D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

[Maxperson]

But being targetted by magic missile and being damaged by it are the same thing, in the fiction - because a magic missile automatically strikes damages whomever it targets. So if it's not time travel in one case, it's not time travel in the other either.

Whether the GM announces the targetting prior to rolling the damage, or does the two simultanesously, is simply a matter of table practice and what happens at the time - as @Hriston has already indicated in relation to weapon attacks.

Targets and the effects are two different things, and they do no occur simultaneously. You target the creature as part of the casting of the Magic Missile, and then the effect happens. The effect includes the missiles flying from the caster to the target which takes time. Up to the entire 6 second round if necessary. That's plenty of time after being targeted for the target to cast shield. Casting a spell as a reaction specifically only takes a fraction of a second. Far less time than it would take to complete the casting of the magic missile and then for it to travel to the target.

 

[pemerton]

You're still ignoring the rules, so I will repeat them.

1. The DM describes the environment.

2. The players describe what they want to do.

3. The DM narrates the results of the adventurers' actions.

There is a step or two missing here - between the players describing what they want their PCs to do and the GM narrating the results of the adventurers' actions, we need to (i) work out what actions the adventurers take, and (ii) work out what the results of those actions are.

Step (ii) is more than just the GM makes it up. 5e D&D has dozens of pages of action resolution mechanics.

Step (i) is also more than just the GM decides. For instance, the combat rules only make sense on the assumption that a player's declaration of an attack brings it about (absent some defeating condition) that his/her PC is making an attack.

all the players get to do by RAW is describe what they would like their PCs to do. They do not get to establish any actions in the fiction, only inform the DM of what actions they want to see happen and how those action should hopefully go. The DM then narrates the results which is when the actions get performed. An example.

Player: Olaf jumps across the stream. (description of what the player wants to do)
DM: Okay. It's a small stream and Olaf is strong, he clears the stream easily. (narration of the results, which includes establishing the action within the fiction)

I don't agree with your claim, and if this was really true - that all a player of 5e can do is suggest to the GM that the fiction involving his/her PC changes in a certain way - then it would be one of the crappier RPGs ever published.

Even in your example, who is it who decides that the fiction includes Olaf jumping, attempting to clear the stream? It is the player.

You target the creature as part of the casting of the Magic Missile, and then the effect happens. The effect includes the missiles flying from the caster to the target which takes time. Up to the entire 6 second round if necessary. That's plenty of time after being targeted for the target to cast shield. Casting a spell as a reaction specifically only takes a fraction of a second. Far less time than it would take to complete the casting of the magic missile and then for it to travel to the target.

The duration of the spell Magic Missile is listed as Instantaneous. I don't think it takes 6 seconds for the missile to fly from the caster to the target - that does not seem very instantaneous to me.

As far as a Shield spell taking only "a fraction of a second", that is not written anywhere in the rules. The rules for reactions (Basic PDF, p 70) say that "A reaction is an instant response to a trigger of some kind." That suggests that a reaction takes about the same time as the missiles take to fly from the caster to the target. (And this makes sense in a more general way - eg there's no reason to think that stabbing an orc as a reaction is significantly quicker than stabbing an orc as an action.)

The fact that the caster of Shield can always beat the caster of Magic Missile is simply an artefact of the 5e rules - there are other RPG systems which allow magical shields to be cast in response to magical attacks, but the question of who is quicker is resolved as some sort of contest rather than settled by the generic timing rules.

 

[Maxperson]

There is a step or two missing here - between the players describing what they want their PCs to do and the GM narrating the results of the adventurers' actions, we need to (i) work out what actions the adventurers take, and (ii) work out what the results of those actions are.

Working out what actions the adventurers take happens before step 2. The player works those out and then describes them to the DM. It happens in-between step 1, the DM description of the environment and step 2. Working out the results of those actions just means the details, like is the action automatic fail/succeed, or does it require a roll. That doesn't mean the action has occurred in the fiction, but instead is just informative to the DM and allows the DM to narrate the results. I suppose it is a step 3a for the DM to work out what the results will be before he narrates them and causes them to occur within the fiction.

Step (ii) is more than just the GM makes it up. 5e D&D has dozens of pages of action resolution mechanics.

Sure, but so what. I didn't say the DM makes up whatever he wants, though he is within his power to do so, he probably will use the mechanics provided to figure it out. It doesn't matter at all to my argument, though. The action doesn't actually happen within the fiction until the DM narrates it during step 3.

Step (i) is also more than just the GM decides. For instance, the combat rules only make sense on the assumption that a player's declaration of an attack brings it about (absent some defeating condition) that his/her PC is making an attack.

Step 1 isn't for the DM at all, unless the PC is trying an action that is outside the scope of the rules and he has to make a ruling on whether or not it is possible.

I don't agree with your claim, and if this was really true - that all a player of 5e can do is suggest to the GM that the fiction involving his/her PC changes in a certain way - then it would be one of the crappier RPGs ever published.

It's the way the game is written. Bring it up with the designers if you don't like it.

Even in your example, who is it who decides that the fiction includes Olaf jumping, attempting to clear the stream? It is the player.

Of course it's the player. Unless there's some sort of mind control magic going on, the DM isn't going to be doing that for the player.

The duration of the spell Magic Missile is listed as Instantaneous. I don't think it takes 6 seconds for the missile to fly from the caster to the target - that does not seem very instantaneous to me.

So is a Fireball, but the description describes the streak of fire moving. All instantaneous means is that the duration doesn't go from round to round, not that the effect takes place at the speed of light. During that travel time, the Magic Missile is vulnerable to the Shield spell. Once it hits, the Shield is useless.

As far as a Shield spell taking only "a fraction of a second", that is not written anywhere in the rules.

If by not written anywhere in the rules, you mean written on page 202 of the PHB under Castin Time - Reactions, then I agree with you.

"Reactions
Some spells can be cast as reactions. These spells take a fraction of a second to bring about and are cast in response to some event."

The rules for reactions (Basic PDF, p 70) say that "A reaction is an instant response to a trigger of some kind." That suggests that a reaction takes about the same time as the missiles take to fly from the caster to the target. (And this makes sense in a more general way - eg there's no reason to think that stabbing an orc as a reaction is significantly quicker than stabbing an orc as an action.)

Perhaps you should invest in a PHB instead of relying on the Basic PDF.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure. Even a character not immune to Magic Missiel by default can rasie a shield spell if targetted by it.

But in cases where this doesn't happen, to target a creature is to damage it.

I think we're using the word 'target' differently here - to me, to target something means to aim at it.

In use, this would look like:

"I'm casting Magic Missile, targeting the Orc that's fighting Jenna."
"OK, roll your damage" [because the to-hit step is skipped here]

Or

"I'm firing my crossbow, targeting the Orc that's fighting Jenna"
"OK, roll to hit".

But when one of those exceptions isn't operating, to be hit is to take damage.

Agreed. To be targeted, however, isn't the same as to be hit - though in the specific case of Magic Missile it becomes a rather fine distinction.

Another illustration of the point about resolution, fiction and dice rolls: suppose a player declares an attack vs X using a non-magical weapon, and the GM knows that X is immune to non-magical weapon damage. The GM wouldn't be breaking any rule, or distorting anything in the fiction, by saying to the player, as s/he picks up the d20, "You needn't bother rolling - it's immune to your puny mundane weapon!"

That would not be houseruling the combat rules of 5e. (Or any other edition of D&D.)

It wouldn't be, but IMO it'd be poor form unless the PC had prior knowledge that this creature needs magic to hit.

 

[Lanefan]

Says who? This depends entirely on the system.

It's mostly true of 4e, but not completely.

It's not true of Burning Wheel, Marvel Heroic RP or Prince Valiant. It's only partially true of Classic Traveller (which applies morale rules to PCs).

To me, this seems like an irrational principle. The mechanics happen in the real world. Characters in the fiction influence one another. PCs can be influenced by NPCs (eg in my Traveller game the PCs accepted an offer from a PC to carry some goods for her from one world to another).

This doesn't tell me whether the acceptance of the offer came through straight role-play or whether there was any game-mechanical force applied.

Influence through straight role-play is perfect! That's part of what role-play is all about.

That the process of resolution is not symmetrical doesn't seem very significant. There are many asymmetries of that sort in RPGing. (Eg the GM can just narrate that NPC X kills NPC Y - and that is a very common feature of GM-established backstory - whereas as a general rule players can't do this.)

But the GM can't just narrate that NPC X kills PC Fred, just as Fred's player can't just narrate that Fred kills NPC X. When the GM narrates that NPC X kills NPC Y the built-in assumption behind that narration is that had that encounter been played out it would have followed the same mechanics as if it had been two PCs fighting each other. But as processing all that would quite understandably be very dull and boring for the players to sit through, the GM just cuts to the chase and narrates the result.

 

[Lanefan]

The duration of the spell Magic Missile is listed as Instantaneous. I don't think it takes 6 seconds for the missile to fly from the caster to the target - that does not seem very instantaneous to me.

As far as a Shield spell taking only "a fraction of a second", that is not written anywhere in the rules. The rules for reactions (Basic PDF, p 70) say that "A reaction is an instant response to a trigger of some kind." That suggests that a reaction takes about the same time as the missiles take to fly from the caster to the target. (And this makes sense in a more general way - eg there's no reason to think that stabbing an orc as a reaction is significantly quicker than stabbing an orc as an action.)

The fact that the caster of Shield can always beat the caster of Magic Missile is simply an artefact of the 5e rules - there are other RPG systems which allow magical shields to be cast in response to magical attacks, but the question of who is quicker is resolved as some sort of contest rather than settled by the generic timing rules.

This just points to the problems associated with 3e-and-onward rules that remove casting times from spells.

If each spell had a defined casting time, the time for potential targets to react would obviously be during the casting; and probably 95%+ of these headaches would go away.

There's no hard numbers given but it's clear that Shield (and Counterspell, a whole different headache that I might as well drag in here just for kicks) takes less time to cast than MM. This is at least intuitive.

But this intuitiveness all falls apart on Counterspell. This one uses M:tG-like stack rules, only it's last in-first out: because you can, by official rulings, successfully Counterspell a Counterspell.

This blows up any intuitive sense of timing, because if Counterspell always took the same amount of time to cast it'd go first in-first out. But for some insane reason Moddy's Counterspell starts and finishes during the time it takes Wizzly McEvil to cast his own Counterspell trying to counter Fred's Magic Missile. And it gets even more ridiculous, thanks again to WotC: in theory Fred could cast his own Counterspell to stop Wizzly's even while in the middle of also casting MM.

Lan-"it's examples like this that make me think the D&D designers borrowed just a bit too heavily from the M:tG playbook"-efan

 

[BryonD]

Sorry [MENTION=957]BryonD[/MENTION], laughed at this because the typo was really funny. Time to quantum up really needs to be a battlecry for my next superhero character. lol

wasn't a typo

levels are abstract but discrete steps

 

[Grainger]

I should presage this by saying that the DM in question was a pretty good one other than my complaint here, and it was his first time DMing. I should also say that he was a really nice guy feeling his way into running his first RPG. His DMing was certainly streets ahead of my first attempts (and most other first-time DMs I've seen). However, here's my moan...

So the DM in question ruled that natural 1s and other natural low rolls (no matter the positive modifiers) were critical failures. I think he saw this kind of thing on a Let's Play series, and perhaps over-applied it, I don't know, I don't watch them. He applied this ruling not just to hit rolls, but all skill checks. The kind of outcome might be the attack killing a friendly NPC, or a failed attempt to throw a grappling hook meaning that the PC drops and loses the entire rope or falls and gets pulled in.

It was funny the first few times it happened, but it soon gave the impression that our party was a bunch of incompetent idiots, as any encounter would lead to at least one or two pratfalls. It actually had a noticeable chilling effect on players trying anything remotely interesting. I recall one player forgoing a chance to attack on his turn because he wouldn't dare traverse a low bench as he might fail the inevitable Acrobatics roll and then end up both taking damage and ending up prone. In my view, players should be encouraged to do heroic things, not be terrified to do the most mundane things. One fellow player quipped to me that he was scared to open a water bottle in case his character fumbled the roll and died of a cut.

Now, I realise that D&D combat isn't realistic, but my parallel experience with real-life sword fighting just rubbed salt in the wound. At this time I was doing historical sword fighting. I was very, very bad at it - embarrassingly so. However, in dozens if not hundreds, of bouts, I never once accidentally dropped my sword or fell over. And in the hundreds of other bouts I saw, I rarely saw an accidental sword drop and never saw a fall (throws and disarms yes, pratfalls no), and I never saw bystanders be hit. And most of us were beginners. D&D combat shouldn't be less cinematic than real-life combat done by rank amateurs.

The DM's style was otherwise pretty good, but this aspect was very annoying, and actually was a significant factor in me leaving (there were other factors which weren't his fault).

 

[Hriston]

I may not need to say that, but it does in fact say it. "On a hit, roll damage" is equal to "On a miss, don't roll damage." It's just the way language works.

Nonsense! As long as you roll damage on a hit, it doesn't matter what you do on a miss because the rule doesn't tell you what to do on a miss.

 

[Maxperson]

Nonsense! As long as you roll damage on a hit, it doesn't matter what you do on a miss because the rule doesn't tell you what to do on a miss.

English is nonsense. Got it!