Currently I’m a player in a campaign, a short break from my usual status as Forever GM, but I’ve noticed that something is not within the bounds of the rules, and it is a very dangerous build that one of my fellow players is using.
I’ve known this player since I started playing D&D, and while I dove right into all of the lore and the mechanics of the game and became our resident nerd-in-chief, he sort of just stayed the same. He still struggles to build character sheets and he now uses D&D Beyond because that makes it easier. The problem is that he purchased Tasha’s on here, and is playing an Order of Scribes wizard. He didn’t read the description of his ability “Manifest Mind” very carefully, and only noticed that he can cast a spell from the location of his spellbook and that, according to D&D Beyond’s poorly laid out ability section, it costs no action and he can do it a number of times equal to his proficiency bonus. What the ability is saying is that it costs no action to choose to cast your spell from the spellbook. Not that it removes the action from casting a spell. He used this in the final battle to one shot the BBEG by casting fireball three times in one turn. Obviously, this is not within the bounds of the rules and so when I heard he had cast the spells like this (I missed the first half of our session) I looked up the ability to see how he did this.
This morning I informed him of the true nature of the ability and he argued with the fact that D&D Beyond says “No action.” I told him to read the description, which he did while I spoke to another party member. I have not yet had a chance to speak to him again about this, though he was quite angry when I pointed this out and he seemed to be fuming as we went our separate ways.
We’re continuing the campaign past the BBEG and I don’t want this to happen again, but I feel that my fellow party member is not happy with me. I was only making sure that we don’t have a character who can fling nearly 30d6 of fire damage once per combat, overshadowing everyone else. I’m not blaming our GM either, because he keeps things quick by trusting players to understand the descriptions of abilities and spells they have. The problem is that this player clearly doesn’t, and it poses a serious problem if we are to continue the game. Did I do the right thing? Or should I have stayed quiet in regards to this ability?
I was called out moments later by another party member, who said that I had no right to do this when “It’s his entire build and you have an overpowered character too.” I responded that my character only becomes powerful after a few rounds of combat (ranger stacking abilities onto my bow) and I do it all within the bounds of the rules. I also had never heard from him before that this was part of his build.
In conclusion, I feel like I’ve ruined one player’s fun at the cost of preserving my own and possibly the rest of the party’s (and our GM). I just didn’t feel comfortable with this rules violation and now I feel like all but two of my party members have turned on me for this “egregious violation of another player’s build.” I think it was unfair for this one player to be the only one to attack the BBEG while the rest of us spent our time getting mobbed by orcs and barely surviving (we actually had two PC deaths that only were saved through Revivify) because we’d been 3 or 4 combats without a long rest and this party member (a new character because he keeps switching them out) had literally been working with the enemy and just randomly decided to kill the BBEG, his boss. He stole all the glory from a quest that his character was never even part of. So, to repeat my question, did I do the right thing? Because I’m now feeling like a bad party member.
this sounds like a pretty dysfunctional table. player 3 appears to think you, player 1, are being a rules lawyer. you might agree since you did take the time to mention it. player 2 seems to have been under the impression that 'rule of cool' was free for anyone to apply willy-nilly and the GM hasn't said different. speaking of the game master, i get a whiff of reluctance to say "no" to things (under the guise of keeping things moving/simple). there's a real difference between trusting the players to roll stats and letting a triple fireball slide! i could be way off, but that's what i summarize from the information given.
i'd recommend lowering your expectations, looking at this as a fast-and-loose narrative-driven wacky game, and take some notes for things to discuss in your next session zero. if these same people seemed in the past to handle things differently when you were in charge, then just get comfortable with this being someone else's world with someone else's expectations. you could force the issue and insist on a new session-zero-esque round-table for this game (and it sounds like they needed to have one), but it kinda sounds like no one else is confused about what's allowed.
have you ever heard the saying "you can't eat at everybody's house"? it's referencing how some families/housemates/people have eating habits and tastes that can make you wildly uncomfortable while being unremarkably normal to them. well, you can't enjoy D&D at everybody's table. express your concerns, sure, but either bring an open mind or prepare to find another group. shrug.
In hindsight, I think the better move might have been to bring it up with the DM. It’s up to them whether or not they want to allow such things, and they can be the rules arbiter who shuts it down if they don’t like it.
this sounds like a pretty dysfunctional table. player 3 appears to think you, player 1, are being a rules lawyer. you might agree since you did take the time to mention it. player 2 seems to have been under the impression that 'rule of cool' was free for anyone to apply willy-nilly and the GM hasn't said different. speaking of the game master, i get a whiff of reluctance to say "no" to things (under the guise of keeping things moving/simple). there's a real difference between trusting the players to roll stats and letting a triple fireball slide! i could be way off, but that's what i summarize from the information given.
i'd recommend lowering your expectations, looking at this as a fast-and-loose narrative-driven wacky game, and take some notes for things to discuss in your next session zero. if these same people seemed in the past to handle things differently when you were in charge, then just get comfortable with this being someone else's world with someone else's expectations. you could force the issue and insist on a new session-zero-esque round-table for this game (and it sounds like they needed to have one), but it kinda sounds like no one else is confused about what's allowed.
have you ever heard the saying "you can't eat at everybody's house"? it's referencing how some families/housemates/people have eating habits and tastes that can make you wildly uncomfortable while being unremarkably normal to them. well, you can't enjoy D&D at everybody's table. express your concerns, sure, but either bring an open mind or prepare to find another group. shrug.
I think your insight is very helpful, but I suppose I didn’t show the scene very well. This is the first time this has happened at our table, as we normally have a well defined storyline and a fantastic group that works well and progresses within the rules. Then this happened.
Thank you for these responses though. I think I did the right thing, but I definitely need to talk to our GM about this. I’m just worried this is the beginning of the breakdown of our group as I have one person who agrees with me that the other three are beginning to be toxic and “fireball three times” and then we have one player who just wants to play. I want to just play too, but with all the things happening I just can’t tolerate it anymore.
Pointing out that you can't cast 3 fireballs in one turn isn't being a "Rules Lawyer", that's just so far from balanced that it should have been immediately obvious to the DM that something wasn't right. Ultimately the rules are only guidelines for the DM to start from, and the DM can freely institute house rules, but the starting assumption needs to be Rules As Written until overruled by the DM. Your conversation should be with the DM, who's either going to have to choose to let it slide (and deal with some pretty ridiculous balance), or to inform the other player they can't homebrew nuclear missiles.
Advice for smoothing things out with the other player would be to help them brainstorm cool things that they CAN do with their ability that are within the rules, that lets them feel like less like their exciting build just became garbage. For example, you could use Manifest Mind to sneak up on a group of NPCs and fireball them out of nowhere (up to three times if they can't figure out what's going on). Or you can cast spells "from melee" while actually being safe out at range or behind cover. Perhaps in the worst case, as a DM I'd allow the player to retcon their subclass to something else if they were really that unhappy with it, since they chose that one based on a misunderstanding. There's still alot you can do with Manifest Mind though, it's already powerful as is
I think there is more going on here than has been covered by the OP. Having three folks side with the person who is making up the rules as they go along and thinking that launching three fireballs simultaneously is OK is probably a root cause of the problem. What kind of game are they playing vs the kind of game the OP is playing?
1) I don't think it was wrong to ask about the simultaneous casting of three fireballs without using an action since it is wildly unbalanced. I've looked up rules on far smaller issues. For small problems I would usually just bring it up with the DM or not bother mentioning it depending on whether the table leans more rules or rule of cool. On the other hand, mentioning to the player, in this instance, that they might be misreading the ability seems perfectly ok to me.
2) However, in this case, I think the DM is the one truly at fault. It sounds like they are running a rules light game AND they don't know the rules or how the game works very well themselves. Nine out of ten DMs would question and take a look in detail if a player said "My character has an ability that lets them cast three fireballs at once without taking an action!". The DM really should look into it at that point. This isn't a matter of "trusting" the player but rather the player MUST be reading something incorrectly since that ability is so far outside what is allowed to any other character that there is likely something wrong. It should be up to the DM to correct rules issues even for individual characters. It should not be up to the player to say it doesn't work that way.
3) The OP should have a chat with the DM about how they plan to handle "rules" going forward. Also ask them whether they want to know when someone is misreading a rule or even intentionally cheating?
Ask the DM if it is ok for all the characters to make up whatever rule they like that will make their character more powerful just because it sounds cool? Can I stack multi-attack from multiple classes? Can I cast two fireballs every turn with my sorcerer by quickening one of them? Can I have the abilities of multiple character archetypes at the same time? These and similar are not allowed in the rules, just as much as the misread ability to launch three fireballs at once without taking an action. So ask the DM, how do they plan to run the "rules"? Is it only rules that the DM already knows that can't be broken? Can folks use the "rule of cool" for anything they want to try with their character?
Basically, like it or not, D&D is an RPG with an underlying rules system that helps keep the game balanced and run smoothly. The DM needs to decide how they want to run the game and they should communicate that to the OP and the other players.
4) "I was called out moments later by another party member, who said that I had no right to do this when “It’s his entire build and you have an overpowered character too.” " - this comment has a lot of missing subtext. The person who said it clearly considers the OPs character to be overpowered and likely over-shadowing their character if not the rest of the party already even if the OPs character is a completely legal Gloomstalker ranger with Archery, Sharpshooter, maybe X-bow expert, good rolled stats(? though it is just as powerful with point buy), stacking hunters mark or favored foe etc. It sounds like this person thinks the OP is pointing out issues with this other character NOT because the other player is reading the rules incorrectly but because the OP is objecting to someone else doing more damage than they do. (from the OPs post I don't believe that is the case - however, I get the feeling the way the group is splitting on supporting the player who has misread the rules that either they are a personal friend OR the OPs character is already playing a dominant role and the other players aren't happy with it though they haven't mentioned it). (just guessing mind you - none of us are there and as I mentioned there is a lot of missing subtext and background).
I will say that I use DNDBeyond extensively in my gaming and DMing and I don't see a problem with building off of it rather than the more traditional "write it all down". That said, if I ever hestitate on a rule or my Spidey Sense tingles, I absolutely hit the search bar, and read the spell myself. I'd rather pause the table to sort out something that feels wrong than to look back and go "oh, that was wrong".
Which for reference (since I looked it up):
Whenever you cast a wizard spell on your turn, you can cast it as if you were in the spectral mind’s space, instead of your own, using its senses. You can do so a number of times per day equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
So yeah, definitely does not allow someone to cast a spell 3 times in their turn since the triggering event is "whenever you cast a spell". Since you generally only get one spell per turn that kinda covers that.
As to the table, I would say talk to the DM and then prepare for an open conversation about where you're at, what you want in the game and where everyone else is at. When there's a disconnect you need to do this from time to time and it can be HARD. I had one such session with my players and legit I was in tears by the end of it. They weren't having fun and I took all that on myself. And I thought I had some great stuff planned but a lot landed wrong so I wasn't having fun either. It took a good, serious, long conversation to sort out what we all wanted, how we wanted it what the course was going forward.
I'd steel myself for people to "come at me" about my own power level because it's already been put out there. It's a shame because it's not about who is or is not following the rules, but there is some validity to "I feel like your character is a little broken". Heck it's a running gag with my wed game given the to hit bonus our artificer enjoys (I've swapped out high AC monsters for monsters that have advantage to avoid being hit).
Currently I’m a player in a campaign, a short break from my usual status as Forever GM, but I’ve noticed that something is not within the bounds of the rules, and it is a very dangerous build that one of my fellow players is using.
I’ve known this player since I started playing D&D, and while I dove right into all of the lore and the mechanics of the game and became our resident nerd-in-chief, he sort of just stayed the same. He still struggles to build character sheets and he now uses D&D Beyond because that makes it easier. The problem is that he purchased Tasha’s on here, and is playing an Order of Scribes wizard. He didn’t read the description of his ability “Manifest Mind” very carefully, and only noticed that he can cast a spell from the location of his spellbook and that, according to D&D Beyond’s poorly laid out ability section, it costs no action and he can do it a number of times equal to his proficiency bonus. What the ability is saying is that it costs no action to choose to cast your spell from the spellbook. Not that it removes the action from casting a spell. He used this in the final battle to one shot the BBEG by casting fireball three times in one turn. Obviously, this is not within the bounds of the rules and so when I heard he had cast the spells like this (I missed the first half of our session) I looked up the ability to see how he did this.
This morning I informed him of the true nature of the ability and he argued with the fact that D&D Beyond says “No action.” I told him to read the description, which he did while I spoke to another party member. I have not yet had a chance to speak to him again about this, though he was quite angry when I pointed this out and he seemed to be fuming as we went our separate ways.
We’re continuing the campaign past the BBEG and I don’t want this to happen again, but I feel that my fellow party member is not happy with me. I was only making sure that we don’t have a character who can fling nearly 30d6 of fire damage once per combat, overshadowing everyone else. I’m not blaming our GM either, because he keeps things quick by trusting players to understand the descriptions of abilities and spells they have. The problem is that this player clearly doesn’t, and it poses a serious problem if we are to continue the game. Did I do the right thing? Or should I have stayed quiet in regards to this ability?
I was called out moments later by another party member, who said that I had no right to do this when “It’s his entire build and you have an overpowered character too.” I responded that my character only becomes powerful after a few rounds of combat (ranger stacking abilities onto my bow) and I do it all within the bounds of the rules. I also had never heard from him before that this was part of his build.
In conclusion, I feel like I’ve ruined one player’s fun at the cost of preserving my own and possibly the rest of the party’s (and our GM). I just didn’t feel comfortable with this rules violation and now I feel like all but two of my party members have turned on me for this “egregious violation of another player’s build.” I think it was unfair for this one player to be the only one to attack the BBEG while the rest of us spent our time getting mobbed by orcs and barely surviving (we actually had two PC deaths that only were saved through Revivify) because we’d been 3 or 4 combats without a long rest and this party member (a new character because he keeps switching them out) had literally been working with the enemy and just randomly decided to kill the BBEG, his boss. He stole all the glory from a quest that his character was never even part of. So, to repeat my question, did I do the right thing? Because I’m now feeling like a bad party member.
this sounds like a pretty dysfunctional table. player 3 appears to think you, player 1, are being a rules lawyer. you might agree since you did take the time to mention it. player 2 seems to have been under the impression that 'rule of cool' was free for anyone to apply willy-nilly and the GM hasn't said different. speaking of the game master, i get a whiff of reluctance to say "no" to things (under the guise of keeping things moving/simple). there's a real difference between trusting the players to roll stats and letting a triple fireball slide! i could be way off, but that's what i summarize from the information given.
i'd recommend lowering your expectations, looking at this as a fast-and-loose narrative-driven wacky game, and take some notes for things to discuss in your next session zero. if these same people seemed in the past to handle things differently when you were in charge, then just get comfortable with this being someone else's world with someone else's expectations. you could force the issue and insist on a new session-zero-esque round-table for this game (and it sounds like they needed to have one), but it kinda sounds like no one else is confused about what's allowed.
have you ever heard the saying "you can't eat at everybody's house"? it's referencing how some families/housemates/people have eating habits and tastes that can make you wildly uncomfortable while being unremarkably normal to them. well, you can't enjoy D&D at everybody's table. express your concerns, sure, but either bring an open mind or prepare to find another group. shrug.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
In hindsight, I think the better move might have been to bring it up with the DM. It’s up to them whether or not they want to allow such things, and they can be the rules arbiter who shuts it down if they don’t like it.
I think your insight is very helpful, but I suppose I didn’t show the scene very well. This is the first time this has happened at our table, as we normally have a well defined storyline and a fantastic group that works well and progresses within the rules. Then this happened.
Thank you for these responses though. I think I did the right thing, but I definitely need to talk to our GM about this. I’m just worried this is the beginning of the breakdown of our group as I have one person who agrees with me that the other three are beginning to be toxic and “fireball three times” and then we have one player who just wants to play. I want to just play too, but with all the things happening I just can’t tolerate it anymore.
Pointing out that you can't cast 3 fireballs in one turn isn't being a "Rules Lawyer", that's just so far from balanced that it should have been immediately obvious to the DM that something wasn't right. Ultimately the rules are only guidelines for the DM to start from, and the DM can freely institute house rules, but the starting assumption needs to be Rules As Written until overruled by the DM. Your conversation should be with the DM, who's either going to have to choose to let it slide (and deal with some pretty ridiculous balance), or to inform the other player they can't homebrew nuclear missiles.
Advice for smoothing things out with the other player would be to help them brainstorm cool things that they CAN do with their ability that are within the rules, that lets them feel like less like their exciting build just became garbage. For example, you could use Manifest Mind to sneak up on a group of NPCs and fireball them out of nowhere (up to three times if they can't figure out what's going on). Or you can cast spells "from melee" while actually being safe out at range or behind cover. Perhaps in the worst case, as a DM I'd allow the player to retcon their subclass to something else if they were really that unhappy with it, since they chose that one based on a misunderstanding. There's still alot you can do with Manifest Mind though, it's already powerful as is
I think there is more going on here than has been covered by the OP. Having three folks side with the person who is making up the rules as they go along and thinking that launching three fireballs simultaneously is OK is probably a root cause of the problem. What kind of game are they playing vs the kind of game the OP is playing?
1) I don't think it was wrong to ask about the simultaneous casting of three fireballs without using an action since it is wildly unbalanced. I've looked up rules on far smaller issues. For small problems I would usually just bring it up with the DM or not bother mentioning it depending on whether the table leans more rules or rule of cool. On the other hand, mentioning to the player, in this instance, that they might be misreading the ability seems perfectly ok to me.
2) However, in this case, I think the DM is the one truly at fault. It sounds like they are running a rules light game AND they don't know the rules or how the game works very well themselves. Nine out of ten DMs would question and take a look in detail if a player said "My character has an ability that lets them cast three fireballs at once without taking an action!". The DM really should look into it at that point. This isn't a matter of "trusting" the player but rather the player MUST be reading something incorrectly since that ability is so far outside what is allowed to any other character that there is likely something wrong. It should be up to the DM to correct rules issues even for individual characters. It should not be up to the player to say it doesn't work that way.
3) The OP should have a chat with the DM about how they plan to handle "rules" going forward. Also ask them whether they want to know when someone is misreading a rule or even intentionally cheating?
Ask the DM if it is ok for all the characters to make up whatever rule they like that will make their character more powerful just because it sounds cool? Can I stack multi-attack from multiple classes? Can I cast two fireballs every turn with my sorcerer by quickening one of them? Can I have the abilities of multiple character archetypes at the same time? These and similar are not allowed in the rules, just as much as the misread ability to launch three fireballs at once without taking an action. So ask the DM, how do they plan to run the "rules"? Is it only rules that the DM already knows that can't be broken? Can folks use the "rule of cool" for anything they want to try with their character?
Basically, like it or not, D&D is an RPG with an underlying rules system that helps keep the game balanced and run smoothly. The DM needs to decide how they want to run the game and they should communicate that to the OP and the other players.
4) "I was called out moments later by another party member, who said that I had no right to do this when “It’s his entire build and you have an overpowered character too.” " - this comment has a lot of missing subtext. The person who said it clearly considers the OPs character to be overpowered and likely over-shadowing their character if not the rest of the party already even if the OPs character is a completely legal Gloomstalker ranger with Archery, Sharpshooter, maybe X-bow expert, good rolled stats(? though it is just as powerful with point buy), stacking hunters mark or favored foe etc. It sounds like this person thinks the OP is pointing out issues with this other character NOT because the other player is reading the rules incorrectly but because the OP is objecting to someone else doing more damage than they do. (from the OPs post I don't believe that is the case - however, I get the feeling the way the group is splitting on supporting the player who has misread the rules that either they are a personal friend OR the OPs character is already playing a dominant role and the other players aren't happy with it though they haven't mentioned it). (just guessing mind you - none of us are there and as I mentioned there is a lot of missing subtext and background).
You are not the butthole.
I will say that I use DNDBeyond extensively in my gaming and DMing and I don't see a problem with building off of it rather than the more traditional "write it all down". That said, if I ever hestitate on a rule or my Spidey Sense tingles, I absolutely hit the search bar, and read the spell myself. I'd rather pause the table to sort out something that feels wrong than to look back and go "oh, that was wrong".
Which for reference (since I looked it up):
So yeah, definitely does not allow someone to cast a spell 3 times in their turn since the triggering event is "whenever you cast a spell". Since you generally only get one spell per turn that kinda covers that.
As to the table, I would say talk to the DM and then prepare for an open conversation about where you're at, what you want in the game and where everyone else is at. When there's a disconnect you need to do this from time to time and it can be HARD. I had one such session with my players and legit I was in tears by the end of it. They weren't having fun and I took all that on myself. And I thought I had some great stuff planned but a lot landed wrong so I wasn't having fun either. It took a good, serious, long conversation to sort out what we all wanted, how we wanted it what the course was going forward.
I'd steel myself for people to "come at me" about my own power level because it's already been put out there. It's a shame because it's not about who is or is not following the rules, but there is some validity to "I feel like your character is a little broken". Heck it's a running gag with my wed game given the to hit bonus our artificer enjoys (I've swapped out high AC monsters for monsters that have advantage to avoid being hit).
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