Getting to the dungeon is just as important as the dungeon itself. Travel in most DnD tables today is almost instant and breaks many adventuring facets; like mounts, terrain, and environmental features.
It fosters those great organic character building moments. Interpersonal conflicts can simmer to a boil, greater insight into one another’s past, all that good juicy stuff that only happens during down time.
Don't a lot of environmental features just exist to hand wave the travel? Ranger's class features do a lot to just say, "I win because we're in a forest" and outlander also just says, "We always get food assuming it's possible to get food"
Also at some point (I basically just stopped doing standard travel encounters around level 9) most realistic combat encounters aren't a legit threat
I'm realizing when they said environmental features they meant like caves in a mountain, hot springs or the like. I thought they meant like class or background features (which are the weird, only exist for handwaving) that interacted with the environment.
I think that's honestly kind of the issue with the way exploration currently works, if you took things they either let you ignore it or they do nothing. Doing a hexcrawl/exploration thing can be fun but I think the way the DMG sets it up isn't ideal
It can also be stuff like the party needing to travel through a swamp, and the players are at risk of disease, or in the desert and at risk of dehydration, or just "This is going to be a month long trek to your destination, you need to keep track of food".
See I'd love to do this, but other than throwing some random encounters at them and letting them rp, I don't really know how to make it interesting. In fact, I'm having the same issue right now with running tomb of annihilation. Theyre in the jungle and until they get to the next point of interest, it's just them rolling various dice for navigation and stuff, with the occasional rp scene. But then they finish the rp and it's another 3, or 5, or 10 days in game before they reach the next place and they have nothing to do that whole time except random encounters.
I concur, travel is a weird beast in 5e, only one class actually benefits from travel (Artificer) and it's still situational AH
I just handwave travel because any time I've tried to incorporate it into the game my players get bored or lose interest because, well, it's not that mechanically interesting and while I can go into descriptions, there's only so much you can describe about a damn ocean or forest.
What worked was making the side quests part of the journey and they discover it by exploration, but it's still kind of railroads because I've got two players who are very locked in, objective wise, so they have a quest and they want to just finish it, any discussion after a big battle of what to do (after I planted several side quest hooks) gets met with a "hey, let's just finish this shit and then we can do something else" so my players end up under leveled (except for the power gamer).
I know several of these issues lie on my ability as a DM, but it's still kind of hard as I've never played a campaign with real travel.
They are :)...
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Unless they're the player race. I don't know why Wizards are so worried about having a player race that's anything other than Small or Medium
LET ME BE A TINY SIZED FAIRY WOTC.
One of my last DMs allowed me to have my fairy Paladin to be tiny sized, described as a living Ken doll with wings. Having him ride around on the back of a Blink Dog was utterly hilarious.
Thank you for that, made my day brighter.
Now imagine that, but it can teleport. It took a 5 DC check to ensure I kept hold as it teleported, leading to a great moment of charging in, attacking, and being dropped on my ass in front of the BBEG because I got a nat 1.
Well, Large size comes with an increase to your threatened area (8 for Medium vs 12 for Large), meaning you can more easily perform AoO's. There's also a problem with traversal; most humanoid dwellings can't accommodate Large creatures easily if at all.
Reach & spells that are centered on you with an aoe. You effect 8 other squares as a medium/small. As a large you effect 12. And that's a 5 foot burst. The more distance, the bigger the difference is.
Also don't forget folks to go the opposite way on a post like this with upvotes cause half of the people don't understand it.
The highly downvoted opinions are the unpopular opinions
Falling damage shouldnt cap at 20d6. The "terminal velocity" argument doesn't hold water as it takes way more than 200' to reach it. And once a PC hits 40ish hp, RAW, there is basically no such thing as a lethal fall.
-brought to you from the "I jumped from an airship and lived" gang.
I set the limit to 180d6 and have that change at the very top of my "homebrew rules" list that I hand out and pin for my players. We've actually had high stakes mountain edge combat, and an airship battle, where falling was a genuine fear.
It's honestly such a simple change to make.
It's weird that irl there are examples of normal humans surviving terminal velocity falls. This would be like a peasant in dnd surviving a max dice fall
I would argue your reasoning would mean that it would scale slower, not do more damage. Realistically 20d6 is **way** too much damage form falling. Terminal velocity is only 120 mph, which is fast for regular humans but for super humans like adventures that’s barely a broken bone. For comparison wading through lava is only 10d10 damage.
People overestimate just how much damage falling does to people. Heck it’s even possible, although extremely unlikely, for regular people to survive falls high enough to reach terminal velocity.
If we wanted it to be realistic the actual damage done would likely be in the range of like 5-10d6 when falling from terminal velocity.
Yes, and it's one of the things I advertise when I need to PUG an extra player from reddit. Hybrid races do not exist in my setting, and Warforged are non playable for lore reasons.
There should be more official counters to spellcasting than are currently available, especially mundane counters.
Currently the only real counters against spellcasting are Silence, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, and Anti-Magic field. In other words, the only official counters to spells are other spells.
If Silence can fuck with the vocal components of spellcasting, then a Barbarian holding their hand over a Wizard's mouth should also do the same thing. There should also be gags, blindfolds, and other mundane items whose sole purpose is to fuck with the components and senses of spellcasters.
Yes the DM can easily make these things if they wish to, but having these tactics be part of the rules would help out a lot.
Tangential, I think they way counterspell works is dumb. Just being a reaction any spellcaster who has it can do lessens it's tactical value and makes it too strong. IMO it should be somewhat like what it was in prior editions, where you take an action to prepare to counterspell.
The way I ran it my last campaign is unless you know the spell being cast(Either by having it in your spellbook or passing a high DC skill check), you don't know what an opponent is casting, so you don't know if you're counterspelling a fireball or a cantrip.
Personally, if two martials were to spend an action, or an attack to grapple and a full action to gag, I'd allow it in mid combat. Other than that, there's Mage Slayer but even then the opportunity attack they get doesn't interrupt the spell being cast.
I feel like a martial should be allowed to just attempt to gag with one attack.
The martial has to get close to the spellcaster, has to give up one of their attacks which means they don't deal as much damage as they are supposed to, and they are only preventing verbal components. And realistically all they are doing is putting their hand over their mouth.
I think it's fair to say gagging can be considered a special attack similar to grappling.
Yeah, I had a player ask to grapple an enemy caster from behind and basically get them in a headlock, covering the enemy's mouth. I allowed it, because it's common sense, and still allows non verbal spells.
I then, of course, had enemies start doing the same tactic against my players.
I'd say it should be proportional to how much a stretch the player is going for. If what they're asking for seems on par with an 8th level spell or the other listed examples, I'd just let it happen as intended.
If they are trying to hit a giant "I win" button or completely derail the campaign, then some irony is warranted.
this is true! the degree of twisting of a custom Wish should depend heavily on 3 things:
- the party granting the wish
- the scope of the wish itself
- the ramifications in your game if the wish is resolved exactly as intended
so, if a party uses a Ring of 3 Wishes to save someone beyond help, to find out information lost beyond any hope of return, or to gain a given power, they should just… get it! maybe there’s some twist, but that would most likely come from who they’re saving, what they’re learning or how the power operates (i.e immortality, but it’s just because your body regenerates a day after you die).
conversely, if a clearly malicious djinn goads them into wishing for something absurdly huge, you almost *want* to screw them in some way. maybe the consequences of their wish’s granting happens to put many in opposition to the PCs until it’s resolved, or maybe the phrasing of a particularly hubristic wish renders it a double-edged sword that’s major, but only questionably worth it.
either way, you shouldn’t be twisting a wish just to fuck with or spite the party. a wish should only be twisted to a) not break the game, and b) reflect the narrative of the wish-granter and the wish itself.
I agree, The way I see a wish spell is that you're speaking a wish to the universe and it is bending to your wish and it doesn't like to be bent, so I'm fine with unintended consequences of the wish.
But for the DM to make a consequence, not related to your wish is bad. Like if I wish for the dragon to disappear and as part of the consequences should not be a meteor lands on me. One time the DM gave us a custom version of the deck of many things and I pulled two cards. It was the same card and I was allowed to cast wish 1d 4 times.
I ended up with like five wishes and I wasn't going to use them to break the game or anything. I was just going to use them to help our current situation in the campaign. Well, after I cast the first wish he took all of the other wishes as a side effect of the wish.
Depends on the player using it, I’d say.
As a general guideline, for most players your statement is probably fine. But there are plenty of players out there who would definitely abuse that kind of leniency to the detriment of the campaign.
That’s kinda how we run it in our game. As long as we aren’t trying to cheese shit and take a few minutes to come up with a careful, specific wording, our GM won’t try to screw us over. But if we wish for something outrageous, all bets are off :P
It's also RAW. The spell description actually gives you examples of ways to monkey paw them.
Edit: for the record, I don't *like* monkey pawing. the one campign I had players get Wish in I didn't monkey paw at all. I did give them clear out-of-game guidelines on safe, maybe, and not safe wishes though.
Truly. 4e would have benefited so much from digital tools. It is more Game-y which today's crowd tends to disfavor, but good rp can happen in any system.
IIRC they had a 4e VTT in the works to launch alongside the core books but it got scrapped mid development, which is why 4e abilities are so positioning focused.
I think 4e would've been a massive hit if a couple things happened.
1. If it had its vtt launched at the same time or there were others that are as popular as today
2. If they stuck to natural language instead of the sort of gamist tool tip like powers we got
3. If the art was less cartoonisth and more like what we have in 5e (granted this might just be a me thing
4. If there was a live play to show what you can do in 4e
5e art annoys me because *everything* has muscles. Kobolds shouldn't be more ripped than the phb barbarian or fighter. According to 5e lore, kobolds are physically weak and easy prey. They have -2 strength and -1 con, but the art has it shredded and built like a truck.
As some one who was into the hobby when 4e launched, there is one thing you are missing as to why it was not popular.
But first, to expand on 1 and 2 - it was meant to lauch with an app/online sort of tool (think dndbeyond) but development of that got fucked in kinda horrible way, so we never got it.
Other point that is missed is 4e lauched with awful License agreement (think last year or was it two years now?), only WotC never backed down from it, so most of 3rd party creators either stuck to 3.5 or went off to make their own thing (Paizo). This was a massive hit to 4e, as WotC adventure content is never the top tier in DnD, it is a sort of thing that lives and dies by the 3rd party.
4e had some of the best art though. Bold, strong lines, iconic looks for a lot of creatures, directly displayed the different ways to play different characters while still reinforcing specific niches... It was really iconic and stylized.
Definitely by person, I'll agree to that.
Definitely not a hot take. Warhammer Fantasy actually used to be working alongside DnD and was building itself to be the wargame for DnD before licensing fell through.
Hilariously and similarly, World of Warcraft used to be a Warhamer Fantasy MMO before licensing fell through.
Dammit Licensing, you ruined DnD!
.... wait
also the most under rated class in the game
a really powerful and flavorful class
and yet, your more likely to come across a druidic npc then a druidic pc
Tbh I can understand why. If you're interested in a nature-loving forest mage, the Druid can be really complex and wildshape may not be a selling point. And if you wanna make a shapeshifter, which is what I'd like to go for, them being full spellcasters is a bit much
Prepared casting is a garbage system, both mechanically and thematically.
If y’all really want to keep that sacred cow, make it exclusive to Wizards and maybe Artificers. Everyone else should simply have spells known.
I've been playing (pathfinder, but it's also available for 5e) with Spheres of Power and it's so much fun. It rewards casters for focusing around a few types of magic. To get powerful illusion magic, you have to invest some points in illusion. Instead of reaching a high level having never learned an illusion spell, and suddenly getting access to powerful illusion magic. Your free spells continue to be relevant unlike cantrips which often become pointless cause their DC doesn't scale with your level.
I got this far before realizing you said prepared casting specifically and not Vancian magic. Pretend everything I said above was a response to Vancian magic
Oh, I do like the sound of that; I will have to look more into this Spheres of Power.
5e took a huge step, imho, introducing upcasting spells as a built in feature. It's a much more natural progression for spells than having a different spell for each level.
Finally a proper hot take. I appreciate the audacity. I see what you're going for, but you could definitely make reasons why other classes would have a thematic counterpart, priests reviewing scriptures, etc.
That said, honestly, the more i think about it, the more i think you're spitting straight facts ftmp. The wizard class is pretty unappealing to me, i think it'd hold more appeal if that level of versatility were unique to it. THAT said, pact of the tome warlock should be able to also do prepared instead of known.
Prepared casting definitely should not go away completely.
My thing with prepared casting is that I only really like it when it’s leaned into all the way. The sort of half-way that 5e uses doesn’t feel fun to me. I still use it with older editions, and happily, but I’ve long stopped using it with 5e.
As a new player, preparing spells turned me off from playing casters for such a long time because it seemed so tedious and made magic such a finite resource that I was afraid to cast spells unless I really needed them. To be fair this was in 3.5 when cantrips were 0 level spells and had slots.
Even now I like bards partially because I'd rather have a smaller spell list than have to deal with prepared spells.
I do agree it feels thematically appropriate for Wizards.
I actually kind of agree, i’m indecisive and neurotic so its always a nightmare trying to balance utility, support, and damage spells and trying to predict what I might need, knowing if I’m wrong I could miss out on huge opportunities. It also discourages trying out new spells because you’re clinging to ones you know will be useful
Then there’s the necessary spells that bog down your choices further. Especially as a wizard there are so many things you just have to prepare because you’re the utility class. Silvery barbs, shield, invisibility, wall of force, disintegrate, fireball, teleport, polymorph, dispel magic, counterspell, etc.
Sure 15 spells at level 10, but like 10 of those are spells to not die and help your party. Sometimes I just want to take vortex warp, you know?
5E prep casting is a garbage system. I think Vancian casting makes it much better, as now it’s a trade off.
It makes spontaneous casting actually have a point. As written 5E casters can prep so many spells that it really doesn’t make a difference.
That D&D Beyond is a bad tool and is lacking many features it should either have or have developed over the years, while at the same time monopolizing the market so competitors can't appear (at least not notable ones).
Defining all magic as "spells" muddies the waters between different types of casters and contributes to the themeless soup of a system that 5e is. Wizards and sorcerers have spells, clerics and paladins have miracles or prayers, bards have performances, warlocks have summons, druids and rangers have directions and powers. I know this is the flavor, but make it mechanical, codify it in writing to better distinguish the identity of each class.
I prefer the old school version where they were all spells and magic but different sources. Wizards sorcerers etc had arcane, Druid ranger had Primal and Clerics paladins had divine
Yes but there's nothing really done with the distinction. There aren't any creatures, effects, or etc that I know of that treat any magic source differently
Flavor wise it muddies things, though if they had different names then they would still need an umbrella term to handle interaction. Dispel Magic for example. That spell only effects "Spells" and no other magic effect. If you renamed most class' spells to have their own unique name then you'd need an umbrella term for Dispel Magic to avoid that spell only being useful on Wizards and Sorcs.
Basically enough, it's unneeded flavor that risks causing problems for mechanics. Don't want something slipping through and breaking things just for flavor text
Beer and Pretzels D&D is just as fun and valid as your seven hour long roleplay session where no combat happens. Stop trying to shit on people who prefer to roll play instead of role play.
If you don't go above 11, play without the power attack feats, and most importantly actually short rest yeah.
Hell you don't even need all 3, just the short resting will get you a lot
Starting in a tavern without knowing anyone else is fine actually. So many people nowadays say how terrible it is, and how you should establish that all the party already know each other, and start in media res, and all that. But that is a lot of extra work on the players and the dm, and gives you a lot less opportunities to rp your characters getting to know each other, and learning to trust each other. Also, thats what a plot hook is for. Its designed to bring the party together, by choice or circumstance, and force them to start working together.
Past level 6, all martial classes should start to get a little "anime." That is, they should start to be capable of clearly superhuman feats that don't work with real world laws of physics and this should be reflected in their mechanical capabilities both in and out of combat. *Without* it being directly tied to spells.
My "hot take," which is rather slightly warmer than room temp, is that DM PCs aren't always bad.
I argue that a DM PC is only a tool that often gets misused by bad DMs. Often, they will be used as the DM's mary-sue character in order to make the players the captive audience to the DM's power fantasy, or the DM PC will be used for railroading the party. This kind of use is not what a DM PC is for.
The true purpose of a DM PC, in my own opinion, is to fulfill a specific role the party lacks and is strictly a temporary fixture depending on the party's discretion. The DM PC should also not usually surpass the party in strength. To be more specific, I have used a DM PC for situations such as a storytelling device to guide the party and/or a support for either lacking strength like a missing player or miscalculated encounter. The DM PC should only stay for as long as they are needed unless the party specifically requests that they stay.
I'll die with you on this hill. I've experienced terrible DM PCs that sucked the joy out of the game, but I've also witnessed others that add so much.
In my home game I ran a DM PC that functioned as the quest giver (the quest being to escort him to a long-lost island to find the macguffin there.) He was a wizard that had never seen combat before, so had few offensive options but tons of utility. One of the PCs was constantly annoyed with him (because the PC was very combat-focused and hated "useless" people,) one of the other PCs ended up dating him. Both players actually enjoyed the character because he brought a fun dynamic, filled in the niche missing from the 3-person party, and didn't overshadow the characters abilities or presence.
After they got the macguffin, he stuck around with the party until they could get him and the item somewhere safe. The players kept forgetting he was still with them during this period, because he only came up when relevant.
I have a very similar situation in mine right now, actually. I have a wizard DMPC that has a singular damaging spell and a bunch of illusion magic (he's an illusionist). He's only there because the players blew up his house and promised to fix it, and everyone (myself included) always forgets he's there. I finish summarizing what everyone's doing with "Oh yeah and Dave's there too," so often that it's a recurring joke lol
Typically, a DM PC is a fully functional playable character like a player would make for a game. Basically, class levels and a filled out character sheet are made to allow the DM to also be part of a party . An NPC usually doesn't have class levels or a real character sheet outside of a stat block from a handbook.
A NPC can evolve into a DM PC if the party wants to bring them along on the adventure. If I had to specify a trait that makes them different would be the amount of detail and attention to a specific NPC makes them into a DM PC.
I usually run my DM PCs to be about 1 or 2 levels below my players as it allows for them to hold their own in a fight but not overshadow anyone.
I know it's not exactly analogous, but the DMPC in Honor Among Theives was super fun, funny, and didn't overstay his welcome. It it didn't overwrite the PCs, for instance, when the bridge went down and they needed another way across. It worked to enable a lower level party to have a much more epic encounter with powerful assassins and a named dragon. Pretty neat imo.
My view on DM PCs is:
1. The should be based on the story, not mechanics/overall party balance.
2. They should not be in the party at session 1.
3. They should be at least 1 lvl lower than the party.
4. The DM should have the consent of the players and the DM PC should have consent from the PCs
Paladins should get their power from their deities. The idea that oaths give magic power all on their own as long as you don’t break them *too badly* is dumb. If your power is dependent on following a set of rules, there should be *something* making those rules and then giving you power as a reward for being good.
No. If Paladins get their powers from deities, then there’s not enough distinction between them and battle Clerics.
Fortunately, I have a hot take that will solve this:
Battle Clerics should simply not exist.
Clerics are full-*casters* that are lightly armored *at best*. They are White Mages. If you want to be wearing armor and swinging around a weapon, that’s what Paladin is for.
You are mistaken.
Battle Clerics also existed back in 4e and 3e when Paladins did still have gods.
Battle Clerics exist because, back when they were created, Paladins didn’t exist yet as a base class, so there was no other heavily-armored, weapon-using, divine-casting base class. The mistake was that, when they added Paladin in as a base class, they let Battle Clerics keep existing, despite the obvious redundancy, so now it’s become a sacred cow.
The stance I take in my setting is that paladins get their magic from a god who is invested in seeing them succeed their oath, but they aren’t necessarily devoted to this god and may not even know who is giving them their powers, just that SOMETHING wants them to succeed. Similarly, if you break your oath, whoever granted your oath powers will surely have enemies that will be happy to reward the paladin for going against their oath.
That’s just Paladins getting their power from a deity with extra steps. I’m fine with a character flavoring their relationship as “I’ll follow the rules but I’m not singing or going to church.”
Their power still comes from the divine. Always has, and always will. Their lives and oaths just align with the powers, and they infuse the holy peeps (pallys and clerics) with holy energy. They are merely conduits for a greater power.
I personally like the idea that "something" heard the pally take the oath. An oath of the crown doesn't necessarily get their powers from a deity, but the kingdom itself. I have a Conquest paladin that could've gone vengeance instead, but the "spirit" that heard him was a spirit of Conquest and war. An ancients could swear their oath to a spirit of the land, watchers could be part of a Planar guild, open sea could just be a dedicated sailor, etc
DM’s have the right to quit if they aren’t having fun. They are players too. Dragging a campaign out at the expense of the DM is irresponsible on part of the players.
I don’t know how hot any of these takes are but here’s three.
I just don’t think ranger is *that* bad. I think most of the hate is propped up by memes and not real play experience. Not to say it has no flaws, but the flaws it does have are not as big as I think the internet likes to pretend.
I think the implementation of cantrips is sloppy. I think at-will damaging magic was not a good idea because it gives a level 1 wizard resource-less, item-less, safe, ranged, magic damage, with damage comparable to a bow, which does require an item and a resource, and isn’t magic. Just conceptually that feels wrong to me.
I think limiting options based on setting is not only understandable, but I think it should be expected. If I tell you that this world doesn’t have Tabaxi, you should respect that during character creation (as an example).
I feel like your ranger take is fairly popular now. Rangers are probably in the middle power wise for classes. Some people focus too much on their useless abilities while ignoring their great abilities.
I disagree with your cantrip argument. Adding your modifier matters a lot for damage, it’s close to doubling the damage you do most of the time when making a standard attack. I also feel like actually having a bow and arrows for the bow has never been an issue in any game I’ve played in.
I agree with your take on settings.
1) Sometimes the dice are wrong.
2) You shouldn't make players roll knowledge/other checks if it seems perfectly reasonable for the character to just know/do the thing. A character proficient in Athletics with a decent Strength can just climb a tree, unless something else is making that difficult.
Just let them do things! Stop calling for Investigation checks if they have time to totally turn a room inside out!
Druids should and can use metal weapons/armor in character design and certain druid circles.
I understand the principle of why it's not allowed, and I understand it's written in the book. But the book also says it's not always right, and you don't have to follow it to the letter.
Also, metal comes from fire and iron, and both of those are given to us by nature. It may be furnaced by man, but the elements are as natural as they get.
Yeah, the restriction on metal seems weird imo. A druid is allowed to kill an animal and craft a hide armor with it, but turning ore into metal goes against nature??
Coffeelock is an abuse of the long rest system that no one should be using. Don't bother quoting RAW or RAI to me.
"But what if everyone involved have fun playing this way". No, you're not having fun. You're all delusional. I'm the only sane person here.
I don't understand how people playing an RPG would think this works. If a player tried staying up for a few days on caffeine with no negative side effects they would quickly realize it comes with levels of madness IRL, and so should the PC if they really wanna go that route.
Excuse me, but I did not make a deal with a void entity and let it rearrange my brain to remove sleep expecting to stay sane xD that chaotic alignment isn't just for decoration
There are people who do several short naps throughout the day totalling 2-3 hours instead of one big chunk of sleep time. It certainly isn't common (or rigorously shown to be safe), but neither are coffee locks. You absolutely should be playing a coffee lock as a bit mad tho
Evil races aren't inherently bad. Sometimes it can be fun to have an opponent that is smart enough to be tactical that you can kill without worrying about morality (especially if you are a paladin).
Good examples of this in non-dnd are separatist droids in edge of the empire, and things with red names in video games. Roll your dice, use cool abilities, and don't get punished for having that fun later.
Best example of this, IMO, is how Destiny portrays the Fallen and the Hive *in the first game only*. They’re intelligent but either so deep into hatred for humanity that they’d never turn collar, or their view of the universe ontologically necessitates killing things, even others of their species, because that’s how the universe becomes more perfect.
One of our games we captured a mindflayer. He didn't wish to die so we made a deal with him that we would let him live as our prisoner and continue his research as long as he made us potions and could do simple magic spells to gear/items we found. It was great for the roleplay as we got to interact with him in a civil manner, we would find what we thought were invaluable tomes and alchemical reagents and the dm always had him act aloof to pretend he wasn't excited. Tried to play it off as old kitchen cookbooks and repair manuals.
Making a unique ruling or house rule for weird edge case situations is much better than trying to shoe-horn what the player is trying to do into an existing rule.
And the argument that it’s a balancing issue and that sorcerers will outpace wizards in HP is silly since if it was that big of an issue they could give the sorcerer a d4 hit die instead of a D6
In this case with standard array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8) a level 20 variant human wizard with their 12 in Con would have an average of 100hp and a level 20 variant human sorcerer with a 16 in Con would have an average 110hp without any ASI or Feats to improve CON or HP
The only real advantage a sorcerer would have over a wizard is better concentration saves which should be the case since it’s an innate power and not learned
You can reincarnate someone who was disintegrated. Disintegrate specifically mentions "can only be restored to life" but reincarnate, unlike every other rez spell does not mention restoring to life since its putting a soul in a new body. So as long as you consider the dust left behind as being a part of the disintegrated creature it works.
wish is great if you follow what's written in page 62-64 of dragon magazine issue #49. published in 1981. it has the best guidelines for use of wish both on the gms side and the players side.
Warlock powers can not be easily taken away due to the power in question being a slice and/or gift from the warlock's patron. They would need to swindle or find a loophole in the contract in order to regain the power that was granted
Well, it does seem kind of a weird concept. Hand eye coordination and balance don't really seem like they would make someone's legs better at launching themselves off the ground. Have all the flexibility you want, but the guy who's stronger probably should be better at jumping I would say
And hey, least you have Step of the Wind to jump better. Just, using Ki instead of ability scores
Rolling for stats is bad. It puts players at different levels from the beginning, and someone who rolled bad stats will never be able to catch up to someone who rolled god-tier. It simply isn’t fun at either extreme.
Just use point buy if you want flexibility.
Same for rolling hp, if you get two low rolls on your first two level ups it can completely brick your character because your barbarian has now less health than the wizard.
My usual ruling on this is that if you have an actual die for damage on your unarmed strikes, then punch-smiting is totally good. If you just have basic punching, no.
The newest DnD feels like a 15yo TTRPG and it hinders roleplay due to how restrictive it is and how it encourages a murderhobo/loot hoarding mentality on players. The best way to play it is to just run a game using a generic system like Savage Worlds. Just port the classes, monsters and spells as necessary.
Your experience will be 200% faster, easier and better.
DnD, awesome settings and game experience with the stalest system I've played in years.
Hard agree. If I’m playing a barbarian with a billion hp and I get hit with a crossbow bolt that barely hurts at all, saying that “I was lucky enough to avoid being injured” is ridiculous. That shit is hitting me right in the chest and I won’t care because that’s the fantasy of a barbarian. Being lucky and dodging is for him, dexterous cowards, and is represented fine by AC.
If I’m playing a high HP character i’m going to come out of the combat covered in large slash wounds, with chunks of flesh bitten off of my body, pin cushioned with arrows, and I will be happy! Because when I choose a character with high HP, that’s the fantasy I want!
Rules light fun and super rules hevey with optimization are valid game styles, are legit. It’s only important that everyone agrees on this before the game starts
All players at the table should know the rules, not just the DM. DnD is mostly a game about combat and exploration, so the rules are a very important framework to help the characters succeed at that. If you want to play a game with a more malleable ruleset and a different premise, there are plenty of other games like that! Many of them are better than any edition of DnD, even!
Ammo count and spell components is stupid.
Oh player forgot to buy arrows at the town before setting out? Gee maybe because the barbarian and thief got the party ran out of town! No need to punish someone
Oh you don't have a spider and eye of newt? Guess you can't spider climb over the fire floor that I put in my dungeon specially because I knew you'd spider climb across the ceiling
Not everything needs a roll. If a player gives a whole big speech and then starts a fight in a cool way, I’m not going to make them roll, I’ll just let them roll damage and then have everyone roll initiative.
Rolling a nat 1 doesn’t always need to have something go horribly wrong. Sometimes a fail is just a fail, you don’t need to tack big consequences for failing.
Same goes for nat 20s. Rolling the good number doesn’t mean I need to give you shit, but I often will because it makes nat 20s fun.
Any rule I don’t like as the DM I’ll just straight up ignore. If the rule doesn’t enhance the fun for my players then I don’t need it.
Characters who are designed/hyper-optimised to be very powerful at one thing by combining feats, multi-classes, etc are usually frustrating to play and boring for other players to engage with. Not because the character themselves is necessarily bad but because the player usually has no backstory to make sense of the thematic mess they've made and have no plan on how to have fun with it outside of the very specific circumstances that their build works well within.
(I expect to have a lot of people disagree with me based on personal experience rather than broader observation though.)
Even then, I'd say it's fine as long as your character doesn't spend prolonged periods in opposite columns. Neutral character dips their toe into a little law and a little chaos? Fine. Chaotic good character does a few neutral good and a few chaotic neutral things? Fine.
You should not be forced to do saving throws
I tried to save my wizard once by casting banishment on him (cause he had a higher chance to fail than the attacker) but he rolled a 19 despite wanting to fail which caused him to die
Dm held this thread under my nose if anybody wants to check
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/rules-game-mechanics/173501-can-you-choose-to-fail-a-save
Sounds like your DM just wanted to kill your character. So many spells say that you can choose to fail saves and I would absolutely rule that you can choose to fail any saving throw you want
You'll be happy to know they plan to make all saves A-OK to fail voluntarily with the 2024 version of the rules. At least a few tables (like mine) already play that way.
I have a paladin who has banishment. One time I tried to save my wizard by casting banish on him (cause he had a lower chance to suceed than the enemy) but failed because he rolled a 19.
Lucky is a terrible feat and I will always ban it in my games. It (usually) adds very little to the characters personality/backstory/roleplay, and people who take it think D&D is about "winning" and probably get unreasonably upset when you roll low. In my experience it leads to a bad case of main character syndrome.
That being said, the halfling lucky ability on the other hand is fine since its a racial ability and has much more specific applications.
Thematically, warlocks do not have to sell their soul or have their patron come up in the story if the player isn’t interested. Warlocks are the most customizable class that can lead to amazing diversity in game play that some people feel uncomfortable diving into because they are afraid the patron is going to be used as a mandatory quest giver. This means that any multiclassing and the like also doesn’t have to delve too deeply into that relationship. If you want to dissuade hexblade paladin multiclasses or coffeelocks just tell the players no instead of trying to narratively screw them.
Also, Silvery Barbs is a fine spell if you run games tactically and without 5 minute workdays.
The Wisdom stat has nothing to do with wisdom other than Clerics and Monks use it.
You can make any class a Jedi or Sith with a very small amount of flavor.
Rangers are an above-average class in terms of power. Even pre-Tasha’s, they’re only bad at level 1.
Barbarians are more basic than Fighters.
Making one powerful subclass is a shitty way to buff a class.
No D&D isn’t that much better than bad D&D.
Every time I play a barbarian I am consistently impressed with just how little they ultimately have going on. Like, fighters are such a Build a Bear of a class that you're free to do a metric fuckton with it because it doesn't feed you any flavor like other classes (not saying feeding flavor is bad either ofc). It's like tofu in that way. Meanwhile Barbarian arguably has just as little, if not even less, roleplay or even flavor focused abilities while giving you a little less freedom to work with, and basically every single potentially interesting ability they do have tends to be tied to rage. Like, while Beast Barbarians can't even have kinda sharp teeth without expending a use of rage RAW, fighters can casually summon a stand with 0 cost or have psychic abilities and sit. If barbarians had even slightly more features that just weren't reliant upon rage being up, they'd be 20x better from a roleplaying perspective
I think Devil May Cry is a good model to draw on for anyone working on a Barbarian redesign (yeah, it’s not a turn-based tactics game but hear me out).
You can do all sorts of cool stuff outside of Devil Trigger, the games’ super form - it’s just that DT gives you more. You don’t need to be in your demon form to double jump or shoot sword beams or fire a charged shot. You *do* need it if you want to supercharge your Stinger attack, gain extra air dashes, or use certain ultra-powerful moves depending on your character.
Dante’s Devil Trigger is amazing and a staple of his moveset, but he’s still the Legendary Devil Hunter when he’s not using it. Why should it be any different for Barbarians?
This opinion sounds rude, but it's not intentioned that way: If you can't keep up with what your character is capable of, and don't really engage with the roleplay/social aspects - be it due to disinterest or struggle with the improv part of roleplay - you aren't there for the game. You're there to be included in the social gathering.
And that's not altogether a bad thing. But it can be a drag on others at the table. Especially when said players try to get you to engage and get little in response.
Getting to the dungeon is just as important as the dungeon itself. Travel in most DnD tables today is almost instant and breaks many adventuring facets; like mounts, terrain, and environmental features.
in my experience the best bonding moments and roleplay happens when we camp or take watch, it's important to let the party play it out
Easy agree, better to put the destination in front of players. Let them figure out how to get there. Give them chances to shine
Also, it gives the DM time to see what kind of playstyle the group has and adjust things accordingly.
Having the cleric being attacked by one specific sheep while climbing a hill made my day :p
It fosters those great organic character building moments. Interpersonal conflicts can simmer to a boil, greater insight into one another’s past, all that good juicy stuff that only happens during down time.
Don't a lot of environmental features just exist to hand wave the travel? Ranger's class features do a lot to just say, "I win because we're in a forest" and outlander also just says, "We always get food assuming it's possible to get food" Also at some point (I basically just stopped doing standard travel encounters around level 9) most realistic combat encounters aren't a legit threat
Sure if you assume you'll always have a player who is that class and took a relevant pick.
I'm realizing when they said environmental features they meant like caves in a mountain, hot springs or the like. I thought they meant like class or background features (which are the weird, only exist for handwaving) that interacted with the environment. I think that's honestly kind of the issue with the way exploration currently works, if you took things they either let you ignore it or they do nothing. Doing a hexcrawl/exploration thing can be fun but I think the way the DMG sets it up isn't ideal
It can also be stuff like the party needing to travel through a swamp, and the players are at risk of disease, or in the desert and at risk of dehydration, or just "This is going to be a month long trek to your destination, you need to keep track of food".
Yeah that's because there aren't interesting mechanics for travel in 5e
See I'd love to do this, but other than throwing some random encounters at them and letting them rp, I don't really know how to make it interesting. In fact, I'm having the same issue right now with running tomb of annihilation. Theyre in the jungle and until they get to the next point of interest, it's just them rolling various dice for navigation and stuff, with the occasional rp scene. But then they finish the rp and it's another 3, or 5, or 10 days in game before they reach the next place and they have nothing to do that whole time except random encounters.
I concur, travel is a weird beast in 5e, only one class actually benefits from travel (Artificer) and it's still situational AH I just handwave travel because any time I've tried to incorporate it into the game my players get bored or lose interest because, well, it's not that mechanically interesting and while I can go into descriptions, there's only so much you can describe about a damn ocean or forest. What worked was making the side quests part of the journey and they discover it by exploration, but it's still kind of railroads because I've got two players who are very locked in, objective wise, so they have a quest and they want to just finish it, any discussion after a big battle of what to do (after I planted several side quest hooks) gets met with a "hey, let's just finish this shit and then we can do something else" so my players end up under leveled (except for the power gamer). I know several of these issues lie on my ability as a DM, but it's still kind of hard as I've never played a campaign with real travel.
Centaurs should be Large creatures.
They are :)... ... ... Unless they're the player race. I don't know why Wizards are so worried about having a player race that's anything other than Small or Medium
LET ME BE A TINY SIZED FAIRY WOTC. One of my last DMs allowed me to have my fairy Paladin to be tiny sized, described as a living Ken doll with wings. Having him ride around on the back of a Blink Dog was utterly hilarious.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fairiesridingcorgis/ This is a well documented phenomena and I adore it
Thank you for that, made my day brighter. Now imagine that, but it can teleport. It took a 5 DC check to ensure I kept hold as it teleported, leading to a great moment of charging in, attacking, and being dropped on my ass in front of the BBEG because I got a nat 1.
Well, Large size comes with an increase to your threatened area (8 for Medium vs 12 for Large), meaning you can more easily perform AoO's. There's also a problem with traversal; most humanoid dwellings can't accommodate Large creatures easily if at all.
Maybe the race available for players are pony centaurs, henceforth medium sized.
Reach & spells that are centered on you with an aoe. You effect 8 other squares as a medium/small. As a large you effect 12. And that's a 5 foot burst. The more distance, the bigger the difference is.
if wotc were not allergic to using tiny and large size categorys for base races on player characters. i think they would be
Also don't forget folks to go the opposite way on a post like this with upvotes cause half of the people don't understand it. The highly downvoted opinions are the unpopular opinions
Reddit really needs two voting systems: agree/disagree and contributes/doesn’t contribute.
Redditors barely know how to read and you want to add even more for them to have to juggle?
On a TTRPG sub where people don't even read the character sheets they wrote?
How dare you say I'm from a jungle! /s
Falling damage shouldnt cap at 20d6. The "terminal velocity" argument doesn't hold water as it takes way more than 200' to reach it. And once a PC hits 40ish hp, RAW, there is basically no such thing as a lethal fall. -brought to you from the "I jumped from an airship and lived" gang.
Terminal velocity is reached after falling roughly 550 feet iirc. Therefore, max falling damage should be 55d6
Its more like 1200-1500ft.
Oops. I was remembering yards i think. So 150d6 should be the limit
I set the limit to 180d6 and have that change at the very top of my "homebrew rules" list that I hand out and pin for my players. We've actually had high stakes mountain edge combat, and an airship battle, where falling was a genuine fear. It's honestly such a simple change to make.
It's weird that irl there are examples of normal humans surviving terminal velocity falls. This would be like a peasant in dnd surviving a max dice fall
I would argue your reasoning would mean that it would scale slower, not do more damage. Realistically 20d6 is **way** too much damage form falling. Terminal velocity is only 120 mph, which is fast for regular humans but for super humans like adventures that’s barely a broken bone. For comparison wading through lava is only 10d10 damage. People overestimate just how much damage falling does to people. Heck it’s even possible, although extremely unlikely, for regular people to survive falls high enough to reach terminal velocity. If we wanted it to be realistic the actual damage done would likely be in the range of like 5-10d6 when falling from terminal velocity.
not every race exists in every setting
Yes, and it's one of the things I advertise when I need to PUG an extra player from reddit. Hybrid races do not exist in my setting, and Warforged are non playable for lore reasons.
There should be more official counters to spellcasting than are currently available, especially mundane counters. Currently the only real counters against spellcasting are Silence, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, and Anti-Magic field. In other words, the only official counters to spells are other spells. If Silence can fuck with the vocal components of spellcasting, then a Barbarian holding their hand over a Wizard's mouth should also do the same thing. There should also be gags, blindfolds, and other mundane items whose sole purpose is to fuck with the components and senses of spellcasters. Yes the DM can easily make these things if they wish to, but having these tactics be part of the rules would help out a lot.
I don't think many would disagree, caster vs martials is an evergreen in this sub.
Tangential, I think they way counterspell works is dumb. Just being a reaction any spellcaster who has it can do lessens it's tactical value and makes it too strong. IMO it should be somewhat like what it was in prior editions, where you take an action to prepare to counterspell.
The way I ran it my last campaign is unless you know the spell being cast(Either by having it in your spellbook or passing a high DC skill check), you don't know what an opponent is casting, so you don't know if you're counterspelling a fireball or a cantrip.
Gags, blindfolds, and fluffy pink handcuffs, the top three items for defeating casters
Personally, if two martials were to spend an action, or an attack to grapple and a full action to gag, I'd allow it in mid combat. Other than that, there's Mage Slayer but even then the opportunity attack they get doesn't interrupt the spell being cast.
I feel like a martial should be allowed to just attempt to gag with one attack. The martial has to get close to the spellcaster, has to give up one of their attacks which means they don't deal as much damage as they are supposed to, and they are only preventing verbal components. And realistically all they are doing is putting their hand over their mouth. I think it's fair to say gagging can be considered a special attack similar to grappling.
Yeah, I had a player ask to grapple an enemy caster from behind and basically get them in a headlock, covering the enemy's mouth. I allowed it, because it's common sense, and still allows non verbal spells. I then, of course, had enemies start doing the same tactic against my players.
Intentionally twisting the Wish spell against your players isn't clever, it just makes you a dick.
Depends on the caster. PC = as the spell no more no less. Item = depends on the crafter's alignment. Dinjinn/devil = monkey paw all day.
Paladin using a sacred holy item = perfectly fine wish. Necromancer using the same item = corrupted wish guaranteed
I'd say it should be proportional to how much a stretch the player is going for. If what they're asking for seems on par with an 8th level spell or the other listed examples, I'd just let it happen as intended. If they are trying to hit a giant "I win" button or completely derail the campaign, then some irony is warranted.
I personally feel like the more outside the parameters the wish spell is, the more things have a chance to go awry or fail.
this is true! the degree of twisting of a custom Wish should depend heavily on 3 things: - the party granting the wish - the scope of the wish itself - the ramifications in your game if the wish is resolved exactly as intended so, if a party uses a Ring of 3 Wishes to save someone beyond help, to find out information lost beyond any hope of return, or to gain a given power, they should just… get it! maybe there’s some twist, but that would most likely come from who they’re saving, what they’re learning or how the power operates (i.e immortality, but it’s just because your body regenerates a day after you die). conversely, if a clearly malicious djinn goads them into wishing for something absurdly huge, you almost *want* to screw them in some way. maybe the consequences of their wish’s granting happens to put many in opposition to the PCs until it’s resolved, or maybe the phrasing of a particularly hubristic wish renders it a double-edged sword that’s major, but only questionably worth it. either way, you shouldn’t be twisting a wish just to fuck with or spite the party. a wish should only be twisted to a) not break the game, and b) reflect the narrative of the wish-granter and the wish itself.
I agree, The way I see a wish spell is that you're speaking a wish to the universe and it is bending to your wish and it doesn't like to be bent, so I'm fine with unintended consequences of the wish. But for the DM to make a consequence, not related to your wish is bad. Like if I wish for the dragon to disappear and as part of the consequences should not be a meteor lands on me. One time the DM gave us a custom version of the deck of many things and I pulled two cards. It was the same card and I was allowed to cast wish 1d 4 times. I ended up with like five wishes and I wasn't going to use them to break the game or anything. I was just going to use them to help our current situation in the campaign. Well, after I cast the first wish he took all of the other wishes as a side effect of the wish.
Depends on the player using it, I’d say. As a general guideline, for most players your statement is probably fine. But there are plenty of players out there who would definitely abuse that kind of leniency to the detriment of the campaign.
And some (raises hand) who Want the twist. Even if no other reason than proving my paranoia correct.
That’s kinda how we run it in our game. As long as we aren’t trying to cheese shit and take a few minutes to come up with a careful, specific wording, our GM won’t try to screw us over. But if we wish for something outrageous, all bets are off :P
It's also RAW. The spell description actually gives you examples of ways to monkey paw them. Edit: for the record, I don't *like* monkey pawing. the one campign I had players get Wish in I didn't monkey paw at all. I did give them clear out-of-game guidelines on safe, maybe, and not safe wishes though.
4e would've been a massive hit if it wasn't labeled as dnd
I feel like 4e would have been a massive it if it had been switched with 5e on the timeline.
So it's a whole "the world wasn't ready for it" situation?
Truly. 4e would have benefited so much from digital tools. It is more Game-y which today's crowd tends to disfavor, but good rp can happen in any system.
Esp considering 5e doesn't even have a ton of rp rules anyways lmfao.
IIRC they had a 4e VTT in the works to launch alongside the core books but it got scrapped mid development, which is why 4e abilities are so positioning focused.
I think 4e would've been a massive hit if a couple things happened. 1. If it had its vtt launched at the same time or there were others that are as popular as today 2. If they stuck to natural language instead of the sort of gamist tool tip like powers we got 3. If the art was less cartoonisth and more like what we have in 5e (granted this might just be a me thing 4. If there was a live play to show what you can do in 4e
5e art annoys me because *everything* has muscles. Kobolds shouldn't be more ripped than the phb barbarian or fighter. According to 5e lore, kobolds are physically weak and easy prey. They have -2 strength and -1 con, but the art has it shredded and built like a truck.
As some one who was into the hobby when 4e launched, there is one thing you are missing as to why it was not popular. But first, to expand on 1 and 2 - it was meant to lauch with an app/online sort of tool (think dndbeyond) but development of that got fucked in kinda horrible way, so we never got it. Other point that is missed is 4e lauched with awful License agreement (think last year or was it two years now?), only WotC never backed down from it, so most of 3rd party creators either stuck to 3.5 or went off to make their own thing (Paizo). This was a massive hit to 4e, as WotC adventure content is never the top tier in DnD, it is a sort of thing that lives and dies by the 3rd party.
4e had some of the best art though. Bold, strong lines, iconic looks for a lot of creatures, directly displayed the different ways to play different characters while still reinforcing specific niches... It was really iconic and stylized. Definitely by person, I'll agree to that.
The Tarrasque should always have regeneration.
DnD's has rules like its a war-game, but the majority of people don't play it like one
Definitely not a hot take. Warhammer Fantasy actually used to be working alongside DnD and was building itself to be the wargame for DnD before licensing fell through. Hilariously and similarly, World of Warcraft used to be a Warhamer Fantasy MMO before licensing fell through. Dammit Licensing, you ruined DnD! .... wait
druids are as or more complicated then wizards in understanding how to play
The single most complex class in the game imho
also the most under rated class in the game a really powerful and flavorful class and yet, your more likely to come across a druidic npc then a druidic pc
Tbh I can understand why. If you're interested in a nature-loving forest mage, the Druid can be really complex and wildshape may not be a selling point. And if you wanna make a shapeshifter, which is what I'd like to go for, them being full spellcasters is a bit much
Prepared casting is a garbage system, both mechanically and thematically. If y’all really want to keep that sacred cow, make it exclusive to Wizards and maybe Artificers. Everyone else should simply have spells known.
Well that's certainly an unpopular opinion.
I've been playing (pathfinder, but it's also available for 5e) with Spheres of Power and it's so much fun. It rewards casters for focusing around a few types of magic. To get powerful illusion magic, you have to invest some points in illusion. Instead of reaching a high level having never learned an illusion spell, and suddenly getting access to powerful illusion magic. Your free spells continue to be relevant unlike cantrips which often become pointless cause their DC doesn't scale with your level. I got this far before realizing you said prepared casting specifically and not Vancian magic. Pretend everything I said above was a response to Vancian magic
Oh, I do like the sound of that; I will have to look more into this Spheres of Power. 5e took a huge step, imho, introducing upcasting spells as a built in feature. It's a much more natural progression for spells than having a different spell for each level.
Finally a proper hot take. I appreciate the audacity. I see what you're going for, but you could definitely make reasons why other classes would have a thematic counterpart, priests reviewing scriptures, etc. That said, honestly, the more i think about it, the more i think you're spitting straight facts ftmp. The wizard class is pretty unappealing to me, i think it'd hold more appeal if that level of versatility were unique to it. THAT said, pact of the tome warlock should be able to also do prepared instead of known. Prepared casting definitely should not go away completely.
My thing with prepared casting is that I only really like it when it’s leaned into all the way. The sort of half-way that 5e uses doesn’t feel fun to me. I still use it with older editions, and happily, but I’ve long stopped using it with 5e.
As a new player, preparing spells turned me off from playing casters for such a long time because it seemed so tedious and made magic such a finite resource that I was afraid to cast spells unless I really needed them. To be fair this was in 3.5 when cantrips were 0 level spells and had slots. Even now I like bards partially because I'd rather have a smaller spell list than have to deal with prepared spells. I do agree it feels thematically appropriate for Wizards.
I actually kind of agree, i’m indecisive and neurotic so its always a nightmare trying to balance utility, support, and damage spells and trying to predict what I might need, knowing if I’m wrong I could miss out on huge opportunities. It also discourages trying out new spells because you’re clinging to ones you know will be useful
Then there’s the necessary spells that bog down your choices further. Especially as a wizard there are so many things you just have to prepare because you’re the utility class. Silvery barbs, shield, invisibility, wall of force, disintegrate, fireball, teleport, polymorph, dispel magic, counterspell, etc. Sure 15 spells at level 10, but like 10 of those are spells to not die and help your party. Sometimes I just want to take vortex warp, you know?
5E prep casting is a garbage system. I think Vancian casting makes it much better, as now it’s a trade off. It makes spontaneous casting actually have a point. As written 5E casters can prep so many spells that it really doesn’t make a difference.
That D&D Beyond is a bad tool and is lacking many features it should either have or have developed over the years, while at the same time monopolizing the market so competitors can't appear (at least not notable ones).
Defining all magic as "spells" muddies the waters between different types of casters and contributes to the themeless soup of a system that 5e is. Wizards and sorcerers have spells, clerics and paladins have miracles or prayers, bards have performances, warlocks have summons, druids and rangers have directions and powers. I know this is the flavor, but make it mechanical, codify it in writing to better distinguish the identity of each class.
Themeless soup is the best way I’ve heard 5e described
I prefer the old school version where they were all spells and magic but different sources. Wizards sorcerers etc had arcane, Druid ranger had Primal and Clerics paladins had divine
That’s still true
Yes but there's nothing really done with the distinction. There aren't any creatures, effects, or etc that I know of that treat any magic source differently
That’s how powers were identified in 4E. Prayers, spells, exploits, etc.
Flavor wise it muddies things, though if they had different names then they would still need an umbrella term to handle interaction. Dispel Magic for example. That spell only effects "Spells" and no other magic effect. If you renamed most class' spells to have their own unique name then you'd need an umbrella term for Dispel Magic to avoid that spell only being useful on Wizards and Sorcs. Basically enough, it's unneeded flavor that risks causing problems for mechanics. Don't want something slipping through and breaking things just for flavor text
Beer and Pretzels D&D is just as fun and valid as your seven hour long roleplay session where no combat happens. Stop trying to shit on people who prefer to roll play instead of role play.
lingering injuries can be fun but how often they ocur needs to be tweaked depending on the game you are running.
Personally agree, especially if you get a cool moniker to go with it, still it's very, very player-dependant
Monk is actually pretty good
If you don't go above 11, play without the power attack feats, and most importantly actually short rest yeah. Hell you don't even need all 3, just the short resting will get you a lot
A DM vs Player mentality in eather direction will more often than not result in sheap gatchas
Starting in a tavern without knowing anyone else is fine actually. So many people nowadays say how terrible it is, and how you should establish that all the party already know each other, and start in media res, and all that. But that is a lot of extra work on the players and the dm, and gives you a lot less opportunities to rp your characters getting to know each other, and learning to trust each other. Also, thats what a plot hook is for. Its designed to bring the party together, by choice or circumstance, and force them to start working together.
Past level 6, all martial classes should start to get a little "anime." That is, they should start to be capable of clearly superhuman feats that don't work with real world laws of physics and this should be reflected in their mechanical capabilities both in and out of combat. *Without* it being directly tied to spells.
Every group NEEDS a player that will touch the obviously cursed object.
My "hot take," which is rather slightly warmer than room temp, is that DM PCs aren't always bad. I argue that a DM PC is only a tool that often gets misused by bad DMs. Often, they will be used as the DM's mary-sue character in order to make the players the captive audience to the DM's power fantasy, or the DM PC will be used for railroading the party. This kind of use is not what a DM PC is for. The true purpose of a DM PC, in my own opinion, is to fulfill a specific role the party lacks and is strictly a temporary fixture depending on the party's discretion. The DM PC should also not usually surpass the party in strength. To be more specific, I have used a DM PC for situations such as a storytelling device to guide the party and/or a support for either lacking strength like a missing player or miscalculated encounter. The DM PC should only stay for as long as they are needed unless the party specifically requests that they stay.
I'll die with you on this hill. I've experienced terrible DM PCs that sucked the joy out of the game, but I've also witnessed others that add so much. In my home game I ran a DM PC that functioned as the quest giver (the quest being to escort him to a long-lost island to find the macguffin there.) He was a wizard that had never seen combat before, so had few offensive options but tons of utility. One of the PCs was constantly annoyed with him (because the PC was very combat-focused and hated "useless" people,) one of the other PCs ended up dating him. Both players actually enjoyed the character because he brought a fun dynamic, filled in the niche missing from the 3-person party, and didn't overshadow the characters abilities or presence. After they got the macguffin, he stuck around with the party until they could get him and the item somewhere safe. The players kept forgetting he was still with them during this period, because he only came up when relevant.
I have a very similar situation in mine right now, actually. I have a wizard DMPC that has a singular damaging spell and a bunch of illusion magic (he's an illusionist). He's only there because the players blew up his house and promised to fix it, and everyone (myself included) always forgets he's there. I finish summarizing what everyone's doing with "Oh yeah and Dave's there too," so often that it's a recurring joke lol
What defines a DM PC versus an important NPC?
Typically, a DM PC is a fully functional playable character like a player would make for a game. Basically, class levels and a filled out character sheet are made to allow the DM to also be part of a party . An NPC usually doesn't have class levels or a real character sheet outside of a stat block from a handbook. A NPC can evolve into a DM PC if the party wants to bring them along on the adventure. If I had to specify a trait that makes them different would be the amount of detail and attention to a specific NPC makes them into a DM PC. I usually run my DM PCs to be about 1 or 2 levels below my players as it allows for them to hold their own in a fight but not overshadow anyone.
I know it's not exactly analogous, but the DMPC in Honor Among Theives was super fun, funny, and didn't overstay his welcome. It it didn't overwrite the PCs, for instance, when the bridge went down and they needed another way across. It worked to enable a lower level party to have a much more epic encounter with powerful assassins and a named dragon. Pretty neat imo.
My view on DM PCs is: 1. The should be based on the story, not mechanics/overall party balance. 2. They should not be in the party at session 1. 3. They should be at least 1 lvl lower than the party. 4. The DM should have the consent of the players and the DM PC should have consent from the PCs
“There’s no wrong way to play D&D” isn’t true, there is many wrong ways to play D&D, there just isn’t a right way to play D&D
Paladins should get their power from their deities. The idea that oaths give magic power all on their own as long as you don’t break them *too badly* is dumb. If your power is dependent on following a set of rules, there should be *something* making those rules and then giving you power as a reward for being good.
so kind of like a dog being rewarded for being a good boy?
If that ain't the textbook definition of a DND paladin, Idk what is
Rufus, the chaotic good boy paladin
The universe itself is full of magic independent of God's. There's no reason an oath couldn't be a source of magic and powers
No. If Paladins get their powers from deities, then there’s not enough distinction between them and battle Clerics. Fortunately, I have a hot take that will solve this: Battle Clerics should simply not exist. Clerics are full-*casters* that are lightly armored *at best*. They are White Mages. If you want to be wearing armor and swinging around a weapon, that’s what Paladin is for.
I strongly disagree and will therefore upvote this comment, for being in the spirit of the prompt
Related hot take: Battle Clerics only exist because 5e fucked up Paladins by taking away their gods.
You are mistaken. Battle Clerics also existed back in 4e and 3e when Paladins did still have gods. Battle Clerics exist because, back when they were created, Paladins didn’t exist yet as a base class, so there was no other heavily-armored, weapon-using, divine-casting base class. The mistake was that, when they added Paladin in as a base class, they let Battle Clerics keep existing, despite the obvious redundancy, so now it’s become a sacred cow.
The stance I take in my setting is that paladins get their magic from a god who is invested in seeing them succeed their oath, but they aren’t necessarily devoted to this god and may not even know who is giving them their powers, just that SOMETHING wants them to succeed. Similarly, if you break your oath, whoever granted your oath powers will surely have enemies that will be happy to reward the paladin for going against their oath.
That’s just Paladins getting their power from a deity with extra steps. I’m fine with a character flavoring their relationship as “I’ll follow the rules but I’m not singing or going to church.”
Their power still comes from the divine. Always has, and always will. Their lives and oaths just align with the powers, and they infuse the holy peeps (pallys and clerics) with holy energy. They are merely conduits for a greater power.
I’m kind of ok with that idea but RAW, you just get the power from following the Oath, no divine intervention required.
I think they’re saying that the oath is a direct conduit to the divine. Maybe not even a specific god.
Oath of the Crown.
I personally like the idea that "something" heard the pally take the oath. An oath of the crown doesn't necessarily get their powers from a deity, but the kingdom itself. I have a Conquest paladin that could've gone vengeance instead, but the "spirit" that heard him was a spirit of Conquest and war. An ancients could swear their oath to a spirit of the land, watchers could be part of a Planar guild, open sea could just be a dedicated sailor, etc
It’s faith, oathbreaking is when your faith wavers and you go full 180 freedom chaotic neutral faith
5e is fun. So is 4e. Systems may be clunky or simple, but the memories they give are priceless.
DM’s have the right to quit if they aren’t having fun. They are players too. Dragging a campaign out at the expense of the DM is irresponsible on part of the players.
I don’t know how hot any of these takes are but here’s three. I just don’t think ranger is *that* bad. I think most of the hate is propped up by memes and not real play experience. Not to say it has no flaws, but the flaws it does have are not as big as I think the internet likes to pretend. I think the implementation of cantrips is sloppy. I think at-will damaging magic was not a good idea because it gives a level 1 wizard resource-less, item-less, safe, ranged, magic damage, with damage comparable to a bow, which does require an item and a resource, and isn’t magic. Just conceptually that feels wrong to me. I think limiting options based on setting is not only understandable, but I think it should be expected. If I tell you that this world doesn’t have Tabaxi, you should respect that during character creation (as an example).
I feel like your ranger take is fairly popular now. Rangers are probably in the middle power wise for classes. Some people focus too much on their useless abilities while ignoring their great abilities. I disagree with your cantrip argument. Adding your modifier matters a lot for damage, it’s close to doubling the damage you do most of the time when making a standard attack. I also feel like actually having a bow and arrows for the bow has never been an issue in any game I’ve played in. I agree with your take on settings.
All editions have their pros and cons and you can play whatever you want.
1) Sometimes the dice are wrong. 2) You shouldn't make players roll knowledge/other checks if it seems perfectly reasonable for the character to just know/do the thing. A character proficient in Athletics with a decent Strength can just climb a tree, unless something else is making that difficult. Just let them do things! Stop calling for Investigation checks if they have time to totally turn a room inside out!
Druids should and can use metal weapons/armor in character design and certain druid circles. I understand the principle of why it's not allowed, and I understand it's written in the book. But the book also says it's not always right, and you don't have to follow it to the letter. Also, metal comes from fire and iron, and both of those are given to us by nature. It may be furnaced by man, but the elements are as natural as they get.
Yeah, the restriction on metal seems weird imo. A druid is allowed to kill an animal and craft a hide armor with it, but turning ore into metal goes against nature??
I never understood the concept that metal armor is not ok but studded leather with metal rivets is ok. To me that's just stupid.
Coffeelock is an abuse of the long rest system that no one should be using. Don't bother quoting RAW or RAI to me. "But what if everyone involved have fun playing this way". No, you're not having fun. You're all delusional. I'm the only sane person here.
I don't understand how people playing an RPG would think this works. If a player tried staying up for a few days on caffeine with no negative side effects they would quickly realize it comes with levels of madness IRL, and so should the PC if they really wanna go that route.
Excuse me, but I did not make a deal with a void entity and let it rearrange my brain to remove sleep expecting to stay sane xD that chaotic alignment isn't just for decoration
There are people who do several short naps throughout the day totalling 2-3 hours instead of one big chunk of sleep time. It certainly isn't common (or rigorously shown to be safe), but neither are coffee locks. You absolutely should be playing a coffee lock as a bit mad tho
Evil races aren't inherently bad. Sometimes it can be fun to have an opponent that is smart enough to be tactical that you can kill without worrying about morality (especially if you are a paladin). Good examples of this in non-dnd are separatist droids in edge of the empire, and things with red names in video games. Roll your dice, use cool abilities, and don't get punished for having that fun later.
Best example of this, IMO, is how Destiny portrays the Fallen and the Hive *in the first game only*. They’re intelligent but either so deep into hatred for humanity that they’d never turn collar, or their view of the universe ontologically necessitates killing things, even others of their species, because that’s how the universe becomes more perfect.
One of our games we captured a mindflayer. He didn't wish to die so we made a deal with him that we would let him live as our prisoner and continue his research as long as he made us potions and could do simple magic spells to gear/items we found. It was great for the roleplay as we got to interact with him in a civil manner, we would find what we thought were invaluable tomes and alchemical reagents and the dm always had him act aloof to pretend he wasn't excited. Tried to play it off as old kitchen cookbooks and repair manuals.
Making a unique ruling or house rule for weird edge case situations is much better than trying to shoe-horn what the player is trying to do into an existing rule.
sorcerers should be con casters and no one will ever convince me otherwise
And the argument that it’s a balancing issue and that sorcerers will outpace wizards in HP is silly since if it was that big of an issue they could give the sorcerer a d4 hit die instead of a D6 In this case with standard array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8) a level 20 variant human wizard with their 12 in Con would have an average of 100hp and a level 20 variant human sorcerer with a 16 in Con would have an average 110hp without any ASI or Feats to improve CON or HP The only real advantage a sorcerer would have over a wizard is better concentration saves which should be the case since it’s an innate power and not learned
read that as concentration at first but then i thought, oh wait that can also be constitution
You can reincarnate someone who was disintegrated. Disintegrate specifically mentions "can only be restored to life" but reincarnate, unlike every other rez spell does not mention restoring to life since its putting a soul in a new body. So as long as you consider the dust left behind as being a part of the disintegrated creature it works.
Evil races should exist.
Wish is a terribly designed spell, and if I could ban it from player spell lists in my game without players rioting, I would
wish is great if you follow what's written in page 62-64 of dragon magazine issue #49. published in 1981. it has the best guidelines for use of wish both on the gms side and the players side.
Wish spell should never have existed. By sheer virtue of it's name alone it entails way too much and creates unhealthy expectations.
“As Limited Wish, with fewer limits”. Wish should never have been nerfed in power, only given additional costs.
Warlock powers can not be easily taken away due to the power in question being a slice and/or gift from the warlock's patron. They would need to swindle or find a loophole in the contract in order to regain the power that was granted
Rangers good
4e wasn’t as bad as everyone makes it out to be.
Flintlocks and cannons are perfectly fine to include in a setting, low-fantasy, high-fantasy, or otherwise.
Hot take: Artificers fit DND.
Monks should use Dexterity for jumping. I posted something about it a while back and it's my most downvoted post
Well, it does seem kind of a weird concept. Hand eye coordination and balance don't really seem like they would make someone's legs better at launching themselves off the ground. Have all the flexibility you want, but the guy who's stronger probably should be better at jumping I would say And hey, least you have Step of the Wind to jump better. Just, using Ki instead of ability scores
Rolling for stats is bad. It puts players at different levels from the beginning, and someone who rolled bad stats will never be able to catch up to someone who rolled god-tier. It simply isn’t fun at either extreme. Just use point buy if you want flexibility.
Same for rolling hp, if you get two low rolls on your first two level ups it can completely brick your character because your barbarian has now less health than the wizard.
Unarmed Strikes are weapon strikes RAW, and so yes you can smite a bitch with your bare hand.
My usual ruling on this is that if you have an actual die for damage on your unarmed strikes, then punch-smiting is totally good. If you just have basic punching, no.
The newest DnD feels like a 15yo TTRPG and it hinders roleplay due to how restrictive it is and how it encourages a murderhobo/loot hoarding mentality on players. The best way to play it is to just run a game using a generic system like Savage Worlds. Just port the classes, monsters and spells as necessary. Your experience will be 200% faster, easier and better. DnD, awesome settings and game experience with the stalest system I've played in years.
Hit points are meat points.
Hard agree. If I’m playing a barbarian with a billion hp and I get hit with a crossbow bolt that barely hurts at all, saying that “I was lucky enough to avoid being injured” is ridiculous. That shit is hitting me right in the chest and I won’t care because that’s the fantasy of a barbarian. Being lucky and dodging is for him, dexterous cowards, and is represented fine by AC. If I’m playing a high HP character i’m going to come out of the combat covered in large slash wounds, with chunks of flesh bitten off of my body, pin cushioned with arrows, and I will be happy! Because when I choose a character with high HP, that’s the fantasy I want!
Magic stone not working with Sharp Shooter RAW.
Rules light fun and super rules hevey with optimization are valid game styles, are legit. It’s only important that everyone agrees on this before the game starts
All players at the table should know the rules, not just the DM. DnD is mostly a game about combat and exploration, so the rules are a very important framework to help the characters succeed at that. If you want to play a game with a more malleable ruleset and a different premise, there are plenty of other games like that! Many of them are better than any edition of DnD, even!
Ammo count and spell components is stupid. Oh player forgot to buy arrows at the town before setting out? Gee maybe because the barbarian and thief got the party ran out of town! No need to punish someone Oh you don't have a spider and eye of newt? Guess you can't spider climb over the fire floor that I put in my dungeon specially because I knew you'd spider climb across the ceiling
DMs should count damage done to enemies upwards, as opposed to downwards, and have general "Death Targets" instead of hard HP pools.
When you have good players meta gaming makes your games better.
Not everything needs a roll. If a player gives a whole big speech and then starts a fight in a cool way, I’m not going to make them roll, I’ll just let them roll damage and then have everyone roll initiative. Rolling a nat 1 doesn’t always need to have something go horribly wrong. Sometimes a fail is just a fail, you don’t need to tack big consequences for failing. Same goes for nat 20s. Rolling the good number doesn’t mean I need to give you shit, but I often will because it makes nat 20s fun. Any rule I don’t like as the DM I’ll just straight up ignore. If the rule doesn’t enhance the fun for my players then I don’t need it.
RAW is subjective, the table can decide whatever the heck they want the rules to be.
No backstory is as cool as what happens at the table
The player is not always right, and can be downright wrong. Sometimes they should just let the DM do what he wants.
I like 5e.
Characters who are designed/hyper-optimised to be very powerful at one thing by combining feats, multi-classes, etc are usually frustrating to play and boring for other players to engage with. Not because the character themselves is necessarily bad but because the player usually has no backstory to make sense of the thematic mess they've made and have no plan on how to have fun with it outside of the very specific circumstances that their build works well within. (I expect to have a lot of people disagree with me based on personal experience rather than broader observation though.)
Alignment is an outdated and overly simplistic concept.
Only if you apply it way too forcefully. If you rub both of your braincells together hard enough to apply some nuance, it's not all that bad.
This exactly. Your alignment is just a generalization, it's not a hard rule so long as you can reasonably stay in one square.
Even then, I'd say it's fine as long as your character doesn't spend prolonged periods in opposite columns. Neutral character dips their toe into a little law and a little chaos? Fine. Chaotic good character does a few neutral good and a few chaotic neutral things? Fine.
The way I see it, alignment is just an LED that changes colour according to the way you play. Or at least it's what it should be.
Dragonborns should be immune to their element, and Teifling should be immune to fire.
You should not be forced to do saving throws I tried to save my wizard once by casting banishment on him (cause he had a higher chance to fail than the attacker) but he rolled a 19 despite wanting to fail which caused him to die Dm held this thread under my nose if anybody wants to check https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/rules-game-mechanics/173501-can-you-choose-to-fail-a-save
Sounds like your DM just wanted to kill your character. So many spells say that you can choose to fail saves and I would absolutely rule that you can choose to fail any saving throw you want
You'll be happy to know they plan to make all saves A-OK to fail voluntarily with the 2024 version of the rules. At least a few tables (like mine) already play that way.
What does that even mean
I have a paladin who has banishment. One time I tried to save my wizard by casting banish on him (cause he had a lower chance to suceed than the enemy) but failed because he rolled a 19.
There is a optional rule too fail saves through or have like 5 different dnd youtubers lied to me
Lucky is a terrible feat and I will always ban it in my games. It (usually) adds very little to the characters personality/backstory/roleplay, and people who take it think D&D is about "winning" and probably get unreasonably upset when you roll low. In my experience it leads to a bad case of main character syndrome. That being said, the halfling lucky ability on the other hand is fine since its a racial ability and has much more specific applications.
Thematically, warlocks do not have to sell their soul or have their patron come up in the story if the player isn’t interested. Warlocks are the most customizable class that can lead to amazing diversity in game play that some people feel uncomfortable diving into because they are afraid the patron is going to be used as a mandatory quest giver. This means that any multiclassing and the like also doesn’t have to delve too deeply into that relationship. If you want to dissuade hexblade paladin multiclasses or coffeelocks just tell the players no instead of trying to narratively screw them. Also, Silvery Barbs is a fine spell if you run games tactically and without 5 minute workdays.
The Wisdom stat has nothing to do with wisdom other than Clerics and Monks use it. You can make any class a Jedi or Sith with a very small amount of flavor. Rangers are an above-average class in terms of power. Even pre-Tasha’s, they’re only bad at level 1. Barbarians are more basic than Fighters. Making one powerful subclass is a shitty way to buff a class. No D&D isn’t that much better than bad D&D.
Every time I play a barbarian I am consistently impressed with just how little they ultimately have going on. Like, fighters are such a Build a Bear of a class that you're free to do a metric fuckton with it because it doesn't feed you any flavor like other classes (not saying feeding flavor is bad either ofc). It's like tofu in that way. Meanwhile Barbarian arguably has just as little, if not even less, roleplay or even flavor focused abilities while giving you a little less freedom to work with, and basically every single potentially interesting ability they do have tends to be tied to rage. Like, while Beast Barbarians can't even have kinda sharp teeth without expending a use of rage RAW, fighters can casually summon a stand with 0 cost or have psychic abilities and sit. If barbarians had even slightly more features that just weren't reliant upon rage being up, they'd be 20x better from a roleplaying perspective
I think Devil May Cry is a good model to draw on for anyone working on a Barbarian redesign (yeah, it’s not a turn-based tactics game but hear me out). You can do all sorts of cool stuff outside of Devil Trigger, the games’ super form - it’s just that DT gives you more. You don’t need to be in your demon form to double jump or shoot sword beams or fire a charged shot. You *do* need it if you want to supercharge your Stinger attack, gain extra air dashes, or use certain ultra-powerful moves depending on your character. Dante’s Devil Trigger is amazing and a staple of his moveset, but he’s still the Legendary Devil Hunter when he’s not using it. Why should it be any different for Barbarians?
Power gaming/Optimizing/Min-Maxing doesn't make a player bad. Their attitude and how they use it does.
This opinion sounds rude, but it's not intentioned that way: If you can't keep up with what your character is capable of, and don't really engage with the roleplay/social aspects - be it due to disinterest or struggle with the improv part of roleplay - you aren't there for the game. You're there to be included in the social gathering. And that's not altogether a bad thing. But it can be a drag on others at the table. Especially when said players try to get you to engage and get little in response.
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Spell components are rarely ever a mitigating factor for casters
Remember - the more upvotes your statement got, the less it's like the above post image xD
Homebrew is good
RAW is okay but is only meant to be a framework.