[PnP] General GM discussion

[michael]

You made a really good point about the lack of tension. I think that was prevalent for the whole session, not just your character. My demeanor may have contributed to that as well. I was always relaxed, and never really treated anything like it was a genuine threat. I was also rolling dice under the table really casually, often without anyone else noticing. I think that moment of watching the GM roll and waiting for the result is important to the atmosphere of danger. In our first game, I felt my nervousness negatively impacted the game in a few ways, and I wanted to do as much as I could to stay relaxed for this session. That's why I played it like I did, but I do need to bring it back a bit and find a happy medium.

Tension was absent from the chase scene as well, I think due to your character's radial senses. When you can sense everywhere they go within 1000 ft of you, and they can only move at 60 ft per round, then you're not really worried about whether or not they get away. It feels far less like chasing them down and far more like rounding them up. That was certainly something I should have anticipated and tweaked accordingly.

[Rabbit]

Sorry Michael, but can you report that link you had for the DnD pogs download(s)?

[Enric]

I've been meaning to post a link to this for a while, but Rob Donoghue, who I'm mostly familiar with from his work on Spirit of the Century and the 4E DMG2, has a pretty terrific weblog with a strong emphasis on running games. He updates it a few times a week, and there's some very interesting advice to be found there. If you guys have the chance, check it out.

[Rabbit]

Question: Can Stunning Fist be used with an armed strike? It seems it may be intended in the spirit of the rule that it must be an unarmed strike, but I do not see it in the letter of the rule.

How would you rule on this?

Below are two versions of the rule to reference;

PATHIFINDER

STUNNING FIST: You know just where to strike to temporarily stun a foe.

Prerequisites: Dex 13, Wis 13, Improved Unarmed Strike, base attack bonus +8.

Benefit: You must declare that you are using this feat before you make your attack roll (thus, a failed attack roll ruins the attempt). Stunning Fist forces a foe damaged by your unarmed attack to make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Wis modifier), in addition to dealing damage normally. A defender who fails this saving throw is stunned for 1 round (until just before your next turn). A stunned character can't take actions, loses any Dexterity bonus to AC, and takes a –2 penalty to AC. You may attempt a stunning attack once per day for every four levels you have attained (but see Special), and no more than once per round. Constructs, oozes, plants, undead, incorporeal creatures, and creatures immune to critical hits cannot be stunned.

Special: A monk receives Stunning Fist as a bonus feat at 1st level, even if he does not meet the prerequisites. A monk may attempt a stunning attack a number of times per day equal to his monk level, plus one more time per day for every four levels he has in classes other than monk.

D&D 3.5

Stunning Fist

Prerequisites: Dex 13, Wis 13, Improved Unarmed Strike, base attack bonus +8.

Benefit: You must declare that you are using this feat before you make your attack roll (thus, a failed attack roll ruins the attempt). Stunning Fist forces a foe damaged by your unarmed attack to make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + ½ your character level + your Wis modifier), in addition to dealing damage normally. A defender who fails this saving throw is stunned for 1 round (until just before your next action). A stunned creature drops everything held, can’t take actions, takes a -2 penalty to AC, and loses his Dexterity bonus to AC. You may attempt a stunning attack once per day for every four levels you have attained (but see Special), and no more than once per round. Constructs, oozes, plants, undead, incorporeal creatures, and creatures immune to critical hits cannot be stunned.

Special: A monk may select Stunning Fist as a bonus feat at 1st level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites. A monk who selects this feat may attempt a stunning attack a number of times per day equal to her monk level, plus one more time per day for every four levels she has in classes other than monk.

A fighter may select Stunning Fist as one of his fighter bonus feats.

[michael]

Question: Can Stunning Fist be used with an armed strike? It seems it may be intended in the spirit of the rule that it must be an unarmed strike, but I do not see it in the letter of the rule.

How would you rule on this?

Hmmm... Personally, I'd say that since Improved Unarmed Strike is the prerequisite, Stunning Fist has to be used with an unarmed attack. However, I'd probably allow a new feat with Weapon Focus as its prerequisite instead of Improved Unarmed Strike that allows you to make stunning attacks with the specific weapon you've focused on.

[reefwood]

Nov 16, 2010 18:28:01 GMT -5 Rabbit said:

Question: Can Stunning Fist be used with an armed strike? It seems it may be intended in the spirit of the rule that it must be an unarmed strike, but I do not see it in the letter of the rule.

Unarmed strikes are kind of confusing to me at times since they can fall into different weapon categories depending on the feats of a creature, but I believe the second sentence answers your question: "Stunning Fist forces a foe damaged by your unarmed attack to make a Fortitude saving throw..."

One way I try to look at things in question are by seeing how they might work under different circumstances that are more obvious to me. If the feat said "Stunning Fist forces a foe damaged by your sneak attack to make a Fortitude saving throw...," I would say it is pretty clear that you need to do sneak attack damage for this feat to work. Or if it said "Stunning Fist forces a foe damaged by your nonlethal attack to make a Fortitude saving throw...," then you would need to do nonlethal damage for this feat to work, like with a sap or taking the -4 penalty when using a lethal weapon to deal nonlethal damage.

Therefore, since Stunning Fist says "unarmed attack," I would think it requires an unarmed attack even if it doesn't have a line saying, "This only works with unarmed attacks" or "This doesn't work with armed attacks," especially since D&D doesn't list every single rule in every spot because if it did, the book would be much longer, so it tends to give you just enough info to figure out how rules do and don't work.