D&D (2024) Rules that annoy you

[Maxperson]

What's even dumber is when a character drops and another player says I'll give them a healing potion. I'm not a doctor but I don't think its physically possible to swallow and drink while unconscious. I seem to recall a Sage Advice entry in Dragon Magazine where someone asked that question and Skip Williams, I believe it was, said that a character has to be conscious and able to drink to benefit from a healing potion.

We don't drool all night long or choke to death on our saliva, so we must have some ability to swallow while unconscious. Additionally, there nothing that says a healing potion has to make it to the stomach to heal. It could also heal if it reaches the lungs, being magically absorbed in some way. Perhaps all that needs to happen is the healing potion being released internally.

 

[Maxperson]

Exactly this. I could not have formulated it better myself!

You get knocked down to 0 and get a healing word next turn? You were just momentarily stunned.

That logic there fails. Healing word is healing magic, so it could have been meat damage that got healed.

You get knocked down to zero, receive no healing and fail your death saves? The foe’s attack must have nicked an artery that the other characters did not see because you are all in the middle of a battle.

See, the problem is that you can't be dying from physical attacks without some pretty serious physical damage. If you are making death saves, you have serious damage and shouldn't be healing fully in one day without magic.

 

[mamba]

We don't drool all night long or choke to death on our saliva, so we must have some ability to swallow while unconscious.

you are asleep, not unconscious, that is not at all the same thing (just like hidden and invisible )

 

[Maxperson]

Kinda.
But remember it's binary output. (Unless your talking damage).

Multiple dice give a bell curve. Where you are more likely to pass easy check, and less likely to pass hard ones.

I.e. 1d2+49 has the same chance to beat a DC 50 as a 1d100.
And it will always pass a DC 48 check
And it will never pass a DC 53 check.

No, not kinda. Absolutely. 1d2+59 will pass a DC 50 check 100% of the time. 1d2+1d100 will fail to pass the DC 50 check 47 times out of 100 rolls. Those are not the same chances to beat the DC 50. 100% is not the same as 53.5%.

Your example just proves his point further. 1d2+49 is far less swingy than 1d2+1d100.

 

[Maxperson]

I never took statistics but with just adding one die or a flat bonus I think it is less swingy to add the flat bonus. The more dice you add though the more of a bell curve you get which is less swingy.

I could not say when it switches over to make the bell curve of a lot of dice less swingy than a single die with a flat average bonus but I could see that being the result with enough dice.

The problem is that even if you add more and more dice, that as @mamba says just makes the middle numbers more probable. It doesn't eliminate the outliers which you will roll sometimes. That means that the rolls still swing from one extreme to the other with additional dice, making it more swingy than a static modifier.

 

[Maxperson]

you are asleep, not unconscious, that is not at all the same thing (just like hidden and invisible )

So you're saying that I can find(wake with stimuli) someone who is sleeping, but I have to somehow see(use a healing potion) on someone who is knocked out, even though both are technically invisible(unconscious)?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Isn't magic in a bottle that brings you back to life a supernatural phenomenon also?

What the stuff in the bottle does is supernatural. The physical act of getting it into your body is not.

 

[CreamCloud0]

What the stuff in the bottle does is supernatural. The physical act of getting it into your body is not.

How are the other methods different from plain old creams and ointments?
Edit: misunderstood the point of the response

 

[KYRON45]

What the stuff in the bottle does is supernatural. The physical act of getting it into your body is not.

An unconscious person has the ability to swallow.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

An unconscious person has the ability to swallow.

And, as I learned from watching a youtube video on the subject, you can drink a potion that size in only 6 seconds. Just give it a swirl as you hoist it!

Science rules.