How To Use The Rule Of Cool in Dungeons & Dragons 5e
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- Опубликовано: 20 авг 2024
- MONSTERS OF DRAKKENHEIM is 300+ pages of eldritch horror inspired monsters for 5e by the Dungeon Dudes! Coming to Kickstarter March 26th, 2024: www.kickstarte... We discuss the wonderful Rule of Cool in D&D 5e, When to use it, and how it can amplify your game, and make memorable situations at the table. but also when not to use it, and some of the common pitfalls that might get you in to trouble.
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TIME STAMPS
2:38 - When To Use The Rule Of Cool
5:58 - When To Say No
7:28 - Using The Environment
8:36 - Beware Of Spells
11:19 - Essential Tools
12:57 - Magic & The Rule Of Cool
14:41 - Setting The Stage
15:29 - Making It Cinematic
16:20 - Making Mistakes
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If players are discussing a clever or cool way to overcome a situation, though it may ruin your plans. The DM should take it as a compliment, you've created a situation that has engaged and inspired your players
The rule of cool is great if the thing involved is both unprecedented and not a precedent for repetition
Hey, this is an awesome tip. Thanks
I always make sure to notify to my players when something permitted in the moment is not something that sets a precedent.
Uhh you said the same thing twice. You meant a precedence and unprecedented. Unspoken but not unknown.
@@doxodd6834 Precedence = priority. What I mean is, the action is not a repetition of something that has already happened, nor can it be repeated.
@@williampearson8328 I understand
One of my favourite rule of cool moments was from my first session as a dm last week.
My level 1 party had kidnapped a dragonborn bandit and his bandit friends were storming around the corner. In the second round of combat the bard turns to me and goes, "I want to try and trigger the dragonborns breath weapon".
"What??..."
"Like tickle it in the right place to see if I can trigger it as a reflex..."
"huh."
I made him roll nature to see if he knew where or if there was such a thing (probably isn't but I rolled with it cause it seemed cool). 18 plus his modifiers. Great.
I made the bandit make a dex save with disadvantage (he was restrained but I figured that triggering such a reflex would be difficult even with the target restrained, hence he didn't instantly fail the save). The bandit got a 4. Ah.
So for one turn this centaur bard, was using this poor dragonborn bandit as a literal flamethrower. 2d6 damage, and he rolled high.
The other 4 bandits got toasted. And the combat was over after the next two turns with the warlock and the rogue finishing off the burnt survivors. I think I like this party.
indeed a good use of the rule of cool. just make sure they don't start abducting dragonborns ;)
@@jerommeke_T Yeah that would be terrifying ;). The bard had the thunderwave spell though which would have done more damage, he'd just used his spell slots in an earlier encounter. I figured that it wouldn't be worth it at higher levels, given that there were already better options at level 1 and was very rarely going to be a viable option. However, it did make for a hilarious fight scene...
Given the limitation on Breath Weapons, this might be used to disable this surprise element in the future?
@@Maninawig Yh that's what I did. After the round the bard tried again and the dragonborn spluttered a tiny flame which did nothing. The combat was already over and I doubt it would ever be useful again. It was just a great move for their situation :)
Honestly I would MAYBE allow it on a nat20. Else it's a big no.
I haven't actually told my players yet but in my head I have made "the rule of cool" canon by creating a god of cool. So whenever something crazy or unbelievable or logically impossible happens thanks to the rule of cool it is actually the divine intervention of this god. This also gives a canon reason for things like why it won't work again (repetition is uncool) or why it is subjective (because it is all about what this god thinks is cool).
Might be Loki, and the reason a trick never works twice is that it's no longer a trick once revealed. At the very least, I do have enemies wise up to cheesed combat tactics -- potentially to the point of altering not just their tactics, but their defenses to accommodate what they know is headed their way. Just because the party wiped out the attackers in the last fight, that doesn't mean nobody saw the fight and survived. It could easily be someone who just stayed out of range and watched. Or scrying, or clairvoyance, etc.
If the trick relies upon an item, I can invoke a cumulative chance of failure each time the item is used. Not only does failure destroy the item, it leaves you with a wasted action at a most critical time and forces the scrapping of the entire battle plan. It might be 10% -- so the first time it's used, it just works, but the second time, it has a 10% chance of breaking. The third time it is used, it's a 20% chance. And so on. When it does break, it might just fizzle, it might mana burn the wielder and anyone nearby like a Staff of Power being broken, it might get stuck in the "on" position and refuse orders to turn off, it might cause a Wild Magic Surge... lots of options.
I had a particularly problematic item given to a party much too soon by a co-DM. Rather than take the item away, I just decided that once separated from the artificer that made it, there would be a 10% cumulative chance of failure because it wasn't receiving proper maintenance. (This was long before the 5e Artificer class existed, so I was just making it up as we went along.) The item only got used twice more after that, and one of those times it was completely unnecessary -- because the player knew it could fail, and didn't want to be all-in if that happened, so had a workable backup plan which probably would have been the wiser play. Then the item got "retired" to the archives of the Sorcery College in the hopes that it could be repaired before it fell apart. Problem solved, and the players don't feel like they got nerfed.
That would open up the possibility for clerics and Paladins to the God of Cool
@@cameronmccoy5051 instead of armor they're profencient in leather jackets and aviator sunglasses
@@cameronmccoy5051 Church of the dude
Masterful!
The one cool thing that came out of my very first campaign was when my party and I went into a moon temple (To Selune I think?) and had to solve a mirror puzzle, redirecting the moonlight onto certain parts of the temple. I was at the mirror when it opened and out came a giant shadowy demon (we were never told what it was) and it bellowed that we didn't belong there, proceeding to hurt the party druid's best friend. Needless to say, the druid was _upset._ When it came to her turn, she said this zinger; "You say we don't belong here, but if there's one thing that truly doesn't, its YOU. But I do know what _does_ belong here." and then she cast Moonbeam through the mirror, turning it horizontal. Due to it being a temple to Selune and the monster also being weak to radiant damage, the resulting damage _trippled_ and wiped it out immediately. Needless to say, when we came back to the temple later on, both of the mirrors had shattered, rendering this move unreusable.
My favorite ‘rule of cool’ moment was when I was playing a cleric-rogue and our monk had a weapon influenced by a goblinoid deity that he was frankly tired of. The gods were tugging this monk in all kinds of directions so he just flat out said no and threw the sword away. My cleric of Loki ended up taking the sword and, in the middle of a storm, asked for help. See, as a cleric of Loki (might even be an incarnation of Loki himself) she had ties to other parts of the pantheon, including a good relationship with Thor. Due to the whole incarnation thing, she couldn’t actually pray to Loki for help, so she prayed to Thor. What followed was a wisdom check that ended up high enough for a bolt of lightning to strike the sword and ‘purify’ it, turning a cursed flametongue shortsword in a thunderstruck shortsword that dealt extra lightning damage. This actually opened up a new line of enchantment for the DM to explore, ‘Divine Enchantment’. Essentially, it was like arcane enchantment but relied on a god for help, the item gaining an effect based on the god. My trickster cleric was already learning to make jewelry so she started applying this to enchant her amulets with stealthy abilities. She even replicated the previous call on Thor later, calling on the moon goddess Sehanine (another goddess that Loki had personal ties to in this setting) to bless her shield.
Was this Kobold Press' Midgard setting?
I actually did a similar thing with the sun sword in curse of Strahd. I played a redemption paladin that wanted to give strahd a chance to redeem himself. When Strahd, tired and wounded from fighting our party, told me to 'End it.' I threw the one thing that could kill him out the window like the end of Return of the Jedi. The other players wanted to kill him, so the dm applied the rule of cool to let the wizard catch the sword with mage hand as it fell from the highest tower of ravenloft. They flew the sword back in through the window and pierced Strahd in the back. My act caused what good was in Strahd to crystallize the blade and turn it into a holy avenger. Even though Strahd himself was too evil, the good that was there combined with the sword to make it more powerful. Hell of a lot of hurdles to jump over just to forge a magic item.
asdfnewguy 702 No, it was a homebrew setting that was centered a around a bunch of gods dying or nearly dying in a great cataclysm. The gods that took the most focus were Nordic due to my character being the only one with direct godly ties, the other players just kinda agreed to keep the amount of deities small. It was most Norse and a few deities smattered from the Forgotten Realms. We’d played games before with focus on Greek Gods, so the idea was to essentially remove gods we already used.
My favourite rule of cool moment came when my players had encountered some guys who were throwing grenades and different bombs at them and once they had won that encounter there was explosive loot to be had. The loot was collected, noted and unused.
A few months later they came across a camp full of giants at night, and these giants had been terrorising the nearby trade routes. At night time there was a campfire and one of the guys had a flash of inspiration (and some winged boots). There was some skill checks regarding gathering all the explosives together in a large package. A strength check to see if the flying character could lift the package and a stealth check to see if the lookouts saw the player (then an attack roll to see if the target was hit or if the big brown sack just hit the side of the fire and split open) and they all succeeded.... each giant took nearly 300hp and the mountain side lit up so much so that the nearest town sent investigators over...
but all the players had a damn good time and I was improvising my ass off.... very cool
I had a player's tiefling wizard who's backstory included a close connection to [our version of Asmodeus] the Queen of Hell. He was out of 3rd and above spells. He saw a spell being cast that he wanted desperately to prevent.
He asked to slit his hand pray to his grandmother for a single additional counterspell. Non-proficient religion check. Nat 18+5.
She gave it to him, and the party won the day because of it.
Later, through a series of events, he was cursed by his grandmother for his hubris. A single feather from the erinyes that was his mother laid curse-tattooed on his forearm for the remainder of the campaign.
It now resides in the player's REAL LIFE ARM, all because I let a cool moment happen that RAW had no rules, no precedent, and could have just slipped by with me saying "no."
Sometimes, this stuff becomes real life legend, my dudes.
I recently had a create/destroy water-rule of cool in my game, when one of my player’s water genesi wizard started asking about the spell I was getting concerned, instead he asked to use it in order to make an enemy guard thirsty enough to drink the water they just poisoned, I decided that with a perception check to catch his mouth open in a yawn he was able to do it
My DM let me destroy water in peoples’ eyes to the point of blinding them. Only during stealth tho, that would be too much power in combat otherwise
that's a balanced way to handle it
I could see that too. If the caster can see the water, and there's nothing but air in between them and that water, then they can drain that water straight out of someone's mouth -- but it's not guaranteed they'll be able to do that. I think I would have used an attack roll, but I wouldn't protest if I was at your table and you said to use Perception.
There's also no guarantee that the guard will drink what the party gives him. He might just drink from his own wine skin. So even if you granted success on draining the guy's mouth of saliva, you'd then have to figure out the odds of him accepting a drink from an unaffiliated party. Distinction without a difference -- these are all just methods of setting odds and then rolling dice.
I also think that is fair; you couldn't really reuse that or use it significantly in combat (as making someone thirsty doesn't hamper their fighting ability). Good creativity!
I tried to create water in an enemies lungs. GM didn't allow it, but would've been cool.
I started a campaign involving my family who had never played before or even really knew what d&d was but it was great to get the folks and siblings together.
At the point when we were a few sessions away from the finale i decided to introduce the dragon to taunt and toy with the party before the big finale. Well the party, for the first time in the campaign banned together and worked as a group to take this dragon down.
The model i was running started that the dragon could not be killed outside his lair. My sister who was feeling a bit left out, as she picked a bard, and was not having the best time with combat encounters countered with a sleep spell just as i flew the dragon 80 feet in the air to flee and brought the dragon down into a previously cast cloud of daggers delivering the final blows to the dragon.
I had to give it to them, my sister was so excited that she took down the final boss that she was jumping around the room.
May not be the rule of cool exactly but i and the party thought it was pretty cool.
Me and the lads are playing shadowrun together, and there is this thing called 2chunky salsa" where you use a box of walls (usually a small room) to riccochet damage to make it stack. Also our grenade guy and i the mage found out, that you can easyly recreate this wall box, with timed granates and a barriere spell anywhere at anytime, and we used it to blast some meen ringos of the street.
After the session, our dm came towards us and said:" yo, that chunky salsa on the go is awesome but pls dont use it to cheese the stroy bossfights"
and we simply agreed because it would feel mean to cheese important boss fights.
But in on run our grenade guy got kidnapped and when we came face to face with his torture i simply look at dm and asked :" can we salsa him?"
DM thought a second than smiled and said"that would be awesome" and so we did.
Tldr: dm and players communicate when to use rule of cool and when not.
This topic is so hard to explain to people outside of the context of a game/situation even though it feels very natural in use. Great job guys. All of these are the ways that I adjudicate illusion spells too. Especially flavor and comparing equivalent spells/abilities for the character's level.
I didn't even get the notif for this video. It just happened to be in my recommended when I refreshed.
Make sure you ring the bell to turn on notifications!
In addition to the rule of cool consider:
The rule of uncool: If the person is trying to do something that will have NO BENEFITS on a success. There should be no possibility of failure or punishment for the attempt.
Does the monk want to backflip off a building? You should probably handle it the same as if they jumped.
Does the ranger want to jump off a tree and fire arrows BOTW style before landing? Well if their foe is in range and unobstructed from where they start or where they land, you shouldn't give them any penalty for doing this out of order.
Does the warlock want to summon their blade to their hand in a position so it grows threw their enemy's body like a lightsaber? That's no auto-hit, that's not your sword cant summon. That's your first attack roll.
Does the OCD character want to adjust the painting on the wall after casting fireball shook the room? Even though they already used their free item interaction to pull out a focus? Sure.
Sure it's nice to keep in mind how much you can properly do with free item interactions or actions or whatnot and what checks you would need for certain things. But there need not be a mechanical tax on actions that don't mechanically matter.
One thing nice you can do is you can call for a check just to make them happy but don't punish them on a failure "it wasn't a graceful backflip, you land on your side and clumsily roll to your feat" "you forgot to knock an arrow when you jumped so you just landed and get to make your two shots from the ground"
"having just cast a spell and done a lot of things on your turn, you nudge the painting with your elbow and now it's crooked in the other direction, you can get to that next turn"
If there's no benefit on success there are no consequences on a failure. With very few exceptions like stealth and social situations.
This is a very good standard to make rulings by. It's clear you know much, and tell some.
Damn i just realised that my DM uses the rule of cool perfectly.
Last session i tried to Split a mimic in half by grabbing both ends of it and he made me roll an unarmed strike to see if im able to break into its flesh, then an acrobatics check to see if I can use all my power to break it, and then made the monster do a save against my Athletics check. (i succeded)
But that was so exhilerating and i am 100% sure i would not have been so impressed if i got it for free without rolls.
This was just done because we were bare handed in a ship so i just did it
Acrobatics? You surely mean athletics. Or even more fitting -> base strength check. Acrobatics is a dex check, has nothing to do with tearing something apart.
@@FishoD ye i wrote it wrong was rewriting the whole thing again since i misspelled and forgot to fix that part
How to use the Rule of Cool
Dungeon Dudes: *a reasoned discussion*
XP to LVL 3: *all the time, always, everywhere*
Fireball!
Magic Missile!
One of my favorite rule of cool moment stemmed from an item our DM gave our party that lets us change a spells name by one letter to change its effect (like that one Tumblr post). We were fighting Merrows in an underwater cavern and had a surprise round. After a brief pause for coordination, one ally cast Waterwalk and I changed it to Waterbalk (balk meaning to refuse or stop abruptly) and the DM ruled that it could push the water out of a 20 foot radius sphere, creating an air space. It was then that I released by readied fireball, frying up a pair of Merrows caught in the radius. The underwater fireball will always be a favorite DnD memory for me.
I heard the notification for this while I was in the shower. I had to stop, dry off and come watch it. Thanks Dungeon Dudes!
This video is so unbelievably helpful. I had a situation today where I had to adjudicate if and how to use the rule of cool and remembering this video really helped.
My favorite rule of cool was during Strahd. It was almost immediately after we made it to Borovia and our trio of heroes had entered an abandoned manor. Whilst on the second or third floor(can't remember) right after we enter a room, a suit of armor comes to life and attacks us. The Bard missed with his rapier and the cleric barely got a hit for minimal damage with his mace. Me being the rogue kind of freaked out. (It was my first 5e game, originally played AD&D, Dresden, and 3rd) so frantically looking through my inventory I ask the DM just how far was the door and the hallway. I then take my rope and with a slight of hand check lasso the suit of armor, run past him barely missing the AOO and jump over the banister. I stop half a foot short of the ground floor and hold on to the rope still tied to the knight who made a strength check and was braced against the banister. I yell to the Bard, "sweep the leg!" And he makes his attack hitting the suit's legs and causing it to tumble over. I just missed my dex check but since the damage was low the DM said I just barely rolled out the way but the suit had hit my ankle when it fell causing me to have to scramble and crawl away. The cleric looks over the bannister and sends a firebolt straight down and hits the armor in the chest defeating it. Still one of my favorite moments ever in D&D!
:-( i did strahd with a DM, that using my classes powers as writen, gets a NOPE, doing cool stuff like that doesn't even get mentioned.
AKA a battle master using the trip maneuver on a druid hanging off a large barrel, doesn't get knock prone on a failed save, DM i don't see how an arrow would cause a person lose their grip and fall prone, just cann't picture it, on his turn he use both hands to cast a spell and hurl it at you with out falling prone....
@@selendrasama44 wow! That's hella weak! In the Dungeon Dudes original Drakkenheim campaign the fighter used trip attack with a javelin to knock a manticore out of the sky!
@@karatekoala4270 DM from level 3 to level 5 i successfully tripped 3 guys, First guy at level 3, he went right after me, so i tripped him, he got right back up. Second guy, the failed his trip save, but the damage killed him, the third guy, as stated the DM ruled, i can not picture how that would happen, so i am over ruling your class abilities as written. Near the end i was just using my battle master dice as "smite" dice, an extra dice i can add to a hit for extra damage....
My general method for handling "Rule of Cool" moments is:
-Does the 5e rules straight up say "NO?" and the reasoning for saying "No" sound? ((Looking at you Kensei not being able to use Glaives or Dragonborn and Orcs being low powered)) Say No
-Does the thing the Players are trying to do break mechanics? Say No
-Else, Say Yes.
One of my favorite instances was in a fight against a hag coven. They had brewed a potion for us, but cheated us in the deal. The Monk shoved one hag into the boiling potion, then the next turn the Druid shaped water on the potion to fling it at another hag. DM ruled it as a spell attack, and both took scalding and poison damage.
Great advices overall, but… if an explosion happens at your table, please use a fire extinguisher, not fireball :P
I actually have a great example of this from my last session. Our party's goal was to excape from prison, but there was one last obstacle: the Fire Giant warden (and notibly, our DM has some house rules for giants, essentially if they know they are fighting humanoids, they put on greaves which act like leg shields(+2 to ac), to encourage use of reach/ranged weapons, like would be necessary for a large creature). The party was pretty beat up because I was the only healer, and I was only packing goodberry, so we decided to book it.
Or DM dusted off the old 4e Skills Challenge rules and set an appropriate DC for dealing with a fire giant, 6 successes we win, 3 fails we lose. Our adhock plan involved my druid finding a natural trap, (I rolled real well, so we ended up with quick sand), the Samurai and the Pirate using hemp rope to create a trip wire, our gunslinger shooting at his eyes to blind him, and I capped it off by casting sleet storm to create an ice slick to send him to his death in the quicksand. It was hype, it was cool, it was awesome, but we probably wouldn't have done it if it weren't under the pressure of a skills challenge. I'm definitely going to try that in the campaign I GM as another interesting way of trying to impliment these zany plans, as it give context to the plans, and sort of helps give the players a sense of how complex each little big of these schemes can be, with clearly defined win and loss conditions. It might not work as well if your game is more combat heavy, but for mixed RP and combat after some tricky fights with legions of guards and assassins, it lead to some super cool moments and an excellent way to end that session.
Sees "skill challenge", thinks of Matt Colville, hits "like" on comment.
I really wish you guys had a spotify for all your videos in an audio format, I think it would help me to learn a little while on my drive into work
In the game I'm currently playing in the GM has on a few occassions said (to paraphrase): that's really cool, and makes sense in this context, so I'll allow it this time. Thus it didn't set a precedent nor create an expectation that this would work everytime.
My favourite rule of cool scene comes from a Star Wars campaign I played in several years ago. My character took over the controls of a cargo crane, swinging the load hanging from it like a flail to smash an escaping starship. I rolled well, hit the starship causing to to crashed hard, wrecking the starship and foiling the escape.
Wall of force actually shuts down the bisecting problem in its description, so as the spell is written, you cannot cut someone in half.
' If the wall cuts through a creature's space when it appears, the creature is pushed to one side of the wall (your choice which side)'
One of my favorite semi "rule of cool" moment that happened in a campaign I play in recently: my paladin (Oath of Redemption), with a little help from the Bard, convinced a corrupt member of his church that he was an avatar of their deity and got him to confess to murder
I really appreciate all your videos. I'm preparing to run my first ever game soon and I was just pondering this exact topic this morning!
Best of luck!
A few months ago, my nephew and son came up with a desperate strategy to get the eladrin wizard who had run out of slots to fey step into the air and try to drop a “People’s Elbow” onto the BBEG dark elf. I made him do a dexterity check & when he succeeded - he could roll fall dmg to pass onto the baddie! It worked & we all LOVED it....and still talk about it! : D
Woops - STR (Athletics) check ... not a DEX check. 👌🏽
Last night I had built what I thought to be a pretty dope mage tower exploration. On the third floor I had something akin to a saffron city gym puzzle from the Gen 1 Pokémon games. They needed to go through all the rooms, that lead to random other rooms, gather up the letters to a password, which then unleashed a group of yugoloths on the party, which when they beat would break the forcefield over the stairs to the next floor. They got to the center room room before finding all the letters, so the cleric in the group decided to extensively study the wall while the other party members were looking for the rest of the letters. Then he said, I want to use my portable window and put it on the forcefield. I was so dumbstruck. I told him I'd give him a 20% chance the it would work, rolled a percentile and says highs win.
I rolled a 100! The group was losing their mind. It was pretty great. I then told him that he had 5 in game minutes to find the rest of the group and get back through the window before the forcefield destroyed it due to conflicting energies. Meanwhile, the rest of the group had found the rest of the letters and were heading back anyway. So they all met in the middle room, got onto the other side of the wall, and spoke the password (servants) just to see what would happen. It summoned the yugoloths, the cleric grabbed the window, and they all moved on to the next floor.
All in all it was a pretty brilliant moment. And yet....... Not the most memorable moment of the night.
That goes to the barbarian who rolled an 18 on an intelligence saving throw against the bosses DC19 feeblemind, and the cleric then remembers that the he had used warding bond on the barbarian. Turning her 18 into a 19 and succeeding the save.
I’ve just started DMing a campaign for a couple people who love to make these stupidly extravagant improvisations. I can tell I’ll be using the rule of cool a lot in our sessions and I’m also gonna make them fall on their faces when they get too out of hand. Thanks dudes, I appreciate your videos.
I think your point on not granting automatic successes is crucial because so long as you let the players attempt the action, whether it succeeds or not usually doesn't matter.
For example, a party I was DMing was at the top of a tower 1000 feet in the air and had a dragon ally who was killed while flying and was falling to his certain demise. One of my players asked if he could uncork a health potion, place it on the end of an arrow and fire it into the dragon's mouth in order to revive him.
I said it would take action to fashion the potion properly and then he could fire on his next turn. I also said because he had to match the rate of how fast the dragon was falling, he had to shoot it inside his mouth, and he had a top-heavy arrow at the point, he would have to roll a 30.
He got a 26 and the dragon fell. Here is the thing though - the party got SUPER into the moment and even though it failed, they went wild and said "AWWWWHH, but what if?" and have a terrific time.
In short, invoking the rule of cool is enough to make the players happy, whether or not it succeeds. Solid video, my Canadian brethren!
Long story short: Party was in an ancient sealed away magical kingdom fighting against a dracolich (huge) who had been there for thousands of years and had gone mad; she was the end of a huge arc. The Ranger had a direwolf companion (large). Wizard casts enlarge; direwolf is now huge. Bard uses scroll of Enlarge direwolf is now Gargantuan. I allowed it just that once because the magic in that lost city was already established to be weird and wonky. I explained to the players that RAW, it couldn't work, but this one time, they get the awesome thing.
My personal rule for rule of cool is connection to emotional state. Rewarding good roleplaying, a PC that has been pushed to a heightened emotional state is more likely to be able to do something outside the bounds of the normal. Emphasizing that it was the extreme circumstances that pushed the character's motivation, will, and ability to an outlying point which it could not otherwise.
One of my best applications of the rule of cool was when my players Warforged Monk, Graven was battling Venomfang, a young dragon in the Lost mines of Phandelver campaign book. His companion, a little goblin named Droop, had gone down cause of a poison breath attack. He was furious, and said he went into a barbarian rage (forgetting that he wasn't playing his usual barbarian class). I said I would allow it, IF he took barbarian as his next level. He agreed, and proceeded to create an awesome scene of holding the dragons jaw shut, holding on through the claw attacks
Rule of Cool moment :
"The bandit leader seeing his imminent defeat, dashes away from the battlefield, to fight another day.
Mathias, not wanting to let the bounty to escape, allows his hand to slide down the shaft of his double-bladed scimitar and readies his Catapult spell.
The pact weapon hums with static electricity, as Mathias runs forward and leaps into the air to get a better view of his target to hurl the weapon.
As the weapon leaves his hand, Mathias's Catapult spell hurls the weapon forward like a lightning bolt towards the bandit's back.
When the blade strikes true, a clap of thunder is heard as Mathias's Eldritch Smite obliterates his target.
Confident in his kill, Mathias turns his back from the bandit leader and saunters back to the battlefield with his arm outstretched from his side. The Pact weapon returns to Mathias's hand in a streak of lightning, and now it's time to clear the rest of the encampment."
My favorite rule of cool moment: shield deflecting a bolt of lightning Breath of the Wild style.
In Princes of the Apocalypse we were fighting Yan-C-Bin. Yan-C-Bin cast chain lightning. I used the Shield Master feat to avoid taking damage by making my save. One player kinda jokingly suggested that I reflect it back and my DM said "roll a d20." He decided that he would allow it if I roll a 20. As any DM knows, as soon as you decide that, it inevitably happens. I rolled the d20, I reflected a chain lightning back at the big boss, and it felt great.
Idk if this counts as rule of cool or not but my DM setup an underground fighting pit for my group. It was meant to be a fun way to have some combat while we were relaxing in town during downtime. The problem was our group quickly got bored. It was a cool idea but after round after round in this fighting pit it quickly became daunting. I had an idea where my pc decided to treat it like a pro wrestling match. The DM loved it and it reinvigorated the group and made the fighting pit more fun. People started picking up chairs, jumping off walls of the pit to dive onto prone enemies, grappling and throwing them through tables, etc. The DM improvised all our damage and checks to do it and it quickly turned a boring sidequest into one of our groups favorite encounters to date!
I've always just heard about Rule of Cool but never had it really broken down into when, why, how, and all the other things to consider. Given that their are 1,000's of D&D videos, this is a really unique and useful.
Anybody else like watching Monty while Kelly talks and Kelly while Monty talks?
Surprisingly yeah lol I always look for a nod of “totally agree” or a “oh heck I never thought of that” like the spells video lol
@Caleb Byrd That simulacrum bit was the funniest thing on this channel
My favourite rule of cool moment for me as a player was when I was able to use gust of wind (a spell my character innately had as a Triton) to cause the row boat I was on to shoot forward in the water (rather than to just push objects away). This was the first and only time we had a combat on boats so it wasn't an ability I'd be able to abuse (which the DM in me appreciated) but it felt cool to be able to creatively use a normally rubbish spell to quickly escape.
My favorite Rule of Cool was a strategy my DM let me use an entire campaign. I was a Fighter with a custom bag of holding of 70 cubic feet (mostly for ease of book keeping) . My group had a Wizard with the enlarge/reduce spell. The whole strategy involved shrinking tables of various sizes and put them in the bag. I was able to flavorfully argue that the spell could expire while inside the bag so when I pulled a table out it would be full size. My strategy was to pull out a table to use it as an obstacle or cover. He allowed me to draw and place (not just drop) a larger (up to 10x10 and only made of wood) table or to draw and throw a smaller table (5x5) up to 10 feet in the same action. Even while running. He allowed this, because I told him that 1.) Most tables would get destroyed or left behind. 2.) There aren't infinite tables 3.) It relied of another party member to use a spell slot or two. 4.) If 2 &3 applied, we wouldn't always have the time.
Imagine being chased by a horde of Knolls and your fighter is tossing end tables for them to use as hurdles as you all run down the hall. Strategy courtesy of cartoons. It was mostly for comedic effect and was a lot of fun.
I KEEP FORGETTING YOU GUYS POST ON OUR GROUP'S DND DAY AND IT FILLS ME WITH DUNGEON AND DRAGONS JOY EVERY TIME.
At my table I let the players use their inspiration for these moments. They still have to make an appropriate skill check or attack roll but I let it be used for all kinds of out of the box actions. Last session one of the players went unconscious and was being grappled and dragged away by a giant octopus, and the barbarian that can speak to beasts asks if he can use inspiration to try and intimidate and command the octopus to throw the teammate to them. I said sure but that won't be easy, DC 23 intimidation check. He rolled really high resulting in a 26 and all of us were pretty sure we heard him beat his chest over the microphone.
For inspirations I let the 6 players all vote on each other at the end of each session who roleplayed their character best and why. Everyone gets to hear compliments from each other and 1 player gets inspiration!
You guys have been doing this for quite some time. And I find myself watching YOUR videos the most often of all the options out there.
Keep up the good work.
This is a topic I ponder frequently as a DM :) Can't wait to watch!
My most recent RoC moment was allowing the Polearm Master (not me) to get his extra attacks on the BBEG despite being disarmed and 15' away from his halberd. I (Rogue) described returning his weapon as, "I hook my foot under the haft, kick it into the air, and do a spinning back kick to loft it in his direction, so I don't have to take time to sheathe my weapons." 23 on the Acrobatics check, and he's able to get all 4 attacks.
The only time I was able to gain the benefits of the Rule of Cool was my first campaign, playing a Dragonborne for the first time. With our team facing a room flooded with fire, I was trying to grasp the concepts of my character and asked my DM if dragon breath is more of a flame thrower or a blow torch. Curious he asked why.
"Well," I said, "I was thinking of fighting fire with fire. I dunno if this will work, but if my Brass Dragonborne could increase the pressure of his fire breath like a blow torch, then he might be able to part the flames enough to run through if we're really fast ..."
We each had to make 3 Dex checks, but just made it relatively unscathed.
In my "Unrest" campaign, the party had recently acquired a folding boat when they came across a patrol of goblin treasure hunters and their orog bodyguard in an ancient dwarven city. The PCs boosted their elf druid on top of a nearby building to get a drop on them while one of the fighters launched a javelin at a vile one of the goblins was holding (a "sapper grenade" which made a 10' wide pit in earth and stone). The vial fell to the ground and exploded, dropping the orog and one goblin into the pit as the elf tossed the folding boat in after them, yelling the command words, "Captain on the bridge!" to crush the two and prevent them from escaping as the party made short work of their bewildered companions.
I'm an old school DM running a 2E game and I find your content very valuable. Keep up the good work guys!
Great vid!
I implement the RoC on called shots. “I want to cut their arm off” or “I jab them in the eye” are times when with disadvantage if they roll high enough I reward it. I might add a bit of bleed damage or decrease the AC of a creature.
Agreed. Disadvantage is a large enough penalty that most called shots that are not meant to be a one shot kill should be rewarded. Adding more dice rolls will always make something harder and something that is harder to do deserves to be rewarded.
The best rule of cool moment I ever saw came when I was DMing. The party was facing down a goblin horde and the had an ogre that several goblins were using as a troop carrier. The tabaxi ranger wanted to run up the ogre to attack the goblins. She succeeded an athletics check to mount it and then wiped out the goblins. After a successful acrobatics check to stay on the ogre as it tried to shake her off she double crit to stab it in the head. The ogre was slayed and she flipped off into a superhero landing. It was full on Legolas and the table loved it
one of my players in starfinder wanted to jump in zero gravity and drift past a pair of enemies in mid-air and pop supernova in the middle of his movement. I easily allowed it cause it was a real use of relevant enviroment situations in combination with his class's unique abilities.
With regards to using Wall of Force to bisect a creature, the spell explicitly say this: "If the wall cuts through a creature’s space when it appears, the creature is pushed to one side of the wall (your choice which side)." so that specific example is just ignoring what the spell says.
Yeah - if the rules explicitly say what happens in that case...
My buddy decided to DM a game of Dragonlance. In the book we enter an elven city that has an approaching army of draconic soldiers and is evacuating it's population to avoid decimation. I convinced the king to use any means of explosive material we could find, including wine, and filling the entire city with it. Homes, streets, everything. We then waited for the draconic army to enter the city and blew them to pieces, using the blue crystal staff to teleport away safely. It went against a lot in the book but the DM let it happen and it's still one of the most memorable D&D moments at the table.
My favorite "rule of cool" moment was the Gnoll Barbarian creating an axe sling. It immediately broke after its first use because it was just a bunch of branches and a rope throwing an axe, but it was such a funny idea.
One thing I like to do when The Rool of Cool is about to be implemented is to ask the Players to tell me what they want the end result to be, as well as how they do it. It gives me a chance to go “Right, in that case roll A, B, and C to see if you succeed at X, Y, and Z, and if you don’t succeed here’s what’s gonna happen, how’s that sound?”. I know that as a DM I have the final say in rulings etc., but I think it’s only fair to be transparent about about these ad hoc rulings, especially since they’re not in the actual rules. Also it’s the first ttRPG experience for most of my Players, and I guess it’s my way of saying “first and foremost the rules are here to facilitate fun, and if there is no explicit mechanics to do what you want to, then we’ll pick a few rules and mix them together to make it work”. It also gives the Players the chance to suggest any changes to how the scenario is gonna work, and if I think it’s reasonable I might actually run with that instead.
Anyway, these are my two cents, I’ll see you guys in the Dungeon!
Myself and some friends - all of us playing D&D for the *first* time and running The Lost Mines of Phandelver. I was DM'ing and I'd watched a bunch of videos. I thought I had just about enough of an idea as to how it all worked though was still pretty nervous.
We got to the very first Goblin ambush and the Ranger advances to where the dead horses are. The Goblins spring their trap and and the first runs up to her, swings and misses. It's now her turn - 'What do you want to do?' I ask.
'I want to stuff him in the dead horse'
'What!? Like... a Tauntaun?'
'Yeah!'
I didn't want the very first thing they ever asked to do to be met with a 'No, you can't do that' but I didn't know what else to do so quickly decided on a contested strength check. She rolled really high, the Goblin did not.
'With a deft movement of your hand you slice open the belly of the horse using your shortsword. Putreyfing entrails spill out onto the ground like a string of wet sausages and a nauseating stench wafts over you. You thought it smelled bad... on the outside. You grab the goblin, forcibly lifting him from the ground, and as he struggles in vain against you, you stuff him wholesale into the now empty stomach space. Overcome by the horrific odours he thrashes about for a few seconds, then passes out with a gurgle'. He is out of the fight - well done.
I briefly worried about using the rule of cool right at the start of *everything* but after that, normal combat broke out and it was all fine. We managed to get through the rest of the campaign without any other poor unfortunates being stuffed into a decaying corpse so thankfully I got away without making any sort of precendent for exploitation.
As a counterpoint, I find for well constructed characters at the middle or upper end of their tier get so much more output from their regular attacks than they do from the improvised damaged table that they are reluctant to forgo straight up attack actions. I love to encourage more cool out of the box thinking - particularly teamwork, but some groups are more oriented that way than others.
At our table the "Rule of Cool" has been more than a useful rule when creating epic or memorable scenes and has been used both as a GM and as a player. Typically, I looked for for peer tips on how to utilize it from Reddit but today's Reddit community advises to avoid the "Rule of Cool" and "hombrewing" because, according to the reasons given, they don't follow the rules and vocabulary as they are written but instead would break or unbalance the game by deviating from the written rules or by adding new ones. But this video encouraged us to continue using the "rule of cool" in the future. Thank you.
This came up recently. The party had been surprised by a flying sword that came out of a loot pile, and because they were both low-level and unlucky, they were taking a lot of hits. The fighter suggested using his bedroll as a sort of "net" to trap the sword and end combat. I allowed the attempt with a strength check. The fighter rolled a natural 20 and is now the owner of a flying sword. Yay?
I have since found a way to integrate the flying sword into the plot. It was examined by a blacksmith (after casting an anti-magic field) and found to have a strange inscription.... and now the party is on the lookout to solve the mystery of this sword.
It's been awesome. I 100% endorse the rule of cool.
I do think there should be one exception to where it could be repeatable and that is on the last battle of the last night of the campaign. Thanks again for doing these videos, they help a lot of people.
We had a scenario where we were fighting a group of cultists. The fight was basically over. Most of them were trapped in a Wall of Ice and would die the moment they tried to leave it. The remaining one had the key we needed and was knocked prone. Though he still had most of his health, I was allowed to end it by having my pegasus stomp on his neck.
Definitely something that comes up more often for me than any other debates. The balance of cool craziness and maintaining mechanics and realism is a tough one.
An idea I saw in another game with using a spell in a creative fashion, the DM had the player roll an Arcana check to see if they had the magical skill to pull off the cool alternate use of the spell. The dimensions of the spell remained the same, they were just changed from circle effect to a line effect. The spell used was Web and they were wanting to use the webbing to help another character gain leverage on their action.
My greatest rule of cool moment was when a rogue tried to shoot a cannonball off course with an arrow. I had him roll for it and he got a natty 20, so I allowed it. Everyone was so excited and in awe, it was great!
My first character ever was a Bugbear Barbarian. Our second session, we were fighting a group of bandits and one of them sent his wolf to bite on to me and grapple me, and the DM describe it as him clamping down on my arm. On my next turn I asked the DM if I could grab the wolf and smash the bandit leader in the face with it. He made me roll an athletics check and I got a natural 20, nearly killing both the wolf and the bandit I hit with it.
A lot of our sessions have similar stuff happen. Since most of us are new, we haven't been taught what we "can't" do yet. The session after that, I ended up pitching the wildshaped druid like a fastball at an enemy 30 feet in the air so she could change back into humanoid form and shank him in the eye with a dagger.
Our DM lets us try some pretty fun stuff as long as we can justify the attempt - and don't get mad if it fails or he does something similar later.
I had a great rule of cool moment with one of my low level players and a flying carpet. He wanted to use the carpet's movement to hit multiple enemies with his outstretched sword. I turned it into a mini challenge. Each successful hit allowed him to hit the next opponent, but with a +1 AC bonus to the target for each successive hit he made. A failed attack ended the chain. It was an epic moment to end an early encounter against a horde of goblins giving chase after a particularly difficult encounter.
I had to edit it later on when the party gained multiple attacks to say that it used an action and bonus action to make this kind of attack.
I have a question:
Had a situation at the table. I’m playing a spell caster, currently lvl3, and the dm was visibly disturbed by the fact that I took... phantasmal force. I generally try to be very reasonable with how I use open ended magic, but my dm seems to be quite apprehensive with the use of this spell. Currently had 2 great ideas of how to apply phantasm all force:
1. We fought a starving young vampire, who was desperate to feed on one of us. I used the spell to create a vision of a huge fresh bubbling pool of blood forming right at his feet to force him prone and start eating. This time it worked, but I got a warning that dm is concerned with me picking up that spell.
2. We fought a pack of wolves, and our rogue player was singled out by a dire wolf. That’s a nasty place to be in, so I decided to do something to get him out of a pickle. So with phantasm all force I wanted this rogue to turn into a 10 foot tall Balor, searing it’s surroundings with a flaming aura. What I wanted to do, explicitly stating my intent, is to scare the wolf and make it leave the rogue alone. But all of that was ignored and the fight move on, with the dire wolf biting the balor and killing the rogue...
So, the question is, how does a flimsy lvl 3 bard do anything in a fight when your illusion magic is ignored by a dungeon master, although you try your best to stay within the reasonable boundaries and help other characters, not hog the spotlight for yourself? xD or maybe what I tired to do is unreasonable, and I should reconsider approach towards those spells. Need some assistance form experienced players.
A gunslinger type in my game made a paintball gun as a way to teach someone how to use a gun. They had to shoot the other when they weren't expecting it to prove they had that gunslinger instinct. But that was, predictably, quickly forgotten, as they had happened to make these paintball guns when I planned to ambush them withinvisible wind elementals. Only after they had already defeated one did the gunslinger remember he had made the paintball gun. I fucking freaked cuz I had forgotten as well. Neither of us knew of each others plans and it just fell together. He made a shot at disadvantage, but got lucky, the paint from the gun swirled around the tornado-like insides of the elemental, negating its invisibility. It was pretty exciting for me
As an example that I thought worked great at my table, I had this Eldritch knight fighter that was basically low level Thor, who was fighting a giant. He wanted to throw his hammer and receive it back like Thor would. I told him he could, but it would cost him his bonus action to get the hammer back, because of the Eldritch knight feat (and because I had already planned on giving him the hammer of thunderbolts, so that would be an improvement on his strategy). He ended up going melee because of it, and killed the enemy. I then decided that, as the enemy started to step back feeling his wounds, the fighter threw the hammer, dealing the killing blow, and lighting ran across his arm, stopped at his hands in the shape of a hammer and materialized it back there. Combat was over and there was cheering at the table
Great video, and great guidelines! Thanks for this.
I had a group that came up with some crazy ideas to take down a tribe of gnolls. In the battle with the gnoll scouts, the bard cast phantasmal force on one of the gnolls in the form of a string of large and juicy sausages, the gnoll failed horribly, so for the rest of the battle he was standing there, trying to eat those sausages.
When they got to the lair, the entrance was guarded by a troll and some gnolls. The rogue who had magic initiate and the message cantrip attempted to message the troll by saying:
"I'm hungry"
the troll looked around frightened, gnolls ignored him
"Go on, take a bite"
the troll was nervous
"those gnolls look tasty"
the troll considered this.
The reason why the rogue did this was because all of the area around the gnolls, everyone felt hungry and violent. I made the rogue make a deception check, which she had expertise in. High. I made an insight check for the troll. Low. The troll looked over at the gnoll guards hungrily and attcked it. The first gnoll was instantly devoured, starting a huge combat with the whole tribe, the first wave from the tribe ate the troll instantly and the bloody combat continued, leading to a win for the players.
The floating citadel was crumbling and falling from the sky. Everyone made it to the airship, except for the barbarian. He was in a Roc's nest between several eggs. The Roc parents picked up the nest to carry it to safety. Eventually they noticed our barbarian and he rode down by clinging to the bottom of the nest, continuously dodging Roc beak attacks.
No special rules besides a few athletics checks to maintain his grip. But it was cool!
I remember once playing Pathfinder with my Uber speedy monk, and at the final battle, I told the DM I wanted to run up to the big bad, grab the maguffin from him, and run away my 300 feet maximum or whatever with it, lol.
First, he had every enemy between me and the boss roll an opportunity attack. They all missed. Then he had me roll a slight of hand check to steal the item from the boss. And I decided to keep running straight ahead and past everyone and so he had those enemies get AOOs too.
Everyone was slack jawed. I'd pulled it off, didn't get hit once, and was practically out of sight with the world ending device before the bad guys could do anything about it. It was amazing!
I honestly thought with all those attacks on my PC I wouldn't make it out of there. I just knew my monk was very fast and it was a hail mary shot, lol.
Okay barry Allen cool your boots
Our party was fighting a group of skeletons under the control of an undead alchemist. Our rogue looked through her inventory and saw that she had some ball bearings. So she threw them out over the floor and made all of the skeletons trip and fall prone. This was our first ever session together.
Our DM once allowed the Gnome Cleric to shoot a ballista and surf the bolt into the chest of an ogre on the next battlement over (athletics roll). Still taking about that one.
Ugh! This is a fine line to walk. The DM allowed the WIZARD to do some crazy acrobatics grapple, landing a choke hold with her thighs. Like, are you a wizard or a monk? Are you going to use a spell? Sure, to hold the rogue upside down because she tried to slide 5 copper into her pocket without sharing, but not against the bad guy.... Seriously rolled my eyes the entire session!
One of my player's was playing a bugbear barbarian. They were fighting a young red dragon and said player decided to run and jump from the cave entrance to the dragon's back, then proceed to grapple and pin its wings so he rode the dragon 100 feet down into the ground...being that he built this character specifically to do crazy shit like this and after winning several opposed athletics checks he effectively attacked the ground with the dragon..good times
I've played with a couple guys who have tried to use a Rule of Cool rule-bend to repeatedly exploit an exception.
I feel like a good preface for it would be the DM simply bluntly saying, "This is going to be Rule of Cool here" before it all unfolds. That puts it out there before it can become a problem that it was intended to be a singular moment of awesome, not a recurring game breaker. By at least defining the use of the rule and pointing out that it's what's responsible for something working, the Address and Revise stage becomes easier to carry out if necessary.
Lol Monty's face when Kelly says "You have to accept the players are going to defeat the bad guys."
Sometimes spells are great when used other ways. I've had a great experience using Entangle to prevent myself and my group from sliding down a trapped floor that tried to dump us into a pit
I will not claim I always know how and when to use it, but I definitely like to put it in my campaign :D Good video!
Never played D&D sadly, but I watch a few streams. Favorite RoC moment was when Borky the Orky of The Unexpectables suplexed a hag.
For living spells, I’d do something similar to animated objects under the effects of dispel magic, which is either save or fall unconscious.
Another way to go if a house ruling becomes overpowered is the site where it's used becomes a problem. Ideas for this include opening pinhole gates to other planes giving the BBEG the another resource to draw from and casting spells repeatedly
depending on who is wielding the battleaxe it is likely fatal for commoners/goblins etc in d&d too... with a 16(+3) str bonus and prof(+2 ) , even rolling a 1 or 2 on dmg roll will kill in 1 hit. :)
My main DM is pretty good at keeping the rule of cool in check. A recent example is with the Grease spell. Another player wanted to light my grease on fire... but the spell doesn't say it is possible. I asked if I could use an oil flask as a material component to make it flammable. The GM decided to allow it and even make it part of my character's grease spell permanently. So, I can choose to use an oil flask when casting. I've only used the optional material component (oil flask) a handful of times in a year of weekly sessions, but it is nice having the option. To clarify, it is basically a larger bonfire spell with an extra step to light it... and once lit, it loses the normal grease spell effects.
My fav rule of cool moment as a player was when I used Misty Step to get on top of a death kiss and finish it off with a swift stab through the eye
We just implemented a “Rule of Cool” system called “Hero Points”. We give players 3 points per story arc that can be spent to do something awesome.
My tabaxi hexblade was already suffering 1 point of exhaustion from swimming in strong currents when the party was engage deep under water, I put 5 8lb cannon balls in a bag and guided it down on top of the boss of the encounter suffering a second point of exhaustion but pinned the boss down on the ground behind the front line, also grappled them so they couldn't push the bag of cannon balls off them.
When I was a new DM, one of my players fell down a 30ft well. He rolled a Nat 20 on the athletics check to climb out, so as a joke I flavored it by saying he just jumped 30ft straight up out of the well. For the entire rest of the campaign he was upset that he couldn’t jump up 30ft to hit a dragon flying above him.
If only you added something to do with repeated jumps up either side of the wall- then this ‘30 ft jump’ could only be possible in confined places.
One of my GMs is a big fan of rule-of-cool stuff. She foolishly allowed me to make a Juggernaut Warforged with Brawny, whose carry weights were stupid high, which meant he got to dual wield greatswords, pick up and throw people around, and generally be a massive problem for his enemies.
I've been using this rule for ages. It's the base of my style as a DM. Players, you are in a f***ing fantasy movie, epic, dinamic, amazing... act like that!!! Jump, spin, fint, be creative... THIS IS ROLEPLAYING!!!
Dudes- excellent job on this video. Might be my favorite one yet! Really well-articulated, packed with take-aways, and directly actionable for responsibly guiding the fuzzy and fraught creativity of your PCs. Anyone viewing this, smash that subscribe button and consider their patreon!
One thing I like to do regarding the Rule of Cool is to pair it with the Rule of Anime. That is to say, any subsequent use of the Rule of Cool will not be as effective as the first use. Doing this, when I encounter something worthy of the Rule of Cool that I think might be attempted in the future, I use their first attempt to gauge how what they are attempting could work, and later start putting on restrictions or adaptations. Enemies aren't going to fall for the same trap twice, certain actions require a roll, or combining spells in the same way runs an increasing risk of backfiring each time.
My favorite rule of cool. I was set to steel the crown jewels of a rival kingdom. It was a trap and the jewels were warded so they shot a death beam at me. There was an assassin.
I grappled the assassin and used her as a shield to block the death beam and steal the jewels.
My favorite things I like to ask for with Rule of Cool, is simply reskinning something to fit the character. My Sorcerer was a shaman whose spells were summoned sea spirits (Wall of Piranhas instead of Wall of Knives). With my Chef, his Experimental Elixirs are specific dishes he cooks up (Pegasus Footfall Mousse gives flight, whereas Chicken Soup is the Healing Potion), Blur Spells are foes becoming distracted by the smells of food my character gives off, and also the "real cause" for Disadvantage while using Medium Armor. It gives the character a lot more personality, even if there are no real benefits.
I've kinda had this kind of thing before when the party I was in came across a few water weirds. I used the create/destroy water spell to destroy the water in the area they were in and instantly killed all of them.
As a DM, I also "rule of cool" a regular feature if it's the first time the player is using it. I think of it as an adventuring TV show and one character gets a new power-up/ability and it's the perfect answer to the obstacle in the episode. All other reuses of that feature are RAW (by analogy, the power-up becomes routine).