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[DnD 5E] You can't triple stamp a double stamp!

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  • NarbusNarbus Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Again, no I am not. This rule is not about monster creation. It does not involve monsters. It does not involve creating them. It is a rule about weapon size and what happens if you wield a weapon meant for a larger attacker. Monsters don't do that. The word 'monster' does not appear in the sentence. It's not a rule about monsters. Repeatedly saying that it is a monster creation rule will not make it one.

    This argument is like asserting that the rules for damaging an object don't apply if a player is trying to cut a rope during a combat, because the rules about damaging objects aren't located in the 'Combat' section. Meanwhile, the table for improvising damage is in the 'Combat' section - so clearly it must not apply if a player is, say, hit by rubble in a collapsing tunnel outside of combat! Hey, the rules for how to attune to a magic item are in the DMG, not the PHB, and they say 'creature' instead of player, they must not apply to players! It's nonsense.

    Here is the exact image, taken from the DMG:
    mmczGb8.jpg
    After they said "monster" four times, in the in the Determine Damage subsection of the Creating a Monster Stat Block section of the Monster Creation section of the DMG, they said creature once and you latched onto that. In the opening sentence of that section it even reads "If you want a full monster stat block, use the following method to create your new monster". The part about oversized weapons comes after that.

    Abbalah. Buddy. You're house ruling this based solely off a shaky interpretation of the pretty plain English. I've made no secret of my thoughts on how this game is presented, but you're reading into one use of a synonym to a weird degree.

    Even if that weren't there, the Players Guide section on weapons specifically mentions that, when it comes to size, only heavy weapons have anything to do with it, and that just gives disadvantage to small wielders. It goes so far as to direct you to the Heavy Weapon section of the book if you check "Size: Weapons" in the index.

    Also, the Enlarge spell states explicitly that the extra 1d4 comes from the increased size of your weapons:
    "The target’s weapons also grow to match its new size. While these weapons are enlarged, the target’s attacks with them deal 1d4 extra damage."
    I can photograph that too, if you need.

    You're houseruling this, in a way that I never would, specifically because it makes a level 2 spell turn any physical character into an engine of destruction.

    Narbus on
  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    The Deathknight has a longsword attack that deals 1d8 + strength + 4d8 necrotic. If you pick up its longsword do you get to deal 4d8 necrotic every attack?
    In what way is "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker" related to monster creation?

    If you want to have a creature that deals more damage than it otherwise should because it has a bigger weapon you may apply modifiers like disadvantage to the attack roll to compensate.

    If you wanted to extrapolate it would be via the "heavy" ruling but as it stands you're simply limited to using standard sized gear as a player.

    Edit: As an example there is no "small greatsword" in the PHB despite that being an entirely sensible thing for a halfling to have

    Goumindong on
    wbBv3fj.png
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Goumindong wrote: »
    The Deathknight has a longsword attack that deals 1d8 + strength + 4d8 necrotic. If you pick up its longsword do you get to deal 4d8 necrotic every attack?
    In what way is "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker" related to monster creation?

    If you want to have a creature that deals more damage than it otherwise should because it has a bigger weapon you may apply modifiers like disadvantage to the attack roll to compensate.

    If you wanted to extrapolate it would be via the "heavy" ruling but as it stands you're simply limited to using standard sized gear as a player.

    Edit: As an example there is no "small greatsword" in the PHB despite that being an entirely sensible thing for a halfling to have

    I mean technically in my setting the death knight's sword is definitely a magic item that comes with the extra damage on attunement as a magic item...also it's going to keep trying to poison your mind.

  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    Narbus wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Again, no I am not. This rule is not about monster creation. It does not involve monsters. It does not involve creating them. It is a rule about weapon size and what happens if you wield a weapon meant for a larger attacker. Monsters don't do that. The word 'monster' does not appear in the sentence. It's not a rule about monsters. Repeatedly saying that it is a monster creation rule will not make it one.

    This argument is like asserting that the rules for damaging an object don't apply if a player is trying to cut a rope during a combat, because the rules about damaging objects aren't located in the 'Combat' section. Meanwhile, the table for improvising damage is in the 'Combat' section - so clearly it must not apply if a player is, say, hit by rubble in a collapsing tunnel outside of combat! Hey, the rules for how to attune to a magic item are in the DMG, not the PHB, and they say 'creature' instead of player, they must not apply to players! It's nonsense.

    Here is the exact image, taken from the DMG:
    mmczGb8.jpg
    After they said "monster" four times, in the in the Determine Damage subsection of the Creating a Monster Stat Block section of the Monster Creation section of the DMG, they said creature once and you latched onto that. In the opening sentence of that section it even reads "If you want a full monster stat block, use the following method to create your new monster". The part about oversized weapons comes after that.

    Abbalah. Buddy. You're house ruling this based solely off a shaky interpretation of the pretty plain English. I've made no secret of my thoughts on how this game is presented, but you're reading into one use of a synonym to a weird degree.

    Even if that weren't there, the Players Guide section on weapons specifically mentions that, when it comes to size, only heavy weapons have anything to do with it, and that just gives disadvantage to small wielders. It goes so far as to direct you to the Heavy Weapon section of the book if you check "Size: Weapons" in the index.

    Also, the Enlarge spell states explicitly that the extra 1d4 comes from the increased size of your weapons:
    "The target’s weapons also grow to match its new size. While these weapons are enlarged, the target’s attacks with them deal 1d4 extra damage."
    I can photograph that too, if you need.

    You're houseruling this, in a way that I never would, specifically because it makes a level 2 spell turn any physical character into an engine of destruction.

    No. First of all, the section we're talking about using the word 'monster' once, before going on to use the word 'creature' three times. Secondly, I'm not especially interested in the Enlarge spell, specifically called it out as an outlier, discussed why it was probably an outlier, and brought this entire subject up in reference to the fact that a homebrew class that let a player become large-sized was probably going to be too powerful to be fair, not so I could rules lawyer my way to stomping all over everything with Enlarge. Thirdly, 'monster' and 'creature' are not synonyms in 5e.

    As for what the PHB has to say (or rather, does not have to say) on the subject, I'll quote my response to the same basic point since it just got botp'd:
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Moridin889 wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    The player's handbook is required to play Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, in general, unless you're just using the basic/srd rules

    The Dungeon Master's Guide is not required at all to play the game, it is a supplement to help the dungeon master. If that applied to players, it would be in the player's handbook. You might as well say that every suggestion in the DMG also applies to player character's rules, that their hit dice has some relationship to their AC for example, or that a dwarf's poison resistance means they should have less hitpoints or ac to compensate

    Suggestions for monster creation have no bearing on the game rules for players

    No, those other parts of the section consistently say 'monster', not 'creature', pretty much throughout, with the exception of a few generally-applicable statements, like "a creature with 5d8+5 hit points has an average of 27 hit points". This particular portion repeatedly says 'creature' instead. Things that say 'creature' apply to players, which is why players are, for example, a valid target for the Cure Wounds spell, which only targets 'a creature you touch'.

    Moreover, while 'one way you can determine a monster's damage output is to base the monster's attack damage on the weapon it is using' is a suggestion for monster creation, 'large weapons deal double the normal weapon dice' and 'a creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker' are not. Those are just rules for how large weapons work; they have nothing to do with building a monster, and the latter can't ever even apply to a monster unless you make the inexplicable decision to intentionally give one the wrong size weapon so it has disadvantage on all its attacks (in spite of believing that doing so has no other mechanical effect) - it is strictly a rule for how to deal with a player choosing to pick up and swing an oversized weapon.

    Rules for the mechanics of oversized weapons are no more or less specifically special 'game rules for players' than rules for the mechanics of magic items, or diseases - which are also located in the DMG. And again, it's a pretty big reach to say 'well obviously if these rules were meant to apply to players they'd be in the player's handbook not the DMG, QED' in a system where rules that demonstrably apply to spellcasting monsters are located in the player's handbook instead of the monster manual or DMG.

    All of the rules for playing the game for players are in the PHB

    If you, like mike mearls, want to homebrew it this way because it's more fun, you can, but it's not official

    This is not accurate, 'here is how to adjudicate unusual equipment' is a rule for DMs not players, and it's as official a rule as anything can be in a system intentionally designed to be constructed entirely from optional house rules and duct tape.

    I also, as an aside, deeply enjoy the notion of the lead designer of a game regularly houseruling his table because he thinks it's more fun than the other rules that he also wrote, decided on, and made official. Call me crazy, but if you've got a secret set of other, more fun rules in a folder somewhere, maybe those are the ones that should have gone in the book, Mike. [/spoiler]

    I mean, not everyone agrees with the idea that a second level spell should turn a martial class into an engine of destruction though

    it's FREQUENTLY brought up as a cudgel against 5e that people run different variations on the rules, but this absolutely mystifies me, your preferred ruleset is farther away from mine than the default rules are, most likely. I doubt any of our gaming tables use exactly the same rules and complaining about that is like being upset that every sandwich isn't your favorite kind of sandwich

    I'm not interested in arguing whether or not monster creation rules apply to players, it doesnt matter because we just run how we wanna run regardless unless you're playing AL

    I'm not discussing my 'preferred ruleset', nor am I discussing monster creation rules nor whether they apply to players. I'm discussing a rule about weapons and size that is literally written in the book. If you want to houserule something different because you don't like where in the book they put that rule, you are of course free to do so.

    That rule is not anywhere under items, or the various weapon sections or the size change spells, or anywhere else except under the heading monster creation.

    You are house ruling that monster creation rules apply to player characters.

    Again, no I am not. This rule is not about monster creation. It does not involve monsters. It does not involve creating them. It is a rule about weapon size and what happens if you wield a weapon meant for a larger attacker. Monsters don't do that. The word 'monster' does not appear in the sentence. It's not a rule about monsters. Repeatedly saying that it is a monster creation rule will not make it one.

    This argument is like asserting that the rules for damaging an object don't apply if a player is trying to cut a rope during a combat, because the rules about damaging objects aren't located in the 'Combat' section. Meanwhile, the table for improvising damage is in the 'Combat' section - so clearly it must not apply if a player is, say, hit by rubble in a collapsing tunnel outside of combat! Hey, the rules for how to attune to a magic item are in the DMG, not the PHB, and they say 'creature' instead of player, they must not apply to players! It's nonsense.

    Except that it is literally step 11 of monster creation that you're citing, and all rules for for sizing up players come with explicit damage modification.

    In what way is "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker" related to monster creation? Why do you need that information? Which part of creating a monster prompts a question that is answered by that rule? There are two sections giving two different methods of calculating monster damage and this rule only appears in one of them; does that mean if I calculate my monster's damage using the other method then this rule doesn't apply and I can use an oversized weapon without penalty? What scenario is likely to prompt a question that you need to refer to that rule to answer?

    Are you asserting that a player who uses a weapon sized for a larger attacker will not have disadvantage on his attacks, since the rule about it is in the monster creation section and therefore doesn't apply to players? An orc that picks up a large-sized sword will have disadvantage on his swings, but a player who does the same will experience no penalty, because the orc is a monster and the player is a player and the rule only applies to monsters even though it says 'creature' because it's in the monster creation section?

    The answer is that it's not related to monster creation at all, is clearly intended to apply to players, and that responding to 'here are some examples why simply citing the section or book that a rule appears in as proof that it doesn't apply elsewhere is a bad argument' by just citing the section of the book again isn't even a rebuttal.

    So we're asserting that the PHB doesn't say anything about weapon size outside of the Heavy tag, and that the rules in this section do not apply to players. One of the rules in this section is "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker. You can rule that a weapon sized for an attacker two or more sizes larger is too big for the creature to use at all". Does a medium-sized player who picks up a weapon sized for a large-sized creature have disadvantage on his attacks, or can he use that weapon without penalty? Can he use a huge-sized weapon without penalty? After all, the PHB doesn't say anything about weapon size and the rule that says a creature may be unable to use a weapon with a 2-category size difference is in the monster creation section, where it must only apply to monsters.
    Goumindong wrote: »
    The Deathknight has a longsword attack that deals 1d8 + strength + 4d8 necrotic. If you pick up its longsword do you get to deal 4d8 necrotic every attack?

    Is the 4d8 necrotic damage a property of the weapon, or a monster ability? Is there a rule somewhere in the DMG that says "A creature attacking with a Deathknight's longsword deals an additional 4d8 necrotic damage"?
    If you want to have a creature that deals more damage than it otherwise should because it has a bigger weapon you may apply modifiers like disadvantage to the attack roll to compensate.

    But wait! The weapon doesn't do more damage based on its size, which is kind of your whole position! If it did it'd do more damage when swung by a player, too, because the damage would be a property of the size of the weapon, not of the size of the creature using it, and even if you decided that the rule somehow only applied to monsters, creating a situation where a medium-sized monster with a large weapon mysteriously deals twice as much damage as a medium-sized player with the same weapon and the same stats, the rule still only instructs you to increase the damage if the creature is large and using a weapon that is appropriately sized for it, neither of which applies to a medium monster with a large weapon.

    Abbalah on
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    Actually, in all reality, damage is determined by weapon, which is moderately arbitrary.

    Like the horned devil's fork doesn't correspond with any reach weapon in the phb. It's just arbitrarily set at 2d8

    The balor's whip is doing d6 for damage not d4s, but that's a whip!

    Baphomet's heartcleaver (a huge glaive) is only doing 2d8 not the 3 it should be doing according to this hard and fast weapon size rule you've found.

    I have like 14 more pages of large or bigger monsters to go through but I'm sure I'll find more examples.

    Sleep on
  • BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Brainleech wrote: »
    What if you want to create a monster as a PC like a Mindflayer bard?
    What if you want to create a rival band? Or Ex members of the current band?

    Then you use the rules for PC creation and design a custom race for mindflayer. If you want to create a rival band you will create them as monsters. Ex members of the band should have one stat block as a PC and one as an NPC

    I felt in the case of the mindflayer bard they are using their weird powers to cover up the fact they are a mindflayer. They set out on this adventure because something undid and ruined a plan set in motion centuries ago.
    So to find out who it was and why. They remembered one of the adventures they ate took up their equipment and headed to the nearby town to offer their services.
    So to the group they look like whatever {a human a elf or whatever I would just roll to see what I got} So they have their main quest of finding out who and why. SO they can eat a few of the choice people to see if they have any info for them under the guise of tuning my instrument. Since it would take a drastic attack from me to drop my disguise.

    I thought of the Rival Band as one as whatever I ate belonged to since they left them for dead before the mindflayer that group or person is really curious why they are still alive.
    There were tons of ideas but finding a group that would let me play this is well inpossible

  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    Actually, in all reality, damage is determined by weapon, which is moderately arbitrary.

    Like the horned devil's fork doesn't correspond with any reach weapon in the phb. It's just arbitrarily set at 2d8

    The balor's whip is doing d6 for damage not d4s, but that's a whip!

    Baphomet's heartcleaver (a huge glaive) is only doing 2d8 not the 3 it should be doing according to this hard and fast weapon size rule you've found.

    I have like 14 more pages of large or bigger monsters to go through but I'm sure I'll find more examples.

    Okay so if the damage is determined by the weapon, and an Ettin has a battleaxe that deals 2d8 damage, and a large-sized player takes it away and hits the Ettin with it, it will deal...2d8 damage still? Because the damage is determined by the weapon? And the reason the Ettin's battleaxe is dealing 2d8 damage instead of the 1d8 a normal battleaxe does is because it's a large-sized creature using a large-sized battleaxe and thus has double the normal damage dice? And since it's still the same large-sized battleaxe being used by a large-sized creature, it will deal the same damage that it did in the Ettin's hand? Because the damage is a property of the weapon?

    Because that is literally exactly what I have been saying this entire time.

  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    @Brainleech

    I am sorry i thought you were asking hypotheticals relating to the ongoing discussion. If you want specifics that is a different question.

    More or less i think your mindfayer idea isn't going to work in a sit down session with other people. Because those other people are going to have their own ideas of what they want to be doing and you have set yourself up as both against the party and on a secret important plot. It would work fine for a novel or a video game but i have a feeling that sitting down with other people would have problems.

    Especially with the rival band thing. Because then you're dictating the terms of the villain groups to your DM. If you want to run that campaign for a group of people then that we can work with.

    @Abbalah

    You're fundamentally not understanding how the game is constructed. Its not computer code that you can exploit by finding the right construction or bug. Edit: Or to make it analogous you're reading a portion that has been commented out so that other coders(DM's) can look at it and determine how to make changes to the code and you're assuming that the program works like that.
    Is the 4d8 necrotic damage a property of the weapon, or a monster ability?

    Doesn't say. It uses the same language for any other weapon that any other monster has though. Monster weapons are just horribly inconsistent because they tend to do as much damage as the monster needs and not as much damage as a simulation would have.

    Goumindong on
    wbBv3fj.png
  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    Goumindong wrote: »
    You're fundamentally not understanding how the game is constructed. Its not computer code that you can exploit by finding the right construction or bug. Edit: Or to make it analogous you're reading a portion that has been commented out so that other coders(DM's) can look at it and determine how to make changes to the code and you're assuming that the program works like that.

    I mean, treating words as having meaning is not some sort of weird pedantic programming trickery, adopting a series of positions that are alternately very flexible about what words mean but very strict about where exactly those words must be located is a far more exploitative way to have this discussion, and if we've just returned to the idea that the rules aren't the rules because you're not supposed to treat them as meaning what they say (except when it's very important that you do so precisely!) then we're not really having a useful conversation.

    You have so far variously claimed that effects that make you large-sized 'typically' only give you +1d4 damage [Enlarge/Reduce is, to my knowledge, the only thing that does this], that effects that make you large-sized grant no particular damage increase, that the rule doesn't apply to players because players are not creatures, that players are creatures but 'not in that sense' because when certain sections of the rules say 'creature' they are actually referring to some other more specific thing, that the PHB does not say anything about weapon size, that the PHB limits you to using only 'standard' size weapons, that the rules in the monster creation section apply to monster weapons, that monster weapons are horribly inconsistent because they don't follow the rules laid out in the monster creation section, that a Deathknight's sword should be treated a particular way because it uses 'the same language' as some consistent set of monster weapons, and also that I am fundamentally not understanding how the game is constructed because expecting things that use the same language to be treated the same is just treating it like computer code you can exploit.

    Suggesting that your position is inconsistent does not exactly require me to be playing the 'go to the store and buy a gallon of milk; if they have eggs, buy a dozen' game.

  • Moridin889Moridin889 Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Moridin889 wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    The player's handbook is required to play Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, in general, unless you're just using the basic/srd rules

    The Dungeon Master's Guide is not required at all to play the game, it is a supplement to help the dungeon master. If that applied to players, it would be in the player's handbook. You might as well say that every suggestion in the DMG also applies to player character's rules, that their hit dice has some relationship to their AC for example, or that a dwarf's poison resistance means they should have less hitpoints or ac to compensate

    Suggestions for monster creation have no bearing on the game rules for players

    No, those other parts of the section consistently say 'monster', not 'creature', pretty much throughout, with the exception of a few generally-applicable statements, like "a creature with 5d8+5 hit points has an average of 27 hit points". This particular portion repeatedly says 'creature' instead. Things that say 'creature' apply to players, which is why players are, for example, a valid target for the Cure Wounds spell, which only targets 'a creature you touch'.

    Moreover, while 'one way you can determine a monster's damage output is to base the monster's attack damage on the weapon it is using' is a suggestion for monster creation, 'large weapons deal double the normal weapon dice' and 'a creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker' are not. Those are just rules for how large weapons work; they have nothing to do with building a monster, and the latter can't ever even apply to a monster unless you make the inexplicable decision to intentionally give one the wrong size weapon so it has disadvantage on all its attacks (in spite of believing that doing so has no other mechanical effect) - it is strictly a rule for how to deal with a player choosing to pick up and swing an oversized weapon.

    Rules for the mechanics of oversized weapons are no more or less specifically special 'game rules for players' than rules for the mechanics of magic items, or diseases - which are also located in the DMG. And again, it's a pretty big reach to say 'well obviously if these rules were meant to apply to players they'd be in the player's handbook not the DMG, QED' in a system where rules that demonstrably apply to spellcasting monsters are located in the player's handbook instead of the monster manual or DMG.

    All of the rules for playing the game for players are in the PHB

    If you, like mike mearls, want to homebrew it this way because it's more fun, you can, but it's not official

    This is not accurate, 'here is how to adjudicate unusual equipment' is a rule for DMs not players, and it's as official a rule as anything can be in a system intentionally designed to be constructed entirely from optional house rules and duct tape.

    I also, as an aside, deeply enjoy the notion of the lead designer of a game regularly houseruling his table because he thinks it's more fun than the other rules that he also wrote, decided on, and made official. Call me crazy, but if you've got a secret set of other, more fun rules in a folder somewhere, maybe those are the ones that should have gone in the book, Mike. [/spoiler]

    I mean, not everyone agrees with the idea that a second level spell should turn a martial class into an engine of destruction though

    it's FREQUENTLY brought up as a cudgel against 5e that people run different variations on the rules, but this absolutely mystifies me, your preferred ruleset is farther away from mine than the default rules are, most likely. I doubt any of our gaming tables use exactly the same rules and complaining about that is like being upset that every sandwich isn't your favorite kind of sandwich

    I'm not interested in arguing whether or not monster creation rules apply to players, it doesnt matter because we just run how we wanna run regardless unless you're playing AL

    I'm not discussing my 'preferred ruleset', nor am I discussing monster creation rules nor whether they apply to players. I'm discussing a rule about weapons and size that is literally written in the book. If you want to houserule something different because you don't like where in the book they put that rule, you are of course free to do so.

    That rule is not anywhere under items, or the various weapon sections or the size change spells, or anywhere else except under the heading monster creation.

    You are house ruling that monster creation rules apply to player characters.

    Again, no I am not. This rule is not about monster creation. It does not involve monsters. It does not involve creating them. It is a rule about weapon size and what happens if you wield a weapon meant for a larger attacker. Monsters don't do that. The word 'monster' does not appear in the sentence. It's not a rule about monsters. Repeatedly saying that it is a monster creation rule will not make it one.

    This argument is like asserting that the rules for damaging an object don't apply if a player is trying to cut a rope during a combat, because the rules about damaging objects aren't located in the 'Combat' section. Meanwhile, the table for improvising damage is in the 'Combat' section - so clearly it must not apply if a player is, say, hit by rubble in a collapsing tunnel outside of combat! Hey, the rules for how to attune to a magic item are in the DMG, not the PHB, and they say 'creature' instead of player, they must not apply to players! It's nonsense.

    Except that it is literally step 11 of monster creation that you're citing, and all rules for for sizing up players come with explicit damage modification.

    In what way is "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker" related to monster creation? Why do you need that information? Which part of creating a monster prompts a question that is answered by that rule? There are two sections giving two different methods of calculating monster damage and this rule only appears in one of them; does that mean if I calculate my monster's damage using the other method then this rule doesn't apply and I can use an oversized weapon without penalty? What scenario is likely to prompt a question that you need to refer to that rule to answer?

    Are you asserting that a player who uses a weapon sized for a larger attacker will not have disadvantage on his attacks, since the rule about it is in the monster creation section and therefore doesn't apply to players? An orc that picks up a large-sized sword will have disadvantage on his swings, but a player who does the same will experience no penalty, because the orc is a monster and the player is a player and the rule only applies to monsters even though it says 'creature' because it's in the monster creation section?

    The answer is that it's not related to monster creation at all, is clearly intended to apply to players, and that responding to 'here are some examples why simply citing the section or book that a rule appears in as proof that it doesn't apply elsewhere is a bad argument' by just citing the section of the book again isn't even a rebuttal.



    Trying to cut a rope during combat is indeed covered under the Combat section of the PHB. Even talks about objects taking damage.

    Taking damage is covered under Combat and also covered under The Environment in case anyone wanted to get pedantic about it.

    It is a heading under Section 11 of creating a monster

    The paragaphs preceding and following the rule about disadvantage with oversized weapons include the word monster and have examples for monsters as part of the paragraph.

    Weapons already have a keyword dealing with disadvantage. It's Heavy. Alternatively your DM can rule that it's an exotic/improvised weapon that you don't have proficiency with. Hey look, disadvantage. There are already rules in place for players. This section is not. Your Large sized longsword (aka normal greatsword) does not get 2d8 instead of 2d6. That's dumb, and clearly not what the rules are based around, given the entirety of stat blocks for everything.

    Moridin889 on
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Moridin889 wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    The player's handbook is required to play Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, in general, unless you're just using the basic/srd rules

    The Dungeon Master's Guide is not required at all to play the game, it is a supplement to help the dungeon master. If that applied to players, it would be in the player's handbook. You might as well say that every suggestion in the DMG also applies to player character's rules, that their hit dice has some relationship to their AC for example, or that a dwarf's poison resistance means they should have less hitpoints or ac to compensate

    Suggestions for monster creation have no bearing on the game rules for players

    No, those other parts of the section consistently say 'monster', not 'creature', pretty much throughout, with the exception of a few generally-applicable statements, like "a creature with 5d8+5 hit points has an average of 27 hit points". This particular portion repeatedly says 'creature' instead. Things that say 'creature' apply to players, which is why players are, for example, a valid target for the Cure Wounds spell, which only targets 'a creature you touch'.

    Moreover, while 'one way you can determine a monster's damage output is to base the monster's attack damage on the weapon it is using' is a suggestion for monster creation, 'large weapons deal double the normal weapon dice' and 'a creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker' are not. Those are just rules for how large weapons work; they have nothing to do with building a monster, and the latter can't ever even apply to a monster unless you make the inexplicable decision to intentionally give one the wrong size weapon so it has disadvantage on all its attacks (in spite of believing that doing so has no other mechanical effect) - it is strictly a rule for how to deal with a player choosing to pick up and swing an oversized weapon.

    Rules for the mechanics of oversized weapons are no more or less specifically special 'game rules for players' than rules for the mechanics of magic items, or diseases - which are also located in the DMG. And again, it's a pretty big reach to say 'well obviously if these rules were meant to apply to players they'd be in the player's handbook not the DMG, QED' in a system where rules that demonstrably apply to spellcasting monsters are located in the player's handbook instead of the monster manual or DMG.

    All of the rules for playing the game for players are in the PHB

    If you, like mike mearls, want to homebrew it this way because it's more fun, you can, but it's not official

    This is not accurate, 'here is how to adjudicate unusual equipment' is a rule for DMs not players, and it's as official a rule as anything can be in a system intentionally designed to be constructed entirely from optional house rules and duct tape.

    I also, as an aside, deeply enjoy the notion of the lead designer of a game regularly houseruling his table because he thinks it's more fun than the other rules that he also wrote, decided on, and made official. Call me crazy, but if you've got a secret set of other, more fun rules in a folder somewhere, maybe those are the ones that should have gone in the book, Mike. [/spoiler]

    I mean, not everyone agrees with the idea that a second level spell should turn a martial class into an engine of destruction though

    it's FREQUENTLY brought up as a cudgel against 5e that people run different variations on the rules, but this absolutely mystifies me, your preferred ruleset is farther away from mine than the default rules are, most likely. I doubt any of our gaming tables use exactly the same rules and complaining about that is like being upset that every sandwich isn't your favorite kind of sandwich

    I'm not interested in arguing whether or not monster creation rules apply to players, it doesnt matter because we just run how we wanna run regardless unless you're playing AL

    I'm not discussing my 'preferred ruleset', nor am I discussing monster creation rules nor whether they apply to players. I'm discussing a rule about weapons and size that is literally written in the book. If you want to houserule something different because you don't like where in the book they put that rule, you are of course free to do so.

    That rule is not anywhere under items, or the various weapon sections or the size change spells, or anywhere else except under the heading monster creation.

    You are house ruling that monster creation rules apply to player characters.

    Again, no I am not. This rule is not about monster creation. It does not involve monsters. It does not involve creating them. It is a rule about weapon size and what happens if you wield a weapon meant for a larger attacker. Monsters don't do that. The word 'monster' does not appear in the sentence. It's not a rule about monsters. Repeatedly saying that it is a monster creation rule will not make it one.

    This argument is like asserting that the rules for damaging an object don't apply if a player is trying to cut a rope during a combat, because the rules about damaging objects aren't located in the 'Combat' section. Meanwhile, the table for improvising damage is in the 'Combat' section - so clearly it must not apply if a player is, say, hit by rubble in a collapsing tunnel outside of combat! Hey, the rules for how to attune to a magic item are in the DMG, not the PHB, and they say 'creature' instead of player, they must not apply to players! It's nonsense.

    Except that it is literally step 11 of monster creation that you're citing, and all rules for for sizing up players come with explicit damage modification.

    In what way is "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker" related to monster creation?

    When it's listed in the monster creation guidelines in the DMG (instead of the player's handbook, the starter kit, or the basic rules - the things that came out before the dungeon master guide and lay out how to play fifth edition), a supplement players are not required or expected to own, and when numerous examples exist that contradict this.

    Look even if you were right, specific rules beat general rules, every method of becoming large players have would supersede this "rule" because they specify *precisely* what they do to your weapon damage

    override367 on
  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Moridin889 wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    The player's handbook is required to play Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, in general, unless you're just using the basic/srd rules

    The Dungeon Master's Guide is not required at all to play the game, it is a supplement to help the dungeon master. If that applied to players, it would be in the player's handbook. You might as well say that every suggestion in the DMG also applies to player character's rules, that their hit dice has some relationship to their AC for example, or that a dwarf's poison resistance means they should have less hitpoints or ac to compensate

    Suggestions for monster creation have no bearing on the game rules for players

    No, those other parts of the section consistently say 'monster', not 'creature', pretty much throughout, with the exception of a few generally-applicable statements, like "a creature with 5d8+5 hit points has an average of 27 hit points". This particular portion repeatedly says 'creature' instead. Things that say 'creature' apply to players, which is why players are, for example, a valid target for the Cure Wounds spell, which only targets 'a creature you touch'.

    Moreover, while 'one way you can determine a monster's damage output is to base the monster's attack damage on the weapon it is using' is a suggestion for monster creation, 'large weapons deal double the normal weapon dice' and 'a creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker' are not. Those are just rules for how large weapons work; they have nothing to do with building a monster, and the latter can't ever even apply to a monster unless you make the inexplicable decision to intentionally give one the wrong size weapon so it has disadvantage on all its attacks (in spite of believing that doing so has no other mechanical effect) - it is strictly a rule for how to deal with a player choosing to pick up and swing an oversized weapon.

    Rules for the mechanics of oversized weapons are no more or less specifically special 'game rules for players' than rules for the mechanics of magic items, or diseases - which are also located in the DMG. And again, it's a pretty big reach to say 'well obviously if these rules were meant to apply to players they'd be in the player's handbook not the DMG, QED' in a system where rules that demonstrably apply to spellcasting monsters are located in the player's handbook instead of the monster manual or DMG.

    All of the rules for playing the game for players are in the PHB

    If you, like mike mearls, want to homebrew it this way because it's more fun, you can, but it's not official

    This is not accurate, 'here is how to adjudicate unusual equipment' is a rule for DMs not players, and it's as official a rule as anything can be in a system intentionally designed to be constructed entirely from optional house rules and duct tape.

    I also, as an aside, deeply enjoy the notion of the lead designer of a game regularly houseruling his table because he thinks it's more fun than the other rules that he also wrote, decided on, and made official. Call me crazy, but if you've got a secret set of other, more fun rules in a folder somewhere, maybe those are the ones that should have gone in the book, Mike. [/spoiler]

    I mean, not everyone agrees with the idea that a second level spell should turn a martial class into an engine of destruction though

    it's FREQUENTLY brought up as a cudgel against 5e that people run different variations on the rules, but this absolutely mystifies me, your preferred ruleset is farther away from mine than the default rules are, most likely. I doubt any of our gaming tables use exactly the same rules and complaining about that is like being upset that every sandwich isn't your favorite kind of sandwich

    I'm not interested in arguing whether or not monster creation rules apply to players, it doesnt matter because we just run how we wanna run regardless unless you're playing AL

    I'm not discussing my 'preferred ruleset', nor am I discussing monster creation rules nor whether they apply to players. I'm discussing a rule about weapons and size that is literally written in the book. If you want to houserule something different because you don't like where in the book they put that rule, you are of course free to do so.

    That rule is not anywhere under items, or the various weapon sections or the size change spells, or anywhere else except under the heading monster creation.

    You are house ruling that monster creation rules apply to player characters.

    Again, no I am not. This rule is not about monster creation. It does not involve monsters. It does not involve creating them. It is a rule about weapon size and what happens if you wield a weapon meant for a larger attacker. Monsters don't do that. The word 'monster' does not appear in the sentence. It's not a rule about monsters. Repeatedly saying that it is a monster creation rule will not make it one.

    This argument is like asserting that the rules for damaging an object don't apply if a player is trying to cut a rope during a combat, because the rules about damaging objects aren't located in the 'Combat' section. Meanwhile, the table for improvising damage is in the 'Combat' section - so clearly it must not apply if a player is, say, hit by rubble in a collapsing tunnel outside of combat! Hey, the rules for how to attune to a magic item are in the DMG, not the PHB, and they say 'creature' instead of player, they must not apply to players! It's nonsense.

    Except that it is literally step 11 of monster creation that you're citing, and all rules for for sizing up players come with explicit damage modification.

    In what way is "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon that is sized for a larger attacker" related to monster creation?

    When it's listed in the monster creation guidelines in the DMG (instead of the player's handbook, the starter kit, or the basic rules - the things that came out before the dungeon master guide and lay out how to play fifth edition), a supplement players are not required or expected to own, and when numerous examples exist that contradict this.

    Look even if you were right, specific rules beat general rules, every method of becoming large players have would supersede this "rule" because they specify *precisely* what they do to your weapon damage

    Most officially printed methods do, yes (although strictly speaking there are only like two, and one of them 'specifies' a superseding effect that is...exactly the same as what the rule already is. Also wild magic sorcerers can roll a size increase on the wild magic table which does not carry any specific damage rules). Which is why, for example, I haven't been trying to argue that Enlarge actually works a different way from the commonly understood one.

    I brought it up because someone linked a homebrew class that has another method of becoming large-sized which does not specify an effect on your damage...and so would be subject to the normal rules for being that size. Which exist in the DMG, presumably because players don't really need to know or use them because players have been pretty consistently prevented from having access to reliable ways of becoming large in the first place (Enlarge and its specific rules notwithstanding)...because being that size has substantial effects on game balance, mostly because of the things it does to one's damage.

    Also this post does not answer the question it is quoting. If "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon sized for a larger attacker" is only supposed to apply to monsters, what is the purpose of that rule? There's no reason to give a monster the wrong size weapon. It doesn't give them a damage bonus, either because the rule for monster damage does not apply unless the creature is large/huge and using a weapon appropriate for that size, or because the rules for monster damage aren't even rules and monster damage is unrelated to the weapon it's using anyway. So what does 'disadvantage on attack rolls with oversized weapons' do? Why is it in there at all?

    For that matter, why would you also need a rule saying that a DM 'may rule' that medium-sized creatures can't use huge-sized weapons, if that only applied to monsters too? Who is the DM going to rule against? Is there some other DM running monsters in the same game, who's gonna try and have his hobgoblin pick up a fire giant's dropped greatsword and hit people with it, such that the first DM is going to need to tell him no and have a rule to point to to justify that decision?

    Those rules are for when players pick up oversized monster weapons. They don't apply to anything if they don't apply to players.

  • GlaziusGlazius Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Also this post does not answer the question it is quoting. If "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon sized for a larger attacker" is only supposed to apply to monsters, what is the purpose of that rule?

    The purpose of that rule is to make people argue about it on the Internet. This increases the number of conversations about the system, which is good for sales.

  • SchadenfreudeSchadenfreude Mean Mister Mustard Registered User regular
    It's there for gnomes and halflings with greatswords right?

    Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Also this post does not answer the question it is quoting. If "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon sized for a larger attacker" is only supposed to apply to monsters, what is the purpose of that rule?

    Obviously it's for if i want a monster to a weapon bigger than it should be wielding

    Or that if a player picks up a weapon it is not able to wield due to size concerns you should impose disadvantage, or just rule they can't.

    It certainly does not explicitly state what the sized up version of a weapon has to do for damage. That's more fluid.

    For instance the way I could handle how this runs up against the enlarge spell: if the weapon was too big for you before enlarge it remains too big for you after enlarge, but this means it would be the 2d8+1d4, with disadvantage to hit

  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    It's there for gnomes and halflings with greatswords right?

    No. Halflings have disadvantage with greatswords because greatswords have the “heavy” property. There are no “small” weapons in 5e anymore or systems of how to up/downsize weapons. Nor are there “large weapons” or whatever. This was specifically changed with intent from prior editions of 5e to get rid of over/undersized weapons as a construction. A PC does 2d6 damage with a greatsword regardless of how “big” it is. Small PCs have disadvantage because the weapon is heavy. Large PCs do not have disadvantage because they behave for weapons exactly as a normal sized PC does because there are no longer weapon sizes

    If you want a “purpose of the rule” it’s probably “this is a holdover from the 3.5 material that was missed in the editing process” and not anything having to do with general rules for changing the size of PCs

    Re: Abbalah


    The point is that the class does not “not specify” it specifies nothing. It does not tell you to increase damage die so you do not increase damage die. Just like you do not increase damage die when you go from a halfling to a human. Fireball does not tell you that it turns rabbits into hats. Therefore when you cast fireball you do not turn rabbits into hats even though there are spells that specify you can do that when you cast them.
    Suggesting that your position is inconsistent does not exactly require me to be playing the 'go to the store and buy a gallon of milk; if they have eggs, buy a dozen' game.
    but that is what you are doing. Simply because I used “creature” to refer to that section of text which deals with monster creation rather than to say “the rules for PCs are not the same as the rules for Monster creation, regardless of what natural language in that text might imply if stripped of context” does not prove whatever the heck you think it proves.

    My position is, precisely, “do what the ability says to do and nothing more”. The ability says you’re large sized. It does not say you may now wield bigger weapons or that bigger weapons deal more damage. It does not say you have a fire aura. Therefore you do not increase the damage die of your weapons and you do not deal fire damage to creatures next to you. This applies to homebrew classes as well as it applies to any other text that is to be a rule.

    wbBv3fj.png
  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Also this post does not answer the question it is quoting. If "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon sized for a larger attacker" is only supposed to apply to monsters, what is the purpose of that rule?

    Obviously it's for if i want a monster to a weapon bigger than it should be wielding

    So just say 'it's got a really big sword. like, super big, wow!'. If we don't think that the damage is a function of the weapon, then giving a monster an oversize weapon doesn't cause them to deal extra damage unless the monster itself is also sized up (or at all, if you subscribe to the idea that monsters don't really follow these rules anyway) because that's how the rule works. If you take a monster and you give it a weapon sized for a larger creature, literally the only thing that changes is that it now has disadvantage on all of its attacks. There's no tradeoff or anything. Just 'oops, I made my monster suck'. It doesn't do anything else. It has no mechanical effect except to give the monster disadvantage. It seems pretty self-evident that this rule does not exist just as a weirdly specific way for you to intentionally give a monster disadvantage on its attacks with no other mechanical change.
    Or that if a player picks up a weapon it is not able to wield due to size concerns you should impose disadvantage, or just rule they can't.

    The whole contention is that the rules in this section don't apply to players even though they say creature because the section is about monsters. If you're prepared to concede that the rules in this section referencing 'creatures' do apply to players, then great, I agree, that's been my position the entire time. But if you're going to continue to contest that position, then the function of this rule can't be about anything a player does with a weapon - because your position is that the "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon sized for a larger attacker" rule applies exclusively to monsters and is not relevant to players.

    So if it doesn't have any effect on monsters except to give you the opportunity to hand them the wrong weapon and stick them with a huge permanent debuff for no reason, and it doesn't apply to players, then what is it for?
    Goumindong wrote: »
    There are no “small” weapons in 5e anymore or systems of how to up/downsize weapons. Nor are there “large weapons” or whatever.

    Fascinating! 5e not having a concept of weapon size sure makes it weird to have a rule about creatures using oversized weapons that discusses the fact that a huge creature wielding an 'appropriately sized' weapon deals more damage than normal, and then several more rules about using weapons that are sized for a larger attacker.

    It's also unlikely to be a holdover from a prior edition, since both 3.5 and 4e had rules for different-sized weapons that worked differently than 5e's - it's not like they forgot to edit the section out, they wrote a whole different one with different rules and put that in. And I mean...if we're really gonna fall back on 'well, that rule is just an editing mistake and it isn't supposed to be there', then it seems at least as likely that rule is supposed to be there, but its location is a mistake missed during editing, right? If it were somewhere other than the monster creation section, we wouldn't be having such a big argument about whether 'creature' refers to players or not because it would be abundantly clear that it does, just like it does in every other part of every other book.
    My position is, precisely, “do what the ability says to do and nothing more”.

    Okay, great. Let's do what the text says and nothing more: The text says that a large-sized creature wielding an appropriately-sized weapon deals double the normal damage dice. It does not say it applies only to monsters. It does not say that creature means something different in this part of the book than it does everywhere else. Therefore you don't treat it like it does say those things, and then you don't have to concoct unsupported theories about how nonfunctional rules from a prior edition must have been left in the books by mistake.

    Abbalah on
  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    Fucking hell guys. Why are you still going on about this. At this point who cares. We've already all lost. There are no winners anymore.

    I honestly regret posting that homebrew class. I started this and Im genuinely sorry.

    webguy20 on
    Steam ID: Webguy20
    Origin ID: Discgolfer27
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  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Also this post does not answer the question it is quoting. If "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon sized for a larger attacker" is only supposed to apply to monsters, what is the purpose of that rule?

    Obviously it's for if i want a monster to a weapon bigger than it should be wielding

    So just say 'it's got a really big sword. like, super big, wow!'. If we don't think that the damage is a function of the weapon, then giving a monster an oversize weapon doesn't cause them to deal extra damage unless the monster itself is also sized up (or at all, if you subscribe to the idea that monsters don't really follow these rules anyway) because that's how the rule works. If you take a monster and you give it a weapon sized for a larger creature, literally the only thing that changes is that it now has disadvantage on all of its attacks. There's no tradeoff or anything. Just 'oops, I made my monster suck'. It doesn't do anything else. It has no mechanical effect except to give the monster disadvantage. It seems pretty self-evident that this rule does not exist just as a weirdly specific way for you to intentionally give a monster disadvantage on its attacks with no other mechanical change.
    Or that if a player picks up a weapon it is not able to wield due to size concerns you should impose disadvantage, or just rule they can't.

    The whole contention is that the rules in this section don't apply to players even though they say creature because the section is about monsters. If you're prepared to concede that the rules in this section referencing 'creatures' do apply to players, then great, I agree, that's been my position the entire time. But if you're going to continue to contest that position, then the function of this rule can't be about anything a player does with a weapon - because your position is that the "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon sized for a larger attacker" rule applies exclusively to monsters and is not relevant to players.

    So if it doesn't have any effect on monsters except to give you the opportunity to hand them the wrong weapon and stick them with a huge permanent debuff for no reason, and it doesn't apply to players, then what is it for?
    Goumindong wrote: »
    There are no “small” weapons in 5e anymore or systems of how to up/downsize weapons. Nor are there “large weapons” or whatever.

    Fascinating! 5e not having a concept of weapon size sure makes it weird to have a rule about creatures using oversized weapons that discusses the fact that a huge creature wielding an 'appropriately sized' weapon deals more damage than normal, and then several more rules about using weapons that are sized for a larger attacker.

    It's also unlikely to be a holdover from a prior edition, since both 3.5 and 4e had rules for different-sized weapons that worked differently than 5e's - it's not like they forgot to edit the section out, they wrote a whole different one with different rules and put that in. And I mean...if we're really gonna fall back on 'well, that rule is just an editing mistake and it isn't supposed to be there', then it seems at least as likely that rule is supposed to be there, but its location is a mistake missed during editing, right? If it were somewhere other than the monster creation section, we wouldn't be having such a big argument about whether 'creature' refers to players or not because it would be abundantly clear that it does, just like it does in every other part of every other book.
    My position is, precisely, “do what the ability says to do and nothing more”.

    Okay, great. Let's do what the text says and nothing more: The text says that a large-sized creature wielding an appropriately-sized weapon deals double the normal damage dice. It does not say it applies only to monsters. It does not say that creature means something different in this part of the book than it does everywhere else. Therefore you don't treat it like it does say those things, and then you don't have to concoct unsupported theories about how nonfunctional rules from a prior edition must have been left in the books by mistake.

    My base contention is that weapon damage is moderately arbitrary, and weapon specific. That the precise rule hole here is that there is no universal rule for weapon damage, and that any means by which to increase player size must clarify what happens to that player's weapons.

    Like yeah if the players are fighting a minotaur and get his great axe that thing is oversized and does 2d12 damage, but they have disadvantage to all attacks with it.

    If they use enlarge it still enlarges the already large axe it does 2d12+1d4 and they have disadvantage to wield it.

    If they use the potion of giant size the axe does 6d12 damage and you still have disadvantage to attack rolls with it.

    If the homebrew content you are reviewing has an ability that increases player size but does not clarify the effects on player wielded weapons, the designer has missed an outright hole in the rules they needed to cover up.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    webguy20 wrote: »
    Fucking hell guys. Why are you still going on about this. At this point who cares. We've already all lost. There are no winners anymore.

    I honestly regret posting that homebrew class. I started this and Im genuinely sorry.

    It's actually helpful.

    This is a pitfall. A hole in the rules. It got me to actually review a small aspect of the game I hadn't really dove in on, and presented edge cases so I already have rulings on them.

    Potion of giant size on a raging barbarian with an oversize axe is a terrifying edge case I'm definitely going to have to set up some day, and I've got just the halfling barbarian to spring it on.

  • TerrendosTerrendos Decorative Monocle Registered User regular
    webguy20 wrote: »
    Fucking hell guys. Why are you still going on about this. At this point who cares. We've already all lost. There are no winners anymore.

    I honestly regret posting that homebrew class. I started this and Im genuinely sorry.

    I thank you for posting it because it is very cool and way more interesting than the beta artificer. In the event that I play a fantasy Iron Man, I will simply avoid making myself fantasy Ironmonger.

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    webguy20 wrote: »
    Fucking hell guys. Why are you still going on about this. At this point who cares. We've already all lost. There are no winners anymore.

    I honestly regret posting that homebrew class. I started this and Im genuinely sorry.

    Its ok bru, we were due for another one of these anyway.

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    webguy20 wrote: »
    Fucking hell guys. Why are you still going on about this. At this point who cares. We've already all lost. There are no winners anymore.

    I honestly regret posting that homebrew class. I started this and Im genuinely sorry.

    Nah man it's cool. These kinds of debates come and go all the time in this thread. I know some people find them uncomfortable or frustrating, but it's a legitimate part of the hobby and I don't think there are any genuine hard feelings between anyone. At the end of it we all just move on and return to posting Curse of Strahd spoilers.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Also this post does not answer the question it is quoting. If "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon sized for a larger attacker" is only supposed to apply to monsters, what is the purpose of that rule?

    Obviously it's for if i want a monster to a weapon bigger than it should be wielding

    So just say 'it's got a really big sword. like, super big, wow!'. If we don't think that the damage is a function of the weapon, then giving a monster an oversize weapon doesn't cause them to deal extra damage unless the monster itself is also sized up (or at all, if you subscribe to the idea that monsters don't really follow these rules anyway) because that's how the rule works. If you take a monster and you give it a weapon sized for a larger creature, literally the only thing that changes is that it now has disadvantage on all of its attacks. There's no tradeoff or anything. Just 'oops, I made my monster suck'. It doesn't do anything else. It has no mechanical effect except to give the monster disadvantage. It seems pretty self-evident that this rule does not exist just as a weirdly specific way for you to intentionally give a monster disadvantage on its attacks with no other mechanical change.
    Or that if a player picks up a weapon it is not able to wield due to size concerns you should impose disadvantage, or just rule they can't.

    The whole contention is that the rules in this section don't apply to players even though they say creature because the section is about monsters. If you're prepared to concede that the rules in this section referencing 'creatures' do apply to players, then great, I agree, that's been my position the entire time. But if you're going to continue to contest that position, then the function of this rule can't be about anything a player does with a weapon - because your position is that the "A creature has disadvantage on attack rolls with a weapon sized for a larger attacker" rule applies exclusively to monsters and is not relevant to players.

    So if it doesn't have any effect on monsters except to give you the opportunity to hand them the wrong weapon and stick them with a huge permanent debuff for no reason, and it doesn't apply to players, then what is it for?
    Goumindong wrote: »
    There are no “small” weapons in 5e anymore or systems of how to up/downsize weapons. Nor are there “large weapons” or whatever.

    Fascinating! 5e not having a concept of weapon size sure makes it weird to have a rule about creatures using oversized weapons that discusses the fact that a huge creature wielding an 'appropriately sized' weapon deals more damage than normal, and then several more rules about using weapons that are sized for a larger attacker.

    It's also unlikely to be a holdover from a prior edition, since both 3.5 and 4e had rules for different-sized weapons that worked differently than 5e's - it's not like they forgot to edit the section out, they wrote a whole different one with different rules and put that in. And I mean...if we're really gonna fall back on 'well, that rule is just an editing mistake and it isn't supposed to be there', then it seems at least as likely that rule is supposed to be there, but its location is a mistake missed during editing, right? If it were somewhere other than the monster creation section, we wouldn't be having such a big argument about whether 'creature' refers to players or not because it would be abundantly clear that it does, just like it does in every other part of every other book.
    My position is, precisely, “do what the ability says to do and nothing more”.

    Okay, great. Let's do what the text says and nothing more: The text says that a large-sized creature wielding an appropriately-sized weapon deals double the normal damage dice. It does not say it applies only to monsters. It does not say that creature means something different in this part of the book than it does everywhere else. Therefore you don't treat it like it does say those things, and then you don't have to concoct unsupported theories about how nonfunctional rules from a prior edition must have been left in the books by mistake.

    My base contention is that weapon damage is moderately arbitrary, and weapon specific. That the precise rule hole here is that there is no universal rule for weapon damage, and that any means by which to increase player size must clarify what happens to that player's weapons.

    Like yeah if the players are fighting a minotaur and get his great axe that thing is oversized and does 2d12 damage, but they have disadvantage to all attacks with it.

    If they use enlarge it still enlarges the already large axe it does 2d12+1d4 and they have disadvantage to wield it.

    If they use the potion of giant size the axe does 6d12 damage and you still have disadvantage to attack rolls with it.

    If the homebrew content you are reviewing has an ability that increases player size but does not clarify the effects on player wielded weapons, the designer has missed an outright hole in the rules they needed to cover up.

    I think if you use a minotaur axe you are using an improvised weapon, if the DM rules that it is considered a great axe that does 1d12 damage, minotaurs do 2d12 damage with them because that's how much damage the statblock for minotaurs says they do, the only word we have from the design team on this is Rodney Thompson saying that monster weapons are "unwieldy for PCs and have no stats" (which is fairly consistent for WOTC designers interpretations of the rules - they don't mean more than they say, if a weapon isn't listed as a weapon, it's not a weapon), beyond the basic/phb rules giving a list of all available player weapon types and having rules for improvised weapons that fall outside of that

    Essentially, a player using a giant weapon is the same thing as a player using a fallen tree as a weapon or something

    I think most (all?) of us agree that Rule of Cool dictates that an enlarged player picking up a minotaur great axe is going to do more damage though because it is awesome and rewarding players doing things other than "I cast fireball" in combat is a high priority for me personally as a DM. I had a similar situation where I was trying to use Reduced ballista bolts with a longbow and release concentration immediately after firing, after bogging the game trying to find if there was an official ruling and discovering that "the longbow does 1d8", we said fuck it and it did 3d8 damage

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  • Ken OKen O Registered User regular
    Denada wrote: »
    Nah man it's cool. These kinds of debates come and go all the time in this thread. I know some people find them uncomfortable or frustrating, but it's a legitimate part of the
    hobby and I don't think there are any genuine hard feelings between anyone. At the end of it we all just move on and return to posting Curse of Strahd spoilers.

    Sorry about the CoS spam. I think tonight's game should finish my group's travels in Strahd's domain.

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  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    Ken O wrote: »
    Denada wrote: »
    Nah man it's cool. These kinds of debates come and go all the time in this thread. I know some people find them uncomfortable or frustrating, but it's a legitimate part of the
    hobby and I don't think there are any genuine hard feelings between anyone. At the end of it we all just move on and return to posting Curse of Strahd spoilers.

    Sorry about the CoS spam. I think tonight's game should finish my group's travels in Strahd's domain.

    Haha no that is also cool, I love seeing everyone post their sessions and stuff. It's just in my nature to poke fun at everything, especially the things I like.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    My DM's gotten less salty about me skipping chapter 1 of dragon heist, admitting that it was his mistake, but still I know how it feels to prepare lots of content and the players just don't do it, oh well

    I had a one shot for my party since half of them couldn't be there on Sunday, they're in the tomb of the nine gods but I had the player's who were there fall through a dimensional hole and end up in a frozen forest without any of their equipment. They had to make do scavenging spellcasting components and determining where they were, fight off a bunch of giant spiders while freezing their butts off and hoping a fistful of dirt with iron in it counts as "iron dust" for the purpose of a material component, etc.

    After that a neutral tribe of alseid and a bunch of Omuans (centaurs but deer instead of horse) were nearby, finding out this entire place stuck in a bubble of force they can't escape from (~20 mile diameter). The alseid provided some winter clothing and basic supplies and sent them on a quest to go fight off some cultists that recently arrived, apparently spoiling this little container Acererak stored interesting Omuans in under the care of some deerfolk - so Acererak dumped some of the party here to deal with a problem for him

    some void dragon fighting, some cultist dispatching, a meteor swarm happened destroying a sacred burial ground, good times. When they were given a way back to the tomb they took a bunch of omuans with them, figuring the portal would last long enough to shove a few people through. Not thinking this entirely through, they are now in the temple of the nine gods with 5 omuans, 3 of them children. I'm sure they'll survive.

    (My timeline is a little different for how long ago Acererak executed killallomuans.exe, it was just a few years before the start of the game in my campaign)

    override367 on
  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »

    It's also unlikely to be a holdover from a prior edition, since both 3.5 and 4e had rules for different-sized weapons that worked differently than 5e's - it's not like they forgot to edit the section out, they wrote a whole different one with different rules and put that in.

    No, they changed "penalty" to "disadvantage". Because that is basically exactly how it worked in 3.5 and dollars to donuts they have a section just like that in the 3.5 DMG about monster creation. Not that i am going to bother to go look it up. But it is worth noting that 3.5 had a very simulationist construction as opposed to 5e.
    If you're prepared to concede that the rules in this section referencing 'creatures' do apply to players, then great, I agree, that's been my position the entire time

    Nothing in the section about monster creation applies to player creation rules regardless of whether or not they used "creature" or "monster" in the description of that portion.
    Okay, great. Let's do what the text says and nothing more: The text says that a large-sized creature wielding an appropriately-sized weapon deals double the normal damage dice.

    The text does not say that. It says "when designing a monster: do this". (and then it contradicts it loads of time ironically). You will find that text nowhere in the player rules. You will find that text nowhere in player errata rules. If it not in player or player errata rules it does not govern players.

    If you want specifics into some of the background of creating systems then we can talk about how the flip from a simulationist to a gamist structure was more or less intended to facilitate an idea of "spotlight switching". Giving players permanent effects which are outside of the norm can quite easily break this, and this is why monster weapons don't have stats, but monster attacks do. Because if you are in a simulation and find a way to achieve an effect that lets you easily wield a weapon then you've restricted the available foes you can fight without potentially breaking a core tenet of your game design.



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  • NealnealNealneal Registered User regular
    I know I'm late, but I want to say something too!!

    I'd be totally fine letting a Fighter carry around an Ogre's club (for example), set it down, have the Wizard cast Enlarge on him and then pick it up and have it do 2d8 damage instead of his normal d12+d4 for wielding a great axe (or whatever he would normally use...) when he got Enlarged. If he was holding it while the spell was cast though, nope, it grew also and now it's effectively a Huge weapon and you have disadvantage while wielding it.

    If the fighter wants to carry around a super heavy weapon just for the minor benefit of one extra die of damage while he's under the effects of a 2nd level spell, then yeah. Cool on you friend. That's a neat gimmick.

    I hardly think an extra 4.5 damage per attack made under a very limited set of circumstances is going to break the game.

    Now, when we start talking about something homebrewed that is an always/nearly always available power, then I would have to evaluate whether or not the homebrew needs toning down/leveling out with other available options.

  • BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
    Goumindong wrote: »
    @Brainleech

    I am sorry i thought you were asking hypotheticals relating to the ongoing discussion. If you want specifics that is a different question.

    More or less i think your mindfayer idea isn't going to work in a sit down session with other people. Because those other people are going to have their own ideas of what they want to be doing and you have set yourself up as both against the party and on a secret important plot. It would work fine for a novel or a video game but i have a feeling that sitting down with other people would have problems.

    Especially with the rival band thing. Because then you're dictating the terms of the villain groups to your DM. If you want to run that campaign for a group of people then that we can work with.

    @Abbalah

    You're fundamentally not understanding how the game is constructed. Its not computer code that you can exploit by finding the right construction or bug. Edit: Or to make it analogous you're reading a portion that has been commented out so that other coders(DM's) can look at it and determine how to make changes to the code and you're assuming that the program works like that.
    Is the 4d8 necrotic damage a property of the weapon, or a monster ability?

    Doesn't say. It uses the same language for any other weapon that any other monster has though. Monster weapons are just horribly inconsistent because they tend to do as much damage as the monster needs and not as much damage as a simulation would have.

    I was and wasn't.
    As things like making a monster join the party is an idea or making a rival band{ I thought using the player book was a better thing than just the monster as I want them to feel they are rivals and challenged}
    Just the secret monster is something I have wanted to do for years the mindflayer bard is the closest I have gotten to fleshing it out
    As I don't want the group to know it's really a mindflayer just a {insert race} bard so things like a very interested person could be a part the party has to deal with. I would talk it over with the DM though to see how they feel about it.
    The rival band is something I would do as a DM because I don't want them to feel the monsters are the only threat as it could be anything from someone they kicked out to someone group that is well funded but because the adventures did something they were supposed to do they have a grudge. Or a number of other reasons why they are the rivals. They go on their own adventures in my head. So things like two of the group level up the rest didn't or they lost someone and got a replacement that kind of stuff happens outside for the most part of the players since they are doing their own adventure and I am using the rivals to annoy and harass them.



  • AbbalahAbbalah Registered User regular
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Abbalah wrote: »

    It's also unlikely to be a holdover from a prior edition, since both 3.5 and 4e had rules for different-sized weapons that worked differently than 5e's - it's not like they forgot to edit the section out, they wrote a whole different one with different rules and put that in.

    No, they changed "penalty" to "disadvantage". Because that is basically exactly how it worked in 3.5 and dollars to donuts they have a section just like that in the 3.5 DMG about monster creation. Not that i am going to bother to go look it up. But it is worth noting that 3.5 had a very simulationist construction as opposed to 5e.

    No, dude. The damage also scaled in a substantially different way, in both previous systems. 4e incremented the size of the dice themselves rather than changing the number of them (such that, for example, a greatsword went 2d6->2d8->2d10->2d12) while 3.5 had (predictable) a detailed chart in which the same greatsword went 2d6->3d6->4d6->6d6. 5e's 'double the damage dice for large, triple them for huge, quadruple them for gargantuan' is a whole new rule written specifically for 5e. They didn't just leave an old edition's rules in by mistake.

    Similarly, 4e's rule for using a weapon sized for a creature larger than yourself is 'you can't', and it has a whole thing about how you can use a two-handed weapon sized for a creature SMALLER than you as a one-handed weapon. 3.5 has a detailed model where you can wield a weapon sized for a creature larger or smaller than yourself but there's a cumulative penalty that applies per size category difference, and also you step up or down one step on the light/one-handed/two-handed scale for each size category difference, and if you step off the scale in either direction you can't use that weapon - so a medium-sized player could use a huge-sized dagger as a two-handed weapon, but a large-sized greatsword would be too large to use, while a huge-sized creature could use a medium-sized greatsword as a light weapon but a large-sized dagger would be too small to use. Again: 5e's rules are wholly different. They didn't just leave the wrong section in.
    If you're prepared to concede that the rules in this section referencing 'creatures' do apply to players, then great, I agree, that's been my position the entire time

    Nothing in the section about monster creation applies to player creation rules regardless of whether or not they used "creature" or "monster" in the description of that portion.

    Nobody has talked about player creation at any point in this conversation.
    Okay, great. Let's do what the text says and nothing more: The text says that a large-sized creature wielding an appropriately-sized weapon deals double the normal damage dice.

    The text does not say that. It says "when designing a monster: do this". (and then it contradicts it loads of time ironically).

    No it doesn't. We just talked about not reading things into the text that aren't actually there! The text says 'when determining how much damage your monster should deal, one method is to base it off the damage of the weapon it's using. Monsters often use oversized weapons because they deal more damage; by the way, since we've brought up this concept of weapon size that doesn't exist elsewhere, here's how oversized weapons work for creatures generally.

    It's a shitty way to sort the rules, but the term 'creature' has a specific rules meaning in 5e, that meaning unambiguously applies to players, and nothing about the text suggests that the word suddenly means something different in this context. Trying to insist that they actually mean 'monster' here without evidence is reading something into the text that is not there, in exactly the way you are saying we shouldn't do, and attempting it reduces the rules to meaninglessness because you end up with a rule telling the DM that if he doesn't think a monster he is running can use a weapon he wants it to use he is allowed to rule against himself and prevent himself from using it.

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    Abbalah wrote: »
    Goumindong wrote: »
    My position is, precisely, “do what the ability says to do and nothing more”.

    Okay, great. Let's do what the text says and nothing more: The text says that a large-sized creature wielding an appropriately-sized weapon deals double the normal damage dice. It does not say it applies only to monsters.

    It does not say that.
    It says 'the creature' not 'a creature', which refers back to the monster referenced in the first sentence.
    So only monsters get to multiply their damage dice.

    PCs just get whatever their damage is normally if they pick the weapon up.
    Maybe less if it's now improvised or they're not proficient.
    And disadvantage if they're using an outsized monster's weapon.
    Lol sucked in PCs, that's RAW.

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    In the King James Dungeon Master's Guide it actually says "kind" instead of "creature" but most scholars agree that that's a translation error.

  • GlaziusGlazius Registered User regular
    webguy20 wrote: »
    Fucking hell guys. Why are you still going on about this. At this point who cares. We've already all lost. There are no winners anymore.

    I honestly regret posting that homebrew class. I started this and Im genuinely sorry.

    Nah man, it's cool, you just ran afoul of a marketing gimmick, it ain't your fault.

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    Glazius wrote: »
    webguy20 wrote: »
    Fucking hell guys. Why are you still going on about this. At this point who cares. We've already all lost. There are no winners anymore.

    I honestly regret posting that homebrew class. I started this and Im genuinely sorry.

    Nah man, it's cool, you just ran afoul of a marketing gimmick, it ain't your fault.

    Really at this point I'm just picturing a bear totem barbarian battle master fighter build based on reckless attacking as much as possible and using the menacing attack maneuver a bunch, as well as parry, precision attack, riposte, and sweeping attack. Just carrying around a giant fuck off weapon and consistently just eating the disadvantage.

    Sleep on
  • NealnealNealneal Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    Sleep wrote: »
    Really at this point I'm just picturing a bear totem barbarian battle master fighter build based on reckless attacking as much as possible and using the menacing attack maneuver a bunch, as well as parry, precision attack, riposte, and sweeping attack. Just carrying around a giant fuck off weapon and consistently just eating the disadvantage.

    See... my brain ran to Sanosuke from Rurouni Kenshin. A Bear Barbarian/Open Fist Monk who only rarely draws his double-sized sword when he's raging. Otherwise he fights with his fists.

    Nealneal on
  • Ken OKen O Registered User regular
    Yeah...we didn't finish CoS last night. His castle is no joke.

    Strahd has been showing up, throwing some bad guys at us, and then running away. We started the session at the top of one of the towers because of the elevator trap. So we went down, down, down in the dungeon. We get to the arena area with all the water and the zombies. My Bard and Ireena get to the upper observation area out of the water to keep her safe.

    Our Warlock jokes that since we have a Cleric, we could really get Strahd by having me marry Ireena. My bard is a little leery...of the M word.

    After making that joke though Strahd emerges from behind the curtain Ireena and I are standing by. He nails me hard. One big hit and then a grapple. Thankfully Heater, my Shield Guardian took half my damage.

    On my turn, I'm grappled so I lean in close. I whisper into his ear "You can't hold me. You'll never hold her either." Then I Dimension Door Ireena and me across the room and right next to the Paladin. I pop Mantle of Inspiration to give the party free movement.

    Our Monk uses the extra movement and his own to get to Strahd and unleash all sorts of punches and kicks. Strahd mists out of the room as we finish off the zombies and the werewolf (who we accidentally freed from the dungeon).

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  • SmrtnikSmrtnik job boli zub Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    Your DM is doing it right with those tactics.

    The group in in goes into the castle a second time tomorrow, first time being for the
    dinner invitation
    .

    This time they are going in to look for
    bones of Argynvost and using the Abbot bringing the bride to the castle (it won't go the way he thinks) as a distraction so they can sneak in the side entrance.

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  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    I've seen a few discussions of hitpoints lately... how do you guys run hitpoints?

    Me and my players seem to prefer treating D&D characters essentially as superheroes once they're past around level 5, a 30 hitpoint sword strike might literally be getting impaled but it's okay, I'm a fuckin superhero

    it leads to somewhat less serious games where a character climbs out of a trap with 9 full length javelins sticking out of them like a dark souls character, but everyone seems to enjoy that. I also use grevious wounds based on what the thing is, if someone survives a disintegrate, they're probably losing an arm or leg for example

    The more common interpretation seems to be that hitpoints measure you being "worn down", and only the final few hits actually do any real damage

    How does everyone else handle how hitpoint degredation looks "in game"

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  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    I've seen a few discussions of hitpoints lately... how do you guys run hitpoints?

    Me and my players seem to prefer treating D&D characters essentially as superheroes once they're past around level 5, a 30 hitpoint sword strike might literally be getting impaled but it's okay, I'm a fuckin superhero

    it leads to somewhat less serious games where a character climbs out of a trap with 9 full length javelins sticking out of them like a dark souls character, but everyone seems to enjoy that. I also use grevious wounds based on what the thing is, if someone survives a disintegrate, they're probably losing an arm or leg for example

    The more common interpretation seems to be that hitpoints measure you being "worn down", and only the final few hits actually do any real damage

    How does everyone else handle how hitpoint degredation looks "in game"

    My group just abstracts it away. We'll narrate hits and stuff, but nothing lasting.

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