D&D General How Do I Help Mentor a GM Making Rookie Mistakes?

[tetrasodium]

All I woukd want to know is households up front.

Not whenever I feel the need.
One player I inherited their DM nerfed sneak attack. Basically said it wouldn't work as it was overpowered lol.

I would have agreed with that being totally reasonable up until ohhh... Twelve or so years ago. When 5e∆ went all in on rulings not rules and doubled down with intentionally overturned embrace the imbalance PC abilities it very much shifted the playing field of what is reasonable. It's tough to expect the gm to proactively disarm the house rule "FO" side of things to a proactive session zero (or close) while leaving playing with a ruleset that deliberately chose to enshrine the "FA" side of FAFO into PC design.

∆ and most of all of the forks that spawned from it

 

[Zardnaar]

I would have agreed with that being totally reasonable up until ohhh... Twelve or so years ago. When 5e∆ went all in on rulings not rules and doubled down with intentionally overturned embrace the imbalance PC abilities it very much shifted the playing field of what is reasonable. It's tough to expect the gm to proactively disarm the house rule "FO" side of things to a proactive session zero (or close) while leaving playing with a ruleset that deliberately chose to enshrine the "FA" side of FAFO into PC design.

∆ and most of all of the forks that spawned from it

To clarify that DM ignored the rules and essentially decided when sneak attack worked or not.

I ran it RAW and let the rogue player use tasha cunning aim.

DMS changing rules is fine. Eg on my world Asbesteos fire magic is impeded.

Arbitrary ask me first if your class abilities work at any given time is BS. Espicially when its essentially random if they work or not depending on DMs mood.

Added bonus the player they're sleeping with gets their stuff buffed. Had a group like thst it exploded (missed that session) and one of my players their other group exploded.

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

All I woukd want to know is households up front.

Not whenever I feel the need.
One player I inherited their DM nerfed sneak attack. Basically said it wouldn't work as it was overpowered lol.

Youch on this... Very DM-dependent class that doesn't hold up for long head-to-head... small bursts yes, but yeah, I wouldn't nerf that feature

 

[MichaelSomething]

Yup. But at some point if you say you're running X, but house rule it too extensively, I think I'd argue you're being deceptive, even if not deliberately. At some point the proper description is "home brew with a basis in LevelUp (or whatever)".

If it's good enough for Gygax; it's good enough for me.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If it's good enough for Gygax; it's good enough for me.

Its liable to not be good enough for players who are expecting X and instead get X+Y/Z though.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Its liable to not be good enough for players who are expecting X and instead get X+Y/Z though.

D&D 5E (2024) Thread 'Mike Mearls explains why your boss monsters die too easily'

Wednesday at 11:00 PM

Mearls helped design 5e and he crunches the numbers.

Interesting that Johnathan Tweet chime in about timing with rests changes the balance which is out of the designers hands. Why not make a control part of the design? Like in the One Ring?

https://bsky.app/profile/mearls.bsky.social%2Fpost%2F3m2pjmp526c2h

• darjr
• Replies: 297
• Forum: *Dungeons & Dragons

• 
• 
• 

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

That is funny, my adventuring days do tend to be marathons. I think a good amount of DMs want to manufacture gameplay stopping points equating to character rests.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

That is funny, my adventuring days do tend to be marathons. I think a good amount of DMs want to manufacture gameplay stopping points equating to character rests.

Yeah, I think this is oddly (to me) true. And an excuse is that it is difficult to track current HP/spell slots/etc between sessions if they don't reset. I don't get it. Mark it off on your character sheet as you go. Is it really that difficult?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, I think this is oddly (to me) true. And an excuse is that it is difficult to track current HP/spell slots/etc between sessions if they don't reset. I don't get it. Mark it off on your character sheet as you go. Is it really that difficult?

People seem to manage to get by doing that in my 13th Age game, and that's not that far off the beaten D&D path.