D&D (2024) What Spell Sage Advice (& Descriptions) are you afraid won't be "fixed"?

[Snarf Zagyg]

Unfortunately, and with a grand sigh from all those involved... too many players still went with the former, regardless of how much they disliked the results. Better to use "official" rules that they hated so they didn't have to explain themselves to anyone else, then make their own corrections to rules they didn't agree with and then have to talk to their fellow players to justify their changes.

 

[Rabulias]

Yeah that also sounds ridiculous. Someone falls unconscious, and a 1st level spell slot is instant death, lol.

An adjacent opponent armed with two weapons can spend their action and bonus action to bring instant death to a downed target. A creature with multiattack can do it with just an action. And they can do it all day long for free. I have no problem with a limited resource like a leveled spell (not a cantrip) able to do that at a distance.

 

[Rabulias]

As to the general question, I would hope they go a bit beyond Sage Advice and actually give "sage advice" and offer a range of options for various sticking points. They could go into a discussion of a few, detailing common solutions, and the results they bring to the game in terms of tone and influencing player behavior.

Obviously, they cannot cover every case, but a handful of examples could serve as a guide to how a DM could think about the follow-on impacts their rulings make in the game.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Just relying on technicalities in the rules language is an awful approach. Adding a sidebar explaining the naughty word-up thinking doesn't improve this. The solution here is for Crawford & Co to stop trying to make rules-lawyering come off as a good thing. It's not and they're wrong. Until such time, just ignore Sage Advice, since it hinders more than it helps.

Crawford's approach to 5e since 2015 has been empowering rules lawyers and clinging to the exact RAW instead of encouraging common sense and table rulings or clarifying design intent.

D&D2024 will double down on this approach with Crawford instead of Mearls as the primary project lead.

 

[CapnZapp]

Crawford's approach to 5e since 2015 has been empowering rules lawyers and clinging to the exact RAW instead of encouraging common sense and table rulings or clarifying design intent.

D&D2024 will double down on this approach with Crawford instead of Mearls as the primary project lead.

If this is true then the PHB would be much better off without any Sage Advice sidebars.

If the space isn't used to provide insight into developer intent and empowering the DM to make their own calls it is a wasted opportunity.

If it actively encourages rules lawyerism and literal readings, it actively lowers the product value.

But let's wait and see.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In a sci-fi / D&D cross-over it would make an interesting Turing style test. If you're wondering about a portable computer with an AI on it, have someone pick it up and hit them with a fireball. If the portable computer isn't hurt, its just an object. If it is melted to slag it was a creature.

As silly as this example sounds, this is why I'm mostly against the mechanization of spell descriptions. Just tell us what the spell does and its relevant stats (level, casting time, save status, range, damage) and leave us to make these determinations around the edges.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oh, don't worry! Having my experience playing D&D when all actual rules were more ... guidelines, I have no problem ignoring or changing things that don't work.

And if a fireball can't ignite toilet paper, that's a rule that doesn't work (IMO).

Now, I assume the intent of the ruling was to avoid the 1e situation of "get hit by a fireball, all your stuff has item saving throws and you lose a bunch of it." Which is fine. I have no problem ignoring that in 5e.

But I cannot suspend my disbelief so hard that tissues become magically immune to fireball.

I see no good reason not to use something like item saving throws. Logically, wearing or carrying something when you're hit by destructive energy should have a chance for item damage.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If this is true then the PHB would be much better off without any Sage Advice sidebars.

If the space isn't used to provide insight into developer intent and empowering the DM to make their own calls it is a wasted opportunity.

If it actively encourages rules lawyerism and literal readings, it actively lowers the product value.

But let's wait and see.

Oh how I wish WotC's designers bothered to communicate their intent in the books.

 

[Cadence]

I see no good reason not to use something like item saving throws. Logically, wearing or carrying something when you're hit by destructive energy should have a chance for item damage.

Ok, now roll the saving throw for gold piece number 312.... feels painful.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ok, now roll the saving throw for gold piece number 312.... feels painful.

I said something like. I'm cool with some abstraction. Why do people insist simulation must be all (thus unworkable) or nothing?