D&D General The Tyranny of Rarity

[Zardnaar]

I'm not sure its a huge benefit, but it used to say it was up to the GM in the rule books. Is that still true in 5e?

Going with your sports analogy earlier, are the players like the team owners and the DM like the commissioner? As long as the commissioner is running things the commissioner decides, and if the owners don't like it they can collectively fire the commissioner and get a new one. Do the owners pretty much ever over-rule a commissioner mid-season?



I've seen a number of mediocre DMs over my 40+ years of playing, but I don't remember any actual bad ones. Of course I think my standards were lower and my tastes less refined (aka stubbornness less ingrained) back when I was in grade/middle/high school

I've come across inexperienced ones none of the horror story types.

 

[Lanefan]

EDIT: Also by the book you can levitate one creature or object. As a DM I would have warned you beforehand but there is no way I would have agreed with an interpretation that allows you to levitate a single object and then pile it full of numerous other objects and/or creatures. IMO your interpretation of Levitate could be as erroneously interpreted by the players as you believe the DM's to be.

If the weight limit wasn't exceeded I'd allow this - it's the same rationale as levitating a character (one creature) and then allowing that character to pick something up either before or after leaving the ground.

The ruling error in the original ferry-the-characters-down-the-hall question doesn't lie there, however; it lies in the fact that Levitate is being allowed to give the caster horizontal movement control over what's levitated and is thus letting it work more like Telekinesis, a way-higher level spell.

 

[Lanefan]

True, for young and novice players.
With experienced players, not so. They get much more political and far seeing than novices.

In some cases, perhaps. In others IME, not so much...

Especially once they can build kingdoms, churches, thieve's guilds and whatever they want to build. They can even work together as a group and fight each other with their own goals.

In a long-standing campaign that's got to this point and where the underlying setting elements are well-known, then sure. But up till now we (or at least I!) have been talking about world-building of the type that occurs before play even begins.

 

[Lanefan]

Obviously they didn't, because the solution is always more elf subraces.

And, obviously, those sub-races are based around what they can do with their enormous ears:

Ice Elves: when on ice or any other slippery level-ish surface these Elves can angle their ears so as to act as sails, giving them a downwind move rate of 1/2 the windspeed (if no other means of propulsion is in use) and a crosswind move rate of 1/4 the wind speed. Upwind movement cannot be done in this manner.

Radio Elves: when fully extended (up to several feet, in some cases) the ears on these Elves act as tunable antennae, allowing them to pick up any radio-frequency signal they can receive and decode it so it can be heard and understood by the Elf. If multiple signals are coming in on the same frequency the Elf must save vs confusion to understand any one of them.

Sky Elves: these Elves can use their ears as flappable wings similar to those of a hummingbird, giving a Flying air-speed of 1 mph; speed made good over the ground is greatly dependent on wind conditions.

 

[Lanefan]

Yea, pretty much in the same boat. Out of 8 players, 5 of them regularly DM. Your idea has to be interesting, and also not take forever.

Shrug - I dunno - each week has seven nights so you'd think five DMs ought to be able to sort out who gets which night...

 

[Micah Sweet]

Because they're not.

Find me an elf with sweet horns and the literal power of burning spite.

Find me a human that's an elephant (physical maladies don't count).

Find me a halfling that's a tiny dragon man that people keep insisting is a dog.

Virtually all of that was ascetics. So people just want to describe their character a certain way, without that having any meaning outside of their personal taste? Not for me.

 

[Maxperson]

I mean.

Two of the secondary drivers for race creation is the lack of variation and options in settings with few races and the boredom of constantly using the same races.

They are a lot of uncreative DMs who design the same setting with the same races and no twists nor depth.

New races and classes offer uncreative DMs with new options for spice.

This argument really doesn't make sense to me. An uncreative DM is not going to become exciting and creative just because races have a bit more variation, nor is the amount of variation added going to compensate for an uncreative DM.

What's more, the amount of diversity offered by a by variable stat bonuses for the race just isn't much, like at all. A high elven level 12 oath of the ancients paladin with +2 dex, +1 int is not going to be functionally much different from a high elven level 12 oath of the ancients paladin with +2 str, +1 cha.

 

[Minigiant]

This argument really doesn't make sense to me. An uncreative DM is not going to become exciting and creative just because races have a bit more variation, nor is the amount of variation added going to compensate for an uncreative DM.

What's more, the amount of diversity offered by a by variable stat bonuses for the race just isn't much, like at all. A high elven level 12 oath of the ancients paladin with +2 dex, +1 int is not going to be functionally much different from a high elven level 12 oath of the ancients paladin with +2 str, +1 cha.

You missed the point.

Heavy pushes and classes were often a response by players who ran into uncreative DMs and thought they could create something better as DMs.

The player who asks to be a monkeyman arrtificer PC in a 4th playthrough of a traditional world ends up creating a setting with Monkeymen, Warforged, Half-Giants, Soulblades, Runists, and Blood Hunters.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

If the weight limit wasn't exceeded I'd allow this - it's the same rationale as levitating a character (one creature) and then allowing that character to pick something up either before or after leaving the ground.

The ruling error in the original ferry-the-characters-down-the-hall question doesn't lie there, however; it lies in the fact that Levitate is being allowed to give the caster horizontal movement control over what's levitated and is thus letting it work more like Telekinesis, a way-higher level spell.

Horizontal movement was accomplished by two ropes it just wasn't germane to the issue.

 

[Lanefan]

Horizontal movement was accomplished by two ropes it just wasn't germane to the issue.

OK, that makes sense.