D&D 5E Capricious Home Rules and DM Pet Peeves

[MostlyDm]

Hm. That's not one fantatsic thing excusing another. ("Wheels aren't square" is just a mundane fact.) No, an analogy to the fantastic-things-excuse-other-fantastic-things argument-you-don't-get would be saying "Build your dog's house out of pancakes..." to the Witch in Hansel & Gretel, who already lives in a house made of candy.

Well... I think his point is that the stuff that bugs him and others like him (e.g. studded leather, mislabeled swords) is not really in the category of fantastic things.

If someone says "How can illithids exist, they don't make sense" I think it's a reasonable reply to say "You're okay with Flumphs but not Illithids? Really?"

But if someone says "studded leather didn't exist, it's a weird nonsensical fantasy armor," I actually think dismissing this with "yeah but you're okay with fire breathing dragons?" is a categorization error.

At the end of the day, all of our fiction has to enable us to suspend disbelief. Everyone has some threshold of believability/credulity that works for them. Those thresholds are gonna be different... wildly different in some cases. But overall, I'd say that torches, studded leather, etc. are all items that are generally considered to be part of the "mundane" world of D&D, not the fantastical one. So if someone feels a particular element of "mundane" D&D is nonsensical and breaks their suspension of disbelief, I think that's a legitimate concern.

I think what he's trying to say is: The existence of the fantastical doesn't mean we remove the onus on the mundane to be within the bounds of credulity. Does that make sense?

It's why people change falling damage, or change non-magical healing, or hate fighter healing, etc. These all stem from the same basic issue, which is the individual threshold of suspension of disbelief, and how credible the mundane aspects of the D&D world are to each person.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I think what he's trying to say is: The existence of the fantastical doesn't mean we remove the onus on the mundane to be within the bounds of credulity. Does that make sense?

To reference the trope, since it explains the concept pretty well, it's "Like Reality Unless Noted". We know what a torch is and how it works because they exist in real life, so we can go ahead and make assumptions about torches based on our real-life experience. Illithids don't exist in real life, so we don't have a base reference point about how they should work, and it's easier to accept anything that the game wants to tell us on the matter.

If the things that exist in the real world do not behave as we expect them to, then the world seems less believable. Adding new stuff to a world doesn't strain disbelief nearly as much as changing what we already know. (It's also why you should never read a Dan Brown novel about a topic you actually know anything about.)

 

[Colder]

The "Clear Path to the Target" requirement for casting spells doesn't work as it's intended, so I'm chucking that rule out the window for the game I'm planning. The Craw recently talked about it a little bit in a podcast recently, but I still dislike the rule and the justification he gave for it so much because it actually stops teleportation spells from working as intended because those spells don't explicitly say they allow you to teleport through cover. The justification he gave was unsatisfying because it's not actually present in the book and it's not appropriate for settings in which the mechanism that magic works on isn't The Weave.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

The "Clear Path to the Target" requirement for casting spells doesn't work as it's intended...

I'm curious how so, as it appears to be working just fine at my table, and that might mean I'm unknowingly using it in an unintended fashion. Mind clarifying?

 

[77IM]

To reference the trope, since it explains the concept pretty well, it's "Like Reality Unless Noted". We know what a torch is and how it works because they exist in real life, so we can go ahead and make assumptions about torches based on our real-life experience. Illithids don't exist in real life, so we don't have a base reference point about how they should work, and it's easier to accept anything that the game wants to tell us on the matter.

If the things that exist in the real world do not behave as we expect them to, then the world seems less believable. Adding new stuff to a world doesn't strain disbelief nearly as much as changing what we already know. (It's also why you should never read a Dan Brown novel about a topic you actually know anything about.)

This is the best explanation of this I've seen.

I like to use the word "verisimilitude" to imply that it doesn't matter whether the game is realistic, it matters that it seems realistic. I think it's important both for immersion (suspension of disbelief), and also for game-play: it's easier to make decisions based on realistic-seeming scenarios, because we all have tons of experience with reality.

 

[Colder]

I'm curious how so, as it appears to be working just fine at my table, and that might mean I'm unknowingly using it in an unintended fashion. Mind clarifying?

Sure. Basically, the Clear Path to Target rule says that you need an unobstructed line from you to the target. It can't be behind total cover. This is to stop spells like Conjure Animals from conjuring a bear from the otherside of a window, or to stop Hold Person from working on a person on the other side of a wall of force.

Only spells that explicitly say they work on targets with total cover get around this rule. But the only spell that actually does this is Sacred Flame.

In the podcast, The Craw said that "target" isn't really a key word in 5e, and that anything a spell affects is its target: creatures, objects, locations, anything.

That means that teleportation spells target a location as the destination, and since none of those spells say they can teleport you through cover, they are still subject to the Clear Path to Target rule, meaning that they can't do what they need to do if you hold all spells to the same goal post. It's dumb.

 

[MNblockhead]

The "Clear Path to the Target" requirement for casting spells doesn't work as it's intended, so I'm chucking that rule out the window for the game I'm planning. The Craw recently talked about it a little bit in a podcast recently, but I still dislike the rule and the justification he gave for it so much because it actually stops teleportation spells from working as intended because those spells don't explicitly say they allow you to teleport through cover. The justification he gave was unsatisfying because it's not actually present in the book and it's not appropriate for settings in which the mechanism that magic works on isn't The Weave.

Wow, even the most diehard "clear path to target" folks usually allow misty step and teleportation because you are targeting yourself. You don't telepore "through" anything. You just appear there, because magic.

There was thread on Wall of Force I started on this forum a few days ago were folks on both sides of the fence dived deep into this. Nobody said it would stop teleportation.

But this is a thread on "celebrating" capricious DM rules and pet peeves. Each to his own.

 

[MNblockhead]

That means that teleportation spells target a location as the destination, and since none of those spells say they can teleport you through cover, they are still subject to the Clear Path to Target rule, meaning that they can't do what they need to do if you hold all spells to the same goal post. It's dumb.

Not to derail my own thread, but with this ruling you could never teleport to an indoor location. How would teleportation portals work?

 

[Colder]

Wow, even the most diehard "clear path to target" folks usually allow misty step and teleportation because you are targeting yourself. You don't telepore "through" anything. You just appear there, because magic.

There was thread on Wall of Force I started on this forum a few days ago were folks on both sides of the fence dived deep into this. Nobody said it would stop teleportation.

But this is a thread on "celebrating" capricious DM rules and pet peeves. Each to his own.

Not to derail my own thread, but with this ruling you could never teleport to an indoor location. How would teleportation portals work?

EXACTLY! "Clear Path to Target" as a general rule is dumb and confusing and it makes things actually simpler to just remove it as a general rule and instead decide how cover interacts with each spell individually.

 

[Oofta]

Sure. Basically, the Clear Path to Target rule says that you need an unobstructed line from you to the target. It can't be behind total cover. This is to stop spells like Conjure Animals from conjuring a bear from the otherside of a window, or to stop Hold Person from working on a person on the other side of a wall of force.

Only spells that explicitly say they work on targets with total cover get around this rule. But the only spell that actually does this is Sacred Flame.

In the podcast, The Craw said that "target" isn't really a key word in 5e, and that anything a spell affects is its target: creatures, objects, locations, anything.

That means that teleportation spells target a location as the destination, and since none of those spells say they can teleport you through cover, they are still subject to the Clear Path to Target rule, meaning that they can't do what they need to do if you hold all spells to the same goal post. It's dumb.

Target of teleport is you, not your destination. Same with misty step, you are the target and you can teleport anywhere you can see within 30 ft ... even if it's behind a window or wall of force.