By the rules of the game you can’t surprise someone who is aware of your presence, so you’re correct.
That also means you don’t automatically get to interrupt a monologue by blasting the bbeg in the face mid-sentence. You need to roll initiative to see if you are able to act before they can respond.
Now, this I like.
I have also never played Rimworld but curiosity got the better of me and against my better judgment I checked to see if you were correct.
You were.
Since you asked:
The damage against the floor is a minor thing, and smashing up the place as a consequence of fighting there is a reasonable bit of extra flavour. I’m not against it.
A free action that grants a skill check to get +2 to hit on your next attack as a reward for missing is wildly disproportionate. There are feats worse than that. If this is a thing people can do why would literally everyone playing not be constantly chewing up the floor in every encounter?
Broadly speaking objects that are worn or held are exempted from automatic manipulation by spells and effects, though this is usually called out in the description of the effect. Telekinesis, which is much stronger than Mage Hand, is one such spell which grants the wearer a save. Then you have things like Catapult, Daylight, or Fireball’s ignition effect, from which held or carried items are flatly immune. Personally I’d consider that grounds to extend that same restriction to Mage Hand.
I’d go so far as to say it’s not just the DM’s prerogative to set DCs for actions the players want to take but literally part of their job as specifically outlined in the core rules on ability checks.
The fact that the DM presumably set a DC for the intimidate check is also not the part here that’s in question.
Yes, completely agreed.
There are also systems much better at this than D&D, which makes calling it out as being the “great” thing here even more out of place.
If you want crunchier rules that have these kind of flavourful interactions you could play PF2e, which literally lets you roll intimidate to debuff your opponent and you have to actions available to do so after swinging your weapon. If you want something looser and more freeform that encourages improvisation maybe take a look at Legend in the Mist or something.
No. These people are welcome to play however they want. They’re having a good time and that’s great for them.
Pitching this as “d&d is great” when the entire story hinges on multiple table specific rulings makes this both less relatable for players of d&d used to a different tone of play and can set unrealistic expectations for new players who might join a game that plays very differently.
I’m not saying they shouldn’t play like this, or that this isn’t d&d. It’s just a very specific scenario that is quite likely to be non-representative of many games.
I’m glad these people are having fun, but I always feel a bit put off when some random group’s homebrew and table rulings are pitched as being typical d&d.
You’re right, it’s not. But in this case it was specifically the “lucky” feature that came into play. Getting the better result through sheer dumb luck is exactly what was supposed to happen.
Also, I strongly disagree with your barbarian hitting a machine example. Rolling a nat 20 attack roll against a machine damages or outright destroys it. I’m not rewarding players for choosing literally the opposite course of action from one that might resolve the problem, no matter what they roll.
If the barbarian wants to try a hail Mary tool proficiency check with their lack of proficiency and -1 intelligence penalty and lucks into a nat 20 for a result of 19 on a DC 17 check then I’ll happily flavour it as “percussive maintenance”, but an attack roll just destroys the machine because that’s what attacks do.
There are groups that actually play FATAL? Terrifying.
Was about to say this looks like ahdok’s work, then I noticed who posted it. :D
Oh, true. It had slipped my mind that see invisibility allowed you to see things that were innately invisible and not just things magically made invisible.
Well now I just look foolish!
In order for the specific circumstance called out by the disintegrate spell description to be possible it requires a violation of the general case, yes. That is literally the point of the “specific overrides general” rule.
One of two things must be true for disintegrate to be able to destroy a wall of force:
1: The Wall is targetable by disintegrate.
2: Objects on the far side of the wall are targetable by disintegrate and the wall gets in the way.
For “specific overrides general” to hold a DM must rule that one of these is the case, otherwise the extremely specific interaction called out in the disintegrate spell description is impossible.
Of course as DM you can rule that this is not the case and disintegrate does not destroy a wall of force, such is the prerogative of a DM, but I am firmly of the opinion that such a ruling is not RAW.
“Specific overrides general” is RAW though, and the spell description of Wall of Force calls out that exact spell interaction as a way to destroy it.
Isn’t the blue glow only present under water (or other transparent medium with a similarly high index of refraction)?
I would be ashamed of myself and be tempted to leave the industry in disgrace if setting up DDNS and allowing a single port through a firewall took me 45 minutes.
Yes, rogue could have a 100% chance of success. Obviously their chance isn’t going to get any better than that, seems like an odd thing to bring up as a counter point though.
As for your suggested explanations for the assistance, none of that lines up with it being at worst non-impactful to do a paired group check. The rogue is completely unimpeded by helping the paladin, and in situations where their chance isn’t already 100% they might even have a better chance, since any possibility for success from the paladin could potentially cover a failure from the rogue. If the rogue only fails on a 3 or less and the paladin needs a 19, that raises the success rate from 85% alone to 86.5% with the paladin tagging along.
Even it was a group comprised entirely of equally skilled rogues I don’t think it makes sense to make them more stealthy in groups, which is what this rule does, for the simple fact that larger groups of people are enormously easier to spot.
If the simple fact that literally any pairing of two people is more stealthy then either of them alone isn’t enough reason to not use this rule for stealth then I don’t know what is.
So what, exactly, is the justification for how a rogue “covers for” a plate wearing paladin with no dex bonus? Keep in mind that that “half must succeed” rule means the rogue is very slightly more likely to succeed with a noisy partner than alone, assuming that success and failure are possible outcomes for both participants. Even if it’s impossible for the other to succeed the rogue is at worst unimpeded.
The 2024 rules specifically clarify that stealth is not typically a suitable skill to be rolled in such a way.
Yeah, absolutely. There are plenty of RAW ways to allow a bbeg to monologue, at least to some degree.
Of course it’s also entirely within the GM’s power to just tell the players to let it happen, but it definitely feels better when there’s some kind of in game reason why.