D&D 5E High-level no-save spells in practice

[DaveDash]

You actually can't. If you don't trust the DM, that's it, game over, you are done, this will not be a fun experience, no matter how many manuals and restrictions and rules you throw at them. A DM you can't trust is a DM who you can't trust to obey the rules of any edition no matter how clearly they're spelled out.



Don't mistake the rules for one of the goals of play. The goal isn't to use the rules. The goal is to have a fun time. The rules are only useful in as much as they enable that. There is no neutral arbiter of what is a fun time for everyone. If a DM wants to nerf a rule that's actually fine because they don't think it's fine, that's working as intended, because that DM is going to have more fun that way. And if the players can't trust the DM not to nuke things that are fun for the players, they should have a different DM.



DM freedom is a flaw you say? So people making the game the way they want to play is the wrong way to play the game?

DM freedom is a flaw for me.

It's a feature however, and probably a good one. It's impact on me in practice is fairly negligible, but in principle it's one I oppose.

Truth be told I much prefer playing a game than living out some narrative fantasy. I much much prefer pathfinders approach than 5es - in principal. I hate THoM games, and I hate DM styles who just let players do whatever is creative, regardless of the rules. I love RAW, and I love RAW mastery.

5e unfortunately for me happens to be a lot more fun however than pathfinder, which is old, clunky, and tedious in practice, but I'll always be an advocate for a little DM power as possible, as I view the DM as another player at the table, first amongst equals, but a flawed human still.

I firmly believe that sacrificing some "simulationism" for consistent set of boundaries increases the satisfaction of all players long term, as they're guaranteed a consistent set of boundaries to work with, and cast rest assured with *total* confidence that any achievement (or error) is purely their and theirs alone.

Despite what other posters here think, they're not being consistent across All Things. They're sacrificing consistency for an abstract line in their head that crosses some sort of "realism" line.

This is just an endless debate in play style, which I can accept. What I don't accept however is that there is some RAW justification for certain forcecage rulings here which I am opposed to. There simply isn't. It's play style pure and simple.

 

[n00b f00]

I think we keep coming back style because the wording on the spell leaves it up to GM discretion. If the creature is too large to foot in a 20 by 20 box, it doesn't go into the box. That we agree on, that is RAW. But how big is the creature we're dealing with, is it possible to seal a creature into a force cage if it positions itself funny for half a second, how important mechanically is it that force cage be effective on large enemies, how does important is it to your table's suspension of disbelief when it comes to size dimensions for various creatures, should the GM tell the player it won't work before it is cast, should the GM put down every size category for creatures on a chart?

To me a big dragon is bigger than 20x20, not just its physical size but also in the amount of area in controls in a fight. I would say that it didn't fit in the forcecage, unless it was trying to accommodate the force cage caster. We've seen pictures of the kraken, it's definitely bigger than 20 by 20. But maybe having forcecage be a badass spell is more important, maybe you rule it so that forcecage is able to work on almost any single creature. It's a 20 by 20 foot spell, and the gargantuan size starts at 20 by 20. It stands to reason that force cage was meant to work on even the largest creatures, or at the very least the most iconic of foes, the dragon. But that's trying to find RAI, gargantuan merely start at 20 by 20, and while that's the closest thing we have to size, I'm not a 5 by 5 foot cube, there's a lot of abstraction in there.

I would tell the player before they cast that it wasn't going to work, and I'd tell the player when they took the spell that oftentimes forcecage was not going to work on larger creatures. We discuss it, maybe one of us changes our minds("You're so right GM, why'd I ever question you?"), or maybe we come to a compromise("Thank you merciful GM for allowing it to work on dragons and down in size, but not bigger monsters!", or maybe the player just focuses on another spell("I will always secretly resent you gm!").

You just have to come up to some terms on your own, because the RAW is vague and I believe intentionally so. And make sure you're all clear on how it works so no one is upset afterwards. If I took plane shift believing I could use it as a save of die spell(he gets teleported into a pit of fire), and my GM reduced it to a minor inconvenience(he gets teleported to a cool bar), I might be upset. And again as the GM I would likely tell a player with it, if an important character fails this save, he's not dead, in the same way if you failed the save you would not be dead. Happiness is a mechanic of expectations.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

70 skeletons!? This is crazy! I'm just curious, how do you manage combats at this scale? I use Roll20 which is great for managing a ton of creatures at once, but after running a fight against like... 20-30 bullywugs and giant frogs, I got kind of turned off to the concept (PCs bottlenecked them and used lightning bolt to fry them 5 or 6 at a time) of hordes of enemies, but maybe I'm doing it wrong.

Perhaps more pertinent, on a practical level, what are the effects of this style of combat? I bet it scares the snot out of your PCs for one... do you do waves, or do they all come in simultaneously? Group initiative where all the skeletons go at once?

I tried out another technique for large-scale enemies today and it worked pretty well, so I'll share it.

The PCs are trying to clear all the threats off a 25-square-mile rock island floating in the atmosphere of an air planet, so they can bring colonists in 4X-style. They used Commune With Nature to assess the local ecology, and learned that major predators include ropers, rocs, and phase spiders. This particular island had 90-odd ropers and 80-odd phase spiders scattered across various parts of its surface.

Now, I don't particularly want to have to play through 20-40 battles with phase spiders (I ruled that they come in groups of 1-6 spiders), so I made the players a deal: if you can fight a battle with disadvantage on every roll while the enemy gets advantage on every roll, we'll just call that your unluckiest battle of the day and say you won 9 other similar combats the same way. In other words, kill 2 phase spiders on hard mode and it will count for 20 spiders.

So we did, and it was a blast. First they located a smallish web in the forest canopy with two spiders in it and hovered the ship 120' over it, intending to blast them to death with catapults from above. They hit one spider and killed it, but the other spider won initiative next turn and vanished before anyone could hit it... and nothing happened for the next thirty seconds... when suddenly a phase spider materialized out of midair and bit the helmsman. Anyway, to make a long story short, they killed both spiders (20 spiders down! 14,000 XP!) and then went for their next in-game nest, which turned out to be 5 phase spiders. Now, I want to point out that 5 phase spiders is actually already a Deadly threat for an 11th level PC, a 5th level PC, and a 4th level PC (7000 XP, Deadly threshold is 5200) even before you factor in "disadvantage on every roll, and double-disadvantage on normally-disadvantaged rolls, and advantage for all your enemies". Before the encounter was over, the pilot had been knocked out and the whole ship was one initiative roll away from a 120' fall causing 12d6 damage to everybody aboard (undoubtedly would have killed the whole crew and probably all the PCs who were still up, and who by the way were still facing 4 phase spiders at this point), and there were multiple other close calls almost as bad. I had a blast and so did the players, and at the end we declared it the "worst battle of the day" and I handwaved another 45 spiders, so they killed 70 phase spiders today (in game time, I ruled that it took about two days of hunting) and earned 49,000 XP.

And then in the middle of their long rest, I spent some of my hoarded karma to open an interdimensional portal in the ship's cargo hold. The first thing that came out was a Nycaloth, and the second thing out was a Fireball which roasted the Nycaloth and all of the PCs' remaining cows that they use to fuel the spelljamming ship, so they're now stranded until they can find more lifeforms to put in the lifejammer. The third thing out was a Grey Slaad who was fighting with the Nycaloth for inscrutable Slaad reasons ("Slay evil!").

Forgive the digression.

Anyway, the "fight battle at penalty and I'll handwave X number of similar encounters" was successful IMO and I will probably use it again in the future. If you can kill 5 vampires on your worst day, you can probably kill arbitrary numbers of vampires on an average day.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Anyway, the "fight battle at penalty and I'll handwave X number of similar encounters" was successful IMO and I will probably use it again in the future. If you can kill 5 vampires on your worst day, you can probably kill arbitrary numbers of vampires on an average day.

I kind of like this idea for clearing out locations (like clearing out hexes and the like). Handle one encounter on "hardmode" and you win the equivalent of 5 of these encounters in a day (just to kind of spitball a number based on the average encounters/day). Neat!

 

[aramis erak]

70 skeletons!? This is crazy! I'm just curious, how do you manage combats at this scale? I use Roll20 which is great for managing a ton of creatures at once, but after running a fight against like... 20-30 bullywugs and giant frogs, I got kind of turned off to the concept (PCs bottlenecked them and used lightning bolt to fry them 5 or 6 at a time) of hordes of enemies, but maybe I'm doing it wrong.

Perhaps more pertinent, on a practical level, what are the effects of this style of combat? I bet it scares the snot out of your PCs for one... do you do waves, or do they all come in simultaneously? Group initiative where all the skeletons go at once?

I used 25 skeletons vs a 4 player 2nd level party which had no clerics nor paladins.

Standard combat worked fine - because of terrain. If it had been open field, it would have been different.

There are several ways to speed up combats. One of which is no damage rolls. Use the default damage.

Another is to round damage to packages of 3, 4, or 5 points each, tuned for each encounter...

So, taking 7 hp skellies and 4 HP kobolds... set it to 4 HP packages. A damage roll of 1 is none, 2-5 is 1 package, 6-9 is 2 packages. Kobs die if they take 1, skellies on the second. (This prevents tracking more than hit/killed.)

Combine it with fixed damages, and you get pretty quick play and low tracking - you can track by dropping a bit of yarn on the mini, even.

Oh, and the mob rules work well, too. Shortcuts lots of the to-hit rolls.

The real impact of a large scale fights game are that the PC's importance is more as a unit leader than as a damage dealer individually.

 

[Ashrym]

Regarding force cage... It's disingenuous to agree a Tarrasque is obviously too big for the cage area regardless of the controlled space and then turn around to state a DM is arbitrarily violating controlled space as size for a dragon. It's the DM's job to describe the game, including the monsters, and adjucate the rules. It's a fact some creatures have dimensions that exceed the area of force cage regardless of controlled area.

A wizard is certainly not "screwed over" because he could not force cage a dragon. That's a sense of entitlement which is simply unrealistic. Force cage works on many targets quite well and isn't less effective against them just because it won't trap a dragon. The wizard is selective in his choice of targets and this is no different than matching spells to creatures by trying to target weak saving throws.

Even against the dragon, the party can use force cage to control area or slide the dragon.

In some encounters, force cage can be used to take a short rest in the middle of combat, although that might have other consequences. Unlike leomunds hut, force cage only takes am action to cast and has other combat uses.

I don't see issues with no save spells because high DC spells vs lower saves tend to be just as effective or sometimes better, and the burst power of some combat builds makes such debates moot because dead is the best status effect.

My recommendation is to just play the game and have fun instead of arguing details. Debate with the DM after the session if there is a concern nut keep in mind he's only doing what he's supposed to do.

 

[Celtavian]

Dave Dash has stated he is what is known as a "rules lawyer." No other type of player believes in "RAW mastery." That is a term that goes with a different play-style where the group agrees to abide by the letter of the rules. I don't enjoy it. I don't think it accomplishes what Dave thinks it accomplishes in terms of player accomplishments. It changes how the DM goes about doing things to prevent easy defeat of his encounters. Even in a 3E style system, a DM can create enemies using the rules to defeat nearly every strategy including writing up unique abilities for individual monsters. I did this all the time to deal with RAW. Even in a 3E style system, the DM has the capacity to create RAW as long as he clearly defines it when creating creatures. Pathfinder did not discourage creativity such as monster or magic item creation, it just required that you spell it out in advance. I surprised players all the time with made up abilities that ensured the players would be challenged. Even in 3E the DM controls what the players can accomplish. I don't understand the thinking that playing by RAW somehow allows a player to "own" their accomplishments. I do understand the psychology of players that go off "feel" rather than logic. To Dave "RAW mastery" gives him the feeling of mastering the game and having greater control over the game world, even if logically he has no more control than the DM allows. The DM can create the same situations Dave is afraid of by writing up unique monsters or designing enemy NPCs with RAW abilities that defeat what the players can do thus exerting control over the world.

That's why DM trust is far more important than the rules or game system. A DM can always screw the players over. A DM can always create an environment where the players have no agency. The rule system changes absolutely nothing. The real limit on DM power in any system is not the rules, but the agency of the people playing the characters. They can leave or create an unpleasant environment for the DM in other ways. That keeps most DMs from acting in a fashion that ruins the play experience.

I can only surmise Dave Dash has had some very unpleasant experiences with DMs that play TotM. I can understand some of his apprehension as I don't like playing pure TotM. I like using battle mats, minis, or graph paper. We played 1E with graph paper. I like some consistent physical representation of the game world. That being said I'm far more concerned with a quality play experience than RAW or TotM. The best DMs are the ones that can keep up the illusion that your player is having an effect on the world in some real way regardless of how they go about it.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I agree Celtavian that would be trivial to murder the PCs while staying completely within RAW. But only a jerk does that. I see staying within RAW except where explicitly changed as a necessary but not sufficient condition for player empowerment.

The thing is that RAW hardly covers anything. At least at my table, 70% of what happened last session has no RAW. Trade routes, interplanetary colonization, spell research: where's the rules for that? My players and I have to make it up. Because I have the most rules mastery, that usually means I propose the rule and they ratify it, a la "I'll give you 1.66 gp of income from trade per ton of cargo capacity per day per point of SR. You can gain more by upgrading your personal contacts or by getting a bigger or faster ship. Does that sound fair?"

I think it's important for them to know the rules so they can act effectively within them.


Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk 2

 

[DaveDash]

Dave Dash has stated he is what is known as a "rules lawyer." No other type of player believes in "RAW mastery." That is a term that goes with a different play-style where the group agrees to abide by the letter of the rules. I don't enjoy it. I don't think it accomplishes what Dave thinks it accomplishes in terms of player accomplishments. It changes how the DM goes about doing things to prevent easy defeat of his encounters. Even in a 3E style system, a DM can create enemies using the rules to defeat nearly every strategy including writing up unique abilities for individual monsters. I did this all the time to deal with RAW. Even in a 3E style system, the DM has the capacity to create RAW as long as he clearly defines it when creating creatures. Pathfinder did not discourage creativity such as monster or magic item creation, it just required that you spell it out in advance. I surprised players all the time with made up abilities that ensured the players would be challenged. Even in 3E the DM controls what the players can accomplish. I don't understand the thinking that playing by RAW somehow allows a player to "own" their accomplishments. I do understand the psychology of players that go off "feel" rather than logic. To Dave "RAW mastery" gives him the feeling of mastering the game and having greater control over the game world, even if logically he has no more control than the DM allows. The DM can create the same situations Dave is afraid of by writing up unique monsters or designing enemy NPCs with RAW abilities that defeat what the players can do thus exerting control over the world.

That's why DM trust is far more important than the rules or game system. A DM can always screw the players over. A DM can always create an environment where the players have no agency. The rule system changes absolutely nothing. The real limit on DM power in any system is not the rules, but the agency of the people playing the characters. They can leave or create an unpleasant environment for the DM in other ways. That keeps most DMs from acting in a fashion that ruins the play experience.

I can only surmise Dave Dash has had some very unpleasant experiences with DMs that play TotM. I can understand some of his apprehension as I don't like playing pure TotM. I like using battle mats, minis, or graph paper. We played 1E with graph paper. I like some consistent physical representation of the game world. That being said I'm far more concerned with a quality play experience than RAW or TotM. The best DMs are the ones that can keep up the illusion that your player is having an effect on the world in some real way regardless of how they go about it.

I've given it some more thought, and ultimately, I'm arguing on principle, not on practice.

There's parts of 5e (in fact it's core design philosophy) that annoys me in principle. I'm not 'afraid' of thom, I just think it cheapens the experience. It certainly cheapens *my* experience, because I am after more of a game than a story/simulation.

However, thinking about it logically, the way 5e is designed is a very good design for a TTRPG. In practice, we can all run the game we like and it hurts no one.

Thinking about the Dragon/Force Cage issue, it does make a lot of sense that Dragons can't really fit in a force cage. 20ftx20ft Dragons are pretty small Dragons, and there really isn't anything wrong with this ruling or this way of thinking.

In the game I run, the players love the battlemap and the tactical element of the game. I go to great lengths to create maps with interesting terrain and encourage metagaming tactical thinking at my table. It's much more of an advanced version of D&D minis than the "classic" version of D&D that many here play. It is a super dungeon though, so apart from combat, there's not really a lot else going on.
For my next game running Princes though, I'll probably switch to the more classic version of D&D, which many here ascribe to.

We have three DMs, all who run different styles of games, so we can each get a fix for the different kind of games that each other runs (tactical, narrative, and in the middle). I rule in my game that the minis dictate spell effects, doesn't matter if the Dragon ends up being a cube in effect, that's just how it is. One of our other DM's rules the same, but the last DM wouldn't rule that way. Would I actually get into an argument with him about it? Thinking about it, probably not. Is it really a big deal? No, not really.

So I take back my arguments.

 

[Marlberg]

Somebody obviously knows who Hap the barbarian and Glirindree are.

Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk 2

I still want The Warlock's Wheel