The D&D thread

Arbitrary said:

I'm going to need to know exactly how many glass rods and clumps of fur you have on you.

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This is the problem though, people trying to play DnD like an ARPG. The whole premise of DnD being a hyper compressed narrative segue between combat events make it all pointless.

That's why I hate dumb cantrips that break the game in non combat ways. Stuff is made to be failed or not attempted, otherwise there's no real tension or drama, it's just a dice rolling sim. 3.5 started really devaluing narrative and 4 just broke it in half. It's also responsible for untraining a lot of players and DMs. Anyway it's really hard to care about the direction of DnD when there's no stakes to anything the way normal core rules are written and everyone runs their games.

"Make a strength check"
"3"
"You throw your entire weight against the door but it doesn't budge."
"OK I try it again"
"OK make another strength check"
"14"
"You throw your entire weight against the door again but this time it works!"

Just uninteresting yet this seems to be how 90% of people play.

Hoss said:

That seemed wrong to me from the first time I had a strength check to open a door. I was like, I'm allowed to try again? So basically it's roll till it opens? Nah, let the other party members do it, that doesn't seem right. There really should be a penalty when you retry an action right away. Like -1 to your roll for every time you try it.

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Adding a penalty to each successive attempt doesn't address the fundamental problem.

When asking for a check the DM needs to consider two things:

1. With enough time could the player(s) succeed? If yes, then don't ask for a check unless they're pressed for time or a degree of success matters.

2. If additional time has little or no impact on the check then obviously you ask for a check and DO NOT allow further checks. You tried and you failed. It's beyond your current ability. However, if the player somehow change/add an element to the situation then I may allow an additional roll. For example - In the situation Palum gave, the player fails to force open a door, but if they left to go get a crowbar and came back, I think that's enough to warrant an additional roll.

I suppose the third consideration is -- if there is no consequence for a failure, why are you having a player roll?

Also, to avoid those absolutely retarded situations where The 7 Int Barbarian rolls well and decodes the magical script after the 19 int Wizard rolls poorly and fails, I don't allow skill checks in many situations unless the character has proficiency in that field. Some "anyone could do this" skills are exempt but anything that requires experience and/or training is restricted to those with the skill.

DM checks are probably the most mishandled element of the game.

Grabbit Allworth said:

Completely agree on criticals being underwhelming. We use the standard double dice, but the base damage is maxed.

For example -- Your attack does 1d8+5. A crit would do 8+1d8+5. So a minimum of 14 instead of a minimum of 7.

That's a double edged sword because whatever benefits the players also applies to NPCs. I've watched PCs get melted by NPCs with high base damage on a crit.

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Oh cool. We'd have 1d8+5 do 3d8+5 on a crit

Grabbit Allworth said:

lol.

I make my players track spell components that have a gold cost, but that's because it's part of the spells balance and in stock 5e players already struggle to find players to spend their money.

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So we used to track gold. And for years it was a limitation. But then one day they killed a guy who was an evil masked lord of waterdeep. And decided to take his mansion and business holdings. And now gold is like water them.

I so make them roll every quarter for profits and expenses to see how they make out. And if they lose vessels or goods.

bigmark268 said:

Oh cool. We'd have 1d8+5 do 3d8+5 on a crit

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3d8+5 averages 20, but can still end up with some abysmal results (as well as some exceptional ones) about a 1/3 of the time.

1d8+8+5 averages 18 with a lot less feel-bads

Rolling extra dice is super fun, but rolling shit on a crit suuuucks.

Though the only thing that matters is how your players feel about it.

Grabbit Allworth said:

3d8+5 averages 20, but can still end up with some abysmal results (as well as some exceptional ones) about a 1/3 of the time.

1d8+8+5 averages 18 with a lot less feel-bads

Rolling extra dice is super fun, but rolling shit on a crit suuuucks.

Though the only thing that matters is how your players feel about it.

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True. But with 4e you get a lot of modifier damage from feats. So like our paladin rolls 1d10+ 20dam. And our old warden had 1d12+26 for damage

But seeing our wizard crit elemental maw which is 6d6 and having him roll 18d6 is like oh damn!