drinking a potion is quite easy, to the point where using an action to do so is boring.
The main reason that rule is there has nothing to do with how hard a potion is to drink and far more to do with the fact that it's a bottled spell anyone can use.
I'd think if you had the Potion in your hand, a DM may rule that it can be used as a Bonus Action. If it's in your pack, however, you are not just drinking the potion...you are also going into your pouch, finding it, pulling it out, opening it, and drinking it. This much effort qualifies as an Action.
You're taking your pack off your back, then going through it, etc.
I use a backpack most days. The idea of trying to reach into it while it's on my back to find something is absurd :) The idea of taking it off--while holding a sword--and going through it either while I'm holding it or setting it down on the ground, and that not taking up my time, is only slightly less absurd.
I'm trying to picture taking off my backpack, opening it, pulling out a water bottle that's inside, and drinking from the water bottle, all in 6 seconds. I could just get all of that done.
But I wouldn't be able to defend myself at all in the meantime.
I'm trying to picture taking off my backpack, opening it, pulling out a water bottle that's inside, and drinking from the water bottle, all in 6 seconds. I could just get all of that done.
But I wouldn't be able to defend myself at all in the meantime.
Doesn't your backpack have at least one readily-accessible pouch? One you might use to store items that you commonly use? I seem to recall most backpacks nowadays have a pouch specifically for carrying a (usually) cylindrical container, filled with liquid intended for oral consumption, that can be quickly removed/used/stored again.
You think professional adventurers don't know how to pack their kit properly?
That being said, a full action to actually consume a potion is perfectly reasonable. Getting to the potion itself isn't the issue.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
I'm trying to picture taking off my backpack, opening it, pulling out a water bottle that's inside, and drinking from the water bottle, all in 6 seconds. I could just get all of that done.
But I wouldn't be able to defend myself at all in the meantime.
Doesn't your backpack have at least one readily-accessible pouch? One you might use to store items that you commonly use? I seem to recall most backpacks nowadays have a pouch specifically for carrying a (usually) cylindrical container, filled with liquid intended for oral consumption, that can be quickly removed/used/stored again.
You think professional adventurers don't know how to pack their kit properly?
That being said, a full action to actually consume a potion is perfectly reasonable. Getting to the potion itself isn't the issue.
Sure. If a player wants to specify exactly what is in which different section of their pack, and make sure to keep that list detailed and accurate, then I would let someone reach back and grab something out of that side pouch more quickly, provided that they specifically were keeping that thing in a side pouch. Not joking--if a player specifically took steps to essentially make a quick-draw backpack side holster for one specific item, I might rule that way.
But my backpack does not have a readily accessible pouch--one I can reach without taking it off--for all the contents of the backpack. I can grab my sunglasses and a water bottle. And the water bottle is a bit of an awkward reach under my arm and behind me (the sunglasses are on the shoulder strap). Everything else is inside.
How many potions does the character have? Are they all stuck to the outside of the pack and easily grabbable? Should I remember that fact when the character is passing through the crowded town square later? :) Are the rope and grappling hook on the outside too? The unlit torches too? I think getting to the potion is an issue, because the vast majority of your stuff, including the next potion, are not on the outside and easily grabbable.
It's just easier to make it a 6 second action then for anyone to take the time to diagram their pack contents. Ain't nobody got time for that! :)
EDIT: I have one backpack that would be actually good for D&D adventuring. It has water bottle holders, but they cinch closed. That's why it would be good for adventuring. The typical backpack with a mesh pouch for a water bottle would see your healing potion in the bottom of the chasm the next time you swung on that rope. Things in an adventurer's backpack are not going to be as easily removable as things in most 21st century backpacks either.
Pouches, backpack, bag... If you dont allow them to be on his person where he wants them to be. I wonder... Are a rogues 3 daggers in his backpack too ? I mean there are front knives belt. Same with belt of potions... So i wonder...
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Pouches, backpack, bag... If you dont allow them to be on his person where he wants them to be. I wonder... Are a rogues 3 daggers in his backpack too ? I mean there are front knives belt. Same with belt of potions... So i wonder...
Do you allow unlimited carrying capacity? Can the rogue carry and have immediate access to 50 knives? Can the fighter pick up the 20 long swords from the defeated enemy and carry them back to town in his pack to sell? Can the wizard carry the 20,000 gps they found after killing the dragon?
If you want to play it that way, go for it. That's a very video game way to go, and some people don't mind that. "What's in your inventory, Fred?" "3 long swords, 4 sets of plate armor, 2 dozen healing potions, 4 pairs of possibly magical boots, ten beholder eggs..." But if you have any sort of carrying capacity limits at all, then you're talking about exactly the same thing I'm talking about, we just have different thresholds of what we allow.
If you don't allow the rogue to carry (and have available for throwing) 50 daggers, someone is going to ask you why not. You'll appeal to 'realism' to some extent, right? That's all I'm doing.
Why can't the character tell me exactly where his potion is? I just said above, he can tell me that. And he could possibly have it 'at the ready'. But it's just physically impossible for him to have everything he owns 'at the ready'. Here's the argument:
Unless he has a magical backpack that spits out whatever he wants on command (which is a great idea for a magical item), the vast majority of his possessions will be inside his pack and not 'at the ready'. That's how packs work.
The player could, if a DM allowed it, supply the DM with a list of where things are in his pack, so that the player could have one or a few items usable that took less time.
Few players will want to do this, and I as a DM don't want to deal with the hassle.
Thus, 'everything takes an action' if it's in your pack is the easiest way to handle it.
You could also decide 'nothing takes an action' instead. That's also acceptable. No matter how small the item, or how big, your character has somehow managed to make everything in their pack--which they wear on their back--readily accessible at a moment's notice. Seems implausible, but you can make that ruling.
If you go that route, you're heading for the video gamey style of running things. I don't prefer that. If you do, go for it.
The standard is the 'reasonable person' standard, combined with the rules of the game. Would it be 'reasonable' for the rogue to have 3 throwing knives ready to go? Sure. 50? No. And the RAW allows for him to draw one of those for free each round. I see no need to change that. Is it 'reasonable' for the rogue to have a potion, one potion, in a spot where he could quickly grab it from his pack? Sure. 10 potions in that spot? No. And RAW says 'an action' to get something from your pack. I see no reason to change that over this issue.
If you wanted, you could go for some rule like this--everyone gets 1 non-weapon item they can get from their pack without spending an action. List it on your character sheet. When it's removed, you need to spend an action to put something else in its place.
A rule like that wouldn't be terribly too much bookwork. Seems like too much for me to change just for this issue though, as I said. Not a big deal to me to spend that action. YMMV.
If you want to play it that way, go for it. That's a very video game way to go, and some people don't mind that. "What's in your inventory, Fred?" "3 long swords, 4 sets of plate armor, 2 dozen healing potions, 4 pairs of possibly magical boots, ten beholder eggs..." But if you have any sort of carrying capacity limits at all, then you're talking about exactly the same thing I'm talking about, we just have different thresholds of what we allow.
If I may ask, as someone trained in this sort of maneuver, what do you think of the half-movement to stand? I'd think if you have a high Dexterity, it should adjust how long it takes you to get up, as well as armor and encumbrance. Maybe base is half movement, -5 for every Dex benefit, -5 for Unarmored, + 5 for Medium armor, + 10 for Heavy Armor, +5 for Encumbered with a minimum of 5 movement.
So a Character with 16 Dex in Medium Armor, Encumbered, with a Walking Speed of 30 would take 15(Half Speed) - 15(+3 Dex) + 5(Medium Armor) + 5(Encumbered) = 10. I don't know. Maybe this is just too much math for a game.
It's interesting and timely that you bring this up. I have a player who is playing a monk in the game I DM and his movement is ridiculous. He kept repeating at yesterday's game, "Okay, I will spend half my move to stand which is basically the same as everyone else's full move and then I..."
We kept laughing, and I would totally make a ruling in the moment if I really thought it was going to cost their characters dearly, but that mechanic is flawed. I am thinking of a flat movement cost, but am not sure about the ramifications. Offhand, costing 15' disadvantages the little people... and you know dwarves... they will complain about everything.
If I may ask, as someone trained in this sort of maneuver, what do you think of the half-movement to stand? I'd think if you have a high Dexterity, it should adjust how long it takes you to get up, as well as armor and encumbrance. Maybe base is half movement, -5 for every Dex benefit, -5 for Unarmored, + 5 for Medium armor, + 10 for Heavy Armor, +5 for Encumbered with a minimum of 5 movement.
So a Character with 16 Dex in Medium Armor, Encumbered, with a Walking Speed of 30 would take 15(Half Speed) - 15(+3 Dex) + 5(Medium Armor) + 5(Encumbered) = 10. I don't know. Maybe this is just too much math for a game.
It's interesting and timely that you bring this up. I have a player who is playing a monk in the game I DM and his movement is ridiculous. He kept repeating at yesterday's game, "Okay, I will spend half my move to stand which is basically the same as everyone else's full move and then I..."
We kept laughing, and I would totally make a ruling in the moment if I really thought it was going to cost their characters dearly, but that mechanic is flawed. I am thinking of a flat movement cost, but am not sure about the ramifications. Offhand, costing 15' disadvantages the little people... and you know dwarves... they will complain about everything.
Maybe a base 5' movement to stand, +5 in light armor, +10 in medium, +15 in heavy, -5 for each Dex bonus, minimum of 5'. Being encumbered already lowers your total movement, so don't know if it's necessary to include that. This would mean that the 10 Dex Dwarf Fighter in Full Plate would take 20' movement to stand, while your 18 Dex Human Monk in no armor would only take 5' to stand. Of course this does kind of step on the Athlete FEAT which allows you to only take 5' to stand.
We kept laughing, and I would totally make a ruling in the moment if I really thought it was going to cost their characters dearly, but that mechanic is flawed. I am thinking of a flat movement cost, but am not sure about the ramifications. Offhand, costing 15' disadvantages the little people... and you know dwarves... they will complain about everything.
The rule makes sense when you consider that:
It has to work for all creatures, not just humanoids.
Getting up from prone takes a non-negligible amount of time.
Being able to walk/jog/sprint 2 or 3 times as fast as someone else doesn't translate into standing up 2 or 3 times as fast.
The faster you can move, the more potential movement you're missing out on during the time it takes you to stand up.
We're assuming the creature is going to do something other than just move; otherwise they're taking the Dash action losing half their speed isn't a big deal; they still have 1.5 times their speed left. That goes double for Monks and Rogues, since they can Dash as a bonus action too.
It makes sense that a horse loses more potential movement than a person when they're knocked prone because the horse is faster. And not every creature can do some sort of acrobatic leap to get back up near-instantly. Even among humanoids that's a problem if you have armor and a backpack.
Trying to "fix it" requires making too many assumptions about the structure and duration of a turn and gets a bit too simulationist for my tastes. I don't want to think about how long it takes a rhinoceros to stand if it's been knocked over when I'm DMing, and there's already feats and class features to stand up faster if that's a priority for some players.
But if you really want to, a fraction of their speed is the way to go. A fixed cost gets weird in extreme cases and can result in creatures being unable to stand up at all if their speed gets reduced enough (say, Slow + Ray of Frost.) The only way to make a fixed cost work well is if it's 5 feet, but then you're deprecating the Athlete feat and the Leap To Your Feat class feature.
The 1/2 movement to stand up rule is simple and a character can take the Athlete feat if they want to get up faster. But if you want to change it, here are some things to think about.
Getting up from prone could be easier for some creatures, especially if the creature went prone voluntarily rather than knocked prone. An example would be a herding dog going prone on its belly then quickly getting up. The same dog would have a more difficult time getting up if it was knocked on its back. Snakes would be another example. You could argue that snakes actually have to be prone to move. Cobras rear up to strike but I think they have to have their head down to move.
Some creatures might have a very difficult time getting up after being knocked prone. eg turtles
If you want to play it that way, go for it. That's a very video game way to go, and some people don't mind that. "What's in your inventory, Fred?" "3 long swords, 4 sets of plate armor, 2 dozen healing potions, 4 pairs of possibly magical boots, ten beholder eggs..." But if you have any sort of carrying capacity limits at all, then you're talking about exactly the same thing I'm talking about, we just have different thresholds of what we allow.
That is completely silly...
Beholders don't lay eggs!
They were just eggs he got from a beholder. How else do beholders make their omelets?
No they dont have unlimited except for coins. But i dont want to play a rules heavy game where my players have to pay attention to every single coin they have on their person. I adlib their packs and i use the weight capacity as a limiter.
That said... If you dont allow the players the ability to have quick belts like in real life then i think you are the one limiting your players too much. The same way that one shouldnt stop a player from hidding his coins or at least most of it elsewhere then a pouch on his belt.
All im saying is that carrying capacity is math intensive and bogs the game down a lot.
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That said... If you dont allow the players the ability to have quick belts like in real life
The problem is that you and I have very different ideas about what 'real life' allows and doesn't. This has been evident throughout this thread. You are claiming as far as I can tell that players should be allowed to have action-free access to either 'any potion' or 'anything' in their packs, I'm not sure how far you're taking it...you do this because in real life people would have quick access to some things in their pack. So for you, 'some' ---> 'all'. I don't see it that way.
I am certainly not 'limiting' the players by making them use RAW for getting things from their packs.
You don't want a rules-heavy game, so you don't use unlimited carrying capacity. But do you have 'reasonable' limits for what they can carry? That's the question you didn't answer. Do you allow players to carry anything they want, no restrictions at all on amount? If I'm playing in your game and I try to carry thirty-eight two-handed swords around with me wherever I go, are you going to allow it? I ask this for the following reason:
If you wouldn't allow unlimited carrying capacity, is that because of some level of realism?
If you go for some level of realism, then you should try to recognize that that's all I'm going for to with item/pack rules. Some level of realism.
If you think that it's 'realistic' for someone to have every item in their pack readily able to grab while they are wearing the pack on their back, you are simply mistaken.
So we're left with this dichotomy, since your method doesn't jive with much realism: Go with some level of realism where things actually take time to get from packs, or go with a comic book/video game sort of play style where the player just whips out anything from their pack as if it was hanging from a handy loop on his belt.
Again, video gamey sort of play styles can be fun. I just don't typically go for that when I run games.
I think Brotherbock's post hit on a point that I have noticed quite a bit in 5e (although, that was likely not his [assuming gender based on "Brother"] intention). Sorry if the following seems like a non-sequitur from the previous post... in my mind, they are related.
This edition relies on vagarities and implications more than most previous editions. A lot of hand-waving is done in the ruleset and the weight of ruling is placed on the DM. For those of us who grew up playing the basic set, master edition, expert edition, and then on to Advanced, 2nd, 3rd, [skip 4th], and 5th, the evolution is obvious. This edition, with its "reset to simpler times" is now going through what created the flurry of house rules for 2nd and the eventual evolution into 3rd - people want clearly defined rules.
The problem with on-the-fly DM adjudications is that a ruling today might be counter to a ruling yesterday for the same situation - not on purpose, but perhaps because the DM forgot his/her former ruling or perhaps because the DM had time to rethink their first ruling and modify it. That type of ever-changing rule structure is frustrating.
Moreover, the designers of 5e proudly state that this edition is an "exceptions-based" edition. That, in my professional opinion as an educator, is terrible. Many students, who already have anxiety over mathematics, become increasingly wary of the subject when they suddenly get their hands slapped for what seems to them as an exception. "In this situation, do that... Oh, but not in this other situation... in this other situation, do this other thing."
Like it or not, 5e will evolve to become rules-heavy due to a mature gaming population. The initial playtests were exciting and the shininess of the new ruleset was intoxicating enough to gloss over the lack of clarity, but the rubber has been on the road for a while and the evolution has begun.
I hate to be That Guy, but I'd be willing to bet money that the people that grew up on older D&D editions and crave more structure to the rules are firmly in the minority of the overall 5e fanbase right now. If we're to take Jeremy Crawford and Mike Mearls's words at face value, the overwhelming feedback during the roughly 2 year playtest period was that people wanted streamlined rules. And the rise of Twitch streaming and Critical Role is undeniably bringing in tons of new players that didn't have previous exposure to the older rules.
D&D has always been exceptions-based; that's not a new thing in 5e, and in fact 5e has fewer exceptions because it has fewer rules. Figuring out which of a dozen modifiers applied to an attack roll and keeping track of all the different bonus types you could have in play in, say, 3.5e, was...daunting.
The game has changed, and it has more of an emphasis on storytelling now than it did 30 years ago. The problem with having a rule for everything is that 1) you have to remember a ton of rules and 2) they tie your hands in situations where another outcome might better fit the tone of game or the scene that's currently playing out.
The exceptions-based approach combined with a really small ruleset means you just have to understand a small core of rules and then look at whatever class feature or spell you're trying to use and you basically know what to do. You don't need to understand Fire Bolt or Scorching Ray or look up some rules for fire damage or evocation spells to run Fireball, you just need to understand the spellcasting rules and saving throws. Once that concept of "this exceptional thing stands on its own" clicks with the players, they gain a lot of confidence in using the rules.
That's not to say I think 5e's ruleset is perfect. I have issues with the specifics of the prone and blinded conditions, grapple/shove using a contest instead of attack rolls, how weak two-weapon fighting is compared to Extra Attack with a two-handed weapon, and I think the game really lost something when it discarded touch attacks. I have house rules for all those things. But I think most of the streamlining this edition did was a step in the right direction and work well for the average player.
I think Brotherbock's post hit on a point that I have noticed quite a bit in 5e (although, that was likely not his [assuming gender based on "Brother"] intention). Sorry if the following seems like a non-sequitur from the previous post... in my mind, they are related.
This edition relies on vagarities and implications more than most previous editions. A lot of hand-waving is done in the ruleset and the weight of ruling is placed on the DM. For those of us who grew up playing the basic set, master edition, expert edition, and then on to Advanced, 2nd, 3rd, [skip 4th], and 5th, the evolution is obvious. This edition, with its "reset to simpler times" is now going through what created the flurry of house rules for 2nd and the eventual evolution into 3rd - people want clearly defined rules.
The problem with on-the-fly DM adjudications is that a ruling today might be counter to a ruling yesterday for the same situation - not on purpose, but perhaps because the DM forgot his/her former ruling or perhaps because the DM had time to rethink their first ruling and modify it. That type of ever-changing rule structure is frustrating.
Moreover, the designers of 5e proudly state that this edition is an "exceptions-based" edition. That, in my professional opinion as an educator, is terrible. Many students, who already have anxiety over mathematics, become increasingly wary of the subject when they suddenly get their hands slapped for what seems to them as an exception. "In this situation, do that... Oh, but not in this other situation... in this other situation, do this other thing."
Like it or not, 5e will evolve to become rules-heavy due to a mature gaming population. The initial playtests were exciting and the shininess of the new ruleset was intoxicating enough to gloss over the lack of clarity, but the rubber has been on the road for a while and the evolution has begun.
Well said. I drifted away from D&D for years because of the way 3rd and 4th had evolved. 1st was very rules-heavy as written...but almost never as played :) Almost nobody I know used initiative like the rules said, for example, and lots of people simplified and rounded edges off and houseruled everywhere. Same thing in 2nd ed, which was much lighter in rules (even though the amount of material increased almost exponentially). I mostly stayed away from 3rd and 4th when things started to get, from my perspective, much more regimented. Or maybe it was just players' attitudes. "You can't do that, you're not in the right hex!" :/
I liked 5e from the get-go, as you said, because it was a return back to the stuff I liked. "Put a bunch of this in the hands of the DM, you don't need as many rules."
But they do have a dissonance going. If they want a lot in the hands of the DM, they've juxtaposed that will a growing list of 'Appeals to the Authors' in Sage Advice and errata. I don't think that's bad in itself. But it sets up what we're seeing. "My DM said this, but Crawford said..." It's one thing when this is a core rule for a simple and basic part of the game. But we're seeing it for interactions between more and more obscure parts of the game. What do you do when Spell X interacts with the Feature Y from Monster Z? Do you just let the DM decide (1st and 2nd ed, when you had no ability to go ask the authors), or do you jump online to check twitter? :) The creators say all the time "change the rules if you want", which is great that they say that. But there is a certain attitude being engendered in some people of "there are specific rules out there for this, we must use them."
I hate to be That Guy, but I'd be willing to bet money that the people that grew up on older D&D editions and crave more structure to the rules are firmly in the minority of the overall 5e fanbase right now. If we're to take Jeremy Crawford and Mike Mearls's words at face value, the overwhelming feedback during the roughly 2 year playtest period was that people wanted streamlined rules. And the rise of Twitch streaming and Critical Role is undeniably bringing in tons of new players that didn't have previous exposure to the older rules.
Well... :) I'm one of those earlier earlier players, and I really do not want piles of data and tables and such like 1st and to a lesser extent 2nd had. But, I don't know that I'm in a minority. My experience with those two editions (I have far less experience with 3/4) is that, if you were to go RAW-heavy with your players, most of them would complain. 1st Ed had rules for getting sick--if you were in a city, staying at the tavern, you might just get sick. Because no penicillin and such :) But if a DM brought those rules out and started rolling, very few players at the time would have appreciated it.
I posted something about 'weapon speeds' recently, an old 1st ed thing. One person that I gamed with that I can remember used weapon speeds. And half of that group of players did not approve. 1st and 2nd (more 1st here) had tons of rule structure. But I'd estimate literally half of it was never used by any given group. My anecdotal experience, but that's from a bunch of groups, and also a lot of convention gaming over the years with strangers.
I play D&D since i was 8 years old, thats 1988, thanks guys, i been playing since th ered box since thats what i started on. so no, i'm an old guy and veteran of D&D and no i dont want very mathematical degree rulings ! i preffer much less mathematical rulings and much more imaginative ways of doing things.
if i had to give a rating, i'd say those who like rulings intensive are those less imaginative minds and more logical minds. you'd also realise that those people often do not create their own world, they take the current setting or the setting they like and just play adventures that are premade into that setting, or adapting adventures to that setting. that's my tehory kinda backed by proofs, but again, proof is what people interpret the way they want so... yeah thats my theory.
@brotherbrock, reread my post, i answered that already !
the only devise i leave unlimited is coins. but obviously large sums like a dragons vault obviously do not get into one bag.
32 greatswords... i wonder how big your bag is, even i right there knows thats not even possible. as i said, i dont count things, but if its obviously going beyond your carrying capacity, then that means you can't do it.
In addition, unusual coins made of other precious metals sometimes appear in treasure hoards. The electrum piece (ep) and the platinum piece (pp) originate from fallen empires and lost kingdoms, and they sometimes arouse suspicion and skepticism when used in transactions. An electrum piece is worth five silver pieces, and a platinum piece is worth ten gold pieces.
[B][U]A standard coin weighs about a third of an ounce, so fifty coins weigh a pound.[/B][/U]
by the way, just in case you didn't know... a strength of 20 gives you a carrying capacity of 20x15=300 pounds for a medium sized player. their pouch of coins holding that 150 gold pieces... thats 3 pounds... its next to nothing... but how do you manage hoards ? let's generate a random hoard for the players. at level 1, so its gonna be a hoard of 0-4.
2100 silver pieces = 2100 divided by 50 = 42 pounds. totally capable of entering a bag right ? i mean its totally capable when going for capacity... but that definitely do not enters the backpack, that definitely wouldn't fit inside that packpack. but there is no ruling as to how many places each coins takes in a packpack, so where are you taking those numbers to know how many coins fit into that backpack ?
now lets calculate every piece of treasure like that, sorry but your players must have a really really really hard time having treasures in your games. for ease of calculating, lets imagine that the value of the gem indicates its size and weight. if it is 25 gold pieces, then it is half a pound of weight. you need a gem that is worth 25,000 gold pieces to resurect someone at the highest level... so thats a gem that weights about... 500 pounds by itself. again there is no rules as to how a diamond of that caliber can fit into a backpack or a pouch or any size for that matter.
so the question goes back to you... how do you manage the size of objects to know if they fit or not into a backpack when there is no clearly written rules for that ?
so again, to answer the question, i dont take any of the weight or size of objects, i just go with the flow and imagine what would be real based on maximum capacity and the bag itself. does 32 great sword fit into a bag... anybody would know it doesn't. does a full plate enter a bag, not at all, not even just 1. do i need any calculation or ruling to know that... not at all, so why would i bog myself down with it ? asking my players to start watching their carrying capacity just bogs the game down. thats all there is to it. this is also why carrying capacity and encumberance, is an optionnal rule to begin with.
exemple of my decisions... one of my player just created ma dalton for our western game. he bought 50 rations to make sure everyone wouldn't die in the desert... well, a ration is 5silver and weights 2 pounds ... his character as a strength of 7 ! so thats his maximum capacity... drum roll 15x7 ! 105 pounds... simple math here does 50 2 pounders fits the carrying capacity, either close, either not... i said ""thats exceeding your capacity, you'd have to pull them from behind to walk with them. as push, drag or lift is 5 times the carrying capacity ! so that led to a very funny moment where ma dalton now has this "just married" ration trail behind her, all tied with her 50 foot rope.
when it comes to coins, i do not check at all, otherwise i'd have players who would never ever have more then about 500 coins on them period, it would lead to where they stash it, where they put it, where they are hiding it. and those would just again, bog the game down. i do allow them the use of my extra planar bank guild in my world ! for a small price of 10 gold per weeks they can rent a space as big as 5 chest. and if they need more, they can rent bigger chest. all they require, is to keep the special key and the small chest that comes with it. together they form the access to the chest they paid for. now if they dont pay up something will happen, but my players didn't want to know that sdo they have been paying it for a while now.
Funny, some paragraphs refuses to be praragraphs, like the end of my exemple which is stopping at 50 feet rope. yet when i post, it is clumped wit the rest of the text. same for the @brotherbrock which is supposed to be separate. will put separation lines then...
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@brotherbrock, reread my post, i answered that already !
the only devise i leave unlimited is coins. but obviously large sums like a dragons vault obviously do not get into one bag.
32 greatswords... i wonder how big your bag is, even i right there knows thats not even possible. as i said, i dont count things, but if its obviously going beyond your carrying capacity, then that means you can't do it.
by the way, just in case you didn't know... a strength of 20 gives you a carrying capacity of 20x15=300 pounds for a medium sized player. their pouch of coins holding that 150 gold pieces... thats 3 pounds... its next to nothing... but how do you manage hoards ? let's generate a random hoard for the players. at level 1, so its gonna be a hoard of 0-4.
Sorry if I missed the answer before. So you do have carrying limits. They're like mine--not counting up all the pounds, just using a 'reasonable' standard. That's cool. So that's my point then--in terms of grabbing stuff out of a pack, I use a similar 'reasonable' standard, based on real world physics and biology and such. I don't see that it's 'reasonable' that you could have more than one or two things in your pack in a place where they can be grabbed without taking a full action. And no one wants to take the time to specify what those few items would be, so I just go with the RAW of 1 action. Easiest way to go by far, no real suffering on the part of the player.
You're right that the strongest characters will have a 300 pound carrying capacity. So that 300 pounds is 15,000 gp. Weight aside, what's the size of 15,000 gp? If this guy is to be believed, here's what 15,000 2p coins look:
I mean, I'd let one of my players carry 15,000 similarly sized coins. But that's going to require a bag as big as a backpack. And then you don't have a single pound of capacity for your sword, torches, armor, etc etc. :)
Fact is I don't really care much about money either, until it gets ridiculous. If they find a dragon horde, The Hobbit style, the need a plan to move it. And that's another adventure itself :) But otherwise, I just assume that there are different denominations, and that 15,000gp doesn't necessarily mean 15,000 physical coins. Not a big deal, again just using the 'reasonable' standard.
You're taking your pack off your back, then going through it, etc.
I use a backpack most days. The idea of trying to reach into it while it's on my back to find something is absurd :) The idea of taking it off--while holding a sword--and going through it either while I'm holding it or setting it down on the ground, and that not taking up my time, is only slightly less absurd.
I'm trying to picture taking off my backpack, opening it, pulling out a water bottle that's inside, and drinking from the water bottle, all in 6 seconds. I could just get all of that done.
But I wouldn't be able to defend myself at all in the meantime.
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Doesn't your backpack have at least one readily-accessible pouch? One you might use to store items that you commonly use? I seem to recall most backpacks nowadays have a pouch specifically for carrying a (usually) cylindrical container, filled with liquid intended for oral consumption, that can be quickly removed/used/stored again.
You think professional adventurers don't know how to pack their kit properly?
That being said, a full action to actually consume a potion is perfectly reasonable. Getting to the potion itself isn't the issue.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Sure. If a player wants to specify exactly what is in which different section of their pack, and make sure to keep that list detailed and accurate, then I would let someone reach back and grab something out of that side pouch more quickly, provided that they specifically were keeping that thing in a side pouch. Not joking--if a player specifically took steps to essentially make a quick-draw backpack side holster for one specific item, I might rule that way.
But my backpack does not have a readily accessible pouch--one I can reach without taking it off--for all the contents of the backpack. I can grab my sunglasses and a water bottle. And the water bottle is a bit of an awkward reach under my arm and behind me (the sunglasses are on the shoulder strap). Everything else is inside.
How many potions does the character have? Are they all stuck to the outside of the pack and easily grabbable? Should I remember that fact when the character is passing through the crowded town square later? :) Are the rope and grappling hook on the outside too? The unlit torches too? I think getting to the potion is an issue, because the vast majority of your stuff, including the next potion, are not on the outside and easily grabbable.
It's just easier to make it a 6 second action then for anyone to take the time to diagram their pack contents. Ain't nobody got time for that! :)
EDIT: I have one backpack that would be actually good for D&D adventuring. It has water bottle holders, but they cinch closed. That's why it would be good for adventuring. The typical backpack with a mesh pouch for a water bottle would see your healing potion in the bottom of the chasm the next time you swung on that rope. Things in an adventurer's backpack are not going to be as easily removable as things in most 21st century backpacks either.
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Pouches, backpack, bag... If you dont allow them to be on his person where he wants them to be. I wonder... Are a rogues 3 daggers in his backpack too ? I mean there are front knives belt. Same with belt of potions... So i wonder...
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Do you allow unlimited carrying capacity? Can the rogue carry and have immediate access to 50 knives? Can the fighter pick up the 20 long swords from the defeated enemy and carry them back to town in his pack to sell? Can the wizard carry the 20,000 gps they found after killing the dragon?
If you want to play it that way, go for it. That's a very video game way to go, and some people don't mind that. "What's in your inventory, Fred?" "3 long swords, 4 sets of plate armor, 2 dozen healing potions, 4 pairs of possibly magical boots, ten beholder eggs..." But if you have any sort of carrying capacity limits at all, then you're talking about exactly the same thing I'm talking about, we just have different thresholds of what we allow.
If you don't allow the rogue to carry (and have available for throwing) 50 daggers, someone is going to ask you why not. You'll appeal to 'realism' to some extent, right? That's all I'm doing.
Why can't the character tell me exactly where his potion is? I just said above, he can tell me that. And he could possibly have it 'at the ready'. But it's just physically impossible for him to have everything he owns 'at the ready'. Here's the argument:
The standard is the 'reasonable person' standard, combined with the rules of the game. Would it be 'reasonable' for the rogue to have 3 throwing knives ready to go? Sure. 50? No. And the RAW allows for him to draw one of those for free each round. I see no need to change that. Is it 'reasonable' for the rogue to have a potion, one potion, in a spot where he could quickly grab it from his pack? Sure. 10 potions in that spot? No. And RAW says 'an action' to get something from your pack. I see no reason to change that over this issue.
If you wanted, you could go for some rule like this--everyone gets 1 non-weapon item they can get from their pack without spending an action. List it on your character sheet. When it's removed, you need to spend an action to put something else in its place.
A rule like that wouldn't be terribly too much bookwork. Seems like too much for me to change just for this issue though, as I said. Not a big deal to me to spend that action. YMMV.
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That is completely silly...
Beholders don't lay eggs!
It's interesting and timely that you bring this up. I have a player who is playing a monk in the game I DM and his movement is ridiculous. He kept repeating at yesterday's game, "Okay, I will spend half my move to stand which is basically the same as everyone else's full move and then I..."
We kept laughing, and I would totally make a ruling in the moment if I really thought it was going to cost their characters dearly, but that mechanic is flawed. I am thinking of a flat movement cost, but am not sure about the ramifications. Offhand, costing 15' disadvantages the little people... and you know dwarves... they will complain about everything.
Maybe a base 5' movement to stand, +5 in light armor, +10 in medium, +15 in heavy, -5 for each Dex bonus, minimum of 5'. Being encumbered already lowers your total movement, so don't know if it's necessary to include that. This would mean that the 10 Dex Dwarf Fighter in Full Plate would take 20' movement to stand, while your 18 Dex Human Monk in no armor would only take 5' to stand. Of course this does kind of step on the Athlete FEAT which allows you to only take 5' to stand.
If you're gonna be a bear...be a Grizzly.
The rule makes sense when you consider that:
It makes sense that a horse loses more potential movement than a person when they're knocked prone because the horse is faster. And not every creature can do some sort of acrobatic leap to get back up near-instantly. Even among humanoids that's a problem if you have armor and a backpack.
Trying to "fix it" requires making too many assumptions about the structure and duration of a turn and gets a bit too simulationist for my tastes. I don't want to think about how long it takes a rhinoceros to stand if it's been knocked over when I'm DMing, and there's already feats and class features to stand up faster if that's a priority for some players.
But if you really want to, a fraction of their speed is the way to go. A fixed cost gets weird in extreme cases and can result in creatures being unable to stand up at all if their speed gets reduced enough (say, Slow + Ray of Frost.) The only way to make a fixed cost work well is if it's 5 feet, but then you're deprecating the Athlete feat and the Leap To Your Feat class feature.
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The 1/2 movement to stand up rule is simple and a character can take the Athlete feat if they want to get up faster. But if you want to change it, here are some things to think about.
Getting up from prone could be easier for some creatures, especially if the creature went prone voluntarily rather than knocked prone. An example would be a herding dog going prone on its belly then quickly getting up. The same dog would have a more difficult time getting up if it was knocked on its back. Snakes would be another example. You could argue that snakes actually have to be prone to move. Cobras rear up to strike but I think they have to have their head down to move.
Some creatures might have a very difficult time getting up after being knocked prone. eg turtles
Okay, I feel as though those points are pretty darn solid. I am good with the 1/2 move to stand.
They were just eggs he got from a beholder. How else do beholders make their omelets?
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No they dont have unlimited except for coins. But i dont want to play a rules heavy game where my players have to pay attention to every single coin they have on their person. I adlib their packs and i use the weight capacity as a limiter.
That said... If you dont allow the players the ability to have quick belts like in real life then i think you are the one limiting your players too much. The same way that one shouldnt stop a player from hidding his coins or at least most of it elsewhere then a pouch on his belt.
All im saying is that carrying capacity is math intensive and bogs the game down a lot.
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The problem is that you and I have very different ideas about what 'real life' allows and doesn't. This has been evident throughout this thread. You are claiming as far as I can tell that players should be allowed to have action-free access to either 'any potion' or 'anything' in their packs, I'm not sure how far you're taking it...you do this because in real life people would have quick access to some things in their pack. So for you, 'some' ---> 'all'. I don't see it that way.
I am certainly not 'limiting' the players by making them use RAW for getting things from their packs.
You don't want a rules-heavy game, so you don't use unlimited carrying capacity. But do you have 'reasonable' limits for what they can carry? That's the question you didn't answer. Do you allow players to carry anything they want, no restrictions at all on amount? If I'm playing in your game and I try to carry thirty-eight two-handed swords around with me wherever I go, are you going to allow it? I ask this for the following reason:
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I think Brotherbock's post hit on a point that I have noticed quite a bit in 5e (although, that was likely not his [assuming gender based on "Brother"] intention). Sorry if the following seems like a non-sequitur from the previous post... in my mind, they are related.
This edition relies on vagarities and implications more than most previous editions. A lot of hand-waving is done in the ruleset and the weight of ruling is placed on the DM. For those of us who grew up playing the basic set, master edition, expert edition, and then on to Advanced, 2nd, 3rd, [skip 4th], and 5th, the evolution is obvious. This edition, with its "reset to simpler times" is now going through what created the flurry of house rules for 2nd and the eventual evolution into 3rd - people want clearly defined rules.
The problem with on-the-fly DM adjudications is that a ruling today might be counter to a ruling yesterday for the same situation - not on purpose, but perhaps because the DM forgot his/her former ruling or perhaps because the DM had time to rethink their first ruling and modify it. That type of ever-changing rule structure is frustrating.
Moreover, the designers of 5e proudly state that this edition is an "exceptions-based" edition. That, in my professional opinion as an educator, is terrible. Many students, who already have anxiety over mathematics, become increasingly wary of the subject when they suddenly get their hands slapped for what seems to them as an exception. "In this situation, do that... Oh, but not in this other situation... in this other situation, do this other thing."
Like it or not, 5e will evolve to become rules-heavy due to a mature gaming population. The initial playtests were exciting and the shininess of the new ruleset was intoxicating enough to gloss over the lack of clarity, but the rubber has been on the road for a while and the evolution has begun.
I hate to be That Guy, but I'd be willing to bet money that the people that grew up on older D&D editions and crave more structure to the rules are firmly in the minority of the overall 5e fanbase right now. If we're to take Jeremy Crawford and Mike Mearls's words at face value, the overwhelming feedback during the roughly 2 year playtest period was that people wanted streamlined rules. And the rise of Twitch streaming and Critical Role is undeniably bringing in tons of new players that didn't have previous exposure to the older rules.
D&D has always been exceptions-based; that's not a new thing in 5e, and in fact 5e has fewer exceptions because it has fewer rules. Figuring out which of a dozen modifiers applied to an attack roll and keeping track of all the different bonus types you could have in play in, say, 3.5e, was...daunting.
The game has changed, and it has more of an emphasis on storytelling now than it did 30 years ago. The problem with having a rule for everything is that 1) you have to remember a ton of rules and 2) they tie your hands in situations where another outcome might better fit the tone of game or the scene that's currently playing out.
The exceptions-based approach combined with a really small ruleset means you just have to understand a small core of rules and then look at whatever class feature or spell you're trying to use and you basically know what to do. You don't need to understand Fire Bolt or Scorching Ray or look up some rules for fire damage or evocation spells to run Fireball, you just need to understand the spellcasting rules and saving throws. Once that concept of "this exceptional thing stands on its own" clicks with the players, they gain a lot of confidence in using the rules.
That's not to say I think 5e's ruleset is perfect. I have issues with the specifics of the prone and blinded conditions, grapple/shove using a contest instead of attack rolls, how weak two-weapon fighting is compared to Extra Attack with a two-handed weapon, and I think the game really lost something when it discarded touch attacks. I have house rules for all those things. But I think most of the streamlining this edition did was a step in the right direction and work well for the average player.
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Well said. I drifted away from D&D for years because of the way 3rd and 4th had evolved. 1st was very rules-heavy as written...but almost never as played :) Almost nobody I know used initiative like the rules said, for example, and lots of people simplified and rounded edges off and houseruled everywhere. Same thing in 2nd ed, which was much lighter in rules (even though the amount of material increased almost exponentially). I mostly stayed away from 3rd and 4th when things started to get, from my perspective, much more regimented. Or maybe it was just players' attitudes. "You can't do that, you're not in the right hex!" :/
I liked 5e from the get-go, as you said, because it was a return back to the stuff I liked. "Put a bunch of this in the hands of the DM, you don't need as many rules."
But they do have a dissonance going. If they want a lot in the hands of the DM, they've juxtaposed that will a growing list of 'Appeals to the Authors' in Sage Advice and errata. I don't think that's bad in itself. But it sets up what we're seeing. "My DM said this, but Crawford said..." It's one thing when this is a core rule for a simple and basic part of the game. But we're seeing it for interactions between more and more obscure parts of the game. What do you do when Spell X interacts with the Feature Y from Monster Z? Do you just let the DM decide (1st and 2nd ed, when you had no ability to go ask the authors), or do you jump online to check twitter? :) The creators say all the time "change the rules if you want", which is great that they say that. But there is a certain attitude being engendered in some people of "there are specific rules out there for this, we must use them."
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Well... :) I'm one of those earlier earlier players, and I really do not want piles of data and tables and such like 1st and to a lesser extent 2nd had. But, I don't know that I'm in a minority. My experience with those two editions (I have far less experience with 3/4) is that, if you were to go RAW-heavy with your players, most of them would complain. 1st Ed had rules for getting sick--if you were in a city, staying at the tavern, you might just get sick. Because no penicillin and such :) But if a DM brought those rules out and started rolling, very few players at the time would have appreciated it.
I posted something about 'weapon speeds' recently, an old 1st ed thing. One person that I gamed with that I can remember used weapon speeds. And half of that group of players did not approve. 1st and 2nd (more 1st here) had tons of rule structure. But I'd estimate literally half of it was never used by any given group. My anecdotal experience, but that's from a bunch of groups, and also a lot of convention gaming over the years with strangers.
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I play D&D since i was 8 years old, thats 1988, thanks guys, i been playing since th ered box since thats what i started on. so no, i'm an old guy and veteran of D&D and no i dont want very mathematical degree rulings ! i preffer much less mathematical rulings and much more imaginative ways of doing things.
if i had to give a rating, i'd say those who like rulings intensive are those less imaginative minds and more logical minds.
you'd also realise that those people often do not create their own world, they take the current setting or the setting they like and just play adventures that are premade into that setting, or adapting adventures to that setting. that's my tehory kinda backed by proofs, but again, proof is what people interpret the way they want so... yeah thats my theory.
@brotherbrock, reread my post, i answered that already !
the only devise i leave unlimited is coins. but obviously large sums like a dragons vault obviously do not get into one bag.
32 greatswords... i wonder how big your bag is, even i right there knows thats not even possible.
as i said, i dont count things, but if its obviously going beyond your carrying capacity, then that means you can't do it.
by the way, just in case you didn't know...
a strength of 20 gives you a carrying capacity of 20x15=300 pounds for a medium sized player.
their pouch of coins holding that 150 gold pieces... thats 3 pounds... its next to nothing... but how do you manage hoards ?
let's generate a random hoard for the players. at level 1, so its gonna be a hoard of 0-4.
2100 silver pieces = 2100 divided by 50 = 42 pounds. totally capable of entering a bag right ? i mean its totally capable when going for capacity... but that definitely do not enters the backpack, that definitely wouldn't fit inside that packpack. but there is no ruling as to how many places each coins takes in a packpack, so where are you taking those numbers to know how many coins fit into that backpack ?
now lets calculate every piece of treasure like that, sorry but your players must have a really really really hard time having treasures in your games.
for ease of calculating, lets imagine that the value of the gem indicates its size and weight. if it is 25 gold pieces, then it is half a pound of weight. you need a gem that is worth 25,000 gold pieces to resurect someone at the highest level... so thats a gem that weights about... 500 pounds by itself. again there is no rules as to how a diamond of that caliber can fit into a backpack or a pouch or any size for that matter.
so the question goes back to you... how do you manage the size of objects to know if they fit or not into a backpack when there is no clearly written rules for that ?
so again, to answer the question, i dont take any of the weight or size of objects, i just go with the flow and imagine what would be real based on maximum capacity and the bag itself. does 32 great sword fit into a bag... anybody would know it doesn't. does a full plate enter a bag, not at all, not even just 1. do i need any calculation or ruling to know that... not at all, so why would i bog myself down with it ? asking my players to start watching their carrying capacity just bogs the game down. thats all there is to it. this is also why carrying capacity and encumberance, is an optionnal rule to begin with.
exemple of my decisions...
one of my player just created ma dalton for our western game. he bought 50 rations to make sure everyone wouldn't die in the desert...
well, a ration is 5silver and weights 2 pounds ... his character as a strength of 7 ! so thats his maximum capacity... drum roll 15x7 ! 105 pounds... simple math here does 50 2 pounders fits the carrying capacity, either close, either not... i said ""thats exceeding your capacity, you'd have to pull them from behind to walk with them. as push, drag or lift is 5 times the carrying capacity ! so that led to a very funny moment where ma dalton now has this "just married" ration trail behind her, all tied with her 50 foot rope.
when it comes to coins, i do not check at all, otherwise i'd have players who would never ever have more then about 500 coins on them period, it would lead to where they stash it, where they put it, where they are hiding it. and those would just again, bog the game down. i do allow them the use of my extra planar bank guild in my world ! for a small price of 10 gold per weeks they can rent a space as big as 5 chest. and if they need more, they can rent bigger chest. all they require, is to keep the special key and the small chest that comes with it. together they form the access to the chest they paid for. now if they dont pay up something will happen, but my players didn't want to know that sdo they have been paying it for a while now.
Funny, some paragraphs refuses to be praragraphs, like the end of my exemple which is stopping at 50 feet rope. yet when i post, it is clumped wit the rest of the text. same for the @brotherbrock which is supposed to be separate. will put separation lines then...
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Sorry if I missed the answer before. So you do have carrying limits. They're like mine--not counting up all the pounds, just using a 'reasonable' standard. That's cool. So that's my point then--in terms of grabbing stuff out of a pack, I use a similar 'reasonable' standard, based on real world physics and biology and such. I don't see that it's 'reasonable' that you could have more than one or two things in your pack in a place where they can be grabbed without taking a full action. And no one wants to take the time to specify what those few items would be, so I just go with the RAW of 1 action. Easiest way to go by far, no real suffering on the part of the player.
You're right that the strongest characters will have a 300 pound carrying capacity. So that 300 pounds is 15,000 gp. Weight aside, what's the size of 15,000 gp? If this guy is to be believed, here's what 15,000 2p coins look:
I mean, I'd let one of my players carry 15,000 similarly sized coins. But that's going to require a bag as big as a backpack. And then you don't have a single pound of capacity for your sword, torches, armor, etc etc. :)
Fact is I don't really care much about money either, until it gets ridiculous. If they find a dragon horde, The Hobbit style, the need a plan to move it. And that's another adventure itself :) But otherwise, I just assume that there are different denominations, and that 15,000gp doesn't necessarily mean 15,000 physical coins. Not a big deal, again just using the 'reasonable' standard.
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