Do you bend the rules if it makes sense?

[Xeolan]

Are you playing 100% with the books?

Or do you bend some rules if it makes sense?

Let me throw some exemple of the rules i usualy bend when i play (either as a DM myself, or that i convince my DM to do so)

-Whirlwind attack: Do you allow a dual-wielding character to hit with both weapons? I do, i always thought it was stupid that only your main hand delivered an attack while you pick your nose with your left hand.

-Charge: Same as above. Rules state that you can only hit with your main-hand on a charge, but i always allowed a dual-wielding charging character to hit with both weapons, suffering from DW penalities of course. When you strike with a two-handed weapon, you use both hands, don't you? why would a DW character only use his right hand?

-Attacks of Opportunity:This is just to add some flavor to dual-wielding characters. Unless they have a feat that allows to strike with both weapons on an AoO, i make my players attack with the weapon that is on the side of the open target. If there's a moving target to the right of the player, he delivers a main-hand AoO, if a spellcasters casts a spell to his left, he delivers and off-hand attack.

-Improved evasion: If the whole room catches on fire from a fireball, that the very air that fills the room burns, how the hell can a rogue or a monk avoid getting burned? If the reflex save succeeds, i usualy explain that the rogue or the monk was able to move out of the way by quickly jumping out of the area of effect, but if they can't move out, they still take half damage.

-Spell Resistance: The very air your breathe catches on fire, ice rains from the sky, a pool of acid appears beneath you, a ray of thunder strikes you, but yet, you are unscathed. IMHO, i only allow SR checks if it makes sense, as soon as magic takes a physical, tangible shape, i don't allow a SR check. On the other hand, force effects like Magic missiles can still be resisted by SR.

And there are many others.

Are there any other rules that you bend because it would make sense in real life?

[Azoth]

I usually don't allow magic to be ruled as PFM. Physics apply in my games. If you and your buddies are standing in a pool of water and you hurl a chain lightning at the baddy who is in the same water...EVERYONE make a reflex save or prepare to share his fate. If you just come out from swimming in a lake and get blasted with a fireball while soaking wet I shave a few d6 off from the water absorbing some of the heat. Things like that.

Spells other single target can be potioned as "spell vials" they are wonderous items that anyone can use by throwing. So fireball in a bottle...sure. Teleportation for items is two vials. One to make it poof and another to bring it back. Cure serious wounds mass...a single potion with multiple applications that won't work on the same drinker twice. Other spells as well that make sense...No potions of dominate monster.

No falling damage cap. *has led to several red mist scenes"

Similar to your own, on reflex saves. If there is where to go or not enough room then your save leads to half damage by getting as far away from the point of origin as you feesibly can.

I have many others but alot of them are things that work on the fly. I have let a fighter take less damage from a lightning bolt by using his readied action to hurl his heavy steel shield at the bolt and five feet to one side thus redirecting /some/ of the current.

[Knight13]

-Improved evasion: If the whole room catches on fire from a fireball, that the very air that fills the room burns, how the hell can a rogue or a monk avoid getting burned? If the reflex save succeeds, i usualy explain that the rogue or the monk was able to move out of the way by quickly jumping out of the area of effect, but if they can't move out, they still take half damage.

Rogues don't dodge, they just step into roguespace for a fraction of a second. Dodging is for barbarians.

Somebody has that in their sig, but I don't remember who.

[bloodtide]

Are you playing 100% with the books?

Or do you bend some rules if it makes sense?

Not 100% ever, always bending and breaking stuff.



-Whirlwind attack: Do you allow a dual-wielding character to hit with both weapons? I do, i always thought it was stupid that only your main hand delivered an attack while you pick your nose with your left hand.

-Charge: When you strike with a two-handed weapon, you use both hands, don't you? why would a DW character only use his right hand?

I stick with the single attack with the primary weapon. I think it's right that you can only focus on one action, your primary strike



-Attacks of Opportunity:This is just to add some flavor to dual-wielding characters. Unless they have a feat that allows to strike with both weapons on an AoO, i make my players attack with the weapon that is on the side of the open target. If there's a moving target to the right of the player, he delivers a main-hand AoO, if a spellcasters casts a spell to his left, he delivers and off-hand attack.

Nope. I use your primary hand/weapon is the one you use.



-Improved evasion: If the whole room catches on fire from a fireball, that the very air that fills the room burns, how the hell can a rogue or a monk avoid getting burned? If the reflex save succeeds, i usualy explain that the rogue or the monk was able to move out of the way by quickly jumping out of the area of effect, but if they can't move out, they still take half damage.

Nope. That is way, way too much of a rule change. You might as well say 'evasion does not work in my game at all'. Sure if your in a 5x5 room and a fireball goes off, you have no where to go....but the rules don't really cover such things. In general a person can roll, duck, dodge, jump and other wise get out of the way of things. The rules don't get all technical as to 'how' it's done as that would take up 500 pages....they just say it happens. But for your fireball death trap, say the character wraps themselves in their cloak and rolls on the ground.




-Spell Resistance: The very air your breathe catches on fire, ice rains from the sky, a pool of acid appears beneath you, a ray of thunder strikes you, but yet, you are unscathed. IMHO, i only allow SR checks if it makes sense, as soon as magic takes a physical, tangible shape, i don't allow a SR check. On the other hand, force effects like Magic missiles can still be resisted by SR.

Again this is a big game changer. To say that 'oh fire is normal so no SR' is saying that SR is useless in your game. After all there is no reason every single spell could not be no SR. Why do you say 'force' is magical? I can say that 'force' is not magical at all. If a fireball is 'normal fire', then a magic missile can be 'normal force'. You could even say charm person is not magical as it just creates a 'normal charm'. And so on.

I allow SR for all magic as per the rules, though I did change all the conjuration SR cheats to evocation and made them SR-Yes.




Are there any other rules that you bend because it would make sense in real life?

Well, the game is not 'real life', of course.

[killem2]

I use the craft system as a way to generate a bit of spare change for the party each session as a gimme.

[The Mentalist]

No falling damage cap. *has led to several red mist scenes"


The fall cap makes perfect sense, terminal velocity and all. Drop a hammer from upper atmo is the same from seven or eight stories.

[Kane0]

Yup. The most notable one is horses going up or down stairs, but things that just dont make sense have rules made for such occasions.

[Azoth]

I understand terminal velocity, but I have had one to many players do the whole 20d6...I can survive it. Then jump from extreme heights as a shortcut back to civilization to sell loot. So it teaches them a lesson and is less of a rule change than me making a table to determine how many bones they broke since physics states any fall from greater than approximately 3x your height will guarantee atleast one broken bone.

I don't like dealing with the extra headache because someone thought it was a good idea to jump off a 500ft cliff down to the gravel path below to walk back to town.

[Chaos_Laicosin]

Rogues don't dodge, they just step into roguespace for a fraction of a second. Dodging is for barbarians.

Somebody has that in their sig, but I don't remember who.

Ever watched Gundam Seed? At one point the main character dodges a face full of self-destructing gundam. Then, in the sequel series, he dodges a nuclear explosion.

My roommate and I hypothesize that he has taken several levels in DM and invented an Improved Godly Epic Lordly Uncanny Dodge feat just for himself.

[Apalala]

I understand terminal velocity, but I have had one to many players do the whole 20d6...I can survive it. Then jump from extreme heights as a shortcut back to civilization to sell loot. So it teaches them a lesson and is less of a rule change than me making a table to determine how many bones they broke since physics states any fall from greater than approximately 3x your height will guarantee atleast one broken bone.

I don't like dealing with the extra headache because someone thought it was a good idea to jump off a 500ft cliff down to the gravel path below to walk back to town.

So it's entirely realistic that the party went toe to toe with a dragon, can smash through walls, hurl fireballs, transform into monsters...but they ONLY take 20d6 damage from a large fall? Realism is all well and good, but when you selectively apply it like that it just seems restrictive.

[Jeraa]

If falling damage is a problem, you can always enforce the "death from massive damage" rule (Players Handbook, page 145). IF they take more then 50 damage from a single source (20d6 averages 70 damage), then they have to make a DC 15 Fortitude save or die, regardless of their remaining number of hit points. Even though the save is easily passable, there is always that 5% chance you'll roll a 1 and automatically fail.

(Or, houserule massive damage saves to be DC 15, plus 1/2 of the damage dealt over 50 points. Now the 70 average falling damage results in a DC 25 Fortitude save to avoid instant death.)

[Azoth]

If you will note from my original post I make it clear to players the the laws of physics do apply to a degree in my campaigns and even affect magic. I do not just apply it to fall damage. My players are well aware before they even attempt these jumps.

I am all for epic moments and letting players do things reality bending when it is appropriate or feesible, and have rarely gotten a complaint from my players for these rules. The human has its limits and the realism of some things not changing seems appropriate. When was the last fantasy movie/book where a human jumped from an incredible height, landed face first on the pavement, and was perfectly fine to get up and walk off without the aid of magic, robotics, advanced armor, or some other piece of gear that cancled the impact?

[Amechra]

Uh, what do you mean?

The rules of the game LITERALLY are the laws of physics for the game world. So what if it makes no sense to us? Have you seen some of OUR weirder physical laws?

If you were to houserule that things that make no "sense" aren't allowed, then practically all magic is out the window, as are pretty much all monsters, who you consequently have to alter the ability scores for (square-cubed law's a bitch, ain't it?).

And by the way... you don't automatically break bones if you fall over 3x your height, or else diving boards would be death traps, which they are not. I once jumped off a diving board that was around 6 times my height above the water, and all that happened was that my body stung for a few minutes. And before you say that that's because you fell into water, you can train to fall in ways that let you fall pretty massive distances...

And that time you murdered one of your players? The record for the farthest fall a person has survived was several thousand feet, so...

[Azoth]

He also caught strong updrafts about 200ft above a muddy field where he impacted. He also sustained a nearly shattered rib cage, broken neck, and several other broken bones.

I do not remove monsters or magic from the world, but i do not let magic reside as the end all be all. I also don't let my players rest 8hrs EVERY night. Rope trick doesn't solve that issue for them. Sometimes they have to suck it up and either ration spells judiciously, or rely on the BSF to save them. Magic mart doesn't exist. Not every splat book and cheesey combo is allowed. No you can not heal from negative infity by drowning. You will not magically find a scroll or friendly wizard to learn that spell just because you want to and can afford it.

I tend to be gritty, semi-realistic (as much as you can in d&d), and in the end my players enjoy the game. I have fun running it. If you don't agree or wouldn't enjoy it if that is how a game ran than simply agree to disagree and don't sign up for a campaign if I run one on these boards...otherwise drop how it is badwrongfun that I run games like that and get on topic of thread.

[Amechra]

I never stated that your style of playing is badwrongfun; however, it sounded like you killed your player because you didn't want to spend the time making up a table. I apologize for any offense.

Besides, my above post was answering the OP question, so it was on topic.

Any way, I concede that you can alter the rules to make the whole thing make more "sense" to you, but only if you state beforehand that that's how things work; I'm saying this from several... painful experiences where, to give one example, my DM let me make a character that was very focused on negative energy damage... for a heavily undead campaign... which he told us wasn't going to include undead at all.

So, basically, my position is that you should tell your players important rule changes (and also at least hint to them that certain character concepts will be painful to play) beforehand.

Because... it kinda hurts if you don't.

But if you aren't having any such problems, keep doing what you are doing, since if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

And is it just me, or is this a discussion that belongs more in the Roleplaying Games forum?

[Ialdabaoth]

-Whirlwind attack: Do you allow a dual-wielding character to hit with both weapons? I do, i always thought it was stupid that only your main hand delivered an attack while you pick your nose with your left hand.

House rule for whirlwind + two weapon fighting:

roll 2D20 for each target. If one hits, deal damage with off-hand weapon. If both hit, deal damage with main weapon.

This way, you aren't doubling up damage, but you *are* getting an accuracy boost.