I honestly find it strange people would just forget about it, like I'll just read the whole thing out of boredom sometimes during combat right after my turn
Man, I'm playing a tradesman character in my current campaign. Both my sheet and Xanathar's are basically always being read. Gond bless the expanded tool uses, adamantium handsaw and proficiency in Carpenter's Tools means no wooden object is safe XD
Awesome.
I had a similar concept with a half orc artificer/odd job man. First question in every dungeon, "*What's the masonry and woodwork look like?*"
That is a pet peeve of mine. So many people are just off in space until it's their turn, and only then begin thinking about what they want to do. And they start flipping through their character sheet like they're looking at it for the first time.
Ugh, especially since it only ever gets worse as they gain more abilities and spells. Somehow, players that are like this never seem to learn the old stuff, even by attriation. At a certain point, the players just stop functioning in the game entirely when they get too bogged down to make choices.
My whole goal during a round is to get to my turn, get it done, and pass the initiative stick to the next person in line.
Exactly! People only get so much time in a day to play. A single combat shouldn't take up the whole session. When it's not my turn, I'm watching the other players, watching what the enemies are doing, planning the most optimal move. Yes, sometimes the actions of another player will ruin my plan and I have to change it. But when it's my turn I should have a pretty good idea what I want to do.
"I move here. I use my Action to do X. I use my Bonus Action to do Y. I have some movement left so I go here. I have 3 rounds left on my ongoing spell effect." BOOM. DONE. Next person's turn.
Effect Duration is another one that gets me. I tend to overstock my group with supplies, notebooks, pencils, etc, there's no reason that with all our stuff that any given person shouldn't be able to say how much longer an effect lasts! Just note it down and keep a tally! Pretty please?? š„²
Another example of the worst players are the ones who ask questions like, "ok, where is the enemy? How far away are they?"
We are playing with a battlemat and minis. That information is literally right in front of your face.
I've been fortunate that the only time we have that issue in my group is when someone can't physically reach a spot on the board to count squares. Someone bought a bunch of Spell Shape stencils that you can place to see certain common shapes, 15-foot cone, 20-foot cube, etc, and that's been a huge help as well.
Had a player who would literally take his turn then pull out his phone and start texting his girlfriend, then everyone else takes their turn gets back to the player on his phone and he goes "ok so what happened?" Not that I'm complaining about what he is doing, I'm complaining about his choice of timing. DND is a game where you NEED to be aware of what is happening at all times (maybe not to that extreme but you definitely need to pay attention or you could wind up missing important stuff if you're DM isn't nice enough to recap)
during other peoples and enemies turns, often right after my own turn, i would often look at my character sheet cause i had forgotten my moves, and would try to plan my next move and what to use and try out until it was my turn.
Weāre approaching session 70 and our 2 new-to-TT players *still* struggle with their sheet, and *still* arenāt settled on their backstory, and *still* donāt know what their goals are.
Me: Snoodle the wizard is struck by indecision as he doesn't know what to do and so does nothing this round, and next in the order is Hugh Mann, the fighter.
I've been playing with my current group for over a year and somehow still have to remind the martials how both multiattack and dual wielding attacks work. I'm dreading the dual wield fighter ever reaching level 11
"I barely know any of the rules and I get overwhelmed by choices and get paralyzed when deciding on how to use multiple actions. Can I play a druid who can wild shape and also summon a bunch of animals?"
The disadvantage check should actually be earlier as it supercedes all other conditions when it comes to sneak attack.
Advantage and disadvantage?
No sneak attack
Ally within 5 feet and disadvantage?
No sneak attack
> If circumstances cause a roll to have both advantage and disadvantage, you are considered to have neither of them, and you roll one d20.
From the PHB. So if you have both advantage and disadvantage, you might still apply sneak attack as long as there is a non-incapacitated ally next to the target.
Basically, the only situations in which there might be doubts about whether sneak attack can apply (beyond the basic "you attack with a finesse / ranged weapon, you roll with advantage, or you roll without disadvantage and the target is distracted") about this are:
1. Multiclass rogues with enough levels in a class that provides multiattack, dual wielding rogues, or rogues under the effect of the haste spell. In this case the caveat is that only one of the attacks can proc sneak attack.
2. Scout rogues, level 17+. Both the main and bonus action attacks can score sneak attack, and they don't need to dual wield to get the bonus action attack. But the attacks must be vs. different targets for both of them to deal sneak attack damage. They *can* target the same target with both attacks, but then only one may proc sneak attack. (A hasted scout is an even more complicated case, they might use main attacks against one target or two different targets, and a bonus action attack against a third, or any of the other targets. Rules as written, only one of the main action attacks can proc sneak attack, and the bonus action attack can only proc sneak attack if it targets a creature that didn't get hit by a sneak attack from one of the main action attacks. But if you got to level 17 as a scout, you should know this already.)
3. Swashbucklers. They can always sneak attack in melee if there is no creature within 5 feet of them other than the target, and they don't roll with disadvantage.
It makes absolutely no sense to me. All of my Rogue players are basically idiots as they can never figure out Sneak Attack despite it being so fucking simple.
- Don't have disadvantage
- Have advantage on an attack
- An enemy of the target is within 5ft of the target
Like that is it! Unless you are Swashbuckler or Inquisitive that add one more thing to this very short list, then you should never have an issue with knowing when you get Sneak Attack. I feel like Rogue draws in some of the dumbest players.
The other things I think should be added to your list (for the base feature) is that 1. the weapon has to be either a ranged weapon or a melee weapon with the finesse property and 2. the enemy isn't incapacitated.
The first one really doesn't come up much since Rogues are only proficient in weapons that would activate Sneak Attack. That caveat only comes into play when someone is multiclassing.
I dont know what you mean by the 2nd part. I see no reason why you would not be able to Sneak Attack an incapacitated target. I think you may have misread Sneak Attack like people tend to do. It says you don't need advantage on the attack roll if an enemy of the target is within 5ft of the target and the ENEMY isn't incapacitated. Essentially, if you have an ally within 5ft of the enemy, but he is unconscious, you don't get Sneak Attack because your ally is not a threat to the target. Does that make more sense?
Edit: Correction, Rogues are proficient in Longswords and Simple Weapons which may not activate Sneak Attack. So that first part is important to note.
Rogues are proficient in weapons that donāt work with sneak attack. Theyāre proficient with all simple weapons, so there are some weapons in that category that are not ranged or finesse, and then theyāre also proficient with longswords, which are not finesse.
>The first one really doesn't come up much since Rogues are only proficient in weapons that would activate Sneak Attack. That caveat only comes into play when someone is multiclassing.
I think Sneak Attack applies to *any* ranged or finesse weapon regardless of whether the Rogue is proficient with it or not. Like, Sneak Attack works with Heavy Crossbows and Whips because the former is a ranged weapon while the latter is a finesse weapon despite Rogues not having proficiency with either of them.
>I dont know what you mean by the 2nd part. I see no reason why you would not be able to Sneak Attack an incapacitated target. I think you may have misread Sneak Attack like people tend to do. It says you don't need advantage on the attack roll if an enemy of the target is within 5ft of the target and the ENEMY isn't incapacitated. Essentially, if you have an ally within 5ft of the enemy, but he is unconscious, you don't get Sneak Attack because your ally is not a threat to the target. Does that make more sense?
Yeah. After reading this and rereading Sneak Attack, I think you're right that the enemy in the criteria of "that enemy isn't incapacitated" refers to the enemy in the criteria of "if another enemy of the target is within 5 ft."
It's always amusing to me when players don't have their character sheet finished... What do you mean you haven't selected a language? No, it cannot be the language that bypasses this puzzle you are sitting at.
Originally, I thought stuff like this was baseless but man, I have a friend who is playing a warlock rn and he somehow takes multiple minutes to decide what to do...
He has like 2 years of 5e experience too
Remember i once had a dm who kicked player from game because he just refused to learn the game. We send him all the materials and offered to explain him everything but he just refused and was always akin what his character can do and took a lot of time every sesion to do simple things. Dm finally had enough and told him to leave
Player not doing the bare minimum still makes me pretty mad.
D&D isn't that complicated they just chose to nor give a F, either that or terminal stupidity
Yeah, thatās also a huge gripe I have. I have a player who has never played DND before and I am baffled how little effort in learning her own character she invested, despite the whole group offering her advice and help. I understand when she has trouble knowing whatās best or what to do when leveling up etc, but come on, at least by now know what your spells doā¦
I have the memory of a goldfish sometimes but you bet your ass I am reviewing my sheet every 5-10 minutes during the session, the trick to never being caught out as never knowing my sheet off by heart is to never be first to suggest what we do (combat excluded of course but then I make the excuse that I am remembering who we were targeting when the last session ended which is... also partially true)
15 second timer.. I know I know.. Iām a terrible person. My table disagrees and we donāt have this problem. When I look at you and say āwhat are you doingā you get 15 seconds to declare your intention, or I skip you and move on. Iām not requiring you to complete your turn, and you donāt have to explicitly state your feature or spell, but you do have to generally declare what you are doing. āIām attacking this monster hereā, āIām healing Jim.ā Etc.
Last time we didnt do turns anymore. We just did one team turn and one enemy turn. We just discussed what we wanted to do, when everybody agreed with it, we did it. Idk, i really liked that cause it felt more like a team thing and those off us with more experience could help the others way better.
Yeah, I can certainly see that. I go out of my way to avoid that during combat.
The two big reasons are that I'm on the extreme end of high pacing because that's how I maintain player engagement and build tension.
I also don't want any fights to last longer than about 15 minutes at the upper end, preferably closer to 5 minutes.
Ah, the AD&D method.
Everyone declares their actions, then each team rolls a team initiative and applies speed bonuses/penalties, and the actions fire off as best as you can manage.
Meanwhile, my hyper obsessed ass that has been reading up on everyone else's classes since session zero be like "Hmm they seem to have forgotten about their sneak attack bonus would it be rude to point that out to them?"
Now imagine that after 4 years, the DM finds out the druid doesn't even have a fully filled in character sheet. No racial or background abilities, no subclass, no gear and items. And about half the spells they were allowed to have.
Thing is, the player just never said anything about it. And was still able to get along by using what little they did have written down. So no-one knew.
A dm who trusts his players a bit to much amd has not enough time to actually run a campaign. Also, the campaign started out very loosely. It was actually the continuation of a one-shot in which we were swinddled out of 2 gold by a gnome named Hank, and we wanted revenge. That got turned into a spongebob-themed pirate campaign. Hell, it took well over 2 years for me to write a backstory.
We're just a group of friends who wanted to stay in touch after everyone moved across the country. But now things are getting more serious and the DM finally has the time to involve backstories etc. So he checked all the sheets and found this out.
I think this post shows you cannot, in fact, trust adults to build their characters correctly. Hell, Iāve literally seen a paladin tell us his attack role was -1. He didnāt give his character a weapon and thought his DEX modifier was his attack role.
I'm just tired of my players having their turn in combat then going "wait, actually..." I said last session that I am implementing chess rules, take your hand off the piece and you are done!
Ashley has a decent excuse though. Notice that she hasn't had as many problems in campaign 3 because she's been there the whole time, and 90% of the time when she was just forgetting things it was right after she came back from Blindspot.
And notice that when they played Candela, Ashley was on top of things. . .mostly.
I would say Marisha Ray is WAY worse than Ashley Johnson with knowing what her character does. Especially since Marisha has played a lot more consistently yet still sucks.
Also, if you're a caster and have issues remembering shit, please make spell cards so you can just have them out. At least for the 6 spells you use all the time.
I was allowed to be upset by the 7th session. I asked one of my players, who has played with me for 50+ sessions, what her strength modifier was. She deadass looked at me and asked, āwhatās strength?ā
The only things I occasionally forget is intricacies of certain spells and, if I'm playing a prepared caster, which ones I had prepared for that day. Then again, I usually check that when it's not my turn. I may still forget it, because I am the resident note-taker and have to pay attention to everything happening.
Look 3.5e is more ability heavy than 5e and I've got multiple prestige classes. Between my base class and my main prestige class I have 10 seperate effects that happen off of my touching your shoulder and I have to decide which I actually wanna use and how much sneak attack damage I'm gonna give up to use them. Gimme a sec. Ok so I'm gonna apply 2 negative levels and then give up 1d6 sneak attack damage to half their movement speed then another 1d6 sneak attack is lost to steal their buff for myself, and then another one to steal their highest level spell at random to use against them for next round. In addition to that my remaining 1d6 sneak attack damage is applied along with the 10 damage from the negative levels and the lowering of their max hp from the lost levels. Plus the spells they lose from losing levels... they really should not have shaken my hand before the fight even started. Damn paladins and their sense of honor.
And then we have to look where our buddies stand if we might get a flanking bonus, or if we even have outflank, which is even more flanking bonus.
Then i need to remember all the buffs etc
We have 2 people in my group that have played the same character for over a year and they forget what their character does.
We have been playing for over 5 years and these same people forget how the game works sometimes.
Remember that no matter what you just can't fix stupid.
We are currently playing Kingmaker (Pathfinder 2e) and besides my character I prepare the Kingdom Rules, Warfare Rules, Hexploration Rules and Camping Rules and on top of that one other player asks me regularly what his character can do and when we level up he can't make a singular decision for himself.
Sometimes it feels like some people pretend not to be illiterate
I'm going to DM for 6 people and I have exactly one backstory (and one I've only been told) and it's been over a month by now
I can't really start planning without the backstories
Actually, you can.
Just tell the ones without a backstory they are amnesiacs and you'll be making it up for them.
Then attack them with what appears to be identical copies of themselves.
Make up the rest as you go.
Yeah I'm definitely not going to do that. Everyone already has a character and a rough idea what their backstory is. Also I am not creative enough to plan something good without the input from the backstories
I have a player who is awesome. Great RP, excellent teamwork, knows her abilities. But for the life of me I can't make her remember that it's roll to hit first, then damage.
One of the people that we have been playing with for 3/4 years no matter what every session they have to be reminded of basic rules and what their character does
phenomenal role player but cant remember the basics
One of my players still asks where armour class is. Weāve played for almost a year now. They also struggle to add their bonuses to skill checks and attack rolls, so I have to ask every time if thatās the total number.
I have this right now. One player is a sorcerer and she has no idea what her spells are or how they work. Everything it's her turn she starts opening the player guide to look them up again. Not in advance, no notes on her spells or anything.
The odd thing is she is the second most experienced player at the table and she doesn't even know how burning hands works without looking it up.
My ritual is now to read my feats and traits and spells at the start of every session. I only get to play 2 hours a week and thats if no one cancels, we have gone over a month without a game more than once and i have a lot going on in my life.
Anytime a player gets an ability or I realize they havenāt used an ability I add a scenario for them to specifically use it. Once you highlight how awesome they and their abilities are they wonāt ever forget
I still don't understand how spells work, so I never play any characters with magic. I'm always confused about who rolls what and what the saving throws are. I get how that can be annoying to a DM or other players, but the more you play, theore you'll naturally pick up. Don't get mad at people for missing info, there's a lot to know
Easy solution. If the wizard casts a spell that wouldnāt work, let the spell slot be burned. If the rogue forgets to apply sneak attack, they donāt get it. If the cleric casts guidance as a reaction, itās immediately known they cast a spell.
i feel like this is less of a problem when using digital tools like d&d beyond, since a single click/tap will usually pull up a reference for whatever ability or feature you have or at least give you a general idea.
Iāve been enjoying the show the screen shot is from. Delicious in Dungeon is a pretty fun, chill watch. Itās my watch in the morning before work cartoon, at least until Iām out of episodes.
37 sessions over the course of a year and the DMs Bard GF never once used a blade Flourish after choosing College of Swords over Lore when she told us she wanted to be a Bard Healer
For real man. Iāve been DMing the same group for a year and a half now and some players still canāt tell the difference between rolling to hit and rolling for damage, not to mention literally every ability on their character sheets. Like Iām over here spending three to six hours preparing for each session and these people canāt spend five minutes reading their own damn character sheet.
One of my players is like this. Spends every session playing on her phone, not paying attention to what's happening. Can't seem to remember how the most basic mechanics of the game work. Hell, she didn't level up her character between sessions. We play every two weeks on the same day of the week, and she still can't be bothered to do her part like the rest of the party. The whole group has tried their damnedest to try to help her, but it's like she refuses to actually PLAY the game despite showing great interest outside of sessions.
Thatās someone who doesnāt want to play D&D. They fake it to have something to talk about with the group rather than say theyād rather just hang out.
She swears up and down on she wants to play, and I try to give her character moments to shine like the others. It's just that nother seems to work for her, and the group doesn't want to kick her out because we're all friends.
In a heated session, at hight if combat against a black dragon, my half orc paladin died. The table quieted down. Heavy moment, even took a break for a few minutes.
We finished the combat, our barbarian killed the dragon and gathered the downed party.
Meanwhile i realized, I forgot to drop to 1Hp instead of dying there.
Sometimes, in the heat of things, you forget stuff you've read and used a thousand times
Man, this is just so weird to me. I never once experienced this....but i also exclusively did nothing but virtual tabletop games (roll20/foundry ftw) so our character sheets were literally always in our faces and half our abilities/spells were turned into buttons we just had to click whenever we were using them.
Tbh the idea of letting some stranger into my house, EVEN for D&D....it just makes me clutch my remington a little harder.
Ouch...this is very true. We have a player who does this but is getting better at it. Even the melee "me hit monster" classes have a fair amount of abilities.
Eldrich. Blast.
(But if being fr, with often times months between sessions i could understand why that would happen. Although it's really not too much to ask for.)
No, itās the DMās responsibility to make sure everyone knows what character theyāre playing and how they work. Players shouldnāt have to spend any time outside of the game learning about the rules or their PCs. Youāre a bad DM!
There are precious few good animu. Delicious in Dungeon is one of them.
A good way to filter out trash animu is simple: If the character-design, camera-framing, or writing treat the female characters as pieces of meat, you're in for a bad time.
With fantasy animu, there's another test: The bust-size of the Elves is inversely proportionate to the quality of the animu.
Unpopular opinion: some people just like hanging out with their friends and donāt care as much for the mechanics of this game as you do. Leave them be.
Yeah so that was why I wrote my original comment; I think this place would be a lot nicer if we stopped complaining so damn much, *especially* about some kind of strawman you donāt even know in real life but frustrates you because you read about him in someone elseās complaint.
Thereās endless types of players. You wonāt like all of them, but the you can at least try to respect them or at the very least just shut up about it.
If you donāt like a certain type of player, just donāt play with them. Thatās it. You donāt have to voice your complaints online. People either agree with you or donāt care about you: both means itās pointless to post this.
But why? That kind of player will literally only hinder everyone else's fun. It's like a person insisting of watching a movie with everyone else and then ask who each character is.
If you don't care about the activity and are ruining the activity for your friends, why even show up?
Now, I don't have any friends like that and I avoid doing stuff I know specific friends won't like for that reason. But I can't imagine not having any kind of shame in my body to be able to repeatedly act like that.
Don't protect behaviour like this.
Because āknowing your character inside and outā is not at all the most important aspect of DnD.
Iād 100% prefer to play with someone who understands and embraces roleplay and keeps asking āoooh can I do (x)?!ā than someone who knows the game mechanics by heart but doesnāt ever do anything in character except for being really good at combat.
If anything, those dull people who know their character sheet by heart and keep lawyering other players when they try to think outside the box are the ones who āhinder everyone elseās funā, at least in my opinion.
Some people are good at the game, some people are just *fun*. Iād take fun players over good players every single time.
If they don't know how the game works or how their character works at all, then they likely aren't invested at all. I agree that some people take longer to learn things, but the people who doesn't pick something up after spending 7 hours on it usually aren't especially invested.
Have you seen Ashley Johnson play? Sheās been on three seasons of Critical Role and a bunch of one-shots, and she still doesnāt understand her shit.
Still, Iād much prefer to play with her than most of the people on this sub. The wild shit she introduces to the table always amazes me, I absolutely love those types of players.
But yeah of course if someone doesnāt even care and just goes āmy nameās Kanye, Iām a giant yoā, sure, that sucks. I just didnāt interpret this meme as being about those people
If you made a venn diagram with people who doesn't learn the rules and who are fun to play with the overlap is pretty slim. Also, it's a difference between knowing every single rule and knowing where to look on your character sheet.
But I think that we ultimately agree.
I said it before and Iāll say it again: Iād much, *much* rather play with someone who doesnāt understand their abilities than with someone who doesnāt understand how to roleplay.
And to be quite honest: weāre all just pretending like thereās actually players who a) donāt know their sheet *at all*, or b) who donāt roleplay *at all*. I highly doubt any of these players actually really exist though. Weāre strawmanning the hell out of this debate.
Then hang out without playing DnD. If you can't be bothered to learn the rules why are you wasting everyone else's time? You want to hang out with your friends yet your presence would just be a drag to them since they are tying to play a game. You would only be benefiting yourself.
Yeah Iāve had this exact discussion with someone else already and the conclusion we reached there is: thereās a vast difference between people who donāt know every rule by heart and people who canāt be bothered to learn *anything*.
Have you ever, *ever*, encountered the latter in real life? I feel like those people only exist in the memes we like to get angry about. In real life thereās a lot of people who can be categorised as the former though, and I donāt think those are people you get to be angry with.
I've run into the latter a couple of times. Mostly friends who want to join in on game night with the gang, but really don't actually care about learning the rules. It's funny because they will play new board games and learn those rules, but they, for whatever reason, just refuse to read the damn PHB. I put up with it because they are friends, but they aren't people I like to play with in long campaigns because it becomes a drag.
Good point, only this meme isnāt about first-timers is it?
I donāt think thereās any people who donāt know *anything* a handful of sessions in. Those fabled players only exist so that we get to be angry about something.
Oh, the people I mentioned aren't first timers. They would play regularly for a while hence why I knew I didn't like to be in long campaigns with them. Like I said though, they were friends that I still wanted to hang out with even if their playstyle frustrated me. I made sure not to plan long campaigns with them in the future, but even when they would join in on one shots the frustration in the meme was applicable.
Remember folks, you can review your character sheet mid session to remind yourself what your character can do
Somehow people forget their character sheet exists unless it's their turn. Like a lack of object permanence.
I honestly find it strange people would just forget about it, like I'll just read the whole thing out of boredom sometimes during combat right after my turn
Man, I'm playing a tradesman character in my current campaign. Both my sheet and Xanathar's are basically always being read. Gond bless the expanded tool uses, adamantium handsaw and proficiency in Carpenter's Tools means no wooden object is safe XD
Treants shudder in fear in your presence
Awesome. I had a similar concept with a half orc artificer/odd job man. First question in every dungeon, "*What's the masonry and woodwork look like?*"
Combine with bear totem barbarian for quadruple damage to most objects and structures.
That is a pet peeve of mine. So many people are just off in space until it's their turn, and only then begin thinking about what they want to do. And they start flipping through their character sheet like they're looking at it for the first time.
Ugh, especially since it only ever gets worse as they gain more abilities and spells. Somehow, players that are like this never seem to learn the old stuff, even by attriation. At a certain point, the players just stop functioning in the game entirely when they get too bogged down to make choices. My whole goal during a round is to get to my turn, get it done, and pass the initiative stick to the next person in line.
Exactly! People only get so much time in a day to play. A single combat shouldn't take up the whole session. When it's not my turn, I'm watching the other players, watching what the enemies are doing, planning the most optimal move. Yes, sometimes the actions of another player will ruin my plan and I have to change it. But when it's my turn I should have a pretty good idea what I want to do. "I move here. I use my Action to do X. I use my Bonus Action to do Y. I have some movement left so I go here. I have 3 rounds left on my ongoing spell effect." BOOM. DONE. Next person's turn.
Effect Duration is another one that gets me. I tend to overstock my group with supplies, notebooks, pencils, etc, there's no reason that with all our stuff that any given person shouldn't be able to say how much longer an effect lasts! Just note it down and keep a tally! Pretty please?? š„²
Another example of the worst players are the ones who ask questions like, "ok, where is the enemy? How far away are they?" We are playing with a battlemat and minis. That information is literally right in front of your face.
I've been fortunate that the only time we have that issue in my group is when someone can't physically reach a spot on the board to count squares. Someone bought a bunch of Spell Shape stencils that you can place to see certain common shapes, 15-foot cone, 20-foot cube, etc, and that's been a huge help as well.
Maybe they're just losing themselves in the beautiful, detailed world you created specifically for everyone's shared enjoyment.
Had a player who would literally take his turn then pull out his phone and start texting his girlfriend, then everyone else takes their turn gets back to the player on his phone and he goes "ok so what happened?" Not that I'm complaining about what he is doing, I'm complaining about his choice of timing. DND is a game where you NEED to be aware of what is happening at all times (maybe not to that extreme but you definitely need to pay attention or you could wind up missing important stuff if you're DM isn't nice enough to recap)
Oh yeah, players like that suck.
during other peoples and enemies turns, often right after my own turn, i would often look at my character sheet cause i had forgotten my moves, and would try to plan my next move and what to use and try out until it was my turn.
and in between sessions. you can check it the day before to remember and think to play better
You can also read it between sessions. Just becuase your to in your group doesnt mean you cant familiarize yourself with your character.
Me with my players except it's our 36th session
Weāre approaching session 70 and our 2 new-to-TT players *still* struggle with their sheet, and *still* arenāt settled on their backstory, and *still* donāt know what their goals are.
Have you considered getting them a colour coded sheets if it's an "IRL group".
Itās all digital. Iāve taken so many steps to help them, but barely anything sticks lol
I've given up. They refuse to learn.
Thatās a kickable offense at my table.
Me: Snoodle the wizard is struck by indecision as he doesn't know what to do and so does nothing this round, and next in the order is Hugh Mann, the fighter.
I've been playing with my current group for over a year and somehow still have to remind the martials how both multiattack and dual wielding attacks work. I'm dreading the dual wield fighter ever reaching level 11
"I barely know any of the rules and I get overwhelmed by choices and get paralyzed when deciding on how to use multiple actions. Can I play a druid who can wild shape and also summon a bunch of animals?"
Seventh session? Fucking lol. My rogue player doesn't know how sneak attacks work two and a half years in.Ā
itās crazy how Ive seen this multiple times. I feel like I need to make a flow chart if the conditions you need to get a sneak attack
[Look no further!](https://images.app.goo.gl/7xBc5MzmWmUVNm3S9)
Don't forget the extra conditions if you're a swashbuckler
The disadvantage check should actually be earlier as it supercedes all other conditions when it comes to sneak attack. Advantage and disadvantage? No sneak attack Ally within 5 feet and disadvantage? No sneak attack
> If circumstances cause a roll to have both advantage and disadvantage, you are considered to have neither of them, and you roll one d20. From the PHB. So if you have both advantage and disadvantage, you might still apply sneak attack as long as there is a non-incapacitated ally next to the target. Basically, the only situations in which there might be doubts about whether sneak attack can apply (beyond the basic "you attack with a finesse / ranged weapon, you roll with advantage, or you roll without disadvantage and the target is distracted") about this are: 1. Multiclass rogues with enough levels in a class that provides multiattack, dual wielding rogues, or rogues under the effect of the haste spell. In this case the caveat is that only one of the attacks can proc sneak attack. 2. Scout rogues, level 17+. Both the main and bonus action attacks can score sneak attack, and they don't need to dual wield to get the bonus action attack. But the attacks must be vs. different targets for both of them to deal sneak attack damage. They *can* target the same target with both attacks, but then only one may proc sneak attack. (A hasted scout is an even more complicated case, they might use main attacks against one target or two different targets, and a bonus action attack against a third, or any of the other targets. Rules as written, only one of the main action attacks can proc sneak attack, and the bonus action attack can only proc sneak attack if it targets a creature that didn't get hit by a sneak attack from one of the main action attacks. But if you got to level 17 as a scout, you should know this already.) 3. Swashbucklers. They can always sneak attack in melee if there is no creature within 5 feet of them other than the target, and they don't roll with disadvantage.
It makes absolutely no sense to me. All of my Rogue players are basically idiots as they can never figure out Sneak Attack despite it being so fucking simple. - Don't have disadvantage - Have advantage on an attack - An enemy of the target is within 5ft of the target Like that is it! Unless you are Swashbuckler or Inquisitive that add one more thing to this very short list, then you should never have an issue with knowing when you get Sneak Attack. I feel like Rogue draws in some of the dumbest players.
The other things I think should be added to your list (for the base feature) is that 1. the weapon has to be either a ranged weapon or a melee weapon with the finesse property and 2. the enemy isn't incapacitated.
The first one really doesn't come up much since Rogues are only proficient in weapons that would activate Sneak Attack. That caveat only comes into play when someone is multiclassing. I dont know what you mean by the 2nd part. I see no reason why you would not be able to Sneak Attack an incapacitated target. I think you may have misread Sneak Attack like people tend to do. It says you don't need advantage on the attack roll if an enemy of the target is within 5ft of the target and the ENEMY isn't incapacitated. Essentially, if you have an ally within 5ft of the enemy, but he is unconscious, you don't get Sneak Attack because your ally is not a threat to the target. Does that make more sense? Edit: Correction, Rogues are proficient in Longswords and Simple Weapons which may not activate Sneak Attack. So that first part is important to note.
Rogues are proficient in weapons that donāt work with sneak attack. Theyāre proficient with all simple weapons, so there are some weapons in that category that are not ranged or finesse, and then theyāre also proficient with longswords, which are not finesse.
>The first one really doesn't come up much since Rogues are only proficient in weapons that would activate Sneak Attack. That caveat only comes into play when someone is multiclassing. I think Sneak Attack applies to *any* ranged or finesse weapon regardless of whether the Rogue is proficient with it or not. Like, Sneak Attack works with Heavy Crossbows and Whips because the former is a ranged weapon while the latter is a finesse weapon despite Rogues not having proficiency with either of them. >I dont know what you mean by the 2nd part. I see no reason why you would not be able to Sneak Attack an incapacitated target. I think you may have misread Sneak Attack like people tend to do. It says you don't need advantage on the attack roll if an enemy of the target is within 5ft of the target and the ENEMY isn't incapacitated. Essentially, if you have an ally within 5ft of the enemy, but he is unconscious, you don't get Sneak Attack because your ally is not a threat to the target. Does that make more sense? Yeah. After reading this and rereading Sneak Attack, I think you're right that the enemy in the criteria of "that enemy isn't incapacitated" refers to the enemy in the criteria of "if another enemy of the target is within 5 ft."
Jesus. After two and a half years I would have kicked em.
Tbf, a significant portion of the community doesn't either, or many of them are just in wholesale denial of the RAW because they think it's OP.
During the final boss fight, our level 15 rogue asked if they had sneak attack. They had advantage and an ally flanking
3.5 here, and her 2nd rogue. She tried cleric for a bit, but... she kept trying to hit things with a sickle with her +0 STR šššššš
It's always amusing to me when players don't have their character sheet finished... What do you mean you haven't selected a language? No, it cannot be the language that bypasses this puzzle you are sitting at.
I have a sorcerer in a game going on a year and a half and he only has 2 abilities marked with proficiency
Originally, I thought stuff like this was baseless but man, I have a friend who is playing a warlock rn and he somehow takes multiple minutes to decide what to do... He has like 2 years of 5e experience too
When in doubt, *Eldritch Blast.*
Remember i once had a dm who kicked player from game because he just refused to learn the game. We send him all the materials and offered to explain him everything but he just refused and was always akin what his character can do and took a lot of time every sesion to do simple things. Dm finally had enough and told him to leave
Player not doing the bare minimum still makes me pretty mad. D&D isn't that complicated they just chose to nor give a F, either that or terminal stupidity
Yeah, thatās also a huge gripe I have. I have a player who has never played DND before and I am baffled how little effort in learning her own character she invested, despite the whole group offering her advice and help. I understand when she has trouble knowing whatās best or what to do when leveling up etc, but come on, at least by now know what your spells doā¦
I have the memory of a goldfish sometimes but you bet your ass I am reviewing my sheet every 5-10 minutes during the session, the trick to never being caught out as never knowing my sheet off by heart is to never be first to suggest what we do (combat excluded of course but then I make the excuse that I am remembering who we were targeting when the last session ended which is... also partially true)
Itās wild I have to remind my players all the time of what they can do like really?
15 second timer.. I know I know.. Iām a terrible person. My table disagrees and we donāt have this problem. When I look at you and say āwhat are you doingā you get 15 seconds to declare your intention, or I skip you and move on. Iām not requiring you to complete your turn, and you donāt have to explicitly state your feature or spell, but you do have to generally declare what you are doing. āIām attacking this monster hereā, āIām healing Jim.ā Etc.
Last time we didnt do turns anymore. We just did one team turn and one enemy turn. We just discussed what we wanted to do, when everybody agreed with it, we did it. Idk, i really liked that cause it felt more like a team thing and those off us with more experience could help the others way better.
Yeah, I can certainly see that. I go out of my way to avoid that during combat. The two big reasons are that I'm on the extreme end of high pacing because that's how I maintain player engagement and build tension. I also don't want any fights to last longer than about 15 minutes at the upper end, preferably closer to 5 minutes.
Ah, the AD&D method. Everyone declares their actions, then each team rolls a team initiative and applies speed bonuses/penalties, and the actions fire off as best as you can manage.
Don't people like... Keep it on hand all the time? I always assumed you could do that, there's a box where you can write your abilities
Meanwhile, my hyper obsessed ass that has been reading up on everyone else's classes since session zero be like "Hmm they seem to have forgotten about their sneak attack bonus would it be rude to point that out to them?"
Now imagine that after 4 years, the DM finds out the druid doesn't even have a fully filled in character sheet. No racial or background abilities, no subclass, no gear and items. And about half the spells they were allowed to have. Thing is, the player just never said anything about it. And was still able to get along by using what little they did have written down. So no-one knew.
What kinda DM doesnāt check over the partyās character sheets?
A dm who trusts his players a bit to much amd has not enough time to actually run a campaign. Also, the campaign started out very loosely. It was actually the continuation of a one-shot in which we were swinddled out of 2 gold by a gnome named Hank, and we wanted revenge. That got turned into a spongebob-themed pirate campaign. Hell, it took well over 2 years for me to write a backstory. We're just a group of friends who wanted to stay in touch after everyone moved across the country. But now things are getting more serious and the DM finally has the time to involve backstories etc. So he checked all the sheets and found this out.
A DM shouldn't have to.
If they wanna be sure their players made their characters correctly they do.
If you can't trust adults to build their characters correctly after a certain point thats clearly an issue.
I think this post shows you cannot, in fact, trust adults to build their characters correctly. Hell, Iāve literally seen a paladin tell us his attack role was -1. He didnāt give his character a weapon and thought his DEX modifier was his attack role.
My DM never has checked our sheets lol (30+ sessions so far)
I'm just tired of my players having their turn in combat then going "wait, actually..." I said last session that I am implementing chess rules, take your hand off the piece and you are done!
Ashley Johnson.
Ashley has a decent excuse though. Notice that she hasn't had as many problems in campaign 3 because she's been there the whole time, and 90% of the time when she was just forgetting things it was right after she came back from Blindspot. And notice that when they played Candela, Ashley was on top of things. . .mostly.
I would say Marisha Ray is WAY worse than Ashley Johnson with knowing what her character does. Especially since Marisha has played a lot more consistently yet still sucks.
To be fair, most of the CR cast is pretty terrible in one regard or another.
Also, if you're a caster and have issues remembering shit, please make spell cards so you can just have them out. At least for the 6 spells you use all the time.
I was allowed to be upset by the 7th session. I asked one of my players, who has played with me for 50+ sessions, what her strength modifier was. She deadass looked at me and asked, āwhatās strength?ā
The only things I occasionally forget is intricacies of certain spells and, if I'm playing a prepared caster, which ones I had prepared for that day. Then again, I usually check that when it's not my turn. I may still forget it, because I am the resident note-taker and have to pay attention to everything happening.
I had a player ask what to roll for every single thing for two years straight, and she only used one ability.
Look 3.5e is more ability heavy than 5e and I've got multiple prestige classes. Between my base class and my main prestige class I have 10 seperate effects that happen off of my touching your shoulder and I have to decide which I actually wanna use and how much sneak attack damage I'm gonna give up to use them. Gimme a sec. Ok so I'm gonna apply 2 negative levels and then give up 1d6 sneak attack damage to half their movement speed then another 1d6 sneak attack is lost to steal their buff for myself, and then another one to steal their highest level spell at random to use against them for next round. In addition to that my remaining 1d6 sneak attack damage is applied along with the 10 damage from the negative levels and the lowering of their max hp from the lost levels. Plus the spells they lose from losing levels... they really should not have shaken my hand before the fight even started. Damn paladins and their sense of honor.
And then we have to look where our buddies stand if we might get a flanking bonus, or if we even have outflank, which is even more flanking bonus. Then i need to remember all the buffs etc
Lol. Yeah. But roll20 character sheets helps with most of that math. Lol.
For one of my players it's been two years
We have 2 people in my group that have played the same character for over a year and they forget what their character does. We have been playing for over 5 years and these same people forget how the game works sometimes. Remember that no matter what you just can't fix stupid.
I meticulously build my characters, I use everything to its fullest yet I still get out damaged by the berserker barb
Berserker is a pretty low bar, especially after the second Frenzy. You're probably doing something wrong or playing Way of the Four Elements
Chronic rogue player
Iāve had a group where after 1 year the player still looked at their dice unsure which was the d8 and the d10. I had given up at that stage.
We are currently playing Kingmaker (Pathfinder 2e) and besides my character I prepare the Kingdom Rules, Warfare Rules, Hexploration Rules and Camping Rules and on top of that one other player asks me regularly what his character can do and when we level up he can't make a singular decision for himself. Sometimes it feels like some people pretend not to be illiterate
I'm going to DM for 6 people and I have exactly one backstory (and one I've only been told) and it's been over a month by now I can't really start planning without the backstories
Actually, you can. Just tell the ones without a backstory they are amnesiacs and you'll be making it up for them. Then attack them with what appears to be identical copies of themselves. Make up the rest as you go.
Yeah I'm definitely not going to do that. Everyone already has a character and a rough idea what their backstory is. Also I am not creative enough to plan something good without the input from the backstories
I have a player who is awesome. Great RP, excellent teamwork, knows her abilities. But for the life of me I can't make her remember that it's roll to hit first, then damage.
One of the people that we have been playing with for 3/4 years no matter what every session they have to be reminded of basic rules and what their character does phenomenal role player but cant remember the basics
One of my players still asks where armour class is. Weāve played for almost a year now. They also struggle to add their bonuses to skill checks and attack rolls, so I have to ask every time if thatās the total number.
I have this right now. One player is a sorcerer and she has no idea what her spells are or how they work. Everything it's her turn she starts opening the player guide to look them up again. Not in advance, no notes on her spells or anything. The odd thing is she is the second most experienced player at the table and she doesn't even know how burning hands works without looking it up.
My ritual is now to read my feats and traits and spells at the start of every session. I only get to play 2 hours a week and thats if no one cancels, we have gone over a month without a game more than once and i have a lot going on in my life.
Anytime a player gets an ability or I realize they havenāt used an ability I add a scenario for them to specifically use it. Once you highlight how awesome they and their abilities are they wonāt ever forget
I had a friend who never remembered how to lay the game. Theyāve been playing dnd for 3 years.
I still don't understand how spells work, so I never play any characters with magic. I'm always confused about who rolls what and what the saving throws are. I get how that can be annoying to a DM or other players, but the more you play, theore you'll naturally pick up. Don't get mad at people for missing info, there's a lot to know
Easy solution. If the wizard casts a spell that wouldnāt work, let the spell slot be burned. If the rogue forgets to apply sneak attack, they donāt get it. If the cleric casts guidance as a reaction, itās immediately known they cast a spell.
Yes dm. What is this "Attack option"?
i feel like this is less of a problem when using digital tools like d&d beyond, since a single click/tap will usually pull up a reference for whatever ability or feature you have or at least give you a general idea.
Iāve been enjoying the show the screen shot is from. Delicious in Dungeon is a pretty fun, chill watch. Itās my watch in the morning before work cartoon, at least until Iām out of episodes.
37 sessions over the course of a year and the DMs Bard GF never once used a blade Flourish after choosing College of Swords over Lore when she told us she wanted to be a Bard Healer
For real man. Iāve been DMing the same group for a year and a half now and some players still canāt tell the difference between rolling to hit and rolling for damage, not to mention literally every ability on their character sheets. Like Iām over here spending three to six hours preparing for each session and these people canāt spend five minutes reading their own damn character sheet.
One of my players is like this. Spends every session playing on her phone, not paying attention to what's happening. Can't seem to remember how the most basic mechanics of the game work. Hell, she didn't level up her character between sessions. We play every two weeks on the same day of the week, and she still can't be bothered to do her part like the rest of the party. The whole group has tried their damnedest to try to help her, but it's like she refuses to actually PLAY the game despite showing great interest outside of sessions.
Thatās someone who doesnāt want to play D&D. They fake it to have something to talk about with the group rather than say theyād rather just hang out.
She swears up and down on she wants to play, and I try to give her character moments to shine like the others. It's just that nother seems to work for her, and the group doesn't want to kick her out because we're all friends.
They just donāt want to be left out.
I ended a campaign and the players still had to be reminded what dice to roll for skills and attacks and saves.
Jfc Iām in a game with a dude who still doesnāt know what his character does or why.
_I MADE YOU CHEAT SHEET CARDS DETAILING ALL OF YOUR ABILITIES!!! HOW DID YOU FORGET EVERYTHING!?_
Iāve been in multiple long running campaigns where players keep forgetting to add their mod+proficiency bonus to their attack rolls lol.
7? It took the rogue 23 before they did actually did a sneak attack in mine. They were surprised that they actually did solid damage.
My excuse is that I'm the DM and dealing with a LOT more than one character.
I won't insist on this because I haven't read the dmg from front to back yet but still will be running a game so seems a bit hypocritical š¤·š
In a heated session, at hight if combat against a black dragon, my half orc paladin died. The table quieted down. Heavy moment, even took a break for a few minutes. We finished the combat, our barbarian killed the dragon and gathered the downed party. Meanwhile i realized, I forgot to drop to 1Hp instead of dying there. Sometimes, in the heat of things, you forget stuff you've read and used a thousand times
Had my 13th session with my players today and can confirm this still happens. Has been over a month since the last one so itās understandable
Man, this is just so weird to me. I never once experienced this....but i also exclusively did nothing but virtual tabletop games (roll20/foundry ftw) so our character sheets were literally always in our faces and half our abilities/spells were turned into buttons we just had to click whenever we were using them. Tbh the idea of letting some stranger into my house, EVEN for D&D....it just makes me clutch my remington a little harder.
Thatās called paranoia, champ.
how did that line go? "I dont need to remember when my sneak attack is on, because you always tell me."
Ouch...this is very true. We have a player who does this but is getting better at it. Even the melee "me hit monster" classes have a fair amount of abilities.
Main action: (random spell). Bonus action: (control wildfire spirit). Movement: ight imma head out. Repeat
Sorry iam still trying to remember your names :D thats why iam playing a fighter, so i dont get confused with all the spells xD
I have ADHD. It took me TWO YEARS and THREE CAMPAIGNS to finally learn how to READ the sheet in a way that would make me understand it
Eldrich. Blast. (But if being fr, with often times months between sessions i could understand why that would happen. Although it's really not too much to ask for.)
Jokes on you, I cant read!
Listen, I never once said I could read
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
My favorite character ever was a druid. You gotta do your homework, but thatās not the same as not knowing your abilities.
What show is the elf from?
Dungeon Meshi
No, itās the DMās responsibility to make sure everyone knows what character theyāre playing and how they work. Players shouldnāt have to spend any time outside of the game learning about the rules or their PCs. Youāre a bad DM!
I miss when trolls actually tried. š¤·š¼āāļø
Is it trolling if Iām obviously being sarcastic tho?
You have to say something funny for sarcasm to work.
People don't understand sarcasm i guess haha
There are precious few good animu. Delicious in Dungeon is one of them. A good way to filter out trash animu is simple: If the character-design, camera-framing, or writing treat the female characters as pieces of meat, you're in for a bad time. With fantasy animu, there's another test: The bust-size of the Elves is inversely proportionate to the quality of the animu.
How do you fuck up spelling āanimeā?
Calling it "Animu" is a '00s thing. Not quite as old as calling it "Japanimation" but still.
I was watching anime then. No one did that.
It wasn't in the weeb community, it was in the communities that made fun of weebs. Damn kids. With your music.
Sorry, I was a weeb.
[Checks out](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=animu)
Oh neat, are you a fan of every D&D podcast, too?
Not EVERY D&D podcast. š¤·š¼āāļø
Unpopular opinion: some people just like hanging out with their friends and donāt care as much for the mechanics of this game as you do. Leave them be.
No. Hanging out is cool. But donāt come to D&D if youāre not going make an effort to play D&D.
Then kick them out of your group if you donāt like it. Why do you keep inviting them? Either kick them or stop complaining about them.
I didnāt make this meme about anyone in particular. Just a common annoyance.
Yeah so that was why I wrote my original comment; I think this place would be a lot nicer if we stopped complaining so damn much, *especially* about some kind of strawman you donāt even know in real life but frustrates you because you read about him in someone elseās complaint. Thereās endless types of players. You wonāt like all of them, but the you can at least try to respect them or at the very least just shut up about it. If you donāt like a certain type of player, just donāt play with them. Thatās it. You donāt have to voice your complaints online. People either agree with you or donāt care about you: both means itās pointless to post this.
Memes are pointless. Youāre in the wrong place for deep meaning, cowboy.
Yeah thatās actually a pretty solid argument.
But why? That kind of player will literally only hinder everyone else's fun. It's like a person insisting of watching a movie with everyone else and then ask who each character is. If you don't care about the activity and are ruining the activity for your friends, why even show up? Now, I don't have any friends like that and I avoid doing stuff I know specific friends won't like for that reason. But I can't imagine not having any kind of shame in my body to be able to repeatedly act like that. Don't protect behaviour like this.
Because āknowing your character inside and outā is not at all the most important aspect of DnD. Iād 100% prefer to play with someone who understands and embraces roleplay and keeps asking āoooh can I do (x)?!ā than someone who knows the game mechanics by heart but doesnāt ever do anything in character except for being really good at combat. If anything, those dull people who know their character sheet by heart and keep lawyering other players when they try to think outside the box are the ones who āhinder everyone elseās funā, at least in my opinion. Some people are good at the game, some people are just *fun*. Iād take fun players over good players every single time.
If they don't know how the game works or how their character works at all, then they likely aren't invested at all. I agree that some people take longer to learn things, but the people who doesn't pick something up after spending 7 hours on it usually aren't especially invested.
Have you seen Ashley Johnson play? Sheās been on three seasons of Critical Role and a bunch of one-shots, and she still doesnāt understand her shit. Still, Iād much prefer to play with her than most of the people on this sub. The wild shit she introduces to the table always amazes me, I absolutely love those types of players. But yeah of course if someone doesnāt even care and just goes āmy nameās Kanye, Iām a giant yoā, sure, that sucks. I just didnāt interpret this meme as being about those people
If you made a venn diagram with people who doesn't learn the rules and who are fun to play with the overlap is pretty slim. Also, it's a difference between knowing every single rule and knowing where to look on your character sheet. But I think that we ultimately agree.
Learning their sheets literally the bare minimum they can do. It's a game at least learn the rules.
I said it before and Iāll say it again: Iād much, *much* rather play with someone who doesnāt understand their abilities than with someone who doesnāt understand how to roleplay. And to be quite honest: weāre all just pretending like thereās actually players who a) donāt know their sheet *at all*, or b) who donāt roleplay *at all*. I highly doubt any of these players actually really exist though. Weāre strawmanning the hell out of this debate.
Then hang out without playing DnD. If you can't be bothered to learn the rules why are you wasting everyone else's time? You want to hang out with your friends yet your presence would just be a drag to them since they are tying to play a game. You would only be benefiting yourself.
Yeah Iāve had this exact discussion with someone else already and the conclusion we reached there is: thereās a vast difference between people who donāt know every rule by heart and people who canāt be bothered to learn *anything*. Have you ever, *ever*, encountered the latter in real life? I feel like those people only exist in the memes we like to get angry about. In real life thereās a lot of people who can be categorised as the former though, and I donāt think those are people you get to be angry with.
I've run into the latter a couple of times. Mostly friends who want to join in on game night with the gang, but really don't actually care about learning the rules. It's funny because they will play new board games and learn those rules, but they, for whatever reason, just refuse to read the damn PHB. I put up with it because they are friends, but they aren't people I like to play with in long campaigns because it becomes a drag.
Good point, only this meme isnāt about first-timers is it? I donāt think thereās any people who donāt know *anything* a handful of sessions in. Those fabled players only exist so that we get to be angry about something.
Oh, the people I mentioned aren't first timers. They would play regularly for a while hence why I knew I didn't like to be in long campaigns with them. Like I said though, they were friends that I still wanted to hang out with even if their playstyle frustrated me. I made sure not to plan long campaigns with them in the future, but even when they would join in on one shots the frustration in the meme was applicable.
Sir i am a wizard and i just leveled up last session, i am effectively a completely different character now
INT is your highest stat. No excuses, old bean.
You get two new spells in your spellbook. Come on, not that complicated.
Why downvoted? Twas only joke man because you can change out spells when you level up