyer hat on:

If you are very fast (say you have a 60' speed just for sake of argument) and the jump and balance is part of your movement, and you move INTO the adjacent square (which is in midair) then isn't it just a move action?

If that is the case, can you initiative the grapple with your standard action?

Yes. But you couldn't initiate the grapple, take the necromancer's spell component pouch, and escape the grapple (dropping him) all on a standard action. That's at least three grapple checks, so you'd have to take a full action and have three iterative attacks.