D&D 5E (2014) What Rules do you see people mistake or misapply?

[Satyrn]

My group's warlock/paladin isn't determining spell slots correctly, treating the warlock as just anoher spellcaster.

 

[Pathkeeper24601]

Elven Trance. It does not reduce the amount of time required for the elf to complete a Long rest, it just changes the amount that must be spent fully resting/sleeping and increases the amount time spent in light activity.

 

[Oofta]

My group's warlock/paladin isn't determining spell slots correctly, treating the warlock as just anoher spellcaster.

Care to elaborate? I don't have a warlock/paladin yet but someone is thinking about it for our next campaign.

 

[Satyrn]

Care to elaborate? I don't have a warlock/paladin yet but someone is thinking about it for our next campaign.

When multiclassing with anything but a warlock, you add up the spellcaster levels and have the slots of a single classed caster of that level. That's what the player is doing.

But with a warlock, the character just uses his paladin level and gets the slots from that; then looks at his warlock level and gets his warlock slots from that.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You're not going to spot the DC 15 detection pit trap with a PP of 17 using dark vision in total darkness, though.

I am sure you are right there.

Sent from my GT-I9506 using EN World mobile app

 

[Bacon Bits]

Bonus action to drink a potion is one that I've seen come up a fair bit.

To be fair, that's not at all clear without the Sage Advice ruling. Drinking a flask of water is absolutely covered by the Use an Object action, so it's perfectly natural to assume that drinking a potion of healing should be no different. There's certainly no in-game reason for that to be the case, and, frankly, given the power level of potions in the game it's really not a restriction that I would consider beneficial to retain. It's not at all clear that the individual rules for each magic item type or each individual magic item description are providing explicit exceptions to the normal combat action rules. If Mearls and Crawford had wanted the game to work this way, they should have added a Use a Magic Item action to the list in the PHB.

 

[SubDude]

To me its more of a matter of information.

It's wrong if a DM says "This is the way the rule is written."

It's right if a DM says "This is how we are playing this at my table."

Many DMs and players do want to stick to the rules whenever possible and are simply making mistakes. Interpreting the rules incorrectly is a mistake if you believe you are following the book and are not. As a player I am much more confident in a DM who explicitly states "We are going against the written rules because I think it works better for my table like this." than one who states "No, this is what the rules are." when there is a conflict between expected interactions in game.

DM's always have the final say at the table, but should be open and honest with their players with the DMs various intentions of the game. Such as: adult themes or language, serious vs light-hearted, rules strict or loose, social engagement, combat engagement, inter-party conflicts,mortality of players. All of these aspects should be made clear to the players early on so they know what they are getting into before they have many hours invested.

I plan to open the discussion along these lines. There is a world of difference between saying "I do it this way instead," and just flat not even bothering to learn the actual rules.

 

[jgsugden]

Racial Darkvision allows you to see in Dim Light as if it were Brightly Lit.

Further notes: Most races state in their darkvision description that darkvision allows sight in dim light as if it were bright and in darkness as if dim. The darkvision description says that you see darkness as if it were dim light and only in shades of grey. This means a vision based check for a character that has darkvision looking in darkness (within the range of the darkness) has disadvantage (which results in a -5 to passive scores) and may result in an increase to the DC if the detail to be noted is not visible easily when everything is seen in shades of grey.

For example, I had a PC with darkvision write a note for a human ally that was following him in an ink that appeared to be the same grey 'color' when viewed in darkvision as the material it was written on. When the orcs following him came to the place where the message was and viewed it in darkvision, I made it a DC 20 perception check to note the message. However, it was a DC 10 perception check for the human to see it when they had torch light to aid them.

 

[Prakriti]

To be fair, that's not at all clear without the Sage Advice ruling. Drinking a flask of water is absolutely covered by the Use an Object action, so it's perfectly natural to assume that drinking a potion of healing should be no different. There's certainly no in-game reason for that to be the case, and, frankly, given the power level of potions in the game it's really not a restriction that I would consider beneficial to retain. It's not at all clear that the individual rules for each magic item type or each individual magic item description are providing explicit exceptions to the normal combat action rules. If Mearls and Crawford had wanted the game to work this way, they should have added a Use a Magic Item action to the list in the PHB.

It's not that unclear, is it? It says right in the PHB, "Drinking or administering a potion takes an action" (PHB, p. 144). That's under the Potion of Healing entry in the Equipment chapter.

I'm not sure where "drinking a flask of water" comes from, unless you mean "drink all the ale in a flagon" in the Combat chapter. In which case I agree that "drink all the ale in a flagon" is a terrible example of what you can do in tandem with your movement and action. It can only be rationalized if you assume that the flagon is on hand, while the potion is in a backpack and has a stopper.

 

[Bacon Bits]

It's not that unclear, is it? It says right in the PHB, "Drinking or administering a potion takes an action" (PHB, p. 144). That's under the Potion of Healing entry in the Equipment chapter.

Sure, and under Use an Object (PHB, p193) it says: "When an object requires your action for its use, you take the Use an Object action." Ergo, if you're drinking a potion you're taking the Use an Object action.

I'm not sure where "drinking a flask of water" comes from,

From common sense. The player says, "I want to drink the water in my flask." The DM thinks, "Ok, a flask of water is an object, and drinking it is using it. It doesn't seem like it would take more than 6 seconds to drink a cup or two of water. This is the Use an Object action."

unless you mean "drink all the ale in a flagon" in the Combat chapter. In which case I agree that "drink all the ale in a flagon" is a terrible example of what you can do in tandem with your movement and action. It can only be rationalized if you assume that the flagon is on hand, while the potion is in a backpack and has a stopper.

Perhaps I should clarify. I'm not talking about object interactions as a part of another action. I've never seen anybody try to do that.

What I have seen are people trying to drink potions as a bonus action when they're a Thief with Fast Hands, which explicitly allows the Use an Object action as a bonus action. Sage Advice ruled that they didn't intend you to use magic items with that ability including potions.

Rules as written though, it's 100% allowed just reading the PHB. I mean, the designers clearly put Use an Object into the list of Combat actions. I assume they put it there for a purpose and to cover a certain set of actions, and they worded it so broadly that it pretty much has to cover magic items. They also explicitly put Use an Object onto the list of actions covered by Fast Hands. Clearly that's supposed to actually do something, too.

Honestly, I find it more interesting that nobody has players trying to use wands or other magic items as a bonus action. It's only been potions that this seems to come up.

It's only when you read the DMG that it's clear you can't do this:

If an item requires an action to activate, that action isn't a function of the Use an Item action, so a feature such as the rogue's Fast Hands can't be used to activate the item.

Yeah, it actually calls out Fast Hands explicitly. Now, why they decided to bury this clause in the flipping DMG and not put any reference to it in the Combat chapter of the PHB or the Rogue's Fast Hands ability is beyond me. It should at least say, "Magic items are not covered by the Use an Object action. If you're using a magic item, refer to the magic item rules in the DMG." I'm willing to bet that this was a complete oversight that they noticed after the PHB had gone to print.