Sage Advice: Sneak Attacks, Breath Weapons, and Magic Weapons

The month's Sage Advice column by WotC's Jeremy Crawford covers the rogue's sneak attacks, ability modifiers to use with attack roles, and answers the questions "does anti-magic field work on a dragon's breath weapon?" (no), and "do magic weapons automatically give you bonus to both attack and damage rolls?" (only if it says so in the description).

The Sage Advice Compendium PDF has been updated to include this information. You can read the current column here.

 

[Sunseeker]

See this is why it is hard to have real Role Play in D&D when you choose to switch systems. 3e the antimagic fields do work on breath weapons cause they were Supernatural. But in 5E they don't. That, among hundreds of changes, requires extremely contrived and difficult explanation in-game.

Switching systems requires restarting campaigns entirely, as if the world you are playing in now is an alternate universe of the previous one.

Me, I just stick to one edition. Makes it easy.

So...problem solved, yay?

I never understood this complaint. WOTC didn't force you to switch, you chose to. If you don't like the way the rule, 5E explicitly states "rulings over rules" so if you want your breath weapons in 5E to be canceled by anti-magic fields, then whammo, they are!

There are several sage advice rulings I already ignore. They're clarification rulings, RAI as opposed to RAW. If you don't like their intentions, ignore them.

 

[jaelis]

No, I'm referring to how Jeremy Crawford clarified the situation to be prior to this month's Sage Advice, and "the rest of the PHB" doesn't disagree with me either.

Now see, this is such a minor thing to argue about, but when you say something like that it makes me go search through old JC quotes to see what you mean. But I can't find anything that disagrees with the current Sage Advice
http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/06/19/barbarian-reckless-attack/
http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/09/06/what-specifically-does-melee-weapon-attack-mean/
http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/11/03/smite-melee-attack-with-weapon/
http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/09/06/what-does-ranged-weapon-attack-mean/
http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/11/11/throwing-a-dagger/

 

[Queer Venger]

Sage Advice is about rules, but 5e is about rulings. The game is simple and light weight, which means the rules cannot and will not cover everything. (Because no system can.)
It's up to the DM to adjudicate.

And why D&D 5e is my preferred tabletop fantasy system. I get to rule and the rules are my guide ;-)

 

[I'm A Banana]

It can be argued that most of a paladin's abilities fall into the second area ("focused magical effect"), but even if they don't fit Jeremy's strict list (not an item, not a spell, not a spell attack, doesn't say "magical") its easy to say it still falls into the first category (background magic). What a warlord does is produce those effects totally NON-MAGICALLY. Not just "without spells" but "without any sort of magical effect AT ALL".

At that point you're just playing semantic tennis. You are exactly as magical as a fighter swinging a sword or a rock dropping. Since D&D's default is "a world of magic", maybe all those things are subtly supernatural because the rock has a spirit in it and the fighter's powered by the legends that are told about his prowess. Or maybe none of it is. Or maybe some of it is and some of it isn't.

There's nothing standing between you and Lay on Hands as non-magical inspirational healing if you want non-magical inspirational healing, though.

 

[pemerton]

I like how this SA article has nearly solved the Warlord Issue.

We have a class that can, without any magic, heal hit points and grant save bonuses and condition immunities.

It's called the Paladin.

Now just whip up "spell-less-Paladin" stuff like the spell-less ranger, and maybe get a replacement for Channel Divinity and bam.

There's nothing standing between you and Lay on Hands as non-magical inspirational healing if you want non-magical inspirational healing, though.

You also need a replacement for Lay on Hands - requiring touch but not speech is not a very good model for Inspiring Words.

Plus you need to get rid of the divine flavour, and perhaps the oath element more generally.

Using the paladin as a warlord is a bit like using the ranger as a barbarian - DDG did it back in the day when there wasn't any other mechanical option, and clearly its not a total archetype mismatch. But I think it falls short of optimal.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You also need a replacement for Lay on Hands - requiring touch but not speech is not a very good model for Inspiring Words.

Plus you need to get rid of the divine flavour, and perhaps the oath element more generally.

Using the paladin as a warlord is a bit like using the ranger as a barbarian - DDG did it back in the day when there wasn't any other mechanical option, and clearly its not a total archetype mismatch. But I think it falls short of optimal.

Welp.

 

[pemerton]

Welp.

Since when did disagreement equal hate? What are you saying I'm even hating?

In 4e warlords and paladins obviously overlap - STR and CHA; generally melee-focused; support, including combat buffs and healing. And the thematic overlap is there as well - leaders of men, warlords as Knight Commanders (a PHB paragon path), etc.

Rangers and barbarians overlap, too (which was my point). So do wizards, warlocks and sorcerers. So do paladins and clerics, for that matter, and have so ever since AD&D.

Are all the people who like those different classes haters too?

 

[Leatherhead]

You might be thinking, “Dragons seem pretty magical to me.” And yes, they are extraordinary! Their description even says they’re magical. But our game makes a distinction between two types of magic:

1. the background magic that is part of the D&D multiverse’s physics and the physiology of many D&D creatures
2. the concentrated magical energy that is contained in a magic item or channeled to create a spell or other focused magical effect

I feel validated for proposing that magic was the physics of the 5e D&D world all those months ago.

With this, all the metaphysics will fall into place.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

See this is why it is hard to have real Role Play in D&D when you choose to switch systems. 3e the antimagic fields do work on breath weapons cause they were Supernatural. But in 5E they don't. That, among hundreds of changes, requires extremely contrived and difficult explanation in-game.

Switching systems requires restarting campaigns entirely, as if the world you are playing in now is an alternate universe of the previous one.

Me, I just stick to one edition. Makes it easy.

I pretty much agree. But...I want to be playing the edition I think is the best, even if it requires a bit of adaptation or retconning. Right now, 5e is absolutely the best for me. I have almost zero interest in any other edition of D&D, (except maybe a fling with some old school if someone else were DMing).

But definitely, do not switch to a different version unless you like it better (or like it as well and get some other benefit by switching, such as current support). In some RPGs, new editions are just refinements to the same system. Same game, tweaked by experience. D&D is almost a new game with each edition change (1e->2e, and 3.0->3.5 being the two exceptions).

 

[Li Shenron]

Sage Advice is about rules, but 5e is about rulings. The game is simple and light weight, which means the rules cannot and will not cover everything. (Because no system can.)
It's up to the DM to adjudicate.

Yes. Basically Sage Advice is for two kinds of people: those who have encountered one or two specific issues and don't feel confident in deciding how to 'ruling' them by themselves so they pick out a few sage advices, and those who take SA as a whole because they enjoy the torture of rules lawyering.