D&D 5E Things that "need" errata

[Flamestrike]

You underestimate the scientific spirit of my PCs! Trial and error, my friends. Trial and error.

P.S. On a more serious note, metagame knowledge is important too, which is why the Player's Handbook exists. Everything in it is metagame knowledge, and that knowledge empowers the players. Without metagame knowledge, the players cannot effectively act in-game except through that very trial and error which I poke fun at above. Imagine how much fun the game would be if you had to deduce over time, by trial and error, what the effect of Great Weapon Fighting was. Not very fun!

There is a difference between knowing the rules and playing by the spirit of the rules.

Im a lawyer IRL. Legislation always contains absurd results if you argue it 'RAW'. Thats why we have the Judiciary. The Judge doesnt just read laws according to the rules as written, sans any context - they look at the rules within the context of the legislation, and of other legislation. They consider how the law should work, and what the law is for. Importantly, they also look to Hansard, readings of the bill, parliamentary debates etc (to see what the legislature's intent was for drafting the law, and what the legislature was intending on the law to do).

And then of course you have the Judge themselves own bias and interpretation (like it or not, we're all human).

I mean; does the 'Right to Bear Arms' mean:



Or something else?

It's why I've never understood people who scream RAW at me like its some kind of objective truth that exists as 'a thing in and of itself'. It doesnt, and logically cannot exist without context or interpretation. In other words it is impossible to take the RAI out of the RAW, so I have no idea why people even try.

Luckily, the game (like the law) includes a referee, and that referee gets the final call on rules interpretations (among many other responsibilities).

By RAW, hit points represent 'luck and the will to live' in addition to health and vitality. Lava deals a lot of damage because you have to be pretty darn unlucky to fall into a vat of lava. There is also the heat of course

A player that willingly cuts his own throat, or jumps into a river of lava has either run out of luck, or lost the will to live. Accordingly he dies.

Hopefully the look on my face will tell the player in question that such an idea is stupid before he attempts such a thing, and in any event, I'll only have to deal with such a situation once.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

How can you say that, and not claim that it's meta-game knowledge that your character couldnt possibly know? As far as your character knows getting hit square with a 30' sword weighing as much as a truck is almost certainly going to cleave you in half. Falling in lava is pretty much always terminal.

Our characters know a lot about how their world works, and they can see a lot of the details about what's going on in the world, where the players only have some numbers and the DM's description to go by.

The biggest factor here is how abstract you make your HP. My character can know for certain that getting hit with a giant's greatsword won't kill her, after she survives a hit from that sword without being cut in half. She can surmise ahead of time that she'll survive the attack, based on the knowledge that it took four hits from an ogre's greatclub before she lost consciousness yesterday, and guessing that the giant in question is probably not more than four times as strong as that ogre.

If you're using HP that are substantially more abstract than that, then it raises a lot of other questions that require further meta-gaming in order to deal with. If your character didn't actually get hit by the sword, then you need to figure out what exactly it is that HP represent, which can be restored by healing magic and which is knowable to the characters. Because if your character isn't aware of whatever reality you decide corresponds to HP, then you're forced to meta-game every decision about when to heal and how much.

Hey fellas: Watch this! (sticks sword through own chest). According to the rules this results in an automatic critical hit for 2d8+str damage). The person in question then does it several more times. Theyre a Fighter 8 with 80 odd HP. Not only doesnt this person bleed to death, theyre also not hampered in the performance of any skills or functions at all, and is back at full HP the very next day like it never happened).

Which is exactly why they included the optional rules for lingering wounds, and slower healing, etc.

Moreover, there isn't a rule anywhere which tries to correlate specific injuries with exact damage numbers. Maybe being impaled on a longsword is the equivalent of 20 damage? Or maybe 50? That's up for the table to decide. In any case, though, I would say it's fundamentally weird if a level 9 Fighter can't survive half a dozen arrows in the back without slowing down, considering that her peers are violating the time-space continuum and raising the dead. A warrior with that level of power should be able to survive a quick dip - less than ten seconds - in molten lava. I mean, it's only lava.

 

[Celtavian]

Our characters know a lot about how their world works, and they can see a lot of the details about what's going on in the world, where the players only have some numbers and the DM's description to go by.

The biggest factor here is how abstract you make your HP. My character can know for certain that getting hit with a giant's greatsword won't kill her, after she survives a hit from that sword without being cut in half. She can surmise ahead of time that she'll survive the attack, based on the knowledge that it took four hits from an ogre's greatclub before she lost consciousness yesterday, and guessing that the giant in question is probably not more than four times as strong as that ogre.

This is only true if you interpret a hit as a direct hit rather than a combination of avoidance and durability. As a DM if a character gets in a situation where they are captured and completely immobilized, then the giant gets to hit and crit them automatically. Even a high level warrior won't survive that very long at all. As a DM you could even rule instant death such as when being beheaded with no reasonable means to avoid it. A PC with hit points neck isn't any more durable against beheading than a regular human being once they are both immobilized on the headsman's block. No use making it seem like they have armored skin like some kind of superhero.

If you're using HP that are substantially more abstract than that, then it raises a lot of other questions that require further meta-gaming in order to deal with. If your character didn't actually get hit by the sword, then you need to figure out what exactly it is that HP represent, which can be restored by healing magic and which is knowable to the characters. Because if your character isn't aware of whatever reality you decide corresponds to HP, then you're forced to meta-game every decision about when to heal and how much.

You don't have to figure this out. It's all in the imagination of the player. I've found most players don't picture themselves taking a direct hit. They understand the abstract nature of hit points. They don't need you to explain every single injury. They also understand healing is abstract as well being a combination of healing actual physical damage and a general injection of spiritual energy that boosts a flagging body to fight on.

All you have to do is adjudicate according to the situation. If the situation fits, then it plays out as it would in a real situation. The DM should be looking to make the characters feel as immersed as possible in the world. If they're doing stuff that makes no sense in the real world because the game mechanics say they can, you're destroying suspension of disbelief and verisimilitude changing the character from a living, breathing character in the mind of the player into a set of game stats and a piece of paper.

If your players are ok with this, so be it. I like to keep my players feeling like they're living and breathing characters that should act in a somewhat sensible manner (as sensible as people can be that wander into strange areas to fight horrifying monsters).

Your entire job as a DM is to make the players believe they are in a fantasy world playing the characters they are playing. The rules give you guidelines for doing this. Some tables don't care about that and try to follow the rules exactly as they are written. But most tables don't care about that as long as you are making them feel like they're part of some epic tale playing an amazing fantasy character. They want you to make it all feel real to them. That's why a DM makes sure they don't do things like swim in lava or jump onto cliffs on purpose, while at the same time coming up with some plausible reason why they survive if it should happen during the course of combat.

It's all about keeping the illusion up. That is your main job as DM.

Moreover, there isn't a rule anywhere which tries to correlate specific injuries with exact damage numbers. Maybe being impaled on a longsword is the equivalent of 20 damage? Or maybe 50? That's up for the table to decide. In any case, though, I would say it's fundamentally weird if a level 9 Fighter can't survive half a dozen arrows in the back without slowing down, considering that her peers are violating the time-space continuum and raising the dead. A warrior with that level of power should be able to survive less a quick dip - less than ten seconds - in molten lava. I mean, it's only lava.

Not if he is choosing to jump in. People should avoid things that kill them like standing still and letting a giant hit them as hard as he can while unarmored. It's up to you as a DM to make sure players that try to ruin verisimilitude suffer the full consequences of their actions. If that means they leave your table, then so be it. I don't personally want those types of players at my table. Fortunately, I haven't had them. When a player metagames too much using game mechanics to do things that ruin verisimilitude for the rest of the group as well as the DM (I do feel as DM I'm supposed to have fun as well), that player is a problem that needs to find a group that better suits his play-style.

Just to be clear, you would know the rules in advance at my table. I would let you know that most of the stuff is abstract. The game is focused on maintaining a story. If you do things that will get you killed like diving into lava, I'm going to say you're dead and be done with it. I would tell you that you have to play your character as though it were a living person in a real world. Game mechanics will not supersede verisimilitude. I do agree that a DM should let players know these kinds of things in advance.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

This is only true if you interpret a hit as a direct hit rather than a combination of avoidance and durability.

You say that as if Saelorn hadn't just said the exact same thing in the paragraph you quote immediately after. Saelorn also discusses the implications of that approach, such as having to metagame healing because you don't know how much "luck" you've used up.

Anyway, as said previously, as long as you're open about your approach so players who don't like it can avoid your table, it's fine. Obviously those of us posting to disagree wouldn't play at your table, for various reasons, but there are others who would.

There is a difference between knowing the rules and playing by the spirit of the rules... A player that willingly cuts his own throat, or jumps into a river of lava has either run out of luck, or lost the will to live. Accordingly he dies.

"Jumping in lava" is not necessarily deliberate suicide the way you and Celtavian are treating it. I can imagine a player jumping in lava because he needs to get down off a dragon who is flying away with him on its back, while the dragon is over lava (I had a player do that with a gargoyle, although he took "only" 20d6 due to being over land instead of lava); because the One Ring of Power is sinking in lava and he wants to get it back; or even because (per no-metagaming-HP style) he expects to fight a world-shakingly important battle in this place soon with the Tarrasque, and he needs to know how much damage lava submersion does as part of the planning process. I mean, as a DM I would just tell the player how much damage it does in advance, but if I refuse to give out "metagame knowledge", active testing (plus a Death Ward spell) would be the PC's only recourse.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

If I get crit by a frost giant and survive, then a level later tell the chief of the giants as part of my proof of strength and endurance to intimidate him "hit me with your best shot" and th dm ruled "sorry letting him hit you isn't an autocrat it's auto death" I would be passed...

If I can survive a 20d6 meter strike spell and still be 100% ok to run and fight what makes 20d20d6 lava worse?

 

[Flamestrike]

Our characters know a lot about how their world works, and they can see a lot of the details about what's going on in the world, where the players only have some numbers and the DM's description to go by.

Ok, so by that logic, you live in this world. How many bullets can you take before it kills you?

My character can know for certain that getting hit with a giant's greatsword won't kill her, after she survives a hit from that sword without being cut in half.

Heh. Hit points dont represent 'getting hit with the giants greatsword'. They represent ducking out of the way of the sword at the last minute (and you losing hit points) the Giant unluckily slipping at the last minute (and you losing hit points), you summoning a last minute burst of vitality to sidestep the earth shattering blow (and you losing hit points) and so forth.

If I swing an axe twenty times a tenth level fighter in DnD with 80 odd hit points, and ten of those swings 'hit' - I dont actually connect with him ten times with the axe. In fact I may not actually hit him with the axe at all despite ten 'hits' and ten 'misses'. That high level fighter has the experience, skill, know how, luck and stamina to duck, dodge, parry, block and avoid the blows, or knows how to turn his body at the right moment to deflect the attacks on the stronger part of his armor (each such parry, dodge, lucky miss, sidestep and twist away tiring the fighter and using up a bit of his luck - leaving some bruising or maybe superficial injuries).

The fighter hasnt been hurt at all... yet. He doesnt have ten gaping axe wounds in his body. He is however tiring from fighting off my frenxied axe attack (losing hit points). Eventually, one is going to get though.

If he was less experienced with fighting (being a lower level, or being a class with a lower hit dice) I may have connected with him already. If he was a commoner (5hp) there is a good chance that my first decent swing of the axe would connect squarely, dropping him bleeding out on the floor.

The fighter and the commoner both know (just as you do in real life) that if I smash them squarely in the neck with an axe, it is extremely unlikely they will survive. That doesnt change if they are the greatest warrior in the world or the least competent. The great warrior is just skillful, lucky and seasoned enough to avoid getting hit in the neck with an axe.

Needless to say both the commoner and the high level fighter know what you know - diving into lava results in certain death. By virtue of thier hit points, high level fighters are less likely to fall into rivers of lava though because theyre experienced and lucky enough to avoid such a thing.

Think of the 5 Hit Point commoner and the high level fighter with 200 HP both dangling from the volcanoes ledge. One of them is the Redshirt who isnt going to make it back. One of them will. The redshirt plummetting to his death, while the 'hero' survives is due to some contrivance is the staple of fiction.

Think of Hit Points as your PC's 'plot hazard immunity' points. The less you have, the closer to a redshirt you become. Now watch any movie, or read any fantasy novel. The heros dont soak lasers to the face, swords to the neck and so forth. The blaster bolts impact on nearby walls, he dodges or parries the attacks at the last second, some lucky plot contrivance stops him from certain death, and so forth. Maybe an attack glances off his shoulder, letting us know that he is getting 'low on hit points'

Which is exactly why they included the optional rules for lingering wounds, and slower healing, etc.

I use these rules. However I use lingering injuries as a 'player buy in'. Once per long rest when your HP are reduced to zero and you are not killed outright, you may choose to instead remain on 1 HP (and gain a lingering injury).

It makes 'critical injuries' a player buy in, and doesnt disadvantage the players (as critical injury effects hurt PC's more than wave upon wave of expendable monsters). It also gives me a sense of realism where (once your luck runs out) you can choose to accept a physical injury from a hit to have one last chance of victory.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

If I swing an axe twenty times a tenth level fighter in DnD with 80 odd hit points, and ten of those swings 'hit' - I dont actually connect with him ten times with the axe. In fact I may not actually hit him with the axe at all despite ten 'hits' and ten 'misses'.

That's one way to run things.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

There is a difference between knowing the rules and playing by the spirit of the rules.

Im a lawyer IRL. Legislation always contains absurd results if you argue it 'RAW'. Thats why we have the Judiciary. The Judge doesnt just read laws according to the rules as written, sans any context - they look at the rules within the context of the legislation, and of other legislation. They consider how the law should work, and what the law is for. Importantly, they also look to Hansard, readings of the bill, parliamentary debates etc (to see what the legislature's intent was for drafting the law, and what the legislature was intending on the law to do).

And then of course you have the Judge themselves own bias and interpretation (like it or not, we're all human).

I mean; does the 'Right to Bear Arms' mean:

View attachment 68415

Or something else?

It's why I've never understood people who scream RAW at me like its some kind of objective truth that exists as 'a thing in and of itself'. It doesnt, and logically cannot exist without context or interpretation. In other words it is impossible to take the RAI out of the RAW, so I have no idea why people even try.

Luckily, the game (like the law) includes a referee, and that referee gets the final call on rules interpretations (among many other responsibilities).

By RAW, hit points represent 'luck and the will to live' in addition to health and vitality. Lava deals a lot of damage because you have to be pretty darn unlucky to fall into a vat of lava. There is also the heat of course

A player that willingly cuts his own throat, or jumps into a river of lava has either run out of luck, or lost the will to live. Accordingly he dies.

Hopefully the look on my face will tell the player in question that such an idea is stupid before he attempts such a thing, and in any event, I'll only have to deal with such a situation once.

I'm with you as long as the eventual ruling isn't in direct contradiction to RAW. Given your example of the right to bear arms, it drives me nuts when people ignore the part where the right of the people (RAW) is magically transformed into the right of the state (militia) because the militia is mentioned.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Ok, so by that logic, you live in this world. How many bullets can you take before it kills you?



Heh. Hit points dont represent 'getting hit with the giants greatsword'. They represent ducking out of the way of the sword at the last minute (and you losing hit points) the Giant unluckily slipping at the last minute (and you losing hit points), you summoning a last minute burst of vitality to sidestep the earth shattering blow (and you losing hit points) and so forth.

If I swing an axe twenty times a tenth level fighter in DnD with 80 odd hit points, and ten of those swings 'hit' - I dont actually connect with him ten times with the axe. In fact I may not actually hit him with the axe at all despite ten 'hits' and ten 'misses'. That high level fighter has the experience, skill, know how, luck and stamina to duck, dodge, parry, block and avoid the blows, or knows how to turn his body at the right moment to deflect the attacks on the stronger part of his armor (each such parry, dodge, lucky miss, sidestep and twist away tiring the fighter and using up a bit of his luck - leaving some bruising or maybe superficial injuries).

The fighter hasnt been hurt at all... yet. He doesnt have ten gaping axe wounds in his body. He is however tiring from fighting off my frenxied axe attack (losing hit points). Eventually, one is going to get though.

If he was less experienced with fighting (being a lower level, or being a class with a lower hit dice) I may have connected with him already. If he was a commoner (5hp) there is a good chance that my first decent swing of the axe would connect squarely, dropping him bleeding out on the floor.

The fighter and the commoner both know (just as you do in real life) that if I smash them squarely in the neck with an axe, it is extremely unlikely they will survive. That doesnt change if they are the greatest warrior in the world or the least competent. The great warrior is just skillful, lucky and seasoned enough to avoid getting hit in the neck with an axe.

Needless to say both the commoner and the high level fighter know what you know - diving into lava results in certain death. By virtue of thier hit points, high level fighters are less likely to fall into rivers of lava though because theyre experienced and lucky enough to avoid such a thing.

Think of the 5 Hit Point commoner and the high level fighter with 200 HP both dangling from the volcanoes ledge. One of them is the Redshirt who isnt going to make it back. One of them will. The redshirt plummetting to his death, while the 'hero' survives is due to some contrivance is the staple of fiction.

Think of Hit Points as your PC's 'plot hazard immunity' points. The less you have, the closer to a redshirt you become. Now watch any movie, or read any fantasy novel. The heros dont soak lasers to the face, swords to the neck and so forth. The blaster bolts impact on nearby walls, he dodges or parries the attacks at the last second, some lucky plot contrivance stops him from certain death, and so forth. Maybe an attack glances off his shoulder, letting us know that he is getting 'low on hit points'



I use these rules. However I use lingering injuries as a 'player buy in'. Once per long rest when your HP are reduced to zero and you are not killed outright, you may choose to instead remain on 1 HP (and gain a lingering injury).

It makes 'critical injuries' a player buy in, and doesnt disadvantage the players (as critical injury effects hurt PC's more than wave upon wave of expendable monsters). It also gives me a sense of realism where (once your luck runs out) you can choose to accept a physical injury from a hit to have one last chance of victory.

So do clerics all get "Luck sight" as a bonus ability? Because when one needs to use cure wounds how do they know what level slot to use? I mean if there isn't always damage would it be fair for a dm to look at a fighter with 125pts of damage and have his npc say "you don't need healing the giant never hit you" since he still had 12hp left?

 

[Flamestrike]

"Jumping in lava" is not necessarily deliberate suicide the way you and Celtavian are treating it.

Yes, it is. Has there been a historical example you can cite for a person intentionally jumping into a river of lava and surviving?

I can imagine a player jumping in lava because he needs to get down off a dragon who is flying away with him on its back, while the dragon is over lava (I had a player do that with a gargoyle, although he took "only" 20d6 due to being over land instead of lava)

If you (as a player) knew that immesrion in lava was instant death, would you still have done it?

If the answer to that question is 'No of course not' then its an example of you using player metagame rules knowlege badly.

because the One Ring of Power is sinking in lava and he wants to get it back;

When Gollum fell in the lava doing just this, what (in your view) happened to him? Did it occur to you that he survived?

or even because (per no-metagaming-HP style) he expects to fight a world-shakingly important battle in this place soon with the Tarrasque, and he needs to know how much damage lava submersion does as part of the planning process.

It kills you. Thats how much damage it does.

If the character tried to use this tactic agains the Tarrasque it deals 18d10 damage. The Tarrasque is lucky enough and has a massive will to live to avoid the worst of the lavas effects. The lava never actually directly get it; maybe splashing the gargantuan creatures thick hide... well - until the Tarrasque is reduced to 0 Hp anyways.

I mean, as a DM I would just tell the player how much damage it does in advance.

In my games I dont need to do this. It's assumed that (barring magical protection) it kills you. Same as getting an axe swung at your neck by the headsman, having a sword rammed though your heart and so forth.

If I get crit by a frost giant and survive, then a level later tell the chief of the giants as part of my proof of strength and endurance to intimidate him "hit me with your best shot" and th dm ruled "sorry letting him hit you isn't an autocrat it's auto death" I would be passed...

The critical hit from the frost giant didnt actually 'hit' you. It was an awesome blow that you only just managed to step out of the way from, using your experience, luck and vitality to avoid a blow that would have cut a lesser man in two.

If I can survive a 20d6 meter strike spell and still be 100% ok to run and fight what makes 20d20d6 lava worse?

The reason you are still at 100 percent effectiveness is because you are lucky, skilled and experienced enough to avoid getting hit by the meteors. When the artillery rains down dealing 100 points of damage, the 5 HP Redshirts around you get cut down by the explosions, while you (with your 200 hit points of plot immunity) emerge physcially (miraculously) unscathed.

If you stood there, covered your eyes and allowed a giant the size of a train carriage hit you with an axe weighing 100 kilos, you get cleaved in half and die.