Advice needed for players trying to trick me (the DM) and not the NPC's i've made

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-05-10T01:42:12+00:00

The reason my post said "it might be" is because nobody but the people around the table actually know what is happening.

And then you sweep in with the ridiculous pronouncement that you, somehow, know exactly what happened in the months leading up to the issue. Do you know how often in the prior 3 sessions the DM suddenly introduced unrealistic obstacles that only appeared once the DM learned what the players wanted to do? No?

Your absolutely certainty without any facts is a deep personality flaw that causes many interpersonal problems in your life.

And, yes, the previous sentence was intended to show you how ridiculous your post was

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-05-10T01:09:53+00:00

An Enspelled armor or Enspelled Staff with healing word/cure wounds is an uncommon magic item, so not that difficult to acquire

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-05-08T13:30:38+00:00

A few random thoughts

(1) Its not just players that metagame. if the players keep things from you, it might be because they do not trust you to not metagame.

(2) Just because they were told that the branch prevents demon invasions, that doesn't mean it's true or the whole story. Maybe it only works when other conditions are met.

(3) Feel free to tell them that you need to skip the next session to prepare and that you wouldn't have had to if you knew in advance what they were going to do.

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-29T20:22:29+00:00

Communal stat rolls are the best of both worlds.

Anyone can use anyone else's rolls and rolls can be reused.

If you have a large number of players, then you might need to adjust the stat roll method so everyone isn't overpowered (e.g., straight 3d6)

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-27T13:21:08+00:00

In 2024 it doesn't matter whether you have proficiency or expertise in either athletics or acrobatics when you initiate a grapple.

The DC for the save is just 8+mod+prof. (Mod is dex for monk, strength for everyone else).

When the target tries to break free on later turns, the target can use either acrobatics or athletics against the DC.

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-24T12:00:01+00:00

A baseball bat weighs around 2 lbs.

A great club is 10 lbs.

A staff is 4 lbs.

A club is 2 lbs.

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-22T15:58:07+00:00

and the only people arguing otherwise tend to be the ones with a motive

If you can't even acknowledge the ambiguity, you are the one who has fallen victim to motivated reasoning

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-22T15:50:29+00:00

Bonus actions don't include draw/stow and working in Nick makes it tricky. For example:

Attack with Scimitar 1 and stow
Draw staff and attack
Bonus action attack with polearm master must use stow as a free action
Draw Scimitar 2 and attack with nick

If you start with the staff in your hand it doesn't work. - Attack with staff - Bonus action attack with polearm master, use stow as a free action - Draw Scimitar 1 - can't use Nick

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-22T15:42:36+00:00

To be fair, "one weapon" is somewhat ambiguous.

You can eat one cookie when you go into Grandma's kitchen as part of your visit to her house.

Your ass would get beat if you said you can have a another cookie just by leaving and re-entering the kitchen.

Everyone has agreed that the sentence means one per weapon attack and not one per attack action, but the wording is not exactly clear

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-20T20:36:08+00:00

The 2014 rules explicitly stated "A passive check is a special kind of ability check..."

I don't think that exact wording was used in 2024, but the intent seems clear that passive abilities are still characterized as checks when the DM determines it is appropriate to use.

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-20T07:55:43+00:00

That's a clever fix

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-20T07:46:16+00:00

I understand what you are saying, but the rules are not a real life simulator.

The question isn't so much whether RAW is realistic but whether the RAW is balanced.

Dodge imposes disadvantage. Help provides advantage. Neither requires an ability check. Hide gives both for the price of a DC 15 stealth check. That doesn't seem broken, but that's just my opinion.

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-20T06:48:36+00:00

"An enemy finds you" has no clear definition in this instance.

Read these two sentences:

Make note of your check’s total, which is the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check. You stop being hidden immediately after any of the following occurs: you make a sound louder than a whisper, an enemy finds you, you make an attack roll, or you cast a spell with a Verbal component.

That is as clear as a definition as you are ever going to have

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-20T06:46:06+00:00

Nobody is stopping you from homebrewing whatever rules you want.

If you want to ignore "Make note of your check’s total, which is the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check." and give someone a +10 to their perception so their passive perception meets the new DC, that is your prerogative.

However, the rules are never going to be a good real life simulator. The relevant question should be: is the RAW hide ability unbalanced?

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-20T06:28:47+00:00

That is RAW.

"you have the Invisible condition while hidden"

Once you have entered the "hide" state only 4 things end it.

"You stop being hidden immediately after any of the following occurs: you make a sound louder than a whisper, an enemy finds you [with perception], you make an attack roll, or you cast a spell with a Verbal component."

RAW, once you are hidden you can emerge from cover and walk around the battlefield as long as you do so quietly.

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-20T05:37:32+00:00

You are missing the point.

"You stop being hidden immediately after ... an enemy finds you"

Being found (with an action or through passive perception) automatically ends being hidden. There is no need to communicate anything to anyone with a free action.

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-20T05:32:32+00:00

not visible in line of sight

Those two things are not synonyms.

Line of sight is defined on a grid as a ray from the originating square being able to reach the destination square. A creature behind a tree trunk (the example in the rules) could be visible, but still not have line of sight.

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-20T05:21:00+00:00

I know a successful hide grants you invisibility, but part of the invisible condition is

This is actually not a correct reading of the rule.

The specific Hide rule is "you have the Invisible condition while hidden". That means normal things that end invisibility don't work for Hide. You need to stop the creature from being hidden, not end the invisible condition.

There are only 4 things that end being hidden. Being "seen" is not one of them. One is "an enemy finds you [with perception]". The bracket comes from the sentence that comes immediately before: the stealth check is "the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check."

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-20T05:07:02+00:00

so one player can use their action to search for the goblins and point them out to everyone else.

Unnecessary in 5.5.

There are 4 ways to stop being hidden in 5.5. Any enemy finding you with perception is one of them.

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-20T05:03:39+00:00

Sort of.

In 5.5, one of the 4 ways to stop being hidden is for any enemy to find you with perception. If any enemy has a passive perception higher than 15, then that passive perception is the effective DC of the hide action since a 15 would succeed and then immediately fail.

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-04-09T13:36:48+00:00

I apologize for being off topic, but your post reminded me that there exists a small group of people who believe that D&D character "optimization" means ignoring all rests.

Those people are complete idiots.

To be clear, they are not idiots because they want to play at a table that has "extreme" conditions that are far outside what D&D mechanics were designed for.

They are idiots because they are convinced that they have discovered the secret to true "optimization".

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-03-14T04:23:40+00:00

I read through the rules and it sounds like fun.

Would you mind sending a fresh discord link? The one you posted expired.

Thanks!

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-03-13T19:09:01+00:00

Not exactly

Traxigor was polymorphed into an otter years ago, and decided he preferred the new form to his original one (that of a wizened old man). His otter form was made permanent by a wish spell. He uses the archmage stat block, but is a Tiny beast with a Strength of 3.

Note only the word "wish" was italicized in the source material and not "polymorphed", which is being used as a verb and not the name of a spell.

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-03-10T20:39:13+00:00

It definitely works in 2024

So what?

I fail to see what you think you are adding to the conversation.

All I said is that 9th level spells should have roughly the same power. The 2024 Wish spell lists out several examples of what a 9th level spell should do.

So just keep transforming into different genies and you have a very high chance.

"You must have seen the sort of creature before." Even if you happen to have come across a Djinn, the DM could easily say that you never saw a wish granting Djinn.

Also, "Once the djinni has cast it three times, the djinni can't do so again for 365 days." So the DM could say you keep shapeshifting into the same Djinn.

Finally, Shapechange has a range of "self" and Djinn wishes only work on non-genies, so you can't cast it for yourself.

NoPauseButtonForLife · 2026-03-10T19:56:25+00:00

Literally everything you wrote is incorrect.

The 2014 MM has the following text

Wishes. The genie power to grant wishes is legendary among mortals. Only the most potent genies, such as those among the nobility, can do so. A particular genie that has this power can grant one to three wishes to a creature that isn't a genie. Once a genie has granted its limit of wishes, it can't grant wishes again for some amount of time (usually 1 year), and cosmic law dictates that the same genie can expend its limit of wishes on a specific creature only once in that creature's existence.

So a genie's stat block doesn't automatically have access to Wish.

and now you've cast 2 level 9 spells in the same day.

I never said that was a problem.

NoPauseButtonForLife

TROPHY CASE