D&D 5E If you use thunderstep but teleport less than 10 feet do you take damage?

[Bacon Bits]

New player hears about this Critical Role thing from friend, buys the PHB, MM, and DMG to start playing with friends. An issue with a spell bamfing a player from one spot to another comes up.

He goes online to ask and gets told "well you see, if you check the books from 30 years ago, the answer is obvious".

Yeah I'm going to say there's a problem with that no matter how you slice it.

On the one hand, I don't think it's reasonable to expect OP's problem to stop an actual game. I would say that in essentially all cases, the DM will make a ruling and play will move on. Because it's really not that important. The whole thread is a technicality that will never actually be an issue at an actual table in actual play. The answer and discussion here is at best trivia.

On the other hand, if we ignore that and instead assume that your scenario is real, I don't really think it's any different than Googling Tiamat or Waterdeep or Bane or anything else. Or even why Wizards don't have healing magic. Like I've Googled things for games that were brand new. That's literally why they make errata documents public. Why is doing that for a game that's 50 years old suddenly bad?

I mean, have you played Warhammer 40k?

 

[James Gasik]

On the one hand, I don't think it's reasonable to expect OP's problem to stop an actual game. I would say that in essentially all cases, the DM will make a ruling and play will move on. Because it's really not that important. The whole thread is a technicality that will never actually be an issue at an actual table in actual play. The answer and discussion here is at best trivia.

On the other hand, if we ignore that and instead assume that your scenario is real, I don't really think it's any different than Googling Tiamat or Waterdeep or Bane or anything else. Or even why Wizards don't have healing magic. Like I've Googled things for games that were brand new. That's literally why they make errata documents public. Why is doing that for a game that's 50 years old suddenly bad?

I mean, have you played Warhammer 40k?

No, I heard Warhammer makes you crazy, and constantly buy expensive miniatures alternately dreading or hoping a new Codex will drop to fundamentally alter the balance of your faction.

But it's like this: if I'm a consumer, and I buy a game, I expect it's rules to either work or to be given errata if they don't. What I don't expect is to be told "refer to a decades old book that is no longer in print" (or worse, in the case of AD&D, wasn't even published by the same company).

If you want a rule to exist in your game, print it in the newest edition.

Now that having been said, if an individual DM wants to mix and match rules, that's their prerogative, I'm simply saying you shouldn't have to do so.

And assuming every absent rule functions as it did in previous editions can quickly lead to madness. Do Conjuration spells avoid magic resistance and legendary resistance because they conjure "real" things as opposed to "energy drawn from other planes"?

Can I still assume magic armor adds to saving throws, as per the 2e PHB, page 102?

Perhaps I can still make called shots by taking a -4 penalty to hit and worsening my initiative by 1.

Or that my Gnome has ultravision.

Or that 25% of all magical swords found are sentient.

Or that Dwarves and Halflings cannot be Wizards.

 

[plisnithus8]

Granted, there have been new 5e books published since this Sage advice like Tasha’s and Xanthar’s, but this is saying the first rulebooks for 5e were published in 2014.

When asked to clarify rules, the designers often quote text but not from previous editions. They may tell players to use old edition material to fill in gaps as they see fit, but that’s an at the table decision.

Sure this stems from nit-picking a part of Thunderstep which can just be ruled by each DM at their table, but to me now the bigger issue is wondering how many people think pre-5e rules/lore should generally (not just at an individual table) be considered 5e RAW.

 

[Bacon Bits]

No, I heard Warhammer makes you crazy, and constantly buy expensive miniatures alternately dreading or hoping a new Codex will drop to fundamentally alter the balance of your faction.

But it's like this: if I'm a consumer, and I buy a game, I expect it's rules to either work or to be given errata if they don't. What I don't expect is to be told "refer to a decades old book that is no longer in print" (or worse, in the case of AD&D, wasn't even published by the same company).

If you want a rule to exist in your game, print it in the newest edition.

I think most people would agree with you in the year 2000. I think WotC certainly did. I also think that 3e is a very, very clear example that (a) that expectation is actually very unreasonable for a TTRPG, and (b) they've never done it again since.

Like you can't sit down and write complete and comprehensive rules to D&D because D&D isn't a closed or isolated system like most tabletop and video games are. That doesn't work for TTRPGs because the totality of game actions you're allowed to take can't be imagined by the author, let alone listed in the book. There's no action for using pitons to seal a door shut, but you can do it. You can do it in essentially every TTRPG system, and I would be very surprised if any of them list it. Even those that still value comprehensive rules like Pathfinder 2e don't, though it does go out of it's way to tell you what a piton is and how to use it, and how doors work, and exactly how to open a stuck door in eye-bleeding detail. The rules systems for RPGs are an open system. And by being open systems, you can never get a comprehensive set of rules that covers all conceivable interactions. There is no book of rules that will simulate a holodeck for you, and expecting the game to be like that is unreasonable to the point of being ridiculous.

Like look at OP's question. It's not directly answered by 5e at all. There is no answer. You could read every word in ever D&D book printed since 2014 and you would not get a direct answer. I don't think you'd even get an information to help you answer it. Does that mean you need to stop play permanently until Jeremy Crawford resolves the issue? No, obviously not. That's stupid.

So someone says, "Hey, it used to work like this in the past." It's neither incompatible nor contradictory. Why is using that wrong? What's valid about dismissing it because it's old and not because it doesn't work?

Now that having been said, if an individual DM wants to mix and match rules, that's their prerogative, I'm simply saying you shouldn't have to do so.

I have never said that anybody has to do anything. The closest I got to that was saying that fluff shouldn't be considered secondary to hard mechanics.

I'm saying it's not less of a rule just because it hasn't been reprinted. It's only less of a rule if it's incompatible in some way. There is no inherent reason to discard a rule just because it's old.

We accept that all rules are optional in D&D, right? I don't think you can arrive at any other conclusion from all the parts where they repeatedly tell you to add, alter, transform, or remove whatever material you want for whatever purpose. The game is fundamentally, foundationally, non-prescriptive with the rules. Doesn't it naturally follow that every rule is still available for use? The only blocker is that it be compatible and not contradict another rule you'd rather use instead.

So if you're playing the game and you run into a temporal problem with a spell and the 5e rules just have no answer for it... doesn't it make sense to just use the rule you know from a prior edition if it's informative? It's very likely to be compatible even at deep lore levels. It's probably still valid and they just haven't printed it again. Especially if the rule is mostly lore, which is even less likely to change?

The whole point is, "That's an old rule we can't use it," is not good logic. It turns to pretty questionable logic when the old rules solve problems the current game doesn't. And it gets to be pretty bad logic when the older rule doesn't contradict anything. I do think that if you're in a situation where the current game is mute and you know the old rule and there's no incompatibility, then ignoring it just becausee it's old certainly feels very incorrect.

And assuming every absent rule functions as it did in previous editions can quickly lead to madness. Do Conjuration spells avoid magic resistance and legendary resistance because they conjure "real" things as opposed to "energy drawn from other planes"?

What? Why is that madness?

Like the rule is not that conjuration/summoning spells never grant saving throws. Grease, glitterdust, flame arrow, stinking cloud, prismatic spray, et al all did that. The rule is that magic resistance doesn't apply. In 5e, that would just mean you don't get advantage on the saving throw. I don't think it affects legendary resistance at all, since that doesn't care about whether an effect is magical or not.

Further, the game absolutely still has the idea that magic can create non-magical effects that can get around explicit protections against magic. I see no reason to dismiss this as the lore reason for why a conjure elementaled ice mephit's frost breath dodges magic resistance, even if we use legacy 5e definitions of magic resistance.

Why can't you use this rule? Because the game is different if you don't? Is that what you think I'm arguing? That adding rules to the game doesn't change it?

Can I still assume magic armor adds to saving throws, as per the 2e PHB, page 102?

I dunno. Ask your DM what rules you're using.

I mean, from my memory the bonus to saves essentially never came up. There just aren't many spells that wouldn't bypass armor. Ice storm, I suppose? That silly ranger conjure barrage spell? For the most part, though, spells that don't bypass armor tend to use spell attacks instead of saving throws. I'm not sure this rule is entirely compatible, but at the same time I don't see why it doesn't work.

Do you not ask your DM how your magic items work?

Perhaps I can still make called shots by taking a -4 penalty to hit and worsening my initiative by 1.

Or that my Gnome has ultravision.

Or that 25% of all magical swords found are sentient.

Or that Dwarves and Halflings cannot be Wizards.

The first one assumes d10 for initiative, making it incompatible as-written. The last one directly contradicts the current rule that any race can choose any class.

But you could change the first one to -2 init, and introduce a gnome race with ultravision, and roll for sentience on 25% of swords, and re-introduce racial class restrictions. I don't even see why the last one is odd. 5e still has racial restrictions, after all. Even after eliminating the subclass ones, there are still items and feats.

Do you think I'm arguing that your table doesn't have to collectively decide what rules to use? That you can just pull out the 1e PHB and claim you can sweep attack as a 5th level Fighter for 5 attacks? Although, I'm not sure that would really do anything; nothing has less than 1 HD anymore.

 

[plisnithus8]

So someone says, "Hey, it used to work like this in the past." It's neither incompatible nor contradictory. Why is using that wrong? What's valid about dismissing it because it's old and not because it doesn't work?
...
I'm saying it's not less of a rule just because it hasn't been reprinted. It's only less of a rule if it's incompatible in some way. There is no inherent reason to discard a rule just because it's old.

We accept that all rules are optional in D&D, right? I don't think you can arrive at any other conclusion from all the parts where they repeatedly tell you to add, alter, transform, or remove whatever material you want for whatever purpose. The game is fundamentally, foundationally, non-prescriptive with the rules. Doesn't it naturally follow that every rule is still available for use? The only blocker is that it be compatible and not contradict another rule you'd rather use instead.

So if you're playing the game and you run into a temporal problem with a spell and the 5e rules just have no answer for it... doesn't it make sense to just use the rule you know from a prior edition if it's informative? It's very likely to be compatible even at deep lore levels. It's probably still valid and they just haven't printed it again. Especially if the rule is mostly lore, which is even less likely to change?

The whole point is, "That's an old rule we can't use it," is not good logic. It turns to pretty questionable logic when the old rules solve problems the current game doesn't. And it gets to be pretty bad logic when the older rule doesn't contradict anything. I do think that if you're in a situation where the current game is mute and you know the old rule and there's no incompatibility, then ignoring it just becausee it's old certainly feels very incorrect.

I accept that there is a caveat to the rules that says the DM can optionally make up their own rules. For clarity in my discourse, I'll refer to these unpublished rules as "local" in contrast to 5e rulebooks as default "published." Local rules could include anything from previous editions, Blades in the Dark, or complete home-brew. I don't see a point in debating anything in local territory.
Neither would it be worthwhile debating that DM can just forego looking up what is published to speed the game along.
The issue I have is with the idea that previous edition rules should be considered at all with published 5e rules, especially that it is the intent of the 5e creators that anything that is not covered in 5e published rules can be filled in with rules from other editions.

You asked for proof that the rules for 5e didn't include previous editions; Sage Advice says there are no 5e rulebooks before 2014.
Here's another: In Mike Mearls letter included with the D&D Next playtest, he says, "In many cases, we decided to excise a rule or element of the game to see if it really is a key component of playing D&D." The word "excise" is a strong indicator that the creators of 5e did not intend for old rules that aren't mentioned in 5e to be considered going forward.
The absence of something from a new edition can be as informative to the official rules as changing or adding to a rule.

If previous edition rules were allowed, how would that even work? Say there is a rule about plane teleportation in 3e that was different than 3.5 or 4e but wasn't included in 5e. Which rule should be used? Do you have to look through every edition to figure out which ones are contradictory? What seems to make things much more complicated. Published 5e doesn't explicitly state that Elves are not a class, but why open the door to such debates?

I hear DMs all the time tell players that if they are proficient in a skill, they can make a roll. (actually, most of the time they use "trained" instead of "proficient"). That is just an idea from previous editions that the DM either doesn't remember is not published in 5e or just likes better. Either is fine as a local rule, but that doesn't make it official to published 5e.

In fact, the old rules seems to be a large factor why there is such debate regarding Thunderstep since in this edition the teleportation-involves-another-plane seems to have been excised.
Leave out old rules, then there is less complexity leading to argument.

 

[plisnithus8]

The newest UA has a Rules Glossary that explains Teleportation: “If you teleport, you disappear and reappear elsewhere instantly.”

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So someone says, "Hey, it used to work like this in the past." It's neither incompatible nor contradictory. Why is using that wrong? What's valid about dismissing it because it's old and not because it doesn't work?

I don't think anyone is suggesting you can't use older edition rules to resolve issues in your games, just that you cannot use older rules to make a definitive ruling that is objectively correct (any more than you can use Star Trek or real world science).

 

[Bacon Bits]

I don't think anyone is suggesting you can't use older edition rules to resolve issues in your games, just that you cannot use older rules to make a definitive ruling that is objectively correct (any more than you can use Star Trek or real world science).

The others are welcome to chime in and disagree, but it's such a weak point to make that I don't believe anyone would make that their central point. All it's saying is, "but the 5e rules don't say that!" Yeah, the 5e rules don't say anything at all! That was the premise of the thread. Congratulations, you've arrived at the first post. It's just circular reasoning. I think it would be patronizing, if not dishonest, of me to think that anyone would engage in the discussion on that level.

Even then, "objectively correct" is basically an unrealistic standard for a TTRPG. It's only knowable in the most trivial cases. You roll a d20 to make a check. Fireball deals 8d6 damage when cast as a 3rd-level spell. That's partially why RPG Stack Exchange and Sage Advice are often so useless. They tend to just read the book back to you as the answer, which is a reading, not a ruling. If you're going to operate the game solely on "objectively correct" rules, then I think you haven't actually played the game very long. The game very specifically and fairly regularly describes the books and the rules as guidelines. It very often tells you to add, create, remove, or modify settings, spells, feats, items, classes, races, and everything in between. That's part of what makes TTRPGs unique compared to other tabletop games or video games. It's a toolkit as much as a game. You're not supposed to blindly follow the rules like scripture. I've said this elsewhere, but the rules are not a machine that your pour time and dice into on one end and if you do it right fun shoots out the other side. "Objectively correct" is not a goal of the design of any TTRPG, even those like Pathfinder that try provide comprehensive answers!

 

[plisnithus8]

Yes DMs can add, subtract, or alter their games at will. A DM can use a rule from a previous edition, another game entirely, or make up one of their own. No one is arguing against that.

The only debate here in this D&D 5E thread is what are the rules as written that can be the default expectation from table to table. Pre-5e rules are as legitimate as homebrew or Axis & Allies.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The only debate here in this D&D 5E thread is what are the rules as written that can be the default expectation from table to table.

The rules don't say anything, and it doesn't matter because it's not a situation that occurs on a regular basis.

Just like the rules don't say what happens when a player adepts to use ice storm on a target that is under water. Something that happened this week.

It's the DM's job to make an on the spot ruling when an absurdly unusual situation occurs, it would be ridiculous to try and write rules that covered every possible eventuality. And it doesn't matter if different DMs make different rulings.