D&D 5E What Rules do you see people mistake or misapply?

[Pathkeeper24601]

I just can't even take this serious.

I agree with you. Not only that, I about set of a whole bit of raging. The DM can't Metagame because ... he is part of the metagame itself. He is the purveyor or the rules and controller of the world itself. He has to craft responses (both positive and negative) to the players actions. The same decisions making that the players fear will "screw them over" allows for the greatest amount of player agency as well. "Yes" is just as much a metagame function as "No". The players can't take over a country if the DM doesn't provide a country to take over. I don't see were not providing such a place is metagaming and providing it is. The real issue is whether the DM abuses his position as part of the game to provide a challenging game and make the game fun and exciting for the players, not as a means to take out his sadistic pleasure on the players.

 

[Pathkeeper24601]

That's your first damage roll, it becomes 2+Int. You will have multiple application of that single damage roll, all doing the same damage.

"Empowered Evocation (p. 117). The damage bonus applies to one damage roll of a spell, not multiple rolls."

Your fireball won't do 35 damage to the first target, and 30 to the others. Because you roll 8d6 once for all targets.

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/01/26/bonus-spell-damage/
directly addresses this.

I agree with fireball since it effects all targets at once. Magic Missile is multiple single darts each doing its own separate 1d4+1 damage. I don't know anybody who only rolls a single die for all missiles.. It would take only one roll of '1' for most players I play with to bag that. They certainly won't roll a single die based on a poorly worded Sage Advice that isn't posted to the official D&D sight.

 

[Satyrn]

Ammunition: You can use a ranged weapon that has the ammunition property ...only if you have ammunition. Each time you attack with the weapon, you expend one piece of ammunition...At the end of a battle, you can recover half of your expended ammunition by taking a minute to search the battlefield. Nobody seems to be keeping track of ammunition in AL or anywhere else. Melee fighters with great swords don't get to ignore the two-handed property. Why are ranged fighters ignoring the ammunition property? While every other player at the table is trying to manage limited resources of spell slots, rages, smites, ki points, etc (well not the rogues - they are just awesome that way) the Sharpshooters don't seem to be running out of arrows, even in places where the missed shots would not be recoverable, like open water or fields of tall grass. Once again, I don't think this is the DM's job any more than it is their job to track spell slots. Players who decided to play a PC who uses ranged weapon attacks are making an implied commitment to the rest of the players and the DM to roleplay their character's use of their resources, just like all the other players. Having less and less of what you need as you get closer and closer to the BBEG is one of the defining elements of D&D play. I'm reluctant to mention this in the games I play because as far as I know I am the only one who cares.

For me, tracking basic ammunition just is not fun. So I don't worry about it when I'm DMing. Nor I do I worry about tracking food, water or any other mundane resource. And I see those things as significantly different from spell slots, rages, ki points, etc, so the comparison to those resources falls flat.

This is a case, for me and probably lots of others, where "we know the rule, we just don't want to use it."

The same holds for the free hands and spellcasting thing. It's just not fun for my group to worry about.

 

[Satyrn]

Oh, but I should add that I am all for tracking the magic ammo my gnome battlemaster now has. Those are precious enough to warrant the effort and get fun out of that "Having less and less of what you need as you get closer and closer to the BBEG" that you mentioned, [MENTION=6872597]Volund[/MENTION], because I agree with you that that's a neat part of the game.

 

[bid]

Oh, but I should add that I am all for tracking the magic ammo my gnome battlemaster now has. Those are precious enough to warrant the effort and get fun out of that "Having less and less of what you need as you get closer and closer to the BBEG" that you mentioned, [MENTION=6872597]Volund[/MENTION], because I agree with you that that's a neat part of the game.

I like the "ammo dice" system to handle that.

You roll an extra 1d8 "ammo dice" with every attack, if it rolls 1 you replace it with 1d6.
You roll an extra 1d6 "ammo dice" with every attack, if it rolls 1 you replace it with 1d4.
You roll an extra 1d4 "ammo dice" with every attack, if it rolls 1 you are out of ammo.

You should get something like 18 shots with this system.

 

[Satyrn]

I like the "ammo dice" system to handle that.

You roll an extra 1d8 "ammo dice" with every attack, if it rolls 1 you replace it with 1d6.
You roll an extra 1d6 "ammo dice" with every attack, if it rolls 1 you replace it with 1d4.
You roll an extra 1d4 "ammo dice" with every attack, if it rolls 1 you are out of ammo.

You should get something like 18 shots with this system.

Neat.

Although I would laugh hysterically if the archer rolled 3 ones in the first fight after stocking up in town.

 

[guachi]

I agree with fireball since it effects all targets at once. Magic Missile is multiple single darts each doing its own separate 1d4+1 damage. I don't know anybody who only rolls a single die for all missiles.. It would take only one roll of '1' for most players I play with to bag that. They certainly won't roll a single die based on a poorly worded Sage Advice that isn't posted to the official D&D sight.

I'm almost positive I read in a Sage Advice that it's one roll for missiles, though I'm not currently in a position to look it up.

 

[uzirath]

What DMs don't do, if they're following the rules, is meta-game by making design decisions based on the players.

"The success of a D&D game hinges on your ability to entertain the other players at the game table.... Knowing what your players enjoy most about the D&D game helps you create and run adventures that they will enjoy and remember." - DMG, p. 6

Looks pretty RAW to me. Many other similar quotes throughout the DMG, but see especially chapter 3 on creating adventures.


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[The Crimson Binome]

So you AGREE that DMs can and do make choices, not just interpretations?
This conversation is all about you making a sweeping generalization, and me poking you about it.

All role-playing is about the choices you make as a character. I don't know that I ever disagreed with you on that point.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

"The success of a D&D game hinges on your ability to entertain the other players at the game table.... Knowing what your players enjoy most about the D&D game helps you create and run adventures that they will enjoy and remember." - DMG, p. 6

Looks pretty RAW to me. Many other similar quotes throughout the DMG, but see especially chapter 3 on creating adventures.

Ideally, the players should enjoy playing the game. That doesn't give you permission to meta-game, though.

If you want to include cool things that your players will enjoy, then the time to do that is in the pre-game, when you're designing the setting. If one player enjoys dragons, then build a world with a lot of dragons and start the game there, so that their fun adventures will happen naturally by following the initial conditions.