Honestly, I kind of like that Devil's Sight basically screws you in the fine print. It does exactly what you asked for, no more, no less, just as agreed! 😈
My favourite weird rule: A spell that has both somatic and material components can be cast with full hands, as long as one hand is holding the material component (usually a focus, but not necessarily), since the rules explicitely state you can perform the somatic component with the hand holding the material component(s). But a spell that has somatic but no material components needs a free hand to cast - even if you're holding an arcane focus in one hand, you can't use that hand for the somatic component. The spell _Shield_ has verbal and somatic components, but no material components. So all those optimisers who give their martial character _Shield_ somehow but neglect to give them the feat _War Caster_ better make sure their character has an empty hand at the end of their turn. So either no wearing a (physical) Shield (or holding an off-hand weapon), _or_ make sure your weapon hand is empty at the end of your turn (which prevents you from using it in opportunity attacks), and remember, you can either draw or sheath your weapon once per turn, but not both. You _can_ drop your weapon at the end of your turn and pick it up at the start of your next turn, but that runs the risk of it being picked up and stolen (and vulnerable of the spell _Shatter)_ or of you being moved away from it. Ironically, this makes Two-Handed-Weapon users the best spellswords, since there is no rule requiring you to specify if you're holding it in two hands when you're not attacking. Need to use your reaction to cast _Shield?_ The weapon was in one hand. You need it to opportunity attack? Now it's in both hands. They don't need the _War Caster_ feat to cast _Shield,_ but other spell-slinging martials with their hands full do.
I might add that Artificers that have Shield spell on their list, i.e. Artillerist and Battle Smith, CAN still use Shield if they are holding an infused item since all Artificers spells require a material component, so you don't have to have a free hand.
While this is technically true and it is worth noting, I do think it is pretty unlikely that DMs will actually disallow (e.g.) a sword-and-board Eldritch Knight from casting Shield. It is a rule interaction that can be half-circumvented by "dropping and picking up your weapon repeatedly." Just seeing what that looks like in practice and its effect on gameplay / the shared narrative is frankly demoralizing and tends to push DMs to ignore this. (This is more speculative, but I also kind of suspect that a DM who gives the sword-and-board player a hard time about this might also give two-handers a hard time about this -- even if that is less supportable by the rules.) Just my two cents as a DM. Personally, when I see that some fiddly and rather silly rules interaction stops a class or subclass from doing what it is obviously intended to do (EK is literally the fighter who gets abjuration and evocation spells!), then I am often going to, um, "overlook" that interaction. On a separate note, even if your DM is going to be fussy about somatic components, I don't think it automatically follows that Two-Handed Weapon users make the best "spellswords" (a word that tends to mean somewhat different things to different people). Making a character who is good at attacking and good at casting spells tends to lean heavily on class and subclass features, and that can sometimes dictate (physical, small-s) shield usage. E.g., Bladesinger is one of the best "spellswords," and isn't going to use a shield or a two-handed weapon. If by spellsword you just mean "has a weapon and also casts spells," well there's Cleric, some of whom will use a weapon-and-shield while others use two-handed weapon. And then War Caster is a great feat for many casters simply from advantage on concentration (regardless of somatic component nonsense), so in many practical situations it is not really a "feat tax." Rather, it is a feat you want to take, that also happens to override DMs who are fussy about somatic components. The main reason to wield a two-handed weapon is because you want to do more melee damage, even if it costs you a few points of AC.
@@nathansmith9597 Aye, a lot of DMs would allow it, but an ignored rule is not the same thing as an nonexistent rule. Me, I would enforce it, for the simple reason that some spells are _so_ good that _not_ taking them makes you feel underpowered compared to your party members who _did_ try and build optimal characters. _Shield_ is one such spell, so by enforcing some extant drawbacks I can make other spells more viable and attractive. Since it's still possible to play that character by taking the _War Caster_ feat (just more expensive, since it means you don't get your +2 or another feat; or perhaps wield a physical shield) I don't feel bad about it. Though I am the kind of person who would nerf or boost certain spells or features (while communicating with my players) to make the "optimal" build less concrete and obvious, to let players build the characters they want to play more easily, rather than having their choices dictated by the numbers. There's a reason Treentmonk put banning _Shield_ (if I remember right) on his list of the only three things he would homebrew.
@@MalloonTarka I agree, ignored =\= nonexistent. Any posted "optimized" build that assumes the table will handwave certain things should at least make a note about it. For sure. As for the rest of what you said, if you are worried about a particular thing being too strong, I do think it makes more sense to address that directly, rather than strictly enforcing rules about somatic components, since those rules will affect a lot of other things that aren't overpowered, and the rules are rather clunky in and of themselves. (IMO, but I think that's pretty widely felt.) Of course, the somatic components are RAW, not a houserule or anything. I know some players feel very strongly about houserules (especially nerfs), so in some cases, playing strict w/ somatic components might be the best way for a DM to rein in Shield without causing a lot of drama.
I always got the impression that the net thing is completely intentional. Developers seem terrified of giving martials any kind of reliable disable, and the only other way to access on-hit no-save restrain (that I know of) is through wild shape. It's also my experience that a heavy majority of builds that use ranged weapons will have sharpshooter and can use the net at 10' and 15' feet ranges just fine, but it is strange to have a weapon behind a feat tax, they were supposed to get rid of that.
OH and to add: It's also the only way I know of, at least going by RAT (Rules as Tweeted), for a martial to disable someone with their bonus action (using the quick toss maneuver) BEFORE making their attacks with an action. That wouldn't have been a balance consideration though, since net existed well before quick toss did.
Tbf throwing a net and having it envelop an uncoporative opponent is not an easy task. It being at disadvantage and requiring specialist training (a feat) to be more consistent, makes sense to me.
Devils Sight makes me think of the movie Reign of Fire, "They have great vision during the day and even better vision at night but in the failing light they can't focus."
"you see invisible creatures and objects AS IF THEY WERE VISIBLE" Jeremy Crawford reading this rule reminds me of the time a GM said that you couldn't hit someone with Adamantine armour and a too high AC on a Crit because "While you're wearing it, any critical hit against you becomes a normal hit." and Hit actually means a miss and not a hit
Rule number 1 is probably just meant like this "instead of resistance to only piercing, bludgeoning and slashing damage, you now have resistance to all damage except psychic." They probably thought it was redundant, so they left it out, creating this weird rule..
Yeah DM's job is to go by the spirit of the rule and not be hindered by the natural language. And yes, agreed, I don't allow rage at all in heavy armor in my games.
Yeah, assuming they didn't just have glaring oversight, they obviously meant that. But the autists among us (like myself, since I have Asperger's Syndrome) take the rules really literally. That's not how it's written, so that's got like a 90% chance of not being how I'd rule it.
@@Minmaximus Is it RAW that you can't Rage in heavy armor??? I see... On Default Barbarian. The Subclass is debatable since there's no rules explicit about Heavy Armor.
The other ambiguous bit with frighten is how you define 'closer', in particular whether that definition takes into account blocking terrain. Imagine a long snaking tunnel that sometimes doubles back a bit but never intersects itself, with the source of your fear at one end - can you run down the entire tunnel because no matter how it twists and turns each step takes you further along the available path away from whatever you're frightened of, or do you get stuck at the first u-shaped bendy bit of the tunnel because at that point both directions on the path would bring you closer to the source if your fear as measured by a straight line ignoring all obstacles and barriers, even though one direction definitely has the scary thing at the end if it and the other leads only to freedom and safety?
That's very interesting, however, you would also need to account for your PC's knowledge of the monster. If you are fighting a banshee and get frightened in that situation, since it has incorporeal movement, going to the safety direction would lead you closer to the banshee.
@@killerm5 You could also just stand your ground. You're not willing to move near the source of your Fear, so it's a fight or flight situation. Fear doesn't say that you "must run away" or "you cannot perform Actions" etc. So... If you get Feared by an enemy. Just become a blender of death.
@@absolstoryoffiction6615 Of course you don't need to, unless the effect which feared you specifically requires you to do so. I was only replying to the comment that referenced purely Euclidean distance between 2 points not being always relevant in regards to "cannot move closer to the source of the fear" (with terrain/teleportation/non normal movement such as flight, swim, flight, incorporeal being into play). As an example, you might be in water with a shark. There is an island between the shark and you. If the shark frightens you, you can't get on the island since it is "closer" because it is physically closer. But if you think in terms of closer in "rounds to hit me" instead of further in distance, it is much further away.
“Is anyone getting the sense that, maybe, Jeremy Crawford once in a while has a mistake pointed out to him and pretends that was intentional?” Honestly if you remove the name and presents his comments I’d say his rulings are in no way what the designers intended: “surely they would think of this interaction, it was a small mistake”. I’d love if WoTC got the position of “hey we made a mistake and this should work like that” more often and within less time from printing to an errata.
Agreed. It's pretty clear he's insecure with his decisions and mistakes. He's a below average talent that's punching way above his abilities and should feel insecure and that his position is threatened.
Yeah... I get the point of Sage Advice is to have a DM who was involved in building the system give their take on a ruling, but a lot of times it feels like Crawford got caught lacking and has to fumble to act like it was all planned. "See Invisibility doesn't work because the Invisible condition gives an obscuring sheen, like Predator!" "You have to complete your Attack Action before you can use a Bonus Action that triggers off of it. D&D is a team game, don't be selfish with your Shield Master Shove Prone!" "lmao you chose the 10% of races that doesn't have Darkvision, I guess your supernatural Devil's Sight sucks if there's a cave of bioluminescent fungus!" Just once I'd like to hear, "You know what, that's not what we had in mind, but I personally like that idea better." or "That's actually something we didn't think about, but the intent was X so we'll try to write up an errata for that." Like what they did with Divine Smite not needing Paladin spell slots anymore, a little bit of humility and admitting that maybe one in the thousands of customers might have a good idea for improving the thing you made.
@@BeaglzRok1 For polearm master and war caster questions he did say it was intended to only give OA with a polearm. But could only silently admit that's not how it worked.
@@SpiderWaffle which is a bit sad, he could be seen in a better light, both as a game designer and as someone to seek advice, if his rulings were less "we made no mistakes as designers!".
@@BeaglzRok1 I will never understand the See Invisibility ruling. I mean, I understand the argument behind but it's just hard to no see it as arrogance to not admit a mistake. The Shield Master feat is just killing a different build for... whatever reason, play polearms instead! Making the rules more clear and incentivizing build diversity would be what I expect from the designers.
I was going to disagree with your first rule about the bear totem because it's an addition to, not a replacement of, the class ability. But the other totems specify the gain new abilities while raging and not wearing heavy armor. The bear totem leaves that off!
Not really. Compare 3rd level ability of Totem Barbarian's Eagle vs Bear. Eagle specifies "While you're raging and aren't wearing heavy armor" while Bear simply states "While raging". It might be intentional from the devs. As a DM, I'd allow Totem Barbarians with heavy armor for the purpose of resistance to all damage except psychic, but they would lose the other vanilla Barbarian rage benefits (damage boosts and advantage on Strength checks and saving throws)
@@rulethegamer It doesn't matter... It's like a Subclass Cleric who deal more damage than the Fighter while being weaker for Healing between its other Subclasses. Sticking to RAW and RAI, a bit of common sense about 5e... It's a pretty old system.
They could have removed all the "and not wearing heavy armor" clauses from ALL the subclass features activated during rage... and simply changed the wording on rage such that you can't enter or maintain rage while wearing heavy armor. The idea that entering rage has no restriction but the BENEFITS of rage do is really asinine and requires lots of extra wording and clarification in order to understand what works and where. If you can't enter or maintain rage while wearing heavy armor then none of these issues would arise.
I like the Jeremy Crawford version of devil's sight, even if i think he is just going "um uh um uh yeah i meant to do that mhm yep" and pretending that's how it was always meant to work. It is a bit spooky and cool.
Honestly I agree it’s a cool idea to have the warlock extinguish a candle and as the frame fades to black it rebounds to normal daylight but with a reddish hue as his eyes glow with the fires of hades but Crawford’s response acting like he never makes mistakes bugs me
Ever see the movie Reign of Fire? There was a thing about how the dragons can see well in the day or night, but during twilight their eyes have a hard time focusing. I dig it.
@@TheArQu You don't need to make the situation good for all players, there is no problem is leaving some conflict of circumstances in the rules. Just because it is a team game doesn't mean that all characters would benefit of the same situations.
I don’t think frightened would work as you described. If you have no idea where the source of your fear is, than there’s no way to “willingly” move closer to it. You might move closer to it, but if you don’t know you are, it’s not willingly closer to it, so it wouldn’t count. At least in my book
I think the weirdest rule regarding the frightened condition is that it doesn't impede concentration, which is complete nonsense and it favors spellcasters too much since it's mostly irrelevant against them.
Rule 1 surprises me, as I thought you couldn't rage successfully in heavy armor. Basically, it restricts your muscles too much to start a rage. But no, you can rage in heavy armor, it just mechanically does nothing. Neat.
Honestly I'm not even sure why heavy armor is a restriction for raging. Barbs don't natively get the proficiency, I don't think any races start with it. There's only 1 AC difference between max medium armor and full plate and it's possible to have higher AC with just unarmored defense so it's not about balancing defenses. It's not even really a lore thing that's explained. It's just there, because reasons.
On page 151-152 of the PHB the book outlines how Holy Water works. At the end of the description on 152 it describes how Paladins and Clerics can create Holy Water by outlining all the same time, costs, and components of the spell Ceremony, but doesn't specifically state that they must use Ceremony to create Holy Water this way. So basically Paladins and Clerics can always perform the ritual to create Holy Water without ever needing to learn or prepare the spell Ceremony.
Action, Action Surge, Contingency Spell, maybe op attack from War Caster, (3-4 leveled spells in one round) Just be sure not to use a bonus action spell BeCaUSe ThEy’Re EspECiAly SwIFt… lol
@@elliotbryant3459 Eldritch Knight: "The Wizard was like Father to me..." After Casting a leveled Spell + Bonus Action: Melee Attack on top of Eldritch Strike (or is it the other way around???) + Action Surge Teleport + 4 Attacks. The Wizard: "I raised that boy."
The crossbow expert’s base functionality is also very weird. There are a lot of clues in the way that it was written that it was intended to be for using a melee weapon main hand, with a small xbow offhand. But the rules didn’t actually accomplish that, and instead we end up with rapid firing hand crossbows that are apparently easier to reload than a shortbow
Rapid Fire Heavy Double Handed Crossbow... I mean... There are guns in 5e too, but this is fun to use. I would think Unarmed Combat works with Crossbow Expert since it's... One Hand... But that depends on what Unarmed Combat is considered as, for a weapon... ... ... It doesn't work, RAW, but it should, RAI.
@@finalfantasy50 Ammo Property is wired for Bows Vs Crossbows... Unless I'm reading it wrong. For Bows... Drawing the arrow and releasing it for the attack is considered the same Action. So if you have the Fighter's Extra Attack, then you can release 4 arrows at lv20. For Crossbows... You reload the bolt then release the bolt. Both being Object Interaction + Action... Unless you have the Crossbow Expert Feat. Thrown Weapons have the same Object Interaction rule but Thrown Weapon Fighting Style can ignore it.
Treantmonk: "It's silly that you need crossbow expert to use the Net without disadvantage" Chad McGee: "I'm gunna take sharpshooter so I can throw my net without disadvantage"
If they had worded it how he said, "The creature cannot knowingly move closer to the source of its fear.", then that would still prevent players from doing that, short of casting Modify Memory on themselves to forget where the dragon is.
@@jemandanders6160 If a character is being mind controlled by an effect that would force them to move they would count as willingly moving there, in the same sense that if you cast dominate person on a PC and then try to dimension door away with them the PC would count as willing when previously they wouldn't.
@@TERMINATOR3900 Forced movement is not willing and should never 'count as'. If a creature is under a charm effect (or Suggestion, for example) then their movement would be considered 'forced' because they are complying with a request. Edit- removed typo.
For the bonus action spell thing, something else that is interesting. "You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already used your bonus action this turn." this last sentence seems to be listing an exception for when to use your bonus action to cast a spell. A GM could use this to interpret that if you used your bonus action on something else you can use your action to cast the spell instead of your bonus action because you already used your bonus action this turn and you only must use your bonus action if you haven't already used your bonus action.
For #3, I think "willingly" implies "knowingly". If you're moving in the direction that the source of your fear is, but you don't know that they're there, you aren't willingly moving towards them, you're just willingly moving in general. It's not the same.
Also, I like the Devil Sight ruling. I think the whole spectrum (haha) of light rules in 5e is kind of underappreciated and underused. I'd like to play a campaign that really focused on it like the game Darkest Dungeon did.
Regarding "designers not admitting when they're wrong" I think there's probably a policy keeping them from admitting when they've made a mistake. Because if they make a mistake then it needs to be added in the next errata, and the longer the errata the more expensive it is to reprint the book. Designers are already heavily limited in page space, and features like spells are frequently removed from books in order to cut down on page space and make the books cheaper to print. So someone is probably breathing down the designers' necks in order to make sure they don't say anything that will increase the page space of the next book, and anything they can get away with not changing they're encouraged to avoid changing.
@@TheArQu So has 5e. I think they come out with a new version each year or so. Though I know that some publishers intentionally do not add in all of the errata as its lets them publish future versions. I had a class where the book used was written by the professor (they chose the book before he applied to the university, and kinda got upset when he got the spot since it meant they wouldn't be the ones teaching the course). The first thing the professor did was hand each student ~30 pages of errata (like wrong answers to questions in the back) that the publishers have known about for years. Assuming 1 page of fixes per year, that's 30 years of editions.
I already mentioned Wall of Force on the last video, so for this one as a unique weird rule: There are now several abilities that feature the note "or until you lose your concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell)" but do NOT say that they themself require concentration. Sure if you use these abilities, get hit and fail your concentration check you loose the abilities effect. The same thing applies if you cast a spell that requires concentration. Where it gets weird is that if you FIRST cast a concentration spell and THEN activate this ability you profit from both bonuses because this is what ends concentration: -Your choice to do so (let's assume you don't want) -The end of the duration (chance is huge you can do both in two actions or less, so does not apply) -taking damage and failing the save(does not apply) -being incapacitated or killed (does not apply) -enironmental phenomena and failing the save(does not apply) -casting another spell that requires concentration (does NOT apply! You are not casting a spell, you use your ability that works until you loose concentration) also the implication that once they got hit too hard a Ranger would decide they're not their favourite foe anymore are pretty hilarious to me
My silliest interaction with Devil's Sight is with the Stealth and Hiding rules. See, my Warlock has a dumpstat WIS, for the flavor of being dumb enough to make a deal with a devil, so her Perception is a garbage 9 passive. Last session, we fought a bunch of Shadows in a dark, but open room. Shadows can Hide as a bonus action in dim light or darkness, and their Stealth bonus increases from +4 to +6, simple enough. However, the rules for hiding say: "You can't hide from a creature that can see you clearly, and you give away your position if you make noise, such as shouting a warning or knocking over a vase. An invisible creature can always try to hide. Signs of its passage might still be noticed, and it does have to stay quiet. In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger all around, so if you come out of hiding and approach a creature, it usually sees you. However, under certain circumstances, the DM might allow you to stay hidden as you approach a creature that is distracted, allowing you to gain advantage on an attack roll before you are seen." Which means, once they move out from the cover of the threshold's blind spot, my Warlock can see them bright as day, in spite of her horrible WIS and their massive Stealth bonus; she can see them clearly. Even funnier, everyone else in the party has Darkvision, including our Wildfire Druid. She casts Faerie Fire on a bunch of them so that people can see the "bright light" if they creep into Darkvision range, which makes them unable to Hide from THEM without ducking behind cover. Except, my Warlock, has Devil's Sight and NO Darkvision. So according to everyone's favorite rules hack Crawford, would now be UNABLE to see the Shadows if they Hide, but she would have advantage/disadvantage cancel out to a straight roll to-hit, due to being an unseen target and Faerie Fire granting advantage. Which gives us a hilarious scenario where Darkvision characters can see Shadows regardless of Stealth roll in Dim Light, and Devil's Sight character can see Shadows regardless of Stealth Roll in Darkness, but neither can actually see the others' Shadows if/when they choose to Hide in Dim Light/Darkness.
@@Kitusser "Affected creatures shed dim light in a 10-foot radius." It's a very faint glow, enough for a Shadow to hide in. "Shadow Stealth. While in dim light or darkness, the shadow can take the Hide action as a bonus action. Its stealth bonus is also improved to +6." Actually, rereading the spell, it wouldn't help my Warlock. "Any attack roll against an affected creature or object has advantage if the attacker can see it, and the affected creature or object can't benefit from being invisible." So since she can't see it (it's hiding in its own dim light) it's even WORSE for her!
@@Kitusser DM compromised at letting me be able to tell whatever's at the middle of a radius is where the shadow "should be", like the bullseye on a target, but they didn't last long enough for it to be an issue.
The frightened thing isn't so egregious when you take into that there's an intent that there be interpretation of rules. If you don't know where something is, you can't be willingly moving toward it in that you don't know where it is. Now, if you *think* you know where the dragon is (so you mentally backtrack and conclude "the dragon is south of me") then I would say the "can't willingly move closer" applies, even if you're actually wrong. Your intent is to get closer, even if what you accomplish isn't that.
Yes, I agree. It's an issue of the natural language rules being able to be read in different ways. I think that since only one interpretation is logical it's a non issue but it definitely can be parsed in different ways
@@zakpodo The issue with relying on the logical interpretation is the amount of people with abysmal critical thinking skills, amd power gamers who think they can words their way into a dumb ruling that benefits them.
@@Halinspark yeah, you're right. Ultimately it's just justifying a subpar product. And gven the budget and scope of dnd it shouldn't happen. Hell, a lot of these kind of issues were apparent to me on the first read through and therr are players far more experienced. On the other hand, the kind of people you described can always find a way to do their thing.
The net is kinda weird but works perfectly fine. The main weirdness comes from misunderstanding how the "Thrown" property and its ranges overlap. Basically though, if you're throwing it the max range is 15 feet with disadvantage, because it's a big awkward thing to use. If not trying to get someone 2-3 squares away though, you're using it as a normal melee weapon, much like you can with any other thrown weapon.
#1 is straight up a check on healing word. My guess is that whoever wrote it didn't have enough pull to override the munchkin who pushed for healing word & phb197 death saves but was able to sneak in a roundabout half fix without it being noticed till ink was on paper & books were shipping.
I think if you don't know where the source of your fear is, you aren't willingly moving towards it. I don't think this is poorly worded at all. In fact I would go so far as to say that if your character thinks the source of their fear is in one direction, but they're wrong, they can't willingly move in that direction. Which makes sense. Fear is about their will, not their knowledge.
I agree with you. Willingly moving towards means "i want to move there because the enemy is there." Although im not so sure in the case you think the source of fear is somewhere where it is not.
@@pedrogarcia8706 yeah thats the reason why i see no problem there either. but for the rule to take effect you need to move towards it and do it willingly.
@@pedrogarcia8706 but if its not actually the case then you dont do it. You might want to do it (thats why it qualifies for willingly) but you dont do it which the rule also requires.
Regarding Frightened movent, I think "closer" could be defined as either Globally OR Linearly. You are not moving on the path to the dragon, but if you turn around and walk back through the maze, you would be moving closer to the dragon because that's the path's destination, even if it's farther from a global perspective.
If you really want to get into weird rules territory, look into detail about what the Shapechange spell does. Especially combined with various Crawford rulings. Shapechange into a Fire Giant and try to figure out your AC...
an artificer can use their homunculus' core as a spell casting focus because it's an item bearing an infusion, which means that it can also become a spell storing item, which means the homunculus can care bear stare by using it's own heart to send scorching rays at people because the homunculus is a creature that can be commanded to interact with the object to produce the effect of the spell stored inside (which is also free from counterspell)
I would actually argue that "willing" implies intent, so if you do not know where the source of your fear is you cannot intentionally move towards it. Therefore, in the example with the dragon and the labyrinth, you can move in any direction. I know this is a matter of interpretation, but there's one that seems reasonable and one that doesn't.
Imo the frightened rules make sense because if you don't know where the creature is then you aren't willingly moving towards it, you're accidentally moving towards it. And if you run out of a room and you're frightened of what's in the room and know it's still there it makes sense that you can't go back in, even if you can't see it anymore.
That is more RAI than RAW here I think. The letter of of the text says you cannot willingly move closer. No mention of knowledge states in the text which leads to the weird effect happening and solving through RAI or rule 0.
I was going to say this, but you said it first. Willingly doesn't only modify the word move. Rather, it modifies the entire phrase "move closer to the source of its fear." While you could read it the way that Treantmonk does, I think the way you read it is better.
I always assumed when you didn’t know where the source of your fear was you couldn’t move out of fear. If it could be anywhere, you can’t move anywhere
Not really a weird rule but thorn whip being a melee spell attack with 15ft of range. Had a dm think that it was a range spell attack so they assumed disadvantage while in melee until I point out how the spell actually works.
Bugbears can make it 35 feet (it’s actually 30 foot range) Long limbed: When you make a melee attack on your turn, your reach for it is 5 feet greater than normal. Sorcerers can make it longer range with distant spell. Combine these two and it’s either (30+5)*2 or 30*2+5 so 70 feet is 65 feet either way weirdly long. If only it was not a spell (could use a magic item to use it instead so this works) you can do sone fun stuff with the new giant barbarian perhaps
@@solalabell9674 ah thanks for the correction but yeah the spell is really interesting. The fact the range of it can get pretty wild for a melee attack is insane.
7:00: My interpretation is that you can't willingly go towards where *you think* the source of your fear is. If you hide behind a wall and no longer see the dragon but still have a general idea of where it is, you can't move towards that, even if the dragon silently teleported elsewhere (he's behind you). If you see the dragon become invisible and believe the dragon could be anywhere around you, you can't move at all. If you see the dragon get disintegrated and believe it, you can move freely. Even if it was a Major Illusion from your Wizard and the dragon is still out there, invisible and hunting you.
Speaking of JC, he did give input on your first weird rule "A barbarian in heavy armor can benefit from a totem feature if the feature doesn't prohibit such armor or doesn't rely on Rage" because the totem relies on rage you can't wear heavy armor to benefit from it.
Spell targeting. A lot of times it makes sense both others, not so much. Spell with a range of self don't necessarily mean they target you. And when you take things like beast master's Spell share into account; there becomes no clear answer on many spells.
As WotC had to remind players too... "Casting a spell on yourself" and "casting a spell on a creature(s)", can still be casted onto yourself. "You" are a creature.
Swallowing can cause a lot of strange things to happen. If you are unfortunate enough to be swallowed by a Giant Toad, then you are blinded and restrained, which would normally mean you have disadvantage on attack rolls against the inside of the toad's stomach. But the toad can't see you any more, so it's just a straight roll. (Some swallowers have blindsight, which proibably fixes this problem. Giant toads don't.) Druids who like to turn into toads can take the Alert feat, which should work as long as the swallowed creature isn't invisible. Then we need to know the AC of the inside of the toad. Since the rules don't say anything, it's the same as the outside of the toad... which seams reasonable until the moon druid activates his animated shield, turns into a toad, and starts eating orcs, and now a swallowed orc has a harder time hacking his way out because of a shield hovering *outside the toad*!! Finally, a halfling rune knight can use a cloud rune to make a giant frog swallow a Tarrasque. The Tarrasque will of course have very little difficulty tearing its way out of that frog, but it's a bit odd that it fits inside in the first place.
Swallowed creatures should get advantage on all melee attack rolls, because there's literally no place to miss. If you stab forward you're gonna hit stomach wall.
With devil's sight... I find most DMs, often including myself, don't like lighting rules since the slow down the game. People often ignore dim light condition because it is annoying to rule every single attack roll, measure distance between light sources, etc., etc. Since most DMs ignore dim light, in general, the rules for darkvision they play under is typically all or nothing. This also creates issues with stealth rules, obscurement, etc. I know lots of DMs who are fully aware they are there, they just choose not to use them rather than mistaking the rules.
Dim light doesn’t effect attack rolls though. Dim light counts as a lightly obscured area, and the only effect of a lightly obscured area is causing disadvantage on perception (WIS) checks. You’re free to play the game however you want. If measuring light sources is not something you’re interested in and that works at your table fine, but it really only has that one effect on its own so I don’t find it slows gameplay down at all. Of course there a number of spells and abilities that interact with dim light as well but those are usually pretty fun so 🤷♀️
I remember years ago when our DM ignored lighting altogether until the Ranger got to lvl3 and went Gloomstalker. Then he started meticulously describing light pouring into every single room we ever entered from then on lol.
The rule that vexes me is with Shield Master. You can only shield bash after making an attack instead of before the attack. It should be a 1-2 combo punch and the player declares the order.
This is especially messy because one would expect the shield bash to come _first._ You smash a foe with your shield to put them off balance so you can land an actually dangerous strike with your weapon.
I have to chime in on your commentary about the Net. Your analysis is accurate, save that you do not address a notation in the Improvised section that changes things entirely, with no need to take a Feat. The section on Improvised weapons in the PHB specifically states: "If a character uses a ranged weapon to make a melee attack, or throws a melee weapon that does not have the thrown property, it also deals 1d4 damage." AND "At the DM’s option, a character proficient with a weapon can use a similar object as if it were that weapon and use his or her proficiency bonus." Now things change. When the Net is Thrown, it normally does no Damage, and the Attacker has Disadvantage on the attack roll. BUT if the attacker chooses to use the net as an Improvised weapon, all of a sudden they can attack at melee range, and do 1d4 Damage in addition to the net's normal effect, which is not changed, regardless of the manner in which it is used to hit someone. In addition, if the DM allows it, the attacker might eve get their proficiency bonus to that attack, because a Net is indeed similar to that weapon. Thus, it is completely possible to actually attack at melee range with a net and actually do damage as well as restraining the target, and the worst that can happen is that you are denied your Proficiency bonus to the attack, which does NOT preclude adding your dexterity bonus to both the attack and damage rolls. (Sounds crazy, but there it is.) And this is a case of specific overriding general. I love these videos by the way.
Rule 1 is also backed up by the fact that the Elk totem (From SGAG) explicitly says "and aren't wearing heavy armor" but other totems from both SCAG and PHB don't, and they never errata'd it. Personally, I don't mind - It's not like you were going to damage that guy with an attack anyway.
Another fun fact about the Net; the Net rules say this: "A net has no Effect on Creatures that are formless". However, no monsters are ever described as formless and it's entirely up to the DM on whether or not a monster is formless. The keywords the game DOES use are Amorphous, Incorporeal, and Ooze, all of which imply formless (especially the first one) but none of them are explicitly ever described as formless. Now, a lot of those also have a condition immunity for the Restrained condition, meaning the Net still won't work on, say, a Shadow or a Ghost. But a Net COULD work on most Oozes, that often have a Amorphous feat, but not a Restrained Immunity (unless the Net has holes that are larger than 1 inch, in which case they can escape). Finally, if a creature is Incorporeal but lacks a Restrained condition, the creature can move through solid objects and creatures, but not escape a net (since it's still restrained by the net), and maybe even take damage since it's IN the net. As far as I know, this combination only occurs on a handful of creatures: Undead Spirit, Summoned by Summon Undead (TCE), Draconic Shard (but Huge, so immune) (FTD), Avatar of Death (Summoned by Deck of Many Things) (DMG), and the Shadow Horror (GGR)
The Fear not allowing you to move closer to the source of your fear is really funny if you live on a planet that wraps around (like ours, a geoid) since you can't move directly towards it or away from it since you're getting closer.
Rule number two is just a balancing rule that (like so many others) only exists because of Healing Word but doesn't want to admit it and (as homebrew, be aware of that!) I'd just use these rules specifically with Healing Word only when I dm, especially for newbies.
Just cast it all outside of combat/the turn order... Why?... Because Mage Hand is a great example as to why some Spells are horrendous during Combat/Turn Order compared to casting the same Spells outside of the Turn Order/Combat.
The willing condition is in there to exclude forced movement, magical compulsion, etc. If you are unaware of something's current location and accidentally move toward it, you aren't willing moving toward it.
I'm actually okay with the idea that if the source of the frightened condition is a spell or a dragon or some other monstrous being, that the fear is a psychic attack that radiates out from the monster and really is detectable the same way a strong smell or a noise is detectable as coming from some direction- just over a magical distance.
Talking about the net, another can of worms you can open is how weapons are categorized, which particularly matters with classes like the rogue and their sneak attack. Sneak attack must be performed with a ranged weapon (or weapons with the finesse property) and the net is a ranged weapon, so it can be used for sneak attack. To be able to add the damage you will need to 'hit' an opponent with one of these weapons. Which is fine, since we 'roll to hit' with the net (like any ranged weapon). There's the usual series of hoops you have to jump through (need advantage, or ally within 5ft of target etc etc...) and the net wants to be thrown with disadvantage. Though with things like steady aim or sharpshooter we can still meet these requirements. So even though the rogue is not proficient with the net and the net doesn't deal damage itself, they can still trigger the feature and deal sneak attack damage with it. To point to either extreme of how sneak attack 'works' (according the base rules). Rogues can never sneak attack with the javelin, no matter what features they take, since it is classified as a melee weapon and not a ranged weapon. Even if you multiclass into monk to use it as a monk weapon or try to throw it, it it still classified as a melee weapon and monks just allow you to use dex, it doesn't grant the finesse property. On the other end of the spectrum, we have a rogue who isn't proficient with the net, throwing it at long range at someone who is behind heavy cover (using steady aim). They can still roll a crit and automatically hit, rolling double the sneak attack dice to deal damage with the... net...
And.. Oh god... there's another can of worms you can open with the net... Improvised weapon attacks. The players handbook says you can improvise melee attacks with ranged weapons (and ranged attacks with melee weapons). So, you can hit someone with an improvised melee strike with the net (a ranged weapon) and this could still qualify for a sneak attack (as you need to hit with a ranged weapon). So the easiest way for a rogue to avoid disadvantage with the net is for them to try to physically clobber the foe with it in their hand. Long story short. The rules for sneak attack can be quite silly 'as written' and you should always try to sort these kinds of things out with your DM ahead of time. Technically a rogue 'can' clobber someone with the net and get sneak attacks. Whilst javelins, longswords or unarmed strikes will never qualify for that bonus damage. For the most part I always advocate for sneak attack to represent opportunism, as long as you have surprise or accuracy you can carefully aim at more vulnerable areas. Using this kind of common sense we see that obviously the net shouldn't allow for sneak attack and that as long as you have advantage or a nearby ally then most weapon attacks should allow a cunning fighter the opportunity to aim for the jugular.
The Bonus Action spell rule got me just this week with the latest Unearthed Arcana. If you take the Cartomancer Feat, you can imbue a spell in a card and then cast that spell with a bonus action. I thought, “This is great,” until I remembered that Bonus Action rule, which the Feat doesn’t say anything about. I guess the only benefit is that casting the spell doesn’t consume a spell slot but of course the Feat doesn’t state that, either. And WotC wonders why there is so much confusion.
The feat says you must choose a spell with a casting time of one action, so it's also effectively a quickened spell, and you can cast a cantrip on the same turn where you normally wouldn't be able to.
game mechanics represent a small sized race as effectively having the same strength as a medium race as reflected by push/drag/carry/lift [which is pretty weird on its own] -but despite being equally strong, when they grapple a toad or other tiny creature their speed becomes halved.
The fear one typically actually still works; fear only works while you can see the source of your fear. This is detailed in the frightened condition, I believe.
I have to often remind players about the one leveled spell rule per turn at my table. Especially due the tendancy to cast a fireball and bonus action misty step on the same turn.
technically reaction spells can be cast on a turn other than your own, so those probably don't count, however there is also the rule about contradictory rules being overridden by more specific rules. If for example, you cast a bonus action spell (a general rule which says you can't cast a leveled spell on the same turn) and then you use action surge (a specific rule that states you do not limit yourself to the normal set of actions you could take in a single turn but instead get more actions) it could in theory actually override that rule, however, it does depend on the exact wording, and it may mean that your first action can only be a cantrip but your second action could be leveled. With 5e, the designers went in a different direction from previous editions. In previous editions mechanics were designed around what they logically wanted them to do within the world. This made them extremely wordy and often difficult to understand but also extremely difficult to balance against literally anything else in the game because there was never a blanket rule that said you couldn't use a mechanic in a rational way just because. With 5e they dug in deep on the idea that balance should exist (they uh... did an ok job but lets face it, tabletop games that rely on logic and ingenuity can never be balanced) and so they restricted all mechanics in the game to being _only_ what they said they could do, and not anything that is logically consequential from that. Fireball does not create a sound, does not create a force, does not heat the air around the sphere of influence and does not burn anything that is being carried. That's just how it works because fireball is meant to be a literal sphere of hot that exists for an instant does its damage and nothing beyond that in 5e, not an explosion. They also made some non-arbitrary decisions on rules relating to casting times which are sometimes purely for balance, sometimes for lore... but another thing they chose not to include for the most part with 5e... is explanation of why any of the rules exist, even if they are based on lore they intended to be in the game. When you cast a spell with verbal components, even though they don't TELL you explicitly that the verbal component is LOUDLY AND CLEARLY SHOUTING MAGIC WORDS on top of any other words you have to speak like a creature's true name, or whatever, they did INTEND for that to be the case as they have noted in Sage Advice. So, you cannot slyly weave your Command spell into your speech because it should be fairly obvious to everyone when you shout 'HOCUS POCUS! SLEEP!' and wiggle your fingers, that you have just cast a spell. They intended the game to be a lot less open to interpretation than how they allowed us to know they intended it... probably because they did want to encourage creativity.... but they also wanted it to always fall under rule 0: You are doing it because you want to, not because its in the rules.
I would argue that you don't become supernaturally aware of the direction of a creature you are Frightened of: you just can't *willingly* move closer to it. So consider two scenarios: 1) You are running from a Red Dragon's fear aura in a large, open space of cavern. The Red Dragon has an allied mage that casts Invisibility on it, and the dragon starts flying around, harrying the party invisibly. You can't be sure of where it is. Unless you become aware of where it is, you can move freely, although you are still Frightened of it and if you *do* become aware of its location, you can no longer move towards it. 2) You keep running after the Invisibility is removed with the Dragon's next attack, and you hide down a corridor, having broken line of sight. You discover a secret path that leads back into the dragon's lair, to where you *know* the dragon is, but would do so in a way that would keep you out of sight of the dragon. You can't use that secret passage, even though it breaks line of sight. Similarly, if you are Frightened of a creature and you then see an illusionary version of that creature, unless your character is aware that it is illusory, it would still not be able to move closer to it as your character is unaware that the 'creature' they are seeing is an illusion.
I'd just like to remind everyone that WotC has a trained Lawyer on staff to approve the wording of their rules. My guess, they couldn't get a job as an actual lawyer.
On the fear, I would interpret "willingly" in this case as "purposely." If you don't know where the source is, moving towards it isn't willingly getting closer, it's accidentally or coincidentally getting closer.
To me, the net’s range causing it to always have disadvantage under normal circumstances makes some sense. I feel that how far you’re throwing the net doesn’t really change the fact it would likely be awkward to throw in the first place. Though the fact that none of the feats that change that have anything to do with nets (Crossbow Expert, Gunner, Sharpshooter) doesn’t make sense.
The net can be used with Sharpshooter as well, to avoid disadvantage. Or, even more sleazy, anything that imposes the heavily obscured condition will erase both advantage and disadvantage, leaving a straight roll in all cases.
@@MalloonTarka unless they successfully Hide, you always know. You'd normally have disadvantage to hit something you can't see. But that's offset by them not being able to see you either. As wacky as it is, once a single case of advantage and a single case of disadvantage exist, it's a straight roll. It doesn't matter if there's 10 things that create disadvantage, and only one that creates advantage.
Devil's Sight not working in dim light is completely intentional, as it is meant to be an unusual ability that does not so much improve your vision, but replace its restrictions _entirely._ Depending on whether an invocation needs to be invoked or not, Devil's Sight might actually blind you in other light levels. The rules need lawyering, and rule 0 is always in effect. (Note that the names of game mechanics are considered flavor text and are not part of their rulings, so crossbow expert for example, does not represent expertise in crossbows, according to the designers. It is merely a fun name. Like Color Spray... you don't spray colors, you get some random magical effects.)
I watched both videos and read a bunch of comments, but undeniable the one rule that by itself is more illogical than all of the ones mentioned so far together is how multiple movement works. If you're a human (30ft walking speed) wearing a Cloak of the Manta Ray (60ft swimming speed) and you're 30ft from the ocean, from where you see your BBEG inside a keelboat already 30ft into the sea, you can try and reach him in the same turn without using dash or anything similar. If you're in the same situation, except you're the one in the boat and the BBEG is the one in the beach, then you will either need 2 turns or need to dash, because somehow it takes longer to swim 30ft + walk 30ft, then it takes to walk 30ft + swim 30ft. I'm sure someone will point out something silly such as "that that's because the water would make you heavier" or something, but this applies to ANY kind of speed, even in cases where the speed values are inverted.
Kinda makes sense; You have a total movement of 30ft while walking, then when you reach the water, the magic cloak gives you a swimming speed of 60ft, efectivily giving you 30ft of Extra movement. But when you reverse it you swim 30 of your 60ft untill you reach the land and you switch back to a movement of 30ft walking speed. And the game goes: you have a move of 30ft and you have already moved 30ft, so you can't walk anymore this turn.
I don’t mind the dragon fear fleeing. That’s more something like a psychic presence that is scaring you. You can’t see it. But you can feel the fear when you move towards it. Nothing weird about that to me.
I'll admit that it's an aggressive reading of the RAW and there may be something else outside of that paragraph that proves me wrong, but the way bonus action spells are written, it doesn't specify what to do if you've already used your bonus action. "You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn", meaning that if you have already used your bonus action, you don't need to use a bonus action to cast the spell. It's still a bonus action spell, so it still prevents further spellcasting, but it only takes an action if you have an action to spend, if not, it's free. If we applied the same wording to a different, hypothetical scenario, the implication of it being free is more obvious. "You must use a move action to jump, provided you haven't already taken a move action this turn" would clearly let you jump for free if you'd already moved. I don't know if the intended implication is A - you can't cast a bonus action spell if you've already used your bonus action ( in which case, the "provided X..." shouldn't be there) or B - you have to use a Standard or Move action instead (in which case it should specify what to do). It feels like that sentence was written when action types could be traded down.
3. Willingly is fine - So the source of your fear a Dragon is to the north but you can't see it, but you have been deceived into thinking it's to the south and so you can't willingly move south, because it's to the south , but can willingly move north because it's not there ...
I think there's arguably no problem with #3. If you think your source of fear is behind you but it's actually in front of you, you can't move backwards because you would be willing yourself to move closer to the source, even though that's not what happens. Similarly, you CAN move forwards, because while you are moving closer to your fear, you are not doing so willingly, you are doing so unwittingly while willing yourself to move away from the source. Put another way, if you read it as "you can move towards your fear, you just can't intend to be moving towards it", which I think is a valid interpretation of the language, and certainly what most people probably understand it as, there is no problem with the rule. It allows for the Scooby Doo moment where Shaggy is backing away from where he thinks the monster is, biting his fingernails in fear, only to bump into the monster standing behind him.
I love how a twitter rules response is like "Hey I noticed that this rule doesn't actually work the way I and every other player that has ever played the game has interpreted it?" "Oh yeah, that was intentional."
Treantmonk, the man that gave me the Danzig bard, with STR 16! The only optimizer I really appreciate, because the way he sees the game: your ideas with context in your videos just got better! Do you think 3.5/ Pathfinder become unplayable after tenth level, because of the excessive amount of buffs and exotic spells and conditions? How about talking about things you miss (and DON'T miss) of other editions? Congrats on your channel
When you are Frightened and cannot move _willingly_ toward the target of your fear, the word 'willingly' comes with the implication that you have a reasonable suspicion of where it _isn't._ Thus, if you do not know where it is, two things can actually be the result. A: You can move in any direction UNWILLINGLY moving toward it because you were trying not to but were not able to avoid it due to lack of information, or you cannot willingly move from that spot because any direction could be toward it, and thus, you cannot move in that direction.
Rule 3, if you don't know where the creature is you're not willingly moving closer to it, you're moving in a direction. You have to be consciously aware of where something is in order to deliberately and willingly moving towards it.
I definitely get your point that the word “knowingly” would better express the idea, but I do think “willingly” covers it. If you’re unaware that you’re doing something, I don’t think you can be said to be doing it willingly. If I step into a pit hidden by branches, I wouldn’t say, “I meant to do that.” Or I might say it, but it wouldn’t be true. :P
The Spider Climb spell doesn't give the same Spider Climb ability as you might find on Giant Spiders, for example. The spell allows the recipient to climb without using their hands. The creature ability allows the creature to climb without ever needing to make an ability check for difficult surfaces.
Hi treantmonk, i found an interesting exploit recently for immortality equal to a 15th level zealot barbarian, although it does require the tal’dorei campaign setting reborn (which is considered 3rd party material i believe, so not gonna be used in a game without permission from the dm) and the tomb of annihilation book. essentially, you pick up the remarkable recovery feat from tal’dorei, allowing you to (among other things) regain hit points equal to your con modifier if you are stabilized while dying. and then, pick up the ghost lantern from annihilation, which magically stabilizes you whenever you fall unconscious if you are within 10 feet of the lantern. it has a slight knick in the rules that if you are unconscious when you begin dying, then the ghost lantern won’t stabilize you, so unfortunately it suffers from the zealot barbarian’s weakness to sleep spells, and also the weakness to damage that puts you negative your max hp, killing you, and since you aren’t getting 15 levels of barbarian for a build with this exploit, you have a lot less hp and so killing you that way is probably much easier
Twilight Cleric can see to 300ft with darkvision that still allows you to see color or at least it's one of the few specific isntances that doesn't say you see in shades of gray. Path of the Beast Claws interacting with Racial Claws attacks (both attacks have the same name) and one (racial claws) being able to interact with Tavern Brawler and the other (Beast Claws) can not.
The net thing is completely RAI, because the restrained condition is so powerful. I’m pretty sure the frightened thing is not RAI, but I think it’s pretty cool to feel an impending sense of doom in a particular direction…
Correction on the spell rule your reaction is jot on your turn it’s on that round of combat but on the turn of another character. The exception that I don’t know how it works is if a reaction taken to say counterspell an enemy counter spelling you is your turn but I think it is.
There's nothing that says reactions must be on another creature's turn (the PHB specifically state your turn or another creature's turn). You can use a reaction any time the triggering event occurs, and then can't do so again until the start of your next turn. It's just that most of the time reaction triggers happen on another creatures turn. Page 190 in the PHB has the specifics, for reference.
@@PiroMunkie true might have been better to say ‘not necesarrily’ basically my point was that reaction spells are often not related to the BA spell rule
With regards to using a net is there anything that is stopping you from making an improvised weapon attack with it? In fact oddly enough, from how I understand all the rules interacting not only can you use a net to do a melee attack without disadvantage and make use of the Restrained condition, but in addition now your net is actually dealing 1d4+str damage I think. I believe these are the RAW that permits this to work, rather than having to rely on "The rules don't say I can't" : Improvised Weapon: "An improvised weapon includes any object you can wield in one or two hands." A net certainly fits within this criteria "If a character uses a ranged weapon to make a melee attack, [] it deals 1d4 damage." As a Martial Ranged Weapon, the net also qualifies for having its damage changed to 1d4 I'd also like to highlight that this doesn't change the damage type to bludgeoning as one might expect, meaning that you're still stabbing them with your bow/crossbow, and the net deals damage without any assigned type Special Weapons (Net): "A Large or smaller creature hit by a net is restrained until it is freed." This doesn't limit the ways the creature can be hit at all. So long as it's not too big, hitting the creature at all will restrain it. Have I missed anything here, or do nets actually work as intended so long as you rely on misusing them?
Yeah, I think on the frightened condition, replacing the word willingly with knowingly would outright fix all problems. Knowingly seems to me to always include willingly, but willingly doesn't always include knowingly.
Another really weird thing about Frightened you didn't mention is that if the thing you're afraid of is around a corner, the direct path to flee from it will take you closer to it by straight line distance, even though you're increasing the distance it will need to chase you to catch you, preventing you from fleeing in the manner that any actual afraid person would flee.
It might not be "weird rule" per se, but I've always wondered if the "vanish" part of Steel Wind Strike gives advantage to the attack rolls that are part of the spell, due to being an unseen attacker. You vanish, THEN you make up to 5 attack rolls, THEN you reappear within 5 ft of one of your targets
One really weird rule I noticed in your video on ship combat is that ships won’t move in combat unless one of their crewed actions is used on it. Pretty sure that’s not how momentum and hydrodynamics work -but I know little about operating a boat, so maybe someone with the sailor background irl can justify it.
Hey Treant, can I get your (and anyone else of they want to answer) opinion on something? Recently, I had a bit of an argument with my DM over hiding rolls and what those results would be: either being a Success or a Failure. Long story short, our level 3 party was talking to an Ancient Green Dragon, and my character was trying to convince him to let us go. I rolled a persuasion check, got a 25, and the DM proceeded to contest it (with what I don’t know?). DM didn’t announce the results, and instead immediately began to roleplay a troubled and somewhat very annoyed sounding dragon. I informed the DM right then and there that I intended to cast Silvery Barbs, but I could only cast it if the creature had succeeded on whatever roll it had made. Argument broke out about the DM never revealing his rolls to the party, and the rest was history. Certain spells, reactions, and abilities require the player to know the result of an effect, being a success or failure, and I tried let the DM know this, but he abhorrently refused to acknowledge it. Eventually his resolution was an exasperated outcry, stating that since Ancient Dragons get legendary actions, the spell automatically fails and we could just move on. I guess a side question to all of this is, do legendary actions work against ability checks too? Or do contested rolls fall under Saving Throws?
not Treantmonk but: Legendary Resistance only works against saving throws, nothing else (I guess you meant Legendary Resistance instead of Legendary Actions). I'm also curious how other DMs rule when a person can detect a success to use Silvery Barbs on.
Legendary resistance only work when the creature makes a saving throw. They don't work for skill checks or contested rolls. The DM has to tell if the roll failed or succeded for these kind of spells or abilities. That aside, I don't think this should be a contested roll, just a persuasion check on your side. And with this the DM will always have the last word on how the NPCs will act. You could a 40 (absurdly big number) in persuasion but the king won't still just hand over the kingdom.
@@rulethegamer Gotcha… Yeah A.G.D.’s get the Legendary Resistance version. So then the spell shouldn’t have just fizzled like he said it would. But I also don’t know what I was rolling against either, since DM didn’t disclose that either. The only thing that was said was “25? Well, now I have to roll against that.” I don’t *think* that trying to convince a dragon to let a party go should’ve been a Saving Throw…?
@@Micna9596 No you right, and creatures of this severity are certainly no pushovers for the skills sides of things. But he also stated that I should announce my intention to use reaction spells before I make my rolls… Which is weird
@@Just_som_Ottur DM fiat. When you succeed an ability check, you're not guaranteed the results that you want, e.g. @micna9596's comment about kings not giving up their kingdoms on a high ability check. This will not really answer your question, but my unsolicited advise is that when faced with situations like this, trust that your DM is doing their best to give everyone a satisfying game, regardless of whether their decisions are dubious. everyone's bound to make mistakes. (some DMs are terrible and you should just leave, i just gave general advice)
I guess willingly would imply it being knowingly. You can't really willingly do something without knowing that that is what would happen. If you're in a labyrinth and the source of your fear is behind several bends at an unknown distance i'd probably rule it that you cannot go backwards even if the source of your fear is actually(unknowingly to the character) right in front of you but entirely out of sight/hearing. It just makes more sense.
I think with the frightened condition, it has something to do with closing your eyes and walking towards the source of your fear. Or that kind of shenanigans. But the wording is indeed poorly
Nets can be cut with slashing damage. So if you're caught in a net DON'T use a dagger (piercing) but DO use a whip (slashing) to destroy the net.
lol
Great Gygax's ghost!
Honestly, I kind of like that Devil's Sight basically screws you in the fine print. It does exactly what you asked for, no more, no less, just as agreed! 😈
Just like a deal with a devil
Devils named it Devil's Sight as a joke
My favourite weird rule:
A spell that has both somatic and material components can be cast with full hands, as long as one hand is holding the material component (usually a focus, but not necessarily), since the rules explicitely state you can perform the somatic component with the hand holding the material component(s).
But a spell that has somatic but no material components needs a free hand to cast - even if you're holding an arcane focus in one hand, you can't use that hand for the somatic component.
The spell _Shield_ has verbal and somatic components, but no material components. So all those optimisers who give their martial character _Shield_ somehow but neglect to give them the feat _War Caster_ better make sure their character has an empty hand at the end of their turn.
So either no wearing a (physical) Shield (or holding an off-hand weapon), _or_ make sure your weapon hand is empty at the end of your turn (which prevents you from using it in opportunity attacks), and remember, you can either draw or sheath your weapon once per turn, but not both. You _can_ drop your weapon at the end of your turn and pick it up at the start of your next turn, but that runs the risk of it being picked up and stolen (and vulnerable of the spell _Shatter)_ or of you being moved away from it.
Ironically, this makes Two-Handed-Weapon users the best spellswords, since there is no rule requiring you to specify if you're holding it in two hands when you're not attacking. Need to use your reaction to cast _Shield?_ The weapon was in one hand. You need it to opportunity attack? Now it's in both hands. They don't need the _War Caster_ feat to cast _Shield,_ but other spell-slinging martials with their hands full do.
I might add that Artificers that have Shield spell on their list, i.e. Artillerist and Battle Smith, CAN still use Shield if they are holding an infused item since all Artificers spells require a material component, so you don't have to have a free hand.
@@mjela4516 That is indeed an excellent addition.
While this is technically true and it is worth noting, I do think it is pretty unlikely that DMs will actually disallow (e.g.) a sword-and-board Eldritch Knight from casting Shield.
It is a rule interaction that can be half-circumvented by "dropping and picking up your weapon repeatedly." Just seeing what that looks like in practice and its effect on gameplay / the shared narrative is frankly demoralizing and tends to push DMs to ignore this.
(This is more speculative, but I also kind of suspect that a DM who gives the sword-and-board player a hard time about this might also give two-handers a hard time about this -- even if that is less supportable by the rules.)
Just my two cents as a DM.
Personally, when I see that some fiddly and rather silly rules interaction stops a class or subclass from doing what it is obviously intended to do (EK is literally the fighter who gets abjuration and evocation spells!), then I am often going to, um, "overlook" that interaction.
On a separate note, even if your DM is going to be fussy about somatic components, I don't think it automatically follows that Two-Handed Weapon users make the best "spellswords" (a word that tends to mean somewhat different things to different people).
Making a character who is good at attacking and good at casting spells tends to lean heavily on class and subclass features, and that can sometimes dictate (physical, small-s) shield usage.
E.g., Bladesinger is one of the best "spellswords," and isn't going to use a shield or a two-handed weapon.
If by spellsword you just mean "has a weapon and also casts spells," well there's Cleric, some of whom will use a weapon-and-shield while others use two-handed weapon.
And then War Caster is a great feat for many casters simply from advantage on concentration (regardless of somatic component nonsense), so in many practical situations it is not really a "feat tax." Rather, it is a feat you want to take, that also happens to override DMs who are fussy about somatic components.
The main reason to wield a two-handed weapon is because you want to do more melee damage, even if it costs you a few points of AC.
@@nathansmith9597 Aye, a lot of DMs would allow it, but an ignored rule is not the same thing as an nonexistent rule.
Me, I would enforce it, for the simple reason that some spells are _so_ good that _not_ taking them makes you feel underpowered compared to your party members who _did_ try and build optimal characters. _Shield_ is one such spell, so by enforcing some extant drawbacks I can make other spells more viable and attractive. Since it's still possible to play that character by taking the _War Caster_ feat (just more expensive, since it means you don't get your +2 or another feat; or perhaps wield a physical shield) I don't feel bad about it. Though I am the kind of person who would nerf or boost certain spells or features (while communicating with my players) to make the "optimal" build less concrete and obvious, to let players build the characters they want to play more easily, rather than having their choices dictated by the numbers.
There's a reason Treentmonk put banning _Shield_ (if I remember right) on his list of the only three things he would homebrew.
@@MalloonTarka I agree, ignored =\= nonexistent. Any posted "optimized" build that assumes the table will handwave certain things should at least make a note about it. For sure.
As for the rest of what you said, if you are worried about a particular thing being too strong, I do think it makes more sense to address that directly, rather than strictly enforcing rules about somatic components, since those rules will affect a lot of other things that aren't overpowered, and the rules are rather clunky in and of themselves. (IMO, but I think that's pretty widely felt.)
Of course, the somatic components are RAW, not a houserule or anything. I know some players feel very strongly about houserules (especially nerfs), so in some cases, playing strict w/ somatic components might be the best way for a DM to rein in Shield without causing a lot of drama.
I always got the impression that the net thing is completely intentional. Developers seem terrified of giving martials any kind of reliable disable, and the only other way to access on-hit no-save restrain (that I know of) is through wild shape. It's also my experience that a heavy majority of builds that use ranged weapons will have sharpshooter and can use the net at 10' and 15' feet ranges just fine, but it is strange to have a weapon behind a feat tax, they were supposed to get rid of that.
OH and to add: It's also the only way I know of, at least going by RAT (Rules as Tweeted), for a martial to disable someone with their bonus action (using the quick toss maneuver) BEFORE making their attacks with an action. That wouldn't have been a balance consideration though, since net existed well before quick toss did.
Wouldn't it be much clearer then to mark the range as 0/15?
Tbf throwing a net and having it envelop an uncoporative opponent is not an easy task. It being at disadvantage and requiring specialist training (a feat) to be more consistent, makes sense to me.
Devils Sight makes me think of the movie Reign of Fire, "They have great vision during the day and even better vision at night but in the failing light they can't focus."
I love how you call Jeremy Crawford out for never admitting to mistakes. "Oh, yeah! We meant to do that! It's supposed to be weird."
I stopped paying attention to Jeremy Crawford when, in the same thread, he got asked the same thing twice and gave different rulings.
The dude can't stick to his own damned rulings smfh
Agreed. He just needs to accept and admit the rules are complex and you won't spot all the weird interactions to account for them.
"you see invisible creatures and objects AS IF THEY WERE VISIBLE"
Jeremy Crawford reading this rule reminds me of the time a GM said that you couldn't hit someone with Adamantine armour and a too high AC on a Crit because "While you're wearing it, any critical hit against you becomes a normal hit." and Hit actually means a miss and not a hit
Rule number 1 is probably just meant like this "instead of resistance to only piercing, bludgeoning and slashing damage, you now have resistance to all damage except psychic." They probably thought it was redundant, so they left it out, creating this weird rule..
Personally I feel like the heavy armour condition should've been on entering rage.
Yeah DM's job is to go by the spirit of the rule and not be hindered by the natural language. And yes, agreed, I don't allow rage at all in heavy armor in my games.
Barbarian: *loudly raging*
Barbarian: *puts on plate*
Barbarian: *zen*
Monk: 😐
Monk: *puts on plate*
Monk: *dies*
Yeah, assuming they didn't just have glaring oversight, they obviously meant that. But the autists among us (like myself, since I have Asperger's Syndrome) take the rules really literally. That's not how it's written, so that's got like a 90% chance of not being how I'd rule it.
@@Minmaximus
Is it RAW that you can't Rage in heavy armor???
I see... On Default Barbarian.
The Subclass is debatable since there's no rules explicit about Heavy Armor.
The other ambiguous bit with frighten is how you define 'closer', in particular whether that definition takes into account blocking terrain. Imagine a long snaking tunnel that sometimes doubles back a bit but never intersects itself, with the source of your fear at one end - can you run down the entire tunnel because no matter how it twists and turns each step takes you further along the available path away from whatever you're frightened of, or do you get stuck at the first u-shaped bendy bit of the tunnel because at that point both directions on the path would bring you closer to the source if your fear as measured by a straight line ignoring all obstacles and barriers, even though one direction definitely has the scary thing at the end if it and the other leads only to freedom and safety?
That's very interesting, however, you would also need to account for your PC's knowledge of the monster. If you are fighting a banshee and get frightened in that situation, since it has incorporeal movement, going to the safety direction would lead you closer to the banshee.
@@killerm5
You could also just stand your ground. You're not willing to move near the source of your Fear, so it's a fight or flight situation.
Fear doesn't say that you "must run away" or "you cannot perform Actions" etc.
So... If you get Feared by an enemy. Just become a blender of death.
@@absolstoryoffiction6615 Of course you don't need to, unless the effect which feared you specifically requires you to do so. I was only replying to the comment that referenced purely Euclidean distance between 2 points not being always relevant in regards to "cannot move closer to the source of the fear" (with terrain/teleportation/non normal movement such as flight, swim, flight, incorporeal being into play). As an example, you might be in water with a shark. There is an island between the shark and you.
If the shark frightens you, you can't get on the island since it is "closer" because it is physically closer. But if you think in terms of closer in "rounds to hit me" instead of further in distance, it is much further away.
@@killerm5
True
“Is anyone getting the sense that, maybe, Jeremy Crawford once in a while has a mistake pointed out to him and pretends that was intentional?”
Honestly if you remove the name and presents his comments I’d say his rulings are in no way what the designers intended: “surely they would think of this interaction, it was a small mistake”.
I’d love if WoTC got the position of “hey we made a mistake and this should work like that” more often and within less time from printing to an errata.
Agreed. It's pretty clear he's insecure with his decisions and mistakes. He's a below average talent that's punching way above his abilities and should feel insecure and that his position is threatened.
Yeah... I get the point of Sage Advice is to have a DM who was involved in building the system give their take on a ruling, but a lot of times it feels like Crawford got caught lacking and has to fumble to act like it was all planned. "See Invisibility doesn't work because the Invisible condition gives an obscuring sheen, like Predator!" "You have to complete your Attack Action before you can use a Bonus Action that triggers off of it. D&D is a team game, don't be selfish with your Shield Master Shove Prone!" "lmao you chose the 10% of races that doesn't have Darkvision, I guess your supernatural Devil's Sight sucks if there's a cave of bioluminescent fungus!"
Just once I'd like to hear, "You know what, that's not what we had in mind, but I personally like that idea better." or "That's actually something we didn't think about, but the intent was X so we'll try to write up an errata for that." Like what they did with Divine Smite not needing Paladin spell slots anymore, a little bit of humility and admitting that maybe one in the thousands of customers might have a good idea for improving the thing you made.
@@BeaglzRok1 For polearm master and war caster questions he did say it was intended to only give OA with a polearm. But could only silently admit that's not how it worked.
@@SpiderWaffle which is a bit sad, he could be seen in a better light, both as a game designer and as someone to seek advice, if his rulings were less "we made no mistakes as designers!".
@@BeaglzRok1 I will never understand the See Invisibility ruling. I mean, I understand the argument behind but it's just hard to no see it as arrogance to not admit a mistake. The Shield Master feat is just killing a different build for... whatever reason, play polearms instead!
Making the rules more clear and incentivizing build diversity would be what I expect from the designers.
I was going to disagree with your first rule about the bear totem because it's an addition to, not a replacement of, the class ability. But the other totems specify the gain new abilities while raging and not wearing heavy armor. The bear totem leaves that off!
Yeah or the bear totem would lose the strength advantage and extra melee damage.
Not really. Compare 3rd level ability of Totem Barbarian's Eagle vs Bear. Eagle specifies "While you're raging and aren't wearing heavy armor" while Bear simply states "While raging". It might be intentional from the devs.
As a DM, I'd allow Totem Barbarians with heavy armor for the purpose of resistance to all damage except psychic, but they would lose the other vanilla Barbarian rage benefits (damage boosts and advantage on Strength checks and saving throws)
I'm an idiot, I didnt' fully read your comment.
@@rulethegamer
It doesn't matter... It's like a Subclass Cleric who deal more damage than the Fighter while being weaker for Healing between its other Subclasses.
Sticking to RAW and RAI, a bit of common sense about 5e... It's a pretty old system.
They could have removed all the "and not wearing heavy armor" clauses from ALL the subclass features activated during rage... and simply changed the wording on rage such that you can't enter or maintain rage while wearing heavy armor. The idea that entering rage has no restriction but the BENEFITS of rage do is really asinine and requires lots of extra wording and clarification in order to understand what works and where. If you can't enter or maintain rage while wearing heavy armor then none of these issues would arise.
I like the Jeremy Crawford version of devil's sight, even if i think he is just going "um uh um uh yeah i meant to do that mhm yep" and pretending that's how it was always meant to work. It is a bit spooky and cool.
Honestly I agree it’s a cool idea to have the warlock extinguish a candle and as the frame fades to black it rebounds to normal daylight but with a reddish hue as his eyes glow with the fires of hades but Crawford’s response acting like he never makes mistakes bugs me
Yeah but that just fucks teammates with normal darkvision.
Oh right, dnd isn't supposed to be a team game after all.
Ever see the movie Reign of Fire? There was a thing about how the dragons can see well in the day or night, but during twilight their eyes have a hard time focusing. I dig it.
@@TheArQu How does it fuck teammates with normal darkvision?
@@TheArQu You don't need to make the situation good for all players, there is no problem is leaving some conflict of circumstances in the rules. Just because it is a team game doesn't mean that all characters would benefit of the same situations.
The amount of time I’ve had to explain the bonus action clause is unfathomable 😅 thank you for doing the lords work
I don’t think frightened would work as you described. If you have no idea where the source of your fear is, than there’s no way to “willingly” move closer to it. You might move closer to it, but if you don’t know you are, it’s not willingly closer to it, so it wouldn’t count. At least in my book
I think the weirdest rule regarding the frightened condition is that it doesn't impede concentration, which is complete nonsense and it favors spellcasters too much since it's mostly irrelevant against them.
Rule 1 surprises me, as I thought you couldn't rage successfully in heavy armor. Basically, it restricts your muscles too much to start a rage.
But no, you can rage in heavy armor, it just mechanically does nothing. Neat.
Honestly I'm not even sure why heavy armor is a restriction for raging. Barbs don't natively get the proficiency, I don't think any races start with it. There's only 1 AC difference between max medium armor and full plate and it's possible to have higher AC with just unarmored defense so it's not about balancing defenses. It's not even really a lore thing that's explained. It's just there, because reasons.
On page 151-152 of the PHB the book outlines how Holy Water works. At the end of the description on 152 it describes how Paladins and Clerics can create Holy Water by outlining all the same time, costs, and components of the spell Ceremony, but doesn't specifically state that they must use Ceremony to create Holy Water this way. So basically Paladins and Clerics can always perform the ritual to create Holy Water without ever needing to learn or prepare the spell Ceremony.
To be fair, Ceremony isn't in the PBH. You could get it through feats or Divine Soul which doesn't have the ability to create holy water normally.
Action, Action Surge, Contingency Spell, maybe op attack from War Caster, (3-4 leveled spells in one round)
Just be sure not to use a bonus action spell BeCaUSe ThEy’Re EspECiAly SwIFt… lol
Subtext: because we don’t want sorcerer’s casting more real spells than wizards
That's what they get for not studying from ancient tomes like a proper caster should tbh
@@elliotbryant3459
Eldritch Knight: "The Wizard was like Father to me..." After Casting a leveled Spell + Bonus Action: Melee Attack on top of Eldritch Strike (or is it the other way around???) + Action Surge Teleport + 4 Attacks.
The Wizard: "I raised that boy."
Reaction counter spell to an opponent counter spelling
Bonus Action spells are so swift you don't have time to cast other spells. ...wait that doesn't sound right.
The crossbow expert’s base functionality is also very weird. There are a lot of clues in the way that it was written that it was intended to be for using a melee weapon main hand, with a small xbow offhand. But the rules didn’t actually accomplish that, and instead we end up with rapid firing hand crossbows that are apparently easier to reload than a shortbow
Think of them as repeater handbows the druchii/dark elves get in warhammer fantasy.
Rapid Fire Heavy Double Handed Crossbow... I mean... There are guns in 5e too, but this is fun to use.
I would think Unarmed Combat works with Crossbow Expert since it's... One Hand... But that depends on what Unarmed Combat is considered as, for a weapon... ... ... It doesn't work, RAW, but it should, RAI.
if that was the case, you would also need to ignore the ammo property so how do you load the crossbow?
@@finalfantasy50
Ammo Property is wired for Bows Vs Crossbows... Unless I'm reading it wrong.
For Bows... Drawing the arrow and releasing it for the attack is considered the same Action. So if you have the Fighter's Extra Attack, then you can release 4 arrows at lv20.
For Crossbows... You reload the bolt then release the bolt. Both being Object Interaction + Action... Unless you have the Crossbow Expert Feat.
Thrown Weapons have the same Object Interaction rule but Thrown Weapon Fighting Style can ignore it.
@@The_Yukki
I got those two confused. Since Bows do not have the same loading rules as Crossbows.
Treantmonk: "It's silly that you need crossbow expert to use the Net without disadvantage"
Chad McGee: "I'm gunna take sharpshooter so I can throw my net without disadvantage"
The frighten rule is obviously to stop players closing their eyes and running up to the dragon anyway.
If they had worded it how he said, "The creature cannot knowingly move closer to the source of its fear.", then that would still prevent players from doing that, short of casting Modify Memory on themselves to forget where the dragon is.
On the other Hand "knowingly" would prevent them being forced to by mind control effects. The rule should qualify both.
@@jemandanders6160 If a character is being mind controlled by an effect that would force them to move they would count as willingly moving there, in the same sense that if you cast dominate person on a PC and then try to dimension door away with them the PC would count as willing when previously they wouldn't.
I like XP to level idea of Rolling for fight , flight,freez response.
@@TERMINATOR3900 Forced movement is not willing and should never 'count as'. If a creature is under a charm effect (or Suggestion, for example) then their movement would be considered 'forced' because they are complying with a request.
Edit- removed typo.
For the bonus action spell thing, something else that is interesting. "You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already used your bonus action this turn." this last sentence seems to be listing an exception for when to use your bonus action to cast a spell. A GM could use this to interpret that if you used your bonus action on something else you can use your action to cast the spell instead of your bonus action because you already used your bonus action this turn and you only must use your bonus action if you haven't already used your bonus action.
For #3, I think "willingly" implies "knowingly". If you're moving in the direction that the source of your fear is, but you don't know that they're there, you aren't willingly moving towards them, you're just willingly moving in general. It's not the same.
Also, I like the Devil Sight ruling. I think the whole spectrum (haha) of light rules in 5e is kind of underappreciated and underused. I'd like to play a campaign that really focused on it like the game Darkest Dungeon did.
Regarding "designers not admitting when they're wrong" I think there's probably a policy keeping them from admitting when they've made a mistake. Because if they make a mistake then it needs to be added in the next errata, and the longer the errata the more expensive it is to reprint the book. Designers are already heavily limited in page space, and features like spells are frequently removed from books in order to cut down on page space and make the books cheaper to print. So someone is probably breathing down the designers' necks in order to make sure they don't say anything that will increase the page space of the next book, and anything they can get away with not changing they're encouraged to avoid changing.
Meanwhile Paizo with multiple errata'd reprints of books:
😏
That sounds silly in the 21st century.
@@TheArQu So has 5e. I think they come out with a new version each year or so.
Though I know that some publishers intentionally do not add in all of the errata as its lets them publish future versions. I had a class where the book used was written by the professor (they chose the book before he applied to the university, and kinda got upset when he got the spot since it meant they wouldn't be the ones teaching the course). The first thing the professor did was hand each student ~30 pages of errata (like wrong answers to questions in the back) that the publishers have known about for years.
Assuming 1 page of fixes per year, that's 30 years of editions.
I already mentioned Wall of Force on the last video, so for this one as a unique weird rule:
There are now several abilities that feature the note "or until you lose your concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell)" but do NOT say that they themself require concentration. Sure if you use these abilities, get hit and fail your concentration check you loose the abilities effect. The same thing applies if you cast a spell that requires concentration.
Where it gets weird is that if you FIRST cast a concentration spell and THEN activate this ability you profit from both bonuses because this is what ends concentration:
-Your choice to do so (let's assume you don't want)
-The end of the duration (chance is huge you can do both in two actions or less, so does not apply)
-taking damage and failing the save(does not apply)
-being incapacitated or killed (does not apply)
-enironmental phenomena and failing the save(does not apply)
-casting another spell that requires concentration (does NOT apply! You are not casting a spell, you use your ability that works until you loose concentration)
also the implication that once they got hit too hard a Ranger would decide they're not their favourite foe anymore are pretty hilarious to me
Ah a great find.
My silliest interaction with Devil's Sight is with the Stealth and Hiding rules. See, my Warlock has a dumpstat WIS, for the flavor of being dumb enough to make a deal with a devil, so her Perception is a garbage 9 passive. Last session, we fought a bunch of Shadows in a dark, but open room. Shadows can Hide as a bonus action in dim light or darkness, and their Stealth bonus increases from +4 to +6, simple enough.
However, the rules for hiding say: "You can't hide from a creature that can see you clearly, and you give away your position if you make noise, such as shouting a warning or knocking over a vase. An invisible creature can always try to hide. Signs of its passage might still be noticed, and it does have to stay quiet.
In combat, most creatures stay alert for signs of danger all around, so if you come out of hiding and approach a creature, it usually sees you. However, under certain circumstances, the DM might allow you to stay hidden as you approach a creature that is distracted, allowing you to gain advantage on an attack roll before you are seen."
Which means, once they move out from the cover of the threshold's blind spot, my Warlock can see them bright as day, in spite of her horrible WIS and their massive Stealth bonus; she can see them clearly.
Even funnier, everyone else in the party has Darkvision, including our Wildfire Druid. She casts Faerie Fire on a bunch of them so that people can see the "bright light" if they creep into Darkvision range, which makes them unable to Hide from THEM without ducking behind cover. Except, my Warlock, has Devil's Sight and NO Darkvision. So according to everyone's favorite rules hack Crawford, would now be UNABLE to see the Shadows if they Hide, but she would have advantage/disadvantage cancel out to a straight roll to-hit, due to being an unseen target and Faerie Fire granting advantage. Which gives us a hilarious scenario where Darkvision characters can see Shadows regardless of Stealth roll in Dim Light, and Devil's Sight character can see Shadows regardless of Stealth Roll in Darkness, but neither can actually see the others' Shadows if/when they choose to Hide in Dim Light/Darkness.
Yeah, Jeremy Crawford's messy rulings make things worse if you really think about it.
Doesn't faery fire make them glow?
@@Kitusser "Affected creatures shed dim light in a 10-foot radius." It's a very faint glow, enough for a Shadow to hide in. "Shadow Stealth. While in dim light or darkness, the shadow can take the Hide action as a bonus action. Its stealth bonus is also improved to +6."
Actually, rereading the spell, it wouldn't help my Warlock. "Any attack roll against an affected creature or object has advantage if the attacker can see it, and the affected creature or object can't benefit from being invisible." So since she can't see it (it's hiding in its own dim light) it's even WORSE for her!
@@BeaglzRok1 I feel like a shadow who is glowing shouldn't be able to hide in the open, that seems backwards. RAW is weird sometimes.
@@Kitusser DM compromised at letting me be able to tell whatever's at the middle of a radius is where the shadow "should be", like the bullseye on a target, but they didn't last long enough for it to be an issue.
The frightened thing isn't so egregious when you take into that there's an intent that there be interpretation of rules. If you don't know where something is, you can't be willingly moving toward it in that you don't know where it is. Now, if you *think* you know where the dragon is (so you mentally backtrack and conclude "the dragon is south of me") then I would say the "can't willingly move closer" applies, even if you're actually wrong. Your intent is to get closer, even if what you accomplish isn't that.
Yes, I agree. It's an issue of the natural language rules being able to be read in different ways.
I think that since only one interpretation is logical it's a non issue but it definitely can be parsed in different ways
@@zakpodo The issue with relying on the logical interpretation is the amount of people with abysmal critical thinking skills, amd power gamers who think they can words their way into a dumb ruling that benefits them.
@@Halinspark yeah, you're right. Ultimately it's just justifying a subpar product. And gven the budget and scope of dnd it shouldn't happen. Hell, a lot of these kind of issues were apparent to me on the first read through and therr are players far more experienced.
On the other hand, the kind of people you described can always find a way to do their thing.
The net is kinda weird but works perfectly fine.
The main weirdness comes from misunderstanding how the "Thrown" property and its ranges overlap.
Basically though, if you're throwing it the max range is 15 feet with disadvantage, because it's a big awkward thing to use.
If not trying to get someone 2-3 squares away though, you're using it as a normal melee weapon, much like you can with any other thrown weapon.
#1 is straight up a check on healing word. My guess is that whoever wrote it didn't have enough pull to override the munchkin who pushed for healing word & phb197 death saves but was able to sneak in a roundabout half fix without it being noticed till ink was on paper & books were shipping.
I think if you don't know where the source of your fear is, you aren't willingly moving towards it. I don't think this is poorly worded at all.
In fact I would go so far as to say that if your character thinks the source of their fear is in one direction, but they're wrong, they can't willingly move in that direction. Which makes sense. Fear is about their will, not their knowledge.
I agree with you. Willingly moving towards means "i want to move there because the enemy is there." Although im not so sure in the case you think the source of fear is somewhere where it is not.
@@klauskeller6380 if you think the enemy is somewhere and you're afraid, that should be enough for you to not wanna go that way
@@pedrogarcia8706 yeah thats the reason why i see no problem there either. but for the rule to take effect you need to move towards it and do it willingly.
@@klauskeller6380 I think if you believe something, that's enough to do it willingly, even if your belief is wrong
@@pedrogarcia8706 but if its not actually the case then you dont do it. You might want to do it (thats why it qualifies for willingly) but you dont do it which the rule also requires.
Regarding Frightened movent, I think "closer" could be defined as either Globally OR Linearly. You are not moving on the path to the dragon, but if you turn around and walk back through the maze, you would be moving closer to the dragon because that's the path's destination, even if it's farther from a global perspective.
If you really want to get into weird rules territory, look into detail about what the Shapechange spell does.
Especially combined with various Crawford rulings.
Shapechange into a Fire Giant and try to figure out your AC...
To quote Jeremy Crawford, "Sometimes I'm tweeting from the bar after having a few drinks."
Fighting in a heavily obscure area as normal is the one that really gets me.
I'm surprised that still doesn't come out actually
an artificer can use their homunculus' core as a spell casting focus because it's an item bearing an infusion, which means that it can also become a spell storing item, which means the homunculus can care bear stare by using it's own heart to send scorching rays at people because the homunculus is a creature that can be commanded to interact with the object to produce the effect of the spell stored inside (which is also free from counterspell)
I would actually argue that "willing" implies intent, so if you do not know where the source of your fear is you cannot intentionally move towards it. Therefore, in the example with the dragon and the labyrinth, you can move in any direction.
I know this is a matter of interpretation, but there's one that seems reasonable and one that doesn't.
Imo the frightened rules make sense because if you don't know where the creature is then you aren't willingly moving towards it, you're accidentally moving towards it. And if you run out of a room and you're frightened of what's in the room and know it's still there it makes sense that you can't go back in, even if you can't see it anymore.
That is more RAI than RAW here I think. The letter of of the text says you cannot willingly move closer. No mention of knowledge states in the text which leads to the weird effect happening and solving through RAI or rule 0.
I was going to say this, but you said it first. Willingly doesn't only modify the word move. Rather, it modifies the entire phrase "move closer to the source of its fear." While you could read it the way that Treantmonk does, I think the way you read it is better.
The craziest rule in DnD is that cats do not have darkvision…
One workaround for the net is taking Sharpshooter. With that, you can throw at the 15 ft range without disad.
I always assumed when you didn’t know where the source of your fear was you couldn’t move out of fear. If it could be anywhere, you can’t move anywhere
Not really a weird rule but thorn whip being a melee spell attack with 15ft of range. Had a dm think that it was a range spell attack so they assumed disadvantage while in melee until I point out how the spell actually works.
Bugbears can make it 35 feet (it’s actually 30 foot range)
Long limbed: When you make a melee attack on your turn, your reach for it is 5 feet greater than normal.
Sorcerers can make it longer range with distant spell.
Combine these two and it’s either (30+5)*2 or 30*2+5 so 70 feet is 65 feet either way weirdly long. If only it was not a spell (could use a magic item to use it instead so this works) you can do sone fun stuff with the new giant barbarian perhaps
@@solalabell9674 ah thanks for the correction but yeah the spell is really interesting. The fact the range of it can get pretty wild for a melee attack is insane.
7:00: My interpretation is that you can't willingly go towards where *you think* the source of your fear is.
If you hide behind a wall and no longer see the dragon but still have a general idea of where it is, you can't move towards that, even if the dragon silently teleported elsewhere (he's behind you).
If you see the dragon become invisible and believe the dragon could be anywhere around you, you can't move at all.
If you see the dragon get disintegrated and believe it, you can move freely. Even if it was a Major Illusion from your Wizard and the dragon is still out there, invisible and hunting you.
Steinhardt's Guide to the Eldritch Hunt: www.kickstarter.com/projects/691715600/960698887?ref=9atwaq
Speaking of JC, he did give input on your first weird rule "A barbarian in heavy armor can benefit from a totem feature if the feature doesn't prohibit such armor or doesn't rely on Rage" because the totem relies on rage you can't wear heavy armor to benefit from it.
Spell targeting. A lot of times it makes sense both others, not so much. Spell with a range of self don't necessarily mean they target you. And when you take things like beast master's Spell share into account; there becomes no clear answer on many spells.
As WotC had to remind players too... "Casting a spell on yourself" and "casting a spell on a creature(s)", can still be casted onto yourself. "You" are a creature.
Swallowing can cause a lot of strange things to happen.
If you are unfortunate enough to be swallowed by a Giant Toad, then you are blinded and restrained, which would normally mean you have disadvantage on attack rolls against the inside of the toad's stomach. But the toad can't see you any more, so it's just a straight roll. (Some swallowers have blindsight, which proibably fixes this problem. Giant toads don't.) Druids who like to turn into toads can take the Alert feat, which should work as long as the swallowed creature isn't invisible.
Then we need to know the AC of the inside of the toad. Since the rules don't say anything, it's the same as the outside of the toad... which seams reasonable until the moon druid activates his animated shield, turns into a toad, and starts eating orcs, and now a swallowed orc has a harder time hacking his way out because of a shield hovering *outside the toad*!!
Finally, a halfling rune knight can use a cloud rune to make a giant frog swallow a Tarrasque. The Tarrasque will of course have very little difficulty tearing its way out of that frog, but it's a bit odd that it fits inside in the first place.
Swallowed creatures should get advantage on all melee attack rolls, because there's literally no place to miss. If you stab forward you're gonna hit stomach wall.
With devil's sight... I find most DMs, often including myself, don't like lighting rules since the slow down the game. People often ignore dim light condition because it is annoying to rule every single attack roll, measure distance between light sources, etc., etc. Since most DMs ignore dim light, in general, the rules for darkvision they play under is typically all or nothing. This also creates issues with stealth rules, obscurement, etc. I know lots of DMs who are fully aware they are there, they just choose not to use them rather than mistaking the rules.
Dim light doesn’t effect attack rolls though. Dim light counts as a lightly obscured area, and the only effect of a lightly obscured area is causing disadvantage on perception (WIS) checks.
You’re free to play the game however you want. If measuring light sources is not something you’re interested in and that works at your table fine, but it really only has that one effect on its own so I don’t find it slows gameplay down at all.
Of course there a number of spells and abilities that interact with dim light as well but those are usually pretty fun so 🤷♀️
I remember years ago when our DM ignored lighting altogether until the Ranger got to lvl3 and went Gloomstalker. Then he started meticulously describing light pouring into every single room we ever entered from then on lol.
The rule that vexes me is with Shield Master. You can only shield bash after making an attack instead of before the attack. It should be a 1-2 combo punch and the player declares the order.
This is especially messy because one would expect the shield bash to come _first._ You smash a foe with your shield to put them off balance so you can land an actually dangerous strike with your weapon.
I have to chime in on your commentary about the Net. Your analysis is accurate, save that you do not address a notation in the Improvised section that changes things entirely, with no need to take a Feat. The section on Improvised weapons in the PHB specifically states:
"If a character uses a ranged weapon to make a melee attack, or throws a melee weapon that does not have the thrown property, it also deals 1d4 damage."
AND
"At the DM’s option, a character proficient with a weapon can use a similar object as if it were that weapon and use his or her proficiency bonus."
Now things change. When the Net is Thrown, it normally does no Damage, and the Attacker has Disadvantage on the attack roll.
BUT if the attacker chooses to use the net as an Improvised weapon, all of a sudden they can attack at melee range, and do 1d4 Damage in addition to the net's normal effect, which is not changed, regardless of the manner in which it is used to hit someone. In addition, if the DM allows it, the attacker might eve get their proficiency bonus to that attack, because a Net is indeed similar to that weapon.
Thus, it is completely possible to actually attack at melee range with a net and actually do damage as well as restraining the target, and the worst that can happen is that you are denied your Proficiency bonus to the attack, which does NOT preclude adding your dexterity bonus to both the attack and damage rolls. (Sounds crazy, but there it is.) And this is a case of specific overriding general.
I love these videos by the way.
Rule 1 is also backed up by the fact that the Elk totem (From SGAG) explicitly says "and aren't wearing heavy armor" but other totems from both SCAG and PHB don't, and they never errata'd it. Personally, I don't mind - It's not like you were going to damage that guy with an attack anyway.
Bear Totem barbarian also is worded in a way that makes you wonder if an Emerald Dragonborn loses Psychic resistance or not.
Another fun fact about the Net; the Net rules say this: "A net has no Effect on Creatures that are formless".
However, no monsters are ever described as formless and it's entirely up to the DM on whether or not a monster is formless. The keywords the game DOES use are Amorphous, Incorporeal, and Ooze, all of which imply formless (especially the first one) but none of them are explicitly ever described as formless.
Now, a lot of those also have a condition immunity for the Restrained condition, meaning the Net still won't work on, say, a Shadow or a Ghost.
But a Net COULD work on most Oozes, that often have a Amorphous feat, but not a Restrained Immunity (unless the Net has holes that are larger than 1 inch, in which case they can escape).
Finally, if a creature is Incorporeal but lacks a Restrained condition, the creature can move through solid objects and creatures, but not escape a net (since it's still restrained by the net), and maybe even take damage since it's IN the net. As far as I know, this combination only occurs on a handful of creatures: Undead Spirit, Summoned by Summon Undead (TCE), Draconic Shard (but Huge, so immune) (FTD), Avatar of Death (Summoned by Deck of Many Things) (DMG), and the Shadow Horror (GGR)
The Fear not allowing you to move closer to the source of your fear is really funny if you live on a planet that wraps around (like ours, a geoid) since you can't move directly towards it or away from it since you're getting closer.
Rule number two is just a balancing rule that (like so many others) only exists because of Healing Word but doesn't want to admit it and (as homebrew, be aware of that!) I'd just use these rules specifically with Healing Word only when I dm, especially for newbies.
Just cast it all outside of combat/the turn order...
Why?... Because Mage Hand is a great example as to why some Spells are horrendous during Combat/Turn Order compared to casting the same Spells outside of the Turn Order/Combat.
5e needs Marie Kondo.
Thanks for enjoying my fresh and timely commentary.
The willing condition is in there to exclude forced movement, magical compulsion, etc. If you are unaware of something's current location and accidentally move toward it, you aren't willing moving toward it.
I'm actually okay with the idea that if the source of the frightened condition is a spell or a dragon or some other monstrous being, that the fear is a psychic attack that radiates out from the monster and really is detectable the same way a strong smell or a noise is detectable as coming from some direction- just over a magical distance.
Talking about the net, another can of worms you can open is how weapons are categorized, which particularly matters with classes like the rogue and their sneak attack.
Sneak attack must be performed with a ranged weapon (or weapons with the finesse property) and the net is a ranged weapon, so it can be used for sneak attack.
To be able to add the damage you will need to 'hit' an opponent with one of these weapons. Which is fine, since we 'roll to hit' with the net (like any ranged weapon).
There's the usual series of hoops you have to jump through (need advantage, or ally within 5ft of target etc etc...) and the net wants to be thrown with disadvantage. Though with things like steady aim or sharpshooter we can still meet these requirements.
So even though the rogue is not proficient with the net and the net doesn't deal damage itself, they can still trigger the feature and deal sneak attack damage with it.
To point to either extreme of how sneak attack 'works' (according the base rules).
Rogues can never sneak attack with the javelin, no matter what features they take, since it is classified as a melee weapon and not a ranged weapon. Even if you multiclass into monk to use it as a monk weapon or try to throw it, it it still classified as a melee weapon and monks just allow you to use dex, it doesn't grant the finesse property.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have a rogue who isn't proficient with the net, throwing it at long range at someone who is behind heavy cover (using steady aim). They can still roll a crit and automatically hit, rolling double the sneak attack dice to deal damage with the... net...
And.. Oh god... there's another can of worms you can open with the net... Improvised weapon attacks.
The players handbook says you can improvise melee attacks with ranged weapons (and ranged attacks with melee weapons).
So, you can hit someone with an improvised melee strike with the net (a ranged weapon) and this could still qualify for a sneak attack (as you need to hit with a ranged weapon).
So the easiest way for a rogue to avoid disadvantage with the net is for them to try to physically clobber the foe with it in their hand.
Long story short. The rules for sneak attack can be quite silly 'as written' and you should always try to sort these kinds of things out with your DM ahead of time.
Technically a rogue 'can' clobber someone with the net and get sneak attacks. Whilst javelins, longswords or unarmed strikes will never qualify for that bonus damage.
For the most part I always advocate for sneak attack to represent opportunism, as long as you have surprise or accuracy you can carefully aim at more vulnerable areas.
Using this kind of common sense we see that obviously the net shouldn't allow for sneak attack and that as long as you have advantage or a nearby ally then most weapon attacks should allow a cunning fighter the opportunity to aim for the jugular.
The Bonus Action spell rule got me just this week with the latest Unearthed Arcana. If you take the Cartomancer Feat, you can imbue a spell in a card and then cast that spell with a bonus action. I thought, “This is great,” until I remembered that Bonus Action rule, which the Feat doesn’t say anything about. I guess the only benefit is that casting the spell doesn’t consume a spell slot but of course the Feat doesn’t state that, either. And WotC wonders why there is so much confusion.
The feat says you must choose a spell with a casting time of one action, so it's also effectively a quickened spell, and you can cast a cantrip on the same turn where you normally wouldn't be able to.
game mechanics represent a small sized race as effectively having the same strength as a medium race as reflected by push/drag/carry/lift [which is pretty weird on its own] -but despite being equally strong, when they grapple a toad or other tiny creature their speed becomes halved.
The fear one typically actually still works; fear only works while you can see the source of your fear. This is detailed in the frightened condition, I believe.
I have to often remind players about the one leveled spell rule per turn at my table. Especially due the tendancy to cast a fireball and bonus action misty step on the same turn.
technically reaction spells can be cast on a turn other than your own, so those probably don't count, however there is also the rule about contradictory rules being overridden by more specific rules.
If for example, you cast a bonus action spell (a general rule which says you can't cast a leveled spell on the same turn) and then you use action surge (a specific rule that states you do not limit yourself to the normal set of actions you could take in a single turn but instead get more actions) it could in theory actually override that rule, however, it does depend on the exact wording, and it may mean that your first action can only be a cantrip but your second action could be leveled.
With 5e, the designers went in a different direction from previous editions. In previous editions mechanics were designed around what they logically wanted them to do within the world. This made them extremely wordy and often difficult to understand but also extremely difficult to balance against literally anything else in the game because there was never a blanket rule that said you couldn't use a mechanic in a rational way just because.
With 5e they dug in deep on the idea that balance should exist (they uh... did an ok job but lets face it, tabletop games that rely on logic and ingenuity can never be balanced) and so they restricted all mechanics in the game to being _only_ what they said they could do, and not anything that is logically consequential from that. Fireball does not create a sound, does not create a force, does not heat the air around the sphere of influence and does not burn anything that is being carried. That's just how it works because fireball is meant to be a literal sphere of hot that exists for an instant does its damage and nothing beyond that in 5e, not an explosion.
They also made some non-arbitrary decisions on rules relating to casting times which are sometimes purely for balance, sometimes for lore... but another thing they chose not to include for the most part with 5e... is explanation of why any of the rules exist, even if they are based on lore they intended to be in the game. When you cast a spell with verbal components, even though they don't TELL you explicitly that the verbal component is LOUDLY AND CLEARLY SHOUTING MAGIC WORDS on top of any other words you have to speak like a creature's true name, or whatever, they did INTEND for that to be the case as they have noted in Sage Advice. So, you cannot slyly weave your Command spell into your speech because it should be fairly obvious to everyone when you shout 'HOCUS POCUS! SLEEP!' and wiggle your fingers, that you have just cast a spell.
They intended the game to be a lot less open to interpretation than how they allowed us to know they intended it... probably because they did want to encourage creativity.... but they also wanted it to always fall under rule 0: You are doing it because you want to, not because its in the rules.
I would argue that you don't become supernaturally aware of the direction of a creature you are Frightened of: you just can't *willingly* move closer to it.
So consider two scenarios:
1) You are running from a Red Dragon's fear aura in a large, open space of cavern. The Red Dragon has an allied mage that casts Invisibility on it, and the dragon starts flying around, harrying the party invisibly. You can't be sure of where it is. Unless you become aware of where it is, you can move freely, although you are still Frightened of it and if you *do* become aware of its location, you can no longer move towards it.
2) You keep running after the Invisibility is removed with the Dragon's next attack, and you hide down a corridor, having broken line of sight. You discover a secret path that leads back into the dragon's lair, to where you *know* the dragon is, but would do so in a way that would keep you out of sight of the dragon. You can't use that secret passage, even though it breaks line of sight.
Similarly, if you are Frightened of a creature and you then see an illusionary version of that creature, unless your character is aware that it is illusory, it would still not be able to move closer to it as your character is unaware that the 'creature' they are seeing is an illusion.
I'd just like to remind everyone that WotC has a trained Lawyer on staff to approve the wording of their rules. My guess, they couldn't get a job as an actual lawyer.
On the fear, I would interpret "willingly" in this case as "purposely." If you don't know where the source is, moving towards it isn't willingly getting closer, it's accidentally or coincidentally getting closer.
To me, the net’s range causing it to always have disadvantage under normal circumstances makes some sense. I feel that how far you’re throwing the net doesn’t really change the fact it would likely be awkward to throw in the first place. Though the fact that none of the feats that change that have anything to do with nets (Crossbow Expert, Gunner, Sharpshooter) doesn’t make sense.
The net can be used with Sharpshooter as well, to avoid disadvantage.
Or, even more sleazy, anything that imposes the heavily obscured condition will erase both advantage and disadvantage, leaving a straight roll in all cases.
As long as you still know where they are, so you can target them.
@@MalloonTarka unless they successfully Hide, you always know. You'd normally have disadvantage to hit something you can't see. But that's offset by them not being able to see you either. As wacky as it is, once a single case of advantage and a single case of disadvantage exist, it's a straight roll. It doesn't matter if there's 10 things that create disadvantage, and only one that creates advantage.
Devil's Sight not working in dim light is completely intentional, as it is meant to be an unusual ability that does not so much improve your vision, but replace its restrictions _entirely._
Depending on whether an invocation needs to be invoked or not, Devil's Sight might actually blind you in other light levels. The rules need lawyering, and rule 0 is always in effect. (Note that the names of game mechanics are considered flavor text and are not part of their rulings, so crossbow expert for example, does not represent expertise in crossbows, according to the designers. It is merely a fun name. Like Color Spray... you don't spray colors, you get some random magical effects.)
I watched both videos and read a bunch of comments, but undeniable the one rule that by itself is more illogical than all of the ones mentioned so far together is how multiple movement works.
If you're a human (30ft walking speed) wearing a Cloak of the Manta Ray (60ft swimming speed) and you're 30ft from the ocean, from where you see your BBEG inside a keelboat already 30ft into the sea, you can try and reach him in the same turn without using dash or anything similar. If you're in the same situation, except you're the one in the boat and the BBEG is the one in the beach, then you will either need 2 turns or need to dash, because somehow it takes longer to swim 30ft + walk 30ft, then it takes to walk 30ft + swim 30ft.
I'm sure someone will point out something silly such as "that that's because the water would make you heavier" or something, but this applies to ANY kind of speed, even in cases where the speed values are inverted.
Kinda makes sense; You have a total movement of 30ft while walking, then when you reach the water, the magic cloak gives you a swimming speed of 60ft, efectivily giving you 30ft of Extra movement. But when you reverse it you swim 30 of your 60ft untill you reach the land and you switch back to a movement of 30ft walking speed. And the game goes: you have a move of 30ft and you have already moved 30ft, so you can't walk anymore this turn.
I don’t mind the dragon fear fleeing. That’s more something like a psychic presence that is scaring you. You can’t see it. But you can feel the fear when you move towards it. Nothing weird about that to me.
I'll admit that it's an aggressive reading of the RAW and there may be something else outside of that paragraph that proves me wrong, but the way bonus action spells are written, it doesn't specify what to do if you've already used your bonus action. "You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn", meaning that if you have already used your bonus action, you don't need to use a bonus action to cast the spell. It's still a bonus action spell, so it still prevents further spellcasting, but it only takes an action if you have an action to spend, if not, it's free.
If we applied the same wording to a different, hypothetical scenario, the implication of it being free is more obvious. "You must use a move action to jump, provided you haven't already taken a move action this turn" would clearly let you jump for free if you'd already moved.
I don't know if the intended implication is A - you can't cast a bonus action spell if you've already used your bonus action ( in which case, the "provided X..." shouldn't be there) or B - you have to use a Standard or Move action instead (in which case it should specify what to do). It feels like that sentence was written when action types could be traded down.
3. Willingly is fine - So the source of your fear a Dragon is to the north but you can't see it, but you have been deceived into thinking it's to the south and so you can't willingly move south, because it's to the south , but can willingly move north because it's not there ...
I think there's arguably no problem with #3. If you think your source of fear is behind you but it's actually in front of you, you can't move backwards because you would be willing yourself to move closer to the source, even though that's not what happens. Similarly, you CAN move forwards, because while you are moving closer to your fear, you are not doing so willingly, you are doing so unwittingly while willing yourself to move away from the source.
Put another way, if you read it as "you can move towards your fear, you just can't intend to be moving towards it", which I think is a valid interpretation of the language, and certainly what most people probably understand it as, there is no problem with the rule. It allows for the Scooby Doo moment where Shaggy is backing away from where he thinks the monster is, biting his fingernails in fear, only to bump into the monster standing behind him.
D&D 5e - Pretending it's intentional since 2014™
Hey on your last video about up casting I wondered can you down cast a spell? For example- fireball at lvl 2 for 4d6 damage or lvl 1 for 2d6. Etc
No. The level specified is it's minimum.
@@sqw33k what do you think about chris exploring this as a house rule. ?
I love how a twitter rules response is like
"Hey I noticed that this rule doesn't actually work the way I and every other player that has ever played the game has interpreted it?"
"Oh yeah, that was intentional."
Treantmonk, the man that gave me the Danzig bard, with STR 16! The only optimizer I really appreciate, because the way he sees the game: your ideas with context in your videos just got better!
Do you think 3.5/ Pathfinder become unplayable after tenth level, because of the excessive amount of buffs and exotic spells and conditions?
How about talking about things you miss (and DON'T miss) of other editions?
Congrats on your channel
It seems like you could just refer to Jeremy Crawford’s tweets for a full list of bad rule/ings.
Which Adventure League a few years ago said Sage Advice was RAI and DMS did not have follow SA or Crawfords tweets.
When you are Frightened and cannot move _willingly_ toward the target of your fear, the word 'willingly' comes with the implication that you have a reasonable suspicion of where it _isn't._ Thus, if you do not know where it is, two things can actually be the result. A: You can move in any direction UNWILLINGLY moving toward it because you were trying not to but were not able to avoid it due to lack of information, or you cannot willingly move from that spot because any direction could be toward it, and thus, you cannot move in that direction.
Rule 3, if you don't know where the creature is you're not willingly moving closer to it, you're moving in a direction. You have to be consciously aware of where something is in order to deliberately and willingly moving towards it.
I definitely get your point that the word “knowingly” would better express the idea, but I do think “willingly” covers it. If you’re unaware that you’re doing something, I don’t think you can be said to be doing it willingly. If I step into a pit hidden by branches, I wouldn’t say, “I meant to do that.” Or I might say it, but it wouldn’t be true. :P
Bonus action spellcasting. Wtf.
The Spider Climb spell doesn't give the same Spider Climb ability as you might find on Giant Spiders, for example. The spell allows the recipient to climb without using their hands. The creature ability allows the creature to climb without ever needing to make an ability check for difficult surfaces.
Hi treantmonk, i found an interesting exploit recently for immortality equal to a 15th level zealot barbarian, although it does require the tal’dorei campaign setting reborn (which is considered 3rd party material i believe, so not gonna be used in a game without permission from the dm) and the tomb of annihilation book. essentially, you pick up the remarkable recovery feat from tal’dorei, allowing you to (among other things) regain hit points equal to your con modifier if you are stabilized while dying. and then, pick up the ghost lantern from annihilation, which magically stabilizes you whenever you fall unconscious if you are within 10 feet of the lantern.
it has a slight knick in the rules that if you are unconscious when you begin dying, then the ghost lantern won’t stabilize you, so unfortunately it suffers from the zealot barbarian’s weakness to sleep spells, and also the weakness to damage that puts you negative your max hp, killing you, and since you aren’t getting 15 levels of barbarian for a build with this exploit, you have a lot less hp and so killing you that way is probably much easier
Twilight Cleric can see to 300ft with darkvision that still allows you to see color or at least it's one of the few specific isntances that doesn't say you see in shades of gray.
Path of the Beast Claws interacting with Racial Claws attacks (both attacks have the same name) and one (racial claws) being able to interact with Tavern Brawler and the other (Beast Claws) can not.
The net thing is completely RAI, because the restrained condition is so powerful.
I’m pretty sure the frightened thing is not RAI, but I think it’s pretty cool to feel an impending sense of doom in a particular direction…
Correction on the spell rule your reaction is jot on your turn it’s on that round of combat but on the turn of another character. The exception that I don’t know how it works is if a reaction taken to say counterspell an enemy counter spelling you is your turn but I think it is.
If you walk away from an enemy within 5 feet and they swing at you (attack of opportunity) you can cast Shield with no problem.
There's nothing that says reactions must be on another creature's turn (the PHB specifically state your turn or another creature's turn). You can use a reaction any time the triggering event occurs, and then can't do so again until the start of your next turn. It's just that most of the time reaction triggers happen on another creatures turn.
Page 190 in the PHB has the specifics, for reference.
@@PiroMunkie true might have been better to say ‘not necesarrily’ basically my point was that reaction spells are often not related to the BA spell rule
I’d love to see a breakdown/reaction to the new dnd movie trailer :)
Look at the wierd rules for natural weapons next.
With regards to using a net is there anything that is stopping you from making an improvised weapon attack with it? In fact oddly enough, from how I understand all the rules interacting not only can you use a net to do a melee attack without disadvantage and make use of the Restrained condition, but in addition now your net is actually dealing 1d4+str damage I think.
I believe these are the RAW that permits this to work, rather than having to rely on "The rules don't say I can't" :
Improvised Weapon:
"An improvised weapon includes any object you can wield in one or two hands."
A net certainly fits within this criteria
"If a character uses a ranged weapon to make a melee attack, [] it deals 1d4 damage."
As a Martial Ranged Weapon, the net also qualifies for having its damage changed to 1d4
I'd also like to highlight that this doesn't change the damage type to bludgeoning as one might expect, meaning that you're still stabbing them with your bow/crossbow, and the net deals damage without any assigned type
Special Weapons (Net):
"A Large or smaller creature hit by a net is restrained until it is freed."
This doesn't limit the ways the creature can be hit at all. So long as it's not too big, hitting the creature at all will restrain it.
Have I missed anything here, or do nets actually work as intended so long as you rely on misusing them?
Yeah, I think on the frightened condition, replacing the word willingly with knowingly would outright fix all problems. Knowingly seems to me to always include willingly, but willingly doesn't always include knowingly.
Another really weird thing about Frightened you didn't mention is that if the thing you're afraid of is around a corner, the direct path to flee from it will take you closer to it by straight line distance, even though you're increasing the distance it will need to chase you to catch you, preventing you from fleeing in the manner that any actual afraid person would flee.
In certain circumstances on certain maps, I meant to say. I've had it come up with winding cave tunnels. I ruled according to common sense, of course.
It might not be "weird rule" per se, but I've always wondered if the "vanish" part of Steel Wind Strike gives advantage to the attack rolls that are part of the spell, due to being an unseen attacker. You vanish, THEN you make up to 5 attack rolls, THEN you reappear within 5 ft of one of your targets
One really weird rule I noticed in your video on ship combat is that ships won’t move in combat unless one of their crewed actions is used on it. Pretty sure that’s not how momentum and hydrodynamics work -but I know little about operating a boat, so maybe someone with the sailor background irl can justify it.
The net is still my favorite bit of boneheaded design in 5e
Who throws a net, honestly.
Hey Treant, can I get your (and anyone else of they want to answer) opinion on something?
Recently, I had a bit of an argument with my DM over hiding rolls and what those results would be: either being a Success or a Failure.
Long story short, our level 3 party was talking to an Ancient Green Dragon, and my character was trying to convince him to let us go. I rolled a persuasion check, got a 25, and the DM proceeded to contest it (with what I don’t know?). DM didn’t announce the results, and instead immediately began to roleplay a troubled and somewhat very annoyed sounding dragon. I informed the DM right then and there that I intended to cast Silvery Barbs, but I could only cast it if the creature had succeeded on whatever roll it had made. Argument broke out about the DM never revealing his rolls to the party, and the rest was history.
Certain spells, reactions, and abilities require the player to know the result of an effect, being a success or failure, and I tried let the DM know this, but he abhorrently refused to acknowledge it. Eventually his resolution was an exasperated outcry, stating that since Ancient Dragons get legendary actions, the spell automatically fails and we could just move on. I guess a side question to all of this is, do legendary actions work against ability checks too? Or do contested rolls fall under Saving Throws?
not Treantmonk but: Legendary Resistance only works against saving throws, nothing else (I guess you meant Legendary Resistance instead of Legendary Actions).
I'm also curious how other DMs rule when a person can detect a success to use Silvery Barbs on.
Legendary resistance only work when the creature makes a saving throw. They don't work for skill checks or contested rolls.
The DM has to tell if the roll failed or succeded for these kind of spells or abilities.
That aside, I don't think this should be a contested roll, just a persuasion check on your side. And with this the DM will always have the last word on how the NPCs will act. You could a 40 (absurdly big number) in persuasion but the king won't still just hand over the kingdom.
@@rulethegamer Gotcha… Yeah A.G.D.’s get the Legendary Resistance version.
So then the spell shouldn’t have just fizzled like he said it would. But I also don’t know what I was rolling against either, since DM didn’t disclose that either. The only thing that was said was “25? Well, now I have to roll against that.” I don’t *think* that trying to convince a dragon to let a party go should’ve been a Saving Throw…?
@@Micna9596 No you right, and creatures of this severity are certainly no pushovers for the skills sides of things.
But he also stated that I should announce my intention to use reaction spells before I make my rolls… Which is weird
@@Just_som_Ottur DM fiat. When you succeed an ability check, you're not guaranteed the results that you want, e.g. @micna9596's comment about kings not giving up their kingdoms on a high ability check.
This will not really answer your question, but my unsolicited advise is that when faced with situations like this, trust that your DM is doing their best to give everyone a satisfying game, regardless of whether their decisions are dubious. everyone's bound to make mistakes. (some DMs are terrible and you should just leave, i just gave general advice)
you can get rid of long range net disadvantage with sharpshooter, which i think is just as weird as the crossbow expert thing
I guess willingly would imply it being knowingly. You can't really willingly do something without knowing that that is what would happen. If you're in a labyrinth and the source of your fear is behind several bends at an unknown distance i'd probably rule it that you cannot go backwards even if the source of your fear is actually(unknowingly to the character) right in front of you but entirely out of sight/hearing. It just makes more sense.
I think with the frightened condition, it has something to do with closing your eyes and walking towards the source of your fear. Or that kind of shenanigans. But the wording is indeed poorly
In common usage, the term "willingly" does include "knowingly" as a prerequisite.