Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Amondaun Jun 29, 2015 22:07:28	So with the release of Elemental Evil, and the hype of the new races, I convinced my best friend and his brother to do a Goliath Brothers Game. Basically use the in-game lore of the goliaths and start out as brothers. Me being a cleric, my best friend (DM) having a Ranger DMPC, and his brother being a Barbarian. We started at level 8 and our first major encounter involved us, about 10 Goliath NPCs with the stats similar to a Veteran and two slightly more powerful NPCs against an Adult Red Dragon. **** hit the fan, as could be expected, and the dragon was in a position to preform a potential TPK. That's when this conversation happened:   Me: "You know how you can wait and take your turn after an ally?"  DM: "Yeah." Me: "Can I do that but after the Dragon's turn?" DM: "I don't see why not."  ME: "Specifically can I take a reaction to one of the dragon's attacks? For instance, should the Dragon flame breath could I use my normal action as a reaction to cast cure wounds on one of my brothers?"  DM *After a several minutes of pondering and consulting the rules* "Sure. However, you'll have to pass a few checks if you want to do it after a specific attack."    As fate would have it on that turn the dragon rolled successfully to regain its flame breath. It was also 30 feet in the air and a downward flame breath could hit, and likely kill, everyone. As it began to use its breath attack:   ME: "I cast create food and water." DM: "Come again?" ME: "I cast create food and water. Roughly 30 gallons of water and food concentrated in a 5 foot cube. I choose for that cube to be the dragon's open mouth."    The DM allowed it and as it turns out not only did that spell severely weaken the attack but by doing so our character's mother, our village elder, and us all survived. My DM congratulated me for ingenuity and the works. However, I can't help but feel I somewhat bent the rules to my favor. I realize that creative thinking is encouraged but I wonder where thinking outside the box ends and bending the rules to achieve what I want begin.    I normally wouldn't bring something like this up but I have a habit for trying to be "clever." And while I usually don't slow down the game during my turns as I plan my moves ahead of time, when I try to do something different like this, our DM (same guy) usually makes a temporary/or permanent houserule for it. And since he is relatively new to DMing that sometimes takes a little bit for the ruling to be passed.   Basically what I'm asking is: would you consider this a playstyle habit of creative thinking to be encouraged or is this more bending the rules to survive a situation we normally shouldn't have? And is it fair to be "clever" and potentially save character lives when it slows down gameplay and may mitigate some of the enjoyment from the other players? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
#2 FactOfFiction Jun 29, 2015 22:55:25	If your group and the DM find that style enjoyable and it does not ruin their experience - it is not only perfectly fine, but even should be encouraged. As an advice - try to keep the creative thinking innovative and not turn specific action into a general strategy by starting to create food and water into everything that you enter a combat with.
#3 Ath-kethin Jun 30, 2015 9:24:47	I absolutely love this story, and this is absolutely the way I play and the way I run my games. There is an easy way to answer your questions, and it is with another question: is everybody enjoying the game? If the answer is "yes," you are following every rule you need to, exactly right.
#4 mellored Jun 30, 2015 12:58:54	Was it fun?   If so, then it's allowed.
#5 Mad_Jack Jun 30, 2015 13:54:47	Remember, you're playing a game where stuffing a couple of  small party members into a bag of holding and  launching them through a castle window with a siege engine is actually a traditional tactic.   Just as long as you save the "clever' for stuations where it's both useful and entertaining rather than trying to deal with every situation by doing something outrageous, it's fine.
#6 Castillo_de_Santiago Jun 30, 2015 16:27:53	mellored wrote:
#7 Nevvur Jun 30, 2015 17:05:48	This sort of thinking should definitely be encouraged and rewarded, but I'm constantly weary of setting precedents that open the game to exploitation.   An example:   I had my players fight a Water Weird awhile back. As they caused damage, I described how their attacks made the volume of water less dense. That is, above half life it appeared as a solid body of water, but below it began to appear more like intertwining streams, and near death, it was almost like mist. Just a little fluff to describe the combat and telegraph its approximate HP. I also added this fluff about a fist-sized blue rock magically suspended in the middle of the creature, which became visible at half HP.   The Arcane Trickster thought, "Well that's weird (hur hur)," and used her super Mage Hand to grab a hold of the rock. I let her move the rock around, thereby moving the creature. I also allowed this forced movement to cause opportunity attacks. The rogue was quite pleased with herself!   Moving forward, I decided not to include this bit of fluff about many of the elementals in my world being chained to a stone suspended in their center. I had set a precedent of allowing Mage Hand to affect them, and if I ever wanted to make these creatures threatening while including the stone, I'd need to come up with some reason why the same crippling tactic wouldn't work again.   Similarly, do you want every dragon fight to end up with a dragon maw full of conjured food? That's the question I ask myself when ruling on the side of cool: is this open to abuse? In the case of the dragon, maybe they just got lucky and the dragon happened to be allergic to one of the conjured food types. Other dragons do not share the allergy, and would have the presence of mind to spit it out before resuming the breath weapon attack. Next session, I would tell my players something along those lines... "What you did was awesome, but I don't want every dragon fight to be completely trivialized, therefore...."
(Reply to #4) Amondaun	mellored wrote:
(Reply to #7) Amondaun	Nevvur wrote:
#10 Nevvur Jun 30, 2015 19:13:04	Yes, the rocks were meant to be a sort of binding point/portal to the elemental plane. Some of the rocks were infused with energy by a spellcaster, some occurred naturally at ley line crossings, but all of them served to stabilize and/or project elemental energy in the prime material plane. I just decided the Water Weird was an anomaly among elemental types for being anchored this way. The players never investigated or questioned "How do elementals work?" so my behind the scenes retcon went unnoticed when they faced other elemental creatures which did not feature such stones.
#11 Rya.Reisender Jul 01, 2015 0:45:29	For me it's case-by-case. I'm fairly strict about the rules and wouldn't allow anything the rules explicitly state does not work (like casting a spell at range 60 when it says its range is 30). But I always reward clever ideas as long as they don't contradict any rules. The DM has a lot of freedom he can apply to reward cleverness without bending any rules (like giving advantage / disadvantage).
#12 Treantmonklvl20 Jul 01, 2015 6:09:03	I like player creativity.  Each original idea gets only one use though...
#13 Noon Jul 02, 2015 0:28:00	I think the GM used it as an excuse to avoid the TPK he didn't want to happen.   I think getting advantage, for example, for creative thinking is indeed creative thinking.   The example isn't bending the rules - it's just skipping the rules entirely.   Why bother using rules at all when they get discarded when they are just about to actually have an effect on play?   Just go all freeform timey wimey instead.   mellored wrote:
#14 DemoMonkey Jul 02, 2015 11:39:49	"I like player creativity.  Each original idea gets only one use though."   Ditto.If you use the idea more than once, it's not original.
#15 Ralif_Redhammer Jul 02, 2015 11:52:16	Super clever, absolutely. That sort of an action is way more exciting than "I swing my mace, 18 to hit, 6 damage." I'm all for PCs getting creative in combat. And the DM didn't let you guys off the hook entirely, since you said it only weakened the attack, didn't deflect it entirely.   But yes, trying the same thing over and over would take the excitement completely out of it, and subsequent rulings might be less favorable. Or enemy clerics might start doing the same thing to the party spellcasters.