D&D 5E Do you let PC's just *break* objects?

[iserith]

What’s unclear about the action declaration “I smash the vase” is not the goal but the approach. By what means are you trying to smash the vase? Do you drop it on the floor? Do you throw it against the wall? Do you crush it between your hands? Do you hit it with the pommel of your sword? It may be relevant to the action resolution, and if it is, I would rather it have been clearly stated first, rather than having to stop the action to ask, especially since the question itself may affect the way you approach the action.

Right. What if the vase has a contact poison on it or it's a mimic? Did you touch it with your bare hands? What if it contains an unstable, explosive substance or magic rune? Did you smash it near you or throw it far away? What if it contains something that corrodes metal? Did you slash at it with your shiny new sword? And so on. If the DM assumes, we enter a potential conflict. "I wouldn't have touched it with my bare hands!"

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Many objects are very hard to break without power tools.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Many objects are very hard to break without power tools.

Power tools are easy to break.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm not hung up on what you do. What I get hung up on is the broad statement "By doing goal and approach this problem goes away"

Except I DID NOT SAY THAT. Frankly, I’m sick of you dragging out and publicly flogging this extremely dead horse every time I vaguely mention the fact that I, personally, think it’s a beneficial practice to set an expectation of making reasonably specific statements of goal and approach an expected part of action declaration. It’s really weird, obsessive behavior.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

PC: I flog the dead horse.

DM: Do you have a whip?

Or

DM: Who to, and how much do you want for it?

 

[Li Shenron]

I was avoiding specificity so that you can generalize your idea of item breaking.

For instance, I personally allow breaking anything, but I let the player decide how they want to try and I inform them whether it will work.

Like, I don't have a problem with a player saying "I want to break a warship with one punch" but I ask them "Did you want to use strength or to break it with an attack?" And if they, say, choose to break it with an attack, I'll say "alright, the warship has a lot of HP, though, and the damage threshold is 20."

Functionally, its likely impossible, but I don't want to outright say "no." I've been a DM long enough to know that sometimes players have surprises that might be able to surpass what I would assume to be an outright impossible feat.

But I don't like saying "you can't even attempt that". If the player realizes that they can't make it, then I save time by not making them roll.

The most generalized answer I can find: I let them break anything they want, if they have the means and the time.

I don't usually rely on the rules for breaking objects, they are never even remotely realistic, and as soon as you grant a roll to the players, you are putting the rules in their hands for them to start applying abilities, bonuses, spells and whatever... you're pretty much guaranteed that they'll stack the odds in their favour, or even worse they'll start claiming rights for retrying after failure.

So instead of asking them to roll for success or damage, I just tell them how long it's going to take, and in many cases they quit without trying.

Breaking dungeon doors is a little bit different, it's quite a clichè situation in D&D adventures, and if it amuses me to let the dice decide instead of me, of course I ask the PC for a roll, but I usually also make it clear they only get one chance (as if the roll doesn't represent their performance but rather the random chance that the door in question can or cannot be broken by them) otherwise it goes down again the rabbit hole of endless and pointless rules complications to represent retries.

The only situation where I would agree to use more consistent rules for breaking objects, is in the middle of combat or otherwise in clearly timed scenarios, such as the PCs have X number of rounds to collapse a rope bridge or to topple a statue or to bash through a gate, before something bad happens. In such cases, for the sake of drama, I'd be fine with using either repeated skill checks or HP attrition.

 

[Oofta]

Except I DID NOT SAY THAT. Frankly, I’m sick of you dragging out and publicly flogging this extremely dead horse every time I vaguely mention the fact that I, personally, think it’s a beneficial practice to set an expectation of making reasonably specific statements of goal and approach an expected part of action declaration. It’s really weird, obsessive behavior.

The issue I have is that the details are incredibly lacking, there are never any examples, it's never been clear to me what you do, how often you do it, or how you find it useful. In other words, I don't really care about the goal, I care about the actions that the PC is taking. If the action is unclear I'll ask for clarification. If the player looks frustrated or I get the sense that they just don't know how to express what they're trying to do, I'll ask what they're trying to do at that point.

But what I keep trying to clarify, and I apologize if I say it wrong, is they why. Why do you find it useful? Is it just a different approach to the game, a story driven narrative game versus ... and I wish there was a simple dictionary here for these terms ... a simulationist approach.

Example: In a recent game, I'm playing a wizard and one of his cantrips is message. We had decided to take out a bad guy guard, who had just unjustly arrested an innocent and was hauling them off. So my PC messaged the guard a couple of times asking why they were really doing this, did they really follow the head leader, did they not realize that what they were doing was wrong and futile. I had also messaged my allies to let them know to follow my lead.

I had multiple goals in mind with this. If I was really, really lucky I could get some information or even change the guard's mind. Most likely scenario was that they'd haul me off as well. That worked for me because I could get out of the perp walk with a misty step but I would be able to do it when we weren't in the middle of a crowd. I wanted to minimize or eliminate collateral damage if I could.

But my goals didn't really matter, all that mattered was my actions - that I messaged the guard and his responding actions. I wanted the DM to have the guard respond as they thought the guard would respond based on what I did, not what I was attempting because to me that's more realistic. I didn't want to influence the how the DM had the guard react, similar to how I don't want to be influenced when I DM.

It's the same with punching a warship. Most of the time it would be "You punch the ship, it's solidly made and your fist gets a bit bruised. Unless you have some special power I don't understand?" That last part is just me clarifying the action in case they have some special ability I don't remember or in case I gave a bad description because it should have been blatantly obvious it would be futile. But I don't ask what their goal is because to me the outcome of their action is all that matters, why they did it is not relevant.

 

[Lanefan]

Right. What if the vase has a contact poison on it or it's a mimic? Did you touch it with your bare hands? What if it contains an unstable, explosive substance or magic rune? Did you smash it near you or throw it far away? What if it contains something that corrodes metal? Did you slash at it with your shiny new sword? And so on. If the DM assumes, we enter a potential conflict. "I wouldn't have touched it with my bare hands!"

If all the player says is "I smash the vase" and you-as-DM know there's more to it than just a vase, that's when - if justified - saving throw and perception dice come out as a part of resolving the now-committed-to action.

If-when I ask for what seem like picky extra details before the action is resolved the players suddenly have their characters become much more cautious (they assume it's an "are you sure?" moment), thus ruining the charm and flow of what was previously a spontaneous action and often leading to attempted take-backs.

You say it, you do it - now we just have to figure out what happens next.

 

[iserith]

If all the player says is "I smash the vase" and you-as-DM know there's more to it than just a vase, that's when - if justified - saving throw and perception dice come out as a part of resolving the now-committed-to action.

If-when I ask for what seem like picky extra details before the action is resolved the players suddenly have their characters become much more cautious (they assume it's an "are you sure?" moment), thus ruining the charm and flow of what was previously a spontaneous action and often leading to attempted take-backs.

You say it, you do it - now we just have to figure out what happens next.

If the players understand the expectation is to state their approach to the goal to make it a valid action declaration the DM can then adjudicate, then there's no asking for "picky extra details." This also avoids conflict that arises from assuming or establishing what the characters are doing in a moment of dramatic tension. If I'm asking for a Constitution saving throw after a declaration of "I smash the vase" because I know there's a contact poison on it, and the player imagined their character knocking the vase onto the floor with their quarterstaff instead of their hands, we now have to resolve this. Getting it established by the player (who is who gets to say what the character does anyway, not the DM) up front means we don't have that problem, in addition to painting a more reasonably detailed scene during play.

 

[Charlaquin]

The issue I have is that the details are incredibly lacking, there are never any examples, it's never been clear to me what you do, how often you do it, or how you find it useful.

I don’t know how to be more clear or specific than I have been. I have given you specific examples in past threads. At this point, if you don’t get it, you don’t get it. And I don’t know why you even care, let alone have such a deep investment in it that you drag this out every time the subject even tangentially comes up. I don’t want to block you, I otherwise enjoy discussions with you, but I’m just done talking to you about this subject. Sorry if that’s dissatisfying. Maybe you can go back and read old threads where we’ve talked about it before and if you have specific questions, DM them to me or something.