Storyteller Hero
Adventurer
At the very least, a DM who practices common sense. As the PCs become more well known, and make more enemies, being so predictable as to rely on the same spell all the time can lead to their demise.
D&D 5E The Dangers of Overreliance on Leomund's Tiny Hut (3rd Level Spell)
At the very least, a DM who practices common sense. As the PCs become more well known, and make more enemies, being so predictable as to rely on the same spell all the time can lead to their demise.
The DM's job is to make the game enjoyable for the players. Sometimes that entails creatively foiling the PC's, sometimes it means allowing the PC's to creatively foil the bad guys. Sometimes it means setting up a situation and seeing how it plays out via the dice. It's all part of the game.
The Crimson Binome
Hero
Where are you getting that? The roles of the DM and the players are explained in the PHB and in the Basic Rules document, and there's an ultimate goal of having fun by following those roles, but I don't see anything about violating those roles in pursuit of that goal.
If you're playing baseball, and one team decides to go easy on the other team because they're losing so badly that it's not fun anymore, then you can hardly call that a proper or expected way to play. It's not the job of the better team to try and make the other team feel better, and the inferior team may even be offended that they would stoop to pandering like that. Likewise, it's not the job of the DM to violate the process of play in order to make things more challenging for the players, and the players may well resent the DM for cheating in order to do so.
You have your DM'ing philosophy, and I have mine. You decided to share yours, so I thought I'd share mine.
Personally, I don't see it as myself on one team and the players on another. D&D is not baseball. If that were the case, I would "win" every time because I have all the monsters and NPC's in the world on my team.
My game, my rules. The PHB and DMG provide guidelines that I alter to suit my game. So whatever they have to say on the role of the DM and the Players is interesting as another viewpoint on the subject, but nothing I'm forced to adhere to.
If you don't like my DM'ing philosophy...well that is entirely your problem, not mine.
(If I'm running an official Adventure League game, it's different - I'm agreeing to abide by their campaign rules when I do so.)
The Crimson Binome
Hero
D&D isn't a competition, but it is equally constrained by rules. As the DM, I have no power to act for or against the PCs; the only thing I can do is play the NPCs, and adjudicate uncertainty in action resolution.
The topic of this thread is to address those things, as regarding the spell in question. How do NPCs deal with this spell? How does the world, as a whole, react to this spell? What uncertainty is there, regarding this spell, which may need to be adjudicated? Any suggestion that the DM can simply cheat by introducing complications elsewhere, or even a meta-suggestion that the DM isn't really cheating by doing so, is a failure to address the topic at hand.
That's your personal DM'ing philosophy. Not a universal truth.
As long as it works for you and your players, more power to you.
werecorpse
Adventurer
The DM can "find ways to challenge players who use it" can be used as an answer to anyone taking issue with the power of any spell.
-Cantrip that does 3d10 acid damage at 1st level - Creative DM can still challenge players therefore it's not OP.
-2nd level spell that makes you immune to fire damage - Creative DM can still challenge players...
My issue is that 5e has made the spell more useful by making it a ritual spell (well done - now it may get some use) but added an effect to the spell that was never there in previous editions that has changed the spell from what it was. BUT, more importantly IMO, they have made it a spell which may very well trivialise otherwise dangerous exploration and many other things. A creative DM wants these problems to exist in their world so that creative players can solve them creatively.
In addition it seems to me that in its current incarnation by the book cities will have LTH choke points set up in all defensive gateways.
Pathkeeper24601
First Post
Did you just make the comparison of one baseball team going easier on a weaker team to the DM making the game more challenging toward the PC. I would say this example that the DM is going easy in the same way by NOT challenging the PC's preconceived "safety" of LTH and the allowance of a long rest. I run intelligent NPC's. No way there are going to let themselves be taken apart from Leomunds Tiny Bunker. If they have a caster, it gets dispelled. If they are intelligent, they wait for it to come down from the safety of their own cover. Otherwise, it is not the job of the DM to violate the process of play in order to make things more easier for the players either.
Werebat
Explorer
The counter that "a creative DM can find ways to challenge players who use XXXX" can be used as an answer to anyone taking issue with the power of any spell -- the last refuge of the DM whose creativity... just doesn't measure up.
A *CREATIVE* DM can always find ways to challenge his players.
You're not an uncreative DM, are you?
Oh, then you won't mind us using the spell as written at your table.
<smugsmirk>
Werebat
Explorer
Because lone monsters in the wilderness read Monster Weekly and all the local internet forums to see what the PCs have been up to.
Nyet -- NOPE! I'd call foul on THAT one! Not *creative* enough! You gotta be *creative*, not cheat and let the monsters know what the PCs will do beforehand, and give them all scrolls of dispel magic, 5th level wizard friends, and whatnot. That's shenanigans.
Creating encounters specifically to foil abilities you know the PCs have is nothing but a cheat in the uncreative DM's inventory.
You're not an uncreative DM, are you?
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