D&D (2024) Rules Glossary packet6

[Maxperson]

• Knocking a creature out: F minus minus Remember that scene in predator where the hero killed the predator but reversed some of the bullets after impact so it could be captured for interrogation & technology trade with the other predators?.. Or that scene where Trinity got that crit on agent Smith & said "dodge this" just before teleporting the bullet to his kneecap & taking him hostage to negotiate with the machines?
  • Yea neither does anyone else & that's because this shouldn't be a retcon that takes affect after the attack is completed and the GM declares the result.

True story. Back when we first tried 5e we had agreed to play by the rules with no changes so we could learn the system and see how it played. Shortly into the campaign someone wanted to knock a creature out for interrogation and asked how that was done. I explained the rule, but the rest of the group couldn't believe the rule could be true and looked it up for themselves. After they all read the PHB section, every last one of them said some variation of, "This is stupid." and we instantly changed the rule in the campaign with no rules changes.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Since there is no thread on the glossary. It's disappointing to see there are still some things hard to not call deliberate misses intended only give the appearance of making an improvement or the regression regression(s).

Maybe.

[*]Climb speed: F minus minusThis is not climbing, it's gravity manipulation. There's no mention of what is being climbed or the need for hands, sheer marble walls granite cliff faces treacherous moss covered cave walls.. walk right up

• This is unfair to GMs and wotc's own adventure design proves that. I'm tired of players declaring that they are going to walk along the walls/ceilings in games I GM . The fact that wptc's adventures don't habve much if any mention of wall/ceilings and as written this just becomes "choose to ignore terrain and get to complain that the GM is singling you out when there is terrain on the wall/ceiling that makes it less optimal than the ground or equally bad".

?
There is nothing in those rules that say that having a Climb speed foregoes the need to make a check to successfully climb a surface. - Just that it doesn't cost extra movement.
If a druid turns into a spider and wants to walk along the wall, but the DM doesn't want them to, the DM can just set a DC that the spider can't make.

[*]Death Saving Throws: it appears wotc is choosing to go back to no longer die at zero & the return of page 197. This is unworthy of discussion on it's merits. There are people (or at least one poster) in this forum who will occasionally admit that "death is not on the table unless the player agrees". There is no reason for the rules to enshrine this as the defacto standard while pretending that it's still possible. It's not fair to take away risk of failure or death and go behind the curtain to throw the duty of making it seem possible onto the gm.
[*]Fly speed: mechanical changes with zero impact on play F minus

• This is pretty much as deadly as the current rules. Unless you die from massive damage, you are down to making death saves, which generally mean that you have a 50/50 chance of dying in a few rounds.
  As far as I'm aware, 5e has always used Death Saving throws.
  
  

  [*]Grapple: Still the TTRPG equivalent of star trek's inertial dampeners. The most optimal & skill efficient way to control an unruly mount of any form no matter the reason it became unruly is to simply grapple it. I don't know what they are trying to accomplish with grapple changes and don't feel like doing a word for word comparison to prior packets.

  Might work for the Barbarian. Not so good for the Rogue.
  Not to mention that you probably want to keep it friendly to you, so Handle Animal checks might be better than a subset of attacking it.
  
  

  [*]Help Action: D Minus There is no mention of actually needing to make any sort of check or the GM having any say whatsoever over any part of the process.

  "The DM has final say on whether your assistance is possible." - Its literally in the rules that you're talking about.
  
  

  Alice the player simply chooses a skill or tool proficiency of her choice and bob automatically gets advantage on his next check with it or Dave automatically gets advantage on the next attack against an opponent no matter the opponent. Is the goal here to remove the GM?

  The check in question is the one Bob or Dave is making. It looks like Alice needs to use a skill or tool she is proficient in, but making an extra roll to determine whether Bob gets an extra roll isn't very streamlined.
  

  [*]Heroic advantage: As long as you have a single point of it you have advantage on any and all d20 tests until you notice a poor roll and retroactively choose to use it on that d20 test by rolling the second die

  Nope. You have to expend your Heroic Inspiration to use it, and you only choose to use it immediately after rolling the D20, whether you know if that roll was high enough or not.
  
  

  [*]Incap: You can't speak take (bonus) actions reaction concentrate & have disadvantage on initiative . However it appears that you no longer autofail any type of save and can use your movement speed to walk away on the wall/ceiling with a climb speed if you choose. Given that death saves & phb197 are back there's not even a risk in doing so provided anyone can heal you at least one hp after you take the opportunity attack walking away from literally any monster after it dropped you to incap.

  If the monster dropped you to 0 HP, you are not only Incapacitated, you are Unconscious. Your speed is 0 and cannot change, you are prone, and you automatically fail Str and Dex saves.
  
  

  [*]Knocking a creature out: F minus minus Remember that scene in predator where the hero killed the predator but reversed some of the bullets after impact so it could be captured for interrogation & technology trade with the other predators?.. Or that scene where Trinity got that crit on agent Smith & said "dodge this" just before teleporting the bullet to his kneecap & taking him hostage to negotiate with the machines?

  Both situations where, according to these rules, they couldn't knock out their opponent.
  
  

  [*]Yea neither does anyone else & that's because this shouldn't be a retcon that takes affect after the attack is completed and the GM declares the result.

When you're about to take someone down, punching them out with your pommel rather than stabbing them is a pretty classic move. Unless the DM is unusually precious about narrating death scenes for their NPCs or insists that every attack roll represents a single discrete attack that must be thoroughly described before rolling, I'm not seeing an issue.

[*]Long rest: F minus minus still pretty much guaranteed. There's a call to the old days of someone keeping watch with a carveout for 3 hours free but everything else is designed to ensure that a long rest will automatically succeed unless fiat or the GM putting their half minute hero game on pause to troll their players.

• Can we please end the half minute hero gameplay?

Any sort of combat interrupts the rest, as well as a number of other things including spellcasting.
If the area that the party are trying to rest in isn't safe, they are unlikely to get to finish that Log Rest anytime soon.

[*]Short rest: F minus The characters don't actually need to do anything, no study no prayer, no first aid, etc...

Would you prefer to insist that the party have to perform some specific actions to rest rather than just setting limits to how strenuous it can be?

just quietly hole up in a closet & try not to breathe too loud in the hopes that there are no closet checking patrols & complain that it's not believable that there would be patrols checking the closets or whatever so often. Dresign forcing Half minute hero on the GM needs to die

. . .
This is really starting to sound like a table issue rather than a rules issue.

 

[tetrasodium]

.

Maybe.


?
There is nothing in those rules that say that having a Climb speed foregoes the need to make a check to successfully climb a surface. - Just that it doesn't cost extra movement.
If a druid turns into a spider and wants to walk along the wall, but the DM doesn't want them to, the DM can just set a DC that the spider can't make.

• This is pretty much as deadly as the current rules. Unless you die from massive damage, you are down to making death saves, which generally mean that you have a 50/50 chance of dying in a few rounds.
  As far as I'm aware, 5e has always used Death Saving throws.
  
  
  Might work for the Barbarian. Not so good for the Rogue.
  Not to mention that you probably want to keep it friendly to you, so Handle Animal checks might be better than a subset of attacking it.
  
  
  "The DM has final say on whether your assistance is possible." - Its literally in the rules that you're talking about.
  
  
  The check in question is the one Bob or Dave is making. It looks like Alice needs to use a skill or tool she is proficient in, but making an extra roll to determine whether Bob gets an extra roll isn't very streamlined.
  
  Nope. You have to expend your Heroic Inspiration to use it, and you only choose to use it immediately after rolling the D20, whether you know if that roll was high enough or not.
  
  
  If the monster dropped you to 0 HP, you are not only Incapacitated, you are Unconscious. Your speed is 0 and cannot change, you are prone, and you automatically fail Str and Dex saves.
  
  
  Both situations where, according to these rules, they couldn't knock out their opponent.

When you're about to take someone down, punching them out with your pommel rather than stabbing them is a pretty classic move. Unless the DM is unusually precious about narrating death scenes for their NPCs or insists that every attack roll represents a single discrete attack that must be thoroughly described before rolling, I'm not seeing an issue.
Any sort of combat interrupts the rest, as well as a number of other things including spellcasting.
If the area that the party are trying to rest in isn't safe, they are unlikely to get to finish that Log Rest anytime soon.


Would you prefer to insist that the party have to perform some specific actions to rest rather than just setting limits to how strenuous it can be?
. . .
This is really starting to sound like a table issue rather than a rules issue.

You are not the first person in this thread to incorrectly bring up the fact that one of the two ways of using the help action mentions DM approval.

Spoiler: I'm not typing it again

Spoiler: packet6 help action

When you take the Help action, you do one of the
following:
Assist Ability Check. Choose one of your skill or
tool proficiencies and one ally who can
perceive you. You give Advantage to the next
ability check that ally makes with the chosen
skill or tool. This benefit expires if the ally
doesn’t use it before the start of your next
turn. To give this assistance, you must be near
enough to the ally to assist verbally or
physically when the ally makes the check. The
DM has final say on whether your assistance is
possible.
Assist Attack Roll. You momentarily distract an
enemy within 5 feet of you, granting
Advantage to the next attack roll by one of
your allies against that enemy. This benefit
expires at the start of your next turn.

There are two ways of using the help action. The phrase you note would need to be placed prior to the colon or in both options to apply to both. That phrase is only present in the ability check section.

As to your "table issue" insinuation, I assure you that I had nothing to do with

Spoiler: this video

Not only do I know none of the individuals involved in it I don't even seem to be on the same continent

 

[Chaosmancer]

You are not the first person in this thread to incorrectly bring up the fact that one of the two ways of using the help action mentions DM approval.

And that use of the Help action during combat is standard 5e. So no one realizes that's your real complaint, because it hasn't been changed by the rules glossary

As to your "table issue" insinuation, I assure you that I had nothing to do with

Not only do I know none of the individuals involved in it I don't even seem to be on the same continent

You do realize that is a comedy show, right? Like in one of their skits an NPC orc greys and becomes old standing next to their frozen bodies because the group stopped playing for a long time, and the he greets them as friends when they come back. (and then they kill him)

It is a joke. It isn't a serious attempt to seriously explain how actual play works. It is like casting magic missile at the Darkness.

 

[James Gasik]

Honestly, and slightly more seriously, I am very glad for things like the rules making it easy to knock a creature unconscious. I have played in systems where to make it "more realistic" you essentially became crap at fighting if you attempted non-lethal. However, there are two fundamental problems with this.

1) The GM basically never uses those rules. They fight to kill, always. Meaning you are at a constant disadvantage in the fight. This is not fun for the player.

2) The Game World isn't real, and we play for fun. Do you know what happens when you make non-lethal attacks too much of a pain in the neck? The players stop using them, and just kill everyone. They do so, not because they want to be murder-hobos, but because they are sick of being punished for caring about the sprites in the video game. This leads to two outcomes.

A) There are no consequences, in which case they just kill everyone
B) The DM tries to either guilt them, or give them consequences for killing certain people, which just leads to the players being frustrated, angry, and killing everyone they can get away with.

Frankly, I've often found it far more interesting and enjoyable to allow everyone to knock out if they want, regardless of how. Because knocking out enemies means that they are planning on RPing with those enemies, and then I can have scenes otherwise impossible, because I decided to make mercy a "hard choice".

Ah yes, 3rd edition comes to mind. Where it's harder to incapacitate a foe than just kill them and hit them with Breath of Life.

In my first 3e campaign, a Vampire dominated our Wizard. Not wanting to kill her, but not really wanting to endure her spell spam, I first attempted to grapple her, provoking an opportunity attack with her dagger on my Fighter, because how dare I not take Improved Grapple. Then, on her turn, we roll contested grapple checks, and despite having a 5 point advantage, she breaks free. I try again, same result. Frustrated, I ask if I can hit her with the backside of my axe. The DM looks it up and says I can inflict nonlethal damage by taking a -4 to hit. I attack, and miss. He also points out that I can use unarmed strikes to deal nonlethal. I drop my axe and punch...only to take another dagger hit due to having the nerve not to take Improved Unarmed Strike.

Now, it's worth saying that this was just due to lucky rolls on the Wizard player's part, but at this point, I had enough. I pick up my axe (attack of opportunity!) and just swing on her until she falls down at negative 7 or somesuch, and the Cleric stabilizes her. The Wizard player gets mad at me for trying to kill their character, the DM questions my alignment.

My response: "You want me to not murder people, make it easier to do."

Curiously enough, we came across a Merciful weapon a session or two later (+1d8 damage, all damage is nonlethal).

 

[tetrasodium]

It's pretty obvious that the knock out a creature" on page 74 of packet6

Spoiler: here

KNOCKING OUT A CREATURE
Sometimes an attacker wants to knock out a foe
rather than deal a killing blow. When an attacker
would reduce a creature to 0 Hit Points with a
Melee Attack, the attacker can instead reduce the
creature to 1 Hit Point. The creature then has the
Unconscious condition and starts a Short Rest.
The creature remains Unconscious until it
regains any Hit Points or until someone uses an
action to administer first aid to it, which requires
a successful DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check.
LONG REST

is inexcusably odious given the firm defense of difficulty in killing vrs knocking out when the original complaint was the order of operations. A player can knock out a creature

• not before the attack roll is made...
• not after determining the attack roll was successful...
• not before rolling damage.
• not after rolling damage.
• They can do so after learning the results of that damage roll. The player is incapable of knowing monster HP until the DM completes step3 when they learn that the target is at zero hp.

A player learns the target is at zero HP when the GM is literally in the process ofstep3 "DM narrates the results of the adventurer's actions" or just as the DM completes said narration. At that point it's too late to jump back to the target not being at zero HP because the deed is already done and described.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Ah yes, 3rd edition comes to mind. Where it's harder to incapacitate a foe than just kill them and hit them with Breath of Life.

In my first 3e campaign, a Vampire dominated our Wizard. Not wanting to kill her, but not really wanting to endure her spell spam, I first attempted to grapple her, provoking an opportunity attack with her dagger on my Fighter, because how dare I not take Improved Grapple. Then, on her turn, we roll contested grapple checks, and despite having a 5 point advantage, she breaks free. I try again, same result. Frustrated, I ask if I can hit her with the backside of my axe. The DM looks it up and says I can inflict nonlethal damage by taking a -4 to hit. I attack, and miss. He also points out that I can use unarmed strikes to deal nonlethal. I drop my axe and punch...only to take another dagger hit due to having the nerve not to take Improved Unarmed Strike.

Now, it's worth saying that this was just due to lucky rolls on the Wizard player's part, but at this point, I had enough. I pick up my axe (attack of opportunity!) and just swing on her until she falls down at negative 7 or somesuch, and the Cleric stabilizes her. The Wizard player gets mad at me for trying to kill their character, the DM questions my alignment.

My response: "You want me to not murder people, make it easier to do."

Curiously enough, we came across a Merciful weapon a session or two later (+1d8 damage, all damage is nonlethal).

Yep, I've had similar experiences.

Played in an Iron Age Supers game created by a friend for a one-shot. I had a pacifist character whose only powers were lethal only, and first thing we are ambushed by people trying to kill us.

I had to run away from the fight, and then after a lucky crit on my character I nearly died, and that triggered something (don't remember) which had my power source eat the ganger and cause me even more damage from mental anguish. Left my character so messed up she basically couldn't participate in the rest of the session.


He felt it demonstrated the "hard moral choice" of not being a murderer but fighting people who would murder you. I mostly remember it being an aggravating few hours of "RP says you do this, and the system hates you doing that, so you shouldn't do it"

 

[Chaosmancer]

It's pretty obvious that the knock out a creature" on page 74 of packet6

Spoiler: here

KNOCKING OUT A CREATURE
Sometimes an attacker wants to knock out a foe
rather than deal a killing blow. When an attacker
would reduce a creature to 0 Hit Points with a
Melee Attack, the attacker can instead reduce the
creature to 1 Hit Point. The creature then has the
Unconscious condition and starts a Short Rest.
The creature remains Unconscious until it
regains any Hit Points or until someone uses an
action to administer first aid to it, which requires
a successful DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check.
LONG REST

is inexcusably odious given the firm defense of difficulty in killing vrs knocking out

You do realize just spouting hyperbole doesn't make you correct. No, I actually don't think the rule is "inexcusably odious" I think it is a flippin' breathe of fresh air.

You know, I recently got a new TTRPG. It is called Convictor Drive: Armored By Grief. In this system you play as cyber-cops stopping criminals in a futuristic city. This system has zero conception of lethal vs non-lethal damage. None. You either deal physical damage or energy damage, that's it.

Also, the system assumes that you don't kill people. You are in a robot suit, swinging a mono-filament sword that can cut trucks in half, and if you hit a criminal, it is assumed they are not seconds from dying. Because you are a cop. And making a game about being cops who go around murdering people would be a very very different game than what the designers wanted. They wanted a take on Power Rangers and other Henshin stories.

Why is this odious? Why is this so terrible? So you can go "AHA! You accidentally killed them!" as your players struggle until they stop caring about killing NPCs?

Do you know how many of my players have been relieved, deeply and truly relieved, to find out they aren't being penalized for non-lethal attacks AND if they forget to declare it ahead of their attacks, that they don't get punished for it? It has happened multiple times. My tables love this rule, because it means that their INTENT matters more.

Yes, if you want to get absolutely, minutely technical, declaring non-lethal when the target hits 0 hp might involve a retcon of the precise thing the player said. So what? When a player describes their attack in a combat, it is not locked in concrete, never to be changed lest the game devolve into chaos! They just describe their attack. And sometimes, sometimes I let players change their description based on their damage. Sometimes they don't describe it at all. They aren't changing their action if their attack goes from stabbing with a spear to cracking the enemy upside the head with a spear. They still attacked the same target, still dealt the same damage. They just described it differently. That isn't a big deal.

 

[Gorck]

It's pretty obvious that the knock out a creature" on page 74 of packet6

Spoiler: here

KNOCKING OUT A CREATURE
Sometimes an attacker wants to knock out a foe
rather than deal a killing blow. When an attacker
would reduce a creature to 0 Hit Points with a
Melee Attack, the attacker can instead reduce the
creature to 1 Hit Point. The creature then has the
Unconscious condition and starts a Short Rest.
The creature remains Unconscious until it
regains any Hit Points or until someone uses an
action to administer first aid to it, which requires
a successful DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check.
LONG REST

is inexcusably odious given the firm defense of difficulty in killing vrs knocking out when the original complaint was the order of operations. A player can knock out a creature

• not before the attack roll is made...
• not after determining the attack roll was successful...
• not before rolling damage.
• not after rolling damage.
• They can do so after learning the results of that damage roll. The player is incapable of knowing monster HP until the DM completes step3 when they learn that the target is at zero hp.

A player learns the target is at zero HP when the GM is literally in the process ofstep3 "DM narrates the results of the adventurer's actions" or just as the DM completes said narration. At that point it's too late to jump back to the target not being at zero HP because the deed is already done and described.

I think I agree with you here. Especially since reducing a target to 0 HP doesn't immediately kill it. If you reduce a target to 0 HP, it should be unconscious and entering death saving throws anyway. All that would need to happen then is to have someone make a medicine check to stabilize the target to prevent it from dying.

But I find most of the time, myself included, DMs treat a target being reduced to 0 HP as insta-death. I used to remove the mini-fig from the board, before I realized that A) the body is still there and should be a potential obstacle (tripping hazard, cover, difficult terrain, etc.) and B) the players might not want to outright kill the target. I've begun leaving said mini-figs on the board until combat is over.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Keeping Short Rest at 1hr is like saying "We don't understand our own game!".

It's truly bizarre. I can understand reasons for wanting to keep Short Rest as a mechanic. Trying to make it happen 1hr, though, it's like they don't even play D&D. It's a duration that is long enough to destroy dramatic inertia and feel bizarre and bad to players, like taking a lazy lunchbreak, but also too short to really matter to all but the narrowest deadlines. It doesn't fit well with the fiction and it doesn't need to be that long mechanically.