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

[Yunru]

Damage resistance: If you have resistance to a certain type of damage, you take half damage. No need to roll a save, you can't drop it any further unless it's a save for no damage (i.e. evasion) you can't drop from half to 1/4th.

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Not true. Damage resistance halves the damage you take. That's all. If a fireball hits for 20 damage and you fail the save, you take 20 damage, whivh is halved to 10.
If you succeed on the save, you take 10 damage which is halved to 5.

 

[Seramus]

No, this is very much on topic. One of the common misconceptions that players frequently have is that they think the DM chooses to make things happen. They think that the DM chooses when they can sleep, for example. And that's not how DMing works. The DM does not have the authority to make something happen, just because they want it to. What the DM wants is irrelevant to the DMing process.

No. I definitely choose what happens on a macro level. I made the entire temple that is being explored. I choose where ever single turn was, where every single monster was, what their statistics are (including how intelligent and strategic they are). I choose everything about their personality that would dictate whether or not they would go check out a strange sound or not.

I do not decide what actions my players will take. But I definitely choose what lightning conditions they fight under, what trap is causing the room to slowly fill with water, and whether the challenges and monsters in this area are in sufficient quantity to level up.

I choose all that before the adventurers ever got there.
Interpretation only happens at the end.

 

[Li Shenron]

So, what rules would you suggest that I ought to highlight? I have the Ameron blog post "10 Most Common Mistakes DMs and Players make in 5e D&D," and I'll certainly use this as a starting point. But what else would the collected wisdom here recommend?

- Advantage and disadvantage: not so much mistaken/misapplied but rather overapplied, for any case where there seems to be the slightest favorable or unfavorable condition, or to reward ANY player's ideas or even flourish descriptions. The reason for applying these too easily is probably in the too much carefree presentation this rule was given by the designers, which at some point wanted to market it as a "blanket rule" for adding variety in any situation. At low levels there is not much problem, but if the DM continues with a carefree approach into mid-high levels, soon enough this gets in the way of all the abilities which leverage the (dis)advantage rules.

- Concentration: this is a "double rule", in the sense that it is used by the game to cover two separate purposes: (a) representing losing spells when attacked, and (b) preventing the stacking of buffs or curses. Unfortunately it's quite easy to forget to check for concentration, maybe focusing to remember one side of it and forgetting the other.

- Ritual casting: the original reason why this mechanic was introduced to 5e was not to represent "rituals" i.e. long-casting-time spells (which already existed, and not all of them are rituals), but instead to make some out-of-combat spells cheaper by not costing a spell slot, in an attempt to avoid players regretting their preparation and thus ending up with lots of cool (but not very commonly useful) spells never being used in the game. I've seen DMs asking players to mark the spell slot used anyway, and players complying because they forgot how it really works.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I probably missed it, but in the post so far, I didn't see something that I and my players still struggle with.

That is spell-casting needs a clear line of sight and a pane of glass will prevent most spells from affecting a target, because you can't target someone behind a pane of glass, because that person is under full cover, even though you can see them.

There are lengthy threads that discuss this in detail, but this is something DMs should go over with players of spell casters. A Wizard should know this and it would be pretty petty to let a player waste spell slots because he or she didn't understand how spell targeting work. It just isn't that obvious to most players.

Also, I hope you type up your final list and share it. It would be nice to have something like this that I can tweak and hand out to players.

I wouldn't adjudicate it that way because the target does not have total cover. A target has total cover if it is completely concealed by an obstacle. Pretty obvious that clear glass does not conceal a target for the purposes of spell casting. You have a line of effect and then toss in the descriptor of the glass shattering or whatever when the spell takes effect.

 

[Oofta]

I wouldn't adjudicate it that way because the target does not have total cover. A target has total cover if it is completely concealed by an obstacle. Pretty obvious that clear glass does not conceal a target for the purposes of spell casting. You have a line of effect and then toss in the descriptor of the glass shattering or whatever when the spell takes effect.

This was covered in another one of those Jeremy Crawford podcasts. He specifically states you can't target someone behind a window. I can't find it at the moment though, and it's not in the sage advice column.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

This was covered in another one of those Jeremy Crawford podcasts. He specifically states you can't target someone behind a window. I can't find it at the moment though, and it's not in the sage advice column.

That's silly but until it makes errata I'll use my interp.

 

[Pathkeeper24601]

As you can only benefit from one long rest per day, it truly doesn't matter for game balance purposes whether it's 1, 4, 8 or 16 hours. A rest is only gonna happen when the DM allows it to, so denying a racial benefit that is purely for RP, for no practical purpose is simply arbitrary.

That said, run it how you want, but the ruling is not RAW, it's sage advice, therefore it doesn't really qualify for this thread imo.

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Actually, it is a Rules answer on the D&D site making it at the very least RAI with an explanation of why it is the RAW and very much qualifying it for this discussion:

https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-september-2015

You seem to think there is a tactical advantage, otherwise you wouldn't be arguing for the elf having a shortened Long Rest. A large part of 5th is interpretive making RAW a somewhat nebulous between different players. As you say, you can interpret and run the way you wish.

Discussing such rules is very much

 

[Valdier]

Actually, it is a Rules answer on the D&D site making it at the very least RAI with an explanation of why it is the RAW and very much qualifying it for this discussion:

https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-september-2015

You seem to think there is a tactical advantage, otherwise you wouldn't be arguing for the elf having a shortened Long Rest. A large part of 5th is interpretive making RAW a somewhat nebulous between different players. As you say, you can interpret and run the way you wish.

Discussing such rules is very much

I've been saying the opposite. There is no tactical advantage, is an RP/story benefit only. It isn't a bonus to hit, ours a benefit the DM chooses when to apply to certain characters. (Because it only happens when the DM decides "this would be good for story right now".

 

[Yunru]

I wouldn't adjudicate it that way because the target does not have total cover. A target has total cover if it is completely concealed by an obstacle. Pretty obvious that clear glass does not conceal a target for the purposes of spell casting. You have a line of effect and then toss in the descriptor of the glass shattering or whatever when the spell takes effect.

Total cover =/= total concealment

The creature has total cover: there is an obstacle fully between them.
The creature doesn't have concealment: the cover is transparent.

 

[Pathkeeper24601]

I've been saying the opposite. There is no tactical advantage, is an RP/story benefit only. It isn't a bonus to hit, ours a benefit the DM chooses when to apply to certain characters.

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Well, then you should have no problems with the Elf still needing a full 8 hours to get the benefit of a Full Rest as is in the rules.

I had a player that always debated this way. Starts with first convincing you that the rule he wants is has no mechanical benefit and then abuses it constantly later. It would very much benefit a player if the DM has a tendency to interrupt the Long Rests after the half way mark. Of course that could be turned into a trap for the elf, as any resources used during that interruption wouldn't be recovered for another 24 hours, while the rest of the party could conceivably still get the benefit of a long rest afterwards.