Jeremy Crawford's New Sage Advice Column

Thanks. I hadn't seen it.

 

[Curmudjinn]

Where did that picture come from? I don't see it when I look at the article.

It's on the ENWorld main page as the accompanying image to this article. I saw an immediate resemblance.

 

[pemerton]

If the rules are going to leave a certain decision up to the DM, then they should be up front about it: "This is up to the DM to decide." Otherwise, they should be clear and straightforward.

The Stealth rules have certain areas that are explicitly left to DM judgement, like deciding when a creature is "distracted" and you can sneak up behind it.

This is a perfectly good solution to a thorny problem, and I have no objection to it. What I have a problem with is the rest of the Stealth rules, which are written in a way that suggests they are meant to be taken as rules, but it's not clear what the rules are.

I pretty-much agree with this, and completely agree as far as Stealth is concerned.

I think it is also OK for the rules to leave something up to GM discretion without expressly flagging it, when what the rules are pointing to is something in the fiction. An example that came up in discussing surprise rules was the idea of a "threat" - only a threat can surprise a character, and I think it is utterly sensible that the GM has ultimate say on what, in the fiction, counts as a threat relative to this or that character.

But the stealth rules use nouns - like "obscured", for instance - that don't simply refer to elements of the fiction but also are intended to carry mechanical weight. For instance, they factor into other aspects of PC building - eg clearly Wood Elves are meant to have a benefit using Stealth in the wild that other characters don't get.

This is where I want the design team to tell me what they had in mind.

Why did they not simply say, "Your DM decides when you can use Stealth and how it interacts with Perception," and leave it at that?

And that would have been a perfectly good rule: Burning Wheel's Stealth rules work like this, and I've had no trouble with it. But as you note they wanted it to be more mechanically complex than this (eg racial benefits that are parallel to, not the same as, proficiency and Advantage).

I can't imagine anything my players could come up with that I couldn't come up with a ruling for.

I suspect that is true for many experienced referees.

But if players read the rulebook and have expectations, having the GM rule a different way can be a problem. Moreso if players invest PC build resources that end up being squandered (or broken).

For instance: imagine a Wood Elf hiding behind a wall in a light fog. Does an opponent suffer disadvantage on the Perception check to find the elf? If the answer is "yes", why? Why does fog make it harder to notice someone behind a wall? And suppose that a wizard disintegrates the wall? Is the elf now harder to spot, easier to spot or is there no difference?

I've had posters tell me that while the Elf is behind the wall no disadvantage is suffered (because the detection involves hearing, not sight, and only sighted Perception suffers disadvantage in fog), but if the wall is disintegrated then there is disadvantage to notice the Elf (because the detection is now visual, through a fog). That strikes me as pretty bizarre - how does destroying a barrier between me and the elf make the elf harder to spot? - but maybe that is what the designers had in mind!

 

[Shiroiken]

Citation please. To the best of my knowledge, they have said no such thing. They have said that there are certain areas in the Stealth rules which are intentionally left to DM judgement. And it's true: The Stealth rules have certain areas that are explicitly left to DM judgement, like deciding when a creature is "distracted" and you can sneak up behind it.

This is a perfectly good solution to a thorny problem, and I have no objection to it. What I have a problem with is the rest of the Stealth rules, which are written in a way that suggests they are meant to be taken as rules, but it's not clear what the rules are.

I mean, come on. If there was no intent in that sidebar, why the heck is it there at all? It took somebody a fair bit of time to write. It takes up a good chunk of a page in the PHB, where space was at a premium by all accounts. Why did they not simply say, "Your DM decides when you can use Stealth and how it interacts with Perception," and leave it at that? If that whole sidebar is just blather and we're supposed to make something up, then they were deliberately confusing their customers, because... what?

I am fairly certain they did in fact have an intended rule there. They just didn't explain it clearly. Which, okay, I get it, they had a lot to do and not a lot of people to do it with, and that section just slipped past. No biggie; they can just tell us how they meant for it to work, and clarify it in the next printing of the PHB.

I have no idea what your problem is then. If you are referring to the sidebar on pg 177, it's perfectly clear to me and everyone I've spoken to. It gives you the general requirements for Hiding (not visible and quiet). It explains Passive Perception, which is the minimum DC you must get to Hide from a creature. It directs you to Vision and Light in Chapter 8 for what you can see. Pretty much the only thing it doesn't say is if searching is an Action, which is covered under Combat. What more do you need?

 

[Athinar]

Let me give an example I just saw today on ENWorld. There was discussion about plate mail as unintended treasure from a Hobgoblin leader being too generous for that level and that table. Reasonable. Several people suggested having costs to have it refitted for human - hey, that offsets it's value partially and brings it more in line with the intended amount of treasure. Sure, I can see that if the Dm is worried. One suggestion was since they were recommending 250 gold to refit, that it should also take 250 days. The RAW and even RAI could easily suggest 1gp per day for crafting, but RAF would say that having to wait 250 days to get the reward isn't sensical since the PC would have leveled far past that point in most campaigns.

That's one place I could see RAF as being useful - the times when it contradicts RAW and RAI, and does so to make a better time for the people at the table.

250 gold to refit, that it should also take 250 days, THAT WAS A JOKE, DMG has it for learning lanaguages and our group uses it for everything that does not have a rule or something in the books, sorry if you thought that was the true cost of Gold and Time

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-s-New-Sage-Advice-Column/page4#ixzz3RxkOkKJn

 

[pming]

Hiya!

If he comes back with that answer, then I and a lot of other folks will be rightly annoyed. The designers are being paid out of our pockets--all that money we spend on rulebooks--and we don't pay them to play Zen master. We pay them because they have the time and the expertise to design a better system than we could build for ourselves.

If the rules are going to leave a certain decision up to the DM, then they should be up front about it: "This is up to the DM to decide."

Sorry to be a nit-pick here, but all of the rules are up for the DM to decide. That's the DM's job. Not the rulebooks. If the rules say that Class X gets +1 to hit Orcs, it's still up to the DM to decide if that applies... even if the PC's are all fighting Orcs. Of course, the vast majority of the time the DM goes with what the rulebook says (otherwise nobody knows what game they are playing), but the end result is the same; every rule is up to the DM. The RAW are all, ultimately, RAI weather the players like or or not.

Otherwise, they should be clear and straightforward. As the stealth rules exist right now, it's quite easy for a player to read them and conclude one thing, while the DM concludes something else, and neither of us knows that the other one has different ideas (because we don't spend a month going over the entire rulebook together line by line). Then someone tries to use Stealth at the table, and the session crashes to a halt. As DM, I make a ruling on the fly, and explain it so my players understand how it works, and then I have to come back after the session and review the ruling to be sure it's how I want things to work in future, and explain that to my players, and it's a waste of all of our time.

I am perfectly prepared to adjust the rules if they don't serve the needs of my table. But I want to know what the rules are, so I know if I have to inform my players that they're being adjusted.

First, if a game crashes to a halt for more than a minute for any rules-based reason, it's the DM's job (not the rulebooks) to come up with a ruling and keep the game flowing. No rule system can predict what will happen during every game session. Rulebooks are finite; if there are no rules for building a large Galley, the game will "come to a halt" and the DM will have to make some sort of decision on the fly. Now, building a Galley is a lot less likely an occurrence than using Stealth, I'll give you that. However, the principle is the same; as soon as it happens once, the game pauses, the DM thinks about it all, the players give input to how they want it to work, and a ruling is made. In both cases, it's ultimately up to the DM.

I think this first point is the one where you and I disagree. I see "we, the designers, know there's too much variation, so we're leaving it mostly up to the DM" as a good design decision. If they had a page and a half of modifiers, of yes/no situations where stealth was used and what the base DC's were, etc.... then my game (and I'd bet that most others) would be halting FAR more often then once, that's for dang sure! I'd hear "But the rules say...", and "But in the book...", every time I made a ruling that modified or otherwise went against what was written in the game. As a DM, having to justify every little change or ruling I make at the table makes the game no fun to run for anyone. It becomes a game of "lets all pretend we are in a fantasy world, and then argue about it!". Heavens help us if someone "built" their character around the expectation of some rule/feat/class combo and then when he tries to use it I say "Uh, no. That's definitely not gonna fly in my campaign, sorry.". The length of the halt would be quite long, and likely result in harsh feelings, and an uncomfortable tension for the rest of the game (or even whole campaign). It's better, IMHO, for a player to be building his character, encounter a rule that may or may not work the way he's hoping, come to me, the DM, and ask, and then find out how I'm going to deal with said combo. Everyone is informed, nobody is surprised by something, and the game never gets halted because of it.

Second, in your last paragraph, you said you are perfectly happy informing your players what adjustments to rules are. I'm not seeing a real difference between "Here is the RAW, and here is my ruling" and "There is no real RAW, and here is my ruling". The only difference I can see is that in the first place you are dileberately going against what is written, so you kinda have to inform the players or they may be upset (and rightly so) when you "spring" some different rule than they were expecting... but in the second place you are not going against any defined rule, so when your players find out how you are going to interpret Stealth, they will be neutral on the whole matter at worse, and quite excited about it at best (depending on what they think of it).

Obviously our experiences differ, but in my 34+ years of DM'ing experience I've come to find that it's FAR easier to give stuff to the players than it is to take stuff from them. "Here are the rules I'm not using and here are the rules I'm changing" leads more towards a negative vibe than "Here are some new options and different rules for some things not covered" leads more towards a positive vibe. Players, like the DM, are all playing D&D because they like to use their imaginations as a group, sit around as a group, and laugh and have fun as a group. When the RAW become "part of the group" and have as much say as anyone at the table...well, again IME, it's never a good thing. Best to leave RAW as they were meant to be...guidelines for the DM and players, and a last-ditch chance for a group of adults playing Let's Pretend around a table on a Sunday evening.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Athinar]

my problem is Surprise and Initiative, Assassin surprises creature but lost the initiative so the assassin then lost the Sneak Attack, advantage and critical

 

[Mistwell]

RAI is hand and hand with RAW and been around just as long, RAF I have never seen before and hope to not see again, it makes no sense. The intent behind the rules should be fun to begin with. Intent is hard enough to figure out unless it is something like Sage Advice where the designers are answering the questions, Fun is so subjective from person to person and group to group as be something no one could answer to the satisfaction of most people.

There are situations not anticipated when drafting any rule, and some rules can make a game suddenly unfun in one of those unanticipated situations. You can intend a rule to result in fun all you want, but if you don't anticipate a situation, you can't really intend or write it well to address it sometimes.

 

[Lanefan]

I've had posters tell me that while the Elf is behind the wall no disadvantage is suffered (because the detection involves hearing, not sight, and only sighted Perception suffers disadvantage in fog), but if the wall is disintegrated then there is disadvantage to notice the Elf (because the detection is now visual, through a fog). That strikes me as pretty bizarre - how does destroying a barrier between me and the elf make the elf harder to spot? - but maybe that is what the designers had in mind!

And here we need a 4th acronym: RACS, for Rules As Common Sense; and RACS here would suggest the wall blocks some of the sound and all of the vision, and destroying the wall lets all the sound through and gives obscured vision.

my problem is Surprise and Initiative, Assassin surprises creature but lost the initiative so the assassin then lost the Sneak Attack, advantage and critical

See, here again: use RACS. Regardless of what the RAW says, an assassin surprising an opponent should either get a free shot before initiative is rolled at all or automatically win init. in the first round - or get advantage on the init. roll and the victim gets disadvantage?

RACS in general is completely up to the DM, but there's places where the designers could throw 'em in too.

Lanefan

 

[GMforPowergamers]

And here we need a 4th acronym: RACS, for Rules As Common Sense; and RACS here would suggest the wall blocks some of the sound and all of the vision, and destroying the wall lets all the sound through and gives obscured vision.
See, here again: use RACS. Regardless of what the RAW says, an assassin surprising an opponent should either get a free shot before initiative is rolled at all or automatically win init. in the first round - or get advantage on the init. roll and the victim gets disadvantage?

RACS in general is completely up to the DM, but there's places where the designers could throw 'em in too.

Lanefan

RACS is so my new favorite way to rule at games...

 

[MerricB]

my problem is Surprise and Initiative, Assassin surprises creature but lost the initiative so the assassin then lost the Sneak Attack, advantage and critical

That doesn't follow for me. If you surprise someone, they're unaware of your position, so you still get Sneak Attack and Advantage on your attack, even after their turn has come up and they've skipped it.

After that, it comes down to the definition of "taken a turn". And I would say that a monster that couldn't move or take actions due to surprise hasn't taken its turn yet.

Cheers!