This sounds reasonable, but also a houserule. Of course from my discussion from three years ago I, apparently, think that "the player is informed of every single possible successful roll within line of sight" should be houseruled just for ease of play.
You wouldn't have to inform them of every successful roll, just the ones they caused. For ease of play, PCs should know if their attacks worked (or failed to work.)
And if it's someone else's unsuccessful attack, they can yell that out as a brief utterance if it's not obvious to the SB caster themselves.
But that takes away one of the rolls that SB is supposed to be able to affect: ability checks. So either you have to tell them about every successful roll, or you have to nerf SB.
Silvery barbs (and similar abilities) should absolutely be written as "you see a creature within 60 feet of yourself succeed on" rather than "a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on", but there's zero evidence for it being possible to react to an event you didn't perceive.
A modification to the spell that I've liked is allowing the target of SB to make a charisma save to have it not affect them. Seems like a reasonable requirement for a 1st level spell.
You wouldn't have to inform them of every successful roll, just the ones they caused. For ease of play, PCs should know if their attacks worked (or failed to work.)
And if it's someone else's unsuccessful attack, they can yell that out as a brief utterance if it's not obvious to the SB caster themselves.
But that takes away one of the rolls that SB is supposed to be able to affect: ability checks. So either you have to tell them about every successful roll, or you have to nerf SB.
I was specifically speaking to the saving throw example there; if you can see a creature, ability checks they're attempting should be even more obvious as far as stimuli go.
Silvery Barbs in and of itself caused me to ban Strixhaven entirely from my table because this spell is just stupidly overpowered; Like if this was a 3rd or 4th level spell then I'd be Ok with it but as it stands it's simply too powerful and the game really doesn't feel like it was built with it in mind since it leaves no real room for counterplay or adaptation; it's a straight up "get f'd while a buddy get's amazing" effect.
And quite frankly as a GM it tends to push me further towards a sort of headspace that I don't like; the kind where I look for ways to expressley counter and as a consequence punish the players who decided that taking a spell like this was a good idea; Doing things like creating vaccum chambers (no air=no vocalization=no spell) or just having enemies that are festooned in contingency counterspell wards that go off specifically whenever the barber tries to use the spell. That's a bad place for me as a GM and I'd rather work *with* my players to tell the best story possible and that requires trust and friendship from both parties.
Silvery Barbs in and of itself caused me to ban Strixhaven entirely from my table because this spell is just stupidly overpowered; Like if this was a 3rd or 4th level spell then I'd be Ok with it but as it stands it's simply too powerful and the game really doesn't feel like it was built with it in mind since it leaves no real room for counterplay or adaptation; it's a straight up "get f'd while a buddy get's amazing" effect.
And quite frankly as a GM it tends to push me further towards a sort of headspace that I don't like; the kind where I look for ways to expressley counter and as a consequence punish the players who decided that taking a spell like this was a good idea; Doing things like creating vaccum chambers (no air=no vocalization=no spell) or just having enemies that are festooned in contingency counterspell wards that go off specifically whenever the barber tries to use the spell. That's a bad place for me as a GM and I'd rather work *with* my players to tell the best story possible and that requires trust and friendship from both parties.
How many Silvery's could they really, practically field anyway? Just toss a couple more enemies at them per combat.
Thus making combat grindier and potentially more taxing for the party.
No. Better to just nip this problem in the bud.
Edit: Also I'm just going to ask, who here would actually enjoy playing against a GM that had multiple enemies capable of casting silvery barbs in a given fight?
Silvery Barbs in and of itself caused me to ban Strixhaven entirely from my table because this spell is just stupidly overpowered; Like if this was a 3rd or 4th level spell then I'd be Ok with it but as it stands it's simply too powerful and the game really doesn't feel like it was built with it in mind since it leaves no real room for counterplay or adaptation; it's a straight up "get f'd while a buddy get's amazing" effect.
And quite frankly as a GM it tends to push me further towards a sort of headspace that I don't like; the kind where I look for ways to expressley counter and as a consequence punish the players who decided that taking a spell like this was a good idea; Doing things like creating vaccum chambers (no air=no vocalization=no spell) or just having enemies that are festooned in contingency counterspell wards that go off specifically whenever the barber tries to use the spell. That's a bad place for me as a GM and I'd rather work *with* my players to tell the best story possible and that requires trust and friendship from both parties.
Did you actually play with it and find it this awful? I ask because my table has been using it without issue since it came out. I’m curious to hear from someone who is see it and it didn’t work.
In practice, it’s mostly turned some crits into regular hits. And I think one time a monster made a save and then failed it on the SB roll. Really not a big deal. But I realize that’s anecdotal, and would be interested to hear from folks who found it game breaking and why.
They have to use up a valuable resource just to give themselves one skill proficiency for an hour. So what?
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Vortex Warp, maybe, but remember, it is not just a spell slot to cast any of these (incl Silvery). It also requires having the spells known and prepped. Known is a considerable investment for non-wizards and even for wizards, that is one less other spell you have prepped for each of these you have ready and available.
Borrowed Knowledge would be fairly meh if it cost concentration, but it doesn't. Number of prepared spells can be a significant problem at low levels, but at tenth level when you have fifteen spells, it's not that big a deal.
Silvery Barbs in and of itself caused me to ban Strixhaven entirely from my table because this spell is just stupidly overpowered; Like if this was a 3rd or 4th level spell then I'd be Ok with it but as it stands it's simply too powerful and the game really doesn't feel like it was built with it in mind since it leaves no real room for counterplay or adaptation; it's a straight up "get f'd while a buddy get's amazing" effect.
And quite frankly as a GM it tends to push me further towards a sort of headspace that I don't like; the kind where I look for ways to expressley counter and as a consequence punish the players who decided that taking a spell like this was a good idea; Doing things like creating vaccum chambers (no air=no vocalization=no spell) or just having enemies that are festooned in contingency counterspell wards that go off specifically whenever the barber tries to use the spell. That's a bad place for me as a GM and I'd rather work *with* my players to tell the best story possible and that requires trust and friendship from both parties.
Banning Strixhaven is the mark of a wise DM. You are quite right. This spell, if allowed to exist at all, should be much higher. Same goes for Tiny Hut, Minor Illusion, Guidance, and a myriad of other spells. That spell trivializes so much in the game, and every table I have played/Dm'ed at, as well as all the other DM's tables I know at the gaming cafe, ban that spell.
Remember, in order to sell a product in the late stage cycle of that product, you either have to cut the price, or market it as "new and improved". In the case of 5e, "improved" = way more powerful than the previous iterations. Hence why SB was created, and then introduced in a new book. 5e is Pay to Win. Every time you pay wotc via this website x dollars to unlock an OP subclass, or a new book full of broken stuff, that is Pay to Win. This is not new. Even Gary Gygax was forced to create the original 1e UA, that was full of broken stuff, in order to generate cash for TSR.
Silvery Barbs in and of itself caused me to ban Strixhaven entirely from my table because this spell is just stupidly overpowered; Like if this was a 3rd or 4th level spell then I'd be Ok with it but as it stands it's simply too powerful and the game really doesn't feel like it was built with it in mind since it leaves no real room for counterplay or adaptation; it's a straight up "get f'd while a buddy get's amazing" effect.
And quite frankly as a GM it tends to push me further towards a sort of headspace that I don't like; the kind where I look for ways to expressley counter and as a consequence punish the players who decided that taking a spell like this was a good idea; Doing things like creating vaccum chambers (no air=no vocalization=no spell) or just having enemies that are festooned in contingency counterspell wards that go off specifically whenever the barber tries to use the spell. That's a bad place for me as a GM and I'd rather work *with* my players to tell the best story possible and that requires trust and friendship from both parties.
Did you actually play with it and find it this awful? I ask because my table has been using it without issue since it came out. I’m curious to hear from someone who is see it and it didn’t work.
In practice, it’s mostly turned some crits into regular hits. And I think one time a monster made a save and then failed it on the SB roll. Really not a big deal. But I realize that’s anecdotal, and would be interested to hear from folks who found it game breaking and why.
As a GM I've found it's made fights that should be fair to be trivial, way easier because enemies become incompetent boobs while the players also become considerably stronger thus removing tension and narrative weight from fights.
Why would enemies have to be able to cast Silvery?
The Question I was positing was a side thought; how would a group of players feel if they were on the other end of the barbs wherein they lost their crits or were forced to reroll saving throws.
Was just suggesting one or two additional normal opponents. 'Countering' does not need to be a hard counter of casting something to block it. Countering can be as simple as the enemy having an extra roll or two per round by way of that one extra attacker
Which again, makes fights longer and potentially more painful for players as they have to expend more resources (Spell, Chi, Short rest abilities, Long rest abilities, HP ect.) in order to deal with the additional adds.
It's much, much simpler to just remove the offending spell/ability then it is to build encounters to take into consideration the players using it.
Banning Strixhaven is the mark of a wise DM. You are quite right. This spell, if allowed to exist at all, should be much higher. Same goes for Tiny Hut, Minor Illusion, Guidance, and a myriad of other spells.
Guidance is one of those "this spell just makes the game more annoying" spells. It's easy to deal with as a DM -- just add 2 or 3 to all DCs -- which means the net effect is to just bog down play with people casting guidance.
Banning Strixhaven is the mark of a wise DM. You are quite right. This spell, if allowed to exist at all, should be much higher. Same goes for Tiny Hut, Minor Illusion, Guidance, and a myriad of other spells.
Guidance is one of those "this spell just makes the game more annoying" spells. It's easy to deal with as a DM -- just add 2 or 3 to all DCs -- which means the net effect is to just bog down play with people casting guidance.
We have a guy at the table that the moment the DM calls for a check, no matter what the check, this guy yells "Guidance!". Yes, he is playing a Bard. It is annoying as Silvery Barbs.
Banning Strixhaven is the mark of a wise DM. You are quite right. This spell, if allowed to exist at all, should be much higher. Same goes for Tiny Hut, Minor Illusion, Guidance, and a myriad of other spells.
Guidance is one of those "this spell just makes the game more annoying" spells. It's easy to deal with as a DM -- just add 2 or 3 to all DCs -- which means the net effect is to just bog down play with people casting guidance.
We have a guy at the table that the moment the DM calls for a check, no matter what the check, this guy yells "Guidance!". Yes, he is playing a Bard. It is annoying as Silvery Barbs.
The more I read your posts the more convinced I am you don't seem to actually like D&D.
Anyway, Guidance is there to give 1d4 on checks and yes, a player who has it will want to use it for every check they can because that's the fluffing point of the cantrip.
The party are meant to be the heroes of the story. If they want to make it easier using guidance or silvery barbs just fecking let them? If they're having fun, what does it matter? If they're not because they're using the spell to much, then discuss it with them.
It's like gatekeeping videogames because some people want to play on easy mode. So ******* what? Some people like easy mode. Let them play easy mode. Some people like hard mode - let them. You should be having a session 0 to know what game your players want. And you can have a Session 0 anytime you need.
It's a co-operative game. As long as peeps be having fun - it's all good. If having fun means silvery-barbsing their way across the dungeon, let them. It's not DM vs players. Remember that.
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Yeah, I too get annoyed when players try to be useful and collaborative.
You want creative and entertaining game play, not game play that doesn't do anything but slow the game down, and guidance is definitely the latter.
Why is slowing anything to just add a d4 to a check. You can just say "I assume guidance is on every check, so just add your d4. I will let you know when you can't". And voila. No more slowing down.
Is that difficult? No.
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Yeah, I too get annoyed when players try to be useful and collaborative.
You want creative and entertaining game play, not game play that doesn't do anything but slow the game down, and guidance is definitely the latter.
Guidance does more than slow the game down (and I disagree that a d4 does that), therefore this statement is false. Guidance adds a 1d4 to an ability check, which can be the difference between a success or failure. Successes can be quite entertaining.
Why is slowing anything to just add a d4 to a check. You can just say "I assume guidance is on every check, so just add your d4. I will let you know when you can't". And voila. No more slowing down.
Is that difficult? No.
Rolling the extra die slows down the game and doesn't make it more interactive or interesting. The actual way you streamline gameplay is that the DM says "I am assuming you cast guidance and that is reflected in the DCs, therefore don't bother to apply it".
Guidance does more than slow the game down (and I disagree that a d4 does that), therefore this statement is false. Guidance adds a 1d4 to an ability check, which can be the difference between a success or failure. Successes can be quite entertaining.
DMs set difficulty based on the abilities of the PCs; if they're succeeding too often, the problem will be solved by increasing DCs. Thus, the net effect of guidance is to produce the same results with more die rolls.
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You wouldn't have to inform them of every successful roll, just the ones they caused. For ease of play, PCs should know if their attacks worked (or failed to work.)
And if it's someone else's unsuccessful attack, they can yell that out as a brief utterance if it's not obvious to the SB caster themselves.
Silvery barbs (and similar abilities) should absolutely be written as "you see a creature within 60 feet of yourself succeed on" rather than "a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself succeeds on", but there's zero evidence for it being possible to react to an event you didn't perceive.
A modification to the spell that I've liked is allowing the target of SB to make a charisma save to have it not affect them. Seems like a reasonable requirement for a 1st level spell.
I was specifically speaking to the saving throw example there; if you can see a creature, ability checks they're attempting should be even more obvious as far as stimuli go.
Silvery Barbs in and of itself caused me to ban Strixhaven entirely from my table because this spell is just stupidly overpowered; Like if this was a 3rd or 4th level spell then I'd be Ok with it but as it stands it's simply too powerful and the game really doesn't feel like it was built with it in mind since it leaves no real room for counterplay or adaptation; it's a straight up "get f'd while a buddy get's amazing" effect.
And quite frankly as a GM it tends to push me further towards a sort of headspace that I don't like; the kind where I look for ways to expressley counter and as a consequence punish the players who decided that taking a spell like this was a good idea; Doing things like creating vaccum chambers (no air=no vocalization=no spell) or just having enemies that are festooned in contingency counterspell wards that go off specifically whenever the barber tries to use the spell. That's a bad place for me as a GM and I'd rather work *with* my players to tell the best story possible and that requires trust and friendship from both parties.
Thus making combat grindier and potentially more taxing for the party.
No. Better to just nip this problem in the bud.
Edit: Also I'm just going to ask, who here would actually enjoy playing against a GM that had multiple enemies capable of casting silvery barbs in a given fight?
Did you actually play with it and find it this awful? I ask because my table has been using it without issue since it came out. I’m curious to hear from someone who is see it and it didn’t work.
In practice, it’s mostly turned some crits into regular hits. And I think one time a monster made a save and then failed it on the SB roll. Really not a big deal. But I realize that’s anecdotal, and would be interested to hear from folks who found it game breaking and why.
It's not the only stupidly overpowered spell in the book, either. I would say Borrowed Knowledge and Vortex Warp are also substantially overtuned.
How is Borrowed Knowledge OP?
They have to use up a valuable resource just to give themselves one skill proficiency for an hour. So what?
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Borrowed Knowledge would be fairly meh if it cost concentration, but it doesn't. Number of prepared spells can be a significant problem at low levels, but at tenth level when you have fifteen spells, it's not that big a deal.
Banning Strixhaven is the mark of a wise DM. You are quite right. This spell, if allowed to exist at all, should be much higher. Same goes for Tiny Hut, Minor Illusion, Guidance, and a myriad of other spells. That spell trivializes so much in the game, and every table I have played/Dm'ed at, as well as all the other DM's tables I know at the gaming cafe, ban that spell.
Remember, in order to sell a product in the late stage cycle of that product, you either have to cut the price, or market it as "new and improved". In the case of 5e, "improved" = way more powerful than the previous iterations. Hence why SB was created, and then introduced in a new book. 5e is Pay to Win. Every time you pay wotc via this website x dollars to unlock an OP subclass, or a new book full of broken stuff, that is Pay to Win. This is not new. Even Gary Gygax was forced to create the original 1e UA, that was full of broken stuff, in order to generate cash for TSR.
As a GM I've found it's made fights that should be fair to be trivial, way easier because enemies become incompetent boobs while the players also become considerably stronger thus removing tension and narrative weight from fights.
The Question I was positing was a side thought; how would a group of players feel if they were on the other end of the barbs wherein they lost their crits or were forced to reroll saving throws.
Which again, makes fights longer and potentially more painful for players as they have to expend more resources (Spell, Chi, Short rest abilities, Long rest abilities, HP ect.) in order to deal with the additional adds.
It's much, much simpler to just remove the offending spell/ability then it is to build encounters to take into consideration the players using it.
Guidance is one of those "this spell just makes the game more annoying" spells. It's easy to deal with as a DM -- just add 2 or 3 to all DCs -- which means the net effect is to just bog down play with people casting guidance.
We have a guy at the table that the moment the DM calls for a check, no matter what the check, this guy yells "Guidance!". Yes, he is playing a Bard. It is annoying as Silvery Barbs.
Yeah, I too get annoyed when players try to be useful and collaborative.
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You want creative and entertaining game play, not game play that doesn't do anything but slow the game down, and guidance is definitely the latter.
The more I read your posts the more convinced I am you don't seem to actually like D&D.
Anyway, Guidance is there to give 1d4 on checks and yes, a player who has it will want to use it for every check they can because that's the fluffing point of the cantrip.
The party are meant to be the heroes of the story. If they want to make it easier using guidance or silvery barbs just fecking let them? If they're having fun, what does it matter? If they're not because they're using the spell to much, then discuss it with them.
It's like gatekeeping videogames because some people want to play on easy mode. So ******* what? Some people like easy mode. Let them play easy mode. Some people like hard mode - let them. You should be having a session 0 to know what game your players want. And you can have a Session 0 anytime you need.
It's a co-operative game. As long as peeps be having fun - it's all good. If having fun means silvery-barbsing their way across the dungeon, let them. It's not DM vs players. Remember that.
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Why is slowing anything to just add a d4 to a check. You can just say "I assume guidance is on every check, so just add your d4. I will let you know when you can't". And voila. No more slowing down.
Is that difficult? No.
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Guidance does more than slow the game down (and I disagree that a d4 does that), therefore this statement is false. Guidance adds a 1d4 to an ability check, which can be the difference between a success or failure. Successes can be quite entertaining.
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Rolling the extra die slows down the game and doesn't make it more interactive or interesting. The actual way you streamline gameplay is that the DM says "I am assuming you cast guidance and that is reflected in the DCs, therefore don't bother to apply it".
DMs set difficulty based on the abilities of the PCs; if they're succeeding too often, the problem will be solved by increasing DCs. Thus, the net effect of guidance is to produce the same results with more die rolls.