Oh noes! Final proof that D&D iz da demon worships! Burn da witchez - burn dem - buuuuurrrrnnn dems!!111!!
I am old enough to remember the first time around the d&d is devil worship bouy and had this existed back then there would have been burnings at the stake…
It would have been fun to use the Crowley reading for the book of many things, but that wouldn’t be much fun from a game play mechanic.
It kind of sounds like your friend won’t enjoy the kind of D&D you like to run, and that’s okay. You are allowed to enjoy running a challenging campaign with metered resources and meaningful stakes, and he is allowed to enjoy playing a shining hero that doesn’t worry about restraints and desperate measures. Both of those games are perfectly fine as long as everyone is having a good time.
I’m a newer DM who started a campaign 3 years ago during COVID with my brothers. Take my advice with a grain of salt because it may be different from others. My campaign is based around a group of characters that go from start to finish. My campaign revolves around some star wars fanfic I wrote back when I was too poor for college classes, yet knew my writing needed work. Thus, as a DM, I’m the one unwilling to allow player character death.
I am extremely lucky to have very mature players that mostly don’t try to cheese the game. I usually give them a time limit for a mission to be completed, either explicitly from the quest giver, or implicitly where “bad things” will start to happen the longer time goes on and the mission isn’t completed.
Could my players take more long rests? Absolutely, but that could cause them to fail that quest. Could my players take a long rest in the middle of the day right after waking up that morning? Absolutely, but they better have a plan for what they are going to be doing that night when all the shops are closed, it’s dark, and NPCs want to be left alone. And besides, it’s tough to fall asleep once your circadian rhythm is off… It would be a shame if characters needed to start rolling constitution checks to see if they can fall asleep to get that long rest for the next couple of days, and imposing exhaustion levels for not getting a long rest if it goes on long enough…
You’re NTA, but your friend is also NTA in my opinion. There is a lot of communication that needs to happen here and they also need to be able to trust that you’re not “trying to kill them”. You, as the DM are trying to tell their story in such a way that they feel epic, yet balance that by in-game consequences. It might be a good idea to try and sprinkle in some consequences for constantly resting, like the insomnia/circadian rhythm mentioned above, or maybe an ambush from bad guys that figure out the heroes location and prevent a long rest from happening. Forcing them to flee and hide after the ambush, wasting the rest of the day, might help them get moving. Those ambushes should be scary enough that they would go to great lengths to avoid a repeat.
And one final thought is to possibly think of your campaign like a movie. Yes, you’re telling their story, but you’re not telling every moment of their story. You’re not forcing their characters to stop for 3 meals a day, go to the bathroom, and occasionally wash their clothes and take baths. No, you’re hitting the important parts of the story, and filling the gaps with downtime where they can fabricate things, work “jobs”, etc,.
I hope something I’ve rambled about helps you out!
Adjusting the game to fit your table is the hardest challenge of all unfortunately. There are some players who don’t fit certain tables and DM styles and it’s your job to either make it work or tell them to find another table.
I think in your case you can make it work, but you’ve got a lot of work to do since you’re trying to accommodate a carebear happy fun time player at a table you want to run more and more as “hardcore-lite” experience.
I think two ideas I would have for you are to present your hardcore challenges as optional / non lethal challenges in a arena type colosseum. This lets you design difficult encounters but sandboxes them from consequences. If you want there to be consequences you’re going to make the carebear sad.
Another option is to come up with a McGuffin for the carebear that acts as protection for their character. E.g they fail there death saves and they turn into a rampaging monster due to some story reason. Lots of bad things happen to the party, but carebear wakes up the next day fine. You can use this to change the dynamic of “carebear” go frontline while we hit badguy. The big problem here is protecting the carebear leads to possible resentment from the other players so doing something like this is dangerous overall, but it can work depending on your players and how you do it.
For a TLDR I think you want to run more hard core games and your “carebear” player no longer fits at the table you want to run. In short you have to accommodate the “carebear”, change their mindset, or create a table of people ok with a more hardcore game.
I might be able to shed some light here. See, I generally DM in a way that generally appeals to players like your friend. I’m going to try and explain my reasoning and it might help you understand what he’s looking for.
In my games, the PCs generally succeed in their broad aims. We play to find out, not if they can, but how they do it, and what does it cost them. Character death is rare, and if I can help it, it’s never due to a single missed roll. Players get the opportunity to adjust their plans, sneak out when they are obviously outmatched, and are able to make miraculous escapes in the nick of time. When things go really wrong, are knocked unconscious and left for dead, or are captured. (If you are wondering how to run this, look at fate points in wfrp 2e, the idea is you give them a negative consequence and take them out of the fight instead of killing them outright).
This does not mean characters never die. A campaign that doesn’t end without a pc sacrificing themselves for the greater good is boring, but this makes it a conscious choice of the player.
This does not mean the PCs can just fail their way to success. They get plenty of opportunity to figure out a strategy that gives them the upper hand, to out-talk, out-plan, out-number or out-think foes too powerful to take on head on. But if they are dead set on doing it the stupid way, and I am satisfied I have provided enough information telegraphing the way it will end, then yeah, TPK away.
This all turned out a bit rambly, gonna send it anyway. I hope you can get some positives out of it if you do decide to read it. The last three (real) paragraphs are more structured, so if you’re only gonna read part of it, make it that part.
I have noticed that playing on Foundry (or roll20 or any other VTT software) often leads to more video-gamey/war-gamey campaigns. VTTs assist the DM and players with a lot of the gamey aspects, but offer much less assistance, if any, for the other aspects of ttrpgs. This leads to a lot of the potential issues you described. In my experience, having virtual battle-map after battle-map (or a single large one) thrown at you leads to reduced creativity, especially in newer players who do have experience playing computer games.
It takes both time and conscious effort to realize that what’s in front of you is not the actual game being played but just a projection. This counts for both sides of the DM screen. Some people will never clear that hurdle or even realize it’s there. That is fine for some people who do love the video-gamey aspects but not for others who want the opposite, or at least more of a balance.
For example, personally I also DM a Pathfinder campaign on Foundry and I constantly have to remind some of my players that they don’t need to click on all the relevant buttons the system already has programmed in. They can just say what they’re doing and do a naked roll if finding the button takes more than a second.
In regards to your last paragraph. You did get an in-game reason from your DM, although they were a bit indirect with it. Your DM telling you you might have to roll up a new character also means your in-game reason is: “I feel like I might die if I try this.” My advice in that specific situation would be to lead by example and roleplay your character going through those thoughts/emotions. I know it can be awkward, might even get a giggle or two from the other people around if nobody else has done any roleplaying yet this session or campaign, but someone has to make the first step.
Also don’t forget that the players have a lot of power in shaping the game. You do not have to explore a huge cave. You can walk out at any time, go to a town and talk to people instead. It’s kind of a dick move though if you let your DM prepare this cave for days, letting them believe that’s what you were interested in, only to then not engage with it. Of course that requires all the players (or at least a good number of them) to be on board. To find out what you all want to get out of this game together, communication outside the game is required.
I’m gonna be devil’s advocate for the last three paragraphs of my rambling response:
Do you actually KNOW that the enemies you’re fighting are arbitrary? Do you know there is no explanation for the mimic and the gelatinous cube? No explanation for the moths and larvae? No explanation for the Morlocks? Is it possible that your characters just haven’t found those explanations? I’ve placed enemies in my games before and the players never found out WHY they were there (the characters never even bothered thinking about it in some cases) but there was always a in-universe reason. And even if your DM didn’t initially have a reason, I would assume they will be able to come up with one on the spot.
For example, Mimics are described as: “A mimic can remain in its alternate form for an extremely long period of time, sometimes remaining disguised in a dungeon chamber for decades. Regardless of how long it waits, the mimic remains vigilant and alert, ready to strike at any moment.” They do seek to ambush adventurers so hiding in a cave that would be attractive to adventurers is the #1 thing they’d do. It could’ve wandered in 10, 20, 30 years ago, biding its time. Saying something like “I investigate the area around where the mimic was, trying to find any hints whether it has moved recently” after combat could lead to you learning more context about how the mimic got there. Same with the moths and larvae, you could try finding out if they’ve been born and died in this cave? If something made them flee their previous homes (especially “easy” if you have anything to converse with animals), etc. I don’t think it’s the DMs responsibility to give you context unprompted. It’s their responsibility to give you context once you’re looking for context, and even then, you still might need to pass certain rolls to get context. In the end, most of the time, the DM shouldn’t and wouldn’t give you any info your characters wouldn’t have.
This also extends to other areas you complained about. If you want more information but your DM doesn’t immediately provide it, prod them for it through character actions. “What is this Morlock I’m fighting wearing?” “What’s the color of the stones here?” “How high is the ceiling?” “Can I hear anything at all?”
I think you’re on the right track with your Update though. Best of luck!
Don’t listen to the people saying you should just quit. Talk to people first, especially the DM. Tell them about what kind of game you’d like to play. This is something that groups should generally do before they start a campaign (in what some people call session 0), especially if they’ve never played together. It’s possible that the DM isn’t consciously designing the sessions like this and is willing to change it up. Maybe they’re even happy to get some feedback and the other players might also enjoy some more roleplay. Maybe the DM can’t see themselves running a game like that, but another player would love to.
If it becomes clear that the kind of game they want to play and the kind of game you want to play are incompatible, then it’s perfectly fine to say “this isn’t for me” and stop playing with them.
He’s also Mr. Hands in Cyberpunk 2077, which is hugely relevant currently and a much bigger role than “breathy sex guy”. The people who wrote that headline are insane.
I don’t like this rule at all. Definitely among one of my least favorite rules in 5e. There are several things wrong with this rule. First, the stated reason why this rule exists is not balance, but it exists to make sure that a spellcasters turn isn’t taking too long, by limiting them to only one ‘noodly’ spell per turn to stop them from flipping through the books trying to find the two perfect spells per turn, rather than just one (cantrips are easier to remember and use, I suppose). Unfortunately it fails at this in my opinion because of reason number two: the placement in the book. The rule is listed under the “bonus action spells” header in the spellcasting section. This is right between the “action spells” and “reaction spells” sections, and both of those just say “You can casts a spell with an action/reaction” and have no real rules. So people basically glance over it and assume there’s nothing important there. This means that new players (thepeople who will take a ton of time on their turns if they have to find two spells) don’t know this rule exist. The people who do know about this rule don’t need it, because they already know what spells they want to use and are much faster at taking their turns (hopefully). Also, the fluff is entierly nonsensical “Because bonus actions spells are espescially swift, you [can’t cast other spells on the same turn]”, what? Wouldn’t it make more sense that swift spells would leave you with more time to cast other spells?
Honestly, it’s even worse than that, because once you know the rule it actually causes the game to slow down because of how noodly it is. When you are casting a spell you stop and think “Wait a minute, is this allowed according to the bonus action casting rule?”, and then you have to find that out (hopefully not on your turn, but it causes you to have to look up this rule more that you really should have to look up any rule). If I am DMing I really don’t care about my players following this rule, but if I am playing I will always follow it to the letter (unless the DM says otherwise, of course), because I have had to look this rule up so many times I can now quote it verbatim from memory.
I think that this rule could be ok, but it needs some changes. First it needs to have it’s own section in the rules book “Casting multiple spells in a turn”, or something. Don’t hide it among stuff people skip over. Second, it should probably be changed to just “Because the casting of spells is a taxing affair, you can not cast more than one spell of first level or higher in the same turn.”. This is how most people think the rule works anyway, the fluff makes a ton more sense, it is simple enough that you don’t have to look it up constantly, and as a bonus it finally would answer all those people who are very confused about how you can cast counterspell in the middle of casting your other spell (you wouldn’t be able to, because that would be two leveled spells in a turn, except it you are counter-counterspelling to save your cantrip, I suppose. But that’s a very strange edge case.)
@Nikko882@DonnieDarkmode I agree, it should be more clearly and prominently stated. I also missed it the first time and then needed some time to grasp it well. But I don't think its only about simplicity and quickness. There might come out lots of nasty and munchkenizer spell combos out there without this rule.
Honestly, as far as I’ve seen most spells aren’t an issue. Only sorcerer quickened spell really makes it an issue, but that’s mainly an issue with quickened spell rather than anything else.
I also believe Jeremy Crawford or someone has mentioned that balance wasn’t the concern when the role was put in place. I’m not able to look for the source right now, but I think Treantmonk had it in a video about this rule.
@Nikko882 I don't know, the quite simple option of throwing two fireballs in a row seems to me quite heavy. With quickened, haste or whatever. Although it took me a while to grasp it, I think limiting spells is a good thing.
Haste already says you can’t use the action it grants to cast a spell. If quickened spell had a similar thing (“If you quicken a spell you can’t casts another leveled spell on the same turn.” or something) it definitely wouldn’t be an issue.
So you actually can cast 2 leveled spells per round, even RAW, because that reaction spell would be on somebody else’s turn. Interestingly the “per turn” distinction also permits the use of sneak attack more than once per round. The limit on it is once per turn, and it’s possible to make a reaction attack that fits the requirements for sneak attack on somebody else’s turn. I was surprised when I read this in the Sage Advice compendium, but it’s because I misremembered sneak attack as being once per round.
Ah, yes, sorry. I mixed up my terminology a bit there, good catch. Every instance of “round” in my comment was supposed to be “turn”. I’ll edit it. But yes, sneak attack is also once per turn, and not round, which is very odd. It honestly seems like an oversight that just happily caused the balance for the rogue to catch up a bit. Rogue doesn’t really have any ways to consistently trigger it, and while it seems like it might be a case of “extra attacks should get the same effects as regular attacks” (if that makes sense to you) then it is extremely odd that the Barbarian’s advantage from Reckless Attack doesn’t last for the round, only for your own turn. So AoOs don’t have the advantage.
Ah ok got it. It definitely trips me up all the time as well haha.
I actually don’t mind the difference for barbarian and rogue because I see it as an additional attack and not an extra attack. So like I think treating the +1 attack from the extra attack feature differently than the use of a resource (reaction) to make an additional attack is fine mechanically. I feel like I could sit down with a player who didn’t like that ruling and give a proper reason for it besides “I’m just following the words on the page”.
I use foundry and love it. I’ve switched to PF2E but ran 5e on there for about 2 years. It works great for doing a lot of automation for you and you can still throw up a background image for TotM scenes. Definitely my favorite method I’ve tried for our virtual group. Though when we have In-person sessions we still use foundry with eneryone on laptops because it’s so much easier.
Wow, that is an excellent article. I’ve been wanting to try and host an In-person game for a bit but the whole “8 laptops” thing is a bit cumbersome. I think there is definitely a viable solution there to let people play from the couch and just hot seat with a laptop while the game is up on the TV.
Foundry makes a great information hub, even locally. All your DM handouts, their character sheets and notes, bags of holding, etc can live inside it. No more “who has X thing?”
I usually have a couple of maps set up for global use. One is the world/region map and I move a toke on it to show where the party is. Journal entries are pinned to locations and I reveal them as the party learns info.
Then I’ll usually have a map set up as essentially their “planning table” with all the info relevant to the current events, images, etc.
It’s set up so that even if we are running a combat in another map, they can swap back and reference something themselves if they want. I can always draw their attention back to the combat encounter map on demand if needed.
Also, if you also run 5e-tools it makes life even easier. You can import all sorts of things from 5e-tools into foundry with no need to spend time re-creating spells and items and such
When you cast a leveled spell using a bonus action, the only other spells you can cast with your action on that turn is a cantrip.
I, personally, think it’s confusing and doesn’t really add much in the way of balance to the game. Let the wizard burn all his spells twice as fast and be useless for the rest of the adventuring day. If your adventures have meaningful consequences for taking too long clearing a dungeon, it’ll work itself out.
Yeah it does make quickened spell way more powerful, and there’s not much love for sorcerer amongst the people I DM for, so I haven’t really seen it in combat.
I think the rule is worded really badly in a way that makes it more confusing that it needs to be.
As for the rule itself, my table usually hand waves it and lets you cast whatever you want with your bonus action and action, provided you have the slots to do it. We haven’t had any issues with that feeling game breaking for us yet.
Yeah I’ve traditionally waived it myself, and both as a player and DM haven’t ever noticed any issues with that. As it stands I see no real reason to enforce it, but I always try to really understand the reason for a rule before I decide to ignore it
Yikes; I’ve got one player who would go straight for a Sorcerer so he could just do Sickening Radiance followed by a quickened Wall of Force to just microwave whatever he wanted.
I feel like this is one of those rules that’s only really necessary if you have a player who cheeses it like that. If a player discovers it and uses it in moderation, well, that’s less likely to break things. If you have a player who builds their character to exploit it…
I, personally, think this is a totally valid tactic, and wouldn’t be upset if a player used it in my game. One of the first things we go over in Session Zero, though, is that your characters, while unusual, are not unique. Any BBEG worth his stuff is capable of scrying on your tactics and hiring a hit squad that can copy or counter your tactics.
If a player started doing this repeatedly and trivialized many encounters, maybe the next group has his own sorcerer that can do that, or knows disintegrate, or can teleport the big stompy guy into the obvious spellcaster’s face. Cheese isn’t an arms race the players can win.
Dungeon World’s Fronts system is awesome. Every time my players take too long, I advance a danger and cackle behind my screen. The players are scared of me.
I just make sure there are some consequences, even if it’s something like “There are other things that live in this dungeon you’re camping in, and they just found the pile of bodies you’ve left strewn about and have raised the alarm.”
Even this isn’t exactly correct - that would allow you to cast reaction spells on your turn, but the rules do not.
When you cast a leveled spell using a bonus action, the only other spells you can cast on that turn is a cantrip, with your action.
The difference is you can’t cast more leveled spells at all, and you can’t cast any spells including cantrips if they don’t use an action. That last part doesn’t usually matter, unless you have multiple bonus actions, or reaction cantrips (which appeared in the playtest of next edition).
Edited to reduce misinformation, left the wrong in place so corrections make sense
As a testament to how terrible this rule is, not even this is the right one. The rule is, when you cast a spell (including cantrips) with your bonus action you can’t cast any other spells except a cantrip with a casting time of one action on the same turn. So casting Shillelagh stops you from casting leveled spells and (although I’m not sure why you would want to) from using your action to start or continue casting a cantrip like Mending, because it has a cast time of 1 minute (Aka 10 actions, aka not one action).
This cements two things for me. The first is that I hate the wording of things in 5e, especially it being called a Bonus Action. I think that specific phrase confuses people.
The second is that this is much easier in Pathfinder 2e. You can cast any spells as long as you have the actions for it using your 3 action turn. Cantrips are usually one action, and greater spells usually range from two to three actions. Simplifies this confusing mess quite easily.
Yeah, the more I play DnD and other games, the less I end up liking 5e’s system of action, bonus action, reaction. Systems that just have actions are much more appealing, imo.
This seems like a good opportunity to get creative with your magic items!
The wizard got ambushed from behind and needs to get out of reach with his Misty step (Bonus Action). Then he turns the tide on his attackers with his Staff of Fireball (Action)!
True, although I feel like requiring proper resource management would encourage the same sort of creativity. Maybe you want to keep that 3rd level spell slot available in case you need a counterspell, or to cast Fly for exploration later on
I think the rule as is, is fine. Mercers change to allow up to 2nd level is also fine, but borders the balance scale.
Come to think of it, I could see myself implementing the following house rule: Up to level 8, only cantrips, up to level 14 you can do 1st levels too and after that you can use 2nd levels.
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