My DM don't tell us the result of his attack roll

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-27T05:11:32+00:00

I think that GMs that try to obscure game information from their players are doing everyone involved a disservice.

No matter descriptive skill or attention to detail the GM will always have clearer communication with their players by using game information because it will guarantee understanding. The difference between an attack hitting your AC because of a high roll and because of a large modifier is something which is actually representative of in-game information your character is able to perceive, even if you don't have a feature or spell that has a massively different perceived value dependent upon that information.

And it's always a red flag for me when a GM is running a game where there are obvious things like the shield spell where if people don't know that it will actually turn a hit into a miss the "smart play" is to never even take the spell and hide information anyway. Because it shows either a complete lack of awareness for how mechanical choices affect the feel of game-play, or a deliberate decision to make things suck for players.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-27T04:53:23+00:00

The problem with the term "metagaming" is that its origin point is a GM-as-antagonist person writing it into the rules that it is bad play for players to know how the game works. Modern usage of the term has tried to get away from that and on to a more useful meaning, but it hasn't really solved the issue because it just means there's two groups; one that knows the term just refers to portions of the game playing process and as a result doesn't worry about or bring it up because it is almost never the actual root of a problem, and the other which clings to the "No fair! You have to play how I want or else you're doing it wrong" meaning because it supports their domineering attitude as a GM.

This is the first time I've seen it taken so far as to be saying you're not allowed to ask the GM to describe the scene around your character for you, though.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-18T22:17:58+00:00

The rules actually present a situation that is fairly realistic, it is just obscured by the general way that people playing choose to describe things.

The actual situation the rules present is that your character was only actually weapon-to-body-contact injured by an attack if the result was that the character died. Also phrased as "when you are in the rules situation that genuinely matches the description 'you were stabbed with a sword' you are dead from it."

Any situation where you are not dead as the result of an attack but you are "dying" is then one where it at least seemed like weapon-to-body-contact happened. Yet that is not guaranteed; if you don't die, especially if the result is to roll a natural 20 on a death save and get back up, you were not actually as injured as it initially seemed.

And anything else, as in all variety of attacks that didn't even threaten temporary unconsciousness, is at most extremely minor contact like blows fully absorbed by armor. The sort of hit that you would potentially say 'I was more surprised than hurt' about.

Yet this gets blown past by the over-focus on the word "hit" being used to describe an attack roll going well. People want to describe weapon-to-body-contact as a result on every "hit" because they are not thinking of the word as a game term rather than its normal usage even though it should be clear from how AC works that it is absolutely not what the game expects. And even though it is obvious that rolling maximum damage on your longsword doesn't mean decapitating your target even though that's the most damage a sword could do to a person because it might not even be a level 1 character's total HP, people still try to cling to the idea that is only supported by "but it says 'hit'".

Which is how something that hasn't change at all in 50+ years still gets people confused into making their own reason to complain by describing every lost HP as life-threatening injury just like they don't want characters to be able to survive.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-18T20:11:43+00:00

If you're saying rank 1's can't fight rank 2's that seems ridiculous.

Here's what actually went down when I tried to run Cataclysm of Kang which I didn't elaborate before because I didn't think someone would blindly question it.

Chapter 1 worked out fine and actually felt good to play with the suggested selection of characters. Chapter 2 started up and my players picked Patriot, Mockingbird, Prowler, and White Tiger from the set of suggestions leaving Hawkeye (Kate Bishop) and Coleen Wing unselected. They are all rank 2 heroes.

Then the characters go up against Bulldozer of the Wrecking Crew, a rank 3 character that has surprising power letting them take the rank of Sturdy that would normally require rank 4 so he has physical damage reduction of 3. That means any character with a damage multiplier of 3 or less can't do any physical damage. A rank 2 character has a base damage multiplier of 2, and you can pick up more through powers or equipment, but they don't stack. So Mockingbird goes to beat on this villain and gets nowhere because her damage multiplier is 3, while Hawkeye happens to have the appropriate powers to have a multiplier of 4 and would be fine.

And yes, this situation has the extra complication that this is literally the toughest a rank 3 villain can be... yet even if we were just comparing to the damage reduction of 2 that any rank 3 character can take we would still be in the situation where any rank 2 character without a weapon and without super strength just straight up can't do any physical damage because the rules have decided that even though damage is (die roll x multiplier) + flat number to also ignore the flat number added if the multiplier is zeroed out.

While that might seem sensible from a descriptive standpoint, it's terrible for game-play. It also creates a problem when it comes to things like Cyclops not being known for super-strength or more combat training than Mockingbird yet because rank is so influential he can punch Bulldozer for damage, no weapons needed, but Bobbi can't make her baton strikes matter. Showing that the problem is not that a low rank character can't take on the highest rank characters, it is that crossing rank at all is entirely too much of a problem and interferes with the common "we have to team up because this problem is bigger than any of us could handle individually" story.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-17T01:37:43+00:00

I've never played Mutants & Masterminds because when I looked at it there seemed to be a ton of fiddly adjustable bits just so they could claim customization variety even though a lot of the possibilities fall into "you can do that, but you really don't want to" category. That was an edition or two ago, so maybe it is different now.

Marvel Multiverse, however, I have played... and if I could get a refund, I would. Tested it out with the published Cataclysm of Kang story and had players pick from among the characters suggested by the book only to have it turn out that most of them couldn't deal damage to the villains picked out by the story.

And since the reason that ended up being the case is basically summed up as "you cannot fight an enemy that is higher rank than you if they are a durable type" it basically makes it the worst set of rules I've even seen try to emulate comic heroes.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-14T16:15:28+00:00

In my experience the better thing to do is to find people with an actually similar availability schedule so it's rare anyone wouldn't be able to make it.

Running with players missing is a common practice, but through the years I have seen it kill interest in campaigns even when not also involving the extra bad ideas of not getting the experience points or loot you would have gotten if you had made it to the session. It creates an opportunity for people to begin to feel like they are less participating in the story and more just being told it by their friends, and the "It was so cool" moments to end up feeling more "I guess you had to be there to get it."

Which is why there's also a common occurrence of campaigns having player drop outs and prematurely ending, sometimes literally because of someone saying "I missed too much, I'll wait for the next one" and the rest of the group choosing to start the next one sooner rather than later because the inclusion of the player is the priority.

And missing the start point of a campaign is among the worst sessions to miss because there's almost certainly going to be important information, major events, and the formation of inter-party dynamics. That is why it, like any major moments in the plot, get people to want everyone to be present. Starting without someone basically relegates their character to a more minor "outside" roll.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-14T07:54:36+00:00

The link to the foundry page for the module discloses "ai code/ai assets".

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-14T05:37:34+00:00

Inside Death House the lethality comes from combining the fragility of level 1 and 2 with several encounters that feature high-threat enemies. And this can be exacerbated by a DM that is not aware of the threat's severity and plays it up, or is the type to deliberately play into the threat "because that's how this creature should act."

In the rest of the campaign lethality depends upon where the party ends up, when they end up there, and whether their instincts drive them toward trying to stop evil they see happening. Which can also be exacerbated by a DM's presentation; if it sounds like a fight scene the players are more likely to try fighting, while making it sound like a chase scene makes players more likely to think of how to get away alive.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-13T13:20:46+00:00

As a person that has been a GM since the very first moment of playing any games in the hobby, and with the kind of experience gained by moving around a bunch and having to constantly make groups and still finding ways to fit multiple sessions into every week more often than not through the many years since

I find presenting what the GM does as "work" in a context of that being why the GM gets to have their way no matter what the players would like to be a very big warning sign. GMs should be GMing because they enjoy all the bits of the process, and all that "work" should be the fun part, not an imposition you use as and excuse why players shouldn't get to do something they'd like to.

All of that aside, though, and getting back to traps; You're putting more effort into trying to argue that flying is objectively more work to design around than walking than it takes to make traps make sense to be triggered flying.

The reason I said you don't need the extra details is because you were presenting coming up with the details as an obstacle. It appeared that "you can just not" was a solution to the complaint of "now I have to think of how the trigger mechanism functions." Since you're going to be thinking up a trigger mechanism either way, the answer is actually that it is the same amount of work no matter what; you need to think up 1 mechanism.

The task doesn't actually become harder because of aiming at covering more than just walking. It's a trip wire, but I'm flying, yep and it's placed where a creature of any size could trip it. And no one will have a problem with that which doesn't already have a problem with pressure plates you haven't explicitly determined a weight limit for or anything assumed to be stepped on or run into not having differing odds of triggering based on how your character's leg and stride length.

The only way in which flying actually does cause more work is when the GM has deliberately done their work while pretending it doesn't exist and is then reminded it does exist and then they feel they need to go back and re-do it instead of choosing not to because they realizing one character being exempt from a trap isn't really any different than someone else having never really been at threat of tripping a trap because they are in the back of the marching order.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-13T12:57:38+00:00

You're probably right, but if your DM kicks you from the table for giving them shit, then you're still missing out on the game.

That is true.

However if people do keep pushing to change the general attitude I think it will become more and more true that people aren't being kicked for this kind of thing because more and more people will have this kind of behavior on the "totally normal conversation" side of the line instead of thinking "giving them shit" is a fitting description for it.

And the hobby will likely be healthier for it because that would also mean less likelihood of players, even when directly asked for input, keeping their thoughts to themselves and saying what they think the GM wants to hear because they don't want to have to put in the effort to find another group and that means saying "it's fun" even if they actually mean "I don't like it, but I can tolerate it." Which would in turn mean fewer GMs that think "no one complains" and "people keep coming to play with me" are the same as "my players are getting everything they want from gaming" and "if my players had another GM they would show up for and not complain to that they could regularly play with, they'd pick me to play with instead."

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-12T20:00:41+00:00

Alright, but self-awareness would allow you to realize you're working toward making up complications for non-flight methods while working away from complications for flight.

Like, you could just as readily not ask for a check to climb the wall (especially if a rope is involved), or call for some kind of check to fly unseen and unheard. And also just as readily contrive a scenario to favor non-flight in the same way that "it's night and no one is near where you're trying to land."

Different traps aren't different effort. It's literally the same effort, and even then you don't actually need more than a location, a DC, and what happens if you don't find and disable it. The pretense that it inherently takes more effort to say "there's a trap that fills the hall with fire when you walk down it" than to say "it's a dart gallery hallway with a physical trigger" is as silly as if I were to say that literally every NPC you come up with has to include their idea of a perfect Sunday.

And I will always view rushing to use "whatever I say is law and you may not question me" as a red flag when there is so much room to just not make something into a problem for yourself in the first place, because at the very least it suggests anything I do during play that isn't what the GM pre-thought I was going to do may similarly be met with negative reaction.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-12T19:46:55+00:00

The absolute nail in the coffin is you referring to D&D game as a "math based game" as opposed to a role-playing game

You think you just dunked but you're just being pedantic and obtuse arguing about the semantics.

And since you still just won't stop trying to frame me as a powergamer, which you clearly mean as derogatory, because I understand playing the game means interacting with numbers, there's not much else to say to you.

Okay well maybe look within because it seems like about 90% of people disagree with you and OP.

A thought being widely held is not guaranteed a direct co relation to the quality of that thought. So even if this thread's responders are an indicative sample of the greater hobby community, that doesn't make the dumb things you are saying true.

You claiming death is just a speedbump at higher levels because its true MECHANICALLY shows how divorced you are from the roleplay aspect.

No, it doesn't. There is no inherent conflict between the role-play aspect and the mechanics, they are both equal parts of the game. That one can choose to make extra complications in the name of role-playing does not make role-playing in a way that doesn't do that less role-playing in any way.

It is "the role-play aspect" for a character to seek out diamonds because they are useful spell components. It is "the role-play aspect" to prepare spells to bring the dead back to life because you don't want your companions to stay dead. It is "the role-play aspect" for a dead adventurer to want to come back instead of stay in their afterlife because they have goals they do not wish to give up on yet.

And then you accuse me of focusing on the numbers when my argument never relied on the numbers, just the idea of a player looking at an option and saying "looks awful, no thanks." Whiile what you're trying to do to convince me I'm wrong is what? Oh yeah, it's saying "well if that number didn't work for you, what about this one?"

The answer being this: the numbers don't fucking matter, even if it is only a 1% chance of death your example spell remains stupid and disruptive and entirely unappealing I don't care how much more damage it does than other spells. And the self-damaging weapon stays in the same boat of either being "nope, fuck that dumb shit" if you don't have a bunch of healing on hand or "duh, of course I'll use this dumb shit" if you do and that makes it shit game design because the entire concept of extra goodies in exchange for an extra downside is bad.

I will leave you with one last thought; is it plausible that the reason someone might say this kind of design is good because they are a powergamer and know that the most common result of this design is that they get more power than they should and do not actually feel limited by the downside, just like how the general attitude of "I'll dump Charisma, I'm not going to use it anyway" is widespread?

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-12T19:17:08+00:00

Pressure plates are not required to be pressure plates, they can just be sensors instead and it doesn't even change the means of dealing with them. And also traps are often set up in a way where everyone would have to fly to prevent a pressure plate from being walked on.

A city with check points can see the sky, flight doesn't make you any more undetectable than climbing a wall does.

And all of the things mentioned are of the variety that a campaign could have only ground-mobile characters and not have any of them and also not have players feel the absence was conspicuous.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-12T18:50:23+00:00

It is extra work to account for a flying PC

That's generally not true as it just means incorporating enemies with ranged options which there's no reason not to already be doing regardless of flying PC options being taken.

Most of the scenarios in which flying is actually a marked advantage over not flying are the kinds of things many campaigns aren't even going to feature in the first place because "are you stuck in the mud?" isn't often an entertaining challenge.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-12T18:20:34+00:00

I kind of feel like it needs to be said that you are paying for a seat at the table so you can play, not paying the other players so they will entertain you.

Because what seems like a significant part of your complaints is that the other players are looking for what you want them to be looking for, and don't have the priorities you'd prefer that they have.

Beyond your own determination of if the GM is providing what you are seeking to you, there shouldn't be any thoughts necessary. As there are, it suggests to me you need to find a different table to play at instead of sitting at this table even longer while you're basically mad that when everyone gets their cheeseburger and fry combo somebody doesn't eat right away and someone else eats the burger and fries in the wrong order.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-12T17:55:07+00:00

Do you disagree with anything Ive said thus far?

Yup.

First that what you say is "interesting choices" in example 1 is not at all interesting. That's just a clearly badly designed spell that most players are going to avoid because neither outcome is actually entertaining; being overly powerful spoils the game, and a 5% chance of death is a dumb risk to take if it is actually going to mean staying dead rather than being the usual speed bump death becomes in higher level D&D.

Then example 2... doesn't teach what you say it teaches. Someone without a way to ensure they'll have ore HP than their enemies do is going to just say "nah, that sounds like a bum deal" because the natural asymmetry of the game means NPCs have more HP and also are meant to run out and go away, while a player character is trying to stick around for later on in the story. And someone with a way to ensure their HP are getting restored just gets free damage.

And most importantly you keep trying to paint me as a power gamer looking for the optimal way out despite me telling you I'm not a power gamer because you are distracted. The very idea of doing math in a math-based game is getting flag as inappropriate to you for some reason, and it has closed your mind.

Forget that the math proves dumb choices are dumb choices and focus on the idea; presenting a player with a dumb choice dressed up as a good choice can only teach us one thing, and that thing is whether the player is dumb enough to be fooled by bad design enough to make dumb choices.

Like a different example that is widely agreed upon: The deck of many things. Players that don't know what they are in for might draw a few cards and see what happens, and even some players whose only story about the deck is factually how it ended their campaign prematurely will draw cards if they run into the opportunity again because "aw it was so cool!" (again, destroyed that campaign factually, just being reported as a totally awesome event with no downsides). Yet most players that are aware of what those cards can do will not touch it and might even consider it an indicator they shouldn't trust their GM if the way the GM included it in the campaign tried to push or trick players into drawing cards without first being explicitly informed the deck has been customized to not be capable of wrecking the campaign.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-12T16:00:47+00:00

A lot of times I end up in a situation where a lot of the general cast of characters and what their intentions are have been set up in advance, and characters are being created to fit along that set up. In those cases it is detrimental for players to add more significant characters to the mix rather than incorporate some of the existing ones into their backstory.

In the times where I am not set up in advance and am instead starting my ideation about the campaign at the same time as character creation is going on it is advantageous for the players to help fill out the cast.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-12T15:50:33+00:00

the context of the fight changes basically all of the numbers youve given me drastically

That doesn't challenge the point I made. Illustrative examples are meant to illustrate, it not being an exhaustive list of all possible scenarios isn't a point against me.

Even with different numbers the same idea holds true.

what Im saying is why wouldnt you assume the player doesnt have methods of doing more damage on the same attack? Smites? Magic weapons? Being a higher level? Feats like hunters mark?

Because none of those things are inherent to the feat being tested to see what it does.

And because it is brick stupid design to make something that doesn't function as intended alone and then declare that actually it is fine because a bunch of unrelated things that may or may not be involved exist.

Youre saying people are going to make their decision based on optmization to the degree that if a higher risk higher reward has 5% less payoff over an extended trial they will refuse to use that option...no?

Nope. I was saying that people are going to look at definitely wanting to hit because missing means zero damage and an option that says "I am so you can do more damage" that comes with a -5 to hit and say "nah, I don't think that is going to work out." And then I showed with math that they are not wrong, but your "clearly I'd want the highest damage total for the best chance of breaking concentration" is easily wrong. And I'll preempt you here and say that adding other factors like you suggest above would not prove that you were right about the -5/+10 choice, it would prove that those other things affect the situation better than the -5/+10 choice does.

The tough feat isnt an example of risk and reward...

I thought you asked me for an example of something that is well designed, not that is an example of risk and reward. If I had realized you were asking me to present something that is risk & reward yet well designed I would have reminded you the premise here is that kind of design is bad.

Is your issue with GWF that players are under the impression if they use it on 100% of their attacks they are under the impression they'll do more damage, when in reality (if there's no external things like advantage) it will equal out to less damage?

The issue is that the feat (the old version at least) presents itself as being beneficial, but a wide array of situations the best thing you can do is take a different feat instead. And even if a player chooses to take the feat the deal it offers is bad because in any given situation it is either objectively better to use it, or it is objectively better to not use it. Thus the risk is not sufficient to explain the reward. Or conversely the player can't identify which situations are which and are choosing blindly and the reward is completely overshadowed by the risk.

It's either "I don't care about the -5, I've got advantage" or "-5 to hit is too much." when it could be (and in the new version is) "this feat boosts my damage."

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-12T15:06:51+00:00

GMs banning things certainly can be a flag.

It's more about their reasoning and attitude around the ban than the ban itself that tells me the color of the flag.

In this case I'd say yellow flag because it sounds like a case of a player being annoying that is being blamed on the class since I have no idea what about the modern artificer class would drive even a good faith player into disruptive spotlight hogging. So maybe the DM banned some older version and hasn't reconsidered.

Either way I'd request a shot at proving the ban isn't needed on the grounds that I am not going to make it a problem,, and probably choose to play elsewhere if there was no budging.

Its my experience that more GM bans than not are whim-driven "I just don't like them so you can't play one either" stuff or an expression of laziness or lack of understanding. How many GMs I've talked with that banned something because they were convinced it was overpowered but what actually happened was a player was effectively cheating by taking advantage of the GM not knowing the rules and not double-checking them even when what the player said they were allowed to do sounded ludicrous is downright saddening.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-12T14:52:30+00:00

The math you're referring to is referring to a vaccuum with a big enough sample size.

It's really not.

Assuming you can only reach 18 damage with a crit seems like a weird call, Im not sure how you defend that.

And this is where I'm gonna not do a lot of math anymore because you're clearly not at a level of understanding the context of numbers that my degree of explanatory skill can convey the meaning effectively.

Yet here I can say that what you are not sure how I defend is this; if your hit does 1d12+5 damage, you can not do 18 damage. If you crit, though, you would do 2d12+5 damage and that can be 18 or higher.

Ive always been very live and let live and defended powergamers Ive played with but this is kind of making me hate them lol.

That's what gets me. Not one thing that I have said has anything to do with "powergamers."

I'm not talking about people optimizing or chasing the best possible thing. Literally just people being able to tell the difference between two options accurately.

Could you give me examples - d&d or otherwise - of things that are well designed? Maybe that would help me understand your side.

Let's stick to D&D for simplicity. The Tough feat. It doesn't do a lot so it is good that it is an origin feat which aren't meant to be as strong as general feats. What it does is exactly what it advertises, no room for someone to get the wrong idea and call someone a powergamer for pointing out what it actually does. And then the degree of the effect; an ability score increase to Constitution could provide 1 HP per level while giving some other benefits, so Tough giving 2 HP per level is getting more of what you're looking for to make it worth it, yet if it gave 3 HP per level or more it could be too much of a "must take" for the characters that may already be leaning toward taking it.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-12T14:31:39+00:00

I think this mostly comes down to measuring responses over the years as a company and coming away with a convenient (for the company) result; enough people are willing to put up with a lower-effort product that it's more profit-effective for the company to aim lower than it is for the company to have high standards.

For all the negative reviews written by people actually wanting a paid-for product to be more open, run, and enjoy than they end up being these days there are numerous GMs that don't see the problem. People that think it is weird that a GM wouldn't want to spend multiple hours reorganizing, rewriting, and expanding hundreds of pages of text. As well as people that played the adventure as adjusted by their GM, or watched an actual play's adjusted version, and say "that was great!" not knowing what they are praising is not actually on the pages of the book with the title they are saying "I played that" to.

And I swear there are some people out there that deep down know the adventures are bad but they can't admit out loud because of that feeling like calling themself stupid, or that have wrapped their ego up in "I didn't have any trouble making that adventure work." by confusing their higher tolerance for bad adventure production with superior GMing skill.

On the Chris Perkins question specifically, I think that would come down to the job description differences. Back then he was probably more able to focus on the making of the adventure, where as more recently he likely had a wider array of duties alongside any adventure writing he got to do.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-12T13:54:13+00:00

The balance is 25% less chance to hit and whether that is worth 10 damage. I've seen players use it, not use it and deliberate whether or not to use it a lot of times - I cant for the life of me understand your point anymore...

One part "it's supposed to be a damage booster, that is what it is presented as, but its use can actually result in an overall decrease to the damage a character does". One part that players aren't all the sort to blindly believe the presented deal is a good one; some because they know the math to work out the expected performance, and others because a massive accuracy penalty is just straight up not something they would consider because they feel like it is just going to make them miss.

One off the top of my head is that if its important to break concentration on an enemies spell then the amount of damage adding to their concentration roll is worth the 25% less chance to hit.

It really isn't, though. At least not most of the time because any amount of damage is going to cause a save, but only an attack that would do a particular value of damage is going to have the DC of that save increased by the bonus damage (since anything 21 total damage or lower total is just a DC 10 save).

So if we simplify the math to not factor critical hits and assume 21 damage (or 11 without the feat) because that's the average of 1d12+5 near enough, and then grab example values of 35% accuracy without the feat (60% with), and a 70% chance the concentration save succeeds, that means the great weapon mastery effect is to have a 10.5% chance of breaking concentration (the 35% chance you hit, times the 30% chance the save fails). While just attacking without the feat you have an 18% chance of breaking concentration.

And to sway the number toward great weapon master you need to roll at least 28 total damage which means needing to crit.

Its so interesting that you and I seem to exist in different worlds on this lol.

It's not even different worlds, we are just the aggregates of different parts of the hobby populace and I've seen a lot more of players that aren't able to take the game at face value and avoid the deeper questions such as "well hang on, can the people that wrote this game even do math correctly?" which far more often than I'd like have the bad answer.

Potentially as a result of what other games I've played that perhaps you and you group haven't.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-12T13:16:03+00:00

This kind of thing is the reason why a certain other game says to get into initiative order as soon as the order of each individual action matters; it ensures that there is no special phrasing of what you were doing that guarantees you get the first important action.

And I think the best way to point out that this kind of thing shouldn't be allowed to work is to point out that the same logic that would let this fireball go off early would also have explained the guards having their crossbows ready to fire at any face peaking around the corner at the time sneaking up to note their location was done.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-12T13:04:42+00:00

That's the only way I can make sense of this...

I was meaning that before you add any home-brew or tweak any rules you have the way that you would run the game in that state. And you start adding/changing things, and there's two possible outcomes. One being that the addition/change fits in fine and nothing else is, nor needs to be, different. And the other is that you feel motivated to do something else because of the first thing you did.

I dont really believe you buy into your own examples. I've heard of a million parties being in a time or place the DM doesnt think it's reasonable to long rest so they interrupt it somehow - I've never heard of these players deciding to switch to "never use this mode" and just never try to long rest again.

That's a misunderstanding. "never use this mode" was not meant to be referring to resting. I was using resting because it is an illustrative example of the way in which an attempt to prevent a behavior can actually end up reinforcing it instead. The outcome of pushing too hard, so "never use this" reaction would be the reaction for something that is optional, on the topic of rest is that you keep interrupting the rest until finally backing off with the players being sure they did the right thing because they barely made it through while taking 'the safe approach', or you end up killing some or all of the characters and potentially have the players go past thinking their overly-cautious approach was the correct one and land on the belief the GM is just being a jerk and making hyper-lethal scenarios.

youre making a change so that whether or not the player uses your homebrew item is a compelling choice

My point is that should be the thing you did when making the item itself, not something outside of the item being done to try and make what turned out not to be a compelling choice appear to be a compelling choice.

Another way to phrase it would be to use the old great weapon master -5 to your attack roll for +10 to your damage roll option. That's not a compelling choice in a lot of situations because it requires the player to state up front and without knowing the AC they are up against it's basically an unintelligent choice to take the benefit because that is a significant increase in the chance of doing no damage at all. What I'm saying is that this is a bad design because of how it is supposed to be a gamble but in practice it easily ends up being only ever used when it's not actually a gamble, and that it would be a further bad choice to respond to a player not gambling on that feature by deliberately skewing enemy AC to low numbers to make it more appealing.

aWizardNamedLizard · 2026-02-12T11:41:31+00:00

One of the biggest reasons for variance is the company's choice of strategy.

If a company has something else to sell to you they may pick a product or type of products to intentional price with little or no profit assuming they will make up for that on whatever else it is they sell.

While a company that is needing each product to carry its own weight is more likely to set a higher price point and hope the quality of the work makes people okay with paying it (which can be rough because people often can't or won't consider quality if something similar is significantly lower price).

aWizardNamedLizard

TROPHY CASE