“The Magic Healer Kit of Sni~er” If a being has fallen unconscious use an action to revive a target from far away. The farther the target, the more HP they receive with. Must perform their best British/Aussie accent.
Imagine a PC with a room of magic doctors with the Healer feat and kits constantly healing him from a remote demiplane. Hell, imagine a villain doing that.
that reminds me of a silly story i read in an old gaming magazine, where a party sneaked into a giant's lair, and stole 10^16 gold! "and how did we carry all that? in our backpacks, of course."
The dm I had would just ask what I had in my container and went by space instead. So we had to debate how the items would fit in it unless someone had a bag of holding.
I'm glad my DM didn't enforce the Encumbrance Rules. I, literally, stuffed about half a Hag's Hoard in my Backpack including, but not limited to, a second suit of armor (I was wearing one and found a new one in the Hoard) and several pieces of framed art. Mind you, I was an Elf Ranger, so my Strength was utter garbage.
This is what I love about table-top games. The rule book is more like a guide book where if there is a rule that doesn’t make sense or was written with unintended effects you can just change it.
Unless they've posted and confirmed their intentions as designers, which not even all of them agree with each others anyways, It's INTERPRETATION. Every DM's Word Is Law in their own game, So It's literally based on how that person interprets the rules personally. What anyone else says is completely irrelevant in their game they are running at that time unless they choose for it to matter.
had a GM that let me divine smite on unarmed strikes after I got pushed off an elevated train car. I asked the GM if I could instead auto succeed to grab the edge of the speeding car in exchange for having to drop my sword. He agreed, so I crawled back up next turn, and after the artificer-brawler told me to give up, I instead decided to punch him with an unarmed attack. When I hit I declared smite, to which the GM explained he would allow this one time for rule of cool. Found out after combat that I technically couldn't, but it was cool to magic punch back the person who magic punched me off a train.
@Leivve But Fighters and Barbarians can be better Monks than the Monk. Actually I think Rangers can, too. Paladins, honestly, still can probably be a better Monk than a Monk, even if losing smites is painful.
Mages can spellcast perfectly well in armor so long as they're proficient with it. Barbarians can never rage in heavy armor no matter their proficiency (even 5.5 doesn't fix this)
I've always found the "Proficiency lets you cast spells even in armor" rule to be rather stupid. Oh, so whatever was preventing me from conjuring an ethereal barrier while wearing armor suddenly no longer does because in the mean time I learned how to wear the armor better? Huh? I mean, I get that it's so you don't see Wizards walking around with 19 AC Plate Armor every few minutes, which would arguably be even more stupid, but the logic of it always annoyed me.
@@Ceracio It's not that weird. Proficiency means you know how to use that equipment correctly. In the case of armor, wearing armor improperly hinders your movement, but a properly worn armor basically doesn't affect your movement at all. The idea is that not having proficiency in armor means you can't properly cast the spells because of the different actions involved. You need to make some gestures with your arms? Well, you can't raise them properly, so no spell for you. You need pick a pinch of dust? Well, with those armored gloves you can't. Proficiency also means you're used to armor and have trained with it, so even when it would undoubtedly hinder your movement proficiency means it's fair to assume you've developed some variation of the gestures that still works with the armor on. Now, granted, this would only affect spells with somatic components and, at most, those with material components (we could assume you can't properly do whatever you need to do with the material, as in my example of the pinch of dust), but verbal only spells shouldn't be affected. That's a fair point even with this logic which I do agree with, but I can accept them being included just to simplify the rules. Making an exception for verbal only spells and spells with no components that would allow mages to cast them even when they wear armor with which they aren't proficient is such a specific thing that I think it's better to just ignore it and say all spells are affected. It's not that common for anyone to use armor they don't have proficiency with anyway.
This isn't true. They can rage. It just doesn't do anything. However, if they were suddenly stripped of their armor somehow, they would suddenly be very angry.
@@himedo1512 Oh god you're right, 5.5e actually makes it more restrictive. You straight up can't use the bonus action to rage if you're wearing heavy armor in 5.5.
@@Haru-spicy *sees people complain that barbs can't rage in heavy armor. Looks at one of my player's Tortle Bear Totem Barb with 22 AC as he runs around in a poncho and nothing else.* I don't think its necessary.
Yeah, essentially, it doesn't specify touch range, or that you have to be able to see them, so technically you could use a medical kit to patch someone up while completely blind. Theoretically it should be obvious since it's a kit of bandages, salves, and other things you don't use at a distance, but RAW there's nothing that says you can't have an NPC whose only job is to stay out of combat and pop the medkit when you go down while observing combat through a telescope.
One of the biggest missed opportunities in the game for me: Tempest Domain clerics get an ability that when you deal Lighting Damage, you can knock back people 10 feet. Their Divine Strike damage type is Thunder, not Lightning. They had the perfect chance to make it so that you can someone FLYING back when you clock them. It's also weird because the feature for the knockback is called "Thunderous Strike."
Even WORSE is that Baldur's Gate 3 actually did this the right way, and it's, frankly not even that much more powerful it's just more convenient. Thunderous Strike procs on BOTH Thunder AND Lightning effects in BG3. What's really dumb is, in 5e, Clerics, and Tempest Domain Clerics, don't get a cantrip that deals lightning damage. Or Thunder Damage, for that matter.
There's a thing called "the 10 rules to remember". This is the second rule: **Exceptions Supersede General Rules** General rules govern each part of the game. For example, the combat rules tell you that melee weapon attacks use Strength and ranged weapon attacks use Dexterity. That's a general rule, and a general rule is in effect as long as something in the game doesn't explicitly say otherwise. The game also includes elements-class features, spells, magic items, monster abilities, and the like-that sometimes contradict a general rule. When an exception and a general rule disagree, the exception wins. For example, if a feature says you can make melee weapon attacks using your Charisma, you can do so, even though that statement disagrees with the general rule.
I find the "specific beats general" notion doesn't really work and isn't needed in 5e and further. I think it might be a relic from earlier editions. The thing is, it doesn't apply to almost anything in the book. Rules generally either don't contradict each other at all, because they are not written in a manner of "you can't do x", but instead as "you can do x", which then isn't contradicted by "you can do y", the second rule can just exist side by side, or the specific rules spell out specifically which general rule they allow you to circumvent and exactly how, such as "you can deal force damage, rather than your normal damage type for this attack". I tried looking in forums at some point where you can even apply "specific beats general", and couldn't find anyone come up with an example where it would be needed.
@@arcturuslight_ Actually, there is a rule that is on itself an example of "specific beats general", and is the ability modifyers used on attacks. Quote from the PHB: "The ability modifier used for a melee weapon attack is Strength, and the ability modifier used for a ranged weapon attack is Dexterity. Weapons that have the finesse or thrown property break this rule." Here we have one rule, "The ability modifier used for a melee weapon attack is Strength, and the ability modifier used for a ranged weapon attack is Dexterity." But, next, we've got two specific cases that are exceptions to that rule: "Weapons that have the finesse or thrown property break this rule." This explicitly states that it's breaking the previous rule, and it prevails on top of it, demonstrating (in this case explicitly) that the specific rules of finesse and thrown weapons beat the general rule of melee and ranged weapons. Keep in mind that the general rule isn't saying "you can use Strength for melee weapon attacks", it's firmly stating that Strength is THE ability modifyer for them. It doesn't let you choose differently. And the specific rule about the finesse property firmly states that the weapons with it can break this rule. Weapons without it cannot do so as the general rule applies to them. So, yes, Strength is THE one on melee attacks, but the finesse weapons are a specific case that break it. Now, there's no mention of any other exception so, in theory, this is it and nobody can choose to use a non-finesse weapon with an ability modifyer that isn't Strength. That's what the general rules say firmly. But the Monk's Martial Arts feature says the following: "You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes and monk weapons." This is an exception to both previous general rules. In this case, not all the monk weapons have the finesse property, and unarmed tstrikes don't have it either, so in general you can't use dexterity on those. However, the Martial Arts feature overrules the general rules and allows you to use Dexterity on weapons without the finesse property and on your unarmed strikes, showing once again that the specific rules beat the general ones. We have clear general rules that firmly state what is the correct ability modifyer for each weapon, then we have a more specific rule that allows certain weapons to break that rule, and then we have a class feature that allows Monks specifically to break those rules even further.There are more examples, but this is the one that came to mind.
@@arcturuslight_ That's not "specific beats general" not working, that's having to repeat it over and over because most players (that care to post on social media of any kind) are thick as a brick.
Not so much rules as weird monster traits, but: Water Elementals are not resistant - let alone immune - to fire damage. Cats don't have dark vision. Minotaurs can always find their way out of a maze, even though the Greek myth describes the minotaur as being put in the labyrinth for the exclusive purpose of it never being able to find its way out.
To be fair if you are made of water, enough temperature would turn part of you to steam which I believe it's even more valid than most sources of damage to hit a water elemental.
The labyrinth of Crete was designed for the entrapment of the human sacrifices, not the minotaur. Granted. They removed the auto success on the Maze spell for minotaur though in 2024
But can you bang two mauls together? They're two handed so I'd assume you can only hold one. I'd allow riding your maul but you'd need to find another way to simulate a galloping sound and without the sound of galloping well what's the point?
The weirdest part is that the version of devils sight used in monster stat blocks DOES work in dim light. Which is confusing as they have the same name
@@algotkristoffersson15 that much is true. You have to assume that it's just that the devils would also have darkvision, so they can ignore dimlight anyway
Nope, rules RAI, and nowRAW (2024) it just works in both dim/drk and darkness. It confirmed on sage advice multiple times, There are just a lot of DM's out there that don't like the ability, those DM's also ban things like the darkvision spell itself, Twilight cleric because they think the darkvision for party for an hour once a day is strong and DM's that will 100% pretend they forget how Devil sight works when fighting enemies that have the gloom stalker 'stealth' ability. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but I've had 2 DM that absalutly hate it when their players can see in the dark, One went as far as singling out my charecter that was a Devine soul sorc/warlock with a psudo dragon. Because she had 120ft darkvision as a 24 passive perception. She would twin spell invis on herself and her famillier, scout and have thefamilier use its telepathy to relay important spots to the group. Yeah, DM had someone 'snipe' her and her Psudo dragon from beyound her view range, becasue apparently they could see further... and through invisibilty.. yeah, he gave a ranger type creaure 240ft of true sight.
But the '24 PHB version of the Devil's Sight invocation *DOES* work in both Dim Light and Darkness. So I'm inclined to go with WotC being derps and patched it out here. Though it's weird to do it now and not add a bit in earlier Errata for the '14 version...
The healer kit thing has made me jokingly think that death rolls is not your character trying to overcome the injuries, it's a healer on a different plane with their kit, desperately trying to heal your body with their rolls.
I often use platinum in my tables. Who want to give TWO HUNDREDS coins if you can just give 20?! It is like why would you pay for something with 1,000 cents if you can just give 10 dollars...Also my NPCs sometimes chance the price of X gp for X(x10) sp. About the electrum I never used and never see anyone using it because cp, sp,gp, and pp is a base ten so it is easy to exchange but I bet the people from USA would use it. They like weird mesures
We use both at my table. Electrum is treated as an older currency that became less commonly used so it's more often found in ruins. The government, lords and kings will often pay people in electrum for quests and shop keeps are required by law to be able to exchange it - obviously none of them want to and paying people in electrum is usually considered a dick move. Platinum is when you rob/get paid by a rich person
I've got one I bet y'all have never heard of. The original Sage Advice from Gygax clarified that the wording for fall damage was published wrong and was supposed to be more devastating. It originally read "1d6 per ten feet, per ten feet," but the editors thought this was a typo and changed it to "1d6 per ten feet." So we went from 30 feet being 1d6+2d6+3d6= *6d6* damage to 1d6+1d6+1d6= *3d6* damage. As a fan of levitation magic and cliffs, I think we should bring this back ;)
@@AllenGray47 terminal velocity is after 12 seconds of free fall, some 1500 feet. That doesn't matter at all to regular fall damage scenarios unless you're planning to superhero drop and have some sort of mitigation
The dm i had believed that being small shouldn't give disadvantage when using big two-handed weapons and should be decided by strength instead which obviously if you want to use those kind of weapons you're gonna be pretty buff anyways so it wasn't ever enforced. Also had a lot of fun describing how a kobold would use a battle ax and later greatsword which ended up being similar to how yoda fights.
Use the big weapons to leverage yourself and move about the terrain, using your low frame and high momentum, it's actually smart. Just because something is big and unwieldy doesnt mean it can't be used. I like this.
Small creatures should have disadvantage with two-handed weapons because - the weapon is twice as tall as your character (longbows and greatswords, for example can easily be 6 feet long) - it likely weighs as much as 20% of their body weight Just for the sake of comparison, giving your small kobold a greatsword is insanely cumbersome, even if they're strong enough to lift it. According to the official rules for kobolds and greatswords: -you weigh between 25-35 pounds -you are 2-3 feet tall -a greatsword weighs six pounds So even a super beefy kobold that's 3ft tall and weighs 35 lbs is weilding a weapon twice their height and 17% of their body weight. That's the equivalent of a 200lb human wielding a 12-foot long, 30lb sword. There's virtually no way to swing that without being off balance.
@@jackyoung1208 yet on the other end a horse can carry a centaur no problem because despite being described to be about the same size they are considered medium while the horse is large for some reason. Unless centaurs have hallow bones they should weigh about the same but it doesn't say from what I remember. That would be like a person carrying a body of simmilar weight and hight with little effort.
I feel so old school because I enforce a lot of 'unnecessary' rules as I find they do add to the game. But within some reason. Like i don't make players keep track of spell components, and assume they restock them when they can, however I warn in advance that if they are going to spam spells that use particular components a lot, they may find themselves running low on stock. Eventually, they will run out. This is only a concern on longer adventures with no town visits.
There’s literally a rule that says you don’t need materials without a cost that aren’t consumed (most materials aren’t consumed) as long as you have a spectating focus.
@@algotkristoffersson15 I was speaking more generally but for that specific thing I guess is a change for 5e, which I don't play. I prefer 3.5 and tend to run that
It's not really old school, some people have been always playing by the rules, while others been ignoring the rules. It's just nowadays people like to argue about it more and try to prove their method of having fun is superior.
Traveling encounter rules. The Order of the Stick (iirc) put it best. Everyone knows that no matter where you are traveling to or from, the terrain you are traveling in, or the mode of transit between places being used, or what the little table says, each major leg of a journey will have exactly between 0 and 1 encounter, with a second being reserved for use only by plot centric subversions, unless the players are doing something weird.
@@algotkristoffersson15 We were all noobs and playing our first campaign (Strahd). The DM, also a noob, had never heard of arcane focues so he enforced the material component requirements....and there are no magic shops for ingredients in Strahd. So he had us wandering the wilderness searching for bat poop in order to cast fireball. I found out what arcane focuses were and he said 'no, we started the game this way a few sessions ago, so we'll keep playing this way'. Though we kept complaining he never relented. We spent 2 years in that campaign, constantly looking for bat poop....
About vampires... "Each time the vampire or the vampire's companions do anything harmful to the target, it can repeat the saving throw, ending the effect on itself on a success. Otherwise, the effect lasts 24 hours or until the vampire is destroyed, is on a different plane of existence than the target, or takes a bonus action to end the effect."
And the same people that complain about casters being busted play with none of the balancing features of spellcasters. Fundamentally, they're ripping out the brakes of a train because "that's just not fun" and then complaining that it doesn't stop.
1:24 Assuming 2014 rules, this differentiation is actualy what allows divine slaps. Paladin requires a "Melee Weapon Attack" not an "Attack with a Melee Weapon".
@jamesoakes4842 "The attack must use a Finesse or Ranged Weapon" Unless you are a monk as well as a rogue, that definitively bars Unarmed Strikes; which are Strength only. Even then, the wording is "you can use Dexterity instead of Strength for... Unarmed Strikes and Monk Weapons" which is different from treating those as Finesse. Though at my table, I would allow stacking Sneak Attack on Martial Arts.
@@aidanpalmer1075 Yeah, that was the big illogical part. Martial Arts turns your unarmed attacks into finesse weapons in EFFECT but not in name. So all the things that would logically apply for the restrictions on Sneak Attack are met, but your unarmed attacks not actually being a weapon for this purpose in particular seems super arbitrary, because it totally is.
@@kikagezumi Yeah, Crawford has waffled on rulings before, so I've decided to go with what makes actual sense. That said, I *DO* appreciate the update to Shield Master in the '24 PHB. No more trying to figure out WHEN you can use the bonus action, because it's just a "once per turn, when you hit with an attack, you can ALSO do this as part of that attack" thing now. Which makes mechanical and narrative sense to me. And I think I will be using that version for the feat even if I mostly prefer the '14 stuff for the time being. As for the Divine Smite: My Paladin's DM has ruled an NPC using Divine Smite on unarmed strikes, and allows my Paladin to do the same. I rarely use the ability because I have a bitchin' +2 Longsword so I'm gonna be using THAT more often than not. But he could ABSOLUTELY strike a mofo with the Holy Pimp Hand if he wants to.
a note to the dm who says that verbal spell components are "loud" it just means that they need to be said at a normal speaking voice, so it would be possible to use guidance for a stealth check, if done far enough away from when the skill is used. that said, guidance is indeed an action, not a reaction and should be used as such, that said, that particular spell lasts a minute, and in theory, can be cast on the whole party within seconds out of battle, so prep work isn't exactly difficult.
This is true, except for "in theory, can be cast on the whole party within seconds out of battle". A single instance of Guidance targets only one creature, and since the spell requires concentration, only one person can be the target of a specific creature's Guidance at a time.
Also, vitriolic dms who punish guidance at any opportunity deserve the worst kind of comeuppance: players actually using the help action. Any complaint of “nooo you can’t get a d4 because you spent one of the cantrips you could learn on it” will quickly fall to the wayside as they get to see what advantage anytime, anywhere, with no downside looks like.
@@theomegatango depends on the size of the party, and how you classify "seconds" five party members, six seconds per cast, that's 30 seconds, up or down depending on the number of party members. You'd have to know or suspect you were getting into something, but it wouldn't take long.... I do admit it would usually be around half a minute, but it's still not that long considering. I suppose with large parties would be a little hard to manage, unless you had multiple people who could cast it, but still.
Last campaign I had a DM enforce the “as written” for dispel magic. I tried twice. Was told “not how the spell is written”. Removed it from my spell list and didn’t use it the rest of the campaign. Though I did get a bit of vindication as I had cast a nasty area spell and he said his BBEG “dispelled it”. I said “nope. Per your ruling. That’s not how it works. So here’s 8d8 psychic damage”
but then it should be different damage caps and scaling depending on weight and size of a creature as well as details on short distance falls that certain creatures (cats) that hurt them more than big falls. basically, the rule should stipulate that falling 1000 feet as a giant would hurt you much more than a spider or some other light creature with a relatively large surface area falling the same distance . ik over complicating the rule doesnt help but the rule still doesnt make much sense its just practical and convenient to have a consistent rule
Every single party I've ever been in has: - wallets of holding - infinite (normal) arrows - completely ignored the distinction between dim and dark light
AND THEN it says the effect ends on the target. if the target you choose is a magical effect not on a target how can the effect end on the magical effect? the effect is not ON the magical effect. The point here is that the "ON the target" part cannot be RAW. Maybe it should say: "Choose One: Choose one creature or object within range. Any spell of 3rd level or lower on the target ends. For each spell of 4th level or higher on the target, make an ability check using your spellcasting ability. The DC equals 10 + the spell's level. On a successful check, the spell ends. Or choose a magical effect. Any spell of 3rd level or lower ends. If the magical effect is of 4th level or higher, make an ability check using BLABLABLABLABLABLA." Then, if you target a person that has idk, magical invisbily and stands in a silence bubble as your target creature the silence effect wouldn't end. And if you choose the magical effet only that would end. But how would you target a silence bubble in RAW? Again, it says: "Choose one creature, object, or magical effect within range. Any spell of 3rd level or lower on the target ends." So you choose a magical effect within range. (the Silence spell effect). Any (3rd bla, >= 4th blabla) spells on the Silence spell effect end. The silence spell itself doesn't. I hope this helps to explain what the weird part about this rule is.
oh, "Sniper Medic" reminds me of a silly weapon in Team Fortress 2: a Crossbow that heals friendly players, and can only be used by a Medic! i think it's called The Crusader's Crossbow. PS: there's one strange map, i think it's called Degroot Keep, that forbids use of GUNS, so that crossbow is VERY useful there! everyone else is reduced to Melee weapons only, except the Sniper, who can acquire a Longbow.
It's actually not that bad in certain situations. Kind of like how Goodberry is just enough to get a downed PC back up and able to keep fighting, but the Channel Divinity can do that with multiple PCs at the same time.
@@comet.x I am aware. Since the downed PC can't do anything, it would be up to another PC to do something. Idk about RAW, but every table I've played at has said that another PC can put a goodberry (or other healing item) in the downed character's mouth and it counts for healing them. Also, healing word takes a spell slot which you may not want to waste if you have healing items available.
It’s not stupid, it’s a TON of healing, doesn’t take a spell slot, and recharges on a short rest. It can be used before a short rest to save on hit dice, or it can be used as a big economy swing mid-combat if one or more people are downed. Removing the half-max part of it in BG3 was kinda nuts, and only really makes sense given a lot of the other high power changes they made (like how short rests work, or the way just being lightly splashed by a broken healing potion heals you as if you drank it.)
The lack of killing mechanics on sleeping opponents... I get you. Whenever I call for executing the last remaining enemies at the end of a fight because they've been hit by a Sleep spell, I always get counter-argued that there is no Execute action in the game. And then, we slowly proceed with the initiative order, rolling dice and hitting, rolling for damage and killing. SMH this isn't a video game. It's not coded in the book because it doesn't need to. Just call it: spare or kill. Then move on.
I've never been on a game where we couldn't just execute the remaining enemies, but too often I've been in a simmilar position BEFORE an encounter. "I sneak behind the guard" "Roll Stealth" "Natural 20 for a total of 28" "You manage to get behind the guard" "I slit their throat with my dagger" "Roll for an attack with advantage because he doesn't see you" "Lucky me, another natural 20" "Okay, that's a crit. Roll damage" ...A dagger it's only 1d4 damage. How is a maximum of 13 damage going to kill ANYONE? ON A CRIT? Unless you're a Rogue that can add Sneak Attack you cant even think of taking anyone on a single hit with a dagger, and even then it's a gamble. What makes this worse is that, whenever the bad guys have someone captured and slit their throat, then magically it DOES work! I was once in a game where we were trying to save someone. The boss was holding them with a sword on their throat. I snuck behind them, stabbed him in the back... and did, I don't know, like 1/10th of the damage we needed to kill the boss? And, of course, we rolled initiative, the boss was first, and slit the hostage's throat. It. Absolutely. SUCKED. But anyway, I'm getting carried away. My point is, is it that hard to let the player just flat out kill the guard? If the player does it, they're going to feel GREAT, they're going to feel like sneaking around was worth it, that they managed to be clever about the situation instead of just using brute force. If you make them roll damage, they're likely going to not kill the objective, feel like they messed up, think it was a dumb idea and, to top it off, now you're going to ask them to roll initiative and just fight their way out, exactly what they were trying to avoid. I don't see a single reason why rolling damage instead of instakilling is a better option.
I have absolutely no idea why fifth edition doesn't have a coup de grace action. Previous editions have which cover exactly this scenario and makes total sense. The closest thing I can think of is that they didn't want it to be an option against PCs making death saves, but a melee attack already gives you two automatic failures, which is like half a coup de grace action. 9/10 if a DM is willing to have enemies target downed PCs (which a lot of them aren't anyway), then that PC is gonna die. So we've gained very little and lost a super important action for simulationism.
@@Gallacant All attacks made from within five feet are automatically crits against an unconscious creature. And PCs are unconscious while make death saves. It's very frustratingly hidden amongst different rules, but that functionally means all melee hits will cause two failures (barring reach weapons weirdly).
You have to declare non-lethal *before* making your attack roll otherwise it's considered a lethal attack. Most players forget this in the heat of battle and most new players don't even know this is a rule. Can really put a sour mood on a campaign when the party forgets that swords are sharp and that guy they wanted to interrogate is dead because they forgot to say "But I don't want to kill him" before the damage is dealt. I changed up the mechanics for it in one group and the results were mixed. When an enemy reaches 0HP they're out like the PC but instead of making death saves I roll a D4 and anything the players don't finish off wakes back up in 1d4 hours. The players were mighty confused when bodies go missing or enemies return with a grudge, biggest complain towards that change was it kind of conditioned the PCs to be psychos by smashing and slashing bodies to make sure things are dead. Some liked it, some didn't.
Actually this is incorrect. As long as you attack with a melee attack (so yes even inflict wounds cast at 9th level), and you reduce a creature to zero or less HP, you may make the attack non-lethal. In previous editions it was you had to call it before hand, hence why people mix this up.
A lot of DMs have a rule that spells can't be non lethal due to their nature. One of my DMs allowed me to say that certain spells are - but that this will mean they will ALWAYS be non lethal. A different DM had rules for NPC death saves where most die immediately but some powerful or lucky NPCs can roll 1 or 2 death saving throws
The real RAW issue is non-lethal only applies to melee attacks. The barbarian in a rage so deep they can't tell friend from foe can deal 300 damage with a hammer, but has enough restraint to make it a gentle bonk with no long-term effects. Meanwhile, the most skilled archer on the planet is fundamentally incapable of avoiding an instant-kill on a commoner, because they don't know how to blunt an arrow.
As for the rager's companion, I always thought the best way to run it would be to have the character use a BA to tell the animal what to do, and it just does until it can't or the ranger says to do something else.
… this only continues to make rangers bad … I’d give it its own turn and have that PC continue controlling it. Or they can go on the same initiative. But ranger controls it still separate from itself.
@@silentmeklar1783 Never actually ran it that way. But sometime around the second failed Ranger UA, back when I still cared about 5e, they still hadn't even tried to make the pet work in any way that doesn't take your action.
@@metagames.errata7777 I’m absolutely hopeful for the new books that are aimed at fixing all the classes. Because honestly if you’re not a rogue you’re useless (obviously a bit of exaggeration but some classes were wayyyy too niche.
@@silentmeklar1783 I quit being invested in the newest edition/s a while back. The tone of the game just isn't for me. That, coupled with the perpetually salty state of twitter ... and it's kinda just nice to see someone who actually wants to see what in what WotC cooks up. lol
@@metagames.errata7777 from what I’ve seen of the videos they actually fixed warlock a bit, and I only play with friends so the saltiness doesn’t get me as much. But the DM can fully make or break the campaign, maybe one day you’ll decide to dip your toes back in, if not all the power to you still
Languages. My players only know 3 languages: Common, class language (draconic for mages, druidic for druids...) and racial language (elvish for elves, gnomish for gnomes, infernal for gingers...) I had a group as a player that basically knew any language likely to have a written form. The DM could do nothing with them. Languages add flavor to the world: allows for espionage, secret codes and translation quests. Comprehend languages and read magic spells are also banned.
1:56 Yeah, it’s not supposed to be like everything else that slows you down, it’s a third level spell that does nothing else, it’d be a bit too easy to cast a lower level spell to ignore it. 3:23 There’s nothing RAW that explicitly states casting spells is necessarily loud, it’s just not quiet enough to use it while trying to stealth from relatively nearby enemies so that Subtle Spell has a niche. You can tell because there are certain spells that specify they are loud, which obviously they would have no need to if all spells were loud. Also that is kind of a sucky way to restrict Guidance IMO, since most of the time you can’t perfectly predict a fellow player is going to need to do a skill check, nor who will be the one doing it. Good for their table if they like it though. 6:27 Gee, it’s almost like you’re supposed to make up what they look like. 7:21 Huh, I wonder if why spellcasters are considered so OP, I mean they’re only ignoring or bending the rules completely in the spellcaster’s favour. Aside from that though, just removing the need to keep track of spell components takes away some of the engagement of being a spellcaster for me, so I personally dislike when people do this. 9:27 I actually do enforce Dispel Magic’s specific wording, it becomes way too easy to just bypass anything that sounds remotely magical otherwise, gotta give it some kind of restriction beyond just making everything too high level.
At least when it comes to the Jump argument, I would argue that if you are actively jumping, you’re probably skilled enough to land on your feet. Falling on the other hand will do damage because you probably weren’t expecting to fall.
1:32 I'd allow it just on Rule of Cool, "My Oath forbids me from striking a Lady .... but I will slap the green off an Orc Bch!" Bonus to the strike if the statement is said with Full Sass: moving the neck, waving a finger, fist on hip, that sort of thing.
0:30 Switching weapons is meant to take time so you can't just casually swap to whatever you want but have to actually think. It absolutely adds to the challenge and enjoyment of the game. If you're sitting in back with a crossbow and someone jumps on you, then yeah you can either drop the bow (and have to pick it up later) or waste a turn switching. Or hit them with the crossbow I guess. ... granted it was better when it was a move action but what can you do? 3:33 Yeah people always forget that spellcasting is generally pretty obvious. 8:55 The Pact Blade is, as the name suggests, a manifestation of the power of the Warlock's patron. An Artifact weapon is an already existing item of quasi-divine power, and a sentient weapon has a will of its own. It is eminently reasonable that it doesn't affect them. ...by default. A hexblade whose patron *was* an evil artifact, for instance, or who had been specifically granted a sentient weapon... that could work, yeah. But it'd be a 'reskinning', so to speak. 10:30 Magic Missile works the same way. 11:03 Yeah? Permanent effects exist.
Oh my god. Plant growth isn’t Difficult terrain. That means it stacks. If you slap Plant Growth and Spike Growth down, any character with a speed slower than 40 ft is just straight up stuck. On a grid, they can’t move 5 ft and thus their movement is rounded down to nothing.
Dispel Magic not being able to get rid of certain spells because the effect isn't "on a creature" is wrong. Dispel Magic doesn't require the spell effect to be on a creature. It says to pick "a target". It does NOT say that target must be a creature. That is a full misunderstanding of how that spell works by that person.
In the player's handbook, it says that a spell may have any and all material components substituted by holding a spellcasting focus unless a gp cost is listed. Unless your focus is missing or damaged, you do not need bat poop to cast fireball.
There's actually a feat called Eschew Materials that mitigates that very issue, so it's not necessarily a case of avoiding that requirement, but rather the player having that feat. In my game, we have a house rule for "roleplay feats" every six levels starting at first, and this is one my DM said would qualify. Essentially, the ruling is that if it has no impact on combat, it qualifies as a roleplay feat.
It's because pretty much all spell components are inside jokes. Fireball needs bat guano and sulfur (you're literally making gunpowder). See invisibility uses a pinch of talc - you're blowing white dust that sticks to things to find the invisible person. Detect thoughts requires a copper coin (penny for your thoughts?). Flesh to stone is lime, water, and earth.... Which is basically just covering your enemies in concrete.
A lot of the components were leftover nerd jokes from the 70s when Gygax and company started making them. The guano is for methane/fire creation. Some of the electricity based spells have or had things like "a bit of fur" for rubbing together to get a static spark. There was a Forgotten Realms spell called "There/Not There. It was very complicated on mechanics, but the component was a small box. For Schrodinger's Cat. I forget the name of the item and what book it was in, some sort of coat/suit/cloak of fire protection, that mentions the wizard who created it contracted a horrible coughing sickness. That's a reference to asbestos. The D&D books are full of little snippets like that. But if you don't like the component rules, just use a spell focus, or even as far back as 3.5 I think, they had component pouches that were assumes to have any common thing in them you needed. Course, the downside of that is, if you ever get captured/jailed or whatever, all they have to do is take you spellbook, component pouch, or focus, and you're basically a peasant with a few extra knowledges. Something many DMS have used with fiendish delight.
Digging way back in the olden days - AD&D 1e/2e - The rules I and many DMs ignored a LOT. > "Place stats as rolled, in order." No, screw that. If I want to built a Fighter, I need to be able to make those prerequisites, and the chargen rules have me picking a class *before* I roll stats. This was the most obvious one to get thrown out in the early days, so much that it just stopped being a thing by the time 2nd edition happened. > Racial Level Limits - If you weren't a Human, or one of a very few non-human exceptions, then you had a Level Cap depending on what class you were playing. Are you an Elf thief and you hit level 12? Well, sorry, you can't level anymore. And you can't switch to a new class because: > Dual Classing is Only for Humans - You have to be Human to start as one class, stop leveling in that class, then start leveling in another class, under annoying rules about what actually improves as you level in the new class. If you're any other race, you have to Multi-class, a choice you have to make from level 1, in order to have more than one class, at which point all your XP gets split between two simultaneously advancing class. Decided to be a single-class Elf Thief, and hit level 12? No options at all. You're stuck. Oh, unless... > Bards in 1e AD&D - In order to become a Bard you either had to be a Human or a Half-Elf, start as a Fighter, dual class to Thief, then dual class again to Druid, at which point you would start getting Bard levels instead. Notice that this requires Half-Elves to Dual Class, something they normally cannot do, since they are not Humans. Half-Elves are given a *special exception* to be allowed to Dual Class *only* if they are on the track to become a Bard. Silly question? What level is a character that has dual classed enough to become a Bard, for purposes of level range a module expects? I don't know anyone who tried to play a Bard (human or otherwise) in 1e, and most people didn't know it was an option. > Alignment, and XP Penalties for Changing Alignment - Alignment mattered for so few things, you'd be forgiven for ignoring it entirely... until one of the situations where it Actually Mattered, such as when a cursed trap or cursed magical item reversed your alignment, likely not only making you a villain to the party until you're cured, but also penalizing your XP by 50%! The only time Alignment ever mattered was to hurt you, so most people ignored it, which is fine except... > Alignment Languages - Her you go. By virtue of being Chaotic Good, you are able to speak a special language called "Chaotic Good" that only "Chaotic Good' creatures can understand without magical assistance. This would seem like it's a free 'detect my own alignment' that everyone has access to, right? Well, it's also pointed out that it is considered *extremely socially bad* to speak any alignment language in a public space, regardless of your alignment, so attempting to use your cool Alignment Language trick to actually do anything useful will get you massive negative reactions from anyone else around (again, regardless of alignment; even speaking Neutral Evil to other Neutral Evil people in a town that is generally Neutral Evil is going to get you negative reactions). Rather than try to rationalize any of this, most people just ignored the idea of Alignment Languages altogether, and they, too, naturally left the game as editions passed. And finally, the most ignored rule from 1eD&D > Psionics! - In the back of the book, there were rules for characters to roll to see if they had psionic powers. A character had to voluntarily choose to do this, so if you didn't want to, you didn't have to... but if you did, you got to roll on a chart, modified by your stats, to see if you got them at all, how cool they were, and how many Psionic Strength Points you had (power points for 'casting' your powers). But don't roll badly on the chart, you risked taking penalties to your mental stats, even becoming completely feebleminded, making the character functionally unplayable! I tried using this system *once* and never saw anyone else attempt it ever again. Most people didn't even know it was there in the back of the book at all to begin with. 2e AD&D tries to fix this mess with a whole book dedicated to the Psionicist Class; that book still included the means for a non-psionic to have psi abilities, virtually unchanged, still with feebleminding and brain-exploding risk. And then, as a cherry on top, they made every Psionic Power have an activation roll which, if you failed in the Backlash range (usually nat 1, but some had higher ranges), would cause Fumble effects, usually backlash damage or having the power be reversed back to you or other negative effects! So even if you do have psionic powers, using them is definitely going to kill you at some point, even if you take the Psionicist Class whose whole point is using these powers! It took the game until 3.5e to get Psionics into a usable state (though 3e's attempt to make each discipline based on a different stat was interesting, it ultimately didn't work well and frustrated many), and by then, most people were unwilling to touch it on principle.
I remember all of those. I tried to create a bard character back in the day, but gave up because it was too much of a slog to get to the right level, so I got bored with the character. I played around with psionics, rolling up stuff just for fun, but never created a real character with it. Besides, I didn't see psionic as something that belonged in a medieval setting anyway. Yep. alignment languages are stupid. I didn't like the racial level limits either. As for the "roll in order", I had a DM that had us roll like that, but we rolled six times, and chose the best set of stats to create a character. Eventually, we abandoned that rule, and went to roll four dice and eliminate the low number, then place the number as you see fit.
0:37 - I'm willing to argue for this one specifically when it's from the DM. If a player needs to switch from ranged to melee, fine, ignore restriction. If an enemy bandit needs to, give them the restriction, because that gives the players a bit of "That's one attack you _don't_ need to worry about."
1:00 ...The submitter doesn't know what a Spell Casting Focus is *for* "A character can use a component pouch or a spellcasting focus in place of the components specified for a spell." *Why* would you hold your focus if your spell didn't have material components? Also, regardless if it is components, a component pouch or a focus, they count as materials, and "A spellcaster must have a hand free to access these components, but it can be the same hand that he or she uses to perform somatic components". There are two ways to interpret this. Either it's not just the focus that interferes, but components/pouches too, in which case it's weird that focuses were singled out just focuses... or none of them interfere, in which case the user's "house rule" is RAI.
As a DM, I just ignore challenge ratings. I run a very weird game where giant CR 20+ monsters with level 5 characters is just the norm. The balancing factor: You get to ride a badass Golden Dragon into battle. Literally today (The day this comment was posted) I threw a Tarrasque at them in a giant raid with cannons and ballista and mounting it in a giant battle with several people. They love it when I throw really weird and powerful monsters at them, and waiting for a long time to level up and get stronger would just be a waste.
Here's the thing though; challenge ratings aren't even accurate most of the time. They can either be too weak or too strong, and that balance issue is entirely dependent on the composition of the party. They're best to use as a guideline rather than a hard rule.
For many of those, you should use the 2nd edition rules. For example : Dispel Magic have an area of effect and affect ALL magical effect within that area. That do include causing permanent magical to stop working magically for a short time. Charm is long lasting, but allow PERIODIC saving throws with a frequency that depends on the target intelligence. Even intelligence 3 or less get a saving throw every 3 months, down to every day for intelligence 19+. For Charm Monster, it's a weekly test depending on the HD or level of the monster. In 5th edition, the threat level can be used instead.
On the guidance thing, there is a volume range between whispering and yelling.... I don't think every caster should have to act like Dr Orpheus to cast spells.
I always ruled that whispering doesn't work. You don't have to yell, but you have to speak clearly at normal volume if the spell has a verbal component. Sneaky casting is one of the things sorcerer metamagic is for, and it's one of the few advantages they get over wizards.
@@sumirenatsuda7630... So make the wizard do a stealth check. The sorcerer using subtle spell has all verbal and somatic components of the spell taken away. The wizard doesn't, and would need to make an ability check.. possibly with disadvantage, given the circumstances. RAW says you can whisper, don't take away things from players just to try to make another class feature more viable.
@@dillonconners586 "where in RAW does it say the wizards can whisper spells? I always thought they had to speak loudly and clearly enough(not shout) to enunciate properly. Sorcerers have magic in their blood, so magic comes naturally. That's why they can meta."
Rules as Written you should track the weight of your gold. However there is not enough money sinks built into the game world so the.players can spend that so by higher levels every party member should be encumbered
PANR has tuned in. CR. The one time I used it was against a party of 3 level 5 players. Paladin, rogue, wizard. I through 1 banshee against them. The scariest part was the scream. They all succeeded. Then, through no fault of their own, she roles 3 nat 20's and tpk's the party. Now, my monsters don't crit, and I've never used cr again.
In all my years of GM’ing I’ve never understood CR. Might be skill issue, but frankly I just prefer to use enemies that are thematically/narratively appropriate and scale back their HP/damage potential accordingly.
Pretty much every newbie GM tries to follow the CR system until they throw a Shade or two at their level one players and realize how disastrously designed the CR system is to begin with.
If you have a spell casting focus you ignore material components. Now I'm confused if that is the case now, but I think unless the material component has a price or it explicitly says it is consumed you can just ignore it and use a focus instead
9:30 "Dispel magic can't end spells that create effects" followed directly by "Choose one creature, object or *magical effect* within range" is the reason why I think at least half the players don't actually know how to read.
I think, at least when it comes to Wall of Fire. Is that the fire isn’t magical. Once the spell produces the fire. It’s just normal fire. The same is true of all the wall spells besides wall of force maybe. No where in the spell does it say that the fire/water/stone is magical in nature.
@@aliasn4088 The wall of fire spell specifically mentions the property of the fire, including that one of the sides does not burn, and that it disappears after the duration. It's as close as you can get to saying it is a magical effect without outright saying it, but I will grant there is a tiny, miniscule gap for ambiguity. For wall of stone however, there is no room for it considering the last paragraph: "If you maintain your concentration on this spell for its whole duration, the wall becomes permanent and can't be dispelled. Otherwise, the wall disappears when the spell ends." Meaning that before the duration of the spell ends, it is possible to dispel it. As for wall of water, I'm not going to bother to explain how a literal wall of water standing freely is obviously and incontrovertibly a magical effect.
I used to be a "Guidance isn't a reaction spell" kind of DM, but after playing BG3 I decided to ease up on it. Does it make it more powerful? Sure, but if it lets the player have more fun then I don't see the harm in it.
I guess swapping weapons takes longer than dropping your weapon and drawing a new one because you have to put your first weapon away instead of leaving it lying on the ground?
Healer's kit description: The 5e Healer’s Kit is a leather pouch containing bandages, salves, and splints. It has ten uses and can be employed as an action to stabilize a creature with 0 hit points, without requiring a Wisdom (Medicine) check. makes no specific mention of range RAW
to stabilise someone, you have to take the help action, and make a medicine check, the healer's kit annuls the medicine check, but not the fact that to take the help action, you have to be 'near enough to assist' it's a clustered requirement, that you have to go about 3-4 levels deep to find, but there has always been a range... 'close enough' ... in this instance, close enough to use bandages, would mean beside. don't just regurgitate someone else's comment from a previous video, without clarifying... the other guy was wrong.
This is only if your reading comprehension fails. Normally stabilizing someone requires a medicine check. This item only makes it so you can stabilize them without the medicine check. It's not adding the ability to stabilize someone (from touch range or not), it's saying when you attempt to stabilize someone, you don't need to make a medicine check to do so, like you normally would. The Healer feat, on the other hand, depends on how literal you want to get, and how your group is flavoring the healers kit, etc. It just says when you stabilize someone with a healers kit they regain 1 hp, which would require the normal rules. But then it also says you can use a healers kit to "tend to a creature". Normal common sense would imply that would require you to go up and bandage them up, etc, but if your table is playing some weird setting where healers kits including stim dart injecting guns, or magical healing mist potion things, then you do you and it works at range.
@davidaward82 that's not what the help action is for. Help action gives the creature you're helping advantage on their next attack or skill check. RAW Healing Kit has no range requirement or limit. Add the Healer Feat and they're back at 1HP. Then you can use the kit on them again to restore more hp. Again with no range.
@@kedolan4992 to stabilise someone, you have to take the help action to aid them. the help action requires that you be close enough to provide aid. so, RaW you have to be adjacent, as you would have to be there to use the bandages, salves, splints etc that are in the kit anyway. so yeah, people are just reading the kit description and ignoring the action.
4:08 Actually according to the players handbook, both old and new, verbal components don't care about the VOLUME of sound but rather the PITCH. which means whispers can count for verbal components.
Darkvision. Honestly, who has the ability to track at all times exactly how many people can see kind of okay in the dark? I usually throw out Goggles of Night in the first magic shop at a massively discounted rate so I can just not deal with this. Even if I understood how the dynamic lighting feature on Roll20 worked and how to use it, it would still be a massive hassle to track who can see what versus who can't. Besides, other than a snippet in the PHB about how darkness causes penalties for Perception checks, there aren't really any clear rules about what being unable to see should really do, such as affect one's footing or navigation skills. The only time I think it really matters is if you have a Warlock with Devil's Sight and a lot of situations where magical darkness is involved, and even then that just makes it annoying because now the characters with darkvision still can't see.
make it so either Everybody has darkvision and make Light conditions a non-issue in your game, or make it so that NOBODY has it unless they have a feature or spell or item for it, so that darkness is actually relevant and impacts gameplay.
1:34 this is just outright wrong. From the PHB: “You create three glowing darts of magical force. Each dart hits a creature of your choice that you can see within range. A dart deals 1d4+1 force damage to its target.” It clearly says A dart deals the damage, meaning that each dart is separate.
"If a spell or other effect deals damage to more than one target at the same time, roll the damage once for all of them. For example, when a wizard casts fireball or a cleric casts flame strike, the spell's damage is rolled once for all creatures caught in the blast." pg 196, phb the darts strike simultaneously the darts can strike multiple targets it is therefore a single damage roll also, evocation wizards now have their +int added to every dart
Ok I got one fresh from the 2024 Handbook. Remember how in the old PHB species got specific stats and players said "Yeah that's stupid if I want to be a half-orc wizard why should I be saddled with extra strength instead of intelligence? Let's just put that stat boost wherever we want"? And the future books like Monsters of the Multiverse said "Yeah that was silly so for these just put the stats wherever you want." And now we come to the 2024 players handbook which built upon that and said "Yeah now they're tied to your background." Which brings us to the same problem of if you want the backstory of a Farmer who found an old magic book and started teaching himself magic. You are now saddled with stat increases of Strength, COnstitution, or Wisdom and the Tough feat instead of anything actually relevant to your class stats of Int. Worse yet if you want to optimize some classes get really screwed over. For a Barbarian that wants Strength and Constitution the ONLY two backgrounds that offer both are Farmer and Soldier. That's TWO whereas other stat combinations like Dexterity/Wisdom get upwards of FOUR. And this is keeping in mind that if you use old backgrounds, like say Wild Spacer from Spelljammer, the backwards compatibility solution is.....PUT THE STATS WHEREVER YOU WANT! I am ignoring this rule and just letting my players pick the stats and feats they want with background only giving tool/skill proficiencies and gear. It astounds me how much WotC can be aware of a problem and, in attempting to fix, just moved the problem to another portion of character creation.
@@Becvar80 Yeah or sailor is STR DEX WIS as if sailing doesn't require smarts. Or implying Soldiers can't be smart in spite of the fact there's entire SCHOOLS dedicated to studying warfare.
And that's why 6th edition isn't nearly as good as 5th, it ruins character creation by homogenizing player options while removing other player choices.
@@XperimentorEES I disagree to a certain extent there is a LOT of good things in in 2024 (5.5e, 6e whatever we want to call it). In fact I would say the quality of life improvements and fixes are very good. But I feel the ability score bonuses are the one big miss but those are easy enough to ignore since let's face it we've been ignoring them on races with 5e anyway. But let me be clear despite this I feel like 2024 is a win.
Nobody's talking about the initiative guy? What do you mean I can't prepare an action before? What, I can't wapk in with my bow already pulled, ready to fire at any guy that comes at me? No surprise rounds? Does this guy reqct to every sudden sound by pulling a gun to be immediately ready for combat?
Verbal component doesn't specify volume at which you say a spell, ruling that you have to shout every single spell, absolutely kills classes/subclasses like: Arcane Trickster, 2024 Thief Rogue, Rangers, Shadow Monks, Illusion Wizards, Trickery Domain Clerics, and much more... The verbal component means that you must have the ability to talk, the subtle spell just removes that, meaning that you can cast it in a Silence spell for example. You can say the spell at whatever volume you want, I'd rule based on the context of what's happening.
I look at it like spell casting in most fantasy anime. The words are always at least conversational volume because you're literally calling upon external forces of magic.
you cannot whisper a verbal component to a spell. it may not have to be shouted, but the whole point of it is to limit spellcasters. no 'quiet' fireballs. not without the specific metamagic.
@@davidaward82 I'm not saying whispering cause it would be very meta, you lose the point of a Sorcerer, but the core rules say it have to be "audible", so you can say them at lower volume. In a stealth context I won't shout Guidance, but I can say it with a lower voice to avoid detection. They ruled it to limit spellcasters, and that's fine but they presuppose that verbal components REQUIRES a high volume to work, which isn't the case cause it mostly means that you must have the ability to talk to cast a spell. And a spellcaster that watches you pronounce a spell (at whatever volume) can cast Counterspell on you. They can't do so if you use Subtle Spell (cause you don't need anymore the ability to do so), so this means that you can use Subtle Spell to cast a spell underwater, where you normally wouldn't have the ability to talk.
@@mosstwig3591 normal or above. if you don't have the feat, you can't do it in a subtle manner. doesn't have to be shouted, but if it has a verbal component, you're not doing it quietly. it's no anime, sure, so you don't yell, but RaW, verbal components are easy enough to hear.
The ruling at 12:00 or so is so utterly wrong. You can't cast another levelled spell ON YOUR TURN. Not round. This includes a counter-counterspell. HOWEVER, Reactions happen on another creatures turn, so you can still use Shield, Counterspell, or what have you. But if someone Counterspelled your Fireball, it's still your turn, and thus you cannot Counter-Counterspell. Another character on your side could, however.
"reaction is an instant response to a trigger of some kind, which can occur on your turn or on someone else’s." -> You cannot counterspell the counterspell that counters your quickened fireball. But you could counterspell the counterspell, that counters your normal fireball. That is the thing, that annoys the poster 🤷♂️
@algotkristoffersson15 The idea is that bonus action spells are especially swift and, therefore, more taxing than "normal" spells. But it is perfectly fine to cast two levelled spells after using action surge...
How does guidance work? Does it last until I make a skill check? Like can I cast guidance on the rogue so that later on he stealth checks or is it more or less instantanous?
From 2014 Basic Rules: "You touch one willing creature. Once before the spell ends, the target can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to one ability check of its choice. It can roll the die before or after making the ability check. The spell then ends." From 2024 Basic Rules: "You touch a willing creature and choose a skill. Until the spell ends, the creature adds 1d4 to any ability check using the chosen skill." Duration of either version of the spell is 1 minute (ten rounds of combat, which a round is 6 seconds long).
No, I'm stopping you *right there* on the Guidance point! Unless a spell *explicitly* states that *"this spell is loud!"* (for example Knock or Toll the Dead or Thunderwave), there is NO indication that Guidance or ANY spell that has a verbal component NEEDS/MUST BE LOUD!!!!!!!!!!!! If you NEED to have every spell you cast verbally to be loud then that's going to be SO unwieldy it's barely going to be usable! If you cast, say, "FIREBALL!" and you *need* to be loud, guess what?! Your target is going to hear that *immediately* and going to jump out of the way! If you cast, say, "Invisibility!" on yourself and you *need* to be loud, guess what?! *YOU JUST REVEALED YOURSELF!* Which makes it pointless! *inhale* *exhale* I'm sorry. This is the third time I've seen this "Verbal components are loud!" point, and it's been bothering me because, RAW, that's NOT what the book says! (If you wanna homebrew it so that's the case to give your spellcasters a challenge? Fine! Who am I to stop you?! But know that's not a rule that DMs ignore, but one that doesn't actually exist but people think it does!) From the 2014 PHB for 5E, Chapter 10, in the "What is a Spell?" section- "Verbal (V) Most spells require the chanting of mystic words. The words themselves aren’t the source of the spell’s power; rather, the particular combination of sounds, with specific pitch and resonance, sets the threads of magic in motion. Thus, a character who is gagged or in an area of silence, such as one created by the silence spell, can’t cast a spell with a verbal component." And the only change to the updated 2024 PHB? Chapter 7, in the "Spells" section- "Verbal (V) A Verbal component is the chanting of esoteric words that sound like nonsense to the uninitiated. *The words must be uttered in a normal speaking voice.* The words themselves aren’t the source of the spell’s power; rather, the particular combination of sounds, with specific pitch and resonance, sets the threads of magic in motion. Thus, a creature who is gagged or in an area of magical silence can’t cast a spell with a Verbal component." Almost as if people have made the assumption too much for over a decade, so they *needed* to make that clear! You don't need to yell every spell you do, but you're clearly going to make SOME noise and thusly, yes, most spells aren't *silent*, but you're not going to the opposite extreme either! Sometimes speaking in a normal toned voice, or even a whisper is enough to be noticed (even the quietest lockpicking gets noticed in the dead of night eventually), but that's still better than what this point is saying.
that makes me think of a crazy game i discovered called "KInky Dungeon". in THAT game, it's possible for your character to get GAGGED, making Verbal spells very likely to fail, or unusable, depending on the spell. ironically, an "unlock" spell is one that's always unusable when gagged! that game also has spells with "arm gesture" components, which are unusable when tied up, and a few with "leg gesture" components!
No, it doesn't, because silence means no noise at all. When you talk, you're making noise. Verbal components ARE making some semblance of noise, but the volume of it is rarely if ever actually loud, otherwise it negates a lot of the usefulness of spells or certain subclasses.
Sure, but the point still stands. You shouldn't cast Guidance when trying to hide from someone, just like you shouldn't speak in "a normal speaking voice" in this situation. Another silly thing that happens when players forget about the verbal component is they try to cast guidance on Persuasion and Deception checks. Can you imagine? You're talking to an adventurer, and suddenly their friend starts chanting and moving their hands around.
This has been a point of contention in D&D for a long time. Just how loud do you have to speak when casting a spell? My answer as a DM has always been more focused on proper pronunciation over saying the words loudly. It's hard to enunciate when you're whispering, and one wrong syllable can cause your spell to fail, or worse.
Had a player use guidance on a disguise self guy as one of the bandits trying to convince them he alone took down all the adventurers. And i just snorted and told him "they watch you walk up and say guidance as it echoes in the room, "Hey! He's a fake!" roll initiative"
Weapon Speed was an initiative modifier that frankly never materialized in play though it was included in weapon stats through the first and second editions
Rules as written, falling is instantaneous. Before anyone screams Xanathar, read it again. It says "immediately descend up to 500 feet.". Wait, how does Feather Fall work? You need to be falling to cast Feather Fall, but it's instantaneous. I will be assuming the ground is within 500 feet for the following examples, so it doesn't matter what rule you use. 1 instant, screenshot of cartoon character floating in the air. The very next instant, splat! When do you cast Feather Fall? When were you falling? How do you even process the fact that you are falling? Well, maybe you can say it's just magic. But, then you get into other weird issues. If you are not currently holding a Feather or your casting focus the very instant your feet leave the ground, it's too late, and you go splat? Reaching for a component in a pouch, or going to touch a specific item on your person as far as I know, is not magical and takes time. It sounds ridiculous, but that or saying that many player reactions are simply instantaneous and can basically react to anything feel like the only conclusions to instantaneous fall. Other fun questions include: Is Jump instantaneous? You would need to as to not fall. Wait, jumping is movement, so can you do an attack of opportunity against a jumping opponent? Looking at Feather Fall arguments, probably. Well, then, how do ready actions work? Especially in a chain of instantaneous things that people do. Like, ready action, trigger "someone attack my friend". The friend jumps, attack of opportunity hits the friend. What happens first, your readied action, or your friend finishing its jump?
I don't see how that difference is relevant when you go splat immediately if the ground is within 500 ft. Could you elaborate? I'd love it if the rules as written are less dumb than I think they are.
I feel like forces verbal spells to be "loud" doesnt really make sense, not being able to use it as a reaction makes sense. If you're trying to sneak around, but feel like one of your members needs some guidance, why the fuck would you not jusr whisper the required words instead of screaming at the top of your lungs "GUIDANCE"
Guidance is one that my group have have had yonfollow better as RAW. But i don't think it needs to be Loud but spoken tone. Also I chose the word "Aid." That is what it does and I used it with other word.
I have a variation on "Do not charge for cheap components." I don't make my players look for and find ammunition, cheap components, or food as long as the party has money. Their characters are aware of, and come to compromises with, how to split their loot from when they get it. I offer them hirelings and findlings who will get their provisions and replacements for items they use. For example, the Rogue doesn't use Components or a bow. But they do use other consumables like oil, caltrops and ball bearings, so their loot tax is spent towards refills. One of the hirelings on offer will mind their provisions, make sure they have food for the road and will cook for them. The Campaign I'm running now is far into upper levels now, and they've effectively created a "Band of Hawks" if you get that reference. They have a small caravan complete with a merchant company that peddles the crap they've stol- I mean, Liberated, from evil lairs and such, Guards that protect the Merchants, and even a spare wagons just in case they have prisoners they need to bring to town.
1:13 Oh so much despise this rule too, also denies most martial character combos from being 'overpowered' by stacking their melee bonuses regardless if it's class or race. 2:48 Yup also agree on the detect magic one, making it an action just to tell if something is magical just grinds the game to a halt by wasting turns. 4:50 Air elementals & gelationous cubes are effectively naturally invisible without magical means, though there's also a few demon/devil and aberrations from older editions. 5:10 Don't know how I forgot this one since one guy in my group always plays a ranger, though it also applies to artificers' homunculus which just raises more questions. 7:06 Wait a minute, that's a really funny and really stupid oversight, but I'd also blame that on their inept oversimplification they did to condense everything for 5th. 8:06 Same thing happens with darkvision, sure it's treated at nightvision when it shouldn't, but doesn't make sense either to say they're blinded in the dark with a light source. 9:00 Full quote from PHB, "As an action, you can expend one use of the kit to stabilize a creature that has O hit points, without needing to make a Wisdom (Medicine) check." 12:21 This is why only monks jump, reducing fall damage as a class feature is deceptively handy in vertical campaigns, and bloody useless everywhere else. 12:51 The fall damage cap is supposed to represent terminal velocity, but yeah it's frankly strange that its lazy description implies everything falls at the exact same speed. I got one, Magic Initiate, RAW says both cantrips and the once/day first level spell must all come from the same class spell list; everyone I've played with hasn't paid that any attention because it's just used as a bandaid (damage\utility for martials) or flavor (background power) for characters, besides the name implies it's a generic boon.
Nah, swapping weapons rule is great balance, if you wanna sheath and redraw a weapon that should totally be an action, no way that's free. About guidance absolutely agree about it being audible but unless it's in combat is seems stupidly pedantic to not be allowed to use it when you see a friend go to do something.
To the Guidance Guy: alternatively, make Guidance a 1st level Reaction spell (so it can't be spammed every time). Maybe swap its cantrip place with Bless & Bane. Could turn Resistance & True Strike into 1st level Reaction spells too.
@@blackwing1362 Hell yeah, let's nerf that overpowered thing. I'm so sick of people abusing the capability of wasting an action and their concentration to get advantage on a single attack on their next turn. Let's make it a 9th level spell.
@@blackwing1362 Making it a Reaction in the same vein as Guidance would entail changing it to add 1d4 (or simply Advantage) to your attack roll. I thought that would be obvious with saying it could be reworked in the same way as Guidance & Resistance.
@@blackwing1362 You mean like Guiding Bolt? (damage + Advantage to whoever makes an attack roll the target next). It's actually a buff, since True Strike could actually BE used now (and a 1st level spell slot is not a big cost); currently, it's free but effectively halves your damage if used anytime except for before combat starts. If you feel it actually is too weak for it to have the ability to grant advantage (which also means cancel disadvantage) on your attack roll, then have it buff the damage dealt on a hit as well.
One of my favourite house rules was that guidance can't be used on yourself. I liked how it cut down on people trying to say they always had it active, and it made the cantrip feel more like a boost rather than a constant higher roll to everything
"If a spell or other effect deals damage to more than one target at the same time, roll the damage once for all of them. For example, when a wizard casts fireball or a cleric casts flame strike, the spell's damage is rolled once for all creatures caught in the blast." p196, phb the darts all strike simultaneously, and can deal damage to more than one target at the same time, so it is a single damage roll. Jeremy crawford agrees. also this allows evocation wizards to add their +int to a single roll damage roll to every dart, which is extremely funny
All spellcasting is "VERY! VERY LOUD!"? Well damn, fuck invisibility and silence then... If you've got to scream your spell for it to work, making your rogue invisible won't help because the whole bandit camp knows where you are. That arcane trickster description where it describes a rogue casting the magehand spell to pickpocket a guard, if the guard can hear you yelling your spell out loud, I think he'd turn to look at you. I'm not saying spellcasting should be silent, but why can't someone whisper the magic words? Does it really have to be a forceful yell?
Magic Missile is supposed to be a single d4?! It absolutely does not state this in the spell "You create three glowing darts of magical force. Each dart hits a creature of your choice that you can see within range. A dart deals 1d4 + 1 force damage to its target. The darts all strike simultaneously, and you can direct them to hit one creature or several." Given it specifies what a single dart does in terms of damage, that reads as roll individual dice.
The thing is that it should apply the same rules as AOE spells like Fireball, where you roll damage once and every creature that takes a hit takes that damage instead of rolling for each creature. As stated on the PHB page 196 under Damage Rolls: "If a spell or other effect deals damage to more than one target at the same time, roll the damage once for all of them." Magic Missile is a spell and is dealing damage to more than one target at the same time, so you roll the damage once for all of them. The specification that a dart deals that damage is there to tell you that if more than one dart hits the same creature it takes a hit once for each dart, but RAW all darts deal the same damage. This RAW was confirmed by Jeremy Crawford, although he also said that RAI you can do it both ways (by which I think he just meant that nobody knows anymore how it was originally intended to work, so you do you).
@@garethvila5108 There's a difference though. Fireball is a damage caused by a single point of impact that radiates out, so everything within the blast area taking the same damage makes sense. With Magic Missile it isn't a single point of impact, or a single effect, it is discrete objects created, with each one doing damage, therefore should be separate dice rolls.
@@RequiemWraith Maybe RAI, but not RAW. Just by virtue of being a single spell, RAW it rolls damage once. Keep in mind that it says "If a spell OR other effect", it doesn't need to be both. As long as it's a spell dealing damage to multiple creatures, the rule applies. It doesn't matter if the spell hits a single point of impact, if it's radiating out, if it's discrete objects... All that, according to RAW, it's irrelevant. As long as it's a single spell, all the simultaneous damage is rolled once for all hit creatures. Magic missile is a single spell, so you roll once for all creatures. Again, I'm not just defending someone's weird take, it's been confirmed that this is the correct interpretation according to RAW by Crawford. If it makes no sense, well, that's RAW for you. It's not the only thing that makes no sense on DnD.
3.5 had a thing called Favored Class. Basically, just one or two classes that race was inclined towards culturally. It was included in the statblock for every race in the Player’s Handbook and playable races in the splatbooks. For years, I thought it was purely for fluff. So imagine my surprise when I discover it on a forum discussion about rules no one uses. Turns out you’re supposed to take an xp penalty for multiclassing outside of your race’s favored class. I just shrugged and our group continued not using it.
Iirc, how it works is You take an exp penalty based on the difference in levels between your highest level class and your lowest, the bigger the difference, the bugger the penalty, and a difference of 0 or 1 meant no penalty. Your race's favored class was always ignored for this, if you're a favored Fighter, for example, and are a Fighter 15, Wizard 2, Cleric 1, you take no penalty because the only classes we are comparing are Wizard and Cleric. Ignoring it probably is the best option, since EXP penalties don't really... work. Since, as written, lower levelled characters get more exp anyways, which means at most any exp penalties or costs you incur will vanish quickly. Wizards, of course, can game the hell out of this, by manipulating how much exp they have. Racial level taxes are also a thing that is pretty gladly gone. Some races were assumed to innately be higher level, so a base character of the race started at say, level 4, before ever taking a class, meaning a basic, fresh character of the race would be level 5.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 Oh, I forgot about Level Adjustment. Basically forcing a player to not level up until the rest of the party caught up to the assumed level was such a dumb thing.
On the subject of dumb 3.5e rules, spending xp to craft things. Specifically, why did I take the class specialising in crafting things if they're never going to level up? The infusions were fun, but the entire party needing to spend weeks at a time twiddling their thumbs while I craft gear, only to have to babysit me because a single level behind the party was practically a death sentence, got annoying.
"Verbal" can be a whisper, which CAN maintain stealth. As long as caster makes some sort of sound. Guessing most of these were done before the 2024 refresh.
Per the rules, all components must be obvious & detectable unless you are using Subtle Spell or similar. This is clarified in Xanathar's when discussing counterspell.
@@blakenelson4158 Debatable. Even if you don't "shout", the DM is still within their right to have characters notice that you are casting. The verbal components having some innate reverb or echo to them, like how the somatic gestures are assumed to have some level of "magic aura" about them beyond just being wide gestures (sparks, magic glows, pulsing lights, etc). Magic is weird - it is why you need special features to make it subtle / hard to notice, not just a bit of extra skill.
4:06 You don’t fucking scream the verbal component?? And message isn’t quiet, it’s SILENT. Verbal components don’t need to be loud. Just make a stealth check or something to see if you say it quietly enough.
No because that defeats the purpose of the Sorcerer’s subtle spell. Verbal components should boom with magical power so anyone nearby with any kind of hearing would hear them.
@@robinmayr5265 Yeah, and if there's no Barbarian in the party, why not give everyone Rage for free? I'll answer it, because you either won't know or will say something stupid: It completely invalidates character build choices and the game falls apart if you just make shit up. Why even play the game, just gather around a table and make shit up for 3 hours. And if you don't care about the game because you're one of those DnD fans who never actually read the PHB, then it just makes some players more favored than others based on just what stupid thing they asked for and the DM thought was "cool" "Rule of cool" is just used by people who have no idea how to run the game and have no idea what they're talking about, let alone the implications of the choice.
@@Boss-_ Not very much useful information hidden in your text. 1) Rage und subtle spell cant really be compared. Metamagic and rage could be compared but it doesn't matter here because we are only talking about one specific aspect of metamagic. 2) So if the game falls apart if you "make shit up"? Do every table that plays with some homebrew rules doesn't work? Does this translate to homebrew mosters and items too? 3) Yes I don't care about the game DnD. I care about having fun with a rulebook were I have guidelines on how to play. If I think my players could have more fun with additional or changed rules then I will do it. 4) Rule of cool: The most important part is that the players have fun. And sometimes the rules hamper the fun and should be adjusted. Finally: No player had ever any serious complain about me changing rules. So it works for me and my players. That may not work for your players. That is fine. But take the stick out of your ... and don't project your rule stickler mindset on others
@@pizzarollconsumer No it doesn't. Have them roll a stealth check. Possibility of failure. Subtle Spell is guaranteed. Or do you just not like your casters not being Gandalf level of shouty?
No idea why that guy thinks you only roll once for damage on magic missiles. It says 3 darts and each dart does 1d4+1. Therefore you roll for each dart.
I was going to post something about this, too. You beat me to it. I just double checked the 2014 PHB to make sure, and the exact wording is "A dart deals 1d4 + 1 force damage to its target." I've never seen or heard of anyone interpreting it as "roll 1d4 +1 and multiply that by the number of darts fired".
A dart, not each dart Crawford pointed to the simultanious damage rule which means you roll one time and it applies to all targets so you roll 1d4 and it applies to all darts, evoker wizards can also add their int mod to the 1d4 which also applies to each dart
"if a spell deals damage to multiple targets at the same time, you roll one damage roll" This is a phb rule. While intended for spells like fireball, where you only roll once, this also applies to spells like magic missile
@comet.x can you cite a page number, please? I'd like to take a look. I found something similar that basically came down to if I got one target with 4 missiles, I roll once and multiply by 4. If I hit 4 different targets, I'd roll for each target. My dm likes that interpretation. I, however, subscribe to 'more dice, more fun'. Lol
For the healer kit, the description doesn’t mention a range of any kind. It just says that you can expend a use to stabalize a creature with 0 hp.
Theif medic with the magic initiate feat for that bull to make sense
Screw it go halfling
Being honest sounds like a funny Magic item.
There is no mention of line of sight either so if you have the healer feat you can heal a person through a wall
“The Magic Healer Kit of Sni~er”
If a being has fallen unconscious use an action to revive a target from far away. The farther the target, the more HP they receive with. Must perform their best British/Aussie accent.
Imagine a PC with a room of magic doctors with the Healer feat and kits constantly healing him from a remote demiplane.
Hell, imagine a villain doing that.
I’ve never seen a DM who actually bothers with Encumbrance rules beyond “no you can’t take the entire building”
Or you can't carry the entire Owlbear corpse by yourself with a 10 STR
that reminds me of a silly story i read in an old gaming magazine, where a party sneaked into a giant's lair, and stole 10^16 gold!
"and how did we carry all that? in our backpacks, of course."
The dm I had would just ask what I had in my container and went by space instead. So we had to debate how the items would fit in it unless someone had a bag of holding.
We do in the OSR, you should try it
I'm glad my DM didn't enforce the Encumbrance Rules. I, literally, stuffed about half a Hag's Hoard in my Backpack including, but not limited to, a second suit of armor (I was wearing one and found a new one in the Hoard) and several pieces of framed art. Mind you, I was an Elf Ranger, so my Strength was utter garbage.
RAI is Rules as INTENDED. as in, not as they are written, but how the Author actually wanted it to work.
This is what I love about table-top games. The rule book is more like a guide book where if there is a rule that doesn’t make sense or was written with unintended effects you can just change it.
Unless they've posted and confirmed their intentions as designers, which not even all of them agree with each others anyways, It's INTERPRETATION. Every DM's Word Is Law in their own game, So It's literally based on how that person interprets the rules personally. What anyone else says is completely irrelevant in their game they are running at that time unless they choose for it to matter.
@@toolittletoolate Whether that is true or not, RAI is 'rules as intended', has been for decades.
@@N0V-A42 The DMG even encourages DMs to do this.
i mean you get more AC unarmored anyways
had a GM that let me divine smite on unarmed strikes after I got pushed off an elevated train car. I asked the GM if I could instead auto succeed to grab the edge of the speeding car in exchange for having to drop my sword. He agreed, so I crawled back up next turn, and after the artificer-brawler told me to give up, I instead decided to punch him with an unarmed attack. When I hit I declared smite, to which the GM explained he would allow this one time for rule of cool. Found out after combat that I technically couldn't, but it was cool to magic punch back the person who magic punched me off a train.
Never made any sense that if it is an innate smite ability that it had to go "through" the weapon. If you've got "the glow" on your hands, you use it!
@@cycleboy8028 For real, why can't people just be like Iron Fist out here.
@@rampagingflames3384 Bruce Leroy!!!!
@@cycleboy8028 it's probably so Paladins can't be better monks then monk.
@Leivve
But Fighters and Barbarians can be better Monks than the Monk.
Actually I think Rangers can, too. Paladins, honestly, still can probably be a better Monk than a Monk, even if losing smites is painful.
Mages can spellcast perfectly well in armor so long as they're proficient with it. Barbarians can never rage in heavy armor no matter their proficiency (even 5.5 doesn't fix this)
I've always found the "Proficiency lets you cast spells even in armor" rule to be rather stupid. Oh, so whatever was preventing me from conjuring an ethereal barrier while wearing armor suddenly no longer does because in the mean time I learned how to wear the armor better? Huh? I mean, I get that it's so you don't see Wizards walking around with 19 AC Plate Armor every few minutes, which would arguably be even more stupid, but the logic of it always annoyed me.
@@Ceracio It's not that weird.
Proficiency means you know how to use that equipment correctly. In the case of armor, wearing armor improperly hinders your movement, but a properly worn armor basically doesn't affect your movement at all.
The idea is that not having proficiency in armor means you can't properly cast the spells because of the different actions involved. You need to make some gestures with your arms? Well, you can't raise them properly, so no spell for you. You need pick a pinch of dust? Well, with those armored gloves you can't.
Proficiency also means you're used to armor and have trained with it, so even when it would undoubtedly hinder your movement proficiency means it's fair to assume you've developed some variation of the gestures that still works with the armor on.
Now, granted, this would only affect spells with somatic components and, at most, those with material components (we could assume you can't properly do whatever you need to do with the material, as in my example of the pinch of dust), but verbal only spells shouldn't be affected. That's a fair point even with this logic which I do agree with, but I can accept them being included just to simplify the rules. Making an exception for verbal only spells and spells with no components that would allow mages to cast them even when they wear armor with which they aren't proficient is such a specific thing that I think it's better to just ignore it and say all spells are affected. It's not that common for anyone to use armor they don't have proficiency with anyway.
This isn't true. They can rage. It just doesn't do anything.
However, if they were suddenly stripped of their armor somehow, they would suddenly be very angry.
@@himedo1512 Oh god you're right, 5.5e actually makes it more restrictive. You straight up can't use the bonus action to rage if you're wearing heavy armor in 5.5.
@@Haru-spicy *sees people complain that barbs can't rage in heavy armor. Looks at one of my player's Tortle Bear Totem Barb with 22 AC as he runs around in a poncho and nothing else.* I don't think its necessary.
9:25 that simply forgot to give it a range like all other things so by raw there is no range limit
Yeah, essentially, it doesn't specify touch range, or that you have to be able to see them, so technically you could use a medical kit to patch someone up while completely blind. Theoretically it should be obvious since it's a kit of bandages, salves, and other things you don't use at a distance, but RAW there's nothing that says you can't have an NPC whose only job is to stay out of combat and pop the medkit when you go down while observing combat through a telescope.
One of the biggest missed opportunities in the game for me: Tempest Domain clerics get an ability that when you deal Lighting Damage, you can knock back people 10 feet. Their Divine Strike damage type is Thunder, not Lightning. They had the perfect chance to make it so that you can someone FLYING back when you clock them. It's also weird because the feature for the knockback is called "Thunderous Strike."
Even WORSE is that Baldur's Gate 3 actually did this the right way, and it's, frankly not even that much more powerful it's just more convenient. Thunderous Strike procs on BOTH Thunder AND Lightning effects in BG3. What's really dumb is, in 5e, Clerics, and Tempest Domain Clerics, don't get a cantrip that deals lightning damage. Or Thunder Damage, for that matter.
How is thunder a distinct damage type? It’s just the sound lightning makes, surely it’d be sonic?
@@Skullhawk13sonic attacks all get Thunder damage
@@collinbeal ah, ok
@@Dan-fw2dbI'm pretty sure they get thunderclap a cantrip that deals a small aoe of thunder damage around them
There's a thing called "the 10 rules to remember". This is the second rule:
**Exceptions Supersede General Rules**
General rules govern each part of the game. For example, the combat rules tell you that melee weapon attacks use Strength and ranged weapon attacks use Dexterity. That's a general rule, and a general rule is in effect as long as something in the game doesn't explicitly say otherwise.
The game also includes elements-class features, spells, magic items, monster abilities, and the like-that sometimes contradict a general rule. When an exception and a general rule disagree, the exception wins. For example, if a feature says you can make melee weapon attacks using your Charisma, you can do so, even though that statement disagrees with the general rule.
I find the "specific beats general" notion doesn't really work and isn't needed in 5e and further. I think it might be a relic from earlier editions.
The thing is, it doesn't apply to almost anything in the book. Rules generally either don't contradict each other at all, because they are not written in a manner of "you can't do x", but instead as "you can do x", which then isn't contradicted by "you can do y", the second rule can just exist side by side, or the specific rules spell out specifically which general rule they allow you to circumvent and exactly how, such as "you can deal force damage, rather than your normal damage type for this attack".
I tried looking in forums at some point where you can even apply "specific beats general", and couldn't find anyone come up with an example where it would be needed.
@@arcturuslight_ Actually, there is a rule that is on itself an example of "specific beats general", and is the ability modifyers used on attacks.
Quote from the PHB: "The ability modifier used for a melee weapon attack is Strength, and the ability modifier used for a ranged weapon attack is Dexterity. Weapons that have the finesse or thrown property break this rule."
Here we have one rule, "The ability modifier used for a melee weapon attack is Strength, and the ability modifier used for a ranged weapon attack is Dexterity." But, next, we've got two specific cases that are exceptions to that rule:
"Weapons that have the finesse or thrown property break this rule." This explicitly states that it's breaking the previous rule, and it prevails on top of it, demonstrating (in this case explicitly) that the specific rules of finesse and thrown weapons beat the general rule of melee and ranged weapons.
Keep in mind that the general rule isn't saying "you can use Strength for melee weapon attacks", it's firmly stating that Strength is THE ability modifyer for them. It doesn't let you choose differently. And the specific rule about the finesse property firmly states that the weapons with it can break this rule. Weapons without it cannot do so as the general rule applies to them.
So, yes, Strength is THE one on melee attacks, but the finesse weapons are a specific case that break it. Now, there's no mention of any other exception so, in theory, this is it and nobody can choose to use a non-finesse weapon with an ability modifyer that isn't Strength. That's what the general rules say firmly.
But the Monk's Martial Arts feature says the following:
"You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes and monk weapons."
This is an exception to both previous general rules. In this case, not all the monk weapons have the finesse property, and unarmed tstrikes don't have it either, so in general you can't use dexterity on those. However, the Martial Arts feature overrules the general rules and allows you to use Dexterity on weapons without the finesse property and on your unarmed strikes, showing once again that the specific rules beat the general ones.
We have clear general rules that firmly state what is the correct ability modifyer for each weapon, then we have a more specific rule that allows certain weapons to break that rule, and then we have a class feature that allows Monks specifically to break those rules even further.There are more examples, but this is the one that came to mind.
@@arcturuslight_ That's not "specific beats general" not working, that's having to repeat it over and over because most players (that care to post on social media of any kind) are thick as a brick.
Not so much rules as weird monster traits, but: Water Elementals are not resistant - let alone immune - to fire damage. Cats don't have dark vision. Minotaurs can always find their way out of a maze, even though the Greek myth describes the minotaur as being put in the labyrinth for the exclusive purpose of it never being able to find its way out.
To be fair if you are made of water, enough temperature would turn part of you to steam which I believe it's even more valid than most sources of damage to hit a water elemental.
The labyrinth of Crete was designed for the entrapment of the human sacrifices, not the minotaur.
Granted. They removed the auto success on the Maze spell for minotaur though in 2024
@@GallacantIf that's the case, my doesn't the minotaur just walk out?
@@addison_v_ertisement1678 because he gets fed his favorite food
@@Gallacant hr could get that from raids.
An African Raven can carry a maul but they're not migratory
Well done. You won't be tossed off a bridge today.
But can you bang two mauls together? They're two handed so I'd assume you can only hold one. I'd allow riding your maul but you'd need to find another way to simulate a galloping sound and without the sound of galloping well what's the point?
I can't tell if these are Monty Python references or not lol
@@FourthIdentity-gu2zk It is an exquisite blend of D&D and Monty Python 😂
Okay, but Devil's Sight not working in dim light is very intentional. The idea is that you have to snuff a light to see more clearly, which is cool.
The weirdest part is that the version of devils sight used in monster stat blocks DOES work in dim light. Which is confusing as they have the same name
@@algotkristoffersson15 that much is true. You have to assume that it's just that the devils would also have darkvision, so they can ignore dimlight anyway
Nope, rules RAI, and nowRAW (2024) it just works in both dim/drk and darkness.
It confirmed on sage advice multiple times, There are just a lot of DM's out there that don't like the ability, those DM's also ban things like the darkvision spell itself, Twilight cleric because they think the darkvision for party for an hour once a day is strong and DM's that will 100% pretend they forget how Devil sight works when fighting enemies that have the gloom stalker 'stealth' ability.
Maybe I'm just unlucky, but I've had 2 DM that absalutly hate it when their players can see in the dark, One went as far as singling out my charecter that was a Devine soul sorc/warlock with a psudo dragon. Because she had 120ft darkvision as a 24 passive perception. She would twin spell invis on herself and her famillier, scout and have thefamilier use its telepathy to relay important spots to the group.
Yeah, DM had someone 'snipe' her and her Psudo dragon from beyound her view range, becasue apparently they could see further... and through invisibilty.. yeah, he gave a ranger type creaure 240ft of true sight.
But the '24 PHB version of the Devil's Sight invocation *DOES* work in both Dim Light and Darkness.
So I'm inclined to go with WotC being derps and patched it out here. Though it's weird to do it now and not add a bit in earlier Errata for the '14 version...
@@DragonKnightJin They've said before that it was intentional. I think they've just recognized that people don't like it.
The healer kit thing has made me jokingly think that death rolls is not your character trying to overcome the injuries, it's a healer on a different plane with their kit, desperately trying to heal your body with their rolls.
00:50
If a raven can carry a maul, then a swallow can carry a coconut.
African or European?
@@torgranael I had to check to make sure this was in the replies. Thank you good sir!
i am yet to see anyone use electrum or platinum as currency for anything...
its always either gold or copper, sometimes silver.
I use Platinum all the time but never electrum! We go high level and more Monty haul so platinum is useful!
I often use platinum in my tables. Who want to give TWO HUNDREDS coins if you can just give 20?! It is like why would you pay for something with 1,000 cents if you can just give 10 dollars...Also my NPCs sometimes chance the price of X gp for X(x10) sp. About the electrum I never used and never see anyone using it because cp, sp,gp, and pp is a base ten so it is easy to exchange but I bet the people from USA would use it. They like weird mesures
Platinum often becomes mandatory as weaker characters can carry that much gold.
I myself prefer electrum and use it whenever possible
We use both at my table.
Electrum is treated as an older currency that became less commonly used so it's more often found in ruins. The government, lords and kings will often pay people in electrum for quests and shop keeps are required by law to be able to exchange it - obviously none of them want to and paying people in electrum is usually considered a dick move.
Platinum is when you rob/get paid by a rich person
Electrum is mostly CoS
Platinum comes into play more at high levels to reduce coin weights
I've got one I bet y'all have never heard of. The original Sage Advice from Gygax clarified that the wording for fall damage was published wrong and was supposed to be more devastating. It originally read "1d6 per ten feet, per ten feet," but the editors thought this was a typo and changed it to "1d6 per ten feet." So we went from 30 feet being 1d6+2d6+3d6= *6d6* damage to 1d6+1d6+1d6= *3d6* damage.
As a fan of levitation magic and cliffs, I think we should bring this back ;)
I use this in my campaign. It makes people _much_ more worried about their characters scaling wall, cliffs, and such.
That makes much more sense. So I will be doing that from now on.
As gravity goes, lol. Should've used "per ten feet squared"
It really makes no sense that a 30 foot drop is the equivalent of three 10 foot drops
@@ricksaburai at a certain point you're falling as fast as you're ever going to, the distance after that point is irrelevant
@@AllenGray47 terminal velocity is after 12 seconds of free fall, some 1500 feet. That doesn't matter at all to regular fall damage scenarios unless you're planning to superhero drop and have some sort of mitigation
The dm i had believed that being small shouldn't give disadvantage when using big two-handed weapons and should be decided by strength instead which obviously if you want to use those kind of weapons you're gonna be pretty buff anyways so it wasn't ever enforced. Also had a lot of fun describing how a kobold would use a battle ax and later greatsword which ended up being similar to how yoda fights.
Use the big weapons to leverage yourself and move about the terrain, using your low frame and high momentum, it's actually smart. Just because something is big and unwieldy doesnt mean it can't be used. I like this.
@@GabrielArchon in a fictional world where strength can get pretty crazy, I say GO CRAZY!
Small creatures should have disadvantage with two-handed weapons because
- the weapon is twice as tall as your character (longbows and greatswords, for example can easily be 6 feet long)
- it likely weighs as much as 20% of their body weight
Just for the sake of comparison, giving your small kobold a greatsword is insanely cumbersome, even if they're strong enough to lift it.
According to the official rules for kobolds and greatswords:
-you weigh between 25-35 pounds
-you are 2-3 feet tall
-a greatsword weighs six pounds
So even a super beefy kobold that's 3ft tall and weighs 35 lbs is weilding a weapon twice their height and 17% of their body weight. That's the equivalent of a 200lb human wielding a 12-foot long, 30lb sword. There's virtually no way to swing that without being off balance.
@@jackyoung1208 yet on the other end a horse can carry a centaur no problem because despite being described to be about the same size they are considered medium while the horse is large for some reason. Unless centaurs have hallow bones they should weigh about the same but it doesn't say from what I remember. That would be like a person carrying a body of simmilar weight and hight with little effort.
@@jackyoung1208 heavy crossbow weighs 18 pounds average weight for a 5'10 male humanoid is 180 pounds thats 10% so they should have disadvantage
We have a rule in our group, that nobody is allowed to reference Jermey Crawford tweets for rulings.
Excellent rule and has the benefit of being RAW
I feel so old school because I enforce a lot of 'unnecessary' rules as I find they do add to the game. But within some reason.
Like i don't make players keep track of spell components, and assume they restock them when they can, however I warn in advance that if they are going to spam spells that use particular components a lot, they may find themselves running low on stock. Eventually, they will run out.
This is only a concern on longer adventures with no town visits.
There’s literally a rule that says you don’t need materials without a cost that aren’t consumed (most materials aren’t consumed) as long as you have a spectating focus.
@@algotkristoffersson15 I was speaking more generally but for that specific thing I guess is a change for 5e, which I don't play. I prefer 3.5 and tend to run that
It's not really old school, some people have been always playing by the rules, while others been ignoring the rules. It's just nowadays people like to argue about it more and try to prove their method of having fun is superior.
Traveling encounter rules.
The Order of the Stick (iirc) put it best. Everyone knows that no matter where you are traveling to or from, the terrain you are traveling in, or the mode of transit between places being used, or what the little table says, each major leg of a journey will have exactly between 0 and 1 encounter, with a second being reserved for use only by plot centric subversions, unless the players are doing something weird.
@@algotkristoffersson15 We were all noobs and playing our first campaign (Strahd). The DM, also a noob, had never heard of arcane focues so he enforced the material component requirements....and there are no magic shops for ingredients in Strahd. So he had us wandering the wilderness searching for bat poop in order to cast fireball. I found out what arcane focuses were and he said 'no, we started the game this way a few sessions ago, so we'll keep playing this way'. Though we kept complaining he never relented. We spent 2 years in that campaign, constantly looking for bat poop....
About vampires...
"Each time the vampire or the vampire's companions do anything harmful to the target, it can repeat the saving throw, ending the effect on itself on a success. Otherwise, the effect lasts 24 hours or until the vampire is destroyed, is on a different plane of existence than the target, or takes a bonus action to end the effect."
The vampire charm is still one of the most broken as shit effects in 5e though
i love how like half of these are just misunderstandings, especially when it comes to magic rules and spell components.
does NOBODY read the phb?
Most DnD fans dont...
Have you heard all the people trying to make "broken" builds?
And the same people that complain about casters being busted play with none of the balancing features of spellcasters.
Fundamentally, they're ripping out the brakes of a train because "that's just not fun" and then complaining that it doesn't stop.
1:24 Assuming 2014 rules, this differentiation is actualy what allows divine slaps.
Paladin requires a "Melee Weapon Attack" not an "Attack with a Melee Weapon".
As I recall, there was a stupid Twitter Ruling that said you had to use a weapon for Divine Strike. I ignore this because it's stupid.
I think the place it comes up most is the rulings with Sneak Attack. WotC seemed oddly allergic to letting a Rogue kidney punch people.
@jamesoakes4842 "The attack must use a Finesse or Ranged Weapon"
Unless you are a monk as well as a rogue, that definitively bars Unarmed Strikes; which are Strength only.
Even then, the wording is "you can use Dexterity instead of Strength for... Unarmed Strikes and Monk Weapons" which is different from treating those as Finesse.
Though at my table, I would allow stacking Sneak Attack on Martial Arts.
@@aidanpalmer1075 Yeah, that was the big illogical part. Martial Arts turns your unarmed attacks into finesse weapons in EFFECT but not in name. So all the things that would logically apply for the restrictions on Sneak Attack are met, but your unarmed attacks not actually being a weapon for this purpose in particular seems super arbitrary, because it totally is.
@@kikagezumi Yeah, Crawford has waffled on rulings before, so I've decided to go with what makes actual sense.
That said, I *DO* appreciate the update to Shield Master in the '24 PHB. No more trying to figure out WHEN you can use the bonus action, because it's just a "once per turn, when you hit with an attack, you can ALSO do this as part of that attack" thing now.
Which makes mechanical and narrative sense to me. And I think I will be using that version for the feat even if I mostly prefer the '14 stuff for the time being.
As for the Divine Smite: My Paladin's DM has ruled an NPC using Divine Smite on unarmed strikes, and allows my Paladin to do the same. I rarely use the ability because I have a bitchin' +2 Longsword so I'm gonna be using THAT more often than not. But he could ABSOLUTELY strike a mofo with the Holy Pimp Hand if he wants to.
a note to the dm who says that verbal spell components are "loud" it just means that they need to be said at a normal speaking voice, so it would be possible to use guidance for a stealth check, if done far enough away from when the skill is used. that said, guidance is indeed an action, not a reaction and should be used as such, that said, that particular spell lasts a minute, and in theory, can be cast on the whole party within seconds out of battle, so prep work isn't exactly difficult.
Verbal can even be a whisper, as long as caster makes a sound. Whispers can be nearly inaudible to people only feet away.
*just posted a long rant about that in the comments above* Thank you! Glad to see I'm not the only one tired of this falsehood!
This is true, except for "in theory, can be cast on the whole party within seconds out of battle". A single instance of Guidance targets only one creature, and since the spell requires concentration, only one person can be the target of a specific creature's Guidance at a time.
Also, vitriolic dms who punish guidance at any opportunity deserve the worst kind of comeuppance: players actually using the help action. Any complaint of “nooo you can’t get a d4 because you spent one of the cantrips you could learn on it” will quickly fall to the wayside as they get to see what advantage anytime, anywhere, with no downside looks like.
@@theomegatango depends on the size of the party, and how you classify "seconds" five party members, six seconds per cast, that's 30 seconds, up or down depending on the number of party members. You'd have to know or suspect you were getting into something, but it wouldn't take long.... I do admit it would usually be around half a minute, but it's still not that long considering. I suppose with large parties would be a little hard to manage, unless you had multiple people who could cast it, but still.
RAI = Rules As Intended, not Interpretation. :)
My favorite will always be that snakes are not immune to being knocked prone, lol.
And I thought cats being literally unable to jump was bad.
Last campaign I had a DM enforce the “as written” for dispel magic. I tried twice. Was told “not how the spell is written”.
Removed it from my spell list and didn’t use it the rest of the campaign.
Though I did get a bit of vindication as I had cast a nasty area spell and he said his BBEG “dispelled it”. I said “nope. Per your ruling. That’s not how it works. So here’s 8d8 psychic damage”
I ignore the rage conditions that need to be met to sustain it for barbarians. Instead of unless you are hit it leaves, now rage lasts for 1 minute.
Barbarians punching themselves to keep the rage going IS a funny image though
Fall damage cap makes perfect sense. That poster has it around the wrong way. Terminal velocity is a thing.
Yes it is but it takes longer to reach terminal velocity in real life than it does with the RAW fall damage in D&D.
but then it should be different damage caps and scaling depending on weight and size of a creature as well as details on short distance falls that certain creatures (cats) that hurt them more than big falls. basically, the rule should stipulate that falling 1000 feet as a giant would hurt you much more than a spider or some other light creature with a relatively large surface area falling the same distance . ik over complicating the rule doesnt help but the rule still doesnt make much sense its just practical and convenient to have a consistent rule
Every single party I've ever been in has:
- wallets of holding
- infinite (normal) arrows
- completely ignored the distinction between dim and dark light
"Choose one creature, object or magical effect" - It states right there in the text that you can target magical effects with dispel magic...
AND THEN it says the effect ends on the target. if the target you choose is a magical effect not on a target how can the effect end on the magical effect? the effect is not ON the magical effect. The point here is that the "ON the target" part cannot be RAW.
Maybe it should say:
"Choose One:
Choose one creature or object within range. Any spell of 3rd level or lower on the target ends. For each spell of 4th level or higher on the target, make an ability check using your spellcasting ability. The DC equals 10 + the spell's level. On a successful check, the spell ends.
Or choose a magical effect. Any spell of 3rd level or lower ends. If the magical effect is of 4th level or higher, make an ability check using BLABLABLABLABLABLA."
Then, if you target a person that has idk, magical invisbily and stands in a silence bubble as your target creature the silence effect wouldn't end.
And if you choose the magical effet only that would end.
But how would you target a silence bubble in RAW? Again, it says: "Choose one creature, object, or magical effect within range. Any spell of 3rd level or lower on the target ends."
So you choose a magical effect within range. (the Silence spell effect). Any (3rd bla, >= 4th blabla) spells on the Silence spell effect end. The silence spell itself doesn't.
I hope this helps to explain what the weird part about this rule is.
oh, "Sniper Medic" reminds me of a silly weapon in Team Fortress 2: a Crossbow that heals friendly players, and can only be used by a Medic!
i think it's called The Crusader's Crossbow.
PS: there's one strange map, i think it's called Degroot Keep, that forbids use of GUNS, so that crossbow is VERY useful there!
everyone else is reduced to Melee weapons only, except the Sniper, who can acquire a Longbow.
Yeah, the crossbow heals friendly players, and harms enemies.
That wizards need to make a skill check in order to scribe into their spellbook from a scroll but not from another spellbook.
Life Cleric's channel divinity only heals to half the max hp at most... My group rightfully says that's stupid 😂
It's actually not that bad in certain situations. Kind of like how Goodberry is just enough to get a downed PC back up and able to keep fighting, but the Channel Divinity can do that with multiple PCs at the same time.
@@JLynne36 Can still do that if it heals for more tho.
@@JLynne36 goodberry takes an action to eat. Downed PCs cannot take actions
use healing word
@@comet.x I am aware. Since the downed PC can't do anything, it would be up to another PC to do something. Idk about RAW, but every table I've played at has said that another PC can put a goodberry (or other healing item) in the downed character's mouth and it counts for healing them.
Also, healing word takes a spell slot which you may not want to waste if you have healing items available.
It’s not stupid, it’s a TON of healing, doesn’t take a spell slot, and recharges on a short rest. It can be used before a short rest to save on hit dice, or it can be used as a big economy swing mid-combat if one or more people are downed.
Removing the half-max part of it in BG3 was kinda nuts, and only really makes sense given a lot of the other high power changes they made (like how short rests work, or the way just being lightly splashed by a broken healing potion heals you as if you drank it.)
"The elephants gone?! Where did it go?!"
*the Wizard, remembering their dnd physics* oh no.... *looks up*
The lack of killing mechanics on sleeping opponents... I get you.
Whenever I call for executing the last remaining enemies at the end of a fight because they've been hit by a Sleep spell, I always get counter-argued that there is no Execute action in the game. And then, we slowly proceed with the initiative order, rolling dice and hitting, rolling for damage and killing.
SMH this isn't a video game. It's not coded in the book because it doesn't need to. Just call it: spare or kill. Then move on.
I've never been on a game where we couldn't just execute the remaining enemies, but too often I've been in a simmilar position BEFORE an encounter.
"I sneak behind the guard"
"Roll Stealth"
"Natural 20 for a total of 28"
"You manage to get behind the guard"
"I slit their throat with my dagger"
"Roll for an attack with advantage because he doesn't see you"
"Lucky me, another natural 20"
"Okay, that's a crit. Roll damage"
...A dagger it's only 1d4 damage. How is a maximum of 13 damage going to kill ANYONE? ON A CRIT? Unless you're a Rogue that can add Sneak Attack you cant even think of taking anyone on a single hit with a dagger, and even then it's a gamble.
What makes this worse is that, whenever the bad guys have someone captured and slit their throat, then magically it DOES work! I was once in a game where we were trying to save someone. The boss was holding them with a sword on their throat. I snuck behind them, stabbed him in the back... and did, I don't know, like 1/10th of the damage we needed to kill the boss? And, of course, we rolled initiative, the boss was first, and slit the hostage's throat. It. Absolutely. SUCKED.
But anyway, I'm getting carried away. My point is, is it that hard to let the player just flat out kill the guard? If the player does it, they're going to feel GREAT, they're going to feel like sneaking around was worth it, that they managed to be clever about the situation instead of just using brute force. If you make them roll damage, they're likely going to not kill the objective, feel like they messed up, think it was a dumb idea and, to top it off, now you're going to ask them to roll initiative and just fight their way out, exactly what they were trying to avoid. I don't see a single reason why rolling damage instead of instakilling is a better option.
Previous editions did have a coup de grace option.
I have absolutely no idea why fifth edition doesn't have a coup de grace action. Previous editions have which cover exactly this scenario and makes total sense.
The closest thing I can think of is that they didn't want it to be an option against PCs making death saves, but a melee attack already gives you two automatic failures, which is like half a coup de grace action. 9/10 if a DM is willing to have enemies target downed PCs (which a lot of them aren't anyway), then that PC is gonna die. So we've gained very little and lost a super important action for simulationism.
@@torifort717 PCs making death saves auto fail from any source of dmg. Critical hits count as Two fails
@@Gallacant All attacks made from within five feet are automatically crits against an unconscious creature. And PCs are unconscious while make death saves. It's very frustratingly hidden amongst different rules, but that functionally means all melee hits will cause two failures (barring reach weapons weirdly).
You have to declare non-lethal *before* making your attack roll otherwise it's considered a lethal attack.
Most players forget this in the heat of battle and most new players don't even know this is a rule. Can really put a sour mood on a campaign when the party forgets that swords are sharp and that guy they wanted to interrogate is dead because they forgot to say "But I don't want to kill him" before the damage is dealt.
I changed up the mechanics for it in one group and the results were mixed. When an enemy reaches 0HP they're out like the PC but instead of making death saves I roll a D4 and anything the players don't finish off wakes back up in 1d4 hours. The players were mighty confused when bodies go missing or enemies return with a grudge, biggest complain towards that change was it kind of conditioned the PCs to be psychos by smashing and slashing bodies to make sure things are dead. Some liked it, some didn't.
new rule in 2024 makes it so it's afetr they reach 0 it's your choice now. a change i like.
Actually this is incorrect. As long as you attack with a melee attack (so yes even inflict wounds cast at 9th level), and you reduce a creature to zero or less HP, you may make the attack non-lethal. In previous editions it was you had to call it before hand, hence why people mix this up.
A lot of DMs have a rule that spells can't be non lethal due to their nature. One of my DMs allowed me to say that certain spells are - but that this will mean they will ALWAYS be non lethal.
A different DM had rules for NPC death saves where most die immediately but some powerful or lucky NPCs can roll 1 or 2 death saving throws
@@CadanL
I mean makes sense… you cant exactly make a fire ball non lethal. XD
The real RAW issue is non-lethal only applies to melee attacks. The barbarian in a rage so deep they can't tell friend from foe can deal 300 damage with a hammer, but has enough restraint to make it a gentle bonk with no long-term effects. Meanwhile, the most skilled archer on the planet is fundamentally incapable of avoiding an instant-kill on a commoner, because they don't know how to blunt an arrow.
As for the rager's companion, I always thought the best way to run it would be to have the character use a BA to tell the animal what to do, and it just does until it can't or the ranger says to do something else.
… this only continues to make rangers bad … I’d give it its own turn and have that PC continue controlling it. Or they can go on the same initiative. But ranger controls it still separate from itself.
@@silentmeklar1783 Never actually ran it that way. But sometime around the second failed Ranger UA, back when I still cared about 5e, they still hadn't even tried to make the pet work in any way that doesn't take your action.
@@metagames.errata7777 I’m absolutely hopeful for the new books that are aimed at fixing all the classes. Because honestly if you’re not a rogue you’re useless (obviously a bit of exaggeration but some classes were wayyyy too niche.
@@silentmeklar1783 I quit being invested in the newest edition/s a while back. The tone of the game just isn't for me. That, coupled with the perpetually salty state of twitter ... and it's kinda just nice to see someone who actually wants to see what in what WotC cooks up. lol
@@metagames.errata7777 from what I’ve seen of the videos they actually fixed warlock a bit, and I only play with friends so the saltiness doesn’t get me as much. But the DM can fully make or break the campaign, maybe one day you’ll decide to dip your toes back in, if not all the power to you still
4:58 Invisible Stalkers are a classic monster. Also, that's basically how Gloom Stalker Rangers are in darkness now, since they negate Darkvision.
Languages. My players only know 3 languages: Common, class language (draconic for mages, druidic for druids...) and racial language (elvish for elves, gnomish for gnomes, infernal for gingers...)
I had a group as a player that basically knew any language likely to have a written form. The DM could do nothing with them.
Languages add flavor to the world: allows for espionage, secret codes and translation quests. Comprehend languages and read magic spells are also banned.
If It helps, neither Comprehend Languages nor Read Magic translates the hidden meaning of a message, so secret codes shouldn't be translated
I'm just imagining a lonely vampire making friends out of an entire town
1:56 Yeah, it’s not supposed to be like everything else that slows you down, it’s a third level spell that does nothing else, it’d be a bit too easy to cast a lower level spell to ignore it.
3:23 There’s nothing RAW that explicitly states casting spells is necessarily loud, it’s just not quiet enough to use it while trying to stealth from relatively nearby enemies so that Subtle Spell has a niche. You can tell because there are certain spells that specify they are loud, which obviously they would have no need to if all spells were loud. Also that is kind of a sucky way to restrict Guidance IMO, since most of the time you can’t perfectly predict a fellow player is going to need to do a skill check, nor who will be the one doing it. Good for their table if they like it though.
6:27 Gee, it’s almost like you’re supposed to make up what they look like.
7:21 Huh, I wonder if why spellcasters are considered so OP, I mean they’re only ignoring or bending the rules completely in the spellcaster’s favour. Aside from that though, just removing the need to keep track of spell components takes away some of the engagement of being a spellcaster for me, so I personally dislike when people do this.
9:27 I actually do enforce Dispel Magic’s specific wording, it becomes way too easy to just bypass anything that sounds remotely magical otherwise, gotta give it some kind of restriction beyond just making everything too high level.
At least when it comes to the Jump argument, I would argue that if you are actively jumping, you’re probably skilled enough to land on your feet. Falling on the other hand will do damage because you probably weren’t expecting to fall.
3:42 just whisper using it, verbal components never state you need to say them really loud or at a normal voice
1:32 I'd allow it just on Rule of Cool, "My Oath forbids me from striking a Lady .... but I will slap the green off an Orc Bch!" Bonus to the strike if the statement is said with Full Sass: moving the neck, waving a finger, fist on hip, that sort of thing.
I mean, if we’re using the technical definition of lady that really only means a noble woman. Commoners can get the pimp hands.
0:30 Switching weapons is meant to take time so you can't just casually swap to whatever you want but have to actually think. It absolutely adds to the challenge and enjoyment of the game. If you're sitting in back with a crossbow and someone jumps on you, then yeah you can either drop the bow (and have to pick it up later) or waste a turn switching. Or hit them with the crossbow I guess.
... granted it was better when it was a move action but what can you do?
3:33 Yeah people always forget that spellcasting is generally pretty obvious.
8:55 The Pact Blade is, as the name suggests, a manifestation of the power of the Warlock's patron. An Artifact weapon is an already existing item of quasi-divine power, and a sentient weapon has a will of its own. It is eminently reasonable that it doesn't affect them. ...by default. A hexblade whose patron *was* an evil artifact, for instance, or who had been specifically granted a sentient weapon... that could work, yeah. But it'd be a 'reskinning', so to speak.
10:30 Magic Missile works the same way.
11:03 Yeah? Permanent effects exist.
Oh my god. Plant growth isn’t Difficult terrain. That means it stacks. If you slap Plant Growth and Spike Growth down, any character with a speed slower than 40 ft is just straight up stuck. On a grid, they can’t move 5 ft and thus their movement is rounded down to nothing.
Dispel Magic not being able to get rid of certain spells because the effect isn't "on a creature" is wrong. Dispel Magic doesn't require the spell effect to be on a creature. It says to pick "a target". It does NOT say that target must be a creature. That is a full misunderstanding of how that spell works by that person.
Can you imagine how boring John Wick 3 would have been if the dogs followed ranger companion rules?
1:30 Paladin + Lizardfolk = Divine Bite.
In my experience, it's the ingredients required for spell casting. Seriously, I need to scrounge up some bat poop to cast fireball?
From what I’ve heard people don’t really care for the ingredients. They only care if it has a gold value
In the player's handbook, it says that a spell may have any and all material components substituted by holding a spellcasting focus unless a gp cost is listed.
Unless your focus is missing or damaged, you do not need bat poop to cast fireball.
There's actually a feat called Eschew Materials that mitigates that very issue, so it's not necessarily a case of avoiding that requirement, but rather the player having that feat.
In my game, we have a house rule for "roleplay feats" every six levels starting at first, and this is one my DM said would qualify. Essentially, the ruling is that if it has no impact on combat, it qualifies as a roleplay feat.
It's because pretty much all spell components are inside jokes. Fireball needs bat guano and sulfur (you're literally making gunpowder). See invisibility uses a pinch of talc - you're blowing white dust that sticks to things to find the invisible person. Detect thoughts requires a copper coin (penny for your thoughts?). Flesh to stone is lime, water, and earth.... Which is basically just covering your enemies in concrete.
A lot of the components were leftover nerd jokes from the 70s when Gygax and company started making them. The guano is for methane/fire creation. Some of the electricity based spells have or had things like "a bit of fur" for rubbing together to get a static spark. There was a Forgotten Realms spell called "There/Not There. It was very complicated on mechanics, but the component was a small box. For Schrodinger's Cat.
I forget the name of the item and what book it was in, some sort of coat/suit/cloak of fire protection, that mentions the wizard who created it contracted a horrible coughing sickness. That's a reference to asbestos. The D&D books are full of little snippets like that. But if you don't like the component rules, just use a spell focus, or even as far back as 3.5 I think, they had component pouches that were assumes to have any common thing in them you needed.
Course, the downside of that is, if you ever get captured/jailed or whatever, all they have to do is take you spellbook, component pouch, or focus, and you're basically a peasant with a few extra knowledges. Something many DMS have used with fiendish delight.
Digging way back in the olden days - AD&D 1e/2e - The rules I and many DMs ignored a LOT.
> "Place stats as rolled, in order." No, screw that. If I want to built a Fighter, I need to be able to make those prerequisites, and the chargen rules have me picking a class *before* I roll stats. This was the most obvious one to get thrown out in the early days, so much that it just stopped being a thing by the time 2nd edition happened.
> Racial Level Limits - If you weren't a Human, or one of a very few non-human exceptions, then you had a Level Cap depending on what class you were playing. Are you an Elf thief and you hit level 12? Well, sorry, you can't level anymore. And you can't switch to a new class because:
> Dual Classing is Only for Humans - You have to be Human to start as one class, stop leveling in that class, then start leveling in another class, under annoying rules about what actually improves as you level in the new class. If you're any other race, you have to Multi-class, a choice you have to make from level 1, in order to have more than one class, at which point all your XP gets split between two simultaneously advancing class. Decided to be a single-class Elf Thief, and hit level 12? No options at all. You're stuck. Oh, unless...
> Bards in 1e AD&D - In order to become a Bard you either had to be a Human or a Half-Elf, start as a Fighter, dual class to Thief, then dual class again to Druid, at which point you would start getting Bard levels instead. Notice that this requires Half-Elves to Dual Class, something they normally cannot do, since they are not Humans. Half-Elves are given a *special exception* to be allowed to Dual Class *only* if they are on the track to become a Bard. Silly question? What level is a character that has dual classed enough to become a Bard, for purposes of level range a module expects? I don't know anyone who tried to play a Bard (human or otherwise) in 1e, and most people didn't know it was an option.
> Alignment, and XP Penalties for Changing Alignment - Alignment mattered for so few things, you'd be forgiven for ignoring it entirely... until one of the situations where it Actually Mattered, such as when a cursed trap or cursed magical item reversed your alignment, likely not only making you a villain to the party until you're cured, but also penalizing your XP by 50%! The only time Alignment ever mattered was to hurt you, so most people ignored it, which is fine except...
> Alignment Languages - Her you go. By virtue of being Chaotic Good, you are able to speak a special language called "Chaotic Good" that only "Chaotic Good' creatures can understand without magical assistance. This would seem like it's a free 'detect my own alignment' that everyone has access to, right? Well, it's also pointed out that it is considered *extremely socially bad* to speak any alignment language in a public space, regardless of your alignment, so attempting to use your cool Alignment Language trick to actually do anything useful will get you massive negative reactions from anyone else around (again, regardless of alignment; even speaking Neutral Evil to other Neutral Evil people in a town that is generally Neutral Evil is going to get you negative reactions). Rather than try to rationalize any of this, most people just ignored the idea of Alignment Languages altogether, and they, too, naturally left the game as editions passed.
And finally, the most ignored rule from 1eD&D
> Psionics! - In the back of the book, there were rules for characters to roll to see if they had psionic powers. A character had to voluntarily choose to do this, so if you didn't want to, you didn't have to... but if you did, you got to roll on a chart, modified by your stats, to see if you got them at all, how cool they were, and how many Psionic Strength Points you had (power points for 'casting' your powers). But don't roll badly on the chart, you risked taking penalties to your mental stats, even becoming completely feebleminded, making the character functionally unplayable! I tried using this system *once* and never saw anyone else attempt it ever again. Most people didn't even know it was there in the back of the book at all to begin with. 2e AD&D tries to fix this mess with a whole book dedicated to the Psionicist Class; that book still included the means for a non-psionic to have psi abilities, virtually unchanged, still with feebleminding and brain-exploding risk. And then, as a cherry on top, they made every Psionic Power have an activation roll which, if you failed in the Backlash range (usually nat 1, but some had higher ranges), would cause Fumble effects, usually backlash damage or having the power be reversed back to you or other negative effects! So even if you do have psionic powers, using them is definitely going to kill you at some point, even if you take the Psionicist Class whose whole point is using these powers! It took the game until 3.5e to get Psionics into a usable state (though 3e's attempt to make each discipline based on a different stat was interesting, it ultimately didn't work well and frustrated many), and by then, most people were unwilling to touch it on principle.
I remember all of those. I tried to create a bard character back in the day, but gave up because it was too much of a slog to get to the right level, so I got bored with the character. I played around with psionics, rolling up stuff just for fun, but never created a real character with it. Besides, I didn't see psionic as something that belonged in a medieval setting anyway. Yep. alignment languages are stupid. I didn't like the racial level limits either. As for the "roll in order", I had a DM that had us roll like that, but we rolled six times, and chose the best set of stats to create a character. Eventually, we abandoned that rule, and went to roll four dice and eliminate the low number, then place the number as you see fit.
0:37 - I'm willing to argue for this one specifically when it's from the DM. If a player needs to switch from ranged to melee, fine, ignore restriction. If an enemy bandit needs to, give them the restriction, because that gives the players a bit of "That's one attack you _don't_ need to worry about."
1:00 ...The submitter doesn't know what a Spell Casting Focus is *for*
"A character can use a component pouch or a spellcasting focus in place of the components specified for a spell."
*Why* would you hold your focus if your spell didn't have material components?
Also, regardless if it is components, a component pouch or a focus, they count as materials, and "A spellcaster must have a hand free to access these components, but it can be the same hand that he or she uses to perform somatic components". There are two ways to interpret this. Either it's not just the focus that interferes, but components/pouches too, in which case it's weird that focuses were singled out just focuses... or none of them interfere, in which case the user's "house rule" is RAI.
As a DM, I just ignore challenge ratings.
I run a very weird game where giant CR 20+ monsters with level 5 characters is just the norm. The balancing factor: You get to ride a badass Golden Dragon into battle. Literally today (The day this comment was posted) I threw a Tarrasque at them in a giant raid with cannons and ballista and mounting it in a giant battle with several people. They love it when I throw really weird and powerful monsters at them, and waiting for a long time to level up and get stronger would just be a waste.
Here's the thing though; challenge ratings aren't even accurate most of the time. They can either be too weak or too strong, and that balance issue is entirely dependent on the composition of the party. They're best to use as a guideline rather than a hard rule.
@@TheEDFLegacy I mean, I threw an Ancient Purple Dragon and a False Hydra at a group of level 5s and they haven’t died yet. So who needs the rules
Yeah, CR kinda sucks past like level 7. You unfortunately just gotta have like a sixth sense for this kinda thing from playing long enough.
For many of those, you should use the 2nd edition rules.
For example : Dispel Magic have an area of effect and affect ALL magical effect within that area. That do include causing permanent magical to stop working magically for a short time.
Charm is long lasting, but allow PERIODIC saving throws with a frequency that depends on the target intelligence. Even intelligence 3 or less get a saving throw every 3 months, down to every day for intelligence 19+. For Charm Monster, it's a weekly test depending on the HD or level of the monster. In 5th edition, the threat level can be used instead.
On the guidance thing, there is a volume range between whispering and yelling....
I don't think every caster should have to act like Dr Orpheus to cast spells.
Exactly.
I always ruled that whispering doesn't work. You don't have to yell, but you have to speak clearly at normal volume if the spell has a verbal component. Sneaky casting is one of the things sorcerer metamagic is for, and it's one of the few advantages they get over wizards.
@@sumirenatsuda7630... So make the wizard do a stealth check. The sorcerer using subtle spell has all verbal and somatic components of the spell taken away. The wizard doesn't, and would need to make an ability check.. possibly with disadvantage, given the circumstances. RAW says you can whisper, don't take away things from players just to try to make another class feature more viable.
@@dillonconners586 "where in RAW does it say the wizards can whisper spells? I always thought they had to speak loudly and clearly enough(not shout) to enunciate properly. Sorcerers have magic in their blood, so magic comes naturally. That's why they can meta."
Rules as Written you should track the weight of your gold. However there is not enough money sinks built into the game world so the.players can spend that so by higher levels every party member should be encumbered
PANR has tuned in.
CR. The one time I used it was against a party of 3 level 5 players. Paladin, rogue, wizard. I through 1 banshee against them. The scariest part was the scream. They all succeeded. Then, through no fault of their own, she roles 3 nat 20's and tpk's the party. Now, my monsters don't crit, and I've never used cr again.
In all my years of GM’ing I’ve never understood CR. Might be skill issue, but frankly I just prefer to use enemies that are thematically/narratively appropriate and scale back their HP/damage potential accordingly.
@@kazoo3603yeah CR is dumb if you use is exactly as written.
Pretty much every newbie GM tries to follow the CR system until they throw a Shade or two at their level one players and realize how disastrously designed the CR system is to begin with.
@@kazoo3603amonster of a given CR is an even match for a full party of the same level, consisting of four characters.
If you have a spell casting focus you ignore material components. Now I'm confused if that is the case now, but I think unless the material component has a price or it explicitly says it is consumed you can just ignore it and use a focus instead
that is correct. reddit just can't read rulebooks
9:30 "Dispel magic can't end spells that create effects" followed directly by "Choose one creature, object or *magical effect* within range" is the reason why I think at least half the players don't actually know how to read.
I think, at least when it comes to Wall of Fire. Is that the fire isn’t magical. Once the spell produces the fire. It’s just normal fire. The same is true of all the wall spells besides wall of force maybe.
No where in the spell does it say that the fire/water/stone is magical in nature.
@@aliasn4088 The wall of fire spell specifically mentions the property of the fire, including that one of the sides does not burn, and that it disappears after the duration. It's as close as you can get to saying it is a magical effect without outright saying it, but I will grant there is a tiny, miniscule gap for ambiguity.
For wall of stone however, there is no room for it considering the last paragraph: "If you maintain your concentration on this spell for its whole duration, the wall becomes permanent and can't be dispelled. Otherwise, the wall disappears when the spell ends." Meaning that before the duration of the spell ends, it is possible to dispel it.
As for wall of water, I'm not going to bother to explain how a literal wall of water standing freely is obviously and incontrovertibly a magical effect.
I used to be a "Guidance isn't a reaction spell" kind of DM, but after playing BG3 I decided to ease up on it. Does it make it more powerful? Sure, but if it lets the player have more fun then I don't see the harm in it.
0:45 A raven can carry a maul? Does that mean a swallow could carry a coconut?
African or European swallow?
An African swallow, maybe, but not a European swallow!
African or European swallow?
african or european?
@@finalfantasy50 :D
Apparently both, given the ruleset XD
I guess swapping weapons takes longer than dropping your weapon and drawing a new one because you have to put your first weapon away instead of leaving it lying on the ground?
Healer's kit description:
The 5e Healer’s Kit is a leather pouch containing bandages, salves, and splints. It has ten uses and can be employed as an action to stabilize a creature with 0 hit points, without requiring a Wisdom (Medicine) check.
makes no specific mention of range RAW
so whoever has it can just stay at home or in a tower and snipe heal a party that is TKO to give them a second chance in a fight!
to stabilise someone, you have to take the help action, and make a medicine check, the healer's kit annuls the medicine check, but not the fact that to take the help action, you have to be 'near enough to assist'
it's a clustered requirement, that you have to go about 3-4 levels deep to find, but there has always been a range... 'close enough' ... in this instance, close enough to use bandages, would mean beside.
don't just regurgitate someone else's comment from a previous video, without clarifying... the other guy was wrong.
This is only if your reading comprehension fails. Normally stabilizing someone requires a medicine check. This item only makes it so you can stabilize them without the medicine check. It's not adding the ability to stabilize someone (from touch range or not), it's saying when you attempt to stabilize someone, you don't need to make a medicine check to do so, like you normally would.
The Healer feat, on the other hand, depends on how literal you want to get, and how your group is flavoring the healers kit, etc. It just says when you stabilize someone with a healers kit they regain 1 hp, which would require the normal rules. But then it also says you can use a healers kit to "tend to a creature". Normal common sense would imply that would require you to go up and bandage them up, etc, but if your table is playing some weird setting where healers kits including stim dart injecting guns, or magical healing mist potion things, then you do you and it works at range.
@davidaward82 that's not what the help action is for. Help action gives the creature you're helping advantage on their next attack or skill check. RAW Healing Kit has no range requirement or limit. Add the Healer Feat and they're back at 1HP. Then you can use the kit on them again to restore more hp. Again with no range.
@@kedolan4992 to stabilise someone, you have to take the help action to aid them.
the help action requires that you be close enough to provide aid.
so, RaW you have to be adjacent, as you would have to be there to use the bandages, salves, splints etc that are in the kit anyway.
so yeah, people are just reading the kit description and ignoring the action.
4:08 Actually according to the players handbook, both old and new, verbal components don't care about the VOLUME of sound but rather the PITCH. which means whispers can count for verbal components.
dude's so salty over a d4
Darkvision. Honestly, who has the ability to track at all times exactly how many people can see kind of okay in the dark? I usually throw out Goggles of Night in the first magic shop at a massively discounted rate so I can just not deal with this. Even if I understood how the dynamic lighting feature on Roll20 worked and how to use it, it would still be a massive hassle to track who can see what versus who can't. Besides, other than a snippet in the PHB about how darkness causes penalties for Perception checks, there aren't really any clear rules about what being unable to see should really do, such as affect one's footing or navigation skills. The only time I think it really matters is if you have a Warlock with Devil's Sight and a lot of situations where magical darkness is involved, and even then that just makes it annoying because now the characters with darkvision still can't see.
make it so either Everybody has darkvision and make Light conditions a non-issue in your game, or make it so that NOBODY has it unless they have a feature or spell or item for it, so that darkness is actually relevant and impacts gameplay.
@@SteveAkaDarktimesdark vision only makes darkness into dim light, not into bright light.
@@SteveAkaDarktimes
Everyone has it except Variant Human.
Variant Human should suffer.
1:34 this is just outright wrong. From the PHB: “You create three glowing darts of magical force. Each dart hits a creature of your choice that you can see within range. A dart deals 1d4+1 force damage to its target.”
It clearly says A dart deals the damage, meaning that each dart is separate.
"If a spell or other effect deals damage to more than one target at the same time, roll the damage once for all of them. For example, when a wizard casts fireball or a cleric casts flame strike, the spell's damage is rolled once for all creatures caught in the blast." pg 196, phb
the darts strike simultaneously
the darts can strike multiple targets
it is therefore a single damage roll
also, evocation wizards now have their +int added to every dart
@@comet.x The wording of the spell overrides the general rules, since it is in the spell description, imo. And I am pretty sure that is RAI as well.
Ok I got one fresh from the 2024 Handbook. Remember how in the old PHB species got specific stats and players said "Yeah that's stupid if I want to be a half-orc wizard why should I be saddled with extra strength instead of intelligence? Let's just put that stat boost wherever we want"? And the future books like Monsters of the Multiverse said "Yeah that was silly so for these just put the stats wherever you want." And now we come to the 2024 players handbook which built upon that and said "Yeah now they're tied to your background." Which brings us to the same problem of if you want the backstory of a Farmer who found an old magic book and started teaching himself magic. You are now saddled with stat increases of Strength, COnstitution, or Wisdom and the Tough feat instead of anything actually relevant to your class stats of Int. Worse yet if you want to optimize some classes get really screwed over. For a Barbarian that wants Strength and Constitution the ONLY two backgrounds that offer both are Farmer and Soldier. That's TWO whereas other stat combinations like Dexterity/Wisdom get upwards of FOUR. And this is keeping in mind that if you use old backgrounds, like say Wild Spacer from Spelljammer, the backwards compatibility solution is.....PUT THE STATS WHEREVER YOU WANT! I am ignoring this rule and just letting my players pick the stats and feats they want with background only giving tool/skill proficiencies and gear. It astounds me how much WotC can be aware of a problem and, in attempting to fix, just moved the problem to another portion of character creation.
It also infers that people born farmers, etc, are inherently dumb. Lot of social commentary that could be brought up with that.
@@Becvar80 Yeah or sailor is STR DEX WIS as if sailing doesn't require smarts. Or implying Soldiers can't be smart in spite of the fact there's entire SCHOOLS dedicated to studying warfare.
That's actually a very interesting thought. Thanks for sharing
And that's why 6th edition isn't nearly as good as 5th, it ruins character creation by homogenizing player options while removing other player choices.
@@XperimentorEES I disagree to a certain extent there is a LOT of good things in in 2024 (5.5e, 6e whatever we want to call it). In fact I would say the quality of life improvements and fixes are very good. But I feel the ability score bonuses are the one big miss but those are easy enough to ignore since let's face it we've been ignoring them on races with 5e anyway. But let me be clear despite this I feel like 2024 is a win.
Nobody's talking about the initiative guy? What do you mean I can't prepare an action before? What, I can't wapk in with my bow already pulled, ready to fire at any guy that comes at me? No surprise rounds? Does this guy reqct to every sudden sound by pulling a gun to be immediately ready for combat?
I have not played since about 1980--the rules were stupid then, I can't imagine how bad they are now.
They are pretty good. Most "rules are stupid" rants are blowing it out of proportion massively and/or experience a skill issue.
Verbal component doesn't specify volume at which you say a spell, ruling that you have to shout every single spell, absolutely kills classes/subclasses like: Arcane Trickster, 2024 Thief Rogue, Rangers, Shadow Monks, Illusion Wizards, Trickery Domain Clerics, and much more...
The verbal component means that you must have the ability to talk, the subtle spell just removes that, meaning that you can cast it in a Silence spell for example. You can say the spell at whatever volume you want, I'd rule based on the context of what's happening.
I look at it like spell casting in most fantasy anime. The words are always at least conversational volume because you're literally calling upon external forces of magic.
you cannot whisper a verbal component to a spell.
it may not have to be shouted, but the whole point of it is to limit spellcasters.
no 'quiet' fireballs. not without the specific metamagic.
@davidaward82 nobody is saying whisper. You can say it at a normal volume or even lower volume.
@@davidaward82 I'm not saying whispering cause it would be very meta, you lose the point of a Sorcerer, but the core rules say it have to be "audible", so you can say them at lower volume. In a stealth context I won't shout Guidance, but I can say it with a lower voice to avoid detection.
They ruled it to limit spellcasters, and that's fine but they presuppose that verbal components REQUIRES a high volume to work, which isn't the case cause it mostly means that you must have the ability to talk to cast a spell. And a spellcaster that watches you pronounce a spell (at whatever volume) can cast Counterspell on you. They can't do so if you use Subtle Spell (cause you don't need anymore the ability to do so), so this means that you can use Subtle Spell to cast a spell underwater, where you normally wouldn't have the ability to talk.
@@mosstwig3591 normal or above.
if you don't have the feat, you can't do it in a subtle manner.
doesn't have to be shouted, but if it has a verbal component, you're not doing it quietly.
it's no anime, sure, so you don't yell, but RaW, verbal components are easy enough to hear.
The animal companion thing was weird. Are people really out here turning rangers and druids into Pokemon trainers?
The ruling at 12:00 or so is so utterly wrong.
You can't cast another levelled spell ON YOUR TURN. Not round. This includes a counter-counterspell. HOWEVER, Reactions happen on another creatures turn, so you can still use Shield, Counterspell, or what have you. But if someone Counterspelled your Fireball, it's still your turn, and thus you cannot Counter-Counterspell. Another character on your side could, however.
What’s even diagetically happening for this to be the case?
"reaction is an instant response to a trigger of some kind, which can occur on your turn or on someone else’s."
-> You cannot counterspell the counterspell that counters your quickened fireball. But you could counterspell the counterspell, that counters your normal fireball. That is the thing, that annoys the poster 🤷♂️
@@derstehwahn6094 yes, but what is the in universe justification for the bonus action leveled spell thing?
@algotkristoffersson15 The idea is that bonus action spells are especially swift and, therefore, more taxing than "normal" spells.
But it is perfectly fine to cast two levelled spells after using action surge...
this isn't even correct.
it's specifically bonus action and an action. This is why *action surge* allows you to cast two leveled spells in a turn
Falling damage on a jump down.
How does guidance work? Does it last until I make a skill check? Like can I cast guidance on the rogue so that later on he stealth checks or is it more or less instantanous?
From 2014 Basic Rules: "You touch one willing creature. Once before the spell ends, the target can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to one ability check of its choice. It can roll the die before or after making the ability check. The spell then ends."
From 2024 Basic Rules: "You touch a willing creature and choose a skill. Until the spell ends, the creature adds 1d4 to any ability check using the chosen skill."
Duration of either version of the spell is 1 minute (ten rounds of combat, which a round is 6 seconds long).
@@manegirl93416 Okay, 1 minute seems enough to plan ahead, thanks!
Edit: Oh interesting that you have to name the skill beforehand now
The number of absolutely illiterate and otherwise ignorant people outing themselves in this video is kinda devastating
No, I'm stopping you *right there* on the Guidance point! Unless a spell *explicitly* states that *"this spell is loud!"* (for example Knock or Toll the Dead or Thunderwave), there is NO indication that Guidance or ANY spell that has a verbal component NEEDS/MUST BE LOUD!!!!!!!!!!!! If you NEED to have every spell you cast verbally to be loud then that's going to be SO unwieldy it's barely going to be usable!
If you cast, say, "FIREBALL!" and you *need* to be loud, guess what?! Your target is going to hear that *immediately* and going to jump out of the way!
If you cast, say, "Invisibility!" on yourself and you *need* to be loud, guess what?! *YOU JUST REVEALED YOURSELF!* Which makes it pointless!
*inhale*
*exhale*
I'm sorry. This is the third time I've seen this "Verbal components are loud!" point, and it's been bothering me because, RAW, that's NOT what the book says!
(If you wanna homebrew it so that's the case to give your spellcasters a challenge? Fine! Who am I to stop you?! But know that's not a rule that DMs ignore, but one that doesn't actually exist but people think it does!)
From the 2014 PHB for 5E, Chapter 10, in the "What is a Spell?" section-
"Verbal (V)
Most spells require the chanting of mystic words. The words themselves aren’t the source of the spell’s power; rather, the particular combination of sounds, with specific pitch and resonance, sets the threads of magic in motion. Thus, a character who is gagged or in an area of silence, such as one created by the silence spell, can’t cast a spell with a verbal component."
And the only change to the updated 2024 PHB? Chapter 7, in the "Spells" section-
"Verbal (V)
A Verbal component is the chanting of esoteric words that sound like nonsense to the uninitiated. *The words must be uttered in a normal speaking voice.* The words themselves aren’t the source of the spell’s power; rather, the particular combination of sounds, with specific pitch and resonance, sets the threads of magic in motion. Thus, a creature who is gagged or in an area of magical silence can’t cast a spell with a Verbal component."
Almost as if people have made the assumption too much for over a decade, so they *needed* to make that clear! You don't need to yell every spell you do, but you're clearly going to make SOME noise and thusly, yes, most spells aren't *silent*, but you're not going to the opposite extreme either! Sometimes speaking in a normal toned voice, or even a whisper is enough to be noticed (even the quietest lockpicking gets noticed in the dead of night eventually), but that's still better than what this point is saying.
that makes me think of a crazy game i discovered called "KInky Dungeon".
in THAT game, it's possible for your character to get GAGGED, making Verbal spells very likely to fail, or unusable, depending on the spell.
ironically, an "unlock" spell is one that's always unusable when gagged!
that game also has spells with "arm gesture" components, which are unusable when tied up, and a few with "leg gesture" components!
except this way of interpreting the rule makes silent spell completely mitigated.
No, it doesn't, because silence means no noise at all. When you talk, you're making noise. Verbal components ARE making some semblance of noise, but the volume of it is rarely if ever actually loud, otherwise it negates a lot of the usefulness of spells or certain subclasses.
Sure, but the point still stands. You shouldn't cast Guidance when trying to hide from someone, just like you shouldn't speak in "a normal speaking voice" in this situation. Another silly thing that happens when players forget about the verbal component is they try to cast guidance on Persuasion and Deception checks. Can you imagine? You're talking to an adventurer, and suddenly their friend starts chanting and moving their hands around.
This has been a point of contention in D&D for a long time. Just how loud do you have to speak when casting a spell?
My answer as a DM has always been more focused on proper pronunciation over saying the words loudly. It's hard to enunciate when you're whispering, and one wrong syllable can cause your spell to fail, or worse.
Had a player use guidance on a disguise self guy as one of the bandits trying to convince them he alone took down all the adventurers.
And i just snorted and told him "they watch you walk up and say guidance as it echoes in the room, "Hey! He's a fake!" roll initiative"
Devils Sight: Now lets you see normally in dim light and darkness, magical or nonmagical, in the 2024 phb, which is no longer early-access gated.
Weapon Speed was an initiative modifier that frankly never materialized in play though it was included in weapon stats through the first and second editions
10:22 I don't even play DnD and even I know that's called meta gaming
The people complaining about Heavily Obscured and Vampire Charm apparently can’t read
Of course not :D 90% of "look at this broken build I made!" videos and memes rely on the inability to read...
Rules as written, falling is instantaneous. Before anyone screams Xanathar, read it again. It says "immediately descend up to 500 feet.".
Wait, how does Feather Fall work? You need to be falling to cast Feather Fall, but it's instantaneous. I will be assuming the ground is within 500 feet for the following examples, so it doesn't matter what rule you use. 1 instant, screenshot of cartoon character floating in the air. The very next instant, splat! When do you cast Feather Fall? When were you falling? How do you even process the fact that you are falling? Well, maybe you can say it's just magic. But, then you get into other weird issues. If you are not currently holding a Feather or your casting focus the very instant your feet leave the ground, it's too late, and you go splat? Reaching for a component in a pouch, or going to touch a specific item on your person as far as I know, is not magical and takes time. It sounds ridiculous, but that or saying that many player reactions are simply instantaneous and can basically react to anything feel like the only conclusions to instantaneous fall.
Other fun questions include: Is Jump instantaneous? You would need to as to not fall. Wait, jumping is movement, so can you do an attack of opportunity against a jumping opponent? Looking at Feather Fall arguments, probably. Well, then, how do ready actions work? Especially in a chain of instantaneous things that people do. Like, ready action, trigger "someone attack my friend". The friend jumps, attack of opportunity hits the friend. What happens first, your readied action, or your friend finishing its jump?
it's cast when you fall, not while you are falling
I don't see how that difference is relevant when you go splat immediately if the ground is within 500 ft. Could you elaborate? I'd love it if the rules as written are less dumb than I think they are.
9:55 that's not a restriction, that's someone trying to be the dictionary police
There's a reason this is about 'rules as written' not being followed, and not 'rules as intended' being ignored.
RULES AS INTENTED...
I feel like forces verbal spells to be "loud" doesnt really make sense, not being able to use it as a reaction makes sense. If you're trying to sneak around, but feel like one of your members needs some guidance, why the fuck would you not jusr whisper the required words instead of screaming at the top of your lungs "GUIDANCE"
Guidance is one that my group have have had yonfollow better as RAW. But i don't think it needs to be Loud but spoken tone. Also I chose the word "Aid." That is what it does and I used it with other word.
I have a variation on "Do not charge for cheap components." I don't make my players look for and find ammunition, cheap components, or food as long as the party has money. Their characters are aware of, and come to compromises with, how to split their loot from when they get it. I offer them hirelings and findlings who will get their provisions and replacements for items they use. For example, the Rogue doesn't use Components or a bow. But they do use other consumables like oil, caltrops and ball bearings, so their loot tax is spent towards refills. One of the hirelings on offer will mind their provisions, make sure they have food for the road and will cook for them. The Campaign I'm running now is far into upper levels now, and they've effectively created a "Band of Hawks" if you get that reference. They have a small caravan complete with a merchant company that peddles the crap they've stol- I mean, Liberated, from evil lairs and such, Guards that protect the Merchants, and even a spare wagons just in case they have prisoners they need to bring to town.
1:13 Oh so much despise this rule too, also denies most martial character combos from being 'overpowered' by stacking their melee bonuses regardless if it's class or race.
2:48 Yup also agree on the detect magic one, making it an action just to tell if something is magical just grinds the game to a halt by wasting turns.
4:50 Air elementals & gelationous cubes are effectively naturally invisible without magical means, though there's also a few demon/devil and aberrations from older editions.
5:10 Don't know how I forgot this one since one guy in my group always plays a ranger, though it also applies to artificers' homunculus which just raises more questions.
7:06 Wait a minute, that's a really funny and really stupid oversight, but I'd also blame that on their inept oversimplification they did to condense everything for 5th.
8:06 Same thing happens with darkvision, sure it's treated at nightvision when it shouldn't, but doesn't make sense either to say they're blinded in the dark with a light source.
9:00 Full quote from PHB, "As an action, you can expend one use of the kit to stabilize a creature that has O hit points, without needing to make a Wisdom (Medicine) check."
12:21 This is why only monks jump, reducing fall damage as a class feature is deceptively handy in vertical campaigns, and bloody useless everywhere else.
12:51 The fall damage cap is supposed to represent terminal velocity, but yeah it's frankly strange that its lazy description implies everything falls at the exact same speed.
I got one, Magic Initiate, RAW says both cantrips and the once/day first level spell must all come from the same class spell list; everyone I've played with hasn't paid that any attention because it's just used as a bandaid (damage\utility for martials) or flavor (background power) for characters, besides the name implies it's a generic boon.
Nah, swapping weapons rule is great balance, if you wanna sheath and redraw a weapon that should totally be an action, no way that's free.
About guidance absolutely agree about it being audible but unless it's in combat is seems stupidly pedantic to not be allowed to use it when you see a friend go to do something.
To the Guidance Guy: alternatively, make Guidance a 1st level Reaction spell (so it can't be spammed every time). Maybe swap its cantrip place with Bless & Bane. Could turn Resistance & True Strike into 1st level Reaction spells too.
You want to make true strike even more useless than it already is?
@@blackwing1362 Hell yeah, let's nerf that overpowered thing. I'm so sick of people abusing the capability of wasting an action and their concentration to get advantage on a single attack on their next turn. Let's make it a 9th level spell.
@@blackwing1362
Making it a Reaction in the same vein as Guidance would entail changing it to add 1d4 (or simply Advantage) to your attack roll. I thought that would be obvious with saying it could be reworked in the same way as Guidance & Resistance.
@DBArtsCreators Still a nerf by making it a spell slot. Just advantage for a single turn is still not good enough for even a first level spell slot
@@blackwing1362
You mean like Guiding Bolt? (damage + Advantage to whoever makes an attack roll the target next).
It's actually a buff, since True Strike could actually BE used now (and a 1st level spell slot is not a big cost); currently, it's free but effectively halves your damage if used anytime except for before combat starts.
If you feel it actually is too weak for it to have the ability to grant advantage (which also means cancel disadvantage) on your attack roll, then have it buff the damage dealt on a hit as well.
One of my favourite house rules was that guidance can't be used on yourself. I liked how it cut down on people trying to say they always had it active, and it made the cantrip feel more like a boost rather than a constant higher roll to everything
1:34 that's just untrue. "A" dart deals d4+1 damage. So, 3 darts generates 3 rolls.
"If a spell or other effect deals damage to more than one target at the same time, roll the damage once for all of them. For example, when a wizard casts fireball or a cleric casts flame strike, the spell's damage is rolled once for all creatures caught in the blast." p196, phb
the darts all strike simultaneously, and can deal damage to more than one target at the same time, so it is a single damage roll.
Jeremy crawford agrees.
also this allows evocation wizards to add their +int to a single roll damage roll to every dart, which is extremely funny
@@comet.x Because Jeremy Crawford is a perfect little rules messiah who never does or says anything wrong ever.
All spellcasting is "VERY! VERY LOUD!"?
Well damn, fuck invisibility and silence then... If you've got to scream your spell for it to work, making your rogue invisible won't help because the whole bandit camp knows where you are.
That arcane trickster description where it describes a rogue casting the magehand spell to pickpocket a guard, if the guard can hear you yelling your spell out loud, I think he'd turn to look at you. I'm not saying spellcasting should be silent, but why can't someone whisper the magic words? Does it really have to be a forceful yell?
Magic Missile is supposed to be a single d4?! It absolutely does not state this in the spell
"You create three glowing darts of magical force. Each dart hits a creature of your choice that you can see within range. A dart deals 1d4 + 1 force damage to its target. The darts all strike simultaneously, and you can direct them to hit one creature or several."
Given it specifies what a single dart does in terms of damage, that reads as roll individual dice.
The thing is that it should apply the same rules as AOE spells like Fireball, where you roll damage once and every creature that takes a hit takes that damage instead of rolling for each creature.
As stated on the PHB page 196 under Damage Rolls:
"If a spell or other effect deals damage to more than one target at the same time, roll the damage once for all of them."
Magic Missile is a spell and is dealing damage to more than one target at the same time, so you roll the damage once for all of them. The specification that a dart deals that damage is there to tell you that if more than one dart hits the same creature it takes a hit once for each dart, but RAW all darts deal the same damage.
This RAW was confirmed by Jeremy Crawford, although he also said that RAI you can do it both ways (by which I think he just meant that nobody knows anymore how it was originally intended to work, so you do you).
@@garethvila5108 There's a difference though. Fireball is a damage caused by a single point of impact that radiates out, so everything within the blast area taking the same damage makes sense.
With Magic Missile it isn't a single point of impact, or a single effect, it is discrete objects created, with each one doing damage, therefore should be separate dice rolls.
@@RequiemWraith Maybe RAI, but not RAW. Just by virtue of being a single spell, RAW it rolls damage once.
Keep in mind that it says "If a spell OR other effect", it doesn't need to be both. As long as it's a spell dealing damage to multiple creatures, the rule applies.
It doesn't matter if the spell hits a single point of impact, if it's radiating out, if it's discrete objects... All that, according to RAW, it's irrelevant. As long as it's a single spell, all the simultaneous damage is rolled once for all hit creatures. Magic missile is a single spell, so you roll once for all creatures.
Again, I'm not just defending someone's weird take, it's been confirmed that this is the correct interpretation according to RAW by Crawford. If it makes no sense, well, that's RAW for you. It's not the only thing that makes no sense on DnD.
3.5 had a thing called Favored Class. Basically, just one or two classes that race was inclined towards culturally. It was included in the statblock for every race in the Player’s Handbook and playable races in the splatbooks.
For years, I thought it was purely for fluff. So imagine my surprise when I discover it on a forum discussion about rules no one uses. Turns out you’re supposed to take an xp penalty for multiclassing outside of your race’s favored class. I just shrugged and our group continued not using it.
Iirc, how it works is
You take an exp penalty based on the difference in levels between your highest level class and your lowest, the bigger the difference, the bugger the penalty, and a difference of 0 or 1 meant no penalty.
Your race's favored class was always ignored for this, if you're a favored Fighter, for example, and are a Fighter 15, Wizard 2, Cleric 1, you take no penalty because the only classes we are comparing are Wizard and Cleric.
Ignoring it probably is the best option, since EXP penalties don't really... work. Since, as written, lower levelled characters get more exp anyways, which means at most any exp penalties or costs you incur will vanish quickly.
Wizards, of course, can game the hell out of this, by manipulating how much exp they have.
Racial level taxes are also a thing that is pretty gladly gone. Some races were assumed to innately be higher level, so a base character of the race started at say, level 4, before ever taking a class, meaning a basic, fresh character of the race would be level 5.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 Oh, I forgot about Level Adjustment. Basically forcing a player to not level up until the rest of the party caught up to the assumed level was such a dumb thing.
On the subject of dumb 3.5e rules, spending xp to craft things. Specifically, why did I take the class specialising in crafting things if they're never going to level up? The infusions were fun, but the entire party needing to spend weeks at a time twiddling their thumbs while I craft gear, only to have to babysit me because a single level behind the party was practically a death sentence, got annoying.
"Verbal" can be a whisper, which CAN maintain stealth. As long as caster makes some sort of sound.
Guessing most of these were done before the 2024 refresh.
Per the rules, all components must be obvious & detectable unless you are using Subtle Spell or similar. This is clarified in Xanathar's when discussing counterspell.
@@DBArtsCreators so no wispering but you also don't need to shout.
@@blakenelson4158
Debatable. Even if you don't "shout", the DM is still within their right to have characters notice that you are casting. The verbal components having some innate reverb or echo to them, like how the somatic gestures are assumed to have some level of "magic aura" about them beyond just being wide gestures (sparks, magic glows, pulsing lights, etc).
Magic is weird - it is why you need special features to make it subtle / hard to notice, not just a bit of extra skill.
@@DBArtsCreators that is exactly correct.
I dont get why people think verbal components are loud. sure you can scream fireball but you should be able to whisper it
4:06
You don’t fucking scream the verbal component?? And message isn’t quiet, it’s SILENT.
Verbal components don’t need to be loud. Just make a stealth check or something to see if you say it quietly enough.
No because that defeats the purpose of the Sorcerer’s subtle spell. Verbal components should boom with magical power so anyone nearby with any kind of hearing would hear them.
@@pizzarollconsumer yeah but what is the harm in that? As long as there is no sorcerer in the party there is no harm done. Rule of cool
@@robinmayr5265 Yeah, and if there's no Barbarian in the party, why not give everyone Rage for free?
I'll answer it, because you either won't know or will say something stupid: It completely invalidates character build choices and the game falls apart if you just make shit up. Why even play the game, just gather around a table and make shit up for 3 hours.
And if you don't care about the game because you're one of those DnD fans who never actually read the PHB, then it just makes some players more favored than others based on just what stupid thing they asked for and the DM thought was "cool"
"Rule of cool" is just used by people who have no idea how to run the game and have no idea what they're talking about, let alone the implications of the choice.
@@Boss-_ Not very much useful information hidden in your text.
1) Rage und subtle spell cant really be compared. Metamagic and rage could be compared but it doesn't matter here because we are only talking about one specific aspect of metamagic.
2) So if the game falls apart if you "make shit up"? Do every table that plays with some homebrew rules doesn't work? Does this translate to homebrew mosters and items too?
3) Yes I don't care about the game DnD. I care about having fun with a rulebook were I have guidelines on how to play. If I think my players could have more fun with additional or changed rules then I will do it.
4) Rule of cool: The most important part is that the players have fun. And sometimes the rules hamper the fun and should be adjusted.
Finally: No player had ever any serious complain about me changing rules. So it works for me and my players. That may not work for your players. That is fine. But take the stick out of your ... and don't project your rule stickler mindset on others
@@pizzarollconsumer No it doesn't. Have them roll a stealth check. Possibility of failure. Subtle Spell is guaranteed.
Or do you just not like your casters not being Gandalf level of shouty?
we used that vampire rule. half the party got charmed. we were very lucky to get out of it.
No idea why that guy thinks you only roll once for damage on magic missiles. It says 3 darts and each dart does 1d4+1. Therefore you roll for each dart.
I was going to post something about this, too. You beat me to it. I just double checked the 2014 PHB to make sure, and the exact wording is "A dart deals 1d4 + 1 force damage to its target." I've never seen or heard of anyone interpreting it as "roll 1d4 +1 and multiply that by the number of darts fired".
A dart, not each dart
Crawford pointed to the simultanious damage rule which means you roll one time and it applies to all targets
so you roll 1d4 and it applies to all darts, evoker wizards can also add their int mod to the 1d4 which also applies to each dart
"if a spell deals damage to multiple targets at the same time, you roll one damage roll"
This is a phb rule. While intended for spells like fireball, where you only roll once, this also applies to spells like magic missile
@comet.x can you cite a page number, please? I'd like to take a look. I found something similar that basically came down to if I got one target with 4 missiles, I roll once and multiply by 4. If I hit 4 different targets, I'd roll for each target. My dm likes that interpretation. I, however, subscribe to 'more dice, more fun'. Lol