What rules have you let slide for a creative player?

[Storyteller01]

Everyone loves a creative player (even the one hit wonders)n, and I'm hunting for stories on them!!


My most recent example had been a ranger/rogue who wanted to use two weapons fighting and grappling at one time. I thought he was trying to tweak the rules so he could gain a sneak attack against a roaming guard, so I asked him how he'd pull it off.

His response: "When the moving guard comes close, I'll slip one foot behind him and my arm in front of his neck. I'll bend him over reverse headlock, then slip the shortsword under the ribs."

It was too good to let go, so he got to make his grapple check with 1/2 his Str bonus, and his attacks were treated as if he were using two medium weapons.

I don't plan on allowing it again, but he hasn't tried. e just brags about the first time.

 

[Stone Angel]

The Complete Warrior has a few things called Tactical feats or something anyway a monk in my game had them that allowed a character two sizes smaller to climb on a creatures back and be able to attack them flat footed.

Note I hate this feat and would give him the hardest time about it. But my point is that this sort of thing is not unfeasible.

Can I ask what his reasoning would be for starting this manuever?

Now onto my story before the Psionics handbook came out in 3.0 I had let a character run on the wall for a bit then make an attack using the mantis leap out of Sword and Fist.

There was a sentry on an opposing battlement that one character had distracted he slipped over the opposite wall took out the other sentry but the mage had forgotten to cast spider climb on him as he got caught up in the planning situation. So he reasoned he could run jump then jump off the wall to make an attack I always encourage this since it makes it more fun and cinematic.

My stipulations were this. Character had to at least make half of his movement (to be at full speed) had to make jump check dc 20 climb check dc 25 another jump check at dc 25 needless to say he pulled it off with flying colors.

In 3.5 one character has a wizard, this player is notorious for doing this manuever in any game regardless of system at least once. The running two footed dropkick. This time his whole intent is to knock them back into a chasm.

He reasoned that with his weight and momentum he could knock this Gnoll adept into the chasm if he used his staff as his torque.

My stipulations were this at least ten feet for charge balance check dc 15 attack at a -4 penalty (so a net -2 after factoring the charge) and then a bull rush attempt with 1.5x str bonus. No AoO unless he failed. And he failed and was blarrged the next round by the Gnolls henchmen.


The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[demiurge1138]

The one rule I proudly let loose for creative and cinematic purposes (oops! I'm not supposed to use the cine-word!) is the falling. Not damage, just speed. Despite the fact that, logically, the falling would be pancaked by the end of their action, or the end of the round, I have been known to slow falls a bit for heroic escapes, last-ditch rescue attempts, and generally to keep players from hating me for not giving them one last chance...

Still doesn't mean they don't get squished anyway.

Demiurge out.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I'll let rules slide for creative players. If a person does something really ineresting that involves taking a wee bit more time than the rules allow, I will fudge it and let them do it. Anything that involves talking to villains, I will usually have the villain take an interest and let the PC yammer on as long as the conversation is interesting.

And then there is death. I have a hard time killing really good characters that add to the plot. I find something else to take the place of death such as the lowering of a stat or something like that.

 

[Storyteller01]

Can I ask what his reasoning would be for starting this manuever?

Fear factor and cool points. Any approaching guard can get a look at his face before they die. Mainly a show of overconfidence, but still very cool.

 

[Wombat]

Depending on the character and the game system I am using, almost any rule is open to flexibiltiy, alteration, or evern outright dismissal.

Then again, our games are more about the story than the rules; other people are less interested in that line.

 

[monkeyshines]

I think almost any rule can slide as long as players aren't abusive about it.

In my own case, in an old 2e-based homebrew campaign where I was actually a player, my character found herself in a situation where she needed to tie someone up. The GM asked for a skill check for rope handling or knot tying, which I didn't have. Previously in the campaign, my character had served several months at sea and picked up boating as a skill, so I asked, "well, I have boating... and surely that would have included learning how to tie knots..." He let me make a skill check at some ungodly penalty, which I made, and I tied the guy up.

This led to a long-running joke in the campaign where whenever we didn't have the necessary skill for a skill check, someone would inevitably say, "but I have boating... surely that includes <skill X>..."

 

[Jesus_marley]

I can trhink of 2 examples off the top of my head.

The first one was Idtra my 2nd Ed. mage. Always looking for new and creative ways to slice up the enemy, I employed my rope use skill and tied 6 longswords to a Tensers floating disk. I then set it spinning, sat back and moved it into melee range...

The other was Sulik my Gnome Barbarian. I was able to successfully have him leap from a tree branch, land on the back of a werewolf below, and bite off its ear.

 

[maddman75]

In 2e, there was a character that fell to a medusa's gaze. Not only was the group unable to turn him back, they'd be hard pressed to get his statue back to the mainland - there were in a dungeon, on an island!

The druid thought carefully and asked me if he was dead, or just rendered immoble by being changed to stone. I ruled he was not dead, as you don't need a raise dead to recover him. The druid then cast a stone shape on him, to give him mobility on his joints and allowed his sword to be removeable. I decided to let it work, and the character was bascially a stone golem. I gave him some benefits - good unarmed damage, AC, and so on, but he was a stealthy ranger, so he certainly didn't want to keep it that way.

For a creative enough player, there are no rules.

 

[Storyteller01]

Agreed, and I do so love to hear these inventive uses.

Another one, from my Dragon Star campaign:

One of my players created a Fairy Sorceress with a focus on charm spells. Problem came about during combat. even with her 'staff' of Magic Missles, she was doing minimal damage while watching her comrades hose enemies left and right with powerful energy weapons.

Our mechanist took it upon himself to fix this. He went through the books looking for simple Tiny weapons (using 3.0 rules). He found what equated to a palm sized tube that fired rocket powered bullets.

His plan: Modify it so that the fairy now has a shoulder fired rocket launcher. Since it was designed to be held in the palm of the hand, there was no backblast to fry her wings.

It was too good to let go, so now she has one. She has to make a Freefall check if she uses it while flying, but hey, nothing's perfect...

The scary part: The heat seeking rounds ignore cover bonuses when used against the appropriate creatures. With that feature, she's more accurate then the fighters, and doing 1d12 damage! (The fighters prefer their 3d8 blasters).