D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[FitzTheRuke]

A player casts Wind Walk, presumably to escape. Who decides if it works by RAW (no escape, they can be grappled) or as per how one might assume from the description (being gaseous they can't be grappled). Does the player need to ask the DM?

I think I answered this in the thread on the subject, but if you missed it, it's similar to most of the others here, other than maybe that I don't particularly feel the need to write down a houserule for the future - I'd rule whatever makes the most sense for everything going on in the individual encounter, with an eye to saying "yes" or "yes, and/but" as often as possible.

So if the established fiction is that they're flying around as little clouds, NO, no NPC/Monster is going to try (or be able to) grapple them - they're a cloud. But if the monster is an Air Elemental, and I want it to wrap them in its vortex, then sure. If someone had the idea to try to suck a wind-walker into a bellows, then yeah, I'd probably allow it with a decent check because that would be cool, but it would probably be pretty easy for the wind-walker to escape afterward. It might matter if it's PC or NPC, only in that I tend to try to say "yes" to Players when they want to try something (they can at least TRY with a check, even if it doesn't work out for them the way they'd want it to) but I'm less likely to think of clever ways for NPCs to get at PCs, unless that challenge is the entire point of the encounter.

 

[Faolyn]

if carrying a weapon is enough to disqualify you, then you might as well remove that feature... at a minimum you are squarely back in the 'DM may I' territory you so fight against

I'm sorry, are you now upset because the feature doesn't work all the time?

 

[gban007]

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Which is why the background doesn't say that people recognize you as a folk hero. It says, quite clearly, that they recognize you as a commoner.

You did something heroic in your home village (thus making you a folk hero). That's why you decided to go off and adventure now.

While I think the rest of the post is good, this is where it gets a bit weird for me in how the background works - and while someone (possibly yourself, sorry losing track of them all) mention other backgrounds may stop you coming across as a commoner anymore, I'm not sure all do, so one specific background allows people to see you as a commoner, when other characters who are commoners won't be seen as a commoner.

On same token, even if they are a human, and go to an all other race town with other customs etc, they will still be identified as a commoner, even if share no cultural norms with the town they are visiting - maybe they are stoop shouldered, wear somewhat ratty clothing, have callouses on hand etc which identifies as commoner in their local area, but they are going to some place where commoners where bright clothing, as dull clothing saved for the elite, and the whole town is based on penmanship or something, and the commonfolk all have soft hands, vs the nobles going hunting etc have callouses etc - the base assumption under the background seems to be that all societies are similar enough that a commoner in one society is similar to a commoner in another, and it feels like that constrains the fiction somewhat.

Maybe I'm just a bit burnt on this, as for some reason all this discussion around backgrounds and what can / can't work reminds me of Wizard's First Rule, where I had to stop reading the book and never come back once the main protagonist who seemed a stubborn idiot to me, comes across a town and gets really angry with the people there, gives into his rage and punches one of the townspeople there, and it turns out the town really respects people who punch each other, and so he is welcomed with open arms... that really broke my suspension of belief, and I couldn't go back to the book.
Now plenty of others do like the book, and likely see no issue with this, but I can see how in some instances it does feel like it would break the flow more than I'd like to allow a background feature to work.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Once in a rare while, yes.

Every time? Very much no.

And it's the "every time" piece we're talking about here. Every village you go to, no matter where it is, you're known as a folk hero. Every place you visit, you know a criminal contact there. Every port you're in you can get free passage on a ship.

And all because, by the rules, the NPCs have to do what your background tells them to do. There's no roll, no refusal option*, no by-RAW way for the DM to say no this doesn't work here.

* - unless the PC self-inflicts such by being an idiot.

It's not going to come up enough to justify all this passionate opposition to giving a player this, the tiniest shred of narrative control.

 

[mamba]

I'm sorry, are you now upset because the feature doesn't work all the time?

no, I am surprised you aren’t / rule that way

 

[James Gasik]

Maybe I'm just a bit burnt on this, as for some reason all this discussion around backgrounds and what can / can't work reminds me of Wizard's First Rule, where I had to stop reading the book and never come back once the main protagonist who seemed a stubborn idiot to me, comes across a town and gets really angry with the people there, gives into his rage and punches one of the townspeople there, and it turns out the town really respects people who punch each other, and so he is welcomed with open arms... that really broke my suspension of belief, and I couldn't go back to the book.
Now plenty of others do like the book, and likely see no issue with this, but I can see how in some instances it does feel like it would break the flow more than I'd like to allow a background feature to work.

I really liked that series at first. Then it really started to fall apart. Unfortunate.

 

[Faolyn]

While I think the rest of the post is good, this is where it gets a bit weird for me in how the background works - and while someone (possibly yourself, sorry losing track of them all) mention other backgrounds may stop you coming across as a commoner anymore, I'm not sure all do, so one specific background allows people to see you as a commoner, when other characters who are commoners won't be seen as a commoner.

Yes, that was me.

On same token, even if they are a human, and go to an all other race town with other customs etc, they will still be identified as a commoner, even if share no cultural norms with the town they are visiting - maybe they are stoop shouldered, wear somewhat ratty clothing, have callouses on hand etc which identifies as commoner in their local area, but they are going to some place where commoners where bright clothing, as dull clothing saved for the elite, and the whole town is based on penmanship or something, and the commonfolk all have soft hands, vs the nobles going hunting etc have callouses etc - the base assumption under the background seems to be that all societies are similar enough that a commoner in one society is similar to a commoner in another, and it feels like that constrains the fiction somewhat.

Yes, this would be ridiculous in the real world--that commoners are commoners the world around--but don't forget: This is D&D, where all members of a species (except for humans, but only in some settings) speak the same language and have the same culture and "usually" have the same alignment--and if they don't, they get a different statblock. Where everyone can read and write with equal proficiency and everyone knows Common. Where any of a thousand little unrealistic bits are actual fact with mechanical backup--and that's without getting into anything involving biology or physics.

Which is why I don't care when people say it's unrealistic that they won't know who you are outside of your hometown. In terms of unrealisticness, that's way too low on the list of things to be dealt with and just as low on the list of things that must be changed to improve the table's experience. I'd rather D&D brought in cultures or have just as many "usually good" and "usually neutral" orcs as they have "usually evil" ones than fix a background feature.

As I pointed out, these features are super-niche. In one of my games, I think I've used my feature once, and that character is 8th level. She has the Courtier background and we've actually spent a lot of time dealing with bureaucracies, which is literally what my background is all about. I just haven't needed to use it. So because these features are so niche and so rarely used, why not let them be used and give the player a chance to shine?

 

[Faolyn]

no, I am surprised you aren’t / rule that way

Why would I, when I've said probably twenty times already that they don't have to be or even shouldn't be an automatic success.

 

[mamba]

Why would I, when I've said probably twenty times already that they don't have to be or even shouldn't be an automatic success.

I feel I explained this in the post this particular discussion started with, so I doubt this will help much... Adventurers pretty much always have weapons, so if that is enough for the feature to not work the GM could decide it pretty much never works, which seems rather contrary to your position on features

 

[gban007]

Yes, this would be ridiculous in the real world--that commoners are commoners the world around--but don't forget: This is D&D, where all members of a species (except for humans, but only in some settings) speak the same language and have the same culture and "usually" have the same alignment--and if they don't, they get a different statblock. Where everyone can read and write with equal proficiency and everyone knows Common. Where any of a thousand little unrealistic bits are actual fact with mechanical backup--and that's without getting into anything involving biology or physics.

Yeah, that is a good point, as soon as everyone understands each other automatically through common, isn't really much of a stretch to assume a general similarity with commoners.
And in some respects my distaste for that scene in Wizards First Rule is around the fact that their culture is so different, but it hadn't really been suggested before that that there would be such differences, and it seemed an absurd difference, and especially so when it happened to work in the protagonists favor (probably the closest fit I've seen for a Mary Sue / Gary Stu).