So, the PHB has this to say about unsheathing a weapon (page 190)
You can also interact with one object or feature of the environment for free, during either your move or your action. For example [...] you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to attack.
So, if I had already...
@Upper_Case As near as I can figure, it's a combination of how "that's just the rules" can "justify" any amount of weird setup or plot progression since that's how RPGs do, and the fantasy of having physical and social power because you're a cool guy who's good at videogames.
In the campaign I'm running, I'm looking to introduce an NPC who is secretly an antagonistic oni in disguise. An oni's shapechange feature, however, is explicitly described as magical, and one of my players is a warlock with the Eldritch Sight invocation. I'm worrying that the warlock might decid...
I'm building a very gimmicky multiclass crit-confirmation paladin, and as a part of my build I have a feature that lets me reroll a failed attack roll as a reaction. The idea is that I want to fail at least one attack roll per turn so that I can roll again and potentially get a crit; but the thin...
yeah I can't tell if the top middle and bottom middle are both the base game or if the bottom middle is an expansion but with it's expansion name just too small to read (there is something under the "The Board Game" text but I can't quite read it)
but all the others are, I am guessing at least, expansion packs
because they have all separate names on the bottom to go with the different cover art
and really the top middle and bottom middle,... are still really different in size alongside the cover art difference so I am at least partially sure that one of them, I assume the bottom middle, is also an expansion
buuut they also could have just like, released different editions of the base game or something
@AncientSwordRage They listed more collaborators on twitter and it's a great list. I'm less sanguine about Magpie Games itself; the company and people in its power structure have a sketchy history with the health of the TRPG industry.
The Simulacrum spell contains an interesting clause.
It appears to be the same as the original, but it has half the creature's hit point maximum and is formed without any Equipment. Otherwise, the Illusion uses all the Statistics of the creature it duplicates.
Since the Companion feature is par...
@Glazius I can see that-- the reader identifies with the book because that sort of meticulous meta-knowledge is how the reader succeeds in games and also how the hero succeeds in the story
Maybe that's the key I'm missing. I've always associated that kind of gameplay primarily with MMOs, which I never played much of, so I don't have quite the expertise or perspective to become as immersed as others might
I think part of it is maybe a rejection of things unknown. With things like LitRPGs and certain kinds of isekai, it seems like the world is very clearly defined down to quantizing things like intelligence and strength as stats and capabilities as classes.
One point of contention I've always had with other players is that while we (as players) might understand class concepts like Wizard, Warlock, or Sorcerer, that's not necessarily true for people in-universe.
Those upper-case Classes are how the players interface with the world, but the people (be they NPCs or PCs) in-universe might use "wizard", "warlock", "sorcerer", or "mage" interchangeably.
Because why would people know the mechanics of the universe?
@Yuuki I'm not a physicist, but I have a baseline understanding of how gravity functions. I would assume the same is true for magic with a comparable average commoner in a high fantasy setting
I guess it just kinda breaks my immersion a little bit when there's a conversation along the lines of: "What magic is this wizard casting?" "No, they're more of a Sorcerer."
People also thought that fire, water, wind, and earth were the elements. At some point, one guy was like "I propose that there are in fact several subspecies of air" which was basically the beginning of our research into actual elements. I would assume that a similar thing would happen for magic in a high fantasy setting
I can definitely see people in-universe going "Oh, you studied to gain magic; Oh, you were born with it; Oh, you have a God; Oh, you have a patron; Oh, you went to college"
@Yuuki That's something inherent to video games (they need some kind of organizing principles), but I feel like often there is a poor copy of that paradigm used in isekai (or anime broadly-- Naruto and DBZ certainly suffered from it). A bunch of effort invested into overwrought design that ultimately doesn't matter at all for understanding anything in the show
But kids don't care so much (I sure didn't), and it does make the shows easier to talk about in a streamlined way
@Yuuki For sure. And it's so unnecessary! Like, even if the convoluted backgrounds and power level rankings made sense and were useful (which they usually aren't), it's not like I'm watching to see anything other than an uncommonly awesome hero overcome challenges
bit of a tangent on naruto, i really despised how there was this sub-theme of "strength comes from effort not heritage" early that was just completely undermined by every reveal later on in the series
Yeah, hence One Punch Man and similar parodies. I've always wondered if there is a cultural divide on themes like that between Japan and other places, and how it manifests. I'm sure there is plenty written on the topic
like, i don't mind stories where the protagonist is super awesome because they're the child of the strongest sorcerer ever born and also happens to be the reincarnation of a literal god, but then don't try to throw that "hard work is the real way to power" morality story around
I do get the feeling that that is a real social element, and tension, in Japan though. Hard work is important for individual success, and everyone has some responsibility to society to work hard, but there are still some pretty sharp divisions in the social order that can be hard to overcome. The impression I get is a reward ethics story with an asterisk
Compared with the outlook in U.S. culture, where it's a reward ethics story and then when that doesn't come through for someone in the end there is just a collective shrug and everyone else sort of moves on
I mean, unless there's some sort of meta-commentary on how those in power due to the circumstances of their birth utilize morality stories to misguide and undermine the commonfolk not born with those gifts, which I doubt Kishimoto was going for, I don't see the point in both having that minor theme and then undermining it.
Yes, social order is very rigid in Japan and China (although I would argue that modern US culture is either equally rigid or fast becoming so), but that's an argument for leaving out the whole "hard work works" theme, not for keeping it in and then ruining it later on down the road.
Granted, maybe part of the disconnect is due to the serial nature of the work.
Well, but what if the world is complicated, and both nature and nurture influence the outcome, and the degree of influence may vary from situation to situation, and people at times make mistaken black-and-white assumptions based on a limited number of situations?
@Yuuki My point is, a conclusion about the is and/or the ought of the universe might be mistaken or at least incomplete, and this is a normal thing.
Just like how discovery of relativity is not an 'undermining' of the lessons of Newtonian physics, but a series of new lessons built upon the old ones.
The immersion-breaking comes from the fact that players know how the universe works, at least in part the things agreed upon between them and the DM. So while the characters might or might not be mistaken when they say "Warlock, not Sorcerer", we players know they aren't. And it's somewhat discombobulating to me to have that brought up as an aside.
Like 80% of the time (that I encounter it) when someone calls someone else a wizard and they're corrected on "no, that's a Sorcerer", it's not really pertinent at all. It's one thing to find out that the all-powerful wizard draw their strength from a fiendish contract and now you have a plot hook to go find a way to break their contract. It's entirely another to just have it dropped as a unimportant remark.
@Yuuki I figured the immersion-breaking was that "warlock" and "sorcerer" are artifacts of the representation, and there's no reason for the characters to use those terms at all, or if they do, for them to mean the same thing they mean in the rules.
@MarkWells They could be terms in-universe characters would know. The methods of their powers could be observable and meaningful, I just think that most characters wouldn't be knowledgeable enough to understand them well. That's why I usually coin new terms for generic categories which don't cross over to rules-based terms. Characters who know little relevant detail tend to call magic-users "magicians", and that's the limit of their understanding
@Someone_Evil Ten imaginary dollars wagered on the question coming from an Elder Scrolls source, whether one of the video games or one of the adaptations for D&D 5e
@Yuuki But like... they seem to have never read the Basic Rules. Perhaps I'm just used to people having at least looked at what is in something before asking whether X specific thing is in it
ooo, they released an update for the artificer homebrew i'm using
> Grappling Hook. As an attack or as an action, you may target a surface, object or creature within 20 feet. If the target is Small or Smaller, you can make a Strength (Athletics) grappling check to pull it to you and grapple it. Alternatively, if the target is Medium or larger, you can choose to be pulled to it, however, this does not grapple it. Attacks of opportunity generated by this movement have disadvantage.
I thought forced movement didn't generate attacks of opportunity?'
@NautArch That's the kind of obstacle that having 50' lengths of rope can overcome if the party is patient and gets into the 'let's apply some ingenuity to this' approach.
@Upper_Case lions feel it in their manes ... and windows feel it in their panes ...
@KorvinStarmast This is starting to spin out of control. But don't just take my word for it-- I heard it from a Mind Flayer, so you know it's reliable. They can feel it in their brains
@RevenantBacon yeah, i was a little turned around because the last time i used the grappling hook, it was to pull a party member to safety after they took a major crit
@Upper_Case While the sugar harvest feels it in their canes ...
@Yuuki I need to figure out how to use a grappling hook to lock down a beholder. Step 1 Sling rope around eye stalk, grappling hook catches to rope so I pull. Step 2 Jump down off of beholder and attach rope to a team of oxen. Step 3 ???? Step 4 profit. Still working out the difficulties in this plan ...
My best Anti Beholder Tactic to date is "get that Monk up on top of the beholder, somehow, and have him beat the dickens out of it, stunning whenever possible. Remainder of party shoots arrows and so on, and does whatever is necessary to keep monk on top of the beholder" Worked once out of two times.
Lacking a monk, I need to have another plan though. We just ran into an undead beholder with a bard, warlock, cleric(War domain), rogue, paladin. But we didn't kill it. I suspect we may run into it again ...
My bard got knocked out (due to something blowing up and my save fail) and another party member got whacked, I think it was a disintegrate ray, so the warlock had to pick them up. Those standing carried those of us unconscious during the "flee!" maneuver that was next undertaken ...
I dig into my spell list and I do not have fog cloud ... which is a pity.
One of the new items in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything is the Coiling Grasp Tattoo, a rather interesting uncommon that lets you damage and grapple enemies at range if they fail a Strength saving throw. Fascinatingly, it has no limitations on its uses - it lasts until the target successfully escap...
The best tactic vs beholders is IMO, any sort of anitmagic. Their whole combat routine relies on them being able to choose when their antimagic is active, and a huge portion of their power is in the eye rays, but if you shut those off, then they only have their regular melee attacks, which are WAY weaker. The only problem is you have to be sure to fight them in a room with a low enough ceiling that they can't just fly up out of reach of your melle guys until the antimagic runs out
@KorvinStarmast Can you make some bright lights? If you can keep the beholder from being pointed at you the tactic can work sort of like general battlefield control approaches
Though I suppose that wouldn't help much with the eye stalks
So because the rules for areas of effects and targeting appear in the spellcasting section, youre saying they dont apply to things that have areas of effect and targets that arent spells?
And that there simply are no rules for these things?
@RevenantBacon I believe that's generally a bad idea since the votes went towards the original form of the answer; plus it can't be deleted (except by mods) as it is accepted
Though it does make me wonder why we can't downvote our own posts XD
Id probably still rule that way on that specific case, but it does show how my perspective has changed since then. I'm much more in favor of rulings over rules than I once was.
Ive played a lot of dnd and answered a lot of questions since then.
That's kinda funny, because I ever more find myself growing in favor of the exact opposite, save in cases where strict RAW makes an ability non-functional, such as the whole thing with line of effect and Dream
Many spells and other game features create areas of effect, such as the cone and the sphere. If you’re not using miniatures or another visual aid, it can sometimes be difficult to determine who’s in an area of effect and who isn’t. The easiest way to address such uncertainty is to go with your gut and make a call.
If you would like more guidance, consider using the Targets in Areas of Effect table. To use the table, imagine which combatants are near one another, and let the table guide you in determining the number of those combatants that are caught in an area of effect. Add or subtract t…
Right outta the DMG
I mean, post it if you want I guess.
But its very obvious the second you check the areas of effect section in the DMG.
@RyanKinal You'll still get cover, but enemies from whom you are not hidden will know where you are. It's usually the difference between being targeted with bonus AC for cover, or not being a valid target at all
Also DMG: The area of effect of a spell, monster ability, or other feature must be translated onto squares or hexes to determine which potential targets are in the area and which aren’t.
The code actually has a pretty serious bug in that it doesn't handle backslashed escape characters properly and will end up deleting 70% of a row if they're used in the row.
(Which is a pretty good reason why I didn't post it to their meta. 😛)
While I'm on the subject of reviewing old answers, TBT This Answer where, if you review the revision history, you'll see I mistakenly assumed the OP's plan was to attack one of their fellow players to break the charm effect instead of attacking the vampire. 🤣
So we get 18, 18, 21 21 and 29. In theory, it takes that many days for the curse to happen to each one, but what I might so is call day 18 'the first day away from the cursed site' and then we get day 4 for two more of them, and day 12 for the last one.
I am not sure if they won't be a few levels higher if I wait three 'in game' weeks for the first curse to hit.
@NautArch yes. they risk the eruption. the idea isn't to stay on the disc, it's to dampen disc swinging. A bit of McGyver stuff, but that depends on the group.
@NautArch oh, yeah, the impending doom narration, good fun. My group failed on the DC 17 curse from the vampire spawn's gas, and I am not sure if a simple remove curse ought to end it, since the curse is supposed to last for 5000 years. (It's a weird module). I am thinking of treating the Remove curse like a Dispel Magic, 3rd versus 5th level spell which means a DC 15 check. Hmmm. Need to think, the Remove Curse just says "removes all curses" which is a 'win button' ... but it is simpler.
Which is why I am considering the adjustment. we'll see, I have a week to decide. They had a wild session. Didn't have to battle the Nereid (who I had set up to flood the chamber and try to drown them all) but instead, negotiated with her. Cleric speaks Aquan, bard speaks Sylvan, monk speaks elvish. So they chatted and worked out a deal for passage through her area. Kind of neat RP by the party.
One of the players suspects that they are all cursed, since when they rolled saving thorws I narrated 'you feel something serious flow through you' to complement why they were doing a saving throw. And honestly the curse isn't from the gas, it's from taking items from the casket. Need to check the module, but I think that's it.
Coming back from the dead is an ordeal. The target takes a −4 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks. Every time the target finishes a long rest, the penalty is reduced by 1 until it disappears.
The Simulacrum spell contains an interesting clause.
It appears to be the same as the original, but it has half the creature's hit point maximum and is formed without any Equipment. Otherwise, the Illusion uses all the Statistics of the creature it duplicates.
Since the Companion feature is par...
So, the PHB has this to say about unsheathing a weapon (page 190)
You can also interact with one object or feature of the environment for free, during either your move or your action. For example [...] you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to attack.
So, if I had already...
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