Why are you so good at playing a dick head you're not a professional actor you shouldn't be this convincing, what did you do to people before you became a D&D TH-camr?
The fact it was decided the player was found, because hitting a piton is an attack, and not, "They hear you hammering a piton in a wall" is a wild leap in logic
Doesn't matter, in terms of the character being discovered? Yes. Doesn't matter, in terms of the player not thinking his DM was crazy and leaving the campaign? No.
@@c4cool0929yeah it’s the difference between “oh shit that makes sense I fucked up” and “why did I even take invisibility in the first place if an action that doesn’t debilitate or damage is considered an attack?”
Yep , because there is no rule about not casting two leveled spells. You are just restricted to cantrips for your action if you casted a leveled spell with your bonus action. That's why Haste is specific about not being able to cast a second spell.
In my opinion, it’s a fair rule. Imagine you have this build with what the RAW says. You could misty step yourself to a better position, hold person the enemy, and then lightning bolt them with your action surge knowing the enemy will fail. That definitely sounds unfair.
Actually you could not do that. Misty Step is a bonus action, which means you could only cast Cantrips on your turn. You could Hold Person, Action Surge, then Lightning Bolt. But Misty Step means you could not Hold Person OR Lightning Bolt on that turn.@@Jawesomness16
I feel you wouldn't be able to convince that party, or that town, or anyone ever, that the rat didn't strike that young wizard down with a fireball. It's a thing of legends now.
If it is part of the setting, then I believe everyone in that world knows exactly what happened. A lot of people spontaneously explode. What, like once for every 400 things you do? You wouldn't go a week without seeing someone burst into flames and take a room of townsfolk with him.
The difference between a good DM and a bad DM is that a good DM owns up to bad calls. Every DM will eventually make a bad call. What you do after the call is what sets you apart from the truly bad DMs.
So true... death of the ego is what being a DM requires, you gotta be open to constructive criticism and not take it personally... because you can just change it and move on, and everyone can have fun, or you can be stubborn and confrontational and get butt hurt and freeze people out... and that second group is gonna fall apart every time.
Hooooooly shit I was a bad DM the first few games I ran. Hell, I was a bad player too until I played more and learned how to encourage other people into the spotlight. I remember my first bad guy using an upcasted sleep spell to knock out the party, then one person told me they were an elf. So I had this all powerful wizard just pull a friggin blowgun out of his pocket and shoot them with drow poison.
I always think I'm a fairly trash DM. Then I watch a vid like this and sigh with relief, confident that I can still wear my "World's Okayest DM" shirt proudly.
I'm an experienced DM currently running a campaign and we're over 50 sessions in and I have to say, some of these seem perfectly fine to me and I don't get why it's such a big deal. A lot of this really depends on the circumstances, and nowhere near enough of context was provided in those twitter messages. If you were wondering if it was okay to make DC's that are above 20, then yes, it very much is, particularly at higher level when PCs in their respective strengths can get 30+ checks. Also a nat20 doesn't mean instant success, I don't know why this is pushed into new players/media trends but nat 1 doesn't mean your rogue will kill themselves disarming a trap and nat 20 doesn't mean the tiny wizard will move a boulder. Like sure, you'd expect in the majority of cases to at least get a hint from those coins with the nat 20 but who knows, perhaps it was the main important artifact of the quest line and nobody would be able to figure out what they were from a distance? Context matters.
I feel some DMs forget you're telling a collective story with the players and not just trying to outwit them like an evil overlord. You're not competing
If it really were DM vs players, the rules would be different or after character creation, you can drop an adult dragon on them at start, blue lightning, sudden teleportation 5000ft in the air, dropped into an endless chasm and never seen again, jailed for life in maximum security etc.
I once had a DM with a god complex who wouldn't tell us of certain rules they were doing unless it came up IN THE MIDDLE OF COMBAT. We were doing a Gundam 5E campaign, and they did something no dm should ever do. They declared that certain weapons were FREE ACTIONS TO USE, because they were attatched to the mobile suit, something they didn't tell us until they did attacks with 5 different weapons in a single turn to kill one of our party members, and proceeded to go on a rant about themselves being god. I, and half the party, never went back for a session 2. we were also a party of level 1 characters, they dropped the equivilent of a CR 12 enemy on us and called it our first boss when all we did was follow the dungeon they laid out in front of us.
Back in the 80s it was more common for the DM vs. Party playstyle, but of course we've moved on from that. I can only see it used by those on a power trip with a fragile ego.
The one time I actually left a game because of a DM decision: We were on Roll20 on a 2D map and fighting some creatures in a river. Some of us went into the water to fight, but the wizard stayed on the banks to shoot spells from afar. On the wizards turn he decided to cast one of his strongest spells, he only had one spell slot of that level. He used the digital tools to measure and saw that he was just withing range. He cast the spell and the DM chuckles: "You fire your spell, but you miss. You forgot to calculate that the enemy is a few feet under water and because of trigonometry your spell doesnt reach". The wizard had a 20 INT and had all his movement left. He would have been in range mathematically if he just moved like 10ft closer... The DM did not allow him to move retroactivly and made him just waste his turn and spell slot. The part that made me quit that group was the aftermath. We the players argued with the DM that the 20 INT wizard would have known that he needs to move closer, its just hard to see on a 2D map. The DM started yelling and that was the point I decided to leave.
Yeah, I think we need a little more retroactivity agency across like, any games. Especially if it makes sense either contextually, mathematically, or mechanically. Retroactivity in this case should've been allowed, end of story.
If the group had been playing with these digital tools until that point and it was only at this point the DM introduced 3D distance-measuring, that’s on them to tell everyone
It feels like “a world where any nat 1 could cause wild magic” is a pretty central part of the story, and to me that merits a custom wild magic table, especially making consequences more funny than harmful at lower levels and potentially changing some effects as the party levels and are more able to tank things like random fireballs.
Wild Magic and it's consequences have been a disaster for society. But seriously Wild magic is the lowest common denominator 'Random=Funny' source of humour for basic 5e players.
@@Aerowind While I agree, I did start chuckling when hearing that story. Just because it's so damn stupid. I agree that it should be restricted to actions though.
or if you're gonna do a homebrew mechanic like that, do homebrew roleplay for it? Tell the wizard to make an arcana check 'as they feel a surge of fire welling up in their chest' persay so they have a chance to redirect it and avoid PK by rat at level 3?
The climbing kit one is so bizarre because he could have just said "The guards start to stare for a few seconds as a loud hammering noise is emitted and pitons magically appear from nowhere in their wall before moving closer to investigate" but instead, the hill he chose to die on was "item interaction = attack roll"
"Wait, I did not realize my character would be hammering in pitons, of course he would not do that. I'll think of something else." "Too late, you already rolled." "I did not roll." "I made it an automatic failure, because the guards heard you, before you where done."
i mean too be fair, why the hell would you be using pitons in that situation? you'd be using the rope pretty much on it's own and doing checks, pitons is just wasting time in that situation.
Had a DM describe a wall that needed climbing. So I told him I threw my grappling hook on the wall - success. Started climbing up - NOPE, the DM said I never told him that my rope was tied to the hook, so I was screwed. I'm like, "why the hell would anyone throw a grappling hook without rope attached? It's even listed in my inventory as 'hook & rope', one line." DM didn't care, "next time be more specific. You called it, it's done. Next." He unironically couldn't figure out why I picked up my character sheet and walked out or refused to ever come back to his game.
You know that reaction gif of (I think) Mal from Firefly? Where he's speechless and making the hand gesture. I actually just did that reading this. Like yes, there are times when players need to be specific BUT COME TF ON.
Hahaha it's such a funny concept that in this DMs world adventurers just walk around doing the most stupid stiff because he doesn't believe in the concept of common sense. Also how far do you take that? "I walk over and inspect the chest" "you trip because you didn't specify how exactly you move your body to get over there" "also you didn't specify that you keep breathing so your character suffocates"
actually just in our previous session of a pretty long running campaign, an enemy casted Fear on like 4 of us and we had a bloody tough time breaking it but luckily our DM just made the enemies kinda disengage cus it woulda bene a pretty one sided beatdown otherwise. Luckily our monk I think? managed to paralyze 2 of them so we still got prisoners
@@ember_falls "luckily our DM just made the enemies kinda disengage" As a forever DM I hate this. What is the point of combat if there is no risk? Like... you know he wont let you die so why even bother? I woulda just had the fear break on the next damage the monsters did to you.
Every time I watch these skits, I'm sort of looking for things that I might be unintentionally doing so that I don't do them anymore. And every single time, I'm shocked at how batshit insane some people's DMs and/or players are.
Exactly the same for me. But also, a lot of the time I watch some of these videos I see things that are shown as terrible but COULD be done well if used appropriately. Like the Wild Magic thing could be really cool as a temporary storyline effect at a high level (15+) for like.. one or two sessions max.
Dms who never want you to roll for things they know you might roll well in because they want to 'win' against their players is the big one for me. I had a bard whose entire build was Charisma. He was terrible at everything else (I think animal handling was -4 or something crazy), because every option or subclass I could go with to benefit Charisma, I took. He hated attacking, always wanted to talk his way out of conflict. He was a sweetheart and never had an unkind word for anyone. We encountered a merchant once and I rolled high on CHA, and she gave me a deal on an item that I later used pretty cleverly to get us out of a jam. DM decided she didn't like that. DM started to have every new NPC hate the bard before he'd ever spoken (hated as in insult or verbally degrade him immediately, even attack him, even beat him up until knocked out despite him not fighting back). This was regardless of the city, circumstances of their meeting, etc. and it only applied to my bard, no one else in the party. After a while of this going on I started to ask if I could roll Charisma checks to see how new NPCs would perceive the bard. She said I don't get to roll for stuff like that and I couldn't roll high enough to make a difference anyway. I said well ok lemme roll just for funsies to see what it would have been. It was 30. She yelled at me and told me the only time I could roll dice ever (even for secret stuff or independent narrative stuff like to see how my character felt about something) was if she gave me permission, even if the roll wasn't counted or used for anything. She continued to never let me roll CHA in social encounters literally ever. This developed into basically constant in-game bullying (even forced me to RP familial abuse and belittled and guilted me when I asked to stop, because apparently this bard's family he didn't know existed also hate his guts enough to try to literally kill him). Needless to say, I don't talk to that DM anymore lol
One time my party was infiltrating an arakroka nest and I tried to stealth takedown a guard so my character stabbed the guard in the neck and the dm said the guard turned around and said hey who goes there
God, the idea of "I failed so hard at looking for a rat that the energy of the universe recoiled against me and made me explode" is absolutely hilarious in the worst possible way Edit: Incredibly important that I share my friend's read of the event. "Imagine this from the party's perspective. The wizard squints really hard, and then explodes" fdha;slkfdkha;lsdk;hl
Honestly the idea on wild magic every time you roll a 1 because of the state of the world/weave/etc is a great idea....provided it has limitations on what it can do and what can trigger it. The problem there was an awesome idea ruined by crap execution.
@@Ralathar44 Yeah, this would make LOADS of sense if the weave was so torn that all SPELLS roll a wild magic surge, but as it stands, that kinda sucks.
He already has the Wizard. Maybe Colton or Logan could cameo as the DM. I feel like Logan especially would be fun because he's got a sense of humour that fits it and could play the character almost maliciously, but Colton has a more subtle style of humour where he can just say the most ridiculous of things without any change of tone or expression and that could work too.
The first example is why good communication skills are so vital to TTRPGs. I think if the GM had said "Hammering pitons into the wall will be loud, and I'll have to make perception checks for the guards", I don't think there'd be any trouble - unless the player is super unreasonable. But not saying anything and then breaking the player's invisibility is bad DMing.
shouldn't even need perception checks. It would be reasonable they just hear someone hammering pitons into a wall if their passive perception is more than -3. It won't break invisibility, but invisibility is just invisibility, it's not a free pass to be able to do anything you feel like that doesn't technically break it.
Right off the bat, hammering in a piton obviously isn't an attack however it would also clearly make a lot of noise and kind of make your invisibility irrelevant
@@NinePillar speaking of pathfinder, I'm sure that was the thought process of that +2 to the attack roll. Sounded like the DM was doing circumstance bonus's, but added some weird rules for negative values.
Never really a ruling making me leave but when we had a talk to our dm to fix some issues and they very casually say ""I never saw your characters as a part of my world" and that was a clear indicator for me I didnt want to stay. There were also tons of other issues but that was the eye opener to a lot of it.
@@GeneralKornwallis oh we wish we did that in retaliation, that realisation kinda came later when we discussed what was wrong or felt wrong. DM got told several times by other sources they asked for advise "dude, youre to focused on the story and the setting and not letting the players in at all" but to no avail.
Tbf the fireball rat one seems like a pre-established campaign gimmick with a comically unlucky result instead of an incompetent dm. Funny as hell though
@@jamaalgaylord5029I mean the fact they even had to roll just for stating that they ASSUME there is a rat is weird. They didn’t say that they were looking for it, only that they made an assumption. Sure they probably would have looked for it anyway but it’s still kinda weird.
GM's who do that are missing the point of the job. You should enjoy being the GM, but you have a responsibility to keep the players entertained, and if you can't, either work it out with them or step down. With great power comes great responsibility. Uncle Ben strikes again.
So sad but true, D&D and just general TTRPG's usually allow for a wide range of messing with rules to fit how you want to run the game, but using that as reason to break or change base game rules that affect multiple things is just an abuse of that power and you might as well as just play a different game all together
"ooooh... well since you are not a Monk with furry of blows or a Fighter with action surge you only get one attack and there for one step. BUT, if you are wearing two shoes you could take a step with your bonus action!"
One of my friends was playing an aarakocra. A floating island that he was on was crashing down to the earth. He gets to the edge of the island and jumps off to fly to safety. The DM says "Your wings don't work." My friend was flustered but still asked if he could make an acrobatics check to avoid fall damage. He rolled high and had 5 HP remaining and the island crashed down away from him. The DM then says "a piece of rubble comes out of the sky and smashes into you doing 35 damage."
Wow, I've seen examples of GM arbitrariness before, but this takes the cake. That GM seemed to think that gamemastering is about randomly making things up to kill characters.
What the hell does "your wings dont work" even mean? wtf... ive heard of DMs that actually ban aarakocras from their games because they think their flying speed makes them too OP, but at least they discuss that with the group or make it clear on session zero.
My biggest red flag was when a dm was ruling that using cure wounds on a down person would provoke an attack from an owl bear. The justification was that since I have my hand within the owlbears attack when I heal, if I move my hand away I would be attacked if I tried to pull my hand back. BTW this was session 1 and we start at lvl 1, after we were already wounded from saving a child and unable to take a short rest because, "you just started your adventure and we are on a time crunch." After 2 more sessions, it was clear the dm just wanted to kill to TPK, and he did get what he wanted.
The idea of spells provoking attacks of opportunity isn't even that insane. But that's not how 5e is designed. If you change that you change the fundamentals of the game. If the DM wanted spells to provoke attacks of opportunity then they should be playing Pathfinder or D&D 3.5 (I'm fairly certain they both have those rules).
@@legendsofcelestite.officia5398 we're all very impressed by your old RPG. I'm sure back in your day you had to walk uphill both ways and never received participation trophies. There's nothing wrong with enjoying "tougher" TTRPGs or games where you feel more powerful. But everyone should be clear on what they're playing. Having spells trigger opportunity attacks breaks 5e, just as short or long rests would break 2e. If you're playing soccer and throw yourself at an opponent and drag them to the ground, you're not a tougher or better player. You're an idiot who doesn't realise they should be playing rugby.
@@8Rincewind iirc Pathfinder's rules state that only ranged attacks (spells or weapons) provoke attacks of opportunity, but its been so long since i ran that system.
@@lylaallen2123 it's also been a while since I played it. I do remember being surprised by how many things could provoke attacks of opportunity when started playing Pathfinder 1e. Regardless I know there are systems that have similar mechanics. I've been playing World's Without Number for a while (a system that emulates some of the crunch and difficulty of old D&D). In WWN a big part of our strategy is having a load of minions, so the Spellcaster is unlikely to be targeted for attacks. This is because in WWN if a Spellcaster is damaged, they cannot cast a spell on that turn.
@@lylaallen2123 manipulate actions do too. So there's still a chance to trigger AOO even without attacking, provided the spell you try to use has that trait.
One of my friends wanted to try DMing, so he designed a one shot where we were all level 1 and explored a dungeon. The dungeon offered no rest points, with tons of encounters that theoretically a level 1 group should be able to deal with, but definitely not in a row. My character died to a minotaur in an act of noble sacrifice cause I was already so low I figured I wouldn’t make it out alive and would try to protect the other members, and they all died in the next room fighting a wivern. After the one shot my friend asked us what we could do better, but refused to hear any of our feedback about how difficult the encounters were, saying that “he already fudged so many rolls and if he hadn’t we would’ve died way earlier, we’re just bad at the game”. As a bonus, he also loved to leave clues that were impossibly cryptic (or even purposefully misleading) that were vital to continue and would lead to catastrophe if not correctly dealt with. It was extremely unbalanced, and he would keep blaming it on our lack of skills and intelligence. I’ve stopped talking to him.
oh gOd that's so deeply uncool! good for you for not talking to that guy anymore; if someone's that bad at taking criticism when it comes to something you're doing for fun, i can't imagine they'd take it well when they actually fuck up as a person.
in one of the first dnd campaigns I played in, the DM insisted you can't move between attacks during action and bonus action, no matter how much we quoted the rules. Piled a bunch (like 30) of 3hp rats on us in a crammed space that died from one attack and then we couldn't make the other with the bonus because we'd have to move. we couldn't even move to give somebody else space. we were level 3 with only 1 caster and quickly ran out of aoe spells, and the rats kept coming. The battle took hours and was incredibly boring and repetitive. Finally, the boss who was left on 1hp, ran into a cavern and we weren't allowed to follow without any explanations. Just 'no, you can't go in there'. After the sessin, giving feedback, we were all together trying to explain the problem and the DM just ragequit.
I think it was in 1st or 3rd edition, that it was an actual rule. That you had to action-bonus action-move or move-action-bonus action. I might be wrong on the specifics, but it was something like that, if not just something similar.
@@Dumledaj this DM was obviously too young to have played at that time :) and anyway, it was a different game with different mechanics. Idk, maybe it made sense.
@@Dumledaj In 3.5e there were no bonus actions only free actions/swift actions but what you say is true. In order to attack move and attack again you'd need the spring attack feat.
I've never found players anywhere on the internet who want to take part in telling a story or contributing to world building, even when asked. I once asked questions like: “This inn is famous/especially because of X” or “No one goes to this ruin anymore because of X.” Even then, they don't want to participate. Sure, there are people who write a backstory, but not everyone does that and those who do it expect the game master to think of the birthplace and work out the NPCs from the backstory. And some people ask me, as the game master, how they should play their character: "What should my character do now? Who should we talk to? What would my character think about this?". So what I want to say in short: I can't imagine that there are players who will take part in the telling of a story, because my experience tells me that people would rather sit down and think: "Now let me have fun or I'm looking for a new group"
@@TheLevantin Make story decisions with your players before your session. Talk to your players about where they are headed or where they are currently (without spoiling). Or better yet, choose something from one of your player's character's backstory and make that a focal point. Bring their nemesis into the story, bring them to the location where something tragic happened in their past. It's not necessarily about your players "telling the story," as much as it is building upon what you know they've already established for their character. It gives player buy-in, prevents railroading, and promotes RP.
@TheLevantin I think it really comes down to clear communication prior to starting a campaign. You've got to make sure you and your players understand and agree upon the tone of the game you're about to play. There's nothing wrong with a dungeon crawling party of murder hobos, IF that's what everyone comes to the table wanting to play. There's also nothing wrong with a party that's narrative-focused and wants character development and in-depth world building as long as all of the players (and the DM) are on board for that. The biggest problems in my games have occurred when there's a mismatch in expectations between the DM and players. The easiest solution is to talk openly and honestly about the type of game you want to play before the campaign starts. It's also okay to set some ground rules regarding narrative-building as the DM such as "Hey, I'm glad you guys want a story-focused game, but know that I'm going to expect you to take an active role in building that narrative, and I'm not going to do your backstories etc for you" As for players who ask "what should my character do next", that sounds like players who might be inexperienced and just genuinely don't know what they can do? I would respond with options. So rather than "you should...", you could say "well, you're in a new city: you could try to find a tavern to stay at, or go shopping, or follow up on X's grandmother who that shady NPC told you about...etc" and always conclude it with "but actually, you can do whatever you feel like! Just tell me what you *want* to do and I'll decide whether you need to roll for it or not. Mind you, if you're getting these questions from experienced players, that's a whole other kettle of fish and I wouldn't be putting up with that.@@TheLevantin
Maybe root for the players is a rule for you, but I play with a group of highly competitive power gamers so unless I actively TRY to wipe the party, everything is always incredibly non-challenging for them and we all get bored. Yes, GMs want the party to survive encounters because the story can't continue without them, but a couple player deaths should be expected unless your players are fine just stomping everything.
@@TheLevantin Look up something called the Same Page Survey. It can save you a lot of headache. Here's an example of my own variation of one of the prompts: The playersʼ characters are meant to… a) …follow the DMʼs lead to fit the story. The DM knows best. b) …pursue the main goal of the DM's story in a way that fits with their background, alignment, and pre-existing goals and motivations. b) …follow their own pre-existing goals and motivations; there is no pre-established story or overarching goal, or if there is then it's just there for setting and flavor. c) …not know or care what the setting is or what our backstories are. This is fantasy Call of Duty and we're just here to slay stuff and snag loot.
The wild magic one reminded me of a DM I used to play Pathfinder with. She LOVED "lolsorandom" bullcrap and would make stuff up just to mess with us. Our kobold ranger went down during a boss fight next to our sorcerer, who was then blinded. When he attempted to pull out his touch-range wand of healing, she didn't just force him to roll a touch attack to find the ranger, she forced him to roll a d8 to even make sure he could find the right square, as if his entire sense of direction was lost. He missed the square, Kobold died as a result. Later on, we missed a clue that would lead us to investigate a nobleman who was doing a demon summoning, and she didn't think of how to put said information in our way again. So she just decided our entire house was poisoned. The doors? Poisoned. The chairs, poisoned. My wizard's books, poisoned. And not even simple poison, Black Lotus Extract. This stuff cost 4500 gp per dose, DC 20 Con save, did 1d6 Con damage each round. We only survived by spamming Cure Poison and bolting. We bought a bag of flour to detect invisible creatures at random from a street stall and a random inn room to retreat into to plan. Inn room was poisoned. The flour was poisoned. I don't know what her plan here was, it took an OOC screaming match with her to know what to do so we could get back on track. And then, 1-2 sessions before the final boss, we were sailing to a lost ruin. Heard a noise in the hold. Went down, three Red Jesters in boxes pop out. No explanation as to why they were there or who they were working for. These are undead which can inflict laughter with a hit of their mace, scare you with a laugh, and were just tough customers in general. They also had the single most bullshit ability ever - they THROW THE DECK OF MANY THINGS AT YOU! You get hit with a thrown card, it's like you drew it. And that was all she'd have the jesters do. One of us got imprisoned just sessions before the end of the campaign, and she had to move the prison to be in our path in order to let us rescue him, because she didn't think about what THROWING THE DECK OF MANY THINGS AT US would do. We never finished that campaign, we dropped her after that.
Sorry that happened to you, sounds bs. But, if that ‘throwing cards from the deck of many things at you’ was implemented properly?? That’s actually such a cool idea!! I’m still pretty new to dnd so I’m not sure how well it would work but it sounds like it’d be really cool as long as you had an equal chance to get the shitty cards as well as the good ones! Glad you got out of there though, I’m only on my first campaign, and it’s so much fun lol
@@ravenclawwolf8809 It's horrifying, that's how it works. The Deck of Many Things can derail the campaign entirely unless the GM does some serious swerving to fix it, as it did ours when it imprisoned one of our heaviest hitters before the final dungeon. it can grant free wishes, it costs or gives levels, the thing has the chance to utterly screw the world up. And yes, the jesters had every card at their disposal. Search "D20PFSRD Red Jester" and you can find the stat block easily on the Pathfinder SRD.
The Deck could work if you take out or nerf the worst ones (of course balancing by doing the same to the good ones). Too bad she didn’t seem to care about giving you and the others an enjoyable experience. Glad to hear you dropped her.
I've been playing tabletop RPG's for a long time and off the top of my head one of the wildest rulings that I've ever been involved in was a DM who had a standing table rule that player characters never wore armor for the course of the adventuring day. His standing rule was that if more than four or five minutes passed and you weren't involved in combat, or otherwise "on guard," your character became so hot and uncomfortable in their armor that they took it off. No matter what type it was. Even after I pointed out to him that, in the D&D 3.5E ruleset, full plate armor required several minutes to don and remove, and even longer if you didn't have help. Didn't matter, he said, his rule stands. According to one of the other players who was friends with the guy outside the game, the source of this houserule stemmed from one time several years ago that the DM wore a homemade chainmail shirt made out of soda can tabs to a Renaissance Faire and it was very itchy and hot. Never mind that we could show him videos of people doing gymnastics wearing full plate. He had "firsthand experience," and we were wrong. Naturally this only applied to us, the players. City guards and bandits at strongholds were apparently immune to this condition. I finally got so frustrated at the inconsistency that I had my character take a level in Binder, which is a 3.5E class that allows you to seek out otherworldy beings called vestiges and "bind" them to your soul in order to gain various minor supernatural abilties, in exchange for certain aspects of that vestige influencing your behavior (which you can roll to resist or just allow to happen). One of these vestiges was called Savnok, and his penalty for fully influencing you was that your character will never, ever willingly remove any item that increases your armor class (including armor, shields, and other magic items) for as long as you are bound to him. The look of utter disbelief and confusion on the DM's face when I pointed to this rule was glorious. After that campaign ended, I opted not to play in his next one but kept in touch with one of the players, who told me that he banned the Binder class in his next game because it was "overpowered." 😂
As someone who has worn a thick leather chestplate for an entire weekend at LARP numerous times, I can say with some certainty that your DM was full of it. There were plenty of people there who kept their chain mail and heavier armor on at all hours they weren't asleep. No adventurer would take off all of their armor just because they didn't expect to immediately leap into combat in the next 30 seconds. You'd make damn sure things are safe and calm before you took your armor off, so you're not caught unprotected when the goblin assassins start stalking the camp.
I would have grabbed the "Endurance" feat and argued that if I find my armor comfortable enough to sleep in without incurring any negative effects then I can wear it all day without a need to remove it. Or just go to an armorer next time I was in town and request a layer of padding for comfort.
@@jabilussAnother player had tried that argument before I joined, and the DM's response was the feat only specifies "sleeping" in armor that was the only place it applied. The DM's reasoning apparently was that sleeping is different because you are at rest and what makes you uncomfortable is the act of being up and moving around in it. A dip in Binder in 3.5E wasn't uncommon and could benefit a lot of character builds in different ways. It was the one surefire way I could find of specifically defeating his bonkers houserule.
How in the world did he not consider the inconsistency of his guards being able to march all day in this “uncomfortable” equipment, yet you can’t last more than 5 minutes. If he’s not going to be consistent, then why do this at all? I also can’t believe he didn’t think, for a second, that a nerd who wore shitty homemade armor ONCE, might not be as accustomed to adventuring as an actual knight. Why would he assume his one experience overrides thousands of years of military history?
I like the way the DMG handles critical skill checks. It doesn't say 1s auto fail or 20s auto succeed. It says "take into account exceptional rolls." In the case of the rogue, since I know they're a rogue and probably arent adept at detecting magical traps, I would have told them something along the lines of "you notice the gold shimmers in an unusual way in the light. You know how gold shimmers, you love gold, and that gold aint right."
I would take it a different way. They failed the perception check, so they don’t notice anything about the gold, but a large empty room with nothing in it but a bag of gold on a pedestal? You don’t know if it’s a trap, an altar, or a puzzle, but this bag of coins is special. You just can’t see anything special about them
Nat 20s are always relative. Consider the following encounter: Player: I demand the King relinquish his throne to me and give him his Kingdom. DM: okay, roll. Player: Nat 20 DM: the king laughs and says 'good joke, I should make you my jester' Player: but but but Nat 20!! DM: yes, the Nat 20 is why he is laughing it off instead of executing you on the spot.
"...they're a rogue and probably not adept at detecting magical traps..." I know this isn't an unreasonable take by any means, but I can't help but think that holding certain classes to a more realistic standard really contributes to the martial-caster disparity. For example, a locksmith in a world where magic is common would recognize and have tools to deal with magical locks, no?
I also like to remind storytellers of this: Skill have multiple levers of success. Take, for example, the good old Knowledge Checks in editions gone by... as they literally explain this phenomenon. Just because the character can not make the insane checks on some of them, I have seen DC:40's in low level campaigns before, doesn't mean they can't get... something... back from them. That lowly result of 10 can give the character some insight into the situation, even if it is nothing more then 'man, that statue has to be twenty thousand years old or something... that had to be of someone important and worth documenting.'
Against popular Opinion, I was playing a Whip wielding Rogue. I used my Crossbow primarily, waiting for an opportunity to use the Whip when my damage contribution would matter least. When the moment finally arrived, it was persuaded by my party. Collectively, they were waiting for me to use the Whip also. I was reluctant at that particular moment, but I did it. I rolled a Nat 20 to hit. DM said roll the Damage, and after I did, he began to explain how I missed the target. Instead, the Whip snap back, and I hit myself. Critical. I was already hurt, and thus, I actually killed myself with that hit. I left shortly after. I never got over it. DM said nobody can be that proficient with a whip, and that was the price I paid for using a Whip instead of a Dagger at his table. /shrugs
What a shit DM, a lot of trash dms in the stories of this video, but this one makes me upset as a DM myself. Good that you leave, sounds like a DM that only wants players to fullfill a powerfantasy or something. Maybe not but It feels like it
"nobody can be that proficient with a whip" while the weapon is literally on the weapon table classified as a martial weapon, so every fighter, paladin, ranger (and more) are fully proficient with it, wtf On a side note, rogues aren't naturally proficient with the whip, but not having a proficiency most certainly do not cause you to damage yourself, it just makes it so you don't add your proficiency to the attack roll (and you can't sneak attack with it), but a nat20 is a hit (and most likely a crit) regardless. Guess the DM thought they were being very smug about it
that's... not the rule. There is an actual rule for not being proficient with weapons, and it's you don't add you proficiency bonus to attacks. And idk why they would just let you be proficient, rogues aren't very strong anyways
The thing that caused me to leave a game and even quit playing for awhile happened in the early 2000s (I have been playing since around 1975). The dm split the group up. My boyfriend and I were left sitting in a tavern while the others went to do something else and it was supposed to be hours and hours we would be waiting. So we were still in charecter and talking as our characters. One of the other players, not the dm turned to us and said we were not allowed to continue the conversation, that we didn't exist while they were doing thier thing. Then said if we continued to have our conversation he would kill our characters off, especially mine since I was a last minute addition they didn't really want. The dm allowed him to say this without reprimnd, which spoke volumes about his feelings regarding us, (they were all supposed to be our friends). So we looked at each other, closed our players handbook, picked up our characters , my boyfriend said ok, we're dead and out of this game. When I did start playing again it was never with that group of people. No matter if I am a player or a dm, I never forget the lessons of that game.
Did you choose to stay back in the tavern or did the DM forcibly say that you two stayed back? If members of the group don't want to join the main adventure I can see how a DM wouldn't want to cater to separate parties like that. But if the DM just dictated that that's what happened then that would just be ridiculously clear that they just didn't like you.
Having a private conversation at the table during the game would be rather distracting and I think most people would consider that rude. If the party is split and your character is paused, you should really sit quietly. That being rather boring is a strong argument against splitting parties. The DM splitting the party, therefore, seems like a red flag from the start...
@@thomasdalton1508 When you say "private conversation" , do you mean out of character conversation or, as they were having, a separate in-character conversation? I could see how that could be distracting but I think a simple "sorry, you're paused for the moment, we'll cut back to the tavern shortly" from the DM would be sufficient.
@@SpaceBearEngineer It would be equally distracting whether it is in character or out of character. It is certainly possible to be polite when calling someone out for rudeness. Without knowing the full story, it is difficult to judge.
On the Climbers Kit - The DM could have said "You're hammering the piton in has drawn the guards attention, and they see the Piton in the wall" as sound would draw attention. Being Invisible doesn't mean Soundless
I would say they don;t see you, but hammering makes a noise, give me a sleight of hand check. Say DC 15 they hear something from the room but don;t know where, DC20 or above, they don't hear a peep so don;t enter the room. Below a 15 they come in the room, but as you are invisible they don't see you, but the noise negates any advantage from you being ivisble so they will roll perception flat to find you. Otherwise on 15 or above, they roll with Disadvantage.
To be fair to "Climbing Kit breaks invis" DM, you could instead rule that the noise made while hammering pitons into the wall attracts significant guard presence to the area over outright making them lose invisibility. If you've ever heard people using those, they're definitely not silent.
I really don't like how he framed it as "tippy taps" and compared it to walking. You are striking it with substantial force. Whether or not it's an attack is just semantics on intent at that point, hardly ridiculous, especially since stealth is ruined anyways.
Iirc, raw, the guards would have an easy time rolling perception to find their location making them possibly no longer hidden but still invisible with all the benefits that entails. Loud noise making does not actually break invisibility - like hearing a creature's footsteps wouldn't make it visible even if no longer hidden for the round
the thing is, just ask for a stealth check. it doesnt break invis, but it can certainly be heard. that would fairly explain whether the player can do it quietly or be caught
It would take the guards longer. Even if you hear where it is coming from you would first walk around to track it and when you hear it coming from the wall, my first thought would be to go inside and check what is making the noise. Unless a good perception check makes them see the tiny holes made in the wall.
Still, that's something you tell the player BEFORE you confirm the action. "You're not gonna be able to climb down without hammering a piton in, which will make some noise. You sure you want to try?" is one hundred percent reasonable. "I try to climb down" "The guards immediately rush to the sound of you hammering a piton into solid rock," is total bullshit.
Could be a stealth check to see if the guards notice it. It's not like they are going around 100% quiet themselves constantly on the lookout with ears peeled in case there is an invisible adventurer around THIS time on the patrol.
It’s such a simple fix too. I don’t understand how a dm could think that it’s an attack roll before just doing the more obvious call that guards would probably notice the noice and changing wall
All you gotta do is make it work like stealth camo in Metal Gear where you can be seen if you do any rough movements, so subtle stuff wouldn't cancel out fucking invisibility. So many easier ways to rule this stuff I swear.
I mean, to be fair, I'm not sure how much magic would discriminate against hammering in a piton and swinging a hammer at a guys face. You could argue that that the latter takes a lot more energy but I still don't fully understand why/how in universe invisibility would stop after an attack specifically, how does it tell the difference?
Had a DM who gave one of the BBEG's main underbosses "Multiattack"... only it wasn't. He had multiple *actions.* He gave this enemy six actions. So even though I dashed and Misty Stepped to get 150 feet away from the enemy, he "just so happened" to have six actions (which he hadn't actually used before that at any point in the fight), so he could dash three times, attack me three times, and do triple my HP in damage. Oh, and he could cast Haste on himself at will, apparently, because even with his 30-foot movement speed, three dashes was enough to cover 150 feet. It was the second-to-last session of the campaign, and totally broke every bit of interest I had to play in that game.
See the big difference there is *three* actions instead of six + free haste + absurd damage. Challenge is only fun if it's reasonably fair, a straight up "you lose" ruins the whole thing.
@@raptorxrise5386 its a common misconception. From Crawford and Sage Advice, using the dash action gives you extra movement equal to your speed. Dash action 3 times would be 30ft +30ft +30ft +30ft or 120ft. Hope this helps!
These remind me of the time when we were infiltrating a bandit’s cave and came to a sheer wall we needed to climb. Our party looked around to see what we could see (perception), and the DM told us about how tall it was, the texture of the rock, etc. When our rogue tried to climb it, a saw blade came out of the wall and cut him up. The DM then told us that there had been bloodstains all over the wall the whole time. When we asked why he didn’t tell us until now, he said, with a smile, “Well, you guys never asked!”
oh that's INFURIATING, YOU LITERALLY ASKED just not specifically "hey are there bloodstains perchance??" that's SO MEAN! i truly do not understand DMs who just have it out for their players like that, like who gets satisfaction from "winning" when they have unlimited power anyways? it's like a kid on the playground saying "NO, actually YOU'RE dead" when they lose.
@@plushdragonteddyYeah, that’s exactly the kind of vibe I got from that DM. I left his game after the second time he did something like that. (We “never asked” if there was a gate to the fence we were trying to get through) It was a shame, though, because his world and setting was one of the coolest ones I’ve ever seen in a TTRPG.
@QuintonCenter That also sounds like the sorta game that becomes grindingly slow and even annoying for the DM if you wanna play “effectively“ where whenever you encounter ANYTHING you spend the next 30 minutes asking: “Do I see blood? Do I see acid? Do I see fire? Is there a gas cloud?” etc. though I would assume (and sincerely hope) that that’d be a wake-up call for the DM.
Oh I would have malicious complianced the hell out of him and ground that game to a halt out of spite. Every room would be "Do I see blood on the floor? What about mud? Dust? Hair? Fabric fibers? Flecks of gold? Pixie dust? Droplets of water? Wood Chips?..."
@@jamesmcdonald9313 pull up a copy of an enemy list and ask "is there an awakened shrub? Is there a baboon? is there a badger? is there a bat?" and just continue
In Pathfinder, a big gimmick Cavaliers (my absolute favorite class and by far the most played) can do with the right feat is basically the rider and mount can take hits for each other. This allows you to spread out damage between your two HP pools to tank for a while as a front liner. This involves doing attack rolls higher than the enemy's to get in the way of their attack. Many DM's have a STRONG preference for whether they want to attack mostly (or only) your character or their mount, and do not like this feat. The end result is I've actually experienced times where enemies have gimmicks (or just super high attack rolls that never miss and can't be beat) to disallow this. Naturally, removing such a critical feature to the cavalier has resulted in my character dying pretty much every time this happens the first time a critical hit rolls out, because I've been eating damage the whole time up front and cannot sustain hits the way a Barbarian can. RIP me =( Yeah I got the fuck outta dodge as soon as I realized what was going on. DM's. Please. Just talk to your players if there's something they're doing which you don't like. Don't just screw them over to feel better about how hard things are. This is not a versus environment. We are experiencing your story by being a part of it. Just. F*cking. Talk to us.
I feel like the wild magic one could be fun in an environment charged with chaotic magic. Or a cursed item’s downside. Just not the entire game’s default rule
It could work if it was more limited in scope; have it be on nat-1s for skill or spell-based attacks or action checks rather than on every ability or skill check. It's still going to cause chaos, but merely _opening one's ears_ to listen for a noise wouldn't risk spontaneously detonating oneself
The only situation where I see it making sense as a global rule is if it only applies to crit fails that actually involve magic. Casting a spell? Sure. Using a magical item or ability? Makes sense to me. Physically interacting with a magical item or object on the map? I can see it. But it doesn't make sense to turn blue because you stubbed your toe or turn into a plant pot because you couldn't remember a historical fact
There's one part in Strixhaven that's temporarily that which is pretty fun. A character and an NPC were about to face off in a duel and then the NPC just fucking turned into a plant lol
it could be cool if it was introduced because of a story element once the players had reached a suitably high level. Although you'd probably want to add more restrictions than just every roll ever since it just doesn't make sense in a world perspective. Are average citizens somehow immune from triggering these wild magic surges even though non-magical player characters can? But having it be in effect from level 3 ever ignoring those world continuity issues is just asking for a tpk.
From the "Casting Time" section of the Sage Advice Compendium, p. 12: If you cast a spell, such as healing word, with a bonus action, you can cast another spell with your action, but that other spell must be a cantrip. Keep in mind that this particular limit is specific to spells that use a bonus action. For instance, if you cast a second spell using Action Surge, you aren’t limited to casting a cantrip with it.
And the example in that video is precisely why simplifying it as "one leveled spell per turn" as most people do is wrong. Sure it's close enough most of the time, but there are situations where it's not. Action Surge is somewhat rarer (mostly multiclassing, as an Eldritch Knight will often prefer to do something else with their surge than casting twice), but one that can come up more often is using a Reaction spell, like Shield to protect yourself from an AoO or Counterspell against someone attempting to Counterspell your main spell.
Just for clarity's sake, this is actually on Page 15 of the SAC! Just in case someone is looking it up and can't find it on 12 like I couldn't. :) Link provided to the PDF as well: media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf
My DM does it that : if you cast a spell on your action and want to bonus action another, or vice Versa, only one of them can be above level 2. I think it’s fine this way : as it makes sense that there’s only so much time for verbal and somatic components so doing a lower level bonus action or action takes less time than a full level one. That’s for non action surge, action surge you’re free to do 2 action spells with no restrictions.
ha yeas every fighter is a better wizard is stupid how yeah i just cast 5th level hold person action surge ho no 6th level fire ball and an enitre high level party dead@@seb8523
I was going to comment that the DM not allowing 2 levels spells was right but this comment completely proved me wrong. I didn't know the rule specified bonus action spells.
We finished creating our characters on session zero, and at the end the DM said "Now everybody roll for your alignments." He said it prevented everyone from playing murder hobos, but made made my Lliira cleric lawful evil.
that's insane. It's players who are murderhobos, not characters. If the player is like this, the alignment won't stop them. And randomising such crucial things as class, race, alignment, order of stats, etc is taking away players' agency in the worst form.
@@NN-cr6gx if you're lucky with what you've got and you're a good actor who loves such things. and it's not 'traits', it's the whole direction and mood of the game. If you wanted to be good and save people and instead got chaotic evil murderhobos, it's horrible. Maybe it's ok for one shot, but not a whole campaign. also, playing a mixed party of good and evil characters is horrible in 99% cases. And honestly, I believe playing (with) evil characters is only ok in very specific groups where you know each other very well. I wouldn't want to play that.
So what prevented you from making her a murder hobo who kept on finding some law the NPCs were breaking that in your eyes allowed you to kill them in punishment? Especially as you rolled evil that should be within the boundaries of what you were rolling. And that is also one of my many reasons for not using the alignment system in D&D
To be fair, invisibility does not block sound. And the guards would have noticed the tapping sound. Wouldn't have made him turn visible but absolutely would have rolled a perception vs stealth (sound) check
And another to be fair: The dragon could for sure manage to react before the circlet lands on the party's head. It happens right in front of it and it's already intensely prepared for the possibility of combat But once again the DM is out of line when they then both say "Your action doesn't trigger until your turn" AND "You already used your action before your turn so you get no action on your turn" And another tbf: Sometimes a DM asks for a roll, you roll a Nat20 and you still fail because the DC is still too difficult for you. Still, why ask for the roll then? Well, a couple of possibilities. The obvious one is that the DM doesn't know/remember your bonus. Ideally they'd ask for your bonus first then, but there's another reason to call for the roll: You want the chance of avoiding the meta knowledge that there's a high DC on the coins. If you roll an 8 and gleam nothing, your meta brain might just think the roll was low, but that doesn't guarantee anything extrordinary. If you roll a 21 and are lead to believe a higher roll might've resulted in information, then your meta brain knows it's something big. I also think it's fair for a DM to essentially put a DO NOT PRESS THIS BUTTON! (and the entire setup with the word greed clearly spelled out and all is exactly that) encounter in front of the party and it is then up to the party if they can contain themselves.
@@oOPPHOo Actually dragons typically have really low Dex scores, especially the more powerful ones, since they are so big. Also that "he knew you were gonna do that" excuse is actually covered in the book. You're supposed to roll a Deception vs Insight, to see if you get a surprise round. As for the coins and the nat 20, there is a simple solution. If, for some reason, it was a DC 25 trap, and this was a campaign full of such utter BS, then you can still provide the player with FAR more information than what was given with a 21, even if they don't uncover the trap itself.
@@ethanwilliams1880 DEX is not really relevant. A dragon with strangers (strangers who look like looters come to take its hoard) in its lair is on guard. There is surely no debate regarding this. The "DEX contest" is the Initiative roll itself. Should the rogue get to use the circlet first? Sure, given a skill check was used to do that, but it's hard to argue that the dragon was so incredibly taken off-guard that he should do nothing for 6 whole seconds. And it's also hard to argue that, barring a special class ability or something like Haste, that the Rogue gets to immediately act again. In the face of conflict, we compromise; the Rogue goes first, but gets no additional actions. Interestingly enough, the player admitted that "this is probably RAW" and the recently released Baldur's Gate 3 handles actions exactly in the same way. If you don't surprise them, you go first, but you don't get your action when your turn for that round comes up. There's a whole Rogue subclass (Assassin) which gets the special ability to act again in round 1, and it's extremely powerful. It comes off making the player look _extremely_ fragile for leaving the table over a single action in a single combat, which he admits is "probably RAW" anyway, simply because it didn't have _quite_ as much cool factor as he wanted.
It didn't make me leave the table, but it did certainly upset me greatly. If it had happened more than just the once, I may have had a serious conversation with the DM. Another PC and I were trying to locate a magic item to buy when we got to a new town, the way we usually handle it is if we're looking for something specific, we roll investigation and the DC is set based on how likely that item would be found in a shop in this location. Well my character had expertise in Investigation and I rolled something around a 30 after adding my bonus. Both magic items were of similar nature and rarity, so should have had very similar DCs, but the DM ruled that my 30 did not find what I was looking for, but that the other PC's 18 did find their item. When I asked why mine didn't work, I was told "well your bonus is super high so I just bumped up the DC a bunch to make it an even chance for both of you."
How tf is that fair at all? Its like saying for example a barbarian and a mage both get bit by a AOE attack, The mage takes the normal damage but the barbarian takes extra because it has way more hp than the mage. It just nullifies whatever your character is good at
For the first one I could see the DM asking you to make a stealth role since hammering the pitons into the wall would make a loud noise but that should not break invisibility.
Yeah that's what I thought. Invisibility does allow you to still be heard, and hitting a piton into the wall ain't quiet. Stealth roll for me, unless the guards were like 30+ feet away
@@themaninthechair4338 I would even say if the guards are within 30 ft, no stealth roll could be quiet enough to conceal hammering a piton into a stone wall
@@factsabouturmum9250 I would argue that they know direction. If you heard a hammer strike from behind you down the hall, you don't know exactly where. Especially if it was a single swing. it can be harder to place exact sound if it echos especially when you don't see the source of sound
I feel like the wild magic surge could be fun if as part of a high level campaign players went to the Fey Wild for a session or two. But in your normal setting, if your gonna do that you might want to use a table for it other than the standard one. Or somehow make it less likly to ruin the campaign. Especially at low level where they can’t do as much to compensate for bad effects.
Yeah, the problem is too many people think 'tee hee you might turn into a potted plant' and too few people remember that sometimes that table is Really Bad.
If this is happening "in a world at the crux of a magical war" then people going about their daily lives would be setting off wild surges everywhere. Herding sheep that have run amok and nat 1 the animal handling check? Retracing your steps to find your grandfather's hammer and fail the investigation check?
I thought the idea was it applied only to spell rolls only. Like because of in-universe reasons, magic is unstable or something. Just regular actions like "using your eyes wrong"? Sounds super dumb. What's the in-universe explanation? Are "rolls" a real thing that exists? Do people explode in multicolored confetti while falling out of bed in their sleep or tripping over their words in a meeting?
I kind of like how it encourages players to be economically with their skill checks- agree thst it could make for an interesting one shot, or just a dungeon room Most of the time you can just do a skill roll whenever but now each one has a risk to it Though there's the problem that rolls are random, meaning that a finely crafted plan designed to use the least rolls possible can just fall apart with a bad one
The piton example is interesting because it reads a lot into intent and how "gamey" certain mechanics are. You can gently hammer a piton into a guard without intending to attack them (say as a prank while invisible) and if you lack a small hammer and time you could absolutely hammer a piton into a wall with a single strike of a warhammer. Rules as written, neither of those are an "attack" and would not break Invisibility. The real issue is that consequence was not properly communicated. If the GM had said "If you want to do that I'm going to rule that as breaking Invisibility because this would be too overt. Do you still want to?" That way the GM has communicated clearly the consequence and reasoning without jumping to punishment, where the player feels unfairly treated. So long as the precedent is enforced fairly from that point on there should be no issues.
To be fair, xp to level 3 was also very wrong. Its not a "tippy tap" it is a hard and loud strike. Potentially repeated. Your stealth is ruined regardless. Attack roll is semantics really.
Irrelevant. A wall is not an enemy, and using a tool to hammer something into a stationary wall doesn't need an attack roll either, hence it's not an attack.
@@TF2CrunchyFrog You can absolutely perform attack rolls against objects, unless we're counting padlocks as enemies. The game even has rules on armour class and HP for such a case. What's the argument there? "No I'm not attacking it, I'm using my axe to forcefully break it." Like bro that's an attack. I can use my bow to hammer something into a stationary guard and it's still an attack roll.
I mean, yeah, but common sense shouldn’t be disregarded. I’d argue if someone while invisble hammers a piton into a guard he will notice something is up. lmao
@@Unormalism But as stated, he's not trying to attack or destroy the wall like one would a door. It's stationary, using a tool designed specifically to pierce without destroying. You don't roll to attack a cake when you cut a slice of it.
honestly even if it wasn't in the rules I would allow it since "ok if you want to use your once per long rest ability to use another one of your finite spell slots for this that's fine" its not like he gets it back on a short rest so it can't just be spammed constantly seems perfectly fair to me
I had a DM who called an Arcana check when I casted Find Steed. Instead of a steed I can adventure with and mount I got a rat because I rolled 3. If I wanted a familiar I would've casted Find Familiar
@@RKNGL Only if that rat has a carry capacity of at least 350 lbs, is tall enough to keep my feet from dragging on the ground, and a round speed equal to a FRACKING HORSE! Or, you could just make it a danged horse!
I was playing a Pathfinder campaign and started seeing red flags from the dm right from the start. He seemed to have this "me versus the players" attitude. I (very narrowly) rolled high enough to persuade a shop keeper to lower his price on a ring of feather fall enough for me to be able to afford it. He would huff and roll his eyes and grumble every time I used it. One session, after using it to get around a trap earlier on in a dungeon (which annoyed him), we encountered a room with a reverse gravity trap and spikes on the ceiling. He started licking his lips and setting up to roll the damage for all of us (two party members were low hp and he always seemed to actively want to kill PCs). When I stopped him to ask for clarification that we weren't being pulled towards the ceiling but that (per the spell description) we were falling towards the ceiling (and that the ceiling was 25 feet above us), he practically jumped over the table. His response was: "look, I don't care. you're taking the damage." One of the other players was my ride or I would have packed up and walked out on the spot. Instead I mentally checked out, phoned it in for the rest of the session, and told the group at the end of the evening that I wouldn't be returning.
Oh no, your fall trap doesn't work? Boo womp. If this was a lich's lair, he could just put a glyph with dispel magic for if someone casts feather fall, and then reduce the damage those who have feather fall cast on themselves take slightly reduced damage. Why didn't the glyph have counterspell, instead of dispel, magic you may ask? Because the ring of feather fall exists, a lich would definitely plan for that. In short, that DM was probably salty he couldn't think of a trap that wasn't a variation of "pit trap"
It baffles me someone could get so mad about an item they didn't have to put in the game. Like if you don't want your players to use a ring of feather fall, don't give them the option to buy it? It's a magic item, it can just not be there.
@@a.t3415 It typically happens to newer DMs, that they don't imagine the consequences of their actions. From the other side... I had a group of friends over for a test campaign as I was designing my own system. Every now and then I would realize that some rules just didn't work or something was completely out of balance. In a way it's ok if your character has a signature pattern in combat(or in situation of potential conflict), but if that pattern just works everytime no matter the circumstances I try to throw at you, that's suspect. So I had to go and change some rules and some numbers and boi oh boi were those talks tough. And mind you this was all in a situation, where my players were reasonable people, longtime friends, adults AND have agreed before the campaign started that things like that may happen( it was explicitly stated that rules(abilities etc.) and characters (numbers, leveling speed) may get nerfed as I will want to "finetune" the rules. People don't like it when you take away their toys and that goes both ways - DMs and players. I've even seen DMs with childish, angry reactions like the ones depicted in the video, who when the situation passed profusely apologized for their behavior and were able to have a healthy adult discussion about the whole thing.
Yeah I've had the "DM vs Players" DM before and it's best to just ditch those games right away. I mean when basically the God of that world can do anything and wants to ensure he wins there is no point in playing. For example had a DM send a group of Frost Giants at us and thus we used several of our fire damaging abilities only to find the fight was extremely tough and nearly wiped us. When pressed on the matter the DM admitted our attacks were doing almost no damage which is why the fight took so long and we should have "figured it out" as he gave the FROST Giants resistance to fire and weakness to cold... During the fight he played it like a robot simply listening to our damage rolls, nodding, and then ask for next players actions. No indications that our fire attacks were not very effective and no indication on the Health levels of the Giants as him simply stated, "Ok this ones dead" and removes it from the table. His "defense" for this was that he hates meta gaming and how players memorize the Monster Manual so they know all the monsters weaknesses. It's like first off your characters live in this world and just like we know about fictional creatures of werewolves, vampires, and etcs weaknesses this would be even more true of people who live in a world where these things are REAL. But second and more importantly it's NOT Metagaming to think a creature that lives in a cold climate is probably adapted to that climate and thus wouldn't be as effected by cold, but also they might not handle extreme heat that well. That's just common sense and basic physics.
The way you play a nice DM who misunderstands the rules and is terrible at DMing is so unnervingly accurate. Like, you hear stories online of the DM who does things that make you rethink your friendship, but sometimes the DM is not a bad guy. He just sucks at making the game fun, and you leave the table, because you aren't having fun. For example, the DM who misunderstood invisibility basically made the player feel like invisibility was a useless spell, but he said it in a way that was nice and not a shouting match. It's a certain type of incompetence, but not malice.
This filled me with such rage and a deep feeling of gratitude for my group's Dungeon Master. She always puts us first. She sticks to the rules religiously, but is always VERY respectful of cool roleplay choices that would induce something like a surprise round, etc. Tough but fair! I feel so bad for these other people.
To be fair I've done something similar to the last example. In my case however they were looking for traps on a very suspicious door in a dungeon, got a nat 20 and I told them " ... as far as you are aware it is a completely normal door with no traps of any kind nor are there any in the vicinity." They refused to get anywhere near the door and took a different path. The door was in fact just an door, it wasn't even locked.
I mean to be fair to the last DM, if the dungeon is hard and the party is at a certain lvl maybe don't let the +1 Perception Barb check the bag and instead let the +13 Rogue do it. If they are low level tho a nat 20 should clear basically any check (DC 18 or higher on a low lvl Party is bs).
Ever since Disco Elysium, I avoid these with a change of perspective. As in, a PC's inner sense would chime in and assure them that, no, they're being ridiculous, it is in fact a perfectly normal door. Of course, at that point, I could've as well break character and address the players directly, but I find it more enjoyable my way.
In my old club, we had a DM doing all kinds of shady stuff. Players are traumatized to this day and at least 3 players refuse to play his campains. - In a game of C.O.P.S. (players are elite specialized cops in a distopian ultra-violent Los Angeles), he warned two players because the pilot was always speeding to go to a crime scene (understandable: they're playing cops and one player was specialized in piloting skills). Since the characters received an official blame in their administrative record, the players decided to respect the warning: next call to a crime scene, the pilot stoped to every red light and never sped once. They arrived in a shooting, the criminal had already left, and they found a little girl hidden in a garbage bin, she was wounded by two bullets. They obviously called an ambulance, but the little girl died on their hands. The DM had a little smirk when he played the paramedic NPC telling players: "If only you had arrive two minutes earlier, we could have save her." - Same campain of C.O.P.S., one player had a strong character who decided to get really buffed, he saved his experience points for half a dozen sessions to raise his Stamina attribute (in this game, it's extremely expensive to raise your attributes, most players don't do it and raise skills instead). So his character could achieve the maximum natural Stamina score in the game, and It was allowed by the DM. Next game session, he was going to question the neighbourhood and knocked on a door and failed a perception test before knocking. He was saying "police, open u..." BANG, a shotgun tore a hole through the door and his shoulder, because the guy in this house was an accomplice ready to kill cops if necessary. The character suffered a serious wound, and was penalized by losing the Stamina point we worked so hard to obtain. The DM insisted it was a rule about wounds. A year later, when one of his former C.O.P.S. players decided to become the DM it with another group of friends, he read the rules attentively and discovered the "attribute loss after a serious wound rule" was an OPTIONAL rule, printed in a special insert with a warning "this level of realism is for hard mode only, make sure your players are cool with it". The DM ruined the progression path of a player just for the sake of it... - I played a scholar in the Game of Thrones roleplaying game, specialized in languages, calligraphy and cryptography. We uncovered a plot to assassinate a high-born we were supposed to protect, and after tracking the assassin, we found his notebook fully encrypted with a custom code. Of course, the group wanted me to decipher it, and I get to work: one success wasn't enough to decipher the whole code, it was a prolonged test, with several successes needed over time. The evening where I finally did the final success to decipher the assassin's code, another assassin stabed me in the back and stole the notebook from me. I never had to to a perception test, no one could help me because my character was alone in his study, the DM almost killed my character so I couldn't uncover the plot, at the exact second when my character was discovering the truth. It was exactly like being killed in a cinematic during a videogame. I stoped playing any game with him for years after this. All in all, the guy was mastering a bunch of different games and was excellent with description, so everybody tried his game sessions at least once. But he has this weird philosophy: "treat your players like trash, and they will come back for more", that made him quite toxic. Worst of all, he always had a rational ready at hand to dodge any criticism, so he never truly corrected his ways. With another DM, after spending a whole session creating characters, I wrote a full (but very short and well-defined) background and sent it to him by email. When playing the first game session, I mentioned a very important piece of my background, and he told me, laughing: "yeah, but I lost your email". I was so infuriated by the sheer disrespect, I quit the table.
Sounds like he's treating PCs like NPCs. "At the last moment before he, or rather YOU, uncover the text, he, or I mean... uh... YOU get stabbed in the back. What a plot twist! Will you chase after the assassin?" *group devolves into annoyed arguing*
A DM used Strahd’s legendary actions as reactions. I was a melee fighter and every time I got into melee range he would say “When you move there, Strahd sinks into the floor and vanishes.” Over two hours and he didn’t allow me to swing at Strahd once. No attacks allowed, no opportunity attacks allowed, nothing. When I called him on it, he said “If you’re gonna question how I run Strahd, just don’t. You know what? He runs away and escapes this game is over.”
Throwing a fit and quitting the game was pretty crazy. For the first part though, it is very reasonable for an enemy to utilize their tools to defend against an unprepared player.
Omg that is enfuriating, especially for the end of a Strahd story.... that whole campaign is meant to be frustrating and make party feel so powerless, I personally don't understand why so many love this module.
"You use the spell slot for divine smite before you roll to hit, if you miss the spell slot is wasted." Was the first step in my own path to becoming a successful DM xD
See that’s what i do as an optional rule for ranged(meaning primary attacks are all ranged) Paladins, also when in a setting that allows firearms they get proficiency with them
If I were to ever make drastic changes, I would atleast make compensating buffs. In this case, spending a spell cost before rolling will give you an Extra d8 Radiant Damage. But I would never do if I ever plan to DM. In fact I would feel more comfortable buffing Martials classes in general.
see ive seen some people say smite is too powerful, and maybe thats true, but to make smites declared as part of the attack is insane, they get so few slots they would lose them all.
@@christophercrafteI would give Divine Smite the Rogue Treatment like Sneak Attack. Where the power of your divine smite increases with each level up. Like can still deal 4d8 damage by spending 1 level spell slot instead of 3. Paladins have a lot very good support and buff spells to provide for their team. But having so little spell slots can feel 2 dimensional. Either you be DPS or Play support. There is no inbetween.
@@chronenojysk5107 paladins aren't martials though. They have spells. If a blade singer wizard decided he will frontline with a rapier does that make him a martial? Also in terms of your other comments. Paladins do not need buffs, their smite already scales with spell slots that's the point. If people are complaining martials are underpowered it's not paladins they're talking about, mainly monks and fighters. You will see paladins outdamage high level spell casters easily because they are ones themselves, aswell as having the utility that spells bring with their own sperate healing.
I once had a DM that pretty obviously had exactly one plan for how we were "supposed" to get out of a terrible scenario, and any idea we came up with was either outright denied or he would make the player roll multiple checks until they failed once and then use that failure to say no. It went on for several sessions of us feeling totally powerless, while the DM complained that we were taking a lot longer to get through this part than he expected. Eventually, he killed off a friendly NPC to punish the party for not doing the right thing. I flat out asked him what he intended for us to do that would have been the "right" choice in his mind. When he told me, it was something he had made sound completely impossible in the way he described the situation, something that didn't seem like it was even an option.
A buddy of mine was playing D&D for a college course (as he majored in Game Design), and he had a bad DM experience within this group project. The party was supposed to deliver a chest or something to someone, but the chest was not allowed to be opened (as requested by the quest giver.) Another character wanted to open it anyway, and he resisted them. The GM called for a contested strength check, and my friend rolled a nat 20. The DM ruled that his attempts to keep the chest closed were strong enough to break the chest, revealing the contents anyway. He nearly quit on the spot. He succeeded so well that he failed. What?
I had this with an intimidation check. Someone was trying to scam my ally out of a fortune (Thank you good insight roll), so my charater said: "Are you "SURE" that's the right price? You don't want to be UNFAIR to my comrade?" ...Intimdation check.. nat 20... gave em a heartattack and they died.. guards rushed in and such. You think I got arrested, but my comrade was ressurecting him with a revivify.. my barbarian on the other hand...may just had a power boost last session and was surprised they did that. It only got worst when our warlock decided to mess with a magical device in one of the rooms of this place... wich luckily didn't get anyone killed except himself soon. But this is ridiclous. Though then again I did a similiar thing when my party got too curious in opening every door at random without thinking.. especially the sorcerer.. so if they rolled strength checks too high on the metal doors that locked off rooms that were under construction.. they pushed it too hard and had to do an acrobatics check to not fall into a building pit. (wich only does a d4 damage at best) This was mostly to punish them from splitting the party and opening random doors wich the sorcerer kept doing...It was just a light warning saying: "Stop running off in dungeons and opening random doors to find loot 1st. Examine if the door ain't boobytrapped and such."
ive heard loads of horror stories like this usualy along the lines of wanting to knock someone out and rolling a nat 20 and the DM saying you hit so hard you killed them
I can see the logic I suppose, they're obviously thinking in terms of a scale. But it's dumb, that would be a potential of what happens on a nat 1. A nat 20 would be doing exactly as you planned. I'm sure he did not plan to break the chest. And if you were to say that the chest was surprisingly easier to open for example, then not only does that still not stand but why would you have had to roll strength in the first place? A nat 20 would be something like him testing to open, finding a sweet spot and popping it open perfectly.
@@SecureBirch410 this is why it's useful to at least try to play more varied rpgs not only DnD. Some of the more narrative forward ones like the Powered by the Apocalypse or Forged in the Dark plethora of games teach a GM to judge a roll by the intent, the goal you're trying to acomplish not necessary the method. The why is important for determining succes the how you do it is the fun and flavor. Now I don't allow a roll to happen if I don't understand what the player wants to gain from it. (Obviously the rule that says that unless there is some urgency, obstacle or difficulty you don't ask for a roll and just let the player do what they want is always in effect)
@@kotlolish I'll admit to doing something similar in Shadowrun, but that's a different system. Someone was trying to use non-lethal, electricity-based ammunition to disable people and things. Importantly, in shadowrun, damage rolls over, and machines don't take non-lethal (but can take electric damage). Everything was rolled in front of the table, so he started get the reputation of his non-lethal rounds always being lethal or causing explosions (though mechanically it was all luck). It was fun for the table, though, which is the goal.
One campaign I was in, I played a Conjuration Wizard. The character was successful enough as an Adventurer to acquire 3 Rare (and rather pricey) Spell Tomes: An Atlas of Endless Horizons A Planecaller's Codex And a (+2) Arcane Grimoire Things weren't going that bad at first, until we went to a Desert region for a quest. At which point, we kept drawing the attention of huge Sandworms. Turns out, they're drawn to magic, specifically my Spell Tomes. What's worse, if these Sandworms swallow you, all your equipment had to made a saving throw or be destroyed by stomach acid. Including your magical gear. Armor & Weapons got a bonus to the save because they were naturally more durable, but other stuff (like MY SPELL TOMES) did not. I got lucky, and avoided getting swallowed. My Tomes were safe. The 6,000 Gold's worth of shiny jewelry on our Rogue, however, did not survive. I chalked it up to a unique feature of a unique monster, and moved on. Then we got to the hidden valley home of a Sphinx, and had to fight a horde of mummified undead. A mix of warriors & casters, not too unreasonable. . . . until one invisible bastard, a rogue-type undead, tried to backstab me. Then he used a Bonus Action to hit me with a magical spray of Acid . . . which forced a saving throw for each of my Tomes, which would destroy them on a failure. . . . um, what? I used inspiration to avoid losing my Tomes. Then I used my Conjuration Wizard features to teleport away from this bastard, because screw that nonsense. . . . THEN THE SOMBITCH TELEPORTED AFTER ME. THEN CAME THE ACID, ROLL SAVES FOR THE TOMES. I got VERY lucky, rolled no failures. I teleported again back to my comrades, who ambushed it when it teleported after me, stopping it before it could spray Acid again. The DM was quite proud of this creature, saying he created a "custom feat" to allow for the acid spray. I asked him to stop trying to destroy our Magic Items, but he flatly refused, saying "That happened ALL THE TIME in the older editions, you just learned to live with it." I should just get better. Fine. Whatever. I had a plan. After talking to the Sphinx, we went to some mountains bordering the Desert. We had to locate a hive of large Beetles, and procure a larva. Seemed simple enough. . . . until we saw the Beetles. Picture a Beetle the size of a Rhinoceros. Give it roughly 90 - 100 HP. Put it in a group of about 3 or 4 other Beetles. Now give it 100 feet of movement per round. Definitely strong, but we made plans and laid a trap. We tilted the field to our advantage as best as we could, even setting up a Tiny Hut as a safe refuge if it all went sideways . . . which, of course, it did. Turns out, these Beetles can teleport themselves and one friendly creature as a bonus action (we couldn't find a range on that) also they could do that every single damn round. Also, get this: THEY SPEW ACID AS A BREATH WEAPON, ROLL A SAVE FOR YOUR GEAR & MAGIC ITEMS. Oh, and DID I MENTION WE WERE ONLY LEVEL 6?!?! I had refused to put myself (remember, Wizard) or my Tomes in jeopardy again. So I was hiding in the Tiny Hut while using summoned creatures from Tasha's to run out of the Hut and fight for me. Let me tell you something: trying to fight as a Wizard & support your allies from inside a Tiny Hut you can't leave is NOT EASY OR FUN. But that was the ONLY way keep my VERY EXPENSIVE Magic Items from being destroyed. I brought this up to the DM, told him that I DON'T WANT to be the guy who cowers in a Tiny Hut when initiative is rolled. I hate doing that, it's not fun for me or fair to my Party, can you PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP TRYING TO TAKE AWAY OR DESTROY OUR STUFF. He reiterated that older editions did this ALL THE TIME, that it would keep happening, and nothing I said or did was going to stop it. . . . and that's when I had enough.
Not only was this DM stupid. It was also spraying nonsense. I played 3.0 & 3.5 ED a ton, destroying magic items is nearly unheard of. There is a level 9 spell that can do that, and a couple of monsters that are able to grab or damage handheld items but anything worn was nearly untouchable, and every magic item and expecialy weapons, shields and armor are tough with elemental resistences and damage reduction. I can't advocate for even older editions but i doubt that was ever common beacause everyone understands that begin able to easely destroy valuable items feels terrible
This sounds like the DnD equivalent of a Genwunner, and just as fun to be around. I will forever be happy that Gary Gygax had the stroke of genius he did when making DnD, but I am equally glad he wasn't involved past 1st edition, because the man was an undeniable _sadist_ when it comes to treating the players. Having to dread any Undead because every fight *will* drain at least one level from the party is not fun. Having poisons and whatnot be deadly without saving throw isn't fun. 1st edition overall, looking back, is not fun.
I am strongly assuming you were playing 5e, since your DM kept referring to "older versions," but did it ever occour to him that you are not playing older versions where that supposedly "happens all the time," but are in fact playing 5e? I'd have a very hard time playing with a DM that is trying to destroy my shit.
@@ezekielbaskerville2710 At least it was simpler, _much_ simpler, and not the comparable clusterfuck that 5e is. It also doesn't _need_ to be played like OP is describing, even in the words of Giygax himself, and it sounds to me like the DM was bullshitting to begin with, and just using it as an excuse.
I was in a group (we met in person, pre-pandemic), where one of the people wanted to try their hand at being a DM. FANTASTIC! Always want to support people trying that. There was no communication about house rules, so all of the players assumed it was straight up rules from the book. The DM ignored the fact that people were rolling high on their stealth checks, and just made every encounter start with a surprise round (in favor of the NPCs/monsters). When someone made a protest about it (and was supported by other players, including myself), the DM just said it's house rules. Rebuttal was that there was no discussion or agreement of house rules, and that the DM cannot just MAKE UP rules on the fly as the game progressed. The DM was also cackling every time the NPCs/monsters landed an attack. The other people in the party saw how toxic they were being, and said that they will not play any game that that person is running ever again. This lead to everyone kind of going their own way, disbanding the group.
Im a dm who loves suprise rounds on my players, but the whole point of suprise round is the enemies were either: ready and able to attack or truly hidden and suprising. Every encounter is suprise round just blows lmao
I'm DMing for a weekly group at the moment and this story just made me realize how hard I've been working to try and keep this being my players reality. The highest passive perception in the group is a 12 with the lowest being a 9 who actively tries *not* to notice things. A basic encounter with some animals in the wilderness could be a surprise if I ever gave them enemies that had anything close to resembling the instincts of an ambush predator.
@@64bitrobot hey man, sometimes teaching them to be cautious is necessary. Do it when its only Kobolds or Wolves getting suprise rounds, not when the Death Knight/Lich wombo combo gets to rattle off 80 points of damage before initiative is even rolled
@@64bitrobot In the group I was in, there were some people doing the min/max build. Level 3 and getting a 25 on stealth. They begin to move and are instantly attacked. The DM never even rolled a perception check, it is just a surprise round. I was apart of this group of people for over 7 years at this point (people came and went over the years, and this person was in the group for over a year by this point when they started to DM). 2 full sessions where she was doing this and the players telling her this isn't how it works. 3rd session of it, I just grabbed my stuff and walked out. If the player(s) are not having fun, BECAUSE of the DMs actions, and the WHOLE GROUP has had conversations with the DM about the situation, and the DM doesn't change.. They don't care about making it fun for you, it's just about making it fun for THEMSELF! Passive perception is one thing, but when you are in a building, rolling high on stealth and perception checks, and still get ambushed. It isn't worth my time and effort any more (and it wasn't even my character trying to stealth through).
I like to play with what I call the "Close enough" rule. If I call for a check and your character is proficient in that skill but you miss the check by 1 or 2, I'll still give you the information, or action attempt but your character will struggle a bit, for information checks your character has that annoying feeling of it being right on the tip of your tongue, for you to recall the information a few minutes/hours later. For action checks that's a bit more situational, usually a stumble/fumble but still succeeding with a minor penalty on your next turn probably half speed for the turn as you recover. I also use the rule that if you asked to do a different check than the one I call for and you can explain how you would use that skill logically I allow it
The most egregious ruling I've ever experienced was when my DM in a westmarches server dropped us into a setting where we were supposed to save a city that we quickly found out was built on slavery, which made all of us uncomfortable, and when I tried to come up with a solution using 9th level spells to make an interplanar passageway to evacuate the city to minimize casualties and possibly free as many slaves as possible as they had been "promised freedom once they finished fortifying the walls," a pretty obvious lie. I talked to the DM for days between sessions going over my plan and trying to integrate my character's backstory into the plan, and he seemed agreeable, but the next session he told me the plan was impossible because "you're not in the same universe" and when I tried to change the plan to evacuate people to another location in the same world he still wouldn't allow it because "it would be too chaotic if you made an exit inside the city." He literally tried to railroad me into supporting slavery and probably also watching slaves die and pretended to support my plans to engage with his game only to turn it into an argument at the table....
Ah yes, it's the "I'm telling a story here and you all have to play the parts I envisioned for you, don't you dare actually try to do anything that isn't in the story!" type of GMing.
@whatthepeanuts it was a dying server for a number of reasons. We were kinda desperate for anyone willing to DM, so another player and top moderator actually got angry at ME for standing my ground and arguing with the DM, wasting our playtime. I got made into a top mod after that against his wishes and tried to fix the server, but nobody really wanted to put in the work to fix it or to consistently DM so I eventually gave up.
The moment when the wild magic one wasn't even over dramatic but exactly what the tweet described. Personally, not necessarily a horrible DM, horrible dice rolls and probably a newby DM who didn't realize how dangerous the wild magic table can be and just wanted something cool.
The Climbing kit one reminded me of a campaign years ago, when i was in college. One of my players wanted to torture info out of a cultist..and they only had a couple daggers of poison, and a climbing kit...So they hammered the pitons into the cultists hands, wrists, knees, ankles, and groin.
I once joined a friend who put together a DND campaign with his classmates from college. The issue was that the DM was apparently a real creep as he kept trying to put the female elf character in situations where she would get “assaulted”. When he tried to force the group to “lose” against an boss so he can narrate a plant-tentacle scene with the female elf, we stopped playing nice and kicked him out.
It's always mind-blowing to me that there are those who lack the basic empathy required to realize that maybe satisfying your innermost sexual desires in front of a group of people you barely know is not a good idea
WTF. Honestly, sometimes my player do stuff that WOULD end up on that, and I Always have a hard time narrating stuff like that. Sure, I keep It cool, joke maybe, gloss over It to go on, but it's really hard. Idk how someone can do that while staying serious. And my players are all males playing male characters; with a female, maybe with Who I don't have much intimacy, I probably wouldn't be able to keep It in game and stop. Only One time I was able to do this stuff, during a campaign started with some people from a H fb group. I dm for a group with 3 girls and 1 guy and since they were all ok with that and we all were comfortable with that stuff we could go Crazy. But with normal people? Help
This is exactly like my experience with it back in high school. All the girls at my school quit D&D after a few weeks because of how creepy the DM was. I was new to the school and was so excited to join a D&D group, but the leader was a HUGE creep. He made my character get sexually assaulted by kobolds and said that was "just how they were" and I obviously didn't know enough to argue back then. He had my character stripped naked several times and the incident that made me quit was when he had plants tear the clothes off my character and force them to be pressed naked against another member of the group while tied up in vines. It left me feeling so gross and awful. I refused to interact with D&D for years after that and I'm only just starting to get back into it again.
About the last one, I actually managed to make "for the total of" good. Our Artificer finds a eldrich stone with weird marks on it. He makes an Investigation check, and rolls a nat 20, for a total of 29. The DC was 30. He immediately takes a bunch of psychic damage, but he LEARNS that this thing has something inside and that it's possible to solve, he just needs more power. A few months later, the whole party desided to crack this thing. They used everything they had to buff the Artificer. And he actually managed to beat the DC! And now he has a Ring of Marid, that is supers scary, strong and extremely loyal to the artificer. And only to him. Party loved it, and it changed the whole campaign.
In my opinion, the justification for this is not that it was a nat 20, but that they came to 1 under the DC. It should have been the same if they got a 15 and had +14 somehow. Though I suppose it makes a difference in this case, as the roll is repeatable...
i actually love the little details and throwaway lines like "hey can i borrow a dice? thanks" idk. makes it feel more like a real situation. more immersive. :)
I have one: I was playing with friends in a game bar. It was supposed to be a short session. My character was a kenku druid with a pet dog, and they were practically inseparable. My teammates and I were at a high level because, again, we wanted to keep the session short. Our adventure took place in a haunted castle. At one point, we're in the heart of the castle and find ourselves trapped in a dark room. We're not alone; there are cultists in the form of spirits demanding a sacrifice. By the way, before all of this, I told my DM that I'd put a lot of work into my character, including the dog (to make sure they were in line with the game mechanics and the story, while taking a few liberties, like being a kenku). I gave them the sheet to check it out, and they approved. Back to the story. When the sacrifice was announced, the DM had a smirk on their face, and my teammates collectively killed my dog without even asking my input. I'll skip the gruesome details of what happened, but basically picture a little kenku wearing a cloak crying her eyes out, trying to reach for her friend as she bleeds from her claws. It killed the experience for me. This luckily wasn't my first session but it was one the first few.
To be fair with that last one, a Natural 20 does NOT guarantee success, even with modifiers, on ability and skill checks. Having said that, I completely sympathize because of my own experience with a similar situation. I was playing a 5th level tiefling evocation wizard who was a professor of history and religion (obviously, he had proficiency in those skills). We were walking through a dungeon and solving riddles dished out by a cute little robot dude we'd picked up. One riddle he gave us had something to do with Norse mythology, as sussed out by another player. I got excited and asked what I would know that would help us with this riddle. The DM asked me to roll a Religion check. Natural fucking 20 for a total of 26! My character should have just known the answer at that point, right? Nope. We were given another vague ass hint, and somebody else was able to solve it. Everyone agreed I got robbed. In short, If you're not prepared to reward those high rolls, especially if they clear the higher DC's in the game, just don't call for them. It's kind of a dick move.
To be fair not all tasks are meant with everyone in mind. The dude added a whopping... 1 point to his roll. There's nothing saying someone with a much better modifier can't make it a lower roll.
If the player was complaining it wasn't instantly solved sure, but the DM have them nothing. And like you said, if a player gets zilch from their highest possible roll you shouldn't have them roll. Rolls are for when things are possible but not certain. If you can't even learn anything from a 20+, that's not possible for you. And what the hell is a 26 not getting you somewhere? Past 25 you're in nearly impossible territory and your DM's riddles shouldn't be that hard.
Had this happen to me in CoS when fighting in Ravenloft. Got specifically targeted with a wisdom-draining attack, then even rolling a Nat20 on the wisdom save, lost it because of the dropped modifier. It’s not like it’s completely unfair I just didn’t know beforehand so it caught me off guard
I didn't leave the table over this, but my DM's most obnoxious ruling was when he decided a genie's lamp counted as an extradimensional space for the purposes of interacting with other extradimensional spaces like a Bag of Holding, but did not carry over the stipulation that piercing such a space would destroy it. My Barbarian was trying to free the genie from his lamp, and so stabbed the lamp with his magic pike. It poked a hole in the lamp, and nothing more. After seeing that, I thought "well, we wouldn't want to be seen with a genie's lamp on our person, so I'll put it in the Bag of Holding." Then, suddenly, I lost everything in the Bag, plus the pike, which I only got back from a lucky roll from the Wild Magic Sorcerer. To this day, I'm still bitter about that ruling.
@galahadwolf5818 if I hadn't stabbed a hole in the lamp first, I'd agree with you. But given that it didn't explode when pierced (which all extradimensional space items specifically mention), I had no reason to think it would react as such when placed inside a Bag of Holding.
Once played with a dm who gave xp individually depending on how much he thought you contributed during the session. It made dnd feel like a competition to out role-play your party members so you could get more xp 😅
I think this is fine as I did this in one of my campaigns as long as you put some thought into how to make it work fairly. You cant be arbitrary, there has to be defined rules the DM follows when deciding what to give XP out for and how much it earns. Knowing what group you can do this with is important too. That particular group was intelligent, well reasoned, understood the game, and enjoyed the RP more than the combat. At the end of the day, the DM just needs to think things through when introducing custom experiences and make sure it benefits the fun and/or depth of the game. This is also something that should be layed out in session 0 to make sure people understand how it works.
I used to run with individual xp and bonused the players out like this too to encourage more roleplay, but then I discovered that it didn't change how people played, it just rewarded my "favorites". When I realized this I bonused everyone out the next time and announced that we'd be be henceforth going to milestone xp. This isn't to say that individual xp is wrong, just that it ended up being wrong for my table.
Our dm did that too, but to be fair, one of our party members managed to 1v1 the final boss who was intended to be a 5v1, and the dm had to throw away 20+ pages of script because of it hahahaha.
Fellas, i cannot stress this enough, as an extrovert with no social anxiety, I DESPISE the stupid. freaking (idk if i should cuss in yt comments or not) rule where you have to do real charisma. My brother in Asmodeus. I rolled a 21. I have a 17 charisma and expertise in persuasion. I should not automatically fail because I have the irl charisma of a red-eyed tree frog sitting in slop. FUCK.
Its the same logic as being able to do something physically in the rules but then the dm going "mmmmm that's not realistic" because you can long jump 20ft and high jump 8ft
That goes so far against the spirit of roleplaying its baffling. It feels like some people took the fun idea of a player actually doing the thing for an advantage given by the DM and just made it a mandatory part of the game. Basically ruins Charisma entirely.
7:32 Just so everyone knows, the line in the book he's pointing to is regarding casting time for spells. Under Bonus Action, it says the following: "A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action."
@@DD-mp1kl-no- initially yes, because the player was using two actions. To quote Jeremy Crawford himself, fireball into action surge into fireball is a perfectly valid turn
@@DD-mp1kl No, read it one more time. The rule is specifically about "Bonus Action spells", not "two spells in a turn". You can cast as many leveled spells in one turn as you want to as long as none of them are Bonus Actions. You could theoretically be a Sorc/Wizard/Fighter and use an Action, a Counterspell, a Contingency spell, an Action Surge, and a Wild Magic Surge on all of them, and the wild Magic that gives you another action to cast 5+ leveled spells on your turn. But if you use one Bonus Action spell, any other spell on that turn can't be more than a cantrip.
For me, it was "if you do anything other than run directly away, disengage doesn't work." A character wanted to disengage and then run past two enemies, and the DM said he'd provoke attacks of opportunity. After disengaging. The text of which is "If you take the Disengage action, your movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks for the rest of the turn." I didn't play with them much longer.
I absolutely desire more of these so here's my contribution: I was in one of my first campaign's ever playing as a cleric because the party needed a healer. we were trekking through a desert mid day and out of nowhere our barbarian decides he's going to sleep, so I ask the barbarian why he's lying down when he still have several days trek to the nearest town and he just shrugs saying he wants to sleep now. everyone looks somewhat irritated by this, I decided I'd be playful and get the barbarian in gear by casting create water above their head. no harm done the barbarian is now wet in the desert and definitely awake. the barbarian looks at our dm and says "I attack the cleric" and proceeds to instantly kill me in one hit (I was a much lower level than the rest of the party). when i ask why would you do that? it was the middle of the day and we were trying to get moving i wasn't even attacking you, he simply looked at me and responding with "oh, I thought it was night so we could sleep" so i just packed up my things and left. Edit: for some added clarity, the barbarian was (is) one of my best friends, we did eventually laugh about this and do occasionally joke about the "water splash of 06" the dm in question was fairly inexperienced and did not know how to handle the situation without taking agency from the player so they just ok'ed it figuring the attack wouldn't be that bad and would get the barbarian to chill.
Ah yes. I love that scene in my favorite movie Lord Rings, where Aragon refuses the hobbits request for second breakfast and they immediately stabbed him! Reacting to harmless shenanigans with deadly violence. Truly a virtue of gamers.
I think the problem here doesn't rely on your DM at the time, it relies on your friend who (with everything you said) is a big big "problem player". If he had said "that is what my character would have done" then that would have been the complete asshole player package in one go hahaha
3:16 I mean to be fair in that situation the DM could have ruled that hammering a piton would be noisy enough to alert the guard, I’d probably remind the player before they took the action though.
Agreed. Also, Invisibility only causes Disadvantage to hit & perceive the target it's cast on, it's not like the target goes to a different plane of existence. I always remind my players that their characters know the limits of Invisibility partially for the characters' benefit but also because like using creatures that can turn invisible. I don't want my players to give up on a target just because they can't see it and it's always nice for those with high Perception to use their skill
Yeah, Invisibility is different from being Hidden. You can cast Invisibility and then Hide. Hammering pitons in the wall will not break invisibility, but it sure as hell will make you no longer hidden.
To be honest, the second one with the dragon seemed reasonable to me. It makes sense that the dragon was probably paying complete attention to the PCs, so as soon as they do any suspicious move, the dragon would immediately start blasting.
Same. Though I do see the mistake that happened in the on screen Tweet. The player noted they insighted the dragon about if it perceived them as a threat and the DM said "No." So when initiative was rolled it should've been a surprise round. Also the player losing their action, which in RAW I believe that's how it goes, though in my games I let them keep their actions after a ambush.
I think this was more the DM not just allowing a rule of cool to take place and the player being a little deflated about it. I see both sides. If it was me in the DMs shoes I would like to think that I would allow it but let the player know that this is a one off instance. You really got to take every advantage you can get against a Dragon that by the sounds of it was in their lair.
Start blasting, sure. But giving the Rogue no action implies the dragon and the Rogue attack at the same time. Its debatable if its a "suspicious move" when he was showing the Dragon what it does and in reality didn't have to actually target the dragon and coulda casted Magic Missile at a wall or something anyway
@@Quilly_DM Only time I've ever seen "the action that triggers combat counts as your action for that round" rules is in BG3 and realistically it was only added so they could implement the Assassin Rogue feature that gives them their action on the first round even if they initiated combat with an action since a lot of the tabletop Assassin abilities just don't make sense in a video game and are very reliant on table/DM fiat that the AI DM of BG3 can't account for. Base tabletop rules anything done before combat does not count as your actions for said combat. I think the issue was the DM just not properly explaining "hey your turn is technically after the dragon's, but I'll let you do an acrobatics check to get the action part of your turn in before it has time to act" The player assumed the action happened pre initiative roll, which would 100% still allow them to have their action on their turn, whereas the DM's intent was just letting them squeeze the action in outside of the normal turn order, but it still happened after initiative was rolled. Also, the "no" was not about the dragon seeing them as a threat. They rolled to see if the gifts were appeasing the dragon and the DM said no. The dragon was going to kill them despite the gifts, hence why they decided to try and act first. They wouldn't have attacked if the dragon had been appeased by the gifts.
Maybe I'm reading something into it too far, but the way that jacob played the dm, made it sound like he was using this encounter to take away the circlet. although if a magic item that allows you to cast a 2nd level magic missile is overpowered on a rogue, I'm not sure what to tell you.
lol for the skit with the action surge wizard, that reminds me of the first rule my college DMs told us. “Never give the DM ideas.” Part of that ruling was that if the DM makes a call and it’s to the players benefit, DONT speak up. The DM will ALWAYS take the counter call if it’s reasonable and arguable. This was to help us work together and try ti be more creative without constant rule squabbling. If someone did speak up tho we all paid the price haha 😂 “Snitches get stitches” one of the DMs said when someone accidentally challenged a player positive ruling
I feel like a lot of these come from a DM vs players mindset. DnD is about the storytelling, not a game to fight your players. I have had my fair share of DM mistakes, its easy to get attached to the way you think the story should go, but its not a story you are telling, its the story of your group, and you as a DM are there to make the story interesting. Challenge your players, but never have the mindset of "I'm going to kill them"
The only one that feels like it didn't come from that is the lv 3 fireball death. That was just a DM thinking it'd be cool and having the interaction go down in the worst way possible.
I disagree with this statement. Of course it'll vary by group, but if you don't have at least a little bit of a you vs. the players mindset, the players will never really feel in any real danger, especially if you're playing less lethal systems like 5e. Some groups are fine with that, and even prefer that, but my group gets SUPER bored if their combats aren't deadly challenges to be overcome.
@@SaveMeXenuThis, not to mention that I as a DM write my own stories with broad strokes so that while the details may change, the overarching story continues. I never try and railroad but a gentle nudge every now and again never hurt anyone.
@@SaveMeXenuThis but emphasize that the world is a dangerous place. There's fucking magic in the world (and if you're doing modern, guns). It's dangerous, you may die. They know this, or should, before they start playing.
I stopped DMing in part because I found myself having the “the players aren’t doing what I want” problem. It’s just a hard adjustment to make sometimes when movies and video games give you that individual power over the story. It’s more important to play dnd like a game than as a story. Still add in story elements and narrative stuff, but if you’re ever at a point where you feel like “the story isn’t going right”, you need to stop, take a step back, and remember that this is a game and everyone should be having fun equally.
I had a DM like this once and I'm pretty sure it's a carryover from old school DMing of the DM vs. the Players. Nowadays keeping your players having fun means just communicating the full information to them and then letting them decide: "Hammering the piton will make a lot of noise and break invisibility. Do you want to do that or do you want to stay hidden?"
I haven't really played much DnD, but I've played a couple campaigns. I feel like both styles could be fun. is this a personal preference kind of thing? is it common to just be one type or the other, or is the old-school way kind of frowned upon now? I feel like, _done right,_ both would be fun.
Nah. Never tell your players exactly what an action will do. You can hint that it'll be loud and may get you caught, but no DM should ever be expected to disclose all information.
@@SaveMeXenu They should if it's something that the characters IT would know and the players OT are just too dense. Roleplaying is about playing a role and that includes "knowing" information that your character would know, even if you as the player don't. A wizard who has known invisibility for a long time would know what type of action would undo invisibility. If you as the DM say "Nah I should never have to disclose information to you, you as the player didn't know a thing your character would know therefore the guards kill you" then you're just an awful DM.
@@EskChan19 but by that same logic when they do something brilliant dose the DM say "well, you probably wouldn't know that" and not let them succeed? It's not the DMs job to tell the PCs that if they stick their hand in a boiling vat of oil it might burn them . . . or if they jump off a 50-foot cliff it might result in a broken ankle. Common sense should trump all in Dungeons and Dragons. Hammering a piton close to an enemy is pretty stupid and should get a pretty stupid result, and then a laugh from the rest of the group for the blatant idiocy. Weather the DM says its broken invisibility, or the player is detected by the racket they are making, it seems inevitable and unlikely to be anything but a waste of time to argue.
@@rgthjdrtyjrtyjdrtyjr Following the game rules though, hammering a piton into a wall will not break invisbility. It will cause noise which may alert the guards to your position and in that case sure you have nobody to blame but yourself. BUT that's not what happened here.
I had a GM that would state that if you are blinded it is impossible for you to hit an enemy or do any action, also if you are invisible you cannot be hit by any attack or take any damage. His logic is that to hit something you need to know where it is and if you can't see something then you can't know where something is, so you can't interact with it. I explained how with that logic no one has ever won a game or marco polo, blind people cannot do anything ever period, and it is impossible to turn on the lights in a dark room. For invisibility I stated how we have multiple other forms of scenes, it still will be hard to hit something but if they are making a noise, being very smelly, literally grabbing you, you can know something is near. Luckily for me, another player had the spell invisibility and showed how the GM is dumb (room is full of deadly gas, but I can't be seen so no damage. I jump off the tower, oh I am invisible so the fall does not harm me).
-When DM railroad you and your decisions mean nothing. -When DM puts too much weight into NPCs that just feels like he's playing by himself for you to watch how cool he is.
I played a game like this once. We were fighting some kind of demon monster that was marching towards the town. The bad guys were getting close, so the dm just had the town guard captain show up and wipe put the bad guys in one turn.
@@allfenom Holy shit, this. I have two totally disparate experiences with NPC-heavy GMs, and they are imo some of the right-est and wrong-est ways to do them. Long post incoming. Bad: NPCs around whom the entire story revolves and who are 1) prohibitively powerful statistically (both in and out of combat), 2) have narrative control over the players' agency and 3) routinely deprive them of it. Agency is a huge problem with these GMs: by having their characters be the most powerful or important or knowledgeable people in the world AND gatekeeping things the players are allowed to know or do, players end up asking "why are we doing anything when these people exist?" and never getting an answer. GMs like this will rarely pull back the curtain and show what's going on behind the scenes or in their heads, because they want to maintain a sense of mystery and try to keep players invested in these NPCs (it doesn't work). It makes the party feel like they're not accomplishing anything and like they have to kowtow to these characters to get anything done -- "nowhere" is still a place you can be railroaded to, after all, and NPCs like this are the eternal train conductors. Good: A Suikoden-style 108 Stars Of Destiny kind of thing where we're seeking out, recruiting and compensating these NPCs. Highly specialized abilities that we tell the GM we want for the story and the GM provides -- a shopkeeper with suppliers that can get us anything, a priestess for funerals and marriages, an alchemist for mutagens who needs a place to do research, etc. They aren't always emotionally invested in our goals, but they also don't resist helping if there's a reward, and they're polite and let us do our thing while still putting up healthy boundaries. The important thing about these NPCs is they maintain player agency by being able to be affected by the players meaningfully no matter what. The GM also communicates the ways they can be affected and also pulls back the curtain and lets us know what the consequences of recruiting them are, except when it's hidden for plot reasons -- which the GM *also* pulls back the curtain to let us know. Ultimately, these two approaches to OC-heavy campaigns hinge on communication. If a GM is good at letting you know why NPCs act a certain way and NOT letting them get in the way of players' freedom of expression, that's enough to keep players hooked on having these NPCs around. I wish more GMs understood the Confucian approach to mysteries, where the best thing you can do to keep your players interested is to listen to what your players consider important and give them pieces of it, instead of forcing them to root through mud and talk to obstinate NPCs to learn things that the GM thinks are important. Thanks for reading.
@@DetectiveGrey It's a hard balance to strike for sure. I find communication is, as always, the key. In the campaign I'm running, my players are about to run up against several factions of NPCs that are way out of their league. I clearly told them though that this arc is about introducing the power scale of the world and setting the stakes and that, just as well, their aid will shift the balance in one way or another. They may not be able to match up, but who they influence will change the trajectory of the events.
@@LunamrathP Communication is important, but *agency* is far, far more important in my opinion. You will find that it won't matter so much to the players how outta league or outta scale these NPCs are as long as player agency is preserved. Have you played Mega Man X? In Mega Man X, in the beginning of the game, Zero is introduced as an incredibly powerful NPC who rescues you -- but what is cool about Zero is that he is there to show 1) how powerful the player will eventually be, and 2) he stays outta the player's way while the player tackles all the Mavericks. I believe the best thing a GM can do with powerful NPCs is to "show the players what they can be". The unfortunate experience I had with OCs involved a GM who tried to show us this, but the plot moved too slowly for us to really believe that we would ever reach that level of political or statistical power. It was very frustrating. So, I hope your players like your NPC factions, and that they become inspired by them. It sounds like you know what you're doing; knock it outta the park!
If you want a book full of Magic Shops and Items, check out The Seekers Guide to Enchanting Emporiums! ghostfiregaming.com/XPT3_ELEE_2023_10_030
Thanks Garry Gygax
Oh trust me I was sold before backing even started I absolutely loved Twisted Taverns its basically the book that made me want to DM.
Why are you so good at playing a dick head you're not a professional actor you shouldn't be this convincing, what did you do to people before you became a D&D TH-camr?
Invisibility requires the attack roll be against another living creature. That DM was stupid.
I’m sorry I’ve never used kickstart before but if I back them right now do I get access right away or am I just backing the idea?
The fact it was decided the player was found, because hitting a piton is an attack, and not, "They hear you hammering a piton in a wall" is a wild leap in logic
Either way outcome is the same so it doesn't matter
Doesn't matter, in terms of the character being discovered? Yes.
Doesn't matter, in terms of the player not thinking his DM was crazy and leaving the campaign? No.
Yeah seriously 😂
@@c4cool0929yeah it’s the difference between “oh shit that makes sense I fucked up” and “why did I even take invisibility in the first place if an action that doesn’t debilitate or damage is considered an attack?”
Like I'd have given a stealth roll to try to use the climbing kit, but not break invisibility, and even then the guards are going to be more confused
"No you cant eat the dice" left right after that. Truly disgusting
The nerve of some dms...
I HAD THAT HAPPEN, IT WAS SO ANNOYING
Facts left like three parties. Wasn’t my fault dm bought delicious looking amethyst dice
I’m the one who bought candy dice, lemme enjoy my shit
@@mitchellenderson7194 That's a thing?! Awesome!
I once had someone call a handshake an attack, and wanted me to roll for it. I relate to this.
I’ve felt this in real life
Personally do feel attacked when people try to shake my hand
I mean... were you threatening an Inflict Wounds handshake?
Because I've had a player do that...
Then roll for damage like a chad
That’s honestly hilarious. Would love to nat one on that roll personally
regarding the action surge one. the official ruling is that IT DOES allow you to cast another leveled spell. just fyi to players and GM/DM's out there
Yep , because there is no rule about not casting two leveled spells. You are just restricted to cantrips for your action if you casted a leveled spell with your bonus action. That's why Haste is specific about not being able to cast a second spell.
Like most things in 5e it's an easily confused rule thanks to the dumb bonus action spell rule. Hard to blame the GM for that one tbh
@@myname9130It's only easily confused if you don't know how to read.
In my opinion, it’s a fair rule. Imagine you have this build with what the RAW says. You could misty step yourself to a better position, hold person the enemy, and then lightning bolt them with your action surge knowing the enemy will fail. That definitely sounds unfair.
Actually you could not do that. Misty Step is a bonus action, which means you could only cast Cantrips on your turn. You could Hold Person, Action Surge, then Lightning Bolt. But Misty Step means you could not Hold Person OR Lightning Bolt on that turn.@@Jawesomness16
9:58 it really sucks for the person. But the mental image of a wizard, looking at a rat and then exploding is way too funny for me.
I feel you wouldn't be able to convince that party, or that town, or anyone ever, that the rat didn't strike that young wizard down with a fireball. It's a thing of legends now.
@@OptimalMayhem The XP-to-Level-3 Wizard was polymorphed into a rat!
Not even lol
Its more like:
"Do I hear a rat?"
"Where?" [Explosion]
If it is part of the setting, then I believe everyone in that world knows exactly what happened. A lot of people spontaneously explode. What, like once for every 400 things you do? You wouldn't go a week without seeing someone burst into flames and take a room of townsfolk with him.
It is an epic failure, and Nat 1 is supposed to indicate an epic failure.
The difference between a good DM and a bad DM is that a good DM owns up to bad calls. Every DM will eventually make a bad call. What you do after the call is what sets you apart from the truly bad DMs.
FACT
So true... death of the ego is what being a DM requires, you gotta be open to constructive criticism and not take it personally... because you can just change it and move on, and everyone can have fun, or you can be stubborn and confrontational and get butt hurt and freeze people out... and that second group is gonna fall apart every time.
the geese encounter
Hooooooly shit I was a bad DM the first few games I ran. Hell, I was a bad player too until I played more and learned how to encourage other people into the spotlight. I remember my first bad guy using an upcasted sleep spell to knock out the party, then one person told me they were an elf. So I had this all powerful wizard just pull a friggin blowgun out of his pocket and shoot them with drow poison.
BASED
I always think I'm a fairly trash DM. Then I watch a vid like this and sigh with relief, confident that I can still wear my "World's Okayest DM" shirt proudly.
I very much agree... it's like phew.
Yeah I stopped DMing before I did anything horrendous like this 😅
Honestly this video made me appreciate myself as a DM and I know I'm a pretty boring conservative DM.
Im proudly one of the "World's Okayest DM", because even being an OK GM is a lot of work.
I'm an experienced DM currently running a campaign and we're over 50 sessions in and I have to say, some of these seem perfectly fine to me and I don't get why it's such a big deal.
A lot of this really depends on the circumstances, and nowhere near enough of context was provided in those twitter messages.
If you were wondering if it was okay to make DC's that are above 20, then yes, it very much is, particularly at higher level when PCs in their respective strengths can get 30+ checks.
Also a nat20 doesn't mean instant success, I don't know why this is pushed into new players/media trends but nat 1 doesn't mean your rogue will kill themselves disarming a trap and nat 20 doesn't mean the tiny wizard will move a boulder.
Like sure, you'd expect in the majority of cases to at least get a hint from those coins with the nat 20 but who knows, perhaps it was the main important artifact of the quest line and nobody would be able to figure out what they were from a distance?
Context matters.
I feel some DMs forget you're telling a collective story with the players and not just trying to outwit them like an evil overlord. You're not competing
If it really were DM vs players, the rules would be different or after character creation, you can drop an adult dragon on them at start, blue lightning, sudden teleportation 5000ft in the air, dropped into an endless chasm and never seen again, jailed for life in maximum security etc.
I once had a DM with a god complex who wouldn't tell us of certain rules they were doing unless it came up IN THE MIDDLE OF COMBAT. We were doing a Gundam 5E campaign, and they did something no dm should ever do. They declared that certain weapons were FREE ACTIONS TO USE, because they were attatched to the mobile suit, something they didn't tell us until they did attacks with 5 different weapons in a single turn to kill one of our party members, and proceeded to go on a rant about themselves being god. I, and half the party, never went back for a session 2.
we were also a party of level 1 characters, they dropped the equivilent of a CR 12 enemy on us and called it our first boss when all we did was follow the dungeon they laid out in front of us.
Back in the 80s it was more common for the DM vs. Party playstyle, but of course we've moved on from that. I can only see it used by those on a power trip with a fragile ego.
@@pinkwolf2020 DND was never DM vs players. What are you talking about? I played 1st edition so I know what it's about.
@AkariEnderwolf oof that's rough! That's like 11 year old picking on the lil kids and he can't get in trouble cuz "they're just playing"
The one time I actually left a game because of a DM decision:
We were on Roll20 on a 2D map and fighting some creatures in a river. Some of us went into the water to fight, but the wizard stayed on the banks to shoot spells from afar. On the wizards turn he decided to cast one of his strongest spells, he only had one spell slot of that level. He used the digital tools to measure and saw that he was just withing range. He cast the spell and the DM chuckles: "You fire your spell, but you miss. You forgot to calculate that the enemy is a few feet under water and because of trigonometry your spell doesnt reach". The wizard had a 20 INT and had all his movement left. He would have been in range mathematically if he just moved like 10ft closer... The DM did not allow him to move retroactivly and made him just waste his turn and spell slot.
The part that made me quit that group was the aftermath. We the players argued with the DM that the 20 INT wizard would have known that he needs to move closer, its just hard to see on a 2D map. The DM started yelling and that was the point I decided to leave.
what the hell😭
Yeah, I think we need a little more retroactivity agency across like, any games. Especially if it makes sense either contextually, mathematically, or mechanically. Retroactivity in this case should've been allowed, end of story.
If the group had been playing with these digital tools until that point and it was only at this point the DM introduced 3D distance-measuring, that’s on them to tell everyone
Wow trigonometry? In Roll20? Where diagonal of a 5ft square is also 5ft? Where "sphere of 15ft radius" is a square with 30ft side?
Screw retroactive, the DM should have said _before_ they cast that they were out of range due to the height difference.
It feels like “a world where any nat 1 could cause wild magic” is a pretty central part of the story, and to me that merits a custom wild magic table, especially making consequences more funny than harmful at lower levels and potentially changing some effects as the party levels and are more able to tank things like random fireballs.
Wild Magic and it's consequences have been a disaster for society. But seriously Wild magic is the lowest common denominator 'Random=Funny' source of humour for basic 5e players.
Or just restrict it to actions. It's real dumb that looking around can trigger a wild magic surge.
@@Aerowind While I agree, I did start chuckling when hearing that story. Just because it's so damn stupid. I agree that it should be restricted to actions though.
That's Warhammer magic for ya.
or if you're gonna do a homebrew mechanic like that, do homebrew roleplay for it? Tell the wizard to make an arcana check 'as they feel a surge of fire welling up in their chest' persay so they have a chance to redirect it and avoid PK by rat at level 3?
The climbing kit one is so bizarre because he could have just said "The guards start to stare for a few seconds as a loud hammering noise is emitted and pitons magically appear from nowhere in their wall before moving closer to investigate" but instead, the hill he chose to die on was "item interaction = attack roll"
"Wait, I did not realize my character would be hammering in pitons, of course he would not do that. I'll think of something else."
"Too late, you already rolled."
"I did not roll."
"I made it an automatic failure, because the guards heard you, before you where done."
@@schwarzerritter5724 I'd be furious.
i mean too be fair, why the hell would you be using pitons in that situation? you'd be using the rope pretty much on it's own and doing checks, pitons is just wasting time in that situation.
@@tazkol what are you doing with the rope by itself?
@@super_genius the window is literally 3 feet above his head, why can't he jump?
Had a DM describe a wall that needed climbing. So I told him I threw my grappling hook on the wall - success. Started climbing up - NOPE, the DM said I never told him that my rope was tied to the hook, so I was screwed. I'm like, "why the hell would anyone throw a grappling hook without rope attached? It's even listed in my inventory as 'hook & rope', one line." DM didn't care, "next time be more specific. You called it, it's done. Next." He unironically couldn't figure out why I picked up my character sheet and walked out or refused to ever come back to his game.
L dm, I like Saying "ah well you weren specific" as a joke sometimes, but like actually punishing a player for that stuff is idiotic.
Throwing a grappling hook. Strength check. Grappling the wall with the grappling hook Dex.
I hate that shit so much. Classic THAT DM bs.
You know that reaction gif of (I think) Mal from Firefly? Where he's speechless and making the hand gesture. I actually just did that reading this. Like yes, there are times when players need to be specific BUT COME TF ON.
Hahaha it's such a funny concept that in this DMs world adventurers just walk around doing the most stupid stiff because he doesn't believe in the concept of common sense.
Also how far do you take that? "I walk over and inspect the chest" "you trip because you didn't specify how exactly you move your body to get over there" "also you didn't specify that you keep breathing so your character suffocates"
"Uuhm, he casts a spell, and both of you are chained on a wall, and you can't move, and he beats both of you until you pass out" did it for me
That's somebody's kink, but if it's not yours, run. Run far away.
actually just in our previous session of a pretty long running campaign, an enemy casted Fear on like 4 of us and we had a bloody tough time breaking it but luckily our DM just made the enemies kinda disengage cus it woulda bene a pretty one sided beatdown otherwise. Luckily our monk I think? managed to paralyze 2 of them so we still got prisoners
@@461weavile Or even if you like that sort of thing you may still not want it in this context.
@@SimonClarkstone Consent is important.
@@ember_falls "luckily our DM just made the enemies kinda disengage"
As a forever DM I hate this. What is the point of combat if there is no risk? Like... you know he wont let you die so why even bother?
I woulda just had the fear break on the next damage the monsters did to you.
Every time I watch these skits, I'm sort of looking for things that I might be unintentionally doing so that I don't do them anymore. And every single time, I'm shocked at how batshit insane some people's DMs and/or players are.
Same
Same. Came here looking for mistakes made, got out with a participation award.
I do the same thing and I just think wow what are these games and why are the DMs like this?
Bro same
Exactly the same for me. But also, a lot of the time I watch some of these videos I see things that are shown as terrible but COULD be done well if used appropriately.
Like the Wild Magic thing could be really cool as a temporary storyline effect at a high level (15+) for like.. one or two sessions max.
You deal 7 damage to the wall. It’s dead. You killed the wall.
Walking outside a building and going “OH MY GOD HE’S DEAD”
Mimic wall!
@@MeriliremOoh, don't mind me, just making a castle out of mimic walls.
@@Jordan-kq3qw Great concept for a mimic colony
THAT WALL HAD THREE FENCES AT HOME THEY WERE TAKING CARE OF!!!
Dms who never want you to roll for things they know you might roll well in because they want to 'win' against their players is the big one for me.
I had a bard whose entire build was Charisma. He was terrible at everything else (I think animal handling was -4 or something crazy), because every option or subclass I could go with to benefit Charisma, I took. He hated attacking, always wanted to talk his way out of conflict. He was a sweetheart and never had an unkind word for anyone. We encountered a merchant once and I rolled high on CHA, and she gave me a deal on an item that I later used pretty cleverly to get us out of a jam. DM decided she didn't like that.
DM started to have every new NPC hate the bard before he'd ever spoken (hated as in insult or verbally degrade him immediately, even attack him, even beat him up until knocked out despite him not fighting back). This was regardless of the city, circumstances of their meeting, etc. and it only applied to my bard, no one else in the party. After a while of this going on I started to ask if I could roll Charisma checks to see how new NPCs would perceive the bard. She said I don't get to roll for stuff like that and I couldn't roll high enough to make a difference anyway. I said well ok lemme roll just for funsies to see what it would have been. It was 30. She yelled at me and told me the only time I could roll dice ever (even for secret stuff or independent narrative stuff like to see how my character felt about something) was if she gave me permission, even if the roll wasn't counted or used for anything. She continued to never let me roll CHA in social encounters literally ever. This developed into basically constant in-game bullying (even forced me to RP familial abuse and belittled and guilted me when I asked to stop, because apparently this bard's family he didn't know existed also hate his guts enough to try to literally kill him). Needless to say, I don't talk to that DM anymore lol
How did you even put up with that dm for as long as you did?
bro.... I feel like you were a victim with a story that crazy
A lot of the stories I see on here are fairly trivial, but I accept that one in particular as a viable reason to quit the table and never return.
"you can do 1 thing" dm: "no" now you are useless
Sounds like she wasn't getting any, which makes sense, as she probably took up half the room
"Was your expectation that we come in here and die." That sums up quite a few DMs
In my defense: It's CoS. You're level 1 fighting animated armor and then a specter.
One time my party was infiltrating an arakroka nest and I tried to stealth takedown a guard so my character stabbed the guard in the neck and the dm said the guard turned around and said hey who goes there
No, my assumption is that you came here to take risks in which you might die.
God, the idea of "I failed so hard at looking for a rat that the energy of the universe recoiled against me and made me explode" is absolutely hilarious in the worst possible way
Edit: Incredibly important that I share my friend's read of the event. "Imagine this from the party's perspective. The wizard squints really hard, and then explodes" fdha;slkfdkha;lsdk;hl
we call that a psyker moment.
The universe decided that someone this bad at perception shouldn't be allowed to procreate.
Honestly the idea on wild magic every time you roll a 1 because of the state of the world/weave/etc is a great idea....provided it has limitations on what it can do and what can trigger it. The problem there was an awesome idea ruined by crap execution.
@@Ralathar44 Yeah, this would make LOADS of sense if the weave was so torn that all SPELLS roll a wild magic surge, but as it stands, that kinda sucks.
@@Varesmyr that's why you should wear glasses
If these stories were consolidated into one recurring DM character, "Powergaming Wizard" vs "Rule-Misinterpreting DM" could be a fun formula.
He already has the Wizard. Maybe Colton or Logan could cameo as the DM. I feel like Logan especially would be fun because he's got a sense of humour that fits it and could play the character almost maliciously, but Colton has a more subtle style of humour where he can just say the most ridiculous of things without any change of tone or expression and that could work too.
Rogue: Rolls a Nat 20 perception
DM: just a bunch of coins.
Wizard: ok... DISPELL MAGIC!
The "Yeah I know" at 4:49 is so perfect. Very much conveys that the DM was fed up with the players getting saved by it
The first example is why good communication skills are so vital to TTRPGs. I think if the GM had said "Hammering pitons into the wall will be loud, and I'll have to make perception checks for the guards", I don't think there'd be any trouble - unless the player is super unreasonable. But not saying anything and then breaking the player's invisibility is bad DMing.
shouldn't even need perception checks. It would be reasonable they just hear someone hammering pitons into a wall if their passive perception is more than -3. It won't break invisibility, but invisibility is just invisibility, it's not a free pass to be able to do anything you feel like that doesn't technically break it.
@@Person01234
*Guards looking around an seeing nobody* - "Must have been the wind."
There's a very good chance this is actually what happened but the player was salty and spun it in their favor.
@@HumblerThanYou1 Yeah sure, because it's more likely they made up some random ruling about invisibility rather than defend their position
It should be a passive perception from the guards vs.... Sleight of hand from you? Or what? Hmmm...
Right off the bat, hammering in a piton obviously isn't an attack however it would also clearly make a lot of noise and kind of make your invisibility irrelevant
That's what I thinking. Probably what they were going for.
Silent Pitons from Pathfinder, babeeeeeeeey!
@@NinePillar speaking of pathfinder, I'm sure that was the thought process of that +2 to the attack roll. Sounded like the DM was doing circumstance bonus's, but added some weird rules for negative values.
Might hit your thumb, too 😅
They would hear the tinks but not necessarily know what it is. And they most certainly wouldn’t be able to target you.
Never really a ruling making me leave but when we had a talk to our dm to fix some issues and they very casually say ""I never saw your characters as a part of my world" and that was a clear indicator for me I didnt want to stay. There were also tons of other issues but that was the eye opener to a lot of it.
"sick world dude, write a book instead of wasting our time"
Gross
No, this one is too sad. I refuse to acknowledge that I read your comment.
@@461weavileAt least not as worst as "it's a good thing, I have a better player to replace you."
@@GeneralKornwallis oh we wish we did that in retaliation, that realisation kinda came later when we discussed what was wrong or felt wrong. DM got told several times by other sources they asked for advise "dude, youre to focused on the story and the setting and not letting the players in at all" but to no avail.
Tbf the fireball rat one seems like a pre-established campaign gimmick with a comically unlucky result instead of an incompetent dm. Funny as hell though
Ya not a gimmick I think would be fun but it sounded as a rule they knew from the start and just got upset about their bad luck.
@@jamaalgaylord5029I mean the fact they even had to roll just for stating that they ASSUME there is a rat is weird. They didn’t say that they were looking for it, only that they made an assumption. Sure they probably would have looked for it anyway but it’s still kinda weird.
@@algotkristoffersson15 they litterly said can I look for it.
Somewhere in the rules it says "It's your game you can do what you want." Some GMs abuse that to the hilt.
GM's who do that are missing the point of the job. You should enjoy being the GM, but you have a responsibility to keep the players entertained, and if you can't, either work it out with them or step down. With great power comes great responsibility. Uncle Ben strikes again.
When gm is playing “against” players instead of “with” players, they are doing it wrong
There’s also GMs who follow the rules to a fault. I’d like to see them in a game together. Lawful Neutral vs Chaotic Selfish
So sad but true, D&D and just general TTRPG's usually allow for a wide range of messing with rules to fit how you want to run the game, but using that as reason to break or change base game rules that affect multiple things is just an abuse of that power and you might as well as just play a different game all together
None of these GMs seemed to be wrong. At all.
"My feet are attacking the ground," is my new favorite way to describe jogging. 😂
Roll for damage. A 1? Roll d100. A 7? Congratulations, you have successfully launched a fireball at yourself, and now you are dead.
"ooooh... well since you are not a Monk with furry of blows or a Fighter with action surge you only get one attack and there for one step. BUT, if you are wearing two shoes you could take a step with your bonus action!"
@user-qz6nk1le5n this is how wingless flight is invented.
Now back to the age old question:
Do you have advantage to walk, because the ground is prone?
One of my friends was playing an aarakocra. A floating island that he was on was crashing down to the earth. He gets to the edge of the island and jumps off to fly to safety. The DM says "Your wings don't work." My friend was flustered but still asked if he could make an acrobatics check to avoid fall damage. He rolled high and had 5 HP remaining and the island crashed down away from him. The DM then says "a piece of rubble comes out of the sky and smashes into you doing 35 damage."
Wow, I've seen examples of GM arbitrariness before, but this takes the cake. That GM seemed to think that gamemastering is about randomly making things up to kill characters.
I sense he wasn't a fan of flying races
What the hell does "your wings dont work" even mean? wtf... ive heard of DMs that actually ban aarakocras from their games because they think their flying speed makes them too OP, but at least they discuss that with the group or make it clear on session zero.
@@Nero-ii2sb They were a kenku the entire time
Flying races aren’t even OP
Just make more enemies with ranged attacks that can drop speed to 0, boom, risk of fall damage, balance restored
My biggest red flag was when a dm was ruling that using cure wounds on a down person would provoke an attack from an owl bear. The justification was that since I have my hand within the owlbears attack when I heal, if I move my hand away I would be attacked if I tried to pull my hand back. BTW this was session 1 and we start at lvl 1, after we were already wounded from saving a child and unable to take a short rest because, "you just started your adventure and we are on a time crunch." After 2 more sessions, it was clear the dm just wanted to kill to TPK, and he did get what he wanted.
The idea of spells provoking attacks of opportunity isn't even that insane. But that's not how 5e is designed. If you change that you change the fundamentals of the game.
If the DM wanted spells to provoke attacks of opportunity then they should be playing Pathfinder or D&D 3.5 (I'm fairly certain they both have those rules).
@@legendsofcelestite.officia5398 we're all very impressed by your old RPG. I'm sure back in your day you had to walk uphill both ways and never received participation trophies. There's nothing wrong with enjoying "tougher" TTRPGs or games where you feel more powerful.
But everyone should be clear on what they're playing. Having spells trigger opportunity attacks breaks 5e, just as short or long rests would break 2e. If you're playing soccer and throw yourself at an opponent and drag them to the ground, you're not a tougher or better player. You're an idiot who doesn't realise they should be playing rugby.
@@8Rincewind iirc Pathfinder's rules state that only ranged attacks (spells or weapons) provoke attacks of opportunity, but its been so long since i ran that system.
@@lylaallen2123 it's also been a while since I played it. I do remember being surprised by how many things could provoke attacks of opportunity when started playing Pathfinder 1e.
Regardless I know there are systems that have similar mechanics. I've been playing World's Without Number for a while (a system that emulates some of the crunch and difficulty of old D&D). In WWN a big part of our strategy is having a load of minions, so the Spellcaster is unlikely to be targeted for attacks. This is because in WWN if a Spellcaster is damaged, they cannot cast a spell on that turn.
@@lylaallen2123 manipulate actions do too. So there's still a chance to trigger AOO even without attacking, provided the spell you try to use has that trait.
One of my friends wanted to try DMing, so he designed a one shot where we were all level 1 and explored a dungeon. The dungeon offered no rest points, with tons of encounters that theoretically a level 1 group should be able to deal with, but definitely not in a row. My character died to a minotaur in an act of noble sacrifice cause I was already so low I figured I wouldn’t make it out alive and would try to protect the other members, and they all died in the next room fighting a wivern. After the one shot my friend asked us what we could do better, but refused to hear any of our feedback about how difficult the encounters were, saying that “he already fudged so many rolls and if he hadn’t we would’ve died way earlier, we’re just bad at the game”.
As a bonus, he also loved to leave clues that were impossibly cryptic (or even purposefully misleading) that were vital to continue and would lead to catastrophe if not correctly dealt with. It was extremely unbalanced, and he would keep blaming it on our lack of skills and intelligence. I’ve stopped talking to him.
oh gOd that's so deeply uncool! good for you for not talking to that guy anymore; if someone's that bad at taking criticism when it comes to something you're doing for fun, i can't imagine they'd take it well when they actually fuck up as a person.
Sounds like a "Just write a book" DM to me, if he's that user unfriendly
He is probably like: challenge rating is just a number
Good dms fudge rules all the time, if you can’t learn to say “fuck it, that’s awesome, that’s happening” you should *definitely* just go write a book
Did we have the same DM? My guys name was Chris.... xD xD xD
in one of the first dnd campaigns I played in, the DM insisted you can't move between attacks during action and bonus action, no matter how much we quoted the rules. Piled a bunch (like 30) of 3hp rats on us in a crammed space that died from one attack and then we couldn't make the other with the bonus because we'd have to move. we couldn't even move to give somebody else space. we were level 3 with only 1 caster and quickly ran out of aoe spells, and the rats kept coming. The battle took hours and was incredibly boring and repetitive. Finally, the boss who was left on 1hp, ran into a cavern and we weren't allowed to follow without any explanations. Just 'no, you can't go in there'. After the sessin, giving feedback, we were all together trying to explain the problem and the DM just ragequit.
I think it was in 1st or 3rd edition, that it was an actual rule. That you had to action-bonus action-move or move-action-bonus action. I might be wrong on the specifics, but it was something like that, if not just something similar.
@@Dumledaj this DM was obviously too young to have played at that time :) and anyway, it was a different game with different mechanics. Idk, maybe it made sense.
@@Dumledaj In 3.5e there were no bonus actions only free actions/swift actions but what you say is true. In order to attack move and attack again you'd need the spring attack feat.
Sounds like a case of the rules being used as is when you were used to home rules. I ran into this alot in Magic the Gathering.
@@lanceknightmare This isn't at all rules-as-written in 5e.
Two rules:
1. Shared storytelling
2. root for the players
I've never found players anywhere on the internet who want to take part in telling a story or contributing to world building, even when asked. I once asked questions like: “This inn is famous/especially because of X” or “No one goes to this ruin anymore because of X.” Even then, they don't want to participate. Sure, there are people who write a backstory, but not everyone does that and those who do it expect the game master to think of the birthplace and work out the NPCs from the backstory. And some people ask me, as the game master, how they should play their character: "What should my character do now? Who should we talk to? What would my character think about this?".
So what I want to say in short: I can't imagine that there are players who will take part in the telling of a story, because my experience tells me that people would rather sit down and think: "Now let me have fun or I'm looking for a new group"
@@TheLevantin Make story decisions with your players before your session. Talk to your players about where they are headed or where they are currently (without spoiling). Or better yet, choose something from one of your player's character's backstory and make that a focal point. Bring their nemesis into the story, bring them to the location where something tragic happened in their past. It's not necessarily about your players "telling the story," as much as it is building upon what you know they've already established for their character. It gives player buy-in, prevents railroading, and promotes RP.
@TheLevantin I think it really comes down to clear communication prior to starting a campaign. You've got to make sure you and your players understand and agree upon the tone of the game you're about to play. There's nothing wrong with a dungeon crawling party of murder hobos, IF that's what everyone comes to the table wanting to play. There's also nothing wrong with a party that's narrative-focused and wants character development and in-depth world building as long as all of the players (and the DM) are on board for that. The biggest problems in my games have occurred when there's a mismatch in expectations between the DM and players. The easiest solution is to talk openly and honestly about the type of game you want to play before the campaign starts. It's also okay to set some ground rules regarding narrative-building as the DM such as "Hey, I'm glad you guys want a story-focused game, but know that I'm going to expect you to take an active role in building that narrative, and I'm not going to do your backstories etc for you"
As for players who ask "what should my character do next", that sounds like players who might be inexperienced and just genuinely don't know what they can do? I would respond with options. So rather than "you should...", you could say "well, you're in a new city: you could try to find a tavern to stay at, or go shopping, or follow up on X's grandmother who that shady NPC told you about...etc" and always conclude it with "but actually, you can do whatever you feel like! Just tell me what you *want* to do and I'll decide whether you need to roll for it or not. Mind you, if you're getting these questions from experienced players, that's a whole other kettle of fish and I wouldn't be putting up with that.@@TheLevantin
Maybe root for the players is a rule for you, but I play with a group of highly competitive power gamers so unless I actively TRY to wipe the party, everything is always incredibly non-challenging for them and we all get bored.
Yes, GMs want the party to survive encounters because the story can't continue without them, but a couple player deaths should be expected unless your players are fine just stomping everything.
@@TheLevantin Look up something called the Same Page Survey. It can save you a lot of headache.
Here's an example of my own variation of one of the prompts:
The playersʼ characters are meant to…
a) …follow the DMʼs lead to fit the story. The DM knows best.
b) …pursue the main goal of the DM's story in a way that fits with their background, alignment, and pre-existing goals and motivations.
b) …follow their own pre-existing goals and motivations; there is no pre-established story or overarching goal, or if there is then it's just there for setting and flavor.
c) …not know or care what the setting is or what our backstories are. This is fantasy Call of Duty and we're just here to slay stuff and snag loot.
The wild magic one reminded me of a DM I used to play Pathfinder with. She LOVED "lolsorandom" bullcrap and would make stuff up just to mess with us. Our kobold ranger went down during a boss fight next to our sorcerer, who was then blinded. When he attempted to pull out his touch-range wand of healing, she didn't just force him to roll a touch attack to find the ranger, she forced him to roll a d8 to even make sure he could find the right square, as if his entire sense of direction was lost. He missed the square, Kobold died as a result.
Later on, we missed a clue that would lead us to investigate a nobleman who was doing a demon summoning, and she didn't think of how to put said information in our way again. So she just decided our entire house was poisoned. The doors? Poisoned. The chairs, poisoned. My wizard's books, poisoned. And not even simple poison, Black Lotus Extract. This stuff cost 4500 gp per dose, DC 20 Con save, did 1d6 Con damage each round. We only survived by spamming Cure Poison and bolting. We bought a bag of flour to detect invisible creatures at random from a street stall and a random inn room to retreat into to plan. Inn room was poisoned. The flour was poisoned. I don't know what her plan here was, it took an OOC screaming match with her to know what to do so we could get back on track.
And then, 1-2 sessions before the final boss, we were sailing to a lost ruin. Heard a noise in the hold. Went down, three Red Jesters in boxes pop out. No explanation as to why they were there or who they were working for. These are undead which can inflict laughter with a hit of their mace, scare you with a laugh, and were just tough customers in general. They also had the single most bullshit ability ever - they THROW THE DECK OF MANY THINGS AT YOU! You get hit with a thrown card, it's like you drew it. And that was all she'd have the jesters do. One of us got imprisoned just sessions before the end of the campaign, and she had to move the prison to be in our path in order to let us rescue him, because she didn't think about what THROWING THE DECK OF MANY THINGS AT US would do. We never finished that campaign, we dropped her after that.
Damn. I feel sorry for you and ur fellow players
Sorry that happened to you, sounds bs. But, if that ‘throwing cards from the deck of many things at you’ was implemented properly?? That’s actually such a cool idea!! I’m still pretty new to dnd so I’m not sure how well it would work but it sounds like it’d be really cool as long as you had an equal chance to get the shitty cards as well as the good ones! Glad you got out of there though, I’m only on my first campaign, and it’s so much fun lol
@@ravenclawwolf8809 It's horrifying, that's how it works. The Deck of Many Things can derail the campaign entirely unless the GM does some serious swerving to fix it, as it did ours when it imprisoned one of our heaviest hitters before the final dungeon. it can grant free wishes, it costs or gives levels, the thing has the chance to utterly screw the world up. And yes, the jesters had every card at their disposal. Search "D20PFSRD Red Jester" and you can find the stat block easily on the Pathfinder SRD.
The Deck could work if you take out or nerf the worst ones (of course balancing by doing the same to the good ones).
Too bad she didn’t seem to care about giving you and the others an enjoyable experience. Glad to hear you dropped her.
I've been playing tabletop RPG's for a long time and off the top of my head one of the wildest rulings that I've ever been involved in was a DM who had a standing table rule that player characters never wore armor for the course of the adventuring day. His standing rule was that if more than four or five minutes passed and you weren't involved in combat, or otherwise "on guard," your character became so hot and uncomfortable in their armor that they took it off. No matter what type it was.
Even after I pointed out to him that, in the D&D 3.5E ruleset, full plate armor required several minutes to don and remove, and even longer if you didn't have help. Didn't matter, he said, his rule stands.
According to one of the other players who was friends with the guy outside the game, the source of this houserule stemmed from one time several years ago that the DM wore a homemade chainmail shirt made out of soda can tabs to a Renaissance Faire and it was very itchy and hot. Never mind that we could show him videos of people doing gymnastics wearing full plate. He had "firsthand experience," and we were wrong.
Naturally this only applied to us, the players. City guards and bandits at strongholds were apparently immune to this condition. I finally got so frustrated at the inconsistency that I had my character take a level in Binder, which is a 3.5E class that allows you to seek out otherworldy beings called vestiges and "bind" them to your soul in order to gain various minor supernatural abilties, in exchange for certain aspects of that vestige influencing your behavior (which you can roll to resist or just allow to happen). One of these vestiges was called Savnok, and his penalty for fully influencing you was that your character will never, ever willingly remove any item that increases your armor class (including armor, shields, and other magic items) for as long as you are bound to him. The look of utter disbelief and confusion on the DM's face when I pointed to this rule was glorious.
After that campaign ended, I opted not to play in his next one but kept in touch with one of the players, who told me that he banned the Binder class in his next game because it was "overpowered." 😂
As someone who has worn a thick leather chestplate for an entire weekend at LARP numerous times, I can say with some certainty that your DM was full of it. There were plenty of people there who kept their chain mail and heavier armor on at all hours they weren't asleep. No adventurer would take off all of their armor just because they didn't expect to immediately leap into combat in the next 30 seconds. You'd make damn sure things are safe and calm before you took your armor off, so you're not caught unprotected when the goblin assassins start stalking the camp.
I would have grabbed the "Endurance" feat and argued that if I find my armor comfortable enough to sleep in without incurring any negative effects then I can wear it all day without a need to remove it.
Or just go to an armorer next time I was in town and request a layer of padding for comfort.
@@jabilussAnother player had tried that argument before I joined, and the DM's response was the feat only specifies "sleeping" in armor that was the only place it applied.
The DM's reasoning apparently was that sleeping is different because you are at rest and what makes you uncomfortable is the act of being up and moving around in it.
A dip in Binder in 3.5E wasn't uncommon and could benefit a lot of character builds in different ways. It was the one surefire way I could find of specifically defeating his bonkers houserule.
@@JohnSmith-vk9ds Could also have the character be paranoid by the argument given in this video
How in the world did he not consider the inconsistency of his guards being able to march all day in this “uncomfortable” equipment, yet you can’t last more than 5 minutes. If he’s not going to be consistent, then why do this at all?
I also can’t believe he didn’t think, for a second, that a nerd who wore shitty homemade armor ONCE, might not be as accustomed to adventuring as an actual knight. Why would he assume his one experience overrides thousands of years of military history?
I like the way the DMG handles critical skill checks. It doesn't say 1s auto fail or 20s auto succeed. It says "take into account exceptional rolls." In the case of the rogue, since I know they're a rogue and probably arent adept at detecting magical traps, I would have told them something along the lines of "you notice the gold shimmers in an unusual way in the light. You know how gold shimmers, you love gold, and that gold aint right."
I would take it a different way. They failed the perception check, so they don’t notice anything about the gold, but a large empty room with nothing in it but a bag of gold on a pedestal? You don’t know if it’s a trap, an altar, or a puzzle, but this bag of coins is special. You just can’t see anything special about them
Nat 20s are always relative. Consider the following encounter:
Player: I demand the King relinquish his throne to me and give him his Kingdom.
DM: okay, roll.
Player: Nat 20
DM: the king laughs and says 'good joke, I should make you my jester'
Player: but but but Nat 20!!
DM: yes, the Nat 20 is why he is laughing it off instead of executing you on the spot.
"...they're a rogue and probably not adept at detecting magical traps..." I know this isn't an unreasonable take by any means, but I can't help but think that holding certain classes to a more realistic standard really contributes to the martial-caster disparity. For example, a locksmith in a world where magic is common would recognize and have tools to deal with magical locks, no?
Love that, that's so smart!!!
I also like to remind storytellers of this:
Skill have multiple levers of success.
Take, for example, the good old Knowledge Checks in editions gone by... as they literally explain this phenomenon. Just because the character can not make the insane checks on some of them, I have seen DC:40's in low level campaigns before, doesn't mean they can't get... something... back from them. That lowly result of 10 can give the character some insight into the situation, even if it is nothing more then 'man, that statue has to be twenty thousand years old or something... that had to be of someone important and worth documenting.'
Against popular Opinion, I was playing a Whip wielding Rogue. I used my Crossbow primarily, waiting for an opportunity to use the Whip when my damage contribution would matter least. When the moment finally arrived, it was persuaded by my party. Collectively, they were waiting for me to use the Whip also. I was reluctant at that particular moment, but I did it. I rolled a Nat 20 to hit. DM said roll the Damage, and after I did, he began to explain how I missed the target. Instead, the Whip snap back, and I hit myself. Critical. I was already hurt, and thus, I actually killed myself with that hit. I left shortly after. I never got over it. DM said nobody can be that proficient with a whip, and that was the price I paid for using a Whip instead of a Dagger at his table. /shrugs
What a shit DM, a lot of trash dms in the stories of this video, but this one makes me upset as a DM myself.
Good that you leave, sounds like a DM that only wants players to fullfill a powerfantasy or something. Maybe not but It feels like it
"nobody can be that proficient with a whip" while the weapon is literally on the weapon table classified as a martial weapon, so every fighter, paladin, ranger (and more) are fully proficient with it, wtf
On a side note, rogues aren't naturally proficient with the whip, but not having a proficiency most certainly do not cause you to damage yourself, it just makes it so you don't add your proficiency to the attack roll (and you can't sneak attack with it), but a nat20 is a hit (and most likely a crit) regardless. Guess the DM thought they were being very smug about it
A quick search shows that nobody can be proficient with a whip, indeed: th-cam.com/video/TjC1EAtDAv8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=Z43w9FSeFyv27Okg
that is so petty of them... and factually wrong.
that's... not the rule. There is an actual rule for not being proficient with weapons, and it's you don't add you proficiency bonus to attacks.
And idk why they would just let you be proficient, rogues aren't very strong anyways
The thing that caused me to leave a game and even quit playing for awhile happened in the early 2000s (I have been playing since around 1975). The dm split the group up. My boyfriend and I were left sitting in a tavern while the others went to do something else and it was supposed to be hours and hours we would be waiting. So we were still in charecter and talking as our characters. One of the other players, not the dm turned to us and said we were not allowed to continue the conversation, that we didn't exist while they were doing thier thing. Then said if we continued to have our conversation he would kill our characters off, especially mine since I was a last minute addition they didn't really want. The dm allowed him to say this without reprimnd, which spoke volumes about his feelings regarding us, (they were all supposed to be our friends). So we looked at each other, closed our players handbook, picked up our characters , my boyfriend said ok, we're dead and out of this game. When I did start playing again it was never with that group of people. No matter if I am a player or a dm, I never forget the lessons of that game.
Did you choose to stay back in the tavern or did the DM forcibly say that you two stayed back? If members of the group don't want to join the main adventure I can see how a DM wouldn't want to cater to separate parties like that. But if the DM just dictated that that's what happened then that would just be ridiculously clear that they just didn't like you.
Having a private conversation at the table during the game would be rather distracting and I think most people would consider that rude. If the party is split and your character is paused, you should really sit quietly. That being rather boring is a strong argument against splitting parties. The DM splitting the party, therefore, seems like a red flag from the start...
@@thomasdalton1508 When you say "private conversation" , do you mean out of character conversation or, as they were having, a separate in-character conversation? I could see how that could be distracting but I think a simple "sorry, you're paused for the moment, we'll cut back to the tavern shortly" from the DM would be sufficient.
@@SpaceBearEngineer It would be equally distracting whether it is in character or out of character. It is certainly possible to be polite when calling someone out for rudeness. Without knowing the full story, it is difficult to judge.
On the Climbers Kit - The DM could have said "You're hammering the piton in has drawn the guards attention, and they see the Piton in the wall" as sound would draw attention. Being Invisible doesn't mean Soundless
I would say they don;t see you, but hammering makes a noise, give me a sleight of hand check. Say DC 15 they hear something from the room but don;t know where, DC20 or above, they don't hear a peep so don;t enter the room.
Below a 15 they come in the room, but as you are invisible they don't see you, but the noise negates any advantage from you being ivisble so they will roll perception flat to find you. Otherwise on 15 or above, they roll with Disadvantage.
@@brewski4758nah they roll perception they hear you hammering the piton you're on a time limit now.
right there's so many ways that are to the rules, more dynamic, and more importantly more fun than losing a spell slot over nothing
To be fair to "Climbing Kit breaks invis" DM, you could instead rule that the noise made while hammering pitons into the wall attracts significant guard presence to the area over outright making them lose invisibility. If you've ever heard people using those, they're definitely not silent.
I really don't like how he framed it as "tippy taps" and compared it to walking. You are striking it with substantial force. Whether or not it's an attack is just semantics on intent at that point, hardly ridiculous, especially since stealth is ruined anyways.
Iirc, raw, the guards would have an easy time rolling perception to find their location making them possibly no longer hidden but still invisible with all the benefits that entails. Loud noise making does not actually break invisibility - like hearing a creature's footsteps wouldn't make it visible even if no longer hidden for the round
the thing is, just ask for a stealth check. it doesnt break invis, but it can certainly be heard. that would fairly explain whether the player can do it quietly or be caught
It would take the guards longer. Even if you hear where it is coming from you would first walk around to track it and when you hear it coming from the wall, my first thought would be to go inside and check what is making the noise. Unless a good perception check makes them see the tiny holes made in the wall.
Still, that's something you tell the player BEFORE you confirm the action.
"You're not gonna be able to climb down without hammering a piton in, which will make some noise. You sure you want to try?" is one hundred percent reasonable.
"I try to climb down" "The guards immediately rush to the sound of you hammering a piton into solid rock," is total bullshit.
it doesn't count as making an attack but the noise of hammering something and see a dent in a wall getting bigger surely attracts attention...
See actual pedantic reality is what makes magic systems fun. “No because no” is nothing. But “no because ur fucking loud” is real as hell
Could be a stealth check to see if the guards notice it. It's not like they are going around 100% quiet themselves constantly on the lookout with ears peeled in case there is an invisible adventurer around THIS time on the patrol.
It’s such a simple fix too.
I don’t understand how a dm could think that it’s an attack roll before just doing the more obvious call that guards would probably notice the noice and changing wall
All you gotta do is make it work like stealth camo in Metal Gear where you can be seen if you do any rough movements, so subtle stuff wouldn't cancel out fucking invisibility. So many easier ways to rule this stuff I swear.
I mean, to be fair, I'm not sure how much magic would discriminate against hammering in a piton and swinging a hammer at a guys face. You could argue that that the latter takes a lot more energy but I still don't fully understand why/how in universe invisibility would stop after an attack specifically, how does it tell the difference?
I like how the wild magic and advantage overhaul ones weren't really malicious, but just severe oversights in the game design.
Had a DM who gave one of the BBEG's main underbosses "Multiattack"... only it wasn't. He had multiple *actions.* He gave this enemy six actions. So even though I dashed and Misty Stepped to get 150 feet away from the enemy, he "just so happened" to have six actions (which he hadn't actually used before that at any point in the fight), so he could dash three times, attack me three times, and do triple my HP in damage. Oh, and he could cast Haste on himself at will, apparently, because even with his 30-foot movement speed, three dashes was enough to cover 150 feet.
It was the second-to-last session of the campaign, and totally broke every bit of interest I had to play in that game.
Damn, I had a boss who was meant to be super intimidating because he has 3 actions. And it was a highly anticipated one, the party loved it.
While i agree that that is HORRIBLE, Three dash actions mean he would have 240 ft movement right? Since they stack and each doubles the movement?
That is perhaps the worst designed enemy I have ever heard of
See the big difference there is *three* actions instead of six + free haste + absurd damage. Challenge is only fun if it's reasonably fair, a straight up "you lose" ruins the whole thing.
@@raptorxrise5386 its a common misconception. From Crawford and Sage Advice, using the dash action gives you extra movement equal to your speed. Dash action 3 times would be 30ft +30ft +30ft +30ft or 120ft. Hope this helps!
I love how even the skits are immersive. Like "can i borrow a dice." It shows what a good DM he must be
These remind me of the time when we were infiltrating a bandit’s cave and came to a sheer wall we needed to climb. Our party looked around to see what we could see (perception), and the DM told us about how tall it was, the texture of the rock, etc. When our rogue tried to climb it, a saw blade came out of the wall and cut him up. The DM then told us that there had been bloodstains all over the wall the whole time. When we asked why he didn’t tell us until now, he said, with a smile, “Well, you guys never asked!”
oh that's INFURIATING, YOU LITERALLY ASKED just not specifically "hey are there bloodstains perchance??" that's SO MEAN! i truly do not understand DMs who just have it out for their players like that, like who gets satisfaction from "winning" when they have unlimited power anyways? it's like a kid on the playground saying "NO, actually YOU'RE dead" when they lose.
@@plushdragonteddyYeah, that’s exactly the kind of vibe I got from that DM. I left his game after the second time he did something like that. (We “never asked” if there was a gate to the fence we were trying to get through)
It was a shame, though, because his world and setting was one of the coolest ones I’ve ever seen in a TTRPG.
@QuintonCenter That also sounds like the sorta game that becomes grindingly slow and even annoying for the DM if you wanna play “effectively“ where whenever you encounter ANYTHING you spend the next 30 minutes asking: “Do I see blood? Do I see acid? Do I see fire? Is there a gas cloud?” etc. though I would assume (and sincerely hope) that that’d be a wake-up call for the DM.
Oh I would have malicious complianced the hell out of him and ground that game to a halt out of spite. Every room would be "Do I see blood on the floor? What about mud? Dust? Hair? Fabric fibers? Flecks of gold? Pixie dust? Droplets of water? Wood Chips?..."
@@jamesmcdonald9313 pull up a copy of an enemy list and ask "is there an awakened shrub? Is there a baboon? is there a badger? is there a bat?" and just continue
In Pathfinder, a big gimmick Cavaliers (my absolute favorite class and by far the most played) can do with the right feat is basically the rider and mount can take hits for each other. This allows you to spread out damage between your two HP pools to tank for a while as a front liner. This involves doing attack rolls higher than the enemy's to get in the way of their attack.
Many DM's have a STRONG preference for whether they want to attack mostly (or only) your character or their mount, and do not like this feat. The end result is I've actually experienced times where enemies have gimmicks (or just super high attack rolls that never miss and can't be beat) to disallow this.
Naturally, removing such a critical feature to the cavalier has resulted in my character dying pretty much every time this happens the first time a critical hit rolls out, because I've been eating damage the whole time up front and cannot sustain hits the way a Barbarian can.
RIP me =(
Yeah I got the fuck outta dodge as soon as I realized what was going on.
DM's. Please. Just talk to your players if there's something they're doing which you don't like. Don't just screw them over to feel better about how hard things are. This is not a versus environment. We are experiencing your story by being a part of it. Just. F*cking. Talk to us.
I feel like the wild magic one could be fun in an environment charged with chaotic magic. Or a cursed item’s downside. Just not the entire game’s default rule
It could work if it was more limited in scope; have it be on nat-1s for skill or spell-based attacks or action checks rather than on every ability or skill check. It's still going to cause chaos, but merely _opening one's ears_ to listen for a noise wouldn't risk spontaneously detonating oneself
The only situation where I see it making sense as a global rule is if it only applies to crit fails that actually involve magic. Casting a spell? Sure. Using a magical item or ability? Makes sense to me. Physically interacting with a magical item or object on the map? I can see it. But it doesn't make sense to turn blue because you stubbed your toe or turn into a plant pot because you couldn't remember a historical fact
Actually there IS something like that, in Tasha's ! And afaik it's uh...less "possible instant death" i'd say
There's one part in Strixhaven that's temporarily that which is pretty fun.
A character and an NPC were about to face off in a duel and then the NPC just fucking turned into a plant lol
it could be cool if it was introduced because of a story element once the players had reached a suitably high level. Although you'd probably want to add more restrictions than just every roll ever since it just doesn't make sense in a world perspective. Are average citizens somehow immune from triggering these wild magic surges even though non-magical player characters can? But having it be in effect from level 3 ever ignoring those world continuity issues is just asking for a tpk.
From the "Casting Time" section of the Sage Advice Compendium, p. 12:
If you cast a spell, such as healing word, with a bonus action, you can cast another spell with your action, but that other spell must be a cantrip. Keep in mind that this particular limit is specific to spells that use a bonus action. For instance, if you cast a second spell using Action Surge, you aren’t limited to casting a cantrip with it.
And the example in that video is precisely why simplifying it as "one leveled spell per turn" as most people do is wrong. Sure it's close enough most of the time, but there are situations where it's not. Action Surge is somewhat rarer (mostly multiclassing, as an Eldritch Knight will often prefer to do something else with their surge than casting twice), but one that can come up more often is using a Reaction spell, like Shield to protect yourself from an AoO or Counterspell against someone attempting to Counterspell your main spell.
Just for clarity's sake, this is actually on Page 15 of the SAC! Just in case someone is looking it up and can't find it on 12 like I couldn't. :)
Link provided to the PDF as well: media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf
My DM does it that : if you cast a spell on your action and want to bonus action another, or vice Versa, only one of them can be above level 2. I think it’s fine this way : as it makes sense that there’s only so much time for verbal and somatic components so doing a lower level bonus action or action takes less time than a full level one. That’s for non action surge, action surge you’re free to do 2 action spells with no restrictions.
ha yeas every fighter is a better wizard is stupid how yeah i just cast 5th level hold person action surge ho no 6th level fire ball and an enitre high level party dead@@seb8523
I was going to comment that the DM not allowing 2 levels spells was right but this comment completely proved me wrong. I didn't know the rule specified bonus action spells.
We finished creating our characters on session zero, and at the end the DM said "Now everybody roll for your alignments." He said it prevented everyone from playing murder hobos, but made made my Lliira cleric lawful evil.
that's insane. It's players who are murderhobos, not characters. If the player is like this, the alignment won't stop them. And randomising such crucial things as class, race, alignment, order of stats, etc is taking away players' agency in the worst form.
@@Yutah1981 It can be fun as well though. Having some kinds of random traits that you have to roleplay around can make the game more fun.
@@NN-cr6gx if you're lucky with what you've got and you're a good actor who loves such things. and it's not 'traits', it's the whole direction and mood of the game.
If you wanted to be good and save people and instead got chaotic evil murderhobos, it's horrible. Maybe it's ok for one shot, but not a whole campaign.
also, playing a mixed party of good and evil characters is horrible in 99% cases. And honestly, I believe playing (with) evil characters is only ok in very specific groups where you know each other very well.
I wouldn't want to play that.
So what prevented you from making her a murder hobo who kept on finding some law the NPCs were breaking that in your eyes allowed you to kill them in punishment? Especially as you rolled evil that should be within the boundaries of what you were rolling.
And that is also one of my many reasons for not using the alignment system in D&D
if everything else was random aswell, sure i guess that would be fun but only allignment?@@NN-cr6gx
“I can’t see the rat” *spontaneously immolates*
To be fair, invisibility does not block sound. And the guards would have noticed the tapping sound. Wouldn't have made him turn visible but absolutely would have rolled a perception vs stealth (sound) check
Yeah but that's not what the DM did.
And another to be fair: The dragon could for sure manage to react before the circlet lands on the party's head. It happens right in front of it and it's already intensely prepared for the possibility of combat
But once again the DM is out of line when they then both say "Your action doesn't trigger until your turn" AND "You already used your action before your turn so you get no action on your turn"
And another tbf: Sometimes a DM asks for a roll, you roll a Nat20 and you still fail because the DC is still too difficult for you. Still, why ask for the roll then? Well, a couple of possibilities. The obvious one is that the DM doesn't know/remember your bonus. Ideally they'd ask for your bonus first then, but there's another reason to call for the roll: You want the chance of avoiding the meta knowledge that there's a high DC on the coins. If you roll an 8 and gleam nothing, your meta brain might just think the roll was low, but that doesn't guarantee anything extrordinary. If you roll a 21 and are lead to believe a higher roll might've resulted in information, then your meta brain knows it's something big. I also think it's fair for a DM to essentially put a DO NOT PRESS THIS BUTTON! (and the entire setup with the word greed clearly spelled out and all is exactly that) encounter in front of the party and it is then up to the party if they can contain themselves.
@@oOPPHOo Actually dragons typically have really low Dex scores, especially the more powerful ones, since they are so big. Also that "he knew you were gonna do that" excuse is actually covered in the book. You're supposed to roll a Deception vs Insight, to see if you get a surprise round.
As for the coins and the nat 20, there is a simple solution. If, for some reason, it was a DC 25 trap, and this was a campaign full of such utter BS, then you can still provide the player with FAR more information than what was given with a 21, even if they don't uncover the trap itself.
@@ethanwilliams1880 DEX is not really relevant. A dragon with strangers (strangers who look like looters come to take its hoard) in its lair is on guard. There is surely no debate regarding this. The "DEX contest" is the Initiative roll itself. Should the rogue get to use the circlet first? Sure, given a skill check was used to do that, but it's hard to argue that the dragon was so incredibly taken off-guard that he should do nothing for 6 whole seconds. And it's also hard to argue that, barring a special class ability or something like Haste, that the Rogue gets to immediately act again. In the face of conflict, we compromise; the Rogue goes first, but gets no additional actions.
Interestingly enough, the player admitted that "this is probably RAW" and the recently released Baldur's Gate 3 handles actions exactly in the same way. If you don't surprise them, you go first, but you don't get your action when your turn for that round comes up. There's a whole Rogue subclass (Assassin) which gets the special ability to act again in round 1, and it's extremely powerful. It comes off making the player look _extremely_ fragile for leaving the table over a single action in a single combat, which he admits is "probably RAW" anyway, simply because it didn't have _quite_ as much cool factor as he wanted.
@@CrizzyEyes Homie did you just stop reading after my first sentence or what? Also BG 3 is hardly a good litmus test for which rules are RAW.
"As you say no, you say yes"
Nice callback!
"You're five guys!?!?!?"
It didn't make me leave the table, but it did certainly upset me greatly. If it had happened more than just the once, I may have had a serious conversation with the DM. Another PC and I were trying to locate a magic item to buy when we got to a new town, the way we usually handle it is if we're looking for something specific, we roll investigation and the DC is set based on how likely that item would be found in a shop in this location. Well my character had expertise in Investigation and I rolled something around a 30 after adding my bonus. Both magic items were of similar nature and rarity, so should have had very similar DCs, but the DM ruled that my 30 did not find what I was looking for, but that the other PC's 18 did find their item. When I asked why mine didn't work, I was told "well your bonus is super high so I just bumped up the DC a bunch to make it an even chance for both of you."
Completely ridiculous. Nullifies the point of having expertise lmao
Makes the item cursed, leading the party on a quest to find the required materials to make remove curse work. BOOM instant plothook for a sidequest!
Yeah that basically negates what the skill check is for
Why roll at all then?
How tf is that fair at all? Its like saying for example a barbarian and a mage both get bit by a AOE attack, The mage takes the normal damage but the barbarian takes extra because it has way more hp than the mage. It just nullifies whatever your character is good at
That Wild Magic rule implementation is nuts.
~_~
For the first one I could see the DM asking you to make a stealth role since hammering the pitons into the wall would make a loud noise but that should not break invisibility.
Yeah, I agree with the intent of the GM's ruling, but not the explanation.
Yeah that's what I thought. Invisibility does allow you to still be heard, and hitting a piton into the wall ain't quiet. Stealth roll for me, unless the guards were like 30+ feet away
@@themaninthechair4338 I would even say if the guards are within 30 ft, no stealth roll could be quiet enough to conceal hammering a piton into a stone wall
My call would be that you're still invisible but they hear it. They basically know where you aare but have disadvantage if they vome at you.
@@factsabouturmum9250 I would argue that they know direction. If you heard a hammer strike from behind you down the hall, you don't know exactly where. Especially if it was a single swing. it can be harder to place exact sound if it echos especially when you don't see the source of sound
I feel like the wild magic surge could be fun if as part of a high level campaign players went to the Fey Wild for a session or two. But in your normal setting, if your gonna do that you might want to use a table for it other than the standard one. Or somehow make it less likly to ruin the campaign. Especially at low level where they can’t do as much to compensate for bad effects.
Yeah, the problem is too many people think 'tee hee you might turn into a potted plant' and too few people remember that sometimes that table is Really Bad.
If this is happening "in a world at the crux of a magical war" then people going about their daily lives would be setting off wild surges everywhere.
Herding sheep that have run amok and nat 1 the animal handling check?
Retracing your steps to find your grandfather's hammer and fail the investigation check?
I thought the idea was it applied only to spell rolls only. Like because of in-universe reasons, magic is unstable or something. Just regular actions like "using your eyes wrong"? Sounds super dumb. What's the in-universe explanation? Are "rolls" a real thing that exists? Do people explode in multicolored confetti while falling out of bed in their sleep or tripping over their words in a meeting?
@@Rodrigo_Vegaand maybe you need to roll a d20 again and get a nat 1 before the surge
I kind of like how it encourages players to be economically with their skill checks- agree thst it could make for an interesting one shot, or just a dungeon room
Most of the time you can just do a skill roll whenever but now each one has a risk to it
Though there's the problem that rolls are random, meaning that a finely crafted plan designed to use the least rolls possible can just fall apart with a bad one
The piton example is interesting because it reads a lot into intent and how "gamey" certain mechanics are. You can gently hammer a piton into a guard without intending to attack them (say as a prank while invisible) and if you lack a small hammer and time you could absolutely hammer a piton into a wall with a single strike of a warhammer. Rules as written, neither of those are an "attack" and would not break Invisibility.
The real issue is that consequence was not properly communicated. If the GM had said "If you want to do that I'm going to rule that as breaking Invisibility because this would be too overt. Do you still want to?"
That way the GM has communicated clearly the consequence and reasoning without jumping to punishment, where the player feels unfairly treated. So long as the precedent is enforced fairly from that point on there should be no issues.
To be fair, xp to level 3 was also very wrong. Its not a "tippy tap" it is a hard and loud strike. Potentially repeated. Your stealth is ruined regardless. Attack roll is semantics really.
Irrelevant. A wall is not an enemy, and using a tool to hammer something into a stationary wall doesn't need an attack roll either, hence it's not an attack.
@@TF2CrunchyFrog You can absolutely perform attack rolls against objects, unless we're counting padlocks as enemies. The game even has rules on armour class and HP for such a case. What's the argument there?
"No I'm not attacking it, I'm using my axe to forcefully break it."
Like bro that's an attack. I can use my bow to hammer something into a stationary guard and it's still an attack roll.
I mean, yeah, but common sense shouldn’t be disregarded.
I’d argue if someone while invisble hammers a piton into a guard he will notice something is up. lmao
@@Unormalism But as stated, he's not trying to attack or destroy the wall like one would a door. It's stationary, using a tool designed specifically to pierce without destroying. You don't roll to attack a cake when you cut a slice of it.
7:34 You've met the rules lawyer, now introducing the *rules prosecutor*
honestly even if it wasn't in the rules I would allow it since "ok if you want to use your once per long rest ability to use another one of your finite spell slots for this that's fine" its not like he gets it back on a short rest so it can't just be spammed constantly seems perfectly fair to me
I had a DM who called an Arcana check when I casted Find Steed. Instead of a steed I can adventure with and mount I got a rat because I rolled 3. If I wanted a familiar I would've casted Find Familiar
That is so fucking dumb…If I was your DM, I would never do such a thing like this…you deserve a better DM at that point
DM: “Fine the rat has a saddle on, are you happy now”.
@@RKNGL Only if that rat has a carry capacity of at least 350 lbs, is tall enough to keep my feet from dragging on the ground, and a round speed equal to a FRACKING HORSE! Or, you could just make it a danged horse!
is there anything stopping you from just... casting it again at the next possible opportunity? also, would 3 normally be enough to pass the check?
@@PihsrosnecI tried that as soon as I could and the DM just hit me with the "nothing happens"
I was playing a Pathfinder campaign and started seeing red flags from the dm right from the start. He seemed to have this "me versus the players" attitude. I (very narrowly) rolled high enough to persuade a shop keeper to lower his price on a ring of feather fall enough for me to be able to afford it. He would huff and roll his eyes and grumble every time I used it. One session, after using it to get around a trap earlier on in a dungeon (which annoyed him), we encountered a room with a reverse gravity trap and spikes on the ceiling. He started licking his lips and setting up to roll the damage for all of us (two party members were low hp and he always seemed to actively want to kill PCs). When I stopped him to ask for clarification that we weren't being pulled towards the ceiling but that (per the spell description) we were falling towards the ceiling (and that the ceiling was 25 feet above us), he practically jumped over the table. His response was: "look, I don't care. you're taking the damage." One of the other players was my ride or I would have packed up and walked out on the spot. Instead I mentally checked out, phoned it in for the rest of the session, and told the group at the end of the evening that I wouldn't be returning.
Oh no, your fall trap doesn't work? Boo womp.
If this was a lich's lair, he could just put a glyph with dispel magic for if someone casts feather fall, and then reduce the damage those who have feather fall cast on themselves take slightly reduced damage.
Why didn't the glyph have counterspell, instead of dispel, magic you may ask? Because the ring of feather fall exists, a lich would definitely plan for that.
In short, that DM was probably salty he couldn't think of a trap that wasn't a variation of "pit trap"
It baffles me someone could get so mad about an item they didn't have to put in the game. Like if you don't want your players to use a ring of feather fall, don't give them the option to buy it? It's a magic item, it can just not be there.
@@a.t3415
It typically happens to newer DMs, that they don't imagine the consequences of their actions. From the other side... I had a group of friends over for a test campaign as I was designing my own system. Every now and then I would realize that some rules just didn't work or something was completely out of balance. In a way it's ok if your character has a signature pattern in combat(or in situation of potential conflict), but if that pattern just works everytime no matter the circumstances I try to throw at you, that's suspect. So I had to go and change some rules and some numbers and boi oh boi were those talks tough. And mind you this was all in a situation, where my players were reasonable people, longtime friends, adults AND have agreed before the campaign started that things like that may happen( it was explicitly stated that rules(abilities etc.) and characters (numbers, leveling speed) may get nerfed as I will want to "finetune" the rules. People don't like it when you take away their toys and that goes both ways - DMs and players.
I've even seen DMs with childish, angry reactions like the ones depicted in the video, who when the situation passed profusely apologized for their behavior and were able to have a healthy adult discussion about the whole thing.
Yeah I've had the "DM vs Players" DM before and it's best to just ditch those games right away. I mean when basically the God of that world can do anything and wants to ensure he wins there is no point in playing.
For example had a DM send a group of Frost Giants at us and thus we used several of our fire damaging abilities only to find the fight was extremely tough and nearly wiped us. When pressed on the matter the DM admitted our attacks were doing almost no damage which is why the fight took so long and we should have "figured it out" as he gave the FROST Giants resistance to fire and weakness to cold... During the fight he played it like a robot simply listening to our damage rolls, nodding, and then ask for next players actions. No indications that our fire attacks were not very effective and no indication on the Health levels of the Giants as him simply stated, "Ok this ones dead" and removes it from the table.
His "defense" for this was that he hates meta gaming and how players memorize the Monster Manual so they know all the monsters weaknesses. It's like first off your characters live in this world and just like we know about fictional creatures of werewolves, vampires, and etcs weaknesses this would be even more true of people who live in a world where these things are REAL. But second and more importantly it's NOT Metagaming to think a creature that lives in a cold climate is probably adapted to that climate and thus wouldn't be as effected by cold, but also they might not handle extreme heat that well. That's just common sense and basic physics.
@@JAMBUILDER08 Aye. Good thing I have a copy of Grimtooths traps, and a malicious creativity to help avoid that...
The way you play a nice DM who misunderstands the rules and is terrible at DMing is so unnervingly accurate.
Like, you hear stories online of the DM who does things that make you rethink your friendship, but sometimes the DM is not a bad guy. He just sucks at making the game fun, and you leave the table, because you aren't having fun. For example, the DM who misunderstood invisibility basically made the player feel like invisibility was a useless spell, but he said it in a way that was nice and not a shouting match. It's a certain type of incompetence, but not malice.
Any GM can make a mistake. A bad GM will claim they never make mistakes.
"Was your expectation for us to come in here and die?" 🤣
This filled me with such rage and a deep feeling of gratitude for my group's Dungeon Master. She always puts us first. She sticks to the rules religiously, but is always VERY respectful of cool roleplay choices that would induce something like a surprise round, etc. Tough but fair! I feel so bad for these other people.
To be fair I've done something similar to the last example. In my case however they were looking for traps on a very suspicious door in a dungeon, got a nat 20 and I told them " ... as far as you are aware it is a completely normal door with no traps of any kind nor are there any in the vicinity." They refused to get anywhere near the door and took a different path. The door was in fact just an door, it wasn't even locked.
"Its just a chair"
Door mimic
I mean to be fair to the last DM, if the dungeon is hard and the party is at a certain lvl maybe don't let the +1 Perception Barb check the bag and instead let the +13 Rogue do it. If they are low level tho a nat 20 should clear basically any check (DC 18 or higher on a low lvl Party is bs).
Ever since Disco Elysium, I avoid these with a change of perspective. As in, a PC's inner sense would chime in and assure them that, no, they're being ridiculous, it is in fact a perfectly normal door. Of course, at that point, I could've as well break character and address the players directly, but I find it more enjoyable my way.
Never trust a door.
In my old club, we had a DM doing all kinds of shady stuff. Players are traumatized to this day and at least 3 players refuse to play his campains.
- In a game of C.O.P.S. (players are elite specialized cops in a distopian ultra-violent Los Angeles), he warned two players because the pilot was always speeding to go to a crime scene (understandable: they're playing cops and one player was specialized in piloting skills). Since the characters received an official blame in their administrative record, the players decided to respect the warning: next call to a crime scene, the pilot stoped to every red light and never sped once. They arrived in a shooting, the criminal had already left, and they found a little girl hidden in a garbage bin, she was wounded by two bullets. They obviously called an ambulance, but the little girl died on their hands. The DM had a little smirk when he played the paramedic NPC telling players: "If only you had arrive two minutes earlier, we could have save her."
- Same campain of C.O.P.S., one player had a strong character who decided to get really buffed, he saved his experience points for half a dozen sessions to raise his Stamina attribute (in this game, it's extremely expensive to raise your attributes, most players don't do it and raise skills instead). So his character could achieve the maximum natural Stamina score in the game, and It was allowed by the DM. Next game session, he was going to question the neighbourhood and knocked on a door and failed a perception test before knocking. He was saying "police, open u..." BANG, a shotgun tore a hole through the door and his shoulder, because the guy in this house was an accomplice ready to kill cops if necessary. The character suffered a serious wound, and was penalized by losing the Stamina point we worked so hard to obtain. The DM insisted it was a rule about wounds. A year later, when one of his former C.O.P.S. players decided to become the DM it with another group of friends, he read the rules attentively and discovered the "attribute loss after a serious wound rule" was an OPTIONAL rule, printed in a special insert with a warning "this level of realism is for hard mode only, make sure your players are cool with it". The DM ruined the progression path of a player just for the sake of it...
- I played a scholar in the Game of Thrones roleplaying game, specialized in languages, calligraphy and cryptography. We uncovered a plot to assassinate a high-born we were supposed to protect, and after tracking the assassin, we found his notebook fully encrypted with a custom code. Of course, the group wanted me to decipher it, and I get to work: one success wasn't enough to decipher the whole code, it was a prolonged test, with several successes needed over time. The evening where I finally did the final success to decipher the assassin's code, another assassin stabed me in the back and stole the notebook from me. I never had to to a perception test, no one could help me because my character was alone in his study, the DM almost killed my character so I couldn't uncover the plot, at the exact second when my character was discovering the truth. It was exactly like being killed in a cinematic during a videogame. I stoped playing any game with him for years after this.
All in all, the guy was mastering a bunch of different games and was excellent with description, so everybody tried his game sessions at least once. But he has this weird philosophy: "treat your players like trash, and they will come back for more", that made him quite toxic. Worst of all, he always had a rational ready at hand to dodge any criticism, so he never truly corrected his ways.
With another DM, after spending a whole session creating characters, I wrote a full (but very short and well-defined) background and sent it to him by email. When playing the first game session, I mentioned a very important piece of my background, and he told me, laughing: "yeah, but I lost your email". I was so infuriated by the sheer disrespect, I quit the table.
what a fucking asshole, this guy should be banned from DMing forever
My god WTF whit that dm
This is the longest TH-cam comment I've ever seen. I'm going to read it just because it feels like longer posts get ignored.
Sounds like he's treating PCs like NPCs. "At the last moment before he, or rather YOU, uncover the text, he, or I mean... uh... YOU get stabbed in the back. What a plot twist! Will you chase after the assassin?"
*group devolves into annoyed arguing*
@@andreadeluca9742 nah he's just treating his players like shit on purpose
"What happened to the Wizard?!"
"Well he squinted really hard and exploded."
A DM used Strahd’s legendary actions as reactions. I was a melee fighter and every time I got into melee range he would say “When you move there, Strahd sinks into the floor and vanishes.”
Over two hours and he didn’t allow me to swing at Strahd once. No attacks allowed, no opportunity attacks allowed, nothing. When I called him on it, he said “If you’re gonna question how I run Strahd, just don’t. You know what? He runs away and escapes this game is over.”
Jeez did you have sex with their partner?
Throwing a fit and quitting the game was pretty crazy. For the first part though, it is very reasonable for an enemy to utilize their tools to defend against an unprepared player.
@@Raig228 Strahd can only use his legendary actions at the end of an enemy creatures turn, so the player should get the hit and damage in.
Omg that is enfuriating, especially for the end of a Strahd story.... that whole campaign is meant to be frustrating and make party feel so powerless, I personally don't understand why so many love this module.
COS DM's tend to be pretty bad about stuff like this unfortunately...
"The invisibility spell you studied was written by a wizard who wrote faulty spells. Little known lore."
"You use the spell slot for divine smite before you roll to hit, if you miss the spell slot is wasted." Was the first step in my own path to becoming a successful DM xD
See that’s what i do as an optional rule for ranged(meaning primary attacks are all ranged) Paladins, also when in a setting that allows firearms they get proficiency with them
If I were to ever make drastic changes, I would atleast make compensating buffs.
In this case, spending a spell cost before rolling will give you an Extra d8 Radiant Damage.
But I would never do if I ever plan to DM. In fact I would feel more comfortable buffing Martials classes in general.
see ive seen some people say smite is too powerful, and maybe thats true, but to make smites declared as part of the attack is insane, they get so few slots they would lose them all.
@@christophercrafteI would give Divine Smite the Rogue Treatment like Sneak Attack. Where the power of your divine smite increases with each level up. Like can still deal 4d8 damage by spending 1 level spell slot instead of 3.
Paladins have a lot very good support and buff spells to provide for their team. But having so little spell slots can feel 2 dimensional.
Either you be DPS or Play support. There is no inbetween.
@@chronenojysk5107 paladins aren't martials though. They have spells. If a blade singer wizard decided he will frontline with a rapier does that make him a martial?
Also in terms of your other comments. Paladins do not need buffs, their smite already scales with spell slots that's the point. If people are complaining martials are underpowered it's not paladins they're talking about, mainly monks and fighters. You will see paladins outdamage high level spell casters easily because they are ones themselves, aswell as having the utility that spells bring with their own sperate healing.
I once had a DM that pretty obviously had exactly one plan for how we were "supposed" to get out of a terrible scenario, and any idea we came up with was either outright denied or he would make the player roll multiple checks until they failed once and then use that failure to say no. It went on for several sessions of us feeling totally powerless, while the DM complained that we were taking a lot longer to get through this part than he expected.
Eventually, he killed off a friendly NPC to punish the party for not doing the right thing. I flat out asked him what he intended for us to do that would have been the "right" choice in his mind. When he told me, it was something he had made sound completely impossible in the way he described the situation, something that didn't seem like it was even an option.
A buddy of mine was playing D&D for a college course (as he majored in Game Design), and he had a bad DM experience within this group project. The party was supposed to deliver a chest or something to someone, but the chest was not allowed to be opened (as requested by the quest giver.) Another character wanted to open it anyway, and he resisted them. The GM called for a contested strength check, and my friend rolled a nat 20. The DM ruled that his attempts to keep the chest closed were strong enough to break the chest, revealing the contents anyway. He nearly quit on the spot.
He succeeded so well that he failed. What?
I had this with an intimidation check. Someone was trying to scam my ally out of a fortune (Thank you good insight roll), so my charater said: "Are you "SURE" that's the right price? You don't want to be UNFAIR to my comrade?" ...Intimdation check.. nat 20... gave em a heartattack and they died.. guards rushed in and such.
You think I got arrested, but my comrade was ressurecting him with a revivify.. my barbarian on the other hand...may just had a power boost last session and was surprised they did that. It only got worst when our warlock decided to mess with a magical device in one of the rooms of this place... wich luckily didn't get anyone killed except himself soon.
But this is ridiclous.
Though then again I did a similiar thing when my party got too curious in opening every door at random without thinking.. especially the sorcerer.. so if they rolled strength checks too high on the metal doors that locked off rooms that were under construction.. they pushed it too hard and had to do an acrobatics check to not fall into a building pit. (wich only does a d4 damage at best) This was mostly to punish them from splitting the party and opening random doors wich the sorcerer kept doing...It was just a light warning saying: "Stop running off in dungeons and opening random doors to find loot 1st. Examine if the door ain't boobytrapped and such."
ive heard loads of horror stories like this usualy along the lines of wanting to knock someone out and rolling a nat 20 and the DM saying you hit so hard you killed them
I can see the logic I suppose, they're obviously thinking in terms of a scale. But it's dumb, that would be a potential of what happens on a nat 1. A nat 20 would be doing exactly as you planned. I'm sure he did not plan to break the chest. And if you were to say that the chest was surprisingly easier to open for example, then not only does that still not stand but why would you have had to roll strength in the first place? A nat 20 would be something like him testing to open, finding a sweet spot and popping it open perfectly.
@@SecureBirch410 this is why it's useful to at least try to play more varied rpgs not only DnD. Some of the more narrative forward ones like the Powered by the Apocalypse or Forged in the Dark plethora of games teach a GM to judge a roll by the intent, the goal you're trying to acomplish not necessary the method. The why is important for determining succes the how you do it is the fun and flavor. Now I don't allow a roll to happen if I don't understand what the player wants to gain from it. (Obviously the rule that says that unless there is some urgency, obstacle or difficulty you don't ask for a roll and just let the player do what they want is always in effect)
@@kotlolish I'll admit to doing something similar in Shadowrun, but that's a different system. Someone was trying to use non-lethal, electricity-based ammunition to disable people and things. Importantly, in shadowrun, damage rolls over, and machines don't take non-lethal (but can take electric damage). Everything was rolled in front of the table, so he started get the reputation of his non-lethal rounds always being lethal or causing explosions (though mechanically it was all luck). It was fun for the table, though, which is the goal.
One campaign I was in, I played a Conjuration Wizard. The character was successful enough as an Adventurer to acquire 3 Rare (and rather pricey) Spell Tomes:
An Atlas of Endless Horizons
A Planecaller's Codex
And a (+2) Arcane Grimoire
Things weren't going that bad at first, until we went to a Desert region for a quest. At which point, we kept drawing the attention of huge Sandworms. Turns out, they're drawn to magic, specifically my Spell Tomes.
What's worse, if these Sandworms swallow you, all your equipment had to made a saving throw or be destroyed by stomach acid. Including your magical gear. Armor & Weapons got a bonus to the save because they were naturally more durable, but other stuff (like MY SPELL TOMES) did not.
I got lucky, and avoided getting swallowed. My Tomes were safe. The 6,000 Gold's worth of shiny jewelry on our Rogue, however, did not survive. I chalked it up to a unique feature of a unique monster, and moved on.
Then we got to the hidden valley home of a Sphinx, and had to fight a horde of mummified undead. A mix of warriors & casters, not too unreasonable.
. . . until one invisible bastard, a rogue-type undead, tried to backstab me. Then he used a Bonus Action to hit me with a magical spray of Acid . . . which forced a saving throw for each of my Tomes, which would destroy them on a failure.
. . . um, what?
I used inspiration to avoid losing my Tomes. Then I used my Conjuration Wizard features to teleport away from this bastard, because screw that nonsense.
. . . THEN THE SOMBITCH TELEPORTED AFTER ME. THEN CAME THE ACID, ROLL SAVES FOR THE TOMES.
I got VERY lucky, rolled no failures. I teleported again back to my comrades, who ambushed it when it teleported after me, stopping it before it could spray Acid again.
The DM was quite proud of this creature, saying he created a "custom feat" to allow for the acid spray. I asked him to stop trying to destroy our Magic Items, but he flatly refused, saying "That happened ALL THE TIME in the older editions, you just learned to live with it." I should just get better.
Fine. Whatever. I had a plan.
After talking to the Sphinx, we went to some mountains bordering the Desert. We had to locate a hive of large Beetles, and procure a larva. Seemed simple enough.
. . . until we saw the Beetles.
Picture a Beetle the size of a Rhinoceros. Give it roughly 90 - 100 HP. Put it in a group of about 3 or 4 other Beetles. Now give it 100 feet of movement per round.
Definitely strong, but we made plans and laid a trap. We tilted the field to our advantage as best as we could, even setting up a Tiny Hut as a safe refuge if it all went sideways . . . which, of course, it did.
Turns out, these Beetles can teleport themselves and one friendly creature as a bonus action (we couldn't find a range on that) also they could do that every single damn round.
Also, get this: THEY SPEW ACID AS A BREATH WEAPON, ROLL A SAVE FOR YOUR GEAR & MAGIC ITEMS.
Oh, and DID I MENTION WE WERE ONLY LEVEL 6?!?!
I had refused to put myself (remember, Wizard) or my Tomes in jeopardy again. So I was hiding in the Tiny Hut while using summoned creatures from Tasha's to run out of the Hut and fight for me.
Let me tell you something: trying to fight as a Wizard & support your allies from inside a Tiny Hut you can't leave is NOT EASY OR FUN. But that was the ONLY way keep my VERY EXPENSIVE Magic Items from being destroyed.
I brought this up to the DM, told him that I DON'T WANT to be the guy who cowers in a Tiny Hut when initiative is rolled. I hate doing that, it's not fun for me or fair to my Party, can you PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP TRYING TO TAKE AWAY OR DESTROY OUR STUFF.
He reiterated that older editions did this ALL THE TIME, that it would keep happening, and nothing I said or did was going to stop it.
. . . and that's when I had enough.
Not only was this DM stupid. It was also spraying nonsense. I played 3.0 & 3.5 ED a ton, destroying magic items is nearly unheard of. There is a level 9 spell that can do that, and a couple of monsters that are able to grab or damage handheld items but anything worn was nearly untouchable, and every magic item and expecialy weapons, shields and armor are tough with elemental resistences and damage reduction. I can't advocate for even older editions but i doubt that was ever common beacause everyone understands that begin able to easely destroy valuable items feels terrible
im pretty sure magic items specifically have a resistance to acid and stuff like that in 5e
This sounds like the DnD equivalent of a Genwunner, and just as fun to be around. I will forever be happy that Gary Gygax had the stroke of genius he did when making DnD, but I am equally glad he wasn't involved past 1st edition, because the man was an undeniable _sadist_ when it comes to treating the players. Having to dread any Undead because every fight *will* drain at least one level from the party is not fun. Having poisons and whatnot be deadly without saving throw isn't fun. 1st edition overall, looking back, is not fun.
I am strongly assuming you were playing 5e, since your DM kept referring to "older versions," but did it ever occour to him that you are not playing older versions where that supposedly "happens all the time," but are in fact playing 5e? I'd have a very hard time playing with a DM that is trying to destroy my shit.
@@ezekielbaskerville2710 At least it was simpler, _much_ simpler, and not the comparable clusterfuck that 5e is. It also doesn't _need_ to be played like OP is describing, even in the words of Giygax himself, and it sounds to me like the DM was bullshitting to begin with, and just using it as an excuse.
I was in a group (we met in person, pre-pandemic), where one of the people wanted to try their hand at being a DM. FANTASTIC! Always want to support people trying that.
There was no communication about house rules, so all of the players assumed it was straight up rules from the book. The DM ignored the fact that people were rolling high on their stealth checks, and just made every encounter start with a surprise round (in favor of the NPCs/monsters). When someone made a protest about it (and was supported by other players, including myself), the DM just said it's house rules. Rebuttal was that there was no discussion or agreement of house rules, and that the DM cannot just MAKE UP rules on the fly as the game progressed. The DM was also cackling every time the NPCs/monsters landed an attack. The other people in the party saw how toxic they were being, and said that they will not play any game that that person is running ever again. This lead to everyone kind of going their own way, disbanding the group.
Im a dm who loves suprise rounds on my players, but the whole point of suprise round is the enemies were either: ready and able to attack or truly hidden and suprising. Every encounter is suprise round just blows lmao
I'm DMing for a weekly group at the moment and this story just made me realize how hard I've been working to try and keep this being my players reality. The highest passive perception in the group is a 12 with the lowest being a 9 who actively tries *not* to notice things. A basic encounter with some animals in the wilderness could be a surprise if I ever gave them enemies that had anything close to resembling the instincts of an ambush predator.
@@64bitrobot hey man, sometimes teaching them to be cautious is necessary. Do it when its only Kobolds or Wolves getting suprise rounds, not when the Death Knight/Lich wombo combo gets to rattle off 80 points of damage before initiative is even rolled
@@64bitrobot In the group I was in, there were some people doing the min/max build. Level 3 and getting a 25 on stealth. They begin to move and are instantly attacked. The DM never even rolled a perception check, it is just a surprise round.
I was apart of this group of people for over 7 years at this point (people came and went over the years, and this person was in the group for over a year by this point when they started to DM). 2 full sessions where she was doing this and the players telling her this isn't how it works. 3rd session of it, I just grabbed my stuff and walked out.
If the player(s) are not having fun, BECAUSE of the DMs actions, and the WHOLE GROUP has had conversations with the DM about the situation, and the DM doesn't change.. They don't care about making it fun for you, it's just about making it fun for THEMSELF!
Passive perception is one thing, but when you are in a building, rolling high on stealth and perception checks, and still get ambushed. It isn't worth my time and effort any more (and it wasn't even my character trying to stealth through).
I like to play with what I call the "Close enough" rule. If I call for a check and your character is proficient in that skill but you miss the check by 1 or 2, I'll still give you the information, or action attempt but your character will struggle a bit, for information checks your character has that annoying feeling of it being right on the tip of your tongue, for you to recall the information a few minutes/hours later. For action checks that's a bit more situational, usually a stumble/fumble but still succeeding with a minor penalty on your next turn probably half speed for the turn as you recover.
I also use the rule that if you asked to do a different check than the one I call for and you can explain how you would use that skill logically I allow it
The most egregious ruling I've ever experienced was when my DM in a westmarches server dropped us into a setting where we were supposed to save a city that we quickly found out was built on slavery, which made all of us uncomfortable, and when I tried to come up with a solution using 9th level spells to make an interplanar passageway to evacuate the city to minimize casualties and possibly free as many slaves as possible as they had been "promised freedom once they finished fortifying the walls," a pretty obvious lie. I talked to the DM for days between sessions going over my plan and trying to integrate my character's backstory into the plan, and he seemed agreeable, but the next session he told me the plan was impossible because "you're not in the same universe" and when I tried to change the plan to evacuate people to another location in the same world he still wouldn't allow it because "it would be too chaotic if you made an exit inside the city." He literally tried to railroad me into supporting slavery and probably also watching slaves die and pretended to support my plans to engage with his game only to turn it into an argument at the table....
Ah yes, it's the "I'm telling a story here and you all have to play the parts I envisioned for you, don't you dare actually try to do anything that isn't in the story!" type of GMing.
@@TF2CrunchyFrog Easy to fall into, especially when you're newer. Bizarre to fall into in Westmarches.
@whatthepeanuts it was a dying server for a number of reasons. We were kinda desperate for anyone willing to DM, so another player and top moderator actually got angry at ME for standing my ground and arguing with the DM, wasting our playtime. I got made into a top mod after that against his wishes and tried to fix the server, but nobody really wanted to put in the work to fix it or to consistently DM so I eventually gave up.
The moment when the wild magic one wasn't even over dramatic but exactly what the tweet described. Personally, not necessarily a horrible DM, horrible dice rolls and probably a newby DM who didn't realize how dangerous the wild magic table can be and just wanted something cool.
Imagine overseeing a game and not wanting everyone to have the best time possible.
Sad.
The Climbing kit one reminded me of a campaign years ago, when i was in college. One of my players wanted to torture info out of a cultist..and they only had a couple daggers of poison, and a climbing kit...So they hammered the pitons into the cultists hands, wrists, knees, ankles, and groin.
I once joined a friend who put together a DND campaign with his classmates from college. The issue was that the DM was apparently a real creep as he kept trying to put the female elf character in situations where she would get “assaulted”. When he tried to force the group to “lose” against an boss so he can narrate a plant-tentacle scene with the female elf, we stopped playing nice and kicked him out.
Ayooo.. wtf.
Otakus man , I tell you...
It's always mind-blowing to me that there are those who lack the basic empathy required to realize that maybe satisfying your innermost sexual desires in front of a group of people you barely know is not a good idea
That’s a completely different kind of problem. A problem nontheless but still unrelated
WTF.
Honestly, sometimes my player do stuff that WOULD end up on that, and I Always have a hard time narrating stuff like that.
Sure, I keep It cool, joke maybe, gloss over It to go on, but it's really hard.
Idk how someone can do that while staying serious.
And my players are all males playing male characters; with a female, maybe with Who I don't have much intimacy, I probably wouldn't be able to keep It in game and stop.
Only One time I was able to do this stuff, during a campaign started with some people from a H fb group. I dm for a group with 3 girls and 1 guy and since they were all ok with that and we all were comfortable with that stuff we could go Crazy. But with normal people? Help
This is exactly like my experience with it back in high school. All the girls at my school quit D&D after a few weeks because of how creepy the DM was. I was new to the school and was so excited to join a D&D group, but the leader was a HUGE creep. He made my character get sexually assaulted by kobolds and said that was "just how they were" and I obviously didn't know enough to argue back then. He had my character stripped naked several times and the incident that made me quit was when he had plants tear the clothes off my character and force them to be pressed naked against another member of the group while tied up in vines. It left me feeling so gross and awful. I refused to interact with D&D for years after that and I'm only just starting to get back into it again.
About the last one, I actually managed to make "for the total of" good. Our Artificer finds a eldrich stone with weird marks on it. He makes an Investigation check, and rolls a nat 20, for a total of 29. The DC was 30. He immediately takes a bunch of psychic damage, but he LEARNS that this thing has something inside and that it's possible to solve, he just needs more power. A few months later, the whole party desided to crack this thing. They used everything they had to buff the Artificer. And he actually managed to beat the DC! And now he has a Ring of Marid, that is supers scary, strong and extremely loyal to the artificer. And only to him. Party loved it, and it changed the whole campaign.
that is the right approach tho! it left the artificer with the feeling that his nat20 got him something
In my opinion, the justification for this is not that it was a nat 20, but that they came to 1 under the DC. It should have been the same if they got a 15 and had +14 somehow.
Though I suppose it makes a difference in this case, as the roll is repeatable...
It's been a while since I've run or played 5e but iirc nat 20s only count on saves or attacks.
i actually love the little details and throwaway lines like "hey can i borrow a dice? thanks" idk. makes it feel more like a real situation. more immersive. :)
I have one: I was playing with friends in a game bar. It was supposed to be a short session. My character was a kenku druid with a pet dog, and they were practically inseparable. My teammates and I were at a high level because, again, we wanted to keep the session short. Our adventure took place in a haunted castle. At one point, we're in the heart of the castle and find ourselves trapped in a dark room. We're not alone; there are cultists in the form of spirits demanding a sacrifice. By the way, before all of this, I told my DM that I'd put a lot of work into my character, including the dog (to make sure they were in line with the game mechanics and the story, while taking a few liberties, like being a kenku). I gave them the sheet to check it out, and they approved. Back to the story. When the sacrifice was announced, the DM had a smirk on their face, and my teammates collectively killed my dog without even asking my input. I'll skip the gruesome details of what happened, but basically picture a little kenku wearing a cloak crying her eyes out, trying to reach for her friend as she bleeds from her claws. It killed the experience for me. This luckily wasn't my first session but it was one the first few.
11:52 the real crime here is a rogue only having a +1 to perception
Agreed
not to forget that the rule of Nat 1/20 only exist for attacks, a Nat 20 isn't an auto success
To be fair with that last one, a Natural 20 does NOT guarantee success, even with modifiers, on ability and skill checks. Having said that, I completely sympathize because of my own experience with a similar situation. I was playing a 5th level tiefling evocation wizard who was a professor of history and religion (obviously, he had proficiency in those skills). We were walking through a dungeon and solving riddles dished out by a cute little robot dude we'd picked up.
One riddle he gave us had something to do with Norse mythology, as sussed out by another player. I got excited and asked what I would know that would help us with this riddle. The DM asked me to roll a Religion check. Natural fucking 20 for a total of 26! My character should have just known the answer at that point, right? Nope. We were given another vague ass hint, and somebody else was able to solve it. Everyone agreed I got robbed.
In short, If you're not prepared to reward those high rolls, especially if they clear the higher DC's in the game, just don't call for them. It's kind of a dick move.
To be fair not all tasks are meant with everyone in mind. The dude added a whopping... 1 point to his roll. There's nothing saying someone with a much better modifier can't make it a lower roll.
If the player was complaining it wasn't instantly solved sure, but the DM have them nothing. And like you said, if a player gets zilch from their highest possible roll you shouldn't have them roll. Rolls are for when things are possible but not certain. If you can't even learn anything from a 20+, that's not possible for you. And what the hell is a 26 not getting you somewhere? Past 25 you're in nearly impossible territory and your DM's riddles shouldn't be that hard.
Had this happen to me in CoS when fighting in Ravenloft. Got specifically targeted with a wisdom-draining attack, then even rolling a Nat20 on the wisdom save, lost it because of the dropped modifier. It’s not like it’s completely unfair I just didn’t know beforehand so it caught me off guard
@@EvanSnowWolf You right, you right. In the particular situation described in the video, though, the DM coulda chilled and given them something.
Probably. Feels like a stonewall moment, where nothing is really fun for anyone.@@dantecrossroad
I didn't leave the table over this, but my DM's most obnoxious ruling was when he decided a genie's lamp counted as an extradimensional space for the purposes of interacting with other extradimensional spaces like a Bag of Holding, but did not carry over the stipulation that piercing such a space would destroy it.
My Barbarian was trying to free the genie from his lamp, and so stabbed the lamp with his magic pike. It poked a hole in the lamp, and nothing more. After seeing that, I thought "well, we wouldn't want to be seen with a genie's lamp on our person, so I'll put it in the Bag of Holding." Then, suddenly, I lost everything in the Bag, plus the pike, which I only got back from a lucky roll from the Wild Magic Sorcerer.
To this day, I'm still bitter about that ruling.
And you are right to be.
you wanted to do smth stupid by dabbling with magic items by brute force. Kinda feels like its on you
That's totally on you, though
@galahadwolf5818 if I hadn't stabbed a hole in the lamp first, I'd agree with you.
But given that it didn't explode when pierced (which all extradimensional space items specifically mention), I had no reason to think it would react as such when placed inside a Bag of Holding.
@@galahadwolf5818 totally? How so?
That opening rant about the climbing gear was such a mood
Once played with a dm who gave xp individually depending on how much he thought you contributed during the session. It made dnd feel like a competition to out role-play your party members so you could get more xp 😅
oof. there's better ways to incentivize RP.
I think this is fine as I did this in one of my campaigns as long as you put some thought into how to make it work fairly. You cant be arbitrary, there has to be defined rules the DM follows when deciding what to give XP out for and how much it earns. Knowing what group you can do this with is important too. That particular group was intelligent, well reasoned, understood the game, and enjoyed the RP more than the combat.
At the end of the day, the DM just needs to think things through when introducing custom experiences and make sure it benefits the fun and/or depth of the game.
This is also something that should be layed out in session 0 to make sure people understand how it works.
I used to run with individual xp and bonused the players out like this too to encourage more roleplay, but then I discovered that it didn't change how people played, it just rewarded my "favorites". When I realized this I bonused everyone out the next time and announced that we'd be be henceforth going to milestone xp.
This isn't to say that individual xp is wrong, just that it ended up being wrong for my table.
Our dm did that too, but to be fair, one of our party members managed to 1v1 the final boss who was intended to be a 5v1, and the dm had to throw away 20+ pages of script because of it hahahaha.
I've used this many times, like say 100exp bonus for the VIP of the session, BUT I always had the PLAYERS choose the person. ;)
Fellas, i cannot stress this enough, as an extrovert with no social anxiety, I DESPISE the stupid. freaking (idk if i should cuss in yt comments or not) rule where you have to do real charisma. My brother in Asmodeus. I rolled a 21. I have a 17 charisma and expertise in persuasion. I should not automatically fail because I have the irl charisma of a red-eyed tree frog sitting in slop. FUCK.
The idea that a DM would make anyone roll their irl stats when the whole point is you get to not use those
you can swear in comments it's ok
Its the same logic as being able to do something physically in the rules but then the dm going "mmmmm that's not realistic" because you can long jump 20ft and high jump 8ft
Don't worry, you can swear in the comments.
That goes so far against the spirit of roleplaying its baffling. It feels like some people took the fun idea of a player actually doing the thing for an advantage given by the DM and just made it a mandatory part of the game. Basically ruins Charisma entirely.
7:32 Just so everyone knows, the line in the book he's pointing to is regarding casting time for spells. Under Bonus Action, it says the following:
"A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action."
so the DM was completely in the right?
@@DD-mp1kl-no- initially yes, because the player was using two actions. To quote Jeremy Crawford himself, fireball into action surge into fireball is a perfectly valid turn
It's a good thing Action Surge grants a full action then.
@@DD-mp1kl No, read it one more time. The rule is specifically about "Bonus Action spells", not "two spells in a turn". You can cast as many leveled spells in one turn as you want to as long as none of them are Bonus Actions.
You could theoretically be a Sorc/Wizard/Fighter and use an Action, a Counterspell, a Contingency spell, an Action Surge, and a Wild Magic Surge on all of them, and the wild Magic that gives you another action to cast 5+ leveled spells on your turn. But if you use one Bonus Action spell, any other spell on that turn can't be more than a cantrip.
@@hugofontes5708 ok so the player could cast twice.
Could have just said hammering the pitons made noise, attracting the guards' attention, that's very realistic!
For me, it was "if you do anything other than run directly away, disengage doesn't work." A character wanted to disengage and then run past two enemies, and the DM said he'd provoke attacks of opportunity. After disengaging. The text of which is "If you take the Disengage action, your movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks for the rest of the turn." I didn't play with them much longer.
I absolutely desire more of these so here's my contribution: I was in one of my first campaign's ever playing as a cleric because the party needed a healer. we were trekking through a desert mid day and out of nowhere our barbarian decides he's going to sleep, so I ask the barbarian why he's lying down when he still have several days trek to the nearest town and he just shrugs saying he wants to sleep now. everyone looks somewhat irritated by this, I decided I'd be playful and get the barbarian in gear by casting create water above their head. no harm done the barbarian is now wet in the desert and definitely awake. the barbarian looks at our dm and says "I attack the cleric" and proceeds to instantly kill me in one hit (I was a much lower level than the rest of the party). when i ask why would you do that? it was the middle of the day and we were trying to get moving i wasn't even attacking you, he simply looked at me and responding with "oh, I thought it was night so we could sleep" so i just packed up my things and left.
Edit: for some added clarity, the barbarian was (is) one of my best friends, we did eventually laugh about this and do occasionally joke about the "water splash of 06"
the dm in question was fairly inexperienced and did not know how to handle the situation without taking agency from the player so they just ok'ed it figuring the attack wouldn't be that bad and would get the barbarian to chill.
Ah yes. I love that scene in my favorite movie Lord Rings, where Aragon refuses the hobbits request for second breakfast and they immediately stabbed him!
Reacting to harmless shenanigans with deadly violence. Truly a virtue of gamers.
Honestly the DM should have said no from the start of PvP.
@@impofstpete727 they were a fairly inexperienced dm and i dont think they knew how to best handle the situation
I think the problem here doesn't rely on your DM at the time, it relies on your friend who (with everything you said) is a big big "problem player". If he had said "that is what my character would have done" then that would have been the complete asshole player package in one go hahaha
3:16 I mean to be fair in that situation the DM could have ruled that hammering a piton would be noisy enough to alert the guard, I’d probably remind the player before they took the action though.
Yeah that's what I was thinking, it's not like placing pitons on a stone wall is something you can do without making a ton of noise
Agreed. Also, Invisibility only causes Disadvantage to hit & perceive the target it's cast on, it's not like the target goes to a different plane of existence.
I always remind my players that their characters know the limits of Invisibility partially for the characters' benefit but also because like using creatures that can turn invisible. I don't want my players to give up on a target just because they can't see it and it's always nice for those with high Perception to use their skill
Yeah, Invisibility is different from being Hidden. You can cast Invisibility and then Hide. Hammering pitons in the wall will not break invisibility, but it sure as hell will make you no longer hidden.
11:41 what if it was just a bag filled with gold
To be honest, the second one with the dragon seemed reasonable to me. It makes sense that the dragon was probably paying complete attention to the PCs, so as soon as they do any suspicious move, the dragon would immediately start blasting.
Same. Though I do see the mistake that happened in the on screen Tweet. The player noted they insighted the dragon about if it perceived them as a threat and the DM said "No." So when initiative was rolled it should've been a surprise round. Also the player losing their action, which in RAW I believe that's how it goes, though in my games I let them keep their actions after a ambush.
I think this was more the DM not just allowing a rule of cool to take place and the player being a little deflated about it. I see both sides. If it was me in the DMs shoes I would like to think that I would allow it but let the player know that this is a one off instance. You really got to take every advantage you can get against a Dragon that by the sounds of it was in their lair.
Start blasting, sure. But giving the Rogue no action implies the dragon and the Rogue attack at the same time. Its debatable if its a "suspicious move" when he was showing the Dragon what it does and in reality didn't have to actually target the dragon and coulda casted Magic Missile at a wall or something anyway
@@Quilly_DM Only time I've ever seen "the action that triggers combat counts as your action for that round" rules is in BG3 and realistically it was only added so they could implement the Assassin Rogue feature that gives them their action on the first round even if they initiated combat with an action since a lot of the tabletop Assassin abilities just don't make sense in a video game and are very reliant on table/DM fiat that the AI DM of BG3 can't account for.
Base tabletop rules anything done before combat does not count as your actions for said combat.
I think the issue was the DM just not properly explaining "hey your turn is technically after the dragon's, but I'll let you do an acrobatics check to get the action part of your turn in before it has time to act" The player assumed the action happened pre initiative roll, which would 100% still allow them to have their action on their turn, whereas the DM's intent was just letting them squeeze the action in outside of the normal turn order, but it still happened after initiative was rolled.
Also, the "no" was not about the dragon seeing them as a threat. They rolled to see if the gifts were appeasing the dragon and the DM said no. The dragon was going to kill them despite the gifts, hence why they decided to try and act first. They wouldn't have attacked if the dragon had been appeased by the gifts.
Maybe I'm reading something into it too far, but the way that jacob played the dm, made it sound like he was using this encounter to take away the circlet. although if a magic item that allows you to cast a 2nd level magic missile is overpowered on a rogue, I'm not sure what to tell you.
lol for the skit with the action surge wizard, that reminds me of the first rule my college DMs told us. “Never give the DM ideas.” Part of that ruling was that if the DM makes a call and it’s to the players benefit, DONT speak up. The DM will ALWAYS take the counter call if it’s reasonable and arguable. This was to help us work together and try ti be more creative without constant rule squabbling. If someone did speak up tho we all paid the price haha 😂 “Snitches get stitches” one of the DMs said when someone accidentally challenged a player positive ruling
I feel like a lot of these come from a DM vs players mindset. DnD is about the storytelling, not a game to fight your players. I have had my fair share of DM mistakes, its easy to get attached to the way you think the story should go, but its not a story you are telling, its the story of your group, and you as a DM are there to make the story interesting. Challenge your players, but never have the mindset of "I'm going to kill them"
The only one that feels like it didn't come from that is the lv 3 fireball death. That was just a DM thinking it'd be cool and having the interaction go down in the worst way possible.
I disagree with this statement. Of course it'll vary by group, but if you don't have at least a little bit of a you vs. the players mindset, the players will never really feel in any real danger, especially if you're playing less lethal systems like 5e. Some groups are fine with that, and even prefer that, but my group gets SUPER bored if their combats aren't deadly challenges to be overcome.
@@SaveMeXenuThis, not to mention that I as a DM write my own stories with broad strokes so that while the details may change, the overarching story continues. I never try and railroad but a gentle nudge every now and again never hurt anyone.
@@SaveMeXenuThis but emphasize that the world is a dangerous place. There's fucking magic in the world (and if you're doing modern, guns). It's dangerous, you may die. They know this, or should, before they start playing.
I stopped DMing in part because I found myself having the “the players aren’t doing what I want” problem. It’s just a hard adjustment to make sometimes when movies and video games give you that individual power over the story. It’s more important to play dnd like a game than as a story. Still add in story elements and narrative stuff, but if you’re ever at a point where you feel like “the story isn’t going right”, you need to stop, take a step back, and remember that this is a game and everyone should be having fun equally.
This is why you have to divert from RAW sometimes. At 6:35. The dm did nothing wrong but also didn't let the players have some fun.
I had a DM like this once and I'm pretty sure it's a carryover from old school DMing of the DM vs. the Players. Nowadays keeping your players having fun means just communicating the full information to them and then letting them decide: "Hammering the piton will make a lot of noise and break invisibility. Do you want to do that or do you want to stay hidden?"
I haven't really played much DnD, but I've played a couple campaigns. I feel like both styles could be fun. is this a personal preference kind of thing? is it common to just be one type or the other, or is the old-school way kind of frowned upon now? I feel like, _done right,_ both would be fun.
Nah. Never tell your players exactly what an action will do. You can hint that it'll be loud and may get you caught, but no DM should ever be expected to disclose all information.
@@SaveMeXenu They should if it's something that the characters IT would know and the players OT are just too dense. Roleplaying is about playing a role and that includes "knowing" information that your character would know, even if you as the player don't. A wizard who has known invisibility for a long time would know what type of action would undo invisibility. If you as the DM say "Nah I should never have to disclose information to you, you as the player didn't know a thing your character would know therefore the guards kill you" then you're just an awful DM.
@@EskChan19 but by that same logic when they do something brilliant dose the DM say "well, you probably wouldn't know that" and not let them succeed? It's not the DMs job to tell the PCs that if they stick their hand in a boiling vat of oil it might burn them . . . or if they jump off a 50-foot cliff it might result in a broken ankle. Common sense should trump all in Dungeons and Dragons. Hammering a piton close to an enemy is pretty stupid and should get a pretty stupid result, and then a laugh from the rest of the group for the blatant idiocy. Weather the DM says its broken invisibility, or the player is detected by the racket they are making, it seems inevitable and unlikely to be anything but a waste of time to argue.
@@rgthjdrtyjrtyjdrtyjr
Following the game rules though, hammering a piton into a wall will not break invisbility. It will cause noise which may alert the guards to your position and in that case sure you have nobody to blame but yourself. BUT that's not what happened here.
I had a GM that would state that if you are blinded it is impossible for you to hit an enemy or do any action, also if you are invisible you cannot be hit by any attack or take any damage. His logic is that to hit something you need to know where it is and if you can't see something then you can't know where something is, so you can't interact with it. I explained how with that logic no one has ever won a game or marco polo, blind people cannot do anything ever period, and it is impossible to turn on the lights in a dark room. For invisibility I stated how we have multiple other forms of scenes, it still will be hard to hit something but if they are making a noise, being very smelly, literally grabbing you, you can know something is near. Luckily for me, another player had the spell invisibility and showed how the GM is dumb (room is full of deadly gas, but I can't be seen so no damage. I jump off the tower, oh I am invisible so the fall does not harm me).
You really encountered someone who can’t differentiate between “invisible” and “invincible”. That’s impressive
-When DM railroad you and your decisions mean nothing.
-When DM puts too much weight into NPCs that just feels like he's playing by himself for you to watch how cool he is.
I played a game like this once. We were fighting some kind of demon monster that was marching towards the town. The bad guys were getting close, so the dm just had the town guard captain show up and wipe put the bad guys in one turn.
@@aidenmiller1406 And you can see in his face how he waits for you players to be like :O
@@allfenom Holy shit, this. I have two totally disparate experiences with NPC-heavy GMs, and they are imo some of the right-est and wrong-est ways to do them. Long post incoming.
Bad: NPCs around whom the entire story revolves and who are 1) prohibitively powerful statistically (both in and out of combat), 2) have narrative control over the players' agency and 3) routinely deprive them of it. Agency is a huge problem with these GMs: by having their characters be the most powerful or important or knowledgeable people in the world AND gatekeeping things the players are allowed to know or do, players end up asking "why are we doing anything when these people exist?" and never getting an answer. GMs like this will rarely pull back the curtain and show what's going on behind the scenes or in their heads, because they want to maintain a sense of mystery and try to keep players invested in these NPCs (it doesn't work). It makes the party feel like they're not accomplishing anything and like they have to kowtow to these characters to get anything done -- "nowhere" is still a place you can be railroaded to, after all, and NPCs like this are the eternal train conductors.
Good: A Suikoden-style 108 Stars Of Destiny kind of thing where we're seeking out, recruiting and compensating these NPCs. Highly specialized abilities that we tell the GM we want for the story and the GM provides -- a shopkeeper with suppliers that can get us anything, a priestess for funerals and marriages, an alchemist for mutagens who needs a place to do research, etc. They aren't always emotionally invested in our goals, but they also don't resist helping if there's a reward, and they're polite and let us do our thing while still putting up healthy boundaries. The important thing about these NPCs is they maintain player agency by being able to be affected by the players meaningfully no matter what. The GM also communicates the ways they can be affected and also pulls back the curtain and lets us know what the consequences of recruiting them are, except when it's hidden for plot reasons -- which the GM *also* pulls back the curtain to let us know.
Ultimately, these two approaches to OC-heavy campaigns hinge on communication. If a GM is good at letting you know why NPCs act a certain way and NOT letting them get in the way of players' freedom of expression, that's enough to keep players hooked on having these NPCs around. I wish more GMs understood the Confucian approach to mysteries, where the best thing you can do to keep your players interested is to listen to what your players consider important and give them pieces of it, instead of forcing them to root through mud and talk to obstinate NPCs to learn things that the GM thinks are important. Thanks for reading.
@@DetectiveGrey It's a hard balance to strike for sure. I find communication is, as always, the key. In the campaign I'm running, my players are about to run up against several factions of NPCs that are way out of their league. I clearly told them though that this arc is about introducing the power scale of the world and setting the stakes and that, just as well, their aid will shift the balance in one way or another. They may not be able to match up, but who they influence will change the trajectory of the events.
@@LunamrathP Communication is important, but *agency* is far, far more important in my opinion. You will find that it won't matter so much to the players how outta league or outta scale these NPCs are as long as player agency is preserved. Have you played Mega Man X? In Mega Man X, in the beginning of the game, Zero is introduced as an incredibly powerful NPC who rescues you -- but what is cool about Zero is that he is there to show 1) how powerful the player will eventually be, and 2) he stays outta the player's way while the player tackles all the Mavericks. I believe the best thing a GM can do with powerful NPCs is to "show the players what they can be". The unfortunate experience I had with OCs involved a GM who tried to show us this, but the plot moved too slowly for us to really believe that we would ever reach that level of political or statistical power. It was very frustrating. So, I hope your players like your NPC factions, and that they become inspired by them. It sounds like you know what you're doing; knock it outta the park!