D&D 5E How cognizant are you of the rules of the game?

[Maxperson]

You've used that argument before in this thread and it doesn't hold up because of time. Whether damage is described as being physical or not simply does not negate the fact that less average damage means more required hits to kill, which means more rounds of combat risked, which means more six second increments of time.

Over the time it takes for someone to actually become proficient with both weapons it's reasonable to think they would realize "for some reason it just takes me longer to beat my enemies with this short sword than it does with a long sword."

Horse pucky. The PC has no idea what a hit is. When he "hits" and does luck damage, the PC registers it as a miss. He swung. He missed. Only the player knows it was a hit for 6 damage. You are establishing some sort of idiot savant omniscience to PCs that somehow enables them to know every miss that is a "hit" and the exact damage, then calculate the math based on full knowledge of monsters' hit points that they don't really have.

 

[MechaPilot]

Horse pucky. The PC has no idea what a hit is. When he "hits" and does luck damage, the PC registers it as a miss. He swung. He missed. Only the player knows it was a hit for 6 damage. You are establishing some sort of idiot savant omniscience to PCs that somehow enables them to know every miss that is a "hit" and the exact damage, then calculate the math based on full knowledge of monsters' hit points that they don't really have.

The PC doesn't have to know what a hit is. The PC just needs a general awareness of how long a fight takes. The hit and the round are mechanical constructs of the game, but the six seconds that passes per round is an in-world reality that is observable by PCs.

 

[iserith]

This seems a good a place as any to ask this...

I just recently started playing lots of games (on roll20) with various DMs. Before this point I had played only with a handful of other people, over a period of several years, and aside from that I've DM'd a campaign for a long time. I have a pretty good grasp of the rules, I think, even though my 5th edition binge just started a few months ago.

I like to know rules. If I want to accomplish a task (or one of my players does), I like to know how the rules say to do it and I'll try to accomplish it using existing rules before I start making up my own stuff. Something I'm starting to notice is other DMs and players don't seem to know (or use) the rules as well as I do. Like, not nearly as well. They'll say something about making a grapple using an unarmed attack, or not being able to use my mount's action to Disengage, then use its full movement, and use my own action to Attack, and I'm a little flabbergasted because I know that's not right, but at the same time I don't want to be that guy who always tries to tell the DM how to run their game.

What's the etiquette here? I don't want to be a "rules lawyer", as it's generally something used in a negative context, but if the DM says something like "you had a random encounter during your long rest, now you don't get the benefit of the long rest", should I be pointing out that the long rest rules specifically say you'd need to be fighting for at minimum 1 hour for our long rest to be interrupted, and a typical encounter is less than a minute? In some situations I imagine DMs are just houseruling things they don't like, but there are also times when I just feel that the DM is genuinely ignorant of the rules (or using the rules for an interaction that were right in a previous edition but are not right in this one).

I suppose part of the problem is that these aren't people I know terribly well, given we're playing over roll20 and I'm "the newbie". But what's the best way to bring these issues up to a DM, as a player? Or should I just be "rolling with the punches", as it were? Maybe other DMs would like to tell me how they'd like players to bring such issues up--because if I were a DM, I would want my players to point out whenever I make a rules-related slip-up. But then there is that negative stigmata of "rules lawyers" which makes me think that others don't feel comfortable being "undermined" as it were by their own players.

In my view, it speaks really well of you to have even made this post. Respect.

I think more than any other edition of D&D in recent memory, D&D 5e is one where knowing the rules is good, but knowing your DM is better. Provided your DM is at least making consistent rulings, those rulings are the things you can rely upon - not necessarily the rules. Plan and act - in good faith - accordingly.

What you can also do - and this is something as a DM I really like - is tell the DM you're very proficient in the rules and that he or she can feel free to ask you about the rules when it's time for the DM to make a ruling on something. Because I'm pretty decent at the rules that matter, but not perfect. Sometimes I'd like to hear from someone I can count as knowing the rules better than me to help inform my ruling. So if you feel confident in your knowledge, I recommend approaching these DMs after the game to say, "Hey, I liked your game. I'm really good at the rules, so if you ever need me to tell you what the rules say about this or that, feel free to ask." Here you can come across as someone who wants to help, but not someone who wants to tell the DM he or she is doing something wrong - because, frankly, he or she isn't. (Unless, of course, the DM's approach is causing the group to fail to achieve the goals of play. And that's another conversation entirely.)

 

[pming]

Hiya!

The PC doesn't have to know what a hit is. The PC just needs a general awareness of how long a fight takes. The hit and the round are mechanical constructs of the game, but the six seconds that passes per round is an in-world reality that is observable by PCs.

So what you are saying is that PC Fighter A kills a goblin in two rounds, if another goblin steps up a few rounds after that, it will take Fighter A two rounds to kill it. If another steps up, another two rounds. Rinse, repeat. Is that actually what you are saying? Because in my experience, sometimes the Fighter gets lucky and gets a crit, killing the goblin in one round. Other times he misses three times in a row and does near minimum damage each time...taking him 11 rounds to kill the second goblin. And then with the third it takes him 4 rounds because that goblin had more HP's than the other two.

In case you are missing my point... combat is NOT "static and predicable". There are these things called "dice" that are used in the game, and these odd shaped things introduce quite a bit of random chance to the game (that's what they are for). So, a PC would most definitely not be able to place any sort of "observable, in-world reality" as to how good or bad a fight will/should be past the most blunt, basic, and course generalization (re: "Goblins? Pests, really...dangerous in numbers though...but a Troll? Now that is something to avoid!"). Anyone in the campaign world who would catagorically state "Goblins? Twelve seconds each to kill. So 5 goblins should take one minute" would likely be seen as a dangerous, semi-delusional braggart. Additionally his assertion would be easily provable as false the first combat he gets into with five goblins...if I was a betting man, I'd bet against it taking exactly 1 minute for him to kill all of them.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[MechaPilot]

So what you are saying is that PC Fighter A kills a goblin in two rounds, if another goblin steps up a few rounds after that, it will take Fighter A two rounds to kill it. If another steps up, another two rounds. Rinse, repeat.

Nope. You invented that.

 

[Maxperson]

The PC doesn't have to know what a hit is. The PC just needs a general awareness of how long a fight takes. The hit and the round are mechanical constructs of the game, but the six seconds that passes per round is an in-world reality that is observable by PCs.

So tell me. What is the magic single number that is the proper length all combats that these PCs know? What is the exact number of rounds a fight with an ogre takes every time, that if it goes longer, will make the PCs aware that they are not optimal?

 

[Maxperson]

Nope. You invented that.

You may not have meant to say it, but that's what you said.

The PCs have no awareness of hits or misses unless the hit actually causes visible damage, and even then they won't know the difference in damage between a longsword scratch and a dagger scratch. A scratch is a scratch. They have no awareness of rounds, or even that rounds are 6 seconds. The attack doesn't take the whole 6 seconds. It can't or multiple attacks couldn't happen.

You are blatantly attributing out of character knowledge provided to the players only, as being known by the PCs and it's bupkis.

 

[Maxperson]

I think hit points do muddle it a bit since you may kill a random orc in 2 rounds with any weapon but then this next one is taking more to kill because, as it turns out, he has extra hit dice and so he has more hit points. Nothing really distinguishes him from the first orc other than that it takes more rounds to kill him. He could have the same armour, the same hit probability, the same weapon, he looks exactly the same as the first orc but he takes longer to kill. Of course, with the abstract hit point system, how many blows does it really take to kill them? Both likely die after taking one solid hit, but with hit points a lot of the ducking and weaving in and out of combat is taken into account with them so that the more you have, the more staying power you have. I can't really see the difference between a 1d8 weapon and 1d6 weapon being that quantifiable by the people in game as many posters would like it to be. The fighter with the d6 mace is still staving in skulls, the fighter with the longsword is still slashing off limbs, and at the end of the fight they continue on their merry way to the next combat to repeat it all over again.

Right, and there's no way for the fighter who takes 8 rounds to kill an orc to know whether he hit once for 8 damage or 8 times for 1 point of damage each.

 

[MechaPilot]

So tell me. What is the magic single number that is the proper length all combats that these PCs know? What is the exact number of rounds a fight with an ogre takes every time, that if it goes longer, will make the PCs aware that they are not optimal?

Wrong question. The ogre comes later, after the adventuring career has begun.

The character learns about weapons and practices with them repeatedly as she develops her proficiency. By the time the character is undertaking an adventuring career, she should have been sparring with someone with different weapons enough to negate the disadvantage that comes from being born without weapon proficiencies.

And, all that assumes that other factors relevant to the real world aren't considered in the damage die type. I mentioned before that in the real world the reach difference between a dagger and a rapier is a very real factor, but it's overlooked in D&D. What if that's not overlooked? What if that superior reach is actually reflected in the larger die type? If that superior reach is reflected in the larger die type then die type becomes an even more easily observable and pertinent factor when making in-game decisions about what weapons to use.

 

[MechaPilot]

You may not have meant to say it, but that's what you said.

The PCs have no awareness of hits or misses unless the hit actually causes visible damage, and even then they won't know the difference in damage between a longsword scratch and a dagger scratch. A scratch is a scratch. They have no awareness of rounds, or even that rounds are 6 seconds. The attack doesn't take the whole 6 seconds. It can't or multiple attacks couldn't happen.

You are blatantly attributing out of character knowledge provided to the players only, as being known by the PCs and it's bupkis.

The awareness that time passes is in-game knowledge and it's dishonest of you to claim otherwise by spinning the argument as you have.