Game Rules Issues

Spellcasters Beware: PHB pg 202 'Bonus Action' "...You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action." Reckless Attack: "Starting at 2nd level, you can throw aside all concern for defense to attack with fierce desperation. When you make your first attack on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly. Doing so gives you advantage on melee weapon attack rolls using Strength during this turn, but attack rolls against you have advantage until your next turn." You decide to use this ability on your first melee attack, but it applies to all melee attacks during that turn.

Just a few rules that came up in Jims session last night. Figured I would put them here even though I am pretty sure on a few of these. 1. Drinking a potion is what type of action? 2. Applying poison is what type of action and how many arrows become poisoned with use? 3. How many applications of poison per vial? 4. Can you cast a cantrip and attack using extra attack if you are not a eldritch knight?

Daniel S. said: Just a few rules that came up in Jims session last night. Figured I would put them here even though I am pretty sure on a few of these. 1. Drinking a potion is what type of action? ( 1 action DMG 139) 2. Applying poison is what type of action and how many arrows become poisoned with use? (1 action for up to three pieces of ammunition or applied to 1 weapon. lasts 1 min before drying. PHB 153) 3. How many applications of poison per vial? (DM dependent or single doses if purchased or crafted. DMG 258) 4. Can you cast a cantrip and attack using extra attack if you are not a eldritch knight? (short answer is no. the attack is part of a bonus actin for war magic. This makes sense because the damage for cantrips do scale. However...&nbsp; there are some weird cantrips out there... Booming blade and Green Flame Blade that require you to do a melee weapon attack in order to use the cantrip allowing any sort of character to attack as part of the cantrip. After reviewing this... DnD says this: <a href="http://dnd.wizards.com/sites/default/files/media/upload/articles/SA_Compendium.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://dnd.wizards.com/sites/default/files/media/upload/articles/SA_Compendium.pdf</a> page 10.) DnD's answer is: can be used with sneak attack, cannot be used as an opportunity attack, cannot be used in conjunction with extra attack, and you can use your bonus action for an offhanded weapon. The action is still considered casting a spell even though you are using your sword to hit roll. Thus I have been doing that incorrectly....)

Yeah, I don't get the sword coast guide cantrips not being able to use their second attack. To make those spells you attack with a weapon then use a vocal command. So what they are saying is "no you can't make your second attack because you just mumbled something while making the first one "

I think the reason they did that is to make eldritch knights the go to class for spell and melee attacking on the same turn.

What about use an object action? Can that be interpreted as getting out a potion or getting a potion ready for use on the next turn? The Thief archetype from the rogue class can use an object as a bonus action but using an object does not tell us much what type of object it is?

To keep things solid throughout the games we typically make rulings for all DM's as a group. That way you dont have to remember each of the many dm's play style.

Daniel S. said: To keep things solid throughout the games we typically make rulings for all DM's as a group. That way you dont have to remember each of the many dm's play style. Well, if that's how it is done. Then so be it.&nbsp;

Michael S. said: What about use an object action? Can that be interpreted as getting out a potion or getting a potion ready for use on the next turn? The Thief archetype from the rogue class can use an object as a bonus action but using an object does not tell us much what type of object it is? That is something that we may have to discuss as a group then. I am new, and misspoke; I apologize for any confusion.

Daniel S. said: To keep things solid throughout the games we typically make rulings for all DM's as a group. That way you dont have to remember each of the many dm's play style. That's not quite true. Mark has consistently used the phb rule, but Jeremy and I have consistently used Mercer's rule as well. To me it does make since that in turn order I can be in a tavern and drink a ale for free, but leave the tavern and still be in turn order but now have to use a action &nbsp; unless heal pots have more kick then I know and they are making players dizzy.&nbsp;

That was not what was told to me during our rulings forum but hey w/e works

I imagine it has more to do with game balance than making common sense. A greater healing potion if drank as a bonus action can heal you just as much as a spell that requires a full action. In some circumstances, this nullifies the point of having a healer in your party for higher level games as all players could afford to just self-heal and keep on fighting at the same time. Also if you can drink any potion as a bonus action, then a player could gain giant strength and rip off a creatures arms all in the same turn... It could become a little over powered. Perhaps we can think about it this way: it takes an action to drink a potion because the potions temporarily stuns you as the effects begin to take action? Or we could do a slight variation. Minor healing potions only take a bonus action as they are similar to "Healing Word" anything else though requires a full action because the magic effects have more of a kick?

Jim F. said: I imagine it has more to do with game balance than making common sense. A greater healing potion if drank as a bonus action can heal you just as much as a spell that requires a full action. In some circumstances, this nullifies the point of having a healer in your party for higher level games as all players could afford to just self-heal and keep on fighting at the same time. Also if you can drink any potion as a bonus action, then a player could gain giant strength and rip off a creatures arms all in the same turn... It could become a little over powered. Perhaps we can think about it this way: it takes an action to drink a potion because the potions temporarily stuns you as the effects begin to take action? Or we could do a slight variation. Minor healing potions only take a bonus action as they are similar to "Healing Word" anything else though requires a full action because the magic effects have more of a kick? I like the compromise there. But what happens if you don't have a healer in your party?

Will M. said: I like the compromise there. But what happens if you don't have a healer in your party? you die of course.... :) The healer would be the person in the party that has the healing potions or players need to play cautiously. Many groups can be missing healers and still be okay. I think this is why recovering hit dice during short rests is so important. The other thing is the chances of this happening or pretty small. Bard, Druid, Cleric, and Paladin can all heal to some degree. Fighters have second wind, barbarians have damage resistance. There are a lot of options here.

Jim F. said: Will M. said: I like the compromise there. But what happens if you don't have a healer in your party? you die of course.... :) The healer would be the person in the party that has the healing potions or players need to play cautiously. Many groups can be missing players and still be okay. I think this is why recovering hit dice during short rests is so important. The other thing is the chances of this happening or pretty small. Bard, Druid, Cleric, and Paladin can all heal to some degree. Fighters have second wind, barbarians have damage resistance. There are a lot of options here. Very true. Potions are more important early before those healing abilities are fully&nbsp;developed. That's why I think it is a&nbsp;good compromise.

Will M. said: Very true. Potions are more important early before those healing abilities are fully&nbsp;developed. That's why I think it is a&nbsp;good compromise. exactly! :)

Jim you make my head hurt. I come from a computer coding background. If A=B and B=C then A should equally C not Ci. but if we are talking compromise, keep in mind this group is common for not having a full healer or we get a bard that try's to be a rogue. There is a vRule in the DMG that says you can gain a hit die back for a bonus action and use more then one hit dice for an action. How about we use that. This would limit how much hit points they could get plus how often they could use it. And we don't even have to consider if the are drinking something other than heal pots.&nbsp;

Mike said: Jim you make my head hurt. I come from a computer coding background. If A=B and B=C then A should equally C not Ci. but if we are talking compromise, keep in mind this group is common for not having a full healer or we get a bard that try's to be a rogue. There is a vRule in the DMG that says you can gain a hit die back for a bonus action and use more then one hit dice for an action. How about we use that. This would limit how much hit points they could get plus how often they could use it. And we don't even have to consider if the are drinking something other than heal pots.&nbsp; Do you have a page for that in the DMG? I might find it on my own, but the reference would help me a bit. Ha!

I think that would break the game that means i could have shrugged off most of the damage those giants did to me with ease&nbsp;

I'm posting on my phone from work. I'll have to look it up when I get home.&nbsp;

Mike said: I'm posting on my phone from work. I'll have to look it up when I get home. Understood.

Daniel S. said: I think that would break the game that means i could have shrugged off most of the damage those giants did to me with ease&nbsp; Rolling hit dice at level 6 would equal in numbers of drinking 2.5 standard heal pots for a fighter. It would be less then that for mages and rogues. And then your done until a long rest. And even then you would only get to have half your hit dice back.

Mike said: Jim you make my head hurt. I come from a computer coding background. If A=B and B=C then A should equally C not Ci. A = "amount of healing provided by a potion" B = "amount of healing provided by a lvl 1 spell that requires an action" C = "Bonus" Ci = "Action" If A &lt; B: Drink_Potion = C Else: Drink_Potion = Ci Problem resolution brought to you by the computer sciences department of G4C. (I fully recognize that this is not good coding, I just thought this was funny. :) )

I would not know where to put this so I will put it here. Exp calculators overstate the difficulty on most encounters usually. First I'll explain why this happens, and then how you can fix this. The biggest culprit for easy encounters is the party resting too much. If you're like me, your parties tend to have maybe two or three encounters per long rest, often with short rests in between - this makes more sense for some play styles, but causes balance problems. The 5th Edition system assumes that parties will have at least a couple of encounters between each short rest, and maybe two or three short rests between each long rest. This forces characters to be much more conservative with their limited resources (spell slots, class features, hit dice, and so forth), making each individual encounter tougher. A party that can approach an encounter fresh, with no worries about saving resources, will often find that encounter relatively easy. How do you fix this? You have two choices. Don't let your party rest as often. There are a couple of ways of doing this - you could have encounters happen closer together without any chance for a break between each (maybe putting the characters on a timer, or make it dangerous to rest), or use the "Gritty Realism" rest model as described in the DMG (page 267) which makes rests take longer. Make the encounters harder. You can probably make the Adjusted Difficulty Rating of an encounter double or maybe even triple (for experienced parties) the XP rating of a Deadly encounter, and the fight will be more challenging and risky, but not impossible for a prepared party. This is a lot harder to get right and you may need to increase the difficulty slowly until you get to the level of challenge you want.

Regan C. said: I would not know where to put this so I will put it here. Exp calculators overstate the difficulty on most encounters usually. First I'll explain why this happens, and then how you can fix this. The biggest culprit for easy encounters is the party resting too much. If you're like me, your parties tend to have maybe two or three encounters per long rest, often with short rests in between - this makes more sense for some play styles, but causes balance problems. The 5th Edition system assumes that parties will have at least a couple of encounters between each short rest, and maybe two or three short rests between each long rest. This forces characters to be much more conservative with their limited resources (spell slots, class features, hit dice, and so forth), making each individual encounter tougher. A party that can approach an encounter fresh, with no worries about saving resources, will often find that encounter relatively easy. How do you fix this? You have two choices. Don't let your party rest as often. There are a couple of ways of doing this - you could have encounters happen closer together without any chance for a break between each (maybe putting the characters on a timer, or make it dangerous to rest), or use the "Gritty Realism" rest model as described in the DMG (page 267) which makes rests take longer. Make the encounters harder. You can probably make the Adjusted Difficulty Rating of an encounter double or maybe even triple (for experienced parties) the XP rating of a Deadly encounter, and the fight will be more challenging and risky, but not impossible for a prepared party. This is a lot harder to get right and you may need to increase the difficulty slowly until you get to the level of challenge you want. Especially don't let your party rest in a dangerous location. Coffee breaks don't make sense in the middle of dungeon, just saying.

Will M. said: Do you have a page for that in the DMG? I might find it on my own, but the reference would help me a bit. Ha! pg 266. bottom left corner: Healing Surges

So a rogue that wants to poison a blade or piece of ammo gets that as a bonus action? Where as a ranger poisoning an arrow takes up a full action? (What's name of the ability, what level?)

only drow get that as a free action, everyone else it is a action. In past we have used it as a bonus in some cases just like drinking a potion but that seems to be changing.

I was just reading about crossbow master feat, loading isn't an issue now. So if rogue had crossbow master they would get the bonus action with an object. Does that mean they could poison ammo as a bonus action, not have to worry about loading, where as with out crossbow master might poison, you'd still have that loading to deal with. I'm glad you mentioned the drow have that as a bonus action, it would have confused me why they could lock and load and my character couldn't on one round.

But a ranger has crossbow feat how does the poison ammo look? It's almost 2 different things. Poison the ammo and loading it.&nbsp;

Kerri Everwood said: So a rogue that wants to poison a blade or piece of ammo gets that as a bonus action? Where as a ranger poisoning an arrow takes up a full action? (What's name of the ability, what level?) It's called Fast Hands. The thief archetype gets it at third level.

Okay.&nbsp;

I have a question: What are your rules about unarmored defense and mage armor? Out of all that I read from the internet, it says it cannot be done. Can someone explain to me why it is impossible to do? I cannot see the problem.

Mage Armor gives you a different way of calculating your base AC, just as Unarmored Defense does. &nbsp;The two cannot stack, you have to choose one or the other. &nbsp;Same with Draconic Resilience, or Natural Armor (for example, for Druids in beast form). I know you probably already know this, but the link to the D&D website explaining the rule is&nbsp; here . &nbsp;See the section on calculating a creature's AC.

It is game design mostly. Wizards has posted many time they did not make 5e to balance well with multiclassing. It just wasnt in their minds when they made the system. They came back after they published the Next+ D&D witch was the 5e prototype system and made rules like this that would allow multi-classing and not let it get so over powered. But it still does, so we get game rules like this that say you can not use 2 formulas from 2 different classes to calculate AC. You have to pick one and use that. So Mage Armor will not stack with most things for this reason and if your character is getting a AC bump from some class feature then you can't use Mage armor. And sad to that say this is in the PHB.&nbsp;

Michael S. said: I have a question: What are your rules about unarmored defense and mage armor? Out of all that I read from the internet, it says it cannot be done. Can someone explain to me why it is impossible to do? I cannot see the problem. It works the same for hit points; temporary hit points don't stack from two sources, you can have one or the other but not both.

Thanks.