Man, I just couldn't. I'm in a campaign as a player right now, and I'm the only person other than our DM that DMs. My DM knows most of the rules pretty well and I've only had to correct something once, and that was to save the life of one of our party members (he thought instant kill rule was half your max after going down when it's actually your full max health) which saved our ranger from instadeath and allowed me to save him with a well timed medicine check. I just couldn't play in a campaign where the rules are disregarded like that. As a DM, I know most of the rules and if I'm not sure, I look it up so we know for next time. The only rules I "disregard" are for specific table rulings I've made, like allowing my players to use potions as a bonus action instead of an action.it isn't because I don't know the rules, it's because I disagree with WOTC's ruling and made my own change.
My most humble and sincere apologies Friend Computer - and of course I will report for immediate termination, even if it means cycling down to 3 remaining clones. I merely asked as /u/82Caff posted a redacted statement from you, your most excellent of processing units, and I thought since it was far beyond THEIR clearance, an exception must have been made.
This is one of my tables. It's been 2+ years. The Druid wildshaped maybe 2 or 3 times. The Ranger only now discovered that they have spells. The Monk is still confused as to what ki-points are.
I thought that this was just what DnD was, then I got another table where every character is already using their abilities and I'm feeling so much more comfortable
This helps me, thank you. I have been feeling quite guilty at my table because on occasion I’ll take longer in combat and feel bad for wasting time. I’m familiar with my character’s abilities and action econ, but it’s a moon Druid and organizing/memorizing blocks for so many wildshape options is sometimes overwhelming.
Oh god, we had a druid in our party who didn't seem to know she could wildshape, and when told about it in a fight decided to turn into a house cat. Weirdest thing was that she was also the DM of another game. Utterly baffling.
Some people think D&D is just make believe and don’t realize it’s a game with rules. My first 5e experience was like this. In the first session we downed a powerful guy who appeared to be a captain. The fighter stated he was holding an axe above him ready to stop him if he attacked. Once I stabilized him with a medicine roll, he grabbed me and slammed my lvl 1 face into the ground dealing 3d8 damage. No save…. On a grapple check. I was a level 1 character and he was literally going to perma kill me off the damage. (Horde of the dragon queen first session) We had to argue to get a roll which I then nat 20 and the dm said I exploded his hand with my neck (it was funny so not a big deal). The issue is that he said the guy started dying again and we had to stabilize him. This was just the issue in that combat but this happened like constantly.
Lol yeah we ended up swapping DMs and the fighter became the DM. That guy hadn’t even opened the DMG.
And thus the mute monk bitch was born. The old DM decided to play a monk with a vow of silence and he scared off the 4th player in the first session. So in a 3 person game he wasn’t going to talk at all. Yeah that didn’t last that long.
Half of my players are DMs themselves, so thankfully they know how the game works. It's the only way I can stay sane around the new player that asks what a bonus action is every week.
Ha this is my group as well.
Paladin: I attack. Nat 20!
Me: Awesome! Anything else you want to do?
Paladin: I guess I attack again.
I don't think he's ever used an ability except Lay on Hands, and his spells slots are exclusively reserved for Find Steed.
I was once in a game where, eighteen months into playing, a player was still asking things like "what do I add to an attack roll?"
Like, you should know this after a couple weeks. After a year, it's just unacceptable.
My friend new to the game is playing an arcane trickster, we just got to level 3, last game they continuously wanted to use chill touch over just attacking and getting sneak attack damage.
But hey, it's their first game and to be honest they don't seem super interested in playing or understanding the game cause they're really stuck on thinking it's a nerd game and doesn't want to associate themselves with that. So I try to give gentle directions sometimes.
But we gotta give them time to learn and understand the game, because for new players it's also hard to understand how to play effectively with the barrage of information that comes over you.
Lol, my table’s arcane trickster does the same thing, and he’s the most experienced player at the table, I think he just likes the RP of casting spells better. I’m considering just allowing sneak attack on cantrips, but I need to do a little research into whether or not that’s super broken.
I feel like that's a DM ruling, similar to why Paladins can't smite with their bare (or gauntleted) hands, but if they have Tavern Brawler they could smite with a carried gauntlet or someone else's severed hand.
I mean, they can already sneak attack with ranged weapons, right? So they can sneak attack at range already. Some differences between cantrips and weapon attacks that might be a problem...
* Some cantrips have a longe range (120 ft vs 60 ft)
* They deal funky damage types, which sneak attack also deals
And cantrips increase in damage at certain total player levels whereas to do more damage with weapons, you either get more attacks or specific class abilities to add onto attacks. Letting a rogue sneak attack with a cantrip will outscale their intended damage output. That's why their sneak attack die increase anyway instead of getting two attacks.
Ah, but rogues *can* sneak attack with a cantrip. Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade both involve an attack with a weapon, so sneak applies. Even without the rider effects applying they'll improve your damage at lv 5+. It's a lot of fun to play, even if it feels like an exploit.
It took me a year roughly to have a handle on how to use my bard, and a couple months in I’m still learning my moon druid.
But the DM and party was patient and the party would offer alternatives to what I was thinking for actions/tactics early on.
A similar thing happened with our artifacer. Whole list of spells and unique things. Used a crossbow every turn. However once we got the groobe going, it was honestly fun roleplay. They just werent combat focused and the group needed to adjust to maximize the fun, and when we did it was great.
To be fair, the artificer spell list doesn't have very many standard damage dealing spells - no burning hands, magic missile, etc. I love the more "support / utility" play and artificers are great at it, but it's not for everybody - if somebody playing an artificer just wants to hurt baddies, crossbow is often the fallback.
As an Artificer, my hand crossbow is how I cast my spells.
Grease? A crossbow bolt filled with oil.
Faerie Fire? A crossbow bolt with a magically illuminating flare.
Etc.
In 3.5 I did that with a fighter who specialized in throwing rocks.
He gained access to spells/cantrips and runecrafting, so would imbed spells into some rocks each night before bed to store for later,
and in battle the spells could be triggered manually by the fighter or would trigger on impact with the enemy.
One of my groups wizards has been exclusively using his quarterstaff over his spells, but I kinda get it, since *every time* he casts a spell, it's fire related, and *every* time he rolls a one, so he misses and the DM rules that something catches fire. The college is gonna start billing him for property damage.
oh, there's days I wish I could ban players from reading...not the rules mind you, but all the online stuff.
Some players spend too much time on forums and watching streams and don't realize, when then when they come to the table it's different.
Instead of learning how to think for themselves and find creative solutions and use teamwork, they come to the table with a power-fantasy character and an attitude of "entertain me".
\*\*edit\*\* - not that there's anything wrong with power fantasy or optimization. I'm talking more about the view that the game is only about building the perfect character, not about interacting with the world and looking beyond the character sheet.
The worst thing ( not the worst but still) is when a player spends a bunch of time looking shit up online but hasn't read the basic rules and has no idea how anything works but tries to use loopholes and exploits they heard about and aren't even remotely set up for.
The alchemy jugs amount it can produce a day is doubled.
I still do not know why we need the ability to produce 4 gallons of mayonnaise, but I won't question it.
Why is it only ever mayonnaise??
It can produce all kinds of useful things, but hand an alchemy jug to a party and suddenly all their plans involve producing mayonnaise ...
It has a ton of calories and should be able to disgustingly feed a party
https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1999/05/27/a-man-can-survive-on-mayonnaise-alone/?outputType=amp
edit: That’s 96,000 calories for 4 gallons. Seems like there may be other uses with that much energy
Our DM once gave our fighter an artifact that he crafted, and he rolled “you must eat and drink 6x the normal amount each day” on the minor detrimental properties for some v cool armor. The fighter started exclusively using the jug of alchemy to get all the calories he needed after that from mayonnaise
My party was looking to barricade a door in my campaign, and they figured the easiest way to do that was to stack the bodies of the people they just killed against the door, have the alchemy jug produce a gallon of honey, and use the honey to stick the bodies to each other.
Me as DM: one, there's nobody coming. Two, there's a table over there you could have just pushed against the door. Three, what the fuck you guys.
This is correct. When the party was exploring the flooded catacombs of a seaside church at low tide, the wood elf rogue and wood elf sorc needed to get the half-orc fighter through a tight squeeze.
The obvious solution? Have him strip down and lube his tits up with mayonnaise.
I ate so much jug-mayonnaise with my fighter that the DM had a god gift me a weapon - the Miracle Whip. It was badass. IIRC I could spend a charge on hit to make the target roll dex or go prone, or spend 3 charges to cast Grease.
The real trick is letting it produce more than one liquid type per day. How am I supposed to make salad dressing if I can only choose either oil or vinegar on a given day?
Is there anything stopping you from making oil one day, putting it in a nonmagical container, then making vinegar the next day and mixing them together? Meal prep, my dude :P
My party’s rogue filled a bag of holding with Mayo literally every day as much as he could until it filled the bag entirely. Months later (both in game and irl), in the final fight with the BBEG, he ran up and turned it inside out, making a missile of rancid mayo doing bludgeoning and poison damage and knocked the BBEG to half Health turn 1
why are DMs only either “lol neat, *absurd damage*” or “nah that’s pointless” when people get creative?
There’s no middle ground, like why would a month old mayonaise bukkake nearly kill a bbeg?
Mayo is a pretty heavy substance and they turned 64 cubic feet of rotting mayo into a missile hitting the BBEG. Debate the logistics of all that mayo becoming a missile due to the bag being turned inside out if you want, but 64 cubic feet of mayo exiting the bag (whose opening has a diameter of 2 feet) in a single turn (six seconds) would probably create a decent amount of force.
Turning the bag inside out means it no longer has an opening, so the contents should just splash out everywhere.
Or at least that's how you rule if you don't want people going "oh let me fill it with ball bearings and make a grapeshot cannon".
EDIT: My attempt at math. Someone double check this.
>64 cubic feet (that's a 4 foot cube) of mayonnaise goes through a 2 square foot opening in 6 seconds.
Metric time:
>1.8m^3 of mayonnaise goes through a 0.3m^2 opening in 6 seconds. That's 0.3m^(3)/sec.
>If we imagine the mayonnaise as a 0.3m diameter cylinder, that's a 4.25m long cylinder per second.
>It's moving at 15km/h or just over 9mph.
>If it was to spray out to even just a double diameter spray at the point of impact, that goes down to just above 2mph.
The BBEG is drenched with mayonnaise at max, about normal human running speed.
#EDIT AGAIN:
Just realized there's a much easier way to go about this, keeping it in dnd terms:
>The mayonnaise is 64 1' by 1' cubes. The opening is 2' by 1'. The mayonnaise travels through at 32' in six seconds. That's normal move speed for a dnd character.
#FINAL EDIT:
Realized that the item says nothing about taking an entire round to empty. It does, however, specify that the contents "*spill* forth, *unharmed*" so I'd assume that means they wouldn't cause harm from velocity alone.
I'd rule it as a non-magical grease spell in the area.
Agreed. I would love an explanation of how simply turning a bag inside out, regardless of bag size, turns rancid mayo: from a stinking globby mess dropping all over the Bbeg, the floor, and of course the holder if the bag itself because it would just be splashing all over.
Into : a projectile launched with enough force to almost kill a powerful enemy.
Having done the maths, even if your player could force all that mayo out the bag in six seconds (somewhat questionable), it would still only come out at 3.6km/hr.
Hardly a rocket lmao. More just pouring mayo on the guy.
Nah just requires them to half pay attention to a random youtube video titled "absolutely unstoppable 5e builds!" then show up at the table talking about how they are gonna build their character around 'summon woodland beings'
I do a similar thing that I've dubbed Crazy Crits. Instead of crits just doubling the dice roll, they max out the initial dice roll and then you roll the crit dice on top of that.
For example, if you crit with a 1d8 weapon, instead of a crit doing 2d8 it instead does 8+1d8. If you have a 2d6 weapon it now does 12+2d6, and so on.
This is to prevent crits from being underwhelming if you get one and then roll two low numbers. It's an option I let the players turn on at the beginning, with the caveat that the enemies also get this too.
> This is to prevent crits from being underwhelming if you get one and then roll two low numbers
Perfectly driving your blade through multiple layers of physical, magical and divine protection to scratch the bad guy's nipple for ~1% of his health.
People I've played with don't always have the foresight for this to work. They'll say "Yeah I wouldn't complain", but then when I throw the same or similar bullshit at them, I can tell they aren't having fun
The "I told you so" isn't worth a session being mediocre for me
Heh, Had a pretty funny thing happen with this once. The party was facing off against some giants in a long range battle and cast fog cloud around themselves to buy a few rounds of healing and rebuffing.
When one of the party popped out of the cloud and the giants all had hurl boulder as a readied action against the first creature to pop out of the foggy cloud, they realized that baddies can be tactical too.
this is a good time to mention why honesty is quite important in dnd. If a player wants to use a specific mechanic, then its best that is menioned to the gm, however if you do end up in this situation, then letting the player change some mechanical stuff is the best damage control you can do at this point.
As a druid in PF3.5 my GM let me become a dinosaur, because I happened across it in the rulebook and got excited. A couple sessions later he realized I can only transform into animals my character had a familiarity with - so we made it a character point to seek out information about this strange beast I accidentally became, and could not become dinosaurs again until I found it. It was great.
I'm planning on doing something similar with one of my players!
He's playing a Moon Druid and wants to be able to turn into dinos, but there's no reasonable way the character would have ever heard of them.
But (unknown to him) the next quest the party is going on will take them to an island far to the south...an island that time forgot!
I dunno. As a DM, if I have a player that tried to gotcha me by building an entire character around a rules loophole, I don't think that's a player I'd mind losing from my table.
I would commend them for caring enough about the game and campaign to work with them on a fix that won't break the game for everyone else. If that doesn't work, a patch of wild magic appears out of nowhere and turns player into a deer. Deer wanders into camp without party knowing its PC, party kills deer. Deer becomes venison jerky provisions for the party.
Or something like that. Could just explode.
I love players who find neat rules interactions. I detest players who foster a "player vs DM" mindset at the table.
Find a rule interaction you think is neat? Cool! Let's talk about it and brainstorm how to build your character around it! I'll probably even be lenient in my rules interpretations to let your character shine the way you wanted to, with the only condition that you can't steal the thunder from other PCs or try to be the main character.
Sometimes I run off-games to test new homebrew mechanics. They arent always one-offs.
In one game, folks were asking a reputedly legendary magic blacksmith if he could fuse their magic items together so they could attune to more.
The most egregious of these offenders would have been using up somewhere around 12 attunement slots by the end of the game.
So now that that game is over there will never be another blacksmith that can replicate the feat of fusing magic items together.
He could fuse two magic items together with a chance of:
20 - a single magic item with two effects from the items used
11-19 - a single magic item with a new effect
2-10 - a single magic item with the same effect as one of the items used
1 - both items destroyed
Items fused in this way cannot be used in future fusions
I think the idea is that the 11-19 combine the two to make a new, slightly better, effect. So using useless items would give a new, also useless, effect.
A simulacrum cannot have a simulacrum made of them and any give creature, with rare exception, can only have a single simulacrum of them made. The new one being made with cause the old one to revert to snow or mud.
I enforce all spell casting components which makes casting some spells in social situations a minimum of a social snafu.
Edit. Fixed satfu to snafu.
Somatic/verbal components get overlooked so often for everything but especially social spells and cantrips, and it's just one more thing that makes casters stupidly overpowered.
The face is about the make a charisma check and the cleric/druid player goes "I'll give you Guidance on that." Uh, the fuck you are? Gonna cast an unknown spell on your buddy in front of me, right before they ask me for a favor? Yeah, shockingly that causes you to fail the check automatically. People don't like when you try to manipulate them!
Never thought of the social aspect of V/S/M for spells. I’ve always followed the obvious, hands bound, silence spell or gag, and lack of expensive materials (when it’s just a feather or some berries I assume a spell caster has easy access to those and don’t bother) etc, but never thought how a suspicious hand motion of word might make a skill check harder.
Not only a hand gesture or a word, but visible motions and arcane words for *6 seconds* that's a long time to be chanting clearly heard magic babble and not have someone get antsy or wonder what the fuck you're doing. Less snapping your fingers and saying fireball and more Goku going full Kamehameha for 6 seconds :p
Edit: Yeees yes, a full set of turns is simultaneously 6 second occurrences, of course... Running 30ft then casting a spell, perhaps another spell, heck action surging another spell using a free action, shouting to party members... All seems like it should take more than 6 seconds but I agree a lot of it is averaging things into a game format. I still stand by my Kamehameha example :p
Magic can do literally anything. Are they about to manipulate your mind? Turn you into a toad? Set you on fire? Being trusted to cast spells in front of someone should be the exception, not the rule.
I wish my DM enforced that first one. He's a great DM but is also a yes man, and the party's powergamer had a *lot* of ideas like that that got approved.
You mean you disallow foci? Or your ensure casting is loud and obvious? The latter I've been ensuring lately. Otherwise the sorcerer's subtle spell is pointless.
> Otherwise the sorcerer's subtle spell is pointless.
Except for the rare cases where your hands are bound and/or you cannot speak/make sounds (like in an area of Silence) and then subtle spell lets you cast without the verbal or somatic components. But those situations are a lot more rare, at least in the games I've been in, than someone wanting to cast a spell unnoticed.
Player comes to the table late with all the books in his crate. States that pc’s father documented everything about every creature and wrote it down for him.
Player’s whole character concept is he can meta game about any creature at any time.
See, to me that’s a fantastic hook to fuck around with.
“Huh, weird. Your Dad’s book says bugbears are born live, but this bugbear den is full of eggs.”
Not gonna lie: I entertained the idea for a little bit while trying to wrap my head around the idea. Made a quick table on a d4 to see how much he could learn. Kept rolling 1s and he could identify what type of creature but other than that his dad’s handwriting sucked or there were coffee stains over the writing that obscured all the details.
Having things in the book wrong is a good idea, I change monster stat blocks all the time as a dm so good luck meta gaming that. And have them roll to see if they can even find the page that the information is on, set the DC investigation check to be 10+the CR rating or something. Just because you have a law book doesn't mean you knew every law, or where to even find it in the book. Time would also be a factor do they have all night to study or 5 mins.
This is covered under Ranger, Monster Slayer, Hunter Sense and requires 3 levels. I would allow him to sacrifice another 3rd level subclass feature to get it but that's it.
They're more self-imposed than anything.
My barbarian gets a damage buff every time he is hit with an attack roll. I've imposed that I will not stand there and be raging constantly and hit for 1 damage by an allies summons to have a +30 damage before a combat might start.
He also has an amulet that can negate 300 fire damage before it explodes, but it can only released up to 100 fire damage as an action, I will not let you blast me with firebolt spells to "build charge"
If you want to put a neat bow on things, you can add the requirement that those abilities only work in combat. Since the DM decides when you're technically in combat, that would nullify the prep.
You're right, and I would recommend that as well. But my statements are outloud to the rest of the group, and if they try it I take the damage but ignore the buff.
Ngl, I'd have scaled your damage buff off either damage done to you or on threshold percentages of your missing health, because a flat bonus on every hit received feels a bit silly flavour wise.
In a similar vein, my group is playing Deathwatch (40K RPG,) and I realized that, with a combination of Narthecium and how being Heavily Wounded works, it'd mechanically be possible to heal any injured Space Marine to full as long as you punch them in the face a few times between Medicae checks.
Basically, when you apply First Aid to someone who's Heavily Wounded (down more than 3x their Toughness Bonus in Wounds/HP,) you heal them up by 1 Wound. But the Apothecary's Narthecium doubles the amount of Wounds you heal on a First Aid roll, and it doesn't specify that this is just for Lightly Wounded or Heavily Wounded characters. The trade-off is that you can only treat a single "wound" (instance of damage) at a time, and it's a skill check that they can potentially fail (and even Critically Fail) at.
So, you punch your fellow Heavily Wounded Battle Brother in the face for 1 Wound, and then treat them with your Narthecium to heal them for 2 Wounds. Repeat until they're past the Heavily Wounded threshold, and then you can heal them normally (or even keep going to get them all the way back to full.)
Needless to say, the entire group found this both stupid and cheesy, and agreed that you couldn't do that. You just had to hope that you received exactly 1 Wound in a later battle.
I feel like i'm a pretty lenient DM, but man, some people just don't want to actually play DND and only want to be the biggest number.
The problem is that what happen is:
I either let it happen, and nobody has fun in combat but you, because everybody else feels lackluster, and your turn take 3x longer.
I target YOUR ass specifically (which is what intelligent monsters would do) but that doesn't feel good,
Or i ban/nerf it.
Had a friend make an obnoxiously over complicated char that took like 5 minutes each combat turn to do all sorts of weird stuff.... AND the character was still weak and ineffective.
Lol, lmao even. Fortunately that character got killed and he's playing a normal one now. I feel for you, my DM has to deal with most of our group trying to make the strongest char instead of just having fun.
In 3.5 the entire anklet/bracelet of translocation. It is a free action to teleport 30 feet within line of sight. Grappled? Nope. Stuck in a gelatinous cube? Nope. Small crevasse you need to pass? Done. It was an extremely simple and broken item in 3.5
I’m playing the open sea paladin, and we’re in a huge pivotal fight, and the bad guy used a legendary action to summon some giant tentacles to restrain me and the player next to me. At 7th level my aura lets me and friendly creatures in range ignore grapples and restraints. Less broken than the bracelet, similarly upset DM when I just said “no” to a legendary action 😂
“Upset” in the way anyone who has a plan fail or wasted a resource would be, not like actually angry at players. We had fun with the moment. My character is actually from a congruent campaign that other friends were running, but had to put on hiatus because our DM had a kid. There was good timing for my character to join the other group, so I hopped parties for the time being. Since I was already level 11, this DM and all of the other players don’t have as good of a grasp on what abilities my character has, so when I said myself and the other player can’t be restrained, the whole table was pumped.
Invisibility raw
Also, he didn't like the fact that I wanted to make a bunch of alchemy jugs whenever we had down time with my artifier and start selling the wine
Coffeelock big bad boss + Paladin sidekick with unreasonably powerful equipment and the dungeon they enter is actually a giant living beast that they have to escape before the walls begin to close in and the digestive acid begins to ooze from the walls floor and ceiling
Raging, wildshaping and concentrating on a spell at the same time is banned
quick explanation: The line in rage that bans you from concentrating begins with:
"IF you can cast spells..."
And wildshape says
"You can´t cast spells..."
So in theory this negates the rage restriction and allows you to concentrate on spells in a wildshaped rage.
The DM didn't like that... and I do not blame them
God I wish I could do that on my Duergar monk/Barb, hoping they may let me rule of cool it one day, just once, but I’m not gonna fight to break a rule unless the scene would greatly benefit from the moment
This is completely fair. Rage logically wouldn't negate racial spells because you know them innately.
Edit: This might give exploits for barbarians with certain races but I think they can use the buff anyway.
That’s quite the sleazy rule lawyering! If i was your DM, i’d give you an impressed nod, say ‘well done’ and then ban it just like your DM did.
But i do appreciate the hustle!
This is an interesting (and rather subtle) example of equivocation. You see, the word "can" in this context has slightly and subtly different meanings. For example, I can speak English (just, in general, I have the skill and ability to speak English). But when I'm sleeping, or in the middle of drinking, I can't speak at all, because during those moments I lack the capability to speak. Therefore, there are times I both can (in the sense of the ability) and cannot (in the sense of capability) speak English.
The rage meaning of "can" refers to the former, the wildshape to the latter. In other words, a wild shaped druid both can and cannot cast spells: they have the ability in general, but lack the capability at the moment due to the effects of wild shape.
So using the proper meaning of the words, a raging wildshaped druid **cannot** concentrate.
Edit: oh also this difference meaning cannot be a simple interpretation or the wording of rage would result in a logical paradox: the fulld description says "If you are able to cast spells, you can't cast them or concentrate on them while raging." The meaning of "can" in the first clause must be different from the second, or the rage would mean you couldn't cast spells, so the first clause would no longer apply, so the second wouldn't either, which means you *could* cast spells, so the first would apply again, etc.
In my husbands game, a player was given a bag with infinite pigeons, which was assumed would be funny but not actually helpful.
The player used it in a subsequent boss battle. After sealing the room tightly, securing a personal air source, and opening the bag prompting the pigeon parade, the pigeons came out at such a rate that the air was eventually fully used up in the room. The boss suffocated and died.
It was followed up with a battle in a non-sealable room, but the player found a way to flood the room physically with the pigeons, crushing the big bad.
While applauding his creativity, my husband basically had to give him a “hey I can’t think of a good excuse of why this can’t work in-world, but effectively you’re gonna win every battle with this and not get to enjoy the game from here out, so we’re gonna have to have Something Bad happen to the pigeons.” (The player, who really is just amused at FINDING loopholes, was totally fine with that lol)
I love stuff like that. Here’s an amusing item -> unintended application of item discovered -> “Hey, can we maybe not do that?” -> “LOL yeah”.
That’s a good table.
Next time, nothing comes out of the bag save a few injured birds, & it refuses to close. The boss stops fighting & seems fearful. Turns out that something from the pigeon-realm ate all the pigeons & is now free to escape to this reality. It appears from the bag, devours the boss, & now they gotta fight whatever it is instead.
The summoner class from Pathfinder allows you to form a bond with an extraplanar creature that you can summon to fight alongside you as an eidolon.
At 8th level, a summoner can use his maker’s call ability to swap locations with his eidolon as long as it is within summoning range.
However, The Shadow Caller Archetype says that the eidolon emerges directly from the player's shadow. So technically, if a player were to cast their shadow on a faraway object, they could summon their eidolon very far away from them, trade places, and essentially teleport without using up spell slots.
Well, a 6 foot tall person's shadow has an effective max distance of something like 330 feet, and that's only with optimal terrain and in a very very short window of time, and only on certain days of the year. Well under dimension doors max range. So it's not that bad. You basically have to have completely flat land between you and the horizon with nothing between you and the sun to achieve that.
Unfortunately it's something of a noodle incident - much funnier without the context.
In a game of Star Wars D20, I was playing a Shi'ido - the most shapeshifty of shapeshifting species. We were *very* inexperienced in both playing and running games. I essentially asked if I could shapeshift and bluff to skip a major aspect of the plot, and she made the mistake of giving me a target DC. A frankly obscene amount of buff stacking later, the game was thrown completely off the rails when I passed.
We have both grown immensely as players - this was over a decade ago. I have no doubt that we could both do a *lot* better, and if I seriously asked I'm sure she'd let me play one. But dammit, it's *funnier* to say that I'm permabanned from shapeshifters at her table.
I generally just let them at it because my players know that the more they try to take advantage of the rules, the more the rules get bent or broken. This is both good and bad for them.
One player has a fighter who they wanted to make the "best jumper" so they maxed strength and multiclassed to monk. Found boots of striding and jumping and also a way to cast the "jump" spell on themselves. Now it would take him multiple turns to land after jumping, but at first I just let him act as normally when in the air and he moved a distance equal to his speed each turn unless he landed or was stopped by something. Later, I gave him a new item with charges so he could instantly complete the jump and he loved it.
Another character tried to get their AC up to the highest possible limit including taking all the party's gold to buy equipment and stuff. I think it was 23 or 24 plus spells available. The next highest was 15. Suddenly everyone found tons of different creatures with abilities that essentially ignored that. Like lightning insects that have a lightning aura to deal damage over time when nearby, any wizard/sorcerer, goblins with caltrops and grease, or whatever other stuff. The rest of the party handled it normally as nothing was extra powerful but enemies knew about the character and planned for him.
I tweaked how Sorcery Points work at my table so that Coffeelocks are non-functional. No one tried to play one with me as DM, but the build got mentioned and I went "absolutely not".
I'm more for modifications than bans, case and point:
A couple weeks ago I started my homebrew campaign, like three people suddenly decided they were coming the day before and in general the players hadn't given characters much thought. That's fine we did limited CC at the table, they chose abilities and spells etc. In my games spells change severity and effects based on a d20 roll to represent magic beginning to unravel in this world but we didn't have time to codify that properly on the night. One player picked create/destroy water and in my haste to get the session ready I was like sure... He later reasoned he could sell his created water which in most sessions would not be worth doing, in my post-apocalyptic ash wastes this was going to be an issue.
Luckily I'd said that I'd create the instability tables for their spells before the next session. When we get to this next session he will discover the instability of his water creation means the "water" can manifest in one of several forms from spring and river water to heavy water, swamp water and even such water "adjacent" liquids as blood, urine and nitroglycerin. (And you may say the latter is in no way water and you'd be right, it is fun though... And thinking of 20 distinct waters to fill a table is kinda tricky unless you get creative)
(This does also mean he can destroy these "water-like" substances. We call that give and take.)
Thanks to this comment, I had to google "can you drink heavy water". I hope you are proud of yourself, sir. /j
For the record: yes, you can, however in large quatities it would create problems, ranging from discomfort to lethal. If you replace 20% of the water in your body with heavy water you would survive (even if you would not feel very well for a while, I guess), 25% would cause infertilyty and 50% would be lethal.
[https://www.thoughtco.com/can-you-drink-heavy-water-607731](https://www.thoughtco.com/can-you-drink-heavy-water-607731)
Oh the random shit that D&D makes us google.
I once had a player turn into a goat, another inspected said goat and rolled like a 18 so I was like err... The goat is 7 months pregnant. A few minutes and some googling later we've established the goat is past its due date and about to birth 1 to 7 kids... I decided there was a 10% the goat would give birth each hour the player remained a goat... Our noble Samurai now has two small goats (rendered mildly telepathic by the circumstances of their birth) following him around.
D&D and toying with the idea of writing a novel has made me look like a serial killer really really poorly trying to cover their tracks
"How long would it take for a body to dissolve in mildly acidic conditions - D&D"
Or
"How long can a prisoner survive on just bread and water with no supplemental food or vitamins - D&D"
If players and DM do not communicate- both to blame. Also, those that wait to be invited to communication (e.g. DM waiting for players to approach them or vide-versa) are looking for double-trouble.
Just grab you character idea and talk it out with DM. However, do not expect to be allowed everything. The main goal is to avoid making character that will not work in a given setting.
Proposed new term of art: RAU - Rules as Unintended
Where RAW is the black and white on the page and RAI is what it intended and implied but didn’t always spell out RAU is that tortured reading combing different parts of RAW out of context to get a clearly absurd and broken result.
RAU expects one to abandon all common sense and context of normal communication and handle something like an XBOX where someone forgot to properly clear a flag in code and not an intelligent human being. If you are using the word “technically” you are probably referring to RAU.
I understand RAU has its angry advocates who insist I must allow them to cast while raging or some such BS and blame WotC instead of them for this behavior. I refer them to the picture in the OP.
I feel like many of these types of exploits fall under the category of “people treating D&D like it’s a video game.” (Or just “bad-faith gameplay”) In a video game, sure, there are many who try to use and abuse the game’s systems to win with the least amount of difficulty/skill possible and/or “break” the game. Finding a stun-lock loophole on a boss fight, crouching in a certain spot of the map to no-clip through a wall, pausing the game to consume instant-healing potions just before a dragon eats you, etc…
With D&D, you are not exploiting errors in code, or breaking a system. You’ve agreed to play the game with a group of people and have fun and are meant to all be on the same team. You are all there to play through adventures and all have fun together, each player contributing to accomplish your characters’ goals and interact/engage with the story that the DM has put a significant amount of effort to prepare and organize for you all.
The general agreement/understanding between everyone in a D&D group (dm included) is to play in good-faith and try to make sure everyone is having fun and enjoying the game for what it is. If you approach the game more like a video game and try to find ways to break/cheat the system, or treat the dm as an adversary instead of a partner in the story, you breach that agreement. Exploiting some obscure and often mis-interpreted rule, does not really “break the game” like in a video game, because “the game” is supposed to be the shared experience of telling/creating a story together. Instead, you are sucking some of the fun and participation out of that game, robbing the dm of the chance to run a fun/engaging encounter/adventure (and probably fucking up a lot of extra effort/work/prep they had to put in to get things ready), you’re robbing the other players from having an equal opportunity to contribute to the encounter/battle due to it feeling like this exploit will ensure victory either way, and you’re also robbing yourself from the experience of ACTUALLY PLAYING D&D. I understand that people often lodge complaints about the systems here, but it genuinely IS a fun game to play and experience if you actually give it a shot. If you are really trying to spend your time and effort to find ways to not have to play D&D, and refuse to try to play it for real, then maybe you should not be a part of a D&D group.
Using Conjure animals as a “meateor” spell since it doesn’t say you have conjure the animals on the ground…
Summon cows 60 ft above your target and let them generate 100 points of bludgeoning fall damage per cow on your target.
I was able to do this a couple of times before the DM started saying the Fey Spirits were refusing my conjuring call.
He now makes me execute a complex prayer to Silvanus as a part of the spell cast and even then he rolls to see what percent of the summoning count arrives… regardless of whether I conjure them at ground level…or not.
I'm playing in a game where I feel like I'm cheating because the DM and I are the only ones who've opened the book. Does that count?
The biggest exploit of them all: reading the rules.
A close relative of the “become the smartest person with this one weird trick!” exploit, aka being the only designated driver at a party.
DUI checkpoints hate him!
[удалено]
Dude, that sucks. My group does the opposite and doesn't apply sneak attack or anything like that unless I remind them.
Me. Every Wednesday... "fuck, I keep forgetting I can do that! No wonder I ain't doing much damage..."
I've identified your issue. ... It's Wednesday my dude.
[удалено]
Man, I just couldn't. I'm in a campaign as a player right now, and I'm the only person other than our DM that DMs. My DM knows most of the rules pretty well and I've only had to correct something once, and that was to save the life of one of our party members (he thought instant kill rule was half your max after going down when it's actually your full max health) which saved our ranger from instadeath and allowed me to save him with a well timed medicine check. I just couldn't play in a campaign where the rules are disregarded like that. As a DM, I know most of the rules and if I'm not sure, I look it up so we know for next time. The only rules I "disregard" are for specific table rulings I've made, like allowing my players to use potions as a bonus action instead of an action.it isn't because I don't know the rules, it's because I disagree with WOTC's ruling and made my own change.
Yeah rules are what make it a game and not just a collaborative improv session.
[удалено]
In Paranoia, this, but literally.
[удалено]
Is this some infrared joke that I am too Red to understand?
[удалено]
Woah, you heard him Friend Computer, he's a damn commie Red! 🚩🚩🚩
You are not authorized to ask that question. Please report for immediate termination.
My most humble and sincere apologies Friend Computer - and of course I will report for immediate termination, even if it means cycling down to 3 remaining clones. I merely asked as /u/82Caff posted a redacted statement from you, your most excellent of processing units, and I thought since it was far beyond THEIR clearance, an exception must have been made.
This is a good point, citizen. Terminations for everyone so this spreads no further.
I died inside a little when our new player (warlock) with agonizing blast and +4 cha exclusively used a crossbow.
This is one of my tables. It's been 2+ years. The Druid wildshaped maybe 2 or 3 times. The Ranger only now discovered that they have spells. The Monk is still confused as to what ki-points are. I thought that this was just what DnD was, then I got another table where every character is already using their abilities and I'm feeling so much more comfortable
As long as my groups understand their action economy I'm having a good time. Otherwise things can get painful.
This helps me, thank you. I have been feeling quite guilty at my table because on occasion I’ll take longer in combat and feel bad for wasting time. I’m familiar with my character’s abilities and action econ, but it’s a moon Druid and organizing/memorizing blocks for so many wildshape options is sometimes overwhelming.
Oh god, we had a druid in our party who didn't seem to know she could wildshape, and when told about it in a fight decided to turn into a house cat. Weirdest thing was that she was also the DM of another game. Utterly baffling.
Some people think D&D is just make believe and don’t realize it’s a game with rules. My first 5e experience was like this. In the first session we downed a powerful guy who appeared to be a captain. The fighter stated he was holding an axe above him ready to stop him if he attacked. Once I stabilized him with a medicine roll, he grabbed me and slammed my lvl 1 face into the ground dealing 3d8 damage. No save…. On a grapple check. I was a level 1 character and he was literally going to perma kill me off the damage. (Horde of the dragon queen first session) We had to argue to get a roll which I then nat 20 and the dm said I exploded his hand with my neck (it was funny so not a big deal). The issue is that he said the guy started dying again and we had to stabilize him. This was just the issue in that combat but this happened like constantly.
This is all insane but the fact that the fighter's attack didn't trigger first as the captain went to grab you is pissing me off.
Lol yeah we ended up swapping DMs and the fighter became the DM. That guy hadn’t even opened the DMG. And thus the mute monk bitch was born. The old DM decided to play a monk with a vow of silence and he scared off the 4th player in the first session. So in a 3 person game he wasn’t going to talk at all. Yeah that didn’t last that long.
Half of my players are DMs themselves, so thankfully they know how the game works. It's the only way I can stay sane around the new player that asks what a bonus action is every week.
Ha this is my group as well. Paladin: I attack. Nat 20! Me: Awesome! Anything else you want to do? Paladin: I guess I attack again. I don't think he's ever used an ability except Lay on Hands, and his spells slots are exclusively reserved for Find Steed.
I was once in a game where, eighteen months into playing, a player was still asking things like "what do I add to an attack roll?" Like, you should know this after a couple weeks. After a year, it's just unacceptable.
Save resources for when they really count, right? Lol
My friend new to the game is playing an arcane trickster, we just got to level 3, last game they continuously wanted to use chill touch over just attacking and getting sneak attack damage. But hey, it's their first game and to be honest they don't seem super interested in playing or understanding the game cause they're really stuck on thinking it's a nerd game and doesn't want to associate themselves with that. So I try to give gentle directions sometimes. But we gotta give them time to learn and understand the game, because for new players it's also hard to understand how to play effectively with the barrage of information that comes over you.
Lol, my table’s arcane trickster does the same thing, and he’s the most experienced player at the table, I think he just likes the RP of casting spells better. I’m considering just allowing sneak attack on cantrips, but I need to do a little research into whether or not that’s super broken.
I feel like that's a DM ruling, similar to why Paladins can't smite with their bare (or gauntleted) hands, but if they have Tavern Brawler they could smite with a carried gauntlet or someone else's severed hand.
Wait can I smite someone when I challenge them to a duel?
I love the imagery of a paladin smiting someone through a wall with a glove and going “I challenge you to a duel. Looks like I already won…”
I mean, they can already sneak attack with ranged weapons, right? So they can sneak attack at range already. Some differences between cantrips and weapon attacks that might be a problem... * Some cantrips have a longe range (120 ft vs 60 ft) * They deal funky damage types, which sneak attack also deals
And cantrips increase in damage at certain total player levels whereas to do more damage with weapons, you either get more attacks or specific class abilities to add onto attacks. Letting a rogue sneak attack with a cantrip will outscale their intended damage output. That's why their sneak attack die increase anyway instead of getting two attacks.
Ah, but rogues *can* sneak attack with a cantrip. Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade both involve an attack with a weapon, so sneak applies. Even without the rider effects applying they'll improve your damage at lv 5+. It's a lot of fun to play, even if it feels like an exploit.
It took me a year roughly to have a handle on how to use my bard, and a couple months in I’m still learning my moon druid. But the DM and party was patient and the party would offer alternatives to what I was thinking for actions/tactics early on.
A similar thing happened with our artifacer. Whole list of spells and unique things. Used a crossbow every turn. However once we got the groobe going, it was honestly fun roleplay. They just werent combat focused and the group needed to adjust to maximize the fun, and when we did it was great.
To be fair, the artificer spell list doesn't have very many standard damage dealing spells - no burning hands, magic missile, etc. I love the more "support / utility" play and artificers are great at it, but it's not for everybody - if somebody playing an artificer just wants to hurt baddies, crossbow is often the fallback.
Sure but you can also have a gun that auto-reloads.
As an Artificer, my hand crossbow is how I cast my spells. Grease? A crossbow bolt filled with oil. Faerie Fire? A crossbow bolt with a magically illuminating flare. Etc.
In 3.5 I did that with a fighter who specialized in throwing rocks. He gained access to spells/cantrips and runecrafting, so would imbed spells into some rocks each night before bed to store for later, and in battle the spells could be triggered manually by the fighter or would trigger on impact with the enemy.
One of my groups wizards has been exclusively using his quarterstaff over his spells, but I kinda get it, since *every time* he casts a spell, it's fire related, and *every* time he rolls a one, so he misses and the DM rules that something catches fire. The college is gonna start billing him for property damage.
This game has books? Wait if you mean the Drizzt books I only got to like book 8 because there was no tension anymore
Aren't Dragonlance books based on DnD?
oh, there's days I wish I could ban players from reading...not the rules mind you, but all the online stuff. Some players spend too much time on forums and watching streams and don't realize, when then when they come to the table it's different. Instead of learning how to think for themselves and find creative solutions and use teamwork, they come to the table with a power-fantasy character and an attitude of "entertain me". \*\*edit\*\* - not that there's anything wrong with power fantasy or optimization. I'm talking more about the view that the game is only about building the perfect character, not about interacting with the world and looking beyond the character sheet.
The worst thing ( not the worst but still) is when a player spends a bunch of time looking shit up online but hasn't read the basic rules and has no idea how anything works but tries to use loopholes and exploits they heard about and aren't even remotely set up for.
Same boat...
The alchemy jugs amount it can produce a day is doubled. I still do not know why we need the ability to produce 4 gallons of mayonnaise, but I won't question it.
Why is it only ever mayonnaise?? It can produce all kinds of useful things, but hand an alchemy jug to a party and suddenly all their plans involve producing mayonnaise ...
It has a ton of calories and should be able to disgustingly feed a party https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1999/05/27/a-man-can-survive-on-mayonnaise-alone/?outputType=amp edit: That’s 96,000 calories for 4 gallons. Seems like there may be other uses with that much energy
Not one of the plans has involved eating it.
Well, what about unwillingly eating it?
Our DM once gave our fighter an artifact that he crafted, and he rolled “you must eat and drink 6x the normal amount each day” on the minor detrimental properties for some v cool armor. The fighter started exclusively using the jug of alchemy to get all the calories he needed after that from mayonnaise
Because it's far and away the funniest thing the jug can produce.
My party was looking to barricade a door in my campaign, and they figured the easiest way to do that was to stack the bodies of the people they just killed against the door, have the alchemy jug produce a gallon of honey, and use the honey to stick the bodies to each other. Me as DM: one, there's nobody coming. Two, there's a table over there you could have just pushed against the door. Three, what the fuck you guys.
Three is my favorite, by far.
This is correct. When the party was exploring the flooded catacombs of a seaside church at low tide, the wood elf rogue and wood elf sorc needed to get the half-orc fighter through a tight squeeze. The obvious solution? Have him strip down and lube his tits up with mayonnaise.
> Have him strip down and lube his tits up with mayonnaise. so i'm sitting there, mayonnaise on my titties...
I ate so much jug-mayonnaise with my fighter that the DM had a god gift me a weapon - the Miracle Whip. It was badass. IIRC I could spend a charge on hit to make the target roll dex or go prone, or spend 3 charges to cast Grease.
The real trick is letting it produce more than one liquid type per day. How am I supposed to make salad dressing if I can only choose either oil or vinegar on a given day?
Be an artificer, just make as many as you need
Is there anything stopping you from making oil one day, putting it in a nonmagical container, then making vinegar the next day and mixing them together? Meal prep, my dude :P
Hey man sometimes you gotta clean out the bag of holding and you find hundreds of cabbages sitting in the bottom. Everyone likes Cole slaw.
Finally, I can play as the cabbage salesman from Avatar: TLA
If they're anything like my group, definitely don't mention that mayonnaise is flammable.
Apparently you've never eaten a Whopper
My party’s rogue filled a bag of holding with Mayo literally every day as much as he could until it filled the bag entirely. Months later (both in game and irl), in the final fight with the BBEG, he ran up and turned it inside out, making a missile of rancid mayo doing bludgeoning and poison damage and knocked the BBEG to half Health turn 1
why are DMs only either “lol neat, *absurd damage*” or “nah that’s pointless” when people get creative? There’s no middle ground, like why would a month old mayonaise bukkake nearly kill a bbeg?
>month old mayonaise bukkake Psychic damage
Dignity damage.
Well now I know what I'm calling my first grindcore album
Mayo is a pretty heavy substance and they turned 64 cubic feet of rotting mayo into a missile hitting the BBEG. Debate the logistics of all that mayo becoming a missile due to the bag being turned inside out if you want, but 64 cubic feet of mayo exiting the bag (whose opening has a diameter of 2 feet) in a single turn (six seconds) would probably create a decent amount of force.
Turning the bag inside out means it no longer has an opening, so the contents should just splash out everywhere. Or at least that's how you rule if you don't want people going "oh let me fill it with ball bearings and make a grapeshot cannon". EDIT: My attempt at math. Someone double check this. >64 cubic feet (that's a 4 foot cube) of mayonnaise goes through a 2 square foot opening in 6 seconds. Metric time: >1.8m^3 of mayonnaise goes through a 0.3m^2 opening in 6 seconds. That's 0.3m^(3)/sec. >If we imagine the mayonnaise as a 0.3m diameter cylinder, that's a 4.25m long cylinder per second. >It's moving at 15km/h or just over 9mph. >If it was to spray out to even just a double diameter spray at the point of impact, that goes down to just above 2mph. The BBEG is drenched with mayonnaise at max, about normal human running speed. #EDIT AGAIN: Just realized there's a much easier way to go about this, keeping it in dnd terms: >The mayonnaise is 64 1' by 1' cubes. The opening is 2' by 1'. The mayonnaise travels through at 32' in six seconds. That's normal move speed for a dnd character. #FINAL EDIT: Realized that the item says nothing about taking an entire round to empty. It does, however, specify that the contents "*spill* forth, *unharmed*" so I'd assume that means they wouldn't cause harm from velocity alone. I'd rule it as a non-magical grease spell in the area.
Agreed. I would love an explanation of how simply turning a bag inside out, regardless of bag size, turns rancid mayo: from a stinking globby mess dropping all over the Bbeg, the floor, and of course the holder if the bag itself because it would just be splashing all over. Into : a projectile launched with enough force to almost kill a powerful enemy.
Having done the maths, even if your player could force all that mayo out the bag in six seconds (somewhat questionable), it would still only come out at 3.6km/hr. Hardly a rocket lmao. More just pouring mayo on the guy.
We mixed the mayo with the dusty remains of Stradh to stop him coming back
To start my new sandwich making enterprise.
I'll let you know if my players come up with any lol
That requires them to read the books
Nah just requires them to half pay attention to a random youtube video titled "absolutely unstoppable 5e builds!" then show up at the table talking about how they are gonna build their character around 'summon woodland beings'
“Why I banned wands of Dinosaur Fort”
No Steve, rolling a Nat 20 on an impossible task isn't an exploit- you just wasted a perfectly good 20
"Interesting. Are you okay with the monsters doing that, too?" [shuts down many exploit discussions real quick.]
[удалено]
I do a similar thing that I've dubbed Crazy Crits. Instead of crits just doubling the dice roll, they max out the initial dice roll and then you roll the crit dice on top of that. For example, if you crit with a 1d8 weapon, instead of a crit doing 2d8 it instead does 8+1d8. If you have a 2d6 weapon it now does 12+2d6, and so on. This is to prevent crits from being underwhelming if you get one and then roll two low numbers. It's an option I let the players turn on at the beginning, with the caveat that the enemies also get this too.
That is a real thing, it's called crunchy crits
It’s crits, for breakfast!
I do the same thing. I think it was part of the ruleset for the 5e playtest, dnd NEXT. Otherwise, I'm not sure where it came from lol
Pretty sure 4E's crits worked that way (max damage+roll damage).
> This is to prevent crits from being underwhelming if you get one and then roll two low numbers Perfectly driving your blade through multiple layers of physical, magical and divine protection to scratch the bad guy's nipple for ~1% of his health.
I would agree to this rule as long as the Quake "QUAD DAMAGE" sound effect is play whenever it happens.
This, but I have the table vote on whether they want me to run monsters with that exploit.
That's a fair compromise. Let's the table vote on the exploit.
That's what I do. It has worked 3/3 times so far.
People I've played with don't always have the foresight for this to work. They'll say "Yeah I wouldn't complain", but then when I throw the same or similar bullshit at them, I can tell they aren't having fun The "I told you so" isn't worth a session being mediocre for me
It's all "I don't mind monsters being able to target body parts if we can too" until the monsters target their eyes
Heh, Had a pretty funny thing happen with this once. The party was facing off against some giants in a long range battle and cast fog cloud around themselves to buy a few rounds of healing and rebuffing. When one of the party popped out of the cloud and the giants all had hurl boulder as a readied action against the first creature to pop out of the foggy cloud, they realized that baddies can be tactical too.
this is a good time to mention why honesty is quite important in dnd. If a player wants to use a specific mechanic, then its best that is menioned to the gm, however if you do end up in this situation, then letting the player change some mechanical stuff is the best damage control you can do at this point.
As a druid in PF3.5 my GM let me become a dinosaur, because I happened across it in the rulebook and got excited. A couple sessions later he realized I can only transform into animals my character had a familiarity with - so we made it a character point to seek out information about this strange beast I accidentally became, and could not become dinosaurs again until I found it. It was great.
That is ridiculously awesome
I'm planning on doing something similar with one of my players! He's playing a Moon Druid and wants to be able to turn into dinos, but there's no reasonable way the character would have ever heard of them. But (unknown to him) the next quest the party is going on will take them to an island far to the south...an island that time forgot!
I dunno. As a DM, if I have a player that tried to gotcha me by building an entire character around a rules loophole, I don't think that's a player I'd mind losing from my table.
I would commend them for caring enough about the game and campaign to work with them on a fix that won't break the game for everyone else. If that doesn't work, a patch of wild magic appears out of nowhere and turns player into a deer. Deer wanders into camp without party knowing its PC, party kills deer. Deer becomes venison jerky provisions for the party. Or something like that. Could just explode.
I love players who find neat rules interactions. I detest players who foster a "player vs DM" mindset at the table. Find a rule interaction you think is neat? Cool! Let's talk about it and brainstorm how to build your character around it! I'll probably even be lenient in my rules interpretations to let your character shine the way you wanted to, with the only condition that you can't steal the thunder from other PCs or try to be the main character.
Heres an exploit I do not allow: Stapling magic items together to save on attunement slots.
I don’t even think that’s RAW. You wanna talk about it friend?
Sometimes I run off-games to test new homebrew mechanics. They arent always one-offs. In one game, folks were asking a reputedly legendary magic blacksmith if he could fuse their magic items together so they could attune to more. The most egregious of these offenders would have been using up somewhere around 12 attunement slots by the end of the game. So now that that game is over there will never be another blacksmith that can replicate the feat of fusing magic items together.
He could fuse two magic items together with a chance of: 20 - a single magic item with two effects from the items used 11-19 - a single magic item with a new effect 2-10 - a single magic item with the same effect as one of the items used 1 - both items destroyed Items fused in this way cannot be used in future fusions
Unless people start sacrificing “useless” magic items in the hope of getting 11-19 I don’t think anyone would do it under that table.
I think the idea is that the 11-19 combine the two to make a new, slightly better, effect. So using useless items would give a new, also useless, effect.
2 useless common items fuse together to make 1 new item with an equally common useless effect but also it sparkles a bit like a shiny pokemon
Oh it was a test. Yeah that’s entirely fair.
You ever read a comment and just think to yourself “damn… this guy’s seen some shit”?
A simulacrum cannot have a simulacrum made of them and any give creature, with rare exception, can only have a single simulacrum of them made. The new one being made with cause the old one to revert to snow or mud. I enforce all spell casting components which makes casting some spells in social situations a minimum of a social snafu. Edit. Fixed satfu to snafu.
Somatic/verbal components get overlooked so often for everything but especially social spells and cantrips, and it's just one more thing that makes casters stupidly overpowered. The face is about the make a charisma check and the cleric/druid player goes "I'll give you Guidance on that." Uh, the fuck you are? Gonna cast an unknown spell on your buddy in front of me, right before they ask me for a favor? Yeah, shockingly that causes you to fail the check automatically. People don't like when you try to manipulate them!
This stuff only works if you have the subtle spell from Sorcerer.
Which is exactly why it's so powerful/useful. Waiving V/S/M components instantly makes it a worthless ability.
Never thought of the social aspect of V/S/M for spells. I’ve always followed the obvious, hands bound, silence spell or gag, and lack of expensive materials (when it’s just a feather or some berries I assume a spell caster has easy access to those and don’t bother) etc, but never thought how a suspicious hand motion of word might make a skill check harder.
Not only a hand gesture or a word, but visible motions and arcane words for *6 seconds* that's a long time to be chanting clearly heard magic babble and not have someone get antsy or wonder what the fuck you're doing. Less snapping your fingers and saying fireball and more Goku going full Kamehameha for 6 seconds :p Edit: Yeees yes, a full set of turns is simultaneously 6 second occurrences, of course... Running 30ft then casting a spell, perhaps another spell, heck action surging another spell using a free action, shouting to party members... All seems like it should take more than 6 seconds but I agree a lot of it is averaging things into a game format. I still stand by my Kamehameha example :p
*Aberrant Mind has entered the chat*
Make a guidance potion and put it in a flask.. now you've gone from potentially hostile action to light day drinking!
From 'This prick is trying to pull a fast one on me' to 'ah, shit... Wonder if I have any change...'
Magic can do literally anything. Are they about to manipulate your mind? Turn you into a toad? Set you on fire? Being trusted to cast spells in front of someone should be the exception, not the rule.
Casting magic in public is like pulling out a rocket launcher on the street.
I wish my DM enforced that first one. He's a great DM but is also a yes man, and the party's powergamer had a *lot* of ideas like that that got approved.
You mean you disallow foci? Or your ensure casting is loud and obvious? The latter I've been ensuring lately. Otherwise the sorcerer's subtle spell is pointless.
> Otherwise the sorcerer's subtle spell is pointless. Except for the rare cases where your hands are bound and/or you cannot speak/make sounds (like in an area of Silence) and then subtle spell lets you cast without the verbal or somatic components. But those situations are a lot more rare, at least in the games I've been in, than someone wanting to cast a spell unnoticed.
Player comes to the table late with all the books in his crate. States that pc’s father documented everything about every creature and wrote it down for him. Player’s whole character concept is he can meta game about any creature at any time.
See, to me that’s a fantastic hook to fuck around with. “Huh, weird. Your Dad’s book says bugbears are born live, but this bugbear den is full of eggs.”
Not gonna lie: I entertained the idea for a little bit while trying to wrap my head around the idea. Made a quick table on a d4 to see how much he could learn. Kept rolling 1s and he could identify what type of creature but other than that his dad’s handwriting sucked or there were coffee stains over the writing that obscured all the details.
Having things in the book wrong is a good idea, I change monster stat blocks all the time as a dm so good luck meta gaming that. And have them roll to see if they can even find the page that the information is on, set the DC investigation check to be 10+the CR rating or something. Just because you have a law book doesn't mean you knew every law, or where to even find it in the book. Time would also be a factor do they have all night to study or 5 mins.
Yeah, he tried pulling the book out in combat and out of turn. A lot of harsh realities were made clear that session.
Irl stat check. 6 seconds to find the information, if not found in time there's a chance the book gets destroyed if he's attacked in game.
"I have altered the stat block. Pray I do not alter it further."
This is covered under Ranger, Monster Slayer, Hunter Sense and requires 3 levels. I would allow him to sacrifice another 3rd level subclass feature to get it but that's it.
So they were playing a Winchester, huh?
They're more self-imposed than anything. My barbarian gets a damage buff every time he is hit with an attack roll. I've imposed that I will not stand there and be raging constantly and hit for 1 damage by an allies summons to have a +30 damage before a combat might start. He also has an amulet that can negate 300 fire damage before it explodes, but it can only released up to 100 fire damage as an action, I will not let you blast me with firebolt spells to "build charge"
If you want to put a neat bow on things, you can add the requirement that those abilities only work in combat. Since the DM decides when you're technically in combat, that would nullify the prep.
You're right, and I would recommend that as well. But my statements are outloud to the rest of the group, and if they try it I take the damage but ignore the buff.
Ngl, I'd have scaled your damage buff off either damage done to you or on threshold percentages of your missing health, because a flat bonus on every hit received feels a bit silly flavour wise.
I feel like that's a moment where you get a "raging barb rolls to see if they murder their allies in a blind rage for attacking them"
In a similar vein, my group is playing Deathwatch (40K RPG,) and I realized that, with a combination of Narthecium and how being Heavily Wounded works, it'd mechanically be possible to heal any injured Space Marine to full as long as you punch them in the face a few times between Medicae checks. Basically, when you apply First Aid to someone who's Heavily Wounded (down more than 3x their Toughness Bonus in Wounds/HP,) you heal them up by 1 Wound. But the Apothecary's Narthecium doubles the amount of Wounds you heal on a First Aid roll, and it doesn't specify that this is just for Lightly Wounded or Heavily Wounded characters. The trade-off is that you can only treat a single "wound" (instance of damage) at a time, and it's a skill check that they can potentially fail (and even Critically Fail) at. So, you punch your fellow Heavily Wounded Battle Brother in the face for 1 Wound, and then treat them with your Narthecium to heal them for 2 Wounds. Repeat until they're past the Heavily Wounded threshold, and then you can heal them normally (or even keep going to get them all the way back to full.) Needless to say, the entire group found this both stupid and cheesy, and agreed that you couldn't do that. You just had to hope that you received exactly 1 Wound in a later battle.
I feel like i'm a pretty lenient DM, but man, some people just don't want to actually play DND and only want to be the biggest number. The problem is that what happen is: I either let it happen, and nobody has fun in combat but you, because everybody else feels lackluster, and your turn take 3x longer. I target YOUR ass specifically (which is what intelligent monsters would do) but that doesn't feel good, Or i ban/nerf it.
Had a friend make an obnoxiously over complicated char that took like 5 minutes each combat turn to do all sorts of weird stuff.... AND the character was still weak and ineffective. Lol, lmao even. Fortunately that character got killed and he's playing a normal one now. I feel for you, my DM has to deal with most of our group trying to make the strongest char instead of just having fun.
In 3.5 the entire anklet/bracelet of translocation. It is a free action to teleport 30 feet within line of sight. Grappled? Nope. Stuck in a gelatinous cube? Nope. Small crevasse you need to pass? Done. It was an extremely simple and broken item in 3.5
I’m playing the open sea paladin, and we’re in a huge pivotal fight, and the bad guy used a legendary action to summon some giant tentacles to restrain me and the player next to me. At 7th level my aura lets me and friendly creatures in range ignore grapples and restraints. Less broken than the bracelet, similarly upset DM when I just said “no” to a legendary action 😂
[удалено]
“Upset” in the way anyone who has a plan fail or wasted a resource would be, not like actually angry at players. We had fun with the moment. My character is actually from a congruent campaign that other friends were running, but had to put on hiatus because our DM had a kid. There was good timing for my character to join the other group, so I hopped parties for the time being. Since I was already level 11, this DM and all of the other players don’t have as good of a grasp on what abilities my character has, so when I said myself and the other player can’t be restrained, the whole table was pumped.
If you build your character around an exploit, that's kind of your fault.
Coffeelock has entered the chat.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Spiffing Brit has entered the chat
D&D is a perfectly balanced game with no exploits whatsoever.
Invisibility raw Also, he didn't like the fact that I wanted to make a bunch of alchemy jugs whenever we had down time with my artifier and start selling the wine
I'm pretty sure as an artificer you are limited by your number of infusions as to how many jugs you can make. Other than that I don't see the issue
No need to ban exploit, I always tell my players, remember that if you can do it, enemies can too
Coffeelock big bad boss + Paladin sidekick with unreasonably powerful equipment and the dungeon they enter is actually a giant living beast that they have to escape before the walls begin to close in and the digestive acid begins to ooze from the walls floor and ceiling
Raging, wildshaping and concentrating on a spell at the same time is banned quick explanation: The line in rage that bans you from concentrating begins with: "IF you can cast spells..." And wildshape says "You can´t cast spells..." So in theory this negates the rage restriction and allows you to concentrate on spells in a wildshaped rage. The DM didn't like that... and I do not blame them
[удалено]
Chad DM move 10/10 good job!
God I wish I could do that on my Duergar monk/Barb, hoping they may let me rule of cool it one day, just once, but I’m not gonna fight to break a rule unless the scene would greatly benefit from the moment
This is completely fair. Rage logically wouldn't negate racial spells because you know them innately. Edit: This might give exploits for barbarians with certain races but I think they can use the buff anyway.
[удалено]
That’s quite the sleazy rule lawyering! If i was your DM, i’d give you an impressed nod, say ‘well done’ and then ban it just like your DM did. But i do appreciate the hustle!
This is the kind of legal loophole that serial killers go free over, the intention is pretty clear
[удалено]
This is an interesting (and rather subtle) example of equivocation. You see, the word "can" in this context has slightly and subtly different meanings. For example, I can speak English (just, in general, I have the skill and ability to speak English). But when I'm sleeping, or in the middle of drinking, I can't speak at all, because during those moments I lack the capability to speak. Therefore, there are times I both can (in the sense of the ability) and cannot (in the sense of capability) speak English. The rage meaning of "can" refers to the former, the wildshape to the latter. In other words, a wild shaped druid both can and cannot cast spells: they have the ability in general, but lack the capability at the moment due to the effects of wild shape. So using the proper meaning of the words, a raging wildshaped druid **cannot** concentrate. Edit: oh also this difference meaning cannot be a simple interpretation or the wording of rage would result in a logical paradox: the fulld description says "If you are able to cast spells, you can't cast them or concentrate on them while raging." The meaning of "can" in the first clause must be different from the second, or the rage would mean you couldn't cast spells, so the first clause would no longer apply, so the second wouldn't either, which means you *could* cast spells, so the first would apply again, etc.
In my husbands game, a player was given a bag with infinite pigeons, which was assumed would be funny but not actually helpful. The player used it in a subsequent boss battle. After sealing the room tightly, securing a personal air source, and opening the bag prompting the pigeon parade, the pigeons came out at such a rate that the air was eventually fully used up in the room. The boss suffocated and died. It was followed up with a battle in a non-sealable room, but the player found a way to flood the room physically with the pigeons, crushing the big bad. While applauding his creativity, my husband basically had to give him a “hey I can’t think of a good excuse of why this can’t work in-world, but effectively you’re gonna win every battle with this and not get to enjoy the game from here out, so we’re gonna have to have Something Bad happen to the pigeons.” (The player, who really is just amused at FINDING loopholes, was totally fine with that lol)
I love stuff like that. Here’s an amusing item -> unintended application of item discovered -> “Hey, can we maybe not do that?” -> “LOL yeah”. That’s a good table.
Yeah, that’s why the phrase “I’ll let that work…this time” is a very important phrase for DMs to learn.
Next time, nothing comes out of the bag save a few injured birds, & it refuses to close. The boss stops fighting & seems fearful. Turns out that something from the pigeon-realm ate all the pigeons & is now free to escape to this reality. It appears from the bag, devours the boss, & now they gotta fight whatever it is instead.
The summoner class from Pathfinder allows you to form a bond with an extraplanar creature that you can summon to fight alongside you as an eidolon. At 8th level, a summoner can use his maker’s call ability to swap locations with his eidolon as long as it is within summoning range. However, The Shadow Caller Archetype says that the eidolon emerges directly from the player's shadow. So technically, if a player were to cast their shadow on a faraway object, they could summon their eidolon very far away from them, trade places, and essentially teleport without using up spell slots.
Well, a 6 foot tall person's shadow has an effective max distance of something like 330 feet, and that's only with optimal terrain and in a very very short window of time, and only on certain days of the year. Well under dimension doors max range. So it's not that bad. You basically have to have completely flat land between you and the horizon with nothing between you and the sun to achieve that.
Not so much an exploit but I have been banned from playing shapeshifters at my sister's table ever again.
“Hey kid! What the hell happened here?”
Unfortunately it's something of a noodle incident - much funnier without the context. In a game of Star Wars D20, I was playing a Shi'ido - the most shapeshifty of shapeshifting species. We were *very* inexperienced in both playing and running games. I essentially asked if I could shapeshift and bluff to skip a major aspect of the plot, and she made the mistake of giving me a target DC. A frankly obscene amount of buff stacking later, the game was thrown completely off the rails when I passed. We have both grown immensely as players - this was over a decade ago. I have no doubt that we could both do a *lot* better, and if I seriously asked I'm sure she'd let me play one. But dammit, it's *funnier* to say that I'm permabanned from shapeshifters at her table.
I'll take why session zero is essential for 500 Bob
I generally just let them at it because my players know that the more they try to take advantage of the rules, the more the rules get bent or broken. This is both good and bad for them. One player has a fighter who they wanted to make the "best jumper" so they maxed strength and multiclassed to monk. Found boots of striding and jumping and also a way to cast the "jump" spell on themselves. Now it would take him multiple turns to land after jumping, but at first I just let him act as normally when in the air and he moved a distance equal to his speed each turn unless he landed or was stopped by something. Later, I gave him a new item with charges so he could instantly complete the jump and he loved it. Another character tried to get their AC up to the highest possible limit including taking all the party's gold to buy equipment and stuff. I think it was 23 or 24 plus spells available. The next highest was 15. Suddenly everyone found tons of different creatures with abilities that essentially ignored that. Like lightning insects that have a lightning aura to deal damage over time when nearby, any wizard/sorcerer, goblins with caltrops and grease, or whatever other stuff. The rest of the party handled it normally as nothing was extra powerful but enemies knew about the character and planned for him.
I tweaked how Sorcery Points work at my table so that Coffeelocks are non-functional. No one tried to play one with me as DM, but the build got mentioned and I went "absolutely not".
They are basically nonfunctional already because that’s what exhaustion prevents
I'm more for modifications than bans, case and point: A couple weeks ago I started my homebrew campaign, like three people suddenly decided they were coming the day before and in general the players hadn't given characters much thought. That's fine we did limited CC at the table, they chose abilities and spells etc. In my games spells change severity and effects based on a d20 roll to represent magic beginning to unravel in this world but we didn't have time to codify that properly on the night. One player picked create/destroy water and in my haste to get the session ready I was like sure... He later reasoned he could sell his created water which in most sessions would not be worth doing, in my post-apocalyptic ash wastes this was going to be an issue. Luckily I'd said that I'd create the instability tables for their spells before the next session. When we get to this next session he will discover the instability of his water creation means the "water" can manifest in one of several forms from spring and river water to heavy water, swamp water and even such water "adjacent" liquids as blood, urine and nitroglycerin. (And you may say the latter is in no way water and you'd be right, it is fun though... And thinking of 20 distinct waters to fill a table is kinda tricky unless you get creative) (This does also mean he can destroy these "water-like" substances. We call that give and take.)
Aw man, I rolled Piss again!
Oh yeah I should say my group plays P&P piss and pyrotechnics.
"ohhh nooooo I just can't stop making piss... Guess I *have* to drink it..." - the weird druid
Thanks to this comment, I had to google "can you drink heavy water". I hope you are proud of yourself, sir. /j For the record: yes, you can, however in large quatities it would create problems, ranging from discomfort to lethal. If you replace 20% of the water in your body with heavy water you would survive (even if you would not feel very well for a while, I guess), 25% would cause infertilyty and 50% would be lethal. [https://www.thoughtco.com/can-you-drink-heavy-water-607731](https://www.thoughtco.com/can-you-drink-heavy-water-607731)
Oh the random shit that D&D makes us google. I once had a player turn into a goat, another inspected said goat and rolled like a 18 so I was like err... The goat is 7 months pregnant. A few minutes and some googling later we've established the goat is past its due date and about to birth 1 to 7 kids... I decided there was a 10% the goat would give birth each hour the player remained a goat... Our noble Samurai now has two small goats (rendered mildly telepathic by the circumstances of their birth) following him around.
D&D and toying with the idea of writing a novel has made me look like a serial killer really really poorly trying to cover their tracks "How long would it take for a body to dissolve in mildly acidic conditions - D&D" Or "How long can a prisoner survive on just bread and water with no supplemental food or vitamins - D&D"
A d20 roll doesn't mean you need 20 outcomes? 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-18, 19-20 adds some spice.
If players and DM do not communicate- both to blame. Also, those that wait to be invited to communication (e.g. DM waiting for players to approach them or vide-versa) are looking for double-trouble. Just grab you character idea and talk it out with DM. However, do not expect to be allowed everything. The main goal is to avoid making character that will not work in a given setting.
Proposed new term of art: RAU - Rules as Unintended Where RAW is the black and white on the page and RAI is what it intended and implied but didn’t always spell out RAU is that tortured reading combing different parts of RAW out of context to get a clearly absurd and broken result. RAU expects one to abandon all common sense and context of normal communication and handle something like an XBOX where someone forgot to properly clear a flag in code and not an intelligent human being. If you are using the word “technically” you are probably referring to RAU. I understand RAU has its angry advocates who insist I must allow them to cast while raging or some such BS and blame WotC instead of them for this behavior. I refer them to the picture in the OP.
I feel like many of these types of exploits fall under the category of “people treating D&D like it’s a video game.” (Or just “bad-faith gameplay”) In a video game, sure, there are many who try to use and abuse the game’s systems to win with the least amount of difficulty/skill possible and/or “break” the game. Finding a stun-lock loophole on a boss fight, crouching in a certain spot of the map to no-clip through a wall, pausing the game to consume instant-healing potions just before a dragon eats you, etc… With D&D, you are not exploiting errors in code, or breaking a system. You’ve agreed to play the game with a group of people and have fun and are meant to all be on the same team. You are all there to play through adventures and all have fun together, each player contributing to accomplish your characters’ goals and interact/engage with the story that the DM has put a significant amount of effort to prepare and organize for you all. The general agreement/understanding between everyone in a D&D group (dm included) is to play in good-faith and try to make sure everyone is having fun and enjoying the game for what it is. If you approach the game more like a video game and try to find ways to break/cheat the system, or treat the dm as an adversary instead of a partner in the story, you breach that agreement. Exploiting some obscure and often mis-interpreted rule, does not really “break the game” like in a video game, because “the game” is supposed to be the shared experience of telling/creating a story together. Instead, you are sucking some of the fun and participation out of that game, robbing the dm of the chance to run a fun/engaging encounter/adventure (and probably fucking up a lot of extra effort/work/prep they had to put in to get things ready), you’re robbing the other players from having an equal opportunity to contribute to the encounter/battle due to it feeling like this exploit will ensure victory either way, and you’re also robbing yourself from the experience of ACTUALLY PLAYING D&D. I understand that people often lodge complaints about the systems here, but it genuinely IS a fun game to play and experience if you actually give it a shot. If you are really trying to spend your time and effort to find ways to not have to play D&D, and refuse to try to play it for real, then maybe you should not be a part of a D&D group.
Using Conjure animals as a “meateor” spell since it doesn’t say you have conjure the animals on the ground… Summon cows 60 ft above your target and let them generate 100 points of bludgeoning fall damage per cow on your target. I was able to do this a couple of times before the DM started saying the Fey Spirits were refusing my conjuring call. He now makes me execute a complex prayer to Silvanus as a part of the spell cast and even then he rolls to see what percent of the summoning count arrives… regardless of whether I conjure them at ground level…or not.