D&D 5E Amulet of the Planes - can one intentionally fail the DC 15 Int check?

[Sauropod]

My players encountered Juiblex and the Wizard asked to intentionally fail the DC 15 Intelligence check in order to teleport the demon lord, and himself, somewhere other than where they were. In the flow of the game, I wasn't able to quickly locate a rule on intentionally failing magic item stat checks. I ruled it was ok and the Wizard and Juiblex ended up in the Astral Plane. Next round the Wizard won initiative and Plane Shifted back. Demon-be-gone!

Can someone point me to RAW regarding intentionally failing DCs?

"While wearing this amulet (check), you can use an action (check) to name a location that you are familiar with on another plane of existence (check-Astral Plane was the target). Then make a DC 15 Intelligence check. On a successful check, you cast the plane shift spell. On a failure, you and each creature and object within 15 feet of you travel to a random destination. Roll a d100. On a 1-60, you travel to a random location on the plane you named. On a 61-100, you travel to a randomly determined plane of existence."

 

[Blue]

I can't find anything in a quick look at the PHB that you can't voluntarily fail a check. In a "ruling not rules" sense it makes sense you have to be able to: "I want to throw the horse race" or lose intentionally at arm wrestling, or whatever.

That said, the write-up of the item seems to break a design philosophy in that their is neither a to hit or save involved. I understand it from the most common perspective - if it happens accidentally keep the party together so some players aren't out for part/all/several session(s). But really, using it offensively should have some chance of resistance.

So, I would not have ruled by RAW at my table. I would have told the wizard sure he could voluntarily fail, but just like the Plane Shift spell an unwilling target would get a Charisma saving throw.

As a side note - are you doing something unusual with initiative? Jubilex should have had an action between the wizard's two actions to turn him into wizzy pudding.

 

[CapnZapp]

As a side note - are you doing something unusual with initiative? Jubilex should have had an action between the wizard's two actions to turn him into wizzy pudding.

He said "won initiative".

That suggests he's rolling initiative every round a common enough variant.

You kids probably don't remember it, but there was a time where cyclical initiative wasn't even invented yet, and back then we all rolled initiative every round...

Now get off my lawn

 

[Satyrn]

How is it that a Demon Lord can't plane shift? Maybe not right away, but this just seems to be Demon-Be-Mad, not gone for long.

And out of sight, out of mind seems a horrible strategy for dealing with any demon.

 

[Satyrn]

Oh, but as for the amulet, I'd give a Charisma save from now on whenever the players tried using it this way.Or something that doesn't make it automatically work.

 

[CapnZapp]

How is it that a Demon Lord can't plane shift? Maybe not right away, but this just seems to be Demon-Be-Mad, not gone for long.

And out of sight, out of mind seems a horrible strategy for dealing with any demon.

Oh boy.

Not that it isn't a good question, but that there are very many layers of answers...

On one hand, the stats for 5th edition demon lords are naive bordering on useless, since they're written seemingly without any notion of the strategies a competent medium- to high level party will execute that will defeat one without it ever getting a single attack in. Plainly speaking, any high level monster (and especially epic threats like Demon Lords) must have ways to defeat simple kiting and delaying tactics; otherwise they could never have risen that far above a Dretch. Put bluntly: anything much less powerful than spend-an-action-to-teleport is risking ignoble defeat against veteran players.

On the second hand, you'd think plane shifting would be a trifle for something so powerful as a Demon Lord, since it's a spell available to any mid-level party.

On the third hand, there are a multitude of story reasons, all good, most completely unstated, for Demon Lords not being able to shift planes at will. Better than "perhaps they don't want to", that is. Transcending the boundary between the Material Plane and something like the Abyss must be a nearly unbridgeable gulf, spells notwithstanding. And there must be some very good administrative reasons why a Demon Lord spends 99.9% of its time on its home layer.

So in the end - I actually think that strategy should work well enough.

It's just a bit cheesy in that you need to view what that wizard did as something utterly exceptional. Rather than something the wizard can do twice a day, every day of the week, that is. A hard enough sell, I'll admit.

 

[Ath'kethin]

And there must be some very good administrative reasons why a Demon Lord spends 99.9% of its time on its home layer.

"Yes, yes, I realize that our mission is to seduce and corrupt all mortals to evil, and that we're behind on this month's quota. But I'm just buried in paperwork. Have you ever tried to weed through HR issues with an all-Chaotic staff? It's a nightmare! And not the kind you can ride. I have vrocks whining that they've been cheated by hezrous, and the marilith who's supposed to be the supervisor can't be bothered to stay at her desk for longer than a round or two! Not that there's anything wrong with cheating, but SOMEBODY has to sort all this out.

I worked though lunch again today, and I haven't had a day off in three millennia! My wife is talking divorce, and demanding full custody of our lemures. Somebody get me a drink."


EDIT: lemures are devils. I meant manes. Oops. See how the stress gets to me?

 

[iserith]

An ability check is a mechanic used to resolve uncertainty as to the outcome of a fictional action. If the stated approach to a goal is not uncertain, then it just results in automatic success or automatic failure.

The fictional action tied to the Intelligence check of the amulet of the planes is "name a location that you are familiar with on another plane of existence." That is the approach. The goal is to cast the plane shift spell. The uncertainty might come from the nature of the magic item itself. Some other approach to activating the amulet of the planes might result in automatic success or failure. To automatically fail, perhaps the wizard can name a location with which he or she is unfamiliar.

 

[Staccat0]

He said "won initiative".

That suggests he's rolling initiative every round a common enough variant.

You kids probably don't remember it, but there was a time where cyclical initiative wasn't even invented yet, and back then we all rolled initiative every round...

Now get off my lawn

Hehe, alternatively, I would shake up initiative of new enemies innturrupted the fight or new combatants suddenly found themselves on another plane of existence. Also fairly common

 

[Sword of Spirit]

There isn't, as far as I can tell, a clear rule on this sort of thing. I would always allow a character to intentionally fail at a task if they so chose (unless there was a compelling reason not to). You don't choose to make an ability check, you choose to attempt a task. It seems to me that choosing to do a crappy job at something is within most people's capabilities most of the time.

In this case, yes, I would allow them to automatically fail (ie, not try) to make the check if they wanted to. The ability to randomly pop around the multiverse as much as they want is cool, but it can also be extremely risky. In the case of sucking in nearby creatures automatically, the same thing happens when you play around with bags of holding and portable holes, so it isn't without precedent.