Tag: dnd

dnd 5e: Is a creature in the area of ​​a Water Wall spell trapped in ice when hit by the Ray of Frost cantrip?

This is a great combination! The rules for casting two spells with one bonus action and one action simply state (PHB, 202):

A spell cast with a bonus action is especially fast. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, as long as you haven't taken a bonus action this turn. You cannot cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a cast time of 1 action.

In your example, you have used your Bonus Action through Metamagic to launch Wall of Water. There is no exception for the water wall; it only creates control aspects of the battlefield within its area.

If you cast it in a space that contains a creature, that creature would be inside the Wall (though note that the Wall is only 1 'thick). Also note that only the 5 & # 39; section of the wall on which they are located (see below) turned into ice (and if it is destroyed, it is not filled with water).

The creature is now in 1 & # 39; of water and Ray of Frost's Cantrip tracking action interacts wonderfully with Wall of Water's response to cold damage:

Cold damage spells that pierce the wall cause the area of ​​the wall they traverse to freeze (at least one 5-square-foot section is frozen). Each 5 square foot frozen section has AC 5 and 15 hit points.

You would now have a Wall of Water with a frozen section containing a creature in its 5 'space (but only 1' thick ice).

But what can a frozen creature do?

This will probably depend on the table. There are no rules regarding being on ice. and what conditions it imposes (such as Restricted or Grappled).

How would i rule

It would probably give a Skill save to avoid ice (DC set by the caster, just like with Wall of Stone trying to catch someone) and then, in case of failure, give them restricted status.

dnd 5e: Does invoking Voice of the Chain Master allow me to see through my family member's senses without using an action?

The invocation only does exactly what it says it does

As you quoted, the witcher's Voice of the Chain Master eldritch invocation reads:

You can communicate telepathically with your family member Y perceive through your family member's senses as long as you are on the same plane of existence.

And, as Jeremy Crawford says, this is an improvement on the general rule for family members. The fact that you can now telepathically communicate with your family member and perceive through your senses as long as they are on the same plane as you is an improvement. No one would accept the invocation if it were not so.

This & # 39; invocation & # 39; It only makes sense as a real upgrade if both abilities were somehow limited by rank.

The find familar spell says:

Although your family member is less than 100 feet from you, you can telepathically communicate with him. Also, as an action, you can see through your relative's eyes and hear what they hear until the start of their next shift, reaping the benefits of any special sense the relative has.

The range limitation on telepathic communication is 100 feet, so now being able to communicate with your family members, at any distance, while on the same plane, is clearly a great benefit.

The text of the familiar find spell does not make the scope of action to perceive through your family member's senses so obvious. However, the eldritch invocation tells us that being able to perform that action at any distance, while on the same plane is considered a benefit, so it must also be limited in some way.

With no other range indicated in the spell, the only reasonable explanation is that the ability to perceive through your family member's senses should be considered a subset of your ability to communicate telepathically with your family member in general, and therefore normally falls under the same range restriction – 100 feet

This argument is strengthened when you consider that the text of the spell that allows perceptual action begins with the word & # 39; In addition & # 39 ;. In plain English, that usually means this session is closely related and refers to the previous session in some way. It should not be interpreted as an unrelated point.

In conclusion, invocation does not allow you to perceive through your family member's senses without the use of an action. If so, I would say so. It allows you to communicate telepathically with your family member and perceive through your family member's senses as long as you are on the same plane of existence. For these two to be things you couldn't otherwise do, without this invocation, both must normally be limited in scope.

See also: What is the range limit to see through the eyes of a relative?

dnd 5e: Does the fire of darkness dissipate the fire of fairies?

While playing Dnd 5e tonight, I had a small game of players in a room with Darklings in which Darkness had been chosen in two places in the room. It was very dark and the Darklings initially hit the players. The reason Darkness had been cast in the room was because Darklings are at a disadvantage in brighter environments; Darklings have an advantage when the environment is dark.

Player characters first cast the level 1 light spell to try to brighten up the room. The Darkness spell is a level 2 Evocation spell cast by Wizards, Sorcerers, or Warlocks and according to the specifications of the Darkness spell:

If the area of ​​this spell overlaps with an area of ​​light created by a second or lower level spell, the spell that created the light dissipates.

Thus, nothing happened when they cast the small level 1 light spell in the Dark. With loss, the Player's characters cast the level 1 Evocation spell called Faerie Fire, hoping to make nearby Darklings glow dimly purple.

Since the Faerie Fire spell would have been adding a light form, and since it is the same type of spell that Darkness is (Evocation), but since it is a lower level than Darkness, my inclination was to say that Faerie Fire dissipated. in the same way. as was the light spell.

However, I can see a reasonable explanation behind allowing Faerie Fire to work in magical Darkness, since Faerie Fire is not really a light spell.

And … that's where we ended things at night because, fortunately, we were playing online, the virus, and our link abruptly ended. When it was over, the bard that Faerie Fire released said he was going to resign for the night.

So that's the question: does Faerie Fire dissipate immediately if cast into magical Darkness?

dnd 5e – Is it really possible to hide behind another player character?

You're right, generally speaking, you can't hide behind another PC or creature and do a stealth test.

However, light-footed mediums can (make great rogues for this reason) if the creature is one size larger than them (which includes medium-sized PCs).

However, the skulker feat, no Allow to hide behind PCs. Lets you hide in "slightly darkened" areas, but not in other situations. PCs provide half coverage, but don't hide, so no skulker is applied.

Also, remember that the rogue needs to use his bonus action to hide (for other characters it is an action). This means that they cannot effectively use two combat weapons and hide regularly.

Ultimately, this simply allows the rogue to take out his sneak attack each turn. Contrary to what you are thinking, this is no mastered in any way. This is the rogue working as designed.

At low levels, the rogue can be quite good, especially when the advantage is taken into account. However, as you level up, rogue damage, as it always depends on individual attack, will fall off the table compared to other classes.

So while this may seem mastered, the rogues are course to be able to gain advantage quite easily, and to be able to make sneak attacks on almost every turn, this is the only how they can constantly compete for damage, especially as things level up.

dnd 5e – How to reduce the levels of Princes of the Apocalypse for a party of 3 adventurers?

There are several alternatives you have, let's talk about reducing encounters first:

Budgeted XP and encounters

A good way to adjust the difficulty of an encounter is to look at the XP budgeted for an encounter as expected by the published module and adjust it to the size of your group. Guidelines for this can be found on page 82 of the DMG or page 56 of the WoTC DM Basic Rules. This involves calculating for each creature's XP multiplied by the appropriate Encounter Multiplier factor for the number of creatures the group faces, this can be found on the same DMG page.

Page 83 of the DMG also takes into account the size of the adventurous part, saying that it increases or decreases the multiplier by .5 according to the part size. In your case it would increase the encounter multiplier by .5 because it only has 3 players and published adventures are supposed to be played with 4.

For example, if the published meeting includes 4 CR 1 creatures with a total value of 800 XP. Looking at the match multiplier table, 4 creatures yield a 2x multiplier then you have a Planned budgeted XP of 1600. Looking at the XP Thresholds table by character level, we see that the encounter is intended to be a Medium difficulty I find for 4 fifth level characters.

But since the size of your party is small, increase your encounter multiplier to 2.5x. So if you don't change the match, you would have a XP budgeted from 2000Which is slightly more of medium difficulty for a group of 3.

So how do we modify the encounter to be medium difficulty for 3 parts? We know that for 3 fifth level characters, a medium difficulty encounter is budgeted at 1500 XP, so we can simply draw 1 creature to reduce the budget to scale, since changing the number of creatures from 4 to 3 reduces the multiplier, we have the result of a budgeted XP for your small group of 1500 XP, perfectly adjusted.

That's all well and good, but what if the encounter is against ONE really strong creature?

Modifying and Creating Monsters

Another way to balance encounters is to create your own using the DMG guidelines on page 273 on Create / Modify a Monster (unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a counterpart to these rules in the Basic DM Rules). This involves taking a creature's essentials and reducing its other stats to adjust it to match the desired Challenge Rating. Everything is detailed in the DMG, so I won't put it here.

Once you have your creature's CR, find its XP value and adjust it for encounter difficulty, as mentioned above. This is your XP budgeted for the encounter.

Let's say, a creature CR 7 with a value of 2900XP (with a multiplier of 1x for 4 characters), would be close to a difficult encounter but much more than mortal for a group of 3. To make it just difficult, the budgeted XP should be 2250 XP, which means the creature must be around CR 6 (5 if your player's characters are lower level). This is where the guidelines for Create a Monster come in, you must modify the creature's existing stats to knock down a pair of CR. This method is fine but cumbersome, unless you can find a resource tool somewhere on the net.

Alternatively, instead of scaling down monsters, you can try scaling up players

1) Give your players hero points

Hero Points is an optional rule found on page 264 of the DMG, it works similarly to Bardic's inspiration and increases the player's chance of success with a direct addition to any roll they make. This is a great way to boost your players and make them feel strong and important. However, players may feel like they are being spoon-fed and don't like that, so it would be better to talk to them about adding this option first, especially if there is a Bard at the party.

2) Give them magic items

Magic items don't fit into encounter difficulty calculations unlike levels and challenge rating, but the more +1 weapons the small game has, the easier encounters will be. There are no guidelines on how much this affects difficulty, but personally, after running several high magic campaigns for a normal size 6th level group that easily has two combat magic items each, you can expect to increase your difficulty by one step. (That is, medium encounters are easy, difficult is medium, deadly is difficult).

Warning, however, you may want to avoid giving them + x Armor, as this can break the game with the PC's super high AC. Instead, consider Adamantine armor (or a similar magic item for light armor or unarmored PC) that denies critics hitting them, denying random casualties. By the way, if you are designing a solo session, this is one of the best elements to give them.

3) Add an NPC adventurer

You could simply add another adventurer of the same level as the party you control. This is an added burden on the DM and affects the player agency a bit, but if you keep the NPC's influence to a minimum, players CAN allow this to happen. The extra muscle will certainly help, but just like the Hero Points option, talk to your players first.

4) Allow characters to accept learners / followers

Another way, related to the above method, is to allow your players to take on a top tier character to the party that they control as learners or followers. This allows a certain degree of help during combat and gives players an alternate character in case the top tier dies. Also, seeing a player talk (and even argue) with himself is golden (why should GMs be the only ones to have to do this?)

dnd 5e – Are there rules on how to research and create new spells?

I was thinking of doing some new spells for the fifth edition of D&D. Is there an official guide on how to do it? If so, where is the information found? Please note: I am interested only in the fifth edition, not other edition materials.

By reading the question How can I let my PCs create new spells in a fair and balanced way? Several tips are given, but not about the mechanics of developing the spell itself from the perspective of game design and DM.

The reason I say the question doesn't answer my question is because the damage is covered, but it doesn't specify the form of the scope or the spell. The launch time is covered, but the information seems a bit disjointed. And it's not all about damage, either. There's nothing in any of the answers about how long non-damaging spells should last (or take to cast). Also nothing about how to determine if the new spells require concentration or not.

dnd 5e – Passive checking and transparent features of the gelatinous cube

Whether or not you ask your players to perform active verification or simply use your liabilities, it's up to the DM to determine. The only direct answer is if the player says they are looking for something, in which case you can have them actively check for something they are actively doing.

Otherwise, using a passive score or asking a player to do an active check depends exclusively on the DM and there is no direct rule about it.

Either way, monsters are also here to tell a story and not just to be an XP bag. It's okay for players to stumble upon him, that's why he's in the stat block! But if you want it as a DM, you can also try to provide some clues that something is wrong. If they ask you to write a check, you can have them do it.

dnd 5e: do you combine multiple temporary hit point sources or do you only get one set?

Do you combine multiple sources of temporary hit points or do you only get one set?

For example, let's say you throw agathys armor Y fake life on yourself Do you have two separate sets of temporary hit points, or do you have to choose one of them? By separate groups, I mean you have 5 temporary AoA HP and 8 temporary FL HP. If you take 10 damage, can you choose one of the two temporary HP groups and take the remaining damage from your actual HP, but still have the other group to protect you against a second attack?

I ask why a warlock player in my game insists that she has both groups, but I think it should be one or the other.

How do multiple HP temperature sources interact with each other?

dnd 5e: Does the War Caster feat grant ranged spell attacks in melee range without debuff?

A opportunity attack It is described in this way (PHB, p. 195):

You can make an attack of opportunity when a hostile creature you can see moves out of range. To make the attack of opportunity, you use your reaction to make a melee attack against the creature it provokes.

The last benefit of War Launcher feat says (PHB, p. 170):

  • When a hostile creature's movement triggers an attack of opportunity, you can use your reaction to cast a spell on the creature, instead of making an attack of opportunity. The spell must have a cast time of 1 action and must target only that creature.

Without him Crossbow Expert feat, all ranged attacks (including ranged spell attacks) made when an enemy is adjacent suffer this penalty (PHB, p. 195):

You have a disadvantage on a ranged attack roll if you are within 5 feet of a hostile creature that can see you and is not incapacitated.

Since an attack of opportunity normally grants a melee attack, does it seem reasonable to assume that the target remains at melee range for the spell attack granted by War Caster? If so, does this require ranged spell attack rolls with disadvantage?

The trigger for an OA is a creature that moves "out of range". This suggests to me that the creature is outside the 5 & # 39; s debuff zone, but it seems like that would prevent melee attacks.

Do characters with the War Caster feat get the best of both worlds – are they allowed to perform a melee spell attack or ranged non-disadvantaged spell attack?

dnd 5e – Can the Mold Earth cantrip create a makeshift cover?

Just dig a 5 & # 39; bucket hole (or less, depending on your height) and hop on. It doesn't matter where the loose soil goes in this case (good info in that other answer on how it is stacked, but none falls back into the hole, because the cantrip digs a 5 & # 39; cube hole). Any PC fits in a 5 'cube, that's huge.

In combat?

Of course, it is "instantaneous". There is no question. That's the main reason why it's better than just carrying a shovel and not wasting a valuable cantrip slot in Mold Earth. You definitely have the ability to dig a 5x5x5 hole in one action. No doubt.

Balance / OP problems?

There are many great cantrips you went through to get this. Mold the Earth is not a cantrip problem, no need for nerf. It is situational, as you must be standing on the ground, which is common enough outside of the dungeons, but in my experience it is not as common as you want.

Unless you have a good rate of climb, you're using 10 & # 39; of movement to get out. Your DM will decide whether to duck in the hole use prone mechanics or not. That makes quick withdrawals a problem. A melee attacker definitely has an advantage over you while you are there and you would be at a disadvantage. You're doing classic tradeoff to get coverage at the expense of a full round + significantly limiting your movement options.

Other uses

I had a fun version of Tomelock for a short campaign that used this and thorn whip and darkness and the devil's sight for all kinds of mischief. Have an enemy trip over it (or be pushed, etc.) and then fill it up again. Half-buried enemies are easier to kill. And throwing / hitting other people in holes is fun and often quite useful for holding or creating choke points.

Mechanically? It was crap, but it was smart and fun and provided opportunities for teamwork and everyone loved it. It would have had more utility and higher DPS with a different cantrip. This is situational and often tactical, don't nerf it.

I also built some trenches and fortifications for our camp at night when I had time and we were in a field. You can dig more than 5 'down with some ramps and some time (5 cubic feet of dirt every 6 seconds per RAW is very fast). Dug under some walls, buried some bodies and treasures. It's a good utility, but situationally it's a useful tactical terrain spell in combat.

And battles with interesting or changing terrain are the best battles.