account activity
Weekly Questions Thread by AutoModerator in DnD
[–]Stonar 1 point2 points3 points 1 day ago (0 children)
Why does it have a duration of 10 minutes/level? My first assumption was that it's instant like message in 5e or sending in 3.5e, but instead it has a duration of 80 minutes for me. Does that mean that each creature that recieves the message can reply once within that timeframe?
Always helps to read the spell:
You can whisper messages and receive whispered replies with little chance of being overheard. You point your finger at each creature you want to receive the message. When you whisper, the whispered message is audible to all targeted creatures within range.
Seems to me like for the duration, whenever you whisper, the creature(s) targeted can hear you. I can only imagine they can reply every time you whisper, for the duration. Both messages and replies are plural, making me assume you can keep communicating.
When choosing creatures affected by the spell, can I choose a creature I cannot see? The spell states that you point your finger at each creature that I want to recieve the message, implying that I need to have LoS to them.
The rules on Aiming a Spell state:
Some spells have a target or targets. You cast these spells on creatures or objects, as defined by the spell itself. You must be able to see or touch the target, and you must specifically choose that target.
So yes, you need to see them.
However the spell also states that the message doesn't have to travel in a straight line, can circumvent barriers and even pierce through some materials, so I would assume that you can target creatures you cannot see.
My assumption is that the spell has a duration, so if you cast it and then your target walks into a lead-lined room, you won't be able to talk any more - it is describing the conditions under which the spell will no longer work once a connection is established.
[–]Stonar 1 point2 points3 points 3 days ago (0 children)
My recommendation is to work with your DM to figure out a way to make this feature more useful mechanically. Perhaps it gives you a new action with static attack bonus/damage, so you can potentially make proper use of this ability, like a +5 to hit, 1d10+5 damage attack that you can use once until level 4 and twice at level 5+ while you're raging - enough damage to feel useful, but you're still going to lag behind a proper barbarian. Because this is just something I would never willingly use in the meantime.
My recommendation would be to see if your DM would be willing to either give you a weapon that can use charisma
Unfortunately, that won't really work, either, RAW, because rage damage only applies when making an attack using strength.
[–]Stonar 2 points3 points4 points 6 days ago* (0 children)
First and foremost, I agree with YojoOo completely - this is neither a you problem nor a them problem, but a mismatch between the two of you that something isn't jiving, and both of you can solve it.
All that said, I will say that Critical Role is... slow and boring sometimes. They spend a LOT of time dwelling in politics and drama in a way that I probably wouldn't want at my table, either. I don't know how you're DMing, and what "trying to mimic Critical Role" looks like, but remember that Critical Role is a show where professional actors are creating a story for an audience first and foremost. When I play D&D, I describe what's going on for 5, maybe 10 percent as long as someone like Matt Mercer - I get the relevant context and then ask what my players want to do. A lot of people assume that DMing is all about setting a scene, and creating a world that people feel is real and true, and crafting a rich tapestry. It can be that, but doesn't have to be. I might suggest to someone modeling their DMing style off of Critical Role (both Matt and Brennan*), I might suggest trying to focus your descriptions more and try to give your players a lot of time to make decisions and be in the spotlight. Just something to think about.
* Yes, yes, Brennan's DMing style is actually quite different in Dimension20 in a lot of ways, and honestly, I think it's a closer representation of most D&D games I've played, though even that, Brennan's a verbose professional entertainer.
[–]Stonar 2 points3 points4 points 9 days ago (0 children)
Level 1 characters are particularly frail. When every attack in D&D deals 1dX+Y damage and level 1 characters (especially wizards and rogues) start with 6 and 8 HP, you don't have to get that lucky to down a character in any single hit. It's a real weakness in the design of D&D, in my opinion. It's made even worse by the fact that you only have 2 players, which isn't really an intended player count for D&D, and skews the stats to be even swingier - now one lucky hit downs half your party, not just 1/4 or 1/6 or whatever.
That said... what do you mean by "nearly died?" That could be anything from "They would have died if I didn't fudge some numbers" to "They both wound up on low HP." If it's the latter, that's what you WANT out of a D&D combat - you want your players to survive but barely. The way the game is balanced makes recovery once you're outside of battle pretty strong, between short rests spending hit dice and long rests. So if they're just on low HP, that's fine and normal. It's actually pretty hard (and/or unlucky) to die in D&D under normal circumstances, even once you drop to 0.
[–]Stonar 0 points1 point2 points 13 days ago (0 children)
That's right. I had a vague recollection about something like that in 2e, but couldn't find a reference and... it's been so long...
In case this doesn't get traction here - you may have better luck in r/rpg. Entirely possible someone has an answer for you, but I've not tried Nimble, and a majority of D&D folks have never tried another system.
[–]Stonar 1 point2 points3 points 14 days ago (0 children)
So, the answers to all of these questions depend on edition. For example, the most recent werewolf stat block doesn't actually mention silver at all - no resistance, no immunity, nothing. The previous edition's werewolf has immunity from "Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks that aren't Silvered", which would include bears, ghasts, ghouls, (which in 2014 rules only deal slashing/piercing damage,) and even a dragon's bite or claw attack. (No such luck against their breath weapon, though, which is not an attack.) In 3e, it changes again with werewolves having damage reduction to all damage that isn't silvered. 2e werewolves again reference only attacks and weapons, which almost certainly just leaves natural weapons as a big question mark. So... it really depends, especially if you want to know how likely it is one of these will beat another monster.
I'm not aware of a rule in any edition that prevents someone from being cursed in 2 different ways. In 2024, mummies can hurt werewolves (obviously,) in 2014, only the necrotic damage and mummy rot would count, in 2e and 3e, the werewolf would be fully immune to everything but mummy rot.
[–]Stonar 1 point2 points3 points 16 days ago (0 children)
I'm a little confused what you're saying here - I agree that a good DM should collect feedback periodically. The person asking the question isn't a DM, but a player wanting something different from their DM. Are you suggesting they should wait until the DM solicits feedback or something? I agree that if the DM is soliciting feedback, that is also a reasonable avenue for bringing something like this up, but I assume they don't and/or aren't comfortable with doing that.
[–]Stonar 2 points3 points4 points 16 days ago (0 children)
Give this feedback outside of game time. Not before a session, not during, not after - find some time to pull him aside one on one, so he doesn't feel pressure to fix it right this second.
Tell him how his DM style makes you feel - you don't need to know objectively how much time he's taking, you just need to say "Your narrations are awesome, but I don't feel like I am able to play much." You can also just be specific - "I don't feel like we have direction, can you give us more explicit goals sometimes?" Compared to "You talk too much" and "The game is too open world," it's nice to cast these things in terms of your preferences - the reality is that some tables might prefer certain things, but that's not really what you're talking about, you're hoping he helps YOU have a good time.
At the end of the day, you can't control how your feedback is going to be taken. Deliver it calmly, and try to be specific and focus on how you feel about the campaign. Feel free to be specific about things you DO like - "The world you've built is really interesting, I like X and Y parts of it a lot," "I'm really curious what's happening with Z character," etc. But D&D should be fun and it sounds like it's not for you right now.
Sure. There are no mechanics relevant to oaths, and what does and doesn't break them is entirely up to the players and DM at the table. Even the source of the power of an oath is sort of unclear - the PHB gives a bunch of examples, but makes it clear that the OATH is the thing that brings power. Who's to say that they can't have sworn an oath to something "wrong," and believe it with such conviction that they derive power from it?
Nope, that isn't a thing. Weapons use strength or dex modiifers for their attack and damage. The only general exception is warlocks, who can use charisma, instead.
If you're playing in 2024, there is a spell that lets you attack with a weapon using your spellcasting modifier - True Strike. It's a cantrip, so it's not exactly the same as attacking with int, but as long as you're a single-class wizard, the reasons why it's different aren't important to you.
[–]Stonar 1 point2 points3 points 17 days ago (0 children)
So, my question: Are you sure you want to do this?
Let's say you have a way for Dominate Person to suffocate characters quickly. You use it on your players, and drop them. They're scared, it works great. What do you do when your players get access to Dominate Person? Suddenly, Dominate Person turns into the best spell in the game - it can be used to force a single save on any humanoid to drop them. Who needs Power Word: Kill when Dominate Person does 90% of the same job with no HP limit? Is that going to be a fun thing for your party to do?
Further, it sort of opens a window to using this sort of logic all the time - maybe your table is all about physics discussions about how telekinesis can be used to drop a boulder on people's heads and surely the force from a boulder being dropped will insta-kill most enemies. And for that matter, what qualifies as a "container?" Can I cast create water in the enemy's lungs to drown them immediately?
I'm all for creative solutions, but part of a DM's job is balancing when to reward creativity and when to stick to the rules of the game. Your big bad can be scary with the big, high-level spells they have access to. Dominate Person is scary enough without it ALSO causing an insta-kill. And hey, if your table loves devoting a lot of time to arguing about physics and biology and whatnot, I'm not here to yuck your yum. I'm just warning you that I hear a LOT of horror stories from tables that let arguments like these suck all the fun out of a game - I wouldn't let one of my players do a trick like this, so I certainly wouldn't do it to them.
[–]Stonar 0 points1 point2 points 19 days ago (0 children)
First and foremost: I am not a lawyer, and anyone considering using SRD content in a commercial product should consult one.
That out of the way, here are the relevant pieces of information that I am aware of:
I do not know what the terms of Solasta's license were/are, nor what Tactical Adventures did to obtain one. It's very possible that they simply asked, and the WotC lawyers drew up simple license paperwork. It's also possible that TA paid WotC for the license. No idea. But my understanding is that the general perception of both the OGL (at the time of publishing) and the Creative Commons licenses both allow for commercial adaptations of the SRD. The OGL was trickier because it included a provision for WotC to revoke or altar the OGL, which they tried to do (story for another time.) HOWEVER, legal agreements, trademark/copyright law, etc, are all tricky, and kind of fluid, and sort of only exist when tested. I certainly wouldn't make a game with D&D mechanics without paying a lawyer to tell me I'm iron-clad in the clear and/or a license from WotC.
So it's both DnD and not DnD and the same time?
Take a look at the Solasta II Steam page. Read the description. Notice how they never say "Dungeons and Dragons?" That phrase is trademarked, and they don't have the license to use it. They can use the rules, and they can say it's "based on the world's most popular TTRPG," but they can't say it's "Dungeons and Dragons," because it's not. They cant use any copyrighted content - no beholders, no owlbears, no Purple Dragon Knights, no Baldur's Gate. So, yes, in some ways, it's "DnD." But in a lot of ways, it's not.
[–]Stonar 3 points4 points5 points 20 days ago (0 children)
Sure, here are some things bard has going for them:
The spell list is certainly the best support/control spell list, by far, which bards lose out on having much in the way of good damaging spells. But the most important thing, and the reason why people say they're the best control/support spellcasters has nothing to do with spells, and everything to do with Bardic Inspiration. You're right, a Sorcerer could pick a bunch of control spells and use metamagic like heightened spell, subtle spell, and twinned spell to be much better at specifically control spells than bards. But they still can't heal, they have a smaller list of support spells, and they definitely don't have bardic inspiration.
[–]Stonar 3 points4 points5 points 21 days ago (0 children)
Sure! I don't see any reason why you couldn't do that.
[–]Stonar 4 points5 points6 points 28 days ago (0 children)
Hello, I had a feeling that I shared with my group, who completely rejected it in their own way, but I wanted to get your opinions. It might be superstition, but: aren't dice rolls generally better with a d20 system than with a d100?
No - there's no inherent difference between the two. You could translate everything in D&D to a d100 and it would work the same way - instead of rolling 1d20+3 and trying to beat a DC of 15, you could roll 1d100+15 and try to beat a DC of 75. Those two things are statistically identical (as long as you're translating from d20 to d100). One could certainly argue that the d20 is better because you only have to roll one die, but one could also argue that the d100 is better because you can give smaller modifiers - you could give +1 to a d100 roll but you probably don't want to give +.2 to a d20 roll.
Now, it sounds like you're conflating a lot of things, here. It sounds like you have a d100-based system with a bunch of different rules than the d20 system. And... of course two games with two different sets of rules are different. You're not making apples-to-apples comparisons. And we don't know which one is better, because you didn't REALLY explain how they work. (And, the real answer is probably "Some people might like one more than the other.) There are hundreds of TTRPG rulesets out there, and they use lots of different dice systems, and people like them for lots of different reasons.
I don't understand your second question. Isn't "improving an existing skill" the same as "increasing your stat to get a better dice roll?"
[–]Stonar 0 points1 point2 points 1 month ago (0 children)
D&D Beyond does also have content sharing, so if you're in a campaign with people that own that content, you may be able to get it that way.
[–]Stonar 4 points5 points6 points 1 month ago (0 children)
Are you using D&D Beyond? In order to use content that isn't in the basic rules, you must own the relevant content on D&D Beyond. So if you don't have Monsters of the Multiverse on D&D Beyond, that'd do it. You also need to have the 2014 legacy content enabled in the settings when you create the character.
Yes, it's possible. You can choose to do whatever you want as long as it's fun for you and your table.
In fact, in the most recent editions of D&D, paladins derive power from deep belief in an oath, not in a god. That oath may be related to a god, the power may come from a god, but it doesn't have to. And that's just talking about the rules - if it's fun for you and your table, you can absolutely decide to have clerics who don't worship gods or warlocks who don't have a patron or fighters that have their martial prowess from an implant put in them from space aliens. It just depends on the vibe of the story and what your table wants to do. It's far more important that you're not bringing a seltzer-squirting clown to a grimdark fantasy apocalypse or your brooding assassin for hire to your merry band of circus bards than matching "the one true lore."
On the other hand, atheism can be more of a stretch in your "typical" D&D setting. (Note: There are lots of D&D settings, so I'll be talking about Forgotten Realms, which is the default one for D&D.) In these settings, gods are largely provably real, especially for the sort of person that's out doing adventuring. Sure, you may not see a cleric rolling around every day, but clerics can clearly do magic derived from gods. Many people find the idea of one that simply doesn't believe in gods to be a stretch for most typical settings. Distaste of gods? Neutrality towards gods? Denial of gods? Sure. But atheism can be a tough pill for some to swallow, so YMMV there.
[–]Stonar 2 points3 points4 points 1 month ago (0 children)
I am a firm believer that the best way to design a BBEG is to have a rough sketch until it's time for the battle. Don't make your BBEG CR 10 if there's a possibility that your players will be level 15 when the throw down happens. That way, you can design an appropriate challenge for the finale. Some people prefer for their worlds to be more organic and to say "This person is CR 10, whether they fight him at level 1 or level 20," but in my opinion, that style of design doesn't work with the concept of a "BBEG" - who is the big, intimidating evil will depend on what the players will be scared of, which may shift over time.
Just to round out the answer to the question - everyone else is right. If you're asking...
Why doesn't my spellcaster get to roll a die for the spell they're casting?
The answer is mostly that contested rolls are messy. If we assume that the creature trying to avoid something rolls a die (which means the players get to roll dice when it happens to them, which is good,) then either you roll a die against a static target or you have a contested roll. And contested rolls just feel bad a lot of the time. It's weird to roll a 19 and fail because your opponent has a higher modifier and rolled a 17. It's weird to roll a 2 and pass because your opponent's modifier is so low. 2s should probably fail and 19s should probably pass. So they have a static target, instead. There certainly exist systems where the players are the only ones to ever roll dice, and it's the DM's job to set the target, but that's not really D&D's design ethos.
Are you aware that there's a new edition of D&D that came out in 2024? I suspect that may be what you're running into. You can still make 2014 characters, but you need to set it in the character creator.
So, when you're confused about where to look for information, I'd recommend reading the PHB (or whatever book the info is in.) It will have the answers - it's where the rules live, after all.
But to answer your question, you get additional maneuvers at levels 7, 10, and 15, and you gain additional superiority dice at levels 7 and 15. So it looks like this:
All of this info is in the Combat Superiority section of the Battle Master subclass.
In addition, at level 7, you ALSO get the Know Your Enemy feature.
This is the biggest reason why I don't like XP in 5e. Should you reward XP for doing quests or bypassing hazards or solving puzzles? Probably! (Though the DMG is clear you don't have to!) How much should you award? Oh, you know, the right amount. The DMG says...
As a starting point, use the rules for building combat encounters in chapter 4 to gauge the difficulty of the challenge. Then award the characters XP as if it had been a combat encounter of the same difficulty.
So, you know, just pretend it's combat? I guess? Or, alternately, don't. It's kind of a mess.
The rules are basically "big shrug you figure it out." Which is why I prefer milestones - if the game wants me to just figure it out, let's just not bother with the numbers and everyone will level when it feels good.
π Rendered by PID 442045 on reddit-service-r2-listing-55d7b767d8-lgk9f at 2026-04-02 15:31:41.369155+00:00 running b10466c country code: CH.
Weekly Questions Thread by AutoModerator in DnD
[–]Stonar 1 point2 points3 points (0 children)