D&D 5E Things that make no sense rp wise

[Jediking]

What I don't think makes any sense, is that heavy armor makes you harder to hit, and yet you take the same amount of damage as if you were wearing nothing at all.

But a character may get hit more often, but the heavy armour deflects/protects the blow. The blows that do more damage manage to find a soft spot or wear the character down. It partly depends on how you describe Hit Points (abstract or just physical health).

In 5E, an ant that falls out of a tree will be annihilated, but an elephant that falls off a building will be fine. Sigh.

Not in any game I would ever play in, but YMMV.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Another thing that bugs me is that the mechanics make it really really difficult to actually verify what's real. For example, you meet someone and you agree to do a quest for him/her. But did i really meet someone or was it an illusion? Or a shapeshifter? Was it a human or a vampire? I cast Detect Evil and Good. He is human. But Nystul's Magical Aura exists. Should i cast first Dispel Magic and then Detect Evil/Good? Did Dispel Magic work? Can i do that to everyone i meet? Of course not. All these are wonderful hooks to start an adventure and are part of DND's charm. But shouldn't be a way, at least at high levels, to have a clear view of things? Only the warlock approaches this opinion of mine with Witch Sight. Isn't a little sad to be a 20th level character and still get fooled by little tricks like these?

Well if you have access to True Seeing spell, or even just a decent Wisdom(Insight) or similar skill, you're much less likely to be fooled by this sort of thing.

 

[Imaculata]

The game has an issue with the mechanics of lava and the assumption of how it should be roleplayed.

Lava damage. The rules in the DMG about improvising damage suggest that "wading through a lava stream" would do 10d10 damage (average 50), and being "submerged in lava" would do 18d10 (average 90).

In real life: Lava can reach up to 1200 degrees fahrenheit. Long before you could even "wade" or be "submerged" into the lava, you would be dead from the heat, noxious fumes and thermal radiation. Lava causes 4th degree burns (which means it burns straight into the muscle and bone). Bones crack under the pressure, cells boil, etc.

A high level fighter with 150 hit points is not going to shrug off 90 points of lava damage.

Lava has always been unrealistic, both in games and movies. If you drop into a pit of lava, you wouldn't be totally immersed on it. Because you are still falling on top of molten rock, which is more dense than your body. So rather than a big splash and being totally immersed on it, you should simply take falling damage along with the insane heat, and your body would lie on top of the the lava and instantly turn to ashes.

The impact and temperature difference could however cause some of the lava to splash up, as your weight breaches the surface. So it's kind of like falling on top of a really hot stone grill, and then a big splash of lava. Players that are above a lava pit would also have to deal with a lack of oxygen most likely, along with the deadly heat.

But a character may get hit more often, but the heavy armor deflects/protects the blow. The blows that do more damage manage to find a soft spot or wear the character down. It partly depends on how you describe Hit Points (abstract or just physical health).

If hit points are abstract, shouldn't armor then increase your hit points? A problem also arises with damage types. For example, what if you are struck by a sword that deals electrical damage, while wearing full plate? The full plate should block the damage from the sword, yet the electricity damage should logically still hit you. And the game rules also make no difference between blunt and sharp weapons against armor. Most of the weapons in D&D just do damage. But obviously these different weapons existed for a good reason.

Plus a knight in armor would also be wearing padding underneath his armor, such as a gambeson, which would severely limit how much damage he takes, and keep him rather cool. And what about falling damage while wearing heavy armor?

Oh, and lets not forget that there is no such thing as studded leather armor.

 

[Uller]

Or maybe every account here is just a separate facet of your personality, all creating illusions so your consciousness doesn't feel lonely.

I've always suspected...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In 5E, an ant that falls out of a tree will be annihilated, but an elephant that falls off a building will be fine. Sigh.

That's just because the rules of the game reflect the laws of nature, but only under certain assumptions. One of the assumptions is that we're mostly dealing with person-sized characters, where the rules make a lot more sense.

Unfortunately, while the GM should change the rules whenever the underlying assumptions stop applying, we don't have anything to go on for what sorts of changes should be made. I mean, we can ad hoc that an ant is fine and an elephant dies, but where do you draw the line?

 

[Lanliss]

That's just because the rules of the game reflect the laws of nature, but only under certain assumptions. One of the assumptions is that we're mostly dealing with person-sized characters, where the rules make a lot more sense.

Unfortunately, while the GM should change the rules whenever the underlying assumptions stop applying, we don't have anything to go on for what sorts of changes should be made. I mean, we can ad hoc that an ant is fine and an elephant dies, but where do you draw the line?

All you need to do is collect the terminal velocity of every creature there is, then compare that to how far it has to fall to reach that velocity. Then you have a equation of ant=non-dangerous terminal velocity, so it's "max fall damage"= 0. Elephants would be a different story though. You could also add in a rule for increasing velocity, along the lines of "after 20 ft. You will take 1d10 for every 5 feet(including that first twenty), and modify this again at 50 ft. To a damage of 5d10 for every 5ft., including the first 50."

EDIT: Another one I thought of, for those who like more math, is that you could use percentiles. You take X(+/-)a certain percentage, depending on how far you fell, where X is whatever you roll on the percentile. So you could fall 5 feet, and have a fall damage of percentile roll, where you lose the percentage you roll-20 percent(for example, it could be more of a reduction). Then you could make it impossible to die from a fall less than 15 feet, but entirely possible to die anywhere from 15 feet up, with a guaranteed death at something like 200 feet.

 

[CapnZapp]

The druid ability Timeless Body, for example: "For every 10 years that pass, your body ages only 1 year". So, if you are human and you get to live to be 90 years old, you have passed 10 to 20 years being really old and plagued by the disabilities that aging brings. But a druid will have to be this old and disabled for 100 to 200 years! Is this a blessing or a curse?

If it helps, consider that the ability doesn't actually say you get to live ten times longer; only that your body ages ten times slowly.

So if you want to, you could say the Druid still dies at 90 years of age. Just that he has enjoyed all those years as a relative youngster, physically speaking. (Assuming he's twenty when he gets the ability, his body would then be, not 20+70=90 but 20+7=27)

Whether you use that youthful energy to run with the wolves or socialize with the ladies is up to you...

Seriously, this would be great equalizer for a lady druid that wants to populate the world. No longer would she be confined to a few short decades of fertility; now she could procreate all her life, much like her male colleagues...

This post has only been 90% serious.

 

[Nickolaidas]

I think that, just like suffocation is equally deadly for a 1st lvl character and a 20th level character (1 min + Con modifier holding breath limit), lava should be equally deadly for low and high level characters.

Lava should be instant death.

And if that creates problems with certain spells (i.e. being teleported on top of an active volcano means instant - cheap - death), well, the design team should be more careful when creating spells.

Not to mention certain other rules of physics that could be incorporated to the game. For example, a red dragon's breath should have a chance of setting the victim on fire, and a white dragon's breath should have a chance of freezing them in place.

 

[Azzy]

All you need to do is collect the terminal velocity of every creature there is, then compare that to how far it has to fall to reach that velocity. Then you have a equation of ant=non-dangerous terminal velocity, so it's "max fall damage"= 0. Elephants would be a different story though. You could also add in a rule for increasing velocity, along the lines of "after 20 ft. You will take 1d10 for every 5 feet(including that first twenty), and modify this again at 50 ft. To a damage of 5d10 for every 5ft., including the first 50."

EDIT: Another one I thought of, for those who like more math, is that you could use percentiles. You take X(+/-)a certain percentage, depending on how far you fell, where X is whatever you roll on the percentile. So you could fall 5 feet, and have a fall damage of percentile roll, where you lose the percentage you roll-20 percent(for example, it could be more of a reduction). Then you could make it impossible to die from a fall less than 15 feet, but entirely possible to die anywhere from 15 feet up, with a guaranteed death at something like 200 feet.

Don't we also have to include surface density?

 

[Sacrosanct]

If hit points are abstract, shouldn't armor then increase your hit points? A problem also arises with damage types. For example, what if you are struck by a sword that deals electrical damage, while wearing full plate? The full plate should block the damage from the sword, yet the electricity damage should logically still hit you. And the game rules also make no difference between blunt and sharp weapons against armor. Most of the weapons in D&D just do damage. But obviously these different weapons existed for a good reason.

This was explained way back in 1e. Combat, not just hit points, is pretty abstract. Remember, back then a round was a minute. Your "attack" roll factored in actually several strikes, feints, and blocks. Don't think of HP or AC as representations of a single factor. If they did have a system as complicated as you want, no one would ever play it. Most people never used the weapon vs armor type table, and you think they'd want to play game that was more complicated than that?

Plus a knight in armor would also be wearing padding underneath his armor, such as a gambeson, which would severely limit how much damage he takes, and keep him rather cool.

Wait, what? Putting a layer of padding under armor doesn't keep you cool. There's a reason why hot climates never saw the use of metal armor.