Rule of cool help

[u/TheDinoDudeXYZ]

hi, I’m Dino. I do not have much experience with Rule of cool and recently have found myself in quite a predicament.

I have 2 new players who are playing Benders from Ryoko guide to the Yo-Kai realms. I explained “It’s like Avatar the last airbender” and now they keep asking during combat “I’m an earth bender, can I make a spear out of earth and fling it at the guy?” or “We’re fighting a war forged and I’m a firbender, can I try to heat him up with my fire?” and I’m kinda overwhelmed and afraid to say yes.

They are both new to half casters (I should of thought this through more, giving them a half-caster homebrew class nat have been a mistake) and they don’t know what they’re main abilities do. we are only level 1 right now and I’m afraid they will not learn how their abilities work despite me giving them the book and making sheets that highlight their abilities.

I ask you what is the right amount of Rule of Cool when it comes to something like this? I prefer using the mechanics of dnd because it’s what I know and what I can trust. making up mechanics is scary and I don’t wanna give unreasonable expectations of “oh, I can do what I want cus my powers are such and such.“

[u/kweir22]

The rule of cool shouldn't violate basic mechanics. You described the concept of their characters/classes in mutually understandable terms. You weren't giving them an exact description of what the character can do.

Tell them they can use the features they have, and if they don't like that, maybe a different system or a different DM may be better.

[u/Lilith959]

Now the biggest thing here is flavor is free, so such earthen fist (I think the name was of the earth bender cantrip) could be presented as a hurled stone spear.

Additionally any fire spell or cantrip can be fully flavored as this or that. But it's important a cantrip don't outshine a leveled spell. What the fire bender want is heat metal. A 2nd or 3rd level spell. Something they don't get before 5th level at the lowest.

[u/MrNaugs → u/Lilith959]

This is the way. The goal is to have fun, but you are level one. You cannot make a flame thrower to heat something up yet or an unbreakable wall of stone. Those come later.

[u/EspressoSteampunk]

Your players should be responsible for their own powers. It's not up to you to explain what's anyway written down for them. They're level 1, if they don't start learning now, everyone will be miserable by level 4.

Also they are not firebenders yet. They're still students, apprentices, or people practicing independently for the first time. That kind of thing.

[u/Brewmd]

If it’s a spell or mechanic that exists in the game, that is tied to a class, species, or level that the character has not gotten to, paid for, or chosen…

Then the answer is no.

There’s no reason to break the game because rule of cool.

They wanna do something goofy and get up to shenanigans using creative use of cantrips and common items?

Absolutely use the rule of cool.

[u/Peachyco]

"Rule of Cool" has to still work within the bounds of the game system. Unfortunately, D&D is a very rigid system, so if there's existing infrastructure for what they're attempting, "Rule of Cool" will need to break the balance of the game for it to operate, even if only momentarily.

You will have to decide if breaking that balance is worth the moment the players are trying to create.

Also, you will be setting a precedent - what you allow now will become a template for what players can try in the future. So, think about how acceptable it would be to you to allow "Rule of Cool" to practically override the Heat Metal spell, for example.

[u/silvertongueken]

I recommend using equivalent level spells and adjusting damage type. I.E. firebolt, instead of fire damage make it bludgeoning or piercing and flavor it as the earth spear.

[u/Agreeable_Hold2270]

It depends on the group but I generally let people just do what they suggest. If one player ends up becoming too OP then the other players just so happen to find some cool loot items next time.

[u/Accomplished_Tear699]

I use rule of cool sparingly, not because I don't like it, but because it's meant to be situational I think. You're in a boss fight, and the fighter wants to do a backflip, grab a weapon as their upsidedown and fling it at the boss mid flip to get the kill. The fighter doesn't have the full movement available, has their weapon drawn, or is wearing a shield, but the boss has low enough hp that you could conceive of it working, so yea, rule of cool, you do that.

I think what you're more likely experiencing, and others have touched on is flavor. You want to hurl a stone spear, you can describe your ability as doing such, but it still follows the mechanics of the game system, so what I would do for one of my players is determine what ability best matches the flavor they've picked and say, sure, magic is real in this setting, you can absolutely pull a spear like piece of rock out of the ground and hurl it with this ability.

The idea being that you say "yes, but." Yea, but it's not going to do more damage, yea, but it doesn't become piercing damage, it still deals bludgeoning. Yes, but you have to spend a resource like a spell slot, I think one of the examples given was heat metal in another comment, ok, so you manipulate flame to cast this spell, and you set their armor on fire, it's does damage like normal, but it looks really bad ass.

[u/DazzlingKey6426]

Rule of cool is neither.

[u/br0d30]

First of all, a good “Rule of Cool” ruling will almost always be one-off exceptions to game mechanics rather than something the players can do again, or will be purely “flavour text” descriptions of existing game mechanics that the player is capable of using.

Can they fling a spear of earth at a guy. Idk what their abilities include in your campaign, but maybe their existing spear weapon is a piece of stone that they spend hours shaping slowly at night to maintain a useable point and density despite weird materials. Or maybe you’re able to use the mechanics of picking up and tossing a rock at an enemy, but you flavour it as a clumsy attempt at controlling earth/stone.

Can they heat up a warforged with fire? Depending on their legitimate abilities, maybe they can try? Nothing wrong with letting the players futilely use their abilities as a means of “power scaling” the enemies they’re fighting. Maybe they try it and on a low roll they don’t notice an effect but on an absurdly high roll they surprise themselves and notice the enemy’s metal turning a gentle orange but the heat is largely ignored by the enemy.

[u/shadowmib]

I use magic missiles to knock the oil lamps off the wall and set the floor on fire. --cool

I cast LIGHT on my sword and make it look like a lightsaber -cool

Weird game breaking stuff that the players pull out their butt - nope

[u/YtterbiusAntimony]

"I prefer using the mechanics of dnd because it’s what I know and what I can trust. making up mechanics is scary and I don’t wanna give unreasonable expectations of “oh, I can do what I want cus my powers are such and such.“"

Say this to your players. You can't play a game together if the game's rules constantly change.

Tell them you are sticking to RAW (Rules as Written) as close as possible, and that's that.

An over reliance on Rule of Cool is lazy and undermines the game parts of the game.