New Sage Advice: Class Features, Combat, Spells, & Monsters

There's a new Sage Advice column up from D&D designer Jeremy Crawford. This month he tackles class features, combat (bonus actions; reach weapons), spellcasting, and monsters. It's quite a long edition, covering 18 questions in total, all questions asked via Twitter.

You'lll find the article here. All Sage Advice material is added to the Sage Advice Compendium, which is a 6-page PDF of questions and answers.

 

[Uchawi]

They should fix the offending creatures for conjure spells and let it rest.

 

[brehobit]

I'll pick on something you said _after_ my comment as I think it illustrates the point as well and it happened after you were aware of concerns:

I shouldn't have said that. It could well be a player is dealing with a DM who is being a jerk, or is new, or whatever. So it wouldn't be that 5e isn't for that player - it could be it's not for that DM, or just that (most likely) the DM and player need to try and resolve that problem, or that the player needs to walk away from that DM.

You are placing blame on others, finding a problem _they_ have, when the only source of the problem is this specific rule. It may be that they have a problem, but you seem completely unwilling to accept that perhaps the rule is at fault. Or that simply avoiding the spells involved is somehow not an acceptable solution.

IMO it's the rule that's flawed. I'm a decent player and my DM is, after some 30 years of playing, probably the second best I've ever seen (been hired to be a game master by the Harn folks to sell their game etc.) We play more of a optimized/strategic game when it comes to combat (plenty of role playing outside of combat, but not much in) and part of the game for us is to see how well we can utilize the options available to us in a fight. IMO these spells become too unpredictable and turns into me having to ask the DM to be able to use my spells as I wish. That is less interesting to me. I find your certainly that my objection to this means that we have a problem to be quite condescending.

Hope that explains things.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I guess the question is: does not getting the best option with the summoning spell nerf the spell too much? How much of of a downgrade in the spell's capability is it (assuming the DM is not literally out to screw you, like with the 1/4 CR vs 1 CR above)?

If we assume that the serious problems with the ruling don't apply, then no, there are no serious problems--pretty much by definition. I'm sure there are still situations where even if everything were at maximum allowed CR, you could get screwed over, though. That's more because 5e CR is...a very loose guideline than it is because of anything to do with DMs or players.

But, as my opening sentence implied, this is a bit like saying "well if we ignore the weight, is there anything keeping this rocket from reaching space?" When you take the centerpiece issue out of something, the fact that things are a lot better shouldn't come as a surprise.

 

[Falling Icicle]

So this is where the assumptions from prior editions of the game come into play, I suspect (though maybe not). There have always been spells where the player decides to cast it and the DM or random chance decide the result - like for instance the Reincarnation spell. The only way to conclude something has been "taken away" from the player, is if we assume the player had the choice as to the specific creature to be summoned to begin with. Where does that assumption come from about that choice? It's not specified in the spell description from my read of it (which says the player chooses the category of creature, not the specific creature). So the only thing I can think of is it comes from expectations from prior editions of the game, unless you can offer some other source for that expectation. So if it's from prior versions of the game - is it fair to bring an expectation from a prior version of the game into 5e?

When I said "taken away" I didn't mean to imply that it's something the player had before (though it is something a lot of players are used to after a decade and a half of having it). I was just referring to the game design decision of what to let the player control vs. what the DM controls. In some types of spells, such as the augury and divination spells, that decision is specifically taken away from the player and handed over the DM (and for good reason). Unlike those spells, the summoning spells don't come right out and say that the DM decides. That is why many people were surprised by this ruling, as they had the exact opposite impression for the past year and had been playing that way all along. The only mention of the DM in the text of those spells is where it says that the DM has the creature's statistics. I never got the impression from that that the DM is supposed to choose the creature that is summoned. I just thought that was their way of saying that those monster stats weren't in the PHB, unlike the familiars, skeletons, etc. that are provided in the back of the PHB.

As for whether or not it's appropriate to carry expectations from one edition to another, that isn't what I was doing here. I just think that this is a bad rule, and I would think so no matter what edition of the game it was in. That said, I see nothing wrong with someone pointing out that they liked something about a past edition better than the new one. That's simply stating a preference. As long as they don't get all edition-warrior about it, I don't see the problem. I will say that I really enjoyed the freedom that 3e brought with the summon monster spells. Even though I really like 5e overall, I have always been disappointed with its summoning spells, and this ruling only compounded that. Does that disappointment outweigh the things I like about 5e? Not even close. Would I go back to playing 3e just because I like the summoning in that game better? No, I wouldn't. But I would love 5e even more if it handled summoning better.

 

[Mistwell]

I'll pick on something you said _after_ my comment as I think it illustrates the point as well and it happened after you were aware of concerns:



You are placing blame on others, finding a problem _they_ have, when the only source of the problem is this specific rule. It may be that they have a problem, but you seem completely unwilling to accept that perhaps the rule is at fault. Or that simply avoiding the spells involved is somehow not an acceptable solution.

IMO it's the rule that's flawed. I'm a decent player and my DM is, after some 30 years of playing, probably the second best I've ever seen (been hired to be a game master by the Harn folks to sell their game etc.) We play more of a optimized/strategic game when it comes to combat (plenty of role playing outside of combat, but not much in) and part of the game for us is to see how well we can utilize the options available to us in a fight. IMO these spells become too unpredictable and turns into me having to ask the DM to be able to use my spells as I wish. That is less interesting to me. I find your certainly that my objection to this means that we have a problem to be quite condescending.

Hope that explains things.

What words did I specifically say to you that you found to be an issue. Summarizing it isn't helping me understand, as your summary differs from what I think I said, and I am not sure what you're referring to.

 

[brehobit]

3rd paragraph. You immediately skip past the idea that _this_ rule could be a problem and move instead to the idea that the edition may not be right for some people. I think that 5e is the best edition so far, but I think this ruling is a bad one as it takes _too_ much power from the player. It's fine that you don't agree, but you don't seem to be willing to accept that others may disagree with you.

Please don't go looking for specific words here. Rather try to see the theme that I spelled out in the post.

 

[Mistwell]

3rd paragraph. You immediately skip past the idea that _this_ rule could be a problem and move instead to the idea that the edition may not be right for some people. I think that 5e is the best edition so far, but I think this ruling is a bad one as it takes _too_ much power from the player. It's fine that you don't agree, but you don't seem to be willing to accept that others may disagree with you.

Please don't go looking for specific words here. Rather try to see the theme that I spelled out in the post.

Here is the third paragraph. This is the one you saw as condescending and unwilling to accept that people might view it different than me?

"Then when you read the phrase "screwed by the DM" from me (a phrase I didn't invent I was just quoting someone else who has a similar issue), you can fairly read it instead as "mismatch in expectations that don't exist to the same degree in other places in the game". I think that's a pretty good description of what I mean. Whatever you want to call it, I feel the shift in focus towards the DM in this edition is real. For me, I love it. But I can understand it rubbing some people the wrong way, and I don't think it's easily addressed by some simple rules patches here and there. This version of the game, in my experience, requires some changes in expectations, or else a whole lot of work to alter the game to meet those expectations. In my view, you sacrifice a small amount of precision and control, for a larger amount of speed in action resolution and game flow. But if precision and control are more important to someone, it may not work great with your preferences."

 

[Gadget]

If we assume that the serious problems with the ruling don't apply, then no, there are no serious problems--pretty much by definition. I'm sure there are still situations where even if everything were at maximum allowed CR, you could get screwed over, though. That's more because 5e CR is...a very loose guideline than it is because of anything to do with DMs or players.

But, as my opening sentence implied, this is a bit like saying "well if we ignore the weight, is there anything keeping this rocket from reaching space?" When you take the centerpiece issue out of something, the fact that things are a lot better shouldn't come as a surprise.

So what is the 'weight' here? I'm a little confused. What, specifically, is the centerpiece issue then? That the DM willfully interprets the ruling in the worst possible light for the PC to completely screw the PC over? This in opposition to the PC pouring over the summons list to find the 'best' min/max combo to make the spell borderline (or not so borderline) overpowered? I see an honest difference of opinion/interpretation/expectation between Player & DM as quite possible and weakening the spells in the player's eyes somewhat; but there is quite a bit of difference between that and the DM just being an jerk and trying to screw over the players.

In hindsight, it might have been better to have the DM or Player roll on a table of summons to see what they get, to avoid both the 'Bad DM' and the player min/max to always get the best summons issues.

 

[Uchawi]

You already have a class for randomness ala the wild magic sorcerer. If you do random summons, then it would make sense to do it across the board for any type of summon creature, object, etc. and then based on the class specialty add more control.