r/DnD

Yes, as you read before, our friend who is the DM for this newly created campaign is against the use of magic. He didn't ban it but justifies everything with 'If someone sees you, you'll be persecuted by the authorities,' so we are practically unable to use it for the most part. Every bard, sorcerer, wizard, warlock, paladin, ranger, artificer, cleric, etc. (even subclasses like rune knight) will be persecuted the moment someone sees us using magic.

All of this with the justification that his campaign is a low magic setting.

I need to specify that we haven't even had session 0 yet; we'll be playing on Sunday. I know all this because, first, this is a campaign among friends, and second, he has been telling me a lot about it. I suppose he wants an opinion. From what I know, neither I nor one friend enjoys this idea, and I have no clue about the other two. If it wasn't for me, those magic-casting classes would be banned. But still, what's the point of being a wizard if you'll get imprisoned just for casting a cantrip?

Being is actually fun. You have control over the world, and it's funny to watch your players absolutely tear it apart by going the wrong way (had to change an entire campaign because they didn't go to the NPC that would give the quest)

I have 3 players (one ranger and two paladins, all level 5). I recently analyzed all of their player profiles and discovered something about their HP. One of the paladins (+1 CON) has 54 maximum health, and the ranger (+2 CON) has 56. I started to suspect them when I saw that the other paladin's (+2 CON) health was 46. This other paladin always used his average health increase (6+ CON) and rolled the dice only once to increase his health. Regarding the other two, who have very high health, I never had visual confirmation of their health increase. They simply rolled the dice while I checked their notes and told me the result, or they simply added it to their profile without telling me.
The chance of you being able to increase 43 maximum life with 4d10+4 is 0.04% (the paladin with 54hp), and the chance of increasing 44 maximum life with 4d10+8 is 0.35% (Ranger with 56hp). How do I tell them that these results are unrealistic and that they should change this? NOTE: none of them have the Tough feat.

I'll go first. Bone Devil. Night Hag. And my personal favorite so far: Elder Brain.

So I was dming for my group the other day when one of them said they wanted to cast command on the bad guy they were fighting. This didn't really phase me until they said that if the guy failed a single wisdom save he had to spend his entire next turn doing nothing but dropping everything he was holding. Not only was he not able to do anything for his whole next turn, but he also had to drop his spellcasting focus (a staff he had), so he was basicaly useless for the rest of the combat (which wasn't very long after that). That seems like a lot for a first level spell to me, but maybe I'm overreacting? I don't want to nerf things just because my players had a good idea, but I feel like they're just going to spam command on every enemy for the rest of the campaign and make them drop their weapons and waste their turns every fight.

I’m sure this is a question that has been asked many times here, but I’d be interested to know what your response/ways of handling this are at your tables? I have two players at my table that enjoy keeping track of hp and figuring out ac. In general I don’t have a problem with that, but of late they have both almost consistently been asking after almost every hit if something “looks bloodied”. Interested to know what some solutions you’ve found fun or enjoyable at your tables. Thanks!

Edit: I do know what the bloodied condition refers to, but thanks for sharing knowledge! Just looking for fun/interesting alternatives than just telling my players when something is at half or fewer hit points.

Relistening to The Adventure Zone when Taako deals a killing spell yelling ”ABRACA-FUCKYOU!”. What’s your best one-liner when vanquishing your foe?

Share some of your funniest sayings around the table

There are many posts here that are looking for advice on how to handle social dynamics, but they are only tangentially related to DnD. I was listening to the latest Matt Colville video:

And I found this gem of a quote:

"D&D, the game, and this hobby, in general, can't fix every social problem with every potential player. It's not designed to fix any problems. This game is not a process by which you become socialized. Some people learn how to sand off their rough edges and fit in, but that growth happens inside them, not from the rules in the game."

In addition, he spends a fair amount of time discussing three pieces of useful advice:

1. Make a character for the game you're playing: Don't build a character who isn't encapsulated by the rules and overarching system of the TTRPG you're playing.

2. Make a character that other players enjoy: Don't make a character that deliberately annoys or detracts from others' enjoyment.

3. Make a character that your DM likes: Don't make a character that can't fit into the world your DM is building or that clashes thematically with the campaign you're about to run.

A lot of the above is only likely to happen if a session zero happens and people put their cards out on the table together.

I'm the DM of a campaign in 5e DnD that's been running for about 3 years now, and it's pretty close to coming to an end. By now, I have very high level adventurers, and one of them is a high enough level to cast Simulacrum. Generally, I don't like outright saying "no, it is impossible to do X" - especially things that by the book SHOULD work. I always try to find ways to put player's creativity towards outlets where they can still feel powerful and strong without utterly destroying the game. But this is a loophole that I thought would destroy the world and the campaign if he was able to do it infinitely.

RAW as far as I'm aware, nothing stops Simulacrums from casting Simulacrum (and I couldn't find any refusal of this from Sage Advice or anything), so it sort of sucks to just outright say no to. Basically, the normal way I would normally handle this would simply be restricting access to the amounts of Ruby Dust available to the player, meaning they could have a few (maybe one to three versions of himself basically), but in this case, the player has access to an immense amount of gemstones and wealth at this point. Given time, he would eventually be able to find the rubies to cast it many times if he so wanted to.

I couldn't really in good faith restrict the materials because of this, so I tried to explain why this would break the world balance wise and an in universe explanation of how Simulacrums aren't an individual entity themselves, so they lack the capacity to replicate something that doesn't really exist as an independent being.

He tried to get around this by just making Simulacrum scrolls, until we looked at the time to create scrolls of 7th level and Mordenkainen's rules suggesting it would be 16 weeks and 25000 gold each (which is prohibitive to even him). He was pretty annoyed that I outright shut it down, and I'm sort of left questioning whether or now I'm being justified in outright banning them from creating more copies of them. Any thoughts from players or other GM's?

TLDR; A player with basically unlimited materials wasn't happy I told him he couldn't use Simulacrums to make more Simulacrums. I know RAW it works, but I figured it would break the game if he could. I was curious what other people thought about the ruling.

EDIT: Whoops, the spell scroll ruling was in Xanathar's, not Mordenkainen's. Whoops.

EDIT 2: A few people don't seem to understand how the exploit works. They're not limited to 4 and materials don't work as a limit because of how it's done. The first simulacrum is a construct that is created normally - meaning it doesn't have a 7th level slot, but it DOES have a 9th level slot. It then uses wish to cast Simulacrum on the Caster (who is a humanoid), NOT the Simulacrum (who is a construct). This makes it free after the first one. And this process loops infinitely, with each new Simulacrum making a new one - so you have unlimited 17th level wizards with half of the original's HP and missing one 7th level and one 9th level slot.

While explaining how/why he crossed into the Feywild he told the Fey Guardian who protected the way out:

I Got Nervous When Talking To A Pretty Girl And Dove Into An Oasis Now I'm Stuck In Another World With My Hamster

Naturally this was not intended, we laughed a lot, and I gave him inspiration for making the DM laugh.

We are a group of three and i am the DM. We recently added 2 more players that only played 3.5 edition. One of them played Baldur’s Gate 3 so he has a general idea of 5e, the other zero experience.

How would you help them adjust? i was thinking to help them make characters and we all begin a new low level campaign going with the explanations as we find out where each skill and roll is used to.

Anyone ever had the same experience?

I miss just about every attack, my healing is piss poor, and other pc's in game are getting angry on me for my horrible dice rolls. Our fighter has accused me of trying to kill him on multiple occasions because I cant seem to heal him for more then 10-15 hp with a level 6 cure wounds. I've actually taken to running and hiding during combat because of how useless i am. its gotten so bad that the other players think that i colluding with the DM and that im a servant of the BBEG who is spying on the party. i literally dont know what to do here.

Being god awful is a staple of every game I play, but its never gotten this bad.

My buddy is running a short campaign and all the players are friends of his. Thing is most of us are from the same friend group... except one guy and he's one of the most insufferable people I've ever shared a table with. I refuse to give my friend an ultimatum so I feel like the best thing is for me to step out... I just don't know how to word it without hurting his feelings or making it sound like a "me or him" situation.

The guy takes pride in fucking over other people in game. Getting other characters killed is worn like a badge of honor and he bragged that his goal with any new DM is to "break them". If I never deal with this guy again it'll be too soon.

I've been playing with a group of friends all between the ages 20-16 for a year at this point in the same campaigns. I definitely have been starting to feel out of place with them as of recently due to some out of game issues and problems (maturity gaps, lack of self awareness and recently insults towards my boyfriend to state a few) along with in game problems. I tried to leave two months ago, stating work, college and relationships are gonna take up more of my time than I expected. Except I was almost pushed to agree to tell them the next time I wasn't busy and schedule then.

All I really wanna ask is how do I just say that I don't wish to play with them anymore? I don't want to come off as rude or mean or flakey, but I have to leave at some point. If y'all could be some help that would be so so so appreciated!

First Edit! HOLY GAH!! I didn't expect this to get so popular. To everyone giving me advice thank you so much!! Sadly, despite how much I want to be honest and truthful I want to be with these girls, I'm going the route I am since it will create less drama and problems later on. I also don't trust myself to not fuck up when being truthful. But to everyone, I appreciate every reply and every upvote!! Yall have made this situation in my head a lot smaller than I thought it would be. I can't say it enough but THANK U!!!!

As artisans, craftsman, warriors and mages? The longer lived races have hundreds of years to hone their skills, and humans have 20-30 if they are lucky. I'm not quite certain how a human could defeat an elf or dwarf with lifetimes of experience in direct, 1v1 combat, nor why people would buy human-made goods or weapons/armor (outside of cost/availability).