Say you're with your buddies and you've all got your characters made. Dwarf, High Elf, Tiefling, and a Human. You are playing D&D 5e SRD. Things are going fine and dandy starting out. A few hours in your group finds themselves in a pitch dark cave. It's an ambush, monsters all around. The High Elf gets to go first, he uses his bow to shoot at a monster, but has to roll a disadvantage. Even with darkvision. Everyone in your group misses with the disadvantage roll. You may ask, why is there a disadvantage roll on the Tiefling, Elf, and Dwarf? Well, it's the current "mechanic". No one knows light spells, and you do have a few torches. Basically, no one, besides anyone you're fighting, can see anything and rolls a disadvantage. You can hold the torch, but this only allows you to see about 5ft in front of you and throwing any light source at the enemy will cause them to just move as throwing objects uses your turn. Also, any time you are attacked from melee range, the enemy attacks, then disengages into the dark again. All ranged attacks from the enemy usually hit as you are lit and enemies don't even roll disadvantage in the dark.
Sorry I had to set something up. But what is this lighting called? A mechanic of the game? Or a rule of how lighting works? If you knew about the lighting beforehand, would you create characters more based around knowing or having more light related stuff? Or since it's a mechanic, the DM doesn't have to tell you this and that's how the rest of the run is going to be. At this point, the mage hasn't learned anything but a spell that lights their own staff, which gives off as much as a torch. And all you have are few torches.
None of that scenario is how the rules as written are in 5e. Darkvision means darkness is treated as dim light up to darkvision range (usually 60 ft), and dim light is lightly obscured which only gives disadvantage on perception, nothing more. Torches emit 20 feet of bright light and an additional 20 feet of dim light (which is treated as bright light to darkvision), so that is 40 feet from each torch that you can see clearly. I'm also curious what you are fighting that can attack and disengage in the same turn (there are only a few that can).
What you are describing is a rule called house rules. It is rules created by the DM and not found in the books. Not sure how you can prepare for house rules you didn't get told about ahead of time...
I'm new to most of this, but to my understanding, since they're using SRD, they created this mechanic in order to put all races on the same field as humans. If it is a rule instead of a mechanic or say a feature, then yea it wasn't told ahead of the time. Which is making the playthrough currently very unfun to play. As they say it's technically the only thing they changed as it's suppose to be as faithfully close to 5e as they can. Currently all characters and enemies can disengage after an attack. The creature I have no clue yet, they're some kind of weird creature turned from a vampire.
A mechanic is just a series of rules that interact to produce the appearance of an affect. For example, the rule that the result of a 20 on a d20 always hits and deals additional damage is a mechanic to create the feeling of hitting a weak spot or doing exceptionally well. It's also a mechanic to ensure that there's always a chance to hit a monster and thus balance the game. A rule is a statement of game behaviour, while a mechanic is a rationale behind the rule.
Features (as opposed to 'bugs') are outcomes of mechanics that are intended as part of the game. For example:
Rule: A 'natural 20' always hits and deals additional damage Mechanic: Luck can mean every attack has the chance to hit and potentially make the character feel exceptionally powerful Feature: Attack rolls are always valuable, and advantage can matter even if you've already hit as it increases your chance to score a critical hit
Ultimately in your example it doesn't matter if something is called a 'rule' or a 'mechanic' or a 'feature' as it can be all three. What you're describing his homebrewing house rules, which can also be mechanics.
@Davedamon , Ah ok, I see. This would still need to be said from the beginning since its a rule right? Or does that not matter and the DM can hold that information until it arises? The main reason I ask this is because it was noticed that it makes the run much more difficult that normal and one of the complaints is from someone whos been through a few runs and since we didn't know of the rule beforehand, we're basically setup to fail since this lighting was not known and taken into effect. Our whole party was not prepared to fight in this different rule setting of light. And our characters were made right before it started.
All of this as described is effectively homebrew rules regarding light and darkness that have no basis in published text. My biggest question is if the DM in this case is playing the enemy creatures with the same disadvantages they are giving to the PCs, because that would be extremely unfair. From the description, it seems like they were not limited by darkness as they appeared to be moving freely in it.
The DM has effectively eliminated darkvision from the game, which unbalances all races with it as they were designed to have it. That makes all races that had darkvision weaker
The DM has effectively made torches useless as they have reduced the light range of the torch to ludicrously small levels. Honestly the light range of a torch using standard rules is pretty accurate to real life, so they are imposing significant unrealistic changes to the item
The DM has allowed creatures additional standard actions (attack + disengage) on a turn that do not seem to be given to the players...now this could be part of the individual creature's design; but should not be due to a "general" rule or mechanic.
This is bad DM'ing, but not entirely because of these rules themselves. Any DM who wants to truly make an enjoyable homebrew game needs to communicate any rule changes to the players before character creation. That is the error here if these additional rules are intentional (although I don't particularly see the changes above as "fun" for anyone but the DM)
There is no 'rule' saying homebrew rules need to be stated before the campaign begins, it's just generally good form to do so. However, that's not always possible, a DM may introduce new rules as the campaign progresses.
There is no 'rule' saying homebrew rules need to be stated before the campaign begins, it's just generally good form to do so. However, that's not always possible, a DM may introduce new rules as the campaign progresses.
I agree that there is no rule, but I believe its definitely bad form in this case, especially since this affects PC abilities and very basic rules regarding light and darkvision.
The DM has allowed creatures additional standard actions (attack + disengage) on a turn that do not seem to be given to the players...now this could be part of the individual creature's design; but should not be due to a "general" rule or mechanic.
I agree with the rest of what you said, but effectively allowing attack + disengage isn't really a separate rule change. It is just an extension of the changes to the rules on lighting, if you can't see an enemy, you don't get AoO.
It seems that the OP is actually talking about the lighting changes in the SRD game Solasta. If they wouldn't have mentioned Tiefling I could have swore that was the case.
A mechanic is just a series of rules that interact to produce the appearance of an affect. For example, the rule that the result of a 20 on a d20 always hits and deals additional damage is a mechanic to create the feeling of hitting a weak spot or doing exceptionally well.
The result of a 20 on a d20, for an attack roll*, [...] :P
OP, everything you've described screams "extremely bad DM" to me. I say that not because they're running different rules, but because it seems like they aren't also applying those changes to NPCs.
Regarding how lighting actually works by the RAW of 5e, check out this section from the basic rules: Vision and Light
Depending on which specific creatures you've been fighting, the ability to Disengage as a bonus action may be perfectly valid. Some creatures don't provoke opportunity attacks at all.
Goblins are incredibly common, and they do have the ability to attack with their action, and Disengage with their bonus action.
If the creatures you've been fighting don't have a specific trait allowing what your DM's been doing, then they're either cheating or ignorant of basic rules.
If your DM is simply ignorant of how the system of 5e works, that's fixable; nobody's perfect. We all get better with time, practice, and communication.
If your DM is simply cheating, get out of there.
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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.
The DM has allowed creatures additional standard actions (attack + disengage) on a turn that do not seem to be given to the players...now this could be part of the individual creature's design; but should not be due to a "general" rule or mechanic.
I agree with the rest of what you said, but effectively allowing attack + disengage isn't really a separate rule change. It is just an extension of the changes to the rules on lighting, if you can't see an enemy, you don't get AoO.
the general rules for Opportunity Attacks (i think, I haven't checked recently), say that the attack takes place before the creature moves out of reach. I was assuming that they were ducking into the 5 feet area of light the DM allowed for torches, attacking, and leaving. So in that case, you would still be able to see the creature and feasibly make the OA. Now if the attack was happening in full darkness, or the PC was using a reach weapon with the 5 feet of light, I'd agree with you that an opportunity attack is impossible using the rulings the DM was providing.
I'm also aware that some creatures naturally don't provoke opportunity attacks, and others are allowed to disengage as a bonus action, so I'm not explicitly saying that the DM is wrong regarding this one point (thus my note on individual creature design in my quoted post, but it does seem to be compounding the already bad situation they have set up for the Party, and I can understand some additional frustration on this point with the players.
There is no 'rule' saying homebrew rules need to be stated before the campaign begins, it's just generally good form to do so. However, that's not always possible, a DM may introduce new rules as the campaign progresses.
This.
Often you don't know how you will rule on a thing until it comes up, because context matters. Then when the thing comes up, you rule on it, and if it makes sense and should be ruled that way all the time, then it becomes a house rule.
For example, one of my players asked if Speak with Dead works when all that remains of the dead body is the bones. I ruled that no, it does not, because the spell requires them to have a "mouth" and as a biologist, I know that a mouth is not just the mandible and maxilla bones -- it includes all the various parts like cheeks, tongue, palate, and so on. Which an old skull would not have. The player was fine with this ruling, and it has now become a house rule. But I did not know how I would rule on it until I was asked -- I hadn't really thought about it before.
It is not humanly possible to make house rules on every single eventuality that might come up, and needs to be consistently applied across the campaign.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
There is no 'rule' saying homebrew rules need to be stated before the campaign begins, it's just generally good form to do so. However, that's not always possible, a DM may introduce new rules as the campaign progresses.
This.
Often you don't know how you will rule on a thing until it comes up, because context matters. Then when the thing comes up, you rule on it, and if it makes sense and should be ruled that way all the time, then it becomes a house rule.
For example, one of my players asked if Speak with Dead works when all that remains of the dead body is the bones. I ruled that no, it does not, because the spell requires them to have a "mouth" and as a biologist, I know that a mouth is not just the mandible and maxilla bones -- it includes all the various parts like cheeks, tongue, palate, and so on. Which an old skull would not have. The player was fine with this ruling, and it has now become a house rule. But I did not know how I would rule on it until I was asked -- I hadn't really thought about it before.
It is not humanly possible to make house rules on every single eventuality that might come up, and needs to be consistently applied across the campaign.
Yeah, but your example is an honest interpretation of an existing mechanic (speak with dead requires a functioning mouth), whereas the situation here is the functional complete elimination on a mechanic (darkvision), drastic changes to another (light and torches), and (although this one is much more plausible using existing rules) modifications to action economy regarding the disengage action. This reads less like a “ruling” and more like a planned subversion of actual rules, and while the DM can do that, it is definitely bad form to do so and understandably going to cause hurt feelings/frustration in the players
I agree that if the DM is going to do a large ruling on how things like Torches work that is at variance with the written rules, the DM should not spring this on the players in the middle of a session.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Wow, thanks for the information and such guys. This group is one I met online through discord friends and I barely know much about what is what. I would have to ask someone who knows the DM better if he's using references from that game. I was afraid to really distress that it felt a bit unfair as it was basically my first time playing, though it's nothing like I've seen compared to what I've watched. It felt kind of off when playing, so I thought I'd ask somewhere.
Hiding rules, whether they're core rules or house rules, from players only makes sense if the characters have no way of knowing the effects of those rules. For example, it's ok (well, reasonable) to hide from the level 1 Fighter's player the exact rules behind a Meteor Swarm, since it's entirely possible the character has no way of knowing how that spell works. On the other hand, hiding how light and darkness affects vision and combat is not only bad, it's absurd: the characters obviously know how light and darkness affects their vision and combat, because they've experienced it before. Players have a right to know all their characters know, at the very minimum.
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Say you're with your buddies and you've all got your characters made. Dwarf, High Elf, Tiefling, and a Human. You are playing D&D 5e SRD. Things are going fine and dandy starting out. A few hours in your group finds themselves in a pitch dark cave. It's an ambush, monsters all around. The High Elf gets to go first, he uses his bow to shoot at a monster, but has to roll a disadvantage. Even with darkvision. Everyone in your group misses with the disadvantage roll. You may ask, why is there a disadvantage roll on the Tiefling, Elf, and Dwarf? Well, it's the current "mechanic". No one knows light spells, and you do have a few torches. Basically, no one, besides anyone you're fighting, can see anything and rolls a disadvantage. You can hold the torch, but this only allows you to see about 5ft in front of you and throwing any light source at the enemy will cause them to just move as throwing objects uses your turn. Also, any time you are attacked from melee range, the enemy attacks, then disengages into the dark again. All ranged attacks from the enemy usually hit as you are lit and enemies don't even roll disadvantage in the dark.
Sorry I had to set something up. But what is this lighting called? A mechanic of the game? Or a rule of how lighting works? If you knew about the lighting beforehand, would you create characters more based around knowing or having more light related stuff? Or since it's a mechanic, the DM doesn't have to tell you this and that's how the rest of the run is going to be. At this point, the mage hasn't learned anything but a spell that lights their own staff, which gives off as much as a torch. And all you have are few torches.
None of that scenario is how the rules as written are in 5e. Darkvision means darkness is treated as dim light up to darkvision range (usually 60 ft), and dim light is lightly obscured which only gives disadvantage on perception, nothing more. Torches emit 20 feet of bright light and an additional 20 feet of dim light (which is treated as bright light to darkvision), so that is 40 feet from each torch that you can see clearly. I'm also curious what you are fighting that can attack and disengage in the same turn (there are only a few that can).
What you are describing is a rule called house rules. It is rules created by the DM and not found in the books. Not sure how you can prepare for house rules you didn't get told about ahead of time...
I'm new to most of this, but to my understanding, since they're using SRD, they created this mechanic in order to put all races on the same field as humans. If it is a rule instead of a mechanic or say a feature, then yea it wasn't told ahead of the time. Which is making the playthrough currently very unfun to play. As they say it's technically the only thing they changed as it's suppose to be as faithfully close to 5e as they can. Currently all characters and enemies can disengage after an attack. The creature I have no clue yet, they're some kind of weird creature turned from a vampire.
A mechanic is just a series of rules that interact to produce the appearance of an affect. For example, the rule that the result of a 20 on a d20 always hits and deals additional damage is a mechanic to create the feeling of hitting a weak spot or doing exceptionally well. It's also a mechanic to ensure that there's always a chance to hit a monster and thus balance the game. A rule is a statement of game behaviour, while a mechanic is a rationale behind the rule.
Features (as opposed to 'bugs') are outcomes of mechanics that are intended as part of the game. For example:
Rule: A 'natural 20' always hits and deals additional damage
Mechanic: Luck can mean every attack has the chance to hit and potentially make the character feel exceptionally powerful
Feature: Attack rolls are always valuable, and advantage can matter even if you've already hit as it increases your chance to score a critical hit
Ultimately in your example it doesn't matter if something is called a 'rule' or a 'mechanic' or a 'feature' as it can be all three. What you're describing his homebrewing house rules, which can also be mechanics.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
@Davedamon , Ah ok, I see. This would still need to be said from the beginning since its a rule right? Or does that not matter and the DM can hold that information until it arises? The main reason I ask this is because it was noticed that it makes the run much more difficult that normal and one of the complaints is from someone whos been through a few runs and since we didn't know of the rule beforehand, we're basically setup to fail since this lighting was not known and taken into effect. Our whole party was not prepared to fight in this different rule setting of light. And our characters were made right before it started.
All of this as described is effectively homebrew rules regarding light and darkness that have no basis in published text. My biggest question is if the DM in this case is playing the enemy creatures with the same disadvantages they are giving to the PCs, because that would be extremely unfair. From the description, it seems like they were not limited by darkness as they appeared to be moving freely in it.
The DM has effectively eliminated darkvision from the game, which unbalances all races with it as they were designed to have it. That makes all races that had darkvision weaker
The DM has effectively made torches useless as they have reduced the light range of the torch to ludicrously small levels. Honestly the light range of a torch using standard rules is pretty accurate to real life, so they are imposing significant unrealistic changes to the item
The DM has allowed creatures additional standard actions (attack + disengage) on a turn that do not seem to be given to the players...now this could be part of the individual creature's design; but should not be due to a "general" rule or mechanic.
This is bad DM'ing, but not entirely because of these rules themselves. Any DM who wants to truly make an enjoyable homebrew game needs to communicate any rule changes to the players before character creation. That is the error here if these additional rules are intentional (although I don't particularly see the changes above as "fun" for anyone but the DM)
There is no 'rule' saying homebrew rules need to be stated before the campaign begins, it's just generally good form to do so. However, that's not always possible, a DM may introduce new rules as the campaign progresses.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
I agree that there is no rule, but I believe its definitely bad form in this case, especially since this affects PC abilities and very basic rules regarding light and darkvision.
I agree with the rest of what you said, but effectively allowing attack + disengage isn't really a separate rule change. It is just an extension of the changes to the rules on lighting, if you can't see an enemy, you don't get AoO.
It seems that the OP is actually talking about the lighting changes in the SRD game Solasta. If they wouldn't have mentioned Tiefling I could have swore that was the case.
Maybe their DM has been playing it.
The result of a 20 on a d20, for an attack roll*, [...] :P
OP, everything you've described screams "extremely bad DM" to me. I say that not because they're running different rules, but because it seems like they aren't also applying those changes to NPCs.
Regarding how lighting actually works by the RAW of 5e, check out this section from the basic rules: Vision and Light
Key points to (politely) confront your DM about:
If your DM is simply ignorant of how the system of 5e works, that's fixable; nobody's perfect. We all get better with time, practice, and communication.
If your DM is simply cheating, get out of there.
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.
the general rules for Opportunity Attacks (i think, I haven't checked recently), say that the attack takes place before the creature moves out of reach. I was assuming that they were ducking into the 5 feet area of light the DM allowed for torches, attacking, and leaving. So in that case, you would still be able to see the creature and feasibly make the OA. Now if the attack was happening in full darkness, or the PC was using a reach weapon with the 5 feet of light, I'd agree with you that an opportunity attack is impossible using the rulings the DM was providing.
I'm also aware that some creatures naturally don't provoke opportunity attacks, and others are allowed to disengage as a bonus action, so I'm not explicitly saying that the DM is wrong regarding this one point (thus my note on individual creature design in my quoted post, but it does seem to be compounding the already bad situation they have set up for the Party, and I can understand some additional frustration on this point with the players.
This.
Often you don't know how you will rule on a thing until it comes up, because context matters. Then when the thing comes up, you rule on it, and if it makes sense and should be ruled that way all the time, then it becomes a house rule.
For example, one of my players asked if Speak with Dead works when all that remains of the dead body is the bones. I ruled that no, it does not, because the spell requires them to have a "mouth" and as a biologist, I know that a mouth is not just the mandible and maxilla bones -- it includes all the various parts like cheeks, tongue, palate, and so on. Which an old skull would not have. The player was fine with this ruling, and it has now become a house rule. But I did not know how I would rule on it until I was asked -- I hadn't really thought about it before.
It is not humanly possible to make house rules on every single eventuality that might come up, and needs to be consistently applied across the campaign.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Yeah, but your example is an honest interpretation of an existing mechanic (speak with dead requires a functioning mouth), whereas the situation here is the functional complete elimination on a mechanic (darkvision), drastic changes to another (light and torches), and (although this one is much more plausible using existing rules) modifications to action economy regarding the disengage action. This reads less like a “ruling” and more like a planned subversion of actual rules, and while the DM can do that, it is definitely bad form to do so and understandably going to cause hurt feelings/frustration in the players
I agree that if the DM is going to do a large ruling on how things like Torches work that is at variance with the written rules, the DM should not spring this on the players in the middle of a session.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Wow, thanks for the information and such guys. This group is one I met online through discord friends and I barely know much about what is what. I would have to ask someone who knows the DM better if he's using references from that game. I was afraid to really distress that it felt a bit unfair as it was basically my first time playing, though it's nothing like I've seen compared to what I've watched. It felt kind of off when playing, so I thought I'd ask somewhere.
Just to add - even though the races are already theoretically balanced, humans are top tier without any extra rules thrown in. They do not need help.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Hiding rules, whether they're core rules or house rules, from players only makes sense if the characters have no way of knowing the effects of those rules. For example, it's ok (well, reasonable) to hide from the level 1 Fighter's player the exact rules behind a Meteor Swarm, since it's entirely possible the character has no way of knowing how that spell works. On the other hand, hiding how light and darkness affects vision and combat is not only bad, it's absurd: the characters obviously know how light and darkness affects their vision and combat, because they've experienced it before. Players have a right to know all their characters know, at the very minimum.