D&D 5E New doubts

[maritimo80]

Good morning friends. On our last night game session we had some questions and wanted to ask for your help, please:


1. A character with Spell "Mage Hand" could with his action with her desembanhar a sword from the sheath of an enemy at a distance?


2. A Ranger in the "desert" (sand) with Survival can trace the footsteps of an enemy? What is the DC?


3- A character can "predict the weather?" Or at least know right at sunrise the day will be hot, cold, rainy? It would be with Nature? What DC?


4- With the expertise Nature a character can tell if the water of a lake is safe to drink? Or only with some "Detect" magic? Getting food is Survival or Nature?


5- A Ranger shot four arrows hitting your enemy in combat, killing him. He can retrieve their arrows, removing the enemy's body? Some tests for this?

 

[Blue]

I don't have my books handy, I'll give this a shot from the Basic Rules.

1. A character with Spell "Mage Hand" could with his action with her desembanhar a sword from the sheath of an enemy at a distance?

Not sure what "desembanhar" is, but I think you are asking if the caster could use mage hand to take a sword from someone else's sheath at distance.

Mage Hand does say take something from an open container, and works at up to 30'. It doesn't mention anything about only manipulating unattended object, so yes you can.

That said, it can't attack. So some DMs could say that if the person was unwilling/trying to prevent it, it wouldn't work.

2. A Ranger in the "desert" (sand) with Survival can trace the footsteps of an enemy? What is the DC?

From player's basic rules (pg 62)
Survival: The DM might ask you to make a Wisdom (Survival) check to follow tracks, hunt wild game, guide your group through frozen wastelands, identify signs that owlbears live nearby, predict the weather, or avoid quicksand and other natural hazards.

and

(Basic pg 65)
Track A character can follow the tracks of another creature, making a Wisdom (Survival) check when the DM calls for it. (The Dungeon Master’s Guide has rules for tracking.)

However, the DM Basic Rules don't have that section, so I can't get you the DC. Check the DMG.

3- A character can "predict the weather?" Or at least know right at sunrise the day will be hot, cold, rainy? It would be with Nature? What DC?

Also under Survival (see above). Nature would let you know lore about the weather, like this country has a hurricane season or the coast is known for lots of rain. Survival is more day-to-day practical.

4- With the expertise Nature a character can tell if the water of a lake is safe to drink? Or only with some "Detect" magic? Getting food is Survival or Nature?

The lake:
Survival is the more practical, though at my table I'd let Nature also tell about if a lake is safe to drink looking at it from they "I would expect to see more birds eating the fish" or "the beaver dams are in poor condition" sort of thing.

Getting food:
(Basic pg 65)
Forage: The character can keep an eye out for ready sources of food and water, making a Wisdom (Survival) check when the DM calls for it. (The Dungeon Master’s Guide has rules for foraging.)

IIRC, the Outlander background also give you foraging without need for skill checks.

5- A Ranger shot four arrows hitting your enemy in combat, killing him. He can retrieve their arrows, removing the enemy's body? Some tests for this?

Under Ammunition (basic pg 45)
At the end of the battle, you can recover half your expended ammunition by taking a minute to search the battlefield.

So the ranger can get back 2 of the 4 arrows. No roll needed.

Hope this helps.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

I would say everyone of these is a DM call, but I'll give you my answers.

1. No, can't use Mage Hand to take an item from a conscious, aware enemy. If the caster is hidden from the "target" of the spell I might allow a thievery (DC equal to target's passive perception) to take it, but the target would immediately become aware.

2. Yes, the ranger (and anyone) can try to track using Survival skill in any terrain. DC to track in desert: start at 10 (recent tracks with no weather disruption) and go up from there (DC increases over time and if wind or other weather obscures the tracks). Because it's the ranger's favored terrain she gets doubled proficiency bonus on the check.

3. Knowledge nature. DC 15 to predict the current day's weather. DC 20 to predict general patterns over the next few days. DC 25 to predict next week's weather.

4. Water safe to drink? I'd allow Nature or Survival DC 15. Finding food is specifically part of the Survival skill ("hunt wild game"). In a place where food is plentiful (temperate forest or plains) no check needed. Checks start at DC 10 and go up based on circumstances (environment, number of people trying to feed, etc.).

5. No skill check. 50% of arrows can be recovered (unbroken). The rest are broken. Quit being cheap: bring more arrows on your dungeon crawl!

 

[Dausuul]

1. A character with Spell "Mage Hand" could with his action with her desembanhar a sword from the sheath of an enemy at a distance?

The arcane trickster rogue gets a special ability to use mage hand to take an item off another character's person. From this, I infer that mage hand cannot normally be used this way. So I would allow an arcane trickster to do this, but not anyone else.

2. A Ranger in the "desert" (sand) with Survival can trace the footsteps of an enemy? What is the DC?

I don't think there's a specific rule for this. I'd probably put it around 15, increasing to 20 if it's been more than a day or the wind is blowing.

3- A character can "predict the weather?" Or at least know right at sunrise the day will be hot, cold, rainy? It would be with Nature? What DC?

To predict at sunrise what the weather will be like that day? Well, anybody can look at a gray sky drizzling rain and predict it's likely to be a cold, wet day; you don't need a check for that. However, it's much harder to predict that the weather will clear and turn sunny and hot in the afternoon.

As a rule of thumb, I'd say that 75% of the time, the day's weather will resemble the morning's weather, and 25% of the time it will change. I'd allow a DC 20 Nature check (rolled by the DM) to predict the day's weather; a roll of 9 or less yields a wrong prediction, while 10-19 yields no information. But you can always say "The weather today will be like the weather this morning" and have a 3 in 4 chance of being right.

4- With the expertise Nature a character can tell if the water of a lake is safe to drink? Or only with some "Detect" magic? Getting food is Survival or Nature?

This would probably be (edited) Survival. DC 15, I'd say.

5- A Ranger shot four arrows hitting your enemy in combat, killing him. He can retrieve their arrows, removing the enemy's body? Some tests for this?

The standard rule is you can retrieve 50% of your ammunition by spending 1 minute to search the battlefield. So the ranger could get back two arrows out of the four. The other two are broken or lost.

There's a different rule for magic ammunition, but I don't have my DMG handy to confirm the details. I'm pretty sure that magic ammunition always loses its magic when used; I don't remember if a miss counts as being used, however.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Good morning friends. On our last night game session we had some questions and wanted to ask for your help, please

You've gotten some reasonable answers. The important thing to remember is that it's the DM's job to make these kinds of rulings in game. There's no right or wrong to it, just what the DM deems reasonable and best for his game.

If you're the DM, show some confidence (even if you have to fake it), and make these rulings quickly and with authority. Don't open them up for debate.

If you're not the DM, trust your DM's judgement, it's his game, work within the rulings he sets down.

 

[GlobeOfDankness]

You've gotten some reasonable answers. The important thing to remember is that it's the DM's job to make these kinds of rulings in game. There's no right or wrong to it, just what the DM deems reasonable and best for his game.

If you're the DM, show some confidence (even if you have to fake it), and make these rulings quickly and with authority. Don't open them up for debate.

If you're not the DM, trust your DM's judgement, it his game, work within the rulings he sets down.

he only wants RAW answers. dnd is a game of yes or no to maritirmios.


1. No

2. Yes.

3.Yes

4 No

5 Yes

7No

 

[Dausuul]

You've gotten some reasonable answers. The important thing to remember is that it's the DM's job to make these kinds of rulings in game. There's no right or wrong to it, just what the DM deems reasonable and best for his game.

If you're the DM, show some confidence (even if you have to fake it), and make these rulings quickly and with authority. Don't open them up for debate.

If you're not the DM, trust your DM's judgement, it his game, work within the rulings he sets down.

Agreed, but there's also nothing wrong with posting questions here for the community to chew over and discuss. Answering maritimo80's posts has gotten me thinking about areas of the rules I might not have given much thought otherwise.

 

[Tony Vargas]

he only wants RAW answers.

The RAW in 5e /is/ "the DM decides what happens."

Agreed, but there's also nothing wrong with posting questions here for the community to chew over and discuss.

Didn't mean to imply that there was anything wrong with asking how other DMs might rule.

 

[Fabio Andrea Rossi]

Just dropping in to add a quick question to the bunch: in your fine folk opinion, how many arrows should a character be allowed to bring along? I don't use any kind of encumbrance rules at my table different from common sense, do you think 30 is fair?

 

[Dausuul]

Just dropping in to add a quick question to the bunch: in your fine folk opinion, how many arrows should a character be allowed to bring along? I don't use any kind of encumbrance rules at my table different from common sense, do you think 30 is fair?

On the rare occasion that you need to know exactly how many arrows a PC is carrying at a given moment, I'd go with 30-40.

However, if you aren't tracking encumbrance, I don't see why you'd bother tracking ammunition.