The rules keep stealing my thunder!

[takasi]

The funny thing about scaring people is that it doesn't have to be likely.

The funny thing about scaring people when you're sitting around a table eating cheetos is that you have to have respect for the guy describing the story. If you believe he is incompetent and can't figure out the rules then it doesn't matter what's "likely" or not because in the end it's just some idiot with cheeto stains on his shirt.

 

[gizmo33]

But all I'm getting from you is that you're criticizing my level of DM'ing and my understanding of how to DM players.

I'm trying to be specific about the options that the DM has when presenting information to the players, and how those options can affect the mood of the players. Again, I don't think you're a dopey DM, so I'll try to pay more attention to how I say things.

I chose to go with the longer term affect and if that alerted them that his chains aren't +2, that is not going to have any affect on the game since logic would tell them anyway that he isn't weilding +2 chains.

There's nothing that I can see that explains how observing the actions of a Kyton would determine what kind of chains he has. I would imagine that the actions of a Kyton would be pretty mysterious, and if he chooses not the Sunder on a particular round, or he rolls and fails, what information does that really provide?

They knew it was a Kyton and not "something that looks like a Kyton" because it had already performed Kyton special powers.

"A bunch of powers whose effect looks like a Kyton's powers" is still not conclusive evidence of anything. There's no way I have of determining whether or not a creature has +2 chains based on the special powers that it uses.

It also wasn't the first Kyton they have encountered.

Doesn't matter. I could encounter 100 orcs in the past in your campaign, doesn't mean that the 101st orc isn't a 10th level ranger with a +2 spiked chain, even if you tell me that it's unlikely that any NPC will ever have a magic item, I don't know for certain until you tell me that that particular one doesn't have a magic item.

But it has nothing to do with my DMing skills and knowledge of how to DM "properly" as people love to point out to DMs online

In general, you were DMing properly because you ran a game in which your players were amused, shocked, involved, whatever. I've said repeatedly that I think you were more successful than you realized.

 

[JustinA]

For example, our groups archer uses the magic bow in melee combat 24/7 thanks to Arrow Mind. I wanted to scare her a bit and do a sunder attempt on her bow. I had no intention of actually breaking the bow because they could kill the NPC before he did enough damage to destroy it. I just wanted to freak her out so that after they kill him, she'll feel like she overcame a scarier challenge than what she's used to (saving her bow rather than her life).

Let's sum this plan up:

1. Freak the player out with the thought that she might lose her bow.

2. Don't actually destroy the bow (that would suck).

I've never done a Sunder before, never even seen anyone do a sunder. So all I knew of the rule was what I remembered reading in the PHB. When I announce that the NPC attacks her bow and she gets an AoO, she freaked out, "WHAT?! MY BOW?! What the hell am I going to do if I lose my bow! CRAP!". She was genuinely worried.

1. Freak the player out with the thought that she might lose her bow.

I asked the players to find out the Hardness & HP of a magic bow for me while I moved on to the next initiative to keep the game moving. And of course, a minute later a player finds the text in the DMG guide that says a magic item can only be damaged by a magic item of an equal enhancement bonus. Seeing as how she has a +2 Legacy bow and very few NPC of mine wield magic weapons, this NPC can't even damage the bow even if he did a sunder.

2. Bow not actually destroyed.

Mission accomplished.

I can't ignore the rule or all hell would break loose and I would lose my player's trust. So I suck it up, and try to think of other ways to be "original" and get the players nervous so they can reminisce about that moment later on.

Try to look at these situations as opportunities instead of obstacles. Here you had a perfect opportunity to not only accomplish your original goal (make them nervous, followed by relief) but to also affirm for the player just how cool her favorite weapon really is!

I also see it happen with players. Sometimes a player wants to do something clever and he can't because he lacks some stupid feat or something. Or maybe it's because he can't take a move action then a standard action and finish it off with a reasonable partial move action just because it's against the rules.

A lot of people forget that combat is continuous and that action sequences can be continued across multiple rounds. Is there any reason that "reasonable partial move action" can't be resolved on their next turn?

There are a handful of feats which shouldn't be feats (because they should be things that people can try to do without any special training or ability). But not very many of them.

 

[JustinA]

Let's say you have a few zombies blocking the path on a spiraling staircase. A player wants to jump onto the banister to run past the mooks, run a little more until he's next to the necromancer boss, jump into a square that's both adjacent to the wizard but also in mid-air, pull the wizard into his own square (mid-air, i.e. several stories above a solid surface), snatch the wizard's spell components, drop the necromancer as they begin to fall a few feet down, cast feather fall, pull out his bow and then ready an action to hit the wizard if he casts a spell.

That's what a player says he "wants" to do. An ongoing issue I have with a few players in my group is they make conceptual declarations but then rely on me (or one of the rules lawyers in our group) to figure out what the mechanical declarations should be.

Ooh, I like these challenges.

1. A Jump check to jump up onto the banister.
2. A Balance check for moving up the banister.
3. You could make an argument for a Tumble check to move through the squares the mooks are in, but I'd either rule that the use of the banister creates a situation where the check isn't necessary or grant a very large circumstance bonus for using it. (I have rules for making a "skill bonus check" where the use of one skill gives a bonus to another -- this would be a perfect time to use them.)

You need to pause here. On your next turn:

4. Another Jump check to make the leap (can't be more than 5 feet).
5. Initiate the grapple. I have rules for pulling people into your own square to initiate the grapple, so I'd use those. Another grapple check to grab the spell components. Another grapple check to escape the grapple.
6. Feather Fall as a swift action.

End of turn. (If you don't have a BAB high enough to do all those grapple checks as a full-round action, then you can't do it fast enough to avoid hitting the ground.) Next turn:

7. Pull out bow as a move action.
8. Ready action to hit the wizard if he casts some spells.

 

[gizmo33]

But you will identify it.

Not really - and there's an important distinction. You can only cast an identify spell on it, which may lead to identification, but that's only if you believe that there are no complicating factors involved in your divination spell. Things are not nearly as certain as you think - if you only tell the players what their characters would know, they will never be 100% sure of anything.

By hand-waving the identify, and saying "you identify it" rather than saying "your identify spell returns the following results...", your implicitly ruling out circumstances that the character would have now way of ruling out. That's ok for expediency, but not if you're trying to create suspense.

Whatever level os suspense you are trying to create will be diminished significantly if your players do not trust that you're running the game fairly. The rules say (which they don't but for the sake of argument let's assume they did) that you cannot sunder a +2 weapon without having a +2 or better weapon. A PC has a +2 weapon and it is sundered by a weapon. The PC picks up the weapon later and discovers that is WASN'T a +2 weapon. When he calls "shenanigans" don't you think that ruins the experience of "suspense" later on?

No, because as someone pointed out with the adamantine example, there are possible exceptions to every rule by virtue of the fact that a fantasy world is filled with a potentially unlimited amount of substances that interact in a limitless number of ways with the rules. You have no idea what Gizmonium is, or that it wasn't the cause of the sundering of your weapon.

But more importantly, you don't know, when the Kyton fails to sunder your weapon on a single attempt, that he won't be successful on the following round. The key point is that the player has no information that allows him to figure out what's going on - only to narrow down some options.

You can figure out how much damage you're doing to it for the most part, and whether it is healing itself or whether the damage is effective or not. And if the DM doesn't want to provide this information then again he is losing that level of trust (see above) that allows a player to feel the suspense.

What information am I obligated to provide as a DM? Clearly I want my descriptions of injury and healing to be as close to the numerical values as I can get them. You probably can tell the difference between a creature with 2 hitpoints and one with 45 hitpoints, but probably not 45 and 47. But ballpark figures aren't the issue. It takes very specific knowledge to adjucate most rules issues.

Because players know, metagame, what they can and can't turn as far as hit dice are concerned. If you fudge the numbers they will figure it out. Maybe not always, but once it happens you are going to lose that level of trust.

I don't recommend fudging the numbers at all! What I'm suggesting is that you simply don't tell the players anything except what their characters can reasonable expect to observe. Knowing my chances of turning a 3 HD creature is not the same thing as determining my chances of turning a specific creature under specific circumstances that bears some resemblance to a 3 HD creature in the monster books.

DM's that use these tactics are, IMO, poor adventure designers. If a DM can't play by the same rules the PCs have to (by arbitrarily raising a monster's turn ability for example) then I would not want that DM at my table.

I am in no way advocating for messing with the rules in mid-game, in fact it's the opposite. The OP is saying that the rules are causing him problems when trying to create tension/suspense in the game. What I'm trying to say is that rules don't have nearly as much influence over tension/suspense as does the way that a DM presents information - and sticking to an information presentation style that's consistent with what the characters would know, and avoiding telling them things (or even ruling things out) that they're characters wouldn't know solves much of the problem AFAICT.

 

[gizmo33]

The funny thing about scaring people when you're sitting around a table eating cheetos is that you have to have respect for the guy describing the story. If you believe he is incompetent and can't figure out the rules then it doesn't matter what's "likely" or not because in the end it's just some idiot with cheeto stains on his shirt.

But the OP could figure the rules out. AFAICT he did so pretty easily, at least to the level of satisfaction of the other players (which turned out to be wrong, but nobody minded apparently). And there's no reason to game with anyone that you don't respect.

 

[takasi]

Ooh, I like these challenges.

1. A Jump check to jump up onto the banister.
2. A Balance check for moving up the banister.
3. You could make an argument for a Tumble check to move through the squares the mooks are in, but I'd either rule that the use of the banister creates a situation where the check isn't necessary or grant a very large circumstance bonus for using it. (I have rules for making a "skill bonus check" where the use of one skill gives a bonus to another -- this would be a perfect time to use them.)

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?

 

[gizmo33]

Because players know, metagame, what they can and can't turn as far as hit dice are concerned.

You see a creature that looks like a wight. Heck, I'll go so far as to tell you in no-uncertain terms that it IS a wight, and that it has no powers or abilities that aren't in the Monster Manual, and you still would have a pretty poor chance of guessing what hit dice it is.

 

[NCSUCodeMonkey]

Whew, it's a bit hot in here . Oryan77, I feel your pain from both as a player and as a DM. For example, this weekend at NC Gameday I tried to do a few things that were "outside" of the rules. Like using a kicked barrel to knock down an opponent. I wasn't looking for an unfair advantage, I just wanted to do something cinematic. The DM made a ruling, and it was a good ruling under D&D, but it was going to be WAY efficient to just shoot at my attacker. Since we were in a bit of a pinch, I decided to just do a regular attack instead of taking two rounds to execute the barrel attack. I hit, I did some damage, but the strict presence of the rules completely stole my thunder. It would've been oh so much cooler to do something cinematic, even if it meant being slightly less effective or taking an elevated risk.

As a DM, I like to do cinematic things and allow players to do the same, but I don't want to show favoritism, and the players know the rules so well that the rules seem to limit their options. "Oh, well I could try this thing, but there's no rule for that, so I'll just swing at the monster." That sucks, and I've been thinking about house rules (other than action points, which quickly become not-so-special) to make that a bit better.

And sometimes, yes sometimes I forget how grapple works. So sue me. I don't think anyone that I've run a game for would call me a bad DM, quite the opposite, but sometimes I do forget the exact mechanics of casting a spell while grappled or how disarm works. And I like to be correct in the scope of the rules because I want to give the players a level field. If someone does know the rule and calls you on it, the worst thing you can do is make something up so that it goes your way like, "Uh...yeah....he has a special sword....uh..." If you're good at it you can pull it off and they'll be none the wiser. My experience is that most DMs do not have that talent. I know one of my regular DMs doesn't, because it's obvious when he does it and it's pissed us off a few times.

I can't say what I would've done in your specific case, but in the past I've just made a ruling and moved on. We usually look the stuff up after the session, as others have posted. I heard some good advice on this recently, "You'll always have another chance to zing the PCs." And it's true. There are so many bad guys to throw at the PCs, you'll get it right next time.

Mainly I wanted to pop in and say, "I feel your pain. That sucks."

 

[takasi]

You see a creature that looks like a wight. Heck, I'll go so far as to tell you in no-uncertain terms that it IS a wight, and that it has no powers or abilities that aren't in the Monster Manual, and you still would have a pretty poor chance of guessing what hit dice it is.

Nope. I roll a natural 20, resulting in a 22+ on the turning check. I am level 4. The creature is not turned.

I KNOW that it is at least 8 HD (or 6 with +2 or 4 with +4 turn resistance) or I am in a desecrated area. Either way, if a low level wizard takes it down with a magic missile after my cleric failed to turn it on a natural 20 then I'm not going to be happy.