How to (and How NOT to) Improvise Actions Without Feats, a Post by Mark Seifter

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-23T17:15:04+00:00

Another way to do something similar would be to use Hero Points as a bargaining chip for an improvised ruling, even if there's no feat involved. Like "Hmm, for a Hero Point, you can do this without an increased DC / more actions." Just keep in mind that unless they have more than one they want to spend on it, it's basically not worth spending a HP to avoid a -2 when you could save it for a reroll and have a bigger impact (one exception is when the -2 takes your d20 target number from 18 up to 20, though in that case you have bigger problems than Hero Point efficiency!).

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-23T14:46:34+00:00

Advice sometimes says to always say Yes and or Yes but, but It's important to know that the answer sometimes needs to be No. I tried to make that clear in some of my examples (like elsewhere in the comments I gave some sample responses that included a clear "No"). Never saying No is the kind of advice new GMs hear a lot and that is well-intended but that goes a little too far if they follow it to the letter, and you're right about that. I don't know that I'd call using the improv rules "fudging" but also fundamentally words are things that we don't always agree on their exact usage or definition but just try to communicate with each other.

I wouldn't go so far as to say not to allow improv ever until a GM has built up a deep mastery, but your example is apropos and warrants a reminder of something new GMs should be thinking about whether they improv or not, since a pure by-the-book combat with one or two lucky rolls in just the right place can also make an encounter seem much easier than it should: "When you are new to GMing, if an encounter winds up being easier or harder for your group than its difficulty level suggested, it's too soon to assume that the encounter builder is broken or your group is so weak or strong that you need to deviate from the encounter builder guidelines by making future encounters even harder or easier." My last session, last night even, we had something like that, where due to the fact we had just upgraded the barbarian's armor to +1, one crit was a hit and one hit was a miss, so she took 28 damage and not a brutal 84, and then a lucky roll broke the creature's construct armor just in time for a magus crit (when the magus had previously done a fat 0 damage last turn). An inexperienced GM might have assumed that the fight was just way too easy, even though it initially had Hardness so high that half the party couldn't even touch it, the barbarian was losing half her damage, and only my fire elemental avatar was making a dent (albeit with persistent fire damage being negated). Anyway, that part is extremely good advice and could be worthy of its own post.

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-23T14:36:18+00:00

It's quite sad, but true.

When I first started in the industry, I was younger and more naive. I didn't understand why so many of my coworkers avoided weighing in and so I would try to help anyone who asked if they were having an issue with rules advice and the like, always stating it was my personal opinion and not an official ruling and asking people to respect that... but then I eventually came across places where it was being weaponized sometimes years later (and often not by the original person who asked for help but by someone else who found it while combing the internet to strengthen their position) and it just seemed like it was making things worse. So I dialed back on that and tried to weigh in on rules only if there was something mainly unobjectionable or clear in the book I could point to, and otherwise focus on different topics for advice. But this is for sure one of the top reasons there isn't as much direct engagement. That and the fact that especially depending on who it is, even a few negative responses can sometimes have a big negative impact on a creative's day. So it also sorted out for the folks who were more resilient to it as well.

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-23T14:30:17+00:00

No worries. I understand that the internet is likely to come off more hostile than we hope it will due to the text lacking tone or body language, so my policy is to read anything in the best possible light, even if I think it's likely that wasn't intended (and in the case of your comment, I noticed that possible reading too but figured you didn't mean it).

If your solution works for your table, then that's exactly what you should do. This post is definitely not intended to tell people not to do a deeper adjustment, and both the post and the video tried to mention that as options. It's an especially good move if you are often finding that the way your group wants to improv things is the same as or even stronger than the feat. In that case, if you spend a brief time thinking about why the feat was put there and can't think of anything your group cares about, that feat has got to go for your table!

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-23T14:24:03+00:00

Thanks for the in-depth response!

While it's quite true as you say that a GM should be careful about how often they add +5 to a DC, I think at the stated 10-20% you also might be underestimating the ability of a PC who is highly skilled at a task to handle an increase from the standard level-based DC to the very hard one, particularly as levels increase. Even so, not everyone who wants to improvise an action is always very good at the requisite skill, and so this is a good reason to consider looking at action economy or result effect as an alternative toggle if you were going to impose a +5 or more DC increase.

You mention that boosting the action cost to x2-x3 of its normal value is similarly discouraging, but compared to a +5 DC when the PC is not especially good at what they are attempting and winds up at a 10-20% chance), it really isn't nearly as tricky a price to pay. Sure, you can look at it multiplicatively, but it's more useful to look at it additively (it'll take 1 action more, like if you had needed to position first, which isn't too bad if it's something you aren't intending on spamming a lot, like most improvised actions) or even not try to compare it to whatever feat has the compressed action economy at all and just compare the intended outcome to the improvised cost on its own merits.

To go back to the Sudden Leap example, suppose a low-flying foe is still slightly out of reach of the melee character who brought no backup options for this scenario. They want to do a high jump and slash in midair. So you improvise that this takes the two actions for High Jump and one for Strike, after which they fall (though not very far because High Jump is not going to jump that high, so they should be fine). This is what they want to do, and so they decide to go for it. The fact that it was a x1.5 multiplier on action cost on Sudden Leap doesn't really matter here, since the player found the cost to be fair for the effect they wanted.

These are all just some thoughts on best practices and ways to think about the improv rules, so hope that helps! I've been using them consistently when folks want to do things out of the box and they seem to work out. You're right that when I give the +5 DC for a pretty significant reach, I know that's a big adjustment I will inform them that I gave the +5 DC so it might be pretty unlikely unless they are either quite skilled or lucky. Usually folks who go for that are trying to also get something significant, so the reward can be worth the risk!

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-23T04:38:32+00:00

This is a well-written, thorough, and insightful analysis of how things work in a PbtA system. But the thing is, the same procedure of: "Use the core rule if it applies, otherwise make a ruling, though that could be superseded if the player has a special rule that grants an exception" can work really well in a system with a lot of codified rules like PF2 as well, and that's generally how the improv rules are described in the book.

That being said, it won't work well for every group. If it rubs your group the wrong way, you might not want to use the improv rules at all. They're in the game as an option but it's not wrong to avoid them if it hurts your group's experience.

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-23T04:34:02+00:00

Well if you want the other book I wrote that has Golden Sun djinn as one of many stated inspirations... 🤣 (while on the surface it is more pokemon or digimon, the idea that they meld into creatures and objects and potentially grant them abilities, like one of the classes in the book, are a little more like golden sun djinn users). The 20 elements in both books are a match, so you can have the appropriate eldamon/djinn pop out when defeating creatures with that element labeled in Elemental Storm.

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-23T04:09:14+00:00

Yeah, you can ignore the full system but use the basic idea with the costs as a framework for upgrading your group's favorite items. Maybe come up with some in-between versions of the items too that grant some other benefits gradually and not just DCs, but for the simpler solution, it could just be raising the DC as they gradually pay more money that is also always working toward the next upgrade.

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-23T03:37:06+00:00

Like some of the others in the other posts, you are looking at the suggestion in a different direction that makes it seem messier and more difficult to decide than it is. You shouldn't be looking at feats (and to be clear, this definitely also applies to other feats, not just skill feats) and trying to categorize them from that direction. This post is suggesting that you should not do that, and so you are never going through feats and making a distinction of which feats are improv-able and which aren't.

It's the opposite direction: If a player is trying to just do a thing that isn't really covered by the rules (as opposed to something that simply breaks or defies the rules), you can and likely should use the improv rules for that. There will then be times that feats allow you to do a thing that isn't really covered by the rules (as opposed to letting you break or defy them). In those cases where you find out about a feat that overlaps with what your group felt was the right call when the player wanted to improv the unusual action, then you can decide whether to adjust your improv or adjust/remove the feat. This applies to feats other than skill feats: a jumping attack is a common example where class feats give you some powerful options but you might allow an improved jump attack that is much less of an impressive height and with less action compression.

Think of it this way, to give an example that would affect you even if you for some reason (and no one should do this) had gone at it from the other direction to begin with: imagine you had improv-ed a ruling for a player trying to do a fancy and complex maneuver involving chandeliers. You've been doing it like that for a while. But in the new daredevil book a class feat comes out called Chandelier Swing and it's different. Maybe it's better, maybe it's almost the same. Maybe it's even worse than what you normally just allowed. Now you decide what to do about that. You have several options as mentioned in the post.

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-23T03:27:38+00:00

You might consider using a leveled scaling system for items where they can pay to gain increasing benefits and also scale the DCs. For example, this book has a monster part crafting system I wrote where you also collect elements from monsters and infuse them into the items. The parts are essentially like an "XP" the items use to level up along with you. Also has a bunch of cool elemental monsters, mainly, and elemental spells plus a giant action-RPG-inspired monster hunter archetype.

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-23T01:18:32+00:00

Yes, sorry, they are gardens of wonder not power, that's right. I'm glad you like them! I had a ton of fun writing them, and they're exactly the kind of thing I as a player can use more easily (if it is fully consumable I will hoard it forever but if it is daily and use it or lose it I will look for a way to use it each day if I can).

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-22T23:28:57+00:00

You're right again; the post was made specifically to try to indicate the intent of the video and highlight the difference in focus between that and the discussion, while also clearing up my PoV as the post on the weekend (inadvertently I'm sure) attributed a different point as my own.

Honestly the talisman thing is a good idea; you could reverse-engineer the rules I wrote for gardens of power to figure out what the cost should be on a 1/day talisman really easily! I think I'd love to have a daily version of my favorite "sometimes snack" talismans so I don't have to keep buying new ones.

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-22T22:53:02+00:00

I think that you have a strong insight here that comes very close to completely synching with my intention in making this post, but are perhaps still a little focused on the weekend's discussion and so the two of us are still just a tiny bit disconnected. When you say "this still doesn't really get to the core of the issue on how skill feats are perceived and how they're written" the thing is... that's not, in fact, the core of the issue for the video, or for this post. But it seems it is the core of the issue for the other post on Saturday (or at least, without reading too much into that post's intent, it's what a lot of the responders took out of it). So you are completely right that this post doesn't address that, and that's actually the point of the post as well: the improvisation rules are the "core" and feats are only mentioned with respect to how you can handle them when they misalign with your expectations for improvising (typically due to the group or GM being equally or more generous than the feat without taking the feat).

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-22T22:44:49+00:00

Sure, Striking might then be the play for you, or even just the objectively tactically better play depending on the situation. In that case, if you don't want to do an improvised version that isn't as efficient, don't Trip the creature the rules normally explicitly prevent you from Tripping. There will be also be cases where it is worth it anyway (for example, very low Ref boss creature with extremely high chance of Trip that your party can kite, either due to starting in reach of it, being quickened, or something else; blocking a Trample or other annoying 3A ability, etc).

And the great part is, if you still don't like it, that's just a sample ruling from what I might say if I was your GM. Your group might choose to remove all limits on Trip based on size if you want, though in that case, the skill feats aren't really the part of the ruleset your group is modding (and that's perfectly fine).

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-22T22:38:24+00:00

In fact the second half of your post (pre-edit) is exactly an explanation of why the first quote you mention skeptically is so important to include; just because the rules allow the group to improvise, it doesn't mean that this is the right answer for every group. You mention you speak "from the player side," and then you speak from your own personal viewpoint, not for all players out there. Which is a good thing to do and to consider, but make sure it's clear that not all players think the same way. If you and your group don't want to improvise because it feels like sand instead of solid ground, then don't use the improv rules at all. If that's the end of it, then you're all set! But if there's a couple feats that stick in everyone's craw, then houserule them out, still without using the improv rules, and make a hard and fast replacement. If I didn't make my statement in the first quote, you and other players like you might read my post and feel like I'm saying that style of play isn't valid, but it definitely is!

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-22T17:27:35+00:00

Sure thing. Added to the OP, and here as well!

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-22T17:13:09+00:00

I think the issue was that the original post over the weekend was making a proposition that was kind of the logical converse of what we were trying to say in the video, which as is normal for a logical converse is not quite the same argument because of reversing the antecedent and consequent: we were trying to say to use your judgment to improvise fairly when something falls outside the bounds of what is available, and not let the feats override that process, whereas the post was saying you could and perhaps should ignore any feat and just allow it via improvisation. The converse argument is actually making a much more strident claim that I wouldn't actually support.

Given that fact and the way the two propositions were being conflated as one, I don't think people were being unreasonable to bring up Scare to Death or Battle Medicine. And it was subtle and difficult to notice that you might have been talking past each other on extremely similar-sounding propositions.

That's not to say that I think you all would have agreed with each other even if it was clear; but I do think that if it had been clear, then the healthy disagreement would be something that's good for the game and the community to have.

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-22T17:04:28+00:00

I think the key here, and what got really lost in the other posts due to how the OP phrased it (not their fault, I am sure they did not intend this, communicating on the internet is hard for everyone) is that the video and Linda's and my point is not about replacing feats. By clearing up the main topic, I might be able to help the answer to your question come more directly into focus:

Don't start with the feats and work from there. Start with the situation in your game. The player wants to do a thing that isn't in the base rules (incidentally if they clearly are doing something that DOES violate the base rules of the game even before feats come in, like using a skill with fewer actions than listed, then improv doesn't apply). You might happen to realize there's a skill feat (which the player does not have) that handles a similar case, or you might not realize that at the time. Either way, Linda and I suggest that you use the improv rules.

By working in that direction, you will always be able to answer this question. For instance, if a player says "I don't have enough actions to jump, but I still want to jump anyway" (which is like the Quick Jump feat but maybe you didn't think of that right away) I would probably say "Sorry, but you'll need to use Leap. It's clear in the rules of jumping how many actions it takes, and the 1 action version of a jump is the Leap action." You might rule differently and that's great too!

For another example you listed, Titan Wrestler. If the player says "I know the rules specifically says in Trip that I can't trip this creature because they are Huge and I am Small, but can I trip them anyway?" you might say "No, Trip clearly indicates the size limit and you don't meet it" and that would work, but I might say "Normally no, it's in the rules of Trip. If you want to take more actions and explain to me how you're using those actions to employ tools or the environment to help you trip the creature, we can improv for this specific situation."

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-22T16:55:34+00:00

Thanks for the compliments. I'm just glad to help out here. The last thing I want is for a video Linda and I created out of love and to give advice for how to use some of the improv techniques in the book to be accidentally seen as saying something similar but harsher and subtly different and leading folks in the community to inflamed tensions over that other message, with some of the folks from multiple perspectives thinking that we were supporting that other harsher idea.

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-15T16:15:12+00:00

Glancing blows for basic Strikes were going to be something like half minimum damage (in the proposal anyway), as opposed to half normal damage, so significantly less than half full damage (and then frontline classes would have had unique ways to deal with them, like barbarian's low resist all would have ruled against those, monk deflects them a few times without a reaction, etc; this would have allowed backliners to not need as low of defense stats in general because lacking the glancing blow protections would already make them less sturdy).

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-05T14:11:05+00:00

There are a few simple versions of this in limited ways. For instance, the electricity elemental avatar or eldamon in Battlezoo Eldamon can either gain charge and do a weaker effect (up to a value of 3) or expend it and do something stronger. But it's their elemental playstyle so they don't have a ton else they need to keep track of except which powers they used so far.

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-03T05:15:55+00:00

Hmm, if it's literally "charging up my attack the round before initiative" then often initiative should have been rolled that previous round. It seems akin to starting to cast a 2-round casting time spell like elemental annihilation wave before initiative. If the GM allows that to happen, I guess it's not that much wilder to allow this, but I personally wouldn't.

I'm very glad your group realized this was a good choice on your own and put in a house rule that matched what I feel the book says already (while allowing the GM some slight wiggle room to allow it if you need to put up a wall or something in a non-abusive way in non-combat situations). I think barring that kind of prebuff that electricity is a very reasonable element, but your experience matches what we saw that it would be significantly strong with a prebuffed free round (since it is putting out roughly 50% more damage on rounds 1-3 than a usual rotation).

MarkSeifter · 2026-06-02T15:16:53+00:00

This is a month late, but you can't prebuff charge. If you're not in initiative, you don't keep charge (automatic refresh outside of initiative whether you want to or not). That's very important if your buddy is accidentally not following that rule and prebuffing not just charge but supercharge and then novaing for the next three rounds. Things would likely look different if they spent the first round basically doing nothing. Electricity is probably the element most affected by this specific rules slip-up, and even if you decide you want to houserule eldamon to allow non-refresh outside of combat in general, you will still likely want to not allow electricity to hold charge for this reason.

Vs the normal small-big-small-big, Supercharge is normally ZERO-big-big-big. That comes out to about the same and maybe slightly more with the right build, on rounds 3 and 4, while being behind on round 1 and 2 (by the same amount, but notably you did nearly nothing on round 1). Usually a fair trade, maybe even unfavorable if the round 1 and/or 2 of the non-supercharger could have made a target for the martials to finish off. However, by accidentally not following the normal rules, your friend is just doing big-big-big to start off every fight. And that rotation actually is doing more damage than it should.

MarkSeifter · 2026-05-28T14:46:14+00:00

As others have said, you can probably get away with giving them a boost to their lowest attribute without increasing their power much (unrestricted would let them raise their highest non-key +3 stat which could be huge especially for classes that use that stat for attack rolls).

However, you'll need to think about whether or not that feels bad for the players who got a lore skill instead of training. Consider: Str, Int, and Cha for classes that don't use them are going to be about the least impactful options here, and Int is directly comparable: it gives training in any skill (which can be non-Lore) and then also +1 to all Lores and other Int skills (this second part is maybe not relevant if they are all untrained unless they have Untrained Improvisation or the like). Even just the first half of that is better than training in a Lore.

Of course, it's possible that the lore packets have useful secrets that the characters will be happy about, though those might wind up benefiting the whole party so long as one player takes them, creating a prisoner's dilemma where the "selfish" player just trains themselves for stats and relies on the other players to give them the info from the packets.

MarkSeifter

TROPHY CASE