D&D General When do you overrule RAW?

[Micah Sweet]

I actually like the 5e approach MUCH more. 3e got way too specific and exception based. I'd much rather get the occasional edge case - as happens with 5e.

Fair enough, but I'm not nearly loosey-goosey as a GM for that to work for me.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I do miss the old 1st edition fights. Had a Dm go sweep everything off of his dresser into pillowcase and then throw his ring in it shake it up and tell the player if they could find the ring and put it on in 3 combat rounds he'd allow it. (after at least 5 min of heated argument). good times...

Pulling that sort of stunt on someone, then handing over a blunt object?

At least it's efficient.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm probably screwing it up but i do remember he had less than a minute and he got so flustered it took him over 5 minutes to find that ring. If I recall he was falling to his death so probably how ever long the DM gave him to hit the ground.

wait, so, ...you own a Ring of Feather Falling, and you keep it in your pack... what other two magic rings are you wearing that you figure you need on all the time? And none of your buddies (or henchbeings, this was 1e) could use it, either? That's a lotta rings.

(5e PC looks on: "Sounds like a 1st-world-edition problem.")

 

[nevin]

oh it's worse than that. The Cavalier had a magic item collection he carried around in 4 bags of holding and a portable hole.
It wasn't an edition problem... It was definitely a player problem.

 

[James Gasik]

There's a RAW rule for targeting the nads?

Only in 4e.

 

[nevin]

probably could have purchased waterdeep with his "collection". We were playing a level 15 module the DM came up with. I'm sure that cavalier had never been played before that night.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

It's not, though. I've said repeatedly that casters get it too. Either accept what I am saying as truth(at least about how I DM) and respond to that, or don't respond to me on this subject. I'm not going to engage with mischaracterizations.

When you say the caster can use higher level slots you're requiring something that a fighter CANNOT provide. You phase their benefits out because they aren't high level, like spells. ALL fighters get low level stuff they can do slightly more of. There aren't higher level maneuvers to satisfy your extra v-tude requirement. So yes, one set of classes effectively just stops being able to do stuff unless it passes an arbitrary realism sniff test from a guy who isn't a world class warrior in a world full of monsters. The caster has high level tools, the warrior doesn't because people demand they continue to be "guy at gym" from 1 to 20.

 

[nevin]

Only in 4e.

isnt there a variant rule for called shots in 5e? Maybe I'm thinking of some 3rd party rule.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's joke acronym. Non-Ac DefenseS
It'd actually be NACDs, but that doesn't delight the inner 12yo.

(4e consolidated the basic attack roll and 3e Touch ACs & scaling saving throws into a single attack roll mechanic with 4 possible defenses, AC, plus FORT, REF, & WILL - which corresponded with the 3e saves of the same name, and REF also subsumed touch AC - the non-AC defenses.)

 

[James Gasik]

isnt there a variant rule for called shots in 5e? Maybe I'm thinking of some 3rd party rule.

Yes, sorry, edition joke.