D&D (2024) Thief Rogue / True Strike

[pemerton]

Sure, the DM's job is to put a stop to loophole abuse. And the game designer's job is to not put loopholes in their game in the first place.

I know, the common argument is "to close all loopholes, you'd need a tome of massive size" or somesuch, but some of these things are just obvious- like allowing spirit guardians to damage someone for moving up to them?

That's just asking for someone to build a "turbo cleric" or give a Monk a ring of spell storing and other such shenanigans.

"Because there's a DM" is a terrible excuse for shoddy rules.

D&D relies very heavily on discrete rules components - generally presented as either spells or magic items. This has been a feature of the game since its inception. 3E, 4e and 5e change this only insofar as they use structurally similar rules components to represent other abilities also.

Trying to ensure that these are balanced across all possible instances of use is very very hard. Maybe Spirit Guardians should have a once per turn or even once per round limit - but for what WotC regards as the typical group, maybe its more fun to find ways to occasionally boost the damage output by finding (what are for that group) clever ways to get a target into the AoE twice in a turn.

The fact that this is also broken for more optimising groups is a side effect that gets tolerated in order to achieve the main design goal.

I would say that if you want a more tightly designed RPG - in terms of technical design, not WotC's cleverness at designing for their markert - then you need to move to a smaller game that is more specific in the sort of play experience, and hence player base, it is aimed at. Whereas if you're a highly focused or technical RPGer who is using 5e D&D as your game, you're going to have to recognise that it will have these elements that aren't perfectly suited for you, because they were designed for a more "casual" sort of RPGer.

 

[James Gasik]

On reactions and their triggers-

I've learned to be pretty loose on what triggers I allow after a Pathfinder game where my players started to use readied actions. The more savvy players would come up with better triggers for their abilities, and the result was that their plans would always work the way they wanted them to, while other players would be frustrated when things went awry.

I decided then and there that "the ability to select ideal triggers" should not be a tool a player can use to outperform others, and so, to sidestep all the legalistic phrasing and perfectly cromulent, yet silly methods to get readied actions to occur when one desires, or to try and play "gotcha" with poorly chosen triggers, to simply allow things to work as the player intended.

It makes things way smoother. The player says "I want to do X" and I nod. Far better than "Ok, I want to react when the opponent blinks". Despite the turn order conventions, we know that what's really happening is everything is happening pretty much simultaneously anyways, so splitting hairs about when someone can use an action is kind of silly in the grand scheme of things.

 

[FrogReaver]

Sorry. I can't make out sense of what you wrote her.

Yes. Attacking anyone would be specific enough.
It is just that your readied action won't interrupt the attack.
At least you act after them. Amd if they don't attack, your readied action is wasted.

I have often enough seen videos of optimizers claim that you can use "start their turn" as trigger, which is not allowed RAW, or try to circumvent that 'perceivable" restiction by claiming that you are allowed to speak even when it is not your turn and then just set the trigger on their own voice they can conveniently time perfectly when the enemy' s turn starts.

Going back to the basic point. I agree one can’t technically use ‘when they start their turn as a trigger’. I just don’t think it matters because one can get the same effect by making triggers out of enemies or allies actions or movements between you and the enemy you want to attack for what is essentially the same effect.

 

[James Gasik]

D&D relies very heavily on discrete rules components - generally presented as either spells or magic items. This has been a feature of the game since its inception. 3E, 4e and 5e change this only insofar as they use structurally similar rules components to represent other abilities also.

Trying to ensure that these are balanced across all possible instances of use is very very hard. Maybe Spirit Guardians should have a once per turn or even once per round limit - but for what WotC regards as the typical group, maybe its more fun to find ways to occasionally boost the damage output by finding (what are for that group) clever ways to get a target into the AoE twice in a turn.

The fact that this is also broken for more optimising groups is a side effect that gets tolerated in order to achieve the main design goal.

I would say that if you want a more tightly designed RPG - in terms of technical design, not WotC's cleverness at designing for their markert - then you need to move to a smaller game that is more specific in the sort of play experience, and hence player base, it is aimed at. Whereas if you're a highly focused or technical RPGer who is using 5e D&D as your game, you're going to have to recognise that it will have these elements that aren't perfectly suited for you, because they were designed for a more "casual" sort of RPGer.

Ok, but what happens when the typical group figures out "oh hey, if I do this, I get more bang for my buck" and starts doing that all the time?

Now suddenly the DM has to be the fun police? "Were you aware you were doing 35 DPS in a 25 DPS zone?". There's a difference between a tightly designed RPG and "we didn't really bother to balance anything, but don't worry- you can fix it for us!".

I liked D&D better when it wasn't basically a Bethesda game, relying on it's modding community to function, lol.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Sure, but some of these things could happen organically without any intent to exploit. Someone playing a Cleric for the first time could get to level 5, see spirit guardians, cast it, and then notice in play "oh, if I move up to a guy, they take damage". Is it being a jerk to suddenly decide to combine that with a Dash action?

No. That is ok.
It is when the whole party starts dragging the same cleric in the same seconds back and forth.

That is like realizing, oh, if I can ready an action to give a message to the next guy with the trigger "receiving a message" I can speed it up to light speed given enough persons...

This requires everyone to have a shared idea of what the rules should be and ignore what the rules are.

No. It is the shared idea of what the boundaries of the rules are in a story telling game as explained in the DMG.

You cannot write rules that can't be exploited without taking the fun away.

I can write emanations so that they trigger only once per round. But then, after being damaged once, enemies can freely move in it...
Maybe, given the idea, that everything hapoens in the same 6 seconds, this makes sense. But usually at the table people forget this fact and think sequential instead of simultaneous. And so it seems contraintuitive that you can now ignore damaging zones. And it takes away the tactics.

If I would write the rules, I would make the hard limit: damage once during your turn. And once in between.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

On reactions and their triggers-

I've learned to be pretty loose on what triggers I allow after a Pathfinder game where my players started to use readied actions. The more savvy players would come up with better triggers for their abilities, and the result was that their plans would always work the way they wanted them to, while other players would be frustrated when things went awry.

I decided then and there that "the ability to select ideal triggers" should not be a tool a player can use to outperform others, and so, to sidestep all the legalistic phrasing and perfectly cromulent, yet silly methods to get readied actions to occur when one desires, or to try and play "gotcha" with poorly chosen triggers, to simply allow things to work as the player intended.

It makes things way smoother. The player says "I want to do X" and I nod. Far better than "Ok, I want to react when the opponent blinks". Despite the turn order conventions, we know that what's really happening is everything is happening pretty much simultaneously anyways, so splitting hairs about when someone can use an action is kind of silly in the grand scheme of things.

No problem. It is when people start setting triggers to get extea damage because of some loop hole when things get messy.

So if people only use ready for what it was intended: to occasionally act on different times than your native order in initiative line, no problem. Standard use for your action... No thanks.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Going back to the basic point. I agree one can’t technically use ‘when they start their turn as a trigger’. I just don’t think it matters because one can get the same effect by making triggers out of enemies or allies actions or movements between you and the enemy you want to attack for what is essentially the same effect.

Ah, now I understand what you meant. Thanks for clarifying.

See. This is what I mean with "clever" players always find loopholes.

So I am lucky, that my players have not tried to pull such tricks.
And I won't do that to them in return.

Maybe if someone gets that "clever" I remind them that what readied actions are for and put a soft limit on readied actions.


If a rogue gets a scimtar of speed, I would have no problems if they attack once on their turn, once on the enemy's turn. They give up their two weapon fighting. They use a nick weapon. They can't do additional opportunity attacks.
They can't uncanny dodge.

I am also lenient with weapon drawing. I would just disallow juggling weapons over and over again.

The rules work fine if you don't intend to exploit them.

 

[abirdcall]

Sure, but some of these things could happen organically without any intent to exploit. Someone playing a Cleric for the first time could get to level 5, see spirit guardians, cast it, and then notice in play "oh, if I move up to a guy, they take damage". Is it being a jerk to suddenly decide to combine that with a Dash action?

This requires everyone to have a shared idea of what the rules should be and ignore what the rules are.

The issue is with using the ready action to move the cleric around and it is actually addressed in the DMG.

The advice is basically that the rules don't simulate the world they are there to make things interesting and fun and if shenanigans are going on the DM should not allow it.

The example is a peasant bucket brigade to transport items hundreds of feet in seconds.

 

[James Gasik]

The issue is with using the ready action to move the cleric around and it is actually addressed in the DMG.

The advice is basically that the rules don't simulate the world they are there to make things interesting and fun and if shenanigans are going on the DM should not allow it.

The example is a peasant bucket brigade to transport items hundreds of feet in seconds.

The Peasant Railgun! I mean, I get it, it's like the old "bag of rats" exploit.

The issue is that while some exploits are obvious, there's a lot of odd things that it's difficult to determine if they are intended or not. Not long ago, a major rules debate came up when I had an enemy push one of my players into a sickening radiance- the player felt it was unfair that they took damage for it, then immediately took damage again at the start of their turn without any agency.

Which I found interesting, since the party was perfectly willing to punt enemies into the Druid's moonbeam! That's why it really is up to each group to have a shared idea of what is out of bounds or not.

Some groups are perfectly ok with the idea of using forced movement to shred enemies into pieces with spike growth, while others think it's very stinky gouda. And having guidance for this sort of thing in the DMG puts the DM in the position of saying "slow down guys, you're having too much fun right now, haha". If the PHB was clear about the intent of abilities, I feel a lot of this nonsense could be nipped in the bud (and if you're ok with it as a DM, then you can houserule to allow it).

 

[abirdcall]

The Peasant Railgun! I mean, I get it, it's like the old "bag of rats" exploit.

The issue is that while some exploits are obvious, there's a lot of odd things that it's difficult to determine if they are intended or not. Not long ago, a major rules debate came up when I had an enemy push one of my players into a sickening radiance- the player felt it was unfair that they took damage for it, then immediately took damage again at the start of their turn without any agency.

Which I found interesting, since the party was perfectly willing to punt enemies into the Druid's moonbeam! That's why it really is up to each group to have a shared idea of what is out of bounds or not.

Some groups are perfectly ok with the idea of using forced movement to shred enemies into pieces with spike growth, while others think it's very stinky gouda. And having guidance for this sort of thing in the DMG puts the DM in the position of saying "slow down guys, you're having too much fun right now, haha". If the PHB was clear about the intent of abilities, I feel a lot of this nonsense could be nipped in the bud (and if you're ok with it as a DM, then you can houserule to allow it).

I agree that those spells are often poorly written, and maybe worse, aren't standardized.

The exception to this was healing spirit which was made to the standard only it works for the damage spells when opponents don't want to run through it but breaks down when it is something they do want to go through. Easy enough to limit it to 1/round but also annoying to need to fuss with it.

I see this spell scroll thing as different. To me it is clear that activating the item with the magic action is different than activating the item and then when it calls on you to use the casting time of a spell if that is a magic action to go back to the start and make it a bonus action.

I've read other sorts of things in this edition that I just think are fine. The idea that stealth is permanent invisibility is one. I also saw someone say you can launch people into the air if it says push away and not push directly away. Silly things that are easy to solve.