D&D General When do you overrule RAW?

[el-remmen]

D&D is explicitly a game where players do impossible things on the regular.

Sure. But somethings are just impossibl-er.

 

[Reynard]

Other Activity on Your Turn
You can communicate however you are able, through brief utterances and gestures, as you take your turn.

This doesn't mean what you seem to be suggesting it does.

 

[Reynard]

People use 5e for reasons other than it's the best game for what the GM wants.

Which is sad.

 

[Maxperson]

Again just unfairly penalises the martial player by making them just through an extra hoop.

I'd do the same for spellcasters. If a spellcaster had a 1st or hell even a 3rd level spell called trip and wanted to trip Godzilla, I'd ask him what it looked like for a low level spell to trip something as massive as Godzilla. Magic has limitations, too. It's called spell level.

 

[Maxperson]

Wow, how much I hate that Mercer example. Sentinel stops people, that's its whole thing.

The most common RAW I ignore is that you cannot talk when it's not your turn.

So it wasn't a person. It was a Godzilla sized monster and the DMG explicitly tells the DMs not to be a slave to the rules. It makes no sense for the Sentinal feat by a medium sized creature to be able to stop Godzilla from moving. Godzilla would literally not be aware that you even tried something. He barely notices missiles hitting him.

 

[ninjayeti]

If it favors the PCs I tend to be pretty liberal with letting the rule of cool override RAW. If it favors the monsters I would override RAW only if it was a pretty clear case. The example in the OP seems to fit, as it is reinforcing the idea that the monster is big and powerful beyond what PCs are able to deal with.

But I think notice is important as well. While I don't like retcons I would probably let the player change their action in light of my ruling. Or I would tell the player it had worked this time, but they realized they would not be able to stop it again.

 

[Blue]

"Ruling not rules" to me is meant to cover the all of the corner cases instead of trying to encode everything in the rules. 3.5 had rules for when wading in water, combining cover and difficult terrain IIRC. 5e just has "DM, make sense".

So I'm "overriding" RAW whenever it makes sense. (Though I guess technically it's not overriding if the rules tell us to do so, but that's just being pedantic.)

 

[Maxperson]

When nerfing abilities for realism, I always think of something going like this:

DM: "The Storm Giant swings his gargantuan hammer . . . for 16 to hit."

Fighter: "My 18 AC plate blocks that, I'm good."

DM: "Wait, how is your non-magical plate helping against a hammer the size of a bus hitting you in the face?"

Fighter: "I don't know, it's what the rules say."

DM: "That doesn't make sense, it hits you anyway."

Fighter: "Should have played a Bladesinger . . ."

That's not how either hit points or hits work, though. The storm giant "hitting" doesn't actually hit the fighter unless the fighter is somewhere close to 0 hit points and will be knocked out or killed by the hit. What actually happens is that it's a glancing blow or complete miss that causes the fighter some skill or luck hit point loss.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

So it wasn't a person. It was a Godzilla sized monster and the DMG explicitly tells the DMs not to be a slave to the rules. It makes no sense for the Sentinal feat by a medium sized creature to be able to stop Godzilla from moving. Godzilla would literally not be aware that you even tried something. He barely notices missiles hitting him.

Okay, so, none of the casters can be assumed to have any effect on the beast, either, then? After all, their spells were surely assumed to be used on people-sized targets, not this monster.

Because to do otherwise would look a lot like engaging in selective MUH REALISM, and only when it works against martial characters.

 

[Maxperson]

Okay, so, none of the casters can be assumed to do any damage to the beast, either, then? After all, their spells were surely assumed to be used on people-sized targets, not this monster.

False Equivalences are false. Damage works differently than tripping or stopping something. Just like the fighter can damage it with a sword, the wizard can damage it with a spell. Though, yes, neither would probably work at all on something that size. If we were doing reality, both the spellcaster and fighter, even at 20th level, would be unable to kill or even hurt Godzilla.