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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DM_Blake" data-source="post: 4192418" data-attributes="member: 57267">It's impossible to deceive a tentacle with a feint (just like it is impossible to deceive a fist with a feint, or deceive a sword with a feint) - you can only deceive the mind controlling the tentacle, fist, or sword. Are we assuming the mountain is sentient, intelligent, able to view the actions of the players (or sense them in some fashion that might be susceptible to a feint - scent and tremorsense probably cannot be feinted)? If I know the mountain is just a mindless-flesh-mountain-zombie-thing, especially if the players also know this, then I either tell the player it won't work ("your character knows better than to try this, so find another skill") or I tell him it didn't work ("you tried it, and it failed no matter what you roll on the die"). In the latter case, it's an interesting discussion as to whether it counts against the total number of failures - if we disallow a skill, and the player tries it, does his failure tally against the total, or do we only count failures of valid skills that roll badly?Likewise, intimidate will also not work against a mindless-flesh-mountain-zombie-thing. Even if it is sentient, it might have so many tentacles that the other players gain no benefit from the fighter's intimidating a few of them to grapple him. What if the ranger is 100' ahead of the fighter, will intimidating the tentacles (or the sentience conrolling them) near the fighter help the ranger in any way?Sometimes a DM just has to tell a player "no, that idea won't work." I don't think the version of the game even matters - 3e and 4e DMs will have to make these kinds of rulings.If a player metagames, and his thought process is "Well, I'm a wizard. I have points in a bunch of knowledge skills, and spellcraft, and diplomacy, and underwater basket weaving. What can I do? Well, we already researched this mountain at the Sage's Tower, so we know everything about it, so none of my knowledge skills will work. I cannot spellcraft my way up the mountain. And this is no time for basket weaving. Hmmmmm, I guess I better try diplomacy since that's all I have left. Now, what line of garbage can I throw at my DM to convince him to allow diplomacy? Ah, I have it! I will use phenomonology on the mountain to convince it that I'm not really here..."Yeah, I'm not going to allow that in my game.A player who tries to craft up all sorts of excuses to use a skill he is good at, for no real reason other than to avoid using the skills he is not good at, is going to come across the same way as the student trying to tell the teacher why he didn't turn in his math. "Uh, yeah, like, the dog ate it."That said, I'm sure there will be times when a player comes up with something valid. Something that makes sense. Something that doesn't come across as a lame excuse to use a strong skill rather than a weak one. In those cases, I will absolutely reward his creativity by allowing the skill use.Otherwise, sometimes a DM just has to tell a player "no, that idea won't work." I don't think the version of the game even matters - 3e and 4e DMs will have to make these kinds of rulings.</blockquote>

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