D&D 5E What are your biggest immersion breakers, rules wise?

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Charlaquin]

Marvel used to do a thing called a “no prize.” It was what it sounds like - an envelop in the mail from Marvel with nothing in it. You could earn a no prize by writing Marvel about a continuity error you spotted in the comics, and an in-universe explanation to fill the plot hole. And if Stan Lee liked your explanation, you’d get a no prize.

I think this is what Iserith is talking about when he says “change yourself.” When something “breaks your immersion,” you’ve effectively identified a continuity error. But identifying the error is the easy part. If you want a no prize, you’ve got to come up with a plausible explanation of how this seemingly impossible thing can be true.

 

[5ekyu]

It is very easy to finetune the speed of level advancement.

Count the number of encounters, rather than the number of creatures.

On average, it takes roughly 10 ‘routine’ encounters to reach the next level.

There are many benefits to counting encounters instead of xp.
• You decide if an encounter turned out to be unexpectedly easy or hard AFTER THE FACT. Always accurate.
• As a DM, you can put in difficult or easy encounters − per the story − and it works out fine.
• Your encounter can easily be noncombat, and still count fully toward leveling.
• You completely control the speed of advancement by deciding how many encounters you prefer to level.

Use the ‘routine’ medium difficulty as the base line. Count a trivial encounter as a ½-encounter, a hard encounter as a 1½-encounter, and an encounter that almost ended in a TPK as 2 encounters.

Actually, we just count sessions. Tier x 3-4 sessions is our current pacing. The 3--4 gives us a three session window from 6-8 to get yo a decent dramatic point for the level change.

Thisxsets our pace of vhsnge in our primary play tier-2 at about two levels every 3-4 months or going from start of 5th to start of 11th at right at a year and the remaining level in tier-3 even slower.

Next time, next campaign, I plan to suggest gaining two levels every tier-x-6-8 to allow for more time at any given stage and make every "level up" bigger. The idea is to hivebplrntynof time to get used to and use your stuff before gaining new ones.

But yeah, pacing for advancement is easy to dial to suit your preferences.

 

[Nebulous]

I recognize that segmented actions/movement and turn orders are necessary in combat. But when someone uses the nature of the segmentation to engage in unrealistic activity simply because they can, it underscores that we're just playing a game... on a board... not characters in a narrative setting.

When players meticulously plan -and replan - their next move, while discussing with other players their intentions - in the midst of a 6 second round. This includes counting squares far, far away, so spells hit only the enemies, and not allies. I know, it's just a game. I'm ok with D&D being essentially a video game at the table. But sometimes little things do jump out and bug me. I don't mind the 8 hour healing really, oddly enough. I mean, it's all so ridiculous anyway, you can't survive a hit from an ogre, giant or dragon IRL if they existed, so what the hell, sure, sleep off your wounds.

 

[CleverNickName]

Re: Level Advancement being too quick,

Leveling up doesn't bother me, but my wife hates it. So in her games, she uses the optional rules on pg. 261 of the DMG for "Level Advancement Without XP." We don't track XP, and we all level-up whenever it makes sense for the pacing of the story.

 

[iserith]

You're going to need to be more specific, then.

For example, a person can practice mindfulness meditation which allows them to be resilient to distraction. But, and I say this from personal experience, I have not found it to be helpful when it comes to immersion in a fictional setting.

Again, if the distraction is extrinsic (someone at the table is chewing loudly), then that's fine. Rise above. When the "distraction" is intrinsic, and thereby causing you to lose immersion, then I am unfamiliar with a technique that works.

But maybe I'm wrong! You seem to have something specific in mind that you've alluded to. Please share what techniques work for you for intrinsic issues that destroy immersion- I'd love to hear it.

I touch on this in my initial post in this thread wherein it's basically about not thinking about how things should be, but how they are. You're volunteering your buy-in on things that don't make sense in the real world, but that do make sense in the fictional world. This is how it is - what is it like to be in this kind of world? And you're training yourself to very rapidly justify anything that is going on fictionally. Much of these are improvisational skills which are improved simply by practicing them.

 

[Lanefan]

It is very easy to finetune the speed of level advancement.

Count the number of encounters, rather than the number of creatures.

On average, it takes roughly 10 ‘routine’ encounters to reach the next level.

There are many benefits to counting encounters instead of xp.
• You decide if an encounter turned out to be unexpectedly easy or hard AFTER THE FACT. Always accurate.
• As a DM, you can put in difficult or easy encounters − per the story − and it works out fine.
• Your encounter can easily be noncombat, and still count fully toward leveling.
• You completely control the speed of advancement by deciding how many encounters you prefer to level.

Use the ‘routine’ medium difficulty as the base line. Count a trivial encounter as a ½-encounter, a hard encounter as a 1½-encounter, and an encounter that almost ended in a TPK as 2 encounters.

This assumes you're only giving xp for things that count as "encounters". Mission-based or "dungeon bonus" xp blow this model up.

Simplest and easiest way to alter the advancement rate is to give out xp as normal but tweak (or outright butcher!) the numbers on the advancement chart. So if, using a hypothetical example here, if RAW says you bump to 2nd level at 2000 xp but you want it faster, change that bump point to 1000 and cut all the higher-level bump points in half as well. Conversely, if you want a slower advance rate, multiply the whole chart by 1.5 or some other number greater than 1.

And if you're interested in extending the game's "sweet spot", tweak the chart such that those levels (usually 3-9) take longer to progress through than they otherwise would.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Non-lethal damage.

Player: "I swing my mighty greataxe at the foul villain, and roll a... natural 20!"
DM: "Wow! Roll damage!"
Player: "...30 slashing damage. Oh wait, I forgot rage, make that 32 damage."
DM: "An explosion of blood bursts forth as the enemy is cleft in twain by the jagged steel of your axe! He's deader than dead. You kill him so hard the guy next to him feels it."
Player: "...oh, this is a non-lethal critical hit from a greataxe."
DM:

The immersion-shattering part is that the lethal/non-lethal declaration is made after the fact.

If it's said before the swing is made e.g. "I'm striking to subdue on this next attack", then no problem at all.

To be fair, that one really is squarely on the player for not being clear in what they were hoping to accomplish. The rulez (p198 5e PHB): The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt.
The Combat goal of the Attack action is most often, IME, interpreted implicitly as: my PC tries to kill the enemy.
You want your PC to knock out the baddie instead? Explicitly say so as you are counting up your damage.
Or, this could also be viewed as a good argument for letting players describe killing/knockout blows.

 

[Charlaquin]

To be fair, that one really is squarely on the player for not being clear in what they were hoping to accomplish. The rulez (p198 5e PHB): The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt.
The Combat goal of the Attack action is most often, IME, interpreted implicitly as: my PC tries to kill the enemy.
You want your PC to knock out the baddie instead? Explicitly say so as you are counting up your damage.
Or, this could also be viewed as a good argument for letting players describe killing/knockout blows.

I actually ask my players to say if they are trying to knock out, rather than kill the target, when they declare the action. Actions require both a goal and an approach (at my table), and “knock the orc out” is a goal.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

When something “breaks your immersion,” you’ve effectively identified a continuity error. But identifying the error is the easy part. If you want a no prize, you’ve got to come up with a plausible explanation of how this seemingly impossible thing can be true.

I don't want to come up with a plausible explanation, though. That's entirely the wrong mindset for role-playing. If I'm going to pretend that I'm actually my character, in a world that could believably exist, then the true explanation must exist without regards to my speculation. My belief can't cause something to be true.

If there's a continuity error in one of those old comics, then the true explanation is that the writer messed up. Shifting the burden to the reader does not change that fact, and it does nothing to prevent similar errors from happening in the future. Writers (and game designers) should be held accountable for their mistakes.